Chapter 5-How Three County Commissioners Screwed Over the City of Cumming - Citizens Should Vote NO on SPLOST
This is the Fifth of a Series Entitled, "War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County"
An Untrustworthy Lot
I remember from childhood the very first tenet of the Boy Scout Law. “A Scout is TRUSTWORTHY.” That principle translates to business as well. Successful professionals will tell you that to do well in business, as in private life, one must be trustworthy. Obviously, however, that maxim does not translate to politics. Time after time the public elects individuals they hope and believe can be trusted. And more times than not those hopes and beliefs are dashed by truthful revelations about their favorite public figures. The case I bring to you today is no different.
In business, violating basic standards of honesty is not an option. To do so would be to deal in “bad faith.” A business person who deals in repeated bad faith rarely gets away with it. The laws do not allow it. Victims of bad-faith business practices generally have recourse. In politics, however, generally, and very unfortunately, dealing in bad faith has only the remedy of the ballot box. By the time elections roll around, politicians normally discover they can overcome their bad faith practices simply by smiling and being pleasant, by shaking hands, kissing babies, by outright lying and otherwise putting on acts depicting sincerity designed for public consumption. The public, comprised of individuals who would never act like politicians, unfortunately, have a hard time recognizing when those they support politically, engage in the kinds of bad faith acts they do. Bad faith in politicians has become more common than not. And dealing in bad faith is what I allege three majority-controlling members of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners do very well, recently practicing that craft in negotiating a SPLOST agreement with the City of Cumming.
Regarding that agreement, it is apparent that the three Forsyth County Commissioners, Laura Semanson, Kerry Hill and Chairman Alfred John, executed a conscious, programmed plan of bad faith, played out over an extended period, concerning the final terms of a deal with the City of Cumming. That deal had to do with the division of prospective SPLOST revenues resulting from a successful referendum Forsyth County voters will decide this coming November. Gaining the city’s signature on a deal laid on the table by county Attorney Ken Jarrard, with hardly a tick remaining in the critical time frame allowed by law, these three commissioners suddenly reneged on the deal the county itself proposed and seemingly agreed in principle, forcing the city to accept a diminished deal or lose somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million, possibly more, in SPLOST revenues over the next 6 years, should the measure pass. Honest people do not act that way. Honest people deal in good faith. In the process, the commissioners created a scapegoat to blame for their bad faith behavior, someone they don’t mind sacrificing to the god of public opinion. Despite better judgment, and despite knowledge of how these three commissioners consistently operate in bad faith, Cumming city officials trusted the three Forsyth County Commission members enough to negotiate honestly and openly, only to discover that what I have been publishing now in four previous Chapters of this series, is true. The people of Forsyth County, including the City of Cumming, should not trust “Club-member” commissioners Laura Semanson, Kerry Hill or commission chairman Alfred John.
What is SPLOST?
SPLOST stands for “Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.” Georgia law allows counties to propose referendums for local citizens to elect to pay additional sales tax than otherwise collected, the resulting increased revenues providing funds for their governments to acquire or build infrastructure improvements. Doing so is designed to aid communities in achieving higher qualities of local living.
In every county in the state, there is at least one city. One of those cities is determined to be the “county seat.” The county seat is where official government business, be it county or city, must occur. No official business by either municipal government can legally transact outside of the county seat.
In Forsyth County, the municipal government housing the county seat is the City of Cumming. The Georgia law governing potential SPLOST revenues requires the referendum-sponsoring county to equitably divide those revenues with the city, or cities in the county. The percentages of that division are decided during a negotiation leading up to a “drop-dead date.” Should that date pass with no deal in place, the law mandates any SPLOST revenues be divided strictly according to population. Presently, the population of the City of Cumming is about 3% of the total population of Forsyth County. That being the case, one might wonder why Forsyth County would ever strike a deal for less than 97% of the total revenues on their side of the ledger. The answer is that a SPLOST referendum in which there is no Interagency Governmental Agreement (IGA), would only run for five years rather than six, and be capped at the estimated revenues presented in the referendum, making it much more difficult for either government to count on a continuous stream of revenues long enough to complete certain infrastructure projects paid through SPLOST.
