Newspaper Page Text
THE MADISON COUNTY (GA) JOURNAL. THURSDAY. APRIL 2, 2009 — PAGE 3A
Assessors .cont’dfrom 1A
that’s what they (the commis
sioners) want to do, then that’s
fine. They have that right... They
need to do what they think they
have to do and we need to do
what we think we need to do.”
The BOC’s vote Monday fol
lowed Dove’s recent resignation
request to each member of the
assessor board.
“I did not want to do that,” said
Dove of seeking the resignations.
“I did not want to get involved
in this. I was simply forced into
a position where I had no other
choice but to run this county the
best way I thought. I like each
one of these people individually,
but what it comes down to is
when you’re hired to do a job, if
you don’t do that job in a week,
most of the time you’re let go.
Certainly if you do not do that
job in years. At what point do we
have to take some serious action
to get this fixed?”
Dove said the digests are
perennially late, that the board of
assessors presented just one rec
ommendation for chief appraiser
in four months and that the asses
sor board is constantly in turmoil.
The chairman noted that the
troubles have led to considerable
confusion for citizens, who don’t
always know which year’s taxes
are due, as a result of the delays.
“This is very simple,” said
Dove. “Where or what can the
BOA say where they have done
their job?”
Several weeks ago, the BOA
recommended that interim chief
appraiser Stacey Rubio serve as
the head of county assessments.
But the BOC turned down that
proposal, 4-1. Rubio subsequent
ly resigned. Dove said Rubio’s
resignation would have left the
appraisal office without a quali
fied “appraiser HI,” a situation
in which the office would effec
tively have to shut down.
“I have been elected to run
the day-to-day operations of
Madison County and I saw that
one office was going to be effec
tively shut down,” said Dove.
“So I had to make some quick
decisions.”
The BOC subsequently moved
to take the search for a new
chief appraiser away from the
assessor board. Dove took over
the hunt and has recommended
that Robin Baker, an appraiser
IV with experience in Banks
and Fulton counties, serve as
the county’s new chief appraiser.
County commissioners will soon
consider that recommendation,
though no date for that meeting
has been set.
Rubio has also rescinded her
resignation and will remain a
county appraiser.
Dove said the assessor board
has not provided an honest assess
ment of the progress toward a
county digest.
“After getting involved in this,
I interviewed several staff mem
bers and determined that there
were significant signs of being
behind in that office,” said Dove.
“There’s a lot of work still to be
done and we were told that that
office was not behind, that it was
on time.”
Commissioner John Pethel
said the assessor chairman has
not been realistic about the state
of the digest.
“Chairman Ragland has said
at two public meetings that
the digest would be on time,”
said Pethel. “And we’re further
behind now than we have been
in the last three years. I don’t
know how they intend to get
the digest out if we don’t have a
chief appraiser.
Commissioner Stanley Thomas
indicated that the BOA did not
show due diligence in filling the
chief appraiser’s position.
“The main purpose of the
board of assessors is to get the
digest out and on time,” he said.
Thomas said quarreling has
overshadowed more meaningful
matters.
“The distraction and dissension
over the past couple of months
has been a priority over getting
the digest out,” he said.
Thomas said he was troubled
that assessor chairman Ragland
has not attended recent meetings
regarding the chief appraiser and
the board of assessors.
“One thing that really concerns
me is that at several meetings
we’ve discussed issues involv
ing the assessors and the chair
man of the board of assessors
has not attended the meetings
to deal with issues that need to
be resolved,” said Thomas of
Ragland, who was not in atten
dance Monday. BOA members
Jim Escoe and Larry Stewart did
attend the meeting.
Ragland said Tuesday that no
one informed him that he would
be needed at Monday’s meeting.
“Let’s just say, I don’t operate
off of rumors and innuendo,” said
Ragland. “If my presence was
needed requested or required, the
chairman of the BOC and all the
members of the BOC have my
cell phone and home phone and
email.”
Ragland said the BOC’s action
to terminate the assessors was
“wrong.”
“It’s in direct conflict with
Department of Revenue guide
lines and law,” said Ragland.
“What they’re doing is attempt
ing to run the tax assessors’
office without the input from
the board of assessors. And the
board of assessors is mandated
by the Department of Revenue.
And when they decided to do
this, that flies directly in the face
of everything the Department of
Revenue stands for.”
BOA member Escoe, who
several months ago called for
the ouster of some of his fellow
members, said the BOC “did
what they felt they had to do.”
Escoe said he tried to speak to the
board of commissioners about
assessment troubles, but was not
afforded the opportunity.
