Full meeting transcript - February 8, 2022

» test are you here hello sir do you hear me hey you got me sammy yes sir can you hear me i'm gonna go ahead and put you on mute okay thank you mike's up let's go ahead and get started well it's a great day in kershaw county in an all-american county thank you all for coming uh before we begin we've had a rather bleak several weeks of losses of great people in our county uh named and unnamed historic camden boys and girls club and others and those known and unknown personal and friends of ours it's been kind of a long spate of funerals let's just have a moment of silence for a moment please would you join me in a moment of silence amen i know the lord's will will be done here uh we're in black history month uh we're called to order mr tucker is calling in so everyone is present today so i'll

» convene this great institution and with that i ask you to stand and join us in invocation and pledge of allegiance led by Mr. Snodgrass. Thank you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for this evening, this moment to come together. And Lord, our prayer, Lord, is the echo of Solomon. Lord, when you asked what you could give him when it came to governing the people, and Lord, he asked for wisdom. And so, Lord, along among this body, we ask that, Lord, you give us wisdom in these days. And Lord, remind us that the role that we have has nothing to do with our agenda or anything that makes us great, but it has everything to do with others.

» It has everything to do with those who are gathered here in this place and in this venue, those who are enlisting, and those who call this great county of ours home. I pray that you'll be with us in our deliberation. I love you. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Pledge of Allegiance. Aye. Thank you very much, David.

» appreciate that and with that we have public comments we return to mr dubose sir would you help us out talking to the mic there mr chairman i'm sorry we have four people that signed up all right and the first person i'm having a hard time reading your name is a merle h but steve's first person morals what's your list thank you give me the last name again please oh miss clyburn yes of course thank you ma'am please come on up and normally what we do is so we listen to you we don't have an exchange of comments back and forth uh if you limit your comments to a subject and we'd be happy to get back to you after the meeting with any questions could you come up to the mic is that convenient to you and please take about three minutes if you don't mind um i'm here on the behalf of myself vick would

» you put the mic over oh okay thank you ms clive okay i'm here on behalf of myself i've been talking to the um planning and zoning for i know over a year a little over a year now uh in 1998 i bought some property in luke off and i bought six acres um at that time i was working for norma gripper and i know a lot of y'all might have known norma gripper but i was in real estate for over 20 years. I bought the property and I bought it with the intention of I have three children and it was six acres. I bought it with the intention of letting each one of my children build a house there.

» Now they're saying that I cannot subdivide this property um because it's private it's a private road and i'm here to find out from y'all or then i i mean the property was bought before that law came into so i can't see no reason why i can't i'm gonna pay tax on it why i cannot have my children to build on the house at my age now i need my children near me and that was the biggest thing I need them to be around me I've had surgery and cannot walk and cannot be in the house by myself so for that reason I'm asking you to consider because this it would come under the grandfather's clothes which is I bought this land before y'all before you set that rule I bought the land before and I know you wouldn't know the intention in my heart but that was my intention and if you can just say okay you can'

» t I can't do anything I'm thinking I mean myself I think you're doing an injustice to me being a woman raising children and trying to do my best in this county I've worked in this county to several different people so I just feel like it's an injustice to me if you prohibit me for giving my children something I've always said the bible said you leave any helpers for your children and i'm a firm believer for that so that's my comment today ma'am can do we have your address and phone number ken do you have that i do not have can you be sure to get that right away you got it don't you is it rio we'll take care of it uh ken would you get that for us thank you 36 rio lane rio lane what district is it we'll take at that here yeah um cornell cornell okay we've got the address and we'll get back to

» you after this thank you ma'am okay this is my sister janie she was next on the list okay and um oh good she's up yeah and can we get your phone number please ma'am too okay yours janie yes ma'am okay i'm janie harriet yes ma'am 843-332-3589 i'm in i'm not in this county i'm in darlington county but i'm supporting my sister because as she said she purchased this land with the intention of building homes for her children and there have been other houses built out there and i don't understand why if it was purchased before this ordinance was done why she has to adhere to that yes ma'am thank you during our rules here we don't have a dialogue but we now have your contacts and your complaint and we will take care of it thank you ma'am thank you thank you thank you very much ms clyburn nice to s

» ee you uh mr devos and the next person and i'm having a difficult time reading their writing also is lee smith is that correct uh mr smith please sir uh i'm here um interested in the uh on the old business about the uh zoning and planning board along with the uh appeals board I was denied a variance for a 180-square-foot wall, but in 2014, there was a variance granted for a swimming pool. I feel like I've been treated unfairly. Also, there's a lot of things that need to be addressed when it comes to being on Lake Watery, and I think you're going to see that in the future. But right now, if there's some flexibility, I guess we'll hear that later. I want to know if that's going to apply to me. All right, Mr. Smith, thank you.

» Again, do we have your address and contact information? I have it. You've got it? Okay. You've got it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smith. The last person signed up is Tom Webb III. Mr. Webb. It's Scalia month again, February. It's been six years since Antonin Scalia died under very unusual circumstances. He went hunting in Wetz, Texas, and didn't come for breakfast. They found him in bed, dead, with a pillow on his face, and he did not get an autopsy. one of the most important people in the country at the time, 34 years on the Supreme Court, big intellect, lots of wit, had great capacity to sway people, probably did a lot of really great things for America, particularly for conservative causes. So I don't want to forget him. I don't want anybody else to forget him.

» I'm going to be showing my little signs here and there and yonder, and I'm proclaiming this Who Kills Scalia Month. You know, if he was still alive today, a lot of problems that would have been gone, I suspect. Somebody knew what they were doing, snuffed him out, and left a pillow on his face as a symbol. Probably didn't kill him with a pillow. But there hasn't been any investigation to any extent. Just somebody on the phone talking to the people who were there suggested that he had had a heart attack. They didn't have a doctor look at him. No autopsy. But a couple of months later, the singer Prince died in an elevator.

» he got an autopsy but not antonin scalia one of the most important people in the country thank you thank you mr webb mr debose that concludes the sign-up list and that concludes public comments we move now to a public hearing in regards to an ordinance authorizing the execution and delivery of a fee in lieu of tax by and between kershaw county uh let's see by and between kershaw county whereby such property will be subject to payments in lieu of taxes by county to create a multi-county industrial park and designate the property be owned by a project panel as multi-county park property and other related matters i open the public hearing and see no one coming forward on this public matter i'll close it and we move to the next item on the agenda which is on the board adoption of our agenda uh

» with that can we have a motion to approve the agenda so move uh mr gardner a second second from mr snodgrass any discussion mr chairman yeah i just wanted to make everyone aware i'll i'll have to leave early around 6 30 if we're if we're not uh done yet okay i just want to make everyone aware very good and perhaps you can call in or something of that nature but thank you i've got a daughter who's dancing yeah okay i want to try to make that all right and that'll maintain the quorum whether you call in or not so we still have five persons present one calling in and perhaps you as well okay with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and uh then mr tucker how do you vote yeah so we have uh six yes and mr uh brazel is out of the room we'll take that as uh six mr

» s uh ms siegler we now move to a series of public presentations clarification about mr brazel he's not here correct yeah that's what i said uh with item number one report and update of kershaw county sheriff department kc kerner a corner and a detention center gentlemen please let's hear from you sheriff good to see you afternoon gentlemen let's go through our uh stats here i know we kind of combine my office with the coroner's office as well as our jail so we're going to try to get through it as quick as we can so we don't bore you to put a bunch of numbers uh try to put everything in this first slide here you'll see where you know most of our numbers went down the biggest number you're going to see there is the uh our drug overdoses and i don't think that should come as a surprise to anyo

» ne that are these are drug overdose calls these are not the uh drug overdose deaths our coroner will go over that number in a little bit uh that seems to be our biggest challenge it's not a it's not a one-person challenge i can tell you now that uh these handcuffs here this is not going to solve the problem of drug overdoses we can't arrest away our drug overdose problem this is going to be a community problem that a lot of people is going to need to help us out with everybody's quick to blame everybody pointing the finger somewhere else but this is something we're going to have to team up on together this is 48 percent increase from the calls we went on and you'll see the very next number in our can use where it went down from 23 to eight as we know in 2018 we broke a record but i think it

» was 37 overdose deaths in our county that's the most we've ever had by far i think before that the record was like seven or eight we went to 38 in 2018. 2019 brought them down uh drastically because of narcan but now between uh i don't know whether it's people getting too complacent and too overconfident with narcan or whether more fentanyl showing up in a lot of our drugs but our overdoses are going through the roof again and you can only you can see where we only administer narcan eight times uh as a sheriff's office this past year so it's we're not getting to them in time it's getting it's getting carried away um again going back to handcuffs you know you can arrest somebody as overwhelmed as our jail is and court systems as backed up as they are you may spend a couple days in jail that'

» s not enough to deter somebody from using uh drugs that can kill them when you know they're willing to gamble with their life they're sure not worried about a day or two in jail they need a lot more than we can give them more than we can provide them we'll take some rehab rehab's not something that you can force on someone so as a community we got to get behind people that are that are falling victim to this uh the drug overdoses we've got to give them that support they need to get out and get the help that they need and uh you know don't be so quick to to call us to arrest them because that's that's not the answer you know we've got to look elsewhere for that our major impacts again drug overdoses Number one, court's being overwhelmed and backed up. COVID put us back a good bit.

