Machine transcript of the county's live stream. Each » marks a change of speaker; the captions don't say who is talking, and names are often misspelled. For the readable version see the recap; the official record is the county's minutes.
» Because I'm in the meeting now. Good. I like that. Make sure. Hannah, thank you. Can I? Is this going on? Yes. Okay. You're on. Hello. Hello. Can you confirm he's on, Pastor? Hey, Jimmy, are you on with us? Are you there? Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Thank God. All right. I got it. Mr. Tucker, are you on? You just spoke with him. He might have us on mute. All right. Well, it's time to start. We want to be respectful of everyone's time. Let's go ahead and call the meeting to order. Kershaw County Council, September 24th, 2024. We've been called to order, and we've got an invocation and pledge to start us off tonight. That will be led by Pastor Quentin Chavis with Belmont Baptist Church. Speak into the mic if you want the folks to hear you. I can go this way, okay? Yes, sir.
» Y'all be sure to tell Mary and Bennett I showed up on time, okay? That's okay. We'll let them know. Thank you. All right. Mr. Father, we thank you now for this beautiful day that you placed on the calendar for us a long time ago, Lord. And all day long. We have been rejoicing in this great day. We ask that you join now in this discussion that it might lead to things that be a benefit to the city, this county, and this state. Be a part of the discussion that will render the kind of fruit you would like it to yield. Master, we ask you to bless now the sick and afflicted, the bereaved, the careless and unconcerned. Lord, that group we've labeled, the careless and unconcerned, bless them in a mighty way. Keep them ever in your care. Master, be a part of whatever's said and done here.
» This day, we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. We will now stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Pastor Chavis. I'm going to use the chairman's prerogative to move one item up in the agenda. We've got an emergency labor situation with Mr. Gary Siegfried and his daughter. With the SCAC presentation, council members, that was item 6B. We're going to move that up and have that public presentation right now. I'd seek a motion to suspend the 15-minute time restriction, though, given your situation, I don't know if you're going to need that much. Okay. If you would come on up. Yeah, he won't need it.
» Can everybody hear me okay? Yeah, just get the mic a little closer. We can hear you better. How's that? Yep. There you go. All right, good. All right, well, thank you so much for moving me up. I appreciate that. Yeah, my daughter is in. I'm in labor with my first grandchild. Congratulations. Very exciting time, so I appreciate you doing this for me. And I appreciate you allowing me to be here to talk to you tonight about something that's become a very important topic in South Carolina, and that is the topic of compatible land uses around our airports. I'm going to just take a few minutes tonight.
» First, I'm going to just tell you real quick about my background, how I got to be here where I'm talking tonight about compatible land uses around airport, and then I'll dive into the meat of the topic. And it's really a big topic, but I've really pared my presentation way down. But I'll talk to you a little bit just really quickly about FAA and what they take -- what their take is on compatible land uses around airports. And then after that, I'll dive into more about the -- what the state says about it. And when I'm done with that state discussion, we'll talk about the local responsibilities. And then when I'm all done with that, if there's time, I might take a little break. All right. Thank you.
» And then after that, I might do a case study, just -- which kind of drives home why this is so important. When I get through the rest of that, I'll talk about one other thing. That's an online tool that we have. It's called the CLU tool. Your planning department's probably heard about that. My staff's been over here to meet with them. And that'll talk -- help -- hopefully help you understand about some tools that are out there to help you with this topic. So just real quick, we'll start this with, just to gauge your thoughts on it, a survey. So I had one of my planners look for a plot of land with some neighbors. And I'm going to look at some neighborhoods around it. And I know where this is. These are some nice houses, a little bit pricey.
» And I know there's got to be pilots that live in this neighborhood. So the question is, would this be a good place to build an airport? Because we know pilots would love to have an airport close to their homes. So you don't have to answer it. But just think, would you like -- if you lived in one of these homes, would you like to have an airport right in the middle of your neighborhood? We'll come back at the end. So what is compatible land use? Really a good place to start is what's not compatible with an airport. So when we think about things that are noise sensitive, churches, schools, residential development, clearly those aren't compatible with an airport. Obstructions, anything that's going to compete with the airspace, anything that's going to make the pilot's life more difficult.
» And it's not just the pilot. If the pilot has trouble with obstructions, that makes people on the ground less safe as well. Density development, most accidents take place either on takeoff or on landing. If a pilot is taking off from a runway, and their engine goes out, the first thing they're going to do is look for an open plot of land to set down. And if there's dense development around an airport, that's not going to be possible. And then finally, wildlife. We have bird strikes every single day in South Carolina. We also have strikes with deer, turkey, other wildlife. So anything that draws wildlife to the vicinity of the airport is also not compatible.
» So what is the definition of compatible land use? The American Planning Association says that it's -- those uses that can coexist with a nearby airport without constraining the safe and efficient operations of the airport. There are also things that make sure that pilots stay safe and any use that would not cause people on the ground to not be safe. I think I'd add one thing to that. An incompatible land use would also be something that -- or anything that's going to hinder any future planned development at an airport. So your airport has an airport layout plan, which is its master plan, its vision for the future. So if somebody were to want to build something that would cause any of that development to not be able to be possible, then that would also be incompatible.
» Why should we care about this? Well, airports are part of our national transportation system. And at the state level and the FAA level, we put millions of dollars into our airports every single year. And so by protecting land uses around airports, we're protecting that investment. And that's a worthwhile investment. Because the airports contribute a lot of money to our economy. In 2007 -- 2018, we did an economic impact study for all of our airports. It's getting a little dated, so we know the numbers are higher now. But in 2018, our statewide economic impact was $16 billion coming out of the aviation sector and our airports, which led to about $655 million of tax revenue that came back to state and local governments so that you all can do your jobs.
» Airports also provide facilities for medical emergencies, emergency relief, firefighting, things like that. And it's also a quality of life consideration. I already touched on this a little bit. But we need to think about, you know, the people that live on the ground around the airports. So it's not just about protecting the airport. It's also a quality of life issue. So the FAA actually has created quite a bit of guidance about incompatible land uses around airports. But the funny thing about the FAA is they say that it's really up to the local government to control land uses. And I have to tell you, as the director of a state agency, a person who's trying to look out for our airports in South Carolina, I would love for the FAA to take a harder stand on this.
» But honestly, if they did, it would probably be federal overreach. So, you know, this is probably the place where it belongs is here at the local government. But the FAA's guidance, or they said, one of the things they say about that is the primary responsibility for integrating airport considerations into the local land use planning process rests with the local government. One place where they do take a little bit of a stand, is in Federal Grant Assurance 21. Whenever you accept a grant from the FAA, one of the things you have to do is make some promises to them that you're going to comply with some grant assurances. Grant Assurance 21 is one that covers compatible land use.
» So what that says is it, and when they say it, they mean that the owner of the airport will take appropriate action to restrict the use of land adjacent to or in the immediate vicinity of the airport to activities and purposes that are, that are compatible with the airport. So they won't tell you what compatible land use looks like, but what they'll do is they'll push it down to you, for you to make your decisions on what that should look like. What does South Carolina law say about this? Well, there's a little bit in Title VI, but the majority of our aeronautics regulations are found in Title 55. But starting in Title VI, Title VI, Chapter 29, this was the South Carolina Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994.
» So in 1994, they said, first in 629.710 , they defined the purpose of zoning. And then in Paragraph 5, they established the requirement to regulate the density and distribution of populations around airports and approaches. Jumping into Title 55, where the majority of our aeronautics regulations reside, just going through these in order from beginning to end, they're a little, they're a little out of order, probably in the organization, but just starting at the beginning and working down. 55-5-80K, this allows aeronautics to take action to abate hazards to aviation safety. And that includes land uses that have the potential to interfere with the airport or aircraft operations. 55-5-190 requires that county and municipal officials give us help in enforcement of the chapter.
» 55-9-240 requires that airports be zoned by county, municipal, or regional authorities to meet aeronautics or FAA regulations. 55-9-260 gives local planning officials the authority to develop zoning regulations. 55-9-270 addresses coordination when a cross-jurisdictional situation exists. And we have quite a bit of that in South Carolina. It could either be a county-owned airport like you have with a city adjacent to it, or in the case of Aiken Regional Airport, that's a municipally-owned airport that is completely surrounded by the county. In both of those cases, it's a county-owned airport.
» This section gives them the ability to coordinate and talk amongst themselves, which would be great because we find that that's probably one of our biggest problems when it comes to compatible land uses. 55-13-5 requires local planning officials to take airport safety and operations into consideration when they're making land use decisions. 55-13-10 gives local planning officials the authority to make rules and promulgate regulations which protect airport approaches. 55-13-12 gives local planning officials the authority to make rules and promulgate regulations which protect airport approaches. So that's what's in Title 55 as concerns land uses. And so as you can see, there's quite a bit of information in there.
