Thankful for Open Meetings Laws
There is one overriding reason the law requires meetings among elected officials to be recorded. And that is because, generally, and historically, politicians are dishonest. Maybe they are not dishonest all the time. But when they get into a squeeze, and their decisions aren’t working out, your typical politician will say anything he or she needs to say to in order to escape the resulting heat. That’s why we record them, so that when they attempt to change the facts to justify their poor decisions, we have a way to double check what they said and presented. The truth of what I contend is now on vivid display concerning certain members of the Forsyth County Commission and their decisions concerning the Freedom Parkway Administration Complex.
The commissioners could have saved themselves a lot of grief, had they simply done what has been done in the past, and placed the question of building the Freedom Parkway facility, costing an average tax-paying family of four $2000, on a public referendum. That is what a “conservative” board would do. That is what conservative commissioners of the same board did prior to approving the comparatively meager $4.2 million admin building, completed in 1996, properly located within the county seat of Cumming. That is what prior boards did before building the new courthouse, and the new jail. They put those projects before the voters, the ones who end up paying the cost.
And had the commissioners asked the voters to decide, who knows, perhaps a knowledgeable voter, once apprised of the plan, would have spoken to inform the commissioners that they were about to make a huge mistake, locating that facility on Freedom Parkway, where the commission would not be able to lawfully deliberate or vote, being outside of the constitutionally defined, “county site” of Cumming.
But instead of asking the people of Forsyth County to approve such an extraordinary, mistake-riddled project, now, after the fact, in what appears to be the first of several planned “excuse videos,” produced and promulgated by what some are now calling the Forsyth County Public Disinformation Department, in the above video county manager David McKee attempts to justify not asking the voters to approve a project costing in excess of $134 million, expressing, “We did not want to ask our taxpayers to fund it again with additional taxes.” Apparently, Mr. McKee believes that it is okay to over-charge taxpayers for several years without asking them, but not okay to ask taxpayers before spending the resulting surplus on what many are calling a “boondoggle,” likely the largest government infrastructure project ever undertaken in Forsyth County. Under the regime of Chairman Alfred John, however, any semblance of democratic decision-making on such massive projects has gone out the window.
Chairman John Excites Mental Health Crisis Center Supporters, and Subsequently Walks Away
In 2022, during the annual State of the County Address, Commission Chairman Alfred John glorified the admin project, however portraying that a significant portion of the complex would include a “cutting edge 57,000 square foot public health facility…the first of its kind in Georgia.”
Apparently, however, as has been a characteristic of the chairman, Commissioner John spoke before satisfying himself as to all details involving the mental health facility, in so doing energizing many county citizens to support building a mental health crisis center they consider essential to the community, especially given the growing suicide statistics in the county. Last August I wrote, “during the January 9, 2024 Board of Commissioners meeting, with bids from an able and willing contractor on the table, the three commissioners, John, Semanson and Hill suddenly turned about face and failed to approve the mental health building to go forward. At that moment, all the talk, all the hype, all the money spent toward the “big and beautiful” mental health facility effectively became sunk costs paid out of the pockets of taxpayers. After all that, the three decided the project would not go forward.”
That Chairman John would stand before the 2022 State of the County assembly and so confidently proclaim the commission’s intention to build the mental health facility he described, and suddenly become the deciding vote against its construction, is indicative of the impulsive and ill-conceived manner the commission under his chairmanship has consistently operated.
In the case of the mental health facility, Chairman John would later publicly claim he did not have all the facts when choosing to engender such excited support among those in the community who believe a mental heath center to be vital, many of the facilities’ supporters having experienced acute mental health crises among their own families, loved ones and acquaintances.
And, as you know, under the chairman’s leadership, the Forsyth County Commission voted to spend a combined total of $134 million on the new administration complex, located however outside of the constitutionally-designated county site, a location which, according to established constitutional law, the county commission he chairs cannot lawfully deliberate or vote. Should, perhaps, the commission decide to compound its massive error and convene for those purposes regardless of Georgia law and the state constitution, any disaffected petitioner before the commission could sue that body for deliberating and making decisions outside of its lawful decision-making jurisdiction. For that reason, should the chairman decide to flout the law each board member is sworn to uphold, doing so could result in standing board bias toward approving developments simply to avoid that kind of litigation.
And so now, as evidenced by Mr. McKee’s recent video above, the commission has apparently decided to launch what amounts to an “excuses tour,” another misguided initiative paid for by county taxpayers, designed to rationalize (1) that body’s failures as stewards of public funds, (2) its seeming inability to sufficiently research vital decisions prior to making them, and (3) the anti-democratic manner this commission blithely spends massive sums of taxpayer funds on projects it has not fully researched and about which it fails to seek voter approval.
