NEWBERRY COUNTY COUNCIL

MINUTES

SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

The Newberry County Council met on Wednesday, September 19, 2007, at 7:00 p.m. in Council Chambers at the Courthouse Annex, 1309 College Street, Newberry, SC, for a regularly scheduled meeting.

Present were: Henry B. Summer, Chairman

William D. Waldrop, Vice-Chairman

John E. Caldwell, Councilman

Mike Hawkins, Councilman

John Dawkins, Councilman

Edgar Baker, Councilman

Henry H. Livingston, III, Councilman

Wayne Adams, County Administrator

Gary T. Pope, County Attorney

Susan C. Fellers, Clerk to Council

Debbie S. Cromer, Finance Director

Press: Cindy Pitts, The Newberry Observer

Heather Hawkins, WKDK

Notice of the meeting was duly advertised as required by law.

Mr. Summer called the meeting to order and determined a quorum to be present.

Mr. Pope had the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

1. Personal Appearances.

a. Presentation of, and request to adopt, Resolution #21-07, a Resolution to request that the South Carolina General Assembly, and the South Carolina Congressional Delegation continue to support the manufacturing sector, the working families of South Carolina, and strong national trade policies, and to take swift and responsive actions to halt unlawful barriers to fair and free trade.

Robert R. Smith, II with Moore & VanAllen appeared on behalf of Nucor Steel, who has submitted for Council’s consideration a resolution urging and promoting free and fair trade. The basis of the resolution is based on their belief that domestic manufacturing and other industries, and especially agriculture, have been injured by certain practices in other parts of the world. We are raising more awareness on the county level and urging the State Congressional Delegation to promote fair and free trade. We believe that to be the basis of a level playing field that is fair and free. With that, manufacturing and agriculture in Newberry County will be able to compete and stay competitive. In South Carolina over 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since 1998, and Nucor believes we want to stay competitive and we are asking Council to promote fair and free trade.

Mr. Baker moved to adopt the Resolution; second by Mr. Waldrop. Vote was unanimous.

b. Request for grant match and funding from Chappells Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department.

Tony Johnson, Chief of Chappells Fire Department, said they received a grant for $60,586 and requested support from the County of $7,132.10. With this grant they will purchase 10 new air mattresses and 16 sets of turnout gear.

Mr. Waldrop moved to approve the request and that the funding come from Council contingency; second by Mr. Caldwell. Vote was unanimous.

2. Adoption of Consent Agenda.

Mr. Livingston moved to adopt the consent agenda; second by Mr. Dawkins. Vote was unanimous.

3. Additions, Deletions and Adoption of Agenda.

Mr. Summer requested deletion of Items #11 and the second reading of Item #8.

Under discussion, Mr. Baker asked for an explanation as to why second reading of Item #8 was being deleted. Mr. Adams stated the County has received a request from the Newberry County Soil and Water Conservation District asking that second reading be delayed until such time as they can review the documents and also the surveyed site that will be the wetlands. We will have to schedule another public hearing.

There being no further amendments, Mr. Waldrop moved to adopt the agenda as amended; second by Mr. Baker. Vote was unanimous.

4. Ordinance #06-22-07: An Ordinance authorizing the issuance and sale of a Newberry County, South Carolina, Special Source Revenue Bond (Mid-Carolina Commerce Park, Phase I Project), with an appropriate series designation, in the principal amount of not to exceed $1,500,000; authorizing the issuance and sale of a Newberry County, South Carolina, Special Source Revenue Bond Anticipation Note (Mid-Carolina Commerce Park, Phase I Project), Series 2007, in the principal amount of not to exceed $1,500,000; the application of the proceeds of said bonds to defray, for economic development purposes, the costs of designing, acquiring, constructing, improving or expanding infrastructure in the Mid-Carolina Commerce Park; and other matters relating thereto.

