Full meeting transcript - July 13, 2021

» It's a great day in Kershaw County. Football teams are working out at North Central and Lugov Elgin and Camden. We're going to have a great year ahead as schools are going to start, I think, in almost a month. Good gosh. Meanwhile, the rewrite of Vision 2030 is undergone. Russell, thanks for coming last night.

» And there's a meeting tonight at the Bethlehem methodist church right across in lugo correct baptist excuse me and i don't have to call up reverend marion bennett and apologize but miss marion bennett and uh the core team are hosting a rewrite of vision kershaw 2030 right this afternoon about 30 minutes if you all can make it out there in the facebook land and uh let's see i think we have enough people here would you all please stand for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance, and I'll lead that. It says in the good book, blessed is the nation whose God is our Lord. With that, let us pray. Lord, you have given us many blessings this month with new jobs and new opportunities and new ways to serve you and to glorify your name.

» Thank you for this opportunity, and we remember the great words that say that the consequences are ours but the glory be yours all these things we remember and ask in the great name of the master of all men our lord and savior amen and join me in the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance with that mr dubose would you retrieve the sign-up roster for public comments mr chairman one person signed up that person is tom webb the third uh Mr. Webb, if you could come up, please, and limit it to five minutes, and the normal rules apply in terms of decorum, and I regret that we don't do a Q and A here, but this is to hear from you without an exchange. Please, sir, welcome. - I hope y'all don't get tired of me speaking so often. - I'll bring the microphone down to your level, thank you.

» - I say I hope y'all don't get tired of me speaking so often, but I'm gonna do it anyway. And a lot of times I'm kind of negative. I'll be a mix today. I'm so glad that we have agribusiness that looks like it's going to flourish here in Kershaw County. It's so important to have something to eat. There's all kinds of things that people can do that makes money, but if they don't have anything to eat, if transportation fails, if electricity fails, what are you going to do? So at least we'll have turkeys to eat. So hooray for the Prestage family and their family-run business, and may we get more of that. That's on the positive side, and private enterprise, private property is good things.

» But on the negative side, there's this thing that's looming over us, the World Economic Forum's Vision 2030. I've mentioned it before, but they seem to be intent on getting rid of private property by 2030. These are big shots. They're tycoons in the industry and world leaders. World Economic Forum. the way this might work is little by little rather than one fell swoop what happens is um you get government and business collaborating and to a certain extent there's some of that that's good we do it here but you can go too far to the point where you lose the the boundary you don't know whether you're talking about government or business and that is fascism and then you go a step further and the government owns the business all of the business the means of production that's communism and you ca

» n go further than that i think that's where this is headed it's a it's a it's a it's the old thing again where you have somebody in charge where people have no say in it there's no voting and what's coming it's just going to be somebody in charge and we are the serfs we've been serfs have done the work but now the robots are going to do the work they'll have no use for us what they're referring to us as useless eaters so they want to get rid of people so one thing that scares me about this vaccine that Bill Gates and his father before him were in favor of very great reduction in world population. Georgia Guidestones have in several languages written on it just across the border in Elberton, Georgia. Good ideas like brotherly love and let's don't have any pollution.

» But the thing that's scary about it is the the admonition that we should not have more than 500 million people for the whole planet of the earth that's 1 14th of what is here so will they make that happen when the robots are doing everything that us serfs used to do are we going to be eliminated so um so please protect the right to private property if we have private property and a respect for everybody's private property it might slow down or interrupt this intention of the world leaders to have a world government and and get rid of us and just use robots and artificial intelligence to serve themselves so please be very careful about what you do about private property there's an old saying back during the revolution uh i might not agree with what you say but i'd fight to the death for your

» right to say it i don't think any young people these days would would even know what that was from or what that means but you could apply that just as well to private property i might not agree with the way you manage your property but i would fight for the right fight to the death of your right to manage it your own way do it your own way please look out for private property thank you thank you mr webb uh mr dubose that's the last person signed up mr chairman and that concludes public comments we now uh honored to have a public hearing for the great friends out in lynch's uh no no we have a public hearing uh in regard to an ordinance by kershaw county ratifying the execution of a contract to convey a parcel of land entered into and between kershaw county and kershaw county and lee and lee

» county county regional water authority authorizing the conveyance of the parcel of land subject to the land conveyance contract and matters related there too i'm going to open the public hearing mr devose do we have anybody signed up no mr chairman very good and i see no one coming forward and i'm going to close that public hearing as a necessary matter towards a business development issue we move now to the next item on the agenda the agenda is on the screen and in front of you and in your electronic books helpfully put together by mary i think over 140 pages in this agenda uh with that i asked for an adoption of the agenda can we have a motion make a motion to adopt the agenda mr tucker a second second second for mr gardner any discussion uh i've discussed with most of you today that i'm

» gonna take the prerogative of the chairman to reorder the sequence of the agenda but not the content and i've discussed with you how item known as seagull which is item six and seven under ordinances on the second page uh will be preceded by item number one new business commercial policy commercial property abatement policy and we'll take an executive session in front of items six and seven everybody i think we need to be informed before we vote and uh and many of you said and i quite agree we hate to have an executive session in the middle but it's going to be necessary in order to inform our judgments that follow there from so with that any further discussion yeah and i apologize to the people watching from home too there will be a break when we go to executive session mr.

» chairman if I'm yeah mr. Jones go right ahead I am NOT a fan of having an executive session during the middle of the meeting but I appreciate you contacting me 20 minutes ago to let me know why you were looking at doing this and if we're expected to vote we've got to know what we're talking about it otherwise right it just won't happen exactly and thank you other discussion okay it looks pretty straightforward again we're ready to move to a vote all those in favor signify and it's unanimous and Mary we're going to do that just as a matter of protocol with that we move now to the public presentation from Lynch's River electric co-op and we asked mr.

