Stockbridge Amphitheater

Informed opinion on local politics

Will Jeff Grant’s IRS problems cause changes to the SPD station lease?

Coren Randazzo

July 30, 2026

The “Fast Nickel” had finally caught up with Jeffrey Grant. Standing before the Stockbridge City Council in August 2025, Grant had been the image of a successful “land man,” a role he had perfected over decades of flipping Georgia soil. On behalf of Jodeco 158 LLC, he had offered the city something that seemed too good to pass up: a ten-year, rent-free lease for a satellite police precinct at 1046 Chen Parkway. He even promised a high-tech security system for the entire Jodeco project, with its brain housed right inside the new precinct.

But while Grant spoke of safety for the new Costco and Sprouts shoppers, a financial storm was brewing in the United States Tax Court. For years, Grant had operated under his grandfather’s maxim that a “fast nickel is worth more than a slow dime”. That philosophy had led him and his partners to turn two parcels of vacant land purchased for a mere 698,000 into a staggering 30 million in charitable tax deductions through conservation easements.

In May 2026, the slow dimes of the IRS finally won out. Judge Mark Holmes handed down a ruling that gutted Grant’s “fast nickel” strategy. The court slashed the claimed $30 million in deductions down to a combined total of just over $1 million. Worse still, the court upheld a 40% gross-valuation misstatement penalty. Because the misstatement was so massive, there was no “reasonable-cause” defense available to Grant or his partnerships; the penalty was mandatory.

As the tax bill and penalties began to mount, the “free” precinct in Stockbridge is starting to look increasingly brittle. Grant’s history was already littered with financial wreckage: five felony counts for forgery and theft in 1998, a RICO indictment for timber fraud, and a pattern of misrepresenting land prices to banks to secure unauthorized loans. Now, with the Tax Court ruling essentially declaring his recent business model a sham, the solvency of the entities behind the Jodeco project was in question.

In Stockbridge, the enthusiastic endorsements from city officials like Elton Alexander, who had called the lease a “perfect example of public-private partnerships,” began to age poorly. The city had ignored the warnings of Grant’s past misdeeds in favor of the immediate benefit of the precinct. But as Grant faced the reality of paying back millions in taxes and penalties for his overvalued “fast nickels,” the “free” lease at 1046 Chen Parkway hung in the balance. If Grant’s empire of overvalued land collapsed, the Stockbridge police might soon find that their ten-year rent-free home was just another “fast nickel” that had finally run out.

That’s what’s really going on in Stockbridge. Don’t tell me about Jayden William’s pants. This whole city has been “liar liar, pants on fire” for the last 14 months. The amphitheater still doesn’t have a sound booth. It was $390,000. Why don’t they just put it out for procurement? Because then, they couldn’t go around procurement, break the rules (as they habitually do) and feed Jeff Grant and his buddies at Smith, Welch, Webb & White (and Brian Strickland) millions and millions of dollars.

To explain what’s happening to Williams. I’ve finally uploaded my deposition of Detective Fisher. Fisher is inconsequential. In the middle of the deposition. We play Vinny Politan & Stockbridge City Attorney Quinton Washington’s television co-host in their first ill fated hit job. Yep. I waited 5 years to show it to anyone. Because I knew as soon as we put the brakes on anti-procurement practices that Quinton would pull this media bullshit again.

Why? I live 700′ from the stage. I assume Jayden would not fire the city manager and go around procurement as Neal and Ford did. So, they need me and him gone so the cash cow keep a milkin.

I’m not going anywhere and neither is Mayor Williams.