Full meeting transcript - January 12, 2021

» [Part 1 of 2] Check one, two. Today is the 12th of January, and on this day, the anniversary of a tornado came through this county, and we showed what we're made of as a people, that we can handle crisis. And so when we got real prideful, the Lord gave us another one, and we're wearing masks right now because of that. Maybe these crises remind me who we are as a people, and the greatness that makes America able to step up and become the greatest nation in the world is driven by the spirit that's given to us to humble ourselves before the Lord, seek his guidance, and then step out in courage and conviction to make it a better world for our children and our grandchildren. Right, Roy? Welcome to Kershaw County Council. This is our room. This is where we meet. This is the people's house.

» But first, I need to recognize some distinguished people. We have our mayor from Camden, Mayor Drakeford. Thank you, ma'am, for coming. We have Judge Branham, the probate thank you for coming and then we have the esteemed joe connell toughest man in the world by his own admission good to have you joe and we have my classmate classmates edith and roy brazel thank you it's been a long time since i've seen you i need to also say we have our clerk uh mary siegler especially ben connell a newly elected roy russell brazel maybe it should have been you roy uh we have Tom Gardner, Tammy Tucker, newly reinstated Deputy Administrator Danny Templer, and of course the great administrator here in front of us is Vic Carpenter. I do want to say one thing in front, and this is about for you kids.

» This is serious business here, and we really believe in what we're doing, not just that toy I gave you, okay? We believe in what we're doing because it's about you that we honestly believe that by what we do and what we fail to do can make a better world or a lesser world for you. And what's going on in Washington right now is a testament to democracy in action and sometimes not in action. The democracy works here and it works where you're at too, Mayor.

» God bless you for the work you do at City Council because we listen to the people and we have sworn an oath and you'll hear it today repeated three times and i've lived by it since 1966 roy you lived by it when you went off to vietnam it's the constant we swore an oath to protect the constitution the words are preserve protect and defend and we remember that in this room i guarantee you the men i work with up here and the ladies understand that but this is really about you young lady we swear an oath our sacred oath that we'll do the best we can and some of us will even give our lives the police force the firemen and the ems all believe in us and the children and the children to come that we will provide effective government and good services to the benefit of the future of the people of ke

» rshaw county and the people of camden the city of Camden. So that's why we're here today. We see here a minor transfer of power. I know a little bit about power. This is soft power. This is politics. This is the business of making life better and sometimes without enough resources to do the job. And sometimes we got too many jobs and not enough resources. And that's what we talk about in this room.

» But that oath of office is our guiding light so with that i'm going to ask you to stand and we'll invoke the lord here pastor can you come up proctor from bethel worship center pastor be here tonight to open in prayer regret i can't stay for the duration i got a child waiting on me to take them to practice but thank you guys and ladies for your service to our county father we thank you for this time to be together this evening we thank you for these men and these women that are in this room i thank you for the call that has been placed on their life all to lead this great county these people father you're the brother of jesus wrote in his epistle that we need wisdom we simply need to ask you so father we ask tonight that you give these men and these women who lead our city and our county yo

» u give them wisdom to give them the wisdom they need to lead us with unity grace love and the direction that we need to go. Father, we do ask that there would be unity in our county, in our state, and in our nation. You would bring a spirit of unity across this place, God. We honor you with our words and with our actions. Father, help us to love each other, to love our neighbor the way that you have called us to do. Father, we give this time to you. We give this board to you. We thank you for them. We thank you for their heart to serve and serve this county. I believe that you're going to help them and lead them to serve well. We thank you for it tonight in Jesus' name. Remain standing and join with me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge of allegiance. Please be seated.

» Thank you very much. You all have programs. The order of induction begins with our own Mayor, Alfred May Drakeford, bring forward now District 2, Sammy Tucker. Madam Mayor, would you come forward? I solemnly swear I am duly qualified that I am duly qualified according to the Constitution of this state to exercise the duties of the office to which I have been elected and that I will, to the best of my ability, discharge the duties thereof and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of this state and of the United States. So help me God.

» And as Vice Chair of County Council, I will equally, fairly, and impartially, to the best of my ability and skill, exercise the trust reposed in me And I will use my best endeavor to preserve the peace, carry into effect according to the law, the purposes for which I have been elected. So help me God. Next is District 3, and I ask the great Mr. Joe Connell to come forward. And Ben, if you don't mind coming forward from District 3, please. To the best of my ability, I charge the duties thereof. Preserve, protect, defend the state of the United States. Before Kristen leaves, let me just say, families serve as surely do the people who serve on the circular table up here. Kristen, thank you for the sacrifice of you and your children. Likewise, Russell to your family as well.

» Thank you all for coming. Have a safe drive home. Thank you, Joe. Good to see you. Next and last is the admission of oath by Judge Debbie Branham. Good to see you. You got your power suit on and we'll be inducting the Honorable Russell Brazel, District 1. Russell Brazel, do solemnly swear that I am duly qualified according to the Constitution of this state, to exercise the duties of this office, to which I have been elected, and that I will do my, do the best, and that I will do the best of my ability to charge the duties thereof, and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of this state and of the United States. So help me God. Anybody want to hear another speech? I think we're done. I'll call these proceedings close, if you'll please rise for the benediction.

» I'm not a preacher, but David Snodgrass was supposed to be here, but his son got the COVID, so he has properly distanced himself and asked me to take this, and I ask you to join me with him in prayer. Please bow your heads. Come Holy Spirit. Lord, as we go out, let us go out with you, walking before, besides, behind, and within us, that we may honor and glorify your name. In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

» [Part 2 of 2] audio check one two the new year okay go ahead we are called to order i welcome you to our first meeting of the new year 2021 with a new council it's a great day in kershaw county it's a great day in this all-american county i welcome the new council who just swore an oath we have new members present today uh mr russell brazel our newest and youngest and arguably the best looking uh we have mr tucker who is rejoining us as a council member and of course mr connell maybe as young or good looking as russell we have all these men have joined mr jones mr gardner myself and mr snodgrass and swearing an oath to protect the constitution of the united states of america and that of south carolina along with 4 800 4 800 other counties we join in that great democratic tradition of our re

» public of local government that's effective even in spite of short resources and sometimes in spite of disasters can i have that first picture up on the wall is a picture of the north central high school knights that's their mascot and that's what's left after the tornado that hit one year ago today and i remind you all that it was a volunteer fireman from kershaw county along with our great sheriff thank you for being here sheriff bone that that reported that about i guess two o'clock in the morning and has changed our county and we thought that was it for 2020 and now we're in a covid mess and a bit of a problem up at the national capital but i assure you that the constitutional oath that we all made and that many of you also believed in most of you will be upheld in this council and in t

» his county with a spirit of democracy where disunity or disagreement does not equal disrespect and all voices will be heard and there will be equity in building a better life for our council and providing a safe and wonderful and economically viable environment with the help of our sheriff and of all of you for our youth so they may grow up and enjoy the benefits of a democratic lifestyle that we have all enjoyed today i remind you we're in an emergency meeting format because of covid and so we're all six feet apart and masked and that we also allow participation remotely and in this case mr jones is home with a wife with flu not covered i assure you that mr jones will make sure she survives and uh and we'll be blessed with mara again and then we have mr snodgrass who has a a family member

» with covet and he is being socially distanced and respecting what we all agree to do under these emergency conditions to respect one another and not cause a disease among the the general population with that we are called to order with a quorum mr jones is on the phone and mr snodgrass so all six seven members are represented with that i ask mr gardner to lead us in invocation and pledge of Allegiance would you all please stand thank you thank you mr.

» Gardner we now go to public comments the agenda is up on the board Mary we are following a meeting format did we receive any submissions from outlying stations none so with that mr dubose do we have any people signed up uh mr chairman and council one person signed up tom webb the third yes very well mr webb please come on up i ask you to limit to about five minutes and respectful of the rules of the house here we keep it germane and pointed there will be no q a our intent here is to listen to you and we can take action or perhaps meet with you later and also be respectful of the of the dignity of the of the event please go ahead sir well uh y'all are going to be contending over an ordinance i presume from what i read in the paper about to some degree combining uh city and county governments

» for bethune town and county um that worries me uh it could go too far just is this one step and another and another i think that the government has a tendency to pit some people against the others and they irritate each other. It's not really good for people's love of their government to have too much government. I would prefer to see people in an area tend to their own business and not be led too hard. I don't know enough about it to say much more than that, so that's about that topic.

» I did want to to speak a little bit about the one time that i spoke that i taught sunday school in the baptist church it was half a century ago on amos who was a prophet and he was uh worried that the israelites were slipping away from their roots from their religion from their culture and i think it applies now i think your word is safe uh can we uh make sure that mr jones can hear that and mr snodgrass can you turn that up thank you mr jones go ahead is this working well now it's on go ahead okay well amos talked that um things were going to change drastically he um did business probably with people outside of israel and he could um get clues he said he knew something was coming tried to warn the people of israel um they had stepped away from their religion their culture their guidance pr

» inciples they were seeking after more and more wealth as people will tend to do and he warned them again and again but they wouldn't listen and Assyria came and caroled them all off so here we are facing international communism who they want what we have they will take it if they can get it so I keep advising people to store up some beans and rice at least that nobody has a crystal ball it might would be scary to look into it if you could actually see what's coming I think it's down to that point that it's really we're living in very dangerous times people want to think that we can go back to normal but I don't think so i think that we're we're in for it um and i won't even say how bad it could yet because it it sounds like too much conspiracy theory stuff but anyway put aside some beans an

» d rice and uh i have been coming here for some time i've met a lot of people like you all i really do i might disagree with some of you very much on some of the uh ordinances you want to pass but I respect you all and uh I love to see your faces again and again but I feel so strongly about this that I'm almost saying goodbye um I don't want to scare anybody but why not be kind of ready at least mentally for what might be coming put aside some beans and rice and and get yourself ready things may just turn upside down thank you thank you Mr. Webb uh Mr. DuBose anything further no - So that concludes it, Mr. Chairman. - That concludes our public comments. We move now to an adoption of the agenda, but before I do that, I wanna make sure that we establish some understandings.

» This is not particularly egregious, but it's just, I need a little format. My intention is, is before I ask for comments from any of the members present, I'll ask for comments from those calling in in this order from Mr. Jones and then Mrs. Snodgrass, just to make sure they are heard on each and every agenda item as we move forward. So with that, we move to the adoption of the agenda as shown on the board. I need a first and a second. Can we have a motion, please? - So moved. - Mr. Garner, a second? - Second, sir. - Second, thank you, Mr. Connell. And with that, I turn to Mr. Jones who has an amendment. Mr. Jones. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the County Council.

» I'd like to make an amendment to delete item number four on the ordinance, new business, it states first reading of amended and stated ordinance by Kershaw County Council determining rules. I'd like to have that deleted and put on the next schedule agenda of County Council. - Okay, the motion for Mr.

