By admin 
Public services have long lagged behind in the fasting growing region of one of South Carolina’s fastest growing counties, as even Lexington County officials acknowledge.
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“This area has been underserved, not by choice but by growth,” said Darrell Hudson, chairman of Lexington County Council.
Hudson spoke Thursday at the dedication of a new center meant to address the growing needs for residents along Highway 1 between Lexington and Batesburg-Leesville.
The new West Region Service Center combines several county services into one location. It will serve as a sheriff’s office, a fire station, an EMS center and a county magistrate’s office.
Long in the making, the new center at 5585 Augusta Highway is meant to bring Lexington County services closer to where more of the county’s residents are.
“We’ve seen the need for a long time now, but it was a long process to get the funding together,” said County Councilman Larry Brigham, whose district stretches across western Lexington County. “We’ve provided statistical data on response times, and it’s always been lower than what we would like… Now those response times will be a lot quicker.”
The surrounding community around the towns of Gilbert and Summit has seen explosive growth in recent years, and Lexington County Council approved the new west region center — at an ultimate cost of $14.5 million — to provide faster services to this new population.
“Driving out here, you can see how the community has developed,” Koon said. “This was needed to be able to provide security for our communities.”
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Koon said past locations of the county’s services in the rural area had moved from “houses to offices to a strip mall by a strawberry patch.” The new center will not only combine emergency services for the west side of Lexington, but will also serve as the new home for the county magistrate’s office formally housed in Batesburg-Leesville.
“I saw the postmaster the other day, and they said ‘Are you leaving us?’” said Judge Gary Morgan, the area’s assistant chief magistrate. “And I said, ‘No, we’re just moving down the road’… We’re not going to abandon Batesburg-Leesville.”
Morgan said a new courtroom was badly needed for the local magistrate’s office, which was only 1,200 square feet in Batesburg.
“How many people can say they leave a house in the morning that’s bigger than a courthouse?” he asked.
The space was so small opposing side were “within two and a half feet of each other, no matter how much they hated each other,” Morgan said. “We had to call in a fake fire for a jury trial so that the fire marshal would be somewhere else.”
The fire station attached to the new center will be named for Paul Quattlebaum, a Lexington County firefighter of 22 years who was struck and killed by a semi-truck in 2019 while responding to a vehicle collision. Quattlebaum’s family was presented with a resolution from the county council naming the new station after the fallen firefighter.
“Paul was a true servant,” said Fire Chief Kyle Minick. “He answered the call as a U.S. Marine, and later answered the call to serve this community as a firefighter… Though he’s no longer with us, his legacy will live on.”
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