Blythewood Online 691

Category: Government

  • Council Split on Code Enforcement

    BLYTHEWOOD – If residents of the Town of Blythewood want to keep the community clean and aesthetically pleasing, they may have to take matters into their own hands. At a Town Council workshop last month in which code enforcement was a topic of discussion, Town Administrator Gary Parker suggested that even a part-time employee dedicated to code enforcement might be more than the Town needed or could afford and that the Town might want to rely on complaints from citizens to identify code violations in the town.

    During the past year, the subject of code enforcement in the town has come up in Council discussions regarding signs for yard sales, unpermitted vendors selling used lawn mowers in the middle of the town and other violations of the town codes. But Mayor J. Michael Ross has not embraced the hiring of a code enforcement officer, and at the September workshop Parker appeared to support that thinking.

    “Generally, no municipality can devote its limited resources of staff time to an aggressive and comprehensive code enforcement program,” Parker told Council members.

    But Councilman Bob Massa disagreed.

    “I still think we need a code enforcement officer,” Massa said. “There is so much going on to put the onus on town staff. And we know residents aren’t going to want to complain about their neighbors most of the time because they’ve got to live with them.”

    Councilman Bob Mangone agreed with Massa.

    “Or they complain in a way they don’t want their neighbors to know. It might not be a bad idea to have someone who could deal with all the citizens’ complaints,” Mangone said. “At least one person (at Town Hall) who people could call about a code violation. (That person) could be paid by the hour. If there are no complaints, they don’t get paid.”

    Parker said it was something to keep in mind, but he pointed out that a code enforcement officer is not in this year’s budget, not even on a part-time basis. Massa suggested that there are some areas of code enforcement, such as permitting and business license fees, that would pay for the cost of an enforcement officer. He cited an example in his own neighborhood where a nonconforming, unpermitted building went up. And he said neighbors did not complain or didn’t complain strongly enough about unlicensed workers doing the work.

    “A main source of revenue is business license,” Massa said. “I’m willing to bet that a part-time code enforcer would pay for himself just in that.”

    On that subject, Mangone said he didn’t think workers who come in to the town to do work should have to pay a business license if they tell the homeowner the job is the only one the worker is doing in the town.

    “I don’t think it’s fair to make someone purchase a business license to come out and fix my sink,” Mangone said.

    Massa disagreed. “Every municipality requires it,” he said. “It’s the only way we have to make sure they’re doing proper work.”

    Ross countered that the license fees charged by the Town are then passed on to the consumer. It has been discussed at other Council meetings to issue decals for vehicles of licensed workers as a way to be sure contractors and others doing business in the town limits do what they are supposed to do and get a license. Mangone suggested having a floor on business licenses for workers from outside the town.

    “You know, anything under $1,000 doesn’t need a business license,” Mangone suggested.

    Parker also noted that the Town does not have specific ordinances addressing such violations as overgrown grass and abandoned or junked automobiles.

    “Most municipalities have those,” he said. “Instead, our code section on property maintenance merely references International Property Maintenance Code, which isn’t as specific on the definitions of violations, nor on the enforcement process.”

    “I don’t think citizens are aware of these international codes, though,” Massa said. “We do need citizen complaints, but we need a code enforcement officer.”

    The subject of code enforcement was not on the agenda for discussion or a vote at the following Town Council meeting. The next Council meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m., Oct. 27 at The Manor.

  • Developer Makes Water Pitch

    Confusion Clouds Council Donation

    WINNSBORO – Darren Rhodes, representing Fowler Realty, addressed Town Council during their Oct. 7 meeting to make a preliminary request for consideration for water capacity for a 20-acre tract of land on Langford Road.

    “At this time,” Rhodes told the Council, “I do not have a plan for this property as it is being drafted. However, I will make it available to you.”

    Rhodes said the planner advising him on the development recommended that a development with a maximum density of 60 homes, if that zoning is able to be obtained, would require a capacity of 24,000 gallons of water, maximum, per day.

    Mayor Roger Gaddy asked Rhodes to keep the Town in the loop as the development comes closer to being a reality.

    “Developers are aware of the situation we have in Blythewood,” Gaddy told Rhodes. “We’re diligently trying to get it resolved as quickly as we can.”

    In other business, Council unanimously approved a capital expenditure request for the Wastewater Department for a pump replacement for sewer lift station No. 21. Cost of the pump and start kit total $4,040 plus freight and tax.

