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.
» All right, it's six o'clock. Everybody got quiet and was ready for me to get started, I guess. Let's get the meeting going. Thank you, everyone, for coming out tonight to this Tuesday, February 11th, 2025, Kershaw County Council meeting. We've got the agenda before us. We've been called to order. We're gonna have an invocation and Pledge of Allegiance tonight led by Councilman Derek Shoemake. All right, let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, please watch over this body as we conduct the people's business here in Kershaw County. Lord, specifically, steady our hearts and steady our minds as we work through these complicated issues to do what's best for the people of this county.
» Lord, we understand that we come to you tonight with great responsibility and not just the people sitting up here, your honor, but everyone in this room, every person in this county that stands up enough and cares enough to come and participate in government. And please watch over all of us so that we can reach the right decision. In your name we pray, amen. Amen. 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, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Shoemake. Next item on the agenda is adoption of the agenda. Item four, is there a motion? I'll make a motion we adopt the agenda. Is there a second? Second. We've got a second. Any discussion? Seeing no discussion, we'll call for a vote.
» All in favor, raise your hand. Ms. Hannah, it's unanimous for those who are present. And I understand Mr. Tucker is gonna be calling in at a later time. Okay, thank you, Ms. Hannah. It's approved. Item number 5A is our next item. This is National Black History Month, which is placed on the agenda by Mr. Tucker. Is there a motion? I'll make the motion. All right, is there a second? I'll second. All right, we've got a motion and a second. Mr. Tucker had asked me if he was not here to share this. It's on your screen. And so I'll go through it. And then we'll see if we have any discussion. Black History Month Proclamation, Kershaw County, South Carolina. Whereas, Black History Month is a time to honor the significant contributions and achievements of African Americans throughout history.
» Recognizing their resilience, excellence, and influence in shaping our nation's past, present, and future. And, whereas, the origins of Black History Month date back to 1926, when Dr. Carter G. Woodson established Negro History Week, which has since evolved into the month-long celebration observed of February across the United States. And, whereas, the African American community has played a vital role in the history of Kershaw County, South Carolina, contributing to the fields of education, business, art, culture, government, and civil rights, while enriching the fabric of our community.
» And, whereas, this year's national theme for Black History Month, African Americans and the labor, black resistance celebrating black innovation, calls on us to reflect on the ongoing struggle for justice and equality, and to celebrate the triumphs and resilience of African Americans throughout history. And, whereas, Kershaw County acknowledges the significance of promoting equity, inclusion, and understanding among all citizens, continuing to strive toward a community where all people are valued and celebrated. And, whereas, it is imperative to educate current and future generations about the accomplishments and contributions of African Americans, and to honor their central role in the advancement of our society.
» Now, therefore, Kershaw County Council does hereby proclaim February 2025 as Black History Month in Kershaw County, South Carolina. We encourage all citizens to join this observance by participating at local levels and as further stated in the proclamation. That is the proclamation from Mr. Tucker. Is there any discussion? Yes. Mr. Jones, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the County Council. I support this, and I do it in recognition of my brother and friend, George Gibson and Evelyn Gibson, and also Robert Sumpter and his wife, Denise Sumpter. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
» Any further discussion? I'll just mention that this is a precursor to another proclamation or resolution that will come up that is acknowledging and detailing the history of the three-room schools that they had in Kershaw County during segregated periods. Many of these buildings have actually gone away, have been torn down in lieu of other development. Some of them are still standing, some of them still have good bones, but it's a history in Kershaw County that folks need to be aware of. And Mr. Tucker is working on this along with a few other folks in the community, and they're still doing research to identify and create maps that are detailed enough that they could be useful to the public as well. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll call it for a vote. All in favor? Ms.
» Hannon, it's unanimous, and we still don't have Mr. Tucker yet on the phone. Thank you, gentlemen. That's 5A. Next item is item 5B on the agenda. Dr. Hank Holtein, placed on the agenda by Councilman Jones. Yes, thank you so much. At this point in time, I was asked by Vice Chairman Russell Brousselwood, I mind letting him present this. I'll have a few words about my friend when he finishes. Mr., I yield to you. Would you like to make the motion, sir? I'm sorry, I do make the motion, absolutely. And I'll second the motion. Well, it's on the table. Go ahead. All right, at this point in time, I thought I was reading a proclamation for about a dozen people. This gentleman has done quite a lot in his life. It's quite impressive.
» So if you'll bear with me, I'm gonna read through the proclamation, not in its entirety, but I'm gonna hit some highlights. This is the honored Dr. HW Holtein, with over 52 years of physician practicing in Camden, Kershaw County, South Carolina. How do you even begin to honor such an outstanding servant to the people? Whereas HW Holtein is the longest serving practicing physician in Camden, Kershaw County, surpassing Dr. Francis McCorkle, which was my grandmother's doctor for years. And in 1967, high school graduate from Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Connecticut began his journey in 1974 until present at Camden Associated Physicians PA, excuse me, in Camden, South Carolina.
» As clinic director slash managing partner for Columbia, West Columbia, Manning, Florence, Lexington, and Chapin, South Carolina. He was a member of the JCs and volunteered at the Kershaw County Rec Department. He umpired baseball and softball games. He umpired high school girls softball games and officiated basketball. Sponsored multiple youth teams including Dixie League Baseball and Camden, Kershaw County Training League consisting of 10 to 12 teams. Provided necessary uniforms and equipment for the entire training league. Whereas HW Holtein has served, contributed, and accomplished so many goals in his career. It is hard to determine which are more important than the other. So it's an honor to share them all. Now, I won't be reading them all, but they will all be on the record.
» His education, undergraduate training at South Central Connecticut State University and Northwest Missouri State University. Graduate school at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. Postgraduate training and study at Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1974. The National College of Chiropractic's Advanced Physical Therapy and Pain Control Methods, that was in 1978. The National College of Chiropractic for Chiropractic Orthopedics, 1981. The Mayo Clinic Physical Therapy Department, the Physical Examination of the Extremities, 1981. Mayo Clinic Conservation, I'm sorry, Conservative Management of the Intervertebral Disc Lesion in 1982. University of Michigan School of Medicine Disability and Impairment Rating and Ergonomics, 1983. Harvard School of Medicine.
» Headed all the way to Harvard, that's pretty impressive, sir. Orthopedic Radiology in 1983. American Medical Association, Impairment and Disability, 1984. Harvard School of Medicine, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in 1984. Cleveland College of Chiropractic's Thermography Principles and Application, 1985. And then again, Harvard School of Medicine, Primary Care Orthopedics, 1988. He had a variety of staff positions, including consulting for insurance companies, concerning regular and customary fees and procedures. Equipment, I'm sorry, establishment of protocols and evaluation and management techniques, protocol and parameters. To assess and determine patient's need for care and its type. Moving on to appointments.
» He was a member of the Board of Chiropractic Orthopedics, member of American Council of Radiology, member of the Council of Physiotherapy. He was a chairman of the South Carolina Board of Chiropractic Examiners for seven terms, chairman of Capital Health Care Clinic at the State House in Columbia. He was responsible for establishing protocols and standards of care that are presented at the clinic that are now available to the members of the South Carolina House of Representatives, members of the South Carolina Senate, and all employees of the State House. Moving on to articles published, clinical diagnosis and grading of the inner vertebral disc syndrome. South Carolina Chiropractic Association in 1981. A standard of care for analysis and treatment of scoliosis patients.
» That was also in 1981. Clinical and physical diagnosis of strain injuries, that was in 1981. Clinical and physical diagnosis of sprain injuries in 1981. Whereas H.W. Holtein has received the following awards throughout his career. South Carolina Chiropractic Association, Most Improved State Journal Award, 1980, 1991, and 1992. Order of the Palmetto Chiropractor, 1994. Recipient of the Palmetto Patriot Award in 2010. This is a recognition of service to the state and to the public through boards and commissions. It is the highest award given by the lieutenant governor and his office in the state. Awards for recognition for service is attending Chiropractic Physician at the State House, again at the General Assembly in 2012.
» And awarded a recognition of service for attending Chiropractic Physician at the State House in 2018. Rendering necessary treatment to members of the General Assembly and all state employees. There's a litany of things that this gentleman has done and achieved. I'll say this, to say he's a hard working man would be an incredible understatement. I will conclude with this, now therefore be it known that Kershaw County Council presents this honorary lifetime achievement proclamation and declare it this day, HW Holtein DC in Kershaw County, South Carolina. Tuesday, February 11th, 2025. Thank you, Mr. Browse. Any further discussion? No, I will say it's just quite an impressive resume.
» And I'm sorry, we couldn't read it all, but we'd be here for quite some time and it's a real pleasure to get to present this to you and your family, sir. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Jones, please. Thank you. You know, I have to tell you, it's a big honor for me to be able to have a part in bragging on my friend, and he is a friend. He's been a good partner to Kershaw County for many, many years. I want you folks to think back through a little history here. How many people in here remember Palmetto Arms apartment? Back in the early, maybe 74, 75, Dr. Holtein can tell me, but I'm sure his mind's clear of the mind. But bottom line is we, it was Hank Holtein, Art Graham, and Jimmy Jones, we were all young folks starting our lives out. And that's when I really got to know Dr. Holtein.
» He's been a good friend of mine throughout the years. And as I said, what a wonderful partner for Kershaw County. And his accomplishments are second to none. And I'm very proud and honored to be a part of this night. And Vice Chairman Brazel, thank you for asking me if you could participate and present that. I really appreciate it. And I'm glad you allowed me to do this when I approached you saying I wanted to do something to honor you, Dr. Holtein. Thank you so much. Councilman Jones, if I may, Chairman. You said you guys met in 1974? I believe that was it, yeah. The only other person at this dais that was born then was Mr. Kato. Thank you for pointing that out. You didn't have to go there. Any further discussion, Councilman? No, thanks for the opportunity. I'll just say congratulations.
» Thanks very much. Let's take it to a vote. All in favor, raise your hand. Ms. Hennett, it's unanimous by those who are present and we still don't have Mr. Tucker. Thank you, gentlemen. Do you want to have Mr. Holtein come up? Yeah, sure, of course. Dr. Holtein. Thank you very much. I'm exceedingly honored. I've had the opportunity to represent the state, I guess Camden, because I'm from here, on the national stage on many occasions. I always start every presentation by saying, I bring you greetings from the center of the universe, Camden, South Carolina, the best small town anywhere. I believe that in my mind, my heart, my body. I love this town. I stumbled into this town recommended by a chiropractic physician from Orangeburg that I might fit in here.
» Being a Yankee, been married a long time, my wife still tells me, I'm a, you know, what kind of Yankee, okay? And I'll never be a Southerner. That's kind of sad. I hope I get to be a Southerner before it's over. But it was a great place. I just lived here. I didn't know a soul in town. I met Mr. Jones, I met Art Graham, I met Johnny Fellers, bought my furniture, I rented a building from Jim Bishop, built it out and started practicing and the rest has been downhill. I've been accepted way beyond my expectations. I was able to build a clinic downtown Camden on Church Street in 1982 after only seven years of practice, a 4,000 square foot building. And not to slot the landlord, but aside from the taxes, it's a good place. Wish we could lower the taxes. Can we do that? Anyway.
» We're working on it. Anyway, and I've been in that building since 82, expanded my practice to six other locations, eventually hired medical personnel to work with our chiropractic physicians so that the patient would best be served. That's what it's about. Served on the state board 20 years, serving the public. We're there to protect the public. The state boards in this state do not protect the participants, the doctors, the lawyers, the Indian chiefs. They protect the public. Public protection has been my passion. I was chairman of the FCLB board, which is the 50 state boards together to protect the public. I accept this honor, obviously, willingly and humbly. I was lucky, lucky to come here, and I was even lucky enough to treat Chairman Connell.
» When he was a national wrestler, and his picture is in my examination room, right on the wall next to Tim Wash. Don't tell him that. So, be warned, Councilman. Thank you for allowing me to be here. Thank you for accepting me. Thank you for allowing me to marry, raise four children, and I'm gonna say become a success. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jones, Mr. Brazel, and the rest of the council. Dr. Holton, if you could join us, we have the plaque right here. If you could come up for a picture, that'd be great. Bring your wife up, too, please. Your wife is shaking her head no, but. Jimmy. Good to see you. Congratulations. My resolution's as big as yours. Mr. Brown. Thank you, sir. If you can't lift it, we'll get one of these young folks that weren't around in 1974. Thank you, gentlemen.
» That takes us to our next item on the agenda, which is public comments. As a reminder, this is not a Q&A for council. It's a time for council to hear from the public, subject to the rules and guidelines that are already printed on the agenda packet. Mr. DeBose. Seven speakers are signed up. We have seven folks signed up for public comments tonight. Who's the first one? Keith Gunter. Subject is P and Z. Mr. Gunter. Yes, sir. Welcome, my friend. Thank you, Jimmy. I'd like to thank Jimmy for over the years. When I needed help, he would go to bat for me, and I appreciate it. And I know some of you guys. I know Ben from Rasslin. I'm up here today. I wrote all this, and I know I haven't got time, so I'm not even gonna probably go through much. I'm up here today for a simple reason.
» I have rental property throughout this county, and with my own hands, I put in all the septic tanks with God's grace and mercy and health. Every septic tank, every water line. Everything that's been done, I've crawled under mobile homes with insulation stuck to the sweat and laying in raw sewage. I have done it all. Ain't nothing I ain't done on them. Build ever, I'll build 100 or more electrical meter poles. I wrote all this. First time I wrote it, I was so mad. I had to take all that out. But I'm here because I do not understand if I go to county now, I need electrical, I need electrical permit. I was an electrician at DuPont for 35 years. In fact, I handled all of their waste treatment and the water supply, 2,300 gallons. I was in charge of those meters.
