How the Aiken Standard got it wrong, twice, on a $10 million issue.

by Don Moniak
January 22, 2023

On Tuesday, January 17th, 2023, after months of closed-door meetings, and eight days after voting not to vote on the future of the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC), Aiken City Council held a special public meeting on a proposed ordinance to revise the AMDC’s membership. After a series of resignations following months without a planned public meeting, the commission was reduced to two members.

Because at least five members are necessary to vote and act, the fate of the commission’s ten properties, three on Williamsburg Street and seven in downtown Aiken, remain uncertain and minimally managed. The ten properties were paid for with city funds to the tune of $9,675,000, all but $175,000 borrowed via a stealthy municipal bond issuance for properties in the “Parkway District” to create a “land bank.”

City Council voted to approve, on the first of two hearings, or readings, to assume control of the city’s separate, “body politic” commission, as allowed by state law. No other decisions were made, but the intent of the ordinance was described by City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh as a means towards transferring AMDC properties to City of Aiken ownership:

“This  amended ordinance will reconstitute the AMDC membership to consist of the seven members of city council as voting ex-officio members. The city manager would no longer serve as a non-voting ex-officio member. This would also, and the mayor had asked me to elaborate on this,  it would allow the reconstituted AMDC Board of City Council members to, as it relates to assets owned by the AMDC… A portion of that could continue to be guided and managed under the municipal development commission or transferred to the city for ultimate sale or transfer to a third party entity.“

(Potential third parties could include the Aiken Corporation, the Aiken Public Facilities Corporation, the Savannah River National Laboratory.)

The meeting also featured comments and questions from more than a dozen area residents, including five plaintiffs in the Blake et al vs City of Aiken et al Project Pascalis lawsuit. Eight of the defendants in that case were also at the meeting: Mayor Rick Osbon and five City Council members, City Attorney Gary Smith, and City of Aiken Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant.

The fifth speaker, John Davis, was also the third speaker to inquire as to Council’s vision and intent. Up until that point, after more than a dozen questions and several requests for details, Council had sat mute and unmoved; or as longtime Aiken resident Gail King later described:

“I must confess you all look a little bit like deer caught in the headlights, not surprisingly perhaps.”

Davis spoke of his planning experience in the private sector, and then asked the Mayor for his intent and vision:

“Tomorrow, if you pass this ordinance you’re going to read in the paper probably that the Council is now kind of the AMDC.  People are going to read it and say oh that’s nice what does that mean? So I’m asking you Mr Mayor,  what exactly is the vision when you get responsibility for what had been the members of the AMDC? Don’t you think the public deserves to know what the vision is and what your intentions are? Don’t you have a plan, so wouldn’t you want to lay out a plan? Or if you don’t have a plan yet, at least some intent? Sir, I’m asking you that right now. I don’t know if you can answer it, but I think the public would love to read it in tomorrow’s paper.” 

Mayor Osbon finally relented and a discourse ensued that more closely resembled a pair of pliers being used to pull a tooth:

Mayor Osbon: “What I think I’ll say is this. A lot of it’s going to be addressed, what I think, at the State of the City next Monday, which everyone’s invited to, obviously.”

John Davis: “But you’re passing an ordinance, right? Isn’t this the first reading?”

Mayor Osbon: “ It is, but but let me speak to your question on what my vision is for this that we’re dealing with tonight. The AMDC heard requests you should abolish it. Maybe that might be it. But the most important thing is you can’t abolish AMDC as long as they have assets. Those assets need to be turned over to the city,. We are the elected body of our citizens and so my first order of tasks would be, regarding AMDC, is the council puts themselves in place, those assets come over to the city. 

At that point it does lead to the decision of what do you do with the AMDC. Do you leave it in a state where there’s no holding, it’s just there, or is it a tool that you’d want to use for for some other project?  I don’t know, but I can tell you I think the intentions are at this point to certainly step in and move those assets over to the elected body. “

John Davis: “So basically you’re saying the council will make it up if these ordinances passed, you make it up as you go along? “

Mayor Osbon:” No that’s not what I said. “

John Davis: “Well, that’s what I’m hearing that’s what I’m interpreting okay. “

Davis then went on to explain that the intent to transfer properties does not constitute a plan or a vision for the properties. He was one of many speakers who expressed dismay that Council members, who previously endorsed demolishing and redeveloping half of the most prominent block in downtown Aiken, were unwilling to share their thoughts on the future of the seven properties.

Hours after adjournment, the Aiken Standard issued an online story with the headline: “Mayor Rick Osbon to Outline Vision for Project Pascalis properties.”

