Greenville County Councilman Willis Meadows said other council members were plotting to strip him of the chairmanship of council’s Finance Committee in retaliation for filing a lawsuit against the county.

Council Chairman Butch Kirven, however, said he and eight other council members are “trying to hold the council together” in the wake of a bitter dispute over two new fees.

The fight has divided three council members from the other nine.

It began in March, when Meadows and councilmen Joe Dill and Mike Barnes filed a lawsuit challenging the new fees. They and other plaintiffs, including members of the county’s legislative delegation, sued Greenville County and Greenville County Council.

The plaintiffs argued, among other things, that council, in voting to impose the new fees, failed to follow a longstanding rule requiring a “supermajority” of nine votes to raise taxes or fees.

Seven council members voted to repeal the supermajority rule in April before council gave final approval for the new fees through separate votes in June.

The acrimony surfaced again Tuesday, July 18, when nine council members voted to give Kirven the power to pick the Finance Committee chairman, a power he already had in regards to council’s other standing committees.

Before the change, whoever the council elected to be its vice chairman automatically became Finance chair, and Meadows was elected vice chairman in January.

Meadows said changing the method for determining the Finance chair was the first step in a plan to strip him of the chairmanship — and “payback” for filing the lawsuit.

“Take me off as chairman, so what?” he said during an acrimonious meeting of council’s Committee of the Whole. “I’ll still be on council. I will still ask questions.”

Asked if there was sentiment on council to remove Meadows as Finance chair, Kirven acknowledged there was.

He said the feeling resulted not just from the lawsuit but also from verbal accusations made by some council members that were “calculated to divide the council.”

“We’re trying to hold the council together,” Kirven said. “Nine people want to hold it together and solidify it and respect the council’s established procedures and rules. That’s all this is about.”

One of the new fees would add $14.95 a year on each parcel of real property and raise money for a new telecommunications system for emergency personnel.

The other fee is an increase in the annual road maintenance fee from $15 to $25.

Money generated by the road maintenance fee is used to improve county roads. County officials say they will also use it to meet a requirement for a local match if the State Transportation Infrastructure Bank accepts their request for $168 million in state money to pay for five major road projects, including one to relieve congestion on Woodruff Road.

The Finance Committee has jurisdiction over various financial matters, including taxes, the budget, and incentives for economic development projects.