Full meeting transcript - March 11, 2025

» - Danny, Danny, everybody good? - I'm glad that you're back. I've been stealing your seat and everything out here. - You see John Lane? - I'm gonna make sure. - I don't see him, watch out. - Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for coming out to this Tuesday, March 11th, 2025, Kershaw County Council meeting. We've been called to order. We have an invocation and Pledge of Allegiance coming up next. Unfortunately, Councilman Tomlinson can't be with us tonight in person.

» going to be calling in at some point i believe he's got a family emergency he's attending to and uh we'll have the invocation by councilman cato let us pray the most kind and gracious heavenly father we just come to you tonight and we just thank you thank you for the privilege to be here and to conduct the business of this county darren father i just thank you for each and every one that come out tonight lord we just lift them up to you lord i lift the ones that are sick, bereaved up to you today, Lord, I just pray that you would put your caring and loving hand and wrap your arms around them and be with their caretakers. Lord, just be with them, love on them, and give them peace and comfort.

» Lord, I ask for the blessings of men and women that serve in our armed forces, dear Heavenly Father. Wherever they may be, I just ask that you would be with them and their families, for the ones in law enforcement, fire, and EMS here in our county and throughout our great nation, Lord, I just ask your blessings of protection on to him then father we just thank you for each and every one that takes the time for public service and they're having a father I just ask that you be with them and their families because it's a family thing dear Heavenly Father just leave God and direct us now as we go forward tonight in this meeting help us to conduct ourselves in a way to be pleasing unto you of course in Christ's name we pray all right gentlemen that takes us to adoption of the agenda we have mult

» iple changes to the agenda tonight we'll go first through removals or deferrals seek a motion uh to remove yes sir i'd like to make a motion that we approve the agenda as uh submitted and then we can go through the amendments if you like yes sir sure is there such a second i got a second okay any discussion on that yes y'all need to respect the chair and let him finish i was gonna get there but i'm happy to i always defer to two decades of experience roughly okay all right so no further discussion on the agenda as it is I'd seek a motion to remove item number 12 B based on the administrators request their second and a motion what I make the motion that we remove that from the administrators request I'll second okay we've got a second any discussion yeah mr.

» chair did you say 12 B that's 12 B and I'm gonna take these gotcha I'd like to take these as a group if we can all at once and so the removal would be 12b there would be a deferral of 11b to the next meeting for march 28th 2025 and then we'll have two additions to the agenda there'll be two executive sessions one's based on personnel matter exigent circumstances one's based on a contractual matter exigent circumstances and that would be the overall group um motion where would the executive session the two new ones go those would go as new items under 17 e and f yep 17 e and f executive sessions the one executive session 6a would remain in its current location is it one contractual two personnel one contractual one personnel yep so the motion to amend to cover all that so i'd like to mr chai

» rman if i can amend my motion that we defer item 11 b bravo until the next meeting i would like that we take off the agenda item number 12 bravo as requested by the administrator and to approve two uh executive sessions one being a contractual matter another one being a personal matter i would like to add one to that group also sir okay you you i have one i'd like to add to that oh okay we'll see if he'll yield there's one other i think there's one other item to um add the word resolution under 8a resolution of respect yes sir resolution of respect for the sly robinson matter yes um so i include that in my motion okay is there a second second we got a second any further discussion on the agenda seeing none all in favor ms hannis unanimous by those who are present i still don't think we may

» have mr thompson yet uh mr chairman i'm on okay how do you vote yes all right it's unanimous ms hannah thank you very much all right we've got the uh agenda um motions taken care of now we have to approve it as amended okay seeing no further discussion all in favor it's unanimous by those who are present mr thompson how do you vote i vote in favor okay it's unanimous hannah thank you very much all right we've got the agenda ready to move forward thank you mr dubose that takes us to item number five public comments we have three speakers first speakers lynn conto equine task force okay ms canto lynn canto 1265 sanders creek road i want to thank you for looking at an equine task force this joint group will focus on the success of our equestrian community is very much needed and appreciated an

» d i hope you include their input when working on the comprehensive plan again thank you for looking in a joint task force with the city it's very much appreciated by the community thank you thank you miss konto mr dubose next speaker is i believe it is gray lawrence gray internet at home mr gray yes um greetings everybody my name is lawrence gray um thank you for giving me opportunity to speak i don't know this is the right place to bring this to but um i've been here for a couple years i'm a 12-year military vet um i've been here i'm sorry i've been here in the air about two years um i've been working home from home for the last one and And I'm the only house on the block that doesn't have a line of internet.

» I've been paying a lot out of pocket for the last year or some change just to get with internet service. And I've talked to the phone companies and the cable company out here. They don't know why it's not a line there. And they're telling me it's like $5,000 to $15,000 out of my pocket to have to run a line there. So I was just wondering if there can be something done to help with that issue.

» to make it a lot easier for me appreciate it thank you for coming out and sharing that tonight do we have his contact information yes phone number is listed what about us no address is listed yeah if you could give your address that'll be easier for someone to contact you try to help with the issue mr debose who do we have next tom webb the third litter mr webb It's a German greeting and I ended it by saying today is Tuesday once more and I used to be quite fluent in German 60 years ago but they say if you don't use it you lose it and I lost it but I bring up Germany when speaking about our litter ordinance because it seemed like it's something that could have come from Germany and the poor people there they don't have a bill of rights they can get into awful trouble just by saying somethin

» g putting something online so maybe our bill of rights came to us little ordinance came to us roundabout way could have come across to maybe Maryland and then to Charleston and back up here but the people in Germany didn't take care of their freedom and they lost that apparently JD vance went over and fussed at him a little bit one of them even cried well it was uh irish it's irish appreciation month march and i went out to the irish fest two saturdays ago and it was incredible the amount of people that were there but just before um closing time the wind picked up and it nearly nearly blew us back to ireland it was uh it was good all together and i have ancestry from drumbo county down so i'm acquainted with the wee little people the leprechauns and they're hard to see in march up in march

» and some of them came to me about our litter ordinance they were rather upset about it they you don't want to get a leprechaun too mad they seem to be magical to a certain extent they think that someone is trying to trick them some way with a litter ordinance. They're fiercely independent, don't you know, and they say no one in government can grant them rights because our rights are inalienable. They come with your born or from God. But our little people think that the ordinance is granting us something that's phony, rights to have lawn furniture on private property. Don't we all have a right to have for lawn furniture on our private property, and yet county council has said that they're gonna give us the right to have lawn furniture on private property.

» So if someone can give us rights and we take that, and again, we take another right and another right, I would ask, what about the rights that we don't get? They're not mentioned. So we could be in trouble, we could lose our rights. And if somebody has given us rights, they can take them. the little people the leprechauns came to me and they wanted me to do something for them they wanted me to hand in some leprechaun lawn furniture because they wanted to make a point for all the people of kershaw county out in the boondocks one of them even said give me lawn furniture or give me liberty but for me i'll take liberty well so i'm going to hand in a leprechaun lawn chair just as they ask me to do thank you somebody on council can take it home and put it someplace where it won't be much in the w

» ay and and when the moon is just right the leprechauns will come out to play leprechauns will be leprechauns i want it chairman so that's that thank you very much thank you mr webb mr dubose anyone else that concludes public comment all right gentlemen that concludes public comment. We have one participant in the scheduled executive session still en route, and so under Chairman's prerogative, I'm going to move item 6A to after item 8B so that we can still conduct that executive session. People get called up in traffic sometimes. That happens. All right, gentlemen, that takes us to item number 7A. We have a series of two public hearings.

» The first one is regarding an ordinance by Kershaw County approving form contracts related to the private hangar licenses we've been talking much about it's been tied into the aod and other topics and i'll go ahead and open that up for public hearing do we have anybody signed up by the way mr debose no mr chair okay i'll go ahead and open it up anyone here wishing to speak on the private hangar licenses related to the airport saying none i'll close the public hearing for item 7a the next public hearing is on item 7b we've been talking about this one for a few meetings as well the joint county multi-county business park with lee county related to economic development i'll go ahead and open up that public hearing do we have anyone signed up by the way no sure okay open up the public hearing a

» nyone present wishing to speak on item 7b seeing none we'll close the public hearing and that takes us to the next agenda item public presentations we have some wonderful folks in the audience tonight this item has been placed on the agenda by multiple council members, and I'm not sure which one of you would actually like to make the motion, but we've got it placed on here by Councilman Cato, Jones, and Councilman Tucker, those who are involved in law enforcement, and I'll leave it to you all. I yield to Mr. Cato. Mr. Cato. I'd like to make the motion that we go forward with the resolution of respect and a memorial honoring Officer Sylvester Sly Robinson. Thank you very much. Do we have a second? I yield, Mr. Jones. Second. Mr. Jones has a second. Mr. Cato, you have a floor.

