Full meeting transcript - January 26, 2021

» [Part 2 of 2] it's a great day in kershaw county in this all-america county and we have a quorum all members are present and i just want to open up with a little bit of a tutorial on how we operate in this emergency situation but first i want to welcome senator gustafson thank you ma'am for being here and we have a boy scout who's trying to get his eagle thank you mr teague good to see y'all and i enjoyed our conversation about how to run a government i think i'll try to get better based on what you told me to do well consistent with a state of emergency declared since march by our governor this county has likewise declared a state of emergency and it has been renewed five times and recently at our last meeting let me explain a little bit about that emergency ordinance at the outset of this

» meeting because very many of you have asked about it and i've seen it on facebook too first we are a great county and a great people is not out of fear or despair that we have an emergency ordinance we are americans we are patriots but we're taking prudent measures rather it is a call to unified action mr jones can you put your yeah thank you a state of emergency is a sensible measured constitutional way governments react to crisis and to issues in this case it is an unseen menace it is deadly and it keeps changing and taking lives and livelihoods right along with it some even question the need for emergency ordinance and some call the the covert a hoax or or it's like the flu and no worse and still others question the need to take the shots all reasonable issues all reasonable in a free co

» untry and these views need to be heard and expressed in the public forum and we want to hear them but many others take the opposite view that this is a deadly thing among us and needs special precautions. Regrettably, the dialogue has become politicized. You've all seen it on the media. But the facts are that Kershaw County has 700 cases and more right now. We have some 40 to 50 new cases every day, and the surge has taken a toll on mortality at a grievous number, approaching nearly 90 dead in our small county. But today is the first day in nearly 30 days that our numbers have dropped below 40 new cases a day. So let me tell you a little bit about how the emergency ordinance works. It is approved by this council and only so long as we first have one at the state, too.

» It allows us to conduct a business in our county, assure services, and that both our citizens and the county employees' lives are protected. We do these things for hurricanes and earthquakes and fires, and we're doing it for a pandemic. Thanks to this council and to Mr. Carpenter, we have done a great deal during this emergency. We have provided PPE. We have coordinated responses. We continue to provide sheriff, ambulance, fire, and public works in spite of it. And we have, like no other county, even provided direct assistance because of the vote of these men at this table to small businesses. Indeed, this council, in partnership with schools and towns and our medical heroes, are making a difference.

» And to ensure that our great liberties as Americans are a pertinent format, which we are in tonight. And that assures every voice is heard and transparency is maintained while promoting hygienic prevention against this COVID. Now, here are some of the features of tonight's virtual e-meeting format that we've been practicing for some time.

» persons are required to mask and socially distance in compliance with a law that was passed by the city of camden and since we're inside the city of camden we comply county has no such law but we encourage mask and social distancing and when shots are available to take the shot went out and about in the county we encourage attendance by our citizens at these meetings but we must limit capacity in this room so as to socially distance if folks wish to render public comments they can welcome to come and we have a few people here tonight but we also have expanded and improved public access for those trying to avoid covid and not have to come here in several ways for those who wish to make public comments from home we ask that you send an email to mary siegler to my left your right and those wil

» l be read here and to this body and secondly we assure transparency through electronic means by the live streaming format and you should be watching now so i pardon me for that lengthy preamble so i now ask you to stand for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance as it says in the good book in psalm 33 blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. I first ask a moment of silence for those we have lost in COVID in the last 30 days, including six alone in the last weekend. Now join me in prayer. Lord God, we adore and worship you. We put our hands and our lives and our futures and our devotion at your feet. We ask your guidance and counsel. All this we ask in the name of our Lord and Savior. Amen. I join me in the pledge. Thank you very much, everybody. Please be seated.

» And let's move right into our agenda. We are called to order. We've completed the pledge. And now we're open to public comments. And under our e-meeting format, we will first take those that have been submitted to Mary. Mary, do you have any? I have one, Chairman. All right. If you'd read that, please, and tell us who it's from, please. It's from Jeff Maddox. Is that going over the mic? Bring the mic over a little closer. Yeah, thank you. Ready. Kershaw County Council on 1-12-21 voted unanimously to recommend residents adhere to all federal and state health agency guidelines and recommendations pertaining to the COVID-19 response. Kershaw County Council provided no peer-reviewed medical studies to prove their recommendations for mask, social distancing, or vaccine safety.

» Kershaw County Council did not inform citizens the vaccines are, in fact, experimental and long-term effects are unknown. This recommendation may cause harm to those who follow recommendations of Kershaw County Council without their own due diligence. Kershaw County Council should never recommend and/or mandate personal medical prevention measures and/or treatments to individuals.

» Kershaw County Council has by this action proven their own lack of due diligence and by those actions have shown a disregard for the safety and welfare of individual members of the public who follow these recommendations at the conclusion yes sir and thank you very much mr maddox uh other submissions mary uh mr de bose do we have any signed up one person signed up mr chairman and that is the person in the center to just recognize senator gustafson senator if you come up please thank you and and the rules of the house are we try to limit to five minutes please if you bring the mic over to your face i did thank you very much thank you uh good evening it's such a pleasure to be back here with you with kershaw county council um i've been trying to get back that i've been working a lot and just

» like you guys have been working and i'm just thrilled to be able to see you face to face and to share with you some things that are going on um some good news and we certainly need that don't we uh i first want to just say to the public and to you that as your new state senator i am very available uh anytime i have a brand new office in the aggressive building at the state grounds the state house grounds uh office is 610b i'm at the top of the corner and i can i'm looking at the state house every day when i'm not in it i have a wonderful assistant my cell number has not changed please do call or email me i've got my business cards i brought and i think i've distributed those i also distributed out a listing of bills that i'm sponsoring um or co-sponsoring so i'm going to try to be very brie

» f and just kind of tell you about what's going on and and uh and what's going on specifically this week top legislative issue this week is s1 which is the heartbeat bill today we were going through the amendments in the Senate chamber I do support this bill and we hope that this goes to a vote this week we I will keep you and updated with that it's easy to be updated everything is transparently online just like this meeting is streamlined so is as so are all the meetings in the Senate chamber. One of the very first things being tackled as your new state senator is helping the fire district. Now, this is a long overdue thing for us, for Kershaw County.

