By: MB McCart, Ed.
Last fall an official complaint was lodged w/ the GA Secretary of State's office about Newton Sheriff Ezell Brown in that it was alleged that we was campaigning w/in 150 ft of the polling location at the Newton Co. Admin building during early voting.
At the time Brown denied any wrongdoing; however, the state board tasked w/ investigating felt like they were not able to dismiss it so it has now been passed along to the Georgia Attorney General's office.
Another day, another Newton pol under investigation.
Brown now joins his former employee & current Covington councilman - Anthony Henderson - in that camp as Henderson purportedly committed voter fraud back in 2017. From the information gleaned by this publication, it looks like Anthony might be in a bit of trouble as supposedly several have stated that he helped them illegally register to vote as electors for the City of Covington though they did not reside w/in the municipal limits.
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| Anthony Henderson (from the City of Covington's website) |
Interestingly enough, Henderson just qualified to run for reelection in the upcoming fall election so apparently I guess he isn't too worried about it though he did resign his position previously w/ the Newton Co. Sheriff's department.
Never a dull moment in the home county, folks. Lindsey Banes v Sanders
The Team Blue feud continues to fester & intensify. As this writer was made aware several days ago & that the Covington News just reported on, Chairman of the Board Marcello Banes sent a cease & desist letter to Sanders for her alleged conflicts of interest & purported ethics violations w/ regards to her blurring the lines between her role as BOC 3 Commissioner & that of her personal occupations. Sanders is now claiming to be bullied & harassed and has claimed her innocence.
At this point, I'm not so sure about the specific allegations here but it does seem problematic; however, this, to me, would seem to be the least of Sanders' worries & she is apparently developing a major reputation for being difficult, having anger issues & perhaps even being somewhat mentally unbalanced according to some...
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| BOC 3 Rep Alana Sanders |
As one Dem put it - "it's hard to work with crazy."
And the World Turns...
#C-TownRepresentin'
As was recently mentioned to me, apparently at least one person thinks I haven't been forthright w/ my reporting on the City of Covington's budget. And this wasn't related to the one article (that I've since run a retraction on) where I accidentally referred to FY-2022 budget being 14% higher instead of the correct 11%, but rather the fact that I didn't give credit that Covington went w/ a roll-back millage rate.
Okay, so, there is a difference between the budget & the millage. The budget is the budget. The millage rate is the tax rate that is levied on property based on value & serves as ONE of the revenue streams for the city. I NEVER said Covington was raising the millage rate. Regardless, they ARE spending $14 million more than they did last year. That's straight from the budget they passed.
Some of this has to do w/ costs of goods sold in re electricity & other utilities. An approx 2% increase on this past year on utility bills will be accompanied by another one here in a couple of months so Covington residents are going to be paying a lot more money to the city one way or the other.
And speaking of C-Town, apparently the Gazebo Lady, Carla Ferry, has qualified to run against Susie Keck in her bid for reelection. Thought by some as a political protege of Fleeta Smith, it's looking to some as if Fleeta is trying to consolidate her power on the council & to also possibly have someone who is a full-time resident - unlike herself - "to keep an eye on things."
Very interesting...
- MBM