» I try to go get a permit to put up an electrical meter pole at one of my rental properties and I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't get a permit to do that. I don't mind being inspected. If it says to put four clamps, I'm gonna put six. Whatever it says, it's gonna be better than what the county has. I've never failed an inspection on a septic tank or anything in my life. But now I can't go on my own property. I paid for that property. I pay taxes on it every year. Enormous amount of taxes across all county. And you don't allow me to work on my property. I got grandsons. I took three of them with me. I was denied a permit two times and just in the last couple of months. One time they denied a permit. They went ahead and issued one after so much rigmarole.
» You would not believe if I told you, I'm not gonna go through it. I had it wrote down. And while all that was going on, somebody stole a $7,800 air conditioner. $6,800, a brand new unit out of a Lennox Road property cause it was empty. I had a farm employee, it's on a farm, that home. I had a farm employee ready to move in it right away if I could've got power. I couldn't, they wouldn't turn the power on. First they said that they didn't know how long the power had been off. It'd only been off a month. And then the next they said they found the underpinning broken and they weren't gonna issue it because of the underpinning. All this back and forth. Oh, yeah, I had that thing where it'd been off a month. I had to go get a letter from Black River and carry to them and prove I'm a grown man.
» I'm a grown man here. And you deny me the right to work on my property? That's the ordinance, sir. I can't pull a permit. I'm too dumb to pull a permit. Smart enough to acquire property. Got a work truck, dump truck, backhoe. I've done everything myself always. My hands tore all the pieces from working and I'm still working. And y'all won't allow me to pull a permit to work on my own property. I hope to good Lord, I don't know what's happening in this country. I don't know who's been advising you on the zoning and the laws and how you should do it. But now, there seems to be a time for reasoning and common sense. I have all the tools. I have all the skills I've used my whole life. Now, I wanna work on my property. So here's what I recommend.
» I do not mind me being inspected just like a contractor or whatever. But if I've had rental property and it ought to be grandfathered in, I ought to be able to go to my property and make repairs. And I do not mind paying for the inspections. I don't mind that. Y'all need to give me some help on this. I mean it. Y'all need to look this over and give me some help now. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Keith. Thank you, Mr. Gunter. Appreciate you coming out tonight. Thank you, Mr. Gunter, very much. Well said. Mr. DeBose, who's next on the list? Next speaker is, I believe it's Phil Sherda, AOD. Phil Sherda. Unfortunate name for the South. I'd like to echo some of the comments I've heard about this being such a great town to live and I've lived here for about two years.
» Sir, if you could please speak in the mic. Oh, I'm sorry. So we can speak. There we can hear you. Yeah. I'd like to echo the comments I heard earlier that this is a really great town to live in. I've lived here for the last 20 years and I've lived all over the East Coast and this is probably the most welcoming and efficient place that I've ever lived in. So I would like to just, I'll be brief here, just regarding the AOD initiative here. And we have a property that we're looking to develop for industrial reasons, it's trisected by three of the zones, the A zone, B one and the C one, so it's a C zone. I trust you guys have received my synapsis and diagram of what we're planning to do there.
» And just like to highlight a couple of concerns I have regarding that as we're planning on manufacturing aircraft there, right next to the airport and in the A zone. And I'd like just to underline it, as an aeronautical business we really need to be in the A zone to effectively do that. And looking to get the zone classified pursuant to the C3 classification for that, for general office and research activities we'll be doing and one of our products is going to be a solar thermodynamic electric generator. And we also like to have that extended to the A zone for C1 and C2 classification there.
» And further on down the whole package here, there's a whole bunch of definitions and whatnot, but I don't see any real definition between the status of manufacturing facilities, heavy industrial and light industrial. And there's no guidelines for that. Some of our activities that we're planning on doing is just cutting into the corner by maybe 30, 40 feet of zone A. And we'd like to have the C for the manufacturing, we'd like the C1, C2, C3 and for the heavy industrial also we'd like the C1, two and three formations there. And for the light industrial, the C1s two and four, which is extended to the B1 and C divisions of the AOD.
» Also very pretty, hopefully as we get established over the next several years, we'll be increasing the employment out there and we may need to just heads up that we may need to extend the personnel intensity as you stated in the AOD to a higher level because we may have more people in there employed. And another item that's just come up recently was the current buildings that are out there are left over from the Skyline Tic-Tac or facility that was there before. And during that demolition, we're gonna have to take all that out of there. There may be excessive dust there for a period of time while those structures are raised. So that's all I have to say on that. Thanks for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Scherter. Appreciate you coming out tonight. Mr. Carnaio. Yes, sir. Mr.
» Police, could you just state what the rules are for public speaking so people understand why we don't respond back and forth? Oh, we don't read the rules, I guess. I'm sorry, say again. What was your question? The rules of order for public speaking where we don't engage. Okay, well, there's a public comment section just for Mr. Jones' benefit and those who are listening. It's a public comment portion. It's a free speech, essentially moment where you're able to come out and speak and share thoughts and concerns with local government. We've had topics, wide-ranging is prior justice Scalia, which we heard about frequently onto AOD matters to things that are actually on the agenda or things that may be on the agenda in the future. But it's not a Q&A portion.
» We do have those for relevant county business whenever we have public hearings for a particular agenda item. Thank you, Mr. Carnaio. Sure. I believe they're spelled out in the back of the agenda. Yes, sir. There's the rules for that. Yeah, I refer to them at the beginning of each time, but thank you very much. You did fine. Yes, sir. Mr. DeBose. Linda Knaetzer, comp plan. Ms. Knaetzer, comp him, did I get that right? Comp plan. Oh, comp plan, sorry. Ms. Knaetzer, yes, go ahead. Chairman Connell, council members, thank you for attending the comprehensive plan forum last week. I realize you all have a lot on your to-do list. However, the deadline to have this plan in place is a year sooner than the airport overlay district, so it needs to take priority.
» We were told that the second reading is scheduled for April the 8th and the third reading for April the 22nd. That's coming up pretty quick. I am aware that our comprehensive plan must be updated and made compliant with current government requirements. It does not mean that we completely do away with a very good current plan and replace it with one that is not going to serve the people of Kershaw County well. Our current 421 page plan in many ways replicates the comprehensive plan of the city of Camden. While it may not be perfect and could be updated and revised, it is much closer to what we need. It speaks to Kershaw County's past, present, and future.
» Now, what is wrong with the plan we saw last week? It's 101 short pages, some blank pages, nothing, I guess, if you like pretty pictures and graphics. Six to eight pictures of housing that we are trying to avoid. And do we really need five pictures of Camden's railroad station and railroad tracks? No mention of the airport. One small picture of a church and another church in the background of a picture of this building. As for substance, when I reviewed the equine information, immediately I noticed that it was incorrect, probably 30 to 40 years old. At the forum, Nehair said his source was the Kershaw County Chamber of Commerce website. The director of the Chamber of Commerce told me that it has not been updated recently.
» And when I talked to Amy Kinard, we went over some things and kind of updated a little bit of it. And that they should have really called her. What other information and from what sources are we to accept? In the less than half of the plan we looked at last week, it speaks about diversity 14 times and the need for affordable housing 11 times. While still pointing out that Kershaw County's housing prices as of 2021 were significantly less than the Columbia area and the state. This new plan does have some good things, but I'm not so sure they're not already in the current plan or could be added in. Before you're persuaded to accept the window dressing and questionable text of the new plan, let's be certain of what we would have to live with.
» Right now, I say keep the current one and rework it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gennetzer. Appreciate you coming out tonight. Mr. DeBose. Lynn Konto, Equine Overlay. Ms. Konto. Lynn Konto, 1265 Sanders Creek Road. Yes, ma'am. I'm not a fan of reading, but I've been having to do a lot of that lately. And the first thing I wanna address is the AOD. I wanna thank you for making amendments and listening to the people who live in that community and to their concerns. I still think there are a couple more things that need to be addressed. I do think those people individually affect it. You need to talk to personally. Protect the farms, the kennels, the Tunt Clubhouse, the commercial equine properties and maintain people's property rights.
» I would also suggest considering Equine Overlay to protect, educate and guide growth in the future for the equine community and housing developments nearby. This would prevent future conflicts with an airport expansion, equine activity and any developments in the future. Now, most recently, I wanna thank you for showing up. Showing up for the comprehensive plan draft reading and giving wonderful suggestions that I do agree with. Some of those suggestions included looking at housing developments and the approaches you wanna take with that in the future and promoting the equine community in this plan. I do think we can go a step further and I'll explain that in a minute. But let's start on page eight of the comprehensive plan. One of the most concerning things I saw was on ethnicity.
» It's biased. The data reads whites and others versus Hispanic and nothing else. Now, I do a lot of grant writing and I've never seen data presented that way and that concerned me. The other issue that concerned me is on page number nine, lacking bachelor's and education degrees in this town and that's because every community around us has a four-year program but us and we need to look at including that in our community. Page 14, the use of images of houses that really don't represent Kershaw County needs to be reconsidered. Page 19, protect sensitive natural areas that weren't even listed on the map and highlighting rural areas. Hunt Country, which is 9,000 to 14,000 acres which are in land trust and preservations. That information has been provided to the government office in our county.
» The Clemson Educational Trails should be included and marked in that map and most importantly is our water system needs to be protected. That needs to be emphasized in our comprehensive plan to prevent Charlotte water from reducing the amount of water that we receive in this area. Hunt Country is rural area. It's not urban, it's not suburban and that is a misprint in the comprehensive plan and needs to be effectively immediately resolved. Finally, solar. You have four to five contracts approved to put in solar according to the meeting yesterday but none of them have been activated. We have no way of knowing what is successful and what's not successful.
» Do you have a county consultant, it's an expert, that tells you what works and what doesn't work? I'm concerned for the wildlife, the runoff and the people being notified appropriately surrounding that area. If my property was adjacent to any solar farm I would wanna be notified, certified to guarantee I know about that information and most importantly no solar in the AOD region. None in A zone, none in B zone, none in C zone and none in D zone. This is for the protection of pilots flying in that area and I do care about the AOD. I've told people when I come up here I think it's important but so is the equine community. Thank you for your time and have a good evening. Thank you, Ms. Conto. Appreciate you coming out. Mr. DeBose. Next speaker is Joseph Chancellor on Creed Solar. Mr.
» Chancellor, please. You guys should still be able to hear me though, right? You need to speak in mic, sir. So the people that can hear you on YouTube. Yeah, you'll be silent to those who are online. You might need an extension, you're so tall. You are tall. Yeah, I don't wanna break it. Gentlemen, council members, I appreciate the time to come up here and discuss this matter. I was here last night at the commission meeting and spoke with them about some things that were concerning about solar generation stations that I have. One would be just in the construction phase there's a significant impact to the environment through the dust that's generated, through stormwater runoff, through compaction of soils, as well as the removal of all native species and trees that are in the area.
» There's purposes for those. We all know what those are. One of the concerns that I have is that I believe that solar generation should not take place in agricultural zones. Those are important to every way of life in a community such as Camden and Kershaw County. In so much as there's outdoor activities that take place, I know I have been an outdoorsman most of my life and I have spent a lot of time in the woods. When the woods go away, there's no more woods. When you put up fences, there's no more woods. And that limits the access that people and individuals have to those outdoor activities. The thing I think that we forget about with the solar generation is that at the end of its useful life cycle, something has to happen with all of the product that's there.
» And last night, the representatives did a great job of discussing recycling based on 10 costs currently. But what they didn't discuss and was most concerning to me was the fact that they have no plan that I heard for returning the land to its original condition. Once these things come to an end and they will come to an end because we will find better means of power generation because solar is known for being somewhat inefficient versus the expense that it takes to generate it, there has to be a plan. And what some communities have seen where decommissioning has taken place is the plan only allowed for the removal of the solar generation equipment, not the return to original state.
» That's an important thing to think on for our community and the people so that the taxpayers don't end up with a scorched earth field that nothing can grow in. I would ask you to take into consideration also the fact that there is an ad valorem on the agenda tonight that they're asking for a reduction in the taxes for the locale so that they can be more profitable or it makes more sense to them or whatever. It's a business, I understand that. But keep in mind what I just mentioned. At the end of this, what happens? What taxpayer burden will there be post script? I would also mention that during the construction, there is approximately 200 jobs that will be available. That's very short term.
» There will be a number of people that hopefully will be hired locally, but what does that do for them? You've given them a piece of bread, you haven't given them the ability to continue to earn. There is no continued representation, full-time employment positions once the construction phase has concluded. As an individual who works for the largest real estate and facilities management company in the world, I understand that what will happen during the construction phase, this process will go to open bid. This will be across probably the southeast, the entire southeast. Contractors will have the ability to bid on the earth moving, the removal of the trees, the installation, and it will go to the lowest bidder. Hopefully that would be local, but the probability is that's not.
» The maintenance work for this will also be under a preventative maintenance contract or contract with individuals who are licensed and available to service the equipment. Unless we have those individuals that are considered experts or have done that in this locale, that's not gonna go here. That's gonna go to a national vendor or a regional vendor to maintain that. That's not gonna be held within the community. I am not 100% opposed to solar, but I do believe that we have a responsibility to do diligence, not now, but to the future generations in 30, 40 years when the life cycle of the equipment has come to conclusion and we have to think about what happens afterwards. Thank you for the time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chancellor. Thank you. Mr. DeBose. Ashley Huff, solar. Ms. Huff.
» Good evening, everyone. My name is Ashley Huff. I'm here to speak about solar panels. Last night, if you did not get a debrief or did not attend the planning commission meeting, definitely missed out. So last night, Greenergy spoke and presented about Creed Solar, which you will read tonight about the Filo agreement. In the project overview of the presentation and a brief description on their website, it listed this project would be a $60 million local investment and there would be approximately 200 construction jobs. I think there seems to be some confusion. I talked after the meeting and the way it was worded. Greenergy is proposing to invest $60 million into racking and panels and battery storage and substations, et cetera, for this project and it will create 200 temporary jobs.
