MARSHALLVILLE, Ga. – Marshallville’s mayor is in legal trouble after city council takes him back to court.
The council filed a motion in court to bring Mayor Al Lane to a contempt hearing. They alleged he violated a March court order that limited his decision-making power as mayor and limited the amount he could spend on city credit cards. Many of the new developments began with the city’s budget commission.
“We started making cuts. And apparently he didn’t like the cuts we made, so he never came back,” said George Rumph, a former committee member.
Rumph was talking about his first committee meeting. At the time, the city was more than $100,000 over budget, according to a workshop report. The commission wanted to balance the budget with staff cuts at City Hall. The mayor wanted to make them to the police.
“Police will have a big budget. Police and water will take up most of the money,” Rumph said.
The mayor presented his own budget, and the council presented its own with the support of the commission. According to last week’s court order, the city council approved their version, which included the City Council’s cuts.
According to the documents, Mayor Lane tried to block those layoffs. That’s part of the reason council members took Lane back to court. Another reason: The Board claimed that Lane violated the previous order.
“It doesn’t matter who gives the order. It doesn’t matter what the law is. He’s going to do what he wants,” Rumph said.
Some council members claimed Lane failed to follow the order, which found he bought a nearly $125,000 backhoe for the city without council approval. Judge Jimmie Brown ruled that Lane could not make decisions on his own for a year and limited Lane’s credit card privileges.
So when the council feared Lane would try to take unilateral action and refused to stop spending on city credit cards, they took him back to court. At a Sept. 22 court hearing, Lane admitted to paying his $3,000 legal fees with a city credit card. That’s double their emergency spending limit according to the city’s charter. It baffled Rumph.
“I don’t understand how you can be caught red-handed in court, taking $3,000 in city funds, using it to pay your lawyer and still be the mayor. I don’t understand,” Rumph said.
Judge Brown ordered Mayor Lane to spend last Saturday and Sunday in jail, but later allowed him to be placed under house arrest. Lane must also pay the city $3,000 by Oct. 23.
We called the city hall several times to ask for the mayor. Each time, we were told that the mayor was not there. We also reached out to the mayor via email, but have yet to hear back. In person at City Hall on Friday, the mayor declined to comment because he didn’t like our previous coverage and felt it was unfair.
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