» A lot of the courts were just shut down. And now we're really paying the price because we're backed up. And I know Kato, he's probably going to give you a lot of numbers of how much the jail is being booked up. And recruiting retention, for the first time, we're starting to have issues at the sheriff's office with recruiting retention. My first two and a half years in office, I think I hired a total of two people that we've sent to the academy. I mean, we've been able to hire from other agencies up until that point. In the last six months, I've hired three non-certified. That's a lot more of an investment you're putting in somebody when you hire them non-certified because you're sending them through the academy, your FTO.

» I mean, you're looking from the time you hire them to the time they're productive, about a year turnaround. We're having to do that process now, and it's got a lot to do with state. You know, state's salary's going up. You know, we just don't have that. Law enforcement's not a cool job anymore. of people are not turning that away we don't have as many applicants to pull from these days and hopefully it's going to turn around soon but for now that's that's that's an issue that we're starting to come across and we're fortunate that we didn't have to deal with it before now because a lot of other agencies have been dealing with it for years now always want to end on a bright note looking ahead 2022 getting closer to our state accreditation problem we're having now is everybody's trying to get

» accredited because it's kind of the thing that all law enforcement getting into so hopefully we're ahead of a lot of them i think us and i think clemson university their police department i think we're we're at the top of the list that we're getting through so hopefully we'll get done before the the bulk of the crowd this this um overloading them now uh crime scene investigation units pretty much up and running we've got a few little uh tweaks we're doing there but we're getting there we'll still call uh sleds crime scene unit on major crimes homicides and all but we'll have our crime scene unit for a lot of stuff that we don't need to call sled for we officially have an sro in every kershaw county school and we're planning on starting our dare program with our elementary and middle school

» this is going to be one of the things we're trying to do for our future to keep kids off of drugs we haven't seen the best of numbers in some of the dare programs in the past but we got to do something so we're looking to get that into both elementary and middle schools unless there's any questions i'm gonna hand it over to our corner uh comments ladies and gentlemen great job out there and uh sros was wonderfully received by everyone i see out in the county thank you sheriff and i think you're near full staffing right now correct yeah we've got we've got two and uh and actually i know we've got more than two certified applicants uh in our pool that we're digging through right now but danger low did you have a question i did yeah i just kind of going back to thank you mr chair uh going back

» to that number so those are calls or or incidents i mean or kind of one of the same which which one are we talking just just in general so you've had a decrease these are these are calls we and as far as our total calls for service um since i've been in office we've gone over 100 000 calls total these are the calls we get for each one that you're looking at so the only increase we've had is as far as the assaults that's everything else is in a d so am i reading that as that's a good thing right we have less overdoses and yes no no no not the overdose and overdose calls have gone up that's just the largest inquiry went from 27 in 2020 48 okay now I see it sorry colorblind for a little bit yeah that's what that's just a huge increase there that so real quick on the use of force from 19 to 20

» to 21 do you contribute that probably to kind of how you how you were because that's kind of when you came in the office 1920 maybe you were reporting that differently than like years past yeah we we report it now and it's just it's with the current times yeah with use of force we report anything shy of putting handcuffs on somebody putting them in the car if you have to help them to do anything you have to do outside of it we're doing a report so the numbers are going to be higher because we're reporting everything you were trying to just cover all your bases absolutely okay we have uh you know this time we have a use of force board that every monday meets and looks over everyone our our supervisors They're required to investigate any use of forces during their shift, and if there's an inj

» ury involved, they respond to the scene and have access to an investigator if they need to call them out. So we really had to step that up, and that's law enforcement everywhere in general. We're dealing with that now, and we're doing the best we can to stay on top of it. Thank you, sir. You sure are. Can I have these charts afterwards, Danny? Thank you, Sheriff. Well done. Good to see you. Mr. Chairman, I had a question. I'm sorry. Ben has a question, please. Sheriff, I wanted to ask you about the overdoses in Narcan administrations. The number just went away, but there it goes. So I get calls in the community about repeat Narcan administrations or the same people overdosing again and again.

» And I'm wondering, the move from 2020 to 2021, that whatever it is, a 70% increase or so in overdoses, does that represent something totally new in the community, a bunch of new people overdosing and drugs proliferating, or does that represent some of the same people overdosing more? we do have some those are total calls so some of those are duplicates uh and we do we do have some that we've administered narcan multiple times too and then as long as we got it we'll keep administering it to whoever needs it um and we're not gonna we're not gonna deny somebody narcan i know some people have the attitude that you should limit them but that's uh i think paul napper without percent one of the things he said it always stuck with me is everybody is worth another shot and worth another chance so we

» 're gonna do our part to you know hopefully they'll they'll come around for us but yeah i'm certainly not suggesting that you don't save someone's life with narcan if you have one but what i am wondering is how do you break the the cycle of you know someone that food for the soul or you know have repeat overdoses right there and people trying to figure out how to deal with that if we if we could figure that answer out we would uh we would definitely be going in the right direction there's a lot of stuff we're doing now we've actually we're working with mental health i know if you've seen in some of the other county richland county's got them where you have a mental health professional assigned to the sheriff's office we're working on one of those now and vic it's going to be no cost to us a

» s mental health's picking up the tab on it but we're in the process of that doing we can uh again you know it's one of those that everybody believes that locking up the problem is going to solve it but it's not i mean it's not and even you know we lock up dealers all the time we'll continue to lock up dealers and we even send investigators out when we have overdose deaths and they try to investigate to see the source of where it came from there's there's a federal charge you can put on somebody with that and we've been seeking that i think we've actually made one of those charges so far so we're going after the dealer but a user that's this this hooked on this drug they're going to find a dealer somewhere if we lock up every dealer in kershaw county they're going to go to a bordering county

» i've seen it done i've had parents call me up about their kids and they're they're going to to other counties when they can't find it here so and in your experience are those cases where we are locking people up being actively prosecuted and the judiciary is doing their part again one of the overwhelming uh problems we got in the courthouse right now is everything is so backed up that uh you only got so much court time and they're playing catch up on where they're at now we're seeing them go away but you start comparing what they have to deal with as far as going to trial you have a murder armed robbery and a drug charge they tend to look at a drug charge as victimless although we know it's not a victimless crime okay thank you sure thank you very much indeed hey David thank you sheriff hey

» David West corner bring that microphone down to the normal level okay um thank y'all for having us today tonight of course our stats is up big time this year we had 855 deaths for year, if I learn how to use this thing here, if you'll see behind you there, that'll give you, you know, since I took office in 2015, we have come up 56% in deaths. Now, I'd say Kershaw County's growing. I blame a lot of it on that. And y'all can see our traffic deaths, right there's 25. Out of that traffic deaths, that's the most we've ever had.

» Out of the traffic deaths, out of 25 lead mums drug and alcohol homicides 10 i know lee's lee's report says five believe it or not five's in the city of camden because i know january we had three right there together from a house fire on the two of them two died in one house and then one died in another house where it was set on fire drownings one and that's you know that's i thank goodness for that and thank the good lord for that one there because we have lake watery and people love the water we're lucky there suicides 14 we up on that a little bit and i would have thought 2020 that suicides would have been 40 to 50 because of covid everybody having to stay home but thank goodness it wasn't but this year was 14.

