Full meeting transcript - August 10, 2021

» test test we're up okay it's a great day in kershaw county all america county we're gonna had a momentous summer with 500 new jobs added to the county musc has now bought our hospital which is assuring us of great hospital care in the future this weekend we opened the revolutionary war building as a gateway to victory in the revolutionary war that was won right here in this town and in this county high school football has started last night if you all were there that was a great time and of course palmetto pride and mr russell brazel are going to have an event out at the veterans park we'll hear more about that later right russell i regret to tell you though we've had five deaths to covid and i would encourage you to follow the words of our governor that encourage vaccinations and other com

» mon sense courtesies and if you want to wear the mask and if you don't don't wear it but respect those that wish to do it we have a quorum of all members present with that we ask councilman snodgrass to lead us in the invocation and pledge please stand everybody with me father we thank you for this day and this for this opportunity to come and to gather, Lord, here in this beautiful community, this place we call Kershaw County. And Lord, I pray that you will just be with our discussions and be in all that we do, Lord, as we seek to do, Lord, the goodwill for all citizens here. Lord, our prayer is that, is an echo of Solomon, when Solomon asked you for wisdom. Of all the things that he could have asked for, he asked for wisdom. And so now today, in this moment, Lord, we ask for wisdom.

» Lord, We thank you for those who are gathered here in the many homes that are represented here, Lord, in this room. I pray that you will continue to bless them as they seek to do, Lord, their endeavors in their life's work and with their families. We love you. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all God's people said. Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. That was quite good there, Reverend Snodgrass. I think we're getting wound up for Sunday. Thank you very much.

» The agenda's on the board and we're going to depart slightly given that we have such a big crowd here and we got to get these young men back to studying for school. I know they're anxious to get home and start looking at the math books, right? But so I'm going to move it around a little bit and do the proclamations first the first is a proclamation recognizing chandler turner the 3a state champion wrestler uh the proclamation is on page four in your electronic book gentlemen and in tab a let me just read it and chandler we'll bring you up here a minute because we can't wait to congratulate you and your mom and dad too and anybody you brought with you whereas kershaw county recognizes the accomplishments of camden high school wrestler chandler turn on his outstanding season he went an astoni

» shing 3.31 to nothing on the 2020 21 season and is the region 6 3a champion whereas chandler has been named the region 6 3a wrestler of the year he was the 3a lower state champion and ultimately the state champion how about that Chandler was named the 3A Most Outstanding Wrestler, whereas Coach Brian Sisk notes of Turner's ability, and I quote, Chandler is an accomplished and outstanding wrestler, but an even better person outside of wrestling, and that is what makes him special, end quote.

» now therefore kershaw county council congratulates chandler turner of camden high school on an outstanding wrestling season which resulted in him being the 3a state champion in addition to other enormous accomplishments and kershaw county wishes him great success in his future endeavors so with that can we have a motion to approve mr snodgrass i so move this proclamation honoring chandler turner yeah second second now there's a whole bunch of people going second but i'll go to the oldest man first even uh mr tucker even though we have a state champion here to my left and mr connell without any discussion mr snodgrass sure thank you mr chair members of council i just want to say uh chandler congratulations man on your accomplishments this past year i love it when we can bring our young our y

» oung people into into chambers and just take time to recognize their accomplishments and because it really is a testament to our community because this isn't something that he just did but there's a lot of coaches parents that are that are behind this and the family that are behind this and it just shows how we are just this community that raises raises champions and raises kids and students to understand how what it is to work hard and to do their best and I know you're going on to college to to wrestle on the college level and that in itself is it is a feat and so just say sir congratulations and thank you for representing Kershaw County well and thank you for what being the best of Kershaw County thank you mr. Tucker thank you mr.

» chairman I just want to say chairman thank you for being who you are and who your parents raised and continue to work hard your endeavors will only get more complex as you get a little older and eventually when you get all worked out and begin to achieve things uh life begins to be good so congratulations and thank you for all your hard work and dedication to this community into this county okay ben you're going to wrestle him right up front right no i'm actually a little bit out of his weight class but i'd volunteer mr jones to have a few minutes chandler um where are you you're right there there you go yeah i couldn't see it um i've been where you are and we're so thankful that you're here tonight i'm glad we caught you before you're going out of town first congratulations to your parents

» wrestling parents are no joke you have to go in there and you stress out and between making weight taking them to practices it's no small feat congratulations and thanks to your coaches but primarily to you uh dan gable who's one of the most famous wrestlers ever said that once you've wrestled in life basically everything else is easy and that's not entirely true but it's partially true in large part because you spend uh spend most of your life in spandex in front front of large groups of people. So nothing gets to bother you. But another joke we had in wrestling was that you use just about everybody else's sport to warm up. No offense to present company. It's just a crazy sport. It's so hard. You have to force somebody to do something against their will.

» Hopefully some folks got to catch the Olympics and see one of the best U.S. performances that we've had ever. We've got folks who are 19 and 20 years old winning gold medals out there who are to compete for minnesota it's just unbelievable so congratulations to you keep your head on straight at college i wrestled in college too and uh you got to treat it like a job work hard and get your grades done too thank you mr chairman other comments i would like to say mr jones congratulations channel i'm not going to wrestle you those days are gone i know how good you are if you're a state champ we too are a wrestling family uh my son started in sixth grade wrestled up through the 10th grade ended up getting a concussion for six months and had to pull out then he got into music but we know how tough

» the sport is and uh much respect to you sir and i respect you and i'm very proud of you and we wish you the very best in your days coming other comments yeah i do yeah mr gardner yeah i think that uh individual awards are super team awards are great too because team teamwork all the things that it teaches but you know out on that wrestling mat it's you and so i think that uh that just shows the perseverance and the hard work that you put in and congratulations yeah other comments all right i guess that leaves me i i didn't uh i never made it on the mat i went to practice once and they cut the heat up to i think 102 and said crawl up underneath the mat and i said i think i'm done here so um congratulations for that and uh congratulations for for excelling in your sport and i can't add any of

» that but let's go ahead and go ahead and vote all those in favor signify and that's unanimous and chandler and your family could y'all come on up we'd like to get a picture real quick and uh ben why don't you stand next to him as two former champions okay all ready awesome and chandler if your family would like to go ahead and leave this is going to be a long night y'all could you certainly may thank you coach thank you everyone appreciate it now the next one is uh on the agenda and again if you can just advance that is item b which is at page five in your electronic books a proclamation honoring the american legion post 17 baseball team of 2021 on their achievement as state summer baseball finalists semi-finalists we have our american legion here we have the commander ted davis the former

» commander dave fuller and a former commander james raymond thank you for coming fellas we always appreciate our veterans and we appreciate you coming tonight especially with the team so i'm going to read the proclamation and we'll go through the same procedure whereas kershaw county is a great place to live work worship play and raise our families and whereas kershaw county has persevered in spite of tornadoes drought and now a pandemic to achieve the goals of our vision and nowhere is our determination more evident than our wonderful kershaw county commitment to excellence and a wholesome and fulfilling fulfilling development of great kids and great families whereas our proud veterans of kershaw county and the american legion and the vfw conducted youth academic and sports for our young ad

» ults over this past year and also for the playoffs for the ladies softball and jv baseball and whereas post 17 is offered annually summertime sports for boys and girls as legion ball for decades and of our finest athletes and led recently by commander dave fuller and commander ted davis and camden and managed by james raven and jeff davis who has always been around for over 10 years lead in and um led by coach stephen carmen assistant coach justin dorton and assistant coach randall vicroy the team consists of heath stokes ty dooley zach reynolds jamari harris banks munn brandon gibbs jacob jordan brent gibbs lane sexton zane cato owen macleveen mason williams owen dabs reed goff patrick daniels will morris and eddie katt names i heard just about every other night on the radio listen to y'al

» l as y'all were on travel ball whereas the post-17ers surmounted injury and tough opponents where they chalked up a hard-fought 16 and fourth season distinguishing themselves in gritty defense and timely dependable batting and our first run for state championship in over five years thanks man i really appreciate it now therefore be it resolved by the kershaw county council in a meeting duly assembled to applaud celebrate and recognize the excellence of our veterans and of the softball and baseball teams they support and be it further resolved to salute our wonderful athletes champions in this county and in their own right heroes for us and kershaw county citizens as state semi-finalists in the annual american legion summer baseball program can we have a motion to approve make a motion that

» we approve mr chairman mr tucker and a second second second second from mr connell uh very good any discussion mr chairman if you may um congratulations uh camden post 17 uh i've been there where you are um playing and with the sun um is playing but the most thing i want you to know out of your head coach there's two of us up here that actually coached him through his youth ball so any mistakes that you make in the future when you come back and play just know he made twice as many and his head was hard as a rock love you stephen thank you mr chairman uh the comments mr connell others yeah mr chairman i coach Randy Stokes, who y'all know, told me I wasn't good enough to play baseball and I probably ought to stick with wrestling. It's a very, very great skill sport. Congratulations to you.

» I know many of your parents, and I only mentioned that to say that they are proud of you in the way that others look up to you in the community. You've got a lot of youth that look up to you in what you do. So be aware of that as you go around, as you have chances, as you grow up and go off to college, make sure you come back, reach out, mentor, and do those kinds of things.