» And I think this is the way we're going to allow our fire department to get the necessary equipment and get caught up in technology before it all goes, before it expires but the work the bill with the for the fire district that is um s401 and senator greg hembree and i are co-sponsoring we are gathering support for this kershaw county needs this help and um i'm i'm going to do my best to get this through this year so next year's budget can immediately be affected all right so i am doing my absolute best i talked to some senior senators this afternoon and this morning about this bill and i will continue to do so heavily and get it hopefully to the floor for a vote all right so i want to let y'all know that is a top top priority for me also a top priority urgently today is working with dhek a

» nd i am so happy to be able to share some good news because it's been frustrating for a lot of people and disheartening dealing with the online systems that don't seem to work. But as of today, the DHEC board has agreed and decided on a new allocation method for the vaccine distribution. And this has been an issue for Kershaw County.

» I've been working closely with Kershaw Health and others and closely with DHEC themselves um and as of today uh it looks like we're going to be getting up to four times what we've been giving okay and hang on tight because more is coming they are have actually designed um across South Carolina they've got this little bank of extra doses and what they're going to do is make adjustments week to week as needed but we are getting guaranteed over 700 doses per week now and to give you some context we were going to get 185 this upcoming week okay so and that is a huge jump for us the the hospital is prepared they are doing a really good job and our local people are getting more prepared thank you to DHEC and thank you to mr.

» Vic Carpenter we do a a lot of pushing and advocacy because i told you i'd be a strong voice right well we i got somebody from kershaw county on the south carolina advisory vaccine advisory committee they're actually making some of these decisions and advising dhek so thank you um mr carpenter to being willing to serve on that the other thing i'm working on is um with the corners they need our support uh they need to have first responder status which is amazing to me they haven't had that so i am supporting bill s402 and also to build up the quality of the corners in south carolina i presented bill 368 that will revise the corner qualifications so instead of just being enrolled in some sort of certification program online they actually had to have completed one um i think i don't think y'al

» l would want me to be a corner if i just sign up online and say hey i'm eligible so uh and also been working very closely with our corners across the state but specifically in kershaw county mr david west he is to be commended all of you are to be commended the police are to be commended the first responders in general should be commended the death certificate software which processes the death certificates had lots of problems with that working on that and finally i just want y'all to know that we've got great people we're getting shots in arms and and and try to just ask people to be a little bit more patient because we have turned a corner on the kobe vaccination rollout thank you so much for allowing me to speak uh try not to get too long and i'll be available out to the meeting to talk

» to anyone okay thank you so much thank you very much senator and for your support of the fire bill in particular uh mr mr uh debose what's next um mr chairman that concludes the sign-up list so that concludes uh public comments we move to the adoption of the agenda we're going to need to make an amendment but first let's put it on the table can we ask that uh we get a motion to approve the agenda i move mr gardner a second second for mr tucker and I'd now like to ask for an amendment to the agenda to remove the public presentation. Mr. Outlaw is unable to come today. Can we have such an amendment? - Make a motion to remove the public presentation. - Mr. Tucker, a second? - Second. - For Mr. Gardner, any discussion? Mayor, there was no reason given, but hopefully we can see him.

» I will say I got a call from the Clean Community Commission, Ms. Wanda Swan, and I'll tell you, They are still working hard and you can look for some good things on the roadways soon, as soon as they get it can develop. But Wanda and that whole team are very special to us. With that, let's move to vote on the amendment. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. And it's unanimous. And now we need to vote on the amendment to the agenda as amended. - I move, Mr. Chair. - All right.

» And what'd you say, Sandy? hear you through this mask i said uh you make a motion to uh to approve the agenda as amended and a second please second second for mr gardner on any discussion seeing there is none let's move to a vote all those in favor signify and it's amended mary and if you'd make that change thank you uh with that let's move to the uh approval i was skipping the public um oh here we are the resolution we now have a resolution honoring mr jonathan shepherd and i'm delighted to say that we have the carolina cup of leadership here we have mr toby edwards we have john cushman and we have the chairman of the board of the carolina cup uh mr william cox we're delighted you three gentlemen here uh what i'll do is read the uh the resolution uh we'll vote and comment and then we'll pr

» esent and so with that here we go a resolution honoring mr jonathan shepherd whereas Jonathan Shepard was born the second of December 1940 in England, about 45 miles north of London. His father, Daniel, was a jockey club handicapper, and as a result, Mr. Shepard was exposed to racing at an early age.

» Since a racing career in England was impossible, he came to the United States in the '60s, turned his eyes westward to the United States, and landed in Pennsylvania with Burleigh cox shepard absorbed the knowledge of american flat and steeplechase racing and after a return to england and a brief period working in france he came back to the united states and whereas he took a trainer's license in 1965 and won a start on the flat that very year mr shepard a hall of fame trainer whose horses excelled on the dirt on turf and over steeplechase fences will retire from american horse racing but will continue to train a small stable in ireland he has won every race and prize worth winning in american steeplechasing racing over the last 56 years he is a national steeplechase association all-time lea

» ding trainer by wins with over 1200 rate wins and purse earnings of over 24 million dollars he has been the champion trainer by 20 went by wins 26 times and he has led the sport by purses in 29 years both are records he has also had the distinction of winning a race at saratoga racecourse in 47 straight years through 2015.

» whereas he has won 15 eclipse awards and 11 individual eclipse awards to include two hall of fame members augustine stables cafe prince and flatterer the four-time champion 1983-86 who was bred by shepard and william pape he was also inducted into the national museum of racing hall of fame in saratoga springs in new york in 1990 and whereas he has served as a national steeplechase president from 2004 to 2006 and receives the sport's highest honor the f ambrose clark award in 2013.

