Richland County Council meets September 16, 2008

Roll call

Chairman Joe McEachern, Vice Chair Val Hutchinson, Joyce Dickerson, Norman Jackson, Damon Jeter, Paul Livingston, Bill Malinowski, Mike Montgomery, Greg Pearce, Bernice Scott, and Kit Smith were present at the Richland County Council meeting September 16, 2008.

Citizens input

Edith Cunningham, from the Hickory Ridge Homeowner's Association, spoke to the council about a guard rail on Patrick Road. Evidently, the good folks at Hickory Ridge think all one has to do to get results in Richland County is let the council know there is a problem. Cunningham seemed surprised nothing has been done.

The guard rail was part of the transportation initiative voted down by the council in July. Cunningham said the 500 homeowners in Hickory Ridge "feel neglected." (So do all the bus passengers.)

USC president

Milton Pope introduced Dr. Harris Pastides, new USC president, to the council. Dr. Pastides told the council he had been greatly anticipating his visit to Richland County council chambers. He said it was an honor to be there and promised future cooperation in joint ventures such as Innovista. (Dr. Pastides had nothing to say about the USC football team.)

Richland County IT accreditation

Pope surprised IT director Janet Claggett by recognizing her recent accreditation at the University of North Carolina. The process took almost a year to complete and makes Richland County's IT department one of only two in the state with this accreditation.

Glenn Detention Health accreditation

Pope also recognized the Glenn Detention Center and their health vendor Correct Care, for improvements in the health care of inmates and their recent accreditation in the health care of inmates. Glenn is one of four statewide with this distinction.

Budget amendment

Act 388, an S.C. legislative directive from a couple of years ago, puts a cap on property taxes each year. It passes spending from state to local governments and is causing headaches in city and county governments across the state.

Mike Montgomery has been especially vocal about the bill and the resulting gyrations the Richland council must make to fund all county agencies. He mentioned in the meeting he thought the legislature didn't achieve the desired result by passing Act 388. ( I disagree. The state lawmakers' main objective was to keep their job by passing tough tax decisions down to local governments. Since most of them were re- elected, I'd say Act 388 did exactly what it was designed to do.)

The council was trying to readjust the millage rates without taxpayers noticing and still fund county agencies sufficiently. Montgomery pointed out the council would be barred from raising taxes next year to make up for any shortfall this year by Act 388, so the amounts had to be adjusted to allow the agencies involved some spillover.

Joyce Dickerson had a problem with the whole idea and wanted to keep things as they are so no one's taxes will increase. Chairman McEachern also wanted to hold the spending down. His suggestion was to give Richland School District Two their requested funds but not approve the other requests. He declared an individual vote on each amendment. (The chairman gets to do stuff like that.)

Richland Two got their adjustment but Riverbanks Zoo, the Recreation department, and Midlands Tech were denied.

A contractual matter about solid waste, Palmetto Utilities, and the Lower Richland sewer update were among the items discussed in secret during executive session.