Two consultants from a far-away place are hoping to help create public transit systems for Abbeville, Laurens and Saluda counties, producing a feasibility study not intended to “sit on a shelf,” but to literally be put into motion.

David Kack and Rebecca Gleason from the Western Transportation Institute (WTI) located at Montana State University in Bozeman, Mt., came to South Carolina last week to meet face-to-face with citizens in the three counties who are interested in seeing public transit become available.

Kack and Gleason are working with Upper Savannah Council of Governments (USCOG) Government Services Director Rick Green on the project.

Green said an e-mail from the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) last fall asked if there were any local transportation projects that might need technical assistance grant funding. Green replied that three of the USCOG Region’s counties – Abbeville, Laurens and Saluda – do not have public transportation. These three counties are among the last in the state that do not yet have a public transit option for at least a portion of the county.

NADO was awarded the grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and one of the projects that will be completed from this grant will be the transportation feasibility study.

The goal of the study is to develop transportation options for the three counties, which are more than 2,000 miles from Bozeman.

“Why from Montana, so far away from South Carolina? Rick Green’s answer was because the Alaska folks are busy,” joked Gleason, who is a research engineer with WTI.

WTI began this project in March, reviewing other rural transit studies from the Upper Savannah Region dating as far back as 2010. Then they formed committees and had several online meetings and interviews with transit stakeholders.

Kack and Gleason flew in from Big Sky country last Monday for a three-day visit to Abbeville, Laurens and Saluda counties.

They started their visit by making a presentation to USCOG’s Aging Advisory Committee, in part because many citizens who need more public transit options are seniors.

“We live our lives by being mobile, whether it’s just going to the grocery store, socializing, educational opportunities, going to work, or getting to appointments. We live our lives by being able to get out and move around,” Kack told the committee.

“Unfortunately, mobility is very expensive. It’s actually the second highest expense (car payments, gas, insurance, vehicle repairs) behind housing.”

After meeting with the Aging Advisory Committee in Greenwood, Kack and Gleason visited Abbeville, Saluda and Laurens counties on consecutive days.

They learned face-to-face that “transportation challenges are a big issue,” Kack said. “People want to get this (issue) addressed. Rececca was talking about the previous studies that were done and someone said, ‘I just don’t want more studies. I want something to happen.’

“We reiterated that we also want to see something happen. I think one thing that makes us different than other consultants is I have helped start three transit systems. We don’t like writing reports that sit on somebody’s shelf. We like to see them implemented.”

Kack helped start a voucher program with Older Americans Act funding at the Deep East Texas Council of Governments. He has also helped start transit systems in Missouri and Montana.

“We know that seniors are often reluctant to ask a friend or family member for a ride,” Kack said. “Vouchers allow for them to reimburse family members or friends for rides to the grocery store or appointments.”

Kack said the lack of transportation affects many different groups.

“It can be income based,” he said. “It could be a disability that prevents you from driving. You might have a one-car family but if a family member is taking that to work, then everyone else is stuck. It’s expensive to own and operate a car.”

Medical appointments seem to be the most urgent need for transportation.

“Someone misses that dialysis appointment because of transportation and then misses a second one, then maybe it’s an ambulance to the emergency room. That’s a big expense,” Kack said.

Gleason and Kack made the most of their visits to the three counties.

“Part of what we are trying to do is come into the communities and say what are the challenges, what are those mobility needs, and find the best services,” Kack said. “We are going to look at a lot of different options. Fixed route (bus or van routes) or demand response (like Uber) aren’t always the best solution.”

Carpooling, vanpooling, volunteer drivers, voucher programs for gas reimbursement, once or twice per week medical or shopping van trips to cities (i.e., Greenville, Columbia, Augusta), expansion of current transit systems in the area, and communities contracting with micro transit companies like Via are among several considerations. Gleason recommends a mobility manager for the Region.

Also, it is possible that there could be different types of transit operating within the same county in order to respond more efficiently to specific needs. For example, a vanpool could take workers to an industry and home again daily while a smaller vehicle could be available by appointment to take people to medical facilities.

The main obstacles to rural transit in this region are cost, available vehicles, and hiring and training drivers.

