By Laura Lance

A Microphone Malfunction

A vigilant Aiken citizen brought something to my attention on July 5. Specifically, they said that the June 26, 2023 statement I made in the City Council meeting could not be heard in the video — nor was the customary meeting transcript provided with the video. As a result, the public statements that I and other citizens made in the June 26th meeting were like the proverbial trees that fall in the forest.

Meeting attendees had, of course, been told of the malfunction during the meeting. There was a narrower-than-usual range within the microphone that would catch a person’s voice. This prompted me to speak directly into the mike and to also project my voice, just like I used to do back in my theater days with the Aiken Community Playhouse, sans microphones. My voice, my statement in the June 26th meeting was clearly heard by the attendees in the back of the room, just not by home viewers of the City’s video.

My statement is published here for the record. Also provided here is the City of Aiken’s organizational chart, a copy of which I provided for the record during this same meeting.

June 26 Statement to City Council
By Laura Lance

In the June 12th meeting, I asked how the City intends to respond to the request made by the Aiken County Homeless Coalition in the May 22 work session. This organization asked for no money. Just for the City to amend the minimum square footage requirements to allow for the construction of tiny homes as part of a small, highly regulated, fenced village that would provide temporary shelter while these people receive the necessary services to get back on their feet. 

You have the raw materials necessary to make a decision. All that’s left is the political will do do the right thing. Cities across the country have seen enough success with these villages, when done correctly, that they went on to build more. Additional villages could be built in New Ellenton and Horse Creek Valley, but that doesn’t negate the need for such a resource for homeless people in Aiken. The ideal place is on the northside in walking distance of a grocery store and the the Clyburn Center for Primary Care. The land exists. What a tiny effort it would take on the part of the City and its partners in business to not only do the right thing, but to take it one step further and provide this hard-working organization the 2 acres of land they need to build this village. 

Next, I’d like to address pubic hearings. City Council has repeatedly been requested to hold public hearings on the Demo 200 program that has been demolishing houses in Aiken’s historic northside neightborhoods. You were asked by written letter on March 17th of this year. You were asked again on April 3rd in a published letter titled, “Mr. Mayor, Answer Our Letter.” You were asked again during a Demo 200 tour in early May. You were asked again in a May 22 City Council meeting. We’ve tried everything but carrier pigeon. Still no public hearing.

Mr. Bedenbaugh, I wrote you on June 21 and asked, “What procedures do citizens need to undertake to get a public hearing on the Farmers Market/Williamsburg Park development? Please advise.”

You answered:

“The public has opportunity to speak at City Council meetings during the ‘Nonagenda Items’ portion of the meeting.”

Since when are major redevelopment projects relegated to non-agenda status? Call me old fashioned, but the discussion on this $2 million parkway project and the larger project to follow is worthy of better than I can impart in 3 minutes. 

Today, we have before us yet another major redevelopment project drawn behind closed doors and which — until the very public destruction of 10 trees —  existed in near total secrecy; a project poised to transform what was a lovely, natural Aiken parkway into a costly, water-wasting, pesticide-intensive, light polluting, cookie-cutter, parkway that looks like something you could see in a thousand cities across the map. 

The failure of the City and the Aiken Municipal Development Commission to hold public hearings at key stages of this project potentially puts the City in defiance of municipal law.

What I am asking tonight, on behalf of the citizens of Aiken, is that a pause be put on further work on the Williamsburg Street project until it can be brought into clear compliance with municipal law and, importantly, public hearings can be held to true up the course of `this project. 

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