Elected officers of the rejuvenated Chesnee Area Development Association (CADA) from left secretary/treasurer Al Corey, President Larry Jenkins, vice president Jeff Watson.

In August 1990, the Chesnee Area Development Association (CADA) was established. Some of their group’s objectives included  promoting the development, redevelopment and general well-being of the Chesnee area and to encourage a dynamic retail business climate to stimulate residential growth to benefit business.
In recent years the association has been dormant, but now a group of business owners and citizens in Chesnee are working to bring CADA back to life.
 

For the rest of the story see this week’s newspaper.

The future of the Greenville Spartanburg Airport looks bright with Southwest Airlines set to call the airport home this fall and with plans to expand the terminal to accommodate the expected increase in passengers.
That was the message Dave Edwards, Executive Director of the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport (GSP), delivered when he spoke of GSP’s future at the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce Issues Forum breakfast at the Marriott at Renaissance Park on Thursday, August 12.

For the rest of the story see this week’s newspaper.

Last Thursday’s violent thunderstorms in Chesnee left many with trees down and many more without power. It also took a toll on Chesnee High School’s athletic facilities, as the softball field, baseball field, and football field all suffered damage.
Damage at the football field seemed to be limited to a tree blown over onto a fence near the scoreboard-side end zone on the visitors’ side. The baseball field, which is in the process of being remodeled, suffered damage to the press box, which had a four-foot hole in the roof.
The softball field suffered major damage, as signs were blown down, the sound system and scoreboard were damaged, and lights were twisted away from the field. The worst of the damage was to the home dugout, which was completely destroyed.
“It’s just a pile of rubble,” said softball coach Louis Story. “It was picked up and blown off its foundation.”
Story said in addition, several dozen balls were ruined by water, and pitching and hitting screens suffered tears as well.
“There was some major damage,” he said. “The dugout is what hurts the worst, because we just had it finished for a couple of years.”
Story said the dugout would be rebuilt, but he wasn’t sure it would be ready for the start of the season in March.
“Obviously we hope so, because it’s very difficult to practice and play with a construction project going on.”
Damage was estimated at around $20,000, which is expected to be covered by a statewide insurance plan for schools.

By Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

Dr. Michael Fanning of the Olde English Consortium gave a presentation pleading the case for comprehensive tax reform for South Carolina to a full crowd last Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. at Greenville’s Carolina First Center. Fanning said that the state’s current tax system is outdated and disproportionate, relying too heavily on unreliable revenue steams and allowing too many exemptions for sales and services so that the state’s tax revenue is shrinking exponentially each year. Fanning is executive director of the Olde English Consortium a group comprised of eight school districts in the Rock Hill area dedicated to improving education in their region and statewide.
According to Fanning, SC is in its third year of negative revenue growth collecting less money than the previous year. As we enter into the 2010-2011 year we are down $600 million and by the end of that year we could be an additional $1.5 billion short. Continuing budgetary shortfalls has caused cuts in many critical areas especially education, which has suffered nine rounds of cuts amounting to over $700 million in the past eighteen months. For this coming school year K-12 education will be funded at 1994-1995 levels.
Fanning said that at one time the state had a stable tax system but because of the permanent tax cuts and exemptions enacted during more prosperous times including the virtual elimination of one of our most stable sources of revenues (personal property tax), that is no longer the case. Now  the recession and subsequent high unemployment, and revenue from income and sales tax has dropped and continues to drop, which has placed the state in a precarious position.
South Carolina had a tax model likened to a three-legged stool that was balanced by three major sources of revenue: sales, income, and property taxes.  In 2006, SC passed Act 388, which eliminated owner-occupied property taxes to fund public schools and put a one-cent state sales tax increase to replace the money generated from property tax. According to Fanning this turned the state more into a two-legged stool and dangerously dependent on the two more volatile revenue streams, income and sales tax, which now accounts for 87% of state revenue.  SC is now collecting 24% or $1.57 billion less for the state’s general fund budget than in 2006.  The homeowner property tax break created by Act 388 has caused $585 million in lost revenue. In addition the General Assembly has had to reimburse SC school districts each year out of the general fund for the funding deficit created by the tax swap from property tax to sales. In ’08-09 general fund reimbursement was $50 million, ’09-10 was $108 million and ’10-11 is projected to be a little over $120 million. The elimination of the grocery tax has cost the state about $430 million in lost funds.

