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  • Annexations between Fairfield and Blythewood are old news

    Blythewood, previously called Doko, was located in Fairfield County. | Taken from H.B. McLean Sr.’s History of Blythewood

    BLYTHEWOOD – A recently proposed annexation of 60 acres of Fairfield County property into the Town of Blythewood has stirred up considerable conversation in both Blythewood and Fairfield County.

    But annexing into and out of Fairfield County is nothing new for Blythewood. It’s been doing that since at least 1913.

    According to documents in the Blythewood Historical Society & Museum archives, the town of Doko (later called Blythewood) was located in southern Fairfield County, just above the Richland County line, until the early 20th century. It was during the early 1900s that the citizens of Doko reportedly grew weary of the poor condition of the Fairfield County Roads and the “bad schools.”

    At the time, the construction and maintenance of roads was the responsibility of counties, and Fairfield was a much poorer and more rural county than Richland County, according to documents at the Society and Museum.

    Dr. Michael Langford, one of the town’s early families, was an instigator of a movement for Doko to annex into Richland County because of the poor roads and schools.

    An oral history account (archived in the Historical Society and Museum) taken from an unnamed man says the line was moved at high noon on Saturday, Aug. 23, 1912. But it was recorded in 1913 that the town and about 10 square miles of the surrounding land became part of Richland County.

    More recently, when the Fairfield County government attempted to accommodate the opening of a landfill in the lower southeast corner of the county sometime in 2008, residents objected and sought the help of the Town of Blythewood to save them from the landfill. About 35 families successfully petitioned Blythewood to annex approximately 50 acres of land into the town.

    While the annexed families had planned to work with Blythewood Town Council to rezone the proposed landfill property with a zoning designation that would prohibit the landfill, that strategy turned out not to be necessary. And the landfill, for other reasons, never materialized.

    Today, the patriarch of one of those 35 families, Eddie Baughman, is now a second term Blythewood Town Councilman.

    Baughman said he is still happy he annexed into the town, but finds some of the changes resulting from the annexation somewhat confusing – he still pays his property taxes to Fairfield County, but his address is in Blythewood. His mail is delivered from the Blythewood post office, but if he had school-age children, they would go to Fairfield schools, not Blythewood schools.

    Now, in 2020, should Blythewood purchase the 60 acres in Fairfield on the wastewater treatment site for the sports complex and annex the property, any development on the site would pay property taxes to Fairfield County, but Blythewood would collect hospitality and accommodation taxes, building permits and other fees from the proposed site.

  • Lake Wateree enhancements underway

    LAKE WATEREE – Major improvements to recreation and picnic areas around Lake Wateree that have been in the planning stage since 2006 are now underway full steam, according to John Crutchfield, a representative from Duke Energy, who updated county council members Monday night on the construction process.

    Among 89 sites to be improved by Duke Energy from Lake James to Lake Wateree over a 20-year span, at least three sites located on Lake Wateree in Fairfield County will be completed in the first five years and another one in the second five years, Crutchfield said.

    While the improvements are primarily in Councilman Jimmy Ray Douglas’s District 2 and some in Councilman Moses Bell’s District 1, Douglas told The Voice after the meeting that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission required Duke to develop the recreation improvement/management plan.

    “While we assisted in offering any information we could to Duke officials,” Douglas said, “They actually came to us with the plan. We were just happy to assist them in any way. The improvements will add a lot to the enjoyment of the lake.”

    The plan, Crutchfield said, is very detailed featuring construction timelines, operations and management.

    “All four of the first Fairfield sites we are improving will be completed by 2022 and include: Wateree Creek accessory which was completed last year,” Crutchfield said, “and it is now open to the public; Molly’s Creek a new access area, is under construction, and we’re underway with the engineering and design phase for Colonel’s Creek access area. Taylor’s Creek – in another five years,” Crutchfield said.

    “We’re legally bound to implement these plans,” Crutchfield said.

    Improvements for the Wateree Creek site include a fishing pier, picnic facility, restrooms and approximately 10 gravel parking spaces.

