Full meeting transcript - April 14, 2026

» Good evening, everyone. We've been called to order on this April 14th, 2026, Kershaw County Council meeting. On the agenda, we've got an invocation and pledge of allegiance. My Councilman, Brant Tomlinson, will proceed at that point. Everyone, please stand and bow your heads as we go to the Lord in prayer.

» Dear Lord, thank you for this beautiful day today, thank you for this opportunity allowing us to meet and do the work of kershaw county and the people please give us the wisdom the guidance and the patience to do the best work for kershaw county and its citizens please have allow everyone safe travels on the way home in jesus name we pray amen amen i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god and invisible with liberty and justice for all thank you councilman tomlinson that moves us on to adoption of the agenda do we have a motion make motion we adopt agenda submitted mr chair we've got a motion is there a second second any discussion on the agenda seeing none we'll move to a vote all in favor raise your hand mi

» ss hannah it's unanimous the agenda is approved we have a series of proclamations first one is item number five do we have a motion on 5a mr. chair I'd like to make a motion that we adopt this proclamation of emotions or second second we've got a second mr. Cato you have the floor this is a proclamation that I started doing last year's most of you know the month of April is autism awareness acceptance month and we have many of families that are dealing with these kind of setbacks and some are employees from around the county and others are just other citizens and not just a county but all over the nation so I'd like to read this proclamation and honor them tonight this is for autism and it says whereas autism spectrum disorder ASD is a developmental disability that can cause significant soc

» ial communication and behavioral challenges autism is the fast-growing development disorder that affects about 1 in 44 children that causes them to communicate interact behave and learn differently than others the learning thinking and problem-solving abilities of people with asd can range from gifted to severely challenged some people have with asd need a lot of help in their daily lives and others less and whereas there is no cure for autism love patience and endurance are a great dosage but families are encouraged to get involved with early intervention treatments services that can improve a child's development and ask questions and speak with their health care provider if you feel that your child is not doing developmentally what they should at certain ages and whereas autism impacts pe

» ople regardless of race ethnicity and social economic backgrounds no one is exempt from the possibility of being diagnosed now therefore be it known that families deal with autism every month but kershaw county council would like to acknowledge the month of april as autism awareness and acceptance month in kershaw county as we strive to support promote and strengthen our families with children who have autism to help them achieve a better quality of life thank you councilman cato any other discussion from council members thank you danny for putting this on there yes seeing no further discussion we'll move to a vote and i would just like to say before before we vote you know i also want to want to thank and i have a daughter and even my wife that work throughout the school system and and i j

» ust want to thank all the people that help these families and help these children because this this is a vast wide range of people that help these children each and every day and adults each and every day so i just want to thank them thank you again councilman any further discussion i think i'd just like to make one comment uh danny thank you for putting this on the agenda um you know i think sometimes um we we find autism is a spectrum and some of the most intelligent people i've ever met in my life are diagnosed with autism and adhd which is um on the very lowest end of the spectrum but um i appreciate you putting this on councilman thank you seeing no further discussion we'll move it to a vote for those in favor of the proclamation and adoption raise your hand miss hannah for the record

» it's unanimous and the proclamation is adopted that takes us to item number 5b do we have a motion on item number 5b the month of april's fair housing month uh mr chairman if i may i'd like to make a motion that we approve the proclamation uh for the month of april as fair housing month thank you sir we have emotions or second i'll second - Mr. Shoemake has a second. Mr. Tucker, you have the floor. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This time I would just like to read the proclamation. It says, "Proclamation proclaimed in April "as the Fair Housing Month, "whereas Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, "also known as the Fair Housing Act, "was enacted on April 11th, 1968 "by President Lyndon B.

» Johnson, "inscribed into the law, the federal law, "the goal of eliminating racial segregation and ending housing discrimination in the United States. And whereas Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, disability, and commits recipients of federal funding to affirmatively further fair housing in their communities. And whereas Kershaw County is committed to the mission and intent of Congress to provide fair and equal housing opportunities for all, Whereas our social fabric, the economy, health, environment are strengthened in diverse, inclusive communities. And whereas more than 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, discrimination in housing markets still exists.

» Many communities are segregated. whereas acts of housing discrimination and barriers to equal housing opportunity are repunded to a common sense of deficiency, families, and dignity. And now, therefore, Kershaw County Council hereby proclaims this month of April 2026 as Fair Housing Month and encourages all citizens to prevent discrimination and reverse housing surrogation by increasing opportunities for minority homeownership and invest in affordable housing acts across the county. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Any further comments or discussion? Mr.

» Chairman, if I may, I just want to say that I know that the COG really helps us with this, and I know we've got a housing program here in Kershaw County as well that does a great job, and a lot of nonprofits that try to take care of folks wherever they're homeless or it's affordable housing. we have a great community that really really holds this letter of law that went in in 1968 to the fullest and i would encourage them and thank them to continue to do that and for the people who are not involved i see there's a lot of builders and developers out there it's not a bad thing to put on your plan as well for the future because you want a mixed community and that way that all ties rise with all ships rise with a high tide so we don't leave anybody behind but that concludes my remarks thank you

» mr tucker any other discussion or comments from council yeah briefly mr chairman um i find this almost ironic actually i do find it ironic we're talking about fair housing at a time in which we're talking about growth and potentially restricting housing so in the spirit of a congressional law i want everybody here to know that my father put food on the table working for home builders here in kershaw county when i was a child i understand we're fighting a growing community and we're trying to shape a future that leaves kershaw county as good or better than than we found it and it puts us in a tough position at times um i just wanted to state for the record that that i appreciate and support every home builder that's in kershaw county thank you for what you do thank you for the people that yo

» u employ and everybody that it affects in a positive way so i appreciate y'all being here tonight thank you mr browse any other comments or discussion from council members i think that will move to a vote in adopting the proclamation all in favor of 5b raise your hand ms hannett's unanimous and passes on 5b that moves us on to public comments welcome everybody else out again tonight i know many of us are getting back in town from spring break last week or the week before so it's good to have everybody back together mr dubose how many do we have signed up for public comments there are four speakers mr chair who's the first one mark wood and the subject is pecan orchard mr wood as you're coming up i'll just remind everyone that public comments are limited five minutes it's time for council to

» uh to hear from the public and not question and answer just interested in hearing from the public yes sir thank you mr chair members of council i don't come here tonight as your auditor as i normally do i come as a disappointed citizen disappointed in this council i'm disappointed this council in regards to the decisions that have been made with my neighborhood the pecan orchard this neighborhood has been a topic of discussion for the last several years that relates to the storm water issues that this neighborhood is experiencing last year we were told the county had applied for a grant to finance the stormwater project. Myself along with some of my other neighbors asked the county what was the contingency plan if the grant was not successfully obtained.

» We were told at that time that if the grant was not able to be obtained, the county would look at using emergency reserves to fund the project. A meeting was held last year in the neighborhood along with county administration and several members of council and they assured the residents that the county was committed to this project and promised the project would be a priority and get completed. Fast forward to today, we now have been informed that even though the county has spent somewhere between $120,000 to $150,000 on an engineering study, that the project will only receive $350,000 just to fix one row of Blackberry, which is the lowest point in the neighborhood. Oh, and also that that $350,000 includes purchasing a vacant lot.

» What happens is that vacant lot is not able to be purchased. What happens if the county, what happens to the project then? What happened to the promise made that this was an important project? This council has let this neighborhood down and many residents are mad as they feel as they've been lied to. I ask council that they revisit this issue and make the right decision to fund this entire project. That is what true leaders do and that is what you were elected to do is lead. I'm going to give you a couple of stats and some information. Maybe the county is aware, maybe the county was not aware of how this project could have possibly been funded. From 6-30-2022 through 6-30-2025, the county's local government investment pool account earned $5.8 million in interest.

» During that same time frame, the ARPA money from the federal government earned $1.45 million. That does not include 2026, which that would probably add another $2.5 million to that number. So all council had to do was designate some of the ARPA interest, which was unrestricted, no cost to the taxpayers, to help fund this project. In addition, council passed a budget for 6-30-2024 to use $3.1 million in fund balance reserves to balance the budget, which were not used because you had a positive change in fund balance of $1.1 million, due largely to the interest income. Then, council in 2025 budgeted to use $4.945 million in reserves and only use $1.1 million. So if you look at the two years combined, you had a negative zero impact. You had an increase and a decrease, net zero.

» The money has and is there. Unfortunately, council has decided these taxpayers are not important enough for them to fund this project. I ask this council do the right thing and follow through on your promise and honor your commitment made to these citizens in this neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wood. Mr. DuBose, who do we have next? Next speaker is Isaac McCaskill, property tax. Mr. McCaskill, yes, sir. Yes, sir. A couple of months ago, I came up here because the county had posted my property as seized for not paying taxes, which I had paid the taxes. Y'all informed me that the county attorney would contact me. That was several months ago. I'm just trying to figure out how long I have to wait on this contact. You need to get in touch with somebody. He needs some help. Yes, sir.

» We still have your contact information, correct? Let's get updated. Yeah. I'm just wondering how long I got to wait. That must have been three, four months ago. Could you provide it to the attorney, please? I can check with the Treasurer's Council. The Treasurer has separate legal counsel and tax collector, but I'll find out the status of this before I back, certainly. Thank you, Mr. McCaskill. Thanks for coming out tonight. Mr. Bowes, who's the third speaker? David Dabney, subject is permits. Mr. Dabney.