» he has also provided leadership in other ways throughout his career he has always been the go-to interview for race meets looking to provide media stories that were positive honest and easy to understand with the late jack van berg he has been an innovator in marshalling large training stables similar to those in his native england he's also participated in groundbreaking research projects with the university of pennsylvania new bolton center and throughout his career he has strived successfully to bring new owners into thoroughbred racing the shadow mr shepherd cast over the sport is immeasurable now therefore be it resolved kershaw county acknowledges with great grateful appreciation the contributions of mr jonathan shepherd that has has been made to the horse racing community of kershaw

» county we wish him a healthy and productive retirement may we have a motion to approve no move thank you mr jones a second second uh for mr snodgrass uh discussion mr jones i'd just like to say that was a wonderful resolution congratulations and glad to be part of it oh absolutely mr snodgrass yeah i just want to echo what mr jones said uh thank you mr shepherd for your contribution uh to to the sport of steeplechase racing and just making kershaw county adding to the value of of this great county people forget the the international draw and touch that we have here in kershaw county a lot that has to do with equine community and we are so very thankful for the equine community and their influence on kershaw county and how they make it a better place thank you absolutely other comments i'll

» say that we have two of two jockeys here mr toby edwards who is the executive director of the carolina cup and then we have mr john cushman who raced on behalf of mr shepherd and also a jockey and uh former chairman of the board of uh the kershaw county's uh premier racing event the carolina cup and i thank you both gentlemen for being here tonight uh when you talk to the jockeys and the racing world about mr shepherd there's nothing short of all when you deal with him and he is the most humble and uh polite man you could hope to meet and we are delighted and honored that we're able to do this tonight and mr cox thank you for coming on behalf of the rest of the board of the carolina cup and we hope to have a great race on the 22nd of may correct absolutely so i think we can move to a vote u

» h let's move to vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand excellent and it passes mary if the three gentlemen would come forward we'll make a presentation thank you very much indeed mr jones mr snodgrass and all of you for that opportunity to honor one of the greats on a global scale of horse racing with that we'll go past the public presentation which has been and removed from the agenda to the approval of minutes. Can we have a motion to approve the minutes? - So moved. - Very good, Mr. Gardner. Second, please. - Second. - Second from Mr. Connell. Thank you. And we move any discussion? With that, we'll move to a vote. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. - Thank you, Ms. Mayor. - And, Mary, it's passed and the minutes are approved.

» We now move to administrative updates. And this one is the COVID-19 from Mr. Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter, go ahead. Mr. Chair, members of council, you see in front of you again the current status of the 14-day average in Kershaw County. We've kind of narrowed down to just the last four months as we were getting well into a year and we're starting to lose the ability to ascertain what was happening. So as you see, the last couple days we've had a decrease. We had 19 cases today. Our peak in the last was 93 in a single day. So our 14-day average has come almost to 800. Now it is dropping. It is still in the 700 range, which is significantly above where it was. Next. There you see in the cases per month with still some days left in the month of January.

» We are obviously well ahead of any other month and looking maybe even to double our next highest month. And the number on the right, if you back up one, is an average daily. Average, yes sir. So it's 37 average daily. Yes sir. So when July was our previous peak until the holidays, we have doubled our previous peak since the holidays. And then our next figure is just the raw numbers for the month. And again, in the month of January, we've already had well over a thousand cases confirmed. And is there another one, Danny? Yeah. The mortality rate is, the chairman alluded to earlier, the coroner reported six additional fatalities over this past weekend, which bring us to a total of 84 deaths in the county. Mr. Chairman, that's my report for where we stand. Very good.

» Comments, gentlemen? Yeah, Mr. Jones, please, sir. Tell me how we're standing on the vaccine push out. Well, the hospital is an entity that is giving currently only have one location in the county that is providing the vaccine, and they have been limited in their abilities, first by supply, and then also by their ability to maintain inventory on hand as it has to be kept at a certain temperature for safe storage. As my understandings are, they're in a phase 1B, which the phases that roll out phase 1A were your frontline medical workers. Phase 1B are your seniors in nursing homes over the age of 70 and first responders that have medical responsibilities.

» So they're rolling those out the DHEC is working to create a location of mass vaccinations where anybody would be able to come they they currently have one in Columbia that they have opened and tried it there and we're working with them to find a location in Kershaw County where people would be able to drive in and not necessarily have to give an appointment appointments have been an issue for people they required the creation of an email account which a lot of seniors do not have and it was confusing for many. DHEC was sharing with us just in the last week that they are creating a new website and new process with a call center as well, so people would be able to register for their vaccination with a whole lot less hassle, and they're rolling that out this week and next week.

» If I could move on a minute, I've had a lot of folks call me, seniors, they just weren't able to get through, and I've talked to quite a few people that just had to go to Columbia or Florence and because they couldn't get it here yet they could get in in another community or another county and again part of it is just a limit that we had as a senator said we were 185 maybe at one point maybe 300 and you can go through 300 pretty quickly when you have people so that was one of the bigger issues where there just weren't a lot of vaccines available to the county mr tucker did you get yours your your family did they finally get theirs in kershaw county uh yes not in kershaw county but they are scheduled for appointments um we use the uh different websites and phone calls where do they go it's u

» h doctor's care and um sam's uh pharmacy it's not an appointment yes in columbia at forest drive not trying to be ugly it's just the facts and i was just wondering you know why to the best of my knowledge that's the reason is the lack of available vaccines okay thank you so much yeah if i might respond the senator summed it up uh the rural counties like ours were given a disproportionately lower amount of vaccine it's egregious uh senator and indeed all our delegation i was aware and as senator gustafson just said getting the number kicked up was extremely important they they felt like in kershaw health and i've talked to too sugared about it Jimmy and thanks for raising that issue man it's a big deal isn't it um she said that she is today uh trying to find out the allocation that the senat

» or just argued for on my behalf and she will open up additional uh venues to give the shots I mean the waiting time is zero because they run out of vaccine so fast Jimmy uh the point you also raised and I just want to hit on that again is because you got to go on email a lot of people don't have email a lot of people won't use email and a lot of people don't understand it and are either confused by it and I certainly took eight hours before I finally got through and I'm pretty good on email so the system is flawed I'm certainly gratified by the way people are going out and helping people who are not as good at using email and web-based uh registration that i see churches doing it i see sammy doing it with his entire family um all of us are trying to help each other but i'm glad you raised t

» hat point it's a real flaw in the system mr jones thank you and a follow-up to that so basically with what the senator said about the increase in volume we should see a difference within the next couple of weeks i think this week good yeah yeah uh mr tucker i won't i won't belay this i just this is just something that kind of struck me and all my colleagues up here know what i'm talking about i'm just very curious why that uh the local pharmacies and this is more for the senator to take back and your local doctors who probably see 85 to 90 percent of your elderly folks are not able to administer this fascination because that's what the older population goes and they if nothing else they do i know the older population votes and they go to their doctor's appointments i can promise you that th

