House of Raeford Farms Inc.’s proposal to construct a chicken processing plant north of Aiken near Exit 22 on Interstate 20 suffered a significant setback Tuesday.
Aiken County Council declined to take action on the second reading of an ordinance that would have provided a fee in lieu of tax agreement, which is an economic development incentive, to the North Carolina-based company.
As a result, “the second reading of this ordinance fails due to lack of a motion,” said County Council Chairman Gary Bunker.
Someone in the standing-room-only crowd in Council Chambers at the Aiken County Government Center then spoke out, asking, “Could you tell us what that means?”
Bunker quickly replied, “This means that this ordinance is as dead as Marley’s ghost.”
Loud applause and cheers followed his answer.
There also was some more bad news for the House of Raeford on Tuesday.
Responding to a text message from the Aiken Standard, which asked him to comment, Aiken City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh replied: “With the County’s ordinance for a fee in lieu of taxes failing due to lack of a motion, there are no plans to bring a proposed water and sewer ordinance for this project back to City Council for consideration.”
The Aiken Standard sent an email Wednesday morning to Dave Witter, House of Raeford’s manager of corporate communications and sustainability, seeking a reaction from the company. He replied, writing that he was out of the office and it would be “this afternoon before we could respond.”
Prior to County Council’s meeting Tuesday, Bunker was the recipient of a letter via email from Gov. Henry McMaster late in the afternoon that asked the panel to consider deferring its vote on the ordinance’s second reading “to provide some time to work towards a mutually agreeable solution."
"As you know, this important project will create 900 jobs in Aiken County with a $200 million capital investment," the governor also wrote. "It will have an estimated $1.6 billion economic impact to the region over five years and will produce 493 million pounds of poultry per year for the domestic food supply chain."
“I also understand there has been concern over limited water and sewer capacity in Aiken, and whether the limited capacity remaining should be devoted to a sole project or end user,” McMaster continued. “I am committed to assist in identifying state funding to help address these water and sewer infrastructure needs, so that Aiken County may be able to accommodate both the House of Raeford and plan for future growth as well.
“I welcome the opportunity to meet with you and Aiken City Council on this matter,” McMaster concluded.
Prior to County Council’s consideration of the ordinance’s second reading, panel member Mike Kellems made a motion to table the matter and his colleague, Kelley Mobley, seconded it.
County Council's vote against tabling the ordinance was 7-2.
The Aiken Standard spoke to several County Council members about why no one on the panel made a motion to approve or disapprove the second reading of the ordinance.
Three readings are required for the ordinance to take effect.
“For the most part, I think most of Council was in the end concerned about the capacity issue with the Horse Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant,” Bunker said. “Currently, the City of Aiken has no uncommitted, available capacity right now that they could apply to the (House of Raeford) project. Aiken County is down to about 300,000 to 500,000 gallons of uncommitted, unsold capacity. So for a plant to come in seeking 1.7 million gallons a day of usage, that just does not compute.
“Aiken County is working on getting 6 more million gallons of capacity,” he added, “but even if we had 6 million gallons today, it is unlikely that County Council would support 30% of that going to a single user.”
Bunker also told the Aiken Standard that McMaster had been in contact with him about the proposed chicken processing plant prior to Tuesday and had suggested a visit by county officials to a facility in North Carolina.
“My response was that really the issue for Council wasn’t, shall we say, the odors, the feathers, the second-chance employment for illegal aliens, it was primarily a capacity issue,” Bunker said.
According to Vice Chairman Andrew Siders, the wastewater treatment plant’s capacity was “certainly one of the biggest issues with plant.” But “the overwhelming public outcry also factored into the decision,” he also wrote in a text message.
The proposed location for the chicken processing facility is in County Council’s District 6, which Phil Napier represents.
“I am against it because I don’t feel like it’s a good fit for the area,” he said. “I feel like there is potential growth at Exit 22 and putting this type of industry there could discourage the growth.”
Asked about McMaster’s attempt to intervene, Napier said: “That’s my district. I didn’t receive a call [from the governor]. I received calls from my constituents and that’s who I listen to.”
P.J. Hightower also had concerns about the site for the proposed chicken processing facility.
“I’m not opposed to the chicken plant, but I’m opposed to the location of the chicken plant,” she said. “And what [county] staff has told us about as far as capacity for the sewer, that is another issue for us (County Council).”
County Administrator Brian Sanders said the crowd at Tuesday’s County Council meeting was the largest event in Council Chambers at the Government Center, which opened in 2014 on University Parkway in Aiken.
“It’s probably been since the mid-1990s since I’ve seen this many people at a Council meeting,” he said.
He recalled at least one meeting in the old County Council Chambers on Richland Avenue West in Aiken that attracted a crowd that was so big that attendees “were on the outside the building, about three people deep [looking in the windows].”
During the “informal meeting of the whole” part of Tuesday’s County Council proceedings, Debbie Lybrand praised the panel for letting the fee in lieu of tax ordinance die, even though Bunker told speakers not to make comments about the proposed chicken processing plant.
“I know that we have inundated you, we have called you, we emailed you, we have sent letters, we have done everything… to speak to you and you have heard us,” she said. “I thank you, I thank you, I thank you, and I hope people in the room will also say thank you.”
Other meeting attendees also wanted to talk about other chicken plant-related topics.
After repeatedly asking them to stop, Bunker sternly reminded the crowd that the purpose of the informal meeting as a whole was generally to allow the public “to bring up to items that have not been considered already by County Council this evening."
“I feel like I’ve been pretty lenient,” he continued. “People have been skating all around the edge, saying ‘I’m going to talk about that which I’m not supposed to talk about,’ but I may just have this meeting adjourned.”
He didn’t act on that threat, but it seemed to finally discourage attendees from making their feelings known about the proposed facility.