    Council approved Councilman Clyde Sanders’ donation of $200 from his discretionary fund to two organizations in his community: $100 to Debra McDaniel, Ward One, for a recognition banquet for the Kenneth Adamson Memorial Scholarship Fund; and $100 to Betty and Bernie Enloe for planting flowers at Enloe Corner in his neighborhood of Forest Hills subdivision. Four days after the meeting, Betty Enloe phoned The Voice to say she and her husband told Sanders prior to the meeting that they did not need the money, they did not want it and would not accept it. She said Sanders, who is running for a seat on County Council, knew this before the meeting.

    The Voice contacted Sanders and asked if he knew before the meeting that Enloe did not want the money. He said he did, that after he told the Enloes he could get the money for them, “she said no, don’t get me any money because you’re in a campaign.”

    “After the Council meeting Clyde again asked us to take the money and pose for the newspaper while he handed us the check,” Enloe said. “That was nice of Don Wood to cut the check, but we didn’t want any part in that publicity.”

    Contacted by The Voice about Enloe’s phone call, Sanders said he has now returned the money to his Council contingency fund.

  • County Comes to Aid of JWC

    Council Agrees to Act as Conduit for Cleanup Funds

    JENKINSVILLE – The Jenkinsville Water Company (JWC), which received a Notice of Violation from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) on Aug. 19 for high levels of radium in well 15 on Clowney Road, was issued a Consent Order by DHEC late last month detailing the penalties the water company faces if the well remains in violation. The Town of Jenkinsville has stepped in to apply for grant money for the cleanup and Monday night County Council agreed to help facilitate that grant.

    County Council unanimously signed off on the grant application during Monday night’s meeting, clearing the way for the Town of Jenkinsville to apply to the Central Midlands Council of Governments (COG) for $240,000 to remove the radioactive sediments in well 15. Milton Pope, County Administrator, said the grant application would have no fiscal impact on the County, which was acting solely as a pass-through to the COG in the process. The funds were requested under an “emergency situation,” Pope said, with a deadline to apply of Oct. 14.

    “This will be the second grant on those same terms,” Council Chairman David Ferguson told Council. “We did this some few years ago because of bad wells in the Jenkinsville area, if ya’ll remember.”

    Councilman Kamau Marcharia, in whose district the Town of Jenkinsville lies, said the last grant was 10 or 12 years ago, and was not just for bad wells, but because of severe drought conditions as well.

    “I’ve heard that water is real bad and some peoples’ dogs have become extremely ill from drinking that water,” Marcharia said. “I haven’t heard anything about an individual being sick or having to go to the hospital, but I wouldn’t trust it.”

    Pope said the engineering cost for the cleanup was approximately $19,000. A condition of the application also requires Jenkinsville to utilize the County’s procurement policy when bidding out work on the project, Pope said, “to make sure everything is adhered to appropriately.”

    “Those are Fairfield County residents as well and clearly that’s what we’re here for,” Pope said, “to be able to help them.”

    Gregrey Ginyard, Mayor of Jenkinsville and president of the JWC Board of Directors, said Tuesday it was too early to nail down a time line for the completion of the project. He did say that the JWC had submitted their corrective action plan to DHEC.

    The Consent Order, signed off on by the S.C. Attorney General’s Office on Sept. 19, requires the JWC to submit to DHEC a corrective action plan within 30 days. The Order remains open until the plan has been approved by DHEC, has been implemented and compliance is achieved and maintained for at least 12 months following the completion date, the Consent Order states.

    The water company faces a potential penalty of $8,000 should it fail to comply.

    DHEC’s Aug. 19 Notice of Violation stated that the Jenkinsville Water Company (JWC) had exceeded the maximum contaminant level (MCL) in well 15 during the monitoring period of July 2013 – January 2014. A chart accompanying the notice, however, indicates that the levels of radium and gross alpha outstripped their MCLs well into June of this year.

    Gross alpha particles occur from the erosion of natural sediments in the soil, the MCL for which is 15 picocuries per liter (pCi/L – a measurement of radioactivity in water). Between July and September of 2013, the Clowney Road well’s gross alpha levels were 22.4 pCi/L. Between October and December of 2013, they were 24.7. Those numbers dipped in the first quarter of 2014 to 18.1 pCi/L, but spiked again to 23.7 pCi/L between April and June of 2014, for a one year average of 22 pCi/L – well above the 15 picocuries per liter limit.