» Thank you, mr chairman yeah other comments this is high grass chairman uh guys congratulations uh you guys are a part of a really one of the great summer traditions and that is american legion ball um i didn't grow up here but i grew up down in orangeburg uh and they had a legion and and i've been able to uh be a part of some of y'all's games and so it just really is this great summer tradition that you guys are part of american legion ball and uh unfortunately i wasn't able to be a part of it i went out and they told me that uh i need to stick to a basketball court and and so I never made the cut but it's okay it's okay I'm good but you guys thank you so much for for all that you do I know that you don't just excel on the Legion field I know you guys are excel in your own high school in on

» those teams and coach graduations and thank you for just putting the effort in and giving us something to cheer for even in the summertime appreciate it thanks guys the comments if I'm Jones congratulations to each and every one of you justin i didn't see you sitting over or standing over there excuse me very proud of you you know and kato i mean these guys were that big where has time gone i mean i used they used to look up to talk to me i think i have to look up talk to them now but anyway congratulations guys job well done yeah other comments i'll say that i would play ball in jv until i was struck out so repeatedly by billy ammons right charlie ives remember billy that i just said to heck with it and picked up a tennis rack and went on played in college but uh it's a it's a sport that w

» e love in this county and we love that you men have accelerated excelled here thank you for that but let's be clear about thanking these volunteer coaches yes coaches where would be in it we would be in kershaw county with our volunteers whether that goes from fire to baseball coaches so thank you coaches uh other comments mr gardner yeah i just think that uh you know think about your accomplishment and though you didn't get the big prize think how many other teams are out there that would like to have been where you were so you know keep your heads up you had a great year and great accomplishment and something to build on for the future so congratulations others very good go ahead Russell first off I'd like to thank the gentleman at the American Legion for their part in in leading for thes

» e guys and fundraising and those sorts of things and just to congratulate all you guys i'm really feeling my age here looking at a couple of y'all banks and knowing you guys since y'all were little and uh i'm proud of you and i'm happy for you and uh just just keep doing what you're doing i like those uh those necklaces you're wearing too so congratulations guys other comments okay very good with that let's move to a vote all those in favor so signify and marry it's unanimous and it passes uh gentlemen if y'all would mind coming up here just real quick we'll do a quick photo okay Danny put us back on schedule we're gonna do public comments now and then we'll get right back into the agenda as we normally do we are still operating under electronic rules and no less so for the fact that covid

» still seems to find its way through our county but with that let me see how many people have signed up i have one electronic submission i must read what have you got there yes sir mr chairman members of council we have 12 individuals that have signed up um council may wish to extend the period to allow each individual to have three minutes that way it would be approximately 36 39 minutes in total as opposed to the 30 well we'll do that for three minutes but if if if there are groups of people that want to combine uh that might conserve a little bit of time for all of us normally we set aside 30 minutes for this but but uh but we'll we'll try to get them all in but we will stop at three minutes for each of you we'll get you all in and then so we go over first of all to the electronic one whi

» ch is from mr jess maddox uh quoting i want to commend the council for their recent economic development achievements negotiated in secret and only revealed by your employees after the deals are done and ready for final approval quoting again i want to commend all of you for exchanging short-term political gains for real long-term liabilities such as infrastructure and roads sewer schools to mention a few liabilities not provided uh quoting again i would like to commend the council for your long-term central planning of our society as prescribed and directed by the council of governments uh quoting again thank you for your commitment to partner with big business at expense and exclusion of medium and small businesses alike who will pay for the aforementioned liabilities and quoting again wi

» thout your commitment to central planning and big business giveaways we'd all certainly perish and quoting again i'll leave each of you with this quote by one of your own and quoting from mr ronald reagan the most terrifying words in the english language are i'm here from the government i'm here to help and that is from mr maddox mary if you record that thank you very much so with that we'll move to the public hearings we'll call you forward uh there will be no q a and uh and if there's public outbreaks and things of that nature i'm gonna give it a short warning but if you then don't do that we'll clear the room these are for the decorum must be maintained for the act and the business of government here and kindly keep your comments uh within the courtesy that we expect among citizens condu

» cting serious business on behalf of our citizens with that mr morgan go right ahead yes sir mr chairman members council the first individual to sign up is ina fort miss mrs say again the last name fort f-o-r-t ms ford thank you today at my husband's request my great uncle was um asia kershaw i'm a direct descendant of joseph kershaw my grandmother was elise lee from lee county and i have extended family in both kershaw and lee counties i spent most of my childhood summers in bishopville with my grandparents on their dirt poor cotton farm so we are not farmers my husband and our both educators both of our sons are educators tom retired after 30 years with dss as a child abuse investigator speaking for children who could not speak for themselves and i own a montessori school in columbia which

» is 45 years old this month we're decent hard-working people with ties to this community that go back 250 years my husband's health is poor he suffered a loss of a kidney during the pandemic due to a misdiagnosis by a surgeon this has greatly reduced his life expectancy since they're now issues with the remaining kidney which is what's prompted the sale of this property or what we hope to be the sale of this property we always knew the elgin farm would be our retirement but delayed selling until now due to an emotional attachment by family members for the land my husband's purpose here is to stable our families financially while he's still able to even though our family has owned this property for nearly a century your county staff has a report and recommends b2 zoning b2 zoning is contiguou

» s to our property on three sides north west and south as well as across the highway there are nine parcels on b2 next to our property south of fort jackson road i have a letter here from scdot at the committee hearing an individual from the neighborhood stated that highway 12 was already at capacity this is not true scdot's traffic study shows 2 900 cars per day on highway 12 which is way below capacity the same individual stated at the hearing that dobby mill school is already full this is also untrue we have spoken to miss virginia cato with kershaw county school district who said she would be willing to speak to each one of you individually if you would call her and tell you that dobby mill is absolutely not full the current zoning of rd2 is no longer really appropriate for this property

» it would allow us to put in a chicken farm a hog farm hunt clothes a sewer sanitation system and other things that are not really suitable for this area that the neighbors would probably not like. R10 zoning is already on Kennedy Road with houses already built. This property was given R10 zoning and it was not contiguous to anything. Fort Jackson Road is planned for future economic development. A large parcel east of Dopey Mills School is zoned general development. Love Travel Center is already there. An auto dealership is being planned. All of that being said, we fit perfectly with your plan.

» Think about how you would feel in our shoes dependent on the sale of the property that we love for the financial security of our children and grandchildren who would be damaged for generations if we're not allowed to join our b2 contiguous neighbors this is your plan we fit your plan and I have asked because I'm not really familiar with all the zoning legalese and reading of if you ask me to read your SAT scores I'm the right person but when it comes to trying to read this stuff I can't and I I'm dyslexic and I can't read a map, so I have asked Kathleen McDaniel, who is an environmental attorney, to speak. Ma'am, we're now approaching three minutes, and so we'll have to move on. In fact, if you can wrap this up. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.

» What we can do, I would suggest, is that we are going to address this issue as item number seven later on, and we can perhaps ask Ms. Fort to come back up. So with that, come back up during later in the agenda, please, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. uh mr morgan please want to go ahead yes sir mr chairman the next individual has signed up to speak is kathleen mcdaniel all right ms mcdaniel thank you mr chairman and i'm happy to come back up when this matter is actually under consideration by the council as well but in the time that we do have the document that ms ford was talking about was an email from dot showing the traffic counts and i'm happy to pass it i believe she has copies of this for everyone if i can if you'll give it to the clerk please thank you um just to b

» e clear the item that we're discussing in these uh comments from me and miss fort are item seven on your agenda tonight it was the requested rezoning the application for rezoning of 130 acres from rd2 to b2 and the point that i wanted i know i only had three minutes so I'll make this quick what I wanted to point out to the council is the applicability of your future land use plan so in your packet your agenda packet you have the Planning Commission staff recommendation that this be it that the rezoning be approved and in conjunction with that recommendation they put in a lot of information and specifically they on page 7 of 16 of their recommendation their staff report you have a copy of the future land use map of how they are planning for land use to be in the future there are two sort of

» similar but not similar land uses that are anticipated the first is residential development and the second is rural resource development or rural residential development as it's shown i think that might be a mistake on the legend um our property would fall into the area that is shown in yellow you can see that it's circled there which is residential development and that future land use is slated for all types of densities residential use of all types of densities and types and associated non-residential uses that support that residential development. What the zoning allows now is really just single-family houses on one-acre lots under R.D. 2. That is not consistent with allowing development in any type of density and of any type.

» If this were in the rural resource development, which is shown in green, then this current zoning might be consistent with that future land use that is where low density residential is planned to be this yellow area is where there's plans for different types of residential not just that low density residential so the future land use is consistent with the b2 which permits higher residential density than the current rd2 in addition as miss Fort pointed out ma'am can you wrap it up yes the roads are not at capacity so this will not have a negative impact on the traffic in the area and also the schools are not at capacity so there should not be a concern about the development of this area in terms of impact on the school so in summary we request that you approve the rezoning of this parcel 130

» acres from rd2 to b2 thank you so much miss mcdaniel uh mr morgan yes sir the next individual signed up mr thomas fort yeah mr fort thank you mr fort and we'll probably ask you to stick around as we get into the issue a little later on in item number seven uh mr morgan yes sir next individual mr dan beaver mr beaver please sir i appreciate the time just have a quick thing i'm not familiar with the program that we have going on but it's called the seagull and my concern is i'm a small business owner here in kershaw county and i'm concerned on the ability for us not to understand what this seagull thing is i hear that they're giving a parcel away or a building etc and my understanding is is what what's that going to do to us small business owners in the area if they put something like this in

» in my business as you all know i own the beavers den out at lake watery and how's that going to affect me you know what's that going to take away from me as a kershaw business owner if they build this big complex or whatever they're doing we just don't know enough information so i'm here just to represent a small business owner and i'm concerned i've only been in business a year and a half i started the day at covid opened up at 1 30 got close it for you i'm trying to survive and these things just concern me and that's why i'm here tonight so i would just like to understand more about it appreciate it thank you mr beaver i appreciate it uh mr morgan yes sir the next individual is mr tim webb mr webb that's what i'm tim webb i try to make my comments brief so we can get everybody in but i ju

» st have a few talking points i'd like to share along with dan beaver i still have some concerns about what's going on with this Project Seagull, most of which I don't get much information on because the information is not there, but I'll go ahead with my points. If the council believes that Project Seagull is worthwhile for the county and in the best interest of its constituents, why are the members discussing this issue in private session and depriving voters of public discussion of the merits? What's with this secrecy that's going on? Because I just heard about it and apparently it's been discussed for a while.

» If the goal is truly to fill vacant buildings in both area businesses and jobs, why not broaden tax incentives to existing local businesses struggling to remain in business during the challenges of COVID during the last year and a half? Why should local government be allowed to come in and pick commercial winners and losers in committee by placing his hand on the economic scale? Just don't get it.

» And I know there's a five to one vote for this seagull program i just can't in my understand how the vote can be five to one for something like this it's just incredible there needs to be much more public transparency to your discussion making process than you're demonstrating here with project seagull and maybe the project seagull has a lot of advantages but how am i to know how are the small businesses supposed to know when all the information that I've seen is in a private executive session. Thank you. I see my time. Thank you, Mr. Webb. Mr. Morgan, please, sir. Yes, sir. The next individual is Mr. Brian Beville. Can I say again the last name? Beville, B-E-V-I-L-L-E. Excuse me. All right. I thought that's who it was. I'm not a small business owner, but I'm here to support you.

» I've been in Kershaw County 20, no, I've been in South Carolina 28 years. This is the Seagull Project. You're all about across a Rubicon, you shouldn't. When I read about this, I did a little research. I says, we have a little microcosm of Beltway down here. Government getting involved with private business. This is commercial, not the industrial businesses you get involved with. That's a different story. I have some reservations about that, too. This is a commercial movement you're going to do that's going to affect these local businesses here. It's going to affect me, but I don't have a business. It's going to affect me because you're all going to do things that you shouldn't do to state, get involved with businesses. As I understand this, they're going to get tax breaks.

» That's my understanding. The basic of this is tax breaks for this company. You shouldn't do that. You just must not cross that Rubicon between state and private business. Get involved with it because you're going to hurt these people, and it's just not right. That's it. Thank you, Mr. Beville. Thank you. Mr. Morgan. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Next, we have Ms. Ruth White. Mrs. White. Hey, good evening. I want to thank y'all for doing the job that y'all do, and I know it's hard. But my name's Ruth White, and I've been doing a little bit of research, and obviously, maybe I don't have all the right information, but once again, this is about the Seagull Project.

