Beaufort Co. drops plan to reinstate hospital trustee after Beaufort Memorial lawsuit
Beaufort County Council agreed Monday night to stop trying to reappoint a controversial member to the hospital board after getting sued by the area’s largest medical facility.
Monday’s decision came four days after Beaufort Memorial Hospital sued the county for “unlawfully” trying to reinstate Kathleen Cooper to the hospital’s board of trustees. Cooper previously resigned from the board after she urged the council not to pass a mandatory face mask ordinance, according to the lawsuit.
The group of 11 council members discussed the lawsuit in executive session Monday before voting to take the issue off the agenda. Vice Chair Paul Sommerville, the council’s liaison for the hospital board and chair of the committee that initially voted for Cooper’s reinstatement, made the motion.
Sommerville said the council could not appoint Cooper to her third term because she was not nominated by the hospital. That’s the very point the hospital argued in its lawsuit against the county.
He added that the council needs to “review” all of its boards’ and agencies’ protocols, along with the ordinances that create those boards.
Asked after the meeting to elaborate, Sommerville said the county has “some really screwy ordinances.” For example, he cited boards where some members have different term limits than others. He said the council wants to “clean up” the legislation that enables those boards.
In addition to the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees, the county has 28 other council-appointed boards and commissions.
Asked if the council was reviewing the ordinances to allow the county nominating capabilities for the hospital board — the main focus of the lawsuit — Sommerville said the council was going to “take a look at it.”
Asked whether the council would then consider reinstating Cooper to the board, Sommerville said he “wouldn’t rule out anything.”
“The [hospital] board, under the current rules, has to nominate her, and they’ve made it clear they’re not going to,” he said.
After the meeting, Council member Logan Cunningham told a reporter that David House, who chairs the hospital board, “overextended his authority” when he asked Cooper to resign.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital, in the lawsuit filed on Thursday, accused Beaufort County Council of usurping its authority and breaking S.C. law by unilaterally attempting to reinstate Cooper to the hospital’s board despite the hospital’s assertion that she resigned and was not nominated.
Cooper was asked to resign after she emailed County Council members before they voted on a county-wide mask ordinance,claiming that mask-wearing was “ineffective” at stopping the coronavirus based on “personal research,” according to the lawsuit.
The suit illustrated a back-and-forth power struggle between the county government and the area’s publicly owned nonprofit hospital.
At the center of the lawsuit was a disagreement over whether Beaufort County Council had the power to appoint a hospital board member who was not nominated by the hospital. The county’s ordinance that creates the hospital board states that vacancies on the board “shall be filled by the county council from nominees submitted by the board.”
The lawsuit asks the court to prohibit the county from attempting to reinstate hospital board members who resign or whose terms have expired. It also wants to prohibit the county from trying to appoint a board member without a formal nomination from the hospital.
Sommerville told a reporter Monday night he “would assume” that the council’s decision to remove Cooper’s reinstatement from consideration would satisfy the hospital’s attorneys.
