Category: Government

WINNSBORO – After months of political wrangling, debate and delays, County Council Monday night at last made an affirmative decision regarding recreation spending. In a 6-0 vote – Councilman Mikel Trapp (District 3) was absent from the meeting – Council decided to decide how recreation projects would be approved for each district.

The vote put to rest the incessant bickering that had plagued Council in recent months over whether individual Council members or a majority vote by the entire Council would have the authority to green-light projects out of this year’s $24 million bond issue, $3.5 million of which – divvied out in $500,000 lumps to each district – was devoted to recreation.

But discussion of the vote on how Council would vote was temporarily derailed as Council members quickly became bogged down in the nuts and bolts of individual projects, rather than the process of how those projects would begin to even take shape.

“I need some structure, if we’re going to vote on this,” Councilman Kamau Marcharia (District 4) said. “(Previous) Administrators have already spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars without us interfering on recreation, but now we’re going to have Council voting on recreation?”

Marcharia was referring to the more than $800,000 the County has spent refurbishing and building a new football field at Drawdy Park in District 6, a project of which Marcharia has been vocally critical during recent meetings and one that he said Council never specifically approved. Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) once again reassured Marcharia that the Drawdy Park project was part of the County’s capital improvements fund and was approved during the budgeting process.

Vice Chairman Dwayne Perry (District 1) put the ‘majority vote’ motion on the floor, which was seconded by Councilwoman Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6).

“District 2 does not have a plan,” Councilwoman Carolyn Robinson (District 2) said, “and probably won’t have a plan for a while, because we’ve been too busy to actually get out and work the district. District 2 does not have any plan or plans to have a plan in the next two months.”

Robinson said she wanted assurances that the projects would have a dollar figure attached to them when they came back before Council for a vote.

“There are so many things that have come down when I was off Council to the previous administrator who had the right to go out and had ad infinitum to do anything in regards to spend those kinds of funds,” Robinson said. “We never truly, even this past year, went through item by item and discussed those budgets as to what was included.”

Perry confirmed that his motion called for each individual project to go through administration in order to obtain cost estimates, after which the projects would come back to the full Council for a final vote.

Councilman David Brown (District 7), meanwhile, said he was concerned about what he called “mid-year appropriations,” and questioned whether or not the funds existed to staff the projects, specifically Marcharia’s proposed recreation center in the Dawkins community.

“We’ve got to come up with a job description of what these people are going to be doing,” Brown said. “And in our present budget are there places and positions in the budget that we can fulfill these people or is that going to throw our budget that we’ve presently got into the negative because we’re going to be hiring these people before the end of the year to run some of these operations with no personnel slot for these people to be paid out of?”

Milton Pope, Interim County Administrator, said his staff had compiled a master list of the projects. Once Council had adopted the method by which they would begin approving these projects, Pope said, and once Council adopted the master list, his staff would begin working on the cost estimates. Those estimates, Pope said, would include staffing.

“The only finite thing that we have at this point is the dollar amount,” Pope said. “We know what dollar amount we can’t exceed.”

Pope added that staffing could not be paid for out of the bond, and if staffing of facilities drove costs beyond the $500,000 threshold, those projects would have to come back to Council in order to be trimmed down.

“That would also possibly give Mrs. Robinson additional time to do what she’s working on with her district,” Pope said. “But, in order to activate the staff, we need you to OK the list and we can get cost estimates on that.”

But Marcharia said he detected an attempt to hold back his project in District 4.

“I see this as another stall tactic,” Marcharia said. “We have ample time to talk about staff. They haven’t even cleared off the ground, you don’t have any ground. You (Perry) want a pool room and all that. I guess you’re going to have to pay for a staff to run that. I’ve got $500,000 and I have a plan. Take my plan and tell me where the $500,000 cuts off and start working. I can’t have that done?”

Ferguson then brought the discussion back to earth.

“Let me clarify what this vote is about,” Ferguson interjected. “This vote isn’t about what we’re talking about. OK? This vote is about how the process is going to work and who’s going to be voting on what. That’s the only thing on the floor at this present time.”

And, Ferguson said, once one district was ready to move forward there would be no waiting on the other districts before that work could proceed. But Robinson, moments before the vote, asked if the language in Perry’s motion was suitable for the bond attorneys.

