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COLUMBUS, Ga. — City councilors appeared to be appalled at the misleading presentation of information by city officials on allowing public safety officers to drive their vehicles home into Alabama.

During the city council meeting on July 11, 2023, councilors were provided with a presentation on the subject from the city’s Risk Management Department.

That presentation, as briefed by CCG’s Risk Management & Compliance Officer, Lauren Vance, painted a picture of the “great risk” involved in allowing officers to take their patrol vehicles home across state lines at the end of a shift. The entirety of the information presented focused on insurance risks that would exceed the city’s current caps.

However, the presentation failed to mention that CPD officers already drive their vehicles into Alabama every day in a professional capacity through the conduct of daily operations. It also paid no attention to the historical likelihood of accidents occurring, nor could internal bureaucratic officials seem to understand why that was obviously relevant for council members to know. Instead, the presentation omitted any and all relevant information that did not pertain to the city’s insurance policy.

Several councilors appeared to openly speculate that the information being presented by internal city departments was intended to dissuade city council into voting against the idea; departments under the direction of City Manager Isaiah Hugley may have been seeking to produce their own bureaucratically-predetermined outcome by manipulating council’s vote.

In response, councilors voiced extremely logical and passionate arguments in favor of allowing public safety employees — particularly CPD officers — to drive their work vehicles home to Alabama. By pointing out the serious impact the topic has had on officer morale, retention, and ultimately the safety of our city in its fight against violent crime,  some of those councilors’ words were met with boisterous rounds of applause from the audience.

It was truly a sight to be seen.

QUESTIONS BEGIN

Councilor Charmaine Crabb (District 5) broke the ice by asking the first obvious question on the topic to the Vance, who had just given a presentation as the city’s Risk Management Officer intended to inform council’s decision:

“Can you tell me the number of accidents that have occurred over the last year, or per year, of these take-home cars?” Crabb asked. “How many have been in an accident?”

Vance did not know. Crabb pointed out how ridiculous it was that such a key piece of information wasn’t intuitively included within a presentation from the risk management division intended to inform Council’s decision.

“I mean,” Crabb began, “that would have been a good bit of information to assess the risk of our decision, you know. If we're having a lot of accidents, then our decision may be different than if we have maybe one accident a year. That is part of the risk assessment, so that's a big part of the information that we're missing.”

HUGLEY INTERJECTS

It was at that point that City Manager Isaiah Hugley interjected himself into Crabb’s line of questioning in an apparent attempt to seize control of the conversation back to his preferred narrative.

“So your question, just to be clear,” Hugley interjected, “you want to know how many accidents occur while they were off duty in a take-home vehicle; if we are going to be making this decision based on the risk of allowing them to take cars over to Alabama? And if we look at how many accidents have occurred, you know, over the last two to five years, and if it's low, then we realize that our risk of doing this is less than if we're having a lot of accidents every year?”

It is not clear how on earth Hugley — or anyone, for that matter — could not understand Crabb’s very simple question. Hugley’s interjection was a blatant attempt to derail Crabb’s logical assertion. All Hugley’s interjection did was muddy up Crabb’s very simple question into an ironically even- more-confusing mess of reiterated word salad; he saw his preferred outcome become threatened by Crabb’s logic, so he shot at it with a reiterative straw-man of verbal interjection intended to appear genuine but truly meant to divert control of the conversation back to him. See how that works?

Crabb was having none of it. She correctly redirected the conversation back to the topic-at-hand, refocused her direct question back at the original person she had asked it to, and pursued an answer.

“I'm just really surprised that that piece of information wasn't part of your presentation, because that is a big piece of information that we would need in order for us to make our decisions.”

Still, Hugley refused to accept that and continued his straw-man interjections to dissuade council from using the obviously-relevant information as part of their decision-making process. Since council wasn’t following Hugley’s narrative of basing their decision purely on what his subordinate department included in their presentation, he had to ensure that no one was able to raise any questions that would draw attention away from his baited trap of narrowly-focused and limited information.

This went on through several more rounds of Hugley blatantly attempting to keep council’s focus only on the extremely-limited and cherry-picked information within the presentation.

Hugley does this often. It is extremely obvious to anyone with any professional experience analyzing human behavior. Hugley consistently demonstrates Machiavellian character traits — like the interjections above — in order to manipulate the means of a conversation towards his own predetermined and preferable ends. Pick a council meeting and roll the tape.

MORE OF THE OBVIOUS

Councilor Bruce Huff (District 3) asked another very sensible question about even more highly-relevant information missing from the city’s presentation. Referring to other Georgian cities that already permit officers to drive their vehicles home into Alabama, Huff asked Vance the following:

“So for the ones that have done it in the past, or I should say, are doing it now: do they have any numbers and things that would be helpful to us?”

Vance, the city’s Risk Management Officer, responded to Huff’s relevant data-based question with the following:

“The cities that are currently going into Alabama? Not really.”