TRACing a solution
There are currently 80 total sales tax exemptions creating a loss of a potential $2.7 billion. This is more than what the state actually collects, which is $2.5 billion. Some of the most disproportionate sales tax exemptions can be found in vehicle sales tax caps, which is currently capped at $300 regardless of the price of a vehicle. The sales tax for a $5,000 Hyundai is $300, and the sales tax for a $385,000 Lamborghini Roadster is $300 as well,  creating in essence a $22,800 exemption for the purchase of a Lamborghini. The same $300 sales tax applies for a $36,000 BMW. Fanning said that North Carolina collects $1,080 on the same BMW and Georgia collects $2,520.  “If we could have safer streets and smaller classrooms couldn’t we at least raise the vehicle cap to $400?” Fanning asked the crowd. The $300 sales tax cap regardless of price applies to boats, RVs, and airplanes as well.
In addition the state exempts 134 potentially taxable services, which amounts to $955 million in exempted income annually. Examples of tax-exempted services include pet grooming, lobbying, public relations, and bail bonding. Only 34 services are currently taxed including diaper service, credit information, and funeral services.

By Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

Photo by Diana Deaver
Steven Hyatt with his Nikon D3S standing on the steeple of St Michael’s Episcopal with St. Philip’s Episcopal in the background. 

Former area resident Steven Hyatt is gaining some artistic fame in the low country for his stunning photography of the historic places of worship in Charleston, giving people a spectacular inside glimpse of structures that many may have only seen from the outside.
The 27-year-old is originally from Pauline and spent a lot of time while growing up in Woodruff with his grandparents Keith and Rosie Thomas who still live in Three Pines. The Dorman High graduate moved to Charleston seven years ago to attend the College of Charleston where he majored in religion and philosophy.
He currently works at Imaging Arts Fine Art Photography Gallery and in the spring of last year visited the Unitarian Universalist Church located directly behind the gallery. While inside the church he was awestruck by the immense and overpowering beauty that surrounds a person from all sides in a sacred space of such size and magnificence and found himself faced with both a challenge and a mission. That mission was to convey those same sensations of wonder and reverence in a photograph,  and not just of the Unitarian church but of the different places of worship throughout the aptly nicknamed Holy City. Thus his project called Churches of Charleston was born.
Hyatt uses a process called high dynamic range imaging, or HDRI, to recreate the effect of seeing a church interior with human eyes, which is able to discern differences in dark and light tones simultaneously, something that a camera is unable to do. Using a Nikon D3S camera Hyatt shoots up to nine photographs at different exposures creating a set of images that show off details of dark and light areas respectively. He then takes those images and processes them in Photoshop to create a single picture that reveals the different areas of light and shadow.
Since last year he has photographed many historic sanctuaries throughout the city,  about 18 of the 33 he has on his list including two synagogues: Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim and Brith Sholom Beth Israel. What he has photographed so far can be viewed at www.churchesofcharleston.com.
Hyatt’s photography has excited the interest of both the parishioners of the respective churches and of the public as well to whom the interiors of most of these historic churches are an undiscovered treasure. “It’s an unknown to some people,” Hyatt explains saying that most people have only experienced the outside architectural beauty of these structures and not the inside sanctuaries.
 Hyatt believes his project has bearing in several different avenues.  “It’s relevant on multiple levels,” Hyatt explains. “It’s religiously and historically relevant and as an endeavor it’s architecturally and artistically relevant as well.”
Hyatt’s grandparents in Woodruff remember when he got his start in photography. “He’s always been very artistic,” Rosie Thomas said. “He could make a pretty picture with a cheap camera and I have those framed to prove it.”
They can remember his collection of old cameras he had on shelves around his room and are proud of the giant steps he has made artistically since then.
“I’m really proud of him,” Keith Thomas said. “The pictures from Charleston look awesome.”
Hyatt has plans to publish the church photographs in a book but says a website format has its own benefits. “It has to have an end for a book format but for a website it can be a continuous project.” 
To see more of Hyatt’s other work visit www.stevenhyattphotography.com

By Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

Woodruff City Council voted unanimously in favor of an official invocation policy for city council meetings at a special council meeting on Tuesday, August 3 at 6 p.m. called for the specific purpose of reviewing the policy of prayer at city council, in which television crews and members of the public were present. 
Mayor Burnett said the purpose of outlining the city’s invocation policy is to ensure to the city is in absolute conformity with South Carolina State Law Section 6-1-160 (which allows prayer before a deliberative public body) although Burnett says the city has never been in knowing violation of the law.
“While I do not believe we have knowingly or intentionally violated any portion of the law in the past, we are reiterating tonight that: a) we have a formal policy consistent with state law and that b) we plan to implement the policy conscientiously and fairly,” said Burnett in a written statement that he read verbatim at the meeting and provided copies of to members of the media and to anyone else who asked.
The procedure of prayer before council meetings remains relatively the same as before with two changes. Invocation will be given before the gavel sounds at the meeting signifying that prayer is before the official business of the city, and the city’s clerk will now facilitate selection of invocation speakers so that the opportunity to give the invocation will be open to more pastors and leaders of the community.
Controversy over the issue of prayer at council and also the cross on the city’s seal arises from the threat of a lawsuit from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (www.ffrf.org) who was notified of the City of Woodruff’s practices in May by an anonymous complainant from Woodruff who has yet to reveal his identity. FFRF sent a letter to Mayor Burnett and other council members outlining their problems with the prayer policy that Tuesday afternoon.
Further developments will be covered in next week’s edition.

twillis.news@gmail.com

For more local news and events, see this week’s issue of your local Hometown News; Woodruff News, Boiling Springs Sentry, Inman Times, Blacksburg Times, Middle Tyger Times, Chesnee Tribune, Spartanburg County News and Whitmire News.

The ongoing fracas involving the Holly Springs Fire and Rescue Department’s budget and whether or not the department can afford a fulltime chief highlights a basic misunderstanding on the part of the commission on how government budgeting works.
The situation has the county auditor’s office both puzzled and frustrated, especially after members of that office spent hours trying to explain the process to at least two commissioners in recent weeks.
At the root of at least part of the misinformation and misunderstanding is the proposed millage rollback during 2008’s reassessment that would have reduced taxpayers’ assessed milage from 18 mills to 16.7.
According to Assistant Auditor Patty Epps, under normal circumstances a millage rollback would be automatic. In the case of Holly Springs, the district had a prior year deficit that permitted the district to maintain the 18 mills approved by voters in a 2001 referendum.
Epps explained that the only time a millage reduction would happen is during that reassessment year and that the Holly Springs Fire Commission approved maintaining the 18-mill tax rate to pay off the prior year’s deficit.
She said that the only time the county auditor’s office looks at a fire district’s millage is during reassessment. In the case of Holly Springs, the office verified that there was a prior year deficit and that the fire commission approved a resolution to maintain the 18 mills approved by referendum.
“That’s what the people in the district voted to pay,” Epps said. They asked for that.”
The crux of the current problem is the commission is saying the mills’ age should be the rollback amount of 16.7 mills and seems intent on questioning the validity of the previous commission’s actions approving maintaining the referendum milage of 18.
At the July 23 called meeting of the commission, the commissioners used revenue figures based on 16.7 mills to justify terminating the current chief and eliminating the full-time position of chief. The difference in accounting is significant since the commission switched from using the budget it approved in June showing something like a $23,000 budget surplus to the July 23 figures prepared by commissioner Kelly Waters showing a $70,000 deficit.
Since then, many in the community have questioned the commission’s motives and math and have expressed serious doubts that the commission arrived at a deficit of $70,000 – an amount equal to the total compensation for Chief Lee Jeffcoat.
This most recent contest over conflicting numbers began at the July 19 called commission meeting when Chairman Ryan Phillips seemed to question the numbers provided by the Spartanburg County Auditor, the numbers approved by the department’s own accountant in previous years’ financial audits and the budget prepared by Jeffcoat derived from those two sets of numbers.
Also, Waters brought up the difference between the district’s assessed value as provided by the auditor in March and figures she obtained in early July. As Jeffcoat tried to explain at the time and as Epps subsequently confirmed, the only time assessed value is used is when the auditor pulls the data for every property in the county, all on the same day.
Epps said that because assessed value changes constantly, trying to maintain a real-time figure for a district’s assessed value and how that affects revenue generated by tax millage is for all practical purposes impossible.
When the fire department’s most recent accountant, Chris Skinner, tried to clear up some of the misunderstandings of the commission at the July 19 meeting, he was silenced by Phillips.
The other leg of the budget controversy seems to rest on the collection rates for the fire district. Numbers provided to every district by the auditor’s office are based on a 91 percent collection rate. Jeffcoat’s budget used that rate as a projected base but also figured in the 10-year historical trend that the district has collected an additional 14 percent.
On the face of it that makes no sense. After all, how can you collect more than 100 percent of the taxes owed? The answer is simple: delinquent taxes. Epps explained that for every fire district the 91 percent collection rate is usually augmented by delinquent tax collections for multiple years.
Because of the appeals process and the potential number of properties involved over an extended period of time, delinquent tax revenue is largely unpredictable but can represent a substantial addition to a district’s base collection rate, as has historically been the case in Holly Springs.
With the next reassessment three years away, a millage rollback to anything less than 18 mills is not even in the equation, Epps explained.
There is a strong feeling across Holly Springs against any tax increase, but there is a corresponding suspicion that budgetary concerns have simply been a pretext through which to get rid of the chief. Although Jeffcoat was terminated by a vote of 3-0 at the July 23 meeting, the action has been called into question as the termination of the chief was not on the agenda and the public did not have proper notice of the topic as required by the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
For now the battle lines are clearly drawn with citizens engaged in a petition drive to have commissioners elected through a referendum measure they’re trying to get on November’s ballot. The issue of the commission’s activities is also sure to come up at the August 9 meeting of the county legislative delegation.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH by Theron Willis
HOMETOWN NEWS

