The speakers in last night’s meeting raised a number of important concerns:
concerns about the capacity of the aquifer to support this industry;
concerns over the ability of infrastructure to handle both the water supply and the waste generated;
concerns over the City’s decision to site a chicken processing plant, rather than sorely needed retail, grocery stores and basic services, for existing residents on the northside;
concerns over the City giving priority to the profit of a private enterprise over the needs of existing residents;
concerns over the people who would be employed at this facility;
concerns over the wisdom of placing a chicken processing plant at the main gateway to Aiken — an idea one speaker described as “out of touch” with the vision that City Council has been projecting for Aiken’s future.
Local resident Winona Specht, a retired SRS scientist with a background in environmental toxicology, pointed out that House of Raeford has an “abysmal record when it comes to violating environmental regulations and violating worker safety issues” and has been fined over $1.5 million for violations going back many years. She recounted several specifics from the past 4 years, alone, including two serious environmental violations and two serious workplace safety violations, along with price-fixing and anti-competitive practices.
A recurring theme among last night’s speakers was the lack of information provided by the City to citizens on a project that local leadership has been working on for months, if not longer. This same message has been echoing for the past two weeks in local social media threads. What do we know about Project Sunny, House of Raeford, and the chicken processing and slaughterhouse industry that our leaders have been working to bring to Aiken?
Some Basics
Chicken processing plants and slaughterhouses are, by nature, water-intensive, waste-producing, pollution-generating industries. They are also among the most dangerous workplaces in America. For this reason, the industry tends to site these facilities in areas where labor is exploitable, regulations weak, and water cheap. They find fertile ground in the South.
The realities of water depletion go largely unimagined in the southeastern US. We’ve yet to see the repercussions of unfettered water consumption that are being realized in the midwestern and the western US, where water depletion is starkly viewed in the disappearing rivers, lakes, ponds and well-water. A recent New York Times story, “America is Using Up its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow,” reported that, in some areas:
“So much water is being pumped up that it is causing roads to buckle, foundations to crack and fissures to open in the earth. And around the country, rivers that relied on groundwater have become streams or trickles or memories.”
Working from numbers provided by Aiken City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh, Project Sunny will use about 34 million gallons of water per month, equal to about 15% of our surface water capacity. As if to reward such consumption, the City is incentivizing this company by offering to sell the water at a 50% discount. Similar discounts are being offered for wastewater discharge in a system already under stress to keep up with demand. As was recently pointed out in the Aiken Chronicles, Another Fifty-Percent Off Sale:
“In both cases, the more water used, and the more industrial wastewater produced, the lower the prices. No other City water and sewer customer even comes close to using this much water, or discharging that much wastewater. The Project Sunny facility, or any other major water user, could consume as much water in one year as the capacity of the City’s spring-fed Mason Branch reservoir. It also has the potential to put a further strain on the County’s Horse Creek Wastewater Plant, which the County is working to upgrade to meet a projected future capacity that seems to keep increasing.”
The question is — given a choice — why would leadership in a city and in a state that is still fortunate enough to have adequate drinking water supplies give the keys to our water to such a water-intensive industry, and at BOGO prices? What are they thinking?
Jobs, we’ve been told — 900 of them, with a starting pay of $18 per hour; just what the northside needs, we’ve been told.
There is also the matter of dollars brought to Aiken — a $183 million investment by House of Raeford and the $65k per month water bills to be paid by Project Sunny. The seduction from all these dollars requires we engage denial on the cost. The seduction depends on our ability to ignore the lessons being learned all over the US and the rest of the world: when the water’s gone, there is no amount of money going to refill those creeks, streams, rivers, lakes, wells and aquifers.
About Those Jobs
According to the City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh, the starting pay is $18 per hour. Elsewhere, we’ve been told that $18 is the average pay, which could mean the starting pay may be only two-thirds of that amount. We don’t know. Accurate information is lacking.
Regarding the type of work in these facilities, according to OSHA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these are some of the most dangerous jobs in the country. According to the Executive Summary in an OSHA file dated October 1, 2023, a publication whose stated purpose was to “to reduce injuries, illnesses and fatalities related to workers’ exposures in poultry processing facilities”:
“There are many serious safety and health hazards in the poultry processing industry. These hazards include exposure to high noise levels, dangerous equipment, slippery floors, musculoskeletal disorders, and hazardous chemicals (including ammonia that is used as a refrigerant). Musculoskeletal disorders are of particular concern and continue to be common among workers in the poultry processing industry. Employees can also be exposed to biological hazards associated with handling live birds or exposures to poultry feces and dusts which can increase their risk for many diseases.”
The work for the clean-up crew is no less hazardous, according to the earlier-mentioned October 2023 OSHA publication:
Click above text to enlarge.
According to this same OSHA publication, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that “the extent of the problem may be far greater than the elevated risk reported by employers and seen in the BLS data due to under-reporting.”
This reality is borne out through the accounts of workers over the past 50 years of poultry processing history and at least 35 years of House of Raeford history. While the rates of worker injuries and illness have fallen somewhat over the years, it is difficult to ascertain how much of this is due to improved processes; how much is due to the ripple effects from the defunding of OSHA and other oversight and regulatory agencies; how much is due to under-reporting by industry; and how much is due to under-reporting by employees, themselves, who understand that the fastest way to getting fired is to get sick or injured. As the headlines and the stories tell, poultry industry workers know better than to take time off for gastrointestinal infections, lost fingernails, amputations and broken bones.
