BAMBERG, S.C. – An allocation of $10,000 for the initial planning costs associated with a proposed park and veterans memorial was approved by Bamberg County Council Monday.

The Council agreed to have the county’s planning and economic development commissions be involved in the planning, which Council Chairman Clair Guess said was discussed during an earlier joint meeting between the county council and the municipalities.

The industrial park on U.S. 78 between Bamberg and Denmark is the proposed location for the veterans memorial and park, Guess said. He said District 90 Rep. Bakari Sellers asked him to introduce the proposal to council with a request for $10,000 to fund the initial planning for the project “with the caveat that he thought he was comfortable in being able to return those monies to the county in the next legislative session, along with his PRT (Parks, Recreation and Tourism) authority.”

“The 10,000 does not have any designated source of funding. We don’t have an architect yet, but he says that’s what it’s going to take to get the initial plan done. We’re trying to utilize the areas that are deemed wetlands currently, and those wetland areas are 10 to 12 acres in size,” Guess said. “There are a couple of parcels in there that are otherwise presumably undevelopable.”

“The idea was to ... put together a pedestrian walkway that will be fashioned through the wetlands and combine that effort with the veterans memorial,” he added.

County Administrator Rose Dobson-Elliott said she had already received a $15,000 contract, which she had not signed, from Clemson University Extension to do the planning.

Dobson-Elliott on Tuesday said, “I am working between Rep. Sellers and Harry Crissy (a Clemson University Extension agent and Southern Carolina Alliance’s community developer) to work the project out.”

“Here’s the way I see this thing,” Councilman Chris Wilson said. “We don’t have a veterans memorial anywhere in this county. We didn’t even have a veterans program ... . Whether it’s located in that area or somewhere else, the only hesitation I have in it is you have an industrial site out there that has wetlands. It has an airport. It might have some other uses to it down the road here one day. Before we go choosing a location there, I think we need to commission whoever it is we commissioned to study thing ... to come up with the idea of a veterans park.”

Wilson said the initial idea was to “bridge the area between Bamberg and Denmark and finally recognize the veterans ... and to enhance those wetlands that may not have a whole lot of use out there other than that. I don’t have a problem allocating some money that we’re going to get back.”

Councilwoman Alzena Robinson said the County Economic Development Commission should continue to be involved in the planning as it had from the beginning, and Councilman William Nimmons said the County Planning Commission should be involved as well.

“I just want to make sure it’s done properly,” Nimmons said.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5534.

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