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City Government, July 2022, Meeting Law Violations, Project Pascalis 2022

Toast of the Town: The January 4th ”Social Business Gathering” at Prime Steakhouse

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Project Pascalis is the name for a proposed $100 million plus demolition and redevelopment project targeted for downtown Aiken. The project is being directed by the Aiken Municipal Development Agency (AMDC), which in December 2021 officially announced RPM Development Partners, LLC (agent: Ray Massey) as the project developer. RPM represents the three primary investors and developers:  Raines Company, Lat Purser and Associates, and Ray Massey. 

Toast of the town

Information obtained yesterday regarding an extravagant taxpayer funded dinner featuring shots of premium whiskey reveals that the Mayor of Aiken, the City Manager, the city’s Economic Development Director, and three Aiken Municipal Development Commissioners participated in a “social business gathering” with three members of RPM Development Partners. A separate check was provided to the latter group. Most of the participants also attended a City of Aiken Design Review Board (DRB) workshop just prior to the gathering. 

On July 13, 2022 I emailed (1) Aiken City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh with concerns and questions regarding two issues on the “transparency page” of Aiken Municipal Development Commission’s (AMDC) website: 

  1. The existence of copies of AMDC checks within invoice and billing files with routing number and account number not redacted; and 
  2. A January 10th check from the AMDC to the City of Aiken for a $620 bar and dinner bill dated January 4, 2022 from Prime Steakhouse in downtown Aiken. On that bill were seven orders of premium whiskey worth $130, four orders of steaks, one order of short ribs, one order of veal piccatta, and an appetizer of Calamari. 

Within a few days, all files containing copies of compromised AMDC checks were removed from their “transparency page,” and have yet to be returned.

In regard to the Prime Steakhouse bill, one question posed was:

Can you identify the people in the party who dined on fine steaks along with premium whiskey that afternoon?

After two weeks without any further response, on July 25th I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the expense report, the meeting notes, and a listing of all attendants including those on a referenced second check.(2) 

On July 27th Aiken Economic Development Director and FOIA officer Tim O’Briant responded with another copy of the dinner and bar tab and a copy of the AMDC check, with banking information redacted.

Copy of AMDC check and City of Aiken purchasing card statement

In an emailed response, Mr O’Briant explained that the City’s purchasing card was used “because the restaurant does not accept checks as the AMDC intended to pay;” and the city was later reimbursed by its commission. O’Briant also explained the following regarding attendees and meeting notes: 

Those from the City of AIken present were Stuart Bedenbaugh, Rick Osbon and Tim O’Briant. From the AMDC, attendees were Keith Wood, Chris Verenes and David Jameson.

There was no record of discussion and no agreements were made during this business social gathering following a day of stakeholder meetings held by RPM, LLC and Raines, and followed by the AIken DRB meeting earlier in the evening

Neither the City nor the AMDC maintains a record of those attending from RPM or Raines, but by memory it included David Tart, Ray Massey and Brandon Graham. Ticket number two was for their meals and the City of Aiken nor the AMDC maintain a record of the charges paid by RPM/Raines.

David Tart is a managing partner of Raines, Brandon Graham is a project manager for Raines, and Ray Massey is a lead investor and agent for both Project Pascalis developers RPM Development Partners and Aiken Alley Holdings. 

Prior to the Prime Steakhouse dinner and drinks, Stuart Bedenbaugh, Tim O’Briant, David Jameson, Chris Verenes, Ray Massey, and Brandon Graham all reportedly attended the City of Aiken’s Design Review Board Workshop (DRB), but not its monthly public meeting.(3) Mayor Osbon was not listed as an attendee at that important workshop. 

The following two questions posed to Mr O’Briant at 4:30 p.m. today went unanswered: 

If this was not a meeting, why was it paid for with city funds? 

Under what city procurement authorization is this type of party of six allowed? 

___________________

Next:  The “Stakeholders Meetings.” 

__________________

(1) The email read: 

“Mr. Bedenbaugh, 

I have some questions and comments regarding two issues: 

1. I suddenly realized that the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC)  has been published sensitive city financial information online. Specifically, the AMDC has published copies of its checks to various consultants, vendors, utilities, etc that contain the routing number and account number of the checking account. 

1a. Can you explain why this routing and account number information was not redacted? Even with a banking executive on the commission? 

1b. If this information was released via a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA)  before being placed on the AMDC site ( as it appears to have been since no recent payments are posted) did the failure to redact violated any city or state FOIA rules or policies? 

You all really should go back through and redact that account number before somebody goes out and buys some premium whiskey online; which provides a segue to item 2. 

2. Pertaining to the $620 bill from Prime Steakhouse on January 4, 2002, identified as “City of Aiken payment for Prime 011022” on the AMDC “transparency page” of its website: 

Click to access City-of-Aiken-payment-for-Prime011022.pdf

2a. Can you identify the people in the party who dined on fine steaks along with premium whiskey that afternoon? 