    Currently undeveloped, Molly’s Creek is under construction and will have a swimming area, paved parking, restrooms, trails, bank and pier fishing, picnic facilities and boat trailer parking. We started construction in late 2019 and we’ll will have that site completed in the late June, early July timeframe.

    “We are currently working on the fishing pier, the swim beach and the boat ramps. We’ve done the grading for the area, laid down the base coat for the parking and started on the curbing for the parking. We’ll also install three restrooms and an attendant storage building,” Crutchfield said.

    “As far Colonels Creek, we are currently in the engineering design and permitting phase. We expect to start construction in late April or May of next year and go through the next recreation season. We anticipate the swim beach will be open during the recreation season of 2022. We’re building the swimming areas, restrooms, picnic shelter and additional paved parking.

    Once Colonels Creek is completed, we will offer the county the opportunity to lease it through our Access Area Improvement Initiative lease program.

    Taylor’s Creek is a new site and will be constructed in the second five years, to be completed by 2027.

    “We plan to build a parking area for about 10 vehicles, and then a trail down to the lakes edge with a fishing trail for bank fishing opportunities,” Crutchfield said.

  • Davenport: Fairfield poised for development

    FAIRFIELD COUNTY – The announcement this month that Oldcastle APG purchased a facility in Fairfield County for $2.2 million, plans to invest $25 million and create 100 jobs paying $20+ an hour on the line, is an example of the county’s economic development program working, said Ty Davenport, the county’s economic development director who has helped bring six new companies and 700+ jobs to Fairfield county in the last six years.

    It was a shell building the county invested in a few years ago that got Oldcastle’s attention. The company considered new construction on a county industrial site before ultimately choosing to purchase the 75,000-square-foot building in Ridgeway, Davenport said.

    “They just kept going back to the shell building because it’s kind of plug and play: It’s already there, then they pour a floor, install their equipment and they’re off to the races,” he said. “Speed to market was a critical factor.”

    This is how it goes in a lot of cases, Davenport said. A marketable asset, such as a shell building or uniquely developed industrial site, gets the attention of companies that are looking to site a facility. Those things put Fairfield County on their radar, and then they found out what we had to offer.

    “It was encouraging to me because it wasn’t just the fact that there was an existing shell building,” he said. “Even if they had decided to go ‘greenfield’ other important factors – our location and workforce – were also a good fit.”

    The term ‘greenfield’ refers to a site that hasn’t been built on yet – one that a company chooses to develop on its own. Most of the industrial sites the county offers are greenfield sites.

    Davenport said the idea behind Fairfield County’s economic development philosophy is pretty straightforward: build it, market it and they will come. Provide all of the infrastructure a company needs for a site – things like water, sewer, electricity, natural gas, rail and highway access – and provide information on other factors like the local workforce, a big factor for companies when making site decisions.

    Davenport said this effort has filled available industrial park sites nearly to capacity and underlies the development of a mega-site, which is currently underway.

    The addition of sewer capacity with the county’s proposed wastewater plant, he said, will fill in a key gap in the plan, enabling the development of more industrial park land.

    “We’ve bought about 700 acres, and we are in the process of rough-grading pads, preparing sites so that the next company that comes along can go vertical quickly without having to do a lot of site work. It takes a lot of risk and time out of the process for companies,” Davenport said. “We will most likely roll the money from the sale of the spec building into another spec building.”

    The idea, Davenport said, is to attract employers to the county who hire well-paid workers, such as skilled machine operators, and also bring money into the county with the revenue generated by the business, its suppliers and any further development that may spring up around it.

    This method of economic development has been used for years, and some states and localities have had better luck with it than others.

    South Carolina has seen a streak of major wins in recent years. Davenport said Fairfield County is uniquely positioned in the Midlands to attract the kind of major manufacturers that have come to the upper and lower parts of the state.

    He runs through a lot of employment and population numbers, with a clear conclusion: This part of the state still has an untapped workforce, and Fairfield is home to the mega-site.