» But probably the main thing is that it pushes all of the decision-making down to the local governments. In 2012, Title 55 went through a pretty significant update. That was before I arrived at Aeronautics. But two of the major points of Title 55 is that Aeronautics is required to prepare maps, and provide local governments with airport safety and land use zoning maps for each of the public airports in the state of South Carolina. So we're supposed to make you maps that show you where the airport zones are. The second thing that Title 55 said was that local officials are to notify Aeronautics if there's a development, a new planned development underneath one of those zones. So again, this is before my time.
» But to spread the message about these Title 55 changes, the Aeronautics staff at that time, they went on a road tour. They set up meetings with airport owners, county officials, municipal authorities, you know, and it was probably not a whole lot different from what I'm doing today. But the problem is, the problem that I've found since I came over to Aeronautics is that staffs change, county staff changes, airport staff changes, councils change, and even inside my staff, Aeronautics staff changes. So since I became director, this has become one of my major initiatives is just to get out and start to, I guess, re-educate our county officials on what Title 55 says and on the importance of protecting our airport. So I've been doing this quite a bit lately. I've been going to conferences.
» I was in Hilton Head in November to present to the American Planning Association. I present to our South Carolina airport conferences. I've even done this at the national level with our national airport conference. And of course, I've gotten out in front of quite a few county, state, and city councils lately. So to talk, let's jump over now and talk about a tool that's available to your planning officials that will help you out with making land use decisions around airports. So while Title 55 was being rewritten, the Aeronautics Commission also hired a consultant to create a tool, and it's an online tool called the CLU tool, which stands for Compatible Land Use Evaluation Tool. You'll recall one of the things that we were supposed to do was create maps for every year.
» So if you wanted to see maps for every airport, well, that's a huge task for us to do. So the way we handled that was by creating the CLU tool, which is online. And when you go onto our website and log into the CLU tool, you can see maps for every airport in the state, including Kershaw County's Woodward Field. This tool helps local developers and local planning officials by giving them a method for evaluating land uses. It also helps us out because it gives us a standardized method to evaluate development proposals. So this is a really, really important message that I need to get across. And that is that we don't have regulations about land uses. We have recommendations about best practices. And our CLU tool is not regulation.
» But recall state law says we want you to create land use ordinances that will take your airport into account. But most of our counties still don't have these ordinances put in place. So instead, we have the CLU tool developed to help them out. So if we're going to review potential development, we have to have something to compare that development against. And what we have is a model zoning ordinance that was also created as part of the creation of the CLU tool. The model zoning ordinance was put together by an airport planning consultant who has done this for other states. And it's based on best practices around airports. So just a couple of screenshots of the tool. Kind of there in the middle of the tool, you can see the airport land use zones.
» Up in the upper right, there's one of the -- a screenshot from an actual airport. It's the airport in South Carolina. And I guess just to kind of give you some perspective on how far across it is, the distance depends on how big the airport is and what type of runways it has. But about five miles -- five to six miles across. So that gives you an idea about how big those zones are. Mr. Siegfried? Yes. I'll just mention, if you need much more time -- I know you're under a time crunch. We would just have a motion to extend the period of time. Public presentations are normally 15 minutes. Oh, okay. Do you need much more time or? No. In fact, I'm almost done. I'll skip the -- I'm not trying to rush you. Just as -- Maybe another five minutes. Okay. Okay. Can you make a motion? Yeah.
» I'd make a motion that we extend the time up to 30 minutes so that he can finish. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Those voting online, Mr. Jones? Yes. All right. Mr. Tucker? Mr. Tucker, on with us? Okay. He just told me he was on. Well, we'll say we can't get to him at the moment, and we'll move forward with that vote. Thank you. Okay. Appreciate that. All right. I'll go fast. All right. So the tool has two sides. It has a public side and an official side. The public side allows anybody to look at a development and get an idea of what best practices might say. But the official side has -- is for local planning officials. And so that comes with login credentials.
» And what it allows the local planning officials to do is when a case comes in for a permit review, they can actually put the information into the CLU tool, hit submit, and it comes to our office for a review. When we review it, we'll have three possible findings. One is compatible, and if it's compatible, you're good to go. It could be conditional. And if it's conditional, then our finding will come with recommendations on what will make it a compatible development. And then finally, incompatible. If we find that it's incompatible, then we would hope that the project would not be permitted. But again, remember, we don't have regulations about land uses, and we think they should be local.
» So if it is incompatible and you decide as a county body that you want to proceed with the development, all we ask is that you just write us a letter and tell us the reasons for going forward. So what have we learned about this? First is we use the model zoning ordinance to compare our -- the developments against, and it's not one size fits all. The fact is that we have airports like the Greenville Downtown Airport, which has high density development around it, and that can never fit in the model zoning ordinances. Which is why we want the locals to create their own. Second, we don't want to be in the business of telling you how to protect your airport. We want you to decide as a local body, decide as a local government and local planning officials what is right for your community.
» And third, we would like to render the clue tool obsolete. We'd like to get out of the business of reviewing development around airports, but we can't do that until every county has ordinances in place to protect their airports. And I think I'll go ahead and skip the case. We'll just jump up to the -- go back to our survey. So I asked you if that was a good place to put an airport. I don't know what you thought in your mind, but what I thought was I sure wouldn't want an airport in the middle of my neighborhood. Well, this was actually photoshopped out. It's the Mount Pleasant Regional Airport in 2023. Here's what it looked like in 1995, a very rural community, nothing around it.
» And in 1999, we see the first signs of residential development to the west, 2007, southwest and northeast, 2014, new residential development to the east, 2016, more development to the east, and now the most recent aerial imagery. So if we don't think it's a good idea to bring the airport into the neighborhood, let's not bring the neighborhood to the airport. So with that, I thank you for your time. I'm open to any questions you might have. Any questions? Actually, I won't be long, but I've got a couple of questions just to help me clarify things. So obviously, we're in the middle of this, and there are people reaching out to us regarding churches and schools and homes and all these sorts of things.
» So I've looked at the, I think, the CLU tool, and ours looks like a cross because we've got two runways, right? So some of the parcels in question and some of the projects in question have fallen into, you know, different areas. So you're telling me that all three of those areas are up to our council to find appropriate or inappropriate. Is that true? It's true. Yeah. Okay. Land use, yeah, land use decisions are local. So when it comes to the FFA? Yeah, the FFA, so the FAA cares about, yeah, they care about airspace. So when it comes to land use decisions, they say those are local. They'll say exactly the same thing that we're saying. So they're not going to step in and stop a project? No.
» Now, they might for an airspace issue, you know, but again, they, that's what they care about is the air, not what's happening on the ground. The height of. The height, that's right. Yeah, so if something that was going to be built that was going to cause an obstruction to a flight path, an approach path, you know, so they have, when you look at the FAA's airspace, they have different slopes that they protect. It's called, they call them part 77 surfaces. So for example, an approach slope into a runway could be a 20 to one, a 34 to one or a 51 to one flight path. And so that's, that's what they're really interested in is, is those types of surfaces. So if it's a charge, a steeple could, could be an obstruction potentially? It could, yeah.
» Yeah, and so, but when it comes to part 77, what the FAA says about it is it doesn't necessarily, if something's going to poke up through one of those surfaces, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a problem. It just means they want to take a closer look at it, but they do the same thing that we do. When they look at an obstruction or potential obstruction, they give it a finding. And they give it, you know, three findings, same way we do. It's either compatible, conditional, or incompatible. So we can look at these in a case by case scenario and find out what's best for the, each parcel as we move forward. It's, you can, yeah. And that's not picking and choosing, that's just looking at things objectively. Yes. Okay. I have a question.
» So just to kind of piggyback on Councilman Brazel's point, the grant assurance 21 that you talked about, that impacts funding. So am I to understand if I hear you correct, it's almost, is it a more restrictive standard, if I can say it that way? In other words, we may be able to do something and it might be allowable, but if we do something that's incompatible and the FAA has given us money, that money could be clawed back effectively. Well, so what the, you have to remember, what grant assurance 21 says is that you're going to have some ordinances in place that protect your airport.
» So, you know, really that's the key is deciding as, as a local government and, you know, working with your planning officials, what do you want to allow around your airport? What kind of development? Now the FAA, they're, they don't want to be involved in compatible land use decisions. They want you all to decide what you want to do in that regard. So grant assurance 21 doesn't say. Yes, you have to have compatible land uses, and we're going to tell you exactly what they are. It's just says we need you to have compatible land uses or land use protections in place. There has to be something in place. And we define that. Yes. So it's not, it's not. We would love to be involved in helping you with that. We, and in fact, we have the model zoning ordinance that works behind the clue tool.
