Full meeting transcript - February 24, 2026

» good test welcome out tonight everybody let's be called to order we welcome you to this kershaw county council meeting february 24th 2026 thanks everybody for being here we've got a couple of proclamations that i think will clear the room up a little bit earlier on in the meeting but we've been called to order let's go ahead had go ahead and have an invocation uh mr cato would you say that prayer for us let us pray every father we just come to you tonight giving you thanks praise honor and glory for everything that we have dear heavenly father we just thank you for giving us this opportunity to come out tonight and conduct the business of this county dear father i pray that you'd give us the wisdom the knowledge and the courage to do what's right dear heavenly father make the group the deci

» sions that we need to make based on how you would have us make them dear heavenly father lord i lift up the ones that are sick the ones that are bereaved the ones that need your your care and your personal attention dear heavenly father i just Just pray that you'd put your hand upon them, Lord, and you would bless them, heal them, and give them guidance. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for this nation. I pray that you would be with our leaders in Washington and abroad, dear Heavenly Father, that you'd give them the mindset to do the things that needs to be done for this nation. Lead God and direct us throughout this night, but most importantly, dear Heavenly Father, forgive us when we fail you. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.

» If you don't mind standing, we'll also have the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everyone, and thank you, Councilman Cato. That brings us to the next item on the agenda, adoption of the agenda. Do we have a motion? I make a motion we adopt the agenda and submit it, Mr. Chair. We have a motion. Is there a second? I'll second. We have a second from Mr. Cato. Any discussion on the agenda? Seeing none, we'll move it to a vote. All in favor of adopting the agenda, raise your hand. Ms. Hanna, it's unanimous for the record. The agenda is adopted. We have a series of two proclamations next.

» First one was placed on by Councilman Russell Brazel, proclamation honoring and recognizing Betsy Gentry Greenway. Is there a motion? I'll make the motion for the proclamation. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Brazel, you have a four. Thank you. Thank you. Chairman, I'd like to note that Councilman Tucker was interested in having his name beside mine in uh in offering this this proclamation so i wanted to make mention of that because i think i forgot to do that it's okay um i'd like to make a motion for this proclamation um and is the family here if if y'all like to stand and i'm going to read this proclamation aloud if the family wants to come and stand together and then we'll have a picture All in favor of having this proclamation approved, raise your hand. Ms. Unitas, Ms. Hannum, Mr.

» Broussel, go ahead. All right. Tonight, I'd like to honor years of service through advertising with an absolute wonderful human, Ms. Betsy Gentry Greenway. I can remember first getting back from college and anytime I needed to have something in the paper before we had Facebook and all these different sorts of social media, you actually had to go down to the paper and have it listed. And Ms. Greenway's always been there to help us in covering so many things in Kershaw County for so many years. It's just an honor to present and read this proclamation. Whereas it has been proven and demonstrated that dedication, leadership, and excellent creativity is brought to life through great passions and careers.

» And whereas it has been shown that Betsy Gentry Greenway, as she has exemplified exceptional services for 47 years with the Chronicle Independent, the local newspaper for Camden and Kershaw County and surrounding areas. Whereas a mother and grandmother to the best, a mentor to many, a pillar to the Chronicle Independent, promoting excellent ethical standards within advertising for businesses, churches, individuals, and building relationships, and sharing everlasting memories all over the communities within Camden, Kershaw County, South Carolina, and beyond will always remain memorable. Now, therefore, this 24th day of February 2026, Kershaw County Council presents and honors Ms.

» Betsy Gentry Greenway for her hard work, commitment, and dedication to a local profession, which will be one hard act to follow. Betsy Gentry Greenway has set standards very high for the next. With that, I offer the proclamation. We've already voted in favor unanimously. The proclamation is approved. Betsy, would you like to say anything at all before we come up and have you get a picture? Just speak into the mic up here so we can hear you, if you don't mind. I think we owe her a round of applause first. It has been my honor and pleasure to have worked for 44 years with Camden Media and the last three years with Paxton Media. I never, ever got up in the morning and said I hated to go to work. It was always a pleasure.

» My relationships, the relationships, the endorsements, the trust that the advertisers placed with me meant so much. It is with great honor, and I'm very humbled to have this proclamation. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Ms. Betsy. If you don't mind just waiting at the mic, council members might have just a few comments for you. I said if you don't mind just waiting at the mic, council members might have just a few comments.

» for you mr jones go ahead i want to go first betsy we go back a long way jamie we have we have and i tell you remember the great old days i would come in front of independent she tried to sell me an ad i was trying to get one for free and i ended up paying for it betsy you've been you're a pillar of this community and i tell you what i'm very proud of you and i'm very proud to be a part of this and i'm proud to put my signature on your proclamation well deserved job well done thank you very much jeremy thank you mr jones council members any other discussion come mr tucker yes uh thank you mr chairman mr greenway because i don't know you by betsy because you've been miss greenway all my life um i know you as sammy yes ma'am i'm gonna die we go back a long way we like cadillac seats with that

» being said i want to say thank you too for your hard work dedication and just passion to this county to the surrounding community because you did work in adjacent counties as well when the paper was going out and about um but i also want to say thank you to your family uh for supporting you doing these times because um as it was stated earlier there was no i think mr brazel said that there was no social media so there was a lot of traveling a lot of late phone calls that you had to give up time with your family because it just wasn't like it is today where you can reach out and touch people and um you've raised tremendous and loving kids i'm seeing one over there standing up against the wall and now the other one and um you've just had great support by you by your family as well and i want

» to thank them but i would ask that god continue to bless you and give you the things that your heart desire moving forward and may you enjoy retirement but don't get too retired where you fade away keep busy thank you sammy thank you thank you mr tucker any other comments discussion council members sorry i got ahead of my skis wanting to give you this proclamation i jumped up and was running out front and the chairman had to slow me down it's a real honor to be able to do this and cameron couldn't keep a secret i don't think we tried to make it a surprise but he sent me a text the other day he said well the cat's out the bag i said well i guess that's okay but cameron and i've been friends for a long time just now getting the pleasure of meeting your other sons but we've known one another o

» n and off for a long time and it's just always been a pleasant experience so thank you for who you are and what you've done for our community thank you I would I would ask y'all to please support your community newspaper if you don't support it it's going to go away and we need it it's accountability we we have tried them that the best we could do is only three of us now at the Chronicle and now I just left so Tom and Martin they do a great job please support your community newspaper I can't believe they do what they do with that small staff that's amazing Thank You miss Bessie Thank You mr.

» Browns any other comments or discussion miss Betsy you've sold me many ad thank you thank you for that I'm glad to support but I want to hopefully bring one thing full circle on how important you are to the community if you look at the front page at least of the most recent edition that I've received um stover wrestlers being recognized for their outstanding achievements and so that's right here on the front page and it has a whole story about some of the things we're going to talk about here many of these youth and parents and coaches tonight are with the stover wrestling team and so we thank you for covering that and getting that information out to the community it's very newsworthy thank you so much now we've got to ask martin to make sure that we get this photograph on the front page th

» e next day front page martin miss betsy if your family could come right up front and we'll present you with the proclamation one of our children will say something y'all welcome say something if you want to is that right y'all can come on up front betsy right through that little door right there get right in the middle Thank you, Ms. Betsy and the Greenway family. Very grateful for that. Council members, that brings us to the next item on the agenda. It's another proclamation I placed on, item number 5B. I make a motion that we approve this proclamation honoring the Stover Middle School wrestling team state champions. Is there a second? I'll second. We have a second. I don't really have much discussion. I'll just bring it to a vote. You've seen it.

» It's in the packet, and then I'll talk about it. All in favor? It passes unanimously. Ms. Hanna, the proclamation is approved. I just wanted to share before we have maybe some of the team, if they can fit up here, come up, how impressive it is that they're a multi-time team state championship team. I've lived it. It is extremely difficult to excel in wrestling. We've got some folks who've come through the Stover Wrestling Program that competed at the high school level and now will be going on to college. They're sitting in this room. It's such a great example because it lets younger kids know that they can achieve great things from Kershaw County. I just want to mention a few of the high points in the proclamation. They had a 16-1 dual record.

» Some of the individual outstanding recognitions I want to mention are Madeline Ross, girls state champion, most outstanding wrestler, Gavin Rush, state champion, Dalton Henson, state champion, and Matthew Moore as the finalist finishing in second place. The coaches, Coach Lorenzo McGee, Coach Elijah McGee, coach robbie henson and i'm going to individually name the team members before i have you all stand up to a round of applause the team members matthew moore madeleine ross ben mccardle emery green wyatt perry sean dilker jaden pina dalton henson chance low matthew garcia gavin rush austin graham jayla gonzalez melissa palo blanco Connor Moore, Hunter Griggs, Carter Parrott, Sierra Blackman, and Michael Rogers. If I could get the coaches and the wrestlers to stand up, please.

» Let's give them a hand. Now, before you all come up for a picture, I'm not trying to disrespect anybody else's sport at all. But the joke we had, and we always thought it was true, is wrestling uses every other sport to warm up, and then we go compete. I've kind of found that to be true. We also thought it was true that once you compete in spandex in front of large groups of people, not much else can bother you in life that's true i've also found that to be true wrestling reveals so much about you individually um and we also have uh coach ted monroe here tonight who's coached many changes he's a legend and we'll be we'll be looking at uh these wrestlers coming up into the high school program we beat eastside didn't we coach and now we gotta now we gotta overcome fort mill before we have the

» m come up i'll have uh council members any discussion or commentary mr tucker yeah thank you i'll give you my brief experience with wrestling i'm a baseball player by trade and family um i went and wrestled for camden high as a freshman the young man picked me and i think my face on the left side came off and i was done with wrestling that is a sport that i um i've always admired people that do it and it takes talent strength commitment and determination uh to do that because it's hard when someone's got you balled up in a knot to fight your way back out and win your uh win your match um i will say this since you guys and ladies i have to make sure i include that because this was impressive to me to see those names on the list um you're the antidote even though you're going down in class ne

» xt year to these bigger schools that want to um take on look off elgin high school and wrestling so these championships will not be left at the middle school level as y'all um transition up into your classes i expect to see you back in front of us being awarded more proclamations and congratulations as the years to come but stay grounded keeping your education and know that you've got a bright future thank you thank you mr tucker mr she may yeah so again congratulations i'm also a baseball dad uh but i mean all all of you who compete you'll find as you get older it's going to be invaluable as you pursue your adult endeavors i wrestled for approximately three to four weeks i had yeah i had an opportunity to be a newspaper editor and i told coach wash that i had this opportunity he asked me i

» f i could write a sentence and when i told him yes he told me i was already a better editor than i will ever be a wrestler that's a true story i confirmed so i went into the newspaper business so uh congratulations guys that's awesome mr chairman thank you councilman uh mr jones first and then mr thompson mr thompson please yeah i'd too like to say congratulations that is a huge accomplishment um not only for stover but to the individuals um no matter where you place on the mat i had the opportunity to compete for six years um and then coached a few after that it's one of the life lessons you learn and the struggles on the mat and practice at home getting mentally ready prepared those times when you don't think you can go anymore but you know that you have 45 seconds left in the third perio

» d those are the times that you will use when you're not competing on the mat at some point of your life you're going to take those life lessons and let them guide you wrestling's a sport that builds builds heroes and y'all are going to be heroes amen thank you congratulations thank you mr thomason mr jones thank you mr chairman well ted monroe we're so proud of you you know my first off thank you and we're very proud of you at stowe you guys you have earned this you deserve it my son wrestled for six years i was gonna write a book on how to get pinned in five seconds because he got pinned in five seconds but you know what he did he never quit and he ended up using those life skills that uh councilman shoemake just talked about carrying it with him you know you're a marine i'm sure being a w

» restler helped you get through that marine basic all four hours the bottom line is the skills the skills that you learned you will carry with you the rest of your life and i'm so proud to be able to put my name on this and mr canal thank you for putting this on the agenda thank you mr jones any other comments or discussion from council members mr brasil surely don't want to be the only one not to to congratulate you. My wife actually taught at Stover for a year, so we had a couple of little cookouts and whatnot. It's been a decade or so ago, but very proud of you, excited for you. I, too, had a very short stint in wrestling. Mine lasted one practice, and it was Coach Walsh as well because I was just a year ahead of Derek, and he didn't have to tell me that I wasn't going to like it.