    The mega-site consists of 1200+ acres bought by the state, and Davenport said the hope is that an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), such as an auto maker, will locate here. Ideally, he’d like to see Fairfield County become home to a manufacturer of high-tech vehicle technologies, such as electric or self-driving cars.

    “An OEM is not going to Greenville, and it’s not going to go down to Charleston,” he said. “The only place left that has population is the Midlands.”

    The state helped with the land purchase, and the county is getting it ready for the hoped-for manufacturer. Regional economic development groups are marketing it alongside other industrial properties in the area, which could be used by suppliers.

    South Carolina Secretary of Commerce Bobby Hitt, in an emailed statement, touted the state’s partnership with localities like Fairfield.

    “South Carolina is committed to advancing our business-friendly environment and team-first approach to economic development. Our work with partners like Fairfield County is critical to recruiting new business and supporting the growth of existing industry,” Hitt said.

     “This week’s announcement that Oldcastle APG will be establishing operations in Fairfield County, bringing a $25 million investment and approximately 100 jobs, reinforces the impact of our pro-business climate and team effort,” Hitt said. “We look forward to continuing to work together to create more opportunities in Fairfield County and in all corners of our state.”

    With major industries, the state also sometimes gets involved with incentive packages. For example, while the county can offer agreements that reduce business taxes for major industries – particularly those that drive development around them – the state can offer grants for infrastructure.

    Davenport said the system is working for Fairfield – and, with the proposed wastewater treatment plant, he predicts big success going forward as the region competes, as other parts of South Carolina have, for major manufacturers.

    “I think it’s going to work… I believe we’re in the growth path,” he said.

    “Everybody knows that Charlotte’s getting closer to Columbia and Columbia’s getting closer to Charlotte,” he said, pointing to Rock Hill as the kind of development outside Charlotte that could be repeated – on smaller scale – in Fairfield County in relation to Columbia.

    “In Rock Hill or in York County they don’t have to do product development anymore because private developers will come in, buy land and build a spec building. When you get to that point, you know you’ve made it,” he said. “That, I believe, is where Fairfield is going.”

  • Blythewood woman killed in crash

    COLUMBIA – A Blythewood woman died in an early morning crash in Columbia on Monday.

    The accident occurred at the intersection of Leesburg Road and Fontana Drive.

    Shirley Cornelius died after being taken to Prisma Hospital, according to Coroner Gary Watts.

    The 51-year-old Blythewood resident’s cause of death was blunt chest trauma, Watts said.

    The crash occurred at the intersection of Leesburg Road and Fontana Drive, near the junction with U.S. 378 and I-77.

    Information on what caused the crash, or if any other vehicles were involved, has not been made available. 

    The crash is being investigated by the Columbia Police Department. More information will be released when it is available.

  • Motorcyclist dies after from injuries in Hwy 321 crash

    UPDATE: Fairfield County Coroner Chris Hill has released the name of the motorcyclist who was fatally injured on Saturday on Highway 321 S in Winnsboro.

    Hill says Paul Bryan Simmons II of West Columbia was traveling South along with another rider when they struck a vehicle that was exiting the local recycling center. Mr. Simmons was ejected from his motorcycle and was pronounced deceased on the scene. The other rider was transported to Lexington Medical Center for nonlife threatening injuries.

    This accident is under the investigation of the Fairfield County Coroner’s Office and the South Carolina Highway Patrol.

    WINNSBORO – A motorcyclist died and another motorcyclist sustained injuries in a crash involving a 2014 Nissan on U.S. Hwy 321 Saturday morning.

    The crash occurred about 11:35 a.m. near S.C. Hwy 34, when the driver of a 1996 Kawasaki was southbound on Hwy 321 and hit the driver’s side of a 2014 Nisan attempting to turn left from a private driveway onto Hwy 321. The driver of the Kawasaki was ejecting.

    The driver of a 2005 Kawasaki motorcycle, seeing the first collision, laid 2005 motorcycle down in an effort to avoid hitting the Nissan.

