Midlands mayor accuses council members of illegal collusion, ‘political retribution’
Tensions are mounting in a city just across the Congaree River from downtown Columbia, as the mayor is accusing the four other members of City Council of colluding privately to remove her from three Midlands boards. Ultimately, it’s a matter of “political retribution,” the mayor claims, as a fissure appears be growing between her and the rest of the city’s elected leaders.
At a regularly scheduled March 20 Cayce council meeting, from which Mayor Elise Partin was absent, the body’s four other members voted to appoint new Cayce representatives on the Joint Municipal Water Sewer Commission, the Central Midlands Council of Government and the River Alliance, replacing the mayor with council members who were present for the vote.
Those groups are respectively tasked with overseeing Lexington County water and infrastructure, bringing local governments together to learn and collaborate, and boosting community engagement with the Midlands’ rivers (including the riverwalks that run along their banks).
Mayor Pro Tem Tim James, who chaired the March 20 meeting in the mayor’s absence, said during the session that he asked that the appointments be added to agenda because it’s standard practice to readdress them when a new mayor pro tem is named, noting that he had spoken with the mayor about the appointments before the meeting. The previous mayor pro tem, longtime councilman James “Skip” Jenkins, was unseated in November by Byron Thomas.
In a statement sent to The State, Partin took issue with how she was removed from these boards, on which she said she has served since she became mayor in 2008.
“The City of Cayce’s typical transparency, communication and trust, values that we’ve worked very hard to earn over the past decade and a half, were compromised during this meeting,” she said. “As we all know, it is illegal for more than two council members to meet privately, without public notice and disclosure. As the Councilmembers appeared to read from written out motions, they seemed to clearly know which person to nominate for which committee.
“No one who was nominated showed any surprise or delight at being nominated. They kept their motions secret from me. There was not any public deliberation in this Council meeting. So when and where did these conversations take place? Because of the secrecy and resulting lack of communication from Council to the Mayor and Staff, there also wasn’t any action item documentation available ahead of time for the press or public as we have come to be known for under my tenure.”
Councilman Hunter Sox, who was appointed to the River Alliance board during the meeting, and Councilman Byron Thomas, who was appointed to represent Cayce on the National League of Cities, flatly denied that the four council members held outside meetings with one another. The council’s other two members didn’t immediately return calls from The State.
“We try to do our best as a council to not hang around in groups of three or more, but I can promise you, there’s no backroom meetings going on,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that people can’t pick up the phone and individually call each other, which we usually do. I say, ‘We,’ she’s the only person on our council that doesn’t really care to reach out and call before council meetings. She just wants to know where everybody stands on a vote. That’s about it via text. But either way, I mean, I think that was a pretty erroneous claim.”
Sox added that council was informed late of Partin’s absence due to illness.
“They all knew that I wasn’t going to be there,” Partin responded to The State via email. “The only other council meeting I have ever missed was when my father had quintuple bypass surgery.”
Thomas emphasized that ample notice was given that the appointments would be discussed.
”I’m just very disappointed in the mayor’s comments, especially about transparency,” he said. “The agenda was finalized and sent out to us six days before the council meeting and up for at least five full days before the meeting.”
As to replacing Partin with different appointees, Sox and Thomas indicated it was necessary due to a lack of attendance at meetings where Partin was supposed to represent the city and a lack of communication back to council about what was going on with those organizations.
“Sadly, the city of Cayce has been a no-show at these meetings, and other cities are looking around, always saying, ‘Where’s the city of Cayce at?’” Thomas added. “It’s our job and responsibility to be at these meetings to make sure the city of Cayce is always represented.”
Only one of the three groups from which Partin was removed, the Joint Municipal Water Sewer Commission, had meeting minutes readily available online. Those records show that the mayor attended two out of 13 meetings between January 2022 and October 2023 held by the group.
Partin didn’t run from this attendance record.
“They are a customer of Cayce’s. The Mayor typically reviews the meeting agenda and information but does not often attend as the items are not actions that affect Cayce citizens,” she said in her statement. “Taking the Mayor off hurts our neighboring City.”
Reached by The State via email, Partin added, “No one on Council has ever asked me for information about these (groups). They have never indicated they care about any of these committees. Any elements that pertain to the City absolutely get conveyed to Council.
“But that’s not what this is about,” she concluded. “This is political retribution, pure and simple.”
Sox pushed back on the notion that the removals were in any way retaliatory.
“We’re there to do business for the city,” he said. “I’m not there to make somebody mad or take things out on somebody personally.”
Comments from Jenkins were also included in the initial email Partin sent to The State, in which he took the council members to task for appointing a single representative, Councilman Byron Thomas, to the National League of Cities, which he said doesn’t call for a singular representative. Sox told The State that it was council’s understanding that appointing a representative was required.
“Councilmember Byron Thomas said during these appointments that he would be honored to walk in my footsteps,” Jenkins said. “But he isn’t walking a path I created. Cayce City Council made fools of themselves last Wednesday night. They teamed up to essentially kick the Mayor off of every single one of the committees that she sits on, and appointed themselves.”
Thomas echoed Sox, saying that he wasn’t aware that all council members represent Cayce on the league, if that’s the case.
“That information should have been given to me within the first few months of being elected,” he said. “The only information I had heard was that our former mayor pro tem served on it.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2024 at 4:32 PM.
.jpg)