Tuesday night’s Aiken County Council meeting featured an unusual vote of 5-4, the only such vote for all of 2024.
At issue was the Second Reading of the proposed Fee in Lieu of Taxes* agreement and an associated Industrial/Business Park designation for Project Wisteria (pages 42-91).
Project Wisteria is a planned $23 million small data storage center to be constructed by an unidentified company and appears to be located on 14 acres along Atomic Road outside of North Augusta City limits (Figure 1). The property is currently owned by DCB (DC Blox) North Augusta, LLC; which purchased it for $1,588,400 from Riverplace Holding Partnership in November 2024. The area is zoned Urban Development, but does have residential areas within that district.
The data center will involve a single job worth $150,000 per year.
Figure 1: Proposed location of Project Wisteria data center.
Council members Kelly Mobley, Mike Kellems, Danny Feagan, and Ron Felder voted against the Fee in Lieu of Taxes (FILOT) agreement. Mobley and Felder openly questioned the need for a tax incentive for a project that will only create a single new job. Mobley also noted that since the facility will be located on “prime real estate,” the company has already purchased the land, and it is not in an existing county industrial park, there is little reason the County should further incentivize the project.
Council Chairman Gary Bunker and Council members PK Hightower, Phil Napier, Andrew Siders, and Sandy Haskell voted for the agreement and the Industrial/Business Park designation. Siders pointed out the “ancillary jobs” associated with servicing the facility added more value than the focus on a single job.
No other Council member put forth an argument in favor of granting the project tax incentive.
Will Williams of the Western South Carolina Economic Partnership explained that the FILOT payments would be greater for the first five years, but did not explain the structure after that point nor the differences in revenues through the up to 40-year period of the negotiated FILOT agreement (2).
A public hearing followed by the Third Reading of the Project Wisteria FILOT Ordinance is tentatively scheduled for either Council’s January 7, 2025 or January 21, 2025 public meeting.
Still No Live Stream Broadcast of Meetings
The spirited discussion revolving around Project Wisteria was only observed by meeting attendees because Aiken County Council does not livestream meetings for its citizens to observe County government in action.
According to a recent report in The Nerve, Aiken County is one of 20 counties, out of 46, that does not livestream County Council meetings.
Councilman Mobley, who was attending his last meeting as a Council member, has openly advocated for live streaming of meetings for the past year. During the Administrative Committee meeting he again expressed the need for Council to film the meetings, stating that:
“People are asking to broadcast meetings and see what is going on. People want it, we can afford it, and people will trust us more if we do it.”
During the public comment portion of the meeting, I asked the audience of approximately 40 county citizens whether they supported live streaming of meetings. An overwhelming majority raised their hand in support.
“Industries that invest at least $2.5 million in South Carolina may negotiate for a fee-in-lieu of property taxes. This can result in a savings of about 40% on property taxes otherwise due for a project. Certain large investments may be able to further reduce their liability by negotiating the assessment ratio from 10.5% down to 6%. For large investments, the assessment ratio can be reduced down to 4%. The county and the industry may agree to either set the millage rate for the entire agreement period or have the millage change every five years in step with the average millage rate for the area where the project is located. Any personal property subject to the fee in lieu of property taxes depreciates in accordance with South Carolina law, while the real property is either set at cost for the life of the agreement or can be appraised every five years.
A fee in lieu of property taxes is granted by, and at the discretion of, the county where the project is located. The industry must make the $2.5 million investment over a five-year period to qualify. Large investment projects have eight years to meet their increased investment requirements. During this period, all property that is placed in service pursuant to the agreement is subject to a fee instead of ad valorem property taxes. A county may give the industry an additional five years to complete the project and place new property in service subject to the fee. A single piece of property can be subject to the fee for up to 40 years with the county’s consent. The total project can be subject to the fee for up to 50 years with the county’s consent.”
The FILOT rate for Project Sabal is listed as four percent.