2b. Was this considered a meeting under state open meetings law? 

2c.  Was the dinner and drinks related in any way to the structural assessment of the Hotel Aiken also conducted that day by a consultant for RPM Development Parters, LLC, or is that pure coincidence? 

Thank You, 

Don Moniak

Eureka Fire Protection District

Aiken County, SC.” 

Mr. Bedenbaugh responded that day: “I will review.” 

The AMDC transparency page is located at: https://aikenmdc.org/2022/03/29/project-pascalis-public-records/

(2)A FOIA request was submitted on July 25, 2022 for: “1. The expense report that was submitted for the steak and whiskey dinner at Prime Steakhouse on January 4, 2022; as required by City of Aiken statutes and policies governing reimbursement of expenses. 2. The memo for record (or other document) that recorded the discussion and agreements reached at the Steak and Whiskey dinner, and a listing of all attendants at the meeting, including those on the second check cited on the dinner and whiskey tab.” 

(2) From the DRB January 4, 2022 Workshop Meeting Minutes, the following people were listed as present: “City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh, Assistant City Manager Mary Catherine Lawton, Planning Director Marya Moultrie, Planner Mary Tilton, Zoning

Official Mike Dennis,Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant, Erica

Sanders, Ray Massey, Grey Raines, Brandon Graham, Stephen Overcash,

Susan French, David Blake, Mandy Drumming, Mark Chostner, Philip

Merry, David Jameson, Christopher Verenes, Martin Buckley and other

interested parties”

Although the meeting minutes state the workshop began at 5:30 p.m and ended at 6:30. The bar and dinner bill time appears to be 19:55 (7:55 p.m). 

https://edoc.cityofaikensc.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=2735900&dbid=0&repo=City-of-Aiken-LF

Alley Series, July 2022, Project Pascalis 2022

Project Pascalis Includes The Alley (A Four Part Series): Part Two

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Option 2 Included a Radical Vision for The Alley

by Don Moniak

July 6, 2022

Until now, the AMDC has only revealed Option 2A (1) from its early 2021 deliberations. Option 2A was forwarded to select developers, along with a project “summary” (2) in a private solicitation for a request for proposals for an area only encompassing the “Shah Property” and Newberry Hall — but not The Alley. This solicitation represented a change in the direction of the project management, but not in the overall project vision detailed in the never released Option 2, a vision involving a radical redevelopment of The Alley. 

The Early Days of Project Pascalis: Option 2 Emerges

One week after the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC) announced a major, vaguely defined redevelopment effort named Project Pascalis, commission Chairman Keith Wood and Executive Director Tim O’Briant signed a cost sharing agreement with Weldon Wyatt’s GAC, LLC. (3) As with the Wyatt-Boudreaux agreement, references to “historic preservation” are absent. Demolition was the only consideration, and renovations were not options. 

Boudreaux Group architecture and its two subconsultants moved forward with an aggressive schedule of site visits, workshops, research, and preliminary design. While the Boudreaux Group was working on behalf of GAC, LLC, it was also designing for the Alley property recently obtained by Ray Massey’s Aiken Alley Holdings, and city owned property across from it, although no agreement detailing this arrangement is publicly available yet. 

The week of April 12 passed without the scheduled “presentation to city council and invited stakeholders,” and the AMDC only discussed the project in closed executive session on April 13th. 

On April 15th, Weldon Wyatt and Newberry Hall’s Myrtle Anderson signed a purchase and sale agreement for $2 million and options for the business’ operators to negotiate to repurchase a new building, operate the new conference center, and even be compensated for lost income during construction. 

Four days later the “Project Pascalis Conceptual Plans” were complete and ready for review.  The plan’s aerial view continued to match the description in the Boudreaux-Wyatt agreement, with the Aiken Antique Mall and the east half of The Alley remaining in the project footprint.

(Note: click on images, below, to enlarge views).

Option 2: First-floor view of Project Pascalis footprint

The conceptual plans, obtained on July 2, 2022, via a Freedom of Information Act request, featured “Option 2,” with the Hotel Aiken and Laurens properties replaced by ground floor retail below a three story apartment complex, a “Boutique Hotel” at the corner of Richland and Newberry, a conference center/apartments/garage complex replacing Newberry Hall, and street pattern changes on Richland and Newberry Street. 

Option 2: Five-story “Boutique Hotel” at the corner of Richland and Newberry. To the left is the 5-story conference center/parking garage/apartments complex at the corner of Newberry and The Alley.

Most dramatically, the plan envisioned retail space topped by four stories of apartments on the north side of The Alley; three stories across from it on city owned property, and a three story, elevated, enclosed walkway above the east entrance connecting apartments and providing a pathway to the parking garage. 

