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BLYTHEWOOD – Some residents of Blythewood’s LongCreek Plantation subdivision are accusing the Board of Directors of their Property Owner’s Association (POA) of turning a blind eye to a developer, Gateway LLC, who residents say is blatantly disregarding the neighborhood’s deed restrictions and covenants as it develops a new neighborhood within LongCreek Plantation. Sam Brick, an attorney and resident of the subdivision, but not a member of the POA, said there are, so far, no responses from either the POA or Richland County to Gateway’s actions.

Gateway purchased 10 acres at the southern entrance to LongCreek Plantation March 15, 2013. According to members of the POA and other residents of the subdivision who asked not to be identified, Gateway, earlier this year, proceeded to rip out a landmark giant oak tree and the subdivision’s substantial sign and fountain at that entrance on Longtown Road to make way for another smaller entrance (in the same location as the tree and sign) to serve a new neighborhood proposed on the 10 acres. Brick said the tree and sign were specifically protected in the property’s deed restrictions and should be addressed by the POA board.

“When John Bakhaus, the developer of LongCreek Plantation, sold the 10 acres to a Presbyterian church about 14 years ago, it was specified in the deed that the tree and fountain must not be removed,” Brick said.

When Gateway LLC purchased the property last year, the owners signed a deed that stated (section F of page 5 of the deed restrictions) that “Additionally, the LongCreek Plantation Sign and overhanging tree shall be left intact.”

In addition to the ruckus over the destruction of the tree and sign, Brick said the zoning for the 10 acres is medium density with 8,500-square-foot minimum lot sizes.

“Yet, the developers are not abiding by this in almost half the planned lots and the County is not honoring the zoning in its approvals of these site plans,” Brick said.

Some residents also say flooding from recent thunderstorms (at the adjacent intersection of Longtown Road and Longtown Road East and West) is the result of Gateway’s failure to abide by the covenants, which, they say, state that no more than 40 percent of the area may be disrupted during construction of the roads, sewers, etc.

Brick told The Voice that Gateway’s designs also call for a four-way traffic stop on Longtown Road East between the Windermere Club and the four-way stop at the entrance to LongCreek at Longtown Road.

“The POA has standing on these issues but is doing nothing to protect us. It’s burying its head in the mud,” Brick said. “The POA is responsible for upholding covenants of title but have done nothing so far in this case.”

The Voice received several email notices from residents that the POA had called for a meeting Wednesday evening (June 11) at the Columbia Country Club to discuss these issues. However, POA members received an email from the LongCreek POA on Tuesday, June 10, stating that the meeting was not for the residents, but a regular monthly POA Board of Directors meeting.

“Any member of the POA is allowed to attend the meeting,” the email stated, “unless it is called into Executive Session. Non- members of the POA are not allowed to attend, unless specifically invited…”

The Voice obtained a copy of the meeting agenda, which did not list any of the residents’ concerns regarding the Gateway development, but mundane items including: website update, a neighborhood yard sale and the LongTown nature trail. An executive session was listed but there was no explanation, as is required by the S.C. Freedom of Information Act, as to the purpose of the session.

Brick said many of the residents of the subdivision are hoping the POA board will open the meeting to the residents and hear their concerns about the construction at the entrance.

The Voice left email and voice messages for LongCreek Plantation developer John Bakhaus; the agent for Gateway LLC, Kenneth E. Ormand Jr. and the president of the LongCreek POA, Stephen Stackhouse, but had not received any responses at press time. Since the Wednesday meeting of the POA was held after The Voice went to press, that report will appear in the June 20 edition.

WINNSBORO – About 100 community members and elected officials attended the ribbon cutting for Christ Central’s newly renovated and expanded Mission Ridge Golf and Leadership Center, formerly the Fairfield County Club. The facility, which includes a 9-hole golf course, will be used for leadership training for Christ Central missions as well as for local organizations and governments, according to Jimmy Jones, CEO and founder of Christ Central. Jones now has 90 facilities around the country that minister to the homeless by providing housing, education opportunities and jobs. Mission Ridge, with several furnished bedroom suites on the second floor, will also accommodate private social events including weddings, receptions and other celebratory events.

Gov. Nikki Haley, who had been scheduled to speak at the grand opening ceremony, was unable to attend but her prepared message was read by a spokesperson.

“You and your leadership team have truly set the example for neighbors helping neighbors,” Haley said in her message.