» As I had and many of us had said before, Sly was a very special, special individual to a lot of us in here. Some of us worked directly with Sly over the years. I actually was privileged to work with Sly at a couple different locations or agencies to include the Kershaw County Sheriff's Office and the Inspector General's Office for the state of South Carolina. And so this is equally, I can say equally, dear to our hearts to all of us up here. But I appreciate them giving me the opportunity to read this resolution to his family. And we're going to present it to him here shortly. And I thank Sheriff Lee Bone and some of his staffs here. And they have something they want to do also. So bear with me, and I'm going to read this resolution from the Kershaw County Council. Mr.

» Chair, we'll get to say some words after you read the resolution. Certainly, yes. Resolution of respect and loving memory of Sylvester Sly Robinson, January 12, 1965, to February 5, 2025. Whereas the Kershaw County Council would like to extend prayers and pay respect to a dedicated man and his family, friends, and community, Sylvester Sly Robinson. Whereas, Sylvester Robinson, affectionately known to many as Sly, shared a heart of gold and a smile that would light up wherever he went. Whereas Sly dedicated his life and services to careers in the United States Coast Guard for four years, and in South Carolina he began with the Kershaw County Animal Control and later started a profession in law enforcement with the following agencies.

» Kershaw County Sheriff's Office, the Camden Police Department, the Elgin Police, and the The South Carolina Department of Corrections Inspector General's Office of Investigations and Internal Affairs, the Fifth Judicial Circuit Solicitor's Office, the Kershaw County Detention Center. He worked undercover narcotics, internal affairs, criminal investigations, also as a Camden High School resource officer and a DARE instructor. Whereas after retiring from law enforcement, Sly stayed involved in the Camden community by serving on the board at the Price House, Food for the Soul, and the Jackson Teen Center. He recently joined the staff of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC, Kershaw Hospital while driving ambulatory vehicles for Lifeline.

» Be it further resolved that the Kershaw County Council acknowledges in humble submission to keep the memory of Sly within our hearts and to keep his personality and love for his family and friends and community alive. and i want to highlight something before i turn this over to whoever else wants to speak that last sentence sly had a smile every time you saw him sly had a personality like none you have ever seen before he was sly every time you met him and for that i was very honored to be his friend and to call him my friend mr chair thank you mr kate mr jones thank you well i reached back in my memory i was about to get together back in gosh what was the date on that 1980 something and i was uh hanging around this guy walked up to me he was a pretty sharp looking guy and i think his first

» name was gary he said i hear you're in law enforcement i said well yeah i am he said i got a friend of mine who wants to move to kershaw county and he's looking for a job and i said tell him to contact me he did and then i met that smiling face he came in and it was just automatic i mean i i knew i wanted him to be a part of our department and part of kershaw county and but you know the funny thing but he just stayed long because everybody was snatching him up and uh i i he had a lot of opportunity because people loved him he had a loving attitude and uh like i said i just never knew him to not have a positive remark to make when we would talk i love sly and uh i tell you what he was a tremendous tremendous influence to a lot of folks in this community and is that his grand sweetheart oh my

» goodness what he called Papa granddaddy what your Papa was a very special special man people in this community loved your Papa I'll speak directly to you you grandchildren he's an example for all of us I thought I'd like to thank sheriff Lee bone for making sure we all were know what was going on keeping us informed sheriff Thank you so much, and you reached out above and beyond on that, and I appreciate it, and I thank this county council and Danny Cato, all of you. Like I say, we all have our sly stories, and they're all from the heart. Remember, your papa was a very special, special man who meant a lot to a lot of folks. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the council. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Mr. Tucker, you yielded. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

» So I say to the family, because most of you I have not had a chance to speak with. some of you I have. My condolences and prayers are still with you. There is no set time for healing and grieving. You do that according to your spirits and your way handling things. This was not only a shock to y'all, but a shock to this community, to this county, to this state, because Sly just knew people everywhere, from the tip of Maine down to Florida and he'd go back across the west coast over there to California. It was real deepening when I heard this because my father was in the hospital a week or so before that, and Sly was up there working and had to roll him down to x-ray.

» My dad, who has dementia, COPD, I think he's got everything he can get underneath the sun, but he's still trying to live, told Sly he was the Uber driver. He's going to Uber him right on down the x-ray and not bump that old bad toe on his foot. He was going to kick him. And that week, Dad was back in the hospital for pneumonia, and we got the news that Sly was in the hospital. And my father was really looking forward to him healing and Sly healing at the same time. And when I had to deliver that news, it was taken real hard by our family as well. Gone too soon. But let me tell you something about Sylvester Sly Robinson. Most of us meet friends, enemies, frenemies. Sly always met friends. I don't care who you are, where you are in life. Sly's that type of person.

» When he meets you, just the blossom of love and care and sincere wanting to be your friend comes off of him. And you can feel it. I say this all the time about kids, and I say it about animals. If you've got little babies that don't want to go to grown folks and animals that don't go to grown folks, you've probably got a little devil in them. And both of those, kids, grown folks, animals, everybody loves Sly. It was just the way he was built, the way God made him, and I truly miss him. I probably can tell many stories up here, but I'm not the only one that want to speak. But I'm going to say to the family, y'all hang in there, remember the good times. There should not be a bad memory in your head of your loved one.

» You should always be able to smile, laugh, and cry because it's okay to cry. And I say this because I have not lost a sibling, but I've lost a child and a parent. And it's never been easy. But what you do, you stick together, pray together, stay together, and you will get through this. and allow the ones in the communities to support you. Thank you. Well said. Thank you so much, Mr. Tucker. Council Member's present. Any other comments, discussion? Excuse me. I'd like to offer condolences. I did not know Mr. Robinson, but I can read a room pretty well. You're the first one. Well, I wasn't in law enforcement.

» I've been working in a sawdust pile for the last 25 years, but I would like to offer my condolences to the family and um it's it's it's never easy and may god be with you and in your grieving and healing process and i just i'd like to echo some of sammy's words um christian faith keeps us whole and sometimes it's one day one moment at a time that we do make it through these tough times but may god be with you and your family thank you very much councilman brazel mr shumate any no i mean i everyone else has said it so again i you know thank you guys for coming and i look forward to recognizing i am tonight mr tomlinson anything thank you mr chairman um yes i i will be brief i would like to apologize to the family that i'm not able to be present my thoughts and prayers are with you why i was

» a wonderful wonderful person a kershaw county hero is what he was um february 5th may have changed blythe's life however it didn't change his presence to every single person here in kershaw county i had the pleasure of knowing fly one of the best human beings and public servants i've ever seen in my life we need more people like him and each second your heart is beating lies beating through your heart thank you all for being here i'm honored to be a part of this resolution and proclamation and i apologize for not being there tonight thank you for sharing that councilman thompson i'll share a few remarks before we have the sheriff share what he was going to share obviously we love you and we love sly we support you as a family as best as we can from my personal experience whether it's been i

» nteractions with law enforcement and seeing their service in the community or wrestling in the community or public service and seeing you all serve in the community or politics and trying to advocate for good policies in the community once you know who the family is you see that sly really got it honest and everybody else did too because they're all good people i'm trying not to get choked up but um i immediately trusted sly and i met him when i was young like the young lady sitting here up front i met him when i was very young and i immediately trusted him because my daddy did he introduced me to sly when i was a little kid and from that moment i just was like oh this is my guy you know he introduced me and my dad really loved sly too so our hearts go out to you and this is one of the smal

» lest gestures that we can make and showing that we really value his life what he did and the legacy that he leaves behind there's no further discussion from council members did you have anything to share uh sheriff start out by recognizing the picture sly robinson was you know we got our badge in the sheriff's office and it has it on there blessed are the peacemakers we take pride in that that's a huge part of our job is to keep the peace sly robinson you see that smile there that was that was his his biggest weapon that's why he had the muscles he could take care of himself no doubt about that much of a man that could take care of himself but he chose to use that smile majority of time and i've seen him calm a lot of situations with that smile i hope a lot of our younger guys i know i did

» learned a lot from the waistline that's our ultimate goal one of the things we want to share with you is uh the picture you're looking at this is the first one we've had made like this Council, this is what you're looking at on the board up here. It's what we had put on the frame. We always remember how we remember fly with that big smile. Next thing we want to give the family is there's a lot of flags go out to people whenever they're having their services and all, and this is a very special flag. This flag was the one flying over the sheriff's office at the exact time. I hope you can treasure. Well, it means a lot to us when y'all get me crying. Thank you for sharing him with us. Thank you, Sheriff, so much. Now, to the family, we would typically take a picture.

» So we're going to invite you up here. I know I'm crying. A few of us are crying and emotional, but it's about the legacy. And so we want to create this memory for you in presenting the resolution. If you would like to come up here and join us. Take a vote first. Oh, excuse me. Let's take a vote. I'm just all beside myself. Let's take a vote. All in favor of those who are present as unanimous, Mr. Thomason, how do you vote? I am honored to vote yes. Yes, sir. Mr. Tucker, keep me on track, I tell you what. I'm all over the place with this one. If the Robinson family and the sheriff and any of your staff would come up, please. You're going to have to make a really funny face to get us to follow. Congratulations. Thank you. Council members, sheriff and staff, thank you so much.

