How to pay for a $700k road

Without an entrance road to property for a new Oconee industrial park, the county is virtually hamstrung from enticing employers to build there.  That is the gist of a message that Richard Blackwell delivered last evening to the planning and economic development committee of the Oconee County Council.  Blackwell gave the committee a preliminary estimate of $710 thousand to build an entrance road to the county-owned wooded property at the Seneca Rail Site.  Located off the Shiloh Road at the edge of Utica community, the Seneca Rail Site is owned by both the county and the city of Seneca.  Blackwell, director of the Oconee Economic Alliance, outlined a plan to use tap existing county money and funds from outside sources to pay virtually all of the costs.  No county general fund money would be needed, Blackwell said.  Under the plan the South Carolina Power Team, under the auspices of the Santee Cooper Authority, would grant half of what’s needed.  Other identified sources are the county’s State C-Fund Committee, the Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, the Oconee Economic Alliance, and $180 thousand dollars earned by Oconee County thru the sale of timber from the county’s Information and Technology Park on highway 11.