Full meeting transcript - June 8, 2021

» yes it's a great day in kershaw county it's a great day in this all america county we've got three graduations this week we already had the cma graduation and we're going to look for no rain on friday and saturday so our kids can celebrate a well-deserved graduation we also are a championship county and i am wonderfully aware that we have two champion teams here one our clean community commission who makes kershaw county visible from outer space and we also have the championship softball team so i think we can get started i would remind you all on our duty to retain decorum so that procedure can move forward and we want to proceed like a championship county council as well with the rules that we have that are given to me as the chairman to enforce so So with that, we are called to order.

» Mr. Tucker is on the way, but we have a quorum. And I ask Mr. Brazel to lead us in the invocation and pledge. Would you all stand, please? Bow your head, we'll say a prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for tonight. Thank you for everybody who's in this room, Lord. Thank you for your willingness to be involved and be a part of this county and take ownership in what we're all doing here today. Help us all act like men and treat one another with respect tonight, Lord. Give us guidance. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Before we move on to business, I would tell you that if you want to participate in the public comments or in the public hearing, Mr.

» Bowes has two sheets of paper up here. You can come up and sign your name, and we'll also entertain those of you to come in a little bit later. But with that, I'm going to depart from the agenda and everyone up here understands the reason for doing that is we want to get to meet our championship softball team. Right, coach? Oh, man, you don't look so mean. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read a proclamation and so that the girls here can understand that we have a procedure where it has to be put on the table and then voted on. So you have to sit through all that boring stuff. And I assure you, it's not half as exciting as listening to you on WPUB radio long distance to hear those home runs and all those wonderful catches and stuff.

» So with that, I'm going to read the proclamation, then I'll look for a motion. Proclamation honoring the 2021 Lady Demons softball team state softball champions. Whereas Kershaw County is a great place to live, work, worship, play, and raise our families. Whereas Kershaw County has persevered in spite of tornadoes and drought and a global pandemic to achieve the goals in our vision, and nowhere is our grit and determination more evident than our wonderful Kershaw County school system, where administration and teachers and support staff have served some 10,000 students successfully during this school year.

» And whereas Lugoff-Elgin High School sports program, I'm getting to y'all in a minute, have operated without let up from the beginning, demonstrating a quality athletic program for our young adults with resiliency and excellence in all sports. And where is that resiliency and excellence are most evident in the Lady Demons softball team, led by Coach Savannah Corder-Starling.

» Coach Starling is a graduate of Blue Golf Elgin High, a former star player herself, a graduate at the University of South Carolina in phys ed, and returned to kershaw county where she promoted a head coach in 2019 wife mother and a champion coach and whereas under coach starling's leadership along with assistant coaches katie ham and jessica fry and von duncan and stephanie cox the lady demons surmounted injury and tough opponents to advance to the upper state championship where they dominated catawba and seized the title of Quad A Upper State Champions on 28 May in a hard-fought away game. The Lady Demons then took on and defeated Darlington as the uncontested 4A State Champions.

» Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Kershaw County Council in a meeting duly assembled to applaud, celebrate, and recognize the excellence of Lugov Elgin Lady Demons softball team as Upper State Champions and as state champions for the year 2021. Can we have a motion? Mr. Connell. Mr. Chairman, I make the motion that we approve this resolution and recognize these fine young ladies and coaches. Can we have a second? Second. Second from Mr. Jones. Any discussion? Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I could not be more proud to welcome in these ladies to a team stanchion championship status at Lugolf Elgin High School.

» It's something that I experienced and i am just floored uh and flattered and honored that y'all are here tonight and we can recognize you first time in our high school's history it's a beautiful thing as i look at the coaches and the players and the parents of the players some of you i went to school with i just wanted to share a couple brief remarks the parents that i see hats off to you it truly takes an amount of effort to be involved in travel ball to uh to commit yourself to the resources that allow these young ladies to win and the encouragement that's there. Some of the parents, you may not even know because they keep a low profile, they serve on committees locally in the community or have in the past and contribute in that way. So hats off to you.

» To the coaches, I know you're underpaid and I know you put in a lot of time. So your passion and the reward that you see on their faces is the compensation you get. I'm so thankful for the effort you put in to bring these ladies to realizing their potential. They'll never forget it. I never have. It's been of the greatest joys I experienced in my life. To these student athletes, I just wanted to say I'm so proud of you. I know what it takes and there's not a lot of people out there that would sacrifice the way in which you did to win the way you did, dominantly. I hope these are relationships that will last the rest of your life and I hope that you will come back to Kershaw County if you have the opportunity.

» It took me about 14 years after graduating high school, getting educated, working in various places to come back to the county that raised me with a good moral compass and bless me in these ways. Your example and what you've achieved has inspired people. I've had people reaching out from all over that want to pay for your rings. They want to make sure they do a cookout for you. They want to make sure that the next generation coming up is exposed to you. So please make yourselves available to encourage other young women out there who would compete, and don't let this achievement be lost on anything.

» Enjoy it, ride it out, but be a good example and share the knowledge that you have so that the community continue to win and we can bring another championship in the future, right, Coach? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Jones. Please, very quickly. One, I'd just like to start by saying, Mr. Connell, thank you so much for putting this together. What great words are so true. And I'm not going to go back over everything you said, but I will echo what he said. We're very proud of you folks, very proud. But I have a question. You're the state champions, you're the champions. How many of you have a picture of yourself in spandex like Mr. Connell hanging over the gym? But I'll say this.

» we produce I say we our community has produced a lot of champions throughout the years and parents listen I know where you're at when my son did travel wrestling I was gonna write a book on how to get pinned in five seconds because that was for two years into it but but it's not about that it's about what you learn as well and you folks will never ever forget this achievement and neither will us and again thank you Ben and thank you moms and dads and coaches and all thank you yeah mr brasil please absolutely yeah congratulations um i've got a lot of old classmates that had i think daughters on the team and it was cool seeing the facebook pictures and um it's a big deal it's a huge big deal i played football at a small private school and i cried when we won our first game okay my mom and dad

» looked at me and said why are you you're crying I said because we won so I mean we were pretty terrible but it means a lot you get out on the field or you know the baseball field and and you lay it all out there and to win the championship that's a that's a huge accomplishment congratulations everybody involved other comments mr.

» Gordon just congratulations you know it's it's not easy to win the state championship it's it's hard so so be proud of what you've done you know there's about 40 other 4a teams that like to be sitting where you are and they're not you are so just relish in your accomplishments and don't stop working let's do it again next year thanks this is my grass ladies thank you so much for putting in the hard work coaches thank you so much for investing in these young ladies and being a part of giving our community something to cheer for and to help us see the best in our community and to remind us to run all of us of why we're doing what we're doing this is a thought about seizing the moments and you girls definitely seize this moment you didn't miss the moment and it's just exciting for us two years

» ago we welcomed in a pony softball team and their accomplishments and now we're seeing it on the high school level and I would imagine that we've got a pretty good pipeline we know how to play ball in Kershaw County and we girls know to play ball in curacao county and it's it's it's good good good stuff thanks girls congratulations and i'll close it out by saying first of all it ain't bragging if you can do it and secondly we've had a 15 months of covid and we're sick of it and we've needed heroes and look who brought us heroes coach thank you thank you and the parents that supported you on these away games and these late night practices and so on i would like to point out just to close before we vote that 31 years ago we lost to the team you beat in the state finals 31 years ago out by the

» rec center by the amtrak railroad station and the coach from 31 years ago is here john floyd would you stand up please we have a round of applause for john and with that i think we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hands and it is unanimous surprise coach would you bring your team up for a quick photograph please let's hear from you if you can go to the microphone so everybody out there's about a thousand people watching right I just want to thank everybody you know we couldn't done this or come anywhere close to being able to do this if my girls hadn't really bought into what we were trying to do and put in the work and really it wouldn't have mattered if we hadn't had their parents support the community support there you go it's an even bigger deal because we get t

» o be here and because all of you get to support us and because our school was really behind us through the whole thing it made it that much more special for them and i'm just really excited we got to get some revenge from 31 years ago hey here girls i would recommend uh y'all go on home this gets long nothing to see here you almost want to go from that to straight to adjournment don't you that was terrific wrap it up and thank you mr floyd from coming for coming from 31 years ago we got revenge at last okay we go back on our schedule now to public comments uh mr dubose do we have anybody signed up? Mr. Chairman, five people signed up. All right. And the first person that signed up is Mr. Lackey. As you come forward for public comments, Mr.

» Lackey and others, we're going to limit to five minutes. It's not a Q&A. It's not an exchange. It's to hear from you. It's just a straight briefing format. It's not an opportunity for discourse. I'd ask you to stay on topic and stay respectful of this body please sir mr lackey yeah dick i actually thought that the other mr lackey was going to speak he's he's younger and smarter than i am oh my name is richard lackey most people call me dick there's one person in this room that calls me something else and he better not say it tonight a gentleman and mrs siegler over 55 years ago, I chose to move here by choice. It was my choice. And the reason I came here was because it was a relatively rural area, excellent schools, and great public recreation.

» The work I wanted to do was here, although I got cut and pay to come, but that's okay. I never regret it. The decision was good. However, over time, the world, our nation, and our state, and our county began to change. Here in Kershaw County, we lost many of our mills. DuPont eliminated Orlon, Dacron, and reduced from about 3,500 employees at the maximum to now less than about 500 as Invista. The western part of Kershaw County became a bedroom community for Richland County, requiring schools, utilities, roads, fires, and public protection.

» About 10 years ago, i became very interested in how the county was going to adjust to these challenges i began attending council meetings to observe now i was concerned for a while because of the attitude of both the public and at times some of the council toward the needs of our schools public recreation and other services about six years ago however i observed a positive change in council and its impact on the county i attended the last council meeting in these this room and i began thinking about the impact so today i want to discuss the evidence i see of that impact and the hope for the future the increased emphasis on economic development indications of new businesses and industries coming in the near future the direct and indirect impact of emphasis on economic development on our publ

» ic school system now i was close enough to that to know that that app that that has happened it has been very positive in my view the school system's response with emphasis on educating to provide a skilled workforce has made a difference and that being the case the new a-tech campus and curriculum is in my view a very positive for the county and our citizens now i uh i have advocated for an upgrade of that facilities uh facilities and also for the curriculum for many years and there's also another man in this room i think has done the same thing now uh that being the case uh when we built that when the county i'll say we when we built that new school out there it's amazing that that is a a class act i mean it's it you know for those of you that have toured it it is amazing what's taught ou

» t there our uh refined long-term planning is a separate issue in all areas for the future of the county and quality of life here i don't believe i've ever seen that kind of refined uh uh planning like it's being done in recent years negotiation of a long-term lease of the hospital that was i believe positive it's big change and it not necessarily uh what everybody likes but it was it was certainly a positive uh now in in the result we've got a project to build a large modern replacement for our skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility plans for future inclusion of an assisted living facility also and there's some of us in this room that kind of look forward to that yeah establishment of a county emergency medical system with remote stations i i've never personally had to have that since

» living in camden but it is it is something that is very important i believe it saves lives establishment of a county emergency medical system was positive upgrade of county fire protection services locations and equipment it's uh you know i can remember some many years ago when a lady on this council advocated that and i said i don't see how in the world you're ever going to do it now i voted for but i swear i thought she wasn't going to be able to make any headway now she didn't make much but she she tried uh now our county leadership to help alleviate the negative impact and disruption caused by the pandemic that's big you guys excuse me you gentlemen uh having done the things that you did to try to keep business moving in this county to keep people from being impacted any more than they

» had to be now we got hit pretty hard by the pandemic and i believe that you did some good work and i i the work that the uh the county um business association when that was turned over to them i told that lady i was amazed at what she was being able to do and that was from this county from this council now uh there's a budget that you got to look at the budget that you're going to have to prove you know sometimes it just costs a little more to to do what really needs to be done and i encourage you i encourage you to do the best you can with it with the budget but now it's gonna it's gonna increase over the years i actually advocated some things myself in this county that created that circumstance now i thank you thank you for what you do appreciate it thank you thank you mr lackey and mr du

