Blythewood Online 691

Category: Government

  • DHEC Orders Water Upgrades

    WINNSBORO – Town Council Tuesday night gave the OK for matching funds for a nearly $500,000 potential grant to cover upgrades to the Town’s water treatment plant, upgrades the Town must make under orders from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).

    “We have two consent orders from DHEC with regard to chlorine dioxide and total organic carbon, which we have to address,” Town Manager Don Wood told Council. “Connie (Shackelford, the Town’s grants writer) is completing an application to the Rural Infrastructure Authority to get grant funding for these two projects. The match total for both projects is $48,700, and that would be a capital expenditure also. And this doesn’t guarantee we’re going to get it; we’re just asking permission to provide the match if we do get the grant.”

    Wood said the $48,700 represented 10 percent of the grant, plus an addition $2,000 because the Town’s request exceeded the total maximum of the grant.

    According to documents Wood provided to The Voice, the water treatment plant is under a DHEC consent order because of a failure to meet total organic carbon (TOC) minimum removal.

    “TOC is a measure of the naturally occurring organic material found in raw waters,” the documents state. “The town’s source waters are particularly susceptible to this.”

    TOC and chlorine disinfection can result in the formation of byproducts, such as trihalomethanes, which is also a regulated substance in drinking water, according to the documents.

    Winnsboro currently uses coagulation to reduce TOC in drinking water, but is looking to upgrade to utilizing chlorine dioxide and powdered activated carbon (PAC) to comply with the consent order.

    Council also approved $6,500 for the replacement of panels on sewer lift station number 11 at the Wastewater Treatment Plant. Wood said the expenditure was in the 2015-2016 budget.

    Unbudgeted expenditures raised concerns from one citizen, who chided Council during the public comment portion of the meeting for a vote last month to spend nearly $18,000 to paint the first two floors of Town Hall and to purchase a Christmas tree and decorations for downtown.

    “I’ve found out that that money . . . was not in the budget,” Richard Driscoll told Council, “so we’re taking it out of the savings account. The savings account, the way I would look at it, is for true emergencies, not a Christmas tree. So I have to say that I’m disappointed. I thought we lived in a fiscally conservative state. Apparently Winnsboro is not quite as fiscally conservative as I thought it was.

    “I’ve also subsequently learned that Council has asked Mr. Wood to look at spending up to $10,000 for security on this building (Town Hall), which has five people in it, and no money, in the sense of the Utility Department isn’t here anymore,” Driscoll continued. “That expense also is going to have to come out of the savings account. I have problems with all three of those, and I’m going to warn you ahead of time I’m going to hound Council for the next two years. Every time you guys spend money that ain’t in the budget, you’re going to hear from me. If you guys can’t budget for it when you put the budget together in the spring, and it ain’t an emergency, then you shouldn’t spend it.”

    Just before the meeting adjourned, Councilman Clyde Sanders, who had pressed for the security system, and Mayor Roger Gaddy both said the security system was indeed a budgeted item. Councilman Stan Klaus said after the meeting that the funds for the Town Hall paint job were also in the 2015-2016 budget, while the tree and decorations were from the contingency fund.

    Flies

    Wood said DHEC was also planning to investigate a report of swarms of flies, flies that Debbie and Dot Shealy said were making their lives miserable. Addressing Council during the public comment segment of the meeting, the Shealys said the flies were emanating either from the reservoir or the pond or pool at Fortune Springs Park, and were entering their home through the water pipes.

    Executive Session

    After Council’s executive session, in which they discussed the Broad River water line project, water for the Fairfield Commerce Center, progress at the old Mt. Zion school property and zoning issues at the former site of Club 145 at 145 S. Congress St., Gaddy said the Broad River project was on schedule. The engineering studies were currently under way, he said, and the Town has identified properties that will have to be purchased for rights of way. Contracts for the construction of the nearly 9 miles of pipeline, which could bring 8-10 million gallons of water a day to the reservoir, could go out as early as December, Gaddy said.

    Winnsboro is also prepared to deliver water to the Fairfield Commerce Center, the County’s new industrial park, when requested, Gaddy said.

    Gaddy also said the Town has not seen much activity from the Friends of Mt. Zion Institute (FOMZI) in their efforts to restore the old Mt. Zion school since the windows were repaired last May. The Town sold the property to FOMZI for $5 in March of 2014 with the caveat that the building had to be stabilized to meet Winnsboro’s Dangerous Building Code within 18 months or be torn down.

