North Myrtle Beach’s city manager to get more than a year’s salary after his removal
A special meeting has been called in North Myrtle Beach following city council’s vote to remove their city manager, Mike Mahaney, from office last month.
The meeting is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 1:30 p.m. at North Myrtle Beach City Hall.
Tuesday’s meeting follows a previous special meeting that was called on Sept. 19 when council voted to remove Mahaney from his position and place him on paid administrative leave.
After the Sept. 19 meeting, Mahaney filed a written notice to have a public hearing about his employment, which is granted by South Carolina law. Since the resignation was submitted, North Myrtle Beach’s Public Information Officer Lauren Jessie said via email that there will no longer be a public hearing.
Jessie would not answer further questions about Mahaney’s resignation, including if he will be required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement.
“As I mentioned in my email, we will release more information at the meeting tomorrow,” she said via text message on Monday afternoon.
Previous reporting by The Sun News highlights concerns from South Carolina Press Association attorney Taylor Smith about issuing NDAs to taxpayer-funded employees.
“Non-disclosure agreements impact our marketplace of ideas, and when that marketplace concerns how public money is used or how decisions are made about public business, the harm to the marketplace can be extreme,” he previously said. “Agreements that suppress information which could be used to create a better-formed democracy ... are things that should be avoided.”
Instead, the only agenda item for the meeting is for elected city officials to accept Mahaney’s conditional resignation and fulfill his employment agreement.
“The City of North Myrtle Beach desires to provide City Manager Mike Mahaney with additional valuable consideration in exchange for City Manager Mike Mahaney’s execution of a general release and waiver which is intended to bring finality to the conclusion of the employment relationship between the City of North Myrtle Beach and City Manager Mike Mahaney,” the resolution city council will vote on states.
If approved, part of accepting Mahaney’s resignation will include an expression of thanks by the city for Mahaney’s tenure as city manager and payments of $193,379 and $126,505, according to a draft of the resolution.
In total, that would be $319,884, which is more than Mahaney’s current salary of $253,000 a year.
His contract states that if terminated, he would be entitled to six months of aggregate compensation, which roughly equals $126,500.
Efforts to understand why the city voted to remove Mahaney last month were thwarted after the city continually denied Freedom of Information Act requests by local media for a copy of Mahaney’s personnel file.
Not releasing Mahaney’s personnel file is a direct violation of South Carolina Freedom of Information Act laws.
“Arguably, in the governance of a city, is no more important a figure to learn about concerning the performance of their public duties than that of a manager,” Smith previously said. “Consequently, the public’s interest in the right to learn those public activities is highly frustrating when efforts to get records of their job performance are denied by the city. It is a bastardization of the understanding of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to think that it would be an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy to understand what a public employee does in the performance of their public duties.”
North Myrtle Beach’s Mayor Marilyn Hatley has not responded to repeated emails and phone calls asking for comment about the city’s denial of Mahaney’s file and the state’s open records laws.
This story was originally published October 21, 2024 at 2:03 PM.
