Category: Government

WINNSBORO – After months of delay while the Friends of Mt. Zion Institute (FOMZI) sought high and low for adequate and affordable property and liability insurance, Town Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to OK the final reading of an ordinance transferring the Mt. Zion Institute and its grounds at 250 N. Walnut St. to FOMZI.

According to the agreement, FOMZI will pay the Town $5 for Mt. Zion and will be obligated to rehabilitate and develop the property. FOMZI will have 18 months from closing to stabilize the old school building in order to bring it in line with the Town’s Dangerous Building Code. FOMZI will also have 30 months in which to hire a contractor/developer for historic rehabilitation of the buildings on the site or the Town will bring out the wrecking ball.

The contract between the Town and FOMZI had been in limbo for months while Vickie Dodds, FOMZI Chairwoman, worked to acquire insurance for the property. Dodds said that two weeks ago she reigned in her global search and found something close to home, taking out a standard liability policy and a $150,000 property insurance policy with Insurance of Fairfield. The property insurance policy, Dodds said after Tuesday’s meeting, is based solely on the cash value of the buildings – not the replacement value. In the event of a calamity, the policy would only cover the cleanup of the property, she said. The total premium for both policies is $2,840 a year, Dodds said.

With deadlines now before her, Dodds said the first order of business would be repairing the roof on the school. That will get started next week, she said. In addition, FOMZI will begin cleanup of the property around the historic buildings.

In other local rehabilitation efforts, Council provided a letter of support to Steven J. Boone, president of Buckeye Community Hope Foundation of Columbus, Ohio. Buckeye, a little more than a year ago, purchased Deerwood Apartments at 647 Highway 321 Bypass. Boone said his not-for-profit foundation is seeking Affordable Housing tax credits from the state to renovate the apartments. Total development costs, Boone told Council, were around $6.6 million, at between $50,000 and $55,000 per unit.

Deerwood is around 18 years old, Boone said, and among other things is in need of a new community building. Boone said his foundation also has a social services division, specializing in credit counseling and job training.

Hearing about FOMZI’s efforts to rehabilitate Mt. Zion, Boone threw his support behind Dodds and the project. Boone said his foundation has grant writers and architects on staff, licensed to work in South Carolina, who would be willing to assist FOMZI at no charge.

Council also approved $113,000 in matching funds for a $1 million Community Block Development Grant for upgrades to the Town’s sewer system. The proposed project starts at the Town’s treatment plant near Dunn Street with lines running to the Town’s lagoon near the head of McCulley Creek.

“We’re enlarging those (sewer) lines to prevent any backup of those lines,” Town Manager Don Wood said, “which is what DHEC (the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control) has a problem with us about.”

The project would also include improvements at the wastewater treatment plant, Wood said, to help the plant process wastewater more effectively. Wood said the matching funds would come out of the Town’s Sewer Investment Fund, and added that there were no assurances the Town would receive the grant.

Looking ahead to Council’s next meeting on March 18, Councilman Jackie Wilkes (District 4) asked that the Town’s proposed code enforcement officer be put on the agenda for consideration for hire. Wilkes also said he had received complaints from members of his district regarding roosters inside the Town limits crowing in the middle of the night. Wilkes said that while the matter may simply fall under a disturbing the peace ordinance, Council may want to address zoning regarding chickens, roosters or other animals inside the Town limits.

BLYTHEWOOD – The Planning Commission voted Monday night to recommend to Town Council the long-awaited zoning text amendment to the Town’s Landscape and Tree Preservation Ordinance. The amendment has been on the Commission’s agenda several times during the past year but was deferred for one reason or another.

After a subcommittee spent several months making modifications to the ordinance, Town Hall staff was to put the ordinance into codified form last fall so it could be recommended to Council for first reading. The Commission was told that town attorney Jim Meggs would finish the work. However, after reviewing the ordinance at the December meeting, Commissioners Malcolm Gordge and Town Planner Michael Criss both agreed that what they were presented did not reflect the final work done by the subcommittee.

The ordinance was presented again at Monday evening’s meeting and the Commission, after reviewing it, agreed that it was complete and ready to send to Council for first reading.

The draft document is a consolidation of the previous separate sub-chapters for Landscaping and Tree Preservation. The intention of the consolidation, according to Gordge, was to provide clarity and better guidance for interpreting the requirements of the Town in these two key areas.

“A considerable re-write was essential in order to achieve this,” Gordge, the subcommittee chairman, said, “and Michael Criss summarized all the areas under review at the Planning Commission meeting on Sept. 3 (2013).”