» We have that ordinance written up in documentation and it's a really good starting point place. You know, if you wanted to take that, or if you're planning officials wanted to take that and used it to build off of, we can give it, give that to you. You can go through it and you can go, I mean, you can go through all the, the recommendations in there and go, you know what, this one works for us. This one doesn't, let's change this. So, yeah, we, we'd be happy to provide that to you. It's a great starting spot and love to work with you on it. Is that clue tool currently in our tools list on our GIS overlay online? I know that we have like flood. Overlays and all that sort of thing. Is that something that we could potentially do? Sure. I see that you guys use Esri. Yes, we do. Yeah.
» If, if we can have that clue tool available to, to do the overlays so that landowners and ourselves alike can, can look at it and use it. We can do that. Yeah. We've provided that to other counties. Okay. Thank you. And congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yes, sir. Any other questions for those present? Any questions online, Mr. Jones and Mr. Tucker? No questions. All right. Well, I thank you for your time and thank you for indulging me and we'll look forward to working with you. Yes, sir. We hope that your daughter and the baby are doing well, safe labor, safe delivery. And I hope we can call on you again sometime remotely or in person to, to ask some more questions. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'll, I'll give Gerald my card and feel free to call on me anytime.
» Yes, sir. Thank you. Safe travels. All right. Council members, next item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. We have a motion. I'll make a motion. We adopt the agenda. Is there a second? I'll second. All right. Any discussion for those present? Seeing none, any discussion for those online? Mr. Jones? No. Mr. Tucker? No. Okay. We call for a vote. All those in favor, raise your hand. And those online, in favor, Mr. Jones, or opposed? I heard yes. Mr. Tucker, in favor or opposed? Mr. Tucker, still not able to hear you. But that was six in favor and not able to reach Mr. Tucker at the moment. The agenda is adopted. Mr. DuBose, how many folks do we have signed up for public comment? Two people are signed for public comment. All right.
» Before we start that, I'll just note that this is a time for the public to share information with county council. It's not a question and answer, a time for response. It's time for council to get information from the public, and we welcome it. Mr. DuBose, who do we have first? Brenda McCracken signed to speak to trash and squatters. Okay. Ms. McCracken, if you would, just pull the mic down so everybody can hear you okay. I'm having a lot of issues with-- A little bit closer. A lot of issues with squatters and trash being threatened. Yes, ma'am.
» I've been thrown in the community, and I've received letters and phone calls from the people that live in the community, and it's interrupting their lives and my lives, and the squatters are well-known through that little community, and I've got a bunch of pictures to show you, and-- Ma'am, I'm sorry. Can you speak in the mic? We've got some folks joining us online, so if you're not in the mic, they can't hear. All right. It's probably more. It's more of an issue for the sheriff's department, for Kershaw and Richland. I've had to deal with this for the last three years, and I'm not getting anywhere at all with either agency that I know of that's-- I mean, there's criminals down there.
» I can't go down there because I'm afraid a lot of time Kershaw has to escort me on my own property, and it's just-- I've had to deal with this for the last three years, and I'm not getting anywhere at all with either agency that I know of that's-- I mean, there's criminals down there. I can't go down there because I'm afraid a lot of time Kershaw has to escort me on my own property, and it's just-- I've had to deal with this for the last three years, and I'm not getting anywhere at all with either agency that I know of that's-- I've had to deal with this for the last three years, and I'm not getting anywhere at all with either agency that I know of that's-- I've had to deal with this for the last three years, and I'm not getting anywhere at all with either agency that I know of that's-- I'v
» e had to deal with this for the last three years, and I'm not getting anywhere at all with either agency that I know of that's-- out of hand. It's ridiculous. And did you already provide your, excuse me, but I just want to make sure, do we have your address on the sign-up sheet? Just the phone number. Okay. All right, we have a way to contact you. Thank you. Please proceed. Okay. And again, it's probably more of an issue for the Sheriff's Department to handle.
» It's just, they take cars down there, they set them on fire they set six of my acres on fire fire department claims they don't know the cause of the fire well you got people down there stealing metal in cars and burning it i mean it's just creating a it's it's it's insane can't sleep my sister lives down there and she's terrified there's wild dogs that chased me they've killed some of her cats and i just i've been to an attorney but the starting price of that he said is like ten thousand dollars i've called dhek because they're living underneath the power lines in tents and campers and that's okay and then yet i pay taxes in two states in three counties and i have no rights they pay no taxes they're they're stealing out of the dump up there and bringing it all down there on this joint prope
» rty and because people is involved his name is on the deed and that gives him more rights than it does me and my sister something's something's not right and i just i need help i need help for these people are crazy i've gotten pictures from some of the people down there where some girl i don't know what kind of drug she was on but she was half naked and flipping out in their driveway at two o'clock in the morning appreciate the time and if anybody's got any suggestion of what i can do i would love to know thank you miss mccracken we have your contact information i can see him pretty well from here i appreciate you and i've called dhek and dhek has told me that i am responsible for all of the trash and that if if they find that the water has been contaminated which these people take baths a
» nd um one of the ponds is completely filled up with trash that i am financially going to be held responsible for it and but then yet i can't say anything to these squatters so if y'all got any advice for me i'd appreciate it where i can take care of this other than paying an attorney an enormous amount of money that i don't have well we've got your contact information thank you so much for providing it to the extent the county is involved um we'll make sure we follow up thank you so much mr dubose you said there's another speaker yes uh miss lynn canto speaking on solar can do can't miss lynn kanto kanto okay miss kanto my name is lynn kanto and i live at 1265 sanders creek road in cassett or camden south my line is actually on the border of camden and cassett i'm here to talk about solar b
» ecause apparently i think a solar farm is coming to my area soon and i had to put a lot of thought into this because i really didn't know a lot about solar and i had some concerns that i felt like our county needed to address and in making decisions on solar in the future in reviewing i noticed that the life expectancy of most solar farms is 25 to 30 years but some of the neighbors of that area have found that some of the contracts for solar are going to be up to 50 years so what's going to happen to those solar panels in that time frame since they degrade after 25 to 30 years solar farms require reduction in trees reduce habitat for life wildlife increased temperature and in my area will cause soil erosion and runoff into sanders creek that flows into colonial lake then down to the river t
» here'll be dust issues in our community and this impacts our neighborhood but the main thing is quality control for the solar panels who's going to maintain them and keep them risk-free from fires when vegetation grows in that area for those of you who've lived in kershaw county you know that in march 1985 2 368 acres and eight homes were burned in that same community so the big question is what is the amount of time that kershaw county is going to allow for leases of land for solar panels and who's going to monitor that for the county who's going to remove it afterwards i was brought to my attention that in some contracts there is no agreement for removal of those panels so there's some what ifs and the impact of natural disaster you see september 7 2004 just next door at evergreen trainin
» g center an f3 tornado picked up a horse four-horse trailer and put it on top of a barn and took the roof off and knocked over my husband's starting gate this is right next door to where they're considering putting in some of those solar panels what's the impact of hurricanes on these panels and then doing a lot of research there is not a lot of information on this which does concern me values increase for the property owner who have the sonal panels but decrease for the neighbors in that area the distance from that residence according to research is about 1 8 1.86 miles from solar panels my property is exactly 1.8 miles from the considered location what is the harmful emf emf exposure there is some concern about that from the who organization as of 7 26 23.
» so for my friends who actually literally have property next door the declining property value homes within 800 528 feet to a mile have a seven percent decline in property value and a half mile one point five percent decrease in property value it can be an eyesore some say solar panels can even interfere with cell signals and just for for me and the country cell signals are already a problem so i would hope that it wouldn't get worse so what does this have to do with the council please take into consideration all these things when you look at applications for solar panels and whether the people who are going to put these in and maintain them and the property owners what the impact of the neighbors the owners and the people who are supposed to be maintaining the solar panels are going to do f
» or the for that property thank you for your time thank you mrs kanto no other sign up no further speakers all right gentlemen that takes us to um back to public presentations we have one more this would be item 6 a ms dolly patton regarding the mad festival please come up miss patton good evening chairman cornell and council members i'm so excited to be here to talk about the arts center and our upcoming mad festival so i've got a little preview of an ad that's going to run on wltx shortly get ready for a week of madness at the mad festival 2024.
