The Downtown Statesboro Development Authority said it is working to set policies in place that would allow the return of First Friday after the group’s board decided to suspend the monthly event series in the wake of an $80,000 payout to settle a dispute with the Bulloch Action Coalition.
“We were faced with a potential legal situation that if we don’t address with an in-place set of policies, we could face more lawsuits,” said Allen Muldrew, executive director of the Development Authority. “As a family friendly event, the DSDA looks forward to putting policy and procedures in place that ensure everyone that comes downtown can have a good time.”
The path that led to the settlement reached Aug. 20 began in the aftermath of the Feb. 2, 2024, First Friday event. For that event, the Bulloch Action Coalition, led by Bulloch County residents Lawton Sack and Cassandra Mikell, had paid a fee and set up a vendor table. Also at the event, with a vendor table, was David Bennett, who was an announced candidate for the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners.
At their table, the Coalition had a large sign that read:
“Higher TAXES Courtesy of: (Roy) Thompson, (Ray) Mosley, (Anthony) Simmons, (Curt) Deal, (Toby) Conner, (Jappy) Stringer, (Timmy) Rushing, Tom Couch. Vote INCUMBENTS OUT”
Couch is the Bulloch County manager, Thompson is the county commission chairman, and the others are all county commissioners.
Similar signs began to spring up all around Bulloch County at the time.
Sack said during an interview with the Statesboro Herald last week that the Coalition was founded in direct response to commissioners in 2023 first considering and then voting for a 1.5-mill rate hike that compounded with real estate inflation to a more than 28% average increase in property tax.
“I was looking at older folks who are on a fixed income or single mothers, really anybody,” Sack said. “It just, it didn't seem right. And so we spoke out pretty long and hard against (commissioners) increasing the property taxes and instead asked them to look at cutting their budget so that they wouldn't have to increase property taxes so much.”
The county held three public hearings in August 2023 and voted unanimously, without discussion, on Aug. 22 to adopt the increase.
“After that series of Taxpayer Bill of Rights hearings and having hundreds of people show up at meetings, they held a very short morning meeting to vote for the property tax increase,” Sack said. “And there was no discussion by any of the commissioners that voted on it.”
That, said Sack and Mikell, who joined Sack for the interview with the Herald, solidified their goal to form the citizen’s group that became the Bulloch Action Coalition. They applied to become a 501(c)(4) organization in January, and it was approved on April 29, 2024, with Sack as the registered agent.
Feb. 2 First Friday
During the downtown First Friday event on Feb. 2, Sack said he had a friendly conversation with Muldrew, and they received no complaints from anyone attending the event.
Muldrew, however, said he did receive several complaints about the Coalition’s sign and their “vocal opposition to incumbent commissioners.”
After receiving a call that the Coalition would no longer be allowed to participate in future First Fridays, Sack said he requested a meeting with Muldrew. The Feb. 6 meeting included Sack, Mikell, Muldrew and Elena McClendon with the DSDA and was recorded without Muldrew’s or McClendon’s knowledge. Georgia law allows for recordings of meetings, phone calls or any conversation as long as one of the participants is aware a recording is taking place.
During the meeting, Muldrew said he believed the group was too confrontational with their sign and message. He said that while some political candidates and other groups were part of First Friday, they did not raise any complaints. Muldrew then suggested the Coalition hold its own event at the Bulloch County Courthouse to publicize its campaign against incumbent commissioners.
Sack and Mikell said they believed the group’s First Amendment rights of free speech were being violated, particularly since other similar groups were allowed to be part of First Fridays.
After that Feb. 6 meeting, Sack said they spoke with several local attorneys, who told them that while they were not First Amendment legal experts, they believed the DSDA was possibly in violation.
Sack said he then sent an email to the DSDA on Feb. 28 to request another meeting, stating that, based on the First Amendment, “We firmly hold that we have the right to participate as we did in the first event.”
Andrew Lavoie, a partner in the law firm Bruce, Mathews & Lavoie in Statesboro, is a member of the Development Authority Board and is the Authority’s attorney. He sent a letter dated Feb. 29, 2024, to the Bulloch Action Coalition that included the statement:
“DSDA has asked me to inform you of its decision to no longer sell vendor space at this year’s First Friday events to any persons, entities, or organizations that intend to or may use those spaces to engage in political or public-policy-related speech or advocacy (as opposed to commercial speech of marketing or selling one’s goods or services).”
Looking at legal options
After noting the participation of specific groups as vendors at the March 1 First Friday — the Greener Boro Commission, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Statesboro, the Teal House Sexual Assault and Child Advocacy Center, and Fixing the Boro — Sack said the Coalition began looking for law firms.
“There are only a few firms that specialize in First Amendment cases,” he said.
Sack said they contacted Brian Tanner of Griffin Durham Tanner & Clarkson, a firm with offices in Savannah and Atlanta that is known for working on First Amendment cases.
“(Tanner) said this was a textbook violation of First Amendment rights,” Sack said. “He drew up a draft letter from talking with partners, and they agreed that it would be best to go ahead and ask for damages.”
