Pickens County Delegation Meeting Summary

* Picture of Junius Smith delivering message about school building project
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Conservatives Of The Upstate would like to thank all of the delegates for their warm reception to the presentation of our concerns.

Brief summary of meeting:

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Gaurdian Ad litem program & Foster Care officials spoke ... thanked delegates and expressed that progress has been made.

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Junius Smith, Conservatives of the Upstate President spoke on the school building plan.

(For more information see this Greenville News article

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Philip Smith (from ATLIBERTYTOSAY.COM) spoke about his website & concerns that have been raised by Liberty residents on his website:

• Addressed a roadside memorial on HWY 178
(Delegates mentioned that this is a serious issue & does need addressing)

• Addressed Pickens County Recycling Program
(Mentioned that this lends to fraud by not accounting for home efforts, commercial pickup, & water weight differences)

(This recycling push is a new income stream/tax/fee/fine by Pickens County)

• Addressed Liberty residential dognapping issue
(Rex Rice communicated that he will investigate this issue.)

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Discussion from a retirement home director of regulations on retirement homes for sprinklers and concern that about the financial burdens this will place on retirement homes because there is a "no grandfathering clause".

(Delegates mentioned that they were aware that this applied mostly to lodging and would table and investigate the impact on retirement homes if the issue arose for discussion of the bill before a final vote.)

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Discussion of moving the Pickens County Ozone Monitoring device away from Clemson. Statements were made regarding businesses not locating here because of the poor measurement and that Clemson is not an accurate portrait of the whole of Pickens County.

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Other statements made:


"If you're gonna run as a Republican, please vote like one."

• School choice - Christian values aren't being taught in schools because Christian teachers have been retiring for the last 15 years.

• Businesses don't come because there aren't eligible employees/Linked to poor school performance & dropout rate

"Whoever you borrow from you are a slave to."

• A request for "roll call voting" - ie tying votes to individual politicians so we can see how they voted

• A call for a return to State Sovereignty - refusing Federal mandates

• A brief discussion about the dangers of the Real ID & animal RFID tagging / Being unconstitutional

• Mention that Animal RFID will cost $50 per head of cattle to farmers

• Statements regarding the ACLU wanting to end the National Day Of Prayer
(See here for more details)

• Statements regarding school building projects by out of state contracts ...

"Think ... almost $400 million leaving our state."

• Discussion of there not being enough money to finish all the school building projects at once because projects will have gone over budget due to very poor planning. Mention of the need for a bypass around Daniel High to ease congestion - things like this will cause the school building project to go over budget.

• A discussion of imminent domain taking far more land than necessary for water lines in Easley

• Property taxes on second homes causing people to not build 2nd homes in Pickens & Oconee counties.

Meeting wrap up.

This was a very productive meeting with close to 80 in attendance.