» ose two things they're going to do and mr tucker i would would hazard the response that is probably again the inability to store the vaccines on site because you're required to keep it at 70 degrees below zero and they just don't have those kinds of of coolers available to them and our hospitals is very limited in its size as well so that's been one of the bigger issues is not just is it available but can you store it and and and keep it safe well all i'll say on that johnson and johnson hurry up and come because that's a different vaccine one time nothing below zero other comments i know all of you have been involved i i made the case where i could for example on delineations of of of who ought to be in the first line and i said such people as ambulance drivers and indeed ministers uh are

» we're a very religious county and and we are properly respectful of our of our clergy and the clergy are very often in that group of people that go see families in these times of need so but unfortunately that's not happened however the city of myrtle beach allowed that to happen and a whole bunch of catholic priests were headed for myrtle beach last week and they all got their shots just show up um and another thing is the voluntary nature of it uh we've heard from one of our citizens you know raising questions about it uh i personally don't happen to agree with that what he said but like i said it's a free country but it's a free country in a lot of ways uh for example uh you know my my children are in special forces and they are not required you cannot order a soldier to take them to tak

» e the shot you can make them wear the mask because that's a uniform but you can't make them take the shot so the navy the army and marine corps and air force are finding that they've got extra doses and fort bragg for example is opening up and i think fort um fort jackson may just give back some of their their doses so this is what we're hearing here as i've heard from mr jones mr tucker and all of you it's kind of like a wikipedia environment isn't it wikipedia was everybody is getting collective information and the more we talk to each other and crosstalk as jimmy and sammy are doing would help our people understand where it's going and then we have our DELEGATION THANK YOU SENATOR STEPPING UP AND FIGHTING FOR US SO GETTING THROUGH THIS THING IS GOING TO BE SOMETHING WE DO TOGETHER MR.

» JONES MR. CHAIR MEMBERS OF COUNCIL RIGHT QUICKLY AND I'LL END THIS ARE THERE ANY HELP SITES AVAILABLE OR HAS ANYBODY THOUGHT ABOUT ANY HEALTH SITES AVAILABLE FOR MR. BRAZO PLEASE SIR I THINK TO GET AHEAD OF GOVERNMENT AND EVERYBODY ELSE AND JUST just go straight to the scdhec.gov it lays out i'm looking at it now find covid vaccine location find a testing location it's got all the updates yep per dhec it's it's updated almost minute to minute in the last few weeks yeah okay mr charles let me follow i'm sorry mr i want to make sure i follow up that wasn't what i that wasn't what i was talking about help site i mean for seniors to be carried to that they could go to or call because sometimes folks don't know how to use the computer yeah that's the point so when i said help sites i apologize i

» didn't clarify but are there any help sites to where they could go or they could call that would help them fill out or follow through to get their vaccine i've found that when you go to these sites they help you but getting there for seniors is sometimes problem you nailed it jimmy and russell has the right answer but getting to it is the problem yeah yeah okay are we all on the same page on that i - I think we are. - Mr. Chairman, if I can share this-- - Mr. Gardner had the next point. Tom, please, sir. - I think that's a great idea, Jimmy. But I think that our failure as the state is that we failed last year to plan when we knew a vaccine was coming. We knew in May and we failed to plan and we're behind everybody in the country. I think the data says that we're 50th in giving vaccines.

» And I think we go back to leadership at the governor's office and DHEC. think that's where you got to point the finger uh i agree with you i went online last night i have an appointment sunday in charlotte to get my vaccine charlotte atriumhealth.org they had appointments available atriumhealth.org uh i have an appointment at five o'clock sunday and i have my second appointment on february 28th already i mean that's the way you do things i mean we're we're behind times but uh again uh atrium health in charlotte bank of america stadium they're doing they're doing a drive-through there are about seven sites on there where you can get it so if you're listening that's a place that if you're looking to get the vaccine go there and i know it's not south carolina but uh you know if you want it it'

» s a place you can go get it mr tucker you were next and then mr snodgrass yes i just want to put this out because i think it's important um councilman jones we're speaking of the ones that just can't do the internet may not have internet access the the one at Sam's Club Pharmacy. Now, this is the one on Forest Drive. It's just a phone number, 803-790-1581. You call that number and you give your information. - Do it again, please. - And you set it up. - Give those last, the numbers, please, again. - 803-790-1581. - Thank you.

» - And they can set your appointment up through a phone call, which is much better than trying to get on a computer folks who's not quite as savvy the atrium health is the same way that you can do it with a phone number and it asks for an email but i don't think it's required so uh you can do it there yeah like i say it's like wikipedia everybody inputting uh mrs snoggrass you were next one one quick thing it's also 65 in north carolina not 70.

» yeah that's right that's where my wife's headed i won't tell you how old she is go ahead uh i will mr carpenter and i asked this question maybe just to give dhek a little we'll give them a little a little benefit of the doubt the email thing that's not so much a dhek thing isn't that a vams thing that's a federal government thing it wasn't a dx system that but the email part is vams correct yes sir i believe so okay and i do know that they're they're working through that and i don't want to say i don't want to say a whole lot on this i just i happen to be to be in a conversation with our hospital leadership recently. And you'll be proud to know I'm excited about what I think they're going to be announcing here pretty soon.

» That's going to allow, allow citizens better, better access that a lot of, and that's what a lot of hospitals are doing. They're, they're trying to find workarounds around the VAMS system and not work around, but ways in which they can get patient information differently than that. So I'm very optimistic about what I'm hearing that they're working on. And then another question, Mr. Carpenter, how's our, I see our great EMS director back there. How's our first responder system working? I mean, how's everything going as far as load, call volume throughout all of this pandemic? Well, and Jill can certainly correct me. You know, our call volume is up, obviously, quite a bit.

» And that led to us having to change our normal protocols for transport to where we will now transport to the nearest appropriate hospital for an individual they call in. And that resulted in a pretty significant decrease in the number of out-of-county transports this week. We only had three out-of-county transports as a result of that, which frees up our local vehicles for local calls to respond quicker.