Gordge said the ordinance now provides illustrations for buffer yards applicable to the various zoning districts and examples of tree surveys and tree protection plans to assist businesses, developers and homeowners.

“Since it depends on the particular needs of the user,” Gordge told The Voice, “it is not really possible to mention specific changes for all applications or circumstances.”

The ordinance is expected to be on the agenda at the next Town Council meeting.

In other business, the Commission deferred until the April 7 meeting a request by builder D. R. Horton to decrease the setbacks on 276 lots in the Primrose section of Cobblestone Park until D. R. Horton can revise the list of lots to include only those owned by D. R. Horton.

County Council Calls Emergency Meeting

WINNSBORO – The prognosis for the financial state of Fairfield Memorial Hospital, which for the last two years has been grim at best, has officially entered a critical phase. Tim Mitchell, the hospital’s Chief Financial Officer, told a joint meeting of Fairfield County Council and hospital board members Feb. 27 that unless the hospital can get its hands on at least $200,000 in cash before March 6, the hospital would not be able to meet its payroll requirements. Another $300,000 will be required to meet other pressing needs, including a list of vendors to which the hospital owes approximately $3 million.

Hospital CEO Mike Williams said the hospital was due approximately $400,000 in outstanding Medicare and other payments in February, but a pair of winter storms that shut down state government has delayed those payments, putting the hospital in a bind.

“The big check didn’t come,” Mitchell said, adding that the State Department of Health and Human Services has assured the hospital that the funds would be issued in the second week of March – too late for the hospital to pay its employees and other bills.

Mitchell said that over the next 45 days the hospital expected to see about $1.85 million in other payments come into their coffers, but the bulk of that would be used to meet other outstanding and late bills. After the hospital pays its licensing tax, pays into the state retirement system and makes its quarterly payment for service and support of the hospital’s computer billing system (for which they are $350,000 behind, he said), the hospital would only then be left with $47,000 to operate.

Mitchell and Williams told Council that the hospital was looking for a line of credit, either guaranteed by the County from a local bank, or from the County directly, in order the float the hospital for the next 90 days while negotiations get under way with a larger hospital to take over Fairfield Memorial.

“That places us in quite a predicament,” Interim County Administrator Milton Pope said, “because we would have to amend our budget. Transferring money from one entity to another would require three readings and a public hearing.”

And that process would take at least 21 days, well past the March 6 payroll deadline.

Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) said Council would hold an emergency meeting at 5 p.m. on March 6 to entertain the possibility of transferring the funds through a resolution instead of a budget amendment. Meanwhile, Councilman David Brown (District 7) urged the hospital board and administration to expedite the negotiation process and to open the process to more than one potential partner. The hospital, he said, always seemed to be 90 days from transitioning to a new partnership model, asking the County to help bridge the gap until a partnership can be established.

“When ya’ll are in dire straits for money, we get a phone call,” Brown said. “I’m starting to feel like the carrot being dangled out there is the 90 days. It’s always 90 days. I don’t want to keep coming back every 90 days.”

Hospital board Chairman James McGraw told Brown that this most recent request should not come as a surprise, as it was discussed during the last join meeting in January.

“I know,” Brown said, “but I would have felt a lot better if the report tonight would have been ‘We’ve got this package together and we’re moving forward,’ but it’s another 90 days. I’d like to see something in writing besides bills. I know it’s going to take more than 30 days, but I hope it doesn’t take more than 90 days or 120 days.”

At press time it was not known if the County would be able to pass the resolution transferring the $500,000. The Voice will update this story following the March 6 emergency meeting.

RIDGEWAY – At its regular monthly meeting, rescheduled from Feb. 14 to Feb. 21 due to snow and icy conditions, Ridgeway Town Council hired a new part-time police officer and part-time maintenance employee. Council considered two applicants for the law enforcement position, settling on Antonio Addison of Columbia who will start work after serving out his two week notice with the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce in Columbia where he has been employed since August 2011. According to his resume, Addison investigated theft and other incidents and was responsible for the protection and security for all persons on the grounds of the state agency. Addison is a graduate of Benedict College with a degree in Criminal Justice. He was recommended to Council by Councilman Don Prioleau. Addison will be the second part-time law enforcement officer for the Town. According to Prioleau, Addison will become a full-time officer at a later time.

“Right now,” Prioleau told The Voice, “Mr. Addison has another commitment that prevents him from working full time for us.”

