2 died in Columbia gas leak. Now, SC lawmakers want to be able to fire housing leaders
Three months after two residents of a Columbia public housing complex died from carbon monoxide poisoning, state lawmakers advanced a bill to force leadership changes at the local housing commission.
The panel of legislators, however, delayed debate on a separate proposal to require apartments in South Carolina to have carbon monoxide detectors.
A S.C. Senate subcommittee Wednesday voted to approve a bill that gives lawmakers the authority to fire public housing commissioners when living conditions are hazardous or, worse, lead to a resident’s death.
The bill was filed by state Sen. Darrell Jackson, a Richland County Democrat, in response to the January deaths of two residents of Allen Benedict Court, a public housing complex owned and operated by the Columbia Housing Authority.
An inspection of the complex found hazardous carbon monoxide levels in multiple buildings. Authorities evacuated and condemned the complex, leaving more than 400 people in transitional homes.
The deaths have led to resignations of some Columbia Housing Authority board members and to the long-time director’s retirement.
Jackson’s bill would give state lawmakers who represent a housing authority’s home county the power to force those kinds of changes.
Lawmakers could declare a state of emergency, suspending the authority’s directors and commissioners for 90 days during an investigation by law enforcement.
The city’s mayor would then appoint a new director of the housing authority, according to an amendment approved by the committee.
Kyle Michel, an attorney representing the City of Columbia, recommended the changes.
Michel said the city “still regrets the tragedy that happened at the housing authority here in the city,” but noted the housing authority is a separate 501c3 nonprofit.
If lawmakers determine the housing authority was negligent or responsible for allowing hazardous or deadly housing conditions, commissioners would immediately be removed from office. City council then would appoint new commissioners.
“It creates an avenue (for changing leadership) in case something severe happens,” Jackson previously told The State of the bill.
He compared it to S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster firing the entire Richland County elections board earlier this year, three months after the agency failed to count more than 1,000 votes in the 2018 election and a day after a tense board meeting that highlighted the agency’s dysfunction.
Subcommittee chairman Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said the bill has enough bipartisan support that it could become law this year, even if it misses an April 10 deadline to pass the Senate.
Subcommittee members, however, balked at moving forward a separate amended bill mandating all apartments be equipped with carbon monoxide detectors.
“We need to find out what the current requirements are, and then we can have a conversation of whether or how far we want to extend that,” Massey said.
State building codes require a carbon monoxide detector for newly built apartments with gas appliances, a fuel-burning fireplace or a forced air fuel-burning furnace. Detectors are also required in buildings with an attached private garage, according to the S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has joined U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, D-Charleston, to propose legislation that would mandate carbon monoxide detectors in public housing units subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
This story was originally published April 3, 2019 at 1:36 PM.
