WINNSBORO – South Carolina Electric and Gas Company has filed a motion for a change of venue for the lawsuit Fairfield County filed on Nov. 29, 2017 against the utility for a temporary injunction. The matter is to be heard on Thursday before Judge Paul Burch.
“SCE&G is asking to have the trial moved to Lexington County since they’re based in Cayce,” Fairfield County Administrator Jason Taylor told The Voice on Wednesday. “That would be more convenient for them, but we, of course, don’t want to do that. Fairfield is where the incident occurred, this is where we work and live and there would be many inconveniences for our council members if it were moved,” Taylor said.
Council members signed affidavits on Monday stating their particular inconveniences, health problems and other reasons why it would be difficult for them to travel to Lexington County for a trial.
“We’ve submitted the affidavits to our attorney, and he will submit them to the judge on Thursday,” Taylor said. “Hopefully, the judge will rule on Thursday, but at this point, we don’t know.”
RIDGEWAY – In yet another daring robbery at gunpoint of the Dollar General store in Ridgeway, a gunman got away with $1,400 after threatening to shoot the store’s manager during an early morning heist on Sunday, Jan. 28.
The store manager reported that as he was in the process of stacking items for display outside the store about 8 a.m. when a black male, about 40 years old and driving a gray Nissan Maxima, approached him from behind.
The manager said the suspect was composed and brandished a silver/chrome semi-automatic hand gun as he demanded money from the store’s cash register.
As the manager began to load money from the register and safe into a yellow Dollar General bag, the suspect demanded all the cash as well as the rolls of change. The manager said the suspect kept one hand on the gun and the other hand balled up, being careful not to touch anything.
After the money was loaded into the bag and placed on the counter, the manager reported that the gunman ordered him into a back storage room. The incident report states that the gunman followed the victim into the storage room, told him to stay there and threatened, “Don’t make me shoot you.”
Stating that he feared for his life, the manager said he waited a few minutes after the gunman left before exiting the storage room and calling law enforcement.
While Fairfield County Sheriff’s deputies state that the store did not have exterior surveillance cameras, the entire robbery scene and the suspect were recorded on interior cameras. Deputies also reported that they hoped exterior cameras from the adjacent Nelson Funeral Home would offer a good angle of the suspect and the suspect’s vehicle.
Deputies also visited the AM/PM Convenience store on Highway 34 E in Ridgeway to review surveillance camera footage in an attempt to identify the suspect’s vehicle as it drove along Highway 34 immediately prior to and following the nearby Dollar General robbery.
The surveillance footage is reported to show the Nissan traveling east on Highway 34 E towards the Dollar General at 7:58 a.m. on Jan. 28. The same vehicle is then seen traveling west on Highway 34 E, headed towards the area of I-77 at 8:07 a.m. However, Sheriff’s deputies say they cannot be sure at this time whether the Nissan on the surveillance footage is the same as the suspect’s.
The report stated the modus operandi of this incident closely resembles those of a recent string of armed robberies at Dollar Generals in Kershaw, Lancaster, York and Richland Counties.
BLYTHEWOOD – After a year of planning, a year of construction and a year of searching for a buyer, the Town of Blythewood has found a potential purchaser for the Doko Depot, and if the sale goes through as expected, it may come with a bonus – Freeway Music.
The music company, which offers lessons for guitar, piano and most other musical instruments as well as musical theater training, told The Voice in an exclusive interview last week that it is negotiating a contract to lease part of the building from Wheeler & Wheeler who is in the process of purchasing the shell building from the Town.
“We’re in a holding pattern right now,” Freeway Music owner Don Russo said.
“It’s a fantastic location if it works. We should know something soon,” Russo said.
The company has five locations in the Midlands and provides musicians for many of Blythewood’s events including the Christmas parade, Carol lighting and warm up for amphitheater productions in Doko Park.
Bravo Blythewood announced last month that it will be partnering with Russo to bring musical theater productions to the amphitheater this spring.