» sly robinson god rest his soul appreciate y'all being here tonight family a moment to exit again thank you for everyone who participated in that that brings back a lot of memories as mr jones said we've got to regroup all right that takes us to item number uh 8b gentlemen this is placed on the agenda by vice chairman russell brazel is there a motion yeah i'd like to make a motion do we have uh mr ford and mr kelly in the house tonight all right um so i'd like to make a motion to uh to let them present um regarding algae treatment for lake watery he's had some issues with um with algae as you can see on your screen in front of you and they've got a potential way to treat it and help it help keep it not back a little bit so y'all come on up to the we'll get your second podium all right we got

» a second and you got the floor gentlemen come on up anything further mr brazel no we just looked to hear from them good evening council thank you for taking some time to hear us tonight we appreciate that uh my name is thomas fort i'm the chairman of lake watery association uh if for those that aren't familiar with lake watery association it is a 501c3 public benefit organization that is focused on uh on our beloved lake watery i've also brought with me our water watch committee chairman that's our randy kelly our water watch committee uh for lack of a better term is a group of uh wonderful civic-minded uh soft-to-the-earth type gentlemen that uh volunteer their time to to randomly and throughout the year take water samples and in conjunction with uh funding from lake water re-association w

» ith usc um usc performs the lab analysis on our samples throughout the throughout the year from the lake as part of that and as many of you know water's been a very popular topic this year with the charlotte interbasin transfer well uh when des formerly dhec needs a data for their water quality modeling they come to our water watch committee for the data it's a collected in such a method that it provides much more high resolution information on the water quality and and allows them to do much better water modeling. In addition to that, they are also working on the algae program with us. And before I hand it over to Randy for a minute, just wanna let you know what we're here to propose today is a really a wonderful community effort to try to address the algae on the lake.

» I'm gonna hand it over to Randy to give you some context and background on the algae problem. And then I'll follow up with our actual proposal Randy. Good evening. Good evening. Welcome. I appreciate the council having the chance to speak for a few minutes tonight to share some of our misery with you. I would start by introducing you to the villain in our story, which is this scum, algae, mats that you see floating on the surface in this picture, commonly known as lingvia. It goes by a lot of other names that I have listed there, but we generally refer to it just simply as Lymbia or algae. But it's bad stuff, the simplest way I can say it. It's ugly, it's nasty, it's potentially toxic, especially to pets if they swim in it and ingest it. It's impossible to completely eradicate.

» It's never been done. It occurs everywhere all over the country in all kinds of different bodies of water, but primarily lakes. And the best we can hope to do is to bring it under control. And that's what we want to talk to you about tonight. Where it came from is almost impossible to say, but if you look at the body of water that Lake Watery sits on, it starts up at Lake James up in the mountains of North Carolina and flows through cities like Charlotte, Rock Hill, big population centers. The water is used by close to 2 million people as it travels down to Lake Watery, which is in that tiny little red circle down at the bottom. There's a saying that you know what flows downhill, and unfortunately we're at the bottom of the hill in this case.

» So we get everything that that water is exposed to on its way to Lake Watery. And one of the main things that comes down from upstream is nutrients, phosphorus and nitrogen, which pretty much equals fertilizer. It makes things grow in a big way. And it's not certainly the only source of nutrients. I mean upstream. We have our own runoff within the lake, Fertilizer, people fertilize their lawns, it washes into the lake. Pet waste, other animal waste, birds. There's all sorts of sources of nutrients. But the fact for us is that the nutrients are increasing in the lake every year, especially in the sediment. So you can measure what comes in, and these are DES measurements, and measure what goes out, and there's a big difference between those two numbers.

» And so we know that the difference is what's settling out in the water column. So this situation is not getting better. You see more and more development upstream. More open ground that used to filter the nutrients out is now being asphalted under or roofed. And so there's more and more runoff that washes this stuff directly into the water system. And a lot of it ends up right down here at Lake Watery. We did a survey, or actually we've been doing surveys for probably 10 or 12 years. The most recent one was done in 2021, and we haven't done one since then because of the drawdown to do the modification on the dam to put the bladder in. In 2021, what you see here is each one of those blue dots is a site that was identified that has the Lyngvia at that site.

» And so there were 119 sites that were identified at that time, and we estimate that that's approximately 60 acres of lingvia. I wanted to highlight the red circle because we had intended to update our survey back in late September, and our timing was perfect. We were scheduled to go out, I think it was on the very day that Helene came through, and so we had to cancel that survey. We're planning to do another one in a couple of weeks, So we'll have very updated data to share with you. But just looking at, we had one group that got out a couple of days ahead of schedule, and they were able to survey that part of the lake that's circled in red. And as you can see, there are no blue dots in that area, so we didn't identify any algae present at that time. This was back in 2021.

» So if you forward to what we did last September with the group that got out ahead, this is what we saw. This is that circled area on the previous slide that's expanded. And what we saw where we had zero sites back in 2021, now we have 37 just in that one area. That's about a mile and a half linear from, I forget the name of the road on the far left side. Won't come to me, I'm sorry, but it goes down the lake to the general area of where the Kershaw Fire Station, I think it's number 24, is. So it's about a mile and a half as the crow flies. It doesn't count all those coves and everything in there. But we went from zero sighted in 2021 to the 37 sites that I mentioned back in September when that survey was done.

» Another way to look at it is if you look at the circled area, again, that's what was surveyed. We're looking at the 2021 survey, but the red circle was surveyed more recently in 2024. And that area expanded, looks something like this. This goes from roughly Colonel Creek area all the way down to the dam. And there were, at the time in 2021, there were only 15 sites identified, whereas now, looking at this map, there are 58 sites. So there's no doubt that it is spreading and becoming a growing concern. Quick comparison of Lake Watery to a couple of other lakes.

» Lake Gaston, which is not a Catawba River lake, and it's not a Duke Energy lake, it's a Dominion lake, but it's a good lake to compare to because they're fighting a very serious algae problem that went unaddressed for a number of years and now you almost have to say it's difficult to control. And compared to Lake Norman, which is a bigger lake, but they discovered the Lyngbya in that lake just a couple of years ago. So if you look at the surveys, one of the key indicators is the number of points with Lyngbya compared to the total number of samples. And real quickly, Watery, we estimate, as I said earlier, 60 acres as of 2021. Gaston, in their 2022 survey, estimated 1,285 acres, which is almost overwhelming.

» And then Norman, because they just discovered it within the last couple of years, they only estimate 10 sites there. The thing to really focus in on is the budget that it's taking to control this. we don't have a budget at this point even though we've got a an issue that's somewhere in between these two lakes lake gaston with its 1285 acres for this year 2022 they spent 718 000 in chemical treatment controlling to try to get this program under control and again like i say you don't eradicate this stuff all you can do is hope to control it they've had good success in some areas some some areas in four and five feet of water you can now see a sandy bottom whereas before it was completely choked off like that picture i showed a few minutes ago but looking at norman and the small expenditure wh

» ile it's still small gives a good indication of what can be accomplished if you tackle this early like i say we're somewhere in between on this so our cost is going to be estimated to be somewhere in between those two numbers, not anywhere near what Gaston is spending, but still pretty substantial. This is an eye chart. I apologize, it goes back several years, but the thing to focus on here is the far right column for Lake Gaston's treatment program. That budget now has continued to grow every year. It's now approaching a million and a half dollars a year. You can look on the left and see some of the sources of funding.

» I'll delve into that just a little bit more, but the point is that the longer we wait to address this, the more it's going to cost without question, and it can get outrageously expensive as you can see. So there's many participants assisting with this on Lake Gaston. You can see the surrounding counties, I think there are five, are contributing now about $116,000. This is yearly. this is an ongoing program, and then others like the City of Virginia Beach, Lake Gaston is the source of drinking water for Virginia Beach, about 40 miles away, so they're contributing a lot. But it adds up to about a million, too, and most of that money goes to purchasing the chemicals and plying the chemicals, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a second.

» If you look at Lake Norman, similarly, they've got help from the surrounding counties, but also Charlotte Water and the City of Charlotte and Duke, mainly contributions in kind, like offering technical assistance and surveying tools and that sort of thing. Again, there's a broad spectrum, but the earlier we address our problem, the less money that we'll have to commit to it. The Catawba Water Re-Water Management Group is providing for us, like they do in the North Carolina lakes, the financial administration. In other words, any contributions that go towards this project will be managed and dispersed by the Catawba Water Re-Water Management Group. That was formed in one of the more recent relicensing efforts.

» Duke is an anchor sponsor for that and the members are all of the drinking water processors that are in the basin. And that includes, of course, the city of Camden and Lugolf Elgin Water. So it's a really good group, very influential group, focused on much more than water quantity, which you would think would be their main interest, but they're also now spending a lot of time on water quality as well. So we're fortunate to have that group to manage the financial administration for us. And finally, just a word on the treatment program itself. There are models for this. Lake Gaston is one. Norman, Wiley, Mountain Island up in the Charlotte area are models that we're learning from, and we're using a lot of the same people that they use as resources.

