'Unreal Deal': State ethics investigators looking into SC mayor's first vote on first day in office
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- Опубліковано 13 вер 2024
- You can't throw a peach in McBee without hitting someone who knows the name Glenn Odom. Odom was once a town magistrate, the mayor, then a sitting councilman, and was sworn into office as mayor again in February.
Within 24 hours, the mayor and council voted to shutter the town's water department and hand that service over to the Alligator Rural Water and Sewer Company - a water company with financial ties to Odom and another McBee town councilman.
Four months later, Alligator Water ended up owning a parcel of town property that a governmental ethics lawyer tells us wasn't legally transferred.
Dang it. I forgot to mix down the audio on this. So, you’ll hear the left channel in one ear and the right channel in the other. Sorry, guys!
LOL. It happens.
it was fine as far as I'm concerned thanks for the work
@@Sum_Tings_Wong I've been doing a solid job of mixing...one gets by me every once in a while!
@@jamesdrake2378 Thanks, James! I appreciate it.
I think you should find another tree to bark up. This is just small-town inefficiency. Water lines for a for a scrap of land? The Town SHOULD hold up their end of the bargain. No boogey-man here.
There should never be closed hearings from the public in ANY govt meeting about any subject!! JSMO!
Right the Sun shine law
except maybe certain disciplinary hearings.....
People in power always doing something shady. Usually for their own benifit. It's called CORRUPTION.
Yes we have a winner
Sometimes power doesn't have a chance to corrupt when the person is already as corrupt as they can be.
Thank goodness we the people have Jody Barr to stick up for us! Great work Jody!
Corruption at its finest.
I mean at least the Mayor is willing to sit down with you and speak on the record. Some of the other subjects in your work basically run for cover.
Great point. I make that exact point to everyone who's contacted me about this report. I give Odom credit for answering every question I had. However, there were some records I was never provided, but at least he stood in there and got to have his say in his own words.
Yeah but he is a little to slow to actually see what he is doing wrong or maybe he is.
well done, yet again!
Thanks, man!
@JodyBarrInvestigates Thank you very much, sir...I'm from San Benito, Texas. I wish we had someone like here in the valley.
I think they staged that well house. I would bet if you could trace the batch number on those barrels it would come back to Alligator
I wouldn't bet ya. Pretty sure you are spot on.
Our small town closed the school and sent the children to a neighboring towns school at an exorbitant rate.
The town told us the property was worth 3.5 million and would bring in 57k $ in taxes if sold; so the town voted to sell the property.
The town leaders then sold the property for $1 and reevaluated the property at 900k$ for tax purposes.
That was over 5 years ago and the property has changed hands several times.
The roof has caved in due to snow and thieves have ripped out the plumbing.
Not sure how much we still owe on the original construction of the school.
Seems crooked to me.
I agree
@0:58 "WE leased it to...." That says it all right there.
If the ethics folks are looking for work, Chester, SC is begging for some scrutiny...
THE mayor talking like he don't know what's going on. Trust me he knows exactly what's up. I grew up down south, I know the tone.
Only have to get bit once... to never forget what that snake looked and sounded like.
@@ShainAndrews Exactly. These types effect a dismissive tone. Trying to play naive.
@@geerowr.6666🎶 just some good 'ol boys 🎶
Nice job Jody. Keep up the good work of investigative journalism. It's needed and required. However, these public officials seem to be quite open and honest to me. They seem to be the kind of people who are willing to admit a mistake and take corrective action if need be. Hope there are more like them in the pipeline. Our democratic constitutional republic is in need at the momemt IMHO.🙂
I agree.
Thanks, Jody, for another deep look inside people who think they can do what they want. 24/7
Thanks, man!
We live in utah and follow all of your work, and we wish we had a guy with as big of backbone as you excellent work all around and thank you again.
@@JodyBarrInvestigatesYou are great reporter! I never realized there was so much corruption in South Carolina until I watched the trial of murderer Alex Murdaugh!! Keep up the great work! I wish we had an ethical reporter like you in my state in the Deep South!
It's possible it might have been some sort of pandemic assistance or something like that but the land being owned by the city for that long means that there were no taxes collected on that land. Still, if that $10,000 a month or $120,000 a year isn't going to the costs of the water plant, there is a problem. I suggest having the state audit the books at the state's cost to verify if monies are being properly spent versus the take-home pay of management of the McBee Water Works.
Another great story,
Scandalous leaders.
Thank you Jody.
Thanks, Carolyn!
Jody Barr 😎👋👍💪
Who voted this man mayor omg
The same people who keep voting for Trump.
