Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens called the battle over the city inspector general’s authority a “political spectacle,” after months of silence while Inspector General Shannon Manigault worked to rally public support.
The mayor made an impromptu appearance on Tuesday night at a special called meeting of the governing board that oversees the inspector general and ethics offices. He said he wanted to “set the record straight.”
During lengthy remarks, he addressed claims that his administration is working to tamp down on the city watchdog’s power.
“My name, my word, my integrity, means everything to me,” Dickens said. “And I have not said a single solitary word negatively about the Office of Inspector General (or) the ethics officer.”
“I respect those people,” he said. “I respect those offices.”
In May, Manigault made an unprecedented speech during public comment at a City Council meeting that her office was being blocked from conducting investigations by top city officials. The comments launched a months-long debate around the office’s power, led to the creation of a task force to make recommendations on the office’s operations, and pinned the city’s watchdog against the first-term mayor.
Dickens defended the task force — created by his office — that recently released a number of recommended changes to the inspector general role. Many of those suggestions, Manigault argues, would limit the office’s authority and give the governing board more oversight on investigations.
“What I thought was about a process that could have helped strengthen the board and ... provide more oversight, which would also protect the public,” he said, “has also unfortunately turned into, what you mentioned, a political spectacle.”
The mayor launched an array of accusations against the office, from accidentally leaking his social security information online to purchasing “spy pins and nanny cams” to place around City Hall.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Dickens said. “There should be checks and balances — no one should play judge, jury (and) execution.”
And he slammed Manigault for promoting a Republican-organized political event on the office’s city government website just weeks before the general election.
Credit: Riley Bunch/riley.bunch@ajc.com
Credit: Riley Bunch/riley.bunch@ajc.com
On Nov. 20, the inspector general took part in a question-and-answer session with Atlanta Young Republicans, where she recounted the obstacles she was facing to conduct investigations. A former employee of the inspector general’s office organized and moderated the event.
At the panel, Manigault accused the mayor of pressuring her board chair to “reign in” the city’s inspector general.
“That activity alone is interfering with the independence of the office,” she said.
Atlanta’s Ethics Officer Jabu M. Sengova requested the flier for the event be taken down “immediately” since it was organized by a “partisan political organization,” according to emails obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The governing board has consistently voiced support for Manigault and originally called the special meeting to issue their own concerns with the task force recommendation’s, but decided to table their statements after the mayor’s visit.
The city’s Office of Inspector General was created in 2020, in the wake of a yearslong federal Department of Justice corruption investigation at City Hall, and independently investigates within Atlanta’s government.
“I’m very well aware — as a son of this city, as a business owner in this city — we’ve had corruption, we’ve had abuse, we’ve had ethical challenges,” Dickens said Tuesday. “I don’t want those black eyes on our city anymore.”
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