» What I've understood it to be, we've got about 6,500 people in Kershaw County, and way over half of those people are county taxpayers and I'm one of them I'm not a business person I'm just a county taxpayer from district five now I don't understand also why my elective county council members are being involved in this business I'm still too short there you go all right you hear me now yeah we got you now Ruth thank you thank you okay anyway I don't agree I just don't understand why we're agreeing with this exemption why we're getting involved with business as County versus business for these corporations I just don't understand this maybe I hadn't got the right information but I feel like it will directly affect our small mom-and-pop business and the place is the place that you're looking a

» t I mean I would love to see it filled but at the same time it's within walking distance of an awful lot of small mom and pop businesses and it will affect every one of them you say it's going to improve jobs or give some jobs it's also going to take jobs away and and i've talked to some of the small business i'm there around beaver creek none of us seem to understand this and we had three restaurants open during this pandemic and they are struggling every single day even now that there are no mandates about how many people can be in the restaurant to eat or anything like that but they are struggling with just getting supplies keeping people employed and and you're gonna help a corporation come in and you're gonna help them compete against these small you know mom and pop people i just don'

» t think that's the thing that we need to do and um i would appreciate if y'all would really reconsider that um i also wonder are you gonna um be willing to give the existing mom and pops tax breaks since you're giving a corporation tax breaks you know if they really want to work here and they think they can make money i think they should buy it like these all these people did they bought their businesses they set up their businesses i don't think we need to help them out i mean it'd be different if it was a big industry a big distribution system or center or whatever But in your mission statement, which maybe y'all might want to review it, but the last sentence says that y'all will provide the leadership to ensure that the citizens participate in the governments of their county as it works

» to deliver the highest quality services in cost-effective manner. And I just don't think this is going to be cost-effective because I feel like you're gonna kill as many jobs as you think you're bringing in and maybe i'm wrong but i just don't think so i know my taxes have gone up for three years in a row all these other peoples have gone up for three years in a row you give them a break my taxes are going to be affected again and it's just you know the comment you get is oh you live on the lake we can't help you out thank you please vote this no or send it out to the people and let them have a chance to vote let us all really know exactly what you're doing that would be very helpful thank you thank you ma'am uh mr morgan next we have mr chairman cook young uh mr young please sir just forgi

» ve me an opportunity to speak um identify with what everybody's saying about the tax break what what i don't understand so much of is this contempt prior to investigation that's a saying that i've got from a group that i am a member of that basically means against it before you find the information every bit of information that i have received on this has come from our camden chronicle as you bring the mic over in front of you so everybody i'm sorry facebook land can every bit of information that i have received on this seagull project has come from the um camden chronicle and it was pretty explicit to me that you've got somebody that wants to basically do something that was done back in the late 1800s or early 1900s, which was the grand hotel era here.

» They want to replicate that, which brings tourists, which brings small business, business. So it just doesn't look like a bad thing to me. I've born and bred here, been here 54 years, and I'm delighted to see that somebody wants to come spend $13 million in our community. That says something about the people and businesses that are already here that they're willing to partner with not take away from thank you for your time thank you sir uh mr morgan please yes sir mr chairman next we have jesse payne uh mr payne hey jesse thank you mr chairman and councilman uh i'll keep it brief i think everybody understands uh i guess people's feelings that's in the community we took a kind of a census on this me myself personally probably about 100 people and 100 of the people is actually voting the exac

» t same way i'm asking as a chairman of the republican party and you as representatives of this community to listen to the people maybe maybe there's a different way of going about this i don't know um of course we don't know we don't have all the information you got you got some legalities that's going on that you can't say what's going on we understand that however don't make any decisions until you can actually give it to the people and allow them to be part of your decision making because that's all we're asking you to do let the community be part of your decision making and not be it on your own thank you thank you sir thank you very much mr morgan yes mr chairman next we have holly hayes miss hayes good evening i'm holly hayes i lived in kershaw county since high school a little over 4

» 0 years plus now i love this little town i love the people. I love not being able to get out of Walmart as quickly as I'd like. And I would kind of like to keep it that way. We're not a Columbia. We're not a Greenville. I'd kind of like to keep it that way too. I remember when it was a BC Moore building, I shopped there. I would love to see a motel, boutique, restaurant, bar come in there. I think that would be a good thing. I think the problem we as the people have is we don't know enough about this. My understanding is they're going to receive some tax breaks that the struggling businesses that have survived COVID are not going to receive. And I think it's a slippery slope when we start giving tax breaks to commercial businesses.

» Industry, I can understand, that brings jobs in to the county, and so does commercial. But most of the time when we bring an industry in, it's not competing with a previous industry that we have here, and it does bring jobs into the county, but we have almost 70% of our citizens going out of the county to work every day.

» I'm not so sure that a restaurant hotel that we seem to have plenty of now should be receiving tax breaks that maybe our small mom and pops businesses need and deserve since they're continuing to strive to serve our community um i also live on lake water you know i appreciate dan beaver and his family coming and opening this business and we live right across the water and i have seen the struggles we've lived there for 10 years and we've seen one of the restaurants change hands three times and we're not sure if they're going to survive i hope they do but if we give this commercial business a tax break let's consider giving the other folks a tax break too okay thank you thank very much ma'am uh mr morgan yes next we have mr tom webb uh mr webb please sir the u.s constitution has a phrase in

» there general welfare and i guess it could be misunderstood just what that is but that's not singling somebody out for special welfare that's different so building a bridge somewhere that everybody can use everybody can use it that's general welfare this thing of giving tax breaks might be considered special welfare not very american in my humble opinion and i I like the term the lady had me use, slippery slope, and also throw in a term, it's a cheese in the trap, as we go after improvements, whatever that means, money mainly. The American government is supposed to look out for American freedom, and we have a First Amendment and a Bill of Rights for that purpose.

» First Amendment offers a separation of church and state so that government doesn't impose religion on us, and religion doesn't impose government on us, and I wish we had something in the Constitution similar to that, that was separation of government and business. Our founding fathers, I don't think, they didn't have an example of fascism back in those days. They were very bright people and had a lot of experience, but they didn't know what fascism was. And we have seen it in recent times where government promotes business and business promotes government and gradually us little people are at their mercy. And I won't mention how many times that has happened.

» I probably don't even know how many times that has happened, but it seems like it's a gradual thing here and now, where in other places and times it was very quick. So the people here today speaking about this project are having to contend with a growing government and the business it's entangled with, and you could reach a point where you couldn't tell whether you're dealing with the government or whether you're dealing with the business. They're so entangled. And that is fascism. We've had bad experiences with that. So the people here today are to redress perceived grievances. And I'm glad to see them here doing that. I wish they'd been doing it sooner and we'd have to do more of it.

» And I want to bring up that proverbial frog, you know, where the frog is in warm water and you heat it a little bit and he still doesn't jump out. It's only a little bit warmer and it's a little bit warmer until he's cooked in it. But I think that we will eventually realize that it's not water we've been cooked in its fascism thank you mr webb mr morgan yes sir finally mr chairman we have sheriff lee bone uh sheriff great to see you sir i'm gonna be changing the subject a little bit here so i intentionally asked to go last so i didn't interfere with the citizens voices uh for tonight but i am changing the subject a little bit here i think it's something very relevant talked to a lot of citizens that didn't know it was coming but in five days we have the uh open carry with the training act s

» tarts on august 15th the public needs to be aware of most citizens i talk to that don't know about it you know i get the same response i don't watch the news anymore there's too much trash on the news so i quit watching it so they miss out on some of the things that that we need to get out there so i want to remind all of our citizens that the people who will be carrying openly are the same concealed weapon permit holders that are carrying concealed now the only difference is going to be that they'll have the option to carry open there's no need to panic they've already been trained vetted background checks done uh law enforcement's been trained up on it as well as the cwp holders i don't foresee problems other than people panicking because they don't know what's coming that's why i'm here

» tonight to remind everybody august 15th will be the time uh don't panic we got everything under control thank you very helpful sheriff and always great to see you sir uh mr morgan mr chairman that ends the individuals who signed up for public comment thank you very much and that concludes public comments thanks to everybody for being respectful of the time of everyone else we sure had a lot to talk about tonight and very helpful with that we go to the first item which is the adoption of the agenda can we have a motion to approve the agenda it's on the board make a motion to approve the agenda mr chairman mr tucker a second second second for mr gardner any discussion okay seeing there is no discussion oh yes sir i'm sorry oh i'm over here asleep i'd like to um like to make the amendment to t

» he agenda um mr chairman if i may sure um if it's okay i would like to make an amendment that we table item number on my page here yes it's number one under new business with the lugov fire district okay can we have a second on that second uh who's that that's you jimmy yep all right any discussion there what was the reason yes sir i would be more than happy to to explain um we um are looking at other um information that is needed from the administration um due to not being able to have that and to um get everything together for today we need to read this uh put it on the agenda for next meeting uh miss mary our next meeting in september um also we were looking at the volunteers uh since that's mr jones's issue jimmy how do you comment on that please i support what mr tucker just said uh on

» e thing i'm happy about is that we're not going to go ahead and put something on the table that we don't have the numbers in front of us okay other comments all right i think it's agreeable let's go ahead and vote all those in favor of the agenda as amended uh signify by raising your hand and now can we have a motion to approve the amended agenda make motion we approve them in an agenda mr.

