Paulding's board of commissioners held one of the more dramatic sessions in its history as post commissioner Todd Pownall confronted the balance of commissioners over his being left out of the loop about a major commercial development at the airport located in his commission district. While Pownall chided the commission over openness and transparency, Commission Chairman David Austin threw turned the issue to one of competence and trust.
Austin suggested that those on the various boards including the county's airport authority, had given Pownall ample opportunity to read recent emails or even take a phone call by airport director Blake Swafford prior to the public announcement Thursday evening. Pownall said that he didn't even hear of the development - news of a 40-year lease of the airport to an international venture firm headquartered in New York - until his wife alerted him to a television news report.
Austin waved an email he said would be made available via an open records request that he contended would prove that had Pownall, whom he criticized for regularly not reading or responding to emails had ample opportunity to know of the pending announcement.
Pownall wished the venture well and limited his 'official acts' - other than the public complaint of secrecy - to voting against the re-appointment of Airport Authority Chairman Calvin Thompson to another four-year term.
The video above presents the exchange, Post Commissioner Tommie Grahams' proposed solution and even a final segment by Pownall as to why he went public over what he called an 'embarrassing incident' that left him largely sleepless over the past weekend.
