Full meeting transcript - November 9, 2021

» test before we convene the meeting let me just welcome you all it's a great gathering of great americans here and support our county uh what i wanted to do is make sure you know that we have a bit of a complication tonight not anything out of the ordinary but just it's it may be uh unusual for some of you have not done that we we have four different opportunities to sign up tonight One is for public comments like we normally do, and the other three are for public hearings. As a part of our protocol for transparency and public exchange, when we get to important matters, we have a public hearing on topics. Those three topics tonight is a multi-county business park.

» secondly the millage which is going to be reduced a millage discussion and thirdly a redistricting plan we want to hear from the public before we move to votes on either side of you are charts that we've had up for about a month and have been in here for the public to see and those are the redistricting plan of the county government not of the state government not your state representative or your state senator so we want to hear from you the public as a part of a public hearing what I want to make sure that those of you wishing to talk and any one of those four are all four have had a chance to sign up mr.

» DuBose how does it look from if you would just take a look and there is anybody that wish to speak tonight on those topics that's here that did not sign up i suppose it looks like uh we're in good shape no one signed up for the public hearing mr chairman no one's indicated they want to sign up and the um public comments of tom webb the thirds has signed up so there's nobody to sign up for redistricting is that correct all right there was a a couple of bright young ladies in here about 3:30 and I chatted with them I thought they were gonna sign up nobody here to sign up for the Malta County and nobody here to sign up for the millage that's correct okay well then let's proceed I'll hit this little gavel here and we'll go down the list all right we have a quorum all members are present it's a

» great day in Kershaw County we've just had a clean community out we've had baseball football wrestling teams out cleaning up with homeowners associations cleaning up all over the county we have a ribbon cutting tomorrow for the county bus service uh we've just finished uh property sales run by our treasurer got a land jam this weekend we got a rev war reenactment this weekend we got a half marathon and if you don't think you've got enough to do and you're probably not paying attention and and then we also should congratulate those winners in Elgin and Bethune who won the recent election I'm glad to see you here mayor tonight I want to recognize that we I think ad Jordan is here are you here sir and if any of you want to talk to mr. senator Tim Scott's personal representative mr.

» Jordan will certainly like to see you uh here or outside or after so mr jordan thank you for coming we appreciate our elected representatives in washington being present thank you very much we have a very interesting agenda and with that we are called to order i would ask you to stand for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance and i'll leave the invocation tonight and as it says in the good book blessed is that nation whose god is the lord and we as your servants lord stand before you tonight and asking your guidance and wisdom and sense of fairness and kindness that justice and mercy may rule in our land and that we may use these precious resources given to us by the people of kershaw county and by your hand itself and to your honor and glory all this we ask in jesus name and let all

» the people say amen join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance with that we have the agenda on the board and normally we do public comments but we have people here that travel far and have other business and we want them to have the opportunity to move ahead and they've done great things for our county so as a chairman i'm going to take my prerogative to reorder things and what i would like first to do is to read the proclamation for the uh uh mr elias altieri uh i'm gonna need some help from one of you i didn't bring my notepad with me mary do you have the uh a printout of the proclamation yeah let me borrow yours i'll just use mary's thank you um my fault mary i just the way we do things here for the boy scouts present is we take a motion uh we get a second we have discussion

» uh sometimes short sometimes long and then we vote on it and then if we decide you're worthy we ask you to come up and and uh get your photograph taken so with that can we have a motion perhaps mr snodgrass for this for this proclamation yes sir mr chair uh make a motion that we uh read and adopt this proclamation honoring mr altieri and his efforts all right can we have a second second now with that i'm going to read the proclamation and then we'll have a discussion all right a proclamation honoring uh scout elias altieri whereas kershaw county lives the vision of vision 2030 to be a great place for families and for parents to raise the world's best kids and whereas elias altieri is the son of James and Nicole Altieri and a junior at Camden High School.

» He is a member of Boy Scout Troop 777. Why does that name keep coming up, huh? Whereas Elias painted the McDonnell F4C static display located at Woodward Field in Kershaw County for his Eagle Scout project. Eagle Scout is the highest achievement or rank attainable in the scouts bsa requirements include earning at least 21 merit badges this includes an extensive service project that the scout plans organized leads and manages and whereas the per the agreement between kershaw county and wright patterson air force base what the museum the aircraft located at woodward field must be maintained in appearance when the aircraft was in need of repainting quotes were received between twelve and sixteen thousand dollars however elias offered to take on the task as his eagle scout project and with the

» help of his family and friends he was able to get the job done for under four thousand dollars along with painting the aircraft elias has landscaped the area around and under the plane and as well as replacing the sign containing the aircraft's information and whereas this aircraft served as a trainer in the Air Force from November 1964 to December 1988 before being retired to the museum status. Now therefore, Kershaw County Council recognizes Scout Elias Altieri for his outstanding contributions to his community and the council wishes him continued success in scouting and in his future endeavors.

» With that, are we ready to discuss sure thank you mr chair and i just want to say uh elias thank you so much for for being an outstanding young man i know that you are an example uh to your peers and a leader among your peers and i know i told him earlier i said i know you've got a lot of blood sweat and tears um as do i'm sure your parents uh in into this project and uh thank you so much young man it looks great i i'm out there a lot and it just it's phenomenal love how you guys were able to locate locate the decals and it really helps uh give give our airport just that added just that added a touch uh to really people don't realize our airport is busier than you would think it than you think it is i live out there so i see a number of of our corporate partners that fly in and out of there

» a lot um using uh using kind of our gateway to the county as they say so this only enhances uh the the great the great property out there so thank you sir appreciate it other comments Mr. Chairman. Yeah, Mr. Connell. Not only do Boy Scouts tend to build up the projects in the community, but they build themselves up. People have no idea what it takes to do 21 merit badges. That's a year's worth of commitment. And sometimes I think of it like sports. I haven't been a scout myself. Your parents have to shuttle you around and get you everywhere. You have to attend public meetings for your citizenship merit badges. Sometimes you have the fun ones, like if they still have archery or shotgun clays, that kind of stuff. But really proud of you.

» Very, very glad that you did this and we're glad to have another eagle scout amongst our ranks thank you other comments yeah mr. Gardner congratulations I mean that's quite an effort and we'll give you a chance to speak in a minute all right I'm gonna certainly invite you up sir thank you very much I would just like to say mr. Jones go ahead and we're very proud of you and I'm very proud to be a part of this tonight. Thank you. Other comments? I'll say that our airport is like our front porch. It's where CEOs come in. It's where I first greeted and first met the governor back when I first came as chairman. It's a lasting impression, and it's a bad one if that airplane or whatever we have in that airport is not sending the best signal.

» And thanks to the scouting program, we now have not only a bargain, but we have a better entree. I had lunch today with an F-4C pilot who was shot down in 1964 and could very well have been trained in that airplane. Spent nine years in a POW camp. I was sitting there with the lieutenant governor and Mr. Al Wilson, and they all asked me to tell you thank you, because nine years in a POW camp or getting shot down is not fun.

» and this guy is a real hero and heroes wrote in that airplane and it just gives me a sense of thrill as a veteran myself to know that our scouting program still produces great patriots like you sir thank you very much any further discussion yeah that's the that's the that's the talk part uh and now we get to vote all those in favor signify and it's unanimous and sir thank you very much. Could you ask, before we ask you to speak, and that young man back there, we'd ask you to come up and get a picture taken. Would you mind? Come on up and bring your scouts and your family with you. Up on the screen is a picture of that F-4 Phantom.

» People call it an I-beam with a jet engine attached, and it is incapable of flying except for the fact that This particular POW said it's got one of those powerful engines in the world, and it would make a brick fly. But that one looks like it's ready to go. Hey, would you just tell us what you did up there, young fellow? So that's not even on. Well, is it? OK. Well, yeah, that's true. So basically, this is the before picture, whenever we actually started. So basically, that was before we sent it.

» was the first picture we got of it so basically prior the only thing that was painted recently was a tail so it looks slightly better and that was actually done by my shop teacher so basically he helped me along with that just to get paint and all that but yeah that's basically the first one and there's the after yeah look at that now would you tell us what you and danny templar did with the air force would you get closer to the mic so everybody can hear it tell me about the markings on the aircraft and all that yeah i really wish i knew oh really you worked with the air force uh we had a an air force off uh sergeant from shaw air force base give us a little a hint or two of what we should or should not do okay all right and there was somebody in the back that wanted to speak to you want to

» come on up sir uh this is gary philpott i am vice chairman of the airport commission and not only did he come out and work on this in some bad weather and some good weather you had friends that helped you too tell us a little bit about who helped you and the signage well the signage was done by signs unlimited which is a company kind of down the interstate don't know exactly which road but you can see it on the side passing and they actually donated that sign and you know pretty much and we had some members of the troop who helped out but it was mainly me my family and some family friends including mr norman who's my scout master and the hardest part was just stripping it is that correct oh yeah the painting was fun but he also not only did this work he also for almost what eight months cam

» e to every commission meeting at the airport oh really gave us an update this man knows how to do the hard things and to complete them on time and under budget and we're looking forward to him serving on this committee in the future okay introduce who came here today and get on the microphone if you would and yeah and tell us who supported you and we want to make sure they are recognized to go ahead okay well we have mr.

» Norman who's my Scoutmaster yeah we have James Altieri it's my father you have Nicole that's siri here's my mother and we have josiah siri here's my brother yeah congratulations round of applause everybody all right well thank you for coming it's an honor that to have you in this county and it really gives us hope for the future thank you so much thank you scoutmaster when's the prospective date of the eagle ceremony looking at december 18th i believe we're just waiting on national to get all the paperwork back yeah yeah um but you know the biggest thing is a lot people please talk to the microphone too you got about 600 people watching you right i'm sorry can y'all hear me so you know i'm very proud of elias this is i'll be honest with you the largest project that troop 777 has ever done i

» mean it's it's a it's pretty impressive we've done projects with the national turkey federation the camden battlefield um the churches and you know other smaller projects but this one here is going to be hard for anyone ever to top ever again but it's really an oppressive project but the biggest thing is you know a lot of people sometimes don't utilize the scouts like there should be they are a tool and an asset to the community and they need to be used that way so you find your local units see what they can do for you you know there's boys out there you know as you can tell no project is too small um and i think it's important that people use the scaffolds as a tool you know that's what they're here for making better citizens you know hopefully one day they'll be our politicians you know u

» m but thank you all so much and mr burns anything else well triple seven uh really does uh outdo themselves i look forward to seeing you on the 18th we may have to rent out zimp stadium for this event mr chairman yeah mr jones nothing is better than seeing a proud mama thank y'all oh gosh well come on up to the mic we want to hear from mom thank you jimmy they power washed it first and so that took um a bit of time not as bad the sanding that was a lot of arm work and um that was what that was the pits yeah the sanding wasn't as much fun everybody came home kind of covered um so then we were able to get the automotive paint from napa auto supply and start that process and one of the things i wanted to mention was when it came to the signage we were coming not the sign for the plane but the

» actual decals for the plane, we were coming across some issues. I reached out to Shaw Air Force Base, left multiple messages, emails, never heard a reply back. And I put out the SOS on Facebook, thank goodness for Facebook. And Ruth Torsha actually sent me an email and says, I have a contact you might want. And I want to just give a shout out for Andy Bishop. He works with ProColors.

» And this is what he does now as a retired man goes out and does this as a living and travels all over the united states and so he free of charge sent us every one of those custom stencils for that plane including all the ejection seats danger signs everything and a shout out to my husband who meticulously and painstakingly did every single one of those stencils and many of which were multi-layered stencils and so thank goodness for his attention to detail on that and And a shout-out to our son, Josiah. His sister's away at college, and she helped every time she was home. We recruited her. Shout-out to Josiah for doing a lot of the high-detail work, especially the yellow striping on that scaffolding way up there. So it turned out really well, and we're really quite proud of it.

