City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to our first meeting in September. I will lead us in invocation tonight and Councilman Cowan will lead us in respect to the flag. Please rise. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the blessings that you have bestowed upon our city. We ask that you help this policymaking board as they go forward with actions to protect the city, to give us wisdom and guidance as we go forward. We ask that you protect all our employees that face outward to our community, that you keep them safe and away from harm. We ask all these things in your name. Amen.

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.

So the minutes of our Last meeting of office, office the 24th, were distributed. Are there any corrections or additions to those minutes? Make a motion we approve those minutes. We have first by the Mayor Pro Tem. Second. Second by Mr. Newton. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The minutes of August 24th pass unanimously. I have a couple items of old business, and the first item is request consideration of a construction contract for the Church Street Pedestrian Plaza. Mr. McEwen?

This is a planned capital project that we have in person for downtown, and Mr. Strickland will go over the consideration for you guys.

Thank you, Mr. Kuhn. Mayor, Council, you have before you a really exciting point for this project. We are recommending a ward of the Church Street construction to AR Construction. Duncan? We received, as you see right there, four bids for the project. Sorry. As you see in your packets. I see it right there. We received four bids for the packets for this construction. Really exciting project. You've seen designs in the past. Essentially, we're removing the vehicle access to the Church Street parking lot, replacing that with a pedestrian-only plaza that really serves, and we've said this a few times over the last several months, but really serves as the front door to downtown Anderson. That Benson to Market Street block data shows, especially with the Market Street garage, shows that that's the highest visitor entry point in downtown. So if you're coming to downtown Anderson to shop, to eat, to stroll, you're most likely coming through Church Street. So we need to make Church Street match the rest of downtown now. Really exciting project. We're going to bring everything up to sidewalk grade, remove the dry vials, and replace lighting, favors concrete, and of course some landscaping too. So happy to answer any questions. There was some confusion over the last, I'll go ahead and say it, the last council meeting. We were... Kind of waffling between the top two bidders, but ultimately decided to recommend AR Construction. They were the low bidder, are the low bidder. Really excited to have them on board. They've got some good experience. We've got a couple other guys here tonight. Trey Allertanger and Blair Rucker. Really excited to work on this project and work for us, and we're excited to have it.

Good, thank you. Questions, comments? I had a question.

I know during the very early planning phase there was discussion of maybe some plaques or some commemorative things that were embedded in the sidewalk or something like that. Is that still part of the plan?

Absolutely, yeah. We haven't worked out all the final details on what stories we're going to actually tell. with this phase. Thanks for bringing that up. We are considering this phase two of Church Street Heritage Plaza. A lot of those stories have already been told. We don't want to recreate the wheels there necessarily, but there is still some commemoration that can be done in this little stretch as well.

I just know that I remember Dr. Thompson talking about that when she was on council, so I wanted to follow up on that. I'm glad that we're continuing to preserve that. Again, I think it's wonderful the stories we have already told as part of phase one.

Is the, I guess there's a place marker for some type of maybe piece of art on the Main Street side?

Yeah, yeah. We've got on the Main Street end right there a place holder for some sort of sculpture. We've had some positive developments on that. I believe TBA is interested in providing something there so look forward to to working with them over the next several months, identify what that looks like.

Good. Any other questions?

Mr. Roberts, Jeff? Looks like we have a very competitive bid, and we appreciate AR submitting their bid. And a question for AR Construction. Is your expertise in concrete, sidewalk, landscaping, parking lot type of work? Because obviously it's very detailed.

Can one of you guys come down to the podium and speak to that? Thank you.

Blair Roper with AR Construction, my business partner, Trey, over there. So, yes, sir, to answer your question, we're actually right now finishing up a very similar project with the city of Greenville. In-house, we do concrete and grading. We have a concrete grading license as well. So this is our bread and butter. This is what we do every day, site work, concrete. Only things on this job that we'll sub out are the brick pavers. But we have a partner we work closely with on that.

You know, contractors come in all different flavors, and you wouldn't want me doing your concrete work.

You don't want us doing your roofing, I can assure you.

Very good.

Yes, sir. But, yeah, we're very confident in our abilities to do this job and very excited to be working with you guys on this important project for you.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other questions, comments?