The present SPLOST agreement runs out at the end of this year. The proposed new SPLOST referendum is budgeted to yield a total in the neighborhood of $350 million over the next 6 years. Take away one of those years and the total drops by almost $60 million. Take away the excess revenues should the cap be surpassed, that could be an additional $60 million or so the SPLOST might not collect. So you see, the formula makes both sides somewhat motivated to complete an agreement with the other, enticing the parties to negotiate a deal the other finds at least fair enough to sign. Anyway, that is the intent. It is that negotiation, or perhaps better expressed in this case, that manipulation, the events of which I will describe below, involving an apparent scheme perpetrated by three commissioners, Laura Semanson, Kerry Hill and Chairman Alfred John, that I can only describe as dishonest and in bad faith. The alternative is to imagine these three are just stupid, a proposition I cannot justify. Thus, as I have warned in the past, beware dealing with a county commission governed by such an untrustworthy trio. The three unscrupulous commissioners to whom I refer will scheme in whatever way necessary to achieve their purposes, while orchestrating events to create an air of plausible deniability. Just know that going in.
And recall from earlier chapters in this series of articles, I maintain the three commissioners to whom I refer, Semanson, John and Hill, help to make up a very real, albeit informal association of politicians, political operatives and private citizen water-carriers who I, and a burgeoning number of others, openly refer as, “the Club.” In previous chapters in this series I have shared much about the Club, many apparently who are in the Club, what they do, and how the Club operates to achieve its ultimate purpose of controlling all political operations throughout Forsyth County. And what you will read below will add more fuel to that same information fire.
The Negotiation
In early Spring, Forsyth County Manager David McKee began a conversation with the City of Cumming concerning the prospective division of SPLOST revenues resulting from a successful referendum should the question pass this coming November. On April 9th, Mr. McKee sent a follow-up email officially requesting City Administrator Phillip Higgins to send over a list of projects and associated costs the city would like to incorporate into their allotment of revenues under an agreement to be negotiated.
Later that day, Mr. Higgins answered McKee’s request with the following set of projects, roughly estimated to cost about $61 million, approximately 17.5% of the total projected SPLOST revenues. This was a high-ball number, noting that anyone about to enter a negotiation wisely starts out high and comes down from there.
On May 8th, County Manager McKee met with Cumming Mayor Troy Brumbalow to negotiate a more moderate city percentage, the result of their talks being a reduction from 17.5% to 8%.
On May 20th, Mr. McKee sent a draft agreement based upon those parameters to the mayor and city administrator.
The county manager wrote to Brumbalow and Higgins, “If you are agreeable in principle, I will discuss with my Board (ie. Forsyth County Board of Commissioners) and prepare the statutory joint meetings required. As drafted this is a 92% - 8% split generating an estimated $28 million for the city of Cumming as discussed.”
After that email from David McKee, the only changes from the city arriving at his desk would be edits in the individual project allotments, but never a change in the 92%-8% split.
In keeping with his commitment with the city, on June 6th, during a regular meeting of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, the board heard from County Manager David McKee requesting authorization for him and his staff to proceed with SPLOST IX “programming” and to schedule a statutorily-required joint meeting between the Forsyth County Commission and the Cumming City Council.
That day, Mr. McKee’s request, along with authorization for Chairman Alfred John to sign a letter addressed to the city to the effect of McKee’s stated purpose, was unanimously approved by the board, Chairman John’s notification, sent the following day, as seen below.
Prior to the June 20 joint meeting, on June 11 County Attorney Ken Jarrard took McKee’s draft agreement, agreed in principle by Mayor Brumbalow, and presented that agreement to City attorney Kevin Tallant, indicating it was an official County proposal. In the subject line, Jarrard characterized the agreement as, “FINAL.”
Thus, as of June 11, 2024, having received a document delivered from the county attorney to the city attorney labeled as a “FINAL Agreement,” apparent to city officials, no further changes to the IGA proposal would be done. The deal, at least as far as the city was concerned, was cooked. The only item remaining to occur before making the deal official would be to follow the lawful procedure, a process which required a meeting between the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners and the Cumming City Council including Mayor Brumbalow.