» And to see the before and after is just a wonderful thing. I'm proud of this kid. all right thank you sir and thank you get back to your studies right and thanks to the airport commission that's a big deal for us as i said it's our um it's a gateway to our county it's our front porch and uh we have an industrial site there when when the north central moves back to its high school uh hopefully we can turn a tech back into an industrial site as we had plans for before the tornado interrupted our plan to do that thanks to the airport commission sir thank you and thank you elijah thank you good night wow uh with that we also have a prerogative to move forward uh one other very particular group and they expect me to say this it's a great day in kershaw county it's an all-american county right la

» urie carpenter all right thank you very much for being here we still believe in that spirit and i think tonight we're going to see it realized in a new way again the item on the agenda here is a resolution by kershaw county council authorizing the acceptance of a deed from a place of learning for active youth in kershaw county of 2.5 acres consisting of a dog park and acceptance of a vehicular parking easement and authorization of execution of a joint use agreement that could only have been written by a lawyer but under our rules I got to do all this I'm gonna read the resolution and then we'll take a motion I got a feeling it will be from Ben Connell let's see a resolution by Kershaw County Council authorizing the acceptance of a deed as already read whereas the place of learning for activ

» e youth aka the play foundation is conveying two and a half acres roughly to kershaw county consisting of a dog park named the mason family bark park yeah whereas accession llc is conveying a vehicular park and an access easement for use in conjunction with the mason family bark park and whereas kershaw county is entering into a joint use agreement as to the easement now therefore be it resolved by kershaw county council that acceptable acceptable of the duly executed limited warranty deed and substantially the same form as attachment one is authorized paragraph two that acceptance of the vehicular parking easement and joint use agreement as to vehicular parking and access easement in substantially the same form as attachment two is authorized paragraph three that execution of the joint use

» agreement is authorized paragraph four that all other acts are authorized for facilitation of acceptance of this deed and the easement on joint use agreement in paragraph five that kershaw county dog park has named the mason family bark park resolve this day can we have a motion to approve mr carnell mr chairman i make a motion that we adopt this resolution accept the deed and also the easement and can we have a second second for mr garner mr carnell what you wish to comment thank you mr chairman so from one source of pride and gratitude with the boy scouts to another we have a charitable foundation here a very generous donor as well this is something that we've been working on for a number of years the mason family and mr mark mason senior is present here tonight have been very gracious in

» donating this piece of land which is not insignificant it's right off highway one very visible and they had a vision for a community asset a recreation asset another one for you uh in the quiver shane uh with uh a dog park and area for people to take their pets and it's just a beautiful thing i think that we were looking at a recreation commission recommendation of purchasing land at 250 000 plus or minus and then the county spending all the funds to purchase the equipment which is not cheap and do all the irrigation and everything but instead of incurring those costs a donor stepped up in the community to make this happen you've also got the play foundation here uh miss emmons miss frith miss kate golf and miss laurie carpenter who have been working on it quite heartily over the years covi

» d put a bit of a speed bump in it but i'm just so thankful because we're here and it's about to happen and people keep asking how do i get in you know the donation included a fairly high-tech security apparatus where you have to have a card to get in and we've got to get the system set up with with applications and everything i know you're ready for that too shane so we're just really grateful we're thankful here in kershaw county tonight very good uh mr gardner yeah i think this is a wonderful thing i don't own a dog anymore but i hear a lot of people talking about a place to go and let the dogs run and obviously it'll be a social place as well so thank you to those who contributed and did the work on this uh be a great asset to kershaw county absolutely other comments uh mr jones just lik

» e to say thank you to all those involved the committee mr mason each and every one of you we have a dog but i won't be taking my dog to the park because my dog does not like me my dog belongs to my wife she will be utilizing the park thank you other comments uh shane you're here uh would it be fair to have maybe vic or yourself just talk about a timeline and how people can get access because that's i think that'll generate a few questions you want to come up and spend a minute on that shane yeah so the play foundation has uh done a great job of uh keeping everything organized and getting us on a good time frame to open this thing up next tuesday the 16th we're actually having a ribbon cutting at 10 a.m that morning. So we'll basically just do that.

» The ribbon cutting, there will be an agenda where several people will speak. And then on that same weekend, on Saturday the 20th, we will actually have our grand opening from 10 to 12, 10 a.m. to 12 noon. I myself, possibly a couple of rec staff members will also be out there with some of the cards for membership.

» So we'll start taking some memberships um then uh actually once we have our ribbon cutting tuesday we we can uh we can begin um taking memberships next week we're already set up we have the key five system ready to go we have the cards so uh we're ready we're ready to rock and roll so saturday when we have our grand opening i mean it's just gonna be that it's gonna be open and ready to go yeah other comments uh is the sheriff gonna get one for his canines hey he certainly can there will be a few few things that have to happen of course there's gonna be some shot records but we have all that in a document so everybody knows what's going to be required to get that membership each membership will get you two dogs per household so if you have more than two dogs you'll have to get a second membe

» rship membership for our County residents will be $40 and anyone out of of the county has to be it will be 50 as been stated before this this property was donated but at the end of the day we have to handle the upkeep so that's why we have to have some type of a membership fee structure and I would expect a deliberate review of that fee structure if we could bring it down at some point absolutely stone utilization factors other comments yes mr. Jones Shane, you've also done a great job, and I appreciate you structuring it the way you did. Thank you. You and the Play Foundation and the others, thank you so much. No problem. Well, we got Lori Carpenter cracking the whip, so she keeps me straight. It's true. Vic knows. Other comments? No comments.

» I will say the Play Foundation has been an inspiration to hundreds of us in the county, and All-America County is just one of your many things. the park at kc west another and i look out and i see some wonderful wonderful people as a member of that foundation but i also see a fellow that doesn't like his name much to be mentioned he's done remarkable things for our schools a collaboration with cctc and now with the bark park named in their honor mr mason you do us a great honor by being here tonight thank you sir can we have a round of applause he's the kind of guy that gives all the glory to god but sir we need to give you our thanks tonight shane anything else i could uh just mention one more group and that's the uh humane society because they're going to have a part in this as well we uh

» mr mason has also provided the uh bark park with a uh a strip of um pavers and the idea between with with the pavers is a citizen can have their dog's name or um pet's name um etched into one of those pavers and uh those funds uh is actually going to be shared by the uh the humane society and the recreation department so it's a it's a great it'll be a great funding source for the humane society as well thank you thank you that i think we're ready to vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and play foundation and mr mason you have our thanks thank you very much and i also thank the council for allowing me to move this up so y'all can go home to supper and have to sit here and listen to all our deliberations all right uh can we have you come up and get a picture thank you counci

» l for uh allowing us to move these very quickly through to allow these great americans to get back to all the wonderful things they do for our county we move now to public comments uh mr dubose would you uh please do the honors uh mr chairman one person signed up tom webb the third yeah mr webb thank you for coming and as you know our rules of the house is we listen to you and uh and there are no comments back and forth please stay on the subject and uh not be disrespectful to anybody in the county either this group or those out in the audience or those listening in and i appreciate you coming tonight as always sir i see your vietnam hat thank you sir well i'm really glad to see that uh that old aircraft get some tender love bring the mic over tom so really glad to see that old aircraft get

» some tender loving care out there i've seen them in actual operation um we call them phantoms yep and um i've seen them take off before just before dawn with the afterburners full on to try to get altitude as quick as they could so they don't get small arms fire looks like a blowtorch taking off in the sky and they really are thunderbirds incredible piece of equipment kind of a shame to see that retired well we are getting close to the real veterans day on the 11th so i've been down on the corner for a little bit as i tend to do showing off with a sign veterans our hope your duty trying to encourage some veterans to speak out come out and be involved a little bit more i don't understand it exactly why the public is so quiet about things that bother them, but they don't say anything, I'm the

» only one signed up to speak today. It's kind of a shame. I've got a couple of poems. They're timely. They're old poems. I'll read these. I'm not picking on anyone in particular. Human nature. People fail us. We elect people. They don't do what we think. But then maybe we we don't know what we're doing when we elect them. We don't look into things well enough. I can blame people on all levels, myself as well. I've tried to get a little bit more education about what's going on. Just coming here has been good. I've enjoyed knowing all of y'all and talking to you, and it's an enlightenment just to be here and participate a little bit. But here's one of my poems.

» We're here between Thanksgiving and Halloween, these are old ones and they are a little bit political as you might expect where it's always halloween what walks the corridors out of sight behind the state house walls what fright patrols the halls of congress you all think are y'alls some politicians zombie head no good at anything he said while vampire bats drink our taxes to keep us in the red there's a cog out there behind the screen with spider webs that won't be seen and big black cats and democrats that are plain enough to see but those of them on the other side are scarier to me rhinos have a mask they wear and freedom's what they eat and the game they seem to like to play is voter trick-or-treat who are they with no respect that make us want to scream and won't protect our heritage a

» nd act so darned obscene it's the spooky spooks that we elect where it's always halloween and the other one for for Thanksgiving called thanks anyway for the work in the field to harvest the yield there was meat on the table for the willing and able and a little cold soup for the rest and there were thanks for the hen and the pigs and the pen the mule and the stable and the silver rule right there in the Bible this land was blessed back then and it's my turn now giving thanks at Thanksgiving at Thanksgiving time to reflect on the way we're living and thanks for old thanksgiving again, and a little more thanks, just a little, for the trouble we're in.

» When we're complacent and life is good, it's seldom we question the way we should, as in how much is enough and what is the cost, and where is the truth and why is it lost, and may I be rude, our people are starving, starving for insight and stuffed with food. Our recent plenty of basics and such has altered the mood a little too much, and it keeps on going, till now we can toast to America's ghost with a cup that's overflowing. Though maybe not just yet, there's a challenge where we come to meet to save this land from more defeat. Defeat by something foul and foreign here inside the border. And liberals too will rue the view of their darling new world order.

» Those liberal fellows will issue forth with howls and bellows when the heel of the boot they thought was cute turns to stomp them flat. And we might even shed a tear. A tear? Well, maybe not for that. But life and liberty never stay just the way we want them, and no one knows the way this ends. I'm giving thanks for Park to play, and thanks for all my friends. Thank you, Mr. Webb, and thank you for your service in Vietnam. Mr. DuBose. Mr. Chairman, that concludes the sign-up list for public comments. And that concludes public comments. We move now to public hearings. I will read each of these as we go through. item number one, a public hearing in regards to an amended and restated ordinance to create a multi-county business park with Lee County.