    DHEC’s MCL for combined Radium 226 and Radium 228, which also occur from soil erosion, is 5 pCi/L. Between July and September of 2013, the Clowney Road well’s MCL for radium was 6.5 pCi/L. That number jumped to 8.5 between October and December of 2013, and dropped off to 5.3 pCi/L in the first quarter of 2014. Between April and June of 2014, DHEC detected only Radium 228, but above the MCL at 6.5 pCi/L, bringing the JWC’s yearly average at well 15 to 7 picocuries per liter.

    According to DHEC, “some people who drink water containing” the gross alpha or radium contaminants in excess of the MCL “over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer.”

    In August of 2012, the JWC was slapped with a $14,000 fine by DHEC for failure to issue a boil water advisory to customers within 24 hours of the July 2012 discovery of E-coli bacteria and total coliform in the system, as well as for failure to collect follow-up samples after the contaminants were discovered. The company made its last installment payment on that fine in June 2013.

    In June of 2010, the JWC was issued a notice of violation when DHEC found that the MCL for uranium was exceeded in well number 10 at the Blair fire station for the monitoring period of July 2009 through June 2010. The MCL for uranium is 30 micrograms per liter. Between July 2009 and June 2010, well 10 averaged 33.4 micrograms per liter, with a high of 42.5 between April and June of 2010 and a low of 20.4 between October and December of 2009.

  • County, School District Lock Horns

    Debate Rages Over Plan for Nuke Money

    WINNSBORO – If the air hasn’t been cleared between Fairfield County Council and the School Board of Trustees after their Oct. 7 joint meeting, then it may never be. Of the 90 minutes the two groups spent together at the Midlands Technical College campus, approximately 75 was spent on the airing of grievances, toying with semantics and dancing around fundamental questions.

    When the dust had finally settled, a basic understanding appeared to have emerged as to what role the School Board will play in planning for the enormous influx of cash expected to flow into the County in the next five years from fee-in-lieu of (FILOT) ad valorem tax dollars from the two new V.C. Summer Nuclear Station reactors.

    Rumors

    County Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) sent the meeting off the rails from the opening gavel by declaring that word had gotten back to him that there were some School Board members who felt that the County had been shortchanging the District in recent years. Ferguson claimed that Fairfield County Schools spends more money per student than any other district in the state, so to assert that the County was shorting the District was inaccurate, he said.

    Beth Reid, School Board Chairwoman, said the District was no longer at the top of the spending list, however. What Reid wanted to know, before discussing the future V.C. Summer FILOT money, was what arrangements had been made to cut the District in on the County’s recent FILOT agreements with Element Electronics, BOMAG and Enor Corp.

    Milton Pope, Fairfield County Administrator, exhausted several long minutes explaining how FILOT agreements work (fees paid directly to the County by an industry, in place of ad valorem property taxes of which the District would, by law, receive a percentage) and said that FILOT agreements create an indirect benefit to the District by adding to the county’s assessed property values.

    “The one thing we can acknowledge is that Fairfield County Schools have been funded substantially,” J.R. Green, Superintendent of Fairfield County Schools, said. “Whether we’re number 5 or number 1 or number 12, there’s no point in debating that. I don’t think that has any bearing on the question Miss Reid has asked. Her question is, for previous Fee-in-Lieu-of arrangements, with Element, with Enor, with other corporations, has there been a percentage identified to go to Fairfield County Schools?”

    “The answer is easy,” Reid added. “It’s either yes or no.”

    And the answer, Pope revealed at last, is No.

    Who Controls the Spending?

    Talk then shifted to how to plan for the future V.C. Summer revenues. County Council earlier this year announced it would partner with the Central Midlands Council of Governments (COG) to create a long-term strategic plan for those monies and Council has made meeting with the county’s other elected bodies part of that process. In late August, Council sat down with the state legislative delegation for the first of those discussions. On Oct. 7, it was the School Board’s turn.

    “Does the County Council plan to have the School District submit items for approval or does the County Council plan to identify a certain percentage that will go to the School District?” Green asked. “I think that’s the fundamental question. There’s a lot of ambiguity in terms of how this is going to work. Are you talking about me submitting a plan to County Council . . . or are you talking about giving a percentage of the revenues to the School District and the School District approves or not?”