Mayor, I'll go ahead and make the motion. I'm excited just because of the timing. I mean, I know there's construction going on kind of beside this area. You know, obviously there's still Main Street improvements going on, so it's kind of nice. I know it's a challenge sometimes for people just with so much going on, but it's much better doing it like this, having multiple projects going on at one time, other than just dragging this out over years and years. So I'm excited to get this project going. With that, I'll make the motion to approve.

Yeah, first by Mr. Newton. Second. Second by Mr. Harbin. Any further discussion?

Mr. Mayor, what's the time frame on it, Mr. Strickland?

It's a roughly four-month project. It's not a huge project. We've got a little bit of early design to go, electrical design to work on right now, so it'll kick off in the next month or so, and then most likely open up after the first of the year.

Okay, thank you. Good. Good question. Anything else, guys? That a first and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes an answer. Thank you. Our second item is request second reading ordinance 2616. Amanda in the 2025, 2026, and the 2026, 2027 annual budgets. Mr. McEwen.

Thank you. From time to time, we do this each year to reconcile our previous year as we are finalizing accounting from the previous year. We're currently under audit right now, and so this is... This is a process we do, and it brings everything together from the grants that we received, but we didn't know when we were going to receive them, the FEMA money and so forth, which I am glad to announce that we have been recently getting deposits of all our FEMA money from Hurricane Helene, so very happy about that, to replace our fund balance from that gap. And so with that, though, I'll turn it over to Chief Financial Officer Mario Martin to... Just do a quick summary since we went through in detail last time.

Okay. Thank you. So administration is requesting approval of ordinance 2616 amending the 2526 and 2627 annual budgets. The specific dollar amounts by fund is listed on the executive summary. I won't read each one of those numbers. The primary purpose, as Mr. McEwen stated, is to Place the revenues and expenditures in the appropriate fiscal year and provide a more accurate representation of the city's financial activity. A significant portion of these amendments related to multi-year capital equipment and construction projects. Unspent funds must be carried forward and included in the subsequent fiscal year's budget so they remain available for their intended purposes and are reflected in the appropriate year. Some of the highlights included 6.5 million for funds carried forward from the prior year and spent in 2026. Grant revenues received in 26 for projects that have been in process were 11.6 million. We're also increasing the 27 budget by approximately $993,000 for items that were not reflected when the original budget was adopted. So administration is requesting final approval of ordinance 2616, amending the 26 budget by $23,298,130.96 and the 2627 annual budget by $993,000. Thank you.

Any questions? We looked at this last meeting and this occasionally. It happens every year with the prior year budget. We have this year's budget also. But any questions, comments?

Mayor, I appreciate the transparency and clarity that these amendments provide every year, so I'll go ahead and make the motion to approve.

First by Mr. Newton. Second. Second by Mr. Pickens. Any further questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Mr. McEwen, you did bring up the audit process. Could you just give us a high-level overview of where we are and how that process happens?

Thank you, Mayor, for that. I should have clarified that a little bit better. So we're having our annual audit, or it used to be called a comprehensive financial report, for the city of Anderson that we have every year. And so the process works. They came in several months ago and did some interim testing, and now they're here on site. They're taking our trial balance out of our ledger, and we're moving to the financial reporting of that now. And so they're here this week, probably someone next week, and then as we move forward through the process to develop the financial report, it will be presented to council. Usually it's December.

Good. Thank you. Get to new business. We have four items of new business, and the first item is request consideration of a resolution authorizing a project to be considered for participation in a special tax assessment for rehabilitated historic properties. And this particular property is 113 North Main Street. Ms. McEwen.

