A Continuance, The State of the City, The SRS CAB, Plutonium Disposition, and Ed Woltz’s Business License Appeal.
by Don Moniak
January 23, 2023

Monday, January 23, 2023:

Personal injury litigation cases involving a former City of Aiken seasonal, teenage employee, who suffered life-altering injuries after being placed on hazardous garbage truck duty, were continued by a Second District Court judge last week. The cases were originally scheduled for jury selection and trial beginning today, but were continued to allow for further depositions to take place.

The case of Hartley vs. City of Aiken was filed in April, 2020, and asserted the following:

“ On the morning of July 7, 2019, Public Services Director for the City, Defendant, Tim Coakley, acting in his official capacity and as an agent of the City, overruled minor K. Hartley’s supervisors and had the minor placed on the back of the City garbage truck with no training and without the permission or knowledge of the minor’s parents.”

Within a few hours of being placed on the City garbage truck by Public Services Director, Defendant, Tim Coakley, a 2006 Honda Odyssey van slammed into the rear of the City garbage truck where minor K. Hartley was working. The collision severed minor K. Hartley’s right leg, mangled his right arm and the right side of his face and caused back and brain injuries, among other serious and permanent injuries.”

“Plaintiffs [have] also suffered extreme mental anguish from the moment [they] became aware of [their] son’s accident and medical condition, watching as [their] son has endured the amputation of his right leg, many surgeries and during the process of caring for [their] son and making medical decisions directly effecting [their] son’s future.”

The last time Aiken City Council publicly addressed the case was July 8, 2019, when, according to meeting minutes, “Mayor Osbon asked again that the city hold our young employee who was injured today in our prayers and his family and the crews who were working with him.” In the last Aiken Standard story on the accident, on July 9, 2019, Kyle Hartley’s condition was reportedly “improving.”

Since that time the Hartley family’s lawyer has litigated a worker’s compensation case and two civil personal injury cases, separately filed by each parent, against an attorney hired by the city’s insurer, the South Carolina Municipal Insurance and Risk Financing Fund (SCMIRF).

It was SCMIRF that nearly one year ago decided to settle the case involving a serious injury to a toddler at the city’s Citizens Park splashpad. Since that story was revealed, South Carolina DHEC is now investigating whether proper notification of the accident at the DHEC regulated splashpad was made by city officials.

The latest of three continuances in the Hartley civil cases set forth the following revised schedule: “Mediation shall be completed by April 1, 2023, dispositive motions shall be filed by May 1, 2023, and the case is subject to trial thirty days after dispositive motions are ruled upon.”

Monday, January 23, 2023:

Mayor Rick Osbon will present the City of Aiken’s State of the City address at the city-owned Amentum Center for the Performing Arts, 126 Newberry Street, SW, in Aiken from 6-7 p.m. The address will also be streamed, and archived, on the city’s You Tube channel.

After repeated questions and requests for details during a special Council meeting on January 17th, regarding the future of the nearly defunct Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC), Mayor Osbon finally engaged with citizens, but deferred outlining his “vision” for the downtown Pascalis Project properties presently owned by the commission until this evening’s more comprehensive address.

In his twelve minute long, State of the City Address on January 24, 2022, Mayor Osbon’s vision for Project Pascalis included an “internal parking solution;”

“I’m standing downtown in front of the Hotel Aiken. The Hotel Aiken is involved in Project Pascalis, which is a project our Aiken Municipal Development Corporation has been planning and working on for a transformational project in our downtown. The AMDC has spent more than a year working to plan this transformational project that will ensure downtown remains resilient for generations to come. Private dollars will bring a full-service 100 room hotel and around 100 mixed-use residential units with shopping and dining. 

The city’s contribution to the project will be will be to build 25,000 square feet of meeting and convention space and an approximately 400 space internal parking solution to serve the new residents, hotel guests, and downtown shoppers. All told, investments in the downtown will be 75 to 100 million, and once completed the project will generate more than 3 million dollars annually in local government revenue.”

Mayor Osbon’s twelve minute speech was made less than two months after the AMDC had agreed to sell the Pascalis properties for nearly half the price the commission had paid for them in November 2022; as reported in Downtown Aiken Half Price Sale.

January 23-24, 2023:

The Savannah River Site Citizen Advisory Board will meet in Aiken at the Center for African American History, Art, and Culture, 120 York Street; beginning at 1 p.m. on Monday the 23rd and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday the 24th. The agenda identifies two fifteen-minute public comment periods, one at 4 p.m. on Monday and one at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

As reported in Offsite Insights 2022-1, the SRS CAB does not allow public comment except during a designated public comment period. The only questions allowed following DOE contractor presentations are from CAB members. The official policy for public comments states:

“Opportunities for public comment and involvement will ensure that the Board proceedings are transparent and that the Board hears input from the interested public. Such opportunities include the posting of meeting information on the Board’s public website, open Board meetings, designated public comment periods at Board meetings, and Board member involvement, where desired, in sharing information on the Board.”

Only 15 minutes of public comment time is mandated by law, and the CAB has chosen to narrowly adhere to the letter of the federal facilities committee law.

Another policy of the SRS CAB is to meet in “communities within Georgia and South Carolina that are affected by SRS with an effort to provide equal and reasonable access to these areas.”. As reported in Offsite Insights 2022-2, the SRS CAB has not met in Barnwell or Allendale Counties since the turn of the century, and 2023’s meeting schedule is no different.

There are no scheduled meetings in the two South Carolina counties closest downriver and most often downwind. There will be a meeting in Waynesboro, Georgia in Burke County, but the other meetings include two days at the Sonesta Resort on Hilton Head Island and the Crown Plaza in North Charleston, SC.

The SRS CAB sent no representatives to the January 19, 2023 Department of Energy hearings on plutonium disposition. Since the 27-34 tons of surplus plutonium being analyzed is under the purview of the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) and not DOE’s Office of Environmnental Management, the CAB is not allowed to discuss the matter in its official capacity. Thus, the SRS CAB shared a common status at the meetings with local and state elected officials, environmental regulators, and Chambers of Commerce: all were no shows.

Thursday, January 26, 2023.

On January 19th the City of Aiken announced that at 10 a.m., “the following appeal of a business license will be heard, and is open to the public:

Edward K. Woltz and Holly H. Woltz and S&C Properties, LLC v. The City of Aiken, South Carolina and its Designated Business License Official. This meeting will be held in the Council Chambers at 111 Chesterfield Street S.”

Ed Woltz, who represents District 6 on City Council, was cited for a business license violation in December 2021. Background for the case was reported in Ed Woltz’s Business License Citation, but to date no local corporate media outlets have reported on the situation.

The charge was dismissed in September 2022, without any specified reason, but the parties then appealed the businesses tax assessment. The city’s municipal code specifies City Council as the hearing arbiter in these appeals, but due to the obvious conflict of interest Council retained North Augusta attorney Kelly Zier to oversee the appeal hearing. Zier is also the City of North Augusta’s City Attorney.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request for all business license tax violations since January 1, 2021, the City of Aiken was only able to produce one other citation. That case did not go to appeal, making the Woltz appeal an uncommon case.

This is the first and only business license appeal during that time period. The appeal appears to center on the city’s determination of rental property revenues, and has broad implications for a business tax license program that generates nearly one-third of the city’s general fund.