WTI will complete its study in September, hoping that each of the three counties can find a solution that best fits their needs following months of online and in-person meetings.

“We can do a lot of good planning and hopefully somebody can pick up that ball and move it forward,” Kack said. “We will be around (after September) to help.”

Kack recommends that communities give their transit systems of choice time to achieve success.

“You will learn more in the first year of operating the system than all the planning you did prior to it,” he said. “Give it two to three years to catch on and see how it gets used. Give it enough time to really understand how it’s going to work.”

A town hall public meeting will be held in Greenwood Thursday, June 12, where the South Carolina Office of Resilience (SCOR) will request public input on a Hurricane Helene disaster recovery action plan which includes more than $150 million in federal funding. Disaster case managers will also be available to meet with residents.The meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. at The Arts Center, 120 Main St., Greenwood.

SCOR’s Disaster Case Management (DCM) team will meet with survivors who have disaster-caused unmet needs. Individuals can come to this meeting no matter which county they live in.

Disaster case management is a process involving a partnership between a disaster case manager and a citizen impacted by a disaster to help in the long-term with their disaster-caused needs—whether these are financial, physical, or emotional.

Case managers work with individuals to develop and carry out an Individualized Recovery Plan, with a focus on problem solving and connection to resources and services. Citizens wishing to speak with a Disaster Case Manager may attend this meeting or call the statewide hotline: 803-898-2511.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced that the State of South Carolina will receive $150,354,000 in Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds to support long-term recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene.

According to HUD, “These flexible grants help cities, counties, Indian tribes, and States recover from Presidentially declared disasters, especially in low-income areas, subject to availability of supplemental appropriations. Since CDBG-DR assistance may fund a broad range of recovery activities, HUD can help communities and neighborhoods that otherwise might not recover due to limited resources.”

SCOR is seeking public input in Greenwood Thursday on the HUD-required Action Plan, which outlines how the funds will be used to address disaster-caused unmet needs. Eligible activities under the draft plan include single-family home rehabilitation, replacement and reconstruction, affordable rental housing rehabilitation, voluntary buyouts, and mitigation projects to lessen the impact of future disasters.

SCOR team members will deliver a presentation of the draft Action Plan and will welcome comments and questions from attendees.

In advance of the meeting, a link to the Draft Action Plan will be available at scor.sc.gov/helene and will remain online through mid-June 2025. Members of the public may review the draft action plan and submit comments in advance at scor.sc.gov/helene or by mail to 632 Rosewood Drive, Columbia, SC 29201. A summary of all verbal and written public comments will be included in an updated version of the Action Plan submitted to HUD.

Upper Savannah Land Trust (USLT) Secretary Rick Green can trace the beginnings of USLT back to October 7, 1999, as the organization celebrates its 25th anniversary having protected more than 58,000 acres of land in western South Carolina with conservation easements.

“I brought my calendar (day planner) from 1999,” Green showed with a smile to those who helped celebrate the anniversary at USLT’s 2025 Annual Meeting held May 9 at Dorn Mill in McCormick.

“I can go to October 7th, 1999, and I have a meeting with (conservationist) Jimmy Sanders at 8:30 in the morning,” said Green, who is Government Services Director at the Upper Savannah Council of Governments (USCOG).

“That’s when Jimmy Sanders came to my office (at USCOG) and said, ‘we’ve got some landowners who are interested in talking about the creation of a land trust.’

“I didn’t know much about land trusts at the time. So I had to do my homework. Then we came back on October the 25th, 1999. Jimmy Sanders and a larger group talked about the creation of a land trust for our part of South Carolina. That wasn’t anything we had in our seven-county region. And in 2000, we had our first official land trust meeting.”

Upper Savannah Land Trust was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization on Oct. 1, 2000. USLT’s mission is to encourage and support conservation of natural and scenic lands, farms, forests, waterways, and open spaces.

