by H. B. Gianos
Montmorenci Farms, LLC
September 20, 2025

What’s at stake?

The City’s attempt to control and promote the future development of Historic Charleston Highway, Montmorenci and the Route 302 Equestrian and Agricultural Corridors through forced annexations and extension of their sewer utilities.

How are they attempting this?

In the summer of 2020, during the Covid panic and severely restricted attendance requirements at City Council meetings, a developer with property in the County located along Toolebeck Road, that happens to also lie within the City’s sewer district, applied for a City sewer connection. The developer had every right and expectation of remaining in the County. The developer did not request to be annexed into the City. The City agreed to a utility services agreement in August 2020 by adopting Resolution 081020C as a non-City, non-contiguous parcel.

What happened next?

City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh immediately went behind the developer’s back and negotiated a secret deal with Dominion Energy who owns property that touches the developer’s and is across the street from some City owned drainage land adjacent to Deodar Plantation.

The mission, to jump the City Limits clear across Toolebeck Road by buying a tiny strip of land, just 10 feet wide, that snakes its way through the Dominion Energy property to touch the developer’s parcel and take away his right to access the sewer line without a forced annexation into the City. (Figure 1)

Political extortion done without the developer’s knowledge. A confiscation of his property rights and sewer district rights, a theft of his money for City taxes, fees, and total City control of his site plan and development. The City pulled off this insidious plan just a month later, on September 14th, 2020, on a Covid restricted meeting night, when the Council unanimously passed Resolution 09142020D to purchase the 10 foot wide strip from Dominion Energy. Councilman Ed Giradeau stated on the record that evening before the vote, his desire to push the City’s boundaries eastward. (1)

Why did they do it this way?

The Council’s purchase of Satan’s Matchstick was done using a Resolution, not an Ordinance, which is often used by municipalities for buying property outside their limits that they plan to annex, and which Ordinance procedure is an absolute requirement under State Law to sell any properties they own.

A Resolution does not require a public notice, a public hearing, a public posting, and two public readings as an Ordinance does. It’s one and done. Resolutions are always buried at the end of their agenda under the subtitle of Permits and Requests. You can sneak a land purchase through this way without drawing attention to its intended purpose. That is how the City of Aiken is operated. Forced annexations by deceitfully creating contiguity and then withholding utilities. Followed immediately by new spot zoning and conceptual approval of incompatible site plans destroying long established County neighborhoods and districts. This City is in the business of purposely and deliberately manufacturing annexation sprawl that is destroying the County, its farmlands, its equestrian lands, its landscapes, individuals’ property values, rural lifestyles, neighborhoods, and our heritage. This is what your elected officials are doing with your money and your trust.

The Bottom Line.

The developer was the unknowing victim of this abuse of power. But, they were not its main goal. Its true purpose, as disclosed by Councilman Giradeau, was to create a beachhead on the County controlled Charleston Highway corridor located from the north side of Toolebeck Road to the southern edge of Charleston Highway, heading east towards Montmorenci, and the equestrian and agricultural belts. This 10 foot wide strip’s goal is to spark the development of all the farm fields heading east out of the City through a game of dominos, a property by property annexation allowing for the extension of the City’s sewer lines (Figure 2). That’s what the 10 foot strip is really all about. A Trojan horse, a seed of malicious intent, Satan‘s Matchstick. The fuse that will burn down historic Charleston Highway and turn it into Whiskey Road and the new Powder House Connector. By illustration, Satan’s Matchstick already touches three County parcels, Dominion Energy, Ring Power, and the developer’s.

So what is the Proposed Project’s Current Status?

On August 12th, 2025 The City Planning Commission voted down the developer’s application for annexation, a zone change to PR, and their highly flawed 157 home, small lot conceptual site plan. That’s right folks, the City Planning Commission voted to deny the application. It now goes to the politically elected City Council for their vote to override their own Planning Commission. So far, the application for a First Reading to Override the Planning Commission Denial and approve the project has been pulled from the August 25th, the September 8th, and the September 22nd City Council agendas for different reasons. Whether it returns to the Agenda in October is unclear at this moment.

Why would they want to Override their own Planning Commission?

