Austin Defends Inquiry into Opponent's Work Schedule

The Paulding County online community has been commenting the past week over allegations that Mayor Boyd Austin called the employer of his opponent, Marvin Tingler, to ask if he had been campaigning during work hours.

The Paulding Pundit website last week posted a copy of a letter from Doug Williams, professor and interim school chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, which said that Austin on Oct. 20 had called him to ask if he could check to see if Tingler was campaigning on the clock; Tingler is employed by the college.

Williams confirmed to Dallas-Hiram Patch that he wrote the letter as it appeared on the Paulding Pundit site but declined to comment any further.

Dallas-Hiram Patch asked both candidates about the letter last week, with Austin saying he had indeed called the college about Tingler.

“As candidates, we are all under scrutiny for all that we do,” Austin said. “My opponent is a public employee, he works for the state of Georgia, he’s told everybody exactly what he does, where he works. I have had some concerns for a while—a number of people have told me the times he’s been in their businesses or their homes, different hours of the day which, to me, would be normal business hours.

“My goal was just to find out if he was working on taxpayer dollars. I’m one of those state taxpayers, I pay a significant portion of my income. I don’t begrudge anybody running, but I’m not going to pay for him or fund him. If there is nothing there, that’s fine—the question simply posed was ‘How do you know if somebody is on the clock?’ If they work from home, how do you know when they’re working for you and what they’re doing? I think it’s a valid question for anybody in business, and particularly in state government—if people are going to work from home, that we get the value for the dollars that we’re paying them, and that other duties and other things are not being neglected. And that’s exactly why the call was made.”

Tingler said he was not the one to send the letter to the Paulding Pundit, adding that he had not expect his pursuit of office to cross over into his work life.

“I did not think the local mayoral race would ever interfere with mine and my wife’s livelihood,” Tingler said. “I’m supporting my wife because she’s actually a student, so if I lost my job over something like this—you know, a blatant misrepresentation of facts or lack of knowledge—then me and my wife could possibly be homeless, we could be having a foreclosure. That’s just not something I deal with or took lightly.”

“My concern is that if someone is going to talk about transparency and promote honesty and open government, then you need to make sure that applies equally to the person speaking as to the person they’re opposing,” Austin said. “So I did make the call and said, ‘I’d just like to verify that he is clocked out, that you have some way to verify that.’ It was not intended in any way to threaten him—it was more or less a watchdog for the taxpayers.

“I think that certainly, that’s something that should be a concern to the taxpayers, and if it’s not an issue, if the records show otherwise, then that’s fine. But I thought the question needed to be raised,” Austin added.

Austin also addressed comments some have made about when he made the call to Georgia Tech. Some have asked if he made the call while in his service as mayor.

Austin says he does not have an office in city hall and adds that a lot of city business comes across his desk at his job or involves work during his typical work hours—situations he has to work around with his employers.

“I work in private business with a flexible schedule,” Austin said. “The owners of my company are aware of my political endeavors and they understand that, so it’s not comparing apples to apples. The mayor’s a part-time job, it pays part-time pay, but it takes probably a lot more hours in a week than people ever realize.”