    Ferguson said his vote on that question would be for the District to surrender its autonomy to County Council.

    “If we’re going to downplay the ad valorem taxes, if we’re going to help the citizens down-draft that part of the taxation, can we say that we’re going to give the School District X amount of money to spend and we don’t have any idea about what that amount of money is going to be spent for?” Ferguson said. “As far as I’m concerned, my vote would be No. And I don’t know of any county in the state of S.C. that does it that way. Not one.”

    But that is exactly how things work now, Green pointed out, with ad valorem taxes.

    “That’s currently the structure,” Green said. “Ad valorem taxes are dictated by state statute, and so if we get a check for $12 million from the County, it’s not as if you come to the District to talk about how we spend that $12 million. The School District as an entity determines how those funds are spent. They have that kind of fiscal autonomy.”

    Pope then asserted that the District was, in fact, not autonomous at all, citing a County ordinance that requires the District to seek Council’s approval of budgets that exceed the previous year’s budget by more than 3 mills.

    “To my understanding and from my research, the School District is not fiscally autonomous in Fairfield County,” Pope said. “That’s something we need to get clarified, because I agree with you. If in fact the School District were fiscally autonomous, we wouldn’t be having that conversation. But you’re not.”

    Board member Annie McDaniel (District 4) told Pope that the Board was partially autonomous in its budgeting, then went on a tangent of her own about how property taxes work. Residential property taxes do not go toward the District’s operational budget, she said, because of Act 388. She then claimed the County dipped into that property tax relief.

    “Property is zeroed out, as far as property taxes go,” McDaniel said. “As you recall, when that happened, County Council should have not taken any of that millage. I think it was 30-something mills that went back to the citizens, and you all took about 10 or 15 mills of that. The citizens didn’t know, because they thought they were getting a tax break and so they were happy, but they didn’t get all the tax break they should have got because County Council ended up taking part of that millage and assessing it.”

    Council members did not agree with McDaniel’s claim, but she remained adamant.

    “Yes they did,” she said. “If anybody goes back and researches the last 15 years, they’ll be able to see it.”

    And regardless of where the District ranks in per pupil spending, McDaniel continued, they should be spending even more.

    “If we look at the condition of our students when they come to our school district, we probably need to be paying more than we’re paying to get them where they need to be,” McDaniel said. “Granted, we may spend some money – and I’m the first to fuss about it – that we maybe should not be spending, but every dime that comes to this school district we try to use for our children in spite of the conditions a lot of them live in.”

    Ferguson then stated that the District had indeed come before Council in recent years for approval of a (2009-2010) budget that went up 7 mills.

    “To say that we haven’t done what we’re supposed to do for the School District,” Ferguson began, but before he could continue, angry cross-talk drowned him out. Finally, Green brought the noise back down to a more reasonable volume.

    “Mr. Ferguson, I have not heard that,” Green said. “If someone has said that here, I have not heard anyone say that County Council has not done what they’re supposed to do for this school district.”

    “All that I was saying about the way that we’ve gone about coming to County Council or not needs to be clarified,” Pope said. “You asked a question I think is valid. If you are autonomous, then I would agree with you. If you are not . . .”

    Green said he wanted to stay focused on the plan moving forward and not quibble over how autonomous the District may or may not be.

    “I don’t think we need to get bogged down in whether we’re totally autonomous or partially autonomous, and I don’t necessarily think that’s the whole purpose of this meeting,” Green said. “All the School District needs to know are the intentions of the Council. Mr. Ferguson has already stated (that he) would not just give the District a percentage (of the FILOT) and let the Board of Trustees determine how those funds are expended. I think that’s very clear. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but at least I know how we move forward.”

    That model clearly did not sit well with Board member Henry Miller (District 3), who may very well have offered the most eloquent speech of his career.

    “So, are we partners?” Miller began. “I feel like County Council puts themselves on a pedestal. Mr. Ferguson, I am one of the ones who thinks that you think we have to come to you and beg. We’re supposed to be partners. If we are partners, we can work this out. We’re all elected officials. We have the same districts. We’re elected by the same people. If ya’ll want to give the School District 25 percent, then we can handle that; or 35 percent. But to say we’ve got to come to you every year, that’s not going to work. Not with me. I don’t feel that way.”

    Councilman Dwayne Perry indicated that he differed from Ferguson on how the District’s portion should be handled.