In between his terms on County Council and his election as County Council Chairman, Gary Bunker was a popular columnist for the Aiken Standard. in his columns he routinely described Fee in Lieu of Taxes as an industrial tax incentives. In 2013 he wrote that South Carolina’s tax structure:
“Encourages retirees to settle here, who benefit from low property taxes. Their limited retirement income isn’t greatly penalized by the high income tax. Conversely, this tax structure is hard on businesses and manufacturing. It encourages fee-in-lieu of tax agreements and special source revenue credits to get around high property tax rates on large industrial developments. In essence, the left hand must undo the damage caused by the right.”
(2) See Page 18 of the County’s $6 million grant application for the proposed, and defeated, House of Raeford chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant project for an example of a FILOT payment structure.
According to information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the South Carolina Department of Agriculture (SCDA), Aiken County was awarded a $6 million grant by SCDA for the purpose of helping to develop the proposed House of Raeford chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant. Had it been finalized, the grant would have supplemented a probable $10 million grant from the federal government to House of Raeford. The existence of the Aiken County grant and the details of the federal grant proposal were never disclosed. Had the project proceeded, the proposed House of Raeford plant near Exit 22 would have received $16 million in direct public subsidies in addition to discounted tax, water, and sewer rates.
by Don Moniak November 16, 2024
Two weeks after Aiken County Council opted not to move forward on a tax incentive package for the House of Raeford chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant, aka Project Sunny, the Aiken Standard published an editorial by South Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers that criticized the Council and took a swipe at Aiken County in general for allowing Project Sunny to fail.
Weathers asserted that “the Aiken community will “miss out on the pride that comes from supporting local farmers,” while further stating that Council Council “let their constituents down in failing to gather all the facts;” and that “I’ve heard a lot of misinformation about this project, and I’m disappointed that council never provided an opportunity for the public to learn the facts and weigh the pros and cons.”
What Commissioner Weathers neglected to mention is that the Agriculture Department, the House of Raeford, County Council, the City of Aiken, and the Western Carolina Economic Development Partnership kept the public totally in the dark by failing to provide any information on Project Sunny until opposition to the effort emerged and rapidly grew.
Instead, Project Sunny’s “sponsor” was kept secret until it could no longer be hidden. Only then did House of Raeford and its allies in state government mount what turned out to be a belated, and ultimately futile public relations campaign to try to salvage the project—a campaign that began with a “flowery” presentation to Aiken City Council held during a closed-door Executive Session that should have been on the regular meeting agenda and held in full public view.
In retrospect, Weathers’ frustration at Council’s reticence to disclose any of the facts concerning the project, though not his unnecessary barbs, seems a bit rational because prior to any opposition Project Sunny was a sure bet; and a traditionally opaque approval process was the best means towards winning that bet.
This is evidenced by two grant proposals totaling $16 million that were either barely discussed or not discussed at all during the debate.
Second, on February 14, 2024, Aiken County submitted an application for a $6 million state grant to the South Carolina Department of Agriculture’s Growing Agribusiness Fund—which was funded by a $40 million legislative allocation in 2023. The County’s grant proposal, which was never publicly disclosed, included House of Raeford financial data—assets, revenues, profits, and costs—that was absent from the federal grant application.
The application shows that, contrary to Commissioner Weathers’ assertions, Aiken County government was very well informed about the project details, including water and sewer demands of at least 33.8 million gallons per month—amounts quite similar to the estimates first implied in January 2024 when the City of Aiken sought a generic rate discount for water and sewer use for major users of its utilities.
Aiken County’s grant proposal also displayed knowledge that House of Raeford’s Aiken plant would not only replace its increasingly controversial West Columbia plant, but it would also double the capacity of chickens processed– up to 57 million per year at a rate of up to 1.3 million per week. The doubling of capacity was also known to be dependent upon the creation of 260 new chicken houses to raise broiler chickens, with upwards of 80 new or expanded growers needed to operate the new facilities—a fact that was greatly and inexplicably underreported during the March-April debate period.