» Jones is to delete item four and move it to the next meeting on the 24th, 26th in two weeks from now i think i heard a second from mr snodgrass correct david uh any discussion from mr jones please thank you mr chairman of the council the reason i did this is obviously i'm not there in person and i i think something of this nature i need to be there in person so we can have some uh dialogue on it so anyway thank you very much great uh any further discussion mr snodgrass no no sir uh any others here all right that's an amendment to the agenda all those in favor signify by raising your hand first mr jones i do uh mr snodgrass hi and those present and it's unanimous and we move now to an adoption of the agenda as amended can we have a motion to do that please mr make a motion yeah mr mr jones u

» h first and mr tucker second uh any discussion uh with that we move to a vote mr jones i voted favor uh mr snodgrass hi and all those present signify by raising your hand and the agenda is amended to delete item number four and move it to the 26th mary if you'll pick up on that and i asked mr dubose to explain that arcane method of how we do those votes to mr russell brazel and then to me again all right all right thank you very much we move now to approval of minutes it said tab a it's on page four in your electronic book and it's up on the screen right now uh can we uh get a motion to approve minutes uh mr gardner a second second uh second for mr tucker uh any discussion first to mr jones and mr snodgrass i'm in favor okay seeing any further discussion here of course mr brazel you i think

» would recuse yourself because you weren't present for that all right we move to a vote all those in favor signify aye for mr jones and mr snodgrass aye good and those present signify uh very good it's unanimous with mr uh brazil abstaining uh we move now to a resolution and i'm gonna need to go to my pad here and call up the document with mr shepherd here and miss uh michelle murphy from in vista give me a moment to catch up we have a resolution and honoring and vista and the robotics team i'll read that as my procedure and we'll take a motion and a vote and then we'll present it resolution honoring and vista whereas in vista vision kershaw 2030 explicitly supports innovative educational opportunities to open exciting vocational vistas for our youth and to enhance job growth through stem pr

» ograms in our schools and whereas kershaw county recognizes invista as a valued business partner located in kershaw county with a distinguished history of community involvement and whereas the robotics team presents interesting and educational robotics opportunities for students in grades 8 through 12 who live in and attend school in kershaw county whereas INVISTA has been a virtuoso leader supporting science and technology programs in Kershaw County and whereas INVISTA provided the robotics team multiple laptop computers within the past and has been a stalwart advocate and leader in the provision of five thousand dollars in donations to the team in the years 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

» Now therefore Kershaw County hereby expresses our appreciation to invista for their support and encouragement and salutes the leadership of invista as esteemed members of this community done this day 12th of january 21. can we have a motion to approve mr chairman make a motion to approve mr tucker a second second second for mr gardner uh discussion starting with uh mr jones and mr snodgrass if there is any no discussion jones okay and david uh okay grateful good thank you uh any discussion from the table uh mr tucker i just want to say thank you uh to investor and thank uh the young folks y'all keep um moving forward and doing good work and being innovative because you guys are our future and i appreciate your bright minds thank you oh other other points i'll just say is in my business i'm

» trying to build a robotic tank uh that doesn't also shoot americans so if you got any solutions i'll sign you up all right because it's kind of dangerous to have a 30 millimeter in your in your formation and not confident it's not shooting you as well as the bad guys so thank you very much for that and then vista we respect your contributions to the county um uh mr shepherd would you like to come up and uh say a few words first and then we'll we'll go to a vote we'd just like to say that we appreciate all the businesses that are in the cal in the county as well as all the schools and the and the advantage that we've had for our students especially during this covid crisis great thank you as the counselors for supporting us also and tell us who you have here i want to know who these young yo

» ung men and women are hi i'm landry martin greg jeffers yeah delaney scott yeah great and michelle thank you for coming appreciate it and with that i'm going to move to a vote all those in favor signify uh first mr jones and mr snodgrass uh and mr snodgrass thank you and those present and mary is unanimous and uh and if you want to come up here we'll take a quick picture and uh and we'll try to keep socially distanced and that sort of thing um come on up especially the students and more important congratulations i'll stand up here We're the two big guys. Thank you very much. We'll let them leave and so we can get some social distancing here and off they go. Thank you very much. And thanks Mary for putting that together.

» I guess we're gonna get signatures and then we'll ship it over to them. Yeah, and Mostly, okay. Good. Thank you. All right, we move now to the next item on the agenda One that I'm keen to hear from, and that's the administrative updates from my administrator, Vic Carpenter, on COVID-19. Sir, go ahead. Chair, members of council, just... Let me just make sure, sound check here, and do a short count for Mr. Jones and Mr. Snodgrass. Go ahead. One, two, three. Jimmy and David, can you all hear pretty good? I can hear. Okay, good. Go ahead. Good. Go ahead, please.

» Members of council, as we've been doing now for a number of months, just giving you an update on where we are with the uh covid situation in the county uh you see on the screen uh the okay wait a minute we've got uh echo feedback here same thing we had last time if we have to we'll go back to the backup on my phone okay okay you want to try it again when you're ready Okay, go ahead. The 14-day rolling average for the COVID in the county, as you see, it is a spike significantly. We're now at the highest we've been from the beginning of this situation back in early March of 2020. Our 14-day average is now well over 600 cases. Our average daily is in the range of 30, 35 a day coming forward. Do you want to slide it, Danny? That shows where we are in the months.

» You see that the month of January, the average test results have gone up dramatically from the first couple months between three and four a day to 37 a day on average. Next one. Our monthly cases, again, January, we're at the 12th, and we're already pretty much the fourth highest total for the year since it began. And then there is our mortality rate. Well, not the rate, but the actual mortality. This is, again, the mortality of individuals that the coroner has certified have died with COVID. It doesn't mean they didn't have another condition, but they were unfortunately, because of COVID, they did not survive. Now, we do have good news. The situation with vaccinations, the vaccine is in the county. It is being administered.

» The first frontline were the medical providers of the hospital, 1A that was called. We started now into 1B, Frontline Essential Workers. So 1B, we've already started, firefighters, law enforcement, EMTs, EMS, people who are in the frontline of providing services to the community. Again, we've already started vaccinating within this county, EMS employees, firefighters. Next, Danny. Phase 1C, they hope to start in the early spring. They can't really give us an idea, but people 65 and older should be covered by that as well. And then other central workers that maybe did not get it in the first phase. And then moving on, Phase 2, late spring. And Danny, the next one. That's it, okay. So what they're finding out is that not everybody wants to take the vaccine.

» They initially assumed that it would be everybody would take the vaccine. when they allocated doses and set up the schedule that was based on that assumption it turns out that that's not true that many people are not taking vaccines that makes it available for others so they have since this was put together they've changed some of those they now allow people that are 70 and older the hospital to get it and just this afternoon the cdc um came out and said they want to lower it to everybody 65 and older can get it now so this is changing by the day the vaccination availability uh when when citizens will be able to get there is uh information the county's put out um and it's distributing that was provided to us from dhec encouraging citizens who are in the um in the category of 65 70 and older

» to go online to a website and register at which point they're supposed to be given an appointment that they would go and get the vaccination that mr chairman is my report very good i just got a text from david uh snodgrass who says the audio is better on facebook than it is from this system here so we'll keep them both going and just to remind you if if we fail on any audio either one or both uh for david and jimmy just to call my cell phone and i'll loop you in now with that uh any comments uh mr jones do you want to have anything or mr snodgrass no comment jones okay no comments from jimmy and mr snodgrass uh no comment very good any men any comments from men present uh i'll say one thing vic you had a memo from the ceo of kershaw health hospital sue sugart uh when do you expect to provid

» e that to the council okay i will have that to the council their boxes tomorrow sir okay and i'll just make a note on this right here i've got a copy from sue sugart and uh if you don't mind i'll read a little bit from that is that okay yes all right um she's i'm just going to paraphrase and then i'll provide this to you later that she agreed with the uh action by the mayors and the county on a joint effort before christmas uh to highlight the public risk of a surge during christmas hanukkah and the new year's holiday and supports the masking washing of hands social distancing along with the vaccine vaccination as quote unquote our path out of this pandemic though it is not mandatory for the hospital staff vaccinations are underway and highly encouraged but masking is required at her hospit

» al at the at the moment of this writing as of the 7th of january today being the 12th only one icu bed is empty but she gives some good news and i'll have to read it because it's technical she says monoclonal antibody therapies while working well and increase increase recovery rates and reduce recovery time plus reduce the numbers of people that are needed to go to the hospital care in the first place allowing for most to recover at home end quote um secondly she says with a certain amount of pride quote folks from neighboring counties are using her facility for infusion therapy as well so that's the quality of our hospital and we should be proud of Sue Sugar and Dr. Holstrom and all those people. She asks this, quote, plasma donors are needed.

» Those who have had the disease should volunteer, knowing, too, that the donorship eligibility declines with time, so the sooner a person who's had the disease donates their plasma, the better because that'll help her in her um inventory of plasma uh let's see i'll skip down uh quote unquote the shots are not mandatory repeat are not mandatory but kershaw health highly recommends it to the county there has been tremendous medical staff leadership in getting the vaccine and encouraging uh even members of her staff to receive it okay and then this these are the numbers she quotes with respect to the vaccine and i don't know which one it is but there are two different types maybe more quote the facts are that the shots are proving 53 effective on the first vaccination and 94 effective after the

» second dose maximum coverage is achieved two weeks after the second dose and let's see uh she she says quote she supports our resolution which encourages mask and vaccination about which we'll see a little later on um and and and this is one that i need to ask a question about quote it is expected dhek will open some 90 non-hospital sites to take the burden of administration of shots from the already overworked hospitals end quote um mr carpenter do we know where these 90 sites are they're apparently all over the state do we have a notion of where they are in kershaw county no sir we we do currently have a dhex site at the rec center but we're not aware that that's going to continue to be a vaccination site as well it's just a testing site currently so we don't have a defined place yet told

» to us so there's no site yet identified in the county other than the hospital that we're aware of yes sir that we're aware of so that we have an information gap here uh i would like to also continue i'm dominating a little bit and i apologize but as soon as i heard yesterday that the over 70 uh crowd which i'm in are eligible for the shot starting on wednesday i went to the website yesterday and website crashed not maybe not because of me but it crashed and then i did the the alternative is to call in and that was not responsive either so uh i'd ask the council and the county i talked to i've had a number of phone calls from frustrated people at my age which is let's call them mature uh thoroughly mature people who are saying that they're frustrated i ask you not to lose faith in the in the

» in your attempts and it's completely up to you whether you get the shots on or not but let's don't lose faith let's try to work through the system and we'll learn as we go without any further comments um yeah i'll heal i'll yield to you russell russell brazel hey how's everybody doing um yeah it's a big controversy over the covid and you know take the shot fall over dead i encourage people to think for themselves you've got a choice the government is not going to make you do anything this piece of paper it doesn't we're not making anybody do a thing that they don't want to consult with your doctor and i think if you do want to get the vaccine we as a county need to be prepared to educate people as to where the sites are we need multiple sites what can we do to help achieve four or five plac

» es to get the shot if if you want it um dhec is the entity that's been tasked by the state of south carolina to handle every bit of that the county has from march been trying to be part of the process we have volunteered our staff our resources or buildings to help them we've not been well received in any of our efforts they've been very uncommunicative they have not shared information with us sometimes critical information in the early stages that our EMS and EMTs needed as they were going out trying to deal with it with patients so the short answer to your question Mr.

