South Carolina, Lancaster, SC | featured news

Linda Blackmon is asking that Jackie Harris and the Lancaster County Election Commission pay her attorney fees and other costs from the election protest filed by Harris in 2016.
Blackmon’s attorney Robert Tyson filed a legal motion in the civil court case Oct. 13, seeking $30,000 from Harris and $5,000 from the commission.
“When there’s a statute, or contractual provision, that allows for the prevailing party to seek costs incurred when the allegations are frivolous in nature, then we will do just that,” Tyson said.

The population of Lancaster County’s endangered Carolina heelsplitters increased significantly Tuesday.

From release

The new Sixth Circuit Adult Drug Court Program is partnering with the United Way of Lancaster County to coordinate a network of services to help defendants turn their lives around.
As part of the effort, Sixth Circuit Solicitor Randy Newman is inviting all agencies interested in receiving program referrals to a network meeting and lunch at noon this Tuesday.
The meeting will be in the Lancaster’s City Council chambers at City Hall, 216 S. Catawba St. Those interested in lunch are asked to RSVP by noon Monday to Ben Dunlap at ben.dunlap@scsolicitor6.org.

Absentee voting for the upcoming nonpartisan Heath Springs, Kershaw and Van Wyck town council races is now open.
Qualified voters may cast absentee ballots in person from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays at the county voter registration office on the lower level of the Lancaster County Administration Building, 101 N. Main St.
To request an absentee paper ballot application by phone, call the voting office at (803) 285-2969.
The Heath Springs and Kershaw town council elections are Nov. 7.

Lancaster Promise Neighborhood has knocked on the federal government’s door for the second time after not getting the answer it wanted last year, but this time it’s using a new approach.
This year’s application requesting nearly $20 million in federal funding – up from last year’s $12 million request – was completed classifying the Clinton Elementary attendance zone as a rural area. Last year we competed in the general category.

As one legal challenge involving the Lancaster City Council ends, another might pop up in its place.
Tuesday night’s vote to approve a $6,750 payment to newly installed council member Linda Blackmon – a vote that she participated in – has raised issues under South Carolina’s ethics statute.

Lancaster County is about to lose its only access to low-cost inmate labor, and officials are scrambling to come up with a plan that will avoid hiring county employees to do the work at an annual cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“It’s going to be a hit,” said Lancaster County Council Chairman Steve Harper, noting the local impact of the November closing of the Catawba Pre-Release Center in Rock Hill.

If you told me six years ago that I’d become a reporter, fall in love with a country girl and live in good ole’ South Carolina, I’d have said ease up on the psychedelics.
Yet here I am, with all of the above turning out to be true.
God must be punishing me for my cynicism as a Northerner.  
I currently live in Columbia and commute to Lancaster. But I have bought a house in Lancaster’s Erwin Farm neighborhood and will be closing on the sale today.
I am not an S.C. native, but I don’t plan on leaving – ever.

The Lancaster Fire Service is hosting its 23rd annual Fire Safety Expo this Saturday in the parking lot of the Walmart on S.C. 9 Bypass in Lancaster.