» accidental deaths eight now accidental deaths is falls people falling and stuff and getting hurt and we list that in their house fires is in there too overdose we got 24 up there but now it's 28 and we got eight pending we're waiting on tops to get back on them and that's from all top season stuff and of course the natural deaths is 700 I mean natural deaths 667 comes to a total of 855 I mean 773 that comes to 855 deaths for the year in Kershaw County anybody have any questions on that comments anybody well natural deaths went up 100 and our overall deaths went up 100 so there seems to be some kind of correlation here i appreciate the overdose thing really worries me yes uh the traffic accident stopped on it that i thought hmm are those mostly like drug and alcohol related 11 more 11 out of

» 25 11 drug and alcohol we don't drive while intoxicated nope well here's the covid deaths uh 2020 we had uh 74 eight non-residents 2021 it's really it's all together it's i had to redo some stuff it's 124 of all the over the covid deaths and out of like 18 was non-residents and when i say non-residents springdale healthcare they taking them from charleston goose creek from all over and they take them to the hospital when they get real bad and they die up here of course it's not a kershaw county death not a you know not a residence but we counted as our death here wow can you give us some good news that the death rate on omicron is down or not i would love to um but it's starting to rise a little bit now unfortunately and so it's still with us it's still with us it's still it's not as bad as

» it was last year this time i mean right now for the year we had 105 deaths already for this year yeah and i don't think but maybe nine of them are covered so we can't blame it on covid okay yeah all right comments uh gentlemen uh thank you all right thank you david good report kato how y'all doing all right good to see you i'm gonna give you a brief overview of the numbers at kershaw county detention center last year 2021 we intake 2015 inmates our average daily population right now is 107 and we were built for 89.

» of those 2015 the male intake was 1561 the female intake was 454 due to the fact that we got limited female space and kind of gets a little complicated plus with the males due to covet and everything it gets a little complicated but currently we have zero covert in the facility medical our medical numbers have actually gone up last year we did 4224 medical visits that's in-house outhouse um ob gyns everything that needs to be taken care of over the inmate while you're there we have to take care of up and down the road in the facility making sure they get the care that they need medical continued um our mental health numbers if you pay close attention to that last year we had 102 this year i believe we're up to 193. but last year um 2021 we up 193 2020 we were at 102.

» so those medical those mental health issues are actually rising we actually partnered with kershaw county mental health and actually we pay for extra mental health hours i believe we get about five days a week three hours each day so that we can actually get these people seen get them the help that they actually need plus we work with the probate um court to actually get her involved when you know we reach a roadblock scdc transfers fancy kind of went down um you know before covert we was moving some cases around about 76 we're going to scdc year then we dropped down to covet and this year or last year 2021 we did 55.

» which actually shows there's a backlog in the judiciary system like the sheriff actually said because we're not moving too many um general session cases litter pick up bright spot we picked up 1290 bags that's with the kershaw county detention center using inmate labor and actually using our maintenance guy and our actual part-time leader so that's what we do to actually contribute to the county accomplishments kershaw county tenderson is now accredited school we have a ged program i believe next month we're going to be graduating about seven or eight people so look forward to that we also got a body scanner that we put in the service first part of january and we actually found contraband on 3ma so we're keeping it from getting in the facility we actually upgraded our live scan which actual

» ly communicates back and forth with sleds so that we can actually get those records in quickly and we actually upgraded our walk-through system which actually allows us to log it real time just in case we got any legal issues anything pops up and that's it for us uh questions for cato mr chairman yeah ben quick question between males and females what was the total population that you have now right now i believe the males are 1561 and the females are 454.

» that's how many was arrested okay thank you yes sir uh question you know mr snodgrass go ahead uh so between the three presentations i keep uh hearing a common theme of mental health and uh i was able to attend a uh a workshop that judge branham put put on where somebody and you guys you can remind me of this it's a it's a program from the state it's a mental health um almost like a i don't use the word swat team but it's a mental health response team yeah yeah yeah so are is are we are we taking advantage of that or is that helping us at all well that would work more for the road doesn't really work too well for the facility yeah okay cuz I know there was some talk that sometimes they come to the facility I guess yeah they can go to the facility but are they in there I mean we already got

» a mental health team actually there's okay all right and also come kudos on the body scanner that was a grant is that correct no sir okay basically cost the county nothing we just used money that we already had yeah Yeah, thanks for, Kato came and presented to one of my civic club, and I won't go into that detail because of the audience here, but you'd just be surprised the things that that scanner picked up and where it picked up, and just grateful that we had that. Yes, sir. So thanks for the innovation. Thank you, sir. Other comments? Good job on the 3D slides there, sir, too. All right. Yeah. I thank you for your support to the Clean Community Commission. The winter period, it ends, and we're starting to see trash out on the roads again.

» We'll see the Clean Community Commission out there again with your help. I'm very interested when we get into the working sessions during the budget on your medical and mental health costs. It's the humanitarian right thing to do to take care of these unfortunates, but it costs you money and it costs the county money. It's the right thing to do. other comments well thank you gentlemen and thank you thank you sheriff and I appreciate the corner coming in Thank You Cato yes sir appreciate it mr. Tucker was a small mr.

» Tucker sorry about that go ahead the forgotten child Ben I just wanted to comment on what Ben was talking about up with the with the deaths in the North and I think it runs a little deeper than that I've had several people who have received their medicine in the mail and it comes with oxycodone and all that that they ship nor can too and i can assure you that the corners still there most of those folks who are dying from overdose it's fentanyl so until we get our hands around our heads around that you're going to continue to see an increase in these deaths of overdosing yeah thank you sammy any other comments my apologies sammy i should have gone to you first that's okay David, if you can come up to the mic.

» We've had people to tell us that whenever somebody dies from an overdose, the druggies flock to that dealer to get it from them because they know it's good stuff. We had one on Precipice Road lost one in the yard. Two of them fell out at the same time. And the boy that sold it to him told him, he named the person, said, be careful there, I just killed so-and-so. And they had to flock to get it. And two boys, they were friends. And they were at the mom and daddy's house. One of them's mama's house. The kid fell out in the road, fell out in the front yard. And the other one went in the house. The kid that lived there, he fell out in the house. They called 911. 911 gets there. There's one in the yard. The ambulance starts working on him, shooting him. He comes back, too.

» And they go outside and say, hey, we need you inside here. They said, we got one right here. But the other one didn't make it in the house. So they'll flock to it, especially at Fentonville. terrible story thank you for that a warning to everybody listening thank you very much sheriff Cato David I appreciate it all right we'll move on in the agenda now we've got a public presentation from the Batoon Town Council item number two well that'd be mr.

» Heflin would you come up thank you and John would you introduce any members of your council with us tonight good afternoon I'm John Heflin I'm on town council and one of my colleagues Kenneth McCaskill is out in the audience our intentions were for everyone to be here but something came up at the last minute so that did not happen I'm going to well I actually let me speak a little bit then I'll give you something because me being personally if I get something then I may not pay attention as well and I'm from the school and and I know most of you personally some of you I really two of you i really don't know as well as i know the others um but i do uh well come back to that but i'm from the school i remember when i was a little kid uh i wanted to you know i never really went outside of kersh

» aw county or lee county and i remember my neighbor went on vacation every year and and i really wanted to go with him and i was really scared to ask because i'm still a very quiet and shy person although some people may not believe that um but i remember seeing something on his mother's coffee table it says if you never ask you will never know so i i'm here to talk about the vision 2030 uh your plan that was presented to our town council and to be honest with you um point blank we kind of just like tabled it because there was a few hints of something about bethune in there and the bethune community i'm speaking not only for the town of bethune but also the bethune community and so we talked about it and we said well we need something in there and so mr burns came to our meeting and and i us

» ed this phrase i said it's time for our turn for some of the meat and the potatoes and i don't mean that in a bad way because since i've been on town council and i've just been sitting here thinking i don't think that i can remember that our body of government has ever come to this meeting to ask for anything now now you may say if some of you been here long enough well we've given the town Bethune X well that may have been the mayor that's written a letter or something like that but as a as a body since I've been on town council I don't remember that ever happening everything in life has to have a vision if you don't have a vision then you die and you you or you have to have a vision to flourish in some areas and you know we have a new mayor three new council members and and our former may

» or is on Town Council and you know we welcome his knowledge of the past to help us in the present so what I'm going to give you something that we've thought about long and hard I know some of you may say well some of these things can be done some of these things may can't be done we can do one we can't do all of them well again we're gonna we want to schedule a time for you all to come as a collective body to Bethune so we can physically show you these things one of these things on this agenda or excuse me on this list it says and I'm not gonna go through all of them unless you have questions about them it says to clean up Big Lynch's River and Little Lynch's River. Okay, let me explain that. There's a lot of history in the Lynch's River.