» bose the next person who signed up is v the initial v isler virginia hello virginia i read it as written thank you thank you gentlemen i know you have a thankless job excuse me and lady siegler um but yes you have a thankless job and you can't please two people three people much less 65 000 but i do want to give you and mr burns you threw me a little bit when all the kids were the high school kids were here i was going to tell them to please remain and see the democratic process in action but they needed to leave but um and will my speech do any good probably not but it will get it off my shoulders and tell you what I think some of you like to talk about no tax increases in Kershaw County over a number of years I don't know how many but quite a few I took these figures from my own tax bill

» so I'm not revealing anyone's privacy or lack of privacy the cctc 3480 3434 ems 7298 sewer 55 car maintenance 35 plus 10 more that's going up and we pay 175 last year for that vehicle maintenance and i still drive on the wrong side of the street going down tombfield road to avoid the potholes the fire fee i understand is going to double last year i paid 151 uh and solid waste 80 now the sewer sewer fee excuse me it was not called a sewer tax it was a sewer fee that was derived in the year 2007 i believe and it was in a small room over on the side was a budget meeting for county council not many of you were there then except mary but you were looking for a way to pay for some sewer projects the previous administrator said i have a way if you all are interested in hearing it this is almost a

» quote now. I have a way if you all are interested in hearing it. It is not a tax increase, but we can initiate a sewer fee. That was in 07. That must be about 14 years. We'll still pay in it. My septic tank had to be emptied this year. $300. Not complaining about that. What I am complaining about is I still pay a sewer fee, but none of you nor the county helped me pay my septic tank to be emptied so keep that in mind in the chronicle last week i'm quoting the chronicle it is not my words i do want to give credit i don't want to be like cass and not give credit a councilman clarified that the kershaw county fire service district is only comprised of people living in the unincorporated areas of the county including the town of Elgin but does not include the city of Camden or its customers or

» people residing in the Lugoff Fire District most of us who well all of us who live in the suburbs in the county in the rural districts do so because that's where we choose to live that's where we want to live but think about us a little bit more when you keep adding these quote fees that are not increasing the taxes thank you thank you very much uh mr vose the next person signed up to speak is rt lackey that would be mr lackey's already spoken all right thank you thank you the next person is tom webb the third mr webb i favor more history not less uh the anniversary of d-day sunday i stopped by a store just a while ago you bring the mic up tom thank you very much okay i stopped by a store just a little while ago coming here spoke to a young lady behind the counter old enough to be working i

» n a store she didn't have any idea what d-day was and i kind of wish the uh the young people had stayed because i wanted to tell them uh and there are probably some people here who have forgotten i'm sure you all know exactly what it is, when in 1944, June the 6th, the Allies, that was the United States, England, and Australia, a few other countries, stormed the beaches at Normandy to put an end to the Nazi occupation of that part of the world. And if we had failed, we might all be speaking German in this half of the country and Japanese on the other half. It was a very important event, sometimes referred to as the longest day. So I wanted to speak a little bit about that. And I brought some helmet liners. I got a bunch of these, and I'll give them away if anybody wants any.

» I got more, so you just tell me afterwards. This is what our guys at Storm the Beach at Normandy were wearing under their steel pots. And the same thing was used in Korea and in Vietnam. So it's a keepsake if anybody wants one. You're certainly welcome to it. asked me about it and i i knew somebody who actually stormed the beach well he was in the navy he he took people to the beach who stormed the beach um people and supplies he was on the second wave at normandy john comer and he said that a ship landing ship the right side went down and then one to the left side one hit a mine the other one was hit by artillery he did a lot of praying but he got through it i had some of my kin folks my two my uncles and my father in world war two uh all of them came through it all white all right they di

» dn't they didn't storm the beach at normandy but that was um such an important event in our country that we are losing track of and we're losing these people john comer this uh navy fellow that i knew probably died about five or six years ago and we're losing these treasures these people these national treasures that could tell us what it was really like to be there and it's a shame there's a lot of people who have other the stories to tell, but I wanted to speak about this one, about D-Day, and I've got a poem to read that I read every year. This one is called D-Day Men. He's a man too young to cast a vote, but he's cast upon the sea to crowd aboard a landing boat for the beach at Normandy. The moon and tide affect his ride, and his boots fill up with water.

» Though fate decides perhaps he dies, he'll give the Reich no quarter. From the awful ocean wreckage to the strand of bloody sand, time plays tricks to stop and stand then up the hill and on ahead it seems unreal and always will so many men so dead now anywhere these rifles reach the lessons clear they came to teach men are not just lumps of coal to feed and not see fire or any other ism that steals a man's desire and like those men from way back then who fought the new world order we'll have to fight that sin again that's here inside our border socialism's creeping while the world again is sleeping and nothing's ever over as we carry on our load. There's a battle always brewing further down the road.

» So celebrate the honor, the duty, and the glory when somebody special comes our way to tell the D-Day story. Lily Marlene, the cliffs of Dover, and don't sit under the apple tree. A rhythm, a rhyme, a melody of some old favorite tune, and we're back to 44 again, and then the 6th of June. All those ships and planes and tanks, our men with higher ranks, and all of y'all without much say, of course you have our thanks even the huns who fought in vain to cuss you while retreating y'all saved them from a harsher fame and they'll thank you for the beating anyway i'm glad to say real americans ain't to blame and when they heard their country's call the d-day men all came thank you mr webb i'm mr the last person that signed up is amanda utin all right miss utin thank you thank you my classmate i mi

» ght add oh hi thank you thank you mr chairman councilman miss sigler uh first of all let me follow up from two weeks ago i hope you all have puppy dogs in your packets as requested last two weeks ago from miss mary did you include puppies oh drop the ball on just that one right um i also would like to apologize i do have to leave after my comments but i do need to attend the school district meeting that will happen tonight at 6 p.m but i am here tonight as a free thinking concerned kershaw county citizen and a resident of the cassock community i watched your budget work session two weeks ago and was pleased to learn that you guys have done a fantastic job in presenting a balanced budget such a great job in fact that you have fallen under budget for several years now and so I attended the me

» eting that night and I posed the question to you all well why can't we do something with the savings from those budgets to put in a rainy day fund for things like sewer or fire or other things so after I left the meeting that night I did a little further research I went back and looked at the 2010 census and noticed that there was 7,434 people in the township of Lugov, 12% of the county, 6,838 in the city of Camden, 11.1%, and a 47,425 remaining in the suburbs and rural areas, which is 76.9%. I also had several conversations with several people where I posed the same question that I posed to you that night.

» One person that I spoke to and pose that question to is sitting in this room and in fact has a very influential role in the budget process so when I posed this question to that person the answer that I received the question that I asked was why can't these savings be rolled over instead of into the general fund into a rainy day fund is that possible and the answer I received was well why should the people in the city of camden pay for something that benefits the rural areas and that makes a lot of sense to me because i know i don't want my tax dollars being spent on something that doesn't benefit myself or my family so satisfied with that answer i went on about my day later that evening as i pondered that conversation a little more a light bulb went off in my head a potential pandora's box

» was opened because in that moment i was gifted a glimpse of the inner workings of this county council potentially a root problem when given the answer why should the camp citizens of Camden pay for something for the rural areas my question was immediately well why is it not the other way around why was the first thought not well why should the people in the suburbs and the rural areas the 76.9% of this county why should their money pay for something that doesn't benefit them that's 76.9% they pay taxes religiously they pay often what the IRS tells them to because they can't afford accountants to find loopholes many of those 76.9% both the parents are working just so they can afford a one-week beach vacation once a year their kids go to public school and when they want to have a good dinner

» they come to the City of Camden and pay the a tax without complaint meanwhile they watch their money 76.9% of it 76.9% that's a big number they watch their money being spent on things that don't benefit them pickleball courts blues festivals things of the such so my question to you tonight is when will you invest in their communities? When will you put a dog park in Bethune? When will you put a veterans memorial in Westville? When will you put a fire department in Cassett? Now, I'm not going to come up here and complain without a solution. My solution two weeks ago was, well, let's start a bank account and put that in there. So to that, I say, let's start three. Let's start one for the township of Lugolf and let's put 12% of it in there.

» And let's put one for the city of Camden and we can put 11.1% in there. And then let's make one for the residents of Kershaw County and put 76.9% of it in there. My next thing I would like to address is that 76.9% is an overwhelming majority. And all of you are elected by the citizens of this county, which means that 76.9 percent of you should be worried about the 76.9 percent of those people in this county so to you council members i ask you one thing do your job do the job that the people who hired you to do now don't get me wrong we don't we want investments made excuse me we want investments made in the city of camden we do because each person in this county is proud of this historic beautiful city that is at the heart of this wonderful county that we live in all we ask of you is to kee

» p that 76.9% of the citizens of this county at the forefront of the decisions that you make here in these chambers and the deals that you make behind closed doors now I may be too late tonight for this third reading of the budget and to the citizens of Kershaw County I apologize for that. We all know that this budget is not the last time that you will make a decision concerning the taxpayers money in this county. So all we ask is that you stand up for every citizen of Kershaw County.

» The 12% in Lugolf, the 11.1% in Camden, and the 76.9% that make up the rest of this wonderful county that's all we ask just stand up for us all or we'll be forced to stand up for ourselves not only in this chamber but on the ballots when each of you comes up for reelection and I thank you for your time thank you ma'am thank you very much mr. DuBose mr.

» chairman that concludes the sign-up list very good thank you and that concludes public comments now move to a public hearing a public hearing in regards to an ordinance to provide budget appropriations for county purposes excuse me in the county of kershaw for the fiscal year beginning 1 july and ending 30 june 2022 and adopt and implement the charge and collection of service and user rates and fees and for other tax purposes and county appropriation purposes mr devos do we have anyone signed up for the public hearing mr chairman no one signed up okay very good and i would like to also open it up just generally and with that uh open the public hearing i'm seeing there's no one coming forward we closed the public hearing we moved to an adoption of the agenda the agenda is on the screen uh ca

» n we have a motion to approve the agenda so move uh mr gardner a second please second oh is that you david yes sir yeah mr snodgrass any discussion on the agenda uh recognizing we've already done our proclamation uh i would also tell you there is an executive session at the end requiring no vote and no action but there will be an executive session uh with that let's move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and we move ahead uh the first item is a public presentation by the distinguished lugo fire district uh chief chris spitzer chief are you here please come on forward good to see you again because i can pretty much carry my own weight when it's time to talk i really don't have a presentation i did uh thank you miss mary as usual uh you would have supplied each one of

» you with a copy of our estimated income statement which is our final budget which was approved by the lugo fire board of commissioners on may 24th 2021 i'm thinking that each one of you um and as it stands now i really don't have a anything that i need to really explain um there would be a couple things i'd like to touch on um but have most of you had a chance to take a look at the agenda or i'm i'm sorry the budget for lugo just hit the wave top uh key issues chief just uh well one of the key issues mr chairman uh of course you can see our wages there we're we're we're still at uh 15 employees and i will remind the county council that um we were at 16 16 employees and i dropped an employee five years ago to be able to have a balanced budget because i'm presenting a balanced budget as i hav

» e for every year since i've been fire chief with that balanced budget uh i want somebody well i want the public to understand that when it comes to wages and salaries obviously in retirement and medical insurance that eats up the majority of our budget we were fortunate enough to be able to think that the value of the mill is going to be a little bit higher this year which took a big load off of us but we all know that over the years things change things get more expensive obviously coming off the pandemic it's gotten ridiculous but But I do want the county to understand that, yes, I have presented a balanced budget for this year. But I also want the county, and I want everyone in this county, including Lugoff, the community, to understand that wages do take up the majority of our budget.

» But I've also got a pay scale here that is five years old. And just to let the public know that a firefighter with zero to five years experience at firefighter one level, he's going to come to Lugol Fire Department for $26,902 a year. That qualifies for welfare. That's poverty. With 192 hours of continued education every single year. I also want the public to understand if you come with me or the Lugol Fire Department with a firefighter two certification with zero to five years experience, you're making 29,047. My firemen get a 1.07% increase if they have an exceptional evaluation every year.

