Commission conference room takes up meeting

The Florence County Voter Registration and Elections Commission’s cramped conference space came under fire during Wednesday’s meeting at the former main county library on South Irby Street.

The seven-member commission meets in a small room in the basement. It is next to a larger room.

Interim director Steve Love was discussing a report on keying errors in databases. Chairman James W. Tanner Jr. had no sooner gotten the words out of his mouth, “What do you foresee the problem?” when the voice of Franklin Briggs boomed from an adjoining room, “Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.”

“Let me finish here, I’m into something,” Tanner replied. “You took my thought away from me.”

“I apologize for that, Mr. Chairman,” Briggs said, “there’s a crowd out here.”

“Let me finish what I’m doing here, Franklin,” Tanner said, “you’re interrupting me. We had an extraordinary amount of ballots that didn’t have signatures. We need to try to address that.”

Then, abruptly changing gears, Tanner said, “Let me set some ground rules right here. We’re in our regular meeting and we’ve past the time for public comments. If you make comments, you’re interrupting us.”

“Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to you, I’m not trying to interrupt the meeting or make comments,” Briggs replied. “All I’m simply saying is there is a crowd out here and y’all are in this small room. We are entitled to see what is going on. At least be sensitive to the needs of folks out here. That’s all I’m saying.”

“This is our meeting room,” Tanner said. “This is where we started and we’ve passed that point for public appearances.”

“Mr. Chairman, this room is not suitable and it also is a violation of the Civil Rights Act,” Briggs countered. “That’s all I’m saying, Mr. Chairman. Y’all can deal with that however you wish to deal with it. But if you see all these folks out here, then somebody should see the radar going off and say, ‘hey, we need to move this outside.’”

“Now, that’s about all I’m going to hear from you today, now,” Tanner said. “If you get up and interrupt me again, I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“Mr. Chairman, you can’t do that in a public meeting,” Briggs said.

“Yes, I will,” Tanner shot back, “and if you interrupt this meeting again, I’m going to ask you to leave. Now let’s proceed.”

Discussion continued briefly about a report on the Olanta Special Municipal Election before Tanner was again interrupted.

“Mr. Chairman, I have a question, is this considered a public meeting?” asked Madie Robinson, chairwoman of the Florence chapter of the NAACP.

“Yes, it is,” Tanner said.

“With all due respect, we do have some people out here,” Robinson said. “This is a small room. Could we just assemble out here so we can listen to what is going on?”

“I would like to accommodate you but we began in here,” Tanner said. “This is where we meet in this room. The county has given us this space to meet.

“What has happened is we’re trying to hold a regular meeting and we’ve passed the public hearing and appearance part. I announced that earlier and we didn’t have anybody that wanted to speak. And that’s the way it was.”

“I’m not asking to speak, I’m just asking if this is a public meeting,” she said. “I’m Madie Robinson. For the record, I’m president of the Florence NAACP. I’m just asking if we can sit and observe what’s going on and this room is not conducive to that. That’s all I’m asking.”

“I’m sorry. The county gives us these spaces and they are promising us a new building,” Tanner said. “But this is where we meet, this is our meeting room. If you go in the county council room, they have many chairs in there, yet folk have been out in the hall there before. This is our meeting room. If we keep breaking and interfering with this meeting, we’ll be here all day.”

“It’s not my intention to be disruptive,” Robinson said. “May I have an agenda?”

“Thank you, we’ll take that under advisement,” Tanner said, proceeding to an agenda item concerning new responsibilities of local boards on reinstating inactive voters. No action was taken on any agenda items during the meeting.