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The Southampton County government recently paid to bush hog property on Camp Parkway that was purchased in June 2023 by Southampton Lance LLC, but the county is expecting the company to provide reimbursement.

Palmetto Coastal Landscaping provides the following helpful definition for bush hogging — a landscaping practice that involves the use of a special rotary-cutting deck attachment to eliminate brush.

Lynette C. Lowe, deputy Southampton County administrator and the county’s chief financial officer, indicated that the county definitely expects the $42,700 spent on bush hogging the Camp Parkway land to be repaid to the county.

Three parcels totaling 435 acres located along Camp Parkway and on either side of Delaware Road were sold for $11.4 million on June 27, 2023, by VOS LLC to Southampton Lance LLC, a Delaware company that was formed June 26, 2023.

Franklin Southampton Economic Development Inc. President and CEO Karl T. Heck previously explained that Southampton Lance is essentially a land company set up by Lecangs, which is a logistics company and also a subsidiary of Loctek Ergonomic Tech, a company that is listed on the Shanghai stock exchange and that is listed online as being headquartered in China.

The purchased land is undeveloped as of fall 2024, and vegetation on the property had grown considerably. 

Lowe noted that the county’s Department of Community Development handles any high grass complaints.

“So if people have grass that gets over 12 inches within the county, Community Development will look at the property if they receive a complaint,” she said. “So all of that is handled on a complaint basis. We don’t have personnel that just rides around in the county and looks and says, ‘Ugh, that looks bad. Let’s see what we can do with it.’”

Following a complaint, Community Development staff go out and look at the property and decide whether it meets the standard set in the county code that allows for the county to take action, Lowe said.

If it does meet that standard, she said, “Then they send the property owner a notice saying, ‘Hey, your property is out of compliance. You need to do whatever to put it in compliance.’ They usually give them a time frame.”

She noted that if the property owner does not put the land into compliance within that time period, then the Community Development Department would say it is going to assign a vendor or a contractor to go out and cut the grass.

“Because we don’t have anybody on staff to go out and cut that grass at people’s property,” Lowe said. “We don’t have enough people.”

Burt Nuckols was the interim director of Community Development back in July, and Lowe noted that he signed off on a complaint about the overgrowth on the Camp Parkway land and assigned Pinky’s Tree Service to bush hog that area, which it did.

Lowe said that she learned after the service was paid for that the invoice indicated two pieces of equipment that were damaged during the course of the mowing.

She said she did not know if it was due to rocks or the terrain of the property, but the person that was mowing requested reimbursement for those repairs.

Lowe continued describing the county’s process in an overall situation like this one after the service paid for by the county has been provided.

“First what happens is we send the company a notice and say, ‘It cost this much to get your property in compliance. We need you to pay within X number of days,’” she said. “And then after that, if they do not pay, then we start the process to put a lien on the property so that whenever the property is sold or whatever, we can recoup that money.”

She made clear that the county is expecting Southampton Lance will pay the $42,700.

“That is definitely our expectation,” she said. “And we have sent a letter out to Southampton Lance asking them for that money. So we are following the process and the procedure for getting it.”

Some members of the Southampton County Board of Supervisors had expressed surprise that the board was not consulted so that it could authorize the $42,700 expenditure, but Lowe indicated that this would not have followed the county’s financial policy guidelines.

“Board members are to set policy and set the direction for an organization, but they are not part of the day-to-day operation,” she said.