    Although he would not go into detail after executive session, Gaddy did say FOMZI’s deadline was approaching.

    Regarding the property at 145 S. Congress St., Gaddy said a potential buyer for the building had questions about local zoning ordinances that Council needed to address, but about that he would also not go into detail.

     

  • Filing Closes for Blythewood Races

    BLYTHEWOOD – With only hours left to file for elective office in the upcoming Nov. 3 municipal elections, only five candidates had filed for four seats at press time Wednesday morning.

    Mayor J. Michael Ross has filed to run for a second term as mayor. Current Councilman Eddie Baughman and Malcolm Gordge, who is Chairman of the Planning Commission, have filed to run for the two open four-year terms on Town Council. Baughman is seeking a second term. Current Councilman Bob Mangone has not filed for a second term. He told The Voice in a phone conversation last week that he had not yet decided if he will seek re-election.

    Two candidates have filed for the two years left on a four-year term vacated by former Councilman Bob Massa, who resigned in June. One of those, a newcomer to the community, Michelle Kiedrowski, told The Voice in a phone interview that while she has not attended any town government meetings or had time to learn about the town’s issues, she is running because she feels all the people in the town need to be well represented.

    Blythewood native Larry D. Griffin has also filed for the two-year term. Griffin is a life-long Blythewood resident and is the nephew of the late Elizabeth Hagler who served two terms on Town Council before her retirement from public office in 2008. Griffin is founder and president of the Bethel-Hanberry Athletic Alumni Association.

    Filing closed at 5 p.m., Wednesday.

    Only residents of the Town who are registered by Oct. 3 are eligible to vote in the Nov. 3 election. To register, contact Richland County Board of Voter Registration at 803-576-2240 or go to www.richlandonline.com. For more information, call Town Clerk Melissa Coward at Town Hall, 754-0501.

     

  • Owners Rethink Rezoning

    BLYTHEWOOD – After voting unanimously and without discussion to recommend the final draft of a new Comprehensive Land Use Plan to Town Council for passage, members of the Planning Commission Tuesday night moved on to what Chairman Malcolm Gordge referred to as “the principle business of the evening – to affix zoning for a 4.56-acre parcel at 121 McLean Road.”

    Until it was recently annexed into the town, the parcel was one of several surrounded by the Town of Blythewood but lying in unincorporated Richland County with a Rural (RU) zoning designation.

    The owners of the 4.56 parcel, Wright and Gray Partnership, represented by NIA Avant realtor Tombo Milliken, appeared before the Planning Commission to ask the Town to rezone the property to Town Center (TC) District zoning, which is the same zoning as Doko Park across the street. That zoning designation is the fifth most intense of six commercial zoning levels in the town.

    Several neighbors who share a property line with the annexed property spoke out against TC zoning for the parcel. One of those neighbors, Jessica Nuttall, said her family did not want commercial zoning next to their property, which is zoned Rural.

    The Town’s Planning Consultant, Michael Criss, pointed out that the TC District does allow a wide variety of commercial uses, including retail, service, office, institutional, civic and multi-family housing. Criss said, however, that TC is the commercial district with the most demanding architectural controls of all the town’s commercial districts.

    “So the question is,” Criss said, “if it’s going to go commercial, which designation is the most appropriate?”

    Milliken said the Wright and Gray Partnership property was already “surrounded by commercial zoning, all the way around, no if’s, and’s or but’s.”

    Nuttall said that was not the case. A review of Richland County GIS mapping by The Voice indicated that all the properties touching the 4.56-acre parcel are zoned Rural. Doko Park, which is zoned TC, is across the street from the property.

    After some discussion, Milliken responded that he and the property’s owners were rethinking their zoning preference and “now we think the Multi-Neighborhood Commercial designation might be more appropriate for what the property is best suited for.”

    “Personally,” Milliken said, “I think it would be a great location for a professional office.”

    Criss told the Commissioners that Multi-Neighborhood commercial zoning is one level below TC commercial zoning.

    Given the 1.3 acres of wetlands on the site and a half acre on the opposite side of the wetlands that would not be usable in a development unless the wetlands were mitigated, Milliken said he felt the most likely use of the land would be the 2.5 acres nearest the railroad side of the property, as far away from residents as possible.

    At one point in the meeting, Milliken turned to the Nuttall family and said, “The property is for sale and we’d love to sell it to you if you’re interested.”

    Jessica Nuttall responded that the family might be interested and asked for more details, which Milliken said he would give them following the meeting.

