Atlanta's inspector general faces Open Records Act lawsuit

ATLANTA - Atlanta's inspector general is being sued by a city contractor whose name surfaced during a year-long investigation by her office.

The vendor's attorney says Inspector General Shannon Manigault has overstepped her boundaries and is not following the law while trying to investigate possible financial connections between vendors and Atlanta officials.

Attorney Stephen Katz has filed an Open Records Act lawsuit against Manigault because he believes she has exceeded her authority.

"I see her role as weeding out corruption, but she must act within the law herself," Katz told FOX 5's Aungelique Proctor.

Katz represents Bernie Tokarz, a security contractor and lobbyist who also volunteered as the Finance Chair for Atlanta's Post 1 At Large Council person Michael Julian Bond.

Bernie Tokarz

The Office of the Inspector General released a report saying Tokarz should be banned from doing business with the city for alleged unethical behavior, but Katz is pushing back.

"She talks about alleged, unlawful activities in lobbying, but lobbying isn't even something that's within her bailiwick, that's the state ethics director," he said. "This is part and parcel of what's been going on with this inspector general. She keeps exceeding her authority on numerous things."

SEE MORE: Atlanta city attorney fires back at allegations in inspector general report

Katz says his client has a $3 million contract with the city of Atlanta to provide security at city parks and Grady Memorial Hospital.

He claims the Office of the Inspector General has refused to comply with his requests for several documents and that Manigault crossed many lines during her investigation into Tokarz.

"She went and got his banking information and that of several uninvolved parties and didn't notify anybody," Katz claimed. "She doesn't even have subpoena power to get that banking information."

Katz says the Atlanta City Council seems to be snubbing the IG's report.

"Her report has largely been ignored and discarded by the city because they renewed Mr. Tokarz's contract. The state ethics commissioner summarily dismissed her ethics complaint, and we've got a load of questions about the inspector general," he said,

The council passed the renewal of Tokarz's contract unanimously, with Bond abstaining because he did not want there to be the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Atlanta inspector general, city clash over reports

The lawsuit comes less than a week after Manigault released a report alleging that officials showed favoritism during the bidding process for a 311 software system.

She claimed that the vendor used its connections to Mayor Andre Dickens’ transition team to gain access to city officials.

"We found that there were communications that had happened in advance of a request for proposal," Shannon Manigault, Atlanta's Inspector General, told FOX 5.

The city wrote a letter responding to the report, calling it "erroneous" and criticizing the OIG’s investigative methods as "wholly unprofessional and inappropriate."

After the city's response, the Office of the Inspector General released a five-page letter saying the city's response was "uncivil" and full of "ad hominem attacks and accusations of political bias" to try and cast doubt on its findings.

"It is a matter of public record that OIG and the City have had differences of opinion related to the functioning of this office," the letter read in part. "While discussion about operations and oversight for a new government entity can ultimately help benefit taxpayers, the public is not served by unsupported statements from the City in response to an OIG investigation conducted independently, scrupulously, and in good faith."