The governing board of Atlanta’s inspector general voiced support Thursday for the city’s top ethics watchdog amid heated debate within City Hall over how much power the office should have to investigate misconduct.
The body — which oversees the inspector general’s office — sent Mayor Andre Dickens’ administration a statement of concern over pushback to the office and a letter of support for Inspector General Shannon Manigault.
“We will not stand by and allow the very office created to stem misconduct to be handcuffed and stripped of its independence,” the members wrote. During their board meeting Thursday, the body approved the letters in an 8-0 vote, with one abstention.
In May, Manigault spoke out about internal efforts by city officials to block investigations. Her allegations included the city limiting access to documents requested as part of probes and emails that showed department heads asking staff to recount conversations during confidential interviews.
Her remarks made during public comment at a City Council meeting sparked an effort by the city to review the procedures of the Office of the Inspector General, Ethics Office and how both boards are governed.
“There’s a reason this office is here,” Manigault told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in the days after the legislation was passed. “No one benefits from having an ineffective Office of the Inspector General.”
Council members recently passed a resolution establishing a task force that will conduct an extensive review of the offices’ duties, the rights of city employees questioned during investigations and how disputes between the accountability agencies and city officials are resolved.
Credit: City of Atlanta
Credit: City of Atlanta
Atlanta’s inspector general reports directly to a governing board, made up of members nominated by top organizations like the Atlanta Business League, Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Atlanta Bar Association, the League of Women Voters of Atlanta-Fulton County and other legal associations.
Dickens and his staff frequently have said that the governing board should have more authority over what investigations are pursued. But the board, chaired by Nichola R. Hines — the assistant general manager for Delaware North at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport — disagreed and worried some of the city’s proposed tweaks to the office would violate its independence.
A statement of concern written by the board also accuses Dickens’ chief of staff, Odie Donald, of “mischaracterizations and assumptions” at a City Council committee meeting where the administration presented legislation to create a task force to review the inspector general position.
“Recent presentations and comments unfairly characterizes the Governing Board as unsupportive of the Office of the Inspector General,” members wrote. “This is categorically false.”
The board didn’t stop there. In a separate letter of support for Atlanta’s inspector general, members said the office “continues to encounter efforts that are actively impeding its work.”
“The Governing Board expresses its unified support for the Office of Inspector General and disapproves of attempts to prevent the Office of Inspector General from independently fulfilling its mission in service of the public,” the letter says.
At the board’s regular meeting Thursday night, Donald gave his presentation again on the recently created task force and reiterated a number of problems the administration has with how the inspector general’s office conducts investigations.
“Let me be clear on one thing: These are areas of concern,” he said. “That doesn’t mean the administration is right. Doesn’t mean the (inspector general) is right.”
Those concerns include showing up to employees’ home or other non-work locations for interviews, prohibiting employees from having legal counsel present, seizing government-issued phones and computers and a lack of clarity around when investigations are launched.
“We want the office of the inspector general, we want the ethics office and we welcome the oversight,” Donald said. “We do want to know what the playing field looks like.”
But board members also raised red flags over the individuals appointed through legislation to the task force reviewing the inspector general’s duties.
Council members Howard Shook and Marci Collier Overstreet are on the task force, along with Leah Ward Sears, former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court; David Dove, former executive counsel for the governor’s office; state Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, a lawyer; and lawyers Richard Deane and Norman Brothers.
“These are great folks — legally minded, great folks,” Hines said. “But I ask: Where is the inspector general? Or someone who has worked inside the inspector general’s office?”
Atlanta’s inspector general’s office 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.
Manigault told the AJC she hopes the task force will help clarify the office’s role.
“There has been quite a bit of misinformation circulating about the practices and actions of this office,” she said. “To the extent the task force will give another opportunity to provide clarity and corrections to the record about what has and hasn’t occurred, that’s a good thing.”
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