The subpoena directs Mrs. Weatherford to appear before the Board at an unspecified future date to be determined by the Board at its sole convenience. It further informs Mrs. Weatherford that her continued non-attendance at Board meetings "may constitute a further and independent basis for contempt proceedings at a date to be determined."

The subpoena was placed in the BOC's outgoing-mail tray. County Clerk Carolyn Redwine signed it, per the clerical procedure, Wednesday evening. It was mailed, certified, at 4:14 p.m. Thursday, January 22, from the Cleveland Post Office. Mrs. Weatherford received it, per her account, Friday evening at approximately 5:30 p.m.

Mrs. Weatherford

Mrs. Hattie Weatherford, 84, has resided at 206 Old Robertstown Road, a 1948 timber-framed three-bedroom farmhouse on five acres, since 1959. She is a widow (her husband Lamar, a retired Georgia Power lineman, died in 2011). Her children (two) live in Atlanta and Greenville, South Carolina, respectively. She does not drive after dark. She has, per her own recollection, attended exactly two Helen civic meetings in her lifetime, both in the 1970s, both concerning a proposed alteration to the Robertstown Road bridge approach.

She has, per the White County Board of Commissioners' own publicly available attendance logs, never been invited to a BOC meeting. Nobody has. The BOC's meetings are open to the public, per Georgia's Open Meetings Act. Invitations are not issued. Attendance is not required of any private citizen.

Asked Friday evening at her kitchen table whether she understood why the document had been sent to her, Mrs. Weatherford said she did not.

Asked whether she intended to respond to the document, Mrs. Weatherford said: "I do not believe I will."

Commissioner Henneman

Commissioner Henneman was reached by telephone Thursday afternoon. He acknowledged, on the call, that Mrs. Weatherford had not been individually invited to the Tuesday, January 14 meeting, and that non-attendance at a non-required meeting is not, under any Georgia state or local authority known to this editorial board, an offense cognizable by subpoena.

He also acknowledged, after some additional questions, that Mrs. Weatherford was selected for the subpoena "substantially at random" from the White County voter-registration roll, which he had, Wednesday afternoon, open on his desk.

His stated rationale for the subpoena was that the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability had, earlier that day, demonstrated "the civic utility of compelling attendance." He believed, he said, in the principle.

Asked, finally, whether he planned to rescind the subpoena, Mr. Henneman said he would "think about this over the weekend."

Our position

This editorial board's position is that Commissioner Henneman should write a letter of apology to Mrs. Weatherford, deliver it in person Saturday morning with a small potted plant or a bakery item appropriate to her dietary preferences, rescind the subpoena in writing, and refrain from further exercises of subpoena authority he does not, as an individual commissioner, possess.

Our position is also that the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability's Wednesday vote, though lawful under committee procedure, is similarly ill-conceived. It is not, of course, our place to opine on federal matters from the pages of a local Helen paper. We opine anyway. It is, we submit, a bad business.

— Edmund Crowe, Editorial Page Editor