Category: Government

FAIRFIELD – There will be no changes in the structure of Fairfield County government in 2013. Jan. 14, both Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) and Vice Chairman Dwayne Perry (District 1) retained their respective positions during Council’s election of officers. Ferguson received five votes for chairmanship, while Carolyn Robinson (District 2) received two. Robinson also received two votes for the vice chairmanship, while Kamau Marcharia (District 4) received one. Perry received the remaining four votes in the secret ballot.

Council then filled two vacant spots and ratified eight reappointments on county boards. Nelson Lacy, representing District 7, was ratified for a seat on the Council on Aging, and Frances Lee O’Neal was confirmed as a Council appointment to the Olde English District.

The following were ratified by Council for reappointment:

Shirley Seibles (District 3), Behavioral Health Board; Ethel Burrell (District 4) and Anita Tarlton (District 6), Council on Aging; Lewis “Buddy” Haigler (District 3), Gwen Harden (District 6) and Vickie Robinson (District 5), Disabilities and Special Needs Board; Sammy Castles (District 5) Fire Commission; and Michael Quinn (District 6), Hospital Board.

Finally, Council approved first reading of Ordinance 610, which rescinds the County’s Uniform Solid Waste Management Ordinance 410 (also known as the “Litter Control Ordinance”) and replaces it with the 2012 Solid Waste Management Plan. The new plan has been updated to meet the current S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) regulations as well as the current Fairfield County solid waste handling practices.

Council meets again Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. in their chambers at 350 Columbia Road.

BLYTHEWOOD – The sale of the Community Center is a done deal, according to Larry Sharpe, who told The Voice Tuesday that he feels certain he will sign the contract with the Town on schedule.

The sales contract for $1.5 million gave Sharpe until Tuesday to back out if he found the zoning restrictions on the property would make it unsuitable for him to develop.

“I think we’ve about got everything worked out now,” Sharpe said.

He said he expects to close the contract with the Town on Jan. 31. Asked about his plans for the property, Sharpe said he didn’t have anything definite yet, but was talking to prospects. He said he is looking forward to doing something nice with the property for the town.

BLYTHEWOOD – Tuesday night the Architectural Review Board elected a new chairman, Michael Langston, a resident of Cobblestone Park. Dr. Curtis Brown of Ashley Oaks was elected vice chairman.

Michael Criss, the Town’s planning consultant, updated the ARB members on the new design standards that were recently adopted by Council as part of the new Town Center zoning text amendment. Criss said one of the major changes is that, while in the past, the ARB only had review authority over commercial buildings and major improvements in the Town, under the new zoning ordinance, the ARB will have review authority over all buildings in the Town Center district, including residences.

Criss said that the architectural and other design standards in the new zoning text amendment would apply to all new land uses, new construction and major improvements within the Town Center District. The ordinance defines major improvements as any repair, rehabilitation, reconstruction, addition or other improvement of a building or structure which, in the aggregate, costs 50 percent or more of the assessed value for property tax purposes (not including land) before the improvements. Town Administrator John Perry explained that Town Hall would keep tract of successive improvements of the buildings in order to determine if the aggregate costs amounted to 50 percent or more.

Criss said the new Town Center design standards will dictate a number of design changes such as the prohibition of mansard roofs which are less expensive but don’t look as good as other roof designs. He said that over the course of the next seven years, minimum height requirements for new construction of frontage buildings on certain roads in the town will increase to three stories.

Building facades on new construction are to be built next to sidewalks, with driveways and parking to the side and rear.

Blythewood Road and Wilson Boulevard (Highway 21, also called Main Street in the town) are slated to be widened to 95-feet, which will amount to an increase of 6- to 12-feet outside current right of ways. Perry said that once these right of ways are mapped, the Town must be ready to purchase them all. Asked by Langston about the expense of such purchases, Perry said there are some methods that make acquiring right of way more affordable.

Perry announced that two or three members from each of the town boards would be taking a field trip to Baxter and Davidson, N.C. to look at architecture. He also reminded the board members about the Town’s planning retreat March 22 and 23 at the Doko Manor which he said would be operational by March 1.

