Author: Dick Mangrum

At what would have been final reading to change Walhalla law and allow the conditional raising and keeping chickens, city council last night tabled the issue to allow for further discussion.  Ahead of last night’s decision to table, the city council heard Clemson poultry specialist Michelle Hall recommend that anyone wanting to keep or raise chickens become educated first.

Wayne McCall took his push for additional Oconee sheriff’s officers and higher law enforcement pay to the political body on which he served 12 years, including time as chairman of the county council law enforcement committee.  McCall, the former District Two councilman, recently issued a position paper calling for 20 additional deputies and a starting salary of $65 thousand.  That […]

Audience members vocalized their joy and applauded for the return of Matthew Durham to the Oconee Council.  Not only was Durham able to re-take his District Two seat at the council table, he was the choice—by a one-vote margin—to chair the council for the rest of 2023.  Votes taken showed that Durham, Glenn Hart, and Don Mize hold the majority, […]

An arrangement by which the developer of student housing projects along the Seneca-Clemson corridor would qualify for infrastructure reimbursements was rejected tonight by the Oconee County Council.  Among the five councilmen, no one was in favor, even though one councilman commented that having student housing complexes in the county should not be considered a bad thing.  After all, as District […]

Unless the full city council sees it differently, pay raises for Walhalla government workers in 2023-24 will be less than that which they received this year.  In a committee meeting this afternoon, Councilman Grant Keehn sought to bump up the cost of living raise from 3% to 5%.  His request failed in a vote of 1 to 2, with Councilman […]

This from Oconee Sheriff’s Office this afternoon: “A Walhalla man remains in jail today, on a combined $87,125.00 surety bond, after his arrest early this morning on charges that include First Degree Burglary. 37 year old William David Gunn was booked into the Oconee County Detention Center around 4:28am today after he was arrested at the scene of a burglary […]

This announcement today from Oconee Solid Waste: “The Transfer Station located at 15028 Wells Hwy, Seneca, SC  29678, will be closing early on Friday April 21st, 2023.  The Transfer Station will be closing down at 12:00pm, due to the power being turned off for construction.  We will be back to normal schedule on Monday April 24th, 2023.  This does NOT affect the landfill or […]

The Walhalla city finance committee is being called together for an afternoon meeting at city hall.  The committee could come out of this 4 o’clock meeting with a recommendation for a FY ’24 Unified Budget.

A guilty plea in the Oconee General Sessions Court produced a 10-year sentence for a defendant facing multiple charges in what a prosecutor called methamphetamine trafficking and a string of property crimes.  Deputy Solicitor Jason Alderman said the defendant, Clifford Jacob Ricketts, was ordered to serve 10 years in prison after guilty pleas to the charges of possession of a […]

Rare does a young person go into sudden cardiac arrest and die.  But it happens.  And that’s why a Seneca woman who lost a son to cardiac arrest is calling for early age screenings to detect the potential for future heart problems.  Javaris Benson died in 2017 while playing pickup basketball at a college campus.  Javaris’s mother, Lekesha Benson, says […]