North Augusta City Council shares goals for 2022

Samantha Winn, Aiken Standard, S.C.
·6 min read

Jan. 2—As the calendar year starts over Jan. 1, progress made in the community continues.

The North Augusta Star in December reached out to North Augusta City Council members and asked them to describe their goals for the coming year. Below are their answers.

Responses were edited for grammar, brevity and clarity.

Mayor Briton Williams

One of the things that came out of the mayor's writing [contest] ... was the amazing concern by young people about the environment and specifically about planting trees, but also litter. I would love to put something in place where we highlight a section of the city every quarter ... All of these kids are telling me that they care about litter; we are going to get them involved and have a young person team.

You are going to see amenities put into place [downtown] before the Masters ... That is going to be trash cans, benches, bike racks, so people will visually see that ... There are a lot of little things and projects that we need to be working on to continue to work on downtown, the Greeneway is a part of that. Tourism, got to keep working on that part of it.

I'd like to see some more fill out, some filling up of those retail spaces and having and being able to have a definitive on what the developer is going to do on one of the parcels in Riverside Village.

Council member Bob Brooks

Continue with development and construction of Public Safety Station 1 with opening in 2022; continue the development of Public Safety Headquarters and its amenities. For many years, new facilities for Public Safety have not been at the forefront. A renewed effort a few years ago to plan for new Public Safety facilities was begun. These new facilities are now underway with funding.

Continue to pursue economic development through more in-house restaurants, housing, and sidewalks for walkable neighborhoods connected to the downtown area. This is an important need as more folks are moving into our city as growth is upon us.

Access to SRP Park, the home of the GreenJackets, remains very important to us. Easier access can be accomplished through a new 13th Street Bridge by offering more turning lanes for stacking of vehicles, bike portals from the bridge to the NA Greeneway that is located directly below the bridge, and pedestrians can also use the portals. Specialized lighting under the bridge that changes colors will help create an exciting atmosphere for baseball, restaurants, special events, etc. Each selected color would mean a different event going on or planned.

Council member Pat Carpenter

I would like to say my first priority is the completion of Fire Station 1. As you know with COVID, supplies are hard to get. This project has been going for six years, so I am looking forward to seeing it finished this year.

I will be looking forward to breaking ground for our new Public Safety Station and Courthouse. Our police and firemen are in a desperate need of a new location. Not only do we want them safe on the streets, but a safe environment for their daily duties.

I love talking with employees to see what would make their life better on the job. One thing suggested was more family fun events, something for every age. Have Children, Senior Day, Teenager, Family Days. I know our mayor is really pushing for more citizen involvement. I want this to be a city everyone all over the state is talking about.

Council member Jenafer McCauley

For me for 2022 ... I think from my perspective on being on council now, I want to continue on working on downtown improvements and growing downtown and creating an environment where businesses will be able to thrive downtown. I am very excited about the Greeneway Connector hopefully getting to fruition and moving that forward. Probably third and foremost would be getting our public safety department finalized and that up and running for that department.

Council member David McGhee

I definitely would like to see and get to break ground on the new public safety headquarters building this year. I was hoping that would have happened last year, but we have been pushing for that; we've been working hard to get that together, and I am hoping that the design and everything can go quickly enough that we can actually break ground on that headquarters because it is something that we desperately need.

I'd like for us to see our fire station be completed and opened as well. Well deserved and a long coming ... I hope for this year the city's continual growth and our community can continue to communicate at a very good level and that we can just prosper as a community with all of the things going on with growth that we have.

Council member Eric Presnell

The No. 1 thing is to get the Fire Station 1 completed. We started construction on it last year; we want to try and hurry up and get that done. They have been waiting on that fire station for a while, so the No. 1 goal is to get that completed.

We want to go ahead and get the public safety building rocking and rolling. Hopefully, we will be able to break ground this year. That is probably the first or second most important thing, but they both tie in together, but the public safety building for sure.

I would love — and it's kind of out of my control, our control — I would love to see continued buildout down at Riverside Village and trying to get some of that built out. I know there are some key other things that we hear are coming, but it's all on the developer.

Council member Kevin Toole

I think primarily ... is progress on the undeveloped parcels down in Riverside Village. Obviously, getting that project completed is significant for a lot of different reasons, but certainly to make sure that the economic model or the finance model for that project performs as it is supposed to, and the amenities that were promised to the citizens when the project was started are there and in place.

We certainly have made a lot of progress ... getting the downtown Greeneway Connector in place. The funding is there for it, we are starting to have some preliminary conversations about utilities and moving some things around. That is something that is big and just continuing to connect things and people to downtown. Continuing to move that project forward and seeing if not complete, then substantially completed by the end of the year is important.

I know we haven't done a good enough job at least since I've been on council, is ... real strategic planning ... We have had planning meetings, and you know and we have done some of that, it is just actually creating benchmarks and putting some accountability to those benchmarks ... We are supposed to have a planning session first quarter of next year to sit down and start really talking about strategic planning related to not just downtown development ... but Exit 1 development, Exit 5 growth management, continuing to fill in those doughnut holes throughout the city.

Samantha Winn covers the city of North Augusta, with a focus on government and community oriented business. Follow her on Twitter: @samanthamwinn and on Facebook and Instagram: @swinnnews.