Rosendahl: Let’s clear the air

Local developer wonders how he factors in recall

Kris Rosendahl and his wife, DeeDee, own Rosewood Development Company, which has recently been inadvertently caught in the middle of the ongoing controversy over the attempted recall of Walton County Chairman David Thompson.  Stephen Milligan | The Walton Tribune

Kris Rosendahl didn’t think much of it at first. It was just a few social media comments. Then a bad review or two.

But soon he was getting dirty looks in public from some people, whispers from others as he walked by.

“I started to see some negativity popping up,” Rosendahl said. “I’ve been here all my life. I live here, I went to Loganville High School.

“I go above and beyond for this county. For people to treat me this way is just unneccessary.”

Rosendahl, who owns Rosewood Development Company in Loganville with his wife, DeeDee, was dumbfounded. All this because of a years-old real estate deal?

Rosendahl saw the breadth of it when he went to court to see the case that had dragged his name into the public eye: the recall effort to remove Walton County Chairman David Thompson from office.

“The things they were saying about me were outrageous,” Rosendahl said. “You can’t just bash and badmouth someone you don’t know.”

But Rosendahl feels many have been doing just that.

Rosendahl found himself inadvertently at the center of the storm due to a business deal he had with Thompson, one which activist group Walton In Action flagged as potentially a conflict of interest on Thompson’s part in their justification in seeking to recall the chairman from office.

Rosendahl had signed an agreement with Thompson back in 2018 to build a house on land Thompson owned on Dewey Hogan Road.

“David Thompson came to me with the proposal,” Rosendahl said. “He worked on the board of the bank we did business with.”

Thompson proposed building a “spec house” — or speculative house, a home built without a specific buyer in mind — on the land.

“He said, ‘I’ve got this land and I’d like to see some houses there when I drive by,’” Rosendahl said.

As part of the agreement, Rosewood Development would build a house with an investment from Thompson’s real estate holding company and, once the house was sold, pay back the loan.

“He was just the bank, really,” Rosendahl said.

After the first house sold, Rosewood and Thompson built several more. And then Between Mayor Robert Post came to Rosendahl with a proposition.

“The mayor came to me with the idea of annexing the land into the city of Between,” Rosendahl said. “I sort of blew him off at first because I didn’t see any upside to it, but he was really persistent. He’s such a nice guy.”

Rosendahl agreed to the annexation and Post did the rest.

“He took care of everything after that,” Rosendahl said. “I wasn’t even at the meeting where they voted on it.”

Walton In Action suggested Thompson, by presiding over the vote to annex the land into Between — a vote that is essentially a formality, as the county only serves an advisory role in any annexation — acted improperly as he had business holdings on some of the land in question and could have benefitted financially from the approval.

Rosendahl feels the idea is ridiculous.

“I’ve known David Thompson a long time,” Rosendahl said. “He’s a good guy. He’s strictly by the book.”

Rosendahl said he wasn’t surprised people were upset with Thompson — stemming back to Thompson’s tie-breaking vote over the summer to pass the county millage rate, which rose nearly 20% under the new budget.

“I don’t think anybody in this county was happy taxes were raised,” Rosendahl said.

He’s just not sure how he got dragged into the midst of citizen ire over the tax situation.

“I had nothing to do with the annexation, really,” Rosendahl said. “The mayor did everything. All I did was sign to do it and he took care of the rest.”

Yet strangers online, he said, accused him of corruption in his dealings with Thompson, while others left bad reviews online in direct attacks on his business.

Rosendahl said it felt vicious at times and totally unmerited and he was unsure how he ever got pulled into it in the first place.

“That’s not what we’re about,” Rosendahl said. “We’ve done so much good in Walton County. We’ve worked with Homes for Heroes. We had a hand in the Humane Society of Walton County. We’re building the new VFW. We work to give back to Walton County.”

Yet he said he’s been treated like a criminal by people who don’t even know him.

“They subpoenaed all my text messages with David Thompson,” Rosendahl said. “We’ve done business together, yes, but we’re mostly just friendly acquaintances. They’re pulling messages of us just wishing each other Merry Christmas in passing like its evidence of wrongdoing.”

Rosendahl refused to weigh in on the politics of the recall effort, saying he just wanted to clear the air on his alleged involvement.

“I’m the sort of person who likes to sit down with someone and clear the air, just talk it through,” Rosendahl said. “There’s no need to throw insults at people you don’t know.”

With the recall effort squashed after a judge threw it out for insufficient evidence, Rosendahl hopes things could get back to normal, though Walton In Action’s appeal to the state Supreme Court threatens to extend the ordeal.

Mostly, though, he just wants to get back to work and move on with his business without the shadow of the recall and what he sees as spurious accusations hanging over him.

“At the end of the day, I just wish I hadn’t gotten dragged into it,” Rosendahl said.