The Standard’s story offered a public relations spin on Mayor Osbon’s evasion of questions, with the content of citizen inquiries and comments omitted, while reporting that, “Mayor Osbon will outline a vision of the future of Project Pascalis properties” at the annual State of the City Address:

“Osbon, a Republican who’s been the city’s mayor since 2015, said in response to several questions from concerned residents at a special-called city council meeting Tuesday evening that his address would feature the beginnings of a plan for the properties.”

If any vision or plan existed, Mayor Osbon chose not offer the fact of its existence at the onset of the meeting, and did not provide any indication of any vision beyond getting the properties transferred to City of Aiken control. The notion that any plan or vision existed, but was being reserved for a public relations event, was contradicted by statements (1) made by other Council members:

• “This action tonight is a step back to reevaluate and then move forward so give us time we’ll try to get it better this time.” Councilman Ed Woltz
• “We need to start fresh, we need to go back to basics,” stated Councilwoman Andrea Gregory, who also described allegations of state law violations as “mistakes were made,” “tripping over each other,” and “a cluster.”
• Councilman Ed Girardeau stated “It’s not some thing that you can just say well here’s what we’re going to do because we don’t really know until it’s all said and done.” Councilman Girardeau was also one of four members who stated “the buck stops here,” with Council.
  
  The Standard story also misconstrued various statements that Council’s intent was to “move” AMDC properties to City ownership, by falsely reporting:
  
  “The council considered and voted 6-0 Tuesday evening – Gail Diggs was absent from the meeting – to approve the first reading of an ordinance taking the first step in the vision: get the properties back under the control of the city.”
  
  Although City of Aiken funds, mostly borrowed, paid for AMDC’s purchases, the City of Aiken has never legally owned or controlled properties whose titles are in the AMDC’s name. The opportunity for the city to legally purchase the properties was provided in the May 25, 2021, assignment of the six “Shah properties” to the Chamber of Commerce. (2) That opportunity was ultimately rejected in favor of the separate body politic, the AMDC, consummating the deal.
  
  In its January 18th print edition, the Standard chose to run with a different, and false, headline: “Council votes to return Pascalis Properties.”

When told the City never owned the properties, and a correction was needed for the paper’s print edition readers, Standard managing editor John Boyette answered (3) that:

“We have a different headline online: Aiken Mayor Rick Osbon to outline vision for Project Pascalis properties.
On that issue, our reporter talked to the mayor after the meeting and confirmed that is what he intends to do at Monday night’s State of the City address. A lot of it is embargoed and off the record, and the public can hear it Monday night.”

Whether there was actually a prepared statement that Mayor Osbon chose to “embargo,” or whether a statement was in preparation after being peppered by requests for details, is unknown.

If the information embargo was true, Mayor Osbon chose to withhold his message during a special meeting attended by more than thirty people, a meeting dedicated solely to the future of the AMDC and its properties; and instead chose to present it to a more friendly audience. The delay is also another sign of his administration’s propensity towards secrecy at public meetings where what little public discourse that occurs is mandated by city ordinances crafted by past administrations with a tilt towards open governance.

Longtime resident Jenne Stoker, who is one of six individual plaintiffs in the Blake et al vs City of Aiken et al lawsuit, identified some fundamental changes in city governance since the early 2000’s:

“Twenty years ago when I used to come to council all the time there was discussion. People would ask these questions and council members would answer. Now, if we’re lucky, at the end of the whole thing you might give a little crumb of what you were thinking about. But there is no discourse..and that is how we got here today.

 The other big change in the last 20 years is that the boards and commissions that were appointed used to be very productive and they had people on them with varied opinions. There were Devil’s Advocates on every board and commission, who would ask hard questions. Now, somehow, the boards and commissions were cleaned up handily before this Project Pascalis, so there is only one viewpoint from the bottom to the top. From the Design Board to the Planning Commission, everybody is reading from the same position paper.”

Those words, along with the words of every other citizen in attendance, were reduced to a generalization by the Aiken Standard. Its reporting, which has consistently reflected a strong bias towards Project Pascalis, stood in stark contrast to two other local media outlets that highlighted the lack of answers to citizen queries and the mea culpas of City Council members. For example, WFXG-Augusta FOX News reporter Lauren Young’s headline story read: “Tearful apologies, more questions than answers in Aiken Council meeting.” The story covered the crux of the story and an apology offered by Councilwoman Lessie Price (4), while giving a real voice to concerned citizens.