» I crawled up underneath the mats, and that was the first day they put us up underneath the mats and this is probably illegal now and cut the temperature up to 90 degrees and i said anybody that wants me to do this i don't think i can handle it so i didn't come back for the second day so yeah you guys are tough and i want the three biggest ones of you to take on chairman connell i think that's fair i'm good for about two minutes if it's we can we can have that display now on a photo session right here in this chair on your behalf if i may you know how wonderful is it we have a three what national champion three times i did okay six times i know the number gets larger but we're proud of you too sir i just want to congratulate you all i'm i'm big on these proclamations for our young people um

» excelling in whatever it is they do but i never wrestled we didn't have it when i was in school the only wrestling we did was in the backyard with the neighbors and the cousins so but i thank each and every one of you for for sticking with it and and and you know it takes a lot of commitment and dedication in any sport to excel the way y'all have so congratulations i just want to make note that the redheaded young man raised his hand to accept the challenge to wrestle chairman he is a dangerous one i know him personally um thank you very much mr kato as a last piece of advice i'll just share that and this is really a shout out to the parents my mom did it with five boys who were multiple times state champions each one of them and i i just my my hat and heart and wallet goes out to you becau

» se i know it takes a lot to uh get these boys to the matches make sure they get all the practices make sure they're hitting weight make sure they're staying and healthy but it will pay off in droves with the lessons that they learn in life four o'clock in the morning chairman and their nerves while you're while your kids wrestling on the mat that's right yeah wrestling moms especially but it's really hard to beat somebody if they won't quit and so never quit as we sit here in this room throughout south carolina and throughout the nation there's a lot of athletes out there that got a mama or a daddy that care about them and they try to make sure they go to do the regular amount or the normal expected amount of practice a lot of kids have a coach that cares about them and wants to be successf

» ul. What you've got to determine if you're going to excel and rise above is what am I going to do outside of that static amount of preparation? And sometimes I felt like I had to be a little bit crazy to work that hard, but I did it. And every time I stepped on the mat, I knew that the person on the other side hadn't prepared as much as I did, and they didn't deserve to win. And that mental edge sometimes makes all the difference in these matches. So never quit and always work hard. Before we bring the team up, - Coaches, Coach McGee or Coach McGee or Coach Henson, would you like to share anything before we bring your team up? Any of the coaches? No, okay. Well, we're proud of you. If you want to bring the team up and the coaches, we're going to have you line up the same way.

» Let's give them a hand. - Yes. - Congratulations. - Congratulations. - Yeah, he's pretty big. - All right, y'all ready? - You need a step stool. - I'm about to jump on bench the other day. - Yes. - And if any of y'all ever want to transfer to Camden School, y'all are welcome to. We'll get you everything. - We got a thing going on in Lugo. - Can I have a peppermint? - Absolutely. - Yes. - Here, take a handful of 'em. - Yeah, no, no. - Thank you. Hey, the season's over with. Y'all can eat what you want now. That was good stuff, Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Everyone, you're welcome to stay, but obviously feel free to take off and clear out. You don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting if you don't want to. Mr. Rush, good to see you. Glad to see you're wrestling in college.

» Take care. We're watching you. All right, gentlemen, that puts us back on the agenda. Give me just a second, Mr. Chair, so the background noise. Sure, let me know when you're ready. I've got to get a T right. No, I just can't hear what he's going to go on here. Come on, we'll duck down a second. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir, Mr. Tucker. I think we've got most everybody that needs to clear out cleared out. Gentlemen, that puts us on to public comments. Mr. DuBose, do we have anyone signed up? Yes, Mr. Chair, five speakers are signed up for public comment. All right. I'll just mention before we get started, public comment is a time for council to hear from the public. It's not question and answer.

» We're interested to hear what you have tonight, and we usually set aside 30 minutes, but we're glad to hear from each person. You'll see a little clock ticking down for the time, so everybody has a fair amount of time to share. Who's our first speaker, Mr. Boas? First speaker is Lee Reed. The subject is EMS. Mr. Reed, I was going to mention, often, if you're all sharing the same message, however many people it is, it's efficient if one person can share it. Otherwise, I guess we'll hear it four or five times, which is okay, too. Okay, so who's up first? What's your name? And we have her signed up, Mr. DuBose? Yes. Great. Ms. Noel. Here's a copy of what I'm going to be reading. They would like a copy. Okay. And good evening. Thanks for having us tonight.

» Before I start, everybody from the Liberty Hill area, raise your hand. This is how many is here for this subject. We're talking EMS. EMS? Okay, that's what I was going to ask. What's the subject? EMS. Thank you. Like I said, my name is Ann. I live on 2490 Cottage Lane in Liberty Hill, South Carolina. on january the 18th i experienced one of the most terrifying moments of my life my husband's having a medical emergency and i did what we are all told to do i called 9-1-1 the dispatcher took my information and then told me they had to take another call and hung up i was left alone frightened not knowing if my husband was going to survive and when no one on the other end of the end of the line to guide me the first First responders did not arrive approximately 40 minutes after the phone call.

» The ambulance arrived 45 minutes after the initial phone call. 45 minutes may not sound long in a meeting room like this, but when you are watching someone you love struggle, when you are scared you may lose them, 45 minutes feels like a lifetime. We trust that when we call for help, help is coming quickly. We trust that the system meant to protect us will show up when it's most needed. That trust was shaken in me that day. This is not just about my family, this is about every resident in this community. If this happened to us, it could happen to anyone. What if the outcome had been worse? What if the next time is someone's spouse, child or parent like what I dealt with? I am here asking for accountability, I'm asking for transparency. I'm asking for a change.

» What went wrong? What is being done to make sure families are not waiting 45 minutes for our medical services? Because 45 minutes is not acceptable for anywhere. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming out tonight. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Bowes, sounds like we have some variation. Who is speaking next? You defer to the next person? Yes, ma'am. What's your name? Chris Kriminger. Ms. Kriminger. Same topic, right? Yes. Okay. Yes, ma'am. My husband and I are homeowners and business owners on the Camden side of Lake Watery. As both, the concern that we have in regards to- I'm sorry, just one minute. Could we get whatever noise is outside, could we get them to quiet down so we could hear you better? Russell, I think they can wrestle better than you, bud.

» Well, I want to be very respectful and intent in my opportunity to hear what she has to say. Thank you. As both business owners and homeowners, the concern that we have in regard to emergency response times extremely concerns us, as it does all of our neighbors. While we do not own the most expensive home, Or, as we are just starting our business, the most profitable business on the lake. We both feel the response times for emergencies are excessive and unnecessarily long. Therefore, loss of life and property loss are at a very high risk of happening. If someone were to have a stroke or a heart attack, they would not survive these response times. If they did, they would not have a very good chance of resuming their former lives.

» a fire occurs property loss would be total which is frightening to us on both counts with the interest is interest we have on the lake we were told at our meeting last week that fire and ambulance stations are set up by the amount of calls that come in this is not a long-sighted view in my opinion the decisions where to put a fire ambulance station should be by population numbers and in the past 10 years the population around the lake both sides has grown this has changed especially since the pandemic most of these homes 10 years ago were fish camps or vacation homes the more year-round people on the lake not to mention the people that live in the area not on the lake and as citizens of kershaw county and taxpayers we have the right to enjoy the same services in people that people do in mor

» e populated areas as our county council and i know you represent people in your immediate area you should have the best interest of all the kershaw county citizens not just camden blue golf or elgin because they have the most people i'm sure you all have heard the phase food desert meaning no grocery store closer than 20 minutes we live in an emergency services desert counties and municipalities try to help people in food deserts we need our emergency services desert help will y'all step up to the plate and show our end of the county that you care about us as citizens also thank you gentlemen thank you for coming out ms criminger appreciate it mr hubbard on this same topic mr hubbard yes yes sir so in august of 21 i moved to lake watery i live on harbor view road i'm a business owner in lan

» caster county i live full time at the lake i had an experience myself in 2024 august 17th of 2024 2 a.m in the morning I woke up with a severe case of diverticulitis. The resident hospital told me an hour longer I'd probably have a bag on the side of my heel for the rest of my life. It took 36 minutes for the ambulance to arrive after my wife made the phone call. She was also bedridden because she had had a knee replacement a week prior so we were totally handicapped. My household had no mobility whatsoever I just wanted to get up and share my experience okay thank you guys thank you for coming out mr. Hubbard appreciate that that was number three I believe who's number four number four would be mr. Lee Reed mr.

» Reed yes sir Thank You chairman and members the council my name is Lee Reed my wife and I live off of Singleton Creek Road and Sunset Point we are now full-time residents three years in liberty hill before i begin my prepared comments i want to share some recent research that i feel relevant to my prepared comments on behalf of liberty hill i'm going to skip some of it but i'm going to go down to first of all the kershaw county council fiscal year 2026 budget retreat minutes february 13th 2026.

» priorities in order of listing recreation 10 separate and individual focus bullets number two zoning and land development jail economic development stormwater employee pay homestead exemption boat tax family court grant rider recycle center ems specifically ems station upgrades in baron dekab and westville drop boxes sheriff's office east airport lake watery in other words ems ranks 12th out of 16 15 or 16 priorities putting us putting ems in the bottom 25 percent of priority items identified at the budget retreat 11 days ago some additional research from online distance calculator estimates on the ems's in kershaw county bethune ems 22 to 24 miles 30 to 36 minutes camden ems 24 to 27 miles 34 to 40 minutes lugoff ems 28 plus miles 38 to 45 minutes elgin ems 30 to 45 miles 40 to 48 minutes

» ems 2 and sumter 24 to 27 miles 32 to 36 minutes conclusion of that that makes 30 to 40 minute responses structurally predictable unless resources are staged closer that's my background comments my prepared comments are simple relative to what we're asking of you i'm following up from our recent community meeting in liberty hill last week that was attended by councilman brazel councilman jones the sheriff our head of kershaw county ems and other representatives from kershaw during our meeting attended by 75 plus local residents a significant portion of our entire population the primary concern was regarding ems service ems leadership acknowledged the response time to our rural service zone may average 30 plus minutes anecdotal feedback from local residents with personal experience as they s

» hared tonight confirmed that to be the case i think well ems leadership further indicated last week that kershaw county ems response time goal is 10 to 12 minutes we understand geography presents challenges trust me i do not relish my 20 to 30 minute run to walmart food line or lowe's or to the tax office to be clear my comments this evening are not a criticism of ems or any other county service provider liberty hill residents have a great appreciation for all kershaw county first responders and that was clear clearly evident last week at liberty hill community center as well as the polar plunge for special olympics at beaver's den the weekend before our concern is system performance and resource allocation especially during this budget process, specifically around EMS, fire, and traffic co

» ntrol in 97, in and around what I will call the greater Liberty Hill area. But for now, I want to return to our primary concern, EMT. As Council begins your budget deliberations, we respectfully request measurable performance transparency specific to our zone. We request clarification on the following four questions in particular.

» What percentage of EMS calls in our zone are reached within 15 minutes? What is the 90th percentile response time in our zone? Has a formal EMS deployment or coverage study been conducted in our area? What funding options exist to improve response times, including potential co-location of EMS resources at the existing fire substation? We also respectfully request that the county council direct staff to present a zone-level EMS performance review along with budget alternatives prior to final adoption of this year's budget, and that council would have the staff present that report prior to the second reading of the budget scheduled for May 26.

» Simply put, we're asking for transparency and evaluation, not promises this evening, so that reasonable access to timely emergency medical care can be properly considered and addressed as a part of the current budgeting process. We define, and I think it is a fair and universally acceptable definition, that reasonable access to medical care means access to medical care within a medically survivable window. Cardiac arrest survival drops drastically after 8 to 10 minutes. Stroke treatment windows narrow very rapidly. Timely trauma treatment is critical for both life and non-life-threatening debilitating injuries. To conclude, we are not proposing a specific operational solution tonight.

» We are requesting data transparency and evaluation of logistics and funding options within the budget process. We understand that rural areas are different. That is why we're requesting measurable, zone-specific performance data and evaluation of improvement options. We understand that funding is limited. That is why we believe this discussion belongs in the current budget process so council can evaluate costs and priorities with clear performance data to appropriately prioritize our limited resources. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Reid. And, Mr. DeBose, I think we had one more signed up. Is that correct? And just to show my last one, the orange are where EMS stations are. The green is where we are. Yes, sir. Mr.

» Chairman, can we get a copy of his comments? Do you have a copy of your comments? One of the council members requested perhaps you could e-mail them over if you want to send a digital copy. Okay, great. If you'd send them to Ms. Hanna at council, she'll proliferate it to the council. Mr. DuBose. Final speaker is Melody Hardin. The subject is pecan orchard. Ms. Hardin. Yes, ma'am. Good evening. As many of you know, my name is Melody Hardin. I live at 412 Blackberry Place in the pecan orchard. I'm speaking again tonight about the stormwater drainage issue in our neighborhood. After the finance committee meeting today, I wanted to ask county council to come to a solution or compromise to address our issue with the stormwater. At this point, there aren't enough funds to begin phase one.

