Full meeting transcript - September 9, 2025

» good evening everyone let's be called to order we are a few in number but mighty in uh in participation here we've got mr tomlinson on his way and mr brazel somewhere in the building and mr jones is on his way as well i believe welcome out to the september 9 2025 kershaw county council meeting we've been called to order we have an invocation and pledge allegiance tonight by councilman derek shumake let's bow our heads dear heavenly father as we always do we ask you to watch over our hearts and minds as we conduct the business for the people of kershaw county and lord please give us the courage to do those things that are necessary please give us the restraint to refrain from those things we need not do and of course the wisdom to know the difference and lord this is a great county and we ju

» st ask that in these trying years to come you watch over this county as you have done since its beginning in your name we pray amen amen i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you councilman she may and welcome councilman brazel all right the next item up on the agenda is adoption of the agenda do we have a motion make a motion we adopt the agenda as submitted uh mr chair mr tucker we have motions is there a second? Second. Mr. Cato has a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move it to a vote. All in favor, raise your hand. Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous in favor by those who are present in voting. Next on the agenda, we have public comments. Mr. DuBose.

» Public comments. There are three speakers. Brian McCarty is the first speaker. Subject is neighborhood. Mr. McCarty. Mr. McCarty here? Yes, sir. Come on up. You've got up to five minutes. It's time for council to hear from the public. Normally, I keep to myself. I live by myself. If you would speak to the mic there's some folks listening remotely otherwise they won't be able to hear you i'm sorry normally i stayed to myself i actually live by myself me and i've got two pets one of which as the saying goes this door is not here for my you kicked in is not here for my protection it was yours but um it's gotten to the point i mean really has gotten to the point and i'm not just the only one out there people don't say anything because they're scared to say anything get my just i mean they reall

» y are i got bullet holes in my house i live out in shepherd acre i can tell you what they call it out there but i'm pretty sure what i'm telling you you know i mean there's gunfire every dadgum day i'll sit on my front porch i ain't gonna joke i'm backslidden used to be the biggest religious person in the world i sat out there one night and my lady friend was on the phone with me and gunfire broke out and it ricocheted right in front of my house down through the woods i mean that's that's bad but um the animal control out there is unbelievable i came back in because i had to go to her house to get a night's sleep just get a night's sleep because i couldn't get shared for trouble i called it three times they were closed i had to call 9-1-1 so i went down to my lady friend's house in georgia

» just to get a night's sleep well you know what i found out when i got back right before i pulled in my driveway there's five dogs in the middle of the road they're fighting over something so i pulled in my driveway i said i'm not scared of nothing mom always said i'm too crazy to be scared or that are too stupid um i wait amongst the bunch of them and you know what i find these dogs has killed a cat and they're shredding it in the middle of the road right in front of a house with kids in it and county animal control keep telling me we can't do anything something's got to be done there's dogs running rampant out there what if that dog that pack of dogs had gotten one of them kids now me i'm gonna tell you something grab me it won't happen i got 110 pound pit mastiff in my house i call big bo

» y i'm not worried about it the roads last year it cut out i had to have a neighbor i paid him to come and fill my driveway in the entire drain was completely uncovered i couldn't get it through my yard i had to drive over my yard to get into my house this past weekend it washed it out again I got out shovels, took pain medicine, leveled up my driveway. It's unreal. Like I say, I don't, like I tell my lady friend, I don't mean, I don't like to complain, but it's unreal out there. Something's got to be done. I can't sleep at night. There's gunfire. If it ain't gunfire, there's fights screaming across the neighborhood. And if I don't do that, I'm scared to take my dog out there. One night, I was out walking my dog. Seven dogs, I could catch them in the streetlight coming after me and him.

» since then i'll go ahead and tell you i don't go out my door without my firearm it's that bad sir it's it's got to stop shepherd acres go down persimmon drive it's not hard to stop them and catch them because there's a double wide on the other side of the road down the road from me i've seen them down there i don't know what they're doing in that but i can only imagine it's a vacant double wide with a huge lot you could sit there and the four-wheelers dirt bikes they tear the road up you agree you mean you scrape it they come out there and they just do donuts all in a row nobody's stopping when does it stop i'm living in the he double toothpicks and it's gotta stop it's like on the weekends i can't call the sheriff's department they're closed i did this past weekend i had to call 9-1-1 to g

» et a cop to come out that's shameful i got all i could give the recording so i got up got my dog ready my cat went to my lady friend's It's a shame that I got to leave the state to go and get a night's sleep so I can work the next morning So what have I got to do? Nobody out there is gonna do anything because everybody scared everybody Your time's concluded, but did you already leave your contact information? Yeah, I got my phone number down there. Okay, it's down. Okay.

» Well, we've got it for follow-up if we could get your full name An address and a phone number we can figure out which council members your district and we'll be happy to follow up sir it's like i said the uh the county dog uh uh what is it the animal control they literally told me put that dog down because we can't get nothing done about it mr chairman yes sir i'm going to say something do you please sure uh thank you one i apologize for being late welcome in thank you so much but let me just say this too okay i ran out of 25 years there's always something that can be done we can do something it's just going to take a lot of work so we don't ever need to be passing off not that i not staffed it i'm not saying which or what but i'm sure mr templer will take care of it i feel very sure he wil

» l because that's a comment our employees should never make to the public there's nothing we can do there's always something we can do thank you thank you mr brown appreciate you i was going to request to danny follow up with jimmy that he made sure animal control follows up with him and see if we can get this information to the sheriff and have the share follow-up with him also about some of this information he's given it's not hard to find them they're out in the neighborhood every day and every night thanks everyone through your name thank you sir who do we have next mr dubose if you could leave you can give it with him yes sir thank you mr chairman yes sir uh eve eve carlin uh constitution miss carlin yes ma'am constitution day event apologies good evening evening good evening my name is

» eve carlin and as most of you know I'm a community activist here in Kershaw County. Tonight I am representing the Kershaw County Democratic Party. We are having a Constitution Day event this Saturday September 13th from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon at the town green in Camden. I'm sure as you all know Constitution Day itself is September 17th and that is on a Wednesday so we felt to enable more the public to come to a community event we would hold it on this saturday september 13th so this constitution day may be the first type of event for the public in kershaw county for many decades and we are having the mayor of camden vincent shaheen who will be giving a proclamation we are having youth speakers come we're having live music of patriotic songs and we are giving out 203 pocket-sized constitu

» tions to anyone who comes to the event especially children so we hope that you all can come we want to extend an invitation it has been in the chronicle independent it has been in the elgin news it's been on social media it's been on some radio stations but i wanted to come tonight to make sure you all knew about it to invite you all to come to be recognized in our audience and to share in this community day honoring our united states constitution so i have some flyers for you all and maybe i can give them to you okay and we invite you to come and we hope you can come your schedules permit for this very exciting day for kershaw county called constitution day this saturday thank you thank you miss carlin appreciate information next speaker is die to bose historic equine overlay mr bose eveni