Frannie Heizer, bond counsel, stated generally when you are placing debt one of the methodologies used to choose who will be the purchaser of the debt is to issue a Request for Proposal. It is sort of like a bid but not a bid because there may be some other terms and conditions that would be part of the response. We have a Request for Proposal that can be sent out by the end of this week; however, there is another option, which we ask your consideration.

Instead of actually sending out a Request for Proposal, that Council would authorize her to go to the bank that currently holds the existing Special Source Revenue Bond and negotiate directly with the bank. Back in 2006 the County issued a $6,000,000 Special Source Revenue Bond that has pledged for its repayment the stream of revenue from the two most active parks. The Greenwood Park is not a part of the fee stream that is pledged. The contemplation is that this Special Source Bond Anticipation Note would basically be payable from both the long term bonds that would be issued but as sort of a safety net, also there would be a pledge of revenue. The same source of revenue would be pledged for this new debt as we have pledged for the $6,000,000 debt.

Under the documents authorizing the original Special Source Bond, the County has every right to issue the additional $1,200,000 or $1,500,000. There is not a problem. In thinking about the most efficient way to get the best total package for the County, Ms. Heizer recommended that we go directly to BB&T, the holder of the original bond, and negotiate with them.

The purpose for doing competition is to make sure that the County gets the best possible transaction and the best offer. Ms. Heizer is convinced, based on BB&T’s investment in the County already with the fact that they purchased the original bond, that they would offer the County just as good a proposal in negotiation as they would if we went out for a Request for Proposal. That company does a lot of work with local governments around the State, and they are always willing to work with folks. She didn’t think they would take advantage of the County or that the County would end up paying any more.

The advantage of directly negotiating with BB&T is because of our complicated transaction we have a little more flexibility in just sitting with them across the table and negotiating any specific terms or conditions.

We are on track to have either a Request for Proposal or negotiations to begin as early as next week. The schedule is that you would have a public hearing on this bond at the next meeting. We would hope to have all the details of the transaction available at either the first meeting in October or the second meeting in October.

Ms. Heizer felt it made sense to go back to the original lender and negotiate with them.

Mr. Hawkins asked Mr. Pope if he had a problem with this. Mr. Pope said no and that the County met with a representative from BB&T today to discuss some issues about this. He felt it would save the County money to do it this way because if we go to another lender, it is conceivable that their lien would be junior to BB&T’s, and if that happened, we would not get as favorable an interest rate. This way BB&T would have the entire package and would be able to give us a better interest rate all the way around. Mr. Pope recommended this.

Mr. Hawkins moved to accept the recommendation; second by Mr. Baker. Vote was unanimous.

Mr. Hawkins moved for second reading; second by Mr. Baker. Vote was unanimous.

5. Ordinance #09-26-07: An Ordinance authorizing pursuant to Chapter 44 of Title 12, South Carolina Code of Laws, 1976, as amended, the execution and delivery of a Fee Agreement between Newberry County, South Carolina and Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc.; the application of an infrastructure credit to fee in lieu of tax payments; and matters relating thereto.

Mr. Summer called for the public hearing. There being no comments from the public, Mr. Summer declared the public hearing closed.

Mr. Dawkins moved for second reading; second by Mr. Waldrop. Vote was unanimous.

6. Ordinance #09-27-07: An Ordinance authorizing a Fee Agreement by and between Nasmyth Precision Products, Inc. and Newberry County, South Carolina whereby, under certain conditions, Newberry County will provide certain economic development inducements to Nasmyth Precision Products, Inc. to induce Nasmyth Precision Products, Inc. to locate an industrial project in Newberry County, South Carolina.

Mr. Livingston moved for second reading; second by Mr. Hawkins. Vote was unanimous.

7. Ordinance #09-28-07: An Ordinance to amend the Official Zoning Map established pursuant to Zoning Ordinance #12-24-01 so as to rezone a tract containing approximately 1.6 acres, designated as TMS Parcel No. 651-30, from Rural (R-2) to General Commercial (GC).

