The bottom line gets lost in the paperwork -- bottom line: No one in the Laurens City Government has been accused by anyone of any wrongdoing. But, you wouldn't know it as 4 members of the City Council called an emergency meeting to pass an ordinance that installs "triggers" for when an investigation will be launched.
One supposes this is a natural fall-out when the City Manager resigns and the "announcement" is the fact that his picture and bio are no longer on the city website. That leads to Tracking Truth - Laurens Edition speculating, "Is SLED investigating anyone in Laurens City?" Then, by Dec. 13, that morphs into "State grants, payroll, and interns Oh My! #Stay Tuned." Then, by Dec. 23, we "learn" that some people are concerned about "pride festivals" as well as a few other things.
That leads the mayor to post that there is no investigation, but we're not sure anybody ever said there was. At the end of 2 hours in closed session, one of the four council members who voted for an emergency ordinance proposed at an emergency meeting (which should have been Monday but was delayed until Tuesday because supposedly the notice wasn't posted the right way) said as much, explaining that this is simply a way for the City Council to exercise some oversight in the Mayor-Council (strong mayor) form of government.
(That is different from Clinton, we have the Council-Manager form. The council doesn't like how the manager runs things, the council simply un-hires him/her.)
So, what is the reason for the emergency ordinance, which the city attorney took great pains to explain does not have the force of law. In fact, according to a memo posted on golaurens.com the four council members in favor of the ordinance are warned off it by saying they could be held PERSONALLY LIABLE if the ordinance causes the city to experience additional legal expenses.
Our problem with the whole thing is this - the people who came to the emergency meeting did not get an explanation of anything. Just to be perfectly clear, a council does not have to discuss these matters behind closed doors. When the motion is made to have an executive session, council members have a cloice to make - they can just as easily vote "No".
THAT, if they do that, is Transparency.
Public Bodies believe that executive sessions are so routine that the vote to go into them is also routine. In fact, the SC Freedom of Information Act outlines a very specific range of topics for discussion behind closed doors. It is the public bodies who expand that the "personnel matters" and "legal advice" - Laurens County Council learned this the hard way in court.
Transparency is such a buzz-word these days, as our nation's capitol is basically paralyzed by The Epstein Files. Dribble and drabs of public information is a sure fire way to breed rumors - and in Laurens it's led to some backlash. People complain that people who complain about movies at The Capitol Theater or complain about the need - or lack thereof - of a second amphitheater are being TOO negative. Positivity is a good thing for a city, but sometimes it can mask decisions that ought to made with the broader public interest in mind.
The public interest would have been served with an open discussion of the four members' concerns Tuesday night at the meeting at the Laurens Municipal Center, which used to be a fire department and now is the police department after the police moved out of the second floor of a bank that has been proposed for a hotel.
Instead, we suspect, people sat outside the council-exclusive meeting letting their minds wander all over what COULD BE going on. That, folks, is the opposite of transparency.
The Ordinance and the Legal Opinion here.
And more here.
And here.
And more here.
SC FOIA here.
Another meeting on Dec. 31 here.
Meetings at a more reasonable time? here.
