Author: Dick Mangrum

An agenda is in place for the October meeting of the Oconee Planning Commission.  The planning commissioners and Kyle Reid of the county roads and bridges department will chat about county roads.  And there’s a rezoning request involving phase 3 Hidden Falls subdivision.  The request is to re-zone from Control-Free zoning to Lake Residential.  The commission meeting takes place at […]

The approval of a zoning variance this week is a green light for a new project of townhouses near Seneca.  The variance was a unanimous decision of the county board of appeals.  James Coley, county planning director, says the developers envision 68 townhomes on the Wells Highway — an area between Singing Pines Road and the Utica Baptist Church.  

Members of the Westminster Local Development Corporation convene a meeting this afternoon to consider a $1,050 grant request to pay part of Keller Williams’ plans to re-paint the vinyl at its new storefront, 214 E. Main Street.  The paint is to be gray, to match the KW logo.  The meeting to consider the facade grant application will be 4 o’clock […]

An agent with the state Bureau of Drug Control, a part of DHEC, signed warrants this week for the arrest of an Oconee County man, charged with obtaining medication from a pharmacy through the use of a fraudulent telephone prescription in the name of a doctor.  According to four arrest warrants, the doctor said he did not authorize or prescribe […]

State law forbids parents of public school students from boarding their student’s bus to address the driver or another student.  Because of what happened three times in the last week, Oconee School District issued the following statement, coupled with an excerpt from state law: “At no times were any students in danger.  However, these actions are unacceptable and are actually […]

An apparent, open-ended political question across Oconee County is who will serve as the next county coroner, for the term that starts in 2025 and finishes in 2028.  The current Oconee coroner Karl Addis, in office since the mid-1990s, publicly announced that his current term will be his last, although sources close to Addis say he is having second thoughts […]

Once in a while you can find a retired South Carolina judge passing the time inside a West Union store.  It’s not a stretch to find Alex Macaulay catching up with friends at Neville Hardware because it’s just around the block from where the Macaulay family made their home.  Yesterday afternoon was a chance for this reporter to chat with […]

Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad will make a public appearance next month at Clemson University’s Brooks Center for the Performing Arts.  Although best known as Clair Huxtable on “The Cosby Show”, Rashad will give a reading from her mother’s poem “Hawk.”  The poem is described as an allegory of freedom made analogous to space flight. The reading takes place at 7 […]

South Carolina’s health and sanitation watchdog, SC DHEC, says its newest account of how well the state’s drinking water meets safety standards produced the figure of “more than 99%” compliance by drinking water systems across the state with health-based standards.  According to DHEC, it means more than 99% of the state’s population served by public water systems received water that […]

Walhalla Methodists will include something extra in their commodity giveaway today.  Along with various packaged and frozen foods, apples will be part of the food distribution 4:30 to 5:30 this afternoon at the St. Luke Methodist Church on E. Main Street.  Church worker Bo Wilhite says the most recent food giveaway was the largest ever for his church.