Months ago, a lawyer offered Fort Oglethorpe’s leaders a deal: Fire your elections superintendent, and a lawsuit goes away.
The City Council ignored that request. And the lawsuit disappeared anyway.
Stuart James, who represented a Fort Oglethorpe resident suing the city and Elections Superintendent Orma Luckey, announced this week that he was dropping the case. He told local officials in an email that his client didn’t want to “spend more personal resources, money, time and effort” going to trial.
James had hoped the lawsuit threat would convince city leaders would fire Luckey and ask Catoosa County officials to handle the city’s elections, though county officials say they can’t do that.
“It is now patently obvious that Ms. Luckey will stay in her office and that the City Council continues to bury its head in the political sand,” James wrote in an email Tuesday.
Luckey said the case, which she called an attack driven by her opponents’ egos, should have died months ago. She called it a poor attempt at intimidation, a move in a game of political chess in a small town where city officials can’t get along.
“I was doing things right,” she said. “They wanted to have control, I guess. There’s nothing they could have done.”
The case began in September 2014, two months before a council election, when Charles Sharrock filed papers to run for office. The problem was, the rest of the council fired Sharrock in 2012 after three female city employees said he sexually harassed them .
Derek Rogers was appointed to hold the seat until the end of the term, and Sharrock wanted it back.
Luckey allowed Sharrock to campaign. But city resident Steve Cooper sued the city, trying to get Sharrock off the ballot. James represented Cooper.
Luckey held a public hearing on Oct. 9 where James gave reasons Sharrock should not be allowed to run. He said under Georgia law, Sharrock couldn’t run until his original term of office ended, which would have been at the end of this year.
James also told Luckey she was biased and should have let someone else make the decision. But Luckey ruled in Sharrock’s favor.
James sued in Superior Court, seeking a judge’s order that Sharrock could not run. He also wanted the judge to brand Luckey “unfit to serve” as elections superintendent.
While the lawsuit sat in court, Fort Oglethorpe voters in November overwhelmingly rejected Sharrock, giving him must 22 percent of the vote.
James continued to press the lawsuit, taking aim at the bigger issue: Luckey’s role in the election.
Superior Court Judge Kristina Cook Graham dismissed the case in February, saying it had no legal merit. But James appealed in March before dropping the case this week.
Luckey’s attorney, Chris Townley, said the lawsuit never made sense: James’ client protested Sharrock’s presence on the ballot, but Sharrock lost the election.
“Why are we doing this,” Townley asked, “other than to waste time and get our names in the newspaper?”
Mayor Lynn Long said the council didn’t fire Luckey because they approve of her performance.
“He seems like he’s mad at the world,” Long said of James. “Maybe that’s the way attorneys should be. … Attorneys like to intimidate people. That’s their nature. This mayor doesn’t intimidate at all. Not. At. All.”
After learning the case was being dropped, Sharrock said this was part of a larger issue between Luckey and City Manager Ron Goulart, whom Sharrock believes was the driving force behind the lawsuit.
Goulart denied there are any personal issues between himself and Luckey. But he has tried to eliminate her position three times in eight years, most recently in 2014.
He said he has asked the Catoosa County Elections Board to handle the city’s voting. But the board has rejected the requests because a sliver of Fort Oglethorpe lies in Walker County, making it illegal for either county to conduct elections.
Goulart said he wants to eliminate Luckey’s position because it would provide “a substantial saving to the city.” But Luckey only makes $11.26 an hour, and the last election cost the city $13,475 — 0.15 percent of the city’s total budget.
Goulart also said Catoosa County elections officials are more experienced than Luckey. She disagreed.
“I did my job,” she said, referring to the Sharrock case, “and I’ve been doing it for eight years.”
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at tjett@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6476.