» I'm requesting council to help consider all options and grants to fund work that needs to be completed. funds can't be obtained to complete phase one i would like county to consider other options to help with our drainage issues secondly i again would like to get the county to start maintaining our roads this issue came to a head two years ago when many of us brought drainage water and sewage issues to the county's attention at that time we requested this to be done as of today nothing really has been done besides scraping our roads which typically makes the roads worse the ditches of gravel are filled with gravel leaves limbs debris and dirt from the road the maintenance of our roads doesn't solve our problem but it helps with drainage we believe there are many practical solutions that can

» temporarily help that won't cause more damage and can't make things worse lastly i would like to request another visit to our neighborhood i know many of you walked through our neighborhood about two weeks ago if the neighborhood would have known about it the visit at the time many of us would have been happy to show you our issues in the neighborhood and on our properties again we understand this is not an easy fix and it is an expensive fit but we would again request the help of county council to help with the resolution for our neighborhood thank you yes ma'am thank you for coming out tonight mr de bose does that conclude public comment correct thank you everyone for coming out tonight and for those who were asked to provide your comments if you again just email them to miss hannah parlo

» r she's the clerk council and she'll be able to share those appreciate that mr chairman if i may yes um i think we have a presentation by our emergency services director mr will glover and shortly after the approval of minutes we will have a discussion that i think everyone from liberty hill would be encouraged to stay and listen to it'll give it'll give me and others an opportunity to speak on some thoughts and ideas so i wanted to share that with y'all so everybody didn't get up and leave and miss out on it okay thank you mr brazel um gentleman that puts us back on the agenda item number 7a public presentations forest fires causes and present prevention as you know we recently had a forest fire which could have been extremely significant we've got mr glover here tonight i make a motion th

» at we have this public presentation is there a second we have a second any discussion on the public presentation seeing none we'll move it to a vote all in favor ms hannah should notice on public presentation mr glover yes sir chairman members council thank you for inviting us up to talk about wildfire wildfire seasons coming up the spring typically is when we have a influx of fires although this year for some reason we've already had an uptick so this is a good presentation that we can put out i want to highlight the the efforts that we had on ivy bush fire on valentine's day a lot of the gentlemen standing behind me from the fire service helped you know make sure that fire didn't grow more than what it did so they put in a lot of work so i want to make sure that they're recognized for the

» work that they did so this was valentine's day we'll go through a fire and then we'll talk about how to prevent fires in in just a minute so yes sir um the just to highlight the responding units i'm not going to read every single one of them but you can see we we dumped a large amount of resources on this fire from kershaw county fire service our automatic aid agreement with camden fire force provided us with with some units lugal fire sent something our brush truck over kershaw ems provided medical standby in case one of something happened to one of our firefighters or a resident in the area and then also the sheriff's department sent a lot of deputies in case we had to start evacuating homes and also to shut the road down because smoke was blowing so so far over it so a lot of units respo

» nded to this fire from inside the county and then our partnerships outside of the county lee county sumter county of course black river electric was there lancaster fire department sent assets alligator fire department in chesterfield and then south carolina forestry commission our regional supervisors here tonight mr colby blizzard so you know want to give them recognition they had three bulldozers a plane and three command officers from their area too working hand in hand with our people so a huge response uh when you get this many people coming to a fire and operating on a fire it's a logistical nightmare trying to keep up with everybody and make sure we're sending them to the right place so kudos to our people who uh who did that just to hash out the call real quick um one of our volunt

» eers actually lives right next to this place so he stepped out of his door and he was on scene really fast so one of the quickest response times that we can have to the fire but um caller was received at 1320 he was there he estimated the fire at five acres at 1328 1329 multiple homes on bluff road started calling about the fire getting close to their resident first engine was on scene 1332 another phone call about a house threatened on holland another phone call about a house threatened on chirol and then it jumped holland road at 1404 so it expanded very quickly wind conditions pushed this fire humidity levels were low so it allowed the fire to burn very quickly and very fast in a certain direction where the wind was blowing at 1414 we started notifying residents around park and holland t

» o evacuate in certain areas in case we couldn't get ahead of it and stop it and then you know three hours later it was 100 contained so something that started from you know an outside burning that quickly jumped to five acres to 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 all the units working together hand in hand was able to get the fire under control you know in a couple hours which i think speaks to the our team so overall 55 acres burned we did lose seven structures they were all classified as abandoned abandoned mobile homes or our sheds in the woods there was one house that was burned but it had had been abandoned and overgrown with vegetation but we saved 14 structures that people lived in I think that's the thing to highlight we were able to to get our resources in place and say those and I got a map lat

» er on of where those houses were we called extra resources immediately we're able to communicate with all the agencies that came in to this fire simply because of our radio system that we bought into that y'all help provide funding for we've established a drone operation here recently and that we can get it up in the air and see where the fire's running a whole lot faster than we can by foot or by vehicle so that helped us out tremendously and and dispatch was calling all the resources uh they turned the call over quickly um so they did a really good job of keeping everybody up to date of where everybody was so just a couple pictures i'm sure y'all saw some stuff on facebook i sent a text message out to some of the firefighters and i was like hey did y'all have any fire or any pictures of t

» his fire and they're like no we didn't have time so i had to go steal pictures from other other places to try to try to put them on here but just a couple quick pictures we'll run through really quick we were able to save some of the cows in the community and you can see that that car on the left-hand side it's a it's a sheriff's deputy from another County the fire was running up on them and the bulldozer actually just cut a break around the house and the car to keep the car from burning so quick quick actions on the bulldozer save the save the vehicle also on the right hand side is kind of a map of the area after we got it under control they walked it with a app to lay it out to show us exactly how many acres it was at one point there the airplane from forestry was showing that it was 75 a

» cres but then we were able to fine-tune that down a little bit to 55 this is drone pictures after the fact and you can see where it jumped one road it jumped the power lines of course and it was it was moving pretty quick there so we got a little hairy for some of our people you know for a little while but they were able to get it under control this is the picture I really want to highlight somewhere around you know in between 13 12 and 14 that was kind of the origin of the fire correct me if I'm wrong but we count the houses that we were able to protect and save from this so you know 14 homes that people lived in you can kind of see the cluster in between four and nine in that area that's where a lot of abandoned mobile homes were and we just weren't able to save those but the other ones o

» ccupiable houses able to to save on those not to mention i want to throw this in here at the same time this fire was going on we had already been toned out to a fire on timber creek road so we had units operating there this fire came out then we got toned automatic aid to camden for a fire in a fireplace that was toned out as a structure fire to start with then we had a three acre woods fire on Bishopville highway then we had an eight to ten acre woods fire on Jones Road and we were dispatched to a woods fire on Salem Acres Road and another fire on Gary golf which is across the river so all at the same time we had these other calls coming out our mutual aid partners helped us with several of these fires because we had all our units tied up on on the one big fire so it wasn't just this one o

» n that day typically when we have one big fire and the humidity is low when the winds high we start getting them all over the county in 2025 Kershaw County Fire Service responded to 94 outside fires with 79 threatened as of 2020 when we started this present making this presentation we had already responded to 72 outside fires with 24 threatening structures three of which they actually damaged structures so we had 95 total under 94 total in 2025 we've already gone to 72 right now so and technically grass fire woods fire season hadn't started yet so just the temperature the humidity and the wind has been brewing so this is a really good presentation to put out and and maybe some quick tips on how to how to prevent some of these and South Carolina outdoor burning this is all from the South Car

» olina forestry website debris burning any planned fire that escapes falls into this category it accounts for 50 of the fires that we go to across the state actually uh 25 to 30 percent specified as arson woods arson meaning somebody else lit the fire and it crossed onto somebody else's property or they maliciously you know started the fire themselves equipment use five percent smoking three to four percent and then children is three to five percent so some quick statistics of of why these fires happen so outdoor burning tips and i've got some pamphlets that forestry brought up here think before you burn we can give these out if you need more i'm sure colby will get us some more but state law requires that citizens notify the forestry commission before any outdoor burning so you can do that

» online at the website listed here scfsc.gov notify or by phone 1-800-705-8609 you simply give them your address what you're planning on doing today and and it counts as your burn permit and it lets us know that somebody's doing a controlled burn in the area the other thing the forester commission and we push is think burn so be prepared understand the laws about burning respect the weather and never leave your fire unattended and we'll go into this a little bit more so what does being prepared mean keep hand tools and water supply close do you have enough time to remain with the fire a lot of the fires that we go to that get away from people they they simply say look i stepped inside for a minute i came back out and the whole world was on fire so you know you can't run to walmart you can't

» run to the store to grab something you got to stay with the fire the whole time if you have one large pile can you divide it up into smaller piles to make it more manageable for yourself make sure you create a good break around the pile and don't burn near homes or other structures you would think that would be a given but a lot of times we have a you know somebody sets a pile of these on fire 10 15 feet from a house the wind changes it goes towards the house and they have it they have an issue so quick tips there on being prepared the laws about burning i'm not going to read the section number but it's on there. Starting fires in woodlands, grasslands, and other places shall be unlawful unless certain precautions are taken. Those precautions include notifying the Forestry Commission.

» We already talked about that. Clearing the area around the site, assuring adequate personnel and equipment are available to keep the fire from spreading, and making sure the fire is under control before leaving. So fires out, no hot spots, no anything. Another section of code states that negligently allowing fire to spread to lands of other or other property if your fire escapes you will be fined if any damaged property you will be liable it is also against the law to burn household garbage and trash tires chemicals plastics and other building materials anywhere in South Carolina so just yard debris is all that's supposed to be burned we go to a lot of homes where they're burning household trash and in the in the yard that's a that's not what we want it's just outside yard debris and and th

» e Forestry Commission tries to stay on top of it to the best of their ability. Weather's a huge thing. You heard me say wind speed and humidity a couple times already. Check the daily weather forecast. How long has it been since the last rainfall? We had a decent amount of rain, but then the humidity dropped and the wind speed came up. That dries things out very quickly and makes it for a very volatile fire environment whenever we're burning outside. It's safer to burn a few days after soaking rain or when the humidity is higher than 30. I would like to see the humidity higher than that. You know, any time the wind speed and humidity gets close together, that's when you start having a bad day.

» Are there going to be any higher gusty winds? Wind causes branches, leaves, pine needles to dry out quick. A debris fire will burn more intensely when it's windy, of course, and gusty winds can blow sparks into other areas even past your break. So make sure that we pay attention to how fast the wind is going to be blowing and also what the wind direction is. Think about where the smoke will blow. Technically, you're responsible for your smoke. So if it blows over a road and causes a blackout situation, then you're kind of responsible for that. Don't burn as smoke will blow into roads, airports, or other occupied buildings. And then lastly, never leave your fire. Watch for any flying embers or sparks. Pay attention to any kind of smoke drift going into other property.

» Notice changes in weather. And if you're concerned about safety, just go ahead and put the fire out. That's the safest thing to do. And make sure it is out before you leave. So once again, hammering that home. Don't run to Walmart and leave a fire burning in your backyard. A couple things just to think about moving forward. I know as we go to look at some of our zoning code, defensible space and new subdivisions. If anybody heard about the Horry County fires last year, we actually deployed resources down there. They have very little defensible space. Defensible space means short grass, either dirt, rock sections, or anything else. A lot of those homes are built right up against the forest or the bays in that area, and it doesn't give much area for us to use as defensible space.

» So always we've got to think about that moving forward. Limited water sources in remote areas. Most of the county on the eastern side, very limited water points. So we have to think about that. And then a lot of other counties in the past have looked at county ordinances. Forestry can only do so much of enforcing and trying to keep up with the laws of burning, outside burning. DHEC also regulates outside burning depending on what's being burned. So some counties have put in ordinances to try to help, you know, some of these outside debris burning kind of push that down a little bit and save some property. So stuff that we can look at in the future. Real quick, this is not a wildland fire, but I wanted to highlight something.

» Has anybody heard about close before you doze? So close your bedroom door before you go to sleep. So we had a structure fire over in Elgin a couple days ago. It was on Barfield Road. It came in just as any other structure fire. Our units responded, arrived on scene, and they confirmed that there was a victim there. The victim was rescued, identified where they were, pulled out of the structure within three minutes of figuring out that there was a victim there. And then we were able to control the fire. So kudos to our people being able to make a rescue, a 14-year-old individual on this one. But the thing that I wanted to highlight is this. Clothes before your doze. The left picture is outside of the bedroom. heavy heat conditions, heavy smoke conditions.

» On the right side, you can see a little bit of smoke stain. I think that was after the door was open, you know, once we got the kid or the individual out. But that room is almost untouched for the most part. If you close that door, it gives you an extended amount of time to get out of a residence if the house is on fire. So we wanna hammer that home.

» We do social media releases and press releases, but please, if we can push the close before you doze message, could save somebody's life and I wanted to highlight the the owner of the the property said that we could use those pictures for first off and then you know she was thankful the the Sun and then I think four cats and a dog were pulled out of this this fire so just a quick good job to our people and then also pushing the closed before you doze message director Glover thank you so much for the presentation and I congratulate you and thank you for the service you've done particularly with the recent wildfire that we had but yeah I wasn't aware of this one just a couple days ago perhaps saving someone's life in Elgin it sounds like along with their pets just eyeballing the clock I'm sur

» e we're gonna have some discussion from council members I'd take a motion to extend our public presentation time period is there a second second a second any discussion on that motion seeing none all in favor we've extended it unanimously as needed miss Hannah council members any comments questions Very quickly. Mr. Jones. Good job. I was a fireman for nine months. It sounds like some of the wrestling background. Thank you, Mr. Jones. It's all our team. Nine months was a lot longer than the other short stints in wrestling. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Any other comments, questions, discussion? Mr. Tucker. This is actually towards the administrator.

