Richland County, SC (WLTX) – Richland County Council has removed administrator Gerald Seals. In a late night move following executive session, Councilman Norman Jackson made a motion to terminate Seal’s contract.
Jackson explained that council warned Seals about their concerns. Jackson says Seals was hiring people not qualified for positions and firing people without going through the proper channels. He also referenced that some members of council were not on board with the way Seals was handling programs within the ongoing Richland Renaissance project, claiming that he was using the Small Local Business Enterprise for the project.
"We have just been warned by the Supreme Court with the Penny Tax for the same thing and here you are qualifying someone where we have an office who can handle that operation," says Jackson. "So, there's a lot that was going on and we demanded transparency and he didn't adhere to it."
Council was split on voting to let him go, with a vote of 6-5. Now assistant county administrator Brandon Madden will take on the duties of the county administrator.
Councilman Jackson, Paul Livingston, Seth Rose, Greg Pearce, Gwendolyn Kennedy and Jim Manning voted to remove Seals.
Council chair Joyce Dickerson, Bill Malinowski, Yvonne McBride, Calvin Jackson and Dalhi Myers voted to against removing Seals.
Seals was not present at Tuesday night's meeting.
“I am speaking for the dignity of this council,” says Myers, who was visibly upset during the meeting. “I am shocked that we would treat any employee from the custodian to the most senior in this way. It embarrasses me. Even assuming that we had the had the worst administrator on the planet this is not the way you handle a professional. We are not working in the Trump Administration. The man at least deserves to know what expectations are, what perhaps might be wrong or right with what he’s doing. This is beyond an embarrassment.”
Makinowski wanted to defer the matter, concerned about a potential lawsuit, but that was voted down. He says he felt blindsided by the vote.
Chairwoman Joyce Dickerson was concerned because they only discussed ways to evaluate Seals, which was due in December, during the executive session. She believed the motion to remove him was out of order.
“As much harassment that we’ve put this gentleman through, publicly calling him out, has just been pathetic,” says Dickerson. “This council has basically created a hostile environment for Mr. Seals.”
However, she says her job is to make sure that things run smoothly moving forward.
"I am a team player and the council made that decision and basically my job as the chair is to work with the council and staff and to try to maintain the stability of the county and keep us moving forward and keep the staff positive and all of us positive, because things happen and we have to accept it and we have to move on."
Seals was hired as interim administrator in July 2016 after Tony McDonald retired.