Beaufort County Council is swamped in secrecy, and the sheriff has a problem with that | Opinion

Quite the party has been raging for years at Animal House, but an adult just stepped in and unplugged the music and turned on the lights. Animal House is your Beaufort County government headquarters.

It’s where regulations, perhaps even laws, are used and abused so commonly and severely that even the law firm paid $350,000 by Animal House to investigate Animal House had to politely call what it found a “culture of laxity.”

And the Beaufort County Council has done everything it can to keep the public from seeing what’s been going on in the dark. They won’t even come to the phone to talk about it.

We know that the state attorney general has been called to investigate, yet a County Council majority wants to keep little things like how county employees spend tax dollars with county credit cards their own little secret.

But we recently saw some hope in what has been months-long saga of hiding by the county council. Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner busted them. At least verbally. He too has been stonewalled by County Council.

Yes, the head of law enforcement in Beaufort County has been denied access to a public document detailing the use or misuse of millions of dollars — public dollars — by Beaufort County employees.

So when County Council belatedly trotted out a six-page summary of what a law firm spent months digging up, and how the county intends to address it, the sheriff unplugged the music and turned on the lights.

He publicly demanded a copy of the full 30-plus page unabridged and unredacted report. That’s the one County Council has been hiding from the public — and the sheriff.

“There’s nothing transparent about this,” Tanner told reporter Sebastian Lee, no doubt referring to how often Animal House has claimed its secret party is the very definition of transparency.

“You get a report, an audit the county paid for and you get the results and those that paid for it don’t get to see it,” Tanner said. “You (council) put out a summary, and we’re supposed to just take that summary, word for word, and go, ‘Okay, nothing to see here. Thank you for doing all the things you’re doing, and we’ll move forward.

“I’m eager to get a copy of the report. It’s probably going to shock the majority of citizens in this county on how much money was squandered by those who just took advantage.”

Good for Tanner.

And good for the few County Council members who are asking for public discussion and public disclosure of these matters of great public interest.

The sheriff has the standing to call it like it is.

“They just don’t want you (the public) to know the details, and obviously they don’t want law enforcement to have or know the details surrounding the issues of Beaufort County for the past couple of years,” Tanner said. “The county has never provided us anything. They circled the wagons early on and it’s been like that for a year.”

Why would they circle the wagons? Why would they hide? Has no one ever shared with Animal House the old exam cheat sheet: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging”?

As Tanner pointed out, it’s not the role of the law firm hired by the county to decide what is or is not criminal in their behavior.

Who does the County Council majority think they are fooling?

They use our money to pay a law firm to be the investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and defense — all in one — and then expect the sheriff and the public they’ve kept in the dark to say, “Oh, of course. Culture of laxity. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Party on.”

But Tanner did not do that. He spoke up. He unplugged the music and turned on the lights at Animal House. And what do we see when this glimmer of light pierces the darkness?

We see that a lot more people who have a direct voice in this sham need to have the courage to take a stand for what is right.