Vance went on to provide her own straw-man punt away from Huff’s question by stating that other cities simply assume the risk and that no serious events have yet occurred. 

What an odd way to say “the relevant data shows that there has not been any serious risk in what other cities are doing.”

See how that works?

THE GLOVES COME OFF

Councilor Judy Thomas (District 9) had clearly had enough of the city’s misinformation charade. Without further adieu, here are the words of the Great Judy Thomas in all of their magnificent glory:

“When I first looked at this presentation, the thing that just jumped out at me was on the very first slide that you have: the title slide. You talk about ‘reducing, transferring, and avoiding risk’ and then you talk about ‘accepting risk’ — risk being the operative word, if you will. My concern with this presentation and with the current policy out there is that you did not look to see ‘how can we do this.’ You look to see ‘how can we not do this’ — and that's what has come across in this presentation. I will tell you that there is much more to this question than how much insurance it is going to cost us.”

Councilor Thomas then went on to reveal perhaps the single-most valuable piece of relevant information pertaining to the topic, which again was conveniently left out of the city’s misleading, narrowly-focused, and manipulative presentation:

“I will remember — and perhaps some of the other councils will remember — a couple of weeks ago when we talked about this. Councilor Garrett (who happens to be a practicing personal injury attorney) said: ‘If you are a resident of Muscogee County and you are a public safety officer, and you have a wreck that is your fault, then it is your responsibility and your insurance has to pay for it.’ Is that true?” Thomas asked to Vance.

Vance replied by again avoiding the question instead of answering what Thomas had asked: 

“It can be,” Vance stated before citing a single anecdotal example of the city choosing to cover one particular accident.

Thomas replied by again asking a question that Vance — the city’s risk management officer currently briefing Council on the topic — certainly should have known the answer to. It again shows the insanely-narrow focus and omission of key information present in the misleading presentation:

“So in other words,” Thomas replied, “it is true. Do the officers who work for the Columbus Police Department know that if they have an accident they are subject to having to pay for it with their own personal insurance? Do they know that?”

“I can't answer that,” Vance embarrassingly stated as the city's Risk Management Officer. “I don't know if they know that or not.”

“Yeah, I didn't think you could,” Thomas replied, demonstrating the lack of basic informational research being presented by Vance.

THOMAS AT LENGTH

Thomas continued at length, really laying it all out for even the layman to comprehend. We encourage you as the reader to review her entire statement in full:

“The goal it seemed — as I said — seems to be ‘don't allow this to happen.’ I want to bring an example to you — and I know that, if you can't tell, I'm pretty passionate about this. I think the councilors know.

Suppose we had an officer who's 20 years old; we hire a brand new rookie and we train him. We have been told time and time again by everybody and their brother that our training department in the Columbus Police Department is the best in the state. It's terrific, and we train people all the time. So this kid — this 20 year old officer — comes to work for Columbus making fifty thousand dollars a year and they stay here, say, five years. That means that we have paid them two hundred and fifty thousand dollars plus the training, and then somebody says to them: ‘Hey, look! LaGrange just up the road pays sixty thousand dollars a year and you can transfer to LaGrange! You can go work in LaGrange and make ten thousand dollars a year more than you're making now!’ And why wouldn't you go? You've already been trained. LaGrange doesn't have that expense, and Columbus then loses another trained officer.

This issue — I would be willing to bet you — if you met with officers in the Columbus Police Department, the issue is not ‘give me a stipend.’ The issue is you let him drive home and you don't let me drive home. It's a morale issue. It's not a financial issue for most of them.

I will also remind you that when a Columbus Police Officer is in their car on duty in Muscogee County and they are chasing some person that has robbed a bank, they don't stop at the county line; at the district; the state line, and say ‘Oops! Can't go into Alabama! It'll cost if I have a wreck! It'll cost too much money.’ (laughter erupts) They don't do that. They are obligated to go.

(Vance tries to interrupt) 

Let me finish, okay? Hold on one second. I have talked with a number of Deputy Sheriffs, for example, and the fact that the Muscogee County Sheriff allows his deputies to drive into Alabama — to drive home — and the fact that there are certain limits to that: they can't drive to Montgomery; they can't live in Montgomery; they have to live in a given mileage from the state line — which I believe is probably true of all of these uh border cities. You can't just drive anywhere; there's a limit.

One of the deputies that I talked to — who is a deputy in Russell County who lives in Midland — drives his car home every night. And he said to me: ‘I think that's my car, and so I take care of it. I know when it needs to have the oil changed, I know when there's trouble with a tire, or I need to get that done, or I need to take care of that.’

