Full meeting transcript - September 10, 2021

» - Test one, two, check, check. - All right, great day in Kershaw County. We have a quorum in this all American county. I remind you we're under the COVID emergency restrictions that were declared by the president and the governor of this state and ratified here at this level as well at the county and in the city. Mr. Tucker is not with us on a medical issue and his family. And so we have six here and we are now called to order. With that, I ask y'all all to rise, and Councilman Russell Brazel will lead us in the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Everybody bow your head, please. Heavenly Father, thank you for leading the county and help us to be mindful, Lord, that we're going to lead in a positive manner.

» Help everyone understand that we're here to do the right thing for the people of Kershaw County. Just guide us as we think through decisions and budgets and everything that we have to dive into. Just guide our minds and our thoughts and our mouths as we navigate the course of the next few months. Amen. Thank you, Mr. Brazel. And with that, we go to public comments. Under our rules with these COVID days and separation, I turn to Mary. Mary, do we have any written submissions? None with that. Mr. DuBose, do we have any of those that signed up today? Mr. Chairman, one person signed up, Tom Webb III. Mr. Webb. It bothers me that still so afraid of this virus and ignoring the treatment from the upper levels. There just will not promote zinc as a treatment.

» It's not a cure, just a pretty good treatment. It keeps you out of the hospital while your immune system takes care of things. I suspect, just from me, from my own experience, that it would have saved a lot of lives, but who knows. Anyway, what I'm going to speak about today is this dangerous world. It's always been dangerous, and it's not getting any better, it seems like. And so I wanted to bring up Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice that died in February, five years ago. And I proclaim February to be Scalia Month, or Who Killed Scalia Month. He went on a hunting trip down to West Texas, liked to shoot birds, and he didn't come to breakfast down at the lodge.

» they went in found him dead with a pillow on his face and he didn't get an autopsy so it looks an awful lot to me like maybe somebody did him in it was um assassination a lot of people didn't like him for his politics well back then there were a lot of people who said ah that couldn't happen in the united states of america that might be happening in central america something like that with the events here that have unfolded since then more recently it is a really dangerous world i think it's more believable than ever that our Supreme Court justice, the most conservative one, most effective one there, Thomas is also very conservative. It just looks like somebody bumped him off. So this is Antonin Scalia month, and I'll be holding up my sign again out on the corner for a little bit.

» I haven't heard any definitive investigation of it. There's still nothing said about exactly what happened. They didn't do an autopsy. So they got somebody on the telephone a judge who went by the name of cinderella and it was down close to the mexican border so is that a name or is that a nickname but judge cinderella supposedly said well we just call it natural causes and i've had plenty of questions and poor answers and the tv news hasn't been dependable and the thing that also bothers us as bothers me is about the military seeming to look the other way when they have a commitment to defend our constitution on our country against enemies foreign and domestic and a lot of us who are conservative think they're not doing their job and what has happened to the nuclear launch codes my underst

» anding is a suitcase that has that information in it that's transferred from president to president what has happened to it it was lost one time under bill clinton's administration it was something of a scandal they couldn't find the nuclear launch codes well they did but now apparently it's in biden's hands rather rickety old hands and who else's hands is it going to end up in it's a very big worry to me and it should be to all of us it is a dangerous world so my suggestion as usual is to buy some beans and rice put something aside a little bit you don't know what's coming maybe it will help hope to see y'all many more times thank you thank you mr webb mr devos that concludes the sign up And that concludes public comments. We move now to an adoption of the agenda.

» I'm going to ask that we make an amendment, but first let's get it on the table. Can we have a motion to approve the agenda as on the screen? So moved. Mr. Gardner, a second? Second. Second for Mr. Connell. And I ask for an amendment to delete the proclamation that we have later on because of the absence of Mr. Tucker. Can we have a motion to do that, please? move that we amend the agenda to remove the proclamation. Thank you. And a second? Second. A second from Mr. Brazel. The discussion is that Mr. Tucker sponsored the proclamation honoring Black History Month, and because of his family issue, we will pray all was well, but he's asked to be removed and placed on the agenda the next time we meet.

» Any other discussion? So all those in favor of the amendment signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and and we now move to vote on the agenda as amended so with that we move to that can we have such a motion please move to approve the agenda as amended now good mr gardner a second second that second for mr connell uh any discussion uh seeing there is no we move to the vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous uh and uh the agenda is amended i should note for those watching by uh live stream uh because of social distancing mr snodgrass is off to my right your left on the camera and you may not be able to see him but he has i believe a mic over there right all right good thank you okay the agenda is is amended we move to public presentations the first of

» which is the achievement award and we welcome again mr john henderson john can you come up to the mic please thank you mr chairman members of council it's my pleasure to be here once again to present another uh outstanding safety achievement award to kershaw county this year we are presenting the award for the new employee risk management training program that your risk manager created a few years back and it continues to offer lots of benefits for the county and i just thank you all for your support for risk management over the years and the good investment in time and people what i think is so significant about this new employee training program is it builds trust in the county among the employees barry cato is able to talk to all the new employees tell them what to expect when it comes t

» o risk management and safety what's expected of them what to do if something happens where they can discuss it. And they have an open discussion that's I think Barry described it as an absolute amnesty type of situation where people can tell him anything. And that's building trust. And because of that trust over the years, you all have seen this few years back had a little problem with some brakes on some vehicles that were wearing out too soon that resulted in some accidents.

