The latest chapter in the Doug McKown saga unfolded this week.

Even before his trial, folks close to this situation thought York County's coroner would seek back pay if he was found not guilty of felony drug charges.

So it’s not too surprising that McKown is finally asking to be paid for the nearly two years he was suspended from office.

McKown’s claim is that he was suspended for charges he was acquitted of. Therefore, he said Wednesday, he should be paid for the time he missed.

Chester County Sheriff Robby Benson’s plans to build a firing range behind Chester State Park were shot down Tuesday night by Chester County zoning officials.

The county’s Zoning Board of Appeals voted to deny Benson’s request to build a shooting range and obstacle course at a 10-acre site on Ashford Road about two miles from the J.A. Cochran Bypass.

Board members didn't give a reason for their decision during the meeting, but several local residents voiced fears about the possibility of stray bullets striking park visitors or neighbors.

Leave Chester's parking policy alone.

That's what 28 of the 36 downtown merchants surveyed this week said about a city ordinance that limits storefront parking along Gadsden, Main and Wylie streets to two hours.

Cars parked longer than that can receive a $20 ticket.

The issue was raised more than a month ago by City Councilman George Caldwell, who said he'd received some complaints about the parking rule.

The ordinance was established in the early 1980s.

I'd like to know what people think about the debate over the Chester County jail.

This place is in terrible shape and has been for awhile.

Understaffed and undersized, the jail also has numerous structural problems, not to mention it lacks a sprinkler system that's required by state Fire Marshal's Office.

Sheriff Robby Benson wants a new jail. County Supervisor Carlisle Roddey wants to fix the one the county has.

Chester County has been busy this week.

Taxes might go up, the jail might finally get fixed and a school resource officer in Great Falls might lose his job — or the Town Council seat he just won.

It's been a long week.

Another story that will appear in the paper later looks at County Councilman Alex Oliphant's plan to dump the county's blighted homes and mill sites into the county's landfill.

Oliphant, who calls himself "the cleanup guy," is pushing this idea that would quickly fill up the landfill and require an expansion.

Another zoning controversy is brewing in Chester County.

This one involves City Councilman Alan Clack and his plans to move his family’s trucking business, D & C Trucking, to a 10-acre site on Great Falls Highway.

The county’s planning commission unanimously shot down a rezoning request for the property in January. But two weeks ago, the Chester County Council overturned that decision, meaning the trucking business could get the rezoning it needs after all.

The race for Chester County sheriff should be an interesting rematch of the 2004 election.

Fort Lawn Police Chief Richard Smith is expected to announce his candidacy for the county’s top law enforcement post within days. Smith challenged incumbent Robby Benson for the seat in 2004.

Former Sheriff John Wayne Holcombe and retired Chester Police Chief Aaron Madden also ran for the post that year.

"Name and Social Security number?" the lady asked as she handed me a sheet of paper and a pen.

"Uh, uh, no," I stammered, an awkward attempt to explain that I was at the Chester Workforce Development Center for a newspaper interview, not because I didn't have a job.

As the woman found the person I was scheduled to talk to, I looked around the room. The faces, the black, the white, the men, the women, even the child on one lady's lap, told me that this is not where people come with the hope of finding a new career. They are here for survival.

This will be Carlisle McCrorey's last Christmas season as Santa Claus.

The jolly Chester man has been riding at the end of Christmas parades for nearly 30 years. He told me this week that he's done after this holiday season.

Carlisle has played Santa in the Richburg and Lowrys parades since they started. He's been in Chester's parade for the last 21 years.

But the events are now too physically demanding, he said. At 86-years-old, he has a point.

You might wonder how he's been holding on this long. But there's something about the McCroreys of Richburg.

Chester city administrator David Mobley resigned today, saying in a letter to the City Council that "economics" have forced him to make the decision to leave the job.

He said that his home in Loris has been for sale for more than a year with no buyers and he has found no suitable housing for rent or for purchase in the city of Chester.

He said his commute to Loris is costing him over $100 a week.

