Williamston Council updated on Minor Street, projects during work session

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1522

By Stan Welch
The Williamston Council met in a work session Tuesday night to preview the agenda for their next regular Council meeting. That meeting has been postponed a week , until Feb. 11, because most of the Council will be out of town for training sessions held by the Municipal Association of South Carolina.
They also revisited the Minor Street road repairs, and Mayor Mack Durham informed them that a legal notification to the seventeen property owners who have yet to respond to the town’s efforts to obtain easements will appear in this issue of The Journal. That notice allows for thirty days for owners to respond. After that time, the town has met its legal obligations, and the project can proceed.
The county has declined to put the project out for bid until that legal step is taken, but Mayor Durham, responding to a suggestion from Councilman Rockey Burgess, agreed to revisit that decision in an effort to speed up the project, which has had the road closed for months now. Durham also assured a citizen who attended the work session that the police department would put together a traffic plan to deal with the safety issues surrounding Minor Street, as youth baseball season approaches.
The mayor and various members of council discussed specific drainage and ditching situations around town. Durham also mentioned that a residential developer had expressed some preliminary interest in a project for the area. No details were forthcoming.
He also referenced an offer by local businessman Lee Bagwell to sell a small lot to the town that would allow the extension of Cherokee Road to Main Street near the Dollar General store. That extension has been under consideration for some time now, and is still a ways down the road, if you will. Bagwell has expressed a willingness to sell the lot for nine thousand dollars.
The possibility of rezoning another piece of town owned property to allow light industry to come to town was also briefly mentioned. That issue will be on the agenda on Feb. 11. Durham reminded the Council that budget workshops will begin in April, to settle any issues and allow for May and June to give first and second reading to the budget.