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BLYTHEWOOD – Monday night the Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend to Council the rezoning application of Dusty Broom for 11.43 acres on Blythewood Road near Fulmer Road from Rural to Community Commercial (CC). The property is home to Broom Heating and Air, which has been in business at that location for three generations, Town Administrator John Perry said.

Perry said that Broom has petitioned to have the property, which currently lies within the county, annexed into the Town limits.

Perry also updated the Commission on the Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) for the coming fiscal year. Perry said the 2013-2014 would be a “retrenchment” year for the CIP as the Town takes a step back and reviews the projects it has completed and plans for the projects i t will undertake in the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

“It’s a year to take a breather,” Perry said, “to review and make sure we can finish the things we’ve started.”

The proposed 2013-2014 budget for the CIP reflects that, going from $232,000 in the last fiscal year to $60,000 in the coming fiscal year. Among the projects to be tackled this coming year, Perry said, were the second phase of playground equipment for Doko Meadows Park and the second phase of updating the Town’s Christmas decorations. The Commission voted unanimously to send Perry’s recommendations for the CIP to the full Council.

FAIRFIELD – Recent revelations that the state’s highest law enforcement office had opened a file on allegations of computer abuse in the County Administrator’s office have put the County head under a microscope and may force County Council to reevaluate its computer use policies and how those policies are applied.

According to documents obtained from the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) through a Freedom of Information Act request, SLED opened a case file on Feb. 5 after it was alleged to their office that County Administrator Phil Hinely had been “disseminating pornography to a number of people via the Fairfield County computer system.” The photos associated with these alleged emails were viewed by Doug Barfield, the Sixth Circuit Solicitor, “and his opinion was that (the) images were not illegal,” SLED’s documents state. SLED closed the case on Feb. 21 and reported the matter to David Ferguson, Chairman of Fairfield County Council. Ferguson said he then brought the matter to the full Council at their Feb. 25 work session, but no action was taken.

“The resolution that night (Feb. 25) was to wait and see what the whole truth was,” Ferguson said. “I don’t jump to conclusions. I like to get the truth before I make a decision about someone’s life.”

Responding to questions about the depth of SLED’s involvement in the case, Thom Berry, a spokesperson for the agency, told The Voice last week that SLED did not interview Hinely, nor did SLED examine Hinely’s County computer when looking into the matter.

“We met with someone who provided our agency with the emails,” Berry said. “The emails were reviewed by our agents and with the Solicitor’s Office. As the images were of individuals over the age of 18, there was no violation of criminal law. SLED did not conduct an investigation.”

“At the time, I thought SLED had conducted an investigation,” Councilman Kamau Marcharia said. “It may not be illegal, but there may be a moral issue.”

In addition to the case status report, which marks the case as “closed unless additional information is received,” the SLED documents pertaining to the matter include a screen shot of an email in-box that appears to show 18 emails sent from Hinely’s fairfieldsc.com address between July 27 and Dec. 12, 2010 to an unidentified individual. Also in the documents are three of the alleged emails in full, in a PowerPoint format, and all bearing a date of Feb. 1, 2013 – just four days before SLED opened its case file – in the upper right-hand corner. These alleged emails contain nude and partially nude women in various suggestive poses.

Hinely said that during that six-month period in 2010 he did forward several emails containing inappropriate material, but that it was not a violation of County policy and that he hasn’t done so since. He also said he had never seen the alleged emails contained in the SLED documents.

“I do not recall ever having seen these before,” Hinely said after reviewing the SLED file. “These are in PowerPoint. I don’t even know how to use PowerPoint. None of these came from me.”

Hinely said he never solicited inappropriate emails and only forwarded such emails to people who had sent him similar emails in the past. He ended that practice, he said, long before it ever came to the attention of SLED.

“About three years ago, for a short period of time, I forwarded single pictures and jokes that would be considered R-rated,” Hinely said. “Then I thought I didn’t need to be doing that and I quit doing it.”

Councilwoman Carolyn Robinson said she had heard about the emails before the Chairman brought it to Council.

