MIDLANDS TAXPAYER HERO WANTS HER SEAT BACK …
One of the few local elected officials in South Carolina who’s worth a damn is suing the government entity that cast her out of her office on a trumped-up residency issue.
Kim Murphy – honored with this website’s “Taxpayer Hero” award a few years back – filed a lawsuit this week against the Lexington-Richland School District Five board of trustees (and its former chairman Robert Gantt) alleging defamation of character. Murphy also filed a civil conspiracy charge against Gantt and Bobby Bowers, an employee of the S.C. Budget and Control Board. (SCBCB).
An outspoken critic of secretive, wasteful and self-serving government, Murphy was removed from her elected post as a member of the Midlands-area school board in May 2013. The reason? According to her fellow board members, she was ineligible to represent her constituents because her house was located in the wrong county.
Murphy not only disputes this claim, she alleges in her suit that Gantt and Bowers fabricated the residency issue for the sole purpose of removing her from office.
Furthermore, Murphy maintains that a proper survey enabling the district to determine her residency status once and for all has yet to be conducted.
A school official declined to discuss the specifics of the case with a reporter from The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper, saying only that the board “acted properly” in stripping Murphy of her post.
During her time on the Lexington-Richland school board, Murphy has gone against the grain by opposing new building programs and questioning specific appropriations made by the board. She’s also relentlessly exposed the multi-million dollar unspent fund balances the district carries over every year – part of a broader problem this website has exposed at the state level.
People may not like her, but she’s doing the job she was elected to do … and her resolve to question every expense and insist that there be a valid reason for the use of taxpayer resources is commendable.
Every school board member in the state should be like Kim Murphy.
“Kim Murphy has championed for honest and transparent board actions only to have her name ruined and her board position stripped simply because she is outspoken about board policies and procedures,” Murphy’s attorney Ashley Story said in a statement.
Murphy isn’t the only local school board official in South Carolina facing residency problems as a result of doing the right thing.
In rural Colleton County, S.C., corrupt State Sen. Clementa Pinckney arbitrarily redrew district lines in an effort to remove school board members who voted to terminate the contract of an incompetent superintendent.
To view Murphy’s lawsuit, click on the link below …
MURPHY LAWSUIT (.pdf)
50 comments
You either live in the zoned area or you do not – how difficult can this be?
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This poster must think the other posters and readers here are dimwits. Oh, wait . . .
You would understand if you saw how some of these areas are zoned!
and after all her bluster on this website and others she did not even file to run
http://www.thestate.com/2014/08/15/3621642/murphy-skips-school-race.html?sp=/99/205/&ihp=1
Perhaps she should consider moving into Richland County. Seems a simple solution to me.
You don’t change the Freaking rules, after she won the game….just so the cheaters can win…
Once again Kim fails to share the whole story –
http://ftpcontent4.worldnow.com/wistv/pdf/COOPERMURPHY.pdf
Looks pretty open and shut to me
Cooper was a stooge paid by the school board, to deliver the verdict they paid him for.
If he was why did she not sue him?
Because the law is clear. You can’t serve as a member of the board from Richland County if you don’t live there. Brilliant move on someone’s part to find that out. May not be fair, but who said life has to be fair?
Get her property tax notice. It will state the school district.
She did, and it said Richland. She paid RC taxes for 10 years or more.
Yeah and we know from the last couple of elections that Richland County never makes mistakes…right?
Of course they do. The question is: why was Murphy punished by a corrupt school board, because Richland County is incompetent?
Both Lexington and Richland county officials say she resides in Richland county. That’s why she pays taxes and votes there.
Thanks for agreeing with me.
However, the law states that the legislature draws county lines, their line places her in Lexington County even if some general maps are not clear on the line near her house.
I love the fact that the suit refers to the fact that “a simple gps device” was used to locate the boundaries. A simple gps device, oh did you mean to say a gps device, the most accurate device by which to locate a point on the Earth’ s surface?
Kim Murphy actually represents the taxpayers in both Lexington and Richland counties. Her contentious contributions to the board meetings were almost ALWAYS accurate in their research and statistics, unlike the information being fed to the public. She was targeted and victimized by the good ole’ boys, and there is plenty of room for error in the residency case (three “proofs” by people with their own agendas and pocket-lining connections were not balanced by rolls and tax information? Who are you kidding?) All you need do to get some real information is to research attendance at any of the Lex/Rich 5 high schools over the past 40 years. You will discover that enrollment has steadily declined in the past 10 to levels of 40 years ago (there are many other options and much better education to be had if students avoid the physical institutions, which are full of corrupt cronies), which means that residents are now on the hook, without Ms. Murphy’s sensible intervention, to pay higher taxes for schools that are not being put to good use. Attend a board meeting with your eyes open and listen to the b.s. You’ll discover that millions are being paid for people to watch over construction; delays, over-budget costs, poor quality materials are still the norm and the watchdogs up their bill every time they report on any transgression. It’s a racket and Ms. Murphy did not buy into it; she should be recognized as a hero.
That Irmo High School second-story door-to-nowhere is completely on the mark.
Amen.
She was targeted, no doubt about it.
The district had over 16,000 students 40 years ago…doubt it. Sounds like typical bs from a Murphy supporter.
If it did they likely all lived in the Irmo HS area.
Call the waaahhhmbulance.
Another GOPer proving no law suit is frivolous when a Republican is the one suing.
I hope she wins her suit against this corrupt school board. However, she needs to abort her run for the board seat. She is so unpopular that she hurts the cause of those that believe in the right things for District 5.