Council also hired Jeff Wilkins in an on-call maintenance capacity for the Town. He will assist the Town’s current part-time maintenance employee, Robert Arndt.

In other business Chris Curtiss, owner of the Little Cedar Creek Campground on East Peach Road in Ridgeway, asked the Town to provide a 6-inch, 1,250-foot waterline to the campground. Curtiss said he plans to expand his 30-acre campground from 28 units to 58 units and that the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control requires expanded water capacity for the additional 30 units. He said the residents of his campground shop in Ridgeway and that the expansion of the campground could bring considerable economic development to the town.

After hearing Curtiss’s request, Herring asking him to bring back specific numbers of the water capacity needed so Council could consider it further.

RIDGEWAY – Four Ridgeway residents have announced their candidacy for three seats on the Town Council. Mayor Charlene Herring and Councilwoman Belva Bush, whose term on Council is expiring, have both filed to run for mayor. Councilman Russ Brown, whose seat is also expiring, and Rufus Jones, a former councilman and mayor of Ridgeway, are also running for Council. Because Ridgeway does not have district seats, the two council candidates with the most votes will be seated on Council.

The election is Tuesday, April 8. Residents who want to vote in the election must be registered by March 8.

WINNSBORO – Allegations of vote-buying, racism and hypocrisy overshadowed any real County business conducted during Monday night’s Council meeting, leading one Council member to erupt with rage and another to double-down on statements he had made during Council’s Feb. 10 meeting, labeling some in the audience as racists.

Addressing Council during the evening’s first public comment session, District 3 resident William Coleman scolded his representative, Mikel Trapp, for Trapp’s statement during the Feb. 10 meeting that criticism of S2 Engineering, the firm on the hot seat for the collapse of a portion of retaining wall at Drawdy Park, was motivated by race.

“Skin color has nothing to do with all the bad workmanship and expensive costs to this county,” Coleman said. “How dare you try to turn this into a racial issue. Mr. Trapp, I am colorblind.”

Coleman said Trapp’s play of the “race card” was nothing more than political theater staged to garner votes and shore up support in the wake of recent allegations levied at Trapp by the State Ethics Commission. Coleman said he had supported Trapp in the past, with his vote and with campaign contributions. He would not be doing so in the future, he said, adding, “I will bet you will deny me contributing to your campaign and I’ll bet that you didn’t report it either.”

But Trapp, responding near the end of the meeting and directing his comments not only to Coleman but to the citizens group Saving Fairfield, made an explosive revelation.

“(The) Colorblind Saving Fairfield Tea Party Republican group,” Trapp began sarcastically. After a brief pause, he continued, “You’re supposed to be colorblind. I’ve been called a n—-r (on) more than one occasion by members of this group. People have called my full-time employment trying to get me terminated. This group promotes hatred and racism and if you think you’re going to try to get me to resign, it ain’t going to happen. Like I said at the last meeting: Beat me at the ballot box.

“I don’t need support from people who support hatred and racism,” Trapp added. “That not only goes for (Coleman), that goes for anybody from District 3 who feels that way.”

After the meeting, Trapp would not be specific about which member of Saving Fairfield had tagged him with the racial slur, but said it was more than one member, that it happened more than one time and that it occurred in public.

“(As they were) walking by, where nobody else could hear it, but I could hear it,” Trapp said. “This has been going on, but I’m at the limit and I ain’t taking no more junk. But it does boil down to race. We’ve got seven or eight, 10 maybe, firms – how did you pick out the one (S2) that happened to be black?”

Trapp later conceded that perhaps not all members of Saving Fairfield were racists.

“But my thinking is, if I’m going to deal with guys, I’m going to pick people who think like I think for who you run with,” Trapp said. “That’s mainly how you do.”

In a written response to Trapp’s comments, Bob Carrison, a spokesman for Saving Fairfield, said the group would not tolerate the sort of racist sentiments or other shenanigans of which Trapp has accused them.

“I can assure you that I have never heard any of our members use a racial slur, in regards to Mr. Trapp or in general,” Carrison wrote. “I am not aware of anyone contacting his employer, and if I found that someone in our group had done so I would ask them to quit their association with Saving Fairfield.

“Our group has only one objective, that being to bring good, transparent governance to Fairfield County,” he continued. “We are a mixed-race, mixed-political affiliation organization. We regret that Mr. Trapp holds this particular opinion.”

Trapp also responded to allegations from another District 3 resident, Carrie Matthews, that graduation gifts from Trapp were attempts to buy votes.