Most people know that it is a very stupid idea to privatize any of our Commons and WATER being the most important to keep in the hands of the people.
That explains why they don't want the citizens to vote on this.
This seems very much like a mini Organized Crime Syndicate going on here if I'm understanding this correctly.
The mayor and one council member that will be personally profiting from a privatized water dept getting to vote on this,??? C'mon now!
Can't they spell CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
Ahem, Nestle?
@@katiekane5247 Hi Katie.
Our corrupt politicians allow nestle to steal our water. Nestle doesn't function as a water dept.
Actually I am a pipe layer and town water systems run by the government are very derelict and private water are much more cleaner and up to standards.
@@countryshaner141 I do.believe you are a pipe layer.
The discrepancy is less than $50, if you are to believe they aren't agents of theft in plain sight you're a fool.
"If we have to create an ordinance" says it all.
how can a town convey a municipal owned utility to a private entity without a town referendum? not a council decision, its got to be in the utility charter
Jody we need someone like you in Texas.
All he does is ask questions and puts it on UA-cam. You can’t do that?
Thanks, Elizabeth...I spent 4 years in Austin doing this. Just moved back home to the Carolinas in 2021.
@@rarefruit2320 Yep, that's all this is. Just Q&A and slapping a halfassed video to UA-cam.
@@JodyBarrInvestigates I’ve followed you for awhile. You do a lot more than ask questions. I use to work in politics in a small country town in Texas. We could have used you.
I had to move, I can’t handle the drama, lies and manipulation.
These executive meetings should end it all should be done in the public eyes
God bless you Jody! 🙏🏻
Thanks, man!
What a crooked town and officials.
How much uncompensated work did they do in the first place in exchange for the property? I mean, was the value of the land and the value of the work even comparable in 1999?
Apparently, there was an agreement between the town and Mr. Odom that the land deal would be part of Alligator Water installing sewer in town. I asked for and no one could give me the actual agreement related to the land exchange part of this. There's only a 1998 letter from the town to Odom stating they voted to donate the property to Alligator Water, but the town never legally transferred that property to Odom/Alligator before Odom/Alligator took it in June 2023.
Jody B is on it doggone it!
What i see here is a very poor tax base town or city with a population that elected old people trying to make it work. The red flag i see here is the water company paying Odom $10k a month. Not sure how they can afford that when Odom said the water company takes a loss selling to the city. Any business must operate in the green to stay in business but based on what was shown in this report the water system is in bad shape and not making a profit sooooo how are they paying Odom and the others $10k a month? Something don't smell right!
Creative accounting shows the private company taking a loss by expensing "upgrades" and paying massive salaries. Once those are done the rate increase happens and he claims making money **now** isn't an ethics violation last year. This guy is dirty and drawing $120k from the company he voted to force citizens to pay, look into the books and you'll find out why
Besides not completing transfer of title, there is another question of Aligator not paying Taxes on property for 25 years
I would look into whether Alligator payed property tax on that land and building during that time. If they did it goes to the 1998 mayor and his admin for being derelict in their duties to the town for not following all requirements to transfer property.
However, if it is found, alligator paid, not one cent of tax money for the property or building, then obviously they knew it had never been transferred. Trust me when I say a company knows exactly what needs to be paid for fixed costs month after month and year after year. Otherwise they would not be in business for very long.
Ain't nothing but good ol boys,grifting,stealing n back room deals.comes off as slow an unintelligent, but he's a snake
Wow South Carolina is corrupt all over. Never moving or visiting South Carolina 😢😢. Looks like gorgeous land just the people corrupt to the core.
so well played. knows how to use the law. how much money is involved? where does it go
This is shady from the get go, this Odom and other councilman are enriching themselves with this...
Great work. Keep it up.
Sounds fishy to me
While this seems pretty sketchy on the surface and might very well be, I think it bears to mentioning this is a small town of like 800 people where everybody knows everybody and town business is almost certainly handled on a more informal basis. It sounds like the town council made the right decision to hand over the town's water management to the private company but it should have been done properly. One other missing piece from this (unless I missed it) if we're going to label this as shady is who really benefited? Nobody had proven the mayor or anyone else involved received any sort of compensation or favors for their actions surrounding this deal and the Mayor came off as being very open in what occurred. A bit naive maybe but he didn't have to talk to reporters at all and chose to.
Man who says small towns are boring when you have stories like this.
Just some good old fashioned southern corruption.
Crooked
McBee is a poor little town of 800 people. Median income of 54k. A half acre of industrial land with rotting buildings isn't worth much. The real question is, how is the mayor getting a $10k monthly income from this deal?
