10/04/2026
🚨 WESTMINSTER — PUBLISH THE PROJECT LEDGERS
We did not file another expensive FOIA request.
Instead, we went through the City's own budgets, meeting records, check registers and financial reports — including the newly posted records through August 2026.
And the deeper we go, the clearer the question becomes:
WHY ARE CITIZENS HAVING TO RECONSTRUCT MILLION-DOLLAR PROJECTS ONE CHECK AT A TIME?
The City already has the accounting.
Publish it.
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W.P. ANDERSON PARK
The City's original numbers were clear:
$250,000 — CDBG grant
$46,300 — City match
$296,300 — total project budget
Council awarded Foothills Contracting the project for:
$267,396
But the City's published check registers show these Foothills payments:
$26,730.00
$51,300.00
$172,531.49
$37,790.16
TOTAL PAID TO FOOTHILLS: $288,351.65
That is:
$20,955.65 MORE THAN THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT AWARD
That does not automatically mean anything improper occurred.
The City documented a change order replacing asphalt parking with concrete, and later reported that the change order had been approved by the Appalachian Council of Governments and the S.C. Department of Commerce.
But here is what makes this especially important:
In September 2025, the City held the CDBG grant closeout hearing and specifically said the process was necessary to close Anderson Park and complete the South Carolina Department of Commerce final report.
So a final grant reconciliation should exist.
PUBLISH IT.
Publish:
• the final change order amount
• the final Foothills contract amount
• the CDBG closeout report
• the actual City match
• every other project expenditure
• and the final total cost
The City's own accounting system identifies:
05660 — ANDERSON PARK CDBG
Export the ledger and put it online.
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DOWNTOWN STREETSCAPE
Council awarded Foothills Contracting:
$2,158,005
for Phase I Streetscape and Phase II Plaza work.
The City said the project would be paid for through a combination of:
CDBG funds
ARC grant funds
Oconee County C-Funds
local money
City minutes also described local bond money as part of the funding plan.
Now look at the checks.
Through August 2026, the Foothills Streetscape pay applications we located total:
$1,051,611.93
That comes from:
Pay App #1 — $38,844.00
Pay Apps #2 & #3 — $168,457.00
Pay App #4 — $292,162.50
Pay App #5 — $121,190.40
Pay App #6 — $430,958.03
The project was still underway, so $1.051 million is not being presented as the final Streetscape cost. It is simply the contractor-payment trail visible in the published registers through August.
And here's the important part:
The City's accounting system already identifies separate Streetscape accounts:
05665 — CDBG STREETSCAPE
05667 — ARC STREETSCAPE / GREY STREET
05685 — STREETSCAPE UTILITIES
The FY2027 report budgets $750,000 in the CDBG Streetscape account, $1 million in the ARC account and $300,000 in Streetscape Utilities. The utility account already showed $46,841.17 year-to-date expenditure by the August report.
Those fiscal-year budget figures should not automatically be mistaken for the lifetime totals of each grant.
That's exactly why the City needs to publish the funding reconciliation.
How much CDBG money has been awarded in total?
How much ARC money?
How much Oconee County C-Fund money?
How much local bond money?
Which bond?
How much other local money?
And what is the final projected total?
There is another accounting issue worth explaining.
The August financial report shows $552,148.43 under account 05665 CDBG STREETSCAPE, but that entry appears inside a report section headed “ANDERSON PARK.”
That may simply be the City's accounting/reporting structure.
We are not claiming the money was improperly spent.
But taxpayers should not have to guess why a Streetscape expenditure appears beneath an Anderson Park heading.
Publish the account crosswalk and remove the confusion.
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AND THEN THERE IS HORTON
In January 2025, the City's own project table showed:
$8,433,935 — Total Funds
against:
$8,439,075 — Construction + Planning
The City's table itself showed a:
($5,140) difference
That $8.439 million figure included the original Mammoth contract, planning and the first major Mammoth change order.
But additional records followed.
The City borrowed:
$900,000
using Hospitality Tax as security for Horton construction.
The City reported:
$97,300 — issuance costs
$802,700 — available for construction
$224,532 — total interest over the loan term
Then Council awarded a separate contract for the concession stand, bathrooms and picnic shelter to AMW Construction:
$545,114
And City records specifically state that water, sewer and electric installation had been removed from that contract because the City would handle those items itself.
Then Council separately approved:
$65,000 — water line
$70,000 — sewer line
$25,000 — electric transformer
TOTAL: $160,000
with the money proposed from the 2025 Combined Utility System Bond.
We've now followed the AMW checks through the newly published June 2026 register.
The identified AMW payments total:
$488,703.56
against the original $545,114 contract award.
That leaves $56,410.44 of the original award not reflected in the AMW checks we identified through August 2026.
That could involve retainage, a final payment, adjustment or another ordinary contract accounting issue.
We are not guessing.
Publish the final AMW reconciliation.
The City's check registers also separately show:
$21,856 — “PERMIT FEE HORTON FIELD”
and
$67,650 — “HORTON FIELD SEWER INSTALLATION.”
The sewer payment may be part of the separately authorized utility work, so we are not adding it again and calling it a new cost.
That's what responsible accounting requires:
Identify what overlaps — and what doesn't.
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THIS IS THE QUESTION WESTMINSTER NEEDS TO ANSWER:
What was the FINAL cost of Horton?
Not the original estimate.
Not one contract.
Not one grant.
Not one borrowing.
The final all-in project cost.
And for each dollar:
Where did the money come from?
State appropriations?
LWCF?
Horton donation?
Hospitality Tax debt?
Utility-system bond debt?
City funds?
Other sources?
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AND THIS DOES NOT REQUIRE A $700 FOIA BILL
We're not asking City employees to spend days researching these projects for us.
We've already identified the City's own accounting accounts and reconstructed much of the payment trail ourselves.
Council can simply direct Finance to publish the existing ledger exports and existing project closeout documents on the City's Financial Transparency page.
For Anderson Park:
05660 — Anderson Park CDBG
For Streetscape:
05665 — CDBG Streetscape
05667 — ARC Streetscape/Grey Street
05685 — Streetscape Utilities
For Horton:
Publish the corresponding project/job-cost accounts, contracts, change orders, pay applications, grant receipts, bond proceeds and City-paid expenses.
Give the public three simple reconciliations:
HORTON
Total funding → Total expenditures → Final cost
STREETSCAPE
Total funding → Total expenditures → Final cost
ANDERSON PARK
Total funding → Total expenditures → Final cost
This isn't an accusation of wrongdoing.
It's a request for something that should be routine when millions of dollars of public money are involved:
ACCOUNTABILITY.
Citizens should not have to pay hundreds of dollars just to find out how public money was spent.
Put the ledgers online.
Bring the records. Bring the numbers. Answer the questions.
