WINNSBORO – Town Council voted on Tuesday evening to make several improvements to the town, including adding a street light to North Zion Street as requested by Councilman Jackie Wilkes. Councilman Danny Miller asked for some attention to the upkeep and maintenance of Fortune Springs Park. He said there’s erosion, broken sidewalks, deteriorating planters and other problems. Town Manager Don Wood said the Town Maintenance Department is currently making some improvements in the park with grant money, but that he would try to find out if more work is needed than what is planned.
Mayor Roger Gaddy presented Council with an estimate for painting the concrete planters on Congress Street. For the 26 planters, the cost would be approximately $2,500. Councilman Clyde Sanders said he felt that was too expensive and the issue died for lack of a motion.
Councilman Sanders made a short presentation on behalf of the Fairfield County Animal Shelter, saying it was in desperate need of foster homes for its animals.
“They are overcrowded over there and really need people in the community to help out by fostering pets,” Sanders said.
Wood mentioned that the Shelter would provide food for the pets if they could just find good homes, even on a temporary basis.
FAIRFIELD – Fairfield County School Board Chairwoman Beth Reid (District 7) announced a new policy regarding travel during the Board’s regular meeting Tuesday night, one she said was aimed at bringing more transparency to large expenditures incurred by the Board. Reid said effective immediately, all intended travel by Board members should be brought before the full Board.
“For several reasons,” Reid said. “One, for knowledge of other Board members, so we know who’s going and who’s not, who’s going to be in attendance and who can report back to us after attending a conference. Two, so we know we’re not stepping all over each other. We don’t necessarily need for all Board members to be at all conferences.”
Reid said “Board Travel” would be added as a permanent item under the Board Chair’s Report in future agendas and Board members would be asked to report to the full Board after attending a conference and to bring any proposed travel to the knowledge of the full Board. Reid said the proposed travel would not necessarily be subject to approval by the Board, “but for knowledge of the entire Board, as well as the public, so that we can all be transparent on the expenditures going forward,” Reid said.
Reid also reported that legal fees in the last fiscal year have dropped more than $138,000. Bills from the District’s main law firm, Childs and Halligan, fell from $246,772 in the 2011-2012 fiscal year to $128,210 in 2012-2013. Total fees from all firms employed by the District fell from $351,402 to $213,028 in the last fiscal year.
“I think that’s significant and it speaks very highly of the leadership and the Board attitude,” Reid said. “You know what we can do with that money? We can hire folks and use it in instruction. That’s where it ought to be.”
The Board also approved student fees and fines for Fairfield Middle School Tuesday night, but not without some minor discussion about ID cards.
The $12 base fee represents no change from recent years, Superintendent J.R. Green said, and covers the cost of a student’s ID card and academic planner, as well as assembly fees and fees for student recognitions and rewards. There is also a $10 band fee and $5 fees for Family and Consumer Science and Industrial Technology. Students who lose their ID cards or their academic planners will have to pony up $5 for a replacement and late fees for library books will run 5 cents a day.
“I just get caught up in these ID cards,” Board member Henry Miller (District 3) said. “I understand we want them to be responsible, but is there any way we can have ID cards where there’s no charge this particular time? Some children just can’t afford it.”
Green said most principals use judgment when it comes to which students can and can’t afford to replace an ID card and the fine discourages student carelessness.
“If you don’t have things in place so that students feel they need to be responsible for keeping up with their IDs, you’ll find yourself printing up IDs every day,” Green said, “because there will be no incentive to keep up with IDs.”
FAIRFIELD – After a nearly three-hour executive session devoted to legal counsel Monday night, County Council once again tackled the issue of recreation; specifically, the long-promised, much-debated facility in the Dawkins community and how $3.5 million in recreation funds from this year’s $24 million bond issue can be used [see the July 12 edition of The Voice]. While the debate was intense, the result was the same as Council’s July 8 vote – another 3-2 defeat for the Dawkins facility.