    At the end of the meeting, instead of calling for a motion, Gordge suggested the principals of the 4.56 acres meet with the neighbors and “try to come to terms, either for the neighbors to purchase the property or for the applicant to bring a rezoning proposal back to the Commission at the next meeting.” The next regular meeting of the Planning Commission is Oct. 5.

     

  • Arch Stable, Funding Less So

    Repairs have been made to Ridgeway's iconic arch, but money to complete the project is getting hard to come by. (Photo/Courtesy Heath Cookendorfer)
    Repairs have been made to Ridgeway’s iconic arch, but money to complete the project is getting hard to come by. (Photo/Courtesy Heath Cookendorfer)

    RIDGEWAY – Phase one of the restoration of the old Ridgeway School arch, the last remaining structure from the long-ago demolished school and its auditorium on Church and Means streets, is complete, Councilman Heath Cookendorfer reported during Council’s Aug. 13 meeting. Funding for the rest of the project, however, remains in limbo.

    Cookendorfer told Council last week that King Murphy had stabilized the arch, bricking in the base of the structure to prevent further erosion and water damage. Phase two, he said, would entail building brick steps around and leading up to the arch. Cookendorfer’s arch committee, he said, would be asking Council for $200 to pay for architectural drawings, and another $100 would be necessary to purchase the original bricks back from the Ridgeway resident who bought them from the Town after the auditorium was demolished in 2007.

    That money is in addition to what Cookendorfer has estimated would be $20,000-$30,000 to completely restore the crumbling arch.

    “I look at it as a community project,” Councilman Russ Brown said. “The community asked for it. The town is on a tight budget as it is. You can’t start a project and get halfway through it and not have the funds to finish it. We can’t come up with $200 right now. It doesn’t look promising to come up with $20,000.”

    When a 2007 storm destroyed the roof of the auditorium, leading to its ultimate demise, the Town received an insurance settlement of $480,000. At a Council meeting last November, former Councilman Robert Hartman suggested some of what remained of those funds be used to restore the arch. But last week, Council made it clear they were reluctant to turn any of that money loose.

    “That money I think we have saved in the past because we don’t have a big budget,” Mayor Charlene Herring said after last week’s meeting. “We don’t know if we’ll have another crisis. We don’t have air conditioning upstairs in this building (The Century House) here that we really need.”

    “There’s also the water tower,” Brown added. “We’ve got to have something in savings in case there’s a big problem.”

    Ridgeway received a $1,000 Community Enhancement Grant from the County last year, which went toward the arch, and Cookendorfer said he was now in the process of setting up an online Go Fund Me account to raise money for the project.

    With Council sitting on the remainder of the insurance settlement – which, contrary to popular belief, was not earmarked for the arch, Councilman Donald Prioleau said – it is apparent that funds for the arch are going to have to come from elsewhere.

    “They (the community) came to us asking for it and we didn’t have money to throw away in the budget,” Brown said. “We said get together and form a group. They got a group and they’re getting those things together. The fact is, if we spend all our money on materialistic things, we’re not going to have any when we have infrastructure problems.”

     

  • Not All Expenditures Sail Through Committee

    FCSO Request Gets No Recommendation

    WINNSBORO – County Council’s Administration and Finance (A&F) Committee put their seal of approval Monday on more than $635,000 in expenditures, while a third expenditure of more than $124,000 ran into a snag and was forwarded to the full Council without an official recommendation.

    The Committee, chaired by Councilman Kamau Marcharia (District 4) and consisting of Council members Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) and Marion Robinson (District 5), recommended the purchase of three training mannequins for the County’s EMS service at a cost of $107,728.68. Milton Pope, Interim Administrator, told the Committee that Council had budgeted $115,000 this fiscal year for the mannequins.

    The Committee also recommended a system upgrade to the County’s 9-1-1 system, at a cost of $528,231. Pope said 80 percent of that cost would be reimbursed to the County by the state.

    A request by the Sheriff’s Office to replace mobile radios created some confusion among the Committee. Pope told the Committee the request was for the replacement of 26 radios at a cost of $124,593, which was in the 2015-2016 budget.

    Noting his paperwork, Robinson said the original request was for 33 radios, “but we’re only going to purchase 26 because the price went up,” he said. “My concern is what are we going to do about the rest of them?”

    But Pope then said the total number of radios was actually 33.

    “Everything in this (paperwork) says 26 total radios,” Robinson said. “It’s kind of hard for me to tell what the heck we’re really doing.”

