A College Park resident has obtained a wealth of public records that she says point to a conflict of interest involving the city, a public official and a vendor paid more than $1 million by College Park over two fiscal years.
The vendor is RSW Services, which is owned by Subrenia Willis, chairwoman of College Park’s Business and Industrial Development Authority. Willis’s husband, Rex Willis, who leads the company, said there is no conflict of interest and that RSW Services has not benefited from his wife’s role with the authority, known as BIDA.
Resident Elizabeth Lester said she has had ongoing concerns about College Park’s hiring of RSW Services for city projects. Over the past two years, she has collected numerous documents through open-records requests to determine how much the city has paid the company.
Lester wrote on the SpeakUp College Park Facebook page that invoices and other financial records show the city paid RSW Services a total of $1,034,047 during fiscal years 2025 and 2026.
“It’s always been odd to me that Subrenia and Rex have done work for the city,” Lester told SaportaReport. “It just doesn’t seem right. She is serving as chair of an organization that is in charge of so much that is impacting our city. And here she is making a lot of money off of our city.”
City Manager Michael Hicks and City Attorney Winston Denmark did not respond to an email seeking comment on whether the city’s business relationship with RSW Services presents a conflict of interest or violates College Park’s ethics code.
College Park’s Standards of Conduct state, in part: “No city official, employee or appointee shall enter into any contract with the city except as specifically authorized by state statutes. Any city official, employee or appointee who has a proprietary interest in an agency doing business with the city shall make known that interest in writing to the city council and city clerk.”
Rex Willis describes his wife’s BIDA position as a volunteer role, rather than that of a city official. He said the company’s contracts were awarded through a lawful process.
“She’s not a city official,” Willis said. “It may seem that way, but she is not a city official… We are citizens. We’ve got a legally binding contract. We went through the legal process.”
Willis said RSW Services has not received work through BIDA and that none of the company’s bids or contracts came before the authority.
BIDA “is not governed by the city of College Park,” he said. “It’s governed by the state of Georgia.”
RSW Services’ work with College Park
RSW Services has done business with College Park since at least 2017. In June of that year, the company was awarded a $497,000 contract to demolish the Beavers School Annex.
During the council meeting at which the contract was approved, Councilman Roderick Gay and then-Councilman Ambrose Clay voted in opposition and said that the city had not followed its standard bidding process. Steve Fincher, the city attorney at the time, agreed that the usual bidding process had not occurred.
Many of the records Lester obtained focus on the past two fiscal years, when RSW Services was paid for numerous maintenance and improvement projects, including restroom repairs, pressure washing, tree and stump removal and beautification work.
The records include invoice reports covering different periods of work. For example, an accounts-payable report covering July 1, 2025, through Jan. 31, 2026, listed $94,546 in charges from RSW Services. Many of the individual charges were below $10,000, which at the time was the threshold allowing the city manager to approve vendor work without a city council vote.
A separate report covering July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025, listed $622,838 in charges from the company. The reports are among numerous records that Lester reviewed in calculating the overall total that amounted to more than $1 million.
One of the records Lester obtained was a February 2025 professional-services agreement with RSW Services signed by Councilwoman Jamelle McKenzie while she was serving as mayor pro tem.
McKenzie said the council had unanimously approved the agreement and that she signed it under a city policy authorizing the mayor pro tem to execute documents when the mayor is unavailable.
McKenzie said providing services to the city does not, by itself, prohibit someone from serving on a city board. She also said a conflict of interest is not created when city policies and applicable procedures have been followed.
Lester, an intellectual-property attorney who has lived in College Park since 2013, said the records warrant greater scrutiny of how the city awards and oversees work involving people serving on its boards and authorities.
“…We need to shine a light on this,” Lester said.
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