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Taylor Says Town is Looking at Meter Reading Contractor

WINNSBORO – The Town of Winnsboro water department has received some of the new electronic water meters it ordered for Winnsboro customers while others are still delayed with supply chain issues.

But hundreds of the Town’s utility customers have become impatient with the wait as they continue to receive three and four-figure bills. Many have taken to Facebook to express their dissatisfaction with the Town’s broken billing system.

Customer Laura Thomas shamed the Town for letting it get to this point. She wrote: “Do we have any hope the Town will ever get our bills right again?”

Amanda Helt Smith wrote: “My bill for November was for $111. For December, it was $785. Tell me how? And we are down to one child because she left for college.”

Gail Floyd wrote: “I was out of town for a month…no one at my home…my utility bill was $142.00 the next month I was at home running everything the bill was 99.00 that month so I’ve been wondering as well!!”

Hundreds more posted similar messages. The bills are high, low, and sporadic.

Town Manager Jason Taylor said the Town has been stymied by a lack of meter readers, partly due to the fact that when the electronic meters are installed, their jobs would likely only be temporary.

“We have 11,000 meters to be read with only two to three people trying to keep up,” Taylor said. “It’s an impossible situation.”

As a result, customers frequently receive bills for two or more months at a time.

“I talked to Dominion to get advice from them about our lack of meter readers and see what direction they went,” Taylor said.  “They, too, say it’s almost impossible to keep meter readers staffed. As a result, they have contracted their meter reading out, and I anticipate we will do the same until our new smart meters arrive. I’m meeting tomorrow with a company that contracts meter reading to get that going.

 “I hate what’s happening for our customers and for the Town. We have invested about $4 million in the smart meters to get this corrected and give our customers the service they deserve as quickly as possible,” Taylor said. “But the new meters are held up in the supply chain problem across the nation.”

As they await the arrival – and then the installation – of the new meters, town officials are mulling a stop-gap solution to the erratic billing problems that have long plagued its utility customers.

“It’s going to take about two months to work out the contract meter work and get the readers trained. We really have no choice but to estimate the bills for the next two months,” Taylor said.

The town’s Finance Director Kathy Belton presented to council a plan to estimate bills for a targeted amount of 1400 KWH for electricity, 150 therms for gas and 3,000 gallons of water. 

“This will spread payments out,” Belton said.  “We have never done this before but this is an emergency situation. Plus, we can have a payment plan so customers can get caught up,” she said.

Taylor said the Town will do all it can to assist the customers during that time. He said he will be sending out a new clarification letter above and beyond what the Town just recently sent customers.

“It will tell customers that they are welcome to estimate their own bills each month if they wish, and just send what they can until we get our contract workers in place,” Taylor said. “We aren’t going to cut anyone off. If you get a high bill, pay what you think is reasonable at this point. We will catch up and true things up.”

“We welcome our customers to call us with any issue. We will work with them. This is a bad situation for our customers and we understand that,” Taylor said.

“I tell people to keep paying what you have been paying,” Councilman Demetrius Chatman said during last week’s council meeting. “Do what you normally do.” 

Councilman Danny Miller and Mayor John McMeekin both agreed customers need to be contacted with an apology and explanation.

Barbara Ball contributed to this story.

BLYTHEWOOD – It was sometime around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 19, when The Voice received a call from Blythewood resident Byron Dinkins asking if a reporter could meet him at his property on Blythewood Road. 

Asked what was up, Dinkins replied, “When the Town allowed Dominion to set up a giant natural gas tank in a dumpster at the corner of Syrup Mill Road and Blythewood Road, I complained to town hall, since it would be out of character for the area, pretty ugly, maybe even dangerous, and right next to my property,” he said.

“Usually when something like that wants to set up shop in the town, there is a posting by the town government to let the neighbors know what’s going in next to them so they have a chance to have a say,” Dinkins continued. “But this just popped up.  No warning. No posting. No nothing. No concern whatsoever on town hall’s part for what this could do to the neighbors’ property values.”

Dinkins said he contacted Mayor Bryan Franklin to express his concern.

