Don Wall, Greer Mayor oral history 
Talk with Bethany and Jonathan Lovegrove on June 5, 2020

A May 25, 1994, summary article about much of the below is here. It was written only a couple years after he took office; a copy of that article is pasted at the end.
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1994/rt9405/940529/05270072.htm
The Greer City Council was having so much dissension that the Greenville News sent a reporter to every council meeting. Someone suggested to Don Wall that they needed a boss, so he should run for mayor.  About 4 years later he did.
At the first executive council meeting, he told the council members that they needed to work together to position Greer for 50 years from now, when they could all be dead, and that was more important than individual conflict. He would not put up with that. If any of them made the paper for talking about each other, etc. they would be singled out by him at the next council meeting, and they DID NOT want that conversation to happen. They would be incredibly embarrassed.  
He told me this after he said he had a good council to work with during his term.
He is 77 years old. I assume birth in 1942-43. Graduation from Greer High in 1961 (my memory of what he said).
He lived at Greer Mill and went to school there, at Davenport Jr. HIgh (7-8), and at Greer High School.  He didn't have an indoor restroom until he was 6. The rich people lived on the McLesky-Todd side of West Poinsett.  The poor people lived on the other side of Poinsett, and he lived over there. 
It was a poorer existence, sharecroppers who came to the mill as a step up. Many of those young men like him went on to Greer High and to be very successful people.
He said there was intense sports competition between schools. I thought he meant Greer Mill vs. other schools. I could be wrong and he meant higher levels. He didn't know about mill teams, like that Shoeless Joe played for Victor Mill's team. 
He compared the mill society as having low standing like African-Americans in poor neighborhoods do in 2020. He recently watched Netflix about English Football in 1888 and saw correlations there too. 
He has run 15 businesses. He was a pharmacist and had to turn in his license when he got brain cancer in 2015. He has had 3 brain surgeries. Later sadly mentioned he is one step away from dementia. He can remember older things like 20 years ago better than short term memory.
As mayor he inherited a budget finish of previous June 30th of $3.7 million, with a $300,000 deficit.  Today's 2020 budget is $28 million, with $18 million in the bank, for comparison (If I remember all these numbers exactly).  
Greer was really really poor, and hurting. Lower education. You never had a man and a woman both with a college degree. He and his wife both had a degree, and teacher wife Ellen Wall often heard people comment "BOTH of them in that family have a college degree."
HIs first move was to approach Greer CPW for more support. They had $12 million in the bank. He wanted them to give the city $1 million a year. This was NOT popular with Greer Commision of Public Works and involved a lot. In the end there was lots of pressure, a late night unofficial meeting to negotiate (he was informed of this by Vern Smith after he retured from a party at 11:30 pm). Mr. Wall told Vern Smith he would only accept $1 million. Vern Smith advised the commission that Mr. Wall was of a personality that would not move on this, and that they would be better to agree to $1 million than to pay much more after the legal battles, and it was settled. 

