Friday 09-17-10

The strong arm of the Law

Rock Hill to cut off water despite residents' pleas

YORK COUNTY --

Rock Hill officials plan to turn off utility taps of county residents who refuse annexation by today's noon deadline despite being asked for an extension, city officials confirmed Tuesday.

Starting Monday the city plans to phase out service to residents who do not agree to annexation. Those who agree to annexation will not be affected, city officials said.

Property owners in three York County neighborhoods and along S.C. 161 are part of Rock Hill's annexation efforts to take control of commercial development along the S.C. 161 corridor.

Retirees John and Sherri Zimmerman live on a fixed income and oppose Rock Hill's plans to annex their neighborhood.
Story: Deadline passes for county neighbors to sign petition
Story: Retiree: Annexation offers nothing but 'garbage'
Homeowners argue they don't want city services or their costs. They wonder whether they're legally obligated to annex, a question their attorney plans to explore.

Hired last week by the Miller Pond homeowners association, Attorney Jim Meggs of Columbia said he could likely get to the bottom of that question with more time.

But the city refused his request for a 30-day extension on the city's deadline.

"If I have adequate time to analyze where (residents) are, they're going to get the real skinny" on where they stand legally, Meggs said Tuesday. "But the city is not giving us the time for deliberation."

A stalemate

Giving residents more time will likely do no good, said Bill Meyer, Rock Hill's planning and development director. In what Meyer called a "stalemate," both city officials and residents feel there have been no efforts to compromise.

But both parties agree on one point: city officials won't budge on seeking annexation and residents won't budge on fighting it.

The conflict with county residents has led to mixed feelings among Rock Hill City Council members.

Councilwoman Susie Hinton wouldn't say whether she supports the city's actions.

"I am really torn about the whole matter. It's really a very difficult situation," she said.

Councilman John Black, whose ward would include the proposed annexation, said Friday that even if the city has legal grounds to terminate services, "it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."

The city claims the right to annex from an agreement it made with the neighborhood's original developer. Long before houses were built, the city agreed to provide utilities in exchange for annexation at a later date.

That obligation passed on to future property owners, according to city officials.

But many residents claim they didn't know about it. Residents of Miller Pond say they should be left out of the annexation because they only receive water from the city and pay around double what city residents pay.

As paying customers, some residents wonder why the city would turn off their water.

The city's policy is designed to help it meet the state's strict annexation requirements. To annex, the city needs approval of 75 percent of property owners holding 75 percent of the property value. The city's utilities policy is a way to obligate residents to annexation long before annexation may even be possible.

But as of Tuesday, the city had received petitions from only 20 of 121 property owners involved in the annexation and only two from Miller Pond, coming in short of what it needs to annex.

For now, residents are waiting for taps to run dry.

"We're scared," said David Grigg, president of the Miller Pond homeowners association. "I'd be lying if I said anything different."

http://www.heraldonline.com/2010/09/15/2453400/rock-hill-to-cut-off-water-despite.html

Poverty rate at highest level in half-century, data show
One in seven Americans is living in poverty, the highest number in the half-century that the government has kept such statistics, the Census Bureau announced Wednesday.

Last year was the third consecutive year that the poverty rate climbed, in part because of the recession, rising from 13.2 percent in 2008 to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, last year.

Asians were the only ethnic group whose poverty rate did not change substantially; every other race and Hispanics experienced increases in poverty rates.

In addition, 51 million Americans were uninsured, as the number of people with health insurance dropped from 255 million to less than 254 million -- the first decrease since the government started keeping track in 1987. The number would have been worse because 6.5 million fewer people got insurance through their jobs, but it was offset by a leap in government-backed health insurance. More than 30 percent of Americans now get coverage from the government.

"Given all the unemployment we saw, it's the government safety net that's keeping people above the poverty line," Douglas Besharov, a University of Maryland public policy professor and former scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Associated Press.

The grim statistics reflect the depth of the recession that began almost three years ago and could have an impact on midterm elections less than two months away.

"These numbers should be a wake-up call," said Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University professor and co-director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy. "These are deeply disturbing numbers."

At organizations where the unemployed come to get help finding a job or seek food, the numbers were no surprise.

