Tag: South Carolina

#119: Hardeeville, SC 7/18/17

If you didn’t have a big old smile on your face from 6:00 to 6:10 p.m., you must not have been watching the Hardeeville city council meeting.

“Dear Lord, please continue to guide this council,” Mayor Pro Tem David Spisso began conventionally enough, adding: “Please inspire the Apple Company to bring an Apple Store to Hardeeville. Amen,” he concluded, earning an amused glance from Council Member John Carroll.

An elderly man in a baseball cap quietly introduced himself. “My wife was well-known around here. Nobody hardly knows me,” he admitted humbly. “But she died last month.”

“My sympathies, sir,” Mayor Harry Williams replied.

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A Lego plane?

“She was always complaining to me to come here and see you people. I hate to do this, but the neighbor we have refuses to take his garbage off the street. He leaves it there seven days a week.”

“We’ll have code enforcement take a look,” the city manager assured him.

While another citizen might have declared “Mission Accomplished” and returned to their seat, this sprightly nonagenarian had one other news bulletin for the crowd.

“I’ll tell you something else!” he waved his finger. “[My wife] talked me into getting in the bake-off contest this year. I got first place on the cake AND the pie! Ninety-one-year-old beatin’ out all of them women!”

Council members applauded wildly as onlookers cackled with well-intentioned laughter. The man gestured to the cacophony he had created.

“I’m going home!” he hollered.

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She’s loving it.

As it turned out, he made the right choice.

Mayor Williams gave a slight frown as the Parks and Recreation director slid behind the microphone to discuss the troubled Hardeeville Recreation Complex turf project.

The director gestured to the screen. “We have a video here of the progress. It’s a minute long.” An excruciatingly slow slide show cycled silently.

“I’m on my edge of the seat. Is this really necessary?” the mayor heckled impatiently.

At last, stationary photographs of the field flashed onscreen. The director described the current situation: “The plan is to get that [soil] dried out so they can put down a geofiber fabric over the soil that is unsuitable.”

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Yikes! That’s some sullied soil right there.

The mayor stared down at his paperwork and clenched his fist. “So we ALREADY added $4,900 to the original plan. Now we have ANOTHER $49,000. So we’re $53,000 over budget.”

“We’re still under budget for the project,” the director protested.

“No, we’re not,” the mayor shot back in his thick New Jersey accent. “Let’s make that clear.”

Throwing up both hands, he vented savagely. “I have a real problem. We’re coming back at the eleventh hour asking for another $50,000–which is ten percent over budget and six months late. I don’t find that to be an acceptable performance!”

Barely hiding his contempt for the contractor doing the turf work, Mayor Williams ticked off his complaints. “Didn’t get permits on time. At least a week late and counting. If they’re here,” he glared across the room, “NOT a good performance.”

Putting on his glasses and sighing, the mayor initiated a vote to approve the extra money.

“This is something I wanted in the city for a long time. I want it to be right,” Mayor Pro Tem Spisso announced, voting in favor.

With all other council members as a yes, the mayor voted his disgust. “I supported this. As a protest to the performance of the company, I’m gonna vote no.”

On that dour note, the matter was closed.

Month in Review: February 2017

It’s almost April, which makes this the perfect time to look back at what happened in…February! The shortest month of the year was highly productive: it included our first ever State of the City Council Meetings Address (to a joint session of Congress, no less!), our first Australian city council meeting, and a tale of the councilman who saved San José.

So wander over to the February month in review and try not to get your hand stuck in a coyote trap, y’hear?

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#88: Tega Cay, SC 2/21/17

It was the “O.J. Simpson trial” of city council meetings–a sensational media circus at Tega Cay City Hall, where the whole town was whispering about Public Enemy Number One:

Coyotes.

“This week–actually, yesterday–Andrew set traps over in the Lake Ridge area,” revealed city manager Charlie Funderburk. “Today we caught Coyote #1 and Coyote #4 in between the water tower and the footbridge.” Funderburk gestured to an onscreen map like General Eisenhower explaining the plan at D-Day.

(That is, if D-Day took place at a country club. “For the golfers, this is between holes 14 and 15,” Funderburk added.)

“Andrew, if you could come to the podium–” the city manager suddenly beckoned, “–Andrew’s gonna take a few minutes, demonstrating the trap that he’s used.”

