The council always receives the agenda toward the end of the workday on Thursday before the Monday council meeting. I took a quick look and was totally surprised to see the sale of West End Hall. My initial thought was why the council was not advised of this forthcoming sale to the Pickens School District. At the work session, I find out all the council member except Justin Alexander and myself, already knew about this. It's been in the works for about a year. The mayor and the Ward 2 council member tried to say it was discussed before at a work session but there are no minutes to prove that. (Gaslighting???)
A public hearing should have been held to get input from the public.
At the work session I questioned the city administrator what justified the reduction of the appraised value and he did not have an answer that I thought was plausible. On August 23, 2024 the building appraised at $1,730,000 and the parking lot (added by the city) another $50,000 which is a total of $1,780,000. The Pickens County School District gifted the building in 1988, keeping the property the building sits on. The transactions for the added parking lot was under Mayor Womack's administration. $160,000 was spent buying the house and lot, then the house had to be demolished, trees removed and grading had to be done. In the 2023-2024 budget, $130,000 was budgeted to finish the parking lot. ARPA funds were used to remodel the building at a cost of $809,000. Mrs. Davidson remarked in the work session that the city was getting back the ARPA funds that was spent. So, $900,000 less the $809,000 is $91,000 and closing cost has to come out of that as well as the cost of the parking lot. ( I have requested the actual figures for that parking lot) Seems to be the city is losing money on this deal. I do not have an issue with selling the building to the school district but the city needs to at least recoup the money spent on the building in the last 4 or 5 years. The biggest issue I have with this is the administration and mayor keeping this information from 2 of the council members when the others knew all along.
Now for the rest of the meeting:
Voted YES: Second Reading of Ordinance 2025-13: Amending the budget to add the $332,300 from the SC Opioid Recovery Fund. This will greatly benefit the fight against Opioid use.
Voted NO: First reading for the sale of West End Hall and parking lot. Reason listed above.
Voted YES: Resolution 2025-17 dedicating city owned property as the home of an inclusive playground. The city does not have to pay for this as there is a foundation footing the bill.
Voted NO: Resolution 2025-18 accepting roads from Pleasant Hill Cottages HOA into the city of Easley roads network. They keep bring roads in and no money dedicated to repair what we have.
There was to be a council vote on appointing Mr. Jim Walker to the Planning Commission. Mr. Fedder resigned from the Planning Commission due to him winning a council seat. Mr. Walker was to be appointed to fill the seat until Mr. Fedder's term ended in December 2025. But they did not go by the ordinance and tried to appoint him for this rest of this year plus a three term. I pointed out the error and suggested we just amend the resolution to show 2025 and then vote again on the three year appointment in Jan 2026. Mrs. Davidson apparently did not think we should amend the resolution and made a motion to table this until next month. Justin and I voted no but these rest voted yes to table the resolution. The council has voted after amending ordinances and resolutions so why not do this for this resolution. Her action makes me wonder why it was so important to table this simple resolution that needed a minor change.
So thankful the citizens have spoken to replace two of the council members that ran for re-election and voted wisely to fill the third seat. These new members have Easley at heart!