» This multi-county business park to be comprised of property located in Lee County and Kershaw County and established pursuant to South Carolina Code of Laws to provide for the expenses of the park, percentage of revenue application, and the distribution and fees in lieu of ad valorem taxes to the counties and relevant taxing entities and the distribution of fees in lieu of ad valorem to the counties and relevant taxing entities and to provide the jobs tax credits allowed by law be provided for industries located in said park and to permit a user fee in lieu of that ad valorem taxation uh with that i'll open the public hearing uh mr devos is anyone signed up mr chairman no one signed up and i'll wait a respectful instant to see if anyone else would come forward now with that no one came forw

» ard i'm going to close that first public hearing and open the second which is a public hearing in regards to an ordinance setting the millage rate for kershaw county for the fiscal year beginning july 1 it says 2021 but i believe it's that's correct is that correct that's good that's correct yeah that's right that's right 2021 correct and with that mr dubose has anybody signed up no one signed up mr chairman okay opening the hearing and waiting a moment to see if others come forward thank you sammy you're welcome uh no one comes forward so i'll close that public hearing and move to item number three a public hearing in regards to an ordinance adopting a redistricting plan for kershaw county council redefining the six single member of county council districts reapportioned as to population i

» n accordance with the 2020 federal decennial census and applicable laws and requirements i'll open that hearing mr dubose anybody sign up mr chairman no one signed up uh we'll wait a moment again uh sir do you wish to come up please come on up hello sir please identify yourself and welcome good evening my name is floyd bracy i'm a lifelong resident of kershaw county didn't know this county council was being redistricted as you stated a little earlier and it started about a month ago so i'm personally in objection to what's been planned thus far so we like to look at the numbers so we could make a day or nay as to what decisions are forthcoming very good sir thank you very much for your attention thank you mr bracy it's good to see you again thank you other comments uh yes uh miss hooten ple

» ase come up thank you mr chairman i actually identify yourself for everybody listening please i am amanda hooten i am a resident of cassett and i would just like this is the second hearing second reading excuse me i was talking to mr snodgrass earlier and i came in early to look at the maps that were displayed i actually fall on a cusp on winchester road between right on the line between five and six which is mr gardner's district and mr snodgrass and it's not very i came in to get a more definitive view of what i might look like with my address in the different scenarios and unfortunately the maps are not very clear and defined and i was uh would like to ask that prior to a third reading well in advance if we could get a more definitive mapping system so that i could for example i'm sure i

» 'm not the only one in the county that is experiencing this and that's all thank you and we have your contact information mary and point of order yeah we have the maps and i was i thought we were going to have them up the better ones but but they're there right so we're going to put them up after the meeting or okay those were the better maps no no these are the maps over here last meeting okay in the email excellent good point excellent yeah if i may yeah jimmy go ahead i think um was it mr bracy who got up and spoke mr bracy missoula i think both of them make some good points and i'm sure that uh we'll move forward with this as quick as possible yeah those are excellent points uh other i think there was another hand in the back we want make sure we hear from that person as well is that it

» okay we have great comments from mr bracy and miss hudon and and we've got it it is complicated it's difficult and uh if we can replace these i think we'll move on and and and there'll be further amendments as we go into a discussion after the public hearing uh is any further uh with that mr devose i'm going to close the public hearing and that was very useful indeed we move now the next item is on the agenda the agenda is on page four in your electronic books and it's on the up on the board uh can we have a motion to approve the adoption of the agenda please make a motion without the agenda mr chairman mr tucker a second second second for mr gardner any discussion i would only note that for the the first time in a very long time we're not having a briefing on covid and we pray the good lor

» d will allow that plague to subside and we can move ahead with our lives um with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand uh mr tucker are you with us uh and it's unanimous and the agenda is approved and we move now to the approval of minutes it's on page four uh october 12 2021 uh can we have a motion to approve the minutes i'll move a second uh for mr gardner's first anybody second uh for mr sodgrass uh any discussion of the minutes mr chairman i'll be abstaining due to my absence uh roger all right any further discussion uh can we now vote all those in favor with mr tucker abstaining signify and it's unanimous with with Mr. Tucker nodded voting. We move now to the next item on the agenda, which is a public presentation.

» Item number one is the audit presentation. Shaheen, Hancock, and Godwin, led by the amazing financier, Mr. Mark Wood. Please, our CPA. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of council. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. I've given everybody a copy of the audit report. We're gonna go through the one-page summary, if you don't mind.

» I'm gonna try to be brief now y'all got some other things to discuss tonight you tell us where that one-page summary it was it was right on top of all the reports chairman before I get started just wanted to let council know that the county did receive an unmodified opinion again which is the highest opinion we can give on a set of financial statements so congratulations for that item one on the executive summary it just kind of gives you an outline of the audit report that's pretty self-explanatory i don't think we need to go through that two three and four i'm going to go through the general fund and then we'll come back to the preparatory funds the general fund total assets 33 million dollars total liabilities or 18 million so your fund balance for the general fund is almost 15 million d

» ollars number three kind of gives you a breakdown of what fund balance looks like between restricted committed and unassigned. So your restricted is about $230,000. You've committed about $6.6 and your unassigned fund balance as of 6-30-21 is a little over $8 million. Total revenues for the general fund were a little over $27 million. Expenditures were $24 million. You had some transfers and other financing sources, which was mainly some sale of capital assets. So your change in fund balance as of the end of June 30th, was $3.8 million. Fire trade funds, these are the sewer and EMS combined. You can look in your audit report. It should be on page 18 or 19.

» It'll give you a breakdown between sewer, and there's a column specifically for EMS, so you can see how each of those did, but this is just a combination. Total assets were $30.7 million. Viabilities and deferred inflows were $9.6 million. So your net position, your equity, was a little over $21 million. Most of that is invested in capital assets, $18 million. Restricted for debt services, $700,000. And your unrestricted net position was about $2.4 million. Combined total revenues were $9.6 million. Operating expenditures were almost $7.6 million. and your interest expense on the bonds was a little over $100,000. You had some transfers in, so your net change in net position for both the sewer and EMS was $2.3 million.

» You look at the budget, revenues exceeded the general fund budget by almost 1.6. Expenditures were under budget by 1.5, and your transfers and other financing sources were over budget by $700,000. So that shows you where your positive change in fund balance comes from. Once again, there are no findings with the audit report. I think this audit report is a reflection of the strong financial stability the county's got. It's a good report. The county and council should be very pleased with this report. And your reserves are good. They're strong. But they need to be. Because, you know, a lot of these, a lot of y'all's unassigned reserves is how y'all pay for some capital projects during the year so you don't have to go out and borrow money.

» So you're right in line with about four months of reserves on hand, so fund balance-wise. Before I take any questions, I just want to thank the finance department, Sandra and her staff. They do a terrific job. Once again, Sandra is the one that wrote the audit report and sent it to me, and I just kind of went through and tweaked some numbers and formatting and that kind of thing. So she's to be commended because I know how hard those reports are to write, and it's a labor-intensive project. But it's been a pleasure working with her, and we look forward to our continued relationship with the county. With that, I'll answer if there's any questions. I hope Sandra is smiling behind that mask. gentlemen any questions comments mr.

» Tucker I miss what thank you again thank you and your firm for always being willing to come in and assist and got us and and do our audit but I do want to say a special thank you to the finance department with miss Sandra Brown she's up here late in the evenings and early in the mornings I catch her in the office a lot when I tip through thinking I'm here by myself and she's in there working hard and her staff so well we're very grateful and appreciative of you miss brown and um i know this is not a true statement but i'm going to make it anyway i hope you continue to be around for a long time other comments so would you say and it's no secret that the county has uh leveraged uh debt in in healthy ways in order to obtain capital so would you say based on this report uh we are to put it in l

» amest terms we are living within our means uh very very well very well okay thank you other comments yeah i'd like to i'd like to thank the administration and in particular miss brown thank you for doing such a good job and um mark thank you for putting this together so that we can understand it help help me understand the um the revenues exceeded budget um in the tune of 1.6 million is that right one five eight eight yes so at this point did we just add that to our reserves or but yeah that that's that that's why your fund balance for the general fund increased 3.8 million dollars this year um because revenues exceeded budget but you also had expenditures that y'all had budgeted for that you ended up not spending and so with those two components you were able to increase the fund balance s

» o over the course of the year we increased the fund balance balance almost four million dollars pretty close yes that's quite impressive now you have committed some of that fund balance for capital projects and you've also got a budget reserve that council passed a couple years ago that y'all set aside a certain amount that you will not use on only under certain circumstances but when you do you've got to make sure that there's plans in place to build that back up so a lot of that that's why i'm saying some of that is is not unassigned it's in with commitments that council has already done so in this report can can you show us where the um federal funding lies that we received from the federal government all your federal grants are listed on page 92.

» mr brazel if you are referring to what we call arpa funds we didn't spend any arpa funds therefore that's not going to show up because this is the the audit through the end of june so our fund to show up in the current year's budget and next year's audit the arpa funds councilman brazil are are listed as deferred revenue so it's showing as a liability right now it's revenue that you received in advance but you haven't spent so it's sitting on the balance sheet right now uh so that's not in reflected in any way in the revenue statement okay okay well good yeah and i would suggest to all of you that mr mr wood's always been very helpful with me and he always agrees with a private uh i think uh class on how he put this all together and so i'd like to draw on you once again if i yeah that's fin

» e if any council members ever has any questions please feel free to reach out um call the office and um you know i'll be happy to meet with with any of you and go through the report answer whatever questions i might answer to help y'all better understand so y'all can make better decisions for the county absolutely mark some of the um i'm sorry go ahead the the bond restructuring that saved us what over the course of the year that doesn't happen until the current year so i i don't know how much that's going to say but i mean i can look i've got the documents i just don't remember off the top of my head but that didn't happen until the current until the current year so that'll be reflected in that's all in this current audit so it won't be it won't be reflected as of june 30th no because that

» all happened after year end looking forward to seeing how that improved things as well thank you mr carpenter indicated he wanted to say something i'll go to sammy okay mr carpenter i'm mr chairman i would just um we tend to kind of lose track a little bit of how much time passes when these come in front of us this is our coveted year so this was the budget where we stopped spending and some of the areas we budgeted conservatively and revenue came in when people started spending and places like that so it's unusual in that respect that it does reflect what steps we took to deal with covet it also does reflect cares act money to some degree that we received as reimbursements for expenses so there are aspects to this mr wood if he sits with you and goes through it can show you where that show

» s up but uh this budget's a strong budget i will also um as uh miss brown has been pointed out um what she does is she saves the county really a significant amount of money and time when she puts together the information into the book uh the auditors do the audit we don't do our own audit but they audit us but but she does basically a lot of the paperwork that saves us significantly in doing so helps them out gets to us quicker so so by her doing that it's a significant advantage to the citizens of this county SAMEY. THANK YOU MR. CHAIRMAN AND THAT'S PART OF WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY AS WELL ABOUT THE COVID AND STOP SPENDING BECAUSE WE ACTUALLY JUST DIDN'T DO ANY INCREASES DURING THAT YEAR. WE KIND OF DUPLICATED THE BUDGET BUT I ALSO WANT TO GIVE THE CITIZENS THEIR PROPS.

