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1 MILES PATTERSON HANSFORD TALLANT, LLC DANA B. MILES 202 TRIBBLE GAP ROAD JENNIFER D. PATTERSON SUITE 200 BRIAN A. HANSFORD CUMMING, GEORGIA KEVIN J. TALLANT WENDYW. KRABY fc E. LOGAN BUTLER LAUREN C. GILES JEFFERSON M. STARR VIA FEDERAL EXPRESS AND VIA FACSIMILE # (404) Georgia Department of Law 40 Capitol Square SW Atlanta, GA May 2, 2012 Re: Complaints Against Mayor H. Ford Gravitt and the City of Cumming, Georgia Dear Mr. Ritter, Please accept this correspondence as the response on behalf of the City to your dated April 27, 2012, regarding the City Council meeting which occulted on April 17, In that you asked us to provide a response to eleven bulleted points raised by Ms. Nydia Tisdale in an she drafted on April 25, We would have provided a response to these issues earlier, but your was the first time we were aware that these matters were raised. From a review of Ms. Tisdale s points it appears they can be broken down into three general areas of contention. To facilitate review, that is how I will provide the response of the City of Cumming. Issue One: Access to the rneetin. of the Mayor and council of the city of Cumniing on April 17, The first four bulleted points raised in the complaint concern access to the meeting of the Mayor and Council of the City of Cunirning. There are five entrances to the Cumming City Hall, but only one entrance which faces the sole parking lot for the building. That entrance is the one which the City of Cumming 1 The points raised are as follows: *Four meeting attendees including Dr. Moses and Tisdale were locked out at the street entrance to the building; *Tisdale walked around to the back entrance to enter City Hall; * Tisdale asked four police officers and City Attorney Dana Miles to unlock the front door and they refused; *Tlee meeting attendees eventually walked around the building and arrived tardy for the meeting. (±!L (1VEP E FET ATTORNEYS AT LAW

2 what May 2, 2011 Page 2 of 6 2 To always has open for any and all public meetings which occur at City Hall. call the entrance which the complaint referred to a main entrance is a matter of semantics and a designation with which the City would, respectfully, disagree. The entrance described as being locked in the complaint is a sidewalk entrance and there is no readily available source of parking at that location. Furthermore, in the 10 years that Cumming City Hall has been located in its present spot, the City is not aware of a single other person who had any difficulty in accessing a meeting of the Mayor and Council because of the entrance. Simply stated, the City has always sought to foster attendance by making it as easy as possible to access the meeting through having the door adjacent to the parking lot open for ready access to its meetings. Having additional doors open beyond the main entrance adjacent to the parking lot creates multiple issues including: (1) a public safety concern the City of Cumming has a relatively small police force and the primary purpose of that force is to protect and serve the public in the City of Cumming. Having additional entrances to City Hall be open beyond the entrance adjacent to the parking lot would necessitate pulling public safety forces off of their patrols and away from their primary purpose; (2) the City already has that entrance open which provides the greatest ease of access to City Hall, and if additional entrances are required then who is to say that two or even three is enough? (3) The City Council meetings are at night, not during the business day when other entrances to the City Hall have employees stationed nearby to greet and direct the public to their intended destination within the building. Finally, we have searched and have been unable to find any authority to provide the basis upon which to bring this complaint. There is no law that we can find which specifies the number of entrances which must be available for someone to access a meeting of the Mayor and Council is required is that the meeting be open to the public and that the public be provided access to the meeting which it undoubtedly was. 2 Photographs of both the entire building and what the City asserts is the main entrance from the parking lot are attached to this letter to facilitate your review.

3 May 2, 20H Page 3 of 6 Issue Two: Recording of the Meeting via Visual and Sound. Video Recorder Capturing Joint The next four bulleted points all appear to address the issue of joint visual and sound recording of the April 17, 2012, meeting of the Mayor and Council. This issue was addressed in some detail in our response letter dated April 26, 2012, and for the purpose of brevity we incorporate the entirety of that response into this letter as well. However, two brief additional notes are worth mentioning in light of the phraseology used in the complainant s of April 25 th It was contended that Chief Casey Tatum and another officer forcibly removed Tisdale and her camcorder. Again, this would be a matter of semantics and perception. To our knowledge Ms. Tisdale was never touched, and all of the photographs that we have seen of the subject incident show that Chief Tatum was not trying to remove Ms. Tisdale, but the camera on its tripod. Second, as to the point about the police officer stopping Ms. Tisdale from taking moving pictures during the meeting, we believe that this was a continuation of the issue raised and addressed previously in the Letter of April 26 th To facilitate your review, I am including a copy of the video archive which the City produced of this Council meeting it appears from the video that Ms. Tisdale was using her Olympus camera to capture joint visual and sound recording during the meeting and that the officer leaned forward and said something to her, after which time it is not clear whether she stopped videotaping or not. (See Video of April 17, 2012 Meeting at Time Stamp 42:47). 3 Finally, I would point out that the City of Cuming maintains a video of its own council meetings and has that video available for public review through the filing of an open records request. This video is captured from a lofted area where the City maintains all of its visual and sound equipment for its public meetings. It would appear that such a video further ameliorates if not completely satisfies the issue raised regarding the recording of the April 17 t1 meeting, considering the fact that the City maintains for itself and public consumption a combined visual and sound recording of its meetings. The points raised are as follows: * City of Cumming Mayor Henry Ford Gravitt banned Sony camcorder from the auditorium; * Chief of Police Casey Tatum and another officer forcibly removed Tisdale and her camcorder; * City Attorney Dana Miles sat silent and did nothing; * Police officer stopped Tisdale from taking moving pictures from her Olympus camera during the meeting.

