BLYTHEWOOD – A Westwood High School student was arrested on campus last week after investigators with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department found him to be in possession of a handgun on school grounds. The gun had been reported stolen earlier in the day, Jan. 14, from a home on Hawkins Creek Road.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to the home at 7:45 that morning where the victim reported a gun box inside the home had been broken into and the Hi-Point handgun stolen. The Sheriff’s Department said the victim’s daughter had recently had several friends from Westwood High School at the home and a list of the guests was compiled and the Westwood High School staff and School Resource Officer were notified.
The Sheriff’s Department said that the student, a 16-year-old male, was found to be in possession of the gun at the high school a short time later. Following an interview with the suspect, the Sheriff’s Department said that the student had no intent to harm anyone at the school.
The student has been charged with larceny, weapons violations, carrying a weapon on school grounds, possession of a weapon by a minor under the age of 18 and possession of a stolen weapon.
BLYTHEWOOD – New developments have cropped up in a $10 million lawsuit that was filed in December by South Capital Group, LLC against the Town of Blythewood, Councilman Ed Garrison and two partnerships (Crescent Hills Partners, LLC and Crescent Partners SRES, LLC), which the complaint alleges were formed by Garrison about April 13, 2009, either individually or with others. The complaint also named John Does 1 through 10 who purportedly participated with Garrison and the two LLC partnerships to harm South Capital, LLC.
On Jan. 3, Columbia attorney Robert B. Lewis filed a motion in U. S. District Court asking to be relieved as counsel for the two partnership defendants. In the motion, Lewis stated that the partnership defendants, whose managing member he identified as Garrison, had failed to pay any fees or for any costs incurred for his representation of them in the case.
Lewis said the partnership defendants had also failed to respond to two previous requests (letters dated June 14 and Oct. 29, 2012) in which he asked Garrison to be relieved from representing them.
While the legal fees of the Town of Blythewood and Garrison (in his capacity as a Council member) are covered to an as yet undetermined extent by the state insurance reserve fund, which insures government entities in South Carolina, an employee at the State Board of Budget and Control, who asked not to be identified, said the two partnership defendants are likely not covered by the reserve fund since they are private entities.
In the letter to Garrison, dated June 14, 2012, Lewis wrote that he had agreed to reduce his hourly rate on the case substantially, but that “even with the fee reduction, the fees are in the $4,000 range and we have just started the discovery process.”
In another letter dated Oct. 29, Lewis asked Garrison to sign a consent form on behalf of the partnership defendants, agreeing to release Lewis as counsel. Lewis stated in his Jan. 3 motion for relief that there was no response to his letter.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of civil conspiracy, tortious interference with a contract and negligence in regard to a 142.95-acre property that was owned by South Capital Group, LLC and commonly referred to as Red Gate Farms.
The property is located on the west side of Blythewood Road between Muller and Syrup Mill roads.
At issue is the involvement of Garrison and the town government with the property from the time it was annexed into the Town on Nov. 24, 2008 until South Capital Group, LLC filed for bankruptcy on the property. An article published in The State newspaper on July 6, 2010 disclosed that the property had been in Bankruptcy Court under a Chapter 11 proceeding for more than a year.
The property was annexed into the Town with a Richland County zoning designation of Planned Development District (PDD.) In early February 2010, two years after the annexation, Town Administrator John Perry placed a zoning request on the Planning Commission’s agenda calling for Rural (RU) zoning on the property. Based on information supplied to them by Perry during a public meeting, the Planning Commission recommended RU zoning to Town Council. The property owners were not present at the meeting.
On Feb. 22, 2010, Town Council unanimously passed the first of two required readings to zone the property RU.
At that meeting, a member of the audience asked Councilman Garrison whether he should recuse himself from voting on the zoning request. The question concerned whether Garrison, a developer and real estate agent, was involved with securing financing to purchase and develop the property. Garrison indicated he had no financial involvement with the property and voted for the RU zoning, which was finalized by a second vote by Council on March 29, 2010.
At a special called meeting of Council on May 3, 2010, the Town’s attorney at that time, Lee Zimmerman (McNair Law Firm), told Council that he had been contacted by the attorneys for South Capital Group, LLC, who asked that the Town Council rescind Ordinance 10.0007 that called for final zoning of RU on the Red Gate Farms property. Zimmerman told council members that the principals of South Capital Group, LLC , David Hillburn and George Delk, said they had not been informed the property was going to be rezoned to RU.
