Danielsville police chief is back

City attorney Dale Perry told the council that there are four potential dates for a special election in 2012, with the next available one on March 6, the day of Georgia’s presidential preference primary.

No election or qualifying dates were set during the Jan. 12 meeting, but Perry informed the council that the group will need to work quickly to hold the election in March. Early voting must be held at city hall. And ballots must be printed. The Danielsville election superintendent was on vacation last week and could not be consulted by the council.

“The sad thing about this is it’s going to cost us a bunch of money to run a special election,” said Perry, noting the cost of paying poll workers.

Croya resigned from the mayor’s post Jan. 10 amid a tumultuous time at the council table.

“Politics is the devil; it’s evil,” he told The Journal last week.

Documents submitted to Danielsville’s city council by Croya last week just prior to his resignation present a picture of discord between the mayor and police chief Pilkington.

The documents weren’t discussed during the city’s regular business meeting Jan. 9, but evidently were discussed by the council and the city attorney after the meeting was adjourned and the public had left, according to council member Janice Merk.

Merk said the meeting lasted 45 minutes or so and included all members of the council as well as former council member Ron Faust and Pilkington. She said eventually Perry told them they needed to disperse and left the room.

Faust said he was there but noted that the council did not take any action.

Former councilperson Hitchcock was at the Jan. 9 meeting and then attended the Jan. 12 meeting. She said she left the Jan. 9 meeting, thinking it was over, but later found out that the council discussed the Croya issue after adjournment.

She questioned the council about the discussion. And Perry said that the group was essentially floored by what Croya wrote and took some time to discuss “what is this?”

The issues in Croya’s documents included information about an improperly written speeding ticket by former police officer Cliff Moody, lack of maintenance of the radar equipment, the radar’s accuracy and the work time put in by Pilkington.

Croya said last week that he and police chief Pilkington have had issues since he came on board as police chief last year and that he does not feel Pilkington is the right man for the job, but could not get the council and attorney to stand behind him.

Police officer Moody resigned in late November over issues involving a speeding ticket he wrote on Sam Groves Street, a road that is not an approved street on the city’s radar permit.

Attorney Perry dismissed many of Croya’s issues in a letter written to the council that he also provided to The Journal. In the letter Perry said he did not feel Croya had sufficient reasons to terminate Pilkington as police chief. He said the speeding ticket was a “dead issue” as the person arrested had pled guilty.

Perry also addressed the issue of Croya riding with the city’s police officers. He said Croya talked with him about riding with Pilkington to observe his performance, but that it developed that Croya was wearing a personalized Danielsville PD shirt, given to him by former police chief Rodney Christian, and that he was carrying his own permitted concealed weapon.

“He stated that Chief Pilkington had called the GBI to see if this was legal and (was told) that this conduct was impersonating a police officer,” Perry wrote. “He (Croya) was upset that Chief Pilkington did not want him to ride in the police cars with his uniform and gun. He felt that as mayor, and because he had a concealed weapons permit, he should be able to do this.”

Perry said he told Croya of his liability concerns and that “having a weapons permit was not the same as being a certified police officer.”
Croya denied the allegations.

“I did not try to impersonate a police officer,” he said. “It only happened one time and I told Pilkington I had my weapon.” He said Pilkington was “fine with it.”

Croya said he did wear a shirt given to him by Christian.

“The shirt also had my name and ‘mayor’ on it,” he said.

Croya added that he had also worn a Comer PD shirt given to him by Comer police chief Brent Zellner.

“I was just trying to support the agencies I was working with,” Croya said.