    “You run the School District,” Perry said to Green. “You’ve got a board that works with you. Making sure that we’re doing what’s right by statute, that’s all I care about. The way I look at it is you hire people who know what they’re doing, they do their job and you let them do it.”

    How Much Is It?

    Board members pressed throughout the meeting for figures, even estimates, indicating how much money V.C. Summer might be pouring into the county in coming years. While early estimates have put the annual take at anywhere between $80 million and $100 million, Pope and Council consistently sidestepped the issue.

    “We can sit here and keep on beating this horse, but right now we don’t know,” Councilman David Brown (District 7) said. “As far as what we have done in the past with fee-in-lieu-of, the majority of it has been put in the budget just like ad valorem taxes. Has the precedent been set? No. The intent is to make the county grow, to get industry, to put money in infrastructure.”

    The main thing that drives – or impedes – growth in Fairfield County, Brown said, is the school system.

    “And we all know that,” Brown said. “As far as us spending money on economic development, building schools and giving ya’ll the programs ya’ll want or whatever, that’s the most important thing of all. Don’t lose focus. The number one thing to attract industry is still education.”

    While agreeing with Brown in part, Board member Bobby Cunningham (District 5) said property taxes are also stunting the county’s growth potential.

    “One of the things that deters people from coming into Fairfield County is the property taxes,” Cunningham said. “Property taxes have a big impact on us not being able to bring people into this county. Taxation needs to be addressed as well as this other stuff we’re talking about.”

    Brown said property tax relief should be part of the plan, but a sudden and drastic drop in ad valorem property taxes would have a severely negative impact on the School District more than it would have on the County. The plan, Brown said, should entail a gradual “buy-down” of property taxes over the next several years. It had to be done carefully, he said, because the drawback could come in 20 years, when the FILOT agreement with SCANA expires and the energy company renegotiates based on the significantly lower millage rate. That could leave everyone scrounging for cash in the long run, if the County and the District were not prepared.

    “We can all talk about the needs that we have and what we want to do, but fundamentally we have to be responsive to the tax payers,” Pope added. “We have to be responsible to the tax payers in these future plans, and also have the ability to reduce our taxation. I think we need to be doing that on a parallel graph.”

    Buying In

    As emotions leveled off, Pope addressed Miller’s impression of the County’s position and asked the District to contribute a long-range plan for the COG’s consideration.

    “It wasn’t a point of making the School District come begging to the County,” Pope said, “but being a part of the plan so it’s in the planning document. That way people have a buy-in to what the overall plan is for the entire planning and not it just being a County document.”

    Green told Council the District could have something submitted in a matter of weeks.

    “We’re all going to be in this together,” Ferguson said, “to see where this county needs to go.”

  • No New Truck Route for Ridgeway

    RIDGEWAY – The truck route through downtown Ridgeway will remain unchanged, Town Council learned officially during their Oct. 9 meeting. Council got the news from County Councilman David Brown, who sits on the Central Midlands Council of Governments’ (COG) Rural Transportation Committee and hand-delivered the results of traffic study completed by the S.C. Department of Transportation (DOT) on Aug. 8.

    “The current tuck route utilizes S-72 (Thomas Street), which is the safest route having geometric features necessary to accommodate trucks passing along this corridor,” the memorandum from Tony Sheppard, DOT’s Director of Traffic Engineering to Mike Sullivan, DOT’s Area Planning Director, states. “The design and construction of the intersections and railroad grade crossing is far superior compared to other alternative routes through town. . . . There are no viable alternative routes for trucks to bypass Ridgeway altogether.”

    Brown also told Council that Transportation funds previously earmarked for a proposed interchange just to the east of town at highways 34 and 21, which was scrapped because of community opposition, was being redirected to improve the intersection of Highway 321 and Peach Road.

    The junction has been the site of 13 crashes since 2008, with 10 of those resulting from the angle at which the intersection is laid out. No fatalities have been recorded as a result of the accidents, but 16 people have been injured.

    Brown said the COG was requesting an additional $1 million for the fund to offset money spent on engineering fees and studies for the abandoned 34 and 21 intersection.

    County Grants

    Mayor Charlene Herring informed Council of the County’s decision to extend the application period for community enhancement grants, the deadline for which is Oct. 31. Herring said there remained $2,000 in County funding for District 1, and she suggested Council apply and use the funds to pay for a landscape architect to develop a land use plan for the site of the former Ridgeway school. That plan, Herring said, could in turn be used when applying for state grants for the site.

