City Council - Regular Meeting

It's hard to believe that 25 is almost a wrap and we appreciate those of you that are with us um this afternoon and our invocation tonight be given by council member Greg Steel in respect to the flag be led by council member Matt Harbin. Please rise. Father, we come to you during this Christmas season remembering you your gifts during this season and come to you. Thank you for the gifts of family, friends, community. And we thank you most of all your son. We pray for those who are lacking, those who are without food, shelter, family. Pray that you comfort them during this time. Give us wisdom as we consider the business of our city. Help us to make wise decisions that will be in accordance with your will. We ask all this in your son's name. Amen. 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. Before we get started tonight, we have a a couple of presentations. And um as I'm talking, I'm going to ask Beth Batson to come up here and join me. Um as you see on the agenda, Beth is returning. And I'm gonna let Beth have the mic for a second.

Promise me five minutes. Mayor,

um, good evening everybody. Um, it's my privilege to be here. And yes, as you might imagine, I do have a few words to say. Um, because I have some folks I want to thank and I want to express my gratitude to the city of Anderson as an institution and to the city of Anderson and all of its people. I also want to first of all um thank my wonderful husband my Phil um the way he has supported me through this two decade career in government but mostly for the way that he has supported the city of Anderson. He he um early on some of y'all remember we would have events and he's hauling tables and chairs and handing out programs and most of all always work in the crowd as an advocate for us. So thank you for all you've put up with. Um Okay. So, in my tenure here, like many of us, I've had three city managers. And um I would like to mention that I'm grateful to John Moore for hiring me. I'm grateful to Linda McConnell for sort of molding my talents to fit government. And I'm grateful to have gotten to spend the twilight of my career watching David Mchuan hit new heights and that's been a privilege. And sometimes you think about economic development accomplishments but and you know Dave got a hotel built. Nobody thought there'd be a hotel downtown. But to me, and I shared this with him the other day, the biggest thing that he has done is keep us safe. In his tenure, we had a hundredyear pandemic and a hundredyear flood. And because of his background in emergency management, he and we saved lives. So, in my opinion, if we're not keeping

people safe, we may as well pack it in. So, that to me is the most extraordinary thing. Thank you, David. Um, also having three city managers, I've only had one mayor. Um, 20 I was trying to count up about 20 council members. Somewhere between 18 and 20, but only one mayor. Mayor, thank you so much. It's been a joy to walk beside you. Like my mother said one time, you better not walk beside him. You better walk behind him. And um I feel A lot of great things have happened because of your gentle leadership and your axiom that it's not there's no telling what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the grade. And we've talked a lot about our projects, but one of the things we hadn't talked about in a long time that I'm so grateful for is that during the making of the Church Street documentary, I got to interview your dad. And um that's about all I can say about that. That was a privilege. And amongst all the 20 other councilmen, there's only been one Dr. Thompson. And Dr. Thompson, you and I have um notoriously worked on some major projects here that I believe have helped the fiber of this community forever. And I appreciate being able to be a little bit on the coales of your lips. Thank you for what you've done for me personally, for our city. And here's another obscure memory. We did a lot of stuff together. Too much to talk about, but I want to make sure everybody knows that it was Dr. Thompson's courage of why we have Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. And it took the courage of Dr. Thompson and the council behind her. But what did that mean to me? I got to do this cool little mini documentary where I got to interview

the Anderson folks who were freedom fighters. I don't think any of them are alive anymore. they were in their 90s 15 years ago. But that was a great opportunity to get and again in that sea of council members there was only one Tony and Tony was here when I got here too. And Tony, can I Tony um one of the things I really appreciated about working with you is the work that we got to do at Green Park and you started that wonderful backpack tradition and you let me piggy back with some public art for children and then some public art in the form of those chairs and I appreciate your dedication to getting those kinds of things beyond that. the rest of you, you know, I love you. Y'all get to be and the rest and um appreciate all the projects I worked on with all of you, too. Um, thank you, Andrew, for the aesthetic that you've brought to our city and making it more beautiful, kicking it up a notch. Thank you, Frankie, for y'all. I mean, really, thank you, Frankie, for your wit and wisdom. And, um, Margot, I'm just so proud of you. so proud. I feel great to have gotten to witness your your rise and you becoming a a seuite professional of the highest order and not just for yourself but for the other folks that you brought along with you the way that you're building a team. I'm so proud of you and everybody needs to know if it wasn't for Margot skill none of us could be doing a thing. Not one single thing could any of us do. So, thank you, Margot. Quickly, two more people. My colleagues in the city manager's office that have been there since the beginning. Thank you, Brandy, for bringing your creativity and enthusiasm all along the way to