Mr. Summer called for the public hearing. There being no comments from the public, Mr. Summer declared the public hearing closed.

Mr. Caldwell moved for second reading; second by Mr. Baker. Vote was unanimous.

8. Ordinance #09-29-07: An Ordinance setting aside a one-half acre parcel within the Lynch’s Woods Park as an area protected by restrictive covenants, as a means of providing for wetland mitigation of small areas of wetlands disturbed during the Newberry County Airport Improvement Project, and matters related to the implementation of the Mitigation Plan.

Mr. Summer called for the public hearing. There being no comments from the public, Mr. Summer declared the public hearing closed.

Second reading was deleted.

Bill Ehney asked if Council would explain this ordinance.

Mr. Pope stated as part of the Airport project, when the land was cleared for the new runway, they found a small area of wetlands at the end of the runway on the east side of the Airport. In order to get the required permission to disturb those wetlands, we had to find another area of wetlands to be permanently dedicated to being a wetlands forever. Since we have the Lynch’s Woods Park, which is already a public park, and which is likely to be conserved, it made the most sense that we would try to select a wetlands area there. W.K. Dickson, our engineers for the Airport, went out and selected an area in Lynch’s Woods and used that as part of their permit application for the wetlands mitigation plan to the Army Corps of Engineers and DHEC. The FAA also has to approve it. We do not have the actual survey at this point so that people can go out and look at the delineated part on the ground. We contacted the engineers this week and asked them to go forward and get the survey on the ground so people can look at it.

Mr. Pope recommended that Council have another public hearing once we have the plat so anyone with concerns can come forward and we can try to answer their questions. The idea is that you can go in there but you can’t develop this area or disturb the natural habitat.

There are feelings about this. Lynch’s Woods is near and dear to everyone’s heart in Newberry County. People want to be sure we are doing the right thing. He felt people would feel a lot more comfortable once we have the survey and can see what we are talking about. As soon as we have a date for the survey, we can go forward with the second public hearing and ask you to consider second reading at that time.

9. Committee Reports.

Mr. Dawkins reported at the last Council meeting, County Council moved to have the engineer, Cannon, to present the scope of work for Pugh Road Bridge to the CTC and requesting funding from the CTC. Mr. Cannon did that. The CTC took it under consideration, and at this time, they do not have the money to do it. The balance in their account was about $120,000. The scope of work is approximately $225,000. They said they would consider replacing the bridge but they needed to postpone it and consider it at a different time.

The other motion made by Council was to request from the CTC to match $75,000 from the County giving us a total of $150,000 to do some tar and gravel roads that don’t meet the requirements of the CTC to asphalt. The CTC did match that so we now have $150,000 for doing some tar and gravel roads that are currently gravel roads. Mr. Waldrop wants to take this back to the County Council Road Committee to get a list of roads.

10. Appointments.

No appointments.

11. Consideration of sponsorship of golf hole in Chamber of Commerce Industry Appreciation Golf Tournament.

Deleted.

12. Status report from Alliance Engineering regarding Mid-Carolina Commerce Park.

Deepal Eliatamby and Jamie Frost with Alliance Engineering appeared and reported the following to Council. The final report of the Master Plan was presented to Council on May 31, and Council accepted that. In that document was a schedule. The project is broken out into four different phases. The County was fortunate enough to attract a new industry. We were tasked in late June to move forward with the first phase. The first couple of items we had to do were conduct a topographic survey of the roadway for phase one and the water line and the waste water line.

(Handouts were given to Council, but no copies for permanent record.) Mr. Eliatamby showed Council where the new company would locate and explained location of water lines, pump station, etc.

