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  • Winnsboro Moves Forward on Sewer Project

    WINNSBORO (Sept. 28, 2016) – After two years of haggling, the Town of Winnsboro finally appears ready to move forward on their McCulley Creek sewer line project.

    Following executive session at their Sept. 20 meeting, Council voted to authorize John Fantry, the Town’s utilities attorney, to begin the process of obtaining rights of way on properties near the Town’s water treatment plant for the installation of the line.

    “The project is to put a sewer line in there through a CDBG (Community Development Block) grant,” Mayor Roger Gaddy said. “We’ve been going around and around with it to get all the land owners on board to get the temporary easement to their properties so we can get on there and work.”

    Town Manager Don Wood said the project, once completed, would increase the Town’s sewer capacity.

    Capital Expenditures

    Council also approved $15,510 for the Department of Public Safety to upgrade the department’s radios. By Dec. 31, according to the S.C. Budget and Control Board, all Palmetto 800 radios must be upgraded to the new P25 system.

    Council OK’d $8,584 for a pump overhaul for the wastewater treatment plant, while also approving lift station upgrades for the plant, not to exceed $25,000.

    The Gas, Water and Sewer Department will be getting two new trucks for its operations – a Chevrolet 2500 extended cab, four-wheel drive, and a Dodge 3500 crew cab four-wheel drive – for a total of $105,550. The trucks replace the department’s 1989 and 1990 Chevrolet 3500’s and its 1997 and 1998 Chevrolet 2500’s.

    The expenditures were forwarded to Council with a recommendation from the Town’s Finance Committee, which met earlier in the evening.

     

  • Phillips Granite Co. Enters New Era

    Grady Phillips with the last load of granite to leave his shop.
    Grady Phillips with the last load of granite to leave his shop.

    WINNSBORO (Sept. 16, 2016) – After 83 years in business, Phillips Granite Company has decided to partner with Gulden Monuments of York County. The granite company has been in the family for three generations and was the last monument manufacturer in South Carolina.

    “My grandfather moved here in 1933 and started his own granite business and saw it as an opportunity,” manager Grady Phillips said. “I learned (the business) from my father who engaged in the business all his life, and we worked side by side for three decades together.”

    Phillips said he has known the owners of Gulden Monuments for many years and has always thought highly of them.

    “Now it’s time to finish up the remaining manufacturing orders and move onto the next chapter,” Phillips said. “That’s just the economics in the way of business these days. I didn’t have a successor in my family that wanted to continue the business. Now the business will be able to continue after I retire, and hopefully after I die.”

    Phillips said this merger will have little outward change for the public, however. The business will stay in the same location and clients will still come to the office to place their orders. The only major change is that Phillips Granite will be working strictly in sales and services, not in manufacturing.

    “You’ll see the same two ladies at the front, and you’ll still see me there. I’ll still be a manager of the granite company,” Phillips said. “We are very blessed and I thank the Lord every day that we have been able to do this for 83 years. We’re still in business and we appreciate all the support from the community.”

     

  • Winnsboro Man Charged with Murder

    Cornelius L. Alston
    Cornelius L. Alston

    WINNSBORO (Sept. 14, 2016) – A Winnsboro man was arrested and charged with murder earlier this month after a domestic dispute spiraled out of control, leaving one man dead.

    The Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office said Cornelius Laderrick Alston, 39, was arrested on Sept. 3, not far from the home in the 1700 block of Smalls Chapel Road where 44-year-old Marvin Dejon Young lay dead, the victim of a stab wound.

    According to the incident report, Alston’s 15-year-old son told investigators that he and his father had been out all day and had returned to his mother’s home at 1726 Smalls Chapel Road at approximately 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 3. Once there, Alston and the juvenile’s mother got into a verbal argument that quickly escalated and became physical. The argument intensified, with both Alston and the juvenile’s mother going out into the front yard and flattening the tires on each other’s cars.

    The juvenile’s mother sprayed Alston in the face with a shot of pepper spray and eventually drew a pocket knife to force Alston to leave the home. Young, of 59 N. Wisteria Lane, soon became involved in the altercation and, according to the report, leapt onto the top of Alston’s car, shattering the windshield.

    Once back inside the house, Alston reportedly snuck up behind Young and stabbed him in the lower left side of his back. Fairfield County Coroner Barkley Ramsey, who pronounced Young dead at the scene, said Alston had used a large kitchen knife to stab Young through both lungs. The wound cut through Young’s aorta, Ramsey said, and Young rapidly bled out internally.

