By Renee Cribb, Staff Reporter

Newly elected town council member Robert McKenzie was officially sworn in during the April 21 town council meeting. McKenzie was elected in March to the District 5 seat vacated after Ricky Burrows was elected mayor.

Council always ends each meeting by giving each councilmember a chance to make comments or introduce issues or concerns. When McKenzie’s turn to speak came, he told council and citizens attending the meeting, that he regretted not attending more town meetings in the past. “When I look out and see people sitting there, I realize how important it is to see citizens care about the Town of Kingstree,” said McKenzie.

During the meeting council also heard second and final reading of ordinances to change the number of members in the towns appointed boards so that each councilmember has appointed a representative. There will now be seven members on each town board rather than five.  Also during the meeting, council reviewed the request for service application, where as anyone who applies for new water service outside of town limits will also agree to be annexed into Kingstree Town limits upon receipt of contiguous service.

Town attorney Ernie Jarrett told Burrows he checked with a Supreme Court ruling and this request is legal.

In the Town Manager’s report, Roosevelt Henegan discussed the trash pick-up services.

The company contracted by the Town of Kingstree for trash pick-up services is Suburban. The town formerly decided to get Suburban to discontinue home-pick-up recycling because so few citizens were using the service. At that time Henegan said, discontinuing that service was saving the Town of Kingstree about $1,000 a month.

However, since signing the contract with Suburban, they have increased cost of their services due to fuel prices. Henegan said Suburban’s seven percent fuel surcharge increase has put the town’s bill back up to the $1,000 and then some.

He said the town was now reviewing that contract as well as alternatives for recycling.
Council members and citizens discussed the recycling issue further at the end of the council meeting.

Councilmember Monica Murdaugh said she had spoken with several citizens who would be glad to do some recycling but, when the town offered that service, their recycle bins had been stolen or displaced. She said the bins had never been replaced.

Donna Snyder, downtown business owner, told council that there had been large bins for recycling behind the downtown stores, but they were no longer there.

Several citizens said that access to the bins could be a problem and that public education could also help in recycling efforts.

Henegan also said that some of the departments for the town of Kingstree would be moving their offices to the upstairs floor of town hall. He said some work would need to be done and he was currently trying to get estimates on cost to present to the budget committee before putting the project out for bids.