» And I'm just going to go ahead and tell county council that this won't be the first time that you see me this year, because I will be back to visit you on these occasions, and I will speak with you each individually. But regarding my budget for this year, we were fortunate in a number of areas. I shop around every single year when it comes to health care. Every year we buy health care and we also purchase supplemental health care so we can afford for $29,000 a year for somebody to be able to afford that works for me their insurance. Now we pick up 85% of that tab so they're responsible for 15% of that. We're fortunate to be able to pick up 85% of that tab. That's the Lugo Fire Department picking up 85% of that tab. All right, so we search, and I search, and I search.

» It's four months' worth of research to try to figure out how we're going to get where we need to be to be able to afford insurance. So we do supplemental insurance as well, and that's how we're able to do this. Now, I stop around every year, and I get the best rates. That means I have to go to seven or eight different people. All right, when it comes to retirement, I'm sure we all know in here that the state, especially when it comes to teachers. Is there any teachers still left in here? When it comes to police officers, when it comes to firefighters who are under state retirement, we're $21 billion in the hole, $21 billion.

» Some of my firemen, some of the firemen in this county, some of the firemen in the city, they may not even get to see retirement after 25 years because the money's not going to be there. I'm fortunate enough that I've only got a few more months left, and I can take advantage of that. Don't say that I'm going to leave because I've got a son that's starting college. But at the same time, we were fortunate enough again this year because our retirement stayed at 18.04% because of the pandemic. The governor helped us out with that. We should have been sitting at 21.74, 21.24%. So that saved us money. One of the biggest things that I focus on is our vehicle requirements. We have an apparatus replacement plan that's been in place for eight years now.

» That's when our debt millage came up 5.6 mils because we were proactive enough to figure out that, hey, you know what? We're going to need some fire trucks in a few years. So we've got a ladder truck coming in. We're going to leave out next week to go to Appleton, Wisconsin to do the final inspection on our ladder truck. So a new ladder truck's coming in.

» And while I'm standing here in front of county council, I do want you to understand and know that I am taking the ladder truck that we have now and currently stationed and we will add a ladder truck quarter of a mile from blaney's fire district we don't get anything for that that actually lowers it could potentially damage our iso rating but my board and our fire department the safety of others whether it's in blaney whether it's in elgin whether it's pine grove dobie's mill wherever the case may be their safety is more important i've had many of offers to to sell that truck and we're not going to do it we're going to hold on to And it's going to be stationed right there, stationed down on Whitehead Road. Our insurance, now we did take a hit on our workman's comp.

» I shop around for that every year, of course. We've had some injuries. One injury, when you lose, a firefighter loses an organ for some reason, you have to pay for that. And that got expensive. So our workman's comp went up about $10,000. We use a company called 7710, and that is a firefighter-owned and operated nationwide workman's comp. And they have been, unfortunately, we have to pay some of those fines and penalties because of that. Our fire fee revenue, I want to stress that, of course, it's gone up a couple thousand dollars. And that's only because we have a fantastic county treasurer who seeks these people out that pay their fire fee. Because that that you see under that fire fee, that's what pays our truck payments. That's what pays the leases that we put on these apparatus.

» we can't just go out and afford to buy a new fire truck we came up with a plan we have a great partner community leasing one of the best partners you could ever come across they're fixing our radio issues having to worry about that's 485 000 that lugoff alone is going to have to worry about that's a capital project another 400 000 for scbas the concrete i don't know who poured that concrete at the fire station that's another six or seven hundred thousand dollars capital project it's got to be replaced but thank god for jill cato because she goes that extra mile and she sends out those because there's nothing written in the law that says you've got to pay this fire fee for lube off fire department and it's picked up when we first started this fire fee under chief ray we were averaging about

» 111 000 a year went up to 112 13. last year was 116 this year we're projecting 119. um that's really it i mean these are basic things we i mean we talk about wages retirement our volunteer pay by the way we have volunteers that um you know come in and and we're 25 30 30 strong on volunteers we turn a rate turn away volunteers because we just don't have the equipment to be able to provide to them because we can't afford equipment one reason we have some of the equipment that we have now is because we have a very good grant writer and captain chris jones because when he writes those grants we benefit hugely pair bunker pants turn out coat turn out pants that's 2800 bucks that's not counting a helmet that's not counting gloves that's not counting boots that's not counting your flash hood and b

» y the way that bunker gear that you order your manufacturer tells you that gear is to survive one thermal event so if you get caught in one thermal event that bunker gear shot that's twenty eight hundred dollars down the hole uh utilities just common things operating supplies uh our professional fees we have to be be able to pay our attorneys, our CPAs, our firefighter training. We're able to keep up with that. Of course, our general liability insurance, medical insurance. Like I said, our medical and life insurance, that's over almost $202,000.

» Communications, we had to up that this year because we knew we had a couple of issues that's got to be taken care of within our organization fuel you don't know where it's going to be one day it's at 279 one day it's at 249 one day it's at 309 building repairs again i think i've mentioned to this county council that our headquarter station if you were to fly a drone over top of it it is round because when they build it they cut every corner they possibly could when they built that station a public fire safety which we have a great public fire safety uh program that's in here miscellany designated expenditures of course office supplies ground maintenance we also give 500 to our explorer post our firefighter explorer post which by the way we have uh close to 20 kids and most of them will can

» be be competing uh this weekend at the state fire conference in columbia and so we're excited about that and then we have our contingency fund uh with that being said my total budget came up to one million four hundred and eighty eight thousand eight hundred twenty seven dollars we saw an increase this year seventy nine thousand eight hundred sixty six dollars if it holds true uh so that would have brought us up nine hundred dollars where uh close to nine hundred dollars above where we were in 2015 because as of uh 2015 we have decreased every single year um with the exception of this year any questions chief great briefing uh do you have any members of your board here i see chris is here do you have any members of your board uh i was going to come but okay um you have a couple on vacation

» so i'll convey to them watching have some working in charleston so hey but uh no sir i don't believe no convey to them our thanks for a real fine lay down um questions gentlemen comments uh mr grizel please hey chief it's good to see you doing well appreciate you thank you seeing you in a long time man well i appreciate it um i picked up on a comment where you said you're turning away volunteers um do you still have a lot of interest with young people wanted to volunteer and you said there wasn't enough equipment every day so every day i heard the opposite from um from the rural fire districts that we couldn't get enough people interested is there a way we can kind of cross gap communicate with with those guys and maybe get them into some of our volunteer stations in the rural parts of the

» community absolutely okay i I mean, if you want me to truly answer your question right now, I'd love to. Yeah, please. 20 years ago, actually 28 years ago, I was a volunteer here in this county. I started out with Antioch. We had seven sets of bunker gear that rode in the middle compartment of the fire truck. First seven people that got there, out of the 30 that was on the roster, they got to use that gear. Whether you wore a size 9 and you got to wear a size 7 boot, that's just what happened. If you wore a size 7 and got to a 13 boot, you wore a 13 boot. Here's what happened with our county volunteer fire service, which, by the way, is still professional. I hear this county council call professional fire service. Our county firemen are professionals.

» NFPA 1001 states that a firefighter who meets professional qualifications, that is a standard. That don't mean you're a volunteer. It don't mean your career. It just means you're a firefighter. So here's what happened, in my view. Now, you asked and I'm going to answer. In my view, I'm not saying it's each individual that's sitting before me, but the county forgot about them. The county leadership forgot about them. The county has had numerous, numerous times where firefighters have come to the county in their application, just get set to the side because nobody wanted to do anything about it because they were so overwhelmed with not being able to handle what was already on their plate. You have some good leaders back here now that are going to be able to take care of that.

» The county truly needs, and I will not speak on behalf of the new fire chief, but I'll speak on behalf of what I feel like, because I have been a volunteer in this county for many, many, many years. The county needs a recruitment and retention officer, a full-time training officer to go out. These battalion chiefs that were hired, they're responsible for 750 square miles. There's no way in the world. It can't happen.

» they can't keep up it's impossible i have battalion chiefs that are responsible for 58 square miles they can't keep up what has to happen is this county has to invest back into the volunteers and make them feel important because they are the foundation of this kershaw county fire service amen 20 years ago we had 35 and 40 people on the roster we couldn't feed everybody when we had the meetings we couldn't afford to feed everybody like i said man i look great with the exception of the missing hair but i've been around a while and i know what they've gone through because i've been part of that but somewhere down the line leadership did not come first for these county volunteers and i say volunteers they are firefighters they are firefighters and they do volunteer their time but they still hav

» e to meet the same standards that a professional firefighter has to meet oh i'm sorry let me take that back because that's that's reward what i said full-time as a career firefighter would have to take because when you pull up in that yard on the worst day of somebody's life all they see is a fire truck they don't know the difference between a career or a volunteer what i ask of you because we deal with volunteers and they're great i'll work with station 13 16 19 all day long i'll work with anybody in this county if buffalo mount pisgah needs my ladder truck guess where it's going to go it's going to go to buffalo mount pesky If CASET needs our service truck, it's going to go to CASET.

» Energy, time, and effort has to be spent and put into the volunteers because we all know that 85% of the departments or 85% of the fire service in this state or in this nation is made up of volunteers. We can't forget about them. And over the years, that's what's happened. Over the years, when I know that I've got guys coming to me from other districts saying hey can we volunteer for you i put an application with the county and i haven't heard anything back it's been six or eight months it's been a year i haven't heard anything back i'm not blaming who's here i'm blaming the system because they were overwhelmed there was an individual that was overwhelmed there was individuals so i mean i'll be frank with you there was individuals you just didn't care and that's my personal opinion i'll sti

» ck to that opinion so i'm asking you as a county council to look at your volunteers to invest in them when they need equipment get them the equipment if they need their ice machine fixed fix the ice machine could we pause right there and let me ask a question to mr carpenter is that is that something that can come out of the general fund to buy some equipment for these guys it would come out of the fire fund i mean i mean it would depend but the fire fund allocates funds for every fire station every volunteer department has funds allocated to them that are based on what they've needed so as a rule to my understanding that if they need something like a nice machine fixed there is money available for them and as the chief has pointed out we have new leadership in the county pretty much from t

» op to bottom of our fire and i think you're going to see some great things happening with them so some of this infrastructure money that we're receiving from the federal government can some of that be allocated to the volunteer program at this point i would say They're probably not, unless we can tie it to COVID. If we can tie it to COVID, then you've got to be... Everything was tied to COVID. I would like to see some of that money appropriated to the fund. It's like we have to make a case for everything. I've seen some cases made for hero bonuses, well-deserved. We certainly back the law enforcement and EMS. But, Chris, like I said, I hadn't seen you in years, but I knew you 20 years ago, man. I'm a straight shooter like you are. I'm glad to hear you say that.