In November 2025, council took the proactive approach to pass by ordinance guidelines related to preservation and redevelopment of historic properties by granting special task assessments for qualifying properties. And this was done under the state Bailey bill, which has been in place for some time. um but it was a great opportunity for the city to adopt the bailey bill and allow these properties which we're having a lot of success with from current projects that are currently under construction right now on main street have already come through and qualified for that at church street main street what we refer to as the big johns building and so we're getting some good interest on this and great projects and filling in some of the encouraging filling in some of the and there's a diagram here that shows you the first application but filling in some of these vacant spaces on main street but also it does apply to the historic areas of residential districts as well and so we can there's three applications before you and this is the first one here mr mckenzie will go over each of the applications thank you

thank you once someone submits an application there is a process and the flow begins with you the city council and that's what we're here for tonight you will authorize a project to be considered for participation in this process and that's done by resolution so after that takes place it then goes to the board of architectural review and it that meeting they will confirm that the project meets the design and investment requirements and once they do that that's called preliminary certification once the work is done it goes back before the board of architectural review and they will confirm that the completed work meets the approved standards and the expenditures have been made in accordance with the program so that's the flow as we go through this and since this has been when since its inception in November of 2025 you've pushed through two projects thus far again as Mr. McEwen mentioned we have three coming before you tonight and the one we're talking about now is 113 North Main Street it's hiker investments and in order for them to qualify initially the rehabilitation costs must exceed the fair market value since it's an income producing property the fair market value of this one is $229,000 and their estimated project cost right now is $300,000, so it does exceed the fair market value. And you have different tiers, three different tiers of tax assessments, and with this one falling less than $2 million, because it's a $300,000 investment, this will allow a seven-year special tax assessment. So with this one, 113 North Main Street, we recommend approval. for you to adopt the resolution authorizing this project to be considered for a special property tax assessment for historic properties. And once you do that, it will go before the Board of Architects review for their preliminary certification.

Thank you. Any questions, comments? Mr. Roberts?

Mayor, Mr. McKenzie, what qualifies a property as historic? Does it land on us to?

It could but if it's in historic district it can be considered. When it lands on you it really happens say for instance it's not in one of the historic districts but it's historic building and it may be out 81 somewhere not in a district you can deem it to be considered for this program.

So just as a blanket overlay anything in the historic overlay district qualifies? Yes. Maybe let's say, and I'm kind of poking a little bit, poking holes in it. Let's say there's a recent build in a historic district, and it's not technically historic. Does that come back to us?

I believe the language says it has to be a contributing building. Contributing, yes. Within that historic district. So, yeah, a new building, so that's an area that wouldn't be a contributing building in the historic district, though it is in the... in the historic district. But Mr. McKenzie is right. There is some language in here that says, believe it or not, you or the BAR can deem a building historic if there is evidence to show that indeed something historic or significant happened in that building.

Even if it lies outside of it?

Even if it's outside of the historic district, that's right.

And I looked up the ordinance here, too, how we defined it. You have the process that we're going through here receives an automatic historic designation if it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's 50 years old and it's located in the area of the city that has been designated by the council as a historic overlay district. or meets other requirements that South Carolina General Assembly spelled out, and they have additional definitions that Mr. Strickland just referenced on that, that in a meaningful way contributes to significant contribution to the city's political, economic, religious, social, artistic development of the city, and they go on about the definition of that.

And this also extends to owner-occupied residences. Correct.

Which the rules differ there just a little bit. What the state law afforded was that if this owner-occupied is 50% of the fair market value, at that case. If it's an income producing property, it's actually the full fair market value, which is determined three different ways, either by the assessor's office, which I know many of them are using, a recent sales price, I think it defined that it was within six months, or I think that there was one third, one that was one month. It's an appraisal. The appraise, a recently appraised

But whether it's in a historic district or not, we do the resolution, and if it's outside of our five historic districts, it still goes back to the board?

That's right.

Yes. Okay.

Yeah, it says, so what we're doing is automatic designation right here, but the session is the historic destination by the bar for properties not listed in the National Register of Historic Places or in the Historic Overlay District.

Good. So, Mr. McEwen, I know we have three of these, and one of the questions I jotted down, and Mr. Roberts sort of hit on it. So they have three different options to determine the value of the property. Correct. Do we, like, for instance, I think one of them coming up is sold in the last... 60 days. And the fair market value is, I assume, the fair market value that the county assessor puts on the property. And so if there's a difference in those two, Which one, does our language say they have to take the higher or what?

It does. It just says you can use either one of the three techniques. So it would be the most advantageous to the applicant.