» Brazel is there's very little we can do we are trying to be as much a part of it we would love to help them with space we'd love to offer them the resources we have available to us and they know that and we keep sharing with them our frustration as well as our willingness to be part of the solution and as we learn information we share it as fast we can yeah good comment I mean I just I don't know I think we need I think we need to pull information out of somebody and make it happen I don't know who that person is I'll be happy to help but if if you don't want it don't take it if if you want it this available like chairman burns you know is I think ready to take it or maybe already taken it i'm not sure um we need to do what we can to make it available absolutely uh perhaps i can offer there

» that um i call the chief of staff at dhec again if that'll help let me uh listen to the group here today and i'll call the chief of staff at dhec and and i've got his 24 and 7 number and maybe that'll help but i i have to tell you i've not been successful with that crowd and neither has mr carpenter but good points russell absolutely uh mr tucker can i go to the people on the phone yes sir uh mr jones or mr snodgrass any comments i yielded mr snodgrass first okay david uh just making sure are we still on vic's admin update is that correct yes we're still on the covet update okay yeah i i'll yield okay jimmy over to you sir we're on the resolution we're not on the resolution yet we're still on the covet update okay the code update and i apologize i'm having a tough time hearing but uh i have

» no comments on this thank you thank you sir mr tucker i'm sorry thank you yes sir oh thank you um mr chairman my question is to the administrator mr carpenter um what are we doing that kind of uh dovetails on what uh councilman brazel was speaking about as far as um getting pr out from the county um to inform these folks on um you know the information and um you know also doing some little pr on folks who have taken it um i want people to make their own minds up but i want them also know that it's it's safe to take well mr tucker we're first of all we we rely completely on whatever dhec chooses to share with us so we can't create information we have to receive the information and that's it doesn't forth come in the fashion that that we wish it would we asked them we worked our emergency pre

» paredness but emergency preparedness is a totally different part of the government than DHEC emergency preparedness is responsible for dealing with disasters and emergencies and and they're very equipped to handle dissemination of information communication the heck doesn't talk to them near as much as they should so we work through emergency preparedness we work through our contacts with DHEC and the early stages of this the DHEC director came to us when we led the state and we had meetings with them and they called us every day because they were concerned how things were going in Kershaw we had daily updates from from the top leadership within a couple weeks that went away and so we don't receive that kind of information from them anymore we're just one of 46 at this point with them inform

» ation we put out when we get it that we know is good we'll put it out on the county's social media accounts well you know we'll share we we've done that today with information that we've received we put out that way but as I kind of alluded to earlier it was it was already out of date within an hour and a half because we put out information that they then changed without us knowing it was coming so so we we put out information that we put out websites that they told us to put out we put out it didn't work so people so it's a just say it's frustrating is is an understatement because we're doing everything we can when when we're basically on the outside looking in through the window trying to read their lips and figure out what it is that that they want us to do or what we can do the hospital

» is another independent entity you know they've got their own protocols for communicating information to us sometimes it's open and it's it's good sometimes it's not and so we're you know we're kind of sitting trying to put all the pieces together that we can to to get out good information about information but you know we get the calls too of you know Danny got him today of people where do I go how do I get there why don't you have something for me it's further complicated because in North Carolina the county does it so in some states the county does it does it all the County Health Department is a county department they work for the county South Carolina doesn't have a system at all set up that way so so anything medically related doesn't roll through the county they even tell us that any

» work work for you know our county employees are frontline medical employees picking you up in an ambulance but we're told that they're not HIPAA certified to know the information of the patients are picking up so it's it's when you ask question what can we do we're doing we're open for any suggestions of what we can do better and what we can do more well I'm gonna give you one because this one kind of is dear near to my heart I'm very concerned about the most vulnerable portions of this county when it comes down to our citizens and let me just spell it slap ABOUT ELDERLY AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITIES, THOSE TYPES OF THINGS, AND THE HISTORY OF AMERICA IS NOT GOOD WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO VACCINATION IN THOSE COMMUNITIES, AND SO THEY'RE GOING TO NEED A LOT OF INFORMATION, ENCOURAGING AND EVERYTHI

» NG ELSE, AND I WOULD LIKE FOR THE COUNTY TO DO THEIR PART IN THIS BECAUSE OF THE HISTORY THAT WE'VE HAD IN THE PAST OF FOLKS FEELING THAT, YOU KNOW, THEY'RE GOING TO BE, YOU KNOW, VACCINATED WITH SOMETHING other than the Covid-19 vaccination shot so very concerned about that and would like to sit down with you and others on this panel that would like to join me and make sure we're doing something to make sure we hit that population yes sir other comments Mr. Chairman if I may Mr. Jones Mr.

» Chairman and everybody probably is but if they would speak directly in their mic I think i could hear a little bit better uh to apologize gotcha uh all right uh mr gardner yeah i i think that uh and this i think this is what i got out of what you said mr carpenter is that you know we're we're trying to to work with them but they're not working with us uh in in some respects uh i think that when you look at this and we go back to you know late april and may and we started talking about a vaccination i i think that our governor dhek has failed us i don't i don't mind saying that i i think that our plan should have been in place that we should have already had a plan we should have had a plan to have the vaccinations whether you want to take it or not that doesn't matter but our plan should ha

» ve been in place we had many months to plan for it and we didn't and it's not the counties the counties will get the blame for a lot of it we had nothing to do with it but a plan should have been in place we should have had this ready to go with the vaccines rolled out we should have had phase one two three whatever in place and i i think i think our governor and our dhek have failed us that's my opinion thank you thank you uh other comments i have a question just by way of um clarification uh mr carpenter said vaccinations are underway i remain concerned about our sheriff our ems and our jail who have interface with the public and some fundamental ways uh vic can you bring us up to speed on where we are with those three uh populations that are our employees and maybe the sheriff will want

» to say something too the sheriff is certainly welcome to make any comments as always um the hospital will not tell us who's received vaccination so we know that people have received it we know that ems employees have received it but they will not provide us a list of who's so i really can't tell you who has received it even county employees um it's it's it's because we don't compel them to do it they have to go on their own they know it's there it's for them we encourage them to um but that's one of the frustrating things is they they told us that they will not tell us who has received it so i i can't tell you who's received it okay uh the sheriff's here and cato's here uh sheriff bone if you'd like to speak up and i thank you again for excellent police work over the weekend that was a toug

» h week sir after you over to you mr sheriff bone yeah we have coordinate we're getting a list now bring that microphone up if you would because jimmy and and dave can't do the um yeah we've coordinated with them uh the list that we're forming now at the sheriff's office uh we've made it um we put it out to all of our deputies it's voluntary i have no interest in forcing any of them to take it but it's it's voluntary and he wants it gets on the list and we follow the uh 1b uh phase of it so we're getting the list together to send over at once and um have the guys ready to go but uh same you know we won't be tracking anything who gets it who don't get it it's left up to them and uh their decisions what they gotta live with very good uh mr jones or mr snodgrass have a question for the sheriff

» no question okay all right any questions up here gentlemen all right very thank you sheriff and thanks for what you do and you too cato thank you all right any further for mr carpenter okay i think we'll move on to the next item on the agenda it's the resolution resolution encouraging individuals to wear face coverings in certain circumstances and vaccinations as are recommended it's at page nine in your electronic book in tab c and it's also on the board i'm going to read selectively from this noting that the resolution in the main was passed by the council back in the summer recommending and encouraging individuals to wear face coverings what's added here is language uh helpfully crafted by members of the council to add shots as recommended by medical authorities I'm I'm going to summariz

» e and I'm going to take broadly from this this is a resolution encouraging individuals to wear face coverings in certain circumstances and matters related thereto whereas in 13th of March Henry McMaster's issued an executive order for him for the novel COVID-19 and declared a state of emergency, and whereas Kershaw County did likewise with a state of emergency, and whereas a number of cases continues to grow in the state and in the county, whereas the number of cases is growing rapidly and continues to spread in the county, and the number of persons relying on medical, pharmaceutical, and general cleaning supplies increases the private and public sector workforce negatively impacted whereas in january 5th 2020 it should be 2021 mary if you can make a scrivener's error there we will need to

» vote on that whereas january 5th 2021 there were 300 000 confirmed cases in the state including 4 000 in kershaw county and 70 confirmed deaths that's now i think 71 and whereas a vaccine has been approved in the united states for use and national and state health agencies are encouraging and recommending that people become vaccinated whereas national and state health officials are recommending and encouraging the administration of the flu vaccine to protect the public health and whereas kershaw county finds it vitally important that individuals work together to decrease the widespread proliferation among citizens of the county and whereas the cdc and dhec advise the use of face coverings uh to slow the spread of the covet and whereas taking measures to control outbreaks minimize the risk t

» o the public and and reduce the spread of infection and then skipping down to the second page and i'll read it in full whereas in order to protect preserve and promote the general health safety and welfare and the peace and order of the community the county is taking steps to try to protect the citizens and employees of the county from increased risk of exposure whereas in light of the foregoing county council deems it proper and necessary to adopt this resolution in order to encourage uh person patrons of stores and pharmacies to wear face coverings and while inside the store in light of the fact these establishments sell essential goods such that individuals do not have a meaningful choice to decide not to shop there and be all employees and patrons of county-owned facilities where social

» distancing is not possible to wear face coverings and now therefore be it resolved by county council of kershaw county in a meeting assembled that due to the real and present concern the spread of covid 19 face coverings are encouraged for all patrons of grocery stores and pharmacies as well as patrons and employees of county-owned facilities where social distance is not possible further resolved by the county council of the county of kershaw that the citizens of kershaw county are encouraged to follow the recommendations of national and state health agencies to receive the COVID-19 vaccination when available and to receive the flu vaccine as recommended and the citizens of Kershaw County also are encouraged to follow the recommendations of their individual health care providers if applicab

» le as to receiving the vaccination when available and if recommended and to receive the flu vaccine if recommended by their individual health care providers the resolution shall become effective immediately all orders resolutions and parts thereof and conflict are to the extent of the of the conflict hereby repealed and done and ratified this date with that uh mr snodgrass can you we have a motion i make the motion that we adopt the resolution very good can we have a second second from Mr. Tucker, excuse me, Mr. Tucker, I'm just scrolling you, but Mr. Tucker. Very good, it's on the table. Mr. Snodgrass, do you want to lead the discussion? - Sure, I like this resolution, it does a few things.

» It puts the faith and the confidence of where it needs to be and that is with the people of Kershaw County who understand what it takes for us to move beyond this COVID-19 pandemic. And it's very clear that the best thing that we can do to show concern for one another is to wear a face covering when we're out in public. As far as the vaccine language, I didn't want to get into the nature of council giving out medical advice.

