McKenrick: You’re Hiring Your Friends
BLYTHEWOOD – In a contentious special called meeting on Monday, Feb. 3, Blythewood Town Council members voted 4-1 to authorize the town’s attorney to file for an injunction against Mayor Sloan Griffin to stop him from implementing an executive order (#3) that he had issued on Friday, Jan. 31, 2024. That order called for the reinstatement of certain town hall administrative positions that had been defunded by council through a budget amendment during a special called meeting on Dec. 22. Griffin’s order stipulated that employees who had held the defunded positions would return to work (with back pay) on Tuesday, Feb. 4.
Griffin voted against both the budget amendment on Dec. 22 and the motion for the injunction on Monday night.
Griffin’s order referenced an Attorney General’s opinion which he had requested and which he received on Jan. 14. In the opinion, the S.C. Attorney General concluded that:
“Barring a conflicting statute, section 5-9-30(1) of the S.C. Code clearly gives the mayor in a mayor-council form of municipal government the authority to appoint and remove municipal employees as he or she deems necessary.”
“…section 5-9-30 places the responsibility of adopting a municipal budget with the council. Moreover, the mayor is prohibited from expending funds not appropriated by the council. However, we do not believe the council may reduce the budget in such a way that frustrates the mayor’s ability to perform his statutory duties including hiring employees.”
But the Attorney General’s opinion does not go so far as to determine whether council’s defunding of the two employees the mayor hired for the positions of deputy town administrator and social media specialist infringes upon the duties and responsibilities of the mayor, stating that “…this office is without authority and ability to make factual determinations for purposes of an opinion …As such, you may need to seek judicial clarification as to whether the council’s actions regarding budget amendments exceeded its authority.”
Council members Rich McKenrick, Donald Brock, Andrea Fripp, and Erica Page say the defunding of the two positions in question do not interfere with Griffin’s ability to carry out his duties.
While Griffin was steadfast Monday night in refusing at least 10 requests from council to rescind his executive order #3 to avoid litigation, at one point Griffin said he would negotiate only with Brock, leaving out the other council members.
“It doesn’t work that way,” McKenrick said. “I’m not going to be triangulated against a fellow councilman by a mayor who’s throwing a fit because he doesn’t get what he wants.”
Fripp and McKenrick accused Griffin of hiring his friends for positions he created.
“The social media specialist [you hired] – the husband of a former employee – is someone you knew and were friends with,” McKenrick said. Griffin also assigned the social media specialist an annual salary of $57,000. “That person did not even go through the interview process,” McKenrick said. “You hired a friend. And you hired a woman [for deputy administrator] who didn’t even apply for the position.
Fripp also claimed Griffin was hiring his friends for town hall positions, and deceived her about that friendship, specifically referencing the deputy town administrator.
“You did not tell me the truth when you said you did not know Dr. Cooks (deputy administrator),” Fripp said. “You did know her, and you misled the people. I am sick of this,” Fripp said. “Litigation is the only way we can hold you accountable …you act as though you are an administration of one.”
“It’s your authority to appoint,” McKenrick told Griffin, “but it’s council’s authority to approve the funds to pay your appointee …You arbitrarily created positions outside your budget. You said what positions you wanted and council approved those positions. I don’t see where we’re missing each other. You cannot arbitrarily change positions within the budget that was approved, and then hire a social media specialist who council knew nothing about. Where were you going to pay that person from? You were going to pull from positions you chose not to hire and pay the social media specialist out of funds from elsewhere in the administrative budget. That is not your prerogative.”
Before the final motion was made to file the injunction against Griffin, he made his case for the new hires.
“I think all of you have good intentions to move the town forward,” he said, then listed some of the things that are needing attention in the town. “Streets aren’t as clean as they used to be. There’s a lot of things we got to do to keep up in this town. We’re going to be behind if we don’t have the proper people. We all see the growth and we got to fix it.
“These positions are not put in here to bring in buddies and pals, but to bring in professionals that can fix things,” Griffin said.
He said there was an email floating around that the administrator resigned because of turmoil in the town hall.
“That’s not true,” he said. “We had plenty of conversations.”
Fripp, however, accused Griffin of running the town hall staff meetings as well as day to day operations which is usually the responsibility of the administrator. The final motion to file the injunction against Griffin came after council members asked, then pleaded with him 10 times to rescind his executive order #3 to avoid litigation.
At the end of the almost two-hour meeting, McKenrick asked Griffin if he would rescind executive order #3. There was a long pause.
“Mr. Mayor, will you?” Brock asked.
“I’m trying to look up something. I need justification on the positions,” Griffin said as he shuffled through papers. “Those position justifications were sent out in December,” Griffin said.
“Long after the budget was passed,” McKenrick shot back.
“But you received them,” Griffin countered.
“Mr. Mayor, will you rescind executive order #3?” McKenrick said.
After another long pause, Griffin answered.
“I’m going to fight for positions Blythewood needs to thrive and grow,” he said.
McKenrick then made the following motion.
“I authorize the town attorney to initiate a civil action of declarative and injunctive relief on behalf of the Town of Blythewood and for council members in their official capacity against Mayor Sloan Griffin in his official and his individual capacity regarding executive order #3, issued Jan. 31, 2025. The town attorney is authorized to engage outside council to represent the Town of Blythewood and for council members in their official capacity in prosecuting this civil action.”
“This is absolutely ridiculous and should not be coming to vote on,” Councilwoman Erica Page said, visibly angry, “…and Yes!” Council members Brock, Fripp, and McKenrick followed suit, each one voting “Yes.”
Griffin voted “No.”
Town Attorney Pete Balthazar was to meet with the Town’s outside attorney on Tuesday to discuss filing the injunction.
According to Councilman Donald Brock, the two former employees hired by Griffin did not come to work at Town Hall on Tuesday as stipulated in Griffin’s executive order #3.