» Tucker and then a second Jimmy was at your hand well I have an amendment as well okay well let's get this stick with this one I saw okay well if you've got another I would like to make the motion to amend and delete item 4 and item 5 1 item 4 second reading of an ordinance of Kershaw county council authorizing the execution of an infrastructure credit agreement by in between kershaw county and others and then number five second reading of an ordinance authorizing the development of a jointly owned and operated industrial park project seagull we we just don't let's we'll get to discussion a minute can we have a second to what mr jones said mr jones amendment was to delete items four and five regarding project seagull any second there okay the motion fails i'll i'll speak about it when we vot

» e on the uh that'll be fine thank you so we move on now to vote on the agenda as amended which i remind you is a deletion of item number one under new business tab l page 114. so with that we uh we have a motion to approve the agenda as amended yes sir we did uh mr tucker yes sir and then a second for mr gardner uh jimmy you could discuss now if you want or we can go ahead all right with that we move to a vote you're gonna let me discuss what i was trying to amend i'll be glad to yeah yeah sure okay well okay this is this is interesting i appreciate it would you put that sign down please thank you very much the reason i uh asked for our number four number five to be deleted is because we just don't have the numbers in front of us it kind of falls in line with why we put the other issue on t

» he table for a couple of weeks so we could come back with the numbers we i think we all just agreed that if we don't have the numbers we don't need to be voting on it well here we don't have the numbers and we're voting on it as far as project seagulls concerned four and five we just don't have any information okay but yet we're doing second reading and you know this is the first time i think i ever remember i don't ever i don't ever remember a second reading being almost 90 like entitled only on the first stream mr um carpenter have you ever seen this done yes there have been times when we haven't had numbers we've never we've we've never done it here yes well okay well we have never had a second reading that was almost like tied along with it was third reading before we knew about prestig

» e right and the details of that exactly correct but we but we knew more about the details there are no details on this and what we've got if i may danny would you pop that up for me right quickly what we have here on the ordinance that we're going to be reading later on is called the ordinance authorized execution and delivery of an infrastructure credit agreement what are the credit agreements you know that there's nothing in there and if you go to where are you at oh there you are if you go to this here it says the county council hereby agrees to authorize insurance or ssrc's equal to x amount x percent well what what is x percent and it also says first annual payment in lieu of tax made by the company x i guess j percent for the second annual payment x percent for the third annual paymen

» t that's three years x percent for the fourth fifth and sixth so bottom line is we're voting on something we know nothing about how much money is going to take us i just don't see how we can do that okay very good with that i call the question and we move to a vote all those in favor the agenda as we signify yeah yeah let's you know I mean I think this educational opportunity yeah the public deserves to know I would also be very concerned if which you just use your laser pointer on mr.

» Jones was a full-throated and final vote tonight but it's not things are still being negotiated and the idea is if the public and I want the public to know all the details that every single council member up here knows that's being negotiated contractually but we're bound to be quiet until i believe third reading when we have all the information we need when everything can be shared and there will be comments um those terms are still being negotiated like many other contracts that we've engaged in in the past so if it's being negotiated it's an unknown variable at this point yeah and and there's still due diligence there's been items that have been requested of the uh benefactors of project seagull that we haven't received yet i've been hounding we're not hounding but uh let's just say aski

» ng asking the administrator as kindly as i can to let's make sure we get all the information we need so that we can make an informed decision so nobody up here wants to make a decision in a vacuum we want to figure out it's it's a it's a new beast to consider so we want to make sure we have all the data points and you're right they're not all there yet but that's why we have three readings mr chairman let me just i'm gonna pass it on the baton and we'll come back jimmy and i appreciate there are 32 pages of documents in this in this enclosure that are open to the public to read 32 pages on seagull the item that's missing is the final negotiation numbers and those are still being negotiated and for good reason they're not available so with that mr snodgrass go ahead thank you mr chair and i'

» ll just echo what's already been said this is why the this is why local government process works as way there's three readings and a lot of times when an entity wants to come into an agreement they're not ready to have all these details divulged out but they need to know there's some willingness on our part to even to even you know want to want to play ball and so you have these first second readings that kind of gives them an indication that hey yeah well we'll talk and to my knowledge just to echo what Ben has said there has been been some discussion and we're just waiting on the final the final of that and so this is why you have first second third reading because it gives you guys this it gives all this is the chance to to understand that you've had to be three months because we're down

» to one meeting a month now so three months to ask questions to meet with representatives and say hey tell me more about this I don't understand this but I met with a group of constituents today had a great conversation very very good good conversation and so on third reading uh we'll have the details and i believe mr carpenter uh mr morgan that'll include a public hearing is that correct and so that public hearing it'll actually be different from the public comment the public hearing will actually be a chance for there to be some sort of q a uh on some level i believe uh okay but public hearing allows you to um at least speak to directly to to this and that'll be after you know and understand or after we know the kind of the final details so you know again mr jones this i mean the prestige

» thing i mean we didn't no similarity whatsoever hang on that mr snodgrass i i i would i would disagree with that and and honestly you're we know more we understand where this is in the in the in the in the um system then you're letting on i don't you know i don't so i'm not saying i'm for it because i'm just saying this is the process i'm going to close this with mr jones thank you mr chairman let him head the final world this we're all missing one big difference here that's industrial this is commercial this is private this is competing against private industries private too come on industrial doesn't compete against each other in the state of south carolina much but commercial would be competing against each and every person that owns a business okay thank you very much we're opening the

» pandora's box all right with that we uh i call the question and we move to vote all those in favor of the agenda as amended signify by raising your hands and it's unanimous mary and the agenda is approved as amended and we move now to public hearings uh the first is a public hearing regards to an ordinance authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds mr carpenter can you do the honors here please mr chair members of council tonight we'll have in front of you for third reading an ordinance that authorized the issuance of a general obligation bond not to exceed seven million dollars for the purpose of building and constructing and equipping various capital facilities specifically ems station a fire station and a public works facility okay with that i open the public hearing mr morgan

» did anybody sign up to come forward mr chairman nobody signed up to speak okay i'll wait a decent interval no one's coming forward i'll close the public hearing and item number two is a public hearing regards to an ordinance modifying the installment plan of finance again mr carpenter uh would you introduce the topic mr chair members of council we have tonight also for third reading an ordinance that modifies the installment plan of finance the county had when the bonds were defeased as part of the budget process we issued a new bond at a lower interest rate for the remainder debt which resulted in a significant lowering of the interest payments that the county will be paying on an annual basis this is that bond okay and i open the hearing and again mr morgan anyone sign up mr chairman nobo

» dy signed okay very good and with that i will close the hearing and we move to the next item which is approval of minutes page six in your book tab c from the 13 july meeting and can we have a motion to approve those minutes? - Make motion that we approve the minutes from July 13th meeting and call meeting on July 20th. - Well, we'll just do one at a time. - Okay, well, we'll do the 13th. - Okay, now second, please, after Mr. Tucker. - Second. - Mr. Gardner, discussion? - Mr. Chair, point of order. - Yes. - I'll be abstaining as I wasn't present at the 13th meeting. - Okay, you were not present. Very good. With that, we move to a vote. All those in favor with Mr. Snodgrass abstaining, signify by raising your hand.

» and it's unanimous mary we move to the item number second item at tab d page 10 uh the 20 july call meeting uh with that uh can i have a motion to approve so move a second please second from mr tucker uh any discussion i think we're all present for that one uh with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and again mary it's unanimous and you did a great job on those minutes we move now to an administrative update mr carpenter mr members of council um i was asked to just update where we are in the community um with our health care uh is specifically related to covet as well as other issues i do believe that we have our executive manager for our new hospital in the community in the room um sue are you here all - All right, Ms.

» Sue Sugar, if you'd come on up and bring us up to speed on COVID. And congratulations again on your success in transitioning between two major owners of the hospital and without even a break in service. Thank you, ma'am. - Thank you. - Please. - Thank you. Well, if I'm here, you know it's not good. They didn't call me to talk about how great things were the last couple of months, but we are up in infections. We're up in hospitalizations, we're up in ICU admissions, we're up in ventilators and use. There is one thing that is going down and it is the age of the hospitalized patients. Our youngest with COVID, 21 years old, and our average age, a mere 57 years old. So of those admitted locally, 86% not vaccinated. and I'm speaking of our recent admissions, July through yesterday.

» So yesterday, or no, excuse me, on 8/5, MUSC shared an article, and I'll just highlight a few things for you. The Delta variant, as you know, is highly transmissible. 92% of new cases within MUSC identified as Delta. And here's very disconcerting, the most common symptoms we're seeing, runny nose and headache, only 40 percent of people presenting with fever, making it much, much more difficult to distinguish when you're trying to control the spread of something so highly transmissible. I did want to share a couple of good things about MUSC already in our brand-new ownership. There is now one drug that can be infused for inpatients with COVID. That is on a national shortage, and we ran out last week. MUSC helped us get 12 vials.

» I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that today we're out again, and MUSC could not help us. So that is where we are as a county and as a state and as a country. I will also tell you that we reached out because you all probably have noticed that COVID testing sites have really diminished. COVID testing demand had really dropped over the last several months, and so a lot of the sites closed. But we have seen a great demand for that, and unfortunately, we have seen people presenting to the emergency department of our hospital for no other reason than to get a COVID test due to exposure or somewhat unknown exposure. And that is a terrible use of the emergency department.

» So we reached out to MUSC and next week on our campus, you should see an incredibly innovative partnership between MUSC and Clemson called a Porta Suave. We will have two units to be able to offer COVID testing right there and hopefully meet a need and allow yet another access point for COVID testing.

» so we're very thankful for that partnership in in cooperation with MUSC the last thing I'll say is just a huge thanks to you as a council I saw almost every one of you last Monday at the celebration and I say to our leaders all the time presence is important I appreciate your presence I appreciate your support for great strong local health care thank you thank you ma'am can you take a few questions um mr vice chair anybody thank you mr tucker um i just want to confirm you said these um testing sites are going to start this week next week next week okay and they're going to be underneath a tent or they actually have to go to the hospital reason i'm asking because with the numbers ticking up you're having a lot of employers saying you can't come back unless you get a negative test and you're

» right they're going to the er they're going over to urgent care and they're trying to get tests so they can just go back to work if they've been exposed or thought they might have had symptoms of it and it's just nowhere to go so i want to make sure i'm putting out the correct information so people can know where to go yes um the port of swabby is like a five by five uh self-contained um like a portable that uh we're really getting one or two next week and we'll advertise on our social media and let people know um what times we will have it staffed and such but it will be another place to get a test now there are several places in the county and and certainly the city of camden i did a search a couple weekends ago so our health departments open monday through friday dhex local they they tes

» t um the urgent care hearing camden test cvs test and such but we know that demand is up and like i said we're seeing it in the emergency department and this is just another option okay one more question on that is that uh is that a spit is that a swab up the nose down the throat i mean how does this work because i have no clue what you're talking about i don't even use a a port-a-john anymore unless i have to so um you know i i don't know uh honestly i assume it's going to be um uh nasopharyngeal which means in the nose but honestly um it's definitely not um the sputum test is uh one of the swabs thank you i've got a question go ahead mr brazel so if if somebody's not vaccinated and now they're interested in becoming vaccinated do you suggest getting a test prior to um just to make sure yo

» u you haven't been exposed lately um well honestly i'm not clinical so i've not i don't like to be the one to give out medical advice, but I will just say that the most protected subgroup that we're seeing is the group of people who have both had COVID and then been vaccinated post-COVID. I don't believe there's any indication or reason to be tested before receiving the vaccine, but certainly those who run the vaccine can confirm that. - Okay, thank you. - Other questions? Yeah, Tammy. - I hate to dip again. And I want to say, Ms. Hsu, I deal with a lot of folks in Lancaster County and they have just, you know, when this was going down, just asking questions about MUSC Lancaster, they have been raving about what MUSC has done for their county hospital and their community up there.

