Even as Edgefield County School District Superintendent Dr. Mary Rice Crenshaw was given a big “thumbs up” last week following a positive evaluation from school district school board members, there are others in the county who remain uncertain.

Local businessmen Charles Kemp and Jim Jackson, longtime critics of the Edgefield County School Board and the overall leadership of its superintendent, filed a joint lawsuit last week in which they hope to retain documents requested of the district under the Freedom Of Information Act, documents they say are being withheld by the district.

“We just were not getting the information we were looking for, that’s all it was,” said Mr. Kemp. “They were late with their response and said that they would not release the information and if they did it would cost $300. They wanted to talk about it.”

The two men requested information in June pertaining to two reports made by school board member James Bibbs prior to his latest school board campaign concerning his income. According to their information, a total sum of $10,000 listed as income from the school district appeared on a later, amended report.

“Why is he getting paid that amount of money, and for what?” said Mr. Jackson.

Mr. Kemp says the district has been reluctant to release the source or any reason for the salary.

“You should be able to get that information relatively quickly, but it seems to be a bit further away than that,” Mr. Kemp said. “We just don’t understand why they don’t want to give us the information. They must be trying to hide something. They’ve given us information before on FOIA’s with no problem, but on these three they’re not giving us anything.”

The June FOIA requests were broad in scope, requesting items that included billing invoices, long distance phone records, records of any grants, fees or compensation supplied by the district to any school board member, as well as any e-mails, notes, tapes, recordings or other documentation relating to Mr. Bibbs’ activities.

“As it specifically states in the FOIA they didn’t need to deliver any information, we just needed to be able to inspect it,” said Mr. Jackson. “We’ll decide what we want, We just want to be able to review it. They haven’t even responded to several of our requests, either by a letter or a phone call and they haven’t even done that. They are just totally blowing us off. It is a voluminous amount of information, so if they asked us to be more specific we could do that, but they haven’t even responded. Enough is enough. We’ve had it.”
 
School district officials were not able to be reached for comment.

“Either we’ll follow through on a trial or we’ll get the information that we have requested, the ball is in their court,” added Mr. Jackson. “I know why they are dragging their feet. They’re trying to call our bluff. Wrong answer.”