» uh so they are dealing with um obviously increased calls but but that change alone is helpful a good bit well that was that was good thanks for bringing it thank you so much gerald thank you so much to your staff it seems like every time i turn around in town i hear a siren and one of your one of your folks is heading out somewhere so i know you guys have been it's not just the coveted stuff but just in general uh people in need so thanks give up the good work uh mr jones i want to follow up on that i really do appreciate the way ems has been thinking ahead not waiting till something happens like government but you've been thinking ahead and i i really do appreciate that because that is about lies when they pick people up they come back to the uh what mr snodgrass said i i've been i talked

» to since who's uh sugared often and she runs our hospital she says we'll transition to a new facility in addition to the hospital the new facility will be on battleship road at what they used to call the hrc y'all all know where that is and that'll come out very soon but that's dependent on opening multiple vaccine stations and the availability of vaccine so that's exactly the point all of y'all have been making and the hospital is responding but they need to have the vaccine and secondly she is very aware of the issues that mr jones and mr tucker have raised about the relative difficulty of getting into vams we're all learning the lingo aren't we um and she has set up a system where you can self-schedule uh either by phone or or by uh email but not yet okay so let's wait as mr snodgrass sa

» ys for the kershaw health to roll this out all these plans quote unquote will be dependent on getting the vaccine and secondly she says she's going to reach out to vic carpenter which is a another good thing senator gustafson has got mr carpenter on the state oh i don't know what they call it vaccine board or something are you going to be administering shots vic i hope not but uh he gives us a voice at the state level in addition to our delegation and he can also advise us so that's great vic just one more thing for you to do but we appreciate you doing that other comments gentlemen i thank you for for this this has been most helpful for me i learned a lot i know our our citizens did too thank you very much all right we'll move on to the next item mr carpenter if that's the end of that brie

» fing mr members council um tonight you have for a third reading an ordinance to rezone approximately 70 acres of land uh the current zoning of rd1 to be rezoned to r15 it has previously been approved by council on two previous votes and it is before each night for third and final reading it said tab c it's up on the screen and at page nine in your electronic books can we have a motion to approve make a motion to approve mr chairman mr tucker a second do you have a second not my district second yeah mr snodgrass discussion i believe we have mr lackey here and mr cox all right are there any questions for the uh the owners and so on uh questions yes i think mr lackey does a great job i don't see any need for questions yeah others no questions uh we can move quickly to a vote all those in favor

» signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous mary it passes on the third reading thank you very much mr lackey i'll see see you on the at the park at 5 30 in the morning all right mr lackey runs at 5 30 in the morning that is crazy man uh our next item is at tab d i believe and page uh 31 uh mr carpenter can you introduce it mr chair members council we have in front of you tonight for second reading an intergovernmental agreement between kershaw county and the town of bethune which authorizes kershaw county to provide services in the area of planning and zoning to the town of bethune that previously it was approved by county council on first reading very good can we have a motion to approve so move uh mr gardner it's your district second second from mr tucker uh discussion mr gardner i t

» hink that we uh we talked about it not adding a great deal of duties to to what we already do so and any any excess costs will be paid by the applicant or calum bethune if that's case so i think it's a good thing other questions uh mr john uh mr jones or mr connell i was just going to go ahead i followed up with the planning zoning director mr conley and asked him what kind of volume they'd seen over the years that would relate to this agreement and he said roughly over five years maybe two or three times that they've done something that would be not on the regular fee schedule so it seems to be very minimal good good other comments mr jones go right ahead i plan to vote for second reading but third reading i've got some questions i've had a couple of folks come up to me and ask me question

» s so i want to speak with you and mr gardner but we'll do that during the next couple of weeks terrific terrific and we have mr conley here clarification very good and mr conley is here too if you need to talk with him other comments okay we're ready to move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous uh we move to the next item which is on page 33 at tab e please mr uh mr carpenter mr chairman members council you have in front of you tonight for first reading an ordinance to rezone two parcels of land totaling approximately 53 acres one parcel from mrd1 the second from rd2 to both being gd general development it has previously been approved by the planning and zoning commission unanimously is this at the motor park yes sir thank you and we have a motion to

» approve so moves uh mr gardner second second uh that was you david yes very good all right uh discussion and who wants i would first ask you to give a little more information what this is all about yes my chairman and i misspoke it's three parcels not two i'm sorry um um the cummings who have purchased the carolina motorsports park last year have made a commitment to some significant upgrades and improvements They've already spent significantly on resurfacing the track out there, and they're working to develop its ability to host and to attract large events.

» Part of their plan involves these parcels here, bringing them into the park itself, and perhaps ultimately developing them into some kind of either living quarters, well, not living quarters, but condominiums where people could actually stay while they're racing their vehicles, as well as other development related to the ability to run the park itself.

» very good i went out there when they first opened and there were suddenly 400 formula one races race cars out there i mean this is the kind of car that mr jones would drive when he was when he was 15 years old and uh it's an amazing thing they put in a million dollars into new asphalt out there because when you're driving a car that fast uh it's got to have good good turf uh mr jones you had a comment please mr chairman members council thank you so much I have spoke with a couple of people that are involved in this up there and this could really be a good thing for Kershaw County. It really could. It may not, it may not, nothing may happen in a period of time, but the sooner the better, because as I said, I think it could be really good for us. Thank you. Okay. Very good.

» Other comments? Mr. Snodgrass. I just, I'll say I'm excited that the zoning commission brought this to us with a unanimous vote. Here in Kershaw County, we like to race whether it be horses or cars so uh whatever whatever keeps us on that on that track no pun intended of being the race capital of the world whether it's a horse or car we'll bring it on i i did reach out to some westville um neighbors up there and just to kind of get their feedback and and the feedback that i received was um was very positive and i know that this will just continue to boost the economy up there whether you're talking about russell's barbecue or or any other areas around there um that will just bring uh bring traffic to that area of the county but at the same time uh keeping the unique uh rural nature of that

» part of the county as well so i think this is a response a responsible move on our part and uh these have these folks have been great neighbors since they've come on board and uh it's good for our county uh mr connell thank you mr chairman we just asked staff since this was placed into the agenda packet um was there any negative feedback or other feedback that came from the public uh mike connelly come on up excuse me uh since it came before planning commission uh we have not since then but prior to planning commission we had a couple of neighbors call in question just to get some information none of them outrightly objected to it then we did have a letter that was sent to the planning commission read to planning commission of a resident just down that road who um asked did not be approved

