Ethics complaint adds to city issue

In a proposed development agreement posted online earlier this month, Trammell Crow Residential has agreed to “improve the Park Property (in) Avondale Estates by removing asphalt from approximately 2.5 acres (and) grading the area and planting grass ... ” The property is part of 4 acres off North Avondale Road the city has owned for several years.

This clause has now become the source of an ethics complaint filed against all five city commissioners.

Design plans call for roughly 2.5 acres of the site to become park space including, among others, terraced lawns, crosswalks and play areas. The area, now mostly cracked parking lots and abandoned buildings, is several blocks east of the proposed Trammell Crow development that would include 281 apartments.

That project has inspired a petition with 653 signees (as of last week) opposing the plan in its current form. Also last week, the city’s Architectural Review Board and Planning & Zoning Board declined to recommend the project.

Now comes the ethics complaint filed on Aug.9 by John Pomberg, a member of the Planning & Zoning Board. Pomberg doesn’t necessarily oppose the Trammell Crow development, but believes the agreement between city and developer to “improve the Park Property” violates Georgia’s Open Meeting Law.

The complaint declares the agreement was made, “in a forum not open to public attendance or by other means of formal or informal communication not open to public attendance or available for review by the public.”

The complaint says the approximate cost for these improvements is $175,000, but neither the complaint nor the development agreement specify what the city will give Trammel Crow in return.

In recent days, Avondale Mayor Jonathan Elmore has refused giving comment to the AJC on anything regarding Trammell Crow.

Ethics complaints in Avondale Estates are rare — this is only the third that’s known in the city’s 94-year history. The last one heard in March 2015 asked for, among others, a voiding of December 2014’s, annexation of Stratford Green into the city. Ultimately that complaint was dismissed during a hearing where the complainant didn’t even show up.

Unlike the 2015 complainant, Pomberg is well-known citywide and one of Avondale’s most active citizens. Besides serving on Planning & Zoning, he rarely misses attending a city commission meeting or work session, of which there are many. Now 73, he’s run for both mayor and city commission (losing both) since moving to the city in 2012. He was a commissioned naval officer for 21½ years and a prison safety officer at two different prisons for 15 years.

Pomberg would not comment specifically on his complaint.

“I’ll let it run its course,” he said. “I believe the mayor and commissioners made a decision without going public and I’m not saying anything further.”

The city’s seldom-used ethics board next meets on Monday.

Controversy surrounds these 4 acres of land owned by the city.