The Truth About Cockroaches...and Politicians.

Admittedly, in my four years of observing, reporting, and analyzing the City of Sugar Hill, I had actually never before submitted an Open Records Request to look at the communications between Council Members and developers, or between Council Members regarding a case.

Based on their consistent unanimous votes in favor of almost every development project and almost every variance, I strongly suspected significant communication was happening. And based on their lack of real discussion at meetings, I'm almost completely sure that they either discuss cases privately beforehand, or have a standing unwritten policy at the City of Sugar Hill that Council Members can only make certain motions and the rest are to vote for the motion.

However, I always figured these discussions would be so far under the radar that I would never be able to find them.

When I started looking into RZ-22-006 (66 townhouses and 12 single-family detached houses next to Warrenton and across from Arbor Clos), I knew that the developer had engaged in some antagonistic behavior and wanted to see what he had said to the City.

I didn't actually expect to find evidence on the City servers that anyone there had said anything back, much less anything that looked quite as bad as the response looked. It looked incredibly bad for a City Council Member to respond to a request for an off-the-record conversation from a developer, given the exceedingly preferential treatment developers always get around here.

I doubt the practice is rare, but the fact that I detected it probably was. My initial hunches are likely correct, and these interactions are for the most part, incredibly well hidden. I suspect they've gotten a little sloppy because they'd gone four years without me looking into this.

After this, I imagine they will all scurry back to their hiding places like roaches when someone switches on the kitchen light.

Unfortunately, roaches and sneaky politicians leave telltale signs of their destructive natures, even when you don't catch them in the act. All you can do is get rid of them and clean up the mess so you don't attract more in their place.

And keep the lights switched on, for good measure.