» ng i have a question for you all has anything been done about the inclusion of a historic equine overlay in the county's comprehensive plan this is vital to the preservation of the horse industry in our county for example the two parcels of the camden training center both in the city and the county boykin camden hunt country and surrounding areas in i.e red fox road and the horse farms along sanders creek road regarding the two parcels of the camden training center lest we forget mrs marion du pont scott's contributions to both the city and the county please preserve her heritage as to the horse world and the equine industry a leading industry in kershaw county by placing a historic equine overlay on these parcels thank you for coming out mr bose anyone else mr de bose no okay that conclude

» s public comments next item on the agenda is number 6a this is a public hearing this is regarding clarification of public hearing notice requirements i'll go ahead and open the public hearing do we have anyone signed up mr de bose no mr chair anyone present uh wishing to come and speak on item 6a on the agenda seeing none we'll we'll go ahead and close the public hearing that moves us to item number seven a approval of minutes do we have a motion make a motion we approve the minutes mr shoemake has the motions or second i'll second it mr brazel has a second any discussion seeing no discussion i'll move it to a vote all in favor of approving amendments raise your hand miss hannah it's unanimous by those who are present voting in favor thank you miss hannah that moves us to number eight a fir

» st reading and title only regarding an updated comprehensive plan adoption. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. We adopt the first reading of the comp plan and title only. Mr. Shoemake has a motion. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Tucker has a second. Any discussion, Mr. Shoemake? So this is the comprehensive plan. While this ordinance is read and title only, the actual plan was approved last night. Is that correct, Mr. Administrator? Correct, - Unanimously. - Yeah, so this is the same comprehensive plan that was approved last night by the Planning Commission. So that document has been publicly available for some time, but it's read here in title only because we weren't sure what final form it would be in. This is first reading.

» It's the comp plan that the Planning Commission unanimously approved after months and months of work. And so this will just be the first reading and we still have these other two readings to make any adjustments. But it's worth noting that this went through multiple public comments led by a very active Planning Commission did a great job with it then it went to a um contractor to vet it for legal uh legal compliance and then went back to the planning commission for a final vote that happened last night it'll come to us these are the steps that are required for us to rewrite the zoning code that's why we wanted to go and get title only reading tonight so that we can start in earnest with the zoning code during the moratorium as soon as we pass this thing in october thank you mr fumate mr tuc

» ker you have the second uh yes sir but i you know and i have nothing to add all right thank you any further discussion council seeing none we'll move to a vote on 8a first reading and title only all in favor raise your hand miss hannah it passes unanimously for those who are present in voting mr administrator any update we need before we seek a motion on 8b no sir okay we've got 8b before us first reading title only regarding a joint multi-county business park with lee county do we have a motion i make a motion that we read uh the joint multi-part in this part for first reading title only mr tucker has the motions or a second a second mr schumacher has a second before we get to discussion um mr debose mr templer for the public would you remind us which project or business it's for yes mr ch

» airman members of council this is um this adds uh project nam into the um the mkip with lee county uh this is over at the old kawashima building building b the backside yeah yes sir okay and so all right thank you mr tucker you have the motion any discussion uh no sir it's entitled only so it's it's as it speaks there you go mr shoemake anything no sir any other council members uh quick question tentative scheduled readings second hearing is september 25th that's a thursday is that correct second should be uh yeah that should be the 23rd third yes sir i want to just clarify that because i didn't plan on being here that thursday i probably didn't either so the public hearing and the second reading is september 23rd 2025.

» that's fine i was ready to do a called meeting because we talked about it last time mr chair yes sir also this uh in in the body of this uh ordinance here it will also amend the process moving forward and how properties are added to our mkips the sponsor the non-sponsoring county will now be allowed to simply pass a resolution as opposed to three votes in a hearing by their council is that a creature of state law that allows us to change the process correct most um a lot of mkips are set up in that way so that the non-sponsored county doesn't have to undertake three readings the expense of the public hearing notice and and timing wise lee county only has one meeting per month so sometimes the tail is wagging the dog on scheduling for for getting these things added and publication would stil

» l have to pass three readings of an ordinance to put property in likewise a property located in lee county would take three readings of an ordinance to place it in kershaw would just have any resolution counterpart makes sense i've got a question and i hope this doesn't sound bad but so i i see all this property that we put into this agreement but i never see nothing coming out of lee county coming to us so yeah so um mkips are a statutory mechanism by which local governments can provide even further incentives to businesses for instance they provide a thousand dollar credit per job created within the mkip towards the business and businesses can also get our industries can get reimbursed for their infrastructure costs to get up and running the again you you have to have a partner county som

» e mkips that i've i've seen including this one are you know the vast majority of property if not all the property that's in there is from one of the counties um but counties routinely partner on these you have to have a partner county and again it's a statutory mechanism by which you can provide further uh economic incentives to the uh industries i believe kershaw county has an mkip as well with fairfield county and there might be yet another uh and keep out there but i know we have one with fairfield and one with fleet thank you yeah thank you mr cato any further questions discussion seeing none we're on 8b first reading and title only so you know further discussion we'll move it to a vote all in favor of passing 8b raise your hand it's unanimous by those who are present in voting which is

» the entire council now miss hannah all right gentlemen that moves us to item number 8c a second reading this is a ordinance amendment to improve and clarify procedures and timelines applicable to proposed text amendments uh mr administrator any other update we need before we seek a motion no sir okay is there a motion for second reading on 8c i make a motion second mr shoemake has the first mr tucker has a second mr she make any discussion uh just to remind everyone this is the this is the ordinance that will change our zldr to comport with south carolina statute to give the planning commission 30 days which is the max allowed under the statute and then if not if no action is taken it can come back to us for a vote that's it thank you mr schumacher mr tucker uh no sir i have nothing council

» members any further discussion seeing none we'll move it to a vote all in favor raise your hand on 8c ms hannett passes unanimously on second reading that takes us to item number 9a placed on the agenda by vice chairman russell brazel is there a motion yeah i'd like to make a motion to uh clarify an ordinance on uh building inspections and inspection fees i'll second thank you um it's on for discussion yes yes just discussion only so we've had i've i've had a few contractors call quite upset with the way they've had to pay for their um their re-inspections and in last last year's budget it was passed that if you called for a re-inspection say you failed your your foundation inspection and someone had to come back out that it would go from 50 to 100 as i've understood it and the way it reads

