Irmo Town Council continues to clash over the nature of a contract it’s considering with a company owned by a November council candidate.

At its regularly scheduled Sept. 19 meeting, council, minus absent Council Member Kelly Bush, weighed approving a $15,500 contract with Parking Lot Kings to re-stripe portions of College Street, Friarsgate Boulevard, N. Royal Tower, and Carlisle Street. The company was co-founded by Gabriel Penfield, one of four challenges joining sitting Council Member Erik Sickinger in seeking one of two at-large seats on the Nov. 7 ballot.

At the meeting, members were at odds regarding the fact that no request for proposal was put out for the contract.

During the meeting, all members of council, minus Mayor Barry Walker, expressed that they weren’t aware of the project's scope and needed more information.

A copy of the contract wasn’t presented to council in the information packets for the meeting. Town Administrator Courtney Dennis said he didn’t add the proposal as he felt it was incomplete and was informed that the mayor would explain the details at the meeting.

The motion to approve the contract failed, with Walker casting the lone yea vote.

A town ordinance dictates that, with a contract of more than $10,000, “a request for bid must be advertised electronically and in a local newspaper of general circulation and a minimum of three written quotes, unless on state contract."

Dennis told the Chronicle that the bid should have been advertised if the town anticipated the cost to be over $10,000. He added that during a previous town workshop discussion, the first course of action was to find out who was responsible for the roads and who owned them, followed by looking into the scope of the project.

“I felt like the scope of work was too small to gain the interest of a company to give me a quote.  I was also in the process of confirming which roads we would include in the project and the details of the project (number of yellow lines, white lines, stop lines, etc. …),” Dennis said via email. “Without knowing how much a preliminary quote would come in, I did not place a bid together.”

The administrator added that he was unable to get any quotes that would give insight to how much the project might cost, adding that he wasn’t prepared Sept. 19 to present his findings to council.

Dennis said Walker received a preliminary quote from Parking Lot Kings and asked for it to be placed on the agenda. Walker said differently, positing that Dennis went out and received all quotes.

Penfield told the Chronicle the mayor reached out to him regarding safety concerns with markings on the affected roads. He said he was told they were having trouble getting bids due to the amount of paint that would be wasted. He added that he was just asked to provide a quote, saying that he believed the context of the interaction was exploratory and not to be “greenlighted” during the meeting.

Asked if he had talked to both the mayor and the town administrator about the bid, he said that from his understanding the two were reaching out to individual vendors separately.

Responding to questions about his political relationship with Walker and if there was a reason the mayor reached out to him, Penfield told the Chronicle that he was just an acquaintance who has access to a qualified opinion.

“I don’t believe it goes outside that,” he said.

According to Walker, the contract was able to skip the town’s required bidding process as it is an emergency appropriation of funds as it deals with public safety.

“People’s lives are at stake, you know somebody rides down the wrong side of the road in the rain and gets killed. or injured,” he said. “It could have been avoided. …That's considered an emergency”

Walker stated that the state Department of Transportation agreed to do their portion of the road as an emergency appropriation.

Kelly Moore, director of public engagement and senior advisor to the secretary for DOT, told the Chronicle that College Street and Friarsgate are not maintained by the department, though they maintain portions of N. Royal Tower Drive and Carlise. She said the department expects to work on re-striping their portions during October, but the project doesn’t use an emergency appropriation.

Sickinger also told the Chronicle that the contract wasn’t labeled as an emergency appropriation and stated that the paper’s inquiry was the first time he had heard it referred to as such. Dennis also said it wasn't labeled as an emergency appropriation.

The council member added that if the town had approved this contract it would have been in violation of its own ordinance.

Per town ordinance, “an emergency condition is a situation that creates a threat to public health, welfare, or safety such as may arise by reason of floods, epidemics, riots, equipment failure, fire loss, or such other reason as may be proclaimed by town officials. The existence of such conditions must create an immediate and serious need for supplies, services, or construction that cannot be met through normal procurement methods and the lack of which would seriously threaten the functioning of town government, the preservation or protection of property, or the health or safety of any person.”

“I would argue that weak traffic markings or weak lane markings are not the result of a flood epidemic, riot, fire loss that was proclaimed from the town because it's been like that for a year or two or three or more,” Sickinger said. “So I think a reasonable person would be hard pressed to consider that an emergency.”

Walker said the contract didn’t state that it was an emergency appropriation.

When asked if council was made aware of this being an emergency appropriation, the mayor alluded to council members saying they were never notified as “a set-up,” stating that they knew it was an emergency appropriation as it was brought up as an emergency by citizens.

“I am telling you, as the mayor of Irmo, I saw this as something that needed to be done for public safety,” Walker said.

Council is set to meet for a special-called session Oct. 10, with nothing about the contract listed on the agenda. The body is next set to meet Oct. 17 for its regular monthly meeting.