» So I'm thankful that the language here is very explicit and that we encourage people to not only, not only go on the recommendations of cdc or the state organization but that it's even more localized that you visit your local provider that you speak with that person who you see face-to-face on a regular basis that you trust who you know uh and and make your decision uh based on uh based on what what they what they are saying so uh those are my thoughts and would encourage us to to pass this resolution unanimously uh to send a strong signal to our community thank you thank you very much and normally i'd go to the person who seconded it but in order to let uh the people calling in from outlying stations i'll go to mr jones mr jones i got a couple of comments mr chairman thank you members of c

» ounty council as well you know i struggle with this back and forth i voted against the last resolution but i was reading this one after going through it you know i'm against government governmental overreach this this resolution doesn't do that this is is nothing but encouraging people to follow medical advice, not our advice, medical advice. It's no legal action taken where any mandates are concerned. I think, Mr. Snodgrass, Chairman, you did a good job in the way you worded this, and I plan to support the resolution, unlike I did not the first. - Thank you, Mr. Jones. Mr. Tucker, back to you on second. - Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

» want to thank you and um councilman snodgrass and mr dubose for the crafty language thank you okay other comments please uh saying they are none um let's move to a vote i i call for a vote all those in the outline stations mr jones uh uh mr snodgrass i look high and those present signify with hand vote and it's unanimous mary and it passes thank you gentlemen and i think a show of unanimity on a matter of critical interest to the county unlike we have seen in 100 years is of great value to our county uh with that we move into the next item on the agenda uh which is an ordinance which is item number one a second reading of an ordinance of county council uh to amend a zoning map it's at page 11 in the electronic book it's on the screen in front of you and it said tab d uh mr carpenter uh help

» me on this one mr chairman members of council you have in front of you tonight for second reading an ordinance to rezone approximately 70 acres of land located on bulware road kershaw county it was approved unanimously by the planning commission in november county council approved first reading unanimously it comes to you now for second reading very good and i see you mr newman and mr robbie lackey here thank you for coming out of the woods robbie i didn't recognize you outside of your natural habitat uh can we have a motion to approve make much to approve mr chairman from mr tucker a second second to hear from mr brazel uh discussion going like i said to the uh call-in stations mr jones as a senior man no discussion no discussion no this is not grass uh no discussion i supported it the fir

» st time and i'll support it again very good uh discussion here anyone mr john mr tucker i'm sorry i just want to make a quick comment i want to thank uh mr newman and mr blackie for getting the um adjacent property owners and folks in that area to support your project so you have unanimity and um and great um folks uh to be neighbors around you so thank you for your hard work on this project thank you uh mr connell yeah thank you mr chairman i just wanted to ask staff if there's any feedback from the public since last meeting the last vote on this uh yes sir okay nothing and then uh almost out of turn i tried to see what mr brazel had on his mind last time there i think there's a typo in the last packet has it been corrected yes yes there was there was a typo that a lot size was 6 000 squar

» e feet which was incorrect that would have put about 400 houses in the neighborhood but it was corrected. The lot size is 15,000 square feet. So I would love to hear more about this just so that we know what we're getting in Lugov. - Certainly ask either Greg or Robbie to come up if they want to say a few things, or we can arrange a separate meeting if you're not prepared to do that now. Yeah. Move that microphone down about three feet there. Thank you, sir. - I'm Robbie Lackey and Greg Newman.

» and we are uh actually it's gonna be just single family residential housing uh stick built homes and uh really beyond that we don't have any specifics of course we're going to meet all the county regulations and that kind of thing as well how many homes do you think are going to be in there i just we think about things such as school systems being impacted um roads traffic traffic's getting you know pretty pretty tough and that that's what raised my eyebrows the first time when i saw it might be a high density but that was obviously just a clerical error absolutely so 15 000 square feet will be the minimum of course and then as far as you put in the roads uh the rear of that's got flood plain uh you've got storm water retention uh all your utilities so you're not gonna net out uh that many

» acres of course to get that many homes but um you know i would say that it will probably um you know average a little more than 15 000 uh square feet per lot but till there's been no design um that's been put together yet okay so y'all are still early planning stages absolutely we want to get through this before we we really got the engineers really on on board okay thank you uh other comments uh while mr lackey's up does mr jones or mr snodgrass have any comments yes i do i'm robert lackey okay appreciate what he does very good and we all do thank you thank you very much greg and robbie thanks for coming other comments okay i think we're ready to move to a vote uh as we did before i'll go to the call-in stations uh mr jones how do you vote sir and mr snodgrass aye and those present signify

» and it's unanimous mary and we move on to the third reading of the next go-round item number two under ordinances is at tab e page 33 in your electronic media an extension of emergency ordinance to establish safety measures virtual meeting attendance operating procedures regarding postponing and or rescheduling kershaw county council meetings i'll read briefly from select parts of this because it remains i think unchanged right mr dubose except for the date all right gentlemen we've been doing this for almost a year this will take us into our second year hard to believe i'll read certain parts of it all of you have got it and it's an emergency ordinance to establish safety measures and so on as i'd already previously read whereas south carolina code of laws expires automatically at the 60-d

» ay level we're a little bit past that whereas the finding contained in the ordinance are still in effect and operative and the dates applicable to the declarations of the governor of south carolina have been extended and the number of cases of covet 19 has remained unacceptably high in south carolina uh and i'll not go through all those whereas there are certain provisions here and that allow you to go through i think the public is well aware of these and and i want to read one phrase in here that this is an effort to protect and preserve the general welfare of our citizens while promoting and enacting the will of the people and this is an important phrase and believes this world a health event requires the council to take all necessary actions to ensure the safety welfare and health of its

» residents now therefore kershaw county by the power granted it by the state of south carolina constitution and general assembly through the home rule act hereby declares enacts ordains and orders a state of emergency that's the key two phrases with that can we have a motion to approve make a motion to approve the emergency ordinance mr tucker a second second second from mr gardner and let me go to the discussions to the call-in stations beginning uh with the senior member mr jones and jimmy thank you mr chairman as a council i like that senior member and i feel very young at heart okay here's where we'll go we'll go probably part ways gentlemen uh i have a problem with the ordinance one it's a mandate and it you know if you go to number five it talks about the church county chair county cou

» ncil will have the authority to provide remote or virtual attendance at me but we're not doing that because i can't do it virtual now and and and i'm in the situation i'm in this afternoon but but i'm so grateful that they were able to at least work it out where audio we could do it by telephone but i have some concerns that we're not doing what this ordinance already says we've had it for a year it also talks about public attendance and comments may be eliminated well if we pass this ordinance that gives to me the chairman and the administrator and no pun intended gentlemen uh pretty much full control of that and i do have uh concerns of that i just don't think this ordinance is is necessary i don't think it's needed we work as a body very well and uh we've had this for a year and we reall

» y haven't um enacted any part of it we've been through a lot worse times with COVID than we are in now uh especially in the early unknown stages so I just you know one thing I would like to say I was told I'm not sure but to do the virtual attendance it could cost us up to thirty thousand seventy thousand dollars I don't know but what I do know is that social distancing I believe is important people are going to wear a mask and wear a mask. People who are not going to wear a mask are not going to wear a mask. So we're not going to change minds there. But I think people know what they need to do. And, of course, like the resolution, I thought it was very good at just encouraging people to follow their medical professionals and what they need to do.

» But this ordinance, I just do have problems with it. Especially when it talks about the public attendance and comments or maybe eliminating the interest of public safety to reduce exposure to cover 19. um i would hope that in some way or form that we could at least social distance on planet counselors i'm sure y'all are doing tonight i'd like to see it but this is where uh as i haven't in the past my king i cannot support this ordinance those are some very helpful ideas um other comments for those reasons mr chair the council thank you jimmy um mr snodgrass sure mr chairman uh members of council uh i would ask this uh mr carpenter am i understanding correctly uh and mr dubose you can speak to this too as well i think but this ordinance does two things um primarily which makes us more flexib

» le in moving money around should it be needed and makes it more flexible and scheduling meetings is that is that is that correct yes sir uh mr devos you've been asked for comment yes that is correct also provides that you can uh attend a meeting virtually as you're doing mr snoggrass it has that okay yeah okay yeah and i i share some i share some of the concerns that mr jones has has brought up but i will say uh while this this ordinance does give the chairman some purview um there hasn't been evidence that that purview has been abused um and uh and i think it's it's been needed uh and it's helped us navigate um navigate these these times and the thing is it's what it's 50 days and if we feel like that uh it's taken us where we don't want to go uh we can we can quickly uh change directions

» uh when it expires so yeah let me be hit that point i should have been clear about that mary 60 days from now would be uh by the council meeting in march is that right and that'll be the first council meeting in march so this thing lasts 60 days uh up to the first council meeting in march uh go ahead mr jones if i may please i don't get like i just want to make a couple quick comments you know while i look at this ordinance is less oversight by the policy makers the county council i do look at it as less oversight and anything that we're talking about doing here we can already do without creating another ordinance and with all due respect has nothing to do with who the chairman is it could be the chairman could be anybody it has nothing to do with that it's just i feel that personally it's

» just less oversight by us and i just uh don't support that that's just my feelings thank you okay very good mr gardner yeah i think uh i i won't totally disagree with you mr johnson i think what this ordinance allows is for us to not have to call a special meeting to do something uh that may come up during this time whether you know unless you allow the the administrator to make those decisions that you may or may not be happy with so i think that's what this ordinance does it allows us to move forward without having a special called meeting on whatever may pop up during these times so and we don't know what that unknown is so uh i i support the ordinance thank you other comments please i didn't have any concern mr brasil yeah go ahead i didn't have any concern until um mr snodgrass mention

» ed the ability the latitude it gives to to spend more money freely what's can can somebody elaborate on that uh mr carpenter help us out here yes mr brasil it's it's not a matter of spending more money it's a matter of being allowed to spend money that's already been allocated by the council but move it from one budgeted line item to another so if we had allocated money in in excess amounts of fuel but suddenly something came up that we did not anticipate or plan for the budget therefore we didn't fund it we're able to fund whatever that situation came up and was so when coven first hit we were having to do modifications and buy shields and and things like that it allowed us to go ahead and do it without opening the budget and and re-approving a new budget i mean is there a cap on that spen

» ding oh yes the cap is what the council's approved so the council approves the budget which is a dollar amount so so that's the cap is i can't spend more than the council has allocated to be spent it just allows me to within that amount shift it around as needed 100 grand 200 grand hang on jimmy go ahead mr brownsville i mean for example if i over speak anybody i apologize it's just kind of hard to hear and i'm trying to keep myself at the place we're at have you called on me am i speaking i still got mr hang on didn't i mean did i mean interrupt yeah it's a little harder go ahead uh russell no that's fine i mean obviously i'm this is my first meeting i'm new to this i'm trying to understand you know what what that an example was when um we did the small business grants and we took a millio

» n dollars and used that as grants to our small businesses that was not budgeted but it was within the context of the budget we were able to allocate the funds and spend it so it just gives us the ability normally if we don't if we haven't planned for and anticipated something and something comes along we would have to open the budget go through three readings public hearings and and have a revised budget so it just gives us flexibility to respond to situations it doesn't have a dollar amount now but it requires me to report to council i mean i can't just sit here and buy you know three boeing 747s and y'all don't know about it so i have to report to council what we're doing but it just allows us to respond quickly and in the early stages of it especially we had to respond very quickly somet

» imes in the last 60 days have you had to do anything like that i wouldn't say so no sir i wonder how i mean how much longer do we do we really need this then in place if we knew it wouldn't be an emergency out of this not trying to be snide but we don't know we're we just don't know an example might be if the governor turns around and says i want the counties to do x y and z on vaccines um then then we're then we'll probably convene in here and ask Mr. Carpenter to act on that in an emergency fashion. We just don't know, Russell, frankly. But the key phrase here is in the context of the emergency, COVID emergency. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. Mr. Chair. I got people calling from the outstations. Ben, if you could hold. Mr. Jones, you're next, sir. Go ahead.

» Well, I do have concerns about not having, just having less oversight over the expenditure of money. You know, and I understand what Mr. Cardin is saying about we'd have cost special needs, but we can do that. And we've done it many, many times before. I just think, I don't like the less oversight of the monies being shifted around, you know, and the authority to be able to call and do certain things without the support of the entire county council. So that's where I'm at. - Okay, very good. - Yeah, Mrs. Snodgrass. - Mr. Chair, in any way you look at it, that's exactly what this does. Thank you. - Okay, Mrs. Snodgrass, were you speaking? - Yes, sure. Gaffer-Bravo, great question. And thanks for clarifying that. And I didn't mean to mischaracterize that.

