Full meeting transcript - April 13, 2021

» [Part 1 of 2] Test 1-2. Today we're going to be discussing the fire. A couple years ago we went through a plan and a program of coming up with a fire plan that we utilized a number of community meetings, significant input from our community, our volunteer firemen, elected officials, and general citizens. And we came up with a plan, council considered and council approved a plan that we began implementing two years ago when we implemented a fee while we began working on the focus of trying to get the General Assembly to relax Act 388 that would allow us to implement a millage in lieu of the fee. The COVID last year kind of killed that effort, so we continue to carry forward the program of using the $29 fee for this current year that we're in.

» With the election of Senator Gustafson, she took the Act S-401, the senate bill that was focused on allowing us to do a one-time reset of fees and she was able to get it all the way through second reading on the senate floor but it did not get a third reading therefore it is dead for the year the house has a bill as well they could consider but lack of packing passing it in the senate for all intents purposes has killed it for this year so today we're here to present you the fire plan well again back to the beginning of what the plan is where we are currently and then open the door for council to begin discussing where you wish us to go we'll have options if you wish us to continue implementing the plan for you to consider as well as whatever else you may present to us but we've tried to co

» me up with various options for you to consider if you wish to continue us implementing the plan so with that i will turn it over to our fire department to um start giving you the briefing yes sir uh scott wiles emergency management and fire service still even till is battalion chief and gary parnell battalion chief and that's the three amigos you get right now all right personal county fire service we've been dealing with this for a while we've been knee deep into it sometimes up to our neck so just to start off current state where we're at we've got our 12 main stations five substations the the current staff is 11 full-time personnel and that's the 10 that we hired off the first round and then of course the chief's position in there currently we have 14 part-time personnel that we use to b

» ackfill with those full-time guys and fill other stations as well the 160 volunteers that we currently have that's throughout the whole county minus blue golf and camden and of course our apparatus that we currently have in in service right now challenges nothing's really changed on that we're still looking at the same challenges that that 7p to 7a call volume that's getting those calls answered and stuff apparatus replacement plan we're getting up on 20 years not more on some of these trucks of course scbas radios is a big discussion aeds and then of course our recruitment retention to try to get more volunteers in this volunteer side of it we have to dig a lot deeper to try to come up with ideas to get those guys to come in and stay on to our the original plan started off in september we

» posted the positions for that those two battalion chiefs and eight firefighters um this is off the original plan so next i'll show where we're at january 2020 we started our ems was able to start their ems station four behind blaney fire station it was built and completed in july and then july of 2020 we went into the blaney station once they got ems got moved out and we started doing some renovations uh to accommodate going to a 24-hour service for those guys so they a little bit more usability in that building 21 22 it was the projected time frame to start and get the Cassett station built. 2022, we were looking to hire three more which to make a three-man crew at Blaney on that 24 hours. 23, once we got the Cassett station completed, we would move to a 24-hour operation in Cassett.

» In 2024, we would hire another three for Cassett to make that a three-man crew running as a 24-hour at Blaney and Cassie. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And I mean, I've got the number off. We've got numbers in there. If you want those numbers, we can give them to you before we leave. So, I mean, we've got them. We just didn't put them in this slide here. All right. Current status of the five-year plan. This is where we're at with that five-year plan currently. The first 10 were hired. The two battalion chiefs and eight firefighters. EMS, they've gotten their new home. They're out of the Blaney Station. We're running our 12-hour shift in there currently.

» The land was purchased for Cassick Fire Station, but everything last year kind of put a hold on stuff, so that kind of stopped a little bit going forward beyond getting the land purchased, and I know we did the geo study. We did the PERT test. We did all that stuff, so that stuff's ready to go. It's just waiting on getting to that point to go ahead and start building that station, get it going.

» To continue with this five-year plan with COVID, we know that through monkey wrenching everybody's projects and stuff get us going to 24 hours another battalion of four firefighters would get us to 24 hour shifts both sides of the river so that would give us that 24 hours of firemen fire truck being able to run 365 days a year but everything nobody to get us going in the right direction with the Casa station currently we've got an estimation of 1.4 is what they're give us some numbers on right now and that's still that's just beginning phases so we see lower just i know values on everything is starting to skyrocket for some reason wood steel everything wants to go up so we're fighting that battle as well for that other battalion chief and four firefighters estimated 385 000 would be a turnk

» ey package for those five positions to start with that's their salaries with fringe benefits uniforms gear and radio so that's kind of a current key to get them in the door and start running them to add to make it a 24 hour excuse me sir that would be this 345 is the annual cost for salary and fringe benefits and that extra 40 000 there is their uniforms equipment and radios and stuff yes sir so that would actually come off as being an annual cost but the 345 would still be there roughly for the the salary and fringe benefits this just kind of goes along the current staffing that kind of gives you some numbers i don't know uh mr jones i don't know if those numbers there kind of what you were looking for that uh the the two battalion chiefs and the eight firefighters currently is around 690

» 000 is what their salaries and benefits are um to go up to those extra that extra five which would put us three battalion chiefs and 12 firefighters we're looking at just a little over a million dollars just in salaries and benefits that would be that would be the total cost of going 24 hours the two shifts for 24 hours and then back to the original plan that 21 number that we were using is three battalion chiefs and 18 firefighters to have a crew on both sides that battalion chief run at three man crews per station decide one or low over 1.4 million is their salary all together for those guys yes sir uh so the middle the middle block would just be a 24-hour shift at blaney no No, that would be 24-hour at Cassett and Blaney. Oh, so that would be across both sides of the river. Okay.

» Yes, sir. That would get us to our bare minimum of 24 hours to cover on both sides of the river. Is that also assuming that we've built a new station or we haven't got there? Okay. That would be going with that station. We do have them in a station right now that could be used for 24 hours until that station is built. It would serve the purpose to get them through that point. At Shepherd, right? Yes, sir. At Shepherd, right. Okay. Yes, sir.

» 350 grand plus the cost of the building and the potential of yes he just yeah we can do it without the building but it's like they'd like to have a building as well no sir that would cover the blaney station and this the east side station yes sir yes yes sir that would get us to a 24-hour crew 365 days a year on both sides of the river got a question i'm probably getting ahead of you but do the fire reserves have money to build the station now or is the last the last update i had just going off that estimate we're going to be short of building that station um i didn't get a chance to get hold of yesterday but i think the last one was around 1.2 is what we have we're going to be short or that's what we have we have 1.2 so we're going to be short about two three hundred thousand dollars off t

» he estimate okay but i mean that wipes that wipes all reserves out right so you're you come up short if you need to replace a truck or something yes i mean trucks there's some other information that i've got in the book i'm not i don't have on slides because i know numbers and all that stuff start running together but there's some other information in there just just have some numbers a standard engine a two-door engine you're looking at 350 400 000 for to replace that truck right a custom cab truck or four-door truck that we're looking at to accommodate these crews for blaney and cassette because they're going to be a three four-man cruise you're looking at six hundred thousand dollars for that truck so do we if we hired if we hired the the firemen needed and the battalion chief needed or

» the two battalion chiefs needed these ten people do we have trucks currently that that they can use the trucks because it'd be being that there's two on shift right now those trucks can be used that are current trucks as we move forward with growing the crew you're going to have we're going to have to look at that crew cab truck style truck so that all three four of them can get to the scene at the same time and still have trucks volunteers and other guys come in and get behind so but but to make a bare bones move forward in in the right direction we could say hey just if we can find the funding for the for the eight firemen and the two battalion chiefs that's that's a move forward well you'd be adding four firemen and one battalion chief currently oh i'm sorry yeah currently each battalion

» chief has their shift and they have four firefighters under them currently so you basically add just add another battalion chief and four that way to give you your three days they'll work 24 on 48 off okay so every shift will have a battalion chief and four firefighters with that middle plan right now thank you so much vick i i know we can't do the millage because it was shot down in the senate but uh 300 because i know the fire millage is different than just your standard millage how much in millage would that have been to 340 000.

» in real rough figures maybe 2.3 mils 2.3 millions yeah i mean that's that's i don't have it in front of me to see that would be that's an increase yes increase but in the total well total with the doing away with the fee because you had the 29 dollar fee we had i'll run those for you we didn't run okay so i'll run those for you because that's that was the initial plan i think that some of the members of council wanted to do if the bill had passed you swap it out right yeah i'll run those for you okay well i mean it's unnecessary because we can't do it and we can't do the millage okay thank you i don't think we have the capacity do we no no okay thank you what's have you heard from the auditor what's our ability to raise millage just under i believe it was three tenths of a mil three tenths

» of a mil that we're raising okay there's a there's a cap that that three tenths of a mil would equal what your current mill values right there at the top b 147 yeah so the 30 42 000 maybe i'm sorry say again maybe 40 42 000 not all okay all right um alternate suggestions do we have um do we have excess funds anywhere the issue with excess funds anywhere is that the fire district only is allowed to collect revenue from the unincorporated area and the towns of elgin and bethune um so we can't collect from camden nor can we collect from the ring around camden because they already get fire from camden nor can we get it from lugoff the problem is that those areas pay into other areas so we can't take money they've paid for one service and use it for a service they're not able to receive so gener

» al fund for example everybody pays into the general fund we can't use that to run the fire department on a regular basis we can make a loan to them but they'd have to pay it back to the general fund uh the same thing with sewer we can't take sewer money and use it to run the fire department because it's two separate pots of money we can't mingle them the the rooftop fees that were talked about and those sorts of things could they be used to fund fire not operations but they could be used to fund capital costs yes you could buy a truck you could you could build a firehouse correct but it's not a continuous positive cash flow that's correct okay so a quick question vic what is your plan if this is to be brought before county council what how is your plan to pay for this well miss jones the th

» e first thing is is by getting with council today it is our our hope that we will have a sense for the direction council would like us to go in so we can present to you um and we kind of have i think council has already maybe not me so much but the majority of council has already indicated they wanted you to push forward and bring back a recommendation so i mean we have and and we have several options right now in front of you on recommendations of the fee what we could do with the fee okay so you will be bringing back a recommendation on the fee yes that's correct unless council directs us otherwise that's correct and that's the intention to do that today right big yes sir yeah right so so we can have a budget proposal to present to council so we have information that shows you how the fee

» can be broken down but the different ways that you could do the fee right now all the fees are just on houses improved properties we do not do fee on vehicles we do not do fees on on parcels so are you thinking about generating a new fee or establishing a new fee to bring before one of one of the options would be to to go to a hybrid where you have fees on on not only improved property but also vehicles and also um parcels that would lower the the fee needed on the improved properties because you're making it up for it in other areas where fire service is used that's one of the options another option is just raising the fee as it currently is on the improved parcels so that's an option as well and i believe that we were also working on if we did a square footage of buildings and so we rathe

» r than a flat fee it was a fee based on the actual volume under roof or the volume of territory and then therefore the fee would be different for every parcel or house based on how big the property was basically i mean it's good to see this but it's it's even better to know how we plan to fund it yeah well to jimmy's point are we going to get to some failed options later on yeah okay later on when is later on today yeah oh great okay good that's what i'm interested in is the bottom dollar yeah because this slideshow right here is pretty much i'm at at the end of this part the next step was to get into that section there to kind of give you guys we've got a live spreadsheet we do have a printed spreadsheet there for you guys it's got some numbers on right now but we do have a live spreadshee

» t so we can see some numbers and how that would actually kind of change some things and this and that here if you could pull that up here all right the the top line there is our current fee that we have is 29 dollars that's this that's yes sir right here everybody and that's basically a same copy as what's on the screen there but the on the screen is a live one so we can actually change numbers and move some stuff around but the top line there is the current fee the 29 on improved partials and that's roughly what it generates um that's the total what it should be generating right now but taking into effect your 95 collection rate it's actually around 520 and you can correct me if i'm wrong that's roughly around 520 i think is what we're looking at i know you just sent me a revised yes jimmy

» 's looking for laser i don't know i loaned it to somebody and it's gone laser because i was going to have it that top line there the word says current fees it does change the stuff on there one second that's our current yes sir the 29 fee on improved partials and it's roughly 18 474 on those partials that are getting the fee from understanding that's a mix of residential i think commercials involved in that as well um that's what we're so it says total that's the total from the fee then the mill right beside it to the right that's how much we receive from the current millage as well our current millage is 10.6 and it's roughly 147 000 per mil in your total budget that's our total budget yes and under that current mill you can you can move it up just squeak three tenths three tenths on the m

» iddle part which won't do anything no it's just i'm just trying to understand it right and then that second part there which is plan one hey am i doing that it might be doing that from there yes sir it's all right okay that's why i've got a gary over here you'll fix it real quick tell us what each of the three plans don't hit delete before we get into them okay give us a big picture yes sir plan one is the current one is to split those as mr carver said split those kind of up improve partial vacant partial vehicle and commercial and stagger those different fees out for them so they're not all on one it kind of splits it up amongst those four areas plan two would be to go to all fire partials or all partials and all vehicles and of course the plan three was the one we had on there but it had

» has failed and that was the millage increase um so that was kind of on back burner for a year they're not allowed to touch anything else on that correct so those are kind of two that we've come up with right now either split it kind of amongst everybody or just go to all parcels and vehicles there's just a couple of options that we've come up with right this time so these are the starting points for y'all to start getting into and moving and tweaking just just so i'm clear there's no way we can move money out of the general fund in any way shape or form to help fund this not on an annual basis necessarily that's what we like i said if they if they ran a deficit we could transfer money over there but that would be a loan they'd have to pay it back and then there would be no where for that mo

» ney to come from to pay it back if they had no correct so this is there a way to change that law those are basic accounting principles for governmental accounting i don't believe that that's something the general assembly even gets involved with that part of it this is governmental accounting gasby yeah because we can't well somebody had to write the law at some point in time yes sir well i mean but it's a matter of like principle like you can't you can't charge a camden resident double no i get that and use their money you can't use their money to fund the service it's against the law to to charge a citizen anything that they can't utilize so i get that but i mean like in the within the general fund we give money to non-profits and we we fund things within the community but every citizen h

» as access to be able to use those non-profits whereas right that it gets into a more legal principle of a citizen but every citizen doesn't get the opportunity to voice whether or not they want to fund that non-profit they do they elected you and me well we can do a referendum and ask people what no i'm i'm just saying when we're given money away out of the general fund and we have a a clear need it frustrates me that we can't tighten the belt to fund a clear need and we're still funding other things within the county that not everybody's going to take advantage of and you're right that is why they elected me but but i have to agree with russell on his point there but let me just let me say this too it's amazing and what you said theoretically i understand uh david councilman but you know w

» e have a sewer fee that a lot of members of the county cannot ever have sewer, but yet they pay a sewer fee. And I have a lot of heartburn with that as well. Well, and really, it should not be called a sewer fee. It should be called an economic development thing because that's how that got in because everyone can take advantage of it. And I'm actually agreeing with you. It got in because of sewer, not economic development. But we know how it was able to go down. They tried to change the economic development so they could try to dangle a carrot at it. I'm just saying, I'm agreeing with you.