» But we will be treating in the warm weather months, typically six treatments in a year, monthly, April through September. There is, I guess, a global expert in Lingvia in Clemson. Dr. John Rogers is a retired professor up there. He's agreed to come on board and be our treatment program administrator. We're very fortunate to have him. He will make prioritization for the treatment sites based on some of the criteria you see there. It's done very objectively without regard to who the biggest contributors are or property lines and that sort of thing. It's going to be based on the most urgent needs for treatment. So we're glad that we can be objective and get that done fairly. The applicator itself is a company called Aqua Services out of Alabama.

» They're also the treater for the North Carolina lakes I mentioned. And they use airboats, and they use a submersed advanced application technique where they can treat the algae on the bottom where it lives. You don't treat the mats. You go down to where it lives. And they have expert or highly automated surveying equipment, very detailed, and they're really, really good and experienced at what they do. They are probably the best in the industry, and we're fortunate to have them as well. The chemicals are safe, everything is easy. Sir, let me pause you right there and just see if we have a motion to extend the restriction on public comment or public presentations for 15 minutes. Is there a motion? Yeah, I'll make a motion. Is there a second? Second.

» All in favor? Sorry, it's just a time constraint. I didn't have a timer going either. You're fine. 30 seconds, I just wanted to say. No, take your time. Chemicals are safe, all EPA approved, safe for irrigation, fishing, swimming, no health risk at all in the chemicals. Plus, they're colored so they're very visible. You can see when they're applied, and they dissipate very quickly as well. I wanted you to finish that thought. We've got a motion and a second, so let's go ahead and take a vote. All in favor? Once I get started. It's unanimous by those who are present. Mr. Thompson, how do you vote? I vote yes. Yes, all right. And we might have some questions, too, from council. Okay. The last comment I was going to make is that we have to keep in mind that it is a multi-year program.

» It's not just one year, but it will be ongoing, hopefully four years. Thank you, sir. Any questions or discussion from council? Mr. Brazel? Yeah, well, I'll add that we all know that Lake Watery is a very important part of Kershaw County. One of the most, if not the most, important natural resources is our river and our lake, obviously. We want to help take care of it, keep our waters clean, and I think the shot that you had for us, the aerial photo, was Ski Alley. So everybody likes to fish and ski and enjoy the lake. We want to keep it clean. I appreciate you bringing the information forward so all of council could see it. You know, we talked on the phone. Everybody needs to be educated and kind of on the same page. We look forward to working with y'all and keeping this problem at bay.

» Yeah, of course. Yes, sir. Just real quick, you know, I wanted to point out a couple quick things if I have a few seconds left there. Go ahead. You know, in the fall when the community starts complaining about the smell and taste of their water, sometimes the media blast us, you know, for that. And also, you know, when these algae blooms are left unchecked, they can often progress into a harmful algae bloom that produces toxins that are poisonous to our pets, to our people, you know, if they come in direct contact with it. And can at times, if it gets really bad, you know, severely impact humans if they're directly impacted by it. And this is often, you know, posted in the media, you know, for all the counties surrounding Fairfield, Kershaw, Lancaster.

» So it's really not good, you know, as far as water quality, safety for our pets. You know, it's also bad for economic growth and welfare, you know, to have our county blasted over the media for this negative publicity. So I would encourage everyone to consider taking steps to address this currently. One thing I wanted to point out is we've put together this proposal, Ms. Hannah passed out, I believe you should have one at your seat, where we've already had informal conversations. Well, actually, this proposal has been formally adopted by the Catawba Watery Water Management Group, specifically Brad Busey is who we're working with. I believe he's the vice chair at large, and he's also one of the Lancaster County water directors over there.

» he's worked closely with us he's taken this proposal to the catawba watery water management group and they have formally approved to adopt our proposal to perform financial administration and procurement for the plan in addition to that we've had informal conversations or he has with camden water lugolf water lancaster county chester and chester water and those conversations have been positive and they are very receptive to the proposed amount or the proposed plan i think most of the others you know i've kind of look at kershaw and fairfield and the two water utilities uh as our primary sources here uh as we have the the biggest benefit to the like of as most i think would agree um i believe from my understanding lancaster is going to seriously consider a significant contribution not quite

» up to where we are but significant the others are very receptive DNR allocates 30,000 a year annually. They have just added that to their algae, to that funding source. So they're now, you know, for 20 years, we've been telling our residents, there's nothing we can do, DNR won't do anything, or we've, you know, relegated them to research, you know, and quite frankly, our community and all the counties are kind of sick of hearing the deniability of what we can do or the, you know, it's being relegated to research. There's clearly approved, safe methods to deal with it now. It's not cheap, but it is out there, and if we all band together in a community effort, hopefully we can at least start to make some meaningful impact on it.

» DNR, of course, has added that algae treatment to their allowable list of invasive species that money can go to. We do hope to work with DNR to improve that amount. It needs to burden on the counties in the future, but that will take time. Duke has told us they're pretty much doing the same thing for all the lakes. Lake Wiley also has a treatment plan. They've just got started, so we're not the only one in South Carolina with a proposed treatment plan, and Lake Wiley has actually started theirs, so it is being done in South Carolina as well. But Duke generally has donated $5,000 to each plan, while theirs were significantly less, I think, with Lake Norman having five acres and I think Lake Wiley having 11.

» You know, ours is significantly more, but they are willing to contribute the $5,000 to each. Let me pause you right there, because what you're going into is going to require the county to interact with each of these potential partners for funding, and so it would be a future item that we could vote on. We can't vote on this particular matter.

» It sounds like we need some homework that we're going to have to do and some research, and I just wanted to check, are there any other questions or comments from council members at all? no i think um and i think we're about to hit our time limit again do we have to reset it so i want to thank you for being here um i think we get the gist of things you and i've talked um certainly want to help no question there um just ask all of my fellow council members to consider that uh lake water is very important natural resource and we'll consider that in this budget's cycle thank you thank you mr brasil if i could mr cato i want to thank you all for coming out um i do have one question i've seen some of this stuff in local small lakes and local ponds and i know that that's probably a concern that it

» could get scattered from these ponds to to our public lakes is there something that the public can purchase that would help treat their ponds or their their smaller lakes from this algae i see that it's a copper based algaecide is there something that we could buy maybe a tractor supply or somewhere like that that we could treat ponds and stuff with locally there definitely is and this can actually be purchased by them uh for their ponds uh i think it's approximately about forty five hundred dollars an acre to treat um but uh there may be some there i'm not sure what the regulations and oversight you know from the government bodies are i do know that if it's under 200 acres it does not require a federal permit you know if you're treating under 200 acres worth of worth of the uh algae thank

» you mr kato mr jones thank you mr chairman of the county council you know i consider i'm really a pretty smart guy and uh but i had no idea it was this bad and uh i mean that's really alarming you know i think we all have family and friends who live up in lake watery and uh mr brazel thank you for putting that on the agenda as i said as smart as i am i just didn't realize it was that that bad and uh i would certainly support us talking trying to do something to help you folks thank you mr jones mr thompson anything remote um not for right now i would like to see in the future kind of some of the data with the way lake gaston reacted i know i think lake gaston is the is the point of that dominion energy um hydroelectric line and then goes into the chesapeake if i'm off top of my head correct

» uh so the data downstream of that um with the treatment that's currently going on with lake gaston and then also i know that we had the data for lake norman um but with us being the last on the line it's going to have to be a cohesive and i know the catawba river basin you said as a whole is coming together and doing it but what what would be the effects of you know lake watery and how much that would help specifically if the other lakes do not come together um for treatment of it and i didn't if i missed the lake wally conversation i apologize but those are the only things i have i like when we have them back i'd love to kind of get that data on it okay mr thompson we'll make sure that staff requests that particular data and the west staff to also circulate the slides that were shared toni

» ght okay yeah any final thought one thing uh brad bucey with catawba watery water management group would love to set up a funding workshop for all the parties we tentatively have a place picked out at cedar falls on highway 200 just between fishing creek and lake watery we just need the parties to be interested in and be willing to attend and we will set it up for you well we are getting into the budget season and so um i'm sure it's something that council members i've heard would like to learn about so if you can coordinate with our staff in setting up potential dates and letting us know what might work for the stakeholders that would be interesting absolutely thank you all so much thank you you can just reach out to miss hannah and to to get on an agenda we'll work that out you can give m

» e a call all right gentlemen thank you very much that takes us to item number 6a that was um that was moved it's an executive session i'd seek a motion uh regarding an executive session on legal advice for a pending legal matter under sc code 30-40-70 do we have a motion i'll make that motion is there a second any discussion seeing none all in favor of any executive session raise your hand it's unanimous in person mr thompson how do you vote i bet yeah okay we'll uh it passes unanimously miss hannah we'll need the administrator the county attorney and mr lay and there's no vote anticipated for public benefit uh after this executive session mr chair is there a second second we've got a second any discussion seeing none all in favor of leaving executive session it's unanimous by those who are