» It means we can just do, you know, spend money, but I, you know, Mr. Carpenter said it nicely, that, you know, it just, it gives us the flexibility to be able to reallocate funds that have already been spoken for within the budget. For example, early on in this thing, we had to buy PPE and all sorts of other supplies. So it just makes us more flexible to be able to do that at a month's dose. Thank you. - Mr. Connell, did you have a comment? - Yes, sir, a few things on that. - All right, go to Ben Connell, please. - Clarification form. Mr. Carpenter, for that grant though, we actually voted, right? - Yes, sir. - Yeah, so you didn't exercise whatever authority was applied here. because I remember we had a vote on that particular issue. Mr.

» DuBose, does this ordinance that's before us right now trump the, no pun intended, the $25,000 cap that the administrator would have for individual purchases without county council approval? - I don't think he has bought anything over $25,000 without council approval, have you, Mr. Administrator? - No, sir. - The answer is no, it would not, and he has not. - 'Cause I remember when we voted on this the first time, that question came up.

» i think someone else brought it up or maybe i did it i'm not i can't recall but i do remember we talked about it and that we're interpreting this and understanding this as that restriction would still be in place that you can't spend over 25 000 unless you have a council vote and i think that the way we pursued the grant would reflect that because we actually voted on that and mr connell this does not suspend the procurement code yeah so it doesn't the procurement code okay that's what i thought um one example i thought of is if if where this might be relevant is dhex says hey for a particular vaccine site sure kershaw county you're eager we'll give you however many sites but you have to match in personnel at a particular location whether it's the recreation uh site or somewhere else um thi

» s would allow you to respond quickly have funds and you could set up overtime say if it was over a weekend when you got noticed that was just one hypothetical that came to my mind yeah and then the importance of the state of emergency i was thinking are there state or federal funds that we've been requesting as reimbursements or otherwise as grants that are tied to us actually saying we have a state of emergency as well no so those are all tied to whether the state itself is under state of emergency not where the county is okay well i would just hate for it to be a deciding factor if we had requested among 46 other counties and uh they said well you don't have the state of emergency uh declared whether or not you believe wholeheartedly in or not if that's a deciding factor for getting funds

» um they could say look at kershaw county they don't think they have the state of emergency there why would they need these funds um those are a few of the thoughts i had thank you mr chairman very good and the question do i i have and jimmy and i were talking about it uh philosophically probably i guess around noon today is when is it not an emergency and become a part of the landscape there are those that say that covid will morph into a continuing crisis but not be an emergency anymore or at this present moment we're operating as an emergency as is the state of south carolina and the nation believes they're in emergency and so does the rest of the world um those were good points uh ben and i i take them on board uh other points uh mr tucker please thank you mr chairman i i just want to um

» confirm what ben said ben that was discussed in very great detail about the 25 cap on the procurement and came to the same conclusion that this does not supersede it so um your recollection and that's the issue of oversight and so on uh other comments uh i'll close it out unless there is more further okay with that we move to a vote on the extension of the state of emergency for another 60 days as was read uh with that i go to mr jones first no uh no mr jones against mr snodgrass aye aye and those present signify by raising your hand uh it's mr it's unanimous here so the vote goes uh six in favor and one opposed to mr jones voting no but that way it passes and we move on to the next item on the agenda let me catch up with my agenda here it's on the screen it's item number uh three uh tab e

» page 36 uh it's an ordinance first reading authorizing the county to enter into an iga with a town of bethune uh an intergovernmental agreement mr uh carpenter talk about that please sir mr chairman members of council the town of bethune is a very small town as we know it has very limited resources they however because their town they have requirements to provide a certain level of planning and zoning services to uh to their community they very rarely have need to to provide those services because the demand is just not there they therefore have struggled in the past finding someone who can provide that service for them when they have needed it state law does allow them to contract with the county for the county to provide those services for them when that happens all fees are collected by

» the county and retained by the county and any incidental extra costs that may be um that may be a result of the of the project of the request will be picked up by the town of bethune as well um so this is a fairly normal in uh in counties that have very small communities that don't have the resources to have the staff uh so um they have requested it uh staff has reviewed it and indicates that it does not add a significant burden to what they already do because of the low level of demand from the town of bethune very good uh can we have a uh a motion to place it on table i need a first please this chair make a motion to uh enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the town of bethune mr tucker on second second second from mr gardner it's your district uh with that let's go into discussi

» on mr tucker you want to start i just want to say i thank mr carpenter and mr michael CONLEY FOR BRINGING THIS UP BECAUSE BATOON AS MR. CARPENTER SAID HAS REACHED OUT TO SOME RESOURCES ON HIRING SOMEONE THAT HADN'T GONE WELL THEY'VE REACHED OUT TO SANTI AND THEY'RE NOT ABLE TO PROVIDE THE SERVICES THAT THEY NEED AND THEY EVEN RECOMMEND THAT THEY COME BACK AND DO THE COUNTY BECAUSE THIS IS A POPULAR WAY OF AS MR.

» CARPENTER SAID THE SMALL TOWNS TO PARTNER WITH THEIR LOCAL COUNTIES TO GET THESE SERVICES DONE AND AND THEY CAN all be on the same page and uniformity so i thank staff uh mr gardner yeah i think just as long as it doesn't cost us anything i think that as long as we can handle it then it's not going to be a strain on mail or we're not going to have to hire anybody to do it or anything like that uh i would be uh i would be in favor of it yeah let me go to mr jones and mr stodgrass but first let me say that we have staff represented here tonight i believe that's mr conley uh mr carpenter can you explain for everyone uh is how your staff is going to execute this please well it would essentially services that we already provide for the unincorporated part of the county so um you know services th

» at would relate to zoning um that would relate to review of plans for uh for subdivisions uh areas like that uh so staff would assign it just like any other a developer would would come to county staff and the county staff would serve their needs based on the ordinances of the town of bethune very good let me go to to the call-in stations mr jones first any questions sir uh no questions okay david's not grass this may have been stated uh mr carpenter is obviously i think the town of bethune initiated this request but you are you uh you feel you feel confident or good about having your staff be a part of this yes sir okay with it good yeah i think it's okay thank you david any other comments uh i will ask will this be a budget line item or how will this be covered so that we the county can t

» rack the level of activity well we would be able to keep track of the activity just based on the location so everything's got a a map number and so we would know by the map number what's happening in the town of bethune it wouldn't be a standalone it wouldn't be a standalone line item because the the fees would be collected like we normally collect fees would show up as part of an existing line items and the services would be existing services are already doing so it'd show up as well okay so we don't need a budget for it yeah we really don't expect a whole lot of activity here all right okay other comments uh mr connell over here so i just want to get clarification on what exactly what type of work would require payment from the town of bethune to the county so you have folks who are citiz

» ens in the town of bethune incorporated area and they're also citizens of kershaw county and thus they can ask questions and contact planning and zoning just about like anybody else so what's the line of separation from what would happen under this agreement that's not compensated and and is i mean normal questions we're going to answer we're not going to charge the town of bethune for for people calling to ask questions this is kind of what we do it's when you get into the actual professional services again like if you're doing site reviews or if you're doing any kind if they want to change their ordinances and we have to get involved in that then then we would bill them at the rate of 25 an hour for the services that we provide them for things that are fee based such as again a plan revie

» w we would just charge the normal fee we charge anybody in the county for the same service okay and then just for the public that'd be under section d and it's by mutual agreement so this doesn't obligate kershaw county in any way to something that's beyond the scope of what we might anticipate being run of the mill something out of the ordinary we have to come to a mutual agreement on and spec out what that project would be and it's severable at any point the council can just vote to sever it and it's severed thank you mr thank you mr chairman all right good other comments um seeing there are none i'm ready to go to a vote uh starting with the call in uh mr jones uh uh mr snodgrass all right very good and and those present signify by raising your hand and marry it unanimous and we move on

» to the second reading um with that we move now to new business so we're going to consistent with mr jones request item number four on page 40 is moved uh mary to the 26th okay uh we're on new business briefing on retreat planning and budget prep there's no handouts but we go to mr carpenter to tell us uh the way forward please mr members council um you see on the screen in front of you and we'll put in your boxes as well um the uh schedule for the budget planning retreats uh this is the first round we'll start tuesday february the second from 5 30 to 7 30.

» uh this will be public presentations to council as you recall in the past we've convened council for a full saturday and we started with the morning with outside agencies and then departments and then you'd move into a planning and goal setting what we're doing this year is we're breaking it up into smaller sessions so we'll do tuesday uh february 2nd then tuesday february 16th will be county departments again making presentations to the council then saturday february 20th that morning will be the goal setting retreat for the county council uh location will be um out at uh the um technical high school is where we'll look to hold these very good uh questions on that and i presume you've talked to the council and see for availability and so on where we saw there was a concern we did yes sir a

» nd um i know that mr connell's got a birthday on one of those days um and if he's not here we'll certainly catch him up when he's back all right mr chairman if i might be recognized i just want to say that all the green tabs for voting if we're using that system this year i'm going to pre-vote so you'll make sure i get mine okay i'll participate remotely this is under emergency circumstances all right this doesn't require a vote but i hear comments from mr jones or mr snodgrass jimmy no thank you comment thank you sir uh this is not here it's not grass but sure will you repeat those dates into uh because you're closer to the phone so uh we can make out what you say okay i'll say again the dates second of february at 17 30 military time 5 30.

» uh 16th of february at 17 30 and uh the 20th of february at 0 800 and then okay okay and of course mary and and vic are available to coordinate and decomplect okay with that we move to the yeah thank you david uh with that we move to item number two under new business uh election of a vice chairman uh uh do we have a nomination mr gardner yes i do mr chair i would uh nominate to re-elect councilman tucker as a vice chairman for 21-22 very good a second second uh is that mr snigrass yep uh yes okay uh comments uh mr jones any comments mr snigrass any comments i think the vice chair has done a good job and i support it very good uh mr gardner you have made the initial motion sir any comments i would concur mr mr tucker is uh my choice all right other comments uh as chairman i i'll tell you he

» 's done a fabulous job uh and to his credit we have such initiatives that were supported by most of you to include the working group that were on that group for a number of items one of those was the provision of a grant to our small businesses and i think we led the nation and indeed the state as well in taking care of our businesses in a crisis situation thank you very much mr tucker uh with that we move to a vote uh call in stations mr jones uh uh mr snodgrass aye okay and those present signify and mary we have a vice chairman who's getting good at it thank you very much mr tucker and thank you i look forward to the year ahead yes sir thank you with that we move to item number three which is a bid for a van for the library on page five zero i think it's 50 or is it 48 yeah page 48 um mr

» uh mr carpenter can you bring that in yes mr chairman members of council um we have in front of you i'm sorry trying to pull it up yeah okay um we have in front of you tonight for approval and bid for a van for the library uh we received um put out for bids we received one response uh from a driver's vehicle innovations in ladson south carolina for thirty five thousand two hundred and eighty one dollars uh it was advertised on our website and in the normal routes we go through this is within the budget that we had allocated part of this is coming from a grant from the state of south carolina of twenty eight thousand five hundred and the library is pitching in another sixty seven hundred dollars for uh staff presented for council's consideration and approval very good can we have a motion to