Overall, City Council managed to sidestep real accountability, never really defining the meaning of a “buck stopping here,” identifying any lessons learned, or addressing accountability for the city staff misconduct strongly asserted by former AMDC Chairman Keith Wood and Vice-Chair Chris Verenes. The Aiken Standard, as it has largely done since the inception of Project Pascalis, played along, never questioning elected officials who greenlighted the project from its inception yet never met with the developers, as a group, until mid-June, 2022.

Footnotes:

(1) Following are the comments of City Council members after the completion of public comment:

Ed Woltz:  “I want to say I echo Miss Price’s sentiments. I couldn’t say it better myself. I agree with her, and I think we’re taking a step back to look at this project and understand where we’re coming from. So this action tonight is a step back to reevaluate and then move forward so give time we’ll try to get it better this time. And thank Ms Price  for what she said.” 

Andrea Gregory: “Are we allowed to respond to public comment sure because that was not my understanding.  

Mayor Osbon: Well, this is the time when we can answer as the questions are being asked. 

Councilwoman Gregory: Okay, I was under the impression we had to wait till it opened up to Council. 

Mayor Osbon: There’s two portions to that there is your public comment and then Council comment. 

Councilwoman Gregory: Right, so to clarify as citizens are asking questions,  is Council able to address those questions on the spot, or do we have to wait for our turn to when you open it up to Council,  that is what I’m trying to clarify? 

Mayor Osbon: We’ve done it both ways.  

Councilwoman Gregory: Great. Thank you. I’m answering a question because obviously I get a lot of emails, actually asking that and I thought it was two separate sessions. 

I do want to address somebody’s comment about us putting ourselves on the commission. 

For months I have articulated there is a statute to go about what is happening now. This  statute is the empowering State Statute that follows that ordinance,  okay. It’s basically the behind the scenes statutes, and so we don’t really have a choice on how to proceed to dissolve the AMDC,  and I’m going to tell you me as one Council member, my ultimate goal is to dissolve the AMDC. 

I will resonate that I appreciate each member of the AMDC’s time volunteering their expertise and their Public Service.  I do I think it got really messy, obviously a lot of things transpired.  We need to, as Council. understand that this the buck does stop with counsel, and there is shared responsibility that nobody wants to discuss and both entities should be held accountable. 

Whatever happened I will stick to the point that I think we all just tripped up on each other.  I do believe nothing was done intentional and I will stand by that. I never participated in any AMDC meetings because I didn’t agree that Council should have been involved. I was very vocal about that. We gave AMDC, because of their talents, autonomy to guide these projects to where we all envisioned they would go. Sadly that did not happen.

So yes we all  need to step back, revisit, revamp, and re-envision. And that happens in many aspects in business in school in life. It was a cluster. So I am personally recognizing that we pull it back but I don’t ever want to give a a notion that we didn’t support the gentlemen that were part of AMDC, because we did. 

I am one council member and I have been requesting to meet since the end of June. It hasn’t happened. When it finally happened the request came in November it was too late I’ve been asking to dissolve AMDC for about two months.  I don’t want to meet with anybody it was too late. 

So the statute very clearly reads, ‘upon adoption of the ordinance establishing a commission the governing body of such municipality shall provide for the governance of such commission by either of the following methods, a commission may be governed by the members of the governing body of its parent municipality serving ex-officio or by not less than five nor more than nine Commissioners selected by the governing body of the municipality in the event the governing body initially elects to appoint Commissioners,’ which is what we did to operate the commission, ‘it may at any time in its sole discretion abolished the office of the Commissioners and assume the direct responsibility for the operation of the commission.’ 

Because we have properties involved that is the step. It’s not because we all are sitting here or at least I’m not saying I can’t wait to be a commissioner on the AMDC. That is the next step. I plan on supporting this change in ordinance today. I plan on supporting the second reading of this ordinance, and immediately after the reading of the second ordinance if it passes the first of course. But immediately if it passes the first and the second I plan to request staff to put on the agenda to abolish the AMDC. 

We need to start fresh we need to go back to basics we need to own these properties we need to open up the possibility for any investor, or hope Hotel people and businesses the opportunity to submit RFP proposals. We need to open it up to the historical commission or or whoever and we need to review all that and take it from Step One and that’s all I have to say Mayor. “

Councilman Ed Girardeau. I appreciate all your questions it’s a little bit mind-boggling, and sometimes you don’t know. Like Andrea just pointed out we don’t know whether to blurt out answers or whatever. We try to get on the same page. I agree completely with Lessie, the buck stops with us. It’s not the AMDC’s fault,  they did the best they could and it didn’t turn out all that well, it didn’t turn out as well as any of us thought, but that’s the way it goes. 

