Full meeting transcript - June 17, 2025

» I'd like to welcome everyone out tonight to this Kershaw County Council meeting, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. We've been called to order. Appreciate everyone being here. Thank you so much for EMS, law enforcement, and other county staff and servants who are present. Let's go ahead and have the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance. I'll be led by Councilman Brandt, Tomlinson, District 5. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege to serve the community and the people of Kershaw County. May we do you with wisdom, integrity, and compassion. May our decisions be guided by a deep sense of justice, fairness, and responsibility to all those who call this county home.

» Grant us clarity to see what is right, the courage to do what is needed, and the humility to listen to open minds and respectful hearts. May this council work together with unity of purpose, placing the good of our community above personal interest, striving to always for the betterment of the county and our population let us do the lord's work here in kershaw county in jesus name we pray amen amen amen 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 okay any of you guys screens working? No. No. We got some TI moments. While staff's working on some technical issues, we'll keep working through the agenda unless we need to stop for presentation or seeing something on the screen.

» Thank you, Councilman Tomlinson. All right, next up on the agenda is adoption of the agenda. Do we have any motions? I would make a motion we adopt the agenda, Mr. Chairman. Okay, is there a second? Second. We've got a second. Mr. Shoemaker's on the floor. Yeah, I have a motion. Can I make that now, or should I wait? You may have an amendment. Amendment, yes. You can. So I would make a motion to amend the agenda for exigent circumstances to add the public hearing for the budget and millage setting ordinance for fiscal year 25-26, which was advertised for public hearing on June 17, 2025, at 6 p.m. by a publication in the Chronicle Independent newspaper on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. Okay, that's the motion.

» Is there a second? second you got a second you have performance as you make yeah uh mr chair basically it's just a scrivener's error on the agenda um we need to have third reading of the budget tonight we're passing the budget it was noticed in the chronicle independent and i would argue that it's exigent because we have third reading tonight and we need to do it on third reading but it was just inadvertently left off the agenda but was uh published for notice uh in the paper back on june 17th okay thank you any other comments or questions seeing none i do find that it's exigent under the circumstances and as to the first amendment we'll go ahead and move it to a vote all in favor raise your hand miss hannah it's unanimous by those uh voting in present where's that going to be placed uh und

» er our order of business it'll go after item number five after item number five for public hearing on third reading the budget and setting millage um all right so we have one amendment that's been passed any other amendments yes sir mr chair if i may i like to make an amendment to defer on the 521 property due to we do not have the purchase and sales agreements between the two parties and so therefore we need to make sure that we have all this intact for the exhibit items and would ask that we defer this item at this time okay that is number 8d i know they're working on the contract that's the motion is there a second second you've We've got a second. Mr. Tucker, any further? No, it's not ready, so it's no need to sit here and try to go through something that's not prepared. All right.

» Thank you. Any other comments or discussion? Seeing none, we'll move deferral of 8D to a vote. All in favor, raise your hand. This hand is unanimous. All right. That's two amendments. Are there any other amendments to the agenda? Mr. Chair, I have one more amendment. Mr. Shoemake, you've got a motion. I would make a motion that we remove 9B from the agenda and defer that to a subsequent meeting when the administrator is ready. And I can explain after a second. All right, that was 9B. Is there a second? Second. Got a second from Mr. Tucker. Mr. Shoemake. Yes, Mr. Chair, this is a governmental agreement that was adopted by the city. I had a chance to have a good conversation today with our magistrate judges over at the county, and they just had some questions, fair questions.

» They're not opposed to it by any stretch, but they just had some questions, And after talking with the administrator, he thought it would make more sense for him to sit down with our magistrate judges just to walk them through everything. And so this motion would just give him time to do that. And then when he feels comfortable bringing it back on the agenda after he's talked to those judges, he can put it back and we can have that discussion. Okay, thank you, Mr. Tucker. You had the second? I had the second, yes, sir. I just agree. City just read it last night, and we just need more time so the administration and our judges can get together, especially our chief magistrate. Okay. he's actually implicated in it, so.

» - Okay, any other comments or questions, any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move it to a vote. All in favor, raise your hand. Ms. Hanna, for the record, it's unanimous. And are there any other amendments for the agenda? - I think that's enough for tonight. - Seeing none, yeah, seeing none, and if there's no other discussion, we'll vote on the agenda as amended. All in favor, raise your hand. Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous for the record, and I would just please remind staff that for the deferrals, let's make sure they naturally end up on the next agenda. All right, so the agenda's approved. - That moves us to public comments. Mr. DuBose, good to have you back. I hope you had a good vacation with family. - I did. - Wonderful.

» Who do we have for public comments tonight? - First speaker is Lynn Conto, impact fees. - Ms. Conto, please. - How many we have, Ms. DuBose? - We have four speakers, so they all have the max time. - Thank you. - And I'll just note, we still can't see our screens for whatever reason, so if you can keep the time, I would typically monitor that and try to remind folks. - Oh, no, that's-- - No, no, that's not her yet.

» yeah i was confused i don't have it i don't have one this time um first of all i wanted to thank everybody for considering impact fees for kershaw county especially for municipal services we have community members that depend on fire ems and other programs in kershaw county that are really going to need those fees to support it with the number of homes increased in kershaw county we also need to work very closely with the school board this is an ideal purpose because they're going to need your help they're in the business of educating students not in the business of building schools and they don't have the funding or resources for this so working with the school board to come up with fees for schools would be very helpful i know you're not able to do that this time until they present you wi

» th that information but as soon as they do i would work diligently to complete that process a moratorium will allow the county to address the needs and complete the capital improvement plan and the kershaw county comprehensive plan i know you're not speaking about that this evening but i really appreciate you taking the time looking at that unchecked growth is not acceptable charlotte has exceeded their water source because they had unchecked growth it is not what should happen in kershaw county for our future smart growth and responsible growth is needed and necessary finally i'd like to request a little more clarity on the ordinance for rural events venues this is a very broad term how will it impact for instance horse shows and other horse events that are mobile throughout kershaw county

» and move to different locations if you can just explain that for the public a little more we would appreciate it thank you for your time thank you miss conto thank you mr debose i didn't hear you initially how many speakers do we have four speakers okay uh who's number two number two is george pullen zone uh zoning changes point of order mr chair yes sir mr tucker i think they're having problems with their mic no my monitor oh yeah yeah all the monitors aren't working right now but you can interrupt george anytime you want mr george please he's too big good evening good evening i don't speak very eloquently sometimes and i don't have anything printed out for you i think a lot of the uh from what the first speaker hinting to is the ordinance so the changes in the ordinance it's not very clea

» r like she said it's very broad and a lot of i was able to contact a few other citizens in the area and let them know about this it was very short notice i think i got notified friday that this was going to be on the agenda for tonight and um the people who in kershaw that live in rural areas don't want the somebody be able to pop up event venues next next door next door to their house if it's going to if you're going to have event venues it should remain in commercial areas or commercially zoned areas no rezoning of of For instance, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, in the area over off of Cherokee Boulevard area in Kershaw, in the Elgin area, a parcel of land was sold, and an individual bought it, clear-cut the property, put it in, and I consider it an event area where t

» hey have soccer games, they sell food or have food that's served there, they have a bar, they built buildings. and when planning was approached they had no idea that this was done they never got approval for any of this and it's just it's going unchecked it was supposed to be for agricultural purposes only and at this point here if items like this keep going unchecked they're going to be popping up everywhere so I think there needs to be more clarity and what you want to change and when it comes in reference to these ornaments that's all I have right now thank you george thank you thanks for coming out tonight next speaker is melody harden pecan orchard miss harden please bring it down for the short ones okay um good evening my name is melody harden and i live in the pecan orchard as all of

» you are aware our neighborhood has had storm water issues for years i understand we did not get approved for the grant but something still needs to be done to address the stormwater issues at the meeting in August of oh four I asked several questions to the council most of them were why haven't the ditches been maintained why hasn't our roads been maintained why haven't trim spin trees been trimmed and cleaned up to help from our ditches getting clogged from the debris and what's going to be done for the fact that there's sewage issue when we have a lot of rain and why has it the county come up with a way to fix it after that meeting Jimmy Jones and Russell were nice enough to hold a meeting in our neighborhood after the meeting and after speaking and it being on the news a lot of promises

» were made we were told we would be helped and the county would come up with a plan it has been 10 months since those questions were asked and it seems the county has taken a stance of waiting we have waited on the survey waited on the engineering report waiting on the report to be completed before any work can be done then we waited for the grant the grant was not approved and now we're continuing to wait on the next engineering firm as of today the roads still haven't been maintained they have been scraped a few times but all that does is create piles of dirt and rock that keep the water in the road and create a speed bump at the end of the driveways nothing has been done to help with the storm water ditches have not been cleaned out no one has taken the sewage that sits in our yards and d

» itches seriously we have been promised updates that has not happened most of the neighbors have no idea what is happening we do not know what the survey said what the engineering report said and what work could be done to help with the storm water and what neighbors it will help i would like everyone on the council to think about how they would feel if this happened in your neighborhood how would you feel if when it rained your children or grandchildren couldn't play in puddles or play in the rain or play in part of their own front yard because of sewage yes the water has been tested and we were told there was no sewage in the water but in the same breath we were told but don't let anyone in that water so what does that tell you there is so much work that can be done to help with the stormw

» ater issue maintaining the ditches replacing pipes that are too small properly maintaining roads adding to ditches or adding ditches to all of the roads in the pecan orchard as some do not have a ditch at all the county has put a ton of effort into doing projects that some consider are great for our County the veteran Park the fishing ramp baseball fields the county can put money towards so many things but can't find a way to fix our neighborhood I would think I would like the county to put forth the same effort towards this issue as it does affects their tech affect their taxpayers what happened to the promises that were made last year to do the work that needs to be done to help this from stormwater we were told before the grant was known about that there was money that could be used for

» emergencies and several on county council agreed that this issue should be considered an emergency the finance committee was aware the grant may not be approved but didn't bother to budget to fix our storm water issue the pecan orchard would like answers as to why nothing is being done thank you thank you ms harden for coming out tonight mr dubose final speaker is david dabney on moratorium mr dabney yes sir well thank you guys for allowing me to come up here and speak with you again again i don't have anything prepared i'm right down the road and talk to myself for the past two hours trying to figure out exactly what i want to say nothing comes out right nothing's under five minutes so i'm wasting time now actually saying this but um i just wanted to stand up here and i actually wanted to

» thank you and it's not a political movement i just want to thank y'all uh every time i come to a council meeting there's always people that come up and tell you the best way to do it and a better way to do it the cheaper way to do it and the way they would do it and the way you should do it and i think all you guys have the best interest in mind you live here within our county you have family here and i think what you're trying to do is is the is the right thing and i think you're trying to do the right thing for our county and um so with that being said i i i did talk to a couple councilmen this this week and um got some good information from them and i appreciate that conversation from them uh one was uh it was a little bit i wouldn't say disappointing but it was a little bit less than wh

» at i thought i would get out of it um the information was just based upon what people say rather than actually what's going on um and then another councilman actually gave me some information that i could kind of hang my hat on a little bit um and i i believe it has to deal with tax revenue and things like that he mentioned that a person living in kershaw county and working in kershaw county the county sees about 12 cent on the dollar from that in the good and somebody working in kershaw county and working or living in kershaw county but working out it's a negative impact of about seven cents on the dollar so there's 19 20 percent difference there as far as what people do and which leads me to my point um again i'm a small local builder and um we do do some small subdivisions and uh subdivi

» sions that are usually um you know large lot size subdivisions and things like that but um i subcontract out everything that i do within my company and all the subcontractors that work for me i kind of sat down and figured it up that about 95 of them work and live in kershaw county um relative to the larger home builders and i've got a little bit of experience with this because i worked with essex mungo and syntax homes for a period of about 10 years went directly out of school and the subcontractors that are working for them not necessarily them so to speak but the larger builders that are coming in town now about 95 of them have contractors coming from other parts of the state um with the exception of maybe some concrete guys or something like that kershaw county seems to have more concre

» te finishers than any other county in south carolina that i've come across um got some good ones though but um so with that being said um i kind of figured out there was about 75 to 80 people that usually show up on one of my job sites from start to finish that would constitute about 65 to 70 people that i know are living and working in kershaw county and by directly affecting us as far as the small builders and stuff like that you're also affecting that many people and that many people who live and work in kershaw county so i would just ask you to take that in consideration when you when you think about this and i was also in camden builders this afternoon and our local lumber yard and i asked them i said uh how much money does these large builders i said you know how often do they come in

» here and buy things and there was two people sitting there one of them said absolutely nothing another one say i set a bolt maybe every now and then so i buy probably 75 of all the material that i use um locally there's some things that we can't buy here locally they'll sell it but again local businesses such as that carpet galleries and luke off and things like that and i understand there's different things that we're looking at but 2006 and 2007 and 8 building pretty much stopped which created a deficit in home homes for people and right now there's still a national deficit and that created a backlog and the thing that didn't stop was population growth people are still needing a residence whether it be apartment or house or what have you and uh as much as we don't want to see the large-sc

» ale growth and things like that we're we're forced with growth with the the economy and what's coming in around us so uh that's all i just ask take that into consideration as you deliberate on this i know it's not a topic tonight but it's it's ongoing topic for the next next month or so i think until july until the third and final reading so i just kind of wanted to stand up and give that little bit of information put my input in and i'm gonna go sit back and listen to whatever else is happening tonight so thank you mr dabney thanks for coming out tonight well said next up on the agenda we've got public presentations it'd be the art center of kershaw county before we get there i just wanted to ask the council if there's any interest in moving item 9a under the chair's prerogative so we can

» let the yes ems folks get back to their jobs um so i'm going to move 9a to right after the 6a public presentation so we can let ems get back chairman connell we have the matter of the public hearing after public yes let me let me go ahead and do that first all right so public hearing doesn't require a vote we're going to go ahead and open up the public hearing this is for related to the third reading of the budget for setting the millage and budget for kershaw county from july 1 2025 to june 30 2026.

