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SECOND FRONT THE ITEM
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2013 Contact the newsroom at 803-774-1226 or e-mail news@theitem.com
Changes in plan for Pinewood community center questioned
GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER
Rejected basketball court addition not approved publicly BY ROBERT J. BAKER bbaker@theitem.com PINEWOOD — Pinewood Town Council approved plans for a $400,000 community center for the small town last October, with architectural renderings that showed office space, a multi-purpose room, a porch area and a large parking area. New council members elected in November and Mayor Al Pridgen asked Sumter County Administrator Gary Mixon and the Sumter County Planning Commission in July to change the previously approved plans by replacing a large parking area with a basketball court. The planned community center, one of four planned for Sumter County and paid for on the back of the Penny for Progress sales tax passed by voters in 2008, will be built where basketball courts now sit near the town’s fire station. The basketball court addition to the center has since been thwarted by planning officials. However, some still question how the request for a basketball court got as far as it did. Councilwoman Frances Lester said recently that she was concerned about the new plans, because council members did not approve them in any open or public meeting as they did the original plans last year.
“If they did have one, they didn’t include me in it,” she said. Pinewood Town Council announces all its regular monthly meetings, and others called, through advertisements in The Item. The town’s only public meetings since several called meetings in June to settle its 2013-14 fiscal year budget were regular monthly meetings held in July and August. Pridgen sent an email to Mixon on July 19 through Pinewood interim Clerk to Council Felicia Benbow Lester, saying “the Town of Pinewood approves the Community Center drawings with the correction that they be a ‘full basketball court’ added to the north side of the Community Center, with other adjustments made to accommodate this final redesign of (the outside) surrounding area, i.e., playground.” Contact information in the email is given for Pridgen and Councilmen Jack Spann and Leonard Houser. Neither Lester nor Councilwoman Sarah Mathis are listed as contacts on the email. Lester said she discovered the plans had been altered when she called Sumter County Administrator Gary Mixon on July 22 to find out when bids would be taken on the center. Mixon did not return messages left Friday and Tuesday. He said dur-
ing a previous phone conversation that he was unaware when Pridgen sent the email that council had not voted on the new plans. “I just thought out of the blue to check on when bids were going to happen and when it would start getting built,” Lester said. “I was told Gary was working with council on it, but I hadn’t heard from him or anyone else from the county.” Pridgen said Tuesday that he wasn’t sure whether council needed to vote on the new plans. “But it wouldn’t matter now because the new plan was turned down,” Pridgen said. New council members’ hopes to have a basketball court added were rejected by the local zoning Director Benny McIntosh, according to Pridgen. “I believe it was because there was not enough parking in the new plans,” Pridgen said. “I’m supposed to get a call back to find out more. And, we’ll have to go back to the drawing board.” Lester said were a vote to be taken in an open meeting, she would be against adding the basketball courts. “I just don’t consider basketball courts part of a community center,” she said. Reach Robert J. Baker at (803) 774-1211.
Haley to start mileage reimbursement COLUMBIA (AP) — Gov. Nikki Haley should have been reimbursing taxpayers for mileage in state vehicles to her fundraising events ever since she took office, the director of South Carolina’s ethics agency said on Wednesday. But any required reimbursement has been put on hold as the governor’s attorney seeks another opinion. Haley’s campaign began logging mileage to her fundraising events Sept. 26 when she publicly declared her reelection bid, campaign spokesman Rob Godfrey said. He added that the campaign will
begin making those payments as part of quarterly reimbursements. The Republican governor has previously reimbursed only for additional costs her security detail incurred for fundraisers during outof-state trips, such as agents’ additional hotel nights and meals. Godfrey said the campaign’s decision on the timing followed “decades-old precedent” that a governor’s formal announcement triggers mileage reimbursement, based on discussions with officials at the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides the governor’s security as per state law.
PHOTO PROVIDED
Drucilla Dees, back, a student teacher in Alisa Black’s class at Wilder Elementary School, helps fifth-grader Jada Lawson with her project. Students and faculty recently spent time getting to know each other better. The students shared information from their favorite food to their favorite activity in their classes with “all about me” T-shirts, posters and boxes while teachers shared information such as where they were born and where they graduated from through the school’s “Soaring Thunderbirds Newsletter.”
