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  • Perry Puts MID on Hold

    BLYTHEWOOD – Last July, Town Council contracted with Municap, Inc., a financial consulting firm, at a cost of $10,000 – $15,000, to come up with methodology for assessing properties to be included in a Municipal Improvement District (MID) proposed by Town Administrator John Perry for Blythewood’s downtown business district.

    Under the proposed MID, $1.5 million in improvements would be paid for with a bond that would be repaid from assessments on those properties that would benefit from the improvements.

    Perry said the initial thrust of the improvements would be the acquisition of rights of way along Blythewood Road and McNulty Road, as well as the creation of at least two connecting roads. This would be the first step toward widening Blythewood Road to 95 feet.

    But when Municap representative Thad Wilson reported back to an MID subcommittee (appointed by the Planning Commission) last week, he was only three pages into his presentation about possible ways to assess the properties when Perry suggested holding off considering any assessment methodology until the Town learns whether its initial MID improvement proposal — the purchase of rights of way — might be funded by revenue from Richland County’s new Penny Tax.

    Without voting, the members of the subcommittee concurred with Perry to recommend that the Planning Commission hold Municap’s information in abeyance for “not more than a year, but as soon as we know something.”

    Perry said the Town submitted to County Council a list of projects it would like to see funded by the Penny Tax. When asked about the list, Perry said he couldn’t remember what projects he had put on the list, but he said only one of them — the widening of Blythewood Road — made the cut as a priority road under the initial Penny Tax expenditures.

    In November, Richland County voters approved a $1.5 billion penny tax for transportation improvements and a $450 million bond to cover the costs of initial improvements before enough penny tax is collected to pay for projects. When the Penny Tax revenue starts to be collected next summer, it will be used to repay the bond, according to Blythewood’s County Council representative, Joyce Dickerson.

  • True Believers in Kindness, Service to Humanity

    Before the Bible study began, Sylvia Wilson, right, served pastries and coffee to three of the Wilson’s guests, Christie and Carolyn Lomas (left), Woody Wilson and Jenny Dickert. As the guests departed, Silvia handed each a container of the red camellias (shown on table).

    The little yard sign outside the yellow house at 110 McNulty St. says it all—Believers Fellowship. Come Join Us.

    At 10:30 every Thursday morning, a handful of folks from the community arrive at the historic home in downtown Blythewood for an informal Bible study. As the Believers arrive with their Bibles and study guides in hand, they are greeted warmly and invited inside by their hosts, Sylvia and Woody Wilson. Woody, who like his mother and grandmother before him, grew up in the home, descends from ancestors who are still remembered by many in Blythewood for their genuine love of community and commitment to hospitality.

    After chatting a few minutes over cookies and coffee, the group settles into sofas and chairs in the Wilsons’ living room where they open their Bibles and begin a casual but earnest conversation that is part scripture, part Blythewood history and wholly about doing good—not only in the community, but around the world. While that might seem presumptuous for this small, unassuming band of 10 or so locals, wherever their conversation wonders, it is threaded through the scriptures and teachings of the Bible with enormously good intent.

    Most in the group, like retirees Carolyn and Christie Lomas, have ventured into foreign mission fields with their children during summers and family vacations, and currently distribute Bibles for the Gideons.

    One regular in the group, Geri Hood, missed the last meeting while on a mission trip to Nicaragua. Woody said his and Sylvia’s primary ministry is helping those with special needs in the Blythewood area.

    Another member of the group, Jenny Dickert, said she’s a ‘behind the scenes person.’ A quiet woman with a sweet smile, Dickert volunteers a couple of days a week at the Cooperative Ministries clothing bank. Dickert said she prays every day for help in knowing what to do and say to help others.

    But a person doesn’t actually have to be a Believer to join the group, Woody said. “We welcome all.”

    The Wilsons, who worshipped regularly at the Zion Methodist Church on Zion Church Road, began opening their home for community Bible study about a year ago. They recently started holding a Friday evening study as well.