» you have anybody signed up no one signed up on the sign-in sheet mr chair anyone public wish to come up and speak on the budget or setting the millage tonight seeing none the public hearing is closed thank you mr chair thank you all right and so um as we're just discussing under uh 6a right after that i'm going to move 9a regarding the ems resolution right after 6a so we can let ems get back to their jobs is there a motion on the public presentation for 6a yes defer i make a motion that we have a presentation from our executive director miss dolly parton from the arts is there a second mr cato has a second thank you miss partner yes ma'am come on up miss pat we don't have the slides so you're just going to have to be very visual and describe i'm so sorry because i had a special picture just

» for thanks dolly and mr chairman it was a set of stairs we need to fix that problem thank you so much for having me on behalf of the board of directors and our staff and our volunteers I am so pleased to be here have some information to share that I think you're gonna enjoy and again I'm sorry you're not gonna be able to see photographs um so on behalf of the art center welcome to the art center where we we get creative where arts the arts happen um so i want to uh start by telling you uh that the art center this is the the new way i've been describing the art center this year the art center has really three business units there are three areas that we focus on we are presenting performance venue visual art gallery we are an educational institution and we're a nonprofit where we invite peop

» le to come in and participate and what makes us really special and we are the only organization in the state that does this is we we are an umbrella that provides programming and events and classes in all four mediums of art every other town that you go to every other community it's all separate there's a an art gallery there's a theater group but we put everything together in one place which makes us special and a lot of work but we have a good time so this year has been super special for the Arts Center I know y'all heard it you've seen it I hope you have it's been the 50th anniversary so back in 1974 some very wonderful visionary people got together and created the Fine Arts Center which is now called the Arts Center of Kershaw County so I want you to think about what you were doing in 1

» 974 some of you might not have been born maybe yeah some of us weren't so in there we did some really cool things this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary and we started with an encore performance people who have been on our stage for the past 50 years came back and performed we did an exhibition in our gallery where we papered a whole wall with all the posters from the last 50 years and we pulled out programs and photographs and it was a wonderful joyous way for people to celebrate and they came from all over even out of state to reminisce about the art center and during the year we also had numerous theatrical events musical concerts visual art gallery shows and we brought back because education so important to us the York Street players which is a youth theater club that started back

» this year and you're going to hear more about that as time goes on but our most significant project for this year and the previous year was the work that we did to our facilities and that is thanks to the wonderful support that you gave us. So in my next slide here that you can't see, there are pictures of what our bathrooms and our Basset building looked like. They were a lovely red shade with a very aromatic drain in the floor that we were really tired of smelling down the hallway.

» And when you look at these photographs, you would see that the wheelchair can't make it in the accessible stall, and the person in the wheelchair couldn't reach the knobs on the sink, and not only that, were knobs they could if you had a hand issue you couldn't turn them so thanks to your support you know that building was built in 1983 there were no ada rules back then we were able to renovate our bathrooms and this slide shows you one of the demo i mean they five months concrete flying everywhere god bless the staff they put up with it and then we got these beautiful new bathrooms where everything is ada compliant and we even have the automatic door openers on every one of the restrooms the men's the women's and the family so we're super excited about that now we also we received that gra

» nt from the arts commission and you generously matched it and and did more to get those bathrooms done we were very blessed that our legislative delegation and our chairman helped us secure 500 000 from the state that also worked on our ada projects which helped get that family restroom but also some repairs and upgrades to our parking lot and our building so this slide shows you a window because we had to replace 44 windows on our education building they were leaking i believe when y'all came to tour a clay student came running out and said please fix the windows the water comes in we also striped and sealed the parking lot because the ada spaces were not the correct size and our signage was all wrong and we refinished our dance floor it hasn't been refinished in 30 years and there was tap

» e all over it the last two photographs are the ones i'm sorry you can't see the first one is the ramp that would go up to the daniels education building and it was so rotted that the um construction company kirk construction actually put caution tape and wouldn't let you walk on it they really thought someone was going to get hurt and then there are the stairs and uh when y'all came to visit the stairs were in bad shape uh it was a little scary so the stairs are steps are all fixed the decking is all fixed and it looks fantastic we'll come stress test it for you we're also you got to step on it at the same time that's what you do we're also much heavier than we need to be yeah two biggest guys on the worst stair yep on the worst one so as we have been very frugal with those donations and th

» at funding we have a few more projects that we're finishing up in the first part of july and the first photograph over to the side shows a photo of our practice room and our music studio we will now our we've had two practice rooms now we have three and they're sound proof so we can offer more classes at the same time we also did a renovation in the main area of the music studio with new carpet and painted it and we're getting um a smart tv so that the teachers can use that to help teach the groups of students that come in and then we're super excited about that and then all on that decking at the daniels building where the doors are there's eight doors and they are sorely out of date and not working well and you can't get replacement parts so we are getting new ada compliant doors there th

» ere's a photograph of the floor in the clay studio and the clay in 2d studio is cracked and broken so when we mop the water gets up under it's not a good thing so we're getting new floors and then the last photograph is of the front of the basset building and everyone recognizes the red doors but the red doors are not ada compliant and they are extremely heavy so we will be getting new doors on the front of the basset building and they will have the automatic door opener so another little improvement there so all that said again thank you we've had a great year we've had wonderful programming this slide shows you some photos of things we had this year jazz music in the black box south carolina ballet's nutcracker we had two local artists keith tolan and rogers boykin in our gallery and then

» we closed our season with a big production sold out production all shows except one of hairspray the musical so everything it's been it's been a long four years of getting our feet back under us and getting things to have that excitement and going well but we're we feel like we're there and now we're ready for next year so we've been busy planning the new year and we will start with a party at the pavilion in september a band on the pavilion we've got jazz and broadway planned for our black box we're going to do a historical presentation with trey dunaway and we'll do a theatrical performance in that black box theater and if you have not visited the black box theater it's the coolest space in the county i think we also are going to have some gallery shows local artists there and then the ho

» liday market and the spring market will return and a big part of what we do and you would see that in this slide there's a a group of about 60 kids on the stage because education for children and adults is important to us we have a great partnership with the kershaw county school district arts are rising i know some of you are familiar with it maybe somebody was in it uh and we have it going on right now but we are kicking off the season next year in september with a children's production of wizard of oz so mark your calendar and we will do the black history month heritage tea program we'll have the high school poetry contest and we're just really excited about those opportunities to partner with the school district I do want to thank the school district and the Kershaw Health Service Distr

» ict and the Arts Commission Duke Energy and the city of Camden and Kershaw County for supporting arts arising this program is an almost a $90,000 program because we don't charge the children and the families very much at all it's funded through the school district and grants that we write so super important that we you know give a pat on the back to those organizations that are helping us some other highlights and this is the slide i really wish you could see um we're bringing the south carolina ballet with midsummer night's dream in january and we will have gospel fest and the duke pitchforks but one of our biggest events will be in february to kick off Irish Fest, and it will be the Red Hot Chili Pipers. Yes, they are Scottish musicians in kilts with bagpipes that play rock music.

» So you got to come to that. And then we will also have our theatrical production on the main stage will be the Music Band. And as always, our Starry Night Gala, which has sold out for two years in a row, will be out back. So mark your calendars for those fun things as well. I know that's a lot. So we have a lot going on, but I want to say wow. And again, thank you because the inspiration for people and the opportunity to transform lives happens through the arts. And so we invite you and everyone here and everyone watching on YouTube to come and see us, attend an event, volunteer. We'd love to have volunteers provide some feedback. Tell us what you want to say.

» What do you like that we're doing? What do you want to see that's new take a class and rent our venues we have lots of parties people graduation parties birthday parties wedding receptions and as always my favorite part consider making a donation the Arts Center is a non-profit and we survive on donations from individuals and businesses and organizations that help us keep the lights on and keep the programming coming so thank you again for that and in closing i want to say everything that you have heard and may be seeing today from the facility improvements to the programs to all the exciting things we have planned for the new year is possible because of your support and and the way you have helped us spread the arts and make the arts accessible to everyone in our county and on behalf of th

» e board and and myself i want to thank you for that and i also want to thank you personally i've been at the art center for four years and as some of you may have heard my time here is short i am retiring from the art center at the end of this month so i wanted to um personally thank you for how welcoming you have been and how you've made this so such a warm community and made it so easy for me to talk to you and share and get your thoughts on what we do and i just can't thank you enough for supporting the art center but also personally supporting me and i i really appreciate it so thank you for your time and uh happy to answer any questions thank you miss patton let's see if there's any questions or comments mr chair mr shoemaker go ahead uh well first off miss patton congratulations altho

» ugh it's a bittersweet congratulations because i hate that we're losing you i've thoroughly enjoyed obviously i've only been on council a little over two years so the entire time i've been up here you've been in that job both my children did arts arising i did some stuff way way way a long time ago and i think that two things that are so important about what you guys do one is adding this you know arts reach to the school district is critical having seen my own children go through it bluntly i had to drag my son into it um he never really took to it but i can still see the lessons that he learned from it even though it's not something he sort of thought he wanted to do i can still see the lessons he learned from my daughter was the opposite took to it like a duck in water did some cooking c

» lasses there later but i have yet to see a kid that goes into the arts center in one of those programs that doesn't come out better for it and the better our kids are the better jobs they can get down the road and also when we're looking at businesses particularly large businesses and trying to recruit them into our area you know they want to know what they can do for recreation what their kids can do so having things like you know recreation and a good arts center are critical to our economic well-being so you know it's not just a nice thing to have i think it's a thing that's critical for ensuring that our young people are equipped and also ensuring we can get businesses here so i thank you for all your work and really really sad to see you go can't wait to meet your replacement i'm sure

» that they will have enormous shoes to fill so thank you for all you've done thank you - Thank you, Mr. Shoemake. Any other comments? - Mr. Chair? - Yes, sir, go ahead. - Ms. Dolley, I can't say thank you enough. When Mama Jones spoke of who they had hired, I had no clue who she was talking about. And that's not part of our duties anyway as an elected official. But she made sure that I got down there to meet you and you filled me up with more information than I could drink at the time. And I appreciate that because there was a lot of things, Even being a resident from here all my life, I just didn't know. And the improvements that really needed to be done to the center. And you took that on, head on. And you ran with it and you made things happen.

» You made the meetings where people invited you to the table to speak for this county and this community. And look at all the fruits from your labor that you have produced. I will be definitely missing you when your day comes. but I do wish you nothing but the best moving forward. And one thing I can say about you is that you know when you have gone where you needed to take us and what is best for your next movement in your future. And when you're able to recognize that, that's a special talent and gift as well. And so as much as we're gonna be missing you, I'm gonna be saying many prayers for you to just continue to have God's speed and success. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And Mama Jones and I have already had a conversation about you, and we will have many more to come.

» Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Chair. Go ahead, Ms. Cato. I just want to thank you for everything that you've done for this county. You have moved everything in all four corners of this county. So I thank you for what you've done. And I'm extremely disappointed that you're going to be leaving us. I was shocked. That's the first I'd heard. Sorry. But I do wish you the best. Wherever you go, you will do great. And I just thank you for what you've done. Thank you. - Thank you, Mr. Cato. - Mr. Thomas. - Mr. Chairman, Ms. Batten, I want to say thank you as well. You have been a bright star, bright shining star here in Kershaw County ever since you came here in 2021.

» You know, you took an organization that has been a staple of this county for a long time that had a lot of work to do, and you spent the time and hours and have met with the community and really built back something that is wonderful for every single person here in Kershaw County. It gives an opportunity for not only our children, but our adults, families to be able to go to and experience different things that they would never have the opportunity to. And that's because of you. I wanna give you a round of applause. I wish we could do something to keep you a little bit longer, but congratulations on your retirement.

» You will be missed and we hope you best, best in future endeavors well i do want to add that i did not do all this by myself we have a great team a great board and i would be remiss if i didn't take a moment to thank your staff danny and lauren and tyler i've kind of gotten to know a little more than others and they are just super supportive and easy to reach out to and get in touch with so please give them a pat on the back too thank you mr tomlinson mr jones dolly i was caught off guard when you said you're not gonna be here anymore i i really hated to hear that i wanted to just share a personal experience um when my son came home from cardigan mellon for a break you want to do a trombone performance you worked with him we had a great crowd that came out i mean top notch your staff yourse

» lf the way you made him feel welcomed and uh i just want to thank you for that and the final center means a lot to a a lot of us in this room and if you decide to go somewhere else come back here thank you thank you mr jones mr brazel miss dolly you saw how they skipped me they just skipped right over me that's why i kept mumbling right around you you and i met um i can remember when you when you started i had not been here long and um i was also starting a business downtown and we saw one another a lot at the coffee shop and you have always just been so kind and genuine and I appreciate that in a human is someone who's genuine and as far as the fine arts center goes you have done a tremendous job. It's not a venue that I met much but I certainly appreciate the arts.

» My oldest son was was in plays and that sort of thing at his school when he was in high school and I really enjoyed seeing that so I know there's so many people in Kershaw County that have enjoyed seeing their kids and their family members perform and sing and act at the art center here in Kershaw County so thank you thank you for being who you are and thank you for being so genuine thank you mr.

» Brazel miss Dolly I'll just wrap up it's been great working with you particularly working in developing one of the nicest bathrooms and any fine arts center in the entire state that's ada compliant that really was a great project and while i'm very sad to see you go just be grateful um that you came on after i embarrassed myself doing the worm at your center trying to dance and uh that that you're leaving i guess before i disgrace my family name by trying to dance over there again we really will miss you uh you've been a fireball to work with over the last number of years at the uh the county and the state level and so we wish you all the best thank you thank you any further discussion or comments thank you so much thank you i appreciate it thank you ms dolly grab your phone thank you gentl

» emen that takes us to item number nine a we're going to move that up as discussed this is a resolution of the kershaw county council commemorating 10 years of service of the kershaw county emergency medical service placed on the agenda by uh deputy administrator blanchard is there a motion yes sir if you don't mind mr chairman i would like to make a motion that we approve the resolution for kershaw county uh council commemorating 10 years of service to the kershaw county ems medical service that is my motion is there a second second mr cato mr shoemake has a second yes sir mr tucker if i can can i recognize mr gerald blanchard at this time to come up give us a little bit of history lesson here and um accomplishments and then we'll move from there please mr blanchard councilman thank you i'm

» not going to spend a a whole lot of time up here because I do want to give the current director the opportunity to speak a little bit about EMS I just want to tell you how blessed and appreciative I am to council previous councils and the staff that I have behind me the staff that's behind me for the ten years of exceptional work that the CMS service has done I had the opportunity to work to be the director and work with these folks during the transition from Kershaw Health back in 2015. And the hospital did a lot of good things with EMS over the years that we were there. Me personally, I was at the hospital for 26 years. I started as a driver and was able to continuously work my way up.

» but the team that we have and the opportunities that the council has given us over these past 10 years, we have found a home and we appreciate that. Since only two of you were here, if I remember correctly. That is correct. Yeah, since only two of you were here, Councilman Jones and and councilman tucker i would like councilman tucker to to read the actual resolution and then give jim the opportunity to step up and speak a little further so again thank you for the opportunity thank you uh for uh believing in in us and um 10 years ago we made the promise that we wouldn't let we wouldn't let the county down and we won't do that now so thank you thank Thank you, Gerald. If you mind, Mr. Chairman? Go for it. All right.

» Resolution number 006.2025, resolution of the Kershaw County Council commemorating 10 years of service of the Kershaw County EMS Medical Service. Whereas emergency medical service in Kershaw County had been provided by Kershaw Health Hospitals since its inception in 1970s, and whereas the Kershaw County Health Hospital, while transitioning from a not-for-profit to for-a-profit hospital, could no longer fund the operations of EMS for Kershaw County. And whereas on June 20, 2015, Kershaw County officially took possession and control of emergency medical services in Kershaw County from Kershaw Health Hospital, operations said service as Kershaw County EMS.

