City’s attorney: Firm took a risk, lost in Vista hotel deal

Attorneys for the city of Columbia and an architectural firm suing it for some $1.6 million over a contract dispute portrayed their clients in sharply different ways Monday as opening arguments got under way.

The firm of Stevens & Wilkinson knew the work it was doing for the city might not get a final contract, the city’s private attorney, Kathleen McDaniel, told a Richland County jury of eight women and four men.

“That was the risk they were willing to take,” said McDaniel, who portrayed the firm as using the court system to collect money it doesn’t deserve to get.

But Stevens & Wilkinson attorney Dick Harpootlian, standing before the jury, depicted the city as an arrogant municipal government that turns its back on legitimate bills that come due.

“There’s an old saying, ‘You can’t fight City Hall.’... City Hall is all-powerful. City Hall writes the rules,” Harpootlian said. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, Stevens & Wilkinson decided to fight City Hall. That’s what this case is about – fighting City Hall.”

The dispute concerns a 2003 agreement the city had with Stevens & Wilkinson, when that firm and its partners did initial design work for a proposed city-funded hotel to adjoin the convention center in the Vista. But after months of working with Stevens & Wilkinson, the city put out new bids and eventually chose another developer who built the hotel on a private basis.

Circuit Judge Alison Lee settled a key issue Monday when she ruled that former Columbia Mayor Bob Coble doesn’t have to testify in person and that Stevens & Wilkinson lawyers can read to the jury a deposition he recently gave.

However, Lee said she hasn’t decided whether she will let Stevens & Wilkinson lawyers read a crucial portion of the deposition in which Coble, who was mayor at the time in 2003, supports the firm’s assertion that the city had an agreement with Stevens & Wilkinson to pay them while the firm continued to work on the project in its initial stages.

Harpootlian told the jury the city owes Stevens & Wilkinson some $1.6 million for 22 weeks of work in late 2003 and early 2004, which the firm valued at $75,000 per week.

Coble can’t appear in court because he recently suffered “a massive heart attack with extensive reconstruction” and has been advised by a doctor not to undergo the stress of testifying, Harpootlian told Lee.

McDaniel has objected to Coble, in his deposition, telling the jury that his understanding of what the city agreed to pay Stevens & Wilkinson contradicts the city’s depiction of the arrangement.

According to McDaniel, in an argument she made to Lee, evidence about the city’s agreement with Stevens & Wilkinson is contained in official city minutes of a July 2003 city council meeting. Those minutes say the city agreed to pay the firm a $650,000 lump sum but were silent on any additional payments, McDaniel said.

And according to numerous court opinions, official minutes are the best evidence of what happened at a city council meeting, McDaniel told Lee.

Lee will likely decide Tuesday whether to allow in evidence from Coble’s deposition that would contradict the minutes.

Harpootlian colleague Chris Kenney told Lee that the minutes are “incomplete and inaccurate.”

The trial is expected to last three to four days. Monday’s opening arguments were the latest stage of a 10-year running legal battle between the firm and the city over the money the firm says it is owed.

Other potential witnesses mentioned Monday in court as possible witnesses include former Columbia city manager Steve Gantt, former police chief and former city manager Charles Austin, current Mayor Steve Benjamin, former council member Anne Sinclair and Vista businesswoman and community activist Cathy Novinger.

In 2003, while making initial plans to develop a Vista hotel, the city drew up a written memorandum of understanding with Stevens & Wilkinson and some other companies. In 2004, the city broke off relations with that development team and chose another firm, Windsor Aughtry Co. of Greenville, that went on to develop a private hotel. That hotel is the Columbia Hilton.

This story was originally published July 27, 2015 at 3:19 PM.