By admin 
The day after a lawsuit was filed that could result in a $20 million judgment against the town, Chapin Mayor Bill Mitchell delivered a Facebook address to assure residents they are “on the winning side.”
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“This is not bad news,” Mitchell said in a 14-minute address streamed on the town Facebook page, not long after he said a Lexington County sheriff’s deputy had served the mayor a court summons.
“I‘m coming on here and saying we knew they were going to do that, and we don’t care. We have solid ground to stand on, and we have stopped this development cold in its tracks. We are on the winning side, and we will stay there.”
Lexington County is suing the town over Mitchell’s decision not to issue sewer taps, a freeze the mayor implemented shortly after he was elected last November. That decision is preventing the county from completing a $20.4 million sale of its former Brighton technology park for a future housing development.
But Mitchell has not budged from that position blocking 600 new homes from being built on the site, even as Lexington County Council voted in June to do “whatever is legally necessary” to force the town to comply.
“There will be no negotiating along the way,” Mitchell said in the video. “This is a firm, uncompromising position I stand in… Nobody’s going to talk us into anything. Nobody’s going to bribe us into anything. Nobody’s going to threaten us into anything. Nothing’s changing, sweet people.”
Mitchell argument hinges on the town’s wastewater treatment system, which served a large population outside the limits of the town of less than 2,000 north of Lake Murray. He’s said the town’s current commitments amount to 97% of its treatment plant’s capacity, and that no other taps can be issued by the town until a mutli-million-dollar improvement plan for the town’s wastewater plant is completed, which could take up to a decade.
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“This is news to celebrate,” Mitchell said. “Those of you who are concerned about the traffic in the streets, those of you who are concerned about overpopulating our schools, those of you who would be concerned if we damage the town, it would devalue your most valuable asset, in most cases, your home. For all these good reasons, you knew we needed to slow down this development. And people, we didn’t slow it down. We stopped it cold.”
Lexington County has pointed to a contract signed by a previous Chapin administration in 2015 that commits the town to providing sewer service to the 200-acre site off of Columbia Avenue, then imagined as a technology hub and incubator. But after spending more than $16 million on developing the park, today it sits vacant without ever attracting a business tenant.
Instead, the county has agreed to sell the site to a company helmed by local developer Andy White, who plans to include a tech job generator alongside 600 new houses priced between $600,000 and $1 million. But that sale is contingent on sewer service being available.
On Tuesday, Mitchell emphasized that a lawsuit will only delay any development on the site, if the announced plans ever happen at all.
“It could take us two years to get our day in court, which just pushes the decision even further out,” the mayor said. “So you were safe and sound, Chapin.”
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