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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 Rubio has also rescinded her resignation and will remain a county appraiser.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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