“I was not shocked, because I had heard rumors,” Robinson said. “It’s a sad day for Fairfield. I have received many emails from people who are so embarrassed over this.”

Robinson said she had not seen the alleged emails herself, but would like the opportunity to view them before making any decisions about what course of action to take.

Hinely said the County’s policy regarding computer use dates back to 2008 and has evolved over time. It was originally devised to prohibit employees from downloading music and listening to podcasts while at work, which consumes a great deal of bandwidth and slows down internet use across all County computers. The policy has evolved to cover downloading offensive material, but Hinely said he never downloaded anything, only forwarded emails, which would not have been a policy violation. As a contract employee of the Council, Hinely is not directly covered by the County’s employee policies, but that may change.

Wednesday night, after The Voice went to press, Council held a work session to discuss the County’s employment policies.

“Council is going to have to make a decision,” Ferguson said. “It’s all going to come to a resolution Wednesday night.”

Hinely said he welcomed the potential of coming under the regular employee policies, but noted that such a move might present certain difficulties.

“Some things in the policy might conflict with my contract,” Hinely said.

County vehicle use, work hours and pay step increases, for example, which apply to regular employees, would not be applicable to certain contract employees, Hinely said.

“I’ve always acted as if I were covered by the County’s policies,” Hinely said, “but Council will have to officially put me under those policies.”

Had it been discovered that a regular, non-contract employee had been forwarding offensive emails, Hinely said, the County would have told them to stop.

“I was not downloading stuff from the Web, and that’s really what the policy was all about,” Hinely said. “Did I get some emails and forward them to people? Yes. Were they pornography? No. I am not a pornographer. I’m not surfing the Web and downloading porn.”

WINNSBORO – A proposal by a North Carolina based group of grassroots community development organizers has at least one Town Councilman excited about the future of downtown, but how much those efforts will cost the Town and whether or not Council buys in will be left to their June 4 meeting.

Jess Kryzenske, Community Development Manager with HandMade in America (HIA), out of Asheville, N.C., made her pitch to Council during their May 21 meeting and gave the Town several price options for their services. Kryzenske said her group has helped lead grassroots efforts in nearly a dozen small towns in Western North Carolina over the last 20 years and said she believes they can do the same for Winnsboro.

“Sometimes you have energy that is moving in a direction that is not the most helpful, or maybe it’s not the right timing,” Kryzenske said. “What we try to do is to shift that energy into something that is doable.”

HIA has, according to their May 21 presentation, organized projects in Andrews, Bakersville, Bryson City, West Jefferson, Robbinsville, Crossnore and other small towns in Western North Carolina. But the actual projects were all completed by the community, not HandMade, whose only job is to organize volunteers, help them identify projects and project funding and guide them through the process, keeping them focused along the way. The Voice reached out to several towns on HIA’s resume, but as of press time had received no response.

Kryzenske said her group works primarily through what she called “placemaking,” something she later defined as identifying specific things unique to the community – history and historic homes, in Winnsboro’s case – and helping the community highlight and market those features. For $6,000, Kryzenske’s proposal offers “Technical Assistance” to Winnsboro, which will develop and train volunteers for the formation of a community development committee, functioning separately from Town of Winnsboro staff.

“This community group needs to involve key stakeholders from across sectors,” HIA’s proposal states. “HandMade will work closely with Winnsboro to identify key stakeholders, train Winnsboro community leaders and aid in the formal formation of this grassroots revitalization group.”

For an additional $1,750 each, HIA will offer two workshops to the community, one on ‘placemaking’ and economic development and another to network with other HIA towns. Councilman Bill Haslett, who has been a huge proponent of HIA, said he hopes the Town will sign on with the organizers before he steps aside from Council in July. He said it was more likely that Council would opt for the basic $6,000 services, with an option to revisit the workshops in the future if necessary.

Volunteers, Haslett said, are ultimately going to be the ones who get it done in Winnsboro, and HIA is trained to get the most out of them.