» and in these meetings barry learned of it because people had enough trust to be able to tell him about that and you all made a correction there that might have saved some lives another thing that came out of these meetings over the years was uh lightning detectors that was a suggestion from an employee out on the athletic fields on a hot spring or summer day baseball game and somebody's got a lightning detector they can know when to take the appropriate precautions to prevent injuries from that. Also, I think it's quite unique and really commendable that Barry is able to establish a relationship in the Sheriff's Department where he meets with the Sheriff's Department new employees to explain to them the risk management and safety program and listen. I really like this.

» There are a lot more accidents that didn't occur that are being reported. We refer to those, I know you know this Vic, near misses. If you don't hear about a near miss, it's gonna next time may not be a near miss so you have the opportunity to take advantage of learning from something that almost happened.

» So I just think this is a great program and y'all continue to make contributions and so thank you for your support for risk management and all that Barry Cato has done over the years and he's actually been a great friend to the association and counties and has helped a lot of people and we look to him uh on things to get his opinion and we value that very much so barry you want to come up i'll just uh read the inscription while barry's coming up 2020 outstanding safety achievement award kershaw county presented by the south carolina county's workers compensation trust actually if you would let's see if there any comments from the council a gentleman yes uh mr jones please sir mr henderson you and i go we go way back and it's always good to see you come here because i know when you come to o

» ur meetings you'll bring us good news very really appreciate what you're doing i think it's very important that we continue to move forward with safety and certainly decreases our liability and other things but john i appreciate all you've done as well too thank you and i appreciate y'all support for making this better for all people in kershaw county the good thing the comments please sure uh this is congress thank you very congratulations thank you for your work uh for the county um every every year this time i feel like forrest gump i don't know if you see the move the part of the movie where he goes to the white house again and he had to go to the white house again and so once again the man from associates and counties has come again to present barry with an award again so uh it's just

» uh it's a trend and something that we're proud of here in kershaw county and this it's part of us being excellent so thank you for being a part of that uh the comments yeah just uh mr gardner just uh thank you barry for what you do we thank the association of counties and uh we'll pencil you in for next february i hope to be here thank you we presented this award uh last week we had a webinar because we didn't have our meeting as you all know but we wanted to do it on the same day that the awards would have been presented so a lot of people saw it and uh they know what's going on here and i imagine you probably get a few phone calls thank you again very much well done barry thank you john thank you very much indeed yeah the next public presentation is item number two road safety project uh

» with mr bob g and georgie bob good to see you sir good to see everyone and i thank county council for allowing us to talk about the road safety awareness program something that we feel is very important um i noticed that we have our sheriff here thank you lee for coming i know this is a big part of your ministry out on the roads too so thanks for being here can you tell us who you have with us here so we know and um i'm going to make one brief comment and then i'll turn it over to fiona martin fiona martin and the the program itself the road safety awareness program is one that she has designed but let me say i'm part of kc trails we're a county citizen group that advocates for more trails in kershaw county in 2019 and early 2020 we had many discussions throughout the county about interest

» in more trails one of the things that came up the top three issues had to do with road safety how many people talked about their unwillingness to get out walk run bike on county roads just because of road safety so that it is a critical issue and it's what we're going to be talking about is an outgrowth of that kind of response from county citizens uh fiona is with the kershaw county runners walkers and cyclists organization it's basically a facebook organization but a lot of members and strong interests from that group so i'll turn it over to fiona thank you thank you bob welcome fiona thank you i hope you don't mind me removing my mask so you can hear me so sure thanks thank you bob and thank you gentlemen on the council to allow me to present our public awareness campaign for you my name

» is fiona martin i grew up in camden i've been residing in lew golf with my husband for eight years now we're both avid cyclists and i'm a world-class triathlete so i spend a lot of times on our roads i'd love to present what we're experiencing and how we're trying to tackle it and hopefully how the council can help us moving forward so the situation is not great in terms of south carolina we have some of the worst bicycle and pedestrian death rates in the nation from scdot and from palmetto cycling coalition here's the trends in pedestrian fatalities in south carolina going up to 2017 you can see it is unfortunately on the rise and then this is how south carolina stacks up in comparison with the national averages and unfortunately we are above national averages and all of the groups highlig