Board of Commissioners Joint Meeting with the City of Cumming
In keeping with Chairman John’s letter above, on June 20 the Forsyth County Commissioners hosted a joint meeting with the Cumming City Council and Mayor Brumbalow. During that meeting, both parties to the IGA described the infrastructure projects they proposed to build with SPLOST dollars should the referendum pass in November.
County Manager David McKee presented the following exhibit budgeting several project “buckets” the county hoped to fund with the SPLOST money over the next few years. Those project “buckets” can be seen in the following slide he presented:
Notice that the proposed split between Forsyth County and the City of Cumming in Mr. McKee’s proposal is 92% for the County and 8% for City.
Next, notice Commissioner Laura Semanson and Chairman Alfred John were in attendance. Commissioner Hill did not attend this important meeting with millions of dollars at stake. Commissioner Levent, to the far left, attended after arriving late.
I pointed out who among the county commissioners were present at this meeting because the negotiated IGA, as officially proposed by Forsyth County Attorney Ken Jarrard to the City of Cumming, was presented to everyone attending, in its entirety, numerous PowerPoint slides detailing each of the projects included in the IGA shown to the commissioners and explained. All commissioners present had the opportunity to see the “FINAL” proposal sent by the county to the city, ask questions, make remarks, or even negotiate, had they chosen to. Commissioner Kerry Hill had every opportunity, and in fact every obligation, to view online the meeting she missed, but would later claim ignorance of the presentation, because she “wasn’t there.”
When Mr. McKee finished speaking, he turned the meeting over to county General Council Ken Jarrard, who took the opportunity to explain the next steps in completing the IGA. He indicated that a form for the IGA had already been put together, but stressed, the final agreement had not been approved. Jarrard then expressed his “hope and expectation that during the time immediately after this meeting, either senior management and their peers with the City of Cumming, OR ELECTED OFFICIALS AND THEIR PEERS, whomever needs to, will get together and iron out any additional specifics of the intergovernmental agreement.”
Note, Attorney Jarrard stated clearly to all attending that the process to achieve an intergovernmental agreement on the proposed SPLOST was on a critical path, meaning there was no time to waste to hit the deadline necessary to place the referendum on the ballot. Any actions to change its terms must therefore begin “immediately after this meeting.”
The “Stall”
The joint meeting was held on June 20th. The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners met again five days later, June 25th. On the 25th, not a word concerning SPLOST was uttered. The commissioners met a second time on July 9th. Again, not a word on SPLOST. After July 9th, the next commissioners’ meeting would not be until Thursday, July 18th at which, as Attorney Jarrard informed the commissioners on June 20th, the IGA would have to be acted upon by the board to complete the SPLOST process within the time frames required to place the referendum on the November ballot. Also, as contemplated by Mr. Jarrard, the Cumming City Council would meet two days prior to that, on Tuesday, July 16, at which time he expected they would vote on whatever agreement might be on the table at that time. The drop dead date for the IGA to be signed by both parties would be Tuesday, July 23. After that, it would be too late to change its terms without taking extraordinary measures, and the deal, if passed in November, would revert to five years at 97% for the county and 3% for the city, with revenues capped at the original estimates.
During the time between the June 20th joint meeting and the July 16th Cumming City Council meeting, there were no communications forthcoming from Forsyth County, either by its executive staff or the commissioners themselves, to their counterparts with the city. Therefore, expecting that the IGA proposal was satisfactory to the commissioners and would therefore be approved as presented to the board the month before, during the meeting on the 16th, the Cumming City Council voted to approve the agreement, sending it back across the street for the commissioners to consider when they would meet two days later on the 18th. It was during that board meeting that commissioners Laura Semanson, Kerry Hill and Chairman Alfred John, culminated what appears to be an orchestrated plan, working together seamlessly during the meeting in an effort that would in the end in a double-cross of the City of Cumming.
At the meeting, to kick off the discussion, Commissioner Mills offered the following favorable opinion of the IGA, as approved by the city.
Mills then asked County Manager McKee his opinion of the IGA. McKee responded that the IGA is a decision for the board, but offered his explanation of how the proposal got to where it was at that time.
