The city of Columbus is defending itself against claims it has withheld money rightfully belonging to Lowndes County since the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority dissolved last October.
In a letter sent to media members, county supervisors and Columbus councilmen on Friday, City Attorney Jeff Turnage not only refutes the county’s allegation but offers a litany of evidence suggesting the county got the better end of the split.
The nearly 2,000-word letter also pointedly criticizes county officials — namely Board of Supervisors President Harry Sanders — for the way they handled CLRA’s dissolution and its aftermath, stating the county has even asked the State Auditor’s Office to review CLRA’s finances.
Then the letter ends with: “We can do better than this.”
“At the end of the day, calm, reasoned and open-minded communication between the two entities probably would have led to an amicable resolution of this dispute,” Turnage says in the letter. “I still believe it is not too late to mend fences and work together for the benefit of our citizens. The taxpayers are the ones that suffer from this fight.”
County, city claims
The Turnage letter comes in response to an invoice County Administrator Ralph Billingsley sent the city almost two weeks ago.
In Billingsley’s letter, he claims the city still owes the county roughly $74,000. That includes half the value of equipment CLRA Director Greg Lewis purchased in the last three months before the split became effective that the city kept after Oct. 1 — when Lewis converted to directing only the city’s recreation department.
That amount also includes half the bank balances in former CLRA accounts the city now controls.
In Turnage’s response, he acknowledges the CLRA board approved equipment purchases in its final meetings, including its last on Sept. 5. Lewis was duly authorized to make all of the purchases, Turnage says, and some of them addressed “safety concerns.”
Further, Turnage says, the county took, as part of the split roughly $111,000 in equipment purchased with CLRA funds — ranging from pickups and golf carts to sports and office equipment — that was housed in the city without providing any reimbursement.
County Recreation Department Director Roger Short confirmed to The Dispatch the county has possession of the equipment listed in Turnage’s letter because he and Lewis had agreed to those terms in July 2017.
Turnage claims the CLRA inter-local agreement, which went into effect in 1990, doesn’t guarantee an even split of equipment upon the agreement’s termination. Rather, it states property located inside the city limits would become the city’s, and the property located outside the city limits will become the county’s.
The letter says city officials presented Sanders with that information shortly after the split. Sanders’ reaction, according to Turnage, was “profane.” Even so, he said the city agreed to allow the county to take the $111,000 worth of property “even thought there was no legal basis for it.”
Sanders’ “venom” still got worse in the months that followed, Turnage said.
“It is very unfortunate that things have degenerated to such an extent,” the letter says. “I don’t know what caused the breakdown, but I have never seen such venom from Harry Sanders as he has displayed in the past several months.”
As for the bank balances, which the inter-local agreement does indicate should be split evenly, Turnage argues the vast majority should still go to the city. Most of the money, he says, came from registration fees parents paid for their children to play in sports leagues now run by the city. Because of the dispute, the city paid the league expenses from its general fund rather than use the fees for that purpose.
Those funds also include private donations for funding the Mayor’s Unity Picnic and Thanksgiving Unity Luncheon events. The letter says Sanders initially agreed the county had no interest in that money but that now the county “has reneged on that.”
Sanders: City is ‘a bunch of crooks’
Short, speaking with The Dispatch Friday, said he believes the city willfully took advantage of the provisions of the inter-local agreement when purchasing the equipment in September.
“Let’s say, for example, the week before the CLRA agreement was null and void, I went and took all the vans and put them at the county sites … so then the vans are the county’s property, so they belong to the county. How is that fair?” Short said.
Sanders took a sharper tone and claims city leaders knew exactly what they were doing when they purchased the last-minute equipment.
“They’re a bunch of crooks and (they are) using their lawyer to cover their rear ends,” Sanders said.
“Jeff Turnage is on the side of the city and a little bit on the side of exaggeration and fabrication,” he later added. “The interpretation that they have is absolutely ludicrous.”
Sanders contends some of the equipment the city bought with CLRA funds in the final months of the inter-local agreement isn’t even used for city recreation — doubling down on a claim Lewis bought a zero-turn lawnmower that is in use by a different city department.
Turnage’s letter references a review, which CLRA board attorney Will Cooper completed this month, of Lewis’ September 2017 purchases. Cooper, in a letter dated July 13, deemed them appropriate and in the “normal course of business.”
Sanders takes little stock in that review.
“(Cooper’s letter) just tells me that there was no oversight over the last 30 days (of the CLRA),” Sanders said.
“You don’t go and buy the last 10 days of the agreement because you’ve got money in the bank. They intentionally bought all that stuff and put it in the city so the city would get it all. You can deny it all but the facts don’t lie. Just do the paper trail on what they bought and when and where it was delivered.”
Sanders still believes the county should be reimbursed for half of those purchases and be entitled to 50 percent of the bank balances.
But if that isn’t satisfactory to the city, he offered another solution, specifically regarding the $111,000 in equipment the county took in the split, that served as a dim outlook for any future city-county cooperation.
“You know what I think the county ought to do?” he said. “The city can take the equipment back, but then don’t come and ask us for another damn thing. Completely 100 percent divorce.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.