Okay, most advantageous to that. And the three projects that we have coming for us tonight, and I think Mr., somebody had mentioned that we started this in November of 25. Is it just people finding out about it, or in-house are we assisting the people wanting to invest in the historic district or in the historic building?

trying to get these great great question yeah a little bit of both uh one um we did get it out there when it got adopted and there was some some news media on that but also we have been talking to um like the owner that was that purchased this building about us and let them know hey this is an opportunity for you to pursue and we've had some of those conversations and then um There's some that have just been following us. But we're having conversations where we know, particularly with Main Street and downtown, we know investors are currently pursuing. We're having conversations with them about the opportunity for this.

And this particular building, not to get in the weeds, but this has the old walkway beside it that runs down. Is that part of the building? As I recall way back when, when that walkway was being used, the building didn't own the walkway because the property line was the side of the building and it got vague who actually owned that.

sidewalk it remains vague but you're right it's not part of the structure as in the definitions here or the vertical part within inside the structure the only horizontal element um going outside the building scope that allows you to attribute to this uh would be it says for vertical circulation of the building so it's talking about you know hvac units and that type of thing and does that awning fit what's that is that awning conforming our view laws uh the bar will determine that

That's all I had. I had to get a joke in there.

Any other questions? One more.

So we're going to lock in the fair market value as it is today for seven years. And when will the new assessment happen? Do we know up to the county?

Yes, it's underway this year. Now we're checking in with them. We have quarterly meetings with them. So we have a question outstanding. Hey, are you still in time with it? Because I've been known to delay it a year. Because it's a big process, especially with our growth. But to answer your question, the ongoing assessment is right now.

My question is mainly for the owner so that they can kind of be planning for seven years later.

Yeah, it's more advantageous for them right now locking in the assessed value because during assessment it will definitely go up. Correct. So in our situation. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

Mayor, I'll move we approve this consideration in the special property tax assessment.

First by Mr. Roberts. Jeff? Second. Second by Mr. Horgan. Further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Resolution passes unanimously. Our second item is request consideration of a resolution authorizing a project to be considered for participation in the special tax assessment for rehabilitated historic properties. And this one's 905 East Greenville Street. Ms. McKenzie.

Unless you want me to repeat the process and sound like a broken record, but it's exactly the same as what we've just discussed, I'll go ahead and just explain the project that's before us tonight. But I know it was mentioned a moment ago that there's a difference between the fair market value with an investment-type property or owner-occupied. This one's an owner-occupied building. It's 905 East Greenville Street. It actually happens to fall into Boulevard Historic District. And the fair market value of this is $320,310. Their estimated project cost is $650,000. So with project cost being $650,000, this falls in the $2 million or less investment category, which allows a seven year special tax assessment and what we're coming to you tonight for is to approve a resolution authorizing this project to be considered for participation and if you approve it tonight it will go before the board of architectural review for their preliminary certification thank you questions comments

So this is the first one we've had where it's owner-occupied. It is. Is there any stipulation on this that it has to stay owner-occupied? It cannot go into an investment property, all those kind of details?

There are certain guidelines. It can be sold. That is part of it. But I'll need to check to see as far as investment properties are becoming that over time. But it can be sold during... period of time.

So it can be sold. Does it have to stay single family?

We'll do some research on this, but I'm pretty sure this question came up during crafting the ordinance and in order to continue to receive that tax benefit, it does have to remain. Because that's a special assessment, right? The assessment ratio would change. That would be an assessable that would change the force of change in the assessment. Oh, yeah, it would go from 4% to 6%. Yeah, that's right. So you would lose that benefit completely if it went to commercial.

That's what it speaks to. The word it speaks to, one, that it can be solar transfer of ownership can take place, and it's still a lot of the assessed value. But what Mr. Strickland was talking about, notification of decertification, it goes into eligibility for the special tax assessment and any changes. Okay. should be notified to the tax assessor office and so forth. So, yeah, that would change that there if it were to... I mean, it's not zoned for commercial in this situation or anything like that, but if it were to change to the other category, that would have...

Well, I just know from the Boulevard Historic District, there are several homes there. They're not being used as homes, and people are skirting. And so I didn't want them to get a double take.

Or a rental, which would be following the income-producing property, which that's not how it was certified to begin with. Correct. So with the ESS value, so that would change things. Okay.

