Vicki Simons Statement to County Council August 15, 2023

Good evening, Chairman Bunker and members of Aiken County Council. My name is Vicki Simons. I live in Mr. Napier’s district.

Are you aware of two problems with Aiken County Council’s meeting documents?

Problem #1:

When I looked at Council’s agenda for tonight’s meeting (1) and tried to find corresponding parts within tonight’s “CC Docs” document (2), I found a huge mismatch.

For example, under Old Business #2, there was a “Second Reading of an
Ordinance” that supposedly appears on pp. 32-56.

However, when I scrolled down to page 32 of the CC Docs document, I found:

something other than that ordinance; and
that the designation at the bottom of the page was “CC 53.”

On the meeting agenda, I found under Old Business #1: “*pages 11-31 removed..”

Either the CC Docs document page numbers had not been updated to reflect the deletion of certain pages or the meeting agenda had not been updated to reflect the new page numbers in the CC Docs document.

This mismatch is confusing and must never happen again.

Problem #2:

The day after Council’s July 18, 2023, meeting, an article was published in The Aiken Standard regarding a proposed industrial park on two tracts of land, comprising over 1400 acres. (3)

Not hearing that discussed in the meeting, I later found a resolution covering an agreement tucked away in the July 18 “CC Docs” document (4), which was mentioned only by title under the meeting Consent Agenda. (5)

With no discussion, that Consent Agenda — containing 14 resolutions — was approved unanimously. The July 18 CC Docs document was 191 pages long. (4) Tonight’s CC Docs document is 159 pages long. (2)

How can Aiken County Council possibly discuss — in-depth — all matters in these very long documents during:

either very short committee meetings;
or hour-long Work Sessions?

Without doing due diligence regarding all document details, Council members are “flying blind” on these matters and are simply “rubberstamping” (6) resolutions and ordinances brought before them, just because someone else thinks it’s a good idea.

This situation smacks of a statement once made by a certain Congresswoman: “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” (7)

We learn from Acts 17:11 in the Bible that the Bereans examined the Scriptures every day to see if the teachings they heard were true. (8)
We further learn from Proverbs 18:17: “The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.” (9)

Since each Council member will be held accountable by our Creator for his vote, each of you must do your own reading and research on these matters.

It’s past time to throw open the curtains to let sunshine flood in for full
transparency regarding everything going on in Aiken County government.

Regarding Problem #2, in my opinion, one of two things must change:

Either all documents must be published far enough in advance to allow Council members to read and understand them in full;
Or every time a Council member does not have the time to read and understand all documents before a particular meeting, then it is necessary for him to vote “no” regarding approval of matters contained therein.

Do you have any questions?

_________________

Vicki Simons is an Aiken County resident and Aiken County Council watchdog. Ms. Simons addresses Council at every meeting on a variety of subjects, regularly speaks and writes on topics concerning freedom and liberty, and facilitates Constitutional Workshops.”

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