York Co. Council primary offers rematch in District 3

The western side of York County has seen frequent turnover of its representative on the County Council.

Joe Cox represented the large District 3 – centered on the city of York and covering around 40 percent of the county’s total land area – for two terms before he was defeated by Eric Winstead in 2010. He won the seat back in 2012 for another two-year term, before losing again to current Councilman Robert Winkler.

Now, Cox is hoping voters will change their minds again and give him another victory in the June 14 Republican primary, when he faces Winkler a second time for his old seat.

Winkler, meanwhile, hopes to be the district’s first councilman to win re-election in eight years.

The winner of the GOP primary won’t face any opposition in November.

Both candidates spoke with The Herald about the issues facing the district and York County. Read an edited transcript of both interviews below.

Joe Cox

Q: Both candidates in this race have served on York County Council before. How has your past service prepared you for another term?

A: The first thing we did was fight the landfills. Curwood (Chapell) was in a battle with Rambo Road, I was in a battle with Crosland and we were able to stop both of them. Then seven months after I took office we started fighting the Pennies program and the management of it. I didn’t know how that vote was going to go, but I pushed it to a vote. We removed (the outside consultant) and put it in house with our engineering firm, and, my God, I saved us millions on that.

During that first term, we started dealing with the museum issues, not only the Cultural and Heritage organization but the foundation, too, and we’ve since had that removed down to one person over the museum, and not one with five deputy directors as it was when I first got there.

I look at (the county) now, and my opponent has implemented a vote to save the administration building in downtown York but didn’t solve the problem. Eddie Lee and the downtown store and restaurant owners say they need foot traffic, and the admin building is not going to help that. You need to solve that, not throw $20 million at the problem and say, “We’re doing something for downtown York.”

If the problem is foot traffic, you could have centralized the clerk of court records from Rock Hill in downtown York. (Sheriff) Bruce Bryant has always talked about having a centralized evidence facility that could be totally secure. … You could force the state to put a DSS substation in York, because when we lost DSS from downtown York to the Heckle site (in Rock Hill), we lost a lot of foot traffic. If we put a substation back, we would have a lot more people to come our way. And you should be able to get a building permit in York downtown. Whether the admin building was downtown or on Arrow Road, you could put that facility over here, and you could have done both within that $20 million earmark.

Q: What can you do to boost economic development on the western side of York County?

A: It’s very difficult considering you don’t have water and sewer. Until you get that type of infrastructure, you aren’t going to see a BMW. To get a company to come to our side that has 100 to 150 employees, you’re going to have to have a water operator unless that company goes in the city of York. And at the end of the day, sewage is tough to do. You’re going to have to have a department to take care of your operational DHEC regulations. So the additional costs on a company are going to be difficult.

That’s why you have to do the best you can with the smaller businesses. There was one that was trying to do a Dollar General out on Highway 5, and he denied the zoning. I approved the zoning on 161 before I went out. That within its first month exceeded numbers and was sold in its third month for $1.3 million. So obviously our smaller businesses are helping to do things, and at the end of the day that’s 20 to 25 jobs, plus whatever spin-off jobs are helping bring things to that store. But the Highway 5 corridor, 161, until we get infrastructure out there it’s going to be a tough sell.

I think you need to have a better plan, and that’s not in place. You have the urban service boundary on the eastern side, but you don’t have a bond going out to do a water line coming out of Gastonia. Until you start seeing things like that going forward, I think District 3 as a whole will stay pretty much as it is.

Q: A lot of the council discussion this year has focused on limiting growth in the Fort Mill and Lake Wylie areas. How much of a concern is that in District 3?

A: There’s two schools of thought on that. I am a builder, licensed in both states, and I’ve gone through the period of the banking industry restricting funding, and such a downfall on us. I don’t want to be the one to force something on another builder who’s still struggling.

The County Council gets a $400,000 hit for economic development back from the state every year. You can’t hardly do anything with that. You can’t pave a mile of road with ditches on both sides. It’s not enough, so you do the best you can.

The Charleston delegation has done a tremendous job of getting money out of the state back to them. Our delegation hasn’t done anything. They’re trying. The state gas tax is 35 cents per gallon, 18 cents federal and 13 cents to the state. We’ve been a donor state for so long it’s pathetic. Hence the need for the Pennies program. I don’t like to do double taxation, but I have no control over the state level from the County Council. We need to have a sit-down with our delegation and explain that they need to be addressing our infrastructure problems, get that 13 cents back and maybe some extra. Right now we don’t get back what we send down there.

