The Chatham County Commission chairman, Chester Ellis, intensified the commission’s push this week to undo a new state law revamping the board of directors of the area’s transit authority.

But a proposed measure to do just that was removed from the agenda of the commission’s regularly scheduled meeting minutes before it convened Friday morning, following objections from lawyers representing Chatham Area Transit (CAT) and its board of directors. They said the planned legislation violated a temporary restraining order issued by a Superior Court judge last week.

During the meeting, Ellis did not explain why the proposed legislation was pulled from the agenda. Nor did he indicate whether it would be taken up at a future session. Will Peebles, a county spokesman, did not reply to a later request for comment.

But the chairman’s determination to press ahead with efforts to annul state law and reverse the recent overhaul of CAT’s board of directors in the face of a court order was the latest volley in what has become a rancorous, expensive and multifront legal battle that shows few signs of subsiding.

‘Retributive campaign’

The new law, House Bill 756, was approved by the General Assembly almost unanimously during its latest session and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in May.

Under the legislation, CAT’s longstanding nine-member board was dissolved June 30 and replaced the following day by an expanded board with wider representation and reduced powers of appointment for the county commission.

The bipartisan group of local state lawmakers who supported the bill say it was necessary because the sitting board’s history of dysfunction and scandal made it ill-suited to address the transit challenges facing the rapidly growing region.

But however laudable that aim may be, the battle over it has taken on outsized proportions, especially given that it involves an agency with a workforce of some 300 people and $30 million operating budget that traditionally has operated largely in the more remote, less scrutinized corners of local government.

Ellis, the county commission’s chairman, has undertaken a wide-ranging effort to reverse it, saying the law mandating it is a breach of the county’s prerogatives under the state’s constitution, as well as a power grab by local Republicans, the local business community, or both. 

A majority of the panel’s eight other members have supported Ellis’ moves to annul the law, with only Anthony Wayne Noha (District 1) and Pat Farrell (District 4) voting against them. 

CAT’s current board describes the effort to reverse the overhaul of CAT in harsh terms. In court papers filed earlier this month, it accused Ellis and the commission of carrying out a “retributive campaign” aimed at regaining control of CAT’s board.

The alleged campaign, the current board’s lawyers wrote, includes actions that “will result in fewer routes, sparser schedules, deferred maintenance for rolling stock and facilities, and, ultimately, deprivation of transit services for riders in the Chatham Area.”

This campaign of retribution, they add, demonstrates “patent disregard” for its impact on Chatham County residents and riders.

‘Full extent of available remedies’

The amendment to HB 756 that Ellis hoped to vote upon Friday was virtually identical to one approved by the commission in August and which is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by CAT’s new board of directors. It annuls the new state law and claims a legal basis for dissolving the new CAT board and reinstating the former one.

On Sept. 12, at the request of CAT’s attorneys, Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley issued a temporary restraining order barring the commission from any move, such as creating a parallel CAT board or expelling the sitting one, pending a court hearing next month.

That blunt intervention by the court apparently did not, however, deter Ellis and the county’s attorneys from preparing Friday’s bid to advance another piece of legislation to nullify the new law.

It was not immediately clear whether Ellis, county attorney R. Jonathan Hart, and assistant county attorney Andre Pretorius did not see, or chose to ignore, Walmsley’s temporary restraining order, which was copied to them by the court.

David Dove, an Atlanta-based attorney who is representing CAT and its board of directors in the dispute, warned Thursday in a letter to Hart that “any action by the Commission to amend HB 756 is barred” under the court’s temporary restraining order.

“Please be aware that the Authority will seek the full extent of available remedies should the Commission violate the temporary restraining order and act as planned,” Dove warned in the letter which was also addressed to Ellis and Pretorius.

In the end, commission’s chairman and the county’s attorneys apparently heeded Dove’s warning.

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Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.