    Pope said the request was for 26 mobile radios, which will become obsolete by December 2016, as well as for seven other related pieces of equipment.

    “I think the Sheriff’s department needs to be making dadgum sure that he’s asking for what he needs because I’m having a little bit of difficulty approving this,” Robinson said. “Everywhere he’s written here says 26. I’m sorry, I can’t vote to approve this when I’ve got this kind of conflict. They need to be sure their numbers jive with what went out and what we approved in the budget.”

    The Committee opted to forward the request to full Council without a recommendation in time for Council’s Sept. 14 meeting. In the meantime, Pope said he would send the paperwork back to the Sheriff’s Office for clarification.

    A final request for the purchase of two new brush trucks and two new service trucks for Fire Service was pulled by Pope.

    “On the service truck, there was possibly a change in the state contract price,” Pope said, “and also the Fire Marshal may have made a mistake on the type of truck.”

     

  • Council OK’s Water Deal

    WINNSBORO – Town Council during their Aug. 18 meeting approved for a third time a water agreement for the development of 26 acres on Rimer Pond Road.

    Last March, Council approved up to 42,800 gallons per day for 107 residential lots on a 26-acre tract at 502 Rimer Pond Road in Blythewood, while also approving 25,000 gallons per day for 5 acres of commercial property adjoining the tract, both for Sycamore Development, LLC. At their June 16 meeting, Council voted unanimously to transfer Sycamore’s water agreement for the residential tract to LandTech, Inc. of S.C.

    On Aug. 18, Council passed another resolution authorizing the Town of Winnsboro to enter into a water service agreement for development with Rimer Pond Land Investors, LLC (a development under parent company LandTech, Inc.) for the 26 acres. Sycamore, with the consent of the Town of Winnsboro, has transferred meter and water capacity as set forth in a Water Capacity Availability and Willingness to serve letter dated April 10.

    The latest agreement calls for about 33,000 gallons per day for 100 residential lots for a subdivision the developer calls Coatbridge. H. B. Chuck Munn Jr., a principal in LandTech, Inc., said the company expects to begin construction about the first of next year on the development, which is located across from Blythewood Middle School. Munn said buildout is expected to be complete in 2-1/2 to 3 years.

    Capital Expenditures

    Council approved a request from the Electric Department for $4,800 for a panel Christmas tree to replace the one recently pruned by Fairfield County in Gazebo Park, along with $3,500 for holiday decorations.

    Council also approved a bid from A-1 Paint contractors to repaint the interior of Town Hall. The cost for painting the first floor was approved at $5,725 and the second floor at $3,800.

     

  • ‘Project USA’ Revealed as County Paves Way for Wood Chipping Plant

    WINNSBORO – After months of secrecy, County Council revealed Monday night the identity of the company that will be the recipient of a new Fee-in-Lieu-of-Taxes (FILOT) agreement.

    Prior to the third and final reading of an ordinance establishing the FILOT, Interim Administrator Milton Pope said AEC Pellet 1 USA, LLC, the company previously referred to as “Project USA,” plans to construct a wood chipping facility off Highway 321 N. in Winnsboro. Pope said the terms of the FILOT include a $125 million investment by the company, as well as the creation of 75 new full-time jobs. AEC Pellet will be assessed at a ratio of 6 percent, Pope said, and will pay a fixed millage rate of 423.3 mills for their first 30 years. They will also receive a special source revenue credit of 60 percent per year for the first 10 years.

    According to documents on file with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), AEC Pellet applied for their Synthetic Minor Construction Permit through the Bureau of Air Quality last December. A public notice was posted to the DHEC website last February, with the comment period closing on March 12.

    According to the notice, AEC intends to construct and operate a wood pellet manufacturing facility on Cason Road in Winnsboro. The facility would have an annual production rate of 530,000 tons, with a minimum hourly production rate of 71 tons.

    The manufacturing process comprises four units, the DHEC documents state, to include a wood yard, a drying process, a pelletizing process and a storage/load-out area. Equipment would include dryers, pelletizing lines (hammermills, pellet mills and pellet coolers), storage and load-out silos and telescopic sleeves.

    According to the DHEC documents, emissions generated by the facility would include particulate matter (less than 10 micrometers in diameter and less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter), nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP). If approved, the notice states, “a federally enforceable facility-wide limit of less than 250 tons per year” of the particulate matters, the carbon monoxide and VOC “would be established, thereby enabling the facility to be below Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) major source thresholds.”

