AUGUSTA, GA – Rumors are flying this week that Augustacommissioners Joe Bowles and Joe Jackson are considering asking a grand jury to investigate the full commission in hopes of uncovering any alleged government corruption.

The two commissioners are considering this move after questions came up regarding Commissioner Betty Beard’s involvement with a city employee’s gastric-bypass surgery and the arrest of retired Augusta attorney David Fry on two counts of bribery involving the $38 million trade, exhibit and event center, aka TEE Center.

But what these two commissioners don’t remember is the incredible heartache the last special grand jury caused Augusta several years ago without delivering one arrest. All the special grand jury caused was more scandal.

It all began with an investigation of the fire department under the leadership of former Fire Chief Ronnie Few.

In July 2002, the grand jury report accused Few of lying to the public and governmental officials, blatantly misusing taxpayers’ money, promoting propaganda, encouraging personal attacks within the fire department and intimidating those who dared disagree.

That was only a short list of the misdeeds and ill-conceived behavior by Few and a number of his underlings on the fire department, according to a 124-page report by the special grand jury in 2002.

The grand jury spent more than two years focusing their attention on the fire department.

“For Ronnie Few, it was style over substance,” the report stated. “He was a phenomenon, someone for whom reality was defined by his worldview... Few became flamboyant and outrageous, comfortable in the knowledge that he was untouchable.”

The grand jury wrote that, because Few was the first black fire chief in Augusta, black commissioners felt a loyalty toward him and white commissioners were often afraid to question his actions for fear of being called racists.

“With a smile and reassuring words, Chief Few pretty much did whatever he wanted and let the taxpayers do the worrying,” the grand jury wrote in 2002. The jury stated Few wasted thousands and thousands of dollars in taxpayers’ money,frequently purchasing “non-essential” items for the department, such as 12 pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses for $480; a fire department newsletter called The Siren at a cost of $15,474 over two years; a bagpipe and kilts for the honor guard for $1,625; and more than $10,050 on photographyequipment to immortalize Few at his lavish events and functions.

One month later, in August 2002, the special grand jury released another critical report of the procurement department, then known as the purchasing department, and its director, Geri Sams.

“Purchasing, under its present leadership has caused unnecessary problems,” the report stated. “Due to favoritism, lack of attention, sloppiness, stubbornnessand incompetence, the purchasing department, under Geri Sams, has become a block toefficient government.”

The report went so far as to call for Sams to be removed as purchasing director.
“Replace Geri Sams,” the report stated. “There is a great need for a new director due to the failure of the present one to fulfill the most basic criteria for good government.”

The special grand jury reports were so explosive that, during an appearance before the Augusta Commission regarding another topic in 2004, then-DistrictAttorney Danny Craig was grilled by the commission about the purpose of the grand jury.

“The special grand jury reports have gone on now better than four years with no closure to it,” then Augusta Commissioner Willie Mays said. “It’s been very divisive in this community and quite frankly still is.”

When Craig explained that the special grand jury had been discharged by a superior court judge in January 2003 and the jurors’ jobs were over, Mays angrily pointed out that many of the allegations made against several department heads and commissioners were left unanswered by the district attorney’s office.

“Is it a game or is it not a game? Is it still on or is it off?” Mays asked Craig. “I think to some point the community deserves an answer. You don’t ever have to give me one, but I think the community deserves one. It’s been left there instead of somebody having the testosterone level high enough to say either I’ve got something or I don’t have anything.”

Some of the special grand jury’s discoveries were sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the attorney general’s office, Craig told the commission.

But nothing ever came of thespecial grand jury’s investigation. Only allegations in reports that lingered for years and deeply divided the community.

So, before Bowles and Jackson ask for a grand jury to look into corruption on the commission, they better think twice.

Is it really what would be best for Augusta right now?