By the time he left office, Greer CPW was paying $2.8 million yearly. He urged city council to renew the contract as he left office, but it didn't happen, and Greer CPW contributes $1 million a year through today. He said Greer took a percentage of gross revenue instead of net revenue.
Other than the deficit, Greer had a major problem that they could not retain police and fire employees, because other places paid more. Greer would send police to academy, they would work a year, and then go to Greenville County where they got paid $10,000 more a year. Fire people would go to Taylors or another place. So as soon as he got the extra money from Greer CPW, the first thing he did was raise those salaries -- $9,000 a year, in the case of police.
Don Wall: "A city is a business. It had to survive."
MOTIVATION 
Why did Don Wall become mayor?  
He want to high school with a man named _____________ (Charles Davis?) who went away and got lots of education including a doctorate. Around 1975 he returned to Greer to settle. He went to talk to Vern Smith, who had a finger on the pulse of business, and asked him about a place for him. Vern Smith told the man there wasn't a place for him in Greer. He would need to go to a big city. (He became a famous U.S. bank and ______ surveyor, one of 5. Retired at age 75 in Arizona.)
That really stuck in Don Wall's mind. He wanted to have a prosperous city that his kids could move back to and prosper in.  
CITY EXPANSION
Greer was 6 miles when he began. When he ended, it was 27 miles. 
Much of this happened through unpopular forced annexation. Greer CPW was the only utility available in the area.  So the call was made that anyone who wanted sewer from them had to join the city. The benefit they got was sewer. You could build 20 houses on a section of land with septic, but if you had sewer, you could build 60, generally R20. (20,000 sq. feet. per plot)
It made a lot of people mad. But in his mind this expansion is what it took to help Greer survive and prosper the way it is now. "So I didn't care. I have no regrets." He saw no other way for survival. If you raised taxes more, you would lose all the wealthier residents who were paying the taxes, they would move elsewhere, just like the police and firemen did who found better pay elsewhere.
Forced annexation was stopped in 2000 when Rick Danner became mayor. He views Mayor Danner as not a businessman, more for smoothing over. But with the business acumen of Ed Driggers as city administrator, they have made a great team for 20 years. Ed can be hardball too.
The city of Greer had the toughest forced annexation laws in _____ (south carolina?) Written by Mr. Wall's city administrator before he took that position. In some ways, annexation could be forced if you had 3/4 of the surrounding properties and 75% of the land value. The way I understand it, he mentioned farms surrounded by 3 large businesses. Get the businesses on board, and the rural area didn't have a choice.  
This became particularly of importance in the case of BMW.
BMW, VERN SMITH PARKWAY, AND CITY OF GREER
The CEO of BMW was looking for a location. One being considered was Anderson. He flew into GSP, but found the spot in Anderson to be very poor. He told the state that the place he flew into was the prettiest in the Upstate. He wanted to go there. The State quietly acquired the land for BMW. Vern Smith was Don Wall's neighbor, yet he didn't know a thing about it until it was announced. Side note: maybe the below is why!
Don Wall apparently wanted Greer to have a piece of the BMW pie. He talked for 6 months to 156 people surrounding the BMW property to get them to agree to Greer annexation. Remember the 3/4 rules. They stayed silent about it. They realized that the potential of a road coming through would make their property values go up a huge amount.  
The state of South Carolina owned/had acquired the BMW land (they lease it from the state). Once the names were gathered, Don Wall approached the state to say that the BMW property would be annexed into Greer. His problem was that traffic was TERRIBLE in Greer already. "All Greer would get from the BMW addition was more traffic." There was already so much that businesses couldn't thrive. In 1982 (my memory, maybe 1992?) traffic would be lined up from Poinsett and Main (McClesky Todd area) to Southside Baptist Church in one direction and way up to _________ toward Wade Hampton in the other direction. People would come from 29 through Greer to the interstate. If there were any interstate delays, they would also come through. You would wait 5-6 light cycles. They just came to drive through,  not to shop. You couldn't rebuild businesses with no means of getting to them.
In a meeting with governor Carol Campbell, Don Wall said he would only drop the demand for Greer annexation of BMW if they put in the Vern Smith Parkway. So the state did. And it worked; for example, people from Lyman had a better way to the interstate.

SUMMARY OF HIS TIME AS MAYOR
"I made a lot of people mad, and I made a lot of people rich. No regrets. I was motivated by the vision of Greer in 50 years."
If you want to follow the regrowth of Greer, go to city hall and re-read the city council minutes from 1985 on.

