Villa Rica council weighs major changes to ethics ordinance after complaint hearings

City attorney Kevin Drummond told the Villa Rica City Council on Monday that the city’s ethics ordinance and the panel created to enforce it have proven difficult to use and may need revision after several rounds of complaints and a hearing process.

Drummond said the recent filings showed problems with how complaints are submitted and screened: “It wasn’t submitted under oath, and it’s not an ethics complaint until you submit a document under oath,” he said, describing staff and the ethics panel’s effort to create a standardized complaint form and procedures to improve clarity.

The issue matters because the ordinance, as written, gives the ethics panel limited enforcement power and has produced costly processes that staff and councilmembers said drain city resources. Drummond noted the city incurred additional expense when a complainant filed a related lawsuit in Douglas County, and he said the panel’s…