» Whereas Kershaw County EMS is the sole proprietor of emergency ambulance service in Kershaw County, Whereas Kershaw County EMS has continuously grown since 2015 from a three 24-hour service ambulance and 24 full-time members to today's five 24-hour ambulance and 52 full-time team members. And whereas Kershaw County EMS responds to approximately 8,000 calls in 2015, yeah, 8,000 calls in 2015 and will respond to approximately 12,000 calls in 2025. Whereas, Kershaw County EMS has demonstrated unwavering commitment to the health and safety of the community through rapid response, professional medical treatment, and compassionate care. And whereas, Kershaw County EMS has played a vital role in fostering public health awareness, education contributing to safer communities.

» And whereas, Kershaw County, I'm sorry, whereas the dedicated paramedics, EMS, and support staff of Kershaw County EMS have consistently exhibit excellence in their duties and under challenged and high pressured circumstances. And whereas Kershaw County EMS has continuously sought to improve its services through advanced training, acquisitions of state-of-the-art equipment, implementation of best practice in emergency medical care. Now therefore, let it be resolved. On this 17th day of June 2025, the Kershaw County Council do hereby commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Kershaw County EMS Medical Service and its members for providing emergency medical service for the citizens of Kershaw County and those who passed through it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Appreciate that.

» Come on up, sir. Thank you very much, council. It's an honor and a privilege to stand here before you. Whereas this this 10-year anniversary has very little to do with me but a whole lot to do with about 10 people behind me those of you that have been here the whole time if you would stand up please come on don you're not that old please dr robinson on the wall here you've got several of our newcomers who are part of a core of wonderful people that are going to continue to serve this county who to thunk it 10 years ago um and i'm just going to tell you gerald and i carry the rest we've put a a lot into this but there were some visionaries at the beginning i hope all of you had the opportunity to know gene falconberry he was a great leader and he did a wonderful job he and judge trapped of c

» oordinating the transition of ems over to the county seamless and more importantly setting the standard very high we have people come from all over the state that want to work for us and i can look them square in the eye and say you might have had it as good as us you never had it any better we've got the best physical support from this council from previous councils we've got the best administrative support gerald mr templar lauren we've got we've got the greatest people and they above all want to serve the people of this county and the people that drive through this county every day um also well another one of the king visionaries was chairman burns at the time guys without mr burns mr trapp and mr falconberry i don't believe we could have put it together as cleanly as we did and built wh

» at we built for this county we continue on a slow steady upward vector we'll never get to the peak because we'll keep raising the bar but we'll never stop trying thanks to you and um and all the people i've mentioned thank you so much you're welcome thank you councilman tucker thank you um i'm not ashamed to say but um it just it kind of marks me in time um yes i was one of the original ones here but i want to say to those 10 people i think it's 10 total right that was the original okay um thank you because you really didn't know what you were about to embark upon and you went with your leadership which went off the word of the council that was sitting that we were going to do right by you by the administrator what was sitting by excuse me by um what we told you that can happen and will hap

» pen and you believed in us it could have been easy to go north to lancaster go east to florence and if you're crazy enough you can go west to columbia i don't think you're that crazy but you could have. With that being said, it was a commitment and a dedication and I want to say personally for myself and this council, thank you for sticking it out because we do have the best EMS service care here in the state of South Carolina in all 46 counties and I'll put that up with every little bit of pennies I have. So thank you for your hard work and your commitment. Thank you very much Mr. Tucker. Mr. Brazel? You're not going to skip it this time? I'm not I can't reinforce that any better than what Mr. Tucker just said.

» I will say, during that transition period, I knew absolutely nothing about county council or county government. But I do know this. I do know that that was a difficult time for a lot of people. It was a transition period. My older brother, Jody Brazel, was the chairman of the hospital board during that time.

» probably nobody knows that up here because i've never brought it up and i can remember our offices were side by side and i can remember walking in his office and i said what are you doing that has nothing to do with wood products and he was diligently he was diligently working on county hospital issues and um i don't know the details i know the outcome was change but but there were people supporting you that you may have met you may not have met in the end result is is ten years later here we are with a fantastic group before us that knows exactly what they're doing and you know I never get any complaints on our EMS and I think that in itself is a huge accolade we hear about a lot of things we don't just come up here and talk because we hadn't received maybe 10 or 15 phone calls prior to a

» meeting. We hear about the problems in the community, and I have never heard of an issue with our EMS. So that speaks volumes to me, and I just want to thank you for your service to our community and our county. Thank you, Mr. Brownsville. Mr. Cato? So I want to go back to something Mr. Blanchard said when he started out as a driver at the hospital. Tonight is about the 10-year anniversary of the EMS, but it goes back before that, And I see a lot of faces that was there before that that helped develop this to get us to where we're at today. You know, way back when there were rescue squads around this county and a lot of you probably worked on those. I was fortunate enough to work on the one in Bethune and had a lot of leadership, Mr.

» King and Larry Davis, Charles McCoy, Kershaw Graham, I could go on and on, Mount Pisgah and all the ones that I was familiar with. see a lady here that was with me ems on one of my darkest days of my life and i'll never forget seeing her standing there that day um y'all are a special group you mean a lot to me i appreciate everything you have ever done and you will continue to do for this county for the victims of this county even through the sheriff's office there's several of you that's been on some pretty bad calls that i've been on and you're just absolute professionals all the way around and i thank you for that and i i thank each and every one of you that stuck it out and it's got this program here where it's at the last 10 years and and i know that it's going to just continue to get

» better so thank you all for your service to this county and and beyond because sometimes we don't just do work in this county sometimes we have to back other people up too so thank you for what you do to the citizens of this state thank you thank you very much she may yeah just obviously what everybody else said i think one of the things that you know the sole provider of emergency medical services county-wide i mean that means that you know people are looking at you guys for answers that maybe you don't have sometimes right some complicated medical issue you show up on and you guys have to do your best but you have this immediate position of authority you're with people who may be having their last breaths and you're the last face they see the last comfort they get and more importantly the

» re are people that are alive today walking this county because you guys chose to put on the uniform you're wearing so again as councilman kato and everyone else said on behalf of every person in this county thank you all thanks so much mr shoemake council members any other mr thomas yeah mr chairman um i'm i'm going to be short i think everybody here has kind of hit the high points but i really appreciate all that y'all do um you know a 50 growth rate and call volume over a 10-year period and each one of you have stepped up to that challenge and made sure that every resident in kershaw county who needed ambulance service ems has been taken care of and i too like mr brazel said i've never received a call about anything negative for ems here and that's a statement to how hard your work your d

» iligence and your willingness to serve this county so thank each one of you appreciate all you do thank you very much mr jones absolutely um you know we talked about we haven't received any calls i have but they were all positive i've had people call and actually brag on this department and you know the older i get tomorrow i appreciate you guys yeah i hear that a lot and you know i had made a statement years ago uh when we were in the negotiations mr blanchard and i i made this statement that i did not want the ms unless you were coming with it and you did and of course chief edge you know the torch has just been passed and uh you you folks all of you i appreciate but the 10 of you that came over and took a chance with us and believed in us thank you thank you very much you mean a lot to a

» ll of us uh and each and every one of you i know it's a hard job i don't know how you do it i don't think i could do it i was in law enforcement all my life ran to jail but to go out and do what y'all do and see some things y'all see god bless you and godspeed and we appreciate every each and one of each each and every one of you thank you thank you so much mr.

» Jones I'll just mention I'm very thankful for you over the years there's generations of us who have been here you've saved some of my family members lives you really haven't so I've gotten some positive calls from the community but also my own family saying EMS is just awesome and it's funny how things work out now we've got a really strong local hospital and a great partner there that's thriving and ems is growing and we support you and mr jones comment made me think of the late and great charles baxley the kershaw county education foundation did scholarships every year and they still do you know to the tune of 40 50 000 depending on how good the year was for the for the foundation but he would always emphasize we're going to give scholarships and even a little bit of extra and invite them

» to come back and apply for more for those who are going to get involved in a career in EMS or nursing or anything like that. And each year as he got older, as you mentioned, Mr. Jones, he would focus more and more on that. It became more and more important to him. He said these people are so essential. And you don't need them all the time, but when you do, you really need them. So thank you for stepping up. We appreciate you very much. All right, gentlemen. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, if we could have you come up in whichever way you want to organize, maybe two rows. And let's move it to a vote while everybody's moving up. I know what it's going to be. All in favor? We don't have a frame. Ms. Hennitz, unanimous passes. I'm going to take the resolution out of the board. Yeah. Thank you, buddy.

» Sorry about my seat. I'm coming up here with you all to see a picture. Hey, I'm Brandon. Yeah, I'm going with the people. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. You don't want to talk to me this way? Oh, no, you're fine, at least for me. Are they good for you? All right. All right, one, two, three and a half. Okay. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. We'll give them a moment to clear out. That was good stuff. The approval of a minute's next. That's right. I've got so many papers here. Well, as they say, with EMS, we've come a long way. All right, gentlemen, that takes us to the next item, 7A, approval of the minutes. Is there a motion? I make a motion we approve the minutes submitted by Ms. Hanna. Mr. Tucker has a motion. Is there a second? Second. Mr.

» Tomlinson, is there any discussion, Mr. Tucker? No, I just want to thank Ms. Hanna for her fine work. Any other discussion or questions? Mr. Chair, I'll be abstaining due to absence. Please note that, Ms. Hanna. I'll also be abstaining. I was only on the call for maybe 20 minutes. Please note that, Ms. Hanna. Well, I'm not going to abstain, and I would have got up and left early. But you were here for the majority of the meeting, so you can vote. I was here for the majority of the meeting. All right, so all in favor of voting? Thank you. Vote. For those who are voting, Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous. With the two abstentions noted, please. She just got me laughing. I know it. Minutes are approved. All right, gentlemen, that takes us to item number 8A, first reading.

» This is to amend the ZLDR regarding sections 3.3, 3.4, and table 3.3 relating to commercial event venues, rural event venues, county clubs, and addressing bed and breakfast language. Is there a motion? Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion just to kind of put it on the floor for discussion. I don't have any background or prior knowledge of it, so I'd like to kind of get a little bit of that maybe from staff.

» and then we can get forward from there okay is there a second i'll second it for mr tucker has a second mr tomlinson um yes sir would staff be able to provide some background on on why this is on the agenda good evening council members thank you joey so this text amendment uh i've actually been here six and a half years and this is a section of the code that i have wanted to address for that entire six and a half years we are increasingly seeing inquiries from people who want to come to this area to open up event venues we have local citizens that want to run event venues we have rural property owners that want protective measures put in place because of these event venues and then their staff we have worked tirelessly to try to shoehorn uses into the existing code this isn't just about wed

» ding venues we've had inquiries about meditation retreats rural conference centers hunting preserves with guest cottages and golf courses with guest cottages so we've had a number of solid interests and we've just gotten to the point where we can't any longer call this a bed and breakfast with a wedding venue we just don't have the tools in the toolbox anymore to to shoehorn these uses in so this amendment is more about the private um event venues we're not talking about public venues such as uh let's say rodeos or um i know we don't maybe a golf tournament would be a a good good example or if you have a horse show that's where it's advertised the general public comes in that's what we label as a public event those events are already covered in our code very comprehensively so for example t

» onight it was mentioned about horse shows those are already permitted in the rural districts so we don't have to address those we're trying to address these niche private event uses that we're getting inquiries about so what's before you is some definitions we have the commercial event venue we have a rural event venue and then we have a rural country club that we're bringing before you the planning commission did review this and it comes to you with a six to zero recommendation in favor of approval of this amendment and what i can do is just run you through or or stop and ask any questions that you might have of that and then get into the code changes however you would like me to do mr chair mr tucker still mr tomlinson still has the floor is there anything in particular you want to hear b

» efore we hand it off for questions or any further presentation so just kind of um looking through the the chart here so you're removing the bed and breakfast wedding venue reception from from there um adding in commercial event venue rural event venue and rural country club um and that's going to be in every zoning designation that we have so the commercial event venue is going to be in your business districts um and also um within the rd let's see let me let me flip over real quick uh it's only gonna be in your general uh business your business too and your office uh districts and that commercial event it we're not talking about uh bars or nightclubs or anything of that nature that's already covered in the code that already has regulation uh what we're talking about is a commercial event v

» enue that wants to host a let's say a wedding center in a general development zone something of that nature and then the uh rural event venue is similar to the commercial but it's for the rural districts only the rd1 rd2 and rd1s and it has a five acre minimum lot size limitation and then you step up to the next category which is your golf club and country club with guest accommodations is there a limit on the number of people that are required so if you have a five acre minimum and you have i mean a wedding would i mean you got 250 300 people that's cars has that five five acre fit all that cars and the surrounding property owners well and that's that's why you have that that commercial development review process that we already have in place okay is uh that's to ensure that these type of

» of uh this is actually going to be a conditional use so that this is to ensure that uh the parcel and its activity can can can meet the demands it meet the demands but also be protective to the property owners that to join it because we feel like five acres that's not to get in the weeds but that's a state exemption standard for subdivision we feel that that's the minimum acreage that a these smaller venues can even fit on and then we have a 20 acre minimum size for a like a golf club or country club or hunting club that has accommodations attached with it um so if i if i currently have a piece of property that's zone general development now i wouldn't be able to put a commercial event venue on there i couldn't have a yes well i mean i could with this text amendment not with the text amendm

» ent yes with the text amendment you would be able to uh operate a commercial event venue um i'd like a little bit more kind of information on this i i don't know if the rest of my colleagues have any questions but i'd like to make a motion to kind of uh go ahead if you don't mind And, Joey, I see in the ordinance that you gave us, and I'll be coming by your office, there's a lot of mark-throughs here that I need some explanation on. Sure. And how does this affect the existing venues that we have now? It would not affect existing venues. If there are existing venues out there that were permitted prior to this code change, then if there's any aspect that's nonconforming, it just remains nonconforming. Okay.

» They won't be able to expand in that area as well, or will they still be able to, you know, so like if I had a small venue on my personal property, there's a lot in my district, I can tell you that now. Sure. And I want to expand that. Will this prohibit me from expanding on my property? Will I have to come in compliance to the new regulation is what I'm asking. Yes. If you were to expand, then you do have to come in conformance with the new regulations. But I do. entirely, or just the part that I'm expanding? Just the part that you're non-conforming with, yes. If I could add to that, Mr. Tucker. Yes, sir. Please. I should have made this a little bit more clear in the staff report. For example, there are items in each of these that just highlight existing regulations that we have now.

