RIDGEWAY – Town Council will will hold a public hearing and take a final vote Thursday night to amend the budget for the 2017-2018 fiscal year by 30.46 percent.
The Town’s current revenue will be amended from $744,200 to $970,900. However, the difference of $226,700 is not newly generated revenue, administrative consultant David Hudspeth told The Voice on Tuesday.
“This money is currently in the Town’s bank account, but not allocated in the budget,” Hudspeth said. The transfer was necessary, he said, to put it into the Town’s budget so it could be used.
Much of this additional revenue comes from the Town’s savings account. At the Dec. 14 meeting, Hudspeth recommended cashing in the Town’s CD’s and moving the proceeds into the general fund.
While Ridgeway Town Council voted 3-1 last month to purchase the Cotton Yard for $73,000 +, Councilman Donald Prioleau told The Voice afterward that, had he been present for the vote, he would have joined Councilman Heath Cookendorfer in voting against the purchase.
Prioleau said because of a prior commitment he had to leave the meeting before the executive session and had not thought the issue would come up for a vote that night since it was only on the agenda for executive session.
“I don’t think we need to be spending that kind of money right now,” Prioleau said. “And when we spend that kind of money, we need to give the public better notice. I understand that there has since been talk that the Pig on the Ridge steering committee is all for this and is considering throwing a lot of money into it, but that’s not exactly correct,” Prioleau said. “We said we would be interested in helping out on a depot-style building with an outdoor platform and maybe room inside for community gatherings, but the library thing came up much later. The only sketch I’ve seen of a library is not a depot-style building. And I am not interested in that,” Prioleau said.
“I also want to weigh in on the library location,” Prioleau added. “I’m all for a new library but as much as we need merchant space downtown and as congested as Palmer Street already is, we need to think about moving the library next to the park and ball field. A lot of children use the library and that would be a better location, near the park and it would not take up merchant shopping and parking space.”
Another member of the POR steering committee, Tom Connor, agreed that the park would probably be a better location for the library.
“I think the steering committee is most interested in a depot style building and also we would like to see a nice clock built in the downtown, in the Cotton Yard area,” Connor said.
The next Town Council meeting is set for Thursday, Jan. 11.
RIDGEWAY – Following executive session at the Dec. 14, 2017, Town Council meeting, Ridgeway Council voted 3-1 to purchase the Cotton Yard property from Norfolk Southern Railroad for the contracted price of $73,000. However, that price does not include surveying, attorneys’ fees and other fees that could bring the total cost of the property closer to $90,000, a source with knowledge of the transaction told The Voice.
Councilman Cookendorfer voted against the purchase, and Councilman Donald Prioleau left the meeting prior to the vote. Mayor Charlene Herring, Councilwoman Angela Harrison and Councilman Doug Porter voted for the purchase.
The approximately 1/2 acre Cotton Yard lies just off Palmer Street and between Olde Town Hall Restaurant & Pub and Ruff Street. | Graphic/Ashley Ghere
How the Town came to be staring down the barrel of a $73,000+ purchase price of a property that it had utilized for free for decades dates back to 2014, when then-Councilman Russ Brown and other council members accused Mayor Charlene Herring of officially contacting Norfolk-Southern about a company parking trucks on the lot without notifying Council. The lot is directly in front of her residence.
Rufus Jones, former mayor of Ridgeway and a political opponent of Herring told The Voice that he sometimes parks his sod truck on the lot.
Herring said she had received questions from members of the community about trucks parking on the lot. She did not identify those community members.
“But there were also citizens who were against contacting Norfolk-Southern, and Council members here were against contacting Norfolk-Southern,” Brown told Herring.
It was reported in the Dec. 19, 2014 issue of The Voice that Cookendorfer said that Council had, indeed, agreed to break off discussions with the railroad at a previous meeting.
Mayor Accused of Poking Giant
“We were done with it,” Cookendorfer said, accusing Herring of contacting Norfolk-Southern against council’s wishes.
“That’s what woke the sleeping giant to where we’re at today with basically [Norfolk-Southern’s] demand to take on [a] lease. That’s something we should have discussed as a council,” Cookendorfer said.
