Lexington’s mayor, who was key in the push for a now seemingly abandoned lakefront resort, will run for re-election in November, while members of Town Council continue to argue about how the project was handled.

“Absolutely,” Mayor Steve MacDougall told the Chronicle when asked if he plans to run again when the office is on the ballot Nov. 7.

He answered the question after the July 24 Lexington council workshop, the first meeting following the apparent death of the Smallwood Cove development. 

MacDougall had been publicly silent about the project since the July 19 announcement that the property owners had withdrawn from all applications and considerations related to the development.

“We absolutely respect the landowners right to withdraw,” he told the Chronicle after the July 24 meeting. “We don't aggressively annex anybody's property, they sent us a request to annex, they decided to pull that annex back.”

“That's okay,” he added. “We'll do that when they're ready.”

The legality of annexing the property was at issue during the fervent and immediate public backlash to the project, as some questioned the line-of-sight argument for annexing the proposed resort site that isn’t contiguous to the town.

During the meeting, there was much squabbling between the typically even-keel members.

The beginning of the meeting saw Council Member Todd Carnes add an agenda item to talk about “media relations” before reading aloud the statement released by the newly elected Council Member Gavin Smith concerning the council's handing of Smallwood Cove, the lakefront resort that was supposed to go in just south of the Lake Murray Dam and include living spaces, hotels, a marina and a conference center.

The statement reiterated largely the same concerns Smith expressed to the Chronicle after the announcement that the property owners had pulled out of the project, emphasizing that Smith didn’t know about Smallwood Cove until he assumed his office in May. He was elected the day after the project was publicly announced.

“What I’ve learned since about the project, its’ origins, and how it was managed, has been disappointing, disheartening, and eye-opening as a new member of Council,” his statement said in part. “In the days ahead, I am hopeful that the mistakes of this project can be learned from, and that we can move forward together as a community and Council who always puts the people, transparency, and honesty first.”

Carnes told those in attendance he believes the statement insinuates that there is a lack of putting people first, a lack of transparency and a lack of honesty among council.

Smith said that prior to sending out the statement he talked with Mayor Pro-Tem Hazel Livingston to get her opinion on it, saying that he wanted to strike a balance between expressing his disdain for how the project was handled and not offending his fellow council members.

During the discussion, Livingston said that with the way Carnes read the statement, she could see the other point of view.

“I can see we can come across that way, but I didn't personally have a problem,” she said. “I'm speaking for me.”

Carnes said he brought up the statement to clarify its meaning.

“Nobody up here wants dishonesty. Nobody wants a lack of transparency. Nobody wants self-dealing in any of these things,” Carnes said. “And so I think if there's a specific actionable that goes in the public sphere, I think we would probably all want to address that, but the broad generalizations are generally not helpful for an organization overall.”

Smith questioned the rest of council as to who knew this was going to be a topic of discussion before the meeting, exclaiming that he found it disrespectful to be put on the spot without a heads up.

Only Council Member Todd Lyle said he knew the agenda item was coming beforehand.

Smith said he believes some people may not be telling the truth currently, as he heard prior to the meeting that “there were going to be some fireworks tonight.”

Supporting his statement, Smith said that when he came on council, there were instances of dishonesty, finger-pointing, game-playing and “he said, she said.” He added that he does not believe everyone on council was dishonest at every point, saying he thinks everyone on council is a good person.

“I'll be the first to admit on the record here that during the executive session when we discussed how terribly this was handled and all of you have said it was handled terribly that I did get a little heated because we're responsible for your tax dollars,” he said.

Closing the media relations discussion, MacDougall said it “was going nowhere” and told the town clerk it was just information and not an item for the future agenda. Council Members Ron Williams and Kathy Maness remained silent during the discussion.