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  • County to Mend District 5

    WINNSBORO – An ordinance to correct a 2011 redistricting mishap that left District 5 without representation on the Fairfield County School Board and lumped two Board members into District 6 may be before County Council next month. Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) asked Interim County Administrator Milton Pope to work with the County’s attorney to prepare the ordinance and have it ready by Council’s May 12 meeting.

    Ferguson pledged to address the issue earlier this month when it became evident that a bill passed by the General Assembly in February and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley on March 4 could only correct the districts for the School Board. That left Board member Bobby Cunningham in the precarious position of living in two districts – District 5 for the Board and District 6 for County Council. When answering questions about the matter two weeks ago, Ferguson – as he has maintained since the issue first came to light in February – said the error occurred at the state level and was not the result of negligence on the part of County Council.

    “It was kind of indicated that it was our fault that it was like that, and that’s not our (job),” Ferguson said on April 14. “That’s done in Columbia.”

    Monday night, a letter from the S.C. Budget and Control Board (BCB), read before Council by Pope, appears to support Ferguson’s position.

    Signed by BCB Director Bobby M. Bowers, the letter states, in part, “. . . it was determined that due to an error in the addressing of the 911 road centerline file, both Mr. Cunningham and Ms. Marchella Pauling were placed in the incorrect districts . . .”

    According to the 911 file, the letter states, Cunningham’s address appears to lie within the town limits of Winnsboro, which would place him in District 6. A review of property tax records by the BCB, however, shows Cunningham’s address to actually lie just west of the town limits, and therefore in District 5.

    Bowers wrote that the error was “inadvertent,” and recommends Council crafting an ordinance to conform with the School Board plan passed by the General Assembly.

    Cunningham was elected to represent District 5 on the Fairfield County School Board in 2010. Following the 2010 census that showed a shift in racial demographics in areas of the county, County Council initiated a federally mandated redistricting process, which it completed in 2011. At that time, Cunningham was inexplicably drawn out of District 5 and into District 6. That left the School Board without representation from District 5 and placed two representatives – Cunningham and William Frick – in District 6. Cunningham said he was not made aware of the change until he showed up to vote in the 2012 elections.

    “Why was an incumbent taken out of his district in the middle of his term?” Cunningham asked rhetorically when reached for comment Tuesday.

  • Arrest Nets Drugs, Cash

    WINNSBORO – Department of Public Safety investigators arrested Byron Sampson, 37, earlier this month after a search warrant turned up a significant amount of illegal narcotics at his Palmer Street home.

    Chief Freddie Lorick said a controlled buy by undercover agents was made several weeks in advance, giving his department enough to seek a warrant. On April 10, agents raided the Palmer Street home, arresting Sampson and seizing 142 grams of marijuana, 49 grams of crack cocaine, as well as $6,500 in cash and a random selection of cell phones. Sampson has been charged with distribution of both marijuana and crack cocaine.

  • Bond Payoff Won’t Curb Rates

    WINNSBORO – Town Council held its second budget workshop April 24 as Town Manager Don Wood reviewed the utility fund, capital expenditure requests and grant match requests for fiscal year 2014-2015.

    Next year’s utility fund is set at $15,349,538. Woods recommended a 2 percent cost of living adjustment for employees as well as a 2 percent increase in utility rates to keep pace with the consumer price index. Woods told Council to expect employee benefits expenses to escalate again in the coming year, but he said the good news is that the 1999 Combined Utility System Revenue Refunding Bond in the amount of $11,815,000 will mature in August resulting in only one more month of debt service. With the maturation of the bond and the resulting decrease in utilities expenses, Wood said the Town could forgo a utility rate increase, but he recommended that the Town increase rates every year enough to at least keep pace with the consumer price index which is currently at 2 percent.

    “That would bring in about $275,000 for the year, which would help,” Wood said later in the meeting.

    Councilman Jackie Wilkes asked if there was any kind of bond the Town could get if it decided to bring water from Lake Monticello.

    “We’d have to allocate that cost to that expense for the debt service,” Wood replied. “With a revenue bond, the water profit would have to support the cost of the bond.”

    Wood said Council could expect sewer pretreatment fees to jump from $3,745 last fiscal year to $14,576 in FY2014-15, a 33 percent fee increase. One reason for the jump, Wood said, is that they have not been increased for several years.

    Looking at the Town’s capital expenditure requests for next fiscal year, Woods said it is more of a wish list, with requests totaling $1,820,601 in the combined general fund and utilities fund.

