Full meeting transcript - August 12, 2025

» You down every time Sammy's up? You can let her know that they got a guy. Oh, I know. It wasn't a targeting thing, I promise. I had no idea who it was. It could have been Sammy. It could have been Brand. It could have been Ben. You got some verbalization there. Russell yelled at Derek. You good? I'd like to welcome out everybody tonight. Thanks so much for coming to our August 12, 2025, Kershaw County Council meeting. I understand we have Mr. Tucker on the phone, calling in remote. Mr. Tucker, are you there? Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, I'm here. Glad to have you. Let's get on to the agenda. We've been called to order. We have the invocation and pledge tonight by Vice Chairman Russell Brazel. All right, everybody stand and I'll say the prayer.

» Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you this afternoon through a season of mourning. We've had several family members in my own family that we've lost, my mother-in-law, Kathy Merritt, my cousin just yesterday, Mark Barfield. Lord, we just lift up those families and know that through your peace and your salvation that we'll find peace and that all the family members will find peace. God, we just pray for all those hurting in our community. Those are two examples, Lord.

» we know that there are many people hurting and many people in need of your peace and mercy lord give us wisdom tonight give us give us thoughtfulness in our in our words and in our in our actions as we as we do the business of kershaw county tonight all this we pray in jesus name amen amen pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to do the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all Thank you, Mr. Brazel. That brings us to item number four, gentlemen, adoption of the agenda. Is there a motion? I make a motion we adopt the agenda. Mr. Cato, is there a second? Second. We've got a second. Mr. Brazel, any discussion at all, Mr. Cato, or otherwise? None here. Seeing none, we'll move it to a vote. Mr.

» Tucker, how do you vote? Yes. That's a yes from Mr. Tucker. For those in person, raise your hand if you're in favor. Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous for the record. Agenda is approved. Next up on the agenda, we have public comments. Mr. DuBose, do we have anyone signed up? Mr. Chair, members of council, we have one speaker signed up, Ms. Penry Gustafson, Civics Education Workshop. Ms. Gustafson, please. Thank you. Good evening. It's a pleasure to be back so soon, but I will have to say I want to share my personal condolences with Councilman Russell Brazel and Councilman Brant Tomlinson for Mayor Elizabeth and Councilman Sama Tucker for your parents. A lot of loss there. So hopefully tonight we can move forward with our county and do some good things. And I'm here to share some good news.

» For those who don't know, repetition is the key to a lot of success in events. So I'm here representing one of a committee of six for a Kershaw County Civics Education Workshop. It's, I was here at the last meeting and I'm just gonna review this again for everyone watching and listening. This is a free civics educational workshop. It's been especially creative for our citizens of our county. It's informative, it is nonpartisan, and it's for anyone who wants to learn more about local government and to build better civil engagement. Different topics include our core functions of local government, best practices for communications with elected officials, public commenting instructions and guidance at local meetings, and voter registration information.

» It's structured in two segments, and part one was actually last night. It was led by Charlie Barrineaux with the Municipal Association of South Carolina. He was very informative, and it was a great presentation. be back to do that again on september 27th meantime we have part two which will be on august 25th and this uh particular part two of the workshop is going to focus in on the public speaking aspects how to deliver a good effective message with our elected officials what does that look like what are the rules for kershaw county and our town council meetings because we all know we're not supposed to do q a right i just brought that role so i just asked you so we'll be doing that i will also be talking about voter registration what is new in carshell county what is good and and most eve

» rything is good about our voter registration here in the county which is a good thing but there have been improvements to the things going on um we met with the director of voter registration miko reddick about what number one issues are for our county how can we be better citizens and you know update a registration etc and then the last part um i'll be leading which is going to be uh how how to address how to talk with our elected officials how to best approach them and i've given this speech a number of times before different groups so i think it can be beneficial for the public so everyone all the countywide officials were sent invitations and information and we continue to get the word out we have a QR code for for signing up my gosh I'm not going to talk another two minutes um we do ha

» ve a QR code the workshop again is for educational purposes only please pre-register anyone who wants to go information booklets are being provided which are very comprehensive they've been well researched for this county and we just encourage anyone to come especially our elected officials we had judge Deborah Branham there last night and also councilman Wilkes was able to drop by before he had a planning meeting but he came back towards the end of our program last night so I just we thank you we thank you for what you do I thank you for what you do this is one way me personally as your former senator to continue to give back somehow to be involved and engaged with our community and i just feel like civic engagement is so very important and civility so how do we do that and the workshop th

» at's one of the main aims of this workshop so thank you very much and i have information with me if any of the public here would like to have that thank you very much miss penry uh mr debose did you say no one else will sign up tonight correct okay thank you then that concludes public comment and that takes us to item number 6a under public hearing no votes needed i'll go ahead and open up the public hearing this is related to an ordinance to amend the zldr related to commercial event venues rural event venues and rural country clubs currently second reading is on the agenda for tonight it's open do you have anybody signed up mr debose no mr chair anybody present wishing to speaking speak on this particular public hearing seeing none we'll go ahead and close the public hearing on 6a and tha

» t takes us to approval of the minutes under 7a do we have a motion i'll make a motion we approve the minutes mr shoemake with the motions are second second mr thomas in any discussion or amendments needed seeing none we'll move to a vote we'll go remote to mr tucker first mr tucker how do you vote on the minutes yes that's a yes from mr tucker and for those in in person raise your hand if you're in favor of the minutes it's uh you have something okay we have uh mr shoemake connell kato i saw his hand at some point tomlinson and jones in favor and any opposed or abstaining i just have to abstain due to absence we have mr brazel staying for the record miss hannah thank you the minutes are approved that takes us to item number 8a mr administrator any other background or update we need before w

» e move this to a motion okay Okay, gentlemen, on 8A, this is a second reading regarding the minor subdivision, which we discussed quite heavily last time. First reading was July 22. Do we have a motion? I move that we adopt a second reading of the ordinance. All right, we have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Tomlinson has a second. Any further discussion? So I was absent, obviously, for the first reading. Can I get a clear definition from our attorney? So, this ZLDR text amendment would redefine minor subdivisions as anything less than five lots. Five lots would be the, greater than five lots would be the new trigger for major subdivision requirements and review processes. Okay.