Council voted 4-0 at that meeting to rescind the ordinance and refer it back to the Planning Commission for review and recommendation. Council ultimately zoned the property for a more restrictive Planned Development (PD) zoning designation on Sept. 27, 2010.
On Jan. 11, the case was reassigned to Judge Terry L. Wooten for trial in Federal Court. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Aug. 26, 2013.
FAIRFIELD – This month’s meeting of the organizational committee of the Fairfield County Regional Water Authority, originally scheduled for Jan. 23, has been rescheduled. The committee will instead meet Feb. 27 at 4 p.m. at the Midlands Tech QuickJobs Center in Winnsboro.
Fairfield County Treasurer Norma Branham delivers the $23,356,773.56 check to teller Sharon Hollis Tuesday for deposit into the County’s bank account at First Citizens Bank in Winnsboro.
WINNSBORO – South Carolina Electric & Gas Company (SCE&G) presented Fairfield County a check for $23.4 million for 2012 property taxes Tuesday.
“We are very pleased that V.C. Summer Nuclear Station continues to be a major contributor to the local economy through property taxes that support schools, roads and critical public services for the residents of Fairfield County,” said Dan Gatlin, vice president of Nuclear Operations at V.C. Summer.
V.C. Summer Unit 1, which has been in commercial operation since 1984, currently employs about 800 SCE&G employees and contractors.
Of the $23,356,773.56 total paid by SCANA into Fairfield County tax coffers, $10,782,680.30 goes to the Fairfield County government’s various funds. The County’s general fund receives $7,752,238.59. The hospital receives $473,591.16. EMS receives $969,734.37. The Library receives $217,659.98. The Fire Board receives $468,238.94. The fire capital fund receives $111,898.67. The EMS capital fund receives $202,967.60. And the County receives $586,350.99 for its 2010 bond issue.
The Fairfield County School District takes in $12,878,218.31 from the SCANA total. Of that, $598,564.95 goes into the District’s debt fund, while $12,279,653.36 goes into the operation fund. The Town of Winnsboro receives $15,712.16 from SCANA, while the Town of Ridgeway receives $4,579.22.
FAIRFIELD – It took a 4-3 vote and the defeat of a motion to table, but Monday night County Council gave the OK to County Administrator Phil Hinely’s plan to include rescue squad workers in the county’s expense reimbursement program.
Council member Carolyn Robinson (District 2) led the push to table the matter until Council’s Jan. 28 meeting. Robinson said she would like to see an economic impact report on adding the rescue squad to a program that already includes firefighters, details of where the money would come from and if the incentives represented an additional tax on Fairfield County citizens.
Hinely said there was no additional taxation associated with the program.
“There is no economic impact,” Hinely said. “The money we’re already setting aside to give these expense reimbursements (to firefighters), it will come out of this. This just gives us a formal program to do it. There is money in the budget to add the rescue squads, which is what we’re doing here. We’ve already done the fire departments. Even at that, there was no increase to the budget. And with the rescue squad, it’s really a minimal cost.”
Call pay for a Department of Transportation (DOT) certified first responder is $15. For a Status 2 or non-certified responder, $10. Training pay is $15, while business meetings earn a responder $5. The maximum amount paid in one calendar month is $250. This is the same call pay allotted to firefighters.
In addition, a rescue squad worker may qualify for an additional $100 annually, if he or she meets a set of training requirements. Firefighters can earn an additional $200 annually by meeting a similar set of requirements. Longevity will also earn rescue squad workers an additional $50 annually (5-9 years of honorable service), $100 (10-14 years), $125 (15-19 years) or $150 (20 or more years). Firefighters already qualify for the same longevity scale.
With emphasis placed on training and certification, Robinson said the payments could indeed have an economic impact on the county.
“If everyone gets their certifications and moves up, I have no idea how many people we’re talking about,” Robinson said. “It could have an economic impact on our budget and I would like to see that. Any time money is discussed, an economic impact needs to come with it. It’s getting to the place that we are using a lot of our fund balance and other things and we just need to always know what kind of money we’re talking about.”
Barkley Ramsey, Chief of the Fairfield County Rescue Squad, said there are currently 30 active volunteers on the squad. More than half of them, he said, are also firefighters, and are thus already receiving the reimbursements. Ramsey said capping membership at 35 members was also under consideration.
