Hartsville planning major MLK Day event
(Left to right) Hartsville City Council members Tre Gammage, Mayor Mel Pennington and Mayor Pro Tem Johnny Andrews
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
Hartsville City Council convened their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 8, and whisked through a brief agenda that included mainly housekeeping items.
Council held a public hearing and final reading for Ordinance 4357, amending the schedule of fees and rates to include the updated industrial utility rates passed in October of 2018.
This Large Water User Industrial Rate Class applies to “any industrial customer of the system that maintains an account with average monthly water usage in excess of 2,000,000 gallons.”
The minimum charge (covering the city’s fixed costs and 2,000,000 gallons of monthly water usage) will be $7,466.38 for these customers.
Rate changes also apply to Large Sewer User Industrial Rate Class industrial customers with “an average monthly water usage in excess of 2,000,000 gallons, a discharge point not associated with a water meter, and with no permanent sewer flow meter.” These customers will be charged a flat fee of $1,385 per month.
Ordinance 4357 also incorporates previously approved rental fees for The Edition at The Hartsville Museum. The Edition conference room space requires a $50 deposit and $75 per hour rental fee, while the entire space requires a $200 deposit and $150 per hour rental fee, with a two-hour minimum.
Under new business, council passed first reading of Ordinance 4358, which would allow the city to lease a portion of the alleyway at 120 South Fifth St. from The Trust Company of South Carolina for $1 per year. After a request for more information from Council member Teresa Mack, city manager Natalie Zeigler explained that the lease would involve a small portion of the alleyway and would allow motorists to continue using it as a throughway.
Council also passed Resolution 01-19-01, giving approval for city staff to apply for a $75,000 South Carolina Public Safety Office of Highway Safety grant. This application will seek to continue a grant the city received in 2017 and 2018 to pay the salary of a dedicated DUI enforcement police officer. The grant extract states that “if the city does not make application for this grant, it will be responsible for 100 percent of the DUI Officer’s salary.”
Also at this meeting, council member Tre Gammage invited the public to attend a special Martin Luther King Jr. Day event. The City of Hartsville African-American Cemetery Committee will have a dedication ceremony to unveil the historical marker placed at the Marion Avenue Cemetery at 11 a.m. Jan. 21.
This ceremony will dovetail with MLK Day events sponsored by the Ministerial Alliance and People to People of Hartsville.
Numerous speakers will reflect on the lives of those buried in the Marion Avenue cemetery, and discuss the work of those who labored for years to clean up that historic site. Following the dedication, guests will march to Jerusalem Baptist Church for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Program. The cemetery is at 500 Marion Avenue in Hartsville.