» It's not full-time. Otherwise, this facility is standalone. It doesn't have a full-time staff of even one person. The website also mentions that the power will be delivered to the local grid, but the line is Duke Power, so I'm not really sure what local entity receives power from that because it will be that area is powered by Black River. The website mentions that it will offer a new source of economic development, including long-term tax revenue for schools, government services and public infrastructure.
» I'm just wondering, will this be presented at some point through county council? I mean, we'll see the second reading tonight, so what information will be given, especially since the first reading was so limited? Last night, there was a little bit of an off-the-cuff comment about how there weren't very many people who lived in this area. Well, maybe compared to a bigger city such as Charleston or even Birmingham, there might not be that many people, but it's enough people for us to be concerned about, including a constituent who sits on the planning commission. Last night, he lives within the one-mile radius of the solar, what they call the solar plant on the website, but he didn't receive a letter and neither did some of his neighbors.
» When do we get so caught up in the economic development and financial gain and tiptoeing around everyone that has a checkbook to avoid a lawsuit that we forgot about caring for our neighbors? Let's talk about Fila Agreements. So this project right now, possibly, I think it's like $3,800 per megawatt. It's 48 megawatts in this project. If you divide that by 377 acres, which is also what's proposed, it's approximately $484 that they're paying per acre. All right, let's talk about WACEM. Y'all know that I love to harp on that. So WACEM is paid approximately $122,000 in taxes this year for just real estate and that was approximately 61 acres. So they're paying approximately $2,000 per acre.
» There's also other real estate taxes listed for that address that total up to $129,000, but we'll just use the 122 for this example. So this company comes in here and makes this investment. They don't have to pay salaries, they don't have to pay anything and all they have to pay is $500 per acre to take up this 377 acres in our county. Like I said, I think we need some more information about what they're providing other than this power generation that's gonna go to the grid or this VELO agreement for the county. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Robose. Last speaker is Linda Franklin-Moore. The subject is race, if so low putter. Subject was what? Race, if so low putter. Ms. Franklin-Moore. The lawyers in the room will understand what that means.
» Thank you members of council for this opportunity to come before you tonight and for the record, I'm Linda Franklin-Moore and I reside in Camden. Recently, I have been very vocal about the airport overlay district and the comprehensive land use plan. I felt it would be appropriate to properly introduce myself to new council members and the public since many do not know my history with Kershaw County. When I moved to Kershaw County from Richland County in 1995, I was working in the banking industry but resigned and went to work for a small newspaper and ran for public office after seeing the good old boy system strangling the county. I was the first woman to run for county council chairman and received 48% of the vote. Council meetings were held in the basement of the courthouse at 9 a.m.
» There was no public comment. The procurement code was either not followed or nonexistent. Economic development was at a standstill and the list went on and on. Change was not created in a vacuum. There was help. I was told that public comment was illegal. So I called the then chief justice of the state Supreme Court, Jean Toll and she assured me that it was not illegal and asked if she could get the then county council chairman, Steve Kelly's contact information. I gave it to her for sure. Public comment was born. Citizens were no longer afraid to speak up for themselves and speak out on policies and issues facing the county. I am also the author of the Unholy Alliance chart. Not bad for a couple of abrasive and aggressive ladies.
» At the public drop in last week regarding the comprehensive use plan, I was alarmed the poster board outlining urban, rural and suburban areas was missing the legend that corresponds to this map. Each of you have received a handout where I've provided the map and the legend that goes with that map. This is a critical component for full disclosure to the public about how their property and property values are affected. So when it's missing from that public display, they're missing a lot of information. What is disturbing about this legend is the designation for urban states that equine slash agricultural use is not allowed by right, but on a case by case basis.
» My question is who makes that determination? The area in question is the Pine Road and Sanders Creek Road area, which is already home to many horse farms and it is adjacent to Hunt Country. The consultant you are paying $300,000 for is relying on the public to provide or correct his information. I also find that a little bit alarming. A junior staffer has recently told members of the horse community they are being too sensitive regarding the airport overlay. Horse community property rights and values and are affected by the AOD and the comprehensive land use plan. My husband Mark had cancer and recently passed away. He and I purchased this home specifically for me to be able to remain on our property after his passing and that I would be able to have my horses.
» They are what get me out of bed every day. I did not know it, but my husband knew it that that was going to be his last day on earth. He was so driven that he literally used his last breath as he repaired our irrigation system so my beloved horses would be able to have grass. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Franklin Moore. Again, we share our condolences for you. Mr. DeBose, that concludes public comment. Thank you very much, Mr. DeBose and thank you everyone for participating. Gentlemen, that takes us to item number seven, public presentations. Mr. Templer, if you could just give us just a little bit of background and then we'll have a motion in a second. Yes, Mr. Chairman, members of council. We have kind of a meet and greet for Mako who is now our new head of the registration department.
» She's been on board prior to some of the elections we have, some of the special elections, so she's had her work cut out for her. She's doing an amazing job, so I just wanted to get her over here and introduce her to y'all, let her talk to y'all a little bit about what she has going on over there and some of the good things she has. Thank you for that background. Do we have a motion for this public presentation? I'll make that motion. I'll second. We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion before she comes up? All in favor, raise your hand. It's unanimous and then I got word that we do have Mr. Sammy Tucker on the phone. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote? I vote yes. It's unanimous, Ms. Hanna, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Good evening. Evening.
» My name is Miko Jarena Reddick and it is a pleasure to be invited to introduce myself and give an overview of the voter registration office, as well as share where I see it going. I was born and raised right here in Kershaw County. Go LE. As a proud member of this community, I am passionate about doing what is right and what is best for it. Last year, we lost a pillar of our community and our office, Mr. John Kaufman. Mr. Kaufman ran the voter registration office with integrity, transparency, and most importantly, in accordance to the law. After his passing, our current deputy director, Mr. Isaac Hodge, led us through numerous elections without complaint.
» My team dedicated countless hours of overtime ensuring that every controllable aspect that went into each election was expertly managed. For everything beyond our control, they approached each challenge with the utmost precision and expertise. It is a testament to John's training and foresight that we were able to carry on the elections throughout the year with no major issues. I assumed the role of director on October 14th, 2024, just two weeks before the presidential election. I intend to continue leading this office with the same integrity and transparency that my predecessor did. Currently, Kershaw County has approximately 69,905 residents and that number continues to grow. Of that population, 44,162 are registered voters.
» The mission of this office at the Kershaw County voter registration is to promote and facilitate voter registration, maintain official voter registration records, educate voters, conduct fair and impartial elections in compliance with state and federal election laws, protect the integrity of the election process for all and provide quality customer service to all citizens. To address the population growth, I am working on securing a second early voting location in the Lugoff Elgin area during statewide elections. Additionally, we are reviewing all the current voting locations to ensure that they meet the growing needs of the county.
» Another priority is improving communication about elections and changes to polling locations and ensuring that every voter has access to the information they need. I also wanna make sure that our dedicated poll workers are properly compensated for the important role that they play in ensuring smooth elections. There is currently a bill, there's HB 3551 in the South Carolina legislature proposing increased pay to poll workers. I am hopeful that this will pass. As the child of an educator, education and vote outreach are near and dear to my heart. We are working on several programs aimed at getting both the next generation and current voters excited about exercising their constitutional right to vote and becoming informed voters.
» Again, thank you for allowing me the time to introduce myself and to give a little overview. Thank you very much, Councilman. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir, Mr. Schumacher. So I just wanna thank you for coming. It's nice to kind of meet you and I appreciate what you're doing, particularly you mentioned something that I really appreciate, which is looking at a second early voting location. You know, during the last couple of elections, one of the chief complaints I've gotten over in my neck of the woods is folks having to drive out to Camden when, you know, as you know, the population is really blowing up on that side of the river. So it would be really great to see an early voting location. That's probably the number one election related question I've gotten on my end.
» So thank you for working on that. Mr. Cato. I reiterate what my colleague said. Thank you for being here tonight and I thank you for your enthusiasm. Also, coming from the upper part of the county, that's one of the main complaints is having to drive so far for early voting and so I appreciate you looking into that and hopefully we'll see some results from that soon. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cato. Any other comments, questions? Mr. Chairman. Please. I agree with what you said. Mr. Crawford's shoes, those are gonna be big shoes to fill. Thank you for doing this.
» The role of the voter registration office is critically important to ensure our citizens have a right to voice during our election cycle and I know there's been a lot of pressure put on with the expansion of early voting by the state but I really appreciate all y'all do. You do work flawlessly and you get things done. So thank you so much and I appreciate you stepping up to the new role. Congratulations. Thank you. If I may. Mr. Jones. Thank you. Go ahead. Just would like to say that having been involved in 10 campaigns over the last 19 years, I look forward to working with you in 26. Awesome, I'll be here. Thank you.
» Gentlemen, I'll mention that as a precursor to another item under new business regarding, excuse me, under discussion for election commission compensation, it's very important that you bring up that particular bill because there is a baseline that's required to be paid by the state and this bill would address that. Any supplement comes from the county and so that's one of the recommendations we talked about prior meeting that we would hear about tonight and I truly do believe that you'll make all those efforts that you described tonight regardless of party or no party and everybody has the right to vote.
» Kershaw County has had a varied history sometimes with Democratic or Republican and varied leadership at different times but we tend to all come together and work hard on various issues that are important to us. So thank you so much for coming tonight and thank you Mr. Templer for organizing this. Mr. Chairman, if I may briefly. Oh, go ahead. So I wanted to say thank you for your comments regarding transparency and it is critical that people get out and vote and it is critical that their voice be heard and I really appreciate the professional manner that you presented to us. It speaks volumes for the job that you're gonna do as the new director and congratulations on your role in that office. Look forward to working with you in the future.
» Any further, gentlemen? No votes required, thank you. Mr. Chair. Oh, Mr. Tucker. Out of sight, out of mind, Mr. Tucker, I'm sorry. Yeah, I know, I don't know. Hey, you're gonna have to talk closer to your mic, Sammy. We cannot hear you. I said I'm gonna have to spank you. Can you hear me now? We can't hear you. Barely. How about now? Hello? It's meek. Come up fair. Yeah, I'm trying. How about now? A little better. Can you hear me now? Yes, sir, that's a little better. Go ahead. Okay. Mr. Reddick, I wanna say as well, thank you. Thank you for wanting to step in the Mr.
» Kaufman shoes because right now, positions of you and your staff are not always popular in different areas of the country and people are being targeted and picked upon and pressured and we here at Kershaw County has experienced little to any issue as we go through our different elections throughout our county and that comes from having good staff. Now I heard folks saying, their number one thing was wanting more precincts doing early voting to the West, to the North and that's great. I have no issue with that but I don't think it's my number one. My number one is for your poll workers to get paid and be compensated correctly and what we're voting on tonight is the commissioners and they need to be adjusted too.
» So my question to you is what the special election is going on and the next special election for House seat 50, are we in good shape? And this is for Mr. Templer as well for our poll workers, not the commissioners, our poll workers to be compensated at a fair rate for their time and efforts. Yes, they are. That's what I wanna know. So thank them for us, I'll appreciate it. If you have any questions or concerns or something that I can help you or council, please reach out to us. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Council, anything further? Thank you so much. All right, gentlemen, that takes us to item number eight, approval of the minutes. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion when we approve the motion. Mr. Tomlinson, is there a second? I'll second. Mr. Cato, thank you.
» Any discussion on the minutes? Seeing none, we'll vote for those in person. All in favor, raise your hand on approval. It's unanimous in person. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote on the minutes? Yes. It's unanimous, Ms. Hanna, thank you. We've got you, Mr. Tucker, thank you. That takes us to the next item on the agenda, item number nine. For discussion only, we're gonna get an update and background from Mr. Templer, but if we could get a motion to discuss the election commission compensation recommendations. I'll make that motion. Mr. Shoemake, is there a second? Second. Mr. Tomlinson has a second. All right, Mr. Templer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So this matter before you is something that Mr. Tucker and I have discussed and I've also, when Ms.
» Reddick came on board, once her kind of battle rhythm slowed down with all these elections, we were able to sit and just discuss her needs and the obvious support she has over here with her being across the street with the election commission and voter registration as a whole. But one of the things we have talked about, Mr. Tucker, Miku and myself, has been looking at the wages for our poll workers. In the past, we have not been able to pull many poll workers in, especially in the summer election or the primaries in the summertime. Some of the money we were offering was just not enough to pull people away from their summertime chores or fun or just whatever.
» So we found ourselves having to move some numbers around well within the budget to get people to come out to work these polls in these incredibly important elections. So this is something we will be taking up in the budget process, which internally for us, for staff, has started. We've started meeting with, Tyler started meeting with department heads looking at their budget. We have a due date of by the end of the week to have all that documentation in. So we look to have some numbers kind of projecting, reading the tea leaves of what may be coming up for elections in these coming years and what's gonna be a reasonable rate to get people out to our polling stations to make sure we have them in.
» And I will say at one point, I think it was under John, we were running so critically low on poll workers and it was one of those June primaries. We were gonna have to allow county staffs, key county staff volunteers to kind of clock out from their daily duties and volunteer to make sure that these elections went on. So this is a real issue. I think it's solvable. I don't think it takes earth shattering money, but I think we have to be deliberate and strategic with it. So I look forward to discussing this further throughout the budget process. Thank you, Mr. Templer. Councilman. Yes. Mr. Jones, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of council. Mr. Templer, what does a poll worker make now? What are we paying at this time? I maybe would lean on Ms. Reddick for that. I can't remember.
