Cumming Mayor, City Fined for Open Records Act Violation

The City of Cumming and Mayor H. Ford Gravitt have been ordered to pay $12,000 in penalties after a judge found both parties violated the Open Records Act by ejecting a citizen journalist who was recording a meeting in 2012.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Attorney General Sam Olens filed suit against the city in 2012 following the Cumming City Council’s April 17 meeting of that year. At the meeting in question, citizen journalist Nydia Tisdale was filming the proceedings with a handheld camera. Gravitt ordered her to stop filming and then demanded she leave the meeting. Tisdale left and returned to the meeting with a different camera, and Gravitt again demanded she leave.

“This ruling is a major victory for government transparency,” said Olens in a statement.

“Georgians deserve a government that operates openly and honestly. The essence of our democracy is that elected officials are held accountable to the citizens and that citizens are allowed to exercise their rights granted by the First Amendment.”

Olens and Tisdale’s paths crossed again this month when the woman was forcibly removed from a Republican Party rally featuring prominent party members such as Olens, Gov. Nathan Deal and U.S. Senate Candidate David Perdue at a private pumpkin farm in Dawsonville.

Following Tisdale’s raucous removal from the event, Olens took the stage and blasted his compatriots for ejecting a journalist from their midst.

“[W]hat are we afraid of with the lady having a camera, filming us? What are we saying here that shouldn’t be on film? What message are we sending?,” Olens asked the rally.