Darlington City Council votes to correct overbilling
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
After a long and heated Board of Zoning meeting beforehand, the Darlington City Council meeting went off without a hitch Nov. 14.
In a previous meeting, Darlington City Manager Howard Garland told council that the South Carolina Department of Transportation was asking the city to help pay the costs associated with moving water and sewer lines in conjunction with their replacing the bridge on North Main Street. Garland told SCDOT that the city did not have the funds to do chip in and SCDOT asked that the city put that in writing.
Warren D. Spearman spoke to Darlington City Council about changing a current city ordinance to allow his church to remain at their current location on Pearl Street.
“This is something that SCDOT has asked of us so that we don’t have to pay our portion of the utility replacement for the North Main Street Bridge,” Garland said. “Simply, we have to vote tonight that we do not have this in our budget and we would be asking them to take on that responsibility to pay that cost. If you give me the authority, I’ll write that letter.”
Council voted unanimously to give Garland the authority to write the letter.
In new business, Rujon Williams spoke to council about overbilling from the city that has been occurring at the Washington Square Apartments for several years.
“A few months ago we noticed a discrepancy in our bill,” Williams said. “Our sanitation was being billed at a rate of $200 per meter; we have six meters on the site. They were charging us $200 per meter when in fact it should have been $200 for the dumpster that we have on site. At that point I contacted my corporate office and we saw that they had been billing us that way in our budget for the past six years.”
Williams said that this is not the first time the error was noticed but that his office had been told it would be taken care of.
“I talked to the previous manager (of the apartments) and we had contacted the water department in March of 2011 and informed them of the error,” Williams said. “They said they would take care of it and it never got taken care of. We don’t actually receive a physical bill at the site. It is all sent to corporate and we wouldn’t see it. It just so happened that they sent us a bill this time and we saw it.”
The apartments were overbilled by nearly $79,000.
Williams said that the city currently has an ordinance that states overcharge refunds can only be given up to six months. He asked that the city wave this ordinance in this case. Councilman John Milling said that this could possibly set a precedent for the future. The city manger acknowledged that it could but that the overcharged amount was ‘so egregious’ that the city needed to make it right.
The council voted to allow the city manager to talk with Williams and correct the overbilling, waiving the six-month period in the ordinance.
In other business, Warren D. Spearman spoke to council about the Upper Room Holy Ghost Mission on Pearl Street. Spearman said that he runs the mission but was recently informed that because it is a church, he is in violation of city ordinances regarding the type of occupants that are allowed on the Public Square.
“I started working on the corner just having a Bible study, reaching a lot of people that were on the street who aren’t fortunate like we are and are caught up in a lot of things,” Spearman said. “As we began to grow, we hung a sign up…I received a letter from the council board and it said that I was breaking an ordinance, which I did not know at the time. I want to be part of Darlington city. I know that laws are not made to be broken but they can be revised and the revision of that law can be prosperous to the City of Darlington. If I can reach one person on alcohol and drugs, that is one person the City of Darlington doesn’t have to incarcerate and we don’t have to support.”
Councilman Bryant Gardner said that he was not interested in a church on the square and that the current ordinance did not permit one.
“I applaud you in your efforts for outreach, that is something I am very interested in helping you facilitate,” Gardner said. “We are having an issue in our city of zoning and where we can build out. I think this law was put into place because a previous church and we wanted to maintain the appeal and the businesses that we put on our square. I don’t have much of an interest for a church on our square but an outreach program, a non-profit that goes after outreach people on our square, I think that is something I can get behind.”
John Milling suggested that the council refer the issue to the city manager and the city attorney to see what might be the best course of action while accepting Spearman’s presentation as information. City attorney Kevin Etheridge said that he and Garland had spoken about the issue and though it might take some ‘finagling’ he though they could work something out that would allow Spearman to run his mission in its current location.
