In this Issue of Hey Cherokee County…

✅  Note From the Publisher

✅  Bryant on the AI Facility, the Pushback, and What This County Actually Needs

✅ Heritage Park Gets Its First Youth Football Season

Cherokee County Events

July 17th

August 1st

September 16th-19th

September 26th

October 31st

November 21st

The response to this series has been something else, and I mean that in the best way. Thank you.

If you're just joining us, Parts 1 and 2 of our series with former Cherokee County Commissioner Alan Bryant are already live. I'll drop those links below so you can catch up before reading today's installment. Part 4 publishes tomorrow.

For those who have been here from the start — thank you for the feedback. I read and respond to every reply that comes through, and I genuinely appreciate you taking the time. Keep it coming.

Read Part 1

Read Part 2

God bless, and enjoy your Saturday.
— Penny Ray, Publisher

Publisher’s Note: This is Part 3 of a multi-part series based on an exclusive interview with former Cherokee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Alan Bryant.

When the AI data center became known to Cherokee County, it didn't exactly get a warm welcome from everyone. Residents showed up to meetings. Social media lit up. People had opinions — strong ones — about what it would mean for their community.

Alan Bryant heard all of it. And he had some things to say back.

Cherokee County has a money problem. That's not an editorial opinion; it's the operating reality Bryant described throughout his time on the board. County employees had gone without raises for years. Services were stretched thin. The more retirees and tourists that came through, the more demand there was on ambulances, the sheriff's office, and emergency services all running on a tax base that couldn't keep pace.

"They hadn't had raises in several years," Bryant said of county employees. "I would have went home a long time ago. I mean, I'm just being honest, if it been me, I'd have found me a job somewhere else. If I'm not worth a raise every now and then and I'm doing the best I can do, then I'm going somewhere that appreciates me. And that's just facts."

Against that backdrop, the AI data facility didn't arrive as a windfall. It arrived as a controversy and then became a windfall.

Bryant was straightforward about his personal feelings on the facility.

"Did I want it? No, not necessarily. If you said, 'Alan, do you want AI?' No,” Bryant said. "But then you've got to look at the offset; they're going to tax the far out of them. And this county will have money to actually help your children, help schools, help do something."

The projected tax revenue of $6 million to $14 million each year is well above what anyone expected — a figure Bryant described as nearly half of what the county collects from all other property in Cherokee County combined. For a small rural county that, in his words, "had nothing," that number was almost hard to believe.

The pushback from residents didn't let up. And Bryant had little patience for the argument that the board was selling out to outside money.

"People will say, 'Well, you cater to the rich.' I never cater to nobody,” Bryant said. “Let me tell you something, them rich people that do move in here, they're the reason I've got a new roof to put on tomorrow. They're the reason that these plumbers have got a new house to plumb. They're the reason electricians have got to go to work tomorrow. They're putting bread on the table for a lot of our people in the county that actually get up, put their boots on, and go to work."

He also addressed the harder truth about trying to block large-scale development when billion-dollar companies are involved.

"When you're working with multi-billion dollar companies, you done lost. You already lost,” Bryant said. “They're coming whether you like it or not. They'll have you tied up in court. They can sue the county and then if you want to bellyache about a lawsuit, just keep fooling with people like that. You're not gonna outrun money. You'll never outrun money."

That doesn't mean anything goes, he added. Environmental concerns are real, and the county was actively working on them.

"I get pollution and different things; you do not want chemicals and stuff like that in your county,” Bryant said. “And that's why some of this stuff has to come with planning."

The frustration Bryant expressed most wasn't really about the AI data plant at all. It was about a public that, in his view, fights every dollar going out without understanding what it actually costs to run a county.

He kept coming back to one example: the Humane Society.

"I had somebody come up there and say, 'I don't want my tax money to pay for this, I don't want my tax money to pay for that. I'm not paying $250,000 for the Humane Society,'” Bryant said. “I heard this for two years till I'm sick of hearing it."

He did the math live.

"$250,000 divided by 30,000 people — that is eight dollars and thirty-three cents roughly,” Bryant said. “Some people might pay $20, but probably no more than that, a year to help the Humane Society. Simple math. You didn't pay $250,000 out of your pocket. You paid eight dollars and thirty-three cents to be exact."

The pattern, he says, repeats itself on every budget item: the sheriff's office raises, ambulance staffing, road maintenance, employee retention. People react to the headline number without doing the math behind it.

The county, in his view, can either keep reacting that way and stay strapped or it can adapt.

Heritage Park has a new addition this summer — youth football.

For the first time, the park will host practices for the Andrews Youth Football program. The season runs from June 30 through October 3 and is open to kids ages 5 through 12, divided into two age groups so younger and older athletes are competing and learning with kids closer to their own age.

During summer, practices run Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Once school starts back up, the schedule trims down to Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Games will be held at the schools, not the park.

Heritage Park already draws families year-round with the rodeo, youth soccer, disc golf, walking areas, and river access. Football is the latest addition.

Andrews Youth Football is still accepting players through August 1. Click here to contact team reps.

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