October 21, 2017

First, thank you for your expressions of solidarity with my efforts to achieve good governance in Milton.  Over the past few days, your incredible outpouring of support has been both humbling and encouraging.  As you might imagine, taking on Milton’s deeply entrenched politicians and Special Interests is tough work.

Second, I want to thank the Milton city government for its swift and serious response to the misappropriation and misuse of citizens’ personal data.  The City Manager, City Attorney, and Communications Director seem to be taking the right steps to reassure citizens and to make necessary changes to ensure there are no future data breaches or misuse of citizens’ personal information.

Over the past few days, several news organizations have been covering the data breach scandal in Milton.  My understanding is that WSB will air a story on Monday and the Milton Herald will likely run a story in next week’s newspaper.  Articles have already run in Saturday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution (front page of Local section B) and in The Alpharetta-Milton Patch.  Both articles are excellent.  Following are links to those articles:

Councilman Used Emails For Veterans Program To Promote Campaign Event

Milton councilman improperly used email addresses from city

Please take careful note of Mr. Lusk’s responses in these articles.  Lusk’s strategy seems to be one of deceive, diminish, and dismiss.

• Deceive – Mr. Lusk doubles down on his deception by telling more lies to excuse his behavior.
• Diminish – Lusk contends that compromising the personal data of hundreds of citizens is no big deal.
• Dismiss – Lusk contends this controversy is all about scoring cheap political points.

Let’s start with the deception.  Mr. Lusk states that his use of the city-generated veterans email list was “honest oversight on my part” and “I used my complete contact list to send out invitations to my campaign events.”  This is a lie . . . plain and simple.  Here’s the truth:

Mr. Lusk began his e-mail solicitation with “Hello Fellow Veteran”.  Following is a screenshot of part of the actual invitation.

In the next paragraph, Mr. Lusk explicitly references being a veteran and the veterans’ memorial marker initiative.  See the following screenshot of the next paragraph of his invitation:

The above paragraphs make it very clear that Mr. Lusk was using a specific e-mail list—i.e., the city-generated memorial markers list—to send invitations, NOT his “complete contact list” (which he claims incidentally had memorial markers e-mail addresses mixed in).  It is not coincidental that Mr. Lusk even references the memorial markers initiative.

It is incredible that Mr. Lusk claims his misuse was an “honest oversight” when Lusk used the same e-mail distribution list after—that’s right . . . after—the City alerted him to the issue of his use of a City-generated e-mail list.  The City alerted Mr. Lusk about the issue on October 13, 2017.  Nevertheless, using the same distribution list, Mr. Lusk blasted out another campaign email invitation on October 16, 2017 to a second event at Little River Farms.

Why would Mr. Lusk continue use the city-generated veterans list even after he was made aware of the seriousness of the issue?  Arrogance and desperation.  Arrogance, because Mr. Lusk has typically gotten away with such acts in the past.  He did not expect the City to issue such a strong response . . . he was wrong.  Desperation, because his opponent, Laura Bentley, is running a very strong campaign against him and has Mr. Lusk worried.  At this point, Mr. Lusk seems willing to break any and all rules to win.  That is why he planted many dozens of illegal signs in Crabapple the night before early voting.  And that is why he took a risk in using a city-generated email list.  Fortunately, both schemes have backfired on him, with citizens increasingly disposed to vote against him.  Mr. Lusk cannot get out of his own way.

Finally, note that Mr. Lusk had a golden opportunity to explain himself at last Monday’s City Council meeting.  However, he said nothing.  No explanation.  No apology.  Nothing . . . stone cold silence.

And Mr. Lusk has yet to apologize for the data breach that compromised the personal data of hundreds of Milton citizens and has shaken confidence in our local government.  Mr. Lusk thinks he has nothing to apologize for.  Mr. Lusk thinks the data breach issue is minor and being exploited for political purposes.   This contention highlights the other part of his strategy:  diminish and dismiss . . . more about that tomorrow.

Advocating for Clean Government,

Tim Becker