everything. And Rachel told me she couldn't be here tonight, but y'all, Rachel, it is not a joke of who runs the city. And y'all all know that. And I'm so grateful to her personally, but I'm so grateful for the way she holds up our city. And I want to be clear about this, Mr. Mchuan. If we ever need a poster child for our slogan of teamwork, integrity, and professionalism, it is Rachel Mix. Thank you, Rachel. You're going to watch it on tape. Thank you, everybody. I love all of you. Good night. to say something.

No, I can't talk. No, no, it's um you you have meant a lot to all of us for sure. And so we'll probably shut up so we both don't cry. But um the plat reads presented to Elizabeth S. Batson. And for those of you who don't know, I didn't know this until we talk a lot, but the S Her parents knew what they were doing when they named Sparks. Can you believe it? Elizabeth Sparks. That's in appreciation for 19 years of loyal and dedicated service to the city of Anderson. And Anderson City Council on this day of 2025. Thank you. Mayor be picture.

Mayor, I just like to say something if you don't mind. Hey, uh Beth, it's been wonderful working with you all these 25 plus years and I can just tell you every project that you see in the city of Anderson, it doesn't matter from when we went through the COVID pandemic, you know, you know, helping people, whether it's Lenley Park, whether it's, you know, the Cater's Lake project, whether it's anything got to do with downtown. Our story wouldn't get told if it weren't for Beth Batson. She is the poster child for the city with putting out our story, and nobody can tell our story better than Beth Batson. So Beth, I'd like to thank you for representing putting this city out the way you have o over your career. So really like to thank you for that.

I'd like to say one thing. Thank you so very much your commitment putting our city that we love so dearly on the international. with somebody now, not just nationally, but internationally because of your hard work. You are committed to our community. I love you so much. You've done so much. And most of all, thank you for being This is one of our Boseman artist and now employee.

Yes, ma'am. I've been doing probably 10 probably years and she she well I reached out to her when I first started painting and she gave me like plenty of opportunities with the city. We done so much things together with the mall and just everything just conversation and talking on the phone every day. She's like family to me. She always been more like we always kept contacting each other throughout the years. I wouldn't pay this for her. Thank you everybody.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next item on our recognitions, I'm going ask the chief, Chief Stewart, come down and lead us in the Anderson Police Department. The We have an award. Chief,

uh, thank you, Mayor. I'd like to ask my staff to come on down. Major and captains, come on down. You stand behind me. Um, we always appreciate the opportunity to recognize the police department, the good works we're doing. Tonight, it would be a little different. I want to present the award to you, Mayor. I'll tell you a little bit about it. Earlier this fall, I submitted our nomination to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Association, known affectionately as Scala. Um, it is the organization that represents all of us. It is what they say is the voice for law enforcement in our state. We currently have about 6,400 members in our organization. Um to receive this award from this group makes it even more meaning meaningful for us. So in our application I talked about what makes us different than any other law enforcement agency in the state. And again to use the phrase I use teamwork, integrity and professionalism. So those aren't just words that we say but is how it guides us, how we serve our community and what we support every day. I pulled a lot that in our fiveyear plan when I submitted this for how it directs us for a safer city, safer neighborhood, safer streets, and safer schools. The law enforcement award that we received is for excellence in law enforcement and it recognizes a collected effort, our service to the community, and the results achieved through teamwork rather than just one individual. So on November 14th, Chief Bell Long of the Conway Police Department, who also serves this year as our president, Miss Leoa, presented the award to us, and it was a proud moment for all of us. Our motto at Anderson Police Department, which you've often seen and we put on our social media, is one team, one family. Everybody on patrol, every detention officer, every staff member contributes