This history and the records of this industry will be explored in some depth in Part Two of this story, as told in 35 years of House of Raeford headlines.
Public consensus. That’s the official reason given by City of Aiken for the transformation of the Smith Hazel Park project from the Cranston plan of October 2022 — which simply intended to replace a few aging amenities and repave the walking trail, per the term of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LCWF) grant funding the project — to the radical plan of August 2023 that necessitates the destruction of 68 trees and the services of earth moving equipment that will fundamentally change the appearance, the environment, the character and nature of the park. Also added in August 2023 are expensive fixes to correct the stormwater issues created by this plan. A closer look at the ingredients of that consensus raises questions.
In a phone call on January 30, 2024, City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh stated that it was public consensus that drove the changes in the Cranston Engineering plan between October 2022 and August 2023. A week earlier, Mr Bedenaugh erroneously stated to the local newspaper that there had been “several public meetings to discuss the tree removal, including a public hearing in September 2023.”
City offices repeatedly ignored and/or gave vague, non-answers to requests for information on the trees from September to January. The City finally divulged the information on the trees on January 12, 2024, albeit not in the local newspaper where the public might see it. A plat peppered with sixty-eight red Xs was sent via email to Schofield Community Association President, Bill McGhee, who had been asking for months for this information. The news sent a shock through the community.
The City’s position couldn’t have been more clear. As stated on the front page of the January 26, 2024 Aiken Standard: “The city of Aiken doesn’t intend to pause plans to make long-awaited upgrades to the Smith-Hazel Recreation Center, despite a community group and city board asking for a brief stoppage to have more public input on the project.”
More public input, says the newspaper? At what point between the drying of the ink on the updated August 31, 2023 Cranston plan and today has there a single public hearing to inform the public about updates to the plan — with specific regard to the trees and the extensive land grading necessitated by this plan — and to gather public input on these updates?
The City board referenced in that same Aiken Standard article was the Recreation Commission, which voted unanimously in its January 16, 2024 meeting to recommend pausing the project so that a public hearing could be held to allow for public input. [Note: This author was there, spoke at that January 16 Recreation Commmission meeting, and stands by the language “public hearing” contained in this statement]. Another motion was made by the Recreation Commission chair recommending that ribbons be placed to mark the trees slated for removal.
The following Monday, January 22, discussion of the Smith Hazel plan was not on the City Council’s regular meeting agenda, so when Commission member John Pettigrew appeared before Council as both a resident and a Recreation Commission member to present the recommendation to Council, it had to be made during the non-agenda comment period. Mr .Pettigrew was abruptly cut off at the 3:30 mark by Mayor Teddy Milner.
ABOVE: Recreation Commission member John Pettigrew speaking before City Council on January 22, 2024.
February 3-10, 2024
As if there were any doubt left of the City’s intent to continue scuttling the process of a public hearing and gathering public consensus, the events of February 3-10 cleared that up. In response to a flood of citizen letters to City Council and the City Manager, requesting a pause and public hearing, City officials responded by announcing an ad hoc public meeting to be held on Saturday morning, February 10 at the Smith Hazel Park to allow the public to give “input.” During the days leading up to February 10 meeting in the park, City officials repeatedly stated in local media that the project would proceed as planned.
To date we are nonetheless to believe that the public consensus that compelled the Cranston August 2023 plan was so strong, there was simply no need for a public hearing. And with the City looking at a tight May deadline, there was no time for a frivolous pause to appease a bunch of tree huggers.
When asked for evidence of this public consensus, Mr. Bedenbaugh provided the minutes from several Recreation Commission meetings and Senior Commission meetings. These minutes contained mention of official updates on the project, but no documented reciprocal public discussion, nor mention of trees. Mr. Bedenbaugh also provided a wish list that had been gathered from 54 attendees of public meetings in December 2022 at the Smith Hazel Recreation Center. This is, to date, the sole source of public input on the Smith Hazel project, so it bears special scrutiny.
December 8, 2022
Parks, Recreation and Tourism Director, Jessica Campbell presented a talk on three display boards at the head of the room featuring concept drawings by Cranston concept plan of October 2022. The attendees were not asked for input on the concept plan, as this was presumably a done deal, per the terms of the LWCF grant. The public had been brought to vote on what they might like to see in the park years down the road.
Photo of the October 2022 Cranston concept plan taken at the meeting.
Toward this end, there were two other two display board at the front of the room marked Option A and Option B. These contained potential amenities the City might entertain in the coming years, after the current LWCF-funded project was completed. Neither the concept plan nor Ms. Campbell’s presentation contained mention of destroying many dozens of trees, bulldozing the landscape, moving the playground from one side of the park to the other, adding toxic artificial turf, or [reducing the size of the park space by] adding a [fenced retention] pond as large as the park’s existing swimming pool.
Options A and B from a December 2022 meeting.
