Full meeting transcript - February 23, 2021

» deck one two up and live yep we seem to be it's a great day in kershaw county we're now called to order mr tucker is about 12 minutes out in traffic on i-20 so we have a quorum so we are called together here in the all-american county and i want to first open up by saying uh there was a rumor that i got a call on that all this mass stuff and uh electronic uh virtual meetings was an attempt to stop the people from coming and that is couldn't be further from the truth this is wide open uh we are limited by space and having to wear the mask but the idea is is that we are transparent and open to everyone to attend and secondly we have the added benefit of the good help of danny templar and the i.t team that allow us to do this virtually so people at home can watch uh secondly uh the live stream

» s is up and we have an email e-meeting format under the emergency declaration i'd also like to welcome our elected representative mr dabney thank you for coming tonight i'd like to see you haven't seen you in the flesh since new year so it's good to see you here thanks for coming with that i want to ask for a short moment of silence in memory of the folks we have lost during this pandemic. Amen. And with that, we'll turn to Councilman Ben Connell to lead us in a prayer and a pledge of allegiance, and then we'll make some quick changes in the agenda. Please, Mr. Connell. Dear Heavenly Father, pray for charity in our lives. Help us follow the example of our Savior Jesus Christ to do what's right in our lives.

» This meeting, please bless us with wisdom and an understanding of the issues, and also the foresight to make good decisions for Rochelle County. Pray for those who struggle or mourn for any reason, that thou would please lift them up and have an extra measure of my spirit and we say this in the name of jesus christ amen thank you very much indeed mr connell i'm going to take the prerogative of the chairman under change circumstances so there's not inconvenience to several people that have come here on behalf of us of two resolutions that we have so i'm going to start right off the bat asking for an amendment to the agenda to bring the first item forward item number two recognizing a night to shine and a resolution honoring honoring the powers family uh can we have such a motion i still move

» mr chairman and we have a second second uh second from mr snodgrass mary any discussion i thank you for that with that let's move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and i'll move straight to some real fun stuff first of all is recognition a resolution recognizing a night to shine it's a tab b and i believe it's on the board and what i'm going to do is read the resolution we'll have a vote and then we'll bring bring them forward for a formal recognition a resolution recognizing a night to shine whereas kershaw county council is committed to vision 2030 and and it's aimed to be the great place to live, work, worship, and play and raise families for our growing and vibrant and historic communities to celebrate their culture and vitality.

» And whereas the pandemic now approaches the end of a full year and has impacted businesses, families, schools, churches, and every dimension of our economic, cultural, and spiritual lives, and whereas the disease has not dampened our courage and spirit, Kershaw County has bravely overcome every adversity, and in spite of personal illnesses and grievous loss among our population, we have continued to offer compassion and resolve to sustain church, education, business, and community life.

» Whereas Pastor Derek Proctor and New Life Christian Outreach of Lugoth faithfully mastered both COVID and even bad weather to conduct the Night to Shine ministry celebration as every year on the Friday night before Valentine's, with over 60 participants and 100 volunteers who raved 30 000 to promote and conduct the event whereas night to shine was begun by tim tebow on a worldwide level seven years ago and brought to kershaw county by the inestimable kate corley steins its purpose is to manifest to provide an unforgettable prom night experience centered on god's love for people with special needs ages 14 and older and to honor love and serve those with disability and whereas night to shine is a night for the churches to shine the volunteers to shine our honored guests to shine and most impo

» rtantly god to shine and whereas pastor proctor and his congregation led and sustained the effort with godly skill and devotion and whereas private businesses and volunteers responded to kate steins especially trip katie gwynn from catering on broad who provided free food service for all honored guests and their families and by the dancers from paterson's school of dance along with dj keith williamson who provided entertainment wow thanks to the 17 leaders who worked tirelessly for five months now therefore kershaw county pronounces its determination and courage to continue to love serve and remain the great place even during this pandemic and let it be further resolve kershaw county recognizes and thanks new life christian outreach of lou golf pastor proctor kate corley steins and all the

» volunteers and supporters of kershaw county for their superlative service to the county the community and to the families of the many honored guests who had the time of their lives can we have a motion to approve so move um all right we'll argue about that mr mr brazel gave the first the second mr jones by acclamation there so any discussion i think this is a wonderful organization mr chairman i appreciate you or whoever brought it before this kind of council i think there's not enough words to say how much how much joy we get out of seeing these young folks these folks participate in this community come together in such a wonderful wonderful matter absolutely thank you uh you had the first mr uh yeah i just i just want to say this i hadn't seen it firsthand but seems to be just an absolute

» ly astonishing um event and kate thank you so much for putting this together this is wonderful um look forward to seeing it every year it's an annual event correct look forward to seeing it grow and and anything that uh that i could do to help i'm happy to help and i want to see it flourish thank you all right let's just digress i followed this event for the last few years on on Facebook and every time I see the pictures, it's just so encouraging and it reminds me of what is great about Kershaw County. So, Pastor Proctor, thank you so much for opening up your church and being so generous. Kate, thank you so much. Those of you who don't know, Kate is a resident of Antioch, which is proudly in District Five. So, we're all proud of our Antioch folks down there.

» And you know, you've been hearing the phrase pro-life a lot recently in our state. And this event, this event reminds us all that when we say that we're pro-life, that means from the womb all the way to the end. And this event reminds us that every life is created in the image of God. And this event ensures that everyone understands the fundamental truth that they are loved and that they are created in the image of their creator. And so this is just really, really exciting. Kate, thank you so much. Derek, thank you.

» trip and kate thank you so much for your uh generosity and everyone else who sponsored uh exciting exciting stuff thank you much other comments uh mr gardner it's just uh seemed to me it's a great night for those with special needs it's a special night for them and certainly very worthy calls and forward to it continuing for many years to come i'll just close it as a sponsor of this particular acclamation is you go to any church your church jimmy's church your church mine yours and you go to any volunteer organization in this great county and you'll see the same outpouring yeah i'm very cognizant last year's camden military academy in the school district couldn't sponsor a special olympics because of this awful situation but it didn't dampen our spirit our courage our ability to love one an

» other and and exemplify all the teachings that were given us by our savior and i'm just delighted that we're able to do this i think we can move to a vote now all those in favor so signify and it's no surprise it's unanimous what i'd like to do is have the kate if you could bring your team forward up here and we'll get a quick picture and mary has the declaration no way is this about new life christian outreach we just made our facility available kershaw county came together they raised the money our church did very very little when it came to money i'm going to tell you this was about this young lady miss horton and other ones in our community and beyond our community so thank y'all for honoring them tonight thank you thank you now we move to the next item on the agenda as amended and that

» was a resolution honoring henry powers senior and if you can bring them all in we'll we'll forego common sense and uh and take a chance uh for a few minutes it's at tab c and if y'all can try to maintain a little distance that would be helpful and mr jones i think this is a surprise we tried i was with him sunday afternoon and i had to keep my mouth shut and that was hard well the powers there are no secrets in the powers family no anyway let me read this it's uh quite a distinguished young man and whereas mr powers was born the 16th of august 1953 and grew up in a small town during his teen years he played in a band called the blue condition in 1969 the love of his life stepped into his world rose an amazing woman that helped mold henry into the man he is today henry used to say he wanted

» to go into the military and serve his country until he met rose he graduated from camden high school and during this time worked for coffees exxon and attended a vocational school for let me see if i get this right heating hvac on the acronym heating ventilation and air conditioning i think that's what it means on september the 22nd 1972 they were married and shared over 48 years together starting out starting out with nothing to building a life of completing complete happiness is what these two have done and whereas from 1972 to 1982 henry worked for self's heating and air dupont and the kershaw county school district it was after having three kids rodney robbie and sherry who apparently get no vote in these proceedings that he had a different vision and direction for his life he simply ca

» me home from work one day and said rose i quit my job and i'm gonna start a new business shortly after he started that business he came home late one afternoon to find that rose cooked kicking chicken stew and he said to her chicken stew again tonight rose replied well you didn't complain monday tuesday or wednesday what he has today is a reflection of his hard work and devoted heart a man that struggled to make ends meet and provide for his family however one who stood strong in his belief and was determined to be successful and whereas henry is a devoted christian who formerly served as a deacon and a building committee member he now serves as an elder in his church leader of the men's fellowship a gideon a past president an active member of the optimist club of blue golf and a member of

» the south carolina alt and whereas henry has always been passionate about the youth and his community and initiatives to help support the tech students in achieving their goals. He is also loyal to his hometown community where he has received several service awards and he hosts daily scripture readings, Crystal Waters, which I listen to every day on our own radio station, Cool 102.7. He was also very instrumental in starting the Lights of Lugov Christmas Parade, Hua, whereas Henry is the founder and owner of Powers and Gregory Heating and Air Conditioning of 35 plus years, where he provides a family-like work environment for over 18 employees serving his community with all of their heating and cooling needs. His slogan, everything we do is centered around you.

» Henry is the founder of Love First. In October 2019, he asked his fellow New Life christian outreach church members if they would like to display a love first sign in their yards and they responded with a big yes love first campaign is for everyone to publicly say love first and everything they do and for the past few years hatred and violence have been at an all-time high road rage is getting out of control for instance let's make a stand and encourage one another to love first over hate he said henry invites all nationalities religions and political parties to join in and declare love first henry is a faithful husband an amazing father the world's best grandfather that will have to debate that and known for his wit now therefore be it resolved kershaw county council recognizes henry rodne

» y powers senior for his dedication and faithful service to kershaw county and his community mr jones would you like to make the motion i do i'd to make the motion pass through this resolution i thought you might can we have a second second second from multiple people i will say from mr gardner in this case and with that we're ready to discuss mr jones i do have a couple of words i'm gonna be careful what i say i go i go way back with this family and um before sherry rodney robbie and uh what a lot of folks don't know is that uh henry had a lot of hair when he was young and played in the blue condition and you know one one thing that sticks to my mind for example rose's brother johnny and i went in on the buddy plan uh in the military and uh of course i knew her whole family as well too but

» henry and i used to date a little bit together with our girlfriends and henry would always have to go to the door to get mine the moms didn't want their daughters going out with me but henry henry said i'm jimmy jones and uh that's true story but uh henry i'm sorry to reveal those oh but we've had it's been a great ride through this life, Henry, as you as my friend, my brother, my colleague. I have much respect for you. I love you, brother, from the bottom of my heart. Just please get Robbie to quit following me around so much. But I am honored. I'm very honored to support this tonight. And also Al Bozar co-sponsored this with me. And I don't know if he's here or not, but I wanted to make sure that I recognized his name. And it was my honor.

» Thank you, Henry, for being with us all these years in the community and helping us so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Gardner, you had the second. I knew Henry when he was with the school district. I was with the school district, so I've known Henry a long time, and you know, just a genuine guy that does what he says. I now, he does all my HVAC work, and I've known him from that professional standpoint, and a stand-up guy, well deserved, Henry. Congratulations. Mr. Barrazo, please.

» I'll tell you what, I was thrilled to see this on the agenda um what a neighbor he's uh he's a neighbor to roy's wood products and how long has that been 35 years i think i was in middle school when we built beside you and has put up with a lot put up with salt us sometimes um he's been a good friend and we've got a we've got a sign in our yard promoting love first and uh i got a one funny little story Henry you remember that story you ever find your shoe did we find them Henry came to help me with a heating in the air issue and he came in the back door and he took his shoes off and I saw him walking around without his shoes on I said where are your shoes at Henry oh I left them outside I said no my dog's gonna take them and it took us 45 minutes to find his shoes they were buried next to t

» he shrubbery but what a genuine man and a good person to lead in the community and lead with a heart of kindness and that's what we need in Kershaw County so thank you so much. All right thank you. Mr. Connell. Thank you Mr. Chairman. As I was sitting here I was thinking it's it's not too frequent that you get to lift up somebody as a good example and in the prayer tonight I think I said something about trying to do what's right and that's all I've known Henry to do.

