Over 300 Lexington residents attended Wednesday’s work session to discuss land and annexation.
The Smallwood Cove project began as a self admitted “secret project” of Lexington Mayor Steve MacDougall to develop and construct a 93 tract of land privately owned which is under consideration to be annexed by the Town of Lexington.
It started with an early morning interview on WVOC with Develop the Town of Lexington Responsibly spokesman Greg Brewer voicing concerns and opposition to the 93 acre project known as Smallwood Cove.
The meeting caught the attention of town residents with over 300 in attendance for the Wednesday evening Council meeting, an evening many reserve for mid-week church services. In fact, there were so many residents in opposition attending that the Fire Marshall stopped any more citizens from entering the meeting room due to being full. Residents from all around the Town of Lexington packed the meeting room and then lined the walls of the building.
Several sources confirmed over 300 citizens were in attendance. The crowd was ushered in one at a time through security thus slowing the entrance process down considerably.
The Town and County councils spoke for about an hour discussing the project and annexation. Following was the public comments portion of the meeting which lasted for slightly longer than an hour. Public comment was heard from 19 speakers.
Town residents also started a petition to stop the 93 acre project. State law says that if 15% of registered voters in town sign the petition that it will force town council to adopt the proposed ordinances. If council fails to adopt the measure it then goes directly to voters on the ballot.
One of the speakers at the Wednesday evening work session was Dana Homesley who offered 8 specific points of citizen expectations and requirements of town council from town resident. It appeared citizens had had enough of being led around and were speaking up to protect their town from over expansion and development. The points demanded by Homesley were:
1. No Convention Center using public funds. This is NOT a priority.
2. Adopt by reference the existing Lake Murray Residential District & Ordinances. The conscientious efforts by the county to safeguard the lake, including the open space and density requirements for residential developments, must be honored.
3. Mayor must recuse himself from any votes moving forward regarding the 93-acre project. State law governs council form of government, and mayor was not authorized to enter into negotiations without majority vote of council.
4. An Environmental Impact Study or EPA Assessment must be conducted to assure Town Council meets its fiduciary. We cannot risk taxpayers footing the bill for contaminants or other environmental issues.
5. Council must confirm the absence of any conflicts of interest or financial gain with this project directly or indirectly via family or affiliated businesses.
6. Town council members must be tied to specific districted areas, just like county and state governments. Given the growth of Lexington and to assure our diversity is represented, we request districted Town Council seats and press our Legislative Delegation to get this done promptly.
7. Owner/Developer must be responsible for all costs associated with development and impacts on infrastructure. Taxpayers will not be responsible for any of this development.
8. Discontinue taxpayer funded activities with the National League of Cities.
Homesley added that the Mayor has said “In Lexington we solve our own problems. We concur. As residents, we are not modeling Lexington after any of the cities in the country represented at the National League of Cities.”
Recently elected town councilman Gavin Smith, said the landowner could “build 180 homes” today and be in compliance with county ordinances. A citizen remarked out loud that everyone “would be fine with 180 homes, it all the other stuff that’s the problem.”
Citizen Debbie Heim quoted an Attorney General’s opinion from 2012 on annexation. The opinion was coincidentally about annexation in the Town of Lexington. “Our Supreme Court has stated that ‘the sole requirement for annexation is contiguity’… It is clear that territory sought to be incorporated or annexed must meet the requirement of contiguity… and citing a court case, the wisdom of annexation is a legislative, not a judicial determination.”. She then explained Section 5-3-150 and the definition of contiguity in Section 5-3-305 and asked council to follow the law.
Develop Responsibly spokesman Greg Brewer reported on his door-to-door neighborhood canvassing all over town limits and bringing fliers to hundreds of residents.
Heim said, “We want existing laws followed. Annexation is defined in state law, and this project does not meet the state law requirement.”
Heim continued, “No one I have met has any issue with the landowner developing his own land according to existing ordinances, but,” Heim noted, “This is an incredibly dense project that would greatly impact our infrastructure, and we need to take care of our current residents first before artificially bringing in more.”
The Develop Responsibly group conducted a social media survey which showed that Lexington residents favor
- Improving life quality in Lexington? 67%
- New Road Improvements & Expansion 55%
- Main Street abandoned Buildings 7%
- Parking Downtown 4%
- Fire, Police and Safety 18%
- Return the money 11%
- Other 4%
The general citizen survey conducted on social media included 338 votes.
State Representatives Paula Calhoon and Chris Wooten were in attendance. Calhoon and Wooten had requested $10 million dollars from the state budget that recently passed for the 93 acres development. Although Calhoon did not speak, Wooten spoke for about ten minutes prior to public comment. Wooten claimed this was larger than he knew about, but noted that the money could go back to the state if annexation did not happen. That comment drew applause from the crowd.
Michael Reed is Publisher of The Standard newspaper, print and online. You may find our videos available on Rumble. The bulk of TheStandardSC video media channel has been censored by dominant social media groups like YouTube. YouTube, owed by Alphabet (Google), removed and destroyed all of our video work without permission or remuneration. That has stopped all potential donations from our many supporters on that venue. If you want to continue to see independent thought and reports please “like”, comment, share with a friend, and donate to support The Standard on this page to assure the continued availability of news that is ignored too often by the dominant media.
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