Again, no input was sought on the October 2022 Cranston concept plan or any aspect of the LWCF-funded project. Only on potential future projects, as drawn up in Options A and B. Attendees were provided cards with which to vote their preferences for Option A or Option B. Extra space was included on the back of the cards to customize their wishes. The few attendees who offered verbal input were told to write it on the card. Thirty-five people voted for Option B; nineteen people voted for Option A.
No one was told of the tradeoffs — the loss of trees and landscape —which are every bit as significant and deserving of consensus as any pickleball court [or hammock garden] and would have no doubt elicited response from these attendees and the larger community.
Subsequent public meetings over the following 9 months provided updates on the interior work and projected start dates. There were no additional opportunities for actionable input. In fact, according to the minutes of the January 24, 2023 Senior Commission meeting, input was discussed in the past tense, as something already given. Unless other information is forthcoming from the City, the 54 citizens who filled out the December 2022 cards were the sole source of what the City claims is a public consensus for the design decision put to ink in the August 2023 Cranston plan.
The Public Consensus
According to the 54 citizens who wrote comments on the cards, the consensus is that Smith Hazel Park needs outdoor restrooms and more parking. There was little to no demand for additional amenities.
Need outdoor restrooms: 22 Need more parking: 9 Additional basketball courts: 2 Fewer basketball courts: 8 Fewer or no pickleball courts: 14 More pickleball courts: 3 No hammock garden: 13 Asphalt walking trail: 3 Enlarge pool: 2 Gravel walking trail; 1 Redesign walking trail to go around the trees. Keep the trees: 1 Bike station with pump to park bikes: 1 More shelter: 1 More green space: 1 Labyrinth: 1
Unless there is other information yet to be released, the above wish list constitutes the evidence of the public consensus that drove the updated Cranston plan of August 2023 plan that is before us today and at the source of great public debate and controversy.
There was no consensus to add pickleball courts, but yet they appear on the updated August 2023 plan. There was zero mention of outdoor exercise equipment, yet the amenity appears on the August 2023 plan. There was no consensus for an additional basketball court, yet one appears on the August plan.
The updated Cranston plan, August 31, 2023
Interestingly, the playground in the August plan was moved to other side of the park, necessitating the destruction of at least three grand trees and number of significant trees, including two of the oldest Longleaf Pines in the City of Aiken.
The Playground
The playground was never actually mentioned in the wish list. Attendees [this author-attendee included] likely assumed the playground would remain in place, as shown in the October 2022 Cranston Concept Plan, and in Options A and B, and as described by Jessica Campbell in her presentation, with the old equipment simply being replaced with new.
Above: The existing playground at Smith Hazel. Below: The new playground equipment planned for Smith Hazel
A public hearing in the wake of the August 31, 2023 Cranston plan would have given the public opportunity to consider the trade-offs — the loss of trees, the destruction of landscape, the addition of potentially toxic artificial turf for the children’s playground, the paving of the park with impermeable surfaces that would require elaborate stormwater treatment systems and a large retaining pond rivaling the size of the park’s existing swimming pool.
Reciprocal discussion and a shared spirit of compromise and community could have reached a genuine public consensus. A timely public hearing would have given Cranston the tools necessary to go back to the drawing board and get it right in plenty of time to make the deadline for an early 2024 start.
We may never know what stood in the way of that possibility. But, then again, we may.
There is much misunderstanding surrounding the Smith Hazel Park project. Linked at the bottom of this page are some of the numerous articles published in the Aiken Chronicles over the past 16 months on Smith Hazel and other northside parks
To be clear …
The Smith Hazel story is not about choosing trees over people. It’s not even a story about trees, although that’s what is being discussed, since the loss of trees will be a huge part of the collateral damage from the project the City has planned for this park. Nor is the Smith Hazel story about amenities, although citizens advocating for a pause and a public hearing on this project have been accused of trying to keep northside children from receiving long-awaited amenities.
No, the Smith Hazel Park story, much like the Pascalis and Williamsburg Street stories that preceded it, is, at its root, about a city government that eschews established processes; a city government that makes decisions in a vacuum behind closed doors; a city government that withholds information from the public and denies citizens opportunity for input. It is no wonder that the output from this municipal apparatus has been a series of wasteful and destructive projects driving increasing number of local residents to rise up and say, “No more!”
The Obstructionists and Naysayers
Individuals who have spent the past two years pushing and advocating for the northside parks, and pushing to see some of the windfall plutonium money spent on the long-neglected northside, are hardly the obstructionists and naysayers in this equation, nor are they devoid of ideas and inspiration for solutions.
Destroying 68 trees, bulldozing the landscape of the Smith Hazel park, and creating expensive stormwater issues in order to cram all of the northside amenities into the 5-acre Smith Hazel Park is not the solution to the city’s long-term failure to provide amenities on Aiken’s northside.
Consider this: Across the street from Smith Hazel is the 25-acre Perry Memorial Park, (from which the City recently considered disinvesting, see articles below) — a park that could be utilized for the ADA-compliant City intends to bulldoze into 5-acre Smith Hazel Park. Out on Hwy 1/Columbia Highway are 118 acres of land the city purchased in 2015 to finally, finally provide the northside with those long-promised amenities. So where are those amenities?
