AG Letter B — Close-Out
Dated 2025-04-24 · Author Senior Assistant Attorney General Kristen Settlemire, Georgia Department of Law · Addressed to Andrew Davidson, Esq., Jones Cork, LLP · Also sent to Laura Corley · Disposition Mediation closed at impasse View the PDF →
Legal shorthand used here: AG = Georgia Attorney General’s Office. ORA = Georgia Open Records Act. ORR = Open Records Request. BCSD = Bibb County School District. FERPA = Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. O.C.G.A. = Official Code of Georgia Annotated. § = “section”. F. Supp. = Federal Supplement (a book of federal trial court decisions). N.D. Ga. = Northern District of Georgia (a federal trial court). Case citations read: volume / reporter / page / year.
What is this document?
This is the close-out letter that ended the Georgia Attorney General’s Open Government Mediation Program dispute between Macon Melody reporter Laura Corley and Bibb County School District. The mediation had opened six months earlier with the October 25, 2024 opening letter.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Kristen Settlemire signed this letter on April 24, 2025. It is addressed, like the opening letter, to Andrew Davidson at Jones Cork, LLP — despite the fact that Jones Cork had formally terminated its BCSD representation on January 3, 2025, more than three months earlier. The AG’s office appears to have continued using the contact information on file rather than redirecting to Parker Poe, BCSD’s new counsel. The letter was also sent directly to Corley.
This letter is attached as Exhibit F to the Complaint in Melody v. BCSD. It is the single most-cited piece of pre-litigation correspondence in the court record.
At a glance
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Dated | April 24, 2025 |
| Author | Senior Assistant AG Kristen Settlemire |
| Recipient | Andrew Davidson, Esq., Jones Cork, LLP (still on record despite Jan. 3, 2025 termination) |
| Also sent to | Laura Corley |
| Disposition | Mediation closed at impasse |
| Pointer | O.C.G.A. § 50-18-73(a) private enforcement |
| Referenced in | Complaint Exhibit F; Answer ¶¶ 25–27; Case Report |
Deep dive — what the letter says and why it matters
The key passage
The letter’s most-quoted sentence:
“it does not appear that Mullins v. City of Griffin, 886 F. Supp. 21 (N.D. Ga. 1995) supports the school district’s position on the non-release of the settlement agreement, should a financial settlement have been reached.”
Two things to notice. First, the language is formally tentative (“it does not appear”) — this is consistent with the AG’s mediation-program posture; these letters are informal opinions, not binding adjudications. Second, the rejection of BCSD’s reliance on Mullins v. City of Griffin is categorical. The AG’s office had already read Mullins as authority for disclosure in the opening letter; the close-out letter makes the rejection of BCSD’s counter-reading explicit.
Why the letter closed the mediation
The Open Government Mediation Program is designed to resolve disputes informally. When the agency declines to adjust its position in response to the AG’s informal opinion, the mediation reaches impasse. This letter records that outcome:
- The AG’s office rejected BCSD’s legal theory.
- BCSD had not adjusted its disclosure position.
- The AG’s office closed the file and directed the parties to O.C.G.A. § 50-18-73(a) — the statutory provision authorizing private enforcement of the Open Records Act in superior court.
In effect, the AG’s office told Corley what her remaining option was: sue in superior court. The Melody complaint was filed 102 days later, on August 4, 2025.
Why this letter is central to Melody v. BCSD
This letter is cited repeatedly in the court filings:
- It is Exhibit F to the Complaint, anchoring the plaintiff’s factual narrative of BCSD’s pre-suit refusal.
- It is admitted — paragraph by paragraph — in BCSD’s Original Answer at ¶¶ 25–27.
- It is cited in the Case Report as the key evidence supporting plaintiff’s fee-shifting argument under O.C.G.A. § 50-18-73(b).
- It is referenced in the plaintiff’s Rule Nisi Motion as the state-level predicate for the court to move quickly.
Two successive AG letters, not one
The case filings generally refer to “the AG letter” in the singular. In fact, the Georgia AG’s mediation produced two separate letters: an October 25, 2024 opening letter and this April 24, 2025 close-out letter. The opening letter is upstream of the complaint exhibits. For the fee-shifting analysis under O.C.G.A. § 50-18-73(b), the combined effect of the two letters — consistent AG position across six months while BCSD continued to refuse disclosure — is what the court will weigh against BCSD’s “substantial justification” defense.
The parallel state-agency signal
Ten days before this letter, on April 14, 2025, the Chief Legal Officer of the Georgia Department of Education issued a separate response letter declining state intervention in a parent-driven escalation concerning BCSD and redirecting those parents to the AG Open Government Mediation Program. The combined effect of the DOE letter (April 14) and this AG close-out letter (April 24) is that two state-level actors within a ten-day window pointed Bibb-County records requesters toward private enforcement in superior court as the only remaining path.
Why this matters
This letter is the closest thing in the pre-lawsuit record to a formal state-level statement that BCSD’s legal theory was wrong. It is not binding on the Bibb County Superior Court — only appellate Georgia courts can issue binding law on the question — but it is admissible evidence of what BCSD was told, by whom, and when, as the court evaluates whether BCSD’s pre-suit and post-suit positions were “substantially justified” for attorney-fee purposes.
Read the original
Part of the Pre-Litigation Record · Civil Action No. 2025-CV-083495 · Bibb County Superior Court