Herring countered that she made initial contact with Norfolk-Southern several months earlier after unnamed citizens came to her with concerns about cars for sale parked on the property as well as a truck on the lot.
“If citizens contacted you, under protocol you should have brought that to the council and council would say if we were going to contact Norfolk-Southern,” Councilman Donald Prioleau said.
Herring said that in the future, she would adhere to protocol, but followed that by asking, “As a right of a citizen or a mayor, why can’t you contact the railroad? This is in the heart of our town.”
“September [2014] it was brought up in this room we said ‘do not bother Norfolk-Southern anymore, because they will put up a fence’.” Brown said. “They’ve threatened to do it before, and they’ll still do it if you bother them. Don’t toy with the railroad.”
Herring said she told Council at the September meeting that she would be pursuing questions about leasing the property from the railroad and no one objected.
“In September you didn’t have the lease,” Brown said. “The lease was presented in October. But that had already got to the point where Norfolk-Southern sent a lease because there was communications back and forth.”
Herring said the Town had to have a copy of the proposed lease in order for the document to be reviewed by an attorney.
“Again, in the capacity of mayor, you went to an attorney without Council (knowing about it),” Brown said.
But Herring said she also informed Council that an attorney would be reviewing the lease, and no one had objected to that either.
Don’t Bother Norfolk-Southern
“But this conversation came from you, in the capacity of mayor, (talking) to Norfolk-Southern, which led to them providing a lease,” Brown said. “We, at every single meeting when Norfolk-Southern was brought up, we all said don’t bother Norfolk-Southern.”
Brown said the proposed lease had sat idle with the Town for a month. Then, during the October meeting, Council reviewed the document and opted to not move forward with the lease. The day after the meeting, Brown said, Herring contacted Norfolk-Southern via email.
“Telling them we were not going to pursue a lease,” she said.
“After we said not to communicate,” Brown said. “And then they sent their email back, basically giving the Town the ultimatum that if we do not lease the property, accept responsibility for the lot, accept liability for the property, then they will have the lot fenced off and the buildings removed.”
Herring said Norfolk-Southern is currently reviewing all of their properties, and eventually Ridgeway would have been forced into an official lease. Several buildings, including the world’s smallest police station and the fire station, had been constructed on the property without permission from the railroad, and Herring said it simply was not right for the Town to continue to use the property without the blessing of Norfolk-Southern.
“Eventually this would have happened,” Herring said. “And this came sooner because I did ask some questions. But eventually it would have happened.”
Herring said the railroad company needed an answer as to the Town’s choice of direction on the lease, and she was only doing the courteous thing by letting them know Ridgeway was not interested in signing a lease.
“Again, back to the form of government discussion we just had,” Brown said, “we’re not a strong mayor form of government, and as a council we chose to let it lie.”
Cookendorfer said it would have been preferable to let the railroad force the issue instead of the Town taking the lead.
“I think ya’ll are making the issue at the wrong point,” Herring said. “You made an issue about the form of government and I understand that, and I will tell you sometimes Charlene Herring errs because she is very compassionate about this town and wants to get things done. And I agree, we are a council and we will act as council. I think you’re pulling at straws now and you’re trying to blame (me) instead of doing the right thing. I’ve got the point and I think we need to move on. If you don’t want to sign the lease, don’t sign the lease.”
“You call it compassion, I call it total disregard for Council,” Brown said. “It’s not the end of the world that we’re going to have to lease the lot, but how it was handled…”
Herring reiterated her point that had she not received questions from citizens about the lot she never would have contacted Norfolk-Southern in the first place. But Brown once more pointed out that an entirely different group of citizens had urged the Town to keep mum on its use of the property. At that point, Roger Herring had heard as much as he could stand from his seat in the audience.
“The Rufus Joneses of the community!” Roger Herring, a former Council member and husband of the mayor, erupted. Brown told Roger he was speaking out of order, but Herring continued his defense of the mayor.
“You don’t do the community organization she does,” Roger Herring said, even as the mayor brought down the gavel. “You (Council) don’t do what you’ve already agreed to do!”
As the mayor attempted to restore order to the small Council chambers, Roger Herring stormed out, slamming the door of the Century House behind him.
