Dear Editor,
It seems the county kind of got behind the power curve on the steps needed to place the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) before the voters in November for approval to continue to collect this one-cent sales tax for another six years.
To comply with election rules, the county found itself with only two days left to authorize a necessary election ad to be placed in the local newspaper ( The Eatonton Messenger). Upon this, the chairman scheduled a meeting with a two-day notice, commonly referred to as a Two-Day Called Meeting.
According to the Putnam County Code of Ordinance, Section 2-37, the county manager shall provide the commissioners with an agenda three business days before any board meeting. Obviously, that can’t happen with a two-day called meeting. Some of us objected that this constituted an illegal meeting.
The county attorney’s office reviewed the objection and determined because Section 2-37 did not provide a penalty for not meeting the three-day requirement, it was deemed a “directive” and not a “mandatory” requirement, thus the meeting was legal. Seems a little unfair to suggest the county manager needs to be penalized for failing to provide the agenda three days in advance when the chairman schedules a meeting with a two-day notice, making it impossible, in this case, for the county manager to comply.
I expect that’s why there is no mention of a penalty in the ordinance.
I appreciate legal scholars can go through all sorts of legal gymnastics to find that one legal loophole to justify their position; but what has happened to complying with the “spirit” of the law? It appears that no longer matters.
In this particular instance, it would seem that the issue is more about how “the end justifies the means.”
Billy Webster, Putnam County