Brookhaven’s city attorney resigned Tuesday, a day after news reports that the city withheld information in the release of city records involving former Mayor J. Max Davis.
New Mayor Rebecca Chase Williams announced City Attorney Tom Kurrie’s resignation at the end of the City Council’s meeting Tuesday night.
After the meeting, she said Kurrie offered his resignation, which takes effect Friday.
“It was clear the majority of council was quite unhappy and dismayed at his handling of recent open records cases,” the mayor said.
Kurrie declined to comment on his resignation.
The council also unanimously adopted a resolution promising to comply fully with future legal requests for city documents. “It may seem like it’s restating the obvious,” Williams said. “Sometimes it’s not so obvious where we stand.”
The resolution calls for the city to do more than is required by the state open records law, Councilwoman Linley Jones said.
“It is a written commitment by the city to produce everything possible,” Jones said.
The resolution said that when city officials redact information from documents, they must provide copies of the original documents with the information marked through, rather than rewriting the documents to eliminate the information. The resolution also said city officials would provide a list of any documents withheld from release, with a legal reason they were withheld.
“When you make a request of the city of Brookhaven … you will know whether you got everything,” Jones said. “It puts us right at the forefront of transparent government.”
Kurrie’s resignation followed the release of documents under the state Open Records Act related to an allegation against Davis by a city employee.
On May 13, a city spokeswoman confirmed a sexual harassment complaint had been made regarding the incident and was being investigated.
That same day, Davis apologized publicly to two employees who were present during the incident and said “the action was innocent and was not intended to bring discomfort.”
Also that day, Kurrie released a statement denying an investigation of sexual harassment was being conducted and said there was no claim of sexual harassment against the mayor.
On June 15, ajc.com and The Brookhaven Post published newly released city memoranda from Davis and City Manager Marie Garrett that revealed more information about the incident, including an statement by Garrett that “I believe that the mayor took a liberty and crossed the line doing something I consider to be sexual harassment.”
You left out two very important facts.
1. Back in May Mayor Davis also denied that a Sexual Harassment charge had been made. Apparently now he claims he didn’t know one had been made by the one of the witnesses.
2. We are not at the forefront and Linley Jones has caused two important amendments to be delayed that would involve release of notes from the executive sessions that have been used far too much.
Right now this resolution is too little too late. The blame does not end with the City Attorney. Councilman Park back in May sent an email internally objecting to the email redactions, why didn’t the other council people join in? Instead Ms. Williams says she doesn’t remember what was in the email she was shown? REALLY?