» So I'm looking for a lot of great things with the new ownership and new partnership. And I appreciate you sharing with this council on all the good things that are happening now and that will continue. And I do apologize for not making it Monday, but I was down in the sweat factory getting heated up because the air conditioning was broke at the conference. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Other comments? I will say I got a call from our coroner. We've had five deaths in the last seven days. Every single one of them was less than 57 years old. One was 21. And none of them had been vaccinated. So our governor has encouraged us all to get vaccinated.

» it i know there's a lot of people who think that's political but i believe it's to be true and everyone from the former to the current president on down and every general and admiral in the army and the air force and the navy has gotten a shot um let's try to show the way masks are optional and out of courtesy to one another social distancing and things of that nature still apply this is still a christian county that believes in and respecting the rights of others but i would ask you to listen to sue what she just said the symptoms are fundamentally different 40 runny nose and headaches and not the fever and all that other stuff we've been told and be out there so be well we love you every one of you with or without the shots and let's try to make it through this together like kershaw count

» y does sue thank you very very much it's great to see you and congratulations thank you kevin thank you mr carpenter does that conclude your update i just just had one other little bit of information to share with the council to kind of maybe put an exclamation point. About a month ago, when this variant first started showing up over here, Kershaw County was averaging 7.7 cases a week. I'm sorry, a day. 7.7 cases a day a month ago. One week later, we were up to 11 cases a day. A week later, 27.8 cases a day. Last week, we were up to 39.4 cases a day. This week, we're at 51 cases a day. The day before yesterday, We had 84 cases, the highest we had all year. Even back in January, we never had that many in a single day. So the growth of it is exponential.

» It is a very steep curve going up when we're having 84 cases in a single day. So that's just something to be aware of. That is astonishing and disconcerting. Thank you, sir. And I hope we all can show that we're veterans of the first 19 months of this disease. And now let's act like we know what we're doing. we've done this before all right with that i go down to the next item on the agenda a series of ordinance item number one is the third reading of an ordinance of a general obligation bond it's on page 12.

» it occupies about 20 pages it's at tab e and it's up on the screen mr carpenter can you bring it in please chair members of council um in front of you for third reading tonight it's ordinance that authorized the issuance of general obligation bonds not to exceed seven million dollars for the purpose of acquiring constructing and equipping several capital projects in the county we previously had a public hearing on this very good can we have a motion to approve make a motion that we approve mr chairman uh mr mr tucker uh can we have a second second second for mr gardner discussion yes uh let me first see if uh i yield yield okay mr jones go ahead sir thank you mr chairman members of county council um as many of you know on the first and second reading i voted no on this because i felt like i

» t was kind of like a pea and shell game i presented an opportunity to county council which it was rejected and that's their right uh where we would not have to reorganize the bonds or pay off bonds and reissue the bonds we could have paid them off and probably had some money in the bank anyway that was rejected so i rejected the first two readings however i've been looking at this and mr carbon if i'm not mistaken because we have still got to pay for the bonds pay the interest on the bonds correct but with this the interest of the bonds will be lower correct okay i do like that that's not my choice but it is better than where we were and so i will be supporting this tonight thank you other comments uh mr snodgrass jordan thank you mr chair yeah and i'll just just kind of echo some things th

» at mr jones have said and then and also point out this uh one and two are really are these are stories story lines from the budget that haven't been told uh with we just saw sue sugar of the hospital with with the transfer of the hospital from a for-profit uh life point to musc there was a significant fee low a fee in lieu of taxes that we lost that that funded our ems and so as a result of restructuring debt paying some debt off getting a lower interest rate that freed up debt millage which we were able to transfer over to ems as well as we're going to be able to build uh important infrastructure uh on my side of the county and not that that's important but i just want to point out sometimes people like to want to know where things are going but infrastructure public works building uh casa

» fire station uh just just to name a few things and uh you know honestly i don't you know i think the lead has been buried with this this is this is a story your your your council and more importantly your staff worked hard to ensure that when you call 9-1-1 there's an ambulance that's going to show up at your door and going to give you the best care uh despite uh six to seven hundred thousand dollars shortfall uh we were able to able to make it work so there's a there's a lot more in here uh than than just reading that so i just want to make sure that that lead doesn't get buried and that we point that out so thank you for your work other comments uh with that i would say amen this has been a significant work led by mr connell mr brazel mr gardner mr tucker and mr snodgrass that has rendere

» d a significant advantage to the county and i'm glad you can join us jimmy on this well i don't agree with everything on it that's fine and with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous on the third reading we go to item number two of third reading of an ordinance modifying the installment plan it's on page 33 tab f again a voluminous discussion mr carpenter open it up please mr chairman members council you have in front of you tonight for third reading an ordinance that modifies the existing debt of the county allows us to reissue debt at a much lower interest rate with that can we have a motion to approve make a motion that we approve mr chairman uh mr tucker second mr gardner discussion mr tucker you want to lead uh all right uh others yes

» uh mr jones this uh number two ordinance on third reading i feel the same as i did on number one not the best but i'm gonna go along with it because it's lower interest rates i did provide a much much much better plan than anybody up here did thank you thank you a lot of hard work went into it it did i put a lot of work into it yeah yeah uh right uh with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous mary great item number three is the third reading of an ordinance authorizing consumption of alcoholic beverages it's on page 40 and tab g we're into the third reading mr carpenter can you open it up please mr chairman members of council um you have in front of you tonight on third reading an ordinance that would allow kershaw county to issue special u

» se permits to groups to um be able to use alcoholic beverage at certain county facilities very good can we have a motion to approve so move uh mr garner a second i'll second it second from mr connell mr gardner do want to lead off yeah i think that our policies uh pretty much handle all with our sheriff has control over most of those places and uh the permit is uh 500 i believe is it 500 uh for you to use this uh and you know to bring in some of the things that we want to bring into some of our venues uh you know you have a choice to drink or not to drink but i think some of these things that we want to bring in that would be good for the county uh i think this uh is something we need most places do it and i think we'll miss out on some things if we don't do this uh not that i necessarily a

» gree with everything that's in there but uh i think for the purpose of our county that uh that it would be a good thing okay other comments yeah mr chairman yeah ben so um again personally i don't drink but i think it would be a great irony for kershaw county to say we're happy to accept tax revenue from businesses that sell alcohol and use it to spend on whatever projects we deem appropriate but not allow those same businesses to apply to have an event that might have alcohol there if it's a concert or otherwise so that seemed a little inconsistent to me and then also we love good music in kershaw county we love good concerts and those tend to have this element with them the parameters that have been laid out have your sheriff and law enforcement heavily involved they have to submit an app

» lication and pay a fee to the administration and they evaluated on a case-by-case basis so i feel like the controls are in place that uh that can make this work thank you mr chairman very good other comments they have to be insured as well yeah insurance is really quite uh quite thorough and i congratulate tommy morgan for the hard work you put into it there judge well done thank you uh other comments uh with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand uh mr tucker mr gardner mr burns mr brazel and Mr. Connell, those opposed, so signify Mr. Jones and Mr. Snodgrass, and it passes on third reading. With that, Mr. Carpenter, you can begin to receive applications.

» Item number four is a second reading of an ordinance authorizing the execution of infrastructure credit between South Carolina and Kershaw County Hospitality. It's at tab H, page 45. Mr. Carpenter, can you open it? Mr. Chairman, members of council, you have in front of you tonight a second reading of an ordinance. that would authorize the execution of an infrastructure credit between Kershaw County and the entity known as Project Segal. Very good. It's at page 45, and it goes on for 18 pages. Very good. Can we have a motion to approve? I make a motion that we approve, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tucker, a second. Second. From Mr. Gardner. Mr. Tucker, do you want to lead off? Yes, sir.

» I just want to say that I asked the folks that were speaking out in reference to this to bear with the process happy to talk to any of you personally afterwards before third reading which is going to be another month before this happens and and you have a as a customer snog rested earlier a public hearing but I think sometimes we get a little bit excited we don't quite have the full story on how things are going or working so long with that I volunteer myself to speak to uh whoever's willing to talk to me thank you uh second by mr garner i believe sir yeah i think that uh any any small business that would invest 10 million dollars and create 50 jobs that you would we would be happy to negotiate a b in lieu or tax abatement with you if uh any of the small businesses because that's the policy

» 10 million investment in 50 new jobs and that's what this one qualifies us and that's why we're considering it thank you i would have to ask you in the audience to if i can hear you up here with these old machine gun ears i know you're disrupting the listening ability of other people so kindly let's keep it down uh you finished tom yes sir all right other comments mr carnell the big number i think we have to be careful and make sure that doesn't you know just lure us in and say oh someone's willing to spend a whole bunch of money that's That's why I think we've got to get all the information to make a fully informed decision. But for context, I think it's useful. Kershaw County, this is the first time we've ever considered a policy related to commercial investment.

» We just formed it recently. And it basically has a $10 million investment threshold, certain number of jobs. But I think when you contrast that with the industry parameters, which is only a $2 million investment and a much smaller number of jobs, it makes you say, what could the benefit be for a 10 million dollar expenditure in kershaw county when we have as a standard at the industry level a two million dollar expenditure and then you're eligible for tax credits or setoffs um so again there's more to read that comment would apply for both four and five so i won't have to make it again on five um but that's all i have mr chairman thank you thank you other comments uh mr snodgrass yeah i'll just uh add you know there's a lot obviously we've already discussed didn't need a lot of details to b

» e had but I just would say for me what makes this you know worthy to to give a second reading and get more information is an understanding that when you look at a project like this and this it means no secret and you're in the paper this has to do with a project in Camden you know hotel and you know when I when I look at and talk to some businesses downtown they're like hey yeah foot traffic you're talking about foot traffic into a a guitar shop, foot traffic into a quilt shop, foot traffic into Steeplechase, Sam Kendall, you know, antique stores. And I think it's a part of a really a neat movement of tourism is not about, it's not about Charleston, it's not about, you know, these Nashville, these are big places, but tourism now is about these small towns.

» I know me and my family, we much prefer to find a really quaint small town in the South somewhere and stay at a hotel that's downtown or stay at a bed and breakfast and really explore that and support those mom and pops in those communities and, of course, as well as support the mom and pops here. And so I think it's worthy for us to keep digging in. One of my favorite presidents, Ronald Reagan, he had a talk about when it comes to economics, you may do for this person, but what you don't see is how it trickles down.

