
District 3 residents listen as Councilwoman Belinda Gergel welcomes them to the District 3 public meeting.
Wednesday night, District 3 Councilwoman Belinda Gergel held a public meeting about the proposed sheriff/police contract. A good crowd showed up at the Capital Senior Center, but I didn’t get a head count. Mayor Steve Benjamin and Richland 1 school board member Susie Dibble were there, along with Seth Rose, the Democratic nominee for the Richland County Council District 5 seat.
Most of the people who attended the meeting supported the contract, as opposed to the meetings in districts 1 and 4 where the overwhelming majority opposed the contract. Here is a sampling of the comments:
“Leon Lott has shown a lot of moral character. I think we need that at the top. That’s been lacking, and has filtered down to the rest of the department.”
“Somebody is going to be losing their job. Sheriff Lott will be bringing in his own team.”
“I do feel like the Columbia Police Department has a lot we could learn from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department. I hear people say we have great officers in the City of Columbia. I don’t dispute that. I also hear we don’t have enough money. It seems the sheriff is doing more with less.”
“I wonder how Leon Lott will use part of his time to do a job for us without deteriorating the job he’s already doing. … It’s possible he could resign the job he has and we hire him to be the man for the City of Columbia.”
The next meeting is in District 2, scheduled for Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Cecil Tillis Center, 2111 Simpkins Lane. City Council will hold a citywide public hearing Wednesday at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 1737 Main Street.
I plan on writing a story for Tuesday’s newspaper recapping the public meetings so far and will include some comments from council members. They have given themselves until the end of September to decide.
What I’ve been up to
City Council members meet at The Big Apple this morning to begin their two day retreat.
Sorry I haven’t been blogging lately. Lots of news to write for the paper this week, plus a two-day City Council retreat, means I don’t have much time to blog. Here’s what’s appeared in the paper from me this week:
That is a solid two days worth of work. Tomorrow, I’ll have a story about how the city is thinking of balancing its budget by outsourcing some city services, including residential garbage pickup.