    According to the report, Alston’s son told investigators that after Young had been stabbed, the victim collapsed onto the floor. The juvenile placed a towel underneath Young and began chest compressions while the juvenile’s mother attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Alston fled the scene, the juvenile said, right after Young collapsed from the wound.

    Deputies arrived at the scene just after 6 p.m. As they turned onto Smalls Chapel Road, they spotted Alston sitting on top of his car at the end of the road, trying to flag the officers down. After securing the scene, and after investigators had arrived, deputies returned to the end of Smalls Chapel Road to find Alston still there waiting for them.

    Alston, of 470 A Pine St., was arrested and charged with murder. At press time he was still being held at the Fairfield County Detention Center.

     

  • Council Rethinks Poe Hire

    Hospital Negotiations Land in County’s Lap

    WINNSBORO (Sept. 15, 2016) – During Monday’s County Council meeting, County Administrator Jason Taylor called members’ attention to a request for action to engage the services of Parker Poe Consulting, LLC for assistance with legal matters relating to Fairfield Memorial Hospital. The issue had been sent forward to Council by the Administration and Finance Committee on Sept. 7.

    At that meeting, attended by Parker Poe attorney Ray Jones and Milton Pope who is on retainer to the County, Taylor reviewed with Committee members Marion Robinson and Carolyn Robinson (Mary Lynn Kinley was not present) the situation – that the hospital is looking to partner with someone who would come in and take over Fairfield Memorial’s services.

    “It appears that the hospital is leaning on us to work up and develop a contract with this third party partner,” Taylor said. “Initially, we had the concept that they were going to take the lead on this, but they asked us where we were in the process. In order for us to move forward, and even if we continue to work with the hospital, which obviously we have to do, I think we need to know what we expect for the millions of dollars the County may contribute toward this new plan.”

    Taylor said that since Council members are not health care experts, they might need to make sure they get this right, legally. He suggested that Council probably does need to hire someone to assist in the legal process.

    “There are things we think we know, but there are probably a lot of questions that we aren’t going to know to ask because, again, we are not experts in health care,” Taylor said.

    Turning to the County Association for guidance, Taylor said they advised looking at how this same kind of thing has unfolded in other areas – Barnwell being an example.

    “I talked to Pickens Williams in Barnwell about their situation,” Taylor said, “and I talked to several legal firms besides Parker Poe.”

    Marion Robinson (District 5) had questions.

    “I guess I’m a little confused. Why, all of a sudden, is this a County contract deal instead of a hospital contract deal,” Robinson asked.

    “I don’t know,” Carolyn Robinson (District 2) said. “It is just the perception of what came down and the information that was passed to us last week when we met. Regardless of what they’re (hospital) doing, we still have to be totally responsible for protecting the interest of the citizens and protecting their funds and going forward and doing the best we can.”

    The committee voted 2-0 to send the issue forward to Council for discussion.

    But a sticking point with some Council members is the fact that Parker Poe’s legal and consultation services will come to more than $25,000, above what is allowed to be approved by the Administrator. According to the County’s Procurement Code, any amount above $25,000 must be subject to sealed bid.

    When the item came up for discussion on Council’s agenda Monday evening, Taylor said new information had come to light. He suggested that before taking action to engage the services of Parker Poe, that Council discuss it further in executive session.

    While Council did not take a vote on the issue following executive session, Councilman Billy Smith (District 7) said after the meeting he was glad Council held off and discussed the issue further.

    “I do think we need to procure legal services in regard to the hospital and continuing to provide health care in Fairfield County,” Smith said. “And we need to go through proper procurement procedures in doing that.”

     

  • Questions Raised Over County-Pope Contract

    WINNSBORO (Sept. 15, 2016) – A contract signed by the County last June to retain former interim County Administrator J. Milton Pope as a consultant may have skipped a step on its way to execution, according to some members of County Council.

    According to the minutes from the May 23 meeting, Council came out of executive session and voted unanimously “to extend an agreement of retainer to Parker Poe Consulting, LLC for six months, pending approval of terms.”

    The motion was put forward by Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) and seconded by Dan Ruff (District 1).

    While Ruff said this week that he did not recall the exact details of the motion, Kinley initially told The Voice that it was her impression that once the terms had been hammered out, the contract would come back to Council for a final vote.

    But that did not happen.

    On June 3, Chairwoman Carolyn Robinson (District 2) signed the deal on behalf of the County.

    “Who was supposed to ‘approve the terms’ is my question,” Kinley said.

    Noting that more than three months have passed since the vote and that her memory was not entirely clear, Kinley later added that it was possible that the terms had in fact been approved by Council by the time the deal was signed.

