Bell Resigns from Water Negotiation Committee

One day after a heated exchange between himself and former commission chairman Brian Tam during a special called meeting of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, Dist. 4 Commissioner Patrick Bell sent an e-mail to fellow commissioners apologizing for his comments and resigned from a committee appointed to negotiate the city-county water contract.

During Thursday's called meeting, Bell tried to have the committee rescinded after learning that he and the only other committee member, Chairman Jim Boff, risked running afoul of the state's Open Meetings Act if they met privately to plan strategy for the negotiations.

But his motion to rescind failed for lack of a second.

The discussion became heated when Commissioner Brian Tam accused Bell of wanting to keep negotiations closed to the public.

"So, you wanted to discuss this in open meetings and now you don't," Tam said.

"No. What I'm saying is do you guys really want to call a meeting every time Jim and I sit down to talk about (strategy)? Is that what you want?"

At one point, Bell accused Tam of playing games and called him and Commissioner Pete Amos, "ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous." He then blamed Tam for failing to negotiate a water contract during his seven years in office.

"The reason I had to make this motion is you, for the last six years have done nothing. Absolutely zero," Bell said.

The city has long held the water withdrawal permit from Lake Lanier and the county has been its biggest customer for both raw and treated water. But the contract is set to expire in May.

Commissioner Pete Amos asked about the consequences of letting the contract expire.

County Attorney Ken Jarrard said he was confident the water would continue to flow, but added, "We don't know what the rate would be."

Jarrard said there also could be ramifications at the state level as to whether or not Forsyth County, as a qualified, responsible government has its water situation where it needs to be.

"I can't tell you that would result in some sort of immediate de-certification. But with respect to whether or not this water situation continues to be in flux, at some point, we might get a call to ask about what our plan is. To the extent we have uncertainty, we may get some tough questions from the DCA (Department of Community Affairs), or others wanting to know why we didn't take care of this."

After the meeting, Bell sent an e-mail to the rest of the commissioners, apologizing for his outburst and announcing his resignation from the water negotiation committee.

Interviewed at Saturday's GOP mass precinct meeting, Bell reiterated his insistence that the contract negotiation remain open to the public.

"This is far too serious an issue to be held behind closed doors," he said. "I do, however, believe that two commissioners should be able to meet privately to try and come up with a sound strategy that would benefit our county residents."