» Are there any family exemptions? So there are existing exemptions in state code regarding what is defined as a subdivision. Those typically are addressing partitions of property due to someone's passing through their descendants. Additionally, there are exemptions for five or greater acres. but for this minor subdivision ordinance you know it said it greater than five lots trigger a major subdivision well let me if I can just throw in there the only change to the amendment is the number so we didn't make any other changes we literally just changed the number from more than whatever it was to more so just as an fyi so could we between now and the the last reading could we add a family exemption so if a a family was dividing 10 acres amongst seven children or six children it wouldn't become a

» problem for them i could look into that but um there very well could be some equal protection concerns um implicated in that but i'm happy to look at it and discuss it with you mr and see if something could be crafted okay i that that's my only it's not my only concern but that's my um biggest concern at this moment i don't have any problem moving it forward as uh as previously agreed but i do have some concerns regarding that so we'll be sure to talk about it between now and the next reading thank you mr brazel any other comments or questions so this is second mr jones i'm sorry thank you so this second reading will have third reading to go i think that'll give us a good point in time to whatever amendments we are changes we want to make we can make yes sir i'm sorry i guess that's what i

» was hearing from mr brown yes sir okay okay i don't see any other comments or questions uh for those present mr tucker anything remote no sir all right hearing none and seeing no further discussion we'll move it to a vote on second reading for um eight uh b excuse me eight a all in favor raise your hand it's unanimous for those who are present in voting and mr tucker how do you vote on 8a yes that's a yes it's unanimous miss hannah for the record all right gentlemen that takes us to item number 8b this is the ordinance on second reading regarding commercial event venues rural event venues and rural country clubs do we have a motion uh yes mr chairman i make a mission okay we have a motion is there a second a second are you okay we got a second for mr shoemake um any further questions commen

» ts amendments yes mr chairman i'd like to make an amendment to the proposed ordinance so make a motion that we change from five acres to ten acres minimum watt size and section 27-3 period b titled rural event venue and section 28-2 period a titled rural country club um this amendment just to clarify all right i need a second let's get a second for any further discussion we have a second i'll second mr cato in a second yeah just provide a little bit more clarity i think um what this does is two things one is a protective measure i know there were some concerns about um being able to have rural event spaces within right next to properties um in neighborhoods so we took the minimum lot size from five acres to ten acres uh that expansion kind of prevents you know your larger uh track neighborh

» oods that are coming up kind of your agricultural neighborhoods from having a event space right right next to them so we think it's a good opportunity and also it's an economic development opportunity i think we can really push out and try to get um some mom-and-pop venues going forward so appreciate your support okay we got the motion in the second mr cato you have the second everything he i have nothing to say he's got everything covered okay we were on the tomlinson amendment at this time any other questions or comments mr jones even though i even i do not like the ordinance and i'm probably not going to vote for the ordinance i like your amendment and i will support that thank you thank you mr jones and seeing no other comments or questions we'll move it to a vote and i didn't hear anyt

» hing from mr tucker so we'll just go ahead and have those vote who are in person all in favor of the tomlinson amendment on 8b raise your hand you have shoemake brazil connell was unanimous for those who are in person miss hannah for the record and mr tucker how do you vote remotely yes okay it's uh unanimous on the tomlinson amendment now we're back to the original motion and the ordinance any further discussion amendments or questions i've got a question yes go ahead mr brazel would this impact anybody with an existing business revenue only if they were going to expand that business anything else anything that is in existence operating right now um i believe staff you know it's water under the bridge they are permitted they are operating if they did not conform with this they'd be an exis

» ting non-conformity and the only way this would trigger would be due to an expansion of those venues so let me ask a question regarding barns can i build a 7 000 square foot outdoor barn on my private park property for my private use and this not affect it so if you're building a barn on your property chances are if it's for ag use you're exempt from permitting period for department of agriculture and state statute so again i'm not trying to give it it depends well my answer to you but my point my point is this some people build very nice barns shooting houses all kind of nice things on their own property for their own use or the use of them and their friends um maybe just folks they do business with but but it's not a business activity they're not charging for it would this have any confli

» ction with that this is intended only to regulate venues that are being used for a kind of for rent an area what if you would it would it create opportunity or hamper opportunity oh I think as drafted this creates opportunities currently these event venues are really only allowed in rural areas associated with a bed breakfast and that has been a huge hurdle for applicants to to meet I mean you want to run an event venue having to construct some sort of bed-and-breakfast structure to allow it seems a bit rude Goldberg and and how you're regulating so and it's something staff has struggled with staff use this as opening the door to a lot of citizen desires and applicants they've had come in wanting to do this type of use and just not having a box to put it in so the only other point of concer

» n that i have is it's a pseudo rezoning if you will for an event space which i have no issue with someone having an event space in the country i think that's cool you got a piece of property big pond you want to have a wedding venue that's great maybe a place for the reception what have you um a lot of those areas don't have the uh the sewer or the water for the fire protection that a commercial space or an industrial space would have. So is that going to be a blockade? Is that going to trigger something that would cause a blockade for people to be able to do this on those properties? Because if it is, it's kind of fruitless. So there may be practical impediments to some property owners being able to have an event space on their property.

» I think some of that would be dependent on the scope of the space that they wanted to erect and, again, what services are available. But it's not dissimilar from, say, someone with a rural property wanting to just operate a plain old business out of it or a restaurant or shop where they have invitees from the public so what what's the trigger for a sprinkler system so sprinkler systems are highly dependent on what someone wants to do if you have a structure that has a kitchen in it i believe state law allows you to have up to 99 people without having a firewall you still might have a sprinkler system so um i believe i think there's a square i think there's a square footage trigger i think it's generally 5 000 square feet and so it ultimately becomes a business decision if i could just comme

» nt on it uh mr brazel for the person who wants to develop something something like this or spend the money on their property it's if you're going to build 7 000 square feet you make a business decision about i i can host a larger event put more heads and beds and uh it's worth the additional cost or you build 4999 square feet and have uh have less construction costs per square foot based on not having a sprinkle it has to do with fire area so you could have a larger building but you would put in fire barriers to reduce the square footage okay there's a gentleman we're working with now that's a perfect example he had a document load in the 290s so we were able to put in a firewall to separate specific areas so he could have a certain amount of people in each area he'd have to Okay, so you're

» saying you could do 9 or 10 or 12, I think it used to be a 12,000 square foot trigger But there there are ways to navigate yeah shoot them straight yeah yeah tell them what they can and can't do i like that so i think this is good i just all those concerns have been in the back of my mind since the conception of this ordinance so i can support it tonight thank you thank you mr broussel any other questions comments mr chairman i'd just like to ask a couple questions i've had a few uh text recently about this yes i just wanted to confirm that that for equine related um activities like horse shows kind of similar to the rodeo out 34 um and equine clinics this doesn't have any effect on them going forward right i would defer to mr adams ruskowski but i believe a lot of those equine uses are alr

» eady specifically contemplated in the table of uses um this is intended to address kind of wedding reception areas um you know graduation parties yeah events then more event space events yes we've got mr joey at the mic yeah no i completely agree with you've been deferred to so yes your current code actually allows those uh uses so this this text amendment does not impact the allowance of those uses thank you that's what i thought i just wanted to confirm sure appreciate your help absolutely any other questions comments mr tucker anything remote Yes, sir. Just remind them. I don't know who stood up was answering the Russell's question. I had no idea who it was. That was Mr. Mr. Joey Adams, Raskowski. Oh, before that. Oh, before him. Let him know. Yeah, I'm blind. I can't see. Oh, OK.

