LEXINGTON, S.C. — The town of Lexington is beginning its new year with new leadership, including a new mayor and three recently elected council members.
This week, the group is starting to categorize and prioritize pressing topics residents care about. They tell News 19 they're hoping to narrow down a priority list for 2024.
"I'd like to commend the mayor for bringing us all together and asking us, instead of just dictating what we're going to get done, actually bringing all of us together and saying what do you care about," Lexington Councilmember Gavin Smith said.
Re-elected council member Todd Lyle said that the group often continues with its vision plan in January.
But the council said this is the first time since 2018 that they've started a new year with a separate priority list like this.
Mayor Hazel Livingston said that, right now, the priorities include communications, infrastructure, quality of life, government policies and human capital. She said that by Friday, she'll have a revised final priority list from each council member. Then, they'll come to a consensus.
But some of these priorities are already in the works.
"We went ahead and implemented this past monday where we're going to start videoing all out meetings, all of our committee meetings, and that was one of them that was on the list, so it's already been removed," Livingston said.
Livingston explains watching a live stream will be available at their next meeting.
She adds that they're also working with law enforcement to implement four rideshare pickup markers near the Icehouse Amphitheater for events downtown.
Councilman Lyle said he wants to see more outreach when dealing with traffic within the infrastructure priority.
"Coming very soon will be a decision made on what steps the town wants to take towards trying to rectify the traffic problems at 378 and Corley Mill Road at I-20, at that corridor. Right now, over 25% of the traffic of the entire county goes up that road," Lyle said.
And in that same priority, councilman Will Allen wants paced growth.
"In any municipality, a town or a city is always going to be a lot more stringent when it comes to development than the county is and I see no reason why that should be different for Lexington," Allen said.
The next step will be attaching cost and time involvement to these priorities.
The mayor said the council will bring their revised list to a work session and tackle a few of these top priority items next month.