ABOVE: The City’s concept plan for the 118 acres of land purchased for a northside park in 2015 which envisioned a generosity of amenities including 4 baseball fields, 8 soccer fields, 6 tennis courts, a track and stadium complex, a multi-purpose gymnasium, a swimming pool, 2 playgrounds, and five parking lots. All of these amenities were left on the cutting room floor in the final product except for the detention ponds, a partial amphitheater, a piece of playground equipment, and some parking lots.
Forty Acres
For whom was the Beverly D. Clyburn Generations Park (nee Northside Park) built? The park is located on the outskirts of town on a 118-acre plot of land the City bought on which to build that long-studied, long-deferred Northside recreation facility and park. From this 118 acres, 40 were denuded of trees, laid with sod, left largely bereft of amenities (no money, said the City) and pronounced as a park.
The amenities include an unfinished amiphiteater whose components must be trucked in for events. Portable sinks and porta-potties must also be trucked in, as there are only two toilets (presumably due to the fact that the City could only afford a septic tank for the park). Shade must also be trucked in. Portable playgrounds are also trucked in. The park has a one-mile walking track and a water fountain. This is all good, but it is not what the City spent 25 years promising the northside and hiring a Clemson University consultant to conduct high-dollar surveys in order to state the obvious about the unfulfilled need for recreation facilities on Aiken’s northside.
ABOVE: So much open space at the Northside Park. The potential is enormous. Why is there not even a single basketball court in this park?
In the wake of creating this park, City Council stated, as generations before them have stated, that the City will one day find the money to provide the northside with some park amenities. One councilmember offered that perhaps a public-private development project could make it happen.
Cue in the greenway project, which will connect the Beverly D. Clyburn Generations Park (nee Northside Park) northward, away from the City and toward the thousands of acres of forested land between northside Aiken and I-20 that the city is opening for development to be peopled with future residents for whom the City is installing new water infrastructure.
It’s just as well the Northside Park go to someone else. After all, the distance is too far for northside kids to walk, and even if it weren’t, there’s no sidewalk to get there. What parent wants their child walking or riding a bike down the busy four-lane Columbia Highway to go and … do what?
We’re All Northsiders Now
An analogy for the Smith Hazel story appears: The City will provide sparkling clear water for future residents in Aiken’s new north — the I-20 lands. The in-town residents, whose concerns and input about their drinking water and boil-water alerts have fallen on the deaf ears of a City Council body that refuses to listen to the people they’ve been empowered to serve, will have brown water.
About the Purported Dozen or More Public Hearings on the Smith Hazel Park Project
They never happened. While the City has kept the public abreast of plans for the evolving interior improvements planned for Smith Hazel, this cannot be said about the plans for the extensive demolition, tree removal and grading work on the property about which a public hearing has been requested, but never held.
A recent video circulating on Facebook with statements to the contrary was posted this week by the Umoja Village CEO and shared by Councilwoman Diggs. It contains a timeline of purported public hearings running from November 2022 through December 2023. This individual is unfortunately confused over the difference between a public meeting and a public hearing — a common and understandable misunderstanding. We could all benefit from lessons in government jargon so that we could better understand the processes of government.
The most cogent response to the claims in this video may be found in the two emails from City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh, which he sent on January 31, 2024 in answer to a request to, “Please provide evidence that the City has ever held a public hearing on the Smith Hazel Park project.”
A reading of the information provided in these two emails confirms that there has never been a public hearing on the plan for the Smith Hazel Park project.
About this Saturday’s Purported Public Hearing
In the above-mentioned video was an announcement that there would be “a public hearing, another public hearing, presented by the city of Aiken this Saturday.”
This is not true. Much of the confusion over the Smith Hazel Park project stems from the public’s lack of understanding on the difference between a public meeting and a public hearing, a difference that could be likened to the difference between an informal straw poll and an official election.
There will be no public hearing at Smith Hazel on Saturday if for no other reason that the legal requirement for announcing a public hearing has not been met.
Public Input
Over the past 7 days, the Mayor and City Council have received over 1240 letters and statements from local citizens calling for a pause on this project so that a public hearing — the first ever pubic hearing on the Smith Hazel Park — could be held.
An Impromptu Get Together
In response to the letter writing campaign, Mayor Milner sent emails to some of the letter writers inviting them to a meeting outdoors at Smith Hazel on Saturday, February 10 at 9:30 a.m. If it’s not raining, we can tell the Mayor or the City Manager our thoughts, opinions and wishes. It’s not clear just yet who will be there, but one thing is clear. No matter how closely or sincerely City officials do or don’t listen to our concerns, our words have zero impact on the course of this Smith Hazel Park project in the absence of a public hearing.
As Councilwoman Gail Diggs made clear in an interview with WFXG News yesterday afternoon, City Council is not prepared to bend in its determination to go forward with this destructive plan. “This project is going on,” she stated. “It will not come back to counsel for a vote.”
The City Manager has repeatedly stated as much. Our only hope, then, is that a vocal majority of the citizens arriving to the Saturday meeting will bring umbrellas and spend their energies urging the Mayor and any other Council members in attendance to use their authority to request a pause and a pubic hearing on this project.
Whether or not trees are spared in the process is secondary. The important thing is the process itself, which is an established, democratic process and a process of which most people should be able to agree is necessary in a democratic society.
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FOR FURTHER READING
Below is a history of but some of the articles published in the Aiken Chronicles over the past 16 months chronicling the advocacy of local citizens for our city’s parks, our parkways, our trees, our water, our quality of life.