» join us on october 9th through 13th for five unforgettable days of music art drama and dance in downtown camden and kershaw county this year's festival promises vibrant performances an art gallery crawl music trail and saturday's mad extravaganza perfect for families and art enthusiasts alike visit our website at madfestivalcasey.org to learn more buy your tickets today and we'll see you from october 9th through 13th at the mad festival hello yeah mr jones we can hear you miss patton if you'll pause one second i don't think the audio is set up to um to have you here very easily called in on the phone um perhaps on the youtube channel or otherwise it was a short commercial of what's going to be done um at the mad festival and just promoting that event thank you mr chairman uh i lost her i ju
» st could not hear her she came back to the mic yes sir i'll speak up how's that i'm so happy to be here to talk about the mad festival thank you for having me it's been a pleasure to be here and i just want to say thank you to all of you for joining us today thank you for joining us and i just want to say thank you to all of you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joi
» ning us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today and i just want to say thank you for joining us today thank you in Kershaw County and what sets us apart is there are only two arts organization in our state that offer comprehensive programming events and educational opportunities in all four mediums of art so we are very unique and the other piece that makes us super special is that we are celebrating the 50th anniversary this year so for 50 years the folks here in Kershaw County have been providing art to everyone if you have a chance and you haven't done so already come see our basic gallery where we take a walk down memory lane and you can see posters and photogr
» aphs and scrapbooks and costumes and 50 years of memorabilia that took us numerous hours to coordinate so I hope that you'll come take a walk with us and see that so I'm excited to tell you that even though this slides a little off we welcome 20,000 people last year to our programs our classes and our events children and adults this the great news about this is is an 18% increase over last year and those folks experienced music art drama and dance which is what the mad festival is all about when we created the mad festival we had three main goals in mind we wanted to attract tourists to Kershaw County we wanted to brand to Kershaw County as the arts capital of the Midlands aim-high and we wanted to drive revenue for local businesses so this slide that you see is an ad that's going to start
» running this week and it gives some examples of what you're going to see at the mad festival but it also spotlights our supporters the city of Camden Kershaw County and the downtown cultural district as well as the Arts Commission we received a little grant this year from them but we have a lot of other partners that are involved and their local spaces that are involved in the actual event so you have the Methodist Church in Bethune we have Grace Episcopal Church in Littleton Street Methodist here in Camden we have four restaurants six art galleries and several other local businesses so what does our five-day festival look like we start out on Wednesday October 9th with our chamber music day and a group called some strings attached and because education is the number one goal in our strateg
» ic plan we're taking that group to the Boys and Girls Club for an education program it's super fun the kids loved it last year then we have noontime chamber music which is something that is a throwback to the original mad festival at Littleton Street Methodist Church so folks who need a lunch break to hear some music come on over and then in the evening we go to the Bethune Methodist Church with that same group on Thursday we invite you to join us at the town green for two cool activities the power company the dance group collaborative is going to teach us all how to dance from 6:00 to 6:30 before Chris Daniels and the Kings take over and so everybody gets to have a dance lesson and then you'll be able to dance through the concert it'll be a lot of fun Chris Daniels and the Kings they play
» a lot of rock soul and funk they sometimes build themselves as a European blues so it'll be super cool on Friday is our gallery crawl on our mad music trail and we've got our gallery the Bassett gallery will open with a show from Kirkland Smith now Kirkland is a classically trained figure artist but several years ago she started got a interest in the environment and found objects so the photograph that you see there of Marilyn Monroe is what she calls an assemblage and that is made out of different hair styling product pieces and makeup containers that she pulls together to make these portraits she just spent a week up and up at North Central Elementary School in a partnership between us and the school district as an artist in residence and the children created the logo of the school the ma
» scot of the school with found objects and they did a beautiful job it'll be on display at the Art Center at that evening and when you see it those of you that that know the school there are three pieces in it that pay tribute to the three elementary schools that form North Central Elementary I think you'll really enjoy that that night when we open our gallery the art galleries in downtown Camden and the restaurants will have music and food and entertainment for this gallery and mad music trail crawl so it'll be a lot of fun I believe gallery 537 is hosting a karaoke night so if you want to try your hand at singing you can join us also on Friday night if you want to take a trip up to Bethune the Mill Hands which is a bluegrass band will be performing Saturday is the big day at the Art Center
» it's our extravaganza we'll have four bands prettier than Matt is a band out of Columbia they were just voted best Columbia band by the Free Times John Wesley Satterfield is very well known and three of a kind as a band from Charlotte and we closed those bands with Reggie Sullivan who just played at the town green a couple weeks ago we've got an evening performance in our black box theater with a smaller version of Chris Daniels band and outside at the extravaganza will have food trucks and face painting and this marbleized painting that we're doing in several artists so it's just a really great day of activities and we closed the mad festival on Sunday with a little jazz and a little Broadway jazz with Mark Rapp at Grace Episcopal Church a jazz brunch and then Broadway karaoke so if you wa
» nt to try your hand at belting out a Broadway song come on over so that's our big five-day festival here in Camden and Kershaw County and it is thanks to the folks you see on that slide those are our sponsors and supporters for this year's event if you see how much fun we're having and you want to be part of all that activity you too can be a sponsor we would love to have you and anybody in the listening audience just give me a call but we're very fortunate to have this support I have passed out a packet or I think they're still laying over here but each of you can have a packet the left side talks about the mad festival gives this schedule that we just went through and the right side talks about the Art Center all the things that we're doing our season this year it has our new annual repor
» t for the 23-24 year and it also has this button our board members started a campaign this year to raise some money for the Art Center it's called 50 for 50 we're looking for a thousand people to give us $50 so we can raise $50,000 in honor of the 50th anniversary so if you're so inclined hope you'll join us in that as well art has an amazing way of transforming us whether it's through emotions when you see a painting or you are enjoying a play or whether it is an uplifting moment when you hear a song at an outdoor concert art is pure magic and we just want to thank you so much for helping us bring the mad festival and this magic to the people of Kershaw County and beyond so I thank you for having us and I look forward to seeing you at the festival Thank You miss Benton any questions from t
» hose council members present just thank you for everything you do any questions from those online no question thank you we have a lot of fun miss Patton thank you very much I'll just say I know you're brave because you've actually had a couple council members embarrass themselves dancing at your facility before the sheriff yeah but whether it's the the Blues Festival music dance or pottery you really do a lot in the community so thanks for bringing this to us tonight thank you we have an outstanding organization and a great board and wonderful supporters we're just happy to be here glad you got those steps reinforced because I know two of members of this council is broken you got to come take the tour the building looks great and I tell that story all the time which by the way the bathroom
» project kicked off today with some testing and plumbers and so I'll be back to talk about that please come see it I've got drawings happy to show it to you thank you thank you gentlemen the next item on our agenda is number seven approval of the minutes I'd ask for a motion mr. chair I'll make a motion we approve the minutes all right do we have a second I'll second and any discussion I will be abstaining okay we have two abstentions don't see any discussion for those present all in favor raise your hand we've got mr. Shoemake mr. Brazel mr. Cato and mr. Tomlinson mr. Jones is abstaining and mr.
» Tucker how do you vote don't don't not able to reach him well I've received a text just for council's information and the public information every once in a while he's saying he's able to access and is on but we're not able to reach in again so if you record that please miss Hannah all right and so the minutes are approved next item on the agenda under discussions only no action or vote to be taken mr. Jones has placed this on the agenda mr. Jones do you have a motion so moved okay and it's regarding full report of easements and right-of-ways for pecan orchard is there second yeah I'll give a second for the the report second by mr. Brazel any discussion mr.
» Jones thank you I have a few questions I think all of us are aware of the flooding that's been going on not only in our pecan orchard but many other subdivisions as well in Kershaw County and what I'm concerned in where the orchard is placed is not only do they have runoff and I'm obviously we know it comes from last year I wrote it runs down through the orchard but it's also becoming or could be becoming a health hazard because the safety tanks being overflown having sewage water or dirty water running through other people's yards so I have some questions maybe the county administrator or somebody on council if you can answer these what easement rights or let's just what easements or rights of excuse me what easements or right-of-ways does the county have in the peach orchard road subdivis
» ion lot mr. Temple can you answer that or either mr. John DuBose I would not have the information to answer that question but mr. DuBose did you hear the question yes my understanding is that the roads were originally private roads platted as such but my understanding is that sometime I believe in the 90s those roads were came into the county system don't have particulars on that but therefore I believe the county right-of-ways would for the roads would be the same width of what is platted in the subdivision plat I'm not intimately familiar with any other easements within that subdivision other than one drainage easement that the county obtained might have been three to five years ago one specific easement within the subdivision I know mr.
