Allegations include using Tax dollars, city employees to push referendum
By Warren Cobb | Managing Editor
Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin has always been zealous about protecting the beach. But in his fervor to put future renourishment plans in place quickly, he may have run afoul into the State Ethics Commission.
The Folly Current recently obtained the more than 40 pages of complaints and findings that the Commission has relating to the case. Commission investigators found “probable cause” that Goodwin illegally sought to influence the outcome of a Dec. 2, 2014 referendum, detailing four separate counts dealing with two separate communications that were sent to all City postal box holders and to all City property taxpayers. In a notice to Goodwin dated June 12, Herbert Hayden, executive director of the State Ethics Commission, informed him the Commission will convene a formal hearing into the matter in November in Columbia, and invited Goodwin to respond.
Background
Last fall, the Mayor and City of Folly Beach put forth an idea to raise the city’s Accommodations Tax (on real property) by one percent to help pay for ongoing beach erosion monitoring and mitigation. By October, the City had a ballot referendum on the calendar for Dec. 2, 2014, which would ask voters if they would support the action. The referendum passed with a margin of approximately 261 votes in support of the referendum and 37 votes against.
Allegations of Impropriety
A cloud was fully settled on the Mayor’s referendum victory long before any votes had been cast or counted. The scandal began in late Sept. 2014 when the City of Folly Beach released two pieces of mail to residents urging them to vote Yes on the referendum. In the first, titled “State of the City” and dated Oct. 2014, there’s a paragraph on the first page that reads, “Come out to the polls Dec. 2 and VOTE YES for the City referendum to support Beach Preservation through a 1% increase to local accommodations tax. The full amount collected with the increased tax will be put into the Beach Preservation Fund for renourishment, erosion control, and dune maintenance.” The mailer lists the return address as City of Folly Beach, 21 Center St., and is now labeled “Exhibit A” in the official ethics complaint.
The second violation noted in the complaint is a letter from the City dated Sept. 29, 2014. The letter discusses property tax obligations to homeowners. Halfway down the page is a note that reads, “… the beachfront is the most valuable resource in our community and preserving this area is vital to our future. We hope you will support the referendum and in doing so, support the beach that makes Folly what it is.” The top of the letter contains the seal of the City of Folly Beach, and is now marked “Exhibit B” in the official ethics complaint.
Failure to Stop for Red Flags
The original complaint, officially recorded on Jan. 5, 2015, was sworn out by former Mayor of Folly Beach Carl Beckmann Jr. against Current Mayor Tim Goodwin. Beckmann details a series of oddities prior to the referendum on Dec. 2, and points out that the “referendum process was tainted” early on, and that Mayor Goodwin and the City should have halted the process and delayed the vote until the Ethics Commission could sort the matter out.
Beckmann alleges the Mayor and his staff proceeded with the referendum knowing the earlier mailers had violated state ethics laws. In an email dated Oct. 23, 2014, Spencer Wetmore, Assistant to Mayor Tim Goodwin, wrote to an Isle of Palms City official urging her to “make sure you’re not using any City resources to advocate for a certain result on the referendum. Our attorney, Ben Peeples, recently had to edit some talking points out of our Town Hall meeting.”
A month later on Nov. 24, Sidney Riggs, an attorney and resident of Folly Beach, hand-delivered a letter to Mayor Goodwin stating he believed the integrity of the voting process had been compromised, the Dec. 2 referendum had been compromised, and that the referendum “must be postponed for sufficient time to allow the effects of this taint to dissipate.” Riggs closes his letter with the line, “My immediate support of the referendum must yield to my lifetime support of the rule of law.”
Two days later on Nov. 26, Mayor Goodwin emailed a letter to the S.C. State Ethics Commission stating he was writing to “self-report … what I now understand is a likely violation of S.C. Code 8-13-1346.” Goodwin claims to have not been aware that state ethics codes regarding use of government personnel, money, or facilities for campaign purposes applied to ballot measures.
Goodwin goes on to describe “corrective measures” he and City Attorney Ben Peeples came up with on their own, namely that they would “seek private donations to cover the costs” of the City promotion of a Yes vote on the referendum. He and Peeples estimated the text of the questionable content made up about five percent of the letter to homeowners and two percent of the State of the City flyer, however, “we decided the best practice was to cover 100% of the cost of the printing and mailing the letters, which would also cover the minimal use of City time and property,” the Mayor wrote in his letter to the Commission.
Copies of several invoices and checks are provided in the official complaint from Beckmann. These items include invoices from Low Country Target Mailing, one labeled “Mailing Services for Property Owner Letters,” dated Oct. 3 to the City of Folly for $659.82; and another labeled “Mailing Service for State of the City,” dated Oct. 16 to the City for $313.15. An invoice for Ross Printing is also included. It is labeled “Newsletter,” and dated Oct. 17 to the City for $852.34.
On Oct. 21, City Attorney Ben Peeples wrote the City of Folly a check for $559.82. Another private citizen donated $100. On Oct. 30, Peeples wrote two more checks from the Otis Benjamin Peeples Attorney at Law Operating Account. One for $313.15 to Low Country Target Mailing, and another for $852.34 to Ross Printing.
The ballot referendum went forward on Dec. 2, 2014 and passed.
The Bottom Line
Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin is accused of, has admitted, and has been asked to speak to the State Ethics Commission about violating two South Carolina laws: SECTION 8-13-765 – “No person may use government personnel, equipment, materials, or an office building in an election campaign,” and SECTION 8-13-1346 – “A governmental entity may not use public funds, property, or time in an attempt to influence the outcome of a ballot measure.”
A similar case has been playing out in Berkeley County, where the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Rodney Thompson, was accused of the very same offences during the district’s Yes4Schools campaign, which, like the City of Folly referendum, would raise taxes to pay for infrastructural improvements, in this case schools. Dr. Thompson was indicted in April 2015 for his actions by the state Grand Jury and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson. The charge is a misdemeanor, and carries a maximum penalty of up to one year in prison and/or a fine of 500 percent of the amounts at issue.
Mayor Goodwin was contacted last week by The Folly Current to respond to the alleged misconduct. Goodwin declined comment, instead deferring to local attorney Ben Peeples and pointing to the Nov. 26 “self reporting” letter to the Ethics Commission, which was also published in the December 2014 issue of The Sandspur, a monthly newsletter issued by the Folly Beach Civic Club and largely funded by the City of Folly Beach.
Attorney Ben Peeples responded via email, stating: “Mayor Goodwin has retained me to represent him in my capacity as a private attorney. (I have had a law office since 1974 and have never worked full time for Folly Beach or any single client.),” wrote Peeples, downplaying the matter and calling it “old news.”
“There was an inadvertent inclusion of the two words, ‘vote yes,’ in the State of The City letter and another letter addressing short-term rental tax issues. The offending words were less than 2% of the total content. When the mistake was discovered, 100% of all of the costs of preparing, copying, and mailing the letters were paid for with privately donated funds, thereby producing a significant net gain to the City. The Mayor then self-reported to the Ethics Commission and The Sandspur,” wrote Peeples.
The S.C. State Ethics Commission will hold its hearing into the matter on Wednesday, November 18 at 12:30 p.m. in Columbia. The notification to Goodwin includes the line, “in the event you fail to appear, judgment by default will be rendered against you.”