» Is there any way that we can possibly put some of the information about website and the phone number on our website so people can be able to access it a little quicker we do have it on the kershaw county fire service page right website but i can work and help them yeah we could if people like me you know who's not internet savvy or anything i.t savvy we might struggle to get to the fire one but if we can get up on the kershaw county one um that might be a little quicker to access and people will use it as well i'll show you how to do it you're the right teacher sending smoke signals to send a message is kind of the opposite of the idea we got we need you to modernize sammy i know and i want to say well thanks thanks for all that you and your team do and i know you probably have already done

» this but i'm gonna i'm gonna say it um because um if they happen to be listening to know that council appreciates too the surrounding counties lancaster lee um sumter i don't know if anybody came from richland or not but chesterfield chesterfield did they come for all the surrounding counties that did respond to our our emergency i want to say thanks to them and their leadership administration because that's what it takes these fires get out of control very fast as you will know and you know we've had this year already that i am familiar with you know one house fire we were not able to save someone which happens to be one of my church members different circumstances but still that's the life and you know that's a horrible way to go is in a fire wherever you're awake or sleep it's just a hor

» rible way to go but thank you and to the group thank you mr chucker council members mr chairman if i may mr brazel to uh to every fireman in the room thank you thank you for your hard work your dedication your service um had the pleasure of being at the town hall with uh with will just a what a week ago now it's probably been longer than that it seems like it was two days ago um the the amount of leadership that you exhibit and in the way you present to us and the way you respond to us is second to none will um you and i started here at kershaw county about the same time i was sworn in in january and i think you came to work in march is that right of 20 may 2021 and somewhere between the time i was sworn in and the time you were hired i had a phone call from one in particular person telling

» me that i needed to find out who will glover was and i said okay and this person was very adamant that you come back to kershaw county i'm so thankful that you're here um just really impressed with the way you've you're able to assist at the town hall i was impressed at your ability to communicate effectively with people in a positive manner and tonight this presentation i really appreciate what you've what you've shown us and very familiar with the forestry service my education was in forestry and i know there's different techniques that could have been a big fire 55 acres is a big fire but it looked like it was a lot of it was kept low and um we uh we got lucky a couple places um first of all i want to say it's not me it's the team behind me absolutely it's not here um without them i coul

» dn't do anything so you know all the kudos goes to them i'm just i'm just here so colby and his team uh from from forestry the working relationship that we have with so many agencies now uh is is second to none uh the eight agreements that we've been able to put in place uh mutual and automatic aid i mean it's just it's great the way that we've been able to network and and chief bullard and his team they're continuing to move that that automatic aid and mutual aid agreement forward uh chief edge on the ems side has also been doing that so it is not me it's the team below me someone who defers to their team and gives them the recognition as a leader thank you thank you so much mr chairman thank you mr bradley mr thomason yes sir thank you director um just a quick question you mentioned in th

» e presentation um other counties have have local ordinances um could you give some examples of the type of ordinances that that they have and is there any of the surrounding counties that have ordinances yeah um richland county sumpter county darlington a lot of the surrounding ones do most of them just look at the state law you know and they set a minimum requirement of you can't burn within a certain amount of feet from a house uh to just put that in in place they they re-up the only burning yard debris and not household uh household trash um so really simple things that's kind of in state law that we can we can put into an ordinance and enforce it at a local level instead of you know having to rely on on you know forestry or or des to uh to enforce it we can handle it ourselves in other

» words correct yeah thank you mr thompson any other comments or discussion mr cato will thank you again i've spent a good bit of time as a volunteer up in bethune but i just want to i want to put this out there that y'all really need volunteers volunteers aren't as popular as they were back in the 70s 80s and 90s in the rural departments and and i know that's slacked off and a lot of it has to do with so many different things families have to do at this particular day and time but you know anybody that's interested in volunteering i i would ask you to reach out to will and his staff i want to thank them for the job they do they they are they're amazing and they really work hard at what they do i've got a brother-in-law that's part of the forestry team and i i thank them for what they do they

» have saved many lives in many houses so so thank you again and i just wanted to put that out there if someone wants to volunteer or is interested in helping please reach out to them because they need all the help they can get and i'll say too the volunteer system now we've tried to tailor it to where you don't have to be a interior firefighter you don't have to put an air pack on and go inside we can train you to pick up a truck drive the truck and other people will you know put the air packs on and go inside we can train you to you know emergency medical response so there's there's different avenues so if you don't want to go inside of a burning fire we may have a different option how long would that training be if you were gonna be a support depending on which way you go driver operator t

» raining you're looking at you know 60 hours probably of training to get to the point of driving a truck where you can pump effectively draft water um that that sort of thing emr training is about 40 hours now i believe yep 40 hours so uh and interior firefighting is up about 150 hours of training the initial training and then you have to do annual certifications even if you're a volunteer yes yep how long does those um certifications last the the certifications are good as long as you continue to do training uh annual training requirements for for volunteers um there is somewhere per iso is a whole lot higher we hold them to a certain standard and i believe it's changed to about four months four hours a month now or what i'm looking at the training the new training officer right annual trai

» ning for a volunteer now requirements four to ten hours a month so councilman thomas and thank you for bringing that up that was going to be a point that i wanted to make that was part of our discussion i I think you said it was roughly six weeks of training per year. For interior firefighter, you have to go about 150 hours to get the initial certification.

» Okay, I think that to bolster our volunteer base, that's probably the best suggestion right now is to find people who can help that wouldn't be an interior firefighter, but we need to look to our friends at state for um ways to to bring young people in that doesn't take three and four and five weeks of training uh they can be trained at wtc is that right we've got that program um that that is definitely something that we need to encourage our young people to to get involved with and kind of bolster that because it used to be when i was growing up such an honor to to be a part of something like this and it still is it's it's just tapered off so anything that we can do to make that easier on you please let us know thank you thank you mr browse any other comments or discussion director glover

» you're doing an excellent job we look forward to uh doing our best to support you in the future let us know if you have any ideas or what you need and it's completely appropriate to bring up something like defensible space because we're in the middle of a zero dr rewrite and smart growth committee is going to bring recommendations in thank you so so much thank y'all all right gentlemen we're back on the agenda that brings us to item number 8a we have two uh sessions of minutes to approve we'll take them as two separate motions is there a motion on item number 8a this is the council regular mr chairman i'm meeting february 10 we have motions or second second we have a motion in a second any discussion on the minutes for 8a saying no discussion we'll move it to a vote for approval all in favo

» r raise your hand? Ms. Hanna, 8A. The minutes are approved unanimously. Now I'll seek a motion on item number 8B. This is regarding the budget retreat. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. We have a second from Mr. Cato. Any discussion on 8B? Mr. Chairman, if I may. Yes, sir. I was looking through here, and the gentleman that got up, Mr. Reed, I believe, and spoke about the minutes.

» I just want to say for just clarity that there's no numbers beside those topics intentionally because they're not in any priority so just FYI that there are things that are important to council the council has not prioritized any of that yet great yes sir okay any other discussion on the minutes for 8b you must be number one sir okay we'll move it to a vote then with mr. Jones being good all in favor raise your hand on 8b miss Hannah it passes unanimously for the record next up we have item Number 9A, placed on by Councilman Brazel, emergency services, is there a motion? - Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to discuss options for emergency services. - Is there a second? - Second. - We have a second. Mr. Brazel, you have the floor. - Thank you.

» I'd like to point out the fact that this was, Danny Cato brought this up during our retreat as a point of keen interest for him. So Danny, thank you. Thank you for pointing out the fact we do have a desert a gap and we we have had things change post-covid people have been able to work remotely others have retired and these more rural communities are experiencing these issues with longer lead times and in the lake geographically divides our county and it creates these long points um everything can't can't be just lugo just elgin just camden we have to find a way to to get these response times to will said you know the ultimate response time is 10 to 12 minutes will we get there I'm not sure does it need to be 45 minutes absolutely not it's it's unacceptable and that town hall left me with a

» lot to think about and director will Glover and I have talked through this he has ideas i have ideas and as i was on the way home and councilman jones attended with me and he actually rode with me and i dropped him off and we i don't know we live about 12 minutes apart and halfway back to my house i called him i said i've got an idea and i think this is going to work so i'd like to present that to everyone tonight and i've already reached out some of our partners um musc health resources district and actually spoke councilman tucker to the cog and there are opportunities beyond those three for partnerships in kershaw county for rural services and that certainly qualifies and one of them is is a state level partnership and ben having served at the state house can certainly better educate the

» rest of council so with all that being said i'm going to read through a letter that that will be issued to some of our partners and um and talk about the rural response times as soon as i put on my glasses thank you thomas already passed my bedtime now this is this is something that has not come from will this is something that was that was just thoughts in my head after a town hall kershaw county rural response team so rrt for short a rural response team is a specialized unit designed to address the unique challenges of low density areas that have long travel distances and limited infrastructure a reliance on volunteers and it will have to have full staffing in the case of kershaw county those areas will be beaver creek pine grove liberty hill of course all the areas around the lake casset

» t and bethune as well although they they currently have more stations and ems than than these other areas i've mentioned establishing a rural response team for ems and ambulance and emergency services in kershaw county will require a structured approach that integrates with the infrastructure that we have while addressing the the challenges of the unique rural geography our mission is to align with the executive director will glover and continue to adhere to the rules and regulations already in place while trying to foster better relationships through all the partners that we have to work with i'm going to ask for i think will's going to ask for two ems vehicles this year i'm going to ask for an additional four and i'm going to reach out to our partners including the cog including musc incl

» uding the health resource districts and the one that i have not had time to reach out to would be a grant through the south carolina office of rural health i think that we would certainly qualify for any of these opportunities had some great conversations already um and and i've got a letter here i'm going to read it and then i'd like david are you here still we've got david adams with musc i'd like to hear from david if if he would like to speak on this subject but here's a letter that that i formed and i would like for it to come from council if if everyone agrees and supports these opportunities to to work together with state agencies i'm writing to propose a strategic collaboration between kershaw county the medical university of south carolina known as musc and the health resource dist

» rict to establish three rural ems ambulance stations supported by rural response teams this initiative directly supports providing the right care in the right place at the right time by expanding physical medical presence in underserved areas, specifically off Highway 97, Longtown Road, and 521 at Barron-DeKalb, in order to reduce response times to the Lake community as well as one of the most remote and medically sensitive areas in our county. Despite South Carolina's health care advancements, rural populations continue to face significant disparities in access to timely medical care.

» The proposed EMS ambulance stations, staffed and supported through dedicated RRT units, will serve as critical access points, reducing traffic barriers while strengthening emergency response capacity and stabilizing local health care and community. These rural response teams will enhance patient outcomes through faster stabilization, improve community accessibility, and delivery of timely treatment to individuals in need.

» respectfully request a preliminary meeting with the organization to further discuss the demonstrated need and urgency surrounding placement of these rural ems ambulance stations and accompanying accompanying rrt deployments throughout rural kershaw county i look forward to your response and the opportunity to work together towards improving health care and access for our residents with kind regards i am russell brazel kershaw county council now what we've done is we've started a conversation. You engaged with me and now it's my turn to engage with others and get us all to a table and work through these issues together. I certainly know that everybody here on this council supports safety and healthcare in our community.

» Our chairman's been a tremendous advocate and worked with MUSC for years. I can't say enough about each and every one that's some of you guys been law enforcement these are the things I've never done I probably have the least amount of knowledge regarding emergency services and/or fire but I do know how to build a team I do know how to put put a group together that can solve a problem and that's how I look at this is we have a problem and we need to solve it we're gonna have a funding issue the ambulances are probably a half a million dollars each more than to rehab the old structures to find temporary structures if it's nothing more than a small office and a uh in the shed for an ambulance um will where you at could i ask you back up you've got so much knowledge that i i need to borrow no

» i do don't be shy other than a full-blown ambulance what are what are the other opportunities uh as far as improving services and areas well yeah i think there was a smaller truck a medic truck or something would you call it we have qrb vehicles qrbs medic units that you know they can provide als advanced life care support until an ambulance arrives can they transport somebody they cannot can they can they administer life-saving medicines if someone's having a heart attack they can okay well my my short-term term goal is to establish those just as fast as possible I think there at one point there was one at Beaver Creek years back I believe so I don't know when that was pulled I think actually the late water reassociation helped fund part of that salary so well can we find out when it went

» away and what we need to do to refund it I'll do that now we can do the research on that yes and let me let me say this to everybody in the audience these men with their badges on they're doing their job this is on us this is on me I'm your representative and I'm going to take full responsibility and ownership Will and I had a very deep conversation in which he says you know I really just I appreciate my guys so much I want them to feel loved and I said Will this is not your fault this is my fault and I want you to know that but we're going to fix it we're going to fix it correctly and I don't say that I'm not of people pleaser I'm gonna tell you the truth whether you like it or not and the truth is is we're going to fix it I heard you loud and clear that was a tremendous crowd and there we

» re so many people let down and that just should not be the case I'm going to lean on our partners I'm going to lean on the people that have had the expertise in these matters to help us so does anybody will do you want to provide any more information i'm sorry as administrator can i be right into this yeah of course because i'm i'm flat-footed here i don't know anything about you can well this is this is council this is council and it's me bringing an opportunity and an idea to fix this but i just hear one of my staff being tasked with something that i'm not anything aware of i hear and in particular i'll just mention as a point of order uh this was placed on the agenda as a a discussion item only.

» So literally, unless it's moved or we create a new item, the agenda is-- - Well, we're not voting on anything tonight. - Well, no action item can be taken. I don't think we can even refer something to the Finance Committee. Mr. DuBose, is that correct? - He can ask that. - Like no action can be taken from a discussion session? - Yes, strictly speaking on discussion items, they're not, those aren't action items. - All right, so I just wanna comply with what the rules are. - To your point, options exist to create action items, But in addition to the agenda, would it be a two-thirds fine in emergency circumstances to take any action on something not ours? We're having a discussion, Mr. DuBose. I didn't ask for a vote.