» Templer and his staff been looking into this greater detail so he might be able to correct or add to what I've stated mr. chairman members of council yeah I've done a deep dive into this so we we from the onset I've said we've had 66 feet of right-of-way on every road in there and so we do have a an easement we purchased for the outflow on the plumb thicket area that goes out to just behind the DOT rest area and then any other easements we would have would be within the 66 foot right-of-way of all of our roads in there we've researched this through the register of deeds of have some documents sent from the old administrator in 1995 to the developer out there letting him know that letting the developer know that there would be 66 foot of right-of-way so that's that's what we have out there w
» e've we've established that a while back if I can I thank you so much mr. both thank you thank you mr. chairman but let me ask you this does the county have any easements over the property mr. Templer where Rose Jackson and the burning the burning I think the burning family was there an easement gotten on that that was installed so that would be just within the confines of that so from the center line you go 33 feet either direction so there would be an easement within that area beyond that we not to my knowledge and we've researched it that does that easement extend past what the road allows us so are you saying that our easements we have we have automatic easements between each house if we need it for drainage no not it wouldn't extend that far but just the way that lot is shaped our ease
» ment carries a little further into that property of those two parcels than it would any other lot out there because I've gotten some complaints that concerns about the easel where that property was put on the Jackson where the easy excuse me the drainage is put on the Jackson's there was permission gained by that correct I'm sorry can you repeat that yes was it there was permission granted and you when the line was ran down the Jackson property correct it was at the request of the homeowner and then we put in we covered the ditch with we installed pipe and then covered that within our right-of-way so basically we have the right to do that with no permission from the property owner within our area within our right-of-way because one thing is telling me that 40 feet of that car was on maybe i
» t's on one piece of property then 40 feet of it at the very end goes on to a nurse another family's property and that's where they were getting some raw sewage that's coming out I wouldn't know anything about raw sewage out there short of a failure of drain lines or septic tanks I don't know why there would be raw sewage out there but well let me let me ask this either one of y'all to speak about the drainage work that has been done by the county in Pequot Orchard subdivision how much work have we done let me in that we we've done considerable amount of drainage work throughout the entire development on both ends just some of it was engineered and and came at hundreds of thousands of dollars other was just as needed and done with staff yeah I know about 10 years ago we had some drainage wor
» k done and I had pushed that nose pretty expensive I think it's a couple hundred thousand dollars but I was also at 10 12 years ago on that one here's what I would like to ask I need to see the documents given to the county for permissions of the easements we have that available don't we yes I have them all in my office thank you mr. chairman thank you mr. Jones any others present have any discussion mr. Tucker if you're able to hop on or can hear us any discussion thank you mr.
» Tucker okay with that there's no vote we'll move on to the next item on the agenda we're into ordinances now item 9 a this is going to be first reading case 22 24 excuse me - 22 an ordinance to amend Kershaw County ZLDR section 3 colon 3.26 regarding solar farms requiring applicants to have a community meeting in advance of submitting a commission conditional use application and related requirements is there any motion I'll make a motion we approve mr. Tomlinson is there second second mr. Kato thank you mr. Tomlinson thank you mr. chairman um I'm guessing can we get a brief from staff to come up and kind of give an overview about the recommendation from planning and zoning sure good evening mr.
» chair members of council at the direction of this body we brought a text amendment to the Planning Commission the specific language in that was to require applicants for large-scale solar farms to conduct a community meeting as well as notify everyone within 1/3 of a mile from the boundary from the project boundary of the large-scale solar farm and to report back to us a list of names of attendees who they notified and then a summary of the meeting the Planning Commission took up that text amendment and they made one amendment to that draft language that you sent down to them and that was to extend the notification for property owners to a distance of one mile from the project boundary so that was the one change that um was was provided to you from the Planning Commission so before or the a
» mendment originally was going to be a one-third of a mile from the from the boundary and what is our setback distance um to say a property's 200 acres or something what is the setback from the property line to when so it varies it it varies if it's um abutting a residentially built property let's say there's a house on it so it's either going to be 50 or 100 feet depending upon that variable from the road right of way okay um and are there any requirements to the direct property owners of of that property proposed um I know that you have to I guess this is saying you have to send out a mailed notice correct is there any um requirement that states that the company has to go meet face to face or at least attempt to meet face to face with adjacent property owners yes that would be the intent o
» f this text amendment is that they would actually hold a community meeting with uh whoever attends from that one mile notification okay um I know that kind of looking at over the country a lot of good solar companies like to meet directly with adjacent property owners um one-on-one and I know a mailed notice it's kind of tough and I I like having the mile radius because it hits a wider range of people but the directly budding up property owners I think it could be a good thing to potentially add or maybe get your recommendation on this potentially adding in that they have to at least make three attempts to meet face to face with that property owner so it directly a direct engagement and the rest would be mailed um and that way we can with three attempts and plus the mail the direct property
» owner should be aware at some point of the solar Mr DuBose would the um would the three attempts to meet directly budding property owners um are those like documented door knocks or like phone calls or would they be three mailed notices in addition to um the community meeting yeah I think I think it could be kind of of the three but you would have to be have proof of document and going to the property or calling leaving a voicemail trying to schedule a meeting with that person that would be as well but I think the three attempts for the adjacent property owners is important just to keep people informed yeah maybe one certified mail um and that can be something we can look at second reading or something going forward um we may need to get staff to kind of put something together that that wor
» ks um I'll let y'all have any questions or recommendations with that yeah no I agree completely with my colleague um I like I first of all appreciate what you've done here uh myself and and Mr Jones and Mr Tomlinson the whole group kind of put this together and send it to you and I appreciate what you've done um I think maybe we can do a few adjustments sometime here in the next reading or two to try and get this thing ironed out but I do like what Mr Tomlinson's saying maybe to the adjacent property owners we could have three different attempts maybe one of those could be a certified mail and then maybe two other forms of direct contact anything else Mr Shoemake did you have anything that's you're not proposing an amendment tonight right no I just want to get a recommendation this is somet
» hing we can look at for a second reading yeah I'd like to think about it I have some thoughts but if there is thank you any other uh discussion from those present seeing none Mr Mr Jones online any discussion yes thank you so much uh Mr Shoemake if I make you I actually by the way uh Councilman Thompson I like your proposal whether it's an amendment or whatever I think the more air we can put on this the more Sunshine we can put on it the better it's going to be uh for our citizens who own that property and they're not getting blindsided by uh so foreign company coming in just putting up anyway but I thank y'all for that and I appreciate it I appreciate it I appreciate it I appreciate it very much uh Mr Kato and Mr Thompson for your hard work on this thank you Mr Jones Mr Tucker any discuss
» ion no sir I'm good with everything that was discussed thank you thank you Mr Tusker not seeing any more discussion we'll go ahead and vote all those in favor that are present raise your hand Mr Jones yes I'm sorry I had a question why could we not go ahead are you planning are we planning on doing an amendment at the next meeting there's no amendment on the table tonight on first reading okay I'm in favor of first reading okay so back to the vote those in present all in favor raise your hand it's unanimous present Ms Hanna for those online Mr Jones in favor in favor Mr Tucker how do you vote I'll vote yes a yes from Mr Tucker thank you gentlemen it passes first reading that brings us to item 9b this is first reading case 24 24.
» Mr Joey you might as well just stay up here we've got you for a little bit uh this is an ordinance to amend the official zoning map it's a rezoning of 10 plus or minus acres of the Max Mack number that's identified in the public record this is in the Cassett area Mr Cato do we have a motion yes I have make a motion that we approve first reading on this proposed uh rezoning okay is there a second I'll second second by Mr Shoemake you want staff to give us a summary please we can get a summary please Mr yes sir uh this actually uh went to the planning Commission and uh that was on September 9th and they voted unanimously to make a favorable recommendation of this to you uh there were six members present for those online can you please hit mute uh excuse me for that Mr Tucker Mr Tucker can you
» please hit mute uh yeah thank you so this property is located uh east of Camden on highway one just past the intersection of uh Polson or Porter Road excuse me to the east and if you're familiar where Midway Grill is unfortunately Midway Grill suffered a tragic fire several months ago but this is the property that directly abuts Midway Grill to the west just to the west it's about 10 acres in size currently it's completely surrounded by RD2 zoning which is your rural resource district zoning as you can see on the map in front of you what they are wanting to do the property owner is to rezone to General Development District which is that red colored districts that you see on your map to the west is just vacant timberland to the east that's actually the Prestige Farm operation and what I beli
» eve is those are actually put in place back in 99 with county-wide zoning the applicant has some specific uses of course that he has in mind to use on the property and Mr Jeffers is here tonight if you have any questions of him but in general uh even though this is a parcel that's not directly abutting another General Development District which we like to see contiguity with uh zoning cases it is of size where we believe uh would void the spot zoning issue and your comp plan does support uh like a rule type services uh for uh rural residents in in those rural areas of the county so again this comes under unanimous recommendation from the Planning Commission thank you Mr director Mr Kato you have the motion I've made the motion no any discussion oh no no discussion okay any discussion from t