» What are you reading from? Sir? What is, where'd you get that information? Are you looking at the 2030 vision? No, sir. I got something, Councilman, that I'm gonna give you, but I'm reading from my notes. Oh, I got you. I just wondered, where did you get that info? Who's gonna clean up? No, no, no. That is, that is something that's on our, our agenda, the town's agenda. So as I was saying, there's a lot of history with the Lynch's River. Without the Lynch's River, Bethune would never have come to be. Mr. McCaskill on his family's property, and I won't go into great details, but there's some great evidence of this from the Civil War. I was kind of amazed when I put my eyes on some things. I didn't see everything that I've been told about throughout the entire Lynch's River.

» I know there's a lot of snakes. I know there's a lot of debris from Hurricane Hugo that just kind of was clean, and it washed right back in. Again, if you never ask, you'll never know, and you have to have a vision. There could be great kayak tours throughout Bethune, very similar to some things we have in West Watery, but a lot of history there.

» One of the other things that I do want to mention, because if I only think two of you were on uh council when the gym burned in Bethune and one of the things on there it says that we would like a stage in that current building and and that's some of the things that we would like to talk to you about when you come to Bethune so so we can go in a lot more detail because I don't want to sit here I know you got a lot of things to do and and important things but that gym included a stage my grandmother actually during the days of of uh of segregation uh worked at the old school and eventually the new high school before integration and that was the gym that was shared for for all of the schools uh in that in that area uh in the buffoon schools i should say not the carver schools and buffoon schoo

» ls and those are things that you don't know and i'm not blaming you i'm just saying that once you come there we can explain to you some of these things and i i think then you can understand some of the compassion and that we have for these things so before i got a few more things again i don't believe in being long wind it but i do want to give you these and then i'm going to pass them out to mary now john i email these to all the members of council i don't know that they've read them yet but i do appreciate that you're passing them out thank you okay and you know again i just would ask you to go back and look at your vision 2030 plan and i expect my colleague melissa to come here and do the same thing for elgin i expect um mayor drafer to to do the same thing for the city of camden i say t

» hat that every area should toot their own horn and say hey we we need something and that's that's simply what we're doing nothing more nothing less so I think that walking tour around Bethune would probably surprise some of you one of the other things on there is about sewer and I know that that's been a heated topic because of the sewer fee and we don't expect the County Council to open a wallet and say here Bethune here you go but we just want some help and that's simply all we're asking for the about six years ago one of the leaders of alligator water over in MacBee you said hey the sewer is right at the bridge of us one the Lynch's River Bridge you know it's easily bring it under the bridge and through the city or through the town of Bethune for commercial use I don't think that we can

» afford residential sewer at this time probably never in my lifetime but if If we're gonna change Bethune, we have to have this. And why are all these things important? It's important as I met a guy on the Dollar General, you know, our Walmart super center in Bethune last Saturday. And he had a handful of stuff and I had a bug in. I said, "Sir, you know, go in front of me." And he said, "Well, I appreciate it." And so like I do most of the times when I see somebody in Bethune it's like, "Hey, where are you from?" He says, "Well, I live here now." I said, "Well, where were you originally from?" He said, "I'm originally from Hawaii. I just moved here recently." So about two weeks ago, I met a guy who just moved to Bethune.

» He lives about 10 to 15 minutes outside of Washington DC and actually Warrington, Virginia. And he just bought a house. His wife can work remotely anywhere in the country. And that's something that myself and our mayor have talked about. And I think that's something that COVID has forced us to kind of look at. And I tell you of those two, and I can tell you also other people have built houses in Bethune. I was talking to my cousin yesterday and back in the day, they live in Trenton, New Jersey, and back in the day near where they grew up with my grandparents and their parents. I was telling her about McCaskill Road in Bethune. a house on McCaskill Road in Bethune that's $800,000. It is beautiful. It is huge. And I told her they will get that price for it.

» I guarantee you in a year from now, I'll come back and tell you the house was sold because people are moving to Bethune. And those are things that are probably not publicized. And that's something that I promised myself within the next two years that I have to be a lot more vocal because I was, I just need, well, I'll leave it at that. I just need to be more vocal. One of the things Susan, our mayor, has also done, she has met with leaders from Duke Energy, and they would like to partner with us on this Lynch's River boats, putting a boat in, kayaking, etc. It's all kind of tied in together.

» So again, I could have came tonight with pictures of all of these places to give you an in-depth tour, but I'm a firm believer that you need to go put your hands on some things to see what we're talking about. And and again since i've been on council we've never come here to ask for anything um other than what i've said i think there was some money given for water and that was probably through a letter but it's not been through a unified body and my colleagues would have been here tonight but something else came up but we will be back again together uh and i think that's very important for for everyone to to see that i also invite you to our town council meeting It's this Thursday at 7 o'clock at the Bethune Rec Center. We're going to do some things that are going to be special.

» I am from the school that you give a person their flowers while they can smell them. And there's been some things that's been heavy on my heart recently, and we're going to do those things. It's a little bit different probably than your meeting. I think everybody's meeting is a little bit different. And our meeting is a lot different than it was about three months ago, but that's always a good thing as well. before I sit down again I would like to schedule a tour and I know councilman Tucker who's on the phone will help lead the way through his police days and but I would like to answer or entertain any thoughts or questions that you all may have okay we have a few minutes for questions mr.

» Tucker first yes sir I was myself Councilman Halflin yes sir I will and I appreciate your presentation and I i would say that i'm sorry i have not been able to get up with you before this but um i it's duly noted that you guys have turned another page and moving forward so i'll i'm more than happy to be involved and engaged thank you sir thank you sammy mr jones sir thank you mr chairman members of county council welcome councilman both of you appreciate y'all being here you are correct bethune is a very beautiful uh part of our county and uh i've always thought that i have a lot of families up there that are close friends as well i have a couple of questions i need some clarification and maybe you can give it to me what is your the town of bethune's source of revenue uh we are on local opt

» ion sales tax um before my days on town council uh there was town taxes uh and the council and obviously had go through a vote went to local options sales tax um we make no secrets we would like to extend extend the town limits of Bethune right now we have an aging population and I don't think that you could put taxes on I would never vote to put taxes on those people for obvious reasons being on a fixed income but local option sales tax and franchise fees and those types of things what is your budget every year about how much it varies I will get you that we actually had a for the first time since i've been on town council and i think i've been on town council about 15 18 years um total and for the first time since i've been on town council we had a meeting about two weeks ago that we basi

» cally took our budget from july that was approved and basically dissected and says okay this is what we spent this is what's left um and where we're short um do you remember how much but that's okay we won't spend much time on it you can get it to me at any time and i appreciate that uh you know you have your vision there i see you have your vision 2030 we have our vision 2030 one thing that i'm going to touch on later on in this evening is when we get to the planning zone which absolutely relates to those folks that got up here and spoke tonight that's why we've got it on the agenda but getting back to you is that the one thing about our vision 2030 there's no money with it it's a it's an empty sheet of paper whereas uh our vision you know we talk about development when you talk about road

» s infrastructure things that y'all are interested and our vision is really the comprehensive plan which is done every 10 years by state law which we have i feel like sort of neglected um getting wrapped up in in some other things and pushing another direction which we're going to have to get back on which i've caught you know our comprehensive plan certainly relates to our zoning ordinance as well too they've the dots have got to connect because they don't right now but we we talk about money have you been given do you were you told that you might get a certain amount of money from kershaw county this year for bethune not officially we have not been told that um we were we was a was a figure mentioned to you not not to me not to me how about elgin not not to me okay so there's no number giv

» en not not not specifically to me no yeah well you talked to me what was the numbers you talked to me and you well i mean you were told that our mayor said that no she said that elgin was going to ask for some money and how much um i think it was a million i think she told me from us and i really hate quoting her since she's not here um and she said that we could possibly get about 20 um thousand is what she she said from who for she said possibly from from council county council the mayor of bethune told you that you could probably get 20 000 from kershaw county council yes wow i didn't know she she was on kershaw county council but anyway i i guess i say this john because bottom line i just i mean there's only so many dollars out there and let me tell you something um i do support the fol

