the Oasis

July was an unusual, and yet oddly familiar month York County

By Scott Morgan, Managing Editor
Aug. 1, 2026

To call July in York County a rather extraordinary month would be both an understatement and an oversimplification.

In a span of three weeks, the York County Council – whose decisions frequently play out like the dropping a birthday cake onto the floor – almost blew a billion-dollar deal to bring Octapharma Plasma to Rock Hill by presenting itself as a Robin Hood for the Rock Hill School District. 

Short version: The council rewrote a tax incentive allotment that took intended money away from Rock Hill and gave it all to the school district. The terms of the original deal gave Rock Hill a share of tax incentive monies from Octapharma. 

A convenient and, I’m certain, an absolutely not at all coincidental even a little couple of weeks after the primary election that solidified who would continue to serve on the County Council, four council members voted to take Rock Hill’s share of the monies and give it entirely to the school district.

Yes, by the way, South Carolina laws allow counties to do stuff like that.

The council’s reasoning? A decade or so ago, the city built a business park that generated money for the city, but not as much for the schools. So county officials wanted to even the score.

This score, FWIW, was never one to even. The school district had signed off on that deal in the 2010s.

But through cunning use of the ol’ Think of the Children! ploy, the County Council positioned itself as White Knight, rescuing the  children from the evil rich city.

The city, FWIW, was fully ready to walk away from Octapharma because – backstory surprise! – the County Council had pulled this stunt less than a year before. In 2025, the council shifted tax incentives from the city to the schools in the quarter-million-dollar Costco development in Rock Hill, and had gotten away with it. 

So the city told the county: Do it again and we walk, we don’t care who it is.

The County Council tested the city by throwing children at it and tried to guilt officials into accepting the terms of a deal that would have made the city the county’s sock puppet.

If all of that was too stupid for you to follow, congratulations, because it is.

The upside is, the county blinked and reinstated tax monies to the city and Octapharma is coming to Rock Hill and the future of this city as a biotech hub is now full of high-octane gas.

The downside, of course, is that the children got caught in a cat fight that no one who lives in York County or Rock Hill or South Carolina, for that matter, would benefit from. The County Council had put city officials in a position to accept a bad deal or walk away, and nobody – including the children – would get anything. 

Instead of being the hero, the County Council almost blew it for the kids; the council (or, at least, members Bump Roddey, Christi Cox, Debi Cloninger, and Tommy Adkins) almost cost everyone everything.

And if you think that’s all there is to York County putting children in the middle of a fight, you haven’t heard of Silfab Solar.

Which is ridiculous, because of course you’ve heard of Silfab Solar. It’s the manufacturing facility in Fort Mill that operates next to an elementary school.

How could anyone let an industrial manufacturing site go up next to an elementary school, you ask? The actual question is: How can anyone allow an elementary school go up next to an industrial facility?

Silfab was there first, in other words.

But that could be moot, now that Circuit Court Judge William McKinnon has ruled that Silfab is operating under an improper zoning classification.

What that means for Silfab is, the County Council now has to decide whether to rezone, give a variance, or make some kind of move to shut Silfab down on a technicality.

Fun fact: That last move was a favorite of every Republican gubernatorial candidate (except Ralph Norman) while they were seeking a nomination. Oddly, no one has much mentioned Silfab since.

The County Council met for an epic four-and-a-half-hour executive session this past week to decide … nothing yet. Councilmembers are trying to figure out what they can do. Or should, about Silfab.

In the balance are 700 jobs that could go away, depending on what the council decides.

Also, whatever the council decides, there will be a lawsuit.

Also, the York County School District is getting none of the blame for the mess the county is now in with Silfab, but it could have worked with both the company and the county four years ago to figure how to, ya know, not put an industrial plant and a school next to each other.

The main point is, the snag that will now cause a huge lawsuit and possibly cost several hundred jobs could have and should have been spotted several steps ago in the planning process.

The larger story, then, is the consequences of terrible planning, which, if done as wrong as keeps happening in York County, ends up stunting economic development, puts established jobs at risk, and, most gallingly, keeps using children as a human shield in an entirely avoidable public war that moves at the speed of stupid.

Whatever the County Council ends up deciding is unknown, but I do know that whatever the decision is, a really delicious birthday cake will end up all over the floor.

Note: This column has been edited down since publishing. The original published version was juvenile and beneath our standards.

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