» hted here older adults and then people of color as well here's the newest stats coming out for the entire us this is cycling deaths by location and this slide in particular i find very important because there is a perception that pedestrian and bicycle deaths is a problem for cities but as you can see the deaths are occurring almost equally in urban suburban and rural areas and i'm pretty sure kershaw county falls into these designations this is a deaths by road type and we can see here that the arterial roads are really the most dangerous for cyclists in terms of deaths and then i would love to share some local experience of what we see out on our roads yep so these this was all filmed in lugov and elgin in 2019 a few common things i want to highlight in these is we have drivers that are p

» assing extremely close. If we have a pothole, something run out in front of us, winds, that would throw us into the vehicles. You'll also see drivers passing with oncoming traffic. We're also navigating poor roads when it comes to pothills, but also rumble strips are a real danger for cyclists as well. And you'll notice there's nowhere for pedestrians or runners to be on the sides of these roads either. So as this is a big issue throughout the U.S., how do we solve the problem. First of all, education, that's educating the public, the drivers, people who are using the roads, pedestrians, and cyclists. You know, I wish we had education in our schools with children to show them how to ride bikes properly. I would love for SCDMV to include how to drive safely around vulnerable road users.

» You know, we're trying our best to educate the public in any way we can next enforcement we do have laws on the books that protect vulnerable road users but that said you know our law enforcement can't be with us 24 7 and unfortunately these laws generally come into place when someone's already been injured and killed so enforcement is certainly a part of this but it's not something that's going to change a dangerous driving culture engineering highlighted in my video you'll see that the roads aren't particularly engineered for multimodal transportation. I know these are roads that were designed and engineered decades ago, but, you know, I'd make the argument that at some point we need to be considering what we're going to do for the decades to come. And then finally, infrastructure.

» As mentioned, where I live in Kershaw County, Lugoff, we have no sidewalks. There are no crosswalks. There are families crossing four-lane highways to go buy groceries. There's, you know, men riding bikes in the dark to get to work. The infrastructure isn't there to support us so what we're doing this is our campaign just launched this week we're calling it slow down give room that is the main message we had a small budget and so the goal is to get the slow down give room message to drivers where the acts where the problems are happening i want people to see a pedestrian a cyclist and think slow down give room because that's really what we're asking we want everyone to be able to share these roads and do it safely here's a map of where the yard signs are right now the green dots are where t

» hey are located the yellow ones are where we plan to put them with a limited budget we have 120 signs out so our our plan is to rotate these signs to other areas and these problem areas were identified due to previous accidents personal experience and then feedback from the public in particular the kershaw county runners walkers and speakers explain what the yellow and the blue and the green signs mean here yes sir the greens the green dots are where signs are currently today and they will be there probably for the next couple of weeks and then the yellow dots are where we're planning to put them because we have a limited print run so unfortunately we can't have them everywhere so we're trying to be strategic and do the best we can with what we have and so we'll be rotating the signs to tho

» se yellow dots in the coming weeks here's photos of signs up in lugov elgin and camden i've had some good response from people saying they've seen them out and then if we can get more funding i certainly think there's room to expand the campaign some of the ideas include this one right here this is from a cycling advocate in england they have the same issue as us with drivers passing extremely close so they had high vis vest made with the safe pass message on it this was received well by drivers and cyclists here's an example of billboards in other parts of the country that are giving the message of you know give room and also that every lane is a bike lane that cyclists are allowed to be on the road and pedestrians are going to be on the road unless we have sidewalks and then here is some

» interesting ones from governmental organizations the first flyer is in jacksonville florida this was sent out with people renewing their license plate tags and again trying to pass the message on keep the citizens safe and then signage there's a lot of debate about whether the share the road sign really is doing any good at this point people interpret that differently may use full lane as a sign used in other states i pursued this with scdot and was told that that sign is not for approval in this state which it would be great if we could advocate for that because i think it is a low-cost option to get the education message out there and then i would love to quickly hopefully chat through some common responses i get when i talk to people about what we're facing on the road first of all it's

» a personal choice issue so of course i'm choosing to train on the road for my health and happiness but we have to keep in mind that not everyone has a personal choice there are many people who don't have reliable transportation who have to walk and cycle to do what they need to do and whether it's a personal choice or not i don't think people should be injured or killed because of it walkers runners and cyclists need to be more visible this is this is one i hear a lot um i can tell you i can wear every high-vis vest i can wear every bright bit of clothing every flashing light and people will still drive their car at me this boils this statement boils down to victim blaming in my mind we need to take personal responsibility and being safe on the road but a high-vis vest is not going to preve