» approve make a motion we approve the new van for the library mr tucker a second second uh for mr connell uh okay mr uh mr tucker you want to bring it in please any comments uh just want to say um mr carpenter if you can thank miss amy who's um continuing to do a good job since she's been back this is the type of stuff that we like to see there's no um amount of money that's coming out of the budget um that hasn't already been allocated um in their budget and it's not asking for extra money from the county so we thank her for being frugal and uh pursuing these grants she and her staff okay i'm gonna go to the all inline stations uh mr jones uh comments sir no comment uh mr snodgrass uh just thank you to the library staff for uh being creative and going out looking for a grant uh to take care

» of this very good um and i believe money has already been appropriated for that in our budget correct yes sir yeah good uh mr connell any comments mr chairman uh just for the public uh mr carpenter what is the condition of the vehicle it's replacing well we don't currently run a van like this um but all the vehicles are pretty deplorable so it's it's uh um we're we're fortunate when they crank and get out and get them home uh without warning lights coming on so it's it's it's well used well very heavy mileage on and a lot of wear and tear it's due time yes sir thank you mr carpenter other comments uh i received calls from the library board who appreciates our action on this um secondly i do have an administrative issue and is sarah williams now back for work and is she able to do that safel

» y no sir she's still working from home from home that's very good i'm glad we're taking care of our employees in this situation thank you and our compliments to her and to you to making it happen with that i think we move to a vote uh offline first uh mr jones uh uh mr snodgrass other guy okay and those present signify uh mr connell are you with us oh yes okay all right and shenanigans mary move on to the next item i was reading something excuse me we have our sheriff here thanks to lee for waiting item number four a boat for the sheriff's office it said page um 50 in your electronic book mr carpenter can you bring it in mr chairman's council the sheriff's office has requested the purchase of a boat to allow them to better provide services to our citizens on the lakes and the rivers in this

» county uh the uh went out for bid we received two two bids back uh the low bid marshall's marine for fifty three thousand and fifteen dollars that's what staff recommends of that fifty three thousand thirty five thousand is a grant from south carolina dnr right the remaining eighteen thousand comes from the sheriff's forfeiture account very good creative uh with that can we have a motion to approve make most approved uh mr mr jones thank you as the first mr tucker a second uh with that it's on the table mr jones you have comments well i probably sound like a broken record but uh sheriff thank you for the good job you do you know uh this is a share who has two years now i'd ask just for a single increase in his money he is providing all these additional services job well done thank you uh mr

» snodgrass any comments yeah just a few questions um does this price include uh striping and identification uh does it uh sheriff does include striping and identification etc and like kids and all that stuff yes this includes everything this is uh this is gonna be turn key when we get it the answer is yes david any further questions david well good well um again lieutenant west gave me a ride in the new um ford f-150s we we got, so maybe I'll get a boat ride too. - Absolutely, and might I add, Mr. Connell, also, when we talk about replacing stuff, this boat's almost 30 years old, and we've had a couple of our citizens to have to tow us off the lake a couple times, so it's due, and we found a way to pay for it without dipping into taxpayers' wallets. - Very good, Mr. Tucker, please.

» - Thank you, Sheriff, I want to say the same thing I said about the library. Just thank you for being frugal and creative on how to get more for the citizens of Kershaw County. And as you said, and not asking for more from the pocket. So thank you very much. - Very good. Ben, please. - Mr. Chairman, I just want to bring up and ask council if we should consider not going with the low bid and let me explain.

» I like to save every dollar I can, but when I look at possible, and I assume the warranty service would be at the seller's location, is that right? like if you purchase it from the low bid in georgetown does the boat have to be towed there if the engine messes up yeah i don't have an answer to that yeah well likely i mean you probably probably have to get warranty claims handled in that location newberry is what uh 45 50 minutes away georgetown's a little bit further i'm just wondering if the 500 difference should make us look at if we have a warranty claim in the future where are we going to be taking this boat and leaving it how quickly can we get it back food for thought what do y'all think question how would that violate our procurement code? And would that get us into a lawsuit? I thin

» k you could probably have that. Let's take one question at a time. Gentlemen? We operate under a low bid process, but that doesn't preclude the council from accepting a higher bid. Council just has to have reasons to state for going with a higher bid. So the ordinance just requires you have a reason for taking a dude a bit different than the lower bid yeah in their clause excuse me that serves kershaw county excuse me mr brasil's up russ russ will go ahead i was just going to say i think you can get a service to any authorized mercury or yamaha or whatever it's got on it i don't think that'll be an issue okay uh okay i'm sorry mr gardner please okay chairman uh mr jones let's hear from the outstation go ahead would you repeat would you repeat mr brasil's comments i didn't get what he said r

» ussell and you had a comment there i said i don't think it'll be an issue accepting the low bid because it's it's got a yamaha 200 on it you can have it serviced probably in columbia or sumter um i don't think it's an issue buying it from the far away i think there are plenty of people who will service the motor thank you thank you uh ben sir yeah what i was thinking of is your boats typically have some kind of aftermarket stuff on it or i know your cars do do the boats are they just stock uh stock boat and engine and then you've got a little bit of graphics on them to make them look nicer yeah they the package it should be in the fact that you got there but yeah they'll be able to uh like our vehicles we don't do it in-house it's all kind of contracted out to other people okay that's all i

» have mr chairman thank you uh tom i want to make sure i got your comment do you withdraw it are you okay i just i just simply said i think our procurement policy says that if the our bid is in the best interest of kershaw county doesn't i think there's a clause in there that allows us to make a different yeah mr tucker you had your hand and yes i'm just saying i'm not afraid to do that i just don't want to set presidents that that they think that this is what council will do and i think uh councilman brazel answered the question it's like if you buy your car from a four dealership you can take to any four dealership to get it serviced on a warranty. And if that's the case, then I think we need to go with a low bidder. Y'all set me at ease.

» I don't think there's enough aftermarket stuff on here that it'd be a dealer-specific warranty. All right, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know much about boats, all you Navy people. I'm looking to you for advice. Sheriff, will you be now dressed as Commodore? When you're on the boat. That's better than a lot of other names i get called from time to time uh mr brasil has a question thank you mr brasil has a question uh being district one surrounds the lake it's obviously important to us um that you know the lake is safe and you're patrolling it can you elaborate on some of what you're going to use the boat for well we've been using our boat um that we currently have it's a 94 it's a 94 model we've been using it just kind of patrolling around you know it gives us the ability to check som

» e of of the property on the lakefront uh take some of the crowds that we get out there we've um you know we don't want it to be an enforcement tool but sometimes we run across people breaking the law we've made a few boating under the influence charges um out on the lake uh we respond to any type of rescue calls and they've done some contacts with people out there for unsafe acts on the lake and give them you know warnings uh we're not out there trying to generate revenue or anything we're just trying to be seen and uh you know check property and just try to make the lake as safe as we can no that's that's wonderful that's what what we should be doing thank you for helping keep it safe i remember with a tremendous amount of pride in 2015 when lugar fire department went out with boats and pu

» lled people out of 5 and 20 creek or 25 mile creek and uh and this time this adds tremendously to our capability sheriff thank you um any further comments mr chairman yeah mr jones here go ahead i just want to say that i agree totally with what tom gardner said about this his comments thank you very much i've learned a lot about boats here today any further discussion i think we can go to a vote uh mr jones how do you yield uh and mr snodgrass aye and all those present signify by raising your hand mary we are now have a commodore in our sheriff thank you very much item number five administrators evaluation and compensation there'll be a handout from mary and no vote this is an information only mary would you take the microphone up close and so everyone can hear yes sir um each council membe

» r should have a manila envelope with the packet in it um it just shows the goals that you all set for this year and also the evaluation instrument mary when do you need the evaluation back um i would like to have it back by next meeting prior to the next meeting and how do we get it to mr jones and mr snodgrass you can get it to them i can't yeah just to repeat what she said uh mr jones and and mr snodgrass she has the goals and objectives that we agreed for the last year and a copy of the usual evaluation form and she asks your comments back by the the next meeting the 26th hopefully we can then go in executive sessions uh not not required but we're asking it before the next meeting on the 26th of january uh any questions from mary mr jones or mr snodgrass not a problem okay mr snodgrass i

» 'm good thank you okay no vote required any comments from the table okay none and we'll move on to the next item thank you mary um item number six is transportation and west watery a review of the chairman's letter dated december the 14th 2020 and i placed it on the agenda i believe it's at page 52. yes i'll read certain parts of this just to make sure everybody's on the same sheet this is a letter i wrote to the central midlands cog cm cog and mr connell and i have done our best with them and this is a new effort to get them to help us with transportation in west watery as is famously known here with a completion quoting of the west watery transportation study in 2017 we had hoped to see projects in the county included in the updated uh tip which is a transportation plan in the cmcog and w

» est watery in a timely fashion uh we are open to suggestions to further expedite uh the newly approved uh tip in to south carolina department of transportation for including in the state's tip program as you are well aware kershaw county cannot be considered for god's share of money until such time as these projects get included into the state transportation plan to date that has not happened just to inter end quote uh just to interpret that's bad news going back into the what i say therefore it is my hope with the likely assimilation of this county and and uh in the cm cog that the process of studying and ranking all projects in kershaw county will be covered by coats and uh finishes in this coming coming year and then i attach a letter that y'all saw previously back in august uh the count

» y saw and i've shared it also with the santee lynch's cog which has been most helpful to us to the miss christie hall who's the secretary of transportation in columbia and uh as to summarize it says we haven't had much support from you guys um and indeed in the last 20 years we've never had a single uh guide share project from the cmcog in 20 years in west watery um i would want you all to know that i've shared this letter both these letters with our delegation mr dabney mr miss senator gustafson senator mckelveen the whole crowd and i wanted you all just to know that this is a major effort and i think we all should get after it i thank mr connell for suffering through cmcog meetings and i intend to to join him in that effort uh with that uh mr carpenter do i miss any points yes sir okay an

» d this is for information but i'm happy to hear from any of you those of you who live in the west watery district or whose district goes into that area and that includes mr connell mr brazel mr tucker and mr jones and myself uh cannot be happy with the support we've had on roads in that the entire west watery region uh any comments from anyone please yeah yes mr johnson go ahead please you know you know mr chairman just going members of council just going back and thinking you know they had the uh major bypass what about 30 million dollars what about how much uh in camden yes correct 30 million dollars i was thinking about it it's been about 30 years since west watery has had any major highway construction like that and and yet right that white pond road is desperate white pond road is in d

» ire need i would love to see this county council get behind that you know to get to get within let's get behind that try to get something done at that intersection at uh white pond road excellent uh and that's one of our key um issues in that list mr jones thank you and that is deeply felt by all of us uh anything further from you mr Jones no no Mr. Snodgrass and before I go to the table any comments from this very good Mr. Connell go ahead thank you Mr. Chairman I would just reiterate that Mr. what Mr.

» Jones said and also emphasize that he's right we need infrastructure and road funds over there but it's going to be primarily a state legislative delegation issue so for the public you need to reach out to your local legislators and help them understand that we're competing with Richland County in some ways with Lexington County and others that, that when projects get ranked, it kind of pushes us down and they get re-ranked and re-ranked and we keep seeing our projects pushed down. So we need to re-evaluate how the money spent perhaps per capita for, for each particular area. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. - Absolutely. Mr. Tucker. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Once again, I want to dovetail on what Councilman Connell is speaking about.