» It was, there was a daily rate Ms. Reddick, is she, okay. Could you come to the mic? Ms., please. Thank you. During a, only 75 a day for early voting, when it comes to actually on election day, it's 160, 180 for training and for working today. And that is the baseline. Thank you. And some of those are 10 to 12 hour days? Yes, it is 12 plus. 12 plus. Seven to seven, you got to be in there like it's six to set the equipment. And they take a lot of abuse at times too. Let me ask you this, Mr. Templer, what is your recommendation? Well, I certainly say we have to move the needle on that. If you look at 12 hours a day for $75, that's, some of these numbers start to really trend well below minimum wage on a very important function. And so.
» What was the $180 that was mentioned? That was for a general election. Gotcha. So we'll look at some numbers. And again, what's reasonable, I'll have a recommendation coming forward as we look at what is there. Of course, everything's gonna be based on revenue, what we have coming in and the other needs. But we certainly, we have to move. Yeah, let me make myself clear. I support it. You know, we got to make sure she can get the folks there to sign up and get out there and work the polls. All right. So thank you. Yes. Thank you too. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Go ahead, Mr. Tucker. Okay. First of all, Mr. Templer, I want to say thank you for bringing this to the light. And this is the problem I have, gentlemen. Y'all have heard me say this more and more and more at the council meeting.
» You take 12 hours. Ms. Reddick just said 12 plus. You take 12 hours divided by $75 and that's $6.25. That is below minimum wage. As I've stated before, none of y'all will work for that. I love you, Ms. Reddick. Okay. If you take the 12 hours, once again, plus we'll work with the 12 hours. That's $15 an hour. Tell me what is different about early voting and the day of voting. Can anyone on that diet tell me the difference for a poll worker? You don't have to sell us on the scene. Okay, I'll give you an answer. There is none. There is none. You're selling hard, but you got some buyers already. I ain't lying. Yeah, I like selling. Why are you not paying them $180 for the early elections that is mandated by state law for our poll workers and for our county to do? Mr.
» Tucker? Can I ask you a question? One second. Mr. Tucker, the only counterpoint I've heard to that is that special elections tend to have a much lower turnout, so there's lower volume to deal with. But in my view, that's a distinction without a difference because the election is just as important. It's gonna be the same representation, whether it's the House or otherwise. It's still gonna be 40 plus thousand people that an individual represent if it's in the House, more if it's the Senate. And so I think the work is as valuable when you're taking people's time. Mr. Jones? Absolutely, and if I could add to that, if I could add, you're absolutely correct, Chairman, but if I could add to that, we don't pay them no extra when the turnout's great in a general election.
» Let me say something, Mr. Agree, Mr. Jones has a question. Mr. Tucker, hey, this is Jimmy. Listen, listen. I hear what you're saying when you're asking us why didn't we do this, why didn't we do that? Well, why didn't you do it? You're sitting here too. Let me just say this. We support it. Let me finish, please. We support it. You don't have to badger us to death about it. Mr. Jones, I think you misheard him. He's not badgering us. I think we're all on the same page. Councilman, any further comment or discussion? I'm good. Okay, no votes needed. We'll look for further recommendations as we move through the budget process, Mr. Templer. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Templer. All right, that takes us to item 10A under ordinances. This is second reading of the AOD. Mr.
» Tomlinson, do we have a motion? Yes, I make a motion. We approve second reading of the AOD. Okay, is there a second? I'll second. All right, we got a motion to second. Any discussion? Yes. At the request of Mr. Jones' last meeting, which is a great request, to ensure transparency for council, staff, all of our citizens, as we continue to update this ordinance in second reading, I move that we amend, and please bear with me, there's a few pages of amendments. I'm gonna go line by line on these amendments instead of giving a brief kind of overview of the wholesome amendments that we did in the first reading. So it may take a minute. So please bear with me. I move that we amend the airport overlay district ordinance as follows. Use chart amendments.
» Amend the density limit for heavy industrial and manufacturing in zone C to 25 people per acre. Amend communication towers and antennas in C1, C2. Use in zone D, so that there is a safety review of that use in zone D. Amend the use chart to make home occupations a conditional land use in zone A and permitted in all other land use zones. Amend the use chart to make accessory uses to residential uses at C1 conditional in zone A. Amend the use chart to make commercial equestrian facilities exotic animals a C1, C2, C3 conditional use in the land use zone A. Separating kennel, animal boarding, and animal grooming from animal hospital and veterinary clinic and making kennel, animal boarding, animal grooming a conditional use in zone A, B1, B2, and C.
» Amend the land use chart to make light industrial C1, C2, and C3 conditional use in land use zone A. Amend the use chart to make warehousing, wholesale, and distribution conditional use one, two, and three in zone A. Amend the land use chart to make aeronautical business conditional use one, two, and three in zone A. Amend the land use chart to make modular self storage conditional use one, two, and three in land use zone A. Some of these amendments protect life, safety, and airport operations while addressing some high intensity use occupancy limits for safety in zone D. The amendment provides some of the low intensity uses on commercially zoned properties within zone A where the uses are not discouraged by FAA and SCAC guidance on land use and compatibility.
» Perhaps mostly these amendments are addressed the historic commercial and non-commercial equestrian uses along Red Fox Road to make sure that we are protected and that any new equestrian uses are conditionally allowed provided there is no FAA and SCAC objection to the new equestrian use. That was just page one, guys. Bear with me. One aspect of zone A that remains unchanged by these amendments is the prohibition of new residential structures upon undeveloped land in zone A due to incompatibility with the quality of life, life safety, and airport operations and concerns. Amendments to clarify the use chart notes. Addition to the following language to the use chart notes at the end of the explanation of conditional use.
» Pursuant to Section 3, Chapter 7, Subsection 1 through 4, conditional use requirements of the ZLDR remain applicable to any land use that is conditional use in the properties-based zoning district, R6, RD1, and general development, et cetera. These conditions are in addition to any existing conditional use requirements applicable to a property. The amendment clarifies that the AOD chart is not to be read as more permissive than the existing base zoning. If a land use is already not permitted in the existing base zoning district, it's not gonna be permitted within the AOD. In the note section of the use table, a note number three, I propose an amend to clarify to review the process by planning director for land uses not in the table. The amendment would insert the following language.
» In review of a use not contemplated or provided by this table, the planning and zoning director will first determine if the use is comparable to a use from this table. If it is not a use that is comparable to use in the table, the planning and zoning director will make a determination of the compatibility of the use by review and analysis of the regulatory process in section three, chapter seven, subsections one through four. The amendment provides guidance on transparency to the public and how land uses that are not in the table will be reviewed by the planning and zoning director. In the note section, a note number four amendment to read as follows.
» To the extent of the table conflicts with any provisions of table three or four, the provisions of the table are supplemental to the provisions of table three dash four and the more restrictive table is controlling. The amendment clarifies that the AOD chart is not to be read as more permissive than the existing base zoning and if the land use is already not permitted and the existing base zoning is not gonna be permitted within the AOD. Ordinance findings amendment. I move that we add the following. Findings at F for enacting ordinance for AOD text amendments.
» Equestrian and agricultural land use are historic land uses and are prevalent land use type in the vicinity of the airport along Red Fox and the protection and accommodation of existing and future low density, low intensity equestrian and agricultural land uses in the vicinity of the airport is an important policy prior priority in Kershaw County. That is the amendments that I have to it. I know we'll probably have some discussion going forward. I'd like to provide a little bit more commentary. Let's get a, we've got your motion. That's the motion for the amendment. As stated and also emailed to council earlier, we've got a second for Mr. Shoemake and now you've got the floor you can provide further clarification. Thank you, Mr. Shoemake. This is really a community ordinance here.
» There's been so much input, involvement from the community and residents from concerns and issues. Our staff has worked tirelessly as listened to all the concerns. This is, we have tried to include and make sure that is a wholesome approach to address each one of those concerns in our amendments. I really appreciate all the community support. This started out an imperfect ordinance and at their second reading it's still probably not gonna be a perfect ordinance. I look forward to working with each one of you to address additional concerns, but I think we are on the right track.
» Having the community to be able to protect our heritage here in Kershaw County, especially our historic equine industry, our natural resources, and one of our main resources, the front porch of Kershaw County, our airport, our field, this has been a learning experience and I greatly appreciate all of staff's hard work. They have been working tirelessly, hosting community meetings to ensure that there's been addressed the public concern and input provided, coordinating with other council members, scheduling multiple calls and sit downs just to ensure that we're listening and addressing those concerns in these amendments. I look forward to third reading and I look forward to getting more community input that we can address in our third reading for this ordinance. Thank y'all so much.
» Love you, Kershaw County. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Mr. Shumake, you have the second. Yeah, not much. I mean, I agree with pretty much everything Councilman Tomlinson, I think everything Councilman Tomlinson said, but just in case he's squeezed in something I disagree with. You know, in a moment like this when you're dealing with these very complex regulations, I think you have a fundamental threshold question, that is, do we do something or do we do nothing? For those out there that believe we should do nothing, we just respectfully disagree. I think we have to do something. So then the question if you believe we do something, is this the right something? Given the countless man hours that staff has put into this, that this council has put into this, I think this is the right something.
» We have the ability as we always do to make adjustments after third reading. We have a couple of years until this is likely going to be a state requirement in any way that we have this. So we have time to make adjustments as needed once we see the impact, if it in fact impacts in a way we did not intend. So we have a chance to thwart the doctrine of unintended consequences if it rears its ugly head. So again, I believe we have to do something and I think this is the right something. And I appreciate the work, particularly the Councilman Tomlinson has put into this. I know he's spent an exhaustive amount of time researching these issues and really taken a leadership issue on these amendments. So that's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Shoemake.
» Any further discussion from those who are present? Yes. Was that Mr. Jones? Go ahead. Yes, if I could, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the County Council. Mr. Brandt, let me ask you a question. You had mentioned, I didn't get to write quick enough the section, but it was in the AOD where if someone had sold their property and it was equine that, it could come back equine, but it had to be the approval of the Planning and Zoning Director.
» Are you talking about the nonconforming use clause that we extended first reading from nonconforming from one year to three year time period? Well, what I'm asking is that under the AOD approval, if someone had a equine farm and they were gonna sell it under your amendments, would they be able to bring or keep it equine? Absolutely, if it's a current, a current. Would they have to have any approve? Yeah, Mr. DeBose, would you provide maybe some input on that? Let me repeat it, so I'll make sure we're on the same page. I'm sorry, Mr. DeBose, because I know you're a whole lot smarter than me, and I just wanna make sure I get the right question out. If I own a farm, equine farm, and I'm gonna sell my property, will I be able to sell it as an equine farm and equine stay there? Yes.
» Under all portions of this overlay? Yes, the only, the only specter of someone not being able to continue a use if it is made a nonconformity. I mean, some farms will be completely permitted. They would not be a nonconformity under these regulations, but in the rare instance, someone is a nonconforming existing use. There is a three-year discontinuance period, so provided someone does not quit using their property for three years altogether, abandon it, that use can continue. In your hypothetical, someone is selling a farm that is in use, occupied, as long as the new purchaser uses the property, occupies it, uses it as it's being used now within three years, and they are 100% on. Would they have to have approval by the county to do that? No. Okay.
» So no approval by planning zoning director? No. Okay. If they have their farm, I'm not sure it's clear, like Ms. Franklin, for example, she's got her horses out there, and then you've got some that are closer, that have their horses, and they decide to sell their property to John Q. Public. They do not have to get permission from the county to keep it as a... Correct. The verbiage I believe you were asking about that Mr. Tomlinson proposed an amendment for is for a use type that's not already in that table. Would they be able to have an equine there if it wasn't in use as equine, but it was within that area? Well, I mean, all these equestrian uses are provided for in the table right now. So that verbiage only contemplates some bizarre use.
» Like let's say a code was written 10 years ago before data centers existed, right? I'm just making up something. If a data center came to a zoning administrator and it was not in their chart, this would have bought it as general zoning. What does it look most like in the chart? Again, all these equestrian uses though, to your point, are provided for in here. And the base zoning of many of those properties is already one, which again I believe allows all manner of kind of hobbyist farming in the base district. So I don't think there are any issues with continuance of equestrian activities out there. Here's my issue. And I probably have an amendment at third reading, but what I'd like to see is usually when government gets involved, it messes things up.
» You know, we think sometimes to fix things, we gotta have more government, more government. I would like to see us deregulate, leave the equine alone, don't even mention them, and just do your overlay district. And there's not been any problems there. And actually they brought so much to our community, I think it's a burden to even have them mentioned in this. And that's kind of just the way I feel. And I thank you, Mr. Thompson, for bringing all this to us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Any further discussion on the Tomlinson amendment from those in person? Mr. Tucker, online. Any discussion? No, sir, I have no questions or discussion. Okay, we'll move it to a vote. All those in favor on the Tomlinson amendment? Raise your hand. We've got Shoemake Connell, Mr.
» Tomlinson, Mr. Cato in favor. Mr, we'll go online. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote? I vote yes. We've got a yes from Mr. Tucker, and then all those opposed. We've got Mr. Brazel and Mr. Jones opposed. It passes on second reading. All right, gentlemen, that takes us to- Do we need to vote as amended? Oh, excuse me. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we approve as amended, second reading of the ordinance for AOD. Okay, we have a second. Second. We've got a second from Mr. Shoemake as well. Any further discussion? Seeing no further discussion, we'll move it to a vote as amended on second reading. All in favor, raise your hand. Shoemake, Connell, Cato, Tomlinson in favor. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote? I vote yes. That's a yes, Ms. Hanna. And all those opposed? Mr. Brazel and Mr. Jones.