The first thing we had to do was the topographic survey of the alignment and then do a subsurface investigation; that is punching holes in the ground and trying to figure out what kind of soil is there. In order to expedite the project we did that concurrently. Normally we would proceed with the topographic survey and provide that to the geotechnical folks. We proceeded with both of those and completed that in July and then went on and finished the preliminary alignment for the water line, the roadway and the waste water line. We are now in the design phase. These four tasks were allowed about 150 days, but we think we can save about 25 to 30 days and maybe slightly a little more by doing a couple of things concurrently, which we have been working on.

We will share with Council some of the plans we have done; that is the existing conditions, the roadway alignment, the water and sewer. We are about a month or six weeks away from completing that. Then we will put the project out for bid and permitting, which will take about 30 days to work with the County’s procurement folks and make sure we are complying with those requirements. We will receive bids and then go into construction. The original plan was to have this constructed in about 9 months to a year. We think with a new company coming in trying to provide access to the site, we will want to expedite that a little bit.

We have discussed providing the company temporary access, and we can provide that to them today. Parcel 13 is where the new company is going. There is an existing logging road that goes down into parcel 13 now so we feel that is a great place for them to come in and work on their particular site during the construction of phase one. We feel like with a little help from the County this road could be widened and beefed up a little for construction equipment access. The company has mentioned they want access sometimes in March or early April. The road should be finished sometimes in December but we can give them access to that.

Mr. Adams said the company has been shown the access road and generally they think that is okay. Mr. Hawkins said it was preferred because we didn’t want the construction traffic on a brand new road.

Mr. Baker asked if the road was going to be paved for future construction traffic.

Mr. Eliatamby said it depends on what stage this road is. If we are putting binder down, then we would rather not them be accessing for another site. Once you have the surface poured, and as long as they are not running off road vehicles on it, then we are okay. We don’t want them running off road vehicles on it and tearing it up.

Mr. Waldrop asked if there was a way to put in a construction road. Mr. Eliatamby said certainly. With this you can access this area. Getting in the back, unless we come along one of the power line right of ways, we are going to have to use the road at some point.

We are a little bit ahead of schedule right now and hopefully that is the way we would like to keep it. We will run into some cold weather issues as a road has to be paved when it is about 40 degrees and rising.

Mr. Hawkins asked if this road would be designed to the same standards as the road going to the landfill. Mr. Eliatamby was not sure of the standards for the landfill road but we are designing this to DOT standards so that if in the future for some reason the DOT needs to take it over, we won’t give them any reason not to accept it. It will be designed to DOT standards. It is designed for industrial traffic, 18-wheelers and so forth.

Mr. Waldrop asked if any of the commercial upfront would be destroyed going into the site. Mr. Eliatamby said it would not. The direction we were given was to focus on this parcel at this time. Certainly at Council’s pleasure we will be glad to move into that section.

We think the current bid climate is very attractive. We just completed in the past few weeks four other projects that were put out for bid, and we received favorable bids with some savings to the counties that we were working with. We are hitting this at the right time and looking for some cost savings and certainly keeping this project within budget.

There is a methodical process to go forward. We can’t go in there right now and start tearing down trees and grading things without a permit from DHEC. We will do the permitting and bidding concurrently so as to save a month.

Mr. Hawkins asked if the timeline started on May 31. Mr. Eliatamby said it did not. The announcement was made at the air show on June 22. The latter part of June was when we were authorized. Mr. Hawkins asked if the date of July 1 could be used, which Mr. Eliatamby agreed to.

Mr. Hawkins felt it would be helpful when progress occurs that someone on Mr. Eliatamby’s staff email Mr. Adams, which he could forward on to Council.

Mr. Dawkins said Council’s concern is to have everything ready for Nasmyth when they want it. It is important to us and if things get off schedule, we are certainly looking at you. Mr. Eliatamby said they were meeting with Nasmyth in October. We hope to do his design work so we will be looking after the County’s interest for sure.

13. Requests by Councilmen.

Mr. Livingston requested that we get the Recreation Commission back actively engaged to look at the 3-5-10 year plans for what we want for Newberry County. Mr. Livingston suggested that each Council member contact their appointments to be sure they are still willing to serve and make sure we have active involvement and not just people on the committee.