The training center will focus on ways to serve the community and will serve as a retreat for mission directors. Jones explained how Christ Central began operations 17 years ago on a street corner in Columbia serving homeless people with meals and other services. Jones said that besides feeding the homeless, Christ Central housed them and prepared them to find jobs and get an education.

Jimmy Burroughs, a lifelong resident of Fairfield County and Director of Christ Central in Winnsboro, told those attending the event, “This is a great facility for Fairfield County and now it’s a public facility for the entire area to use.”

‘Longest Day’ Turns into Long Haul for Father of Publisher

BLYTHEWOOD – Shortly after my dad, Bruce Baker, enlisted in the Army on Oct. 6, 1942, to serve in World War II, he learned paratroopers were being paid $100 a month more than the regular infantry, so he opted for the higher pay and the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division. While he had never even flown in an airplane, much less jumped out of one, he saw parachuting as an easy way to earn extra money for his wife and their growing family back in Texas. In the predawn hours of June 6, 1944, he might have been rethinking that easy money as he scrambled to make his first combat jump out of a low-flying C-47 troop transport plane over Normandy, France under the most harrowing of conditions. The day was D-Day – and that jump was the last one he would ever make.

The 10,000+ paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division were an integral part of the Western allies’ massive plan to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation and stop Hitler’s advance toward the west and, potentially, the world. The paratroopers were assigned what has been described by some as probably the most difficult task of the initial operation — a night jump behind the enemy lines five hours before the coastal landings. It was the greatest airborne assault in history at that time. After making landfall, the paratroopers were to destroy vital German supply bridges, capture causeways and prepare the way for thousands of allied ships, aircraft and infantrymen that would arrive on the heavily fortified beaches at dawn.

While the first paratroopers were dropped largely on target, the planes carrying my dad and other paratroopers in the 508th were hindered by a dense cloud cover and increasing anti-aircraft fire, causing the troop carriers to break formation and stray off course. At the same time, the enemy began moving into the drop zones, delaying the pathfinder troops in marking those zones and causing the pilots of the troop carriers to overshoot the zones as they frantically searched for markers. My dad later told my mom how, when the green jump light flashed that morning, he and the other paratroopers on his plane dropped out of the open door of the aircraft into unimaginable chaos – dark skies, dense clouds, tracers everywhere and enemy fire. Plus, to avoid being hit by the enemy, the pilots of the troop carriers had to maneuver at greater speeds than would afford a good jump. My dad and many of the other paratroopers in the 508th landed widely scattered over the Normandy countryside, far from their jump zone and their well-planned assignments.

On July 24, my mom received a telegram informing her that my dad had been reported missing in action on June 11. My brother was 2 years old and I was due to be born two months later. My dad later recalled how he and a buddy from Texas and several other soldiers had been dropped into an area virtually surrounded by German troops and were captured five days after their boots hit the ground. The Germans marched the captives for several days to a train depot where they were loaded into unmarked open-slatted railway cars that were strafed repeatedly by the Western allies as the prisoners were transported to Stalag 12D in Berlin, one of two prison camps where my dad would be held until being liberated by the Russian allies on Jan. 31, 1945.

Of the 2,056 paratroopers in my dad’s 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1,161 were either killed in action, injured or captured. While my dad survived the full blown, gut-wrenching glory that was D-Day and missed almost entirely the combat of the war, he did not escape the subsequent misery of starvation and other forms of deprivation and mistreatment he and his comrades endured as prisoners of war.

Shortly before the war ended in Europe in May 1945, my dad was joyously welcomed home by his family and friends. My brother was 3 years old and I was 8 months old. It was the first time my dad had seen me.

My dad never appeared to carry much emotional baggage from his experiences in the war and, for the most part, picked up where he left off before enlisting – hunting his wolf hounds and coon dogs by night and working in the oil fields by day. Some summers, he played baseball on a team with other men in our town. In 1982, he died in Young County, Texas where he had lived his entire life, and almost everyone in our town attended his funeral. While he never talked much outside his family about his experiences on D-Day or in the prison camp, I grew up with the vivid realization that my dad was revered as a war hero by the 200 or so folks in our small Texas town.

He was a favorite son in the truest sense. They knew what he had done, and they were proud and thankful to him. It was not until I was older that I realized that sense of gratitude extended beyond our town.

As will be recalled on Friday, the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the whole of Europe, Great Britain and America was proud and thankful to my dad and to all the soldiers who helped save us all from the unspeakable evil that had spawned the war and threatened the world.