» ks in bethune i support everybody in this this county but you know we just got to make sure we're all on the same page here you know i i have a little bit of a irritation when i get a phone call or when i'm talking to somebody and they're there i feel like that there's been a commitment made or a recommendation and council hadn't even we haven't it hadn't been brought before me but anyway it goes back to like i said we're going to be moving forward with our what i call the true vision of kershaw county which is going to be the comprehensive plan and i hope that that you'll you guys will get to stay and listen and participate in that with us you know at some point time in the future but i'm always happy to talk with you i will be scheduling a tour with you i'd love to come up there i've been

» up there many many times over last 16 years i just believe in total transparency being being open to to any and everything that we we bring up or we talk about but one person on this council cannot commit this council to anything and certainly no member of any other council and no pun intended i mean you just said they told me that you were told that you could probably get a million dollars from this county by a member of the elgin town council which is unfortunate because i just don't think that's the way we work up here but i i think you've done a great job i have a lot of respect for you and uh oh thank you and i truly mean that and you and i both know each other a long time and i don't think either one of us would say it to each other unless we meant it that's right um i certainly would

» n't and i don't think you would either but anyway thank you for what you're doing and welcome here tonight and maybe if we can all pull together we might can see what happens is there any other questions other questions mr gardner go ahead john thanks for being here thank you we appreciate that i know that uh i'm in my 12th year on council and i know that uh periodically i've been going to meetings and stuff you know but you know when i first got elected 12 years ago uh you know i was over at council meetings and i asked all the council members you know i can't be here every every time but you know if if you'd call me i'll be here on anything that you ever had that first four years you know how many times y'all called me probably nine one you called me one time you called me one time and yo

» u know to come over specifically so i think part of that is just why you're here tonight is is there has been no dialogue you know from y'all to us and you know when you don't say anything you don't get anything that's right so let's let's you know so you really haven't asked for anything and and so that's probably one reason you haven't got anything uh now i know we gave you some money for the water thing i know i did that don with them called me and uh we made that happen we got some money to paint your water tower we we got a ms station built up in that area uh that that is nine minutes from bethune on response time uh that we have so we have done some things up there obviously you you need more things and i'm not here to say we can do it or can't do it but you know i'm glad that you're

» here and i'm glad that you're bringing attention to some of these things that need to be done uh going back to the gym that burned that was before i got on council uh that that uh all the things had been done before i got here and and what was built uh in that rec facility is what was asked for because i went back and looked and so and i don't know if you were on council at that time but uh and i agree it should have been a gym personally i think we should have built back what you had but that was before my time so uh but uh you know actually actually i was on town council and that's when i ran for mayor and lost by i think eight or ten votes and i was a part of those meetings here in this building and i specifically said we wanted a gym but when my time as council uh was over uh i was not

» invited well not by county council by our council not invited to participate with that so i did express those interests and and we wanted a gym uh there's a lot of things that go on in bethune on the weekend that building gets used a lot right now it needs some work to the outside sidewalks someone's gonna it's all broken someone's gonna fall someone actually did fall at one of our meetings but yes we did it and I appreciate what what you have done and that's why I kind of scanned the crowd before I mentioned the gym and and I knew if anybody was on council would either been you or Councilman Jones because I know no one else has been here that long but I'm I'm gonna sit down, but before I sit down, I came up with this thing some years ago, myself and some others calling Bethune the island t

» own. In order to enter or exit Bethune, you must cross the Lynch's River. And if you talk about water support down the road, myself and a former manager of Sandhills Bank met with a guy and he said, you know, a company like Coors would die to come here. He said, do you know the water pressure, the aquifer that you have here in Bethune, he said, yours is better than Denver. And so there's a lot of things, you know, I could sit up here all day and talk, but I think that's why this little walking tool would be a lot better. So you can put hands and you can see things. And I think it will give you a better perspective of Kershaw County. And one of my friends, Kevin Culp, and most of you probably know Kevin.

» Kevin used to come to the house to watch, excuse me, He used to come to watch WWE wrestling on Monday night because our cable provider in Bethune had it. And here in Camden, they didn't. And he said to me, he says, you know, it's going to cost me all of this to spend more gas. And I actually, I said, well, coming to Bethune is a little bit easier for you. I said, because you can cruise in the curves where you don't have to spend as much gas. So I say that to you. And we look forward to you again, 7 o'clock Thursday night, our town council meeting. You're going to hate, you miss it if you don't come. Yeah, Mr. Brasel has first dibs, and I'll go to you, David. Go ahead, Mr. Brasel. I'm sorry. Hey, John, I'm probably one of the guys that you don't know as well.

» I met you at the Vision 2030 at the district office. We were on our little coloring things together. Yeah, that's right. Kevin and I are the same age, so you and I are probably about the same age then, if you all are buddies. So your cleanup, you want to clean up the Lynch's River, the little Lynch's and the big Lynch's.

» did we talk about what we did on the watery it turned out really great no i read in the paper what happened um but but no we haven't it was a it was a great community effort i mean i think you guys can do the same thing if if you want any um what to do what not to do um we learned a lot and we're gonna do it again you pulled a jet ski out there no i didn't pull it out but but we did this might pull a jet ski out in pieces so there was effort it was all kind of trash in the river but if you ever want to just sit down and chat, I'm happy to. I'll give you my card and give you my cell phone number, and I'd be more than happy to help connect you with some folks that help me. Mr. Snodgrass, sir. Thank you. Hey, John, thanks for coming, man. Thank you for having me.

» Thanks for coming and speaking up. Three or four years ago, I didn't think Gershwin County knew where East Camden was, and so I ran and been bringing that to the conversation. I applaud you for that, and I think you had a conversation, of mr templer and i had a conversation um and i never noticed that there's no street lights in east camden that's right that is sad yeah because our students get off the academy right right our students get off of i-20 and they travel the back way and that's their vision of camden which i tell them every day that's not a great vision of camden yeah just a plug there for camden not only we're getting there we're getting there uh have you spoken with uh any members of our delegate our legislative delegation about this susan has i'm not here okay and i would jus

» t encourage you to just keep on tapping into that um because uh your bethune is about uh speaker lucas is getting bethune back in his district and so that's going to be i mean talk about advantageous to funding your the speaker of the house is going to be is going to be your house rep and uh so i would i would be sure to make sure you keep him in the conversation as well as will wheeler and some of the others that are they're out there um and then as far as for your gym um you know have you have you guys looked at pard grants that that may be something that would be eligible that would maybe fall under parks and we have and and um and i'm not trying to put you off i got i'm i'll help you right i'm just just trying to throw out some other ideas as well and and we will do that but but i i kin

» d of just threw jim i didn't go into great details because i think and again that walking too where we can educate you a little bit better than just if i come we're going to main street grill we'll we'll go we'll go to combination okay there's main street grills there's bracy's cafe all right and the chicken at the exxon is unreal i've heard about the chicken the next song um i've only had the fish at the main street grill though but i'll i want to come to exxon too but councilman gardner said he was not on town council councilman jones were you on town council when the gym burned I was here um basically um it's a gym with an upstairs it was a basement um the council of aging used it I grew up at through the county rec department in there um and we have pictures but it it was just not built

» back exactly and and I'm not blaming anyone um no no that's I'm just saying yes but we like to show you that uh a revenue as well so right I'll reach out to you man I'd love to catch up with you i love bethune and i love visiting there and i'd love to go okay about four of you have my number so please pass it along thank you for having me hang on john let me close it up uh thanks for coming give my best regards to susan and we will follow up ken thank you for coming and thank you for your service on the santee lynch's rivers cog and uh it's very important that's a wonderful representation for you as well as uh speaker lucas uh just a couple of things okay in the last eight years or so uh i've come to just about every one of your town councils i'll miss you one this week i'm sorry but i've w

» atched uh this body uh through vic carpenter improve the rec center we've got to fix that sidewalk they fixed the hvac recently and they fixed the floors uh last month as you know uh you and i have worked with the sand hills uh phone company to get wi-fi down your streets and that's going on pretty good i think and then mr gardner and others have supported the improvement to your water tower uh the ems station now is in a very good response position to help your your town and of course this body has advocated for the clinic downtown in in bethune and of course we have that a very good trash point right downtown in bethune that we run for you and recently with the fire station they're nearly full-time man now for the first time in years because of the actions that this body took to provide f

