Roll call

Acting Chair Val Hutchinson, Joyce Dickerson, Norman Jackson, Damon Jeter, Paul Livingston, Bill Malinowski, Mike Montgomery, Greg Pearce, Bernice Scott, and Kit Smith were present.

Citizen's input

C. B. Smith, Merrill Donahoo, Bob Pulliam, Elliott Powell, and SC Aviation Association president Frank Manning spoke in favor of renaming Owens Downtown airport the Jim Hamilton airport to honor Hamilton, who has spent 46 years converting the downtown airport from a landing strip into the facility it is today. Later in the evening, the council did just that.

The Honorable Kay Patterson used his two minutes to present retiring council member Bernice Scott with a framed copy of a recent news story about her. He mentioned a reference by Scott to when she "only owned one pair of drawers." He also told her being on council was better than having people "chunking shoes at you."

Administrator's report

Milton Pope presented a four million dollar check to LRADAC to represent Richland County's portion of the funding for the new building on Colonial Drive. The state is kicking in five and a half million, and dirt is already being moved at the site.

Enforcement of the Columbia and Richland smoking ordinances will be handled primarily by the enforcement code officers. Any businesses with compliance problems will deal with the licensing board.

Agenda items

The primary discussion on agenda items was much like déjà vu all over again. Norman Jackson once again expressed his concern with the new county ordinance requiring leaves left at the property line to be bagged in order to be picked up.

Jackson, like last time, assumed the issue is about leaves getting pulled into storm water drains. Since the drainage ditches in the rural areas are mostly open, Jackson thinks the rural citizens should be allowed to rake leaves into a big pile at the end of the property line.

He was informed the issue was about pickup rather than drainage; this was explained before. The explanation didn't take. He still thinks rural landowners should be exempt. As is usually the case, Bill Malinowski got hung up on some obscure part of the ordinance he misread. He didn't think Richland's citizens should have to write yard waste on plastic bags. Neither does the guy who wrote the ordinance but that didn't stop Malinowski from delaying the vote until it was explained to him. Satisfied, he went back to worrying about getting every mention of Joe McEachern removed from the county's public records.

A second discussion about paving dirt roads sounded eerily similar to the discussion on the same subject last time it was before council. Stay tuned. Neither of these items has been completely approved yet. Much more discussion is likely. There are three new council members coming in January with brand new concerns.

A group of concerned citizens from Lower Richland came to the council meeting after receiving an inflammatory, racist notice about how the white council members were taking money intended for Lower Richland County and giving it to other areas.

The two council members representing that area had an opportunity to show how a community leader handles such things. Unfortunately, the council member who is retiring showed the correct way to handle this type of nastiness and the one who is remaining failed miserably.

After Bernice Scott thanked everyone for her time on the council she allowed the meeting to be adjourned.