RIDGEWAY – A high speed chase that began in Ridgeway, ended on Garner’s Ferry Road and reached 123 miles per hour, resulted in attempted murder charges for Michael Odell Lewis, 24, of Columbia.
Lewis
The incident began during an early evening traffic safety check conducted by the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Department at the intersection of Syrup Mill Road and Peach Road on Jan. 26, when a blue Hyundai Elantra pulled up to the check point.
Deputy Amber Shults reported immediately smelling the odor of an alcoholic beverage and what appeared to be marijuana coming from the vehicle. Shults said she observed an open container of liquor in the center console and a small scale on the driver’s lap.
When the driver was asked to turn off the vehicle, he complied, then turned the engine back on and accelerated at a high rate of speed towards another deputy who was standing in the roadway speaking with the driver of another vehicle, according to the report. The officer moved quickly out of the way to avoid being struck while Dep. Shultz pursued the Hyundai onto Devil’s Race Track Road then right onto Syrup Mill Road, traveling back through the safety check point area.
The Hyundai continued, reaching 90 miles per hour as it entered Richand County and turned left onto Blythewood Road, heading for Blythewood, the report stated. Turning south onto I-77, the chase was reported to reach 123 miles per hour.
Richland County deputies attempted to use stop sticks at Exit 22. The vehicle swerved toward a Richland County Deputy during the pursuit.
After leaving I-77 at Exit 9, the vehicle turned onto Garners Ferry Road and pulled into an apartment complex where the Hyundai’s front passenger side tire blew out. The suspect, later identified as Lewis, and a passenger fled on foot but were apprehended in the complex, the report stated.
Both Fairfield and Richland County officers charged Lewis with attempted murder and failure to stop for blue lights.
The passenger, Travol Robinson, 25, was charged with open container. Both were transported to Fairfield County Detention Center. Lewis was denied bond and Robinson and released on his personal recognizance.
WINNSBORO – The construction of the new emergency services facility for Fairfield County and North Richland is about to begin. The ground breaking for the new Providence Health – Fairfield Emergency Room will be held Feb. 15 on property located across the Highway 321 Bypass from the Winnsboro Bi-Lo.
Plans for the one-level, 17,700 square foot facility call for 12,700 square feet to be dedicated to emergency services, a triage room to properly access the emergent need for care, four exam rooms, two trauma rooms, two entrances – one for walk-in patients and one for ambulances – a laboratory, and computerized tomography (CT) scan equipment. The remaining 5,000 square feet will be used for future expansion.
According to a Providence hospital representative, the emergency service facility is expected to be completed this fall.
While attending the Fairfield Memorial Hospital board meeting in January, Scott Campbell, Market Chief Executive Officer of Providence Health, was asked by FMH board trustee James McGraw about the ability of Providence Hospital Northeast to handle patients who might be coming from Fairfield County.
“We have added 24-hour cardiology services there (at Providence Northeast) … we opened the ICU back up, we have a general surgeon starting there and a urologist starting there next month,” Campbell told him. “We are going to have a different level of services that previously were not available.”
RIDGEWAY – The County’s Director of Economic Development, Ty Davenport, is tickled pink that the county has a potentially interested buyer for its only spec building, a 75,000 square foot big box in the Walter Brown Industrial Park off Cook Road, but his elation is exceeded by his worry that the County doesn’t have the marketable industrial properties that it needs to stay up with its competition.
Some Fairfield County residents, however, have voiced objection when the County considers purchasing more land for economic development.
Fairfield County Administrator Jason Taylor, left, and the County’s Director of Economic Development Ty Davenport, survey infrastructure construction in the Fairfield Commerce Center off Peach Road that is scheduled to be finished in the spring. | Barbara Ball
“When it comes up that the County is looking to buy several hundred acres of property for economic development, the perception is that the County owns all this property and has a tremendous amount of inventory,” Davenport told The Voice last week during a tour of the County’s 600-acre Fairfield Commerce Center off Peach Road, the second of its two industrial parks.