    “We feel it’s a natural way to get to know people in the community and to visit and share the Word of God,” said Sylvia.

    But the Wilson’s, who are well known for their kindness and concern for others, offer more than the Word of God to their Bible study guests. They also offer a sack of groceries to anyone who stops by needing more than spiritual food.

    While those attending the Thursday morning meetings represent different churches in the community, Sylvia said they are all one when they come together at the Wilson home. “They all have a similar passion—to reach out and help others,” she said.

    “That,” said Woody, “is why we gather here.”

    “Most people think it’s the preachers who are supposed to be out there doing God’s work and spreading His love,” said Christie Lomas, “but we all have the opportunity every day to share God’s message and do good deeds. Being kind to others, even if it’s just secretly paying for the meal that’s been ordered by the person in line behind you at the McDonald’s drive-thru window, a kindness like that can have a pleasant, lasting consequence. Small, sincere kindnesses can change people’s lives.”

    Woody Wilson added, “God prepares us in different ways. He gives us what we need to carry on his work—and we are carrying it on. I feel this spiritual fellowship, this support group, is preparing us all for that journey. And we invite others in the community to join us.”

    For more information, call 803-409-9602. Bible study times: Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.; Fridays at 7:30 p.m.

  • Council OK’s Red Clay Divorce

    WINNSBORO – During executive session Tuesday night, Winnsboro Town Council discussed several items, including their legal contract with Red Clay Development and the Mt. Zion Institute. Council has decided to start the process of parting ways with Red Clay Development.

    “We’re going to authorize our attorneys to contact Red Clay and negotiate the termination of our contract,” Councilman Jack Wilkes said.

    With the termination of the contract, the Mt. Zion property would fall back into the Town’s hands and it would once again become their responsibility to keep it up to code. The hiring of a new code enforcement officer has been delayed due to the Municipal Association needing to renew the ordinances before hiring an officer.

    The meeting started off with the finance committee approving William Medlin’s capital expense request. Due to numerous unauthorized entries to the Town Lot by the Sanitation and Electrical department, Medlin has requested $4,965 to furnish and install a new gate. The current gate needs to be replaced in order to prevent someone from crawling under it. There will also barbed wire added to the top of the fence to further secure the area.

    Grants director, Connie Shackleford wrapped up her American Disabilities Act self-evaluation plan. In order to be incompliance with the ADA the Town needs to install handicap bars in bathrooms and add some parking spaces.

    “I recommend that we have to have these specifications in order to be in compliance,” Shackleford said.

    An estimated price has not been concluded, but a deadline of July 2014 has been issued to comply with the specified items.

    Council authorized the hiring of a public safety officer for Chief Freddie Lorick after he had personnel move on to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.

    Lastly, Council decided to review a revised edition of the employee handbook that includes retirement benefits at the next Town Council meeting on Feb. 5.

  • Four Arrested in Blair Armed Robbery Attempt

    Blair – A Jenkinsville man narrowly escaped injury and four men were arrested earlier this month after a botched armed robbery attempt outside a night spot in Blair.

    According to the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office, the victim, a 31-year-old man from Straight Shot Road in Jenkinsville, was sitting in his Cadillac DeVille outside the Pool Room on Brooks Drive just after 10 p.m. Jan. 5 when a masked man wearing a hoodie and armed with a rifle approached the car. The victim said the suspect shouted at him to “give up the money.” The victim told Sheriff’s investigators that he told the suspect he did not have any money on him, that his money was in the trunk of the car. The victim said the suspect then called to another suspect, instructing him to retrieve the money from the trunk of the Cadillac. While still being held at gunpoint by the masked suspect, the victim watched and waited as the second suspect began plundering the trunk. When the masked suspect looked away for a brief moment, the victim threw the Cadillac into gear and sped off amid a hail of gunfire.

