Skip to main content

CEO Ellis Retrial Scheduled for June 1; Interim CEO May Still at Helm

Written by Valerie J. Morgan 
On Common Ground

Photo Credit:  On Common Ground
Suspended DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis will get a retrial on June 1, according to an order by Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson.

The order, signed on Dec. 9, follows Ellis’ first case, which ended in a mistrial in October after the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on any of the 13 counts against him.

Ellis is accused of pressuring county vendors to give to his election campaign and threatening to take county contracts from those who didn't. Ellis, who has maintained his innocence, is charged with bribery, theft, extortion and perjury.

 (...)

Meanwhile, Lee May continues to oversee the county as its interim CEO. May, who was appointed last year by Gov. Nathan Deal as the trial got under way, has said he plans to continue moving the county forward. He will hold the CEO seat until a verdict is reached in the Ellis case.

Read more:  On Common Ground

What will DeKalb County be like after the Interim CEO finishes 
the work  the Governor of Georgia appointed him to do?


And, from Crossroads News...

17 months later, District 5 still waiting for representation

Jennifer Ffrench-Parker | , Ken Watts | 12/12/2014, 8:47 p.m
Seventeen months after DeKalb District 5 Commissioner Lee May was tapped by Gov. Nathan Deal to be interim CEO, the 140,000 residents of his district are still without representation on the Board of Commissioners.
photo
George Turner
For the seventh time, members of the BOC were deadlocked on the vote to seat George Turner, who was picked from a field of 19 applicants to fill the interim District 5 seat created by Georgia legislators in March.
Even though there were five commissioners voting, and three – District 7 Commissioner Stan Watson, District 3 commissioner and Presiding Officer Larry Johnson, and District 4 Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton – have voted consistently to seat Turner, the county’s Organization Act requires four votes, not just a majority of those voting, to seat the interim commissioner.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the board was once again deadlocked on the vote to seat Turner, a retired MARTA rail supervisor. Watson, Johnson and Barnes Sutton voted yes and Jeff Rader, the District 2 commissioner, and Kathie Gannon, the Super District 6 commissioner, voted no
Newly elected District 1 Commissioner Nancy Jester abstained.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tweak us out of LaVista Hills

This is a letter shared with the "Dekalb Strong" group.  You can join the conversation at https://www.facebook.com/groups/DeKalbStrong . We didn't realize how easy tweaking was. “Tweak” and just like that, 2000 people are moved from one city proposal to another. (“LaVista Hills, Tucker border tweaked in Senate,” News, March 20). Our home is in Toco Hills on the southern edge of the proposed LaVista Hills and we’d like to be tweaked out of it.   North and north central DeKalb County residents have become pawns in the misguided ambitions of a few. With all the changes made by the Senate and House, it’s vital the feasibility of these proposals be revisited. The LaVista Hills boundaries have bled commercial property to the Tucker proposal and Brookhaven’s annexation of Executive Park. As reconfigured, LaVista Hills is almost entirely residential. Even including Toco Hills shopping center and Northlake mall, there appears to be insufficient commercial or industrial pr

DeKalb County School Board Member's Emails Show Support for Annexation

Here are just a few highlights of this investigative piece that was reported by Jeff Chirico, CBS Atlanta. Marshall Orson, a seated board member in DeKalb County, has to answer to some angry parents about his emails with supporters for "Together in Atlanta," a group pushing for annexation into the city of Atlanta. The annexation would take a DeKalb icon, the Druid Hills High School, and at least two elementary schools into the city limits of Atlanta, while still the residents would still technically reside in DeKalb County.  The Fernbank Science Center and Museum, Callenwalde Fine Arts Center and other parts of DeKalb County would also become new residents of "Atlanta in DeKalb."   State Rep. Karla Drenner (D - Avondale Estates) says she is shocked to learn that a school board member would seemingly favor something that could 'decimate' the school system. Annexation opponent Dawn Forman said Orson, as an elected board member, should be opposed t

Do These Families Feel "Welcomed" at DeKalb County's Schools?

Georgia counties where 50 or more unaccompanied minors were released from Jan. 1 through July, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services Administration for Children & Families. Cherokee County 65 Cobb County 138 DeKalb County 347 Fulton County 64 Gwinnett County 266 Hall County 85 WHO knows the truth about what is happening in our schools and how quickly are they acting to protect their own neighborhoods, drawing their own borders and leaving everyone else holding the education tab for the immigrant population THEY helped bring here?    Do the new city proponents claim to know anything about a city - school connection?  Or do they do the typical  political  double speak and merely deny, deny, deny?  WHAT do they know that they are not telling the rest of us?  WHO do they know and HOW will they benefit?  If you do not know the answers then you are probably on the losing end of someone else's big stick! By  Mi