And to follow up on Councilman Pickens' point, this still falls under the UDO. So if someone is not using it for the purpose that it's zoned for, then that can be pursued through enforcement and other things. Like if this was zoned for single-family residential, you wouldn't, unless how it was zoned on the UDO allowed for multifamily, you couldn't, for example, split up this house and make it an apartment.

Right. Exactly. Any other questions, comments?

so mr mayor go right in and so if it's a residential property an applicant can participate in the program if the costs meet 50 of the fair market value and this is 320 000 and the estimated cost is 650 of the project cost So they only actually had to have $160,000 renovation to meet the qualification. I think that's unusual that residential has to meet less than commercial.

And that was defined by state law.

The reasoning for that state law would be to encourage owner-occupied housing rehabs in historic districts. So they want to lower that threshold within those historic districts. Again, these are historic houses. they're probably going to be the ultimate i live in a historic house it's almost 100 years old it's a piece of crap sometimes but i mean you want to encourage folks in these historic districts to invest in their property and receive some tax benefit and typically when you look at like an owner occupied house somebody's not going to shell out twice the fair market value on the project they're going to do something much less than that it seems to me that the the fair market value for the investment property

you want to be low and you don't care what the fair market value is for the residential because you're going to do 50 of that anyway

Probably, depending on the scope of the investment, yeah.

I mean, I think $229,000 for the one we approved just a minute ago is a conservative price on that. I actually think this one that we're doing now is way below market value. I mean, unless they survey it off, just this parcel, that's probably three acres, this lot, because it goes all the way through. Um, it's got a double driveway on Greenville street and yeah, it comes all the way through. Yeah.

So I think 300, but it doesn't matter if it was, it goes back to what we talked about that it was most advantageous to the applicant because I haven't seen the sales contract or the, the final of that. But, um, the sale could have been greater than the fair market value, which was more than likely in this case. Correct. And so here they're using the appraised fair market value, which is most advantageous to them, to get over the threshold. But it's 50% of that.

And I assume the same people bought the house. We'll soon see the house right next door.

That's correct. That's our understanding.

I mean, I would have... I mean, I would assume that, to me, the house next door is more historic than this house. But both of them are historic, don't get me wrong. But, you know, the house next door is very historic, and it goes all the way through. It goes down to the corner.

It's hard to understand that it was purchased as well, though. Yeah.

Okay. Good. Any other questions, comments?

I... Just for clarification, I want to make sure. The idea behind this is the incentivization of rehab of historic properties, right? So the idea is that even if it sells for more than what the fair market value is, that person may not have gone under contract if they didn't know that the value would be frozen for a certain period of time. They may not have made that investment. in rehabbing, restoring it to its historic value, undergoing all the regulations of the Board of Architectural Review to make sure it's historically accurate and conforms with all those regulations, versus kind of just letting it fall to disrepair. So I just want to make sure that that's kind of the purpose behind it, not to just kind of willy-nilly hand out tax breaks, but the idea is to say, We want to make sure that historic homes are preserved with the utmost care and to the highest standards.

Well, and we say it. That's exactly right. We say it often with downtown. Once you start tearing old buildings down, they don't come back. And we focus a lot of that attention on our historic downtown, but the same can be said of historic neighborhoods and the houses in those historic neighborhoods. And generally, those are the ones that do get torn down in favor of something newer. So to have some sort of incentive in place to hopefully keep those contributing, those old homes in those neighborhoods, is valuable to us.

Yeah, the Baylor bill specifically says under that, encourage the restoration of historic properties, promote community development and redevelopment, and encourage sound community planning as goals for the Bailey Bill.

So, he brought up, Mr. Mayor? So, do they own this property, the people that are applying for it? Yes. Okay. So, they didn't buy it on contingent that they could get this. They already own it. And... So that wasn't, I mean, they didn't say, hey, I'm going to put a contract on this, and if I get the Bailey bill, then I'm going to close on it and do it. That's what we want to make sure of. Correct.

But to your point, though, you could see something like that before you do.

Yeah, I think we will.

