Beaufort Co. Council members attempt to remove chairman, but vote fails. What happens now?
Beaufort County Council members attempted to use parliamentary procedure Monday night to force Stu Rodman from the chairmanship, but the effort failed on a 5-5 vote.
The plan to remove Rodman from the leadership role, council members said, was the culmination of months of frustration — from fellow members, county employees and the public — over Rodman’s repeated circumvention of rules, unilateral decisions and backdoor conversations with employees.
Among the examples: Rodman as chairman sank the controversial and long-delayed original Jenkins Island road project. He privately relayed to a county department head his recommendations for the project, circumventing the county administrator, then refused to allow the issue on a County Council agenda for a final vote until after the bid for the road work had expired.
“People want explanations. Why do you continue to behave this way?” Council member Mike Covert said of Rodman. “What makes people continually lie, as he’s done? What makes people subvert the process, as he’s done?”
At the end of Monday night’s meeting, council went into closed session “for a discussion of individuals involved in county council.” Although no action resulted and council members refused to divulge what was discussed, one member said he expects each council member to sit down with the chairman and talk about problems and the way he runs meetings.
Several council members planned Monday’s vote to remove Rodman as chairman after a Feb. 2 story in The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette detailed the chairman privately discussing plans for the Jenkins Island road safety project with a county employee and stressing the conversation be kept between “the two of us.”
Council member Covert asked for a vote to amend the council’s rules governing removal of the chairman and vice chairman. Rodman, who appeared to be aware of the plan and said he had “given this some thought,” ruled the motion out of order.
Council member Brian Flewelling called for a vote to overrule the chairman’s decision. That vote failed on a tie. Council member Mark Lawson was absent and did not return multiple calls to explain his absence or to say how he would have voted. Rodman and vice chair Paul Sommerville voted against allowing a change to the rules governing their removal.
In several instances over recent months, Rodman, who has served on the council since 2007 and was elected chair in January 2019, has prioritized expediency while shutting out the public he was elected to serve.
The chairman has tried to change how the council allows citizens to speak at public meetings, restricting the time allotted and calling on officers to remove one of his critics. That led to the introduction of a draft ordinance that would give him the power to order police officers to remove, and possibly arrest, “disruptive” speakers.
So what happened?
At Monday night’s council meeting, Rodman, as is typical, asked council members for any amendments to the agenda.
Council member Joe Passiment asked for “for a discussion of individuals involved in county council” to be added to the meeting’s closed executive session agenda. All council members agreed.
Flewelling then asked the chairman for a point of personal privilege.
“I received a letter today from you saying you have appointed Paul Sommerville to be parliamentarian of County Council... I was parliamentarian and have never received any notification that I have been relieved of that duty. Can you clarify?” Flewelling asked Rodman.
“Uh, no,” Rodman responded, then added that he felt it was appropriate to remove Flewelling. “Let’s move along.”
After calling on County Attorney Kurt Taylor, the council voted 6-3 to reinstate Flewelling as parliamentarian, with Rodman abstaining.
Covert then asked for a motion to reword the council’s rules and procedures to allow for the removal of the chairman and vice chairman by a majority vote of council members present.
Rodman, after asking Covert to repeat his motion several times, said he had “given this some thought” and ruled Covert’s motion out of order, citing Robert’s Rules of Order.
“In Robert’s Rules of Order, there is a long sequence that is required to remove the chair,” Rodman said. “In this particular case, I don’t believe what you are proposing is consistent with Robert’s Rules of Order. I can walk through that in a lot of detail if you all would like.”
Rodman said to remove him as chairman, it would require a censure, investigating committee and trial and “actually it very much parallels what we just saw in Washington.”
Flewelling, arguing that Robert’s Rules of Order allows for the amendment to council rules, asked for a vote to overrule the chairman’s decision.
Council members Covert, York Glover, Flewelling, Chris Hervochon and Gerald Dawson voted to overrule Rodman.
In addition to Rodman and Sommerville, Passiment, Larry McElynn and Alice Howard voted to uphold Rodman’s ruling.
After the vote, Covert attempted a role call vote to remove the chairman, which Rodman also ruled out of order.
“You are witnessing how a Council Chairman subverts the rule of law, trying to create a fifedom and continue to undermine the County Administrator,” Covert posted on Facebook during the meeting. “If you are a citizen of Beaufort County.... you should be [ticked]. You just got ‘taken’ tonight.”
Passiment said Tuesday he has his own issues with the chairman but he wanted to make sure council followed proper procedures before making any decisions. He said he expects each council member to discuss problems with the chairman.
“We definitely have a problem,” he said. “We’ve lost credibility with the public. We have issues with the chair, and we need to solve those. But, we have to do it in a manner that is consistent with our rules and regulations and is consistent with facts. We’re gathering the facts, and we’re going to present those facts to the chair and we’re going to rectify those and if we don’t, it’s time to get another chair.”
Council member Hervochon said no council member came out of Monday’s meeting “looking good.”
Asked for comment after the meeting, County Administrator Ashley Jacobs declined to discuss the vote, but clarified, after some insinuated she might quit, that she had no plans to leave her job.
“We can do great things here,” Jacobs said.
‘Against the law’
On Feb. 2, a story in The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette showed that Rodman circumvented the county administrator, and the law, by communicating privately to a department leader his recommendations for the controversial Jenkins Island road project and stressed, twice, the conversation be kept private.
The emails show that Rodman intentionally tried to keep the conversation hidden, skirted a public process, insulted some of the residents affected most by the road project and indicated that other one-on-one exchanges with the county staff director could exist.
S.C. law is clear that is illegal for a council member to give orders or instructions to county employees. It is the administrator’s job to direct staff, the law says.
This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 4:37 PM.