Just twelve days after submitting its proposal, Aiken County was awarded the grant by the “Agriculture Agribusiness Infrastructure Incentives Distribution Initiative Panel” during the panel’s Feburary 26, 2024 meeting.
The two grant proposals and the award to Aiken County suggest that the House of Raeford plant was a done deal prior to two unexpected events: a sewer capacity shortfall and a strong public opposition movement—especially from nearby residents.
County Council Vice-Chair Andrew Siders, who, along with County Chair Gary Bunker, were directly lobbied by Governor Henry McMaster (Figure 1) in early April of 2024, would later tell the Aiken Standard that the opposition was “overwhelming,” a sentiment echoed by County Councilman Phil Napier; who represents the district where the plant was proposed to be located.
Figure 1. Emails between state government officials, House of Raeford executive Jantzen Bradley, and lobbyist Tony Denny. The calls occurred two weeks before the Second Reading of a Fee in Lieu of Taxes (FILOT) Ordinance that would have provided tax rate discounts that can be viewed on Page 17 of the County’s Grant Proposal. The details of the FILOT agreement were never made public during the two months it was in Council’s legislative process. The FILOT agreement failed, at least for one year, after Council opted to not move the Ordinance forward during the Second Reading, which can be heard from a link in The Chicken Plant Tapes. (Email obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.)
The Chicken Plant Location
The two grant applications collectively revealed the location in the northern portion of Aiken County, near I-20’s Exit 22, was based primarily on two factors.
First, it is within 60 miles of most of the company’s existing 80 chicken broiler house growers that supply its current needs.
Second, Aiken County was described in the MEPPA grant application as being “in a rural western/central region of South Carolina, away from major metropolitan areas. This region is represented by rural, underserved, and disenfranchised populations,” (emphasis added) “nearly 13 percent of housing units are vacant,” and the cost of living in Aiken County is lower than that of Lexington County.
The company first settled on a location within Verenes Business Park, which is already zoned for industrial use. As of November 2023, the company had submitted a Letter of Intent (LOI) to purchase the former Avara Pharmaceuticals properties and building on Windham Boulevard.
The site is just south of an undeveloped 146-acre tract owned by the City of Aiken that would have provided a visual screening from the Interstate. However, it is also only a third of a mile upwind from the closest homes in the Taylor Ridge neighborhood, which is composed of quarter to half-million dollar homes on 2-5 acre lots.
The Avara properties total 24.1 acres and the main building is approximately 170,000 square feet, which corresponds to the estimated 165,000+ square foot facility size identified in the County’s grant application, as well as in subsequent reports. The offering price was $12 million, and closing was anticipated for April 2024.
According to an email from Will Williams of the Western Carolina Economic Development Partnership to a local resident, House of Raeford passed on the Avara property after “they determined they could ‘settle’ but not be able to get exactly what they wanted.” Another issue raised in the Williams email was that “I didn’t want odor nor feathers on Windham Blvd”—legitimate issues raised by chicken slaughterhouse opponents.
By the time the County’s grant application was submitted to SC Department of Agriculture, the location had changed to an 87-acre parcel along East Frontage Road next to the existing Shaw plant. This site is generally upwind from more than 100 homes along Old Camp Long Road—the closest being only 1,000 feet— and at least thirty properties in a newly developed area known as Big Branch Farms, where lot sizes range from 5-25 acres. It was to be three miles generally downwind, but close enough to be of concern, to the Summer Lakes neighborhood and the older Millbrook neighborhood.
Clearly, House of Raeford’s due diligence that led to a conclusion that the “region was rural, underserved, and disenfranchised” was undermined by the fact that the area is increasingly dotted with suburban and exurban developments of Aiken, as well as Augusta and Lexington, within an older mix of farms and mixed-income neighborhoods. In fact, instead of a chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant, a suburban-style subdivision is now planned for the East Frontage Road site.