“Because we’re dealing with this bonding attorney, because everything has to be in legal verbiage, why don’t we have a written out presentation as to how we say it so it will pass and be able to be put into the bond exactly right tonight?” Robinson suggested. “It needs to be a little more detailed than that. You need a little more legal verbiage than what we’re saying to accomplish this tonight.”

Jack James, the County’s attorney, said Council could go into more legal depth if they wished, but left the matter at Council’s discretion. Pope, meanwhile, said that since Perry’s motion was for Council to act in a manner consistent with state laws, complicating the motion with legalese was unnecessary.

After the vote passed, there was a brief debate among Council members as to what the vote meant.

“Did we vote to give the Administrator the option to go ahead and move ahead individually?” Marcharia asked.

“If you’re ready to move ahead with your project,” Ferguson answered, “that’s exactly what we just did.”

“I’ll see you later tonight, Mr. Pope,” Marcharia nodded to the Interim Administrator.

Dispute over Insurance Payouts Headed for Court

WINNSBORO – When the S.C. Attorney General’s Office issued an opinion last July that characterized as unconstitutional cash payouts to three County Council members to cover supplemental health insurance premiums, the opinion stated that a court of law would, ultimately, have to decide if those payouts were indeed illegal. More than three months later, it appears as if that opinion will be put to the test, as a Winnsboro attorney filed lawsuits last week against the three Fairfield County Council members in an effort to recoup that money.

Attorney Jonathan M. Goode, of the Goode Law Firm in Winnsboro, filed the documents Oct. 25 in the Fairfield County Clerk of Court’s Office against Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5), Mikel Trapp (District 3) and Mary Lynn Kinley (District 7), representing State Rep. MaryGail Douglas (D-41) and 15 others as plaintiffs. Goode is seeking a non-jury trial in the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Common Pleas.

Since 2009, Ferguson, Trapp and Kinley were receiving $475 a month from the County to cover their own supplemental hospitalization insurance. That practice ended last July after the S.C. Attorney General’s Office issued an opinion characterizing the payouts as “unauthorized” and “a departure from the law.”

Covered by a state plan for their primary health insurance, Ferguson, Trapp and Kinley were therefore not eligible for the County’s supplemental coverage. Prior to 2009, these Council members, along with all part-time employees, were covered for hospitalization by the Carolina Cares plan. For each of the Council members in question, it was costing the County approximately $877 a month – or $31,560 a year total – to include them on the Carolina Cares plan. As the County worked through attrition to wean part-time employees from the plan, the three Council members were also asked to drop the plan and take a direct payout of $475 a month each – or $17,100 a year total – to get their own hospitalization insurance.

While Ferguson and Trapp declined to comment on the case, Kinley said she has a clean conscious and that the money was not misused, as Goode’s claim asserts.

“I still feel in my heart that we’ve done nothing wrong,” Kinley said. “Most of us have receipts. I think I can verify everything. I keep very good records. I think I have receipts that verify that (supplemental health insurance) is what that money was used for.”

Goode is pursuing two causes of action against the Council members: Unjust enrichment/abuse of trust, and Conversion. In the first cause, Goode claims that each of the three Council members violated state law as set forth in the Attorney General’s opinion, and as a result “wrongly received monies to which (they were) not legally entitled,” the complaint states. In the second cause of action, Goode claims the Council members “did convert said monies to (their) own use, which is a misuse of the Defendant’s authority.”

Goode is seeking actual damages, “including, but not limited to, reimbursement of all monies wrongfully paid” to the Council members, as well as “interest on said monies, costs and attorney fees,” the complaint states.

“Our goal is to get any money that has been improperly spent returned back into the general fund,” Goode said. “The Attorney General’s opinion speaks for itself. People are mad and this sends a message to elected officials that there are some taxpayers who will stand up to them when they feel money is being spent improperly.”

Also listed as plaintiffs are: E. Scott Frazier Bell, Carole J. Gehret, Stephen Gehret, Tangee Brice Jacobs, Elizabeth A. Jenkins, Helen Johnson, Vernon J. Pylant, Margaret Richardson, Thomas Richardson, Jeffrey Schaffer, Barry R. Tuttle, Clyde E. Wade, Michael B. Ward, Patricia A. Williams and Thomas L. Williams.

No trial date had been set as of press time.

BLYTHEWOOD – At the Town Council meeting on Monday, Ashley Oaks homeowner Jeff Henry presented Council with a petition signed by 107 (or 88-1/2 percent of) Ashley Oaks residents calling on Blythewood Town Hall to reinstate its seven-year practice of paying for the street lighting in Ashley Oaks.