» Brian broften to come on up Brian good to see you and to inform you our rules it's 15 minutes if you can leave a little time for Q&A we'd sure like to have a little give-and-take and we'll try to stay on time sure I believe a lot of time for Q right yeah that's always good yeah I'm Brian Broughton, the president and CEO of Lynches River Electric Cooperative, and actually now president and CEO of RiverNet Connect. We've started in the internet business, and there's a lot of reasons why. And we actually started before the pandemic, so I think we started at the right time. We made a decision even before the pandemic that we were going to get high-speed internet in the rural areas of our territory.

» And those rural areas are Bering-de-Kalb, if you know where Bering-de-Kalb is, Mount Pisgah, those areas, Cassett. Those people deserve the same speeds that Camden, Lugoff, Lancaster, Indian Land, those children deserve the same opportunities that those other students may have. So education is important, and getting high-speed internet in these areas is important education-wise now you got Teladoc and all those things that as far as health and stuff like that and I can give you a little prime example we had one of our customers and this this is fiber and everything we're doing is fiber there's no coax no anything they were paying around one hundred fifty hundred sixty dollars a month just for TV they couldn't stream Speeds wasn't high enough. So they had to do the dish network thing.

» Then they had to pay for a home phone because their cell phone did not work good. Cell service was not good. There's a lot of things. So then they were able to get fiber from us. Now, I get tickled when I see broadband availability at 25.3. We're offering our smallest package is 300 over 300. And our highest package is one gig over one gig. Everything's based off 25.3. 25.3 is not going to get you a whole lot. So what we're giving is good. But we took a $150, $160 bill that this person had with their carrier, cable carrier. Then they were able to stream for about $65 a month. They were paying $84 for two megabits of speed. Two. Now they're paying $59.95 or $300, over $300. So it dropped their bills tremendously, and they're getting a service now that they can use for any and everything.

» And then on top of that, they were able to disconnect their home phone and use Wi-Fi calling, and their cell phone works everywhere in their house now. So we're saving tremendous amounts of money of people in the rural area who needs to save money. uh i promise you if you ride through an area of mount pisgah south carolina right now you go down some of these little dirt dirt roads like i think one of them's named stein brown or something i'm trying to think one of y'all may know where that is they have access to gigabyte service those people this is in the north central area they have access to what any what people in charlotte and columbia and it's all because of what we're trying to do to provide a better service for our territory for example in 1939 and 40 people in the city they had pow

» er people in the country didn't have it co-op started we at lynch's river look at that same thing now in 2021 is people in the city how fiber people in the country don't have so i kind of wanted to come tonight and just have a dialogue about what we're doing why we're doing it um and i'm gonna do i tonight's just gonna be dialogue i will put together a written presentation um for you all uh again tonight i just want us to have conversation if you got questions for me i'll be glad to answer like tonight i got one of my board members gary sowell i got my cfo dustin cato and my mapping guru uh gary uh coach uh we all hand can we hand y'all like a piece of paper yeah if you'll give it to mary and she'll pass it around thank you but uh it's got a map on here that i want you to look at too it sho

» ws you areas where there's nobody served uh scott areas if you look at most of the green areas it's areas that we're already serving uh because we've already been out fiber in in kershaw county i think we spent about two million dollars in kershaw county already and we're looking at spending about four and a half million more dollars in kershaw county and that means that every resident of kershaw county that has power with lynch's river will have access to fiber and also on top of that we can go two miles outside of our service territory so we have some areas that we would love to serve just the other night i talked to somebody on truesdale road which is on 521 um you know we don't serve them power but they would sure love to have uh our internet it also helps businesses i don't know if you

» 've ever eaten at alan russell's joint there in westville he serves barbecue uh he told me you know his point of sale device he has to unplug it and plug it back when somebody's trying to pay with a card because he can't never get it to work because he's working off dsl uh you know we can we can offer him fiber all the churches i'll tell you what we're doing at buffalo baptist church out in the buffalo community we've set up a hot spot anybody in that community or anybody anywhere from eight eight in the morning to like 10 o'clock at night they can pull up in buffalo babbage church's parking lot and use the internet free of charge and we're doing we're doing hot spots all across each county that we serve and we want to do more in kershaw county and we plan on doing that but that's just kind

» of gist of what we're doing uh i will say 25-3 might sound like a lot but it's not my nephew uh lives down at the lake watery and he downloaded a game on play we've done this to have some fun he downloaded a game on playstation and my son downloaded the game on playstation they start at the same time it took my son's download about three or four minutes it took my nephews about 24 to 26 hours because of speed have a question sure first of all thank you for being here tonight i really appreciate what your company is doing you know throughout the years i have received more calls than i can count about lake watery we have some folks sitting here live on lake watery sure so uh you got any suggestions or any how do i say it any recommendations to your opposition we can provide fiber to lake wate

» r you can provide it yes we can serve i'm all in favor whoever can provide it as long as it's reasonable it's not raping anybody yeah if you look at our numbers and what we're charging uh 59.95 for 300 up and 300 down 79.95 for a thousand up thousand down which is a gig service for 79 we got people paying more than 79 for two and three dsl their cell phones don't work nothing works there are more and more people since the pandemic that's working from home uh and we've helped those people tremendously didn't realize how many people work from home and how many times every time they get disconnected they're losing time uh and they have to reconnect so yes we can serve from basically the bridge at lake watery uh all the way to uh knights hill well thank you that is my questions i'm just glad to

» see you have a famous person with you gary sowell uh do we have enough copies to give one to the media as well danny yeah if you don't mind pass it off there but uh other questions please i asked the culture to clarify mr tucker i'm sorry yeah go ahead mr tucker you had your hand up uh thank you mr chairman thank you um russell uh mr brogdon i um i got where you're going uh on the camden side up highway 97 sure now how far over do you go on a northern end of the county is that all the way to the county line to chesterfield lancaster county um you cover those areas and do you go in bethune we do not reach bethune okay now i will say when the law changes you know right now law states i can't go but two miles outside of my service territory when they tell me 10 miles i'm going 10.

» and that was my next question are you communicating with the other providers Because right now where I live, I live off Black River Road, there's a donut hole. You've got AT&T a mile and a half from my house, and then you had True Vista two miles from my house. I sit in that three-and-a-half, four-mile donut, and I can't get internet unless I do something like HughesNet. That's your home. Oh, yeah. I've been living with it for 50-something years. I'm okay. And so I want to make sure that there's no more donut holes because we're communicating with our competitors and making sure everyone's getting served.

