Darlington County Council may enlarge planning commission

Darlington County Council is considering enlarging the county’s planning commission from its current five members to eight.

Council voted Monday to send the idea to the planning commission to get its thoughts on the possibility of an expanded commission with each member representing one of the eight single-member council election districts.

Councilwoman Anne Warr of Lamar brought up the idea in remarks to council Monday.

Warr, who represents District 4 on council, said her district has no representation on the planning commission. None of the current five commission members reside in District 4, which includes Lamar and the Oates and Lydia communities.

Currently, council elects members of the commission. There is no requirement that members come from a particular district or area.

In the past, council has tried to keep the panel’s membership balanced with representatives from the Hartsville, Darlington, Lamar and Society Hill areas.

Warr said each of council’s eight districts needs to be represented on the commission.

District 4, she said, is a rural district, largely agricultural. But it includes two county industrial parks with several manufacturing industries and a number of small businesses. Interstate 20 runs through the district, she noted.

The district is home to The Egg and I farm, one of the largest egg producing operations on the East Coast. Lamar itself, with a population of about 1,200, is home to Craig Industries and Carolina Table Co., she said, as well as small businesses.

“I don’t have anything against the current planning commission or anybody on the planning commission,” Warr said. “But if a problem were to come up in District 4, I would like to have some representation on the planning commission. I would not like to see any district left out.

“I think much thought should go into selecting commission members if we’re going to have only five members,” she said.

Warr suggested a plan under which each council member would appoint a commission member from his or her election district.

District 4 is not the only district without a resident representative on the commission.

Councilman Le Flowers of Darlington, whose district is represented on the commission, endorsed War’s suggestion.

“I’d like to see that,” he said. “But I never really thought council was interested in expanding the commission.”

Flowers said such a plan would allow greater representation for varied interests in the county.

“People in downtown Hartsville or Darlington have different interests than people who live in the rural areas,” he said.

Flowers introduced a motion to send the proposal to the planning commission to see what its members think.

“I’m not talking about eliminating anybody who’s currently on the planning commission, just expanding it,” Warr said.

Councilwoman Mozella “Pennie” Nicholson of Hartsville asked Planning Director Doug Reimold if eight members on the commission might be too many.

“I don’t know that it would be too many,” he said. “It would give us more people to work with.”

Council approved Flowers’ motion unanimously.

If council decides to enlarge the commission, it will have to amend its existing ordinance governing the commission to allow for the change. That process would take several weeks.

In other business, council agreed to curtail its meeting schedule for the months of September, November and December.

Council will meet only once in each of those three months: Sept. 21, Nov. 16 and Dec. 7. It will keep two scheduled meeting dates in October: Oct. 5 and 19.

Councilwoman Wilhelmina Johnson voted against that change. She said council has too much work backed up and not enough is getting done now.

“To say we can afford not to meet, I’ve got a problem with that,” Johnson said.

County Administrator Phyllis Griffitts said several council members have mentioned the possibility of cutting council’s regular meeting schedule from two meetings a month to one a month.