With that being said, what exactly do you want County Council to accomplish? If you say you’re going to do a moratorium for six months, how many of those developments are already permitted out? What did you do during those six months other than upset a homeowner trying to sell his property, who had a deal ready to go through, and you killed it by doing a moratorium.

Be careful what you ask of County Council. They blame County Council for doing the zoning, but if it goes through the Planning Commission, and comes to County Council, and it conforms with the area, what as a county council should we do? We should approve it.

An overlay is a tool you can use, but is it the right time to use it without sitting down with the delegation and saying, “Here’s what we need you to do in this session, not three sessions down the road.”

Contacts: 803-417-5268

Robert Winkler

Q: Both candidates in this race have served on York County Council before. How has your past service prepared you for another term?

A: I fought to keep the admin building in downtown York. It was a long fight, but we managed to get what I thought was a correct vote, 4-3, and keep it down here. I also had to work to secure site prep for fire substations in the district. All our stations over here are volunteer, and they could only raise so much based on their volunteer efforts. So they needed help with site prep, and I was able to get funding for that through council. That was two new substations for Sharon and Smyrna. Now we have that as a policy, so when McConnells and Bethany and others do theirs, we’ll have a policy in place.

They used to use C-Funds, but then the state came back and said C-Funds could no longer be used for that because the fire stations own the property, and it’s using government taxes for private property, kind of like we’re coming to your house and paving your driveway. So we had to come up with another way to do it, and since fire and police are critical needs that government should supply, we use some of our critical needs money from the county to do that now.

We got an ethics ordinance (for those serving on county boards) out of the finance and operations committee to the full council, so now we have to have disclosures from anybody who applies to get on a board or commission, and they have to do annual disclosures to update that. We also put in what a conflict of interest is and put in a mechanism to remove them if they violate it.

Q: What can you do to boost economic development on the western side of York County?

A: I supported two FILOTs (fee in lieu of tax agreements) in East York Industrial Park here in the district, which were $2.5 million investments. Economic development was something I campaigned on previously, and I think it’s still important for this district. It’s easy to get something on I-77, but sometimes you have to work a little harder to get it over here.

One of them was already here but spent $2.5 million to expand, and that’s Silcotech. They opened, I believe, in 2013, and then started an expansion last year. That didn’t add any new jobs currently, but they have plans for eight new jobs in the coming years. The other was Harrell Industries. They currently have a facility in Rock Hill, and they’re doing another in East York Industrial Park. The average (wage) is $38,000 for somewhere around a dozen jobs. It’s a 40,000-square-foot facility being built for $2.5 million.

That doesn’t solve the issue. We still need more over here. I tell people in this district if we can get them a job here paying the same thing they get in Fort Mill or South Charlotte, by the time you figure in gas and time spent sitting in the car, they’ve gotten a raise.

I chaired the economic development committee for the Chamber, and we identified more than 300 acres in this area that’s already zoned industrial, and we’ve got those listed on the county website and Columbia’s Department of Commerce website. It’s available property for sale if somebody’s looking for property. One thing we have is property, and it’s quite a bit less expensive than property on the other side of the county.

Q: A lot of the council discussion this year has focused on limiting growth in the Fort Mill and Lake Wylie areas. How much of a concern is that in District 3?

A: Eventually, that’s something that could come over here, the way it’s growing over there, if they run out of land. Because I campaign on economic development, I don’t believe stopping it completely is the right thing. I think that sends the wrong message on that. Since then we’ve found out from staff that there are things we can do to control that as far as traffic impact analysis. We’re having staff re-write that so we can put some teeth in it and stop a development if it’s going to negatively impact roads and intersections until we can get a plan in for some of that.

That’s what people have been asking us for, more than stopping it, is to control it and make sense from it, and we’re bringing in growth control issues to do some of that, and I believe the rezoning (changes) we did last November will help with that too. (Growth) is currently something that’s specific to certain districts, but it’s something that affects the whole county.

(This year’s comprehensive plan) also has where we plan for future growth, and where it makes sense to have higher density. One thing higher density allows you to do is have more types of mass transit to alleviate some of the traffic, or mixed use like Baxter, where you can have your job and your house in one development. Of course, Baxter adds to some of the side roads, so there’s always some give and take there.

Contacts: 803-230-7836, robertwwinkler@gmail.com, robert.winkler@yorkcountygov.com

This story was originally published June 5, 2016 at 3:40 PM with the headline "York Co. Council primary offers rematch in District 3."