» nt someone from driving into me i'm surprised you run walk ride those roads um so a lot of i promise you that no one is out looking for dangerous roads to be on what's happened as the county has grown and with more development the roads that we used to run and walk and ride that were safe are now busy there's houses going up and there's not there's no accommodation for the extra traffic and the extra people out on these roads so as much as i wish there was a teleporter that could teleport me from one safe road to another it doesn't exist and we're losing ground roads that were safe are no longer safe anymore in your videos i can't tell who the aggressor is um i weigh 130 pounds me and my bike are about 150 and i can assure you that i'm not going out and picking a fight with 3 000 pound vehi

» cles so while some of the videos you may see on youtube show some aggression it is always in response to someone threatening us with their vehicle we don't have the money well i mean we will never have the money unless it's planned for there is state and federal funding out there and me as a citizen advocate that's not something i can apply for if we have a champion in the county in the city in the state that can apply for those funds then i hope that we can get the money to make things happen and also look into cost-effective ways this is not let's have 5 000 miles of bike lanes in kershaw county nobody's asking for that but if a road is being repaved is there an opportunity to look into having improvements done at the same time and here's the here's the kershaw county bicycle pedestrian g

» reenways plan this is a great document i've read it all i've noted it i've marked it this says everything i'm saying now but in much better terms with the research and the solutions behind it but this was published in 2013 so as someone on the ground at times it's hard to see what has happened here funding opportunities are no longer there bike routes that are highlighted in this are no longer applicable because we've been bullied off the roads and so as much as i love this i would love to see action taken from this or from some other research document that needs to happen most of our roads are state roads we don't control them so as a road user i don't know if the road i'm on is a city road a county road or a state road but sedot on february 5th passed a departmental directive in support o

» f complete streets so the advocates at the state level have got some movement going there. It's going to take acceptance at the top levels and acceptance in the ground roots and in the grassroots, excuse me. And I'm here as grassroots and I'm here in front of the county council because I live in Lugov and I don't have a city council to appeal to. So ultimately, I just hope that all of us can work together to have some sort of improvement because the situation is getting worse. There was a woman killed outside my neighborhood in June 2019, walking on the road. We had a cyclist hit and severely injured this year, January 11th in Lugoff. I really don't want to be the next one. I don't want my husband to be the next one.

» And then finally, special thanks to Eat Smart, Move More, Kershaw County, and South Carolina. And for KC Trails, they were the primary funders of this road safety awareness campaign that I hope that you will support and help amplify and use as a stepping stone to do more great work. Thank you. That's a great briefing. I'll open it up to council for any comments. Mr. Jones. I appreciate you bringing this awareness. I've been an avid runner, an avid cycler, and I was always concerned. I'd ride in the road, in the lane, to make the cars go around me and slow down deliberately. I'm even more scared now because my youngest son is an avid runner. He cycles.

» Well, thank you so much for what you're doing, and I'd love to talk with you at some point in time anything we can work together on i'm there with you yes sir mr jones i think i think we run in the same area so we we have we do i just follow my wife on a bike now she runs but thank you thank you other comments uh yeah i'm just congrats hey fiona thank you so much for coming bob thank you so much for coming uh we've had many conversations about this thank you for helping us raise awareness uh on this uh question so the document there the greenways bikeways documents how how best could we go about revising that because obviously 2013 that's old that's that's dated and if it's going to do us any good it has to be revised so you think some sort of citizens group that we could help us advise on

» on that yeah 100 and actually i did also want to come to the council and make it clear this is not just a fiona martin problem so i do have a petition with over 100 signatures that outlines five things that i think the council can do to um help improve it and many of those suggestions come from this so i would like to hand this to whoever if you would give it to mary and uh she'll get it to council thank you mary other comments well and i'll just i'll just continue uh thank you so much on that and and it's really timely that you bring this to us i'm one of the one of the projects i've been working on in my area on east camden has to do with pedestrian safety because uh we have two schools out there that are it's it's a danger zone uh our pedestrian traffic out there picks up is picking up m

» ore and more each year and so this this presentation and all of this really just helps raise awareness to a greater point that we've we've been trying to make so thank you and and we all know that recreation having sufficient infrastructure for recreation is key or is one of the keys to progress at least that's that's my conviction you know whether you want to talk about economic development progress or our county growing but people are going to come and they're attracted to having that infrastructure and so again just thank you for raising awareness it's not something that we can do on our own but we can do together with citizens like yourselves um that are committed and uh that have a passion for it so thank you so much i just want to highlight it's not just a recreation issue it's a tran

» sportation issue and i think that's i think that's important because the funding for transportation if we're if we're applying for funds, is gonna be there. - Yeah, you're exactly right. Thank you for clarifying. - Other points? I would say that, oh yeah, Bob, come on up to the mic there, please. - One quick comment. This Road Safety Awareness Program, the comment about- - I can't hear you through that. - Oh, excuse me. Yeah, the Road Safety Awareness Program and the directive from DOT relative to Complete Streets, They work hand in hand and it's really directed at making Kershaw County a more livable place for its citizens, a healthier place in which to live and interact. So it's very simple and in some ways it gets down to that level.

