Thanks to DeKalb voters heeding our recommendations, we were successful in defeating the referendum that would have weakened DeKalb County government ethics. 

However, our work is far from done.  We still need to get the Ethics Board back in operation.  We’re not sure how the legislators will approach this issue. 

Our points are these:

1. Time is of the essence.
2. Legislators should focus on the simple fix: just fix the board appointment process.
3. We expect there to be a transparent process to produce the proper legislation.
4. DCAC must be included in the process.

On November 12, 2019 we sent a letter to the chairs of the DeKalb house and senate delegations, the DeKalb Board of Commissioners and the CEO.  In that letter we included the following points:

1. We expect legislators to stay focused on the immediate issue at hand: revising the board appointment process.
2. We expect a simple fix that would correct the Ethics board appointment process.  Going beyond this fix is what gets ethics legislation in trouble.
3. Additional issues can be dealt with by a DeKalb County charter review or by separate legislation.
4. The appointment process must be dealt with NOW.  If a referendum is required, then we must have legislation passed early in the session so that it can be placed on the ballot of March 2020.
5. As DeKalb CEO Thurmond stated in his press release, “The current state of affairs is unacceptable….”
6. We ask that they include a representative from DCAC on any task force assembled to address ethics legislation.
7. We hope that we can convey to County residents that the process was transparent and that we are in support of the resulting legislation.