» is re-inspections 50 for the first 100 for the second re-inspection 200 for the third 400 for the fourth and subsequent re-inspections so that tells me that four hundred dollars is the maximum for re-inspection and i'm gonna need a little bit of clarification because i know it differs if you're building a slab house versus a traditional raised foundation but um i imagine we've got what four or five inspection processes joey would you like to clarify that hey welcome joey thanks for being in here mike please i said yes give us the rundown it's it's a footing a framing and a rough in are those together or separate uh i'll ask our chief building official to join me as he is the uh cross building official obviously it depends on what type of house you're building whole house slab house or crawl

» space sam can we can we get you into the mic i can barely hear you i'm very sorry no it's all right i'm just just going deaf thanks so it's uh depends on the type of house that you're building um different types would be like a pole barn type house a slab house or a crawl space a crawl space for example you go out you do a footing you do a foundation then after that you do a rough end if you were doing a slab house you would do a under slab plumbing and then a slab inspection and then a rough end so there's about the same amount of inspections depending on what it is you're doing but they're a little different so you've got four or five different inspections yes um after rough in you'd have uh electrical to hook up your final electrical and then a file okay so to define a re-inspection a re

» -inspection would be if the guy who dug the foundation failed the footing and he needed a re-inspection on the footing then subsequently he would pay more money right since he failed yes it's any time you fail it doubles in price up to 400 so when you get to uh framing that's a different inspection well it's a different inspection but you don't start over at fifty dollars okay so i don't see how that is defined or clarified in our ordinance so i think the council needs to take that up for a point of discussion and clarification um unless i'm missing something that's just that's how we have seen it since it was passed that's how we determined we wanted it to be so staff just kind of took it that way and went with it good um so no we we didn't just take it and run with it uh it's been done th

» at way for many many years um this is a new law as of this fiscal year correct uh no actually in 2024 no we've always had re-inspection fees the fees went up yeah the fees went up as as a measure to try to eliminate our inspectors and at that time there were two uh we now have three but at that time we had two to not be the quality control for uh uh the builders that's that's who they have on their staff we are inspecting for life safety issues so what we wanted to do was have a progressive re-inspection fee schedule so that it was yes i'm sorry but it was to penalize uh those builders that were not having their staff uh quality control and and and control the the quality of development and building that they were doing on the on the site so uh because otherwise the the the fees fall on the

» or the cost falls on the backs of the taxpayers of kershaw county well it if we're charging four hundred dollars i think we're probably at that point making a profit um may i when you get it when you get to a point i'd like to i can have some insight on that just on the from the finance committee side yeah sure so um i think what i'd like to do is clarify the way i understand inspections is that you would have an inspection for foundation the guy who does the foundation is not the guy who does your electrical or your plumbing or your framing although the general contractor or residential contractor is ultimately responsible for the entire project right so i i see both sides of the equation but i don't think council was given an opportunity to digest and understand the way that this was goin

» g to play out and it made joey just be an unintended consequence lack of communication misinterpretation on either side but what i would like to do is clarify it so i received a call and the gentleman was told that he had to pay eight hundred dollars to get someone back out right and he says russell and i knew the guy from columbia nice gentleman he said i have never in my life i've been building for 15 years or so had to pay an inspection fee this high he said we've had trouble getting clarity and communication as to what all is incorrect we've called people we have not received phone calls back. So I feel like when the inspector's here, I'm going to have to run him down and just hold on to him because if we fail again, it's going to be $1,600.

» And so that's how I became involved in this process. And once I saw this, I realized, I said, I don't think that's right. John Bowes and I talked. I think that was John Wood on a Thursday or Friday. And we quickly determined that something had kind of gone awry and so i think we have a list of incidences in which people were charged more than the 400 is that correct joey yes uh there were nine and five of them were actually a track builder and we have processed those refunds as of today so it was illegal i disagree but i'd like i mean i don't want to cut into mr brazel's time here but i have some thoughts on on that when i have an opportunity to speak here if you don't cover it then i don't like to speak as well so yeah we've got one one time d.r horton was charged a fee of sixteen hundred

» dollars rightfully so okay uh we'll talk about that more later another time they were charged eight another time they were charged eight another time they were charged eight another time they were charged eight so one two three four five five times that they were charged double or triple the maximum amount then a national home builders llc was charged 800 on two occasions and then executive construction was charged 800 and the right group was charged 800.

» um so and we're doing the right thing by refunding the money absolutely um but my question is how do we how How did we arrive at charging fees that exceeded our ordinance? Well, it was, and I don't know if the administration wants to step in with any comments, but it was a miscommunication between finance committee from April of 2024 to the May meeting of 2024 and then the enactment of the budget proviso.

» so it was a total of 4 400 which we again have uh satisfied the the refunding of of those this week good um well i just i want to make sure that people are being treated fairly you know kershaw kershaw county is open for business and if we're open for business from an economic development standpoint those people are going to need homes um obviously we're currently in a moratorium we're currently working on what the future of kershaw county looks like and i think we're doing that the right way i just i want to make sure that that people are treated the way that we would want to be treated and they are i assure you i've heard otherwise i won't elaborate in public but i really want to make sure that people that are in the building industry are treated respectfully because they're trying to pro

» vide for their families and um so am i i have no other motive in this right except to provide a great service thank you sir and and so you know as we are all in it together um i hope that we can just come to a to a conclusion that benefits all of us mr tucker yes sir do you have any thoughts on how the fees are charged because we've had some discussion yes sir i've got some good dialogue i don't want to step on my i was going to say mr shoemake has the four yeah i'll yield to mr tucker and then i'll go after him all right i'll just give you a quick synopsis so we had this discussion in detail in the finance committee meeting the three of us was present and the intent was to i'm going to use the word deter because we don't have a lot of staff in planning and zoning but we do have tremendous

» amount of growth that's going on and inspectors can't stay on sites where we used to be able to walk a builder or a contractor through things we don't have that luxury anymore with staff because of the volume that we're doing so they need to come out and inspect and move to the next home um and they laid out how they're going over re-inspections you know they're they're viewing some places 10 and 15 times and there's no up charge um and basically giving the contractor uh a punch list to go by and that's not our job that's not what they're for and so the intent by the staff and by the finance committee was to double the fees as we come back up to 800 but it didn't get written like that into the ordinance that we passed and there lies the problem so finance committee takes wholehearted respon

» sibility for not communicating that clear but we all voted on the budget up here besides one person i'm gonna leave you out mr jones you never vote on the budget um besides uh one person uh who did not vote on the budget and um i will as the finance chair take a direct hit on this miscommunication on how it happened i just thank you for seeing it and bringing it to our to the light where we can fix it and right now even what the intent was with the finance committee does not um explain it like that in the ordinance so we do need to go back and figure out are we going to leave it at 400 until the next budget cycle or if council is going to get it where the intent really was supposed to be that is the question that lies here now so also my question is is the way i don't feel like a inspection

» on a foundation is is the same as an inspection i don't think it should roll over and be progressive throughout the building of the house because if if you have an electrician make a mistake and then you have another subcontractor make a mistake it's like the sin of one becomes the sin of all and good contractors rely on good subcontractors i agree we know that and but you're one team just like football right but we talked earlier and we go when someone makes a mistake right but we i thought we were on a different page earlier no no we're on the same page and and it's up for discussion but i'm just trying to explain to you the thought of the finance committee when we had this and staff before us discussing it sending it to council and and i can definitely understand probably some of the fru

» strations with some particular builders but we can't paint a brush over the entire industry because maybe one's not doing the job they should do. There's a lot of great contractors, a lot of people right here from Kershaw County that have built nice homes for many years. And more than likely, you don't have as much trouble with those folks. But I think a re-inspection is a re-inspection of whether it be electrical or foundation.

