Lexington County Council rejected a long-awaited plan submitted by the county’s Capital Project Sales Commission for more than 130 road improvement projects.

The resolution submitted by the commission would fund the projects with a penny sales tax expected to generate $536 million over a period of eight years. Voters would have to approve the plan.

Council Chair Scotty Whetstone noted after the unanimous vote Tuesday to reject the plan that it included items that aren’t transportation-related and should be limited to roads only.

Citizens are now dealing with rising inflation and increasing costs, and should not have to pay for anything more than the roads, he said.

“If you can’t put tires on it” it should not be included, he said.

Asked after the meeting if the project is dead, Whetsone said the council will consider a revised plan from the commission.

“We’ll see how they do,” he said.

Asked about the decision after the meeting, Councilman Darrell Hudson said the plan needed to be narrowed down.

“I don’t care about lights and bushes,” he said.

Asked about the rejection of the plan, the chair of the commission, Jim Ewart, said the six-member panel will meet May 31 to consider changes. Council asked for the revised resolution to be submitted by June 3.

“My desire is to produce a priority list that meets County Council’s expectations and that they will send to our voters to consider this November,” he said. “Council members are the people’s representatives. We are an independent commission served with a task. However, I want to consider council’s desires.”

At the commission’s last meeting before submitting the list to council, Ewart said the members were getting “scuttlebutt” that council would push back on some of the projects for containing sidewalks, water and sewer.

“I would just like to opine that we were given the projects, we were given them, and we ranked them under the criteria that we were given the rank of them,” he said at that May 12 meeting.

The more than 130 projects the commission ultimately submitted are representative of the nearly 200 that it approved earlier in May, with some related projects compressed into single items.

Most of the projects are road improvements, but the plan also includes storm water and drainage projects, improvements to Cayce’s riverwalk and a nine-mile walking path from Chapin to Dreher Island.

One of the largest projects will be the widening and repaving Longs Pond Road in Lexington County, which will cost an estimated $64 million. Also listed as part of the project are Pisgah Church Road, Charter Oak Road, St. Peters Road and bridges.