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“He will demonstrate it on this guy sitting next to me. Seal the exits.”

I was expecting some Crocodile Dundee-style hulk of a man to lumber from the shadows holding a frothing dog in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Instead, a relatively slender fellow with a baseball cap barely lifted his eyes from the floor.

“Okay, um, I’ve been doing the coyote management plan here for the past week and a half. It’s my opinion that many of these areas [are] actually just for foraging and hunting,” he said calmly as a dozen wildlife-weary citizens stared blankly at him for guidance.

Quickly, he shifted to the topic that was in the back of everyone’s mind: the trap.

“It’s not the cruel device that people think they are. Back in the Daniel Boone era, you had traps that had teeth and stuff like that,” he attempted to lighten the mood. “I’ll bring it up here to show you.”

The audience leaned toward the aisles to get a glimpse of the football-size death clamp–er, humane trap.

“It’s like a handcuff,” the man reassured everyone before clamping it onto his own hand without so much as wincing.

Eat your heart out, big-city council meetings. You’re voting on bike lanes? This guy just shut his own appendage in a coyote trap.

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“I do this three times a day for the endorphins.”

Councilmember Ryan Richard had an itch of macabre curiosity. “No coyote has chewed its leg off while being stuck in the trap, correct?”

“Correct,” the man guaranteed Richard.

But Mayor George Sheppard wasn’t buying this claim that the traps were working. And he wouldn’t stay quiet any longer.

“Okay, so you’ve caught four coyotes. We’ve had people stand at that EXACT podium telling us that the city’s being run RAMPANT with coyotes,” he thundered. “If it’s not coyotes, what is it?”

The trapper took a deep breath, having anticipated this question. “I think a lot of people–in the hysteria that’s been created by the coyote–are catching glimpses of red fox.”

At this point, a Boy Scout ran to the front of the room and yanked the microphone down to his level. “What do you do with the coyotes when you take them offsite?”

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Uh-oh

Everyone went silent. The trapper raised the mic and stared dead-on at the Scout.

“The question of the night,” he observed slowly. “I don’t want to have to kill an animal. Unfortunately, they have to be destroyed. Because I can’t discharge a firearm in city limits, I have to take it offsite. And the way I dispatch animals is with a .22 caliber. It’s a quick shot to the head–”

“Okay,”  Councilmember Dottie Hersey interrupted him, clearly shaken. She clutched her throat in discomfort. “Next question.”

#51: Greer, SC 9/13/16

At the Greer city council meeting, did anyone raise a ruckus? Cause a concern? Threaten to secede?

Nope, nada,  none of it. This municipal powwow was so genteel as to be sleep-inducing. When you think “government meeting,” this was exactly the excitement level you’d imagine.

“An ordinance to provide for the annexation of property owned by Teresa Smith,” Mayor Rick Danner read from the dense agenda. His Honor, sporting a blue bow tie, glanced up to the zoning director–himself sporting a gray bow tie. (I’d bet anything that these two men had an a capella rehearsal after the meeting.)

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FINALLY, a touch of CLASS at a council meeting (I’m talking about the iPad).

“A year or so back, we were looking at about 300 single family attached units. Now, the 27 acres has been significantly reduced to 85 houses,” the director recited, flipping between the tablet in his hand and a sheaf of papers on the podium.

“By a show of hand,” the mayor raised his voice, “is the owner of the property with us this evening? Do you care to add anything?”

From somewhere in the audience came a holler: “He mentioned 85 single family. It’s actually 87.”

“Thank you,” the mayor nodded.

But wait, there’s more! More zoning! Seriously, it’s nothing but zoning. Normally, I’d fast-forward through this bad boy to get to the good stuff–liquor licenses, citizen complaints, wildlife problems.

Not today. There’s a land rush in Greer, apparently, and Ms. Medlock wants a piece of the zoning pie.

“Ms. Medlock is seeking to rezone to C2 to operate a used car lot on that property,” announced the zoning czar.

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This is a record for city council meeting bow ties.

The mayor repeated his catchphrase. “By a show of hand, is the owner of the property with us this evening? Would you like to add anything?”

Ms. Medlock called out no.

But the mayor wasn’t satisfied.

“The existing structure with the wall and the little office–will that remain?” he pondered.

