Former Winnsboro Police Chief Kevin Lawrence and Deputy Chief Oren Gadsen | Barbara Ball
WINNSBORO – Winnsboro Town Administrator Jason Taylor
announced Thursday afternoon, March 7, that Winnsboro Department of Public
Safety Chief Kevin Lawrence had resigned his post effective March 6. Taylor
gave no details as to why Lawrence resigned.
Lawrence was hired as Interim chief in September of 2022,
after the Town’s former Chief John Seibles retired. Lawrence was elevated to
WDPS chief in June, 2023. At the same time, veteran Winnsboro deputy Oren
Gadson was named Deputy Chief.
Taylor said Gadson will be the acting chief until the Town
hires an interim chief or a permanent chief.
Contacted by The Voice, Lawrence said he has taken a position in law enforcement in a nearby jurisdiction.
This story was updated on March 13, 2024 at 7:33 p.m.
WINNSBORO – The Town of Winnsboro experienced a break in a
Mill Village water line on Poplar Street several weeks ago. Repairs of the
waterline are set for next week.
The area affected by the repairs will extend to all
customers on both sides of Columbia Road from 2nd Street all the way to 11th
Street.
“The break is in a four-inch line which, given the age and nature of the Mill Village water system, needs to have a larger section of the pipe removed and replaced,” Assistant Town Manager Chris Clauson said. “The Town staff opted to delay the fix until such time that we could give the public adequate notice of the repairs since the water will be off for several hours while repairs are being conducted.”
Water repairs should be completed between 9 a.m. and 12 noon
on March 12.
“After the repairs are complete, Town staff will flush the
lines for an extended period in the Mill Village area,” Clauson said.
“There is a minimum of 48 hours after the work is complete that a boil water advisory will be in effect as the Town is required to pull two separate water samples 24 hours apart before the advisory can be lifted,” Clauson said.
Customers with questions can call Town of Winnsboro Water Department at (803) 635-4121 or email Trip Peak at Trip.Peak@townofwinnsboro.sc.gov.
WINNSBORO – Fairfield County Coroner Chris Hill has released
the name of the individual killed in a hit and run in Winnsboro at about 8:30
p.m. on Friday, March 1.
Coroner Hill said Brian Kennedy, Sr., age 56, of Winnsboro,
was found in an alley off of South Zion St. after being struck by an unknown
vehicle. An autopsy is scheduled on Mr. Kennedy to determine the extent of
injuries and the cause of death.
At this time the fatality is being investigated by the
Winnsboro Department of Public Safety, the S.C. Highway Patrol, and the
Fairfield County Coroner’s office.
Law enforcement is seeking information from anyone in the
community who might have witnessed the incident. Report information by calling
the Winnsboro Department of Public Safety, 803-635-4511 or 803-635-2222.
RIDGEWAY – A quarter-million-dollar gas line project being
undertaken by the Town of Winnsboro will bring natural gas to Ridgeway – and
Winnsboro town hall wants to hear from residents and business owners who are
interested in connecting to the new gas line.
“This is a request that the town council of Ridgeway has
made, the mayor of Ridgeway has made, business owners and some of the residents
have made,” says Winnsboro Town Administrator Jason Taylor, “and we’re glad to
finally be able to move forward with this project to meet those requests that
have been made.”
The work will be completed over the next year by Winnsboro
town employees, Taylor says, starting with the main line, which will run
roughly 5 miles along existing road right-of-way, and then continuing with the
addition of smaller lines to connect homes, neighborhoods, and businesses where
the is the most demand.
“If you want gas service, please contact the Winnsboro town
hall, and we would be glad to put you on the list to try to get you hooked up
in the first phase,” Taylor says. “The most customers we have, that will
dictate where we put lines, so if we have a neighborhood where a lot of people
call, that’s where we’ll put a line; it’s very customer driven.”
For connections close to the road, it will be possible to
run a line and install a meter at the home or structure, he says. For
connections far from the road, such as down a long driveway, landowners may
need to run additional pipe from the meter to connect their buildings.
Taylor says Winnsboro is one of few towns in South Carolina
that have full-service utilities: water, sewer, gas, and electricity. Due to a
gas allocation contract acquired years ago from a nearby pipeline, the town has
a locked-in quantity of gas at a very low rate – and currently pays for storage
of a lot more gas than its current utility customers use.
