Category Archives: Pascalis 2023 – SRNL Lab

Aiken Corporation, Editorials, October 2023, Pascalis 2023 - SRNL Lab

The Monkey in the Room

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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. 

_______________

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. 

Cast Your Votes for Aiken Mayor and City Council Seats: What You Need to Know
Aiken Corporation, City Government, Pascalis 2023 - SRNL Lab

$148,000 for What? And Other Pascalis Properties Management Cost Findings

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$148,000 for What: The Aiken Corporation’s Empty Invoice.
No confirmation of contract accountability.
McMillan Pazdan and Smith’s no-bid contracts.
No final payments to RPM Development Partners

By Don Moniak
October 23, 2023

As of mid-September, the City of Aiken has spent an additional $204,449 for predevelopment work on commercial properties acquired for Project Pascalis and still owned by the city. Most of the work completed to date, such as building assessments and related laser scans, has not been publicly disclosed. In the case of the Aiken Corporation’s $250,000 no-bid contract with the city, there is little documentation that contractual tasks have been completed.

$148,000 for What? 

On March 13, 2023, Aiken City Council approved a $250,000 no-bid, professional services contract with the Aiken Corporation. The purpose of the contract was for “pre-development” services for the proposed $20 million downtown Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) “Workforce Development “ office complex.

The facility was planned at the time for three or more of the “Pascalis properties,” part of the set of seven downtown properties purchased in November, 2021 for $9.5 million by the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC). The funds for the purchase derived from a $9.6 million general obligation municipal bond issuance paid off in April 2023 with plutonium settlement funds.

The architectural firm of McMillan, Pazdan, and Smith (MPS) was identified as the Aiken Corporation’s only subcontractor to perform the predevelopment work. As reported in Three Missing Pages, MPS had previously signed a City-approved contract with the Aiken Corporation in December of 2022, in support of the latter’s secret agreement to pursue control of the SRNL project on behalf of the City.

The predevelopment contract also mandated that Aiken Corporation “hire an attorney to provide legal services to Developer regarding this project. Such services may include, but not necessarily be limited to, drafting a lease between Developer and third parties as applicable relating to the property described herein.”

According to meeting minutes, Aiken Corporation hired Aiken Attorney Kevin Pethick one month after City Council approved the contract, to “represent the Aiken Corporation as legal representative regarding a proposed agreement with the Savannah River National Laboratory.”

In mid-July the Department of Energy and Savannah River National Laboratory jointly issued a statement disavowing any role in the project; other than acknowledging SRNL’s interest in leasing office space “should it become available.”

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request for Aiken Corporation invoices submitted to the City of Aiken, the City provided a single invoice for $148,096.00 (Figure 1). As of September 13, 2023, MPS had billed Aiken Corporation $140,966.50; while Austin & Pethick Law Firm had billed $7,129.50 (1).

Figure 1: “Descriptive” portion of Aiken Corporation invoice. Details of the actual work completed are absent.


This one-page invoice is composed only of a series of invoice numbers from the two subcontractors and contains no details of the work completed using taxpayer funds. Compare this submission to previous invoices submitted to the City, such as that by McMillan Pazdan and Smith (Figure 2) and Cranston Engineering (Figure 3).

What is known of the work that was completed for $148,000? 

FIrst, very little of what was defined in the scope of work has been publicly disclosed, if it was even completed. The contractually obligated work that has yet to be publicly disclosed, reported, or provided should include:

  • A website documenting proceedings of public meetings and “stakeholder” meetings.
  • Assessments of Richland Avenue buildings (Taj Aiken, Holley House, and McGhee Building/CC Johnson Drug Store) and Warneke Cleaners. 
  • Public comments submitted via Nationallabprojectaiken@mcmillanpazdansmith.com

Second, much of what was provided to date is either not within the contract’s scope of work, or is primarily public relations work. The Aiken Corporation’s webpage devoted to the project only contains: 

  • Two “guest columns” by contractor representatives Arthur “Buzz” Rich and Jason Rabun. 
  • A “guest column” by project advocate Mayor Rick Osbon
  • A “Frequently Asked Questions” page with one-sentence answers to ten questions. 
  • As reported in 45,000 Square Feet Without a Tenant, a “feasibility study,” dominated by graphics, devoid of data, and plagued with inconsistencies.
  • One page of “detailed project information,” half of which is talking points in favor of the project. 
  • Handwritten public comments submitted at a September 14, 2023 meeting, but not the comments submitted via Nationallabprojectaiken@mcmillanpazdansmith.com.