» don't I don't feel that it's fair that it's progressive and growing and I feel like $800 is really absurd may I jump may I jump in at this point yeah I'm not gonna say that I'm done but yes Derek please so a couple of things I mean Sammy hit some of it and there's two pieces there's two things we're looking at here in terms of the actual amount of the reinspection fee I think Sammy hit that pretty clearly some ambiguity staff has obviously went back and fixed that based on the ambiguity and again you're talking about you know four thousand dollars over a 12-month period so we're not talking about astronomical sums and five of those five of those nine were were in fact track builders but again those are being refunded but the intent was always to go up to 800.

» in terms of the pieces parks argument that statute is clear that that's what it is it's a re-inspection now when we reopen the budget we can have a discussion about amending that, I would not be supportive of it, but that's a different discussion for a different day. But in terms of what we passed in the last budget, we passed a fee schedule that said each re-inspection would double. And to get to 400, you've got to be on your fourth re-inspection. And we're in a county where we talk routinely about trying to have positive growth and good growth.

» And when you've got people that are having, as we noted in finance committee, nine, 10, 11 inspections, what they're effectively doing is using the county backstop them they put it up whatever way they want and then the county is going to tell them how to fix it and for a measly fee of 50 bucks they know what that is and they fix it and they just keep calling them out paying 50 bucks at a shot that had to change uh this we had the same issue in the engineering department we increased our engineering fees because the builders were using the our county engineers in lieu of their own engineers they just throw something together our engineers would come in and tell them what to fix and they fixed it so i mean look obviously there's a customer service side of this and we need to have great custo

» mer service and if there's complaints on that front that's a different discussion for a different item but in terms of the legality of what we're doing um i mean it says re-inspection they've clawed it back and if we're going to talk about addressing explosive growth if we remain the cheapest place to build and the cheapest place for re-inspections no matter what we do else we do in our zldr if we were a desirable place to live if we're desirable and cheap we're going to get over we're going to overflow with residential construction that's just a fact i think i think the fact i think the fact remains that at the end of the day it's unnecessary tax on the the homeowner that's just trying to afford somewhere to live um i understand the frustration because there's some builders that i prefer o

» ther other than um some of these big national home builders i i prefer their product but at the end of the day constitutionally we can't treat people differently because of who they work for or how they build whether or not we agree or disagree with them so the fact remains that we have to clearly define we have to clearly define what a re-inspection is because if I fail a foundation inspection and the second one's $100 and then we pass it what would my inspection fee be for the framing at that point for a first inspection of the framing and rough in if i had failed one yes sir you'd only failed one inspection the next fee would be a hundred dollars well that would have been the second time that the foundation was inspected would have been a hundred first time you fail fifty dollars to re-i

» nspect if we come out again and you pass then it's nothing if we come out again and you fail then the next inspection would be a hundred so you're saying the first inspection is free oh yes sir all right then your first re-inspection will be 50 and then okay fail it dollars to re-inspect it so you're telling me that the first inspection on framing would be free okay i misunderstood you i'm sorry so let's start from the beginning your first inspection would be for your footings yes sir if you failed your footing inspection to re-inspect it would be 50 so you pass it okay then your next inspection is for foundation if you were to fail your foundation inspection it would be 100 for us to come back out and inspect it again so if you pass it you go on to rough in so your your second inspection w

» hich is the foundation the first one is free after you pay the inspection fee i think you're saying the same thing but it's a little look confusing so so the the first one in each silo is free all of your inspections are free as long as you continue passing so if we fail if you fail once it's fifty dollars okay if you fail any other inspection it's a hundred dollars if you fail another inspection after that it's two hundred dollars and it keeps increasing as you continue to fail so the people that paid sixteen hundred dollars had y'all out there like like 20 some odd times six six times on re-inspections they had failed six times in order to get us out there at that point okay so necessarily the same thing over and over perhaps they failed the footing once the foundation rough-in inspection

» s they may have failed the rough inspection three times okay so i assure you they get a list of things now it's like mr tucker said we're not doing a punch list for you that's not what we get paid to do we go out there and we find a certain amount of items well this those items and that puts you is not ready we have superintendents who have never built a house before in their life that we have to train to get them to where they need to be instead of being trained by their builder they're builders in another state so could we do this i would ask staff if you could if you could give us an example and walk through the inspection fees as they would occur if if each inspection failed one time and how that would accumulate so that everybody's singing off the same sheet of music we understand what

» to expect we can explain to people when somebody calls me upset and i'm i'm at work doing my job i can have something to reference to explain to them this is this is how kershaw county inspects because when i was in that situation last week i didn't have that tool mr brazel yes sir you'll give me a minute yes sir yeah go ahead okay thank you you know i'm sitting here and i'm listening to this and the first thing i want to say is who authorized the fee structure to be set up the way it was and i know we talked about the big box builders i'm not in favor of the big box builders who come in here um but you know i how long does it take to get a permit on the average with the planning department three to seven days well i got people that have been waiting a year and a half two years and you know

» it's a complete application i'm sorry to interrupt but okay let me let me finish okay thank you for that we got a i also applaud trying to slow down the big box builders but what i don't applaud is when you've got a church trying to build a 20 by 30 or 12 by 20 picnic shed out on black river road this is historical place and they've been trying to get a permit for a year and a half and they still haven't gotten it and when i go to a meeting in camden this morning i have a an individual who lives here on his property building a shed it's taken two years to try to get a permit i mean i can go on and on and on and russell you know this as well as i know because you've gotten calls too with some of your friends who were building single houses they were going through purity he whatever you know

» what um that's what concerns me i can y'all come back up come back up i'm not finished talking to y'all i i mr jones i can handle anything excuse me i'll handle anything mr temple if they're here home rule i have the right to question them if they're in this room i'm not going to have staff here to be what would then you need to ask staff to leave mr jones can i give you for a question i'm going to ask mr bradley i want to clear this up if and and if i may i just you know we we have rightfully come to a point where we have found some some a few hitches in what we're doing and i want the collective leadership to go from the guys to the desk not to the podium and i've talked yes sir we've talked we have and um and i'm allowing you to interrupt me i want you to know that and but i think it's i

» mportant because i don't think staff is here to be um they're here to provide information and and and they asking questions is providing information sir you're true and but I don't know the value in taking staff and or and in this situation there was value to have them talk on the other end but it's no value to talk on my end but they're providing information and that's fine I just want to make sure that we understand that staff is not here to be anything other than a source of information and the policies that we have in front of us were created by this body along with myself, and so it's not their burden to shoulder if we have given them a set of orders that we don't agree with.