» there are people who pay a sewer fee that don't get to utilize a sewer and that's you know that was before that was before me it is but but i'm just saying i'm just just but you just said there told me that it was an economic meant for an economic development fee and you weren't there i was there it was meant for a sewer fee a tax right but legally that's how that's how they got through this that's how they got through what we're talking about because everyone yes no one not everyone can take advantage of the sewer but they all can benefit from economic development the county and at least that's how it was explained to me because i've had the same questions that you have sure well yeah hopefully you would have voted against it if you'd been here because it was it was wrong and i still think

» it's wrong it is taxing people for something they'll never see i'm on west watery a lot of folks in your area will never see it but they will pay the taxes on it and you can call it whatever you want but it's a sewer tax that's exactly what it is anyway i didn't mean to get into all that but but russell that was a very good point you made there thank you well but i think we're we're debating trivial trivialities at this point because we can't we can't change gaxby we can't change any of this i mean it's frustrating i get it i'm with you i mean why you know i'd love to be able to that's the whole reason i ran was to create change right i will not take the attitude that i cannot create change and here's the thing too uh guys we're sitting here today and we're running around rooftop fees parti

» al fees uh i mean we're talking about trying to generate money through implementing possibly new fees so we need to have some clarification on ex and i guess i'm sure we will have it once we're finished on where we're going to try to go with this what kind of fees are you looking at reducing to pay for additional fire service if that is this council's wish and it's always the first place we go is to the tax it's always the first place politicians go is to the taxpayers except me go ahead with the presentation i'm sorry we got you're fine they said that those are what we i mean it's our hands are kind of tied on the fire side it's the only option we really got to fee without that millage thing that they were just trying to do over the house and stuff the fee those different ones splitting it

» up amongst the improved vacant per vehicle and commercial um we can kind of show you some different numbers there those aren't hard numbers we just now the partial counts and stuff those are are numbers that we've gotten from the assessor's office so those numbers are pretty spot on the other part the actual fee we can play around with those just to show you what it would generate where it would put us so if you see a number on there like for instance right now we've got on there for improved partials 40 vacant partials 30 per vehicle 20 and commercial 100 so we can change these numbers around on this this live spreadsheet to be able to show you what it will generate. We know currently the $29 is what our fee is right now. Scott, tell me, our current budget is $2 million and some change.

» Yes, sir. So tell me, and I know you presented it to us in the previous slides, but just give me the rock, like what do you need to get 24-hour shifts in the county beginning this summer? To get to the 24 hours is hiring that other crew. that was 384 85 000 which is a recurring cost of 340 around 3 3 45 350 okay because i'm just you know just for our you know i want to get to like what do what do we need and then we can start from there as far as playing that would get us that would get us to the 24 hour period and get us kind of back on track minus the cassette station which we're trying to get figure that one out as well um how much more in fees would that be i mean that's the most important question i would think we'd have twenty dollars roughly so you took to the twenty nine dollars we

» had to have so the twenty nine dollar for our fee would have to go twenty dollars higher forty nine dollars and then that would do phase two to phase two or you could split them up to where you do a comment you could you know i've been playing with the numbers you can you can lower the current fee but then also add on a vehicle fee there's a lot more vehicles riding around the north so you know you kind of kind of spread it out have we thought about so i know a lot of these numbers um you're accounting for making a payment or trying to build the catheter station but have we gotten any kind of numbers on maybe a plan b of you know if shepherd has barracks and you're able to have the crew is it feasible at this time to just rehab shepherd in a good enough way a way that that'll get us by for

» a couple more years or are we just really dead set on we got to have a cassette station well with the cassette station when we ran all these numbers originally uh we went off the call volumes and the heat maps and stuff that's why cassette got chose it was that's where the call volume was that's where still a lot of that and when those guys right there running it made the call volume they were going from there to bethune or buffalo or coming back towards shepherd so they were covering a lot of area um it kind of gave them that centralized thought where we started with that hub and spoke scenario mr falconberry started years ago when we started this that gave us that hub and spoke atmosphere from blaney's side and then on this side as well where you can have that central station and they can

» spread from it and we originally started with shepherd but being shepherd is right up against city of camden it kind of wasted space per se between shepherd and and the city lines there that's why we kind moved it to Cassett that gave us more room to cover a lot more stuff yeah no I understand so but for the last year year and a half you have been working on a shepherd though correct the time frame about six months seven months close to a year almost okay all right so now we have real time so how did that line up with your projected data heat maps now you have a year of being in shepherd did it did it drastically impact call time or response times it changed some because being that Cassett was in the middle of the county line and the city of Camden line now they're moved to Shepherd that in

» creases their response time towards Bethune okay Buffalo so okay I mean it changes those numbers some but as far as the call volume it's still that area out number one between Shepherd and Cassett because they're running to everything gotcha the anything we get these guys are getting them to go that gets a trucking route gets them going sure if the volunteers show up and they say hey we got it we're good they turn around they go back to the house i mean it's it's no harm no foul type thing but leaving mitch shepherd for long term that's just going to create a longer response time to get to the county line or towards bethune okay and i get that and i'm not agenda here one way or the other i guess i'm just i'm just asking just because sometimes as even with our own families do we have our we

» have our things that we want to do and things that we need but sometimes we have to realize okay the money's not going to be there right now so where's the where's the happy medium so that's that's all reason i'm asking and being with that station the 1.4 like i said it's an estimate so that that could be fluctuated uh it's just those are numbers that we're getting right now of course prices of lumber and steel and everything is just going through the roof yeah let me just summarize for a minute mr tucker is on the way mr mr gardner will not join us and ben just to summarize uh vick can just quickly summarize then where we are so that we can continue the discussion i don't want to hold it up much yeah it's going to we we just kind of updated council on what the plan was where we are in the

» plan itself the status of legislation that would be used to allow us to do millage which is not going to happen this year and now we're discussing if council chooses to continue implementing the plan a fee what the necessary fee increases would be in order to continue implementing the plan so another in short you arrived just in time to give us a solution yeah all right back to questions this has been a very good discussion what's our um we talked about trucks and not wanting to deplete reserves kind of in your best guesstimation where are we at on needing to replace a truck i mean i mean you talked about we need a four we need a crew cab so i know we're there currently we've got an engine every station okay 17 engines that we have if i got a truck that goes down we pulled from the substati

» on we apparently don't have any kind of reserve trucks okay yeah because i see the the list here yes on the second i've actually got two of them one of them is they're saying they're out of service right now one of them is actually at the shop we're working on trying to rebuild the pump on it we had a failure last year in pump testing so all right we're trying to get that one repaired now the other one is just nickeled and dimed us long enough and it's time for it to go down the road per se but in that case that one truck is being repaired it is actually going to go into a station so then it depletes my reserve because that's the one we actually used as a reserve right okay the short answer is we don't catch the station it can't be built out of reserves we've got to we got to not if not if

» that estimate comes in and it's close to that we're not going to have enough in reserve we could use a portion of the reserves though couldn't we yes sure yes sir absolutely and it looks like can we capture that point we can use reserves to do what now fire reserves to help build the new station and we can't use any other funds is that correct not from other funds necessarily not not for a a um operational expenses necessary would that we're talking about building the station right it's not an operational expense that's a one-time it's a capital investment correct so could we get a ruling that said that we could use certain of our funds voted on by this council to build a station i don't believe there's a problem with doing that i mean there's because capital equipment such as that is somet

» hing that's available to benefit everybody to some degree well legally there legally we can use the reserve funds for pretty much anything we want even for reoccurring costs it's just it's reoccurring in your reserves as your reserves correct but you can still do it because we've done it you can always use reserves absolutely absolutely jimmy are you talking fire reserves or the general reserves i'm about the general reserve yeah okay so there's i mean we've done that we've done that before in this council we've established four new positions out of reserves now we knew gene wise and i knew that money wasn't going to be there next year but we had the ability to take out from the reserves we had an administrator who was very conservative he built that reserves back up it was actually a littl

» e bit more that next year than what we took out the year before we just but but then chairman wise ended up his time ran out of course i think the council went back to uh doing it the regular way you know through millage but no my point was is that it can be done if we want to do it yeah but we could do we could do some out of the fire reserve some out of the general fund reserve is that correct we've got another general fund reserve to do it i'm just i'm just saying to keep from taking off from one pot we're talking about for capital costs for a building to build a yeah to build a fire station and operating operations limit to the mill right correct or fee you could but but then you you still can use your reserves that would carry oh i mean like if you want to hire staff you can hire staff

» and pull reserve money to pay for that but then again too you gotta think well what do we do next year but my point is is that you can do it couldn't you use the general fund reserves to to run a fire department do what now you could not use the general fund reserves to to run the fire department that's correct i'm saying that you can pull reserve money out to create positions you can probably fire reserves yes sir you can pull money out of reserves to create a to build a fire department and even though the positions are occurring you still pull the money out of reserves to pay for those positions out of the fire reserves yes sir that was what i was trying to say right yeah and in in my own humble opinion i think it would be wise to use some reserve funds for a one-time cost such as buildin

» g a station but not as a cash flow model obviously to continue service so what i'm hearing and this is useful uh we have this ben you weren't here for the 385 000 discussion which is the number required to stand up the people that we need the additional hires and now i'm hearing secondly taking some innovative funding to to build the cassette station out those are the two things i've heard jimmy uh whoever you want to go first here's where i'm at i'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anything at this point in time i'm just throwing thoughts listening to the thoughts and ideas i'm sure russell's doing the same thing yeah uh to try to get my hands on where council's planning to try to go with this because i realize that the administrator had to pull all that together but i'm just asking questi

» ons for information right now so what i'm hearing though is there's four options on this page and this it's an iron rule of staff planning that when given four options they always come up with a fifth one so that's what this sounds like a fifth option to me is that vic uh got to hear a little bit more from you on this and maybe you chief what do you guys thing three hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars is there is the operational cost so the station costs are not included in that for the very reason that there are different ways you can build a station correct then then put the people on the ground so that's why we don't have those costs kind of merged into it yeah and spread out over time and annualized so yes sir i mean so when we're sharing these costs to you of possible ways of fee

» s that's always been focused on the the operational expenses of the fire plan. Fire station is still very critical, sooner rather than later, just because you've got to put three to four men and women in a place to sleep if you're going to have 24 hours a day, and we don't have that facility yet. So we know we're going to have to do that. We may be able to make things work for a year, year and a half, but that doesn't stop us from having to do that. But that would be a different mechanism we could use to build that station. So that's why we haven't merged it together.

» So yes, sir, that is, if you want to add that as a cost to what we're doing here then you can throw a line item of use of reserves for building of a fire station that wouldn't change the operational cost but well here's what I'd like to see it's not gonna happen I like see us come up with a plan on exactly how much money we're talking about where that money's gonna come from and do an advisory referendum to the people Kershaw can you let them tell us what they want that's a good idea that's a really good idea. Thank you.

» I'm looking at I think it was plan one and it would raise with the one two three four four different fees in plan one it would raise another one million four hundred and eighty two thousand dollars in addition to what we already have in the budget but there's only a need of about three hundred and fifty thousand. Yes sir Mr.

