PEACHTREE CITY — The fallout from District 4 Commissioner Ann Jones Guider’s decision to leave the Board of Commissioners annual budget retreat in protest continued Friday, with two commissioners firing off at her for failing to represent her constituents. Guider told the Sentinel Thursday she left the retreat — being held at the Dolce Atlanta Peachtree — about 20 minutes after arriving because Commission Chairman Tom Worthan refused to have County Clerk Lisa Watson record the two-day conference where key decisions are made about the county’s 2015 budget. Guider said she was on record with her constituents and in the newspaper as only agreeing to have the retreat outside the county if it was recorded and put on the county’s website so the public could hear everything discussed. But Worthan and District 3 Commissioner Mike Mulcare, both Republicans like Guider, had harsh words for her at the end of Friday’s session. Worthan called Guider “my friend” but said he “disagrees with what she’s doing.” Worthan said Guider never approached any of the other commissioners about her stipulation that the meeting be recorded for her to attend. “We’re not breaking any law here,” Worthan said. “We’re going completely by the local law that we advertised this meeting and we are taking minutes of this meeting. But to sit here and tape for six hours (Thursday) and for eight or 10 hours (Friday) to put that on our website. If Ann wants to tape it, she should have brought her own recorder because it’s legal. Anybody can come in and tape it or video it. She should have brought her own tape recorder in and put it on her own Web page and everybody would be happy.” Mulcare made reference to Guider’s three decades as county tax commissioner, when she was a constitutional officer running an office. “Commissioner Guider never spoke to me about her recording requirement for the meeting,” Mulcare said. “I read about it in the paper which is not appropriate for a group of people who reach decisions by majority agreement. Ms. Guider is no longer tax commissioner, she is now only one of five county commissioners, which requires some degree of agreement on board actions. Even so, I would not have objected to Commissioner Guider recording the meeting, even though it is far beyond Georgia legal requirements. Guider said Mulcare accused her of “playing politics” Thursday as she was about to leave. She said the comment didn’t make sense to her because they had both been re-elected last Tuesday and have four more years on the BOC. Mulcare, who serves as vice-chairman of the BOC, is seen by most as Worthan’s closest ally on the board. Guider took a shot at Mulcare for sticking with Worthan on the decision to not have Watson record the meetings at the retreat. “I’m not a ‘yes man’ like some people are with Tom,” Guider said.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 00:25:10 +0000
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