Darlington football stadium to be ready for Jamboree
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
The renovations of Virgil Wells Stadium are well on their way to being completed in time for fall recreation football, according to a report from Darlington County Recreation Director Lee Andrews.
“Our opening day of football is September 8, the weekend after Labor Day,” Andrews said. “That will be our jamboree for our youth football teams. We will have everything ready to go by then and the Mayo Alumni is the weekend before that.”
Andrews presented a bid to council August 7 for painting of the stadium. The bid, which was approved, was $5,200 from Roosevelt Scott.
“The plan is to build a metal bathroom building there, take the existing bathroom that we have…tear down the center wall in it and make that a storage building,” Andrews said. “We didn’t have time before this meeting but at the next work session we’ll have the numbers on that for you as well.”
Andrews said that everyone has been hard at work to make sure that everything was finished in time.
“Other than that bathroom, everything there will be ready to go,” Andrews said. “They’ve got the goalpost. We moved the bleachers this week. We have been able to do a lot of stuff in-house. It is coming along nicely. The wall looks really good; it looks like it never fell down. If we can get it painted it will look even better. It will clean up that stadium a lot. When this is done we can move on to other things.”
Also on the agenda was the sale of Lochend Road to Auddie Brown for $5,000. This road has been in need of repair for several years but because of its location was not high priority for city street repair.
Councilman John Milling made the motion for approval of first reading of the ordinance for the property sale after saying that he would like the ordinance language to be very specific about what is required of each party after the sale.
“These things are somewhat complicated,” Milling said. “We’ve got the authority to deed property and decide what roads to close. We’ve also got state statutes that talk about how you have to go about abandoning a road. We are sort of mixed in what we’re doing here. There probably needs to be, from everybody’s standpoint, an agreement as to what we really mean. If it is deeded to you we need to have some kind of language that is filed with the deed or in the deed itself.”
Building Inspector and Codes Enforcement Officer, Alex Gainey presented council another ordinance for first reading, this one dealing with property owners who are repeatedly notified by the city for unkempt or overgrown properties.
Gainey said that in less than 24 months, his department has had to send out more than 300 letters notifying property owners of property violations.
“We send them a letter and they cut the grass,” Gainey said. “Then it is another couple of months and we have to send out a letter again. Basically they are waiting for the city to tell them to cut their grass. You cut your grass at your house; this grass grows at the same rate.”
Gainey suggested that city council impose a penalty for repeat offenders. His proposal was that for the first offense, a letter is sent informing them of the violation. For every violation after that a $500 fine would be imposed.
“If, after inspection and determination by the codes enforcement officer, any property within the city limits does not comply with this chapter and a notification of violation having been mailed to the property owner within the current calendar year, the codes enforcement officer shall issue a Habitual Offender Citation. This citation shall be personally delivered or sent by certified mail and directed to comply with city ordinance and appear in court within ten business days from the receipt of the letter,” the odinance read.
Gainey said that the person could pay the fine and avoid having to go to court. If they did not pay the fine, or show up for court, a bench warrant could be issued.
