Bryan County News More
By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism. City of Richmond Hill adopts $9.95 million budget
Richmond Hill’s city council passed its $9.95 million general fund budget for the 2021 fiscal year by a unanimous vote, but not without reservations from one council member.
First year councilman Mark Ott said at the council’s Dec. 1 meeting he was concerned the budget doesn’t provide money to staff a temporary fire station near the Belfast Keller interchange, which could be open within weeks.
“We have this new temporary fire station and we’re not going to be able to use it for six months in an area where the interchange is going to open up pretty soon,” Ott said.
Bryan County News More
By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism. County looking to make deputy pay more attractive
Right now, Bryan County Sheriff ’s Office deputies fresh out of the academy start at about $14.50 an hour or $30,000 annually, according to Sheriff-elect Mark Crowe.
That’s almost $3 an hour less than the starting pay for a deputy in nearby Effingham County, where a job posting for a patrol deputy with one year of experience or a “combination of education and training” touts a starting salary of $17.29 an hour.
Bryan County News More
By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism. Santa makes his rounds: BCES continues tradition
There are a number of Santas riding around on fire trucks these days in Bryan County, proof that Santa can be in a lot of different places at the same time.
But only one Santa has been doing it here since 2002.
That honor belongs to longtime Bryan County Emergency Services volunteer Capt. Asa Clay, who made the rounds again Monday night, and had been for more than week.
‘I’ve been doing this so long a woman brought out her son last year who was a senior on the Richmond Hill High School football team,” Clay said. “I had to take a picture with him because she had a picture of him with me taken when he was just a little boy.”
Bryan County News Jeff Whitten: Santa and crowds
I got a much needed burst of Christmas spirit Monday night, thanks to Bryan County Emergency Services Capt. Asa Clay, whose alter ego for the past 18 years has made hearts merry and bright at this time of year as he sits atop fire trucks.
Yep, it was ride-along time on a Santa run, an experience made excellent by firefighters like BCES Battalion Chief Matthew Schultz, who hails from Chicago, and Ron Becker, who has ties to Clemson, and Nathaniel Gallagher, a former Army chopper pilot now flying for the Coast Guard and volunteering his services with the county.