Author: Dick Mangrum

The police in Westminster have placed charges against a car driver who allegedly left the scene of an accident involving property damage.  The incident was reported shortly before 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon on Johnson Street near S. Spring Street.  Lt. Matt Patterson says a neighbor’s tip led the police to a heavily damaged Ford Mustang.  In the incident, according to […]

Organizer say a concert to help raise money for the Seneca Tornado Relief Fund for Saturday night in downtown Seneca has been called off.

An Oconee Republican Party officer has been elected as a delegate to this summer’s national convention.  She’s Pat Murray, vice-chairwoman of the county party. Until this week Murray and the other delegates had thought they’d be packing their bags in August for Charlotte, North Carolina.  That location is now in doubt, as President Trump wants “a fast decision” from North […]

The effects of COVID-19, compounded by an EF3 tornado, add up to a difficult financial year ahead for Seneca.  Scott Moulder, city administrator, made discouraging budget projections last night to the mayor and council.  The city budgets for 2020-21 are taking a hit.  The general budget is projected to be $500 thousand smaller; the utilities, $100 thousand less.  The collection […]

Money through the federal government is available to Oconee County to meet emergency food and shelter needs.  The United Way announces that a local board will decide how to allocate $48,461 from the Emergency Food and Shelter National Board and the “CARES” act of “FEMA”–the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  Local programs that work to fill food and shelter needs are […]

South Carolina Humanities has awarded an emergency grant for Seneca’s Bertha Lee Strickland Cultural Museum.  It’s called a bridge grant and the money is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of the economic stabilization plan of the “CARES” law.  The grant is designed to help limited staff museums in this new normal move onto a virtual […]

The Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) today announced that 110,316 tests for COVID-19 have been performed in South Carolina since May 1. Earlier this month, DHEC and its community partners set a goal to test two percent of the state’s population, or 110,000 South Carolinians, by May 31. As of today, South Carolina has exceeded that goal. “We […]

An Oconee deputy signed an arrest warrant alleging that a Seneca man, Lee Lashon Goodine, impersonated a law enforcement officer.  Forty-five year old Goodine was arrested Memorial Day.  The arrest warrant alleges that on January 28, Goodine “unlawfully represented himself to Phillip Andrew Crowe as a law enforcement officer by identifying himself as Detective Lee, providing a badge number and […]

“Absentee voting is through the roof” is what the state election commission spokesman said today to an Oconee County Zoom audience.  Christ Whitmire appeared on an Oconee Chamber of Commerce news program, hosted by JoAnn Johnson.  According to Whitmire, the large numbers of voters choosing to vote absentee are directly attributable to the decision to open absentee voting to all […]