Featured County Services: If you haven't visited our county libraries recently, I recommend a visit. I am very familiar with our libraries. I worked for 3 years during high school at the South Windermere branch as a student assistant. My son Cray is in 3rd grade, and I expect we'll be back a lot in the next few years. The Charleston County Public Library is an important Charleston County service. The library system consists of the main library, 16 branches and a bookmobile. In 2007, the library had more than 1.9 million visitors, served a population of 330,368 and a circulation of 3,383,014.    Charleston County residents have consistently said in surveys that they felt the county's Library services were excellent and they felt they were getting a good value for their money. What may surprise you is that the library system as 301 public computers and offers free basic computer classes. You can check out the list of classes and other activities on their web site at http://www.ccpl.org Colleen			Donate Now to help Colleen in her Campaign for Charleston County Council:
	Our great county water parks! Have you taken advantage of the water parks, Whirlin Waters at Wannamaker County Park and Splash Island at Palmetto Islands County Park? They are open weekends until September 6! http://splashparks.com/ Splash Zone at James Island County Park has already closed for the summer. My family visited Whirlin Waters and were amazed by the fun, quality of amenities, and its beauty. There is so much to do, you'll question why you ever traveled to Myrtle Beach for water parks. The water parks are more expensive than other county park facilities, but they are well worth the money and they stay packed. (And if it rains any time during the day of your visit, as if often in August, you get to return for free.) I highly recommend our county water parks and the entire Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission system. http://www.ccprc.com/ DOES IT COST US MUCH? No! The water parks are funded by the fees charged. In fact their funds support many other programs, such as the Caw Caw Interpretative Center in Ravenel. Over 55 percent of the CCPRC's operating budget comes from sources other than taxes. Using an enterprise approach, the Commission utilizes tax dollars to buy land and build facilities, but relies on visitor fees to pay for operations and maintenance. The development of strong enterprise activities has allowed the Commission to keep taxes down at a time when park facilities and programs are increasing. Source: http://www.ccprc.com/mission.htm
	I would like to start my tour of county services by advertising the County website: www.charlestoncounty.org. It is the best government Internet site I have encountered. If you're curious what the County does for you, here is the place to explore. It allows you to pay taxes, determine when a court hearing is scheduled, view the GIS map of your house, and much, much more.  If you need a phone number for anyone or anything in Charleston County Government, it is here. For County Council, meeting schedules and agendas are provided. To explain all the options would take pages, so I encourage you to go check it out. Not only does the Internet site provide valuable services for Charleston County residents, but it saves the County money. Tax collections rates are higher, and the cost of bad checks has decreased as more people use credit cards for online payments. So here is one example of our government reducing costs and providing better service!