No Documentation of Contract Administration

The FOIA request for Aiken Corporation invoices also included requests for two sets of documents related to the no-bid contract:

  • “Copies of all administrative contract inspections, audits, or other similar processes designed to ensure contract compliance. “
  • “Any amendments to the contract, including but not limited to the expanded scope of work identified by Aiken Corp President Buzz Rich to review more than one site. These amendments could include memos to and from Aiken Corporation to City of Aiken.”

The City of Aiken’s response to these two requests was that no responsive documents exist. They could provide no evidence of contract administration and monitoring, and no change orders; even though one substantive alteration is known to have occurred that was not approved by the Aiken Corporation’s Executive Committee nor its client the City of Aiken.

The McMillan Pazdan and Smith No-Bid Agreements

Two weeks after Aiken City Council authorized the $250,000 no-bid contract with Aiken Corporation,  MPS Principal David Moore signed three separate professional service agreements (3) with the City of Aiken worth a collective $60,454. The city’s procurement webpage, which shows all recent bid packages such as the Proactive Tree Work Request for Qualifications, does not contain information for the following work in the city’s agreements with MPS:

  • $12,097 for Laser Scan and Architectural Services for Hotel Aiken. 
  • $24,980 for Architectural Services for Hotel Aiken. 
  • $23,377 for Laser Scan and Architectural Services for Richland Avenue Buildings (Taj Aiken and McGhee Building, which overlaps with the Aiken Corporation contract).

The laser scans themselves cost $12,464 and were conducted by the firm Quantum Reality Capture,

The details of these agreements and the invoices to date can be viewed via the response to FOIA request 306-2023.

As of September 30th, $55,353 has been paid to MPS for their work (see Figure 2 for example) but no reports or data from this taxpayer-funded project have been publicly disclosed. 

Figure 2: Portion of one of MPS Invoices

No More Reimbursements for RPM Development Partners to Date

The Aiken Corporation-City of Aiken SRNL project partnership is one successor to the failed Pascalis project. Project Pascalis was funded by the City of Aiken but run by the City’s Municipal Development Commission (AMDC).  The AMDC’s “preferred developer” was a consortium of companies collectivvely formed into RPM Development Partners, LLC.  

The December 4, 2021, Purchase and Sale Agreement (PSA) between the AMDC and RPM included a clause for RPM to be reimbursed half of its design and predevelopment costs, up to $150,000. This indicated a predevelopment cost of $300,000; a mere $50,000 more for a project up to five times larger than the SRNL/Mixed Use project.

On September 14, 2022 RPM terminated its role in the PSA, and two weeks later the AMDC followed suit. After a search for “RPM” and “Raines” in the city’s financial records archive yielded no results, a FOIA request was submitted for any RPM invoices after September 30, 2022.

The City’s response was a singular Cranston Engineering invoice from August 2022 for $2,863 for Pascalis design work (Figure 3), completed under the terms of the City’s contract with Cranston (3).

This was one of seven Cranston invoices submitted for Pascalis design and predevelopment work, titled “Project Pascalis Conceptual Support” in “support of Raines-led development.” In total, Cranston’s subcontracting work for Raines Corporation, and thus RPM, netted Cranston an additional $41,579.00.

The lack of additional payments to RPM indicates that the two experienced developers in the project, Raines Company and Lat Purser Company, have yet to seek additional reimbursement of up to $105,000 for their costs.

Figure 3: Portion of August 2022 Cranston Engineering invoice, full version available here. The remaining invoices for Cranston design work conducted for RPM is in the AMDC Financial Binder.

Footnotes:

(1) In response to a FOIA request from Kelly Cornelius for MPS invoices to Aiken Corporation, the City provided the same Aiken Corporation invoice. No MPS invoices have been disclosed.

(2) It should be noted here that the City of Aiken’s procurement ordinance allows for professional service contracts of under $25,000 without any bidding process or approval by City Council:

“Except for agreements for less than $25,000.00 and that are provided for in the annual operating budget of a department, agreements for professional services shall state the terms and conditions and shall be approved by city council.“

The question that arises is, if the MPS agreements had been consolidated as a single contract, would a request for bids have been necessary?