In its search for a more suitable rural setting than West Columbia, House of Raeford instead chose an area undergoing steady residential growth. Instead of looking at its own demographics research deficiencies, the company and its allies in state government blamed the failure of the project on public “misinformation.”
Avara Plant site, with one-mile downwind radius indicated East Frontage Road site, with one-mile downwind radius indicated
(Feature photo: Concept design of the exterior of the chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant contained in the County’s grant application).
The Aiken County Comprehensive Plan, disasters, and near-disasters.
by Don Moniak October 18, 2024
This year, Aiken County is required by law to develop a Comprehensive Plan that serves as a guiding document for development and redevelopment.
Such plans are mandated by Section 6-29-510 of the South Carolina Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994, which states that local Planning Commissions are “to maintain the process that will result in the systematic preparation and continual re-evaluation and updating of those elements considered critical, necessary, and desirable to guide the development and redevelopment of its area of jurisdiction.”
Prior to 2020, plans had to be written to address, at a minimum, nine key variables, aka “elements.” (1) Those were, and remain, population, economic development, natural and cultural resources, community facilities, housing, land use, transportation, and priority investments.
In 2020, the tenth element of resiliency was added, which in this case is perhaps best defined by FEMA as “the ability to prepare for threats and hazards, adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from adverse conditions and disruptions;” an understated way of describing both widespread and localized disasters and near-disasters.
This definition is perhaps the most pertinent because, under state law, the resiliency element requires that planners consider the impacts of natural phenomena that can create “natural hazards.” Specifically, the law states, in part, that:
“A resiliency element considers the impacts of flooding, high water, and natural hazards on individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, economic development, public infrastructure and facilities, and public health, safety and welfare. This element includes an inventory of existing resiliency conditions, promotes resilient planning, design and development, and is coordinated with adjacent and relevant jurisdictions and agencies..”
The Aiken County Plan and Resiliency
The operative word for comprehensive plans is “guide.” The plans are not legally binding, but intended to provide guidance for future decision-making, i.e., the approval or disapproval of a developer’s plans.
Once a draft plan is completed, public hearings must be held prior to the plan’s approval by County Council. According to the 2014-2024 Aiken County Comprehensive Plan, the Aiken County Planning Commission (ACPC) held a public hearing on December 18, 2014, and that was followed by a 12-month public comment period and public input sessions.
The County’s process for its 2025-2035 plan is moving at a similar pace, with a schedule for completion and approval in mid to late 2025.
According to the minutes from the ACPC’s May 2024 public meeting, the status of the plan was discussed during the “New Business” portion of the agenda (2). Four months later, the early timeframe (Figure 1) presented at the May meeting evening had still not been realized—the ACPC had yet to hold a public meeting to discuss the issue.
As the process moves along, the opportunity to delve into the issue of resiliency planning and response to natural and man-made disasters has been presented at a time when the lessons learned from emergency preparations for, and post-disaster response to Hurricane Helene will be fresh in the minds of Aiken County residents. The next year is an opportune time to discuss the issues posed by natural and man-made hazards—which currently are only addressed in the County’s thorough, though obscure, Emergency Operations Plan.
Figure 1. Early timeline for preparing Aiken County’s Comprehensive Plan for the next 10 years. A Freedom of Information Act request has been filed to determine who the consultant is, when that consultancy contract was procured, and what interviews, if any, have been conducted.
The Resiliency Element
Aiken County is susceptible to numerous natural hazards, including tornadoes, tropical storms/hurricanes, ice storms, major rainfall events that can trigger flooding and dam failures, severe drought, and wildfires—all hazards that can be chronically exacerbated by human development. The County is also vulnerable to man-made disasters such as a radiological dispersal accident at the Savannah River Site or its neighbor, the Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant
In the past ten years, the County has experienced two major, widespread weather events—-the Ice Storm of 2014 and 2024’s Hurricane Helene. Both incidents resulted in catastrophic damage to the electrical grid, with critical facilities and more than a hundred thousand residents losing electrical power. The amount of debris generated by the storms overwhelmed local and state-wide capabilities.