“But we don’t,” he said. “Our marketable territory is pretty slim today compared to the main counties we compete with. We have a total of about 600 buildable acres. Chester County has 1,353 marketable acres available, twice what we have. Kershaw has 1,000+ marketable acres and Orangeburg County, a big competitor of ours, has 1,850 acres ready to go,” Davenport said. “Orangeburg has 10 industrial parks compared to our two – the Fairfield Commerce Center and the Walter Brown Industrial Park. And these numbers don’t include mega sites.”
Davenport said the County has about 475 buildable acres in the Fairfield Commerce Center and only 32 total buildable acres in the Walter Brown Park.
“When recruiting industry, we have to be ready for them. Things happen faster today than they did 20 years ago, and the county that has marketable, ready-to-go property is going to do better,” Davenport said.
Asked what other inventory there is in the County, Davenport said there are six available buildings – the former Mack Truck building, (676,000+ square feet), the former Caterpillar building (50,000+ square feet), the spec building (75,000 square feet), the 123,000-square-foot Charm building in Ridgeway that has only 22,000 square feet available, the Fazio (Plastec) building (175,000 square feet) on Highway 34 and about 20,000 square feet available in the 65,000+ square foot Ying Zin building in Walter Brown Park. All but the spec building are privately owned but marketed by the County.
“With the improving economy, the Mack Truck building has been getting lots of looks lately. It’s one of only six buildings over 600,000 square feet available in the whole state. It has rail and a new $3 million roof. It’s a clean building inside with a clean environmental report. It’s ready to go,” Davenport said. “It’s a big property with a lot of value on 150 acres. It could be expanded up to a million square feet fairly easily. A company that’s interested in a big building in South Carolina will look at it,” Davenport said. “Besides the potential jobs, that building can bring in significantly more property taxes annually for the County than the $400,000 it now generates.”
The only other site that could hold a building the size of the Mack Truck building is a 100-acre site located in the 210-acre second phase of the Fairfield Commerce Center. That site will be ready to market in late spring. Graders are currently adding water and sewer lines and roads. That work is being financed with $7 million from the County’s $24 million bond money.
Davenport said the County has saved about $1 million on the project by redesigning part of the site and securing almost $700,00 in grants. The County harvested a portion of the timber on the property and plans to use the proceeds to pre-grade building pads for new users.
Driving past BOMAG, a mid-size company that sits at the entrance to the Fairfield Commerce Center, Davenport pointed to a yard full of shiny yellow road paving equipment that the company assembles. He described the company as fantastic.
“It’s an international French-owned German company that employees 120 people and owns 120 companies around the world. That’s a good connection for us.” Davenport said.
For some in the County, the 1,200-acre mega site purchased last year on Highway 34 east of I-77 is the elephant in the room. Shortly after the County purchased the site, Val Green, a local engineer, announced during public comment session of a County Council meeting, that the property was full of granite and would be difficult to develop. Davenport said the state conducted geo technical studies on the property that show the granite to be well below the surface and should not be an issue. He also said soil borings were conducted on the site. Davenport conceded that this site, like all sites, has grading challenges. He also said the site would require water, sewer and natural gas before it would be marketable. However, he said the site has two big pluses.
“It’s the only industrial site the County owns that has rail access,” Davenport said. “That’s a top priority for the more desirable industrial sites.”
Another plus is that while the property cost a whopping $8,700,000, the County only had to kick in approximately $3,000,000. The Department of Commerce covered the remaining $6,000,000. The state has also agreed to assist in covering the cost of infrastructure for the site.
“This site is for the big one, the big user, the grand slam, the home run,” Davenport said of the mega site. “But it’s not going to be marketable for 12-18 months. We still have to design truck access. As for rail access, a spur just needs to be constructed from the track to reach into the site,” Davenport said.