    Councilman Heath Cookendorfer, meanwhile, suggested the County grant could instead be used to help upgrade the Ridgeway Police station, specifically to provide Internet access. Herring said a work session might be necessary to iron those details out before the Oct. 31 deadline.

  • Council Balks at PDD Plan

    Cobblestone Makeover Meets Opposition

    BLYTHEWOOD – Developer DR Horton’s proposed zoning amendment to Cobblestone Park’s Planned Development District (PDD) continues to be a heated topic at Town Council. Last week, the Planning Commission unanimously approved recommending the amendment to Council, but at their monthly work session on Tuesday, some Council members who live in Cobblestone Park suggested they might have reservations about approving the amendment as recommended.

    That recommendation reduces the total number of dwelling units from the previously approved 1,250 to 1,142. It also includes placing five model homes at the site of the old tennis courts at the entrance to the subdivision off Blythewood Road. But the proposal increases the number of single family homes in the Primrose section by 144 over the existing 380, by constructing them on what originally had been planned as the 9-hole golf course.

    Councilmen Tom Utroska and Bob Mangone said two issues residents have with the proposal are the increased traffic at the entrance to Cobblestone Park that would result from an additional 600-700 homes over the next 10 years as the development builds out. They also expressed concern that the model homes that Horton proposes near the gated entrance to the subdivision will be cheaper homes that will depress prices of the more expensive homes in Cobblestone Park. Utroska said the model home traffic will be immediate and non-resident traffic that will further add to the traffic load pouring onto Blythewood Road. He would like to see a traffic study done, but the builder is not required to do one. Town Administrator Gary Parker suggested that since the development was being expanded, the Town might have a better chance of requiring the traffic study.

    Mangone spoke more strongly against the proposal, saying, in its present form, he would not vote for the amendment.

    “There’s an angst (by residents) that buyers will see the cheap model homes and there will be no reason to look at the more expensive ones,” Mangone said.

    While he said the builder suggested the model homes could be hidden by landscaping, “The worry is that as people turn the corner on to Links Crossing, they will see all these different houses and they will say ‘how cheap that looks’,” Mangone said.

    To solve the problem, he suggested more of a setback on the model home lots and more extensive landscape buffering to further mask the appearance the homes. Mangone also said he wants DR Horton to commit to price points on the model homes.

    “If you’re going to put $300,000+ homes here, that’s fine,” Mangone said. “But if you tell me you’re going to put the starter models here, and have five different models going up, then that’s not so good.”

    Councilman Bob Massa, who is not a resident of Cobblestone, said he was concerned that the area where the model homes are being built is high and will be prone to storm water runoff. He said that will turn out to be a problem for the Town.

    If the Council does not approve the amendment, Horton is already approved to build 312 multifamily units and 800 single family homes. Under the proposal, Horton would build 1,030 single family homes and limit multifamily homes to 112 for a total allowable residences of 1,142.

    First reading of the proposed zoning amendment is scheduled for the November Council meeting.

    Landscape Maintenance

    Council continues to grapple with the need to provide landscape maintenance for the plantings on the I-77 interchange as well as the plantings in the median at the County line near mile marker 29. Last summer, Mayor J. Michael Ross recommended that the Town provide landscape maintenance on an as-needed basis instead of regularly scheduled maintenance. As a result, Parker told the Mayor that there have been a number of complaints about the appearance of the interchange plantings.

    “Not just the grass and mowing, but the appearance of the flower beds and the nature of the weeds coming up,” Parker told Council.

    As a result, Parker has taken phone quotes for landscape maintenance on the two areas and included the four quotes received in the workshop agenda packet and suggested the Council look over them and come to some conclusions. Ross admitted that he now sees the need for landscaping maintenance as urgent.

    “I think we’ve come to a time that we’ve got to do something about landscaping maintenance,” Ross said. “We have done nothing – mulch, pine straw – nothing, and some of those (grassy) corners are now completely vacant. We need to do something immediately this fall. We’ve neglected our landscaping. We need to do something now and then look down the road for long term solutions.”

    Parker said the item would be on the Oct. 27 meeting for action.