» Brown that would be what the ultimate fees would need to be to fully implement the plan that's not necessarily what you'd have to do this year but that's just ultimately what the fees we think would be you know if you were going to spread it out for the final implementation well to for the sake of seeing where the where the millage bill goes next year i mean we could walk that back a little bit to uh to fund to fund the gentleman needed to to work yes sir and then look at reserve funds to build a station right i think that would be a minimal impact um to the to the taxpayer very MINIMAL IMPACT AND THAT THAT WOULD BE MAYBE SOMETHING THAT WE COULD CONSIDER ABSOLUTELY THAT WOULD BE IN THE RANGE AGAIN I GOT I KIND OF DID METAL MATH SAY IT AGAIN RUSSELL WHAT I'M MY THOUGHT PROCESS HERE IS UH PLA

» N ONE SHOWS AN INCREASE OF ONE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED EIGHTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS THAT WE WOULD IT WILL BE GAINED THE COUNTY WOULD GAIN IN FEES AND ADDED FEES FOR ADDED FEES BUT WE DON'T TOTALLY THE TOTAL OF THE FOUR ADDED FEES RIGHT WHAT NUMBER ARE YOU LOOKING IN A TOTAL OF FOUR ADDED FEES. IT WAS $3,578,978 THAT THE BUDGET WOULD THEN BE. THE BUDGET IS NOW $2,096,924. BUT YOU'D NEED A $20 INCREASE IN THE FEES. WELL, HOLD ON, LET ME FINISH WALKING THROUGH THIS, PLEASE. THAT WOULD RAISE AN ADDITIONAL $1,482,000. NOW, THAT'S IMPLEMENTING FOUR FEES ON FOUR DIFFERENT THINGS: vehicles, parcels, vacant parcels, and commercial property, which is already taxed at 10.5%, and that's our small businesses. I'd like to look at an option, and this would be our first option as a council.

» What do we need to do to fund the $380,000, maybe with a fee, and then walk that back in the 1.2, which will probably be 1.5 million for the firehouse, like you said, with increased material cost let's see if we can wrangle that out of existing funds because that's that's something we can do we can take that out of um your surpluses is that something could we look at an option like that absolutely absolutely yeah okay and so um can you recapture that again i'm sorry i was kind of doing my own figuring chairman you recapture what else yeah go ahead summarize that russell you want me to walk through one more time yeah okay so plan one is is four different fees which is way too many right in my opinion yeah um we've already got one the one fee creates 535 000 the improved parcels the millage o

» n those creates 1.56 million our total budget is 2.1 so the the plan one and the plan two and plan three is non-existent but plan one and plan two show an increase with with the use of fees uh to the tune of 1.4 million 1.482 but we don't need a million and a half right a year in in positive cash flow revenues we need 350 000 to fund 24-hour fire and i've talked to firefighters in different areas and they said this is important i've talked to several so i want to fund it i'm just frustrated in the way we have to fund it by always GOING TO THE TAXPAYER SO I WAS JUST THINKING HEY IF WE CAN WALK IT BACK BECAUSE WE REALLY DON'T NEED A MILLION AND A HALF DOLLARS TO FUND IT WE NEED 350 OR WELL 380 FOR THE FIRST YEAR BUT STILL GOING TAXPAYER RUSSELL BECAUSE YOU GOT TO HAVE THAT INCREASE IN FEE WEL

» L IS THERE A WAY THAT WE CAN AND I I'M CERTAINLY OPEN TO HOW DO WE FUND IT WITHOUT DOING THAT I'M I'M BUT THE ONLY THING I'VE HEARD SO FAR THAT'S FEASIBLE IS TO BE ABLE TO USE RESERVE FUNDS FROM THE FIRE FUND AND from the general fund to build the building and to have a you can tell me how minimal the impact would be to fund the 24-hour fire and i'd like to see that number and then i can i can make another opinion russell yes i think answer your question yeah it does so i think you and i were thinking the same thing because i was running some numbers too so yeah if you leave the fee on the improved process the way it is like that that generates you know 535 000 but you know let's say you add let's say you add a vehicle fee um i don't want to add a vehicle fee and here's the reason why yeah

» i had a conversation with the lady the other day and she said you know we got an old truck and the taxes are 17 i got you and i had to write a check for 130 bucks because of the fees that are already on there so if we add an i mean so she's going to pay 200 next year or 175 for her old you know the old pickup truck that used to haul off trash yeah i got you and that's you know that's why two years ago two years ago that's that's why two years ago i mean i i let i helped lead the charge to walk it back to just improve because you got people in this county that own 15 parcels of property right and you've got people who are farmers who have you know you've got to be clear about that some of these farm vehicles could be taxed and that puts a burden on our farmers agriculture right well let me t

» ell you and then thirdly you got people who like like car hobby cars and motorcycles and it gets gets kind of ugly and didn't go anywhere two years ago so when we and uh mr snodgrass and mr connell helped us walk that back to those flat fee on improved parcels and i voted against it totally but let me tell you who wants to pay more taxes nobody nobody yeah i took a survey nobody wants to pay more taxes and you know it's our job to do the best we can with what we've got to work with and i think we all agree on that point um but you've framed for us an option i'm trying to formulate it because we want to build on this to represent viable options to these gentlemen and there are two that are missing so we got the 385 and there might be a way to do that and then we've heard about other ways to

» do the fire station and does those two things build out our plan does that complete it what's left you see follow ron russell i've got to go to the next stage what's next what would be next would then go to the full server or the full-size cruise um what this does it gives us 24-hour coverage but it does not give us full crews we we're we're operating smaller crews than is standard than the plan calls for if you can go to that chart that talks to your crews so where is mr chairman clarify to me in numbers what russell just proposed yeah this one this one go ahead build the station out of reserves capital and create a 20 fee on the existing fire fee i didn't say that i was just trying to well i mean i don't know i mean i don't know i just said i just heard that i'm trying to structure an opt

» ion yeah that's why you were trying to structure russell's option but i'm not sure that's what russell meant i'm clear he said 385. correct but how are you going to pay for it we'll get to that in a minute is there also a part of that to build out the cassette place the cassette station that would be the utilization of the reserves yeah so those are the two options but then how do you then let's get to i'm just trying to say okay we got an option structured there it is it's option whatever you want to call it number five i guess or intermediate option because it doesn't get us to the end state so we got that one now how do you fund it that's what jimmy's trying to say hey how the hell do you found excuse my french how do you fund this thing yes sir mr chair just if i can just this kind of p

» aul does i want to make sure we understand the context here so russell i agree with you you know nobody wants to pay more taxes uh i think i think these these are taxes yeah yeah that's what i mean but let's remember the context here our current our current fire service operates off of 10 10.2 10.3 mils 10.6 so remember the context here so we're not talking about a we're not talking about raising taxes or fees on a fire service that's already at a career fire service level funding mechanism so you take into account lugo fire is at 29 mils or 26 mils they're almost 31.6 31 mills along with a fee cam i don't know camp city camden but i'm sure it's it's in that neighborhood um the senator from uh the senator who put a who contested our fire bill came from a county in which his fire mill and th

» ose districts are about 26 27 mills so i want i want us to remember the context here that we're we're trying to take a volunteer service and we're trying to move it to career service and so no one wants to pay more money but i i kind of i guess i'm going to be the realist here and say that's what's going to happen because you're you cannot you cannot hire crews and run a career-based fire service off of 10.6 mils like you can't you can't squeeze anything out anything more out of that turnip so i just wanted to contextualize our conversation here that you know we are we are woefully behind in trying to move to a career-based fire service does that i mean i know we all understand that but i think i think it helps to understand the context in which we are operating here that you know we're we'

» re trying we're trying to get somewhere and it's it's it's not going to be easy i want to get i want to get there too i just want to get there in a reasonable fashion um let me ask a question as people build homes in these communities these rural communities and in the mill hadn't moved doesn't it increase the amount of money that we receive because there's more homes to tax yes so the value of the mill goes up that and each year as the assessor goes through and the auditor and they make that determination the value of the mill which is why back in the beginning when the discussion was was held that the mill was determined by council to be the best ultimate way to solve this because it increases in value every year whereas the fee doesn't so yes so the mill does go up and it's already gone

» up you know a thousand fifteen hundred dollars from where it was you know two years ago so so it does gradually grow with time which helps you offset those costs of of growth and expenses have we seen the the budget of the 1 million 561 178 over the last five years have we seen that budget as a whole increase due to county growth and people moving into the county yes sir that mill yesterday has increased that's my point we have raised yeah well yeah but it's not you we got to find we got to find 400 000 minimum so i mean i get what you're saying and you are correct but it's it's you're not going to get 26 mils worth out of 10.6 mils it's going and it's going to take a long um a long time and the fact that the fire meal value is different from a regular mill is that is that correct yes sir s

» o it doesn't include lugoff or camden a meal is a funny thing you know it is a funny thing it's it's it's very uh complex and and i and i trust me i appreciate the dialogue um i'm just trying to better understand the fact that the budget has increased and we do need to fund the 24-hour fire we just need to do it in the absolute most reasonable way we can think for me what that means is the least impactful way it's going to be an impact like whenever lugo fire or camden fire which we use as you know the class a fire service so far in the county um excuse me whenever we look at them uh their funding mechanisms they're what uh i just heard 250 to 300 percent higher if if you can say those mills are apples to apples and as far as full-time fire service mr parnell and scott credit to your crew i

» shared recently but you know there's a structure fire next to where we're having a family event over easter in east camden that mr snodgrass is always pushing and if it wasn't for uh kershaw county full-time fire being able to show up at that time they may not have had the water to put it out because the trucks were on a rotation running up to the church on the hill and filling up the tanker and then coming back down and so i i got to see firsthand i already believed in it but i got to see firsthand and be even more convinced uh seeing those guys out there putting this fire out um but i think it has to be the least impactful way i mean we're moving full-time fire we've been lagging for many years we haven't had a fully funded fire service compared to the neighbors of lugo fire and camden fi

» re and now's the time so there's going to be these are the decisions we make you know it's going to cost something to get something for value that's what it comes down to and how do we do that and i kind of like russell's idea so far of using reserves in the past i've suggested paying cash for stuff instead of bonding and doing things in building structures in particular uh point case i think we had a davis bacon act building uh that we're looking at doing and it saved us just remarkable money to try and finance it another way or pay cash directly the price per square foot went way way down and then we got to figure out how much more fee if that's our only option and we're going to do this will it be on i I would say improved parcels makes the most sense and made the most sense a few years

» ago. And those are likely, you've got a lot of vehicle responses, too. What's the split, guys, on? Last year's calls, we were right at 2,200 calls for the whole county. Out of that 2,200, roughly 600 of them were involving vehicles. So a quarter of the calls we ran last year involved a vehicle, whether it was a wreck or a fire. Yeah, most of those vehicles, though, I think we could safely use the data to tie them to improve parcels somehow, like the person that owns those vehicles is having an approved parcel with the house or something, so.

» So, we keep going back to Russell's proposal, so Russell's proposal, which I think everyone knows I certainly support using reserves, is Russell, is your proposal, too, to create a fee for this? No, sir, my proposal was to get an option that we came up with together as a group and then him represent it. Because I kind of get the thing, everybody keeps going back to your proposal. Yeah, when I was referencing it, it was talking about using reserves for a capital structure. It had nothing to do with any fees. No, well, I don't, I mean, I haven't been here the whole time. Sorry about that. I'm just trying not to get that pinned on you, Russell. I mean, I hate to bring it to us, but we're not going to find $400,000 without raising the fee. We all realize that, right? I'm not, well.

» I mean, we're going to find it reserves to build the station, but if you're trying to find $340,000 for a recurring 24-hour shift, I don't, and I'm just being a realist. I'm not being a tax and spend whatever. to being a realist i want to thank you for saying that i mean that's that's all it boils down to we just need to be clear on what we're talking about i think my idea was to use reserves to build the fire station and mr snigrass is making his point about raising the fees okay yeah i don't think anybody's trying to pin anything on russell but it will cost something and you know i'm i haven't once tried to uh as a council member or personally as a business owner in the lugov community said that Lugolf Fire needs to cut their millage or anything like that because the value is there.

» I see it. The value is there for the fire service, the equipment, the responsiveness. So it comes down to how do we pay for the value that we want. And if you don't want that much value for citizens and taxpayers, if you don't want that much value in that level of service for the citizens, then we just have to take that position. But I would disagree with that.

