Open Records Lawsuit Update

A Big Win for the Community!
After years of hard work we have won (and won big!) the first round of the Feltus v. DeKalb Open Records Lawsuit. On August 8, 2005, the DeKalb County Superior Court declared the County, PDK Airport, CEO Vernon Jones and PDK Airport Director Lee Remmel in violation the Georgia Open Records Act for withholding records about operations at PDK Airport. The Feltus legal team has been meeting with representatives from the County since the Judge’s order and the County has agreed to a schedule for production of the long-sought-after records about aircraft operations at PDK.

What Is Happening Now?
The Feltus team has commenced reviewing the first batch of computerized records produced by the County. More records are to be released to the Feltus team over the next six weeks. Once all records have been released, they must be analyzed. The parties have agreed to stay (suspend) the lawsuit for a 45-day period while the County complies with the Judge’s order to disclose the PDK records.

What’s Next?
The Feltus legal team will be meeting again with County representatives to discuss the issues not decided by the Court order, such as injunctive relief to ensure the Court’s order can be enforced in the future, should the County continue to violate the Open Records Law. When the records are in hand and have been analyzed, the community will finally be in a position to meaningfully challenge the many aspects of operations at PDK to which it objects, such as assessment and collection of ad valorem taxes from ALL appropriate aircraft; enforcement of the weight limit on aircraft at PDK, institution of mandatory flight paths and relief from continuous noise from ‘touch and go’ practice operations at PDK.

Why Are Your Continuing Financial Contributions Still So Critical?
Unless enforced, a court order is not worth the paper it is written on. The August 8 order has to be turned into an enforceable judgment against the Defendants. Enforcement of the community’s win to date and pursuit of the larger goals of protecting ourselves from non-responsive, unaccountable local government and unacceptable levels of noise and other pollution from PDK cannot happen without all of our financial support. The Feltus team has earned our respect and shown they can get a tough job done right, so do your part to support our ongoing efforts by sending a donation to Open DeKalb, Inc. at P.O. Box 190895, Atlanta, Georgia 31119 or visiting our website at www.opendekalbinc.org.* You and/or your neighbors may have helped support the successful first round of this fight. ALL OF US have to help to protect the win and make the bigger goals a reality.

* You may have heard that Plaintiff Mickey Feltus can ask the Court to order that the County pay some of the critical attorney fees incurred in prosecuting this very successful case. But asking for fees can be a very lengthy process and it requires incurring more fees. If some fees are eventually awarded, they would no doubt amount to far less than the actual debts we have incurred to win this vital first round. Above all, an award of attorney fees would not provide the funds necessary to MOVE FORWARD and engage the County in the next battle to enforce the weight limit and expose government corruption regarding PDK operations before it can do even more damage to our community.

See 2nd Update dated 9/26/2005