» i've been up here two nights in a row last night i've intended the planning and zoning commission meeting only to find out that planning and zoning hadn't even had an opportunity to even look at the ordinances we voted on the last council meeting and give any type of information or positive or negative input to you guys but it was voted on unanimously and passed first reading and what i'm talking about for everybody that doesn't know out here is the permit allocations things that we're having to talk about now um we as basically local builders here there's a couple of us here um we face a challenge every day of competing against these large builders and the problem is these large builders didn't create this problem they're buying land that was zoned to do with exactly what they're doing on

» it problem was created a long time ago and it should have been noticed i think by a group of smart people that could anticipate growth coming our way maybe headed off with some zoning um several problems with this zoning mr tucker you're talking about affordable housing right now with these ordinances i don't see anything for affordable housing in this as far as permitting um and allocations towards that don't know what what they are um secondly uh these adus or accessory dwelling units and everything else there's been a arbitrary number of two put on that it's just ridiculous in my opinion um i've built two in the past year myself and i understand it has been 11 total uh all of last year i don't know how this is inflicting damage upon the impact of kershaw county when one of the persons th

» at i built this for is built up for their home for their son who was coming in to help her uh with her husband who had been in an accident in fair believe you um the second one i'm building right now is uh for someone that is 80 plus years old got one lug walking with a cane moving in on his son's property his wife's got has cancer twice so his son moved him in for that be a crying shame to turn down that third person that comes in has that same situation instead of taking a common sense approach to it and asking what's going on what you're doing with this you creating a pool party are you are you are you doing something like this for your family secondly how are you gonna die in fact somebody who's purchased land been paying property taxes on it for two three years uh maybe waiting to reti

» re or a child to graduate from school um so they can follow their american dream and build on a nice big piece of property and create a little homestead for the family no you're 210. you can't do that six months from now you might be able to if we've got enough permits let people such as the people across from uh on i-20 out there to build on your land national builder there a regional national they can come in and buy these properties buy these permits ahead of us we kind of take them as we get them most of the time so common sense approach to me is the problematic areas are in lugo and elgin just like they always have been hadn't changed since six months ago when we put the impact fees matter of fact where's the impact fee money going well we're done with it we can have an overlay distric

» t around the airport that restricts certain things we can have an overlay district over there that says hey we got problems we need to fix let's slow it down over here you ride down highway one and cast it and pass two people between here and the airport extensive land and everything else and then we're going to basically copy paste a mount pleasant ordinance leaving out affordable housing mount pleasant camden kershaw county two different things can't go but so far east in mount pleasant before you run out of land we're centrally located we ain't gonna run out of land low-lying area there too probably got sewer issues don't they probably got to pump it uphill because it don't go downhill so i ask when you when you look at this thing again maybe take some input from the committee that you p

» ut in place look at these things before you just make an ordinance and pass it look at these things while these people are moving in these areas building these adus and things in their backyard instead of just saying no hey tell mama three months from now we might be able to do it if we got another permit available for you so common sense goes a long way like john wayne said life is hard but it's a lot harder when you're stupid so i stand down thank you for your time thanks for coming out mr dabney mr dubose who's the final speaker william robinson knights hill park yes sir mr robinson good evening mr chair members of council and the illustrious miss hannah where are you this evening i just want to update you on some things that's happening with knights hill park first i want to invite each

» of you to our mayfest uh annual may festival that's happening on may 9th which is the second saturday in may the day before mother's day as we're celebrating as a community the 103rd gathering of african americans in that community this year we're going to uh have an expanded kids zone um we had train a mini train rise last year that was very popular we're bringing them back we're bringing them back horseback riding uh there will be food other vendor information vendors and it begins at 11 o'clock i ran out of flyers and posters today which i had in my car earlier today to give to each of you but between caset and elgin today and passing them out and talking with the different businesses i ran out so i didn't have any for you but i'll make sure we get get them to you uh uh this this this we

» ek one of the things that we're going to introduce this year also is golf instruction at knights hill park we got a grant from the health district to bring free golf lessons to knights hill park we'll be doing uh twice a month from the summer through the rest of the year be instructed by mr herman belton who grew up in kirkwood he's a navy veteran he is also a hall of fame coach he was inducted to benedict's hall of fame a year and a half ago after taking benedict college south carolina state and payne college in augusta georgia all to minority golf championships national championships so he's going to be our instructor so we're working with him so again i want to invite you all out may 11th 11 o'clock knights hill park and i'll get some posters and flyers to you uh within the next couple o

» f days thank you thank you mr robinson appreciate you coming out tonight mr bows does that conclude public comment that does all right gentlemen that puts us back on the agenda uh we have item number 7a which is a presentation by hale gold mine tonight we have tylee tracer anderson and joey byrd with us i make a motion that we have this public presentation second second we have a second any discussion all in favor of having the public presentation raise your hand it's unanimous and you've got 15 minutes yes sir mr byrd good evening first of all mr chair council we want to thank you for giving us a few minutes to just tell our story and the impact that we're making at hell gold mine not only in kershaw lancaster county but also kershaw county and the great state of south carolina amen thanks

» for being here thank you um my name is joey Bird I am senior advisor community relations and land development. Mr. Bird I know you're tall if you could pull the mic up just a little bit I was getting a text from people they can't hear you online. Okay. There that's much better thank you. As I said I'm senior advisor community relations and land development for Oceana Go Hell Go Mine.

» Natalia will introduce herself in a moment when she comes up but we're going to start we'd like to start with a video if we could I think we this all kind of started at the beginning um in the 1980s there were three mines that were in operation in our area i know you're familiar with the one over in ridgeway that was fairfield county there was the hell gold mine in chesterfield county in the town of jefferson where i reside was the brewer mine early 90s those mines they closed down basically due to the fact of low gold prices at the time about 2006 2007 remarco minerals a small exploration company came and purchased hell gold mine which consists of several hundred acres at the time they began doing their exploration drilling and over the years found the reserves enough to start putting in o

» peration once gold prices increased 2015 oceana gold came and acquired remarco Minerals. 2016 was when I began my career with them during the construction years and so 2016 was construction year 2017 we begin our operations and the process of pouring gold. Currently Hale Gold Mine is the only operating gold mine east of the Mississippi River. Not only that we are the first mine ever east of Mississippi River to mine underground.

» We have an egress of about two miles down but that is not two miles vertical it is sort of like a spiral staircase as we wind our way down to about 11 or 12 hundred feet down we extract the gold on the way down and backfill that um we are the fourth largest producer of gold in the united states currently last tuesday april 7th was a monumental day for our company we began listing on the new york stock exchange last year we produced 212 000 ounces of gold over the next 10 years we project to produce that or more each year oceana owns three other mines there's two in new zealand and there's one in the philippines hale accounts for 45 percent of all the revenue from from oceana um hale's reserves ensures that we will have another 10 years of mining and we continue to explore for more resources

» and with an aggressive exploration program hell gold mining employs not around 900 people and we also have an additional 200 contractors on site as well many of our employees live in this area we really are we consider our local employees in a six county radius some prefer to live in the larger cities some rural but in our sixth county that touches us in that area is the majority where our workforce as that and we're around 89 local we have currently 5469 acres permitted to mine we don't need to mine all that we need that much space especially for overburden if you've been by our facility you've seen what people call the mountains so we need some space but we also have approximately 4 000 acres unpermitted off-site you know over the next several years we have about 2400 plus acres that we w

» ill be designating it for conservation this past year just kind of speaking of conservation a preservation project we relocated a historic schoolhouse that was on our property we had to move it it was declared historical it was built around 1919 and so we relocated it it was quite a process but relocated it downtown kershaw and it's in its uh preservation they're working on it currently i hope to have that sometime finish sometime this this summer so um i'm gonna let tyler come now and she's gonna share some of the impact of economic impact that we're making you know any questions before i step back any questions comments from council thank you thank you mr bird thank you great presentation yes thank you hi i'm tylee tracer anderson i'm the external affairs and social program superintendent

» at hill goldman and this will be super brief um so hill contributes to about 83 organizations that's always growing every year we we get a lot of requests from different non-profits and we are really supportive of conservation efforts across the state most recently we have signed up with an agreement with musc in which hill is giving 250 000 to the residency program which promotes doctors to complete the residency in rural areas and finally we want to share the economic impact that hill is making not only in kershaw but in the surrounding areas like camden and kershaw county as well as the state of south carolina so i have these here for you guys to to look at and keep thank you very much thank you so much for having us tonight thank you uh council members any comments or questions i'd like

» that how you mr brussels sir i'd like to say thank you um for for showing us the video and the presentation i'd love to find out more about the mind i've had several friends that worked there including this guy sitting to my right um many others as well billy king's a good friend of mine he um he he's he's shared some some significant stories about how how interesting the process is and i'd love to learn more about the process if we could thank you so much we would love to set up a lunch and a tour for you guys to see everything i would absolutely enjoy that thank you thank you so much thank you mr brazel mr tucker yes thank you thank you mr brazel you're talking to the right folks especially the tall guy that's that's what he likes to do and that's what he's good at um amazing place to wor

» k amazing place to visit um what you guys and and i say guys but i'm talking about the ladies and the men i do out there is nothing but remarkable and um you employ a lot of good people and the last i checked mr burr you can correct me when we did the 25 family friends day most of the residents were in kershaw county that worked out there we had the majority of them that's living in kershaw county so that's part of our growth too as well and um you know they're coming from all over the world to work out there so it's not like they're just moving from north carolina or georgia these folks are moving from out west california nevada um i think sums out maybe in texas wherever they're digging minerals at because they're coming with experience so um but i just want to say thanks and make sure th

» at when you get back there you tell the big cheese i said hello and that we appreciate all that you guys do or not just our community but the surrounding counties as well i've been a great great partner to work with and if i could dig you up and move you back into kershaw county or redraw the lines we would love to have our gold mine that was given away in the 60s to redraw school district lines because that's how that happened but thanks very much and we'll appreciate you very much thank you mr tucker any other comments or questions um thanks again for coming out i hope you don't mind if i share your contact information with any interested council members that want to reach out and mr brazel that's a great idea um jeff burgess had already reached out about doing a tour we'll just make sure

» we comply with foia whether four or all of us come and we have to announce it for the media and otherwise but you've already dealt with that in the past well they might want to come too mr chairman they might want to come too thank you so much thank you appreciate you all right gentlemen that moves us on to approval of the minutes uh we have items number eight a and eight b do we have a motion on the minutes for eight a i think motion we approved the minutes for march 24th mr.

