Down to its last vote, the Town of Indian Land plan hinged. They’ll get one more.

Indian Land residents now can decide for themselves whether to become a town.

Down to its last vote in a tie to that point, a state joint legislative committee on municipal incorporation narrowly allowed for a referendum. A date hasn’t been set. The committee vote Tuesday morning in Columbia is a major step in the two-year process of creating the town of Indian Land.

“It was a victory,” said Matt McCusker, committee member with Voters for a Town of Indian Land. “Essentially it was a victory for the right to vote.”

The victory didn’t come easily. Several members of the legislative group questioned the tax numbers, future needs residents may not anticipate funding, even potential legal issues after Van Wyck residents beat Indian Land to the ballot. Van Wyck residents, not wanting to become part of the new Indian Land footprint north of Hwy. 5 on the Lancaster County panhandle, already voted to incorporate themselves.

If voters ultimately decide to incorporate, the new town of Indian Land will have approximately 40,000 residents when it’s created.

Arthur Guerry, appointed to the incorporation committee by the governor, was blunt in his financial assessment of the $7.7 million initial town budget estimate.

“It really brings up some red flags,” Guerry said. “For what you’re planning on doing, I don’t think you’ve got the millage or the tax base to do it.”

Indian Land committee members countered that their initial budget isn’t nearly as large as other, even nearby, municipalities have, but the reason is they only looked to fund what they hope to get out of incorporation. Services to handle planning and zoning, and parks and recreation are the main ones. The new town would contract with existing police and fire providers, but send each more than $1 million from the new budget to increase services.

“We built it from the ground up,” resident Jerry Holt said of the proposed budget. “It’s an accurate budget based on the services we said we want to provide.”

State Sen. Floyd Nicholson had concerns when he heard part of the incorporation effort stems from frustration residents have with how the county handles growth and other issues in Indian Land. He and Guerry said the new town still would be inside Lancaster County, and they still would have to work together on issues from roads and law enforcement to taxes and fees.

Nicholson — who ultimately voted in favor of the referendum — said the stern questioning on this end is important, as he and others don’t want to see Indian Land leaders struggling and asking for help in a few years.

“We don’t want it to be a failure,” he said. “We’re looking at the total picture of what’s best for Lancaster County.”

State Sen. Greg Hembree offered concerns about law enforcement. The Indian Land plan involves contracting with the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office for coverage, adding $1.2 million to increase the number of officers patrolling the area. Police and fire typically make up the largest chunks of municipal budgets, and Hembree wondered whether residents know how big a tax increase to expect should they want to add their own departments at some point.

“If that’s coming down the road, then that’s going to be a significant increase to your budget coming down the road,” Hembree said.

Then, they had the issue of roads. Hembree said if the county is hesitant to put money toward roads in Indian Land now, he’d expect it to be less likely to fund improvements in an incorporated Indian Land. Leaving the new town with a major cost.

“That’s going to come to bite you a lot quicker than you think,” he said.

Hembree said it “seems like you’re inviting a lawsuit” by using the same 4,000 or so signatures gathered to get the referendum process rolling. Though the Indian Land group says only two of the signatures came from Van Wyck residents, there is mixed opinion on the validity of signatures since they were collected before the Van Wyck vote.

“That’s not really a minor change,” Hembree said. “That’s a major change.”

Indian Land committee member Richard Dole said it would be “very prohibitive and would disenfranchise” people who already signed a petition, to have to start over and re-submit an application after years working on the project. They read state laws to say an addendum to the plan is enough. They took the Van Wyck area out of their financial data and maps, submitting that amended information along with the original application.

Legislative group Chairman and state Rep. Dennis Moss said he didn’t see a problem with the Van Wyck change as long as the potential incorporation area is shrinking and not growing. Several members were agreeable to various arguments made by the Indian Land residents, including their overall reasoning for wanting to incorporate.

“You need to control your own destiny,” said state Rep. Mike Sottile, who spent 18 years as mayor or council member in Isle of Palms. “You control your costs by controlling your own destiny.”

Dole said planning and zoning decisions are key, but overall, the push toward townhood is as simple as residents wanting more local control.

“We feel like we can better manage the area,” he said. “We live there. And we’re asking for an opportunity.”

Tied with three votes to allow the referendum and three against, the decision fell to Lessie Price.

A past Municipal Association of South Carolina president, Price still serves as an elected official in Aiken as she has for three decades. She had concerns, like the taxes and fees that come with a new municipality without residents distinguishing them much from high taxes.

“You can expect that,” she said. “Stormwater fees, water and sewer fees, garbage fees — those increases will come.”

Yet an audible sigh of relief came from more than a dozen onlookers when Price cast her vote in favor of the referendum. Just don’t call it the decisive vote.

That honor, she said, goes to Indian Land residents.

This story was originally published October 3, 2017 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Down to its last vote, the Town of Indian Land plan hinged. They’ll get one more.."