In a certified letter dated April 15, Tanner wrote in one section: “Nothing separates the content of the speech permitted by the DSDA at its March and April First Friday events from the speech intended by Mr. Sack, Ms. Mikell, and the Bulloch Action Coalition. … What therefore appears to be motivating the DSDA’s decisions is not a desire to restrict types of content at its First Friday events, but to single out and restrict the particular political and public-policy-related speech of Mr. Sack, Ms. Mikell, and the Bulloch Action Coalition, in particular.”
The letter offered to resolve the dispute for the following:
- For the DSDA to issue a press release admitting it discriminated against Sack, Mikell and the Coalition in violation of the First Amendment by refusing to let them participate in First Friday events;
- For the DSDA to enter into a federal consent order that sets out policies, standards and procedures consistent with Constitutional requirements for permitting First Friday participants; and
- For the DSDA to pay Sack, Mikell and the Coalition $100,000.
In turn, Sack, Mikell and the Coalition would provide a release of existing claims against the DSDA and all connected to it.
In a response letter dated May 17, attorney Wesley Jackson with the Atlanta firm Freeman Mathis & Gary, representing the Development Authority, offered a payment of $25,000 to settle all claims against the DSDA. Jackson said the DSDA would not accept the demand to issue a press release nor enter into a federal consent order.
“The DSDA disagrees with many of the factual assertions and legal conclusions in (the claim), and especially disagrees with the assertion that the DSDA violated your clients’ First Amendment rights in any way at all,” Jackson wrote.
In that letter, Jackson wrote the DSDA was “considering the termination of the First Friday program.”
In a counteroffer dated May 22, the Coalition’s attorney Tanner lowered the payment demand to $80,000 to drop all claims, in addition to a statement by the DSDA acknowledging the First Amendment rights of Sack, Mikell and the Coalition were violated by their exclusion from First Friday, as well as an outline of steps the DSDA would take to ensure the free-speech rights of all would be protected in the future.
The counteroffer did not make any mention of the possible cancellation of First Fridays, and Sack said Tanner did not discuss that possibility with them.
The settlement
After some back and forth, an agreement was reached for the DSDA’s insurance company to pay out $80,000 and issue a statement that does not mention First Amendment rights but does say in one section: “During the March 2024 and April 2024 First Friday events, the DSDA wrongly prohibited the Bulloch Action Coalition, and its principals Cassandra Mikell and Lawton Sack, from participating as vendors.”
The statement was posted Aug. 22 on the DSDA’s Facebook page. The next day, the DSDA announced, also on its Facebook page, that it was canceling the remaining First Friday events in 2024, which include the Taste of Downtown in September and the Downtown Holiday Celebration in December.
“It was never our intention for First Friday to be terminated,” Sack said. “I fully believe this could have been worked out without going through the legal channels. I think a discussion with the DSDA Board and Andrew Lavoie could have prevented all of this from happening.
“But unfortunately, when we were shut down, our recourse was to seek a legal opinion. By them eliminating us from being able to participate, that violated our First Amendment rights.”
The DSDA Board, in a statement posted on their Facebook page Aug. 26, disputes Sack’s assertion of a violation of First Amendment rights.
“The DSDA denies violating anyone's constitutional rights, and denies taking any actions based on the content of any speech of the Bulloch Action Coalition or its members — rather than how they were conveying their message. …
“The last thing the DSDA wants to do is limit its offerings to our wonderful community. But the Bulloch Action Coalition, Mr. Sack, and Ms. Mikell have argued that the lack of policies governing who can participate in First Friday threatens the constitutional legitimacy of the entire event.
“The DSDA simply cannot risk additional threatened litigation by the Bulloch Action Coalition by continuing to host First Friday without such policies in place. So, the DSDA was left with no option but to suspend First Friday until those policies are enacted — which we are now working hard to do.”
Coalition’s future
Sack said a “percentage” of the $80,000 award would be used to pay the legal fees from Griffin Durham Tanner & Clarkson, and the remaining amount would be put back into what he described as the “education” efforts of the Bulloch Action Coalition.
“We are not affiliated in any way with any kind of (outside) political action groups or special interest groups,” he said. “Our donations have come locally from individual donors, and most of those are in the $5, $10, $20 range.”
As a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization, the Coalition may accept anonymous donations. Donations to a (c)(4) are not tax deductible.
Currently, the Coalition is leading a petition drive to gain signatures for a possible ballot item that reverses the county commission’s approval of two agreements with Bryan County related to the drilling and operation of at least four high-volume wells planned to supply water to Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America.
First Friday’s future
Despite the suspension, the DSDA Board, in its Aug. 26 statement, made it clear that First Friday would return.
“We, the members of DSDA’s Board, want to express our unconditional continued support for Director Muldrew and all of the hardworking staff of the DSDA, who we are convinced have always acted in the best interest of First Friday, downtown Statesboro, and our entire community.
“First Friday will be back. We thank you, our community, for your support of the DSDA, its staff, and its events, and we can’t wait to get back to bringing fun, education, community, and life to downtown Statesboro.”