The Chatham County Commission has suffered another legal setback in its attempts to reinstate the disbanded board of directors of the region’s transit authority.
Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley on Friday ordered the commission and its chairman, Chester Ellis, to immediately stop any attempts to restore Chatham Area Transit’s former, nine-member board, which was replaced July 1 by an expanded panel with broader regional representation.
Walmsley’s ruling is a victory for the reconfigured board, which asked the court for the emergency injunction. It is also the latest turn in a monthslong legal battle that has roiled the usually placid relations between the commission and Ellis, on the one hand, and the area’s legislative delegation to Atlanta and local business and political leaders, on the other…