Lawsuit: Hilton Head officials guilty of oppressing town taxpayers

Hilton Head officials are guilty of corruption and oppression against all town taxpayers, a lawsuit backed by vocal government critic Skip Hoagland alleges.

The suit, filed Tuesday in Beaufort County Circuit Court by Peter Buonaiuto, contends, among other things, that the town should not have spent approximately $200,000 to fund a private defamation lawsuit brought by Town Council member Kim Likins in December 2015 against Hoagland, who has a pending $10 million countersuit against the town.

“It seems lawlessness is the order of the day here,” said Buonaiuto, a resident who noted he does consulting for companies in addition to other “entrepreneurial endeavors,” when contacted Wednesday. “I think every citizen has the right to restrain public officials from using public money for private purposes.”

Hoagland said Wednesday that Buonaiuto; Beaufort Watchdog, a government watchdog organization that Hoagland founded; and others got together and decided the lawsuit needed to be filed.

“The basic point is (Buonaiuto) is suing on behalf of taxpayers,” Hoagland said. “I wanted to file the suit, but I’m a Florida resident and have no standing.”

Named as defendants in the suit are Hilton Head mayor David Bennett; Town Council members Marc Grant, Bill Harkins, Tom Lennox, Likins and John McCann; former council member Lee Edwards; town manager Steve Riley; and town staff attorney Brian Hulbert.

Contacted Wednesday, Grant, Harkins, Lennox, McCann, Edwards and Riley each said he had not been served with the suit. Bennett and Likins did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment. Hulbert said the typically town doesn’t comment on pending litigation, noting he had not yet been served.

Regarding the town’s funding of Likins’ defamation suit, Grant said the state municipal association had informed the town that “Yes, you can do that up to a certain point.” Harkins said a town attorney “indicated we were operating within appropriate boundaries to do that,” though when asked if the Town Council should have sought a second legal opinion on the matter, he replied, “A second opinion never hurts.”

“My client is concerned because Likins has accepted more than $200,000, but as the lawsuit alleges, there’s no 1099 (federal income tax form) given to her for what I guess she regards as a free gift,” said Russ Keep, who is representing Buonaiuto, when contacted Wednesday. “So my client hopes that the Town Council will repay the town this $200,000.”

“(Buonaiuto) is simply a taxpayer that is astonished that our taxpayer money would be used to fund a lawsuit for a private individual,” Keep added.

Buonaiuto said his suit deals not only with the town’s funding of Likins’ lawsuit, but also issues surrounding Hilton Head’s procurement code and the no-bid hiring of Greg Alford of the Alford Law Firm to handle the Likins suit.

The suit, among other things, asks the court to:

▪ Declare that town officials violated the town’s procurement code when they hired Alford and Thoreson LLC and Pratt-Thomas Walker, P.A. for legal services related to the Likins suit;

▪ Rescind the contracts with those law firms;

▪ Order the town to cease paying invoices for legal services related to the suit;

▪ Order the repayment of $200,000 to the town; and

▪ Require that Likins file a 1099 federal income tax form to “report her income of approximately ($200,000) to the election commission.”

As of early August, the town had spent $198,938 on Likins’ suit, town records show. In early August, the Town Council voted to switch the payment method from hourly billing to a contingency fee arrangement.

This story was originally published September 6, 2017 at 12:39 PM with the headline "Lawsuit: Hilton Head officials guilty of oppressing town taxpayers."