» Not only when you reach out to your local delegation, part of the problem is, is with us small fish in the big pond over there, but we do have a cog. If we can ever get it relocated back to Santee Lynch's, that would love to have us, but they can't take us without funding. And if we can ever get it back there, then you got members of sitting up here that's got some seniority and a little bit of a pull get things done in the west watery area but the problem is it's not in the santee lynches so inquire about that because that will be the best thing that could happen to west watery kershaw county is to get it in one cog uh i was gonna say i think this is i was gonna say i think the census will bear on that so we have to see what the results are but yeah yeah you might be right and the census u

» m might be uh might dissuade other people from that and as i say before demography is destiny and when the census comes in and shows the growth in west watery and it will it may push us further into the cm cog so i wrote this letter with the idea that that we're watching you and we need your help and my closing statement at the bottom and handwriting is let's get started and let's get it done um so i i could have been more forceful but that's what i'm after russ i i would suggest you talk with ben and and vic about how this system works it it is not in our favor and we have to work it hard great thank you thank you i just wanted to put it on the table this is one of my major efforts in 2021 and i see that y'all share the same thing with me on that so without any further discussion yeah mrs

» snodgrass go ahead yeah i would also add this is somewhat a kind of a side conversation but still germane uh that we still have and this is this is a different cog but we still have about four or five miles uh in northeast camden highway one uh that is in desperate need as well that is that's been on our radar and uh that'll be part of our goals uh moving forward uh as well now i will tell you uh i think you all heard mr snodgrass uh we're split between two councils of government and why do we care it's a federal system imposed on the state um and to get the money we have to play in this game on both games and like very few other counties in the state we have to be represented on both county councils they even pick up the crumbs under the table and mr carpenter and his staff are hard workin

» g in both areas but to mr snodgrass direct point about east camden on the east side of the watery we're at one team one fight but we're split down the middle mr tucker is on the transportation board of the santee lynch's cog on the east side so we're where we need to be and we just now need to play a winning game uh yeah jimmy go ahead thank you for all those words let me just say this there's no doubt in my mind ben carnell and you have certainly worked hard for a wife on road and it would fault the bottom line is we're getting beat out of it one way or the other we've got to get the money we've got to get that area of the county fixed i mean that is just a nightmare over there and which which ben has been fighting for and fighting for for the last years in down county council and uh but i

» support that and we just have to make sure we're doing our part whatever we need to do to get the money over there instead of it always going on somewhere else if mary i don't think you can put this in the minutes but i think i i hear from the council hell yes everybody's in agreement let's work at men and ladies we have a lot of work to do and it's going to take a long campaign and it begins with that letter i propose we move on to the next item which also does not require a vote item number seven yeah yeah i'm sorry russell i missed right now it's sitting in that seat that's my blind side i think it's important to point out that the money we're talking about is is federal and state dollars right correct this would not impose any kind of increase in taxes or or negatively affect anyone in

» kershaw county all all we're trying to do is fight for for our fair share a piece of a piece of the federal money to improve our roads yeah but there is a caveat there i don't know if we need to get into it vic you want to comment on that uh you know we could have raised a tax and do matching funds but i think that's off the table for us yes sir the um in discussions with the cog and the coach board about the lack of projects here and one of the the determining factors that they indicated they would consider in looking and ranking projects is is the local community able or willing to put some matching funds in now they kind of speak out of both sides of their mouth because they'll at one point say that the projects are ranked and that's the way it goes but then they'll sit and say but if yo

» u put a little money in you might be able to kind of adjust the timing of when your project is done so richard county put a penny sales tax for roads and so that generates a billion dollars for them over 20 years for road projects that they're using to to further put into this federal funding so kershaw county doesn't have a mechanism to put any extra funds in so we have to depend on the on the program operating the way it's supposed to which is to meet the needs of the entire region and we don't have the way to sweeten the pot which richard county does so they'll tell you that it can help but then they'll also tell you that it hasn't changed anything because they've already ranked them and that's what they were going to do anyway so it's kind of speaking out of both sides of their mouth ca

» n i speak again sure absolutely so you've got the floor to that point yeah i mean why would why would we impose a tax that would they're just trying to add more to that budget and we're not going to do that to kershaw county so there's been no discussion no sir yeah okay good to understand that about no more caps uh that would uh vic that's mr jones can did you hear what he said yes sir um mr brazel was just making the point that uh we don't need to put a tax on in order to make a a claim for money from the feds and the state that should be coming into kershaw county so it doesn't require us to put a tax on like richland did right yeah and we won't thank you mr jones are you can i give this now i got it thank you good mr connell please go ahead yeah i'm just going to say support for no tax

» yeah exactly mr jones uh mr connell i was just going to say for final context for me and i hope for the council overall it's about repatriating tax dollars that have already been spent and used to fund projects in other areas so think about the amount of tax that has been levied on our citizens over 20 years um and whether it's federal or state folks are paying taxes and we need to repatriate as many of their dollars back to this area as we can it needs to be equitable i think that's one of our strongest arguments it's just not fair the way it's set up right now because we're funding other projects that help economic development that help infrastructure in other areas and we don't see a per capita benefit in our area thank you mr chairman absolutely uh mr gardner yeah the other thing is it

» hamstrings us as far as uh the needs with the growth in that area that hamstrings us as far as you know putting another school over there if we have to build another school the you know the roads just aren't adequate to handle the number of people so uh if if we have economic growth over there if we were to get something on the mega site we're in a lot of trouble to get people in and out of there so it's it's i think this is a project that got to move to the top of uh you know when we go to our retreat this has got to be one of the top things we talk about because we've got to plan for that now we can't plan for that after we get some we've got to plan for that now so it's vital that we you know work on this i think so absolutely i think i think we're in agreement on that one too mary i don

» 't don't use the customer but i think we're all in agreement um very good um we'll move to item number seven which also does not require vote is here for your information and discussion it's a letter you've had since mid-december that it acts on our vote from june of 2019 to impose a fee in order to bring our rural volunteer fire department to a higher level of readiness and capability i thank mr jones Mr. Gardner, Mr. Connell and all who participated in that fire study. The fee was regarded as a second best approach and Mr.

» Snodgrass came in with a compromise that allowed us to lessen the burden on our people until such time as our delegation a year ago, December of 2020 could have 2019 could have brought in a change at the state level because it imposed on us a lack of ability to raise funds to to pay and equip our volunteer firemen in a commensurate to the dangers and the services they provide for us that legislation went in in uh in a pre-file in the house and senate under the previous delegation but was not acted on because of covid so it sat there and now with the new delegation you see a letter here on page 55 that forwards to them the case we made over a year ago a year and a half ago to change state law to take the burden off of the counties and allow us to do what need to be done and this letter merel

» y forwarded that information to each of our elected delegate members and it's a pretty big list jay lucas henry gustafson thomas mckelveen mia mcleod vic dabney will wheeler and jermaine johnson those that's our delegation i am happy to report that our delegation has pre-filed in the house and in the senate what had been pre-filed a year and a half ago and not acted on and hopefully we'll see action in this new uh assembly at the state level uh that letter is provided to you uh already i just want to throw it out for discussion and i'm hoping to get your help in helping our delegation uh get this through with that no vote any discussion from mr jones or mr uh snyder grass please well yeah i have a couple comments about it i noticed it on number seven the calling of legislation in support of

» council plan to fund rural fire official county council yeah where the bill states let me just read it in this proper form so amend section 61 320 code of laws of south carolina 1976 related to the uh limitation of millage increases so as to allow the government body of the county to suspend the limitation for the purpose of supporting a power district so basically what we're doing this is going to do is give us the freedom to go ahead and raise the millage is which we created to see last year you know all i know is that i sat on the fire convention of that hot committee this church you appointed me to and i accepted the big time did a great job uh we worked together with the fellow one thing that i told every single person that was in that room is that i supported an advisory referendum be

» fore we did anything to raise the to that. I think there are other ways that we can fund and utilize our fire service without raising the millage. Of course, I plan to bring that to you at the appropriate time. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would comment that at the time in June of '19, we imposed a fee because things were at a crisis stage in our volunteer firemen.

» And as you all know that a fee tends to be inequitable it tends to impose on people an inequitable person so a person with a a small property gets charged a fee the same as anybody with a thousand acres so in other words it's inequitable it's not fair so we try to get away from a fee and the second reason we want to get away from a fee is it doesn't provide escalation over time it's fixed and so as costs go up in the future the fee will not keep the pace we're already seeing that the fee is inadequate to our needs so Mr.

» Jones we'd like to see it pretty quick if because we have asked our delegation to move out quickly what do you have do you think you can bring it in before the budget process i'll be talking about it at the work session and you know i'm not prepared to discuss it i'm on the phone talking to you guys tonight but i'm just saying that i think there's another way to do it you know i'm gonna give an example we've given our sheriff nothing he's got no additional monies in two years he's done a phenomenal job there's some things he he did not even get his full quota of cars last year he's probably four cars down and yet you know there's there's ways i think we can work this out with one not raising the millage and two probably giving the sheriff some more help and three providing around the clock

» fire services i'll be working on excuse me i'll be working on that between now and the time we get to the retreat yeah we're very good and well we're in the meantime we're going to press the delegation for help because we simply don't have the means to create uh the funds and without a further understanding of your plan Mr. Jones thank you uh other comments uh yeah Mr. Chair let me take Mrs. Snodgrass before I go to the table no Mrs. Snodgrass go ahead yeah thank you for uh giving us as brief and i'm optimistic about how this will how this will go through the uh the general assembly for the record if anybody's interested this is s401 senate bill 401.

» uh it's pre-filed and i think it's been uh it's been uh went to the finance committee so i would encourage everyone to contact our delegation and encourage them to uh to pass s401 a couple caveats here it's important to to remember that the whole goal here is to make the switch the switch from fee uh to to millage and of course all of our commitment from the very beginning was when we make that switch uh it's going to be it's important to be as revenue neutral as possible we all remember that the fee got us going up and running quicker because of that 388 limitations and so i just i just want everyone to be clear on that and then we have to we have to get forget and we went over this last meeting fire service funding the difference this is the different animal versus um a sheriff's departme

» nt budget or recreational budget uh whereas the sheriff's money is coming from a general operating fund that that's pulled from all of the tax base the fire service is funded through those who just live in the fire service i can't i can't take lugo money and fund the kershaw county fire service i can't take camden money from a resident living on hilton street and fund the kershaw county fire service so this is why this is going to require us to to look at it closely and to stay on top of it because our uh we have we have some career or professional and career firefighters that uh that are working hard for us and uh i just want to make it clear that i'm committed i'm committed to making sure that our cursor county fire service goes 24 hours as soon as possible quick as possible and with the

» right with the right tools mr chairman hang on just a second let me just make a quick point um mr dubose mr snodgrass is correct what we should provide to the council now that both the house and the senate have our pre-file version can we provide the council those items that were pre-filed as mr snodgrass pointed out copy the legislation yes we can thank you uh over to you jimmy yes as i heard from you and some others i guess y'all are looking forward to my presentation on my alternative well i'm looking forward to mr snodgrass's uh revenue neutral fire service yeah well i think because because bottom line is we got a fee we got a $29 fee which i voted against i didn't think we were ready to do and but we did it and now we're trying to get the Senate to pass a bill that will allow us to rai

» se the minutes mr. Carpenter sir how many meals will it take to run the County Fire Service under the new direction we're going mr. Jones the when we did the computation last year it was a about an increase of about 15 mils maybe to the current 10 mils that we have on the books and the elimination of the $29 fee and mr.