14. Public Comments.

Harry Greisser expressed concern about the representation from their area on the Planning Commission and the process itself. At last night’s Planning Commission meeting, their representative said nothing either in support of, or against, an emotional issue involving their community and actually abstained from voting, which Mr. Greisser did not understand. Mr. Greisser requested that Council consider seeing that their area had representation on the Planning Commission.

Scott Bell spoke regarding the tax rebates. He purchased a house a little over a year ago and sold a house in July. He paid the taxes last year, but the tax bill and tax check were made out to the previous owner. It is hard to cash a check when it is made out to someone else in care of whoever paid the tax bill. He went to the Treasurer’s Office today, and they are so fed up with the tax rebates the Treasurer wouldn’t even talk to him. He talked with Pam, who in turn talked to the Treasurer, and told him basically they wouldn’t do anything and if he had any questions to see Debbie Cromer and voice his concerns with her. He didn’t do that at first, but went around and was finally able to cash the check.

He felt the problem was the tremendous delay in updating the records for real estate transactions and felt the County could update the records on a timelier basis.

Mr. Pope explained the way tax records are done is based on State law. State law requires that all property be assessed in the name of the person who owns it on December 31 immediately preceding the calendar year that you are going to levy the taxes on. In the 2006 tax year, they have to look at who was the owner on December 31, 2005, and that is why the bill is sent to the prior owner in care of the new owner. The State law says we have to send the bill to the person who owns it on the December 31 date. The County records are actually updated immediately upon the filing of the deed in the Courthouse. There is a block on there showing it has gone to the Assessor’s and Auditor’s Offices, and they have actually updated the tax records immediately but they can’t send the bill to the new owner because you didn’t own it on December 31. It has basically been a policy decision by the County that it is up to the landowners to straighten out who pays the taxes. If it created a hardship, they were to bring it back to County Council to try to get it adjusted.

Heather Hawkins thanked County Council for its support of the Newberry Community Players.

15. Vote for Executive Session, When Necessary.

Mr. Pope said the Executive Session was to discuss a legal matter concerning Dillinger Road where a landowner is unhappy about some of the County’s policy regarding improvement out there.

Mr. Baker moved to go into Executive Session to discuss the legal matter; second by Mr. Hawkins. Vote was unanimous.

[EXECUTIVE SESSION 8:02 P.M. – 8:24 P.M.]

16. Executive Session.

Mr. Hawkins moved to return to open session; second by Mr. Baker. Vote was unanimous.

17. Necessary Action on Matters Discussed in Executive Session.

No action necessary.

18. Comments from County Administrator.

Mr. Adams received a letter from the Newberry County Soil and Water Conservation District requesting the County work with the District to develop a new Memorandum of Understanding for the management of Lynch’s Woods and with Council’s approval he will work with Annette Davis, who is their chief staff person for that purpose.

19. Comments from Council Members.

No comments.

20. Future Meetings.

Mr. Summer announced the meetings of October 3 at 6:00 p.m. for a presentation from the Newberry County Disabilities and Special Needs Board; October 3 at 7:00 p.m. and October 17 at 7:00 p.m.

Mr. Summer will be out of town on November 7, and November 21 is the day before Thanksgiving. He requested that instead of having a meeting on the first and third Wednesdays of November, that Council meet on the second Wednesday, which would be November 14. We would have one meeting and if another meeting is necessary, we can call one.

Mr. Waldrop so moved; second by Mr. Baker. Vote was unanimous.

21. Vote to Adjourn.

Mr. Waldrop moved to adjourn.

22. Adjournment.

There being no further business, Mr. Summer declared the meeting adjourned at 8:27 p.m.

NEWBERRY COUNTY COUNCIL

________________________________

Henry B. Summer, Chairman

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Susan C. Fellers, Clerk to Council

APPROVED: October 3, 2007