MARIETTA - Dr. John Crooks took the stand twice in his own defense Thursday, during the hearing to determine whether a petition to recall the Cobb County School Board member can move forward.

Plaintiff's attorney Gary Bunch of Carrollton first called Crooks to the stand and asked about the occurrences leading up to a vote to allow a 150-foot cell tower at Eastvalley Elementary School, a controversial item that Crooks requested be slipped onto the July 23 work session just minutes before the meeting,, thus avoiding advanced advertising for the public.

In his testimony, Crooks admitted doing so, but said that through board procedure, he was required to ask then-Chairman Dr. John Abraham and board members to approve placing it on the agenda.

"It was my request to have it considered, I'm only one-seventh of an entire board," Crooks said. "And it is the responsibility of the chairman to acknowledge that, not the individual board member."

Crooks also confessed to not advertising the cell tower item on the agenda, a proposal many parents and residents opposed as an unwanted eyesore, in order to avoid a "circus" - a quote the Marietta Daily Journal published in an Aug. 14 article. But Crooks maintained that he did not purposely mislead or deceive the public when it came to the issue of the cell tower. When Bunch asked if he agreed that misleading the public was conduct unbecoming of a public official, Crooks said he agreed it was in principle, but believes he did not do that.

"If you're trying to get me to backhandedly admit that I did that, I'm not going to agree to it," Crooks said. "But in general, if you're asking me in principle, I think, intellectually, anybody would agree to that statement."

The respondent, a group of concerned Eastvalley parents and neighbors opposed to the tower, was represented by Carrie Nicholas-Welkis. Nicholas-Welkis and her attorney have charged Crooks with intent to mislead the public, lack of constituency engagement, violating the Georgia Open Meetings Act and conduct unbecoming of an elected official.

Bunch and Crooks' attorneys, Doug Chalmers and Deborah Ausburn of FSB Legal Counsel, argued at Cobb Superior Court before Rome Circuit Court Judge Walter Matthews. The judge stated several times that it was not his responsibility or his authority to rule if Crooks acted in violation of the law or in violation of his responsibility to his public office, but that he is just required to rule whether there is probable cause to proceed with the recall.

There are a number of steps to recalling an elected official. The first is to obtain 100 signatures and submit them to the Cobb Board of Elections. Nicholas-Welkis submitted 119 signatures. Then the hearing takes place to determine probably cause. Matthews did not hand down a ruling Thursday. He asked counsels to submit closing arguments and a version of their court order in writing to his Rome chambers by Monday morning. If the judge green lights the recall effort, Nicholas-Welkis must obtain signatures from 30 percent of the active voters in Post 6, which she estimates being between 13,000 and 14,000.

Despite the recall effort, Crooks said last month that he will not seek re-election when his term expires at the end of the year.

Nicholas-Welkis testified Thursday regarding the petition she filed and her allegations against Crooks. Nicholas-Welkis said she was disappointed in Crooks because of the vote, and that she believes she and the public were misled and deceived by the board member.

"I felt that Dr. Crooks slapped us in the face," Nicholas-Weklis said.

Additionally, she testified that she and her fellow voters felt they didn't have a chance to fully voice their opinions since the cell tower item was placed on the agenda with no warning.

"We didn't have a chance. Our voices weren't heard. I felt violated," Nicholas-Welkis said.

Nicholas-Welkis became emotional during the cross-examination, when she testified that she and many other Eastvalley parents had tried to contact Crooks and the other board members before the vote to voice their concerns, but that those concerns were often met with silence.

"I pleaded to say, do what's right for the community," Nicholas-Welkis said tearfully.

Several times during the respondents' argument, Bunch mentioned a voice mail message left by Crooks for Jonathan Young, a neighbor of Nicholas-Welkis and an Eastvalley resident. In the message, Crooks told Young that the cell tower would most likely not come up for vote until at least August. Nicholas-Welkis said Crooks deceived the public by not living up to his words in the voice mail.

Crooks admitted to making the comments in the message, but said, at the time, he did not see them as promises.

"When you talk to a constituency, you're trying to identify with your heart and with your head the issues that are at hand, Crooks said. "For me to speak to an individual about a desire, it is no way, in my thinking, a connection to an official act. A board members' official action can only act in one-seventh of the whole. And there must be a majority of the whole to make it legitimate. There is no deception in saying to an individual, this is my desire."

Young and Nicholas-Welkis' husband are plaintiffs in a case that accuses the school board of violating the Georgia Open Meetings Law by placing the cell tower vote on the agenda the day of the meeting. As a result of this suit, Cobb Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order against the board, halting any work from being done on the tower. However, following the restraining order, Crooks called for second vote on the tower in October. This time it was advertised on the agenda in advance, and the board approved the tower in a vote of 4-2-1.

Following the hearing, both sides' attorneys said they felt the hearing had gone well and that they expect the judge to rule in their favor.

"I think the judge understands that this is a political question," Chalmers said. "And that this is something where you've got an allegation that the elected official didn't vote in the same way as certain members of his constituency would like, and they've accused him of unethical and improper conduct simply because he didn't vote the way they wanted him to."

Bunch said, "I think that we prevailed. I think that we established what we had to establish. I think that probable cause is the standard and I think the evidence is overwhelming."

At the beginning of the hearing, the courtroom was packed with concerned parents; school district employees such as Assistant Superintendent Dr. Gordon Pritz and district spokesman Jay Dillon; board members Abraham, David Banks, Alison Bartlett and David Morgan; as well as Crooks' wife, Cheryl; Nicholas-Welkis' husband, Dr. Rick Welkis; and former board member Betty Gray. However, when the judge asked for all of the witnesses who had been subpoenaed to testify to leave, nearly half of the courtroom cleared out, including all of the school board members and the district employees.

Also at the hearing was Gregg Litchfield, an attorney for the Cobb County Board of Elections, along with three other Board of Elections employees. Although the board of elections has no real interest in the case legally, they will have to justify that the signatures of Nicholas-Welkis' petition are legally registered voters, living in Crooks' school board Post 6.