» And, Danny, if I offended you in any way, I certainly apologize because— Let me say something. I didn't know it. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen this before tonight. Did you all know about it? No. But he told me he had something he was bringing forward that might resolve a lot of our issues. So I think, you know, I mean, if it's a bad idea, I'm happy to be told that it's a bad idea. Mr. Chairman, can I ask a question? Sure. To Danny and Director Glover, I know that last year in our budget process we worked really hard to bolster fire, EMS, and even supplement the Sheriff's Department. Do we have a number? I can't try to remember through all the budget meetings.

» Do we have a number about what we budgeted for each one of those? You don't have to answer that right now, That would be something for all of council to look at. I can put together the increases and where those increases went, yes. I can put that together. And I agree. I think every year we should bolster emergency response. And I know that a few of us up here have done that every year. And I appreciate everybody coming on board.

» What would be – so if we do have three new stations, four vehicles, what does that impact reoccurring budget line item if you have for FTEs? councilman i don't think we can get that granular tonight that's why as a discussion item and will and i specifically spoke about the fact that we didn't want to get into the weeds and the details because this is like a 30 000 foot discussion well mr thompson has a floor i mean well actually actually i had the floor and i was interrupted and i didn't get to finish my first thought it would appear i had a question i yielded to danny because he seemed um like he wanted wanted to speak i was but but no one yielded back to me mr browser may i say one quick thing sure when i was i was a county employer for 25 years in department 15 years and our county admi

» nistrator always told county council they could talk talk to his staff and danny's been very good about that along with carpenters but also the county administrators required their staff to make sure he let they let him know that they're going to be working with a county councilman or getting some information for that county councilman so i would recommend that maybe you ask your staff from this point on make sure you do know you know what's coming before us i think that's a great idea and i will have a memo go out yes sir and that's the way we counsel and staff because i think that's a two-way sword but thank you i appreciate it mr brazel retaining the floor i would like to go ahead yes sir so as an elected official i'm tasked with listening to the people as an elected official i don't nee

» d anybody's permission to try to solve a problem danny respectfully i'm happy to read you into every conversation if that's what i need to do um will and i had a great conversation i told him what was on my mind if this council decides it's not the avenue we want to go then that's we won't we won't go that avenue but i think will has ideas that he's probably worked with you on that we can all find happy medians in and none of this is about me this is about everybody sitting in this audience our families and our loved ones this has zero to do with me this has everything to do with the people in kershaw county and making sure we're doing the right job david adams is here tonight with musc if if others have questions for will i've expressed what i'd like to see i'd like to utilize buildings th

» at we have the buildings that are existing i'm willing to donate materials to get them up to code if necessary if if there's a bedroom that needs to be redone i'm willing to help i'm here to help nothing about this conversation is anything other than i want to find a solution and i want to do it with you i want to do it danny i want to do it with you okay sir i welcome that good we'll save your neck and tell you administrator so at this point i will yield um any further comments yep i have read the letter i have read my thoughts that god gave me that i fear not being uh deterred from ever using in the future because i will continue to and i welcome anyone else to speak to mr glover please and i would after mr glover's done i would like to invite mr adams from musc to share the conversation

» that he and i had together and the absolutely unbelievable ideas that he had to share with me about the liberty hill and the upper kershaw county and lower lancaster county options that could be a longer to make russ had floor then i intervened he took it and you got it well you can have it after i made this last statement but i'm gonna will yield to you because i'm a nice guy it'll just be really quick go ahead mr thomas um i russell i appreciate all your hard work on this and i know that chief glover and all of our emergency response staff would love to have additional funding i know that our our county administration would love to have additional funding and we can sit up here all day and have great ideas to put out but if we're not willing to vote to put taxpayer money on paper in a bud

» get these ideas are all all speak and and that's that's the hard part we we've got to be willing to get up here and take that responsibility to make those votes in the process that's last statement I have to make great state mr. Thompson mr. Jones that's very good mr. Thompson you know you got to talk about it for you can put money on it and one thing that I will say is that I've always been in favor for my 20 years I've always from the very first day I was on council an argument first night i was on county council and it was about public private funding and mr tucker knows what i'm talking about we had a lot of fun with that one he voted against me i voted against him well actually six one but the thing about is what i'm hearing and i need more understanding russell because some may think

» i know but i don't know i'm i'm very interested in and i'm i'm very proud that we have a council member that will go out and ask questions and and try to find funding for certain issues, to try to do a private-public partnership. That takes the burden off the taxpayers for the whole 100%. If I'm not mistaken, that's what you sound like you're talking about. I don't know. I'd like to hear from Ms. Adams about how MUSC or the health resources-- I'd like to hear how they are going to be involved or would be involved. But I'm certainly thinking that it's to save money. And to my colleagues-- and I know you all probably didn't know about it-- That was a very passion-driven town hall meeting with a huge crowd, almost 100 people. And in my 20 years, I've never seen a town hall that big.

» In other words, I've seen town halls with more politicians and bureaucrats than people. But that was probably one of the biggest I've ever been to. And I'll tell you, when I hear this lady over here, and ma'am, I don't need your vote, don't want your vote. I'm saying this because it's come from my heart. It broke my heart to hear what you said about your husband. Of course, we can't run off of emotions in here, but it's just the good sense right thing for us to do so I'd say to my colleagues mr.

» Brazel thank you for bringing this before us and to have a conversation to get it started but I can assure my colleagues they know that because Finance Committee certainly has to go through them first but bottom line is nobody would ever intend to just go throw money at something without having a conversation first so I thank you I thank you folks for sitting out here tonight I thank you folks for being up there the other night it was my honor to to be there will i thank you and i just tell you uh mr brazel continue to fight continue to good work because this was this was really i'm just excited to hear the rest of it i'm ready to hear from mr adams does anybody else have anything mr jones thank you so much any other comments discussion you're quite welcome at this time i'm a little bit per

» plexed but i'll save that for later mr adams please you always do well mr adams you see what you're walking into We had a great conversation. I apologize. Am I? Go ahead. Yes, sir. Okay. I'll do my best to be brief. Yeah. Yesterday, the councilman and I, he gave me a call and asked me to look into a few items. We talked about the fact that MUSC does not do emergency services. We don't have funds that do emergency services. I am looking into some other items that we had discussed about some of the grant funding possibilities. I know there's some items, there's some funds from the federal government that have come to the state. I know that we are applying for them for other purposes through the Department of Health and Human Services.

» The governor has designated them as the place to apply for grants for rural transformation funds and I do not know if this fits within that yet. I have not gotten an answer yet. I do know that there is a model around the state right now for service holes where-- and the example that I gave you yesterday is one I'll share with the rest of you. There is a model that we have tried to use in places where there are emergency services holes that is happening in eastern Richland County right now.

» There is a place in Richland County where it takes about 35 minutes for an ambulance get two people and then about 35 to 40 minutes to get back to the closest emergency room and we are doing we are working with a group that is putting together an emergency department closer so in eastern richland county so that when the ems does arrive there they have a shorter drive to get somebody to their their critical care and to be triaged that is something that is out there that um that i will be happy to um talk to our leadership about that now that particular project took about four years to put in place this has been this has been something that we had uh the the local legislators had discussed with the musc leadership over four years before it was actually able to be something that became a reali

» ty but we do not do emergency services and so i'm digging into some more questions right now and haven't gotten a lot of answers since our talk yesterday but those were the things that we had discussed so if we were to overlay that idea in richland county to kershaw county the hypothetical would be a smaller version of what you have at the elgin campus off i-20 as a satellite location further north of your main hospital that would serve as a smaller er or something like that it is an emergency triage and that would be in northern kershaw county we're saying we'll be could be yes sir yes sir i'm i'm a terrible politician i know listen i used to have to buy fire trucks and ambulances for a living i understand how much it costs i am i am an absolute terrible politician but i can tell you what

» i'm good at i'm good at pushing initiatives okay so let me rephrase the idea that you brought up to me could potentially be in northern Kershaw County and would service southern Lancaster and northern Kershaw County these are things that we would yes sir that we would look at with you that's what you and I talk about model yes that's what we talked about very comfortably on the farm absolutely and you don't say serve me you know me what what I want to do is is provide these services to these rural areas um and i wish daryl augerman could have been here tonight because he's from that northern kershaw county kind of mount pisgah jefferson area and he said this has been a problem for years russell and um i'm very thankful for for his phone call as well but are there any other highlights that t

» hat you have that um all right okay i've not gotten any answers back no no answers yesterday i'm not sure if there's something that i might have said that struck you that i don't recall well i mean the first thing that struck me was that there could be a small hospital built in a rural area that blew me away it's an emergency room or a very small emergency room yes sir again my words are wrong but that's okay i'm just trying to make sure i'm being clear but my intentions are are pure so thank you so much for being here tonight i mean what a what a tremendous potential opportunity okay but but the framework for for doing something now is is there and um that's that's what i wanted you fine folks to hear tonight um everyone that came from liberty hill thanks for being here and thanks for havi

» ng me at the town hall i guess i don't want to say when you finish i'm done thank you um mr browser i need to give every other opportunity of council to before mr i was the second one not a second you were the second but but you've already spoke and under robert's rules i just need to let everybody else i'm just trying to follow the rules i'm supposed to let everybody else have a chance to speak before someone speaks i don't think you follow the rules yes thank you mr chair i just wanted before mr adams sit down because um when you speak of richland county i i do know certain things are a little different on the scales but in your research can you find out are they leveraging this particular opportunity with the penny sales tax because they have a penny for progress they're not delivering t

» hat with that i have to do with the local government this has to do with um as i understand it this has to do with the musc leadership's determination to serve south carolina okay and they were asked by several legislators to come in and do an evaluation in certain areas there are a number of areas that they have looked at this was one that they had begun the process way thank you i just think it's fantastic thank you mr tucker any other council member who has not been heard wishes to be heard mr jones please thank you mr chairman i wanted to say one thing to you i want to thank you for coming here tonight i really appreciate it you didn't have to do that but you took time to talk with mr brazel and i didn't know the particulars of what y'all talked about but i i appreciate that and uh i th

» ink that speaks volume thank you mr jones i don't have anything for you mr adamson thank you for coming out tonight we'll catch up later um any other comments discussion questions from council members yes mr jones i guess i'm i'm a little bit i would use the vice chairman's word perplexed or just confused why i i would think everybody should be smiling up he'd be real happy that we're trying to find a solution to provide some ens services to the you know the livid hill area but i feel like it's almost like a hostile and i'm not used to being hostile it's like i mean but it seems like there's just a lot of i read look i can do body language and i can read faces okay i read the book three times um and i just got the impression that this wasn't a popular subject tonight and i don't i just don'

» t understand why you all know i'm right you know i'm right on what i'm saying don't sit there and say i'm wrong i'm 100 right but guys we got to come together we got to do something for liberty hill when it comes to we got to do something for bethune you know when it comes to uh pisgah ambulance services we just have to figure something out and and you know i find this community i think it's done a great job on working on things and uh you know great leadership on that but that's just what i want to say guys we need to pull together on this thank you mr jones mr cato you know i don't use the word i very well i don't do it you know why because i ain't an i in team isn't me a budget retreat and i'm going to use i brought this before the budget retreat with a small short presentation mr jones

» the reason i'm sitting here the way i am is because i feel like i've been left completely out of the loop until today well wait a minute you were invited to the town hall i got the floor you i got it you were invited to the town hall i got the floor for the record you were for the record i got the floor go ahead mr brazel please suspend mr cato i was invited to liberty hill about six hours before the event was the first time i knew about it in which i had a church obligation and i wanted to explain that to each and every one of you that's the first time i heard of it six hours before the event the rest of this stuff i knew about at one o'clock today but i'm the one that brought it up mr jones that might not matter to you it might not matter to you well i'm gonna come back at you if you come

» at me and i'm just gonna tell you that right now i'm trying to be nice no i'm trying to be nice but you're trying to sit over there and be all bullish my problem my problem with this is there's a lot that can get accomplished if we would all get on the same sheet of music okay but it's like everybody wants to take credit i don't want credit for anything i want us to come together as a body and figure out how we can financially support ems services in that area listen that area between porter road and i showed it in the retreat and lake water ree is a huge geographical area huge we had an ems station at the end of lockhart that had to be destroyed okay for two reasons one it had problems with the building two was the line of sight for the emergency vehicles to come out of it when i first com

» e on council that had already been taken care of that had already been eliminated i asked last year that we re that we visit it was a little bit too late but i asked that we visit putting another ems station somewhere in the bearing the cab area so that it would serve both highway 97 liberty hill area westville area and it could even get over back towards north central if the unit on porter road was tied up because the one on porter road services cassett and mount pisgah and all the way over to the lee county line and you know so there's there's a large geographical area i don't want anybody here and And you get upset with me if you want to. I don't want anybody here to misunderstand why I'm upset. It's not about this.

» I'm behind doing what we need to do for the people up there, and I always have been. Mr. Brazel said that he talked to Mr. Ogburn. Listen, I'm from that area. I know what it's like. I've lived there my whole life, okay? I know what the response was. Fortunately, during my time, we had two rescue squads, one in Mount Pisgah and one in Bethune, that serviced those areas that were strictly made up by EMT and paramedics that were volunteered, that volunteered their time, had remotes in their house to dispatch volunteers to go out to emergency medical events and fires.

