Category: News

WINNSBORO – During a special called meeting by the Winnsboro Town Council Thursday morning, May 9, council voted to go into an executive session, which was not on the agenda, and voted unanimously to hire the Town’s assistant manager, Chris Clauson, as interim manager after consulting with the town attorney.

The only item on the agenda was a discussion item, “Discussion of Contractual Agreement Concerning Town Manager.

The action was taken a little more than a week after Town Manager Jason Taylor announced he would be leaving the Town to take the position of City Manager with the Town of Newberry.

While arrangements are not finalized, it is expected that Clauson will take over as interim on June 1, and that Taylor will leave the Town the end of June.

Clauson, who has 10 years of experience in local government administration, has served as the assistant town manager since July, 2021. Prior to that, he served Fairfield County as the community development director for just over three-and-a-half years in Taylor’s administration.

“The Town will be in good hands under Chris as interim,” Taylor said. “During the six years I’ve worked with Chris – three years at the county and three years here in the Town – I have found him to be an honest, intelligent, and capable manager. His institutional knowledge of the county and the town is invaluable, and it’s just been a pleasure to work with him.”

While with Fairfield County, Clauson also served as the chairman of Fairfield Forward. Prior to coming to Fairfield, Clauson worked for the Town of Chapin as zoning administrator and before that was with the Santee-Lynches Regional Council of Governments (the Sumter-based regional planning agency.)

Clauson holds a Bachelors of Science degree from Liberty University, a Professional Master of Business Administration degree from the University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business, and a Master of City and Regional Planning degree from Clemson University.

Prior to enrolling in college, Clauson spent six years in the United States Air Force where he served in North Carolina, Afghanistan and South Korea.

Clauson and his wife Carla are the parents of three children.

FAIRFIELD COUNTY – A three-day severe weather event affected South Carolina this past week, with Thursday being the worst of the weather for Blythewood and Fairfield County.

Temperatures reaching the 90s Wednesday afternoon and dew points in the upper-60s and low-70s created the perfect environment for storms to develop.

Residents in Ridgeway, Blythewood, Winnsboro and western Fairfield County were awakened about 3:16 a.m. on Thursday morning by tornado warning alerts on their smart phones and watches. The National Weather Service later determined that a few minutes earlier, at 3:12 a.m., an EF-O tornado had caused extensive tree and roof damage near Monticello on Clark Bridge Road in Fairfield County. The tornado, with winds peaking at 80 miles per hour, had traveled along a 50-foot wide path for .36 miles.

Another, larger tornado in Fairfield County, determined to be an EF-1 tornado, occurred at 3:31 a.m. and ended five minutes later at 3:36 a.m., traveled over a 250-yard wide path for 1.89 miles, along Cedar Rock Road – between Hood Road and The Farm at Ridgeway – with winds peaking at 100 miles per hour.

The risky weather in Blythewood, Ridgeway, Winnsboro and western Fairfield County had started at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday when the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch as storms started to develop in the Upstate due to the heat and humidity. These storms ended up being large hail producers with hail ranging from ping pong ball size (~1.50 inches) to baseball size (~2.75 inches) in parts of the Upstate and Western North Carolina.

Storms from the Upstate passed through Blythewood and Fairfield County between 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. Wednesday evening, with plenty of available storm energy heading into Thursday morning.

A tornado watch was issued for the Upstate around 11:15 p.m., Wednesday night, extending into the western Midlands by 1:30 a.m. Thursday morning.

By Thursday morning, the line of storms had advanced east to show signs of rotation over Whitmire in Union County around 3:05 a.m., aiming for an area north of Ridgeway into the Western Midlands by 2:15 a.m.

At 3:12 a.m., the EF-O tornado hit near Monticello on Clark Bridge Road in western Fairfield County.

By 3:16 a.m., the tornado warning was issued for parts of Fairfield, Kershaw, and Richland Counties, including Blythewood, Ridgeway, Winnsboro, Elgin, and Camden.

By 3:31 a.m., signs of rotation were showing over Rion aiming for the Farm at Ridgeway.

The possibility of tornadoes was not the only concern during this time. The line of storms also prompted several severe thunderstorm warnings issued as well as the threat of 70 miles per hour winds from Rock Hill to Orangeburg.

The tornado warning expired at 3:45 a.m., Thursday morning, as the line of storms continued to advance east, slowly losing steam as it entered an environment less conducive for severe weather.

It’s important to always keep in mind that severe weather can come suddenly without a watch or a warning.

The National Weather Service issued another severe thunderstorm watch around 1 p.m. Friday afternoon, but Blythewood and Fairfield County dodged it.

Editor’s Note: After a weather delay on Tuesday, the Eagles were set to play game two in Winnsboro on Wednesday, but the game was delayed again. It will be played Thursday, May 16. See a recap in the May 23 issue.

 WINNSBORO – Monday night’s win put Richard Winn Academy just one away from capturing their second SCISA 1A State Championship in as many years.

The Eagles downed Holly Hill 8-2 in the first game of the championship series on Monday in Holly Hill.

The Eagles went ahead in the top of the first after Charlie Bonds hit an RBI single to left field, scoring Miller Stuck, who was hit by a pitch to lead off the game.

They went up 2-0 in the third on a solo shot to center from Anthony Armstrong.

