Dear Editor,
As many will recall, last November, the county hired the Holland & Knight (H&K) firm to lobby in Atlanta for possible American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. If available, these funds are supposed to counter negative economic impacts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. H&K was to be paid $102,000 per year for its so-called lobbying efforts.
This hiring of H&K was not without controversy; however, as H&K was hired without competition, it was retained on Nov. 17, 2023 – a full four days before the BOC officially approved it on Nov. 21, 2023, in truth, a “ratification” action. Just 17 days after the BOC approved the contract, H&K was paid $8,500 on both Dec 7 and 8, 2023, for a total of $17,000.
In addition to lobbying for ARPA monies, the approved contract included a Statement of Work with required deliverables on the part of H&K. However, after we filed an Open Records request on Oct. 5, 2024, for the Statement of Work deliverables and a record of monies secured by H&K, the county’s response to the Open Records request was that no funds have been secured by H&K and the county possesses no record of any deliverables.
Furthermore, we were told that while work is ongoing, these records are subject to attorney-client privilege. (To view the referenced emails and Records requests, go to our Facebook page, “Taxpayer Watchdog- Putnam County.”) This means the county has spent $102K on this H&K contract with no monetary results to show.
All correspondence and deliverables required by the contract are being hidden by attorney-client privilege, even though they were hired as lobbyists, not attorneys.
This county's lack of transparency is alarming and may even violate the Open Records Act—or, at least, the spirit of the law.
Billy Webster, Putnam County