Just two weeks after signaling his willingness to give Demorest City Manager Kim Simonds a second chance, councilman Sean Moore Tuesday night called on the council to fire her. Moore made a motion to get rid of Simonds after Mayor Rick Austin presented the council with hundreds of emails that were obtained through a citizen’s open records request. The emails, which Now Habersham has reviewed, offer a detailed account of how Simonds and Demorest City Councilmen Nathan Davis and John Hendrix worked together to try and get rid of the mayor and city attorney Joey Homans.
“This was quite some information that came through in these papers,” said Homans referring to the stack of electronic communications the city’s IT professional produced in response to a long-pending open records request.
In their email exchanges amongst themselves and with outside attorneys, Simonds, Davis, and Hendrix said they had “lost confidence” in Homans. They accused him of having a conflict of interest because he represented Austin in two personal legal matters. One was a zoning dispute with the city dating back several years. The other, more recently, involved a civil lawsuit filed against Austin by the boyfriend of the former city manager on a business matter unrelated to city government.
The emails show that on multiple occasions, Simonds, Hendrix, and Davis contacted outside attorneys, attempting to find someone to help guide them through the legal process of getting rid of Homans and the mayor. The emails span three months of 2020 – March, April, and May. Councilman Moore was included in some of the early exchanges but was not included in conversations leading up to and after Simonds’ controversial firing of Demorest Police Chief Robin Krockum on April 16. Krockum was later reinstated.
Simonds, Davis, and Hendrix consulted with attorneys trying to build their conflict of interest case against Homans. They also asked if they could legally discharge Homans on a 2-1 vote since the council is presently down a member. And Simonds asked if she could fire Homans.
Hiring outside attorneys
On April 15, the city manager signed a letter of engagement with attorney Lem Ward of Dentons law firm in Atlanta in the amount of $6,000. It was for the stated purpose of “Severing of Relationship with Attorney Homans.” Five days later, Simonds signed a retainer agreement in the amount of $9,500 with Clayton attorney Michael Cummings. During Tuesday night’s meeting, an incredulous Mayor Austin revealed that contract was for the purpose of investigating and/or removal of the mayor of the City Of Demorest and or the city attorney. “And you signed it,” he said staring straight at Simonds. “Yeah, I did,” she replied. “That’s an illegal contract,” Austin said resolutely.
The city charter gives contracting authority to the city council and mayor, not the city manager.
When Austin asked if the invoices had been paid, Simonds responded no. “The city won’t be charged for it,” she added. “There’s a benefactor that’s stepped forward to say that they would pay for it.” To that, the mayor replied incredulously “you’re telling me that a private individual is going to pay for the work that you contracted for the City of Demorest, inappropriately so because it wasn’t contracted through the council?” Simonds nodded “That’s what I’m saying.” She then went on to explain that the $9,500 retainer agreement with Cummings was not valid because “the attorney never signed it.” Simonds defended the contract with Ward saying “He read our charter and said that I could [hire him] because it was $6,000.”
“You can pay the invoice. It’s the contract that I’m concerned with,” said Homans. The Demorest city charter does give the city manager authority to approve purchases of budgeted items that are $10,000 or less. “It seems that it was clear that there was an effort to keep it under $10,000 because that is within the purchasing policy,” Homans said. Simonds nodded yes and said “Mm-hmm.”
Because the agreement with Ward did not move through proper channels, it’s unclear whether the city is legally bound to pay it. If it does, it would be another financial toll on the taxpayers who already have spent thousands of dollars to settle the legal dispute over Krockum’s firing.
The money is one concern; the other is the manner in which Simonds, Davis, and Hendrix went about spending it.
“Can you tell us, Ms. Simonds, why those contracts were signed without moving before council?” Austin asked. Simonds looked toward Davis and then into the phone where Hendrix was listening in on the meeting and asked “Does anybody want to help me with that?” Although both councilmen actively participated in the events leading up to that moment, neither spoke up in her defense.
Email trail of alleged illegal activity
In addition to the two illegal contracts, Austin read aloud a list of other alleged illegal activities he says Simonds, and in some instances, councilmen Hendrix and Davis, engaged in. He said they purposefully excluded him and councilman Moore from meetings to evade the open meetings act. Austin also said Simonds violated the open records act by failing to answer a citizen’s request within the legally required three-day time period.
It was that request, which was eventually fulfilled, that ended up producing the documents that led to Moore’s motion for Simonds to be fired. Hendrix and Davis refused to second the motion and it failed. Moore said their inaction was “a disgrace to the City of Demorest.” He wasn’t the only one in the room who saw it that way. Several members of the audience called on Simonds to step down. Former city council member Florence Wikle put Davis and Hendrix on notice.
“Mr. Mayor, I can assure you, sitting right here in this chair, there will be a recall for these two people that failed when we have seven, seven illegal counts against the manager,” Wikle said. “She has not been fired. She should resign. But I’m still going to tell you Nathan, and you John, you will be recalled. You have 180 days. We’ve got a committee lined up and it will go through. It’s going to be a lot of hard work but we’ll do it. Just because you would not second that.”
Austin then called for a motion for an inquiry and investigation into the issues surrounding the hiring of attorneys and the actions of the city manager. Moore made the motion. Again, Davis and Hendrix refused to second it and the motion failed.
“I just say anybody that doesn’t vote for that one, given what we know, is trying to have safe harbor,” Austin commented.
A member of the audience asked Davis, “Has she got something on you man?” Stephen Tench, who was also sitting in the audience called on Simonds to resign. When another audience member asked why, he said, “Why not? Because she’s got something against Rick Austin and she has caused the city all this trouble. So, it’s time for her to go.”
Davis refused to comment after the meeting. Simonds told Now Habersham “It’s sad. The whole event is sad.” Still, she said, she intends to stay on in the job.
