Council OKs move of Timmonsville’s Main Street

COWARD — Florence County Council’s vote to realign Timmonsville’s Main Street in the upcoming widening of U.S. 76 should create a safer, “more viable entrance” to the town, councilman Mitchell Kirby said.

Council approved the design Thursday, when it was presented by Chris Gossett, a program manager with the S.C. Department of Transportation.

The U.S. 76 project is one of six being funded through a 1-cent sales tax in Florence County.

Gossett also told council that SCDOT officials think they can get through the five of those projects, the fifth of which is the widening of Pamplico Highway (S.C. 51). He said they are unsure whether they will have the funding to complete the U.S. 301 Bypass from U.S. 76 near Timmonsville to U.S. 52.

Oil prices down to $40 a barrel could save a great deal of money on the projects, Gossett said.

“We had been looking at not being able to do a whole lot more of this program” when prices were nearly $100 higher, he told council.

Timmonsville’s existing Main Street forks off U.S. 76 into the town, but the redesign would bring the road farther west to an intersection near Aire Acres Road, Gossett said.

Kirby, who represents the Timmonsville area on council, said he thinks the new design will attract more attention from motorists because of a traffic light at the future intersection and plans for revitalization in the town.

The new design also will be safer than the fork in the road, where drivers waiting at the stop sign often pull out in front of traffic on U.S. 76, Kirby said.

Council on Thursday also approved third and final reading of a $1.5 million bond to buy four new pumper tankers for the Howe Springs Fire District. The bond’s annual debt service will be funded through a 3.3-mill tax levy within the fire district, which is included in the county’s 2008-09 budget.

The debt service, at a 5 percent rate, will run about $120,350 a year, according to county documents.

Council also approved $100,000 in Rural Development Act funding from Progress Energy for infrastructure and surveying at the Britton-Bostic-Winona site, a potential 324-acre industrial park adjacent to Roche Carolina, on East Old Marion Highway.

In addition, council voted to accept a $118,747 grant for the purchase of public Internet computers at the future Olanta and Timmonsville libraries.

The Community Enrichment Grant comes from the S.C. Department of Commerce’s Community Development Block Grant program. It requires a local match of 25 percent, or $29,867.

In other business, council voted unanimously to:

• Accept a $30,000 SCANA Services Inc. grant for infrastructure costs at the Florence County site of Monster, an online job recruitment and careers resource.
• Approve a third, additional county Christmas holiday so that county employees will be off Dec. 24, 25 and 26.
• Enter a 15-year lease, at $1 per year, with Pamplico so that the Hannah-Pamplico Youth League can hold football and soccer programs on land next to LaVerne Ard Park. The county also has 15 years remaining on a 20-year lease of the park from the town.
• Use $6,900 in county utility system funds to bury power lines that cross over a new section of Ebenezer Park at Pineneedles and Old Ebenezer roads.
• Approve second reading of an ordinance to rezone property on James Turner Road in Effingham owned by Cynthia T. Matthews as well as Jerry and Sharon Taylor. The request is to zone the property from R-1 residential to an RU-1 agricultural.
• Use $8,800 in county utility system funds toward the drilling of a 4-inch well at Prospect Field.
• Buy MBC stone and crushed asphalt with county Road System Maintenance Fund allocations of $31,295 for Ham Road near Timmonsville and $17,286 for a portion of Cubie Road near Effingham.
• Use about $10,000 in county Utility System funding for a water project on Baptist Drive between Timmonsville and Effingham.
• Adopt a more formal surplus-vehicles policy, which would allow county departments to determine whether such vehicles fit a county department’s need before they are sold to an outside agency.