» There's been sometimes a different picture painted for me as well. I'm happy to do what I can to help support the volunteer base because we'll never be able to afford to pay those many individuals, and they're very important. I mean, I thank them, and I don't know all of them, but I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

» I have struggled with this, and I've never been involved in fire service, but from a budgetary standpoint um i've been told there's two ways to fund it and and then i asked enough questions i figured out there is a third way to fund it and i actually see it here in your budget um in vista a fee in lieu of tax you're receiving 80 000 from invista as part of your budget and that's actually outside of our it's that's really kind of that's a contract that's a contract that we formed it shouldn't really be a fee in lieu i shouldn't really list it as that it kind of is but that is a contract that we formed with invista to help them to protect that partner they don't have a fire brigade of their own right so you guys are the so our brigade is dissipating it's dissipated so that's that's really wha

» t that is you guys are serving as your yeah contract as we move forward into talking about the county fire service which i fully support um the thought process and and hiring of full-time folks um i feel myself frustrated in the fact that there if i would have known in january what i know now we could have started uh reappropriating some fee and loo money instead of having to raise fees um to the lady's point earlier um so well i i i hear what you're saying i'm five months into this thing so figuring it out as i go but um i appreciate your comments and i appreciate your insight and uh i'm happy to help but yeah our volunteers are important and and getting them some equipment if that's not infrastructure um i don't know what it is okay well i'm just a fire chief at lugoff but my door is alwa

» ys open i have spoken with emergency manager scott wiles i've spoken with chief glover we're going to meet i've spoken with battalion chief till my door is always open i've got if anybody's got any questions i'm happy to answer it i'm not the you know i'm not going to speak on behalf of the entire county fire service because that's not my job but when i came from the county fire service and i'm only a few years removed from that it's still important to me i will you know i my home is in mr gardner's district that uh well my home that's being built is in mr gardner's district but i'm still covered by the city of camden who does a fine job they have a great fire service can we see if we have other comments from other council members um mr jones mr yeah mr jones let me let me just first end by

» saying chris thank you very much absolutely good to see you and i appreciate it thank you okay mr john presentation thank you okay i thought you had a question hey i was not gonna let you sit down without saying something one chris i appreciate all you do you know that you you have done a fantastic job chief ray did a fantastic job i've been very close to both of y'all i've worked with both y'all through this you and i both know the frustrations we're hitting i appreciate your honesty here tonight and uh i'm gonna tell you something how long have you been chief now three four since 2017 have you come before this council with any increase since you've been here no sir i have not no you haven't and you've done that and you've reorganized or autorized, I mean, you've done everything you can do

» to maintain with what you've got. You've done absolutely, but that can't last forever. We all know that. You have done a remarkable job. I salute you. Let me tell you something. I appreciate every time I've come to you and said, hey, would you help me figure out what the county could do? You were always there. You were always saying, Jimmy, we'll help provide this.

» that at all and i appreciate mutual aid you guys you guys gave us with or without money it didn't matter but thank goodness we gave you a little bit you know last year before but by the way you would have done it anyway but that's wear and tear on your equipment because you're not going to let a structure fire or car fire go by without somebody being there in the west warrior area and i know that and i just want to tell you thank you for all you do and you know my support for your department and and mr brazel i want to thank him for uh asking those questions i think mr brazel is on the right path here i agree with you on that but chief thank you i appreciate maybe uh russell and i can get with you at some point in time absolutely you know and uh go for there but you've always been there for

» me you've always returned my call you've always met with me and i can't ask for any more than that but you also know i've always supported y'all yeah absolutely i do thank you thank you other comments uh that's not grass please chief spitzer thanks for your work and uh for your your department uh talk about mutual aid so what does mutual aid look like obviously you probably help the county service more than you do camden um but i'm sure you would help them but so if if if blaney tones out something that's in our service and they call for mutual aid what is what do what do you send is it based on what they say they need or is there like a set this is what's coming to you we send an engine from our uh headquarter station or the closest station which More than likely, if it's in Blaney's Distr

» ict or Pine Grove, it just really just depends. If it's in Blaney's District, it's going to come from, you're going to have a ladder truck now, you're going to have an engine. And then it's also from headquarters, you're going to get two people with an engine. And then we have volunteers that are assigned to respond to either Station 13 and Station 19, or you respond to Station 13 and Station 16. So we split our volunteers up.

» we normally it just depends on structure fires as I'm around we have I think we average 10 or 11 personnel that will go into into the county does i-20 cover your district at all or is that all that all counting we have about seven miles seven miles so what does mutual aid look like for as far as auto it's got I guess similar send an engine for auto accident absolutely now we do usually just send an engine with two people unless it requires more than we have volunteers to come in and pick up other apparatus we don't like putting POVs or personal vehicles on the interstate because it becomes extremely dangerous or thank you for your thank you for your service and for your free time good good budget just real quick I will I know it's not quite germane to the this discussion but we went down th

» e trail we talked about accounting service and thank you so much chief for for for speaking into that and giving us a reality check of where we've been but i want to remind us that two years ago or even before that four years ago we we we did a we did a we did an ad hoc fee on our fire service and we identified some of the issues or a lot of the issues that the chief just mentioned here and so i want to make sure we realize that yeah there were some issues in the past but we've got a whole new staff top to bottom and two years ago we took a step to to begin to alleviate some of those issues and we've made strides and tonight we've got a chance we've got a chance to take one another big step and put in our County service where it needs to be where it deserves to be and so I just want to make

» sure we are aware of that that we've had someone another another fire service who has who has spoken into from his view where we've been and but I would i would remind us that we have made great great strides and it's because of the commitment from this council and our staff that's back there who are committed to the county fire service so thank you other comments please uh mr uh mr connell please chris great to have you here tonight a lot of people have no idea what's gone into what's led up to the vote tonight to improve and move the full-time fire service at least another step in in the phases in that process for kershaw county and it started at uh lugo fire really with several meetings on figuring out you know what's the best way to do it sitting down with chief ray and then also yourse

» lf at the time um when i had just gotten on county council didn't know what the heck i was doing probably still don't in some ways um but from updating technology at the time so we could have accurate data to then make accurate decisions and justify and determine for the taxpayer is this return on investment is there value here in the investments on moving to a full-time fire service and creating a new station and getting equipment.

» It's been a whirlwind that's brought us here tonight, but what I hear you saying in regards to Lugolf Fire is not only have you been competing with the pressure of keeping your budget low, you've been competing against inflation, the cost that naturally increases, and you haven't been getting a 1.5% or 2% increase in your budget each year, but somehow you've made cuts in other locations to keep your budget low and not ask for tax increase what i hear you saying reading between the lines is if we don't invest in the golf fire or approve a budget request which may come in the future that will have some increase in it the quality that look off fire provides may not be reduced but it'll be impacted in some way if you can't have the right number of people on the job to provide the service that i

» mpacts if you If you can't have the right quality equipment, that impacts it. And I want to support you. So as long as you can bring a budget up here that justifies the expenditure and shows value, which you've always done in the past, I'd be glad to support you. I look forward to talking with you more about that. Well, I appreciate that. And just as a note here, when you've got guys making $29,000 a year, and I want you to understand that this isn't a normal job. We all know the dangers in this job. But when you have that and you walk into our eating area and kitchen, and when I have to watch somebody eat ramen noodles for dinner because that's all they could afford, then that breaks my heart. And I'm not just a fire chief. I'm a family member.

» I am a member of each one of those individuals. And that's tough. And it's unlike any other job because you've got to provide three meals. You've got to provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then you also have to, they have to worry about their breakfast for the next day because they're getting ready to leave out and go to the next, to their next job because they can't afford just to work as a firefighter. When you come to work as a firefighter, especially in the Lugo office, because you're committed to the community. And one last thing, I'm glad you said that. I did, this is one thing that was kind of new for us this year under our, I should have mentioned this earlier, and I apologize.

» Under our miscellaneous designated expenditures, I did put in a shift meal expense of $3,600, of which I plan to give each shift $100 a month to help burden, take off the burden of them providing those meals. It's only $100 a month, but trust me, when you're eating ramen noodles, you can make $100 a month go a long way. Chief, thanks for sharing that with us. You know, COVID rocked the boat.

» We didn't get to do our annual barbecue or to last year let's throw down you've been graced with some of the best barbecue in kershaw county i hope at some point we'll get a bunch of guys together and cook for y'all again i appreciate it thank you well we're well past our 20 minutes but i think it's been useful discussion any further discussion gentlemen chris great to see you and appreciate the way you among all others are a part of the whole team when one firefighter one part of the county needs help we know you and your team will be there thank you for them thank you very much appreciate you thank you that was very helpful item number two on a public presentation is clean community commission with wanda swan as board chairman and we're going to have an update please want again you also i

» ntroduce your team is with us tonight thank you mr chairman county councilman county administration county council and the great citizens of Kershaw County. Thank you for allowing me to come tonight. I stand here today with a report from the Kershaw County Clean County Community Commission. We've had an exciting few months with great volunteer support concerning the litter problem in our county. I'd like to introduce our commission and if they would stand when I call their name. Judge Jean Hardis and and remain standing, Becky Robinson, Dennis Outlaw, Bill Nettles, Pam Delk, Tom Webb, and I'm not sure if Jill Wolf is here tonight, and Christy Gardner is absent because she had surgery today, so please keep her in your prayers, and myself.

» These are our team captains that we had for our pickup, and with 410 volunteers, we collected 1,069 bags of litter for our total of 16,035 pounds of litter and we covered 90 and a half miles we could not have done it without the support of the following staff Tommy Swan was my tech support and believe me I need it Lauren Gardner excuse me Lauren Reeder with media and our Flyers Frankie with the UPS store doing our banners Sarah Lyles with Palmetto Pride, Brandon Stokes with the South Carolina Highway Patrol, Sheriff Lee Bowen with the Kershaw County Sheriff's Patrol, Brian Motley with the South Carolina DOT, and Danny Templer with Kershaw County Assistant Administration.

» Danny has been so very helpful to us and I could not stand here today and not thank you personally for all that you've done. We We, in addition to these wonderful people standing behind me, we had some team leads. I'm sorry? Yeah. Michael Wright. And if you're here, please stand. Tom Couch. Steve Zobel. Benny and Debbie Goff. Wild Kim. Mary Abbott with the Littleton Street United Methodist Church. Councilman David Snodgrass. Susan Holly. Lisa Hucklebee. Claudia Wood. Danielle Warnock. Mindy Plyer, Mark Quigley, Greg Nettles, Billy Watkins, Mason Wolf, and Palmetto Utilities. All of these guys formed a team of anywhere from five to 40 people to pick up litter.

» So I want to thank each one of them for their help, their dedication, and also the other 383 volunteers who gave of their time and energy we thank you yeah well done thank you and now i want to thank the most important group that's been so supportive of our commission chairman burns councilman david snodgrass councilman ben connell councilman tom gardner councilman jimmy jones councilman tucker and councilman russell brazwell we thank you for your leadership and and your insight in forming this commission you've always been behind us helping us in any way that you could it is with great appreciation that we commend you for your insight and your direction now on to the future may i add also the sheriff was right there with you and his deputies thank you sheriff and also the detention center

» was out there with uh certain of the detainees under danny templer's direction and cato's direction thank you sheriff the sheriff has been absolutely wonderful in response and keeping us safe and we thank you so much for that now on to the future our commission is excited about the possibility of our full-time litter officer we know that that will make a difference in how our county is handling litter problems. We look forward to working with this officer in responding to citizens' concerns and enforcing the litter laws. We must seriously consider increasing our litter fines as a deterrent. Let's consider adding another zero to the $25 fine, or how about two zeros to the $25 fine. That would be a good start.

» My husband and I were on our way to Maryland to see our brand new grandbaby, and we entered into the state of Maryland and into the first county, and I looked around and I went, wow, look at this. This is beautiful. There is no litter. And he said, you're right. There's no litter. We looked for it. There was none to be seen. And then we approached a sign that said, littering fine, thousand dollars I wish that I had taken a picture of that but I didn't but that's what's happening out and as you can see on the screen we are a little bit behind on our litter fines I realized that the state sets the majority of the of the fines but we as a county can set our own fine and until we get folks knowing that we are serious about litter in our County we're going to continue to have a problem.

» So I'm asking you to consider the possibility of changing our litter laws in Kershaw County to show the public that we are serious. If you've noticed on Facebook, Facebook has been on fire for litter. There are people out there now putting pictures of people dumping litter, of people littering, and they're saying, come back and pick up the litter that you just threw out so there are people that are I have noticed how much cleaner our county is and they want to get involved people like Nicole Garcia just a wonderful wonderful person who has helped us so very much there are folks out there willing to help but we have got to put in place with our new litter officer some fines that will stick and they will know that we're serious about litter we're going to continue our efforts to reduce litter

» on the highway whether it's accidental or intentional these methods include but are not limited to enforcing the use of tarps we're hoping to have another tarp day where we give out tarps at the recycle centers so that's in the near future raising public awareness through education and advertisement adding litter control officer or officers, increasing fines for litter, solicit additional team leads in order to increase our army of litter control volunteers, making permanent litter signs, and finally setting an example for the remaining counties throughout this great state. So litter control and prevention is not an isolated effort just in Kershaw County. This is important because a good percentage of litter on our highways come from people who aren't even Herschel County residents.