McKee described how on June 6th, the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners authorized him to “program” an intergovernmental SPLOST agreement with the City of Cumming. McKee described how, fourteen days later, on June 20, during a joint meeting with the City, he presented the deal he negotiated to the commissioners, as it stood at that time. Accordingly, the original request from the city was 17.5%. As it stood at the joint meeting the city percentage had been negotiated down to 8%.
McKee summed his remarks with the following statement:
As I reported above, on June 20th Attorney Ken Jarrard instructed the Commissioners that each of them had a potential role in the outcome, should they choose to play it, to “iron out any additional specifics of the intergovernmental agreement.” During the interim, none of the commissioners, least of whom the three who would ultimately turn the deal down, they being “Club members” Semanson, Hill and Chairman John, instructed McKee on how they wished to “iron out any additional specifics,” or to propose different, perhaps more acceptable numbers to their counterparts at the city. And certainly, none of the commissioners picked up the phone themselves to affect the negotiation. The three commissioners, including Hill (who, recall, did not attend the joint meeting), knew the parameters of the deal as far back as June 20. Over the ensuing month they took no action to change or negotiate the deal any further. Thirty days of inactivity resulted in that same deal, one that everyone involved intimately understood, becoming the assumed proposal for the Cumming City Council to consider during its regularly-scheduled meeting on July 16, at which time the city approved the agreement. That brings us up to the moment when during the July 18 commissioners meeting, Commissioner Semanson suddenly “lowered the boom” on County Manager McKee, making the commissioner’s inaction regarding the agreement to be McKee’s fault, accusing him of a lack of transparency and interaction with the Board of Commissioners in negotiating the agreement.
Commissioner Mills then stated the obvious, making the point that if the Board of Commissioners wanted to be the body to negotiate this deal, they should have taken on that role much earlier, an option made plain to them the month prior by attorney Ken Jarrard. Interestingly, Commissioner Semanson can be heard at the end seemingly agreeing with Mills, obviously attempting having it both ways, deflecting and complaining as if the situation is not of her and the board’s own faults, saying, “Now, we’re under the gun.”
In that short utterance, you heard from Commissioner Semanson an attempt at posturing, at spinning the public’s perception of these events. She had just laid full responsibility for the board’s failure to act, including her own failure to act to influence the final proposed IGA, at the feet of County Manager David McKee, when everyone knows that the members of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners are in full control. That sovereign, governing body can do anything it wants to in this set of circumstances. Perceiving a certain deficiency in the negotiation, that body, or any commissioner individually, could have offered Mr. McKee additional guidance, or instruction, or simply picked up the phone and called the Mayor across the street. Attorney Ken Jarrard made those alternatives clear to the commissioners on June 20. Their failure to do so, therefore, cannot be directed at McKee. Without further direction from the board, or the board’s members, County Manager McKee could only assume that the deal he already negotiated would be acceptable to the final “decision-makers.” It is those decision-makers, not McKee, who are responsible for finding themselves, “under the gun,” that statement by Semanson obviously delivered for public consumption, hoping to transfer blame for her failures, and the board’s failures, onto someone else, in this case, Mr. McKee. From all appearances, during this entire charade the three majority-controlling commissioners remained quiet, stalling any action on their parts, failing to act on this issue for weeks, while choosing the county manager to become their public scapegoat, appearing to use McKee’s alleged inadequate work as their excuse to change the deal at the last minute, even after it had been approved by the City of Cumming, and receive no blame.
As you can see, that’s not going to happen.
Justifiably, and I will add, quite professionally, County Manger McKee took the opportunity to defend himself, stating what I have already shown you to be true, that nothing he did was a secret from the beginning. On June 20, the IGA programming he negotiated, as instructed on the 6th by the commissioners, was fully disclosed to each of them, and to the City of Cumming, and for that matter to the entire world via the website. Even Commissioner Kerry Hill, who did not attend, had no excuse to claim ignorance of McKee’s presentation because the video is right there online for anyone to view. It is Hill’s job as a commissioner elected to represent her district, to watch and fully understand everything that happened during the joint meeting with the city, with millions of dollars at stake.