» WE HAD GOOD TAX COLLECTION DURING THOSE TIMES. THEY PAY THEIR TAXES AS WELL AS THE GROWTH THAT TOOK PLACE IN THE COUNTY OVER the last year so and i'm wrong mr wood please correct me all of that is a part of that 1.6 that we had accumulated over that's right i don't want people to think that we're we're taxing and having a free for free for all funding on the side when it's more of a better stewardship and um and finance department and staff that we come about um these um overage and i can tell you um you know a lot of the audits that we've done so far this year be it cities towns counties um we're kind of seeing the same trend that revenues came in better than what was expected and of course a lot of people held down their spending because of the covet issue and so it had a both had a posit

» ive effect on the governing body other comments uh jimmy thank you let me ask you this with our budget where i said now what is the minimum we should have in our reserves i mean the rule of thumb is three to six months so three is probably a little too low and six in my opinion is too much so four to five is kind of your sweet spot and that's i mean y'all are right at about four months so which is in dollars which is about eight which is about eight million dollars so your your expenditures for the general fund for the whole year are 24 million so you divide that out it's two million a month so four months eight million dollars so i feel that the county has is right where it needs to be where we at at this moment what's what's the peak we've had our reserves to during a year i don't know wh

» at it is as of right now generally speaking your your peak's going to be hitting sometime in february uh there's tax most of the tax receipts to receive from property taxes and then for the next 10 months it's a decrease every month as we EXCEED SPENDING COMPARED TO REVENUE SO OUR PEAK GENERALLY IS ABOUT YOU KNOW JANUARY TO FEBRUARY WHAT'S THE PEAK WE'VE HAD IN OUR RESERVES I CAN GET THAT FOR YOU I DON'T KNOW NOT OFF MY HEAD SIR DID SANDRA ANSWER THAT QUESTION MS BROWN OH I WAS JUST ASKING WHAT IS THE PEAK OF OUR RESERVES THE HIGHEST THE HIGHEST POINT WITHIN THE YEAR THAT WE'VE HAD YES MA'AM PLEASE COME ON OUT THANK YOU RESERVES ON A QUARTERLY BASIS SO FOR THE LAST QUARTER OF FISCAL YEAR 2021 THAT WAS OUR STRONGEST quarter because at the end of the year that's the one we got the majority of

» coming in the state revenues the the Karis money so it hit the high peak then so I would say probably three million how much three million so our budget our reserves has never gone over three million and I don't think she's understanding your question sir and three million is pretty low yes sir I'm getting a little confused when you say reserves i think i'm general fund band oh okay for the time fun about general fund yeah um i think it's been higher than that yeah because i was thinking that you were talking about just what we're moving over sure i guess what i'm saying just for the record we've hit up close to 13 14 million at some points and times during the year haven't we in the past in previous years before we we created the fund balance um policy that we have now yesterday at some po

» int we hit that much that's why council allocated those funds out for some capital projects so that we wouldn't be sitting on unnecessary excess funds and what's the lowest we've ever ran well i would say since i've been employed this is the highest as far as the 14 million where we are now we're at 14 million yeah where we are now total but that's and that's that's what i was trying to get to that's not on cash correct but the bottom line is that's the peak that we've been in this year well we ended last year with 11 million and so this year we ended with 14 so that's almost a three point million growth and we need to have in reserves how many million as far as the bottom line which is eight million dollars so we're doing pretty good setting money aside.

» And this is a point in case that I go to, I have a tough time creating fees or millage when we're able to put aside that much money. That's just my opinion. But y'all are doing a good job watching the money. It's not your fault. It's just what we do. Vic, you're very conservative. You do a great job on it. But I just think that when we're able to save that much money and we do it quite often. I've been working with Vic 10 years.

» He's been a great steward when it comes to putting money aside but as i said i just have a problem in raising millage and creating fees whenever we can have 14 million dollars in the in the reserve thank you other comments mr snodgrass mr carbon isn't correct i mean i understand your point mr jones but uh you're that reserve doesn't mean that the like for example the fire fund has that type of reserve correct or nor does it have access to it isn't that correct theirs is a separate fund right correct it doesn't reflect in that amount i just don't want the impression being left here that we're sitting on a lot of money that for some reason we're just deciding not to use but there's a lot of state laws and a lot of things that are binding us well the 14 million um over six million is committed

» we're ready for projects capital projects that are are either been committed but haven't been spent or in the process of being spent so of the 14 million about six and a half is already essentially spent on projects that's also where we pull when we buy vehicles heavy equipment right that's what we use the council's policy is that we keep three months of operating cash in reserve and one month of operating for a map for emergencies or disasters anything over that staff recommends the council how to spend it and we recommend with our first priority being on heavy equipment and capital items buildings things like that so as we present the budget anything excess over the three months and one month is recommended to go into capital projects that's what this year is is putting in the um the impr

» ovements out of the casey west complex and some others around the county i'm again heavy equipment trucks sheriff's vehicles things like that and you're talking about capital which is separate from operating funds to operate a fire department or an ems that's yes sir okay sure the capital money comes out of out of any excess revenues is generally how we've handled it yeah other comments uh mr jones if we can close that out thank you sir mr snodgrass i don't have a problem what you said but bottom line is we still save 14 million dollars and i'm just saying that maybe eight million we need to have on hand any way you look at it we're still putting aside millions of dollars each year or within a few years or whatever it may be and that was my point okay thank you mr jones uh i think we're rea

» dy to close it out i'll come and visit you mr wood but to my understanding 14 minus six uh already committed means eight million reserve which is what we asked you to do in our policy and looks like this is a very well managed administration a very well done job by our cfo and it's always great to hear from you mr woodham i look for more instruction at your at your tabletop the next time i can get around to see you sir thank you very much thank you and we will move on thank you to the next uh public presentation which is um item two kershaw county opportunity zone from mr jeff burgess has been asked by congressman by congressman councilman uh it's not a boy don't he wish yeah i don't think you want to go to washington right now david all right jeff bring up the team here they come good even

» ing chairman members of council and ms mary uh before i get started i want to introduce these guys real quick they were instrumental they started this opportunity zone prior to my arrival uh the county had the foresight like many other counties to try to take advantage of it so the ball was already rolling when i got here and i was able to pick it up but first i'd like to introduce azad khan he's with parker poe consulting they actually were the ones that helped formulate and put the prospectus together and probably someone who did the majority of the research on the county end was a Stuart Kidd if you remember Stuart he was formerly under me had enough of me he was the existing business and workforce development manager he's now the talent and training development coordinator for the count

» y so I've asked him to be here to help out with some of the questions and if there's any other information you need but real quick the opportunity zones were created by the federal tax cut act in 2017 this is where zones were designated in certain counties or to spur mainly economic development and job creation and distressed communities by providing tax benefits to investors who invested their eligible capital into these zones so right here you can kind of see where opportunities on is it extends pretty much the highway 521 corridor it extends all the way out in East Camden back over toward Lugolf you get up to the watery rivers where that edge is at at that point and all the way down to pretty much 521 and i-20 those were listed as designated census tracts by the US Department of Treasury

» it was actually formally established through 50 governors four territories and the mayor of Washington, D.C. That's how these were all set up, and once it was formalized, they put them into play. So those counties and regions that had them have the opportunity to set up these opportunity zones. The whole idea behind it is you're trying to draw investment in, and it's not just industrial investment. The nice part about this is you're looking at retail, you're looking at health care, hospitality, and in some cases, just what we'd call enterprise opportunities.

» One case in point being one of our opportunity zones and what lies in it is the airport which was highlighted tonight with the young man's work out there that has received a great deal of attention by investors who are interested in possibly putting I'll just lay it out there a restaurant or housing another facility that has been very well looked at is the a tech facility right now it is being utilized by the school district but as it moves forward with that they're aware that that building and that property may come available and one of the biggest drivers in this country and then even our county is workforce housing and that's another component of this opportunity zone is we're reaching out to those groups that looking to set up excuse me mr.

» Jordan is here from Tim Scott's office and I would just point out to you that mr. Jordan will tell you proudly there was mr. Tim squad I'd Scott our own senators Tim Scott who came up with this idea for the whole nation go ahead Jeff please no worries and it's been a pleasure meeting of these folks as well um going back to just it's kind of a non-traditional form of economic development this gives us another arrow in the quiver so to speak when we're speaking to investors and so forth um as we move forward i think we have a little bit more of a window i think 2026 is the sunset on this particular enterprise or opportunity zone um the main part of it is and I'll probably defer to Stuart and I'll defer to Azad, is what we get out of it when we reach out.

» We actually have a website set up for this for investors to visit. And I will turn at this point to Azad to kind of explain how that works. All right, sir, please. Thanks for coming too. Thank you, Jeff. And thank you all for having me here today. As Jeff mentioned, my name is Azad Khan and I'm a consultant with Parker Pro Consulting. And some of you may remember, we started this project in August of 2020. We put together a group of government leaders such as yourselves, community leaders, and stakeholders in Kershaw County to come up with ideas that we felt were compelling investment opportunities for fund managers to consider.

» So we met with you guys, we had this meeting, we came up with several ideas, and then we developed an investment prospectus and so this this page on the screen here is one of 40 pages of that prospectus where the goal was to highlight and describe kershaw county as an attractive investment location which was easy to do as you might imagine but also then to point to specific ways that investors could put dollars in this community and so we had investment ideas ranging from industrial development uh housing development uh and then also retail development so that we we pointed we pointed to specific uh real estate assets that were vacant and available at the time and also to resources the community offered to industrial tenants to again highlight a community as a place to invest for industrial

» investors so we developed this um opportunities in prospectus and then in conjunction with that we also developed a landing page which is a a website so that investors could find this opportunity zone and investments that are available in kershaw county online because that's where investments start right these invest invest investment fund managers are doing research online to figure out where to put their dollars um the last piece the last component of our work was to take the message to investors so it's one thing just to develop a prospectus you know to have an online landing page it's a whole other thing to take that message to investors that have stated interest in investing in opportunity zones so we compiled a list of about 400 different contacts not just fund managers from across th

» e country but also real estate developers in the region and high net worth individuals in the state thinking that you know again we want to encourage these these high net worth of individuals real estate developers to invest in Kershaw County's Opportunity Zone. So with this now contact list of over 400 people, we bifurcated it into different segments. So those that said they were interested in retail, we developed an email marketing campaign specific to their interests. With the same thing for those investors that said they were interested in industrial investment, the same thing for investors that were interested in housing development, and then we catered our correspondence to them based on their interest.

» There were a number of investors that said you know we were interested in any opportunities are available and so for those ones we sent them everything that we had in our in our prospectus to encourage them again to invest in Kershaw County so over a six month period we sent 21 emails again we stretched it out over six months so that we didn't get we didn't have investors block us right so we again we tailored it to each investors interest and then sent emails to remind them of opportunities that were available again to encourage their investment here in kershaw county questions mr khan um mr chairman sir so it it covers a portion of kershaw county that's right questions that i get from folks in the community that um like-minded investors i guess they wanted to have some of the tax benefits

» on the other in the other areas of the county including blue golf and elgin what's the criteria for the public to know that went into whether or not a census tract was selected for this type of opportunity zone so primarily the u.s treasury department took in several factors into consideration but primarily there are areas where low-income and disenfranchised communities so relative to other census tracts and then each state's govern governor had a lot of input as to which census tracts were ultimately selected as well because whenever i initially saw the map it had been set in stone i asked well what about Lugolf and Elgin they said oh well you know the governor's already decided and you don't have much influence are they subject to amendment or increase in any way you know it's that is un

» clear and it's I would say it's unlikely there you know there are talks at the federal level of maybe some changes happen with the program but it's you know to be determined I think are we talking another 10 years the next census and then you get to determine what your new opportunity zone looks like it could be it's again it's you know it's unknown at this point i think okay well that was my question i look at that and i say we have 770 square miles in the county and i don't see elgin i don't see lugoff i don't see bethune i don't see cassette so what do we tell just in plain english what do we tell our constituents that they're not in the opportunity zone i think the easiest way to answer that question would be that a lot of it was not in your control and so you know again there are recom

» mendations made locally that were considered by the governor and then the governor's office made the ultimate decision i think as to what census tracts were selected i think there are maybe 30 or 40 census tracts in the whole state so you know one of those numbers were what was selected in kershaw county thank mr snodgrass for making this clear to me and mr connell's comment certainly resonates uh yeah go ahead david sure azad thank you for for coming and for putting this together and as somebody who was part of the conversation early on i'm thankful to see to see this uh see this taken off uh again i think it's a situation where we didn't choose a zone uh they they didn't ask our input they just said hey here's your opportunity zone uh essentially they said here's here's the rules of the g

» ame you want to play or not and my thought was sure there are other areas of the county that uh that need that that could be an opportunity zone uh but that wasn't our call so this is our opportunity zone and so let's make the best of it and i don't it doesn't take a whole lot of time to drive east on on highway one to realize wow this opportunity zone because i think the i think the uh one of the big criteria was an area that needs revitalization you know commercial buildings that that need rehab commercial buildings that have been dilapidated and so uh to to encourage that type of investment uh what so what is the advantage uh to the investor so if i'm if i'm the investor what what advantage does these groups and you can explain that too right because it's not particularly maybe one inves