This is how he's doing it. My cameras went off at my mom's house. He passed away almost 12 years ago saying that there was people in the yard. No trespassing signs all the way around. I called the neighbors. My aunt called me telling me there was people over on Mama's Land. Well I got a hold of Glenn Odom which is on my Facebook. And he told me that the sheriff sent me a certified letter to have my Lang on my mom's land cleaned up for 11 years. We have gone down twice a week to cut that grass. Then 6 years ago we had 29 trees die and we had to clean it all up at costing me almost $16,000. We have kept this grass cut up and cleaned up and we didn't sue the people whose trees fell on the building that was in the back of the property but we're not like that. So I talked to Glenn and question about it. I told him that I would be going to Mcbee on Saturday that I would meet him At Mom's house which is right in the middle of town. And that he'd been trying to buy for the last 11 years. He tells us that we owe him $250 to the town for cleaning up the yard. We never got a certified letter number one number two. You cannot cut the damn gone grass in the rain number three when we went down there to meet him after talking to him on the phone which he has my phone number and my home address in Columbia, South Carolina for the lights, water, electricity and cable is all listed with my name and address. Went down there. All my papers are stacked up and staying instead of laying down where they're supposed to have been. Now they're sitting right up to where anybody can come up in the yard and steal them. The electrical cords and outlets going to the other building because the guy use around about not knowing that is a cement pad cutting across there and breaking that side outlets which have to be replaced. I called him at his house. I called him on his phone. I messaged him on the way down there but the funny thing about messenger is 4 minutes after he read my message and it was marked red. It went off of messenger and we got down. Then we still called them. We took pictures of places that were horrible that had Trello smashed. Then those should have been done first. A new me. He knows me. I'm 10 years younger than him and I know what he was into and Daddy's and I know what is into now and he's not going to screw this straight because number one the state is not closed. The lawyer said he had to send a certified letter. He did not but he will not return our calls but still wants us to charge us $250. My mom's house is on a prime piece of real estate and as y'all know Glenn's been going around buying all these places in South and McBee for nothing and putting people in there to rent for three times. The amount of what they could even afford living and McBee and trying to work. This is my opinion on the situation and I'm very upset. If you going to be a mayor you need to call or return the calls. And I will let you know. Now I am moving to Matthew and I will be voting in the Matthew election and I will be volunteering for everything and I will get my cousins to help us and this election for Matt b. And let's see how it goes. I mean the johnsons are on the Cato side. Thank you. Goodbye
Seems as explained in the early part of the video the property was to be given as compensation to Alligator for sewer line install. As far as title transfer goes, it is completely common to convey a property on record for the sum of $10. Anyone that checks their closing documents on their own properties will be surprised by that. The issues are the lack of the required referendum and the ethics question. In the end, isn’t a public educational institution supposed to be the end beneficiary of all this?
I'm not seeing his wrong doing or the commentors in here not seeing they opened a welding school and are taking steps to fix a run down water system. Either I'm just crazy as hell or ppl are blind and just want heads
@@bluethunder5694 I think you're both right... the comments sound like ignorant bandwagon mentality.
I do believe it was incorrectly conveyed and that the town should have voted for the trading of the land for services way back when. Now that Alligator has improved the property the question becomes, When should the proper referendum be scheduled? And then the townsfolk can vote 1. Yes- Do the townsfolk still want to convey for the work received way back and call it a day? or 2. No- And pay Alligator for the work they did way back and compensate Alligator for the property improvements. Then just directly convey the property to the school.
@@robertbeauregard4672 A sensible solution for a situation that doesn't warrant cries of "corruption".
Dispose of property , wtf is that
Jody, we need you back in Texas buddy!! Lol
4 people for a city counsel?
Councillors should be allowed to have private meetings they serve the Public
The water well building falling down and full of mold, expired chemicals 🙄.
Nothing like corruption in the open.
Wow! That water systems building is atrocious, do the people of that area realize where their water comes from? How antiquated and sub standard the building is? Those folks need to have an investigation opened, there's layers of improper organization and grifting going on here, and the fact the mayor makes $120,000 a year off of this smacks of corruption.
The grift has been in the works for two decades..we pay the taxes,these council members take their salary.Sell the town water they already owned…
look at back property taxes, if it wasnt turned over, the tax bills are still in the city name.....
Conduct a "livestyle" forensic audit of these two individuals. Follow the money!
Does that town have anyone under the age of 70
Building a school for trades work? Why are yall mad? Its just sitting there doing nothing... At least its not a dollar general
It looks like an appearance of impropriety and a technical violation, but primarily it seems to just be sloppy procedurally.
It is Alligator Water Property.