He expects that, with new customers added to the system, the
investment in this gas line project will pay for itself in 4-5 years – and
potentially in half that time if the availability of natural gas also prompts
business growth in the area.
“We have a crematorium over there that wants the gas,”
Taylor says, “and I think Ridgeway, with all the growth that’s coming – that
should come associated with Scout [Motors] – they’re ground zero for growth,
and so we want to try to get ahead of that growth.”
He says it’s often easier to put in utilities before large
tracts of land are subdivided into lots – and adding more customers to the
system can also help bring down rates because it spreads out the cost of
operating the system among more customers.
“Gas is… the easiest of the utilities for us to expand.
Water and sewer are, as far as DHEC regulations, very permit-intensive, and
very engineering-intensive,” Taylor says. “To expand gas, for the most part my
crews can go with a backhoe or a trencher, dig a hole, and start laying pipe.”
And, while providing an additional utility service to
existing residents and businesses, he says it also opens opportunity for future
development, which can generate revenue for the town in a variety of ways.
“We’re always looking to try to grow our budget
in a way that we can have more revenue to improve service,” Taylor says, “and
the only way that you can grow and become more prosperous is not from higher
fees or taxes or cutting services, but from growing – and so we’re
Presenters during the Blythewood Historical Society’s Black History Month program on Saturday were, from left: Roddy Egister (opening remarks), Jim Felder (civil rights activist speaker), Councilwoman Andrea Fripp (appeared on stage); Alex English (sports legend speaker), Blythewood Mayor Sloan Griffin holding his son (welcome comments), and Malcolm Gordge, president of the Blythewood Historical Society and Museum. Not shown: Margaret Kelly, (recognition of former Town Councilman Larry Griffin).
BLYTHEWOOD – The annual Black History Month Celebration
organized each year by the Blythewood Historical Society, lived up to its theme
last Saturday – ‘Looking Back – Reaching Forward’ – with two locally and
nationally recognized speakers who did just that.
Jim Felder, a political and civil rights activist from
Sumter, S.C. served as pallbearer and head of casket at the funeral of
President John F. Kennedy, and served in the S.C. House of Representatives.
Felder, an attorney, took the audience through several firsts for
African-Americans in South Carolina, which came about as the result of the
organization of the S.C. chapter of the NAACP in the basement of Benedict
College in 1939, and with the assistance of famed black attorney Thurgood
Marshall.
Some of those firsts, he said, included: a lawsuit in South
Carolina in 1941 for equal pay for lack teachers; a 1947 lawsuit that led to
black students being admitted to law schools in South Carolina; a 1947 South
Carolina lawsuit that was a precursor to another lawsuit that led to the
integration of public schools; an unsuccessful attempt by a black man to run
for office in South Carolina in 1948 that led to the doors of the S.C.
legislature opening up to blacks, and a voter registration push in 1967, that Felder
headed up.
“In 1967, there were 50,000 black registered voters,” Felder
told the audience. “Today there are 1.1 million. In 1967, we only had eight
black legislatures. Today we have 928 elected officials in every office in
South Carolina from school board to the legislature.
A second speaker on the program was Blythewood’s own NBA
legend Alex English.
A native of Columbia, English and his wife Vanessa and their
five children settled in Blythewood more than 30 years ago after his retirement
from professional basketball.
English, who grew up in poverty, living with his grandmother
and 12 other kids in a three-room house and sometimes subsisting on one meal a
day, went on to be a star basketball player for Dreher High School and the
University of South Carolina where he was the first African-American sports
star at the school.
Drafted into the NBA, he was the star player throughout the
1980’s for the Denver Nuggets. When he retired, he held nearly every Nuggets
team record – including most career points, assists, and games.
English has been praised not only for his pioneering sports prowess
as a young black athlete in the wide world of sports, but as one of the most
respected, well-rounded and dominant players in the game. It has been written
that, “he was a coach’s dream – confident and quiet, coachable and prepared,
and always ready to play.”
Outside of sports, English, who holds a bachelor’s degree in
English, is a published author, poet and has acted in several movies, two of
them produced by his oldest son, Alex, Jr.
JT Wilkes, Aaron Geddens and Benjamin Clowney finished in fifth place in the Senior Advanced Division. | Contributed
GEORGETOWN – Richard Winn’s sporting clay team took to Georgetown over the weekend for the Back Woods Quail Club tournament, their third tournament in the 2024 give-tournament series.
