Long seeks council drug testing rules

Council firebrand also pushes back against state regs

A Loganville City Council discussion, which began with routine guidance from the city attorney that the city needs to bring its charter into compliance with state law on residency requirements for qualifying for local elections, got off track quickly at the council’s work session.

Loganville Councilwoman Melanie Long. Photo credit: The Walton Tribune

Councilwoman Melanie Long, regularly a council firebrand, called the state law a “disservice” to municipal governments and eventually suggested, in an unrelated statement to the council, that council members should be subject to random drug testing.

City Attorney Paul Rosenthal came to the council Monday with direction that the council should change a city charter requirement that candidates for municipal office must live in the city for two years before running. Under a state law adopted years ago, only one year of residency is required for running for local office, but that change is not reflected in the city charter, Rosenthal said.

Rosenthal called the proposed change “just a cleanup thing” — such actions to conform local rules to state law are undertaken routinely by municipal governments across the state — but Long contended strongly Monday that the single-year residency requirement was not in Loganville’s best interest.

“Because at the end of the day, when our city goes sideways, and there’s a bunch of people sitting up here (as council members) that don’t even know the street names (due to a shortened residency requirement), and they’re running our city, and somebody goes back and does their research, (asking) ‘How did that happen?” the current council will get the blame,” Long said.

State law or not, Long continued, “… (I)t’s never going to matter why we changed it (the charter requirement for two years of residency), it’s that it changed. And I’m not going to participate in something that I don’t, in my heart and my gut, believe in.”

Noting that the state legislature, now in session, is looking at various avenues of electoral reform, Long suggested that the council wait to take any action on changing the city’s charter in case the state’s lawmakers address local residency issues in proposed legislation.

“We don’t have an election for two years,” Long told her council colleagues. “Let’s wait and see what happens. They (legislators) may rewrite the whole election (code).”

Long went on to note that no one is challenging the city’s departure from state-mandated residency requirements for public office, adding, “I say we wait.”

In turn, Rosenthal reminded the council that a charter change conforming to state law would have to be in place prior to qualifying for 2027 balloting, which would shorten the available timeline for any change to about 18 months from today.

Additionally, Rosenthal reminded the council that any change would have to be approved at two successive council meetings, thereby also shortening the timeline for a charter change.

In addition, it appeared from developments at Monday’s meeting that there may be some more immediate urgency for the city to conform its charter to state law. As discussion continued, Rosenthal told the council that while other Georgia cities are of compliance with state law on residency requirements for seeking public office, Loganville “is on notice that it needs to be right. Period. End of story.”

Rosenthal went on to suggest that the council should address the issue in an executive session immediately following Monday’s meeting. Such sessions, from which the public and the media are barred, are allowed for limited purposes, including discussions of pending legal action, real estate transactions and personnel issues.

The council emerged from the executive session after nearly an hour behind closed doors, with Rosenthal announcing that there was no council action to be taken pursuant to the closed-door meeting.

Beyond her insistence that the council not move immediately to change its two-year residency requirement for seeking public office, Long on Monday made a tangential suggestion that council members be subject to random drug testing, arguing that they should be held to a higher standard as public servants.

“I would just like to see if we have any support for random drug testing among ourselves,” Long told Mayor Branden Whitfield and her five colleagues. “Because I’ll go right now and use that restroom. I don’t have a problem. And I think if you’re willing to sit up here and represent the people of Loganville, that you should be willing to hold yourself to the same or a higher standard.”

Three council members – Lisa Newberry, Wes Johnson and Patti Wolfe – indicated Monday that they had no objection to random drug testing.

“I think we should,” Johnson said.

“I have no problem with random drug testing, except when I take my gummies when my knees are hurting me,” Wolfe joked. 

As discussion continued, Rosenthal told Long and the rest of the council that elected municipal officials are generally not subject to drug testing, and he was unsure whether they could be required to submit to it.

But, Rosenthal said, “I’d be happy to dig into it and research it for you.”