Just like in the other economic development project where the sales pending contingent on certain things, elements, one of them being... do they qualify for certain incentives because i mean we see that on commercial properties for when they're applying for the department of revenue uh credits and so i would be surprised if we see something like that okay okay are you looking for a motion mr mayor yes sir i'll make a motion to approve this first by mr harbin second by the mayor pro tem any further discussion i just want to bring up again for the owner occupied that

I hope we do follow up and make sure it stays single family and one kitchen, so to speak, so we can make sure that it doesn't become a problem in the future.

All those in favor sign. Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. And I think just hearing our friends at the Municipal Association talk about this bill, we have a lot of our 271 cities in the state, and we have a lot of downtowns that are in disarray with abandoned buildings. And I think our state legislators were attuned to us keep saying that particular thing, how can we help some of our smaller towns within our state. Our next item is request consideration of a resolution authorizing a project to consider for participation in a special tax assessment of rehabilitated historic properties 220 East Morris Street. Mr. McKenzie.

Thank you. Again, this is another owner-occupied building, so in order to participate, And to qualify, the rehabilitation costs must exceed 50% of the fair market value. As the mayor mentioned, this is 220 East Morris Street. A lot of people may know it as the old Morris Street Tea Room. You can see that the fair market value is listed at $74,350. And their estimated project cost is at that number as well, $74,350. And with that $74,350 falling below the $2 million threshold, that will allow a seven-year special tax assessment. So we're bringing this to you tonight, requesting that you approve the resolution to authorize this project to participate as well. And if you do, it will go before the Board of Architecture review for preliminary certification consideration.

Thank you. Questions, comments? I had a question.

Just, and this didn't come up on the previous ones, but thinking about it, as far as the cost of the renovation, is that part of what the BAR is certifying?

Yes, they certify that the expenditures are there, and at the end, when they come back for final certification, they want to make sure that they spent what they previously approved.

Okay. It just was, again, something of an odd number where it's like, okay, the project cost is exactly the same as the fair market value, and it's one of those things where I'm not saying that they could have gone lower and still received the credit.

Right, they could have gone 37 if they wanted to. So when I saw that number, I'm like, okay, obviously it's not going to be exact, but it's estimated. And what it does is as long as you exceed 50%, that means that you can qualify for the freeze under $2 million. Got it.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Mr. Roberts? It seems odd that those numbers are the same, but also what stands out to me, the fair market value is so low.

It is.

And we're not here to sit in judgment of these numbers, fair market value, or are we? I don't know many city lots alone that costs much less than that, much less a structural lot. I'm questioning, who set the fair market value?

The assessor.

The assessor's office, correct.

Mr. Mayor, are you saying an appraiser or a recent sale?

Probably more so the recent sale.

Yeah, this came from, actually the recent sale, I forgot what it was now, but I think it was purchased four or five years ago and it wasn't I don't think it was more than this. But don't hold me to that. I can double check it.

But it would meet one of those three requirements.

That's right. And this one, this number came from the county's, their assessment. That's how it's listed on ACPAS now.

That number surprises me.

Mr. Roberts, that was why I was questioning the other two. specifically the one on Greenwood Street. I mean, I don't think that's in the neighborhood of what the cost of that property is. I mean, it's 300,000 for three acres.

Which it would change for that other one on the recent sale. It would get a new assessed value as well in the future.

But it doesn't matter because they're going to do 50% of the value. Right. Even if it doubled in value, they're still It has almost quadrupled in fair market value for them to reach 50% on the $690,000 renovation. It's not even close.

Very. Even on the numbers. Working on old houses, you never can tell. Any other questions, comments?

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to approve.

I have a first by Mr. Horgan. Second. Second by Mr. Pickens. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes. Thank you, Mr. McKenzie. When's the last time you missed a meeting?

In a while.

We keep the playing department busy.

A lot of stuff going on. Our last item is request consideration of a purchase and installation of Christmas lights. Mr. McEwen.

Okay, it's that time of year again where we're playing for Christmas pretty quick here coming off the end of summer. I guess people have their Halloween decorations already up. I've seen those. That amazes me too. But anyways, we do quite a display for Christmas and have been over the last couple years. Ms. Riley Tucker is going to present this consideration for your request. Ms. Tucker.