» What you don't see is all their boats in the harbor as the water the tide rises so does all the other boats and and so I think that's I think that's important to to to at least give consideration to and of course we got some great folks here from the lake and and I recognize a small business that are up there but but I also recognize that you know that's that's up for the lake and this is this could be downtown Camden and I think there's a distinct two different distinct markets as far as being able to reach out to people who are on the lake who live in that community uh as as as opposed to you know someone that's downtown uh obviously if this was if this was some big uh water part or some some big metroplex that wanted to come to the lake and that wanted to compete with our great uh busine

» ss up there and then sure this would be that that would be a kind of an apples to oranges type of conversation so you know just for me i'm i'm considering just looking at this again because just the basic economics of getting people in your door store doorsteps to buy your quilts to buy your guitars to buy your antiques and also the a tax and the sales tax element as well when they buy those things they pay sales tax when you get your property tax there's a little box that says lost credit and that is the sales tax that's how much sales tax that we made in the county and and you recoup that the more people that come to kershaw county and pay sales tax it lowers your the kershaw county citizen it lowers your property tax burden because all these people from out of kershaw county have been co

» ming in and passing their dollars around town and so i think there's some merit there to to give this one more reading and take a look at it thank you sir other comments yes uh mr jones mr browser go no please no no that's all right i've i've raised my hand four or five times nobody's noticed me yet wouldn't do to start now go ahead mr jones please sir no i'm yielding to mr brown all right mr brasil please i want to first say that i completely agree with the fact that we need we need all the numbers before we can vote for the third time um we don't have the the final negotiated numbers we don't have them we can't give them to y'all when we get them you know when it becomes public um that that's something that then we'll have real data and we can say okay tax incentive is x we don't have tha

» t yet so anything said that there's 100 tax abatement at this point in time would be false information um i also want to state that we want to welcome business to kershaw county all business small large i'm a business owner we started in my grandmother's garage my grandmother is 93 years old she still thinks we work in her garage some days we've grown and only because we worked i didn't look to the government my grandfather didn't look to the government my father didn't look to the government for any help any consideration we went to work my dad always told me i was young in business i said well look at what look at what that company's doing look at what that company's doing he said mind your own business and keep your head down boy work and 21 years later i'll have to say the man was right

» i put my head down and i didn't worry about what everybody else was doing there's not a whole lot that that we can do when it comes to somebody who's got 13 million dollars i don't have 13 million to invest that's phenomenal that somebody believes in kershaw county and wants to invest 13 million i want to thank them publicly for being willing to invest 13 million dollars into kershaw County. We want businesses that complement our other businesses. I want you to have more business on the lake. I want everybody in downtown to flourish. Never would I want to bring somebody in and give a tax abatement that would compete. Not in a million years. Not in my lifetime. Thank you all for understanding and thank you for being here.

» Thank you for being here and being concerned because we need people that care. I yield. Mr. Jones. It's my turn. Listen, I need a translator to help me understand what was said up here uh i don't i don't get it but um i think what these people were saying and let me tell you something i i really i always have bragged on the brazil business i mean they did they started out of a garage his grandfather war hero his his dad one of the finest men i know but let me tell you about those folks they didn't have any government help they made it on their own i think that you folks out there are just saying hey with the what you the the successes that you had and how you had to really take the chances and y'all did it and y'all survived and y'all were successful let's just make the playing ground fair

» and what we're doing tonight doesn't make the playing ground fair and that's just my opinion i just i i've i've thought about this i've i really have and i just threw it back and forth in my mind thinking what am i missing and and gentlemen as again as i listen to each one of you speak about this issue i just have to say i i'm just confused as to where your thinking is i just i think this is not a good thing and i think when the final numbers come out the people are going to be even more upset when they see what is probably going to happen to get this business to come here and once again i will say that industry they don't compete against each other but we are now investing into private businesses that will be competing and this ordinance this on tonight orders we've passed earlier this uh

» last month what they're opening up a can of worms i'm telling you it's just that's just my opinion and i am concerned about it but anyway thank you for your time and much respect i'm gonna move to close the question as regards this body here uh i would give credit to this county council that put a million dollars into saving small business just 14 months ago how soon we forget what this council has done for small business uh with that i'm ready to call the question unless there's more to be said all right with that uh mr connell go right ahead yeah i was going to say that whether it's industry or commercial miss mary y'all gonna have to be quiet out there everybody let's be courteous mary has to make the minutes y'all making it tough on her okay go right ahead ben thank you mary i was gonna

» back up what mr brazel said i'm really grateful to see everybody engaged and asking questions and saying i want to know more i think that's terrific i wish we had such high attendance and interest on every issue in council some of them are pretty dry and boring but uh there is some meaty stuff there if you dig in but i was going to say um that whether it's industry that comes in for a minimal two million dollar investment or up or now possibly hasn't happened yet but we're considering and trying to investigate if it makes sense or commercial at 10 million it's all competition so if industry comes in and they need a welder there or a fabricator or someone else. There's a lady tonight, I'm sorry, I don't know, but she had a very good point that there's a fixed labor force in Kershaw County.

» Much of them work outside of the county. Last count we had was roughly 28 to 29,000 folks and about 21,000 leave every day. So those remaining people stay in Kershaw County and work. And so you are competing for jobs. If you bring in industry, there's local small businesses that have to compete for increase wages but in every one of these circumstances the the point is what makes the most sense you know if you and uh to mr bevel who i know if he's got a good point philosophically you say government should get involved in all but the reality is if you want to have jobs in your county another county will compete and offer incentives you have to figure out how do you get jobs in the county so that kids and grandkids and ultimately uh those are going to grow if your community's going to grow wh

» ere they're going to work but the whole point is you have to figure out what is their value there. Does it make sense overall after you get all the data? And that's what we're in the process of doing right now, I feel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. - All right, Mr. Tucker. - Mr. Chairman, this will be my last words on this for tonight. I just wanna encourage the citizens once again, this is new to Kershaw County, but it's not new to other counties in the state of South Carolina. This same project has been done in Florence, Charleston. I think it's underway in Georgetown. naming these places because I want you to dial them up and give them a call and see how it works so you can have better information.

» The chairman mentioned about the million dollars that we did for small businesses during the COVID time. We were the only county in this state, and I don't know of another county in the nation that reached out to our small businesses. We love our small businesses here. We support them. Matter of fact, there's a group I told you about, some fellows I hang out in lancaster county we're coming up tomorrow we're going to eat up at beaver dam at one of those restaurants i don't know which one they chose but we and they all from lancaster county these are my buddies from lancaster county i try to get them to come out of eating a good county versus up in that lancaster county area but i say that because um i want you to know that none of us up here want any of our small businesses or any business

» to fail here in kershaw county we are all about being open for business and i think those are the chairman's words thank you mr uh mr grass can you yeah just real quick i know we're kind of belaboring the point but just another thing that came to mind that's kind of helped me process this is when you look at commercial development i mean yeah there are some jobs but i think for commercial it's it's more about new dollars that that can be infused in the kershaw county so if if only kershaw county citizens visit our small businesses there's only so many dollars there's only so many that dollar can be passed around town and so in order for uh the mom and pop to to ex to go from good to great you've got to get other dollars from surrounding counties these new dollars to be introduced into our e

» conomy and so when i look at a project like this i'm looking at new dollars showing up at lake watery i'm looking at new dollars showing up uh in the in the storefronts because i mean it's just kind of basic it's just basic economics of how you know a one dollar can can only go around town so many times and and if it's and if we're going to grow and if we're going to um you know be successful and and have a place for our our our kids that want to come back and not move away then it's about being a place where people want to come and visit and and they want to enjoy thank you okay i'm ready to call the questions yeah mr jones please go ahead thank you so much mr chairman you know we talked about the million dollars that we put into business yes we did take a million dollars to put in with bu

» siness i made a recommendation it was shot down miss tucker brought it back and y'all agreed on it and i think each business got probably about 3 500 each that's a whole lot less than what we're going to be offering project seagull at the end of the day just check the numbers out at the end of the day remember 3 500 which was a good thing and i commend these folks up here for doing it even those who voted for it they didn't want to do it the bottom line is if if what's been discussed and i cannot say and i will not say but if what's been discussed even 50 of that is done 3500 miles will be 35 cents all right with that i call the question and we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand uh mrs snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns mr russell brazel mr connell and those

» opposed uh mr jones and therefore it passes with that we move to item number five it's on tab i page 63 of a like kind project seagull mr carpenter can you open it please mr chair members of council you have in front of you tonight for second reading an ordinance that authorizes the development of a gently owned and operated industrial park this is the other half of the ordinance under state law you would have to put the property into an industrial park and this is what would make that happen okay can we have a motion to approve make a motion to approve mr uh mr tucker a second second second for mr gardner any discussion okay would we like to have some clarification on where's where i'm sorry if i'm talking to mr jones go right here mr carpenter or mr morgan can you give us some clarificati

» on on where the park will be um mr jones an industrial park for this purpose is not a physical property like um governor's hill and those properties it is it still has some zones um well you place each individual property into the park so they're not contiguous to each other so the industrial park that we have with sumpter it's a creation of the state of south carolina under law that allows you to turn a tax into a fee but you have to put the property into one of those parks so this is the park that has been placed into again it's not a physical piece of property it's several pieces of property that are scattered throughout it just allows this to happen to where it is it's a legislative creation to allow this to happen it's not really something you can put your fingers other questions I'm h

» earing there correctly we're we're having to play a game that's being created by the General Assembly and we all recognize the tax rate it's probably too high but then they give us this little game to play to be able to get her to get around it part of a legislative workaround to avoid fixing the tax code right you know and I think it's part one of the things you know I I don't think there should be a DH in baseball but if you're gonna play the American League I guess that's the that's the rules you got a you got play by and okay you're doing good you know has like anyway thank you okay other discussion with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr. Snodgrass mr. Tucker mr. Gardner mr. Burns mr. Breisel mr. Connell those opposed mr.

» Jones in a motion passes and moves to a third reading item Number six is a reading of an ordinance authorizing conveyance of a parcel of land. It's at tab J, page 75. It's quite extensive. Mr. Carpenter, can you open it up, please? - Mr. Chairman, members of council, this is the second reading of an ordinance that would allow the sale of the property known as the Speck Building to a project known as Project Orion. - Okay, very good. Can we have a motion to approve, please? - I motion to approve Project Orion. - Mr. Tucker, a second? - Second. - Was that you, Ben? - Yes, sir. - Thank you very much, a second. Mr. Tucker, do you want to lead off? - I yield. - Mr. Connell? - Yeah, well, we discussed it on the first reading. Same ideas and concepts would apply here.

» I think we're still within the due diligence period, correct? So there's not much more to discuss. The parties are still ferreting out exactly what the terms will be in the final form, so we're waiting on third reading before we can have that hammered out. - Other discussion, Mr. Tucker? have a question um with this project um that number you announced at the beginning of the meeting of 500 new jobs coming to kershaw county that's not in here that wasn't in your totals correct not included okay thank you other discussion um so this is jones no no go ahead uh a yield yield uh mr snodgrass so mr attorney so this is similar to seagull and other things in which we're at second reading and there's still some deliberations and legalities being worked out that is correct Mr.