» And I hope they do give you 10 mile radius where you can go out because that will overlap and make each corporation or company more eager to serve and not miss out on the folks that's in that donut hole. We are serving in areas that you can't imagine. If you hadn't been through some of Bering-de-Kav, some of Cassett, some of Mount Pisgah, ride through those areas. These people are getting top-notch service, gigabyte speeds. And it's going to save them not only on their monthly charge of getting fiber. It's going to save them on their phone bill. It's going to save them from – you can stream. I didn't know anything about streaming, nothing, because we couldn't. And one of the main reasons we went in this, number one, we want to provide that service to our community.

» I will tell you, my local provider sent me a letter saying, this is what you got. This is all you're going to get. Don't call us no more. And that's fine. But every member of Lynch's River, and that's a good bit of Kershaw County. I think we've got around 4,000 members. And then if you add another two miles to each one of those areas, we're going to go two miles. I can promise you that.

» we're gonna get it everybody we can get it to and then once state law uh state law is gonna change uh because everybody calls me and says brian when you come and i'm gonna say call your representative and we'll get it to you those days are coming uh but we're gonna serve beyond our beyond our territory yeah a little context remember this body here uh with mr carpenter and mr conley put some seed money into a department of agricultural grant that did a mapping effort that led to matching funds that true vista is providing in the rural agricultural areas and brian is bringing a new dimension to that secondly the sandhills telephone coming out of northern county uh is serving bethune and putting down fiber as well so this is an exciting time mr rick williams and i go back way on this issue as

» as private industry uh such as lynch's river is being reaching out to provide a need we have we urgently need as mr jones has said over to you Russell please sir hey obviously this is a lot of good news for a lot of folks thanks for helping lead the way in the rural area my question was it looks like you're just on one side of the lake will you reach over to the Lugo side of the lake up going toward Fairfield County or will you just be on if we can get there we'll serve as of right now no it's just our side what I consider Kershaw County side of the lake on 97 that's our service territory okay so currently you're just you're running um wire where you have electricity provided you're utilizing the same poles and that sort of thing yes okay and another reason why we're doing it is it's just l

» ike us uh and you can ask ors or anybody in in the state when we get funds we spend them immediately we don't wait two years we don't wait five years uh that's why we're doing what we're doing i mean chesterfield county for example has sandhill in chesterfield county but sandhill uh was not providing that service in chesterfield county that's why we're providing so when i look at this map uh you guys are the the hazy blue overlay is that your service area that's the service area that we've already built out yes okay yes sir will you guys work off of that it seems like it's a line will you guys be to work in different directions off of that line most definitely this line was done what we've done originally we had uh 18 substations that we served we wanted to get those communications to our s

» ubstations so we followed a path along our power line we didn't even have to add a pole in line or anything so we had a certain area that we to get communications and then we will go off this area and serve everyone else so when you look at the map a year or two years from now it'll it'll bleed out north and south east and west yes sir okay all right that's excellent thank you i really appreciate y'all's uh commitment to growing your business and helping the needs of the community well what happens i mean you have to think about it now people in the city have this access and whether they use or not i don't know but like somebody in the country like me i live out in the country i mean i can i can take a thermometer now a smart thermometer uh i can control my temperature with my cell phone th

» ere's all kind of things you can do we get we getting real data off meters that we couldn't get before I got we got stuff at work now where if this power bill goes up we can get real data off his meter and we can tell them okay you got hot water heater problem you got so and so and it's all it's feeding you all that information so it's it's not just for watching TV it's for helping the consumer with their energy bills it's It's giving them real data on what they can take back, and we can explain that to them. You can't do that without fiber. So there's a multitude of things you can do with fiber. It's going to allow us to do it. Yeah, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Brogdon, one more thing that I want to bring to your attention, and you may be doing this already.

» Have you contacted Santee Lynch's Regional Council of Governments? I know they're working on some broadband grants, and that's part of our county and part of our region. And if you do not have that information, Mr. Carpenter or Ms. Mary, I'd be happy to get it to you, but you do need to contact them and see what's available there as well. I would love to do that, yes. We are over time, but I think there's enough interest that we keep going. Mr. Gardner. Yeah, I'd just like to say I commend you on your efforts to do that. I grew up on those roads in Mount Pisgah, and about three days a week we had to pipe sunshine in. So I know exactly what you're talking about. And he's corn-fed.

» So it's, and I grew up in Buffalo Church, so, you know, the churches are such a focal point of the country, people out there. So I think it's important to do that as well. So I commend you, I support you in your efforts, and anticipating all these areas on this map are one day going to be blue. Is that what we're anticipating, that this will all be blue? Yes, sir. And then even outside of that, hopefully down the road? Yes, sir. That's a good thing. Thank you. Now, this is very much a part of our vision 2030 for broadband and Wi-Fi. Salute Mr. Carpenter for having allowed the matching funds from the Department of Agriculture. But what we're now looking forward is, you said you were going to send us a proposal, Brian. That'd be great. And then maybe we as a body can meet and act on it.

» Other comments? Ben. I was going to say thanks for what you're doing in the rural areas. I live, me and my neighbors live a minute or so off I-20 at the White Pond Road exit down Porter Crossroad. And we're still living in the 25-3 world and are trying to haggle and wrangle and figure out how we could wrestle fiber down that road. Even though it's a much more densely populated area, it doesn't make sense for them at the moment to move there. So I'm glad that you've been able to innovate and get it done. And I'm going to tell you the sad thing. The way, if you look at this map, and there's different colors, there's different shades that tell you percentages. and the way it's cut up, these are cut up like grids.

