Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens violated the city’s charter when he named an interim inspector general to lead the agency, according to former City Council President Felicia Moore.
Moore, who was council president from 2017 through 2021, told the Atlanta City Council at its March 3 meeting the mayor’s office is not allowed to appoint an interim inspector general. She urged members to stop the mayor’s decision to appoint Judge LaDawn Blackett. Blackett has said she would only serve temporarily.
“The mayor has no authority to appoint anyone to take over an independent investigative office, and especially one that has active and ongoing investigations related to the highest rungs of city government,” Moore said during public comment.
Moore said the city charter states a governing board is supposed to name the person to be inspector general, interim or permanent. Giving the mayor the power to do so threatens potential confidential investigations taking place at city hall, she said.
The inspector general’s appointment by a governing board, subject to confirmation of the council and mayor, is what makes it independent from the people they investigate, Moore said.
But there is no governing board at the moment. When Shannon Manigault, the city’s first inspector general, resigned on Feb. 17, most of the board resigned with her.
City Attorney Patrice Perkins-Hooker said during a Feb. 28 online press conference when the the new interim inspector general was named that the mayor does have the authority to name an interim inspector general. The charter gives him the power to do in the section that allows him to fill vacant department heads and board commissioners, she said.
Moore, who lost to Dickens in the 2021 runoff for mayor, said the Office of Inspector General is different than filling a vacant commissioner because it was created to be free of political influence.
She also said she is not speaking out on this issue because she is running for office. She said she is speaking because as a champion of the original legislation to create the Office of Inspector General (OIG), she believes the mayor’s interim appointment is blatant political influence of an independent agency.
She said the appointment is a “travesty” that will compromise active and ongoing investigations and is a move by the mayor’s office that goes “too far.”
The council heeded the mayor’s call and voted to change the city charter to restrict the powers of the inspector general’s office — changes Moore opposed. Moore said it’s time for the council to consider implementing guard rails for the executive branch.
“The OIG office is essentially shut down because no one can trust that the office that was established to help them will be effective, and in the long run, not hurt them,” she said.
Council member Michael Julian Bond, the target of one of former inspector general’s investigations, responded to Moore forcefully. He said the situation with the former inspector general “is a tragedy” because Manigault issued more than 50 subpoenas for private financial records of city employees and private citizens. City Attorney Patrice Perkins-Hooker has said publicly the subpoenas were illegal.
“I am less concerned about the mayor being able to appoint an interim than I am about the coming torrent of lawsuits that potentially could cost this city in legal damages of almost $300 million,” Bond told Moore. He did not say where that figure came from.
Perkins-Hooker also said it was necessary for the mayor to appoint an interim inspector general because the current Office of Inspector General staff members are “supporters” of Manigault and are working against the administration.
“The staff is trying their best to basically do anything they can to kind of sabotage what’s going on … and they are just very caustic in their attitude,” she said. Numerous covert surveillance items, such as spy pens and coffee cup lids that record video have been confiscated from the office as well, Perkins-Hooker said.
Interim Human Resources Director Calvin Blackburn III wrote a letter to Dickens, provided to the media, saying an interim inspector general was needed because he was met with “resistance and skepticism” by staff after asking for files.
He also complained about staff filming him while gathering documents at the office.
Perkins-Hooker said a governing board could be up and running this month.
Manigault resigned hours before the city council approved controversial changes to the office’s powers. She and the office also face a federal lawsuit due to the alleged 50 illegal subpoenas for private financial records..
Manigault said her decision to resign was made in part due to an organized campaign by some in city leadership to discredit her and the work of the inspector general’s office.
The creation of the Office of Inspector General came in the wake of a city hall procurement corruption scandal involving the administration of former Mayor Kasim Reed.