Abby Lewis hit 94 of 100 clays on the day to take 1st place.
Sophomore shooter Abby Lewis took home the medal for Highest
Overall in the Senior Advanced division. Hitting 94 of 100 targets on the day,
Lewis finished in first place out of 35 female shooters in the division, and
third overall in the Senior Advanced Division. Logan Hall finished first out of
male and female shooters, just two ahead of Lewis with 96 shots hit.
Lewis shot with senior teammate Ella Grace Harrison, who hit
85 for fifth place on the day with female shooters.
Richard Winn’s team of Benjamin Clowney, JT Wilkes and Aaron
Geddens finished in fifth place in the Senior Advanced division with a score of
262. Clowney shot 91, Wilkes hit 90, and Geddens rounded out their team score
with 81 hits. Rocky Knoll took first place with a score of 268.
TJ Knight, Dylan Albert and Hoffman Sharpe finished in third
place in the JV 1st Year Division. Knight shot a 97, Albert hit 88, and Sharpe
hit 87 for a combined score of 272, just five behind first place finishers
Turkey Hill.
Monty Sharpe, Cooper Rast, and Hud McClean finished second
place in the intermediate first year division. Charlotte Lewis and Ember Smith finished
first place in the Ladies’ Rookie division.
The Eagles will return to their home course, Rocky Creek
Sporting Clays, in March for the fourth tournament in the series.
BLYTHEWOOD – Erica Page was the winner in the Town’s Special Election held Tuesday to fill the Council seat vacated when former Councilman Sloan Griffin was elected as the Town’s Mayor last November.
Page, a wife, mom of two daughters, and local mortgage
lender, took almost half the votes in a candidate field of five.
Page said she focused her campaign on connecting with people
personally by going door-to-door in local neighborhoods.
By the numbers, with 24 early votes and 10 absentee votes,
Page captured 144 votes to Patricia Hovis’ 81. Calvin Smith brought in 62
votes; Ray Poore received 39 votes; and Marcus Taylor, 20.
Voter turnout was low with only 9 percent of the 4,093 registered voters casting ballots.
Page said that when she announced her intentions to run for
council, she pledged to run a positive campaign focusing on Blythewood families
and the future of the Town.
Page currently serves on the Town’s Planning Commission, a
volunteer position she has served for more than five years.
Page said she felt she was uniquely positioned to understand
the inner workings of Blythewood’s local government as well as the Town’s
economic and community development projects.
She has been involved with the Blythewood community,
including organizing the Movies in the Park at Blythewood’s Doko Park for the
past 3 years. She planned, promoted, and covered much of the cost of this free,
family-friendly event.
”I’m truly grateful for the confidence the voters have
placed in me today, and I’m looking forward to working with the members of our
new council,” Page said after the vote count.
“I love our Town! My family and I enjoy so much of what our
community has to offer,” she said.
“We all know that Blythewood is going to grow, but we want
it to grow the right way.”
“My commitment to our families and our businesses is to work
with them to shape the future of Blythewood,” she said, “and work to ensure
that there are opportunities for input and open communication for all in our
community.”
BLYTHEWOOD – An attorney for MPA Strategies marketing firm and its owner/CEO Ashley Hunter has filed a motion in Court for sanctions against The Town of Blythewood’s former outside attorney David Black, a partner in Maynard Nexsen law firm in Columbia.
Attorney Paul Porter, with Cromer, Babb and Porter, has
asked the Court to sanction Black for two reasons: 1) because of a Motion to
Transfer that Black filed on Dec. 8, 2023, and 2) because of Black’s conduct
associated with that motion thereafter, according to Porter’s Feb. 16, 2024,
filing.
Motion to Transfer
Black filed the Motion to Transfer just weeks after
Blythewood voters elected a new mayor and council who had made it known before
the election that they were not in favor of continuing with the MPA lawsuits
and the inherent costs and fees of those lawsuits.
With the Motion to Transfer, Black was asking the Court to
transfer the [MPA] cases to a special master who would oversee them. Black
claimed this was necessary because there were conflicts of interest of Town
Council members adverse to the Town’s interests in the litigation, according to
the Feb. 16 filing.
“What this meant,” Porter wrote, “was that Black did not
agree with directives his client (the Town) made to him about settling this vexatious
and costly litigation. Put another way, Black wanted this case assigned to a
special master so he [would] not have to abide by the wishes of Blythewood’s
democratically elected mayor and council.”
