My response to the recent program aired by NPR about the third anniversary of the closing of Winnsboro’s Wal-Mart store.
Fortunately, Fairfield choose to hold a county revival rather than a Wal-Mart-closing wake. Clearly, the Wal-Mart closing and the VC Summer fiasco served as wake up calls to the county.
I’m happy to report that Fairfield looks forward, not backward.
Now we work to make our own opportunities and seek to further capitalize on progress rather than being paralyzed by our challenges. Furthermore, it appears the energized county response to the Wal-Mart closing has manifest genuine progress.
The county was recently honored with recognition as the next possible boom town in South Carolina, thanks in large part to its aggressive preparedness to readily accommodate new industry. Indeed, we are already being rewarded with new industrial ventures adding valuable jobs and investment to our county. Many more manufacturers are expect to be drawn to the “next boom town.”
Additionally, new stores have opened and several others are planned. The downtown zones of Winnsboro and Ridgeway are gaining much positive regional and even national recognition. Downtown Winnsboro will add to its ambience with a soon to be restored historic building, which will house a new administrative building to serve the county and town.
Additional downtown renewal projects are under consideration to leverage the impact of that new county hub. Many new recreation facilities have also been added since Wal-Mart left. Even a new library has been opened in Ridgeway.
Further, a developer is proposing to build a teacher housing community in our county. We also have a brand new state of the art emergency center in Winnsboro.
The unemployment rate continues to improve, and County Council is listening and responding to public input like never before. The new public water/sewer consortium is just one example of the positive progress being manifested by the new-found intergovernmental unity.
Plus, the community is now more unified. All of that and much more have been part of the Fairfield post-Wal-Mart revival, WITHOUT raising taxes. Fairfield is living proof of the prophetic axiom that “closed doors open new and better doors.”
Randy Bright
Ridgeway