Pelzer Mayor Won’t Run in November, but Plans to Still Serve the Town
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
Will Ragland loves Pelzer, but not the political infighting that comes with being the town’s mayor. That’s why he won’t run for reelection in November. So after almost six years in the seat, Ragland, who has served as mayor since 2020 (and was on town council for five years before that), will move into serving the town as a private citizen when his term ends at the end of the year.
It's a decision the mayor has been pondering for more than a year. Ragland said the part-time position, which after taxes are deducted pays approximately $185 monthly, and takes full-time effort.
“The mayor is not supposed to be a full-time job,” said Ragland. “It is listed as a part-time job. I know everyone thinks that I'm supposed to know everything and be everything and drop everything that I'm doing to hop to it when anybody has any kind of random request that pops in their mind, but it's just not possible. I'm doing the best I can. I already work more than 40 hours a week at my full-time job.”
Pelzer is the only town in the county without support staff beyond a town clerk, a position which has been open for some time.
Ragland said unwarranted conflict over a recent beautification initiative helped him finalize a decision he’s been considering for more than a year. A special called council meeting earlier this week, one to which Ragland was not invited in a timely manner, was critical of the mayor and accused him, among other things, of initiating the project without council’s knowledge. Public body agendas must be made available to the public 48 hours before any meeting. The project gained more attention when vandals cut the flowers to the ground last week.
On Saturday, more than two dozen volunteers gathered to clean up the destruction and for other beautification efforts in Pelzer.
Ragland said he was encouraged by the turnout, including friends and many old-school Pelzer natives, which was particularly encouraging.
“I wish we could have more of that, more of the community building events and coming together, because people are a lot nicer in person than they are on Facebook,” said Ragland. “They don't nearly have the guts to be so hateful to your face because they have a conscience, and they know it's wrong. We had a good turnout Saturday and we felt good about it. It was great.”
Ragland said the accusations of wrongdoing in the beautification of the town are simply untrue.
“I told the council what I wanted to do and many of them voiced their love of the wildflowers and wanted to put them in their own yards,” said Ragland. “So, I bought some seeds on Amazon and good and planted the seeds.”
The total cost of the project was approximately $30,000, which was paid for in smaller increments of $1,000 to accelerate the work. Ragland added the cost of the project was in line with other recent cleanup efforts in the town.
“Normally when we do any kind of project, what I always do is to get three quotes,” said Ragland. “I did this in the winter. I identified trees that were dead, needed to be cut down, removed, stumps, ground, and brush that needed to be removed. And I personally went out and got three quotes on everything. It took forever. I brought it to a workshop. We discussed it. I even took pictures and gave it to the council to show them like, 'This is what we're doing.' That's the way you really should do it if you have the time. And that's the way I like to do it. And so, you know, they approved that, and the total for that work was approved in January at $30,900. Nobody had a problem with that, they were perfectly fine. And it's not an investment. You're just cutting down, brushing trees. Nothing continues from that. In fact, many of those places are now gotten a hand again. They're starting to grow back because we don't have enough on staff to maintain it.”
The purchasing code for Pelzer allows the mayor to spend up to $1,000 without council approval. Ragland said his decision to break the wildflower efforts into smaller projects were to finish the project before summer.
“We were running out of spring,” he said. “And you know, a complaint that residents have all the time is: 'Why can't y'all ever finish anything?’ so I wanted to give them something to show tangible results. I think it'll get people excited and make them happy, show us off to people to pass through.”
Ragland said the cost of the wildflowers, including regular maintenance, is far less than traditional landscaping.
“If you plant wildflowers in the spring in good dirt, you're done. If you plant enough seeds, I'll just take over and you don't have to water. You don't have to weed. And if there are a few weeds in there, you don't even see them because they're covered up. So that was my intention to create less maintenance.”
He also said such distractions take away from the ongoing efforts in Pelzer to build a better town for the future, including the new 125-home development on Courtney Street, and the historic restoration of the community center and the historic hospital.
In his final six months as mayor, Ragland has goals he hopes the town can work toward moving forward.
“I hope that the council will approve in our new budget to continue to be committed to the historic restoration and tax credits of those two buildings,” Ragland said. “We have not yet made our new budget for the new fiscal year, which starts on July 1 because we haven't had a clerk in two months…we're figuring it out. I got an accountant working on it.”
He said long term the town should consider an administrator to handle the day-to-day operations, something that happens in the other towns in Anderson County.
" We need a town administrator,” said Ragland “I mentioned that to the council, but they didn't seem to be interested in that because of the cost. But if you want somebody to really actually be over day-to-day stuff and to pursue grants and do all the stuff that everyone thinks some superhuman part-time mayor can do, we might consider a part-time clerk and a full-time town administrator.”
Ragland also said not being mayor next year will in no way diminish his commitment to make Pelzer a better place.
“I love helping people and I love improving my community,” Ragland said. “I've been a cheerleader for Pelzer since day one. Since I moved here, I market Pelzer all the time in positive ways. I've single-handedly changed the reputation of this town through Mill Town Players. I will claim that. Okay. You go anywhere in the Upstate, you say Pelzer, they say, 'Oh yeah, I've seen shows there. Great town.'
“I'm not moving anywhere, and I'm staying here for a long, long time. And I am a Pelzerite just as much as anybody else. Whether you were born in that hospital that's falling down, or whether you lived here less than a year, I'm just as Pelzer as you are, baby. So, get used to it. I ain't going anywhere.”
