Sen. Land asks about DNR Board’s role in SCDNR boss’s decision.
The chairman of the Senate Fish, Game and Forestry Committee has launched an inquiry into whether John Frampton, director of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, voluntarily planned to retired this month or was told to do so.
Frampton, 63, announced Nov. 1 that he planned to retire effective Jan. 15, but at the December meeting of the Natural Resources Board he responded to a question about his decision by saying that boar chair Caroline Rhodes of Charleston told him the board wanted him to retire three months earlier than he had previously planned.
Rhodes said she only asked Frampton to retire early so the agency would have someone in charge when the legislature came back in January. After a closed session at the same meeting, the board gave Frampton two extra months to finish business at SCDNR, making his retirement effective March 16.
A 37-year employee of the agency who became director in 2003, Frampton said he planned to use the extra time participating in meetings on national wildlife issues and visiting his field staff to thank them personally for their efforts and support during his tenure. He has named Col. Alvin Taylor, deputy director of the agency’s Law Enforcement Division, acting director until his retirement.
Sen. Ronnie Cromer (R-Prosperity), chairman of the Senate Fish, Game and Forestry Committee, began the inquiry at the urging of Sen. John Land III (D-Manning) to determine if there was any impropriety in the way Frampton’s retirement was handled by the board.
Land said the inquiry by the Senate committee could answer questions about why the board wanted Frampton out and whether board members had violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the state’s open records law.
“There must be a reason they can articulate in public, other than saying they want to go in a different direction,” Land said about why the board made the decision to oust Frampton.
At the December board meeting, the two holdover members from Gov. Mark Sanford’s appointments said they were blindsided by Frampton’s retirement announcement. They charged the four members appointed by Gov. Nikki Haley, plus Rhodes – who was appointed by Sanford but elevated to board chair by Haley – conspired to get rid of Frampton.
Haley’s appointees include Cary L. Chastain of Charleston, Michael E. “Mike” Hutchins of Lexington, Larry L. Yonce of Johnston and Robert R. “Randy” Lowe of Hartsville.
The four Haley appointees said they did not hold a secret meeting to talk about Frampton, but indicated they did make telephone calls to discuss his future. Rhodes said private discussions were held with other board members to avoid an ugly public vote.
She said she had hoped the board would discuss Frampton’s successor at the December meeting, but the board never got to talk about it because the controversy over Frampton’s retirement erupted.
When asked if she or other board members had experienced problems with Frampton or his management style, she said only that Frampton kept saying he wanted to retire and the board took him up on it.
“When you have an agency that has a lot of issues that need to be dealt with and someone is telling you they want to retire, they need to retire,” said Rhodes, who said that Haley did not directly seek Frampton’s retirement. “Unless she told him to say, ‘I will retire,’ I don’t think so. He said it — not once — he said it to the former board, too, on occasion.
“When you have a new board come in and one of the first things he says is, ‘I just want y’all to know if you ask me, I will retire,’ that set the wrong tone to begin with.”
Rhodes said the Frampton retirement issue is settled and the focus should return to finding a permanent director to replace him. Taylor will become interim director upon Frampton’s retirement, and will be considered for the post permanently, she said.
“He has a wonderful record, and I think that is maybe a great story,” Rhodes said. “There are not very many law enforcement officers to come through the ranks and end up being the head of a natural resources agency. There is one now in Tennessee and one in Florida. It is very unusual.”
Should Taylor be named permanent director, she said, it would be a move toward returning to the original purpose of the agency. Taylor, 58, has been with SCDNR for 32 years, the last seven as deputy director.
“He will be wonderful for the agency,” Rhodes said.
Sen. Cromer said he is in the process of determining if he needs to go forward with the inquiry and hold hearings on the issue. He asked SCDNR to provide all information concerning the board’s decision, but did not expect to receive it until sometime in January at the earliest because of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
In a letter to Rhodes, Cromer asked for emails, telephone records, records of conference calls and recordings, meeting minutes, audio and video recordings, and public statements from board meetings concerting Frampton’s employment in 2011.
“There will be no need to hold hearings if we determine that nothing was done wrong,” Cromer said. “Based on the audio, I have not seen anything yet that we have a problem there, but some more information may come out from emails or notes and other material we have asked for.
“If it does, we most likely will conduct a committee hearing.”
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