A temporary task force reviewing Atlanta’s Office of Inspector General and Ethics Office only has three meetings and 45 days to craft recommended changes for how the two agencies operate.
Members of the group — which met on Monday for the first time — expressed anxiety over the expedited time frame and whether all necessary discussions could fit into three public meetings.
“It’s just not enough time to get all the work done in official meetings,” said Former Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, who was elected chair by the group Monday. “There’s just no way it’s possible.”
The task force — made up of top Atlanta lawyers — was established by City Council earlier this month amid a heated debate over the top watchdog offices’ level of authority. The Dickens administration and Inspector General Shannon Manigault have been at odds over when and how investigations should be conducted.
City officials have been under scrutiny for the initiative. Critics say the city’s elected leaders are looking to dim the power of the very office tasked with rooting out government corruption. But proponents of changes say employees’ rights are being trampled during investigations.
“We are not here to abolish the Office of the Inspector General,” Ward said. “Rather we are here to make sure that the concerns raised by the employees, the administration and the City Council are being addressed.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The group is aiming to tackle three broad questions: how both offices are regulated, what kinds of access they have during investigations to records and government devices and what rights employees have if they are interviewed during probes.
“Those types of things are the types of issues we could not reach an agreement on,” said City Attorney Patrise M. Perkins-Hooker. The inspector general’s “position is that they should be granted all these blanketly.”
Task force members were provided background documents ahead of the meeting, but Council Member Howard Shook — who was heavily involved in the creation of the office in 2020 — raised red flags that the summaries only include the city’s position and concerns.
“I’m not sure based on the submittals we’ve seen so far, that all the items we need to discuss are in this,” he said. “This seems to be a list of the administration’s perceived concerns.”
“I think in order to really flush this out we need to ask the inspector general for a list that she might have of anything she feels we need to discuss,” Shook said.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Neighborhood leaders voice support
Members of the Atlanta Planning Advisory Board — a key committee made up of the city’s neighborhood planning unit chairs — issued a statement in support of the inspector general ahead of Monday’s meeting.
In June, the board “voted unanimously to support the independence of the OIG” after Manigault described the access issues she faced inside City Hall. This month, they crafted their own list of recommendations for the task force.
They urged that the meetings be more accessible to the public and not be scheduled during the work day, or in rooms without livestream capacity. The community leaders also requested that task force legislation be amended to include representatives from the Association of Inspectors General and citizen representatives.
“I hear you talk about this task force and how it will address the concerns of the City Council and the mayor,” said Amy Stout, chair of NPU-N. “I didn’t hear anybody say that they were going to address the concerns of the OIG office, the OIG Government Board — much less the public.”
But task force members hit back against the notion that the group was created solely to curb the concerns of the Dickens administration. Georgia State Representative and lawyer Tanya Miller addressed criticism that the members don’t have enough direct knowledge of the inner workings of an inspector general’s office.
“I may not know the history of the legislation, but I know about investigations,” she said. “I know about the law and about the Constitution, and I know about guardrails that must be in place for everybody in our process.”
“So please don’t leave here thinking this is some kind of kangaroo court committee — it’s not,” she added. " Every person on here has a career — many of whom I may not agree with on many issues — but everybody is here in good faith.”
The task force scheduled its next two meetings for Oct. 7 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Oct. 16, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.
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