Road paving list for 2012 released

Clarendon County Council released a list of roads that would be considered for paving at its monthly meeting on Feb. 13.

The list includes roads from all areas of the county as well as special consideration for widening the intersection of J.W. Carter Road and Alex Harvin Highway. The list also includes spending as much as $800,000 to resurface J.W. Rhames Road that runs in front of the county landfill.

For a complete list of roads scheduled for paving, the length of the road and the estimated cost of each project, click here.

Nickie Toomes, an area specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Program, told council members that the USDA would provide a grant totaling $49,875 to pay the majority of the cost for a new brush truck for the Clarendon County Fire Department. The total cost of the truck is $66,500.

Clarendon County Council also announced an Intergovernmental Service Agreement between the county and the City of Manning concerning animal control.

The agreement will allow the county’s animal control officer to assist Manning with animal problems particularly the city’s stray dog problem, County Attorney David Epperson told council members.

Ann Kirven, the executive director of Clarendon Behavioral Health Services, presented council with statistics on alcohol and drug abuse as well as the number of DUI arrests versus the number of convictions in Clarendon County.

“The conviction rate is not great in our county,” Kirven told council.

Kirven said she was unsure on how much of an impact the mandate by Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal to clear the state’s court dockets had on the decline in the county’s DUI conviction rate.

“Law enforcement takes them in and the judges let them go,” Kirven said. “We don’t know what’s going on with the decline in the conviction rate.”

Chairman of County Council Dwight Stewart Jr. asked the county’s administrator Bill House to put together a task force to look into the situation.

In his administrator’s report, Houser told council members that the county was looking good financially with the county’s budget breaking even by the end of the fiscal year.

Houser updated council on several departments that he has been keeping a close watch over per council’s instruction: the Clarendon County Sheriff’s Office, Victim’s Advocate Office and Weldon Auditorium.

At the end of January, the CCSO had spent 63 percent of its budget, Houser told council.

“We’re estimating that department will be over budget between $140,000 and $150,000,” Houser said. “We do not see a way to recoup that money.”

Houser said the Victim’s Advocacy Office was currently 20 percent over budget and trends showed that by the end of the year that office would be over budget by $11,500.

As of Jan. 31, expenditures for Weldon Auditorium were $220,000 with $68,000 in revenue, leaving a negative balance of $151,000, Houser told council members.

“We have made some corrections in expenditures,” he added. “We transferred one person out to another department, but we haven’t seen much of an effect though. We have reduced the price of tickets and we’re seeing more attendance.”

Houser told council members that 650 tickets were sold for the recent gospel concert and that 400 tickets were sold for the Letterman concert.

“It’s better, but not where we need to be,” he said.

The water and sewer department showed a profit at the end of January of $10,779, Houser said.

Over the course of the last three years, Houser told council members the number of traffic stop calls into the county’s E911 center has “exploded.”

During the 2011 calendar year, Clarendon County Communications received 49,901 calls which equates to 137 calls a day, according to Houser.

Dividing 137 calls per day by 24 hours in a day equates to just over five calls per hour at the center.

Houser added that the number of traffic stop calls for last year was 17,244 which included 9,538 traffic stops radioed in by the three municipalities and 7,706 traffic stops called in by the CCSO.

In the public comment portion of the meeting, residents in the Lizzie Creek section of the county in the Summerton area complained about road conditions.

Don Lane told council members that they had been promising residents in his area for 20 years that their roads were on the list to be paved.

“No one has done a thing,” Lane told council. “Seven years ago we were on the list to be paved.”

Council’s March meeting will be held at 6 p.m., March 12 in Turbeville.