Willis Meadows and Dan Tripp

Greenville County Council Vice Chairman Dan Tripp sat next to Chairman Willis Meadows as Meadows sought to remove him from his committee chairmanship on Sept. 21, 2021. 

Greenville County Council Chairman Willis Meadows failed in an attempt to remove the council’s vice chair, Dan Tripp, from his role as finance committee chairman during a meeting on Sept. 21.

Tripp has harshly criticized Meadows and other council members a number of times in recent meetings. An initial supporter of Meadows as chairman, Tripp has become a vocal critic of leadership decisions and procedural conduct during meetings in several critical votes in recent months.

Meadows, in turn, asked for Tripp to resign his position as chairman over the council’s finance committee and Tripp declined, Tripp said. Meadows then asked the council to remove Tripp as committee chair for a lack of decorum in speaking. He said Tripp had not followed the council’s conduct rules and had “created problems.”

“It creates relationship problems," Meadows said. "It creates problems with getting things done on council and you can’t ignore those things.”

But the vote failed 6-6. It required a simple majority.

Afterwards, Meadows said he thought he had the votes to remove Tripp from the position but someone changed their vote from what he expected.

Council members Meadows, Mike Barnes, Steve Shaw, Stan Tzouvelekas, Ennis Fant and Xanthene Norris voted to remove Tripp. Council members Tripp, Joe Dill, Chris Harrison, Liz Seman, Lynn Ballard and Butch Kirven voted to allow Tripp to continue in his role.

Tripp did not address the issue during the committee meeting or the council meeting that followed. He told The Post and Courier that he appreciated those council members who supported him and that he stood by the substance of his past remarks.

“They’re primarily based in rules and process and I thought it was wrong for him to come after me when there’s been no complaint about my role as chairman of finance,” Tripp said.

Following a vote in August when the council’s majority stifled debate before voting on new development rules for unzoned areas in the county, Tripp spoke forcefully and said the council lacked leadership and wouldn’t have peace “while you keep thumbing the minority on this body.”

He criticized Councilman Ennis Fant, who had called the question to force a vote before any council members had a chance to debate the final version of the development rules, calling Fant a hypocrite.

In May, after Meadows initially rejected Seman’s request to remove an item about county support for the city of Greenville’s Wings of the City exhibit from its consent agenda so it could be discussed, Tripp raised his voice and pounded the dais as he criticized Meadows — who sat next to him — about what he saw as a violation of procedure that would “put a member out.”

At a June meeting, Tripp criticized Meadows' successful effort to replace Seman and Kirven on county boards following their support for a rezoning request that eventually failed. Tripp called the move “vindictive” and unbecoming of council to replace the longtime members on the nonprofit economic development boards “under the cloak of darkness.”

At the council’s committee of the whole meeting Sept. 21, when the finance committee vote took place, Ballard said he had agonized over the decision. He said he spoke to Tripp and told him he couldn’t condone all of his remarks but he didn’t want to make decisions based on personalities.

“This council, in my opinion, has gone astray,” Ballard said. “Everything’s ‘Let’s get back at this person. Let’s take this out on this person. Let’s penalize this person.' And council can’t operate that way.”

Kirven said if the council had followed through on removing Tripp, it would cause further division.

“I think it would be very detrimental to our credibility with the public if we follow through with this,” Kirven said.

Meadows said it would be detrimental if the council showed by its vote that it approved of what he called Tripp’s “lack of decorum.”

Afterward, Meadows said six council members had voted to support Tripp’s behavior.

Tripp said the attempt to remove him was about control and that Meadows can’t control him.

“I’ll continue fighting for the people of Greenville County like I have in the past,” Tripp said. “He can tell me where to sit on the dais but he can’t tell me where to stand on the issues.”

Follow Nathaniel Cary on Twitter at @nathanielcary

Similar Stories