A hearing was held on Monday between Barrow County and Alecia Behlog, the citizen who filed legal action in October claiming the county violated the Georgia Open Meetings Act.
Roughly 30 people were in attendance at the Barrow County Courthouse to hear arguments from Behlog, who represented herself pro se, while Barrow had their attorney Chip Ferguson present.
Piedmont Superior Court Judge Andy Crawford presided over the hearing.
Crawford ultimately decided to potentially hold another hearing after considering both sides’ arguments and the county’s motion to dismiss filed last week.
“I am thrilled that the judge decided not to grant their motion to dismiss and take some more time to review everything,” Behlog told AccessWDUN after the hearing.
The case stemmed from a meeting in July when Behlog says a “vague cost reimbursement” item was added to the agenda right before approval. That item ended up being the county’s divestment from the School Resource Officer (SRO) program beginning in the 2026-2027 fiscal year.
“If the court … was to grant your petition, then what is the remedy?” Crawford asked Behlog.
Behlog replied, saying that at a minimum she would want the July 8 action “reversed and redone with public comment.”
Crawford also questioned Behlog, asking if the court can simply tell the board of commissioners to “argue more” before passage.
Behlog responded, saying that the issue is the county’s pattern of non-transparency.
“The BOE voted to pay 100% of the direct costs of SROs, but that’s not been agreed upon between all of the parties that are to be involved in that [intergovernmental agreement],” Behlog said.
In Ferguson’s response, he said “most” of the cases Behlog was citing were not Writ of Mandamus cases.
“All of her comments were ‘I don’t believe that it should be this way’ or ‘I don’t think this’ that’s been the gist of her petition and her comments today,” Ferguson said. “It’s not appropriate to have a bunch of joint meetings … with the school board and let everybody point fingers about who should pay for what when there is pending Ante Litem notices that are coming in at that same time threatening to sue everybody over the handling of a tragic school shooting.”
Ferguson added that Behlog’s opinion was that the addition of the item was not necessary, but that “she’s basing that on what she thinks.”
“Essentially she’s trying to get the court to tell the county how to operate,” Ferguson said. “I think those three sophisticated parties [BOE, BOC, Sheriff’s Office] are perfectly equipped to enter into agreement with each other.”
Crawford ultimately decided to adjourn the hearing signaling another hearing could be on the horizon.
“There’s this motion to dismiss that was filed on Dec. 2 … there’s a lot for the court to wade through on all of these issues,” Crawford said. “What I’m going to do is issue a written order on the motion to dismiss after I consider all the arguments … depending on how the court ends up landing on everything we’ll be issuing a rule nisi for a further hearing in this case.”
Behlog noted the dozens who showed up to her support.
“The support is absolutely wonderful to have,” Behlog said. “It’s necessary to have, I couldn’t have done it alone … we will hear all the merits at the hearing, and we’ll get to the meat of it all then.”
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