» So it passes on second reading as amended. Thank you, gentlemen. All right. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. If I may just make a real quick announcement. We've been doing our public engagements in this room the Thursday after these meetings as each amendment or each section of this ordinance has passed. You got another one? Those, and most of them are in attendance out here, but we will meet this Thursday at 630 in this room to discuss anything that, any questions they may have and any questions that may come up. Okay, again, for the public present and online, there'll be another meeting here 630 Thursday in this room to have additional information before third reading on this particular AOD. Thank you, Mr. Templer. Thank you. All right, gentlemen, that takes us to item 10B. Mr.
» Templer, can you give us just a little bit of background before we get a motion? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair, members of council, you have before you second reading of a process we've been involved with to get the rent numbers and to kind of wrangle in the hanger contract issue out at the airport to go ahead and create some revenue out there and just get this kind of codified and bring it before council for approval. Okay, thank you for that reminder. Do we have a motion? I'll make the motion. Mr. Shoemake makes the motion. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Tomlinson has the second. Mr. Shoemake, you've got the floor. Yeah, I think we hit most of this in our last meeting. I'm supportive of this. I think it makes clear a path forward unless there are questions I don't have anything else to add.
» Thank you, Mr. Shoemake. Mr. Tomlinson. I have nothing to add. Okay, I'll just mention that for the next meeting on third reading, I do anticipate some amendments I'll work on. There's one hanger out there that is primarily wood construction and it's just of a different quality and so it would merit a lower price per square foot and so we're working on that exact calculation and then we're also formulating a policy in compliance with FAA and otherwise for having hangers be built out there to spec for particular folks. Could be economic development. It could be particular size or value planes as well or job creation and so those will be forthcoming. Any other discussion from any council members? Mr. Tucker? No, sir, I am good, thank you. All right, no further discussion.
» We'll take it to a vote. All in favor of passing on second reading as is. We've got Mr. Shoemake, Mr. Brazel, Connell, Cato, Tomlinson and Mr. Tucker. How do you vote? Yes. That's a yes from Mr. Tucker online. All those opposed? Mr. Jones is opposed. It passes on second reading as is. Gentlemen, that takes us to item number 10C. This is second reading. Can we get some background, please, Mr. Simpler? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair, members of council, you have before you a second reading of an ad valorem tax agreement between Kershaw County and a company identified for the time being as Project Creed for consideration of a ad valorem tax incentive and special source revenue credit for the benefit of the project in the county and to get them to locate in Kershaw County.
» Okay, thank you for that background. We have a motion. I will make a motion we approve. Mr. Tomlinson has a motion. Is there a second? I'll make a second. Mr. Shoemake has a second. It's on the floor. Mr. Tomlinson. Sounds like a wonderful thing for Kershaw County. I appreciate all the staff's work in this. I look forward to supporting it. Mr. Shoemake, any further discussion? Any further discussion from those present? Mr. Chair. Mr. Cato, go ahead. I have been an opponent of solar ever since we had the, I don't even know how to explain it, the mess that we had with the other three solar projects. I want to say that this particular group, this particular company, I will say that I was impressed with and I appreciate their work. They have reached out. I know Ms.
» Huff brought up in her comments that there may have been a few people that were not contacted. For the most part, I've not had anybody reach out to me that was in this particular project that was not notified. So I had not heard that. They had a meeting. I attended the meeting. I will say that a lot of people very skeptical about what's going on in this area and what the future holds for Kershaw County with these solar projects, because it is the unknown. I don't know that this is the best avenue for Kershaw County to go down and I'm sorry I feel that way. I can't help it. That's my personal feeling. I said when I came on council, I would do two things. I would listen to my constituents as much as possible and I would vote with my heart and my clear conscience.
» I do believe in the property rights of people, but I do think that as the body up here, we also have to look out for Kershaw County and the future. I mean, that's what we're doing with the AOD and that's what we're doing with everything else. We're trying to look out for the future of Kershaw County. Again, I think this is a little bit of the unknown. I don't think that Kershaw County may be getting the proper amount of the taxes that we should get for something like this, especially if it's not providing any jobs. So I share some of the same concerns that my constituents that spoke tonight. I share some of those same concerns. With that being said, I don't think, I really wanna thank this company for doing what they've done.
» They have went above and beyond and they've done everything we've asked them. You know, we set up this thing several months ago, laying out the guidelines that they had to abide by to have the public meeting, to notify people. And as far as I know, that that was done and they were very open with us and we had chances to talk with them and I appreciate that, but I cannot support this. I just don't think it may be the best thing for Kershaw County at this time. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Cato. Mr. Resl. Could we have Mr. Burgess come up to the mic? I'm so sorry. I know you're dreading it. I'd like to welcome Jeff Burgess, our economic development director. How are you, sir? All right, sir. Good morning or good morning. Tells you where I'm at. Good evening, counsel.
» Long day, short day? Long day. But that's not a bad thing. I mean, I'm busy. Are we at the point where you can give us some more details about this project? I can give you some basics and we'll go from there and you can ask me questions and I'll see what I can respond to. But typically after first reading, we start getting more information. Is that right? Correct. This is about a 60, well, this is a $67 million investment. It is basically a solar farm that will be going on 240 acres. The agreement is for $3,800 per megawatt. It's a 48 megawatt facility that's proposed. That equates to $182,400 a year in annual revenue. Let me ask you a quick question, sir. Not gonna cut you off. No, you're fine.
» Is the property owned by an American citizen with certain rights, unalienable rights? Yes, sir. The property is owned by Mr. Creed by which the property is Project Creed. Okay. So it's a private property. It's not county owned. So a couple of questions just to clarify things. Is there a bond that this company has to put up in order to deconstruct after a certain amount of time? I can say yes, there is. If you would like the company to actually speak to the bond issue, we have a representative here tonight. I would like that in a minute. Okay. Everyone noticed that I voted against the airport overlay district, and I have to apologize to Councilman Tomlinson. Everything that you worked on, my vote against was merely my position for the airport overlay district in general.
» Everything you worked on, I wanna tell you I appreciate your work. Thank you. On improving the situation. I just, for me, I'm big on personal property rights and not telling people to do certain things with their property. Within reason, obviously we have zoning regulations that we abide by, but the zoning regulation that the gentleman owns the property, Mr. Creed, does it allow zoning? Does that zoning allow solar farms? For conditional use is my understanding, and I think Joey could verify that for me. In a minute. So are there buffers? They're required to have buffers on that, and I believe it's a 100-foot buffer and possibly more. Okay. So I don't love solar. I don't love solar energy. There is no such thing as clean energy. It's all made with fossil fuels at the end of the day.
» Everything that's built and put on this property is built with fossil fuels. There's really no such thing as clean energy, but I think a man ought to be able to do what he wants to within certain limitations on this property, and it's not the government's job to say yes and no and pick and choose either. If the representative is able to speak to the bond and how it will be deconstructed, I think the body should hear that, and if you have any other thoughts or comments that you'd like to make before you step down, please go ahead. I think this council is doing what it's here to do, and that is to put the direction of this county in it. I think Mr. Cato's arguments are very valid. This is new territory for everybody. You're correct.
» It is, when I hear clean energy, I also say no, it's alternative, because everything is basically just a different source of power. On the other hand, it does have advantages for the people that own that property. It produces $420 of taxes. They have a right to do something with their property unless it's in accordance with what the county has set forward. So there are two sides to the argument, but we have to vote our conscience. Thank you, Jeff. We appreciate you. We appreciate the job you do for Creshow County. Mr. Chairman, can I ask one quick question? Mr. Burgess. Let me just make sure you're done as well. Yes. Okay, go ahead, Ms. Tomlinson.
» Just for some clarification, kind of with solar as a whole, the other three filo's that were approved, I'd heard something potentially about some of them pulling out already. Could you provide some knowledge on that so we can kind of see where we are as far as number of solar farms? Give me about two seconds. Absolutely, thank you. I can tell you from what one has been postponed. I won't say it's been postponed. I believe it has been moved to 2029. It had a start date of 2027. They had to go back through, but Santee Cooper decided to move that one further down the track. So they're struggling to get their PPA. You're looking at a hard time on the PPA. Which is the hardest part to get, so potentially that was wrong.
» The other two have had no change in status at this point, and we have not heard any updates on where they're at as far as moving forward with their PPA, so my understanding is they're still having to negotiate that. And in honesty, some of them are doing their interconnectivity study, and if it comes back as too problematic or too colossally, they could fade away as well. So again, when we first started doing these, it's just, we're one part of that cog. And I won't say we're the least important, because without all three working together, it's not gonna happen, being the solar developer, the power company that takes, or the utility that takes it on, and the council. So any one of those three parts fails, it's just not gonna happen.
» So with this current project that we have in front of us here, so what you're saying is the other projects went a different route, that it was Filo first, now they're trying to go through and struggle, so they've done about 8% of the entire process. What we're voting on for second reading right here, they had their power purchase agreement with due progress currently, correct? Correct, to my knowledge, yes, sir. So they went a different way. I think this company has expressed and showed to Kershaw County that they're willing to be a good player here in Kershaw County just by their actions.
» This is completely different than anything I've ever seen regarding a solar ordinance to go ahead and get a PPA in place prior to even realizing if you can get a local ordinance, that's 90% of your process there. Our local solar ordinance does have a decommissioning clause currently in it to address some of the concerns, and it states that the company has to propose a decommissioning plan, and that plan has to be updated every five years of the entire life cycle. And it goes through some other things, but there is a decommissioning plan on this company's website underneath this specific project, I just loaded it up. It says, what happens after the end of the solar facility's lifetime? The land is returned to its previous and improved condition back to form or timberland.
» All infrastructure associated with the project is removed, and the process is called decommissioned. So they're gonna put it back to its existing prior to building the solar, and they were at planning and zoning last night. Was that in their plan that they presented for their first reading? Their decommissioning? I reached out to the representative, and basically the decommissioning plan was presented last night, and that the one that will be presented to at the building permit addresses the site being restored to a metal-like condition or another agreed-upon condition, including decompaction of the topsoil and regeneration. The costs for such activities are included in the cost estimate. And that cost can update every five years based upon market need and everything else.
» Based upon the current landowner, what they want and they agree with in their contract. I'm fine with that, and I'm glad that our decommissioning clause and our ordinance is so strict. Another thing I'd like to highlight specifically about this, and I don't want Kershaw County to be a huge solar form at all, but I agree with Mr. Brasel. We do have private property rights, and this is in a location that is sand and pine trees next to the railroad. And I did get a call last night that they're from one person specifically who lives within a mile radius, who wasn't aware, didn't receive the letter. And I would love to get that feedback back to the company, just for their knowledge, and potentially they can reach out before second reading, going in planning and zoning.
» But this project has a dual-use implementation to it. So not only are they doing solar, they're also looking at having a honeybee farm on the property. Dual-use for solar specifically is something that is in the Midwest, with solar was big out there prior to it ever coming to the East Coast. Now in the Midwest, a lot of local government agencies have enacted dual-use approaches to their ordinances to require that the land has to have not only with solar, but you can farm it or do agriculture, livestock, some sort of other measure to make the land more valuable. I would like to include that in our ordinance going forward. We don't even have it in our ordinance, and nope, I'm not aware of anybody in South Carolina that does, and this company came with a proposal for the dual-use already.
» I think they're gonna be a good player and I look forward to having them in Kershaw County. Thank you, Mr. Tomlinson. Mr. Jones. Just a couple of short comments. I really appreciate my colleague's concern for citizens' property rights. Then I say leave me alone if I don't wanna put a shed in my yard in seven acres of land. Don't tell me where I can put a shed in my yard. How about don't tell me I can't have a horse on my farm. How about don't come out and tell me that I can't sell my house because I had put a swimming pool in and I didn't get a permit from Planning and Zoning. I mean, I can go on and on and on.
» I understand if we are truly for peoples, for people having their property rights, why the heck are we regulating so many property rights? But anyway, I'm a little bit older than you guys. I'm not quite as quick and as sharp as you guys. You guys are really smart, but you don't make any sense to me, I'll be honest with you when you talk about stuff like this. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Mr. Cato. I have one question. I don't know if maybe this is a legal question or maybe you could answer. Is there on these other projects that Mr. Thomason spoke about, is there a statue of limitation, so to speak, on this contract as far as how long they have before they act, before it has to come back to council? I would have to go back and look at each one. And I'm not sure, John.
» I don't believe there is. Typically, a FILO will have an investment period and a commencement date. Certainly something I can review with Mr. Burgess if y'all are interested in when those other projects have deadlines that are applied to them. Absolutely, I would like to know that. Just for me to chime in real quick, is it not five years typically? We have an investment period of five years. Larger projects, not these in some cases, manufacturing generally get eight years if they're mega-projects. The rule, it's a five-year investment window. Sometimes that investment window is set to begin maybe 18 months, two years, some distance from the actual approval of the FILO agreement. But yeah, once the investment. So is this one set at five? This one's at five. Okay.
» And generally, just as John was saying, if you started it on day one, you signed the FILO, it takes 18 months for a facility to be built. So that's when they usually have the start date. Thank you. Could we hear from the company regarding the bonding at this point? Sure. Thank you so much, Jeff. Hold on, before Mr. Burgess steps away, let's see if Mr. Tucker has anything online. Mr. Tucker, do you have any questions or comments? No, just wanna tell Mr. Burgess, thank you. Okay, thank you, Sammy. We could have the company representative come up. Good evening. Evening. Excuse me, I'm Taylor Robinson with Greenergy. We're developing the CRETE solar project. I'm Katherine Ross. I work with the company. We were before the planning commission last night. Certainly let Mr.
» Robinson speak, but I did wanna say the planning decommissioning plan, as you talked about, is in there. It does address all of the costs as well as the salvage value. And then, of course, there is the ordinance requirement for a $50,000 bond. So in terms of the decommissioning plan, I think Mr. Robinson's available to answer. Any questions that may be about it, we've got the document, happy to send it to you all. But it was provided to the planning commission and I believe was part of the basis on which they made their decision to approve the zoning last night. Thank you for that. Any comments or questions? Council members? Yeah, I've got one question regarding the amount of the bond. So $50,000 is the amount of the bond. That's our minimum, I think.