» tor but it's it's we're reaching out to investor groups is that is that correct yes so there are a couple of ways that that investors can take advantage of opportunities and benefits uh one and this is going to be the biggest way that the benefits are realized is through real estate investments in real estate the second is investments in business but it becomes far more complicated and less likely to secure that type of investments but the way it works is it's primarily that these these large funds are gathering capital gains from investors that are looking to defer capital gains tax and so if you invest your dollars into a qualified opportunity zone fund and that fund then invest in an opportunity zone then you are able to defer your capital gains tax by five years and reduce your basis in

» that in that gain by 10% additionally if you hold your investment within the opportunity zone for ten years then any new gains are not subject to capital gains tax have you have you seen projects that have that have been completed in our state that have taken advantage of this and what are some examples so I've seen projects that have announced but have not yet been completed there is a big relatively large project in the low country part of our state in Hampton County that included agricultural and co-packing it announced I want to say in 2020 I don't know if it's ground or for investments of stars yet but the the the businesses that are establishing that co-packing operation are actually setting up a qualified opportunity fund specifically to use their capital gains to fund the project uh

» and then there are other projects along the i-95 corridor on the low low country part of our state where i've i've seen investors park dollars in speculative construction so their goal is to establish warehouse distribution parks in that part of the state that's designated as an opportunity zone with the hopes of holding it potentially getting a tenant and then holding that property for at least 10 years and and just to be clear there's no there's this is not a county program this is not a program where they're getting any incentive from kershaw county correct this is all federal yes it was it was established by the uh tax cuts and jobs act of 2017 at the federal level thanks all right that's been very helpful i'll probably be in touch with you because uh one of my burning issues is there i

» s a tech once north central moves out we can certainly leverage that for east camden uh other comments gentlemen i think we need to call time on this discussion but thank you david for bringing in jeff and the team good to have you on the team thank you very much sir thank you do we have examples of the website danny that i'm going to call tom on this in a moment okay okay that was part of this presentation go check out the website you guys did a great job with it and jeff thank you so much tune your zone yeah would you email that out yeah thank you very much that was perfect that was good questions everybody thank you very much gentlemen well done all right the next item is moving into the business of our county a little bit more deeply let me make sure i've got it right as a resolution it

» em uh paragraph no excuse me tab c page nine nope we've already done that one so we go to ordinances i think third reading of an ordinance of the county council it's on page 20 tab d to amend the official zoning map for approximately 86 acres of land with the tax parcel along king street mr carpenter would you introduce the topic mr chairman members council you have in front of you tonight for third reading an ordinance that authorizes the rezoning of approximately 86 acres of land in kershaw county from its current rd1 to r15 a council has previously approved this on second reading yeah that's very good can we have a motion to approve i'll make a motion mr chair uh mr snodgrass a second second from mr tucker uh discussion mr snodgrass or mr tucker uh mr chair i'll just say i appreciate how

» uh all parties involved have been in communication with each other i know there have been some questions uh from from those who live in the vicinity but to my knowledge um i know those who are requesting rezoning have been responsive to that and uh it's that was just very very positive thing to see and uh as in the last the prior two readings uh i would move that we uh finalize this but third reading thank you mr tucker uh thank you mr chairman and council um I want to say a special thanks because I haven't had an opportunity to talk to him, to Mr. Robert Lackey. I know you have really worked good with the residents around there and addressing their concerns and making sure that they are comfortable with this new development going in and they don't lose what they moved there for.

» That's good neighbors. There's no need to start off with bad neighbors. I really appreciate your efforts. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get back in touch with you to have much dialogue but i know you were hard at work so i appreciate you and all others to make sure that that was mitigated and dealt with on a very professional level thank you other comments i too have been out there i've witnessed the good faith efforts by all involved and it's how you grow a community and make it a community and spiritus and also in the physical nature with that i think we moved to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and thank you robbie it passes on the third reading item number two is a third reading of the amended and restated ordinance to create a multi-county bus

» iness park it's at tab e page 34 in your electronic books mr carpenter would you open that please mr chairman members of council you have in front of you tonight for third reading an ordinance that amends the existing multi-county business park between kershaw county and lee county this merely brings the business park into the same compliant terms with the investment of the prestige farms at the governor's hill industrial park council previously approved this on second reading thank you sir can we have a motion to approve motion uh is that you david yes mr connell uh any comments mr snoggrass uh mr connell no sir any further comments very good we had this in our public hearing with all with that we'll move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and we move to item number

» three a third reading of an ordinance setting the millage rate for the county it's a tab f it's on the screen it's on page 37 in your electronic books uh mr carpenter please enter this chairman members council have in front of you for third reading the ordinance that sets the millage for kershaw county for the fiscal year beginning july 1st as you recall the council has previously passed the budget state law requires that we then pass an ordinance that sets the millage very good can we have a motion to approve make much to approve mr chair mr tucker second second uh for mr snodgrass uh discussion led by mr tucker if you wish um i just want to uh thank um dennis arledge our auditor and uh staff here with the county on um getting this uh prepared and ready so of course we can um get our tax n

» otices on time get our millage set and this was also a um reassessment year so um with all that being said um i think it came out very well where um you'll be receiving a little increase um in the millage a decrease decrease i'm sorry in the millage in the millage um because of the reassessment and that means that his property values went up so with that i thank all who was involved yeah other comments uh mr snodgrass sure thank you mr chair for me this this is demonstrative of the great budget year that we just came out of the budget planning in which we had several obstacles the hospital being sold to a not-for-profit organization losing that philo and an ems system that would still need those funds and so through through being able to restructure debt and lower that and this is kind of t

» he i guess the final piece of our hard work that we did in the spring and in into the summertime and our auditor not mr arledge but the auditor that just presented to us uh helped us realize that uh we are in a good we're in a healthy spot where we we have leverage debt for our benefit uh but we are living within our means and uh we're in we're in a good spot and i think this is just the this kind of ties all that up with a with a nice bow if you will thank you okay other comments any others uh mr jones go right ahead sir looking at the page up there on the wall mr carpenter it says county operations and personnel budget 2020 20 65.8 2021 66.8 which was up then it looks at b county debt service um 2021 5.1 2020 10.6 which is down and uh county fire 2021 11.1 of course in 2020 10.6 uh then y

» ou look at the emergency medical services 9.1 2021 and 5.1 in 2020 those are the numbers that i talked to you about earlier and if you add all those up i think what happens is that we're four tenths of a mil down correct yes not up okay thank you other comments uh i just want to say this has been an effort across this whole council here every man here had a part in this much of this was driven by a discussion of debt servicing and you see that debt servicing has been cut in half in terms of uh debt that we had and that allowed mr carpenter with extraordinary efforts to offset the fact that we have lost a million dollars in revenue that mr snodgrass just talked about and so with that moving the millage around we have a reduction in millage first time in about 10 years.

» And while taxes may go up and down based on the value of the property that's being taxed, the net result for our county is in this tough COVID year, we're coming out where we have reduced taxes by a small amount, but with much effort, we have reduced the total debt we as a county have and i congratulate you vic you've had a great audit and now you have this uh this prospect with sandra i think i see you grinning behind that mask again but it was well done mr chairman yeah go right ahead please thank you uh one thing dick i do thank you for the job well done and and miss sandra as well but i'm gonna tell you uh i really appreciate we don't always agree him and me but i appreciate this man's effort uh russell brazel has jumped into these numbers and he's really asked some questions and brough

» t some things to the forefront and uh i just want to tell you good job russ i appreciate that very much thank you sir and uh you know we need to continue can't continue on now however this is paul harvey says the rest of the story says nothing to do with the millage but you know we did increase the tax the car fee 10 dollars per car we did increase the fire fee so i mean you know before we gloat too much on how much we've saved the taxpayers we've also added in there with fees as well and that's just my opinion thank you okay another discussion yeah go ahead sir respond to mr jones i i appreciate that very much um there were some opportunities it wasn't all my doing it was a lot of just uh opportunity to to save money and we will we'll work on those fees and other issues that that people um

» are not happy about we'll work on those in this next budget cycle we can't can't correct or change everything the way we want to in one year but everybody has worked together I appreciate the way that everyone's worked together I look forward to working on that sewer tax next year and getting our sewer system to where it stands alone without any any tax so that that's a goal that I'm gonna set personally and I hope that everybody's willing to work together again this coming year the way we did this last year absolutely I would also say that with financial success in the economic development world 500 new jobs and that's been offset some of our need for the government taxes and fees have been offset substantially by the continued health of the economic development effort so that has offset w

» ith fear fellows that have helped us so with that i think we can move to a vote uh thank you again everybody let's move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous and off we go thank you sandra and pass that word on to the treasurer and the auditor thank you very much we would item four second reading of an ordinance authorizing the execution of an amendment for a fee in lieu subject as i just raised a few minutes ago it's on page uh 38 in your electronic book it's on the screen mr carpenter would you bring it in mr chairman members council we have in front of you for second reading an ordinance that is essentially extending an existing fee in lieu with an existing industry in the county uh the project's currently known as project bobcat okay with that can we have a motion t

» o approve right so move uh mr snodgrass a second second for mr tucker uh comments uh mr carpenter are we is that are they in a position to where they do we know who bobcat is or they still are in a position they need to remain we do know um jeff can we reveal it or third reading okay but it does involve an additional investment um but it's and it's but there's some they're they're already here yes correct okay and this is normal procedure uh it's not a lack of transparency this was the wishes of the company that we're dealing with and so we honor that in order to bring it before the people at the third reading other comments mr tucker please sir mr chairman council uh mr carpenter you or either mr burgess uh what's the investment and number of jobs uh mr burgess come on up please sir jeff y

» es sir um the investment is 4 million in investment right now they do have jobs but they are not committing to those jobs or a specific number though we have been told it's between 15 and 25. okay thank you okay it's an upgrade to an existing operation which is always good yeah other comments i think that's good news more industrial development more philo and more jobs with that we move to a vote all those in favor so signify uh mr jones too good thank you oh it's unanimous mary and we move on to the third reading the highest item under ordinances item number five second reading of an ordinance with a redistricting plan for county council it's on page six zero it's on the wall and it's a tab h i think we'll have some discussion on this can we have a motion to approve make a motion to approv

» e mr chair very good mr snodgrass a second second from mr gardner very good uh discussion i believe there's a subsequent motion mr tucker yes mr chairman um i would like to make an amendment to this motion to add the maps of 2b 2b and let me let me explain what is taking place i was out at a last meeting um and so i just got a chance to review these maps just yesterday and a couple colleagues sat down with mr joey for about two and a half hours and um THIS IS ANOTHER OPTION THAT UH WOULD BE IN BEST INTEREST FOR THE COUNTY AS A WHOLE AND THE MINORITY MAJORITY COUNCIL SEAT SO THAT IS MY AMENDMENT CAN WE HAVE A SECOND SECOND SECOND FOR MR GARDNER DISCUSSION PLEASE MR TUCKER YES UM I HAVE TO AGREE WITH MS OOTEN I THINK THAT'S THE WAY YOU PRONOUNCE IT ON ON THESE MAPS AND WE CAN GET THEM FOR THE

» REST OF THEM TOO THEY'RE STREET NAMES SO YOU CAN ACTUALLY IDENTIFY WHERE YOU LIVE AND WHO'S GOING TO BE YOUR council representative with the uh 2b it gives what we call the bvap and joey if i'm using wrong term terminology please correct me he was in here i don't know he's right there okay there you go he's a tall guy with the ball spot joey you're likely to be talking in a few minutes good to see you again sir come up mr operman so with that being said uh would you reflect that mr openman is here today please thank you go ahead and just have a seat joe we'll be at you in a a minute that raised the vbap score for the minority uh potential voters in that district as well as kept the population because we have to be in so much of a variance of representing the same amount of people indicate t

» hat balance and it actually gave back a part of the district that was taken away in the other scenarios that i already represent so for those reasons i'm introducing this tonight and i think it's um it's the best fit uh that represents everything that we're trying to accomplish with the redistricting uh mr gardner yeah i'm gonna say the only difference i think it added one precinct uh a census block one precinct uh it's one census block yeah block that i mean that's the only difference between it and map two i believe that's the only difference yes sir that that's correct so the scenario 2b that's been referred to is exactly the same way in every way to scenario two with one exception.

