Tag Archives: FOIA

July 2022, Project Pascalis 2022

Project Pascalis and the Plutonium Settlement

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Plutonium Settlement Funds are Not Earmarked for Project Pascalis 

By Don Moniak

Summary: Twenty five million dollars from State of South Carolina Plutonium Settlement funds legislatively allocated to the City of Aiken do not include any reference to Project Pascalis, and are not project specific. Citizens of the City of Aiken have the opportunity to participate in future deliberations regarding final allocation of these funds for redevelopment and investments in “downtown and Northside Aiken.” 

The $600 Million Settlement 

On August 31, 2020, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the largest settlement ever with the federal government. After four years of litigation pertaining to the storage of approximately 9.5 metric tons of surplus military plutonium transferred to the Savannah River Site (SRS) since 2002, a $600 million dollar settlement with the U.S. Department of Energy was reached.(1) 

The settlement was enabled by a minor amendment sponsored by then Representative Lindsey Graham to the 2003 Defense Authorization Act. The amendment mandated the federal government to remove at least one ton of plutonium per year from the Savannah River Site beginning in 2016, or pay fines of up to $160 million per year to the state of South Carolina. 

Neither the amendment nor the settlement addressed the approximately two tons of military plutonium left in storage at SRS after more than three decades of plutonium production work officially ceased in 1990. 

The funds are described as “economic and assistance payments,” but the settlement does not specify any detailed criteria for spending the money. Of the $600 million dollars, lawyers for the state were awarded $75 million by the Attorney General’s office (a controversial decision currently being litigated), leaving $525 million for the South Carolina General Assembly to distribute. In June 2022 the South Carolina General Assembly finalized the distribution of funds within its fiscal year 2023 budget. 

The only line item that pertains to redevelopment in the City of Aiken is $25 million for “downtown and Northside redevelopment,” and Project Pascalis is not specifically identified. This is true in each version of both Senate and House bills during the recent legislative session. The distribution of the funds is now at the discretion of Aiken City Council.  The city’s budget is a matter of public record and its approval involves two public hearings, so citizens will have a say in how the money is spent. 

City officials have implied that $20 million of this money is dedicated to Project Pascalis. For example, the Aiken Municipal Development Commission’s (AMDC) May 2022 paper “Just the Facts: Why Pascalis, how do we pay for it?” In it, the AMDC wrote: 

$525 Million Plutonium Settlement provides once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in concrete project that creates generational prosperity for the City of Aiken. (2) 

The opening statement is misleading, since the next sentence describes a request for:

$20 million in Plutonium funds to directly support Pascalis. That request is being considered by the General Assembly and passage could come as early as June of 2022.

The AMDC Lobbying Efforts: No Requests for Pascalis 

Not only are plutonium settlement funds not specifically dedicated to Project Pascalis in the state budget, there is no evidence the city specified the project in its lobbying efforts to state legislators. 

The Aiken Municipal Development Commission began discussing the settlement funds almost immediately, and the money stayed on the agenda for months. (3) 

Two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the City of Aiken regarding letters pertaining to plutonium settlement fund requests from the city have yielded no documents specifying Project Pascalis as a desired beneficiary of the funds. (4) 

The first letter to county and state officials was mailed only seventeen days later. The September 17th lobbying letter established a theme asserting ownership of the funds by the three counties adjoining SRS while blaming the federal government for violating the public trust: 

The settlement is a result of the failure of the U.S. government to fulfill its obligations to our communities in return for a good faith effort to accept plutonium from across the country.

This statement and others like it were to be repeated until it became accepted as fact, it was not true. Part three of this series will discuss the stand-alone decision in 1997 to store surplus military plutonium at SRS for up to fifty years, and the debate leading up to the settlement. 

The September 17th letter did not identify any funding needs, and in fact stated that “allocation of funds should be objective, not project specific.” 

More specific requests from the AMDC were sent on December 16, 2020 to Aiken Mayor Rick Osbon. Of $95.4 million in requests for various projects, $15 million was requested for downtown and Northside redevelopment and investment. AMDC Chair Keith Wood wrote: 

The AMDC, and others should work to fund and coordinate the acquisition and assembly of land and/ or derelict properties at sufficient scale to be repackaged as available sites for medium-density housing/ mixed-use, mixed-income residential and marketed to the development community for either private sector projects or public-private partnerships where appropriate. These funds would also be available to provide incentives for projects that face a funding delta based on the increased cost of property in the central business district through public participation in the projects to include parking solutions, public utility infrastructure, green space uses such a trails, squares and pocket parks, etc. that can reduce the overall project costs while providing a public benefit. Areas of interest include downtown Aiken ( Hotel Aiken project),Aiken’s Northside (former Say-A-Lot site for grocery), East Aiken (East Richland Avenue) and strengthen connection along Route 1 to 1- 20. Identify potential sites along Route 1 for development. 15 million.