» That's why the entire and the entire state needs to be all in on this effort to make South Carolina attractive to any would-be investor. We will not have a bright future without economic development. This is crucial for our children and our grandchildren. We will also continue to award businesses that maintain a neat and clean storefront and reward them with the business beautification award we're looking forward to placing monuments on the interstate welcoming folks to Kershaw County we'll continue to work on beautification on several intersections in our County this is just a few of our goals that will come to fruition with your continued support together we can eradicate litter and make our county beautiful and continue to be kc strong wonderful presentation let me turn it over to the ge

» ntleman here mr jones would you thank you for all you do each and every one of you a little history the first litter officers worked for me whenever uh in kershaw canyon when we started i think judge hardest was the presiding judge and he saw many of the cases we brought whether it was tarps tarp laws or little laws or whatever um i know we can't supersedes state law and i i hate to just ask you this right off the bat without you doing your research but do you know what the litter fine is for state law uh ken and how high could we go on a county summons or a county notice i don't know but i know it's a misdemeanor and of course under kershaw county code i believe it could be increased from 25 okay that's what our current law is right now well you know i would certainly support increasing to

» whatever level we could go on the litter fines and you guys are doing a great job but you're right you got to have some strict litter laws no question about it i agree thank you mr chairman yes sir mr connell i'm just going to say talk about taking your responsibility and running with it uh to everyone on the community uh clean community commission thank you very much and i hope we don't get in your way this is some of the most positive feedback i hear from anybody in the community is related to the cleanups and how things have changed so i appreciate that thank you other comments i would say we have industry here too thank you for how many utilities for coming and others uh the key to this county running is is the citizens and the attitude and 90 miles of road but the hardest part of that

» 90 miles is the last four inches between the ears of many of the people who don't take the same level of pride that you do and if we address the attitude and the culture at the same time that that we take care of the law and support you. I think we'll win this thing. It's got to be about the people supporting a larger sense of community pride. Thank you. Other comments, please. Mr. Snodgrass. - Wanda, thank you so much for your commitment and your passion for such an important issue. People think, oh, it's just litter. But in many ways, it goes deeper than that. It reveals who we are sometimes.

» and I'm telling you, I wish the sheriff could deputize me and just let me just write these tickets 'cause I feel like I see it everywhere 'cause I would go Barney Fife on all these litter bugs out here. But I say that tongue in cheek. I realize there's a, with any traffic stop, that's the most dangerous things that they do, so I don't mean to say that lightly, but I do know this is a issue.

» And what I learned from the events that we planned such a great sense of community that's had on those Saturday mornings when we get together and we pick up litter and so yes you know you get out there and you sweat a little bit it's a little work but at least for my group man they did it was like it was like a ball team coming together there was just a sense of camaraderie and you know look what look what we've done and so I would encourage everyone to get out there and be here to hear of an event to join it and you'll be surprised of just you know the neighbors you'll meet the connections you'll make and all at the same time of making doing your part to make your community look better so thank you thank you for all you do and your commitment and mr. mr.

» Bose with home rule how can we I know this is some of the state but can we can we do our own I mean can we go above that his home rule will give us that leverage no we're enabling legislation decides what you okay gotcha okay so we got some work to do here as usual and Wanda shows up there's work for us to do gentlemen I propose we move on but I think we should all thank the team thank you very much mr. chairman yeah mr.

» Jones go ahead maybe I don't know if a point of orders correct or not but I would like to make that statement at this time I think we need to go back and do a vote on the look off fire department budget we weren't asked to do a vote here uh will it come what do you think i think it'll be an agenda item next next time okay so it was not for tonight no okay no thank you thank you all thank you very much thank you mr jones for pointing that out good point uh with that we move to the next item on the agenda which is the approval of minutes it's at tab a it's also electronically at page four thank you judge and uh it's on the screen can we have a motion to approve the minutes mr gardner a second from mrs snodgrass any discussion of the minutes uh seeing there are none we'll move on to a vote all

» those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous uh and we're back to the next item on the agenda which is a series of ordinances item number one is second reading of an ordinance exercising uh authorizing execution of a fee agreement it's at tab b at page eight and it's on the screen mr carpenter can you introduce it please mr chairman members of council you have in front of you tonight for second reading a fee in lieu agreement between kershaw county and project sapphire which provides for the payment of a fee in lieu of taxes and authorizes certain credits between the county and the project it previously was approved by council on first reading okay very good uh can we have a motion to approve so move second was that the second from mr snodgrass first from mr snodgrass the

» second from mr connell uh any discussion mr chair yeah go ahead i just want to remind those here and those who are watching i know it seemed a little odd to to be voting on things that are so vague but just to remind people that some the process was a lot of these companies is they don't they don't want anything uh detailed out until the very last minute and it's all within the uh the law and all within kind of how you uh you do these things and uh so just just want to make my remind people that you know we're not we're not voting on things that we're not aware of but it's things that um contractually we're we're not at a point where it's it's uh able to release thank you other comments okay with that we move to a vote all those in favor on second reading signify by raising your hand and it

» 's unanimous and project sapphire moves forward to a third reading item number two is the second reading of another ordinance to place in effect new service in a fire protection district it said tab c it's also at page 12 electronically and it's on the board mr carpenter can you introduce this for the second reading mr chairman members of council is part of the budget that will be discussed at the next item one of the items includes the creation of a new fee for the fire district a fee on vehicles uh state law requires that it be an ordinance that would create any new fee uh council previously approved this on first reading okay can we have a motion to approve i mean a motion uh enter this in please i'll make a motion mr chair uh okay mr snodgrass is second second second for mr gardner uh w

» ith that we move to discussion uh mr snodgrass do you want to open it yes sir uh i think this is should be we've had a lot of lead up to this the presentation from Lugolf fire I think everyone has heard the the challenges that that each every fire service has Lugolf expressed theirs and then we even got into a little bit of our fire service in their discussion and we talked about the history of our fire service that has largely been professional volunteer based and five five years ago or so it was identified that a professional a largely professional volunteer fire service was not meeting the needs of a growing County you had homes that are in the county fire service district that had high s ISO ratings high as eight nine which has an impact a major impact on your annual homeowners insuranc

» e when you compare ISO ratings and Camden that has ones and twos so we identified all those and we identify that a professional volunteer service needed to be changed and so that ad hoc committee had recommended that we need to then to go to professional career based service and we began to study that and we began to figure out how do we how do we make that happen two years ago we implemented the fee on improved parcels which was we changed that from the original plan we we held that back just a little bit so that we could slowly implement this and make it part of what we pay and what the citizens pay and I as we've heard tonight everyone is committed to having top-notch fire service in our County and tonight we have the opportunity to make that happen tonight we have the opportunity as a c

» ouncil to in in a county fire service and to to make sure we have that service down the road or make sure we have that service to us and just remind us that the county fire service consists of the unincorporated areas of the county that are not under lugoff or not under the city of camden and and also the town of elgin so this isn't across the board this is also a matter where fire service has to be funded by fire service this isn't a matter where we can have discussions about well let's pull from the EMS or hey let's pull from the recreation or let's creation or let's let's pull from economic development because a fire service has its own funding mechanism even the fire millage is is rated differently than general millage and so it's not just a matter of hey let's cut this let's cut that i

» t's it's a matter of the fire service being funded has to come from the fire service now there are our options for for philo that we could you could explore but it's my understanding that if you pull that string then that means another string is going to come up on this side our EMS is funded by fellows and so it you're still you're still in a situation where you're pulling these strings to try to make this one better but this string comes up short and I think tonight what we as council can do is send a message to to our citizens and send a message to the prospective industry that's coming in here that we are committed to making sure that you have the best fire service possible and you're in the best fire service is not determinant on your zip code or where you live but everyone in the coun

» ty has has access to it so I would support that we support this or I would encourage you that we support this tonight thank you the comments question yeah mr. ross so we were raising ten dollars per vehicle is that right a fee ten dollar fee per vehicle in the county yes sir and a $31 fee on improved parcels is that right that's not part of this ordinance but it is part of the budget ordinance yes sir okay so we're not but this this has this has no bearing on whether on the funding mechanism is that what i'm understanding what this would do is this creates the ability to put a fee on vehicles for fire then the budget itself would levy the amount that would be on the vehicles yes sir okay how much money um is needed to i know we went through it in budget there were some different numbers tha

» t there were different options where we land we've looked at a of different numbers i apologize okay where do we land in respect to what sir how much money we're raising from these two fees just right at four right four million oh i'm sorry i was i think it's just right at oh it's four hundred thousand yeah i mean oh that's the increase yeah but the total all right so i have like 42 different budgets here no i i it's i get it i've got to find the right uh right but this one we're raising a fee on sander you probably already know the answer sorry okay so that was 438 000. the need is 438 000.

» um i want to point out that through the bond restructure um we freed up 1.6 million dollars worth of cash flow that we reappropriated um had i been a little more educated in january when we first started i would have i would have move that we reapportioned and appropriated some philo money for this so that we wouldn't have to increase uh vehicle or improve partial fees but um being a being a freshman being a first-time member of this board um just hadn't hadn't learned that much yet so um with these other projects that are coming up in the community we got a lot of good news coming from economic development i'd just like for my colleagues to hear this moving forward is there more needs for the fire service can we look to those fellows instead of raising taxes or fees that's just my thought

» is that feasible does that hurt us anywhere else those would be funds that are not currently part of any budget so it would be up to the council to allocate them they're not currently allocated anywhere so look look into the future I hope that we can fund the county fire service even more with with new funds coming into Kershaw County and we appreciate economic development working hard to make these projects happen thank you thank you other comments mr. Snodgrass mr.

» Bradley was right we did because we're in a deep easement phase of some bonds we're gonna we did free up some debt and free up some money some philo money but isn't the budget created aren't we counting on the fact that the hospital could possibly go into non-profit status and that philo not not be there for ems yes sir so that that's how we that's how we so we're we're the current budget we're about to vote on is based on no philo from the hospital correct so you know i would also say that because we restructured we were able to that money then went to EMS because we also have an EMS service that is top-notch and in order to keep it top-notch it has its own needs as well so mr.

» Brazel's point is duly noted and certainly is is is a fair is a fair look at it but also just mindful that we did free up money but it also went so that we didn't have to raise on the EMS side so it was able to finance that. Mr. Roswell, you had a question? What was the exact amount of money that we lost or potentially going to lose? I think we did receive that money for this budget cycle. Yes, back in January we received that money. It's approximately $950,000. So that money wasn't lost for this budget cycle. It was received in January, yes. It would have still left $650,000 had it been lost. It has not been lost yet. Was to make the point that the budget is we're going ahead and getting pro being proactive that it may not be there Yeah other comments Yes, yeah, mr. Jones go right.

» Hey, let me just tell you something. I appreciate our firemen I've been a farmer myself and I will not be voting for the fee because I have presented a way to fund the fire service that would pay off debt that would generate more revenue we could have a franchise fee um it would also have some extra money i feel to put in our coffers for other things and that was with the selling of our sewer system so i'm voting against the funding mechanism i think the fee i think the uh 10 extra per car on the road maintenance fee or that let's see it's 35 should be 45 per vehicle 10 being earmarked for uh fire i think that along with the doubling the fire fee that we created last year um i just don't agree with that funding i i think it's the worst time ever we could do that with the pandemic we just ca

» me out of i feel solely in my heart that there was another way to do it that's why i presented what i presented and i realized this council voted it down they didn't agree with me but um i'm sticking to it i think that was the best way to fund all our needs for fire and everything else and uh of course this here we are now talking about a fee and a tax and and this is phase two there how many phases are we going to be looking at for the fight for the entire county because this is going to take care of well so this would fund what has been approved by council anything any significant change from this council would have to come up with a new plan this this puts us in the position to finish the plan that's approved by council so there's not another phase per se this so the whole county will be

» under two stations 24 7 yes sir i got you and there will be no additional unless council approves of i mean there are no current plans for a third station i got you well anyway the the proposal that i brought to county council was solid it was sound it would have funded all our needs and we wouldn't have to be looking at this and that is my belief so therefore i'm sticking to that thank you uh other comments uh let me just ask a couple questions yeah mr connell go ahead i'm sorry i'm just going to say i think the the best way to fund fire service would be through millage um we've had a discussion about that so that's based on the value of your actual property but since we're limited and we can't do that right now under act 388 the the legislatures back when did not think of a non-agrarian s

» ociety and how we no longer do the bucket brigade but we actually have grown and you need to be able to pay for expensive equipment you need to be able to pay for full-time staff the law doesn't allow for that through millage at this time but i think that's actually the best way to do it but in lieu of that really for context we can only compare ourselves to our neighbors who provide high quality fire service these are numbers i've gotten from staff and i've shared them in the past i'll just pair them one more time again for context so camden fire has a budget of roughly two million dollars services 8,500 people, and that's roughly $235 per person. That will change based on the census and other factors, but just a round number. Lugolf Fire, we heard about the budget tonight.