“So we’re talking about an impact of about 15 folks,” Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) noted. “And we did the incentive at budget time with the firemen.”
Hinely said he was not seeking a formal vote by Council on the matter, but only their approval to proceed with the formula.
“When Council votes on something, then if later on it needs to be changed it has to come back and go through the whole process,” Hinely said. “This is already in the budget, but not in this form. I don’t foresee this going up anytime soon. Actually there’s a cap on each one of these. No matter how many trainings you get or anything else, you only get a certain amount a month. Training is what the council trying to get people to do, and this is a lot cheaper than paying firemen.”
But Robinson objected.
“It’s getting to the place where we have so many things thrown at us and we never have an opportunity to sit and discuss it, it goes out of here and we’re expected to approve it without knowing the nuts and the bolts of anything,” she said. “At some point the rest of us have to have the opportunity of having leadership and understanding in these things, because every time we turn around it’s something else that’s thrown at us that we just have no input on. If that’s the case, then why am I sitting here? Why was I elected? I am constantly having things thrown at me, at every meeting, and this needs to cease so that we all feel that we have an impact in this. To say that we shouldn’t vote on it – it’s part of the budget, so we do need to vote on it. I don’t know where ya’ll are coming from, but this is the legislative process. You don’t continually do business without a motion and a second to either accept or adopt.”
Robinson then moved to table the matter until Council’s next meeting. David Brown (District 7) seconded the motion. Councilman Kamau Marcharia (District 4) joined Robinson and Brown in voting to table. Ferguson, Vice Chairman Dwayne Perry (District 1) and Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) rejected the move.
Kinley then moved to accept Hinely’s proposal. Perry seconded and the votes fell out along the same lines.
WINNSBORO – Renting the Town of Winnsboro’s Old Armory is going to get more expensive in 2013, according to a vote by Town Council Jan. 8. Council voted 3-0 to raise the rates on Armory rental by $100 for the new year, upping the rental fee to $550. Councilmen Danny Miller and Jackie Wilkes were not in attendance and did not vote on the rate change.
Council also voted on a change to their gratis use agreements for the Armory. Previously, groups granted gratis use of the Armory had also had the clean-up fee of $200 waived. Jan. 8, Council voted to no longer waive the clean-up fee.
Earlier in the meeting, Council announced that they would be accepting applications for their annual awards (employee, citizen, volunteer and business of the year) through Feb. 14. The awards will be announced in March. Council noted that last year’s winners in individual categories would not be eligible for the same awards this year and that individuals would be eligible for recognition in only one category. Nominations may be made through the Town’s new Web site, www.townofwinnsboro.com.
Absent from the Jan. 8 meeting was any input from the Friends of Mt. Zion Institute (FOMZI) on the fate of the Mt. Zion school building. Last month, Council voted to sever ties with Red Clay Development, the North Carolina firm that, nearly three years ago, purchased the Mount Zion Institute from the Town for $100,000.
“We feel like the FOMZI people are very dedicated to the project,” Winnsboro Mayor Roger Gaddy said following the split with Red Clay last month. “Whether or not they’ll be able to make the financial commitment that will be necessary will be their decision, but we’re willing to explore different avenues with them and to work closely with them in any way we can to hopefully save the project.”
FOMZI’s Vicki Dodds said this week that FOMZI had met with Mayor Gaddy and members of Council in early January.
“We were encouraged by their receptiveness to our thoughts and our plans and think we at least have a commitment of time and verbal support,” Dodds said. “I can’t speak to their procedures as far as taking the buildings back from Red Clay but, for now, FOMZI will continue our action plan and has begun work on the grounds as of this weekend.”
A revised contract between Winnsboro and the City of Columbia, designed to bring an additional 600,000 to 1 million gallons of water into the Winnsboro water system, has also not been addressed. Steve Gantt, Columbia’s City Manager, said at the end of December that Columbia’s City Council would vote on the new contract in January. Council did not take the matter up at their Jan. 8 meeting.
Fairfield County, meanwhile, has agreed to spend the $400,000 to purchase pumping equipment, which will be necessary to feed water from Columbia and into the tower on Highway 34 near Ben Arnold.
RIDGEWAY – Following an executive session, Ridgeway Town Council voted unanimously Jan. 10 to hire Greg Miller as the Town’s newest part-time police officer.