The council voted today to accept his resignation.

Mobley has held the job for nearly a year.

Chester County's tiny town of Fort Lawn finally has a plan to get sewer service.

For months, town leaders have worried about what they would do when Springs Global quit treating their sewage, which they knew was coming even before Springs closed the last of its two manufacturing plants in South Carolina around Labor Day.

Running new lines to Chester's treatment facility would have cost more than $3 million. So last night leaders unanimously supported a plan that would send the town's sewage to Lancaster.

Here are some notes from Chester County this week:

1. Residents, council members and planning commission on same page

After months of confusion over what seemed like a pretty simple change to the county's zoning code, everyone seems to be on the same page.

The County Council gave its first thumbs up Monday night to a recommendation by the planning commission that the county send letters to landowners when an adjacent property is considered for an industry-related rezoning.

Wow. Just a few weeks after the Great Falls Town Council canned its longtime clerk, leaders unanimously voted to hire her back today.

This situation has been bizarre from the beginning, when clerk Julie Blackwell accused four council members of holding an illegal meeting.

As The Herald first reported, Blackwell spoke to authorities about the incident, which is documented in a police report.

The day after the confrontation, those same council members voted to fire Blackwell.

The Great Falls Town Council will hold a special meeting Friday morning to reconsider its decision to fire clerk Julie Blackwell, Mayor H.C. "Speedy" Starnes has confirmed.

No reason has been given as to why Blackwell was fired Sept. 25, a day after she accused four council members of holding an illegal meeting.

Blackwell was employed by the town for 13 years and managed the town’s records, including finances, since 2001. The council’s vote to terminate her was 4-3.

The four council members who voted to fire her are the ones she accused of holding an illegal meeting.

During last night’s three-hour Chester City Council meeting, leaders voted down a motion to move Halloween from the last day of the month, a Wednesday, to the day before.

Apparently some local churchgoers have expressed concerns that observing Halloween on a Wednesday will conflict with their evening church services.

Because of similar fears in the past, the city has an ordinance that says if Halloween falls on a Sunday, the city observes it on the previous Saturday.

Seven people will split a $400 pot for their roles in developing Chester County's welcome signs.

The winners were announced at tonight's Chester County Council meeting.

The design of the new sign features a light blue background with the outline of Chester County in dark blue. "Welcome to Chester County" is in the design, of course, as well as "Preserving the past... Planning for the future!"

Instead of picking one sign as initially planned, a committee of three county employees and council members Mary Guy and Alex Oliphant decided the sign would incorporate different suggestions.

Strange story out of Great Falls this week.

The Town Council fired clerk Julie Blackwell Tuesday, a day after she accused four council members of holding an illegal meeting.

The decision to fire Blackwell was 4-3. The council members who voted to fire her are the same ones she named in a police report about the confrontation over a meeting.

Blackwell claims that council members Earl Taylor, Jack Taylor, Maxine Wood and Toby Gladden came to town hall Monday afternoon. They walked into a front room and asked her to join them, she said.

If everything goes smoothly for the two proposed ethanol plants in Chester County, both projects could break ground next year.

The proposed facilities — a corn ethanol plant that could produce 100 million gallons per year and a wood ethanol plant that could churn out 50 million gallons annually — are going over county government hurdles now.

The County Council must vote once more on a property rezoning for the corn plant and three times for the wood facility. The wood plant also must pass the county's zoning board of appeals, which OK’d the corn project last week.

I'm working on a story today that takes me back nine years.

It's about a football team of home-schooled students who found a home field in Chester.

The team, called the Carolina Crusaders, plays "8-man football" and consists of a hodgepodge of kids who live in the Charlotte area. They were basically nomads until finding the old fairgrounds stadium in Chester.

The reason this hits home for me is because I played on a basketball team of home-schooled kids when I was 15.

I desperately wanted to play high school sports, but my parents wouldn't send me to high school.

Since The Herald first reported that a Canadian rail car manufacturer passed on Chester County, the question everyone has been asking is why.