    “That’s a bunch of money for us to come up with,” Wood said, “so we’re going to have to make these requests single-item grants, with Council voting on each individual request when it comes up. I hope that the public can understand that we’re not gouging anyone. We’ve got an awful lot of money coming in, but it’s all going right back out.”

    Wood reported that the Town has applied for about $223,000 in matching grants, of which $86,117 are for the general fund and $136,900 for capital expenditures.

    At the third budget workshop, scheduled for May 8, Wood will present a combined general fund and capital expenditure review. If another workshop is needed at that time, it will be held May 22. The first reading of the budget is expected at the June 3 Council meeting with second reading and public hearing on June 17. The FY2014-15 budget takes effect July 1.

  • Music Festival Debuts in Blackstock

    BLACKSTOCK – Starting on the Friday after Memorial Day, 1,000 acres of idyllic, S.C. countryside will transform into a campground and concert venue for more than 30 bands on three stages, dozens of food vendors and craft beer breweries, and as many as 10,000 music enthusiasts from throughout the Southeast.

    The Blackstock Music Festival, May 30 and 31 in Blackstock, will feature bands on three stages from 7 p.m. Friday virtually around the clock until 4 a.m. Sunday.

    “I think this festival can grow into a signature event for the Southeast,” said Joshua Leonhardt, the founder and driving force behind the event. “All the bands in our line-up have a strong regional following, and the festival setting is perfect – a beautiful wildlife refuge just a few miles off I-77, a short, pleasant drive from Columbia, Greenville and Charlotte.”

    The lineup of music includes a sampling of bluegrass, country, electronic, and “jam” bands. Headlining the weekend of music and get-away-from-it-all fun are Galactic, Leftover Salmon (with Bill Payne of Little Feat), Papadosio and BoomBox.

    In addition to a vast main-venue area, the festival grounds will offer “park & camp” areas, a general store, toilet and shower facilities, dozens of concessions and food trucks, as well as a wide variety of activities to keep festivalgoers busy and entertained between performances. The promoters have arranged for event security services, well-staffed medical facilities, professional lighting and sound production by SE Systems Inc., the long-tenured production company of the famed Merlefest.

    Music lovers won’t be the only group to come away from the festival with something positive, though. Leonhardt has pledged $1 from each ticket purchased to Nourish International, a student-led charity organization based in Chapel Hill, N.C., working to alleviate poverty and feed the hungry in the world’s most economically disadvantaged countries (Visit http://nourish.org for more information).

    “The Blackstock Music Festival is all about people coming together to have a good time, enjoying great music, and supporting regional musicians, regional businesses and a cause with – literally – global importance,” Leonhardt said.

    A complete list of festival performers, directions to the festival grounds, ticket information and more can be found online at BlackstockMusicFestival.com and on the festival’s FaceBook page.

  • Council Names Finalists

    BLYTHEWOOD – Following an executive session at the end of Monday evening’s Town Council meeting, Council voted to select four finalists for the Blythewood Town Administrator position. One Council member said it was the same top four chosen by the selection committee.

    The four finalists are T. Lloyd Kerr, Development Services Director for Escambia County, Fla.; Gary Parker, Town Manager for Sunset Beach, N.C.; Wade Luther, Economic Development Director for Camden; and Stevie Cox, Town Manager for Chadbourn, N.C.

    Council interviewed the four candidates on Tuesday and Wednesday; however, Councilman Tom Utroska told The Voice that he did not know when Council would select the winning candidate. When the search began in February, criteria for candidates for the position included relocation to the Town, four to six years’ experience and a degree in public administration or a related field. The salary range for the job is $70,000 – $90,000. The candidate selected will replace John Perry who left the position last December.

  • Threats Darken Council Meeting

    WINNSBORO – A Winnsboro man was escorted out of Monday night’s County Council meeting by Sheriff’s deputies after threatening Chairman David Ferguson with bodily harm during the second public comment portion of the meeting.

    Mike Ward, who had spent his allotted 3 minutes at the podium reviewing a portion of Councilman Kamau Marcharia’s history with the New Jersey State Penal System, refused to surrender the microphone after his time had expired. Instead, Ward asked Ferguson, “Who sits in that seat?” indicating Marcharia’s District 4 Council seat. When Ferguson only thanked Ward for offering his comments, Ward said, “That’s not an answer.”

    “Yes, it is,” Ferguson said.