Councilman Mikel Trapp (District 3), one of two votes for his motion to allow each individual Council member to use their earmarked $500,000 of recreation funds in their districts as they see fit, walked out of the meeting shortly after the vote. Trapp’s exit came after Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) instructed Council to come up with a plan on how the recreation funds should be used and to do so within two months.
Trapp, however, said he had no interest in taking part in another two months of debate.
“I’ll have no discussion,” Trapp said. “I’m going to excuse myself, because it’s going to be another round of what we’ve been through the last however many years. Ya’ll have a good night.”
So saying, Trapp departed.
The debate, which raged for nearly an hour, was essentially a rehash of two votes taken during Council’s July 8 meeting – one to begin construction of the recreation facility (approved by Council in 2006) on 8.12 acres off Ladds Road and another to allow Councilman Kamau Marcharia (District 4) to use the $500,000 of earmarked recreation funds for the same project. Both votes failed, 5-2 and 3-2, respectively, with only Trapp and Marcharia, as during Monday night’s round two, voting in the affirmative.
On July 8, Councilman David Brown (District 7) said putting up the proposed building in Dawkins would shortchange District 4 and suggested additional time to study the project. Vice Chairman Dwayne Perry (District 1) supported the idea of more homework on the project, something he reiterated Monday night. Perry added that he felt that expenditures of County funds, even if earmarked for individual districts, should be approved by the full Council.
“I think any decision on how that money should be spent should come back before full council,” Perry said Monday night. “What I would like to be able to do is to hear from the folks who actually live in District 1. I would like to go back to them and have a community meeting. Maybe one or two. I’m not talking about a long time frame.”
But Marcharia said his district was ready to move forward.
“I think you should do that,” Marcharia said. “But why do you want to hold my project up? Are you willing to wait seven years? We’ve been waiting seven years or more. We have our plan. We had the blueprints drawn up. We’ve got people from the community out there (in the audience) right now with their children.”
Trapp agreed, adding, “I don’t think it’s right to hold up other districts’ projects when they have already done their due diligence and got the surveys from their community to decide what they want in their community. Even if Mr. Perry doesn’t fully have his to the point where he wants to have it, we still can vote to allow the Council members who have got to the point where they can start to put recreation in their district.”
Trapp also called Perry’s suggestion that Council get input from County Recreation Director Lori Schaeffer, “another stall tactic.”
“Members who don’t want to spend the money for the people in their district, just leave it in the pot,” Trapp added, “but still, let’s vote on the members that are ready to proceed on recreation in their area.”
Marcharia said that Schaeffer had indeed provided input when she presented Council with several options for the Dawkins site during the July 8 meeting – one for $895,000, one for $720,000 and one for $483,000.
“Last week (Schaeffer) submitted a whole engineer’s price study, because we asked for it,” Marcharia said. “You (Perry) haven’t asked her to do anything for your district and you haven’t talked to her of your own volition, I don’t have anything to do with that, but she clearly looked at ours and gave feedback last week.”
Councilwoman Carolyn Robinson (District 2) said the issue for her was not about recreation, but about how Council approves expenditures.
“The worst thing that has happened this year as far as us voting on money was to pass that bond issue and to say $3.5 million was to go to recreation and that each district was to have $500,000,” Robinson said. “I don’t think one person was elected to spend that kind of money on their own. It takes a minimum of four to approve that, just like it takes four to approve if we’re going to put a new roof on a building.”
Furthermore, Robinson said, “Even if we built that building tomorrow, we have zero money in this budget to even turn the lights on, let alone go in a deal with what we have to deal with in running a program in that building.”
But Marcharia, as he had done during the July 8 meeting, said the project could be done in stages to accommodate the budget, as were many other projects within the county. And, he said, the community was willing to do their part.
“We just built a commerce center (on Peach Road), and there’s no staff there,” Marcharia said. “No staff, but it was built for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and probably won’t even open for five or six years. The community is ready to roll up their sleeves and get involved with this. They’re not putting this all on the taxpayers.