National Steel Car announced nearly two weeks ago that it would build a $350-million plant in Alabama that would bring 1,800 jobs to that state.

But the company had looked at Chester.

County officials say they don’t know why the company didn’t choose Chester, but negotiations with the company suddenly died last winter after protests by residents opposed to CSX building a truck and rail terminal in their farming community.

Chester County police officers will be getting 40 new bulletproof vests, mostly because of the efforts of a local couple and the generosity of residents.

Tonight, downtown Chester was the sight of a "Vest-i-val," a free bluegrass concert where folks could buy a hot dog, chips and soft drink, sit in the grass and listen to music. The proceeds will pay for bulletproof vests for local law enforcement.

Chester County will borrow up to $3 million to pay for an office building, police cars, computers and other items.

The County Council unanimously voted to borrow the money at tonight's council meeting. The vote was the third and final one on the issue.

As for the cost to taxpayers, they'll pay about $8 more on a $50,000 home, according to finance director Becky Moon.

Nearly a dozen people spoke about the bond during a public hearing and all but two were opposed to the council voting on the matter tonight.

Two things caught my ear at a special Chester County School Board meeting Monday night: consolidating the county's three high schools and allowing residents to send their children to any school within the district.

Both of these items are simply ideas. They might work out brilliantly or they could never happen. But with housing developments and potentially explosive growth looming, leaders say they must plan and that means thinking about consolidation and school choice.

The logging truck that crashed into a minivan in March and killed two children had defective brakes, the S.C. Highway Patrol said in court today.

I went to the probable cause hearing for the driver, Chester's George Rogers, who is charged with two counts of reckless homicide.

Another Chester County person has earned recognition in a field not often glorified.

Chief Deputy Coroner Tommy Williams was honored at tonight's County Council meeting. Last week, Williams was named the top deputy coroner in the state at a coroner's convention.

The award is the first of its kind given in the state.

Two Edgemoor men will be recognized at tonight's Chester County Council meeting because their business, Ideal Logging, brought home the 2007 National Outstanding Logger award.

Tommy Barnes and David Cox, the two local timber tumblers, were honored in March by the chain saw maker STIHL and the Forest Resources Association for excellence in the logging field.

I'm always interested in the various ways people make a living. Any time area people are honored for labor that typically doesn't make headlines, to me, that’s a story.

More environmental tests at Chester’s S.L. Finley Center are scheduled for Friday.

The City Council closed the roughly 50-year-old building Monday night amid concerns about mold and asbestos.

The council decided the building that anchors the East Chester community would remain closed until more environmental tests are completed.

That work should start Friday, but unless leaders are convinced the building won’t pose health risks, its doors will remain locked.

This issue has caused tension.

Eight Chester County law enforcement officers reeled from the blasts of a Taser Thursday.

The 50,000-volt jolts were part of the certification process that officers have to go through to use the tiny lightning rod known as the X26 Taser.

"If you want to use it, you've got to take it," is the rule.

Six of the officers that went in front of the stun gun work at the Chester County Detention Center.

They were there because the jail just got its first two Tasers a few weeks ago. About 15 employees are expected to be trained to use the weapons.

"Interesting second day," Chester's new recreation director, Jack Sink, told me Tuesday morning. "No doubt about it."

I spoke with Sink as he transferred his office from the S.L. Finley Center on Caldwell Street to the youth center on West End Street.

Computers, telephones and a water cooler were shifted across town.

The City Council closed the roughly 50-year-old building Monday night because of concerns about asbestos and mold discovered during a recent inspection.

The building will likely remain locked until leaders feel the facility doesn’t pose any health risks.

I got the Richburg election results tonight.

For the 21st consecutive race, John Boyd McCrorey was elected mayor of Richburg.

McCrorey, 90, is believed to be the longest-serving mayor in the state.

He told me tonight that he hopes to serve for another two years.

I have never considered that I might live to be 90, let alone run for public office then.

McCrorey ran unopposed this year. I guess after holding the same post since 1967, who's going to challenge him?