    “No it ain’t,” Ward said. “Try again. Work on your verbiage.”

    When Ferguson invited Ward to take a seat, Ward said, “I know where I can have a seat.”

    As Ferguson motioned to a deputy posted directly behind the podium, Ward issued remarks that set the audience on edge.

    “If he touches me,” Ward said to Ferguson, “you’re going to get dropped.”

    At that point a second deputy swooped in and the two lawmen escorted a stone-faced Ward from the chambers.

    The Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that no charges had yet been filed on Ward, but investigators were consulting with 6th Circuit Solicitor Doug Barfield to consider the best course of action. A DVD of the meeting was also being reviewed by investigators.

    Ward had spent his public comment time rehashing a few lines from the 72-page parole transcript from Marcharia’s arrest and conviction by an all-white jury in New Jersey for assault, kidnapping, rape and carrying a concealed weapon in 1964. At that time, Marcharia was known by his birth name, Robert Lewis. Although the victim in the incident maintained that Lewis had not been involved in the crime, he was nonetheless sentenced to 50 years in prison. His official age was listed as 19, but Lewis was actually 16, having lied to avoid what he was told was a worse New Jersey juvenile penal system, according to “Parole as Post Conviction Relief: The Robert Lewis Decision,” by Andrew Vachss, published in the New England Law Review, Volume 9, Number 1, 1973.

    Lewis was paroled in September of 1973.

    During his time at the podium, Ward said Marcharia’s “violent and uncontrollable rantings have not changed on this council.”

    “But I got my G.E.D. (high school diploma equivalency), I went to college, I tried to better myself as a human being,” Marcharia said. “Even the victim, even the police will tell you, in writing, if you read the transcripts, that I did not commit that crime. That doesn’t mean just because you’re innocent you won’t go to jail. I’m not going to be labeled. I’ve been on this council for 16 years and everybody knows my background. If people believed what (Ward) said, you think that the good people of my district would have elected me over and over?”

  • Town to Repay General Fund for Doko

    BLYTHEWOOD – At their Monday night meeting, Town Council passed a formal payment plan to reimburse the Town’s general fund for disbursements that were made for the Manor this past fiscal year in the amount of $162,000. The intent, according to the resolution, is that the Manor become a self-supporting enterprise, and that the repayments to the general fund be made as cash becomes available from an enterprise fund established for the Manor.

    The resolution states: “No reimbursement will be made until the unrestricted Manor cash account exceeds $10,000. At month end for balances from $10,001 to $19,999, 10 percent will be returned to the general fund cash account until the entire payable is reimbursed. For all month end balances in excess of $19,999, the general fund cash account will be reimbursed $5,000, plus 10 percent of the remaining balance in excess of $10,000 until the entire payable is reimbursed.”

    Patrick Connolly, the newly hired assistant to Booth Chilcutt, Director of the Manor, reported that estimated gross revenue for the Manor during the fourth fiscal quarter of 2012-14 (April, May and June), is $22,190. The report did not include an estimate of expenses for the quarter. Councilman Tom Utroska explained that beginning July 1, the Manor will operate under the new rental payment guidelines including minimum use fees established by resolution last month and no longer book at the previous rates, though previously booked rates will be honored. According to the event schedule presented by Connolly, 23 events previously booked by Richland County School through the end of June average $118.26 per booking.

    New Christmas Decorations for Town

    A newly formed Christmas Committee presented a proposal to Council for new, more appropriate Christmas decorations for the Town. Faye Kelly, representing the committee, suggested the Town adopt a traditional green wreath, 60-inches in diameter with LED lights and a 24-inch red bow to be attached to the side of existing light poles. She said the group made a survey of the poles to determine whether appropriate electrical connections existed. Kelly said the committee felt the wreaths would be appropriate décor for a small town like Blythewood and that the committee would like to initially purchase 17 wreaths at a cost of $8,500. Additionally, Kelly said the committee planned to continue using some of the town’s current star decorations in conjunction with the new decorations until they could afford to buy more wreaths. She suggested displaying all the Harold Branham-painted decorations in the Town Hall/Park area.

    Kelly said the committee hopes to get donations to help purchase and maintain the decorations in the future, but asked Council for financial assistance more immediately to have new decorations for the coming Christmas. Ross said the item will be put on the agenda for the next Council workshop to be held May 13.

    Following an executive session, Council voted to approve four finalists for the position of Town Administrator.

