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Council shows fangs
By GERALD GARRETT
Independent-Mail
October 3, 2006

PICKENS - When Pickens County Council put into place its new Development Standards Ordinance four years ago, the cries to change it started immediately.

Monday night, Councilman Neil Smith finally decided to lay down the law after two recommendations apparently rubbed him the wrong way. The recommendations were from the county’s Planning Commission, by way of Councilman Jim London’s Education, Recreation, Health Welfare and Planning Committee.

The first issue regarded allowable heights for on-premises business signs. The committee had recommended a 35-foot maximum for "arterial" roads and 25 feet for other roads. Mr. Smith, noting that a number of years ago he had attempted to assist a Hardee’s restaurant at the intersection of U.S. 178 and U.S. 123 in Liberty in putting up a sign high enough to be visible from the U.S. 123 overpass, said that isn’t good enough.

"The Planning Commission needs to be here to understand that when we say we want something done, we want it done," Mr. Smith said. "I want to hear why they don’t want my constituents to put their sign up. I don’t hear ‘planning’ here. I hear ‘control.’ If that’s what we want to do, let’s change the name of the ‘Planning Commission’ to the ‘Control Commission.’ "

The second issue dealt with setbacks, which DSO 304 had established at 25 to 35 feet from the centerline of county roads.

Mr. London’s committee recommended changing that to 25 to 35 feet from the edge of the right-of-way.

Councilman Ben Trotter jumped first on that recommendation, noting that the Planning Commission had recommended staying with the measurement from the highway centerline and had apparently been overridden by the council committee.

"I’d like to see how much land we’d be taking from people if we do this, and let us pay taxes on that land for them," Mr. Trotter said. "All they can do (on the setback area) is cut grass and pay taxes."

Both recommendations were sent to the council’s Committee of the Whole for further discussion by identical 5-1 votes, with Mr. London voting against deferring action.

In other votes Monday night, council members:

Unanimously approved, without discussion, a resolution calling for Pickens County to refuse to contract with or do any business with companies that hire illegal immigrants.

Voted to do an initial driveway tie-in to county residents for free, with subsequent tie-ins being billed at cost, or $250. Previously, the county had charged all residents $450 for each tie-in.

Voted to move ahead with the process of designing a new terminal building at the Pickens County Airport. Funding totaling $1.2 million in federal grants is available to the county, but the project must be completed by December 2007.

Voted to accept a modified employee insurance proposal while also approving the addition of a nurse to be available to employees for wellness checkups and requiring that all employees have a primary care physician within six months.

Voted to accept a low bid of $1.769 million on a replacement of a railroad bridge in the Clemson area, pending the approval of an additional $400,000 in County Transportation Committee (C-Funds) money.