LR5 school board vice chair faces ethics complaint over elementary school contractor
An ethics complaint against Lexington-Richland 5 board member Ken Loveless has been made public after he waived confidentiality about an investigation by the S.C. Ethics Commission.
The complaint arises from concerns about Loveless’ business relationship with the company that built Chapin’s Piney Woods Elementary School. After he was elected to the board in 2018, Loveless was critical of the project and the work of Contract Construction. But other board members raised ethics concerns in 2020 when Loveless’ company, Loveless Commercial Contracting, was awarded a more than $1 million contract to work with Contract Construction on a forensic lab for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Loveless, the board’s vice chair, later recused himself from future discussion of work at Piney Woods, which opened last year on Amicks Ferry Road. But he also sought a formal advisory opinion from the S.C. Ethics Commission.
In February 2021, the Ethics Commission said Loveless must step back from any discussion or oversight of the $23 million Piney Woods construction project. But that opinion only applied to the legal boundaries of the recusal Loveless had already made.
A constituent later filed an ethics complaint seeking a formal ethics charge for Loveless’ oversight of Piney Woods during the previous year, when his company worked with Contract Construction on the SLED project.
In a response to the complaint dated Feb. 28, Loveless’ attorney, Butch Bowers, waved the confidentiality around the complaint, allowing the Ethics Commission to release it publicly. Ethics complaints against public officials are usually kept confidential unless the commission makes formal charges against an official.
A spokesperson for the Ethics Commission said the agency has not made any determinations about the accusation against Loveless, and the investigation is ongoing.
In a statement issued to The State through another attorney, Desa Ballard, Loveless said one of his goals as a board member candidate “was to inquire into what I believed (was) financial overreach by certain construction contractors the District has dealt with the in the past and I continue those efforts.”
“I believe steps have been taken to attempt to silence me on that issue, and, as with everything I do, I will not succumb to bullying or lies being told about me. Nor will I refuse to do my job as a member of the Board, which is to contribute what I can to the improvement of the District and to benefit its students, parents and staff.”
In his response filed to the ethics complaint, Bowers argues that, as one of seven school board members, Loveless does not have the ability to make decisions on his own with regard to Piney Woods or Contract Construction, and that public officials in similar circumstances have not been required to recuse themselves.
“Mr. Loveless has no individual ability to make decisions for the Board,” Bowers said.
Bowers also says it was Contract Construction that created any conflict of interest when it selected Loveless Contracting’s bid for the SLED job. He said Loveless’ position as a school board member would not have influenced Contract Construction’s decision to hire Loveless’ company — unless his company was chosen in an attempt “to prevent Mr. Loveless from commenting on the quality of work by” Contract Construction, Bowers wrote. That “is apparently what has occurred here.”
Bowers said a finding against Loveless would allow companies in such situations to “force the recusal of a public official and prevent him from doing his statutory duties” of overseeing work in the school district. He suggests the commission investigate Contract Construction to determine if that was the company’s intent.
Contract Construction president Greg Hughes did not respond to requests for comment from The State prior to publication.
Bowers said the bid for the contract was submitted by “lower-level staff” at Loveless’ office, and Loveless did not know about it until he found out the bid was going to be awarded.
At a Lexington-Richland 5 school board meeting last week, Loveless praised a review of the Piney Woods site by engineering consultants Mead and Hunt that highlighted what the consultants said are deficiencies in the work on the school. The deficiencies included non-standard handicap parking spots and misplaced expansion joints in the concrete pours, which are meant to reduce the wear and tear on the pavement over time.
Mead and Hunt’s representatives told the board they had been told the deficiencies had since been fixed, although they had not had the chance to revisit the elementary school to review them again.
Loveless said concerns about the school’s construction were raised after he passed along questions from a constituent. “Tonight I feel somewhat vindicated by the fact that nonconforming material has been found on this very subject,” Loveless said at the school board meeting.
He recently sued two constituents of the Lexington-Richland 5 school district for alleged defamatory statements made about him in an online Facebook group, which temporarily shut down user activity after Loveless sued its administrator over comments made there. Many of the comments highlighted by Loveless relate to ethics complaints around Piney Woods, which he asserts are libelous.
It’s usually difficult for public figures to successfully sue for libel because they have to prove that any false statements were made with “actual malice” or were made with “total disregard” for whether the statements were true.
Another Lexington-Richland 5 board member is also facing ethics charges on a separate issue. Board chair Jan Hammond faces 15 ethics charges later this month over accusations she used her district email before the 2020 election to urge constituents to vote against other members of the board, and of of failing to report income from various sources on mandatory economic interest statements.
This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 11:38 AM.
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