» They're not new regulations. instance under the commercial event venues use regulations uh item a and b are new but c d e and f that's all in the existing code so that's not it's just referring back to what's in the existing code for clarity for people that want to take advantage of one of these new new text sections so there really isn't a lot of change it looks like there is um but it's actually just following existing regulations that we have now it's more so for us to be able to get these uses identified in the code well that's the reason why i'm going to come by and see we got some time before our next meeting so i'll drop in and see you to get some more clarity that's what i'm here for i'll be in support for tonight mr question does she make good so here's a hypothetical that may ring

» familiar what if somebody has a commercial sports venue on their property at this point and it's in in a rural district how does in that hypothetical how does an ordinance like this impact that use when you say hypotheticals are really difficult in in zoning but right well i guess i guess if i have if i'm in an rd place in one of the rd zones right if i'm one of the rd zones and i'm currently operating a commercial sports venue what does this what does this particular ordinance do in that example uh it would do nothing to that existing use because that use is in uh in use today so uh any anything that it's out of compliance with then uh it would just be deemed as non-conforming which we have a lot of not we have a lot of non-conformities throughout this entire county because the rules chang

» e afterwards correct or we didn't have rules in place at the time they were built there's a lot of that as well do we currently have rules in place preventing uh commercial venues in the rd districts yes yes uh they're actually not allowed at this time if it's a public event venue there's there's nothing in the code that that allows uh like a a sports arena or something of that nature now if uh such as uh horse shows if there's a stable or a corral something of that nature that is addressed by the code um so there's there's individual uses and if anybody is interested in knowing if an individual use is allowed in a certain district let me know and i can certainly clarify that for you by the next meeting joe we're here for public comments did you catch the public comments or do you come in a

» fter no so mr poolen made a comment about a specific thing and i don't i'm not going to ask you to comment on a specific use but would you mind you or someone from your staff reaching back out to mr pool and just because it sounds like that particular issue may not be impacted by this one way or the other would you mind having you or someone from your staff reach out to mr pool and his info should be on the sign machine and just kind of follow up on that and let me kind of because that's in my area as well if you just kind of let me know that that's a side issue we don't have to bog the meeting down with that but if you would i'd appreciate that yeah i'm aware of that issue and i can do so okay thank you mr shoemake mr brazel yeah hey joey how are you doing i'm all right good man thank you

» i know i know you love having to bring this stuff to us and i appreciate all your hard work um i looked at this maybe six months ago and i didn't have an appetite to put it on the agenda um and there were there were some concerns i think one of the concerns that i would have is are we are we creating a way to create commercial space in rural areas um and and if we are is it just a way around zoning laws that's why we have zoning laws we can rezone something or we can not um that that takes a majority vote um and and if we do create this workaround if you will for these venues i've been to many venues in the county that are i would assume non-conforming a grandfathered end if if this were to be passed really nice non-problematic i've been to weddings i've been to parties at different places

» that friends and long-term residents of kershaw county they own these event spaces and or farms so if i had i'm going to use a for instance that i used to own a 60 acre track of land off of lockhart road that'd be in danny's district and it was a beautiful palm with a big hill it actually crossed my mind at one point that man people people might would use this as an event space so if if i'm you know i was like three miles past um north central school had i wanted to build maybe an open-air barn call it i don't know 13 000 square feet 14 000 square feet would i be required in that open-air barn that i might would use for wedding venues maybe i built a gazebo maybe those were existing things on my property and i wanted to start having weddings there would i be required to perform the same um

» measurements that that i would with the commercial building uh you know that we just got through our business building a commercial building here in kershaw county and it's very expensive it's it's quite a lot of work for everyone including the fire department we had to make sure that we had the correct water flow for the sprinkler system and i don't know that that water flow was available in those areas would we be required to have a sprinklers for a an open air or or closed space of that size very likely yes so would it do you be able to actually provide the correct water flow to to have a wet system yes those uh rural event venues such as that can have uh either in-ground cisterns with the pump system or above ground storage tanks in order to get the correct psi and and the duration of f

» low to the sprinkler system so it is possible yes sir okay so that that's expensive that's that's a huge expense um so we go from having maybe a barn dominium or an open-air barn in which somebody may occasionally have a wedding there i don't think you're having weddings 52 weekends a year um i'm also concerned about the fact that that most of these rural areas if they had something at their farm they would need parking and i bet that parking would be susceptible to state law that would require asphalt curb and gutter and a detention pond not necessarily asphalt curb and gutter you can do gravel parking in the county because it's uh impervious as well yes but they would be so possibly subject given the amount of disturbed area and impervious area impervious area they may have to do storm wa

» ter treatment or retention so in this unfortunate circumstance we've created a situation in which we've we've created a zoning workaround for commercial use and all the commercial applications would then be applied i can understand probably the frustrating part of not having the right be able to check the right box and give someone a clear answer on what they're trying to do but i don't know that the outfall from something like this is i don't know that i i understand it clear enough with those questions in mind to support it um i understand there's people that want to do these things and i understand that people that have already done these things i think they call them barns pole buildings whatever they might call them and if they have an event a party a get together what have you they're

» short term and they're short in duration in nature so i don't want to put that kind of burden on someone in a rural area to have to do all these things that may cost between three and five hundred thousand dollars between a sprinkler system uh parking lots and um the detention pond that in itself could be a half million um i wouldn't want to do that and then then I wouldn't want to create a workaround for commercial uses in a rural area. I think that might further stoke the fire of an unfriendly neighbor. At this stage of the game, our sheriff would, if anything were to get out of hand, he could pay a visit and make sure things were handled at said party or venue space or home or whatever it may be.

» That's where my mind's at the night and i just kind of wanted to vocalize my thoughts i know you guys have worked hard and i will do the same thing that councilman tucker said i'll come by your office and and try to work through it with you and if there's a way to find something that i can support i will sure absolutely thank you door's open thank you joey um mr chairman i have one more question yes sir and i have a comment after you finish just um looking at it so it states of event venues shall not be open to the public or permissible to the public what if it's a private establishment that has a membership that would be your country club uh that second use or excuse me that third use uh being that country golf and country club environment yes that could be so they could be open past past

» hours well we actually have some hour limitations in there that we copied from other sections of the code that other uses are subjected to throughout the code okay so that that's some hesitation that i kind of have right now um but i'll go to you mr chairman i got something to say mr jones go ahead joey welcome it's good to see you you know like what i got to say but anyway uh i don't support this guys let me ask y'all something how many of you up here have had citizens coming out say create more bureaucracy for us in our lives create more um issues for us to have to deal with you know i would think the planning zoning department has enough to do without creating more regulation i don't like this i'm not going to support this i don't need to go by and talk to anybody i don't think a single

» person up here understands it i'm not so sure and no pun intended but that joey totally understands it i think it's but gentlemen please think long and hard before you pass this and by the way who up here put that on the agenda i think staff staff did who's which staff he's he's planning his own staff this is a staff initiated amendment with the planning came through the plan that's what i asked yeah well i don't agree with the planning commission either today thank you well on this issue thank you mr jones thank you mr cato i agree with mr jones on on some of what he's said i and i'll be honest i i just seen it so i don't really understand all of it um there's there's a lot of questions i have so i don't mean to sound stupid but i'm gonna give you a hypothetical so let's say somebody someb

» ody came in and wanted to build an 18-hole golf course somewhere in brown for lockhart road okay a public golf course and they had a a venue uh country club area where weddings could be held or whatever the case may be how would that affect them if they built this country club would they be able to hold wedding venues there and and receptions and and whatnot or would that not be permitted because it's a public facility as it's currently written because it's going in a rural area and it would be open to the public then no it would not be allowed if it's a membership only club where they're you know you go play around the golf with other members and then other members have use of the venue or clubhouse for weddings for their families things of that nature that's what this is aimed towards and

» that that's also to try to protect the rule character and nature of of the rule 88 of this county is zoned uh rural resource district so it's an effort to try to protect those uh property owners the adjoining property owners from uh anything that could be seen as you know impacting their way of rural life so in other words the only way that they could have it is for someone of the membership of the golf course to be able to have so some outsider just couldn't come in and rent it correct that's the way this is structured right now danny i'd like to say thank you for um bringing up the golf course piece of it i was focused on the i think the second one the the golf course piece if somebody brings a golf course to this community i could just about assure you if it's of quality and it's new and

» it's going to be a positive impact for this community they would have my vote to rezone that piece of property to to build a nice golf course and develop it how they see fit um i think it's a great sport and um i'm terrible at it but i think it's a great sport so um i think that would that's something that this council could take up and i would assume support um but i can't speak for my my colleagues um just myself so if there's a golf course looking at kershaw county i would encourage them to come on we're looking forward to having you and and just so you know this ordinance was written in mind for that inquiry that we received so if there is there is in fact i did not know that until just now if there is in fact an inquiry you you reach back out to whoever it was and you tell them that we

» have proper zoning laws and that we would we talk about economic development man we'd love to see something like that here in kershaw county we want to see positive change we we talk about moratoriums we talk about rapid growth listen and until until well there will be a lot of change things that would have to change there's no way that we're going to stop kershaw county from growing we want to grow well and we want to grow in a positive direction and i can tell you this we want to grow with quality over over quantity so um i really appreciate what the work that you guys do i mean joey always helpful to me and and i just want to say thank you but i don't tonight i don't have an appetite for this and uh happy to talk more later thank you so so much thank - Thank you, everybody, I'll share a

» few comments. So the first instance I became introduced to this issue is Mr. Brazel introduced me to a gentleman who had some interest in doing these types of things on his property. And from there, I got intrigued 'cause there are some pretty neat properties in various portions of Kershaw County where it might make sense. There are some properties that are grandfathered or nonconforming that if they were not used in the same way, say a new owner or the current owner got old and couldn't run the property, Would it be a year or so and then they could lose grandfathering or non-conforming status? What's the-- - Yeah, as it stands now, it's a year. - Yeah, and so in order to protect some of the properties, I do find this interesting. I've gotta be completely honest.

» Between numerous depositions and a big mediation that's been four years in the works for me, I haven't been able to dig in and come by your office and learn about it, but what I hear, gentlemen, is staff asking us to take a look at this on first reading to address numerous problems that they've encountered.

» got some calls in favor most calls in favor a few against usually that's reflective of what's going on in the community but i'm willing to learn some more about it i think i hear tonight maybe people want to defer and do some more work on it to a little bit later as i understand it this is already happening in the county on properties that perhaps it should not based on the zoning code is that fair enough that is fair and we we only react on the complaint base only we don't ride the roads right and then and then there are some properties where maybe this should happen and it would fit and it's a could be five acres or more and wouldn't hurt anybody's feelings and it put uh but heads and beds in kershaw county be great for the local economy um so you know i would support it on first reading

» but i could also support a deferral if someone wants to push it off and they want to have the meetings you're talking about i'm going to be out of town next week on family vacation as i know some others are traveling as well but i'm happy to do the work in the meantime next meeting would be july 8th or either july 22nd i think if i've got my dates right for the last meeting in july and so um any other council members have any comments or questions nobody has any others no mr thompson mr thompson um mr chair i move that we are make a motion that we defer to july 22nd meeting coming up and that way we can have more time that all of us can do our due diligence sit down with staff um and really look at the impacts that this is going to have and see if it's something that is good for crystal cou

» nty or something that we need to move on but so you'd be deferring first reading to july deferring first reading to july 22nd you got a second you got a second if i can make a comment um well mr you yield mr thomason yes we really don't care wherever you are you my buddy though um i want to say i don't know how the votes is going to go just yet but i appreciate not killing this tonight there's a lot of due diligence that needs to be done and killing it tonight is not the right answer let's do a little bit more study and dig into it then if your appetite as mr brazel said if you don't have one for that i respect that but just you know there's a lot of questions to be answered here tonight and joey for the record i think you do know what you're talking about and i appreciate all the knowledge

» that you do have thank you mr - Thanks, Mr. Chairman. - Thank you. Any other comments or questions? - I'll just say. - Mr. Cato. - Just knowing what little bit I know about it, I'm not in love with it, but just because of the hard work that y'all put into it, I do think that we owe y'all a little bit more due diligence, so to speak, to kind of explain this to us before we take a vote. So I'll be in favor of deferring it tonight. - I have a- - Any other comments or questions? Mr. Jones? - I have a comment and then an amendment. You know, I just feel like I owe this to the citizens. And let me tell you something, Joey works very hard. He does. And he has a lot of complaints. He has a lot of compliments. He gets a lot of questions. And I know a mitt, he didn't know what he was doing.

» But I don't know that I really believe Joey's the one who put this together. Because I know how much he's got on his plate already. Gentlemen, I'm going to tell you something. I appreciate the hard work all the citizens do, but I want to make an amendment. we table this and we move on as i said i have not had one single complaint or citizen called me wanting more bureaucracy you're creating a nightmare okay so that's my amendment that we table this because table i believe mr bowes kills it correct if a matter is not moved off the table um yeah it kind of dies on the back to defer it we'll take it to the next um but so anyway i made my motions with all due respect to the planning commission commission the staff here and to you guys that's my amendment there's a motion is there a second there

» 's jimmy i'll second it and with with a with one point of clarity i i feel like the appetite here is to defer um there there may be a version of this that i could support but it's not this it's i'm pretty far apart and it's it's from a cost standpoint of who would or who would not be able to have an event space I mean you're taking something that's pretty simple and farm like I mean Jim chairman Connell's got a great place if I can just so we have a second mr.

» Jones would have the floor unless you yield okay all right sorry go ahead so I mean I can pick it on Ben a little bit but he's got a great farm in which if you wanted to get married there you could or if you wanted to have an event there you could and so all of a sudden we're we're changing the rules and regulations it feels like a bit much to me for people that are used to living in a rural area and kind of living their lives and doing what they want to do if you look in an extreme case that that caused trouble you're going to have that whether this is on the books or not people are going to throw a party if that's what they want to do and again the sheriff can pay him a visit but i just i don't want to over regulate it either um but again i feel like the appetite from what i've heard is i

» s a deferment but i i would support uh councilman jones amendment mr jones i want to go to whoever else has something to say if i can go ahead yeah mr mr jones i i think this is why we do have three readings and i agree with mr brazel i think if this gives us as council an opportunity you know a month and a half to to do our due diligence sit down with staff and really get dove in head first into this um to see what what appetite like russell said um is there to support or if there's nothing and at that point you go to first reading you have second and third um so i would like to give the opportunity especially how hard staffs work to do that instead of just tabling it right now and we can come back and talk about it july 22nd mr thompson mr jones anybody else you know the last word yeah i

» do anyway i stand by my position and uh that's no punt towards anybody the hard work or whatever you know that's why we sit on county council you know we're the ones who set the policy not staff we're the one who approves it and gives in the direction to go and they certainly bring us recommendations but it but it's our decisions when it comes to how the county is going to be ran and i just don't think there's and i love the word appetite that was really well used i don't i don't think there's an appetite if you notice tonight we had a couple people get up and talk i just don't think there's an appetite to sit here and create more um regulations and rules or citizens have to follow when they walk in as i said i haven't got any complaints no one's been calling my phone and i probably get a l

» ot of complaints i'm sure as much as the rest of you do together and uh i just haven't had any i just have a hard time waking a sleeping dog you know this just doesn't seem like there's a there's a problem there but anyway that's where i stand i'm not going to support it tonight and i'm not going to support it if you which you will you got the votes i'm not going to support it when we bring it back on the the 22nd either but uh thank you so much for your time yes thank you we understand um say it one more time i'm not going to support it thank you okay uh any further comments or discussion this is on the jones uh amendment no further comments discussions we'll move it to a vote all in favor of the jones amendment to table raise your hand mr brazel and mr jones all opposed if you make tucker

» connell kato and tomlinson the motion fails that brings us back to the original motion The Tomlinson amendment motion to defer to July 22 for purposes of due diligence and otherwise. Any further discussion on that one? Seeing no further discussion, we'll move to a vote. All in favor of the Tomlinson amendment, raise your hand. Shoemake, Tucker, Connell, Brazel, Cato, Tomlinson. In favor? All opposed? Mr. Jones, opposed for the record. Ms. Hanna, thank you very much. Thank you. All right, that brings us to as amended. Thank you, Joey.