» What is our burden is to correct it up here between the desk and the dais and give them a better set of orders to help them be successful and carry out our desire. All right. Let me say something. Mr. Chairman, I call a point of order. What's your point of order, Mr. Jones? that this if you look at the rules and regulations with the state if a county employee is here and they're asking questions especially of other council members they should have to answer the questions of the other side you can't just pick and choose and come up here say okay we'll come here we'll paint a picture like this when i know there's other stuff out there that is totally different than than what we're painting a picture here for the problem is not just the big box bill is the problem is individual bills who build

» a single house i know who mr jones i'm just going to try to keep it on top of it so your point of order was a question about whether or not a council member can ask a staff member questions yes if they're present in a meeting absolutely is that the point of order yes i ask you yeah i i would uh disagree not disagree and my my ruling would be on the point of order that you can't ask questions of staff members that are germane to the subject that's probably before the body um the the matter that you're bringing up in particular made me think about some other language that staff was going to give us just for for context on the point of order ruling in particular staff and administration were going to give us some language for ease of picnic shelters and pole barn type buildings and so that's a

» nother matter that's going to come up before council pretty soon i think we discussed it in the past on having you know not to have to jump through so many hoops for somebody just building a picnic shelter or a pole barn or that type of structure which is not a true residential structure but to the extent you have any questions on item 9a clarification of the inspection fee ordinance yeah you can ask a question i do think we've kind of beat this a little bit i want them to come back up do you have any particular questions for them that are on 9a i think i do yeah all right you can you can come on back up guys you can go ahead and try to ask them and if they're germane to 9a here's the thing i appreciate everything you said and i don't necessarily disagree with all you said i don't agree wit

» h with their bit here's what i care about guys i care about the citizens i care about the citizens who even those who come in here to have to pay fees that i knew nothing about i knew what in the budget that fees that the finance committee well mr jones i would just say that this is the one time that we'll have um something in common on the budget if you didn't vote on the budget in 2024 i wasn't here and i also did not vote on these particular matters i don't think russell voted for it but if you have if you have a particular question for staff that's relevant to item 9a you can go ahead and ask i'm not going to let let me just say this i i refuse to sit here and let councilman shoemaker and councilman tucker take blame for this well it's not hold on i'd like to speak if my name is my name

» is all you want mr attorney but if my name has been invoked i'd like to speak here sure everybody will get that when i finish everybody just a second please fellas i think we're going to wrap it up pretty soon without beating this horse because we can't take action on it but do you have any questions for staff you've called them up yeah i'm willing to make a motion to end discussion on this issue second all right we've got a motion on the table to end discussion for mr shoemake you got a second for mr tucker you don't like what he says is there any discussion well i would i would kind of like to finish wrapping up my request to and i can do that to danny okay or you can make it in your council briefings i'd like to go ahead and just put it to bed if that's okay mr bradley can i ask him a qu

» estion real quick we can ask all the questions you like i just wanted to ask you we've got to say not russell i'm ending yeah please pause unless unless the motion was is withdrawn we've got i withdraw my motion in a second i'll withdraw my motion to let russell motion appears to be temporary temporarily withdrawn i'll second the motion yeah okay second well he can just withdraw it unilaterally um and mr browser can i ask you a question so if we're i mean a re-inspection a reason for a re-inspection and it could be anything that has failed right and an inspection based upon our building codes so a developer or a contractor or subcontractor and a contractor is responsible for that subcontractor that they hired to do the job that re-inspection the cost of county going out there we already we

» hear all the time the lack of resources that we have in planning and zoning the lack of um employees that we have the ability with all the growth we've we've gained here who's going to eat that cost if we don't put it on the contractor that is doing that has built homes or may not have built homes in some circumstances but failed an inspection the county then comes back out for free they fail it again who who should eat that cost the taxpayer because ultimately that's the taxpayer eating that cost because it's going in to our i mean taxpayer funds for the budget to do i don't see any reason that i wish we would increase it the entire time don't cap it out at 400.

» every time our staff goes out i'd like to do a re-inspection fee but so usually that cost is you would be okay with somebody having a re-inspection fee of ten thousand dollars if they failed if they fail that many times yes because they shouldn't be building homes probably facts at least not here well just to be dead honest when you say we have a lot of those problems i'm dealing i've i've gotten multiple calls and emails from king king haggler neighborhood down 34 and it wasn't on the actual home building itself but there the second phase of that development the end of the neighborhood don't have lighting at all the beginning of it does the old phase has zero lighting so either that was uh you know we didn't have it in our ordinance to require it the developer lacked putting those lighting

» there but that's an issue that's that's going to be coming up i think i'm going to call a point order at this point because we're again off topic but it wasn't me can i can i please finish my request and and i'll address your question yeah so councilman excuse me mr vice chair mr temple can you have them to sit down please because he's addressing you so they're just not standing thank you go ahead i'm sorry anybody else right now let's wrap it up i've been trying all right all right 36 seconds uninterrupted please councilman thomason i don't disagree with the premise behind what finance did what what i've requested is a document that clearly explains how the re-inspections work how each inspection starts and stops so i can clearly communicate to citizens how kershaw county operates i did no

» t have that last week and if these two gentlemen who know their stuff could provide that for us and then we agree on it and vote on it and solidify it i would be more than than happy all i'm trying to do is clarify communicate with staff administration and the public that's my job that's why i was elected and that's what i'm here to do not here to fuss at anybody we can agree to disagree on certain points and that's that's always okay I see both sides and I respect both sides but I want to be something that's reasonable and fair and I want to make sure that we're in bounds and that's all I ask thank you thank you all right thank you no votes required I think we've pretty much got that one lined up right everybody's happy no votes required and so we can move on well please please don't chair

» man is one point of clarity I'd like to refer this to the Finance Committee to review after staff gets it ready and then bring it back to council i think it'll be double referred sammy just referred to himself but yes they got it thank you all right no votes required on 9a that moves us to item number nine yes sir to say something to you please i think mr temple has got things pretty well under control on some of these things we were talking about and i appreciate you doing that but if the topic was brought up and i couldn't let it go without you know my comments thank you thank you mr jones all right that moves us to item number number 9b i remember this was a carryover from a prior meeting and uh it was seeking some additional financial information for Finance Committee review.