“I know there’s a serious issue around budget issues and whatnot,” Marcharia said, “but over the years other Council members have gotten exactly what they want in their districts. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. We just gave the hospital $1.5 million, with no interest. Just gave it. Four hundred thousand in loans. I don’t hear anyone object to that.”
Robinson, Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) and Perry ultimately voted against the measure. Brown left the meeting following the executive session and prior to the debate. Ferguson did not cast a vote, but said after the meeting that, had his vote been necessary, he would have voted against. He said he was skeptical of the ability of the Dawkins site to serve the most people in District 4 in spite of assurances by Marcharia during the debate that it would.
FAIRFIELD – With the resignation of former County Administrator Phil Hinely three weeks old, County Council spent nearly three hours in executive session during a special called meeting last week to “interview a potential candidate for Interim County Administrator,” according to the July 11 agenda. Although County policy EP-1 requires that all job vacancies “will be publicized in a job vacancy announcement,” the County Administrator position has not, to date, been so posted. Monday night, following another marathon executive session, Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) said the Council’s bylaws provide for superseding County policy in emergency situations. Being without an administrator, Ferguson said, was just such a situation.
“We’re juggling 50 things a day,” Ferguson said Monday night.
Sources confirmed this week that Council interviewed J. Milton Pope, a principal with Parker Poe Consulting of Columbia, during the July 11 executive session for the Interim County Administrator position, but Monday night Ferguson said no more candidates would be interviewed. Instead, he said, Council has shifted its focus to bringing in a consultant to bridge the gap between the vacancy and hiring a full-time Administrator. Prior to making a full-time hire, Council plans to review their Administrator contract to “address some deficiencies,” Ferguson said. After the contract is reviewed, Ferguson said a national search would be conducted for an Administrator, “to get the best one we can for what we can pay,” he said.
Council held a meeting Wednesday night, after The Voice had gone to press, to interview a candidate for “Interim County Administrator/Consultant,” according to the agenda.
Ferguson also said that in spite of suggestions made during the public comments portion of the July 8 regular meeting, the public would not be involved in the hiring process for the next County Administrator.
“That’s not the way the constitution’s written and that’s not the way our bylaws are written,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson also responded Monday night to the July 8 revelation that State Rep. MaryGail Douglas (D-41) had, with the assistance of State Sen. Creighton Coleman (D-17), obtained an opinion from the State Attorney General’s Office indicating that Council’s policy of offering 100 percent tuition assistance to Council members, as well as their practice of paying supplemental health insurance premiums for certain Council members, was illegal [see the July 12 edition of The Voice].
“Part of me said I needed to just go ahead on and get me a lawyer and deal with this, because you can’t do for some Council members what you’re not willing to do for other Council members,” Ferguson said. “They cut the supplemental (Carolina Cares plan) because it was so high. They made it sound like we were robbing the County. We were saving the County $500 a month.”
Ferguson said that he and Councilman Mikel Trapp (District 3) had ceased taking the payments of $475 a month each as of July 9. Councilwoman Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) became ineligible for the premium payout upon her retirement from Fairfield Memorial Hospital last month. All three had been receiving the payments since 2009. Trapp had also been, until last month, receiving tuition assistance for his pursuit of a business degree from Columbia College, to the tune of $26,806. Ferguson said that all of the funds in question were received “in good faith,” and that there were no plans to reimburse the County. The Attorney General’s opinion, meanwhile, stated that only a ruling by a judge could force them to do so.
“I think I would have to hire a lawyer in that case,” Ferguson said.
The bulk of Monday night’s meeting was consumed in executive session, where Ferguson said Council received legal advice concerning allegations brought to light during the July 8 meeting that the County had mishandled more than $5 million in Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds since 2006 [see the July 12 edition of The Voice]. While Ferguson said after Monday night’s meeting that Council needed more information from the Department of Revenue on how the funds should have been handled before making an official public statement, sources inside the County indicate that there may indeed have been some errors in how the funds were appropriated.
Fairfield resident Maggie Holmes brought the issue to light during the July 8 meeting, and her attorney, Jonathan Goode, said last week a class action lawsuit may be in the offing if the County cannot rectify the situation.
