Representatives of County Council, Winnsboro Town Council, Ridgeway Town Council, and the Fairfield County School Board gathered at the Century House in Ridgeway to finalize their decisions and offer any new ideas.
Local representatives to state government, State Sen. Creighton Coleman and Rep. Boyd Brown were also on hand to offer their perspective on the political maneuvering that is taking place as part of the process.
County Council Chair David Brown began the meeting with details of County Council’s recent meeting with the newly hired lobbyist and an announcement that the final vote to engage Kyle Michel was unanimous.
He also shared some “inside information” that Michel had shared with the Council. “[6th District Congressman James] Clyburn (D-SC) is sponsoring some legislation which will box the governor in,” he said.
“Most of this funding is going to be coming down through normal channels, and you know how our governor doesn’t like to take money from the federal government. Hopefully we’ll be able to get it directly from D.C., or maybe COG [Central Midlands Council of Government] will, so it won’t go through the governor’s office.”
He continued with the news that a great deal of the funding is expected to be for school buildings and education – about $14 billion. Brown mentioned that a project that had previously been explored by the County and the School Board, construction of a new vocational school at an estimated cost of $22 million, would be a good candidate for a funding request.
“However, water is our top priority, and we are shovel-ready on getting that water line from the reservoir to the town water plant, and to pull water out of the Broad River, and also that water project in Ridgeway, running water down Highway 34,” Brown continued.
“We’ve said it before, but if we don’t have water, there won’t be any development, and we’re getting close to our capacity [to provide water].”
All projects for which federal stimulus funding is requested must be “shovel-ready,” a term previously defined as ready for immediate construction. This was discussed at length, and it became clear that to be considered “shovel-ready” a great deal of site planning, engineering, and cost estimating must already be completed.
“This is not easy,” said school board member Rebecca McSwain. “It takes money to get projects to the shovel-ready stage, and here we are in the middle of budget cuts – it’s kind of a catch 22 situation.”
After more discussion, it was pointed out that the Safe Routes to School grant which was awarded to Fairfield County had never actually been funded, but complete plans were in place and the project was indeed shovel-ready.
Tim Antley, Construction Services Manager for Dennis Corporation (the engineering firm employed by the County) agreed, at no cost to the County, to use the existing conceptual drawings and facility study for the vocational school to do some preliminary engineering and cost estimates in order to bring that project closer to shovel-ready status.
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