» I guess they assumed you were looking on the screen. We'll make sure we announce all names for you. OK, thank you. Yes, sir. Any other questions? OK. Hearing none and seeing none here. We'll move it to a vote on second reading for 8B. All in favor, present, raise your hand. We've got Shoemake, Brazel, Connell, Cato, Tomlinson in favor. All opposed, who are present? Mr. Jones in opposition, present. And then remote, Mr. Tucker, how do you vote on 8B, second reading? Yes. That's a yes from Mr. Tucker. For the record, Ms. Hanna, passes on second reading. All right, that takes us to item number 8C. This is second reading. Any new developments, Mr. Administrator, we need to be aware of before we move to a motion.

» just um just a little update so the town of elgin did vote on this um and so this is just more of a contingency should anything fall through they're still in a negotiation phase so we didn't want to lose valuable time okay so this will be a backstop for them if they need us to assist for a short period of time 90 days do we have a motion on second reading on 8c i will move that we accept second reading on 8c mr schumacher has the motion is there a second i'll make the second mr brazel has the second mr shoemaker any discussion i just appreciate everybody supporting this obviously we're a small county and our municipalities sometimes are smaller except for that behemoth camden uh but over in elgin they can use the help so i appreciate you guys helping them out that'd be a good catfish thump

» this year that's right that's right mr brazel you have the second yeah absolutely mr brazel you have the second any comments questions no no comments no just happy to be able to support elgin that's all thank you sir anything else from those who are present seeing none we'll go to mr tucker who's remote mr tucker any comments questions amendments no comments i'll vote yes okay well with that we've got the remote vote yes mr tucker for all those who are present raise your hand if you're in favor on 8c miss hannah for the record it's unanimous and passes second reading 8c this takes us to 8d a third reading mr templer i know you're going to have some discussions between last reading and now any updates for us before we move to a motion? Just other than we've removed all the stops and we're re

» ady to proceed. Okay. On 8D third reading, this is regarding... Mr. Chairman, I think you might have your numbers different than I have. Yeah, I don't need it. 9A, I do. You have 8D? Yeah, Jimmy does in his. Oh, well, hold on. I didn't get the highlighted corrected agenda. I'm going to cheat real quick and piggyback off of you. And while you're doing that, Mr.

» Chairman, I guess we can clarify for the record that the one that is labeled corrected agenda is the agenda we adopted for tonight correct all right so that moves us to item number 9a resolution approving intergovernmental judicial services agreement related to the magistrate's court and we just heard from mr temper on 9a regarding the resolution do we have a motion i'll make a motion all right mr thompson has the motion we have a second i'll second mr schumach has a second mr thompson um can we have staff kind of provide some background information sure um members of Council, what you have before you is just an agreement that will allow Kershaw County magistrates to help the city of Camden out with their bond hearings over at the jail.

» They have two judges over at the city, and so they're constantly on an every-other-week rotation, and just to try to get a little bit of a breather in their rhythm over there. This was in discussion for some time. I spoke with Judge Davis, who was in communication with Tommy Morgan over at the city. So all parties are in agreement. This just allows us to interface and set bond for city charges over at our jail. And there is a funding mechanism that will allow us to recoup the time and pay our magistrates that work for the city. That's all been worked out as well. - Okay, so just to kind of sum it up, I've had a few judges call, and they were saying they're over their head in the bond coverage. - Yes.

» - It was just being able to help alleviate, and it's gonna help us out with the jail, if we can get people out on bond with the jail. - Correct, I was just about to say that is an important function with our current state of things over there. - Mr. Templer, will this be full-time with our magistrates, or will this be strictly just managed by the chief magistrate? So, yes, he has a lot of latitude in there to make adjustments on the fly. It doesn't paint him into any corners or anything like that. He can make adjustments as needed based on what's going on over in our magistrate's office. So, obviously, we will remain the priority, but we're certainly willing to help out over there. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shumate, go ahead.

» Yeah, when this came up before us last time, I asked that we defer it so that we could talk to the judges, and i appreciate mr templar doing that i've had the opportunity as well to talk to some of our municipal judges in camden and uh magistrate judges uh here for kershaw county and they've all been in support of this and so i appreciate mr templar going back and talking to them to make sure um you know that they're on board with this so it doesn't cost us any money and it provides needed coverage for our municipal partners in camden so i obviously fully support it thank Thank you, Mr. Shoemake. Any other? Mr. Brazel. Yeah, one last point of clarification. I think maybe Mr. Tucker has something as well. Mr. Tucker, if you'd like to go ahead, you go first, sir. No, sir, I yield. Go ahead.

» I'll wait. My only concern is that it would take away from court time or opportunity for us to move cases through on the county level. Is that an issue? No, these are outside of the regular bench time that these magistrates would have. is just a specific function to essentially unarrest somebody over at the jail for release or bond and to keep them in there so it is a function it typically takes place at eight in the morning and five in the afternoon so and it's understood that there is a rotation so um we have a new magistrate coming on so any any any conflict time conflicts not that i'm aware if one if one appears can we undo this yes the the the key uh operative calls and all of this and the actual agreement is under section two services where it says the county comma with approval of th

» e chief magistrate comma will provide x y and z services so um talk to judge davis about that i think everybody's very clear that the discretion to provide these services and and at what level is wholly rest with him, and as Mr. Templar referenced, obviously the county handling its business will take precedent. But, yeah, if it becomes an issue or a point of friction, Judge Davis is, again, wholly in control of the provision of services. And council can recall this if necessary? Correct, yes.

» I mean, y'all can void this, but, again, as structured, is essentially what judge davis is willing to do and nothing more as structured okay thank you sir thank you mr brazel any other questions comments mr tucker yes sir mr tucker yeah um councilman brazil and uh councilman schmidt kind of covered it uh my question was um this has a um indefinite date is that intentional or um do we want to put a date on it i might see it on my copy here which i've just got the agenda and um the other was um with the compensation that's not costing kershaw county um taxpayers that's coming from another coffer am i correct yeah correct on the funding and um the term of this is triggered on the effective date which is essentially date of passage and signature uh mr tucker there was some um logistics early on

» in that the kershaw county magistrate court did not believe it would have an additional judge until january that timeline has changed now and given that they might have some availability to provide this coverage in the coming months the and again having clarified with judge davis and all involved the exact parameters and that judge davis does have kind of the sole discretion the matter was placed back on the agenda because again it is actionable now uh when the magistrate's uh court has has their new magistrate judge start so i guess you said all i have to say no there's no um drop dead date on this is indefinite well the the term goes until june uh 30 of 26 so the end of this fiscal year it does have yeah it does have essentially an auto renew type setup um but either party can provide wri

» tten notice that they don't want to continue with the agreement anymore and again um it is uh it is at the discretion of judge davis and yes council could essentially undo it at any time okay well you answered the question when you gave me the june's date i don't have that my package is there because i'm usually there so due to i wasn't able to make it because of medical reasons i don't have all that information with me i just have the agenda spreadsheet understood thank you thank you mr tucker any other comments or questions mr jones thank you mr chair members of the county council um i can assure you that this is a win-win for the jail no question about it and as far as i'm concerned this i don't need any explanations uh we did this 25 30 years ago for a short period of time it worked out