» chairman we have a motion on 8a is there a second second we got a second any discussion on the minutes seeing none all in favor raise your hand on 8a this hand it's unanimous on 8a and then we have the minutes for 8b do we have a motion make a motion we approve them mr kato has the motions are second second mr thomason any discussion on the minutes for 8b seeing none we'll move it to a vote all in favor raise your hand i'm abstaining due to absence please note abstention miss hannah otherwise it's unanimous and passes with mr brazel abstaining on to discussion items we have a couple discussion items tonight item number 9a first placed on the agenda by mr uh vice chairman russell brazel homestead exemption plan do we have a motion i'd like to make a motion to discuss uh and homestead exempti

» on plan for seniors is there a second second there's a second mr browser you have a floor thank you um ladies and gentlemen i have i've been researching Homestead exemption plan and I'd like to with your help Formulate something that we could potentially in the future refer to state delegation for members of the House and Senate to consider That would that would be broadly applied throughout the state and I don't think we're going to get there overnight But I think everything starts with the conversation dead Exemption is currently $50,000 per Per home for a senior I would like to make a proposal that as people age the homestead exemption Increases into a point at which if you own a home That's less than five hundred thousand dollars by age 75 you would be free and exempt from taxes So in b

» rief my plan would start at age 60 So the primary residents and the qualifying homeowner at age 60 would receive a $100,000 homestead exemption versus a $50,000 homestead exemption. Now, given if your house is only worth $100,000 or less at age 60, at that point you would be paying no taxes. No differently than currently I think it's $50,000 and if I'm not mistaken the age is 65. At age 65, that would increase to a $200,000 homestead exemption that would, as stated, if your home is worth less than $200,000 at age 65, you would have a completely exempt house or you would have that much reduction in tax on a home. Say if it was a $400,000 house, you'd pay taxes on $200,000 and you would be exempt $200,000. As you age, at age 67, it would be a $300,000 exemption.

» Same scenario, at age 70, a $400,000 exemption, and at age 75, a $500,000 exemption. Now, I'm fully aware of the pitfalls that it would create for councils and county agencies. I think that this is something that could be implemented over a six- to eight-year time frame, Potentially less, potentially a five-year time frame, and we would have to look to the state for money back to the counties from sales tax revenues and other tax revenues that could help counties replace those losses. But it would be my goal to work collectively to have something that we could refer to our delegation. And there's no vote needed tonight. I just wanted to put this up for a discussion, and I'm happy to hear from any of my colleagues. Any comments or discussion from council members? Mr. Tucker. Yes, Mr.

» Chairman, if I may. Councilman Brazel, I just have a couple questions. Will you be able to get us those in those numbers or some type of format so we can look at further? And have you had any conversation with how many homeowners that would affect here in Kershaw County, and what's the economic loss of revenue to the county? no and those are all good questions in which I know that we have to address I do have something in a better format I think miss Hannah you still have a copy of that okay miss Hannah can provide copies what I'd like to do is is look at how it would affect Kershaw County we could we could use ourselves as a demonstration and look at those revenue losses and we could talk to legislative delegation members and find out what does that look like for Kershaw County how could w

» e fundamentally do this without creating havoc and I think it's a step in the right direction I think it's something that seniors won't they want to be secure in their home as people get older they need to feel secure especially if they have a house that's paid for they want to feel that it's paid for completely they don't want to feel like they're having to rent their house from the government so I think this is something that we can do it'll take reallocation of taxes but fundamentally I know it's feasible and they'd be guardrails I think is as far as how long you you lived here in South Carolina how long you've owned your home and we'd have to look to attorneys such as John DuBose to help us with questions like that so yes I'd love to talk about it more I'd love to discuss it more I'd li

» ke to go as far as you'd like we could we could do a committee you know if anyone would be interested in that but I genuinely would like to find solutions of those issues and and find a path forward I'd love to just look at what a mock would look like for Kershaw County and and look at those losses and and how we could replace those losses I absolutely love to do that is in his chair of the Finance Committee I think um you will be key in in helping to do this thank you so thank you mr trucker mr brazel any other comments discussion seeing none no votes required thank you mr brazel all right thank you very much next discussion item is 9b pecan orchard related topics placed on by the uh the agenda by mr jones is there a motion on 9b i so move mr chair have a motion for discussion is there a s

» econd i'll make a second there's a second mr jones you have the floor thank you councilman brasil um i had spoke with mr tucker on this earlier and he told me he would be able to give us a full update on the pecan orchard are you prepared for that mr mr tucker uh not at this moment i was gonna do it in my council briefing along with um my um stuff from our finance committee meeting friday okay but you know you and i talked about that yeah but i didn't tell you i was gonna be ready when you come up on the um agenda but i'm sorry there must have been misunderstanding yeah it's okay yeah um go ahead and lead your part on what you have done and then i'll join you well where i'm at guys is that i've been getting phone calls from the pecan orchard neighbors not one not two but more than that as y

» ou saw uh mr mark wood camp here tonight and he had some comments to make they're saying there's been no activity for the last two weeks there's been no communication and uh i thought we were going to lay out a plan at some point in time to address this to where there would be everything put in order as it was going to happen and you may be prepared to talk about that in a council briefing but um i had the pleasure this morning of taking mr cr miles with me to go out and look at the pecan orchard and i'm not going to comment too much on that because he's going to look at some plans that we've got i want to look at some things to give me his thoughts on what we plan to do and of course what we had previously planned to do when we had the engineers or we did a study with the engineers um just

» somebody whether mr devos mr templer mr chairman somebody can just tell me when where how this is going to get started and i've been threatened that it may be taken off the agenda or it may the project may be dropped if i say too much i don't care you if you want to use my uh my uh the part of the agenda i put under new business if you want to use that to to portray something negative towards this neighborhood so bit but i'm going to stand up for him and i want something done i i think we need to put this to rest we've been discussing it way too long may i may i comment yes you can go ahead um well i think there's there's a lot of misinformation mr jones and um you know i i just listened to a public comment made about how we were going to fix pecan orchards as a whole pecan orchards as a wh

» ole and that we were going to um fix it with 350 000 and that was never the conversation or the intent or plan that was supposed to take care of phase one and phase one only and then from there we would have to work on phase two and a phase three that's what staff brought us and i can tell you there's been activity out there remember when you're dealing with the county the county has more responsibility than just pecan orchards so they're trying to work and do the best they can and getting there but they have made tremendous progress out there mr jones so i'm i'm in probably um disagreement with you on there's been nothing done because um there has been work out there and i'm happy to refer to the administrator because he's sitting right here and he knows way more than i do but um i i think

» what we need to do and i say this to all the citizens is out there is allow the county to go through the plan that we all voted on a few weeks ago and allow to see what fruits of our labor that will bring everybody's monday night quarterbacking and becoming um engineers overnight because they probably went to ai and you know they're they're ready now ai uh they're good to go give that uh the project and the plan an opportunity to work and it's hard to try to help people when you keep beating people upside the head that's trying to help you can we just pause for a minute please and they'll allow the county to go through the plan that council has voted on we all vote on was unanimous and then if something is not right then we can we can judge we can we can make the phone calls we can uh email

» the letters and everything else um but you have to give opportunity to people that's trying to help you thank you mr chairman mr mr jones yes sir thanks so much well that's that's well and fine and you you are an eloquent speaker but i disagree with you on what you just said every everything you just said we've been talking about this for two years sammy well mr jones and we're no further than we were six months ago with you on that okay what see as the flags put up we're just talking about flags and what and what about the property are we going to get updated about the property When we get to a point where we can report out, that was given to staff and our county attorney, and I don't control that, so we're just waiting on their progress. How long are we going to wait? Wait.

