NEWS

Resignations tied to mayor's car, 'karma'

Susan McCord
smccord@augustachronicle.com
Interim counsel Andrew MacKenzie during the year's first Commission meeting, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2009, in Augusta, Ga.  RAINIER EHRHARDT/STAFF

The sudden departures Tuesday of two top Augusta staff – Administrator Janice Allen Jackson and General Counsel Andrew MacKenzie – prompted responses both of “karma” and to “move on” in the days that followed.

The pair resigned Tuesday after the Augusta Commission spent over two hours behind closed doors negotiating severance packages with each. Both will receive a year’s salary and benefits – that’s more than $191,000 for Jackson and $152,000 for MacKenzie, and they’ll keep their insurance for the year.

Few were surprised to see MacKenzie go – the 10-member commission has a tradition of battling with the attorney when his legal opinions pleased some but not others on the panel.

“Andrew has been taking heat ever since I was down there right steadily,” former Commissioner Jerry Brigham said. “He was a lawyer – I didn’t always try to agree with him, but I didn’t try to practice law either.”

A former commissioner who frequently clashed with city attorneys, Moses Todd, said MacKenzie’s legal advice played favorites.

“Andrew gave political legal advice more so than he gave bad legal advice,” Todd said.

Several called a final piece of advice MacKenzie gave the commission the last straw for the general counsel of nine years.

MacKenzie’s ruling regarding Mayor Hardie Davis’ new city vehicle, a Chevrolet Tahoe, infuriated a handful of commissioners and prompted one, Ben Hasan, to call two weeks earlier for his job.

MacKenzie did not object when the commission voted to let Davis drive a city car not marked with the city logo although state law requires a hearing to do so unless it’s a law enforcement vehicle.

“Rather than come out and say what is according to policy, he was trying to satisfy the mayor,” said former Commissioner Bill Lockett, who was present Tuesday. “I think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The Tuesday vote followed a tradition of threatening MacKenzie’s job that Lockett and others began as early as 2011.

Lockett called for a vote of no confidence in the attorney that year, and in 2013 during heated discussions and litigation over a government reorganization and city personnel manual revisions. Lockett and others claimed the moves were changing the form of government and giving the administrator too much power.

“I asked for his dismissal because I was so infuriated with him," Lockett said. "He was coming up with rulings that didn’t make sense to anybody.”

Former Commissioner Matt Aitken was on the commission during that time and said he was not surprised MacKenzie finally met his end.

“Over the years, it wears on you and it runs out,” Aitken said.

The commission's dissatisfaction with Jackson was less clear. Former and current commissioners told The Chronicle last week it was clear votes were traded – between those who wanted Jackson out, and those who wanted MacKenzie out – so both went out at the same time. Former Commissioner Corey Johnson said Jackson left department heads to fend for themselves on projects and during heated commission questioning.

Aitken said he's observed issues in large city deals in which Jackson was involved, such as the massive riverfront depot project. In the works several years, ground has not yet been broken on the city-funded project being led by the Downtown Development Authority.

The city has overlapping parking commitments at the site and recently built a parking lot there for a nearby firm that will likely be demolished once the depot project moves forward. The deal almost fell apart last year when Jackson presented new terms.

“Sometimes in these kinds of deals you’ve got to pay attention to the fine print and you’ve got to live up to it,” Aitken said.

Lacking several other department leaders, the government is now “headless” and neither interim chosen to replace Jackson and MacKenzie is ideal, said former Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle, who left office last year.

While both Jackson and MacKenzie agreed to serve as consultants if asked, the commission appointed Deputy Administrator Jarvis Sims interim administrator and Deputy General Counsel Wayne Brown interim attorney until replacements are hired.

“We’re three department heads short. You put in a deputy administrator that doesn’t even know our government, that’s been here less than a year, and you’ve got an attorney there that probably doesn’t want it,” Guilfoyle said.

Commissioner Dennis Williams said he was one of approximately four commissioners to be unaware and opposed when the commission went behind closed doors Tuesday to negotiate the resignations.

The severance packages – double the six months’ pay afforded top senior staff under city personnel policy – are likely warranted, Williams said.

“If they were mistreated, you want to do something for the mistreatment,” he said.

A fire union leader who clashed with Jackson and MacKenzie said the resignations are a reminder of what goes around, comes around.

“You just have to be mindful of the way you treat people as you climb the ladder of leadership. It affects people’s lives and it will come back on you,” said Charles Masters, president of Augusta Firefighters Association.

Commissioner Marion Williams, whose Tuesday agenda item to fire MacKenzie prompted the closed-door session, said he disagrees with the severance payouts and hopes to revisit them.

“If the contract says six months, it ought to be six months,” Williams said.

The commission ought to take care in hiring a new administrator, he said. The process calls for Davis to select finalists for administrator from a pool of applicants. In 2014 the commission went against Mayor Deke Copenhaver’s top pick for administrator, Oscar Rodriguez, to hire Jackson.

“If he (Davis) is the one who makes the decision, who are they going to be loyal to?” Williams said.

Tax Commissioner Steven Kendrick, who also chairs the Augusta Economic Development Authority, encouraged the commission to move forward quickly to not detract from the region’s growth.

"We’ve got to stick together and move‘on – there’s a lot of things happening and we can’t let this be a distraction,” Kendrick said.

“The city of Augusta is on an upward trajectory and I just think the commission is now going to buckle down and find us new staff leadership," he said. "We’ve got a (sales tax referendum) that’s coming up, we’ve got a budget that’s coming up soon and we’ve got litigation on the horizon.”

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Interims differ in experience with city government

Interim Augusta Administrator Jarvis Sims and interim General Counsel Wayne Brown bring different amounts of experience with the city government as temporary replacements for administrator Janice Allen Jackson and general counsel Andrew MacKenzie, both of whom resigned Tuesday.

According to his city biography, Sims has an undergraduate degree in criminal justice from Georgia State University and a Masters of Business Administration in International Business from Mercer University, during which he participated in study abroad programs in Beijing and Shanghai.

Sims is one of two deputy administrators Jackson hired last year to replace Ted Rhinehart, who resigned, and Chester Brazzell, who died.

A member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, Sims previously served as a crime analyst and manager of capital improvement projects for the city of East Point, Ga., population 35,282.

Brown joined the city law department in 2008, advancing to become deputy general counsel in 2015. He has frequently handled city real estate and property legal work.

According to Georgia Bar Association records, Brown attended the University of Georgia and was admitted to the Georgia Bar in 1980.