» i just want to make sure i'm correct mr dubose we now have to vote as amended is that correct or we're just automatically deferred yeah i think that motion to defer supersedes and save me a step thank you sir all right that takes us to item number 8b on the agenda uh this is a first reading related to impact fees and those assessments in kershaw county is there a motion where are we 8c for our impact fees 8b impact fee ordinance yeah give everybody a second to get there in their packet yeah i would make a motion that we adopt the impact fee ordinance i'll second i'll yield okay you owe me a coke we got a first and a second mr shoemaker you had the initial motion um i'll yield to any other discussion or amendments any other discussion comments questions amendments i've got a i've got a quest

» ion um maybe that somebody could clarify or joey where'd he go i'm sorry joey um you got a minute okay um so regarding the the impact fees would this be would this be for major subdivisions only or is it a group development impact fee or is it is it just a per home fee and and i can't address that i just want to uh ask i we do have our uh consultant here matt newchester okay uh who is prepared to give you a full rundown on the impact fee project um and i thought that's kind of the direction we're going but i'll yield to whatever you would like to proceed with but well if he's here for for questions and explanations that'd be great yes sir he is and then of course i'm unavailable as well we'll give you a break okay and he did have a presentation but we don't have screens unfortunately before

» we get general information we see that anybody else have any questions comments amendments I have an amendment mr. chair if I can you have an amendment mm-hmm all right let's get the amendment okay as he says a motion this is gonna be in the form of a motion okay I'll make a motion to amend the ordinance title to include at at the end of the current title the following language: to amend the Kershaw County Code of Ordinance, Chapter 6, Buildings and Building Regulations, by establishing Article 11 development impact fees. Reason for this was legal counsel informed me that by oversight an earlier version of the ordinance title was used for this agenda. So we want to be consistent and make sure that we're not confusing ourselves or the public. For those reasons, that's my amendment.

» - We have a motion. - I'll second. - There's a second. Any further discussion, Mr. Tucker? - No, sir. - Any further discussion, questions, comments? - Not on this amendment. - Sounds like a housekeeping-- - Right, I'd ask that we go ahead and vote on this so we can get back to the discussion. - Get back to the information from Mr. Newcastle, okay. Move to vote all in favor of the amendment. Raise your hand. It's unanimous, Ms. Hanna, for the record. And so we're back on as amended and we've got Mr. Newcastle, did I pronounce that right? - That's correct. - Thank you.

» give us some summary on the impact fees of course okay so first of all mr chairman members of county council thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today my name is matt nunkester i'm the owner president and founding principal of a firm called city explained we work nationally from maine to hawaii and north dakota to florida but i'm really happy to say i'm an unincorporated kershaw county resident so this was my shortest commute for a project so i really do appreciate that i'm going to tell you a story about impact fees since we have the slides but i will go ahead and click to the slides for some people in the audience who may want to follow along or folks on tv or the like i need to ask you just a quick question so i almost regretted not having us all move for the um fine

» arts center presentation is this some substantive information to be relevant relevant to our vote um as we as we go through this should we move over and make sure we see your slides because we our screens for whatever reason we're still technologically dead right up here understood um it may help you make a more informed decision okay council if you don't mind I think there's some chairs up front. We still have some questions that haven't been answered yet. Okay. Well, we can move after the presentation. Is that okay? Yes. Okay. I mean, we can move back after the presentation for questions. Is that all right? I'm with you. Yes, yes, yes. You can do that. You can do that. Thank you. Come on, please. Yeah, we'll keep it around just so I can see. All right. Thanks for working with us.

» Oh, of course. Of course. We'll do this and this around. Flip that towards me. Perfect. Okay. So... This is an interesting way. We just kind of flipped the script. You like it? Very good, very good. Okay, so again, Matt Newkester, and today I'm going to tell you a story about impact fees, and I'm going to try to answer the who, what, where, when, and why. What we're doing here under first reading is making presentation to make sure you have all the facts and figures, and frankly, we get enough out there so you can make better decisions. Then as part of that, if we go down the road, and again, at this point, as a consultant, I've done the work that's required under state law. I've coordinated with staff to bring recommendations and things forward. but now you're in control.

» This is all if, when, and how things move forward is now up to the dais. So at that point, I'm just providing you information. I'll answer questions, but you all will bring things forward from here. So to that end, we did have an agenda just quickly. I'm going to explain sort of kind of what impact fees are. Whether you like it or not, we do have authorizing or enabling legislation within South Carolina, so we have very specific things that we need to do in order to make sure that we can have impact fees that are defendable. I will go over the documents that are required, so you'll know kind of what we created for you, what the next steps might be, and then I can answer as many questions as you have at that point. So we'll go from there.

» So by way of introduction, when we're talking about impact fees, these are financial payments made by a developer to the local government to offset some of the additional new people or new employees that they bring to the county. It is, again, a financial payment. We'll go over kind of some other aspects of that when we talk about the ordinance, but it's a financial payment. And just to be frank and honest with you, most times the developer pays it at time of building permit. It gets passed on to the person who purchases the new home, though, just to be very clear. We do have to follow what's called the South Carolina Development Impact Fee Act. So, again, very specific requirements in terms of what we produce, the order that we go in, those kind of things as well.

» Now, you are in good company here, at least even thinking about impact fees. Frankly and historically, they kind of started more in the low country in terms of impact fees and where they were being thought about, and then they kind of jumped over to sort of the North Carolina, South Carolina line, more not even upstate, but more like Charlotte Metro, and they've kind of worked their way back into the Midlands now. And so again, people are doing it for different reasons, but a lot of times it's about just having growth pay a portion of its burden onto the existing infrastructure that you have now, and giving you one funding mechanism to expand it to keep up.

» So in terms of the impact fees themselves, again, they pass construction costs on to new development, not existing development, and I'll get into that more in more detail. There is legality for collecting the impact fees, so you must have authority to do so. You do specifically have authority to do that per the state law. We can get into discussions. It was brought up during the public comments about school districts and things. They require a partnership because they're not mentioned in the authorized and enabling legislations, just cities or counties. And then a rational nexus test means that you need to make sure what you're charging is proportional to the burden and makes sense that, yes, they're creating an impact, therefore they pay a proportionate fair share.

» That's the book reports that I did, yes. And they cannot be discriminatory. So you can't just pick certain uses that you want to charge and certain uses you don't want to charge. Everybody who is found to have an impact has pay their proportionate share for the burdens and then again the reason this is happening is just different interests from cities and towns and counties throughout the area because there's been a resistance to increased property taxes a lot of times when it's just small incremental growth you don't realize it as much you're just kind of tweaking the budget year to year trying to keep up but when you have big waves of growth you start to see things be burdened overnight and because when they get burdened overnight you want to see who is responsible for that and it's it's

» been found that impact fees are one way to pinpoint that new development and the burden that they're causing. It works best, we have rapid growth and development and a lot of land left to develop, meaning there's an opportunity to need more and more infrastructure. We can get into what it means to have the moratorium because charging an impact fee, funding projects and slowing growth has an interesting dance that goes together when you do that and I'll tell you how we sort of accounted for that in our work. So in terms of who does not pay an impact fee. So anybody who lives in a home right now with an unincorporated Kershaw County, if you were to buy another home, an existing home in place now, you would not pay an impact fee.

» You would only pay an impact fee if you purchase new construction, new development that pulls a building permit. That then would be subject to an impact fee. So those folks would be, for example, in this neighborhood, and it would be after the effective date of your ordinance. So again, I want to be as open as I can with you. A lot of times what happens is right before third reading, you will get a flood of building permits. Now you all having the moratorium will help but other communities I work in there's a flood of permits right before it becomes effective because people want to get in before the impact fee can be charged. You have a little bit of a backstop on that if and when you do the moratorium. So we actually looked at four categories in the work that we did.

» It includes parks and recreation, municipal facilities and equipment. That includes things like large purchases for the Sheriff's Department, public works, the convenience centers that are around the county those kind of things are all in there excuse me fire protection and emergency medical services at this point in time we're bringing forward Parks and Recreation and municipal facilities and services and the draft ordinance is being shown to you but we did all of the work and all the analysis for all four so if and when you may want to add others in the future you just do it through a text amendment of your ordinance you don't have to do a whole new study you don't have to hire me again I've done all my work you just do a text amendment and you're good to go okay so in terms of the act it

» self just so you know maybe why we have to do some of the things we do first and foremost impact fees can be used for very specific things they are spelled out specifically in the state law to design an engineering of a new improvement the right-of-way construction or acquisition so if you need more land to support the improvement constructing the improvement itself if you have to do any utility relocation and then project financing so you do a big project and you do decide to go through bonds and do debt service you could use impact fees to help pay some of that debt service the interesting part again if i can just truth be told is they're very good at getting you more capacity new and expanded things once you receive it and take ownership of it it's on you as the county to operate it to m

» aintain it and to replace or rehabilitate it in the future so again it's one of those things where you get a gift but then that gift is yours and you're responsible for from that point forward it's not free the money that is collected in each of the categories that you decide to adopt or if you decide to adopt they would all go in a separate bank account and those bank accounts would accrue interest and that's what you would pull money from in order to pay for the projects right now under state law they must be spent within three years of the scheduled date of construction the CIP that's an important point because with the with the forthcoming or pending moratorium you have you'll notice in the CIP document that we created the capital improvements plan we lagged a couple of projects just to

» make sure you'll have enough money to pay for these things knowing and understanding what your pace of growth might be in the near term. So that's there as well. There will be an annual monitoring report. It'll probably be done when you go through your annual budget process. It's just another couple funds that get reported on. So you do there. You have to do an update and a review every five years just like you would for your comprehensive plan. So it kind of gets on that cycle and how you do those things. And then if you do major new projects or want to charge a higher maximum allowable impact fee, which I'll go into what that means in a minute, you do have to update the study to do that. So if you want to charge higher numbers than your maximum, you do have to do a new study.

» So I was able to prepare four things for you today and actually worked with staff because they prepared one of the four. The first thing is the justification report. Again, I'll go into that in more detail. A capital projects list, so what projects can you spend the impact fees on. An analysis about what this means to the affordability of housing within the county, so what is housing cost now how much more would it cost because of the impact fee and then the ordinance itself it's got to have a vehicle to deliver an impact fee program and it's done through ordinance so we've been working on this for quite some time but we're at sort of the home stretch where now it's up to just decision making and the decision making is all through the adoption process we did go to planning commission they d

» id give a favorable recommendation we now have up to three readings with you all if you decide to go all the way through with it we have three readings this being the the first reading it's more the presentation and the and the explanation we're targeting public hearing and comments would be in the second reading and then the third reading obviously for action and discussion bless you all right so the documents themselves just so you know what's in there i completely appreciate when you i think i probably gave you over 200 pages of documents again we had to meet state law but let me just give you the director's cut of kind of what you what you what you have here so the first thing is called the justification report frankly it's the adult version of a book report and what happens in that is

» i have to summarize everything you have now in terms of infrastructure and assets what it's worth what future demands might be and then try to enumerate or identify what might be needed in the future again we have all four categories in there so you would not have to update the study if you did decide later on to do a text amendment for the other two and so everything is in that report because we're only bringing two of the categories for you right now they both have what's called a service area and the service area is all of unincorporated kershaw county because of where your parks are and what they're what they are where they're located those kind of things it's thought that everybody who wants to use that service kind of comes to more centralized locations where your parks are now same t

» hing with the municipal facilities and services you have very specific locations for your convenience center you only have one landfill everybody uses it within the county so we we just basically say anywhere in the blue area that you see on the slide that's where the impact fee would apply camden if you know just from being in the area adopted their local development impact fee ordinance a few months ago maybe a little longer now i actually did that study too so if you have any questions about that let me know but you cannot collect in any of the incorporated areas is the takeaway from that so the way that this thing gets done is i basically act as what's like an actuary and i come in and i say what do you provide now let's get a list of it let's quantify what it's what it costs to replace

» it and then let's look at how many residents and employees you're serving now and just like if you think about if we all were to stand in line when the next person moves in they get to the back of the line they have the same proportionate burden that you all had when you were taxpayers to create this infrastructure they have to pay that proportionate share to get in line with us so that's kind of how this approach works it i'm calculating what's called a maximum allowable impact fee that's using math the most money i can justify that you can charge based on what you provide now and the amount of people and employees that you have in the county right now so the maximum allowable that's the most i can get for you if we went to court we could say this is how we got it and it would be justifiab

» le and defendable now how we did it was i basically came in almost like a investigator and i met with staff and and their partners and said let me know everything you've got now so for example that pesky property schedule you do for your insurance was a gold mine because it has everything that you have as an asset what its replacement value might be those are the kind of things we did we also made sure things like well if you have a fire truck you have to have all the stuff in the cabinets before it's a functioning fire truck so let's make sure we add that stuff in as well so we we basically went through a process where i interviewed and collected data from the different departments i added it all together you know if you love spreadsheets the appendix is for you but we're ready to go and y

» ou can just again everything is traceable and justifiable now one of the things to come up with or to discuss that will be an item for you as you move forward is this idea of a discount rate so again maximum allowable is the most i can justify for you that you can charge for an impact fee nearly all communities within south carolina charge just a little bit less than that and the reason they do it is twofold one is it's either a market um question to be competitive with with your peers so for example you might say what is camden charging for a single family home i'd like to match it or i want to be a little higher or a little lower but you kind of just look at what what's going on in the immediate area the other thing is it gives us a little bit of grace so if we do go to court and for some

» reason they say yeah on that property schedule you know we think that building's a little over inflated in terms of its value we say okay we're not charging a hundred percent that ten percent little bit of buffer accounts for some of those things in the data or something else so the discount rate is purely a policy decision you can change it anytime you want to it's a text amendment at this point so if you start with a certain rate but you want to change it next month or then in the next year you just do a text amendment you don't update the study but you just change the discount rate it's part of your ordinance so this is just some examples this is actually out of the report that just shows the maximum and then just how you apply certain discount rates and the best way I can explain it is

» it's just like you're at your favorite shopping location and you're in something's on sale it's it's a percent off of the cost that's what the discount rate is as a percent off of the maximum allowable again I just did easy increments 25 50 75 100 but you can pick any number you want between zero and a hundred if you want to okay the second thing we have here is the capital improvements plan this is where the projects live that are eligible for impact fee funding we have to be a little bit formal about this and actually report and identify what we want to spend our money on for each project we have there's a project description there is a start and end date for when the project would occur and when we would hope it would end and then we map out the revenues and the expenditures for how we'r

» e going to pay for this improvement when and in what sequence and sort of order of magnitudes of cost in terms of what's eligible for impact fee funding for a capital project it's got to be something that introduces more capacity so for example if you say we would like to repave the convenience center at 97 which would be that's mine so I would you know keep it up it'd be great but if you're only repaving it and you're not enlarging it or adding more roller bins or doing something to make it where it can accommodate more people that is not eligible for impact fee funding if you if you increase the size of the asphalt because maybe you need more turning radius or you need more roll again rollers that you want to put there or another compactor there that is caprice increasing capacity that wo