Henry said that about 15 years ago Ashley Oaks residents were approached by Town Hall to annex into the Town with the promise, among other things, that the Town would provide street lighting and mowing along roads in the subdivision when it came time for the developer to turn those responsibilities over to the residents of Ashley Oaks. Henry said it was a promised condition of annexation and presented a letter, signed by Lorrain Abell (Town Administrator under the Roland Ballow administration prior to 2004) encouraging Ashley Oaks residents to annex into the Town, extolling the benefits of Town residency and promising the provision of lighting and mowing to Ashley Oaks.

Henry recounted that, until 2006, the lighting and mowing for the subdivision were provided by developer Mike Shelly. After that time these services became the responsibility of the homeowners. M. B. ‘Pete’ Amoth, who was then mayor of the Town and a resident of Ashley Oaks, agreed to honor what the residents said was the Town’s agreement to take over the lighting and mowing.

But this past summer, Henry said residents began to be billed for those services.

“We didn’t get a letter or anything, just started getting a bill,” Henry said. Now the residents want the Town to keep the original agreement they say it made with them during the late 1990s.

Mayor J. Michael Ross told Henry that he, personally, had pulled the plug on the Town providing that service. “And I stand by my decision,” Ross said. “I don’t think it’s fair for the Town to pay for one subdivision’s street lighting and not the others. And the Town can’t afford to pay for them all.”

Ross said he had never heard of a subdivision’s lighting being paid for by a Town government.

“When I learned that the Town was paying for Ashley Oak’s street lighting, I couldn’t find any agreement or paperwork in that regard,” Ross said. Ross blamed any agreement on the government’s annexation representative at the time.

Henry told The Voice after the meeting, however, that he didn’t believe there was an annexation representative then, that the promise was made by the Town’s administration directly.

Henry countered that paying for street lighting in subdivisions was a common practice in other towns and called on the Town Government to pay for lighting in all the Town’s subdivisions, not just Ashley Oaks.

“The town I grew up in provided street lighting,” Henry said, suggesting that the Town use money provided through the Aid to Political Subdivisions.

Councilman Ed Garrison asked Henry how much each home has to pay for the street lights and Henry said Fairfield Electric Co-Op had agreed to charge them only what the Town had been paying — $4 per house. But he said the money amount wasn’t the issue.

“The Town made the agreement to do this if we would annex into the Town, and the Town should keep its word.”

Ross told Henry he would re-look at the issue, but felt he would probably stick with his decision that the Town should not pay for Ashley Oak’s street lighting.

BLYTHEWOOD – At its regular monthly meeting on Monday evening, Town Council passed first reading on an ordinance to lease the restaurant it plans to build across from Town Hall to Jonathan Bazinet, owner of Sam Kendall’s restaurant. The lease agreement includes a guaranty of lease payment with both Bazinet (for five years) and Red Fox Development, Inc. (for the full 10 years.)

In other business, the Town’s CPA, Kem Smith, reported that the Town’s audit is clean and that the preponderance of the information of the audit is very good. Smith also told Council they need to be aware that the Gasby 68 (Government Accounting Standards Board) is a new standard that will require the Town to start picking up its portion of the unfunded pension liability from the S.C. state retirement plan.

“While the portion our Town will have to come up with is small, it still amounts to $500,000 to $700,000 and will be due by 2015,” Smith said. “My concern is that the South Carolina retirement system is $14 billion underfunded.”

Smith said the Town would have to book a liability for that underfunded amount.

Councilman Ed Garrison said this was worrisome to him about the Town’s future.

“The requirements that government has to meet the community’s needs, has got to be looked at in terms of how we develop our revenue streams,” Garrison said. “Towns like ours that have no millage make it even more difficult.”

Town Planner Michael Criss discussed the need to reign in realtor and other signs that have been popping up along roadways and on private properties within the Town. He said he will be talking with the sign owners to ask them to remove those signs. Town Administrator John Perry said the Town will also be working with Richland County to take up unpermitted signs in the County surrounding the Town. Perry said off-premise signs are illegal in both the Town and County.

Council’s next regular meeting will be Nov. 25.

CPA: Doko Manor Must Stop the Bleeding

BLYTHEWOOD – After the grand opening of Doko Manor two weeks ago to rave reviews from Mayor J. Michael Ross and the Town Council, the Town’s CPA, Kem Smith, presented the sobering news to Council Monday evening that the Manor is not breaking even and is, in fact, operating at a fairly large deficit.