In the following clip you will hear McKee in is own defense, but also Chairman John chiming in over the top of the county manager, expressing that what McKee alleges “is not entirely true,” claiming that the chairman “expressed his reservations” twice to McKee, and also expressed reservations to the county attorney.
So, let’s discuss Chairman John’s “reservations.” To say one has “reservations” is not an instruction. Taking the chairman at his word, he did not instruct the county manager regarding any specific changes in the agreement that Mr. McKee should seek. Given the board’s lack of specific direction on how he should proceed with the negotiation, including specific changes the board of commissioners would find agreeable, Mr. McKee found himself “swinging at ghosts.” In these meetings, we saw the three majority-comprising county commission members, offering three different viewpoints on the deal with the City. According to Kerry Hill, the city should only get 3% and anything beyond that they would have to convince her that the city needs the money more than she wants the money. With that in mind, should McKee have told the City of Cumming they get 3% and that’s it? Had he done so, he would be soundly criticized by all.
According to Laura Semanson, during the July 18th meeting she admitted having no idea what kind of a deal she would seek or approve, and that she was just disappointed that nobody asked her, which if they had, she would have been forced to admit having no opinion. Should McKee have gone to the city and simply thrown up his hands? I don’t think so.
Chairman John took the position only that he had “reservations, “ offering no guidance as to what his reservations were, or how to overcome those reservations. Given reservations and no instructions, McKee had nothing of authority to proceed with in his negotiations with the city. In essence, Chairman John’s “reservations” only provided the means for him to justify a rhetorical complaint against any final deal McKee might present when it came up for a vote. It is just too bad for Forsyth County taxpayers that Alfred John did not have any “reservations” about the new $115 million county administration complex he worked so diligently to pass, paid for with excess tax proceeds left unreturned to county taxpayers and held to accumulated over time by the county, the building situated, by the way, OUTSIDE OF THE FORSYTH COUNTY SEAT, MAKING IT ILLEGAL FOR COMMISSIONERS TO HOLD MEETINGS AND TRANSACT BUSINESS IN THAT LOCATION. Perhaps we will talk about that boondoggle again in the near future.
In essence, these three county commissioners, Laura Semanson, Kerry Hill and Alfred John, proved by their final actions in turning down the deal the county itself initially proposed, that none of the foregoing was real. It was all crap, a ruse, an act purposed to screw over the City of Cumming and have someone to blame it on other than themselves. Had Chairman John wanted to change the numbers in the agreement, all he had to do would be to call the Mayor on the phone and talk. The matter could have been resolved in ten minutes. This is how these people operate. This is how the Club operates. This is insidious and the people of Forsyth County should not tolerate it.
What you just heard from these three commissioners was a set of pre-planned justifications for postponing their own involvement in the SPLOST negotiations with the City of Cumming until the very last minute, at which time they would pull the rug out from under the deal. Politically, they would do that for several reasons. First, they could avoid responsibility for any result by creating a scapegoat out of their county manager. They placed David McKee in an untenable, no-win situation. On June 6th, they assigned him the task of negotiating with the city, giving him no guidance regarding what the county commission would find acceptable. They had the opportunity to offer McKee guidance throughout the entire process, and chose not to. In the end, nothing McKee could have negotiated would have been acceptable to these three. Second, the three commissioners understood that as politicians, they are free to bargain in bad faith with the city of Cumming because, ultimately, nothing prevents politicians from being dishonest. Should they try to negotiate like I describe in business, they would soon find themselves considered so untrustworthy that no one would do business with them again. The third reason for acting as they did in this SPLOST negotiation I will reserve to discuss below.
So, What Happened to the SPLOST?
Continuing the saga of the July 18th meeting, near the outset of the discussion Commissioner Mills made a motion to accept the SPLOST IGA as presented (92% for the County, 8% for the City). After a few moments, Commissioner Levent provided a second to the motion, a vote was taken and the motion failed, two “for” and the three Club members, Hill, John and Semanson, predictably “against.” Here is what that sounded like:
This Charade Was All About Control
As you can see, the Club, represented by Semanson, John and Hill, votes together. For the Club to control Forsyth County politically, its members must always act in concert. That vote is symbolic of a volley launched by the Club in the War Under the Waves and the Struggle to Control Forsyth County. Viewed from the Club’s perspective, the IGA negotiation with the City of Cumming was simply another battle in that war. The Club does not control the City of Cumming. Cumming has a popular Mayor and City Council, Mayor Brumbalow winning his last election with 77% of the vote. Because the Club cannot control the city, the Club must punish and dominate the city however it can. That is how these people think and operate.