» One citizen helping the other citizen within the county. - Mr. Chairman. - Yeah, Mr. Jones. - Let me say this too. I hope a lot of people hear this. cyclists have a right to be on that road they have a right and runners have a right to feel safe when they're running as well and the sheriff and i used to run together he could keep up with me but um but i'm telling you this is a serious situation and again just thank you thank you both very much i'm i'm in with you well thank you very much councilman jones that's a lot of people don't understand the legal aspects of, and this is bike law here in South Carolina, two pages. But again, we're not talking just bikes. We're talking runners, walkers, and then those that really need to have the road to get through their life, their daily life.

» Again, thank you. Given the interest on this, we're going to go by 15 minutes. Please, Mr. Connell, go ahead. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I was wondering if the sheriff was able to make out a couple of the license plate she's had up there fiona sure come on up what i was going to share before we hear from sheriff bone is fiona and bob thank you we experience a lot of your concerns in that we have just take for example state maintained and some county maintained roads we have studies that are 10 to 15 years old in some cases older where funds have been recommended to be spent based on traffic counts at the time and nothing ever happens. And in part it's due to demographics and per capita competition between other larger counties. And we're trying to navigate how to get through that.

» I would say if you ever have a question about whether or not you're on a county maintained or state maintained road, just feel free to call the staff here at the government center and they can clue you in on who would have authority or responsibility to fix something on the road. If it is a pothole or something else, there are some issues that we can take care of pretty quickly. Thank you. Other comments? I would say that the study that Fiona showed us, Gene Wise, my predecessor's chairman, made sure that I read it. That was one of the rites of passage for me, and it found its way into the vision document that's on page 34 and 35.

» Also, a number of other concerned citizens like yourself were instrumental in getting what I call not dirt bike but mountain bike trails uh very much in the clemson property along the watery river on the east side right behind walmart and then the property up at up at liberty hill i guess that's the austin sheen property it's really quite large so mountain bikes have options uh road bikes don't and we need to take that into consideration i would also ask the council to consider that the document i passed out to you in december at our last meeting in december was a copy of the letter that mr carpenter and i worked to send to d.o.t saying west of the watery we're not being cared for uh we're certain we have not had one nickel in 20 years put against roads and sidewalks and things of this natu

» re so we really need to continue to push with the central midlands cog which is the other half of our transportation picture y'all all have copies of that uh lastly we'll close it out by saying what a great public spirit you show fiona you're hard to say no to and bob that you seem to show up wherever good things are happening it's great to have you here and sheriff always uh you you add a lot of uh professionalism to every discussion thanks for coming any last discussion points i just wanted to answer uh mr canal's uh question here and then object to uh mr jones uh statement he made earlier about him running faster than me and all that good stuff but yeah we do we have ran some tags and we've made house visits on some of these highway patrol is also assisting with us we've created an email

» account where anyone that's on the runners and joggers they can uh let us know tag numbers and video and stuff to us and we'll we'll make house calls to them i'll be able to catch them on the scene but this video has been HELPFUL FOR LETTING US EDUCATE PEOPLE AT THEIR HOUSES. MR. CHAIRMAN? I ACTUALLY HAD SOMEONE WALK INTO MY OFFICE TODAY, COULD HAVE BEEN ANY ONE OF THOSE WHERE PEOPLE WERE CROSSING CENTER LINE, BUT I HAD SOMEONE WALK INTO MY OFFICE TODAY, ALL CARS INVOLVED, BUT IT MAY AS WELL HAVE BEEN A BIKE THAT THEY WERE SWERVING AROUND, WENT ONTO ONCOMING LANE OF TRAFFIC AND SOMEBODY LOST AN ARM, SOMEBODY LOST A HAND, AND SOMEONE ELSE HAD A PARACARDIAL AFFUSION, ALL BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE IN A HURRY, THEY CAN'T SLOW DOWN a little bit or they're not obeying the rules of the road thank you sir

» they put their their conveniency ahead of safety that's what happens yeah uh lastly mr one last question for our guest and i ask this question because i think it'll help uh take care of another problem so you talk about other cars being cars being issues how much is litter on the side of the road an issue as you're cycling and i say that kind of funny but i'm also serious because i think that may be an impediment so yeah debris on the side of the road is always an issue so maybe not so much trash but things like people blowing the grass clippings into the road um you know fallen trees uh another big issue for us is loose dogs they love a cyclist well that just helps prove our case that while we need to litter as well as all these other things that we've talked about that we've we've got to

