The Chatter at a Recent Aiken Corporation Meeting:
SPEAKER 3: We’ve only got one or two more meetings ‘til you have change.
OTHERS: Yep. Yes.
SPEAKER 4: That’s the monkey in the room.
SPEAKER 5: What’s that?
SPEAKER 4: When the change of the mayor leadership happens.
For 58 days — ever since local businesswoman Teddy Milner won the Republican mayoral primary runoff against incumbent Rick Osbon on August 22 — there was talk. Not everyone talked, but some did. Not everyone listened, but some did. After all, one doesn’t expect something akin to a coup in the small-town South.
This all changed on October 18, when a credible rumor broke in the form of a leaked email. According to this email, a group of local elites was raising $25,000 to engage a “well-known, well-respected political consultant” to run a stealth write-in campaign on behalf of Mayor Rick Osbon, the losing candidate in the primary runoff. The language in the email was amateurish enough to invite skepticism, but its authenticity was later vouched-for by a firsthand source to the leaker.
While all three of last summer’s mayoral candidates signed an oath upon entering the contest to “abide by the results of the primary” and to “not offer or campaign as a write-in candidate for this office or any other office for which the party has a nominee,” and to even accept legal repercussions, should they violate this pledge, there’s been nothing stopping other persons from conspiring, on behalf of a losing candidate, to violate the spirit of the pledge by running their stealth campaign.
Apparently, people on both sides knew for 58 days that this could happen. The possibility was a topic in some circles. On any one of those days, Mayor Osbon could have cleared this up by saying, “Please don’t write in my name. I lost the primary contest to Teddy Milner. I respect the democratic process. I play by the rules. I signed a pledge when I entered the primary contest to abide by the results of the primary, and I intend to honor that pledge.”
But he didn’t say any of that. Even after the rumor broke, he held his silence. Finally, however, when asked outright by the local newspaper, he spoke. His semantics were pitch-perfect: “I have no intention of running a write-in campaign.”
It is no secret that Mayor Osbon is widely supported by realtors, developers, and others who have appreciated the current administration’s rubber-stamping of urban sprawl, deforestation, and high-density housing. It is no secret that this administration has not been averse to adding just one more car wash, one more strip mall, one more four-story motel, one more parcel of overdeveloped land on the flood-lands of Doughtery; just one more tree, one more historic place demolished; just one more bit of over-development to perpetuate the Whiskey Road insanity as far as the eye can see — our lovely landscapes being reduced, plot by plot, to deforested sprawl in every direction.
It is only natural that realtors and developers might feel a certain panic at the prospect of a new mayor — one who has promised a more deliberate approach to growth and development.
We don’t need a crystal ball to see the future envisioned by these developers. Behold the $37 million Powderhouse Road Connector project and its bait-and-switch promise to relieve congestion on Whiskey Road by opening 400 acres of woodlands and fields to create yet more high-density housing and sprawl along the Whiskey Road corridor. The Powderhouse Connector project is, in turn, dwarfed by the many tens of millions that are in the process of being spent to expand the City to the interstate and beyond, opening the woodlands between to yet more deforestation, more car washes, more dollar stores, more sprawl. Add to this the looming SRNL office complex that the Aiken Corporation is lobbying to build in the historic downtown using funds from the $20 million plutonium settlement pot.
So it came as no surprise to hear talk turn to Mayor-Elect Teddy Milner at the October 11, 2023 Aiken Corporation/LED of Aiken, Inc meeting during discussion of the City Council’s delay in approving a piece of Aiken Corporation-owned property to site the $20 million Savannah River National Lab office:
SPEAKER 1: I was a little shocked when Council just was going to hear our thing and not say, good, we like that. But so we, I feel the ball is in the City’s court right now. Let us know so we can get this MOU. I mean, you know, I think Tim [Simmons] is right, but they’re going to say, well where is the location; we’ll tell them the City hasn’t approved it yet.
SPEAKER 2: I don’t think they’ll say that.
SPEAKER 1: You don’t?
SPEAKER 2: No.
SPEAKER 3: I may be over-reacting. We’ve only got one or two more meetings ‘til you have change.
SPEAKER 4: That’s my question.
OTHERS: Yep. Yes.
SPEAKER 4: That’s the monkey in the room.
SPEAKER 5: What’s that?
SPEAKER 4: When the change of the mayor leadership happens…
SPEAKER 5: That’s another…
SPEAKER 4: They throw another wrinkle into…
SPEAKER 1: Our mayor-elect who never comes to our Council meetings now, hmm?
SPEAKER 6: Now, now…. We all sang Kumbaya.
SPEAKER 3: I mean, at some level, she needs to — I mean, respectfully, we should be including her in these conversations.
SPEAKER 6: [speaking to the City Manager]: So you don’t anticipate any drastic change in course?
CITY MANAGER: At this point in time, I have no reason to believe that. I guess, so, yes, to answer, no.
Loud laughter and unintelligible chatter.
Although Aiken is no banana republic, there may be those in the development industry who have convinced themselves that they would be justified in usurping democratic processes to retain control of the levers of power.
Fortunately, Aiken residents have the power of their voices and their votes to advocate for the common good and to push back against a plot that, if true, may not be illegal, but it would certainly raise important questions of ethics.
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Early voting for the office of Mayor and City Council Seats 1 and 3 continues today and next week through Friday, November 3rd. Election Day is Tuesday, November 7th. Click here for information on voting.
To the anonymous commenter signed, “Write In the the Candidate…” Your abusive comment and unsubstantiated statements/accusations have been deleted. If you would like to submit another comment with either hyperlinks or annotated sources to support any statements you’d like to make, that would be fine.
Thank you Laura Lance for bringing the truth to light!
