County Administrator responds to charges of illegality

Note: Following is a statement from Richland County Administrator Gerald Seals.

A recent front page story about Richland County’s awarding of a construction contract to extend Shop Road alleges the County Administrator engaged in two infractions that if true means the County Administrator intentionally acted illegally:  No. 1, the County Administrator is accused of withholding critical information from County Council to attain an outcome or meet his personal but unspecified agenda , thereby  committing dereliction of duty and No. 2, the County Administrator is accused of inducing a subordinate to break the law by suppressing information critical to the decision making of County Council.

The subject contract is a matter that is before the Court. As a matter of form, members of County staff, including the County Administrator, do not respond to matters that are under litigation. In this case, the County prevailed in court, but the matter has since been appealed.  Comment on all other matters related to the contract to extend Shop Road are withheld as inappropriate since the Court has yet to hear and render its judgment on the matter. That said, the purpose of this “op-ed” is to specifically address the accusations of illegality by the County Administrator.

• The article hints at a dereliction of duty on the part of the County Administrator. The article juxtaposes a series of statements which intimate that the County Administrator withheld information material to County Council’s decision-making and manipulated the bidding process. The article makes this false claim based on an email exchange between employees in which an employee made a statement based on a misunderstanding of a procedure referred to as “stacking.” The writer possessed other documents that showed the aforementioned employee was incorrect. Interestingly, the employee statement was not a ruling since the employee does not have the authority to issue rulings in this area. In the subject instance, only the procurement office and the County Administrator, subject to a legal determination by the County attorney, may issue a ruling.
• The article contends the act of “stacking” by bidders is a forbidden practice by the County. The article is incorrect. Stacking simply means that when submitting a bid, a prime or lead contractor can hire one firm to meet qualifications for both a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and a Small and Local Business Enterprise (SLBE). For internal tracking procedures, however, payments to the firm must be separated by category. A simple review of the County’s procurement ordinance will reveal that “stacking” is not precluded.

To charge intentional breaking of the law, even by innuendo, is a serious charge that should not be leveled until affirmed by fact checking by reviewing the appropriate document, the procurement ordinance that addresses the subject matter in question. In this instance, with a narrative in mind, the writer asserted, then apparently ignored additional information in the documents that did not fit the narrative the writer had in mind, and then looked for someone who could be quoted, no matter how expert. Information confirming the breaking of law should be turned over immediately to law enforcement.

Journalist and novelist Rudyard Kipling once wrote: “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”