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Parents, activists, school board members and community members got together at St. Luke's AME Church in Hollywood to discuss ways to rally behind Charleston County School District Superintendent Eric Gallien. (WCIV)

HOLLYWOOD, S.C. (WCIV) — Parents, activists, school board members and community members got together at St. Luke's AME Church in Hollywood the evening of Oct. 17 to discuss ways to rally behind Charleston County School District (CCSD) Superintendent Eric Gallien.

Monday's meeting was the latest in a series of community meetings that have been happening across Charleston County since Gallien was put on paid administrative leave by the Board of Trustees in late September.

Ahead of the community meeting, it was revealed the board will meet the following afternoon to review a possible settlement and release of Gallien.

"It makes me really sad and very concerned about how we are going to proceed forward with good, solid leadership in Charleston County schools," said board member Carol Tempel, one of the four supporting Dr. Gallien.

The news was upsetting to board members like Tempel and community members in the Hollywood area who say they’re still learning about the situation.

"If he can do what we need done in the school district, allow him to do it," community member Lisa Jenkins said. "Not continue to stall the progress that we are making for our students."

Monday's meeting was organized by Movement 400, the group of activists working to get Dr. Gallien back in his office. Group leaders reiterated they believe the board is acting out of line.

"The board thinks it's the superintendent and they cannot be both," Rev. Nelson B. Rivers III said. "You cannot be the board and the superintendent. They want to do both and we’re not going to let them do it."

Movement 400 says even if Gallien is released on Tuesday, the group's work would continue.

"The reason we got started was not just for Dr. Gallien," Rivers said. "We got started because of the injustice of the board against black children, poor children, brown children, and just people."

Tempel says she never thought this controversy would get to the point of releasing the superintendent.

"I really felt that the cause for leave was really unjustified," she said. "I believed it was subject to investigation, of course, but not to put him on paid administrative leave."

Tempel and fellow board members Darlene Roberson and Courtney Waters read a letter to the crowd written by Gallien.

In the letter, the superintendent wrote that after conversations with his family and medical advisors, he is requesting to "immediately withdraw (the) proposal for a separation with CCSD as the superintendent."

"I've come to realize that the sacred trust our community has placed in me is something I cannot turn my back on," Gallien wrote.

Movement 400 says they plan to be at Tuesday night's special board meeting to continue to show support for Gallien and the districts students.

The meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. at 75 Calhoun Street.

HOLLYWOOD, S.C. (WCSC) - A community resource center is now open in Hollywood and will serve people there with a variety of giveaways and programs right in the rural Charleston County town.

“This is the first time so people are excited. It’s a big deal,” Hollywood Mayor Chardale Murray says.

The Community Resource Center will provide food giveaways on the second Thursday of every month, baby care supplies, hygiene products, workforce certification and training and Molina Healthcare guidance.

Murray, the former state rep elected mayor earlier this year says this center is part of her vision for making life in Hollywood easier within town limits.

“You know, living in the city, you have meals on wheels, but that’s something to look into in the future for here. No, we don’t have things like that,” Murray says.

The 2020 census showed that about 5,300 people live in the town of Hollywood. Of that, 6.5 percent – or more than 350 are living below the poverty line.

Community Resource Director Louis Smith says many of them were traveling more than 20 miles to the North Charleston center to wait in an hours-long line to get food, baby supplies and hygiene necessities. At the opening of the Hollywood location, cars lined up for miles to get bags of food.

“You know when you put a lot of work into something and actually see it in front of you and it’s actually happening, this is incredible,” Smith says. “We’re in Hollywood, South Carolina, we have got traffic jams, and look at all the people. I am happy. A lot of people are going to have an amazing Christmas and we get to put a lot of smiles on a lot of chosen faces.”

Bundles of Joy also gave away diapers at the opening and will be doing so at future events in Hollywood. State Representative Wendell Gilliard and Hollywood Councilman Handy Miles Jr. attended the opening and helped hand out the food, saying it was a great day in Hollywood.

Darlene Dunmeyer-Roberson, Charleston County School board member for the district says this type of service will have far-reaching effects.

“For me healthy homes, healthy communities mean healthy classrooms. So, I am excited that our mayor had this vision to bring the resources here to Hollywood and I look forward to the students in District 23 excelling in the classroom because we are now a vibrant community that’s not left behind,” Dunmeyer-Roberson says.

Murray says that’s another driving force behind her efforts to bring services inside the town limits.

“Just being from a rural area and I’m homegrown, I know how important is when it comes to transportation,” Murray says. “People are limited in you know, it’s just a need, people are on a fixed income. You’d be surprised how many people even in the summertime when school is out, they don’t have you know, lunch, the kids are not being served.”

She says the center is only the start of the things she and the council are working on for the future of the town.

The Hollywood Community Resource Center is located at the old library at 5151 Town Council Rd.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

HOLLYWOOD, S.C. (WCSC) - Concerns are being raised about an abandoned mobile home that was left on the side of the road about two months ago in the Town of Hollywood.

Despite their efforts, residents have seen no action taken to remove the trailer.

One Hollywood resident described the issue as playing “hot potato”, because he’s been dealing with non-stop back and forth trying to figure out who can get the mobile home taken off the side of Davison Road.

The concern at hand is potential environmental impacts, with rain causing internal leakage of unknown fluids.

Resident Jerry Gray claims further deterioration of the home has occurred due to weather and pieces have blown into the roadway, creating a traffic hazard.

“I’m looking for creativity,” Gray said. “I’m not looking for sympathy or for anyone to agree with me. I’m looking for action, plain and simple. Get it going, bye.”

The mobile home has somehow managed to end up on a widely used GPS platform.