(3) It should be noted here that, in contrast to Aiken Corporation and MPS’ no-bid contracts, Cranston Engineering was awarded its three-year contract through a normal, more rigorous procurement process that involved three competing bidders. The Cranston professional services agreement was awarded in 2021. A “Staff Augmentation” agreement from March 2023 allows Cranston to supplement the city’s engineering staff with Cranston employees.

Aiken Corporation, Pascalis 2023 - SRNL Lab, September 2023

“The Devil is in the Details” – The Aiken Corporation Study Missed the Most Essential Detail of All

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The Aiken Corporation Study Missed the Most Essential Detail of All: The Scope of the Study.

Less than two weeks after the long-awaited Feasibility Study was released to the public, the Aiken Corporation voted Monday morning to recommend a Newberry Street site to City Council for a $20 million “mixed-use facility.” This recommendation came almost 8 months to the day after the mayor’s January 2023 announcement that the City of Aiken was partnering with Savannah River National Lab (SRNL) to build  a $20 million “workforce development center” on the property known to most of us as the failed Project Pascalis properties. 

The Aiken Corporation is a not-for-profit entity doing business for the City as part of a “public-private partnership”. There are no elected officials on the Board and, according to their bylaws, membership is chosen by the Board.

In March — two months after the January announcement of the City of Aiken’s partnership with SRNL, and despite the fact that there was no signed contract with SRNL — the Aiken Corporation was awarded a $250K , no-bid contract to do pre-development work for the SRNL project. The contract identified a single downtown site on publicly-owned, Pascalis project properties to be evaluated for both the proposed SRNL facility and retail use. 

Three notable changes occurred between the January announcement and the September feasibility study release: 

  1. The size of the building was reduced from 45,000 sq ft to 36,000 sq ft.
  2. The project morphed from an SRNL workforce development building to a $20 million mixed-use spec building with no committed tenants.
  3. The number of potential sites grew from one to a surprising five options.

One thing that did not change were the terms of the March 2023 contract with the Aiken Corporation, which not only defined road boundaries, it listed specific property Tax ID numbers for the scope of the study. Had the Aiken Corporation read the details of their contract, they’d have realized that all but one of the properties in their study, including the Newberry Street site they recommended, were outside of the scope of the contract’s defined boundaries! More on this in a moment.

“The Unforced Error”

One of the biggest points of discussion preceding the Newberry Street vote in the Monday morning Aiken Corporation meeting regarded the major snafu at the second public input meeting on Thursday night, September 21. At that meeting, a citizen pointed out that the poster board presentation of the old Aiken County Hospital site, (which had been featured in the first meeting on September 14), was missing.

The Aiken Corporation panel was caught completely off-guard and meeting attendees were treated to the Aiken Corp’s version of Whose on First? Neither MPS nor the Aiken Corporation told the public on Thursday that the hospital site had been removed from consideration. In fact, it seemed like the Aiken Corp panelists had no idea the Old Hospital Site had been eliminated somewhere between their first public reveal a week earlier and the Thurs Sept 21st Q and A session.

One Aiken Corporation panel member offered that the reason was because the hospital property is under contract, as if that precluded it from being considered. The hospital property developer, Aiken County native Tracey Turner, had mentioned interest in the SRNL option to City Council during an August 14th work session meeting featuring his presentation of the project vision.

The Old Hospital property was the favored site by the majority of citizen attendees, who were also overwhelmingly opposed to the lab facility being built on the taxpayer-funded, failed Project Pascalis properties. Mr. Turner was in attendance at the Thursday, September 21 meeting and spoke on the topic of the missing poster board on this hospital property. 

By Monday morning, in the Aiken Corporation meeting, the narrative had shifted to state that the site didn’t meet the criteria of the study. The Thursday night snafu, which had the Aiken Corporation Board not giving notice on the removal of the hospital site poster boards, was deemed, “an unforced error.” Below is a video clip of KJ Jacobs of McMillan Pazdan Smith, the architectural firm tasked with the Feasibility Study, speaking to Aiken Corp Members via Zoom in the Monday morning meeting. 

