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UNION CO, S.C. (WSPA) – Deputies arrested 16 in Union County in one day last week.

On Thursday, Feb. 16, the Union County Sheriff’s Office, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), Department of Natural Resources, and the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services (PPP) served 24 warrants and arrested 16 people on a variety of charges.

“There were some really bad guys, we actually had one fugitive from justice that we picked up that morning. Several other arrests, a couple guys had domestic violence charges, which is very serious,” said Sheriff Jeff Bailey.

This round-up took weeks of planning with the agencies taking an all hands on deck approach.

“When you have all these people, we’ve got to get on the same page,” said Sheriff Bailey. “That’s how we organized that morning and had our meeting and set our goals for what we were going to try to do, what time and how.”

Sheriff Bailey said with all the agencies involved, they had more tools at their disposal.

“So, when they bring that equipment to the table, we try to find our worst and try to pick them up and get them off the streets, as long as we can,” he said.

They also randomly selected 19 registered sex offenders to see if they were complying.

“We had some that had changed their residence and we tried to work that day to track them down and find out where they were, they were arrested,” said the sheriff. “We actually had people who had not reported their address or come in and report for their yearly.”

The sheriff said the people arrested are not first-time offenders.

“That’s what’s frustrating, it’s the same old people that we arrest. We pick up and it’s just, you know, a reoccurring problem,” he said.

He said a lot of them get out of custody on bonds.

“We constantly arrest them and then they make bond, their cases are still pending. So, some of them might be out on three or four bonds,” said Sheriff Bailey.

“So, it’s a problem but you just can’t take people to jail and house them, everyone is entitled to a bond.”

Sheriff Bailey said the men and women behind the badge are working hard.

“We’re doing our best to keep them off the street, because they’re a nuisance to the public, and we don’t want that,” he said.

“We’re trying to do our best. I promise, I promise people we’re doing our best to get these folks.”

Those arrested are:

Sheriff Bailey said they will be going through the rest of the sex offender list in the future.

Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System on Thursday unveiled plans for the new $55 million Union Medical Center replacement facility.

The combined replacement hospital and medical office building are designed to create a sustainable model for health care in Union County that centralizes physician practices, outpatient services and inpatient care, the health care system said in a news release.

Located along Highway 176 across from Union Industrial Park and four miles from the current hospital, the plans call for a new three-story, 99,600-square-foot building.

“Growing up in Union County, I know firsthand the essential role this hospital plays in supporting the health and wellness of families,” Dr. Natashia Jeter said in a news release. “Residents, community partners and health care providers could not be more excited for this investment in clinical services and renewed commitment to caring for this area.”

Spartanburg Regional purchased 48 acres for the new medical facility in 2015 following the acquisition of then-Wallace Thomson Hospital, which was constructed in 1955. This new campus sits in the heart of Union County, central to the residential population and the business community.

“Our new facility in Union County is designed for the future, anticipating the ever-evolving needs of patients and innovations in care,” Mark Aycock, chief operating officer of Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, said in the release. “A variety of services will be available on this campus, including inpatient and outpatient care, emergency services, physician offices and telehealth visits.”

The hospital’s design includes large windows and open spaces with natural accents. Photographs of iconic Union County scenes will be featured, showcasing the hospital’s commitment to the community, the area, and its residents, the release said. Plans call for a chapel and healing garden.

Construction is scheduled to begin this spring, pending permit approval, the release said.

Medical services at the campus are to include emergency care, imaging, Gibbs Cancer Center infusion services, inpatient care, lab services, Bearden-Josey Center for Breast Health mammography services, outpatient services, pharmacy and primary care.

“Spartanburg Regional acquired the former Wallace Thomson Hospital to ensure that quality health care was not interrupted in Union,” Paul Newhouse, president of Union Medical Center, said in the release. “Today, the health care system announces an investment that will benefit generations to come by improving access to health services and wellness opportunities.”