» Not only has he literally warned my family through his HVAC work but through so many occasions watching his service in the community he's warmed my heart and those of many others get inspired by him he's objective he doesn't judge anybody and he always tries to be fair I've really respected that and you can see it bleed down to his kids and also his grandkids and special place in my heart they've had so much great support for the wrestling community in the past too these folks know about hard work and they don't shy away from it so I'm glad that we're able to do this um this resolution tonight and honor you and especially uh your wife who we know is the backbone of the whole thing thank you mr chairman very good um mr uh mr snodgrass i moved to kershaw county uh just over close to 10 years

» ago uh the pastor of the church i met now and and quickly became introduced to the powers family uh through doing funerals of robbie and then needing hvac work done at the church and uh since then have had several um uh relationships with several members of the powers family and i can tell i can i know why they're all out upstanding citizens of this community and it goes back to to henry and and your wife and just the legacy that that you guys have uh have here in kershaw county so henry thank you so much it's an honor to be a part of of honoring you and thank you for being someone who doesn't just preach but practices what they preach and when people when it makes a difference when people say that they're a jesus follower and then they actually act like that they are and they live like the

» y're jesus followers so thank you uh thank you so much okay other comments okay very good i'll close it out i'm saying ditto to all that but first thanks to all of you for understanding the constraints we're in under this covet situation and and for bearing a little bit of risk under common sense and just common courtesy to be able to honor a great family and the head of that family rose now i met henry but thank you all for coming thank you all for coming i will tell you first person i met after i moved in back to camden after being gone for half a century was henry on my front porch and uh what a welcome i mean if everybody treated new arrivals like that jimmy what a what a county and it is a great county but because of the people like this wonderful family but i will tell you almost caus

» ed me a problem because he said come on i want to show you something out in the woods so i left my wife to unpack while henry and i went all over town and all over county and went back into the woods back in the ancient chestnut area if you remember that henry i i find it unforgettable thank you for that warm welcome uh being there no further discussion i think we can move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and Mary if you would reflect mr. Tucker's now joined us thank you if mr. powers and Rose and any of the family want to come forward we'll have mr. mr.

» Jones present this I'll make it very quick first of all thank gentlemen and thank you for my family and whoever did this i mean i'm totally shocked you got me caught off guard so uh but i actually feel like i've been at a live funeral y'all had a lot of good things to say about me and uh i'm just fortunate enough to be alive to hear it and see it and do want to thank uh all the peoples in my life i would be nothing without the people in my life especially my family and following god now thank you love first love first well mr administrator you can relax now we're back down to compliance but thank you for helping us through that especially the sheriff's deputies and doing a good job of of uh controlling and directing people in a courteous way we appreciate that with that we return to the age

» nda we've already amended for mr tucker we amended the agenda to handle these large crowds and get down back to where we are and we go straight to public comments first of all mary we're under the e-meeting format do we have any submissions all right and secondly mr dubose do the honors one person signed up the person that signed up is tom webb iii mr webb please sir well as usual i probably would have had something rather negative to say about world events national events that's just me such an upbeat program tonight I won't say too much except what a shame all these lovely people that were up here with their faces covered with a mask I hope we can get over that real soon and start taking more zinc thank you very much Thank You mr. Webb mr.

» DuBose very good and we've already adopted the agenda as amended and we go now to a series of public presentations I thank mr. Carton and our sheriff for the 30 minute delay but i think you enjoyed it as much as we did the first the next item is a public presentation on sewer a plan to save money and it's by the south county water and sewer by mr michael carton sir if you would come forward mr sharon i'll put that on the agenda and i have some okay very good so if i may yeah thank you because this is something that was very important to me we put a lot of work into it i appreciate mr chairman you and the councils of the town to our presentation tonight has four goals one to make all of Kershaw County aware of the condition of our aging county-owned sewer system located Lugoff and let me say

» this when I say aging you know our administrative staff our engineers they've done a great job but we're at crossroads now that some decisions have to be made and this is just another decision this is another alternative that I'm throwing out there that I think is really viable but uh number two is inform our inform you of the substantial cost of remitting the situation and number three introduce an alternative that will want a fix the problems be eliminate the need for higher taxes and race see prevent the need to borrow 15 million dollars and D possibly eliminate the sewer special tax district which I know has been part for a lot of people swallow let me say this to this County Council had nothing to do with the implementation of the sewer tax district this County Council had nothing to d

» o with the issues that we're dealing with now it goes back to as I said we're at some crossroads and need to look at all areas and all ways of trying to move to move forward um and and four i hope that what will come out of this is establishing an ad hoc committee to consider the feasibility of tonight's proposal and if if that was so granted at some point in time i would love to see russell brazel ben connell uh mitch raven and david snodgrass be uh four that would sit on that committee to study that and and to look at the feasibility and get back with us within a 30-day period of time, maybe by the 22nd, the last meeting of next month. But moving on, our county's owned aging water system in Lugov is in immediate needs of repair.

» Rainwater is entering our aging sewer pipes and flooding our treatment plant. In addition to this, we need to increase the plant capacity, which is our 2 million, our plant is 2 million gallons a day now, and it treats or is committed to treating 106 1.75 million to probably 1.82 million gallons of sewage a day and this leaves our plant with a usable capacity of only a quarter of million or less gallons a day which is small amount is all we have left to meet the needs of our new housing business institutions and industry and speaking of industry I know for a fact that at least two industrial sites we've looked at they have inquired about the mega site that each needed more sewer and i think that's a common thing we hear pretty much all the way around um and sewer is expensive i think we all

» know that it's expensive to build expensive to own and expensive to maintain three years ago i believe it was our firm davidson floyd estimated that if we were to replace our or to upgrade our current facility it could run us as much as 15 million 12 to 15 million dollars to increase the capacity of our plant from two million to four million gallons a day folks sewer is costly in kershaw county we know that and that's why we established a special person tax district to help pay for that everyone who lives in unincorporated areas of the county pay this annual tax this tax is levied even if sewer service is not available in your area and that's been a lot of complaints that we've all received over a period of time this is because the monthly fees paid by sewer customers are not enough to cove

» r the system's expenses we can cover the expenses of the area where we currently serve other citizens in the kershaw county would also like i think i've gotten three or four calls from folks who asked if they could get sewer in subdivisions of course sewer is just not available but several citizens in the county have called me and to ask about that and i think we need lines and capacity to serve homes businesses industry it's inevitable that kershaw county has to do something if we go it alone it's going to going to be very expensive of course if we look at this public-private partnership that I've asked these folks to be here tonight to do I think we can eliminate a lot of problems we can eliminate our sewer problems by entering into that public-private partnership you know South Carolina

» Water Utilities Incorporated they're here tonight and I think you'll see how they can probably make this happen if this council so wishes at no cost to the taxpayers of the county and tonight's presentation will demonstrate how council has the opportunity to save the taxpayers of Kershaw County over 15 million dollars.

» You'll also see how to provide sewer service in more areas of the county which we struggle with at this moment and as you listen this presentation please remember Kershaw County's aging sewer system immediate needs are the pipes themselves have cracks that need replacing, very little treatment capacity left which means can't service the future needs of the county without expansion, can't recruit industry into the industrial parts without expansion and cannot expand to unserved areas and a media solution to these problems is available solution has a history of success in other instances it has the benefit of the same DHEC oversight has the additional benefit of Public Service Commission oversight and I want you to remember that the estimated price tag for Kershaw County to go it alone will s

» tart at fifteen twelve to fifteen million dollars to upgrade our two million to four million state revolving fund estimates debt service on 15 million dollars to be roughly nine hundred thousand dollars a year interest and that's on top of the payments that the county is already making so in closing on my opening remarks the public product partnership proposal with no increased fees great service increase availability the same professional operation must be seriously considered in my opinion I like council to a point as I said again an ad hoc committee that would uh investigate the feasibility of tonight's proposal perhaps they may come back with the realization same thing the same way that i think um that a public private partnership indeed has the ability to eliminate the sewer special ta

» x district and increase fees and other things and a large portion of our debt so having said a mouthful there i want to recognize this time mr michael card and let him come up and do his presentation thank you chairman burns members of the council for the opportunity to be here to speak tonight on behalf of south carolina water utilities before i jump into my presentation i want to give a kudos to kershaw county for adopting the night to shine my mother taught children with special needs for over 40 years in public schools in south carolina i'm a lifelong volunteer at the special olympics so that was very dear to my heart and i really appreciate that i think it's awesome and my mother's still mentoring young teachers that are just entering the field of teaching special education so i just w

» anted to really quickly say i really appreciate that um moving right along while i'm here um again special thanks to the council um particular mr jones for asking me to come speak here today i'd like to recognize representative dabney i appreciate y'all asking me to come here and speak tonight and introduce myself as well as my company so um before i move to the next slide i did just want to take one quick second to say i've had the opportunity over the last six months to get to know vic carpenter and i've really enjoyed getting to know vic working with him i think this county He's extremely blessed to have a public servant like him. He's been extremely professional and helpful, and I've really enjoyed getting to work with him and get to know him.

» And I just think Kershaw County is extremely lucky to have someone like him and a great public servant. So next slide, please, Danny. Thank you. So who am I? I'm Michael Carton. I'm the Director of Corporate Development for South Carolina Water Utilities. I've been working in the regulated utility industry for a little over 12 years now, background in finance and regulatory, And I'm a lifelong native of Columbia, South Carolina, studied undergrad and graduate at the University of South Carolina here in Columbia. And now my company is headquartered in Elgin, South Carolina. So we are the largest investor owned water utility in the state of South Carolina, serving over 50,000 homes and businesses. And we're water professionals.

» Myself, my team, all we do, all we focus on is compliant, safe, reliable water and wastewater service. that's quite literally all we do. As Mr. Jones mentioned, we're regulated by the Public Service Commission as well as DHEC, and we're somewhat new to this area in Kershaw County, but we're not new to the state of South Carolina. In 2016, our company acquired Kiowa Island Utilities, so we provide drinking water and wastewater services to Kiowa Island. Since that time, we've acquired four different utilities across the state, so we're growing. It's exciting to be a part of a company that's growing and here in my home state that I call home and in last September of 2020 we acquired Palmetto Utilities.

» Since that time South Carolina Water Utilities has brought over 30 jobs to Kershaw County and we pay annually roughly a little more than two million dollars in taxes to the county and I'm proud to be part of an employer and a member of this community here again thanks the opportunity to speak when we acquired palmetto utilities we acquired a 12 million gallon a day wastewater treatment facility located within the county and every day we collect and treat roughly six and a half million gallons of wastewater and put it back into the environment in an environmentally compliant and safe fashion we do that every day right here in kershaw county and with that that leaves roughly five and a half million gallons we'll say five million gallons of capacity that's available today in our plant and mr j

» ones had asked me to come here and talk about some potential partnership opportunities that we would like to explore with the county if the county so wishes and all these items that these few items that i'm going to discuss today i've already had some great discussions with vic about it and there's any way you know we're neighbors we're members of the community we're water professionals so if there's anything we can can ever do to help I wanted you to have a face to put with the company and y'all can reach out to me anytime I'd love to meet one-on-one and continue discussions with you further but I'm sorry you all right David all right dang next slide please so um it didn't look like that I don't think when I sent it to him I thought I sized it a little better but um anyways I wanted to put

» this picture up here to help illustrate where our critical infrastructure is located and in relation to Kershaw County utilities infrastructure. So first you can see Kershaw County is a two million gallon a day plant right near the watery river. And then southwest of that, right off of I-20 off of Highway Church Road is where we own and operate a 12 million gallon a day treatment facility.

» And one of the things Vic and I have been discussing and looking at the structure, how it would work is how can we extend our service territory further into kershaw county and partner with kershaw county they were to allow us to extend our lines and provide services wastewater service to certain people in areas of elgin future developments if it makes sense it might make sense in areas where either the county doesn't have the infrastructure today to serve or maybe they don't have the desire to serve it's an area far away from the treatment plant so it's extremely expensive to get it there safely um So Vic and I have been discussing the possibility of extending our service territory to help promote economic development and growth in areas where there currently is not wastewater service.

» So that's one thing Vic and I continue to discuss and would love to explore that option further if the county so wishes. The second item I wanted to discuss, and this is one that I'm really excited about, you can see on there we have a 36-inch reclaimed water line that takes the wastewater treated at our facility. We call it our Spears Creek Treatment Facility, and we run that pipeline down along I-20 towards the Watery River where we discharge just a few miles south of Kershaw County's discharge. And I've been having conversations with Jeff Burgess at the Economic Development for Kershaw County Group as well as Vic, and we've been talking about if it would make sense.

