In certain situations the old maxim "no news is good news" may prove true, however, in the case of the Lee County Commission what you don't know may hurt you. Put another way, the Lee County Commission looks down upon its citizens as mere children who should be seen and not heard. Transparency and accountability are the bane of the Lee County Commission's existence, as evidenced through their suppression of citizen comments at commission meetings by excluding them from the livestream and recorded minutes.
What is happening at the Lee County Commission?, I hear you ask. Don't expect to discern anything of substance discussed during their meetings, listed in the agenda or reported on by the deaf, dumb and blind local media outlets who sit idly by after their presence has been gleefully announced by Chairman English. Retired Auburn teacher Judy Lockhart addressed the commission during the citizen comments portion of their meeting in regards to the difficulties she had encountered in obtaining a retiree waiver for a garbage fee from a private company that she had never agreed to a contract for which is being collected by the county with extreme prejudice. There was no discussion of this waiver during the meeting itself and if you weren't fortunate enough to be in the room to hear Lockhart's comments with your own ears then you were out of luck because, oh yeah, citizen comments are excluded from the livestream and minutes. Funny how that works out.
Lucky for you, dear reader, the Examiner has access to video recordings of the citizen comments and is in a mood to share. Opelika resident Lance Farrar addressed the commission later on, running the gauntlet in his remarks as follows;
"On July 31, 2023 there was an amendment to the solid waste billing guidelines. In there we went from having fifteen thousand and change to twenty-one thousand bills being sent out to the monopoly. I had put in a public records request with I believe Ms. Alice McCall that evening. Then on August 14, 2023 there was the instructions to the defendant for solid waste violations 'You must appear in court on the date shown on the front of this ticket. The court location is the Lee County Justice Center located at 2311 Gateway Drive Opelika, Alabama. If you do not appear in court on that date a warrant will be issued for your arrest.' So, we're taking a civil matter and making it a criminal matter. This is page eleven of twenty-six of the August 14th, 2023 agenda."
"On September 11th, 2023 there was a budget work session. In that budget work session I submitted another public records request for the dollar amounts of the Lee County Commission's reserve fund that County Manager Holly Leverette refused to identify during the scheduled budget work session. She was asked by Tony Langley, Bill English and another. What is the actual amount of the Lee County Commission reserve funds as of September 11th, 2023? Now, I just want a quick clarity of where we are with that. Tony, if you can get back to me with not only on the six-thousand plus 'delinquents', as you guys call them, trash mandates. Holly, I would like the to know the number of the reserve funds for the Lee County Commission."
Moving right along, it's time for a Lee County civics pop quiz. Do you know what a "supernumerary contribution" is? Hopefully the Lee County Commission does because they are gifting one to Lee County Revenue Commissioner Oline Price to the tune of a $10,191 payment for fiscal year 2022-2023 dated October 4th, 2023 according to the agenda packet for their upcoming October 10th, 2023 meeting.
It kind of has a Mary Poppins ring to it, as in a musical number with the working title "Supernumerary Fraud is Really Quite Atrocious". According to a February 2012 document published by the Association of County Commissions of Alabama "Tax officials qualify for a retirement program call 'supernumerary.' The program was established several decades ago as a way to sidestep the constitutional prohibition against public officials participating in the state retirement system. In recent years, counties have passed local constitutional amendments abolishing these programs and allowing the officials to participate in the more efficient ERS (Employees' Retirement System of Alabama). However, a number of officials remain in the supernumerary program, either because their county has not passed an amendment or because the individual official elected to remain in the supernumerary program rather than shift to the ERS."
Still not quite sure what a supernumerary contribution is? Going back all the way to a June 2015 Yellowhammer News article on the subjected entitled "One group of retired Alabama govt. employees still receives 75% of their salary, here’s why" there is included a quote from then House Speaker Mike Hubbard who opined “I believe the supernumerary system is flawed and needs to be addressed.” What ever happened to that guy any way? Spoken like a true statesman.
One more jigsaw piece of the corruption puzzle framed around the Lee County Commission is the perplexing case of one professional land surveyor Michael T. Maher employed by Precision Surveying, LLC of Auburn. What precisely was his involvement with the super secret granite quarry being built against the wishes of the residents in Beulah? According to an October 2022 enforcement notice made public by the Alabama Board for Engineers and Land Surveyors, Mr. Maher done goofed.
Perhaps that is simply Mr. Maher's cost of doing business for being a super successful surveyor in Lee County? If you want to be a part of the team that brings a granite quarry to Beulah that nobody wanted, this might merely be collateral damage. It's hard to say exactly, when Lee County has gone dark.
So, in simple terms, does this mean the LCC is taking people to court under the guise of a criminal violation for not paying their garbage bill? Is there a waiver for retired citizen? are people who don’t pay this “bill” on time going to jail? Maybe it’s time for all citizens (me included), to get actively involved. This would be something worthy to protest.