» hose present I just briefly um I one thing I wanted to and maybe this is a the question for Mr Jeffers or just more of a comment I guess the only thing that gives me any pause and I'm certainly going to vote for it tonight but the only thing that gives me any pause and we've had this come up somewhat recently is you know obviously any zoning use is allowed once we go forward correct so in general development I would say it's fair to say is probably our most permissive zoning regulator District and RD RD2 is among our most restrictive that's fair so so whenever we take a piece of property that's you know more than just an acre or two and move it from our least restrictive or most restricted to least restrictive I just want to I just want to raise the the point that I'll probably support this
» based on and I know where the zoning rules are based on what can be done not what will be done but I'll probably vote for this but I do have some concerns about rezoning and so and I said this at the last time I don't know how often I'll support these but but I just want to make sure everyone's aware that we are taking a property and taking it from the most restrictive use in the county to the least restrictive use thank you Mr Schumach any other discussion from those present seeing none Mr Jones online any discussion yes please uh to make I'm inclined to agree with you on your comments thank you okay thank you Mr Tucker any discussion no sir thank you Mr are the property owners present yes Mr Jeffers is here tonight okay sure uh would you like to share anything about the rezoning gentlemen
» I'm here tonight to answer any question or concern you may have for my plans for this property uh I don't know whether you've got the uh idea of what we're going to put there but our intention is to build a barber shop for my daughter and we plan to move part of my garage operation out there some of you have been to my garage here in town I can assure you it is a well-kept clean we go through a lot to keep it that way we go through guidelines to take care of petroleum products of fluorocarbons we have machines to take care of all that uh ethylene glycol is taken care of we don't even in in our shop we don't even use common oil dry it's all put in pig mat and disposed of properly which will go on to the site if it's approved in Cassett there's not a whole lot of uh industry in Cassett yet bu
» t I feel that it's going to grow East Camden is is going that way because they run out of room in Lugoff and uh we want to be part of that does anybody have a question about what I'd like to do I just have a comment yes sir Mr Jeffers correct yes I just have a comment I think this is a good example of how in Kershaw County you have some areas that have different needs than others whereas you might have a very restrictive uh or the most restrictive zoning going to the least restrictive to give you a maybe greater pause in an Elgin or a Lugolf area but when you're desperate for growth and really seeking growth and won't population to justify other improvements in certain areas you have to view it through through a little bit different lens and and still try to be consistent with the comprehen
» sive plan which I think we heard from the director tonight so I appreciate your comments and sharing this with us any other discussion or questions from those present I've got a comment okay if you're done I'd like to say that um our family business started out in the Pine Grove community in a rural area and it was a shop location so I know the importance of a family business and how much Pride you take in it I appreciate you being here tonight not only to to tell us what you're doing but to give us an example of of what you of how it is your business and you're not a developer just looking to gain a profit from from a rezoning so thanks for coming tonight I'll support this 100 percent thank you thank each of you if you have one second any comments or questions from those online Mr Jones no
» ne Mr Tucker no sir thank you thank you Mr Jeffers thank you sir okay seeing no further discussion call for the vote all those in favor on first reading raise your hand Miss Hannah it's unanimous in person Mr Jones um how do you vote yes that's a yes from Mr Jones Mr Tucker how do you vote I vote yes that's a yes from Mr Tucker it's unanimous thank you Miss Hannah all right that takes us to the next item on the agenda we are on 9C first reading of an ordinance by Kershaw County Council authorizing the conveyance of a parcel of land of one acre with the tax map number identified to the Community Medical Clinic of Kershaw County a non-profit Corporation do we have a motion I'll make a motion Mr shoemake do we have a second I'll second Mr Kato thank you Mr Templer we've got your name down here
» would you mind update us on this uh Mr Chairman yes if I would I think that there was some um well I don't know if it makes sense to do discussion now but I think an amendment to this um we had discussions with the county attorney before the meeting and um I think an amendment may be necessary so I'm fine to hold that amendment until after Mr Templar discusses this yeah let's get a general update on what's going on and then we'll entertain your amendment thank you Mr Chairman members of County have before you a a conveyance of property which County currently owns this property was purchased with the CDBG Grant back prior to constructing the Community Medical Clinic I think the ordinance does a really good job of pointing out the the nuances of what is being asked here to convey this land th
» is was captured in a memorandum of understanding back in 2004 where the county agreed to convey this land and improvements to the clinic after 20 years that clock started August 30th 2004 so we we have that time has expired so I feel this is appropriate to go ahead and clean up that's all I have okay thank you for that summary Mr Shoemake do you have a motion I do um I'll make the motion here I'm going to move to amend this item specifically in the now therefore section of the ordinance uh to read as follows that the clinic agrees to maintain a non-profit medical clinic on the land and if the property improvements they're on are sold at some later date the proceeds of the sale shall be restricted to use for elements and you know that should be you know I try to practice reading this word be
» cause it's a very difficult word Ella masonary did I say that right Mr DuBose close enough close enough Ella masonary purposes subject to approval by Kershaw County Council and I move that the deed restriction be amended in a substantially similar form to restrict potential future sale proceeds to non-profit public purpose uses subject to County Council approval I can't explain that after I get a second okay we had a have a motion to amend is there a second second we've got a second Mr Shoemake any further comments on your motion first off they asked the they asked well now one of the two lawyers to to do this because of that very long word that I immediately butchered so um thanks for that guys um the other reason is basically what this does is this put some prohibitions if the health clin
» ic were to say you know if they were to want to sell that it wouldn't allow them to basically flip the land I mean is that a fair description correct the the property was purchased with public funds CDBG block grants um 20 years ago if the CMC outgrows the clinic needs more space needs to convey it this would just make sure that any proceeds from that sale are used for public purposes non-profit public purposes that way that original public money from 20 years ago does not get converted to private money for lack of better okay any other discussion none from those present any discussion online Mr Jones no Mr Tucker any discussion on the amendment no sir I'm good thank you okay we've got an amendment in a second no further discussion let's vote on the amendment all those in favor raise your h
» and it's unanimous in person for those online Mr uh Jones how do you vote yes that's a yes from Mr Jones Mr Tucker how do you vote I vote yes that's a yes online from Mr Tucker thank you very much it's unanimous Miss Tyler on the amendment and uh Mr DuBose I just want to make sure now we vote on it as amended correct correct okay let's go back to any further discussion on the proposed um first reading passage as amended any discussion I'd just like to thank Councilman Shoemake for reading the amendment I didn't even want to take a stab at that I did a Google train I did a Google thing to pronounce it five times before I came out here and the second I got to it my brain forgot how to pronounce it still messed it up lawyers geez none of us are perfect okay seeing no further discussion uh from
» those in person any discussion online Mr Jones no any discussion Mr Tucker no sir thank you okay we'll call for the vote then all those present raise your hand if you're in favor as amended it's unanimous in person Miss Hannah and for those who are remote Mr Jones how do you vote yes that's a yes from Mr Jones thank you Mr Tucker how do you vote I vote yes that is a yes from Mr Tucker thank you very much Miss Hannah if you'd record those it passes first reading on 9c item number 10 on the agenda gentlemen is just for it's working on getting um Planning Commission appointments in the packet for the required cycle beforehand we would ask that um the Planning Commission appointment gets put on for the next meeting so that we can actually have a vote on it and uh I've spoken with Mr Jones about
» that so that needs no action or no further information we move on to item number 11 old business yes sir Mr Tucker could I just make one comment on the Mr Jones go ahead sure I think we talked about in my district to make the nomination and I want everybody to know that I am probably putting Jonathan Proctor on there just for your advance notice okay I was holding out and wasn't sure if you're going to be able to come in person at some point maybe next meeting or meeting after but we can certainly address it next meeting if that's okay with you I hope so thank you yes sir thank you Mr Jones and we hope you're recovering well thank you gentlemen that takes us to item number 11 on the agenda under old business the finance committee met yesterday we had Mr Shoemake Mr Tomlinson and Mr Tucker m
» eet and uh I'd seek a motion this will require some action I'd seek a motion to put this up for discussion I'd move to put it up for discussion well I think it's actually going to require a vote are you so uh Mr Chairman if I may yeah we just need a motion so we can discuss it yes I'd like to make a motion um to discuss and take a vote uh on the finance committee recommendation okay sounds good and I cleared from the attorney that we can do it in two parts after uh it gets on the floor I need a second for that motion I'll second Mr Shoemake seconds Mr Tucker please yes sir can everyone hear me clear and okay if not you're coming through well and um okay so for some reason because I'm actually moving from work now if the phone drops uh Mr Shoemake you or Mr uh Tomlinson please take over um a
» nd I'll call um uh we had a very uh positive and productive meeting yesterday we had a few visitors uh from the TCAN office that joined us uh staff um with some expertise with engineering to help answer some of the questions and um we came up with a couple of recommendations and I will ask my colleagues to chime in if I happen to miss something feel free to step up and call uh first thing we discussed which caused no action was the fourth quarter budget um everything ended well with our finances um we end up uh looking very positive uh with our fourth quarter and over the overall uh 23 24 budget and I won't go into major details but if any council members need that packet um just let Miss Hannah or staff know Miss Lauren or Mr girl or Mr Danny and they'll get that to you so you can um perus