"In the decade I've been doing this work, this is a low point," said Jason Perkins-Cohen, executive director of the Job Opportunities Task Force in Baltimore. "We're getting a real feeling of desperation. For sheer numbers, it's a new, unhappy world."

At the nonprofit Action Though Service in Prince William County late Thursday morning, the shelves of the agency's pantry were starting to empty, as the line for help snaked out the door with a few dozen people seeking assistance.

Prince William resident Carol Williams said she has come to the shelter once a month since January, when she was laid off from her job at United Medical Center due to budget woes.

"I worked since I was 15, and, now, for the first time I don't have a job and I can't feed my family," said Williams, 55. "I have a degree; doesn't matter. The jobs aren't there."

Williams said she has been applying for dozens of jobs a week and had about 20 interviews since January. "I think people are scared to hire someone who is not working," she said, adding there also is just a lot more competition because of the high unemployment rate.

A single mother, Williams has five mouths to feed -- children and grandchildren-- ranging in age from 17 months to 28. Williams said she was able to raise three sons on her own, but she now turns to the food pantry at ACTS and her father and friends for help.

"We had no bread, no nothing last Friday because the pantry was closed," she said. "Luckily a friend helped me or we would have had no food for the weekend."

Advocates said they're seeing a lot more people like Williams.

"We have definitely seen many more individuals who are very well-educated, with high degrees, where it's the first time to ever be in a situation to ever have to ask for help for food or shelter," said Vickie Koth, executive director of Good Shepherd Alliance in Loudoun County.

Koth recalls one family of four in particular, where both parents were highly educated -- the mother was a lawyer, and the father was a mortgage broker. "They were in the business of buying and selling homes, and they had three foreclosures within the same span of time and were homeless for the first time.

"We're full all the time and we turn people away every day, and that's always been true. But the types of people that call have changed," Koth said. "Time after time I've heard individuals say, 'I've given to shelters, I've volunteered at food pantries. I've never thought I'd be here myself.' "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/16/AR2010091602698_pf.html

Gun theft may be state’s biggest
BILLINGS — Law enforcement officials said 133 firearms, most of them handguns, were recently stolen from a Billings shipping company in one of the largest such heists in the state’s history.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives released details of the previously undisclosed August heist on Wednesday in hopes that making the case public will lead to a breakthrough.

A $10,000 reward was offered for help solving the crime.

The 113 handguns and 20 long guns were taken on the night of Aug. 2 from Con-way Freight Company, which was shipping the firearms for owner MT Sports.

Officials said the suspect or suspects somehow cut through a fence surrounding the company’s property, broke into a building and cut the locks off several tractor trailers before coming to the one with the firearms.

Other merchandise was left behind at the crime scene, suggesting the perpetrator may have been targeting guns for theft, ATF Montana Resident Agent in Charge Kenneth Bray said.

They were valued at about $40,000 — although the street value could be higher because there will be no record of any sales.

“When they do show up in a drive-by shooting or an aggravated shooting in Billings or Denver or wherever, these are guns that cannot be traced,” Bray said.

He said most were revolvers and pistols — “everything from .22-caliber pistols all the way up to .50-caliber Desert Eagles and everything in between.”

The number of firearms taken was more than the number stolen citywide in 2009, when 132 were taken, said Billings Police Chief Rich St. John.

Most gun thefts in the community come during house break-ins or “smash and grab” burglaries of sporting goods or gun shops, he said.

MT Sports is a distributor for North Carolina-based Big Rock Sports, which specializes in hunting and fishing equipment.

Big Rock sports vice president for operations Wayne Decker said the company frequently ships through Con-way Freight. But he questioned the shipping lines security after the August break-in.

“In my eyes, they were not properly protected,” Decker said. “They knew they had firearms and they left them inside a trailer.”

Bray declined to comment directly on Decker’s criticism, but said: “I will tell you there was forced entry. Things were locked up.”

A Con-way Freight spokesman asked about security at the site issued a statement saying the company was “cooperating fully with local and federal authorities.”

“Our corporate security team has been on scene working with authorities since the incident occurred,” said the statement from spokesman Gary Frantz.

http://helenair.com/news/article_be3d226a-c157-11df-b135-001cc4c03286.html