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Dozens attended an April 28 Calhoun Falls Town Council meeting as officials looked at how to address 26 finings in a blistering audit. However, many of these same residents didn't find out

about an emergency town meeting the week before until it was already underway

Jay Bender, a longtime S.C. Press Association attorney and FOIA expert, said Calhoun Falls Town Council's emergency meeting April 23 broke state law.

Dozens attended an April 28 Calhoun Falls Town Council meeting as officials looked at how to address 26 finings in a blistering audit. However, many of these same residents didn't find out

about an emergency town meeting the week before until it was already underway

CALHOUN FALLS — In the wake of a scathing state-funded audit that took town leaders to task for everything from shoddy record keeping and a lack of transparency to wasteful spending and

owing six-figure sums in past-due utility bills, Calhoun Falls Town Council had a closed-door emergency meeting to hash out how to respond.

That April 23 meeting broke state law meant to keep the public informed about what local governments are up to, according to longtime press attorney Jay Bender.

Emergency meetings allow municipalities to bypass the normal requirement to notify the public and post an agenda at least 24 hours ahead of time. But they are reserved for actual

emergencies.

Jay Bender, a longtime S.C. Press Association attorney and FOIA expert, said Calhoun Falls Town Council's emergency meeting April 23 broke state law.

What constitutes an emergency isn't defined in South Carolina law. Judges have turned to the dictionary, and the state's Attorney General's Office has issued opinions on the matter since the

year the S.C. General Assembly passed the Freedom of Information Act.

"The word ‘emergency’ has been defined as unforeseen circumstances calling for immediate action," Katherine W. Hill, then assistant attorney general, wrote in 1978. "It follows that an

emergency meeting would be one which arose from sudden or unexpected conditions which called for immediate action and for which twenty-four hours' notice could not be given."

Subsequent AG opinions have offered similar guidance, and judges have been consistent on an "emergency" being in line with Hill's explanation. 

"An emergency is something that can't wait 24 hours," Bender said.

The town had already had the audit in hand for a week or more when they met — a member of council even posted images of the audit days before the meeting — and nothing on the meeting's

agenda required action that night, other than entering executive session so council members could go behind closed doors and discuss the audit with the town's attorney.

When asked why the matter warranted an emergency meeting and what efforts were made to notify the town's 1,700 residents about the April 23 meeting, Calhoun Falls Mayor Terrico Holland

abruptly ended a conversation with The Post and Courier and walked away.

The Post and Courier emailed town attorney Juan Shingles about why an emergency meeting was needed and Wendi Lewis, the town's clerk and treasurer, about how residents were notified about

the meeting. Neither responded.

The town doesn't have a website and did not post a notice about the meeting on its social media pages. Many residents only learned about the town meeting when council member LaSean Tutt

posted an image on Facebook that included the words "Emergency Meeting" with a statement that simply read "Now." The post's timestamp — 5:30 p.m. April 23 — coincided with the start of the

meeting.

Under the comments, one person called the mayor "sneaky." Another user opined that "emergencies are for natural disasters not financial compliance issues."

After the regular meeting April 28, when the council approved the resolution it drafted behind closed doors on April 23, resident Kristy Wynn described that closed-door session as a "secret

meeting" and said she, like others, found out on Facebook.

Richard Whiting, longtime FOIA chair for the S.C. Press Association, said this is par for the course when dealing with the town about 60 miles south of Greenville.

"Calhoun Falls — Mayor Terrico Holland in particular — has had a long-standing problem with government transparency, to include the mayor refusing to release town budgets and his even going

so far as to have a fellow member of council forcibly removed by town police because the councilman sought answers on how town money — taxpayer money — was being spent," he said.

Whiting recently retired as executive editor of the Index-Journal, where he worked for 25 years. The Greenwood newspaper covers Calhoun Falls.

"It seems the mayor, at the very least, thumbed his nose yet again at the public by calling an emergency meeting of council with little notice to the public and media outlets," Whiting said.

He noted that the council met to discuss the damning forensic audit report posted on the Inspector General's webpage last week and that the meeting gave them a chance to form a consensus

without the public's knowledge.

"It is a shame but no real surprise that such a lack of government transparency and openness with the taxpayers and voters of Calhoun Falls exists," Whiting said. "Governments, and that

certainly includes Calhoun Falls, should be conducting the public’s business openly. They owe that much to the people whose money they spend and whose votes they accept."

"It's not always a natural disaster," Tutt said, pointing to wording in state law about emergency ordinances — not emergency meetings — that reads "to meet public emergencies affecting life,

health, safety or the property of the people."

She said the audit affects property of the people. And Tutt stressed that had the council waited until its regular meeting, then the dozens who filled nearly every available seat in Town

Hall would have had to wait even longer for action.

This earlier meeting let council members show their sense of urgency on addressing the audit and its 26 findings, Tutt said.

He saw two obvious problems — calling an emergency meeting when there was no emergency and not providing at least 24 hours' notice of this nonemergency meeting — and had concerns the council

might have violated state open government laws in another way.

Public bodies aren't allowed to vote in executive session except to end executive session or adjourn the meeting. In drafting the resolution, if the body came to a consensus, it could be

interpreted as a vote.

He also said minutes were required for the meeting, which should have included at least a vote to enter executive session. Lewis said no minutes were kept.

Bender again noted that Town Council waited until the week after receiving the audit to call an emergency meeting. If it was urgent to meet about the audit ahead of the regular meeting,

Bender said there was plenty of time to call a meeting that would have allowed 24 hours' notice.

Connect with Spartanburg Editor Matthew Hensley on X, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon, @MattHensleyNews.