» okay well it looks interesting i'm intrigued i'll support it on first reading i'd like to learn a lot more other comments uh i would tell you there was one other piece uh that there's some legislation that the previous delegation and the current delegation with senator gustafson are trying to pass to help this become an effective and sustainable business in the north part of our county uh so there's there's work yet to be done this is a great start uh i have met with two industries that want to move here they want to move their race cars and their race car businesses here from new jersey uh and uh and we've passed that off to vic carpenter to work through economic development it won't be a lot of jobs but it's going to be high tech and there are businesses in lugo that service this particul

» ar industry if you all have not seen them down there near dave's place so this could add to our horse racing a different kind of horsepower so we'll see how it happens i i intend to support it on first reading other comments all right with that let's move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand uh mr jones mr connell mr burns mr gardner mr tucker and mr snodgrass all those opposed uh and opposition is mr brazel uh with that mary it passes on first reading we'll move it forward to the second reading uh next item is item number three it's on page 61 mary you had a lot of work putting this one together um mr carpenter can you introduce it please mr chairman members of council have in front of you for first reading and amended ordinance uh to change the rules of kershaw county

» council very good it's on page 66 it's up on the screen and it's a tab e and mr jones you're excited to introduce it can you have a motion please uh yes mr chairman members of county council i move for first reading of the amended and restated ordinance by kershaw county council determining rules and order of business to add under section 2 5 order of business number 12 public comments follow-up and to add appendix three public comments follow-up good can we have a second second second from mr brazel mr jones can you introduce the time yes thank you for the second mr brown what we're looking for here and uh mr chairman what this is is of course you see up you have a memo that was put in there as well in your packet this time i see it okay page 66.

» so basically what it says is the rules are the same as regular pub comment except it is limit this this public comment follow-up is limited to two minutes for each speaker and a 10 minutes total and also provides uh where you see number five in 2.5 number five if you go to that page you can see under section 2.5 order of business go down to number 12 where it says public comments follow-up has been put there and then if you'll go to appendix three the last page that's been added and appendix three public comment follow-up rules to public comment follow-up if you look at number five when the agenda item public comment follow-up is reached the chairman shall give an opportunity for members of the public to sign up to speak as provided by these rules and number six says public comment follow-u

» p period is limited to 10 minutes with two minutes maximum allowed per individual speaker the number seven public comment follow up is an opportunity for the public to share information with counsel to the matters considered by our voted on or discussed as an agenda item by counsel during the meeting because it would come after the new business it would be an opportunity to give the public a little bit more involvement within our meetings which i think is is very good and also i have found out that there are other counties that do this thank you mr chairman all right let me just for clarification jimmy essentially we have a public comment at the front correct changes nothing there changes nothing there is nothing and then at each point along the way when we have an ordinance we then at the

» end of discussion chairman asked for comments from the from the audience correct no so you would ask is there anybody who would like to sign up to comment okay there'd only be 10 minutes all right and if it's one person to be two minutes if it was you know more than that you would divide it up as we do with our 30-minute section we have prior to the meeting okay it has nothing to do with I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt you but it has nothing to do with the public comment in the beginning this is a public comment follow-up which will come in after new business but not after each item but after no no no after new business one time one time only with you okay on the agenda all right very good uh mr brazel do you have any comments i'd love to see more people come in and okay you know we we

» get a lot of people weighing in on social media i want them to come in and weigh in here you know we we need them here and i think this is a you know an excellent opportunity to give them more of an opportunity to be here and you know tell us what's on their mind okay thank We need to certainly be more transparent, and I'm happy to support that. Good. Mr. Gardner. Are we still not commenting on them, or are we just going to let them get up and talk again, and we're not going to comment again? The same rules follow, Mr. Gardner. We won't be able to comment. They'll get up to just voice their concerns or whatever. It'll be the same as the public comments in the beginning.

» It's just going to be a public comment follow-up after we go through a portion of our agenda and complete the new business. I think it's redundant, personally. I disagree, but I won't support that. Well, I disagree with you wholeheartedly, but thank you so much. Let me ask you this procedural, since the chairman has to conduct that. Suppose the idea is that the comments must be directed at the follow-up against items in new business.

» Is that correct? only pertaining to items and so to pertain to items within the agenda that we've already gone through and basically probably it would probably be more geared at new business because that's where we vote to make changes but the bottom line is that's when it would come in and you know guys what will it hurt I mean it's the way I look at it we're having a lengthy discussion on it and I don't know that there needs to be a lengthy discussion because you're either far do you not and I think you're right on this table knows what this is all about you know it's there it will give people more opportunity to sign up and speak and be involved with us and and and and participate with us even though we will not comment or we will not have any conversation with them during that period of

» time I just don't see where I just don't see where it's that big of an issue to not want to at least give it a try you know it all comes down in government to perception I think we would be sending a message out there to the folks that you know we we do what we did and i know all of you care but we do care about you we want to hear from you we care about how you feel on the process that we just had and uh i just think it's a great thing i don't know what else i can say uh but let me just go back to okay the chairman's up here and the guy starts to talk about something completely unassociated with the agenda agenda items only so then the chairman has to say i hate to say it but i'll have to do a point of order on the on the speaker but but you'd be correct on that it's agenda I just want to

» understand what your intent agenda items only okay got it other comments mr. Snodgrass mr. Jones why would we why would you have you thought about just moving public comments to after new business just having that one well that one section then you're decreasing the time and I guess my question is why would you even ask me that question oh I'm just curious I'm just trying to I'm just trying to get I'm just trying to I mean that's taking and with all due respect i'm not meaning to be rude at you but i just don't ask your question because this is part of the process yeah i just don't understand why that question would even be asked because if you would do away with the 30 minutes then you just cut it out 10 minutes just everything that's everything that's public comment 30 minutes what i'm no

» t talking about decreasing time oh you mean take the 30 minutes and go yeah just i mean if if the concern is citizens being able to uh comment on what has taken place then you just would just move that down there instead having two uh two public comments well that sort of kills the whole purpose of what i'm trying to do i want to give them more time the public has 30 minutes at the beginning of the meeting right and then the public will have 10 minutes after we go through our agenda items and finish new business okay yeah i mean it just it just seems a little redundant um it's not so all right that's for mr mr attorney let me ask you this what's what's what's happening up here according to according to home rule and what what are we doing right now you are well mr jones has made a motion to