These consequences led to the federal designation of a regional disaster area that included Aiken County; thus enabling the County to receive FEMA funds to alleviate the cost of its responses, most notably debris removal. However, FEMA does not come to the rescue for lesser, more localized events whose severity levels do not reach the threshold beyond which the County and State of South Carolina can adequately respond; and even FEMA funding requires some accompanying cost sharing that provides a financial incentive to mitigate disaster response needs.
The County can also experience man-made hazards that can result in disasters and near-disasters. Most notable is the Graniteville train wreck of 2005 that produced a plume of chlorine gas; which triggered an evacuation of more than 5,000 people, killed nine, and caused long-term health impacts for hundreds of residents. This accident is still a top-of-the-mind event, as the Aiken County Emergency Management Plan identifies a railroad accident as “likely” to be “catastrophic;” and thus it is assigned the highest disaster rating of 9 in the disaster rating summary (Figure 2).
While these events may remain prominent because of their scale and breadth of the events, other disastrous and disrupting events have occurred. These include the 2009 tornado that tore across 35 miles of terrain from Columbia County to New Ellenton, tornadoes in the Windsor and Monetta areas in 2022, record-breaking rainfall and associated dam failures in Eastern Aiken County—and across the state—during the 2015 Hurricane Joaquin-related, thousand-year rainfall event referred to as the “fire hose” phenomenon, and the Gateway Fire in May 2019 that caused a complete shutdown of Interstate 20 and the evacuation of dozens of residents.
Figure 2. Aiken County Disaster Rating Summary. From the Aiken County Emergency Operations Plan. The plan states that Aiken County Emergency Management will “prepare for all possible events, but place the greatest emphasis on the most dangerous events that are also most likely to occur.” Severe drought that can result in water shortages is one category that is overlooked. (Click to enlarge)
In 2022, the North Augusta City Council approved its 2021-2031 Comprehensive Plan, but failed to include the resiliency element—even though much of the City’s growth has occurred in the Savannah River flood plain, and tornadoes and other extreme weather, most recently Hurricane Helene, have struck the town.
In 2023, the City of Aiken did make an effort to address the newly identified resiliency element in its amended, five-year update to its Comprehensive Plan. In the final document, city planners devoted two pages (217-218) to resiliency. The chapter began by stating that little guidance is currently available from the State of South Carolina to address these issues.
Compare these first two local efforts to Lexington County’s 2022-2032 Comprehensive Plan. In it, twelve pages of detailed information were devoted to the resiliency element chapter (3), and thirteen concrete measures to be taken were later identified in the implementation chapter.
While the emphasis was on mitigating flood risks and responding to flood events that have plagued, and continue to threaten, the County, the plan also identified ice storms, hurricanes, and man-made hazards such as the risk of a radiation dispersal accident at nearby Summer Nuclear Power Plant—although no mitigating measures were identified yet for the latter.
The Lexington County plan also includes a much fuller identification of the various agencies and jurisdictions, and identifies the means to achieve greater resiliency, such as treating “ lowlands as natural assets,” and “preserving natural areas.”
Florence County, which is also comparable in size to Aiken County, also addressed resiliency in its plan. The County provided a detailed snapshot of the extreme natural events experienced in the past 50-60 years—a table (Figure 3) that provides an insight into the breadth and frequency of natural hazards.
Figure 3: Natural hazards experienced in Florence County over the past half-century. (Click to enlarge)
Aiken County has the opportunity to delve into the resiliency element in a similarly broad and deep manner as other counties, and in a way that could greatly heighten citizen awareness of how risks can be mitigated and how responses can be better streamlined. The planning process will likely follow an internal review of how the County’s Emergency Management response corresponded to its operations plan during the recent Hurricane Helene (Figure 4) disaster, and the ongoing response to that event—including such prominent issues such as information availability and dissemination, the provision of emergency shelters, and the timeliness of debris removal from our roadsides.