Architect K.J. Jacobs: “Maybe the mistake was looking at the site at all because it never met the criteria of the study in the first place “

Scope of The Project

Newsflash: With the exception of the “Richland Avenue” site on the Pascalis project properties, not a single alternative site met the criteria of the study.

As reported in Three Missing Pages, the site boundaries and tax parcel numbers were defined in Exhibit A of the March 14th Professional Services Agreement. City Council was told on March 13th that “
The scope of the project is located on a portion of property between Bee Lane, The Alley, Richland Ave West, and Newberry St. Southwest .”
( March 13th City Council Meeting Minutes, Page 16)

These boundaries are highlighted in yellow on the map below. 

So, not only did the Old Hospital Site not meet the location criteria as defined by the city, none of the other sites, which had somehow been added to the study without the public’s knowledge, met the location criteria.

The only site that meets the scope of the project, because it falls within the prescribed boundaries, is Site 1 — Richland Avenue. The other four sites all fall outside of the study’s boundaries, including the Newberry Street site that was recommended by the Aiken Corporation. 

If the Aiken Corporation can’t adhere to the most basic condition, the scope of the study, how can we have confidence of their oversight moving forward?

The relevance of this question is more pronounced when examining other points of contractual noncompliance, including the lack of a mandated public “goal-setting” forum intended to “create consensus among stakeholders regarding the goals of the project,” and the absence of an “internet web site published specifically to chronicle” all public forum proceedings and feedback and information gathered during the process. The Aiken Corporation website only contains the feasibility report, but no feedback, input, comments, or any data used to reach conclusions.

The Details

When it came time to vote on the Newberry Street site recommendation during the Monday morning Aiken Corporation meeting, two of the members abstained from voting but stayed in the discussion. If Aiken officials learned one thing from failed Project Pascalis it should have been how to properly recuse from meetings when potential conflicts of interest are at play.

Ironically, that evening, during the regular Monday night City Council meeting, Aiken Corporation’s Vice-Chairman, Pat Cunning, went on to tell Council, while extolling their success with public-private partnerships such as this, “The devil is in the details. We just watch the money.”

FOOTNOTES

The $250k, no-bid contract received by the Aiken Corporation to do pre-development work came with a defined territory of study as listed in the March 13th, 2023 City Council minutes and the March 14th, 2023 Professional Agreement signed by the City.

A December 9, 2022 contract between the Aiken Corporation and McMillan Pazdan Smith was also referred to in a March 14 Professional Agreement and a Nov 30th letter which was signed Buzz Rich on Dec 9th also references the location

30 November 2022
ATTN: Mr. Tim O’ Briant
Chairman Arthur W. ” Buzz” Rich
Aiken Corporation
111 Chesterfield Street
Aiken, SC 29801
RE: Goal Setting Programming for New Office Building + Meeting Venue
City of Aiken, South Carolina
Dear Tim:
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this proposal related to your proposed new, mixed- use building in downtown Aiken. We understand that the proposed site is an +/- 0. 55- acre, T- shaped parcel bounded by Richland Avenue NW, Newberry Street NW and Bee Lane. The project, which will be constructed and owned by the Aiken Corporation, is conceptualized as a mixed- use building containing approximately 30, 000 square feet of office space and a 10, 000- 15, 000 square foot exhibition hall with associated meeting and support spaces. The site is currently occupied by a variety of existing buildings, some of which may be of cultural of historical significance.

Editorials, Pascalis 2023 - SRNL Lab, September 2023

Editorial: Project Pascalis 2.0 – The Bomb Plant Lab Reveal …Bombs

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By Kelly Cornelius
September 19, 2023

Last Thursday, and five months behind schedule, the Aiken Corporation finally released the results of a feasibility study which was funded by a $250K no-bid contract awarded by the City of Aiken to the Aiken Corporation.

This need to do a feasibility study arose in January 2023 after the announcement of the partnership of the City of Aiken with Savannah River National Lab (SRNL) to put a workforce development center on many of the failed Project Pascalis properties.