» If you take this one piece of paper right here, and let's just say there's 500 customers in this block, okay? This customer right here has 25-3. According to federal regulations, that takes out the other 499 when it comes to funding. That's sad. What companies do, and I can tell you what the co-ops don't do, we're going to feed everybody. We're not going to build into one block just to satisfy a grid so nobody else would get any funding for it. That's what goes on. And that's the sad part is this one person that sits at that little building that's sitting out there gets 25.3. And the other 499 sitting out here has got two megabits, if they're lucky. And that leaves all these people without fiber. That's what's sad. I get tickled.

» You know, somebody will say, well, y'all going to get this, you're going to get that. We were in line to get some money from the federal government, and by the time it got to us if we'd have took the money and paid lawyer fees we'd lost money brian it's been great thank you and i enjoyed seeing you up there in the northern part of the county i agree with you the barbecue up in westville is excellent thank you thank you thank you very much gentlemen i wish you a safe ride back thank you uh that concludes the public presentation we move to approval of minutes we have two of those they're up on the screen from 22 june a regular scheduled meeting it's in page four in your electronic books it's a tab a there as well can we have a motion to approve so many mr chairman uh mr carnell a second secon

» d from mr tucker any discussion on those minutes which is doing the top one right june say again it's just both minutes june and july we'll get to that in a minute first one okay yeah page four uh with that uh we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and the minutes are approved mary the second group is first of july in a call meeting uh it's a tab b and page 10 is on the screen can we have a motion to approve so move mr gardner a second second uh very good thank you and any discussion i know that was where we approved the pay rise and uh on the budget uh with that uh let's move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mary that's unanimous and the minutes are approved we move to a series of ordinances the one i've been waiting on is the third readi

» ng an ordinance authorizing execution delivery and one and more incentive agreements the prestige farms mr carpenter can you introduce that mr chairman members of council you have tonight in front of you for third reading uh the incentive agreement um agreed upon between kershaw county and a prestige foods of south carolina llc previously known as project goalpost it has previously passed council on first and second reading and i noticed we have the prestige family here of a family business and if we have lengthy debate zach's child may be born while we're here so it's up to us to make it put as much pressure on the the junior prestige man who's present today as possible okay can we have a motion to approve make a motion to approve mr chairman mr tucker a second second second mr jones uh an

» y discussion mr tucker uh thank you mr chairman um i've been knowing this family for quite some time and good evening there mr ron and mr zach that's that's how you used to look some years ago there mr president handsome young man but i just want to say what everyone has been saying over the process of this announcement is thank you thank you for uh being local thank you for being who you are you and your family and your your company and uh we look forward to uh the great things that you're going to bring and the jobs that people can make a livable wage off of and be able to do a lot of good things in our community so anything that i can do here or personally don't hesitate to contact me thank uh mr jones you had the second i do thank you so much mr chairman members county council ron and z

» ach um let me say this about your dad he's honest he has integrity if he tells you he's going to do something he does it so i'm sure you're the same way and i'm very proud to be a part of this tonight ron and i tell you i've worked with your mom zach she's a she gives so much to the community and you and your family have as well so i welcome this and i look forward to success thank you other comments uh mr gardner yeah that's uh on top of uh precious farms and then bringing the processing here uh thank you very much uh you know you've been a great asset to kershaw county and uh certainly you're going to build on that with this so uh we thank you for that others mr chairman ah mr connell i was going to say you know i work with my dad too and we've only been in probably about 15 or 20 fights

» and i'm glad to say that we've never had law enforcement called on us to break us up now seriously though uh i really am grateful for family businesses i think it's important to generationally um make sure they're protected uh at your presentation the other day mr presage i heard you talking about g1 two and three just sounds like the unc business school class i was going through uh and um it made me think of how important it is to protect them and make sure that you've got the relationships in place to do that and if five years of commitment and perseverance is not a signal of setting up the relationships that are necessary. I don't know what is. So we appreciate your commitment to the community, and I know you're grateful for us being committed to you as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

» Other comments? I would say on the family business side, and I know Mr. Brazel will agree, the federal government is considering some measures that are going to make it even harder, and we at Kershaw County have the ways to pull together to help our family businesses get through some tough regulations that may be coming down from on high but now it is our within our means as a county to help you get employees in those seats well trained people with our trained and ready workforce that this county supported in the establishment of the Wollard Technical Center and the CCTC and our wonderful high school system so So that's what we ought to commit to going forward.

» We should also thank Camden, who are providing a critical asset, Cassett Water, Black River, and all the others who are a part of this effort. Because the work's not done yet. We are just getting started. So with that, I think we're ready to go to a vote. Thank you, gentlemen. This is going to be a great day. All those in favor, signify. And it's unanimous, Mary. We move to the second item, third reading of another ordinance, ratifying the execution of a contract to convey a parcel of land. Mr. Carpenter, can you tell us about that? Mr. Chairman, members of council, you have in front of you tonight for third reading an ordinance that allows the county to convey a parcel of land located in the Governor's Hill Industrial Park to the Cassette-Lee Water Authority.

» This will be used as a water tower to provide water service to the new facility to be built at this site. IS PREVIOUSLY APPROVED BY COUNCIL ON FIRST AND SECOND READING AND THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS HELD EARLIER. VERY GOOD. CAN WE HAVE A MOTION TO APPROVE? MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE, MR. CHAIRMAN. MR. TUCKER, A SECOND? SECOND. SECOND FROM MR. CONNELL. DISCUSSION. MR. TUCKER, DO YOU WANT TO LEAD? I REALLY DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY OF IT. THANK YOU AND CONGRATULATIONS. MR. CONNELL? I THINK WE BEAT THE HORSE ON THE FIRST GO AROUND AND WE MADE IT TO THE THIRD READING.