“They will help us get the citizens involved,” Haslett said. “They help get volunteers together. The town will move forward through volunteerism. HandMade will act like a mediator to get volunteers together. We have a lot of strong personalities, but we need someone to bring them together.”

First off, he said, he would like to see the Town’s Master Plan dusted off and tackled.

“We passed the Master Plan in 2007, and we’ve done nothing with it,” Haslett said. “HandMade will help us get on track.”

Mayor Roger Gaddy (who could not be reached for this article) asked Kryzenske last week about the difficulties of taking on larger projects right away.

“We try to identify a small project that has a very definite beginning, middle and end,” Kryzenske said. “You put your name on it, and you have an early success and when you start to see that project and that process, it allows you to take on those bigger projects. Starting small with something that can be finished and that the community can see is very important. And it does need to be very visible, as a first step.”

FAIRFIELD – When County Council first broached the subject of demolishing the dilapidated former home of the County’s Voter Registration office at 117 E. Washington St. in Winnsboro during their April 22 meeting, the timing could not have been worse for Chamber of Commerce President Terry Vickers. Vickers told Council that night that her organization had just been green-lighted for a $40,000 grant to implement a farmer’s market in downtown Winnsboro, and the historic livery stable at 117 E. Washington was part of that vision.

“I know the Council has been very lenient with that building,” Vickers said back on April 22. “I know that building is not in good shape. But we still have dreams of using that building, because it is an historic building.”

But Phil Hinely, County Administrator, said it was a miracle that the building was still standing at all. Hinely told Council last month that the building was a fire hazard and suffered from every possible code violation one could name. He was surprised, he said, that the building had even survived through the winter. Hinely recommended that the County move forward with razing the structure and replace it with a building to be used for housing records from the County Courthouse, as well as evidence from past criminal cases, all of which he said the County was required by law to maintain. David Ferguson, Council Chairman (District 5), said it would cost the County more to bring the building up to code than to replace it, and said Council would have to take the matter up in the near future.

But an alternative may have been found.

During a May 6 work session, Councilman David Brown (District 7) asked Council to consider a proposal from Christ Central Ministries (CCM) to repair the building, bring it up to code and make it part of Vickers’ farmer’s market plan. CCM has almost completed renovations to the Fairfield Country Club, Brown said last week, and a plan for 117 E. Washington will be presented to Council at their June 10 meeting.

“They’ll renovate it and give the front third of the building to the Chamber, rent-free,” Brown, who sits on the CCM Board of Directors, said. “The middle third can be used for classrooms, and the back third can be converted into a kitchen.”

A covered area can be added to the rear of the building, Brown said, to serve the farmer’s market. And the whole project would not cost the County a dime.

“It’s cheaper than tearing it down,’ Brown said, “and that’s the only way it’s going to get renovated.”

Vickers and the Chamber have been temporarily relocated to 120 N. Congress St. while renovations are currently under way at the Town Clock. Being in a ground-floor office, she said, has had its advantages and new offices, also on the ground floor – and rent-free – sound too good to pass up. But there may be a downside, she said.

“There’s something to be said for being on the first floor,” Vickers said. “We’ve gotten very used to not climbing stairs every day, and our foot traffic has doubled, if not tripled, since we’ve been here.”

Vickers said she was somewhat apprehensive about being located on a side street, if the 117 E. Washington location worked out to be their future home. And, she added, she would feel better if she knew the future of the old News and Herald Tavern building (114 E. Washington St.), which was gutted by fire more than two years ago. She also said she hoped any proposal by CCM would include the farmer’s market, which is more than just a market. Funded by a grant from Clemson University, the market is also an educational program, designed to offer classes on how to can and preserve fruits and vegetables and how to mass produce those goods and market them. The market itself, she said, would go beyond a traditional farmer’s market and would be certified to accept SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) cards as well as similar federal assistance for seniors.

“This would open up new revenue streams for our local growers,” Vickers said.