» get a handle on our county thank you thank you very much indeed bob and fiona thank you and sheriff always thank you for coming with that that concludes our public presentations we move past the proclamation which has been deleted to an approval of minutes it's a tab a page three and it's up on the screen can we have a motion to approve the minutes the move uh mr gardner a second second mr brazel any discussion on the minutes uh from the previous meeting seeing they are none we move to a vote all those signify approval and it's unanimous and those are approved mary thank you very much indeed with that we move to an administrative update and it's the covet update by mr carpenter sir chair members council you can see the graph is going in a positive direction it's been dropping the last sever

» al days our 14 day total is now down below 600 into the 500s and it's dropped every day for about the last five days so hopefully we'll continue that trend. Again, the average cases, the last two days, we've been below our February average. So again, that's the positive direction that we're trending in. And the total number of monthly cases, God willing, it'll continue to drop. And so we will find ourselves far below the previous two months. And the coroner has not reported additional mortality in the last five days. So things are heading where we would hope they would go. All right.

» Any comments for anyone to hear uh mr jones you're up first i would like to thank this county council four times for six foot distancing because i had asked time and time again that we do that so we could pull our mask off and i appreciate that very much so anyway just want to pass that on to you i think the interpretation is we keep the mask on and go six feet let me say something yeah go ahead please if i can walk into a restaurant with a mask on it listen if this is the law i'll obey the law even even if it's a stupid law. When you walk into a restaurant, you have your mask on. You go sit down at a table, and you're sitting next to a hotel of how many people, and you can take your mask off and eat.

» So why can't I take my mask off when I sit here at this council seat six foot away? It's safer here than I am at a restaurant in downtown Camden. That's the interpretation of the law from Camden, so we ask you to be— They got it wrong. Well, I ask you to be in compliance today. I am in compliance. Put your mask on, please. I'm not. All right, well, I'll have to ask for a brief recess here. and then we'll come back once we're in compliance, Mr. Jones. Thank you. We are recessed until we are in compliance. Thank you very much. Mr. DeBose. Turn off the mic. Continue. All right. Okay, we are reconvened, and the judgment is, Mr. DeBose, would you read that again? That's not the actual ordinance. This is the city's synopsis of it online. That'll be good. But I think that's what it says.

» It says face coverings are not required to be worn when a person is traveling in a private vehicle, semicolon, alone in an enclosed space or able to maintain a minimum distance of six feet from other persons at all times. All right, very good. Let's continue then. Thank you. Yeah, can we get into other discussion matters, please? About concerning this? No, I wanted to get on to the shots and stuff, but did you have another topic? No, let me just say thank you, both of y'all, looking up the orders to make sure that everybody understands that in here i appreciate that yeah and uh appreciate you calling the meeting back to order absolutely um can we uh pick you want to add anything further about the shots you're on the board and by the way we are all very proud of mr carpenter he's on the stat

» e board that helps advise on way forward on the covid can you tell us what you have about shots and things of that nature um the governor has um moved to anybody 65 and older are eligible for vaccines. Vaccines can now be scheduled. The hospital has on their website a number you can call. You can also do it through CVS. I was in there today and it was packed with individuals getting their shots. This is still in the phase 1B category that they're working on.

» So first responders still, frontline medical people, seniors age 65 and older, any of them or people that are hospitalized are all eligible to receive the shots very good so phase 1 B means 65 and older yes sir yeah most I mean these these code words are sometimes confusing into our people and we need to speak English and I appreciate you saying that I know that Kershaw health sue sugar told me on Friday and indeed tomorrow's they will open up an additional expanded area at uh what's it called the um health resources center yes on battleship road um out on um out on 521 correction 601 headed south out of camden and are there any other sites other than that one and not currently that i'm aware of a lot of frustration all of us are getting those calls and and i keep referring them to whatever

» websites that exist other comments all right i've gotten the shot and it doesn't hurt. The second shot I'm told is going to be a little bit tougher and for those who have had COVID when you get the shot the reaction sometimes can be painful. Other comments? Okay well thank you very much Mr. Carpenter and that ends the administrative update. We move now to a series of ordinances. Item number one is the third reading of an ordinance on an intergovernmental agreement otherwise known as an IGA with the town of in Bethune. It's at tab B, page six, and it's on the screen. Mr. Carpenter, can you bring us up to speed here? Mr.

» Chairman, members of council, you have in front of you for a third reading tonight an ordinance that authorizes Kershaw County to provide certain services to the town of Bethune that are related to planning. It has previously been approved by the county council on two previous readings unanimously. Okay, very good. Can we have a motion to approve? So moved. Mr.

