March 23, 2000

On Thursday night (March 23, 2000) some 200 citizens gathered at a meeting in Columbia, South Carolina, to give input to the much-ballyhooed "Town and Country" plan.

However, Richland County Council Chairman Kit Smith made it clear that she wasn't interested in hearing from people who didn't "share the vision." (The plan would micromanage the rural areas of the county and inhibit the "sprawl" that is said to be harmful.)

One citizen at the meeting was not happy. He writes: I went to the Town and Country Kickoff meeting last night. What an eye-opener!

It was my understanding that the purpose was to get public input. The initial entrance gave me pause: Had to sign in -- in the presence of four workers and with the Sheriff's Department personnel looking on.

Kit Smith (Council Chairman) made it very clear that the only input they wanted was to get the public to 'buy in' during implementation. Both she and Councilman Greg Pearce sugarcoated "The Vision."

When people started to ask hard questions Kit at first tried to push the discussion into the Task Force 'breakout sessions.'

She finally told a women who was opposed to The Vision if -- she didn't share enthusiasm for the plan -- then she should develop her own plan and submit it to compete against the Town and Country plan.

She came close to losing it with that exchange.

Someone in the crowd said that, sure, she'd do that -- if she had the $1,000,000 of our money that (Kit Smith) had already spent.

At the very first hostile question, 4-6 stormtrooper-clad sheriff's department people came through the door into the hall in a conspicuous manner -- all eyes turned.

The major decisions have already been made.

Public input will be controlled by the Task Group facilitators.

Their input will be further filtered by the Technical Resource Team of the Planning Dept. and/or Consultants.

Then comes ordinance drafting. The result of this process will be submitted to the Implementation Steering Committee. This committee consists of hand-picked citizens, Council Members and Planning Commissioners.

In effect, the Council and the paid consultants will control the process all the way until the ordinances are presented to Council for approval.

This way "Their Vision" as it exists now will be "The Vision" the county gets. She said more than once: " ... it how we get there, not if we get there ... "

This begs the question: Could this get quietly passed, have negative impacts on some county citizens and be a surprise (shock) to all?

Dissenting voices are systematically being stamped out and doors seem to be shutting on 'outsiders.'

Another interesting sidelight: In order to volunteer to work on a task force group you had to sign and turn in the following statement:

"I understand that by serving on a task force, I will be working to implement the Comprehensive Plan for Richland County and will work to resolve issues which arise during the process of implementation."

To a question about getting a copy of the Comprehensive Plan, Kit Smith replied that one would be available -- after the Volunteer Form was signed and turned in.

She did not respond to the question about how could a person sign up to work on something when they didn't have access to the details.

Ms. Smith reminded my wife of other ambitious Democratic, boomer women who have higher political ambitions (not too well masked). Very "Hillary-esque in manner and need to control."

The sad part of this is it might just be what the county needs, but the ill will is poisoning it up front! I need to bow out, mostly, on this one since I was not here during it's inception a year ago (1999) and am way behind on the history.

It eludes me as to how any power group can expect to gain the confidence of the population when it arbitrarily -- or appears to arbitrarily -- makes major decisions behind closed doors!

(signed) A sadder, but wiser, taxpayer.

For more and current information, please contact:

We The People of Richland County

605 Burmaster Dr.

Columbia, S.C 29229-4357

803-772-2324

803-736-0925

http://www.richlandtaxpayers.com

To view "The Town and Country Plan for Richland County:"

http://www.richlandonline.com/vision/intro.html