COLUMBIA — Oral arguments on the Project Jackson case were presented Tuesday before the S.C. Supreme Court.
The case of Steve Donohue v. the City of North Augusta, Mayor Lark Jones and the North Augusta City Council went before the state's highest court with the issues of proving blight in a Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, district and Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, violations coming under question from the five Supreme Court Justices.
Belton Ziegler, lead attorney for the City of North Augusta, said the Supreme Court is taking Freedom of Information Act cases in order to clear up what the act means.
"We understood that FOIA is a very important issue for the court right now," he said. "There have been a number of cases that have come out recently, and there seems to be some real desire for the court to set the record straight as to what FOIA means."
James Mosteller, attorney for the plaintiff, called for Project Jackson to be scrapped due to the violations of FOIA.
Project Jackson is a proposed 25-acre development consisting of a hotel, stores and a baseball stadium for the Augusta GreenJackets that would be located between The River Club and Hammond's Ferry neighborhoods.
"If the people would have known that the executive sessions were about Project Jackson, they would have stayed at the meetings to have their voices heard," he said. "The violations of FOIA should lead to a nullification of the project."
The development project was born from a blight study first completed in 1991, and amended in 1996. For a TIF to be used, a blight study must be conducted every 10 years. Mosteller argued that the amendment in 1996 did not offer any new findings of blight and that since that time, property values have increased in the area.
"I think they would have to start over," he said. "I don't believe that's too onerous a burden if you're going to be raising large amounts of money outside of the statutory or the constitutional debt limits of the entity. There are debt limits imposed by the constitution - this is a way to get around those limits for the purpose of addressing static or declining values. In this instance, the values of the land have increased over $100 million since the initial study."
The City maintains that the values used in the 1996 study are enough to move forward with the TIF arrangement, including the changes to the original plan to add a baseball stadium.
"This is the last piece - Project Jackson is the last piece of the puzzle for that TIF district," Ziegler said. "It's not inconsistent with what's gone on before or creating some sort of new TIF plan that didn't exist before. It's taking the existing one and carrying it out by making some small changes. The City did everything it was supposed to in adopting those ordinances. There were public hearings, anyone who wanted to present information about blight or the lack of blight was welcome to do it. You've got Mayor Lark (Jones), who I think has been serving (the City) for over 30 years, and understands very well what the conditions are in the city and what they are in that piece of property."
Depending on the order of the S.C. Supreme Court, Ziegler gave two options as to what North Augusta will have to do: Continue with the plan as it is, or begin again with public hearings.
"We'll have to see what the court's order is, but if they uphold the TIF amendment and do not rule that the FOIA issues somehow make the TIF statute a nullity, then we go forward," he said. "If the court does rule that the TIF amendment was not proper, then the process is very simple - the City will have to take a few months and go through the whole process again. They'll have another set of hearings and notices. That will also mean more expense and more delay in getting these great amenities for the people of North Augusta."
Donohue, a resident of The River Club, sued the City in December 2013 to stop the development. After the first court hearing, Judge J. Ernest Kinard ruled Aug. 20 in favor of the City, siding with the City on all points. Kinard's ruling stated that the City did not need to prove blight of the TIF area, as the TIF was adopted in 2006 and the blight only needs to be proven every 10 years. Donohue formally filed a first appeal motion on Sept. 2, which was denied by Kinard 17 days later.
In October 2014, the City filed a motion asking the S.C. Supreme Court to take jurisdiction of the case, skipping the Court of Appeals. This request came after Donohue filed a motion for a second appeal on Oct. 18.
T.J. Lundeen is a reporter for The North Augusta Star. Follow him on Twitter @lundeentj for more updates.