    Federally enforceable limits of 10 tons per year would also be established “of any single HAP, or less than 25 (tons per year) of total HAPs,” the documents state.

    An air quality permit (permit number 1000-0039-CA) was issued to AEC Pellet on March 16, DHEC said.

    “As this comes to fruition, this is going to be tremendous for us,” Pope said Monday night, “and it has the potential to have an impact on our timber industry.”

    Elite, LLC

    Council also Monday night transferred its existing FILOT agreement with Elite, LLC to Caterpillar, Inc., Elite’s new owners.

    “Nothing changes in the documentation,” Pope said, “we’re just assigning those to the Caterpillar Corporation.”

     

  • Ballot Fills Out as Deadline Loooms

    BLYTHEWOOD – Four candidates have filed for four seats in the upcoming Town elections set for Nov. 3.

    Mayor J. Michael Ross, a Cobblestone Park resident, has filed to run for a second term as mayor.

    Councilman Eddie Baughman, who lives in Lake Ashley, and Malcolm Gordge, who lives in Ashley Oaks and is Chairman of the Planning Commission, have filed to run for the two open four-year terms on Town Council. Baughman is seeking a second term. Current Councilman Bob Mangone, a Cobblestone Park resident, has not filed for a second term and told The Voice that he is not sure of his plans.

    A newcomer to the community, Michelle Kiebrowski, filed for the two years left on a four-year term vacated by former Councilman Bob Massa who resigned in June. Kiebrowski, a native of Nebraska who moved to Cobblestone Park last October, said that while she has not attended any town meetings or had time to learn about the town’s issues, she is running so that all the people in the town will be well represented.

    The only Council seat not up for election is held by Tom Utroska, also a resident of Cobblestone Park.

    Those wishing to be on the Nov. 3 ballot must file by 5 p.m., Sept. 2. For more information about filing, call Town Clerk Melissa Coward at Town Hall, 754-0501.

     

  • Council OK’s Rezoning

    BLYTHEWOOD – At a special called meeting and public hearing on Aug. 20, Town Council unanimously passed final reading of an ordinance to rezone 636 acres along Community Road for industrial use. The new zoning classification, Light Industrial-2 (LI-2) was requested by Richland County for an industry it says is interested in the site.

    During the public hearing, only one person, Dwayne Bohannan, owner of Storage Express on Community Road, spoke to the rezoning.

    “A few years ago we went through a rezoning process that was pretty taxing on the community,” Bohannan said. “Are we going to continue that pattern of rezoning? I’m concerned if the Town Center District is going to be considered for rezoning at some point (for more intense zoning). As a concerned citizen I’m worried that it (Town Center District) will be zoned to something else.”

    Bohannan, whose storage facility is located in the town but not in the Town Center District, said he felt the industrial zoning for the 636 acres is a good use of the land, but he doesn’t want to see a new pattern of industrial zoning for properties in the Town Center District. When the Town Center Zoning was put into place several years ago, the Storage Express property, which was slated for Town Center District zoning, was allowed to stay out of the Town Center District and be zoned for Light Industrial use.

    Neighbors Worried About Rezoning

    During the public comment period at the end of the meeting, June Nutall and her daughter-in-law, Jessical Nutall, expressed concern to Council about the proposed rezoning of a newly annexed property located at 121 McLean Road. The owner of that property has asked for Town Center District zoning. Both women live on McLean Road and said they are concerned that some land uses permitted by the Town Center District might not be appropriate for the property in question.

    Mayor J. Michael Ross told the Nutalls that the issue would be coming before the Town’s Planning Commission for a recommendation (to Council) on Sept. 1, and invited them to present their concerns to the Commission at that time. During Council’s July 27 meeting, Council members also expressed concerns as to whether Town Center District zoning would be appropriate on that same property, which is located across the road from the Town park.

    Business Forum Rescheduled

    It was announced that the second Town-sponsored Small Business Forum has been rescheduled from September to the first quarter of next year. Councilman Bob Mangone, who organizes the forums, also asked Council to allocate $3,100 to cover the costs of the next forum.

    “But I would ask that the funds be allocated from the general fund and not from hospitality tax funds,” Mangone told Council.

    He said he did not feel the statute governing allocation of hospitality funds provided for uses other than those that put people in the town’s hotels and restaurants.

    “After I recently attended a workshop on this subject sponsored by the Municipal Association of South Carolina, I realized that we have not always invested these funds correctly, nor to the letter of the law,” Mangone told The Voice. “They are to be used for events that bring people to town overnight, people who will stay in our hotels and eat in our restaurants. While we will have participants from out of town for the forum, just as we do for other events, they will most likely not be staying overnight.”

