DeKalb Commission Head Considers Ethics Reform

CEO Burrell Ellis faces more than a dozen felony charges for allegedly threatening to cut off county business to vendors unless they contributed to his re-election campaign.

Lee May presides over the county commission and won’t comment on the charges but says he’s interested in looking at ethics reform. “Soliciting campaign contributions: that is not prohibited,” says May. “How you do it and the perception of how you do things is very critical.”

But May was reluctant to call for an immediate push, telling WABE, “I don’t want to have any kind of knee-jerk reaction on anything.  I want to be deliberate and really make some common sense efforts and proposals that will translate into legislation.”

Despite the indictment, May and the other commissioners say, for now, for them, it’s business as usual.