Mayesville residents may be its quarrelsome town council's only hope, experts say

When Shawna Moye moved to Mayesville about four years ago from Charleston, she was looking forward to living a quieter life.

One with less road congestion and urban sprawl. And most importantly, one with nicer local folks.

So she picked Mayesville. A town with 548 residents, according to the most recent Census data, a convenience store, beautiful historic homes and council chambers with walls covered in oil paintings detailing Black history - veterans, trumpeters, athletes, politicians and more.

When she attended a town of Mayesville council meeting in those same chambers when former longtime mayor Jereleen Miller was still in the seat, Moye was disappointed to sense hostility among her town's leaders.

It's now been a year since the former longtime mayor was ousted from her seat by newcomer Chris Brown.

Brown won the November 2023 election by 27 votes, and his first year in the seat has been challenging but not in the ways he expected.

Earlier reporting from The Sumter Item and The Post and Courier details Brown lacking the keys to the town, both literally and figuratively. With limited access to town records and a molding town hall adjacent to the Mary McLeod Bethune Learning Center, the only location safe to have public meetings, Brown discovered that the former mayor and her husband still held a lot of power. A community development corporation was created by the former mayor and her husband as a nonprofit to help raise money for affordable housing and economic development. But that is largely what has made Brown's term so challenging. Ed Miller, as leader of the nonprofit, still controlled the keys and deed to the learning center, which has been used for council meetings and town offices.

So, not but a few months into his term did Brown already look at his wits' end, yet, it's now been a full year, and his patience continues to dwindle.

"But I'll stay on until we get it cleaned up," Brown told The Sumter Item. "If not me, then who?"

At an Oct. 8, 2024, town council meeting, there were two different agendas posted for the same meeting, thus spurring the first argument of the night, four law enforcement officers present to keep peace, one suspended town council member, one town attorney with a public reprimand and about 15 Mayesville locals.

And the only people Brown says he sees eye to eye with are the locals - not the council, not the clerk, not the town attorney. The one town official he did have the same goals as is suspended.

Earlier reporting notes that Gov. Henry McMaster suspended councilman Reggie Wilson after he was indicted in 2022 on charges of threatening the former mayor's life outside town hall by making gun noises with his mouth. Wilson acknowledged yelling obscenities that day but said he never threatened anyone's life.

Sumter County court documents go back to mid-April 2024 with filings that list Brown "in his official capacity as Mayor of the Town of Mayesville" as the plaintiff and Cynthia Massingill, Roteshia Benjamin, Jasaad Ricks and Taurice Collins "in their official capacities as Town Councilmembers [and clerk]" as the defendants. These documents, along with hours of public meeting footage, Wilson's suspension and the word of Mayesville residents, detail the extent of council's quarrels.

For months, Mayesville locals have watched their mayor and council turn against one another, not only in court documents, but also in person. Your average town of Mayesville council meeting is at the very least over an hour long, dense with insults and yelling and nearly void of actions taken on agenda items.

"When I leave [council meetings], I feel like we didn't get anything accomplished. All we did was argue and fight," Moye said.

"I think the mayor takes his job seriously," local attorney Danny Crowe, who represented Brown, told The Sumter Item. "[The rest of council] need to take their role as sworn officials of the town seriously and follow the law."

Earlier reporting details Brown's hope early in the lawsuit that taking it to court would create a clear dynamic in council chambers that will enable town officials to operate more efficiently for the sake of Mayesville residents.

Months later, there's little to no progress.

In fact, without Brown's approval, council added another name to the mix, Eleazer Carter.

Carter of The Carter Law Firm, according to the South Carolina Judicial Branch, currently has a "Good Standing" status with the South Carolina Bar, but documents from the Commission on Lawyer Conduct detail a 2012 public reprimand.

This came after his client lost a civil case because Carter didn't show up for meetings or court dates, according to earlier reporting.