» There is what's called a census block, which is the smallest unit of geography that the Census Bureau uses. One census block covers a neighborhood surrounding Cottonwood Lane. That neighborhood and that census block is currently in Council District Two under the 2011 plan. Scenario two restores that neighborhood to Council Two so that the only difference between 2B that's been referred to and Scenario 2 that's displayed to our left is that rather than being in District 5, that census block surrounding Cottonwood Lane neighborhood would go back to District 2, which is where it is right now. - Which is in the Antioch vicinity, just for clarification. - Yes, sir, that's correct. That's correct.

» The additional value of that change is that it reduces the population deviation and only affects district five and district two right the other four districts remain exactly the same as as in scenario two which is currently displayed but it reduces the population deviation by slightly increasing the population of district two and slightly reducing the population of district five so that uh currently the population difference uh with district five being slightly larger in district two being slightly smaller in scenario two is about almost a thousand people according to the census but in scenario 2b that difference is reduced to approximately 839 people so that rather than having a 9.2 percent deviation from mean this change in 2b would be a 7.9 deviation from mean so it comes closer to compl

» ying with with a true one person, one vote. Both scenarios comply with the law as to that matter, but there would be a greater equality of population in District 2 to District 5 under the proposed scenario 2B. And Mr. Chairman, and why, Mr. Opperman, is that important as far as the mean and the variation? Because some people listening probably don't have a complete understanding. Sure, there is a requirement.

» hear one person one vote frequently described in the context of redistricting and it is the most important thing the reason we change every 10 years as soon as the census numbers come out and they came out a little late this year nationally from the commerce department is that a single member districts in a jurisdiction have to have substantially equal population for u.s house districts the u.s constitution is very specific that they have to be as equal as possible or other single-member districts you get a little wiggle room because you may have a policy that you want to follow keeping traditional redistricting boundaries intact recognizing rural community versus a municipality or something like that there's a little wiggle room but what that looks like in the law is if you take the full j

» urisdiction Kershaw County in this instance with its new population which is sixty five thousand four hundred some odd you divide that by the number of single-member districts in this case six you come out with ten thousand nine hundred point five which we would round up to ten thousand nine hundred and one so for ten percent deviation you look at ten percent of that mean district size so what we're trying to ensure as we go through this process, one, to comply with the law, and two, to ensure that each district has a substantially equal population, is that if there's any difference district to district, it's less than potentially 1,090, because that means it's less than 10 percent of the mean district size.

» And the scenario 2B reduces that deviation rather significantly, so that you just have less of a difference district to district. And that means people's voting power in one district is substantially equal to people's voting power in the other district and it bumps up the bvap better than it is in two versus two b that's correct and that that is a factor that may be considered uh um and indeed must be considered for compliance with the voting rights act um but we've worked hard to ensure that that is not the predominant factor in the drawing of the map if it were the predominant factor that could um that could create a constitutional scrutiny in other ways but one of the ways that we've avoided getting into that territory is including other important factors in the council's resolution as t

» o how the redistricting would be conducted one implying with federal law as to one person one vote to complying with the Voting Rights Act but also looking at ways to ensure that municipalities especially small municipalities are are not split and that um split as little as possible thank you let me just do some quick housekeeping and we'll have some other discussion on page 60 is a resolution we passed two months ago saying the general principles that we would follow and joe and vic and the team have made sure we are in compliance with those general principles that we laid out and we voted on in this start in this area secondly we originally agreed that we do a public hearing today and vote in the second reading to a single option but given that this is a new introduction under to Bravo th

» at you I'm using military language if you understand that Submariner down there yes sir yes sir under to be here to bravo this represents a fourth one that me and the other men to my left have not had a full chance to look at and neither has the population in general so the proposal i have going here is not to vote to a single option tonight but to stay in our agreement for transparency and dialogue that we put that fourth option up once we clear up these maps as susan said right susan and put up the fourth option for another review by the public and it'll be in this room uh as long as the building is open until we vote on the third time so the basic idea is we would not vote tonight for to a single option but only vote on this amendment and have a total of four is that correct mr tucker ye

» s sir mr chairman that is correct okay and then the third issue is joe you represent an amazing resource you make my head hurt um but i'm sure would you be willing to hang around and talk to susan and mr bracy and others who have questions that would be a pleasure and you can make their head hurt as badly excuse me and amanda forgive me my fault thank you who is that okay i can't remember why i screwed that up amanda but thank you for coming tonight so i mean you have some people who are clearly here tonight to hear this discussion and you might clear it up for them I'd be very happy to and I would just reiterate that the too Bravo that is proposed is exactly the same as scenario two for council members who were curious and members of the public who are curious it is exactly the same as sce

» nario two except for one census block on the boundary of two and five is adjusted but that as the chairman as you point out mr. chairman That'll be publicly available for people to see. - Perfect, okay. Back to other questions, that was just some housekeeping. Others, Mr. Tucker? - Yes, let me just finish. - And then I'll go to Mr. Connell. - Okay, we're using terminology that people may not be familiar with. - Thank you. - BVAP, can you explain what that is, please? - That refers to VAP in the context of census data and in the context of redistricting refers to voting age population.

» In other words, persons counted by the census were 18 and older so if you hear a term like hvap that would refer to hispanic voting age population or wvap usually it would be listed as non-hispanic w that would refer in shorthand white voting age population evap technically refers to non-hispanic black voting age population that's a relevant statistic um for determining compliance with the voting rights act in this case section two of the the Voting Rights Act. Thank you. Mr. Connell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Joey, I appreciate you being here tonight and working with us over the last number of months and trying to get this sorted out.

» In talking with folks who've had questions in the public, the most useful hypothetical I've been able to discuss with them has just been composition matters in particular districts. That's why you have to focus on the majority minority district to make sure that folks who are minorities under federal government classifications have power because voting a vote is power and uh hypothetical would be if russell had 10 000 um constituents in his district and i had 5 000 well one of us has twice as much voting power um the folks with the larger membership in the district they'd have half as much voting power as the folks in my district so that's why we go through all these machinations to try to make sure that it's as fair as possible um that minorities are fairly represented and that each distri

» ct has the a reasonable amount of voting power. Sometimes you just, it's weird to cut a subdivision in half and it doesn't make sense on the map. And that's why you have a little bit of variance. But for the public and the folks I've been talking to, those hypotheticals seem to make sense. Yes, sir. I think that's exactly right.

» And for instance, under the plan passed in 2011, one district has, I believe, almost 2,000 more people than the mean district size one district has about um about 1500 too few so that that deviation is 23 so you got one district that's 9 555 people right now in one district that's 12 037 and in order to get that right one out of fairness and two follow the law you got to make these adjustments yeah and populations will change in various districts but it represents a lot of effort cost and time to do it and so we try to get it done every 10 years yes sir thank you If I may. Mr. Jones, and then we'll do Mr. Brazel and Mr. Snodgrass. Go ahead.

» Listen, this is my second time working with you, and you came up with a couple of solutions for District 4, and I think what I said to you was pick the one that will best work to fit Mr. Tucker's district, correct? Yes, sir. So you have that choice. Okay. Mr. Brazel. on I just wanted to say this has been an interesting exercise you know my first year never being involved in any sort of political situation you're very intelligent and thank you very much for helping guide me and all of us and I've learned so much and I'll be praying for you because I know you got two more of these to do this week's you've got a lot lot to keep straight and really appreciate it it's very interesting process it's a great pleasure to work with y'all as well and and I've learned a lot and I deeply appreciate it t

» hank you I'm a snide grass question mr. carpenter we still want to try to move forward staff creating a website or because I think it's pretty archaic for people to say hey come look at this these walls in this building when we're in 2021 yes sir to the best of our websites ability to to put it up interactively we will do so okay yeah I'm just I mean I know he's got some really good shape files to go to todd and then todd can put in the streetscapes and everything else and so we can just access high quality pdfs that would be that'd be great mr chairman okay uh yeah mr tucker and we'll close it out yes i want to review one more part this is very transparent for a lot of people that's watching and sitting in this room um mr opperman um is there anywhere legally possible to draw another minor

» ity majority district with the current population in the current composition of council no sir did we look at that um yes yes sir real hard yeah to examine that question is required by law and i as i as i interpret the voting rights topic can you talk into mike i'm sorry thank you how can i bring that mic up to your altitude right thank you councilman can y'all hear me better um to your question councilman tucker it would be required to look into that as to complying with section two of the voting rights act because one of the things you look at is um can um can there be a majority minority district that is reasonably compact as case law uh defines that um you know and you wouldn't just look in one area you would look county-wide if that's a possibility and then there are other factors that

» determine whether or not you would then proceed and draw such a district but because that's part of the analysis um it was incumbent on me to look and see if that was possible and with the population as it is and with the number of council members with such a population it is not thank you okay i think that's excellent last point is a lot of people have been texting me about the redistricting at the state level that's the state house the state senate and the state house of representatives we at county We have no influence on that. We can complain and suggest, but the State House, the Speaker and the President of the Senate rule in that domain, and we don't have much to say about it, and it's starting to come out in draft.

» But if you have a question about that, then talk to your delegation or talk to us, and we'd be happy to tell the delegation, but we have no influence on that as far as I know. Mr. Opperman, let me just ask you a question about a scenario. If we had seven districts, could we have two minority districts out of that? No. Still wouldn't work? Not with seven, no sir. Okay. Good question. Just a question. Everybody needs to know that we're doing our very best to make sure there's a majority minority representation on this body. Yes, sir. Okay. And that's a very good question, Jimmy and Sammy.

» that let's move to a vote on the amendment and then we'll go to the base document all right with that restate your amendment Sammy so everybody knows what we're doing on to be yes sir would like to Bravo yes sir and to Bravo to the existing maps that we're going to look at for final vote in December's meeting okay all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and we move now to the basic amendment uh motion as amended all those in favor of the basic emotion as amended signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous mary moves to a third reading with four options now with that we move to new business i believe that's correct yep item number one is approval of an agreement with the town of bethune as to magistrates serving as your municipal recorder it's on page 101 at ta

» b india i believe and i'm going to read it where we're reaching out to help the town of bethune whereas the supreme court of south carolina has authorized a procedure for assigning magistrates to serve as municipal judges and whereas the town of bethune desires to have such a magistrate james davis to serve as municipal recorder now therefore pursuant to the authority of south carolina excuse me kershaw county council the following agreement is entered into the county council agrees to authorize county magistrate james e davis jr to serve as municipal recorder for the town of bethune subject to the approval of the chief justice of the south carolina supreme court the town of bethune agrees to pay uh a sum of money per month so the county can increase magister davis's monthly salary by said

» amount for the extra work he will perform on behalf of the town of bethune as its municipal recorder and the town of bethune will likewise pay kershaw county per month a sum of money which will be equal to the town of bethune's required fica and medicare contribution the town of bethune state retirement contribution and a pro rata share of the employee contribution for health care insurance first county will be required to list magistrate todd under its liability insurance and likewise the town of bethune will required to list magistrate davis under its liability insurance and each government entity will provide the necessary bond as required the that upon the appointment of magister davis by chief justice to serve and said james davis shall keep his magisterial functions and municipal func

» tions entirely separate by utilizing separate supplies warrants dockets bank accounts and hours he must make it clear at all times when serving as a judge whether he is acting in his magisterial or municipal capacity this agreement upon execution shall be forwarded to duplicate in duplicate excuse me in the chief judge chief magistrate of kershaw county who shall retain a copy and forward an executed copy to the office of court administration in the at in columbia that upon the signing of the order by chief justice copies will be distributed to all affected and so on can we have a motion to approve make a motion we approve mr mr tucker a second please second second for mr gardner and mr connell mary your choice uh but we uh now move to a discussion mr tucker mr let mr connell he won on that

» okay yeah i'm just curious under uh paragraph two are they still negotiating the amount to be paid or they need to determine the understanding there's going to be no compensation so it'll be zero is my current understanding of it so are you yeah the question then is are you comfortable with this going forward with a zero in there are we to approve that can we need a little help here well if if judge davis agreed to serve with no compensation then that would be his decision all right now they still have to list him under their liability insurance that's not going to change is the scope of work pretty light right there well it depends on i mean kind of like planning and zoning we had that agreement back. So this is just, they're currently finding themselves without a judge.