“I have three daughters, and when each has graduated from high school she has received a check, a nice $50 check, congratulating her on her graduation from high school,” Matthews said. “I have not allowed my daughters to cash the checks or to accept that money, the main reason being is that it comes from an elected official that feels strongly to me like vote-buying, or encouraging people to vote for somebody. I think that’s kind of unfortunate when our children turn 18 for them to get money that is written, a personal check, written from a County representative.”

Trapp later said that the checks were for $25, not $50, and underscored that they were personal checks, written by him from his personal account and not drawn from his County discretionary fund.

“(Matthews) wants me to reconsider that,” Trapp said. “I’m not going to reconsider that. I give out $25 to all the graduates in my district every year and I will continue to do that as long as I’m on Council.”

Fairfield resident Selwyn Turner, meanwhile, said during the public comments portion of the meeting that she felt as though Council members’ use of their discretionary fund had gotten out of hand. A great deal of the money, she said, was contributed to “certain churches and select organizations” without any review by the full Council to determine if these institutions had “legitimate needs.”

“All of this smells like a violation to me of separation of church and state,” Turner said. “You need to stay out of the churches’ business with your free gifts. There appears to be an ulterior motive in the dispersal of these funds. Could it be for votes for reelection?”

District 2 resident Beth Jenkins also suggested that Council exercise a little separation between church and state, although for different reasons. Jenkins’s comments later propelled District 4 Councilman Kamau Marcharia into an apoplectic rage.

“Under the circumstance, the invocation being said by someone on Council I find extremely disturbing and hypocritical,” Jenkins said during the opening public comments session. “Under the circumstances, I would like to request that you just have a moment of silence and we can all have our own prayer.”

Apparently stewing on the remarks for the entire 90-plus minutes of the regular session, Marcharia popped his cork during Council’s response time.

“I understand what a hypocrite is. In my mind – I might be wrong – (it’s) an immoral person, a lowlife, a degenerate person,” Marcharia began. “A hypocrite certainly can’t be trusted. Morally decrepit. I’ve been called a hypocrite tonight and have been told, or suggested, that since you’re a hypocrite, don’t you dare come in here and pray to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you do it, you better do it in silence.”

Pounding the desk before him with a fist as he rose to his feet, Marcharia continued, shouting: “Nobody is going to tell me that I can’t pray to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in silence or out loud! I will pray, I will continue to pray! I’m going to come in here and pray how I have to pray. Now if you want to go to court, put me in court and the government can come in and say I can’t pray. I’m going to pray. I’m tired of these kinds of attacks like this, with my religion. You tell me I can’t pray? You can forget it. I mean that and you can carve it in stone.”

Jenkins said Tuesday afternoon that Marcharia had misunderstood the intent of her comments.

“I was not against prayer at the meeting,” Jenkins told The Voice via email. “I was against a hypocrite with ethics charges pending saying our prayer. I would prefer a moment of silence for all to bow our heads and pray. Period.”

Procurement Under Scrutiny

WINNSBORO – The state’s highest law enforcement agency has opened a new investigation into Fairfield County government, sources confirmed this week, launching a probe into the County’s former procurement practices.

A spokesperson for the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) said Tuesday that their agency had indeed opened the investigation, but declined to comment on the specific nature of the case. Sources inside the County, meanwhile, said SLED agents have been on site at County offices interviewing County employees and reviewing checks and invoices from the County’s Procurement Department.

County Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) said after Monday night’s Council meeting that SLED’s focus so far has been on the County’s relationship with S2 Engineering, a firm with which Fairfield County has, between December 2009 and September 2013, spent more than $8.76 million. Documents obtained by The Voice indicate that S2 projects over that time period range from improvements to the HON Building, to construction of the new Voter Registration offices, work at the County Courthouse and much more. Work also includes the recently completed football field at Drawdy Park and its retaining wall, a portion of which collapsed last month.

While records indicate that most, if not all, of these projects were not put out for bid, Interim County Administrator Milton Pope said during Council’s Feb. 10 meeting that S2 was one of several firms on a list of firms approved for County work by then Administrator Phil Hinely. Since Pope’s arrival as Interim last summer, the County has returned to a more conventional procurement process, putting projects and purchases out for bid in accordance with County policy. Monday night, Ferguson said that while the former procurement practices may have been unusual, they were not illegal.

“Was it best practices? It was the cheapest practice for us to get jobs accomplished,” Ferguson said. “Did we bid out every job? No. With Milton (Pope) we do. Does that cost you? Yeah, it does.”

