Liberty has appealed the zoning decision to the city's board of appeals. A public hearing should be scheduled before that board of appointees sometime soon. If Liberty loses there (which I believe it should), it will have the right to appeal to the Circuit Court. From there the case can go to the Court of Appeals and, ultimately, to the SC Supreme Court. If the city prevails before its appeals board, it can legitimately start fining Liberty about $1,000 a day (if I recall correctly). Liberty, at that point, would (or should) move for a stay of enforcement pending a judicial decision. That's the ordinary course of events. As far as the city council being afraid of being sued, they bought into that when Liberty was notified that it was not in compliance with the zoning ordinance.
Underlying all of this is a fundamental fact. Liberty made a bad investment. It did so because it believed a bunch of political promises to the effect that the last President was going to "save" the American steel industry. That, of course, was pretty stupid. I learned long ago to simply ignore political promises no matter which party or candidate makes them. Be that as it may, Liberty's oligarch owner is in financial trouble in both England and France. If financial news articles are to be believed, Liberty is in the English equivalent of bankruptcy court and the French are investigating the company for allegedly misusing COVID incentive money. The usual response to these sorts of problems is to try to borrow its way out of its troubles. (A secret banks and finance companies don't want you to know: Borrowing is not a solution to money problems. It causes them.) To borrow and dig a deeper hole, Liberty may well overstate the value of the Georgetown mill on his financial statements. Being an old and technologically antiquated facility and with a zoning dispute standing in the way of resuming operations, Liberty actually should lower the value rather than raise it if it wants to be honest about the whole thing.. But then again, what in the hell does Douchbag Bank in Germany care about any of that. If the bank thinks it can cash in, it'll cash in. That's what bankers do. None of those involved on that level -- oligarchs, bankers, lawyers -- give a damn about Georgetown, steelworkers or anything other than making a buck. Or am I being cynical and unduly harsh?
Meanwhile, this is all going to take a while to shake out. My suggestion is that no one get impatient in the meantime. Instead, keep an eye out for the hearing date, time and place for the board of appeals. That promises to be the best show in town. The Georgetown Slimes and GAB News should be all over that one. So should local TV outlets. But then again, I ain't their editors.