Talk about bad real estate deals: Seventy-five years ago, just after World War II, the city of Charleston gave away its waterfront docks to the S.C. State Ports Authority for nothing. Zero. Now the agency plans to sell a prime piece of that waterfront, Union Pier, for hundreds of millions of dollars.

And Charleston is going to get the short end of yet another real estate deal with State Ports.

Mind you, I am a huge fan of redeveloping Union Pier. Who doesn’t want to see 70 acres of parking lots and warehouses transformed into a grand new waterfront neighborhood? We’re all being asked to imagine the possibilities.

But here’s the rub: The bigger the Ports Authority’s payday, the bigger, the denser the eventual buyer (almost surely Los Angeles-based Lowe) will need to build to justify the price.

You want a world-class waterfront park overlooking the Cooper River? A new urban grid with streets that provide view corridors to the water and cool Charleston alleyways? You want to save the Bennett Rice Mill, honor the Mosquito Fleet and build a dog park or two? Add holding back the rising tides to that list of must haves.

You can have all of this. But it is going to be expensive. Very expensive.

“The hardest part of the whole project is the economics of it,” Jacob Lindsey, Charleston’s former planning director who is now the frontman for Lowe, said last month at a packed meeting of the city’s planning commission.

No one can say Lindsey, an impressive guy who no longer works for the city but for the developers, didn’t warn us. In the last eight minutes of an hour-and-a-half presentation, he said at least five times that the buildout of Union Pier is going to be very, very costly, adding “That is just the truth.” Very, he said.

This isn’t going to be paid for with affordable housing and dog parks. No, it will be density and height — “seven stories or taller,” one Lowe planner said, without elaborating — that pay for this fabulous new urban neighborhood, the most expensive in the city’s history.

Density and height aren’t a bad thing. In the right place. But Union Pier, our crown jewel, to use an already worn cliche, is not the place for a lot of towering piles of brick. That’s not why we love Charleston.

The value of Union Pier — back-of-envelope estimates range from $250 million to $400 million and up — will be determined by what the city allows to be built on the 40 acres that are suitable for development. And then there are the daunting construction costs, including cleaning up any toxic wastes.

That’s the process now underway as the Ports Authority, Lowe and Lindsey try to win City Council’s approval for a master plan, a so-called Planned Unit Development, or PUD, by the end of the year. Only then will the Ports Authority hold its faux auction.

Paying for it all, as Lindsey said, is the hard part.

There will be the usual alphabet soup of financing incentives to fund such infrastructure as streets, parks and water management. A TIF, or tax increment financing district, would allow future property taxes from increased value of the property to help underwrite those costs. And then there could be a MID (municipal improvement district), a separate tax on new buildings there to cover maintenance.

What no one is talking about, but should be, is that monster Ports Authority payday.

While selling at the highest price is good for the Ports Authority, it’s not good for Charleston if it’s going to mean a wall of pricey waterfront hotels and condo buildings. And it could.

For State Ports and the Statehouse, Union Pier is the golden ticket to finance the next phases of the Leatherman Terminal.

My advice: Settle the endless standoff with the Longshoremen’s union, which has left the $1 billion terminal operating at a quarter of capacity. Pay the Ports Authority bosses a quarter of their salaries until then, and they will find a way quick enough.

The Ports Authority is important to the state — it’s responsible for 1 in 10 jobs, as it reminds us ad nauseam. But it’s more important to some parts of the state than others. Fifty-two percent of the ports’ economic impact comes in the Upstate, home of BMW and Michelin. The Lowcountry: 12%.

Selling Union Pier for top dollar to expand Leatherman is, in effect, transferring the windfall from the Charleston waterfront to the Upstate and the Midlands.

If you are a legislator from Greenville or Columbia, sticking it to Charleston is the sport that is always in season. In the halls of the Statehouse, after all, ABC is shorthand for Anybody But Charleston.

Leatherman matters. But so should Union Pier. One need not compromise the other.

Steve Bailey can be reached at sjbailey1060@yahoo.com.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC/AP) - The South Carolina Ports Authority plans to appeal a labor board ruling in a dispute involving heavy-lift equipment, its president says.