Figure 4. Hurricane Helene storm path, 6 a.m., February 27th. According to the Aiken County Emergency Operations Plan, a hurricane is considered “possible” in Aiken County and has a disaster rating of 4–the same as an earthquake and less than a flood. Prior to Hurricane Helene, Aiken County residents were more accustomed to hosting evacuees from the Coast, not experiencing hurricane force winds first-hand.
Footnotes
(1) The law states the following:
“A local comprehensive plan must include, but not be limited to, the following planning elements:
A population element “which considers historic trends and projections, household numbers and sizes, educational levels, and income characteristics.”
An economic development element “which considers labor force and labor force characteristics, employment by place of work and residence, and analysis of the economic base.”
A natural resources element “which considers coastal resources, slope characteristics, prime agricultural and forest land, plant and animal habitats, parks and recreation areas, scenic views and sites, wetlands, and soil types. Where a separate board exists pursuant to this chapter, this element is the responsibility of the existing board.”
A cultural resources element “which considers historic buildings and structures, commercial districts, residential districts, unique, natural, or scenic resources, archaeological, and other cultural resources. Where a separate board exists pursuant to this chapter, this element is the responsibility of the existing board.”
A community facilities element “which considers water supply, treatment, and distribution; sewage system and wastewater treatment; solid waste collection and disposal, fire protection, emergency medical services, and general government facilities; education facilities; and libraries and other cultural facilities.”
A housing element “which considers location, types, age, and condition of housing, owner and renter occupancy, and affordability of housing. This element includes an analysis to ascertain nonessential housing regulatory requirements, as defined in this chapter, that add to the cost of developing affordable housing but are not necessary to protect the public health, safety, or welfare and an analysis of market-based incentives that may be made available to encourage the development of affordable housing, which incentives may include density bonuses, design flexibility, and streamlined permitting processes. The planning commission must solicit input for this analysis from homebuilders, developers, contractors, and housing finance experts when developing this element.”
A land useelement which “considers existing and future land use by categories, including residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, forestry, mining, public and quasi-public, recreation, parks, open space, and vacant or undeveloped.”
A transportation element that “considers transportation facilities, including major road improvements, new road construction, transit projects, pedestrian and bicycle projects, and other elements of a transportation network. This element must be developed in coordination with the land use element, to ensure transportation efficiency for existing and planned development.”
A priority investment element that “analyzes the likely federal, state, and local funds available for public infrastructure and facilities during the next ten years, and recommends the projects for expenditure of those funds during the next ten years for needed public infrastructure and facilities such as water, sewer, roads, and schools.”
The resiliency element that “considers the impacts of flooding, high water, and natural hazards on individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, economic development, public infrastructure and facilities, and public health, safety and welfare. This element includes an inventory of existing resiliency conditions, promotes resilient planning, design and development, and is coordinated with adjacent and relevant jurisdictions and agencies. “
(2) The May 21, 2024 agenda did not identify the Comprehensive Plan as being a New Business agenda item. There was no public notice that the plan was even to be discussed. This was arguably a violation, at least in the spirit if not the letter, of the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act. SC FOIA mandates that agendas be published within 24 hours of a meeting and that any changes in the agenda be made at the beginning of the meeting and documented. The plan was not on the agenda, it was added to the agenda with no notice and no Motion to do so.
(3). Lexington County also added a public safety element and an implementation plan, and divided natural and cultural resources into separate chapters to create a thirteen-chapter plan—three more issue categories than required by the law.
The Beaufort County Comprehensive Plan considers “resiliency in the face of a changing coastline,” one of the only plans that even alludes to the impacts of climate change, which drove the inclusion of the “resiliency element” into comprehensive planning—without mentioning the term “climate change.”