» What did they tell us? Wait is what broke the wagon. That's what a man told me one time. What did he say? Wait is what broke the wagon. It's spelled different there, Mr. . Yeah, I know it's spelled differently. I don't know. little bit like mr. Jones it's time to it's time to it's time to move it's time to get it done we talked about it I mean like we've talked about it I've gotten gray here as we've talked about it we need to get it done get it behind us get it get it fixed get it done move on to the next thing that's how I I don't know that's that's just the way I live my life let's if we're gonna do it let's do it but let's quit talking about it so I'm ready I'm ready to go I had the votes and you won't take it off the gym not do it so be it well I think we've already voted on it i think

» i know but i've been i've been told that that could possibly happen so let it happen let it happen when i retire i promise you this i won't go away mr jones what would you like to hear from the county administrator sure okay mr templer would you have anything that you'd like to add please please mr templer um i think it was our last scheduled meeting i was authorized to engage in some property negotiation that took place the very next day this property negotiation is it's important it's the vacant lot over there that's going to be important as an outfall it's the lowest point of the neighborhood on that side um this 350 000 is going to do the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people on this particular street but we need an outfall we need a right-of-way can't dump water now

» there's natural water flows two options there i'll meet with somebody um another property owner on thursday to give them exhibits engineered exhibits to help them understand what their property would look like could we get it right away there should we be um successful on that the other vacant lot uh it's you know it's going to be critical that's the low point that's where where we need to discharge, point discharge, and get that water going to another natural flow point. Received just yesterday an update from the engineer that we need to be careful with some of the work we're doing. We're doing just basic maintenance out there, some trimming back shrubs. We're identifying utilities.

» Report from the engineer, as recent as last night, indicates that some of the water lines have to be moved there's a lot of utilities out there and what we don't have the luxury of is utility companies coming and doing the right thing and getting encroachment permits in our county roads letting us know where utilities are going to go so we have a say they just go out and install and so we got utilities everywhere out there it's fiber it's expensive to repair and you know ultimately we don't want to fix one neighbor's problem and create a problem for the next neighbor and guys we really have nothing to work with out there this neighborhood is so poorly developed from original concept to what the product is now but there's documentation going back to with the administrator in 1995 when these

» roads were coming in indicating that engineering needed to be happen out there um so we're doing things but we're it's it's not necessarily tangible it's it doesn't look like it but engineering has happened we're working to get property acquisitions um we're trying to do it the right way we're trying to do it the most effective way um sure we can go in there and just start moving stuff i mean i mean we have plenty of equipment to do that. But it's not going to happen. I'm going to go by the engineering, the information. I'm going to go by the law. I'm going to go by what the attorney tells me I should do, what I shouldn't do. And when we say we're going to do it right, it also includes those items as well.

» We need to do right by the people that are not having such the drainage issues that some others are. I don't want to spread the love in terms of the problem out there. I want to resolve as much as I can. And at the end of the day, the expectation needs to be understood that my responsibility is to drain the county roads out there, not the private property. We capture the water that is falling onto the county roads. We capture that water. We discharge it in an appropriate manner. I'm not responsible, nor is any other taxpayer, for what goes on in someone's backyard. Now, there may be some results of underground springs or something like that. I can't be responsible for that.

» It's roadways and ditching and discharges and making sure that I have the appropriate right-of-ways going onto private property for point discharge. I'm always happy to discuss with any one of y'all anything we're doing. We're not sitting on our hands, as some may want to point to the day after that we were authorized to get that property we were moving on it we're waiting on an appraisal right now we had comps that were just that comps but it wasn't an official appraisal is which is something i need to expend county money on private property so there's there's red tape i understand the frustration i've been dealing with pecan orchard for 10 years um i'm not impacted by it but i am when i come to work and um and i'm just being blistered on social media and slandered and through incompetence

» and that i need to be terminated for sitting on my hands it's adorable but that's fine i don't look at people out there i look at the problem because it's it's about capturing the drainage from the roads and appropriately getting it to a point where it can be discharged and not impact anyone and if it's going too slow you know i it's unfortunate but there has been more work done out there in the last several months contrary to popular belief than there has since we put the four outfall pipes that run out to from plum thicket out to behind the rest area um that was a 350,000 project. So again, that just illustrates the point that I really have nothing to work with out there because it was so poorly designed. But at the end of the day, my responsibility is the roads.

» So happy to answer any questions. I'm happy to sit down with anyone. I am communicating. Communications went out yesterday, red line responses. There is a lady, I'm drawing a blank in her name, but she asked very thoughtful questions, and I feel they're reflective of what the neighborhood would want to know so I appreciate her correspondence to me it allows me a vehicle to respond to her questions in red to show that these are my responses to her questions and reply all to all the homeowners um so I appreciate her efforts and again she has very thoughtful meaningful questions that I think are are fair and um you know probably what most people want to know but they're just not asking so she's representative of that neighborhood so um again i it's unfortunate but progress is slow i wish we co

» uld just go in there and and just start tearing stuff up but that's all we would be doing we're not fixing anything that way thank you mr chancellor council members any further comments or discussion are we going to discuss um or could we discuss furthermore those dates and those timelines for the purchase of the property um at the next council meeting if i have a anything i have moving forward in terms of progress i will be happy to share in my briefs okay just as we did yes sir um so i think maybe at this point we may be two weeks out three weeks possibly so hopefully by the time okay we we get something and i will absolutely given the gravity of this situation be updating y'all as much as i yeah i i think i think if we could sure i think if we could have a timeline um and a schedule from

» you and or public works however you want to frame it if we could have a schedule with goal set dates what's next next steps if we could have that to um for our own knowledge and for the knowledge of the community that would be a great help with some of these situations that you're talking about the misconceptions and that sort of thing and us us not knowing i didn't know until just now that the the next day you you move forward with that that was the first i heard of it and um as far as people saying things about you danny that's just getting you ready for when you're on council one day never have again i'm not going to wish that on you well let me just say this mr jones yes sir thank you so much mr temper thank you for that update but i swear i know less now than what i did before we come

» in here we're saying the same old thing over and over and over and uh i don't know what's strapping uh mr templer's hands but i know we mr tucker finance chair sir great one we talked about setting a schedule yes sir we'll talk about it again tonight well i'm gonna say this mr jones and i'm gonna be done with it for um this discussion uh you know because you were in that meeting, anytime you have legal points, contracts, things of that nature, that does consume some time and they can only move as fast as the attorney is able to clear them to, because what we don't want to do is misstep and it cost us.

» Whoever we're dealing with, the individual we're dealing with, how quickly they want to move, are they holding out, are they willing to cooperate? things do happen and unfortunately you the administrator other attorney or this body up here on the diocese have no control of that sometime when it's on the you know the person whether it's a contract or whether it's property or whatever it may be so with that being said i think what councilman brazel asked for uh mr tipler said that he think he can get it if uh he gets progress made on that but if not he can give us another update by the next council meeting but i i wish i could tell you that's that is the hold up after that you can get a timeline but if if he gives you a timeline now and it and he doesn't meet that timeline mr jones then he's

» going to be labeled as a liar but you asked for a timeline the last time we were here right but that was that was not knowing that this was going to take as long so he can't give me a timeline until we cover the legal portions of this so they will be accurate and i understand that and i'm asking all of us just to be a little patient let's get through this next step please any further comments or discussion for council members seeing none we can move on no votes required 9b is concluded thank you very much gentlemen this brings us to a series of ordinances i'll just check with administrator on each one before we seek a motion any updates or anything we need to know about for context before we seek a motion on 10a no sir okay we've got item number 10a before us it's the first reading uh for t

» he ordinance to amend a development of a joint industrial park between kershaw county and fairfield county do we have a motion make a motion that we approve the ordinance for a joint business park we have emotions are second i'll second mr schumacher we have a second mr bows mr templer any further uh expounding for us so um this ordinance is for lack of a better term a housekeeping ordinance the cowashima properties were formerly in the kershaw fairfield multi-county park as you all are aware you've approved a series of economic development incentives for companies that have reoccupied that property those projects were placed in the lee kershaw park Therefore, these non-performing properties are not eligible in Kershaw Fairfield anymore.

» In fact, when they sat vacant, they weren't eligible for MCIP status. So this is just a clean-up ordinance. Thank you, Mr. DuBose. Any further comments or discussion on 10A? Seeing none, we'll move it to a vote on first reading. All in favor of 10A, raise your hand. It is unanimous and passes. First reading is handled on 10A. Mr. Administrator, any summary, any updates we need on 10B before we seek a motion? No, sir, no amendments. Okay. As a reminder, 10B is going to be a second reading to amend the official zoning map. It's a rezoning of a 32 plus or minus acre portion located at 41 Youngs Bend Road in Kershaw. Do we have a motion? I'm making the motion. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. We have a second. Mr.