» and it's something that i'm passionate about because i'm passionate about the environment that we're stewards of the world's most precious resources water and people that's all we do so i thought it would make sense to explore the opportunity of providing reclaimed water to the kershaw county industrial mega site that 36 inch line runs almost a thousand feet approximately past the industrial mega site and our company has vast experience in treating wastewater providing reclaimed water to other areas on kiowa island all the wastewater on tree on kiowa island we treat and put back to the golf courses to use for irrigation it provides sustainability affordability and it's been a great partnership between our company and kiowa island and i think that's something that could help us lure potentia

» l big industry to that industrial site you'll see i'm sure you all seen more than me but potential suitors for that industrial site are looking for four million gallons a day of water and they don't necessarily need drinking water you know they need water for cooling cooling servers removing metals there's a lot of different uses for reclaimed water that could be extremely attractive to a potential suitor at that mega site and i just if we're running five million gallons six million gallons a day of continuous flow six million gallons continuously flowing through that pipe running right past the industrial site it just makes sense to explore that option and we'd love to explore that and discuss that further with the county so that's a really cool project as well something i like to continue

» to explore and that might be another good way for us to partner and work together and you know provide benefits to kershaw county lastly i just would like to reiterate that south carolina water utilities we've only been here in kershaw county and parts of richland county for roughly six months but we're very committed to continuing our role as an employer and as a community member in kershaw county and just wanted to take this opportunity that we've been given to sit here in front of you and say that we're open to exploring any way possible that we can help we're here we have a lot of resources we have a lot of in-house civil engineers wastewater operators customer service billing this is all we do so if there's ever anything we can do to help or assist the county we're right next door and

» actually within the county is our plant um so that those are the few things that i wanted to mention today i think they could be opportunities that would be beneficial to all parties and something we should explore and i hear i hear chairman burns and every all y'all talk about your vision i think it's it's incredible vision that kershaw county has i'd love to to be a part of it if y'all would have us but your vision i think combined with our expertise and our resources i think we could accomplish some pretty incredible things together And I appreciate the opportunity to explore something like that. That's really all I had here to present today. And I'm open to questions from the county. Mr. Jones? Well, one, I just want to thank you so much for being here tonight.

» You know, to me, it's a win-win situation. We have a provider here that could give us immediate capacity. We have a provider here that could keep us from having to upgrade our current system at a cost of $12 to $15 million. I think you'll pay about $2 million in taxes. That's correct. and I think we use most of that to support our current sewer program so we use that to me and support our current program if we were to work with you we would say that to me we could reinvest into something else because we had the expenditure of having to do what we're doing now with the pipes that are in need of repair and also the plant that needs expansion but you know the fact that we could even possibly do away with the sewer tax district and the fact that we would not have to increase or create any fees

» or new debt on the county and get out of debt, pay some debt off. I just think it's worth, members of council, I just think it's worth investigating. I think it's worth looking into it. And that's why I had asked the possibility about an ad hoc committee being established. And when we talk about reclaimed water, I haven't heard anything as to how we would handle that. That may be a way we can look at working together as well. I don't know.

» But I just hope that council will keep an open mind and let's look these options instead of always just jumping right back into borrowing creating you know things like that thank you thank you sir and enjoyed our conversation and thanks for bringing up the vision uh you understand our point of entry is mr carpenter as our business manager administrator and grand poobah of these sorts of things i'm delighted to see that you already got a good relationship with him one that we value as well other comments i have a question yeah Yeah, Mr. Gardner. Are you, I mean, is your corporation self-sustained? Are you owned by a bigger corporation somewhere else? Or what's the setup of your company? Our holding company is Southwest Water Company, and they're based in Houston, Texas.

» So we draw on them for IT support, billing and customer service support. But we're locally owned and operated, but that's our holding company. Southwest Water is majority owned by an infrastructure investment fund that's managed by J.P. Morgan's asset, management group and we have a long-term perpetual hold strategy um we're not focused on short-term capital gains it's a long-term investment if you're looking at future cash flows that that's our holding company southwest water company but we're here local all our employees are local and we're looking forward to being part of this community decisions are made locally or do they come from a corporate up the corporate ladder or the decisions made right here locally the decisions are made right here locally absolutely our our president um apolo

» gies he couldn't be here tonight he's in alabama um he had a planned trip before this was put on the agenda but he actually relocated his entire family in september to be here as part of the acquisition he's an excellent one of the best civil engineers i've had the opportunity to work with and he apologizes he couldn't be here tonight and he'd be happy to meet with any of y'all one-on-one as as we continue to have these discussions but just to show you his commitment he packed up his entire family and moved here to relook where our southeastern headquarters are in elgin south carolina now i'm really happy to be here thank you mr gardener mr chairman yeah ben thanks for coming tonight thank you it's good to talk with you on the phone and i found your presentation educational and there might

» actually be some good benefit and value there i'd like to meet and talk some more i have the the benefit and i'm glad to represent the area in which your business is located and whether it's deferred maintenance or growing pains or maybe a little bit of both over the last couple of decades, Kershaw County does have to figure out what to do with sewer and wastewater treatment. And it's an issue that we, I think we do need to study. Some of the needs are more pressing than others, but I look forward to continue the conversation. Thanks for coming tonight. Thank you, Mr. Connell. I'd like to just say that I'm not completely aware of all the issues within your infrastructure, but that's not a unique problem to Kershaw County.

» The water and wastewater utility industry across the country is a fragmented industry. there's there's over 50,000 water utilities across the country and just for reference there's 30 just over 3,300 electric utilities so I understand the challenges you know operating smaller utilities can be an issue I appreciate your comments. Mr.

» Jones? Thanks for coming I you know we need to learn more about you and you clarified some of my questions with the long-term holdings you know you got to be invested long term i think any fear i had would be that if if maybe y'all weren't profitable that it would land back at our feet and then the problem would land back at the feet of kershaw county if if we you know let let you guys take a section on or whatever it grew yeah our holding company has a triple b plus s p rating so hopefully that can provide some some comfort there but also there's there's a lot of protections involved with being a for the customers by the south carolina office of regulatory staff is an excellent agency that looks out for consumer protections i know y'all are going to be worried about your citizens but that'

» s just another added layer as well as the south carolina public service commission anything we would do would have to go through their approval every dollar we spend is subject to audit we're an open book we're incentivized to be as efficient as possible and keep costs down and the public service commission has oversight that would protect your customers as well and yeah i would and enjoy the opportunity to talk to you more about it. - Thank you. - Thank you very much. - Mr. Snodgrass. - I just thank you so much for coming and presenting good information. Question, so how long have you been, so you're on Kiowa Island as well as Hilton Head, is that correct? - We serve water and wastewater to Kiowa Island utilities.

» We acquired a company called the Beaufort Group, so it's in unincorporated areas of Beaufort County, TJ Barnwell, wastewater only, as well as Harbor Island, an island down on the coast and we do reclaimed water there too on harbor island i mentioned and a couple of weeks ago the public service commission voted unanimously that it was in the public interest that south carolina water utilities acquired the water and wastewater assets for cuc which is kalawasi island and spring island down in beaufort okay how long when you acquired kiowa island that service area has there been a have you had to increase rates since that acquisition yes In 2018, the president passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which lowered federal income tax from 35% to 21%.

» So as a business owner, you would think that's great. We're going to make more money. Well, our rates are set and approved by the Public Service Commission, and they called all utilities to come in for an audit and to lower our rates and set our rates at that 21% federal income tax rate. So we did come in for a single-digit increase with Keowah Island Utilities after the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, and we came to a settlement agreement with the regulators, which have a great working relationship with the regulators. I'm sure if you do reach out to them, they would have positive things to say about how we do business, and I appreciate the opportunity to continue to introduce myself and my company and build this relationship. I know these things move at the speed of trust.

» I'M HAPPY TO BE HERE IN FRONT OF THE COUNSELOR AND SPEAK. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. MR. JONES, YOU WANT TO CLOSE IT OUT? I JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU. I'VE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO TALK TO MICHAEL. I APOLOGIZE THAT I HAVEN'T BEEN AVAILABLE, BUT I'LL LOOK FORWARD AS YOU CONTINUE TO BUILD YOUR RELATIONSHIPS AND GO OVER YOUR THINGS WITH MR. CARPENTER AND STAFF THAT I'LL BE AVAILABLE WITH OPEN EARS. THANK YOU, COUNCIL. Thank you very much. And I will, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much. I just want to say thank you to this county council for being open and listening to this. I think this is a very important issue. And, you know, we are at a crossroads. There are going to be some tough decisions that we have to make. And the only reason I mentioned an ad hoc committee, Mr.

» Chairman, is I know we did it instead of Mr. Carver's point of direction. With fire, he's the same point of direction, but we also established an ad hoc committee for that. So I thought it would be good if some of the council members were appointed on a committee. They could maybe take the time to do a feasibility study with this group. And let's just see what might work out, you know, because you're talking about a lot of money. We started upgrading our system. We're talking about having to borrow a lot of money, millions and millions of dollars. And, again, thank you. I know that Michael has been very open. I think just about everybody on here he spoke with or talked with or, you know, communicated with.

» some fashion or another and i appreciate that he's been he's been an open book to me and i find him to be an open book anywhere we go so uh thank you all very much and thank you so much as well thank you there michael give my best to walt havenstein too would you please yes i will thank you very much thank you uh we move to the next item on the agenda is a public presentation by the sheriff lee bone and our wonderful coroner david west with 2020 statistics my hero i wanted to go over our crime stats i know we did it last year i'm going to try to make it a little less numbers this year because i know that's kind of boring when you go a bunch of numbers and you're not constantly on top of them it doesn't make a whole lot of sense i'm going to try to hit some of the major trends that we saw fr

» om this past year and kind of go from there i wanted to start out with some of the things that impacted us at the sheriff's office this past year first of all a little remote doesn't work well you got a backup over here all right danny oh we'll talk about the obvious first the coven 19 impact that's been on the department we've had a total of 17 deputies that we know of this this tested positive uh or coronavirus uh we had six at one time that was out that's the most we've had out at one time fortunately when the schools closed uh when it all started out we had our sros so at no time were we hurting uh by manpower and none of these deputies were ever hospitalized it was never you know none of them ever had that kind of serious uh reaction uh what it did do is it reduced a lot of face-to-fac

» e time we have with our citizens a lot of things that we had to change the way we were doing we tried to take calls over the phone instead of going out talking to them when we would go to houses we would try to get them to come out on the front porch we wanted them to feel comfortable uh believe it or not some people don't feel comfortable around law enforcement and anything we could do to reduce that fear we're going to do it so we we try to go with uh we try to comply with everything training delays uh south carolina criminal justice academy which as you know everybody has to go through to be a certified deputy the last time i heard they were at about 25 capacity so they're they're behind you know they were caught up good at one time now they're behind if i hire a non-certified it's going

» to be about six months before i can get him started on our fto field training officer program at the sheriff's office so you're probably looking at more of seven eight maybe nine months from the time i hire a non-certified before i can use him so fortunately we had enough certifies so we're applying and we didn't have as big of a turnover we only had to send one person through the academy all 2020.

» that's um that's very fortunate on that end we had the uh we had to protest in columbia i'm sure you you saw that if you look at the pictures here to the far left uh sheriff leon lott i've known the man for a long time before i was elected i worked with his wife when i was a slay a great man he's always been there for me i plan to always be there for him they had these rights over there i mean i think a lot of the man he could in all honesty he could very well be the second best sheriff in the state you'll see behind him one of your kershaw county vehicles uh that's what i kind of liked about that picture there it showed we were over there behind him like we know he would have been for us the second picture from the left the columbia police car is on fire when i saw that on the news that's

» when i picked up the phone and immediately called sheriff lott i didn't call him to ask me if he needed help i called him and tell him we were on the way where we need to meet at we went over there as you see in the next picture that's downtown columbia that's kind of out of place for uh kershaw county vehicles but we were there in the middle of everything with them we We were there to back our brothers and sisters in blue. Made it very clear to them we weren't there to protect property or we were there to protect deputies. We were there to back up our guys in blue. We tried to slip out of town, so no citizens from Kershaw County felt that we didn't have staffing here to protect them.

» But as you can see from the Facebook post on the right there, it's hard to squeeze 15, 20 vehicles down the interstate without somebody noticing you're heading somewhere. So it is what it is. Now, you can go to the next slide there, Danny. We had something, we was there about three days, Columbia, supporting them until we had something here in Camden. Big difference from Columbia and Camden. Over there, we're fortunate enough that we don't have all the shiny prizes. We don't have a state house. We don't have a governor's mansion. We don't have any of that stuff there that's gonna attract that outside people. So we dealt with local people here in Camden. They came out to tell their side of what was going on.

