So, about this $273,000 lawsuit the Atlanta Botanical Garden filed against the Friends of Piedmont Park...
Well, that went relatively unnoticed.
On Dec. 7, 2007, the Atlanta Botanical Garden filed a $273,000 lawsuit against the Friends of Piedmont Park and Doug Abramson, the park advocacy group's president. The garden claims that because of an earlier suit filed by Abramson seeking the garden's financial records, it had to spend unbudgeted funds — almost $300,000, according to a garden spokesperson — on a legal defense contesting the suit.
In 2004, the garden pushed for a parking deck in Atlanta's most iconic greenspace to accommodate more visitors. The Piedmont Park Conservancy backed the idea.
FOPP, however, along with many other voices in the community, didn't like the sound of that, and fought the project with gusto. After a series of lawsuits and a lot of yard signs, a judge in September said it came down to this: The deck's getting built and the garden doesn't have to disclose its financial records — it was and is, the judge said, a private, nonprofit entity.
(For an excellent rundown and take on the parking deck debate, click here for former CL staff writer Michael Wall's "Welcome to Piedmont Parking Deck.")
The garden says that FOPP's lawsuit was "frivolous" — a legal imbroglio that was a whole lotta legwork, paperwork and headache. And now FOPP is being handed a $273,000 bill for legal fees, which the garden claims it had to divert from other projects in order to pay.
Click here to read the garden's lawsuit against FOPP.
And from Doug Abramson at FOPP's website:
Central to the Atlanta Botanical Garden's claim for fees is the unwarranted contention that Friends of Piedmont Park was "frivolous" in its attempt to secure a judge's ruling that the Botanical Garden must comply with open records laws. Frivolous? Hardly. Determining whether the Atlanta Botanical Garden, as a steward of public land, should be treated as a public agency is an important policy question. An impressive group of First Amendment advocates supports our position. Before going to court, Friends of Piedmont Park sought an opinion from the Georgia Attorney General's office on this issue. Initially the AG supported the position that the Atlanta Botanical Garden is subject to Georgia's Sunshine Laws and should turn over documents. Later, after our suit was filed and the AG's office consulted with Botanical Garden attorneys, the Department of Law wrote that "substantial questions remain as to whether the Garden is in fact covered by the Georgia Open Records and Open Meetings Act." By no stretch was it frivolous to ask a judge to resolve these "substantial questions.
A call to Doug Abramson's residence was met by an answering machine. We'll keep an eye on this one.