  • Goin’ for Baroque

    At their log cabin home in Blythewood, Jerry and Vivian Curry are shown here with Jerry’s 1980 hand painted harpsichord, which folds up for transporting and has been carried all over the country, including beautiful farm settings for outdoor weddings in Blythewood, to New York, Iowa, Georgia and North Carolina. A gift from Jerry’s mother, the harpsichord is decorated with a Latin inscription that translates: ‘Music is the companion of joy and the medicine for sorrow.”

    BLYTHEWOOD — Three hundred years after the masterpieces of baroque music were composed for the great courts of France, Germany, Italy and England, those same melodies are still played daily on a Baroque-period harpsichord in a charming log cabin in rural Blythewood by Jerry Curry, a founding member of the Columbia Baroque Soloists. The Soloists aren’t soloists at all, of course, but five professional musicians who, seven years ago, formed a chamber ensemble that utilizes period instruments such as the viola da gama, recorder and harpsichord. Today they enchant audiences at performances throughout the Midlands.

    “It’s wonderful playing with this group,” Curry said, “because they’re so good, and they understand baroque music so well. Plus we have an audience that really enjoys coming to listen to baroque music.”

    Now a professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina’s School of Music, Curry was a doctoral student in Music Theory at the University of Iowa in the late 1960s when he first become interested in the harpsichord. He performed in an ensemble directed by Robert Donington, a preeminent baroque specialist, and then accepted his first teaching job at a school in Kentucky that happened to have a harpsichord. The fortuitous turn of events sparked Curry’s career-long fascination with baroque performance practice. Along the way, he also studied with Kenneth Gilbert, one of the most highly regarded harpsichordists in the world.

    “When Jerry came to USC in 1970,” his wife, Vivian, recalled, “one of his colleagues had just ordered a harpsichord, and Jerry was practicing on it all the time. Finally, she just said, ‘Jerry, I think you need to move the harpsichord to your office!’”

    Vivian, who herself has a master’s degree in music from USC, met Curry when she was a student in the first class he taught there. Though not a member of the ensemble, she is intricately involved with the group and plays a strong promotional role. She said that for her, the splendor of baroque music stands the test of time.

    “The group’s most recent performance, at Columbia College in April, featured excerpts from an absolutely exquisite opera by Lully, the favorite court musician of King Louis XIV,” Vivian said. “They sang excerpts and played the dance music from it. There is a sense of being transported back in time. The music is dazzling and, listening to it, I just imagined being at Versailles, out in the little country cottage that Louis XIV built for his friends and family. This music was an integral part of their daily lives.”

    Curry said that, as the only group of its kind in South Carolina, the ensemble’s goal is to bring to life the beauty and spirit of early 18th century music and share it with the public. The Soloists present four main-stage performances every year, with an average audience close to 100, and they also make numerous appearances at libraries, schools and other outreach venues. Each year, the group holds a Summer Institute of master classes for recorder and harpsichord and participates in events such as master classes for high schoolers at the Greenville Fine Arts Center. “These kids,” Vivian said, “were just enchanted with the gamba and the harpsichord. It was wonderful.”

    Jean Hein, a distinguished musician who plays the baroque recorder with the Soloists, also teaches clarinet at Blythewood High School .

    The group’s board of directors is very active and supportive, and the soloists each help out with administrative necessities like acquiring grants and organizing the performance schedule.

    The ensemble will next appear at the Columbia Museum of Art this summer, with a program featuring selections of baroque music that were popular in colonial South Carolina.

    For more information about the group’s upcoming performances, to listen to recordings of their music, and to find out more about their Summer Institute at USC’s School of Music, go to their website at ColumbiaBaroque.com. You can also follow them on Facebook at facebook.com/ColumbiaBaroque.

  • Joanna to Chattooga

    Saddle up for Long Creek, pardner, and take in their take on the Wild West.

    A Summer Road Trip Across S.C., Part Three of a Three-Part Guide to Crisscrossing South Carolina

    In Joanna, on the eastern edge of Laurens County, the Blalock mausoleum dominates the Veterans’ Memorial. Once known as Goldsville, Joanna feels deserted. Beyond its outskirts, kudzu mobs deep woods. This topiary artist gone mad drowns local forests, and somewhere beyond its green masses, I know, farmers struggled to contain red gashes in the earth.

    Through Laurens and on to Hickory Tavern. Land rises into green swells as I journey past the silver shoals of the Reedy River and on through Princeton, past aluminum frying pans hanging over some small-but-precious garden plant.

