IN SPORTS: A look ahead at the 2017 SHS baseball team
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Spring Concert Community Band will celebrate weather and present annual event a couple of weeks early C1
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 2017
County approves fee agreement with candy maker Fire truck and irrigation system purchases, solar farm also given OK
rizing a special source revenue agreement with Mount Franklin Foods, a candy company headquartered in Texas, during its regular meeting on Tuesday. Mount Franklin Foods South Carolina LLC, which will be located in Live Oak Industrial Park on U.S. 15 South, will still be taxed at 10.5 percent, the normal real estate and personal property assessment for manufacturing fa-
BY ADRIENNE SARVIS adrienne@theitem.com Sumter County Council approved final reading of an ordinance autho-
cilities registered in the county. The tax will be considered a park payment fee, according to the agreement, and the company will receive a 60 percent reduction of that fee for 15 years, beginning this year. Mount Franklin Foods will also receive a grant of no more than $300,000 from the Sumter County infrastructure fund as reimbursement for repairs made to the roof of the project site.
For its part in the agreement, Mount Franklin Foods has committed to creating 225 jobs and investing $10 million dollars in Sumter County during the first five years of operation. County council also approved second reading of an ordinance to amend the 2016-17 budget to purchase a used fire rescue truck from the city for
SUMTER SCHOOL DISTRICT
Financial processes examined Board members question Baker on procurement audit, capital fund
PHOTOS BY RICK CARPENTER / THE SUMTER ITEM
ABOVE: Sumter School District Trustee Johnny Hilton asks about some budget details that were not provided in a report Monday night at the board’s monthly work session. BELOW: Sumter School District Trustee Ralph W. Canty Sr. makes a point during Monday’s work session as Chief Master Sgt. Cheryl R. Moye listens. MORE INSIDE Read Board vice chairman Karen Michalik’s full statement from Monday’s work session on today’s Opinion Page A9.
Baker said he would track down the cafeteria projects for the two schools and report it back to the board. The item was then tabled until the remainder of the information could be provided by
SEE BOARD, PAGE A7
Cantey given $40,000 surety bond for arson, fraud charges BY ADRIENNE SARVIS adrienne@theitem.com
RICK CARPENTER / THE SUMTER ITEM
Attorneys Shaun Kent, left, and Hank Anderson, right, listen to magistrate judge Larry Blanding’s orders during a bond hearing Tuesday for Ronald Clifton Cantey, middle, who was charged with allegedly burning down his Compass Restaurant and accepting insurance money for a building he didn’t own.
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Reaper group may start arriving in October BY JIM HILLEY jim@theitem.com
BY BRUCE MILLS bruce@theitem.com Two agenda items related to district financial housekeeping showed Sumter School District falling short in tracking its various expenditures, according to information provided to the board and board members’ questions Monday at its monthly work session. On Monday’s agenda, district Superintendent Frank Baker had planned to take questions from board members on a procurement audit conducted in early December that revealed five findings where the district had violated its own purchasing policies’ manual. Before reaching that agenda item, a quarterly capital projects report presented by Baker mistakenly didn’t account for $4 million of $14 million total in the fund and at least two big-ticket renovation projects of cafeterias were not listed. Board member Johnny Hilton brought those two items up in questions to Baker. “Why does this report only show $10 million, when it should be $14 million-plus?” Hilton said. “There is $4 million missing somewhere, and also there is no information on the cafeteria renovations at Alice Drive Elementary and Crosswell. That may be where the $4 million is.” After Hilton’s questions,
SEE COUNTY, PAGE A7
Magistrate Judge Larry Blanding set a total of $40,000 in bonds for Ronald Clifton Cantey, charged with arson for the destruction of Compass Restaurant in Gable on July 26, 2016, during a first appearance hearing at Sumter County Detention Center on Tuesday. Cantey is charged with second degree arson; making a false insurance claim; and defrauding an insurer for the fire that destroyed the local restaurant. Blanding set a surety bond of $25,000 for arson charges; $7,500 for making false insurance claims charges; and $7,500 for defrauding an insurer charges. Cantey will have another hearing at 8:30 a.m. on April 7 at Sumter County Judicial Center and Shaun Kent, Cantey’s attorney, said his client has re-
quested a preliminary hearing. Ken Bell, public information officer for the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, said Cantey insured the building for $500,000; the contents for $200,000; and the loss of business for $100,000. After the fire, Cantey collected for damage to the building and contents, a total of $700,000. However, when Cantey purchased Compass Restaurant he bought the business and the contents, not the building or the land. Bell said investigators have requested a copy of the back of the checks, made out to Cantey and the building owner, to see who signed them. Mary Brigman, a member of the Coker family that owns the land and building, said her family did not know about the insurance policy Cantey had
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Sumter’s supportive community, pleasant climate and access to both the mountains and the coast played a factor in Shaw Air Force Base being chosen as the preferred site for the MQ-9 Reaper group program, said base Commander Col. Daniel Lasica at a meeting of the Rotary Club of Sumter Sunrise Tuesday morning. Lasica said the airmen who operate the remotelypiloted program are currently staLASICA tioned as bases such as Creech AFB near Las Vegas, and Holloman AFB near Alamogordo, New Mexico. “Hot, brown, desert,” he described those bases. He said those pilots are under a lot of stress. “It’s shift work,” he said. “They hit on the red button killing bad guys, then they go home and hug their kids.” Lasica said the Air Force wants to reward those pilots by moving them to a more livable location rather than leaving them out in remote stretches of desert. “Somewhere green, with awesome community support, centrally located, and close to mountains and beach,” he said. Sumter was named the preferred location partly because of those attributes, he said. The MQ-9 Raptor is an unmanned aircraft that can be piloted from 10,000 miles away, Lasica said. “They’re pretty big, bigger than an F-16 wingspan,” he said. “They can carry as much munitions.” They are slow to get where they are going, he said, but once there can stay overhead much longer than the F-16. Shaw is now the preferred location for three groups, he said, including about 400 airmen. The Reaper aircraft will likely be deployed somewhere else, and only the pilots and support personnel will be in Sumter, he said, though it is still a possibility some of the Reapers could be based here. Even without the aircraft, an environment assessment
SEE CANTEY, PAGE A7
SEE LASICA, PAGE A7
WEATHER, A10
INSIDE
SUNNY AND BREEZY
3 SECTIONS, 20 PAGES VOL. 122, NO. 98
Very warm today with plenty of sunshine and stiff breezes; tonight, gusty and warm, storms possible. HIGH 86, LOW 57
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