» They're looking for a judge. Judge Davis has agreed to step in on a temporary basis for them. He is willing to do it to help them, but we are required to go through this process. If they were to agree to any amount of compensation, then the town of Bethune would be required to pay that in full to the county. But to my understanding, there is no compensation being discussed at this point.

» okay thank you that's all i have mr chair well i'm looking at the signature blocks the clerk and the mayor of bethune must sign it and then i sign it and i would presume that before i sign it we'll have an agreement on the compensation whether it be zero or whatever it is uh mr chairman yes the town of bethune would execute it first and if they okay deem not to pay him any compensation they would insert none in that block and then of course uh judge um davis has to agree to it also right okay and i'm going to meet with the incoming and the outgoing mayor bethune on thursday and i'll i'll mention this but i'll let you and their attorney sort it out okay if i may yeah jimmy mr attorney mr devose so since there's not going to be any compensation based on judge davis doesn't want it we pass thi

» s resolution here as it is tonight and the way it is worded they can still get compensation without coming back before us unless we do an amendment correct yes no it's going to be signed first as the chairman said by the mayor and the clerk they're going to execute this and send it back to us and if they determine they're not going to have any compensation it needs to say that in there we'll say it they would have to insert that and then mr judge davis have to agree to it correct and this is temporary and then we'd have to agree to it because he is a magistrate and he would have to perform some degree of duties but i think he wants it to be temporary to my understanding yeah yes sir he has no intention of serving as their permanent and what i'm concerned about and i think it's already been

» covered you know by the chairman of mr gunnell whoever was speaking but bottom line is if there's any compensation to any judge i want to know how much the conversation is because i would be very uncomfortable voting for that if there was going to be compensation and it's blank the first i've heard that he's not getting any compensation but if the phone have to fill it out first mr jones and send it back to us they'd have to execute it first and so if they put if they're not going to pay him they would insert none in there no no compensation but what if they put well if they put the compensation in there they're going to have to pay us that for him to serve right if they don't pay us he wouldn't serve the county wouldn't pay any of that and we would pay him if if they're gonna pay him pay h

» im and they don't pay him then he couldn't serve under the agreement i understand but whether it's their money or our money it's all tax money and uh i was just wanting to make sure that we have some clarification that the dollar amount if it does change is there it's going to go to them first this doesn't require a vote tonight i think they're going on this yeah it does require a vote well yes in order to get to them so they can can act upon it in a timely fashion we would need to vote on it tonight why didn't they act on it first send it to us i don't think they have staff to draw this up i mean i want to help with them don't get me wrong i'm not i'm not against it i'm just trying to i just i need some clarification the process of ms jones we were told that we needed to follow um who told

» you that um coming from the magistrate in the supreme court yeah this is the full she Is she going to pay it, the Master of the Supreme Court? Mr. Jones, I produce the agreement, but the agreement is a form. It's a form. I understand. And we've done this before. I mean, we've had other agreements in the past with the city of Camden. In the past, the city of Camden has paid, and we put the number in there. But the theory is that he can't serve in dual capacity without our permission. I'm talking about Judge Davis. And if he's going to be compensated, the compensation has to go through us, so they have to send us the money. That's what's going on here. But if he's going to do it free, you know, of course, the county doesn't have to let him do it. But it doesn't say free up there? Not yet.

» I'm just, but we're going to vote now, but not yet. It essentially does say free because there's no money in there. So essentially we're voting with nothing tonight. When it comes back to us, it will either have a value in there or it won't have a value. That's correct. i don't think i don't think there's any harm in moving it forward tonight jimmy to your point is there any county money in that in that well county or bethune because it's all taxpayers dollars yeah the town of bethune's money or ours i'm just saying that i understand what my colleague said mr gardener i have no problems with what he said it's just i'm looking at it at a different angle that we're voting with a blank sum up there but we're we're saying there's not going to be money but yet we're asked to vote where it says t

» he county sum of the money blank per month let's see well let me ask you this uh i'm just throwing it out there i'm following exactly what you say and i appreciate the point but the city of bethune would need to also vote on this the motion can be amended to provide that campton agreed to pay kershaw county to some of no compensation you can use that would make me feel better i would feel better about it well you can do that you make a motion to amend the motion to insert no compensation mr chairman yeah mr mcconnell so um i think it's manifestly unfair to have someone perform work without compensation i was just curious if negotiations were still going on essentially as i read it the vote tonight is either he's agreed to just step in and help him out and do do him a solid by serving as a m

» agistrate or a municipal type judge for a period of time until they find a full-time replacement or they're going to pay him a little bit based on the time he might i don't know it sounds like nobody's spoken with the judge yet i have to see oh well maybe you can uh can mention it but if he's gone up and assessed what he'd actually have to do up there i don't know if he's quantified what it would be it's your first he's trying to do him solid get replacement as quick as possible and then he can do his job back down here in the county seat um and that's why the uh verbal agreement was zero compensation yeah from both parties because that's okay i'm sorry if he's okay with that and you're certain i don't think we need to get hung up on it but to move it forward i'm fine making them that was h

» is conversation with me was he didn't intend to to have any compensation for doing it for them but that's not what voting home well you can make the amendment and put no compensation okay i would still move make an amendment for no compensation very good we have a motion to amend can we have a second second second from mr brasil any discussion uh is there a difference between no conversation and blank mr attorney what's the definition is explain to him explain to my colleague if you want to clarify explain to my colleague what he's missing you can just put no compensation otherwise bethune could add some figure in there and send it back i mean i'm assuming that they don't even levy taxes this is local government fund money anyway if they're going to give us anything so which okay all right

» well with that uh let's vote on the amendment uh all those in favor of mr jones amendment signify by raising your hand uh we have whatever seven all right and with that uh let's now move to the basic motion which is to vote on this mr jones you restate your your amendment and then we'll move to the basic we just voted on them no we voted on the amendment to the motion would you restate your amendment there would be no compensation okay so now we move to the final vote all those in favor of the motion as amended can you can you restate oh god it's just what you just i know but you wanted to hear mine let's go back to millage that was easy oh come on you no you wanted to hear my repeat i want to hear the repeat of the original motion yeah i really got a place to go tonight called war i'll res

» tate it if you want okay restate it okay so essentially the motion was to approve the agreement before council right now to have uh judge davis serve bethune based on a mutual agreement uh mr jones made a motion under paragraph two if my vision serves me to have no compensation listed past the dollar sign fair enough and uh it looks like the motion passed and now we're going to vote on that thank you recorder thank you and with that all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and uh let's get that up to bethune with that amendment all right very good with that we move now to uh number two which is a grievous committee appointment it's at page 103 it's on the screen and it's also at tab juliet uh mr carpenter mr chair members of council i present to you not my recommen

» dations for service on the employee grievance committee the employee grievance committee is a creation of the county as part of our employee personnel policies uh in the event that a disciplinary action is taken county employees have the right to a grievance that when that happens a this committee is called into session and they hear the grievance and then they make recommendations um to myself as far as what they believe the outcome should be um you see in front of you the remaining terms of the three and then we've added uh four new recommendations to uh the council that cover a wide variety of the county departments very good can we have a motion to approve mr garner a second for mr tucker a discussion no discussion we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it

» 's unanimous thank you very much mrs mary i appreciate your hard work and putting this one together and you're gonna have fun next time we move now to council briefing starting with you Russell please yeah there is one topic that I'd like to bring up that I have worked on for over a year now and I'd like for all my fellow councilmen to take note I have been trying to figure out and and with the help of others of Danny this has been a big help trying to figure out who owns the boat ramp on the watery river and it seems to me that mr de bose please keep me straight here it's sitting on a d.o.t right away and we we installed it with some money from the state and some help from dnr does that sound about right i think we got yes we got dnr money through the state to pay for the the boat ramp yes

» okay the dock and the dock we we've had some talks and some meetings about the um the floating dock the floating dock has been dangerous and um there have been people swept underneath it there have been boat trailers hung underneath it i have tried i feel like i have beat my head against a wall trying to get it removed for the safety of the community now what i'm calling in and asking everyone at this table to do and all that involved is please support me in this effort to get this floating dock removed and hopefully as things happen in the park and um now note that the park is separate from the ramp although they're side by side i'm advocating for a larger boat ramp parking area for the citizens of kershaw county and our visitors i have been in contact with senators i have been in contact

» with representatives i have talked to some of the higher up officials with dnr and it's been like a game of volleyball the the balls it's in the county's court it's in the state's court well we got to talk to dnr and y'all i need some help there's going to be injury there's going to be issues and i want to solve the problem i don't want to cause an uproar or a fuss or any of that my suggestion is that we remove the floating dock and that in due time it could potentially be replaced upstream of the ramp potentially another ramp installed and a larger parking area it seems that there's plenty of property we've just got to figure out if if it falls within the easement and if we can afford to allocate some of the money that that we've been given from the federal government to improve that boat

» ramp I think the citizens of Lugolf and Camden and all of Kershaw County and our visitors would appreciate a nicer boat ramp on the watery River that is all I have to say and I appreciate any support that I get from any of my fellow council members and senators alike and also our state representatives and all of the administration here thank you so much thank you mr connell yes mr chairman uh mr browsel on that topic the folks i've heard from are interested in having it on the other side to account for the current they still like it just want to have it on the other side but it is a safety issue correct it is um two things bring up one of them was mentioned earlier you've got the land jam uh concert coming up in Lugov.

» This is the second year that it's happening and looks like it's growing again this year. That's going to be November 12th and 13th. The 12th, that evening, as I understand it, it's kind of a cool acoustic performance. And then 13th is the concert that will have bounce houses for kids and various other activities. Just a great community event. December 4th coming up, put that on your calendar, is the Catfish Stomp Parade in Elgin. It's a great Christmas parade.

