City turns down settlement agreement on open records suit

Oct. 19—THOMASVILLE — A longstanding lawsuit against the City of Thomasville and two city council members appears headed to a courtroom.

Council members voted 2-1 Monday night to approve a proposed settlement agreement, but the measure needed a majority, or three council members, to pass. Mayor Greg Hobbs was not present and Council member David Hufstetler, who as mayor pro tem would have presided, recused himself. Both Hobbs and Hufstetler are named separately as defendants in the civil action.

The settlement proposal called for the city to pay plaintiffs $110,000, to cover attorney's fees. Council member Jay Flowers, who presided over the meeting, and Council member Todd Mobley voted in favor. Council member Wanda Warren cast the dissenting vote.

Without the votes needed to approve the agreement, the matter may now be headed to court. Chris Cohilas, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said he is willing to take it before a judge.

"We're going to litigate the case and we're going to win," he said. "That's pretty obvious already.

"The violations are egregious," Cohilas added. "They've been admitted. When you have the mayor of the City of Thomasville on an audiotape with a GBI agent explaining that there is no way these citizens are going to get public records unless they get a superior court judge to order that, that's usually not a hard case to win."

Cohilas said he wasn't surprised the settlement agreement was turned down.

Cohilas filed suit on behalf of his plaintiffs, Geoffrey Young, Kevin Fuchs and Howell Ferguson, seeking open records pertaining to the city's actions prior to its May 2018 on the Pinetree Boulevard project.

"And they still haven't turned over certain documents," Cohilas said. You have city council members who think because they are discussing public business and are using a private email address or phone, it is not subject to public scrutiny. That's not how it works."

Cohilas also said that certain records his plaintiffs asked for more than two years ago have been turned over to them only within the last couple of months.

Warren pointed to state law that stipulates the payment of reasonable attorney's fees in matters of open records violations.

"I do not believe we should settle this because the attorney's fees appear to be unreasonable," she said in a lengthy prepared statement before the vote was taken. "Some would try to make me believe that to settle would save the city money. I tell you now, I don't believe that. This case is being used as a pawn on a warped game board."

Cohilas said the city's attorneys asked for a settlement proposal and recommended to council members they accept it.

"The settlement proposal, we made that at their request, and it was recommended by their lawyers, to them. We've done that," he said. "That's why it was put on the agenda, for them to approve this."

As the chair of the Dougherty County Commission, Cohilas pointed to his own knowledge of open records laws as an elected officials. He's also a former prosecutor who prosecuted public corruption cases.

"This isn't hard," he said. "One, you conduct your business in public. Two, the people's records get turned over to the people within three business days of a request being made."

He also chided the city for the expenses incurred by his plaintiffs in seeking the records pertaining to the Pinetree Boulevard project.

"This is just about reimbursing my clients for the money they had to spend to get simple open records," he said. "The fact they had to spend that much money is obscene and offensive. it's even more obscene and offensive that the City of Thomasville would continue to spend taxpayer dollars defending the wrongful actions of its elected officials in order to prevent this from coming out before an election. The effect of their actions will be to completely and utterly expose the corrupt manner in which they were doing business."

Cohilas also warned that by not approving the settlement, the city runs the risk of going to court — and then runs the risk of perhaps paying even more.

"The best thing they could have done to protect themselves was to approve the settlement," Cohilas said. "It would have prevented everything from playing out in the courtroom. Now everyone is going to see everything."

Flowers also acknowledged the possibility that the city could face paying even more if a court settlement goes against it.

"Unfortunately, there have been a lot of expenditures," Flowers said before calling for the vote, "and there are going to be a lot more going forward, if we don't accept the settlement. There is much more to be spent pursuing this settlement if we don't settle today.

"The right thing to do is to stop this, settle and move on."

"Either way it's settled," Mobley said, "it is still going to cost our citizens a big deal of money."