WNEG-TV

HALL COUNTY - Hall County Commission Chairman Tom Oliver may be in more hot water. A couple of weeks ago WNEG's Laura-Ashley Harris brought you a story fueled by citizen claims that Chairman Oliver had been allegedly writing unauthorized checks to an independent contractor. But now, a group of Hall County citizens claim they have proof that check writing wasn't the only thing that Oliver may have been dabbling in.

"After I started collecting the information, I took it to the Sheriff's office and they were gracious enough to review it and they were able to see that there were some issues in there. And it wasn't just this issue, but there were several issues that they were concerned about."

A Hall County resident, who has asked to keep his anonymity, says after the Hall County Commission spent $1.2 million to secure land to build the library, he started digging, wondering where his tax payer dollars were going. And through open records requests, he obtained what he calls "very interesting activity."

"What I was able to do is from the documents that were provided to me, I was able to look and see in this commission clerks contract where she was being paid $36,000 a year. Then someone provided me with phone records and text messages where I could see where the chairman and this person were communicating at all hours of the day."

He says there were over 300 text messages between company phones owned by Michelle Smallwood, who was the commission clerk at the time, and Chairman Tom Oliver.

According to the phone records, many of those messages were exchanged in the early hours of the morning.

"Now I'm not sure how often or how frequently a clerk should talk to a Chairman. But of these text messages I believe that there were some 45 that were after 8:00 [at night]. And again you see this is just August." 

But he says that's just the tip of the iceberg. Smallwood resigned from her duties as the Commission Clerk effective December of 2007 and that's when he says her contract was altered, making her the beneficiary of a very hefty severance package.

"August or September you have a call log that just really blows up. Suddenly you have all of these calls, just in the month of August alone, there are about 100 and 200 text messages. All of these text messages were going between the Chairman and the Clerk and then all of a sudden she gets a bump in pay."

This is when this particular Hall County resident said the red flags started really popping up. Especially after Smallwood's contract was amended.

"Right here it specifically says that the employee and the county administrator have agreed for the mutual benefit of both the county and the employee, the employee's employment duties should end December 31. So you give someone a raise in the same contract that you are saying that they are only going to work for another three months, and oh by the way, that termination clause that was in your other contract, we are going to alter that a little bit." By alter he means eliminate all together.

In the records obtained by WNEG, it's clear that the former clerk's contract was amended from three months severance to six months severance and all stipulations were removed. In addition, Smallwood resigned, she was not let go. So under the first contract she shouldn't have received a dime after resigning her position with Hall County. But instead, records show she was paid over $106,000 in 13 months, when at the time of her resignation she was only making $62,000 annually.

District Attorney Lee Darrah would only say he has discussed the documents with the GBI.  He also said that at this time, he will not comment on the investigation any further.

WNEG's Laura-Ashley Harris tried to get comment from Chairman Oliver twice today and both times he declined comment. He simply said, "Everything will come out once the investigation is over."

Stay with WNEG news as we continue to update you on this rapidly developing story.