The phrase “Project Pascalis” was never mentioned because the project did not yet exist. The request only identified “areas of interest.” 

Two days later, Mayor Osbon sent a letter to Aiken County Council Chairman Gary Bunker outlining the City of Aiken’s priority wishlist for plutonium funds disbursement. Whereas Osbon expanded the overall list and increased the desired amount to $223 million (6), the request for redevelopment and investment in downtown and the Northside remained at $15 million. Osbon forwarded the exact language of the AMDC for that request. 

No other request letters from the Mayor, City Council, or the AMDC have been identified. As will be discussed in Part 4 of this series, the line item that could involve Project Pascalis has always been more generalist and not project specific. If Project Pascalis is cancelled, that money still remains available for “downtown and northside redevelopment.” 

For information on how the Chamber of Commerce and Nuclear Contractor Executives publicly acknowledged plutonium dangers, see Offsite Insights 2022-2 and Plutonium is not for Amateurs, Part II.

The two articles also form an introduction to “From Plutonium Economy to Plutonium Dump: A History of the Plutonium Settlement,” which is in progress.

In progress: The Plutonium Settlement disbursement debate and final results.

For Reference

(1) The announcement of the settlement is at: 

https://www.scag.gov/about-the-office/news/attorney-general-wilson-announces-largest-single-legal-settlement-in-south-carolina-history/

The seven page settlement is at: 

Click to access South-Carolina-Settlement-Agreement-Final-signed-8-28-20.pdf

(2) https://aikenmdc.org/2022/05/16/just-the-facts-why-pascalis-how-do-we-pay-for-it/

(3) Meeting minutes from AMDC public meetings held from September 2020 to _____, 2021 describe discussions on the matter. (add more here) 

(4) A June 10, 2022 FOIA request asked for 

“All official correspondence between the AMDC and or City of Aiken regarding the plutonium settlement funds. Specifically, and at a mininum, I am requesting the letter from the AMDC “sent to the Governor, the delegation, and other elected officials” referenced in October and November, 2020 AMDC meeting minutes.” 

Twenty one documents were retrieved, of which twenty were duplicates of the September 17, 2020 letter. The city charged $24 for this request, and claimed 1.75 hours of retrieval time was required to locate three letters involving requests for $95 to $223 million dollars from the State of South Carolina. A subsequent appeal to the city manager yielded a fee wavier 

An additional request on June 23 specifically asked for “documentation supporting the following assertions: a. City has requested $20 million in Plutonium funds to directly support Pascalis. That request is being considered by the General Assembly and passage could come as early as June of 2022.” 

This request yielded the same three letters as the previous request, with no new lobbying letters since December 2020. The cost this time was $16 for 1.25 hours of search time, for documentation forming the basis of a one month old AMDC published “fact sheet.” 

(5) )  The remaining $80 million in requests involved $30.4 million for Whiskey Road Corridor, and $50 million for “four strategic and and interrelated steps to ignite an innovation ecosystem in Aiken” in the USC-Aiken vicinity. This included additional funding for two projects already in the planning process, one new vaguely defined initiative, and roadwork: 

$10 million for the “Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative (AMC). 

$15 million for the South Carolina National Guard Cyber Security Dreamport;

$20 million for a new Aiken Innovation and Impact District to work with the AMC and Dreamport

$5 million for widening of University Parkway

(6) Mayor Osbon’s exorbitant request for $223 million of the available $525 million included the “innovation ecosystem” and downtown and northside development requests, but added $124 million for additional portions of the Whiskey Road project. 

June 2022, Project Pascalis 2022

Correspondence To/From the City of Aiken Design and Review Board (DRB)

1 Comment
Letter from Don Moniak After the June 21 DRB “Worksession” sent June 21, 2022/10:06 p.m.

Dear DRB Members, 

Most sources define “public meetings” as meetings involving public comments. For example, at lawinsider.com: 

‘Public meeting means an informal meeting, hearing, workshop, or other public gathering of people to obtain comments from the public or other agencies on a proposed project permit prior to the local government’s decision.”