» I would say we need to have the full-time level of service i see the benefit and the other portions of the county that have other fire service already get it and there's not a lot of pushback or issue with that they enjoy the the fire safety protection and life safety protection that that provides and heck i and some of us here already pay for it and it's not a problem so yeah we do with our business we do pay a healthy tax to the fire district the lugo fire district and they've they've served us well yeah you may as well have a building full of fireworks we're in the wood products business and the sawdust is combustible and and they've they've helped us out on several occasions and we're also very thankful for for the service and we're also forgetting that so the people so you know lugal f

» ire district yeah they're paying more but i know for a fact that homeowners in on wattlewood lane pay a lot less on homeowners insurance than someone you know that lives you know out antioch or out in cassett because of you know and we talked about that before i don't know have we gotten updated iso rating no sir that's going to be roughly a six-month process okay through all those okay lugo is a special purpose fire district that was voted on by the people of kershaw county not created by county council so their fees and their millages came from the people that could in lugo voting for that right the people in this fire district are not going to get to vote for that y'all are going to make their decisions i would like to see a referendum advisory referendum go out with a with the plan we'r

» e talking about and see what the people want as lugov did when they created their fire service you know i appreciate that in principle but practically i don't think it would work very well because well let's just take an advisory referendum would not work let's just take just let me finish the thought please let's just take lugon fire for example as they increase millage over the years they haven't run a uh advisory referendum and delayed necessary expenditures or increasing costs if they needed it to provide the service level that they want so i don't know how much that would delay us here i don't know would it be a year or two years to when's the next election you could do it in months you could do it in months if i could finish please when would the next uh advisory referendum be able to

» run and what would be the cost associated with it i'd have to um i would have to confirm first of all if the if state law allows us to do that in an off-cycle election if not then we'd have to wait till the next general election which would be november of next year but regardless if we could do it off cycle it's a standalone election then um it would obviously not be decided until november so this budget would be a holding pattern until that decision was made in november so it'd be the following year's budget that any any decision that affected this would be implemented i know we've talked about in the past but roughly what's the cost to run an election 30 40 grand i suppose we i haven't run the cost on this one because this is a unique set of precincts we'd have to open if you never run on

» e just for the fire district so we wouldn't run one in camden and lugo for places like that and some precincts would be split okay mary we know some precincts would be split yes sir oh yeah yeah on who what which voter or what precinct would okay mary we now got sammy here um i can just take a moment just to catch sammy up um we've agreed to a tax you sammy for the entire cost of everything all of it all right uh sammy i think most of us are focusing on this document and um we've had i think what four options the current plan plan one which i didn't hear any support for plan two which includes vehicles and parcels and plan three is stick with the millage approach which we don't have and then uh russell and the rest of us have come up with some ideas about we need 385k this is about where be

» n came in to build out a 24-hour shift and then we're looking at the use of reserves and and or other means to build out build out the cassette uh installation and that still doesn't get us to a complete plan and mr jones has come in and said he'd like to see a referendum and that's what we're talking about i think that's where i left off okay thank you i interrupted mr snow but i was just i was just going to say that i think the comparison to the lugov situation in us is not a true apples to apples well then why do we keep talking about lugov in here well if you finish let me finish my thought mr jones and i'll i'll think about it i heard what you just said but we keep referencing lugov lugov lugov yeah i was i was going to counter your point about your referendum so that those voters they

» had a chance to vote and to create that special purpose district and i don't think that's apples apples because we're not creating a fire district we we are managing i was elected by the people to be a good steward of the county's resources so i'm not we're not creating a fire district you don't think all of us were elected for that i didn't say that um i'm just saying for me i can't speak for the other six of you i'm just saying for me i was elected to be a good student of the resources so i'm not it's not an apples to apples comparison on the referendum because we're not creating a fire service or a fire district we are being good stewards and managing one that's already created and i you know i don't think the people elected me to always just have a referendum hey what do y'all think i t

» hink they elected me to be in the community and to hear from them and to to represent them to the best of my ability so i just i just don't think it's apples apples to say well lugoff did a referendum to great one so we should do this because it's not it's a little bit different well mr jones a referendum are you willing to put that to a vote and bring us a proposal i have been asking for a referendum for the last two years would you uh structure that i have talked to the administrator about that i want what are y'all's plans oh absolutely i have no problems at all bringing a referendum proposal to this county council but you said you the last time we talked you said you had a way to fund it is that your way to prove i had a way to move forward without going to the taxpayers and i plan to b

» ring something mr chairman i'm just saying i know but you just go ahead and let me hear what y'all decide to do and then that will determine where i need to go with you know my procedure well we really want to hear what your plan was the last four months you've been saying that you have exactly well then tell me what your plan is first okay then you'll hear from mine in due time i promise you that we have when was it when is that when can we hear from you and i'm ready to bring it before you Well, you said that you wanted to sell sewer and pay fire. You have said it for the last four years. You have increased taxes. You've rented taxpayers from millage. Yes, it does. No, you're trying to back me in a corner.

» I have always brought an alternative plan to this county council whenever y'all brought up fees and millage, and I plan to do it again, sir. But you're not going to sit here today in a work session and try to back me in a corner. And I know what you're trying to do. You're progressive. you're trying to move forward and you're trying to now to divert the conversation to me because I asked for a referendum from the very beginning of this County council. I was the people of Kershaw County that I would do a referendum based on what we found out from the fire service. That's, that's what I promised. She could go pull it in the book, sir. And she can show, she can look up her records and show where I said that, that I promise I will go to a referee.

» I will propose a referendum to take this to the citizens before we increase any fees or any millage. Well, let's put it on that. put it on the agenda next time i will put it on the agenda when i'm ready you will not dictate to me when i put a proposal that i'm going to do on the agenda so you can run your mouth all you want but you're getting nowhere with me i'm sorry you're feeling that way mr jones well you mr you know we've asked for your proposal well you'll get my one of those was to sell the sewer you're going to get yes which not a single member of this county council even looked at it a second time except sammy tucker and uh russell did but but bottom line is we could sell the sewer and we're getting into a whole different ball game here when we brought the proposals here they they

» could buy the sewer plant they could buy our sewer plant they could pay off our debt they could do all the millions of renovations that we have to do and they could run it and we could take and we our sewer plant is probably worth more than what we owe on it we'd have a little extra in the bank but but nobody was even interested remotely in my opinion to look at that well i'm asking do you want to bring that forward or not i'll bring it forward when i'm ready well we're in the middle of a budget working but you go ahead and do what you want to do would you be willing to do it i'll be willing to do it when i see what you folks are planning to do i don't know what y'all plan to do yet so when i see what you plan to do sir i promise you i will bring an alternative plan to this county council s

» o you can run your mouth as much as you want but you're not going to back me in the corner and dictate to me when i will say what i'm going to do and not going to do all you're trying to do is you listen you're just trying to absolutely just divert the conversation to me because y'all are talking about creating a fee you can't do a millage because you got shot down in the senate but you were going to do a millage it could have been up to 24 mills and that's a fact so you're here for me whenever i hear what this council decides to do a simple question is is how do we get to a referendum jimmy simple question is i asked you that two years ago i asked you that a year ago so would you be willing to put it to a vote and so we can move forward with a referendum yes i'd love to see a reference i'd

» love to see this go to the people of kershaw county to say okay this is our plan which obviously we don't have a plan yet this is our plan now this is what it could provide for you this is how much more it would cost you are and this is what you have yes or no either either one take take an advisory referendum and then this council can act on that i'd love to see this council do that okay tell me how to get there russell i would support a referendum and i think okay but i think if if we were to do that i think we've got to present the whole ball of wax i agree and and say hey this is because you know you just find yourself doing it again next year is they have another need come up if if we've got to take the step forward and take the big step you know the the 1.6 million dollars or whatever

» you know to get where you need to go and if we're going to go to the time and the trouble of an advisory referendum then i think we got to present the whole ball of wax to the people of kershaw county and i think at that point you'll get your answer and we'll get our answer so how do you do that first off you this county council decides what they want to do and come come up with a plan and a funding then you go ahead and instruct the administrator to go ahead and call the appropriate folks to see what we can do with an advisory referendum i've been asking and you know mr chairman that that's been my position from day one but here we are now two years down the road and uh and russell i appreciate you saying that it makes good sense yeah well the referendum and just for the point of record is

» it was voted on and voted down two years ago jimmy and if do you want to bring it back up again did we miss excuse me did we vote on that i don't think we voted on it it was a part of the plan and so we discarded i don't think it was voted on though i think you misspoke now i may be wrong but i think you misspoke well i think you're correct and your formulation is that we it was put before the council and it was decided not to do a referendum it was decided to go with the current plan that we're on with the $29 and then pursue a millage fix.

» Now, an option here, if you go back to the chart, is we continue to fund with $29 fee, find a way to build out the Cassett environment, the Cassett facility, and then pursue legislation in the next legislative cycle and i'm being told that it's more likely on the second round to pass so is that an option that we're looking at here today or are we looking at an option to cease work and go with a referendum what are we doing i'll speak to that if nobody else will i already spoke to it russell but go ahead i'd like to hear what you're gonna say yeah so i mean if again just to reiterate yeah i mean if i'm not going to create enough fees i'm not going to vote for enough fees you know for fees fee this fee that to create 1.6 million dollars i'm i'm just agreed so i think you got three folks that

» just aren't going to do that you got you got a bunch of us okay all right all right i'm not going to speak for anybody i just the folks that have voiced their four now um so i think if we need to raise that kind of money i think mr jones is right in the fact that it should go to a referendum and if we're going to ask the people the good people of kershaw county to help us fund this i mean let's see the whole ball of wax what do you need to make it happen and what i would like to see is to make sure that lake watery is secure i was told that it works like the wheels on a spoke and the distribution will come from cassette to lake watery but the pine grove station and up in west full and bearing the cab those stations that will serve the lake if i'm not mistaken well in a millage standpoint th

» ose guys would have really been footing the bill in district one in a fee situation it's it's spread out a little more but the values of the homes at the lake would have would have really been hit hard so you know if you're going to ask big let's ask the people directly and i would support that 100 i think mr chairman if i might i think that is a little bit contrary to the least impactful approach we talked about just a little while ago of all right what's what what do we absolutely need to do instead of asking for the whole ball of wax what do we absolutely need to do to get to full-time fire service um i already know what the folks in the district i represent and again like mr jones in many ways i feel like i represent the whole county uh in part because i get calls from a lot of folks bu

» t because i have family and friends all over the county so we're always trying to do do what's best but the folks i literally represent in district three they've been asking for full-time fire service that's the area of the county that's growing the fastest that is the area of the county that has the data points that leads to people telling me when are we going to get uh round the clock fire service so that's the area in which we've been lagging the most and responding to calls under our strictly volunteer system and that's the area that has a demonstrated need so i mean under this representative uh form of government i've already got the answer i've been in the community mr snodgrass has a great point i've been in the community talking to people and working on this for like i guess four pl

» us years now and um yeah i don't know if there'd be a faster and less expensive way to do it if there's an app or something i don't know if the government will move in that direction at any point they could give us real-time feedback on people's thoughts on multiple options so like the what do we need versus the whole ball of wax and what do y'all think maybe but i don't know what that would entail and i don't know that any of any government has done it so far maybe technology will hold those uh those gifts for us in the future at some point i mean more information is always useful but that's what we've been doing with the the fire subcommittee that we had over the last four plus years is gathering this information to make informed decisions that's why we upgraded the technology in kershaw

» county fire service that's why we moved away from handwritten notes and faxes on reporting um how calls were being responded to to an automated or electronic system so everybody can share the data we've been working on this for a long time none of this is a surprise and now we got to figure out how to fund it well i definitely think we can make the decisions on a um a way to get 24 hours started and but that's just a smaller amount of money you know i think russell and tim if i'm wrong in what you said when you said whole ball of wax i think you're talking about this phase not not everything at once correct well are you talking about just this phase they're trying to raise 1.6 million that's what i was referring that's what you approached so it was just the phase we were talking about now n

» ot the whole ball of wax well yeah yeah that's very open-ended you're right thank you for it thank you well i mean let's be sure but i what i just i'm sorry did not mean to interrupt you while i was talking um but let me let me say this russell thank you um but your whole ball of wax that you were just like they were going back to your your idea they're going back to the referring to your whole ball of the wax which was leading some folks maybe to believe you're talking about the entire presentation up there with all the phases at once but it's not you're talking about the 1.6 million just this phase we're talking about now you said whole ball of wax well what do you what do you need to that's what i thought you meant well this phase right now was just 380 some thousand that's right that's

» right that's what you're talking about well no i was talking about that i mean they're they're proposed plans an increase of what was it 1.4 million 1.879 so you're saying i'm sorry you said if we're doing a referendum let's just do it for everything well if we're doing a referendum let's not have to do another referendum next year i'll go along with that okay on the right okay let's talk about referendum again uh we are in a work session it's the middle of april when's our first reading my uh vic first reading will be in may may 11th may 11th okay so less than a month and we need to give guidance to this staff to build the budget second reading is the week after a month two weeks after that and the final reading is in the first week of june so we need to give these guys some guidance all r

» ight so if we do a referendum that pushes no financial decision on you but we don't solve our problem in the interim okay so the point i'm trying to make mr jones is in spite of your name calling is i'm trying to say we've got to structure this so the staff can operate on the guidance so if we're going to do a referendum then we need to know that if we're not going to do a referendum and stick with the current plan which is 29 plus pursue it in the legislation and then if we're going to do other things we need to lay those out in a way that the staff can operate on so jimmy my appeal to you is is how to structure our efforts going forward so i know you'd like to bring it in maybe later but help me out here julian let me um make myself clear this council will decide the direction they want t

» o go in and once they decide direction they want to go in i'll know how i need to proceed mr chairman if i might all right i don't know what y'all talking about but if you have a good idea i would love to hear about it sooner rather than later and that goes not just for you mr jones but anybody if you've got a good idea i i'm sorry i'm slow sometimes i like to crunch the numbers and talk about it and ask the data uh really and try to verify through the data what i think is right so if If there's a good idea to throw on the table, man, please let me know now for any of you. Because if I find out later, I may not have time to really consider it. And that's just one of the problems. Or I won't have time to get out in the community and talk to people about it and see what they really think.

» You know, folks, let me tell you something. We just went through what everybody has said was a horrible pandemic. People have lost their jobs. People have not been able to go to work. And I know one thing. People do not want additional fees and taxes at this point in time. Now, we've had a fire service.