» wanted to be heard we were there to hear them there was no demands no uh threats of violence or anything it was a very good conversation and quite honestly i benefited from it we got a lot of good conversations with a lot of our citizens that i would not have talked to probably not ran across the past had it not been for this uh this uh this protest here in camden now although as you can see in the picture there i wasn't wearing any right gear i walked into the crowd there was no show of force uh that could work here trust me that would not have worked over in columbia whole different atmosphere a whole different uh setting here and i got to be prepared for worse so that wasn't the only plan i had in place was to walk out there and no geared uh we had other agencies um richland was tied up

» all the state agencies were tied up so that's the advantage of being a sheriff and being able to have these mutual aid agreements with other sheriffs you can call on i was able to call over in sumpter and chesterfield and they sent deputies over and we're on standby reserve in case we did get any outsiders to come in and try to ruin the party here in camden so we were well prepared either way it went it did go well here and we're very fortunate to be in kershaw county again we'll go over some of the major stats that i've seen kind of trends in that uh keep you from boring going through a bunch of other stuff but our total arrest last year were up 16 total felony arrests were up 35 domestic violence as we expected with people getting locked in they went up 21 uh salts went down 21 i don't kn

» ow if people were locked down they didn't get a chance to get around strangers to assault each other but that went down our homicides 2019 were three went up to eight in 2020. now being in a small county dealing with small numbers anything can set off we know earlier this year we had a dumbbell homicide two in one incident that's how much numbers can get thrown off when you're dealing with numbers this small we did have eight two of those were going to be uh homicide by child abuse which doesn't happen too frequently here but we're there one thing that really gets my attention is our use of force reports were up 125 percent this was due to two things first is the obvious you know nobody nobody pays attention to law enforcement anymore and you know we have to work through that we have to you

» know we have to try to de-escalate try to do what we can to keep from using force but it's gonna be there also our reporting we've report uh our use of force anything shy of just putting handcuffs on somebody putting them in the car we do a use of force report and if somebody pulls away we have to grab about an arm put them in that's a use of force report our numbers are going to be higher simply because we're reporting anything and everything we got a procedure in place where if supervisor they're going to review any use of force report we got our training staff we'll also review it and then once our captain our major of operations so there's three people that reviews every one of these use of force reports that we turn in just to make sure everything looks good but that is something we se

» e on the rise and uh as much as we would love to get more training uh we run a 24 7 operation it's not like with the military where we have oxygen cycles where we can stay home and train for a year uh reset go it's you know we're running operations 24 7 so we're trying to work through that to get as much training in as we can for de-escalation and better ways of handling situations traffic enforcement due to covid we told the guys i can see it now because we've gone back to regular operations but we told the guys to lay off as many traffic stops on minor offenses and if it wasn't something serious that somebody could get seriously injured for let's don't stop them so our traffic stops went down 30 last year although you see our dui rest went up 19 failure to stops went up 26 and vehicle pur

» suits went up 10 percent again that kind of goes with the the current trend of not complying with law enforcement and and uh you know we're seeing that you know we can't uh that's just that's that's a challenge we're dealing with and um you know not making excuses we'll we'll figure out a way around it and we'll keep doing our jobs drug enforcement drug cases went down about 15 total last year uh you see at the top of the list meth is still up and i think that's that's not a of surprise to anyone but uh meth cases were up 25 last year heroin cases were up three percent everything else went down cocaine cases went down 17 ask to see 20 marijuana 35 controlled substance we're down 39 this next one here i don't have any numbers from last year because we just started tracking this in our system

» but our overdose calls we we responded to a total of 49 overdose calls these are deputies this is not ems and everybody's are deputies out of that 49 calls, our deputies had to administer Narcan 23 times. The picture to the right, that's what Narcan looks like. It's a mist spray that goes up the nostril. Each one has two. They can spray one in each nostril to give them response. It's been real successful. As you'll see, our coroner, David West, will explain later on what our numbers are. It was very effective in 2019. When it first come out our numbers went from i think 37 overdose deaths down to like 12.

» so narcan done a lot to bring them down but i don't know now whether people are getting uh they're getting a little confident having narcan and they're they're using even more but uh our overdoses are going back up even with narcan problems we're having and i addressed this last year also it's our unsecured vehicles in the county i look at this as something that that's kind of a preventable crime we could just lock our car doors. Our theft from motor vehicle went up only 3%. We had 195 thefts from a motor vehicle. Motor vehicle thefts, 98. That's a 7%. But this next one here is what really, really bothers me is the firearms stolen from vehicles. These are unsecured vehicles. 47 last year. That's almost one a week that we're giving away. That's a 74% increase from last year.

» You know, these are, we're putting, putting firearms in the hands of criminals and we're letting them have it. Yes, they are breaking the law by going in your vehicles, but either don't leave your firearms in your vehicles, lock your vehicles up, or both. But this number here is climbing. It went from 27 last year to 47 this year, so I don't know what it's going to take to start bringing that number down, but we don't want any more criminals with guns in their hands. This is my last slide. I wanted to kind of end on a good note, but our power DMS system is fully implemented. This is a computer system that any one of our deputies could go online with a username, password, go in, read policies and procedures, digitally sign off on them. So we have proof they read them.

» We could even tell how much time they went in there to read them. And if there's anything edited, they can pull out their smartphone and have access to any of our policies and procedures from wherever they are. So it's a really good program, and it's really instrumental in the next one here, state accreditation.

» we look to be accredited this year which will be the first time in the history of the sheriff's office that we've been accredited uh that power dms is a big step in getting there um and another attaboy to vic he's been very supportive about accreditation and done everything he can to help us out with this it's not a cheap program but uh it's well worth the money crime scene investigation we've already started we're gonna have our first crime scene investigation unit in the history of the sheriff's office we're still going to call sled on our major stuff because hey we're paying state tax dollars we're going to make sure our citizens get the benefit of that but the other events that we uh we need somebody to come out for we're going to have our crime scene investigation unit that'll be on ca

» ll to come out that way our investigator can focus on taking statements and uh following leads while the crime scene gets preserved by somebody can focus on nothing but the crime scene we just got a grant approved chief knopfels he's in the room with us here done the grant work got us approved for an aphids machine i think it was some what eighty thousand dollars or something that uh we're going to be getting here for again that'll be the first time in the history of kershaw county this is a uh this is the this is the automated fingerprint system where we can when we lift prints from the scene we don't have to send them to some other agency and wait for months or wherever we fall into their list of priority we can do it in-house so we're gonna have that capability very soon we look forward

» to that i'll be followed by our corner thank you very much here thank you sir uh david west come on in looks like you got a got a wound on you huh all right y'all can see the stats up there what they've come here let me stand on your back um y'all can see the stats up there for what we got um i did a 2016 to 2020 the full year and first of all let me give lee bone the credit for this powerpoint he is bad to the bone with a powerpoint so if you ever need one add to the phone yeah but anyway um and i want to show you the bottom numbers is the big thing right now uh from 16 to 17 was a sixth increase in deaths from 17 to 18 was 10. from 18 to 19 was 78. from 19 to 20 was 115.

» okay and you can see our other deaths like traffic it's all stays about the same homicides eight it went up we blamed that on people staying home thinking about going killing somebody but anyway drownings and you notice we've never been over three drownings uh we had one uh suicides eight that's down and i just knew in 2020 with everything we were going through suicides were going to be up i thought but it wasn't thank goodness accidental deaths 22 that's house fires we have a lot of elderly that fall and that's i think three of those is house fires the rest of my elderly people they've been falling you know and hit the heads and stuff um overdose 26 now that could be for coming home but i'm gonna tell you lee did a thing on the narcan that's no joke there i sit at home and listen to the ra

» dio on the weekends and it's i mean i know that i'm glad they started keeping up with the sheriff's department but ems i would love to know how many they have that they shoot and you hear cpr in progress, and they get there and shoot them with Narcan, they don't even want to get in the ambulance. That's some good stuff. We have it. We carry it in our car, but it's for our own personal use, because if we get that powder on us, we can get hit with it, and we know where it is in our car. We can grab it and shoot ourselves with it if we have to.

» So if we start feeling funny, I'm going to stop the Tahoe, jump out, and grab my Narcan, because we had the hospital had got cleared out one day in the emergency room because somebody was in a wreck in a motorcycle and it was all in the place and he was dead they had to clear the emergency room out um so natural 667 and of course you know c750 now this year look at this year already now add one to that bottom number i just had it uh before i got here today got 148 and it was a covid death um and covid deaths are on the rise right now i don't you know it's just one of those things flip over to the next one danny all right that that was me there fussing with dhek and i still don't like dhek that's the only place i ever know you couldn't talk to nobody we subpoenaed them and had a richmond cou

» nty deputy delivered our subpoena to them and when they called me it was the day the deadline was up and to this day you can't talk to nobody ain't nothing but a bunch of pacifiers and i'll tell that right now even to the one they sent to me from uh it's a david vaughn he's supposed to be the one that from the state to go works to the state house dude he's a joke but anyway he sit down he sit down i wouldn't say that about somebody he's a good friend of mine yeah but he and i don't appreciate that comment no it's the comment what i'm getting at he said in my office and tells me that he's there to help me and he don't know if he can do anything for me no me and david went to church together for years no he's a good friend but he's answering to dhek he's answering his people and and it's bad

» it is bad really and truly russell yeah mr bruswell has a point though we try i think personally i think i think we can separate professional from personal yeah but he is personal but but he won't let me don't want to be talking nobody they still won't help us out with our with our stuff we need okay and you know and that's ridiculous i'm on the phone if you'd like i i've got it i got it thanks yeah i got him on my phone yeah i mean i talked to david david look we try not to use names in here and if we have to do that and let's just go after it after this please okay well i'll call david i've talked to him many times and the last few times i've tried he won't answer my calls he won't tell you and i text him and everything yeah but anyway that's beside the point but thank you and i know davi

» d i know david can't help that what he's got to do what they tell him to do and even their lawyers i've dealt with over there they still won't do it but anyway to get back to the covid deaths thank goodness in our office we have not been hit with no covid we have not and thank goodness for that none of our guys has had it we wear our protective equipment and you see uh in 2019 i feel like the covid death was here a lot earlier than anybody anticipated you see we put a question mark up there you know we had a jump 70 from 18 to 19 with 78 okay why did it jump up it wasn't homicides wasn't suicides that bad so we thinking that maybe covid was around a whole lot earlier than we anticipated all right 2019 to 20 you know it was 115 jump and you can see the things there they coming up the covid d

» eaths so i'd like to thank y'all for letting me be here to do this and we'll continue to fight with them and try to get our figure straight because i would love to get on board you know with dhek on this stuff and get our records straight with them all right we have the sheriff if you can i have a corner can stay for a minute uh we'd like to have comments from the council okay mr jones let me tell you something dave you do a great job thank you and you're dealing you're we're all frustrated right now and you're fighting to try to get things accurate and i appreciate what you do well it gets aggravating when dhec puts out a thing like we get a list every day absolutely and um and then when i get my kobe dance i send them to vic julian and danny i send them you know what i get on like on desk

» so i got another one to give out today another lady was it no it's a gentleman gentleman passed away this afternoon um and i give them i give them that but my records don't match up with theirs and see the and the bad thing about is zip codes like why do you think why do you think that's happening thunder tower harley davidson everybody know where that's at okay thunder tower harley davidson it is a elgin address all right how many housing developments you got between richmond county and harley davidson thunder tower you got a bunch of houses thousands a bunch of them i get calls all the time and that's i'm catching you know we catching dhek with that and they take it off when we catch it but the ones i can't catch we still get credited for the death because they got a 29045 zip code we got

» people in sumter got 29020 zip code well i appreciate your standing up here and giving us the truth okay well thank you i hope to continue it um other comments please define the truth uh go ahead i'll tell you what the truth is i'll tell you what they are russell he's gonna be here oh are you upset yeah i'm well then i'm i'm a little bit perturbed at the way way that was presented well that's all right that's your opinion sir now russell the truth i'm sorry i made you mad i don't think jimmy made russell do you hear what i said i'm sorry i made you mad you didn't make me mad all right you spit fire when you looked at me russell i tell you which means the truth what i think what he's trying to say is let them stick let them you know if they something about a pandemic they won't they can't gi

» ve out debt they can't give out names a pandemic we in a pandemic that's what it is and that's dhek okay if they would just work with us and let's get our numbers straight because when i talked to a lawyer at dhek he had no idea that these zip codes cross lines like 29045 it don't stop at the county line is that the truth yes okay that's the truth that's a wonderful clarification would you feel better sir i feel fabulous jimmy jones well you look like it mr pull up thunder tower harley davidson And it pulls up Elgin Address, 29045. All them houses in between there, 29045, Elgin Address. I had one I caught the other day with Spears Creek Drive. The lady said, no, they from Kershaw County. I said, no, ma'am. That's Spears Creek Drive. That's Richland County. You know, David.