» uld be eligible for the impact fee the other thing to think about is you can i get this question all the time so does it is it eligible is it eligible think of things like right now if you have a grass soccer field i'm working with the community more in the metro area where we're making the justification by going to turf they can serve more people during more inclement weather therefore it's more capacity so we will keep asking those questions if you decide to move forward on this but we have to be able to push more people through the facility either by having a larger footprint or making it more efficient that's kind of how we we justify the impact fees we do have projects right now that are in parks and recreation and municipal facilities and services now we also had to do an affordable h

» ousing analysis as part of that again we basically looked at what does it cost right now for a resident to purchase a home with an unincorporated kershaw county and then taking into account all the costs that go with that so utility bills homeowners insurance i mean the list goes on on and on but we basically looked at what it would cost to be to own a home and then we added impact fees on top of that and so as we went through that process basically here comes the conclusion which was that right now actually if you look at that and again i'm only looking at new construction but when you look at some of the new construction new subdivisions coming in those homes if you listen to redfin are about 273 000 on as a median as of september of last year what happens is right now what is going on is

» that cost is too expensive even for some residents of unincorporated kershaw county to purchase the new homes that are being built here which is why you see all the out-of-town license plates or you see people moving from larger metros or wherever and the builders are building it at a price that that they that brings them in but the housing affordability analysis shows that the everyday unincorporated county resident who lives here already these new homes are unattainable to a certain percentage of those people but if you add the impact fee it really doesn't change it all that much and so again it's a 0.25 absolute change so you have one phenomenon that you might want to talk about with housing affordability and that's a comprehensive plan issue or a zoning ordinance issue or a policy resol

» ution issue but from the impact fee itself it doesn't change the condition more than 0.25 on the rental side it does even with the impact fee included the rents are still affordable with the test that we have to use for state law so again it's more of a simple fee purchase so then we come to the impact fee ordinance this is the last thing that is required the ordinance basically sets out all the rules of the game so who who pays an impact fee how much do they pay all the processes they can appeal it if they want to there are certain exemptions by state law that are just kind of quirky for example um a volunteer fire department is exempt from impact fees but a paid fire department is not go thank the folks in colombia for what they kind of got slid in there but there are some exemptions in t

» here that are very specific that you'll have to honor just because they are what they are as part of it then it does have an exhibit that has basically all the prices for all the different land uses and again here you just see in the colored cells i did 10 as a discount rate that number could change to whatever you pick the the table there automatically updates as you as you go through that process all right so in terms of next steps um again this is being presented to you as a accomplishment or a milestone in the process we've done all the required work that you would need to make a decision we now are deferring to you after being with planning commission and getting a favorable recommendation it is now in your hands um and so starting today right so we we um on fire protection and ems we'

» ve done the studies so i'll ask administration to come help me answer the question on which ones to move forward or not on the water and sewer a lot of times you end up doing their enterprise funds and so in ems that's one of the reasons but with an enterprise fund because of the way they're structured i have to give so much credit back so that that so that new growth doesn't double pay the fee as well as the impact fee that they become very low they also become restrictive and so most places that i work in the state who do water and sewer they would rather just play with their their hookup fees or their charges and have ultimate freedom and flexibility for how to spend the money versus all the rules that come with it with the state law for impact fees so that's really why they've kind of d

» ecided not to but hey i'm making impact fees fun right come on i just couldn't hold it in all all right so eventually if and when you decide to actually go up to third reading in an act you would have to have an effective date that effective date can be chosen you might make it the very next day you might give it a little bit of time because staff needs to get all like the new funds in place and all that kind of stuff so sometimes a couple of weeks other places i work in just from a market perspective just to make sure nobody was surprised by this there might be a month out or something like that and again you'll see a flood of building permits come in right before that date again we We think we're doing enough public notice and engagement from this point forward that you only need to have

» an effective date far enough out for your staff to be able to prop up the system with fund categories and stuff of that nature. With that, I thank you for your patience because it's impact fees. - Well, I'm sure we'll have some questions. - Yes, sir. - Council members, any questions, comments? - Yes. - Mr. Tucker. - Mr. Chairman, if I may. I'm a little bit confused on the two municipalities that are left out.

» town of elgin town of bethune because i'm not aware that they have an impact fee and by there being um that don't have one is that just we're not going to collect there or um that's going to be their problem as a town it's the latter you could only enact impact fees where you have jurisdiction and so the city of camden's impact fee only applies to town limits right yours would apply to all unincorporated kershaw county they would have to move forward on impact fees and only reason i'm asking that because i know about hospitality tax so if they don't have one when the county moves in we can collect that in their areas um i didn't know if impact fees work the same so that's why they do not have questions okay thank you mr chucker any other comments or questions thank you mr newcastle for the

» presentation yeah great great presentation and thank you for all your hard work all right so we're uh we're still on 8b gentlemen as amended still open for discussion comments or questions any other discussion mr um chairman if i may can we ask staff um i don't know how it's going to turn out but as it moves forward to be prepared if third reading comes up and passes that we can implement as soon as possible so we're not lingering or can this council come up with a date that's agreeable and not let it be next year i i think staff is noted thank you mr tucker thank you mr chair if i may mr templer yes uh you know the question was asked about the uh i think from you actually the uh ems failure portion and i just had a little bit more to put into that if sure yeah i mean i was interested in kn

» owing why is what i understood was we're ineligible um based on the report and state law based on credits that have to be given back and so it makes it such a small amount is what i heard but i'd be interested hearing more on it for sure sure and so with that that so with what i would consider the two uh the parks and rec and the uh solid waste would be more of an at-large application of the fee throughout the county as you well know solid waste is just one of our really pain points but if we were to go ems fire it don't it puts them almost in districts and that money has to be accounted for in that particular district has to be spent in that particular district and then it creates a particular challenge in trying to fund projects and find with with in some areas i think building would be v

» ery limited so you would have a really tough time trying to identify a project and also with these projects when you commit to a particular project of x amount of dollars if your if your permitting does not generate enough of the revenue to cover that in that three-year period then we are on the hook for the remainder so this will be massaged into should it pass into our overall cip a capital improvement plan um and with with an ion expansion so it's a little bit different than what we would normally do in a regular capital improvement plan um but solid waste will be a pretty easy one there but we would have to really be intentional moving forward in the budget process as it relates to our capital expenditures and making sure that we have sufficient funds if we look like we are going to be

» short on impact fee funding for a three-year project if we are coming up can i use one hypothetical so if i understand you there could could be a situation where we say under this program we're going to commit to build a new fire station called a million dollars in a certain area but only say three hundred thousand dollars is generated from the impact fee and so at that point we would have an unfunded uh mandate that that wasn't planned for we just thought the impact fee was going to cover it but it didn't it fell short and we'll hear from legal counsel in a second but so that's that's your concern is from a budgeting perspective the based on how the report portion came back on fire we'd be creating unfunded mandates for some of these capital projects and and the the impact or the the scale

» of those projects would be so minute the funding would be so small and those are very expensive services i don't know what you could get in like a small line extension maybe if you had a line in a particular area yes maybe okay mr dubose yeah there's there's an interplay too with the spending the funds collected within three years of their scheduled date in the cip and some jurisdictions have run into issues with that where if you don't expend it you have to refund those funds to the fee pay orbs oh man mr newcastle is a particularly chilling example of a major highway project for the local jurisdiction to not collect enough impact fees to complete it had no other real funding mechanism and had to hand a lot of money back to fee payers so um yeah their minimum thresholds for the expenditure

» requirements you're on a three-year shot clock from when you plan them and to mr templar's point if you have distinct districts the fees collected have to be utilized within the district that they are collected parks and rec and facilities are such large service areas that right-sized projects in their smaller service areas become problematic thanks mr bose council members any other questions or comments thank you seeing none we're voting on the as amended version after mr tucker's housekeeping amendment we'll move it to a vote all in favor on first reading raise your hand got shoemake tucker connell cato tomlinson and jones in favor all opposed mr brazel opposed for the record miss hannah thank you gentlemen that takes us to the next item on the agenda this will be item 8c this is second r

» eading regarding the mou or memorandum of agreement with the library and the department of aging i'm not sure if we need any other summary from uh from staff is there a motion make a motion mr chair that we approve the general government agreement for the library mr director has a motion mr thompson has a second mr tucker you have the floor uh just wanted to see if miss amy had any additional news see she's here tonight yet here to answer any questions do you want me to explain it a little bit more well some of us wasn't here so that probably I didn't speak last time I'm just not sure the process is the first time I've been involved in speech keep it straight keep it straight Amy okay right so in your packet is some information about an agreement with the South Carolina Department of Aging

» which needs your approval we've never had the opportunity to house an employee from outside of the county so this is the first time as I mentioned that you've been involved in this process with us so we were approached by the Department of Aging to house a new position that they're creating new to us dementia care specialist so there was a dementia care specialist position for the entire state that was created in 22 it was successful enough that the state department decided to fund nine positions, nine additional positions, which follow that COG model of supporting four counties. The dementia care specialist would be housed in the Camden Library. We have a small space, but with some creative maneuvering, we found a private space for this position.

» would provide support to people who are concerned about a diagnosis they've received for dementia or have issues related to a family member or a friend that's been diagnosed with dementia we have the community health worker as you know in the library who supports people who need assistance with all kinds of things i was very excited about this opportunity because we have seen very very many instances of people who have extreme burdens because either they or family members are facing issues related to dementia so the person would meet with them directly and counsel them on how they could advocate for themselves in medical situations find additional support in the community handle legal issues that sort of not obviously providing legal assistance but navigating them to resources that can do t

» hat and then also providing programming and other forms of support networking in the community and working closely with our community health care worker so there would not be a cost to us the department of aging is fully supporting this position except for the in-kind support of the office space that we would be providing mr uh mr chairman um miss amy a couple quick questions one being so are we following the four county pattern as the cog is that lee kershaw sumter and clareton yes and we happen to be the fortunate one that yes that houses them okay is that correct we would be sharing them but i think that we would have a benefit of them being located oh absolutely they're home here yes we'll keep them my other question is um mr bozos maybe more on you um in this um minute random of agreem

» ent um we still got another reading this is just second if i'm not mistaken and it says it effectuates july one correct that was uh prior draft we can of course uh adjust that i think that was set for uh fiscal year right um in as much as this is state funded and it's hand in glove with that um doa reviewed this draft but um if that first language needs to be inserted regarding proration of their uh essentially their lease amount their funds they're providing for use of the space um it could be adjusted to you know july 9 through june 30 and just a proration or The state pays $100, and we get a little extra rent amount that month. So I'll address that with DOA. Okay, and that's what I'm asking.

» Do we need to have a special meeting, or can we defer it to our next July, first meeting in July? I just want to make that clear. Correct. I mean, y'all have to approve it. So, again, I don't know if that presents any issue for DOA. They didn't voice any of this to the reading schedule. Yeah, because I think sometime before the end of the month, Chairman, a couple of us will be back off vacation, right? I'll make myself available if the chair has to call on me. This is too important to not start on time. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Any other comments, questions? Seeing none, we'll move it to a vote on second reading. All in favor, raise your hand. Amy, great job. Absolutely. Thank you, Amy. Thank you. Ms. Hannan, it's unanimous in favor. Pass the second reading. Thank you, Ms. Amy.

» All right, gentlemen, that takes us to number 8E, third reading on the budget appropriations and setting the millage rate for Kershaw County fiscal year July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. Is there a motion? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. I'd like to make a motion that we approve third reading for the budget in Kershaw County for 25-26 budget year. Mr. Tucker has the motion. Is there a second? Second. She makes seconds. Mr. Tucker, you have the floor. Yes, sir. I have a couple amendments that we need to get in. One of them is the ATAX recommendations. If we could, you should have that before you, and I am going to ask them to come up. I think she's already at the podium. My head hasn't lifted yet. To go over her committee's report, and if we have any questions, feel free to ask.

» You know who that is, don't you, Sammy? No, I don't. You want to tell me? Ms. Beth, please. Go ahead. Hi, Chairman Connell. You've done it. Thank you so much for having me. I am Beth Rivas now, the chairperson of the A-Tax Committee. It was Beth Ford. It was previously Beth Ford, that's correct. I love my new name. So I am bringing you, obviously, I've done this many times, so I'm bringing you our recommendations. Hopefully, Tyler has provided you with the spreadsheet so that you can see the requests that we had this year. I'll give you some historical information. Last year we funded 12 projects, organizations, for about $115,000. This year we had 22 requests and only $96,847. So we had to spread a lot of this pretty thin.

» We will recommend that you fund 19 of these requests based on our discussions. Normally, we also provide you with a reserve of 10%, but based on the number of projects that we were asked to fund and the quality of those applications, we are not recommending a reserve for you this year. I will say that. But I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. - Thank you, Beth.

» still have before thank you so I guess my question miss Beth would be without doing the 10% are we in any violation of anything as far as the state is concerned I know we don't have a policy that's written so it was that just a recommended 10% we always held that was just a recommended 10% we just did that for your on your behalf I don't believe that that's any mandated at all you have any knowledge of any of that because no okay all right thank you for what all you and the commission does these a taxes are tough decisions a lot of applications a lot of needs so and of course we uh mr tucker we always try to fund um the drivers of the tourism in this county but then also consider a lot of new projects as well so we do you know even though they might not be big projects we really try to reco

» mmend you give them a little bit maybe some seed money or some incentive money but we do try to fund the major players um in our county as well so we've recommended that and that's the love that i appreciate about you and all the others is that you try to show everybody a little bit of love did y'all find the distributions of in your package too and again obviously you know these are just recommendations so well i i tell you if i may mr chair i'm sorry mr tucker you do a remarkable job and the commission does a remarkable job and we're fortunate to have you with your leadership here i absolutely appreciate everything you do and i was a big fan of her dad's big fan thank you beth thank you so much and i love both your last names thank you mr jones brent seconded it yeah okay hey beth how are

» you good thank you good good to see you tonight um did was there a request from the south carolina america american revolution trust yes there was in unless i'm overlooking it i don't see i don't see an award so um there was not there was not a recommendation made to award them okay um could i ask that you consider them next year absolutely okay i i believe and i mean i believe that there were some things missing from their application i believe it's a little vague especially for a new project um so we just needed a little bit more information from them and i believe that we have communicated that with them perfect perfect well i know that um wesley herndon leads that charge and i've heard some from him about what their intentions are for kershaw county they're going to bring a lot to kersh

» aw county especially in the way of tourism regarding the American Revolution. So I'd just like to see them in the mix, if you will. Absolutely. And I know Wesley well, so I'd absolutely love to fund that as well. Thank you so much. Appreciate all y'all's hard work. You're welcome. So this is a general discussion on the budget. We do need a motion regarding approval of A-tax. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to make a motion that we amend the 25-26 budget to include the grants pages in the agenda to the proviso section. So that you have from the A-Tax Committee to be included into our provisional section of the budget. We have a motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Second from Mr. Shoemake. Anything further, Mr. Tucker? No, sir. I think we done discussed it already. Mr.