» We all know that $50,000 won't decommission the property, this may be a John DeBose question. In 40 years, when the property has to be decommissioned, who's responsible for making sure that it gets cleaned up properly if all we has $50,000 to hold over someone's head? So I believe that, as referenced earlier, that decommissioning plan is updated every five years, but the current ZLDR specifies that it's the decommissioned values, the lesser of two values, it's either $50,000 or the cost of the decommissioning minus the salvage value of the materials. At its inception, of course, all the materials for salvage value and these are pulled from, I believe, they said last night, trade sources for what the metals are worth, et cetera, et cetera.
» The salvage value right now and recycling value, for lack of a better term, exceeds the cost of decommissioning, so it would be profitable right now for that to occur. There's money there to decommission the $50,000 essentially is a kind of fail-safe mechanism, but again, the decommissioning plan's updated every five years. If that number ever got upside down, as far as the recycling profits that would be generated offset by the decommissioning cost, in that instance, it would trigger amounts in excess of $50,000.
» So the general idea is currently the salvage value of a 40-year-old solar panel in the frame that it sits on is worth more than it costs to take it out of the ground, is that right? Correct, I believe that's the theory right now and again, it's a living document that's continually updated. So I think, I still feel like 50,000's low. I don't know that if we change the value, if it can be retroactive to any approved projects, would that be retroactive or would it be a grandfather clause? I think that's a good topic for executive session discussions. Well, I'd like to dive more into that. I'd like to thank both of you for being here and appreciate you and your interest in Kershaw County. Thank you. If I can make one point, I do think as you talk about it, I believe the ordinance Mr.
» DeBose is 125% over the value. So at such point, if it went upside down, which is not anticipated, it would not just be 100% of the cost estimate, it's actually 125%, which is super protective of you all because estimates can be different and not wholly based. So that 125% really does, I think, provide protection over the estimate being 100,000. I also would say that the $50,000 required bond regardless of the net return that comes up in the cost estimate is also really protective in that it gives you the ability to, if the company were to walk away, to draw on that and use that money to hire the company that will go decommission and pull it out and see the benefits of the salvage value being in excess. That's what it's intended for in my conversation.
» Could you provide us with a list of decommissioning agencies? I mean, it would be engineer companies. That's who it would be. So this is, you know, this is Kimley Horne has prepared this decommissioning plan. They're an engineering, it's a sealed engineering document that says here's the steps that would be to decommission the withdrawal of things in addition to the restoration that we talked about, the reseeding and that type of information. So we could, I believe we could provide you engineer companies that have bid on decommissioning and provided reports like this, but they're gonna be engineering companies. That's who's going to construct these and that's who's going to deconstruct them. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, Mr. Brausel.
» Any further comments or questions? Seeing none, I'll just mention that I can support this on second reading tonight. You're looking at probably in 2028 based on timeline staying in place over $182,000 of Filo revenue coming into the county. A significant portion of that goes to school operations and school bonding. And for my purposes, I like to try to steer Filo funds back to the area from which they come. And this is an area in which there's not a lot of other general business tax revenue that comes. And so I think it could be useful to the area. I echo the comments about individual property rights and you've got a property owner here who has determined the highest and best use for the property. It complies with existing zoning.
» The only question is, are we gonna reduce the tax burden on the property to what we've done for other Filo agreements when somebody has a significant investment in Kershaw County. In between, I'm informed from staff that between the Filo agreement and then the special source revenue credits that generally come across were right in the same ballpark for what we've done for other companies in Kershaw County that invest in the area. The property owner, I was just thinking, would have the rights to clear cut the property under a timber management plan and just cut everything down if they wanted to. It's their property, they could do that.
» But here we're looking at an investment and in some ways, I think we've heard prior to my time on council, a few folks may have put the cart in front of the horse. Here we've got the horse in front of the cart, no pun intended with all the equine issues we've been talking about, where we've got the energy connection agreement in place. And so, that's already a big step that's been taken care of. And so on second reading, I'll be able to support this tonight. Before we call it for a vote, do we have any other comments or questions? Okay, all those in favor? On second reading as is, press again. Oh, Mr. Tucker, go ahead. Yes, I'm in total support of this on second reading as well, but I do wanna make a comment with Vice Chair, Mr. Braggle. Mr.
» Tucker, you're gonna have to get closer to the mic, we just can't hear you. How about now? That's better. I think you just don't wanna hear me. Yes, sir, go ahead. I just wanna make a comment in concern to what Vice Chair and Mr. Braggle was saying about the bond. If I could get some more information on that, it would be great for me to look at and ask questions and also have the executive session maybe put on the agenda for next meeting. What I don't want to happen, when things go to be disassembled or no longer in business, that the land owner ends up with 240 acres of unusable property. And I'm going right up the road from us, out of Jason County, the gold mine, Ridgeway gold mine. That's a hot mess, the state owns it now.
» And there's no gold mine, not even the one I work for, that will purchase that to go after any existing gold that's there. So having issues, especially environmental issues, on property is not a good thing in the later dates after a company has used its resources. Okay, thank you, Mr. Tucker, for those comments. We'll call it for a vote. All those in favor of passing on second reading as is, raise your hand. We've got Mr. Shoemake, Brazel, Connell, and Tomlinson in favor. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote? I vote yes. Ms. Hanna, it's a yes from Mr. Tucker remotely. All those opposed? Mr. Cato and Mr. Jones, it passes on second reading as is. Thank you, gentlemen. That takes us to item D, first reading on a joint multi-use park for the MCIP. Mr.
» Templer, can we get a summary on this one? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair, members of council. You have before you a first reading on a multi-county business and industrial park that will allow another local industry to essentially be added to this for your review tonight. Okay, let's get a motion before we talk about it. We have a motion? I'll make a motion. Mr. Brazel makes the motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Mr. Shoemake seconds. Mr. Brazel? This is just tied to more economic development. Legal language, isn't it? Yeah, I'll ask the question. Mr. Templer, so for background, is this one of the existing companies we've recently voted on and approved or is this one that's coming down the pipe? So this would be adding laser form into it.
» Okay, so we just approved a FILO, also approved the state credit related to abandonment, and this is another part that you have to have for these multi-county incentive parks. Okay, any other further comments or questions? Mr. Tucker, any comments or questions remotely? No, sir, I appreciate it. We would do quite a few of these. Yes, sir, on first reading then, let's call it for a vote. All those in person, how do you vote? All in favor, raise your hand. Okay, we've got Mr. Shoemake, Brazel, Connell, Cato, and Tomlinson in favor. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. Tucker votes yes, Ms. Hanna. All those opposed? Mr. Jones is opposed. It passes on first reading, as is. That takes us to item E, another first reading. Mr. Templer, can we get a brief summary? Yes, sir, Mr.
» Chair, members of the council, you have before you under item E, this is first reading of a provisions for the Kershaw County sewer operation to codify best practices as it relates to the requirements for the state, what used to be DHEC, but is now DES. Okay, thank you, do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. Mr. Shoemake makes the motion, is there a second? Second. Mr. Tomlinson has a second. Mr. Shoemake. I'm good, we have the explanation, so I don't really have anything. Okay, any other comments or questions? Yeah, does this have anything to do with pricing or would it affect the current customers of the sewer system? No, sir, that would take place during our budget process and any provisos.
» So just to be clear, all this does is, the last sentence is what catches me, administrator, to establish how surcharge rates may be set and how surcharges shall be calculated. I just didn't understand. So there are, for pretreatment of certain waste or the pretreatment program where people are providing certain waste, DES suggested in the last certification of the pretreatment program in 2020 that certain clarifying amendments be made. I believe those surcharges have existed in here. Originally the ordinance says shall be determined later, surcharge rates to be determined later. This says shall be set by county council, where they are set, their calculated pursuant provisions in here.
» But again, these rates, minimum limits, some of the cleanup in here were all suggestions of DES prior DHEC in the 2020 recertification. I understand through some changeover personnel, administration, council, et cetera, et cetera, some of those clarifying amendments weren't made then. The recertifications occurred again recently for the pretreatment program and DES has asked to clarify things. For example, there were local limits of certain pollutants already in there. It just wasn't very explicit or 100% clear that those were intended to be the local limits. Some of those clarifying amendments are in here. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Brausel. Any other comments or questions? Mr. Tucker, any comments or questions? I'm good, thank you. Mr. Jones, I saw your hand.
» Yeah, this is first reading. I'm gonna support on first reading, but I do have some questions as we move forward in second reading. Thank you. Okay. Well, no other comments or questions. We'll call it for a vote. All those in person, raise your hand if you're in favor. Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous in favor in person. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. Tucker votes yes, remotely, Ms. Hanna. It passes on first reading. Thank you. All right, under new business, item A, Kershaw County's goals and objectives. I've placed this on the agenda. I'll make the motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. Mr. Brausel has a second.
» Gentlemen, something I experienced that I thought was quite useful when I was on county council for about six years, and I saw some of the after effects of it, just residual guidance that it provided when I was over at the state house was a goal document that we had. And I thought there were some tweaks that needed to be made to it. And I think that if we use it the right way, and by the way, I don't anticipate a vote necessarily on this tonight. I do intend to bring a motion, but I wanted to discuss it publicly and see if you had any thoughts or insights or spark further conversation about transparency in the goal making process and goal writing process.
» But I think we should go back to having a Kershaw County goals and objectives document that is a living document that is mentioned specifically in the comprehensive plan as we're working on that. One, this allows us to identify very low hanging fruit. These community meetings that we used to have with a essentially board or volunteer commission, George Gibson's name was mentioned tonight. There were several others who used to serve on this would have community meetings and essentially say, what is it that we wanna see in Kershaw County or don't wanna see? And we would typically get a presentation once or twice a year based on how they were able to meet.
» If we have that incorporated by reference into the comp plan, we've got this living document where we can say in our goals for the short term in particular have been adjusted and try to figure out what we're able to achieve. Let me just mention how this might be relevant. If you have a group of community members come together and they talk to their local legislative delegation, there is the water fund, there's the DNR fund, there's the PRT fund just annually that gets replenished from state tax dollars that can be used to benefit Kershaw County. There might be community goals that could be brought up, emphasized and honed and then brought to this council so that we can make requests from the delegation, we can provide matching funds, we can find private partners.
» The ADA compliant playground in Camden, that was one of those things that happened because of this prior goal document that we had and you had people coming up saying, you know, I want to donate because I need some of the tax deductions. I want to donate $100,000 or more to this ADA compliant playground and there's so many examples that happen like that because we had greater community involvement and the community was telling us, hey this is what we want your goals and objectives to be and so that's kind of my initial pitch on having something that we kind of get to update the comp plan annually and don't have to wait these really long thrusts of time and let things get lost in the mix.
» Any thoughts or comments on that, any questions? Yeah, I think the opportunity to be very transparent and in a mission and no matter if it's a private business or a government entities, always a positive thing. I think Ben, as chairman, you'll lead us in a positive direction. We'll take public input and wade through things that are important to Kershaw County and I'll agree, there's things we don't want and there's things we do want. It's the list of yeses and nos so I appreciate you putting this on the night and fully support it. Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Brausel, Mr. Jones. Mr.
» Chairman, you and I worked six years together prior to you coming back and one thing that we always did was we had a retreat, we set our goals and objectives and I just had a hard time with the Disneyland vision plan from the past administration. I had a hard time with a lot of the parks. You know, I came to council one day and I sat down and we were sitting here and I opened up my packet and the number one priority, we've got a jail that needs addressing, we've got infrastructure that needs addressing, you know, roads, et cetera, whatever was a splash pad and I really, you know, I don't mean to be ugly and I hope I don't sound ugly because I'm not upset about it but that's just the facts, that's what happened but I do look forward to your new leadership that will know what the top 10 prior
» ities are that, you know, one member of council won't come in here and sit down and see where, and by the way, the splash pad after I said that was put down to number eight but anyway, you know, I look forward to working with you through it with a fresh new start because I really didn't like the way it was handled before. Okay, thank you, Mr. Jones. You're welcome, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shoemake, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I agree it's critical to have a policy document, that's something that in talking to staff and our county administrator, I think I can share that that's something that he has expressed would be helpful.
» It's our job to make policy, not, you know, very specific rules, sometimes very specific rules and by and large, it's our job to make policy, we're the board, you know, Danny's our CEO but the policy has to be enacted by us, the long-term vision, we don't have a really great document for that. The other thing that you touched on that I want people to really understand is this comprehensive plan is updated every five years but obviously a much more extensive process and some folks today talked about some changes that should be made in the comprehensive plan and I don't necessarily disagree with some of those.
» Having this document, to the Chairman's point, our comprehensive plan says we'll do things in line with our community vision document, whatever that's ultimately called, then we can change that, you know, every month if need be and what that allows us to do is we make ordinance changes that are ever legally challenged, they go back and look at our comprehensive plan which then refers to this living community document. That way you're not living, I mean, right now the comprehensive plan that we're under now doesn't really talk about problems with growth because when that thing was written, people wanted a bunch of people to come to Kershaw County and so as things change, it gives us the ability to make those adjustments.