» unding and training for your fire station in fact the last time i saw you there were 10 people in that fire station training that night last last month and then of course we have the new fire station going in at asset which would provide better service so the county is reaching out to bethune in many very effective ways i think you would agree on that but with regard to your request that came in tonight the proposal is we put it in as i told your mayor last week is to put that request into the retreat process and discuss it in the county retreat that's coming up and prioritize it so we can work a relationship going forward so the idea is we have a ready-made process that starts next week and john we'll look at those and with those john thanks for coming and safe journey back up north okay t

» hank you and we will send you um some dates possibly we'll do it on a weekend so it's more daylight on saturday thank you very much well over time but uh well spent time thank you thank you okay oh yeah sammy go ahead before he walked away because i was i would say this in my um council briefing but i was there doing the um replacing of the gym and let let it be known that we built back what we had money to build back we spent every dime that was recovered from the insurance company plus county put money into that i'm not saying that they don't need to be updated and some things done um to add to that by now but um i think the biggest thing that john's trying to express and john if i'm misspeaking for you let me know is number one it's kind of hard to come in someone's house whose house is

» messy the foontown council house has been messy very messy since i've been on and this is my 18th year so with that being said i think they got their house in order now they're inviting us back so we can have a more collaborative effort and get more things done and if i've misspoken john please correct me no you have not misspoken thank you thank you very much there john uh we move to the next item on the agenda which is the approval of minutes on page four and it's on tab a in your electronic book and on the screen can we have a motion to approve a move uh mr gardner a second second second from mr connell uh any discussion uh sammy uh no and with that we move to a vote sammy how do you vote yeah and all others signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous the minutes are approved we move

» to the next item which is at tab b and page seven in your electronic books and also up on the screen an ordinance which is the third reading of an ordinance the execution of a fee and loot tax for a project is this one panel yes project panel mr carpenter can you tell us what we have here please mr. chairman members of council you have in front of you tonight third reading the approval for the ordinance that authorizes the delivery of a fee in lieu to the company we've referred to the project panel which is pinnacle precast concrete company previously been approved by council on two readings thank you can we have a motion to approve so move mr. Jones a second second second from mr. Connell any discussion yes yeah mr.

» Jones we're looking at how many acres 61 about yes or about 60 anyway 61 plus acres and 8 million investment 27 acres 67 acres 8 million investment and 80 jobs correct and this is pinnacle LLC and they're precast is that concrete yes sir because concrete um I want to say to our you cannot develop a director job well done good job and i'd also like to say that you know for years nothing happened in economic development till we got new leadership in economic development and i was very instrumental in getting new leadership here for economic development so these are the kind of results i want to see from staff and i just wanted to make that mention which was a very true statement thank you any other comments uh mr tucker seeing there are no comments we move to a vote how do you vote sammy yes

» uh yes and all others signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous mary we move on to old business now a timeline and procedures to facilitate council action inquiring as to the planning and zoning variances flexibility and zld ordinance and revision it's at tab c it's also on the screen and page 38 in your book mary would you make a note that mr snodgrass has departed we're down to six with that we're into the introduction of that i think it's mr carpenter to introduce as he was directed to report back please mr point of order if i may mr chairman just a point of order uh mr carp was out sick with the covet and i actually had this put on the agenda through the attorney so i think to follow your your protocol that i should have first off to make a motion and then we can get into discussi

» on with and that would be uh in line with your protocol that you've always done by all right if we want to make a motion then yeah please go ahead jimmy what's your motion so therefore you're asking me okay my motion is that we the proposed timeline and procedure to facilitate council action acquiring as to planning and zoning variances flexibility in zldr ordinance zldr and revisions of zldr and you have a copy folks all right can we have a second yeah it's in the packet we got a second from mr brazel very good it's on the table jimmy go ahead okay thank you mr chairman very much um if you'll look at that sheet that was put into the agenda package you'll see the object objections you'll see the objectives and the proposal is what i call them that's like adding flexibility to the zoning lan

» d ordinance is to make it more user friendly make administration of ZLDR more user-friendly said add clarity to the ordinance to make it more efficient and user-friendly including granting variances which I think one gentleman was here for so yes this does participate to you I don't like what happened to you and I'll say it at open session County Council and I know I'm not alone up here somebody else feels the same way but anyway and also to meet at least quarterly with the Kershaw County school district planning zoning matters including industrial commercial and residential growth as you can see there's a timeline that has been put in this is mr.

» Connolly here yes he's in the back good this time would you come up one second please if I could first I want to start by thanking you for your your work in your effort in you know pulling this together tonight sir are you in agreement with these timelines I mean this is a workable timeline that we have here isn't it I assisted with the attorney to develop this timeline yes so it is a reasonable timeline we believe so good thank you I do too um I had a constituent they sent me a question dealing with the comprehensive plan which I understand is a Kershaw County ordinance that zoning ordinances must follow as and is required by state law is that correct I don't know the comprehensive plan is a plan that we're required to have a state law yes yes and it's updated every 10 years correct yes si

» r okay and of course our uh land ordinance needs to be connected with that it needs to flow together correct it work together all future ideally yes sir yeah okay um can i can i ask you a question can you explain the comprehensive plan and what its position is as far as zoning is concerned can you give an explanation on that i'm not following your question okay explain what the comprehension the comprehensive plan is and the position of that as far as the zoning ordinance goes well the comprehensive plan is basically your policy outlook to establish your your zoning regulations so the comprehensive plan gives you your policy outlook and your framework and then you set your regulatory standards below that right and of course the comprehensive plan is I mean it states I think in state law tha

» t the governor authority may provide for the reference of any matters or class of matters to the local Planning Commission with the provision the final action on it not be taken until the Planning Commission has submitted a report on it as had a reasonable period of time as determined by the governing authority to submit a report you know when I look through the state law and I look at the comprehensive the local planning comprehensive planning process it's a result of the systematic preparation continue reevaluation the updating and any elements considered critical necessary and described to guide the development and redevelopment of its area jurisdiction so basically the comprehensive plan is kind of like our roadmap yes sir for our vision yes sir by state law we're required if I say a lo

» t of happiness I'm correct on all those where does how does vision 2030 fit in vision 2030 doesn't fit into the 1994 Planning Act thank you but but therefore when we when we talk about growth we talk about development redevelopment we talk about zoning the comprehensive plan is our vision i mean because that's that's what the planning commission put together that's why they brought before this county council we voted on and we have to do that every 10 years correct and and how many times has it been updated in 10 years i mean roughly what are you asking the vision plan yeah the comprehensive plan how has it been the comprehensive plan has it been looked at within the 10 years and updated or amended in any way shape form yeah we did the comprehensive plan in 2018 yeah thank you and I appreci

» ate you bringing that up so would you say that the comprehensive plan is a zoning ordinance and is required by state law and you've explained to us what the comprehensive plan is here's what I think and you help me if you think I'm wrong on that on this next comment I think County council needs to revisit and take a look at the comprehensive plan what do you think what we required and yes it's we have a five-year update that we can do and that's part of our RFP that we'll write that we are writing at the particular moment yes sir two citizens contacted me two very strong women okay and they brought this to my attention so I made some comments on they wanted to know about this and they were questioning about the comprehensive plan so I want to just say to those two very strong women who wome

» n have to work five times harder to be recognized than a man and if anybody up here doesn't agree with it go home to your daughters and your wives and tell them why you don't agree with it but the bottom line is that was very impressive to me that i was reminded that the comprehensive plan is our roadmap is our vision which is required by state law and um you know the reason we're doing what we're doing tonight if the let me make myself clear if allowed by law what we're doing tonight which i've always said this i would like for the administrator to be more involved in the application of variances which reflects back to the folks in the in the background there and uh the administrator to be involved in the zoning and permitting process and the change of zoning code to add the administrator

» in the process make variances more flexible and accessible and that's the reason that i got involved and that's the reason i brought this back for county council um have you got any thoughts or comments that you'd like to make on the direction that we're going do I have any no sir I do not become you you think we're going in the right direction by doing this that's not I won't add my subjective into this conversation okay because if you said no then what you're telling me is that you don't think we should change and be aggressive and move forward and we should stick by the laws we had years ago and mr. carpenter I see you sitting up like a bullfrog but let me just tell you something when you bring a department head to this County Council meeting we have the right to question them mr.