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government does not mince words when it asks “is it a (public) meeting? 

” A rose by any other name smells as sweet, and a meeting by any other name still gets the job done. It doesn’t matter whether it’s called a work session, retreat, training seminar or phone tree — under the Open Meetings Act, a meeting occurs whenever a quorum of a public body:(a) formulates public policy,

(b) discusses public business, or

(c) takes action.”

The EPA, which has as miserable a record on real public meetings as Project Pascalis, does describe the intent of them in an eloquent fashion: 

“Public meetings bring diverse groups of stakeholders together for a specific purpose. Public meetings are held to engage a wide audience in information sharing and discussion. They can be used to increase awareness of an issue or proposal, and can be a starting point for, or an ongoing means of engaging, further public involvement. When done well, they help build a feeling of community.”

And under SC FOIA law, a “meeting” is simply defined as: “the convening of a quorum of the constituent membership of a public body…to discuss or act upon a matter over which the public body supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.”

Tonite the DRB claimed it held a public meeting, but it was not a public meeting by any acceptable definition of the term. 

Here is the link to the AMDC document I referred to after Mr. O’Briant decided to go all North Augustan and summoned an armed, uniformed policeman, lostensibly to haul out by force some recalcitrant senior citizens. 

25 public meetings and hearings held on Project Pascalis over the last 24 months

In it, three DRB “special work sessions” are on the list, as are four regularly scheduled City  Council workshops. That is seven of the twenty-five. And before you think the rest of the “meetings” cited by the AMDC pertained to Project Pascalis, seven of those occurred before the project was even a notion. 

So obviously people are going to be upset when meetings that are described as public turn out to be closed to public comments, and without advance notice. The fact these commentary free sessions are allowed in some legal loophole does not excuse the fact that the law does not require them to be comment free. 

Mr. Holley is well aware of the difference between may, must, shall, and should and provided advice that was contrary to the common good tonite. You all had a chance to “build community” and instead treated the long table in a crowded room as a fortress. 

If one City of Aiken public body is going to cite these as public meetings, with all the implications of public input and involvement, then as a city public body you have an obligation to do one of two things: 

1. Ask the AMDC to not count work sessions in which public comment is prohibited as “public meetings.” 

Or 

2. Open work sessions to public comments. 

In either case, every DRB meeting involving this contentious proposal known as “Project Pascalis,”–a moniker that alone offends the sensibilities of many Aikenites–should identify these rules ahead of time, and DRB members and counsel should keep up with the politics of this situation instead of feigning that your operate in a vacuum. 

A few secondary issues from this latest meeting: 

a. Tonite, the DRB chair and counsel should have acknowledged the reason for these changes and address the basic qualifications of Board members. If members who recently resigned did so because they were never qualified by virtue of their residency status to begin with, how legitimate were past meetings where unqualified  members cast votes? 

b. As counsel, Mr. Holley should advise every Board member request a City email address or a separate email server like the AMDC has done with its members. In either case, all new and existing Board members should be made well aware that official email correspondence from a private account is still subject to SC FOIA requests and it is best to separate public from private. Didn’t Hillary teach us that without even trying? 

c. Tonite’s workshop failed at a basic level. At least from 530 pm to 7 pm there was no discussion of the suitability of the Apartments/Garage on Richland/Newberry on the site of the historic Johnson Drug Store, Newberry Hall, and Warneke Cleaners. There was only discussion of the suitability of select design elements. This gives a clear impression that the decision is already made, that the DRB, even with three new members with minimal exposure to the project, already accepts the parameters of this part of the project with no reservations other than colors and materials. 

While no vote was taken, it sure looked like a decision was already in place. 

d. This meeting confirmed that the Newberry Street “encroachment,” a.k.a a “conveyance” in the Newberry St privatization ordinance, was not the developer’s idea, but one first secretly proposed by the AMDC in May 2021 and not brought before public scrutiny until a year later. 

This is the politics of the situation to which I refer and Board members should be cognizant of. This entire process was shrouded in secrecy for most of 2021, and to this day transparency is a moving target. If you choose to take part in a charade, then you are complicit in the crimes of Project Pascalis. 

Thank You 

Don Moniak

Please forward to Ben Lott)

Anonymous Response from DRB Member (rivulet00_swathe@icloud.com). Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 11:06 PM

You are dead wrong … and probably know it!

A public meeting is any meeting open to the public and where the public is notified of its time, place and topic as required by law. A public hearing allows for comment by the public, but not all meetings are public hearings. The public is allowed to be in the room and observe at a work session or any public meeting, but not to participate unless invited to.  

