Council passes stormwater ordinance, bond
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
In a contentious vote Tuesday, May 2, Darlington City Council passed second readings on the Master Storm Bond Ordinance and the Storm Water Bond; council members John Segars and John Milling voted against both issues while councilman Bryant Gardner voted against the bond ordinance but in favor of the bond.
Bond attorney Ben Zeigler explained to council why they were approving two ordinances having to do with stormwater.
“The master ordinance is simply this sort of foundational document that takes those storm water fees and basically draws a circle around them and says these are reserved for debt and you are going to use these to pay for bonds that you might issue from time to time so long as you comply with the terms of this ordinance,” Zeigler said. “This ordinance provides for the creation of these funds that will be used to pay bonds and allows, over time, for you to issue bonds that are secured by those stormwater fees.”
Zeigler said that the ordinances dealt with a stormwater project that council has been discussing for years.
“What you will do in this process is adopt, give second reading to, this general bond ordinance and then supplemental, and subsequent to that, you will adopt what we call a series ordinance which is the ordinance that provides for the specific borrowing pursuant to the terms of the master ordinance,” Zeigler said.
“This particular series ordinance is specific to the West Darlington stormwater project. It allows you to borrow not exceeding $1.4 million dollars. It provides for that to be repaid in not more than 15 years. It allows the administrator to go out and solicit proposals for the purchase of this bond.”
After a motion was made to approve second reading of the master ordinance, council had an opportunity for discussion.
Segars said that he was unhappy with the ‘Cadillac plan’ that was now in place for the project.
“I am not opposed to improving or fixing the Chalmers Street ditch,” Segars said. “I am opposed to the ‘Cadillac’ plan that has been thrust upon us. We started out with a $400 thousand dollar project and now it is up to $1.4 million…I don’t agree with spending all of our money in this one section of town.”
Segars said it would be different if the money were not specifically earmarked for a single project when there are other needs to be met.
“If this thing could be reworded to where it is not the West Darlington area and just stormwater improvements then we could tailor this plan back to piping part of the ditch and going on Ms. Lathan’s comprehensive plan back in 2007 where she said in there…you can go in and clear out the vegetation in the ditches and re-grate some of those ditches so they drain,” Segars said. “At some point in time, when funds become available, we can revisit the ditch and do further piping.”
Councilwoman Elaine Reed said that council has talked enough about the plans they just need to approve them.
“I can appreciate everyone’s comments but the grant that was awarded to use was specific for the conditions…that came out of Chalmers Street; it was very specific in the way that it was affecting the health of the area as well as the smells and all of it,” Reed said. “You are pointing out all of these projects that were there prior to the situation at Chalmers Street but there were no efforts made to do whatever you needed to do to get it (a grant).”
Reed said that the plan the city currently has is the reason they got the grant to begin with.
“You are calling it a ‘Cadillac plan’ but that is what got the approval, this design met the requirements of the grant,” Reed said. “We need this over there. The ‘Cadillac plan’ solves several problems across the city, several. We need to go ahead and start on this. This is the second reading; we have heard everybody.”
Reed said that the plan before council now might seem like the ‘Cadillac plan’ compared to the ‘moped plan’ that was presented first.
In the end, both the Master Storm Bond Ordinance and the Storm Water Bond were passed.