    The driver and passenger in the Nissan were both wearing seatbelts and sustained no injuries. The driver of the 1996 Kawasaki sustained injuries and was transported to Lexington Medical Center where he later died.

    The driver of the 2005 Kawasaki also sustained injuries and was taken to Lexington Medical Center.

    Neither motorcyclist was wearing a helmet.

    The identity of the deceased motorcyclist will be released by the Fairfield County Coroner. The crash is being investigated by the S.C. Highway Patrol.

    This story was updated October 12, 2020 at 11:12 a.m.

  • CT-scan COVID test available at PH-Fairfield

    WINNSBORO – The Fairfield Covid-19 Taskforce is offering a CT scan for initial diagnosis of COVID with results provided to prescribing physicians within 24 hours. Protocols include any symptom of COVID and selected high risk individuals.

    CT-scans are recommended by the World Health Organization when PCR (sometimes known as the ‘nose swab’ testing) tests are delayed. Not only are results available rapidly it also has been reported to provide only 5% false negative rates, compared to 20% – 30% for RT-PCR.

    Slots are available now from 5-9 a.m. and 9-11 p.m., Monday thru Friday. Patients are encouraged to ask their physicians if this is the best test for them. To schedule CT testing, physicians should fax patient orders to Providence Health Centralized scheduling department at 803-256-5816.

  • Fairfield citizens to benefit from paramedicine program

    FAIRFIELD – Residents in Fairfield County will soon be able to receive health assessments and non-emergency medical care at home from specially trained paramedics, rather than traveling to a distant emergency department, thanks to a community paramedicine (CP) initiative of the South Carolina Office of Rural Health (SCORH). Lee and Calhoun counties will also be included in the program.

    Community paramedicine is a healthcare model that allows paramedics go out into the community on routine appointments to assess and treat patients in their homes under doctors’ orders. Paramedics go through extensive training beyond their paramedic certification to receive a CP endorsement.

    Fairfield was selected for this training because it is one of eight counties in South Carolina that do not have a hospital within their counties.

    SCORH was awarded the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program – Emergency Medical Services (Flex-EMS) Supplement in 2019 to help EMS providers in rural counties develop a CP program. This was a competitive cooperative agreement through the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) in the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). SCORH is one of only six grant recipients nationwide.

    The Flex-EMS Supplement will also allow SCORH to develop two other innovative models of care that will allow rural EMTs greater flexibility when responding to a 911 call – Alternative Destinaton and Treat-No-Transport or Telehealth.

    Alternative Destination will allow ambulances to transport patients to a more appropriate care facility (such as a primary care office) when transportation to an emergency room isn’t warranted.

    Treat-No-Transport or Telehealth will allow EMTs to provide onsite triage and treatment to patients through telehealth with a physician when transportation to an emergency room isn’t warranted.

    “Emergency Medical Services (EMS) provide transportation and life-saving care to patients during their times of most dire need,” said Sarah Craig, director of health system innovation for SCORH. “But transportation to an emergency department in a neighboring county when it is not medically necessary puts a tremendous strain on our rural EMS providers. The community paramedicine model will provide faster and more appropriate care.”

    Through the Flex-EMS Supplement, SCORH aims to advance community paramedicine efforts already established in the state. By the end of 2022, SCORH hopes to have these innovative models of care approved by the state for use by any qualified EMS agency.

    “By providing EMS agencies the ability to sustainably treat patients in the location most appropriate for the patient’s needs, it will create a more efficient and responsive healthcare delivery system,” Craig said.

    With 27 percent of the state’s residents living in rural areas, SCORH believes in preserving the unique character of rural communities without compromising their opportunities and access to critical services.

  • Council fields penny tax questions on virtual town hall webinar

    WINNSBORO – An important local question is on the ballot this year in Fairfield County: a proposed penny sales tax, earmarked to fund a much-needed wastewater treatment plant.

    If it’s not approved, county officials say, that will mean other, typically less popular, sources of revenue will have to be used to fund the plant – for example, a property tax increase, a sewer rate increase, and potentially cuts in services like public safety.

