FAIRFIELD COUNTY – For the second time in about a year, Fairfield County has sold county industrial sites that they later found out lack utility services.
After calling for the approval of the agenda at Monday night’s regular council meeting, Chairman Clarence Gilbert passed a document to Councilman Oren Gadson who read it aloud.
It was a motion emphasizing that an exigent circumstance exists or will exist if a resolution by Fairfield County Council authorizing the transfer and expenditure of funds to provide critical repairs to the Fairfield Commerce Center is not added to the current meeting agenda for the body’s consideration and desired action before the conclusion of this meeting.
“What you have in front of you tonight is a request to authorize the expenditure of up to $600,000 out of reserve contingency funds of the county, unrestricted reserves,” Fairfield County Administrator explained to council.
“The issue at hand,” he said, “is that, as you know, we have two industrial projects currently underway in the park, BOMAG’s expansion and Mega metal.
“It was recently discovered,” Carpenter said, “that in the process of constructing the site, some fundamental work that is inherent in what the industrial park is supposed to be, was never built, and that is the laying of conduit and necessary infrastructure to provide the electrical services inside the park.
“That is the responsibility of the developer of the park, not Dominion and not the companies, but the county,” Carpenter said. “Roads, water, sewer, utilities are the county’s responsibility.
“For whatever reason, that [conduit] was never put in the ground,” he said.
“We need to get this done now because we’ve already signed contracts, they’re already bringing people on site,” he said, “and they’re going to start work in the next six weeks on these projects in real.”
Also, Carpenter said, the preferred contractor for Dominion is currently on site for BOMAG, so the county can take advantage of Dominion being there right now, and they can jump on this right away.
“The anticipated cost is not going to be $600,000 but I’m requesting that authority just in case they discover something unknown or unanticipated,” Carpenter said, “so we can take care of it at that point in time.”
He said he would keep the council briefed and updated.
“I will tell you this is not the way we should do this,” he said. “But, unfortunately, this is the reality of where we are right now, that we have to get this done in order for these projects to proceed forward,” Carpenter concluded.
Councilman Don Goldbach asked for clarification on how the agenda item came to be voted on.
“As a matter of process, this was not on the published agenda, so how is it that we – I mean, what’s the process for allowing us to actually vote on this this evening?” Goldbach asked.
“This amendment will allow us to vote on it,” Carpenter explained. “The terms as written are taking into account South Carolina law so that we are compliant with law.
“This is an exigent issue,” Carpenter repeated. “We don’t have time to put it out for bid. We don’t have time to spec it out. Their contractors start work in a matter of weeks, and without having a second meeting in July, as it is, it would put it into August before we could have it, or we’d have to have a called meeting, but we’d lose more time.
“So this is what is considered legally an exigent circumstances where time is of the essence,” he said.