Pam Whitehead looks through the letters that she hasn’t read in over 40 years that were sent to her from a special someone who fought in the Vietnam War.

Sometimes the opening of an old dusty envelope hidden away in a corner can have an effect similar to time travel.
When Pam Whitehead of Lyman recently went through a 41-year-old stack of letters she was transported back to a time long ago. To a time before she was a mother and a grandmother,  back when she was a sixteen-year-old girl in Cowpens and a fragile and fateful love was budding between her and a soldier she hardly knew who was writing to her from the foxholes in Vietnam.
Whitehead, then with the maiden name Bolton, started correspondence with twenty-year-old Army Private First Class Paul Martinez while he was stationed at Fort Lewis in the state of Washington. Martinez was buddies with a guy named Ricky who was from Cowpens and dating Pam’s sister,  Gerri at the time.
Pam says that Martinez was Puerto Rican and worked in the shipyards in San Francisco with his family before joining the Army, but she knows very little else about his life. When Ricky went back home to Cowpens on leave,  Martinez went as well to see the sixteen-year-old young lady who had become his pen pal.
That two-week leave was the first and only time Pam ever saw Martinez in person. A shy and awkward attraction developed over the course of the two weeks and hinted at when he went back to Fort Lewis, but when Martinez was deployed in Vietnam in April 3, 1969,  he began to express feelings to Pam in his letters that might have otherwise lain dormant - feelings of his love for Pam and his hope of reuniting with her once his time was through in the dreaded war.
“We can have so much together when I get out,  I know it. It’s just a matter of time…Before you know it I will be in your arms and telling you I will never let go know (now) that I have you so close to me,” he wrote in one of his letters to Pam.
Martinez was stationed in the Quang Nam Province in South Vietnam with the first squad of the 101st Airborne Division and served as a rifleman.
Pam says Martinez had poor grammar and spelling but despite that his letters brought out a romantic and eloquent side. “Pam the way love moves is the way to (two) persons meet, may it be by thought or touch,” he wrote on the back of a picture he sent to her from Vietnam.
Pam also thinks Martinez could express things in letters that he would find hard to say in person. “He was kind of shy at first (in person) but I think he was more comfortable when he started writing letters,” Pam explains.
The affection and romance that Martinez expressed to Pam made her feel in ways she had never felt before in her young life.
“I dated and had boyfriends before but he made me feel like the most wonderful person in the world, like I was an angel and that I was so precious to him,” Pam says. She was reluctant and shy to reciprocate the same intense romanticism and passion that Martinez communicated to her through his letters.
“I was only sixteen and it was all just so new and strange to read what he was saying to me,” Pam recounts. “I just wasn’t sure how to respond.”
Martinez tried not to be forceful in his letters but also asked her to grant one simple wish. “Guess what Pam, you own part of my heart… I don’t mine you owning part of me at all…it’s not even costing you a thing except a genione I Love You once in a wy’ll in your letters. is it a deal? my heart for an I Love You in your letter’s.”
Pam finally started ending her letters to Martinez with an “I love you” and other affectionate sentiments but a few weeks later she realized it was too late. On May 23, 1969 she came home from school to find an ominous package from the US Army waiting for her. Inside the package was her recent batch of letters to Martinez as well as a note informing her that Martinez was killed on May 7, 1969 while his unit was trying to take Hamburger Hill. He spent only a little more than a month in Vietnam.
The heartbreaking thing with journeys back through time is knowing the outcome of events but being powerless to change it. As Pam read back over letters from Martinez for the first time in 41 years,  she realized that the dates on the letters were a countdown till his untimely death.
“This (letter) is 26th of April,  ‘69 so how long did he have to live?” Pam asked her voice breaking with emotion.
What was also painful was realizing that the promises made by Martinez to Pam of the times they would share once his time was up in Vietnam were fated to never happen.
“We can go driving all over the place with the car windows down and the radio soft and you sitting next to me,” Martinez writes to Pam as he envisioned a peaceful place away from the foxholes and bombs.
Looking back at the letters stirred up a cauldron of mixed emotions in Pam,  making her wonder what would have happened if Martinez would have made it back from Vietnam. Would their love have survived? Would they still be together today? How would her life have been different?
But soon enough it was time to leave the past and return to the present, to carefully put away the old and yellowed letters back in a shadowy corner of her house and likewise put the thoughts of Martinez and the long - gone possibility of a different life away as well. 