When asked at a park committee meeting last week for an update on the Manor’s rental revenue, Town Administrator John Perry told committee members that he did not have the demographics and metrics to answer questions about the Manor at that time.

However, Smith told the Board that, during the six months since it has opened, the Town has spent $106,000 on the Manor from the General Fund – $52,000 for furnishings and another $54,000 for operations.

“We’re going to have to stop the bleeding,” she said. “We’re averaging about $3,036 per month in rentals, which is only about half of our fixed monthly costs of between $7,500 and $8,000.”

Asked by Councilman Ed Garrison if the monthly rental incomes are increasing, Smith answered, “Not really.” She listed the monthly rental revenues as: $2,600 in June; $3,100 in July; $6,300 in August and $3,400 in September.

Smith said that she and Perry need to determine where the break-even point is for the operation of the Manor.

“The fixed costs are about as low as we can get them,” she said. “We’re only paying for utilities and a percentage of the Manor’s employees and about $500 a month for some basic supplies. There’s nowhere else to cut expenses.”

Plus, Smith told the Board that the fixed rates are down to the bare bones and do not include any kind of sinking fund that she feels is essential for big repairs down the road in five to 10 years.

“I think we’re going to have to look at increasing rental fees,” she said.

Asked by Ross if she thought the Manor should already be at a break-even point, Smith said she had two comments.

“One, as I listened at a recent Council meeting about how ‘we’ve got it booked until March 2014,’ that was disturbing because I knew what the numbers looked like,” Smith said. “Just having it booked on weekends and a couple of days a week is not what we need to be looking at. We need to be looking at the numbers.

“Second,” Smith said, “You are $54,000 in the hole. How much more money do you have? Can you borrow money? Have you saved $150,000 so you can weather the loss until you can make a profit? This is a business that has to have funding,” she emphasized. “So are you going to continue to fund it with the General Fund no matter what the losses? How long are you going to fund it like that? It’s time for you to start asking the hard questions, like ‘When are we going to run out of money?’ ‘Will we be able to get a loan?’”

Garrison suggested the Town spend the money for a marketing strategy and a marketing program to follow up. Perry said the Town hired Big Eyed Bird marketing firm recently to create branding for the Town and the Manor.

“This has been a learning experience,” Smith told Council, “but we don’t want too much more time to go by without seeing what we’re learning here. We’ve got to increase the number of rentals and the rates.”

WINNSBORO – At a town hall meeting Monday night held by State Sen. Creighton Coleman (D-17) and State Rep. MaryGail Douglas (D-41), 29 members of the public gathered in the Fairfield Central High School auditorium to discuss the future of Fairfield County. The chief topic of interest, as in past town hall meetings, was when and if three County Council members would yield to public pressure and reimburse taxpayers for more than four years’ of cash payments received in lieu of supplemental health insurance.

At Council’s Oct. 14 meeting, Douglas put Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) and Council members Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) and Mikel Trapp (District 3) on notice that a lawsuit was pending against them if they chose not to reimburse the County for the $475 a month they had each received between 2009 and last July. An opinion from the S.C. Attorney General’s Office, solicited by Coleman and Douglas and issued last July, characterized those payouts as contrary to the state constitution. The three Council members stopped taking those payouts in the wake of the opinion, but have given no indication they would repay that money, which comes to approximately $23,000 each. Douglas said on Oct. 14 that Coleman would be handling the lawsuit, but Monday night Coleman said he would not. Coleman would not reveal which attorney would be handling the case, but said the suit would be filed within the next week. Coleman, meanwhile, said he would only be playing a supporting role of fact finding for the litigating attorney.

Kinley said near the end of the Oct. 4 Council meeting said the State Ethics Commission was reviewing the former policy of the payouts in lieu of insurance premiums.

“Once they conclude their investigation, then we’re going to make our decision,” Kinley said Oct. 14. “Once that is done, we will be responding to that.”

But Monday night, Coleman called that position absurd and said the Ethics Commission has nothing to do with the legality of a policy, only with a policy’s ethical standing.

The group also discussed the independent forensic audit of the County, being conducted by Columbia CPA, The Hobbs Group. Betty Scott Frazier Bell said the audit ran to 116 pages and covers 7,000 checks a year written by the County. She said the audit is examining how much money is going out, to whom and how often. The audit also aims to challenge the County’s official explanation of how they handled Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds for the last eight years.