These plans were never shared as promised in mid-March by AMDC officials. The plans were shown to some of Massey’s newly acquired tenants. One of them is Stacy O’Sullivan, co-owner of “Art and Soul” gallery in The Alley. In 2019, “Aiken Blend” wrote of her and business partner Kim Rising’s presence in The Alley in an “entrepreneur of the week” profile: 

Art and Soul of Aiken isn’t exactly what you would call a “traditional” gallery. It is a place where local Aiken area artists can display their work in a free spirited and supportive space. Stacy O’Sullivan and Kim Rising established this co-op style business three years ago in a hidden store front on Richland Avenue. Two years ago, the business moved into the Alley. Since then, the two have had nothing but success. (4)

Their success must not have impressed her new landlords. O’Sullivan has described a visit from Massey and investment partner Todd Gaul, during which they revealed conceptual plans for their building, stating “We know this will take permits and such, but The City loves projects like this and it will not be a problem.”

O’Sullivan also describes an effort by Massey and Gaul to “illegally evict” them from their four-year old business home, and their intent to triple the rent, all while paying lip service to serious maintenance issues such as flooding in the recently renovated alley following heavy rains 

 Happy Days End 

While Massey and Gaul might not have anticipated a problem with the city, they should have anticipated one with Weldon Wyatt, especially considering his abrupt and unexplained withdrawal in January, 2020 from a purchase contract with Aiken County for the “old hospital” property at 828 Richland Ave E. 

Between April 19th and May 14th, two things happened. First, the preliminary cost estimates were completed on schedule. The estimates include a total budget of $118,372,104 and ninety eight cents; and total costs for “demolition and abatement” of the “Hotel Aiken, 108 Laurens Street, Holley House Motel, and Retail/Office Richland, Newberry, and The Alley” of $712,248. (5) 

Second, the man described by the AMDC a month previously as an “experienced and well-capitalized” private developer bailed on yet another major development on Mayor Rick Osbon’s wish list. Similar to the unexplained cancellation of the “old hospital” deal, the reason for the Project Pascalis exit remains a mystery. 

Instead of reassessing the project, AMDC officials scrambled to salvage the effort to demolish and reconstruct a major portion of historic downtown Aiken. As previously reported in A Project Pascalis Timeline, on May 14th “The Chamber of Commerce takes ‘assignment’ of the Shah property contracts, while the AMDC seeks funding to purchase them on behalf of the city. This all occurs behind closed doors.” (. ) Not until June 2 would the Chamber also arrange for “assignment” of the Newberry Hall property. 

The absence of a contract continuation with Newberry Hall’s owners did not deter the AMDC from immediately seeking a new developer for both the Shah and Newberry properties. On May 19th the AMDC sent its private solicitations for Requests for Proposals to continue the project—minus the Aiken Alley Holdings property and the Aiken Antique Mall.

There is no known formal agreement between the AMDC and Aiken Alley Holdings, but some form of unwritten agreement must have remained. Six days after the Chamber of Commerce took one for the team by taking assignment of the Newberry Hall property, Aiken Alley Holdings, LLC closed on the purchase of longtime State Farm agent Joseph Harrison’s 121 Newberry Street for $675,000, adding to the holdings in the original Pascalis footprint. 

Just over three months later, Massey was present at a “public meeting” at Victor’s Restaurant in Florence, SC hosted by the Raines Company. Two months later he was the agent for the newly formed RPM Development Partners, LLC; a consortium of Massey and other local, unnamed investors, the developers Rainesco and Lat Purser. In early December, 2021 RPM was named the Pascalis developer, pending a master agreement, although the legal advertisement for RFPs was not submitted until mid December. 

Next up: Project Pascalis Includes The Alley (A Four-Part Series): Part 3: The City, Wyatt, Ray and His Group, and Creative Ways.

For Reference

(1) The AMDC placed “Option 2A” on its “transparency page, but not Option 2; probably because a FOIA or other official request only asked for information pertaining to the AMDC’s private RFP solicitation in May 2021. This is known in some circles as willful nondisclosure. 

Option 2: Project Pascalis Conceptual Plans Presentation 04.19

(2) https://aikenmdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Pascalis-summary.pdf

In the solicitation, the AMDC offers to privatize a part of Newberry Street. The entire solicitation remains secret to this day, withheld under a FOIA exemption by the City of Aiken, despite fact that FOIA clearly states the city “may” release the documents. The AMDC does not deny the solicitation is only for demolition, not renovation of Hotel Aiken and surrounding properties. 

(3) https://aikenmdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Pre-development-cost-sharing-GAC-LLC-pascalis.pdf 

(Released by the AMDC in response to an unidentified FOIA request or other official request)

(4) https://aikenblend.com/2019/04/10/entrepreneur-of-the-week-stacy-osullivan-kim-rising/

(5) Draft Preliminary Order of Magnitude Cost Estimate Analysis. Project Pascalis. Obtained via the SC Freedom of Information Act from the City of Aiken, July 2, 2022.