By admin 
A week after voting no confidence in their mayor, Chapin Town Council began the process of checking some of Mayor Bill Mitchell’s powers in a special meeting on Thursday.
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Council members formally introduced three measures that would shift responsibility back toward the five-member council in the town of some 2,000 people north of Lake Murray. One would explicitly vest the creation of any new town departments in the council as a whole, while another would likewise empower the council to hire a town attorney. The third would designate two liaisons — the mayor pro tempore and another council member — to act as go-betweens for the council and the town attorney when making any legal decisions on behalf of the town.
No formal vote was taken on any of the measures Thursday, but Mitchell said at the meeting he not only sees these moves as undermining his authority as a strong mayor, but he interpreted the motions as preventing the mayor from voting as a member of council.
“It strips the mayor of an equal vote, and it’s actually against the law,” Mitchell said.
But the other council members who spoke Thursday said the intent was merely to clarify the council’s position within a town that since his election last year Mitchell has largely run as a municipal “CEO,” as the mayor described the job on Thursday.
“The council includes you,” said Councilman Mike Clonts. “You would still have a vote.”
Mitchell pointed out that one proposal would change the language of the town ordinance from “the mayor and council” to simply “the council.”
“Then why change the wording?” Michell asked. The mayor said he would seek a legal opinion from the S.C. Attorney General’s Office on the changes before they come up for a vote at the next council meeting.
Only a week ago, Chapin Town Council voted 4-1 that it had no confidence in Mitchell’s leadership and members called on the mayor to resign. The only dissenting vote on the measure was Mitchell’s.
After Mitchell was elected mayor last November, he eliminated the position of town administrator — the official who had overseen town staff — and took on the responsibility himself as a “full-time mayor.” Several other town staff have left since Mitchell took over, including one town clerk who accused him in a police report of assaulting her. He was also granted the authority to make hiring and firing decisions in January, in a 3-2 town council vote in which Ainslee Bost and Warren Burritt voted in favor of enhancing the mayor’s power.
Relations between the mayor and council have soured since then. In reference to the changes to how the town attorney position is handled, Bost pointed out that Chapin has cycled through five lawyers since Mitchell took office almost nine months ago.
“That’s made it incredibly difficult to recruit qualified legal counsel,” Bost said. “We need stable, independent representation… without getting entangled in unnecessary conflict.”
Mitchell likewise challenged the proposal for two liaisons to oversee the town attorney as cutting out council, but Bost said the officials wouldn’t be able to make any decisions on their own without action being taken by council.
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“This is so everybody can be informed and not leave anybody out, like has been the case previously,” she said.
Thursday’s 30-minute meeting unfolded in quiet tension but avoided the shouting and finger-pointing that presaged last week’s confidence vote. Mitchell often explicitly cited Robert’s Rules of Order before making a statement or action as the meeting’s chair. He ended the meeting by reiterating a statement he made last week about how he believes his council colleagues are “good people” trying to act in the town’s best interests.
While the four council members expressed their disapproval last week, the vote had no legal effect on its own, and Mitchell remains the mayor. By the end of the week, both sides had made moves to reconcile.
The mayor posted a video to the town’s Facebook page extending an “olive branch,” and the town council posted its own message promising to seek a “governance counsel to provide coaching and guidance for both the Mayor and Council on their respective roles and responsibilities.”
Councilman Burritt attempted to introduce a resolution asking for such outside intervention, but Mitchell shut him down because the item hadn’t been placed on the agenda ahead of the meeting.
“That’s the mistake we made last time,” the mayor said, referencing the introduction of the no-confidence motion.
Bost said afterwards that the council plans to ask the S.C. Municipal Association to come in and do some training for the town officials.
“We have three new people here (since the last election), and it’s been fast and furious since then, and we’ve had no training because of the schedule,” Bost said. “We want them to come in and provide some insight on how things stand.”
Mitchell made clear his opposition to the council majority’s proposals because he felt they were “disenfranchising” voters who previously adopted the strong-mayor form of government.
“There are weighty decisions being made right now, such as the sale of property that will affect our utility plant, that will need to be addressed,” Mitchell said, referencing Lexington County’s plans to sell the Brighton technology park near town to a developer who wants to put 600 new homes on the site. Mitchell has resisted issuing connections to the town sewer system for the site, saying it would burden the town’s wastewater plant.
Bost said the council likewise opposes residential development on the site, but questioned Mitchell’s strategy when he spoke at a Lexington County Council meeting and effectively told the county he would test his connection policy in court.
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