“I think we could have worked
the issues out without going to
this extreme,” said Escoe. “When
you don’t want to participate in a
conversation and you just want
to go to the extreme, this is what
you get.”
Escoe said he’s not going to
quit going to meetings even if he
is kicked off the board.
“I’m not giving up yet,” said
Escoe. “If it winds up the judge
says I’m gone, then I’m gone. But
I’m not going very far, because
we have problems in this county
and vindictive people are trying
to run the county. You can’t run a
county with vendettas. It’s got to
be run as a business.”
Stewart said Tuesday that he
didn’t have much to say on the
matter now.
“I don’t intend to resign,” he
said. “That’s all I can say.”
But Ragland was ready to talk
Tuesday, requesting a sit-down
interview after being contacted
for a comment by The Journal.
The BOA chairman said the
commissioners are way out of
line.
“If they (the BOC) had not
meddled and involved them
selves in the business of the board
of assessors and the assessors
office, this digest would be on
time,” said Ragland. “And here’s
this, we have to be certified by
the Department of Revenue to
do what we do. Why can they
come in and immediately take
over our duties and assume they
can do what we do and they’re
not qualified, not certified? We
don’t try to take over the board
of commissioners’ duties. Think
about that for a moment.”
Ragland said the BOC con
stantly changed the playing field
on the assessors, regarding the
chief appraiser’s search. He said
the BOC cut the budget for the
chief appraiser’s position from
$65,000 to $55,000 and didn’t
inform the BOA of the reduction.
The BOC recently increased the
budget line item to $75,000.
“I felt like they constantly
changed the criterium that they
demanded for the chief apprais
er,” said Ragland. “The tax asses
sors’ office of Madison County
is the only department head’s job
that took a cut out of the entire
county. Is that fair? They knew
the situation and either retaining
or obtaining a chief appraiser. It’s
a very, very, very important job
in Madison County. It’s where
your budgetary process begins.”
Ragland said the BOC has
acted irresponsibly and is now
turning its attention to the BOA,
when commissioners should
look at themselves.
“They have fired chief apprais
ers for a $4 indiscretion on a
credit card, a mistake, which was
admitted to,” said Ragland. “Yet,
this same board of commission
ers allowed an alleged $86,000
to be stolen from the county’s
money and go out the door. Tell
me this, how is that manage
ment? If the board of assessors
are so derelict in our duties, how
about the board of commission
ers?”
He also said the county com
missioners are unnecessar
ily spending money on a lawsuit
over Sam Bruce Road.
“We’re in basically an eco
nomic depression,” said the
BOA chairman. “Why should
the county continue to spend tens
or even hundreds of thousands of
dollars of the taxpayers’ money
on issues like this?”
Ragland said the assessor board
hasn’t determined yet how it will
be represented in the expected
legal battle with the commission
ers. Will there be one attorney for
the BOA or will each assessor
have a lawyer?
“That question hasn’t been
answered yet,” said Ragland.
“It’s still fluid.”
He said he felt the BOA and
BOC should have been able to
meet and work out their prob
lems.
“People with differences of
opinion, you know what they
do?” said Ragland. “They work
it out. They communicate. They
teach it every day at the Carl
Vinson Institute at the University
of Georgia.”
The BOA is scheduled to meet
again Thursday at 6 p.m. in the
county government complex.
Ragland said the meeting will go
on as planned.
City of Colbert
INVITATION TO BID
The City of Colbert is accepting bids for grass-
cutting and edging of all street right of ways and all
cemetery lots in the City of Colbert.
Sealed bids must be in by April 4, 2009.
Bid forms are available at the City Hall from 8:00
A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Monday through Friday. All bidders
must have liability insurance.
Harmony .cont’dfrom 1A
fully decorated playroom, jam
packed with toys and books.
Something the kids find as a wel
come distraction, Bartlett said.
“We want them to feel that we
didn’t help take everything away
from them, but instead gave them
something back,” Bartlett said. “We
want them to feel more like survi
vors than victims.”
Bartlett, a Madison County resi
dent, also serves as a volunteer on
the non-profit board for the facility,
which is made up of representatives
from the five-county area it serves.
Before Harmony House existed,
forensics exams and interviews
were conducted in the emergency
rooms of the hospitals in Hart and
Franklin counties.
“There wasn’t a lot of privacy
there, and it was much more stress
ful,” she said.
Executive director Laurie
Whitworth, who is the center's
only full-time employee, says that
Harmony House operates under a
“child first” doctrine.
“Which means the child and his
or her welfare comes before all else,”
she said.
Whitworth oversees all the cases
handled through Harmony House,
as well as all programs and volun
teers. She also does 75 percent of the
forensics interviews with the chil
dren. Interviews are done in a small
comfortable room and discreetly vid
eotaped for use as evidence if the case
goes to court.
