Mistake Made: Guilty as Charged.
Aiken Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant has informed me of an error in “Reminder of the Day: The AMDC Cites The Law, and Then Sets Its Own Rules,” posted on June 30, 2022 on the Do It Right! Facebook page and at https://aikenchronicles.com/2022/06/29/reminder-of-the-day-the-amdc-cites-the-law-and-then-sets-its-own-rules/
In a nutshell, the Aiken Municipal Development Commission bylaws read commissioners who are voting members must have a “vested residential or business interest,” whereas Chapter 11 of the municipal code states that commissioners “shall be citizens of the city of Aiken.” The article contained an editorial error associating the by-law provision with the municipal code.
Background
In the article I quoted verbatim an email sent to Mr. O’Briant on June 28, which stated:
“But the by-laws state the commissioners shall be ‘citizens of the city of Aiken,’ which certainly implies residency; and the terms will be four years.”
The correct quote from the bylaws actually reads that voting members of the AMDC “must have vested residential or business interests within the Commission’s jurisdictional boundaries;” which is the City of Aiken. So the difference between by-laws and the actual law is more glaring than what was quoted in the email, which in fact was an editorial error.
Mr. O’Briant, with decades of copy editing experience, did not catch the error at the time, but did notice it in the article.
In fact, Mr. O’Briant sent an email at 7:19 p.m yesterday, writing,”Please indicate where the bylaws, shared with you once again here, require anything beyond the highlighted reference to ‘vested residential or business interest;’” and providing another copy of the by-laws (which are still not published on the AMDC’s transparency page) highlighting the correct wording.
In response, I paraphrased my favorite movie line from Tommy Lee Jones in “The Fugitive,” where he states in the dam scene “I Don’t Care,” and responded:
“I do not care what the bylaws state. Were they even approved by Council? The ordinance says residents.”
After all, Jeopardy was on in ten minutes.
At 8:05 p.m., perhaps after Jeopardy, he responded: “Your report says the bylaws say other than what they do. I know accuracy is important to you;” and attached a screenshot of the article with the offending inaccuracy.
This is an odd objection, considering that:
a. the AMDC continues to maintain the falsehood that 25 public meetings (or was it 24?) have been held regarding Project Pascalis in the past 24 months; and
b. Mr. O’Briant agreed with my original assessment that the by-laws did not correspond to the law and an error had been made.