“To be here long enough to show up on Google Maps, we’re now a global landmark,” Gray said.

Charleston County issued a “do not occupy” notice on the home on May 22 on behalf of the Town of Hollywood, but in an email said it is not the county’s jurisdiction.

In an email on Wednesday, DHEC said it is a matter that would need to be addressed by local officials.

The Town of Hollywood said in a statement:

This is an ongoing complaint. The mobile home broke down and landed in the Charleston County unincorporated area. The first attempt to repair and move failed and the trailer was dropped off on property under the jurisdiction of the Town of Hollywood, Charleston County and SCDNR. SCDNR has taken over the code enforcement case and has notified the owner of the mobile home, the mover of the mobile home and the property owner who never gave permission for the broken-down trailer to be left on Davison Road.

In response, SCDNR said:

“We do not enforce any codes. We have written a (litter) ticket to the company that was in charge of moving the mobile home. The subject has asked for a jury trial. There is a contract dispute between the moving company and the owner of the mobile home on going. SCDNR Law Enforcement is not involved with this part of the contract dispute. Also, we have not heard from or made contact with the owner of the property where the trailer is currently located. We have reached out but have not heard back. Also, it is not located on any state-owned property or WMA (Wildlife Management Areas).”

The Charleston County’s Geographical Information System (GIS) says that the property owner is a real estate investment firm called CJB Investment LLC.

Live 5 reached out to the property owner for a comment on the matter, asking if they were charging the owner of the mobile home to sit on their land and have not heard back.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

With the closing credits rolling to Hollywood's biggest labor fight in decades, production work on South Carolina film projects are expected to resume soon.

The long-awaited resolution was reached overnight on Nov. 8, nearly four months after film and television actors went on strike.

The proposed three-year contract still must be approved by the board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and its members in the coming days.

But union leadership declared in a written statement that the strike ended shortly after midnight Thursday. It put the value of the new contact at more than $1 billion.

"Outer Banks" co-creator and Executive Producer Jonas Pate told The Post and Courier that work will be “starting up immediately” but declined to elaborate. Filming for the series, which began in May, was initially expected to wrap at the end of this year in preparation for an early 2024 release. It’s unclear how the 118-day walkout will affect the schedule.

The S.C. Film Office said it expects that the show will resume filming in South Carolina in December.

Charleston Scene

Linda Lee, president of the Carolina Film Alliance board of directors, said Thursday that the pending labor deal “hopefully means we'll be back to work soon.” She said that while many fully backed the strike, the last few months have been financially difficult for most workers in the industry.

“Everyone is just waiting to see what happens,” Lee said.

She also cautioned that the holidays could cause further delays in ramping production back up on a number of projects.

Matt Storm, director of the S.C. Film Commission, said numerous projects around the Palmetto State were affected, from small independent films to high-profile productions

“Since most productions were paused, it’s hard to know at this point how much that has shifted their timelines,” he said.

During the strike, Storm said, the commission, which is part of the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, held workshops and training in the Upstate to prepare more local residents for employment once projects resume.

Industry experts in the Palmetto State say its difficult to gauge the economic impact of the strike.

Lee of the film alliance said that the ripple effects extended well beyond the cast and crew members. The financial losses include location fees, canceled hotel bookings and sales that never materialized for vendors that supply film companies with everything from tents to lumber.

Real Estate

Last calendar year, both "Outer Banks" and "The Righteous Gemstones" wrapped up their third seasons. Storm said the Netflix drama series used 335 suppliers, totaling $8 million in local spending, while the HBO comedy deployed more than $12.7 million among 548 vendors.

The Film Commission has previously said that the industry generates a 4-to-1 return, meaning the average production spends four times the amount in production costs and wages compared to the rebate incentives it receives from the state.

More than 60,000 SAG-AFTRA members went on strike July 14, joining screenwriters who had walked off the job more than two months earlier. It was the first time the two unions had been on the picket line together since 1960. The studios and writers reached a labor deal that ended their strike on Sept. 26.

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Hollywood, S.C. (WCBD) – An abandoned mobile left along Davison Road for months in the Hollywood community is causing concerns among residents who live in the area.

It’s hard to miss, and aside from the obvious aesthetic issues, many locals are worried it could pose a threat to the environment.

“The concern is, from an appearance look, definitely an eye sore. The other one is, environmental hazard, when we get a bad rainstorm or whatever you’ll actually see stuff dripping out of the side,” said Hollywood local, Jerry Gray.

Resident Jerry Gray said it’s been alone on the side of the road for a while, long enough for pictures of it to appear on google maps.

“If you google Davison Road and Messervy Road it actually shows up on google street view so you know it’s been here for a pretty good period of time,” said Gray.

But in order to remove the trailer, someone has got to take responsibility for it, and no one seems to be stepping up.

News 2 reached out to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), which said their department does not have the authority to remove the abandoned building.

Charleston County has posted a “do not occupy” notice on the side of the trailer, but said it is not in their jurisdiction either.

Gray shared with News 2 an email between him and Charleston County Building Code Enforcement Manager Wayne Domina. Domina said that the moving company responsible for the trailer was issued a citation and it is a “very big version of littering in the town of Hollywood’s jurisdiction.”

Newly elected Hollywood Mayor Chardale Murray said she is willing to work with whoever it takes to get the building removed.

“Of course, I’m the new mayor-elect, so I’m not aware of everything that’s going on with the mobile home. But what I can do is reach out to Charleston County, maybe DMV, or one of the council members, maybe Teddie Pryor,” said Murray.

News 2 has reached out to the South Carolina Department of Transportation and the Department of Natural Resources. We are waiting on a response.