UPDATED: Should Elected Officials Serve on City Boards and Authorities?

Updated Aug. 1 at 9:15 p.m. 

The city lawyer believes that there is an ambiguity in the city policy and the state law regarding elected officials serving on boards and authorities, prompting months of heated discussion within the council about changing either the city charter or city ordinances to resolve the issue. 

It is the wording, “Except as otherwise provided by Charter or by law, no voting member of any board, commission or authority shall hold any elective office in the city,” that troubled him. He presented some options that would bring the two in line--some allowing the officials to serve and some not. 

Monday night the Council voted to table a motion to change the DDA and NDA ordinances to state that “no sitting Mayor or councilmember shall be a member of the board.”

This action will allow Councilmember Andrew Hixson, who was absent from the meeting, to make another proposal to amend the city charter. He would like to change the charter for good--then let individual councils decide whether or not an elected official can hold the dual position, he said in a phone interview today. 

Currently, Councilmember Charlie Reihm serves on the DDA. “The councilmembers are supposed to be ‘liasons’ between the boards,” said Reihm in an earlier interview. “I believe that I can wear two hats.”

Mayor Bucky Johnson stepped down from his position on the Norcross Development Authority, a less active authority than the DDA, when he caught wind of the ambiguity. “I thought it was better to get out of the fray. Some would say that it gives the person on both an unfair emphasis when voting on the council,” said Johnson in an interview.

Chuck Cimarik, chair of the Downtown Development Authority, spoke out at the meeting, expressing disappointment that no open dialogue had taken place between the Council and the DDA. 

The DDA has made its view on the subject known: They don’t see a conflict and want elected officials on their board because they believe it strengthens the relationship. They say a change will have a “substantial, negative impact” on how they do business.

DDA Vice-Chair Laura Laszlo read a statement read by at last week’s work policy meeting comparing other municipalities’ development authorities to Norcross. Suwanee, Lilburn and Snellville and the proposed City of Peachtree Corners all use same language in their charters, according to the statement.

The DDA asked two attorneys for a second opinion and claim that they see "no ambiguity,” since “state law prevails.”

The authority also questions the true issue underlying the change. “The DDA and Council have been operating under the current configuration since 2002. The successes clearly outnumber the problems,” Laszlo read from the statement. “If it is a personality issue, admit it and work to resolve the issue within Council.”