    New Town Fees Approved

    Council also passed a new fee schedule for the Town, but not as proposed. It was suggested that the Town charge fees for review of the removal of certain landscaping plants and trees: $25 for residents, $500 for commercial lots and $1,000 for subdivisions. Council voted unanimously for the commercial and subdivision fees but chose not to charge any review fees for residents.

    Community Leaders Recognized

    Several community leaders and organizations were recognized by Council. Capt. Harry Stubblefield of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department was introduced as the new commander of Region 6. He will be located at the Region 6 headquarters on McNulty Road. Capt. Stubblefield said he has been in law enforcement for 37 years, 26 years of that time with the S.C. Highway Patrol. He was most recently assigned to the Richland County Courthouse.

    Two of Blythewood’s new school principals were also introduced: Dr. Cheryl Guy at Westwood High School and Sean Bishton at Muller Road Middle School. Guy was previously the assistant principal at Westwood and Bishton was previously the principal at Rice Creek Elementary.

    Mangone, on behalf of Council, presented a check for $2,500 to Jon Covert, treasurer of the Christian Assistance Bridge located on Blythewood Road. The donation is intended to provide assistance to the homeless in the Blythewood community.

    Council will hold a workshop at 9 a.m., Sept. 15. The next regularly scheduled Town Council meeting is Sept. 28.

     

  • Former Councilwoman Pleads Guilty

    Cauthen Faces 2 Years in Insurance Scam

    Katie Cauthen
    Katie Cauthen

    NASHVILLE, TENN. – Former Blythewood Town Councilwoman and attorney Kathleen (Katie) Devereaux Cauthen will face around two years in federal prison after pleading guilty in a Tennessee court last week.

    Cauthen had been charged with two felony counts in a U.S. District Court in Nashville, Tenn. in a healthcare fraud and embezzlement scheme. The charges include conspiracy to commit “theft or embezzlement in connection with health care” and misprision, the failure to report the commission of a felony to judicial authorities. In an unannounced 35-minute hearing held last week, Cauthen officially changed her plea to guilty and admitted the criminal acts for which she is charged. Though Cauthen has pleaded guilty, her full plea agreement is still under seal by the court and she will not be sentenced for more than a year. She remains free on bond.

    With the advice of her court-appointed attorneys, Cauthen acknowledged in plea hearing documents that she faces 21-27 months in prison. However, at her 11 a.m. Aug. 29, 2016 sentencing, if she has lived up to her agreement the conspiracy charge against her will be dismissed and Cauthen will plead only to misprision.

    “Fully understanding my rights to plead ‘not guilty’ and fully understanding the consequences of my plea of guilty, I wish to plead ‘guilty’ and respectfully request the Court to accept my plea more fully set out in the plea agreement,” the document signed by Cauthen and one of her two attorneys states.

    The term of imprisonment is set by the federal sentencing guidelines, taking into account the seriousness of the offense, criminal history and other factors. With her continued cooperation, Cauthen will be hoping to be granted a “downward departure” by her sentencing judge. If a defendant is honest and provides substantial aid and information to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, those prosecutors can recommend her offense level be lowered and sentence reduced by the guidelines.

    Cauthen’s case has been delayed on multiple occasions as she has been helping the U.S. Attorney’s Office make a case against her alleged co-conspirators. Charged separately from other conspirators, Cauthen was never indicted, but rather agreed to a federal criminal information.

    Four of Cauthen’s alleged co-conspirators – William Worthy of Isle of Palms; Bart and Angela Posey of Springfield, Tenn. and Richard H. Bachman of Austin, Texas – were indicted by a federal grand jury in Nashville in June 2013. That case was scheduled for trial in U. S. District Court in Nashville in January, but has been moved up and now is unlikely to see a jury until August 2016. Some of those charged in this case are also cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and so are likely to accept a guilty plea and not go to trial. According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics, more than 95 percent of federal criminal defendants plead guilty to charges.

    In charges filed June 16, 2014, the former Councilwoman is alleged to have aided others in a scheme purported to provide health care benefit coverage to more than 17,000 individuals and multiple employer groups in various states. It claims that although holding themselves out as providing health care coverage, the defendant and her co-conspirators did not comply with either state or federal regulatory requirements. Cauthen and her co-conspirators are alleged to have collected more than $28 million in insurance premium payments.