» Oh, my goodness. David, I want to tell you something, buddy. I can understand the name, mentioning a name, but I don't understand why they have such a problem with the truth. No, I just want a clarification. So you're just talking about the statistics. Yeah, the zip code. And the fact that some of the deaths aren't exactly in the county. No, they're not Kershaw County. That's perfect clarification. Are we missing some of ours? I wouldn't doubt it. You know how I get most of mine, Russell? I get on the phone and start calling funeral homes. I call the hospital first, then I call the funeral homes. And we have got Lexington County. We got one hospital that will not call us, and that's the VA. But we got Lexington County's on board now. We got Paraprisma Health, Baptist, all them's on board.

» When they have a death, that supervisor calls the coroner's office and reports that death. I am perfectly fine with the truth, but name-calling should not be tolerated in this building. Okay, well, that's my fault, and I'm sorry for it. I mean, I'll call Dave and talk to him about it. I would call him to apologize. Yeah, but he won't call me back. Okay, Russell, you won't answer, right? Okay, I think we're done on that. Other comments? Mr. Tucker. Wow. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming. Make sure you kneel down tonight and pray, all of us. But I just want to say thank you, Coroner and Sheriff, for what you do.

» I know last year was a tough year and a lot of unknowns trying to do your job, but we appreciate what you've been able to accomplish and keep our citizens safe and reporting what we can report to the best of our knowledge. So I just want to say thank you and keep up the good work. Things are moving in a positive direction, but it doesn't mean we're over the hump. Thank you. Other comments? Again. Let me close that out. You said other comments. Yeah, please go ahead, Mr. Johnson. I appreciate it. You going to get mad at me? I'm going to smile. I appreciate it. Listen, again, David, you work very hard for this community. Thank you so much for bringing us the truth here tonight on the numbers because we can only report what we hear.

» It took a lot of courage for you to stand up there and do that. And if y'all want to get on board with me and leave me a text, y'all want me to have one? Well, thank you. And, Sheriff, you do a great job as well. Thank you. Yeah. Any final comments, Mr. Sheriff and Mr. Coroner? thank you so much for coming and uh i'll give you a call later on thank you very much that concludes the public presentation we move now to item number one which is at tab a if you can bring that up please uh it's a resolution requiring individuals to wear face coverings while in council chambers uh i would look to turn to mr tucker if i should read that first or would you like to introduce it i'll introduce it and you can read it uh mr chairman i would like to make a motion mr chairman this time that we adopt the re

» solution that's before you requiring all individuals to wear face coverings here in the uh kershaw county council chambers very good can we have a second second second for mr uh gardner and i'll go ahead and read it and then we'll have discussion the resolution requiring individuals to wear face coverings whereas on march 13th 2020 governed governor henry mcmaster issued executive order number 2020-08 as extended related to novel coronavirus and declared that a state of emergency exists in the state whereas kershaw county extended and declared a public state of emergency in the county due to covid by emergency ordinance and whereas the state of south carolina dhec continues to warn of the risk of localized person-to-person spread of COVID-19, creating an extreme public health risk.

» Whereas the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and DHEC advise the use of face coverings to slow the spread of COVID-19, and whereas in order to protect, preserve, and promote the general health and safety and welfare and peace, an order of the community and county council is taking steps to protect the citizens attending county council meetings and while in council chambers from increased risk of exposure and whereas in light of the foregoing county council deems it's proper and necessary to adopt this resolution requiring individuals to wear face coverings while attending council meetings and while in these council chambers now therefore be it resolved the county council of the county of kershaw in a meeting duly assembled that due to the real and present concern of the spread of C

» OVID-19. Face coverings are required to be worn by all individuals attending council meetings while in the council chambers. The resolution shall become effective immediately, etc., etc. With that, we go to a discussion. Mr. Tucker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, my colleagues, I don't want to belay going into a deep discussion.

» I just want to say this is something we've been doing for the last 11 months is wearing face coverings and somehow I had a family issue I had to attend to last council meeting and we got derailed it and so we're just now publicly announcing what we've been doing for 11 months and that's it nothing's changed nothing affects the citizens outside this chamber or anywhere in the county what they haven't been doing already that has been passed by the city or the governor thank you mr chairman uh second was mr gardner sir well i just believe that face masks work i don't know cdc recommends it and uh i just believe that face masks work and we're in fairly close proximity whether it's six feet or non-six feet i just think masks are appropriate very good other comments uh mrs just just quickly i'll

» just want to state where kind of my logic here um i'll be the first one to say i'm i'll be glad when all this this face mask stuff is over uh looking at what we're look at the metrics i think maybe we're when we're two months from it uh between vaccine and just herd immunity from uh everyone who's had the had the infection i think we're certainly getting there but for me it's about consistency uh we've been doing this has been our practice uh when you walk into a courthouse or any other government building in the county um you're you're asked to wear a mask i know the employees they wear a mask uh when when they're not in their own personal workspace and in in in meeting so for me it's not about trying to make anyone do something but i just i feel like if this is how the employees conduct t

» hemselves when they're here five you know five days a week uh eight to five then i'm going to submit to the same consistency that that they adhere to so that's just my logic thank you mr chairman if i may please mr john thank you mr debose i have a legal question the resolution is it a law no it's not a law it's a suggestion it's a resolution okay so we already have a we already have a city of cabinet orders don't we correct i think we determined at the last meeting that if i'm six feet apart i can sit in here with not a mask on i'm legally within my right correct well i think the city ordinance says that face masks are not required if you're alone in an enclosed space or able to maintain a distance of six feet from all persons all of the persons is this resolution supersede that ordinance

» I think it would be in addition to but how do you enforce a resolution it has no enforcement mechanism in it it's not a law mr. Connell Thank You mr. chairman in reviewing this resolution there's just too many issues in it for me to support it. I'm wearing the mask just as a courtesy. I think the chairman at the beginning of the meeting had a decent comment. Let's use some common sense. We had a family that's been, you know, just rock solid in the community. It wouldn't be appropriate to keep everybody out while you had a presentation, Mr. Henry. Just makes sense. I think we can be reasonable and make sense in this room, I hope. We have one of our council members who has a compromised immune system.

» Just as a courtesy, his doctor has asked that he be around folks who wear masks during this period of time, hopefully until he's vaccinated. If a friend asks you to do something kindly, hopefully you do it. So that's why I'm wearing a mask right now. Now turning to the legal issues I see with this particular ordinance, there's no enforcement provision. It's not an ordinance. Excuse me, it's a resolution, not an ordinance. It's odd that we carve out a particular area within the county building and it doesn't apply to any others. If it's a legitimate fear of COVID-19 infection and we're imputing to everyone that you might be infected and harm someone else, that fear should transmit everywhere else. There's no definition of a face covering.

» I don't know how you could actually determine whether or not somebody's in compliance. We don't have an enforcement mechanism as I've gone through with legal before. It's why we didn't pass it the first time when it came up for discussion. At least that's my understanding of why we didn't pass it previously.

» And those are really the, I guess, the main points that I would have um it doesn't seem like a law that we can actually apply in my view we shouldn't try to make laws or resolutions fashioned as laws that we can't enforce thank you mr chairman very good other comments mr snodgrass i just would i would point out that we haven't we have not passed an ordinance that is mr canal you are you are correct and i didn't vote for an ordinance based on some of the um some of the criteria that that you spoke of but this is a resolution and we did we did pass a resolution uh for countywide use of mask and that was unanimous and and again i think this resolution just again reminds us that this is what our practice has been um you talk about the other parts of the building i don't know what there's employ

» ee policy but i know when i walk in for meetings every employee in this building is wearing a mask when they're in uh public places and i'm just you know i'm not making a political statement about a mask i'm just saying i'm going to do what the employees are doing when i see when i'm when i'm here eight to five other comments mr chairman now mr snodgrass i think you're right it previously was a recommendation not a mandate regarding mask and also it uh the language i think we use deferred to what your doctor tells you to do so you know follow whatever your medical provider says you need to do based on your risk level based on any particular weakness or even strengthen your immune system and follow the people who know about medicine i mean not necessarily us up here we're citing the governor

» who hasn't required a mask mandate and then the cdc who's only made it a recommendation it's not a requirement but again for the reason stated i can't support this thank you mr chairman other comments uh other comments yes um yes if i if i may uh speak thank you for referencing the governor and cdc you know the thing about it is that um it doesn't hold any water i mean it's just words it's a resolution and i'm following the law i'm in compliance and uh i just don't understand if i'm just that we have to continue on this way i really hate that other comments uh mr tucker uh yes just a couple um mr chairman um this wouldn't even be a problem if um if we would do what you said then just just be kind to one another and um respect each other's space and and wishes.

» I've sat here when we came in and I was late getting here and there was one person unmasked and that was Councilman Jones when I walked in. There is right now three people unmasked and all we're just trying to do is protect everyone's space. This room is not that big and if you don't want to stay masked up that long then walk out or you know join us live stream so you can be ready on the meeting and it's no harm no foul no one's not going to get upset or get angry at you I mean we love to have people here but this room can only hold so many people and and I'm real respectful to other people's wishes and and not infecting them and harming them and I know we've got difference of opinion on how the virus works and what it does and whether it's real or not I got that but I can tell you that in

» my family we have followed the guidelines and we've blessed not to be infected and and that's because we are respecting not only ourselves but other people in different spaces where we may have to go so for those reasons you want to be defiant if it passes that's that's totally left up to you but um we've always followed resolutions and proclamations and things that this body has ruled by the majority so thank you mr chairman very good other comments if i may mr jones uh mr tucker you and i have had a lot of discussions in these chambers and i must say that out of all we've had we may not have agreed but we never got mad at each other and we never got to jump on each other and it's not going to happen i appreciate i respect you i have a lot of much respect for you but you know my position a

» nd i know your position now if i'm in i'm not in compliance with the law i'll put it on if i walk in a restaurant i'll put it on when i sit at the table at the restaurant as i did today again in camden i take it off along with the people half a foot from me at another table uh it just doesn't make sense and you know but but i also we also comply with the law and all the regulations so if y'all make it a law i'm going to obey the law but y'all haven't made it a law so if you want me to put a mask on six feet apart from him make it a law and then i'll wear the mask but i mean otherwise i just don't see the same necessity and that that you do but i do have respect for you other comments i got one mr gardner yeah if we if we passed a resolution that each council member got a hundred dollars for

» every meeting they attended john's if the six of us got our hundred dollars and you didn't get yours would you want it i'm fine i don't know i'm just saying though but but you know i mean that's that's what you're saying you you would have no recourse to come back and get it you said it's not a law so we all get the hundred dollars or i'm just using that as an example. I think what we're doing is saying resolutions are worthless. Proclamations are worthless. So I would consider not having any more if that's what we're saying. So that's my point of view. Other comments? Well, I think I'll bring it up with a few last comments. We have spent a lot of money building a Zoom capability and very few of you have used it except for when an emergency situation where you couldn't make it.

» So we have that capability to reduce the damage or the risk if there is any a resolution at the county level was built on the fundamental basis that we believed in the ability of our free people in this county to make their own decisions and to act out of common courtesy and common sense as we did today uh with when we got overloaded in here and we have encouraged them to follow the best advice but unfortunately it's become a bit politicized at national and state and county and now in this room where a common courtesy seems to need a lawyer to pass a law when somebody politely asks you to follow the rules of the house or to be considerate of other people that's why we have lawyers in this room we are policymakers and we have the authority as i understand as the chairman to govern these spac

» es and uh much has been made of the push and pull of whether we wear a mask or not. We've been polite about it, but nevertheless, this is deeply ingrained. And where a courtesy ought to behave when someone asks you to do something, when you go into their house, it's not a law, it's a request. It's a reasonable request. I'm astonished that we have to parse words, and I know the meaning of words, when just a simple common courtesy wouldn't be sufficient. I've seen pictures of our national leaders, our state leaders, we have one of them here, where out of regard for the rules of the house, the house he or she happened to be in, that person wore a mask. Famously, they all wore masks. And then they took them off when they felt they didn't need to.