September 21, 2022: Has it been only 18 months since the city was charging kids money to play basketball at Smith Hazel? (p.s. Citizens pushed back and won).
September 22, 2022 Has it been only 10 years since the City was planning to build that long-promised, long-deferred northside Park on top of the city landfill?
October 27, 2023: Photos from April 2023 taken while following the unfolding Smith Hazel Park story and trying, unsuccessfully, to get information form the City, which spent 13 months making plans for Smith Hazel behind closed doors, without public input.
February 1, 2024: We have been asking for a pause on the destructive Smith Hazel project to allow for a public hearing. In response, City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh was quoted in the January 26 front page of the Aiken Standard as saying, “The city has held several public meetings to discuss the upgrades and tree removal, including a Sept 11 public hearing”. Curiously, there is zero evidence that any such meetings took place “to discuss the upgrades and tree removal” much less a public hearing. What’s up with that? Read Kelly Cornelius‘ article on this. https://aikenchronicles.com/…/what-public-hearing-the…/
February 2, 2024: The way out of this time loop, which has City leadership creating plans in a vacuum, (the citizens for whom they work too far removed from their purview to be seen or heard), is through public hearings. A public hearing should be the standard for any project that proposes to improve a place by destroying it.
February 2, 2024 through today:Those of us who are trying to find solutions get accused of being against everything and never offer solutions. Yet the record (see the above thread of articles) shows that just opposite is true. Let’s all learn what we can about the issues before us so that we can give informed input and use our voices wisely. https://actionnetwork.org/…/pause-the-smith-hazel-park…&
February 7, 2024: At the latest count, 1144 letters have been sent by Aiken citizens to City officials requesting a pause on the project to allow for a public hearing and informed public input. Read some of what they have to say. https://aikenchronicles.com/citizens-speak-on-smith-hazel/
Is it Groundhog Day again already? Seems like only yesterday we were reeling from the shock of the Williamsburg Street-Farmers Market fiasco. Before that, it was Project Pascalis. And before that, it was the Powderhouse Connector, which, unlike the other two, at least provided public hearings, even as the end product leaves us to do little more than fasten our seatbelts and gape at the destruction and chaos that will unfold from this 400-acre plot over the next several years. Perhaps the Powderhouse Connector can serve as a cautionary tale on the importance of paying closer attention.
So here we go again, this time with the City prepared to rush headlong with a plan to improve one of Aiken’s gems, the lovely, historic Smith Hazel Park, by destroying 68 trees and bulldozing the land to comply with an idea drawn from wish lists collected buffet-style by the City. Why wasn’t a public hearing held to both inform the public of these plans and to provide a forum for public input — input that would then become part of the public record, available for all to see?
As-is, citizens have been forced this week to file FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests to see the contents of those wish lists that the City collected over the past year from citizens who weren’t given the benefit of the facts; forced to file FOIA requests to see the records of a public hearing that never happened.
What comments might City leadership have heard from the public, had they divulged the facts about the 68 trees, the bulldozers, and the unintended consequences of this plan — erosion, stormwater runoff, pollution, noise, and the loss of summer shade, aesthetics, and quality of life?
In the absence of communication from the City, we’re left to wonder. Why not plan a walking track over at the 25-acre Perry Memorial Park located across the street from Smith Hazel? Why are there no basketball courts, tennis courts, pickleball courts and soccer fields at the 100-acre Northside park property over on Hwy One? Why the impetus to shoehorn all of the northside amenities into the 5-acre Smith Hazel park?
The way out of this time loop, which has City leadership creating plans in a vacuum, (the citizens for whom they work too far removed from their purview to be seen or heard), is through public hearings. A public hearing should be the standard for any project that proposes to improve a place by destroying it.
Sixty-eight trees are slated for destruction in a plan devised without opportunity for public input on the fate of this historic park.
After thirteen months of asking, the City finally answered the question via email on Friday afternoon, January 12: sixty-eight. That’s how many trees the City of Aiken plans to destroy in a project intended to improve the parklands at the five-acre Smith Hazel Recreation Centerin the historic Schofield neighborhood.
Two weeks later, on Friday, January 26, another answer arrived, this time via the local newspaper: No, the City is not going to hold a public hearing to give Smith Hazel neighborhood residents, park-goers, and the larger community opportunity to provide input on the future of the Smith Hazel park and its trees.
ABOVE: From the Aiken Standard newspaper, January 26, 2024
The largest among the Smith Hazel trees once shaded the grounds of the Aiken Graded School that formerly stood here — a school built in 1924 by contractor W.M. McGhee on 8 acres of land purchased by the hard work and effort of Aiken’s Black community of that era, including Messrs. W.M. McGhee, A.B. McGhee, George Ball, and Dr. C.C Johnson; a school where Mrs. Josie Smith Hazel once taught; a school that, despite the efforts of the northside community to save it, was closed in 1969, the year the Aiken schools integrated, and 1demolished by the City in 1973, as it was deemed too expensive to maintain. This history and these trees are part and parcel of this place.
A historic marker for the Aiken Graded School located at the northwest corner of the Smith Hazel Park.