» guys have done a great job we created a fee was it last year before last week two years ago we created a fee and uh whenever we get to a point that we say we want to do something it's always the timelines this budget year this budget year is that's the timeline we set and you know west watery we've referred to many many times lugo fire department they do an outstanding job a great job they respond to structure fires they respond to all car fires they've been to a lot of times are the first ones to get there they're glad to do it and and we do pay them some money to secure they do that so west watery in a whole councilman connell has better fire service in the east side of the river i think we'll agree on that i have talked to some fire some firemen and i think shepherd is really going lacki

» ng above anybody else in this county at this point in time when it comes to the need of 24 7 but bottom line is you know you got camden fire that also runs mutual aid and i know the things we said well they don't charge us to do it but i'd rather pay them a little bit to get them to do it just so we could have that additional fire service at a minimum cost to taxpayers but i don't see why we don't go and work talk to camden fire talk to the lugo fire and see how we can get them to come in with us on running calls and just maybe slow down just a little bit to let the folks at least have a little bit of a break without any millage increases without any fee increases on a year such as now you know businesses have closed and businesses have reopened some people have lost their life savings and

» i just think that for government to grow during a coming out of a pandemic as we've just come out of is just not the right timing thank you mr jimmy please um vic i see you have the mill value down here what's our capacity for um this budget cycle about three tenths of a mil three tenths of a minute roughly yes sir ain't gonna get you much um i just want to make sure i understand on the um referendum um do we stay with the fee and park our car now this question is actually to mr jones and mr brazel i'm just trying to understand what we're doing and do we pay it just park the car where it's at with the fee don't do anything else to address i think the 385 that they need for the next phase or do we find the 385 park the car and then work on the referendum i'm just trying to understand the pro

» cess what we're thinking can you pull your mask down so you're not muddling so much when you talk i can speak a little clearer for you please yeah please are you parking the car the car the a vehicle at the $29 fee now and just working-- Whose car are we parking? The people's car. Okay. Just got to make yourself clear. You said parking the car. In other words, freeze what you got with what you got, hold the $29 fee, what you have now, and then start the process on working on the referendum that you guys want to see happen. Yes. Yes. That's exactly where I'm at. But let me get the second question out just in case Russell is different. I just want to make sure you understood my position on it.

» okay and that's what i'm trying to get sure or do you want to figure out how council can come up with the 385 russell do the phase that they're requesting now and then stop there and do the referendum i'll tell you what we could do we could do something that that we probably we wouldn't do this but but for one year we could use the reserves to go ahead and start 24-hour fire because i don't i personally don't want to see 24-hour fire not get started we could use our reserves to fund that for one year and then we can have a referendum and after that we can have another conversation after the referendum brilliant i like that russell and let me let me let me share my thoughts with you since um you haven't been here during a budget cycle before i am 100 budgeting out of reserves with reoccurrin

» g costs yeah that's why i said i do it for only one year and and i'm telling you that i don't care even this for one year because then you're taking the chance of the seven or six or majority of us that we're going to do the right thing and have the same thought a year from now when we couldn't get it right that's why we had to pull out a reserve so that's just sammy tucker's philosophy and policy but i will not get support on reoccurring costs coming out of the reserve if if the topic of a referendum wasn't at hand i would be right there with you so i i i agree with that i mean it's a cash flow model the money's got to be coming in every year but to mr jones point of a referendum that would get us by now with that being said i think the 385 000 could be potentially very minimal these guys

» need to be able to move forward the fire department needs to be able to move forward um that's clear we we know that we know it's it's an old dated model so i appreciate the conversation thank you yes oh same here um you know this is what we're supposed to do at work session so yes sir we can you know i think ben said it clear um just understand where each other's coming from so we'll we'll know where the ground that we can make progress the middle of the road yes sir and uh and hopefully um be able to give them what they need to continue services that's what i want i respect everybody's you know i want to say something about you yes sir and i'm gonna i'm gonna be very frank please do you always have a way of talking to me without trying to personalize it personal attack and i appreciate th

» at you're welcome i don't want to be attacked either and you know i don't do that i'm a very humble individual let's talk about reserves uh you had other reasons to use reserves did you like have a capital replacements schedule in the next uh in your plan coming up in the next budget year currently capital replacements no we did not put in the current or the upcoming budget just for the simple fact we weren't sure where we were going with the cassette station at this time and we only had roughly the 1.2 sitting in fire reserves right now now so you didn't have a plan to spend it so not right now until we had an idea where we were going with that gas station but you would okay thank you i i just you know i would just like to say um i know i missed a good little bit of this this is probably w

» ith um the uh legislation not passing this is probably going to be the toughest thing on the budget that i think we'll be facing no matter what we decide on where we go through with the uh referendum wherever we do fees where we do nothing this is going to be one of one of our toughest topics that we'll have to dress for 21 22. yep and i would tell you we're queued up for next week on ems gentlemen and our fee structure is not keeping up with their needs too so i look forward to that discussion next tuesday at 10 o'clock have we given you anything to work with no here's what is here's the current plan the current plan is 29 fee and stick with the uh effort to get the fire millage passed in the Senate and the House. That's where we are right now.

» That's what we voted on, and that's what we're doing. And I'm trying to find out if there's an alternative to the base plan. The base plan is top of the page and at the bottom of the page, those two together. Sir, Vic? Mr. Chair, members of council, what I am hearing that I would posit to you that I will pursue with staff is, first of all, we'll research referendum to understand the process we'd have to go through the time frame and when it can be implemented number one number two we will verify and confirm the amount of reserves and the uses that we can use them for so that council can have a completely firm understanding of what's available and how that can be spent and then as regards any right now we would go forward with the status quo budget which would not represent any kind of an in

» crease uh in in revenue sources until council gives us a more definitive understanding on that part okay so that's that's where we are i'm just trying to tease out ideas here um mr jones you're not willing to bring yours forward uh we've heard from russell is if we got any pieces mr chairman don't misrepresent me like that that's very unfair i think that's what you're saying no no no no for you say i'm not willing to bring mine forth okay i'll bring mine forth when i'm ready and i see where we're going okay good thank you for that you're welcome uh sir do we have a hybrid model between that's what i'm looking for mr snodgrass and i can you yeah you have to help piece together that and so you are out uh david and i said the current plan is what we voted on right and that's the top of the pag

» e 29 bottom of the page millage um hybrid plan do we have one i mean what i heard or my sense would be if i could answer russell would be uh let's use reserves to build cassette which by the way was the folks that responded to the fire i got a witness i believe and then um for me improved parcels seems to make most sense because you can tie vehicles generally to improve parcels and instead of having that number at 535 up there at the top um back that down as an additional fee on improved parcels to whatever equals your 385 as mr brazel said earlier the least impactful uh option that we could pursue and still move forward towards full-time fire service around the clock then what we would do in that case is we would really present council two plans one status quo no change to fee two the incr

» ease necessary to do the next phase of the plan which to be adding that 24-hour shift on both sides of the river plus again assuming that um we're able to spend the reserves when we think we can cast a station as well yeah we've got two great chiefs that we brought on board and they they need to know where we're hearing their pain and thank them for the work y'all do gentlemen sir sammy thank you mr chairman um i'm not sure which one of you gentlemen want to answer this but um i'm seeing in the different phases different amounts so if if we had and i know what this answer is going to be but i have to ask you if we had to finish doing uh phase one phase two and build out do we need the 3.5 the 3.6 or the 3.9 because those are different numbers for me yes sir that the three nine is the 20 27

» mils that's the value 27 mils for us that would get us to the end of the five-year plan with the 21 shift personnel that's what those numbers there kind of we just threw some fee values in there just to try to give you an idea where that would put you the actual partial counts for improved partials vacant partials vehicles and commercial property those are actual numbers we got from assessor's office right we based it off of it so those numbers on the fee side there we're just we just put those in there to kind of show you if we stuck with a fee plan what it would take to get up to that value of that 27 mils that we're shooting for so plan one and plan two does not reach the 27 mil value we're still going to be short yeah would that help i'm just trying to say i'm trying to structure this u

» h then he's got two options victor you got two or two and a half or whatever uh and then would you like to roll that into a subsequent work session or you want to move it to a vote at council what helps you and sandra nail this down for certainty at least for the next year well we'll have at least two um you know this being a workshop we'll have at least two work sessions on the budget itself and then three three readings and votes on the budget as well so we've got at least five opportunities where council will be looking at at the overall budget of which this could come up for further discussion and clarification so i don't know if we need to schedule another one of these but if council desires it then absolutely we can do so chairman sir i was just going to say my rough math um is the is

» the least impactful approach would be a dollar 75 per month um on improved parcels and that that could get you if my math works out to do full-time fire service around the clock in the districts that currently aren't covered like 21 21 total right yeah yeah uh there was a so does that constitute two options worthy of us to consider in detail okay let me give you a third one uh we've we've had a difficulty in the in the senate and we had really more success than we thought we were going to have this time around with two freshman delegates carrying the water for us and what's happened is as we got to the second and approaching the third vote one of the senators from a county who's roughly the same as us and I won't go into details but they had they they were so frustrated with their senator t

» he one who stopped our legislation that they are going to go from a flat fee like we currently have to one that was measured slightly different. And Vic, I asked you to take a look at that, in which they did it between commercial and private property by square footage. And I'm not advocating it, but I want you to know that we've looked at everything, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, to try to find a solution. Vic, can you just talk a little bit about that without avocation? I'm not pro or against. - We're still working to collect the actual number of square feet under house versus accessory buildings. - That's tough. - So we don't have those numbers in front of us at this point. But we are working on it. We've been working on it for several days with the assessor's office. - Yeah, yeah.

» You see, this other county, who's exactly the same as us. - Whose mills are 16 mills higher than ours. - But their millage is already-- - For their current fires. - 16 mills higher, and now they've gone to a fee, and now they're gonna change the fee. You can see Mrs. Snodgrass has done some homework.

» going to they're going to go to a fee that goes from a flat fee russell 29 or whatever it is up there to a fee that's i guess what structured or stratified in some fashion okay but we all have the same problem you're going to get something for nothing okay so would you all be willing to look at that as a third option i'm not we don't have the details but it might help us get there we have the mechanism to discover i mean michael's here do we have the mechanism to discover that well that's what he's working on that's what he's working on yeah well i mean the assessor assesses by square footage yeah okay okay which really this just sounds like a mill by another name and so yeah yeah i don't know if it's legal but but well it is legal but the problem is with the fee it is say you had a um well

» i mean the fees inequitable inequitable yeah double wide trailers taxed is the same as a 500 000 square foot house and that's just not fair that's why fees are not the word was used progressive and and fees don't move up with value and cost and secondly they impose an unequitable as mr connell said uh burden on people at least able to handle the burden so there you go i'd like to learn about it yeah let's so that makes a third option do we do we know if i think we asked this two years ago there's not a way to classify you talking about the vehicles and i i get you got people with antique cars and farm equipment that's why we went away from it two years ago but uh is do we know is there a way to classify you know what different vehicles do we know that's because for example to be able to exe

» mpt agricultural or whatever if we would if we would go that route i don't know i'm just curious i think but vick's gone so he's i kind of like to keep it simple i mean yeah i'm with you i'm just thinking that way yeah yeah good thought i'm not trying to put it down at all so we have three options we'll figure out a way to get it into y'all maybe we do it uh piggyback next week on the work session for ems and we'll figure that out is that okay with you guys and i will say chairman if i may and forgive the half the high perfectly here but i just want to i'm committed to getting this worked out and solution as quick as possible these guys when they go to a fire they don't stand around and vote on that hey what should we do when it's on fire they move in the action and i think they're asking u

» s or i don't think i believe you guys are asking us and letting us know hey we've got an issue and and i just want to want to say i'm committed to working doing the hard work with you guys and and finding the solution as quick as we can okay because the the need is dire all right so we have three options and when you're ready mr jones you can tell us that makes a fourth and then lastly we we next next meet at 5 30.

» the good news is we all agree we got a problem and we're working on it um vic would you express david what you said about the vehicles yeah yeah please uh i'm just thinking out loud i think we've already been through this there's not a way we don't classify the different vehicles do we so if we did do a vehicle we couldn't say agriculture was exempt and because we don't have that mechanism right uh yes sir i mean it's either uh it's either okay yeah um i think we're reaching a conclusion i want to thank those of you that left your your businesses to come in for this. And many of you came a long way. Sammy, thanks for the safe journey here. Is the 10 o'clock meeting like this okay with you guys, Jimmy? - Usually, I just had a hearing this morning.

» - Yeah, so 10 o'clock's okay, and so the next work session will be next week, okay? So with that, let's go. Thank you, gentlemen. It was a beautiful briefing, thank you. - Thank you, guys. - Thank you. - Thank you. [Part 2 of 2] - We have time gentlemen, we have a quorum. Mary, Mr. Snodgrass is attending to a funeral and we joined with him in grieving for the family and we have enough people to do our business tonight. It's a great day in Kershaw County and we advertise ourselves as a diverse and welcoming people and where there is not harmony and where there is one person out of when need, we always wanna reach out to them and we recognize this body and all elected bodies in this county represent everyone and not just one group or part of that county.

» So you can certainly also join with me in a moment of silence, because since the last time we've met, we've lost three more to COVID. Would you all bow your heads for a moment, please? Amen. Thank you, everyone. I wanna welcome the US Army Central Command, who has command of all forces in Southwest Asia. We have a family here tonight that's gonna be recognized, and we also have a Boy Scout troop here.

» As they come in, we'll learn a little bit more who they are uh we have convened and with as our practice we'll do the invocation and pledge of allegiance and we ask mr tucker to lead us please would you all stand uh thank you mr chairman let us pray godfather almighty we once again say thank you for life health and strength that you've given to us our lord father we thank you for uh this uh past uh weekend and uh the resurrection of your son jesus christ that gave his life for our sins and for us to have eternal life we thank you now lord we thank you for the sunshine the rain cloudy days and the days that we just don't understand what's going on we ask now lord that you clear our hearts and our minds and give us the discernment that we need to do the business of people of kershaw county le

» t us always remember those who are in need who may be mourning death who may be suffering let us continue to pray and help those. We ask all these things in your son Jesus. Amen. We continue to operate under COVID restrictions today and so we now move to public comments. Mary do we have any mail-ins or dial-ins electronic or otherwise? So with that public comments go to Mr. DuBose.