» Did we get to that point? Yes, sir. I'd like to make a motion, Mr. Chair, that we approve the Dr. Humphreys and Montalop project from a couple weeks ago. So that's my motion. All right. 9B, is there a second? I'll second. All right. Shoemake has a second. Yes, sir. If I may. Mr. Tucker. All right. Thank you. So in your package, you did see underneath the minutes, if you went back through, There was the drawings and stuff of this project of Mount Olive and Dr. Humphreys Road. We were a little bit concerned on where the pools of money were coming from on this project since we were talking about projects. So what I would like to do at this particular time is identify that, and Mr. Templer can correct me or tell me I don't know what I'm talking about and give you all further information.

» So I don't know who's trying to call me, but I'm not answering that. Give me one minute, I'm gonna get in here. - You can leave it in your car when you need it, sir. - You need to do your own business and stop getting out of my way. That's what you need to do. Now you're gonna make me say something I don't wanna say. - Mr. Tucker, which sources of finance are we looking for? - Please, please relax. - Tell you. - Y'all gonna make me bust out some Russell moves tonight, I tell you. - Okay, so-- - I'm not getting caught up in this. - Go ahead, Mr. Tucker.

» - So this project was recommended, water to uh steed uh clearing and grading and paving for four hundred twenty nine thousand three hundred forty nine dollars and sixty four cents um it was estimated at five hundred thousand and here's where the funds have been identified um so the funds for the project have been pulled from rda which is a rural development grant of one thousand one hundred sixty two thousand four and thirty nine dollars um ed which is your economic development 168 780 dollars and 50 cents and then there was um there was uh ctc uh has agreed to provide 168 thousand seven hundred eighty dollars and fifty cents now if my numbers are wrong staff please correct me but i think i'm spot on because i'm getting a buckwheat back there from jeff i love the buckwheat jeff um i don't d

» o thumbs up and so uh that's where the monies are going to be uh coming from so it has uh nothing to do with our capital um reserve or anything like that and these monies are available in those departments sounds good mr tucker mr shoemaker the second yeah those are just to be clear those are funds that you got because obviously we tabled it last time finance committee was not able to meet formally but as i understand that the administration gave that to you after research since we weren't able to meet yes sir that's correct okay thank you any other comments or discussion yeah so yes councilman tucker and i agreed that we wanted to do some further research on this before we voted because we're we're still pending some um information regarding all of our other projects we wanted to make sure

» that we didn't have anything um get too heavy-handed in in these other areas and get ahead of our skis and you feel confident that we're absolutely in the clear you're our chairman of finance i i feel very confident um that the funds have been identified and that they're available and where they're coming from has no bearing on the other projects nor our capital projects reserves or anything like that i appreciate you looking into that and taking the time and making sure that kershaw county's finances are in order you're - You're welcome. - Thank you, Mr. Browns. Any other comments or discussion? - I have something I wanna say. - Go ahead, Mr. Jones. - I'm gonna support this, and I'm leaving it at that. - Okay, thank you, Mr. Jones. Any other comments or discussion? Mr. Tomlinson.

» - Yeah, just wanted to clarify, that's kind of a big difference. I'm glad that 429,000 came through, but the average price of all the bids that came in, I mean, if we're looking at it, it's probably, what, 560,000 out of all of them? there would there be any issue that's a that's a lot lower than majority of them so that's a good thing but just want to make sure that we're looking at you know going forward and making sure we get the project done right it's a good question um we do have the local option preference which would not line up with any of the local bidders as i see it and i would just defer to staff on the vetting of i haven't heard of any negative history or projects occurring with the proposed awarded bid that's and that is a good question that's something we try to make sure th

» at we are not going to go with the lowest bidder and then be change ordered all the way up into the third or fourth bidder so procurement does a really good job of checking references and things like that calling agree on previous projects and so that is something we I particularly look for with change orders as i sign them so to make sure that we're not escalating beyond what there are change orders due to circumstances that are unforeseen but this is a pretty straightforward process so i don't expect anything yeah just putting in storm drain and resurfacing milling and it's just i mean it's just something that's i just wanted to make sure and make sure that everybody knew that the company was vetted and so i'm glad they came into the lower number because that helps us and the taxpayers ou

» t so they do a good job so thank you mr temple thank you mr thompson mr tucker if i can um mr thompson too um you know a lot of times these uh different bids that go out depends on how hungry that contractor is too and what's going on and i know a couple of the locals are real busy doing projects already yes sir so some of those bids look like they don't want to be the award winner they're trying to build the shelf out of it yeah so and i have done that too in this industry when i did contract work for the state and for the county you know you you want to keep your name fresh into the rotation but if i get this i'm probably going to have to hire more staff on and more people so it's the price is way up here for me to be able to do that and fulfill that so just keep that in mind thank you al

» l right any other comments or discussion um i understand the motion before us is approval of steed clearing to be awarded this particular grant by mr tucker and we've got the second for mr shoemake yes sir seeing no further conference discussion we'll move it to a vote all in favor raise your hand miss hannah's unanimous passes and we move on we have item number nine c before us mr administrator any update before we move this to a voter is this just one that you unilaterally just unilaterally it just this is uh employee relations committee but it is by statute our grievance committee voting up okay i think all of us are on it tonight anyway i think council should be listed do you have uh you have the names you want to yes sir uh miko riddick and paul christensen they are more than willing t

» o serve and their terms will expire in 2027 2028 so excited to have those two on board i made the motion we accept both okay we have a motion is there a second we have a second mr tucker any further discussion i'd just like to say that uh that's that's a great committee i had served chair on that for me back in the 80s when it was established and and in in all fairness you've done a good job keeping up with that committee and i appreciate it because it's very vital to the staff You can't go wrong with Ms. Hanna on there. Yes. She's a tool, no question about it. She's great. All right. Any further comments or discussion? Seeing none, we'll move to a vote on the two names proposed by the Administrator. All in favor? All right. It passes. Ms. Hanna, you next. That vote is against Ms. Hanna.

