Politics & Government

Councilwoman Adrian Bonser Files Ethics Complaints

She said her evidence was withheld in a recent ethics hearing of a complaint lodged against her.

At Monday's Dunwoody City Council meeting, District 2 Councilwoman Adrian Bonser announced her intention to file ethics complaints against one of the city's attorneys, Larry Felgin, and against the city ethics Hearing Officer Jennifer Keaton.

Bonser claims that her evidence was not presented until immediately before a late May city Ethics Board hearing of District 2 resident Stephen Chipka's ethics complaint that Bosner allegedly violated three city ethics policies. She said Chipka's documents and evidence were presented to Ethics Board members in mid-April.

"My evidence has been withheld...This is wholly illegal," she told Dunwoody Patch before the City Council meeting.

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During the period of Monday's City Council meeting reserved for comments from the mayor and city council members, Bonser rattled off a list of questions she had for Felgin and Keaton, both of whom did not respond to Bonser.

One of the questions Bonser asked was, "In your legal opinion, is it fair to post the plaintiff's complaint in evidence on the city's website and not to post the defendant's response?"

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"The reason I asked you guys to do this apart is because I've been getting one answer from one, and one from the other and one tends to spin more than the other, and my head's spinning right now," Bonser said during the council meeting. "I want to make sure that when I file an ethics charge against the city for withholding my evidence from the Board of Ethics, that I charge the right person...And I want to make sure that the city's practices are fair to everybody involved."

Chipka claimed in his ethics complaint that Bonser was: "failing to investigate allegations of corruption and cover-ups within the city’s police department, abandonment of her obligations to serve her district constituents while pursuing other personal interests and accepting compensation from the city, and threatening and abusive behavior toward a member of the public while in the course of her duties," according to a report from Neighbor Newspaper.

He claimed that Bonser, his council representative, did not investigate the police when he suspected the department of corruption when it came to his case following a February 2011 car accident in which he was charged with aggressive driving.

After several back and forth emails for more than a year, Bonser told Chipka via email, "…I will not read or respond to another email from you even if your house is on fire. You have lost that privilege.”

Chipka claims that Bonser's email response to him was abusive. When asked if that is how she would characterize the email, Bonser responded, "Not at all."

"First thing, I have contested the hearing because number one, the charge he was making was well beyond the statute of limitation," Bonser told Dunwoody Patch before Monday's city council meeting.

During an interview with Dunwoody Patch and during the council meeting, Bonser quoted the city's code, which states that the City "is required to provide a fair and impartial process by which alleged violations of this article may be heard."

"If they don't get my evidence, that is impossible," she said.


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