Political Retribution

Transparency, Accountability and Treachery come to Valdosta

I don’t write about politics in these pages. I keep that part of my life separate from the musings and learnings that I share with my readers because I know how polarizing the topic can be and I’d rather people come for what they want, not steer around things they don’t.

But …

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m a fierce advocate for my hometown, Valdosta, Georgia. It’s a great place to live, work, play, raise a family and run a business. We love our neighbors, participate in Church and local politics, serve in civic organizations, and generally do our part to leave things better than we found them.

Last year, our City hired a new City Manager and I thought it was a great move for several reasons. He seemed to be qualified after serving in the Armed Forces for many years, he had also been a Department Head of the largest Department in the City. Hiring from within upon the departure of the previous City Manager seemed like the right idea. To the extent my advice was sought, I endorsed his promotion to the role and was excited to see what new ideas he would bring to the table.

As the months wore on, however, I began to notice that many of the private conversations being had by business and civic leaders in town (including elected officials) were starting to take notice that things didn’t seem to be working out as we had all hoped. It seemed as if everyone in town had stories of unreturned phone calls, small unkept promises to follow up on things of importance to them, a lack of visibility in the community, things like that.

There were darker whisperings too, largely from employees of the City, about other people who held sway over the City Manager and were not playing by the rules. There were allegations made, rumors circulated, and stories that ranged from incompetence to corruption. I didn’t know what to make of them, and still don’t. I don’t know if any of it is true or not.

But …

I suffer from a fatal disease: I’m naive. It’s a conceit of mine that if I can see a problem, then everyone can see the problem, and if everyone can see the problem then surely we must all want to resolve that problem. I’ve never been proved right in this assumption, but I hold to the belief nonetheless.

In one of these conversations, I thought “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have an organization where we could work to provide greater transparency and accountability for local government?” A group of us formulated the idea of ValdostaFirst with the design of bringing matters of importance out of the shadows and into the public square for examination and discussion.

Before forming the group, I met with City Councilmen and the City Manager to express my sense of the deep dissatisfaction that was growing in the community with the aim of providing some ideas on what changes could be made. I even shared with them the gameplan on index cards of how we were going to proceed, step by step. We hired an attorney renowned for his work on these issues and issued our first set of interrogatories designed to investigate the truth of some of the darker stories we were hearing.

This was risky for me, in a way. I’ve had a contract with the City of Valdosta to provide insurance and benefits for their employees for more than 4 decades. We’ve won dozens of RFPs and most recently received the unanimous endorsement of the HR staff and City Council on another multi-year contract. We do good work and take care of these clients, paying their claims, attending their funerals, advocating for their benefit choices, and overall being a professional as any firm can be. None of our questions submitted had anything at all to do with the business we do with the City.

But …

While we were awaiting the complete results of our Open Records Requests, we announced the formation of our group, ValdostaFirst. 2 days later, I was notified that the City Manager had added an agenda item to the upcoming City Council meeting: the premature termination of our contract with the City. Retaliation, pure and simple.

And it all hit me then. You see, I’ve had conversations with multiple City employees who were afraid to speak up about the problems they were noticing for fear of retribution. I dismissed them and was wrong to do so. I was naive and didn’t think that anyone would use the power granted to them under public trust to silence a desire for betterment from its own employees, business partners and citizens.

But …

The message is clear: if you ask tough questions you will be punished.

There will be a vote on Thursday, December 5, at 5:30 at City Hall where I plan on speaking and making this point to our elected officials. If you feel that this is not the kind of thing you are ok with happening to a fellow business owner, I’d love your presence and support at that meeting.

I do know, obviously, that my readership isn’t confined to citizens of my hometown, so I won’t pollute these pages with this story for long. I’ve set up another newsletter for ValdostaFirst and would invite your participation with us there, and at our Facebook group here.