    The memory of Councilman Billy Smith (District 7), meanwhile, is crystal clear.

    “The phrase ‘pending terms’ is not confusing,” Smith said this week. “It means we would be bringing those back to look at them and approve them. That’s why it was put in the minutes that way – we would send it (the contract) out to them (Pope and Parker Poe), we would look at the terms and see if they were amenable. My understanding was Council would look at those terms and approve them, revise them, negotiate them, send them back – whatever. We never did that.”

    Smith said it was approximately three weeks after the May 23 vote that he learned that the contract had been signed, sealed and delivered – without Council approving any ‘terms’.

    Councilman Kamau Marcharia also said he was under the impression that Council would have a final review of the terms before the County officially entered into the deal.

    “I think it should have been brought back,” Marcharia (District 4) said. “Somebody’s got to make a decision on something like that. ‘Approval of terms’ – by who?”

    The minutes do not answer that question, but Smith said Council has a track record of delegating responsibility when it should not be doing so.

    And while Kinley said Council should possibly revisit the matter, Smith said such a thing was not likely.

    “Maybe I’m just resigned to the point that Council has in the past had a Chair who was allowed to do whatever they wanted, unrestricted, without any oversight,” Smith said. “It’s not something I support, but at the end of the day, a Chair can only do as much as Council will allow them to do. This is just one of many different things where the Chair has gone beyond the scope of our bylaws.”

    Phone calls to Robinson were not returned at press time.

    The agreement between the County and Pope (doing business as Parker Poe Consulting, LLC) keeps the former interim Administrator on retainer for six months, terminating on Dec. 31. The County agrees to pay Pope $3,500 a month for, among other things, Pope to “monitor” legislation that may impact the County’s fee-in-lieu of taxes deal with the SCANA Corp., as well as to assist in the “transition process” of new County Administrator Jason Taylor.

    Pope will also, according to the contract, serve as “a resource to County Council regarding past County projects, policies and/or operational questions.”

    The addendum to the contract comprises a list of 38 County projects for which Pope will make his services available, including an Animal Control ordinance, economic development plan/implementation, recreation and public safety projects, the budget process and phase two of Commerce Park. The list also includes Courthouse relocation, the hospital, the County’s proposed commerce mega-site in Ridgeway and water and sewer issues.

    The deal went into effect on July 1.

     

  • Confusion Reigns Over Rezoning

    Council Tables Request, Seeks Legal Advice

    RIDGEWAY (Sept. 15, 2016) – Confusion over Ridgeway’s zoning ordinance continued to plague Town Council last week as a motion on second reading to amend that ordinance to rezone .82 acres at the fork of highways 21 and 34 failed to carry. Instead, Council opted to table the amendment and consult an attorney.

    “Our citizens feel like we don’t know what we’re doing up here,” Councilman Donald Prioleau said after the vote on second reading fell 1-3. Councilman Heath Cookendorfer was the only affirmative vote at the Sept. 8 meeting.

    Prioleau was one of three Council members to vote in favor of first reading of the zoning ordinance amendment during Council’s Aug. 11 meeting. That vote stirred controversy in the face of a petition in opposition to the zoning change, presented to Council prior to the Aug. 11 meeting.

    That petition, according to Councilwoman Angela Harrison, represents an official protest, in light of which a three-fourths vote of Council is required to pass a zoning change. While the S.C. Municipal Association last month told The Voice that three-fourths of a five-member council is four, during the Aug. 11 meeting Council was unclear on the mathematics.

    Ridgeway business owner Russ Brown, a former Ridgeway resident and former member of Town Council, owns the lot in question and is seeking a zoning change from residential to commercial. Brown, who has plans to construct a small office building on the lot, told Council last month that any protest of his request should have come before the Planning and Zoning Commission at their July 12 public hearing on the matter. The Commission voted to recommend Brown’s request on a 5-2 vote.

    And while Sara Robertson, a nearby resident, presented Council with the petition – which she said included the signatures of 50 people opposed to the zoning change – before the Aug. 11 meeting, an official letter of protest was not submitted to the Town until Aug. 12, a day after first reading passed on a 3-2 vote.

    As Council began discussion last week prior to second reading, Harrison again cited the protest rule requiring a three-fourths vote.

    “The protest rule is for the Planning and Zoning Committee to hear,” Cookendorfer said. “It’s not for the Council. The Council does not have a hearing. At this point and time, if there’s still any question of legality or illegality, anyone who opposes it and is on the letter of protest, can at this point and time seek legal advisement and file a case with the civil court.”

