|
Featured Sections Headlines Opinion Obituaries Sports Crime Blotter Happenings Country Cooking Wandering Minds Classifieds Birthdays Off The Wall On The Record Archives Church Listings Live WebCam
Edgefield
Square Featured Columns Pastor Williams Tech Tips Carl Langley Editor's Column Dr. Skip Myers Registered Sex Offenders for Edgefield County 2005 Crime Stats Video & Audio Updates Audio Archive (Testing) Video Archive Contact us Contact Info or E-mail the Editor Phone: 803-634-0964 day 803-279-5041 eve 803-279-8943 fax Mail to EdgefieldDaily.com PO Box 972 Edgefield SC 29824 School System EC District Office School Board Strom Thurmond Charter Schools Fox Creek Private Schools Wardlaw Academy Public Offices Edgefield County Edgefield Johnston Trenton Political State and Federal Legislative Contacts Local Political Parties Republican Party Democrat Party Chamber of Commerce Edgefield County Chamber Historical Edgefield Genealogical Society News links The Citizen News Aiken Standard North Augusta Star The State Augusta Chronicle Atlanta Journal United Press Associated Press FOX News Reuters CNS News WorldNet Daily Newsmax Drudge Report GoogleNews Yahoo!News New York Times New York Post Los Angeles Times Washington Times Washington Post |
 Town Hall meeting in Westside focuses on water, second meeting tonight web posted August 26, 2009 WESTSIDE – Edgefield County Councilman Rodney Ashcraft held another of his Town Hall meetings Tuesday night at the Collier’s Community Center. As it turns out, Ashcraft said he would be holding another meeting at Collier’s tonight after one local paper ran the wrong date for the meeting. “I don’t want people showing up and I not be here,” Mr. Ashcraft said before the meeting got underway. When the meeting opened, water issues were the first to be discussed. Councilman Ashcraft said he has been in touch with Genesis Consulting who is performing a study on the Westside to determine feasibility and cost projections for the laying of county water lines in the area. “We all know about the McCormick option, bringing water in from there. There’s always the well option, which is finding a good spot for water and pumping it into a tower and dispensing it from there,” Mr. Ashcraft said, adding that the study should be completed sometime in September. “They want to be able to serve as many houses as possible for the dollar,” Ashcraft said. “I don’t want to be promising anyone anything; I just want to let you know what I’ve been told so far.” Mr. Ashcraft said he inquired about the study and found that Lanham Road was not going to be part of the model. “I’m catching a lot of heat about Lanham Road,” he said, “and I asked that it be included in one of the models.” If they were able to run water to Republican Road to the east to Sweetwater Road it could be possible to include Lanham Road and Prescott Road, but it would be costly. Though not wanting to be held to any numbers, Mr. Ashcraft said he believes the cost for Lanham and Prescott Roads would be in the neighborhood of $350,000 to about 42 homes. “I could be off $100,000 or more,” Ashcraft said. The total cost from Republican Road was in the neighborhood of $800,000. (Councilman Ashcraft sent hard numbers via email on the project later Tuesday night which can be found at the bottom of this report.) A question about possible grants was asked by one man and Mr. Ashcraft said that a recent grant for $500,000 was given for a project on Rosa Hill Road, but that was to service around 100 homes in a small area of lower to middle-income families. “If you took that same $500,000 to Lanham Road it wouldn’t go very far,” Ashcraft said. Stimulus funds were also inquired about as a possible funding source. “Besides, I haven’t seen our county, other than the Senior Center, take advantage of very much stimulus money,” Mr. Ashcraft said. Speed limit signs were the next topic brought up by those attending, also concerning Lanham Road., which is a state road. “They just drive too fast,” one man said stating he did not think there were any speed limit signs on the road. Mr. Ashcraft said he would check into what needed to be done to have signs placed. “I think 35 or 40 (mph) is about fast enough,” one man said. “Martintown is a racetrack,” another man chimed in, “80 is about the norm there.” Mr. Wayne Miller asked about the finances of the county “how do we look for the future?” Councilman Ashcraft said right now the county was in good shape though the past budget year was difficult. “We have a good handle on things, we, of course to the chagrin of a few voters we were able to cut a lot of the non-government so we could do business in a more efficient way,” Ashcraft said. “We had to make some cuts in order to fund our (local) government fully.” Not all of the cuts were popular he said, but were needed in order to balance the budget. One of the attendees stated the Collier’s Community Center was the oldest continually running center (founded in 1955) and inquired about what the county could do to help them place a sign at the road with the name and founding date. Mr. Ashcraft said he would suggest going to a sign company and getting prices and a rendering before being put on the agenda of the county council to see what the council could do. With no other business the meeting was concluded. Councilman Ashcraft reminded everyone he would be back again tonight at 6:30 due to the misprint of the announcement in the Edgefield Advertiser. Cost estimates on Westside water in the Lanham Road area according to Councilman Ashcraft: Lanham Road: Approximately 21 Houses - $316,400 Prescott Road: Approximately 7 Houses - $250.040 Double Creek (Lanham to Creek Ridge) Approximately 2 Houses - $65,240 Total Cost of Project $631,680 Plus 25% for Engineering, Permitting and Contingencies $157,920 Grand Total $789,600 for Thirty Houses Mr. Ashcraft said in his email: "I said at the meeting that It was for around 40 houses. My official estimate was for 42 houses but excluded from this report were the houses on Creek Ridge Road and any houses on Double Creek Road past Creek Ridge Road which brings the count back down to 30." © Copyright 2009
EdgefieldDaily.com All
original material is property of
EdgefieldDaily.com and cannot be reproduced, rewritten or redistributed
without the expressed written permission of Edgefield Daily.com
|
NOTICE:
We still need recipes for Cooking Section WEBNEWS – Send in your favorite or favorites. There is no limit to the number of recipes you can send in. With the Editor’s wife being the driving force behind her own personal section, help her create an exchange of local favorites, home cooking, grilling, sauces, and deserts! Send in your submissions here. |
