DARLINGTON, SC (WBTW) – Darlington County Council held its fourth listening session Wednesday night to discuss options for a new courthouse building.
Darlington County Administrator, Marion Stewart, said it was important for council to give Darlington County residents a say in the matter.
“Council wanted to conduct listening sessions throughout the county to see what perspective the citizens already have about the need for a new courthouse,” he said. “Whether they wanted one to renovate, build, and what type of money they wanted to put into it and how they wanted to see that paid for.”
A facilitator led the discussion beginning the forum with three options: keep the current courthouse, renovate the current courthouse, or build a new courthouse. The options to fund the project were to either have a one-percent sales tax or a property tax. Many people in the audience said they wanted to build a new courthouse using the one-percent sales tax option.
“We have a lot of traffic coming through Darlington County going to the beach,” said Darlington resident Linwood Epps. “They spend a lot of money in Darlington County, they stop and eat, they stop and get gas. They’re going to help us build that one percent, instead of just putting it on me as a property tax.”
Epps said he would like to see the old building torn down and a new one built in Downtown Darlington.
“I don’t see spending money on something that’s old, out-of-date, and will probably need to be done again in the future,” Epps said. “It’s completely vital to leave it downtown otherwise downtown would dry up, there would be no downtown without it.”
Stewart said there isn’t a specific dollar amount set for the project yet because it’s still in its early stages.
“For a brand new facility that will house everything, you could be talking between 20 and 40 million dollars, but there are no specific numbers yet,” said Stewart.
He said if the one-percent tax option is chosen, that tax could raise approximately five million dollars for eight years and then that penny would fall off the sales tax after those eight years. He said so far each session has brought different views on each option.
“It has been a spectrum across the board of whether to renovate, whether to build, whether to do a one-percent sales tax or whether to go with bonds so there’s been a wide spectrum of opinion and that’s one of the purposes of this,” Stewart said.
Steward said the county bought land near the current courthouse a year ago which would give another option of where a new courthouse could be built.
“The land that the county has purchased that is a possible placement of a new facility is just off the main square, visible from the fourth floor and fifth floor of the current courthouse,” he said.
Epps said even if a new courthouse is built, he still wants to see the old one destroyed.
“It needs to come down, don’t leave it there because we have already said now that it’s no good, that it needs to be renovated,” Epps said. “We’re not going to spend any money renovating so tear it down.”
He said the space of what would be the old courthouse could be used for something later on down the road.
“Right now we could just use it as a green space, but the land is not going anywhere,” said Epps. “It will be there 10 years from now and if we need to do something else with that, it’s there waiting for us.
Stewart said if Darlington County Council decided on one of the three options, it would be put before voters Nov. 2018.
The final public forum will be held Thurs. Nov. 30th at 6 p.m. on the fifth floor of the Darlington County Courthouse