Feature Photo: A unique specimen of Longleaf Pine. The ~75-year-old tree appears to have been damaged in the ice storm that occurred in March, 2004. After the top was broken, it developed multiple tops but no cohesive structure. The tree was resilient to a harsh event, but still did not fully recover.
As a species, Longleaf Pine is generally much more resilient than the more prevalent Loblolly Pine; being better adapted to higher fire intensity, hail, high winds, and other phenomena.
The photo was chosen because the issue of forest cover and species composition in forestlands and urban forests could be at the forefront of near-term discussions relating to resiliency; which is an issue to also be addressed in future stories.
The Aiken Chronicles welcomes all letters and columns devoted to the Aiken County Comprehensive Plan and any other issues of concern.
In the first week of October, Ms. Maria Sullivan of Aiken had a letter printed in the Aiken Standard. It praised the Aiken County Board of Elections for its quick action during the first week of August when it appointed to the Elections Office Interim Director Ms. Judy Justice, and Interim Assistant Director Ms. Amy Nichols. These appointments were triggered by the resignations of the Elections Office’s Director Cynthia Holland in May, and Assistant Director Michael Bond in July. The interim employees were to fill the management void until a new Director was hired.
Ms. Sullivan’s letter went on to lament the sudden dismissal of those same interim employees and to complain about the makeup of the committee that had conducted the search for a new Director.
First, let’s look at what really happened with the flawed appointments of the interim employees, and how they relate to the statement “someone did something they should not have done” made recently by the Board’s Chair Ms. Blanche Wimberly.
Early in her interim tenure Ms. Justice relayed to me two important pieces of information. One was that both she and Interim Assistant Director Nichols had been simultaneously appointed by the Board. The other was that she had no input into the decision to appoint Ms. Nichols.
SC Law grants the Elections Board the authority, in a public meeting, to appoint the Director. It grants to the Director the authority to select and manage the Office staff, which includes the Assistant Director. Clearly, the Board should not have appointed the Interim Assistant Director, nor should the Interim Director have been appointed in a non-public Board meeting.
The State Elections Commission (SEC), in relation to these Board actions, has stated “We have had conversations with multiple people in Aiken County about this issue but have not heard a consistent story of how these hirings were made by the board.” What does it say about our Elections Board that its members cannot explain to the SEC how the interim employees were lawfully appointed?
Second, Ms. Sullivan comments that the interim employees were abruptly terminated and there was not a suitable transition period.
Remember, these were interim appointments. It is not surprising that Ms. Justice was replaced immediately upon the hiring of a permanent Director.
I am similarly not surprised that Ms. Nichols was not retained. In one of her Facebook posts, she wrote: “Yet (sic), the election was manipulated in two critical ways: First, the government dishonestly used the coronavirus pandemic to make wholesale changes to our voting rules that made it easier for Democrats to amass ballots.” Posts such as this made her unsuitable for a management position in the non-partisan office charged with conducting our elections.
Were the interim appointments made so quickly that there was no proper vetting of the candidates? It would be useful to know who proposed this person be hired and appointed.
As it relates to the abrupt termination of the interim employees by the new Director, the SEC also referenced the SC Code of Laws, writing:
“Once hired, it would be the responsibility of the director to hire and manage all subordinate office staff, which would include the position of assistant director (see SC Code of laws Section 7-5-10 (B)).”
This statement clearly puts into the hands of the Director the ability/responsibility to terminate (or to use Ms. Sullivans term, ‘fire’) Elections Office employees.
It is clear from an article printed in the Aiken Standard on Sept. 18 that the decisions on the terminations were properly made by the new Director, Ms. Dana Burden. As to whether or not there was sufficient turnover, what took place during the transition were personnel matters, so it is unlikely we will ever know what turnover, if any, took place.
It is commendable and important that the Board was supporting Ms. Burden as she considered whether or not to retain the interim employees and that she was given that leeway by the board. That is a good start to a new era in which there needs to be more cooperation and trust between the Board and the Director.
