Cayce council reviews investigation behind closed doors, ‘members stepped out’
The Cayce city council met behind closed doors in executive session for nearly three hours to review findings from an investigation, conducted by a third-party attorney, into communications between a city staff member and a city elected official.
Ryan Hicks, the attorney hired by the city to review improper conduct, when asked if council members have stepped outside the city’s form of government, said his investigation found “members stepped out” and crossed into a “strong mayor” form of government. There was no report released to the public, but the council asked Hicks to compile one by Oct. 30 and have the city manager publish it to the city’s website.
“The investigation I was doing, as to some conduct, certainly revealed instances where members were stepping outside of council-manager form of government and there were some indications where it would more align with strong-mayor,” Hicks told council late Monday night.
There were two members of the public in attendance and the proceedings were broadcasted on YouTube.
Cayce has a council-manager form of government, meaning that the council directs a city manager who then oversees all city employees. In a mayor-council, also known as strong-mayor, form of government, a mayor acts as the chief executive officer for the city, overseeing and directing employees.
The city’s longtime Mayor Elise Partin was not in attendance at the special called meeting Monday night. She refused to attend a special called meeting two weeks earlier in which the five-person council voted to launch the investigation. The State tried to reach Partin over text Monday night and did not immediately receive a response.
While the council stopped short of naming the elected official or city employee at the center of the investigation, Councilman Hunter Sox alluded to Partin directly in his questions to Hicks. Sox asked whether the complaints lodged by Jim Crosland, the former city manager, in a letter shared with council upon his departure, were accurate.
In his letter, obtained by The State, Crosland detailed a “toxic environment brought on by [the mayor]” and asserted that Partin did not follow the city’s chain of command and instead went directly to city staff, as opposed to going through the city manager.
“Most of what Mr. Crosland indicated in his memorandum on his departure was accurate,” Hicks said during the Monday night council meeting. “I would say [the investigation] showed a trend, or a pattern, of kind of recurring themes of conduct and not just one isolated incident.”
Prior to the Oct. 13 special called meeting, in which council launched the investigation, Partin said in a statement shared to social media Oct. 13 that the meeting was being held to discuss a personnel complaint lodged against her. Following that meeting, The State requested all documents reviewed by the city council and was denied them by the city’s attorney.
The investigation comes after months of tension between the four members of council and Partin. In the last year and a half, the city has seen high turnover at some of its top administrative positions including city manager, police chief and finance director.
“I’ve seen multiple documents that appear to really establish an obvious pattern of behavior that we felt like we needed to address as a council,” Councilman Phil Carter said during the Monday night meeting. “We do recognize that we need to improve ... I personally, in some ways, regret that it got this far. I should’ve spoken up earlier and I do apologize.”
The council approved two motions at the meeting: one, to hire Hicks to prepare a report on his findings and have it published to the city’s website and, two, to hire Hicks to help conduct a council work session at the beginning of the year. Two council seats, in District 1 and District 3, are up for grabs in the coming Nov. 4 election.
This story was originally published October 27, 2025 at 9:12 PM.