to this m mission. And our team has embraced new tools. This past year, programs, grants, new equipment, new technology, and the partnerships have made us very effective, efficient, lawful, and legitimate in our service to the community. We've also worked closely with our community through our law enforcement task force, Dr. Thompson, that strengthened and relationships uh our relationships between law enforcement and the community. These efforts have paid off. As we submitted in our application, our crime rate is down. Um, both property and violent crime. Our accidents are also down. Our community is safer because of all this work and our incredible team. I couldn't have done any of this without these people that are standing behind me. The major captains, lieutenants, and sergeants. It's all teamworks. And reminds, as I've always said, a great police department runs by great people. Uh thank you to all those on the team. Again, it's not just a saying. Teamwork, integrity, and professionalism is what we do every single day. So, Bath, the um police department, Mayor Roberts, I'd like to present this award to you. Um it was presented to us for the excellence in law enforcement as a symbol of our hard work and what we do every day.

Thank you, Chief, for all of us. Thank you. And thank you for all the work that you Thank you. Our last item in regards, we have a presentation for our annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year 2004 2005 Greenfiny and Collie LLP. and I'll get Mr. Mchuan to cue that up for us. David,

thank you, Mayor and City Council. Um, it's that time of year again. Uh, we're that we're presenting the 2025 U financial report to you ending June the 30th, 2025. I just want to provide some introductory comments uh prior to the presentation. The Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada known as the GFOA awards a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting to the city of Anderson. So we received this award uh and is reflected in the 2025 report and but it goes through our submission uh from the last fiscal year. City has received this award for 30 consecutive years. The certificate of achievement is a prestigious national award recognizing conformance with the highest standards for preparation of state and local government financial reporting. To be awarded a certificate of achievement, a government unit must publish an easily readable and efficiently organized annual comprehensive financial report whose contents conform to the program standards and thereby must satisfy satisfy both generally accepted accounting principles and government reporting legal requirements. In addition, the city of Anderson also received the certificate for excellence and distinguished budget presentation from GFOA for our annual adopted budget for the fiscal year beginning July the 1st, 2025. And the city has received this award for 20 years. um for all this to for both the reporting. So we have the two major reporting of course is the the budget sets up the fiscal year and then point in time accounting as of June 30th of the year the end of the year of the fiscal year um and pursuing both of these awards is they're they're quite

differently one's on accounting excellence as far as looking back the audit reports legal compliance generally accepted accounting principles and the other the budget award that we received for 20 years is going above and beyond uh typically just a a straight line government budget but providing information uh that's overall broad to the city of Anderson where we're headed from a strategic direction and our goals that we have from each division um and the priorities set by council. These financial reporting achievements are reflected of the city's professional finance and management team that assure the public's funds are managed and reported on in the highest standards of accounting principles. I want to thank our management team including chief financial officer Margaret Martin and finance director Tam Tamara Lley for their dedication, hard work in preparing the city's financial reports. David Phillips, partner of Green, Finny, and Collie, will now present the 2025 financial audit for the year ending June 30th, 2025. Mr. Phillips.

All right. Well, I appreciate y'all allowing me to be here. Um, actually, the engagement partner is Larry Finny, but he was tied up tonight, and I used to do your audit, so they called me back into duty. Uh, but, uh, we rotated partners. We try to do that every few years sometimes to create another set of eyes on things. Uh but what I'm going to do is just briefly kind of go through the highlights uh of the fiscal year 2025 audit. But if you have any questions um please feel free to interject or we can at the very end um address any of those questions. Um, we like to remind everybody uh of the importance of internal controls and that's just not something isolated to a government. It's uh important for every entity uh that there's checks and balances within an organization. And so one of the things that we do um as your auditors is we try to kick the tires on your significant internal control processes so that if we see that there are problems, let's just say hypothetically bank wrecks aren't being prepared on a timely basis, it's not only important that I talk to David and Marggo about that. It's important that you as a council are aware of that because you can't fix it if you don't know it's broken. So again, we're looking at those type of things. And again, these are your financial statements. So that when we go to this next slide, um our responsibility as your auditors is to issue an opinion. Uh we look at things from a materiality perspective. And you have what is called an unmodified opinion. Now that's weird, but that really in layman's language is a clean opinion. The old terminology they used to call it unqualified. They thought that was confusing. So we'll call it unmodified. A lot lot easier, right? Uh but again, if we were aware that something was wrong, we would