» They serve roughly 8,000 people, and that's roughly $165 or so per person, and that's through a combination of millage and fee, and Camden Fire is through fee only, no millage, as I understand it kershaw county fire and this is uh where the stark contrast comes in services roughly 46 000 people with a current budget of 1.7 million and that's roughly 38 dollars per person so you can see the big difference there and the fee that we're talking about tonight takes it up to 69 per person so you're still over just about 100 less than the next closest full-time fire service so um i think the value is there in trying to catch up with the calls that we're getting the believe it's called professional volunteer fireman um career excuse me whenever i hang out with volunteers they just say hey man i'm a

» volunteer so um but essentially they've indicated that they've been overwhelmed and that there's another way we need to approach fire service in kershaw county so at those numbers if we're able to provide decent response times and do it at 69 roughly per person i think that's the right thing to do and right way to move until we can actually get the state house to give us the legislation we need to uh to have it go by millage so it's based on property value thank you mr chairman correct thank you other comments uh all valid points uh mrs snodgrass uh let's let mr gardner speak and then i'll go to you sir and one with what pending legislation that we didn't get this year that hopefully we get next year will allow for us to change that fee to millage and can we not do the same thing with the a

» uto fee the Yes, can we not if the Johnson rescind that as well if we get the millage take care of the other fire fee We can take care of both fees at once if if council chose so chooses correctly. Yes, sir. Okay other comments I'm mr. Snodgrass George. Well, just echo the point about the millage obviously that is the that is the the most equitable way to To fund this because those who are under homestead You are able to enjoy the the benefits of homestead when this switches of millage so call your local legislators make sure next year that they pass s 401 it is that second reading that's where it'll be and they'll pick that back up in january but we need to get s 401 through get over the house side and then we can we can make this make this switch over um over to millage so we've been work

» ing on this for four years um can we do that can we do go ahead mr jones i'm sorry uh mr devos can we do that or mr carpenter do what he just said swap out millage for for a fee if the general assembly were to pass us 401 and take the cap off act 388 just for fire and just for cars which would give county council the ability to one time only though we couldn't do it every year just one time you'd have two years to exercise what would be the limit that this council could do i mean there's no limit with it it's just whatever is needed to reset it what is the likelihood of 401 passing well it's all the way through uh second reading there's only one senator that put his name on it to stop it for third reading so if that senator removes it then it moves through the senate then it goes to the hou

» se i it never made the house so i can't tell you where that would go with it it's not going to pass okay i think it will i think it is all right we'll see yeah i guess we'll see all right well thank you um with that can i say one more thing yeah please and i'll then we'll call it and this is why i'm i have a hard time and heartburn with fees uh when there are other options when there are other options you know i said it in here before when you're 65 and over it hits them the hardest and people are paying more in fees than kershaw candidate there are taxes in some cases right now and and you know whether i agree with mr brazel or not i'll tell you one thing i'm very proud of him he he certainly thinks outside the box rather than tax and fee you know and spend and uh thank you mr browser for

» your thoughts tonight and anyway that's just my position thank you all right i'm gonna call the question by closing it out you get what you pay for uh i would ask one quick question are we not building support in the rural areas of a fire station for blaney and for cassett is that correct we're doing a fire station in cassock yes sir that is correct so to the earlier discussion about taking care of rural that is what we're about to do also secondly this is on structures and not on unimproved land such as farmland and forests are not given a fee assessed against them is against improved structures so with that let's move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mrs snodgrass mr gardner mr burns and mr connell those opposed please uh and that's two that's mr jones and mr braz

» el and it passes on second reading and moves to a third reading item number three is the third reading of an ordinance to provide a budget for kershaw county for next fiscal year it's at tab d page 14. uh it's pretty lengthy and it's on the screen mr uh carpenter bring it home please the chair members council have in front of you tonight for third reading of the county's general operating budget for the fiscal year beginning july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022 is previously passed council on two previous readings okay can we have a motion to approve the movement uh mr snodgrass on the first a second second from mr gardner uh discussion this is finally third and final reading third and finally yes uh mr snodgrass please excuse me just one i wouldn't finish excuse me one second oh well i did

» n't recognize you because the first is uh this is not grass okay excuse me this is not grass are you yeah mr jones please go ahead please go ahead oh so kind uh i am right mr carpenter thank you so much for presenting working hard uh on this budget uh presenting us with a with a balanced budget and uh i believe it has based on the minutes the employee pay rise of 432 is that correct that plan yes sir that's correct all right very good uh mr carpenter i i'm remiss i was going to ask you to do a quick summary of the major points in this budget please and then we'll get to a discussion go ahead thank you mr members council's reminder back in january when the council got together goals were set uh to be accomplished this coming fiscal year uh this budget to use that to um to be shaped almost ev

» ery uh almost every primary goal is met in this budget um most of our medium priorities and some effort made to address some of the low priorities are met in this budget as has already been mentioned several times this is a budget with a lot of moving pieces it includes defeasement of existing debt which means paying off debt by doing so that releases millage that is currently on the books being paid the council could then appropriate which this budget reflects of being appropriated in some different areas as pointed out addressing our ems issue also using it to address some capital needs as far as a fire station ems station and a public works facility and also working with the fire, helping raise their millage as much as the law allowed, and so removing around those pieces of the millage s

» o that it kept the same millage on the books but accomplished several different goals in doing so. Yeah, okay. Other comments, please? Mr. Connell, sir. Mr. Chairman, a motion. Okay, we have a motion from Mr. Connell. Please go ahead. I move to amend the budget ordinance to limit the ARPA worker bonus for Kershaw County employees to those employees who actively employed prior to january 1 2021 and actively employed with kershaw county from that time through the date payment is issued that's my motion let me just restate that limited to the arpa funds to those actively employed before january 2021 is that you want me i can read it yeah could you restate it please uh my motion is to amend the budget ordinance to limit the arpa worker bonus for kershaw county employees to those employees who w

» ere actively employed prior to january 1 2021 and actively employed with kershaw county from that time through the date payment is issued and we have a second second uh mr brazel uh discussion uh back to you ben mr chairman thank you um i've struggled and tried to make peace with the bonus um of 1.2 million dollars roughly going towards county employees that the 12.5 million dollars and this is in a year for context when we're when kershaw county is given the largest historical raise that that any of us is aware of being given i think except for mr jones he has seen larger um what i was going to say is that uh that 1.2 million dollars i think was intended to benefit the entire population of kershaw county now there are there's a portion of that population which were arguably essential worke

» rs as well and under arpa and the guidance that they have these payments could be made to people who are at home as supplemental income or related payments um as essential workers but i feel like it needs to be tightened up some under the current budget as it sits now someone gets hired yesterday technically they'd be eligible for a thousand or two thousand dollar bonus based on their income level and if mr carpenter if you could remind us what is the cutoff for that differentiation a thousand versus two thousand full-time or part-time right so depending on their status uh they'd be getting a thousand or two thousand dollars if they got hired yesterday or tomorrow or presumably any time up until employment so um i thought it'd be wise to put in a date of cutoff that that applies under the e

» ssential worker guidance and then also you wouldn't want to do a bonus and then have someone say they quit in a couple of days and kershaw county still owes them a thousand two thousand dollars and they got hired a few days ago so i just felt like it needed to be tightened up in some way i think you can still accomplish the intent of the council overall but um but make it a little bit more conservative in some way okay um other comments uh mr basil any discussion uh okay uh vic uh what's your view on that as uh the person most in charge of these people can you support this amendment um mr members counsel the the actual implementation plan that we would use would by my recommendation employees who were on the workforce before march 31st that would be a full year of the pandemic we would stil

» l be in the state of emergency and the um the peak of the pandemic was january february so we would still be dealing with that employees after march 31st they were hired after march 31st would not receive a bonus furthermore no employee who was not currently on the payroll september 1st would receive the bonus which is when the bonuses would be issued so between march 31st September 1st anybody who left the county would not receive a bonus as well so you're only would be bonus provided to county employees who were on the payroll March 31st and we're still on the payroll September 1st so that that that's the plan that I would propose you give years when you're yeah mr.

» Jones had his hand up so Jimmy well that was that was your proposal yes discussion you restate that so employees who were employed prior to March 31st of this year would receive it. There's a three-month difference between my proposal and what Mr. Carpenter said, but Mr. Carpenter, the guidance or guidelines you just mentioned were not in place as of second reading, correct? Well, it was, as far as the budget was concerned, no, because that wouldn't be in the budget. The council would authorize the issuing of them, then the details would be an operational thing.

» So it's not baked into the budget, but it's a time frame that we've been looking at but we never discussed it per se the question really never came up so this passed on third reading you're just gonna select a date and it would have been March 31 through September or whatever payments actually issued okay I wasn't it wasn't a secret but yes yeah okay well gentlemen I actually think that's that's a date that we need to decide and set for the cutoff and I mean it may be March 31 I'm open to a suggestion but I feel like it doesn't need to be yesterday all right mr.

» Jones please Jimmy here's what I won't i want as many employees as possible to be taken care of this year and that's just where i stand okay other discussion uh mr snodgrass rich kano will you repeat your your date my date you yeah so it'd be it'd be folks who were actively employed prior to january 1 2021 and then uh where i agree with mr carpenter would be those who are actively employed from that time through september whenever the payment's made right we don't know the exact date it's one of the check or payment it gets made deposited in the account. Are you willing to, you got any give on that? I mean, I know we've kind of discussed this, but honestly, I was reminded that January and February were just as tumultuous for some.

» So don't want to be a stick in the mud, but I think- I know, I'm not trying to get, I'm sorry, man. At that time, I think people were getting readily vaccinated and to what extent, you know, is there additional risk? And to Mr. Jones' point, I'd be happy to be educated on it. But if taking care of, I just, I want to know what that means, taking care of all the employees. I'm for that as well, which is why I favored the highest raise that, at least that I'm aware of, in Kershaw County history. No, not Kershaw County, your history, not Kershaw County's. Well, I qualified it with what I'm aware of. You can share some data with me. I'd be glad to look at it.

