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Sharing confidential information ends in reprimand for Dawson County commissioner

A resolution of censure was passed in Dawson County, Thursday night, following a disclosure of confidential information by a commissioner.

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. — In Dawson County, District 4 Commissioner Julie Hughes Nix was publicly reprimanded Thursday night in the form of a censure. Angela Davis, the Dawson County attorney, explained the process to 11Alive.

“Censure is a matter of law,” Davis said. “It means simply a reprimand, and so that's what the board of commissioners did tonight. They passed a resolution of censure which means a public resolution to reprimand a commissioner for certain conduct.”

In this case, the conduct involved a violation of attorney-client privilege with disclosure of confidential information in addition to disclosure of executive privilege information.

“Boards of commissions, under the Georgia Open Meetings Act, have the ability to meet privately in executive session to talk about certain confidential items. When they do, that's privileged. And that information should not be disclosed outside of that executive session, and there were disclosures in that realm as well,” Davis said.

Nix allegedly sent confidential information via email to Danielle Yarbrough, the county’s Human Resources Director. Yarbrough was fired in early February for failure to notify the county manager about her receipt of the emails from Nix. Punishing Nix for her role in all of this is a little more tricky.

“We cannot remove a commissioner from office,” Davis said. “Other members of the board have no authority to remove an elected commissioner, so this [censure] is really the only step that they can take within their scope of authority to reprimand, short of the next of going to superior court and seeking some type of court order to conform the conduct.”

The resolution of censure was brought before the board, the motion was accepted, and there was a vote which passed 3-1 with one abstention – Nix.

“I think it went as well as it could go with something like this, because obviously this could be a very emotionally charged issue because it's personal commissioner conduct, instead of dealing with what they typically deal with which is county policy,” Davis said.

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