Honea Path, SC| Upstatenewstoday.com is fully prepared to file a Lawsuit against The Town of Honea Path for failing to provide public information documents in the time required by South Carolina State Law. On October 18, 2024, Upstatenewstoday.com filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the Town of Honea Path. We asked for the following. The entire FOIA law can be found here.
Amanda Porter’s response November 27, 2024.
Mayor Christopher Burton responded to the request on October 23, 2024. By law, any Government body has ten business days to respond to the request and then an additional thirty calendar days to provide documents. Documents should have been made available to Upstatenewstoday.com on November 22, 2024. On November 27, 2024, Town Clerk and Treasurer Amanda “Mandy” Porter sent us an email stating that in order for us to receive the documents, we would have to pay $973.25. South Carolina State Law § 30-4-30 (b) states the following: The public body may establish and collect fees as provided for in this section. The public body may establish and collect reasonable fees not to exceed the actual cost of the search, retrieval, and redaction of records. The public body shall develop a fee schedule to be posted online. The Town of Honea Path on November 19, 2024, signed into law a fee schedule to be posted online. All of our FOIA request were sent in before this law went into effect.
The Town of Honea Path has disregarded the law. We have several reports where residents of Honea Path have sent FOIA requests to the Town, and they have been charged astronomical rates, $2000.00 or more. The FOIA law was passed so that Government bodies could not do business in secret.
Today, November 29, 2024, marks Thirty-Seven Days since Mayor Burton responded to our request. Monday, December 2, 2024, we fully plan on filing a lawsuit with the 10th Circuit Court in Anderson, SC. We additionally will be asking for Attorney fees.
We have a feeling that the Town of Honea Path is trying to hide the Town’s Financials. We will stay on top of this and provide updates as they arise.
