During an important election year for Georgia, at least one county has not had a supervisor for half a year. The former Supervisor Jeanetta Watson resigned in January due to the stress of the current political climate.
By May, The board had nominated an individual but that person was rejected by Mayor Miller. After this the board withdrew the nomination and agreed to Mr. Miller’s participation.
While on June 15 the board voted 3-2 to accept the mayor’s invitation to join the committee, Mayor Miller told the local news that he could have bypassed the board all together and chosen his own candidate. This caused the board to fight to select the candidate themselves.
at the end of the Board of elections meeting on June 24, the board voted 3-1 to hire Atlanta attorney A. Lee Parks Jr. to represent them as the board’s normal attorney has a conflict of interest.
Mayor Lester Miller Commented this “We have a different opinion between, I guess, our administration and the board of elections right now on what we believe what the law says … I felt like it would be a fair process to have both commissioners and board of elections involved. Put aside politics. We have to have people on both sides of the parties involved in that, but at the end of the day, the law is very clear that the governing body of Macon-Bibb County makes that decision.”
“We’re not against Mayor Miller. We’re against the fact that any committee that the elected official, the mayor, has the deciding vote on, not once but twice, is not the way it should be,” Was Mike Kaplan’s response.
The Attorneys are reportedly meeting this week to attempt to solve the conflict
Did you know that the public can attend Board of Registration and Elections meetings?
These meetings are open to the public by Georgia law. Georgia Open Meetings Act.
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