“Now, do we need any further discussion on it?” the mayor asked.
“I just wanted to bring it up now,” Brown said, “so the people who are going to be paying for that insurance and paying for that lease when they pay their taxes and their water bills, they know where their money is going and why.”
From Lease to Purchase
Since 2014, the Town has paid Norfolk-Southern $1,000 annually for insurance and lease of the Cotton Yard. Recently, however, Council changed its position on the Cotton Yard. It hired an attorney last year to approach Norfolk Southern about purchasing the front portion of the Cotton Yard property where the police and fire stations are located.
The railroad company’s answer came in the form of an email on April 12, 2017, from a Norfolk representative to the Town’s attorney in the matter, Jim Meggs.
“Would the Town of Ridgeway be interested in purchasing the whole parcel shown on the attached [exhibit]? It is not in the best interest of Norfolk Southern to sell only the front of the parcel, losing the street frontage. We could agree to letting the whole parcel go for $35,000,” the representative wrote.
After considering the offer during executive session on April 13, 2017, Council voted in public session to go forward with the offer. However, while it was noted in the June, 2017 Council meeting that the town had allocated $40,000 for the railroad purchase, survey and legal fees, the sale has never materialized.
Purchase Price Jumps
The railroad company has now jumped the price to $73,000 and it is estimated that legal fees, surveying and other extras could increase the total cost of purchasing the property by another $15,000 – $20,000.
While Council has held numerous executive sessions on the purchase of the Cotton Yard, there has been no public comment about why the price has more than doubled.
Councilwoman Angela Harrison reported to The Voice in an email on Thursday that no further vote, ordinance or resolution is needed on the purchase, that the vote on Dec. 14 was the final vote. The next Council meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 11 at The Century House.
NOTE: This story includes excerpts from another story that appeared in a December, 2014 issue of The Voice.
RIDGEWAY – Upon the recommendation of the Town’s interim administrator David Hudspeth, Ridgeway Town Council passed first reading (3-1) last week to amendment the 2017-18 budget to transfer $500,000 from the General Fund to create a $300,000 Capital Expenditures Fund and transfer $200,000 to the Water Fund. Hudspeth’s recommended budget would also increase the Professional Services line item from $6,000 (for the auditor) to $26,000 to include the auditor’s fee plus funds for legal fees (over $4,500 so far for attorney’s advice regarding town hall dog) and Hudspeth’s professional fees ($16,000 for 30 days of work).
The amended budget was prompted after Council had spent more than $113,000 since June, 2017, from a capital improvements fund that did not exist. Councilman Heath Cookendorfer voted against the amendment and Councilman Don Prioleau left just before the vote and did not cast a vote. Mayor Charlene Herring and Council members Andrea Harrison and Doug Porter voted for the amendment.
Other recommended amendments to the budget include adding $100,000 to the budget for grant matches and designating $100,000 of the new $300,000 Capital Expenditures Fund for fiscal year 2017-18 for projects already considered. The remaining $200,000 in the Capital Expenditures Fund is designated by Hudspeth for “Future Capital Improvements” even though it is included in the FY 2017-18 budget.
Liquidate Town’s CDs
To accommodate these and other amendments to the budget, Hudspeth recommended liquidating all the Town’s CDs, about $409,000, as they become mature and transferring the resulting cash into the unrestricted General Fund which would be $294,600 as amended.
“I think the checking account balances are pretty low,” Hudspeth said. “Liquidating those CDs will allow you to put money in your checking account.”
Referring to the $300,000 Capital Expenditures Fund, Hudspeth said, “That’s what you can spend without worrying about payroll and other things you have to pay regularly. You want to have a healthy capital fund.”
In addition to liquidating the $409,000 in CDs, Hudspeth also suggested cashing in the $55,469 Pig on the Ridge CDs and putting the cash in a separate account. However, those funds would still be in the General Fund and could be spent for anything that comes out of the General Fund.
“I don’t agree with cashing in the CDs,” Cookendorfer told Hudspeth. “Once we cash them in, they’re gone. I would like to see the Pig on the Ridge funds actually restricted. Being in the General Fund, it can be borrowed if we run short on other things. I don’t like that. We need to quite buying shutters and some of those things and concentrate on some of the expensive things like the water tower and other things that we really have to move on.”