I would point out to the unnamed speakers that Ms. Milner is NOT YET Mayor-elect AND that it is possible to observe a City Council meeting without being in the room.
Out of curiosity, I am interested in whether the records of the Aiken Corporation are public. Did the Aiken Chronicles have to FOIA these transcripts? Is there a video record of this meeting? Are the identities of the speakers known?
Thank you and please keep up the excellent work!
I know I responded to this on Facebook, but will do a little pasting here so that the question’s not left hanging. First, thank you for your readership and feedback. It is very much appreciated.
Aiken Corporation records are public records, stored on the City of Aiken website. Should the meetings be recorded as a matter of course? I think so. But they are not. These are public meetings, which the public has the right to attend and record. The information in this article was sourced through a citizen video that was, in turn, transcribed, all of which took upwards of 20 hours.
The speakers’ names are known, but I chose, for the purposes of this article, to keep the focus not on individuals, but on the larger apparatus — the power of special interests to variously capture, co-opt or purchase the levers of power. Of course, the real estate and development industry isn’t the only special interest group lobbying for control, but they may be the most destructive in terms of deforestation and loss of natural landscapes, loss of tree canopy and historic places in town, loss of charm, loss of quality of life due to over-development and the resulting sprawl, traffic gridlocks, flooding, light and noise pollution, etc.
I wish the Aiken Chronicle was focused a little more focused on news than opinion pieces.
I appreciate your feedback, Stephen, as well as your readership. For what it’s worth, most editorials on this site, including this one, are chockful of news.
This editorial, for instance, features dialogue from a recent Aiken Corporation meeting that was attended by less than a handful of citizens and contained information that is important for the historical record. These meetings are not recorded by the City, but should be. The October 11, 2023 meeting referenced in this editorial required 1.5 hours of citizen time to record and over 15 hours to accurately transcribe.
This editorial also features a comprehensive explanation of the details on this mayoral write-in plot. The lack of information on this plot has left many confused — including, ironically, those who read the local newspaper’s coverage of the story (which is linked to in the editorial). This editorial also features the text from the leaked email — the source document at the center of this story — along with a link to the mayoral candidate’s oath.
One would assume that the local newspaper’s front page coverage is purely “news,” since it’s not on the editorial page. However, yesterday’s front page article titled, “City could take next step to determine Hotel Aiken’s future,” featured the information that the AMDC “paid $100,000 to the Aiken Chamber of Commerce for its right to purchase the hotel,” and that “GAC Investment reached an agreement to buy the Hotel.”
Astute readers of the Aiken Chronicles spotted the inaccuracies of those statements. I use the word “inaccuracy” even as the lack of fact-driven coverage of the Project Pascalis, and now the “Labscalis” story has been a feature, not a bug, in local media.
All of which is to say that, when you read an article in the Aiken Chronicles, including editorials, it will be fact-driven with sources, as needed. Whatever our definition of news, it should, at the minimum, involve a dedication to the facts of the matter.
Indeed you are best, most open, most throughly investigated source of news in Aiken! I will say however, this article smacks somewhat of grandstanding by taking the position that Osbon should do more to stop write-ins for him. I see no evidence that he has done anything illegal. And I can fully understand some believing a write-in campaign could be successful as turnout was very low and the outcome was very close (it is unlikely that many Aiken Democrats voted in the primary – as neither did many Republicans nor Independents). I believe that the SC law that prohibits losing Primary candidates from soliciting write-in votes is only there to benefit the political parties rather than help democracy. I very much support Teddy Milner and wish to see her win a full open election so there is no doubt as to who is the people’s choice. In 2016 America had a totally unexpected election outcome because so many stayed sway from the polls. Don’t let that happen in Aiken
Thanks, Stephen, for the follow-up. It sounds like you and I are on the same page in most regards except the mayor’s silence. Confucius said, “To see what is right and not do it is want of courage, or of principle.”
To play devil’s advocate on the mayor’s silence, it may simply be that he cannot see what is right, which would be all the more reason to endorse a mayor who does.
The values and actions of the City Council and its voter-facing employees should reflect the electorate.
Disinterest in and ignorance of what the municipal .gov is doing, as well as criminal action and deliberate deception distorts this reflection. IMO, City of Aiken should prioritize getting itself aligned with strong-and-proper ethical values and focus on basic services (clean water) that ratepayers deserve. For a period, delay massive new building projects. Show there is the ability to bring small projects in on time and on budget before attempting large projects. Annexation as a ‘fix’ for budget holes caused by wasteful spending or due to preferred ‘bidness’ partners buying from the City at 50% of what the City paid for land should be stopped.
In addition to the textual line of argumentation in this piece I was struck by the choice of the image at the top. It’s an apropos and entirely reasonable visual metaphor for what an average citizen should expect and want from its government: transparency, trust, an illuminated understanding of how things work, etc.
Please publish this piece in the Aiken Standard.
Thank you, Laura, for this insight onto current events. We have been asking everyone we meet to get out and vote for Milner; this article underscores what is going on in the shadows.
The Aiken Corp., the City’s ” cousin”, will finally have significant separation from the City, once a new Mayor is in place. Old habits by the City Manager of passing through money/projects without review or comment will cease. A new era of planning will begin. Focus on rehabilitation of the costly properties, now owned by the City, can begin. A Council that conducts its business in the daylight and one that views its operations as transparent to the public will begin. A return to focus on the lovely equestrian town that was born in the early 1900s will be more in evidence. Sprawl development will be replaced with tasteful additions that are respectful of Aiken’s traditions. Sanity in growth will replace greed and political connection. Yes, Mayor Milner’s time has come – just in time.
Perfectly written! I agree.