Florence County Council wants petition concerning road maintenance fee dismissed

By Charles Tomlinson
Morning News Reporter
Published: July 24, 2008

Florence County is asking a court to declare as invalid a petition for a referendum to cut the county’s $30-per-vehicle road maintenance fee in half.

The county on July 14 in 12th Circuit Court filed a declaratory judgment action, which in this case would invalidate an 11,000-signature petition gathered by the Florence County Citizens in Action.

“We’re not trying to get anything from them or do anything to them,” county attorney Jim Rushton said Thursday. “We’re trying to get the question in front of the court.”

The lawsuit names Citizens in Action and, specifically, members Mamie Gray, Bill Hoffmeyer and Licia Stone, who Rushton said have been the most visible at county council meetings and seem to be most concerned about the issue.

The action states that the three have 30 days from the time of receipt to reply to the summons.

Rushton also said the county is not seeking to recoup legal fees from the group or individual members. Hoffmeyer said he was concerned that might happen.

The individual members couldn’t be reached for further comment by press time Thursday.

The group has called the petition a mandate for council to cut the road fee and prevent council members from individually allocating money to road work.

State law says a petition signed by 15 percent of the electorate, if not acted upon by county council, could lead to a referendum on the issue in question. The signatures on the petition represent more than 16 percent of Florence County’s 67,855 registered voters, according to S.C. State Election Commission figures.

The lawsuit, however, states that the petition is “facially invalid” and would limit county spending because state law forbids the county’s electorate from proposing an ordinance to appropriate money.

The lawsuit also calls the ordinance in the petition “vague” and therefore unenforceable. It also states that the 11,000 signatures weren’t all given to the same petition because the wording of the petition and proposed ordinance varies among the documents signed by county residents.

The county says the proposed ordinance seeks an amendment for road fee collections to enter a fund solely for road maintenance, but would leave no ordinance to amend because it also calls for the repeal of county ordinances enacting the road fee.

It could be several weeks or months before the circuit court schedules any hearings on the matter, Rushton said.

Some residents are upset because part of the fee, which doubled in 2003, goes into a separate Road System Maintenance Fund for each of the nine county councilmen, and those funds have accumulated more than $1 million, Stone said earlier this year.

The county allocates 14 percent of the fees toward the funds, which can be used only to pave and provide rock for roads. The remainder goes to the county’s public works department.

The $30 fee raised more than $3.2 million in fiscal year 2006-07, Florence County Finance Director Kevin Yokim said in a previous interview. If the fee were cut in half, four additional mills in taxes could raise the $1.6 million needed to make up the difference, he said.

Citizens in Action thinks no tax increase would be needed because the county is operating with an unrestricted surplus of $30.9 million, the group has said. Starks said earlier this year, however, that such funds can be spent only within certain parameters.