Black’s Conduct
On Dec. 11, 2023, three days after Black filed the Dec. 8
Motion to Transfer, he (Black) was terminated by Mayor Sloan Griffin via email.
The mayor confirmed the termination that same day during a public press
conference.
In response to the mayor’s Dec. 11, 2023 termination letter,
Black sent a letter on Dec. 13, 2023, saying he disagreed that the mayor had
the authority to terminate him, but said he (Black) and his firm would “file a
motion to withdraw as counsel of record from the MPA litigation due to the
Town’s failure to follow legal advice,” according to Porter’s Feb. 16 filing.
“Contrary to what he said in the letter that he would do,
Black refused to withdraw from the MPA cases until 44 days later, at 3:35 p.m.
on Jan. 24, 2024, the day before the Court was scheduled to hear the Motion to
Transfer,” according to Porter’s Feb. 16 filing.
By refusing to officially withdraw from the lawsuits, Black
remained counsel of record for the Town and, in that capacity, also refused
Porter’s request that he (Black) file a stipulation of dismissal with the Court
to effectuate a Dec. 29, 2023 mutual agreement between MPA and the Town to
settle and dismiss the lawsuits between them.
“If this stipulation is not filed today, it may result in
serious damages to Ashley Hunter/MPA Strategies, based on a professional
recertification she is undergoing before the first of the year,” according to
Porter’s filing.
Black responded, “…pursuant to my ethical duty to the Town
and its citizens, please understand that I will not be filing the attached
stipulation of dismissal. As [I am] the attorney of record in this matter for
the Town of Blythewood, you do not have my permission to make the filing.”
“This delay in the filing cost [Ashley Hunter] an additional
$4,292.21 in attorney fees to file a Motion to Enforce Settlement and to
respond to Black’s Motion to Transfer,” Porter wrote.
According to Porter’s filing last week, this conduct on
Black’s part violated Rule 11 and the Rules of Professional Conduct.
“First, counsel [Black] had ‘no good ground to support’ the
subject motion [to transfer]. As acknowledged by counsel (Black) in his
12/13/23 letter to the Town of Blythewood, he was ‘specifically instructed and
authorized by the mayor during the town council meeting on Dec. 5, 2023’ “to
attempt to enter into a global settlement in the MPA litigation.
An Unusual Motion
“Instead of doing what he was directed to do, counsel filed
an unusual motion (without consent or consultation) to refer this case to a
special master on the implied basis that he wanted to be able to disregard his
client’s newly elected leaders’ wishes.
“Second, counsel violated Rule 11, SCRCP because he did not
confer with counsel for the plaintiff prior to filing the subject motion or
certify that consultation would ‘serve no useful purpose or could not be timely
held.’ This is a stated requirement of Rule 11. Defendant’s Motion to Transfer
failed to abide by this requirement providing yet another ground for the
imposition of Rule 11 sanctions.”
Porter also referenced the following two rules in his Feb.
16 filing:
Rule 1.16 (Declining or Terminating Representation) states
that: (a) Except as stated in paragraph (c), a lawyer shall not represent a
client … if … (3) the lawyer is discharged.
Rule 1.2 (Scope of Representation and Allocation of
Authority between Client and Lawyer) states that: (a) Subject to paragraphs (c)
and (d), a lawyer shall abide by a client’s decisions concerning the objectives
of representation and as required by Rule 1.4, shall consult with the client as
to the means by which they are to be pursued. A lawyer shall abide by a
client’s decision whether to make or accept an offer of settlement of a matter.
WINNSBORO – A late night crash on Saturday, Feb. 10, at the
intersection of US 321 and US 321 Bypass has resulted in the deaths of two
individuals.
Karen Guy, 40, and Gabrielle Burt, 38, both of Columbia,
sustained fatal injuries in the crash, according to the S.C. Highway Patrol
report.
The crash occurred at 10:52 p.m., when a 2011 Nissan sedan
driven by Guy turned off of Columbia Road (US Highway 321 Business) into
oncoming traffic and struck a 2020 Toyota sedan head on, according to Nicholas
Pye with the S.C. Highway Patrol. Burt was a passenger in the Nissan.
The driver of the Toyota sedan, which was traveling north on
US 321, was injured and transported to the local hospital, the reported stated.
The crash remains under investigation by the S.C. Highway
Patrol and the Fairfield County Coroner’s office. No other information is
available at this time.
