I-Team: Mayor Kasim Reed's Car Upgrades Cost Taxpayers Thousands

you may remember our Fox 5 i-team report about the high cost of mayor Kasim Reed to executive protection cars some cost 92 thousand dollars apiece we asked what the upgrades were the city refused to show us saying they were exempt from disclosure under the Georgia Open Records Act due to security reasons now our Fox 5 i-team reporter senior reporter Dale Russell has those invoices that show what taxpayers really paid for the vehicles day yeah Tom and it was a little bit different than we thought there was some 717 thousand dollars in upgrades on the mayor's cars each car we weren't shown any of those up rates because we were told of security reasons really well now we have them watching mayor Kasim Reed drive around town and one of his two GMC Yukon Denalis made us curious we talked to you for a moment please we tried to ask mayor Reed how much did the cars cost what were the upgrades did the taxpayers get a good deal getting a direct answer from the mayor and his staff was difficult you may remember we asked for invoices last year it took three months and help from the state attorney general's office to get the city to give us the records open records act expects city documents to be turned over to requesting citizens or media in three days when we finally got the invoice the city redacted all the upgrades mayor Reed spokesperson jena garland and then city attorney jeremy berry both told me the upgrades were redacted because they were safety security features and exempt from disclosure by law I don't see any reason whatsoever that that information should have been redacted we asked good government group come and cause director Sarah Henderson what she thought of redacting the upgrades it should be all open because every dime of that is taxpayer money since then GBI agents like this one have scoured the hallways of City Hall picking up records and talking to employees as the GBI investigates whether mayor Reid or his staff violated the Georgia Open Records Act that investigation began after these texts were broadcast by another TV station in them then spokesperson jena garland told a fellow city communications director who was responding to an open records request to be as unhelpful as possible and to drag this out as long as possible some of the GBI now investigating possible open records violations and the mayor long gone we filed another open records request for all the upgrades and we got this unredacted copy from Atlanta Police so we could now see the so-called security features the first thing we noticed the city bought a brand-new $73,000 Denali but apparently the mayor didn't like the color so taxpayers paid seventy two hundred dollars to paint the two brand-new cars a custom dark blue paint scheme custom dark blue paint scheme does that seem like an item that should be redacted for security reasons no absolutely not none of that information should be redacted regardless of what it says that's public information that's taxpayer money then the custom splash guards premium floor mats and chrome door handles definitely not a security issue don't know why you would need chrome door handles and then there was this the city installed a custom rear entertainment system with blu-ray video those two systems cost an additional thirty two hundred dollars for the taxpayers maybe mayor Reed was watching security videos a blu-ray player the fact that it was redacted when you first asked for the information just goes to show that there's something to hide in those numbers and the taxpayers should be upset they should be furious with that and one source familiar with this redaction situation told me that the city originally decided to reject all those upgrades so someone couldn't look at the invoice and figure out what security measures were or were not installed on the car so that's the explanation at this point of view but we finally have it all right there put the taxpayers to see for themselves in black and white and perhaps if they were security measures they would have been look justifiable but please leave a lot of questions to be answered they do Tom the you saw why we were interested in the first place these cars were extremely expensive their vehicles for police for the protection of the mayor we all understand that but you look at some of the upgrades and you can see why the questions were raised originally and now we have an answer do we know these vehicles are still in use now no I don't know I believe mayor bottoms is using them but we don't know for sure I reached out and asked if she's still using the same vehicles because now these cars were bought in 15 so they got a little bit of miles on I have no way of knowing if they've gotten anything new at this point all right Dale thanks well

Channel: FOX 5 Atlanta

Views: 534,111

Rating: 4.6858506 out of 5

Keywords: dale russell, kasim reed, fox 5 i-team, good day atlanta, Jeremy Berry, Open Records, Common Cause

Id: h6f05lKzEwg

Length: 5min 13sec (313 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018