» All right. Appointments. Appointments was on here primarily just as a reminder, unless someone has something in particular. I just put it on there as a reminder. I've got some work to do individually on this. else um you know just remind yourself that we do have uh miss hannah diligently sending us emails as reminders on the commissions and boards that need to be filled out yesterday mr jones i think you have one on the airport don't you i do yeah i've got an individual i'm working with and trying to see exactly what will work with their schedule i think that'd be a great ad but that that will come soon um but just remind yourselves gentlemen please check miss hannah's emails and no votes required and we don't even move it really into discussion i just want to have it on there as a reminder

» um council briefings will start left to right tonight okay mr jones would you go ahead and start us off please again i apologize being a few minutes late and uh just glad i'm here and uh i don't have anything to say right now thank you thank you mr jones mr tomlinson thank you mr chairman um i also apologize for being late i was running late from work in columbia the traffic was a little crazy so that's why i was late um just wanted to to kind of mention one thing i had a good meeting with the friends of good all state park um last week sat down for a little while and we had a good discussion there's been some discussion locally about the county um potentially taking ownership of good all state park back from the state it was given to the state by the county um back in the 80s i believe it

» was and you know that having good all kind of transferred back um i don't know that us as a county we even have the economic ability to benefit good all doing something like that but i would like staff there were some other things mentioned but i would like mr templer if you would get staff to kind of look into the process and see if we can look at getting the ownership back of the old pickett thomas area because that that is owned by the state was given during the same transaction and they're currently not doing anything with it no upkeep no nothing so if we got it back no no cost to us they just gave it back us on their ownership we don't have to do anything with it but it's a potential resource for east camden in that community especially with all the natural resources the historical val

» ue of it alone i think that could be a really good opportunity but if you wouldn't mind looking into that and just kind of giving us an update on the process and seeing if that's something that we'd be interested in doing yeah the old thomas golf course the old golf course yeah the old golf course um the one that used to be a free golf course it's a historical historical african-american golf course um but yeah i played out there when i was little yeah my dad and i actually agree with him on this that means anything but thank you mr tomlinson thank you um mr cato well i ain't really had a chance to talk it's been you you other than running the meeting um it's been a good night mr kate yeah it has love you danny kind of like about all the other arguments i just don't get to say nothing um i

» hope my wife isn't it anyway you better get in trouble you better stop um you know as far as this goes with the and i'm gonna put my quick two cents worth in on these fees if you want to call them fees you know i agree i'm very interested to see the schedule i i i'm i'm with russell i want to see it broke down and brought to us as to how the fees work as far as so we have something physically in front of us i'm pretty sure i'm 99 sure i understand it and i agree with it because we can't we can't allow our taxpayers to have to foot the burden for our people going out 15 times to inspect something that should have been done in five or six so i'll leave that there i thank russell for bringing that to the forefront and let's let's make sure that we get this straight um secondly um i do want to

» i do want to say something about staff the past couple of weeks i've had a lot of stuff that i've had to bring to staff there's been some things that um had to get straightened out some things that just weren't quite right and i want to commend them for working with me and with the citizens of the county to make sure that this gets done i'm not going to go into any further detail because it doesn't need to be in any detail but but i thank you danny i thank you and your entire staff it wasn't just you it was it was several people but i thank you um for what your staff has done um lastly real quick um i see we've we've got something here from the alpha center and i just want to give a shout out to the alpha center um i serve on the opioid coalition and currently david rhodes is over that he i

» s unfortunately i think he's fixing to vacate that position and someone else is going to take over i think david i think kevin has done a outstanding job and i had a meeting with him last week and there's there's a lot of good stuff going on at the alpha center and i just want to give a shout out i know uh mara jimmy's wife and she don't claim him but this jimmy's wife and he's very careful not to say too much because because of her but they do it she told me not to say anything tonight she does an outstanding job and so does the alpha center so i just want to give a shout out within the night other than that i hope you have all have a great weekend thank you - Thank you, Mr. Cato. Mr. Brownsville. - Thank you, Chairman. Appreciate the discussion.

» Danny, I appreciate your helping address the small amount of confusion that we've now gotten squared away with the inspections and looking forward to seeing kind of how that resolves itself and just understanding it better, making sure we're all on the same page. I appreciate everybody's involvement. Everything that we do, we do together for the betterment of the community. There's obviously always varying opinions as to how we get from point A to point B, but I think we do it, and we do it well. I want to read something from a devotional. I found this in my dad's truck maybe a year ago, and I don't get to read it every day, but I was able to share it with Councilman Tucker today, September 9th, titled Suffering.

» And it states, It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. And that's Philippians chapter 1 verse 29. And it goes on to say, the tendency of this age is to question the Lord's goodness in the midst of suffering. Yet from a biblical standpoint, suffering is the means by which the Lord conforms us into an image of the Son. When bad things happen in our lives, may we not ask, why me? But rather, what are you teaching me? If in Christ there is no condemnation, then the suffering we face is not necessarily God's judgment. We can be assured that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

» There's a synopsis here at the end that says, it's a prayer, actually. It says, Lord Jesus, forgive me for pursuing my comfort over your glory. Teach me how to walk in your obedience, even if it means I must endure suffering. Help me to suffer well for your name. And what that means for me is we all make mistakes, and sometimes that's just the good Lord whipping us into shape. I've been through it. I'm sure many people in this room have been through it.

» That struck me today is is uh relevant to to life in general and i've said this before if anybody you know ever wants to talk about the faith in jesus christ whether you have it or you don't have it i'd love to talk to you um some of the best growth i've ever had in my personal life is when i was down and out and my tail was cut and that's just a fact so that that hit me today and i wanted to share it and um that's That's all I have. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Brazel. Mr. Tucker. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I got a few things, so bear with me. Okay. I won't be long-winded, though. Finance Committee, I still stand on the fact that we take full responsibility for the fees and the misunderstanding. I will not take that back.

» No one can convince me, because when you're put in roles of responsibility and things don't go as planned you need to be man or woman enough to say i error and we error i error however you want to put it we will get it right i can assure you that so the fees and the projects will have a report next council meeting this body this finance committee body will meet before then maybe a couple times with staff and we will have a report on both of those for our next council meeting we go with that mr um administrator yes sir okay thank you sir um i want to um just brief because i think the chairman's going to speak on this a little bit um told you that we had a zoom call on the 208 water quality plan which is lake watery uh that meeting went well um we're still in discussion and um i will have to

» be uh trying to have some conversation with my uh colleagues and staff on what all took place at that meeting the cog will not meet to the first monday in october so we have a little bit of time but we running out of time because time moves pretty fast but it was a very informative meeting and i can say this for a fact nothing that this entity does is beyond taking capacity from kershaw county city of camden or um dupont who also dumps in the river and i think those are the three entities mr templar that i can think of now because we take wild kim's stuff now so um so with that being said it will not affect our capacity it may depending on what happens in the upper catawba watery basin affect how we treat which can affect costs but i won't go into all that tonight um there was a lot said on