“Mayor Franklin said he was shocked, that he knew nothing about it,” Dinkins said. “Yet, the property was already being graded off. I was surprised that the Town Administrator would approve something like that without the mayor knowing. The mayor even told me that putting a natural gas tank there would ‘open up a can of worms for the town.’ ”

“Well,” Dinkins said to The Voice, “I want you to come out here and take a picture of that can of worms the natural gas tank site opened up.”

The Voice arrived at the property a few minutes later and saw several vehicles and a boat lined up along Blythewood Road near the property where the natural gas tank had recently been constructed. The words “Town Center” were scrawled across the back of the boat in bright orange spray paint. Other orange messages on the vehicles included “Welcome to Blythewood,” “Bias Politics,” “Who is your mayor?” “Shame on the Town,” and “What’s good for the goose…”

Traffic along Blythewood Road slowed as some passing drivers honked, laughed and waved at Dinkins. Others pulled over to ask what was going on, others made suggestions for adding other pranks to the scene.

While What’s Happening Blythewood’s Facebook page lit up with almost 200 mostly witty, curious comments with photos about the vehicles – “If that’s a 2009-2014 Maxima, I am on the prowl for a passenger headlight,” Angela Rowe commented – a seering rant by Franklin broke up the light banter. Franklin attacked his fellow councilmen and The Voice on What’s Happening Blythewood for an unrelated issue that the Town is being sued for after Franklin failed to turn in his response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request as required by law.

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“Hi, this is Mayor Bryan Franklin. I have no idea what this person is protesting,” Franklin wrote. “The only political issue is two councilmen never turned over their electronic devices (personal phones, laptops, etc.) while I did immediately and so did two other councilmen,” he said. 

“We are in a court case now which involves possible collusion from one or two councilmen, but we can’t comment now,” he commented. “These facts are public so far, but you wouldn’t know it because one local paper is trying to get at least one of these councilmen re-elected.

“It is an election year and the press can be biased – shocker!” Franklin wrote. “If you have any questions about anything you have read, I can clarify. Call me,” he wrote and posted his phone number.

While Dinkins said his stunt has nothing to do with Franklin’s issues with his fellow councilmen, a lawsuit or the newspaper, he (Dinkins) said the vehicles and spray-painted messages are a citizen’s protest against how Franklin’s government allowed the natural gas tank to go next to his (Dinkins’) property without any public notice to citizens or neighbors of the property.

When land at the natural gas tank site began to be disturbed during the first week of December of 2022, The Voice received several inquiries about it from the community.

A town hall official verified in a phone conversation on Dec. 6 that the property is in the Town Center zoning district, and that town hall knew about the project, and that it was a “temporary natural gas stabilization site.”

Later that day, Town Administrator Carroll Williamson sent an email to The Voice stating that was not the case, that the newspaper reporter had misunderstood.

But a citizen had already provided The Voice with an email from a town official dated Dec. 5, with quotes from Dominion Energy confirming the project was “a compressed natural gas regulator station.”

“Basically it’s here for the winter to provide natural gas. Once winter is over, the property will be returned to its original site,” the email stated.

Finding out who approved/permitted the project was more difficult.

After The Voice and Byron Dinkins, the neighboring property owner, quizzed Williamson on the issue, he posted a stop-work order later on Tuesday, and called a meeting with Dominion for the next afternoon, Wednesday, Dec. 7, for about 1:30. After the meeting, work at the tank site resumed.

The property where the project is located is owned by Blythewood businessman Larry Sharpe, who told The Voice he has a contract with Dominion to lease the land, and that Dominion had handled all the permitting. Sharpe said he had not been involved with any applications for approval by the Town or county governments.

During a special called town council meeting [on a separate issue] on Friday, Dec. 8, Williamson was asked by Councilman Brock for an update on the gas tank site issue.

Williamson said that when he pulled up to the site [Dec. 6.] he knew nothing about what was going on (even though a town official had earlier confirmed that the Town was aware of the situation) and was presented with an approved plan for the work.

 “Richland County approves all land disturbance/storm water permits,” Williamson said. “Richland County thought the Town was aware of the project, but they are not necessarily obligated to notify us.  So they approved it.

“While the project was land disturbance, it also changed the use of the land,” Williams added. “So I talked with Dominion. In our ordinance is a temporary non-conforming use that the town administrator can authorize as long as it meets some benefit or upgrades the non-conforming use.