» present mr tomlinson are you with us yet i am how do you vote on exiting executive session all right we are out of executive session no vote required following executive session that take care takes care of item 6a gentlemen we're on item 9a the minutes do we have a motion i'll make a motion to approve the minutes mr brazel is there a second i'll second mr cato any discussion needed gentlemen yes sir mr chair i will be abstaining because uh due to my absence mr tucker's abstaining any further discussion none sir seeing none let's take it to a vote those who are present favor miss hannah except for mr tucker who is uh abstaining due to absence it's unanimous in person mr thompson how do you vote remotely i vote yes it's union managed by those who are voting ms hannah that takes us to item nu

» mber 10a on the agenda whitingway zoning and engineering placed on by vice chairman brazel is there a motion i'd like to make a motion this is just for discussion and information from my colleagues to uh discuss an issue that that we've dealt with on whiting away all right is there a second second there's a second you got the floor thank you i'm gonna pass these out this is an email that i received from john pool from uh des and that one jamie and i are going to share one oh yeah um and and if you look on the the screen in front of you i know it's a little blurry essentially what this is is 2.38 acre lot that a gentleman's trying to construct a 3 200 square foot building on and due to watershed issues and that sort of thing his engineer made a proposal showing a ditch across the back of it

» to alleviate the water issues that was denied initially he's worked on this I think with with our County engineer Jonathan Hogue right he doesn't Jonathan done a great job we had a great meeting everybody was really enthusiastic about solving the problem essentially what's happened here is he's bought a lot and split it into two lots I thought that would be relevant turns out according to our engineer it's really not relevant to the watershed issue in his engineers second proposal was a pond the detention pond so only 3,200 square foot pretty small commercial building typically you can drive up and down Whitingway there's lots of commercial buildings that did not require detention pond so I dove in to this email from John pool mr.

» pool was quick to point out to me that there was in this let me back up just a minute this is this is a hundred and fifteen page document that contains stormwater policy and regulations and let me tell you if you want to get a good night's rest start reading it a lot of information I know it's necessary but I'm not an engineer so inside that document there was an opportunity for a detention waiver specifically for instances like this for properties one to five acres in size he talks about that in this email so in our meeting we make sure it's not on the back we discussed we discussed the the potential for waiver and it was cited by miss fan delay that Kershaw County was a stakeholder because we have a dirt road that runs behind this property so of course we don't want to mess up the dirt ro

» ad this is this property's well-drained I think it was a mr. administrator correct me if I'm wrong what I think it was drained at 17 inches per hour is what the soil would would handle does that sound right to you and I'm going off a memory we need to confirm that this is for informational purposes only no vote so it's basically a sand hill parts of golf or certainly a sand hill all the other properties seem to be okay and i would just like in the event that he obtains a waiver in the event that his engineer proves that he does not need a detention pond it's going to save him well it won't save him the entire amount but it's going to save him a significant amount of 177 000 i think was what he told me the project would cost to build out including this pond which was probably the lion's shar

» e of that cost um so he's he's just trying to move forward with his building project and we were looking for a solution and um i will say everybody was pleasant kind and um willing to accept the uh the waiver if if approved by his engineer so i just i don't i don't know that a vote is necessary from council It may be if something's brought up about the road being next to the property, the dirt road, but that's really all I have on the topic. Thank you. Mr. Vice Chair, if I may. Yes, sir. Go ahead. So none of this with the waiver or any decisions come from us. It's going to be DES, correct, that actually grants this? Well, they would grant the waiver, and we would have to accept it.

» So our engineering department, in the meeting, our engineer, Jonathan, did say, verbally, we didn't have minutes. He did say that he would be happy to accept it if his engineer proved that this was a viable situation. And I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth. But Danny was in the meeting. Mr. Jones, Councilman Jones was in the meeting. Gerald was in the meeting.

» so um my question more so is if you don't mind is is there any um since this is a ruling coming from a state agency does council need to accept that so our staff can accept it or will it be acceptable mr the bows through conversation between the two bodies i think this is a pure permitting issue under our regulations and their interplay with uh des um yeah this is outside of the ms4 i believe so it is primary the the permitting area it does double check them but yeah the council can't override a permit but the bigger the bigger reason for for me bringing this to everybody's attention is the fact that there's a dirt road behind it and that was brought up in the meeting so i i don't want to maybe i'm being overly cautious but i actually probably put about 10 hours um work into finding all the

» se things and setting up a meeting and so i wanted to see it succeed thank you for your work well the good people trying to do good things in our county so quickly we want to help support them if we can mr tucker you have the floor you done yes sir mr john thank you i was in the meeting and i i really appreciate all parties working together um i absolutely mr uh brazil yes sir i absolutely support your uh thoughts on this and i appreciate all the hard work you've put into it i think this is the right thing to do you know life is not black and white they're gray areas and we can't go around just even our own engineer said this was too much bureaucracy but he has to enforce the bureaucracy i happen to disagree you don't have to do anything but die and pay your taxes but bottom line is we've c

» hosen that path to go out there and all of these laws to the t i disagree with that however i i really really hope that we can work this out of course it looks like it's in the hands of his engineer right russell i think at this point yes sir mr temperament am i right on that pretty much in the hands of his engineer correct they they have the burden of production to go and get this waiver and prove that any elements of what that waiver involves thank you mr jones any further discussion mr thompson anything remotely no sir i do not have anything all right thank you gentlemen that takes care of item 10a no votes required thank you mr brazel your voice that's good what's that all right that takes us to item number 11a this is the third reading on the joint multi-county business park we've alre

» ady had two readings on it and seek a motion i'll make the motion mr brazel is there a second second mr tucker has a second anything mr brazel no i you know this is formalities that that we have to do to uh to work with uh development issues and um helping helping businesses be here in kershaw county so let's let's just knock it out and keep promoting kershaw county to manufacturing and whoever else wants to come here and put a put a workforce together we're open and ready to do business so thanks so much thank you mr brazel any further discussion comments or questions hearing none on third reading put it to a vote all in favor raise your hand for those who are present Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous for those who are present. Mr. Tomlinson, how do you vote on item 11A? I vote yes. Ms.

» Hanna, it's unanimous, and it passes third reading. Thank you. 11B was removed from the agenda. That takes us to 11C. This is a second reading related to code of ordinance and utilities. This is kind of a cleanup, as we discussed last time, but let's get a motion. Do we have a motion? I'll make the motion. Mr. Brazel, is there a second? Second. Is that Mr. Tucker? Yes, sir. Mr. Tucker has a second. Mr. Brazel, anything? No, we've kind of been through this and discussed this as well. Our sewer is very important, obviously, to many things here in Kershaw County, including economic development. And if we needed to make a few amendments to make a few provisions clearer, I don't have any problem with that. So thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Broussel.

» Any further discussion? Can I get some clarification? Mr. Jones? I just want some clarification. Yes, sir. Go ahead. I said I want some clarification. we'll let the attorney we'll let the attorney clarify do you have a question or what's the i want some clarification on what particular point what is it that you don't understand about clarification well i mean i'm being nice i didn't mean that ugly in no way yes well the ordinance has your arms get bigger every time you come in the the ordinance has multiple provisions um mr dubose if you feel like you can answer the question on you understand what I will just give him the clarification he needs yeah and the county is a does pretreatment of industrial waste under that delegated pretreatment authority from EPA and DHEC you have to make sure t

» hat your ordinance complies with the Code of Federal Regulations during the last review of the pretreatment program DEHEC at the time now DES recommended just some reorganization of the ordinance to make it clearer and make it track with the code of federal regulations more closely a specific example that is an existing section 32 - for a within that existing code section the body paragraph sets forth a bunch of compounds and limits those limits DS at the time said are those your local limits they look like your local limits again this reorganizes kind of the existing language to make it clear make it track code of federal regulations more precisely so again capsule summary is it is primarily a cleanup ordinance to make sure that the pretreatment program satisfies the heck and the requireme

» nts of code of federal regulations thank you Thank You mr. year and just one one last point of clarification since we talked about last time um between the transition from dhec to des and personnel turnover and different assignments and responsibilities within that organization it looks like some of what was supposed to be followed up on fell through the cracks either on the county side with staff turnover or at the state level with staff turnover and so this is now addressing those things that need to be aligned okay all right thank you for the clarification you're welcome any further uh comments or discussion mr thompson anything remotely i do not have anything all right on second reading let's bring it to a vote for those who are present all in favor raise your hand miss hannah it's unan

» imous for those who are present and voting mr thompson how do you vote i vote yes miss hannah it's unanimous it passes second reading all right gentlemen this takes us to item number 12 a on the agenda approval of grant match funding for pecan orchard and i believe uh staff put this on any brief summary needed before we uh yeah just really quick it this just authorizes me to send correspondence to rural infrastructure authority to engage in a grant application for the pecan orchard drainage improvements out there the local our local match is 25 and before we get a um a motion that amount would be roughly two hundred and thirty five thousand dollars one hundred two hundred thirty five thousand one hundred thirty six dollars and so this would be a contingent commitment to spend the money base

» d on grant approval the correct all right with that understanding do we have a motion I so move mr. Jones makes the motion is there a second yeah I'll make the second mr. Brazel mr. Jones well listen I just pray everything works out did we get the money because those folks really really need some help and I'm not going to go on and on but they are probably in the worst situation of anybody any other subdivision in our area right now and i'm not i'm not going to echo everything i've said before but i appreciate staff staying on this and moving forward with it quickly i'll appreciate it more if it passes okay thank you okay thank you mr jones mr brazel you have the second yeah so um way i understood it is uh we'll get that that's all the county will have to pay we'll get a 75 match is that co

» rrect correct So what we have on the application is $940,000, and so the amount we're looking at getting is that $705,000 remainder. Okay. Well, I commend you for reaching out for the grant, and I do hope it works out. That would absolutely be the best solution to fix the drainage issues, and I appreciate the work that you put in to do this. Thank you. I appreciate Mr. Jones, too. Mr. Jones has been on this since the beginning, so thank you as well. You're welcome. Thank you, gentlemen. Any further comments or discussion? Mr. Tucker. Yes, sir. Mr. Templer, can you give me those numbers again, and then I'll explain why I don't have any of this information. Wait, what? What did you just say? Can you give me the numbers again, please? Sure.