    U.S. 178 cosigns with 76 from Honea Path to Anderson – the Electric City, the South’s first city to transmit electricity long-distance. On Nov. 14, 1931, Amelia Earhart flew in to the original airport in her Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogyro, promoting Beech-Nut products. Pondering her fate, I shoot beneath I-85 to La France past Pendleton’s outskirts where Samuel Augustus Maverick was born. Sam moved on to become an ornery Texas rancher, a “maverick” who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Thus, did “maverick” enrich our language.

    Here in Foothills Country, the land climbs. To the left sits the entrance to the Botanical Gardens of South Carolina and its 295 acres of gardens and bogs. U.S. 76 crosses Lake Hartwell and the Seneca River, where its inundated riverbed joins the Tugaloo to create the mighty Savannah, that great river of sovereign delineation.

    Seneca, established 1873, shipped cotton over its rails. Then the mills came. Seneca, today, possesses a homogenized look here and there. Dollar stores, drug stores and Mexican restaurants. On to Westminster, just outside the dark green slopes of Sumter National Forest. All that greenery makes a doublewide trailer’s bright purple roof appear radioactive. The theme of old and new commingled continues: A classic barn near Westminster faces a mobile home across Highway 76.

    The Chauga River passes beneath you, a mini Chattooga. Outside local trout fishermen, few know of the Chauga Narrows, a Class VI rapid. There’s where the true Earth exists. The Earth too wild to tame.

    The Wild West appears in Long Creek, a strip mall that looks like a Wild West town, a place a cowboy can hitch his horse and get a shot of whiskey. No cacti live here in faux frontier land, but apple orchards fill the green folds and creases.

    Now the land plunges, turns and falls away — a roller coaster speed run. Tearing past the Chattooga Whitewater Outfitters, a business owing its existence, in part, to Deliverance and the “land of nine-fingered people.” Straight ahead looms the river of legend, the wild, unforgiving Chattooga. This river surely is like no other.

    Highway 76, once a mere line on a map, now lives in your mind. You can place your finger on 76’s thread-like presence and know that here hangs a deer head, here lies a sunken gunboat, and here is great fried chicken. Opera houses, mobile homes, charred mansions and monstrous tractors. The blending of past and present has made your 76 explorations delightfully unpredictable. And best of all, you spent little time on an interstate.

    Learn more about Tom Poland, a Southern writer, and his work at www.tompoland.net. Email day-trip ideas to him at tompol@earthlink.net.

  • Ridgeway ‘Opens Doors’ for Festival

    RIDGEWAY – The Town of Ridgeway will host its eighth annual Arts on the Ridge festival Friday, May 2 and Saturday, May 3 with the theme “Opening Doors to Arts & Antiques.”

    “It’s lining up to be a really great show,” said Darlene Embleton, secretary of the Fairfield Council on the Arts.

    Starting at 6 p.m. on Friday, there will be wine and live music at participating merchants. At the Century House, the evening will begin with the Meet the Artists Gala, a performance of piano music by Lee Dixon and the presentation of this year’s Friend of the Arts award, as well as the People’s Choice award.

    While art will be displayed throughout the Century House, a special section of student art from the Richland 2 and Fairfield County school districts will be on display.

    “Their work is always really extraordinary,” said Phyllis Gutierrez, chairwoman of the event, “and really shows us what incredible talent and instruction we have in our schools’ art departments.”

    On Saturday, from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., the town-wide arts festival will include free musical performances and demonstrations of painting throughout the day. Artwork will be displayed on the lawn outside the Century House, and Antiques will be displayed in the Cotton Yard. Vendors will include trunk restoration, antique hats and attire, antique needle art, antique book appraisals and a display of antique cars.

    All day on Saturday, a Meet the Authors forum will be held at the Ridgeway Library (across from the “World’s Smallest Police Station”) featuring writers Sandy Vassallo, Jean Ann Geist, Nikki Richardson, Tom Poland, McKendree Long, John Huffman, Ken Burger, Bebe Butler and Virginia Schafer. Winnsboro storyteller Frankie O’Neal will spin a few tales at 2 p.m.

    Food will be available in the downtown area at The Old Town Hall Restaurant, The Country Store, Laura’s Tea Room and from vendors in the Cotton Yard.

    “This festival brings all aspects of the Fairfield and Blythewood communities together – artists, schools and families,” said Arts Council president Virginia Lacy. “We’re looking forward to a great weekend.”