“So I wrote a non-conforming permit that says on May 31, 2022, this is over and has to be cleaned up,” Williamson said. 

Sharpe, however, told The Voice that his contract with Dominion is for a year.

“It was a miscommunication on a type of project we don’t often see,” Williamson told council members. “Dominion was very apologetic.”

The project, according to Todd Feaster, a realtor with Utility Land Service, is intended to provide extra natural gas capacity for Cobblestone residents until a permanent pipeline can be constructed.

“There have been so many new homes built in the area in a short time that the demand for natural gas has increased to the point that there is not enough capacity for them all,” Feaster said.

“An on-site tractor trailer on wheels will house a 50-foot-long tank of natural gas that will be hooked into Cobblestone’s natural gas system to provide additional capacity through this winter. When the tank runs empty, another one will be brought in,” he said.

“The tractor trailers will leave as soon as winter is over,” Feaster said. “Options in the lease, however, allow the property to be used for two more winters if necessary.”

A member of the Cobblestone Park HOA board-elect told The Voice that the temporary tanks were originally to be situated on a lot in Cobblestone for Cobblestone’s use, but were, for some reason, moved to Blythewood Road. He said he didn’t know why, but that he didn’t believe Cobblestone residents had anything to do with the relocation of the tank site to Blythewood Road next to Dinkins’ property.

“It may be an eyesore for a while,” the Cobblestone resident said, “but it’s for the good of the community.”

BLYTHEWOOD – A lucky local woman won a whopping sum of $375,000 playing South Carolina Education Lottery’s scratch-off game.

After returning to work, the woman scratched off the prize, officials said. Instead of going to cash in her winnings, she worked the rest of the day as usual.

The winner didn’t say what she plans to do with the newfound windfall and chose to remain anonymous.

“I feel really lucky,” she said.

The winning ticket was sold at the QuikTrip on Wilson Boulevard in Blythewood. The ticket distributor will get a bonus of $3,000 for selling the winning scratch-off ticket.

RIDGEWAY – The Ridgeway town council discussed several options regarding the fate of the town’s 100-year-old water tower last week after recent sub-freezing temperatures and high winds damaged the iconic “Tin Man” structure.

Present for the discussion was Daniel Wilson of Southern Corrosion, the company the town had recently contracted to paint the tower and make minor repairs at a cost of $75,000. The town received a $100,000 grant from the state last fall to have the work done. But before it was painted, the Christmas Eve winter storm burst the pipe that took water to and from the tower and blew off half of the catwalk that leads from the main catwalk to the top of the tank.

Water was kept in the tank to keep it stabilized even though the tank no longer serves the town’s water customers. When the freeze thawed, all the water from the tank drained out the burst pipe, leaving the top-heavy tank at risk.

Mayor Heath Cookendorfer pointed out that without water in the tank, the tower could become unstable. He suggested several possible options for stabilizing the structure – repair the tank and fill it with water, sand or concrete; or take it down.

After much discussion, it was decided that filling it with water or sand would further corrode the tank walls, causing them to thin.

According to Wilson, filling the tank with concrete might be fine for now, but at some time in the future when the tank might have to come down, that much concrete could be a huge problem, creating a hazardous situation. 

Prioleau asked Wilson whether the base might become the stabilizer by lacing rebar through the four legs at the bottom and adding a base of concrete.

Wilson said that Prioleau’s idea might possibly work, but that he could not confirm it would.

The only other solution proposed would be to take the 100+ year old tank down which, Cookendorfer said, would be a controversial action.

“It’s a landmark,” he said.

“But even repairing the damage to the water tower could be a problem for us if we try to collect insurance money to cover our costs,” Cookendorfer said. “The insurance company might pay us, but they might also make us take it down. That’s what happened when the roof caved in on the old school building. The insurance company paid us for the damage, but made us tear it down,” he said.  “We have the same insurance company now that we had then, so we need to consider that might be their decision on the issue.”

Wilson said he would bring a re-figured cost to council next month that would include removing what is left of the damaged catwalk and repairing additional damage caused by the storm.  He also agreed to allow the council two months to make a final decision as to how they want to proceed with the stabilization of the water tower.