Miller most recently served with the S.C. Highway Patrol (SCHP) as a trooper out of Chester County’s Troop 4. He was dismissed by the SCHP last October following his arrest on third-degree assault and battery charges against an ex-girlfriend in September.
According to a Richland County Sheriff’s Department report of the incident, deputies were called to a home on Sandpine Road on Sept. 17 where a woman said she had been choked by her ex-boyfriend of 12 years. She identified her assailant as 48-year-old Gregory Allen Miller, of Smallstown Road in Winnsboro. The victim said she had just recently ended her relationship with Miller. She said Miller was waiting for her at her home when she arrived and followed her inside, refusing to leave. The report states that Miller grabbed the woman’s shoulders and began shaking her, then grabbed her around the neck. The victim said Miller, while choking her, told her, “If you tell my wife, are you prepared to suffer the consequences?” and then left the home.
Deputies noted bruising on the woman’s neck, as well as on the right side of her face. Miller was arrested later that same day.
Miller was fired by the SCHP Oct. 5 and charged Oct. 15, according to reports. He had been with the SCHPS since 2007. Prior to that, he worked with the Chester Police Department in 2007, as a State Transit Police office from 2005-2006 and with the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office from 2003-2005. In 2009, Miller was one of three final applicants for the then vacant job of Chief of Police in Ridgeway.
Efforts to reach Ridgeway Mayor Charlene Herring for comment just days after the meeting were unsuccessful. Ridgeway Councilman Donald Prioleau, who led the search for a part-time officer, said that as far as Town Council knew, no charges had officially been filed against Miller in the September incident.
“We didn’t want to get into something he hadn’t been charged for,” Prioleau said. “It could be true, or maybe not. He was a good police officer when he was there.”
Indeed, Miller’s name appears nowhere in the Richland County court systems, nor in the records of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, where Miller was reportedly booked and released on a personal recognizance bond Sept. 17. That would indicate, an officer at the detention center said Monday, that the charges were either dropped or had been expunged.
Prioleau said of the three applications the Town had for the job, Millers was by far the best.
Council also voted to renew their contract with Loblolly Lawn and Grounds Maintenance Service to cut grass throughout the town. Loblolly charges the Town $750 per cut, plus a $25 fuel charge.
Council elected to table any resolution to join the Fairfield Regional Water Authority until an unspecified later date. A public hearing on the resolution held at last month’s meeting drew no members of the public. Council also tabled a vote to accept a bid for repairs to the Century House. Herring said the Town had received only two bids on the work and would therefore have to put the project out for bid again.
Council also said that they had failed to reach an agreement with restaurateurs Elisseos Mergianos and James Miller for a lease on the Old Town Hall building. Herring said after the meeting that the Town would now renew their search for a potential tenant for the restaurant.
“The Town needs a restaurant,” Herring said.
Council’s next scheduled meeting is Feb. 14 at 6:30 p.m.
Blythewood attorney Shannon Burnett riding her horse Axel Rhodes.
Born in the spring of 2004, the fine bay Thoroughbred colt is a grandson of Secretariat, the Triple Crown winner in 1973; and a great grandson of Bold Ruler, the 1957 Horse of the Year. Northern Dancer and War Admiral are also in his lineage. The colt showed promise as a 2-year-old, winning his first race at Aqueduct, the prestigious New York track. Like his ancestors, he too seemed destined for greatness.
But there is no such thing as ‘a sure thing’ at the track. That’s why it’s called a horse race.
As a 3-year-old, the colt apparently suffered a career-ending knee injury. Still, he was one of the lucky ones. He showed up for sale a year later at a respected hunter barn in Aiken, then again in Camden, where he caught the eye of Mary Werning, a top dressage trainer. Werning was impressed with the big bay horse. She felt he had potential in the dressage ring – not the worst place a washed up race horse can end up.
While the horse made an impressive appearance, he turned out to have some behavioral issues that potential buyers may have seen as insurmountable for the show ring. But Werning was fond of him and didn’t want to unload him to just anyone. She convinced a friend to buy him, and he spent the next two years grazing in the friend’s pasture interrupted only by the occasional trail ride.
The horse’s name is Axel Rhodes.
