Toccoa shifts challenged DDA appointment process from email to public votes

Toccoa’s City Commission moved disputed Downtown Development Authority appointments into a public voting process at its June 22 meeting after City Attorney Sowell said selections made by email would not be valid. Mayor Hellenga asked commissioners to formally consider four people previously named through that process—Jody Rogers, Megan Fowler, Olivia Adams and Travis Kruger—along with other nominees. Commissioners unanimously adopted a procedure to read seven names aloud and vote on each individually.

The change matters because the Downtown Development Authority is a city body focused on downtown development, and its board members help shape who participates in that work. It also put a basic public-governance question before the commission: whether appointments handled through email would receive a valid and visible vote. The commission’s June 22 agenda had already placed DDA appointments on the public meeting’s business.

The appointment question reached the commission after four prospective members had been named in an email-based process. Once the city attorney said those email votes would not be valid, the matter had to be addressed at the June 22 meeting rather than left as an informal selection. The agenda scheduled consideration of DDA appointments, and the commission then adopted the public, name-by-name voting procedure described in the meeting minutes.

Sowell’s legal advice supplied the immediate reason for abandoning the email approach. Hellenga pressed for a formal vote on the four people previously identified, while commissioners considered a broader list of seven nominees. The commission also considered adding Connie Tabor to the slate. That proposed addition failed on a 2-3 vote, showing disagreement over the lineup even as every commissioner supported the process of reading names and voting on them one at a time.

The unanimous procedural motion and the 2-3 rejection of Tabor’s addition are recorded actions, not proposals. The agenda confirms that DDA appointments were before the commission, and the minutes say the nominees were to be considered through individual public votes. But the excerpt does not state how commissioners voted on each of the seven names, whether the motion concerning the four email-named candidates carried, or which people ultimately became DDA board members.

The next public step is a complete June 22 minutes record or a later city appointment record that identifies each nominee and the result of the individual votes. Until that appears, residents can establish that the commission replaced the challenged email process with public consideration and that Tabor was not added through the failed amendment. They cannot determine from the documented account which nominees received seats or whether any further appointment action is needed.