In the meantime, Davenport said the County is trying to recruit more good mid-size companies like BOMAG for sites soon to be available in its two existing industrial parks. “I’d like to bring in 10 companies like BOMAG,” Davenport said. “Ten companies bring in 10 accountants, 10 lawn care people, 10 people doing whatever. We want those people in the County. We’re trying to figure out ways to drive the local economy, not the national economy.”
While Davenport said he feels the County is woefully short on marketable properties, he rattles off some of the County’s assets.
“The region is attractive, and the County brings a lot to the table to attract good, clean industry,” he said. “We have 1.2 million people in a 60-minute drive time, giving us access to a good workforce – about half a million employed people – and companies are looking for people who are currently employed. We have Lake Wateree, Lake Monticello, proximity to an international airport in Charlotte and a world class zoo and university in Columbia. We have the Fairfield County museum and Carolina Adventure World in our back door, Gamecock sports, plenty of great housing in Columbia, Northeast Columbia, Blythewood and other rural and small town settings in the County. And the shopping in Ridgeway and Winnsboro is getting better every day. There’s something for everyone here,” Davenport said.
Another plus, Davenport said, is that Winnsboro and the County are becoming big assets to each other. He said the two leaderships are working together now to make things happen.
“County Administrator Jason Taylor has a background in town administration and understands town development. He has a passion for it. We have a new grant writer in the Town, and the County has hired a new community development director who will be working not only with Winnsboro but the smaller towns in the County as well. What he’s doing will make my product easier to sell,” Davenport said.
“More than anything, I hope the people in the county understand that when the County buys land, we are not just land banking. We are trying to acquire an inventory to accommodate different size buildings that meet the needs of multiple end users,” Davenport said. “We have to have outside money coming in or the town and county will wither up. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to recruit money into the County.”
BLYTHEWOOD – A Blythewood family was not at home on the afternoon of Jan. 12 when a bullet came crashing through the breakfast room window of their home and traveled through a kitchen cabinet, into the dining room before embedding into an adjacent wall.
Rimer Pond Road resident Gina Lee points to a bullet hole left in her family’s breakfast room window during the afternoon of Jan. 19. So far there are no suspects. | Barbara ball
“It had to have happened between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that Friday afternoon,” homeowner Gina Lee said on Tuesday.
“My husband, Pete, and my mother-in-law left the house about 11:30 that morning,” Lee said.
When Lee came home from work at her hair salon in downtown Blythewood about 12:30 p.m., she started to make coffee and noticed a bullet hole in the kitchen cabinet, just above her head.
“It scared me to death!” Lee said. “I could see inside the cabinet that it went through the wall into the dining room so I checked in the dining room,” Lee said. “I could see where the bullet lodged in the far wall of the dining room.”
“We won’t know the caliber of the bullet until we tear out a place in the wall to retrieve the shell,” she said.
Curtis Wilson, Public Information Officer for the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, said on Wednesday that the incident is still under investigation.
Anyone with information about shots fired in the vicinity of Highway 21 and Rimer Pond Road on Jan. 12 should call (803)576-3000.
COLUMBIA – For the second year in a row, Richland County has invited county residents to participate in what the County calls the rewriting of the County’s Land Development Code (zoning ordinance) and regulations. A flier announcing meetings, on Feb. 5 and Feb. 7, states that residents’ input will help guide the rewrite.
But some residents who attended those meetings last year claimed during public presentation at Richland County Planning Commission and County Council meetings in the fall of 2017 that they never heard back after making their suggestions for changes and new directions for zoning. Indeed, County officials concede there have been no reports on the results of last year’s meetings.
Tracy Hegler, Director of Planning and Development for Richland County, told the Voice prior to a Planning Commission meeting last September, that no reports would be forthcoming until the second group of meetings in February, 2018.