Why is the City Council voting to override its own Planning Commission’s denial and ram this application through just before the upcoming November election when three Council Members are about to be replaced? Because folks, it’s not about the application’s lack of merits as determined at the Planning Commission’s Public Hearing, its incompatibility with its industrial surroundings (Figure 3), its noncompliance with the City’s Master Plan, or the new Safe Streets Initiative recently adopted in March of this year, or the City’s own planning requirements for the requested PR Zone, or the Public Record established at the Planning Commission Work Session and Public Hearing about the numerous and severe defects in the proposed Conceptual Site Plan, or the health and safety of the future buyers, or our health and safety for that matter.

In my opinion, it’s about one thing, and one thing only. Since the day that Stuart Bedenbaugh made the deal with Dominion Energy for Satan‘s Matchstick, it’s about annexing this 66-acre parcel at any cost. It’s about a wrong thinking mindset that functions by hurting your neighbor and surprise attacking them without their knowledge. It’s about causing a chain reaction of development all the way to Montmorenci and beyond. I believe the City Council’s override Ordinance is telling you that the application’s lack of compliance or merit doesn’t mean a thing to them, so long as it causes the annexation of that parcel and gives them a touch point to the farm next door. That’s what I think is really going on here……….the entire future of the Historic Charleston Highway Corridor and Eastern Aiken County is being determined by a 10 foot wide strip of dirt, opaquely conceived of and clandestinely obtained by your City Manager and City Council, Satan’s Matchstick.

What do we want?

We want the City to uphold its Planning Commission’s denial of the application. We also want them to acknowledge their wrongdoing, and political malfeasance in the creation and intent of Satan‘s Matchstick. We want them to make a Motion, and Resolve to immediately process an Ordinance to de-annex and divest of Satan‘s Matchstick back to Dominion Energy. This is a very simple process. It would restore the City’s boundary to the south side of Toolebeck Road, to where it was before this travesty of political abuse began. We all have a right to know what our government is doing with their land use decisions and how that decision will impact us.

H. B. Gianos
Montmorenci Farms, LLC

Update:

After speaking with several Council Members at the Work Session of August 25 about this highly troubled application, three right minded Council Members sought to find a solution that did not involve annexing it, or approving it.

The application was subsequently pulled from the September 8 agenda while discussions amongst myself, the developer, Council Members, and the City Manager occurred. A solution, fully supported by the developer, myself, three Council Members and the City Manager was proposed to sell Satan‘s Matchstick back to Dominion Energy and de-annex it. Dominion Energy verbally agreed to buy it back after discussions with the City Manager .

However, a group of four Council Members led by Ed Giradeau, along with Kay Brohl, Andrea Gregory, and Ed Wolz have opposed that solution and are demanding that the application be reinstated to the agenda for a First Reading to Override the Planning Commission’s Denial to annex the 66 acre parcel, change its zone to PR, and approve the defective conceptual site plan.

This is not what the developer wants, and not what we want. It’s what these four politicians want, three of whom won’t even be Council Members come this November. You can’t make this stuff up folks. It defies the beliefs of any sound minded person. So the fight to save your properties, your values, and your way of life here has come down to finding one more vote from amongst these four politicians to join the three right minded Council Members in selling Satan’s Matchstick back to Dominion Energy and de-annexing it. If that is accomplished this contrived annexation application will be mooted and the developer’s property will be non-contiguous and back in the County where it has always been. We can then work with our own elected officials in the County to determine the outcome of the project.

Here are the official emails and phone numbers for the four City Council Members that are unsupportive of selling Satan’s Matchstick back to Dominion Energy and fixing the immoral and harmful act they perpetrated. They need to hear your feelings on this issue folks. They need your encouragement to do the right thing here and not leave another scandal on the steps of City Hall. I encourage you to contact them:

Kay Brohl at kbrohl@cityofaikensc.gov
Ed Girardeau at egirardeau@cityofaikensc.gov
Andrea Gregory at agregory@cityofaikensc.gov
Ed Woltz at ewoltz@cityofaikensc.gov

Footnote

1. Meeting minutes from the September 14, 2020 City Council meeting.