DALTON, Ga. — Accusing them of “lying,” Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Lynn Laughter said people who contributed money to a group that worked to defeat a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) on the March ballot should not serve on a committee to advise commissioners and other elected officials on a SPLOST that is being planned for an election in 2020.

“I can handle people having a different opinion than my own,” Laughter said in a May text message to other commissioners obtained through an open records request. “What I can’t handle is people lying — and they did: called it a tax increase, keep $100 million in your pockets like none of it came from out of the county, $34 million in front of a picture of one building. I think the people that actually contributed money to the political action committee to defeat the SPLOST should not be on any committee. These people are Jevin Jensen, Chris Shiflett, David Pennington, Cathy Holmes, John Didier, Marshall Mauldin and Phil Neff. There are plenty of other people who voted no who could be on a committee and don’t tell lies.”

On Friday, Laughter said she stands by those comments.

“I feel like the Engaged Citizens for Georgia (the group that questioned the SPLOST) misled our citizens,” she said. “I am fine with having people on the committee who voted no on the SPLOST because you need people who have different opinions.”

A SPLOST is a 1% sales tax on most goods bought in the county. It can only fund projects and items; a SPLOST can’t pay for general operations. A four-year SPLOST, which was projected to collect $64 million, expired on June 30 and the total sales tax rate in the county fell to 6% from 7%. If voters had approved the March SPLOST measure, the tax would have lasted six more years and would have brought in an estimated $100 million.

Laughter says she does not believe that SPLOST would have been a tax increase because the total sales tax rate in the county would have remained the same if it had passed.

During the lead-up to the SPLOST vote, Citizens for SPLOST, a group formed by the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce to promote the SPLOST, claimed that up to 30% of the tax would be paid by people from outside the county. Engaged Citizens for Georgia questioned that statistic. SPLOST supporters dropped the claim after being informed by the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government that no one tracks how much sales tax is paid by those who live inside the county and how much by those who live outside the county.

Both sides agreed that some of the tax would be paid by people from outside the county but the exact amount could not be known.

Laughter acknowledges that Engaged Citizens for Georgia said that some of the tax would be paid by people from outside the county.

“But one thing they said is that (if the SPLOST was defeated it would) put $100 million back in your pockets,” Laughter said. “That’s not true because part of that is coming from people outside the county.”

Laughter said she thinks the claim that $100 million would go back into taxpayers’ pockets implies it would all go to Whitfield County residents

Laughter said she also objected to the group using in presentations the image of just one building that would have been built while speaking of the $34 million in total construction it would fund.

Some of the people named by Laughter said they were stunned by her remarks.

“You are telling me the truth?” said Neff. “Well, I’ll be darned.”

“That shocks me,” he said. “I count Lynn as a friend. I may disagree with her viewpoint, but I would not exclude her right to express her opinion on anything.”

Neff said he does not think Engaged Citizens for Georgia misled anyone.

Laughter said Friday she has known Neff “a long, long time.”

“I know he’s a good Christian man,” she said. “I don’t consider him the kind of person who would tell a lie. My point (in the text) was that he contributed to an organization that misled our citizens.”

Neff has not applied to be on the advisory committee, saying he believes that the commissioners are “going to do what they are going to do” when it comes to any new SPLOST proposal.

“She said we misled the voters?” said Pennington, a former Dalton mayor. “She called us liars? In writing?”

“I am somewhat taken aback that she resorts to name calling,” Pennington said.

Pennington said those who questioned the SPLOST never said none of it would be paid by people from outside the county and that talking about putting $100 million back in taxpayers’ pockets never implied that.

“People who live in Catoosa County that drive in here to work every day and a lot of times eat breakfast, lunch and supper, that money going back into their pockets doesn’t count?” he said.

Pennington has not applied to serve on the advisory committee. But he said his son, David Pennington IV, has, and he is concerned in light of Laughter’s text message that their relationship might be held against his son.

Jensen said he is “shocked and profoundly disappointed that the most powerful elected official in Whitfield County would resort to personal attacks and name calling.”

“Banning a group of citizens from volunteering to serve their own government because those citizens dared disagree with her on this one matter is appalling,” he said.

Jensen has applied to serve on the advisory committee.

Laughter’s comments got some pushback from other commissioners.

“If we don’t put at least one of those people on the committee we will have them going against it again,” Commissioner Greg Jones said in a text message responding to Laughter.

Jones said Friday he does not believe contributing to Engaged Citizens for Georgia should disqualify anyone from serving on the advisory committee.

“That’s not a problem for me. I don’t have a problem with that at all,” he said. “I respect their opinions.”

Commissioner Barry Robbins said he could not remember everything that members of Engaged Citizens for Georgia said in forums about the SPLOST but he could not recall them saying anything he believed to be a lie.

“The presentations that I heard or sat in on were dialogues with people presenting an opposing view to certain aspects of the SPLOST,” he said. “I recall some of those people saying they supported previous SPLOSTs.”

Robbins said it is “unfortunate that names were mentioned that indicated they weren’t fit to sit on an advisory committee.”

Robbins noted that he personally did not support building two new county administrative buildings, which the SPLOST would have funded.

“But I supported a number of other projects that were on the SPLOST — the fire station, the park on the south side of the county, the Westside community center, the repair of the courthouse, the repair of the jail,” he said.

Robbins noted that a SPLOST vote is an up-or-down vote on all the projects it would fund and each person has to decide whether the value of the projects they support outweighs the costs of those they oppose. He said he does not believe that someone should be disqualified from serving on an advisory committee because they reached a different judgment on the March SPLOST than he did.

Commissioner Roger Crossen said he does believe that some of the information Engaged Citizens for Georgia presented was “misleading.”

“They kept complaining that the money from people coming from out of town would not be as high as what we claimed. We said up to 30 percent,” he said. “They had information out there that made it sound like it wouldn’t be much at all. But when you have 30,000 people come in to (Whitfield County) to work every day, you know it has got to be something.”

But Crossen said he “probably wouldn’t disqualify anybody” who contributed to Engaged Citizens for Georgia.

Commissioner Harold Brooker did not immediately return a telephone message on Friday.

The advisory committee will make recommendations for the projects that would be funded from a SPLOST that could be voted on either in the May 2020 general primary or in the November 2020 general election. Each of the five county commissioners will appoint two committee members. The Dalton City Council will appoint three. Commissioners and Dalton council members will each name one alternate. Each of the county’s smaller cities (Cohutta, Tunnel Hill and Varnell) will appoint one person each.