Ferguson confirmed that SLED agents have been reviewing checks and invoices from the Procurement Department, but added that he thinks the motivation for the investigation was not based on the legality of the County’s former practices.

“It’s called Creighton Coleman,” Ferguson said. “You know how to spell that?”

Reached for a response Tuesday morning, Coleman, Fairfield County’s State Senator from District 17, said he would not comment on any ongoing investigations.

Fire Purchases, Building Projects Comprise Battle Lines

WINNSBORO – A laundry list of purchases for local fire stations approved by County Council during their Feb. 10 meeting again brought to the forefront the desire by some Council members to return to a committee form of government. Council formally did away with the extensive use of committees last year, opting instead to hash over detailed County business during work sessions.

The fire station purchases also raised questions from District 4 Councilman Kamau Marcharia, who said he felt as though the needs for the fire station in Western Fairfield were being neglected.

“We’re purchasing new land, working on all the fire stations and purchasing trucks. Seems like our district’s been put on the back burner,” Marcharia said. “We’ve been negotiating for about 10 years to get land from SCE&G. Where are we with that? We’ve got holes in our driveway, the building is dilapidated, you can’t really hold community meetings in it. Seems like we dropped the ball on Western Fairfield.”

Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) told Marcharia that the negotiations between the County and SCE&G were ongoing and that SCE&G needed federal approval before moving forward with placing a new fire station on land that they own.

During the meeting, Council OK’d up to $40,000 to replace tires for the entire fleet of fire trucks, $20,000 for expansion of the fire training room and up to $300,000 for a new pumper truck for the Mitford fire station. Mitford will also get a new brush truck, a 1-ton Ford F-350, for $36,343. When Marcharia questioned whether or not the County was following protocol by purchasing two trucks for a single station, Fire Marshal Tony Hill explained that the replacement of the brush truck was a special case since the old truck blew its engine and has been out of service for more than a year. Council also approved $20,000 for the purchase of fire suppression foam for all fire departments. Council green-lighted the process to purchase 1.6 acres in Ridgeway for a new fire station there. Interim County Administrator Milton Pope said the purchase would now go through its mandatory three readings and a public hearing before the deal is done. The construction of a burn room and search and rescue training facility, which was given a $35,000 budget in the 2012-2013 fiscal year, the funds from which have been rolled over into the current fiscal year, also got Council’s OK.

“Those (fire station purchases) came to us through the Finance Committee,” Councilman David Brown (District 7) said during the Feb. 10 meeting. “I’ve been saying this now for . . . 10 years . . . that we need to go back to our use of committees. Right now we’ve got two (Finance and Economic Development). I truly believe we need to go back to seven.”

While Ferguson said that the former use of committees failed to keep the full Council up to speed on County business, Councilwoman Carolyn Robinson (District 2) said that even the work session format has been inadequate at keeping the entire Council up to date about a number of significant projects in the County, including the Fairfield Commerce Center.

“I attended the announcement Wednesday (Feb. 5) on our new company (BOMAG Americas),” Robinson said. “We were in a new building down there (the Fairfield Commerce Center) that until two weeks prior to that I had no idea was there.”

Robinson then requested minutes from the work sessions where the building and the sign at the Commerce Center were discussed, as well as the Drawdy Park project, the new spec building at the Walter Brown II Industrial Park, the new Voter Registration building, the HON building and the Probation and Parole building.

“Who knew about any of these projects?” Robinson asked. “How is it that I missed every work session when each of these items were discussed? Could it be that there were no work sessions on any of these items?”

Ferguson, on the other hand, said the items were part of the budget process, which was reviewed and voted on by the entire Council.

“Yes, we voted at budget time to fund so much building,” Brown countered, “but when we did that we expected Purchasing and Finance and Building and Zoning all to be involved and all to be carrying out our policy to be sure that all that is being done right. And if all that would have been done right, if Planning and Zoning would have been inspecting walls or buildings that were being built, if Council knew that RFPs (Requests for Purchases) and contracts and solicitations for bidding for architectural services and engineering services were out there, we would have known a little bit more about it. We have not known any of that. Just because you approve a budget in June does not mean you’re supposed to know the everyday workings of the expenditure of those funds over a 365-day period if nobody’s communicating with you. Just because you approve a budget doesn’t mean one thing. All that budget says is the money is there to be spent. How it is to be spent is up to us.”