Third, in the middle of her letter complaining about how the recent transitions took place, Ms. Sullivan brought up old news about the make-up of the committee performing the search for the new Director. Her implication was that Ms. Wimberly acted improperly when she did not appoint to the committee Ms. Lori Boddy, who was the only Board officer not so appointed. Why this was improper, or how this presumed appointment failure negatively impacted the search was not explained. Nor was it explained how this presumed failure related to the hiring or firing of the interim employees.
There has been turnover and irregular activity in the Election office the last few months, but a visit to the Elections Office will show that preparations and training for the election are well underway.
Unfortunately there are still unfilled 300 of the needed 900+ Clerk and Poll Manager positions. All civic-minded citizens are urged to sign up NOW, and to say YES when contacted by the County elections office, to work the polls. Yes, it is a long, long, day, but it provides a very satisfying experience.
At issue is whether to approve moving forward with a tax and spend referendum that will be placed before County voters on November’s General Election ballot.
The funds are being sought for “designing, engineering, constructing or improving highways, roads, sidewalks, streets and/or bridges; designing, engineering, constructing or improving public facilities for recreation, public safety and/or government services; designing, engineering, constructing or improving drainage systems; purchasing equipment, vehicles and computer systems to support the performance of government services.”
One notable allocation in the final $260 million referendum package is $28 million for improvements to the City of the Aiken’s sewer and water systems. Thus, County residents are being asked to foot improvement costs that should be borne by the city’s water and sewer customers.
Other water providers such as Breezy Hill PSA and Valley PSA do not have the option of subsidizing their operations and infrastructure with county sales tax funds. Their customers foot the bills.
This Public Hearing is also the first time that citizen input has been formally authorized at a CPST-related public meeting at the County level.
Instead of first soliciting citizen input at Town Halls or non-decisional public hearings, Aiken County Council* opted to allow County staff to set priorities and generate a project list. Several Ad Hoc Committee public meetings were held, but public comment periods were absent from the agendas.
The Capital Project Sales Tax Commission then held four meetings one-hour meetings to review the referendum package. Public comments periods were again conspicuously absent from the agendas.
Only after a final list was compiled and approved were people authorized to comment.
Aiken County citizens are allowed to speak for up to five minutes at Public Hearings, and up to three minutes on non agenda issues during the “informal meeting of the whole” at the end of meetings.)
Other County Council Business
On the Work Session Agenda (6 pm) is a “Presentation from Horse Creek Valley” involving the proposed private construction and debris Class 2 landfill off Dixie Clay Road south of Bath. The landfill is currently undergoing the SC Department of Environmental Services’ (SCDES, formerly DHEC) permitting process.
From 5 to 6 p.m. Council will hold three Committee hearings where new issues are discussed and approvals are sought for various resolutions that are on the larger “consent agenda” to be approved during the regular meeting.
On the Development Committee Agenda (5 pm) are discussions on the Whiskey Road drainage project, nuisance cleanup costs, new fire station assistance, five resolutions for placement on the “consent agenda,” and monthly reports from the Planning and Engineering Departments.
Building permits: there has been a ten percent increase in building permit revenue to date compared to last year.
New subdivisions: 71 new subdivisions are in various stages of development across the unincorporated portions of the County. Twelve of the projects are reported to have expired performance bonds, several are reported as idle, and one (Turner Development’s Weeping Willow project) has a stop-work order on it.
Capital Project Sales Tax projects over the past ten years.
On the Administrative Committee Agenda is a single item, the monthly Vacancy Report. Notable vacancies include fourteen Dispatcher, three EMS Crew Chief, fourteen Detention Officer, and 10 Sheriff’s Deputy positions; all of which are chronic shortages.
* Aiken City Council took the same approach. Staff presented a list, Council discussed the list, and the list was presented to the public for comment. There were no public hearings or other input sessions at the early stages.
