Time for a change in Savannah!

Well let me start by saying I love our city but as you all know we have been bullied by zoning and continue to have it hanging over us!  even if we did improve our property by 110%  when there is so much decayed properties and nothing is being done! made me start looking into the politics of this city! and I have discovered there is more corruption and scamming in this town than we ever saw in south Florida!  and seeing all the other slime here we are going to do everything we can to make changes in the Savannah system with that I am getting politically involved and start working on getting rid of these people by helping who ever is running against them! It is time for a change in this town!  so here are a few tidbits to sink your teeth into for starters







Did anyone see this in the paper?
Estella, Yusuf Shabazz disrespected family
This letter serves as notification of the inappropriate behavior of City Alderman Estella Shabazz and County Commissioner Yusuf Shabazz at the visitation and funeral service of Pastor Gregory A. Tyson, Sr.
On Friday night, Feb. 27, Alderman Shabazz decided to campaign at the visitation service at a time when we were all in shock from the loss of our dearly departed. She was using the visitation as time for recognition of herself and never made mention of the loss of Pastor Gregory Tyson, Sr.
It is with great disappointment that she used the visitation as her last campaign stop because she knew many people would be there. She also added herself to the visitation program, which was both distasteful and unacceptable. This was a time to encourage and uplift the family, not a time to campaign on her behalf.
Death is already a traumatic experience and she didn’t take the time to consider us, the family.
Then, on Saturday, Feb. 28, they arrived to the funeral service late and demanded that they be seated in the front on the platform with the ministers. The church was filled to capacity and they took it upon themselves to change what was already ordered by the family.
After they were advised the space was not available, they bombarded themselves to the front of services which interrupted the flow of service. Mayor Edna Jackson was on program to speak. The mayor explained that she lost her voice, so Alderman Van Johnson would speak on her behalf.
Once this was completed, Alderman Shabazz and Commissioner Shabazz made their way to podium and began to campaign once again after being asked to be seated by the widow, Melanie Tyson; they continued to speak with no regard to her loss and or request.
Afterward, we reached out to the Shabazz family, advising we thought their behavior was inappropriate during our time of loss. They never acknowledged their wrongdoing or apologized for the inappropriate behavior.
AUBREY N. BRYANT
Savannah

Savannah alderman alleges excessive pay for attorney

• Photos

Tom Bordeaux

A former assistant city attorney has been getting paid $12,000 a month following his employment with the city without the city manager or Savannah City Council’s knowledge of the pay or what legal services were being provided, according to one aldermen who discussed the compensation following a 3-and-a-half hour closed-door meeting Sunday night.
Alderman Tom Bordeaux said that the attorney, Peter Giusti, had his compensation increased 10 times from $1,200 a month for 20 hours of work a week, which amounted to about $246,000 during an almost 2-year period.
“At some point that $1,200 had become $12,000 a month,” Bordeaux said. “That information had not been brought to the council.”
Emails going back to June 2013 between Giusti, former City Attorney James Blackburn, and the city’s former Chief Financial Officer Dick Evans discuss the pay, although Bordeaux said it was not clear who actually approved the compensation.
Bordeaux said that there was also no documentation provided of the legal services Giusti had been providing.
“I personally favor terminating that agreement,” Bordeaux said.
Blackburn has continued working on some cases that were not resolved following his retirement in 2012 and was in the media room when the council met Sunday.
Bordeaux’s comments came after Mayor Edna Jackson said she could not comment on matters discussed during the meeting because they were related to

Alderman: Consultant to be paid $1,200/month, gets $12,000/month instead

 

After a three-and-a-half hour closed door Savannah City Council meeting, an emergency session held Sunday night, the city's mayor would not say why the meeting was called.

“Because of attorney (-client) privilege, it cannot be discussed in an open session,” Mayor Edna Jackson said after that meeting, during which the raised voices of the mayor, city council members and former City Attorney James Blackburn could repeatedly be heard through the closed door.

But Alderman At-Large Tom Bordeaux, says Savannah's citizens deserve answers.

At issue, Bordeaux told reporters after the mayor declined comment, is the amount of money a former assistant city attorney was paid for handling a lawsuit against the city over the construction of the Ellis Square parking garage. 

The case was a conflict of interest for current city attorney Brooks Stillwell, who took over for Blackburn in November 2012. Stillwell had previously represented the construction company suing the city. 

According to an April 2013 email between Stillwell and former assistant city attorney Peter Giusti, Stillwell agreed to pay Giusti $1,200 per month to continue working on the case.

But emails between Giusti and Blackburn show that, even though Blackburn had left his job as city attorney months earlier, Giusti separately negotiated with Blackburn to be paid $12,000 a month for 80 hours a month of work on the case.

"At some point, that $1200 a month became $12,000 a month," Bordeaux, who also is an attorney, told reporters. "Council did not know about it. The mayor did not know about it. The city manager did not know about it."

Giusti continues to work for the city at that $12,000 monthly rate. As of the city's most recent figures, from December, he had been paid $246,000.

In a May 2013 email to Blackburn, proposing the rate hike, Giusti said he'd “loosely” keep an account of the time he worked.

“He's not been accounting for a single hour of his time, as to what he's been doing for it, at least as far as I've been able to learn now,” Bordeaux said. "This just makes me crazy, quite frankly, that you could get a 10-fold increase in pay without there being more openness about it, without the city manager's office knowing about it, without this mayor and council knowing about it.” 

Bordeaux said he discovered Giusti's pay increase after council members asked City Manager Stephanie Cutter for a report on consultant pay. Bordeaux said Cutter was unaware of the increase before he pointed it out on that report.