Ferguson said that committees were less effective than work sessions in keeping Council apprised of County business. Nevertheless, he said, if the majority of Council wanted to return to committees he would accommodate that.

“At any point in time, (if) any Council member wants to bring up that we go back to seven committees they can request that of me,” Ferguson said. “I’ll have Mr. Pope and Mrs. (Clerk to Council Shryll) Brown put it on the agenda and we’ll vote for it. If the majority of the Council wants to have seven committees, we’ll have seven committees. That’s as simple as that. But if they don’t have, what they need to do is work within the confines of what we have structured and try to do what we need to do, but not at the cost of the other Council members.”

WINNSBORO – As Fairfield County prepares to dig more deeply into the circumstances leading to the Jan. 12 collapse of 50 feet of retaining wall around the Drawdy Park football field, and as the County looks to review additional projects supervised by S2 Engineering, the total costs for the project remain shrouded in mystery. Former County Administrator Phil Hinely green-lighted the project in May of 2013 with a cost limit of $280,000, but documents recently obtained by The Voice indicate the project began much earlier than that and has since soared to more than $380,000.

Last month, The Voice submitted a FOIA request to the County for an itemized breakdown of all costs and expenses associated with the Drawdy Park project. Last week, the County answered that request, but instead of providing an itemized breakdown, only supplied The Voice with a copy of the County’s final authorization form and a “technical memorandum” from S2 to the County. Bids and invoices for the chain link fencing around the field were also included, but an itemized breakdown of S2’s work was not.

“Staff provided to me, as far as I am aware, all the documentation we had,” interim County Administrator Milton Pope said. “There’s nothing that I am aware of that lists the itemized costs of the project.”

The “Authorization to process on building maintenance projects assigned to S2,” signed for final approval on May 21, 2013 by Hinely, show that the Drawdy Park project was not to exceed $280,000. But the “technical memorandum” from Sam Savage of S2 Engineering & Consulting to Davis Anderson, Deputy County Administrator, dated May 15, 2013, gives a rough outline of “work to be performed and work that is near completion,” with an estimated cost of $321,200.

While the memorandum provides a laundry list of various aspects to the project – from engineering design and site clearing to the installation of an irrigation system and the construction of the retaining wall – it does not include any line-item costs or expenses associated with each aspect. A handful of invoices and other documentation obtained by The Voice through anonymous sources, meanwhile, indicate that the County has shelled out at least $339,750 to S2 for the project since March of 2012.

On March 8, 2012, the County paid S2 $39,750 for “architectural and engineering design layout and drawings.” Less than a month later, on April 3, 2012, the County forked over another $11,275, since S2 discovered that the “total area for the Drawdy Park Survey and Engineering study is more than twice the size that was originally given,” according to the invoice.

But the County, Pope confirmed this week, has no drawings by S2 in its possession. Drawings inspected last month by The Voice were revealed to be merely a set of “as-built” drawings pertaining strictly to the ill-fated retaining wall – drawings dated after construction of the wall had been completed.

Pope said after Council’s Jan. 27 meeting that he had sent a certified letter to S2 requesting any additional drawings, soil analysis and “any other documentation that they have.” Pope said that he was also looking for an explanation from S2 for why the section of wall collapsed. This week, Pope said the County still had no drawings from S2 other than the as-builts, and the explanation by S2 for why the wall failed was “not satisfactory,” Pope said.

Council voted during their Jan. 27 meeting to hire another engineering firm to review the Drawdy Park project as well as other S2 projects performed for the County. Pope said this week that two such firms had already inspected the wall and a third was expected to have done so by the time The Voice hit newsstands.

Documents reveal that, in addition to the County’s 2012 payments to S2 for the project, the County paid the firm $75,000 on June 5, 2013 for “site clearing and design,” as well as for “site preparation for over 800 tons of soil, 650 tons of 57 stone, felt paper addition and over 600 tons of topsoil.” On June 28, 2013, S2 was paid $92,475 for “sprinkler installation, concrete pads, sod purchase and installation.” Documents also show a payment of $61,250 on Sept. 3, 2013, but include no supporting information to indicate what this payment was for. The documents also list a balance of $51,275 due to S2 “upon completion,” but again offer no supporting data.

Council added another $41,925 to the project last fall, albeit not to S2. The payment went to Henley’s Construction Company in Cheraw for the installation of a pair of chain-link fences – one around the field and another around the outside of the retaining wall. That expenditure came before full Council for a vote and received four bids before procurement. The addition of the fencing around the park brings the total known cost of the project to $381,675.