Kudos to Sheriff Williams for speaking truth to City Hall

Michael H. McLendon

Sheriff John Williams spoke truth to power at the 13 May ACC Commission FY26 budget review meeting! I encourage you to watch and listen to Sheriff Williams at 05-13-2025 Mayor & Commission Budget Work Session. His comments begin at the 8:40 minute mark on the video.

In tone and words, he brought the heat in a way that the mayor and commission seldom hear. He essentially called out the mayor and the commission publicly for their failure to fully fund the mission of the Sheriff’s Office and to timely address the many infrastructure issues at the Court House that have now led to a near crisissituation.

It is likely the timing of this meeting and his comments were lost on the mayor and commissioners. You see May 15th this year wasPeace Officers Memorial Day, and the week of 11-17 May was designated Police Officers Week. Unfortunately, City Hall did not recognize either event with any public statement.

Sheriff’s Office

Sheriff Williams directly addressed the failure and mismanagement of the Girtz administration to prioritize funding for his office. The Sheriff spoke in detail about the need to achieve 100% staffing and salary levels for Sheriff Office POST (Georgia Peace Officer Standards & Training) certified  personnel equal to that of POST certified personnel in the ACC PD. The bias at City Hall against the Sheriff’s Office was clearly evident when ACC excluded Sheriff Office personnel from the ACC Police Department compensation study. The Sheriff also described in explicit detail the impact of inadequate staffing on operations of his office and particularly in creating risks to safety and life at the jail.

The Sheriff also described the challenges in providing security at the aging courthouse and the impacts on operations of the courts. Superior Court Judge Patrick Haggard followed Sheriff Willaims in advocating for the budget needs of the superior court. In his testimony (41.06 minute mark in the video), Judge Haggard addressed the critical issues impacting the security and operations at the courthouse due to the inadequacy of the physical and technology limitations of the facility to meet current and future needs.

One of the critical issues impacting the operation of the courthouse is that there are no functional elevators in the courthouse! Why? Because City Hall failed to fund timely maintenance of the elevators even though they knew the situation. It was disheartening to hear and visualize the scene Judge Haggard described of someone using a walker trying to navigate the stairwell in the “Classic City Court House.”

The Courthouse

You may remember that ACC citizens voted for a new courthouse through a SPLOST referendum in 2020. As Sheriff Williams stated, City Hall’s excuse for not funding the facility maintenance, improvements, and security infrastructure needs at the courthouse was “why should we spend any money on the courthouse since we will have a new judicial center!”

So here we are in May 2025 with no new courthouse and City Hall has no practical and financially affordable plan to build a new courthouse in our lifetime! All the while City Hall has failed to prioritize funding for the Sheriff’s Office and the critical maintenance and improvements to the existing courthouse. But Girtz and the Commissioners fund nice to have, feel good projects and sustain the flow of $ to their favorite non-profit friends as a priority over core infrastructure needs.

We got to where we are because of the delusional thinking of the mayor. He thought the federal government would build a new Federal Building, give that building to ACC, and then ACC could move the courthouse into the Federal Building along with other offices.

The reality is that the Judicial Center Site Selection process managed by the Commission’s Government Operations Committee was and remains a failure. Eventually, on August 1, 2023, the Mayor & Commission voted to approve two Judicial Center Candidate Sites: 355 E Hancock Ave. (Federal Building) and 160, 230 E Strong St, 550 N Jackson St (Downtown ACCGov owned parking lots). Of course, the highest rated and preferred site of the mayor was the Federal Building!

Root Cause

The root cause for the current situation, where public safety has not been fully funded and there remains no solution to the courthouse issue, is the failed leadership and management of the Girtz administration enabled by the acquiescence of the commission. Some may say an underlying factor is the continuing anti-police bias on the part of some at City Hall who desire to appease certain of their supporters. As a result, there may be some angst about funding the Sheriff’s office because it is a core element of ACC’s public safety infrastructure.

It is clear from the mayor’s budget that his proposed priorities remain upside down regarding public safety. It is not just the Sheriff’s Office that is being given short shrift. After the avoidable death of Laken Riley, the mayor committed to accelerating the funding for the ACC PD Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) to make it appear he was doing something.

However, he clearly was not sincere in his commitment because his FY26 budget does not fund the four full time RTCC analysts and one supervisor positions needed to operate this critical capability.

Evidence demonstrated that Laken fought off her attacker for 18 minutes in the middle of the morning on a public trail before she was murdered without any law enforcement response.The circumstances of her death make it clear afully operational 24x7 ACC RTCC is essential to the timely identification of incidents, shorter response times that will save lives, and solving crimes in a timely manner. It is imperative the ACC RTCC be fully staffed as soon as possible.

Call to Action

First, I encourage you to call and give your thanks and support to Sheriff John Williams and ACC PD Chief Jerry Saunders and their staffs who perform a critical mission that is often taken for granted. Please attend the ACC PD and Sheriff’s Office Fallen Officers Wreath Laying Ceremony at 10:00 A.M. on Thursday 22 May at the ACC PD on 3035 Lexington Road.

Next, it is important you take the heat to your commissioner Commission Information & Biographies | Athens-Clarke County, GA - Official Website ASAP to demand they reprioritize the mayor’s FY26 budget to fully fund all public safety, court, and district attorney needs as well as core ACC infrastructure needs.

Finally, tell your commissioner to “get off their duff” and demonstrate urgency in executing the promise made in 2020 to plan and build a new judicial center! If ACC can find the time, energy, and $ to plan and approve the nice to have College Square Plaza in short order, but not a mission critical project that was approved almost five years ago... then something is terribly wrong! It is interesting that the SLOST 2020 Site Judicial Site Selection Committee now has a meeting just scheduled on the ACC calendar for 22 May, but there is no agenda for the meeting!

To our commissioners...No more kicking the can down the road, no more excuses, prioritize core must have needs over the feel good, nice to havesin the FY26 budget. What we need is timely action and accountability.