    Budget Amendment

    Town Council also amended the fiscal year 2015 budget for a variety of reasons, but primarily, according to Parker, because some expenditures are over budget. To eliminate this, expenditures were increased by $220,651. To balance those expenses, revenue was upped in several areas, primarily by taking $128,051 from the Town’s fund balance. Parker said $30,000 of that appropriation was used to raise the revenue of the Insurance Tax Collection revenue.

    Under Hospitality Tax revenue, Parker said $500 was added in interest income and $44,300 was taken from the fund balance, bringing the new total to $316,800. The Town had budgeted $10,000 for the Chamber of Commerce this year, but Parker said tourism dollars cannot be used to fund the Chamber, so that $10,000 was moved to Community Promotions.

    Adding Man Hours at Town Hall

    Citing increased phone and foot traffic at Town Hall for information about The Manor rentals, Parker suggested increasing the hours of two part-time employees, Margaret Kelly and Hazel Kelly, for a total of 7 more hours per week. Parker said this would allow the front offices to be manned until 3 p.m. each day. The total cost for the additional hours would be $9,360 annually. Parker said this cost would be covered by a balance in salaries in the general fund.

  • Montgomery Wins Runoff

    Will Montgomery

    WINNSBORO – The numbers are in, the results are final and on his third run for the office, Will Montgomery was tabbed by voters Tuesday night to represent the Democratic Party on the ballot in the Nov. 18 special election to fulfill the remaining two years on Herman Young’s term as Fairfield County Sheriff. With no Republicans declaring for the office, Tuesday’s results all but assure Montgomery’s ascension into the Sheriff’s Office.

    Montgomery earned 56.25 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s Democratic Primary runoff with 2,787 votes over Keith Lewis’s 43.75 percent and 2,168 votes.

    Both men picked up votes from their performances in the Sept. 30 primary. Montgomery, who brought in 1,613 votes on Sept. 30, picked up 1,174 votes on the campaign trail in the last two weeks. Lewis, meanwhile, picked up 573 votes over his Sept. 30 numbers.

    More people voted in Tuesday night’s runoff than in the Sept. 30 primary, by 177 votes.

    Montgomery will be the only name on the Nov. 18 special election ballot. Write-in candidates may make a run at the office, but not if they have already been rejected by voters in the primary.

    Phone calls to Lewis and to Montgomery were not returned at press time Tuesday night.

    Young stepped down in July halfway through his four-year term because of health reasons.

    Montgomery comes from a long line of Fairfield County lawmen. His father, Bubba Montgomery, and his grandfather, S. Leroy Montgomery, both served as Fairfield County Sheriff for 12 years each. Montgomery is a shift supervisor with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, where he has worked for the last 13 years.

  • Gibson Backs Lewis in Runoff for Sheriff

    Will Montgomery
    Keith Lewis

    Montgomery Gets Nod from Richland County Sheriff

    WINNSBORO – Ricky Gibson, whose bid for Sheriff came up short in the Sept. 30 special election Democratic primary, has thrown his support behind Keith Lewis in advance of this Tuesday’s primary runoff. Lewis, currently Chief Deputy at the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office, faces Richland County deputy Will Montgomery in Tuesday’s vote.

    “He’s already in office and in a position to keep the continuity of the department together,” Gibson said. “He will be able to address any issues straight from the start, instead of having to find out what the issues are. He has made a pledge that he will actively address any and all issues brought to him and I am taking him at his word.”

    Gibson earned 925 votes in the Sept. 30 primary, good enough for a third-place finish behind Lewis’s 1,595 and Montgomery’s 1,613. Those votes will be highly coveted by both candidates leading up to Tuesday’s winner take all vote. Gibson said he and Lewis will hit the campaign trail this week to round up votes in areas where Lewis under-performed two weeks ago and focus on areas where turnout was soft.

    “I feel in those areas people were reluctant to come out and vote,” Gibson said. “We have to stress the importance to the county of that vote.”

    Gibson said he has known Lewis for nearly the entirety of Lewis’s 30-plus-year career and said he believes Lewis will be a unifying force for the county.

    “I believe he will be able to unify the county, for the benefit of everyone in the county,” Gibson said.

    Lewis was endorsed early in his campaign by outgoing Sheriff Herman Young, who stepped down in late July for health reasons. A special election to fill out the remaining two years on Young’s term will be held Nov. 18, but with no Republicans filing, Tuesday’s runoff will all but officially fill the position.