RICHLAND – A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Samuel T. Brick of LongCreek Plantation against Richland County will be heard the week of June 10 in the Court of Common Pleas in Columbia. The lawsuit stems from a year-long fight by residents of LongCreek Plantation to stop rezoning for a 100-acre development they considered incompatible with their rural neighborhood.

In an effort to succeed in its rezoning plan, the developer, LongCreek Associates, turned to the County’s Green Code. The issue has been before the Planning Commission more than once, examined by the Richland County Development Review Team (DRT) repeatedly and appealed by Brick and Monica Iskersky, another LongCreek resident. As a result, the County has now scrapped its Green Code in favor of a new Open Spaces code and declared that the DRT doesn’t meet. Along the way, Brick claims, the state’s FOIA laws were breached multiple times by Richland County, Tracy Hegler (Chairwoman of the Richland County DRT), Sparty Hammett (Assistant Richland County Administrator), Patrick Palmer (Chairman of the Richland County Planning Commission) and Fairways Development, LLC (registered agent, John T. Bakhaus).

Brick makes four complaints in his filing:

1. Brick alleges the Richland County DRT is a public body but operates in secret. He says the DRT developed the Open Spaces legislation in secret after it was requested by the County Council to develop changes in the law and report back to them. Brick says that because the DRT is supported by public funds and actually drafts ordinances that the County enacts, its business should be open to the public.

2. Brick alleges that the Richland County Planning Commission held two executive sessions, on two separate occasions, during an appeal of the DRT’s approval of a major land development. Brick alleges the following three things: In each session the Planning Commission voted on and announced they were going into executive session to receive legal advice. They took in with them their attorney, the Planning Director and another attorney who represented the Planning Director. The Planning Director basically was the respondent to the appeal as she is head of the DRT. Furthermore, Brick says there was no other reason for them to go into executive session.

3. Brick alleges Richland County failed to make a determination to provide requested documents within the 15 work-day period required by state law. Brick says the County didn’t comply until the day he filed suit. Brick said the County considers its determination to be a letter, that it has the complaint and Brick has to pay to get it, but that the County will not release it until the legal office approves. Brick’s contention is that waiting for the County legal office means a determination has not been made.

4. Brick alleges that the DRT is a public body. But he says the DRT does not consider itself to be a public body. Recently, Brick says, provisions regarding approvals of major land developments, which include interpretations of land development ordinances, were made to keep the DRT from actually meeting. Brick says that the public does not know when or even what the DRT is reviewing. Brick alleges that the only public announcement of a meeting is on the wall outside the Planning Department office and does not say what the action entailed — only that so-and-so’s application was approved. Brick’s complaint says the DRT now acts totally in secret, and they make final decisions on major land developments with the only review being if someone appeals. Brick says the appeal would be to the Planning Commission, but to appeal one would need an FOIA request regarding the application, which would take almost the entire period within which an appeal is authorized.

The Richland 2 School Board met Tuesday evening, May 28. Board member Barbara Specter was not in attendance. A quiet moment of prayer for the three Spring Valley High School members involved in last Friday‘s serious traffic accident was offered.

Renovations to the District Office have begun. The Planning Office has been moved into Longleaf Elementary School, which was under capacity. Some sections of Human Resources will be housed on the Windsor Elementary Campus in portables. A group of Richland Northeast parents have complained that the portable housing for the County Sheriff’s Deputy, located in the RNE parking lot, gave a negative impression of RNE. So the portable will be moved to Windsor Elementary.

First on the District Office renovation priorities is the removal of the portables to make way for a parking lot. With the portables removed, the paving is expected to begin June 10. It would be more reasonable to expect the paving to be saved for last – instead of having construction and equipment on the new asphalt. There was no discussion on how the building itself would be re-configured or for what use.

The second in a three-part presentation of Common Core was given with a focus on how professional development emphasized the new Common Core standards. Common Core standards have been fully integrated into the lessons of kindergarteners through second-graders in Richland 2. Common Core State Standards have been set for the subjects of English Language Arts (ELA) and Math. In 2014/2015, our students will be tested in a standardized test similar to the PASS or HSAP currently used.