And, unfortunately, the need for
Harmony House and places like it
appears to be on the rise.
For example, the center saw
14 suspected sexual assault
cases from Madison County in
March, all involving children.
Whitworth says that number is a
substantial increase - but she says
there has been a substantial increase
overall in the number of cases they're
seeing at the center each month.
What’s the cause?
There's no one thing to point to,
she says, though the economy is defi
nitely a factor, because of the deci
sions parents are having to make.
“It’s because of what I call ’shifting
families’ - families moving in with
other family members or friends, jobs
changing or they’re out looking for
work and maybe leaving children in
places they've not left them before,”
she said. She is also aware that the
bad economy brings on increased
alcohol and drug abuse, which in turn
impairs judgment.
CHILD MOLESTATION
DEFINED
The definition of child molesta
tion in Georgia includes three basic
areas, according to material from
Harmony House:
1. When a person, adult or child,
forces, coerces or threatens a child to
have any form of sexual activity at his
or her direction. (Remember, while a
child might be forced to cooperate,
he or she is by legal definition not
capable of giving consent.)
2. Involving children in inappropri
ate touching (clothes or unclothed),
penetration using any object, forcing
sexual activity between children, or
asking the child to view or read or
participate in the production of porno
graphic materials.
3. A person commits the offense
of child molestation when he or she
does any immoral or indecent act to
or in the presence of or with any child
“And child abuse really does
cross all social and economic lines”
Whitworth said.
Bartlett agrees. “We sit next to
them (perpetrators) in church, talk to
them across our carts in the grocery
store - they are the wealthy as well
as the poor in our communities - the
elderly as well as the young,” she
said. “And they’re crossing a line.”
Parents sometimes aren’t thinking
things through and she feels that’s a
part of Harmony House’s mission too
- to help educate parents by giving
them good information so they can
make the best and wisest decisions
for their children.
Sometimes, investigators and
advocates invariably find themselves
in the middle of divorce and custody
battles. In those cases, they feel con
fident that an allegation of abuse can
be verified, or discredited.
“The best times for me are when
I find out nothing’s happened to a
child,” Whitworth said. “It’s wonder
ful to find out that that child is OK.”
And the worst times are when a
victim reminds her of her own young
daughter. “That's hard, and it happens
a lot,” she said.
Whitworth is a long-time advo
cate for children and other victims of
domestic violence.
She and her family had just moved
to Georgia when she got involved in
Harmony House and knew it was
having a hard time getting off the
ground. She agreed to come on board
as a consultant for six months, which
turned into six more months, and then
with the intent to arouse or satisfy the
sexual desires of either the child or
the person.
(Even when the offenders insist
they were gentle and did not phys
ically hurt a child, these acts are
molestation.)
SIGNS SOMETIMES
SHOWN BY CHLDREN WHO
HAVE BEEN ABUSED
•Physical indicators: sleeping dis
orders or nightmares, constipation,
bed-wetting, change in appetite, self-
mutilation, difficulty walking or sitting,
pain or itching in genital area, bloody
underclothing and eating disorders.
Behavior indicators: sexually
inappropriate or advanced behav
ior or play, a change in school per
formance, withdrawal from other,
excessive masturbation, clinging to
parents, lying, avoidance of school
friends, aggressiveness and rebel
liousness.
six more, until she eventually took
the full-time position. As the execu
tive director, she handles the facility,
all program services and directs the
efforts of the volunteers.
Whitworth admits that the Center
is under-staffed and hopes to be
able to obtain funding for two more
employees in the near future.
A CHILD-FOCUSED
APPROACH
Harmony House services are
supported by law enforcement, the
district attorney and the Department
of Family and Children’s Services
(DFACS), all part of the Northern
Judicial Circuit’s sexual assault team.
Harmony House is a non-profit orga
nization operating under a volunteer
board of directors.
The goal of Harmony House, as
stated in their brochure, is “to ensure
that children are not further victim
ized by the very system designed to
protect them.”
The center is supported through
supplements from the county, grants
and fundraisers.
They provide crisis intervention,
videotaped interviews, emotional
support and counseling referrals,
forensic interviews and medical
exams, interdisciplinary review by a
team of professionals and case man
agement.
CENTER WISH LIST
The center needs volunteers, dona
tions of money, office supplies, cloth
ing for children, blank video tapes,
fleece blankets in bright colors and
healthy (non-perishable) snacks.
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Count Pown to Counoil...
"In The Pepot”
7 a.m. - 7 p.m.
April 2009
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