4 contrary May 2, 2011 Page 4 of 6 Issue Three: Issues reardin votes taken and executive session. The final three bullet points all appear to deal with a set of actions taken with respect to a stance on negotiations with Forsyth County and an executive session. intergovernmental agreement with Forsyth County, Georgia with respect to water. This agenda item was originally set as the first item under new business but was moved (by the vote of the Council) to be next to last on new business. During the discussion on the item the Mayor laid out generally the history of the intergovernmental agreement as well as recent negotiations with Forsyth County and asked the Council whether it would take an official stance that the City would end negotiations on the water contract until such time as Forsyth County presented the City with a non-binding agreement. City then took up a final agenda item and the Mayor asked for a motion to adjourn. Before the Mayor could finish calling for the vote I reminded the Mayor of the need for an executive session to discuss pending litigation to the assertion in the complaint the City Council did not adjourn for the evening but rather for executive session. (See Video of April 17, 2012 Meeting at Time Stamp 52:28). The Mayor, based upon my announcement, asked for a motion to go into executive session which was made, seconded and passed unanimously. While the motion to adjourn for executive session could have been called a recess, it was expressly for executive session purposes, and it should have been evident that the City would therefore obviously need to come out of executive session to formally adjourn the meeting. 4 On the agenda for that evening was discussion regarding a potential 5 The Council did so. The As to the position that there was no stated purpose for the executive session, that is not the case. My announcement was that executive session was needed for pending litigation and that is, as the law requires, reflected on the minutes of the April 17, 2012, meeting which will be considered for approved at The points raised are as follows: *Mayor and city council voted for a non-binding agreement with Forsyth County; *Mayor and city council adjourned and entered into executive session without a stated purpose; *Mayor and city council held an unannounced meeting after executive session to vote for a binding agreement with Forsyth County. This was a misstatement as discussed infra.

5 which would May 2, 2011 Page 5 of 6 the May 15, 2012 meeting. 6 Ibelieve that the Cityhas compliedwith the requirements of O.C.G.A (See also Claxton Enter. v. Evans County Bd. of Com rs, 249 Ga. App. 870; , (2001) (where Board of Commissioners after a recess closed the meeting with no stated purpose and later filed an affidavit laying out the purpose, the Court of Appeals found the meeting to be improperly closed based not upon the lack of a stated purpose during the meeting, but upon its disagreement with the applicability of the reason given by the Board of Commissioners in the affidavit). Because, as stated previously, the Mayor and Council closed their meeting for the purpose of executive session, they did as required once executive session was over: they came out of executive session and went back into regular session for the purpose of completing the April 17, 2012 meeting. 7 During the executive session Mayor Gravitt realized that he misspoke when he asked the Council to take the official position that the City would not negotiate further on the water contract until Forsyth County provided the City with a non-binding agreement. What he meant to say was that he wanted Forsyth County to send over a binding agreement. Once back in regular session Mayor Gravitt corrected his misstatement and the Council moved forward with taking that corrected position. I believe that the entire issue in the last three points of the complaint is best clarified and summarized as follows: As discussed infra, the Mayor and Council did not adjourn their meeting as the Complaint alleges. There was, in fact, a stated purpose for going into executive session which is reflected on the draft minutes to be considered at the next meeting of the Mayor and Council. 6 The pending or potential litigation concerns multiple matters in which the City will be a Plaintiff or a Defendant. After consultation our office has been instructed to begin pursuit of these matters and we have done the same. The purpose of the Executive Session was to discuss the to be filed matters with the Mayor and Council. To disclose more in this document is a public document subject to production under the Open Records Act be tantamount to a waiver of not only the City s ability to discuss litigation in executive session, but also a waiver of the Attorney-Client privilege. The individual who typically records the meetings of the Mayor and Council was not in attendance that evening, and the person who filled in did not know that it was necessary to stay until the meeting adjourned. As such, there is no video for the adjournment, but it is preserved in the City s official minutes kept by the Clerk.

6 May 2, 2011 Page 6 of 6 Because the meeting of April 17, 2012 was closed for the purpose of executive session, there was no unannounced meeting after executive session but rather the Mayor and Council s completion of its duties by finishing the regular meeting of the Mayor and Council. I believe that the discussion in this response letter has adequately addressed the concerns which have been raised to your office. If, however, you believe that an additional response is necessary, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will address any additional questions or concerns posed. I thank you as always for your time and attention to this matter. Sincerely, DBM/ams enclosures Dana B. Miles Cumming City Attorney cc: City of Cumming, Georgia

7 mb 1 rrt - Entrance complained about in Entrance adjacent to Parking lot Which is open for Council meetings. wti

8 Entrance adjacent to parking lot which is open for Council meetings.