From the Elbert County News:  By Robert Rowland Elbert County Commissioner

As a general rule County Commissioners and staff don’t like to share our “dirty laundry” in public, we prefer to settle our differences in a professional and quiet way, not behind closed doors but out in the open where most issues are and can be quickly resolved with a little common sense and by communicating with each other.

But sometimes, someone throws down the gauntlet and leaves no choice but to set the record straight. This is one of those times, and because of a series of actions taken to go outside the normal boundaries for conflict resolution, and because local news stories have been published that I believe include intentional lies designed to disrupt, discredit and harm our local government functions and its employees, I feel I must attempt to give my side of the incident which I personally know to be true.

A small group of local liberal activist (my own term) have been badgering (again my own term) the county and our staff for weeks about the issue of posting meetings. That’s fine, we are always open to suggestions for improvement, but the fact is they have increasingly demanded we expand the procedures beyond the legal requirements, to a point that would interfere with common sense and our ability to manage the affairs of the county and the day to day operation. We are now, and have been meeting all statutory requirements and more. This boiled over on January 5, 2015, when in what has been a regularly scheduled, properly posted Monday 9:00 a.m. administrative staff meeting held almost every Monday since April 13, took an unexpected turn.

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