» So just starting from top to bottom, total project funding for the sake of this grant is $940,542. Yes, sir. The local funds matched that I asked to be authorized to commit is $235,136. Yes, sir. Which creates a request for $705,407. And there's an expiration period, too, isn't it? sir for the grant yes we are on the clock for the 17th of march in so these are these are not any kind of uh skip monies or anything like that that expire funding wise this is state um this these are state funds where we only have uh two two opportunities throughout the year so this is timely the 17th is a deadline so okay so today's the 11th so we wouldn't be able to have another meeting prior to the vote so this is definitely the cheapest way for us to fund fixing that problem I've seen that problem with my own

» two eyes I've got many friends that live in the in the neighborhood and it is a concern a tremendous concern so I do encourage this would be the cheapest way to tackle it so back to my questioning is um whereas first and foremost I know this was referred back to the finance committee last meeting unfortunately due to my schedule i have not been able to meet with the finance committee and i'm just getting in these numbers um are you talking in your mic yes i am all right and with that being said um where has these funds been identified from mr templer we would look at our capital reserves it's a one-time capital project correct emergency reserves mr templar no just our customer yeah hold on please mr tucker still has a floor and what's our balance on that roughly now um i don't have the spec

» ific numbers but this they are sufficient to cover this my only concern right now is i know uh we haven't started our um budget committee meetings and we've got some proposed dates coming up and i know this is time sensitive i'm just really concerned about the capital request that i know is coming up it's already exceeding what we have in there and we've got to do some creative budgeting for 25 26 and i'm not telling you this is not a worthy project but at this particular time for me i can only speak for me i can't speak for the committee um i i need to study this a little bit more and see if that's going to be a wise decision and spending 235 000 with the demands that we also have in obligations back to the departments mr chairman mr tucker you don't at this time i am yeah oh he'll be comi

» ng back he'll be coming back oh i've got to i got to hear from anybody else that wants to hear i haven't spoke yet any other comments well i'd like to continue to advocate for it because well mr jones has got the floor if if no one else wants to speak that hasn't been heard from yet sammy i can't believe you believe the words just came out of your mouth you know you'll find 10 million dollars to build ball fields but we're talking about we're talking about a neighborhood that is being destroyed i mean that's insulting it is i mean i just cannot believe you know you have you'll spend money like a drunken sailor but then you'll turn this down i just absolutely do not understand it and listen how much did he say mr templar we had we barely had two hundred some thousand dollars in the how much

» do you have in the reserves capital reserves I don't have that exact number, so I don't want to- Okay, do you have a general idea? But it's sufficient enough to cover this. What is sufficient? I'm not trying to be ugly with you. I just want some- It's enough to cover. I have enough money. But it's just enough to cover, maybe. What about our emergency funds that we had whenever this first happened, and you went out and looked at it, and you were so alarmed, you were ready to create a disaster and pull it out of our emergency reserve funds, which we had $2.6 million sitting in? $2.3. Well, $2.3 because we had to pay $300,000 off our study. You're right. Mr. Jones. You want me to what? If I may. All right, go ahead. I yield the floor for just a moment. Mr. Brazel.

» I'd like to continue a very positive. I'm trying to keep it positive. Advocation for this community. I know that this is a very sensitive subject and very passionate topic for Councilman Jones, as it should be. He spent countless hours looking at this issue. I support and understand 100% the reasons why this does need to be done. If we don't do this, our administrator can attest, in a private meeting, I asked him if we could do this ourselves internally for $200,000, $250,000 and save money. He said we do not have the resources to do it. This is probably not the way I would have approached it, but I think the way he approached it through his connections at the state level, I think this is very smart. I think he's done a good job.

» and i want to continue a very positive um advocation for this project uh from my colleagues this is the cheapest way it's going to happen mr chairman mr schumacher yes sir yeah so just briefly i i don't think you know the you know comparing some of the other expenditures that were mentioned to to this is a little bit different i think that you know i don't think it's productive to attack anybody for what they're going to do i do want i do want some clarification because i think there's been some statements and i just want to make sure that we go into this eyes wide open mr templar am i correct that even if we do everything that the engineer recommended to us it will only provide relief for half the neighborhood is that correct correct so half the pecan orchard will not ever be fixed by any

» of this stuff correct well i understand i just and i'm not saying i'm going to vote against it i just want to make sure because i don't want people to see this vote as i oh wow pecan orchards flooding issues will be fixed this is a neighborhood that was built uh not with county approval and county took it over later admittedly but it was built on basically a floodplain so half the property owners that are having issues will see no relief with this and if i'm also correct of the half remaining only half of that 25 percent is really guaranteed some fix the other 25 percent it's possible they'll get relief is that also correct correct and just for the record the spirit of this project is just to handle the storm water that comes from county roads within there right so i just again i just want

» to make that clear because i don't want it you know a few months down the road i just want to be clear if i may sure i'm 20 plus years familiar with this property um i'm not an engineer but i'm a redneck engineer i do have a license in redneck engineering and i can promise you it'll alleviate more than 25 percent of the watershed it's got to there are no ditches every pipe is jammed up with dirt every junction box is jammed up with with sand and silt it's a mess it it's literally a mess people's ditches are flush with the road um it's we didn't cause the problem but we were handed the problem 20 years ago and at the end of the day if we don't do this i'm going to make a formal request from from our department to start crowning the roads and cutting the dishes out because it is a county road

» at the end of the day and they're going to have to figure out how to do it regardless so i think this is like the best approach i think danny's done a good job we've we've feathered the pedal on this thing for a long time you know we didn't try to ram it through i think councilman jones has been patient um the citizens have been patient too the citizens have been patient we i mean i think ben this is maybe before you came back we started this is that right yes but not surprising what's the push it's been it's been well i don't know i don't know that there is any pushback but it's been a it's been a six-month project um gerald blanchard danny templar myself again councilman jones we were all there and there were how many people on site 60 plus pushing 100 a good many i can't remember i mean

» it was a good minute it's i wouldn't advocate for it if i thought it was frivolous i think this is i think this is our best opportunity to make a real impact and i think the real impact is is a heck of a lot more than 25 percent um it's just i know the lay of the land well enough to know that it's going to help everybody some it might not it'll it'll help others more than some more than others i get that but it it's worthy that's anywhere you get and i certainly you know council brad i certainly hope you're right again i can only go off the what i read in the engineer study and again you may be right i'm not here to tell you that i'm saying the engineer is perfect you may be completely right i just want to make it clear if that engineer ends up being right i just wanted everyone to know if

» we get the grant well it'll be 235 of our own money but we'll spend roughly a million dollars to there's a chance we could spend a million dollars and bring relief to less than or you know 25 of the homes i hope you're right well hopefully the county won't have to bear a million dollars if we can oh i agree i mean this this is not a million dollar expenditure this is 235 000 and i think this may be the best of a lot of bad options and i'm not suggesting that right now that it isn't i just um i i understand where councilman tucker's reservations are coming from but also understand where you're coming from i have no quorum with his reservations nor do i have any issues with what you're saying i think i mean i think this is a true fair debate and i think those are those are all fair points - M

» r. Tucker, yes. - Thank you. First and foremost, Councilman Jones, I'm a sailor but I'm never drunken. I don't drink, number one. Number two, for you to sit up here and make apples and oranges comparisons is disgraceful and distasteful out of your mouth. The ball fields have nothing to do with what we're in the act of voting on. And because I'm not willing to always spend reserve money like you are, to fix everything on a one-time basis or a revolving basis doesn't make my decisions bad or wrong. So for the information that I've gathered tonight, with the possibility of only half or 25% of the neighborhoods, I'm not saying that this project is not worthy.