» and we made it all the way any other discussion again casa water has done some more wonderful work in collaborating with this effort along with camden and their what their role is uh this has been a team play a team sport and i would just be remiss if i didn't mention our legal team that helped pull this together and jeff burgess you just keep losing your hair back there in the back well done jeff and and my thanks to your wife for this long run to make this happen so with that we move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and i would ask the prestige family to come forward and uh and let's give you a presentation gentlemen if you'll squeeze in for a picture sure everybody here's uh familiar with the seinfeld comedy series my family if you're a klutz and you just fall d

» own and do stupid things we call it kramerism you can tell i've been doing kramerisms lately it's a real pleasure to address you this has not been easy this has been very very hard i moved to camden 38 years ago this week as a horse doctor that i didn't if i had ever had any idea how easy my life was getting up in the middle of the night treating sick horses weekends holidays whatever oh i wonder what in the world happened what actually happened was my dad asked me to start a turkey company in south carolina 27 years ago 13 days ago on july 1st i've never looked back that wasn't easy either in my family we are kind of famous for saying that there's no Santa Clauses in agriculture. Tough business. Tough business. It's especially tough for a family business.

» But the good thing about family businesses is that they tend to stand the duration of time. And that's why he's so important. And his daughter that might be born tonight or tomorrow, I mean, I think we're getting real close. But it's critically important. It would not have happened if it wasn't for y'all. I don't know how long ago it was I came and talked to Vic and Julian about the concept of going the next logical step for my family business, build a very expensive, very highly automated, high-tech plant that would be something that this county would be proud of, whether it was in this county or elsewhere. I mean, I can tell you about rural counties, the challenge of trying to get all the infrastructure put together is a significant challenge.

» Not so much in Spartanburg or Columbia or Charleston, where they are used to having these huge infrastructure requirements for a relatively large plant. But in a rural county, kudos to you. Black River, Cassette Water, Dominion, whom am I leaving out? Camden. City of Camden. Without all those things coming together, it's virtually impossible. Then if you really want to make it hard, do it in the middle of a pandemic that followed a lot of international trade disruptions that made agriculture in general very, very tough over the last few years. International trade disputes and everything else, unfortunately, tends to make it very tough on agriculture in a lot of cases before it does a lot of other kinds of industries. But you invested in us. We're going to invest in you.

» That $150 million that the papers keep referencing doesn't include a big truck fleet. It doesn't include employees that will work in the cafeteria, truck drivers, maintenance crew, cleanup crews in the middle of the night. You know, one thing I'm very proud of in my company, everybody talks about what happened with the labor situation. All my people came to work every day. Amen.

» all of them they have to those turkeys don't know if it's christmas day or easter sunday they have to eat we have to make the we have to do all those things that we have to do in agriculture and i couldn't be more proud of my people and you for having the confidence to let this go forward we hope to break ground uh as soon as uh ken tells us where that we've actually got the final signature on the last thing we need from the county to be perfectly legal to go out there and do that and i'm hoping that that's going to be in the next two weeks thank you very much thank you very much ron and do you have a nickname as a grandfather papa good name congratulations in advance thank you very much all right we move to the next item we move over to part two in your electronic book and up on your scree

» n is uh where we are in our item number four on our agenda I believe or is it item number three three item number three uh it's a second reading of an ordinance authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds in one or more series Mr. Carpenter can you take us on to this Mr. Chairman members of council you have in front of you tonight for second reading an ordinance authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds for an amount not to exceed seven million dollars for the purpose of acquiring, constructing, equipping, and approving various capital projects. These were the projects for a public works building, an EMS station, and a fire station. Council has previously approved this on first reading. Yeah, it's in page one in your electronic book, and it's on the screen, I believe.

» With that, can we have a motion to approve? So made. Second, please. Second. Second from Mr. Tucker. Any discussion? Mr. Mr. Carpin, do you want to run through that, just a little bit of background, please? Yes, Mr. Chairman. As Council may recall, during the budget process, Council approved the use of millage. It was currently an existing millage, restructuring the debt that the county had, thus freeing up millage that was able to be used for a variety of other purposes, one of which would be the issuance of these bonds. This resulted in no new millage or no increase in taxes on the public.

» Which is a creative project that I think we all should be very proud of in terms of how we've restructured our finances uh discussion mr chairman yeah mr connell as a reminder for the public mr carpenter part of this is intended for public works yes sir and some of the other projects which we've been talking about for years but just haven't been able to prioritize with the funds that we had well now we can based on the restructuring and some of our goals and either retiring or like i said restructuring debt it's a good time to do it and the facility needs it badly and i thank mr brazel for some of the imaginative solutions that were derived in making this happen all of us together have delivered a good product for our county in this budget and other comments this also did mr jones go ahead

» this also deals with fire yes sir yep other comments okay this is a tremendous opportunity i think we'll see more detail on this in the third reading uh with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify we have mr tucker mr gardner mr burns mr brazel and mr connell all those opposed is mr jones uh the motion passes and moves to a third reading move to item number four which is the second reading of an ordinance modifying his the installment plan it's on page eight in your electronic books it's tab f with that mr carpenter can you introduce the topic mr chair members council as council may recall as part of that same process we just discussed our existing bonds were restructured and defeased this is the ordinance that allows us to do that very good with that can we have a motion to appr

» ove make a motion that we approve second reading mr chairman mr tucker a second second second from mr gardner uh any discussion uh mr jones go right ahead mr carver you get some clarification on that where millage is concerned yes sir again this is taken um by defeasing the bonds we are paying off debt that is currently on the books uh that frees up the millage that was used previously uh as approved by council for that bond um among other items that the council assigned it to in the budget that was approved thank you and it's directly related back to your response to mr connell correct yes sir exactly so this is all part of the mechanism and this second reading will be followed by a third reading uh very very soon or next time perhaps the next time we meet is that the expectations that we'

» ll have a third reading at the next meeting or do you think you've got the the lawyers all lined up on this one i believe yes sir next yeah okay i'll need to have a separate meeting before we go into that okay with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr tucker mr guard and myself mr connell and mr brazel those opposed uh mr jones thank you very much it passes mary and moves to a third reading move to the item number five which is a second second reading of an ordinance authorizing the consumption of alcoholic beverages on real property let's see that's at uh tab g and page 103 in your electronic books and it's up on the screen can we have a motion or i'm sorry mr brazel yeah i got a first from mr brazel to discuss can we have a second for discussion second