» But in here, we have a resolution that appeals to your sensibilities as a human, and as a Christian, I would say, but also as a citizen, and as a comrade of this group, out of common courtesy, out of respect for a vulnerable person and persons in year to wear a mask, a face covering. So we're going to get into the issue of whether it's a face covering or a mask, or it has how many threads per ply per square meter. And I find that rather trivial. There's no stronger law than the law of the human heart. Those of us have led men and women in tight spots. And there's some of you in here know what I'm talking about when you're getting shot at. You rely upon that person to do something. And you don't even have a law.

» You have an order you don't have a regulation but you have a sense of trust and confidence in that person that they care for you and you care for them and they care for the team and that's how america wins wars and that's how we're going to get through this plague so we are here where we are and i'm just amazed at the discussion and disappointment with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand it's mr snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns all those opposed signify by raising hand we have mr jones mr brazel and mr connell the resolution passes but with that we move forward uh i would now ask you all in non-compliance please to put your mask on thank you mr dabney i appreciate it thank you miss gwen i appreciate it mr jones can you join us not at the moment can

» i ask you as i did two weeks ago to please put your mask on let's call a recess and you and i have a talk no no call recess oh you and i can have a talk we're going to go to a recess then i'm not going to put my mask okay with that a gentleman i'm going to declare a short recess and thank you for the discussion i'm here turn the mics off if you want okay we're back from recess mr uh templar i think we got the mics live and we're still streaming all right very good i was very helpful discussion with mr jones i need to apologize to michael and carton as he leaves i was i didn't realize that mr jones intended to do a public statement and so i made an error by calling uh mr carton up first mr jones so please accept my apology i do mr chairman thank you very good now we'll move on and i noticed

» you still don't have your mask on would you would you help us by maybe putting your mask on so we can move forward i'm going to ask you know ben cornell you and i had a little discussion just now would you explain what you explain to me um sure uh as best as i can recall yeah i'll remind you if it's not exactly okay well um in these chambers a lot of us including me from time to time invoke the name of the lord um but one i've really thought about whenever mr gardner originally asked me and explained to me his situation was that the lord has asked us to if a brother makes a request to go one mile with him you go with him twain and if he asks you to give you his shirt give them your cloak also that's how i viewed this i also shared with him that in my view only social pressure or long suffer

» ing and reasoning and logic should apply in this room we shouldn't have a targeted law necessarily that applies to one particular person but in some way it is what it is council has voted and there will be mechanisms to correct it later if need be but again i just think it's it's courtesy and trying to help somebody out thank you i think that's a a good summary but it was too say again i said i thought it was too i'm sorry i said i thought it was a good summary as well that's why i asked him to repeat it yeah can we ask you to put your mask on no mr gardner can ask me if i'll put my mask on all right certainly mr jones would you put your mask on because of you thank you thank you mr jones i really appreciate it let's proceed as as we go thank you ben for that elucidation uh with that we hav

» e uh let's see where are we proclamation of Black History Month it's a tab D let me catch up with things and I will read it to Amy and then you can motion it whereas Kershaw County celebrates February as national Black History Month to recognize the vast contributions of black American black black African Americans to our nation's history and identity and whereas Black History Month grew out of the establishment in 1926 with the second week of February of Negro History Month by Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

» This week was chosen because it coincides with the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and whereas Black History Month in the United States was first proposed by black educators and the Black United Students of Kent State University in February 1969. Six years later, it was being celebrated all across the country. President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month in 1976 during the celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial.

» He urged Americans to seize the opportunity to honor the too often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history end quote and whereas the 2021 national theme for the observance of black history is the black family representation identity and diversity and whereas kershaw county council is deeply committed to equity and inclusion this stance includes the cultural and racial affirmation of all our citizens and community members who identify as black african-american and whereas crushel county council strives to close the equity and outcome gaps for black african-american citizens through the policies and practices that reflect the experience of black african-american citizens ensure greater access and opportunity and honor history heritage and

» contributions whereas our community and nation are better because of the the diversity of our population. Most recently, to name one example, 34-year-old African-American Dr. Corbett led the development of the Moderna COVID vaccine. She attended the University of Maryland in Baltimore as a Meyerhoff Scholar, an aggressive program that mentors minorities and women in science. Corbett's understanding of the socio-cultural issues and her knowledge of science, it's made her an influential person in the scientific community and an example for the young women of color.

» And whereas Kershaw County Council is committed to Vision 2030 to make Kershaw County the great place to live, work, worship, play, and raise families, where our growing, vibrant, and historic communities nourish our culture and our vitality. Now, therefore, be it resolved that Kershaw County Council hereby proclaims the month of February as black history month in kershaw county and encourages all residents to honor black american history and culture can we have a motion thank you mr brazel second second thank you mr tucker mr tucker and mr brazel would you like to open this is fantastic um we we all need to to recognize this month and um kershaw county celebrating black history month um it's important to all of us to to treat one another with respect no matter um who we are where we came f

» rom that's just the way i feel about it thank you sir thank you uh mr tucker uh thank you mr chairman i won't belay this discussion i just want to say that i asked for all my colleagues to support this proclamation and um i um want to say thank you to you too because um when this came up uh beginning of the month actually latter part of january um you were the um what i would call the brainchild of asking me about this and i really appreciate that and miss mary thank you for all your hard work on this as well mary did it yeah yep thank you uh other comments uh mr stockgrass yeah thank you mr tucker for uh bringing this or putting this together sponsoring this uh this evening as a individual that grew up in a faith community i've always had the advantage of of being mentored by folks who are

» not even who are not in my own culture and in my own upbringing whether it's a camp counselor who's an african-american man or a basketball coach or a friend i look back to the advantages that i had of of not just having one culture that spoke into my life but to having multiple walks of life and and just i recognize the advantages of that and i think this resolution reminds us all that it's important to ensure that we see the world through another person's eyes and ultimately we see people the way god sees people and i think if we i think if we see the world through other people's eyes and we see the world through uh we see the world the way that god sees people help us get a perspective on so many so many pressing issues in our culture so mr tucker thank you for sponsoring this and puttin

» g this on the table thank you other comments yeah mr john sir if i may mr tucker i appreciate you putting this on the agenda and you and i have had some previous discussion about it and i just want to say that my vote is going to be an honor of my dear friend and brother george gibson george and evelyn gibson and uh that's why when you and i talked earlier i didn't want to tell you what i wanted to do but that's what i wanted to do but i want to say thank you for your bringing this to us i think it's a good thing thank you so much yes sir you're welcome other comments i'll just say that america is a rather free-spirited country and we all speak our minds and sometimes we get violent and we should remember that this nation has been brought to the brink over the last nine months and we should

» celebrate all cultures and i'm delighted to be able to throw my vote in behind this black history month uh with that i moved to a vote all those in favor so signify miss mary it is unanimous and thank you we'll have that published thank you thank you mr tucker uh i think we are a new world's record it taken us two hours to get uh minutes uh if you'll put those up there at tab e approval of minutes dated 9 february uh can we have a motion to approve mr gardner a second with that second this is not grass uh discussion i'll be abstaining mr chair i believe mr tucker will abstain and with no discussion we move to a vote all those in favor please signify and it's unanimous with mr uh tucker um abstaining moving on to the next item which is administrative update i thought we'd We never get to it,

» Mr. Carpenter, on the COVID. Over to you, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of council, we've discussed this quite a bit, I think, in the last few weeks. You see the decline that is occurring. Our 14-day average is now below 400 for the last 14 days. When you see it almost at 800 just barely a month ago. The number of cases has hit single digits a couple days lately. Right now, I'd say it looks like we will certainly not exceed January, and we will barely exceed December, and most of that occurred in the beginning of this month, not the end of this month. As the coroner indicated, we do still have fatalities occurring, and that is an unfortunate reality. Vaccinations are still in Category 1A for vaccinations. They're indicating that they hope to be able to begin moving into 1B sometime in March.

» uh again we are still um vaccinations occurring at the hospital as well as if you can get them elsewhere thank you comments uh mr tucker uh mr carpenter um i see we just go back to september but if you roll the numbers back in the peak during the summer the numbers that we're currently having now are pretty similar to those would that be a fair statement in july right yes sir yes sir we're we're right um to where we were at that lull before we really started shooting up all right and reason i'm saying that because i'm making a statement because i don't want people to think because the numbers are trending now they're um you know not dangerous we're we're at the peak we were during the summer when we're at our heightest of being you know not knowing what was going on what this virus was doin

» g so um we're not there yet but we're moving in the right direction yes sir okay thank you thank you mr jones thank you so much you know there's so much going on you've been very good about bringing us the numbers and keeping us updated pretty much on a daily basis it'd be nice when we don't have to worry about that too much more but i appreciate all the work you've done on it thank you and i think y'all take this very seriously we may have differences of opinion and differences of beliefs but uh to my colleagues on council tom i'm going to abide by your wish and i'm going to wear this mask even though i don't necessarily believe in it i'm doing it for you and i just want you to know that and also in retrospect you passed a a resolution resolution passed on a four three majority and i think

» in some ways i have an obligation to respect that majority and that doesn't mean we're bffs but yes we are i thought we are but bottom line is i just wanted to say that and ben thank you for your conversation yes sir all right thank you mr said enough mr chairman uh yeah mr connell um wanted to follow up vic and see if we've heard anything back about those folks that want to have vaccinations have they had increased access whether it was logging in online or otherwise i saw dr tooley walk in and reminded me about a text that they've been trying to get out all vaccinations that they can whenever available my knowledge they have rolled out their new dx rolled out their new 800 number and the website and the hospital uh was as well to my knowledge is gone to their website and the issues they h

» ad originally when they had to use the vam system and you required uh unique emails and things like that are much simpler now it's much easier to to register and apply for your vaccination and i know that on the state level they're working to try to come up with priority lists so that if they have excess vaccines they can call people that are on the priority list as opposed to just putting that to whoever is available so to my knowledge i've not heard any complaints compared to what we heard about like last month yes sir okay thank you other comments i would like to point out we do have dr tully holst from here uh let's support our hospital kershaw health uh from the very start of this thing on the 6th of march just shy of a year ago uh she put me in touch with the epidemiologist and she an

» d vic carpenter have had a relationship that had been to the benefit of the county thank you for pointing her out i can't even see that far i didn't know who she was mr chairman if i might yeah the epidemiologist was probably dr olatosi who's that's correct he's a rock star man he's a rock star we were sitting in some some meetings uh i won't say months but weeks and weeks ahead of time it feels like he was saying this is going to be an issue so pay attention he was exactly right do we want to have uh tuli you have anything you want to say tonight or is that putting you on the spot just a citizen and you represent all of Kershaw Health, very, very well. Thank you. Mr. Jones, go ahead. Come on up. You're being beckoned. Well, she doesn't need to come if she doesn't feel like it.

» But I tell you what, we all have a lot of respect for you. Yeah, truly. Thank you for coming. People on the Facebook can't hear you, truly. So if you would, come up and just repeat that. Some of these folks think I'm pushing the issue too hard. Dr. Tuli Holstrom, Kershaw Health. thank you very much um and again i'm not representing kershaw health i'm representing tooley yes ma'am we got it citizen born and raised here educated here um thank you for pointing out the whole challenges we have with covid um thank you for wearing your mask it is the mask the simple mask doesn't cost much makes the biggest change and biggest issue when when it comes to decreasing the spread of COVID. We have vaccines. We're doing our best to roll out the vaccines. A lot of challenges there.

» We're going to overcome those challenges, and we're going to make a difference. Together, collectively, we can beat COVID, but the key word is together. The key word is collectively, and I understand we don't always have the same opinion. That's okay. Science has shown us, wearing a mask, washing hands, keeping your distance, and vaccinating those who are appropriate and able to get vaccinated and at the end of the day we'll win this game thank you very much for everything you do know that tuli holmstrom citizen is behind and i'm pretty sure that kershaw health hospital is absolutely going to lead the charge when it comes to making a difference for kershaw county fighting covid ma'am can you stay and take a few QUESTIONS? AS A PRIVATE CITIZEN, GENTLEMEN, ANY QUESTIONS FOR DR.

» HOLSTROM? MR. TUCKER? I DON'T HAVE A QUESTION, AND I WAS GOING TO SAY THIS FOR MY COUNSEL BRIEFING. DR. HOLSTROM, I JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU. SINCE I'VE OPENED THE 124 BATTLESHIP ROAD SITE, I'VE HEARD NOTHING BUT POSITIVE THINGS AND PEOPLE ARE GETTING SHOTS IN ARMS. I APPRECIATE YOU GUYS also not wasting the vaccine. When you have cancellations and no-shows and things of that nature, you make sure that you get these shots where they need to go without trashing them like some other facilities are doing around the country. So I just want to say kudos to you and the crew and thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Tucker.