» extremely well and i just want to commend whoever brought this before us tonight because you know we've got inmates sitting in jail that's been there a year maybe longer you know we need to get some pleas out we need to get some bonds set we need to keep them moving as a type 2 facility we're not a correctional facility we're a jail and there's a huge huge difference so to whoever brought this before us tonight thank you and i certainly support it thank you thank you mr jones any other questions or comments all right we're on 9a seeing none we'll move to a vote for those who are present all in favor raise your hand ms hannah it's unanimous by those who are present and voting mr tucker how do you vote on 9a the resolution yes that is a yes it's unanimous for the record and it passes gentleme

» n that takes us to new business we're on number 10 a placed on the agenda by councilman sammy tucker jr with the finance committee do we have a motion on 10 a mr chair i normally don't make motions across the phone but i like to make a motion that um we um approve um stormwater um analysis and um e-study yes ma'am yes sir we're going to need to hear from you one way or the other so thank you for the motion is there a second i'll second mr shoemake seconds mr tucker you had the motion okay thank you so uh the uh finance committee met uh two weeks ago now will be um week before last and had a very very um informative meeting um we were there a couple hours actually and we got a chance to hear from the engineers and and staff in reference to the stormwater um study that we have charged them wi

» th coming up with and at this point in time um they're at the point where they need to do an analysis and fee study to see what that looks like uh charging the citizens for stone water and that's just as simple as i can put it this will also help um our dirt roads our other subdivisions like that like pecan orchards and things of that nature and that amount is eighty thousand dollars and i'm happy to go into where it's coming from or where i would like to pull it from um if you need me be um if there's questions i can answer those yes sir the finance committee would be up to date on that number but just for the benefit for the rest of council could you let us know where the funds will be coming from yes sir so at this particular time i talked to staff that funds will be requesting to come o

» ut of our emergency funds which got 2.5 in it 2.5 million and we're asking for the stormwater study is going to be approximately 80 000 so we would like to pull that out of emergency emergency reserves okay thank you mr tucker um any further presentation or recommendations uh from you before we hand it off to the second uh no sir i just thought it was very uh informative information that they gave us and i'm pretty sure danny or one of the staff members be happy to go over or uh in detail or one of the council members okay uh council members any other question mr schumacher i think you have a second yeah just you know this comes about from you know obviously pecan orchard something we've talked about here but you know not just pecan orchard here's an example of what we're talking about ther

» e's this funky state regulation called ms4 which basically says certain urban-like areas have special regulations for lack of a better word and as we're a growing county so many areas in our county used to be considered rural are now considered part of the ms4 what that means is that even though the county isn't responsible for example for a drainage pond on a neighborhood if dhek comes into an ms4 which is basically at this point all of elgin is about to be all of lugolf if dhek comes into an ms4 and a drainage pond for a neighborhood isn't up to par even though the county doesn't own it the county gets fined richland county a few years back was fined millions and millions of dollars negotiated down to a few million for this exact issue the only way to address issues like this is to look a

» t standing up a stormwater department maybe it doesn't make sense maybe it does this is a required legal first step and that's just one example we get calls routinely about retention ponds that a developer has sort of passed off but passed off to no one they literally have no owners on the tax map so that's the type of thing that a stormwater department needs to look at not to mention the roads the runoff and numerous other issues and so that's one of the reasons that the finance committee is recommending this um and again there's in the vagina packet there's a whole slew of stuff but i think the one that jumps out to me is you know just the retention ponds alone are are something that could put this county into a you know eight figure hole with the state thank you mr shoemake any other que

» stions or comments all right seeing none this would require a vote on um 10a and it would be a vote on acceptance of the recommendation for a feasibility study and the expenditure of eighty thousand dollars i want to make sure i have that correct mr dubose that is correct okay we'll move it to a vote then seeing no further discussion for those who are present all in favor raise your hand it's unanimous by those who are present in voting uh miss hannah and we'll go remote mr tucker how do you vote sir i'll vote yes with a thank you to my colleagues yes sir thank you mr tucker so miss hannah it's unanimous and the 8a uh passes and the funds will be allocated mr chairman mr president could i make one small comment sure um i was able to attend that finance meeting and just listen and listen to

» the presentation and the concerns that derek just spoke about and um jonathan ho made the presentation i just wanted to say that he as our county engineer did a very good job of explaining the the reasons why and i was very impressed with the presentation and um sometimes things seem odd and and how we arrive at this and how this finishes i'm not quite sure but i know that his the intellect and the thought that went into trying to make sure that these these old subdivisions are properly cared for and that the dirt roads in kershaw county are able to be maintained and and everything that goes on with it um i was quite impressed that day so i just wanted to brag on him a little bit and and to say thank you to him and and the entire staff and engineering team here at kershaw county as well as

» our administrator for having that brought before us thank you mr brazel mr administrator oh go ahead mr tucker oh yeah sorry about that i just want to piggyback on um vice chairman's comments and if um and our administrator can make this decision as well but that presentation at any time if council wants to have that before all seven of us um i highly recommend it um at whatever appropriate point because it was just that informative as uh the vice chair said so just putting that out for thought thank you mr tucker mr templer yes sir i was just going to mention that jonathan is here tonight we have members of the storm the ad hoc committee um and he has a a version of that that that just simply puts forth what this ad hoc committee came up with.

» And I commend them for their time and effort. That was valuable information. Good cross-section of the community. But Jonathan is prepared, if you all would like to see that. It's not a million slides. It's probably about ten slides, but it's just very good information. I don't know if we need to see it tonight. I think we're good. I think we're good.

» i mean thank you how about forward us the slides and so everybody can digest them and if they have follow-up questions we'll do that and he's uh he's excited about that i did want to recognize those who are on the stormwater ad hoc committee uh think sometimes you get appointed and you're like okay what did i get voluntold to do here but um i just wanted to mention jay johnson brian cox jess coulter melita raven billy smith bob g and georgie who we have here tonight and also george delk we appreciate your service and you can see it's turning into results often these things are either statutorily required you have to do a feasibility study before you can determine if there's going to be assessment and it's important in kershaw county at this time because in some ways we lean heavily on sewer

» to try and pay for stormwater when really they're different and we haven't had a stormwater organization or real dedicated approach up until this time and so this was an important step i appreciate you gentlemen and ladies serving if there's nothing further on that item that'll take us to item number number uh 10b this is a finance committee update on pecan orchard and beyond an update are are we going to have a vote and is there any uh seeking of funds under 10b yes sir mr chairman we'll we will be seeking funds um i would like to make a motion on the amount and then go into explaining here in just a little bit yes sir please your motion uh i'd like to make a motion that we fund phase one of pecan ostrich uh for uh 350 000 that will be coming out of the emergency reserves as well and i'm h

» appy to explain any further sorry in my motion to i would ask staff to continue to pursue the grant and any other funding that can come in and will come in because the the phasing of this in phase one is going to to be spread out as well so the grants and stuff that we're pursuing and any other thing um use that money first or replenish the reserve because we are still chasing some grants and things of that nature okay mr tucker has a motion on the tables or a second i'll second mr cato seconds mr tucker any further discussion yes sir so um this right here would be once again the funds come out of emergency reserves um you heard what i said about continuing uh seeking other ways to uh to pay for this this would be what we call phase one uh which at the very probably first six months there's