    Harrison disagreed and said that the protest was of a decision that Council was making.

    In a memo to Council reviewing the process, Zoning Administrator Patty Cronin-Cookendorfer wrote that the Planning and Zoning Commission had correctly followed the Town’s ordinance. Furthermore, she wrote, any protest can only be made by owners of lots “contiguous to the area in question,” according to the Town’s ordinance. Brown’s property, she noted, has only one contiguous lot “according to the legal definition.”

    That lot is owned by Robert Johnson, a signatory of the protest.

    Cronin-Cookendorfer also wrote in her memo that, after discussing the matter with the County Zoning Administrator, a three-fourths vote on a five-member council is three.

    “You’re telling me three-fourths of five is three and the Municipal Association says it’s four,” Harrison said during the Sept. 8 discussion. “And we’re not listening to our citizens at all. I don’t want to debate this issue. I think it’s fair to our constituency that we at least get legal advice and table it until we get advice.”

    After second reading failed, Council agreed to authorize Mayor Charlene Herring to consult Danny Crowe, an attorney she said was recommended to her by the Municipal Association.

    “I’m for that (seeking legal advice),” Prioleau said. “Before, I voted for it. The decision I made, I don’t think was wrong. I’m for rezoning, but I don’t want our citizens to feel like we’re not doing our job.”

    Herring said she was not sure how much an attorney would cost the Town to review and interpret its own laws.

    “Our citizens will pay for it,” Prioleau said.

     

  • IGA Robbed at Gunpoint

    BLYTHEWOOD (Sept. 15, 2016) – A man armed with a handgun held up the IGA grocery store at 135-B Blythewood Road Sunday night, making away with an undisclosed amount of cash.

    According to an incident report from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, the suspect, described as a black male in his late 30s to early 40s, approximately 5-feet-8, 235 pounds, approached the manager and an employee just outside the store at 9:39 p.m. The suspect ordered the two back inside the store where he ordered a cashier to hand over her cell phone. The suspect then ordered the manager and employees at gunpoint into the office behind the customer service desk, where he demanded that the manager open the safe.

    The suspect cleaned out the safe, stuffing cash into a bag provided by the manager, and ordered everyone to lay on the floor. The suspect then fled the scene on foot. According to the report, it is suspected that the suspect was picked up nearby by an unknown vehicle.

    The Voice asked the Sheriff’s Department for details on the amount of money stolen from the IGA, but were told by Lt. Curtis Wilson, “We don’t release the amount.”

     

  • The Big Grab Map

    big-grab-double-truck-sept-8

    Check out the map to see where all of your favorite businesses will be located for the big event!

  • Council OK’s Utilities Bond

    WINNSBORO (Sept. 8, 2016) – Town Council gave final reading Tuesday night on an ordinance that will allow the Town to borrow up to $6 million to make improvements to their utility system.

    According to the ordinance, the funds will provide for the rehabilitation of Winnsboro’s wastewater treatment plant and related sewer improvements; construction, replacement and rehabilitation of electric distribution lines and substation breakers; and construction and extension of natural gas lines and “cathodic improvements.”

    “Cathodic improvements,” Town Manager Don Wood explained after a meeting last month, essentially means the grounding of natural gas lines to prevent electrical discharges into the lines. The replacement of some of the Town’s power lines, Wood said, was necessary because some of those lines are undersized by modern standards.

    “They were OK when we put them (the lines) in,” Wood said last month, “but we have more people on the system now and people use more electricity now.”

    “Most small towns our size, their infrastructure – water, sewer – most of the stuff under the ground has been there for quite some time, for years we’ve been doing a lot of patchwork,” Gaddy told colleagues at last June’s intergovernmental meeting. “Hopefully (with the bond) we can do larger stretches of infrastructure and get it to where it’s up to snuff and we don’t have as much problems with it – not that we’re always putting out fires, but as everything else, including me, its aging and wearing out.”

    The infrastructure improvements come ahead of the Town’s other major project – running a raw water line from the Broad River to the reservoir. That project, which is estimated to cost approximately $13 million, is expected to bring between 8 and 10 million gallons of water a day into Winnsboro’s system.

    Margaret Pope, of the Pope Zeigler Law Firm, said one of the objectives of taking on the $6 million debt before tackling the Broad River line project was to get a better rating from the State Revolving Fund (SRF) when it came time to borrow the $13 million.

    “If we get a good rating, then it will help us demonstrably on how much money the SRF requires,” Pope said.

    Typically, Pope said, the Fund requires a borrower to deposit one year’s worth of debt service into a reserve fund.

