August 29-- A Toombs County man wants out of a lawsuit against the Toombs County Board of Commissioners.  Attorneys for Jimmy Alexander are seeking a class action certification regarding their claim the county illegally used proceeds from the insurance premium tax to provide unauthorized services to citizens in the unincorporated parts of Toombs County.

They claim the county spent more than $2.7 million from 2009 to 2013 for trash collection, ambulance services, animal control and code enforcement and that such expenditures were contrary to state law.

The St. Simons law firm of Roberts Tate sought out Alexander to bring the suit in Toombs County after filing a similar case in Montgomery County on behalf of Clerk of Court Keith Hamilton.  They lost that case in the Georgia Court of Appeals and are seeking an appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.

"My brother's son-in-law is an attorney in St. Simons and I think when they were looking for a plaintiff to introduce this case, they went down the voters list and saw my name James T. Alexander at the beginning of the list and said, 'Hey, that's Spook, he might be able do this.' He called me and told me what the suit was all about and it was very plain what they told me, but I misinterpreted because I thought some of this money coming back to the taxpayers would come back to the county and we could build a kennel out for all the dogs and animals.  I'm a fool for a dog.  That's sounds really stupid, but that's why I did the suit, but that was my ulterior motive.  As it turned out, it wasn't pertinent to that.  I'm just tired of fooling with it and tired of people asking me, 'Spook, how's your lawsuit doing?'   I wasn't due to get a penny out of it, but it was really just the dog lover in me that put me down," Alexander said.

Since Alexander is withdrawing, the attorneys have identified another plaintiff, Olin Wooten of Toombs County, and have filed a motion in Toombs County Superior Court substituting him for Alexander.