» that conversation on that conference call and i'll allow the chairman to have his uh intake on that conversation um i want to tell you where your monies go um when we go to these conferences because i have a colleague that sits to my right and he's like a brother to me i think of all these gentlemen as brothers to me but this one gives me a hard time for no reason but i still love him and i'm his mother's number one fan so that's all that matters to me i have in my hand the institution of governments for county officials level one presented to derek shoemate in recognition of completing 27 hours of formal county government institution leading to enhancing knowledge and understanding of the county government and the role of the county officials this is why we go this is huge because you know

» when you go down there and you learn from the people who are the experts who teaches these classes and then you have your other colleagues that's from around the state you know no wheel should be reinvented it just should be greased and all very well so it can go around a lot smoother for you because i can assure you out of 46 counties the things we do in this county they're not unique they're not unique someone else is even doing it or had a problem with it so i say to you my brother congratulations I could teach that with with that I want to talk a little bit and I normally don't end on a sour note but this is not a sour note councilman vice-chair Russell Brazel thank you for reading that devotion and thank you for catching the thing with the fees as well but I have to say this because if

» not there's a thing called omission that you can get in trouble for too and y'all know what i'm talking about um we do have home rule and i'm a big component of home rule and i'm a big component of um of having our staff support and coming up here but at no times on this diocese are we to parade staff staff does not work for us we have one man that works with us and one woman that works for us that is the administrator and that is the clerk to council make no mistake about it and i will tell you i was sitting here just thinking to myself if i was in those gentlemen's shoes what would i do and if my mama came out of me i probably would have stood up and been just as humble as they were but if my father was coming out of me you probably would have got the worst look and i would have sat down

» like a dog on donkey and would never gotten up stand back up to that podium that is not our job to parade staff and a question is not a statement I don't know how we get this confused as human beings a question rates an answer because you state something that is not the time for someone to sit there and listen and hear you they can hear you from anywhere but if you have a question then respectfully they need to answer the question and so Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to ask you in the future, when these things happen, without me having to call a point of order, can you please, please redirect the conversation? That concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Shoemake? Yeah, just a couple of things.

» By the way, Brant got one of these, too, but Sammy doesn't snoop in his box, so Brant doesn't give the accolades. Andy, shut up. That's for coming late. That is true. true i snooped in brant's box though so it all it's a big circle um so uh councilman cato stole some of my thunder i also wanted to uh thank the alpha center uh this community event they have coming up september 12th celebrating those in recovery as somebody who does some work with uh various folks in the community that may be falling on hard times it's part of my regular job the alpha center has been invaluable helping those folks and i'll tell you something else people don't realize they do a lot of work too with young people over the high schools you know it's it's a tough time for some young people you know we've had just

» at lugo felgin uh you know some some teens take their own lives in the last couple of years which is absolutely tragic and they offer some mental health counseling and i know that in the wake of two of those suicides they did some counseling for some of the teens so they do a massive massive service uh definitely while i love my friend councilman jones definitely mara jones is the best jones she does some great work um also uh want to echo uh councilman tucker tucker's comments that he's probably to blame um agreed uh but i'm kidding we do we take this you know we the finance committee meets and and does this and obviously if there was a confusion i certainly take the heat but also to echo councilman brass's comments that you know clarity is always good and when you see passion you know it

» comes from a place of typically a place of love and deep caring and so while my friend councilman brazilian may have some passionate discussions it's not vitriolic because we both care a lot about this county he knows a lot about construction that i don't i know some things about the law that he doesn't and so usually we find a pretty good place together on that so i appreciate these discussions lastly libel felgin had their homecoming this weekend they won i think they're two and one if my memory serves and my daughter served in the homecoming court and it was an absolute pleasure to walk her there she is a graduating senior so next year I will have two kids in college and I can tell you you know that I'm an ethical practitioner of County government because if I was ever gonna take a bribe

» college of Charleston is where she wants to go my son's enrolled in Clemson with Russell son so the Tigers go Tigers I say that for my sign. Councilman Shumate, would you do me a favor? Sure. I appreciate you clarifying the fact that we do get along, but would you not use words that I don't understand, please? Which one? I can't even repeat. A vitriolic, probably. Yeah, yeah.

» So not only does Councilman Shumate have a certificate that he gained from going to the Association of Counties, the man teaches law at the University of south carolina he's brilliant don't don't let that be um the biggest light shown on him i'm going to introduce some words we all need to understand tonight let's stay on task get through your briefing mr schumer here's the last thing i'll say mr chairman you know whatever we end up doing on all these issues that impact the county you know certain people aren't going to be happy and certain people are you know if we if 75 of this county approved of what we were doing we'd be the most popular political body in all the united states of america and probably the world and that would still mean that 20,000 people hated what we were doing.

» Well, we're not that. Oh, no doubt. So we're working hard to do it and just because there are always going to be voices that have negative feedback, but I'm confident that this council has the right reasons in their heart for what they're doing and I think they're trying to do it the right way. What's the old saying? The right thing for the right reasons in the right way and I think that everyone up here is endeavoring to do that. Yes. That's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Shoemake.

» say thanks to our clerk of court and judge hardest for being here tonight along with those who stayed throughout the meeting and those who attended earlier for the topics that were important to them before they had to go I appreciate you being here that means a lot that you stay involved in the community and in local government I want to thank Mara Jones as well for many of the things that she does at the Alpha Center but in part because she exercised proper etiquette on t-shirt size she gave me a 2xl and I noticed Russell got I didn't get a 2xl. Maybe yours is mine. I only got an XL. Well, maybe that's So anyway, thank you very much Mara Jones for recognizing my broad shoulders That's right. And last one.

» I'm gonna I'm gonna diverge I have to because This job often requires sacrifice from family time. I congratulate my daughters Annabelle and Alexis on winning their volleyball game They apparently had to beat the ref tonight. I've been getting the play-by-play But they did pull out the win. So I'm sorry. I missed your game girls, but I'm very happy that you worked hard All right, so that concludes briefings mr. Minister do we have anything other than what we need to talk about an executive session No, I promised. Mr. Jones. I would be brief today. So I have no report. Okay, mr. Attorney nothing other than executive session All right, gentlemen, we have on item number 14.

» We've got five executive session matters two are regarding matters subject to attorney-client privilege we have two personal matters and then another matter subject to attorney-client privilege all of these under SC code 30 - 4 - 70 and the related subparts I seek a motion that we enter executive session and we've got a second as well from mr. Tomlinson just for purposes of discussion before we vote no votes are anticipated tonight after executive session any discussion see none all right all in favor we are are in executive session. Ms. Hannes, unanimous. So moved. All right, second? Second. All right. All in favor of exiting executive session? Ms. Hannes, unanimous. We're out of executive session. Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chairman. We've got a motion to adjourn. Second? Second. Mr.

» Cato gets a second. No discussion. All in favor of adjourning? Raise your hand. It's unanimous. We are adjourned.