» second for mr gardner uh we move into discussion any discussion mr brazel you want to lead um i don't have it in front of me i read over it earlier read over it earlier in the week um to clarify what would um it wouldn't allow people to come in off coming off from work and drinking this would not allow drinking uncounted property it would allow for special events to receive a permit the duration of that one event that would allow the consumption of beer wine on the property no hard no hard liquors okay can you can you help him out are there more items in here that such as insurance and permissions and so on yes sir it does require a minimum coverage of insurance that must be held as far as liability and casualty and insurance that must be provided to the county as well as a requirement for

» um fees that they must pay clean up things like that as well and it's similar to a like policy in the city of camden for example yes sir that's correct okay russell back to you sir i just wanted to clarify for everybody watching and for the record that it it would only be for special occasions and uh they would have to how much is the the permit that they would have to five hundred dollars yeah so if somebody wanted to have a an event they would they would have to come through proper channel channels to make this feasible correct yes sir that is correct okay i'm just trying to get clarification thank you mr chairman yeah go ahead um vic um you or either can um i know that the city of camden has what we call a liquor license um when they do their events within the city is anywhere in this or

» dinance covers that which means if we're having the event in the city because we got some parks that's in the city um that covers that to make sure that they are in compliance with the city as well as the county well nothing in this ordinance would preclude the city having its own rules that they would have to follow as well this only applies to county property which currently a city a city license would not allow them to to be on county property regardless this allows them to be on county property they would still have to meet every term and condition the city would also put on so they're overlapping they're not in lieu of each other you'd have to do both whatever both require to do but do we have that in here is what i'm saying uh i got that you know that you know we're not enforcing city

» and city's not enforcing us but what i'm saying i come to the county and i want to get a license within the city um you know i'm aware that i need a city license but you guys go ahead and approve me and i say screw the city i've got what i need we'll come up with something that if for third reading that if you wish to amend it an attitude we'll have that for you yes sir thank you mr tucker yeah mr connell go ahead i'm just gonna say excuse me uh mr devose if you clarify i don't think that we could usurp uh city of camden's jurisdiction anyway if it was within their jurisdiction you still have to go through them that's correct okay yeah but right now you can't consume alcohol on any county property and to be further clear is this for a sale of alcohol on county property with permit or is thi

» s for the consumption of it's for the consumption it doesn't define whether the individuals would sell it or provide it that's up to the the event itself it's not for someone to have like a food truck to come in and do it it's got to be part of a special event so the conditions within that special event or the individual some you know if it's a wedding and they may have beer and wine available they're not going to charge others may have a cash bar right yeah i know that food for the soul asked for permission for alcoholic consumption not for sale and we had to turn them down at veterans park is a good example and food for the soul of course is a very worthy institution and we've had a number of others too can you cite other that have we've had to turn down because of a lack of a policy of i

» t um none the other ones you just mentioned but i'm sure that there have been through the years a number of people who had indicated a desire at at the rec center or places where families may have gatherings that they would have would have liked to have that ability that they couldn't so this would include the rec center what other places would include just to enumerate a few examples places would be um uh the aquatic center the uh the casey west complex larry doby complex the old armory science park watery river veterans park west watery park woodward park basically every parks and recreation facility that we have very good other comments yeah they don't have to have the department of revenue license alcohol or whatever they would right probably and they'd still be under the jurisdiction o

» f the sheriff's department so yes sir and all those things will still come into play and and additionally at the county's decision they can be required to provide off-duty deputies so the county maintains the right for every event to require they provide at their expense security very good other comments Ben, I think this is also aimed at concerts and venues like that. I remember we had some interest a couple years ago at the Veterans Park, but for this reason, they went somewhere else in Lugov, thankfully, and I think they had over 3,500 or 4,000 people attend when Lone Star came and played at Land Jam. So, you know, personally, I don't think people should drink alcohol, but I believe in agency.

» I also don't like it when people curse, but I don't think we should legislate anything in that way, right? i believe in freedom in an agency as long as something's legal so i'll support it on second reading very good other comments all right very good we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr tucker mr garner mr burns mr brasil and mr connell all those opposed uh mr jones it passes on second reading and moves to a third reading and we look forward to seeing and maybe hearing comments from the people of the county and then from intervening period we move at that point to item number six and we have as i previously said we're going to have an executive session so we could be informed on the discussion to follow so with that i'll just outline what i think would be a

» good progression as we go into executive session we come back and discuss item number one commercial property under new business if you're tracking and that would require a vote and then we'll take items six and seven for votes in title only uh with that that's my proposal uh yeah i'll move that we go into the executive session very good for contractual matter a second please second second for mr gardner and to specify it'll be the members of the council mr carpenter mr um dubose do you want to bring tommy with us morgan yes yeah you need to bring your your best man with you and we need to have mr ziegler accompany us from project seagull is that correct you want jeff burgess as well jeff okay uh so with that we move to a vote but i will tell you that we'll come back as i said and we'll mov

» e into a vote session here and this may be extensive as mr jones and i have apologized we hate doing executive sessions in the middle but these things are necessary this may be a lengthy discussion so with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify and it's unanimous mary we are adjourned for a period of executive session thank you mike's everyone is returned can we have a motion to return from executive session motion to come out executive session mr mr tucker a second second for mr gardner any discussion with that uh i want to just review where we we think we're going to go with this so you can follow us in the agenda the item that we'll first take up at coming out of the executive session is item number one under new business under tab h page 108 in your electric book and it's als

» o up on the screen so with that let's move to a vote to come out of his session all those in favor signify and it's unanimous and we return from executive session so i'm moving now to a new business item number one commercial property abatement policy i've asked to be put on the agenda it's uh as i said tab h page 108 uh mr carpenter can you introduce it and then we'll put a motion mr chair members of council you have in front of you tonight for consideration a draft policy prepared by staff that would give the county council some guidelines that they would choose to follow in the consideration of future tax incentives for commercial projects a key aspects of the proposal would be that investments in commercial projects must be not less than 10 million dollars in total that a minimum of 50