BLYTHEWOOD – New developments have cropped up in a $10 million lawsuit that was filed in December by South Capital Group, LLC against the Town of Blythewood, Councilman Ed Garrison and two partnerships (Crescent Hills Partners, LLC and Crescent Partners SRES, LLC), which the complaint alleges were formed by Garrison about April 13, 2009, either individually or with others. The complaint also named John Does 1 through 10 who purportedly participated with Garrison and the two LLC partnerships to harm South Capital, LLC.

On Jan. 3, Columbia attorney Robert B. Lewis filed a motion in U. S. District Court asking to be relieved as counsel for the two partnership defendants. In the motion, Lewis stated that the partnership defendants, whose managing member he identified as Garrison, had failed to pay any fees or for any costs incurred for his representation of them in the case.

Lewis said the partnership defendants had also failed to respond to two previous requests (letters dated June 14 and Oct. 29, 2012) in which he asked Garrison to be relieved from representing them.

While the legal fees of the Town of Blythewood and Garrison (in his capacity as a Council member) are covered to an as yet undetermined extent by the state insurance reserve fund, which insures government entities in South Carolina, an employee at the State Board of Budget and Control, who asked not to be identified, said the two partnership defendants are likely not covered by the reserve fund since they are private entities.

In the letter to Garrison, dated June 14, 2012, Lewis wrote that he had agreed to reduce his hourly rate on the case substantially, but that “even with the fee reduction, the fees are in the $4,000 range and we have just started the discovery process.”

In another letter dated Oct. 29, Lewis asked Garrison to sign a consent form on behalf of the partnership defendants, agreeing to release Lewis as counsel. Lewis stated in his Jan. 3 motion for relief that there was no response to his letter.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants of civil conspiracy, tortious interference with a contract and negligence in regard to a 142.95-acre property that was owned by South Capital Group, LLC and commonly referred to as Red Gate Farms.

The property is located on the west side of Blythewood Road between Muller and Syrup Mill roads.

At issue is the involvement of Garrison and the town government with the property from the time it was annexed into the Town on Nov. 24, 2008 until South Capital Group, LLC filed for bankruptcy on the property. An article published in The State newspaper on July 6, 2010 disclosed that the property had been in Bankruptcy Court under a Chapter 11 proceeding for more than a year.

The property was annexed into the Town with a Richland County zoning designation of Planned Development District (PDD.) In early February 2010, two years after the annexation, Town Administrator John Perry placed a zoning request on the Planning Commission’s agenda calling for Rural (RU) zoning on the property. Based on information supplied to them by Perry during a public meeting, the Planning Commission recommended RU zoning to Town Council. The property owners were not present at the meeting.

On Feb. 22, 2010, Town Council unanimously passed the first of two required readings to zone the property RU.

At that meeting, a member of the audience asked Councilman Garrison whether he should recuse himself from voting on the zoning request. The question concerned whether Garrison, a developer and real estate agent, was involved with securing financing to purchase and develop the property. Garrison indicated he had no financial involvement with the property and voted for the RU zoning, which was finalized by a second vote by Council on March 29, 2010.

At a special called meeting of Council on May 3, 2010, the Town’s attorney at that time, Lee Zimmerman (McNair Law Firm), told Council that he had been contacted by the attorneys for South Capital Group, LLC, who asked that the Town Council rescind Ordinance 10.0007 that called for final zoning of RU on the Red Gate Farms property. Zimmerman told council members that the principals of South Capital Group, LLC , David Hillburn and George Delk, said they had not been informed the property was going to be rezoned to RU.

Council voted 4-0 at that meeting to rescind the ordinance and refer it back to the Planning Commission for review and recommendation. Council ultimately zoned the property for a more restrictive Planned Development (PD) zoning designation on Sept. 27, 2010.

On Jan. 11, the case was reassigned to Judge Terry L. Wooten for trial in Federal Court. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Aug. 26, 2013.

FAIRFIELD – This month’s meeting of the organizational committee of the Fairfield County Regional Water Authority, originally scheduled for Jan. 23, has been rescheduled. The committee will instead meet Feb. 27 at 4 p.m. at the Midlands Tech QuickJobs Center in Winnsboro.

FAIRFIELD – It took a 4-3 vote and the defeat of a motion to table, but Monday night County Council gave the OK to County Administrator Phil Hinely’s plan to include rescue squad workers in the county’s expense reimbursement program.