    The county has purchased the land and is moving forward with the project. It’s up to the voters in Fairfield County to decide whether to impose the new sales tax or use one or more of the other funding sources instead.

    County officials held an information meeting Tuesday evening to answer questions about the wastewater treatment plant project and the penny tax question on the Nov. 3 ballot. They answered questions from the public during the virtual town hall meeting, which was held via Zoom.

    “The wastewater treatment plant is a need, not a want,” Fairfield County Economic Development Director Ty Daven port said, explaining that Fairfield County is nearly at capacity with its current wastewater treatment capabilities, making further development in the county a near impossibility without adding more capacity.

    Part of understanding the current plan for adding sewer capacity means recognizing how much has changed since the failed nuclear plant project – once viewed as an economic savior for the revenue infusion it was expected to provide – fell apart.

    In some ways, it means a different future than was anticipated five years ago, when the previous county council and administrator put together a 50-year plan.

    “When you do things, you have to do them in the context of your times, and at that time I think they were confident that the nuclear plant would be built, and that they would have enough money to essentially put in the lines and hook to Richland County or Columbia,” Fairfield County Administrator Jason Taylor said in response to a question about the county’s departure from that plan.

    “It was not going to be that we would have a [wastewater treatment] system here in Fairfield County,” he said.

    But in the current reality, Taylor said, not only would the county lose autonomy by being dependent on Columbia’s wastewater systems, but the fees and costs involved would be too high. Without a new infusion of nuclear plant revenue to fund its infrastructure needs, the county has had to come up with a new plan.

    Finding a good site for a wastewater treatment plant was a challenge, county officials have said. But after an extensive site search and negotiations with the landowner, Fairfield officials settled on the site that they just purchased, which is located on Cedar Creek near Interstate 77’s Exit 32.

    It had to be located on a stream large enough to discharge the treated wastewater, and also close to industrial development areas.

    Pumping it to the Broad River would cost more than double the current plan, Davenport said, in response to a viewer’s question about the options considered for the project. Also, neighboring Richland County took a position against Fairfield’s proposed plant.

    “The reasoning they gave was that Richland County currently operates a wastewater treatment plant on the Broad River that has been allocated a certain amount of discharge. And I guess pollutants in the discharge… are at their max,” Davenport said.

    “And if we’re allowed to discharge into the Broad River, then they’ll have to spend more money, basically, to reduce the amount of pollution that they’re putting into the Broad. So, it affects their budget.”

    Bill Bingham, owner of American Consulting Engineers, the engineering firm hired by the county, talked through some of the details of Fairfield’s new plant.

    “The current proposal, as it stands right now, is for a membrane bioreactor wastewater treatment facility. What this means is basically that it is a tertiary, which is the highest level of treatment we have in wastewater. It basically meets a Class I reliability standard, which means you have full redundancy so that if one component goes bad, there’s another component to take its place,” Bingham said.

    “MBR technology is basically a very fine filter… This is a biological plant, which removes the waste using special bugs to eat the waste, but then you’ve got to filter those out, and the membranes provide the filter, and what results is a water that is near drinking water quality.”

    He said the plant will also come with an odor control system so that it does not emit an odor to surrounding areas.

    In response to a question about the potential for contamination of Cedar Creek, Bingham’s brother Bill, also with the company, made a familiar comparison: “Much like you have a nuclear plant here in Fairfield County and that nuclear plant has redundancy, that means there are multiple systems. If one fails… there’s backups to backups.”

    In response to a question about current infrastructure, Taylor said the construction of this new plant will free up capacity in the existing system, allowing for expansion in the town of Winnsboro using current wastewater capacity – and touted the importance of local partnerships.

    In addition to the town of Winnsboro, the county also has partnerships with the town of Blythewood, which is considering purchasing 60 acres of the site to build a sports complex on land adjacent to the sewer plant site, and the state, which has helped with the purchase of a mega-site for future industrial development and is helping with the sewer plant project as well.