The first USLT conservation easement of 33 acres was granted by the Tolbert family of Ninety Six in January 2001. Since then, private landowners have granted conservation easement protection over hundreds of land parcels, as small as a few acres and as large as hundreds or thousands of acres across Abbeville, Aiken, Anderson, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Newberry, Oconee and Saluda counties. Today the Land Trust counts 138 easement projects, covering 58,301 acres, much of it working farms and forests.

“We’ve had many, many Annual Meetings over those 25 years,” said Green, who has been USLT’s secretary since the beginning. “Some of them were at specific sites where we have Land Trust conservation easements. I remember going to Viewpoint Farm and having (long-time USLT member) Peggy Adams pull up with Subway subs in the back of the car for our Annual Meeting.”

The quarter century celebration began with a field trip to Parks Mill and the Spider Lilies on Stevens Creek east of Plum Branch in McCormick County. The preserve consists of 15 acres of pine and hardwood forest, with 200 yards of frontage on Stevens Creek, where a large population of the Rocky Shoals Spider Lilies are emerging from the creek.

Near the creek, deep in the woods, is an old turbine-powered grist mill which is being restored. The Parks Mill site has been protected through the joint efforts of the SC Native Plant Society, Naturaland Trust, and USLT.

The group reconvened at the Dorn Mill Cotton Ginnery where Mary Tobin of the McCormick County Historical Commission told stories of the goldmining, farming, and family legacies intertwined into the Dorn Mill complex.

Tobin spoke of Dorn Mill’s important place in McCormick history even as a train breezed down the adjacent tracks, blowing its horn several times over her speech.

The Dorn Mill Complex was an important industrial site for early 20th century McCormick. It began in 1899 as the McCormick Cotton Oil Company, built to house a cotton-seed oil mill and two steam engines.

The Dorn brothers would take ownership of the site and converted the oil mill into a grist mill and added a sawmill, reflecting the transition from cotton to corn to timber. Closed in the 1940s, the old cotton gin is now home to the McCormick Farmer’s Market and Festival of Trees.

USLT Assistant Director Becky Brown crafted two large posters on USLT’s history as part of the celebration, including Land Trust photos and Index-Journal articles.

USLT Executive Director Wade Harrison gave a presentation on the history and heritage of the South Carolina Piedmont told through historical prose and original poetry.

Harrison opened his presentation with some of his own original poetry, asking the approximately 70 in attendance to join him to “sing praises for the traces of old farm roads, the fields where now the pine tree grows, the whippoorwills and daffodils, and gravesites marked with rough field stones,… the farmhouse ruins, old brick piles, roads that wind for red-clay miles, on ground where pines are grown in lines, bereft of soil that plows defiled.

“Our fathers’ fields were not their own, the Cherokee once called them home, and in later years, the profiteers of agriculture weren’t alone…”

Harrison described the area through the writing of explorer William Bartram, who rode on horseback through what is now McCormick County in 1775 and published Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida in 1791; and also of Confederate surgeon and educator Dr. John Henry Logan, who published the History of the Upper Country South Carolina in 1859.

Harrison talked about deadly battles involving American Patriots, British Loyalists, and Cherokee Indians throughout the Piedmont before and during the Revolutionary War, in contrast to the beauty described by Bartram, Dr. Logan and others when there were natural meadows of wildflowers, canebrakes and buffalos.

Toward the end of the presentation, Harrison stressed that we are fortunate to still have some of the natural wonders of the frontier, like the spider lilies, and that “we should protect our lands and waters today not only to save what’s still there or to restore it when we can, but simply to honor the memory of what we’ve lost.”

Reaching the Region has been a major focus for the Upper Savannah COG Aging Program’s staff as it educates the public about services available.

Just last week, staff spoke to the Women’s Catholic Club at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Greenwood and attended Senior Celebration Day at Red Bank Baptist Church in Saluda.

“Seniors access our services by reaching out to our office,” USCOG Aging Division Director Peggy Merritt said. “To ensure that the community is aware of the types of services we provide, we welcome opportunities to attend all types of community events. If you would like staff to attend your community or church event, please contact Christy Stroud at cstroud@uppersavannah.com.”

Upper Savannah Information and Referral Specialist Langley Richardson attended both events last week.