Council member Carolyn Robinson (District 2) led the push to table the matter until Council’s Jan. 28 meeting. Robinson said she would like to see an economic impact report on adding the rescue squad to a program that already includes firefighters, details of where the money would come from and if the incentives represented an additional tax on Fairfield County citizens.

Hinely said there was no additional taxation associated with the program.

“There is no economic impact,” Hinely said. “The money we’re already setting aside to give these expense reimbursements (to firefighters), it will come out of this. This just gives us a formal program to do it. There is money in the budget to add the rescue squads, which is what we’re doing here. We’ve already done the fire departments. Even at that, there was no increase to the budget. And with the rescue squad, it’s really a minimal cost.”

Call pay for a Department of Transportation (DOT) certified first responder is $15. For a Status 2 or non-certified responder, $10. Training pay is $15, while business meetings earn a responder $5. The maximum amount paid in one calendar month is $250. This is the same call pay allotted to firefighters.

In addition, a rescue squad worker may qualify for an additional $100 annually, if he or she meets a set of training requirements. Firefighters can earn an additional $200 annually by meeting a similar set of requirements. Longevity will also earn rescue squad workers an additional $50 annually (5-9 years of honorable service), $100 (10-14 years), $125 (15-19 years) or $150 (20 or more years). Firefighters already qualify for the same longevity scale.

With emphasis placed on training and certification, Robinson said the payments could indeed have an economic impact on the county.

“If everyone gets their certifications and moves up, I have no idea how many people we’re talking about,” Robinson said. “It could have an economic impact on our budget and I would like to see that. Any time money is discussed, an economic impact needs to come with it. It’s getting to the place that we are using a lot of our fund balance and other things and we just need to always know what kind of money we’re talking about.”

Barkley Ramsey, Chief of the Fairfield County Rescue Squad, said there are currently 30 active volunteers on the squad. More than half of them, he said, are also firefighters, and are thus already receiving the reimbursements. Ramsey said capping membership at 35 members was also under consideration.

“So we’re talking about an impact of about 15 folks,” Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) noted. “And we did the incentive at budget time with the firemen.”

Hinely said he was not seeking a formal vote by Council on the matter, but only their approval to proceed with the formula.

“When Council votes on something, then if later on it needs to be changed it has to come back and go through the whole process,” Hinely said. “This is already in the budget, but not in this form. I don’t foresee this going up anytime soon. Actually there’s a cap on each one of these. No matter how many trainings you get or anything else, you only get a certain amount a month. Training is what the council trying to get people to do, and this is a lot cheaper than paying firemen.”

But Robinson objected.

“It’s getting to the place where we have so many things thrown at us and we never have an opportunity to sit and discuss it, it goes out of here and we’re expected to approve it without knowing the nuts and the bolts of anything,” she said. “At some point the rest of us have to have the opportunity of having leadership and understanding in these things, because every time we turn around it’s something else that’s thrown at us that we just have no input on. If that’s the case, then why am I sitting here? Why was I elected? I am constantly having things thrown at me, at every meeting, and this needs to cease so that we all feel that we have an impact in this. To say that we shouldn’t vote on it – it’s part of the budget, so we do need to vote on it. I don’t know where ya’ll are coming from, but this is the legislative process. You don’t continually do business without a motion and a second to either accept or adopt.”

Robinson then moved to table the matter until Council’s next meeting. David Brown (District 7) seconded the motion. Councilman Kamau Marcharia (District 4) joined Robinson and Brown in voting to table. Ferguson, Vice Chairman Dwayne Perry (District 1) and Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) rejected the move.

Kinley then moved to accept Hinely’s proposal. Perry seconded and the votes fell out along the same lines.

WINNSBORO – Renting the Town of Winnsboro’s Old Armory is going to get more expensive in 2013, according to a vote by Town Council Jan. 8. Council voted 3-0 to raise the rates on Armory rental by $100 for the new year, upping the rental fee to $550. Councilmen Danny Miller and Jackie Wilkes were not in attendance and did not vote on the rate change.

Council also voted on a change to their gratis use agreements for the Armory. Previously, groups granted gratis use of the Armory had also had the clean-up fee of $200 waived. Jan. 8, Council voted to no longer waive the clean-up fee.

Earlier in the meeting, Council announced that they would be accepting applications for their annual awards (employee, citizen, volunteer and business of the year) through Feb. 14. The awards will be announced in March. Council noted that last year’s winners in individual categories would not be eligible for the same awards this year and that individuals would be eligible for recognition in only one category. Nominations may be made through the Town’s new Web site, www.townofwinnsboro.com.