I liked what she did to them at Chapin High School. The school board lied about the nature of the stream, DHEC accepted the lie (knowingly?), she caught them (using an expert), and she held things up to their great chagrin.
Lesson: tell the truth.
It was a relatively simple and inexpensive fix at the end and could have been done in the first place.
You like what she did? Do you mean you liked the fact that she wasted taxpayer money used to fight her lawsuit over the Chapin HS project and you like the fact that she NEVER won one single legal ruling in the case all the way to the SC Supreme Court?
What was the “simple” fix BTW?
I think liars should be inconvenienced, at the very least. And certainly not be rewarded. If the taxpayers don’t like their lying administrators wasting tax money they should fire them.
I think they put the stream in a concrete culvert rather than just fill it in. But I’m not sure there.
So, its obvious from your post you have no real clue what went on, typical of a Murphy supporter.
Again, the District won EVERY single legal decision in the Chapin High lawsuit, yet you think the District is the one that wasted money when they were the ones fighting to renovate and expand the HS…again typical of your average Murphy supporter.
Kim Murphy has always seemed to be crazier than a bat in a jar. How many of these lawsuits has she won?
She is about as popular as the Taliban in District 5.
I’ve had enough of this woman. All she does is obfuscate for the sake of it. She’s like a mini Sarah Palin and will just cost taxpayers yet MORE money to involve the district in this latest legal action. Plus, I know Robert Gantt personally (have all my life) and he is absolutely a stand up guy and wonderful person. Look at the results, the district is among the top performers in the state, let alone the nation.
Murphy does not live in Richland, either move or get lost!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When you see Robert Gantt ask him if he ever signed a flyer encouraging voters not to exercise their right to cast a ballot .
When you see Kim Murphy ask her where she gets the money to file all these lawsuits. We know from the Chapin HS deposition that she is not completely self funding them.
When you see Robert Gantt ask him where he gets the money to build, build, build, build, build
When you see Robert Gantt ask him where he gets the money to fund his campaigns
When you see Robert Gantt – forget it – you are Robert Gantt
right…go have another beer and Beef’s and bitch some more…
Good suggestion
While I’m gone why don’t you review your comment
With a little luck you may figure out why you are next in line to replace skippy wilson as Chapin’s village idiot
Why, it appears to me that obstructionist Skip Wilson and your idol Kim Murphy are cut from the same cloth.
Agree that skippy is a puppet for the real estate cockroaches but to put Murphy under the same cloak is like saying you and Quasimodo share the same gene pool
But then I could be wrong
go drink some more Kim Murphy Kool-Aid, you seem to enjoy it
You really are an one string banjo there Quasimodo
Hello pot…this is kettle…
What county is her automobile registered in? L-E-X-I-N-G-T-O-N.
Geeez… Why don’t you check your facts? Just a simple online check with Richland County…You just lost all credibility. Goes to show that some folks will go to extremes to prevent Murphy from shining a little light in some of those dark corners of District 5.
Vehicle TaxesNotice Number –
ex 2011-12-123456Year: – Month 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 –
Enter the first three (3) characters of your Name as it appears on your tax notice and include any spaces.- OR -Enter the Year: Enter the last name of the primary owner of the vehicle:
Enter your street address (street number and name):
(Minimum of 5 characters)
NameAddressYearMakeModelSelectMURPHY DENIS JAY154 OLD LAUREL LN2007TOYTRAV4SelectMURPHY DENIS JAY154 OLD LAUREL LN2000BMW323ISelectMURPHY DENIS JAY154 OLD LAUREL LN2007CHEV2CNDSelectMURPHY DENIS JAY154 OLD LAUREL LN2005CHRYTOWN &Richland County Vehicle Tax RICHLAND COUNTYPO BOX 11947
COLUMBIA, SC 29211VEHICLE TAX
David A. AdamsCounty Treasurer
(803) 576-2250 Ext. 2 Batch Date: 9/27/2013 Time: 16:57:50treasurer@rcgov.us
And if you visit the lexington county gis tax mapping system it clearly shows her home is in Lexington county
Check out Richland county’s GIS. It shows her home in Richland. Richland county charges her for taxes on her house and she paid them. She signed up to run for the school board in Richland county and won. District 5 says she is in lexington county. If the line is wrong, where is it? How do you figure out where it is? She says a “proper survey”. Does that mean nobody surveyed it?
read page 4 and 5 of this document Kim…it explains it all-
http://ftpcontent4.worldnow.com/wistv/pdf/COOPERMURPHY.pdf
Not only did it receive a proper survey but the survey was conducted by Sidney Miller, the former head of the SC Geodetic Survey and a licensed surveyor.
Mr. Miller testified UNDER OATH – that there was “absolutely” no doubt that Kim Murphy’s residence was in Lexington County.
This “tax her(oin)’ has clearly set a record in the amount her actions have cost the school district. Extreme individualism and creative use data clouded her and her cronies’ crusade. Read the depositions of her fellow crusaders and watch the clowns come out of the little car. Her actions not only resulted in astronomical costs, but essentially derailed the District. At the most generous, her actions might be considered the wrong thing for the right reasons. We MIGHT agree that her intentions had merit, but her actions and their consequences were wrong. Maybe in philosophy class you can get credit for your reasons being sound and that is sufficient. But then there’s the real world.
That field they built is a hazard. Chapin doesn’t even use it because of sinkholes and it’s dome-like shape. They are going to have to rebuild it. They should never have built on those wetlands and the should have spent more time finding an alternative building site. But what the good ole boy wants, the good ole boy gets. God bless the southern economic power structure and curse all who question it!