Blythewood Online 691

Tag: winnsboro

  • Updated: Pedestrian Hit and Run Fatality

    WINNSBORO – The Fairfield County Coroner’s Office, along with the South Carolina Highway Patrol, are investigating a pedestrian fatality, which occurred on Hwy. 34, in Fairfield County at approximately 7 a.m., Dec. 12.

    Coroner Chris Hill states that Lamont Andre Jackson, age 40, of 410 Palmer Street in Winnsboro died from injuries received when he was struck by an oncoming vehicle.

    At this time the Coroner’s Office is seeking information on a 4-door Nissan, white in color with damage to the front end of the vehicle.

    The incident remains under investigation by the Fairfield County Coroner’s Office and South Carolina Highway Patrol.

    Troopers are asking anyone with information about the collision or about the vehicle of interest to contact the South Carolina Highway Patrol at (803) 896-9621 or 1-800-768-1501.

  • Weekend Earthquake in Winnsboro

    WINNSBORO – A small earthquake was recorded in Winnsboro Mills Saturday morning. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the 2.4 magnitude quake was recorded at 1:15 a.m.

    The weekend quake was the second in South Carolina in a week and the second in the Midlands this year. A 2.4 magnitude quake was recorded near Pageland on Thanksgiving night, and a 1.6 magnitude quake was recorded in Chapin in May 2017.

  • 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.”

     

  • 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.

     

  • 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!

  • Big Grab Gets Bigger

    Bargain Hunting Begins Friday

    BLYTHEWOOD/FAIRFIELD (Sept. 8, 2016) – With a name like “The Big Grab,” one would have to imagine the event has considerable scope. After all, the word “Big” is right there in the name of the event.

    But this weekend’s curbside crawl of yard sales might have been better dubbed “The Bigger Grab.”

    Shoppers at last year's Big Grab search for deals.
    Shoppers at last year’s Big Grab search for deals.

    The event that links Blythewood, Ridgeway and Winnsboro in a network of yard sales has grown and expanded this year to include more of Richland County and will run all the way to Newberry.

    “It started out at 25 miles as a way to bring people into our communities and to enjoy small towns again, as well as a way to help our citizens put a little money in their pockets,” Terry Vickers, President of the Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce, said. “Now we’re in our fifth year and it is up to 85 miles.”

    Vendors will be out trolling the roadsides from sunrise to sunset this Friday and Saturday along a route that beings at Exit 71 on I-20 and travels up Highway 21 into Blythewood and on to Ridgeway. From Ridgeway, shoppers can follow Highway 34 to Winnsboro, where sales will stretch along Highway 321 Business and the 321 Bypass, looping back to Highway 34 and running all the way to Exit 74 at I-26 near Newberry.

    The event was the brainchild of Ridgeway merchant Denise Jones, Vickers said, who saw the success of Ridgeway’s semi-annual sidewalk sales and envisioned a chain of similar sales running for miles along the open road. Since its inception, The Big Grab has not only drawn shoppers into local businesses, it has also drawn vendors from as far away as New Jersey, Vickers said.

    The event has also been a boon to local churches, who have capitalized on The Big Grab as a major annual fundraiser – not only selling their own wares, but also renting out prime selling space to vendors who otherwise would not have had a spot along the route. First United Methodist Church in Winnsboro has set the bar for other churches, raising approximately $5,000 last year.

    Vendors will begin trickling into the area soon, Vickers said, setting up Thursday evening so they will be ready for the first light of dawn on Friday. Shoppers will just have to stand by and wait until day breaks.

    “It’s exciting,” Vickers said. “My phone has been ringing off the hook!”