» Snodgrass, what this is, this also includes the purchase and sale agreement, which relates to the price in terms of the sale of the spec building. So it's like, so the process with Segal is not unlike other things that have been done as far as getting in second reading. That's correct. My turn. Mr. Jones, I think it's your turn. I disagree with the attorney, too. Listen. It's right here in the paper. I mean, you can't. I'll just tell you, I disagree with that.

» you know first off you're talking about an industry and we're talking about a private business okay we're going to stay on the point here wait a minute no no no no jones stay on this industry mr chairman all right you've been good up until now sir well not really that good but you've been okay but i'll tell you you're gonna let me speak now i will if you stay on industry uh i was gonna speak anyway but um as i said that's the difference that's the whole difference right there private uh commercial and uh industrial and i will say this no more spec buildings see our miles and i stood by that we believe in that throw a pad down or whatever but you end up losing on spec buildings anyway thank you thank you other comments uh all right we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your

» hand mr snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns mr brazel mr connell and mr jones and it moves on to the next reading and with that we move to item number seven first reading an ordinance county council uh regarding a rezoning i think we will all want to talk about this it's on page 96 the chart is up with the property i believe in involved and it said tab k uh that had 96. mr carpenter i'm going to ask you to open this up Mr. Chair, members of the council have in front of you tonight first reading of an ordinance that would allow the rezoning of approximately 123 acres located on Highway 12 in Kershaw County. It is currently zoned RD2. It would be rezoned as B2. It has previously been in front of the Planning Commission, which recommended denial. I'll make sure I understood that.

» Planning and Zoning Committee recommended no. Yes, sir. Okay, very good. Can we have a motion to approve this on the first move mr mr jones a second second discussion i'll i'll second because i've got some questions we have a second from mrs snodgrass mr jones would you open it well if michael connelly is he here anybody here from planning a zoning he's back there yeah mike's here yeah could you come a minute mr connelly please thank you so much help me understand does this did staff like this did it fall in line with where kershaw county's trying to go to staff would staff have recommended this to county council i mean staff we recommended approval of it because it met our our primarily two um checks off on when request zoning a is it contiguous to the requested zoning so there is b2 conti

» guous or next door to this particular property and across the street as well and it meets our future land use map how many b2s are already there i mean how many are already zoned at the request of this family in the area yeah in that area i think are there some across street there's some across basically from this property back towards um white pond road or porter crossing is b2 along first of all but and i was listening to the two ladies that got up and spoke and that's why i was trying to get some clarification on that so they were correct in what they said yes sir okay well i've got a question uh mr russell what how many square feet is the minimum for a lot in b2 and so if you're talking residential yes you can go down to six thousand square feet so six thousand square feet um and i assu

» me sewers available there uh sewer does run along personal road yes sir okay so so that looking at the numbers that would put a little over seven houses per acre does that sound correct seven or eight i can't remember exactly i came up with 7.26 um to have an opinion i think that would be a little too dense um i'd be putting them in there so it's 130 acres uh yeah i believe so yes sir 120 some odd acres so without without backing out road systems and that sort of things it comes up to 943 lots so to my best guesstimate they would get at least 800 lots in that neighborhood well this i i don't want to predict what is actually going there um we haven't been told by the property owner if there is a particular interest that's going on that property if it was to be a subdivision uh traditionally

» a roundabout you would take 30 out for infrastructure uh depending could be a little bit more depending on what the the stormwater is how the drainage is there's a tremendous amount of flood on that property as well so there's a creek that runs along that border the south border of that property line so it would have to stay off of that so that i'm just guessing so probably anywhere 20 percent more is going to be taken away because of the flood and the buffering for that so you're looking at somewhere around 50 percent of that property that's going to be able to use for housing okay and again that's this guess I don't know exactly what's going to be.

» Is there a recommendation for a different type of zoning that maybe wouldn't be quite as dense? Well I mean again there's there's residential down the street. Our initial conversations with a possible developer was if it was again contiguous to that rezoning down the street that that would be something that would be in favor of since it wasn't contiguous to that and there was that B2 zoning that it was contiguous to that we were b2 would be checking both boxes and our checklist so residentially wise if you're if you're looking for a residential zone I mean our 15 is our less impactful our 10 is a little less less impactful which is down the street in that development that is right there at Kennedy and personal room okay thank you for helping me understand appreciate can I just ask just for

» clarity here to get a total picture staff recommended in favor but I understand planning and zoning recommended against and what was the basis of the planning and zoning no we were in favor of it um again it met our two criterias it met the two criterias that we use for all rezonings it's contiguous to it and um it's in our future land use map the planning commission voted um was not in favor of the particular i know on what basis uh i i wasn't at the meeting from the notes that As I read, it was just some neighbors that came out said it was too much of a density, they were not in favor of a possible development there. And there's really not a whole lot in that area that far down Percival. It's Kennedy, there's a little bit more in that area, there's not, maybe it just wasn't time.

» But those are the feedback that we got from the ones that came in. All right. Sorry, Sammy, over to you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Connolly. Yes, sir. quick things. So I've got what the lots can look like with sewer on B2, seven homes per acre. That's pretty tight. What does R15 look like per acre? Well, so if it's on sewer and they can go all the way down to 15,000 square feet, that's a little under three lots per acre. Okay.

» And the reason why I'm asking these questions, because maybe that might be some of the political pressure that they're having on trying to get their land rezoned and sold where my troubles come in is they've had real bad family situation and this is their means of living and and i appreciate your staff being consistent on what you're doing was that recommended to them the you know at r15 when this process started or they just went straight for b2 uh no when originally our discussion was with a developer and again it was at r r10 so they wanted the r10 that was down the street and again we said for us to check both boxes off on ours it need to be contiguous to that r10 so if if they got that parcel there's one parcel between this proposed rezoning and the parcel that's down the street at the

» corner of kennedy our discussion was if you could get that parcel to to agree to rezone as well then you would have a continuous um contiguous rezoning for both parcels and that would be something again that check both of our boxes it would be in favor of um at that time they chose not to come back with that request but r10 is less homes than r15 yes so i mean i'm i think more no r10 you can have more okay what's the number on r10s per acre i'm sorry what's the number on r10s per acre how many homes can you get on the acre at r10 zone as well yeah a little over four okay yeah it's 0.23 okay it's just under a quarter of an acre that'll sell homes or lumber for living so i can't do all that math over there as young blood okay one acre is about four or forty three thousand five hundred sixty s

» quare feet okay thank you other comments uh mr congress you want to go ahead yeah and that i mean honestly i'm kind of why i gave a second because i felt like we you know even though i have some reservations about this i just wanted to ask some questions uh because of you know i i was wondering why we you know didn't go with an r10 or 15 but obviously i get that it's not contiguous with something else but the reason i suggest that is because when you go down porter crossroads that's where other newer sub subdivisions have have popped up and so this that that would be consistent with what's happening um out there and and i you know the family i understand the situation they're in but it'd be one thing i think if it was on the other side of the road where you're in between i-20 and porter cro

» ssroad where the all the other b2 stuff is i mean there is b2 around it and it is contiguous but it's only contiguous just on kind of on that little sliver the rest of it is on the other side and the large part of the property the back end of it you know it butts up to to what is uh you know rd2 so those are some of my reservations is you know why this is i've been against three years first time i've seen something in this part of the county kind of go straight to b2 um you know i i think i think perhaps it'd be a different conversation if we're talking r10 r15 and but again we don't really know kind of why they would want to jump to that is that correct you know if they're speaking to our staff our staff goes by those two criterias and what is contiguous to it anything outside of that is r

» eally um introducing a new a new zoning to the area um introducing a new zoning to this is a bit of a change of character based off of what what you're saying so so those properties that are deeper into the county off of percival road are more rural in nature um and and i guess i would i can see the argument of hey this this fall alongs with the land use but at the same time i i would argue that i think the land use map was probably the intention was not b2 but it was probably more of an intention of future use being residential translating into r10 or r15 sure i mean i i and if i'm wrong you can just say i'm wrong i'm just you're wrong thank you that's not yeah that's not correct or at least that's how that's how you know just because in the planning prospect we consider pushing commercial

» to our major corridors or our interior roads and percival road as being that major arterial road. For example, let's just look at the intersection of White Pond Road and Purcell Road, all the way back to the interstate. It is zoned correctly for commercial. Commercial just hasn't made it there yet. There's a little bit of commercial there. And this is some of the conversation I had with Mr. Ford as well. Maybe it's just a little bit into the future. And this is the future land map, right? And that's what we gauge off of.

» in the future and excuse me in the future we do perceive this being more commercial in nature because we want our commercial push to these more corridor roads that doesn't mean it's today and it doesn't mean it's tomorrow that's just our thought and planning that we would much rather see our businesses on major corridors than let's just say further back on quarter crossroads or something along those in nature so it doesn't mean it's today and then this doesn't mean it's the end of the rezoning process for this one if it's approved it's approved if not um it may get approved in five or ten years i don't know maybe it's tomorrow but i think what we see from the growth coming from columbia is a growth up percival road or a growth coming out of white pond road um it just might not be today and

» and maybe that was some of the thinking that the planning commission had as well um i don't think this is the end of this process it's i think it's major parcel in our county in a major area um we'll just have to see what the future holds and maybe it'll be changed more question what would the expense be i'm looking at this whether what would the expense of be of of parceling this out and so you you parcel out the front part you know that kind of lines up laterally with the the b tooth to the left of it and then of course which would leave the a bit larger parcel the back end would be would be able to remain rd2 um Perhaps we can't have that. I don't know. I'm just thinking about it. Yeah, it's a little more hypothetical for me. Okay. Sorry.

» I couldn't tell an individual how they should parcel out their property. Oh, okay. You know, that's really up to the individual property owner to make that decision. I believe Mr. Connell, please. Yeah, Mr. Chairman. So this property is within District 3, the area I represent. And I got no less than 40-some-odd calls in opposition to this from neighbors. I understand one individual showed up and a few others, but one spoke. And this is one of the first events in which I've seen a unanimous no vote from the Planning Commission. So I live on Porter Crossroad, right near this property. And what I'm hearing from all the neighbors is that, you know, almost seven units, if that's the accurate number, per acre is just way too dense. Nobody's interested in it.

» The complete rhyme or reason from each one of those individuals, I can't tell. But what I can tell you is there are some successful businesses in the area. But to Mr. Conley's point, the nature and the utility of the area is currently agrarian, or you've got nurseries, you've got hay fields, you've got cattle farms, you've got landscapers with mulching operations, you've got horse pastures and boarding, kind of all within the, between the Kennedy and I would call it, I think, Screaming Eagles, the next road down, right? Is that, I think that's the next road down past Porter Crossroad. Tower Road.

