Last week, I meant to react to this news …
About 20 DHEC and EPA agents raided the city’s sewer plant at 8 a.m.
Thursday, armed with a search warrant, weapons and wearing bulletproof
vests — just as parents were dropping off their children at nearby
Heathwood Hall Episcopal School.
… by saying that if it had been ME raiding that place, I don’t think I’d have worried about bulletproof. Bullets wouldn’t have been my main concern. I’d have gone for a hazmat suit. But that’s me.
But forgetting to say that until now at least gave me the excuse of using that headline about "missing my chance."
Now that we’ve had fun, I’ll raise the serious question: First the police department messes. Then the inability to close out the fiscal year because no one knew how. (Or was it the other way around?) Y’all know I like ol’ Mayor Bob, but one begins to wonder if there’s anything the city knows how to do right. I guess I’ll just use it as another excuse to push for the strong-mayor system that would at least give Columbia voters someone to hold accountable.
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What happened to the good old days of normal police serving warrants? Now, there are teams of hysterical, armored SWAT teams barking like mad dogs, for even the simplest white collar infraction.
based on what i read in the state, government in the capital city of columbia is an embarrassment to the state. between mayor bob and the reverend city manager, the city doesn’t seem to stand a chance. it doesn’t appear the council is worth much either.
How come Bob don’t wanna have sex in the park no more?
The City has some real problems at the Metro sewer plant. It is unfortunately not a joke that they have “missed their chance” repeatedly over the past decade. The plant is in a floodway, it must be expanded to 80 MGD, and they have been raiding the capital improvement fund to pay for fire and police. Now they are raising sewer fees 25% over 5 years, but that will not cover all the improvements that need to be made to the plant. Their permit expires in August, and if the recent allegations are true one would expect DHEC to slap them with a fine and impose more string limits on their effluent. The City needs to be proactive and creative in its solutions. So far, though, they have only been in denial about their effluent and expansion problems. I hope The State continues to follow this issue and let the public know how poorly Metro has been managed.