Lexington County leaders are often on different pages. A group aims to fix that
A group of elected officials in Lexington see a growing pattern — individual governing bodies all working in similar areas, but not communicating — and they want to change it.
For years, the county has been at odds with many of its 15 municipalities over everything from which entities should be responsible for maintaining roads to how dense housing developments should be. Now, a group of nine representatives from the Lexington County council, the town of Lexington and the Lexington 1 school board plan to hold regular meetings to discuss issues facing all three entities and brainstorm solutions to shared problems.
“Oftentimes in government, we operate in our lanes, but there are so many issues that are pressing each of our bodies that are applicable to everybody,” Lexington Town Councilman Gavin Smith, one of the group’s founders, said. “When you talk with citizens, what they are really yearning for is just all of us working together to make Lexington a better place and I think that starts by getting around a table and being willing to talk with one another.”
Who’s taking part?
The nine members, three from each body, are Todd Cockrell, Darrell Hudson and Beth Carrigg from county council, Mayor Hazel Livingston, and Councilmen Smith and Todd Carnes from the town of Lexington and Beth Shealy, McKenzie Flashnick and Nicholas Pizzuti from the school board.
“To me, all problems are solved by talking,” Flashnick said. “They’re in their lane worried about a housing development and they’re in their lane worried about roads and we’re in our lane worried about math scores. When you exist in a vacuum it can be hard to see the broader picture.”
While the group isn’t a formal committee, as those have to be voted into existence, the plan is for it to serve as a sounding board for ideas that the members can then bring back to their respective bodies.
“I think it’s important for everybody that lives here to see that their leaders are at the table doing what we were elected to do,” County Councilwoman Beth Carrigg said.
The move to bring both the town and county together comes less than a month after the town pushed to reduce the number of houses it allows per acre for new subdivisions — from five per acre down to four — in an effort to promote consistent development among the town and the county, Carnes said during an August town council meeting.
Navigating growth
That project was years in the making, Livingston previously told The State. It’s part of a larger effort on the part of the town and the county to work together to address growth in the area.
The county has grown immensely over the last few decades, more than doubling its population between 1980 and 2024, and in that time the county and its municipalities have adopted a series of measures aimed at mitigating that growth. Some have imposed fees on developers who bring new subdivisions to the area. Others have lowered density or adopted new processes for approving developments.
One of the biggest, and oft-complained about issues, in the county is traffic. The area’s roads, built decades ago, weren’t built to handle the number of new drivers and residents migrating to Lexington, elected leaders contend. But road upgrades are costly, time consuming and many leaders complain they’re being made to address issues for roads they don’t own, but that are owned by the S.C. Department of Transportation. Groups like the Central Midlands Council of Governments have helped in some ways — assisting municipalities in finding revenue sources for roads projects across four Midlands counties.
While this new working group of elected officials doesn’t intend to include a member of the state’s transportation department, members said it’s possible they could ask DOT to attend a meeting to answer questions or serve in an advisory role if needed.
“The topics of conversation recently have been around development, that’s where some of this stemmed from,” Smith said. “How can we work together to find a common solution that benefits all three bodies?”
