Spring is a season of growth for the City of Anderson. A newly renovated park, innovative road work, and progress on new retail business and housing projects downtown are all sprouting up, according to Mayor Terence Roberts.

Council is expected to give final approval to tax incentives for Vertiv Corporation’s $17.84 million facility upgrade at 400 Supreme Industrial Drive for electrical switchgear manufacturing projects to create 53 new full-time jobs averaging $32.27 hourly (plus benefits), within a 5-year investment period under a 40-year FILOT with six percent assessment ratio and fixed millage of 0.35901 mills. Special source credits apply at 75 percent for years 1-10 and 50 percent for 11-20, secured in the 2010 Greenville-Anderson Park; failure to meet minimums triggers retroactive termination.

Tucked into Fire Station 1 on McDuffie Street, the Anderson Fire Department’s museum gleams as like a “hidden gem,” its relics salvaged from barns and city storerooms by prescient forebears who refused to consign century-old engines to oblivion.

The city, working with state and regional transportation officials, is preparing to install an adaptive traffic signal system along Clemson Boulevard, a project known formally as the Clemson Boulevard Adaptive Signal Project. The adaptive signal system will operate at signalized intersections along U.S. 76 (Clemson Boulevard) from the I‑85 interchange east to Cinema Boulevard, covering the full commercial corridor in between.

At the center of this new activity is a project that has hung over Honea Path for a generation: the fate of the old Chicola Mill. For roughly 25 years, the property has lingered in a limbo familiar to mill towns across the South—no longer an engine of employment and identity, not yet anything else, a hulking question mark at the edge of town.

Green Pond’s future lies in a slightly altered angle of descent. The original conceptual drawings for the site called for a six‑lane deep‑water ramp, but for years the facility operated with only three. To expand it in time for 2027, the county had to confront a geological fact: beneath the top layer of soil and “rippable” rock at the shoreline is a thick, stubborn vein of blue granite. That granite, blasted once already during the construction of an ADA parking lot and the original ramp, now wraps the shoreline as erosion control, lines roadways as vehicle barriers, and has been trucked to other Corps‑of‑Engineers properties for use in their own projects.

The House approved two income tax bills Tuesday immediately after passing a $15.4 billion spending plan that didn’t factor in their revenue losses.

The votes sent one bill, which lowers state income tax rates, to the governor’s desk. Republicans tout it as a tax cut, though many South Carolinians will pay more next year under the changes. Democrats blasted the bill as a tax increase on working people. The other bill would temporarily apply federal tax cuts to state income taxes.

With 1,771 votes cast, representing a 20.91 percent voter turnout for the referendum, 926 voted in favor of the new school while 845 voted against it.

On Saturday, PAWS (the Anderson County animal shelter) will turn briefly into a kind of doggy Irish street fair, minus the Guinness but heavy on the treats. The Lucky Paws adoption event, a St. Patrick’s Day–themed afternoon running from noon to p.m., will feature rescue dogs, cats, and a curated lineup of local vendors—a lavender farm, a personalized pet-treat maker, a coffee truck, and a cart called the Frozen Frog that deals in carnival-style snacks—arrayed in the parking lot like a pop-up Main Street for animals and the people who post about them.

Last year witnessed more than 375,000 visits across branches, with checkouts topping 999,000 — nearing a million, Sutton noted hopefully — and 84,000 library cardholders, about 40 percent of the county’s population. Physical books led checkouts, trailed by digital ones, but non-traditional LEAP station items flew off the shelves: museum passes to Greenville’s Children’s Museum or Roper Mountain, state park admissions, fishing poles, and seeds from the seed library, stocked through a partnership with Anderson County Soil and Water Conservation. In total, patrons saved more than $7 million using these services, nearly matching the budget, by borrowing rather than buying.

Today is the day voters in Anderson School Dist. 3 will decide on the wisdom of building a new middle school to replace one built during the Eisenhower administration. A total of 154 early votes were cast in this referendum, and now it’s time for the rest of voters to voice their thoughts at the polls.

The incentives, pending review and other work, will effectively freezing the buildings’ assessed values at pre-rehabilitation level for seven years, allowing owners to invest in renovations without immediately paying for their ambition in higher tax bills.

Platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket say they are offering contracts similar to commodity markets that speculate on the future price of corn or oil — not outright gambling. But a growing number of states are rejecting those justifications, arguing the platforms are offering a backdoor to skirt state gambling regulations, particularly on sports.

The move would allow for an estimated $2 million in improvement of properties at 215, 217 and 219 South Main Street, by effectively freezing the buildings’ assessed values at pre-rehabilitation level for a set number of years, allowing owners to invest in renovations without immediately paying for their ambition in higher tax bills. The properties’ current combined fair-market value is $254,400. The resolution before Council would endorse the project so the Board of Architectural Review can undertake preliminary certification, examining design and investment details before offering final certification once the work is complete and allow participation in a special tax assessment for rehabilitated historic properties.

The library’s director, Annie Sutton, reminded the crowd that the new Anderson County Library Bookmobile is replacing the retiring bus that has been doing the rounds since 2004 and had “earned its retirement.” In that time, she said, libraries have gone from “quiet repositories of books” to “bustling community centers,” where you can borrow not just novels but board games, tools, and Wi‑Fi hotspots, and where “outreach” means showing up at festivals, daycare centers, senior residences, and the occasional manufacturing plant.

On Saturday night, the phones will take care of themselves, their internal clocks obedient to distant servers and statutes. The appliances, the microwaves and ovens and the digital thermostats with inscrutable menus, will require patience or neglect.

He is officially the Director of Community Impact at the United Way of Anderson County, but the title misses the informality with which people, spotting him at the back of a council chamber or in the corner of a fellowship hall, wave him over as if he were a neighbor who also happens to know where every door in town leads.

Around Anderson, the easiest way to find their produce is through the Clemson Area Food Exchange, an online farmers’ market with a drop-off site in downtown Anderson and others in towns across the region. There is also the more traditional route: restaurants. Vannette ticks off a list of downtown Anderson kitchens—The Common House, Sullivan’s, Maki Sushi, Earl Street Bar & Grill—that buy their greens and other crops, along with roughly 20 local restaurants across the Upstate.

“This bill makes our state more competitive, supports our marine industry, and encourages boat owners to keep their vessels registered right here at home. I’m proud to have co-sponsored from the beginning and worked with the counties to ensure the local impact is phased over time.”

The senators then voted 6-2 to reject a bill requiring all public school children to be vaccinated from measles — no longer allowing exemptions for religious reasons. In both cases, the “no” votes came from Democrats.