And it’s not just the grand trees that matter. All of the trees matter; all are integral to the lovely, natural, parkland setting and the quality experience of this park.
April 2023 views of Smith Hazel. The ribbons on dozens of the trees, as was later learned, were intended to tag trees to be spared from demolition.
The decisions on each and every tree have deserved thoughtful consideration and our best efforts to preserve them where possible. This is why Smith Hazel park-goers and neighborhood residents spent the past thirteen months asking questions about the fate of the trees and pushing the City to allow them input. These citizens deserved, above all, the opportunity for at least one public hearing over the past thirteen months, so that they could help steer the course of Smith Hazel’s future. In the end, however, the fate of the park and its trees was seemingly decided by fiat.
How did we get here?
Below is an attempt to answer that question through a compilation of information gathered piecemeal over the past 13 months. The following is broken down into three sections — an overview, a timeline, and a list of points for further thought. Each section is expandable to allow for an optional, abridged account. This article will likely be updated as more information becomes known.
FAQs
What is the project? Smith Hazel is slated for improvements to the indoor and outdoor facilities at the center. This article will address only the outdoor improvements, which include:
The demolition and replacement of the two existing tennis courts.
The demolition and replacement of the playground equipment and the addition of artificial turf.
The closure of the existing basketball court to be replaced with two new basketball courts.
The addition of a second picnic shelter.
The resurfacing and rerouting of the existing 1/4 mile walking trail.
So far, so good. It would appear that, with the exception of the second basketball court and the second picnic shelter, the footprint of the improved park would be similar to the footprint of the existing park.
So why are 68 trees slated to be removed? A few explanations have been heard piecemeal over the months and been repeated anecdotally, including (1) that areas of the park will essentially be bulldozed to provide “clear lines of sight” for security reasons, and, (2) that the sloping elevations of the existing walking track is not ADA compliant, so the terrain will have to be leveled, requiring regrading of the earth and the removal of many trees.
Who is funding this project? The funding came from a Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant awarded to the City in October 2022. The City matched this with Capital Project Sales Tax IV funds, bringing the total money for the project to $900k.
What is being funded? This particular grant is for outdoor recreation area only. No indoor work. The terms of the grant provide for, specifically, the replacement of existing amenities. For example, it will replace the two old tennis courts with two new tennis courts. It will replace the old playground with a new playground. Artificial turf is being added to the playground which will compound drainage and stormwater issues at the park. This is only one of a number of topics suited for a public hearing.
Why, then, are two basketball courts being installed to replace the one existing basketball court? The City was reportedly able to secure additional funding to install a second basketball court as part of this project.
Why is the baskeball court being relocated from its existing spot? As is the case with some other parks in Aiken, parts of the Smith Hazel property are located on SCDOT right of way land. The existing basketball court is in the SCDOT right of way. The LWCF grant can only be done on City property, which means the basketball court must be relocated to another part of the park.
What will happen to the existing basketball court? This area will be incorporated into the creation of approximately 40 parking spaces that are planned for a future project.
Why are the tennis courts being replaced when no one ever uses them? For those unfamiliar with this park, the tennis courts were formerly used, but have been padlocked for years and off-limits to the public due to their hazardous condition from years of disinvestment by the City of Aiken in the Smith Hazel Recreation Center.
The tennis courts at Smith Hazel have been padlocked for years.
What will happen with the existing 1/4 mile walking track? The plan is to reconfigure the track to be ADA compliant. As was learned by those who attended the September 21, 2023 monthly meeting of the Schofield Community Association, the sloping terrain prevents the track from being ADA compliant. Leveling the elevation — which will require earth-moving equipment and the removal of a large number of trees — is seen as necessary to making an ADA compliant track on the 5-acre Smith Hazel park. Were other alternatives considered? Could a future, second walking track be created across the street at the 25-acre Perry Memorial Park? The potential is there for an even longer track. Might this be preferable to destroying the historic, Smith Hazel parkland to make it ADA compliant? A public hearing with public input could have integrated such questions, ideas and potential solutions into the process.
TIMELINE: December 2022 through January 2024
December 8, 2022 A meeting had been called by the City of Aiken at the Smith Hazel Recreation Center. This was described as a “public input meeting for local community residents to review Smith-Hazel Park design options.” Attendees arrived believing they would be providing input on the newly-announced, outdoor improvement project which was set to begin within just a few months. The presentation was given by Aiken Parks, Recreation and Tourism Director, Jessica Campbell.
As the meeting progressed, it became clear that input was not actually being sought for this project, or “phase one,” as it was being termed, but for other, future projects. At approximately minute 18:00 of the meeting, (per a citizen-recorded audio of the meeting) a citizen spoke up and asked Ms .Campbell if the citizen input being solicited by the City was for the current project or for future projects. Ms. Campbell confirmed that the input was for projects “down the road.” She said, “The idea is to have a concept plan for future development.”
In other words, the concept plan for the current project (below) had already been drawn up by Cranston Engineering, and there was no public input sought either before or after this plan was drawn.
ABOVE: A photo of the concept plan for the present-day project, which was posted at the December 8, 2022 meeting. In a peculiar twist of plot, attendees were not asked for input on the current project, as seen in the above drawing but, rather, were being asked for feedback on potential projects down the road.
