Serving Barnwell County and it's neighbors since 1852
The Town of Williston has set forth goals for 2023 to better the life of its residents. These goals were detailed at the January 9 Williston Town Council meeting alongside other upcoming events and police updates.
Goals
The first goal set by the town is addressing and/or maintaining infrastructure and facilities. The town hopes to continue providing attractive, safe, and reliable water and wastewater service to its residents.
Investing in safe sidewalks, roads, and walking trails are a priority this year alongside partnerships to “expedite broadband infrastructure deployment.” Broadband services are growing on the state and county level, and town officials want to make sure Williston is a part of the coverage.
The second goal set is to ensure the safety of the community through “equitable policing practices,” increasing transparency in police and fire operations, and recruiting and retaining qualified officers and firefighters.
Entering the new year, town officials encourage the community to provide feedback or concerns on services rendered by the town such as police and fire services as well as water or garbage collection.
Administrator Michael Beasley hopes this communication could possibly manifest in future public forums or meetings.
The third goal relates to code enforcement and compliance in hopes Williston residents “may enjoy a cleaner, safer, and better place to live.”
This involves educating citizens on municipal codes if they are unaware, approving a new zoning ordinance, and identifying and investigating any violations.
Every ten years, municipalities are required to update their zoning ordinances. The Town of Williston will be doing this throughout the year with the help of the Lower Savannah Council of Governments.
The fourth goal pertains to recreation and activities. The town plans to create opportunities for the public to share their ideas on potential programs, events, and personal experiences that would ultimately better recreation and activity initiatives for all ages.
With these ideas comes bringing them to fruition, which the town hopes to do through expanding partnerships and community collaboration.
Goal number five is about beautifying Williston by improving holiday displays, cleaning and maintaining overgrown sidewalks, creating welcome signage at entrances to the town, and establishing a beautification committee.
According to Administrator Beasley, more information about the beautification committee and updates on new signage would be detailed in the quarterly town newsletter.
The sixth goal relates to the town officials and staff, and it has already been kickstarted within the first two weeks of the year.
At the Jan. 9 meeting, Administrator Beasley explained town employees had held their first staff meeting earlier that day where they were able to work out better methods of communicating with one another to ultimately better serve the town.
In these meetings, town employees are addressing deficiencies and formulating solutions regarding community priorities, internal procedure, customer service, and much more.
Another part of these staff meetings are working toward investing in town employee professional development.
The seventh goal of the town is performing an evaluation of all operations and systems to identify areas that need improvement and then implement a plan to fix them.
This also includes “establishing departmental reports that identify the state of the departments.”
For more information on the status of the 2023 goals of the Town of Williston, call the town hall at (803) 266-7015 or visit https://www.williston-sc.com/.
Recreation Committee
It was brought to the attention of council that not all of the members of the Recreation and Activities Committee have been attending the required meetings.
Administrator Beasley explained for the council to remove a committee member, they must amend the current resolution to allow the chairman of said committee to add members.
The committee was originally formed last summer and current members were appointed by council members. The resolution must be amended to allow for the current chairman to accept people onto the committee based on council selection criteria.
Williston Police Dept. Update
Administrator Beasley was proud to report that the Williston Police Department (WPD) is fully certified and fully staffed.
Last year, the WPD was asked to address speeding along Main Street by the council. From January to May of 2022, 37 speeding tickets were issued, and from June to December 177 speeding tickets were issued.
The WPD received a total of 1,775 reported incidents in 2022, responding the most to incidents of speeding, trespassing, performing welfare checks, and assisting other agencies.
Circuit Public Defender Agreement
At the Jan. 9 meeting, the council approved the renewal of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOA) with the Second Circuit Public Defender’s Office required by state law.
This MOA is good for two years, and essentially provides anyone arrested in Williston who is unable to afford legal counsel a public defender.
Each case in need of a public defender will cost the town $400, which will be remitted 15 days after.
The yearly cost in 2022 was a total of $6,800. This cost is usually billed quarterly to the town per the MOA, but due to COVID complications on the public defender’s office’s end, it was billed to the town yearly in 2022.
Providing legal counsel to those who cannot afford to do so themselves used to be handled by the state, but it has since become the responsibility of municipalities thus requiring this MOA to be in place.