» But in a year in which we're giving the highest raise, and this is designated, I mean, we're representing to the public, is designated for people who were exposed to a higher risk due to covet um yeah i don't that's a date that made a lot of sense to me yeah the um we with mr brasil's help we removed the emergency ordinance at the end of march so i believe that was uh vic was that your motivation that we were in emergency conditions up through the end of march yes sir yeah well mr chairman i'm sorry go ahead i'm just going to say in fairness this council has also instituted mask ordinances that apply it to just this room so you know but not other parts of the building so i don't know um how persuasive that is to me you did that thing to mr you made mr to mr uh carpenter's credit he's had to

» make some tough decisions on this because this by implication just so we know would mean that employees that perhaps thought about retiring prior to september 2021 whenever the payment would be issued even if they worked through 2020 when the risk was said to be highest may not be eligible for the bonus because they retire earlier they might have to adjust their retirement plan so that's a very tough decision and i credit you for having to make that but we have to pick some lines and cut it off if we're gonna we're gonna stick with what the rationale of arpa is okay other comments i think i can say we all agree it seems that we're going to do the pay rise and so we've got that and then what else is incorporated in terms of personnel pay vic right now four three to one two percent pay rise y

» es so the four three two one which is based on the salary levels of employees so four percent for those making 31 or below then up to i think 55 and then over 55 432 and then this would be another component of it as well this is a component that's driven by federal funds available just for explanation you know but you had the view that we would do a cut off on the 31st of march and uh this proposal says one january um and it's a 90-day difference uh gentlemen all right any further discussion um go ahead please i just say mr connell i really appreciate where you're where you're coming from and but i mean i know for i know january and february were we just saw some tough we just saw some tough numbers and as i'm sitting here i feel the logic you know if you think about the logic may be to let

» it run from emergency ordinance beginning to emergency ordinance ending and i hate i mean i i don't want to you know i hate disappointing people but i just feel like that may be the best um that may be the best thing if you think about it yeah mr snodgrass i'm not disappointed at all actually i didn't think i'd get anything necessarily until i started bringing this up a few weeks ago after our last budget uh budget meeting or council meeting when we were voting on the budget and i said you know what this does not feel right you know folks should not be getting a bonus if they got hired yesterday and we're representing to the public that you're exposed to increased risk for covid but you got hired yesterday doesn't make any sense so i'm excited actually that that the conversation has led to

» uh a policy that is now being implemented that will at least align the funds that um that are being given as bonuses with what the law states and allows oh yeah jimmy please so this this wasn't your intent at first we just never had this discussion prayer i mean the issue before was was focused on should we give bonuses to employees and so so my discussion with council was was explaining what the employees of this county have been through uh explaining why they were appropriate to receive and why every employee was appropriate to receive so when i used every employee it wasn't a cut-off date in the sense it was every employee whether they're public safety whether they're clerks in the courthouse whether they're convenience center employee every employee so i wasn't using that but we never r

» eally discussed dates at that point so i never got into it but it was always my intention to have a cut-off date and to have a date when it would be issued and we always uh sandra and i've been talking since this came out that we would not be able to issue anything till september for a variety of reasons so there's always been dates that we've been discussing but it was never something that was discussed openly in public and i didn't bring it up i perhaps i should have but i didn't what's the lowest excuse me what is the lowest wage we have 23 21 yeah roughly 21 000 yes sir a little below so they'd be getting four percent yes sir we're bragging about that but anyway then let's see what would be the bid range three percent so forty you know forty thousand you know three percent these employe

» es have earned that we're not giving them anything they've learned that okay thank you um russell did you have your hand up not to change the topic it just it brought up something that i meant to mention before you change topic it kind of plays in okay um we want to stay on the amendment though okay go ahead absolutely um when we when we received the budget all that was new to us we didn't have any chance to to digest it like we do the agenda packets moving forward next year can we get budget packets um four days ahead like we do the agenda packets just so we're gonna have some time to review because i know that that budget um ben and i both were kind of taken aback a little bit by that sum of money that was already in the budget i would remind council absolutely mr browse i just remind cou

» ncil that we didn't find that information on that ourself at first reading it was title only but we didn't have it ourself we didn't start getting the basic guidance till may 10th and may 25th is when we started getting enough guidance so we could really look at it so so information for us was was non-existent as well but absolutely your point is well taken yeah yeah absolutely gives us some time to warm up to it that's all yeah absolutely but this has been an unusual year over to you david just real quick just get the kind of administrative benefit of of the doubt that this legislation was passed in march this arpa with that right and so in the wisdom of the wisdom in the federal government you know they they pass things and they figure it out later that's just kind of how they that's how

» they roll and so in your defense it was it was may before we got any kind of guidance and then it was it was what second or third week of may before even like our association of counties was even putting out webinars and kind of giving helping us understand understand it so i think mr carpenter gave us the information as quickly as as he received it yeah we've got another one on thursday over you jimmy and two if i may say i'm the one who brought i think i first mentioned the 12.6 million dollar money before this body i was the first one to bring it um and and you know mr carpenter i think you're doing everything you can to try to look out for the employees and i know and listen i know that mr connor and every other council member up here they care about the employees as well we just have d

» ifferences of opinion i'm not accusing some that they don't i'm just saying that everything that you've done here for the 432 and the incentive pay there's no increase in taxes or fees to the public for this you've done this within the budget guidelines of what monies you had this year correct yes sir correct okay thank you and i thank you for pointing that out jimmy this was the restructuring of the finances that mr connell and mr brazel argued for and that the council supported to allow us to completely transform our posture to do a lot of good things that needed doing um let me see if i can close the gap we we're agreeing on pay rising but mr connelly the intent of what you're trying to do is set a date certain and not make it an open-ended arpa well i think mr carpenter has introduced g

» ladly a policy tonight that he is on the record now saying he'll he if my motion fails that he'll use uh march 31 as a line of demarcation uh for for bonuses um yes yeah and and my point is mr connell has brought up an issue that we had completely had no oversight over and no understanding of until this moment and i'm content with the 31 march because i always want to support my our administrator and so that's where i am ben and i think i thank you for bringing it in before us uh are we ready to vote uh do we have other comments on the amendment mr chairman yeah ben one other thing i'll mention for the benefit of the public hopefully so mr jones rightfully so has indicated that sewer is a very pressing issue in kershaw county our capacity our flow how do we deal with peak flows and he's bee

» n trying to figure out a way to take care of funding that overall these i just want us to understand that the arpa funds so this 1.2 million that if it goes to an employee bonus and it's taken me a lot to come to peace with voting in favor of it uh and i'm you know i can support it uh but you know coming from the private sector my employees and and others that we work with were thankful that they were able to work and that they had their jobs so it's just it's hard for me to reconcile the idea that you got to work and got to go to your job and have your benefits. And because you did that, you get a bonus.

» But anyway, you know, with sewer being one of our most pressing issues, $1.2 million to employee bonuses versus $1.2 million to sewer infrastructure expansion over the life of a bond will cost us about $250,000. Maybe you care, maybe you don't. Over 20 years, you know, that equates to dollars per year and there's a cost there um we've had sewers a very high high priority and goal for at least the years that i've been on council and i think before that as well um we did not have it as a goal last year to give a one or two thousand dollar bonus to part-time or full-time employees but this federal money landed in your lap and and now we want to do a bonus so anyway those are just some additional factors that i want to make sure the public is aware of we're considering or i'm considering is is

» we struggle with voting on something like this very good uh now mr carpenter you have instructions in this budget to do a study on sewer correct yes sir very good and that's going to be funded with a small line item in there so we'll do a study on the sewer as mr brazel has suggested and then aggressively move forward in the coming year once we have better information on arpa money as to whether that can or cannot be used in sewer is that one of the items we're looking at uh yes our sewer is is one of the areas that is um probably have has the easiest use of it's qualified oh sorry yeah so we have double digit money in the millions around 10 11 million dollars remaining after this to apply if it becomes the will of this body and if it's acceptable within the laws and regulations we have fro

» m the federals to apply fixes to the sewer company. Is that correct? Yes, that'd be correct. So I'm having trouble, Ben, honestly to say this small amount of money would be needed for the larger amount of money that might otherwise be available. Yeah, Mr. Jones. Mr. Burns, you and I are on the same page i think the first time in five years anyway what julian burns just said makes sense uh you know you got seven million dollars we're looking at southern loop you got um a 6.5 million dollar debt you got lines breaking because you just sent us a memo that you had to what 26 000 where one of the lines corroded which i don't think it caught you by surprise you thought it may last a couple of months longer so you but it happened you had to get to it you know we look at a 25 you're looking at 25 m

» illion dollar expansion on sewer you know i brought a valid uh proposal for this kind of council that would have fixed all that and we would have to be talking about all this and uh was that did i mention 6.5 million dollar debt as well too but then again too you know the funds that we're getting now from the federal government one-time funds uh 12.6 million dollars you're going to do the 1.2 to uh employees that'll leave you how much roughly 11 million okay so you could put the whole 11 million towards sewer couldn't you council can yes and would it fix the sewer problem no no no the chairman was absolutely right on his comment yeah i think i need to call the question i think we were going into other matters but it was pertinent i think in a good discussion so then i called the question on

» the amendment uh would you restate the amendment um ben please sure i moved to amend the budget ordinance to limit the arpa worker bonus for kershaw county employees to those employees who were actively employed prior to january 1 2021 and actively employed with kershaw county from that time through the date payment is issued that's my motion very good so that will move to vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr connell mr brazel those opposed signify likewise mr jones mr burns mr gardner and mrs it's not grass the amendment fails are there any further amendments to the budget um seeing there is none let's move to discussion any further discussion on the budget i i just want to say ben i i really appreciate your attention to the detail here and we now understand it was not a

» n open-ended uh intent on the policy of our administrator and it was very useful on that very useful mr chairman i'm glad that's on the record and i'm also glad to have been the the source of agreement between yourself and mr jones yeah bravo bravo ben hallelujah it's a one-time yeah y'all have agreed before you just don't remember it is the 8th of 8th of june the time is is 1944 hours and i'm sorry sammy was not here to witness uh let me also say i i think what i'll say last time on the second reading this has been a masterful restructuring of the finances of this county masterful it has been complex made more complex by the sudden arrival of the federal assistance uh like sherman's army nearly but at least they're coming with money uh and we still still don't understand what we have here

» i think mr carpenter has taken a conservative approach we have studies in place across the board in just about every functional area that will allow us to make our appropriate decision when we further understand these ARPA dollars. And I also thank you, Mr. Carpenter, for not rushing off and trying to spend tax money that came out of our pockets and the pockets of other people in the United States and probably our great-grandchildren before we fully understand what we can do within the law and what we need to do within the needs of this county to include sewer and uh it's been a constant matter of discussion with that i call the question all those in favor of the budget on its third reading so signify by raising your hand mr snodgrass mr gardner mr burns and mr connell and those opposed ple

» ase mr jones and mr brazel and the budget is approved with that we move to the next item which is new business uh health services district at tab e it's at page 31 it's on the board but i'm going to ask you go up into the next page if you can is it possible yeah that's it that's page 32 uh gentlemen i just put that up there to say thank you to the health services district to our attorneys mr morgan and mr dubose uh to especially our good friend chairman ogburn and to you members uh especially the council members here for having a full slate of people uh next time we meet uh we will uh proceed as mr jones and i discussed starting in seat number one going through seat number seven and then we'll put nominations jimmy as i get the word right correct uh for uh the two at large seats and then we

» 'll proceed to vote on those two seats you have a total of 13 names all of the current serving members of the health services district reapplied as they were required to do with a fresh start and recognizing that the statute and the way miss mary has laid this out mary thank you uh we will be able to vote in such a way that we will stagger these in two four and six year blocks so that we will not have anybody rotating on or off in the future well that's the theory um so we won't lose the entire board at one time um any discussion on this or any guidance to me before we go in ben the um allocation of two four and six year blocks falls where in the statute um i don't know if i can see it i don't see it on the chart and i can't yeah maybe we can change the chart mary on the next time around so

» everybody understands yeah that'll be done uh there's a memo i passed out i'm sure nobody read that carried forward the statute but i tell you what mary we'll make sure everybody understands it and we'll be straight okay because it's by statute by seat and the seats line up by district one through six but seats seven eight nine are do not number seven belongs to the chairman to appoint at large and uh then the eight and nine are also at large okay so we're going to use the word seat this is mr this is mr dubose's finest hour uh in writing seats and districts okay so with that i think that's well understood mary that's a great fix from ben thank you sir and uh and if you want to i'll send you a copy my learned memo but i think this chart alone will do it mary don't you yeah good idea mary wo

» rked very hard on this fly it's in the previous agenda okay uh item number two on the new business is on isn't there's no attachment it belongs to mr jones jimmy would you bring it forward please i sure would julian listen i'd like to make a motion that this county council instruct administrative county attorney to let's go ahead and have a an advisory referendum dealing with the fees that we're going to generate for the fire service okay is there a second and there is no second so the motion fails and so we'll move to the next item thank you mr chairman thank you members thank you mr jones we move to council briefings we'll start with you russell please sir oh where do we begin a lot to think about absolutely no time to think about council briefings um thanks for everything that um the fir

» emen do um i hope that my vote of not supporting the way we're funding it um reflects my attitude towards you guys i really appreciate what y'all are doing in the rural fire districts look forward to to finding new ways to to fund you guys even better um as chris put it i guess you guys have really been overlooked for some years that i hadn't been here i've been here for five months and i made a uh i made a promise in my campaign that i wouldn't vote for any tax increase or any fee increase and i'm gonna i'm gonna make good on that to the people that voted for me so um that was the reason for my vote and uh i i spent a lot of time looking for other options and really more than more than you know um even as much as waking up first thing in the morning and it being on my mind because i it har

» d i'm a problem solver okay and i want to solve a problem And I want to come up with a solution. But when the only solution is to raise taxes, I just can't make brazzles synonymous with tax increase. And I hope you can understand that. I hope you're going to appreciate that. That's just who I am. But we will, I don't, I'm not putting anybody down that voted for it. They worked very hard. This was a solution that worked. And I hope that through volunteers and maybe some funding through the money we received from the federal government that we can help buy equipment. I hope that we can do things together. And I know that Sheriff Jim Matthews had a kind of a fundraising nonprofit, what's the name of it? It's a foundation, the Sheriff's Foundation.

