GREENVILLE, S.C. — A Greenville County councilman routinely forwards emails from constituents to people outside government, causing an outcry that he is endangering their welfare and spreading private information.
Councilman Joe Dill has forwarded emails on a variety of subjects including rescinding Greenville County's anti-LGBT resolution from the 1990s and contentious zoning issues.
Several people have decried his actions at public meetings recently, including one woman who said she fears retaliation and another concerned her private medical information has been passed around.
At the last council meeting earlier this month, resident Tom Goss called for Dill to be removed from his position.
Dill said in an interview last week, "If I hurt somebody's feelings, I'm sorry."
The council is expected to address the subject at its Tuesday meeting.
The controversy began when Greenville resident Jeremy Krober sent a Freedom of Information Act request for five councilor's emails, including Dill's, on the subject of the county's 1996 resolution against the LGBT community.
Earlier this year, Pride Upstate asked that it be rescinded. The anti-LGBT resolution cost the county the opportunity to see the Olympic torch run. Members of the Olympic committee decided instead to put the torch into a vehicle with windows masked and driven through Greenville County except for when runners carried it through the city of Greenville.
The resolution has stayed on the books ever since.
After saying no to setting aside the resolution in March, the council voted instead to do away with all non-binding resolutions after four years.
Krober received hundreds of emails from his FOIA request and started noticing that Dill had forwarded emails of support for the LGBT community to people who opposed it.
He also came upon an email from resident Dawn Pyle telling two council members that a man who spoke to them about guns had a criminal record. Councilman Ennis Fant forwarded it to the entire council, and Dill sent it to the man in question, who had commented to the council about guns.
Krober reached out to Pyle, who he did not know, to tell her the email had been forwarded, including her personal contact information.
"I thought I was going to vomit," Pyle said. "Why would Joe Dill do that?"
Pyle said she now fears for her safety and is looking into home security systems.
"What else are they sharing?" she asked.
Penny Lillis wrote to Dill, who is her council representative, about her concern that her 13 acres in Marietta were going to be rezoned. She told Dill she invested in her property in case one day she needed to sell pieces for medical bills or other needs.
Before long, she started receiving calls from people in favor of the rezoning, she said.
"I said personal things that I don't want people to know," Lillis said.
She said she's looking to move to Pickens or Oconee counties because she feels she can't trust Dill.
Lillis wants Dill to be removed from his committee assignments and publicly reprimanded.
Tom Goss said that as a member of the county's Board of Construction Appeals, he believes private individuals' contact information should be kept confidential.
The state Freedom of Information Act does have a provision that exempts governments from releasing private information that could harm an individual. But Kent Lesesne, director of governmental affairs for the South Carolina Association of Counties, said that would not necessarily apply in this case.
Further, that clause is an exemption, not a requirement. A governmental agency could decide such information should be released because it is in the public good to release it.
Lesesne said the remedy in this case would be decided by council policy.
Greenville County has no policy. What possibly will be presented Tuesday has yet to be released. Krober said he'd like to see an oversight committee established to guide officials' behavior.
Lesesne said, "As a general rule, constituents have an expectation of privacy. That trust should be honored."
In an interview, Dill did not directly address his policy of sending unsolicited emails to people, but he defended sending the email to the person speaking about the Second Amendment. The man denied the accusation that he had a criminal record, and Dill said he thought he should know what was being said.
"I know what this is," he said. "People trying to create an issue. This is a political statement."
He said he was not trying to hurt anyone. Plus, as it happened, that email was subject to FOIA, which is how Krober got it in the first place.
"I can't protect people from FOIA. I can't guarantee it won't be released," he said.
Dill also said if people want him off council they should run for the seat. He has been on Greenville County Council for 22 years. The governor is the only person who can remove someone from office, and that is only if someone has been convicted of a crime.
For County Council Chairman Butch Kirven and a number of other council members, it's a matter of common courtesy.
"We need to acknowledge we have a duty to respect people's private information," he said.
The Freedom of Information Act applies to an elected official's emails, and when people contact them, there should not be an expectation of privacy, Kirven said.
"On a case-by-case basis, we should not randomly broadcast these things. You never know what the consequences might be," he added.
Several residentssaid if constituents knew their contact information was going to be made public, it would have a chilling effect on what elected officials hear.
Councilman Fant said common sense should prevail.
"We are called honorable, and that means something — or it should," he said.