» But I also know what's up and coming with our capital reserves because I've had conversations with the committee, the finance committee, and the administrator. And I can't just consciously sit here knowing what we have for $25,000, $26,000 and just cut off a $235,000 check without having further discussion with my colleagues and being sold on it. So that's why I'm at tonight. However, we agree or disagree does not make my decision any more wrong than yours. Opinion. Mr. Vice Chairman, I'd like to call the vote. No, I guess I'm sorry. Mr. Jones. Yes, sir.

» you know of course i hadn't heard anything from danny over here but let me just say this it could be in bethune danny and i would support it i'm going to always put people before money it's simple and you know rarely are you going and sam you've been up here a long time i've been up here a while let me tell you something rarely are you going to go in and be able to do a hundred percent for any neighborhood but we have a responsibility and an obligation to help these folks and i'm not upset with you mr tucker because you've been wrong a lot and i've been right a lot and and i'm not upset about that that doesn't bother me um and and i respect your opinion this is not the first rodeo you and i have dealt with with each other won't be the last no and it won't be the last but but bottom line is

» i just want to tell my colleagues up here i'm just sort of god just almost at a loss of words i just can't understand why we would not support to help these folks and maybe less it's something personal with some of us i mean i don't know absolutely not i I hope not. Absolutely not. I'm surprised you brought that up. Excuse me? I'm surprised you made that mention. Oh, I can make some comments about how personal it can get. All right. Mr. Jones. Mr. Cato, go ahead. I haven't heard from you yet. Yeah, I was waiting on everybody else to get through bickering back and forth. First of all, Mr.

» Jones, I don't – I'm not – this shouldn't even be about if it was Bethune, it was cassette or wherever this is about kershaw county amen and i agree with you i think something needs to be done i think what we've done tonight is we've totally got off of what we came here to do and we've got into the weeds so to speak i think we need to allow our administrator to do his job and let him go forward and help us find the money that we can we can finish this project or do the project that needs to be done um i'm in favor of it tonight um but we need to we need to we need to stop throwing stones i don't care i'm for the good of kershaw county and for every community in this county and if that means building a ballpark to help our citizens and our young people have something to do and somewhere to g

» o i'm for that if it's for helping somebody that's got a drainage issue i'm for that if it's for helping people raise horses i'm for that but we need to look at the greater good of kershaw county and we need to make sure that it's taken one step at a time and can and trust our administration to bring it to us the best possible scenario and then we can kind of get into the weeds can i say something mr chairman right quickly let me see if mr thompson has any comments mr thompson you got anything remotely um i do not have anything um i would like to add i really appreciate mr jones's hard work staff's hard work and mr brazel's hard work on all of this and i agree with mr cato with um we all we're all here for kershaw county we're all here for the best and um appreciate everybody's hard work on

» this and i look forward to voting mr jones please now if i can let me tell you something you're a true diplomat uh danny cato i think you're the most unutilized individual on this county council you got a lot to offer this county council and too often too many you're overlooked by some of these members of county council but you're very sharp and you come across very articulate and i and i and i agree with you i hope miss tucker heard what you said tonight i i do agree with you on that and uh you know so anyway um gentlemen that's all i got all right i'll just have a few comments before we call for the vote and so i'll be able to support this tonight in part because i i can't look a gift horse in the mouse if it's possible to to get the grant related funding for this project i'm not saying i

» would support it at a full 940. i've got my own questions i think anytime we're spending a lot of the taxpayers money for a particular issue especially at the tune of could be 50 to 60 to 70 or 80 thousand dollars per house for those who are directly benefited we got to look at it real close and i don't fault anybody for having questions but I do think something needs to be done. I think there is water in the area, even though I got on after this started. I've been on council. I think there's water in the area that comes from a road-related responsibility.

» But one of the questions that I haven't had answered yet, and it gives me some pause, though I am encouraged by the potential of the significant grant, is how long would it last? If we do everything that is suggested by the engineers at the full tune and the full bill, how long would it last? How significant would the impact be from the significant watershed from other people's yards because it is built in essentially kind of a bowl low-lying area and so we'll I just want to make sure we spend good money and that it holds and at some point if if folks have water from their yards that starts to impact the county's work on the road which again I think something needs to be done how do you handle it are we looking at another significant capital expenditure in a year or two years or six months

» if there's a real heavy rain and I haven't gotten some of those questions answered directly yet but I do think we need to do something so with that yeah sure if you need it you know guys come on you're not gonna be able to sit here and eat that entire elephant at one sitting you got to take it one bite at a time and I'm gonna say we have an obligation to protect these folks an obligation to make sure their foundations aren't corroding that their septics aren't overrunning we have an obligation to the floods that we looked at aren't going through their yard it could be one individual and I'd be for it and and and and I'm not upset about the way some of us are thinking here tonight you have a right to be wrong but bottom line is folks i'm telling you straight up this is the this is what we go

» t elected for to help the people to look out for the folks this is an emergency this is a disaster area so anyway i'm done mr mr jones just one final thought is i'm i'm i may want to come back on that too go ahead i'm i'm right to be wrong i guess that's okay um if 75 of the water issue in the area is taken care of from counties shedding off the road that still lives over 50 60 70 plus of the water that comes from other people's yards or just pools because it's such a low-lying area so i would not be surprised if we continue to hear about a septic tank issue or some other problem related to a foundation those problems are going to keep coming so i don't think it's appropriate to lord that over anybody and suggest that those problems will be completely rectified and fixed you said you don't

» mind being wrong it will not be corrected if i could just finish my thought you can some of those issues will not be resolved by the county doing 100 of their responsibility and that's the main issue i think that's the main issue primarily if the if the subdivision was built up to standards today it would have had hundreds if not hundreds and hundreds of loads of dirt and filter brought in to raise the level up to where drainage could occur appropriately in the yards as well but it was a beautiful setting they built it with a bunch of pecan trees back in the day and it looks really nice but it doesn't drain real well that doesn't negate the county's responsibility and so i've already said i'm going to support it first for one reading this is not this is not one reading if you look at the ag

» enda you said you said you would support this but you didn't know if you would support if it's not one reading first if you look at the agenda this is actual commitment to spend the dollars commit the percentage for the grant so whoever votes in favor tonight unless i'm i'm mistaken well mr attorney maybe you can correct me is committing to spend 235 000 contingent on grant approval well and so that's what we're voting on it's very serious it's not just one reading no no it is very serious okay so with that let's call it for vote oh mr tucker go ahead i just have one question for the administrator um with this grant um that you're applying for what you think our chances are of receiving it just have you done one before uh we do this this is not a skip grant or anything like that with the st

» ate no this is different this these are the standard funds in the RIA and I don't know how to really gauge our ability to land this grant aren't we dealing with the same great office that helped us with the sewer system who is that we are it's rural infrastructure authority great people but I think it's reasonable to point out that they don't approve every grant so it's just thank you sir thank you very much all right we'll call it for a vote all those in favor of item 12a approval for the grant match funding for pecan orchard as described and discussed tonight raise your hand for those in person we've got mr schumacher mr brazel connell cato and jones in favor and then we'll go remote before we get those against how do you vote mr tomlinson i vote yes all right that's a yes and then all op

» posed we got mr tucker opposed it passes on one vote we look forward to an update on that and please uh send all good vibes you can to miss bonnie as you work with them at ria we we do appreciate them and we appreciate you in this in this setting okay we really do who's gonna do your grant writing danny it's already done okay who did it all right gentlemen that takes us oh go go ahead wrap it up good okay all right that takes us item number 12 c uh equine tax force i place this on the agenda seek a motion i'll make a motion that we uh what are the motion you need are we going to impose the task force i'd make a motion that we put together an equine task force it's an ad hoc committee so it's just a unilateral appointment that i do is there a second second all right no votes required um been

» talking with some folks in the community that are very interested in horse related matters and uh we've got a couple of requests out that we're waiting hear back on one in particular i spoke with the folks at the city of camden i spoke with mayor shaheen previously i see that we have a city council member here tonight thanks for attending as well and it's going to be a joint task force and for us we call it an ad hoc committee that will go until june 1 2025 to start work as soon as possible on reporting back issues and opportunities related to the equine industry in kershaw county and in the city of camden They're going to appoint three individuals, one council member. Mr.

» Tomlinson, thank you for agreeing to serve on this ad hoc committee related to equine and horse issues in Kershaw County. I've spoken with Ms. Linda Moore, who is in attendance tonight. She's agreed to serve on the committee as well, and Mr. Jonathan Bazinet has agreed to serve as well, and we're waiting to hear back from one other person that's already been reached out to and requested. And so that will be the composition of that ad hoc committee. I'll report back as soon as I get a final response on the other. And they'll be, again, working directly with City of Camden appointees on these issues. No votes required. That takes us to item 13A. Seek a motion to discuss and have some further appointments on the Ad Hoc Stormwater Advisory Committee.