"Based on the facts of this case as well as Carter's extensive disciplinary history, we hold the misconduct warrants a public reprimand," the commission documents state just after detailing his disciplinary history dating back to 2002, on which there were no documents immediately available.

Brown told The Sumter Item earlier this year that he thinks people can change and hoped Carter's disciplinary history wouldn't play a role in how he represents Mayesville officials; however, Brown was not in favor of Carter's hiring and collaborated with locals to interview other candidates, ultimately telling council and the public that he wanted to hire John Dubose of Smith, Robinson, Holler, Dubose & Morgan LLC.

But council ignored Brown's invitation to interview other candidates with him and still hired Carter, thus showing the new mayor once again that council does not welcome his leadership.

Carter could not be reached for comment after multiple attempts. Neither could council members Benjamin, Ricks or clerk/treasurer Collins.

Councilwoman Massingill told The Sumter Item that after a year with Brown as mayor, there's still no harmony, adding that everyone should be working together. When asked what she thinks the mayor or council should be doing that they're not doing already, she said she couldn't give input on that.

So, in short, Brown ran for mayor because he saw a place - one with a town hall covered in mold, multiple vacant Main Street buildings and little to no active businesses - in need, he said, but quickly learned that other town leaders didn't welcome his leadership, so he took it to court, and even that didn't do much.

So, what now?

Who can hold Mayesville leaders accountable and push forward for positive change for its residents?

Its residents, according to Field Services Manager Charlie Barrineau of the Municipal Association of South Carolina.

"You hear the term 'mayor-council form of government,' and many refer to that as the 'strong mayor form,' and so they think the mayor can do whatever they want to, but the reality of it is that's not the case," he told The Sumter Item. "I think that things will work themselves out, but sometimes that takes an election."

According to Barrineau, there are two ways Mayesville can get on its feet: either through the mayor and council working together or through the people choosing new leaders and regularly engaging in the community.

There is no soon-coming election, though.

The S.C. Municipal Association handbook states that a mayor or council member's term is either two or four years. Unless otherwise provided by ordinance, terms are four years and are staggered so half the council is elected every two years, but two-year terms are not staggered, according to the handbook.

Mayesville's code of ordinances is another point of contention, according to Brown. There seems to not be a consensus as to what ordinances referencing mayoral power, council power and clerk power are saying. In short, no one is in agreement on how to carry out these ordinances.

The South Carolina Election Commission shows that along with Brown, council members Massingill and Ricks started new terms after being elected during the November 2023 election. Benjamin was elected during the 2021 election. Suspended councilman Reggie Wilson was elected in 2021. As for town clerk and treasurer Collins, her position is not determined by the people directly, but instead council fills her position. Despite Brown's efforts to remove Collins as treasurer, he's found he needs the support of council to do so.

"The [S.C. Municipal Association] provides best practices, but at the end of the day, it's up to those five seats," Barrineau said. "The court is very slow, and it is not something that can get the situation resolved, even if there's a judgment. It kind of falls back on the people that live there when it comes election time, and public comment and things like that."

He added that it's community events that can help foster unity among leaders. As of now, there are not many fun events like that in Mayesville. The most recent was Mayesville Presbyterian's Rejoicings series that returned for a second season with a concert on Oct. 13, 2024.

There are no upcoming Mayesville festivals or community events at this time.

Mayesville town meetings are on the second Tuesday of every month in the Mary McLeod Bethune Learning Center on North Main Street.

Two Mayesville Town Council seat terms are up a year from now.

"I do know that there is a desire to move in a positive direction, but I'm not sure if we're getting there," Moye said after four years living in Mayesville, hoping the friendliness she moved there for would soon start to show in town leaders. "I hope that doesn't discourage the rest of the town of Mayesville into wanting to give up and not supporting the mayor and not coming to meetings. Sometimes, we get fed up with that kind of animosity and that kind of hostility. I just don't want to see that turn people into being apathetic."