Week in Review: City Council Candidates, Crime and More

City Hall:

•  The City of Goose Creek will have an election this year, with at least four candidates already filed to run for three seats. Candidate filing will be open until noon Feb. 3. The election will be held April 3.
•  Construction is under way on Goose Creek's new hiker/biker trail running in front of the Marguerite H. Brown Municipal Center, which will be followed by a new trail route providing access to the large pond at the municipal center.

Crime: 

•  Seventeen-year-old Joseph Alec Kosmela is at the Berkeley County Detention Center, facing a $200,000 bond for two charges of attempted murder and one charge of possession of a weapon during a violent crime. According to the police, officers responded at 11:49 a.m. Jan. 20 to reports of shots fired near the convenience store and the local VFW building. 
•  Goose Creek Police are following a possible new lead in the investigation of  on Jan. 18. A man named "Raoul" found a red Samsung cell phone and returned it to one of the victims a day after the robbery.
•  After a two-month investigation, officials announced the arrest of Reginald Arnold Hutto II, 44, of Holly Hill, as well as the recovery of $100,000 worth of stolen shipping containers and chassis. 

Schools:

• : Goose Creek's senior fullback Virgil Smalls, a powerhouse performer in the Gators' championship season, appears ready to head to South Carolina State University. The Orangeburg Times and Democrat reports that the local player made the decisions during a recent visit.
• : Nearly three dozen Berkeley County students were on stage at Berkeley High School on Thursday night, competing for two hours in the Berkeley County Spelling Bee. Half were eliminated in the first two rounds, but the rest of the competitors made it a long evening of consonants and vowels.

Regional: 

• : On Wednesday morning, the Naval destroyer that saw conflict at Normandy on D-Day and later at Okinawa in the Korean War, was tugged under the Ravenel Bridge and nudged into a new birth at Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum.

State:

• According to the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce, the unemployment numbers dropped .4 percent in December, making it now 9.5 percent statewide. It is the lowest rate since December 2008 when unemployment stood at 9.2 percent.
•  The South Carolina Election Commission on Wednesday disputed  cast ballots during the 2010 election. Election Commission Director Marci Andino testified before the House Election Laws Subcommittee that her staff had confirmed a small sample of the dead voter claims to be false.