    The victim stopped a few miles away on Highway 215 N. and noticed a bullet hole in the dashboard of the car. The victim’s cell phone also began ringing, he said, with calls from the suspects telling him they were coming to find him at his home. The suspects also tried to get the victim to meet them at Salem Crossroads. While the victim told investigators that he did not know the suspects, he did have the phone number from which they had been calling. That phone number and a similar incident in the same area on the same night led investigators to a list of four names.

    Monterri Ladever Wright, 18, of Dave Cole Road in Blair; Zachary Danzell Rivers, 18, of Springwoods Lake Drive in Columbia; and Clifton Rashad Hendrix, 21, of Brooks Drive in Blair all turned themselves in at the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office Jan. 9 and admitted to their involvement in the armed robbery attempt. A fourth suspect, Mercury Lamont Williamson Jr., 19, also of Brooks Drive in Blair, later turned himself in at the Fairfield County Detention Center. All four have been charged with attempted armed robbery.

  • Town, Sheriff Named in Lawsuit

    WINNSBORO – The Town of Winnsboro and Fairfield County Sheriff Herman Young have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed last month by a Winnsboro man, whose complaint alleges a pattern of harassment and abuse by the Winnsboro Department of Public Safety dating back to December of 2010.

    Ronnie O. Armstrong of Winnsboro filed the lawsuit Dec. 20, 2012, through his attorneys, Daniel K. Felker and Stephen C. Hucks, in the Fairfield County Court of Common Pleas. In the suit, Armstrong lays out a list of nine grievances, including negligent use of unreasonable and excessive force, false arrest, assault, battery, property damage, defamation and harassment.

    According to the complaint, Armstrong’s troubles with the Department of Public Safety began on Dec. 23, 2010, when he was pulled over on Vanderhorst Street while driving his 2007 BMW. The complaint states that Creighton McDermott, the Public Safety officer who initiated the traffic stop, told Armstrong that he “knew (Armstrong) had drugs in the vehicle and that it (the BMW) fit the description of a drug dealer.” Nevertheless, the complaint states, Armstrong was allowed to drive away after a brief conversation with the officer. Later that same day, however, warrants were issued for Armstrong’s arrest on charges of reckless driving, resisting arrest and failure to stop for a blue light. Armstrong turned himself in and the charges were all later dismissed for “lack of probable cause,” the complaint states.

    On March 25, 2011, Armstrong was again pulled over in his BMW, this time on College Street by Officer Mike Carroll, according to the complaint. Carroll asked Armstrong “where were the drugs,” and shattered the driver’s window, showering Armstrong’s face and eyes with broken glass. Additional WDPS officers, as well as a Fairfield County Sheriff’s deputy, arrived at the scene to assist Carroll, the complaint states, at which time Armstrong was dragged from the car and onto the pavement where he remained for nearly three hours while officers search the car. The BMW was eventually impounded and held for 14 days. No drugs were ever found, the complaint states, although investigators inflicted significant damage to the car’s interior. Armstrong, meanwhile, was arrested and charged with driving left of center, resisting arrest, giving false information to a police officer and failure to stop for a blue light. Except for the driving left of center charge, Armstrong was later acquitted at trial.

    The complaint notes that, during the March 25 incident, officers drew their weapons on Armstrong “without provocation or need.”

    On July 12, 2011, Armstrong was driving his 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe on College Street and was pulling into the driveway of his mother’s home when he was stopped by WDPS officer Reuben Thompson. Thompson told Armstrong he would not speak with him until Officer McDermott arrived on the scene. When McDermott showed up, the complaint states, McDermott told Armstrong, “I told you we were going to get you.” Armstrong was arrested and charged with failure to stop at a stop sign, resisting arrest and failure to stop for a blue light, all of which are still pending.

    The complaint also alleges that Freddie Lorick, Chief of Public Safety, told a television news reporter during an interview following one of Armstrong’s arrests that Armstrong “was a drug dealer.” That statement, the complaint alleges, was made “with full knowledge and intention that it might be broadcast throughout the state of South Carolina,” and that as a result, Armstrong “has suffered embarrassment, humiliation and mental suffering.”