Last year’s meetings came just after Richland County Council voted against a request by Hugh Palmer for commercial zoning on Rimer Pond Road. During that process, residents were unhappy to learn that the County’s Comprehensive Plan (a document directing future zoning in an area) designated future development along Rimer Pond Road as suburban (medium density zoning), not rural as it is currently zoned. Much of the controversy surrounding the Palmer’s commercial rezoning request is focused on that issue.
Much of the land in that area is made up of farms and large acre properties that back up to LongCreek Plantation. The residents from both areas have expressed to Richland County Council and to the Planning Commission during the past several years a desire for properties in that area to remain rural in the future. They said that once commercial zoning is approved for one property, it will spread down the road, destroying the neighborhood’s quality of life and even safety.
“Right now, in some areas, like Rimer Pond Road, the people who live there are not liking what the county has planned for their area in terms of zoning,” Ashley Powell, Community Planning and Development Services Manager, said last year. “We want to protect the character of the neighborhood that the people moved out there for. We need to amend (the Richland County Comp Plan) based on the feedback we get from the people.”
But residents in the Rimer Pond Road area have said in Richland County public meetings that they are looking for the mapped-out long range vision for their area to change from suburban back to rural. Nothing on the County’s website weplantogether.org indicates the County has taken any actions to make that happen. Some Rimer Pond Road area residents have asked Council officials during public meetings this past year how they will know the County is actually going to implement their suggestions.
The County has announced again this year that the two February meetings will be held as part of an ongoing process to put into action the County’s Comprehensive (Comp) Plan which was last updated in 2015.
“The next step is the rewrite of the Land Development Code,” Powell said. “The Code is what punches that Comp Plan (vision) into action (law). This Code undergirds the vision set forth in the Comp Plan with enforceable standards for development. This moves the County from envisioning the kind of place where we want to live, to creating it,” Powell said.
The County’s press release states that to learn more about the implementation of the 2015 updates to the County’s Comprehensive Plan, visit weplantogether.org. But there are no discernable updates from last February’s meetings on the site to indicate residents’ suggestions are being implemented. And there is no specific information as to changes residents in the Rimer Pond Road/LongCreek Plantation area or any other area say they want in the long term for their area to be zoned.
Two code rewrite meetings are scheduled:
Monday, Feb. 5, 6 – 8 p.m., at Council Chambers, 2020 Hampton St., Columbia. The meeting will be live-streamed to the libraries in Blythewood, Eastover and other locations that can be found on the project website, weplantogether.org. The meeting can also be viewed online on RCTV or at rcgov.us.
Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2- 4 p.m., at the Community Room at the Decker Center, 2500 Decker Blvd., Columbia.
The Blythewood IGA employees gather for a photo in front of a banner declaring their store a Five Star IGA for the second year in a row.
BLYTHEWOOD – For the second year in a row, the Blythewood IGA has been recognized as a Five Star store, the highest level in IGA’s Assessment Program. Only two stores in the state are awarded Five Star recognition each year.
Schillac
“The award is a testament to our employees’ attention to our customers and to our products,” Joe Schillac, the store manager, said. “Their service sets them apart from our competition.”
The honor is not new to Schillac who was transferred to the Blythewood store two years ago. His stores have been named best of the best for 15 straight years.
Schillac’s store in Georgia received the award three times. When Schillac took over the management of the Pageland, SC IGA, his store took home the top prize every one of the 10 years Schillac was there.
When he was transferred to Blythewood two years ago, he did it again both years that he’s been running the store.
“It’s an honor,” Schillac said, “an honor for the store, the employees, for all of us.”
BLYTHEWOOD – Several students have been suspended but no criminal charges have been filed after threatening comments were reported at Blythewood High School last week.
A student’s email to administrators reported “overhearing threatening comments by several students.”
While Richland County sheriff’s deputies have determined that there is “no credible threat to the school building, students, or faculty,” extra police were on campus Friday, and deputies continue to investigate the comments that were made. The students in question have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
No criminal charges are pending at this time, deputies say.