» gonna be approximate cost of about sixty thousand dollars um the reason why the finance committee wanted to fund the entire project so we could have our utility providers to know that we're in the game to complete phase one but that was very important coming from our engineer our county engineer so i wanted to make sure of that but also i want to make sure that we replenish this money back in reserves or pay for it outright as we continue to search other means and ways to pay for this thank you mr tucker any further comments or questions mr shoemake yeah i just want to say briefly i think anyone who attended the last finance meeting probably knows that I have had and have some of my reservations about this but I want to just point out this is a really good example of what sort of compromise

» looks like talking through things looks like you know Councilman Jones and I Councilman Brazel and I have talked about this Councilman Tucker as well and I have my reservations but you know these guys have done a really good job sort of explaining the importance of this for those folks out there and in spite of those reservations I'm moving forward on this and i just think it's a really good example of how we may not always be 100 on something but you know i trust the gentlemen that are up here with us and i appreciate your hard work and advocacy for these folks and you know i hope it all works out great and certainly you have my vote for this tonight thank you mr shoemaker any other comments or questions yes i just like to say thank you to this county council but i also want to recognize o

» ur engineers they did a great job when i walked in the last finance committee i think it was finance committee meeting i came in a little bit late just to hear some things going on but just listening to them talking how they helped us understand how we should do phase one and that's in its completion in phases one two three whatever it is wouldn't be a bad thing overall but but thank you to the engineers for that and uh if they're here wherever and i want to thank you county council for being open-minded and you're right um we we we have sat down we've talked about some other issues and that had a big effect on me understanding some of the other issues we had on the agenda tonight as well thank you so much and for your support of this i appreciate it thank you mr jones any other comments or

» questions seeing none i'll go ahead and comment before we move it to a vote and actually ask mr tucker how many phases and what projected additional costs might there be or is this phase one and completion of phase one what the finance committee is seeing is is what needs to be done legally and what we can do practically with the low-lying nature of it for the pecan orchard yes so message here um you you hit you hit the nail on the hammer hammer um the uh phase one uh was served the most benefit i guess that's the word i'll use to the citizens um and that means completion of phase one and um what the finance committee did was we we briefly talked about phase two and briefly talked about phase three but you can't get the first which i mean you can't get the second with your foot on first we

» took the baseball approach let's conquer phase one and then as we develop and stand up uh storm water and other entities and continue to dig for money we'll look and see what phase two is going to cost and where we're at with that but right now the finance committee mostly focused on phase one okay thank you mr tucker i can support this tonight but i just will comment i had my own heartburn on this after looking at historical documents that indicate um disclosures made to the private property owners and the developer historically before the road system was taken over by the county that they needed to work on their engineering they needed to figure out quite a few things related to storm water and drainage which apparently never happened and so now the county is in some ways holding the bag

» the engineers i speak with indicate that in order for it to be a county standard road and what the county did was take over a a non-conforming road in a non-conforming state and it would have to remain that way because according to the engineers you'd have to tear the houses down and do about three or four feet of fill within the subdivision because of its low-lying nature to drain it properly and make it county standard roads and so i think this is going to be our best effort to to try to address some of the issues in there given the historical context and and just the geographic and um topographic nature of that subdivision it's beautiful and pecan trees apparently like a lot of water and like sometimes low-lying areas and that's just the nature of that subdivision but i can't support it

» tonight mr chairman mr jones mr temple i'd like to thank you as well you know i've had a lot of discussion about this over the last year or two or whatever and i know you've been out there you've been upside down all around and i appreciate it and just everybody's support tonight thank you all right thank you gentlemen let's move it to a vote for those who are present all in favor raise your hand miss hannah it's unanimous by those who are present and voting and mr tucker how do you vote remotely yes a yes from mr tucker remotely miss hannah it passes uh 10b all right that takes us to item number 10c placed on the agenda by councilman derek shoemake zldr rewrite procedures and related requests mr shoemake is there a motion i do have a motion i make a motion that kershaw county council reque

» sts that the chairman under section 5.2 of the amended and restated ordinance determining rules and order of business establish the ad hoc smart growth rewrite committee is outlined in the document titled smart growth rewrite committee and that we adopt the document as the findings and directions of council to set forth the specified task limited purpose and limited duration of this committee this document has been included in the agenda packet provided to council members and to the public and for council members it's new business and it's in the pdf that was posted that is my motion all right you've got a motion thank you mr shoemake is there a second i'd like to second the motion mr brazel has the second mr shoemake your motion's on the table yeah so i won't read the whole thing obviously

» it's a lengthy document and um i've been working on this and discussing this i've had individual discussions with each of you up here so no this is a surprise to anyone here but just for members of the public what this is doing as you many of you know we have the comprehensive plan that should be coming in front of us in september the planning commission has finished their version of it it's with the contractor it will hopefully come back with some minor revisions that may be legally required and then come to us for passage the second we pass the comprehensive plan it is time to get started with the really important work and follow-up step of rewriting the entire zoning code if you go online that's a 300 plus page document that goes into how people build sheds uh the event venue everything

» we've talked about many of the things we've talked about tonight are in the zldr and every cup every decade or so is required to be revisited the growth in kershaw county that everyone else has seen is enormous just a couple quick points we grew 6.01 percent from 2010 to 2020 last census period we have already grown on best estimates twice that in only five years if we assume a two percent growth rate for the remainder of the decade which by the way is very conservative because we've only had one year with a less than two percent growth rate we are looking at a growth rate of just under 24 percent at the end of the decade four times what we did the decade prior we're already seeing it we see it in our schools we see it on our roads we see it in pecan orchard the only way to combat that is r

» eally smart zoning so we have to take that lead i do think it's important planning commission serves a vital role and they're integral in this process but what this process does is sets up a committee that would have the first draft of the zldr that will have council members on it that will come to council first and that is so the body that has to answer to the public is the body putting pen to paper to draft these documents it puts us in the driver's seat and bluntly it puts us in the blame seat so it's our responsibility to make sure we grow this the right way this is a continuation on a lot of the smaller things that we've worked on together you know councilman brazile talked at length on the minimum lot size issue we've had the moratorium the minor subdivision all of this is sort of ban

» d-aid patches to do this important work it's not sexy but in my opinion this is the most important work this council is going to do in the next five years thank you mr shoemake mr browsley have the second yes thank you chairman um very well stated councilman shoemake i'll say this um it wasn't easy at all to get to the point of a moratorium and it came with heartburn and i don't want any of that to be in vain um i feel like opportunity is now to get this right and to put our heads together and do the work that basically shapes kershaw county for the foreseeable future we can either bicker and argue and screw this up and not have a smart quality growth future or we can we can get this right we can nail it and i think we've got the team and the council and all the commissioners on the plannin

