WHITMIRE — Mayor Billy Hollingsworth and Whitmire Town Council chose to pursue a grant for the Church Street project during the town’s monthly meeting.

Hollingsworth told Council that if they didn’t pursue the grant now it would be a missed opportunity.

“We’re trying to get the grant for the Church Street water line upgrade, we thought we were going to pull it and not go through with it, but we rethought that, and decided we probably needed to pursue it. If we miss this opportunity it’s never going to get done,” Hollingsworth said.

The initial cost for the project is $933,000.

Hollingsworth also discussed the Rural Infrastructure Grant which has already been approved for $219,000.

“That gets us the two water tanks, refurbished, DHEC is requiring us to do this. The matching part of that is a 25 percent maximum grant,” Hollingsworth said.

In other business, a motion was made by Councilman Michael Thomas to transform a 10×16 building into a men and women’s restroom at the golf course. The motion was seconded by Councilman Galen Roche and Jimmy Dunaway. Hollingsworth said that the maximum amount of money that the town can spend will be $7,000.

Other business:

• Recreation Director Ron Harsha reported that basketball season has concluded and preparations for baseball and softball are underway.

• Chief Jeremiah Sinclair reported that there were 82 incidents filed for the month of February, 106 citations issued and three traffic collisions investigated. Some of the calls the department responded to included domestic violence, shoplifting, aggravated assault, larceny, possession of marijuana, possession of meth and forgery.

• Hollingsworth reported for the month of February the town of Whitmire had a beginning balance of $29,981.25 with $103,306.77 in deposits and $78,125.67 in expenditures. The ending balance for the town was $55,162.35. On the public works side, the town had a beginning balance of $9,050.48 with $132,477.67 in revenue and $70,541.23, resulting in an ending balance of $70,986.92.

• Council passed the first reading of an ordinance to adopt the Duke Energy contract after a motion from Thomas and a second from Councilwoman Chrystal Harsha.

Hollingsworth
https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/web1_Hollingsworth-2018.jpgHollingsworth

By Kelly Duncan

kduncan@newberryobserver.com

Reach Kelly Duncan at 803-768-3123 ext. 1868 or on Twitter @TheNBOnews.