» e it um but there was no um no discrepancies or any concerns our staff presented that to us so with that being said that was the first item on the agenda next was uh we talked about uh how do we move forward with um trying to deal with storm water and um we took this as a holistic approach where um we were thinking about no matter what you do you're going to need some type of continuous moving forward and so uh the finance committee took recommendations from staff on approving the study and uh the recommendations they're going to bring back to implement a stormwater committee or Commission or whatever you want to call it um Danny can elaborate on that if he lacks any further but this is what the study would bring back and also bring back how would we pay for stormwater moving forward and wh
» en I say stormwater I'm talking about uh subdivisions I'm talking about um retention ponds I'm talking about third roads so remember what I said at the beginning a holistic approach throughout the county and so with that being said um if one of y'all have the uh survey there uh of the plan that you can share with the other council members that would be great um it would take 18 to 24 months to implement this and we're going to recommend that we send the 72 000 that this would cost I will identify where the money is coming from in a moment is there any questions on that part or discussion any further discussion from those present any discussion from those online Mr Jones yes Mr Tucker this is Joe can you hear me hello yes sir I'm listening okay listen so you're how long is this study going t
» o take 18 to 24 months so what do we do about the the devastated areas in our county right now while we do another study create another create another department or create whatever other bureaucracy when the administrator said he was willing to call this a flood disaster he had the authority to do that we have a fund for that and due to the circumstances of certain presidential areas I'm just concerned as to why that wasn't of any greater topic okay if I'm hearing you correctly uh you a little breaking up but um that is a holistic report because we have more than just one subdivision that needs our attention and so the committee is just not trying to cure one problem we're trying to cure many problems so um you didn't allow me to finish up with my second part of the recommendation that came
» out of the uh committee but um we did address some issues for pecan orchards if you would like for me to continue please continue okay thank you very much anybody else have anything on the stormwater management plan no Mr Tucker we very much need to hear part two thank you okay thank you so much part two was uh we came um staff recommended uh several things to make sure that um the county was doing what was responsible and what was needed uh for the residents of pecan orchards such as survey um the uh design and for preparation of the construction uh plan and uh the hydro oh what is it hydro hydrology hydrology study as well uh for the watershed so with all that um that came from staff a recommendation and it is the map to move forward because we can go in that subdivision and just start di
» gging willy-nilly and we can make things a lot worse than what they are um that came as a recommendation for staff 138 000 three dollars and the committee uh recommends that as well uh for approval by Council to start that process now that is not going to put a shovel in the ground tomorrow that is not going to fix their problem by the end of this month but it will get things started in the right direction so uh the county will know exactly what the plan is to give these folks some relief of their water problems I'll take questions any discussion from those present yeah I'd like to make a comment on the part B regarding the pecan orchard I've been there and and was it the help help host a meeting with the the neighborhood in the community it's it's a real need it's and I know there are othe
» r needs and we haven't seen all of them but um the pecan orchard is is a I hate to say use the word desperate but it's it's in pretty pretty bad shape with all the uh silted in ditches and um lack of ditches to be to be quite Frank we've got to put this at the top of the list and we got to get it fixed um Councilman Tucker I appreciate everything that you did and um the time that you and the finance committee spent getting this together I know it took a little longer than some folks would like but I look forward with moving moving on down the road with this thank you so much thank you Councilman Bradwell you're quite welcome and if I can Mr chairman I want to say that um and get my uh cohorts attention to speak if they have anything Councilman Donaldson and Councilman she may but let me say
» this the folks that was in that room from that subdivision were uh more than hospitable and understanding of what we were trying to do as a finance committee and what we were recommending and they and they were very thankful and grateful for what we are recommending they they were above and beyond uh citizens approach um and we appreciate that I just want to state that for the for the record yes Mr Tucker their their attention continues they're present here tonight so thank you any other better than me any other discussion from those present any other discussion from those online yes to Mr Tucker please Jimmy Jones let me ask you a question if this is passed by County Council for the orchard how long for your time frame in that okay my time frame on that could be a couple of few months uh M
» r Jones not sure the key part now is to get it funded so get started but there's a lot of study has to be done work with the surveys and the planning um and that's going to be dictated by you know your engineers and surveyors and all that but I can tell you once it's approved uh we will get busy so we're looking at maybe about two months yes it could be I I don't want to give you a timeline right off the top of my head uh without getting them started and let them let them give us the feedback but it's not the end of the month and we'll be done next month I can answer that those two questions it won't be completed next month it'll be worked on starting tomorrow we approve this yes sir we'll approve this and staff will get on it and get the people lined up to um begin the process well I expec
» t it and you're right though there are they're very polite hospitable people over there and they're desperate they need help and it is our responsibility and thank you all right gentlemen thank you thank you for that any further discussion before we shape up a motion on those numbers Mr chairman make sure my colleagues don't have any any more input please Mr Thomas and Mr shimek I'm good I don't have anything you've done well Mr Tucker and so um I just I want to make sure I distill what I just heard so I think we're seeking a motion that would include 78 000 being expended for a study for stormwater uh improvements overall and how to address that in Kershaw County and then uh another hydrology study specific to the pecan orchard that will allow us to know first do no harm and exactly what a
» ctions need to be taken um is that is that a fair assessment of uh what you're putting forward Mr Tucker yes it's 138 uh point 138 and three dollars for pecan orchards and 72 000 for the 72 72 000. 72 000 yeah 72 000 from the all right so water management plan total 2103. okay so I would seek that emergency funding both money correct correct I want to make sure that's clear that's no tax increase or increase to the budget uh from any line items okay I have a question well let's let's get a motion if we can unless you have a question that would pre uh precede that motion Mr Jones no no go right ahead okay can I get a motion on those particular numbers expenditures and the source I'd make that motion okay go ahead I'll second Mr Tomlinson seconds Mr Shoemake's the first go ahead Mr Tucker exp
» lain all that but they've already made the motion in a second I'm good okay any further discussion I think for the benefit Council having attended uh the meeting yesterday myself would you just confirm for us that the source of funding is appropriate yes and I've uh one of the items I wanted to get back with the finance committee on was to just check with our auditors to make sure that the study indeed was a viable item from our emergency funding and because it ties in with this it uh it's more than applicable and you got that confirmation yes okay thank you any further discussion from those present any discussion from those online more of a question Mr chair thank you what is our balance in that emergency fund 2.2 million dollars any further discussion gentlemen hearing none we'll call for
» a vote all those present raise your hand if you're in favor it's unanimous in person those online Mr Jones how do you vote about yes I'll be watching it with a fine tooth comb okay thank you Mr Tucker how do you vote I'll vote yes and I'll be putting my trust into the hands of the staff okay that's yes from both online it's unanimous Miss Hannah if you record that please thank you very much for your work on that the finance committee Mr Tucker Mr Shoemake Mr Tomlinson and then also staff for bringing all that to our attention and for the citizens who've been so patient and looking for guidance and keeping everybody updated all right on to Council member briefings I'll just start to my left Mr Kato remember I'm left-handed so yeah I told him when he got up here tonight I didn't realize he wa
» s left-handed takes up all my space I've got a few things that I would like to bring to the attention of the people great people of Kershaw County um up in District six um Bethune has a senior citizens lunching uh our luncheon uh that will start this Friday at 12 p.m at the Bethune Community Center so they invite anybody any senior to come out and uh I think some churches classify you as a senior after 50 some of them 55 so if you feel like you qualify you just go on out they'll they'll accept you uh Bethune will also have a fall Festival on October the 25th starting at 5 00 p.m they're also taking um I guess you'd call it applications for the first if you're interested in putting in a float or an item in the Christmas Parade please contact Town Hall also don't forget just while I'm on Beth
» une don't forget the Mad Festival will be there October the 9th and the 11th they'll have two different dates up there so if you can come out and support them Mount Pisgah Resource Center has a cheers to 100 years celebration and that will take place on November the 9th on November the 9th they are going to celebrate the 100th year of this building being in existence so this building was built 100 years ago and it has housed many of students and educated many a country rule minds that have gone on to do some great things in this state and far beyond so if you would like come out on November the 9th and uh to the celebration they'll have a little bit of a chance to come out and see what's going on and we'll see you next time on November the 9th have all kinds of stuff up there for you to do
» and see also they have opened a resource room this Resource Center has really taken off in this area I just want to say thank you to all the ones from the ones that got it started to the ones that's continuing the process to all the ones that are working up there they do a tremendous job but they've opened up a resource room and now it has it's available and it has eight new computers for the community to use so if you have a student or if you have a something you need to do with your job and you don't have access to the computer then you're you're welcome to use those um but I I thank them for their hard work and for their dedication to this process they have their exercise room open I think they have treadmills and different ellipticals and different things that you can go in there and us
» e for I think it's twenty dollars a month so if you're up in there around that area and you're close by you can take advantage of that other than that I I thank you thank you all and and look forward to October I want to bring out uh the first meeting in October and I don't know I don't want to overstep my bounds but uh the first meeting in October I will be wearing pink it is breast cancer awareness month and I have family members that have been affected by breast cancer including my sister and so I encourage Council on the first meeting of October to wear pink some of us thank you all thank you Mr Tomlinson please thank you Mr Chairman and I'd like to start out by welcoming welcoming Mr Connell here first meeting back and um really appreciate you and um your service to Kershaw County we'r