» amend your rules in order of business no i'm talking about in general county council meeting what is this a town hall or is this a business what what is the function of what we're doing well it's informational and legislative okay and it's informational also i mean you proclamations aren't per se legislative they're more declarations so it's declarations information and legislation okay so legislation and a part of that is this is we're doing the business of the county this is not this is not primarily a town hall meeting as much as it is this is the council of kershaw county doing the business of the county is that correct that's correct okay i just just so we do we know our definitions and um all right thank you um other comments mr garner rather than having two why don't we move public c

» omments after new business i'd have two he said have two you had one in the beginning and move it down yeah he wants two and i was just trying to be practical i'll just have one move it down yeah okay okay i was trying to understand what you said i'd move move public comments to the end and they can sit there and listen to everything we said and then they get up and commented on the end i'm not opposed to that move it to the end i'm opposed the two well i don't agree with that so what you're saying as a yeah very good uh mr connell thank you mr chairman um i wouldn't favor moving the entire block to the end i think that the importance of the first amendment making a public forum is so that uh government or the legislative process as mr bow said can actually get actionable information so if

» we move it after news business then we wouldn't be able to vote on anything you would have somebody say someone has a brilliant an idea and we don't hear it and then you hear it right after you voted you can't act again for another two weeks i was trying to think back over the four years so far that i've been up here you you've had maybe just a few times where we've actually needed to expand or extend the public comment section and i think in every instance we've actually done that and i'd be in favor of saying you know public comments at the beginning when we can get actionable information should be extended if needed i think we've actually done that in every instance but having um non-actual information come in which would either be hey i think you did a great job on what you voted on or

» i think you did a bad job on what you voted on and this these are the reasons why are all things that can be shared in public comment and we can't act on it at least for not another two weeks so i would oppose this okay um mr garner we can't act on it anyway because it's not an agenda i don't know i mean people can bring in 47 great ideas not on the agenda we're not gonna vote on it anyway it's in the beginning all right uh other discussion mr yeah mr what i meant what i meant mr gardner was we couldn't act on a vote on the agenda uh if it came after the fact i mean if you already voted you can't take the information into account in voting yay or nay uh mr mr chairman once again this is something that i have strong opinions about and obviously my colleagues do too however they have a right

» to their opinion but i just i truly think this would be a good gesture to the public when government's popularity is at an all-time low and uh it shows that we care we want to hear from you and no matter who you are or where you come from we want to hear from you and we're willing to open it up and as i said madam clerk do you know of any counties or have you heard of any counties that or i had gotten some information there were other counties are you aware of any okay lawrence does it okay but anyway i think this is a good thing i think it'd give more opportunity for people to be involved and uh thank you so much for your time all right very good i think we're ready to move to a vote uh we have a motion here to make these changes uh the rules of our behavior as a council all those in favor

» signify by raising your hand mr jones and mr brazel all those opposed signify likewise mr snagras mr tucker mr gardner mr burns and mr connell and motion fails thank you mr jones thank you mr very helpful council very helpful uh with that we move to the next item on the agenda which is i think the elgin pump station it's at page 70 in your book and it's on the screen mr carpenter mr chairman members council you have in front of you tonight a bid staff put out for bids for the extension of the elgin one pump station force main approximately ten thousand eight hundred linear feet of force main and valves um seven will receive the low bid of four hundred ten thousand was from site concepts uh which has done a number of projects for the county in the past and has been a good contractor staff re

» commends awarding the bid to site concepts very good can we have a motion to approve i mean uh mr connell a second second from mr brasil uh discussion mr chairman yeah absolutely mr this is a project that sorely needs to be done. We've been getting updates that, well, we knew for quite some time as we had the engineers studying it, that the system needed to be upgraded, the piping needed to be upgraded, that the pump stations needed to be upgraded just due to the growth in the West Watery area. And this is something that we can't act on quickly enough, in my view. Because as growth continues, the sewer need, there's no way to mitigate it. You have to take care of it. I think that's an amen. Any other discussion? Mr. Jones, go ahead.

» I think it's pretty obvious that Highway 1, South Pond Road, is where we have the urgency to get the flow going correctly. Am I right, Mr. Carpenter? On the entire Highway 1 corridor, yes, sir. Would you explain, when we do the turnaround, what's going to happen? Well, what this will do is this will basically route Force Main around the high school, allowing us to take out of service gravity flow, which can result in backups if too much flow comes through. So the implementation of this will do two things. First of all, it'll allow us to move the flow much quicker. It'll reduce the potential for backups. And plus, it'll take out of service a force main through the property of the high school, which has been problematic in the past. Mr. Chairman. Any other discussion? Sir, Mr. Kutaka.

» Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Carpenter, not to raise any eyebrows, but just a bit of concern. I'm looking at these. First of all, have we used site concepts before? Several times. I thought I heard the name before. I'm just looking at the difference in these bids. Everybody in South Carolina is up to double or several hundred thousand dollars more than what they are. And they're from Florida. Closest cat to them is in Georgia. I mean, they got a home station here or something? They do a lot of work in South Carolina. We can tell from our own service with them. And like I said, they've been very reputable. THEY'VE CAUSED US NO PROBLEMS. THEIR BIDS HAVE BEEN LOW BIDS, AND THEY'VE BEEN GOOD BIDS. THANK YOU. OTHER DISCUSSION? THERE'S A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF -- YEAH, MR. JONES. I APPRECIATE MR.

» TUCKER BRINGING THAT POINT, BECAUSE IT DOES CONCERN YOU WHEN YOU SEE 410, AND YOU GO TO 937. YES, SIR. AND YOU'RE WONDERING, OKAY, WHY IS THERE SUCH A BIG DIFFERENCE? AND THEN YOU GOT SOME FOLKS CLOSER OR AT HOME THAT ARE SO HIGH. DO YOU KNOW OF SOME OTHER CUSTOMERS have used this for this company um well again i'd say that we've used them we've had a good experience with them we've never had a problem and we have you know we when they provide us some references we check them and they use us as a reference and we we confirm their uh their quality to us um so i can't tell you why somebody would would bid as much higher than others that's their bidding process i don't know what they did i'll just comment that they are based at one location but they probably have a real presence here and i wan

» t to explore that do you know that what their presence is in the state of south carolina because they're probably a regional contracting agency i don't but i could find out sir yeah just as a point of information this i want to hold the vote up for that but yeah very often you get a big firm like that they've got subsidiaries everywhere uh mr jones does that get to your point it does i have one quick question when we when we finish this turnaround is that going to increase our capacity it'll increase our ability our capacity in this in the system yes sir it won't increase the capacity in the plant but it does increase our capacity in moving through the system do we have the capacity right now if a big industry comes in in this particular area not at the minute nesser thank you yes sir big p