» I think that tool in and of itself warrants us having this document but add that to the fact that it gives staff a policy to follow, I think it's a no-brainer, I'm glad that we're talking about this finally. Mr. Schumacher, I'll just mention that the prior goal document was adopted on occasion by county council but it was an incorporated comp plan and so my proposal would ultimately result in three readings and potentially a public hearing and so talk about transparency before we adopt goals and decide this is gonna be the policy where we wanna send dollars to make something happen in Kershaw County or we wanna stop something, you're gonna have ultimate public comment in each of the readings and then a public hearing on this for that and just as an example, we had the election commission di
» rector speak tonight. We could set policy that said we wanna have early voting in Westwater area and that gives staff the directive to actually make it happen. I know we gave it lip service tonight but we could actually put it on paper and incorporate it by reference into the comprehensive plan so that it happens, that we show that it's a budgetary priority. Any other comments or questions? Mr. Tomlinson? Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I think this is a wonderful idea, especially having the active and constructive engagement and input from the community to be able to guide our decision making and policy decisions so we can not only look at the short term of Kershaw County but the long term in 25 years.
» Every decision that we make has effects that could be generational changing and that public engagement to really fine line and put pen to paper to help guide us is wonderful. I think it was Denzel Washington who said, there's three things you should do in life, right? You gotta know where you've been, where you're at and where you're going, short term and long term, so in full support of it. Strong with the Denzel quote. All right, any other comments or questions in person? Seeing none, Mr.
» Tucker, any comments or questions? I just have one short one here is that of course you know with this committee or document or whatever you wanna call it, it's gonna have to have, and we can talk about all the logistics, a lot of staff support to be driven because the public is gonna be limited on time and resources. So just keep that in mind and then I wanna make sure that we're all inclusive when it comes down to representation as far as what our county looks like. Yes, sir. We've ridden that bike as recently as two and a half or three years ago and so I think we'll be able to get back on and be productive. Yes, sir. Okay, thank you, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Chair. Yeah, Mr. Semple.
» If I may just, you know, I think this is a great idea because from what I kinda understand, this would be more of what the community sees going forward wanting. I think there's many layers to what we use as staff for navigational items as we go throughout our budget year, our budget process. One of the things I would like to add is a capital improvement plan that would outline equipment needs going through the years. I think that offers another layer of transparency so you could, the public could see what we intend to buy as these items wear out. And again, any navigational aid council can provide staff is very welcomed.
» Vic and I used to go and build our budgets based on the goals and objectives from council retreat, the needs from staff and it's just an aggregate of information going forward and make strategic efforts to go through the budget and clock off items as many as we could in the spirit of these guiding documents. So I would look forward to hearing more about this, I would look forward to working on it and assisting any way I could. Thank you, Mr. Templer. If I may. Mr. Jones. Just very quickly, as I said, I'm gonna support this tonight and may support it through the three readings but you know, we quote folks all the time and read Bible verses sometimes but I like the one from William F.
» Buckley who said, I can't believe the words that just came out of your, that you believe, I can't believe that you believe the words just came out of your mouth. Sometimes, you know, we just pass and create more and more and more. You know, I will say this and you're right, our county administrator is our CEO but he's also the ambassador for the county, for the county council because we're elected by the people. We set the policy, he enforces our policy. He makes recommendations, we either accept it or we don't and so bottom line is the ultimate responsibility lies with us sitting up here and you know, he's our enforcer but we make the laws, we make the policies, we make the rules and that, you know, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Hearing no further comments, doesn't require a vote.
» Appreciate it, gentlemen, that takes us to item 11B, Ad Hoc Stormwater Advisory Committee. I place this on the agenda. I'll make the motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Mr. Shoemake, seconds? All right, under our rules, the chair has the ability to appoint ad hoc committees and this is part of the fulfillment of what we've talked about previously. We have many concurrent things going on right now with stormwater. There's a current study going on, correct, Mr. Templer? Related to stormwater. Correct. And various areas of the county that need assistance or need some type of improvements and in an effort to figure out exactly what that should look like or get input from the public from various sectors. So far, I've got the following people that I'm gonna point to an ad hoc committee.
» The terms of the committee and responsibilities and scope will be finding sources or options for funding. The scope of the stormwater would be, whether it's departmental or subdepartmental, it would conclude in nine months from its creation, so nine months from now, and also give input on regulations and preferred infrastructure goals and improvements. And the current committee members who have indicated a willingness to serve would be Jay Johnson, Jess Coulter, Melita Rabin, Billy Smith, Mayor Melissa Emmons, Bob Gian-Georgi, and then non-voting members of the committee would be Danny Templer and then various staff members, Gerald, Lauren, Stephen, Jonathan, Dan, and Joey in a support role, again, non-voting.
» I've got a few other slots that I'm waiting on responses back to fill, but I think this will be a great group that will be part of that transparency and give us input as we have concurrent studies going on from the public on what stormwater improvement and protection should look like, how we manage it going forward, how we catch up in the areas that we need to, and most importantly, how the public would view various funding options and what they would wanna see. And so it doesn't require a vote. The committee has just created and will terminate within nine months, and we'll have a few additional committee members appointed, I anticipate, at the next meeting. Any comments or questions? Mr. Chair. Mr. Tucker. Yes, sir.
» How many members you plan on putting on the ad hoc committee? Ultimately, 13, for an odd number. Okay, all right. That's gonna be fine. I've got a question, Mr. Chair, if I may. Mr. Administrator, through this ad hoc committee and advice and input and so on and so forth, I know that in recent years, we have had to work with an outside agency for our stormwater. Is one of your goals or could one of your goals be that we handle all that in-house and do not rely on having to spend money with an outside agency? Yes, sir, that is the, one of my overarching goals is to, and we're on our way to that, but it's just there's understanding a funding mechanism to make us self-sustaining, to bring that enforcement activity in-house and within Kershaw County.
» Obviously, you don't need, you don't have to have this to do that. As administrator, you have the ability to bring that in-house and it sounds like you're already working on that. I'd love to, this is a nine month program, so it's gonna be a year before that takes place. Looking forward to input. Love the community engagement piece, but with as many projects as we've had and even some of Kershaw County's own projects, being already in shovel mode, moving dirt, I would like to see members of Kershaw County, people that live and work here, in charge of making sure projects are going well and I'd like to see people that are friendly with businesses and builders alike. We talk about being business friendly and welcoming everyone to Kershaw County.
» You don't have to have a fee and lieu agreement to get that same love, right? So I'd love to see the agencies that we contract with and or our in-house staff, which I prefer, become a very friendly face for Kershaw County when they're on the job sites, when they're at the home. You know, sometimes you have to deliver bad news, but the old saying, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. I've had many phone calls in which people were discouraged to be here and build here and it just so happens that one of them has done a major fee-low agreement at this point. They, at one point, they were very frustrated and I need that to change.
» I need for everyone here to be part of a team, Kershaw County, and know that we welcome business and we understand if things aren't perfect, but we're not gonna drop a gavel on somebody just because they made a slight error or didn't get up a little bit of a silt fence at the exact moment. I've been in construction since I was a child. It's a tough job. You're running your own business, cash flow's tough, the work's hard, and when government steps in and makes it harder, it's really easy to get frustrated. We definitely don't need outside agencies jumping the gun, upsetting people, and telling people what they can and can't do, and making threats like, hey, I'm gonna call DHEC. That's not friendly. That's not business friendly.
» My point in saying this is not to try to upset anybody, but it's to make the point that if we are indeed business friendly, that should be for the guy plumbing a house, to the guy framing a house, to the guy laying a two-inch water main. The gentleman that spoke about working on his own projects in the state of South Carolina, you can build your own home. Now, I don't know what the regulations are specifically for working on rental properties and that sort of thing, but sometimes we've got to take a step back and realize that hardworking Americans are just in fact that, hardworking Americans, and we don't need to make things ultimately harder than they need to be.
» We need to put ourselves in their shoes and understand what they're going through on a daily basis and find ways to say yes and ways to have solutions versus ways to say no, heck no, you can't do that. We're not gonna allow you to do that. We're gonna shut you down. We're gonna call every state agency there is. We're gonna drop the hammer on you. It's just, as many times as I've heard it from different folks, I really wanna express that, especially when it comes to stormwater, because that's typically when it gets dicey, is the stormwater, so with that being said, I know we don't have to take a vote. Thank you, Chairman, for putting this together. I think there'll be a lot of good input that we receive, and I guess that was some of my own. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Jones. Mr.
» Brazel, I'm proud of you. I agree with everything you just said. I do wanna say this, too, though. I have to give Mr. Templer, what's his name? Mr. Blanchard. You know, if I call Gerald Blanchard, you answer your phone, you're so prompt, and I just can't tell you how much I appreciate that because he deals with a lot of citizens that we get complaints from, and I appreciate that, but Mr. Templer, I appreciate you being there when we've had sit down and talk. We're not gonna agree on a lot of stuff, because I'm big on deregulation. I'm big on, you know, just kinda helping people as much as I can in my way. But anyway, I just wanna say, Russell, thank you so much for those comments. I think they're well needed. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
» Any other comments or questions? Anything else, Mr. Tucker, before we move on? Mr. Tucker. Yes, sir. So this ad hoc committee, how will it affect the stormwater advisory committee that we're looking at, that finance committee talked about if we decide to do one with the stormwater study that's coming up, because that would have to be part of that that you have to establish. This is essentially a follow-on recommendation from staff based on y'all's direction to set up a stormwater advisory committee. And so this would be a non-permanent committee that would come together, work for nine months on the issues, come back with recommendations from the community after working with staff.
» And at that point, you'd be able to figure out, do we wanna set up a permanent stormwater commission in Kershaw County with various dedicated appointments per district, or how do we wanna fund it, and through the various purposes and scope that I just described for the ad hoc committee. So this is trying to fulfill- Just wanna make sure that I'm clear. Yeah. Okay, got it. Okay. Thank you. All right, no votes needed, gentlemen. That takes us to council member briefings. Mr. Cato, please. I'll try and be brief. I wanna start tonight with, I wanna thank each and every citizen that came out and spoke tonight. I appreciate the speakers. Each and every one of you were on point with very serious issues that we have going on in Kershaw County tonight, and I wanna thank you for that. And Mr.
» Gunner, if you're still here, I don't know if he's gone. I sympathize with him, and I'm gonna leave it there. I hope there's something that we can do to help this gentleman out, because I really feel for the issues that he has going on, but I do appreciate each and every speaker that came out tonight and being on topic. Happy Valentine's Day to the ladies out there. Coming up Friday. Yeah, I want some brownie points. I hope my wife's listening. And Jimmy Jones, happy birthday. Well, I appreciate it. Since you've been the elder, oldest member of this council, I would say you're still looking good, but I ain't going that far. I heard the second eldest has to give the spankings. I'll take my belt off. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Cato. But happy birthday to you, Jimmy.
» But on a very serious note, I want to send out my condolences to the Sylvester Sly Robinson family. Sly was a dear friend. I worked with Sly at the Kershaw County Sheriff's Office for many years. I worked with him at the state level, and Sly was a gentleman, always smiling. If you couldn't get along with Sly, you weren't gonna get along with many people. Sly was awesome. He was a man that if you had to go to battle, I'd want him beside me. And I appreciate the service he had for this county, and my condolences to his family and his friends and brothers in blue. Thank you, Sly. Mr. Thomason, you're up next. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think everybody's heard my voice enough tonight, so I'm gonna be very brief.
» I appreciate everybody's patience, getting through and really working with us as the community and Kershaw County together, especially on this AOD and other things that we've done. This is a valiant effort, and I appreciate everybody's input and look forward to the continued work going forward. I really like to appreciate staff. I've put a lot on them, and they have responded, and above and beyond my expectations, not only dealing with running a county of almost 500 employees, having to deal with other issues, getting a comprehensive plan done. Anything that I've asked, anything that the community has asked in response to this AOD staff legal has been over backwards to make sure that those voices are heard and those issues and concerns are addressed. So thank you so much.
» And I can't let Mr. Jimmy Jones outdo me, so I'm gonna end in a quote. In honor of Black History Month, a childhood hero of mine, and Kershaw County native, in the words of Larry Debbie, success is not measured by the accolades and achievements, but by the impact we have on others. Thank you, Mr. Tomlinson. Mr. Jones, any report? I do, but not much, just a little bit. First off, I'd like to echo Mr. Kato and thank you for those words about Sly. He was both our friend. I think you know that, and I knew that as well with you. Many years ago, I met a gentleman over in Columbia, and he said, I got somebody who wants to move to Kershaw County. And he said, but he doesn't have a job. I said, who is it? He says, his name's Sly Robinson.
» I think he was, I don't know where Sly was at, somewhere up north, I have no idea. But anyway, he came, I met him, gave him a job, and boy, it just changed me. I think he went to work for every agency in Kershaw County, ended up with a solicitor's office. Why did he move so much? Because everybody loved him. He always had a smile on his face. He was my friend. He would stop me, and we'd talk, and he'd just be laughing when he got out of the vehicle. But Mr. Tucker, I hope you don't mind. I had talked with the sheriff and Mr. Kato, and we wanted to do a proclamation for Sly at the 25th meeting, and I'd like that proclamation to be from Mr. Tucker, Mr. Kato, and myself as former law enforcement officers who worked in New Sly.
» He was a good man, kind man, and I truly loved him to death and to condolences to his family, absolutely. But I want to also say kudos to our sheriff. He called me, kept me informed, and I found out he wasn't just calling me, he was calling about 50 other people. Keeping him informed on Sly's progress, what was going on the day that he left us. But anyway, Sly, we love you. Job well done. Thank you, Mr. I'm not through yet. Okay, go ahead, Mr. Jones. Now I gotta get a little bit more. Well, no, let me say this. Mr. Gunner here. He's gone. Hey, guys, this is what I'm talking about when we talk about property rights. We talk about, oh, we want people to handle their property rights. We only let the man work on a dirt light pole, and it's not staff's fault.