Please listen to the rationale by which the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners finally settled on the percentages to allot to the City. Chairman John states arbitrarily, “I would probably be OK with…6.22 percent.”
So, the test of equities in Chairman John’s proposed split of potential SPLOST revenues between Forsyth County and the City of Cumming rested not on what these two governmental entities might do for the taxpayers, but instead on whether Chairman John and the other Club members “would probably be OK with,” an arbitrary percentage the chairman casts into the discussion.
In the next few minutes, the second motion passed 5-0, dropping the City percentage from almost 8 to an arbitrary figure of 6.22 percent. After the meeting adjourned, County Manager McKee contacted City Administrator Higgins with the news, the next day providing the city with an IGA complete with the updated percentages, signed by Chairman John. The city then scrambled to provide proper notifications for a special city council meeting to occur the following Monday, July 22nd. The council convened and approved the SPLOST referendum to be placed on the November ballot at that time.
Just so you know, the difference between the original proposed city percentage of 8% (7.91 actually) and 6.22%, based upon Chairman John and the other two Club members “probably being OK” with the difference, could easily mean the difference between the City of Cumming having the funds to install a right turn lane between the corner of Georgia Highway 20 and Kelly Mill Road, around to Castleberry Road at the southwestern corner of the courthouse square, the lack of which any county taxpayer traveling into town on Highway 20 from the west will understand to mean the resulting traffic congestion they always experience driving into town will continue to plague motorists for years to come. So, when you are driving into town, I’m sure you will rest easy knowing that Chairman John and the Club “would probably be OK with” you sitting in a perfectly avoidable traffic jam.
Personally, none of these Club member commissioners would ever receive my vote. These people are not Republicans. They are old-time liberal Democrats who, not surprisingly, place an “R” next to their names to gain election. Their behavior during the recent SPLOST negotiation was reprehensible. If the City of Cumming is smart, they will never trust these commissioners again. The Mayor and City Council all deserve apologies. County Manager David McKee deserves an even bigger apology, and a bonus for dealing with the kind of abuse he took during all this nonsense.
The people of Forsyth County should not reward this kind of behavior by their elected officials in November. The last thing the people of Forsyth County should do would be to satisfy this cadre of dishonest, tax-and-spend politicians with a successful SPLOST referendum. Even if you think SPLOST is a good idea in principle, it is time to teach your county commissioners, and the Club, that anyone who represents you must do so honestly and forthrightly, and with only the needs and desires of the people of Forsyth County in mind. Should SPLOST fail, and I believe it should, the county commission can adjust how it does business and bring it back for another vote in the future. For these reasons, I urge all Forsyth County citizens to
VOTE ‘NO’ ON SPLOST IN NOVEMBER.
Below you will find links to previous chapters in this series:
War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County-Chapter 1- The Marc Morris Letter
War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County-Chapter 2-Ghost-Writers in the Sky
War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County-Chapter 3-Club Now Bullying Private Citizens-Local Warlords Apparently Running County Politics, Perhaps Even the Courts
War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County-Chapter 4-Cyber-Warfare to Go With Bullying? Well, Would You Expect? This is War
You can count on my "No" vote as well as all whom I can convince of the need to "dissolve" the club.
Well, this is a first for me here in re: “Comments removed” Since I trust Hank, they were removed for good and sufficient reasons.
Once again, Hank nails it and paints it shut with respect to the machinations or Machiavellian maneuvers of the “Club” with this continuation of the Series. I especially like his characterization of these “Club” members as “Liberal Democrats” which is far worse than them being just RINOS, in my humble opinion. The “Club” members have shown their true colors for us all to see. I voted last time around AGAINST the SPOLST and I will vote AGAINST it again this November.
‘Nuff said
Full Stop