» Sir can you tell us who signed up and introduce them mr chairman and members of council two people signed up the first person who signed up is jim steel mr steel please come on up and i think you know the the protocol here is to keep it to about five minutes and focused on issues and keep it polite and focused on not on the individuals but what we can do to help there will be no question and answer we'll just be listening this time go ahead jim okay uh what i'd like to talk to you tonight about this virtual meeting that you're wanting to do. It seems that this council, for some reason, is trying to distance itself from the public more and more.

» I mean, first of all, there were some resolutions that were put in to allow the public more time at the end of the meeting, about 10 more minutes, to maybe talk about something that came up during the meeting and give some input at the meeting instead of having to wait for two weeks. Well, that was shot down. Not only was it voted down, but it seemed like some members of council couldn't understand why anybody would want to do that. One councilman was overheard to say, why would we want these meetings to last any longer than they already do? Another councilman said that the reason the council meets is to do council business and not hold a town hall.

» Well, as to the first contention, that why would you want the meetings to last any longer, I'll remind you, you're supposed to represent the people, okay? And if it's such a pain in your forth-boarded contact that to give us a little bit more time to talk to you is out of line, then maybe you shouldn't be sitting in the seat that you're sitting in. Just my own humble opinion. And as far as the other remark, I just don't understand that point of view at all, okay? So since then, since that was shut down, we weren't allowed to talk as much. Then you built a wall, and I asked around, I said, why did we build a wall and push the public back even further from council? And I was told it's because other counties have had problems with altercations.

» I said, okay, how many altercations have we had here in Kershaw County? the answer was none now i've been at curse at council meetings where people got a little passionate uh speaking and maybe said some words they should have said but nothing threatened so i i wonder why we have this now you won't have virtual meetings so that you don't have to even be here and you don't even have to face the public and i wonder why you know there's a lot of people in this county who are not able to download this meeting i'm one of them where i live my download speed is 464 kilobits except at three o'clock in the morning when it goes to a screaming two megabits okay so for me to watch this will take me hours because it's buffering home so i caution you about that and i think you need to have these face-to-

» face meetings so that's my opinion thank you mr steel and mr devose and the second and the last person that signed up is tom webb the third all right mr webb well i wanted to speak uh in defense of vick dabney just a little bit i don't think he needs a whole lot of defense um he's a good guy i've known him for a long time he's no hater of good people of any kind uh as it said in the paper he has some black friends i know some of them and uh so to call him a racist i think is um it's just one that's playing that race card that shouldn't have been played um but about the actual subject that he was talking about hate crimes. You know, there are machines that can put you in and ask you questions, and certain areas of the brain light up. They can do this now in the laboratory.

» They can figure out what you like and what you don't like, and to what intensity. It could come to a point where something like a super lie detector that could slap something on a person's head and ask them a few questions and you would know whether they were intense about one thing or another. And if they were too intense altogether, they might not be good citizens and they would be excluded from certain things like public office. They could see that happening. It's just not too far in the future. Like I say, they can probably already do a certain amount of that in the laboratory with an MRI and the other things where they put little electrodes on your brain and measure electricity that flows when you think.

» So this is the slippery slope that I think Vic is concerned about, that if you make thinking bad thoughts a crime, it might actually show up eventually to where you could go through person to person to person and classify them. And they never commit a crime, but they would be found to be flawed people and so unable to participate with the rest of us. And as far as hate crimes, it's already when a person does some damage to somebody else.

» It's asked in court, what was the purpose? What was the intent of their mind? Was this an accident or was this motivated by some intensity of thought? And you could ask, did they hate a person that they were robbing? If they really loved that person, maybe they wouldn't rob them, so why even bother? And could it be such a thing as love crimes? That is where, because of the love of money people steal things is that not a love crime we do not find that that some people love money so intensely that they should not be good citizens i think this thing about hate crimes is going too far it's a slippery slope it'll turn into thought crimes could happen thank you thank you mr webb and i appreciate that mr dose that that concludes the sign up list uh thank you very much and that concludes uh public

» comments we want to pause for a minute and recognize that we now have the boy scouts here can can you tell us who you are saint timothy's lutheran church cub scout pack 113 hey welcome young men delighted y'all came tonight thank you we hopefully will get your home time by supper thanks for coming all right and that concludes public comments we can move to the adoption of the agenda it's on page three and it's up on the excuse me it's up the screen on page one can we have a motion to approve so moved mr gardner a second second now for mr tucker any discussion very good there is none we'll move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and we'll move now uh to the proclamations the first one is item number one national 2021 volunteer week it's a tab a and i

» t's on page three. I'll read it as we usually do and I'll shorten it a little bit, but then I'll take a motion and we can discuss it. Whereas the spirit of volunteerism in America is the bedrock of service and charity, the core of our national greatness and fundamental to Vision 2030 to make us a great place to live, work, and worship and raise our families.

» And whereas National Volunteer Week is an opportunity to recognize and honor the countless individuals who selflessly invest in the lives of others, and whereas we have never needed volunteerism in America more than we do today, and whereas volunteers are finding unique and innovative ways to spread joy and meet emotional, physical, spiritual needs of others, even while adhering to social distancing measures, and whereas volunteering one's time, talent, and resources have been an integral part of our heritage since the early days of our nation, and it is essential that we continue this tradition of giving and sharing to preserve and improve the quality of life for all citizens in our community.

» And whereas the receiver is not the only one who benefits from volunteer service, for the giver reaps rewards of improved skills and widened horizons as well. And whereas each year our special week is designated in our unit, in our nation, for the dual purpose of recognizing and those who give of themselves, and of encouraging all citizens to become involved in volunteer work. And it is fitting at this time that we say thank you to all individuals, groups, and businesses who have given time, energy, and resources in their communities through volunteer service.

» Now, therefore, Kershaw County hereby proclaims April 18th through 24th to be National Volunteer Week, and Kershaw County encourages all citizens to observe this week by celebrating the important work that volunteers do every day throughout our community can we have a motion to approve so much mr uh mr tucker a second second that yeah mr connell any comments i would certainly say the example i give today that you and i russell had to deal with was got a got a note from uh steve zobel and then and then jill wolf jumped right on it and they were talking about cleaning up lashcott road over by your house jimmy and it's just volunteers are helping us to show pride and energy and and how things get done in this great county yes i'd like to make sure yeah go ahead mr johnson my wife mara who inst

» igated that and you can tell stevie misspelled your wife's name too by the way mr tucker thank you mr chair i just want to say thank you to all of our volunteers for the boards and commissions and things that they said on from the people who just help out with um different things in the community because you know as you look around without them volunteer their time not much would get done no matter what we think about government i mean we just need that volunteer part from all of our citizens who's capable willing and able so i say thank you to all of them yeah others yeah oh jimmy please sir you know uh julian and members of council i i would really like to say that it's just amazing to think the recreation department how hard they work the volunteers that on that committee the planning an

» d zoning the oh my gosh um the headaches they have you know and you go on to the clean community commission i'm so proud of the clean community commission because that was that and the rec commission was that sammy and i would we were very passionate about it when it was uh disbanded a while back so they're they're doing a phenomenal job and all the committees and all the commissions and you really can't say enough about them thank you absolutely other comments i think we are quite in agreement i think we can move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and at mary it passes successfully and we can post that document as soon as you can thank you uh the second item is national military child week and sarah jane arnett is here we're going to ask you to come up in a moment pl

» ease ma'am uh but it's uh veterans in this county are an amazing part of the life of our county and also those who are serving and their and their families i'll read it and then we'll move to a vote a proclamation recognizing this month as military child month whereas in 1986 the month of april is designated as month of the military child an opportunity to recognize the contributions and personal sacrifices of our military children and that they make in support of the armed forces of the united states of america while their parents serve our nation and whereas military The children are a source of pride, earning our appreciation for the significant contributions they make in our schools, in our communities, and throughout our state despite prolonged and repeated absences by one or both pare

» nts. And whereas because the average military student faces transition challenges more than twice during high school, and most military children will attend six to nine different school systems throughout their lives, from kindergarten to twelfth grade, the Military Interstate Children's Compact Commission is committed to resolving the educational transition issues that are faced by these children and their families and ensuring they are afforded the same opportunities for educational success as other children and are not delayed in achieving their educational goals.

» Whereas the month of the military child serves as a reminder that when a parent or parents serve in the military their children serve as well and whereas purple up day on 15 april this week encourages military and civilian communities to wear purple as an opportunity to pay tribute to the military children of kershaw county and the 1.9 million military children of all ages through their strength and resiliency are the heart and soul of the military family amen Now, therefore, Kershaw County Council proclaims the month of April, the month of military child in Kershaw County. I encourage all residents to honor the courage and sacrifices of our military children who so faithfully uphold the American spirit and support these children and their families.

» Can we have a motion? I make a motion that we approve this resolution, proclamation, I'm sorry. Mr. Tucker, second? Second. Mr. Gardner, a discussion? Any? Mr. Tucker? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of council and also our guests, I just want to say that I've never been a military child, but I have military children. And this is a proclamation.

» I'm always proud of proclamations, but I'm real proud to do one here from council for those who sacrifice so much at such a young age and really don't have decision-making power, river where they go and when they go and how they go um and usually you see these group of children they're a little different than your normal child and in being exposed to a lot of good things some may be negative but a lot of good things and have a different uh demeanor about them so i say thank you to them and thank you to the military and all who support them as they come into your town or to your county or your state. That concludes my report. Other comments? Of course, my entire family's military, and my son-in-law and my daughter both got orders for overseas this weekend.

» Isn't that wonderful? We're going to lose them again, and they're taking their children with them this time. My family essentially had been in more high schools than they were in grades in school. One time moved three times in one year. The military is a tough bunch, and they have a tough mission and I'm just delighted this council is willing to entertain such a resolution we should also know that we have families here from Shaw Air Force Base families here from from Fort Jackson families here from the National Guard who deploy with greater frequency than I'd like to admit and also from the U.S. Army and Navy and Marine I'm sorry to mention that Marine thing and the Air Force, right, Jim Steele? That we should recognize.

» And those of us who are veterans, and we have at least two in the audience, and Jimmy Jones and Ben Connell and myself, and of course, Danny is a Navy guy, and you're a submariner, all know what this means to serve. It's the strength of our nation, it's the strength of our military families. Amen. That's all I got to say on that. So with that, I think we can vote.

» and then i'd like to have miss arnett come up and speak for a minute but all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous of course and it passes miss arnett can we can hear from you please ma'am and introduce your son too he'll love that he said do i have to talk i said absolutely not so my name is sarah jane arnett i'm a proud military bring the mic down there you go it's got you got jim steele and when he comes up everybody brings the mic down i'm sarah jane arnett i'm a proud military spouse of 17 years i'm a mother of four children we are herschel county residents and i've been a military advocate for families for at least 17 years so i hit the ground running when i got married no idea what i was getting into and i'm sure thankful i did it it's definitely a calling an

» d i've i'm just glad i'm here and i'm very particularly thankful that you general burns and the council members have um just presented this special opportunity to represent the significant military community population we have here in kershaw county particularly for the month of the military child proclamation my family and i moved here two years ago and we're grateful for this community for several reasons within a month of our cross country move my husband deployed he left us here um great i don't know why i'm getting emotional wow it's always good when he goes sometimes um while he served overseas like many military families this is completely normal for our children to start new schools on average of every three years and without the presence of our service member for first days of scho

» ol holidays birthdays occasions our oldest son gammon he's soon to be camden bulldog go dogs has experienced five year-long deployments with another year-long deployment set for this june i share this because in the 17 years of active duty service and being stationed across the United States and overseas, Kershaw County is the most warm, welcoming, and supportive community we've ever lived in, which brings me to Camden Elementary, where two of our four sons attend. Ms. Goodwin and Ms. McKittrick, they provide excellent support and leadership for the military child population, and we're blessed to be the only school in Kershaw County School District to have a military kids club.

