What is going on in Silverstreet? That’s a question we here at The Observer have been asking for a little while, and this week, we are positive we are not alone in wondering.

Public bodies and municipalities in South Carolina all have some common rules to follow, this is true. It is also true that many of the smaller public bodies are less observed by the state government, the media and public. Those smaller areas have less resources and are cut more slack in meeting requirements. This must be true, as evidenced by Silverstreet’s lack of a proper audit filing in recent years.

But when we hear about members of public bodies trying to draw a veil between the public business they are conducting and the very eyes of the citizens they serve—that’s when the slack has to be drawn in.

Silverstreet’s mayor resigned this week, on paper for “health and personal reasons” and as she put it, “I’m tired of all the crap I have to put up with.” There were three years left on Janice Havird’s term, and Silverstreet’s town council will now have to figure out how that space will be filled. And even though Silverstreet is a small, rural area, obviously people care about its government.

There were people at the meeting Tuesday night, concerned over finding out the meeting schedule, and concerned about not being able to view the whole meeting. Some of those same concerns had prompted us to take a more active interest.

We do know this, we made a formal request, after informal nudging did not yield fruit, for a notice of the meeting schedule, agendas prior to the meetings, minutes of past meetings and the town’s audit results. Everything listed in our Freedom of Information Act request were items that are supposed to be provided without a formal request, and items that, by state law, are to be available without advance request when anyone appears in person to request access to this information.

We still do not have a schedule of meetings, agendas, minutes of past meetings or the town’s audit results. What we do have is a copy of a mayor’s resignation letter, a hodge-podge of financial records and a town in need of leadership.

For the community’s sake, we hope the whole mess boils down to overwhelmed small town officials not meeting the letter of the law. We all face challenges, and we have sympathy for the avalanche of rules and paperwork that can descend on even the smallest of government endeavors. But for now, Silverstreet’s books remain unchecked and interested citizens are uninformed about what is going on in their town government—and that situation cannot stand unchallenged.