Candidates for Beaufort Co. Council won’t rule out controversial figure for top job
Candidates running for seats on Beaufort County Council say they want council to wait until January so there will be a “clean slate” in choosing the right person to fill the county’s long-open administrator position.
Some see the clean slate as a way for council to win back any public trust it might have lost over the past year in its chaotic administrator search.
However, most aren’t ruling out the possibility that the person at the center of council’s administrator woes might be the right one for the job: former interim administrator Josh Gruber, who has been the subject of recent controversy and who left the county this summer after being passed over for the position twice.
Last fall, council began what would become a divisive, expensive and drawn-out process to name a permanent successor to former county administrator Gary Kubic, who retired after 13 years in the position.
And they are no closer to filling the position than when they started.
In fact, with interim administrator Tom Keaveny’s resignation earlier this week, they now face new challenges. After Oct. 15 — Keaveny’s last day — the county will be without both an administrator and a deputy administrator.
Over the past year, Beaufort County has seen two failed searches for the right candidate — with five council members in support of hiring Gruber and six members opposed to his candidacy. And in the meantime, the county lost two interim administrators — including Gruber, who is now Hilton Head Island’s assistant town manager.
Some council members blame this predicament on poor leadership and others say it’s simply a difference in opinion of who’s best qualified for the job.
County Council Chairman Paul Sommerville, a Gruber supporter who is running unopposed for re-election, agreed that the new council should select the next administrator, especially given that the next search could take between three to six months.
“I’ve talked to every one of them,” he said. “They hope that we do not attempt to hire a permanent administrator until they’re seated. And I think that’s reasonable and correct.”
Sommerville acknowledged that a “clean slate” would be a good thing, and said he would consider anyone interested in the job as a candidate — including Gruber.
“He will always be a viable candidate for some people, me included,” Sommerville said. “Would he ever seriously consider it? I have no idea.”
Gruber has been a controversial figure in Beaufort County since he assumed the interim county administrator job at the end of September 2017. After two searches and a failed vote for his nomination, Gruber left the county for the assistant town manager job on Hilton Head Island.
The day after the vote, though, he wrote up a contract for himself that his successor, Keaveny, signed without informing most of council. Fallout from that decision led Keaveny to announce his resignation and resulted in more ire from the faction of council that was against Gruber remaining tied to the county in any way.
Mark McGinnis, a Democrat running for Tabor Vaux’s District 9 seat, said Thursday that the Gruber issue needs to be laid to rest.
“It reflects poorly on council,” he said. “It looks like backroom dealings. There should be full disclosure and any representative should be transparent. It’s highly inappropriate.”
Chris Hervochon, a Republican who is running for Rick Caporale’s District 8 seat, said the two failed searches were “unfortunate.”
“Those thousands of taxpayer dollars could have been spent in more meaningful ways,” he said Thursday.
However, while Hervochon expressed concern over the Gruber controversy, he didn’t take a stance on his possible candidacy in the future.
“I don’t know that I could say conclusively (that I wouldn’t support Gruber),” he said. “He’s got plenty of institutional knowledge and is likable. I don’t know enough about what happened (within council), but clearly there are reservations that give me pause. His issue with the county is concerning.”
Among the other five candidates The Island Packet reached for comment, only McGinnis said that, if elected, he would not consider Gruber for the job.
“I don’t think so because of what I’ve seen publicly and behind the scenes,” he said. “I think if people saw him under consideration again, he could serve as a detractor to any other candidates.”
Lawrence McElynn, the Republican candidate running for Steve Fobes’ District 10 seat, said he “didn’t know anything about” the county administrator woes before hanging up the phone.
Mark Lawson, the Republican candidate in District 9, did not return a phone call for comment.
The overarching theme among the other council candidates, though, was that the next county administrator search needs to field more diverse finalists for the job.
“When the last search finalized two candidates, they were two older white males,” said Cathy McClellan, McElynn’s Democratic opponent. “We need to look at a more diverse pool of candidates.”
Brenda Brandt, the Democrat opposing Hervochon, said that in addition to greater diversity, she wants to make sure the new council learns from previous mistakes in conducting its next search.
“How do we look at what was done in the past?” she posed. “How do we change course? We want the best administrator possible and should look at each candidate uniquely.”
Republican Joe Passiment, running for Jerry Stewart’s District 6 seat and the only unopposed nonincumbent candidate, shared his frustration about council’s inability to resolve the administrator vacancy.
“It doesn’t look very good for County Council,” he said Thursday. “We certainly have to get the confidence of the people back. Council has its work cut out for us.”
Council’s new makeup should also shake up the balance of power. Some of those changes could come in leadership, which incumbent Councilman Mike Covert suggested as a possibility depending on how it handles the fallout from the Gruber contract.
When asked whether a leadership change may be what the new council wants in order to get back that confidence, Sommerville said he wouldn’t be offended if the new council came to that conclusion.
“There’s no way you can be in a leadership position for any length of time and not be criticized by somebody,” he said. “Whoever’s chairman, you do the best you can. If somebody doesn’t like the way you handle something and wants to challenge you for that, go for it. If the majority of people want him, then you go a different direction.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2018 at 11:23 AM.