As DRB members, we have every right to hear from applicants and do our work without the interruption and disruption of  “Recalcitrant senior citizens” as you describe yourself. Trust that we will hold public hearings when a vote is scheduled and hear all of your half-truths and twisted conspiracies then. We have to suffer through it by law. I can’t wait.

General assembly and congress meetings are public too, but I dare you to speak up in one of those and see what happens. You’ll be dragged out by your wrinkled, hairy old ears.

Response from Don Moniak to Anonymous DRB member, sent June 22, 10:10 a.m.

Btw meetings of Congress etc are public proceedings. 

Have you finished your resignation letter yet? I would like to be the first to make it public. 

June 2022, Laws & Bylaws, Project Pascalis 2022

Reminder of the Day: Project Pascals is arguably proceeding in violation of South Carolina municipal redevelopment laws. 

1 Comment

Specifically, the AMDC: 

  1. Is basing the project on a redevelopment plan approved the year before the first project proposal, and does not include most of the project’s footprint; 
  2. Failed to hold a public hearing for that first and only redevelopment plan;
  3. Failed to issue a public advertisement for a Request for Proposals (RFP)
Background on Municipal Commissions and Redevelopment

By law, publicly financed economic redevelopment must adhere to Title 31 of the SC Code of Laws.  In regard to Project Pascalis, the most pertinent of these statutes are within Chapter 10, which define the criteria for creating municipal commissions like the AMDC and the rules they must follow. 

Under part 30 of this chapter, municipal commissions like the AMDC can be created by the governing body (City Council) if it finds:

(1) that a blighted area or conservation area exists in whole or in part in such municipality,

(2) that the redevelopment of such areas is necessary in the interest of the public health, safety, morals, or welfare of the residents of such municipality.

While the AMDC has broad powers to enact its charge, its “specific” powers defined in Part 90 are to:

 “make (i) plans for carrying out a program of voluntary repair and rehabilitation of buildings and improvements and (ii) plans for the enforcement of laws, codes, and regulations relating to the use of land and the use and occupancy of buildings and improvements, and to the compulsory repair, rehabilitation, demolition, or removal of buildings and improvements. The commission is further authorized to develop, test, and report methods and techniques, and carry out demonstrations and other activities, for the prevention and elimination of slums and urban blight.”

The One and Only Redevelopment Plan One for Downtown Aiken

The AMDC was created by ordinance in August 2019 by Aiken City Council, but did not meet until May 2020. One of its first orders of business was to review and adopt a Redevelopment Plan already in progress for downtown Aiken, one compliant with Part 100 that defined nine requirements (1) for a finished plan. This plan was described at the first meeting by Aiken Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant: 

We have engaged a firm out of Greenville, SC called Muldrow & Associates to do a very small redevelopment plan, essentially surrounding the Regions Bank Building which is now being retrofitted as the new City Hall. It includes the corner of Laurens and Richland. If this group has any thoughts about Hotel Aiken, it would be appropriate to have those discussions. Whether we come up with anything or not, we can’t really get into it if we don’t have a plan that encompasses that area. He noted that the former Regions Bank building is currently being redeveloped as the new City Hall. He said we would like to get input from the Commission on this as well.

From the very beginning, the AMDC was informed that any redevelopment plan must be specific; a plan must “encompass” the area proposed for redevelopment. The Muldrow plan does not address any redevelopment on Newberry Street (which is not a “blighted” area in any sense of the word) nor Park Avenue (also lacking any blight issues); it proposed no changes in street layouts, and it did not propose to relocate a single business. 

In reference to properties east of the Hotel, such as the historic former Johnson Drug Store building, the Muldrow plan specifically states “existing buildings to remain.” All other “redevelopment” is merely streetscape improvements. 

The AMDC adopted the Muldrow plan by a resolution a few months later, but never held its own public hearing as required by Part 100: 

d) The commission shall hold a public hearing prior to its final adoption of a redevelopment plan. Notice of such hearing shall be given fifteen days prior thereto in a newspaper of general circulation in the municipality.

This clause functions to avoid burying major projects within larger city business proceedings. But the AMDC took the latter approach by forwarding the plan to Aiken City Council, which shortly thereafter approved it following two “public hearings” held during normal City Council business.

