Midlands mayor fights allegations of conflict on town water vote at ethics hearing
The mayor of a Midlands town is facing an ethics complaint after he pushed to close the town water plant and buy water from a commission he serves on.
Batesburg-Leesville Mayor Lancer Shull is facing an ethics complaint in a hearing before the State Ethics Commission on Thursday that alleges he voted on proposals related to Lexington County’s Joint Water and Sewer Commission, which provides water services in the county and on which Shull serves.
The mayor even pushed to get back onto the water commission after the Batesburg-Leesville town council voted to remove him from the body, according to complaints filed by two town council members.
Shull told The State he expects to be cleared of any wrong-doing. He said a similar complaint had previously been sent to the state Law Enforcement Division and no action was ever taken on it.
“It’s just a political hit job,” Shull said.
The complaints filed by council members Steve Cain and Shirley Mitchell says that the town council voted to remove Shull from the Joint Water and Sewer Commission in a 5-4 vote on Jan. 13, 2020, in which Shull voted against his own removal.
“After the vote, [Shull] was so angry and distraught that he pressured council members Cynthia Etheredge and Bob Hall, [who were new to council at the time] to reverse their vote in a hastily scheduled special council meeting 8 days later,” at which the previous vote was reversed, Mitchell writes in her complaint.
Hall wrote an email to then-Town Manager Ted Luckadoo requesting the opportunity to reconsider the vote.
“The urgency is due to possible damages which may be done, if we delay, to the Town’s relationship with the Municipal Water Commission because of my vote on the issue of an appointment,” Hall wrote in the email, included with the ethics commission filing. “My vote was influenced by incorrect information from a party or parties on this and other issues.”
Shull was reappointed at the commission by a 7-2 vote at the Jan. 21 meeting.
The ethics complaint contends that Shull was prohibited from voting on the matter because of his membership on the Joint Water and Sewer Commission, because of a $250 per diem payment that commissioners receive each month as reimbursement for any expenses they incur from their commission. That constitutes an economic inducement Shull voted to give himself, commission general counsel Courtney Laster argued at a hearing on Thursday.
“I’m a public employee, and I might receive a bonus, but the difference is I can’t give it to myself,” Laster told a panel of the Ethics Commission considering Shull’s case.
Shull’s attorney James Randall Davis argued the money is an “incidental” benefit meant to compensate commissioners for any costs incurred during their work on the commission, such as food, travel or lodging. Such payments are allowable under the statute creating the joint water commission, which otherwise prohibits its members from receiving any compensation for their service.
Most of the commissioners’ questions Thursday revolved around the nature of commissioners’ per diem, which is paid out monthly regardless of any specific members’ expenses or even whether the commission met that month at all, the Ethics Commission heard.
“If there’s no accountability for how or where it’s spent, that doesn’t sound to me like a per diem,” commissioner Brandolyn Thomas Pinkston said at one point.
Shull himself testified that his only interest in serving on the water commission was in finding alternate water sources for the town, whether that meant contracting with Joint Municipal Water or not. He said when he was elected mayor in 2017, Batesburg-Leesville was under a DHEC consent order to update its water system, which had overstretched the town’s 80-year-old reservoir that Shull described as looking like “a 1941 submarine movie.” He also told the commission he no longer takes the per diem.
“I would do this for free,” he said.
The Ethics Commission will issue a ruling on the charges at a later date, which could result in a fine if Shull is found to have violated the Ethics Act.
But some of the mayor’s colleagues on town council still challenge his conduct on the board.
“Mayor Shull is required by SC law to recuse himself from voting on matters that involve the Commission that come before the BL Town Council and from advocating on business matters concerning the Commission,” Mitchell wrote. “Mayor Shull has consistently presided over meetings with business involving the Commission and he has consistently voted in his own interest and in the interest of the Commission.”
A couple months after the council fight over whether to keep Shull on the water commission, the Batesburg-Leesville Town Council voted March 9, 2020, to agree to purchase water from the joint water commission even though the town has its own water plant. Shull voted in favor of the motion, which passed 6-0. That included a $20 million contract with the engineering firm Hazen and Sawyer.
Cain argues in a separate complaint that Shull voted to approve a sewer expansion contracted with the joint water commission that “encroaches on BL’s water district,” he said.
“Batesburg-Leesville has the capacity to service this project with water and sewer independent of the Joint Municipal Water and Sewer, though Joint Municipal Water & Sewer cannot service that contract without Batesburg-Leesville,” he wrote.
“Our town attorney’s opinion is that a Per Diem is not a thing of value ergo the mayor can vote on the project as a member of both boards?”
Laster specified at Thursday’s meeting that ethics investigators didn’t focus on whether Shull is allowed to vote on water issues involving the commission or even challenge the commission’s ability to pay members a per diem, only whether Shull’s votes awarded an economic inducement to himself.
This story was originally published February 19, 2025 at 11:13 AM.
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