Mayesville mayor holds canceled meeting in a hallway without support of council

Outside Mary McLeod Bethune Learning Center in the town of Mayesville, recently elected Mayor Chris Brown taped copies of the Jan. 23 agendas for two town meetings.

The next day, the small town in Sumter County saw those meetings canceled then uncanceled and then canceled again when no elected leaders except the mayor showed up.

"I was informed today that Mayor Brown has created and submitted agendas that were not approved by the Town of Mayesville Council," Town Clerk Taurice Collins wrote in an email the day the meeting was scheduled for. "Since Council has not had time to review the two agendas properly, please note that the unapproved Work Session meeting for tonight at 6:30pm has been canceled by Council."

Brown was quick to respond.

"I apologize to you all," he wrote. "The Town of Mayesville Work Session and the Town of Mayesville CDC Meeting will take place at 6:30 and at 7:30 respectively. There is NO cancellation. Mrs. Taurice Collins has been warned twice about communicating to organizations outside of the Town of Mayesville government personnel without discussing with Mayor Brown. This is the third time she has willfully disobeyed the directive."

So, just after 6 p.m. on Tuesday, cars started pulling up to the part-gravel, part-grassy lot in front of the learning center where four sheriff's deputy vehicles were already parked, and they all filed into the building.

Brown and his wife were there to greet them, but no one else from town council or administration was there.

Two council members walked out of Brown's first meeting after the election, so this was not the first time elected leaders derailed the new mayor's meeting plans.

There are four town council members, though one is currently suspended.

Earlier reporting notes that Gov. Henry McMaster suspended councilman Reggie Wilson after he was indicted in 2022 on charges of threatening former mayor Jereleen Miller'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.

Brown lacks necessary keys to the town, literally and figuratively, so instead of sitting in a mayoral chair with council members on either side, Brown dragged a workbench to the far end of the hallway, in front of the sheriff's deputies, and stood on it.

Older residents took the few seats available. Some even brought chairs from home, but most were standing shoulder to shoulder in the foyer and hallway of the learning center across from Mayesville Town Hall, an uninhabitable space because of mold.

"I would like to welcome all of you here," Brown said. "Many of you are wondering what is going on."

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These canceled meetings came after reporting from The Post and Courier and The Sumter Item earlier this week detailing how 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 the dynamic this created has proven problematic for Brown having access to everything he needs for mayoral duties. Ed Miller, as leader of the nonprofit, controls the keys and deed to the building the town has been using for council meetings and town offices.

The town council and mayor previously made up most of the board for the nonprofit.

Miller said Wednesday that new board members were chosen for their potential to help raise money for the town.

"All of the millions of dollars that we raised didn't come from those living in Mayesville," Miller said in a text message. "We are outside the box thinkers."

The more than $1 million that helped renovate the museum and town hall came from federal and county grants.

Of the new board members, Brown said he only knows that one of them lives in Mayesville. And when locals gathered in the hallway and foyer of the learning center Tuesday, Brown listed aloud the names of the new board members and asked if anyone knew them. No one responded.

Everyone who came to the learning center on Tuesday evening to hear what Brown had to say was given a binder asking for their contact information. The mayor said he wants to be able to have an open line of communication with residents.

He then explained he did not have council's support for the town agendas he posted and also said the sheriff's deputies standing behind him had been in Mayesville for most of the day because of an altercation.

Sumter County deputies were called to the building for a fight between two men earlier in the day that left the town clerk injured. Deputies are continuing to investigate the altercation, which was reported just after 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

"I need to apologize because I didn't have a lot of information on the Mayesville CDC," Brown continued. "I had everything I thought I needed."

And after explaining the new appointments to the CDC by Miller, Brown said, "We have no voice in the CDC anymore. … The CDC board will elect their own officers, and the CDC board will operate totally independent of the town of Maysville."

According to reporting from The Post and Courier and The Sumter Item, which is part of the P&C's Uncovered investigative project, Brown is working to cut off the building's municipal funding because Mayesville taxpayers pay the utilities for it, and he reiterated these efforts to the public on Tuesday.

Brown also told the public about the moldy town hall and asked them what they would want to do with that building if they got the funding to fix it up. Those who spoke up said they wanted to hold town meetings there instead of at the learning center, the headquarters of the CDC.

One resident, Leeroy Wells, asked, "How can it be possible that the last administration is running your administration?"

Councilwomen Roteisha Benjamin and Cynthia Massingill showed up after Brown concluded his unofficial meeting then left minutes later. They did show up for the 7:30 p.m. meeting, but Brown canceled it.

Before Brown won November's election by 27 votes, Wilson, the now-suspended councilman, was running for mayor. Then, he and Brown decided not to split the vote.

Wilson told The Post and Courier he was telling people they don't have to vote for Brown but that they should not vote for the former mayor.

This strategy proved successful when Brown was named mayor after Jereleen Miller held the seat for multiple terms non-consecutively.

Now, Brown's only friends, so to speak, are those who voted for him and Wilson, and since winning the mayor's race in November, he has repeatedly found himself bumping against the limits of a mayor's power. He can't do anything without convincing a majority of the town council to vote alongside him. Any move to renovate the old town hall or spend town money would require the council to vote for it.

"I would love them to be on board," he told The Sumter Item, later noting that as of now, he's still working on talking through their differences.

For now, they can't even agree on when to meet, where to meet and what to discuss.