» Jones asked if that was revenue neutral and what it would be your comment there I mean it's you if you're increasing taxes then obviously that's not revenue neutral you're raising taxes do it so you can't do it so you're raising taxes but you there's no way to be revenue neutral but you're gonna remove the fight we're gonna do our best to make it revenue as possible yes sir i mean if we raise the 15 mills um 100 000 house that's going to be 60 increase we'd take off 29 so it'd be a 31 increase um on people who who had a hundred thousand dollars house and paid taxes on that town that has and then a person with a lesser property would be paying less so it depends on the value of the house correct and uh so you know maybe maybe we have a call meeting on that i'm looking at this as being a cris

» is that needs to be addressed early in the legislative cycle uh i'm going to take take it up with mr carpenter because we cannot wait on this issue we have asked our delegation and they have agreed and not all but most have agreed and so i i'm going to put this one up uh before this body before too long we're We're gonna revisit this. Mr. Breisel. - Mr. Chairman, can I say one quick other thing? In all due respect, we've waited last year too. I've heard the same thing every year. We can't wait, well, we've waited the last couple of years. Anyway, thank you, sir. - Thank you, thank you, Jimmy. Mr. Breisel. - So everything we're talking about depends on whether or not a bill gets passed in the House, right? - Correct. - And then confirmed in the Senate.

» So we're kind of right now, we're kind of talking about a moot point until that happens. If that does not happen, can we look at alternatives and not be in a crisis? Because I don't want to operate with my hair on fire. Can we look at this together? Better alternatives? And maybe to Jimmy's point, let's look at something that's not, it's an $800,000 ask. Is that correct? Roughly, yes, sir.

» that's i mean that's a big ask coming out of uh covid you know people are already hurting um we could also make the point that to raise taxes in kershaw county would be equally um just bad timing to to to ask for something that large if we're going to play it as hey we got you know situation gotta happen now push push push where does that end yeah i mean we we if we if our hair's on fire every time we meet and we're asking for more money i don't i don't make that statement of hair on fire because there are some people here have been working on this for six years a hair on fire is not a complimentary term find another way i call a point of order i think he is he didn't say anything out of line whatsoever well i've made the ruling and that's the way it is go right ahead not to be not to be of

» fensive i just i i don't want to play it but there's a emergency all the time we're operating under an emergency ordinance this is an emergency that is an emergency if we're gonna if we're gonna talk about an eight hundred thousand dollar ask i think we need to do it in a little more of a refined manner you know can we be specific when you're already asking people who cannot unfairly get tasked for twenty nine dollars it's the same amount of money as you are that can afford the 29 this unfairness issue must be addressed and the fee is fundamentally unfair so it's not a total of 800 000 but it is it's a movement of tax and fee and so what do you rather have a tax is fundamentally more fair than a fee and our firemen and our fire ladies need our support absolutely all i ask is i'll get to you

» in a minute mr jones thank you mr bryson completely completely understand i just asked that we look at it from maybe a couple different directions well we like i said uh perhaps mr connell can take you through what we did for two years and we had we had one dissenting vote mr chair uh but mr jones is up right now go ahead jimmy mr jones okay i hope we didn't lose him mr chair yeah is that mr snagras yeah thank you i i just wanted to say um i i mr jones i hope you didn't hope you didn't hear pessimism in my voice about your idea because i you're you're a man that always has some really innovative ideas so just just know i'm i'm looking forward to i'm looking forward to uh to hearing what you have to say and and we had to get creative on this uh last year and year before and so it could be th

» at we get creative again i'm i'm looking forward to that uh second point another point i want to make we have to remember that this specific bill that we're talking about it's not specific to even the kershaw county but it's just to rule counties uh because what we're seeing uh is we have a lot of rural counties in the states who in the last few years have realized they've got to transition from a volunteer largely volunteer based service to a career-based service and so essentially why you know why it seems to be extreme is because in a way it is extreme we're at what happened to move from a 1980s model to a 21st century model and and if we're going to do that it's going to take some creativity and it's going to take us you know buckling down and doing and doing the hard work so i just wan

» t everyone to be able to see the full picture that we're we're making a very pivotal shift in our fire service and as we're moving probably 35 40 years ahead uh and to to to bring our service where it needs to be uh mr connell mr chairman thank you um i i don't have all the numbers from some of our previous fire conversations tonight but i'm going to dig them back up and put them together because i think it's useful to think of it in context you've got camden fire service in lugo fire service and it's useful when we look at the millage value per hundred thousand dollar house in both of those areas for the fire service that's provided per capita versus what the county is thinking about all we're trying to do in kershaw county i think is bring the fire service service up to a level that's clo

» se to one that's safe so we can actually meet the calls that are needed and two that uh is that a level of value that we've already acknowledged in kershaw county you know i've got a business and uh some of us in here live within lugo fire district i don't hesitate in any way to pay for the taxes related to that because of the protection skill level and equipment that they have in in providing fire service and also um their quality also helps impact my property insurance rates and anybody's property insurance rates in that area because they're so responsive you get a little bit lower rate you're a little bit safer um i'm gonna pull those numbers back up and i'll make sure i bring them up at next meeting so that we can compare apples to apples and look at value and i as i recall whenever we

» talked about um the initial mill amount i think it was lower because the fee would have been lower at that time the mill that's projected now anticipates the phase two or three that we're looking at i have to look back at the fire study plan but initially we weren't looking at full time around the clock for a complete facility up in the northeastern part of the county now we're moving in that direction and it's going to cost a little bit more so it's just a question of are we getting the value that we need to provide a life safety service thank you mr chairman thank you uh mr gardner i think we're beating a dead horse here i think you know we're not we're not going to finalize this till june when we have third reading of the budget i think that you know mr john's bring your plan mr brazel i

» f you've got a plan we're going to work with our delegation and at some point, we're going to pick one, combine one, take the best merits of all three, and put them together and come up with a plan at the end. I think we can go in circles here for the next four hours, and I don't think we're making any progress here. You know, I think everybody's got the right intention of what we want to do is improve fire service, but I think right now, you know, we're just, we're talking in circles, so I think we ought to move on because we're, you know, this isn't going to be decided until third reading of the budget.

» Yeah, we need to work on it now, but, you know, sit here and argue about what we're going to do now you know we don't have enough information to even do it so let's let's move on all right uh mr tucker how do you make me feel bad for coming then don't i will not i'm just going to remind my colleagues who were up here are doing ems and cctc uh cctc when we went to miller's there on how sustaining that is now and how they're able to GROW AND HOW THAT'S WORKING AND NO EMS IS NOT WHAT WE PROBABLY WANT IT BUT IT'S IT IS OPERATIONABLE AND UM I MADE MY COMMITMENT TO THIS COUNCIL TO THE CITIZENS OF GROSHAW COUNTY THAT A FEE WAS TEMPORARY BECAUSE I KNEW IT WAS NOT FAIR YOU GOT PEOPLE WITH PROPERTIES WITH NO ROOFTOPS DON'T GET CHARGED ONE DIME THAT WAS ONE ELEMENT WE DIDN'T DISCUSS WHEN WE WERE TALKI

» NG ABOUT THE 29 DOLLARS SO THERE'S SOME LOOPHOLES IN THERE WHERE WE DON'T TOUCH AS MANY BODIES THAT CAN CAN AFFORD TO PAY and that's a concern of mine versus um you know the backs of few uh why can't we touch more and disperse that burden thank you very good yeah very useful discussion i think we close it out uh what i'm hearing is this goes to budget cycle and the letter stands as written based on the vote taken by this council in june on the budget cycle then uh i think we can move on into council briefings sammy if you're okay with that uh and we'll we'll depart from the usual way you're doing in council briefings i'm going to let those on the radio come in first mr jones did we lose mr jones okay uh mr snodgrass well thank you uh mr chair and members council i don't have a lot other tha

» n uh uh mr bravo welcome welcome to the council and uh i'm looking forward to just serving with you and um it's always always good when someone else joins the council who uh is in the same stage of life as myself and uh you know helps us helps us have a new vision and a new perspective uh on on moving forward so welcome and looking forward to working with you and uh just everyone we've got a lot of challenges as we move forward uh in 2021 and uh looking forward to to getting those things done thank you very good uh mr jones did we lose you okay let's see if we got him anybody got him all right was someone going to try to give him a call on this yeah gotcha jimmy gotcha jimmy go ahead there he is i don't know why i went up uh so nobody heard anything i said i'll repeat it and it was probably

» my fault anyway i just want to say uh welcome aboard russell the councilman browser glad to have you i look forward to working with you in the uh incoming years congratulations job well done and uh no pun intended but chairman i think mr uh progress's words called us old now yeah i i immediately took that on board i don't know if you picked i picked up on that real quickly about some young ideas you are the - You're the ranking, you're the ranking members, ranking members, you're the ranking members. - Mr. Snodgrass, thank you very much, Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Jones and I can easily outrun you at any time. Thank you very much. Russell, what we normally do is we, the person who leads us in prayer also leads the council comments. I departed from that because of the meetings.

» And I'll now go to Mr. Gardner, sir. I would just say that wear your mask, social distance, get your vaccination, be smart. Welcome to Mr. Brazel, I look forward to working with you. - Good, Mr. Brazel, please. - This is a new adventure for me, so I'm glad to be here. Thanks for everybody being willing to listen to new ideas and different perspective. And thanks to everybody that voted for me and I look forward to serving the public. Thank you. - Terrific. Mr. Connell. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. would also say welcome to Mr. Brazel. I've known him for many years. I'm excited about him being on council. For those that don't know him, he's got a kind heart and he works hard and he helps folks locally. He helped me build my house, helps local businesses, helps individuals.

» And I think he's going to be a great service to Kershaw County. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yep. Mr. Tucker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say welcome once again, Councilman Brazel. And I to thank each and every view every one of you for your vote of confidence into uh putting me back as vice chair i thank you very much that concludes my report and i'll conclude by saying first of all welcome to james smith back as chairman of the kershaw county school district uh he's now has been re-elected i welcome mr tucker as our vice chair again thank you sammy and happy birthday and tell us about a grand younger yeah yeah russell i used to run with your dad and your mom and back in the day you're a vast improvement over your father and not much over your mother but welcome it's uh you've alre

» ady shown some amazing insights so we welcome you and i'm sure we'll we'll move be a better council with your return congratulations to those reelected and we look forward to working in 21. uh with that i think we're ready to go uh over to mr carpenter no report mr chairman uh and mr dubose uh i don't have any report but i do believe there's a request for executive session for a contractual matter by the administrator exactly uh with that i'm going to propose we do that mr administrator can you lay out the parameters of our executive session yes sir we have two items to discuss one is an economic development matter one is contractual matter related to sewer i would like to have a mr jeff burgess attend with us to discuss the economic development very good and uh is there a vote to follow ye

» s sir no vote all right i will convene to the upper room i i don't use that in a religious sense uh let me ask mr snodgrass and mr uh jones uh since we're moving to that room call me on my cell at uh say 10 minutes till that's in five minutes uh after a short convenience break and uh i'll loop you in and mr carpenter will run it uh can we have a motion to adjourn for it executive session mr tucker a second second any discussion seeing there is none uh mr jones and mr snodgrass are you in favor and uh mr snodgrass okay those present uh signify mary we are in an executive session discussion with all those in favor raise your hand because we're now back out of executive session uh mr mr jones and mr nagras do not need to be here we're back from executive session we move back onto our agenda an

» d i think the vote is required would anyone like to make a motion to dismiss make most towards our mr chairman mr tucker second second for mr gardner uh any discussions seeing there is none we'll move to a vote all those in favor signify and have a great night thank you