TEGA CAY, S.C. — A Tega Cay city leader was almost fired after a questionable contract involving another city employee’s husband. WCNC first reported the situation last month -- Tega cay’s assistant city manager's husband was paid $76,000 for work he did for the city.
Now, we’re learning some people in the community were so outraged that there was a call for the city manager to be ousted.
The most recent Tega Cay city council meeting got a little bit heated after the WCNC story ruffled some feathers. WCNC has since learned what went on behind closed doors in trying to come up with the right punishment for the city manager.
Tega Cay's city manager admitted when he sat down with us last month that it didn’t look good that Tega Cay paid $76,000 to a company run by the assistant city manager’s husband.
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“I definitely understand how that perception looks and that’s why we have started having conversations around what our procurement ordinance currently is," Charlie Funderburk previously said.
"If it doesn’t look right or it doesn’t smell right let's stop and take a breath,” Tega Cay city council member Alicia Dasch previously told WCNC.
WCNC's previous story prompted a heated response from some in the city on Facebook and brought several people out to address the council at their meeting.
One resident spoke out saying, “I ask are the city’s vendor choices based on the best interest of the city and residents do they demonstrate that the city is being a wise steward of taxpayer money or are vendors chosen because they are related to staff or offer free rounds of golf.”
Mayor David O’Neal responded, saying he knew how it looked.
“We knew we had some irregularities it looked bad," he said.
For the first time, the mayor acknowledged publicly what the council discussed behind closed doors.
“It did look bad," O’Neal added. "We had to consider termination to nothing at all ... we talked over the phone for a week.”
He said ultimately the council didn’t have enough votes to fire the city manager. Instead, they chose to write a formal letter of reprimand.
“We got four people to agree to that so that was the decision,” O'Neal said.
The city manager didn’t mention the reprimand during the previous interview with WCNC – he only said he wouldn’t be hiring the assistant city manager’s husband’s company again.
“I have been directed to not do that anymore," he previously said.
When asked who directed him not to hire the assistant city manager's husband again, he said the city council did.
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