It’s rare for a LaGrange City Council meeting to last three hours, but when Tuesday’s public hearing was held on a proposed residential group home ordinance and about two dozen residents voiced their opinions on it, the 5:30 p.m. start quickly became 8:30.

It was standing room only with all 84 seats in the council chamber filled with residents both for and against an ordinance which would give the city a way to regulate how the homes are managed.

“We wanted to make sure that the public had as much time and input to be able to give us their views on what this proposed ordinance might look like,” Mayor Jeff Lukken told the crowd. “… Any discussion tonight, we would certainly appreciate your thoughts on the zoning of group homes, but as of today there is no ordinance dealing with group homes.”

At its planning session earlier Tuesday, council voted to table its ordinance, create a task force of residents to start afresh with the ordinance and deliver its recommendation as soon as possible, but with a one-year deadline.

The original proposal would have required future group homes to be in areas zoned commercial or industrial and for current and future homes to obtain special-use permits that could be revoked if the homes weren’t managed according to set standards.

The ordinance was created with parts of ordinances already ap-proved by other Georgia governments, including Cobb and Newton counties and the cityd of Newnan.

“When you go to sleep at night, you want to make sure you’ve done the best that you can for all the citizens of LaGrange, and not just a certain group,” Councilman Willie Edmondson said to the other council members at the earlier planning meeting. “We need these homes, these boys need these homes, these girls need these homes - they need somewhere that they can fit back into society.

“It has really caused a division in our community, and I don’t feel good about that. … I can’t be a phony. I have to be for real, and I don’t feel good. I don’t think it’s done our community good. … It has separated us even more than we were before.”

No topic was off limits at the hearing, as residents brought concerns to council of the ordinance being racially motivated, of group homes already having plenty of state regulations, of local media disregarding the good that group homes have accomplished and the ordinance acting as a “witch hunt” against Jimmy McCamey Jr., owner and operator of the Center for Creative Growth and Human Development, which owns two group homes on Ridley Avenue and another on adjoining West Bacon Street. They are licensed as group homes for boys and are designed for residents who display sexually inappropriate behavior, according to the state Department of Human Resources.

McCamey’s group homes have been in the spotlight after Lukken sent a letter to the state Department of Family and Children Services following the Nov. 14 shooting death of Joseph “Peace” Boison, a clerk at the Shell Mart on Vernon Street. Christopher Caruso, 18, who was charged with the slaying, had been a resident of the Center for Creative Growth until leaving a month earlier.

“Of greater concern is the fact that the mayor has diabolically endeavored to exclude the black members of the City Council from the governing process of the city,” said the Rev. Clarence Sams of First Baptist Church on Fannin Street, “not only in this matter, but also in several others which, in effect, have served to disenfranchise a large portion of the black electorate.”

The mayor’s letter asked that the license be revoked for the Center for Creative Growth’s three group homes inside the city. Lukken sent the letter on his own accord two days after the shooting without asking for council’s input.

“That was a mistake for which I apologized to the City Council members,” Lukken said. “I also apologize for any confusion or distrust that I’ve caused by sending that letter to DFCS. As mayor, I cannot apologize for being concerned about the well being of the young men and women in our group homes and about the security of our citizens in their own neighborhoods.”

McCamey talked about his numerous publications concerning group homes, questioned the fairness and legitimacy of the proposed ordinance crafted by City Manager Tom Hall and city attorney Jeff Todd, and spoke of the violations of trust allegedly committed by Lukken concerning group homes.

“I voted for you the last two terms because I trusted you,” McCamey said. “I’ve seen you as person who could take us where we needed to go as a community, and you have violated my trust and so many more community citizens in Troup County.”

Ridley Avenue resident Howard Bird spoke directly to McCamey, citing a lack of supervision at the home and the residents causing problems on the street. Bird said he had seen the homes’ youths cause problems while putting his children on the school bus in the mornings.

“(The group home residents) stand up there, they fight, they cuss, they pull the manhole covers up, they beat up the signs, and then when you go down there and you address something to somebody, they might say something to one of them.

“The biggest problem with the boys home on Ridley Avenue right now, and I’m letting you know my opinion, sir, is you have lack of supervision in your home,” Bird said. “Other than that, that home can be there. I don’t care.”

LaGrange High School student Jacob Tucker talked with a friend of his in the group home about the shooting and the changes the ordinance would bring for him and the other residents.

Tucker also brought his friend’s concerns to Lukken.

“He felt like you didn’t give him any respect charging at his group home that he stays at,” Tucker said. “… He said he would just need you to apologize and just help, help the problem that’s going on. Don’t try to make it worse, just try to make it better.”

“What problem did he say was going on?” Lukken asked Tucker.

“The problem with the shooting and the murder,” Tucker replied. “He said it wasn’t the group home, it was that guy. It was just him by himself. No one in the group home had anything to do with it. It was just him.”

With its proposal tabled, council wants to come up with a list of potential candidates for the task force to discuss the ordinance fresh and provide input on how it should be worded and what effects it will have. Councilwoman Norma Tucker wants local group home experts to bring their experience and information to the task force as well as have residents to add their input.

Lukken wants the list to be available for the Jan. 26 council meeting. For now, he wants residents to know that council does not want to close any of the group homes, he said. Without an ordinance, however, the city has no governmental way to regulate the residences, and Lukken said it’s in the entire community’s interest that the homes be safely regulated.

“These are not black problems. These are not white problems. These are problems that concern all of our community, every one of us,” he said. “These are good citizens on both sides of the issues, concerned citizens that want the best for their community.

“If we’re going to find answers to help our neighborhoods and our children, we must work together not as a divided community, but as a united community. In the future we’ve got to communicate more and cooperate more, and that starts with me.”

Trey Wood can be reached at twood @ lagrangenews. com or (706) 884-7311, Ext. 228.