Feud over new Midlands school leads to ethics accusations against school board member
A long-simmering feud over a new elementary school in Lexington-Richland 5 has boiled over into accusations of unethical conduct against one of the project’s biggest critics.
The spat escalated at Monday’s Lexington-Richland 5 school board meeting, when members accused their colleague Ken Loveless of using his position on the board to secure lucrative jobs for his company.
Loveless Commercial Contracting was awarded a more than $1 million contract this spring to perform subcontracting work on a construction project overseen by Contract Construction for the State Law Enforcement Division. Loveless’s fellow board members blasted that decision.
Contract Construction is the firm overseeing the construction of Piney Woods Elementary School.
“He has turned his board seat into a money-making enterprise by submitting a bid to work for a contractor already doing business with the school district for which he serves as a board trustee,” said board member Ed White.
Loveless disputes that his board position had anything to do with the contract.
“My company bid a project, put it out to five or six general contractors, and we were the low bidder with the contractor that was selected,” Loveless said. “Period. It had nothing to do with anything with school board.”
Loveless said he had spoken about the project with the S.C. Ethics Commission, who had assured him the contract did not raise legal issues.
Under questioning from White at Monday’s meeting, Contract Construction president Greg Hughes acknowledged the two men had discussed potential business between the two firms during a June 18 tour that some school board members took of the Piney Woods site. White said that the incident showed Loveless mixing his personal business with the business of the board.
Loveless described the conversation as innocuous.
“After the tour was over, he was talking to me about how they had just bid this big west campus job at USC, and that our company had put out a preliminary bid to all the contractors,” Loveless said. “He was talking to me that there was a possibility we would be working together... since then the project was shelved because of money problems, but he was asking me if I wanted to do other work with him. Of course, we’re a construction company, and we’ve been around here for years... I said, ‘Why don’t we go over some time and look at the SLED job?’ I hadn’t seen it. He said ‘sure.’
“That was the extent of the conversation. What did I do wrong there? ... It doesn’t create a conflict of interest for businessmen to talk about a project that’s not related to School District 5.”
Greg Hughes had a similar recollection of the conversation. “I mentioned he’d done good work on the SLED job, and he said he was interested in doing more,” Hughes recalled.
But while answering questions at Monday’s school board meeting, Hughes walked a fine line between defending his company’s work on Piney Woods while acknowledging his relationship with Loveless.
“He does good work for us,” Hughes said. “I’d like him to continue doing it.”
The latest allegations are the latest in a long dispute between board members over construction of the new elementary school on Amicks Ferry Road about three miles southwest of Chapin, which is slated to open in the fall of 2021. Loveless has been critical of the project since he joined the board in 2018, questioning its cost and what he identifies as deficiencies in its construction.
Loveless criticized the strength of concrete used to insulate electrical wiring buried at the site, which caused the firm to do additional testing, and absorb the cost, before confirming its suitability. He’s also questioned practices like doing work on the site at night. Other school board members say the independent inspectors contracted to oversee the project haven’t flagged any serious issues.
The dispute continued Monday over a July 16 letter, in which Loveless claimed he had received an anonymous shipment of concrete delivery tickets detailing conditions of the material. In trying to determine where the tickets had come from, the board were told by the concrete supplier that they had provided the tickets at Loveless’s request. Board member Beth Hutchison criticized Loveless for trying to mislead his colleagues about how he had acquired the tickets and why they might have been sent.
“He lied to us and he lied to the public,” Hutchison said.
Loveless later told The State he didn’t want to “rat out my source” for the delivery tickets, although Hughes openly acknowledged Monday their concrete supplier had produced the tickets at the board member’s request. Loveless also complained he’d been unable to receive such documents when he requests them from the district.
Loveless also argues he’s been denied the ability to visit the Piney Woods site, other than the June 18 site tour. White argues there are liability issues if a board member is issuing directions to contractors on the job.
“He says he ran on this theme of ‘I’m going to oversee construction,’” White said. “But we all have equal rights to vote on policy. It’s not proper for one board member to decide, ‘I’m going to do this part of the district’s business.’”
But Loveless says his critical stance on the project means it can’t be unethical for him to work on another project with Contract Construction. He voted against their Piney Woods contract when he first joined the board and has continued to question its handling of the site, even after he received the SLED contract.
“Where’s the conflict of interest?,” he said. “You’d think they would welcome me being involved, since I think you can see I know what I’m talking about.”
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