One Cent Sales Tax extension is on the ballot

A list of potential items to be funded if the one cent sales tax is approved can be found on the Herald website.  Will you be voting for or against the one cent sales tax extension?

Election Day is Tuesday!

As you know this site has been inactive since January.  After a video camera failure, lack of time (desire?) to attend meetings and some personal issues, a break from it all was necessary.  Yet, we now have less than one week before voters decide on the direction of Chester County they would prefer- a new one or the same direction we have been in for the last three decades.   Another item that will be decided is the one cent sales tax extension to pay for county ‘fixer uppers’ or whatever the council appointed, sales tax committee decides.   Should the county have been performing this maintenance all along rather than purchasing and renovating old buildings?  (ie: The Gateway, The Roddey building)

YOU- the voters, will decide Tuesday.

Below is a letter from a long time Chester County resident, who has always been vocal about what she sees happening in the county.

“Nov. 4, 2014 will be upon us and we will hopefully be going out to vote against another term for Carlisle Roddey as County Administrator and against the l cent sales tax.

Ask yourself this question,  would Chester County be better off with 2 ethanol plants, a incinerator and a mega landfill?  Would all the projects supported by the l cent sales tax be placed on the ballot had he not be running for re-election?  Would the county be begging the state for more money to spend if the county had not participated in reckless spending of the taxpayer money?  Think of all the money spent on attorney fees by the county trying to take control of 911 and lost the lawsuit.

Should you not vote out the present administration and place Shane Stuart in the seat, the only thing I can say is “hold on to your money because it is going to be a bumpy ride.

Lib Cook”

If you have a letter you would like posted, email it to opinion@chesterwhistle.net
Personal attacks will not be posted.

$406k Meadowbrook Rd water project approved

During the County Council meeting on Tuesday evening, council approved a $406k award to Tri-County Utilities for the ‘Meadowbrook Road water project’, which is located in District 4.  During the discussion, Supervisor Roddey stated they had been working on this water project for 2-3 years.

If you recall, District 4 representative John Wayne Holcombe was the only councilperson to change their vote regarding the battle to take 911 away from the Sheriff.  Additionally, the supervisor once ‘joked’ about withholding county funds for a ‘nay’ vote from Mr. Holcombe, to increase the county millage rate during the September 17, 2012 county council meeting.   Click ‘September 2012’ under ‘archives’ to view that video clip.

You can watch the clip for the $400k water project vote and discussion below.

We need stronger FOIA laws in SC!

The editorial in today’s Herald discusses the need for stronger FOIA laws and uses the battle between the supervisor and County Council with the Sheriff Department in Chester County as one of the prime examples why this is needed.

A clip from the article-

“County Supervisor Carlisle Roddey and members of the county council have refused to comment on their reasons for wanting to move control of the 911 center from the sheriff’s office. Efforts to get documentation that might provide an explanation have been futile.

Here we have the citizens of Chester County paying for a legal battle over a key public safety service, and the officials elected to represent those citizens refuse to reveal what the argument is all about.

This strikes us as a blatant example of contempt for the people’s right to know what their government is up to and a perfect justification for strengthening the FOI law.”

If your tired of being treated this way by the elected leaders of our county, please take a few minutes to write your state representative requesting them to support this much needed legislation.

When is too much control, too much control?

According to The Herald article, Chester County taxpayers could be who ultimately  pays for the latest supervisor pet project- taking control of E911 services from the county Sheriff.  Not only will taxpayers be paying the attorneys the county hired from Kershaw but also our local attorney and it appears the county will be running two different emergency dispatch ‘call centers’ to service 911 emergencies.  Not certain how valid the numbers the lawyers are tossing around are, but that doesn’t take away from the question of just how much control one person in Chester County has.

How much control does one person need to have over Chester County and how has one person calling the shots helped the county overall?  Only 4 counties in the state operate with a Supervisor/Council form of government- Chester being one of them.  If we had a County Administrator or Manager, would we have had to worry as much about buying property formerly owned by ‘friends’ and creating a business park?  A Conference Center and Wedding Chapel as ‘The Gateway’ to our county?  Condemning then buying the condemned property to keep a Taco Bell from locating there?  Getting into a wrestling match for control of 911 from the sheriff?  Building an autopsy room for a coroner who isn’t certified to perform them?  Just a few of the projects our supervisor has promoted and supported…

If you didn’t know, the County Administrator or Manager answers TO the council, not vice-versa. Until Chester County is collectively able to remove the yoke the County Supervisor position has put on all citizens and have someone who is not a career politician but rather a business person running our county, the saying most often heard will continue to ‘only in Chester’.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear our county supervisor is too worried about any of these decisions negatively impacting prospective business investors to the county…  What business owner in their right mind would want to locate or relocate to a county where so much taxpayer money is spent on questionable projects??  How many Economic Development opportunities have been lost because of the backwardness in how county government operates and functions?