» e excited to be spending the next couple months together and doing good things um I really appreciate all of staff's hard work we um I think we've had three or four different finance committee meetings uh dealing with the stormwater issue and staff has worked really really hard to put everything together in the right approach um I appreciate all my colleagues and everybody here um coming out and joining us tonight I hope you have a good evening thank you Mr Tomlinson online Mr Jones any report Mr Jones you still with us yes can you hear me yes sir go ahead thank you we have a tropical storm alert and uh it seems like they're saying that uh what can we see in South Carolina that the toxic storm healing the hurricane uh could be a statewide event okay well we'll solicit that in the administra
» tor briefing any other report no no thank you thank you Mr Jones Mr Shoemake uh yes Mr Chairman thanks again uh again welcome aboard I'm excited for the future holds now that we're kind of back in full force um again I appreciate Mr uh Kato's comments um I've got a few uh pink shirts if they still fit I'll dig them out um I appreciate uh everything we've heard I just again I don't have much of a briefing I just appreciate this County and everything that everybody does as I always say we are very uh LMS in every County oh my God thank you Mr Shoemake online Mr Tucker any report uh yes sir first of all I want to echo what Mr uh Tomlinson said in reference to uh the finance committee and staff I know that we can be a little difficult we ask some of the hard questions but that's the process but
» staff is never disappointed or shy away from getting us the answers wherever they're what we want to hear need to hear or whatever the situation may be so I say thank you to all um for making this process much better and more effective uh with that uh welcome uh Chairman Cornell um I'm glad to know that now we have a full Council and look forward to working with you and all of our other colleagues and moving forward um I appreciate Mr Shoemake only going next door to me because if uh if I lost him then I would not serve anymore so uh I can handle you going to my right um with that also um I just want to apologize uh but work calls and um I have to fulfill those obligations in order to be able to survive so thank you for your patience for having me on the line and uh tolerating um having to
» uh listen to some things you probably didn't want to listen to but um I appreciate all of you thank you that concludes my report thank you Mr Mr chair yes sir Mr Jones yes sir a couple words yes sir they're about you um let me say this you and I worked together for six years you left and went to the state and you came back as chair and I welcome you back I look forward to working with you and uh just want to say congratulations yes sir thank you very much Mr Brazel thank you Chairman um yeah as everybody has stated congratulations Ben Connell and glad to have you back um spent two years with you uh my first two years here on Council and got to know you and we appreciate all the service and all the help that you've lent uh while you're at the state house there are many projects that wouldn't
» have happened including the boat ramp that's coming at Veterans Park without your help on the state level so thank you for for everything you've done and welcome back I'd also like to thank the the families and homeowners in the pecan orchard for their patience we promised a 90-day guarantee on on our delivery of a plan and today we have delivered that plan it will take more time to put it into action but um I'm thankful for that um Councilman Tucker Mr Tucker please mute your phone okay Mr Tucker Mr Mr Tucker please mute your phone can you mute him I'd like to congratulate Councilman Tucker for for having a um a party in his house tonight it sounds like he's having a great time um no that's that's that's fun stuff um I'd like to also wish uh Jimmy Jones a continued uh recovery uh Jimmy I k
» now you've been battling a tough recovery and as always it's good to see you and visit with you and I'm glad you're doing well you sound good and um looking forward to having you back in in this room um and I also like to thank Councilman Shoemake for proving he can pronounce difficult world words tonight that was uh that was impressive sir I wrote the pronunciation key right here I'd like to see that afterwards so all right that concludes my briefings thank you Mr Brazel very distinguished group uh grammatically and otherwise that I get to work with here tonight um just a few things I'm extremely grateful to be able to serve in Kershaw County this is my hometown I love this area so much and it's the reason I've decided to come back and raise my family here it is a blessing I want to emphas
» ize the professional nature of this meeting the purpose of this meeting is not just to have uh Danny Templer there is window dressing uh is fitting as good as he looks this is an interaction between Council to conduct the business of Kershaw County to get reports from the administrator who works for Council and thus has several staff members that work for him so that is the main purpose that's the heart of this meeting we have a lot of feel-good moments in here where sports teams or other folks get recognized or maybe someone passes away and we do share deep condolences in those moments but the main purpose is to have an interaction between this Council professionally with a professional administrator in handling the business of the county and so that will be one of the thrusts of my tenure
» anyway as chair and that's why I'm excited to work with a professional group of men it's really actually seamless to be up here if they were to tell you how many times they probably heard from me more whenever I was at the State House than when I was on Council because every week or every other week there was some some issue that we had to try to take care of to secure State funding for and so it's a real blessing and honor also wishing Mr Jones a quick recovery and I'm grateful to him for running an honorable race and look forward to working with him some more though it won't be from two or three feet away as we were for six years I wanted to wish my dad Joe happy birthday he's now got 19 grandkids and it's just running around living his best granddad life chasing around these 19 grandchil
» dren and so happy birthday to my dear dad Joe one of the kindest men I've ever known I want to emphasize that we're open for business in Kershaw County and so we look forward to having an improved reputation throughout the state of professionalism being friendly to businesses that want to expand or come here and work and so if you're listening remotely or if you've got friends that are interested we've got a great workforce we've got people with hearts of gold in Kershaw County they've got amazing skill sets and we want you to come here and bring your business as well I'm grateful to work again with the staff that we have in Kershaw County it's that same type of person hard working cares about the community and they work here because of the the lifestyle in part and the quality of life that
» you have in Kershaw County which I also appreciate uh just a few things before we move on the agenda you got the fire Fest coming up I have to mention that because my little boy Bennett and all those and even some grown men uh and ladies enjoy going out there and seeing the demonstrations and experiencing all the exhibits that they have that's going to be 1 p.m this Saturday at Camden City Arena and I'm just trying to hit the high points I didn't hear mentioned um old McCaskill's Farm coming up it'll be prior to our next meeting October 8th has a fall family day if you've ever been out to the farm it's a great family event I encourage you to take your families out there and enjoy a special part of Kershaw County which is our agritourism next meeting October 8th I already mentioned that that
» concludes my report and yeah I got one more thing I need to mention once you're done go ahead I have to wish my wife a happy birthday this Thursday she's um you almost got me in trouble but thank you for reminding me happy birthday Casey we don't want you to get in trouble Mr Brazel thank you for that and happy birthday Casey okay that concludes Council members briefings the next item on the agenda is Administrator's briefing Mr Templer thank you Mr chair member members of Council I just have two items um just first off I want to thank Council for allowing us to get it get going with this uh stormwater study this is going to solve a lot of problems that have been on our plate and this goes back to when Vic Carpenter was here we had always talked about really addressing stormwater County as
» a whole and coming up with viable solutions and holding these some of these Builders accountable we've got there's going to be a lot that comes out of this there's you know we talk about building communities but what we build we must maintain and this is part of maintaining our community and having a livable neighborhood for the citizens in Kershaw County so I'm excited about that I I know it's just another study but this is going to be an actionable study and this is going to allow me to guide staff and our efforts uh for the coming years um as as it relates to the the weather we have coming in yeah so we'll start pushing out information tomorrow we always wait a little closer to see what these storms are going to do I anticipate rain throughout the state winds uh the the amount of rain is
» a concern as we're talking about storm water the ground is still pretty saturated from our previous weather events so that that comes with its own issues as well so um I don't anticipate anything disastrous or anything significant it's just going to be inconvenient and I think we're going to get a lot of rain so again we'll push that out for tomorrow um as I get with staff and our emergency management team so that's all I have thank you okay thank you Mr Administrator Mr Boz any legal briefing nothing tonight all right that brings us to item number 15 we've got an executive session on the agenda this would be a briefing and discussion regarding project new life we would need the Administrator legal counsel and the economic development director Mr Jeff Burgess we'll have to take just a momen
» t to to bring those who are online in as well and this would be under SC code 30-4-70b items two and five discussion of negotiations incident to propose contractual arrangements and attracting or causing the expansion of a business can I get a motion to go into executive session on those grounds I so move Mr Shoemake can we get a second second we've got a second any discussion gentlemen any discussion for those online all right hearing none we'll call it to a vote those in present how do you vote raise your hand if you're in favor it's unanimous and present um those online Mr Jones how do you vote yes yes from Mr Jones Mr Tucker how do you vote on executive session he's gone Ben oh he's off okay we're not able to reach Mr Baker he's off at the moment all right um six members in favor it pas
» ses we're now in executive session Mr Jones can you hear us I can't okay we've got a quorum uh seek a motion to exit and end executive session I make a motion we exit as executive senator Tomlinson makes a motion we got a second second thank you very much Mr Brazel any discussion seeing none let's put it to a vote is to exit executive session all in favor raise your hand Mr Jones how do you vote come on yeah all right it's unanimous and we still don't have Mr Tucker all right we're out of executive session the only thing to do now is adjourn taking a motion I'll make a motion we adjourn thank you very much second second thank you Mr Brazel all those in favor of present raise your hand unanimous and present Mr Jones how do you vote on adjournment yes it's unanimous thank you very much Mr Jones we are adjourned have a good night Oh!