» Cool name, great credit tradition and um there are so many other wonderful traditions in kershaw county in my view centered around jesus christ which is the reason for uh the season as we get together for thanksgiving and we get together for christmas i am so excited to get together with family and friends that i haven't seen or been with for a long time break bread um and share great stories and fellowship with them that's all i have to share mr chairman thank you jones thank you members of council mr chair uh to my colleague uh mr brasil i'm with you 100 150 on that boat ramp but however i'm not sure what needs to be done what i will say is that mr bows do we own it or does the state on it the land belongs to dot department of transportation what belongs to us i'm not sure anything belong

» s to us mr jones i think all the county did was facilitate the funds which were from the state and i do think the county might have been the applicant for the um permit sure well the thing is councilman brazel is exactly right i take it a step further uh someone's going to get killed someone's going to die if something isn't done so we need to create a fuss or something because and i'm so proud of my colleague brought that up because we both i mean i get hit with a lot and i've banged my head up against the wall as well i think what really threw me off was how absurd the state was when they came back and said it belonged to us i don't think it belongs to us but what i want i'm willing to go ahead and do whatever we have to do to make it safe for the citizens of kershaw county folks someone'

» s going to die if somebody doesn't do anything so instead of us sending it around the world arguing back and forth playing ping pong i agree mr brazel let's get something done i don't know if it can be fixed where's that i don't know or it needs to be taken down i don't know but bottom line is somebody and i'm with you russell i'm with you somebody needs to do something and i'm going to stay on this and i think mr browser is going to stay on this i've seen someone stuck up under that dock and folks had to jump out and help them get out a man's wife was under there okay and uh so if you could mr carpenter i i would really appreciate it along with mr browser if you move as fast as possible to help resolve this issue in some way or another thank you so much i have just a couple of quick things

» i want to address i have with me two sheets of paper and october 19th paper one i'll refer to and i this is what i'm going to address first and as this newspaper asked and it did it asked a question and uh what's going on with the hotel deal and as i said this was on october 19 2021 i thought that was a very good question chronicle independent the newspaper had good reporting and had a good editorial about the boutique hotel extension of the purchase and inducement agreements and i believe majority of members on this county council were downright giddy when i believe they were apparently hoodwinked and deceived by the boutique hotel people into giving over two million dollars in tax breaks for the first time ever to a commercial business that's not even ready to proceed we find out later th

» is is also coming from the newspaper of course private business competes against private business i also believe that this county council and the public were misled every step of the way i don't think any member of this council would disagree with this based on what we were told that we had to do and what we did i got the floor sir this supposed project was done with a lack of transparency in my opinion or accurate information i oppose the boutique hotel project every step of the way and if you're even in the editorial what's going on with the hotel deal in the editorial so if the newspaper doesn't know what's going on with it i don't know how we can think we do that's just my opinion now the newspaper came out on what i call paper two october 29th their next edition have it right here the

» The boutique hotel people say they are entering the final reconstruction planning stage almost three years after, I believe, they were given the property by the city and other public money and given over $2 million in tax breaks. The announcement that the boutique hotel, after three years and lots of public money given away or incentives, is only now entering the final reconstruction planning stage. I personally believe that's like putting lipstick on a pig. The average politician and bureaucrat will fall for this hook, line, and sinker. I am not your average politician or servant, so I don't fall for putting lipstick on a pig, and that's what I call it. I don't like the idea of public money going into the private sector competing in my belief and my philosophy.

» I would like the county administrator to see if the council can repeal the $2 million tax giveaway. having said that i would like a response on that at least by the next county council meeting i know we're meeting one meeting a month and i realize december is here and we always usually meet once a month during december but folks i'm going to tell you having even for half the year i know it was proposed that we do we do a meeting for once a month for the whole year then council went ahead and said well no we'll just do it for half the year but folks we you get disconnected with 30 days we get disengaged i mean we have so much we have to talk about and yet there are issues that need to come up and we we've got 30 days so we'll have 30 days from this county council meeting till the next and i'

» m going to share this too with county council my own wife said why are you arguing about two meetings versus one do you know how tough it is to live with you jimmy on a council meeting day but still i want to i want to go back to two meetings a month i I think it's what we've always, no, I know it's what we've always done, and I just don't like it. I don't think it's good for us up here. We were elected by the people. It's always been two times a month, second and fourth, and it needs to be that again. So I hope at the first of the year, kind of, I know I've talked to a couple of my colleagues that tend to agree that there may be some issues with this once a month because we are so disengaged. But anyway, I thank you for your time, members of county council. And Mr.

» Chairman, that concludes my comments. Thank you, sir. Mr. Nodgrass. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of council. Mr. Brazel, I'm with you, man. It's frustrating. And I get to a point where my philosophy is leaders lead. And what I've learned through other projects is if you let it, county will throw it over to state and state will throw it back to us. And I think at some point I'm all in favor of leaders lead. And I don't care whose boat ramp it is.

» we've spent a lot of time giving access to kayakers which was was warranted but uh some duck hunters need needs need some good access to our great treasure the watery river and uh and i think we can i think it's our responsibility we're the one that locks the gate if there's danger i know dnr tells us to do it but it's our staff that goes up there and locks the gate so we do have some responsibility so I'm certainly with you on that and I wanted to also along those lines just want to make highlight the fact that last couple years well probably the last couple little over a year I've been meeting with some citizens who are concerned about Goodall State Park and we begin conversations with the state from PRT director all the way to the lead manager for for Goodall and as we begin to put it pu

» t projects in front of them things as citizens we wanted to see the state do and to take responsibility of their park that was given to them by us back in 1976 or so and we've seen some improvements out out there but one of the ideas that came to light was the formation of a nonprofit that would be called friends of good all and there's a there's a Facebook page that has been created by one of the members that I've been meeting with and this is a group that I would encourage to be a part of if you have any memories of goodall state park and if you have any any passion and and desire to come to see it continue to be a great treasure of kershaw county would you join that group and it'll be a way for for you to get information on how we can um come alongside uh the state in ensuring uh that go

» odall state park is a is a place for all for all of us to continue to make memories and so uh i want to thank the the staff as well as others who have been kind of part of those conversations for the last last last year or so and also I want to give a shout out to I see a director Cato back there on a last minute I had to get a speaker for a Kiwanis meeting like two weeks ago and they gave me Kato's name and I called him as a hey man can you come do this he was like yeah absolutely and he gave a great presentation about our detention center and there and we all know this but there are more things going on out there than just people being locked up.

» There are efforts to do rehab and efforts for people to get the tools so they don't make the same decision they made to get them there to begin with. So Kate, I just wanna say thank you so much for bailing me out that day and did a good job. So that concludes my report. Thank you. - Mr. Tucker. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say a couple of thank yous. want to thank my colleagues up here on the stylus mr.

» carpenter and staff miss Mary doing my bereavement time with my family I hear you been when you're talking about the holidays and I and my family will spend one a little different this year as others who have lost loved ones throughout this year especially as a parent it's just it's not the way that it usually goes but but I want to say thank you to the citizens the sheriff and all of you who reached out via text phone calls cards flowers um it meant so much and um the ones that attend the funeral like my big guy here and miss mary and vick and others um it meant a lot to turn your head as you're pouring in tears to see friendly faces and people that love you and care um i say that because uh this will be a process for me um i'm gonna deal with it and the best way i know how um god makes no

» mistakes i'm a firm believer in that and um i just want to say thank you to all of you most of all appreciate you giving me my space i just needed time to just deal with me and um and my way of dealing with things so with that thanks again i want to also thank you for your hard work in this redistricting process, Mr. Joe Opperman as well. There were a lot of folks that's very concerned on how this goes. And this is going to be done for the next 10 years, the next decade. So we need to get it right. We need to be within the laws and the guidelines so we're not sued and that we're doing the right thing by the citizens of Kershaw County.

» And I just want to say thank you to all of you for doing that and then allowing me to come in on the ninth hour, because I actually have not seen any of these maps until yesterday. I was one of the first ones, the chairman and I, to talk to Mr. Offerman, but we didn't have maps at that time. So by the time the maps were produced, I wasn't available between my schedule and tragedy and my family. So I just want to say thanks. And I love all you guys, and I'm looking forward to continue to serve and get things done. That concludes my report, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, sir. Mr. Gardner. Yes, most of you are aware, I want to recognize the North Central High School volleyball team. They played for a state championship this past Saturday. They came up a little short, went all five sets.

» They lost by a close margin, but they had a tremendous year. Andy Johnson and his staff and his team, they need to be congratulated. And so that's what I'm doing right now. So congratulations to them. I think it's the first time they've played for a state championship in quite a while. but they're to be congratulated concludes my report thank you mr. Tucker you're an example of grace under pressure and faith in God thank you thank you mr. mr. Opperman sheriff mr.

» Jordan thanks for hanging around Cato thank you for being here I think we all draw from you being here and I would say to amanda and mr floyd bracy uh joe is in the back let's thank him on the way out if you don't want to talk to him please at least say thank you joe thanks for all you did uh veterans day thank you thank you tom that's right and we saw you yesterday in celebration and when you're vietnam uniform here you are again and then the real veterans day is on the 11th and tomorrow as a marine corps birthday thank a soldier sailor airman marine and coast guardsman if you see them active guard and reserve navy um navy navy i forgot the navy that's right we're going to beat navy in the next two weeks and football but we'll always want the best navy in the world working for us i'm here

» to say without the navy the marines doesn't exist oh without the marines the navy is just another coast guard oh sorry about that hitting below the belt now i've got a cousin in the coast guard as a commander right now commanding a frigate um clean community thank you tom you're here please convey back to the members of the clean community commission yes uh wanda the whole team for a great job this past stormy 6 november uh and remember that we even had football teams and wrestlers out there and so on i think the word is getting out about cleaning this community um i would also like to say we got a lot going on this county it's a celebratory time with holidays has been mentioned already land jam rodeos revolutionary war potter park uh all these parades uh let's enjoy our county but let's ke

» ep it safe with that mr carpenter chairman members council a few things for you first of all um i will pick up with what several of you all have already alluded to about one of our employees um director cato uh you see director cato receiving an award and recognition of the public safety chaplaincy's post the 2021 centurion award the chaplaincy was able to present a great friend our highest award this weekend at our conference terry cato is the director of the kershaw county detention center as well as being the first vice president of the south carolina jail administrators association since director cato started overseeing the operations of the facility he has modernized it to a level like no other such as adding a drone uav program as well as other innovative programs director cato truly

» embodies what our centurion award is all about he's a true christian leader in the field of public safety and we are so grateful to call him our friend and brother amen quality shines through sir yes sir um also coming up has has been alluded to are tinsel trail the kershaw county tinsel trail at the waterway river veterans park opening from november 30th to january the third uh this year there will be 50 decorated christmas trees that have been sponsored by the community that'll be spread all the way along the trail itself there'll be light displays the river will be illuminated and there'll be bonfires for s'mores as well out there uh it'll again start november 30th and they will run it um every night little later than the normal winter hours so I think they're running until 9 o'clock at

» night those nights if you want any more information the phone number parks and rec 425 6009 and mr. chairman that's my report would you mention this document I'm sorry sir you have in your packets members of council the vision 2030 plan the vision 2030 is the five-year update of it the core group. Citizen Volunteers has spent the last several months, they've hosted numerous meetings throughout the community, interest groups pulled together people to share their thoughts and their vision of where they would like to see us going as a community. You have in front of you that draft document.

» Already this draft document has been presented and approved by our school board, by the town of Camden, by the town of Bethune, by the town of elgin and by the casa water authority and uh the chamber of commerce and i believe that it is up for consideration by lugo fire we've got a fire department next week yes sir um and some members counts you have this in your packet for your review and consideration for uh next agenda yes sir mr carter quick question and i appreciate you bringing that up would you also look into our live streaming it seems there's there's something going on where people cannot comment it's being shut down or something i'm not exactly sure if i've received some text on it tonight if you'd look into that and make sure because we do allow comments correct it depends on wha

» t platform it's on um some platforms don't do comments some do i'll have to check to see i don't know sure well thank you yeah thank you uh anything further that's my report sir ah mr attorney mr chairman members of council i don't have anything thank you i believe you had something to hand out tonight i do i'll hand it out after me very good okay gentlemen have a handout for everybody yes gentlemen if you just check in with the attorney he has a handout for each of you and i'd like to have one too uh with that let's share let's entertain a motion to close uh second from mr connell you're quick again ben uh any discussion our next meeting is 14 december with that let's vote all those in favor signify and it's unanimous mary closes out thank you