“That for now is going to stay,” Ms. Medlock testified, reluctantly planting herself behind the podium. “The shed is nice for them to be able to pull cars into to work on in the shade.”

“Let me go back to Glenn for a second,” said the mayor as council members silently contemplated what time they would be free to leave. “Storage of vehicles and cars or whatever? That’s a grassy lawn there.”

Glenn, the zoner: “No vehicles parked on a residential zoned property. They can’t just cover the grass area back there with automobiles,” he assured the mayor.

Ms. Medlock decided to give Mayor Danner r a taste of his own medicine. “I have one question,” she sprung on him. “The tenant has already got a sign to fit on the post with anticipation that this is gonna be approved–”

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Truly an astounding  number of bow ties.

The mayor let out a gentle laugh. Uh-oh. Is His Honor going to torpedo the rezone and leave that poor sign post flapping in the breeze?

“–does he need to bring that to you?”

There was a moment of silent reflection.

“Needs to go through the permitting process,” was the answer.

Final thoughts: As far as council meetings go, I give this 3 out of 10. As far as bow ties go…I give it a perfect score.

#4: Aiken, SC 4/11/16

Why, I do declare! Sip yourself some sweet tea and try not to get the vapors, because we’re in South Carolina for the Aiken city council meetin’. This Palmetto State powwow is built on the three G’s: God, Grits, and Gettin’ down to the People’s Business.

Mayor Rick Osbon, the Aiken dry cleaning mogul, started things off with a down-homey prayer from one of the local men of the cloth.

“Through it all, [God] will be glorified and your name and your kingdom exalted. For this we give you all the praise, all the honor, and all the glory with thanksgiving. In Jesus’s precious name, Amen.”

Amen! I believe it’s a law in South Carolina that you have to start everything in Jesus’s precious name, so just to be safe, let me start this review in His name as well.

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Two minutes in and we’ve already got 18 retinas! Hallelujah!

The first piece of new business was as spicy as a drop of Tabasco: a citizen’s committee to review complaints about the police. This could get explosive–and the village elders certainly didn’t want another Fort Sumter on their hands.

“Five of you would have to vote in favor and council would have to make a finding of exigent circumstances that warrants this,” Councilman Reggie Ebner drawled.

“I don’t know what the definition of exigent is,” he admitted,  folksily. “I looked in the dictionary. It’s ‘something that requires immediate attention.'”

It was awfully diligent–er, sorry, “good job-doing”–of the councilman to do some research. Aikenites, be sure to keep him around. He’s a reader!

“I would definitely deem it exigent,” nodded the mayor, flexing the fancy new word. The council agreed unanimously.

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Mayor Rick Osbon knows two things: how to rock a pocket square and what “exigent” means.

“I’ma go back to our audience,” Mayor Osbon announced, scanning the sparse crowd in the chambers. “Any comments?”

A smart-dressed man strode confidently to the podium.  “Good evening, ya’ll. I have my family back there so excuse them if they start talking with me,” he chuckled. He endorsed the committee, adding “this community is special.”

“Thank you for your comments,” the mayor smiled. “That’s what makes Aiken the special place that it is.” Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit!

Suddenly, the mayor spotted a target in the audience. “This is Steve Kisner. You may know his son,” pro-golfer Kevin Kisner. “He made us all very proud this past weekend!” The mayor was interrupted by an outbreak of applause. The elder Kisner, himself dressed in a golfy blue Polo and khakis, accepted the applause on his son’s behalf.

“Steve, if he’s in town during a council meeting, bring him around and we’d like to personally recognize him,” Councilwoman Lessie Price promised.

Added Councilwoman Gail Diggs: “Tell him we’ll give him the key to the city. Whatever that is.” Aww, how gracious! (Er, sorry, Councilman Ebner: HOW VERY NICE-THING-TO-DO.)

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Steve Kisner’s son will get the key to the city, whatever that is.

With everyone vibing on Steve’s son, it was time to adjourn. “All those in favor please stand up,” the mayor called, just in time to watch his council make themselves as scarce as a hen’s teeth. In Jesus’s precious name, Amen!

Final thoughts: Because everyone learned the definition of “exigent,” I think we’re all winners. I give this meeting 2 out of 3 mint juleps.