Thank you, David. I'm Riley Tucker. I'm the community events manager for the city. If I haven't had the chance to meet you yet. And today I'm here to ask council and mayor to consider the request and purchase of the installation lights for Christmas holiday season 2026. So I want to start and give some history. This all started in 2020. We're looking for a reason to bring more people downtown. How can we elevate the holiday? Christmas experience. Um, and we engaged spruce at that time and what better to come up with than Christmas lights. We decided to light up the downtown, um, that started with main street in around Carolina wren park and it has quickly grown over the years. We have added City Hall. We have added North Main Commons. We have added Church Street. We've added many areas. And we've kind of made it a tradition to add and grow this every single year. So last year, we requested to add City Hall as well as Lindley Park. We had the word joy displayed. It was beautiful. We saw lots of pictures for that. And this year, we want to continue that tradition. We want to spread it even further. So we would like to extend it into Cater's Lake. Um, we would like to request to line the walkways. We have a few sphere lighting features spread throughout the park. And of course we want to light the bridge. Um, what better than you're driving by to see the bridge lit up. So we also would like to request the Doolittle alleyway. I think that would be a very strong addition to downtown. It's essentially one of the main entry points into ice in the park, which was a hit last year. We had almost 6,000 skaters, which is a thousand more skaters than we had in 2024. And that was part of our refresh in 2024 was getting real ice in Carolina Wren Park and really playing off of that. And I think we did it really well. So we would like to request all of those additions for this year as well as D.B. Walker Park and B. Thompson Park on Councilman Stewart's request from 2025.

Thank you. Questions, comments?

Mayor Pro Tem. I just have a couple comments. First, I'm really excited to see D.B. Walker Park and B. Thompson Park as part of that. I know Councilman Stewart had talked about that when we talked about Christmas lights. I know he's not here tonight. So I just wanted to comment and say thank you for taking his comments into consideration. And it really is a wonderful way to spread the holiday cheer to all of our city across the way. And second, I just wanted to note what a wonderful program this has been, how much joy it has brought. I have, well, Christmas last year, my son was almost two years old. He'll be almost three this year. And the path from his daycare to our house went through the majority of the Christmas lights. And there's a way to bypass it, but every day after daycare he'd say want to see the lights and we'd have to drive down main street and cut over and see where it was you know by the recreation center not through lindley park back to our home so it really is something that i think adds a lot to our community i'm really really pleased that our city continues to do this i'm pleased that it continues to expand each and every year and i would make a motion that we approve it

First by the Mayor of Pro Ten.

Second.

Second by Mr. Newton.

I like that sentiment, too. I know this is probably one of my favorite things we do every year. You know, a lot of times people, you know, they might get upset with a lot of the decisions we make. They might be upset at planning or something going on over there. But I've never had anybody come to me and say, man, I really wish you'd tone back the Christmas, you know, spirit and the lights and stuff. So now this is, I'm very glad to expand. And I really, especially like Doolittle's, I mean, I think that's great, that little area. Because, I mean, that is such a focal point. Taking people skating and stuff. So nice. It's exciting.

I'll say we did realize How about a snow making machine y'all? Real quick so we're buying the lights I How does it work?

We purchase and have purchased over the years the majority of the lights that go up year to year. We're adding caters like we're going to buy all those lights so we'll have them in future years. The only caveat to that is every year we do have to rebuy about 20-25% of those lights from the previous year. They burned out, they get damaged, they get cut, you know, what have you. No, so once we purchase, especially some of the big displays, once we purchase those, they're ours.

I mean, I think they've done a good job, our staff. I frequent downtown early in the morning. It seems like they would come in the middle of the night to install, it seemed to me, when I would see them. Last question, when would they be installed?

They actually are going through inventory next week and meeting with our parks crew to come up with a plan. So they will have lights starting to go up before the first week of October. It'll start this month. So they're just waiting on approval.

The county Christmas tree grew again, and I think they turned on the lights after Thanksgiving, I think. So we might want to step our game up here and coincide.

We'll turn them on Halloween. Day after Halloween.

Any other questions? First and second, all those in favor say aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Not having any other business, I entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. First by Mr. Newton. Second. Second by Mr. Pickens. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?