» It didn't come through nine one one but now we don't have that and it's time that we catch up but we've got to do it as a team we can't go out on our own we've got to do it as a team and if we do it as a team we can get this done and i look forward to working with that and seeing that we can get something accomplished it's going to take money it's going to take money and it can't be done in just a few months but we've got to get the money first but it can be done thank you now y'all can bash me however you I don't want to bash you. I do want to say something. Mr. Jones, you yield. Oh, I guess I definitely got something to say But could tells me don't tell you don't could I respond first? Yes, go ahead. Mr Brazel kills Mankato.

» I think I initiated the conversation with with the statement that he absolutely championed this At the retreat it was maybe I was just the lucky one who got to to hear from you last Wednesday and Danny, if you felt left out or blindsided or anything like that, that next Thursday morning after getting home late, my wife and I took a much-needed trip to Florida. We drove 10 hours, went to Destin, Florida. It's really nice if you ever want to go. And we returned yesterday. I have a business, I have a family that I spend most of my time operating. I don't have time to call and ask everybody's permission if it's okay for me to call somebody else. So if I rubbed anybody wrong, don't think it was that I meant to. I did my very best to include.

» I did my very best to be kind and genteel and point out the fact that this wasn't my idea. It was their idea because they're the ones who are suffering. And yet what I left out was the fact that the community that I was born and raised in, Pine Grove, and Lake Watery on the Lugolf side has the same exact issues you have. You guys are just a little further. So it's funny, we had brush fires tonight. The worst call I ever took from a constituent was from a brush fire. And I got my tail chewed because it took 40 minutes for a truck to get there. Something happened with the way it was dispatched. Nobody came from Pine Grove Fire, which was like two miles up the road. At the time, we didn't have a full-time fire person.

» The closest responding, and this was years ago, the closest responding fire truck came from Elgin. And my mother lit me up because my dad called our field on fire. And she said, y'all got to do better. And when I'm telling you that, you ever met my mother? She'll tell you what's on her mind. And I was like, wow, I've never had to deal with my mom being upset at me because I'm on council but I did that night and we were able to make some changes for the better but Danny I'm 100% with you his team it ain't me um I'm here to work with you I'm here to work with Ben I'm here to work with Sammy I'm here to work with Derek I'm here to work with Brant I'm here to work with Jimmy and I'm certainly here to work with our administrator so sometimes I'm a little bullish and that's just who I am with tha

» t I will shut my mouth thank you Mr. Brazel Mr. Jones well I was gonna say something um very well put I do want to say this you know I didn't know about it you know I know you invited me to go up there I was ready to get out of house to wife was working late and I wonder they really enjoyed myself and I was glad I could be a part of it that night um I don't think anybody was attention left out but I do want to say to you Danny I look forward to working with you and I do want you know that for one and I know mr.

» browser nobody was trying to leave anybody else I didn't know anything about it either but i did go and i would normally sit up here and tell you to relax take a deep breath but that might be sound like i'm agitating my wife told me not to agitate people up here but we do need to take a deep breath and we do need to relax and we do need to just calm down i can't believe i'm talking about this because this is not what i was really going to say i know isn't it wonderful well it's okay but uh but but the thing that i have much respect for mr cato i i have respect for each one of you up here but guys we just can't take it personal and uh but i but i'll say this i look forward to working with each one of you to try to resolve it and here's what i will leave everybody with okay mr brazel thank yo

» u you've brought some ideas to the table so if we don't go mr browser's ideas let's see where council wants to go with ideas i'm willing to change my thought on the ideas but i'm willing to see now okay we got one person soon he had these thoughts if that's not going to prove over we're not going to do that then let's let me hear y'all's ideas what we're going to do thank you thank you mr jones council members any further discussion um i haven't been hurling this item yet i just want to share a few things i'm sorry i didn't know about your meeting but i do have a few things to share tonight that i think will be relevant and show that there's some path forward for addressing some of your concerns and others in various parts of the county that have concerns this started i want to say eight is

» h years ago when we were primarily volunteer based and we discovered that so many people were working outside so many of the volunteers were working outside of kershaw county that we were having extremely delayed response times god bless the volunteers but we had to figure out a way to fund full-time fire service so that we could reduce response times in very densely populated areas if you had somebody in lectington that was a volunteer they got to check with their boss make sure they can leave and then try to drive 30 40 minutes over here to then get their gear on and try to unless they have it in their vehicle and then respond to a fire in a particular area so we knew we had to do something at the time folks we had handwritten uh data entries and faxed in reports and then another human ha

» s to collate all that and try to enter it in and get into the system we're very um we're aged at the time we'll say we need a technological update that's what the fire professionals who work for kershaw county and the administrators were telling us we need to do and so we did that we conducted a fire study which tied in ems as well and determined where we needed to spend the money to put stations first that's a capital expense and i know i'm preaching to the choir but then we got to worry about the personnel expense because that's recurring right so that study came back and said doby's mill and elgin you got to put your first fire and ems station we couldn't afford to do both initially we did a fire station first it took us a while to fund it and I'll talk about the mechanism for funding pe

» rsonnel or an operating cost and then we did EMS after that and just recently we completed the Cassett fire station as part of a hub and spoke system that's been part of this emergency response plan for for years and so those two got done the next rankings and priorities I understand them and I had to had to check my notes in memory and I believe some of your concerns are already in the queue so Buffalo mount pisgah is in the queue for a fire station that's one of our next top goals if you were to ask the fire professionals in the room as i understand it director glover was here he'd say buffalo mount pisgah fire station and that's database from the fire study and then also the new technology allows us to get uh counts more accurately and quickly has confirmed that and then next up number t

» wo would be a highway 5 ems station so that's part of the fire plan and ems plan um somewhere up highway five maybe past the old allen's market but not real far up highway five because they still have to hit lugolf zone but that addresses some of the late concerns in that area at any rate and then the third one and the most expensive one would be a baron de cab combo ems fire station so something like what you have at w's mill and elgin but at baron de cab which would be on that side i'm not sure how far north yet and the county hasn't identified the property yet so some of these concerns are already in the queue they're already part of the plan and we're working on funding them but building them as a capital expense a one-time expense is one thing funding them because you have to have safe

» ty standards for firemen that go into a building you got to have like is it two people for every one that goes in in case you have to pull that person out and there's all these ratios that they have for safety to make sure the county can stay uh insurable with workers comp and keep the firemen safe as well with that said i think the just on our best numbers today an ems fire station to fully staff it so that you could have the shifts you would need to cover the calls around the clock it'd be at least 2.2 million dollars at least the personnel cost for each ambulance so each ambulance i heard um earlier tonight was about 500 000 they're expensive the personnel cost to run the shifts that would operate that ambulance so it just doesn't sit there so you can actually respond i think would be ab

» out $850,000 per ambulance. So if we had another four ambulances. How many people? However many shifts they run. Yeah, so eight people per ambulance running our shifts. What if we went back to a 12-hour shift? Mr. Brazel, please, if I could just complete my thoughts. Go ahead. So if you had another four ambulances, just my rough math would be $3.4 million in personnel costs. Now, that's significant because how we fund personnel versus, or operating costs versus capital costs and i'm sorry to get on the weeds but i think it is just merited here capital cost is one thing we have a fire mill or fire millage that we are capped by there's a law state law we have to live by called act 388.

» we can't just jack the fire mill up to cover all these operating costs we are capped at is it a 3.5 or 5 increase mr dubose per year i believe it's three and a half three and a half okay i have to check my math but that's the cap we're allowed one fire mill is worth a hundred and ninety thousand dollars point of order yes sir you told us not to get into the weeds and you're getting into the weeds no sir i didn't say that at all yeah we were chastised for getting into weeds no sir i didn't say that well i sure felt like it no sir i believe mr brazel uh asked that we keep it a high level conversation no it was said up here about everybody talking you know about us having a conversation to finish my thought on the discussion and so the The point is, even if we wanted to, we can't increase the

» fire mill legally to pay for the personnel that would be required to occupy these stations. If we could build you one tomorrow, we can't increase the fire mill to pay for the firemen that would occupy it. So that's a real problem. Advocacy at the State House would be very helpful. You could do a one-time reset. Smaller counties have to deal with this issue. Greenville, Richland County, Charleston don't have this problem because they already had full-time fire service whenever they set their fire mill.

» we said it we had a bunch of volunteers and not full-time employees and so our fire mill got set low and all of a sudden our population started to grow and we needed full-time when you're looking at a 1.2 to 2.5 million dollar increase in one year it was a real struggle so the way we tried to address it is a fire fee which in some ways is inequitable you could have a improved parcel that has a shack on it and it's a quarter acre if it has a structure on it it's paying the same fire fee is a $2 million house somewhere else. They pay the same amount because that's what the law requires. And so I think advocacy at the state house would be very helpful to allow the rural counties to reset their fire mill to fund fire service the way we need to. We're hamstrung by that.

» And then that's the operating call side of it, hiring people to actually do what we'd want them to do and respond to the calls. The second part is EMS is supposed to be an enterprise fund. So it pulls from the general fund some, but it's supposed to kind of stand on its own. And so, in order to hire that number of EMS, I mean, it would require a significant tax increase, which I don't see how we could do at this point. But we do have goals, and as I understand them from the professionals who know better than me, the goals are fire station at Buffalo, Mount Pisgah, Highway 5 EMS station, and then Barron to Cab, a combo EMS fire station. And we want to try to tackle those goals as we can. I think we get, Mr.

» Templer, is it 120 or something million dollar requests each year? And we, just as an example, have an operating budget of 30 to 40 million, depending on how it goes. And so we get those requests for expenditures each year, and we're unable to spend the money for the requests that we want to. And so we've got to make the tough decisions. I agree that this is a worthy project. It's already in the queue. Based on the heat maps and population density and calls, I think the professionals are telling us that we have these goals. If we can get recurring funds from some of these entities that were mentioned tonight, I'm all for it. If there's a grant that will cover recurring costs, that's awesome.

» Or capital costs for building, purchasing vehicles, trucks, or ambulances, or building the actual structures, that's great. I'm not aware of many grants that are recurring for personnel. It's usually one or two years, and then you still have to figure out how to fund it. and either deal with that Act 388 fire mill cap or the enterprise fund issue with EMS. And so those are some of the thoughts I would have shared earlier or, you know, I thought were appropriate to share now to see the framework that we're working with on emergency services. That's all I wanted to share. Any other comments or discussion? Well, I've got a question. Yes, sir. So I was talking about EMS services.

» Are they are they capped at all or can we can we relocate monies out of the general fund to support? something like a happy median Proposal because what what I proposed was a short-term proposal and what you've gladly shared is our longer-term Goal, which is probably a four to six year reality We're not hindered are we with EMS when it comes to funding so I would generally say and then I'll see the administrator wants to it up um it's an enterprise fund think of it like the airport fund which we dealt with recently we dealt with that budget a whole bunch it's an enterprise fund so it's supposed to stand on its own which means yes there is some base millage that can be taken from the general fund which that millage i think we'd have to look at the most recent um reassessment but i think it's

» 340 000 per mil and so you know funding three million dollars worth of personnel if we even tried to do that if we could do it it was legal would require a nine to ten mil increase in a year to fund the personnel which is is that is that the same fund that we fund every other agency with including um the recreation department if i could just finish the last thought was on the enterprise fund since it's supposed to stand alone the fees generated from the service are supposed to fund it and so you'd look at a some significant increase in ems fees related to the service that's provided to cover that cost as enterprise so just on that just a point of interest the uh you know last year we cut out half of the general fund millage to the sheriff's office's dedicated millage with him being able to

» capture the organic growth in that village so really hindered my ability to of course we're funding the sheriff he needs every dime um but what that did is that that cut down the ability for the capital to grow on what the my half of the pie if you will well we still it's only a percentage of isn't it it's 50 almost so the sheriff's office is getting 50 of the general fund well the school district's getting 67 aren't they but of what i typically had to deal with in years past building a budget we just dedicated the millage he had we we converted into mills what his cost was for operating every year and took that over there so we had uh it was 24 25 mils just for example and then just say he got 12. so i'm left with 12.

