The DeKalb Citizens Advocacy Council is calling on DeKalb County’s legislative delegation to adopt simple legislation to address only the appointment process in order to get the county’s ethics board back to a quorum.  The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that all members of the ethics board must be appointed by elected officials. That is the only item regarding DeKalb’s ethics board that the court addressed.

According to Mary Hinkel, Chair of DeKalb Citizens, the organization that successfully worked to defeat the November 5 ballot referendum, “The best fix is a simple fix.  What gets legislation in trouble with voters is when issues that would best be taken up by the Charter Review Commission find their way into a bill.”

DeKalb Citizens is calling on the delegation for transparency in their efforts to develop a bill, given the well-documented lack of transparency that resulted in the previous legislation. In a letter to the delegation, the county CEO, and the county commissioners, DeKalb Citizens offered to work with the delegation in creating a straightforward bill to address the appointment process alone.

DeKalb Citizens cautions that time is of the essence in developing, introducing, and passing a simple bill to assign the four positions on the ethics board that were previously appointed by community groups to elected officials not under the purview of the board of ethics.

DeKalb Citizens worked for three months to educate voters on the significant shortfalls contained in the previous bill.  Despite wording that favored a yes vote, a majority of voters (61 percent) rejected the revisions in the November 5 election.