» gardener a second second uh thank you sir mr brazel any discussion uh mr jones a couple thank you mr chair members the county has a couple of questions um how much is this going to cost us nothing the town of bethune is required to pay any expenses that are related to it so what expenses could that be an example uh example could be if we do a site review or plan review uh then the time that would be spent we would charge the uh the fee and collect the fee which would cover our costs the fee or collect the fee to the citizens whoever is is requesting the developer the builder whoever is requesting that so if the town of bethune requested a developer if the town requests a service that is not covered by the fee then they would pay whatever that amount of money is fee what fee as a plan review

» fee i think we've had how many mike two in the last couple years five years i've been here we've been contacted probably less than a handful of times from bethune mike if if I could, have you checked around, is this something that's done in other counties? - Yes, sir, yes, sir. - How do you feel about it? - I know we have no problem helping them out. We just didn't have anything in writing to, I mean, it's the purview of council to allow us to do those things. So it was something we had to run through. - So this is something you would be in favor of? - Yes, sir, yes, sir. - Thank you. - Other comments? - Mr. Carpenter, thank you for answering this question. - Okay, very good. I think we moved to a vote. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand.

» and it's unanimous and it passes on the third reading and someone can pass that along to Bethune. Mr. Gardner, that's your district. Item number two is a second reading of an ordinance with a zoning consideration. It's at tab C and the map is up there. It's at page eight. Mr. Carpenter, can you introduce it, please? - Mr. Chairman, members of council, we have in front of you tonight for a second reading an ordinance to amend the zoning map for approximately 53 acres of land located in the Westville area. The two current zonings are MRD-1 and RD-2, and both would be moved to GD. It was previously approved by county council on first reading. Very good. Can we have a motion to approve, please? So moved. Mr. Gardner, a second. Mr. Snodgrass, good. Any discussion? Mr.

» Gardner, do you want to lead off? Yeah, I think this is Carolina Motorsports Park. They've been a good citizen for Kershaw County and a good business, And this is allowing them to expand if necessary or whatever. So I think it's a good idea to allow them to make the purchase and change the. Very good. Other comments? Mr. Snodgrass. Yeah, I have a comment and then I have a question for staff. Voted for this first time. I think it's a good thing. Great county neighbor, Motorsports Park, going to bring, just continue economic growth to that area of the county. And then the question for staff. If I understand it correctly, they're building, or they would like to build structures that could house guests or customers when they come in.

» Is that, read that correctly? I believe that's correct, yes, sir. Would that be subject to accommodations tax? I believe they'd be condominiums that'd be owned by people, not rented. Okay, okay. That's kind of what I thought, but I just wanted to double check. Thank you. Good question. Other comments? Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Russ. I'd like to, I talked to Mr. Michael Cummins today. He's a super nice guy. I voted against it first reading and talked about it. Mr. Skygrass, please, go ahead. It was unclear. I think, you know, to rezone 50 acres in the middle of Westville to general development was just a little bit concerning. But they're pretty committed to the community.

» They want to basically develop garage condominiums so these folks can bring their race cars down and have an apartment above it. he talked to me for a solid 20 minutes and he's pretty passionate about it so I think it's a good asset for the community a good asset for Kershaw County and it'll bring jobs and it'll bring some excitement and according to our conversation it will not bring any more potential noise or disturbance of the community that's already there so okay thank you yeah Ben thanks for sharing that Russell in addition to that it might actually increase traffic at airport with the folks coming in and out of town that would be in the market to have these kind of locations and have the kind of cars they're talking about and you're right on noise they're already racing cars around

» there all the time and these high power go-karts all the time so it kind of is what it is thank you mr chairman thank you uh jimmy i would like to say this that i agree with mr gardner that's one of the best things they got going for them up there and i think anything we can do to support and encourage is the right thing to do so i definitely plan to support this very good thank you other comments uh tom just you know you talk about noise well if there's anywhere in the county where it's sparsely populated where noise is not a problem that's one of them so i don't think that's that's an issue at all yeah yeah that's great i'm glad you talked to mr cummins anybody who's met him will understand his commitment to this community his county and the investment that they have already made and then

» more yet to follow and the business that's coming here that I have personally witnessed will be of tremendous importance to us. It may add to our horse culture with a different horsepower. With that, I think we're ready to move to a vote on the second reading. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. And it's unanimous, Mary, and we can move that item to number, the third reading. Lastly, we have some new business discussion regarding local legislative delegation.