» oint uh mr connell yeah mr chairman i was just going to say generally you know we love these local businesses they bid sometimes just to stay in the game maybe may not be the project that would be uh top of their priority list but they bid to stay in the game and keep their name involved on some level absolutely mr charles and make no mistake i was going to support this i had no intentions not to support this but i just wanted to get some clarification publicly thank you yep good uh ben you satisfied this your area yes sir and overall the southern loop is a priority as well and we're working on that but i think this will this any help to the system is help overall okay very good i think we're ready to vote all those in favor of this recommendation signify by raising your hand and it's unani

» mous and we can move forward with that uh with that i think we move to council briefings mr brazel we'll start with you thanks for again making me feel comfortable everybody and being here i don't really have any any briefings um i'm just trying to get comfortable here and uh this is this is new to me and i'm studying and learning and i hope to add value so that's it very good uh mr kyle you're doing fine russell uh tonight mr chairman thank you uh mr jones mr chairman just one quick comment going back to his and of course she brought it up at the very beginning of the meeting about the emergency ordinance you know what bothers me i've asked for us to be put six feet apart we we're not and we could be stationed six feet apart i will i will respect rules i will respect laws whether i agree w

» ith it or not but bottom line is we're not even doing what we ask folks to do and we took our mask off to have our pictures made but then we can't we're told to put your mask on when you sit here behind this chair i mean it just doesn't make sense to me and i'm just saying that uh i wish at least we could try to go six feet apart let's see let's see what we can do yeah and mr chairman you know y'all you folks know i've asked that three or four times so in my opinion we're not even doing what we're asking folks to do themselves thank you very much very good um thank you mr jones uh mr snodgrass sure mr uh chairman members of council uh just want to say it was a great uh last week was able to be a part of an event here in the council chambers with our junior leadership program here in the cou

» nty it was their day to come and learn about county government and even though i was i was quarantined at the moment i was able to zoom to zoom in and to be a part of that and it's just it's great seeing young people who are involved who want to be involved in the process want to learn about the process and was honored to to be able to to take part in that and and just along the lines of democratic process i hope everyone understands that i am very accessible through uh through number of cell number email social media whatever that i do want to hear from you and if there is are things on the agenda that you see coming up let me know i try to try to be very active out in the community so that i'm not here i don't only just hear from you at public comment but i hear from you at the restaurant

» down the the road that I hear from you in places of worship at the grocery store where we can have I would argue more robust interaction and and better back and forth to help each other understand understand the issue so so I hope hope everyone in the in the county is is is very aware that I'm very accessible and I do I want I want to hear from you and and your view on on matters that come before council. Thank you. Mr. Tucker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Mary, two things I will ask of you, please, ma'am. One is when Mr. Maddox sends in another e-letter, please have him to give you the instructions on the puppet. I missed that today, but I appreciate your reading. The other is that if anybody would volunteer, it would be me.

» I'm happy to sit out so we can be six foot apart so feel free to volunteer me that concludes my report thank you uh mr gardner no report i'll just say very quickly uh the son of edith brazel will be effective from day one and you have been welcome it's great to have you here and uh give my best year to roy they're a great family and we're lucky to have you aboard no issues there i would quickly hit a couple of points um i want welcome boy scouts again thank you sir that means you got to go home and do homework now uh senator thank you for coming always welcome and you can see your value added here today i would mention that we got a letter from the bethune town council i've passed it to mr gardner asking for funds and i think mr carpenter will and mr gardner can tell us how to handle that i

» 've been asked by mr daryl ogburn who is the chairman of our kelsey kershaw county health services board to state that as you already know that the prisma deal with kershaw health may or may not go through there's been a federal ruling on the issue i'm no lawyer but i think we could see that one coming from about a year ago based on the way the case was presented by the lexington hospital uh quite a different business model and they had a lot of risk in there and they stepped up effectively in the federal court system irrespective of that mr mr ogburn asked me to pass on to everybody in kershaw county that the kershaw health and the kershaw health services district are fully engaged on this issue and the commitment to provide quality health care and secondly keep the care issuing going mr j

» ones as you would say and the beechwood project continues we need to support our hospital and our health services board they are working hard at it and i would also say the employees at the kershaw health need to know of our respect for them not just in this covet environment but also with the disappointment that must rain when they when the deal became a hazarded uh when it went to the federal court here last fall uh i would also mention we got the super bowl coming we're all going to do super bowl parties not me uh i'm I'm gonna be safely distanced and watch the winning team, Kansas City. It has our same initials, so I'll be voting for them. But I ask you all to socially distance when you yell for the KC team out of Kansas City. I would lastly say, Mr. Jones and Mr.

» Brazel, wonderful motivation. I think we can achieve it by other means. And the challenge to all of us is to be transparent, accessible and listening to the citizens thank you mr jones for highlighting that issue i couldn't support the way it was structured but i support what the motivation is and and we need to do something about it lastly let's do take seriously about separation up here i think maybe move one of us off i'll sit down there if you want um maybe mary and um and uh mr templer can move off and we can we can we can come up with a solution mr jones you're right on the money with that mr carpenter Mr.

» Chair, members of council, just a reminder that the 2nd of February, next Tuesday, will be our first workshop for the planning, goal setting, and budget season, 530 at WTC, Willard Technology Center, and we'll be in touch with you and reminding you throughout the week. Also, you see up, we have our next movie night at the Watery River Veterans Park. It'll be February the 13th, and it's a daddy-daughter, mama-son movie night. There will be food trucks available.

» so we encourage you to come out and have a great night at the veterans park can i bring mr jones that's my report uh mr bowes mr chairman i have nothing and with that we have no we have no we have no executive session uh so with that can i have a motion to this chairman oh yes if y'all would just pay attention at the end there's a for information only section at the end of your agenda regarding committees and some of the terms are expired if y'all will notice that very good i'll I'll get with you, Mary, tomorrow. - Okay. - Thank you. With that, a motion to retire. - So moved, Mr. - Mr. Tucker, a second. Mr. Gardner, any discussion? Seeing there is none, we move to a vote. All those in favor? And it's unanimous.