Absent from the Jan. 8 meeting was any input from the Friends of Mt. Zion Institute (FOMZI) on the fate of the Mt. Zion school building. Last month, Council voted to sever ties with Red Clay Development, the North Carolina firm that, nearly three years ago, purchased the Mount Zion Institute from the Town for $100,000.

“We feel like the FOMZI people are very dedicated to the project,” Winnsboro Mayor Roger Gaddy said following the split with Red Clay last month. “Whether or not they’ll be able to make the financial commitment that will be necessary will be their decision, but we’re willing to explore different avenues with them and to work closely with them in any way we can to hopefully save the project.”

FOMZI’s Vicki Dodds said this week that FOMZI had met with Mayor Gaddy and members of Council in early January.

“We were encouraged by their receptiveness to our thoughts and our plans and think we at least have a commitment of time and verbal support,” Dodds said. “I can’t speak to their procedures as far as taking the buildings back from Red Clay but, for now, FOMZI will continue our action plan and has begun work on the grounds as of this weekend.”

A revised contract between Winnsboro and the City of Columbia, designed to bring an additional 600,000 to 1 million gallons of water into the Winnsboro water system, has also not been addressed. Steve Gantt, Columbia’s City Manager, said at the end of December that Columbia’s City Council would vote on the new contract in January. Council did not take the matter up at their Jan. 8 meeting.

Fairfield County, meanwhile, has agreed to spend the $400,000 to purchase pumping equipment, which will be necessary to feed water from Columbia and into the tower on Highway 34 near Ben Arnold.

RIDGEWAY – Following an executive session, Ridgeway Town Council voted unanimously Jan. 10 to hire Greg Miller as the Town’s newest part-time police officer.

Miller most recently served with the S.C. Highway Patrol (SCHP) as a trooper out of Chester County’s Troop 4. He was dismissed by the SCHP last October following his arrest on third-degree assault and battery charges against an ex-girlfriend in September.

According to a Richland County Sheriff’s Department report of the incident, deputies were called to a home on Sandpine Road on Sept. 17 where a woman said she had been choked by her ex-boyfriend of 12 years. She identified her assailant as 48-year-old Gregory Allen Miller, of Smallstown Road in Winnsboro. The victim said she had just recently ended her relationship with Miller. She said Miller was waiting for her at her home when she arrived and followed her inside, refusing to leave. The report states that Miller grabbed the woman’s shoulders and began shaking her, then grabbed her around the neck. The victim said Miller, while choking her, told her, “If you tell my wife, are you prepared to suffer the consequences?” and then left the home.

Deputies noted bruising on the woman’s neck, as well as on the right side of her face. Miller was arrested later that same day.

Miller was fired by the SCHP Oct. 5 and charged Oct. 15, according to reports. He had been with the SCHPS since 2007. Prior to that, he worked with the Chester Police Department in 2007, as a State Transit Police office from 2005-2006 and with the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office from 2003-2005. In 2009, Miller was one of three final applicants for the then vacant job of Chief of Police in Ridgeway.

Efforts to reach Ridgeway Mayor Charlene Herring for comment just days after the meeting were unsuccessful. Ridgeway Councilman Donald Prioleau, who led the search for a part-time officer, said that as far as Town Council knew, no charges had officially been filed against Miller in the September incident.

“We didn’t want to get into something he hadn’t been charged for,” Prioleau said. “It could be true, or maybe not. He was a good police officer when he was there.”

Indeed, Miller’s name appears nowhere in the Richland County court systems, nor in the records of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, where Miller was reportedly booked and released on a personal recognizance bond Sept. 17. That would indicate, an officer at the detention center said Monday, that the charges were either dropped or had been expunged.

Prioleau said of the three applications the Town had for the job, Millers was by far the best.

Council also voted to renew their contract with Loblolly Lawn and Grounds Maintenance Service to cut grass throughout the town. Loblolly charges the Town $750 per cut, plus a $25 fuel charge.

Council elected to table any resolution to join the Fairfield Regional Water Authority until an unspecified later date. A public hearing on the resolution held at last month’s meeting drew no members of the public. Council also tabled a vote to accept a bid for repairs to the Century House. Herring said the Town had received only two bids on the work and would therefore have to put the project out for bid again.