» Jones you're right you have the right to ask questions however asking them to put a personal opinion into something I don't think that's well do you not agree with state law very well put mr. Carman now go back do you not agree with state law mr. do you agree with state law or not that directed towards me yes of course okay then you do you then okay and you do agree with the motion and what we put in here I believe you said he did yes sir guys guys look look here's the thing I am tired I am just really tired of the beat around citizens have gotten in planning and zoning I'm really tired of the fact that we're setting our planning zoning employees up to fail because we haven't done our job me me as well hey I'm probably the most guilty not doing my job we want to go out bragging about we've

» got this company that company coming here and they're not here but yet tonight we did get a real fiscal company coming here I'm not mad I'm just upset what upsets me more than anything else is when someone has to go to planning zoning and they have to get a permit and they got a book that thick zoning regulations a book that thick a comprehensive plan I know for a fact that some of the council members up here hadn't even seen the comprehensive plan but they seen other vision plans well there's no money with those vision plans we require by state law to do comprehensive plan I just want sure we get back on the right track i want to see planning and zoning interface with the public the public being able to interface with planning zoning we've got some good employees in there and you guys work

» hard and and we've got to do a good job of making sure that the planning commission gets everything we we need back to us in timely fashion and that we're meeting we go by this schedule which i had over here excuse me a second which gives you know gives all the dates in this public record um but anyway my whole point is what we're doing tonight will allow us to make administrative variances decisions at the staff level whenever state wherever whenever state law allows and uh past zoning ordinance is um a comprehensive plan we're going to be looking at that by state law and i think we need to make sure we're following that so basically that's that's all my questions but i do appreciate the fact you've worked very hard with mr bosun and listen guys we can be nice and i think i'm being very po

» lite tonight i'm not angry at anybody but there's just some tough questions that need to be asked especially when i'm getting calls every other day about issues dealing with a department that are making the citizens just run around circles and then i have two families here tonight and it breaks my heart six acres land she's given to run around about where she can build her she wants her kids to to live by her you know we this governing body right here can change it we can change the whole process and make it a whole lot more friendly and then these folks up here at the last moment after they got their house done a variance they should have been allowed anyway that's just where I'm at thank you mr. Connolly thank you mr.

» carpenter and appreciate y'all answering my kind questions Thank You mr. Jones that was interesting mr. Tucker that you mr. Tucker any comments I have no comment okay other comments mr. mr. Connell last meeting we asked for an update on the codification project where are we on that okay all along and this is something we've already voted on and funded I felt like one of the first dominoes that needed to fall was first giving people access to the information so they can make more informed decisions So you don't have to physically show up and thumb through or pay a fair amount of money to make a copy of it if you wanted to do that.

» And so with codification, do we know when it will be completed and we get a final date? We don't have a final date, but the information has been compiled and sent to the people that are codifying it. And so I'll check on that and get the final date. But it's 90% long, wouldn't you say, Mary, or 95? Because as a third-party contractor, it feels like it's been dragging at this point.

» well it's taken a long time because it hadn't been done in a long time mr connell we had to go through 30 years of of ordinances and of course not all of them were codified for instance we did not codify all the fee and law tax agreements that it would have been if we had done that it would have been extraordinarily massive correct we didn't codify the budget ordinances so we had to manually go through mary had we had and mary particularly had to manually go through the list of ordinances and take out the ones that were not codified well i think for our purposes we would want the most recent zoning code put online first if that if that can be done so that people can have access to information and make informed decisions about their land and property and then whenever these updates occur thr

» ough this process in this timeline it'll be instantaneously put online and people can use that information yeah i think the zoning land development regulations are online in some form now but the advantage you can be after codified of course you'll be able to do word searches yeah and things like that'll be a big advantage to somebody that won't advantage yeah huge advantage yes that will be the advantage if we could let's please ask the contractor on a on a date so we can hold them to some accountability for when they're actually going to complete the project thank you the qualification would just be much more user friendly to public to do that's the idea that's the idea thank you yeah i thank mr connell for that idea some years ago that putting it online so contractors and owners can rapi

» dly scale down and then pull up electronically these applicable regs secondly I want to endorse what mr. Jones said tonight and last time we met which is when we give a tough job to somebody and they're overwhelmed by the just the cascade of licenses that have been coming in and understaffed and overworked and the regulations are difficult to interpret and the fault rests with this body up here to provide those assets and that guidance so that Mr. Carpenter and his team can provide the customer service that contractors and owners deserve. It has been an unusual series of three years and Mr.

» Conley told us it was an unusual time in which each year the number of licenses come in double year on year to the point where kershaw county has the most number of licenses of any county out there per capita than any other county because growth is happening capital g so mr jones thank you for bringing in this very useful i think amendment to our procedures and policies and we'll give the county council staff the means they need uh to do the job that the county citizens expect of us and i think this is a very useful beginning uh with that i'm ready to call the question unless there's further discussion okay there is none mr i turn to mr mr tucker sir how do you vote mr lost child votes yes and all others kindly uh show your agreement by raising your hand and it's unanimous uh mr snodgrass a

» bsent we're down to six with that we move to council uh briefings and mr snodgrass not here sammy you lead us off off to you to send mr tucker no report sir uh mr gardner no report uh mr brazel i'll make up for it um i got a small list of of items i'd just like to circle back up with um we've had a rough few weeks um and uh taking all that into consideration i'll ask these questions very politely but um maybe by our next meeting if we could have an update on the the boat ramp yeah at the river we'll put it on the agenda for sure okay yeah just like like a process um where we at you know have we met with the engineer and if so have we got any feedback and you don't have to answer the question but i just i'd like to hear back on that um we were going to move quickly and that was 60 days ago s

» o it's been a rough 60 days so we'll we'll say hey let's let's look forward the next 30 days to try to get something started here something that we can put in front of this body and make a decision I see my good friend George Delk in the back George I know this is probably gonna be a touchy subject for you we're both in the home building industry but there's been a tremendous outreach about the amount of growth in Lugolf and in Elgin and we've got to figure out how we're gonna handle that growth I'd like to ask this body and mr.

» Connolly we spoke over a year ago about how are we gonna deal with this growth and we really hadn't we hadn't gotten anything back in front of us yet I want to hit that head-on when we meet in the next few weeks I want to talk about how we how do we keep kershaw county kershaw county there's so many people in kershaw county because they love it for what it is and while we know growth is inevitable um we can't overwhelm the system okay we can't overwhelm the schools we can't overwhelm the roads and um we've just got to do something and we got to do something in the next 60 days we can't wait to the end of this year to to discuss this and kick this down the down the road we've got to do something and do something in a reasonable amount of time so i ask all of you to take this into considerati

» on and um let's discuss it and put something to a vote within the next few meetings um to the smith family in the back i don't know what next steps there are happy to continue to help uh met with you at the at the home site up at lake very sorry for the outcome that we weren't able to help anymore but um we've got your number still and if mr carpent would like to sit down and chat with you guys i'd be happy to be a part of that and uh help any way i can um and to the the cliburn family it's i feel it's unfortunate sometimes that we don't get to chat when somebody comes up here and and presents um i knew her and i knew i knew her and i apologized for getting up and leaving but she uh she cooked us breakfast at thomas sumter in the 90s and i knew i knew her face so the cliburn family i want t

» o say that if there's a way that we can help within the law with the subdivision of their property michael i'd like to work with you on that of course we'd have to look at it and um lastly you know i attended a funeral this afternoon at four o'clock and while we're all up here debating um all these these hot topics that sometimes get heated let's let's not forget that we're all human and um miss martha i may say her last name incorrectly wyrick was laid to rest today and uh her daughter-in-law works with us at royswood products and is a dear friend and just want to say to that family we're thinking about you and we're praying for you. So that concludes my comments. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Connell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

» One of the great things about Kershaw County is the high school athletics. I have a particular fondness for the wrestling teams. These are some tough, tough kids. Wrestling is an unbelievably hard sport. Unless you've done it, you have no idea how tough it is to make somebody physically do something against their will. It's an amazing sport and it teaches so many lessons beyond just the moves. It sticks with you for the rest of your life.

