Rep. Bearden’s consulting efforts exist ‘in minds of Carrollton’s children’

Last Monday, news broke the City of Carrollton had paid state Rep. Tim Bearden, R-Douglasville, nearly $100,000 in consulting fees to assist the city’s police department since late 2005. City officials and the state lawmaker said the deal was based on a “verbal agreement” and no documents exist to show the fruits of Bearden’s labor. Questions were raised.

After Carrollton blogger D. Tim Clark broke the story, the local newspaper Carrollton Times-Georgian picked it up and printed snippets of an “open letter” city officials released about the deal. The piece is largely sympathetic to the Bearden arrangement, which city officials call a cost-saving measure. This bit was beautiful:

There is no written documentation of the work Bearden’s done, Garner notes in the letter, so much as the work product exists “in the minds of our children, our citizens and our community who have been educated or participated in a community policing program.”

Awww.