Suspect Ethics Board Document Won DeKalb Official $1.5M in County Contracts: Report

A DeKalb County government official’s company was granted $1.5 million contracts with the county after a spurious document arrived on the desk of the county purchasing department in late 2011, an investigative report by WSB-TV and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says.

In 2009, DeKalb County Development Authority Chairman Vaughn Irons’ company APD Solutions bid on several contracts which provided federal money to vendors who would buy and flip distressed properties. A county attorney submitted an opinion which declared APD Solutions ineligible because of Irons’ county job, so he went to the Board of Ethics seeking a favorable opinion, the report says.

After two years of inaction on the opinion, the county purchasing department received a supposed opinion from the Board of Ethics clearing Irons’ conflict of interest in late 2011, and APD Solutions was awarded the contracts despite being the fourth-lowest bidder for them.

Five members of the Board of Ethics told reporters that they never voted on the opinion, as they could never form a quorum to legally make a decision on the matter. The board attorney drafted a document for use in case the measure was ever approved; this draft, complete with the signatures of board members, seems to be the document that was submitted to the purchasing department.

The report says the opinion is not properly dated or numbered, and some board members say their signatures could have been forged. Nobody could tell reporters exactly how the document got to the purchasing department, with one county official claiming APD Solutions submitted it themselves. Regardless, the purchasing department accepted the document and awarded the contracts.

A spokesman for Irons said that he was not aware that the board had never taken action on his request, and added that he would seek an investigation into why it took the board so long to vote on the measure.

> Read the rest of the report at WSB-TV