Citizens had been called together to comment on ideas for potential future projects, illustrated by Option A and Option B.
ABOVE: Photos of the other two drawings present in the December 8, 2022 meeting. The public had been brought together to vote on Option A or B, not to give input on plans for the current project.
When asked if any trees would be disturbed by the project, Jessica Campbell stated that they did not yet know, as the final course of the walking track hadn’t yet been determined.
April 2023 After citizens observed ribbons on dozens of the trees in the Smith Hazel park, Aaron Campbell, the City horticulturist, was contacted. He stated his shared concern to spare as many trees as possible during the project. He stated his belief that the tagged trees were those NOT be cut. He assured the caller that there would be opportunity for public input on the trees before any action was taken.
April 10, 2023 Two citizens spoke at the regular City Council meeting about the trees at Smith Hazel and wondered if the ribbons were intended to mark the trees slated for removal. According to the minutes of the non-agenda comment period, Laura Lance, “noted that she understood that the matter would be before Council at some future date where the public would have an opportunity to talk about removal of the trees. She pointed out the importance of the tree canopy in Aiken. She asked when there would be opportunity for the public to know what is going to happen and have some input.”
PRT Director Jessica Campbell, also present at the meeting, responded that the flags were for the trees not to be removed. According to the minutes, Ms. Campbell, “pointed out that those trees marked have been identified as substantial, high importance, high-priority to remain as is. she said the trees that are marked so the engineers can look and make sure the footprint of the amenities that are to be placed on the property fit within the landscape and does not create the removal of any of those marked trees.”
September 11, 2023 City Council held a work session on September 11, 2023, during which the topic of tree removals went undiscussed. There were, however, two items in the agenda package pertinent to the trees.
ABOVE: The two agenda items pertinent to the Smith Hazel outdoor improvement project. At this time, the precise number of inches of trees slated for removal was known, yet the number of trees slated for removal could not be given.
During the regular City Council meeting following the work session, Luis Rinaldini spoke to City Council about the above agenda items and on need for clarification on the matter of the trees:
“I would just like to comment on the agenda item that was included in the work session regarding the Smith Hazel renovation. It has a map and it has a page… referring to trees being cut down. But it really doesn’t give a lot of information. The information it gives us is confusing. There are something like 500 inches worth of trees, I’m not sure how that’s measured and what it means And 230 inches to be removed, which sounds like, to the uninformed person, that half of the trees in that area are going to be to be cut down. So I think that, rather than just let it sit at that, we ought to get clarification and get a map that shows what trees are being affected, and why. Because, as you know, we’ve had some not great situations with trees, And I think it’s important that we change the way we look at those things, and we change the way, we approach things, reducing the number of trees that get cut down in our activities.”
Bill McGee also spoke at this meeting. Referring to earlier mention in the meeting that some trees would have to be removed at Smith Hazel, Mr. McGhee stated that they (the SCA, or Schofield Community Association) have requested the City to come to the next SCA meeting on September 21, 2023 to discuss with the community the plans and exterior of Smith Hazel. He said he hoped the tree issue would be included in the presentation.
September 21, 2023 Attendees at the SCA’s regular monthly meeting received, from Mary Catherine Lawton,* Capital Projects Manager, what may have been the most comprehensive explanation by the City through the entire 13 months on the Smith Hazel park project. Even at this, the specifics on the numbers and locations of trees slated for destruction were not given. A video of this meeting can be viewed here, with the discussion on the outdoor improvements beginning at minute 22:35, starting with a citizen question on the any public input that went into the project. The answer provided Ms. Lawton was not quite clear.
*Correction: an earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the Assistant City Manager as the speaker at this event.
November 27, 2023 Bill McGhee, president of the Schofield Community Association, wrote to the City horticulturist, Aaron Campbell, requesting “a walkthrough of the plans for the trees involved in the project.”
December 5, 2023 Aaron Campbell responded to Mr. McGhee via email at 8:49 a.m. saying, “We are available to meet today at 1pm or Friday, December 22nd at 1pm.”
December 9, 2023 Bill McGhee sent notice that a meeting had been arranged with Aaron Campbell for Dec 22 “to have a SCA group review the exterior SH renovation plans and the status of the surrounding trees.”
December 12, 2023 Notices of the upcoming meeting were posted at the Aiken Chronicles and on social media including the Do It Right and Schofield Community Association Facebook pages.
Notice posted at the SCA webste on December 12 for the Dec. 22 walk-through at Smith Hazel.
December 14, 2023 Beatrice McGhee emailed notice of the meeting to the SCA membership
December 22, 2023 The meeting convened with over a dozen in attendance. Landscape architect Lance Cheeley, with Cranston Engineering, was in attendance and indicated, without further specifics, the plan to remove “many trees” including two significant pine trees and one significant oak. There was no actual walk-through, however, nor tagging of the trees, nor identification or total numbers of the trees slated for removal. There was reportedly discussion among some attendees that a factor in the tree removal was the need for a “clear line of site” for security purposes.
December 26, 2023 Bill McGhee emailed a recap of “The Smith Hazel Tree Walk-through” to the SCA membership, with this update on the trees:
“The draft RFP includes the removal of two ‘significant” pine trees, one ‘significant’ oak, and many other non-significant trees. No trees were tagged. The many trees to be removed were not specifically identified. It was stated that the tree removal and replacement plan complied with the city’s landscape/tree maintenance policies.