Time Wasted on Excuse-Making During BOC Meetings
More than half of the commission’s recent February 25th work session served the purpose of promulgating various “excuse theories,” obviously hoping those narratives would be reported in the local newspaper or otherwise filter into the community.
In the following video, Chairman Alfred John and Commissioner Laura Semanson proffer the same calculated excuse, rationalizing why they changed their minds on the mental health facility, publicly proclaiming that they had been told that certain Federal ARPA funds, available to the county at that time, could ONLY be used for the mental health center. The two commissioners want the public to believe that pertinent information had been consciously withheld from them at the time by former commissioner Cindy Mills and former county manager Kevin Tanner, alleging those facts after the targets of their attacks are no longer present to defend themselves. John and Semanson desire the public to believe that they naturally changed their minds on the mental health facility once they finally learned the supposed truth, previously withheld, that the ARPA funds in question could also be used for certain unfunded sewer projects they deemed necessary. The gentleman speaking at the outset is county attorney Ken Jarrard. Mr. Jarrard knows the real truth, that the theories these commissioners allege are not true, and that the two commissioners were apprised that the ARPA funds under consideration could be used for sewer infrastructure from the very outset. He knows that because he is the one who told them nearly 3-1/2 years ago. Thus, that Mr. Jarrard publicly questioned whether the commissioners knew at the time that ARPA funds could be used for sewer, that question provided commissioners John and Semanson a reason to speak on the subject and alter those central facts, offering a public rational, albeit untrue, for changing their minds on the mental health center, as you are about to see.
The excuse theory Commissioners John and Semanson proposed for you to believe is demonstrably untrue. Both were informed that the ARPA funds under consideration could also be used for sewer, learning that information, at the very latest, from county attorney Jarrard on October 26, 2021, six months prior to Chairman John’s 2022 State of the County Address during which the Chairman championed the mental health facility, and over two years prior to the final vote to build the Freedom Parkway Admin complex, albeit without funding for the mental health center, facts the following video segment from the October 2021 work session certify.
In the screenshot below, identified with red arrows, you can see Forsyth County’s present commission chairman, Alfred John, and Commissioner Semanson listening to county attorney Jarrard explain that the aforementioned federal ARPA funds could indeed be used for sewer construction. Mr. Jarrard then described how in his opinion the use of sewer lines built with ARPA funds should be appropriately secured by a county ordinance.
Recall, you just heard Chairman John claim that he has stayed consistent, “asking three times” whether there “are any other infrastructure needs.” According to the chairman, he was repeatedly told “no.” Now, try to imagine a municipality or county in America that has no infrastructure needs. His was a ridiculous contention.
And then we heard Commissioner Semanson allege that she was told the ARPA funds were already “earmarked” against using them for sewer infrastructure. As you just heard from the county attorney nearly 3-1/2 years ago, nothing was further from the truth.
And as a result of Mr. Jarrard’s discussion with the board members on October 26, 2021, during the interim concluding on December 15, 2022, the ordinance tying ARPA funding to the use of constructing sewer infrastructure in the areas identified by the Board of Commissioners was prepared and adopted, just as the county attorney suggested it should be done in the above video.
Below you will find page 1 of 20 of that ordinance, paragraphs two through five citing the the authority and desire to use ARPA funds for the sewer lines along the nodes Mr. Jarrard referenced during the October 2021 meeting. And you will also see below, the signatures of both commissioners, Semanson and John, emblazoned on the ordinance document Mr. Jarrard proposed fourteen months earlier.
The signature page:
Thus, the excuses you heard commissioners John and Semanson theorize at great length during the February 25, 2025 work session, were just that, empty excuses, manufactured with no foundation in fact.
All that I share with you today is representative of the work of the Alfred John-chaired Forsyth County Commission. Perhaps the commission would be better off simply getting on with the work of the county, and trying to do a better job, rather than spending valuable time promulgating excuses for self-serving political purposes.
But, you see, these elected officials are now living in a bubble of their own making. Over and over with respect to the Freedom Parkway Administration Complex, they made huge mistakes. And now, no one will, or can, help them. These commissioners have become isolated from any source of relief. And, thus, as resulting paranoia sets in, relentlessly influencing practically every conscious thought, these elected officials have undertaken a systematic program of promulgating fabricated excuses to the public, as if anyone is really listening. They aren’t.
All this would be funny except that these caricatures are in charge of spending YOUR money. It is one thing to make mistakes with taxpayer money. But when those mistakes run into hundreds of millions of dollars, and those making the mistakes launch an effort to hide their errors and blame others, as this commission is now doing, well, frankly, it is time the public demands resignations.
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