The accounting firm of Elliott Davis, LLC, hired by the County to review its accounting procedures in regard to its handling of LOST revenue, reported at a special meeting on Sept. 30 that the County has not been unlawfully accumulating millions of dollars of LOST revenue instead of giving it back as tax credits on property tax bills, as they have been accused by some Fairfield County citizens recently. The County had not, however, used standard accounting practices to apply those credits, Elliot Davis representatives added, or keep accurate records of how much LOST funds were coming into the County each year.

Monday night, the group also discussed the possibility of enacting term limits for Council members and pondered a petition referendum to place that issue before the public in a future election. They also suggested that Council members’ pay should be commensurate with attendance.

The group also discussed fielding a slate of fresh faces to run against sitting Council members in the 2014 election, when districts 1 (Dwayne Perry), 3 (Trapp), 5 (Ferguson) and 7 (David Brown) are up for re-election.

“I’m giving serious thought to running against David Ferguson,” said Eugene Holmes, garnering a smattering of applause. Holmes said he has lived in Fairfield County for approximately five years, moving here from the Washington, D.C., area. Holmes said he has been disappointed by the amount of political apathy he has found in Fairfield County and he hopes to change that.

BLYTHEWOOD – Details have been provided for the upcoming candidate debate to be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at The Manor.

Based on the number of candidates and questions, the total time will be approximately two hours.

Candidates will be given two minutes for answers and one minute for rebuttals. After one candidate answers a question, the next candidate will answer the same question and then the rotation will continue followed by the rebuttals. There will be six questions. Mike Switzer, Chairman of the Blythewood Chamber, said 50 questions for the debate were submitted via the Blythewood Chamber’s web site and that list has been narrowed down to the final six questions by Switzer and the Chamber Board members. The candidates were not given the questions in advance.

Just before the debate starts, the candidates will draw numbers from a container to determine their position. Since there are two candidates vying for one seat and four vying for two seats, we will have them separated as such at the tables and by drawing numbers. So Ernestine Middleton and Bob Mangone will draw between themselves and sit at their own table in their corresponding positions. And the same for the remainder of the candidates. This way, the audience can see the candidates seated to each other by how they are competing.

Patrick Kelly, a civics teacher at Blythewood High School, will be the official timer. Two 12th-grade civics students, Brooke Davis and Greg Huegel, from Blythewood High School will moderate.

Westwood High School’s Broadcast Journalism class was invited to participate but they declined due to a busy schedule. Richland District 2 media people have been asked to record the debate.

BLYTHEWOOD – At what may well have been their last meeting Tuesday evening, the Park Committee finalized its wish list going forward and will present that list at Town Council’s Oct. 28 meeting.

Town Councilman Paul Moscati told the committee that after construction of the clock tower and base, restrooms, grassing the athletic field and installing gates and dumpster enclosures, the $7 million that Town Council designated for the park ($5.5 million bond money and $1.5 million from the sale of the Community Center) will have been depleted. Moscati said he might realize a little savings from ongoing negotiations on the cost of the restrooms and clock tower base, but to complete the park, private money will have to be raised through the newly appointed Park Foundation headed up by Jim McLean.

Ongoing, the committee voted to recommended the following priorities for building out the park: amphitheater ($1.5 million), open-air pavilion for farmers market ($810,000), sprayground (about $75,000) and Adventure Lodge ($1,107,000). Moscati said the amphitheater still needed to be grassed at a cost of $19,732, but that some savings might be realized depending on whether it was sprigged or sodded.

Moscati said construction of the restaurant, which had been scheduled to open next month, has been delayed and is now expected to begin before the first of the year. He said construction should take about six months and the restaurant is expected to open in mid-summer 2014.

McLean said that, after prioritizing the completion of the park, the committee may have reached the end of its usefulness unless Mayor J. Michael Ross wants to call it back into session for a particular need.

RIDGEWAY – The Town of Ridgeway is once again a one-cop town, and that officer, Don Johnson, is only part-time. It was during Johnson’s off hours last week that the Dollar General was robbed by a pair of armed assailants who held store employees and their family members at gunpoint while making off with $650 in cash. During Town Council’s Oct. 10 meeting, Johnson requested additional police equipment, including assault weapons, as well as a second officer.

“I’m not trying to break the bank, but we’ve got a bank in town and if anyone were to rob it, they’d have a lot better stuff than I’ve got here,” Johnson told Council as he patted his holster.

