During the recent town of Mayesville council meeting, multiple people addressed council like a mother would address an unruly child in a grocery store.
With reprimand, embarrassment, frustration.
Resident Louis Tisdale told council that if his mother were present, she'd have all of the Mayesville leaders by the ear.
Resident Jesse Washington said it's unclear who is in charge. The mayor? The clerk? Council members?
For close to three hours, Mayesville Mayor Chris Brown, Councilwoman Roteshia Benjamin, Councilman Jasaad Ricks, Councilwoman Cynthia Massingill and Town Clerk and Treasurer Taurice Collins argued their way through the Tuesday, Feb. 13, town council agenda, only coming close to finding a peaceful, productive rhythm while discussing grants the town could receive.
Other than the grants, objectives listed on the agenda included approving the agenda, voting on a mayor pro tem, approving minutes of previous meetings, financial reports, choosing a town attorney, discussion on effective communication, unauthorized removal of town records, Freedom of Information Act requests and discussion on a tax preparer and audit.
So, it was a robust and likely time-consuming agenda, but multiple segments of the meeting were prolonged because of arguing.
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This meeting comes after reporting from The Post and Courier and The Sumter Item earlier this year, as part of the Charleston paper's statewide Uncovered project, detailing how a community development corporation was created by the former mayor and her husband as a nonprofit to help raise money for affordable housing and economic development, but the dynamic this created has proven problematic for Brown having access to everything he needs for mayoral duties. Ed Miller, as leader of the nonprofit, controls the keys and deed to the building the town has been using for council meetings and town offices.
When Brown held an unofficial meeting in the learning center hallway last month, there were multiple deputies from Sumter County Sheriff's Office present after an altercation had broken out before the meeting between the town clerk's husband and former Councilman Kell Compton, according to earlier reporting.
Because of instances such as that as well as other ongoing feuds also detailed in earlier reporting, it has not been uncommon for tensions to rise at Mayesville meetings since Brown has taken office.
He and all but one council member - who is currently suspended for reportedly threatening the former mayor - have differing opinions on how the local government should be run, which came to head early on when every council member walked out of his first meeting as mayor.
Brown, with little to no allies among Mayesville leaders, has been stonewalled multiple times in his attempts to perform certain mayoral duties, such as in his most recent endeavor to hire a town attorney.
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Mayesville town council and Collins took a different approach to attempting to fill the vacant town attorney position compared to how Brown has gone about it.
Earlier reporting from The Sumter Item details a Feb. 8 meeting called by town council where they interviewed Eleazer Carter of The Carter Law Firm in Manning.
Mayesville Town Council members completed this first interview for the vacant town attorney position in the privacy of executive session and without the support or presence of Brown, who informed council and clerk ahead of time that he could not be there and that he did not think interviewing candidates behind closed doors was in the best interests of the public.
Brown, meanwhile, formed a committee.
On this committee are eight people, including Brown, and seven members of the public (Tisdale and Washington are on the committee). Brown said he asked everyone on town council to join the committee. They all declined.
On Feb. 9, the committee interviewed two candidates: Hal Cobb of Cobb Dill and Hammett LLC and John Dubose of Smith, Robinson, Holler, Dubose & Morgan LLC.
The committee released the questions they asked of both candidates during their interviews to The Sumter Item. The questions pertained to experience working with nonprofits, human resources, FOIA requests, grants, land acquisition, planning, zoning and more.
Mayesville council has not released the questions they asked Carter in his interview.
During the Feb. 13 council meeting, committee member Erin McArthur shared the committee's preference to hire Dubose.
A few times, Brown called for a motion to discuss, and council members did not second the motion. Toward the end of the meeting, Brown called for a motion to discuss hiring Dubose, and council did vote to discuss it but unanimously denied hiring him.
The recent council meeting was a long one with a robust agenda. There will be future reporting from The Sumter Item on other aspects of that meeting.
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