TIDBITS
In the mid 80's the city ran out of money and had to fire the "city person, the person who convinced businesses to come to Greer." The city was obviously in a sad state with empty buildings, etc. His wife, Ellen Wall, was the city person for free luring businesses for 3-4 years in the mid 1980's. She convinced Greer Savings and Loan to come in (corner of Randall and Trade). She got business owners to agree to sell, including a building that had an antique shop on bottom and apartments on top. Liquid leaked from the urinals down into the shop, and owner would do nothing about it. She sweet talked him into selling.  Greer Savings and Loan was a big deal. First nice building built in city in a long time.
His wife Ellen Wall also had the idea to start the second drive through pharmacy in South Carolina in 1974 at their Professional Pharmacy across from the hospital on Memorial Drive and 29. She theorized that an ER is open 24/7 with people needing medicines, and that moms with sick kids wouldn't want to drag them into a pharmacy. Sounded like most prescriptions needed were called over there.  
McLesky Todd would have had/did a hard time in pandemic 2020, but the drive through kept them going.
Down from McLesky Todd was a children's after school business with an at-risk program, though all children were welcome. Helping kids have neat learning experiences. They couldn't pay rent for a couple months in 2020-ish and had to move out. Jonathan took photos and talked to this group in summer 2019.  
In June 2020 son Jeb Wall and a partner are preparing 5,160 square feet for a gym, G Fitness. Don Wall is renting and involved. It will have equipment, classes, 4 trainers, a masseuse, and add a running track around some of the parking out the back door of McLesky Todd. Not aiming at big weightlifting. I asked why he is opening a gym, and he listed 3 places going bankrupt or struggling-- Anytime Fitness, a place catycorner from Spinx, and another, so they will be there to fill the gap. Planning $30 a month, with those things I listed extra. They are a different type of gym than Namaste.
PHOTO DISCUSSSIONS
He had 6 enlarged nice-quality photos on Wall at McLesky Todd. We have seen them before. We took photos of an article about the history of McLesky Todd. He also said to look up on Google an article Don Wall Greer, SC. A lady in Virginia did a good job of describing the change of Greer.
We saw a photo of a float on the wall from the late 1950's. At that time the fire department was behind CountyBank and the police and jail were in the Depot. Wall knows the person who owns that jail cell. He called him, and he is more than happy to let us come see it.
Davenport Jr. High photo -- note the WEAB radio station sign. Run by Eddie Burch. It was AM and went out of business about the time FM came along.
Tommy Williams lives behind the pharmacy in parade photo. Teacher at Greer Middle School, then went to Greer State Bank before retiring.
Eddie Burch is an outstanding photographer. Go to him for photos. Eddie didn't take the ones on the wall, but he provided ones that he blew up to display (big, with good quality, ones we already have seen).
Talk to Leland and Eddie Burch about history. Leland's wife is Margaret. Eddie is son.  
-------------------------------------------------

https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1994/rt9405/940529/05270072.htm
ROANOKE TIMES
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 29, 1994                   TAG: 9405270072
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: F-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GREER, S.C.                                LENGTH: Long