Voters in Fairfield County approved the tax in 2005, Goode explained last week, with 100 percent of the funds to be used for property tax relief.
During this year’s budget session, Councilwoman Carolyn Robinson District 2) said $2.5 million in LOST funds enabled Council to lower the millage rate this year by nearly 9 mills.
“We were told we were using half of that money this year and half next year,” Robinson said last week.
But the money cannot accumulate from one year to the next, Goode said, according to what Fairfield voters passed in 2005.
“We’ve got a little more digging to do,” Goode said, “but if the County can’t make this right, then we’ll file a class action lawsuit. There’s no money in this for us – only for property tax relief.”
FAIRFIELD – If searching for a new Administrator, debating recreation and coping with a State Attorney General’s opinion were not enough, County Council Monday night faced claims by one citizen that they had misappropriated more than $5 million in Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds since 2006.
Maggie Holmes told Council that she had tried to discuss the funds with Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) and Vice Chairman Dwayne Perry (District 1) in March and was unhappy with the outcome. A subsequent Freedom of Information Act request, Holmes said, filed a short time later, has not yet been answered to her satisfaction.
“I have lost trust and confidence in Council’s ability to manage the financial affairs of the County,” Holmes said Monday. “You knowingly allowed more than $5.2 million of Local Option Sales Tax money to be withheld from the taxpayers of Fairfield County. As a governing body such an act on your part should be illegal.”
According to local attorney Jonathan Goode, retained by Holmes to pursue the matter, voters in Fairfield County approved the LOST in 2005. It went into effect in 2006. There are a number of ways in which LOST funds can be allocated, Goode said, as far as what percentage goes into the county’s general fund and what percentage is used toward property tax relief. In Fairfield in 2005, he said, voters approved 100 percent for property tax relief.
During this year’s budget session, Councilwoman Carolyn Robinson said $2.5 million in LOST funds enabled Council to lower the millage rate this year by nearly 9 mills.
“We were told we were using half of that money this year and half next year,” Robinson said this week.
But the money cannot accumulate from one year to the next, Goode said, according to what Fairfield voters passed in 2005.
“We’ve got a little more digging to do,” Goode said, “but if the County can’t make this right, then we’ll file a class action lawsuit. There’s no money in this for us – only for property tax relief.”
WINNSBORO – A Winnsboro woman made an appeal to Town Council last week during their July 2 meeting asking for help to restore her Cemetery Street community.
“I want to apologize for not having got here earlier, because it’s out of control down there now,” said Betty Gunthrope, who lives in the 300 block of neighborhood. “Cemetery Street is the worst looking street in town. It is horrible down there. A majority of the properties are uninhabited, dilapidated. The lots are overgrown, they’re covered with weeds and grass and whatever.”
Gunthrope said the services provided by the Town are not in question, as the police are always on patrol and Streets and Sanitation always respond to calls for clean-ups.
“It’s bigger than that,” Gunthrope said. “It’s out of their scope.”
Gunthrope said the majority of the homes on the street belong to the McMaster family, and asked Council if they could possibly reach out to the McMasters to tear down the vacant homes and perhaps donate the occupied homes to the residents. Barring that, she asked that the Town consider taking ownership of the properties there. She also asked Council to remember Cemetery Street the next time grants are applied for.
“Let’s bring the street back into the town,” Gunthrope said. “We don’t want to be left out. We want to be a part of the community. The people down there are decent people.”
Council took no action nor made any recommendations on Gunthrope’s comments.
Council did vote unanimously to appropriate $64,310 for the painting of the outside of the 11th Street water tank. The contract went to E&D Contracting Service, Inc. of Savannah, Ga., which will guarantee the work for up to 30 years. Council had the option to expend $44,880 for a lower quality paint that was only guaranteed for 15 years, but went with Town Manager Don Wood’s recommendation for the higher quality paint.
Councilman Clyde Sanders contributed $100 from his crime prevention fund to a neighborhood crime watch meeting in Forest Hills, and Councilman Danny Miller contributed $300 each to back to a pair of school events, one held by the family of Tillie Armstrong and one by Betty Young, in the Zion Hill community.
