When will Steve Riley’s future with Hilton Head be discussed in public?

A day after the Hilton Head Town Council decided to postpone its first public discussion on the future of longtime town manager Steve Riley, no formal decisions have been made about when those talks will take place.

Mayor David Bennett, who was visibly upset during Tuesday’s regular meeting after mentioning a medical issue involving his father, has the authority to put the matter on the public agenda of the next regular council meeting on Oct. 3, or call a special meeting. Bennett, who has been at odds with Riley since Bennett took office in December 2014, and mayor pro tem Kim Likins did not immediately respond Wednesday to calls seeking comment.

The four council members who voted Tuesday to move the discussion of Riley’s situation off the agenda of the closed, executive session and onto the public agenda — John McCann, Bill Harkins, Tom Lennox and Marc Grant — could call a special council meeting before Oct. 3, according to town code. A special meeting was proposed by Harkins, though not approved, at Tuesday’s meeting.

Contacted Wednesday, McCann, an announced mayoral candidate who made the motion Tuesday to allow public discussion about Riley’s situation, declined to discuss specifics of what might be discussed openly about the town manager, saying only, “We wanted to bring everything we’d been discussing in executive session into the open,” and “Things are more transparent when you do it in public.”

McCann, Harkins, Lennox, Grant and council member David Ames said Wednesday they had not heard any more from Bennett regarding his public statements Tuesday about his father and also didn’t know when a special meeting to discuss the town manager might take place.

Riley, the town manager since 1995, has been an unsuccessful candidate for at least four out-of-state government jobs since last summer. He is a current candidate for the position of longtime Beaufort County administrator Gary Kubic, who is retiring at the end of this month, multiple sources earlier told The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.

McCann informed the Town Council on Tuesday that the Finance and Administrative Committee unanimously had approved recommending that the town hire an executive search firm to assist — if necessary — with the selection of a town manager.

“This motion is to hire a search firm, not to do a search,” McCann said after the meeting. “We want to be prepared.”

For more than a year, council members have been periodically discussing Riley’s future with the town behind closed doors, with the help of the Columbia-based McNair Law Firm. The Packet and Gazette in July revealed that the council secretly hired the McNair firm on matters involving Riley and had paid it at least $11,500.

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, the council voted publicly to hire the McNair firm regarding Riley’s situation. Bennett immediately afterward acknowledged that a public vote was necessary before using McNair’s services.

“We’ve now determined that we should have had an open vote prior to initiating the services of legal counsel,” Bennett said after the motion by Likins was unanimously approved. “Today, we’ve taken that vote.”

Before the council went into closed session about 4 p.m. Tuesday, McCann made his motion to move the discussion about Riley onto the public agenda. On Wednesday, McCann said he observed Melissa Azallion, a McNair attorney, speaking to Bennett in a Town Hall break room after Tuesday’s executive session, but before the council reconvened for the public session at 5 p.m.

Harkins on Wednesday said he saw Azallion talking with Bennett in the Town Hall kitchen area during a recess in Tuesday’s meeting after the recess was taken at 7:15 p.m.

Azallion did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.

In a text message to an Island Packet reporter several hours after this story was posted online, Bennett disputed Harkins’ statement about seeing Bennett speaking with Azallion during the recess in Tuesday’s meeting. Bennett said that at 7:15 p.m., he was in his office “with my wife trying to make contact with my family. I was not speaking with council’s attorney Melissa Azallion.” He noted he did not speak to Azallion after the 5 p.m. public session began.

“The discussion I had with her (Azallion) immediately following ex(ecutive) session and prior to open session was to inform her that council had voted to move the discussion regarding contractual arrangements with the town manager from ex(ecutive) session to open session and that she would therefore not be making a presentation during ex(ecutive) session,” Bennett’s text said.

Just before Tuesday’s recess, Bennett unexpectedly shared some personal news with council members in open session.

“I don’t often share my personal matters. My dad has had some medical issues,” the mayor said. “In the last few minutes I’ve had a phone call from my mother and a text from my brother. I’m trying hard to pay attention, but I really kind of need to go find out what’s going on.”

When council members returned from their break, Bennett struggled to read a proposed ordinance under the new business section of the agenda. He restarted his sentence several times, his eyes red and voice shaky.

Likins then made a motion to postpone the remainder of the agenda “in light of the situation and the distress that (the) mayor (was) under.” The motion was seconded by Harkins. Ames suggested the mayor excuse himself, and that Likins, acting as mayor pro tem, take his place so the council could get through more regularly scheduled business.

“I myself, whether I agree or disagree with anyone here on different points, I want all seven of us up here and actively engaged,” Harkins said. “Families are very important, and the mayor has been notified of something that’s certainly none of our business, but we can understand how serious it could be. I think the mayor pro tem’s motion is in order, and my second is going to stay.”

McCann called for a vote to postpone the remainder of the meeting, to which Bennett replied: “With all due respect, I call for the votes. Let’s try to get through some more work.”

Council members got through each item on the agenda except for the public discussion of Riley, which they voted to postpone. That motion was made by Ames, who cited the length of Tuesday’s more than 2  1/2-hour meeting. Bennett said then he would consider a special meeting to discuss Riley’s situation, as suggested by Harkins, but no date was set.

“I was just hoping everyone had the courage to discuss it out in the open,” Harkins said Wednesday about the Riley matter.

This story was originally published September 20, 2017 at 4:49 PM with the headline "When will Steve Riley’s future with Hilton Head be discussed in public?."