» We have 26 members, and this also includes siblings, and appreciate the encouragement that kershaw county council has given by acknowledging mother military child thank you thank you and for the record my daughter went to basic training with her husband at ford jackson i will do that in a minute i just want to say also that um you know i think that would be it ma'am would you come forward with your son for a photograph and mary has the uh the certificate right here please you know mr chairman i think it's only appropriate uh the gentleman who hollered out tom webb is a veteran himself that's right i reckon and so is jim steele so is jim steele well jim steele is a retiree too as well but did you you went to vietnam didn't you what time did you go to vietnam yeah i got you i thought so we ap

» preciate all of you we really do you know one thing i would say is that i know my my uncle uh mr chairman was uh airborne my father was airborne and i was clerk typist very good well thank you very much and now we have to get out of this some serious business so boy scouts y'all can go to sleep now while we while we go through this boring stuff but it's important i tell you we move now the next item it's an approval of minutes dated 23 uh march it's on the screen and it's uh tab c page five of those of you interested uh with that can we have a motion to approve the minutes of our last meeting so move uh mr tucker i mean excuse mr gardner you look just like him height and everything uh second please second uh mr mr gardner right mr tucker thank you any discussion mr chairman i'll be abstaini

» ng as i was absent oh thank you i forgot about that and i'd like for you to look on page six where mr dubose talked about an executive session we'll be discussing that during mr dubose's legal brief no changes are needed there but mr dubose will make a comment about that all right to just make a note of that uh no further discussion we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand uh with mr uh connell abstaining we are unanimous and we move to after approval to the next item which was an administrative update by mr carpenter please sir mr chair members council um as you see on the grass in front of you we continue to see decreases in the incidence of covet in kershaw county uh the 14-day average now is down to a little over 130 in uh the last 14 days our average daily coun

» t down to about 8.5 a day this is the vaccination rate it's approximately 37 percent are vaccinated at this point in kershaw county and the total number of cases a month today there's only 77 in kershaw county so today we only had three cases that were uh reported positive our board uh comments uh mr tucker uh thank you mr chairman and council um mr carter i appreciate you and um all the others on your staff and um the rest of the leaders of city and the business folks that continue to practice the social distancing and doing the right things because as i continue to read and look and see there's 31 states like TEXAS MICHIGAN FLORIDA THEY'RE IN MORE TROUBLE NOW ON WHAT THEY WERE THIS TIME 2020 WITH THIS VARIANT VIRUS THAT'S CROPPING UP WHICH IS I THINK NUMBER FOURTH I THINK THAT'S UM NOW OU

» T AND ABOUT THE UK ONE UM SO I I THANK YOU UM I'M GONNA SHARE THIS BECAUSE I DIDN'T REALIZE THIS WAS GOING ON I HAPPENED TO BE UP HERE EARLIER TODAY FOR A WORK SESSION AND I WAS IN THE CLERK TO COUNCIL'S OFFICE and a young man came by and i don't know why i didn't notice him before but i don't come up here that often he was wiping down door handles and things of that nature and i just happened to ask miss master well how often does that happen and she says at least twice a day so who initiated that she said your administrator and in little things like that it may not seem like it makes a difference that temperature checking out there um wearing these masks but we have had very little with any of our employees or anyone that i know have gotten sick from our government building and i just wan

» t to say kudos to you and staff and continue to do it because i know it's sometimes controversial but a life in sickness means more to me than what someone think of me thank you other comments can you go back to this shot chart there um i think we're doing better than most others the average we were 14th in the state out of 46.

» okay so that's good news and uh the availability the work of our staff and my wife was in walmart this morning at seven and over the speaker had said they have six more shots anybody want them come on out and uh that kind of generic approach that seems to be working widely do you have any way of knowing uh age or we just don't have that kind of detail um you know they opened it up i think to 16 years old yes so as you see that's the population of 15 plus that received the doses um i can get you they do know the percentage of of seniors versus non-seniors no i can get that for you it's just kind of a curious information it's not action for us but i just kind of curious so jimmy well i really was going to try to catch the vice chair before the meeting to talk to him about it one thing that i

» would appreciate if this council does you know as i said you're six feet apart if there's a law i'm going to obey the law you know if a business requests me to put a mask on i'm going to put a mask on out of respect for those businesses i personally just don't feel i need to i've been vaccinated like a dog my wife says quit telling people vaccinated but i mean that's what it is the bottom line is you know and of course i haven't been sick and i don't think i can get anybody else sick i think things are going better we're coming out of this and i think everybody's worked very hard but what i'd LIKE TO ASK THE VICE CHAIR DUKE I'M SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING COMING IN HERE SITTING DOWN SIX FEET APART JUST AS YOU DO IN A RESTAURANT BE ABLE TO TAKE MY MASK OFF AND I PUT IT ON TO RESPECT YOUR RESOLUTIO

» N BUT I WOULD LIKE YOU AND I'D GIVE YOU LET'S TALK ABOUT I LIKE TO SAY DESTRUCTION DATE AS FAR AS OBEYING THE CITY LAW BUT AT LEAST BEING ABLE TO WHEN WE SIT IN HERE BE FAR ENOUGH APART WHERE WE DON'T HAVE TO SIT HERE AND WEAR THE MASK FOR TWO HOURS WHEN WE'RE TRYING TO DO BUSINESS willing to discuss with you yeah you and i'll get together yeah i think it's i think in the spirit of what i've seen up here though jimmy is the numbers are coming down thank god and uh and i've been coached by the hospital and epidemiologists to say there'd be a surge after easter break so yesterday was the end of easter break uh and in two weeks we'll know if they were right or not and i'm hoping the city of camden will find a way to relax their rules but it's up to them and i'm okay with the city of camden's r

» ules if that's what they do i'm just saying that i wear this mask because you know sammy yes excuse me the vice chair brought a resolution in i want to respect your resolution as i respect businesses and individuals if they're not comfortable if this individual sitting next to me says hey i want you to put it on i'll put it on but i'm asking THAT WE THINK THAT WE TALK ABOUT THAT AND LOOK AT THAT JUST AS WE SIT DOWN IF WE'RE SIX FEET APART AS I CAN GO INTO ANY RESTAURANT OR ANY MEETING YOU KNOW THAT'S WHAT THEY DO YEAH ALL RIGHT THANK YOU YEAH SIR MR. TUCKER THANK YOU MR.

» COPPER I DON'T KNOW WHEREVER YOU'RE AWARE YOU MAY BE MORE LIKELY BUT I DO WANT TO PUT OUT TO THE PUBLIC BECAUSE I KNOW WE'VE STILL GOT A VAST GROUP IN THE RULE AREA THAT MAY NOT BE ABLE TO MAKE APPOINTMENTS OR STILL DON'T KNOW HOW TO CALL IN THE HOSPITAL for sure hell it's fascinating on fridays you know you should do it monday tuesday wednesday they're fascinating on friday i think from eight to seven eight in the morning to seven in the evening and there's no appointments age 16 and up so if you can't get your shot get an appointment just go by and get you one and they'll set you up with your next shot i take my last one on thursday and um and i'm happy and i've had no side effects no nothing i mean i didn't even know i got a shot something they stuck a band-aid on my arm and i wanted to

» go take a shower saturday and i found it i got vaccinated thursday but i didn't take a shower saturday i'd like to also say now we ain't there yet but it's close and it's we actually continue to be mindful of the great work that mr mr carpenter has done uh and his team to get us through this look at the professionalism through which he went through these charts he rolled them off like he He had, like, he'd lived with them all his life. And then you see his members of his staff, like Cato back there running a detention center, sir, and our sheriff doing all their stuff and everyone else. The EMS just doing a magnificent job. It's been a long 14 months. And hopefully we can end this thing. Yeah, Mr. Gardner. Mr.

» Carpenter, do we know how many of those are Pfizer, how many Moderna, how many Johnson & Johnson? And is there, who's giving the Johnson & Johnson since they're considering suspending that one? to my knowledge we're not doing johnson and johnson in the state so we're not in kershaw county we're not something i i can get you the breakdown um for it by the state i don't know if they break it down other than to my knowledge we're only doing the one in this county but i'll get it for you okay all right with that and thank you i think we can move on and our ordinance is kind of move right into that thanks to uh mr um mr brazel's help the first item is an ordinance item number one it's a tab d page seven is that it up on the screen yeah up on the screen uh the third reading of an amended and rest

» ated ordinance by kershaw county council determining rules mr carpenter can you introduce it and then i'll have mr brazel make the first motion please chairman you have in front of you tonight for third reading an ordinance that amends and restates kershaw county council's rules of operation previously has been voted unapproved by county council on the first two readings can we have a motion to uh introduce this for discussion and vote mr brazel mr chairman i make the motion to introduce and discuss the amended ordinance and can we have a second second uh mr jones russell you have the honors on the third reading please sir open it up well this is um really i think to mr steele's comments earlier it's it's not to to further us from from you this is actually to make it available you everybody

» 's always still welcome to come in and be a part of the meeting um this is just so that we don't have to operate in a state of emergency now it's just kind of standard in all of our meetings um you can live stream youtube facebook what have you so yeah that's basically all it is yeah uh other comment who had a second jimmy over here sir let me just clarify why i like this there are some councils that have been meeting for months, and all of them were Zooming. And one thing I liked about this is that we are going to require a physical quorum of four people that only three could Zoom if they needed to Zoom for whatever reasons. But that's what really put me on this one. And it gives us a little bit of rules of order. We know which direction we're going on, how we're going to operate.

» So basically, I have no problems with it because we do require a physical quorum. and I think that's four people before anybody can do any Zooming. And if there's an issue with the Zooming or someone has a problem with one of the council members Zooming, they can remember at election time if they don't attend the meetings, right? Because that's when we're all accountable is every four years. Thank you. Other comments? Mr. Chairman? Hey, Ben, go right ahead. I like this ordinance because, as my colleagues have said, it actually leads to greater access for the public, For those that have slow download speeds, which a large majority of the county might in the eastern portion or northeastern portion and other rural areas, you can come in person.

» You're going to have a quorum that's physically present. For those that would rather attend due to work restrictions, travel restrictions, or otherwise, you can attend electronically and participate. This makes permanent in a non-emergent circumstance the ability to comment and participate and interact and give public feedback electronically through comments that go to Ms. Mary and get presented during public comment sections and otherwise. One thing I was going to mention, fellow council members, is implicit in this is some type of coordination because you can't have four people thinking, man, I just got a call in tonight, one of the kids is sick, or a doctor told me to, whatever it is, or you have work and you want to participate remotely.

» So I would just ask that we acknowledge implicitly we've got to coordinate. give give the council notice on some level or let miss mary know so she can say oh nope three three have already said i mean if it happens that way i imagine it'll be rarely invoked um but if it becomes a frequent issue you know we can address it at that time so i don't know what do y'all think about that is contact ms mary the best way to make sure we don't exceed this quota here right yes absolutely that's her job not to lay something else on you miss mary but you don't don't have enough to do, Mary. But it's routine what I'm seeing these days. Y'all are very good about keeping her informed. Jimmy, you want to say something? Yeah, I actually do. You read my mind. I don't see this becoming a problem.

» I really don't. If this does become a problem, then we'll certainly address it. But I'd be one of the first to call it out. I mean, I don't plan to do any Zooming unless I was in the hospital or something. But as I said, I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING BEN JUST SAID ABOUT IT. IT DOES BRING SOME GREAT ADVANTAGES TO US. ABSOLUTELY. SAMMY, SIR. THANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN, MEMBERS OF COUNCIL. FIRST I WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO OUR MOST JUNIOR COUNCILMEMBER UP HERE, HAD TO PUT THAT IN THERE, MR. BRAZZO, FOR YOUR DEDICATION AND HARD WORK TO THIS ORDINANCE. YOU TOOK IT ON, I MEAN, HEAD ON AND GOT IT ALL FIGURED OUT. I'll watch you as you maneuvered through this and made sure that you were on point with your point. So I want to say thank you to you and thank you to my colleagues for supporting it.

» I think it does open up more avenues where we can be more attentive if situations come up. We've had, Councilman Jones, a member of council in the hospital that couldn't even swear in his first meeting. Had we had this, we could have made that possible. But thank God we had Ms. Mary and Mr. Danny and the chairman that went up and took pictures for us and brought it back on the screen as he was swearing in. But I say that because I see a lot of good points. And to Mr. Steele's point about where he lives, I live in that donut hole too. I don't know my strength or my gigabytes, but mine is as the wind blow. And that's not just for cable service or Internet service. I can walk out of one room with my cell phone and have no service, and I can walk in another room and have full bars.

» So hopefully we're fixing that on a national level with this grant money that's coming now. Thank you, sir. - Jimmy. - To Sammy's point though, just remember though, we will always have a meeting 'cause four people have to be here. So there's not gonna be any meetings dismissed. - All right, all right. Okay, I would say that, you know, back at my business travel has begun again. So I may even, as chairman, have to figure out a way to how I would be chair remote. I think I would open and close, but then have some designee here run the meeting. I think the nexus of running the meeting has to be here. That's the way I interpret your idea about four being here. This is where the meeting would be conducted.

» So if I wasn't here and zooming in, I would see me turning it over to the vice chair or whoever he designates. That's kind of how I would see it. but we don't need a law on that. We can work it out among us, right? Okay, cool. I think there's already states who does what when you're in your absence, so we don't need to repeat that. Yeah, you're okay with that, Russell? Yeah, so we're good. That's the ruse of order. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, I think we've explored everything there is about this thing, and we can make it a law. With that, let's move to a vote. All those in favor, signify. Russell, thank you very much. It's unanimous, and Mary, let's make this the rules of the road around here.

» you got another job there you go uh with that we move to new business no no we got a second item number two has no enclosure it's a first reading and vic you're going to need to talk us through this tell us what we got here mr chair members of council you have tonight in front of you on first reading an ordinance that would convey property between kershaw county and the cassette and lee water authority better formerly known as cassette water it's essentially a parcel of land in the governor's hill industrial park that would allow them to build a water tank all right let's have a motion to talk about this make a motion that we approve uh the first reading in title only a second can we have a second after mr tucker second mr gardner uh we want to open it up a little bit more information vic a

» nd then we'll have mr tucker open the discussion sir um cassidy water has indicated that they're in the midst of upgrading their system uh they'd like to put a tank about a million gallon tank on that property and said looking for about a two acre parcel of land that the county would give to them uh so that they could then build the tank on it it would obviously serve industrial clients as well as other people who are in their water service territory in that part of the county all right very good mr tucker thank you mr chairman members of council uh that's in my district um this is um they serve down there already so this is going to give additional service uh in that area that that is well needed and i'm just looking forward to uh being able to have more people move into uh the great part

» of charlotte thompson community where we are lovely welcoming people and as i understand it it's industrial in nature though that was uh we're going to put it in our industrial park yes yes yes okay okay uh second was mr gardner mr gardner tom yeah i just think this is a no-brainer here to allow this i think it's going to enhance what they already have and especially in the being more commercial so it may actually help us in some economic development or something perfect sense other comments Russell please is there a specific reason why it's coming or why we need it or well they've asked preparation for yes sir just that they're upgrading their system at the moment and so this will be critical for future needs serving industry and things like that yeah good all right i like it for industry

» uh that's the key for me uh and we'll see more detail next time i would assume so yes sir you think we'll march uh through a first second and third reading in sequence or will there be an interruption i've got no reason to suspect that we won't go through it quickly yeah we'll look forward to details next time around okay i think we all do other comments okay let's move that to a vote all those in favor signify so and it's unanimous and move that to a second reading move to new business and i think i'll have to conduct this we have three planning commission reappointments and uh we'll take them in order from bottom to top uh they're up on the board they're also in your um in your electronic book at tab e on page 17 uh there's kevin scharf kate denton and uh curtis blackman so we'll start uh

» from bottom to top with kevin Scharf for reappointment, and that is in Mr. Tucker's district. Mr. Tucker, do you want to make a motion? Yes, sir. I'd like to make a motion that we reappoint Mr. Kevin Scharf to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Can we have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Jones. And with that discussion, Sammy? I just want to thank Mr.