Now I now was one of the three that got nominated to be on it, and it didn’t take us long to figure out we don’t need to be on this commission. You couldn’t vote if we were going to vote on that,  and then it’s sent to council. How in the world can we vote on that? Then we’re just recusing ourselves. So let me just say obviously you know what we’re planning on doing with getting the property back in our name. 

This is a process that has to happen.  It has to be done this way. It doesn’t happen as fast as I want it or anybody up here wants it we want it to be done. If then great if it had been months ago but it’s a process, it got a lot of things going on, moving parts, so after we get that done I don’t want to sit on it. I don’t need to be on AMDC. I don’t think anybody up here wants to be on AMDC. It’s tough enough just being on City Council. 

So from that perspective, you can sort of read into it we got to go through these processes but we’re not interested in that,  and I certainly wasn’t interested in nominating more people to be on an AMDC just to say okay now we’re going to give the property back that is what had to happen and it only made sense that for us to be appointed to the MDC to get the business done there’s a process.

And over the five years I’ve been involved it’s been a learning experience and things don’t happen as fast as I would like to see them done it’s just the way it is so we have to get through all of that, as far as you know what are we going to do here or there anyway.  I’ve been here for 60 years, well I’m not going to count the first two years, but 60 years or so that I’ve lived in Aiken. 

I don’t want to see the hotel turned down. I have a professional that I’m going to bring in for sure, and I’m sure there’s other ones about looking to preserve it. The person I know is from Aiken and he does this kind of thing and it would be beautiful if he could get the thing worked out. So that that’s on the gym I’ve already talked to him about it.  When the day comes (he)  wanted to be involved. For that matter he’s interested in the old hospital too and we made an offer on it we didn’t win the offer obviously somebody else did and he said at that point that guy will never do it and here we are at that but you know I don’t want to get into a thing where we’re blaming County Council by any stretch of the  imagination. 

We hear what you say we’re trying to do the best that we can and go through the process because we’re just like you we want what’s best for the city and as the Mayor alluded to, he’s going to talk about it in the state of the city address. I think you’re going to like what we’ve tried to put together it’s not a something that you can just say well here’s what we’re going to do because we don’t really know until it’s all said and done and we get to that point and I appreciate your patience to this point we’re going to get there everything will be fine I’ll stake my reputation on it. 

You know we’re going to do the best that we can just like we intended to when we started this. It hadn’t worked out exactly according to plan that’s for sure but we’ll move forward we appreciate all of you. 

Councilwoman Kay Brohl: “I don’t want to repeat too many things that my colleagues have already said but we do hear you and we have been hearing you. And to piggyback off councilwoman Price, that’s been upsetting. A lot of why we could not communicate

was the lawsuit. We were advised not to speak about it, so you have to understand when your attorneys are telling you one thing, you most of the time should take your attorney’s advice but we appreciate your coming and talking to us. 

There is no reason that we cannot all work together for the betterment of our city. And as I said at one of the other meetings we all love Aiken and we all are invested and having this be something good. And I think that only one other city had ever done this. Is that correct? I can’t remember someone saying that I think it was Columbia. So you know it wasn’t like this had been done with the MDC and the Redevelopment and all of that so we were doing the best we could did we make mistakes? Yes, and we are not blaming anyone the buck stops with city council.  So we look forward to working with you as we go forward and I think we can make Aiken better building on what we have the history that we all love.

I mean there’s just so much here tonight we had this at our seat our chairs from the Rye patch in hopeland’s gardens and when we were, the city was thinking about doing that oh it was a horrible thing they were it was going to be Woodstock. It was miserable but we managed to work together and we need to do that. We need to do as we go forward. So thank you like my colleagues have said for your patience. It has not been easy and we have had lots of angst about it and lost sleep about it so everybody’s human and we we care about our city. I care very much about the city so thank you again. 

Mayor Osbon: “I think you’ve heard a lot from where council members hearts are right now anyway.  You know I wanted to say Mr Davis your comments, were what’s your plan? 

I think once we get the property in awhile. We may have an outline. I think some ideas have been,  let’s deal with the hotel let’s find a competent person to redevelop or develop and come through. Maybe some smaller bites of the apple type of thing, and and really do something.  We’ve heard the comments.  I think we all agree with the comments. This allows us to do that as a first step, and frankly the way we can get that. 

I think you’ll see certainly an open ear to a lot of stakeholders who have been patient through this and and maybe didn’t feel like they got the proper say in the first go. So I think as that plan is developed as it’s back in the city I think you’ll see that with the input from a lot of people in this room. At least we hope so. 