The long-awaited big reveal in this dog and pony show sadly lacked the dogs, the ponies, and even the actual lab. Six months after dedicating a quarter-million dollars to the Aiken Corporation’s pre-development contract all there is to show for it so far is a study that lacked pertinent data, lacked any mention of SRNL, and only led to further questions about the project, not the least of which were, “What is the Aiken Corporation?” and “What exactly do they do?” 

In the simplest terms, the Aiken Corporation is the development arm of the City of Aiken, a 501(c)3 organization “organized in 1995 exclusively for charitable purposes.” There are currently no elected officials on the Aiken Corporation’s board, giving this group of unappointed, private-sector individuals immense power over taxpayer-funded assets. 

From Pascalis 1.0 to Pascalis 2.0: A Brief History on the Would-Be SRNL Office Project

Details of Project Pascalis were rolled out to the public in March 2022, and by May had triggered lawsuits, ethics complaints, a citizens’ petition campaign, and a Pigs of Pigscalis gallery of political cartoons — all in an effort to stop this project which had already squandered $9.6 million taxpayer dollars and planned to demolish half a downtown block. The wildly unpopular Project Pascalis, whose time of death was officially called in September 2022, seemed to gain zombie powers as it was quickly but secretly resurrected into Pascalis 2.0 in the form of a poorly defined office complex for Savannah River National Laboratory.

Pascalis 1.0 also likely contributed to the August 2023 ousting of the incumbent Mayor Rick Osbon who had vigorously supported the project. Pascalis 1.0 was the brainchild of the Aiken Municipal Development Corporation (AMDC), which eventually suffered a similar fate as Project Pascalis, being officially dissolved in May of this year but not before Public Trust was destroyed.

After the seeming death/cancellation of Pascalis in late September 2022, the citizens of Aiken breathed a collective sigh of relief. Little did they know, but Aiken City officials had wasted no time in attending secret meetings and plotting the Pascalis 2.0 — the Bomb Plant Lab offices — on many of the same $9.6 million worth of taxpayer-owned Pascalis properties. As happened with Pascalis 1.0, there were no public meetings, just more secrecy in advance of the eventual rollout to the public. 

The Big Rollout

The big announcement was made on January 23, 2023 in the Mayor’s State of the City address. From the “zero lessons learned department,” the City announced its partnership with SRNL (Savannah River Nuclear Laboratory) to build the lab on many of the now failed Project Pascalis properties— despite the fact the properties were still owned by an embattled AMDC that lacked even a quorum to vote. Citizens would later learn that the Aiken Corporation had secretly contracted McMillan, Pazdan, Smith for this project way back in Dec of 2022, again, despite the fact that the properties were AMDC-owned at the time.

On February 6, 2023 citizens were invited to a “listening session” wherein they were introduced to KJ Jacobs from McMillan, Pazdan Smith, who announced the intention, complete with an April deadline, to do a feasibility study on the SRNL project.

On March 13th the City Council, ok, four members of the city council because three of them recused, voted to approve the 250K contract with the Aiken Corp for this work. According to the minutes

The Study’s Big Reveal

Six months into the $250k contract, one might have expected details, preliminary renderings, and answers to questions. Instead, we received 21 pages of vague assessments, lack of detail and generic blue boxes or massings for buildings. The report is actually only 14 pages of information as 7 of those pages were cover sheets.

To those of us concerned with a government takeover of the downtown, the attention to detail was underwhelming. Citizens who attended the meeting reported that no actual questions were answered. The long-awaited and long overdue results of that taxpayer-funded study came to a reveal that, well, bombed. It seems that the Aiken Corporation didn’t even bother to put lipstick on this nuclear pig.

The existing view of the proposed SRNL building, as seen from the porch of Casa Bella Italian Restaurant on Chesterfield Street. (Photo courtesy of Lee Doran Thornton).

The view of this same Chesterfield Street site as it would appear with the proposed, three-story, 36,000 sq. ft. building.

What Now?

It seems as if this bad idea went from being named Project Pascalis pushed by the AMDC to the SRNL project being pushed by the Aiken Corporation. The organizational names have changed, but the lack of transparency, the thoughtless spending, and the lack of accountability remain the same.

There are currently no elected officials on the Aiken’s Corporation board, giving this group of unappointed private-sector individuals immense power over taxpayer-funded assets. The track record with the Railroad Depot project and the Amentum building — both of which were plagued with expensive cost overruns and lack of communication and accountability — has never really been addressed, nor the questions answered.

