A small town in Lexington County is struggling to realize ambitious goals with a population that isn’t growing.
For a couple years now, Gilbert, a town of nearly 600 about 30 minutes from downtown Columbia, has pursued starting a police department, bringing in a consultant to set up that prospective law enforcement agency and purchasing a police car in 2022.
But figuring out how to get the department going with the town’s limited funding has proven difficult. This spring, Gilbert Mayor John Reeder said, the Town Council decided to pull back on its plans for the time being.
“Somebody from the [South Carolina Criminal Justice] Academy told one of the councilmen that we would bankrupt the town, and so that scared a lot of people,” Reeder said.
Adding the expenses of a police department, even one staffed by part-time officers as Gilbert planned, would put a strain on the local government. The 2024-25 budget passed in June is based on the town bringing in annual income of $271,775.
Gilbert has already taken a hit on the effort to establish a police force. The town struggled to sell the used police car it purchased for $15,500 and left sitting for a couple years. After posting it for sale both online and outside a town building, Gilbert recently sold it at auction for $6,750.
But Reeder said he’s still pushing to add the department, adding that a petition is circulating through local businesses seeking for the town to add its own police to supplement the services they receive from the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.
The town’s consultant, Chris Garner, retired as the police chief in nearby Pelion in 2017, having helped the town reestablish its department in 2004. Reeder said he was well on his way to getting the Gilbert department set up.
“He was going to charge less than $20,000 a year just to come in one day a week to get these policies and all in, the stuff that we would need,” the mayor said. “We got a judge that was going to do it for nothing. We got us some retired police officer that’s going to help us part-time. So it wasn’t going to cost as much as some people would think.”
Adding a police department, Reeder said, is a move aimed at helping the town keep up with growth outside its borders, with new development popping up all around the county.
But this doesn’t add to Gilbert’s coffers. The town’s population has remained largely stagnant, going from 565 in 2010 to 571 in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning its trying to accomplish its forward-looking goals without any appreciable growth to its tax base.
“It makes it hard to do some of these things,” Reeder said.
What’s next for town-owned building?
Another effort this funding conundrum has made difficult is Gilbert’s ongoing project to renovate an old bank building across the street from Town Hall, which the municipality has owned since 2018. Lexington County lists the building as having been built in 1960, but Reeder said he thinks it’s older, dating back to the 1920s or ‘30s.
Work there began in July 2023, with initial hopes to have it done by the new year. But the building looks outwardly the same now, with one of its two front glass doors busted out.
Reeder said they’ve hit some snags, including the need to spray insulation after the county came in to do an inspection, slowing things down. And the way the town is scraping through the project, identifying good contractors willing to cut them a deal, has slowed things down as well, the mayor added.
The need to install that insulation will add about $4,000 to the $75,000 the town stands to pay for the project. Reeder noted this is much lower than some of the estimates they received, which reached as high as $150,000.
Reeder said he’s hopeful the renovation will be done before the end of the year.
The town also owns the building behind and adjoining the bank building, formerly occupied by the Rainbow Dairy Bar in the 1970s. Reeder said they also hope to do renovations there, but the building is in worse shape.
“We’re gonna try to keep the front facade and then build two new walls and put a roof over it,” the mayor said.
How the town would use the building remains up in the air. One use floated in the past was to move the Town Hall there to make way for the police department. Reeder added that renting out the bank building is also a possibility.
“I think we’re going to save a lot of money, and plus, we’re saving the building,” he said.
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