» It's our fault, because we set the law, we make the laws, we make the regulations, and they're gonna enforce them. Well, so anyway, enough on that. But you know, when we talk about the comprehensive plan and things like that, it was brought to my attention that there'll be no more public input regarding the comprehensive plan. I think the Planning Zoning Director made that comment. It's on audio video pertaining to the fact that the committee or either the planning, excuse me, the council will give that change, those amendments, and bottom line is that it led the folks to believe that there's really no more change in that this council may have, how do you say it, a hunger to do. But anyway, you know, it bothers me that the overlay plan wasn't in the comprehensive plan.
» We invited the folks to come to that drop-in. It wasn't, it should have been there. It's one of the hottest topics. The height restriction map, dealing with overlay of the airport, I was told wasn't in there. And then I had a complaint. I don't know who threw this, who was responsible for it, but I was about, everybody talked in there, said we were misled. I said, and I'm just quoting some citizens talking to me. They said, I said, what were you misled about? They said, well, we were told this was a public input, but actually it's just a drop-in and a little greeting me, and we're told to put our questions in a box. Well, I talked to somebody today. They had said, well, you know, we were told that we would give, that he was on Planning Zoning Commission.
» He said, we were given those suggestions that was dropped in a box. I said, you were? He said, yeah. I said, well, let me ask you a question. I pulled one up. I had one on my phone. I said, did you see this one? No, we hadn't seen that one. General, this is just a fact. It may be ugly what I'm saying, but it's the ugly truth. You got a suggestion box. You go behind closed doors. You can pick and choose. I'm not saying that's what staff did, but I'll tell you this right now. It upset me when I talked to this lady, and she, and her suggestion, the commissioners didn't see it, but they saw some others.
» So we need true transparency, and I think to start transparency, we need to have a, I would like to see us have a meeting scheduled with the Planning Commission there, the public there, and we have a face-to-face, a face-to-face session with the public, Planning Commission and County Council to see how they really feel about the comprehensive plan and what we've got going on. And you know, something that really bothers me too, and I have been, it's come to my attention directly that this council has a lot of interest in the Planning Commission, and that if the Planning Commission has disagreed with them, they've been asked to maybe resign, or they've been asked maybe to step down. I'm not gonna stand for that. That is absolutely wrong.
» We're mandated by law to appoint these folks, and I will never vote somebody out because they don't agree with me, or ask them to resign from the Planning Commission. I think that's inappropriate, and I don't like it at all. And with everything I got going on, I'll fight that to the very end. So when you talk about transparency, let's leave the Planning Commission alone, let them do their job, and not try to intimidate, or hey, by the way, this one's not agreeing with exactly what we wanna do. Maybe he'll step down, we'll get somebody else in there. That's just not the way it works. And gentlemen, don't tell me it didn't happen, because it did. But all three of the Planning Commissioners are gonna stay on, they're not gonna step down.
» They're gonna participate, and I watched the video of the Planning Commission last night. Boy, the Planning Commissioners looked lost. They felt like they weren't getting their questions answered. You could see the frustration on them. And they're young. They're a young group. I ask everybody in here, to go watch the Planning and Zoning meeting last night. Take a few minutes out of your time and watch it, and judge for yourself, okay? And this comp plan that I'm told also, I heard it on the video, that we're gonna have first reading in April. Well, nobody told me that. Who decided that? It's nowhere near ready to have, to start your first, second, and third reading. It tells me that when you got opposition, and you're doing a lot of filing, you're fast track things.
» I'm not saying this council did that. I'm just saying I heard what I heard on the Planning Commission meeting last night that was videoed. And that's just not right. If we're gonna set the dates, this council needs to take charge of this issue. We need to set a meeting. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask you tonight if you would set a meeting that would involve the public directly and the Planning Commission to, and you can state when you go to your Chairman reading, that we'll do a county council planning and zoning sit down with the public. It will have a true session with the public. I think that'd be really good. And I feel like you're for the same thing. But this is where I'm at. And I hope that we'll have that meeting.
» If not, if you don't have that meeting, gentlemen, I'm gonna have the meeting with the Planning Commission and the public. So I ask you to please let's do the right thing, get them involved. And let's, whoever said that we're gonna vote first reading of the comprehensive plan when it was so loosely put together the other night. And I'm not gonna embarrass, try to embarrass anybody by calling names. But when you got somebody paying a lot of money, that they didn't have basic answers for one of our colleagues here on county council. They didn't, they couldn't even answer the, it's almost like they took this plan from somebody else, took a picture of it and put Kershaw County. And yet there were no T's crossed, no I's dotted. It was very, very poorly done.
» I think the meeting was very poorly ran. I think the public was totally disappointed. And I read all the accolades that our department put out there. I haven't talked to any, I hadn't talked to three or four people that they talked to that gave kudos to it. I mean, I had them coming up to me from all areas of the county there, exactly. And they would, their displeasure, we feel like they were duped. Now we can sit up here and pout. You can get mad at me. I don't give a damn if you do or not. But I'm gonna tell you something. While I do care, what, I can't say that? Okay, but let me just tell you this right now. I'm irritated, I'm fed up. I'm disgusted. And I don't see some positive change. I want the citizens to be treated with respect. When we're shutting them down on a job.
» If, listen, be kind. If someone is arguing with you, just walk away. Just walk away. Don't get into a verbal fight with them, calling names back. We're better than that, guys. So anyway, and I'll have some other things at the next meeting. And it was great meeting our new director with the elections commission. I look forward to working with her. In 26, gosh, I might stay or do something else because I'm feeling real good now. My back's fixed, my health is back. I'm ready to rock and roll. But I'm gonna tell you something. I'm gonna fight for the citizens till the very end of my breath as long as I'm sitting up here. And having said that, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Council, for your time. Mr. Jones, Mr. Tucker, actually. Mr. Tucker, do you have any report? Still with us? Mr.
» Tucker, can you hear us? Yes, sir, yes, sir. Yes, sir, go ahead, Mr. Tucker. All right, well, I wanna say, Mr. Jones, I have no problem with your proclamation or whatever you have set. I'm happy to join you. Mr. Tucker, a little closer to your microphone, if you could, please. We can barely hear you. All right, I said I have no problem with Mr. Jones' proclamation or whatever he's trying to do for the Robinson family. But I do say my condolences as well for all who want to attend. They're gonna have Memorial Service March 1st at one o'clock to approximately 14.15, which is 2.15 at Camden First United Methodist Church. So you can Google that on Collins' funeral home website if you want additional information on it. So very tragic times here in Cushaw County and we love the Robinson family.
» And for the ones that don't know, Mr. Bill Robinson, who comes to the meetings, who's chair of the Democratic Party, that is his brother. So just to put relations on that. The other thing is I wanna say that by no means you guys know that I would badger any of you. So since y'all are reading out quotes tonight, I don't have much to say, but I'm gonna say this right here. This is a Maya Angelou one. It says, when someone show you who they are the first time, believe them. Okay, and if you find it, and if you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, then change your attitude. Just saying, have a good night. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Shoemake, any report? Yeah, a couple of things. I just wanna address briefly the comprehensive plan.
» I mean, obviously the document needs adjustments, no doubt. But I can tell you that for the last, whenever I was elected two years ago, I think I'm still the junior guy here. But since I got elected, there have been meetings that I got notified about through email, and they were on the website. There were several meetings, I was the only council member in attendance. But I can tell you that there have been multiple meetings with direct facing public input, specifically about what should or shouldn't be in the comprehensive plan. So as we go forward on that, I just wanna point that out, because whether the last meeting was what people wanted it to be, I've attended a number of these meetings, and there's been multiple opportunities for public input. I also wanna talk a little bit about Mr.
» Gunter's issue, which I think speaks to a larger point. It's easy sometimes to, we are arguably the most accessible level of government for people in Courtshaw County. But oftentimes we are the level of government that has oftentimes the least amount of authority. I'm a little bit familiar with his issue, and I think it's worth noting for everyone that there is a state law, state law that we can't control. It says if you are a landlord, you are not allowed to pull a commercial permit if you do not live in the residence. A lot of landlords don't pull permits and just do the work.
» But if you come to the county and ask for a permit to do commercial work, which by definition means if you're a landlord and don't live in the home, the county's probably gonna deny you, not because they're evil or because they're trying to put up red tape, but because they have to follow state law. That's from LLR that says you have to be a commercial contractor. That's a great state law that I think should be amended and changed. Absolutely agree. I just wanna say that in my personal experience, by and large, of course there are exceptions to this rule like every rule. But in my experience these last two years, I have found in the vast majority of occasions our staff to be helpful, flexible, and easy to work with. Not perfect, I haven't been perfect.
» I have seen far fewer staff members get irate than I have seen members of the public get irate at staff. And that's okay too. People are allowed to express their opinions. We have the First Amendment. But I just wanna say that I fully support our staff that works really hard. Every year they get to hear about a budget that nobody wants to increase because no one wants their taxes raised. And then for the other 10 months, they get to hear about why there's no, they get to ask why don't I have this service? Why don't I have this service? Why aren't you doing more? And we're the ones who set those policies, but staff has to bear the brunt of that.
» And I just wanna thank our staff for their excellent and hard work because without them, you know, we, none of us could be here and the county would still work along just fine. Yeah, we set policy, but if for some reason we all went away, the governor could appoint seven more people that would do just a finest job. Our staff, however, is irreplaceable by and large. And I just, I thank them for everything they do. That's all I have. Mr. Schumacher, thank you. Mr. Brazel. I'm feeling meek and humble tonight. I have no comments. All right, thank you, Mr. Brazel.
» I'll just mention to council, if you would please, I heard a couple of comments throughout the night during a lot of this heavy lifting on various ordinances or issues where you said, yeah, I might like to have an executive session on that. Please make sure you get that information to Ms. Hanna, myself, Mr. DeBose, Mr. Templer, so that we can make sure we accommodate that and have it on the agenda for next time. If that was more than just a mere request and you actually want it on the agenda next time, we wanna make sure that your issues are addressed in the appropriate way as required by law if you're seeking an executive session. Wanna mention one other thing. Mr. Jones mentioned tonight, and we've been talking about it quite heavily, the jail is an issue.
» How do you fund a jail that requires significant increase in percentage of beds that would require, you know, I've seen numbers in the 60 millions to say you build a new one, even renovation of it and then rehab to bring it up to modern building codes would put you in the high 50s, perhaps. How do you do that? And so I've been trying to formulate and I just wanna share with my council members, I'm trying to put together some type of ad hoc committee that can be expert in this area, that can come to us and bring recommendations on what's the best way to do it. How do you fund it? Kershaw County doesn't have the money and it would take a ridiculous and astronomical tax increase to pay for the bonds that would be required to do it.
» Do you do it through a penny sales tax? Do you send it for a referendum and let the public make a decision that way? But we do need to build a new jail at some point. There, at some point, I guess, was a capital plan and I don't know what happened to it, but it hadn't been followed entirely, perhaps, and this is what we're dealing with. We have to figure out. And so I'm looking at the possibility of a public safety and service ad hoc committee that would come back with those recommendations to council for us to take action on. It would involve the jail. It would involve other critical needs related to public safety and service and that concludes my report. All right, we've got any administrator's briefing? Mr. Templer? Just real brief.
» I know we have some executive session stuff, but obviously the boat landing is well underway. We look at that, hopefully, to be completed by May. Build in some weather delays and things like that. So what we're park construction has been done. We have a December 2025 completion date there, expected. We will open bids this Thursday, February 13th, for Copeland Park and Boyd Young Park bid for the renovations up there. And we have the Mount Pisgah playground equipment that is still scheduled to be here early to mid-March. That's gonna be a great addition up there. So bid announcements for the Casey West parking and driveway connection to Whitehead Road that is desperately needed. It is on the streets, if you will, and we intend to open those bids Thursday, March 6th.
» So we've got a little bit of time left on that one, but projects are rolling along. We're very busy. There's a lot going on in Kershaw County. Mr. Jones and I were speaking about this today that I can't remember a time in Kershaw County that we had this much going on, either through policy revamp, amenity improvements, or just general pains and pinches going on, as you spoke about the jail. So a lot going on, but we'll see better days. So that's my report. Thank you, Mr. Templer. Mr. DeBose, anything before executive session? No. All right, gentlemen, that takes us to items 15A through C. I'll take them as a joint motion.
» We've got two items under SC Code 3470A2 related to legal advice regarding pending threatened or potential legal claims and other matters related to the attorney-client privilege, and then item C, receipt of legal advice for a matter covered by the attorney-client privilege pursuant to the same code section. Do I have a motion to enter executive session? So moved. All right, we've got Mr. Tomlinson and Mr. Cato. Any other discussion? All those in favor of entering executive session on the stated items? All right, we're moving into executive session. Mr. Tucker, I forgot to get you to vote again. How do you vote, Mr. Tucker? I vote yes. Okay, Mr. Brazel stepped out. I'm not sure if he had to leave the meeting. It's a yes, Ms. Hanna, from Mr. Tucker. We're in executive session.
» Unfortunately, Mr. Brazel said he'd be with us in executive session. Okay, all right, Mr. Brazel's still here not voting. For the public's benefit, no vote is anticipated after executive session. I need one more. Just need one more. Sammy, you on the phone? All right, we've got four. I seek a motion to exit executive session. Motion granted. Mr. Tomlinson, is there a second? Is there a second? Second. All right, we've got a second from Mr. Cato. Seeing no discussion. Vote to exit executive session. All in favor, raise your hand. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote? Yes. That's a yes, Ms. Hanna. It's unanimous. We're out of executive session. No discussion. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn from Mr. Tucker. Second. We've got a second from Mr. Cato. Seeing no discussion.
» All in favor, raise your hand. Mr. Tucker, is it a yes? Yes. Ms. Hanna, for the record. Thank you so much. We are adjourned. Be safe at the mine, Sammy. Good night, fellas. Thank you.
KERSHAW COUNTY COUNCIL RECAP
Kershaw County, South Carolina
Latest issue
Archive
Projects
Council
About