    County officials’ overall vision for the site goes beyond adding sewer capacity for current needs and is focused on the big-picture economic development of Fairfield County.

    In addition to the mega-site, county officials also hope to see commercial and industrial development take off around Exit 32 with the addition of new wastewater capacity.

    “We have ample natural gas, we have ample electricity, we have great highway access off of I-77, we’re close to an international airport and we’ve got a large labor pool to pull from,” Davenport said. “So, we are in a good – a great position, really. We just do not have the sewer capacity to maximize our potential.”

    The county has done well with industrial announcements in recent months, Davenport said, and a big announcement was made this week Oldcastle APG is coming to Fairfield County and will make use of some of the remaining capacity.

    “If we do not add capacity and we have one medium-sized industrial user come online, we will have no more capacity left and we will be in a moratorium situation, will be shut down as far as our recruitment of new industry, as well as our existing companies – they won’t be able to expand,” he said. “It is a critical situation, a critical need we have. We really do have to move forward.”

    But his hope is that the project, which has a construction timeline of 24 to 30 months, will do more for Fairfield County than just meet immediate development needs; his hope is that it will facilitate the kind of development that reverses a 50-year trend of population loss by providing opportunity for the county’s young people.

    “We purchased a 1,200-acre mega-site located on I-77,” Davenport said. “We need to allocate between 500,000 and a million gallons per day for that site so we can be successful in recruiting a larger employer. It will possibly be a large facility that is going to be kind of a game-changer for the county, and it’s critical that we keep moving forward.”

    In the big picture, he said, while building wastewater infrastructure comes with a price tag now, the private industrial and commercial development that this investment makes possible will generate not only enough revenue to cover the cost of infrastructure, but to potentially reduce property taxes and increase services throughout the county.

    The penny sales tax is a common means of funding capital projects in South Carolina and is used by 43 of the 46 counties in the state, including Richland, Davenport said. Some basic necessities, including food and medicine, are exempt from the tax.

    “The good thing about the Penny sales tax is that it does not single out property owners, it is an alternative to property tax,” Taylor said. “It has the added benefit [that] non-residents – not just residents – and visitors would also pay.”

    Also, the revenue from the tax is tied to a specific project – in this case a sewer plant and its associated infrastructure – and cannot be used for anything else. So, if voters decide to impose the tax Nov. 3, they will be designating the money for this project only.

    Asked about the impact of the tax on the average person, Taylor summed it up this way: “Basically, if you spend $1,000, you’re going to spend $1,010. It’ll impact you $10. And again, it will impact those outside of the county who spend money here, and in that respect it’ll be transferred in.”

  • Blythewood schools benefit from $1M grant

    COLUMBIA – Six Blythewood elementary and middle schools will benefit from a $1 million grant Richland School District Two recently received from the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).

    The Whole Child Initiative grant will provide college and career ready resources necessary to successfully build and/or expand the district’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programing, according a statement released by the district office last week. 

    Bethel-Hanberry, Langford Elementary, Round Top Elementary, Lake Carolina Elementary (Upper & Lower campuses), Blythewood Middle and Muller Road Middle are among 15 Richland Two schools and approximately 1,245 military-connected students who will be served by the grant over the next four-and-a-half years.

    The overall goal is to increase academic outcomes in math for elementary and middle school students.

    According to the Committee on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education of the National Science and Technology Council, it is critical to national security that students spark interest in critical and fast-growing careers in STEM. The committee concluded that the Pre-K thru 12 education system is poised to increase and sustain student engagement in STEM.

    The DoDEA awarded $22 million across 21 grants that will serve more than 100,000 students across 13 states.

  • Robinson answers McDaniels’ questions about penny tax

    • Annie McDaniel
    • Neil Robinson

    WINNSBORO – In a Facebook post, Rep. Annie McDaniel put the following questions to County government officials regarding the proposed penny tax/wastewater treatment plant. The Voice reached out to County Council Chairman Neil Robinson for answers. Those answers follow McDaniels’ questions.

    McDaniel:  Can this not wait until after the election?