» Shoemake? I think this is just the ordinance we dealt with last time where they're just seeking to amend some of the adjoining parcels as they grow their business. Okay. Mr. Tucker, you have the second? yes sir i just want to once again tell that entity that thank you for uh their um good business and good neighbors they have been out there in the westville area and um just keep wishing them well keep growing thank you thank you mr tucker any further comments or discussion just just as way of information i put it out there but if it's correct understood correctly understood that this parcel that we are voting on tonight is surrounded with general development i believe that's around it i believe that's correct if i recall correctly from the plane commission materials at least on three sides

» of it um councilman gato i believe possibly on on all sides um yes well there's a um small map from the uh planning commission materials in the very last page of that section of the agenda materials and um this large parcel is yeah um surrounded by gd on the opposite side of the road and i believe to its south and separated from other parcels by another roadway thank you mr cato any other comments or discussion seeing none we'll move to a vote on second reading this is for 10b all in favor raise your hand ms hennessy unanimous in favor and passes second reading on 10b that brings to item number 10c mr administrator any context we need there are some items here and we have the legendary stephen smoke here as well any any updates from you before we seek a motion for bringing them up okay this

» is second reading on uh amendment to the zldr section 3.3 conditional uses rural country club requirements and related matters do we have a motion on second reading make motion that we approve on second reading all right do we have a second second we have a second and so mr tucker you have uh the motion but we do have the applicant's representative here mr smith representative please mr chair real real briefly um the version of the ordinance in y'all's agenda um the first reading uh version misspelled country i don't know who drafted it might have been me um i take county a lot every day so country was misspelled in a few uh spots i took the liberty of just correcting that and placing it in here it's correct version with that scrivener's error corrected um for the sake of transparency thoug

» h i would seek a motion from council to correct that scrivener's error by reference basically what i just informed you all of the other edit on the face of the ordinance is the conflict of law provision carried over from the last version of the rural country club ordinance it covered so many matters and was so broad y'all have subsequently narrowed this to rural golf clubs but the conflict of law provision um read differently the most of our conflict of law provisions it basically said if the ordinance was stricter it would control but if there are other areas of the code that restrictor they control the conflict of law in the version in your agenda package has been changed to the standard conflict of all provisions that kershaw counties used in every other ordinance so i wanted to bring th

» at to council's attention as well again because it did change between first reading and second reading it's a minor housekeeping matter so again i included that in the agenda i do have a would seek a motion on that correction again just adopting the version in your agenda package as the second reading version of the face ordinance the zldr text mr smoke will speak to as the applicant and the applicant's desire to advance a few small amendments at this second reading thank you mr davos mr smoke thank you mr chairman and uh good evening council members it's always a pleasure to be in front of you looks like you have quite the full agenda tonight so far be it for me to keep you from your dinner there were no substantive changes other than the ones that we discussed at the last meeting that i h

» ad submitted prior to the last meeting mr de bose just went over the scrivener's errors if you will i think there are some cross references to other pertinent ordinance sections but there were no other changes that that we uh as the applicant had submitted at this time but i did want to be here just to express our appreciation to you all and to answer any questions that you might have um thank you mr smoke any yes sir mr the attorney go ahead so um the so one one matter mr smoke and i discussed is the the last amendment i believe changed guest unit lodging to 18 000.

» i believe y'all um at first reading my understanding was that the applicant was seeking a amendment tonight to 20k not more units in the guest lodging just slightly more square footage To comport with their renderings that they've had I will note that the staff lodging regulations in here in the attachment Staff lodging was allowed under the first reading ordinance, but had no parameters as to what staff lodging would look like that staff lodging Regulation is included in the red line text in your agenda package and again it just essentially mirrors the guest lodging and restrict staff lodging to 8,000 square feet no more than 16 kind of apartment or units within the staff lodging for on-site Thank You mr.

» Bo so I stand corrected that three-week gap between your last meeting did something to my thank you it's called birthdays mr. mr. chairman I know this mr. Thompson um and it may just not even be pertinent but under three three two eight five where it is line itemed out eight thousand two twenty thousand if you flip to the next page underneath twenty eight dash six line item five it still lists eight thousand square feet there correct um so the three three twenty eight dash six section that you've referenced on this last page again are those um regulations for the staff lodging that didn't exist the prior amendment just stated staff lodging would be allowed so that doesn't need to be updated to 20.

» well without any guidelines um specifically for the staff lodging you know i guess would be open to interpretation about how large the structures could be etc etc um in consultation with mr smoke and the needs of the applicants i just took the guest lodging but my understanding is the 8 000 square foot area um for staff lodging is sufficient guest lodges at the okay yeah thank you it's in keeping with the master plan and those those dimensions are are sufficient for the plans okay thank you mr chairman mr tucker uh i'd like to make an amendment to i think we mr cato he already got my attention first okay no that's that's fine We all should have it before us, and Mr. DeBose has already done a fine job of explaining it. And I yield to you, Mr. Cato.

» I want to make an amendment to this, and I move that council amend the ordinance as described by legal counsel and amend the ZLDR text in the form of the document included in the agenda packet and to adopt the text as written in the agenda packet to include the applicant's requested amendments. that would include allowing for the 20 000 square feet guest lodge provision all the points you have there all right okay as described second is there a second so we've got a second any other discussion on the cato amendment yes are you okay with that and i'll vote for it he checked with you any other discussion or comments on the cato amendment seeing none we'll move it to a vote on the amendment all in favor raise your hand it's unanimous in favor on the amendment so it is amended that brings us ba

» ck to the original motion any further discussion or comments seeing none we'll move to a vote on uh the motion as amended all in favor raise your hand it's unanimous and passes second reading as amended thank you mr smoke for coming out tonight tell your client we're very thankful for their interest in kershaw county thank you steven always the councilman all right the last item as an ordinance is another second reading this is uh an amendment to the code of ordinances related chapter 24 and related offenses solicitation and panhandling do Do we have a motion? - I have a motion, Mr. Chairman.

» And to sort of consolidate, I'm gonna make a motion that we adopt on second reading the ordinance, but specifically as amended to reflect the text of the ordinance that is in the document included in the agenda package and labeled suggested amendments at second reading, agenda item 10D. So I'm making a motion that we adopted on second reading as amended in this packet. And I can explain those after I get a second. - Is there a motion or a second on that motion? Mr. Tucker, Mr. Shoemaker, you got the floor. - Yeah, so obviously the original ordinance that came before us at first reading, banned panhandling and aggressive panhandling, we talked about that. Pursuant to Councilman Jones and some other folks' comments, this amended packet that you have in front of us does a couple of things.

» It specifically allows permits to be issued that would allow rescue squads, volunteer fire squads, and any other registered 501 group to solicit from motorists with the permit. And it makes clear that permitted solicitation activity isn't permitted by the ordinance. That addresses specifically the issue that you and I have spoken about. Thank you for that. And that's what this amendment does. Otherwise, it's in form and substance the same when we voted on it first reading. And for what it's worth, again, I don't think those matters that were included in the already including the Code of Ordinances and allowed under that permitted structure for rescue squads would be under any of these defined prohibited acts.

» nonetheless the questions out there for removal all doubt i i think it's wise to explicitly reference those and how they are not as existing code sections are not altered by that and again yes that's that's all this amendment does is states that those two county code sections are still valid and allowed thank you mr vose any further comments or questions from council we've got mr she makes motion before us all in favor raise your hand it is unanimous in favor and pass This is second reading on 10D, Ms. Hanna, 10D. Thank you, gentlemen. That takes us to new business. Mr. Templer, any background or summary for us before we seek a motion on this? - No, sir. - 11A. - Pretty straightforward. - Okay. - Allowing us to have medical continuing in the jail.

» - All right, and do we have a motion on 11A? - I'll make a motion that we, I guess the motion would be that we adopt the proposal as recommended in the new business packet. Second, yes, Southern Health Partners in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And we have a second. Okay, any further discussion from council members or staff? Yeah, so this is a big improvement from what we were dealt with last year. Is that right, Administrator? Correct, and just also this one needs a little bit of finessing from me because it's not the low bid we're actually recommending ACH. So you're doing the advanced correctional health care? Correct.

» Can I jump in? One thing, because we did speak about this in finance, the the lower bid does not offer the the higher bid gives us more qualified medical professionals which is helps us meet more of the standards so what we're seeing in that higher bid is while it's a slightly higher bid amount it's not a substantially higher bid amount it offers us a substantially higher quality of medical professionals which in the long run should save us money because we have people that can do the the more advanced medical work there at the jail as opposed to having to farm them out and having just kind of your lower level medical people is that a fair kind of layman's description correct and there's also some staffing increases with ACH that southern health partners namely around holiday time was not a

» ble to do all right let's just clarify for the record then the motion and the second was related to ACH is recommended by staff because southern health was mentioned before and so before us we have the $828,871.53 per year contract related to detainee health services. What was last year's payment? The provider is the same advanced ACH, and so it's going up slightly, I think about $180,000. So there is an increase.

» We were able to take advantage of just getting them in last year under that kind of a emergency situation if you will if you remember so there is an increase um because we went out to bid they had to uh kind of competitively bid so there was a slight increase on both of those items for both of those reasons i'm sorry so well competitive bid should reduce the price i would i would like a little bit more time on this um if i could i remember talking about this in depth last year, and we were caught flat-footed, if you will. And this year, I don't know that I can accept an increase without further discussion.

» Can we defer it until the next meeting? I would caution against because of the, and I will certainly defer to whatever this body wishes, but it's critically important that we have appropriate health care, especially with some the mental health uh understood when's our when's our contract in um i mean we would have time um i don't know the drop dead date on it we were just trying i would i would frankly i would like to talk about this more because we talked about this in depth last year and i know that we had a large increase in price and there was a lot of conversation about having a better opportunity this year for a better price so i i don't know what i don't know and i hadn't been briefed on this and so i would just ask my colleagues if we could defer this until for two weeks and have an

» executive session or if we could include this in tonight's executive session to have a more detailed conversation i'd be more inclined to vote in favor of it if i better understood it sure and i respect that i i can speak to i mean i've been asking questions by by to try to keep myself informed on the issues and i know we reached out to a local provider but they just were not able to provide the level of services required on site you have local providers that are already mobilized that could you know truck inmates over for just general stuff that needs to be taken care of on site as opposed to at their hospital facility or otherwise that was one of the discussions about how can we have a significant savings in having a local partner but the standard of care that we need to provide as I unde

» rstand it at the facility and Mr. Jones you actually worked over there for your entire career is that you need to have the doctors on site is that correct Mr. Administrator? Correct. And so I know administration had some in-depth conversations with several local providers but they just weren't able to do exactly what we needed to do in this detention health care service and how many do we reach out to people beyond these two bids that came in and solicit? We did, and once we told them that we were trying to kind of curb our costs at just 12 hours, we lost some participants as well. The Southern Health Partners was a provider some years ago when I first came on board, but we went to our previous provider who decided to pull the plug.