Council also said that they had failed to reach an agreement with restaurateurs Elisseos Mergianos and James Miller for a lease on the Old Town Hall building. Herring said after the meeting that the Town would now renew their search for a potential tenant for the restaurant.

“The Town needs a restaurant,” Herring said.

Council’s next scheduled meeting is Feb. 14 at 6:30 p.m.

BLYTHEWOOD – In a special called 5 p.m. meeting at Town Hall Tuesday, Blythewood Town Council gave the second and final vote to authorize the mayor to execute a contract, dated Dec. 31, 2012, to sell the 5-acre Blythewood Community Center property to Sharpe Properties, LLC for $1.5 million. The 24-hour notice for the meeting was posted at Town Hall and at the post office. The notice was not submitted in time to publish in the newspaper.

The sales contract gives Larry Sharpe, owner of Sharpe Properties, until Jan. 21, 2013, to back out of the contract if he finds the zoning restrictions on the property would make it unsuitable for him to develop. This is the second time in a little over a year that Sharpe entered into a contract with the Town to purchase the property. He let the first contract, for $265 million, expire on Oct. 27 due to concerns he had about certain zoning issues and plans the Town might have in regard to the property that he felt might adversely impact his investment.

The sale comes after 13 years of controversy over the town government’s desire to sell the property and use the proceeds to build a multi-million dollar town park. Tom Utroska, a resident of Cobblestone Park, For years the Community Center property was the hub of the town’s social activity, and many residents have spoken out at Council meetings calling for the Town to renovate the Center and use some of the property for a visitor’s center. Two members of the community addressed Council about the sale Monday.

Tom Utroska, a resident of Cobblestone Park, chastised Council for dropping the price from $2.65 million (the amount of Sharpe’s first contract) to $1.5 million after only 14 months.

“Why wasn’t the property re-marketed to seek additional suitors?” Utroska asked.

In a memorandum dated July 29, 2004 and initiated by John Hicks, the Town’s administrator at the time, the town’s attorney, Deborah Hottel, advised that the S.C. Code of Laws does not require the Council to have in place a specific process for selling property, and the Councils over the years have chosen not to initiate one. The memorandum further notes that state law does not require the Town to hold a public hearing for the sale of property owned by the Town unless a public hearing is requested. If no one requests a public hearing to sell land owned by the Town, then none is required.

“Once the sale [to Sharpe] closes, that will be a good time to address this issue with the public,” Councilman Paul Moscati responded to Utroska.

Mayor J. Michael Ross, in defense of the Council’s move to sell the property at a reduced price, said the previous contract had included certain incentives to reduce the sale price [by up to $500,000] if Sharpe had chosen to meet certain criteria specified by the Town. But there was no requirement that he take advantage of those incentives.

Michael Watts, a lifelong member of the Blythewood community, said that while he had no issue with the purchaser, and understood why a good businessman would buy the property, he added that he wasn’t thrilled with getting an explanation of the sale after the fact.

Watts also expressed his objection to selling the Center for several reasons.

“The Council has taken on marking historical places in the town, but, with the exception of a few churches and the old school (now Blythewood Academy), there is no place in this town that holds as many memories for many of the town’s people as the Community Center property,” Watts said. “No other place in town holds that kind of history.”

Watts said that families who historically rented the Community Center for $200 for an event might not be able to afford $700-$1,000 for an event at the Doko Manor. He also said the Community Center property, sitting off I-77, was the perfect place for a visitor’s center.

“You wouldn’t be having to market it to tell everyone where to come,” Watts said.

“For as many people as have your viewpoint, I think there are just as many who would disagree,” Mayor Ross countered. “It [Doko Manor] may cost $700 – $800 to rent, but you’ll get something worth $1,500 – $2,000. It’s something they’ll be proud of.”

“It is set now where we’ve moved forward and we now have a new location,” Councilman Jeff Branham said. “I think people would rather have a nice restaurant there. The decision has been made to move forward. I don’t want anyone to think I’m betraying what I said in the past, but I feel we should move forward with it.”

Branham said that selling the Community Center would provide money to build more things in the park.

Councilman Roger Hovis made the motion to call for the vote and Council voted unanimously to authorize the mayor to sell the Center.