“I am pleased with the turnout of both events,” she said. “We are always happy to attend any community events, whether big or small. We enjoy connecting with the residents of each county. And also connecting with community members and partners.

“We are all working together to help provide resources and support. Our goal is to bring services and people together,” Richardson added.

Services available include group dining, home-delivered meals, transportation, home care, personal care, respite care, legal services, family caregiver support, Medicare counseling, Ombudsman services and more for eligible seniors.

There are several more upcoming events which staff will attend, including outreach at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greenwood April 24, a visit to the Laurens Senior Center April 29, participation in Senior Day at the state fairgrounds in Columbia May 1, GLEAMNS Community Action Day at Piedmont Technical College May 16, a caregiver event at New Journey Church in Greenwood May 19, a visit to Renaissance Senior Living in Due West June 26, and Veteran’s Appreciation Day at the Greenwood County Veteran’s Office July 16.

The investigation process of abuse, neglect and exploitation of vulnerable adults was the lead topic at the Long Term Care Ombudsman Workshop Wednesday hosted by the Upper Savannah Regional Long Term Care Ombudsman Program.

The Workshop was held at the Greenwood Genetic Center. Attendees consisted of staff from nursing homes, community residential care facilities (assisted living), and DDSN facilities in the Upper Savannah Region.

Upper Savannah Regional Long Term Care Ombudsman Ericca Livingston and Long Term Care Ombudsman Ashley Capps conducted the workshop with assistance from Upper Savannah Area Agency on Aging staff.

Attendees received an overview of the services of the Upper Savannah Aging & Disability Resource Center (ADRC/AAA), the Upper Savannah Regional Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, and were provided presentations by Lieutenant Sabrina Fellers of the Vulnerable Adults Investigations Unit (VAIU) of SC SLED;  Ann Dalton, DDSN Director of Quality Management; Miles Rawl, Outreach Coordinator of the Vulnerable Adults and Medicaid Provider Fraud Unit (VAMPF) of the SC Attorney General’s Office; John Frampton, Chief Investigator of the VAMP Unit; and DeMorrie Evans, Transitions Program Coordinator of the SC Department of Mental Health (DMH).

One of the main takeaways from the event was the importance of timely reporting of alleged or suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of vulnerable adults to the appropriate entities. Appropriate entities include the Ombudsman’s office, SC SLED VAIU, VAMPF of the SC Attorney General’s Office, or in case of emergency local law enforcement.

“The SC Omnibus Adult Protection Act is the law in South Carolina for the reporting of alleged or suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of our vulnerable adults”, Livingston said. “It’s good for facilities to have training on it so they have a full understanding of the appropriate entities to contact. Failure to report can potentially result in criminal penalties and prison time.”

“Residents of long term care facilities have rights. One is the right to be free from abuse, neglect, and exploitation,” Livingston said.

Livingston was pleased with the information presented. Capps echoed her sentiments.

“I am pleased with the conference because I feel that it improved the efficiency of the investigation process,” Capps said. “It raised awareness of the needs and issues related to case investigations, quality of care, resident rights, and the reporting of abuse, neglect, and exploitation in order to improve the quality of care and life of residents who reside in DDSN operated facilities and residences.”

Fellers said abuse, neglect and exploitation can come in many forms such as moving somebody’s walker so they cannot get out of their recliner, chemically restraining them (with medicines perhaps to make them sleep) to make your job easier, not providing clean clothes and/or bed sheets, etc., and certainly the all-too-common stealing of their pain medicine including fentanyl for personal use.

If these or other forms of abuse, neglect and exploitation are observed, “call and report it. Let us know,” Fellers said.

Rawl and Frampton also discussed forms of abuse, neglect and exploitation, citing some examples that occurred in South Carolina. One care provider spent a vulnerable adults life savings of approximately $310,000 for extravagant personal use. One was posting pictures of vulnerable adults on social media. Two others were stealing pain patches for their personal use. Another left his senior care facility unattended for extended periods of time and generally neglected the facility as a whole, leaving it filthy and unsafe.

“It was worse than any dog pound you could find anywhere in the state,” Frampton said.

All of these and similar incidents are investigated, prosecuted when appropriate, with some resulting in prison time.