The Eagles added three more runs in the top of the third.

Landon Smith and Stuck drew walks to get on. A single from a Bennet Nicholson bunt to third loaded the bases. Ethan Steward doubled on a two-out fly ball to center, scoring three.

Holly Hill responded in the fifth, plating two runs, but the Eagles got them back in the sixth to put the lead back at five runs (7-2). They scored again in the top of the seventh to finish the game 8-2.

Stuck had a strong performance from the mound. He threw a complete game, facing 26 batters. He struck out six, walked one, and allowed only one hit and two runs (1 earned).

Game two of the best-of-three series was set to be played Tuesday in Winnsboro, but weather conditions pushed it to Thursday.

RICHARD WINN – 1-0-1-3-0-2-1 – 8, 8, 2

HOLLY HILL – 0-0-0-0-2-0-0 – 2, 1, 2

WP: Stuck

Hitters: Steward 2-3, 2B, 3 RBI. Armstrong 1-3, HR, RBI. Bonds 2-5, RBI. Burchell 1-3, RBI. Stuck 1-3. Nicholson 1-3.

BLYTHEWOOD – A set of class-action lawsuits about how real estate commissions are paid has led to a lot of speculation in growing towns like Blythewood. But local realtors say they think it will have little impact on home buyers in the Blythewood area.

“I think [real estate agents’ commissions] will stay about the same. I don’t see it going up or going down; the cost of doing business is not changing,” says Rhonda Walsh, a managing broker for Home Advantage Realty at the company’s Blythewood and Irmo offices.

“I really think it’s [the case] been blown out of proportion, and it’ll settle down, and we’ll all come to a resolution really of simply how we do the paperwork.”

But a story in the New York Times says Americans have long paid unusually high commissions to real estate agents.

“The typical commission in the U.S. has been almost 6 percent, compared with 4.5 percent in Germany, 2.5 percent in Australia and 1.3 percent in Britain,” the Times story says. As a recent headline in The Wall Street Journal put it, “Almost no one pays a 6 percent real-estate commission — except Americans.”

A real estate agent’s commission – the money they receive for their work related to the buying or selling of a home – is typically calculated based on a percentage of the property’s sale price.

Traditionally it’s 6 percent, split evenly between the listing agent and the buyer’s agent, though current and retired realtors interviewed for this story made a point to say that, technically, commissions are negotiable.

The class-action lawsuits, filed by a group of home sellers in Missouri against the National Association of Realtors and several major real estate brokerages, claimed that the system used for real estate listings artificially inflates commissions, costing them money.

Under the association’s current rules, the buyer’s agent sets a commission for the seller’s agent through the electronic Multiple Listing Service (MLS), a searchable database where real estate agents post properties for sale.

After a federal jury found NAR and the brokerages guilty of price-fixing practices, a $418 million settlement agreement was announced that is generally expected to be approved by the court and go into effect in July.

In addition to paying the money to home buyers harmed by the system, under the settlement agreement, NAR will no longer be allowed to list buyer’s agent commissions in its databases. Also, real estate agents working with home buyers will be required to enter into written agreements so it’s clear to the buyers what they will be charged.

Walsh says lack of transparency has not been so much of an issue in South Carolina, where written agreements between buyers and buyers’ agents are already used.

Doug Bridges, a past president of the local board of realtors who worked as a realtor in the Blythewood area for 50 years before his recent retirement, says home transactions here always involved a lot of teamwork among the different professionals involved.

Both buyers’ and sellers’ agents are important to the process, he says – as are lawyers, home inspectors, and others.

A real estate transaction can be complex, he says – and that’s even without taking into account the important element of human emotion. Buying a house, he says, is not like buying a motor scooter – and that matters.

“When people buy a house that becomes a home, it’s a really big deal,” Bridges says. “I know how stressful it is, and this lawsuit (in how it’s been argued), it’s taken all of that away (disregarding its importance).”

One impact of the settlement’s rule changes is that, by removing the MLS-based communication about commission between the seller’s agent and buyer’s agent, it leaves conversations about commission to be discussed between the buyer and buyer’s agent directly.

Among concerns that have been raised is that this could harm home buyers who don’t have cash on hand to pay for an agent – and some loan types don’t allow it to be included in the mortgage directly.

“In higher price ranges, cash isn’t a problem. But when you’re in a lower income bracket – and especially those that have to go FHA [Federal Housing Administration] or VA [Veterans’ Administration], they barely have their down payment,” says Walsh.

 “It takes them out of the market if they have to pay the real estate commission; they just wouldn’t be able to afford representation, so that would be terrible.”

But Walsh says realtors won’t allow this barrier to materialize for buyers.

“While details of the paperwork may be handled differently in the future, home buyers will still have affordable access to proper representation,” Walsh says.

“It will always be in the seller’s best interest to pay the buyer’s agent commission,” she says, “simply because that brings them the largest number of buyers and it keeps those buyers from having to come up with additional cash to pay an agent separately.”

Bridges says conversations are already taking place among lenders about how to do a little differently what they’ve always done: include buyers’ agent fees in mortgage loans.

“Over time, there will be a meeting of the minds, and it will evolve into something that’s workable and fair for everybody,” he says. “Fairness is the key word.”