» I don't know if that's something we can do for fire service as well, to have philanthropy and fundraisers for different needs that we can't fund. I think that's always, you know, there's a lot of folks in the community that are able to give and help support. And it takes, you know, it takes reaching out and doing what they did. I know Lee bragged on Jim for doing that and starting that. I'd like to be a part of that if that's something that has started in y'all's department. But with that being said, thanks for being here. It's been a long meeting. Mr. Connell. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Council members, thanks for hearing me out tonight. Two things I wanted to share. I had the splash pad ribbon cutting recently. It was outstanding.

» They're leading to that in part, combined with the outdoor pool, is leading to record memberships this upcoming summer. And the kids were out there already having a good time. And Lady Demons, that was such a highlight. I mean, perhaps one of the highlights beyond recognizing Patrick Payne and what he did in winning the Medal of Honor, coming out of Lugolf Elgin High School and being on the wrestling team, that's probably right up there in special moments serving on county council.

» I have great hope for the future as I looked into those young ladies' eyes and saw how they were team players and they worked hard for each other and they've humbled themselves enough to listen to coaches and parents and excel and i hope we can i'll take a little bit of that with us as we go into the next couple of weeks before we meet again thank you mr chairman yeah mr jones jimmy thank you mr chairman members of county council yeah shout outs to our state champions we're very proud of them and i think we show that tonight and they'll carry that within the rest of their lives um also big shout out for all of public safety we all support our public safety appreciate the job everybody does i do have some comments i want to make and it's pertaining to the last county council meeting it was s

» aid at the last county council meeting it was said that a council member made the comment that he didn't want our sewer system to run or be controlled by people that were out of our county or out of our state this councilman also mentioned the scanna and santee cooper debacle at the vc summer nuclear plant and also credited the sewer system for the renewed interest of industrial prospects in kershaw county of course another one of my colleagues on county council spoke about the potential of the potential for the uh unconstrained growth and wanted to keep kershaw county rule of course i'll be addressing that in just a few minutes let me talk about out of area control this is deep this is just how i feel about it do you ever when i say do i'm speaking to county council do you ever wonder what

» the sewer customers in west watery think about having people who are not affiliated with the sewer system determining its future and how many how many members of council are customers of the county sewer system where they live how many times have you been called about the stench or the smell up and down Highway 1 between Lugoff and Elgin. I've been at a football game and Steven Smoke would be at the Camden game and I'd call him up and say you need to come over here to West Watery and see what we're having to live with.

» And how long ago was it when you heard about the capacity problem? Did you ever know any of this was a problem? Did the sewer system ever cross your mind before the possibility of the cell that the cell was mentioned? would you call it out of sight out of mind could it be said the whole of the county council on the sewer system is the equivalent to the out of area control which you are so quickly to mention scanning santee cooper a lot of people are quick to mention scanner i'd like to point out that santee cooper was also willing to partner in this tobacco santee cooper is a strange governmental animal it has a chairman and a board of directors but whom do they answer to the governor has tried several times to bring that organization under his control hasn't happened yet sounds familiar so

» unds a lot like out of area control with no recourse the sewer customers are looking for a partner a concerned partner who will pay attention to their needs and who is part of the system you it's with them and that's not the case that i feel like we're we have here rule character planning and zoning and and this one i want to make perfectly clear planning and zoning has the responsibility of allowing development in designated areas council is their approving authority we you already are in control this council is already in control of the cursor kershaw county growth there's just no question about that and uh i know that some have even investigated looking at developing some of their self in the past sales in the past i think people have a right to use their property to their advantage i th

» ink perhaps they're just selling parcels to develop developers now before council annex any more fees or taxes or whatever i think we all know this but i'm going to say it people are listening to me they're listening to you on this county council they're watching what i do they're watching what we do on county council and those are just some of my thoughts and mr chair i'd like to thank you and thank the members of council for this time thank you uh mr snodgrass or mr chair members of council try to be brief and cover some some highlights i think we are seeing coming out of this budget so i'll kind of start serious and we'll end on a end on a light note uh excited about where we're going with our fire service uh we've all all concerned about there being an equal distribution of investment i

» n our county not just one area over the other uh looking forward to a to a cassette fire station that uh because of where that property is is it'll be the the keystone the the the the center point of of that great cassette community and looking forward to that being a place where 24-hour service is is dispatched and also want to remind people that what we did tonight was a fundamental shift in our fire service it wasn't a turn of the screwdriver or a tap of the hammer it wasn't throwing those guys some more money so they can go buy some some new toys some new red trucks because that's what they want we made a fundamental shift from professional volunteers to professional career firefighters in a growing County that is moving beyond what is rule and continually moving into the new century we

» 're just 21 years late you know and so that's what we did tonight we took a fire service that was trying to operate under 10.6 mils and move them into the ability to operate a professional career fire service and I want to I want to make sure that we're we are mindful of that that the fire service is in is in the is in the midst of taking of making a transformational shift not just throwing money at it not just giving them a wish list the fundamental shift and this is what I know when my home in Valley Park not when excuse me should should my home in Valley Park catch on fire I know that they're they'll tone it the guys from Shepherd will show up other guys will show up and guess what they're not going to get there and let's say hey let's vote and see whether or not we should do this or not

» they're gonna take care of the fire because of our leadership and giving them direction and I'm thankful for that also thankful for the budget that is going to give mr. Connelly some direction with our planning and zoning department to to begin to address woeful concerns that we've always had in East Camden with how we won as we have met with our DOT partners for the last two years and they have told us things that we need to have to bring to the table in order for them to begin to take a look at the issues around Jackson school going out to the airport and even close from the town this budget puts things in motion for us as a county to begin to take a look at that and to instruct the playing department to start those things and i'm so i'm really excited about that i look forward to the day

» when i don't have to use the fast lane to get all the way home when it's raining um and i know many of you who live out there are looking for that day too that day's coming i'm not coming tomorrow but we're we're heading that direction closer than we were yesterday and also i want to say kudos to uh mr shane recreation director uh had an innovative idea to start a kick adult kickball league and are happy to say I joined a team and we're 1 and 0 now in the Kershaw County adult kickball league my knees still kind of hurt from that but Shane thanks so much very innovative recreation is an ever-changing thing it's a moving target and I think things like you know fun things like a kickball league is is just kind of the innovation that we need it's a great it's a great equalizer you go there thin

» king that you're going to boot it over the fence and then when you just pop it straight up to the pitcher and so it's a it's a humbling experience thank you shane thanks guys appreciate it uh mr gardner yeah just uh just a couple comments on the budget i'd like to thank mr carpenter ms brown all the staff all council that put this budget together probably not perfect but uh i think it's a i think it's a a good one i think two points stand out to me number one is that we're taking care of our employees our employees are our most important asset in the county i think they're what makes kershaw county the great place that it is and i think we've done a very good job in taking care of them with this budget the other part is the fire service and fees that we're implementing are moving that along

» a promise that we made when we had the ad hoc committee a few years ago that we were going to move fire service ahead we're still crawling in that but one day we're gonna get up and run with it but I think these these fees that we are imposing or a way of funding bridge if you will until we can get millage that will be a fair process and a better process that we can fund that so those are the two takes that that I have on the budget that I think are very good and I think they're going to be fruitful in the future again congratulations to the the le softball team that is a great achievement that you know it doesn't happen a lot I was fortunate to play on the state championship team and it is man it's nothing like it and you will forever be known as a champion so that is that is so good and h

» opefully hopefully we'll see some others in the county thank you okay to close out first of all mary thanks for your help on writing that lady demon proclamation that was the easiest one you and i've ever had to write wasn't it in fact we wrote it before they even won the championship didn't we mary that that's uh the nature of this county is we know we're gonna win we start out with a winning attitude we don't sit out to act like we haven't been in the end zone before or on the home plate uh transformative budget we've talked about that a great deal i'll come back to that in a minute we're now moving forward with where we're going to move forward to and that's the rewrite of vision 2030 uh with the support in this budget there is money for us to reconsider reimagine and move forward on the

» vision 2030 uh on the 17th of june thank you ben uh there will be a meeting at blaney elementary school for that quadrant of the county they'll then do north central high school and that quadrant of the county on the 21st of june uh jimmy we got to get you a date to do the one in the lugoff area with you and russell we'll get that to you in a short time but if you have an idea about where you want our county to go and where you don't want it to go come to that meeting it's there'll be flyers passed out uh fourth i would ask to consider uh vick if you could pass this oh there's shane um i think we need to take a look at the rec committee uh priorities me and jimmy went through that some years ago and thanks to ben recently looking at the lights at kc west and then a phone call that david sno

» dgrass got on woodward field uh there's a whole bunch of new stuff and then uh widely discussed is a splash pad west of the watery and then something around pine grove so i'd like just to have before we have another budget cycle shane uh vic a second look at the priorities that are in that document because a lot's been done and some new stuff needs to be done and i'm sure the county would want to see those uh county council would want to see those priorities at some point uh fifth point has to do with moral courage uh if you're somebody that can tell somebody else to do something and you're the one that controls the funds that those people would have to do that and you don't allow them to do it that's the kind of job i'd like to have it's called an unfunded mandate and we at this county cou

» ncil live with unfunded mandates across the board two of them have been a source of a lot of energy here today ems and fire and uh and the root cause of our difficulty is there's a lack of authority to do what we need to do and what we have been told to do by the state house and the solution rests in the state house in my judgment and they need to get on board with giving us the means to do what they have told us we must do by law certainly there are things we have done thanks to the ingenuity of the six men on this council with me to reapportion money and find new ways through vic's clever use of of bonds and interest rates and things of that nature but the root cause of our problem is in the state house and we need help next meeting is the 22nd of june and lastly we have some great news o

» n edo but we got to get through some housekeeping and with that i turn over to you uh in an executive session later on vic can you lead us through uh your your briefings no report sir no report uh mr attorney um i have no report although you know there is an executive session and when the motion is made for the record um the executive session is in regard to the lineated items on the agenda which all involve legal advice in regard to location expansion of industry sales land and contractual matters related there too can we have a motion to move into executive session with mr carpenter mr dubose tommy and mr burgess uh and we'll come back out with no vote can we have such a motion uh mr brasil is second from mr connell any discussion yes yeah jimmy but between now and getting there a three m

» inute break i think i need longer than that thank you says my 73 year old body with that let's move to a vote all those in favor and we are dismissed for a executive session turn the mics back on can we have a motion to return from executive session mr gardner second from mr brazel any discussion all right let's move uh no votes will be taken uh with that let's move to uh vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand unanimous we're back can we have a motion to uh adjourn so moved mr gardner mr brazel any discussion well we see each other again on the 22nd with that uh let's move to a vote and it's unanimous and we are