have to modify our opinion. We're not aware of anything being significantly misstated. So you have an unmodified clean opinion. All right. Well, let's look at some of the the things that probably matter to you the most. Um that chart gives you a little bit of historical perspective there. Um your total fund balance uh decrease and we're going to look at that uh by about 3.4 million uh to 9.7 million. Uh you have various components of fund balance. Uh one piece of that is non-spendable related to prepaids. Uh you also have some restricted fund balance of 0.2 2 million and then some assigned fund balance that was related to the fiscal year 26 budget. So then we're left with a category that most people kind of focus on the most. That's the unassigned category uh which is about 7.9 million uh which is about 23% uh of your 2025 expenditures but excluding remember you had some pretty large one-time items in fiscal year 25 for some capital outlay for fire trucks remember the roof replacement um you had some of that land purchase and so forth you had some hurricane Helen damage that came through. You don't always get reimbursed for that instantaneously. It takes time to get those monies back. And so if we back out some of those one time, that brings us to that 23%. Um, if we also backed out the fact that you made some prepayments for Schmidt and Smurf right at year end, you would be right back at the 25 that I think that normally that you had kind of been communicated you were shooting for for this year. So, I kind of want to let you see there were some unusual items that were kicking in or showing up or being reflected in these year's numbers that made that percentage a little bit less

than what they typically would have been. Now, remember, uh, David mentioned the GFOA, that's the Government Finance Officer Association. They recommend a minimum of two months. So, you can see you're really still good in light of that measurement there. All right. Well, why do you want to have a strong fund balance? Um, you know, a lot of that became a little bit more um crystal clear with the government shutdown. What if that shutdown uh went for six months or a year? Then you might have to bear cost that you wouldn't get reimbursed for for a while. Um, now of course it's ended and it they're cycling through the reimbursements, but that is one reason. What if there's um significant emergencies that come up? you know, some storm like, you know, we had with Hurricane Elaine, but even bigger that you had to shell out several million dollars first before you get reimbured. You got to have money in the kitty to be able to do that. Um, it also helps you uh with flexibility. Remember, some of your cash flows, your property tax, those bills go out in October. If people pay those real property taxes, it's usually December, January, and February. and you've pretty much collected most of your real property taxes for that cycle. Um, it helps you too if you have to issue debt. You're going to get better interest rates if you have a good fund balance, a good track record there. And it's just important in the uncertain economic times. You know, everybody says uh personally that you should have a rainy day fund, usually six months to one year's worth just in case if you lost your job or something to that effect. That's kind of what we're talking about here. You want to keep a minimum a reasonable minimum amount of unassigned fund balance. All right. Well, let's look at your revenues. That chart gives you again a little bit of historical perspective. Uh your revenues were about 41.3 million. Uh an increase

of about 2% over the prior year. Um general fund actual revenues came in about 1% over budget and a lot of that is in property taxes, business license, some of those growth oriented uh revenues there. Um on the expenditure side, uh you had 40.7. This was a 7.7 million increase. Um over the prior year, remember we talked about some of those onetime items. Uh you know, you had about 4.7 million and some one-time capital needs that you went ahead and dealt with. FEMA cost of about $800 and some thousand dollars. And then the number one driver for all pretty much governments is higher salaries and benefits. Uh remember you gave a 3% cost of living. You had some headcount increase. That was the other part there uh that drove that increase. Um as it relates to budget, you came in slightly over budget, but a lot of that was the one-time items and also some higher salaries, some overtime u you know in in your public safety area there. All right. Um let's look at some of your other funds. Your hospitality fee fund, remember those tourism related revenues. Um remember they can only be spent for those type of costs. Uh you had a net increase of fund balance of about 4.7 uh which leaves you about 9 million available at year end. But in that remember too we have about 5.4 million of unspent limited obligation bonds and those are primarily related to Kers Lake and Lley Park. So again, those projects are still ongoing. Uh but you have some funds there to address um the capital project as it goes forward. Um your hospitality collections, they exceeded your budget uh by about $700,000. You you're still seeing really strong growth uh in that area there. All right, just