Following a brief executive session, Council recommended to pass along to the Planning and Zoning Commission a review of fees paid by vendors at Winnsboro’s new farmers market. The review should take place within the next 30 days, according to Councilman Jackie Wilkes’ motion.
Wood said the Town’s current ordinances do not encompass farmers markets and that some type of fee will have to be devised to cover vendors there.
“We want to find something that’s compatible with what other communities have done,” Mayor Roger Gaddy said.
State Sen. Creighton Coleman (right) delivers the news to Council Chairman David Ferguson as Shryll Brown, Clerk, reads along.
FAIRFIELD – As County Council continues to take body blows from the public over their handling of former County Administrator Phil Hinely, another bombshell fell on their doorstep Monday as the State Attorney General issued a damaging opinion regarding the County’s policy of tuition assistance for Council members and their long-standing practice of health insurance reimbursements.
The opinion, dated July 8 and written by Robert D. Cook, Solicitor General, and Harrison D. Bryant, Assistant Attorney General, concludes: “It is our opinion that State law prohibits a county from using public funds to make cash payments directly to individual members of county council who elect not to participate in the group health insurance plan offered by the county in lieu of making payments toward the premiums for such plans on their behalf or as reimbursements for expenses incurred by such non-electing members in obtaining separate insurance. While only a court may so conclude with finality, we believe that such payments are unauthorized and that it is a departure from the law for the country to pay them. We are also of the opinion that State law prohibits county funds from being used to pay for the college tuition of individual council members. The use of public funds for such purposes grants such members extra compensation in violation of Article III, Section 30 of the South Carolina Constitution. Furthermore, the use of county funds for such purposes violates Section 4-9-100 as such expenditures cannot reasonably be construed as reimbursements for ‘actual expenses incurred in the performance of their official duties.’ Both forms of payment, in our opinion, also constitute the use of public funds for private purposes. Should a court determine that these forms of payments are prohibited by law as we believe they are, there may be personal liability for the wrongful receipt or payment of such funds.”
Until a month ago, the County was paying for Councilman Mikel Trapp (District 3) to take business courses at Columbia College, a practice that was in line with the County’s education policies, according to former Administrator Phil Hinely. Trapp has since declined tuition assistance, but not before the County paid $26,806 toward his degree.
“We have a fairly liberal education policy,” Hinely said last month while he was still serving as County Administrator. “If the training benefits the County, the County will pay for it. A Councilman having a degree in business benefits the County. The policy is being used by a small number of County employees.”
In fact, only one employee, Marvin Allen in the County’s IT Department, is currently taking advantage of the tuition assistance program, but that falls outside the scope of the current Attorney General’s opinion.
The practice of paying certain Council members for coverage of their hospitalization insurance is a long and complicated one and dates back to 2009, according to county administrators. Council members are eligible for the County’s insurance policy, unless they are already, through their current or former employer, covered by a state plan, as is the case with Trapp, Chairman David Ferguson (District 5), and, until her retirement from Fairfield Memorial Hospital a few weeks ago, Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6). Because they were covered by a state plan, the County’s hospitalization supplement was not available to them.
Prior to 2009, these Council members, along with all part-time employees, were covered for hospitalization by the Carolina Cares plan, Hinely explained last month. 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, Hinely said they also asked the three Council members 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. That practice, also, is under attrition, Hinely said. Once any of the three Council members leave Council, the same payout will not be offered to their replacements.
The Attorney General’s opinion was written in response to a question from State Rep. MaryGail Douglas (D-41), who had the support and assistance from State Sen. Creighton Coleman (D-17) in drafting the letter and getting the response. Douglas said the question about the propriety of the hospitalization insurance payouts had been a concern for years. Finally, as a State representative, she was able to get those questions answered.