Last winter, horsewoman Shannon Burnett, who owns a farm with her husband, Chris Knierim, in Blythewood and is a partner in the law firm of Burnett and Cairns, was looking for a new dressage horse. She consulted her trainer, who happened to be Mary Werning. Werning suggested Burnett try Axel who was by then 7 years old.
“He was big and beautiful — just what I was looking for,” Burnett recalled cheerfully of seeing the horse for the first time. “He looked more like a beefy Warmblood than a fragile Thoroughbred, and I liked him immediately. But when I got in the saddle, he was stiff, clinched the bit and seemed disconnected from what I was asking from him.”
Like the perspective buyers before her, Burnett just as immediately had second thoughts about the horse.
“Dressage is a discipline that requires fluid, subtle movement and a close relationship between horse and rider, just like ice skating partners. Dressage is like dancing. The horse must be very connected with you and he must love the dance. With a trained dressage horse, those movements,” Burnett explained, “are made in response to barely perceptible hand, leg and body pressure signals from the rider. I wasn’t convinced that was where Axel’s strength would ever lie.”
In spite of Burnett’s misgivings, Werning insisted he had great potential. She felt Burnett was the rider to bring out that potential and suggested she work with him for a month or so.
While Burnett trusted Werning’s instincts, she worried that Axel’s fate was sealed by his inability to connect.
“Thoroughbreds are naturally sensitive, and the gruelling discipline and work at the track can leave horses not only broken physically at a young age, but emotionally checked out as well,” she said. “Some just don’t make the transition well to new jobs when their racing career ends.”
A kind-hearted animal advocate whose two dogs, Felon and SueMe, sleep under her desk at her law office in downtown Blythewood, Burnett’s trademark calm demeanor and endless patience transmits quickly to her animals. By the second week of working with Axel, Burnett noticed him following her with his eyes as she walked around the barn.
“He seemed both smart and clever. He started coming to me from the paddock,” Burnett said, “and was soon following me around. Before the month was out, he was trotting up to me and then alongside of me. I could see his potential blooming.
“In the riding ring, I asked him to do things the same way each time, consistently and without stressing him. It wasn’t long before he realized I was communicating with him with my hands, seat and legs,” Burnett recalled with a smile. “As soon as he realized that he could do what I was asking, he immediately began answering with everything he knew. He was like: Do you want me to do this? How about this? He was enjoying the dance!”
She bought the horse and, before long, both horse and rider were training in earnest.
By the end of last summer, the pair had entered their first low-level dressage competition, winning both classes they entered. Burnett was ecstatic. Suddenly, she and Axel had plans, big plans.
Then in October, Burnett began noticing something different in Axel’s movement and behavior — something that worried her.
“He began to stomp and kick in his stall. He would sometimes put one hoof on top of the other and he would stand there on his own hoof without realizing it. He bounced his head up and down a lot, and his balance was off,” Burnett said. “He didn’t seem to know where his hind hooves were.”
She asked her veterinarian to examine him. After neurological tests and blood work, the vet’s diagnosis was not good. There was a high probability that Axel had contracted Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis (EPM), a progressive, potentially deadly disease caused by a protozoa infestation of the spinal cord and brain. Usually transmitted to horses by opossums, the disease is not easy to positively identify without surgery of the spine or brain. While it is not contagious between horses, there is no cure.
The veterinarian explained that while in rare cases a horse’s immune system will fight off the protozoa, most do not. She told Burnett that the medications she prescribed would only kill the adult protozoa.
“My heart was broken for Axel,” Burnett said. “I felt he was just starting to dream new dreams. We had big plans.”
But by that evening, Burnett had marshalled her heartbreak and hit the Internet. She found a biochemist in South Dakota who specialized in holistic treatment of horses with issues such as EPM, without the use of typically prescribed drugs, which the biochemist explained can be caustic. “I kept her on the phone until about 10:30 that night,” Burnett said.
The biochemist’s approach would fight the protozoa by strengthening Axel’s immune system. That meant switching to a special grass-based feed and supplements the biochemist would create after doing a hair analysis and gathering other information about the horse.
“Traditional veterinary medicine, of course, is not sold on this approach, and I understand why,” Burnett said with a shrug that reflected her own worrisome, underlying concern as she dumped the expensive special feed into Alex’s feed tub. “This may be voodoo,” she confessed, “but I have to try it.”
Burnett’s hope was buoyed when Axel began showing marked improvement within two weeks of starting the treatment, the projected time table mapped out by the biochemist.