There has been no update or amendments to the plan as required by law, and when asked for the Project Pascalis Redevelopment Plan required by SC 31-10-100, the AMDC provides only a link to the Muldrow prepared plan, titled “Redevelopment Plan for Downtown Aiken,” or “Redevelopment Plan One.”

View the approved plan
The Wyatt Scheme Goes Awry

Even without any Plan Two, the AMDC proceeded to announce the existence of Project Pascalis less than eight months later. Although the AMDC kept the details secret, we now know the initial plan pursued by Weldon Wyatt’s GAC, LLC and facilitated by Wyatt and Attorney Ray Massey’s WTC Investments, LLC was to: 

  1. demolish everything on the south side of Richland Avenue between Laurens and  Newberry Streets
  2. demolish half of the west side of Newberry Street; 
  3. force eight businesses to relocate; and negotiate a deal with Newberry Hall to compensate the owners for lost business during construction and options to operate and purchase the new conference center building; 
  4. privatize part of Newberry St. 

The WTC plan involved purchasing the seven properties from two owners, with $7.5 million going to Neel Shah’s various LLCs holding six of the properties; and $2.0 million going to Myrtle Anderson for Newberry Hall. Wyatt pursued a private-public partnership with the AMDC and City of Aiken, then abruptly withdrew from the negotiations and the purchase and sale agreements in May 2021 just two months after the first announcement of Project Pascalis. The AMDC chose to not disclose this change in plans. 

The AMDC Secretly Pursues a New Developer

After Weldon Wyatt’s GAC, LLC withdrew from negotiations for a master agreement with the AMDC, the Chamber of Commerce stepped in and took “assignment” of the properties while the AMDC sought to procure funding to buy them outright. This process was kept secret until November 2021, and was never openly discussed or announced even then. 

Instead of formulating a new redevelopment plan, the AMDC instead sent out solicitations for Request for Proposals to select developers. The entire solicitation remains classified as “confidential” and exempt from FOIA by the City of Aiken, although the AMDC has released a summary document. 

Click to access Pascalis-summary.pdf

However, under Part 110(c) of Title 31, the AMDC was obligated to advertise for bids: 

c) The commission shall, by public notice, published once a week for two consecutive weeks in a newspaper having general circulation in the municipality, invite proposals and shall make available all pertinent information to any persons interested in undertaking a purchase of property or the redevelopment of an area or any part thereof.

As reported previously, the AMDC did not advertise for bids until two weeks after announcing the selection of RPM Development Partners, LLC as the Project Pascalis developer, pending the successful negotiation of a master agreement. 

Click to access Pascalis-RFP-Affidavit-of-Publication-of-public-notice-in-Aiken-Standard-12.1320-4872-4968-1416-v.1-002.pdf

This was all kept secret through most of 2021, and the AMDC never sought to update its redevelopment plan as required by law. Even as late as November 4, 2021, City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh denied there was any final plan to demolish the Hotel Aiken and chose not to divulge the original demolition plans, or the fact that the AMDC’s purchase and sale agreements only required inspection of two properties — Warneke Cleaners and Taj Aiken Restaurant. 

Board Member Knowles expressed appreciation for the update and inquired as to whether the plans intended to keep Hotel Aiken intact. Mr. Bedenbaugh stated it was too early in the process to know what potential developers may intend for the Hotel Aiken property. — Design Review Board Special Workshop Meeting Minutes, November 4, 2021

To this day, Bedenbaugh refuses to release the full May 2021 solicitation letters and the body of the RFQ that would indicate the original intent of the AMDC. 

The Design Review Board meets in another special workshop tomorrow. The Board should be reminded they have no obligation to act on a proposal that is in clear violation of SC redevelopment law, and every right to demand full transparency from City officials. 

_______________

References

(1) The nine requirements for a finished redevelopment plan are defined in SC31-10-100(c):

c) The commission’s redevelopment plan shall include, without being limited to, the following:
(1) the boundaries of the redevelopment area, with a map showing the existing uses of the real property therein;
(2) a land use plan of the redevelopment area showing proposed uses following redevelopment;
(3) standards of population densities, land coverage, and building intensities in the proposed redevelopment;
(4) a preliminary site plan of the redevelopment area;
(5) a statement of the proposed changes, if any, in zoning ordinances or maps;
(6) a statement of any proposed changes in street layouts or street levels;
(7) a statement of the estimated cost and method of financing redevelopment under the redevelopment plan;
(8) a statement of such continuing controls as may be deemed necessary to effectuate the purposes of this chapter;
(9) a statement of a feasible method proposed for the relocation of the families displaced.