» g and zoning board to to do this and do it right i think an ad hoc committee smart i think this is the way to do it and to get public input and there's no question kershaw county is going to grow there's no question that there's going to be future development we're not against growth and building of homes i just know that if we do it the wrong way and if we don't have a vision in the future kershaw county is um is gonna is gonna look really different than than it can so i appreciate derek's work on this i appreciate you putting this together and bringing it bringing it to us and um we've got just about seven or eight months now to get it right and i intend to help do that and mr chair if i may just quit for the benefit of the public yes sir the way this committee would work is it would have

» seven members two members would be from county council one member would be from the planning commission the other four members would be members of the public recommended to the chair based on our rules the chair picks members of the ad hoc committee but that would be the basic makeup vice chairman brazel and chairman connell would serve as advisor members so they'd be part of any meetings they wanted to be part of so you know you'd have substantial council input which was kind of the goal of this so there's council input along the way so chairman brazel our vice chairman brazel chairman connell and then whatever two members of the council led up on the committee would be sort of the steering committee as to council a planning commission member selected by chairman connell and then four memb

» ers of the community to be selected probably hopefully our next meeting by chairman connell based on input from council sorry chairman i just want to make that clear thank you mr schumacher any further comments questions yeah mr chairman while we're while we're looking at it or do we need i don't know if we need to vote on it but i dare put a lot of hard work in the end of this and appreciate you um getting this document prepared and i agree that going forward but i'd like to make um or recommend nominate um derek to serve as chairman of the committee okay thank you i think we do require a vote to actually form it um at least i think mr she makes requiring a vote but thank you for the recommendation with all his work on it that's intuitive uh in many ways thank you mr tomlinson um any other

» comments questions mr jones mr cato who who wants it if i had one here oh we got three of them in line go ahead Mr. Cato. If I had one recommendation on the four people, I'd like to see at least one from different areas of the county and not just be Camden or Lugoff. I'd like to see one from maybe District 6, one Camden, one from Lake Watery, one from Elgin. Yeah, Mr. Cato, I'm going to get y'all's feedback on that over the next two weeks, and I'm reserving an appointment of civilian members of the committee until the next meeting, and so we'll just talk about that as it's been brought up tonight and would have to pass a vote to actually be created. Thank you, Mr. Cato. Mr. Jones was next and then mr. Tucker Thank You mr.

» chair members County Council you know initially I was not really in favor of this course I hadn't read it there did give me a copy and I appreciate it more I read it tomorrow felt like I understood it and this takes no authority away from planning Commission who I think has done an outstanding job in any way shape or form it goes back to what you and Russell had just said that it's more transparency puts more eyes on it he's also you know I think it even helps give planning and zoning some direction commission so i mean after i really read it and looked at it i did understand it better and councilman she make you did a good job on this one i'm going to support it thank you mr jones any further comments or questions anything remote mr tucker yes i just well you told us to hold it but i'm goi

» ng to say it now since you gave me the mic along those same lines um i know uh councilman keiko was asking about someone from district six but i would also as far as the account council appointee i would highly recommend brad thomason for two reasons one um he's been involved in this from the beginning as well but he's on the camden side of the river and she made his own the uh west side of the river so that gives out two representatives from both sides of the county just planting that seed mr chairman thank you mr tucker as mr shoemake's trying to throw gang comments um all right any other comments or questions before we move to the vote no i just i just can't believe that i agree with what mr tucker just said thank you must be the medication all right so as to formation as to formation we

» 'll move it to a vote on ten c all in favor uh who are present raise your hand ms hannett's unanimous for those who are present and voting mr tucker how do you vote remotely yes that's a yes from mr tucker remotely so it passes unanimously and before we move on to the next agenda item um i'll go ahead and take the chair's authority to appoint Mr. Shoemake as the chair of this committee, which we've just formed. And I think it's natural, and I was thinking about this already, someone from the Westwater area and the Eastwater area, Mr. Tomlinson just gave me the nod he's willing to serve and wants to help out. And so I appoint Mr. Tomlinson as the second council member. And then I'll confer with council privately or otherwise over the next two weeks before we appoint members of the public.

» Thank you very much, gentlemen. Ms. Hanna, it passes. All right, that takes us to council member briefings. Mr. Cato, do you mind going first again? Sure. I'm going to be short and sweet. Go ahead. We had an incident this week that I want to bring to everybody's attention. Of course, most people already know, but the importance of our school bus stops. And we had a young child hit this week up on Lockhart Road. And so I want to caution not just parents, but drivers during this school year to be extra cautious with these school buses and school bus stops. And some of these children may get a little bit too close to the road sometimes, but I want us to really stop and pay attention to what's going on around us, especially during school times, during the morning time and the evening time.

» I don't know this person personally, but it could have been a lot worse than what it was, and it was bad enough as it was, but it could have ended in tragedy, and I'm just glad it didn't. So I just ask that we all be a little bit more cautious during these school days. And secondly and lastly, the 49th Annual Shrine Club Jamboree will be held this weekend, Friday night. It'll be held this year at North Central High School. It will kick off at 6:30 with L.E. versus Lakewood. It'll follow by Camden versus Blythwood and then North Central and Calhoun County will be the last game of the night. So I encourage anybody that would to come out to North Central and support the three county teams in this 49th annual jamboree. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you very much, Mr. Cato. Mr.

» Tomlinson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few things. One, I wanted to highlight, I've had some citizens from the Maverick Hill area kind of in constant contact regarding the airport forms development that's coming up. That was Blue Brow Planning and Zoning a year ago, I think. but they had some concerns about the exit and entry off of beverly hills i know that they have big issues with flooding during heavy heavy rains on the other side and wanted to see if they could potentially sit down with the developer or maybe talk to somebody with planning and zoning maybe just see if there's something that the developer would be willing to maybe make it an emergency egress spot but just seeing if there's some way to work and then also the retention pond kind of where that's going since there is

» some flooding issues just making sure that all that's done and i'm sure that our staff has been very diligent about it but if you all wouldn't mind i can send you the names i don't want to mention them on here but just wanted to highlight that and then also please keep the families in your prayers of judge michael stegner who recently passed away the saga family he was a judge for over 20 years an attorney my personal friend his father is a great guy great story for camden and then also miss jean holland so the holland and brandon family miss jean passed away on sunday so please keep their families in your prayers thank you very much mr tomlinson mr jones yeah just a couple of things briefly um councilman brazil to you and your family my thoughts and prayers go out i know what you've been g

» oing through with uh your wife's mother and uh we all send our prayers from the jones family i'm sure here as well and also with mark barfield your cousin what a guy he was really a great guy and his mom was a legend in this county she worked here many many years so our thoughts and prayers are always there and mr tucker as well with his with his dad you're a good son sammy tucker you took care of your dad your family and uh you'll be rewarded for that one day but anyway i just wanted to say that before i get into the this other stuff right quickly if we could uh mr template is any way i'd like to get a recreation department update at the next county council meeting i've had a couple of people call and um just some things that we can talk about later on but i just want to run them by you as

» well um also the uh the impact fee i had some people call me and i don't know that anything can be done but uh it was like for a replacement mobile home i think they were saying they were going to pay two thousand dollars for a replacement on their mobile home so i just want to take some time and look at that and make sure that i give them the correct information if that's a mandate that has to stay that way or is there something we can do to maybe you know give them some relief on that i don't know but i probably can't do anything because i voted against it so i realize that as well too but i'm right i can i can you know run my mouth a little bit and put this information out there so having said that uh mr chairman that concludes my report for the night thank you mr jones um mr tucker i'm

