After suspension and prison, Burrell Ellis was left with barely two weeks to serve as DeKalb County’s CEO after the Georgia Supreme Court overturned his attempted extortion conviction.
On Thursday, he walked to a podium outside the county government offices in downtown Decatur to tell reporters what he'd done with the last days of his term.
“It’s, I think, been 15 days of some significant accomplishment,” said Ellis, flanked by a few dozen staffers and supporters.
He rattled off a list of budget recommendations he's making to incoming CEO Mike Thurmond, who won the November election: about $1 million to address blight; more than $700,000 for the ethics board and auditor; and a raise of $6,000 in the base pay for garbage collectors.
Anyone waiting for a grand final statement or show from Ellis was left wanting. He stuck to business during the brief press conference, taking only a few questions after his statement.
“There’s some things I can’t talk about,” he said.
The case against him is still pending until incoming District Attorney Sherry Boston makes a decision on whether to attempt to retry Ellis, whose conviction was overturned after he'd already served his sentence in prison. A jury convicted him in 2015 of trying to shake down a county contractor for campaign contributions.
Instead of addressing the case, Ellis stuck to detailing what he’d done in the last 15 days.
He said he'd visited senior centers and took part in a ribbon-cutting. He spoke fondly of Tuesday night's Community Heroes Awards.
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He said he visited the iconic dilapidated Spaghetti Junction tower, known as the Presidential Hotel, while working on a plan to better address blight around the county. He reported that all but one or two of the buildings at crumbling Creekside Forest Apartment Homes off I-20 are now vacant after DeKalb's efforts to relocate residents.
Ellis was hopeful for a solution to the county's water billing issues, which have infuriated residents in recent months as bills inexplicably soared into the hundreds and thousands.
But with the updates he delivered, Ellis acknowledged the obvious: he only had two weeks to work on these issues and owes much credit to county commissioners and staffers.
“We’ve been working long hours,” he said. “I have a very capable staff. It’s been my honor to work with them.”
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