The National Labor Relations Board panel ruled against the Port of Charleston on Dec. 16, deciding that only union members may work that equipment at a new shipping terminal in one of the nation’s largest maritime centers.

The Dec. 16 order brings an end to the “hybrid” union-non-union employment model long implemented by the State Ports Authority at the Leatherman Terminal, which opened its $1 billion first phase in March 2021.

SC Ports President and CEO Barbara Melvin released this statement on the ruling:

SC Ports Authority is disappointed in the split ruling of the NLRB, which overturned the September 2021 ruling by the administrative law judge that was in favor of SC Ports Authority. We are still assessing the reasoning of the Board panel’s opinion, but we intend to appeal to the federal court of appeals in line with the reasoning of the Board’s dissenting opinion and the underlying initial ruling, which we believe is more consistent with applicable law and the facts of the case. We therefore remain confident in a favorable ruling from the courts.

Regardless of the current decision, SC Ports remains hopeful that we can work with the ILA to achieve a solution that will allow for full utilization of the Leatherman Terminal and preservation of the growth trajectory our port has experienced that creates more jobs for both SC Ports employees and ILA members.

State officials have said their working model benefits all employees. But the dockworkers’ union has claimed a contract with the United States Maritime Alliance requires that only members of the International Longshoremen’s Association may operate the cranes at newly constructed terminals. State Ports Authority employees had been carrying out such work.

The decision comes without intervention from President Joe Biden. Union officials had said they would “seek the support of the Biden administration” in November 2021 after a judge ruled against them. But leaders reversed course this summer when the union asked Biden to stay out of the dispute and avoid an “overreach” of presidential power.

South Carolina is a “right-to-work” state, meaning workers can’t be compelled to join unions, even if the organizations represent them. According to data released earlier this year by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, South Carolina had the lowest union membership rate, at 1.7%.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Soon, the soothing sounds of nature from Charleston's downtown waterfront will be accessible to everyone with a newly designed Union Pier.

"The redevelopment of Union Pier is designed with Charleston in mind," President and CEO of the South Carolina Ports Authority Barbara Melvin said.

Read More: Union Pier development seeks to address architecture, roads, and flooding in Charleston

The design brings the past to the future along Concord Street.

The new green space and five-acre park will hold on to the history of the rice mill and mosquito fleet while adding in new retail shops, affordable housing for those who work in the area, and linking to the aquarium and International African American Museum.

Soon, the soothing sounds of nature from Charleston's downtown waterfront will be accessible to everyone with a newly designed Union Pier. (WCIV)

"We did not choose to sell individual parcels, we decided to plan the entire site to make sure that the infrastructure was there to support the site, and that the city had a voice one time to make the area blended one time very well," Melvin said.

Read More: SCPA submits draft plan to city for Union Pier

"This area where we’re standing today is an industrial site. A place with containers, a place that’s a part of maritime infrastructure can be converted into a beautiful park, almost as large as Marion Square but on the waterfront and dedicated to Charlestonians forever," said Vict President of Lowe Real Estate Jacob Lindsey.

Lindsey said there will be architecture regulation in place and a comprehensive plan to address flooding and stormwater surge to align with the Army Corps of Engineers' project along the Battery.

Read More: Proposed future of the Union Pier includes green spaces, waterfronts, and more

"At the end of the day upland areas will drain better and the sight itself will keep every raindrop on site and will help storm surges out of the city by the construction of a unique storm barrier here at union pier," Jacob said.

While the project may take a decade to complete, Melvin said the future of the ports is something everyone can look forward to.

"Let's remove the chain-link fences and parking lots and warehouses. Lets re-imagine it's going to take some time before things get going on the development," Melvin said.

Read More: Public waterfront access, restaurants, hotels, housing could be coming to Union Pier

The ports authority is presenting the new renderings to the planning commission Thursday at a workshop and they will formally submit them on April 17.

You can also see the renderings and still submit comments through the Union Pier website.