Condon Seeking Third Term on County Council

Like candidates for many offices in 2012 Charleston County Councilwoman Colleen Condon has some new constituents to win over following the decennial redrawing of districts.

But she said she views it more as an opportunity than a challenge as she seeks a third term on the council.

"I'll be going door to door to meet every single member of this new area," Condon said. "It's something that, to me, it's every election is a chance to see what the voters think. I'm prepared to work very hard to earn my seat back again by meeting everyone, finding out their issues and setting new priorities for the new term."

Condon highlighted several things the council has done during her previous terms in a short speech before she officially filed the paperwork to appear on the Democratic Party ballot for the County Council District 7 seat on Friday afternoon.

"We've got a lot of new parks in the West Ashley area, we focused on quality of life with our new bike paths, sidewalks and intersection improvements," she said. "We have a number of issues that have been addressed now under the new livability ordinance that I introduced last year, and certainly we have had such great success with our expanded recycling, which was started by my  Green for Green plan of 2008."

Condon said she plans to continue working on making the West Ashley Senior Center a reality if she wins another term. She said it will take a couple of years to raise the $3 million to $5 million needed to make the project happen.

Condon is also happy to talk about the county's recycling program and plans to build a new recycling facility to allow Charleston County to process more recyclables and earn more revenue from them. By spring of 2013, she said, every county resident who wants one will be issued a larger all-in-one roll-out style recycling bin.

"We're in the process of securing that location this spring," she said. "And once we have a new facility that can process more recyclables we'll be in a position to expand all-in-one recycling countywide."

"What's nice is while there will be some capital costs involved, recycling really pays for itself," Condon added. "Recyclables are valuable enough that by expanding, it actually allows us to offer more services at a better price to our constituents."

Getting county residents to add their unwanted paper and cardboard to their recycling bins will make the expanded program stronger, she said, because those types of products are commanding the highest prices by volume of recyclable materials.

Keeping those products out of the garbage also helps to extend the life of the county's Bees Ferry Landfill, she added.

Condon said the biggest challenges facing the county will be paying for state-mandated programs like the solicitor's office and public defenders, drug treatment programs, the county library system, etc.

She said while the state has seen close to $1 billion in new revenue this year, the budget bills in the General Assembly have not restored any of the funding that was cut from those programs when the economic and state budget crises hit several years ago.