Omissions, Distractions, and Inaccuracies Plague Latest Aiken Standard Report
A front page story in the Sunday edition of the Aiken Standard (“Aiken businesses in footprint of Project Pascalis share reactions to redevelopment plans,” by Matthew Christian, July 23, 2022) (1) devoted considerable space to discussing the private business information of eight businesses still operating within the proposed Project Pascalis demolition zone.
Project Pascalis is the name for the City of Aiken’s $100 million plus endeavor to demolish and redevelop more nearly half of a major downtown block (2) and the businesses are being compelled to relocate. The businesses are located on five of the seven properties purchased by the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC) in November, 2021 for $9.5 million and each property is proposed for demolition and redevelopment.
The issues with the story include:
- It is unnecessarily littered with guesswork about the private business information regarding individual rent schedules;
- Omits the fact that one business, On Board Realty, also operates as property manager; which one citizen’s investigation has revealed to be a no-bid contract;
- Failed to recognize a separate leasing arrangement held by another business, Newberry Hall;
- Did not report on the non disparagement clause in the proposed relocation agreement between the AMDC and the demolition zone tenants.
The Distraction of Rent Payments
The July 24th Aiken Standard story contains unnecessary and intrusive speculation based on a single document, which Standard reporter Matt Christian defines as “a redacted document on the transparency page” on the (AMDC) website. This document can be found at:
The Standard is apparently unaware the actual rent information was available prior to July 13th, contained within several files involving the property manager. These files are no longer available for a good reason: unlike the redacted lease list, the names of businesses were not redacted from the document on file.
On July 13, 2022, I emailed City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh with concerns and questions regarding the security of AMDC checking account data and the $620 bar and dinner tab at Prime Steakhouse amassed by the AMDC on January 4, 2022. I made that email public on the Do It Right! Facebook page, but did not make this subsequent email public:
Mr. Bedenbaugh,
Along the same lines, the checks at the AMDC transparency page have the info redacted, but the invoices do not. The City also needs to go through and redact the important business information related to AMDC tenants. The names of tenants are redacted on one document but they are not in the invoices from On Board Reality.
Now maybe it is time to find a new FOIA officer for the city?
Within a few days of these two emails, the documents containing the routing and account numbers on copies of AMDC Security Federal checks, and the documents containing the names of AMDC tenants were properly removed from the its “transparency page.” Unfortunately, the documents, with properly redacted information, have not been restored.
There is one rent that is of public interest, as it does involve a city contractor. On Board Realty pays $450 a month.
An Undisclosed, No-Bid Contract
The AMDC’s property manager for the Pascalis properties is On Board Reality, a fact that the Standard either did not uncover or chose not to disclose.
The Standard did disclose that On Board Realty is “another business owner operating under a month-to-month arrangement with the Aiken Municipal Development Commission.” Its owner, Patricia Lucas, was the only person interviewed to express pleasure with Project Pascalis.
On Board Realty handles the property management under contract to the AMDC, including collecting more than $19,000 a month in rent payments; a fact easily discernible by viewing the commission’s bank statement, located at the same AMDC “transparency page” as the redacted lease list:
This contract was not obtained via a competitive bid, as required by the city’s municipal code. This lapse in procurement compliance was uncovered by Aiken resident and concerned citizen Kelly Cornelius. On July 15, 2022 Ms. Cornelius filed a FOIA request for, “the RFP or bid proposal notice that went out for the position that On Board Realty now holds as the collector of rent for the Pascalis Properties.”
Two days later, one of the city’s FOIA officers, Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant, replied:
“The AMDC selected the firm for property management based on prior experience managing the same properties. The firm is also one of the tenants impacted by the purchase of the properties. There was no RFP or bid.”
Mr O’Briant did not cite an existing lease agreement assigned to the AMDC during the sale closures to justify the no-bid contract, and tenants at the 106 Laurens property paid their rent directly to Shah Enterprises, LLC prior to obtaining the city as their new landlord. It is possible, though unlikely, that property manager Neel Shah would hire a property manager to manage his monthly rental properties.
City of Aiken’s municipal code requires bids on “purchases of or contracts for supplies, materials, equipment, or services” exceeding $2500:
- if between $2,500 and $5,000, “oral bids from at least three suppliers on the bidders list, whenever possible, should be obtained.”