» new jobs must be part of the project and that it must have a significant private sector financial investment in it of which that also the the financial sector investment must be greater than any public sector investment as well those are some of the points all right can we have a motion to approve this uh policy uh mr brazel a second second that second mr connell uh with that uh russ you want to lead off the discussion oh well not a whole lot to discuss on the front end i think there's there's plenty to discuss uh between now and second reading and third reading so i'm i'm okay and this one will only be discussed once just to be clear yeah because it's a policy and doesn't require first second and third my apologies so as far as the policy is concerned we don't have a policy so now we'll ha

» ve a policy and we can we can look at these projects yeah ben i was going to say it gives us a foundation to to have a basis for negotiation whenever people are looking at doing these types of developments in kershaw county right now we don't have a plan we don't have one of that yeah jimmy you had your hand up sir mr carpenter have we ever done anything like this before no sir is this risky um no sir because the county is not making any investment of its own funds but if the county does make investment if it's on funds well if the county invest funds and yes sir that risk becomes involved sure here's where i'm i'm struggling and and i'm not saying i'm against this but here's where i'm struggling guys this has hit the fast track i mean it's moving 150 miles an hour i'm concerned about comme

» rcial businesses you know we've always given fee and lieu to industrial but now we're moving into the commercial you know talking about you got restaurants out there you've got hotels out there you've got businesses out there and the thing about his guys is that i'm just concerned about big organizations coming in and putting small organizations out of business i just wish we had a little bit more time with this i'm just not comfortable at this moment thank you very good mr tucker thank you mr chairman i just want for the record just to mention that i'm going to support the policy tonight but there is some things that i may think thresholds are a little low i just need more information so uh don't be surprised if this is put back on the agenda for some type of amendment appreciate that yeah

» other comments uh yeah mr gardner i just you know i appreciate mr jones comments on on that but uh at the same time i don't think we're gonna have a lot of people coming in and throwing 10 plus million dollars away uh into into projects just you know in in our little town of camden i mean yeah it'd be great if we did uh but i i don't and being a small businessman i appreciate your point uh but at the same and you know i think this concerns are are genuine and we need to again maybe slow down and look at them but uh i think this is a starting point and because it's a policy we can always amend it at the next meeting if we need to so uh that i think that's the good point about that so uh but i i am concerned i have some concerns about it as well so but i think that's uh an opportunity for all

» of us to study it a little bit more and look at it and ask a lot of questions so but you know if i may i just want to respond to you uh appreciate what you just said about appreciating my position it's just honestly how i feel you know and um i just don't know enough about it i'm just not comfortable at this point in time with any of this six or and i was going us to tell you straight up six or seven and that's just my opinion i need to see more of that and i may vote for it on second reading um but i'm saying at this point in time i'm just not comfortable i'm not comfortable with the fact that um commercial business can come in and get huge tax incentives and you got mom and pop operations out there struggling to pay their employees and uh as i said i may change my mind a second reading or

» a third reading but this well Of course, this policy only takes one reading. It's just one reading. Policy, yeah. But I mean, six and seven will take three readings. Yeah. Any other comments? Mr. Chairman, Mr. Connell. Yeah, Mr. Carpenter, Mr. DuBose, for industrial economic incentives, what is the minimum investment threshold right now? Is it $2 million? Two and a half million. $2.5 million? So I think part of the idea here on this policy as a starting point is right now we're seeing industry can come in and they can invest $2.5 million in the community.

» and receive significant tax incentives right now a commercial business could come in and invest 20 million and there's no policy that allows us to discuss with them any type of tax incentive so i think the idea is some type of parity between you know regardless of what kind of business it is if you're investing significantly in kershaw county we want to talk to you about the best value for the county and this this lets us do that i think yeah now mr jones please sir if i may and i appreciate those remarks mr connell made the difference i look i see it with industry and commercial is that industry comes into kershaw county they're not competing with each other but you're going to have project seagull coming in here that will be competing with local businesses it is what it is i mean they wil

» l be competing with local businesses and that's where i have a i'm struggling thank you yeah russell if i may um i can certainly see that concern also what i see is um local businesses could could actually be impacted in a positive manner uh from from something such as this policy um i've heard a lot of a lot of folks in the community say hey wish we had this i wish we had that and i'm always going okay well how do we get a a public's i don't know how many times i've heard hey we we need a public's we need another grocery store i think this policy will actually give us um a starting point to have better conversations with those folks as they look at our community and it it may be a very positive policy once it's written and we dive into it a little further so maybe I'm just looking for the

» upside here but I hope that it's going to be positive for people who are already in the county already have businesses I hope it's going to be a draw it's going to bring people into the community people will be spending money in the community and they'll they'll be spending money at existing businesses so I hope that it's going to be a very positive thing the comments I appreciate the staff worked very hard on this recognizing this is absolutely new ground even for our veteran councilman mr. Jones and mr.

» Tucker brand-new ground and it's important that every step be a cautious and successful step as we move into new ground as a county and development of an economic project for which we have no experience but we have a fair amount of wisdom and we have going to take it very deliberately i would emphasize that this is a policy and and guideline and not a decision and that helps us understand ourselves a little more objectively before we get into the meat and potatoes of what we're going to do on seagull to follow other discussion hey thanks everybody this is what I hoped we'd hear, and that's why I had it put on the agenda. Thanks to the attorneys, Economic Development, and Vic for constructing this discussion in such an effective and helpful way. With that, let's move to a vote.

