Ousted administrator's firing upheld by Dillon County Council

DILLON — Dillon County Council members voted Monday night to uphold their decision to fire Dillon County Administrator Charles Curry.

MONDAY'S HEARING

Click here to view more pictures from Monday's hearing.

THE LETTERS

Read the communication between Curry and Dillon County Council's legal counsel, click here.

The four councilman who voted June 16 to dismiss Curry upheld their decision and casted a vote that’s binding and final.

Curry, however, did not go quietly but made several remarks about how he carried out his job and the reasons he believed he was fired.

Curry told council and a courtroom full of spectators that council’s letter to him explaining the reasons for his termination didn’t contain the real reasons why he was fired.

Curry called out every council member who voted to fire him, starting with Bobby Moody who Curry claimed was mad over a fire house that was being built.

The Kemper Fire Department building was being built with council’s approval but without an approved budget from council.

Curry said about $225,000 on the project had already been spent when he told Moody he had to stop the project and go before council and get a budget.

He refused to allow any more money to be put into the project until it was brought before council and this upset Moody, Curry said. A firm was paid $42,000 to work on the building but no one knows what work was done or if the price was fair because there wasn’t a proper bidding on the project, he said.

Moody used “the good ‘ole boy method” and allowed that to take place, Curry said.

Andrew “Deboy” Graves had a reason to fire him because he was upset that Curry had suspended a fireman in his district without coming to him first, Curry said.

Eleven of the 13 firefighters at Dillon County Fire Station 5 on S.C. 57 wrote a letter to Curry saying that they would all quit if something wasn’t done about an engineer working at the station.

Curry said he suspended the employee with pay until an investigation could be conducted.

The engineer was then suspended for two weeks without pay because he went to see his chiropractor when he was supposed to be at the fire station, he said.

Incidentally, firefighters at the station were called to responded to an emergency, but the engineer missed it because he was was at the chiroparactor’s office, Curry said.

County Councilman Macio Williamson became upset because he enforced policy and refused to pay firefighters who didn’t show up to fires but said they did so they could be paid, Curry said.

Firefighters were known to sign or have their friend’s sign a payroll sheet for a fire they didn’t respond to, he said. Dillon Station One, where Williamson is a volunteer firefighter, “is one of the worse offenders of that policy,” Curry said.

The courtroom crowd gasped and Williamson looked on stunned as Curry projected a dated payroll sheet with Williamson’s signature, followed by the councilman receipt from a Marriott Golf Resort in Hilton Head where he was vacationing during the time he was supposedly fighting fire in Dillon.

Curry showed a State Law Enforcement Division report from 2000 about how the local firefighters were defrauding the county.

The report was given to then-4th Circuit Solicitor Jay Hodge for review, but the matter was apparently never pursued, Curry said.

Williamson also fired him because he was mad that he made him turn in his county vehicle, Curry said.

Once council’s affirming vote was held Monday, Curry walked up to Williamson with a key and said, “Here’s the key to your car.”

He then handed Council Chairman Harold Moody the key to the county administrator’s office before walking off as many of the spectators applauded for him.

The public hearing, known in some states as a “Clear my name hearing,” was held to give Curry a chance to respond and defend allegations made against him by his employers. The public was there as witnesses to Curry’s rebuttal but were not permitted to speak during the hearing.