» They wanted to have us essentially forced into a 24-hour care, and that is something we didn't have to worry about with advanced correctional health care they're also going to do the medically assisted treatment through the alpha center they're going to assist with that so it is an increase of about 172 000 the difference here in the bid but what we get in terms of care mr shoemake had mentioned the level of care um it's it's certainly well worth it But especially as it relates to the Eighth Amendment and potential lawsuits that we could encounter should we not provide appropriate medical care for any inmate that is pre-detention. I'm sorry, go ahead.

» Are we receiving an additional care level beyond what we were contracted for in the emergency situation last year? The MAT portion will be an addition that is complementary to the Alpha Center and the the funding we received from the opioid settlement. So it's complimentary with that. There's some other avenues we'll be looking at for injections with probate as it relates to mental health patients. So there's a lot of mesh points here. - Is a portion of this contract funded by the opioid settlement? - No. - Through the Alpha Center? - We're a pass-through for the Alpha Center, but there's the ability for the MAT program to be in house with the inmates at the jail. - Okay, I saw some heads. - Mr. Chairman, I just want to add to what Mr. Temple and remind him.

» We're going from an LPN to an RN2 on those services. So there's a difference in the care there alone on who's certified to do what. So just wanted to add that piece on. - Okay, thank you. Mr. Jones. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of council. Let me just say a few things. I think staff has done a good job in the process of bringing this to us. The thing about a jail, and I think what Danny's point is, he wants to make sure we're covered in time before this one laps. I also understand Mr. Brazel's wanting to defer it to make sure he understands it a little bit better.

» As long as we're within that safety zone, Danny, to where it won't cost us to get gigged by the minimum standards of South Carolina Department of Corrections, I don't see what harm would be to postpone just to let a colleague get caught up to date on it however i'm going to tell you i'm fine with it i like it uh i think you've done a good job on this and and i would be prepared to vote tonight but but if i have one colleague that wants a little bit more time and we have that time i would think that would be the respectful thing to let him have that thank you mr jones mr cato um i'm fine with it like mr jones i kind of have a little bit of background in this and it's i think it's very important for the mental health part of it we have somebody on site um that that's a big thing the rns are o

» n site but looking at it from a safety and liability issue we have to transport these people for different different things that could be handled at the institution when these when these correction officers or these detention officers have to transport these people to the to the hospital and back it creates a safety issue it could be escape it could be an issue in the hospital i mean it and then it ties up staff at the jail so i can i can kind of understand i can kind of reasonably understand the increase in cost and where that goes because it's saving us possibly a lot of litigation and a lot of issues in the future by not having to transport these inmates back and forth mr chairman yeah thank you mr yes i was just wanting to point out that yeah i made the motion obviously i would i i thin

» k i mean i've heard enough myself to be able to vote on tonight i think it's important to note too that finance committee did look at this we were briefed on this and so this comes from the finance committee with a recommendation as well because we kind of had discussed all this so i mean i you know obviously it's up to this body what it wants to do but we did have that discussion i think for all the reasons that he said i'm you know we've got a lot of business coming up in our next two meetings so um i would be inclined to move forward mr yes sir yes sir and i just want to add too because um no one's brought this up but when um advanced correctional health care last year filled in the gap force they told us that they were giving us a deal and if we change what we wanted because at one time

» we were trying to look into uh 25-hour care with them too but it's just not something that's going to be conducive to our pocketbook i'm just being straight up and honest with you so if if i could just be clear as to what the difference is that is all the things the your mental part all right so we we have we have we have had many people on staff two two rns at all times one you're talking about now are you talking about in this proposed part in this proposal i don't know the exact numbers of who will be on at any particular time but it's just the i think we all i mean frankly i just think we all like i need to know that i need to know the particulars and i need to know that you know the particulars before i can vote on this if if you can answer those particulars i'll on danny cato's recomm

» endation and our finance recommendation i'll vote in favor of it but if if we can't get those answers tonight frankly i just think we need time to understand it better this was i mean this was not taken lightly last year by you or anyone else no you're right i mean danny you didn't take it lightly at all sure so um it i'd like to make a motion to defer until the next meeting i'll second that this motion made it further as a second any discussion i have yes i did um mr so if we can get your answers um in particulars can can you give us time as we go down the rest of this agenda to gather that information sure yeah yeah it's fair okay i think i'm not i'm not asking for anything i i have no reason to defer it other than the fact that he wasn't sure of the question i just asked him so can you i

» want to i want to make sure that our administrator has every tool with his disposal has every um that we're not okaying a contract just to move it through the process because we got more to do this is important this is important our jail it's important to the staff at the jail and it's a it's a lot of money so i'm i'm taking it extraordinarily serious and i want to make sure that that we um we address it correctly that's all so do we need a motion to move it down to the end of the agenda right if we can no i can unilaterally move um an item of business to the end there are no objections from council members all right we'll put it till after executive session to allow the staff to have uh yeah i think that's fair and i'm just going to mr jones i'm just going to clarify so far ach has been a

» good partner absolutely yeah i just want to clarify if they're watching right now or they have a friend in the room um if it's someone we're going to enter into a contractual relationship on something that uh requires such if they're in the room they can answer the questions yeah that no um unfortunately i don't think they are but um i any other question while i'm well what what's the what's the staffing this year what's the staffing next year and and why is it different is it is it is it the amount of time they're going to be there or is it the amount of people that they're going to be there i don't know what's that 180 yeah what show show me the money show me the reason for the money i'd that's it's a lot of money well i think it's important to uh mr temple if we're going to get additiona

» l staff that we know how many staff we got I don't know how many do they have one nurse it typically there's one nurse on shift and then there's so there's a cohort if you will of a doctor a mid-level you know the RN you will so it just it just depends on I imagine the cleanest way to get the information is what is in the bid package that they agreed to comply with and submitted the bid for so I'll mine for that information and get it real okay so we're bumping um 11a to after executive session 15 b not an executive session matter itself but just for further research for staff and otherwise to see if we can reach a resolution uh to the end of council i'm sure the doctor can can hearing no what's that i said i feel sure we got a good jail administrator i feel sure he'll be able to answer tha

» t question okay and hearing no objection from council then we're going to bump thank you it down all right um next item on the agenda that's 11a next item on the agenda is 11b related to pecan orchard placed on by councilman jimmy jones is there a motion there is no motion the matter is moot and so we will bypass item number 11b related to pecan orchard this brings us to our council member briefings mr cato if you'll allow me to be faithful and start with you faithful faithful you messed me up last time i'm sorry through you no i'd be glad to because i'm going to be very brief i just um i just want to say thank you to prestige farms and ron prestige um we had an opportunity everybody was invited here on council this past weekend to go out to to their family fun day and uh we was able to tak

» e our families out there and and i just appreciate the hospitality and great food great games and circus and it was just a fun time out at the equine center and And I appreciate the invitation, and I just wanted to give them a shout-out. Great company. I appreciate it. That ends my report. Thank you, Mr. Cato. Mr. Tomlinson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just want to thank staff and the Sheriff's Department for being here and wanted to let everybody know that the public comments and everybody especially addressing the ZLDR and permits, all those concerns are heard, and we're going to work to do what's best for Kershaw County. So I appreciate everybody being here.