    Armstrong’s attorneys are seeking actual damages on all causes of action, to be determined by a jury; a restraining order against the defendants; attorney’s fees; the cost of the lawsuit; and “such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.”

  • Seven File for Mayor, Council Races

    WINNSBORO – Filings for the Town of Winnsboro’s upcoming municipal elections closed Monday with seven candidates tossing their hats into the ring.

    Dr. Roger Gaddy, of Parklane Road, will seek another term as mayor, but not without challenge. Also seeking the mayor’s post is Michael L. Davis, of Frazier Street, and District 2 Town Councilman Bill Haslett, of Highway 213.

    Haslett’s bid for mayor leaves his District 2 seat vacant, and two Sandcreek Drive residents have offered themselves up to the voters. Sonya Cookie Kennedy and Stan Klaus will seek Haslett’s seat on Council, a seat to which Klaus is no stranger. Klaus served District 2 for 12 years – from 1997 to 2009.

    Pamela L. Smith, of N. Zion Street, will challenge Jack R. Wilkes, of W. High Street, in his bid for another term on the District 4 seat.

    The elections will be held April 2.

  • EMS Crew Attacked; County Reviewing Communication Issues

    Fairfield – Fairfield County is looking into ways to improve the way first responders communicate with one another following an incident earlier this month in which an EMS worker was attacked by a Columbia man while responding to an ambulance call in Ridgeway.

    According to an incident report from the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office, an EMS crew responded to a call at 2250 Bellfield Road in Ridgeway just after 10 p.m. Jan. 3. As EMS workers loaded a 49-year-old woman into the ambulance, her son, Kevin Bryant Duncan Jr., of Killian Lakes Drive in Columbia, also climbed inside the vehicle. When EMS workers asked him to exit the vehicle, he refused and attacked the EMS crew. One crew member, a 47-year-old Winnsboro man, suffered a left shoulder injury while attempting to remove Duncan from the vehicle. Duncan then shoved a second crew member, a 56-year-old woman, and told her he was “going to kill her,” the report states. The woman then struck Duncan in the head with a Lucas Device (a heavy, portable chest compression instrument used in cardiac cases) before Duncan was finally extracted from the vehicle. Duncan was arrested several hours later at Fairfield memorial Hospital by Sheriff’s deputies and charged with simple assault.

    Davis Anderson, Deputy Administrator for Fairfield County, said the Sheriff’s Office might have responded sooner to the incident had EMS workers been able to contact them directly through their radios. However, Anderson said, Fairfield County, like many other counties across the state, operates on several different radio frequencies. Fairfield County emergency workers, he said, use three different frequencies – one for the fire department, one for EMS and one for the Sheriff’s Office. With the various departments utilizing different frequencies, a call for assistance from EMS to the Sheriff’s office must first be routed through central dispatch, then back to a deputy on patrol.

    “You never know what you’re walking into when you respond to an emergency call,” Anderson said. “Right now, if you need help, you have to go through two different channels to get it. If they could have talked directly to one another, deputies could have gotten there sooner.”

    The incident was brought up at the Jan. 14 County Council meeting, where Anderson told Council that an updated radio system would be necessary in the long-term. That will require funding, Anderson said later, and the County is exploring grant funds to make such a system a reality. In the short-term, a new signal tower and additional dual-band radios could improve communications, Anderson said, but that would not overcome the issue of multiple frequencies.

    Anderson said the price tag for the upgrades could run into the millions of dollars, noting that the entire infrastructure, including signal towers, would have to be replaced. And the upgrades would not only include Fairfield County’s three emergency responder departments, but would have to include state police, the hospital and local municipalities as well.

  • No Changes at Top of County Government

    FAIRFIELD – There will be no changes in the structure of Fairfield County government in 2013. Jan. 14, both Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) and Vice Chairman Dwayne Perry (District 1) retained their respective positions during Council’s election of officers. Ferguson received five votes for chairmanship, while Carolyn Robinson (District 2) received two. Robinson also received two votes for the vice chairmanship, while Kamau Marcharia (District 4) received one. Perry received the remaining four votes in the secret ballot.

