Seneca attorneys allege “willful disobedience”

Attorneys for Seneca are back in the city Municipal Court seeking a judge’s order to hold a downtown building owner in contempt for failure to follow an earlier order. A motion hearing is pending for an order and rule to show cause involving the city and Efford Haynes, the downtown building owner. Haynes owns the building that used to be the headquarters for Harper’s, a 5 and 10 chain that operated stores in Georgia and South Carolina. But Haynes and the city have been contesting the building for at least five years. According to attorneys for the city, in papers filed with the office of Municipal Judge Danny Singleton, “Defendant Haynes has been ordered to bring the building located at 222 East North First Street, 201A Main Street and 125 Depot Street….into compliance with the City of Seneca Building Code….on numerous occasions and has continuously failed to do so.”  Ed Halbig, planning and community development director, in an affidavit filed with the court, said, “In around June 2014, I learned that the Mr. Haynes’ insurance company settled the property claims related to the Haynes Building for approximately Four Hundred Thousand Dollars ($400,000.00).  In a letter last January to Haynes, a Seneca attorney, Lane Davis, wrote, “…the Haynes Building remains in increasingly gross disrepair and continues to present unacceptable dangers to public health and safety.”