» Shoemake? Nope. Any other questions, comments? Seeing none, we'll move the Tucker First Amendment to the budget to a vote. All in favor? Raise your hand. Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous in favor. First Amendment passes. We're back on the budget as amended. Any other amendments? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair, if I may. And thanks again, Ms. Beth.

» tell my good driving student i said hello i would like to make an amendment to the third reading of the budget to make a motion to reduce county debt millage and associate by debt by one mill increased general fund millage associate budget by one mill to address operational needs at no cost to the taxpayer that is my amendment after i get a second i will discuss further i'll second we have a motion there's a second from mr shoemake mr tucker thank you sir um this is uh neutral revenue neutral to the taxpayers but what it does it takes care of some of the housekeeping that was cut out when we reduced what the administrative budget was when he presented to us and you should have in your package exactly what that is down to the tune of three hundred and thirty three thousand dollars and three

» hundred thirty three thousand two hundred dollars to increase uh to p l insurance of ninety five ninety five thousand eight hundred thirty four dollars uh this was in form of an increase after second reading budget so it's not an oversight by staff it's just what comes in from your insurance company uh god bless them right um this is for the position for the hr journalists to allow us to work towards our goal of having one hr person per 100 employees that's that 105 831 total fringes and all and then our contract services of sixteen thousand four and seventy five dollars and that's for new software to allow digital budgeting and financial reporting and then of course we took out that position that i thought was dear and near from the detention center um and this would be a lieutenant positi

» on as special operations lieutenant and that position what fringes is all will be 115 60. so with that that adds up to that total and that takes care of that mill but it's no increase to the citizens that is my reason for requesting this and i think the county needs this to further their success in this upcoming year thank you mr tucker mr shumake you have the second yeah just uh i agree with what mr trucker said i think also it's important to point out that this hr generalist obviously uh mr templar i know we've got uh a grant writer in the budget is that right or we're working on that yes sir we do we do and so obviously like for example that hr journalist could be tasked with collateral duty of assisting the grant writer like in other words to the extent they had the ability to do extra

» workload you'd have the ability to help supplement that workload um if it felt if it fit in the hr bucket correct correct i just want to point that out thank you mr shumaker quick question um mr brazel are these positions open or filled yet or have they not hit the street yet in in terms of trying to hire for them um they are not advertised we're waiting until funding, but the HR generalist especially, that's a new one, and the detention center one as well, so we'll obviously wait to get those. Of course, anticipating the curve, I've identified some worthy candidates, but we'll see what comes in through the normal channels.

» Do you think that'd be something like someone would move up within the ranking file here already working at the county, or we would? Yeah, I mean, that is always, I want people to move up, not out of this organization. So I always look at, everything is open to internal candidates. We've had candidates come from other departments and just kind of completely change gears, pick up a new toolbox and go to work. So yes, that is something I absolutely insist that we do. Good deal. Thank you, Danny. Thank you, Mr. Brazel. Anything else from the rest of the finance committee? Mr. Tomlinson. I appreciate all my colleagues hard work and all the staff's hard work. I think it's a solid budget this year. I look forward to supporting it on third reading. Thank you.

» Anything else on this particular amendment before we vote? Seeing none, we'll move this one to a vote. This is a Tucker amendment number two. All in favor raise your hand. Ms. Schumach, Tucker, Brazel, Connell, Pato, and Tomlinson in favor? All opposed? Mr. Jones opposed? Amendment passes. We're We're back on the budget as amended with two amendments sitting presently. Any other comments, discussion, any other amendments? Seeing none, we'll move it to a vote. All in favor on the budget as amended tonight for third reading for 2025-26, raise your hand in favor. Shoemake, Tucker, Connell, Cato, Tomlinson in favor. All opposed? Mr. Brazel and Mr. Jones opposed. Budget passes third reading. We've taken care of items nine A and B previously on the agenda.

» This brings us to item number 10A, new business. Referral of small subdivision ordinance to Planning Commission. Councilman Shoemake, is there a motion? - There is. I would make a motion that we refer and recommend to the Planning Commission that they consider expanding the definition of major subdivision to be six or more homes. That is the motion. I can explain if I get a second. - Is there a second? - Second. that sorry i'll yield to mr jones mr jones has a second okay mr uh she make you have a four yes so this basically is just a recommendation to the planning commission or referral to the planning commission that they consider an ordinance uh and what that would do currently we define major subdivision as 10 or more homes or more than 10 homes is it more than 10 more than 10.

» uh more than 10 homes and this would define it as six or more or more than five depending on how you look at it but five or less would be a minor subdivision more than five would be a major subdivision and that that's the basic what we'd be referring to the planning commission which would start the 30-day clock to have them come back to us so that we can have our first reading on this ordinance by the end of july um and i've seen some stuff on uh just just to point out too i've seen some stuff where people have reached out about um whether or not how what this has to do with the moratorium and i thought i was very clear so so just so people don't think we're trying to hide the ball here some members of our council don't love the idea of a moratorium with minor subdivision included some of u

» s did so what this is an effort to do is to is to redefine major subdivision with an eye and at least my plan would be on third reading of the moratorium to amend it to only include major subdivisions which by then we would have defined as more than five homes so that's something i've been completely transparent about i think it represents a fair middle ground uh to what we've discussed to allow those small developers as mr dabney talked about to still do work in kershaw county while doing a moratorium on the larger development so that's sort of the background and genesis for it and that's all i've got thank you mr shoemake mr jones you had the second i did and and mr schumacher thank you for your hard work and the rest of the county council on this i did not support the small subdivisions

» i was only going to support the major and the only reason i did on some amendments was to keep it alive and on the floor so it could end up where we have what we got tonight. It was massaged, it was talked about, it was shaped. You know, this is a prime example of this County Council on this issue working together, being totally opposite in the beginning, you know, major, you know, everything, to come together with a happy meeting, and because I think it's very important to listen to the folks, and you do, and you did, like Mr. Dabney, and I appreciate that and I support this.

» Thank you thank you mr jones i'll just note um with the referral what's the timeline on getting it back from planning commission whether that's mr templer or mr debose or joey so i can i mean i've actually made it so so the i'm just wondering dates yeah so the planning commission it has a regularly scheduled meeting before our july 22nd meeting so if they have this on their agenda by that meeting i forget the exact day but it's it's before our july 22nd meeting we would have it on july 22nd There's also a statute in South Carolina law that gives them 30 days from referral, which would be today. So if they, for some reason, didn't take it up at their next meeting, it would be deemed by statute as having already been ruled upon.

» So in any event, we will have it on our meeting as first agenda. I'm sorry, we will have first reading on our agenda on July 22nd, regardless. But this does give them time to take it up at their regularly scheduled July meeting if they choose to do so. Is that fair, Mr. DuBose? That's accurate. Thank you, Mr. Shoemake. Mr. DuBose, any further comments, questions? - Yeah, I'd like to thank Derek Shoemate and Brant Tomlinson and Councilman Jones. I wore out a pair of shoes talking to Derek one night about this. I was pacing all around the yard and on my front porch and we talked for a long, long time. And we found a middle ground that I could live with. I can tell you something, this is an industry that we're discussing.

» sitting the connotation that building homes is is negative i want to remove that from from my speech we all live in a home or some sort of some sort of living space and whether it be apartment a mobile home we can't be hypocrites here um it's an industry that that i've worked in and enjoyed my entire life my grandfather was supported by home building um my father and my family and still to this day but we do recognize the change that kershaw county has seen and i think a lot of places maybe in in the south that are more conducive to less restrictions and lower taxes have seen an influx of people from less friendly areas to be fair and to be honest that's basically what we've seen in less friendly weather conditions whatever it may be whether you're fighting a hurricane in florida or or a sn

» owstorm in new york state welcome to south carolina um we're kind of a happy happy meeting so we do have a lot of people moving our great state and um we're glad they're here but let's get our growth strategy right and i think i think it's it's time that that we put down our swords and our shields um and we work together we've got six months to do it i don't feel like there's an appetite to extend it i think we can we can get to work and we can framework what does development look like in kershaw county um in the next decade and um throughout the conversations that i had with with brant and in councilman jones and chairman connell and um councilman tuck and i think have yet to talk about this but um i think we just all have have to work together and Derek I commend you for after a very cont

» entious meeting that you and I had willing to talk about it and work together I mean Derek was a major factor in us finding middle ground and being able to move forward without hurting jobs and opportunity and even to the major subdivisions remember this is temporary this is six months and people are going to continue to move to kershaw county we can't we can't stop that we can hopefully shape it into a likable format into something that someone can be very proud of when they purchase a home they build value typically it's someone's most important and expensive purchase of their life and you saw me as a no vote on on an impact fee unfortunately it's not a reoccurring revenue and without reoccurring revenues the county's really at a disadvantage and so i've had mixed feelings about impact fe

» es um they're not going to discourage the developer as a matter of fact i've had several people reach out to me and say hey we're willing to pay the impact fee let us in so i feel like it's a key that unlocks a door for development and sometimes that unwanted development that we hear about so much the the you know the mega developments if you will maybe there's a minor a major and a mega at some point you know i mean but but we're at a point where we need to put um political divides down and work together and find a solution in the next six months and i feel like we can do that with this group so i commend everybody on this council for for the opportunities ahead of us and i commend our administration and danny thank you for everything you've done and the efforts that you've put into being

» a leader here in kershaw county um it's it's not an easy job uh you get you get it from different angles you got all eyes on you you're in a fishbowl as we all are but um these are the important things and these are the reasons why we're here thank you all all right gentlemen we're still on 10a referral of small subdivision we're just planning commission any other questions comments yeah can i say one quick thing mr mr jones and councilman brazil i want to apologize you you stayed on the phone with me you kept me from throwing it out after that first meeting councilman schumacher i was ready to just throw the baby out with the bath water i was done with it because i do but but i really do appreciate you talking me into hanging in there russell because we end up where we did tonight thank yo

» u mr shumate mr russell thank you councilman jones um i actually wore out a part of jimmy's front yard one night too walking back and forth because it it took building a bridge on this situation because it was very contentious and um if there's anything i ever want to be able to do for this council is is build a bridge between uh topics and conversations and people i'm a good one at bringing bridges together you said building or burning all right i'm going to stop you all from patting yourselves on the back for one second can we move to a vote if everybody's done discussing all right let's move 10a to a vote the referral all in favor You just talked very positively. All right, so Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous in favor.

» 10-A passes for the Affordable Plan Commission, and we just had a good explanation on the timeline to expect it to come back. Can we thank everybody enough, Mr. Chairman? Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, that takes us to item number 11-A. Councilman Tomlinson asked that this be moved to this meeting, and 11-A, is there any motion? Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, I have a motion.

» i would like to appoint james he goes by ray griffin as the district 5 representative for the airport commission and if i can get a second i'll provide a little bit of background information i'd like to second that if you don't mind thank you we got a second thank you second go ahead mr thomas um so ray is is a high school went to school together grew up together he's a u.s air force veteran he has a local business here that he operates at wolverfield he's a flight instructor, single multi-engine aircraft, both of them. He's got experience with jet, turboprop, medevac, financial services. He ran budget operations during Air Force time.

» He's very involved in the community, especially at Wilbur Field, and he's going to be a great asset to the airport commission in general, and I appreciate your willingness to serve. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Any other comments, questions? Well, I had a few, but I'm kind of shy now. I think he's got the votes. Let me tell you something. I flew with this guy to Hilton Head once, and we had a blast. He's very knowledgeable. We almost flew to Florida a couple of weeks ago, but we had to scratch it due to weather. We first met, was it Las Vegas? I was at a conference, and Ray is dear friends with a dear friend of mine, Ruben Bravo, and they grew up and went to school. I think Brant and all you guys went to school together.

» And it's been a pleasure getting to know him, and I can guarantee you one thing. He is an absolute asset for the airport, and he'll be an ambassador for the airport. And so I really like seeing you here tonight. Thank you, Mr. Braswell. Just for clarification from staff or otherwise, is this going to be a regular term, full term, or is there anything wonky about it that's not feeling a partial or anything? It's my understanding that it's a full term. Okay. Three years. Three years. Yeah, three years. And then they can get reappointed for three more. Well, if there's no other comments or questions, let's just move it. Mr. Chick, if I could say one thing. I see our chairman of the airport's here, too, Mr. Borowski. Welcome, as always. He's a good attendee of coming to our meetings.

» Hard worker. Yeah. Ray, I want to say you've got my support because I was really impressed with you you came up and you're willing to volunteer uh and make yourself known because i had no clue who you were if i had to pick you out of the post office so um it was great to have yourself introduced last meeting and you made an impression on me and i've heard nothing but good things since that day so i'm looking forward to giving you the assignment hey are we planning on irish fest being at the airport again yeah but it's great to hear from uh miss patton tonight about it's just nice whenever volunteer groups or professional groups in the county kind of worked together went to that event in particular and really featured the airport well and i thank you all as a as a body for accommodating and

» staff accommodating that have been out there too all right let's move it to a vote all in favor of the appointment raise your hand ms hannis unanimous in favor you are appointed thank you for being willing to serve congratulations all right gentlemen that brings us to council member briefings mr cato i don't know he's gonna pick me i just missed you since last meeting man it's every time danny every time every time at least i'm first in something right i i have just a couple things because i know everybody's ready to get out of here um a few announcements that i've been asked to announce um bethune's having a let's freedom ring fest and fireworks show on july 5th at 7 p.m also a back to school bash on july the 15th at the community park from 4 30 to 6 30.

» uh there's a big event up in mount pisgah that takes place at faith family baptist church well i think it's a baptist church anyway it's faith family church it's july the 4th and they have live music food trucks kids rides and then they have a big firework show it it draws a really large crowd up there and it's a great event so if you want to go to a good firework show maybe go get you an elephant ear and listen to some good music that'll be on july the 4th i want to thank the administration finance committee and everybody that put this budget together and the hard work that they've done this last year um i want to thank all these these different different people like um like miss patton she's leaving and and again we we're going to really miss her the library and i mean there's so much tha

» t goes into this county and you know i'll be the first to admit until i got on county council i really didn't understand what i thought i understood about how county government works and and i encourage the citizens of this county before you criticize learn a little bit about about what's going on in the county and and what it takes to run the county because my eyes have been open a lot the last two years and i i i thank thank you all for giving me the opportunity and i thank you all for being so kind and generous and your hard work keep preaching you can get my time keep preaching mr tomlinson mr chairman i have no report tonight thank you mr thomas mr jones any report mr chair members county council yes one one issue very quickly and and it's uh it's a request it's a favorite means a lot

» to me and it means a lot to some folks in this community but we heard the lady get up tonight from the pecan orchard and speak she was all but pleading and i and i know we have a a great finance committee i appreciate all the hard work y'all have done but uh mr tucker i'd like to just on the record ask would you and the finance committee just meet see if you can't come up with some source of funding direction where the pecan orchard is concerned for maybe July the 22nd. I would greatly appreciate that. You said by the 22nd, not the first meeting, but the second meeting in July. Well, we're meeting both meetings, right? We're meeting. Councilman Brazile, I know, won't be there, so we may have a short agenda, but if it's okay with you, we'll have it.