Chesnee Mayor Max Cash convened city council in monthly session on Monday, July 12,  with all council members present. After the minutes from June were approved the mayor opened the floor for public comments with no one coming forward.
In the first order of business and in accordance with procedure, the election of a new mayor pro-tem was called for. After nomination and a second Councilwoman Alaree Dawkins was unanimously elected as Mayor Pro-Tem for a two year term.
 City Administrator Becki Hood then stated that the city had finished the fiscal year ending June 30 in “good shape and with a healthy fund balance.” Hood said, “This has taken a lot of effort and pulling together on everyone’s part, but those efforts have really helped the city budget.”
Hood then gave the council a brief explanation of the budget report and what various items meant. Mayor Max Cash then presented two forms for approval by council. One is a sign-out sheet for city property and the other is a formal written request for hospitality funds. The forms were approved by a vote of 4-1 with Councilwoman Crawford stating that one of the forms should contain more information.
Next, the annual Charter cable franchise renewal was presented and first reading approved.
Chesnee High School wrestling coach Jonathan Rentz then addressed council with a request for hospitality funds. Rentz said the funds would be used to advertise and promote a Chesnee Pro Wrestling event to be held on July 23 at the high school with proceeds to benefit the high school wrestling team. Rentz presented a budget of $2800.00 with his request which was unanimously approved by the city council.
Councilman Bruce Mahaffey then presented for first reading a no smoking in city restaurants ordinance that was originally proposed by Councilman Doug Pye.  Mahaffey said he was at first opposed to the ordinance but said, “After talking with some folks as well as the owners of two of the longer established restaurants in Chesnee, David Walker and Ken Scruggs, I now support it. Walker and Scruggs both said they would welcome a no smoking ordinance.” After being read in its entirety by Councilman Mahaffey, the ordinance was given unanimous first reading approval. The ordinance would ban all tobacco products from city restaurants and carry a fine of $10 to $25 dollars.

For the rest of the story, see this week’s Chesnee Tribune.

Security cameras caught this image of the Sun Trust Bank robbery suspect. The same suspect apparently robbed the First Piedmont Bank at 901 E. Main St. around 9:50 Monday morning. The public is urged to call in tips on the suspect’s identity to Crime Stoppers at 888-CRIMESC or Text TIP649 to CRIMES (274637).

Spartanburg Public Safety officers, Spartanburg County Sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents all responded to a second bank robbery on Spartanburg’s East Side just four days after another bank was hit last Thursday.
The First Piedmont branch at 901 E. Main St. was robbed about 9:50 Monday morning by a white male matching the same description as the suspect in the Sun trust robbery from last week, according to a press statement from Public Safety Lt. Regina Nowak.
The suspect is described as a white male between 45 and 50 years old, around 5’9” to 6’)’’ tall and weighing around 175 pounds. The suspect entered the bank and presented a teller with a note demanding money. The teller placed money in a plastic bag before the suspect left the bank and entered a burgundy or maroon Toyota pickup and headed east on East Main Street.
According to investigators, the same suspect apparently committed the earlier robbery at the Sun Trust Bank at 1704 East Main Street on Thursday morning, June 15, at approximately 9:20.
Jeffery Young witnessed the Thursday robbery when he went in to cash a check. He stated the suspect came in the rear door with a small handgun and pointed it at the teller.
He recalled, “He came in the back door with a blue handkerchief over his face. He had a hat on, I can’t remember what color clothes he had on. (He was) kind of an older guy, white male. He ran up to the counter and said, ‘Give me the money! Give me the money! Hurry up!”
Young said he didn’t think the robber even noticed him.
“He just went straight to the clerk,” and Young “eased back two steps and then turned and ran out the door and called 911” from the Quizno’s parking lot.

For the rest of the story, see this week’s Spartanburg County News.