» tower road yeah tower road sorry but that that's the nature of the area it's it's an agrarian or it's you know a large nursery or those kind of things um at this time so for that reason i will not be supporting it there was a huge community uh backlash against it um mr bradley mr jones who would like to go you you yielded to me earlier okay mr jones it was said up here tonight that that property was currently zoned where they could put turkey farms or chicken barns it's rule it's a real district at this particular time so they could do that rather take the chance on the houses um no pun intended anybody in the turkey business um if they tried to do that would the county try to stop them even though it's zoned for that no sir if it's a pretty if it is a permitted use within the existing zoni

» ng district that um as long as it meets land development codes okay approved thank you uh uh mr roswell yeah no i just wanted to ask the question even though r15 isn't touching it um if it's appropriate is is that something that that would be looked at or is that just a flat out no it's not we don't tell anybody no by any means um if they come through with a rezoning request um we advise them the best we possibly can but we can't predict what the planning commission or the council is going to say i mean it's it's solely when the purview of county council to rezone a property um for this one i don't think r15 is completely off the table by any means we would just have to look at make sure it doesn't fall in that category spot zoning i don't particularly think this one does because of the siz

» e of it and it's not arbitrary too arbitrary in nature so i i that would be something that that could be a part of it it just didn't check the two boxes that we traditionally use okay i just wanted clarification thank you other comments ready to call the question all those uh in favor of this going through first reading uh signify by raising your hand uh mr jones all those opposed so signify and it's mr snodgrass mr tucker mr gardner mr burns mr brasil and mr connell and it fails and with that we move to new business and i have to depart i'm going to ask mr tucker to pick up thank you mr chairman you need me to do it i'll take over sammy bear with me one moment please let me get my stuff here together thank you okay we're down on new business item number one we tabled so we'll go down to ne

» w business item number two the bid uh for the voters registration building driveway and parking lot mr carpenter will you take us through this please mr members of council you have in front of you tonight uh a bid that has been received by the county as you recall even working on the new voter registration building uh the parking lot and the access road were determined to be not not suitable for handicap accessibility uh therefore we have had to uh totally rebuild the we will have to rebuild the parking lot and the access road to it you have in front of you the two bids we received we're recommending going with the low bid from jf contractors assumptor for 138 518 Okay, you guys have heard what the administrator had to say on this bid that has been presented to us from our bidders.

» Is there a motion to approve his recommendation? So moved. The motion is made by Mr. Gardner. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Connell, second. Ms. Mary. All right, any discussion? Is this Mr. Chair? Go ahead, Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Administrator, has the voter registration moved yet? Not yet. They're not allowed to take possession of the building until this parking lot is suitable to state standards. Okay, so this would be the parking lot that's behind all of that? Yes, sir. Any other discussion? Mr. Carpenter, where are these funds coming from? Is this part of the— These are previously allocated funds by the council from our capital reserve. Okay, thank you. Anybody else? All right, we'll call for the question. All in favor, raise your hand. And Ms. Marietta, he is unanimous.

» Okay, let's move down to council briefing. Mr. Snodgrass, we're going to start with you since you did the prayer. Sure. Mr. Chair, members of council, just, again, want to thank the – it's great having the teams here tonight and the wrestler. Again, it just kind of shows our community and just the resilience that we have and being able to be a place where we want to raise – the kids can be raised, can excel, can learn leadership opportunities. But then hopefully it's a place where they come back.

» honestly that is that is what drives a lot of a lot of what we talked about tonight with ensuring that my Kershaw County is a place that is viable continues to be viable it is now but it's viable into the future and so tonight there were there were conversations about commercial development their conversation about industrial development and so we want we want to make sure this is a place where kids want to come back they can work and continue to contribute to the community that we all that we all love and so that concludes my remarks thank you thank you mr.

» snog res councilman Gardner no report okay thank you custom Gordon councilman Brazil I would also like to congratulate all the young men and young ladies in the community and in the county that all participate in sports and especially those that were here tonight I would like to give a big shout out to Lauren reader and their new baby wheezy congratulations to the families and the grandparents we have an event this Saturday a big litter pick up on the river if you've got a John boat or a kayak or even just a pair of sneakers come down bright and early at 7 o'clock we're gonna we're gonna clean the river out I've even had one gentleman tell me he's gonna fish a jet ski out of the river so I told him he would get extra raffle tickets if he brought a jet ski the Veterans Park I'm gonna be more

» than impressed and we we texted about that today so um looking forward to that and uh i want to say thank you uh to all the citizens that showed up and showed concern tonight because it is important that that we all speak out and we're heard and um all of our government officials need to hear from every citizen as much as possible because really that's that's what we're here to do we're to serve the public we're here to to be transparent and to be honest and to to try to help uh shape the community that we live in as best we can in a positive manner so those are my remarks thank you mr chairman you're welcome thank you councilman councilman cornell yeah mr vice chair um i just want to say the folks who ever have questions i'm sorry a bunch of them already left but my cell phone's available

» online at the county website call me anytime happy to talk about it most importantly I want to share condolences hopefully on behalf of the council with the family of Kathy Gladden who recently passed away she was a sweetheart in the community that touched so many lives by working at Lugoff Elgin Water Authority but also just with her general kindness and way I know her family's hurting right now so our prayers and thoughts and just all of it goes out to them I can't imagine Thank You mr.

» vice chair you're welcome Thank You councilman councilman Jones just a couple things yes you know some sometime back this county council talked about our agenda mr vice chair yes sir and i think you will remember this we talked about that when we place an item on the agenda whoever placed it on the agenda that person's name would be listed along the issue at hand you follow me yes sir do you remember that yes sir okay so we pretty much all agreed on that well i've noticed over time it just seems like nobody's name is on anything but mine duly noted duly noted and this is not the first time nobody's fault the staff no it's not staff's fault no no but i'm just saying that uh i find it interesting that my name's the only one that's ever on there and of course you know i always tell staff to pu

» t my name on there as well and uh maybe others are not doing that but i think i would if i were you folks i would just try to follow the rules on that make sure that your name is on there so because i'd like to know who put uh project seagull on the agenda but there's no identification on that and i'm not asking for any explanation anyway kathy gladden absolutely i'll tell you what what what a wonderful wonderful wonderful person i've known for many many years of her family and my heart goes out to them and they're they're in our prayers i know they're in all our prayers up here god bless him i want to just very briefly because i don't ever take up a lot of time and talk but tonight i've got just a couple quick things i want to say you know when i uh made that wonderful wonderful presentati

» on about sewer because i never i never have thought government could do a better job running a program or a business over a private business i feel like private business always does much much better and they've proven that over the years you don't believe me i've said it up here before i said tonight look at the post office look at health care you know what a disaster what a wrecking crew they've been anyway you know when i had talked about the sewer project that i presented here south carolina water utilities were involved in it anyway south carolina water utilities which they go scwu they're the parent company of palmetto uh utilities and they announced a significant contribution benefit to watery community actions wca an organization established to provide financial support to lower inco

» me families and communities in richland county and kershaw counties the second of three fifty thousand dollar uh donations promised over three years demonstrates the company's ongoing commitment to uh the customers from the old palmetto utilities and its desire to be unattractive and engage in the community as a partner and i will tell you something that says a lot about who they are and that's who i brought here who were willing to pay off our sewer system and pretty much get us debt free we wouldn't have had to go into renovation from uh two mgd to a four mgd from that would be maybe twenty five thousand dollars i know mr connell says my number goes it goes up every time i say it but a million no but that's the true figure 20 25 000 you watch see what i tell you for that two million upgra

» de then you're talking about the southern loop seven million dollars yeah we got to do that plus you talk about you know um all the other things that are involved but anyway oh by the way we had i think a 6.5 6.2 million dollar debt but anyway i'm just very proud that they got this right up i think they deserved it wholeheartedly and um i'm very proud that they're a good partner to kershaw county they pay us a lot of taxes don't they mr vice chair yes sir they do and they're always on time yes sir and you know what they've even paid us early whenever we were running short yes you know that don't you yes sir all right a reputable reputable company with great leadership thank you so much and by the way i appreciate everybody being here tonight appreciate everybody speaking out thank you so mu

» ch thank you councilman jones all right well i guess i'll wrap this up before we get down to the administrative briefing um i do want to say on project seagull um i want everyone who's still here and who's watching to know you know regardless what the county does here on third reading it's not our project the city is in control of this project now what we do can and may affect them but the city is left up to do anything they want so you have a whole nother government body or entity that's got way more control than what the county has we we've got this abatement part we're dealing with but i want to make it clear it is a city project we don't we're not able to say come get what you want or no you're not welcome we're we're tiny part of what's being asked and what's being um proposed uh for b

» usiness so i just want to give clarity on that can i ask you a question yes sir um you know um the city can't do anymore they have to follow our lead in this when it comes to finances city's got a lot bigger budget than we have they have to follow our lead and a revenue source that we don't have they can't do this on their own they will and if we don't go but so much they can't go but so much they got to do what we say so well on the abatement part but i'm saying the city can put in as much money mr jones as they choose to put in they they they can't do the abatement let me make that clear because that's that's what mr jones is talking about it's hard they cannot do the abatement without the county that's why we're involved he's absolutely right but they can go in a coffer and write them a

» check for whatever they want to they can they can give tax um increases or decreases uh for what they collect they can go into their tourism money and give them money i mean they got a lot of things going on that that they can do so it's totally in the city's hand for final say so i don't want Nobody would think that this is gonna be left up to the county. The other thing I wanna say, Mr. Carpenter, we had a good conference, even though it was hot as Hades. I didn't say hell, but it felt like it. Hades down there, I learned a lot and I got a lot of good information from the classes that I attended to. So I'm really looking forward and I wanna thank Councilman Jones and all of you for tabling the fire item on the agenda today.

» but I look forward to the opera policy and discussion and let us not be afraid to call a special meeting if we need to have some type of work session or whatever to get into the dialogue and into the minutiae of this policy. So I'm highly recommending that. And if anybody's got a problem with that or having a special meeting or work meeting, whatever, just let myself or the Ms. Mary or the chairman knows. but I think we need to get this done before our next meeting in September. Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Now we're down to administrative briefing. - Chair, members, councillors, one item tonight. Earlier, we had examples of athletic excellence in this county in front of us.

» I've never seen seven men run so hard for their own athletic abilities as the seven of y'all did in comparing yourselves to them. That's my report. - Touche. - I'm a pretty athletic person. - You were just jealous 'cause you weren't from Kershaw County. thank you mr carpenter mr morgan any legal briefing no briefing this evening you look just like ken but you did a better job tonight we appreciate that it was not problematic that's the truest have anything in no executive session no executive session okay thank you at this time then unless you choose to want to stay i will attend a motion to adjourn so made Mason made by Mr. Connell. I got you, Ms. Mary. Seconded by Mr. Gardner. All in favor, raise your hand. It is unanimous, Mr. Gardner.