» I want you to know that we are here to make communities healthier and I firmly believe that getting vaccine in arms make communities healthier here and we will do everything we can within our power and we will advocate to those authorities that have power beyond us to make sure that we can meet the needs of those who live and breathe here in Kershaw County as you know I was born and raised here and I filmed you at every every day that's right you filmed us playing the state championship that's right at the end of the day we are taking care of those that we go to church with that we went school with that we work with and we are committed to making a difference every day in our county with the people who make a difference in our lives yes ma'am other comments yes uh mr jones this this lady fr

» iend doctor we go way back 15 years when i first was elected county council she's one of the first people to call me and we had a sit-down meeting and she and i have been through quite a bit together there's been a lot of battles and a lot of struggles and you have been there in the forefront of all i give you much respect and i also thank you for all you've done for the local hospital because you helped me get myself in line at that point in time you are always available and i just want to say thank you other comments uh yeah russell hey dr holstrom thank you for what you're doing for the community that i'd like to share this with you there's a lot of you know people for or against the vaccine but i got a hug from my 93 year old grandmother today at my aunt's funeral and that's the first t

» ime she's she's given me a hug in a long time and it was because she gained confidence after getting the vaccine to get back out and that that meant a lot to me there you go those are that that's the light at the end of the tunnel um things are getting better people are gaining confidence and that's just uh that's positive so thank you very much can i i i'm going to ask a question here you're looking at the chart behind me and behind you there that shows a decline from 785 on the two-week count approaching 300 now so essentially it's on a downslide here in the united states wide and now the dialogue is going to like can we chuck at all uh at what point do we return to taking these darn things off okay so can you can you address that thank you jimmy all due respect mr jones i would encourage

» you to wear your mask keep your distance and wash your hands when you walk out of the chamber and i do that i do that and that's not a law that's a resolution i do that every day until we are firmly in control of the pandemic um you know i'm just a local doc and i'm by no means a public health national expert the things we've done to get us to this point regardless of what you're doing if you're playing a sports game if you're in another business interaction whatever creates your success you don't necessarily abandon what creates your success because you're successful so it would seemed to me a logical path that those measures we've taken to get to this point to show a decline are reasonable measures to continue into the foreseeable future to maintain the decline will there come a day when

» we can all take off the mask i firmly believe there will be i can't tell you when that's going to be i believe it's going to going to happen i personally don't think the day is tomorrow we have gotten to this point because of what we've done and mike culp who was you know a tremendous um influence in my life as my basketball coach he didn't we didn't stop doing the same drills the day after we won the state championship basketball game for the next season we continue to do the same drills so i encourage you to consider please wear your mask wash your hands keep your distance we're in the the back stretch of this challenge we're going to get there but if you stop too soon it makes it that much harder to overcome the next very good other comments there's the lady who got us this far thank you

» the system got us this far the lady didn't get us this far and there's a whole host of people that are responding okay i'll rephrase that there's a majority who don't get recognized okay i'll rephrase that there's a lady that won't take credit for what she did right all right thank you tuli uh other comments for mr carpenter can't beat that that's great advice and with that we move to the next item on the agenda thank you vic there's a series of ordinances item number one is the third reading of an ordinance it's a tab f and there's a map on the board this has to do with the famous carolina motor sports park there mr carpenter introduce the topic please chairman members of council you have in front of you tonight for third reading in order to rezone approximately 53 acres of land up in the

» west full area from this current rezoning of a zoning of mrd1 and rd2 to a zoning of gd council has previously approved this on two previous readings all right can we have a first motion so move mr gardener a second second uh from mr that's you mr yes sir yep thanks i can't tell with these masks on all right any discussion mr gardener you want to lead yeah they're a good uh county partner and uh pass it on two readings i assume there have been no changes mr conley since we've last met so uh i think we we need to pass this on third reading uh any other comments uh mr snodgrass this is good go up to go for it all right go ride the go-karts and stop at russell's barbecue and and get barbecue on the way back yeah other comments this preacher love to eat yeah boy i i can find you in a restaurant

» for sure i just think it's a great economic issue and as i said before we we have a carolina cup racing association we have the chairman here tonight and he's going to have us a race at the end of the may but we also have an opportunity now to celebrate multiple horsepowers in a single vehicle and thank you for that and i think we're ready for a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and it passes the next item is uh item number two uh it's a first reading and it's a tab g and uh is that on the board it's out in stagecoach road out in your neck of the woods uh mr snodgrass is there mr carpenter can you introduce it mr chairman members of council you have in front of you tonight for first reading a request to rezone approximately 99 acres of land located on old stagecoach road

» from a current zoning of mrd1 to r15 it's previously been reviewed and approved by the planning commission on a unanimous vote there were no citizen concerns or complaints registered very good uh can we have a motion to approve make a motion that we approve mr tucker a second second from mr snodgrass uh comments mr tucker um i was actually sitting here next to mr snodgrass i told him that's district two that's That's my special disc. - It's across the street. - No, I just think that this is something that we need to do out in that area. And from everything that I read, no opposition. And I look forward to we getting this rezone and developing in rural parts of our county. - Mr. Snodgrass. - Yeah, I think this is exciting stuff for what I call the best kept secret in Kershaw County.

» which is which is east camden and this developer is one of the smartest people one of the smartest developers and excited about this it just no seriously from a planning standpoint r15 is consistent with the other parcels that are out there um and so i think this only adds um to this area the neighborhood that across the street across the street from it is an established neighborhood which is continually to those houses are turning over they're being purchased and being rehab and uh being revitalized and so this this this development would only add uh to the great things already out there so looking forward to keeping this moving forward thank you other comments let's tell the people at good old state park you're coming right that's right that's just around the corner that's where i learned

» to swim and i caught my first bass there all right with that we move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and moves to a second reading thank you very much i think we now move to new business yep there it is uh it's a tab h and page 52 which is the airport commission uh we're asked to uh replace mr jerry alex xander we have a qualified replacement mary i believe in mr robert wright um it's an at-large and can we and we have a motion to approve. - So moved. - Mrs. Snodgrass first and Mr. Gardner second. Mrs. Snodgrass, any comments? - No, sir. Just a qualified applicant and good to see citizens wanting to continue to be involved in our process. Thank you. - Very good. Mr. Gardner, very good.

» We continue to have a great airport and the commission is gonna continue to help us as a front porch of our county and delighted that we have citizens willing to work on it. any further comments none all right we'll move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and mary you have a new commission uh member and next item is item uh number two a tax committee appointments it's on page 54.

» i think we have a series of of three appointments to make tonight um let's see if i can catch up um the first one is a reappointment of uh kt brown uh she's from the camden district can we have a approval a motion to approve so move mr chair okay mr snodgrass a second second second from mr uh tucker uh any discussion it's been difficult mary will tell you that we all should thank her for trying to find the right specifications this is ruled by law coming down from the state house it says to compete for a tax you have to have a mix of certain types of specialties and in this case miss brown is asked to be reappointed and she runs a bed and breakfast so that meets that meets the requirement okay uh any requirement any uh further comments or that let's move to a vote all those in favor signify

» by raising your hand and it's unanimous um and then we move to the next one which is a vacancy we have two vacancies and i ask your help with the other one but tonight we have one uh in a miss um janet elrin uh can we have a motion to uh element can we have a motion to approve so move um second okay thank you who was the first i'm sorry i just can't hear it's not grass and uh and mr tucker any comments just yeah mr snodgrass uh this this candidate uh operates a bed and breakfast here in town so very consistent with uh to serve on the a tax committee so excited to have him on board very good others okay they just moved here and they're dynamite couple uh with that let's move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous so we'll move now to housing uh which is uh at tab jay mr c

» hairman yeah we have one more we have one more there is another candidate yeah fraser to fill the oh is it fraser money my mistake and miss fraser lives out on sycamore road and she runs a um county county restaurant all right can we have a motion to approve miss fraser i'll make a question a second okay mr gardner's first and mr tucker's second any comments i've talked to her she's dynamite entrepreneur uh with that let's move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and thank you gentlemen for sticking with us here and catching up on my sorry behavior here uh yeah thank you mary you caught me um for some reason i missed it and then we go now to the next item which is a the planning commission can i do that or the housing authority at tab j and that's at

» page 57 and it's on the board behind you and we have mr archie todd who i think is uh being reappointed can we have a motion to reappoint archie todd so move a second second a second from mr tucker there as you get that first and second uh mr gardner and then mr tucker um with that uh any discussion we really appreciate mr todd doing this with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify and it's it's uh unanimous mary we move to the next item which is the planning commission and while we have mike conley here you can help us out uh it's a tab k and page 59 i believe it's at 59 58 and 59 uh and uh we need to replace beth smith curtis blackman pete den oh my goodness mr chairman yeah we do these by districts yes uh exactly right and the first one is amy ud and this one is in camden uh m

» ary can you help me out which district that is she's in my district it's mr gardner all right mr gardner do you wish to make a motion yes i move that we appoint amy all right i'm sorry i can't hear you mike he wants to go on a vote of appeal we cannot hear you okay so we don't should i just go ahead and make a ruling on that for boarding zoning appeals i will retract my motion okay the motion is retracted so in terms of uh rules of the house we we have it in here for the board of zoning and appeals should we just go ahead and make that motion it's not on the agenda on the agenda well it's let's see what we have here planning and zoning well it is technically on the on the on the agenda because if he only has one choice is mr as amy amy ud is asking for the board of zoning appeals mary that'

» s the only thing she asked for so i missed mr uh attorney i think we should go ahead and just go ahead and make that motion but i think the rules are should be on the agenda but if you make the appointment nobody complains i think it would be valid you know if no one wants TO COMPLAIN TECHNICALLY WE COULD BRING IT UP NEXT TIME YEAH LET'S NOW I'M NOT COMPLAINING RIGHT BUT I'VE HAD TO WAIT TO MAKE MY APPOINTMENTS BECAUSE OF THE RULING SO YOU'RE SAYING THAT IF AND THE THING THE RULE SAYS THAT MAYOR NEEDS TO BE AN AGENDA ITEM IS RIGHT COUNCILMEMBER AND SO IT'S NOT TECHNICALLY IT'S NOT I MEAN I SUPPORT I MEAN I I'D CERTAINLY SUPPORT THIS PERSON FOR THE POSITION I JUST THINK THAT WE NEED TO FOLLOW OUR OUR RULES OF ORDER OH IF THAT'S THE VIEW OF EVERYONE HERE AND THERE'S NO I MEAN GUYS IF WE MAKE

» AN EXCEPTION THEN WE I MEAN YEAH THE ONLY EXCEPTION WOULD BE A COMPELLING NEED AND I DON'T SEE A COMPELLING NEED DO YOU MIKE IS THAT A NO OKAY YEAH MY QUESTION IS DON'T THESE HAVE TO APPEAR IN A PREVIOUS AGENDA BEFORE WE CAN VOTE ON IT HAVE THESE ALL OF THESE HAVE BEEN YES OKAY THEN WE'RE GOOD AREN'T WE EXCEPT FOR THERE'S NOT AN AGENDA item to your point jimmy thank you i think it needs to be an agenda item that's good so mary if you don't mind let's move amy ud over to the next time well you can everybody can see here mary has been doing some yeoman service or your woman service and going through these names so i appreciate it very much so mary what have we got we've got still got a valid uh one or two in here two more candidates all right to mr jones's point they ought to be done by a dis

» trict uh the next one on the same law is fiona martin and she's up in um blue golf now is that closer to you mr jones actually no sir she's going to be i'm i'm going to make them i'm going to nominate her i can't add the next meeting i think she's in the previous under our rules she's good she's good jones i think the nominations are made by district but they don't have to live in that district no no no i understand that mr bose understand what i'm concerned about is they're supposed to show up in our she was she was okay then i make the motion okay second second uh is that you ben yes yeah okay thank you mary if you can record that comments discussion i just think she's going to be a wonderful contribution to the planning zoning commission if she came and spoke to us the other day about ro

» ad safety and things like that so i'm just very proud to be able to sponsor her thank you very much other comments all right very good we'll vote on her by a single person uh all those in favor signify and it's unanimous and fiona's on the board and we have a second nomination who is uh robert andrews from elgin uh mr connell would you mind i'll make that motion mr chairman and do we have a second second second from mr tucker comments he's a highly qualified candidate glad to have him serve mr whitlock is apparently moving out of state and it's time to time to fill his shoes well let's get after it then all those in favor signify by raising your hand and that's unanimous mary you certainly have been hard at work here thank you very much uh let me see where i am now does that take us through

» all your lists mary it does all right now we can go to the next item on the agenda which is council briefings mr carnell after you yes Yes, Mr. Chairman, it was so refreshing to be able to lift somebody up and cite them as an example of good in the community with Mr. Henry Powers. I really appreciated how that happened tonight. I also wanted to say that freedoms are fundamental, and a lot of times people say, you know, free speech for me but not for thee. I don't think that's what we've seen here tonight, but we saw a little element of it. You have freedoms until I don't like what you do, And then we create special legislation that has an impact directly on one council member. As I've said before, I don't agree with it, but I respect the council's vote.

