Clinton City Council is taking steps to clean Musgrove Street following the Aug. 27 fire and to pay for clean up from the Sept. 27 Hurricane Helene.
Laurens County presented a $250,000 check at the council’s Nov. 4 meeting designated to the Clinton Economic Development Corporation. The money comes from the industries-supported special projects fund, designed for infrastructure.
The CEDC will determine how best the quarter million dollars can be spent to revive the Musgrove Street business district. Four buildings and five businesses were burned and/or suffered severe smoke damage in the fire, a cause for which has not yet been announced. Three businesses have announced relocations or relocation plans.
County Council Chairman Brown Patterson and County Administrator Thomas Higgs made the presentation to Clinton Mayor Randy Randall. The City also has asked the Laurens County Development Corporation’s board for a $250,000 appropriation; the money would be added to a similar amount from the CEDC to build a public parking lot at the Industrial Supply Building, a project that could facilitate a $5 Million restoration of that building into urban apartments. Following a closed session discussion, the city council agreed to designate $200,000 from the city’s economic development fund for the “redevelopment and cleanup of Musgrove Street property.”
Then, a month after the fire, Hurricane Helene ravaged Laurens County and other counties in Western South Carolina. Four days before the hurricane, Laurens County Council on a split vote agreed to provide Clinton with the fire-damage recovery money, and at the Nov. 4 meeting made good on that promise.
The County estimates hurricane damage expenses at $24 Million and is applying for FEMA* money to assist with the cleanup and employees’ pay.
For Clinton’s part, storm damage will be covered initially by taking $1 Million from the electric Rate Stabilization Fund. The City is keeping hurricane expenses separate from regular public works expenses so when a FEMA representative arrives, documentation of expenses will be readily available, the council was told.
There is no other source readily available to meet these obligations, the council was told.
This $1 Million will be restored to the Rate Stabilization Fund when a FEMA pay-out for the city’s damage and expenses is made, the council was told. Officials said the city already faces a half million expense from the hurricane and money from the utility fund is going to pay vendors. The city owes $321,000 for overtime pay to employees, not counting salaried employees’ expenses. Invoices are being spent for the pay of 40 visiting linemen who assisted Clinton in restoring electricity.
Also at the Nov. 4 regular monthly meeting, the council accepted the $138,379.17 bid of Lambert’s Cable Splicing Company LLC to bury the electric lines at Wilder Tract and Stone Creek housing developments (Hwy 56 and Springdale Drive). A Jacobs Highway annexation and an incentive for development in the city’s historic district also received approval.
*FEMA = the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
