PICKENS COUNTY — Local mayors and city administrators attended Pickens County Council’s recently held Committee of the Whole meeting to add their input in how the forthcoming ordinance concerning the County’s recreation fund will be laid out.
Six Mile Mayor Roy Stoddard said his main concerns were how those funds would be allocated.
“(Councilman) Trey Whitehurst over there has three municipalities, some of these councilmen only have one municipality to take care of,” Stoddard said. “For little old Six Mile, 16 percent of our budget goes to recreation. And if I add in funds that carry over from one year to the next, you’re now upping that to about 22 percent.
“We’re not talking millions of dollars, we’re talking hundreds of dollars,” he said. “We depend on our recreation funds we get. We can’t operate without them.”
As it stands now, the ordinance will adopt a board of six members — one from each district — who will accept applications for recreation funding and make recommendations to the full council once a year coinciding with the planning of the county’s budget.
The ordinance effectively removes an individual council member’s control of the funds designated for their district and requires a full vote by council before any money is spent.
A motion was made by Whitehurst to amend the ordinance to have the council members themselves act as the governing board for the rec fund but it failed to carry as Council members Chris Bowers, Roy Costner and Carl Hudson voted against it.
“Don’t get me wrong, there needs to be accountability added here,” said Whitehurst. “But I don’t think adding another layer of bureaucracy is the way to do it. We know our districts, we know what they need.”
Whitehurst stated he had no problem with voting on how the money is spent as a whole, but that adding another board was unnecessary.
Councilmen Wes Hendricks and Ensley Feemster agreed with Feemster stating in Clemson, it was difficult to find people willing to serve on boards.
Shirley Hughes, city administrator for Liberty, said her main point was she wanted the local municipalities to have a say in how the money was spent.
“The city of Liberty — the city rec program — up until just recently it had been several years since the city rec received any money,” she said. “I’d like to see a level playing field.”
Hughes said that if the money was supposed to be for city recreation than someone from city hall should be involved in the decision making.
“Right now we are receiving some funding and I certainly appreciate it,” Hughes said. “The city (of Liberty) is having some serious financial problems so it’s certainly going to help us.”
Third and final reading of the recreation fund ordinance is expected to be on the agenda of the next regular county council meeting on May 15.