» But I hope we don't get reduced to that. We always talk about spot zoning. I hope we don't do spot legislation in the future. And that I think we saw after there's a little bit of communication, even during this meeting or during recess, that communication, long-suffering, and persuasion tend to work. And I hope that we can carry on with that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's all I have. Mr. Jones. No report. Thank you for that. Thank you for those comments, Mr. Coneo. - Okay, Mr... - Thank you. - Snodgrass, please. - Mr. Chair, members of council, just briefly, Mr. Jones, if you felt that you were seeing what I, I do apologize because I hope you know that was not my intention, even though it may have been perceived that way to you.

» I hope you know that you and I have a great relationship outside of these chambers and inside the chambers. So I just, I wanted to make that clear that my vote had nothing to do with you specifically appreciate that you're welcome and great having a night to shine folks in here and again like i said in my remarks then that it's great how our community rallies together to ensure that people know their worth and and to know their value to the the point of covid and our update i just want to say thank you mr carpenter for continue to lead us through these days. I want to thank also Dr. Holmstrom, who's here in the hospital, who continues to lead, to go out front and to lead.

» We've seen that recently with how they've developed their own vaccine system and continue to ensure that the community has what it needs in order to be vaccinated and so that we can move forward. We see our numbers here. we talked about how you know it looks like the summertime before we got into uh another another hump but i'm optimistic that with uh with the with the vaccine that we have now uh as well as perhaps herd immunity that we're getting from the vaccine as well as um those who have been infected uh that we're that we're continuing to to move forward and uh every every couple months i say maybe we've turned the corner on this but i'm realizing that covet has about 10 corners and uh and perhaps this is the this is the last corner but uh but we'll continue to do what has got us this

» far and uh to uh to to be a good neighbor to wash our hands to wear a mask and and uh to to do things um of of that nature so thank you much and that concludes my remarks thank you mr tucker uh thank you mr chairman uh right quickly just two quick highlight things here um mr brazel i'm gonna direct this directly to you thank you um for speaking up because i am one that has always been very sensitive uh when it comes down to uh name calling in these chambers and i appreciate um your willingness to do that and i i know there was no ill feelings or anything like that you were just speaking from your heart but i appreciate it yeah um mr jones and you correct me if i'm wrong um at no time was this ordinance uh that was crafted uh blindside you did it no you called me immediately when you decided

» to put it on the agenda absolutely i don't make law or rules or policies to target anyone uh well not one in particular and i told you the reason why was it because you were just not wearing your mask am i correct by saying that sir you told me that okay so i just want to make that clear because i don't get into governing on individuals or groups. I govern as a body, as a whole, for the citizens of Kershaw County. That concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gardner. Just to go along with that, I think everybody knows my stance on masks from day one, and it's not pointed at any one person. I believe in masks. I always have. I presented an ordinance that was subsequently voted down, so everybody knows my stance on masks.

» I will be getting my second vaccine on Monday, and I will continue to wear my mask thank you amen uh sir Mr. Rizal bring us home all right bring it home COVID the mask I am um I'm frankly I'm tired of wearing them um I'm just gonna be honest with you I'm tired of wearing them and and a lot of people are and we want to move forward but we want to move forward safely and and you know it's it's up to us and others like us to define when that moment is and to help define when that moment is and that's why I gave the illustration of of what I was able to do today because of the gain confidence with with a vaccine being received so um I'm looking forward to the day I can take this mask off and sit up in here and smile at you so um there's light at the end of the tunnel sewer thank you um for brin

» ging the presentation a lot to talk about really appreciate you being here um again to highlight Kate Stein's and night to shine that's a fantastic event look forward to supporting that in the future and and our friend Henry Powers been a friend for years and a great neighbor and I want to do something I want to apologize I've had several several phone calls that I've had to to call Danny Templar and get the Department of Public Works to come solve a situation that was trash on the side of the road I mean Danny thank you thank you for for getting those guys to come help resolve an issue there's there's been some dirt road issues and i hadn't had a second phone call saying hey it wasn't done and i just really appreciate what y'all do for the community and we've got plans to uh to do a spring

» cleanup in a few areas we've talked about that on us-1 look forward to doing that and being part of that and i want to talk about the i want to i guess start the first annual watery river cleanup um that we can all work together and get guys out in boats and do a big trash pickup we briefly touched on that um i want to talk to everybody who can be involved to really get behind that and make that a community event that we can do every year because we all enjoy our natural resources the lake the river um i know I know we've probably done some things on the lake in the past. I'm not sure to what extent, but the river seems like it's neglected. So maybe that's something that we can get together and talk about.

» So hopefully everybody can be willing to pitch in, and we'll make it a fun, positive event. And that's it. Thank you. I'll close it out real quick. First of all, clean community. I'll grab your momentum that you built is clean community under Wanda Swan and a community that was put together by Mr. Bozart and Mr. Jones. It's got Jean Hardest and a whole bunch of folks on it. And one from Elgin, one from Camden, one from Bethune, and about a dozen other people. And they are moving out with a spring cleanup. And at the same time, you all will see complaints, as Mr. Brazel talked about, to clean up. And you're watching churches and local communities do the right thing. Again, the strongest law is the law of the human heart.

» our people are proud proud of their community and they're cleaning up but also we at county have a role as well secondly i need to re-emphasize what what mr brazel and mr tucker helpfully brought out his name calling is not allowed in here the passions of a covid are just terrible at the national level and even find their way into this community here in this room so i i'm sorry i couldn't shut it off sooner but uh russell i'll have to follow up with that individual later on but not because he was bad but because he was passionate and we just try to keep a business-like environment here and thank you for bringing that up we got to keep things cordial here and in the same spirit mr cartland thank you for coming i do appreciate it and here you still are we look forward to getting you together

» with mr carpenter and the other teams to see what we can do that's already begun i'm confident you're dealing with the right people in a professional way it's a business matter and one of vital importance to our county and thank you mr jones for bringing that in sir thank you very much indeed um thirdly i would talk about masks again um we passed the resolution it's not a law and uh the three men to my left mr jones mr mr connell and mr brasil are wearing a mask when we asked them to they did it they did it out of courtesy and out of respect for other people and so did mr dabney and i just want to tell you that's what makes a community as mr connell said we get we get heated sometimes but we're one team and i appreciate it ben thank you very much thank you very much indeed uh with that um i

» would tell you that i will have another item later on an executive session um and i'll first turn it over to mr carpenter um just a few items as chairman members council again thank you for your saturday and the time you spent working on uh goals for this county we will have that information finalized in your hands this week and on the agenda for the next meeting so you can discuss those goals as we arrived at that saturday also uh mr chairman also uh i know you like to recognize people and mr webb is also on the clean community that's right and that's where i think he's already left him ran out on us tom webb as well i tried i tried that's my report sir all right uh attorney uh mr chairman i have nothing all right we have uh now moved to an executive session for the annual performance revi

» ew of the administrator and the renewal of his contract tab l and page 64 is his old contract we have handouts for you that the attorney will give to us uh after we first have a review of with mr carpenter in uh the upper conference room so we will leave here and uh and we'll take mr carpenter and mr dubose with us uh there will be a vote when we return very possibly so with that can we have a motion to adjourn for executive session to have the annual performance review of the administrator's contract mr chairman make a motion we're going to executive setting for a contractual matter uh that's the first the second second mr gardner any discussion uh gentlemen let's take about five minutes to divert we've been busy and then i'll see you up there in about 10 minutes or so thanks we've got a v

» ote all those in favor yeah okay we are we are temporarily adjourned thank you mr ben first and second all right any discussion okay with no discussion let's vote now i have a full call excuse me i'm sorry um all those in favor returning from executive session signify okay we're returned from executive session the item on the agenda is that at your enclosures. Can we have a motion regarding the item on the agenda? Mr. Tucker. - Yes, Mr. Chairman and council members. I would like to make a motion to offer the administrator a contract for January 1, 2021 to expire December the 31st, 2022 for a compensation of 162,075 for a car allowance of $1,000 a month and to have the pay scale at 168.

» Yeah, yeah, the 162.075 is per year and $1,000 per month on the car allowance and then slide the scale at 168. That is my motion. - Second. - Second. - Mr. Snodgrass, just a quick discussion and clarification and then I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Tucker. That at what percentage pay raise is that? - That was 2%. - 2%. Okay, very good, Mr. Tucker, carry on. I'm just going to make this short and sweet because Miss Mary's already told me she's ready to go home. Vic, we appreciate you always for what you do. Snodgrass said it earlier. You're the, in my opinion, top-notch administrator in this state and probably in the surrounding states as well.

» And that shows with your dedication of educating other administrators, mentoring other administrators throughout the county, AND ALWAYS WILLING TO GO BEYOND WHEN THE ASSOCIATION CALLS FOR YOU TO DO THINGS TO KEEP ALL OF US MORE INFORMED AND EDUCATED, AND YOU ARE CITIZENS FIRST, AND I APPRECIATE YOUR CONFIDENCE AND CONFIDENTIALITY AMONGST US AS WELL AS YOUR GUIDANCE AND WHAT YOU DO HERE FOR THE CITIZENS OF KERSHAW COUNTY. THANK YOU. I DID ADDRESS IT IN MY MOTION.

» and okay mrs nigeras or uh mr carpenter echo uh the words of mr tucker thank you for your your hard work and i appreciate all that you do uh you're one of the few people that i know that follow south kind of politics a bit more than me so it's good to have you around to uh so that we can bounce those things off of but and i know that you don't forget this but i just want to make sure it's publicly said that you know we all agree that you're a great administrator but hope you recognize that without him and her behind you um you're not as great as as you as we say that you are so they're part of it as well so i know you recognize that but i also wanted to publicly um say that we appreciate them as well so it's not their day i know i was just all right uh other comments uh other comments uh ye

» ah mr connell just want to say thanks vick i haven't had an issue that i've had to refer to you or danny for that matter mary that hasn't been resolved in some way that ultimately satisfied a citizen of kershaw county that means a lot because uh what you do reflects back on us as employee of council and i just thank you for that that consistency lets me sleep a little bit better at night thank you other comments uh what we said in executive session uh remains there but i will tell you deeply felt that you got us through the covid and it was your idea of working with sammy and the other members on this board that went out to help small businesses i will tell you no small amount of tribulation and giving you a pay rise in the middle of a coveted pandemic but it is well deserved other comments

» mary amen yeah well i don't think that that was in the microphone but i'll just repeat that mary believes he's the best we've ever had it's in our heart and that's the most important place other comments okay i think we're ready to yeah mr johns please sir appreciate you answering my calls you are always there when i call you and you allow danny to help me in my many many ventures a day you know with folks calling and oh there are a lot of administrators may not allow that you know they wouldn't want their but you do, and that makes your life easier because you don't have to deal with me on a daily basis. And I just said it because it's true. But Danny actually looks at the obituary and says, I'm still alive. I hadn't called him the next morning.

» But thank you, Vic, for being there when I need you, and I appreciate that. Other comments? Russell, thank you for sitting through this. Well done. I would like for you to tell your family how much we appreciate your time that you give to this body and to 65,000 people and how important you are to each and every one of them. Tell your family. And secondly, I would say in closing, the first item in here is economic development, and we're hoping that you'll bring us a couple of wins this year, and we're looking for it, and I'll do anything I can to help, and I already have, and I'll do more if I need to. Mr. Tucker. I just want to make this plain and clear, Mr. Carpenter. - All what I just said is null and void if you don't sign it. So sign your contract, please, sir.

» - All right, other comments? I think we're ready to vote. All those in favor, so signify. Mary, it's unanimous. Thank you very much. With that, do we have a motion to close? - Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chairman. - Mr. Tucker, second from Mr. Connell. Any discussion? No, let's move to a vote. All those in favor? And even the guard raises his hand. - That's right, that's right.