» just looking at your seat anything to report very briefly mr chairman if i may i just want to say once again thanks to the diets up there all my colleagues uh thank you for your comments councilman jones i appreciate it very much um i just want the public to know uh for the ones who follow us um that um a lot of good information was at the conference this year um that we attended and i learned a lot we we learned a lot and there's some things that we'll be pursuing in our meetings especially the finance as we move forward to try to help us move Kershaw County forward you know we've got a lot of issues that we have to address at a big big ticket item and learned a lot on who we can lean on how we can do those things how other counties are doing their business who's building detention centers

» and courthouses and things of that nature so just wanted to let you know that the conference was a great conference this year and thoroughly enjoyed a lot of great speakers as well that concludes my report thank you very much mr tucker mr shumay yeah just a couple of little things a shout out to doby's middle elementary school they um two of their teachers got palmetto state teacher association grants to help out with stuff in their classroom and um excited for that school and full disclosure my wife teaches there and i am biased but it is the best elementary school around um uh thank you i know she left but i know i see uh some other folks in here that are involved in the civics education so thank you guys for that i think it's so critically important um i also don't know if you guys saw t

» he wltx article but the kershaw county sheriff's office is the first sheriff's office in the state to start implementing some ai tools with some of their uh automated processing uh ai is certainly the wave of the future so it's pretty awesome to see them get on the the lead of that um it's not going to be like bojangles i hope no i don't think that the little they ask you what you want and you have to repeat it i hope not um but bojangles is also delicious the best one is the one um so um the last thing i want to say is uh this friday i know i think it's friday for you too as well i moved my son into clemson i think you move your son up there as well right you know it's funny this kind of duality of things right like nothing makes a man tougher harder than having a family to support but at

» the same time nothing makes a man softer than having kids and in that softness i've been very reflective these last couple of weeks and i appreciate everyone up here doing this work to make our county better you know if i had to synthesize what i hope to ever accomplish doing this you know elected official job ever is that i want to make a county or help be part of making a county that my kids can come back to getting them to come back is my problem and a whole nother slew of issues but i hope to have a county they can come back to and come work in and the first step is doing things like what we're doing today and i know that's the goal of everyone up here who has kids some of you have been fortunate enough that your kids have come back here most of us have smaller children and i think that

» 's a shared goal so thank you guys for what we do up here so that's that's all i have thank you thank you mr schumacher mr brazel chairman thank you um i'd like to first and foremost thank each and every one of you for uh the the support that that you've shown myself and my wife and our family uh during the time of loss of my mother-in-law kathy merritt we uh we got a phone call just hours before the last council meeting i was actually downtown dressed to come to the meeting when i got the phone call and ended up driving uh to greenville south carolina to where they're from she was a loving mother and and wife and a wonderful grandmother to my three children she will be dearly missed but i just want to say thank you to each and every one of you jimmy jimmy drove up to the funeral and uh we

» we didn't uh we didn't have a uh obituary or anything we wanted it kind of small but councilman jones wouldn't have any other way he found out so um into all of you that reached out the the prayers and emotional hugs were felt from each and every one of you and many members of the community reached out in our church as well so um for all of that i say thank you but i as i reflect on that i've got a i've got to recognize our community has had some significant loss lately. There's a young man, Caden McGuff, that was killed in a car wreck going to a Cold War Christian get-together at Camden High School. And my daughter and I had picked my daughter up the day before. And Caden's girlfriend was a friend of my daughter's.

» And it just really hits home, deep condolences to his family and to everyone affected. These situations make you reflect on family and life and how things can change in an instance. But my heartfelt condolences to that family and friend group here in the community. And my good friend, Bubba Baker, his son, Brent, girlfriend was tragically killed in a car accident. And I didn't have the pleasure of knowing the young lady, But my heart hurts for the family. I've known Bubba since kindergarten. And just these are things that are happening, and there are others that I'm not mentioning, I'm sure, or overlooking. But it's real impressive when a community pulls together through these situations, and I've seen it. And I just want to say one thing.

» That's Christ, okay, at work in this world here in Kershaw County. That's nothing more than Jesus Christ helping these young people through these situations. And I just wanted to invoke the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, for all of the families to include. My father's first cousin, Mark Barfield, passed last night at 745. He had a hard-fought battle with leukemia. And to his family and all of my cousins and extended family, I just want you to know I'm praying for you and I'm thinking of you as well.

» all of these emotions are still pretty raw for the family, but I don't know how we would make it if we didn't have God in our lives, and if you don't have faith, you've never had faith, I'd like to publicly encourage you to look for it, and if that's not something you're accustomed to or akin to or disagree with, that's okay, but if you ever change your mind, look me up. I'd love to talk to you about mine. We've got a situation that's perturbed me, but it doesn't perturb me as much tonight. In light of everything that I just spoke about, we've had some issues with the building of the boat ramp down at Veterans Park. I had the opportunity to speak with the owner of Alliance Engineering, who's responsible for that project, and he told me unequivocally be that it will be built correctly.

» We've had two concrete pours that had to be excavated and replaced, and I'll ask Mr. Templar to make sure I'm correct in saying that that was at no cost to the county. Correct. We're holding their feet to the fire in the contract. It may take longer. We're dealing with third party, lowest bid. I'd like to see it improve.

» I'd like to see things get better and as soon as this rain breaks i'd like to see that boat ramp finished and it better be the best one ever built i expect for it to be they'll be pulling some more concrete out i can promise you if it's subpar but again in light of everything else that i spoke about that's maybe a little trivial tonight but it needed to be said mr chair that concludes my briefing tonight thank you thank you mr brazel um i'll just say we have great hope in the resurrection uh i see those in the crowd who have experienced loss recently those who are on the dais or remotely calling in who've experienced loss and we have great hope in the resurrection i'm very thankful for that and grateful that i'm in a position as mr shoemake and others have mentioned to try to share that fai

» th with my family and particularly my children the next generation a few things to report uh gentlemen first we've got mr thomas and mr shoemake now serving and on the smart growth three right committee as we just discussed but i wanted to go ahead and use the chair's prerogative to extend to the extent these folks are still willing to serve by three months the stormwater ad hoc committee with the additional funding staff tells me that there's going to be some need for a little bit more work a couple more meetings just to make sure it's done the right way and so to the extent you are willing to serve and staff's going to follow up individually with the names that i mentioned before we want to make sure that the feasibility study starts off the right way and continue so we get good data back

» to understand what we need to do for stormwater in kershaw county so that committee will be extended um until november 28 2025 which is the last business day in november and we'll revisit it at that time if we need to extend further thank you miss farmer for being here i always enjoy seeing elected officials come and attend the meetings and tune in to what's happening in the county and i wanted to give an update on my service on the sl cog as a member for the santee lynch's cog i haven't been able to make a couple of the meetings this summer due to family travel and vacations with three younger kids but thankfully i made the most recent one i was there with mr hanley and a few others from kershaw county and one of the issues that came up was the spears creek wastewater site seeking approval