» Connolly, Michael, for recruiting these uh young ladies and men to uh continue another uh term because i think they were a little hesitant and wasn't for sure and this is a commission that there's a there's a learning curve and there's classes they got to take and um you you you need folks on there that have some knowledge on how things work to bring us good product here to vote on and so i appreciate once again that whole slate that's uh we're seeking reappointment tonight um and especially kevin because he's in my district um i appreciate that time of service and willing to continue to serve thank you second uh was mr jones i think i just would like to say this i do appreciate all the hard work we put into this bringing the right people to the table i'll tell you that that's one commissio

» n i don't think i would serve on i mean it's a working commission those folks are very dedicated and i'm so appreciative you know especially of uh fiona martin that accepted the the position a few weeks ago which i brought up so uh i'm glad that your appointee's going back on i appreciate it thank you stan is thinking about it no question but uh but obviously he's done a great job yes sir thank you and this uh very much resonates with the theme you struck mr jones on the volunteer recognition these people they don't get they don't get enough thanks thank you other comments i think we can move to a vote all those in favor of kevin scharf uh signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous and mary if you could handle a notification the next one is kate denton that's in mr gardner's district m

» r gardner do you want to make the motion i would i would move to reappoint kate denton as a planning commission thank you uh second second uh for mr tucker uh discussion just to reiterate what was already said this this commission probably works more and harder than any of them and have uh probably the fire of our constituents more than any of the others i wouldn't want to serve on this one either but we appreciate what mr connolly does and uh what these folks that volunteer for this do for us because this is not an easy job for that absolutely uh so other comments i think i think we got the basic theme here is we're really appreciative of these people let's move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and mary and number second is for kate denton to be notified and it's u

» nanimous and last is uh custis uh curtis blackman uh that's in uh your district russell do you want to make them on the motion yes sir i will make the motion i i heard back from him he called just a few minutes ago and left me a message i was able to read it he is interested in staying on and unfortunately he and i hadn't had a chance to talk but um i look forward to reaching out to him and i know he's been working hard on this commission it it looks like since uh 2015 so yeah he looks like uh wants to stay on and wants to keep working hard so we appreciate his service okay so we have the motion a second second uh mr tucker any further discussion i just like to say he's really a great man yes he is he sure is absolutely uh any further discussion okay we move to a vote all those in favor sig

» nify by raising your hand mary thank you very much it's unanimous and all should be notified if you tell the chairman as well and mike thank you mr chairman yes sir i just want to make a point very quick your brother served on the planning commission mr george gibson at one time and i i think he probably served two terms and he did yeah and when it came back up he said he had had enough he was a worker right yeah he's a worker too all right we're into council briefings uh on according to the agenda and it begins with sammy um mr tucker thank you mr chairman members of the council uh no report tonight uh mr gardner the only thing i have since our last meeting i have a new granddaughter congratulations thank you you had everything to do with it granddaughter number four granddaughter number f

» our and grandchild number six well i think mr uh mr connell's got better news than that uh thank you congratulations uh russell i have no report but congratulations mr connell well my news pales in comparison my wife is not pregnant first first off because that's the only thing that could be and uh and well there's a bull that was born on our farm first one we've ever had but that is in no way i tell you what though it's hard to stall your thunder yeah it's cool it's cool to roll up uh roll up the driveway and see a little uh little bull out in the field running around you're like what in the heck anyway no no other report thank thank you and the Bulls name is Jimmy go right ahead thank you so much just two two quick things one my wife is not pregnant and as well I know we will get a briefi

» ng from mr. DuBose in this but I was reading through this I haven't seen this till I walked in here a short answer council comply with FOIA when it moved to go into executive session however council should have been more specific as it relates to why it moved to go into executive session um i would like to say this one uh as mr boz had made clear he did tell me walking back there he said i do not discuss this tonight i said very well and i did not there was no discussion so we should have made that clear we came out i was watching the video and and here's where i think we need to slow down a little bit on county council by the time mr devos got back in his seat we had already made the motion to journey go So what we need to do instead of walking in at four of us, and I'm guilty of it.

» We've done it many, many times. I'm just saying, so I'm not pointing anybody out. I'm just saying we need to wait until everybody gets back in their seat before we call for adjournment. Good plan. Let's do it. Exactly. And one more thing. Along with that, we need to make sure that we all work together to make sure that the information is given out, that there was no votes taken, there was no discussion, or da-da-da, whatever. You know, we need to give a little report on that, and I'm sure we will. I KNOW I GIVE YOU A HARD TIME SOMETIMES, BUT YOU DO A GREAT JOB AND I APPRECIATE THAT AND YOU DO GIVE US GOOD LEGAL ADVICE AND WE DO TAKE IT, AT LEAST I DO SOMETIMES. WHAT WAS THE SHORT THING I HAD TO SAY -- ANYWAY, THAT'S IT. THANK YOU SO MUCH. MR.

» SNYDRASS IS NOT HERE, SO I'LL CLOSE IT OUT REAL QUICK. I'VE GOT A COUPLE OF COMMENTS. this is uh just housekeeping as usual uh let's see here it is uh first of all thank you gentlemen for coming in for the work session that was three hours people don't know how hard you work and we talked about a hard word the planning and zoning people work y'all work hard work before during and after these meetings and so i just want everybody to understand this is maybe the public face of what you see us do but it was three long hours this morning and we're going to do it again i think when's the next meeting tuesday it's coming tuesday tuesday 10 o'clock right here so here we go uh so thank you for coming in everybody that was a very useful discussion now secondly mary and i have chatted about what the

» outcome may or may not be on the health services district we have an existing law that requires us to update the membership on the health services district and we have all agreed and we've agreed with the health services district on a methodology hopefully the legislature will pass expeditiously in the next month or so so i'm saying all this to ask you to take a hard look at either option if it doesn't pass and if it does pass you all need to be ready to make nominations and i don't know how we're going to do that where are we at on that uh sammy can bring us up to speed and let's i mean DEPART FROM PROTOCOL SINCE YOU IT'S A VERY TIMELY ISSUE SAMMY JUST GIVE US A QUICK UPDATE NOW QUICK UPDATE IS THAT UH OF COURSE UM THE SENATE BILL CROSSED OVER UM FROM OUR SENATOR IT'S OVER IN THE HOUSE AND

» OUR REPRESENTATIVE DAVNEY WILL BE OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS FOLLOWING HIS BILL OR AMENDING THE SENATOR'S BILL AND THEN IT GOES BACK TO THE SENATE it looks good um i was going to wait i had a little bit more information because i don't have anything in writing um i actually that's why i was late at the workshop met with um the chairman auburn from the health service district and representative dabney and um there was uh one little uh uh pot that was says all vacancies uh could be recommended by the board for two-thirds vote that's not in our resolution it's not in the senate version that they want to insert in so they're going to look at that they're going to send us a copy back and then we're going to address it as a council and then keep moving forward okay so that's where we are but i

» n terms of timing working backwards the target is to have a new board appointed near the end of june in the beginning of july that's what we said we do right so we'll need to start looking at that list and mary very helpfully will provide you uh what she has by way of background i think mary we had agreed we kind of need them to be ready to start looking at that and have it in your hands by the 24th of may so that you all can have a chance to study the list based on whichever way the our legislature takes us and then we would vote on it in either the first or second meeting in june but it's too early right now to time uh jimmy you had other points yeah if i could discussion with vice chair for a second so you're okay with what we're what we're hearing here as the as sort of heading this up

» for the county council are you okay with the timeline that the chairman did well that was a timeline that we were discussing earlier yeah i mean but i'm talking about are we okay with that since there's been some changes that's what i'm saying well we're still on track and that was that was confirmed this morning by representative dabney and um chairman auburn um they they see no glitches or um anything interrupting you know the process so yeah um okay to the best of our knowledge you know things happen but we'll see yeah we don't foresee anything holding it up and if there is a disconnect i'm willing to call a special call meeting the whole principle is that kershaw county represents an elected body so that this this hospital board can be responsive to an elected body elected by the people

» um i mentioned the next meeting is next monday tuesday i did want to just mention to you that there's been a lot of articles in the press one in the wall street journal on monday and another one uh in the chronicle of us today tuesday in which uh the prisma deal is cast in the light of life points financial future as a part of the Apollo Ownership Group. And I was asked to make a statement. I'll read it here again. And I coordinated this statement with Mr. Ogburn, and he has a similar statement.

» It's in the paper that Kershaw County Council is committed to the maintenance and profitable operation of a full-service hospital and welcomes long-term owners who are as committed as are we to the tenets of Vision 2030 as expressed in our Community Health Improvement Plan, we in this rural county just didn't need COVID alone to show us the importance of a quality health care, for which we regret the loss of PRISMA, but more so regret the gap between the caregiver and big business health care across all the United States of America, which is unconnected with our friends in the hospital services district health services district of kershaw county and assure a viable alternative long-term quality hospital solutions and partners those are my comments and with that mr carpenter go right ahead i

» have no reports sir uh and mr dubose we're anxiously awaiting your report on on the foyer thank you mr chairman um mr jones um in light of his comments and also previous discussion for you mr chairman um and comments in the um local newspaper i have written memo which i've handed out to you and everybody has it i believe mayor you have a copy of the two don't you and it addresses the um executive session on mark 26 by kershaw county council and the um short answer on page one is council complied with for you when when it moved to go into Executive Session. However, council could have been more specific as it relates to why it moved into Executive Session.

» And that comes from the Freedom of Information Act, which says that after the motion for legitimate purpose, and the motion was for enumerated purpose, I believe he said personnel, which is employment. So the motion was all right by Mr. Jones to comply with the law, Mr. Jones motioned it. But prior to going into Executive Session, We should have, or council should have, had more specificity to the purpose of the executive session. Having said that, when we came out of the executive session, I should have clarified for the record, as Mr. Jones just said, that no personnel matter was discussed. However, it is not a correct statement of the law to say that you have to have exigent circumstances to go into executive session. That is a misinterpretation of the law.

» It also is a misinterpretation of the law to say you have to have a three-fourths vote to go into executive session. That is incorrect. My memo sets forth this in detail in three pages. And the conclusion is to say you had to have exigent circumstances is a misinterpretation. To say you had to have a three-fourths vote is a misinterpretation. However, counsel could have provided more details as to the purpose, exact purpose, of the executive session, which was for a proper purpose. And furthermore, I could have clarified before adjournment after counsel went out of executive session that the matter was never discussed, as Mr. Jones indicated. I'm going to close that out and see if there's anything. I certainly welcome comments, but Mr. Jones is correct, Mr. DuBose is correct.

» And why are we spending so much time on this? Why? Because it seems boring and innocuous, and yeah, well, it is kind of innocuous, but the public needs to know and the press needs to know that we operate on the clear rules that are transparent and well understood and I think you've come up with a useful suggestion Jimmy and we'll make sure we do that but I'd like to also ask you to make sure that the media gets a copy of this and if you could correct second third pages that say of two pages and not three okay thank you mr.

» chairman all right I'm real good at reading stuff all right any other comments jimmy go right ahead i would like to say this that uh the chronicles no fan i know i'm they're no fan of mine i know that um they don't put a whole lot into what i do up here but i'll tell you what i want to commend martin khan i will tell you why i want to commend him because i know this council wants to make sure everything's put out i know that but i'm glad that he he is a watchdog on that okay and i wish more of the media would get involved and make sure that politicians and bureaucrats are walking a straight and narrow so you know heavy said that because they really agree with me but they probably will agree with me on paying him a compliment and I do that for no other reason than it's I mean it and it's the

» truth so I would like to thank Martin Conwood Chronicle for doing that even though they don't post my articles as much as they should thank you okay that I think we're ready to move to a motion to adjourn there's no EXECUTIVE SESSION. CAN I HAVE A MOTION? MOTION TO ADJOURN, MR. CHAIRMAN. MR. TUCKER, SECOND. SECOND, MR. GARDNER. DISCUSSION. ONCE AGAIN, I WANT TO THANK THE CO-SCOUT TROOP FOR COMING. WISH YOU ALL VERY WELL AND YOU DO US A GREAT HONOR BY BEING HERE. WITH THAT, WE MOVE TO A VOTE. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, SIGNIFY BY RAISING YOUR HAND AND IT'S UNANIMOUS AND WE ARE