» So with that, I wanted to highlight some achievements recently and some huge matches tomorrow night i hope the community will get out and support them look off elgin uh wrestling just beat catawba ridge 67 to 4 that put them up in a position to host east side uh the reigning multi-time team state champion tomorrow night so we're hosting at le at 6 p.m at the high school i encourage everybody to go out and support look off elgin demons they have a pretty stout team and i'm proud to say as a former heavyweight, that they have the number one heavyweight in the state in that classification, Karenton Charles. But all of them are tough, and they all fight for each other. It's an inspiring thing to watch them compete, and it's going to be an absolute battle. Camden had a recent and tough match.

» They did a great job with the team they have, I think, and I think they're building for the future as well. They went to the first round of playoffs. And then North Central, they're also outstanding. So they have tomorrow night Timberland hosting at home. That's the lower state championship. The golf is the upper state championship for its classification. So they're wrestling Timberland at 6:00 PM. We've had one of the most recent four-time state champions come out of North Central High School, and it's just amazing to watch. So I hope whichever school you're tied to, if you have family or friends associated with them, go out and support them tomorrow night. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. - Yeah, Mr. Chairman, go ahead. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the County Council.

» A couple of quick, well, a couple of things. I just wanna really, I appreciate Ben Connell's work the codification and uh i really mean that because i don't think we were making any headway whatsoever until he sort of got his horse and buggy hooked up and went head first into it but is there a time schedule on that have we got some kind of road map like we do with planning and zoning now mr jones i'll give that to you okay but maybe give it to all the county all the council yeah okay i will what we're looking at for completion and thank you on that you know one thing is we move forward PLANNING AND ZONING WITH THE UPDATING I LIKE TO SAY THE UPDATING OF PLANNING AND ZONING AND I YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT GETTING INVOLVED INTO THE LAND ORDINANCE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT A VERY DETAILED P

» IECE OF WORK THAT COULD TAKE TWO YEARS AND YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO HAVE A CONSULTANT HEY I DON'T LIKE CONSULTANTS BUT YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO HAVE ONE IF THAT DOES COME BACK TO US WHICH I'M SURE IT WILL I WANT TO SAY THIS I WANT THAT CONSULTANT TO WORK WITH EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL MEMBER OF THE CLEAN EXCUSE ME OF THE PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION NOT JUST AS CHAIRMAN OR VICE CHAIR BUT THE ENTIRE COMMISSION I WANT EACH ONE TO BE ABLE TO HAVE SOME ONE-ON-ONE TIME WITH THE CONSULTANT AS WE DID WHEN WE WENT THROUGH THE REDISTRICT I THINK THAT MAKES EVERYBODY FEELING LIKE THEY'RE A PART OF IT THE PLANNING COMMISSION IS A VERY VERY IMPORTANT COMMISSION IN THIS COUNTY AND THEY'RE MANDATED BY LAW AND WE HAVE TO FOLLOW THAT AND THAT'S ALL I I talked about tonight was the fact that we just need to b

» e following law and staying staying the course and I have uh much appreciation that my colleagues have supported this unanimously through its process and uh as I said this is just the beginning but I hope within a couple of weeks Mr. Carpenter, Mr. Attorney that y'all can bring back something to us that kind of absolutely uh hits the highlighted points that I said I wanted to see happen immediately which would take about THREE OR FOUR MONTHS AND THAT IS ALLOWING THE ADMINISTRATOR TO BE A LITTLE BIT MORE INVOLVED AND OF COURSE WE'LL SEE WHERE THAT GOES AND ALSO MR DEBOSE LET ME ASK YOU THIS WHAT ABOUT DO YOU THINK WE NEED I THOUGHT I DON'T NECESSARILY ALWAYS AGREE WITH AN ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OPINION BUT DO YOU THINK WE NEED ONE IN THIS CASE MR JONES THE ADMINISTRATOR IS A STATUTORY POSITION C

» OUNTY ADMINISTRATOR AND UNDER OUR ZONING CODE THE ZONING DIRECTOR IS A STATUTORY POSITION SO I THINK there are some constraints about how many statutory hats a person can wear um they're not only the dual office holding which is one issue but even if that's not an issue you do have an issue of lines of authority and we've looked at that and the issue is not clear under law so how you get an answer to that um are you asking me do we need to what are you asking me what do we need to do to go ahead and do that well um not clear or do we need to do that well i think if you want to do it you need to do it and i think one thing you could do this is just a possibility um you could get an ag opinion on an attorney general's opinion probably take 60 days but at least you'd find out what the attorney

» general thought about it now that's not law but i will tell you that if you get an ag opinion and you follow the ag opinion the courts cut you a break mr connell because you did the best you could that would be the only solution other than ask for declaratory judgment i wouldn't do that jimmy i want you to get your questions answered but we've closed that discussion are you going to try to reopen it we're in council briefs and normally we don't get into this kind of discussion can you bring that to a conclusion for us jimmy actually you know i think the council briefing you know we all have dialogue with each other during our council briefing and we sort of bring things up that that we feel are important so i would like to appreciate your position i just don't quite agree with it but i'm go

» ing to uh i'm going to go ahead and close it up all right thank you sir but i'm certainly we would want to get together on this after that okay let me just finish this i'm going to close it up but i really want us to look at that and mr carpenter if you'll get with mr vose maybe send out an email to us letting us know what we need to do how do we go about that because i believe you might can do it yourself as the county administrator all right miss jones i'll be glad to talk some more with you make sure that we understand what it is so we can do it correctly okay let me say one more thing too mr chairman thank you folks i'm not angry i'm not mad and if my questions appear to be ugly questions well it's just an ugly truth i just want to know i just want to make sure that we are doing what we

» need to do and we're servicing citizens in the best way possible and i also know even though we may disagree up here on this council they feel the same way we just don't we just don't see the same way about going about it but uh but i thank you mr chair members of council for your time thank you thank you and i'll close it out on council briefs uh dignity and respect uh is a big part of my life in the military and in this job and treating our our staff with dignity and respect is an absolute must i appreciate your respect for that uh i want to put up a chart and i will i'm just going to precursor this because we're going to talk about it in the retreat next chart please this is the census by the change by municipalities that shows uh 14 percent growth in uh in the municipalities and elgin g

» rew 24 percent during this census this means planning and zoning is busy next chart and we'll we'll go into detail on these numbers uh when we meet on wednesday kershaw county is the only county growing in the midlands hello and that growth rate is five percent okay lee county sumter county clarendon all got smaller people are coming to kershaw county that's great because they like it here this is the great place the taxes are lower than sumter the schools are better on and on and that's they come in here for a reason you figure out what it is next chart this is a change by census track and look at the dark green elgin grew 24 the eastern part and northern part of camden grew greater than 10 look at all the red up there as in the other counties that means your planning and zoning has been v

» ery busy with a small staff and a very difficult code to enforce and a very professional leadership down there with good people as mr jones said and i will tell you also the post and courier on sunday reported year on year from 20 to 21 the number of licenses processed by our our team your team doubled and then it doubled again in 21 and mr kindly told us that was going to happen and we did nothing to help him and i propose with mr jones's amendments and with the work that i propose to talk about as mr brazel mentioned on wednesday and thursday to give some help to our citizens by making this staff better equipped to do these tough jobs all right and turn those off and we'll go into detail ladies and gentlemen when we meet again I have met with the CM cog twice and they are in charge of roa

» ds in the Western watery mr. Connell and mrs. and the mayor Emmons and I participated in detail on a West watery study and I will tell you with a great deal of dissatisfaction that we in the last 23 years have not had a new road in West Watery in 23 years and that time Charles Ives hair has gotten gray indeed and mine too and we can't have growth if we don't have roads and schools and all that other stuff and I will tell you that we have to intensify our efforts I join with Mr.

» Connell to say the high schools continue to delight us and so to the jv with wrestling basketball uh and volleyball championships is just going great and so it's terrific to be in this county and watch that happen uh the next time we meet will be the 22nd of february and we have a retreat next week i turn it over now to you mr carpenter to close this out thank you mr chairman members council um no report but i would just like to stress and reiterate um to some comments earlier that at no point in time has staff ever broken a law will staff ever break a law knowingly or willingly be in a county ordinance or a state ordinance that is what always guides us and drives us as adherence to the law thank you absolutely uh mr devos i have nothing mr chairman all right can we have a motion to adjourn

» normally that comes from mr. Tucker a second please any discussion all right well no discussion how do you vote mr. Tucker yes and all others signify and we are adjourned have a great and safe night out there