- if greater than $5,000 but not exceeding $25,000, “bids from at least three suppliers on the bidders list, whenever possible, must be obtained in writing.”:
- if greater than $25,000 a written contract is mandated and a more complex set of rules apply.
The Aiken Standard devoted considerable efforts guessing at the rent payments of each business, information that is exempt from disclosure under FOIA. The redactions in the document cited was proper. The lack of redactions in documents removed was not proper.
Newberry Hall
Newberry Hall is the only affected business whose owners were involved in negotiating a lease arrangement during the early phases of Project Pascalis, when the only meetings being held were behind closed doors in executive sessions. This information was made public on the AMDC “transparency” page only after another FOIA request by Ms. Cornelius.
That request yielded the signed, closing purchase and sale agreement between the Wyatt family’s WTC Investments, LLC and Newberry Hall’s owner, Myrtle Anderson; and the “agreement regarding lease and option” between WTC and Newberry Hall’s business owners, Patrick and Natalie Carlisle. (3) This lease agreement remained in effect when the Aiken Chamber of Commerce took “assignment” of WTC’s purchase contracts on June 3, 2021, and when the AMDC finally purchased the properties on November 9, 2021 (4).
The lease agreement included options for compensation for lost income, purchase of a new building, and taking over operations of the new conference center. As reported in The Aiken Chronicles on July 16th, the status of negotiations between the AMDC and Newberry Hall are unknown; but in response to a FOIA request for a contract to operate the new conference center, the city has declared that no such contract exists.(5)
While the Aiken Standard devoted considerable energy and space to the issue of compensation to businesses formerly paying rent to Shah family enterprises, the AMDC’s lease agreement with Newberry Hall received scant attention.
The No Disparagement Clause
The Standard interviewed most of the business owners, but either failed to recognize or decided not to report an important clause in the proposed relocation assistance agreement the city has offered tenants. Section three of the clause reads:
“Section 3 Non-Disparagement. The Tenant agrees not to make any negative, defamatory, disparaging, or derogatory public comments about the Commission concerning the termination of the Tenancy.”
This may be standard boilerplate legal language, but in this case the landlord is not a private property owner, the landlord is currently a branch of city government that is responsible for pursuing and managing Project Pascalis. How does a tenant agree to not disparage the project without disparaging the project’s commission seeking to terminate the tenancy?
Commentary
On June 13th I also wrote the following to Aiken City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh:
“I have always accepted some exemptions to FOIA. We do not need to know what day Tenant x paid their rent and how much they paid.
“I think it was 21 years ago that I encountered a travel report for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff member on its cumbersome ADAMS web site. It included his passport information. I informed him right away and the agency took down the letter and redacted the sensitive information.
“There are many stories just like that. In fact we have one here on the AMDC website, in which info we have little right to, and no need to know, is posted, but information that may be released that we have a right to know is redacted or withheld.
“Obviously I am referring to the list of developers who submitted proposals in response to the May 2021 AMDC RFP; as well as the entire body of that request.
“This serves as another appeal for the full release of those documents.”
The City of Aiken has yet to release these documents that, under SC FOIA law, they “may” release but can also withhold. The redacted document referred to in that email is here:
This story illustrates how we are often treated to information we do not need to know and is even generally exempt from FOIA requests; while important information pertaining to the common good is routinely withheld from public view.
At the April 20, 2022 Project Pascalis public meeting, moderator Tim O’Briant took offense to a question posed by Aiken resident and concerned citizen Lisa Smith: “How many businesses have been evicted?”
Mr. O’Briant correctly noted that no businesses had been evicted, but did not elaborate on the legal meaning of eviction or the possibility of future evictions. It is this kind of disingenuousness that earns government the wrath of its citizens.
The Aiken Standard yesterday devoted considerable space to discussing the private business information of the Project Pascalis Evictees, as I now sometimes refer to the businesses that are being compelled (subject to legal interventions) to relocate and make way for the Mayor and City Council’s idea of progress. While nobody has faced any legal eviction proceedings, the fact is that threat does loom in their future unless they play ball with the city.
In yesterday’s story, the Standard treated people to what they did not need to know while neglecting issues of much greater importance. The Standard owes its readers and the businesses a correction pertaining to its speculation, and an apology for its omissions of known information and a general failure to investigate using all the tools at its disposal.
_____________
(2) A Project Pascalis Timeline
(3) https://aikenmdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Anderson-Contract.pdf