Author: Dick Mangrum

If the pre-meeting agenda is indicative, Seneca City Council will engage in a lengthy session tomorrow night at city hall.  For the May work session and a special meeting to follow, the council is scheduled to receive the audit report and consider first reading of new budgets for 2023-24.  Reserved for an executive session are the following matters:  municipal judge […]

Unless there’s change, retail water bills from the Pioneer Rural Water District will hold steady in 2023-24, according to the general manager.  “There is no planned rate increase this year,” said GM Terry Pruitt, after a board of directors meeting last week.  Pioneer’s service base is parts of Oconee and Anderson counties.  

A little more than 3.5 acres on U-S 123, the Seneca-Clemson corridor, changed hands in a transaction that fetched $290 thousand for the property owner.  Real estate agent Adrienne Hennes confirmed she sold the property which sits at a corner spot at 123 and the Wells Highway.  It’s expected the property, now vacant, will become home to a large landscaping […]

Opportunities tonight for those interested in Seneca government and politics.  At 6 o’clock at city hall, the board of architectural review accepts public comment on a certificate of appropriateness requested by Misty Taylor at 315 S. Fairplay Street.  At 7 o’clock the League of Women Voters of Oconee-Pickens welcomes the public to the Gignilliat Community Center to hear and meet […]

A conflict at the Shaver complex, the traditional place to cast in-person ballots on Election Day, means Seneca’s special May 30 election voting will take place in the gym at the nearby Seneca Middle School.  That’s where city voters, registered in four precincts, will fill an open council seat.  Voters are being asked to choose among five men and women […]

A former adult education teacher in the Oconee public schools is taking the county district to court, alleging age discrimination and retaliation.  The complaint filed yesterday in the Commons Pleas Court names Dr. Martha Lusk the plaintiff and the Oconee School District the defendant.  Lusk is represented by Greenville attorney Brian Arnold.  The court filing states Lusk, 72 years old, […]

Early voting in Seneca’s next election, May 30, continues today.  But there’s a deadline fast approaching if you qualify for an absentee ballot and have not yet applied.  That deadline, says elections director Kristi Burr, is 5 o’clock this evening — meaning your signed application must be in the election office at Walhalla no later than 5 today.  Seneca voters […]

Spring is road-paving time in South Carolina.  Beyond the various projects for which contractors have been assigned, the state is already planning its 2024 paving program.  The Department of Transportation Commission this week added $775 million to the previously invested $2.8 billion into its current, 10-year plan.  In the plan’s seventh year, the transportation commissioners approved another 877 miles of […]

Road paving allocations that fall short of contractor’s estimates left the Oconee State “C” Fund Committee to re-evaluate earlier actions.  A communication from DOT in Columbia led the three-member county “C” Fund Committee yesterday to drop the re-surfacing of Bayshore Road, 1-point-7 miles in length.  It was announced at the meeting that, in this period of inflation, an allocation of […]