MARIETTA - In what turned out to be a wild game of cat and mouse on Tuesday night, Cobb School Board candidate Bill Borden tried to elude a Journal photographer after a candidate forum.

Borden parked in the county parking deck to attend the 7 p.m. candidate forum, sponsored by the Cobb County Republican Women, that took place in the board of commissioners meeting room. Although the parking deck had plenty of open spaces, Borden had backed into a space that happened to have a concrete column at its back edge, hiding his personalized Alaska license plate from view.

Borden and his wife, Brenda, have a residence in Alaska and Bill Borden has competed in the world- famous Iditarod dogsled race.

Journal photographer Mike Jacoby was sent to cover the forum and to take a picture of Borden in his truck to see whether the Alaska license plate remained on the truck. Last week, the Cobb tax assessors office demanded Borden register his vehicles in Georgia, where he receives a homestead exemption, but as of Tuesday night, the truck still bore the Alaska personalized tag "SLDDOG." Laura Moon, the Journal's chief photographer, also attempted to get a picture of the license plate before Tuesday night's forum.

Jacoby said he left the forum just as it ended around 9 p.m. and stood outside the county commission chambers, waiting for Borden to come out. Forty minutes passed, with no sign of Borden, Jacoby said.

Jacoby then went to wait in his car, which was parked near Borden's truck in the garage. By 10 p.m., theirs were the only two vehicles left in the garage, Jacoby said.

"That's when I realized the Bordens must have been waiting for me to leave," Jacoby said.

So he moved his car halfway up the next ramp in the garage, and sat on the concrete for a moment when Borden, and his wife walked out to their truck.

"I had a clear shot, but they couldn't see me until they approached the truck, as I was shooting from one floor up through an opening in the deck. I'm shooting away, I hear his wife say, 'There's a reporter right there,' motioning towards me. I look down at my screen to make sure I got the shots. So my next objective is to get a shot of the tag as they drove away. They sat there for 20, 30 seconds; the truck isn't just getting warmed up. I'm like OK, what are they waiting on? Finally, I pulled the camera up to my face when I heard the engine crank up. But instead of pulling out and driving through the middle lane, as most people would do, he made a wide turn all the way into the next set of parking spaces so that I no longer had a clear shot and peeled out," Jacoby said.

As the Bordens drove away, Jacoby said he ran about 100 yards up the deck, to a vantage point looking out over the deck's exit onto Cherokee Street, but within the matter of seconds it took him to reach the edge, the Bordens were already at Cherokee Street and "gunned it" north onto the road, Jacoby said. He took a few pictures as they sped away.

"I'm not sure how he could have had time to drive to the exit, wait for the exit's arm to raise and get onto Cherokee Street, all before I reached the top of the ramp. Since there are no arms on the entrance side, I assume he drove through the entrance and jumped the small dome-shaped bumpers blocking people from driving out the entrance. But I can't say that for sure. It's just the only thing that would make sense for him to get out in a matter of three or four seconds," Jacoby said.

On a separate matter, a clerk in the City of Kennesaw's business license department confirmed that a license, sometimes referred to as an occupational tax certificate, was issued on Friday to Real Estate Central Inc., a sales agency owned by Bill Borden. The business address listed on the certificate is 3590 Cherokee Street, Suite 302, in Kennesaw.

(That firm is not to be confused with Real Estate Custom Finance Inc., doing business as Checkpoint Mortgage, which is also at 3590 Cherokee Street, but in suite 301.)

Although Borden told the Journal last week that he had operated Real Estate Central, Inc. out of his Shiloh Road home since founding it in 1995 and had not had a business license from Cobb County, his application for the Kennesaw certificate is marked as a "change of name or address."

The city whited out Borden's estimated gross receipts figure, which determines how much he paid for the license.

On Tuesday, Cobb Commission candidate Leonard Church - who is one of the six agents who work for Real Estate Central, and has been with the firm for five or six months - said he was unaware that the business was not licensed for much of that time.

"I have no knowledge of this, and if he doesn't get a business license, I will pull out in a heartbeat. I have no problem with that, at all," Church said, who also owns and operates a dental prosthetics company called Church Dental Prosthetics out of his Kennesaw home.

"I have always had a business license in the city of Kennesaw, I've had it for 15, 16 years," said the former mayor of Kennesaw, who offered to fax a copy of his license to the Journal.