» all i have mr chairman thank you mr thompson mr jones well just a couple things uh i wasn't gonna talk about me but i think i'll talk about the pecan orchard if we can let's try to have some dates at the next council meeting if we are we are if we're not we're not but what's going to happen and two i went to i have never done this before the last night i went to the planning zoning commission i've never gotten involved and never interfered and i didn't interfere last night i went to just sit and listen guys i want to tell you something i said this one time before when the equine industry came to to us and they needed 60 000 maybe 30 i can't remember but anyway and i said this is a chance we talked about we support the equine we support equine well this is a chance for us to prove it well we

» didn't give them the money but we support equine it bothered me last night to see those folks that y'all grew up with because they're all younger than me but you folks grew up with them and they're worried they're worried about their their jobs their their employees jobs they're worried about their income pertaining to the uh the the ordinance that was brought before us and and i do have a problem with us doing first reading on something before the planning commission sees it um i appreciate the work of that hot committee as i said before but i just think it was to me it's just inappropriate for me to uh and i i don't know why i thought that the planning commission had already seen it but anyway um i hope we'll we'll listen to these folks out here when they come before us i will try to unde

» rstand maybe slow down just a little bit and get some of them involved and uh let's see what kind of solution we can come up with i hate to vote down something not have a solution to vote you know an alternative and you know that same i've been always very good about having an alternative if i voted something down probably one of the best on this council to ever do that and uh but i don't have that for this one it's a tough one isn't it but but then again too let's take the time and and do that let's listen to our partners our our neighbors our constituents our friends let's listen to them and not maybe not put the fifth gear in there wide open but that's something i'd just like to ask y'all to consider and uh to all the home builders and everybody else i hear you loud and appreciate what y

» ou do thank you thank you mr jones mr schumacher yeah so uh i want to thank the kershaw uh the arts center of kershaw county for their gala the other week that we went to that and uh councilman wilkes on camden city council who was the name sponsor it was a really good event appreciate that um you know i wasn't going to say much about this but since it came up twice i just on this on some of these growth issues that we're going to be talking about i want to say a couple things one is um in terms of rushing i i respect and agree with the general statement we should not rush this i do not think working on something since august on an ordinance that was drafted 13 months ago that has been heavily researched is rushing i've talked to no less than two dozen people in the last three weeks about t

» his i've listened to the public comments i would answer back and a couple things i mean i'm just going to mention i've made some notes earlier there was some discussion about um accessory dwelling units what we call adus building a house for mom in the backyard we've only seen eight of those last year every formula for the permit allocation is based on math we certainly this council could raise the number of adus it's not a driver of growth totally agree with that that's something we look at two is just the way the math works out if you do a 20 reduction or 30 reduction that's an easy adjustment that one's not too big the bigger questions are still in front of us obviously i support all local economy i support anyone that makes money in kershaw county but also afford the people in the commu

» nity support the people in the community the thing i hear more than anything else is we are growing too fast we talked about affordable housing no doubt we need to that's a concern of ours but i challenge anyone to stand up here the straight face and say if we do nothing housing will somehow get more affordable affordable housing is not something that we can mandate it is something we can encourage limiting the growth does not encourage or discourage affordable housing directly it may have a corollary impact but that's why we have pdds we can put incentives for developers that come to us with plans to build affordable housing but guess what guys no one's coming to us wanting to build affordable houses that's just a fact and that's something we can deal with separately everybody wants to say

» no but nobody wants to hear it and the fact is if you're going to limit growth you're going to have to tell people no the two questions i've been asking in the dozen or so people i've talked to is is growth in kershaw county a problem universally the answer has been yes if you say that growth is not a problem in kershaw county then you and i will just have to disagree and obviously we can't really have a helpful discussion because we start with the point of disagreeing assuming you agree with the first which everyone has how do we lower the growth rate i've asked that question to everybody and shy of just see how things we've already done work out which we've already seen that in the last two years i haven't seen much of a specific plan so again i heard comments about this problem being cre

» ated years ago don't disagree with that but the time to act is now you know there's an old buddhist saying right the two best times to cut down a tree or you know 20 years ago and today we didn't act 20 years ago so let's start today plant a tree you cut down a tree when you build houses correct but i'm a big supporter of the timber industry so but that you're right plant a tree correct so again i'm fine to talk to people and i've been talking to people i've talked to every every one of you about this at one point since our last meeting so you know i'm going to fight for this um i i'm going to fight hard for this this is our policy making body i appreciate the planning commission mr jones to that point the planning commission isn't a policy body they make recommendations on zoning they're t

» here to carry out our policy so you know that that's why i didn't have too much heartburn going with us first on that but that this is a unique situation but our job is to set policy and we're going to have a decision over the next couple of meetings to decide what policy we're going to set for growth on kershaw county this is what i support uh i look forward and hope that it passes and if it doesn't i look forward to those who vote against it and carry the day coming up with and showing me how they're going to fix growth because this is the best idea i've been able to come up with so i look forward to having those discussions thank you mr schumacher mr tucker thank you mr she may you were so involved in the zldr you forgot to mention that you were going to do an update here maybe we're goi

» ng to rename him yes okay is that correct still yeah well not a it'll be an executive session because it has to be a contract yeah okay all right thank you so very much thank you mr chairman a couple quick things um i i too want to say thank you to uh the precious family uh we went out and uh it was a good time had uh danny was one of the clowns so i really enjoyed him out there now he was but uh it was uh very exciting so i had this uh discussion actually with the administrator uh yesterday when we spoke um this this county and miss jones you've been with the county longer than i have i've been up here longer than you have do you remember ever having an employee family day because all i remember is an employee day well the copter started that but yeah the employee day and so i'm saying tha

» t because this was a family uh it was employee family day and man did they have the crowd the sheriff was there uh mr uh general uh blanchard was there um and also um mr cato and myself um and others just had conflicts in their schedule mr jones got a chance to speak to mr presage over the phone because uh he calls during the middle of the circus i was getting a suntan and why did i answer i really can't tell you but um so with that being said i i just want your support or your thoughts or your input on how can the county do a instead of just an employee day do it as a employee family day and get these folks family to participate um because we do the employee luncheon so just keep that on your radar that'll probably be back up just changing the name well i think i know a couple venues the o

» ther thing that i wanted to speak about was um we have an opportunity in the finance committee a lot of the stuff you guys have already spoken about so i'm not going to bring it back up again we had an opportunity friday to hear a presentation about our sewer from uh keefler engineering firm tom keifer that is something that we're going to bring to council because it is an amazing report and what staff is doing and the money they're saving and we really need to get behind on what they're going to be proposing back to us so i'm just putting that on your radar we'll get you more information that's right need to know about it um the other thing that i want to talk about is that um we have an opportunity um we haven't um done anything yet but we have an opportunity to extend our demand response

» bus and so um i would like to talk to you individually or collectively on that um we can get a lot of bang for our buck we're talking about maybe sixty thousand dollars to extend out to the elgin bethune westville mount pisgah area for transportation for our citizens um and that money would be matched with the same so for 60 we'll get a 120 return so just keep that on your radar as well um other than that i've already talked about pecan orchards and we've already set some perimeters for our administrator to get back in touch with us so um i want to move on to um and all that came up at rta on monday night when we met with the cog and then uh mr councilman william wilkes is the chairman of that board now and he brought that proposal back to us so um but i also want to say um my prayers and t

» houghts go out to the Turner family, Cannon Turner's parents, who are Brooks and Carrie. This was the accident on the four-wheeler that happened last week up at Buck Hill Road. It's a terrible thing, and y'all know my story. To lose a child, I don't care how old or how young they are. And so I know they've got a great support system around the church, because some of y'all may be members at the church there in Lugoff First Baptist.

» But embrace this family, keep them in your prayers, and just love them up every minute you get they're going to need it as the weeks go by as the months go by as the years go by what's never going to raise their mind is that they lost their child that will never go away they can get old gray and and and hair can get bald like mine his turning gray mine's turning loose so you know just the way life is but please keep them in your prayers and i thank all of you i know we don't always agree mr jones probably none of the time but um i love you and you know we fight up here for what we believe in but the most thing that I think that you can ever do is always keep your respect and your commitment of being open-minded and open-hearted with each other so with that mr.

» chairman that concludes my report thank you mr. Tucker mr. Brazel chairman Connell thank you I'm thankful to get to go last it gives me an opportunity to kind of reflect on a few of the comments in regards Derek you and I've worked hand in hand on a lot of these community challenges you put a lot of work into your efforts and I want to thank you for that there are concerns here's what I'm going to ask you be be open-minded to a version that works for all the hard-working families here in Kershaw County that have made their livings that has sponsored our baseball teams that have reared their children because their profession depends on it it's no different than if it were sammy and his business whether it be a driving school if you hamper someone's business directly it's it's a big deal and

» i know you don't take that lightly um if if this were to directly affect me in a in a large way which it doesn't because we're we're so geographically diverse in our business but if if this was as a direct of a of an effect as it as it is to the people that were sitting in this room frankly i'd have a tremendous problem with it so so i do i do have a problem with it because i care about them and their families so i want to ask you kindly to to work together with me on something that works for everyone that we can pass because show me a plan i'll look at it well i'd like to do that with you okay i've i've gotten myself in lots of trouble for having plans of my own and i've learned from those troubles and so tonight i ask you kindly to work with me on a plan that it i know how it gets when yo

» u you you've worked and worked and worked and you and you know in your mind that this is what's going to work and and i'm not saying it's not but i'm asking you to work on something so that we can have a viable future for citizens um for the the projects that are that are ongoing now um i don't want to cause anybody any economic damage and i think there's there's potential for economic damage for families and and we we can't do that to to our friends and neighbors and it's um it's something that we're taking very seriously so if if we can work together on a plan and what i would suggest would be a a formal meeting hosted by kershaw county and a public invitation to to builders in the community and you're right we've worked on it for a long time but they haven't let's slow this process down

» in in just a little bit here on the tail end let's bring in the local builders the local um support to those builders the electricians the plumbers the frame carpenters let's hear from them and then let's find what works i don't know what that is right this minute but if we rush this and we push it and we fight fight fight and we dig our heels in we're probably either gonna a pass something that hurts families or b not pass anything at all and frankly i'm a happy median try to do what's best for everybody here in kershaw county and i just i asked very kindly that we're able to do that and i would like to um ask our chairman if he could help facilitate with administration that meeting mr templar thank you um enough about that um we've we've had a tragedy here in kershaw county my heart aches

» um listening to sammy discuss it i'm not going to discuss it any further but i um we all we all have families that we love dearly and my heart aches for for those that have suffered loss and appreciate all my colleagues and especially my new neighbor so looking forward to that real soon councilman thomas everybody have a good night thank you we know you still live in the district right i don't know russell said you're moving to lugo anyway um i have a few remarks before we move on to the next portion uh growth rate we got to figure out what we want the growth rate be in kershaw county um do we just let it run naturally and as it sits are we comfortable at 14 over a certain number of years is that sustainable in any way i believe it's not and we have to figure out what the target is is it fi

» ve six seven percent is it eight which would push um infrastructure and schools and all of our resources in a and i believe an unreasonable way you know no one will ever mr shoemake first i know you not you you hate not being able to respond and so i'm gonna try to do a better rotation of people going around as we do these comments, but no one's ever faulted Mr. Shoemake with being Mr. Jones. Well, I'm sorry. No one's ever faulted Mr. Shoemake with being too passive. And so, but what I do love about him and those who are committed to addressing the growth issue in Kershaw County is they have the future of Kershaw County and its best interest at heart, which includes families.