January 8, 2024 Bill McGhee emailed Aaron Campbell requesting a copy of the City’s tree inventory of the Smith Hazel trees to review for discussion.
January 10, 2024 Aaron Campbell responded that he could not give this information.
January 12, 2024 (Friday at 3:20 p.m.) Aaron Campbell emailed Bill McGhee a pdf (see image below) of the Cranston’s “Tree Removal Exhibit” for the park, with the following note: “Attached is the plan from Cranston engineering showing what trees are slated for removal. Please let me know if you have any further questions.”
TOP: The Cranston Engineering “Tree Removal Exhibit” dated November 10, 2023. BELOW: The total number of trees to be removed.
A total of 68 trees are slated to be removed according to the Cranston drawing. This drawing is dated November 10, 2023. The drawing was only emailed to Mr. Bill McGhee on January 12, 2023. This was the first time that the City divulged the total number of trees to be destroyed.
January 15, 2024: (Monday holiday, Martin Luther King Day)
January 16, 2024: — Bill McGee left a message with Aaron Campbell to give him a call. Mr. McGhee’s call was never retuned. — Bill McGhee put out a notice urging attendance at the 5:30 p.m. meeting that evening of the City Recreation Commission on Banks Mill Road. A total of six SCA member/tree preservation advocates attended: Bill McGhee, Linda Johnston, John Howard, Lee Doran Thornton, Lisa Smith, and Laura Lance. All gave their perspectives on this project regarding the shocking number of trees slated for removal and the frustration over the lack of public participation in the process. A public hearing was requested. The Recreation Commission respectfully listened and responded by making and approving two motions: (1) to recommend to City Council that a public hearing be held to allow for public input on the Smith Hazel trees, and (2) that ribbons be attached to the trees slated for removal so that the City, SCA and all interested parties could see what is planned for the park. — At 10:43 p.m. that night, local park advocates began a social media campaign to “pause the project.” Public interest and comment was robust.
January 25,2024 Bill McGhee submitted a FOIA request for a listing, from the City’s tree inventory, of the type of grand and significant trees slated for removal at Smith Hazel and the dollar value assigned to each tree.
January 26, 2024 The local newspaper announced online that the Smith Hazel project is going to go forward without “more” public input, stating:
“The City of Aiken doesn’t intend to pause plans to make long-awaited upgrades to the Smith-Hazel Recreation Center, despite a community group and city board asking for a brief stoppage to have more public input on the project.”
POINTS FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION
— Why is the City using the term, “more public input”? Given that the City has provided no opportunity for public hearing for public input on this project, the word “more” isn’t applicable.
— Cranston Engineering had already drawn the concept plans for the this project before the December 8, 2022 meeting. Why was there no public hearing for public input on this plan either before or after the plan was drawn up?
— Why was the public given opportunity during this same December 8, 20220 meeting for input on hypothetical future plans for future projects of the park, but none for the current project, as shown in Cranston’s concept plan?
— Why were dozens of trees at Smith Hazel tagged with different color ribbons in April 2023? Who decided which trees would be tagged to be spared and which would be destroyed? And by what criteria? Does this mean that the City knew as far back as April 2023 how many trees would be destroyed? Why wasn’t the public included in at this stage of planning?
— Why did the city refuse the recent requests by citizens and the recommendation by the Recreation Commission in the wake of January 16th 2024 meeting to have to have the trees marked with ribbons to show the public and the city the trees slated for destruction?
— Why did the City Council not discuss the number of trees slated for destruction in its September 11, 2023 work session? And why didn’t the City take the opportunity of Mr. Rinaldini’s call for clarification in the City Council meeting that night to state how many trees will be removed?
— Why did the City hold a work session, (which only allows the public to attend as spectators), rather than a public hearing on September 11 to accommodate public input in the discussions?
— Were alternate plans considered to reduce the destruction of trees, and, if so, what were these plans and where is a record of them?
— Why did the City — knowing how important this topic was to advocates for our City’s parks and the trees — repeatedly fail to provide the requested information on the trees for all these months?
In Closing
One marked similarity in the Williamsburg Street and Smith Hazel stories is the lack of a public hearing for pubic input on a project that would radically change a public parkland. Another is the stealth manner in which the demolition of trees was planned and kept from the pubic. A less obvious similarity is what almost appears to be the staging of a felled, hollowed tree, as if this might justify the destruction of all.
An important difference in the two stories is that is that the destruction of the 11 trees on Williamsburg cannot be undone today. The planned destruction of 68 trees at Smith Hazel can and should be undone.
The issue at hand is not about being pro or anti-progress. Nor is it about an inability or refusal to acknowledge that reality that trees sometimes need to be removed in the course of development. No, this issue is about the need to follow good faith governance and established processes. Those among us advocating for our trees and our parks are merely asking that processes be followed, and that these processes be open, transparent, fair, lawful, and available to all.
Visible in the distance is a walker on the Smith Hazel walking track.
1Correction: The date of the Aiken Graded School demolition was incorrectly given as 1969 in an earlier version. This has been correct to reflect the school was closed in 1969, the year the Aiken schools integrated. The school as then demolished in 1973.