» Do we have a motion? I'll make that motion. Mr. Cato, do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. We have a second. All right. rounding this out so staff can get to work on this plays into various levels of what we're doing at the county and preparing for the future we've got two other appointees his chair i can appoint these folks unilaterally and representing the agricultural interest in kershaw county we got brian cox he works at prestige farms and in particular deals with their epa regulations deals with a lot of their interactions with des has a long decades-long history of dealing with some of these issues and so he'll be a great addition and then regarding um a local builder we've got uh mr george delk who is going to be serving on that committee as well we're waiting to hear

» back from one or two other people but this is a critical mass where staff can go ahead and get to work okay mr templar and so if you direct staff to coordinate with these folks we'll provide any other contact information that's required and whatever number of meetings and information that you need for us to make further decisions on stormwater excuse me studies or reports or funding let us know and we'll make sure that we make that happen any comments discussion thoughts on that all right thank you gentlemen that takes us to no again as a reminder mr cato was just asking it's an ad hoc committee and so the chair just able to appoint those folks that takes care of of item 13a under old business that takes us to council member briefings i'll go ahead and start to my left here with uh mr kato

» you have any report i have just a brief a couple of brief things i want to want to bring out uh first and foremost tonight um i sent something out via social media there will be a bridge closing on highway 341 this bridge goes across little inches river right at the county line below abney it'll on 341 between abney and kershaw or lockhart road in kershaw so that bridge will close approximately around march the 24th and they hope to have it reopened on april the 4th pending weather or any other problems that they may run across other than that i would just like to send my condolences to the elaine haney hardest family uh most of you know that this is the former chief magistrate gene hardest's mother she was 99 years old and she would have been 100 years old in june miss elaine grew up in th

» e the Timrod Bethune area, Mount Pisgah area, all three combined over the years. She was a great asset to that area in Timrod Church. And something I learned about her, I knew her all my life, and something I learned about her during this time was that she actually worked in an ammo manufacturing plant for World War II up in Charlotte back in the '40s. And she also worked for the Kendall plant in Bethune, but she was known. She was a resident of Pinedale for the last several years, but she will be greatly missed. And she was a sweet, sweet lady. And my condolences go out to them. That ends my report, thank you. - Thank you very much, Mr. Cato. Mr. Jones, any report? - Yeah, well, one, I'd just like to thank everybody for celebrating Sly tonight.

» That was very important and I'm glad we got through that. And Gene Hortus, you know, has been a dear friend of mine. Bless you. Thank you, thank you. And Gene Hortus has been a dear friend of mine for many, many years. We worked together in the courthouse back in the early 80s. And my heart goes out to him and his mom. And, you know, I don't know how else to say this, but his mother was, I met her once or twice. Didn't know her well, Danny, probably not as good as you. She always liked me as a county council member. I might have been her favorite. But bottom line is, and that's me talking to Gene. But bottom line is my heart goes out to that family, wonderful people, and you know when something like this happens, it kind of puts everything in perspective.

» I know it does with me, that this life isn't forever, and that's why I'm a much gentler kind of person up here, because we've got to realize, guys, that this is not forever, so I'll throw that out there at you, and Jean Hardest, we love you, we're sorry about your loss, and Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Mr.

» Shoemake, any report? uh just want to uh send condolences also to the family uh who lost members there by the river i know the sheriff has spoken at length about that but i appreciate uh recognizing uh those that we lost um you know i also um want to announce um it's been on facebook several times but on march 20th at um 6 p.m i'll be joining the sheriff and the mayor of elgin and many others hosting a town hall event at blaney baptist church we've done one last year or so and it was pretty successful we're going to have representatives it's a place for community members to come and have questions answered we're going to have representatives from local government elgin town council obviously myself i believe mr templar is going to try to make it as well as our zoning folks the sheriff's goi

» ng to be there school district's going to be there dot is going to be there and the elgin police are going to be there so there really shouldn't be a governmental question that relates to the west watery elgin area specifically that can't be answered in that room even if not to your satisfaction so march 20th starting at six o'clock and again it's on facebook if you have any questions you can just hit me up there on facebook but um appreciate the sheriff and mayor emmons for helping me put this together uh that's all that i have thank you mr schumacher mr tucker i thank you mr chairman once again i know everyone said it but my condolences and prayers with the hardest family um and their loss with their mom and i um just want to uh sheriff lee bone said it best with the uh two men and two fa

» mily that died up on the lake um that is rare very rare that people would do for strangers um it doesn't happen um that often i'm not gonna say it never happens but it doesn't happen that often but um lonnie hancock i believe was one of the gentlemen who's happened to be a veteran as well navy that is mr jones um jumped in in his heroic efforts to try to save the little 13 year old boy and end up giving his life on his birthday with his family and wife watching this happen what a tragic event so i'm just going to say as much as i do like to stand my ground and make my points i have no ill feelings when i leave from up here i just fight for what i believe in and i'm going to die on the sword and until i leave here defending this seat this position in this district and you know if you don't l

» ike it or you have problems with it i'm sorry but it is who i am and i have not cast a vote that i regret so thank you thank you mr Tucker. Mr. Brazel. Regarding the drownings, absolute tragedy. I think the only good that I can find in all of it is that the 13-year-old escaped safely. My condolences and thoughts and prayers go out to the families affected and the two men that passed. I will state that the administrator and I have communicated regarding having a briefing with Duke Energy that's that's Duke's boat ramp at in all the the property along the river there was typically maintained by Duke mr.

» administrator correct me if I'm wrong in any of these points but we will try to find a way to improve I don't it's it's a natural river so i don't think there's anything we can do to completely make it safe i was born and raised about five miles away from the tail race and i still live in that that area it's dangerous uh when those when those sirens go off and those horns go off that means the river's coming up and it's going to come up quick and and i'm not sure that that's what happened in this instance but uh this is the second second time this has happened within a year i think that makes three lives lost if not more um again correct me if i'm wrong but i think it's three now within the last year so we will be taking steps and measures to improve on this um to all the families with loss

» in the in the community those spoke about earlier and the robinson family that we had here tonight again condolences to you and your family god's peace thank you thank you mr brazel i share all those condolences that went out tonight, whether it's Sly Robinson or Mark Moore or those who passed away this weekend, just so much loss recently in the community. And we've got to band together. We've got to focus on our faith. Personally, for me, I look forward to the resurrection. And in that, I find great joy for those I've lost personally in my life and for my friends who have lost loved ones. Again, deep condolences go out to all. And on a lighter note, It's my son's birthday today. I just wanted to wish Bennett a very happy birthday. He is a big and burly seven years old and full of life.

» Burly? He is, if you can imagine. And we just love him dearly. He is full of life and has every bit of promise and opportunity in his life, and so I'm thankful for him. I just wanted to say that. Maybe one day he'll watch this and hear that his dad loves him very much. That concludes my report. Mr. Administrator. Just a few things.

» real quick update on some park projects uh mount pisgah community center playground installation is look we hope to be completed by this friday so um talking with danny cato his district up there he's been instrumental in getting that equipment put in up there so we'll look at cutting a ribbon up there on that that's that's a really nice amenity got going in up there um we the boat ramp continues to uh that that work continues to go on we are having an issue with citizens going down in there and getting into the construction zone um they're not really willing to listen to any um any of our staff so this continues to be something that we have to contend with it's it's dangerous and um just something that doesn't need to be happening we'll We'll just go ahead and close the park until the comp

» letion of the construction. We do have a walking area out there. We want to have that area remaining open, but we don't want anyone getting hurt at the end of it. With that, I didn't get a chance to talk about Sly when his family was here, but Sly was super important to me. He got me into law enforcement, him and Mack McCloud, way back in the day. And so I'm a firm believer that you can always look at five people to help you get where you were, and it's just five people. And Sly is one of those individuals. I am where I am. I'm the county administrator today because of Sly Robinson. And he was just an amazing guy. You saw his smile before you saw anything else. And then the second thing you saw was that big hand coming out to shake your hand. And it was like a vice grip.

» And he'd always say, what's up, Dan? when I saw that picture, I could just hear, I could hear Sly. So an amazing individual. And somebody said it, you know, we need more Sly Robinsons in this world, not less. So just an amazing individual. And that's my report. Thank you, Mr. Administrator. Mr. DuBose, anything that's aside from executive session? No. Okay. Thank you. Gentlemen, that takes us to item number 17. We have as amended six items for executive session. I'll take them as a group.

» These are going to be under 30-4-70 of the sc code we've got um in order an executive session matter regarding a potential legal claim an execution executive session matter regarding another potential legal claim a um an executive session matter regarding a contractual matter a potential property purchase we've got another executive session matter regarding a contractual matter related to leases we've got another executive session matter related to a contractual matter and then lastly we've got a executive session matter for a personnel issue and for those six items i'd seek a motion for executive session mike must we go on executive session for the following reasons stated do we have a second i'll say mr schumacher we've got a second all in favor unanimous from those who are in person mr t

» omlinson you expect any action i vote yes vote yes and i was going to mention we we do have one anticipated vote on a potential uh legal claim when we exit executive session we're in executive session second what's up thank you all in favor this hand is unanimous by those who are present which is shoemake brazel tucker connell and um all right um motion to adjourn mr chairman do we have a second second all right we got a second seeing no discussion all in favor miss hannah for the records is the same five voting and mr mr tomlinson is off offline now we are adjourned thank you no vote needed