“From the first time I saw that in the (County) budget, I thought that was so wrong,” Douglas said. “This is going to inflame County Council, but if we are going to do things the right way, we’ve got to take a stand to do things the right way. This should have been cleared up a long time ago. We never should have had to go to the Attorney General to get clarification on an issue like this. It was brought to their attention many times. I brought that hammer down to them and it fell on deaf ears.”
Coleman presented the opinion to Council during their meeting Monday night.
“There’s one County Council member being sent to school, from what I understand, by county taxpayer money,” Coleman said. “Also there are various members of county council who are receiving insurance reimbursement, and that’s totally improper. If this is a barometer of how we’re spending our county funds in this county, we’re in bad shape.”
Coleman said the opinion suggest Council members may have to pay back years of premiums to the County. Ferguson said he would have to consult with his attorney before cutting any checks.
“This is really a way to stick it to somebody, and it seems like that’s the way it was intended,” Ferguson said. “I don’t know where it’s going to stop. I’m wondering where the Attorney General says anything about the money spent on some Council members and not on others is fair. If they’re spending $680 a month for their insurance and $475 a month for mine, there’s a little about this that doesn’t seem right.”
District 4 Councilman Kamau Marcharia put up a good fight, but was defeated in efforts to erect a recreation facility in Dawkins.
FAIRFIELD – Western Fairfield and the Dawkins community will have to wait, indefinitely, for their long-promised recreation facility after County Council defeated – in not one, but two separate votes – a motion to erect the facility on the 8.12 acres off Ladds Road. The vote came after much debate and after Council had received, for the first time, a cost analysis of site construction.
Lori Schaeffer, the County’s Recreation Department Director, delivered some stunning numbers to Council prior to the votes, presenting Council with two building options – a $895,000 facility that would include landscaping and would outfit the building with a basketball gymnasium, but without office furniture, telephones or computers, and a $483,000 option that would just cover the construction of the building. A third option for an outdoor facility that would include ball fields, tennis courts, walking trails, a parking lot and a multi-purpose field came in at $720,000.
“I’m sure that some of that could be mitigated to be more reasonable,” said Councilman Kamau Marcharia (District 4), who placed the motion to erect the building on the floor. “The community has requested a building that’s already been paid for and laid on the ground for (five) years (see the June 28 edition of The Voice). Whatever it would take to build that building, if all the amenities are not there, we have next year in allocations.”
Councilwoman Carolyn Robinson (District 2) said Marcharia’s plan to put up the building consumes nearly the entirety of his $500,000 recreation budget, as allocated in the County’s March $24 million bond issue.
“With those figures, there’s no way to put that building up,” Robinson said. “We just started the new budget. There’s not one dime to staff that building, pay for power, anything that’s in there. So we’re going to build it and just let it sit out there?”
Robinson said that churches in the community, as well as the School District, should step in and fill the recreation gap.
“Where are the churches in this county? I think it’s time the churches stand up and be a part of the community and provide for these children,” Robinson said. “The schools have been asked to open their gymnasiums. Those are the same tax dollars that we’re receiving in this county to meet the requests that you want. Why can’t we work with the school system and be able to provide the other facilities that are out there so that children, adults, etc., can take advantage of those not just the months when the schools are open?”
Marcharia, however, was undeterred. He said that, over the last 10 years, the County has received nearly $90 million in tax revenues from the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, a plant that sits in the heart of District 4. Yet District 4, he said, continues to go without adequate recreational facilities.
“We have a community that’s living in imminent danger, and we have absolutely nothing but chasing balls, if you want to call that a recreation sport,” Marcharia said. “Somebody should have something decent that we could be proud of in our district for this money.”
Councilman David Brown (District 7), while he said he supported Marcharia’s request for recreational facilities, said Council should take at least one more meeting to analyze the numbers.
“I don’t think we’re looking at this thing systematically from a money standpoint,” Brown said. “District 4 will be shortchanged from the many fine looking plans we had promised. I know we’re tired of studies. We’ve studied everything in this county five times. But I think it would be wise at this point . . . not to shortchange District 4 . . . if we could have one more meeting to seriously look at the finances of taking a building that’s been in storage, that sounds easy, that sounds cheap, but ends up costing you twice as much for half as much.”
Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) agreed that further meetings on the proposal might be necessary and said the numbers did not add up.
“To say we can just put that building up, I don’t know how we would pay for it,” Ferguson said. “I’m not sure how we can take $500,000 and build a $900,000 program with it.”
Marcharia said he felt the project could be done in increments and asked his colleagues what had become of the remainder of the original $500,000 Council had allocated to the now defunct Recreation Commission to purchase the building in question and erect it on the 8.12 acres (on Feb. 28, 2005).
“I’ve been asking for four or five years,” Marcharia said. “How many times have we had things in Western Fairfield when people get sick and the ambulance service can’t even get out there, and it’s still like that. It’s raggedy. And we’re living under horrendous conditions in terms of imminent danger, and that’s where a lot of your taxes come from. The County has spent millions on the industrial park. Where’s the jobs? So all that money can go for these industrial parks . . . and the first job from that is five years down the road. . . . If we want to argue about money later on, we can argue about it; I asked that the Council approve putting it on that property.”
Robinson said that, to the best of her knowledge, the balance of the original $500,000 had been placed back into the general fund. In May of 2006, the Recreation Commission paid MAR Construction of Lexington, S.C. $15,000 to clear the site, install a septic tank and put in sidewalks. A deal to purchase a building from an Alabama company for $453,710 never materialized, but two years later Council voted to settle a lawsuit with that company for $79,500, which included delivery of the building. The building has sat in crates ever since.
Marcharia’s questions on the remaining money from the 2005 vote went unanswered, however, and his motion died on a 5-2 vote, with only himself and Mikel Trapp (District 3) voting yea.
In a second motion, Marcharia asked that the $500,000 earmarked for his district in the County’s March bond be used to begin construction of the same building on the same site. Trapp offered the second. The move raised questions about how each district representative may choose to spend their funds in the future.
“Are we voting for Mr. Marcharia’s money, which, if it is his discretion to do with what he wants, why are we voting on it?” Councilwoman Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) asked. “This is your $500,000 to do what you like, why do we have to vote on it?”
Ferguson said that, since the money was Council funds, such a vote would have to take place for each district.
That motion, too, failed, 3-2. Trapp and Marcharia voted in favor. Brown, Robinson and Dwayne Perry (District 1) voted against. Kinley abstained.
“We are not a poor county,” Marcharia said near the close of Monday’s session. “Other people here have gotten what they want, but Western Fairfield has been kicked to the ground. But as Sam Cooke said, ‘A Change is Gonna Come’.”
BLYTHEWOOD – It’s time for potential candidates for Blythewood Town Council to begin thinking about filing applications for candidacy. Filing deadlines run concurrent with deadlines for county and state candidates this year. Candidates who file by Statement of Intention of Candidacy must file no later than noon, 60 days prior to the election. The election is for Nov. 5.
In the past, the Town of Blythewood elections, which are non-partisan with at-large candidates, were held in January of even-numbered years. However, last year Council voted to align the Town’s elections with the dates of national November elections on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November of even-numbered years. To make the transition, this first election will fall on an odd numbered year.
Three Town Council seats held by Paul Moscati, Ed Garrison and the seat recently vacated by Jeff Branham due to his resignation last month will be up for election this year. Branham had only served a year and a half of his first term as Councilman.
All candidates must file a Statement of Economic Interest form, a Campaign Disclosure form and the Candidates’ Roster form. The three forms are available from the State Ethics Commission at www.ethics.sc.gov.
For questions about candidacy application, call Town Hall at 754-0501.
BLYTHEWOOD – Town Administrator John Perry announced at the June 24 Town Council meeting that several seats on the Town’s boards and commissions will be open for appointment when terms expire Sept. 30.
Vacancies will include two each on the Blythewood Planning Commission, Architectural Review Board (BAR) and the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA.) Perry requested that volunteers interested in appointment to the seats make applications at the Town Hall now. For more information, call Town Hall at 754-0501.