Chester County Council to move forward on 911 move

Despite pending legal actions regarding the removal of control of 911 dispatch from the Sheriff to the county supervisor, the agenda for Monday’s county council meeting contains a resolution to adopt a new organizational chart, moving the employees under the county supervisor and transferring all funds and appropriations for E911 as well.

ChesterWhistle.net encourages all county residents to attend this meeting.

Supervisor decides 911 needs to move

According to Wednesday’s Chester News & Reporter article, at the 10 am Tuesday’s special called council meeting, with the only topic listed being a ‘personnel matter’ for executive session, county council emerged from that session and held a vote to move 911 offices to Ella Street.  Why was the executive session being described to the public as a ‘personnel matter’ when that would not appear to be the case during the vote?
Oh wait-  perhaps they were discussing ‘moving personnel’ to a new/old location or even who was in ‘control’ of 911 personnel?

Also mentioned in the paper, the supervisor alone decided 911 offices needed to move and nearly ‘pulled the trigger’ sometime last year, Sheriff Alex Underwood’s first year as the newly elected sheriff, stating ‘the best thing for it [911] is to stand on its own.’  He also stated 911 operated more efficiently before moving to its current location on Dawson Drive.  Assuming the supervisor provided no documentation or statistics to back up his statements about the efficiency of 911 offices and the supervisor casting the deciding vote on the controversial issue, does this whole situation smell a little (lot?) strange.  Regardless whether it cost 20 or 300 thousand or what years budget it is coming out of.  With leaders historically claiming The Gateway won’t cost taxpayers anything (perhaps they were talking about the sign?), will this move really cost 20k or will it just ‘look’ like it?

Unfortunately, the ChesterWhistle was unable to attend this 10am special meeting due to conflicts.  Anyone interested in volunteering their time to help Chester County by attending and videoing the meetings, please send an email to admin(at)chesterwhistle.net

Beach land in Blackstock for sale

During Monday night’s county council meeting citizen comments, Randall Marsh asked county council to explain to the citizens why the county was spending county funds to move 9-11 services to Ella Street away from the Law Enforcement Center, when it was just moved there about two years ago.  Marsh mentioned about hearing 300-500 thousand being spent on this move and if it could be better spent to serve the general public rather than a select few.  For the answer, one had to wait over one and a half hour for the comment from the county supervisor.  The supervisor said he would be ‘disappointed’ if the cost exceeded 20 thou sand, also saying it was already in the maintenance budget from last year but they ‘didn’t have enough time last year’.  After stating the project will be completed, he concluded his statements with, if you believed the 300-500k numbers, he ‘has some beach land in Blackstock to sell you’.

You can watch the clipped comments below

Full video located on November 2013

Jobs announcement coming Thursday

Chester County Council will hold the public hearing and final reading to approve a ‘fee in lieu’ agreement between project 1233 and Chester County, Thursday morning 10am. Not sure what the point of the public hearing is since the company won’t be announced to the public, until later on that day with the Governor.

During tonight’s county council meeting, second reading to authorize the county supervisor to borrow money, up to the debt limit, to purchase the one acre of land next to the Roddey building passed unanimously, Oliphant abstaining.

Second reading to sell property for project 1233 in the industrial park next to York Tech also passed unanimously, as well as second reading amending county ordinance regarding demolition of certain properties.

County Council says NO business license fees, for now

With standing room only in the Roddey Building council chambers tonight, the county council listened to  local business owners who came out to voice their disapproval of the proposed business license fee/tax during citizen comments and requested the council to reconsider their previous support of this effort.   Councilman Oliphant proposed to essentially cut the fees in half and Councilman Branham seconded.  After much discussion by council members, Oliphant’s motion to reduce the fee, failed 2-4 and the full license fee then failed to receive even one vote of support.

Business owners mentioned how they could support a flat rate type of fee or registration of the businesses if that were the ultimate goal, but a sliding scale fee simply was not reasonable to business owners and something they couldn’t pass on to their customers.  Farmers exempt from the business license fee, discussed how their suppliers would pass on their fees to the farmer, ultimately making the farmer pay the fee- indirectly.

Later in the meeting, the supervisor asked for a motion to move the first reading of an ordinance to borrow money to purchase the 1 acre of property Omnova currently owns, which council recently condemned, as well as build a new EMS facility, until after executive session.

After executive session, council emerged and unanimously approved a first reading to sell 43 acres in the technology park to ED prospect #1233, which first reading of a fee in lieu agreement with this company also passed first reading, earlier in the evening.  It was mentioned this could a forty million dollar investment in the county, but the company was not ready to reveal themselves just yet.  No mention was made of how many jobs they may provide, nor the industry type.

Afterward, the first reading to authorize the county supervisor to borrow an unknown amount of money to buy the one acre of recently condemned land as well as build an EMS facility passed unanimously.  Councilman Branham was quick to point out that some existing bonds were about to roll off, so these new bonds wouldn’t really be changing anything, burden-wise for the county.

Watch the meeting