BY BRYN EDDY and JOHN RAMSEY
bryn@theitem.com,
The division among town of Mayesville officials is becoming ever more present after the mayor filed a lawsuit against four town officials in mid-April.
Communication among town leaders continues to dwindle, as it has been since Mayor Chris Brown was elected last year, and with no relief in sight, as Brown told the media, he hopes a lawsuit can create a clear dynamic in council chambers that will enable town officials to operate more efficiently for the sake of Mayesville residents.
According to earlier reporting from The Post and Courier and The Sumter Item, he wants a judge to confirm he has the power to fire the town clerk he accuses of undermining his ability to run Mayesville and to admonish three town council members who are allegedly running a shadow government outside public view.
Brown contends the clerk refused to give him a key to the office he shares with her in town hall and locked him out of filing cabinets containing town records. She won't give him the password to his town computer and has defied his orders to stop paying utility and insurance bills for the nonprofit run by the former mayor and her husband, the lawsuit states.
Brown said he had exhausted attempts to handle the problem out of court, but his complaints to state officials and law enforcement haven't gained traction, and thus Brown said his lawyer advised him to "take action and create the storm," The Post and Courier recently reported.
The clerk, Taurice Collins, has accused Brown of racial discrimination in his attempts to fire her, which have been prevented by the Town Council. Brown, who is white, won the mayor's seat by 27 votes in a town where the overwhelming majority of residents are Black.
Collins declined to comment.
The lawsuit names Collins along with council members Cynthia Massingill, Roteshia Benjamin and Jasaad Ricks.
Benjamin and Ricks could not be reached for comment, but Massingill told The Sumter Item, "Things are just so wrong right now, and it's really getting next to my heart. This is crazy."
And now, Brown has another Mayesville official with whom clear communication is absent, he told The Sumter Item.
Earlier this year, after a stark difference in how Brown wanted to interview candidates for the vacant town attorney position versus how council, including Collins, wanted to go about it, council ultimately hired Eleazer Carter of The Carter Law Firm.
Carter was publicly reprimanded by the state for misconduct in 2012 after his client lost a civil case because Carter didn't show up for meetings or court dates. The case referenced Carter's "extensive disciplinary history" dating to 2002.
Brown told The Sumter Item that he thinks people can change and hoped Carter's disciplinary history wouldn't play a role in how he represents Mayesville officials; however, as earlier reporting shows, Brown was not in favor of Carter's hiring and collaborated with locals to interview other candidates, ultimately telling council and the public that he wanted to hire John Dubose of Smith, Robinson, Holler, Dubose & Morgan LLC.
But council still hired Carter.
"I believe people can change. I tried to set two appointments with [Carter]. Both times, he has not shown up. I believe in change. I believe that somebody can do something different, but what I am seeing is probably exactly the same thing he had ethics violations for," Brown said.
Carter could not be reached for comment after multiple attempts.
According to earlier reporting from The Post and Courier, if Brown succeeds in pushing out the town clerk, he said the next goal would be returning control of the community development nonprofit to the town.
Brown is planning to move the site of town meetings to a senior center in response to a letter from the nonprofit announcing it planned to start charging $3,700 a month to continue meeting in its building.
There is a roughly month-long window for town officials to respond to Brown's lawsuit.
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