“Now, three months later,” Burnett said, as she turned Alex out in the paddock on a recent cool, crisp afternoon, “he continues to improve and acts like his old self again, trotting along beside me and enjoying our rides.”
With her fingers crossed, Burnett said Axel’s training has resumed and is going well. She plans to start competing him again in the spring.
“We just work on the level that he’s comfortable with right now,” she said. “He always steps up to the plate and seems to say, ‘Let’s do this.’ Pretty amazing guy!”
Watching her horse rip around the paddock like a playful colt, Burnett joked, forever optimistic, “I hope the voodoo works. I think this is really his best hope, long term,” she said, turning thoughtful. “He’s forever missed his chance at greatness on the track. But he can still have a great life and make his grandpa proud in the dressage ring. Anyway, he’s depending on me for another chance, and I can’t let him down.”
The employment contract of Katie Brochu, the current Superintendent of Richland 2, is an agreement between the Superintendent and the Board of Trustees of Richland School District Two for the term July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2014 with an annual compensation of $215,000. Additional benefits include $10,200 for local travel, full reimbursement for travel outside the District, annual annuity contributions of $18,275 contingent upon a satisfactory annual evaluation by the Board and, lastly, contributions into the S.C. State Retirement System.
Last fall, the School Board, after enormous public pressure, conducted their first evaluation. In accordance with the employment contract, this should have been a third evaluation. All questions to Superintendent Brochu were directed by Board members and answered by the Superintendent. There was no opportunity for the public or district staff to participate.
The night following the evaluation, at a regularly scheduled Board Meeting, then Chairman Chip Jackson read a statement from the Board expressing support for the current direction of the academic agenda and fiscal management. In the worry category was student achievement in some of the District’s underperforming schools and the leadership/communication process between executive staff, schools, parents and community. The Board asked for a response from the Superintendent in addressing the worrisome categories by Dec. 3. The Board also asked for a “detailed and itemized report on professional development expenses for the 2011-2012 year.”
The Superintendent’s response was reported by several Board Members to be a 75-page report submitted Dec. 5. It was said to include 25 pages addressing the worrisome areas and 50 pages outlining professional development expenses. Board Member Bill Flemming, who was recently elected Chairman, was quoted in The State newspaper as saying that the total amount of professional development expenses reported by Brochu was $600,000 for the 2011-2012 year – the same as in previous years. When the report was posted to the District website, however, it contained only the 25 pages addressing the worrisome areas plus a two-page letter to the Board, but there was no comprehensive professional development expense report. Through a Freedom of Information Act request for the 50-page report, I received, instead, 147 pages of line items, but no comprehensive report of professional development expenses.
The questions remaining:
1. Why did the Board fail to give the Superintendent her first two evaluations?
2. Were annuity payments made each January even without a satisfactory evaluation?
3. What are the professional development expenses and why have they been so difficult to produce?
4. Why were 147 pages of line items, but no comprehensive report of professional development expenses, issued through an FOIA, with totals that do not match any of the figures stated by the Board?
5. Who or what is the focus of professional development in the district?
6. In the worrisome areas, what are the measurable goals to see that underperforming schools are meeting expectations?
BLYTHEWOOD – Tuesday evening, a subcommittee appointed by Blythewood Town Council selected William (Bill) Wiseman to represent Blythewood on Richland County’s proposed 15-member Penny Tax oversight committee. Wiseman was chosen from a field of three finalists that included Malcolm Gordge of Ashley Oaks and Sean King of Lake Ashley. Town Council will confirm Wiseman’s selection before recommending his appointment to County Council. The 13-member committee is to be seated by Jan. 31.
Wiseman, an engineer, is currently Managing Principal with Cumming where he is responsible for overall guidance, direction and leadership for the company.
The Penny Tax committee will provide oversight to Richland County Council in carrying out a $1.07 billion improvement program over 20 years to fund roads, bus routes, trails and bike paths in the County. The initial expenditure will be about $450 million. Wiseman will serve a four-year term on the committee and will report back to Town Council and the community on a regular schedule.
Wiseman, who has 30 years in the building profession, said he applied for the appointment out of a desire to give back to the community. “I think my skill sets and experience will be of benefit in this area,” Wiseman told the subcommittee. The vote to appoint him was unanimous.
