BLYTHEWOOD – At a noon press conference on Monday at Doko Manor, newly elected Blythewood mayor Sloan Griffin announced that the town of Blythewood has incurred almost $700,000 in fees with two law firms since April of 2021 for its legal entanglement with MPA Strategies, the Town’s former marketing firm.
Griffin also announced that the Town has fired the two firms – one last week and the other less than hour before the press conference. All together the Town was paying for five attorneys, and the Town’s insurance company is paying an additional attorney who is defending the Town’s former mayor, Bryan Franklin, for a defamation case filed by MPA.
The Shannon Burnett law firm, to which the Town paid $238,753.75 for the MPA legal matters, was terminated on Dec. 6.
The Maynard Nexsen law firm (formerly Nexsen Pruet) has been paid a total of $314,087.52 for its attorneys’ work on MPA. That firm’s legal team, led by attorney David Black, was sent a letter of release and termination at 11:36 a.m., Monday, Dec. 11.
Griffin said invoices from those two firms are still outstanding in the amount of $141,633.09 as of Dec. 1, 2023. He said there could, in addition, be more invoices.
Ashley Hunter, CEO of MPA Strategies, said this of Mayor Griffin’s announcement, “After three years of nefariously spending almost $700,000 in public dollars behind the public’s back, today is an enormous victory for the citizens of Blythewood. Newly-elected Mayor Griffin and the new administration have made great strides in returning transparency and dignity to a South Carolina town that has so much to offer.
“As for the lawsuits; I look forward to putting the defamatory statements and the unrelenting intimidation tactics from the Town’s previous Mayor behind me,” she said.
See a breakdown of expenses released by the Town:
This story was updated December 13, 2023 at 12:28 p.m. EST.
