As far as the Georgia Department of Community Affairs is concerned, Newton County has not violated any Neighborhood Stabilization Program rules.

"We were concerned mainly that the county was performing NSP-eligible activities within the structural bounds and regulations of that program. With the assurances back with her (Chairman Kathy Morgan) letter, we are confident they are in the confines of the program," said Glenn Misner, DCA’s director of field services, on Tuesday.

The county’s plan to use NSP money to purchase vacant lots in the Fairview Estates neighborhood and create a passive, mainly greenspace, public park has been a source of controversy among many residents within and surrounding Fairview Estates.

District 4 Commissioner J.C. Henderson entered the debate when he wrote a Nov. 3 letter to DCA, in which he said the Board of Commissions have a double standard.

"And the Board of Commissioners is doing whatever it takes, to make sure the district commissioner in District 3 gets whatever they (want), so the people in Fairview will go along with the program," Henderson said in the letter. "While over in district 4, the Board of Commissioners don’t want J.C. Henderson, or any one in the community, to have anything to do with their community center."

The DCA asked for a response to the concerns and questions raised by Henderson, which was provided in a Dec. 9 letter to the DCA from Chairman Kathy Morgan.

After answering several questions posed in Henderson’ letter, Morgan reached this conclusion:

"I fail to see how the Board of Commissioner’s decisions on the management of its various properties establishes a double standard of any kind," she wrote.

In his letter Henderson asked that all federal grants be stopped until the county proved it did not have a double standard, but it appears nothing ever came out of this request.

Misner said residents from Fairview Estates have also written letters to the DCA expressing concerns.