    Montgomery, meanwhile, received the endorsement this week of his employer, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

  • Zoning Map Gets First OK

    Cobblestone Makeover Clears P.C. Hurdle

    BLYTHEWOOD – After a promised meeting with residents of Cobblestone Park last month, developer D.R. Horton brought a proposed zoning map amendment for the neighborhood before the Planning Commission on Monday evening that was unanimously approved and recommended to Town Council for approval. The matter will go before Town Council for first reading on Oct. 28.

    The proposed zoning map amendment calls for a revision of the existing University Club/Cobblestone Park Planned Unit Development (PUD) that will reduce the total number of allowable residences from 1,250 to 1,142, converting some areas that had been slated for multi-family units into single-family unit developments. Near the front of the neighborhood, as well as in the middle, some tracts are currently zoned for 24 units per acre and would have included apartments, Horton representative Ben Stevens said. Instead, Stevens said Horton plans to build no more than 10 town home units per acre in those sections, limiting to 112 the number of multifamily units that can be built.

    “This will make for a less dense, more attractive look overall for the neighborhood,” Stevens added. The original zoning for Cobblestone Park was approved in 2003.

    In addition, Stevens requested that 2.4 acres of property where the tennis courts are located be rezoned to R-4 for a model home court featuring five higher-end model homes that would be adequately screened with landscaping. Stevens said the tennis courts are in bad shape and that the model homes court would improve the parcel.

    While some Cobblestone Park property, including the entrance, is assigned to a Town Center zoning district, the approved amendment would fold all the neighborhood property into the new PUD zoning district.

    The zoning amendment process has brought emotional responses from residents in the neighborhood, including members of the Town Council and Planning Commission who reside in Cobblestone, some of whom control the vote on whether to approve Horton’s request for the zoning amendment. Three of the five members of Town Council and three of the seven members of the Planning Commission live in Cobblestone.

    On Monday night, Town Councilman Tom Utroska addressed the Commission during public comment time, saying he was speaking as a Cobblestone Park resident, not as a Councilman. He said the meeting between the residents and Horton representatives on Sept. 29 was generally contentious.

    While he thanked Horton for meeting with the residents, Utroska found fault with the size of the drawings Horton presented for the residents to examine and said residents were worried that a proposed model home court might depress home values in the neighborhood. He also complained that residents had too short of a notice for the meeting, but noted there was a good turnout with about 60 residents attending.

    “It’s up to the Commission to decide if there will be an open public hearing about the zoning change and about the addendum to the PUD,” Utroska told the Commissioners.

    Later in the meeting, the Town’s planning consultant, Michael Criss, said it is the Council who is charged with conducting zoning map amendment public hearings.

    “Under state law, Council can delegate public hearings to the Commission,” Criss said, “but so far Council has chosen to hold those zoning map amendment hearings themselves.”

    First reading will be held at the next regularly scheduled Council meeting on Oct. 28.

  • Council May Relax Sign Rules

    BLYTHEWOOD – Blythewood business owners may get an unexpected reprieve from the sign ordinance passed in 2009 that calls for the majority of non-conforming signs to be replaced with conforming signs by February 2015.

    According to a recent survey conducted by the Town Planner Michael Criss, there are 27 ground-mounted non-conforming signs in the town. The taller signs along the interstate for McDonalds, the Sharpe Shoppes BP, Comfort Inn and Holiday Inn Express have until 2020 to conform. With the 2016 deadline only a little over a year away, Planning Commission Chairman Malcolm Gordge said on Monday night that “Town Council is anxious to explore every avenue in addressing those non-conformities rather than continue with the drop-dead date for compliance.”

    Gordge said Council is rethinking the sign ordinance and that it is “obviously going to cause some difficulties for local businesses, especially those with the larger signs. What’s being proposed,” Gordge said, “is a work session with representatives of the Commission, the Board of Architectural Review and the Chamber of Commerce. Primarily, we want to get some feedback to determine how the businesses perceive this requirement to comply with the ordinance, what the impact on their businesses might be and what the costs and difficulties might be so that we have plenty of time to come to a compromise.”

    Gordge told The Voice that he would like for the group to meet at least once before Council’s November meeting so they would have time to forward to Council some feedback before that meeting. Town Administrator Gary Parker said he wants to get notices out to businesses with non-conforming signs at least a year before the ordinance deadline.