BY BRYN EDDY and JOHN RAMSEY
The clerk and treasurer for the town of Mayesville has been given a termination letter regarding only her job as treasurer.
"This removal does not affect your position as Town Clerk," read the termination letter from recently elected Mayor Chris Brown.
Taurice Collins has a dual role for the town as both clerk and treasurer, and after months of division between the mayor and the rest of town council, including the clerk/treasurer, Brown says the town is "in a critical time in getting this Mayesville drama resolved."
According to earlier reporting from The Post and Courier and The Sumter Item, 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, as stated in the lawsuit Brown filed in April.
The mayor of this small town is suing four Mayesville officials and 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.
"[Collins] has a very different perspective of what is going on, and the public needs to know the truth," Brown said, adding that he wants to hire former town treasurer Jerril Jones.
The mayor sent the termination letter regarding the treasurer position to council, the town attorney and clerk/treasurer via email on May 5. In it, he cited town codes that allow him to hire and fire for the treasurer position but not the clerk position. Town codes say he needs the support of council to hire and fire for the clerk position.
Collins responded via email saying the following:
"Mayor Brown, the remaining Council is needed to change the two positions. Stop making the work environment hostile, restore peace. You still refuse to conduct town business. You refuse so what is the solution? Keep trying to fire a person you need? Why don't you spend time on office tasks you agreed to do? Work awaits you Mayor, you can't pass everything on to the Clerk/Treasurer to complete while you try to fire her. Council, the Mayor doesn't want to see the Clerk/Treasurer as an asset to the town; he doesn't want to give a raise or approve of anything else that has to do with her. This is clearly seen in the media and at the meetings. Why does the Mayor refuse to consult with the 'real' Council as the ordinances clearly states? He refuses to work with the town attorney....there's a pattern here."
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 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.
The termination letter Brown sent on May 5 tells the treasurer to surrender all materials necessary to the position by Monday, May 6.
Collins had not done so as of Tuesday, May 7.
Collins told The Sumter Item that she was unavailable to comment at the time a reporter contacted her on May 7 and that she would call back as soon as possible.
According to earlier reporting from The Post and Courier, if Brown succeeds in pushing out the town clerk/treasurer, he said the next goal would be returning control of the community development nonprofit to the town.
There is a roughly month-long window for town officials to respond to Brown's lawsuit.
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