» We'll try the 8th, but definitely by the 22nd. Yeah, give us to the 22nd if you don't mind. Okay, yeah, because I want to make sure you have enough time, but when we come back to it, just have something of some substance. And I appreciate y'all considering that. So let's just put down the 22nd, okay? The 22nd, you'll come back with it. Yes, sir. Thank you. No further report. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Mr. Shoemake. Yeah, just a couple little things. Appreciate the public comments. You know, Mr. Dabney, I don't think he's here anymore. But, you know, it's a really great example of somebody who may not be in complete agreement but offers some really good points. And I actually owe Mr. Dabney a phone call as well. So I know we've been playing phone tag.

» I want to announce that since we won't have a meeting before then, Thursday, July 3rd at 6:30 p.m., so Thursday, July 3rd, 6:30 p.m., is the ribbon cutting on the Elgin Community Center. This is a huge addition to the Elgin community. It's gonna be a great venue space. It's kind of modeled after an old train station, and I know the town of Elgin has worked really hard for this. This council's been really good in helping provide them some funds for that, and of course, Chairman Connell, when he was at the State House, engineered some funds for that. So it's been a truly collective countywide effort and sort of state and local effort to get these funds for what's going to be a really, really great highlight in Elgin. So if you can, come out July 3rd, 6.30 p.m.

» Thursday, Elgin Community Center Groundbreaking. I also want to thank the American Legion, the local post here throughout Kershaw County. Some of you may have had children that went to Girls or Boys State. We just picked both of ours up. Well, one drove back. My son was a senior counselor at Boys State this year.

» and my daughter attended palmetto girls state so it was a really cool experience to see both the kids go through that in different ways that's sponsored by the american legion post and the auxiliary for those who don't know it's basically these kids spend a week learning about state and local government it has a military feel to it because it's very regimented and orderly but these kids come back not only understanding local government but with a real knowledge of it they have to run for various offices so i just think our local american legion and we are lucky enough that in our own county uh mr todd mcdonald who was on kershaw county school board is a high-ranking member of the boys state group so we've got some folks here that are watching out for our kershaw boys and girls so it's a gre

» at group um and the last thing i want to say is uh as you know an old saying that good writers create and great writers steal so i want to totally steal councilman cato's points and make them own as well um you know the points you make about this county being so intricate are really i think critical 70 000 people ballpark in this county a little less but we're going to have more by the end of the decade for sure and if you look at the people that support this county the ones that work for mr templar for our elected officials you're talking about somewhere in the ballpark of one percent of that seventy thousand and that one percent of those seventy thousand people are responsible for making sure that the the county roads are maintained there's fire services ems police taxes are collected pla

» nning and zoning regulations are enforced assessments are properly levied veterans get their support the roads get graded that's a lot of work for one percent and i just want to thank everyone who works for this county and those of you who lead this county because it's a real honor right it's it's a big responsibility but it's a real honor to be able to stand up in a place you call home and say i'm one of the one percent that keeps this place going so for all our county staff for all our county officials and all our county leaders thank you for being part of that one percent and you should feel really proud proud of that and be emboldened by that because it's critical work and that's all i have thank you mr shoemake mr tucker thank you um won't keep you long uh thank you danny for your kind

» words to the finance committee and i can't say thank you enough for um my two colleagues that serve their staff danny you miss lauren mr gerald and that guy that nobody understands back there tyler um i cannot thank y'all enough for all your due diligence and hard work y'all said it and I didn't believe it but as we begin to make the sausage it did get tougher than I thought I'm very optimistic about a lot of things in life but this was one of these years that you had to have a part from over here apart from over here we hope out of the two parts one of them fit some somewhat was workable and we're able to do that so I can't thank everybody enough i thank this dice up here for supporting the budget and believing in um giving staff the tools that they need to do their work so now it's time f

» or staff to go to work um starting july 1 we want more amazing things and more beautiful things out of you and i know you will deliver so with that um i say thank you i also want to recognize um mayor susan out there from magby i was look at magby bethune i'm in chesterfield county i lost my thought uh i mean but i'm about to steal your impact fees if y'all don't get them you leaked our annexation but good good to see you and thank you for all you're doing in the upper part of the county as well um i have no news as of this time from the cog other than um we're just trying to see where our grant lands that y'all approved last meeting and i appreciate that very much because it's off and running and we hope to get awarded something and when i get that report back we will share with staff and

» definitely bring it up here to council um i can't say enough miss dolly about you and i'll um once again gonna truly miss you stay in touch you have a family here you have people that you will never never be able to get out of your lives so um you know stay in touch and texting emails whatever it takes but unless you change your number i'll have it because you're in my phone that concludes my reports mr chair thank you mr tucker mr brazel thank you chairman um i'd like to make mention that um i saw a tremendous act of heroism at uh on father's day i was watching golf and i got a phone call that a friend of ours business was on fire and it was a building that that's not too far from from our property our manufacturing facility and it it belongs to uh bill barrett of southern custom doors and

» my family my mom my dad myself we were all compelled to to visit and and see if there's a way we could lend a hand and obviously at that point we couldn't the building had um had just been put out it was on a sunday morning i guess the fire started sometime that morning it's very hot melted the uh skylights out of the metal building and i would like to commend every fireman and woman that i saw on site and it must have been 40 or 50.

» and i can remember seeing chris spitzer down on one knee because he had been out there working with his men i may have missed others um but i saw i saw your man matthew chief i and you may have been on site but if if you are i apologize but um there were so many firemen they they acted and they didn't i didn't hear any of them ask are you with the county or are you with lugo fire or are you with the city of camden because i saw the city of camden had dispatched and or volunteers had arrived i'm not sure exactly which there were several trucks um but they were that's what they did on their father's day and i just really want to commend every every fireman that all of you whether you were there or not that's what you do and and to see it in action and to to see a friend that was was literally

» in shock of the situation to see how we responded was was amazing and i don't really have the words to to properly put it in context tonight but um the men and women of of this community responded and saved his business there's work to do and there's a big repair to happen but it was going to be completely engulfed and i've seen a woodworking facility completely engulfed in in like 1998 or 1999 in elgin and it burnt it melted the metal building so um i just want to say thanks again that that concludes my report thank you mr brazel thank you gentlemen for working together to get a budget where we could fund uh those firemen and expansion in areas of the county and take care of the needs in kershaw county i appreciate you working together on that thanks for the work from staff and also the fi

» nance committee and making recommendations that we're able to use as a springboard that's a lot of legwork that goes in to help us get to a point where we can reach some agreement on southern custom doors like mr brazel bill and harriet barrett are very good friends and they're you have some of these businesses in kershaw county which are so unique you know many of the doors at the state house that lugo business has worked on and done i've got three or four of their doors i think in various you know things that i've worked on or been involved with or at my business and they'll last 100 years you know it'll be the same handles that my kids and grand kids that will be grabbing and entering for family reunions and otherwise in the future and so we have some great local folks um lugo fire count

» y fire and camden fire all reported and uh chief spitzer was telling me that we even had somebody who had maybe had some health issues in in relation to his willingness to sacrifice his life and health to help somebody else's personal property that's a big commitment um and i know that the barrett's are very appreciative of it and so uh hat goes off to all those in the fire service and i see a few of our leaders here tonight so thank you very much um we're not going to get rid of dolly patton too quickly because she's serving on the uh law enforcement memorial committee as i understand it uh and and so we'll be able to hold on to her for a little while that's a project that's going to be a force we've got to get some state funding next delegation cycle and the county's already committed som

» e and funds and private businesses have as well but we look forward to seeing her in that respect mayor holly thanks for coming out tonight it's also great to have folks who care like sheriff bone being here or clerk of court ms farmer coming out it's great to see local elected officials who also care about the process and understanding what's going on in the county and so i really appreciate that also that concludes my report mr administrator any briefing for us yes sir just a few items to go over the uh just a quick update on the parks and rec everything's moving along it's just luckily the rain is not hampering too much um irrigation has been installed up at westville for the baseball field rehab bethune copeland uh silt fence is installed so it's a lot of the minor stuff but it's import

» ant in stabilizing the uh the site camden woodward the improvement site grading and underground utilities they continue to go in it's going to be a large process there we've been in conversation with the city and trying to partner with city of camden with some in-kind work over there to see how we can reduce costs and just be better partners they are very willing to look at what they can do to help us so i'm very hopeful with that without the boat ramp and parking uh this deck continues to move forward um a lot of the uh site work has been completed um and i know the concrete was scheduled i've kind of lost index of time i was out of town last week but i understood that they were working to get the the ramps poured weather permitting so that that's going to be the bigger part there working

» in conjunction with to to lower the river uh kc west park expansion um parking expansion i'm sorry they mobilized out there and so they're starting to move dirt pecan orchard um you know that that's something that when i stood out there i i've been working on pecan orchard for 10 years i know mr jones probably spent at least that much time trying to get some funding out there for some some of of the other areas. But I'm still committed to that. It hasn't gone away. We're not sitting idly. It's just we're trying to find other funds that are, you know, kind of geared towards these projects that will help remediate some of those issues out there.

» We have put in for a FEMA hazard mitigation grant um that's already been put in that that application or the the pre-application goes into the south carolina emd um and that's in conjunction with what went on with uh hurricane helene um so we we did see some impact over there on that so we're fingers crossed on that it's a 75 federally funded 25 uh local match we we have retained the funds that we had previously identified for pecan orchard it was some of two hundred thousand dollars for grant match for the uh rural infrastructure authority it's my intent to keep that money there parked as future grant match or there's other grants out there if we swing and miss again we'll continue to run down the list there's some uh usda uh grants out there the uh department of resiliency um there's ther

» e's some opportunity there so we and and you know look if we get pieces and parts from other places other grants then that's just fine too as long as we make up the the total amount i plan to meet with michael baker international the engineering firm out there they still are the engineering firm on record for that project we'll look at everything from can we do phases what what makes most sense. I know there's a willingness or a desire for us to go out there and cut ditches and do all these things, and it's hard not to do that from my standpoint, but it requires a little discipline because we've spent a lot of money on engineering, and those folks are way smarter than I am, and so that's not hard to do, but I'll lean on them for guidance.

» well what is with x amount of dollars what is going to you know see the most impact um and then i will say this to the folks out of pecan orchard you know i'm going to continue to work on this we'll continue to communicate it's just you know we just haven't had anything to put out on the email blog if you will that i send out periodically i'm just not been much activity so i we are still here um we are still connected to this project and um you know i just intend to run down through the progressions to see what we can get done out there and get it across the finish line um and just one more item you know i just sitting here tonight and we you know looking at these the burn rate of paper that we go through before and i would just ask you all humbly to just consider what kind of electronic fo

» rm format we could go to where your agenda packet is displayed and this is something we can talk offline about but um it's just i feel like we've gone back in time to when miss mary used to bind the uh agenda you don't like this yeah so um well i tell you we got to get the monitors up here working first i can't see it and i say that because it could be one uh could be the uh you know the summer home improvements here that we go through so we will have some opportunity with the the gaps in the the uh the meetings so um but that's something i really want to work on and i just feel like we could do better here um but be a little more professional and what we do reduce our our footprint as it relates to paper and plastic so forestry is the industry right i support you you know they're going to

» give you a hard time with the monitors well i know you know i got to throw it out there so it's tough business and i will just close with just thanking each and every one of you for your your willingness to listen to us throughout the budget process um that was a that was a bumpy ride and that was a dusty trail so i think the power steering went out a couple times but uh you know we got through it and it we you know with everything that we've we've experienced, we got together, we moved the needle, and we're going to move the county forward from a staffing standpoint, that internal service with HR, and then we're just going to move the needle forward with improving the services to the citizens.

» My absolute goal to be the best form of local government there is, and if you just walk around this organization you see that the culture is changing it's changing for the better we are attracting more qualified and talented employees and that's not on accident so that's the hard work of staff not myself but just a common goal and a common objective and it's it's paying off so but I can't thank you all enough for your work on the budget and your willingness to to do what you do and support what we need to get done so Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Templer. Mr. Chairman, I had a question on one of his comments. Go ahead. Mr. Templer, so I'm sitting here trying to think, and Ms. Lauren, you can write this down. I'll confirm it. We're thinking July 9th for the Finance Committee.

» I'll confirm with you, though. In that meeting, can we sit down and see can we get a timeline for maybe the next six to eight weeks where we can do a report on any progress, because I know you haven't, staff hasn't, we haven't as finance committee, just been sitting on our hands, just ignoring the problem. Just seems like everywhere we go, we strike it out on trying to get any help. And so it may come down to just having a piecemeal as you were talking about, but I would like to, as the finance chair, try to get a timeline on as much as we can.

» So when we report out July 22nd, we can follow that guideline if that's okay with you um and just one more thing you reminded me that this this this pre-authorization if you will for this grant we've submitted it's a 30-day turnaround i think somewhere around there so we should know something soon it's sooner than than most um it's local it's through the state so fingers crossed well pretty soon you'll have a grant writer to yes be voracious and go after all these you know again having those preemptive conversations uh i feel good about where we're going to go with that position all right thank you mr dubose any legal briefing other than executive session no just happy to be back good to have you back let me say welcome gentlemen under 15a we've got one executive session item i do not antic

» ipate it'll take long it would require a vote afterwards but let's get a motion in a second if y'all are interested is there a motion to enter executive session regarding receipt of legal advice regarding a pendant threatened or potential claim under sc code 30 dash 4-70 make a motion we're going to executive session we've got a motion second we've got a second all in favor raise your hand how late are you going to be it's unanimous miss uh miss hannah sorry seek a motion to exit executive session so moved we've got uh a motion is there a second egg we've got a second mr cato all in favor it passes miss hannah with mr jones and mr uh brazel being absent at the moment for the vote. We're out of executive session. After executive session, do we have any motions? I have a motion, Mr. Chair.

» I would move that we authorize the county administrator to enter into a contingency fee representation agreement with UPF Litigators LLC to retain those attorneys to pursue claims against companies engaged in the manufacturing, marketing, and or distribution of ultra-processed foods. That's in the form of motions are second we've got a second from mr tucker any discussion explanation or do you want to explain it mr chair no you meant motion i can i can talk about it if you like yeah so basically this is just uh there are counties across south carolina numerous have uh explored potential litigation against manufacturers of certain types of food products that have certain addictive chemicals this is very similar to the opioid litigation so effectively what we would be doing is joining those c

» ounties and if there ends up and we do this to protect ourselves if there ends up being some type of settlement and we don't join in then we will not get any of the proceeds so this is a chance for us to join in it costs nothing to the county at all to do this it's the same as reynolds tobacco yep that lawsuit too thank you mr shumake thank you mr tucker any further discussion or questions seeing none we'll move it to a vote all in favor of the motion raise your Raise your hand. Shoemake, Tucker, Connell, Cato, Tomlinson, all in favor, with Mr. Jones and Mr. Brassell being absent. All right. It passes. Ms. Hanna, for the record, I seek a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. Mr. Tucker and Mr. Cato, all in favor of adjournment? Raise your hand. Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous by those who are present and voting. We're adjourned.