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More questions arise from votes and appointment in September County Council meeting

web posted September 7, 2006

COUNTY – The Edgefield County Council held a series of votes that have raised questions concerning budgetary items requested at the regular September meeting by several department heads and the ordinance providing for the Fiscal Year budget of 2006-2007. On the agenda was a Public Hearing that was scheduled to be held before a second reading on the amended budget ordinance. The Public Hearing was never held and a vote was held in its place.

County Council Chairman Monroe Kneece read the part of the agenda calling for the Public Hearing but after reading the announcement he asked for a motion and a vote to pass the ordinance. After taking the vote the Chairman then asked for a vote on the amended budget ordinance, which also passed.

Moving onward with the agenda Chairman Kneece got to the agenda item which was to hold a second reading of the ordinance amending the 2006-2007 budget, which was now a third reading. After again reading the ordinance Chairman Kneece asked for a motion on the matter and with a second a vote was taken that passed. Once again, the Chairman asked for a motion and a vote to accept the ordinance as amended which also passed.

After the vote, Chairman Kneece recognized several department heads that were asking to have additional funds allocated or items that were removed from their original budget placed back into their budget. The department heads were to speak prior to the vote on the ordinance as the agenda stated, “Department Heads will address council before the vote.”

All the requests from the department heads were approved by the council. However, with the ordinance receiving a second and third reading within minutes of each other the ordinance the ordinance, technically, had already been finalized and therefore cannot be amended without the issuance of another ordinance.

EdgefieldDaily.com contacted interim Administrator Barbara Stark about the matter. Mrs. Stark stated she, and the council, would just consider the two readings and votes as one and a third and final reading would be held in the next regular meeting in October. Other government officials and legal entities were also contacted and they agreed that the ordinance has received three readings and was finalized.

“I don’t know how (the county council) can get out of that goof,” a legal entity contacted who did not wished to be named said. The only way most said the “goof” could be rectified would be a new ordinance amending the previous two ordinances and holding three more readings.

At issue also was Clerk to Council, Barbara Stark, being tapped as the interim administrator at the September meeting. When the same officials and lawyers were asked if this move constituted duel office almost all agreed it did. A call to the South Carolina Ethics Commission was not returned before this writing.

Clerk to Council and interim Administrator Barbara Stark said she was going to continue to hold both offices. Under South Carolina law it is illegal for a person to hold two offices or positions at the same time. It was not stated if Mrs. Stark would be paid additional funds for holding both positions in the absence of the former administrator Wayne Adams.

Councilman Joel Hudson said after the meeting that if there was a conflict Mrs. Stark would have to step down from her position as Clerk to Council to accept the interim administrators position.

 

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Edgefield County
Chamber of Commerce

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