» All those in favor of the policy as written signify by raising your hands. Mr. Tucker, Mr. Gardner, myself, and Mr. Brazel, and Mr. Connell, and all those opposed would be Mr. Jones, and it passes and is now effective as a policy with guidelines with a lot of discretion going forward okay we return now to the regular agenda item number six is the first reading and title only on seagull i'm going to ask mr carpenter to introduce it please mr chair members council you have in front of you tonight on first reading and title only an ordinance that will allow the authorization of an execution of an infrastructure credit agreement between kershaw county and the project known as project seagull which is kershaw hospitality llc and to be clear it's providing for the issuance of an ssrc a special so

» urce revenue credits inclusion of certain properties can we have a motion to approve as written in the first reading title only make a motion to approve mr mr tucker a second second second for mr gardner uh discussion no discussion no there's nothing here other than this but i would tell you as by way of discussion i'm committed as a chairman to have substance here and perhaps the city of camden to help us further understand this project on the 10th of august which is our next meeting so mr yeah jimmy go right ahead please i think there is something to discuss here but i don't i'm not going to go on about it but bottom line it reflects back to everything that i said earlier with the policy sure that's where i stand that's why i'm really one time that's why i'm really appreciative of what yo

» u had to say jamie that's very helpful uh with that we go to a vote all those in favor so signify uh it's mr tucker mr garter mr burns mr brazel and mr connell those opposed would be mr jones and it passes on first reading in title only item number seven first reading also in title of only of an ordinance uh authorizing the development of a jointly owned operated industrial park project seagull mr carpenter introduce this one please Mr. Chairman, Members of Council, we have tonight on first reading and title only an ordinance that would authorize the creation of a jointly owned industrial park and the placement in that park of Project Seagull. Very good. Can we have a motion to approve? I make a motion to approve, Mr. Chair. Mr. Tucker, a second? Second. Mr. Gardner, Mr.

» Carpenter, maybe you can explain why the need for a jointly owned and operating industrial park, Project Seagull. Just explain why that construct is given to us as a county to approve. Go ahead. Well, of course, it relates back to G, which also has property in Multicounty Industrial Park, because they both refer back to credits you can give, infrastructure credits, they call them, to properties in the Multicounty Park. It all goes back to the infrastructure credits, special source revenue and inclusion of the infrastructure credits.

» that's about the same thing yeah exactly and so i can usually give an instance of when we've done this before well we've done multi-county parts before but typically in multi-county industrial parts we today have not given infrastructure credits although you can yeah exactly okay uh discussion mr tucker you want to leave it uh no i'm good uh second mr gardner no any other comments okay very good and we look for more detail on the 10th of August with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr. Tucker mr. Gardner mr. Burns mr. Brazel and mr. Connell those opposed would be mr.

» Jones and it passes and moves to second reading okay we're back on our agenda now and we move back down to new business item number two recreation advisory committee commission appointment it's a tab i page 111 in your in your book and also on the on the screen mr connell thank you mr chairman i would make a motion that we appoint john w hanks jr to the recreation commission can we have a second second second from mr tucker any discussion ben thank you mr chairman uh john hanks is just an outstanding individual um you'll notice that he technically lives in district two but he's a stone's throw outside of district three his kids attend school at doby's mill heavily invested in the elgin area um he's just a great individual i think he'll serve really well and i to mr jones point in the past y

» ou go for for quality sometimes regardless of district this is one of those circumstances i think thank you other comments yes he'll be further in district two after his redistricting is that right i don't know i live live pretty close there - you can't cut me all right and see Gerald crates is coming off I want everybody to be sure to thank him for his great service since 2019 mr.

» chairman all 2017 go ahead I'll just mention about Jerry crate one of the young ladies that we congratulated on the softball championship team exactly his daughter was one of the gym how about that huh we we got champions in kershaw county kershaw strong thank you so we move to a vote all those in favor signify and uh mr jones will you want to vote on this one yep he does it's unanimous mary thank you very much we're moving now to council breeze and mr jones uh you're the first up on council breeze please sir no no comment uh mr tucker yes um very briefly uh mr um i'm looking at mr carpenter um please thank miss lauren and staff and nathan um the reassessment video when it went up i knew you were getting things together after i spoke to you and didn't rush it for that weekend and did your d

» ue diligence i think really really helped the citizens it helped me as well um and i thought it was great wasn't too much information but very you know just simplistic where you can understand and people weren't having heart attacks thinking that was a tax bill and i appreciate all that you guys do that concludes my report uh mr gardner no report uh russell i've got something to thank lauren for as well um helping with uh starting to get the word out for the the river sweep august 14th it's about a month out yeah let's get on that she she's been a great help getting things put together and i want to thank her for that and anybody who's interested in helping um we're going to clean up the large portion of the river and then we're going to to have a good event at Veterans Park afterwards.

» Thank you. Terrific. Ben? Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to share that my brother, Zach Connell, and his wife, Anna Mae, had their first child, baby Nolan Connell, yesterday morning. Everybody's healthy and happy. I bring that up to bring awareness to the issue of fertility, miscarriages, and stillbirth.

» They have had to struggle through that, even early in marriage, and there are so many couples out there, many in Kershaw County, that that we all know who uh deal with that and also wanted to uh emphasize the power of prayer and its impact on on families thank you mr chairman and i empathize that to close out council briefings i empathize with that we've had that tragedy in my own family and the power of prayer is such that the next time we uh up to bat they had twins so and as they say in the poem when the the night is darkest you begin to see the stars and the county has had a great month with some 500 jobs being added over the next few months and years and we got a ribbon cutting at earnest care are you going to cover that uh i think it's next week and mary will get the word out and that

» was 114 jobs added out at the elgin exit what we used to call watery executive park right next to urgent care out there this is we're on a winning streak and we should remember how much labor and effort went into getting to where we are thanks economic development thank you vic thank you attorneys both of you next meeting is 10 august and meanwhile the last vision meeting is today and we're looking to collate all that data and move into a drafting stage with the core group a bunch of volunteers that you all know led by such as George Gibson and Paula Scarborough Susan Witkowski and the whole team and then we'll come in with a draft for approval by the County Council by the city and municipalities by the elected bodies such as the school district and sometime in the fall we hope to give you

» guys a new product lastly I'd like to make sure I have a short debrief with the economic development team Vic and and our two attorneys based on the guidance that was given by this body in executive session okay and I'm sure it won't be very long over to you Vic to close us out no report sir mr. attorney mr. chairman no report this has got to be something wrong here well thank you very much Mary amazing and putting together what must have been 600 pages to get us through this and all the hard work from the staff that brought us to a conclusion with Project Goalpost. Thank you very much. With that, we have a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tucker? Second. Second from Mr. Connell, discussion? Thank you, gentlemen. Let's move to a vote. All those in favor? And it's unanimous. Mary, we are adjourned.