All of the issues that I have heard on this question is the morale issue. What are we doing to make a differentiation between 45 of our officers and the rest of the Columbus Police Department? I would be willing to bet you if you'd put up that slide that showed the number of employees in each department — with the exception of the Columbus Police Department and the Sheriff's Office — all those other people are management; they're not ‘rank and file’ employees. There are no rank and file employees that I am aware of in the Columbus Fire Department that have a car that they can drive into Alabama. So if any of them are driving into Alabama, they’re management.

I know that we made a special exception — this Council made a special exception — to allow the warden of the Muscogee County Jail to drive a car into Alabama.

(Vance & Hugley both tried to interrupt, again)

(Thomas held up her hand, palm towards Hugley)

I'm not finished! 

The differentiation between allowing management to drive and telling the rank and file officer ‘no you can't do that.’ I don't care what your stipend is — it's not going to make up the difference. 

I'm just, I'm just so frustrated that it seems to me that this report was based on ‘don't do it.’ I agree wholeheartedly with Councilor Tyson (Begly) and Councilor (Bruce) Huff: we need to talk to the people who are involved. Now, I understand that you did talk with the police chief, and you did talk with I think, maybe, the homeland security guy — okay, but when we put this group together, I'm not sure I want the police chief there; I want somebody that it might be affecting. I want somebody who knows the the process and so forth, and I want us to go forward in this issue with the idea that we're gonna make it work”

Bravo, Judy. B.r.a.v.o.

HUGLEY’S SECOND ACT

Hugley then attempted to manipulate the conversation again by soliciting a pandered apology to Vance for “being fussed at,” despite Vance being a grown woman and city official who is more than capable of receiving appropriate professional criticism during a council meeting.

Please. Spare us. Then again, we would expect nothing less from Hugley, who of course has absolutely no track record of ever painting someone as a victim in order to achieve his own political ends. Sarcasm emphasized.

After having spoken against the idea for the past half hour through his timely interruptions, his misguiding through the ill-advised framing of narratives, and his own subordinate department’s pre-planned slide show presentation that blatantly tried to dissuade council’s opinion, Hugley then had the gaul to say he has supported the idea all along. 

Conveniently, Hugley failed to mention his now-self-proclaimed diehard support until after his misleading efforts were already completely shut down by council; he now knew which way the wind was blowing and chose to be on the winning side of it. 

Then, and only then, did Hugley state the following:

“When I talked to staff, I said to them, ‘You know, I want to do it.’ And I think we ought to take the risk — so they were not operating on a mode of ‘figure out how you can't do it.’ And the City Attorney says, from a legal standpoint, ‘You know, we don't recommend it.’ I said we ought to take the risk.”

What a convenient self-aggrandizing and timely flip-flop after your manipulative efforts didn’t work. You’re a real piece of work, Hugley, and everyone — everyone — sees it daily.

COGLE’S OVATION

Councilor Joanne Cogle (District 7) then made one of the more straight-forward and common sense comments of the entire meeting, which evoked enough support from those in the room — audience, councilors, and officials alike — to all provide a roaring round of applause in response.

“I guess the the only thing that I just really wanted to say is that we’re, you know, we're asking our law enforcement officials to put their lives on the line every day, and I think the very least that we can do is assume the risk that they are going to drive their car home and not get in an accident while they assume the risk every day of losing their life. So I think, you know, I think if you're looking on the pendulum, I think that they win — and we can do that. At the very least, we can do that for our law enforcement officers.”

Thunderous applause rallied throughout the entire room.

We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves, Cogle. If we might add: this sort of common sense approach to risk assessment was clearly derived from someone who understands how ridiculous it is to not allow toaster ovens in an Army barracks room while simultaneously trusting those same soldiers to properly employ live munitions in close combat. Ask us how we know.

WHAT’S NEXT

After hearing from several city officials on the subject, including interim police chief Stoney Mathis, council ultimately voted in favor of permitting public safety employees from every department — not just CPD — to drive their work vehicles home across state lines. The policy dictating how the decision will unfold is now in the process of being created, but will likely require officers to sign a waiver acknowledging their understanding of the risks involved. 

While the decision might seem small to the layman, it carries far more positive implications for the safety of our city than might meet the eye. Though the concept directly affects 90 individual public safety employees, half of them are CPD police officers. Those 45 officers constitute about 10% of the entire force. 

According to years-worth of CPD studies published by the Muckraker in early spring of this year, the topic of not permitting take-home vehicles across state lines is well-documented by CPD to have a measurably-negative effect on officer morale, retention, and recruitment. In essence: previously ignoring the issue helped contribute to our city not having enough police officers, which in turn allowed crime to rage through our streets.

With the concept now approved and policy development underway, that effect is expected to be reversed by increasing officer morale, recruitment, and retention as our city continues its crusade against rampant violent crime.

Given the pressing necessity of this and other future decisions to create those positive impacts, perhaps city councilors ought to take note of the continued patterns of manipulative behavior from unelected inner-departmental bureaucrats.

Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.

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