» for increasing their wastewater gallons per day from approximately 10 to 12 million gallons per day up to 22 million gallons per day over a 20-year period and so of course we had several questions we have deferred that vote they were seeking a vote but we've deferred that vote to the next meeting to get information about exactly what that means if any of it's earmarked for kershaw county uh to the extent the the charlotte i'm just going to call it the inter basin water transfer issue if that's not resolved and some of the flow is reduced in the watery river how would that impact kershaw county's ability to process affluent and have discharge rights our economic development our residential concerns as well for sewer and i just want to put that on y'all's radar that they're looking for almost

» 100 increase and we need to make sure we understand what we want there so that i can carry our vote to the sl cog and give feedback on those issues as it comes because from that side everything gets processed and goes to the watery river that's all i have for tonight um mr administrator do you have any briefing for us yes mr chair i do um mr jones i do have some updates on some rec projects but if i don't address anything you're certainly welcome to reach out with anything specific so this is um just kind of some updates on where we're at woodward park we continue to have structures go vertical concession stands um equipment shelters they're either up and awaiting roofs or utilities are being installed the water line has been installed from chestnut ferry road um storm drainage is continuin

» g to either temporary or permanent has uh is being established so a lot of site work there uh the turn lane has been released for construction and will begin in the up and coming weeks so potentially uh the 17th of this month but um as you know we're having a lot of rain which is really impacting and hampering several of these projects casey west the rough subgrade grading for the rough subgrade is has is underway the expansion of the detention basin as we talk about storm water we're putting in impervious surfaces and expanding that so we have to take care of the storm water out there just part of what we do now drainage materials are on site and it seems to be moving along on schedule boyd young park grating still a lot of dirt installation topsoil infield mix irrigation system is being i

» nstalled fence posts are up but that's intentional without the fence so we can install irrigation without damaging any fence or anything like that. Bethune, Copeland Park, again, grading and infield mix. We had an irrigation well out there. We did have to go through a change order on that. We had to drill deeper to get the proper PSI water flow to properly irrigate these new fields. So it's been something that we have failed to do in the past. When we've installed fields, we put in nice grass with no irrigation, so it quickly goes away. The boat ramp is, you know, obviously we're being hampered by weather. We've had some setbacks. You know, we face some challenges with these projects. This one's obviously not on time just due to some of the challenges we've had.

» But we're still committed to this. This is a community project. Kershaw County is the one entity putting this in and providing this entity or this amenity. This is a public improvement that's going to greatly increase the recreational opportunities along our river. Setbacks will always be a part of any public or private endeavor, and there's just no way around that. But we do appreciate the public's patience and understanding and their support in these projects. You know, we talk about building communities, and this is where we're enhancing a community and we're installing and placing in new or upgrading amenities that are just going to really impact the quality of life in Kershaw County. I mean, these are going to just be top-notch facilities.

» And, you know, we're all going to be proud to have been a part of these things. They're here for generations to come. Again, we have setbacks, but these are being built properly. They're going to be here. They're going to stand the test of time. And this is just an approach to recreation that I don't think Kershaw County has had in decades And just really putting in quality features and paying attention to the details so they're sustainable and usable for generations to come. So I appreciate all the work that's been done on these with staff, with our engineering team, our contractors, but I just look forward to having these things done and filled with people enjoying them. So Mr. Jones, if you have any specific questions.

» yes sir if you don't excuse me just one quick question are we within budget with the recreation yes projects all in inclusive what we have done is um some like with the boat ramp we have had change orders um some of that was due to we used the uh the old the existing dock that was over on the other side obviously we didn't want to put in a busted up dock that had suffered damage through the years of being used over there we saved money on that dock but it needed some repairs so storm water drainage and piping some stone just for stabilization reroute some of the access to the floating dock because once you started looking at these things in real time it just made a little more sense to make some adjustments so we're we're still on track with that project other projects have had some change

» orders as well the ball fields we're in we're in financial good shape with that we're not over what we have done there is through the we anticipated some of these increases um on the projects across the board again to get them done right to get them done across the board did it all fall within contingencies the the contingencies because we're later in some of these projects the contingencies are getting getting lower but what we did in our capital this year we set aside money to make sure that we get these projects across the finish line no debt right through right this is just capital we cut that capital uh funding out before we started looking at what we needed to do for our capital needs as a whole so we have funds set aside again it's it's um we're pulling down our money first uh with t

» he uh with woodward park um that was always the deal the hospital money is still sitting there for that they were kind enough to donate so um everything is is running along and and we anticipated some of this with these projects as a whole and you know if you think about it these are large projects there's multiple large projects so um we just had to be forward thinking and and look at where we were with a little bit of trend analysis and projecting with funding um so i'm comfortable with where we're at mr tempered do you have a projected do you have a projected completion date on any of these projects with the exception of the boat ramp i know you know with this weather i'd be afraid to say i would be just as accurate as the weatherman this week so um you know as soon as we can but with wh

» at we're doing now with the weather and how wet this month has already been a lot of what we need to do is site work you know moving soil and things like that so that that you're looking at at least two weeks behind now and just with what has fallen out of the sky and you know since one august so um so it would just be really difficult for me to throw something out there mr chair if i may this temper specifically uh with the west complex and woodward field are we within budget on both those projects yes we we haven't overspent on those projects no and what we've done is we've drawn down some of the amenities we've done some value engineering with woodward the turn lane was funded by ctc with the help of the rec commission looking at this project and seeing where they can trim some costs um

» so we've made adjustments but we've not thrown away the the spirit of the project for saving money but and we stay within budget okay that that was my main question thank you so much thank you mr chairman yes sir anyone mr administrator is that conclusion yes sir thank you mr bow is anything other than executive session matters for legal briefing no mr all right no legal briefing uh council members we have two executive session items proposed ones related to matters subject to attorney-client privilege and another one's related to a personal unemployment matter both under sc code section 30-4-70 and we seek a motion to enter executive session on both these items no vote is anticipated for the benefit of the public under 14 a and b do we have a motion i'll make a motion we're going to execut

» ive session. Mr. Cato has the motion. Is there a second? Second. Second for Mr. Tomlinson. Any discussion at all? Seeing none, we move to a vote on entering executive session. All present and voting, raise your hand in favor. It's unanimous for those who are present and voting. Mr. Tucker, how do you vote? Yes. Ms. Hanna, it's a yes from Mr. Tucker remotely. We are in executive session. Exit executive session. I make a motion we exit executive session.

» second second any discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote for leaving executive session all in favor uh miss hannah you can document those who are present and voting we have mr uh mr jones you're in favor of leaving executive session for the record as well mr tucker is offline so he won't be voting um motion for adjournment make a motion with adjourn mr cato is there a second second mr brazel is the second seeing no discussion all in favor raise Raise your hand. Mr. Tucker is offline. It's unanimous. For those who are present and voting, we are adjourned. Thanks, everyone.