The final vote on the amended budget will be held at the January meeting, 6:30 p.m., Jan. 11 at the Century House.
Other Business
In other business, Council passed second and final reading on an ordinance to amend the Town’s Code of Ordinances to modify Section 5-1006, Observance of Truck Routes Required: Exceptions. Council also passed the first of two votes to lease the shop behind Old Town Hall Restaurant to the Barclay School for $250.
RIDGEWAY – One of Mayor Charlene Herring’s agenda items at last week’s Ridgeway Town Council meeting brought attention to Council’s new habit of earmarking or spending money (more than $113,000 since June) from a capital improvements fund that does not exist. Another such expenditure popped up last week.
Ridgeway, SC
“When we made our capital improvements list this year, Mr. Porter reminded us that the exterior of the teacherage needs painting,” Herring told Council members. But she said the painter said repairs must be made before he could paint.
The only bid for repair work on two porches came in at $5,675 which would include repairing and replacing the beadboard ceilings, repair doors, windows and trim and replace screen and lattice on both porches.
“We have the funds in capital Improvements…or whatever,” Herring assured Council, dismissing the fact that the town has no capital improvement fund. “So do we have a motion to approve this?”
“We talked last summer about holding back on expenses until we get our water system right,” Councilman Don Prioleau said. “Let’s get our finances in order, then think about something like this.”
“If you look at our budget, we have money for this,” Herring insisted.
As Prioleau tried to make his point, both the mayor and Councilman Doug Porter interrupted.
“We have the funds,” Herring insisted, “based on the (bank) account and on the consultant we brought in. We have more money than we thought we had.”
Councilman Heath Cookendorfer agreed with Prioleau.
“You’re talking about spending money on something that’s cosmetic,” Cookendorfer said, questioning whether the Town should fix up the exterior of the building without knowing how much it would cost to restore the interior.
“It’s like putting lipstick on a pig,” Cookendorfer said. He then guesstimated at the cost of the restoration.
“Ten years ago, we were told it would only cost $35,000 to restore the inside,” Porter said.
“Do you have a report saying that?” Cookendorfer asked.
“That’s what I’ve been told,”
Porter said.
At Prioleau’s suggestion, Council voted to table the item until more information could be gathered.
The current spending spree stems from the June, 2017 Council meeting when Herring brought in Larry Finney with Greenwood, Finney & Horton Certified Public Accountants to prepare the Town’s budget for fiscal year 2017-18. Finney OK’d taking the $400,000 that Ridgeway received from an insurance settlement and another $200,000 in savings from other sources and transferring $175,000 of the roughly $600,000 into the general fund and $200,000 of it into the utility fund for a rainy day. The slated projection, he said, would be $185,000 left in unrestricted funds. With $60,000 budgeted for Pig on the Ridge and the Arts Festival, that $185,000 would be trimmed down to $125,000 along with $104,000 in the utility fund. The total, $229,000 is what Finney said the Town would have available to spend, but he stipulated that those funds should be spent on one-time purchases.
While Finney conceded that would cause the Town to be in a much tighter financial condition, he suggested the Town could rebuild its savings by raising water and sewer rates as well as business license fees and millage rates. Those rates and fees were subsequently raised.
Since June, the Town’s financial reports document that, of the $229,000, Council has made more than $113,000 in purchases/earmarks, leaving a balance of $116,000 available to spend.
The purchases/earmarks since June include Town Hall painting ($4,700), Town Hall shutters ($3,150), railroad purchase/survey/legal fees ($40,000), legal services associated with removing Town Clerk’s dog from town hall ($6,022.91), security cameras ($6,900), maintenance building ($30,000), welcome center air and desk from H-Tax funds ($4,000), Christmas events from H-Tax funds ($2,000), Town Hall deck maintenance ($450) and part-time administrator David Hudspeth ($16,000 for 30 days of work).
“There are some things you’ve approved since you did the budget that were not included in the budget,” Hudspeth reminded Herring in addressing the above list. During the Nov. 9 Council meeting, Hudspeth suggested Council would need to amend the budget at the December meeting to reflect this spending.