LOCAL & STATE BRIEFS
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From staff and wire reports
4 teens hurt in single-car wreck
Whooping cough cases rise in Upstate
Four teenagers were injured Wednesday when the SUV they were traveling in overturned on a dirt road near the Clarendon County line. The driver and one passenger, both described as juveniles by S.C. Highway Patrol, were airlifted by helicopter after their Ford SUV reportedly left the roadway and overturned on an unpaved section of Old Stone Road off U.S. 15 about 3:30 p.m. The victims were flown to Palmetto Health Richland for treatment. Two other passengers, also juveniles, were transported from the scene by ambulance and taken to Tuomey Regional Medical Center. Details of the wreck and the teens’ injuries were unavailable Wednesday afternoon, and the incident remains under investigation by Highway Patrol. The ages of the patients were also not released.
ANDERSON — State health officials said the number of cases of whooping cough is increasing in the Upstate. The Department of Health and Environmental Control said Tuesday the number of cases in Anderson County is higher than usual. A case has been confirmed at Clemson Elementary School in Pickens County.
Body found on campus of Benedict College COLUMBIA — Officials are investigating the discovery of a body on the campus of Benedict College in Columbia. A statement from the school Tuesday night said the body was that of a female student at the school but did not identify her. Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said the cause of death appears to be natural. Watts said the initial investigation found no sign of foul play.
‘Performance Today’ features Warshauer shofar concerto FROM STAFF REPORTS Meira Warshauer’s “Tekeeyah (a call) — Concerto for Shofar, Trombone and Orchestra,” will be broadcast live on American Public Media’s “Performance Today” at 9 a.m. Friday on public radio stations across the United States, inWARSHAUER cluding WRLKFM 91.3. The broadcast features Neal Gittleman and the Dayton Philharmonic, with shofar/ trombone soloist Haim Avitsur. “Tekeeyah” will also be available online for one week
after the initial broadcast at http://performancetoday.publicradio.org. “Tekeeyah (a call)” is the first concerto ever written for shofar/trombone soloist and orchestra and was commissioned by a consortium of orchestras that includes the Dayton Philharmonic, the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra, Brevard Philharmonic, University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra and Western Piedmont Symphony (Hickory, N.C.), and with support from Lilly Stern and Bruce Filler, and Linda and Bill Stern in loving memory of their parents, Jadzia and Ben Stern. The Navona label has re-
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leased CD NV5842 featuring “Tekeeyah” and Warshauer’s Symphony No. 1: Living Breathing Earth. The niece of the late Judge Bernard and Genie Warshauer of Sumter, Dr. Warshauer is a graduate of Harvard, New England Conservatory of Music and USC. Among her many awards are several from ASCAP, as well as the America Music Center, Meet the Composer and the South Carolina Arts Commission. In 2000, she received the first Art and Cultural Achievement Award from the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina. In her program notes for
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“Takeeyah,” Warshauer wrote: “Tekeeyah is the Hebrew word for sounding a long tone on the shofar (horn of a ram or other kosher animal). ... In the Jewish tradition, the shofar ... is sounded to wake up the soul. The raw animal sound reaches inside, rousing us from our slumber of complacency and breaking walls of separation. In this concerto, the shofar calls to all of humanity. ... “On Rosh Hashannah (Jewish New Year, which began at sundown Wednesday), the shofar is sounded in three distinct patterns: tekeeyah, a long tone; shevarim, three shorter tones; and teruah, at least nine
staccato notes. Tekeeyah g’dolah, a very long tekeeyah, concludes the sequence of blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashannah and is sounded again at the end of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement, which begins at sundown Sept. 13), concluding 10 days of teshuvah (return or repentance). For Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the shofar may be sounded with mournful, quiet tones and louder, aching cries. All of these sounds are part of the fabric of this composition.” Read more about Friday’s broadcast and “Performance Today” at http://performancetoday.publicradio.org.
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