Johnson’s requests came less than 24 hours after two men armed with shotguns robbed the Dollar General at 260 N. Dogwood Road. Ridgeway’s sole police officer also requested a new computer, fax and copy machine for the police station, as well as an in-car camera for the patrol car. According to his report to Council, Johnson responded to 13 calls last month, issued 16 citations and 16 warnings.

Johnson has been on his own since Sept. 19, when former Chief of Police James Ashford resigned. Ridgeway Mayor Charlene Herring said Ashford was looking for full-time work, which Ridgeway could not afford. Ridgeway went to a part-time Police Department in August of 2011, cutting Ashford’s hours in half in a money-saving move for the Town’s budget. Council hired former Highway Patrolman Greg Miller as a second part-time officer in January 2013, but Miller left several months ago to serve as a deputy with the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office.

Last week, Herring said Council would take Johnson’s requests under consideration.

WINNSBORO – Town Council tabled a final decision on whether to destroy the entire Mt. Zion Institute building or allow the Friends of Mt. Zion Institute (FOMZI) to save and renovate its auditorium at their Oct. 1 meeting, instead taking the matter into executive session and emerging to ask FOMZI to bring them a written proposal for renovation at the next meeting.

On Monday evening FOMZI did just that, but the proposal was no longer for renovating just the auditorium, but the entire building.

“Many of you question the ability of FOMZI to mount an effective campaign to save Mt. Zion,” FOMZI’s Brenda Miller told Council, “and I understand your skepticism, but we have not been allowed an opportunity to see what we can do.”

Miller, along with other FOMZI members presented Council with a multi-stage plan to restore and rehabilitate the entire building with the Blair College of Art as a prospective tenant.

“The timeline depends on when the town would allow us to get to work on the building. If you give us a chance,” Miller said, “we can transform the appearance of the classroom building within six months to something more appealing and bring the building into compliance with the Town’s new appearance ordinances.”

Miller said the group has been meeting with several developers who see the potential of the renovation for the Town.

Miller said one of those developers, Richard Burts, turned the rotting, roofless Olympia Village Community Center on Whaley Street into one of Columbia’s premier arts and event centers. She said Burts had agreed to be a mentor and advisor for the revitalization of Mt. Zion.

Miller said the use of tax credit incentives allowed under a new law spearheaded by State Sen. Creighton Coleman (D-17) would greatly reduce final costs of the project to as low as $2.5 million.

FOMZI member Vicki Dodds told Council that the renovation work would be broken into three phases over a two-year period and that after each phase, if Council didn’t approve of what they were doing, they would stop their work. She assured Council that while FOMZI had only $60,000 and pledges of $15-17,000 more, they had additional potential resources including donations of materials and labor and corporate solicitation. She suggested establishing an oversight board for the renovation from FOMZI, the Town, Chamber, County and Blair College of Art.

Earlier, former Town Councilman Bill Haslett said he would love to keep the Institute and shamed Council for not doing its part over the last five to 10 years to maintain or improve the building.

“Mt. Zion gave you the building and $100,000 and that money is still sitting in the bank, the building has rotted and now the Town wants to tear it down,” Haslett said. Haslett also blamed Council for not following up to see that Red Clay made agreed-upon improvements to the building during the three years they had it. “Then the Town had to pay $25,000 to get the building back.”

Haslett said he supported what FOMZI wanted to do with the building and suggested the Town let FOMZI have the $100,000 toward the renovation.

“They’re saving history,” Haslett said.

Dodds told Council, “The biggest impediment Red Clay had was that it could not get a loan and couldn’t get started. We’re sitting here with money and we’re ready to get to work. Once this project is in progress,” Dodds assured Council, “it will mushroom. Just give us two years.”

Turning to the Council members, Dodds said, “You men know the potential for our Town if we save that landmark.”

After listening silently to the presentations, Council members thanked FOMZI’s presenters, but did not bring the matter to a vote.

In other business, Mayor pro tem Jackie Wilkes read a proclamation regarding the anniversary of St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church. Town manager Don Wood also suggested dates for rescheduling the Intergovernmental meeting with the County and School Board to Nov. 14 or 21. Council voted to go into executive session to discuss legal/contractual matters concerning water and sewer with Fairfield County Commerce Center. No action was taken following the closed session. Council’s next meeting is Nov. 5 at 6:15 p.m. at Town Hall.