    “It has to sit there. It’s a rainy day fund in case you can’t pay,” Pope said. “We have convinced (the SRF) that if we get a good enough rating to waive that. That’s a huge savings. This (the Broad River project) is the big issue, so we kind of strategized that.”

    Capital Expenditures

    Council also gave the OK Tuesday to a total of $5,600 in capital expenditures for the Water Department. That total will cover a nitrate/TDS field monitor ($3,800), which Wood said would monitor the breakdown monochloramine in the water system; a computer for the wastewater lab ($1,400); and a leaf blower ($400) for cleaning grounds along pump stations.

     

  • Shell Building Becoming Reality

    After reworking the original concept and a project re-bid, ground was finally broken last week on Blythewood’s shell building. Digging in at Doko Meadows last Wednesday are: Larry Griffin, Town Councilman; Ed Parler, Economic Development Consultant; Bill Hart, CEO Fairfield Electric Cooperative; Blythewood Mayor J. Michael Ross; Town Councilmen Eddie Baughman and Malcolm Gordge and Kevin Key, Lyn/Rich Contracting Co., Inc. (Photo/Barbara Ball)
    After reworking the original concept and a project re-bid, ground was finally broken last week on Blythewood’s shell building. Digging in at Doko Meadows last Wednesday are: Larry Griffin, Town Councilman; Ed Parler, Economic Development Consultant; Bill Hart, CEO Fairfield Electric Cooperative; Blythewood Mayor J. Michael Ross; Town Councilmen Eddie Baughman and Malcolm Gordge and Kevin Key, Lyn/Rich Contracting Co., Inc. (Photo/Barbara Ball)

    BLYTHEWOOD (Sept. 8, 2016) – After several stops and starts and adjustments to the overall plan, Blythewood’s spec building on the grounds of Doko Meadows Park is at last on its way to becoming a reality.

    “It’s for real this time,” Ed Parler, the Town’s Economic Development consultant, told The Voice last week, just days after a ground-breaking ceremony at the site. “We’ve awarded the contract, and construction should begin in the next seven to 10 days.”

    The Town announced the winning bid on the project last month after Lyn-Rich Contracting Co., Inc. of West Columbia submitted a base bid of $379,850. With options, which Town Council voted to accept, the Lyn-Rich bid came to $388,100. Those options include walkways and special fire protection equipment.

    The August bids were the second round of bids on the project. Council put the construction out for bid a second time after bids opened last June came in ranging from $524,000 to $761,455 – all well over the $410,000 budget for the project.

    The June bids forced Council and architect Ralph Walden to rethink the scope of the spec building.

    “We had the specs beyond a shell,” Walden said in July, “and that proved to be the wrong direction. We had wiring, 800 amps for a kitchen, HVAC and a slab. The plan was to give the end-user a little more for his money.”

    Specifications for the second round of bids included only rough plumbing and eliminated the HVAC unit. Also eliminated were interior doors and ceiling tiles, connection to water and sewer and all walkways. Finished siding was substituted for primed siding and paint. Specifications were changed for deck and rail materials, windows, doors and shingles.

    The spec – or “shell” – building is itself a scaled-down version of a plan three years ago for the Town to build a restaurant in the park, utilizing grant money from the Fairfield Electric Co-Op and a $1 million loan from Santee Cooper. That plan called for the Town to construct a restaurant and lease the facility out. But a newly elected Town Council balked at that idea.

    “The new Council had questions about the Town being in the restaurant business and carrying all that debt,” Parler said. “So we scaled down the project. Rather than doing a fully fitted out building, we would construct a shell. Hopefully, by the first of the year we will be able to sell it and have the owner finish it out.”

    And while there are certain restrictions on what kind of business could set up shop in a building located in a publicly owned park, Parler said the likelihood is high that it would be a restaurant after all. The building could also serve as an office building, Parler said.

    Fairfield Electric Co-Op has been instrumental in making the shell building a reality, Parler said. A 2013 economic development grant from the Co-Op netted the Town $240,714, and a year later the Co-Op pitched in another $216,167, for a total of $456,881, Parler said.

    Last month, Town Administrator Gary Parker told Council that the Town still holds $325,916 of the original $456,881 utility grant from Fairfield Electric Co-Op. The balance of the costs of the shell building, Parker said, can probably be taken from Hospitality Tax revenue.

    Parler said the Town’s intent is to recover those funds with the sale of the shell building.

    Construction is slated to begin any day now, Parler said, and should be wrapped up in approximately 150 days. The Town will begin marketing the building for sale in November.