NEWBERRY COUNTY — Discussions for funding through two separate grant programs were at the forefront of last week’s Newberry County Council meeting.

One program, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, has already been used in Newberry to complete a number of projects to benefit the community.

County Administrator Jeff Shacker said Whitmire and the City of Newberry have already used CDBG funding to rehab their water and sewer systems along with making improvements downtown.

Shacker said there is currently an active CDBG project underway in Whitmire that the design is being finalized for.

“There’s some acquisition of property for that sidewalk – that will come to you at the next meeting to sign off on the methods being used for that. That is to construct a sidewalk on Gary Street and Subertown Lane,” he said.

The County has the ability to have up to two grants at one time and cannot exceed what is called the threshold requirement. However, Shacker said they are limited in where those funds can be used.

“This is HUD money that is distributed to the state. In the state of South Carolina, the Department of Commerce administers this funding program and more specifically what they’re administering is a more competitive grants program so as a non-entitlement community – an entitlement community receives their funding directly from HUD in Washington – we have to compete for funds through this competitive program,” Shacker said.

The money can only be used to benefit low and modern income (LMI) communities or direct beneficiaries that are low or modern income.

“LMI is on a household basis, not a family basis because there’s household data and there’s family data when you’re dealing with the Census. What has to happen is your households – their income level can be no greater than 80% of the county median household income unless you qualify a project at the community level in which case the community has to be 51% or greater LMI in order to be able to qualify it on the basis of the community,” Shacker said.

In recent data, he said Whitmire had historically low and modern income at the city level, dipping below that for a five-year period (this is evaluated every five years.) Now, he said, Whitmire is back at majority LMI, which means the majority of their households meet the LMI requirement or exceed it.

“Therefore a project can be qualified based on the city’s data as opposed to having to go out and income survey every household that might benefit from the project,” he said.

Shacker suggested to Council that they move forward with requesting an application if council was willing to do so. He said there is a mid-August deadline to request the application and if an application is received it is essentially a determination that the project is eligible. Funding requests are due in September and an award would be received in December.

Looking towards future projects, Shacker said they would like to create a connection through sidewalks, asphalt work, additional parking and possibly landscaping running from Market Street to Glenn Street and a connection along Gilliam Street that could possibly tie back into the Gary Street project currently in progress.

“In talking with Mayor Billy Hollingsworth, there is some interest in pursuing funding to renovate the Whitmire Community Center. We need to estimate the cost of the project to determine what can be done within the grant and the required minimum match, but it may even be possible to do a short portion down to the Community Center which sets the table for that project,” Shacker said.

The other grant program Shacker brought before Council was an entity created to address poverty in the Appalachian region, the Appalachian Region Commission.

“In South Carolina, it’s basically the I-85 corridor. A recent creation was in the southern states that have ARC territory, it was to take the rest of those states and create another commission that would cover the rest of those states called the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission and they have a grant program,” he said.

Looking at Newberry County, possible projects include building an amphitheater stage on the property that is north of Tench Street, possibly into the Tench Street right-of-way and utilizing that space for seating. Like Whitmire, Shacker said they would like to establish connections to the amphitheater project which would be Caldwell Street and McKibben Street.

“Caldwell Street has not been addressed. We were hopeful that CDBG could potentially be used for that and when you look at this, there’s a tremendous amount of fencing that was part of the CPST project scope because if you’ve got an amphitheater and you’re selling tickets for major events you’ve got to have controlled access and so the concept, or at least what was estimated, was to shave some of the edges off of the CPST cost from an expense standpoint and maybe cover them with a grant,” Shacker said.

Other projects include repaving, installing a wider sidewalk for the increased foot traffic going to the amphitheater, decorative lights, trees to provide shade, a street light circuit Shacker said they would like to have underground and power hookups for food trucks or other folks who want to set up in the area.

Other business:

  • Lorie Graham, Newberry ares business consultant, S.C. Small Business Development Centers, spoke before Council to let them know of the services they can provide to small business, which include marketing, web design, HR operations, etc. Graham said they also provide business plans to help businesses with lenders, banks, attorney referrals, accountants – things that go into having a small business.
  • Council unanimously passed the third reading of an ordinance establishing a Building, Fire and Nuisance Codes Board of Appeals for Newberry County.
  • Council unanimously passed the first reading of an ordinance authorizing Newberry County to sell a 46 +/- property located near the City of Newberry on S.C. Highway 121 Bypass.

Reach Kelly Duncan at 803-768-3122 ext. 1867 or kduncan@championcarolinas.com.