» It's either, um, we figure out how to address growth now, or we look at significantly higher tax rates perhaps to pay for the infrastructure improvements and all the requirements that will lay in because the that the outlays that were given by staff based on the growth that we're going to see the the impact fee doesn't touch it it pays for some of the growth but it doesn't really touch it in any meaningful way as we've discussed in the past and i've mentioned and encouraged the school district could look at a impact fee which would be much higher and and pay directly for schools and you know that will be in their prerogative if they want to take that up but growth rate South Carolina is the number one state that people are moving to as of last year. We got that update.

» We've had it, but we also got it in our faces again recently in the news and otherwise. And then of the 46 counties in South Carolina, we are the number seven county for growth in the fastest growing state. And so it's an issue that we have to address. I've received numerous calls as well, just about from everybody who's in the room and many others who are concerned on both sides.

» I have some of the big builders saying, hey, you got to do something, but it needs to impact only the small builders i got the small builders saying you got to do something but it only needs to impact the big builders and then i've got uh everyone else saying don't let another house be built in kershaw county ever again and all three of those positions are unreasonable and not realistic and so how do you figure out what you can do i think there's already a series of amendments that council members have been talking about i've got some in mind which would um and this is where mr shoemake and others i would disagree i'm not as aggressive on the reduction in the growth rate I think we could perhaps phase it, and there'll be some discussions about that.

» Allocations for those who might already be in the pipeline and already have site plans approved and already expended significant funds, there might be additional allocation made for those. And so I think there's some things we can look at to address some of the concerns we've had, but it's either we do something now or we really have to do something later, and I think it's going to be more painful.

» All I know is all the calls that I've received, and maybe you've heard the same thing, council members is they say you have a really tough decision to make you have to do something we don't know what it is and i'm glad i'm not you and so that's where we find ourselves at this moment as we move forward in addressing growth in kershaw county which we need to have if you're not growing you're dying but we've got to grow the right way um that's the report that i had i don't have anything else beyond that um mr administrator do you have any remarks report for I do. I just want to give you all an update on Parks and Rec that we're going to be doing some ribbing cuttings here soon.

» These things have been going on for a while, but what we're at, the point we're at now is just the point of the punch list to make sure we're getting a quality product handed over to us. Just an example, we're going to meet with Alliance to mark the areas of asphalt over at the Casey West parking expansion. We've noticed several areas over there, it's just not what we're going to accept. So they'll probably do some milling over there and some patching, but we don't want potholes in a couple years in our new stuff. So just really scrutinizing these projects to make sure what we take into our inventory is maintainable, it's new, and it's not a project when we take it in. So we want to maintain, not repair. Woodward Park continues to drive on.

» Sub-base for the parking lot is being spread out and prepped for asphalt. There was an additional drainage system that had to be put in at the base of the retaining wall near the basketball course to prevent water from pooling. There's some wet areas over there, but it's just where plans change, and this is going to ensure a better product over there. Hydro-seeding has been put in in all the common and disturbed areas, but with the drier climate we've had recently, not much is growing.

» We do have irrigation out there but that's more for the fields not necessarily these disturbed areas so i don't see those areas necessarily preventing any kind of openings we'll just continue to nurture those along and hope and pray for rain some of the things we are looking at at boyd young and copeland park and things like that the fields are really ready to almost to play on we you know the irrigation has been key we've never done this before in any of our projects casey west in the past with irrigation and this is just going to be a game changer when it comes to the aesthetics and the playability of these fields. So we feel pretty good about the fields up there, but we're also going through with a punch list on the 27th to look for any safety hazards.

» There are some areas that need to be taken care of, some ruts and things like that, where the silt fencing has been taken out and created some holes, so we don't want any hazards up there. But we just want to, again, have a safe, playable, usable set of fields up there. So we look forward to getting up there with these punch lists. And just because we have a punch list date doesn't mean we can't work concurrently with our contractors to notice things and have them address before these punch lists kind of get a jump on this. We do want to cut ribbons very soon and get these things going for their intended season, the summer. That's all I have there. But what I do also have for Mr. Brazel, if he would like to entertain some numbers here for your questions. So what ultimately we have is. Mr.

» Administrator, I'd ask that we reserve it until after executive session. If it's going to be part of a discussion that we were going to vote on anyway. Fair enough. otherwise you know that's it i don't have anything else okay we'll we'll bring all the data up in 11a after executive session okay um that concludes administrator's briefing thank you sir legal briefing anything non-privileged no never is all right next up on that you might i'll be shocked next up on the agenda we've got executive session we have a and b take them as a slate a is related to a legal briefing on a matter covered by attorney client privilege both of these are are under SE code 30-4-70 and relevant subparts. B is related to contractual arrangements related to the sale or purchase of real property.

» Is there a motion on entering executive session? - Like a motion, we enter executive session. - We have a motion, is there a second? - Second. - We've got a second. Any discussion on executive session? Seeing none, all in favor of entering executive session at this time, raise your hand. Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous in favor. We are in executive session. No votes. For the public's benefit, no vote is anticipated after executive session. Yes, sir. We've got Sammy and Jimmy Dale. Where's the last? We just need one more to come out. There we go. Seek a motion to exit executive session. So moved. We have a motion. Is there a second on exiting executive session? Second. We've got a second.

» Any discussion on exiting executive session? Seeing none, all in favor of exiting executive session, raise your hand. I did. It wasn't you because you weren't here. Tomlinson and Cato. We are out of executive session, Ms. Hanna. You can't be micromanaging from afar. unanimous in favor except for mr jones who's just absent at the moment all right that puts us back on the agenda prior to adjournment uh we had under chairman's prerogative 11a moved for some additional research thank you and staff yes sir and staff being able to share or answer some questions mr templer yes sir yes sir so mr brazel to just personally answer your question it'll be two people you'll have but they will be RNs an RN for 80 hours a week and then an additional RN supervisor for 40 hours a week and this ups the cache

» of the level of care there's LPNs so lower level care. Substantly we're just going from LPNs to RNs no more time no more people but the mental health piece what was that mental health was 80 hours during eight hours isn't it eight hours eight hours yeah eight hours yeah when i put my readers on it are we still allowing uh churches to to go in and visit and yeah like gideons and things like that yes well yeah any church group that's able to minister yes we've um and we get requests from time to time but we always accommodate good can i make one addition you mentioned the rn to lpn i think there's one thing too is i recall they are also offering more provide prescriber hours as well prescriber yeah so to your point councilman brazil like it's terms of wise more money so you're going from lpns

» to rns the uh the ach is also offering more prescriber hours than sort of the health partners so we have more doctors who can write scripts that are available to us is that that's correct isn't it correct and then one other key feature is that when these these inmates come in for screening unless they with the um with southern health partners if they don't answer any yeses to anything then they're not screened but with uh the advanced health they are screened regardless and i i feel much better about that from you know i mean when you think about things like in custody i was i was almost ready to vote when danny cato said he felt good about it because i know i know about no i he knows he knows and jimmy frankly jimmy knows um and and i appreciate the research and the knowledge that our fina

» nce committee had but i know that this was a huge topic and i didn't want to i didn't want to just advance it just to advance it sure and and if i may just to kind of further um we had a committee on this it was a jail director we had procurement our old procurement officer came back and assisted because she was so ensconced with the last evolution of when we were and this is what this is where they want to be this is where they wanted to be and it's it's i probably don't remember many of these being where we go with the higher bid but just because of the quality and the fact that we want to be um accredited soon to just have more cachet well i certainly understand sometimes low bid is low service i don't have an issue with that right but i did need a reason why and i appreciate y'all takin

» g the time so i'm ready to vote and i'll support it go ahead inflation has not been accounted in there too and you know how that has done over the last couple of years especially do we need a new motion or how does that work mr chairman i would ask for a renewed motion okay just just for delaying time since i made the first one i may i'll make a renew motion that we adopt the proposal recommended by staff specifically that we award this contract to ach second and we have the same second for mr tucker we had previously we still don't have mr jones any further discussion i have no more discussion thank you okay all right seeing them we'll move it to a vote on the motion all in favor this is 11a and it passes unanimously for those who are present and voting please note mr jones absence at the

» moment all right that brings us to Adjournment. Is there a motion? - Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chairman. - We have a motion. Is there a second? We have a second. Any discussion on adjournment? Seeing none. All in favor of adjourning, raise your hand. It's unanimous on adjournment. We are adjourned. - Thank you. - Thank you, Ms. Hanna.