HOW A SMALL TOWN HIT THE BIG TIME
If Lynchburg and Roanoke were scrunched together, Bedford would be Greer.
This city, population 14,000, sits 60 percent in Greenville County and 40 in Spartanburg County. And, until the last few years, about all it did was sit.
Just three years ago, with more than 20 percent of its residents over 60 years old and its per capita income the lowest in the area, Greer was dying, an official says.
"And a lot of it was our own doing. We didn't encourage growth this way," City Manager Ken Westmoreland says.
But things started to happen that changed the sluggishness.
Pharmacy owner and operator Don Wall was elected mayor, for instance.
State Sen. Verne Smith, who lives next door to Wall, says the mayor is "a trash mover and a stem winder. Which means, he's pretty aggressive."
Wall, mayor for 21/2 years now, says he was simply a businessman who didn't like what was happening to his city.
He says Greer was in financial trouble and dipping into its reserve fund for operating money.
"We had to raise taxes, cut services or aggressively annex to broaden our tax base," Wall says.
He decided to run for mayor on a platform of "aggressive annexation."
Westmoreland, who had been Spartanburg's manager for 10 years, was hired by Greer about six months before Wall became mayor.
The two men were perfect allies, Wall says, because Westmoreland was an expert in the state's annexation laws.
New political leadership primed the pump for growth, but the real juice started flowing in June 1992 when the state negotiated a deal to sell nearly 1,000 acres of Spartanburg County land to BMW for a plant site. The property is four miles from Greer's downtown.
Initial community reaction to BMW was ambivalent, Westmoreland says.
"Some said: 'Greer'll never be the same. All we'll get is traffic.' They were right about the traffic," Westmoreland recalls.
As soon as BMW began to build, several hundred gravel trucks started rolling by city hall each day. And when 1,500 construction workers came to the area, Westmoreland began getting questions like: "What is your ordinance on escort services?"
"We didn't have one," he says. "We got busy and passed one."
Greer officials also asked the state to build a bypass road to get the city out of the line of truck traffic BMW would generate.
The state refused.
Greer, which had begun an annexation suit to about double its 7.5 square miles, retaliated.
The land Greer coveted spread out in two tentacles, one into Greenville County and one into Spartanburg, but did not include the BMW site.
When the state refused to build the bypass road, Greer officials redrew the annexation lines and wrapped the Spartanburg tentacle around BMW. Greer said in the new annexation that it would use the $2.7 million in anticipated annual tax revenue from BMW to build its own bypass.
"The governor's office went to the moon," Westmoreland says.
"They got a restraining order to get us to back off, but we had them legally, and they knew it."
Greer got the road. The first phase of the $6 million bypass is four miles long, but it will open up 10,000 previously undevelopable acres near the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, also four miles from Greer's downtown.
The city is sitting pretty.
Two runways are being extended at the airport and a cargo runway will be built so that Lufthansa Airlines can land with its load of BMW engines and taxi over to the plant to unload.
Westmoreland says something akin to the mechanical arms used at railroad crossings will be installed where the planes need to cross a public road to get to the plant.
He expects that will be a sight to see. Also, BMW is building a museum at the plant and projects it will attract 20,000 visitors a month to tour the manufacturing facility. And, wouldn't you know it, Greer plans to landscape its road connection to the bypass to invite visitors to BMW to visit downtown Greer.
"This bypass is an economic development tool in its own right," Westmoreland says.
Part of the city's strategic plan is to lure upscale outlet shops to downtown. It also plans to build a transportation museum near old Norfolk Southern and CSX stations; the railroads intersect in Greer. One of the depots already has been renovated for retail space.
Negotiations are under way with developers to put up a hotel and convention center across I-85 from the BMW plant on a 200-acre site that was recently annexed by Greer.
The community is adding about 1,000 new houses a year. The city encourages development by splitting the cost for providing water and sewer services, Westmoreland says.
Growth isn't free, though.
Westmoreland - whose staff totals three, including him - is advertising for an assistant city manager. He's growing the police force by one officer a year, going slow so the city can absorb the extra expenses.
He says the city has pledged not to raise taxes and to live within its means. Growth has increased tax revenue, and the city has imposed new hookup fees on the Commission for Public Works. Also, the business community chipped in $300,000 as an economic development budget.
Forever, Greer has been caught between two economic development bulldozers, Greenville and Spartanburg.
They wouldn't share their business prospects, but every now and then Westmoreland would be asked by one of the counties to chauffeur a prospect around to look at land. Each would warn him not to show land in the other county.
"That was kind of hard to do since main street meanders in and out of both counties," Westmoreland says.
"Within five years, BMW will be just another business on the interstate. Its number of employees is lower than other industries already here and others pay just as high wages," Westmoreland says.
BMW is serving Greer well, however. Fortune 500 companies are calling to ask: "Why did BMW come to your area?"
Where will Greer be in five years?
"We have a base plan, for five, 10 or 20 years from now," Westmoreland says. "We know what development is acceptable and what isn't."
"We've told a lot of chicken parts plants we don't need them any more."

by CNB