» here's you know we could we could talk about how we structure things i don't i don't think we're hindered by the state house to to move around millage for ms um i'm not looking for a four or five million dollar increase at all um i'm looking for some paramedics or medics to staff something to help our rural communities that that's what i'm looking for and whatever that looks like if we can all generally agree that this is a problem i think we can all generally agree that we can find a solution and that was the kind of the level i wanted to leave this i didn't want to get into a debate i just wanted to enter a discussion um frankly i thought it would have been much more well received but um then again i'm not a good politician so um let's let's close this as we've got other issues thank you

» all for being here uh we care about you we care about your your families and your lives um if i haven't exhibited that personally i apologize if you feel that way i can assure you i do and i think others do but let's uh let's try to keep this conversation going and get something get something going in the right direction thank you mr brazel mr cato one last thing um we have really went far and beyond i think what we should have tonight but i think this this is a something we should have been talking about with finance and everything else i think we kind of got way off but maybe this question would be and maybe will could answer this question if he would we need something we need something now to help those residents is there any way and i know mr edge with ems is in here too thank you danny

» is there is there any way that we may could put a qrv in that area maybe i know you talk about the hot the hot hot map and stuff of that nature i'm sure that there's a hot time so to speak that most of the calls come in is there is there some way that we could at least get a qrv that would be in that area until we can get this problem resolved so we currently run two qrvs um most of the time if they have to chase a truck and when i say chase a truck if we're running a ambulance that's not als they may have to respond with it depending on the call so they can provide advanced care so if we did put a qrv out there it would get pulled quite often to respond to other areas on the fire side we have looked at you know we have part-time staffing trying to move some part-time staffing up there we a

» lready do that during seasonal times but we can continue to research other areas to to try to do something as quick as we can based on what resources we have now okay yeah and maybe that'd be something we can just look into as to what it would cost the county to at least get another qrv that would be particularly for that area so that we would have a paramedic that could respond and get there and administer medical attention to the unit truck could actually get there just just a thought i thought i think that's a great idea danny i do too that's very good thank you mr cato council members any further discussion on 9a no danny answering my question i was going to talk to you for a minute go ahead i was just going to say i had a question but danny took care of it about what he just said i app

» reciate that you're welcome okay no action is needed no votes needed on 9 a so the matter is concluded with discussion ending item number 10 a mr administrator any background for us on this one chairman members of council this just allows us to move forward with the replacement of the office up at the bethune recycle center this is a bid okay thank you mr do we have a motion on the bid i'll make a motion do we have staff able to put it up on the screen just for public's benefit you have a slide for this so um yeah mr chairman is there a second yeah yeah second and i can summarize go ahead mr schumacher you got the floor yeah just since there isn't a slide up for people listening at home just so everyone knows what we're talking about there is a bid to rebuild or construct the bethune recycl

» e center building we received four bids ranging from 91 000 to 142 000 um the lowest bid was 91 000 and that was the lowest by 8 000 to the next lowest so staff is recommending that we award the contract to michael jordan construction uh out of south carolina jefferson south carolina that it's 91 594.80 and um the uh anyway that's that's that's the summary of what this document says in front of me yes thank you mr shumake mr truck you have the second i have no further to add council members any discussion i'd like to defer this until we can find better solutions for emergency response times we just got through talking about the money we didn't have to help these people and now we're about to spend 100 grand i'm not going to support it tonight mr mr tucker yeah you had the second um i'm comi

» ng back with a comment was that the form of the motion or is you just speaking just speaking i'll make that that in the form of a motion. I want to hear what the finance chair has to say. There's a motion to defer on the table. Parliamentarily, I got to address that first. Is there a second on the motion to defer? I'll second. And specifically, the motion was to defer it until, I don't want to misstate it, until you find funds to, would you restate the motion, please? I make a motion to defer purchasing anything such as this, which is probably a worthy cause, until we can find a solution to these people's needs, uh, that are more life and death in regards to EMS. Yes. That is my motion. There's motions. There's a second. It's already seconded. Okay. Got a second of the restated motion.

» Mr. Browse, you have the floor on your motion. I don't need to say anything else. Okay. Any further discussion on Mr. Browse's motion? Mr. Tucker. Yes, sir. Um, gentlemen, I got a little hard burn with this motion. And the reason I'll tell you is because we're almost in fourth quarter 25 26 budget season this money is already obligated to go to certain places in this budget we're moving into fourth quarter we got five more weeks we'll be in fourth quarter am i correct mr administrator by saying that fourth quarter and now we're going to hold up funds on things that we've already voted on and said that we're going to do for 25 26 i understand the urgency and the concern about the situation that's going up on the northern end of the county and I support it with the right information and proce

» ss. I cannot support it on the back of another project that's already been put in the budget. So for this reason, I cannot support that amendment tonight on that motion. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Jones, I believe you deferred to Mr. Tucker. I want to make sure you're heard. Sure. You have a second. Can you give me a little bit more information as to when y'all decided and let us know about that? Know about what? What we're doing tonight. This was already in the waste management budget to do the recycle center, so that was done when you voted on or voted against the budget back in 2025. I don't remember specifically seeing this, but it doesn't mean that I'm against the overall thought of it. I'm sure it needs to be rebuilt. I just think what Mr.

» Brazel was doing is looking at the overall picture, and I think all of us are. I think all of you are, and I know all of you care, guys. i know that i get it we just got some misunderstandings that i know we can all work out i do and i'm not doing this for any other reason than one i have respect for our finance chair i have respect for a council brother but he makes a good point there chair finance chair as far as let's just look maybe look at the whole picture we can defer it just two weeks now did you read the um what it said in there they're going to reconstruct the recycle center in the bethune area and make sure it have bathrooms we ask some people to stay out there 12 hours and they either do something that's not decent or they have to leave the facility and lock the facility to go u

» se things that we take for granted um this day has come and gone and this facility needs to be upgraded if nothing else for the citizens and the people that work out there well we can put a portage on there and then save some lives otherwise you're not going to persuade me tonight i'm not trying to persuade you i'm making a point i'm making a point i'm not trying to persuade you i stand i stand on mr chairman thank you mr tucker um mr k do you defer to the administrator yeah i mean yeah i'll defer mr templer you know gentlemen i have a lot of plates to spend um ems fire sheriff's office i mean i've made a living for 18 years answering a radio i understand calls i understand call times i also understand when calls back up and response times there's just been a lot of discussion that i think

» gets pulled out of proportion um if you're in a murder scene you're not going to get to that that broke into car right away and it's it's prioritizing and dispatch helps us with that and so i have a ton of plates to spend and this happens to be one of them this this facility here and i somebody said 91 000 bathroom it is but it's also a shelter we have adult elderly people that work at these are retired and this is a storm shelter this is a restroom this is an office and this is a basic workspace and i'm just a little bit passionate about where we ask our people to work they work in a garbage dump and if i could just give them some semblance of a decent place to huddle during a storm inclement weather rain snow shine we ask them to be open every time and when we close them for the snow we m

» ake them make it up on other days and it's unacceptable to not give them a working place to be in unacceptable relax danny relax sir mr kato thank you mr templer i i think you answered my question but i this money and i want to i want to make sure for my benefit this money was is already budgeted from this year's budget to go to to go to this sort of project is that correct i don't know if that's a sammy question or if that's a danny question this is part of our capital budget for 25 26.

» it wasn't sure i do remember in the retreat at some point last year you mentioning that when you were going to have to replace the bethune building because it was in such bad shape but this was in like this was in last year's budget okay correct any other discussion council members on the brazil motion to defer seeing none we'll move it to a vote all in favor of the brazil motion to defer raise your hand mr brazel mr jones in favor all opposed raise your hand should make tucker connell excuse me i meant to oppose i'm voting for you're you're changing my vote you're voting i'm voting in his favor let me i think you just did i'm voting he's changing his vote from not against to for the bish okay well we have to address the first the first vote is on the brazil motion to defer and so we i just

» called for the votes in favor mr brazel and mr jones raise their hand do you wish to retain your vote well i want you to do it again sir if you don't mind i just okay on the motion to defer made by mr brazel vote in favor by raising your hand all right mr brazel votes in favor all opposed raise your hand shoemake tucker connell kato tomlinson and jones vote against the motion we're we're back on the original motion uh to approve the bid any further discussion on the original motion to approve the bid seeing none we'll move it to a vote all in favor raise your hand shumake tucker brazel connell it's unanimous miss hannah um it passes and the bid is approved thank you all right thank you gentlemen that takes care of item number 10 a that moves us to council member briefings mr cato oh you're

» just getting started sir i've been in worse jimmy i've been worse i know i know who you used to work for i've been in worse uh listen i'm i don't even have have a whole lot to say but i better say this if i don't say anything else i want to wish my wife a happy anniversary this weekend 34 years of living in marital bliss with me so that's a true statement okay i'm gonna close with that well no i'm not i want people out there to understand we get heated up here sometimes but i want you to understand that i i have always said since i i set my tail up here the very first day that i'd always be open-minded and i'll continue to be open minded i get passionate sometimes and if i get too passionate i'll apologize but a lot of hard decisions to be made up here sometimes and if i get out of line som

» etimes i'll apologize for that too other than that i hope everybody has a good night was that an apology or not to who me i don't have an apology no okay thank you mr cato mr thomas thank you mr chairman um i'd like to say i enjoyed all the the citizens here even from the proclamations we did to um the talks regarding emergency services for the rural areas um hearing the citizens come and talk is a huge help to us as decision makers and policy makers standing up here um next i'd like to thank staff not just our executive leadership but every one of our crush all county employees that they have a lot of times a very thankless job do the work and i have no doubt that if we put the funds in their budget it's gonna get done we have subject subject matter experts that we are blessed to keep here

» in the county they could easily go another county over and make more money but they don't because they love this place just as we do which is why we're sitting up here we all have a passion and thirdly i'd like to thank my colleagues you know what the meeting tonight goes to show exactly why we are sitting up here it's because we all have passion and it wouldn't be it wouldn't be right for us to sit up here and agree on anything and not have heated discussions because we all care about kershaw county and the best for it and i appreciate every single one of you and i look forward to continue to work with you you too thank you mr chairman thank you mr thompson mr jones thank you i have just a couple things i want to say would you have ever believed in my 20 years that i would be the calming f

» actor on county council no i mean i'm literally the one who kept everybody calm tonight and uh i don't know what i want to talk about something very important i'll talk about myself for just a minute and that was a joke no seriously guys come on we got to be lighthearted we got some serious business to discuss up here we can get heated each other but don't walk out of that room mad with your lips stuck out because we don't agree with each other you know you know god tells us to love each other and i mean i love you guys in a manly way manly way but i think that's what's wrong with the world now enough people don't tell them they love each other we love you too councilman but uh but seriously guys we we have some serious business up here and we may disagree but we need to leave it at that an

» d and danny i appreciate what you said and chairman i appreciate your recognition and me being right tonight thank you so much i i would fail if i didn't recognize you being right thank you mr jones and i'm i'm done mr she may yeah there was uh the quietest you've ever been yeah yeah he sure is my wife wanted me to point out that uh she had texted me earlier that the uh district honor roll teachers have come out and so i want to congratulate all the the teachers that have our finest teacher of the year i'm just gonna there's only a few abby bates uh susannah hall marianna of an adder marcia daniels and flo jackson those are our uh those are representing the finalists for teacher of the year for cursory county i want to congratulate them and also want to thank you know our uh yeah um you kno

» w so i was trying to look at the exact numbers and you know our general fund budget's about 30 million danny give or take is that fair probably a little bit more a little more about 34. does that include what we give the sheriff that's after the sheriff cut so it's it's probably more towards uh a little more towards 40 but it's half of that it goes to the sheriff yeah so that's after what goes to the sheriff yeah so you know you talk about what's seeming like a i mean that's a lot of money to any human being and certainly a lot of money to me but but when we talk about that in terms of funding i mean we hear it in the finance committee you know to give you an example you know last year we only had a little under 1.5 million dollars in organic growth we have the same sort of thing this year

» the boat tax which is likely to pass is going to eat 600 000 of that we were briefed by the auditor just two weeks ago that even assuming the estimates are right that it will come back and added revenue which i have my doubts that's a different issue that's still a five-year gap is it 600 000 total that the revenue is hurt no no the revenue is 1.2 million we will lose 600 000. but you know it's stepped down over the course of three years right Right, but what the auditor briefed us on two weeks ago was that we would lose $600,000 upon passage of the book. In the first year? What he briefed us. It stepped down over three years, so just to be clear, it might not be quite as bad as we think. It may not be, but that's what we were briefed.

» And even if it's $300,000, you have inflationary adjustments, some of the stuff we heard today with Pecan Orchard, with the overruns there. I can already tell you we've only gotten, what, two Finance Committee briefings? and with those two even if the boat tax stepped up and you take it at a third of what i just said at 300 000 we've already heard enough to completely eat up the natural growth just in what we've heard and we haven't even heard from all the big departments so we have to make a lot of tough decisions and you know it's you know there's about being creative and finding money i say this all the time to folks i talk to out in the community our budgets are posted online and if you think there's wasteful spending in there let's talk about what we think is wasteful nine times out of

» 10 when people do point things out to me the relatively small budget items that even eliminated still leave you with the how do you fund the sheriff's department's 20 plus million dollars or you know how do you fund these you know these large departments with their capital overlay so it's a lot of hard work that we do up here and i think it's important that we're very straightforward that these things take time a great plan i mean we we just made some of the biggest improvements and recreation those steps started five six seven years ago so it takes time to get anything worthwhile accomplished under the wheels of government it shouldn't but it does um the other thing i just want to say to close out is i just want to thank the staff we have an amazing staff i think just about any almost ever

» yone that's left in this room is staff you know our senior staff the administrator, deputy administrator, Ms. Lauren, they do a great job. Director Glover does a great job. Shout out to Zach Hoover, who's temporarily running our planning and zoning department, who's been working on the smart growth overlay and a bunch of other stuff. We put a lot of stuff on them. And I just want to say, bottom of my heart, that this county could function without anybody up here on this little table, except for you two. But it could not function without the staff that's in this room and that makes this county work every day. So that's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Shoemake. Mr. Tucker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to be as quick as I possibly can. Let me start off by saying, because I see Ms.

» Melanie is still here, we had a finance committee meeting on pecan orchards today at 4.30, over there about 4.30 to almost 5.30. And so what the committee has asked is that staff has to do some due diligence on the survey, land acquisition, and some additional costs on some piping to have all that available for council by next meeting so we can bring it before you guys and, of course, have a conversation and move forward from there. But what I can tell you is that we're looking at additional costs that we have not budgeted for on this budget cycle. So with that being said, there's going to have to be some hard conversations on how do we move forward and what that time frame look like.