Today, the questions continue. For instance, is SRNL even a consideration at this point? This controversial project, initially billed as “the community face of the laboratory,” was met with significant disapproval from the community after its January 23 announcement. By July — as evidenced by SRNL’s statement, triggered by this Fox 54 interview — SRNL showed a certain distance and lack of commitment to the process.

Is SRNL still a factor in this project?

Also, how does the non-profit Aiken Corporation manage the large rent it hauls from its prized Amentum building? Too, we have to ask, was the DRB asleep at the wheel when they approved that building? Is the Aiken Corporation able to do business in light of it’s recent violation for failing to file a key financial report?

In the bigger picture, why can’t a city of roughly 32,000 residents be managed efficiently by elected officials rather than cooked-up entities like the now-defunct Aiken Municipal Development Corporation (AMDC) or the Aiken Corporation? My attendance at an Aiken Corporation meeting and my ongoing research leave me feeling that this is a form of shadow government. There is zero accountability to taxpayers and no avenue for public comment at their meetings.

For a City that can’t even manage to provide clean water to its residents, this latest twist in the Pascalis plot that is being pushed from a lame-duck agenda can only promise, if approved, to drain and squander yet more millions from the taxpayers’ pockets.  As revealed in the article, Project Labscalis Annual Operating Costs, the funding of the lab doesn’t stop at the $9.6 million overpayment for the properties, nor the $250K cost for for a bombed feasibility study. There would be a yearly baked-in subsidy that city residents would have to swallow, even as the water out of their faucets isn’t fit to sip.

Laws & Bylaws, Pascalis 2023 - SRNL Lab, Project Pascalis 2022

Moot or Not Moot

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Second Judicial Circuit to hear City of Aiken argument seeking dismissal of the Project Pascalis lawsuit.

by Don Moniak

September 19, 2023

On July 5, 2022, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of nine plaintiffs seeking to stop the $100 million plus downtown demolition and redevelopment effort known as Project Pascalis. The ninety-six page filing alleged dozens of violations of State of South Carolina laws governing community development, local government comprehensive planning, ethics and conduct of public officials, and freedom of information; as well as the City of Aiken’s zoning ordinance.

The Blake et al vs. City of Aiken et al complaint named as defendants the Pascalis project developer, the City of Aiken attorney, and three City of Aiken institutions and its individual members: Aiken City Council, the Design Review Board (DRB), and the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC).

As reported in Cancelled, Stopped…., at one time there were fourteen lawyers from eight different firms representing twenty-eight different defendants. Eventually, attorneys from both sides agreed to remove individual city officials from the case, and move forward with only the City of Aiken, AMDC, DRB, and City Attorney as defendants.

After a year of filings, including defendants’ answers to the complaint, numerous motions to dismiss and shield officials from discovery, requests for more specificity, and two amended complaints by Plaintiffs, the City of Aiken filed a Motion for Summary Judgement on Mootness Grounds on July 21, 2023.

That motion will be heard today, September 19, 2023, by the Second Judicial Circuit Court of South Carolina. The hearing, to be held at 2 p.m. in the Aiken County Courthouse, Courtroom 5, is open for public viewing.


The City’s motion seeks to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint on the basis that “all of the issues raised by the Plaintiffs are now moot and that there is simply no longer a justiciable controversy for this Court to decide.” The city’s attorneys argue that since “Project Pascalis is no more,” and the AMDC was dissolved, no issues remain for the court to resolve; and it is not the court’s role to resolve “academic questions” submitted by the Plaintiffs.

As reported in A Continuation of Project Pascalis, on September 15th Plaintiff Luis Rinaldini submitted an affidavit arguing that two ongoing projects on the Pascalis properties now owned by the City of aiken “are simply a continuation of Project Pascalis.”

On September 18th, a Plaintiffs Memorandum in Opposition to City of Aiken’s Motion for Summary Judgement was submitted, which states:

“If the sole object of this lawsuit were to stop Project Pascalis, there might be some merit to the Defendant’s argument. The relief sought by the Plaintiffs, however, is a declaration that the actions of the city were unlawful and wrong…Despite the failure of the project, the City has not conceded that it did anything wrong or violated any provision of state or local law…”