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Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm
Recall petitions filed in Hart County Superior Court for a pair of elected officials in the Town of Bowersville were dismissed during a hearing Aug. 29.
Judge David R. Sweat, chief judge of the Western Judicial Circuit Superior Courts, delivered the ruling, Hart County Superior Court Clerk Frankie Gray said Wednesday morning.
Sweat’s official order had not been filed as of press time Wednesday.
The petitions, led by Bowersville residents David Cagle, who served as “chairperson” and his wife Kelly Cagle, who was listed as the petition “circulator,” demanded the recall of Bowersville council members Christie Simpson and Jan Dean.
Both petitions were signed by 32 Bowersville residents and included “facts upon which the recall petition...are based.”
The Cagles and fellow citizen signees argued that both Simpson and Dean should be recalled as they “voted for the deannexation of approximately one-third of the property in the town limits without doing any research on how the loss of tax revenue would affect the town’s finances” and that they both “refused to run the town according to its charter.”
The recall applications were issued from the Hart County Board of Elections office July 25 and were returned to the office Aug. 7, according to the official documents. They were officially filed in Hart County Superior Court Aug. 7.
Bowersville attorney John A. Dickerson filed petitions on behalf of Simpson and Dean Aug. 11, asking the court to review the “sufficiency of the ground or grounds for recall.”
In the petitions, Dickerson wrote that the Official Code of Georgia’s grounds for recall are that an elected official “has committed an act or acts of malfeasance while in office; has violated his or her oath of office; has committed an act of misconduct in office; is guilty of a failure to perform duties presented by law; or has willfully misused, converted or misappropriated, without authority, public property or public f[un]ds entrusted to o[r] associated with the elective office to which the official has been elected or appointed.”
Dickerson went on to include that the next portion of the code states that the “discretionary performance of a lawful act or a prescribed duty shall not constitute a ground for recall of an elected public official.”
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Dickerson also argued that both Simpson and Dickerson “acted in total and legal compliance with the law of Georgia and the Charter of the Town of Bowersville,” as the Official Code of Georgia allows “municipal corporation[s]” to deannex property.
Deannexation can be considered, according to Georgia law, after the municipal corporation receives a “a written and signed application of the owners of the land seeking deannexation” and a resolution is adopted by the “governing authority of the county.”
The issues surrounding the dennexations began in relation to a series of controversial ordinances that placed certain restrictions on the construction and maintenance of poultry facilities within the town limits of Bowersville.
While the original ordinance, passed and then amended in 2016, granted the ability of new owners to be able to refurbish and maintain poultry facilities that already exist in Bowersville, the ordinance still restricted the construction of new poultry facilities within the town limits.
The uproar over the ordinance resulted in several town council members losing their seats in the 2020 election, and the current town council has tried to find ways to solve the issue.
Along with the petition, Dickerson included the “Resolution regarding deannextion” that was approved by the Hart County Board of Commissioners (BOC) March 14.
The approved resolution included 24 parcels in the Town of Bowersville requesting deannexation, including individual parcels owned by current Bowersville Mayor Pruitt Manley, Kelvin Simpson – husband of council member Christie Simpson – and four parcels owned by council member Ted Yeargin.
After being approved by the BOC, the first wave of petitions were given a first read by Bowersville May 18.
Since the first reading of the original deannexation petitions, additional applications were brought before the BOC where they were granted. The second wave of petitions included that of another town council member, Melissa Holloway. The additional deannexation petitions were given a first read during Bowersville’s July 20 meeting.
The July 20 meeting also saw the second reading of the original deannexation petitions, except for the petition filed by Manley. The original petitions were all approved following the second read.
“If the governing authority of the county consents to the deannexation and the deannexation conforms with the requirements of this article, the governing authority of the municipal corporation shall approve such deannexation unless it finds that the deannexation would be detrimental to the health, safety and welfare of the residents and property owners of the area to be deannexed or to the area remaining within the municipality,” Dickerson continued in the petition, citing Georgia law.
Before approving, Dickerson said the council, including Simpson and Dean, were “specifically advised” of the Georgia law surrounding deannexation and that “there was no such finding of detriment or a finding of any evidence of the detriment to the health, safety and welfare of the residents.”
Dickerson then included that the recall petition’s second fact that Simpson and Dean “refused to run the town according to its charter,” was “not a sufficient ground for recall.”
Dickerson said assuming the fact was “intended” for the ground of “failure to perform duties prescribed by law,” it would have to mean “the willful neglect or failure by an official to perform a duty imposed by statute.”
“There is no evidence or fact(s) of willful neglect or failure to perform a duty,” Dickerson wrote in the petitions. “Furthermore, the allegation of ‘refused to run the town according to the Charter’ is not capable of being defined. There is no charter requirement that even remotely requires or suggests that a council member ‘run the town.’”
As Simpson’s residence was included in the deannexed property – which was approved earlier this year and has an effective date of Oct. 1 – Dickerson also included a supplement to the petition on her behalf that said the “petition to recall is moot.”
“Christie Simpson will no longer be a resident of the Town of Bowersville and consequently will be ineligible to hold office and there will be a special election,” Dickeson wrote. “For this reason this effort to recall in addition to not being legally sufficient is moot.”
According to the Official Code of Georgia, which Dickerson included along with the petition, recall petitions cannot “be filed during the first 180 days or during the last 180 days of the term of office.”
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Both Simpson and Dean deferred comments to Dickerson Wednesday morning.
“[I’m] sorry they had to deal with this, but I’m glad the court ruled it was not legally sufficient,” Dickerson said Wednesday.
David Cagle said the impact of the deannexed properties to the town’s tax roll was one of the “biggest reasons” they started the recall petition.
“They voted to take away approximately 30 percent of the tax revenue for the Town of Bowersville. And we’re going to lose the franchise fees. It’s a lot. What they’re going to have to do – the new administration – they’re going to have to go up on the property taxes that much. They don’t have a choice.”
See next week’s edition of The Hartwell Sun for more coverage.