» So without those answers from staff, we didn't come to any conclusion tonight, but we did ask the residents. Ms. Melanie, as I said, is still out here, and there was probably four or five, six other people. To be patient, we would get them answers and try to figure out what moving forward looks like. Do we have the money to complete phase one? It's already been, well, we had the money from the original scope of work. That money's already been voted on and set aside. $380? Yes, sir. So $350. So we're not short on money for phase one? No, that's not true. Okay, all right.

» tell me what's true i'm asking so so with the unforeseen uh problems we've had in phase one trying to do it we have developed more costs what were they what were the unforeseens um you you're talking excuse me about having to uh deal with the water pipe being removed and then re um resubmitted or re um put down by county which can be as much as 126 000. you're talking a little thousand water yes sir you have um you have calls for uh if we decide that we go with a closed system versus an open system that could be 30 35 000.

» a closed one a closed versus tell me tell me what that means um that means that on the discharge end is that system going to be open or closed leading down the pipe the pipe that you and i looked at right uh you're talking about land acquisition which i don't have numbers on that now but whatever that looks like or an easement granted and that's what you're going to be um you know going up against and that's what we need to get back from staff so how much has been allocated and how much has been spent so allocated has been 350 000 spent has been 126 as of today and what is the approximate need to finish two to two fifty 200 to 250 thousand on top of what's remaining like not like we have about 175 remaining has nothing to do with that correct two two to two fifty on top of it so we managed

» to spend half a million dollars on that one little old road that's what it's going to cost us yes that's absolutely absurd um so with that being said i just want you to know that this is going to be on the agenda for our first meeting in march sammy we got to do something we have voted to do phase one i hear you and you're gonna you're gonna get all the particulars as quick as staff can get them to us and we're gonna we're gonna pin our ears back and we're gonna see uh where everybody's at and i i hope i hope and pray that this falls within the means of people wanting to to to do the right thing and stick what is the right thing i'll tell you when i get it you ask me questions without information i will not answer you can ask it a hundred different ways i'm not going to ask you I'll give yo

» u those when I get the information which will be on the second Tuesday in November the big I mean in March to be exact March 14th I will have more information and along with my colleagues that said on finance anything you want to add there right no sir Danny you happen to attend a meeting and we appreciate you anything you want to add okay all right now I want to say we have workshop this Thursday from 3:00 to 5:00. Gentlemen, this is the time if you can make your schedules work and you want to dig in a little better on the topics whether it's fire, whether it's EMS, call staff. Ms. Lauren knows what's the topics and see can you set your schedule so you can come have these discussions with us.

» We dig a lot deeper into the budget at these workshops and that's why we voted on the days and that's why we gave you the days and the time. I know you can't make them all but things that are important to you come because the conversation we had with this these citizens this afternoon and in my I thought the ideas were great and lovely that were recommended but in my thought is that we can't be knee-jerking reacting to problems that that we see that exists all of a sudden and not plan I have a real problem with that because what i will not and never do is take from one to give to the other you you're needing something the government does that every day hold on whoa whoa whoa time out you'll get chance you're right after me sir i promise you so what i want to do is not rob from peter to pay

» paul i know sometimes you got to make things work and this is not a quick fix anyway there's we need to figure out exactly what things look like from putting a qrv to a full-blown ems station there's things that need to be measured by staff the professionals and recommendations brought back by them and i'm not going to go into a whole big spill because i didn't speak when we were having all our passions running about up here but i said i'll address my um thoughts into my council meeting a council briefing so danny i'm gonna say to you have passion have passion for your people we can have passionate up here why can't you have passion for your people he did tonight stay stay passionate i was gonna call him councilman templar stay stay stay stay stay passionate and the quicker you do the memo

» to your staff and to us i think the better off we're going to be because what we cannot do we've had the latitude since mr templar has been our administrator of being able to talk to staff and i'm just going this is just one of seven and i'm just speaking for me i would have been cut y'all off what if i was the administrator i would have been and cut y'all off from from talking direct to department heads and going as far as some of us go. You know how that's worked out for other county ministries, Sammy. Don't you, Alec? You don't. They can't win on that. My floor, Mr. Jones. Thank you. So, no, we're putting him in that position. By not following what is supposed to be our home rule.

» We're the deal with the administrator or the deputy administrator or the assistant administrator on our issues, and sometimes, in my opinion, I'm not talking about your opinion, We pushed the envelope too far with staff members, and that's not fair. That's not fair to staff. That's not fair to Danny as our administrator. So just note and be warned that you have a memo coming from administration, and staff has a memo, and we need to adhere to it. That concludes my report, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Brazel, please. Egos. Boy, there's a bunch of egos around here tonight. I'm going to bring mine with me next week. I'm not going to address everything that's going through my mind tonight, but I want to say something. I attended a meeting where people wanted to be heard. I heard them.

» I thought about the situation. This is how I'm built. I'm built to solve problems. That's how God created me. So if there's a problem, if there's a group of people that bring me a problem, I'm going to try to solve it if it's within my means. Now, I didn't put anything on here for a vote. I've done that before.

» recreation put it on for a vote sammy you didn't vote for it but when you walked outside that night you looked at me and you said russell you got four votes tonight for the recreation for the baseball fields and i'm going to support you moving forward what's that been tonight all i wanted to do was have a discussion i in no way shape or form meant for it to be unfriendly i hope that i didn't frame it that way and if i did i apologize but you know i like being challenged um ben ben and i share something. His children go to the school that I went to, Thomas Sumter Academy. Great little school. And Ben, do you know what Thomas Sumter's motto is? I wouldn't rob someone who's an alumnus of the glory of sharing it. Thomas Sumter's Latin phrase, acta non verba, action speaks louder than words.

» And I've carried that with me my entire life. And, you know, forgive me if sometimes I'm ahead of my skis, if you will. I operate a business. I don't operate in government. I have the distinct pleasure of making my own decisions. We don't get to do that here. So sometimes that bleeds over, but that's just who I am. Probably not going to change, okay? But at our retreat, Ben and I were having a good conversation, as we always do, and he said something that stuck with me. He said, yeah, we really hadn't had a whole lot of time to study this zoning and building. And I was kidding around with him. I said, man, I could have written a book. And he looked at me and said, what'd you say, Ben? You remember? You don't remember what you told me? Why haven't you? Why haven't you? There's your book.

» You already sent one right here on my desk. I got it. Here's the framework document that everybody needs to add to. From Jimmy to Danny to brant to ben me i need to further look into this document my friend sammy derrick these are some thoughts that i had regarding how kershaw county grows and moves forward it's 30 pages it's a short book i didn't color it i didn't put any no pictures probably could have got it around 40 or 50 pages had i had an animator work with me but i like being challenged i'm here to do the work i'm proud to be vice chairman you guys put me in that position and i want to support the work that this county has ahead of it in a positive fashion so with that i'm going to shut up hope everybody has a wonderful night thank you mr brazel i just want to share a couple things

» congratulations again to the stover wrestling team i think by the show of supporting those folks coming out tonight with the coaches who were humble enough not to say anything but smiled bigger than i've seen you by a smile recently at the accomplishments of the wrestlers and the and the student athletes, I was very proud of that. LeGolf Elgin wrestling team will come through soon. They finished second in the state and had a state champion and had some remarkable achievements. Ms. Hannah, I've sent you Mr. Ted Monroe's number. He's the head coach and was present tonight. Let's connect with him and just see when we can get him on the agenda coming up.

» I know we generally have only two proclamations per meeting, so wherever we can budget that in at some point in the future, I think that's a very worthy cause and achievement to recognize. On EMS or fire, I like practical solutions that follow a plan, and there has been a plan in place that's been followed for six plus years. One of the nuances, maybe recently, for a capital expenditure could be liquidating the property up at Lake Watery. It's an asset we have that we don't use. County purchased it like 20, 25 years, however many years ago it was, with some aspirations at the time of developing the property into a resort or something. I'm not sure. But with this council's support working on an opportunity, perhaps in the future, to liquidate that property and sell it to the state.

» It makes a lot of sense. DNR and others have properties nearby. If there's something that we need in the way of a capital expense, we can move that towards EMS or something else that's appropriate. And as you guys, fellow council members or staff, have ideas that we can practically and actually pursue, I'd love to hear them. Let's try to make them happen. We do have some low-hanging fruit that we can achieve in the county. That might be one of them.

» There are others but uh we do need to pull together and i hope ultimately whenever we work on these issues we pull together and get it done it's it seemed to come that way especially as we move towards budget we're going to have our work sessions um and just the way my mind works is i like to research and study stuff uh sometimes maybe a little bit too much that requires me to to get things beforehand and have some time to look at them in detail so i can understand the unintended consequences try to divine that if i can and then make an informed decision so i can represent the folks that voted for me and that have elected me in a reasonable way. And so I look forward to hearing y'all's ideas as we get to that point. That concludes my report.

» Excuse me, one other thing I was going to mention. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say, I was reminded that we need to honor Statewide Commander Jimmy Rabin and the American Legion. Post-17, they had an event yesterday. It was well attended and a large function that really put that on the map. So we're grateful to him and the american legion for hosting that in kershaw county can i ask for a point of order from mr vice chair he left out the um battle of the wrigley or mail wrigley's mail yeah um this is briefly brief us okay please this is actually something that uh sammy and danny i had talked about does everybody have that photo and this is the second time you've seen it the The Battle of Wrigley's Mill, this is an animated drawing. Everybody got it? No, you got mine. I got my copy.

» I got a frame hanger. The Battle of Wrigley's Mill in Kershaw County, as we talked about before, is a historical battle. And it was William Washington who led the charge in which they took a cannon made out of a pine tree and duped 100 British loyalists into surrendering. it was it was a battle that was won here in kershaw county just about 12 miles north um the creek intersection of um i think it's granny's quarter creek and flat rock creek so just off of flat rock road if you're headed towards heath springs um i spoke to an artist that that made this digital image and um requested a quote i may have done this the right way i brought it to our finance chair and i brought it to our administrator and and i'm bringing it to council and with our conversations that we had um we talked about fun

» draising to have a 30 by 40 original oil painting painted for kershaw county and display it somewhere here in the uh in the government center you know wherever you know we can decide we can move it around we can take pictures beside it for goodness sakes whatever we like but i think it'd be really cool to have that battle picture done and and everybody's got the photograph um the cost is nine thousand eight hundred dollars uh that would be paid for by donations to uh to the calls and we've got bronze levels at a hundred dollars silver levels at two hundred and fifty dollars a gold level of giving at five hundred dollars and a platinum level of a thousand and i would love for if we could all just chip in i'd be willing to even give up any of my travel expense and i would i would give up goin

» g to the association of counties if necessary to make this happen i think this would be so good for kershaw county um as a whole but tonight i think the best way to do is to fundraise it so everybody does everybody have a paper with the fundraising opportunities we'll make copies but tonight i'll pledge a thousand dollars to to get it started and my family and our business will do we'll do a thousand so that leaves us with 8 800 i hope that's something that everybody would like to see happen and um i think it'd be a neat project thank you thank you mr thank you um administrators briefing do you have anything mr templar uh two quick things really really quick yes sir monday i was lucky enough to go speak to a class at north central it was dr tom perry's honors u.s government class and those

» kids are just so impressive they ask better questions than uh a lot of the uh the adults i'm around sometimes just so meaningful and thoughtful and just excellent questions so i just like to share that experience with you all and everyone else and just congratulate them on their successes and especially the job that dr.

» Perry does with those kids so well-behaved one more piece Casey West with would be pleaded but for the vandalism over there is about six thousand dollars worth so that we got some seed germination going on there just as you would imagine from people doing doughnuts on the grass so unfortunate but we're on our way to fixing that and we'll be looking for a our ribbon cutting coming up soon we'll keep you all posted that's all i have thank you mr templer mr bose any non-privileged legal briefing no no legal briefing um we have three executive session items on the agenda don't forget to mention that to us okay well before we move to that potential vote miss hannah has updated us again on applications and boards and those seats where we have respective responsibilities i know need to act on mine

» is mr brazel did he go to the the restroom yes okay all right well then then um we'll go ahead and move into uh execs after you have a quorum um seeking executive session we have three items um i think it's a a and b but it's really a b and c this is under sc code 30-4-70 a2 and a1 regarding a matter related to attorney client privilege and legal advice a briefing related to contractual arrangements and a personnel and employment matter is there a motion mr chairman i make a motion we enter executive session there is emotions they're second there is a second any discussion seeing none we'll move it to a vote on executive session all in favor raise your hand this hand is unanimous by those who are present and voting we're in executive session and for the public's benefit i do not anticipate

» any vote uh concluding after uh occurring after executive session give me one more one more Does anybody get this real quick as soon as they walk out? Here he goes right there. Seek a motion to adjourn. Make a motion to come out of executive session. Just a moment. Seek a motion to come out of executive session. Make a motion. Second. We've got a second. Any discussion on that? Nope. Seeing none, move to a vote. Are we exiting executive session? Is there a motion by those who are present and voting? Ms. Hammond, executive session. Seek a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chairman. Second. We've got a second. Any discussion or motion to adjourn? Seeing none, we'll move it to a vote. All in favor of adjournment, raise your hand. It is unanimous by those who are present and voting, Ms. Hanna, Mr. Brazel and Mr. Jones are absent at the moment. So that's 5-0. We are adjourned.