Lexington, SC 04/30/2024 (Paul Kirby) – Darrell Hudson is running for re-election as the county councilman who represents the people who live in District 3. District 3 is the dense area that covers the western side of the town of Lexington, out toward Lexington High School, across US Hwy 378, and up to the south shores of Lake Murray.
Hudson is married to Gay his wife, and he has a family that includes 4 grown children and 2 grandchildren. He spent most of his life selling and managing new and preowned car dealerships but is now semi-retired. He is still an owner of Hudson Brothers’ Truck Accessories although he spends much of his time performing constituent service as part of his responsibilities on County Council, and caring for family members that are aging and having health problems now. During a recent interview Hudson said, “I have had a great deal of tragedy in my life in the recent past. I have lost people who were very close to me, and this takes a toll. By the time I finish my Council work, caring for the family, spending time with my wife, and having a little time for myself to preserve my own peace of mind, it all adds up to a full-time job anyway. I’ve certainly learned I need to set time apart for myself to rest and maintain my own health. That’s very important too.”
“I originally campaigned on slowing some of the explosive growth we’ve had in the past few decades across the County,” Hudson said recently. “We’ve done that by decreasing home density on lots in suburban areas like my District. When I was first elected, you could twist and turn homes around and build 12 homes per acre. That was just ridiculous. We had quickly outgrown our infrastructure, especially the roads. People in my area had to plan their schedules around sitting in their cars for long periods daily as they fought traffic. We’ve tried to stop that from getting worse so we can begin to fix it now.”
Hudson says that one key project that he’s been working on with several other leaders is another interchange off I-20 at Calks Ferry Road. “If we can work with the right people and get that done, it will really make a difference. Right now, you have Augusta Road and Augusta Highway feeding in and out of Lexington, Sunset Boulevard and Highway 378 doing the same, and North and South Lake Drive (SC Hwy 6) doing the same thing, just on another compass heading. It all comes together in downtown Lexington and makes for a monumental mess with the traffic. Although the Town of Lexington has been working on this some, none of the current fixes will help like getting people off I-20 at some other spots.” Hudson said that during an afternoon commute, you don’t just have cars back up in a line on the I-20 exit ramps, the line is also down the emergency lane for a mile or more. “It’s not safe, it’s frustrating, and we’ve got to start talking solutions for how to fix this now. Even if we could come together tomorrow and find a solution all of us could agree on, I probably wouldn’t be around to see it completely implemented. This type of fix takes that long to complete. That’s why we really need to get started now.”
“We have made some inroads with our problems. We’ve changed the specs on roads so that the ones in residential areas are wider. We’ve made changes regarding where on the curb parking is allowed. This helps us get our responders in and out of scenes quickly with fire trucks and ambulances. Fire trucks and ambulances are much wider now than they used to be. We’ve invested heavily in our Public Safety Department, but we have to be able to get to people’s homes when we are needed. Public Safety is very expensive, and folks have no idea what it cost us. A new fire truck is about $1 million dollars now,” Hudson said. Then you have to staff it.
Hudson continued by saying, “The days of paying a firefighter, EMT, paramedic, or deputy a wage that can’t sustain a regular lifestyle is gone. That worked in the past because the County could play on an employee’s sense of duty to their neighbors to help the employer find staff. Now, they want to help their neighbors, they just want to make a living wage that allows them and their spouse to work for us and not have to work somewhere else every second they are off. We need to look at hiring more firefighters and EMTs now and raising their pay some so they’ll stay.”
Hudson says he works a great deal on constituent services. “When someone calls me for help, I try and go out and look at their problems myself. I also want to look the person in the eye. You can’t get the full feel for an issue or its solution over the telephone. Sometimes you have to honestly tell someone they are in the wrong and will have to make some changes. In those cases, I try to explain to the citizens why they can’t do what they want. At other times, they just need someone like me to cut through some red tape or tell them who they need to call. At other times, they simply are in a situation where they just can’t do what needs to be done. It might be they are in poor health. Some single parents work all the time just to make ends meet. I have cut a neighbor’s grass and trimmed his hedges just because he needed help. He didn’t ask because he’s a proud man. I just started doing it when I do my yard and told him if he didn’t want me to continue, just let me know. It’s the right thing to do and I really don’t mind.”
It's easy to recognize that Hudson looks at his job on the County Council as a public service. “I work hard to do the right thing. I don’t always get my way but people in District 3 should know I am working for them and not myself. If they have a problem or want to offer their opinion, all they need to do is call me. I won’t promise I’ll always agree, but I can promise I’ll always listen,” Hudson concluded.
To contact Darrell Hudson, call him at (803) 413-0674 or (803) 240-6077. You can also email him at dhudson@lex-co.com. He tries hard to return calls on the day he receives them.
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