» It's tab d and there's reference material beginning at page 36 with an extract from our budget and 37 with a legal opinion uh jimmy you wanted to open this one up go ahead i don't think there's a vote required here i'm not asking for a vote okay go ahead sir thank you mr chairman i i would like to do we need a motion to discuss i guess we i think so yeah let's do that i don't mind would you make the motion i would i'd like to make a motion that we discuss the local legislative delegation thank you sir a second second second uh mr stargrass over here uh with that jimmy go right ahead all right thank you where do i start i just want to make sure that we have some clarification here mr chairman members of county council i had uh talked with some folks about you know they have a budget i think

» the law requires us to supply them with some monies and some office space but if they want anything above and beyond what this county council has budgeted and approved they have to come back before this county council it cannot be made on any other level does anybody disagree with that i mean i i think you're right i know i'm right but thank you well i mean if i may that's what's in the budget there's no other money for them so they don't have a choice but i understand but i agree with you thank you that's what i'm saying well i have a reason for being here and i just want to leave it at that i just want to make sure that everybody knows that if anybody from the local legislative delegation approaches our administrator our deputy administrator our clergy county council they don't work for t

» his local legislative delegation they work for the county administrator of this county council at least mary does and of course they work for the county administrator but i just want to make sure they understand they don't have to jump to their marching orders i'm not i'm not here to personalize this i'm not here to call names i'm here just to make a fact i want our local legislative delegation to hear me loud and clear do not come up here and be try and tell our administrator what to do i'll take personal issue with that also i'd like to say that i'd like to congratulate vick davny for being elected publicly in an open meeting as the chair of the legislative delegation and also i'd like to congratulate um Okay, this is Gwen, Katie Gwen, for being appointed the secretary to the legislative,

» local legislative delegation. She's a wonderful person. She's going to do a great job, and I'm looking forward to us working with all the local legislative delegation. Thank you. Other discussion? I feel better. Good. Any other discussion? All right, very good. With that, I think we go to council briefings. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Mr. Reisel, you lead off. I don't really have anything to talk about. I think everything's pretty cut and dry. Thank you very much. Mr. Connell. No report, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Jones. No report. Thank you, sir. David, way over there. I joined these other guys with no report this month. Okay. Mr. Gardner. I'd like to wish my granddaughter a happy birthday. She's two today, so happy birthday, Finley. Thank you. Happy birthday to her. Happy birthday, guys.

» It's wonderful. I will point out that, to close out before I turn it over to the administrator, it is Black History Month. We have a declaration to that effect in honoring Mr. Tucker's request. We'll delay our vote, but everybody should recognize that. On my side of the world, 40 years ago this month, I started working for a brigadier general named Colin Powell. That's 40 years ago. And then 20 years ago, I'm that old, Jimmy, 20 years ago, he became the first black secretary of state, having already been the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And 100 years ago this week, the 369th Brigade of the U.S. Army, it was an all-black regiment, they were known as the Harlem Hellcats.

» They were the first unit, an all-black unit, first unit of any of the Allied armies to reach the Rhine River. Our heritage goes deep in our respect and gratitude for the contributions of the black Americans, in our case, soldiers, but uniformly across all disciplines in our society are boundless. And I look forward to approving that resolution with you all next time we meet.

» i just got a letter that i'm required to read to the council uh ben it won't surprise you but it's got the congressional medal of honor at the top of the and it's handwritten from a sergeant major named thomas patrick paint and i just i'm going to read it to the council thank you kershaw county for your continued support coming home to south carolina after the medal of honor ceremony was one of my the highlights of my life and you and i'm happy to come to talk to the youth back home in lugo again thank you so much for the wonderful homecoming to kershaw county sincerely and as he would would say at least in my background rangers lead the way uh patrick payne amen amen what a great guy and what a tremendous honor to to claim him as our own in kershaw county i want to also third item mary tha

» nk you for the board here uh mary did some hard work on boards and commissions and has made a lot of progress and i think we can start moving those back into your votes maybe next week next time we meet so a lot of updates are coming i'm looking to vic to give us an update on our schedule for the budget going ahead when you get to your part and i would ask vick and the attorney to help us reinterpret the language that mr jones so helpfully pointed out to us on the mask in this building and this council so we can enshrine that in a written document so if you can get that done thank you mr jones with that over to you vick mr chairman council only have three items for you uh the first is uh the yak and the river has been scheduled this year it'll be in may uh it'll be the normal process of put

» ting in the dam and taking out at the veterans park um it is again being sponsored by our great local supporters global echo adventures which mr mulligan and his son are the principals in it so we'll be advertising that for the next several months also coming up this coming weekend is the family movie night the family movie night father daughter mother son Valentine's night it's been moved to the Casey West complex everything else is the same it'll be February 13th that we have been advertising the change for the last week so people know but it opens at 6:00 movie begins at 7:00 there's no cost to attend but people must have reservations in order to get in and then finally my last comment is I'm sorry the sheriff has left because of mr.

» Jones told me that tomorrow's his birthday he was going to compete in a pull-ups sit-ups push-ups leg lifts arm lifts and a variety of other things against the sheriff in celebration of his birthday okay very good mr. DuBose I have nothing mr. chairman and there's no executive session can we have a motion to adjourn so made Thank You mr. Connell second mr gardner any discussion y'all be safe out there let's have a vote all those in favor and it's unanimous and we are adjourned thank you very much