What Augusta commissioners say about housing chief’s exit, FBI probe
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Augusta Commission are meeting Tuesday for the first time since two big bombshells at city hall – the resignation of a top official and an apparent FBI investigation.
And leaders spoke to News 12 Tuesday about both matters.
Hawthorne Welcher resigned late last week as housing and community development director after being suspended for about a month.
The commission on Tuesday accepted his resignation. The vote was unanimous among all present, with Commissioner Brandon Garrett not attending the meeting.
News 12 on Tuesday got a copy of Welcher’s resignation letter – where he states that the decision to exit was not made lightly.
He was suspended after city leadership learned more than $6 million in federal grant money had gone unspent and Welcher’s department didn’t give it back in a timely manner when the government demanded a refund.
City officials also decided to conduct an audit of his department.
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In the letter, he calls his past 17 years with the city “both professionally and personally rewarding,” adding that he is “grateful for the opportunities he’s had to grow, contribute, and work alongside such a dedicated and talented team.”
He makes no mention of his reasons for reg and whether it was voluntary.
Commissioner Tony Lewis Commissioner Lewis said Tuesday he was surprised by the resignation.
" I thought he probably could wait until the audit was performed. You know, there again, you know, there was no improprieties. You know, there was maybe some discrepancies that were there with how the money was used, but no money was missing. No money was stolen or anything of that nature, and I thought he would just stick around until the audit was completed,” Lewis said.
On the other hand, Commissioner Jordan Johnson was not surprised.
“This is a conversation that has expanded itself over the last few months. And it’s within his right to resign. This has been a stain on the community, but there’s so much more work that we need to do to get us to a better place,” Johnson said.
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Asked to elaborate on his characterization of the matter as a “stain on the community,” he said:
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions that the community wants answers to, and unfortunately, we’re not able to give those answers right now. Which is why the audit is happening.”
Lewis is ive of the job Welcher has performed.
“I’ve said it publicly that Director Welcher has done a phenomenal job with our HCD department, and I think just pulling this, holding this one thing over his head was, you know, I don’t think it was right,” Lewis said. “I think that we could’ve, we could’ve gotten past this particular issue and not erase all of the good that Director Welcher has done in that department.”
Deputy Charles Jackson will be working as interim director until a new one is found.
Jackson did the same thing with the Parks and Recreation Department until the city could find a new after a similar resignation.
“It’s not unusual for us to have to move people around, for the interim just to make sure that we have enough coverage in situations like this,” Johnson said.
READ THE RESIGNATION LETTER:
“Where we are right now is trying to make sure that we are covering our bases,” he said. “We want to know what’s going on. We wanna be able to provide accurate information to the community. And no singular commissioner can do that at this point. So it’s just a waiting game at this junction.”
How will the city move forward?
“We’ll have to sit down and look at that department as a whole. I can’t say a new direction, but I’ll just say new leadership because what we want to do is we want that department to continue to service the constituents of Augusta, Richmond County,” Lewis said.
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As far as the audit, Johnson said:
“They’re gonna do their due diligence to get to the bottom of some of these questions that we have answers that we are having. I think for the sake of a fair investigation, we need to make sure that the people who are doing the audit understand that the community deserves answers and that we deserve to have all the information necessary to move forward.”
Lewis said a company has been selected to perform the audit, which will take five to six months.
“I’m surprised that it would take that long to conduct that audit, but they’re the experts, so we’ll just have to wait to see what it is that they say,” he said.
The resignation coincided with the FBI’s visit this week to the Augusta-Richmond County Municipal Building for an unspecified reason, and Lewis and Jordon spoke to News 12 about that, too.
The agency said special agents have been at the building “conducting law enforcement activities.”
The FBI isn’t saying what that law enforcement operation might be.
And neither are Lewis and Johnson.
“I can’t confirm what reason that they were here, but I do know that they were here. We all knew that they were here,” Johnson said. “But again, we will find out all of the details as time goes on. Again, no singular commissioner can give any accurate statement on what’s going on because the information is just not readily available. We are doing our due diligence to make sure that Augusta is being transparent and moving into the right direction where this situation is concerned.”
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Lewis said he was also aware the FBI was at city hall.
“I’m not privy to the reason they were here. I’m not privy to any conversations, any meetings that they’ve had,” Lewis said. “But I do know based on preliminary results that folks have said that the FBI was here, to what extent and why they were here, I couldn’t answer that.”
We asked Mayor Garnett Johnson about it last week, and he said: “It’s a personnel matter and I cannot confirm nor deny.”
It’s unclear whether Welcher’s exit and the FBI’s entrance are related. But his case is certainly a personnel matter the federal government might be interested in.
Also in the news ...
- Meeting at the committee level Tuesday, Augusta Commission also forwarded to the full commission a proposed five-year solid waste contract with Coastal Waste Recycling. The company would provide garbage service as well as recycling services by contracting directly with residents and others upon request. The base rate is currently $20.11 per month and the proposed rate is $22.11 a month. The recycling fee would be roughly $12 per month.
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