A S.C. House of Representatives subcommittee met on Tuesday afternoon, November 24, to discuss the impeachment resolution introduced by Rep. Greg Delleney, R–Chester, which cited the governor’s five–day absence when he took off in Argentina on a personal errand without leaving word how to reach him. Dereliction of duty, it was called.

Then there’s the matter of the S.C. Ethics Commission’s 37–count complaint, a litany of improper uses of public property such as the state plane. Also, profligacy is accused when the governor chose to ride in a commercial passenger jet closer to the cockpit and away from the coach-class seats. Another complaint is the governor’s use of campaign funds for personal purposes.

McMaster

Traditionally, such matters should be prosecuted by the state’s attorney general, but in this case with Attorney General Henry McMaster, the attorney general is running for governor, while the lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer, is also a candidate for governor. Bauer’s move into the governor’s office could enhance his standing with the voters, well ahead of where he is now in his lieutenant governor’s office.

McMaster could appoint a solicitor to do the job and remove himself from the action, rising above the suggestions of conflict coming from the Democrats and his rival Republicans.

Harpootlian

Former chairman of the state’s Democrats, former Democrat candidate for attorney general, and former 5th Circuit solicitor and former member of Richland County Council, attorney Dick Harpootlian

was quoted in The State,

“It’s beginning to appear that politics is trumping prosecution.”

Harpootlian also commented that the charges “show a complete disregard for the ethics law of the state.”

S&W

Harpootlian is the lawyer for plaintiff Stevens & Wilkinson, architects and engineers, against the City of Columbia. S&W was the architectural/engineering team hired by the city for the unbuilt convention center headquarters hotel, a 300–room Hilton. A Hilton did, in fact, get built, but by Greenville–based Windsor/ Aughtry, not the City of Columbia.

In 2003, both S&W and Charles Austin, Columbia’s city manager, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), agreeing in “Exhibit A” to an architectural/ engineering fee of $2,238,000. In late 2003, S&W was reportedly paid $697,812, when the payment was identified as an “advance.”

In July 2005, S&W sued the city for its uncollected fees, later offering to settle for $1.6 million. The city declined to settle. Other players on the design/ development team also sued but did not prevail. Apparently S&W had additional agreements with the city, something beyond the MOU, which the other members of the city’s team did not have.

More recently, it appears the S&W suit is successful, but ethics entanglements remain unchecked by the S.C. Ethics Commission. S&W, as a firm, contributed to Mayor Bob Coble’s election campaign fund and to other council members’ funds.

Since Harpootlian says he is concerned the ethics charges against the governor “show a complete disregard for the ethics law of the state,” maybe a mere adequate regard by Harpootlian’s client and others for the ethics law of the state could be in order, enough regard to at least call for the return of the alleged illegal campaign contributions paid by his client S&W.

All the contributions on record from S&W executive Bobby Lyles and his chief design architect Ashby Gressette to Mayor Bob Coble and other members of city council can be ignored because the contributions from individuals are part of our national expression of free speech. The company checks, the money from S&W, given to the mayor and members of council were illegal, so it appears, because S&W won a contract without price competition. The $2,238,000 was well above the eventual actual architectural/engineering fees paid in the Hilton project that got built on the city’s site at the corner of Senate and Park.

The Windsor/Aughtry team paid no more than $400,000 to get the Hilton built and occupied, well below the contracted $2,238,000 between the city and S&W.

Nexsen Pruet

The mayor’s law firm, Nexsen Pruet, took on the legal work for the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. As the law firm’s Web site puts it, “Nexsen Pruet attorneys entered at the conceptual stage to aid a citizens group obtain funding for the project. We provided comprehensive project services including creating an intergovernmental organization, arranging for extremely favorable tax–free financing, completing a very complex land acquisition, designing innovative construction procedures, and assisting with a myriad of contractual matters.”

“...a myriad of contractual matters” doesn’t sound like a pro bono job. The legal fees paid Nexsen Pruet (and this project’s architectural/ engineering fees paid S&W, for that matter) need to surface to see what happens when a law firm contributes to its partner’s mayoral campaign and wins the legal work on “this 142,500 square foot, $40,000,000 facility,” as Nexsen Pruet’s Web site calls it.

The Columbia Star

Possibly, this “shows a complete disregard for the ethics laws of the state.”