    Council then filled two vacant spots and ratified eight reappointments on county boards. Nelson Lacy, representing District 7, was ratified for a seat on the Council on Aging, and Frances Lee O’Neal was confirmed as a Council appointment to the Olde English District.

    The following were ratified by Council for reappointment:

    Shirley Seibles (District 3), Behavioral Health Board; Ethel Burrell (District 4) and Anita Tarlton (District 6), Council on Aging; Lewis “Buddy” Haigler (District 3), Gwen Harden (District 6) and Vickie Robinson (District 5), Disabilities and Special Needs Board; Sammy Castles (District 5) Fire Commission; and Michael Quinn (District 6), Hospital Board.

    Finally, Council approved first reading of Ordinance 610, which rescinds the County’s Uniform Solid Waste Management Ordinance 410 (also known as the “Litter Control Ordinance”) and replaces it with the 2012 Solid Waste Management Plan. The new plan has been updated to meet the current S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) regulations as well as the current Fairfield County solid waste handling practices.

    Council meets again Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. in their chambers at 350 Columbia Road.

  • Community Center Sale to Close Jan. 31

    BLYTHEWOOD – The sale of the Community Center is a done deal, according to Larry Sharpe, who told The Voice Tuesday that he feels certain he will sign the contract with the Town on schedule.

    The sales contract for $1.5 million gave Sharpe until Tuesday to back out if he found the zoning restrictions on the property would make it unsuitable for him to develop.

    “I think we’ve about got everything worked out now,” Sharpe said.

    He said he expects to close the contract with the Town on Jan. 31. Asked about his plans for the property, Sharpe said he didn’t have anything definite yet, but was talking to prospects. He said he is looking forward to doing something nice with the property for the town.

  • ARB Has New Chairman, Design Standards

    BLYTHEWOOD – Tuesday night the Architectural Review Board elected a new chairman, Michael Langston, a resident of Cobblestone Park. Dr. Curtis Brown of Ashley Oaks was elected vice chairman.

    Michael Criss, the Town’s planning consultant, updated the ARB members on the new design standards that were recently adopted by Council as part of the new Town Center zoning text amendment. Criss said one of the major changes is that, while in the past, the ARB only had review authority over commercial buildings and major improvements in the Town, under the new zoning ordinance, the ARB will have review authority over all buildings in the Town Center district, including residences.

    Criss said that the architectural and other design standards in the new zoning text amendment would apply to all new land uses, new construction and major improvements within the Town Center District. The ordinance defines major improvements as any repair, rehabilitation, reconstruction, addition or other improvement of a building or structure which, in the aggregate, costs 50 percent or more of the assessed value for property tax purposes (not including land) before the improvements. Town Administrator John Perry explained that Town Hall would keep tract of successive improvements of the buildings in order to determine if the aggregate costs amounted to 50 percent or more.

    Criss said the new Town Center design standards will dictate a number of design changes such as the prohibition of mansard roofs which are less expensive but don’t look as good as other roof designs. He said that over the course of the next seven years, minimum height requirements for new construction of frontage buildings on certain roads in the town will increase to three stories.

    Building facades on new construction are to be built next to sidewalks, with driveways and parking to the side and rear.

    Blythewood Road and Wilson Boulevard (Highway 21, also called Main Street in the town) are slated to be widened to 95-feet, which will amount to an increase of 6- to 12-feet outside current right of ways. Perry said that once these right of ways are mapped, the Town must be ready to purchase them all. Asked by Langston about the expense of such purchases, Perry said there are some methods that make acquiring right of way more affordable.

    Perry announced that two or three members from each of the town boards would be taking a field trip to Baxter and Davidson, N.C. to look at architecture. He also reminded the board members about the Town’s planning retreat March 22 and 23 at the Doko Manor which he said would be operational by March 1.