    Robinson: No, the penny sales tax is on the ballot so it has to be discussed before the Nov. 3 election. The closing date for the wastewater treatment plant site is driving the timing.

    McDaniel: Where has the money been ’shuffled within Fairfield County’ (referencing a quote by Fairfield County Administrator Jason Taylor that appeared in The Voice’s 8-1-20 story about the wastewater treatment plant: “The way you grow a community is not just by shuffling money around inside the county or town, you need to bring in outside dollars.”)

    Robinson: This is a phrase used by Commerce to explain that outside private sector dollars need to come into the county for sustainable growth and success.

    McDaniel: Bond are issued, the penny is not raised during this pandemic. Will property taxes increase to pay the bond?

    Robinson: No, this will not raise property taxes.  The penny tax is proposed to avoid raising property taxes. The penny tax is an alternative funding source.

    McDaniel: Share the names of the members on this committee that proposed this project?

    Robinson: The purchase of the property was allocated in the 20-21 budget. The full council voted on the project. This was all reported in the newspaper at the time.

    McDaniel: I requested but have not received the details. Is it true that you do not share the details because the devil is in the details?

    Robinson: The council chairman invited Ms. McDaniel to two meetings, which she attended. The project was discussed at length at those two meetings. Ms. McDaniel was encouraged to ask any and all questions at this meeting. She requested the TY Lynn study be sent to her, which was provided.

    McDaniel: Why is this venture good for the county but the teacher village was not?

    Robinson: The county council supported the teacher village but the developer backed out. The developer by their own admission was not willing to take on the risk. The developer wanted the county to indemnify the project. By law, the county is not able to do this.

    McDaniel: Beautiful project, is the timing right?

    Robinson: Yes, although the best timing for this was 15 years ago. Following the crushing blow of SCE&G/Santee Cooper’s failure to complete the two new reactors which were planned to fund the wastewater infrastructure, the county had to alter its plans. We now have willing partners from the state, Blythewood and private developers for the project. We need to continue this growth that we’ve accomplished over the last two years. Without an expansion of sewer, we won’t be able to recruit more industry, create commercial opportunity, or create jobs and residential growth.

    McDaniel: Will you share which roads have been repaired with the $5 increase?

    Robinson: We’ll be happy to pull the records and share these details. 

    McDaniel: Venture between Blythewood and Fairfield. How many public hearings were held?

    Robinson: The partnership with Blythewood is just a proposal and still in the early process. We hosted an informational webinar meeting Oct. 6, and welcome public input.

    McDaniel: Why are we moving so quickly when we are still working on the new admin building?

    Robinson: It is common for counties to work on projects concurrently. As you are aware, we have been working on the wastewater treatment plan for about 3-1/2 years as we have, all along, worked on other projects. Previous county councils and administrators have addressed the need for expansion in wastewater treatment capacity. With current private and public partnerships available to us, the plan is now coming together.

    McDaniel: Please post all committee minutes, members, budget, total cost, and signed agreements.

    Robinson: These have and will be posted as they are finalized.

    McDaniel: Was there a penny increase a while back that is unaccounted for?

    Robinson: As was publicized, a local options sales tax was passed in 2006. By law, these funds are used to reduce homeowner’s property taxes.

    McDaniel: Finally, are we asking for forgiveness later since this project has not been properly vetted throughout the county and raise taxes now?

    Robinson: The penny sales tax will be used to pay for the wastewater treatment plant. The need for additional sewer capacity has been known, vetted, and properly researched over the last 10+ years. We are currently nearing sewer capacity. Without an expansion there will soon be no more growth which will limit job growth as well.

    McDaniel: Please share the timeliness and funding source.

    Robinson: I believe this has been spelled out in council and reported in the newspaper numerous times. The wastewater treatment plant is expected cost approximately $32M and be completed in 3 – 4 years. In addition to potential state funding contributing to the plant’s construction, we expect to pull $5M from county coffers, cover $8-10M with the passage of a new penny sales tax and cover the rest with revenue generated by end users.