I would echo I think again what all the council members have said, I think they’ve all spoken well for themselves. I appreciate Miss Price’s comments, and agree I mean I no no fault in anything, apologies to AMDC members, because of the position we put them in with this vehicle because they are people we respect in the community with their integrity and and you know this isn’t in no way of a a slap to to them. I mean we understand the position that we’re in and the buck does stop with Council.

Because as Mayor it certainly stops with me and I get that responsibility so thank you for all your input and time through this, and I know as we move forward to get this done, get the property moved forward, I look forward to maybe not just meetings like this where where we have the barrier here Jenny,  but some meetings at the table.”

(2) The property assignment between WTC Investments and the Aiken Chamber of Commerce, signed on May 25, 2021, named the City of Aiken as a potential buyer of the Shah family’s six properties. The assignment was finalized three weeks after Mayor Osbon met with WTC Investment’s Weldon Wyatt. Two days later, a closed-door meeting reportedly organized by Councilwoman Lessie Price was held with WTC Investments and AMDC and Councilmembers.

(3) On January 18th, I wrote an email to John Boyette, cc’ed to Aiken Standard publisher R.J. Brenner:

“Mr. Boyette,

The Aiken Standard needs to issue a correction to its front page, headline  story for Wednesday, January 18, 2023, titled:

Council Votes to Return Pascalis Properties.

Both the headline and the related content stating “first step in the vision: get the properties back under the control of the city” are false statements.

The City of Aiken has never “controlled” the ten commercial properties presently owned by the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC). The properties were privately owned before being purchased by the AMDC. These are hard facts beyond debate.  The statement is false until the word ”back” is removed from the statement. 

What happened last night is Aiken City Council voted to change the composition of the AMDC, with the intent of transferring its properties to the City of Aiken.  The properties are still owned by the AMDC, making the headline false. 

The Standard’s story is a compilation of inaccurate information coupled with inaccurate editorializing. Not a single person on City Council last night articulated a vision, and Mayor Osbon openly refrained from doing so when asked. Council did articulate some intent behind this process, but intent is not vision.

At a minimum, the Standard should issue a correction that states the intent of the ordinance is to “get the properties under the control of the City of Aiken,” and inform its readers that the City of Aiken has never controlled these properties, and the Standard was incorrect implying otherwise.  Adding that the AMDC paid for the properties with funds the City borrowed and subsequently granted to the commission might add to the clarification. But as it stands now, the Aiken Standard’s headline article contains two obvious false statements. “

Mr. Boyette answered:

“Thanks, Mr. Moniak.

I hear what you are saying, and we have a different headline online: Aiken Mayor Rick Osbon to outline vision for Project Pascalis properties

On that issue, our reporter talked to the mayor after the meeting and confirmed that is what he intends to do at Monday night’s State of the City address. A lot of it is embargoed and off the record, and the public can hear it Monday night.

John”

No correction was made to the story clarifying that the City has never owned the properties.

(4) Statement of Lessie Price during public commment period:

Councilwoman Lessie Price: I came here tonight prepared to just listen, but I am in agony sitting here and I’m in agony for several reasons. One is I cannot sit here and allow the AMDC to take the full blame for what is transpired.  We, Council, share in that blame. 

And one of you at one of these meetings said, people make mistakes and you need to admit, Council, that you’ve made some mistakes. And had that been done early in the game we would not be where we are at this point.  

And at this time there’s nothing nothing worse than losing the trust of your spouse your children and especially this community. We do not want to do that and we do not want to be a part of that. We want to build trust amongst you. As one council member, I am apologizing to you for the mistakes that we have made. 

Now, the AMDC has been trying to meet with us since July. So you can’t fault the AMDC,  they’ve been trying to meet with us since July. There was an agreement that needed to be signed, and two of them did not want to sign that agreement. The two that you have heard you’ve heard from in the press conference, they still maintain that they have additional information to share with us. 

And you know and I know that if you’re moving forward, if you don’t have all the information you’re bound to repeat the past and that is what I I think some of you are asking, are you repeating the past? What plans do you have to move forward? 

I am trusting that wherever we go we have plans to move forward. As the Mayor has said, you hear those plans at the State of the City address. But what you’re asking is, why can’t we see those plans on paper? And you are entitled to that as Citizens, hopefully we will not repeat the past by not allowing you to see what is planned, and that you have input with some of those plans. 

I wanted to I want to go home tonight feeling peaceful and I realized that if I’d walked out of this room tonight not saying anything I will not be at peace for some time knowing what I know about the AMDC. You have a group of highly, and I emphasize that word highly,  ethical volunteers serving on that board, highly ethical people. You can’t buy that and I will put my paycheck on that. Thank you for listening. 

“