The District will continue to offer professional development and training throughout the summer for teachers and non-certified personnel – particularly with emphasis on integrating Common Core standards into our curriculum. Nancy Gregory and the ELA and Math coaches reported on what has been done and what is expected to be done until the 2014/2105 year of full implementation. District coach Mary Lostetter, whose contract was not extended by the District due to her higher salary as an experienced teacher, was encouraged by Board member Melinda Anderson to continue to find ways to share her wealth of knowledge regarding math instruction in middle and high school students.

Knowing that Common Core as our new state educational standards has garnered much discussion, Gregory and her team have gathered community and parent resources from around the country and personalized the information into pamphlet per grade of what each student is expected to learn. Drafts of a seventh-grader’s year plan were delivered to the Board.

This being the last Board meeting of the school year, Board members waxed poetic about the success of the students and the hopes for a safe school year. Chairman Bill Fleming ended the comments, saying that the Lonnie B. Nelson Elementary ACE students exemplified what is good and right in our District with their hearty presentation, evaluating current carpool safety and ways to motivate parents to comply with their safety standards. Superintendent Katie Brochu and Chief Academic Officer Sue Mellette were also in full agreement.

Skipping a meeting date, the Board will meet again June 25 at Killian Elementary. In the meantime, The Voice will share its research regarding Common Core and a summer series on the good, bad and ugly of Choice in Richland 2 high schools. We deeply appreciate your comments and phone calls with thoughts on direction even when they are divergent from one another. Please keep it up!

BLYTHEWOOD – Town Administrator John Perry is appointing a committee of local residents to refine the list of local projects that have been previously prioritized to receive funding from the new Richland County Penny Tax Committee. Perry named Bill Wiseman, Blythewood’s representative on the County committee, as chairman of the local committee.

Wiseman said things have changed on the list of priorities that was established several years ago. He said he thinks there will be four or five members on the board and that he will pass their recommendations for prioritizing projects on to the County Penny Tax Committee. Wiseman said he expects the local committee to be appointed and start meeting in the next couple of weeks.

BLYTHEWOOD – Due to the Memorial Day holiday, Town Council met on Tuesday night at the Manor instead of Monday. After a public hearing for the zoning of two properties on Sandfield Road, and an ordinance to reduce the minimum side building set-backs for certain lots in Cobblestone Park, the Council unanimously passed second and final vote on the matters.

Council held first vote on three Administrative Ordinances: Ord. 2013.007, to raise fee schedules for permits; Ord. 2013.008, to bring ordinances and fee schedule forms into line with each other; and Ord. 2013.009, to adopt the budget for fiscal year 2013-14. All three passed unanimously. Town Administrator John Perry said a public hearing will be held on June 24 for the fee schedule ordinance.

Council proclaimed Iron Brew Coffee as the official coffee of the Town. The beans are grown in Brazil and roasted in Blythewood, and the coffee is manufactured in a facility in the industrial complex area of Community Road.

Sarah Bailey was announced as being in charge of the Blythewood Farmer’s Market, which will open on Monday, June 3, from 3-7 p.m.

Perry announced that the first Blythewood Brainery session is completed with 31 students participating. It will begin again in July. Perry also announced that a fireworks event will be held at the Manor on July 6 and said he would have more information available later.

Councilman Moscati gave a report on the park construction and said the Park Committee would meet in late July. Moscati said that by then he should know what the funding is for the park. Mayor J. Michael Ross said Council would need to look to the private sector for funds in order to get the park finished. Moscati also said he would like to remind the residents that they are not currently paying any property taxes to the town, but he said he does think there’s going to be a time when they will have to pay a property tax for services. Councilman Ed Garrison agreed, saying the cost of doing business is increasing and it’s going to cost for services, such as maintaining the park. Ross said he didn’t mind paying taxes if he sees he gets something nice.

Council members will attend the annual Municipal Association meeting in Greenville the week of July 18-23.

A special Town Council meeting has been called for next Wednesday, June 5, to review the budget.