Okay, Mayor.
The point of the whole water situation is at the end of the lake. It's a gigantic nuclear plant on the other side of where they're getting the water at the beginning as Johnson land that leads into lake Robinson. My grandpappy w.k Johnson sold his rights Aunt his sisters 's lights not to build up the creek that they bought the land by the claypet and at the beginning of the creek that feeds into the nuclear plants. I saw deer Park at a company right there. And no I will only drink a special Waters with filters. I'm not drinking water that comes from a nuclear plant that brings the hot water back up and it's probably contaminating all the fresh water up under the ground. McBee is already known for a high cancer rate
Then why would alligator water want to buy and administer Mcbee water property and system if it is not profitable
Corruption at its finest
I mean the town officials should have completed the transfer of the property in 1999. It’s not like he hatched this grand plan of “stealing” land in 1999. The guy built a welding school on the site, it’s not like he’s storing nuclear waste there.
Great job!
The water transfer... Thats sketchy and grounds for an investigation.
The property transfer, I wouldn't call this corruption, the town voted on it in order to get work done that the town could not pay for. Either give them the property, or pay up. The fact that this took until he was mayor to pass is the biggest injustice here because a lawsuit would have cost the town a lot more than the price of that land.
Haha..twist,twist twist…you are a council member?
I'm interested in how this school is supposed to run too... How do you learn a skilled trade remotely?
Humans are not allowed to own real property just manage it. Citys manage poorly
The mayor and the other council member that work for alligator water should be investigated and jailed. So dirty and too dumb to hide it.
Amen.
A petty criminal cabal.
all i care about is who paid the 24 years of taxes unless the town did then i call foul but if alligator has been paying the tax bill the whole time then let em have it but if the town has been paying heads should roll
I DON'T SEE CORUPTION WITH THIS ,JUST A SMALL TOWN TRYING TO WORK ITS PROBLEMS OUT
5 Starr ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Jody Barr.
Smells a little bit fishy!
Guy owns business trades work for land to the city, But it never happens (probably because some realized it was Illegal). Guy becomes mayor, finish transaction regardless of the law. Then sells the land for a 3rd more then he would of got... I can see how they guy feels like it his land/he's owed it especially if he did the work. And how he feels he's doing a good thing bringing in a school. I can see it as Win, Win, Win... City got new sewers, Win for the city.. He gets some land to sell Win for him, Kids get viable vocational training, Win for community. I'm not mad at him. Bu it would of been smarter to take it to the courts, probably would of ruled in his favor one way or another.
Hes putting in a small technical college??
Just a good ole boy mayor.
For the sake of all that is good, where some socks with those loafers! 12:32
It’s got to hurt, folks.
Alligator needs to be nationalised by the county, its entire executive structure arrested, and if they want a war, give it to them.
Sounds fishy to me.
Doesn't sound like he did anything intentionally wrong he seemed very honest with his answers. The public water building you showed could have been at any time condemned and the city could have been without water. Yes it was a real emergency more ways than 1. Learn how to pronounce McBee
They’re just happy to see u man😂😂 this is just a typical Brud n law, cousin good ole boy deal that politicians do in nearly every city. No one actually does our homework before we vote for these scallywags.
The town didnt loose anything, the building on it wasnt theirs, it wasnt a park. Im sure the town never mowed it. Why would a town not want what is being put there now?
If 't's Jody Barr, I watch.
Why woud alligator take them on at a loss?
This is stinky.
My take is that it looks bad but the old guy seemed to think he was helping the town get better safer water. I'm not sure how much he knows about the law either.
Just some good ol' boys.....
Jeremy Hales What The Hales
I can't hear you!
Small town politics as usual in SC
Don’t forget glen hiring a corrupt cop who would drop a high school girls ticket if she slept with him
Duck Duck.
Mayor looks like he is need of a drink
That maybe doesn’t seem like he has much going on brain wise!
Mayor don't even talk that slow... Trying to act as if he's so old.
74 lots of parting in the 80's .
It snow a lot in McBee . 😂
So there is an agreement that the property would be given as payment for work done. They never followed through and unethically didn’t compensate for work. He rights the wrong of the unpaid debt and we spin it to wind up the ignorant viewers. There has to be something more fruitful out there for your time and effort.
I think JB is barking up the wrong tree on this one.
Slow southern draw means. Here come the bullshitz.
Much ado about nothing, however, this could have easily been avoided simply by passing the resolution.
It’s pronounced [Muhk-bee] NOT / Mac-bee \
wow, that's some brutal slow talk. dude would have a hard time even getting an order in at most places in the world. zzzzzzzzzzzz