some highlights on the sewer fund. Had an increase in net position of 6.3. Uh water fund had an increase in net position of 3.5. Um, as we go on over here, just as an update, um, really not a lot of significant, um, auditing changes this year. We did have to implement a new one on compensated absences, but it wasn't so large, um, that we had to do a restatement as it relates to fiscal year 25. Next year uh we have Gazsby 103 and the Gazsby which is the governmental accounting standards board uh they are wanting uh to make some improvements to the financial reporting model. So in essence what that is going to do is they want more explanations in the management's discussion analysis of why did you do well or poorly in various areas. So like if revenues are way up, why? We want you to explain that better. Um if you're way over under budget, provide an explanation. One of the interesting things is on the budgetary comparison schedule, when you do get your draft of the financials, and we'll talk about that in a second. There's a schedule right behind the notes that shows your budget to actual. If there's significant variances, they're going to want explanations starting next year by line item. So that's another thing that will be they view as an improvement because they want the reader to be able to look at those financials and know why without having to be at a presentation. They want to be able to hear it and see I should say see it uh in the text within the financial statements. All right. Um we did have to do a single audit. Remember if you get a significant federal monies uh we have to look at those programs. We looked at two ARPA and FEMA um and we had no findings there. as as a whole, you know, if we had came across any issue, uh we would have had to have reported that in the financials and we had no findings to

report. Um there's a separate letter you will receive. It's called a management letter. Uh if we had difficulties with management, let's say um they were argumentative, they didn't want to book something that we thought needed to be booked, we would have to make you aware of that. Um there was nothing like that this year. Um again, why don't we have a final report? Well, if you remember with the government shutdown, uh the government didn't issue the 2025 OM compliance sub supplement until the week of Thanksgiving. So, it just went out. We're having to review that and see if there's any impact on your single audit programs that we tested, the ARPA and the FEMA. Uh we don't foresee that there will be probably any. So, we hope to be able to start wrapping this thing up, finalizing the documents in the coming weeks. But that's what has held us. It's not just you. It's been every government that we've been involved in. We've had to hold them all waiting on this compliance supplement. Um uh again, there could be some additional testing, but we really don't right now foresee that there will be much. All right. Again, a summary unmodified. I know that's strange, but that's a clean opinion. You really have good financial condition. And you know, I work at a lot of the cities in our state and our school districts and you just have a great staff. Um, and you know, I you know, I go to a lot of places that's not the case and you really get good information. So again, uh, kudos to them. They're great to work with. Um, any questions because I know I kind of go quick, but most people like that.

Thank you, Miss Phillips. Um, good presentation. Questions? Comments? Mr. Roberts Pro? Uh you mentioned there were some prepayments into the insurance funds. What's the advantage of prepaid?

We uh Mr. Roberts I will answer that. So um we have two insurance pools. Uh one's our of course our property casualty and liability insurance and then the other's workers comp and uh that's through the municipal association of South Carolina that both of those are carried through. Um, so we're build twice a year for those and we had a uh bill for the the year ahead come in right at year end that got booked and paid. Um, so typically we just have two payments a year. We don't prepay. Uh, but this one did get paid through. So now we'll just have one in this current year and so we'll we'll be, you know, we just prepaid that. But for accounting reason, it has to go in as restricted already prepaid for for as far as this financial statement.

So it's more of a timing issue. It was a timing issue. It was right at your end when the bill came in. We went ahead and voted it. Any other questions, comments? M. Phillips, you work with a lot of cities as far as headwinds ahead. I mean, I know obviously benefits, salary, anything that that we should know in that regard or be anticipating, you know, not that I saw, but you know, I know Margot would have talked to our our engagement team and I'm not aware of anything on that front. I think y'all are in really good shape. Thank you. We appreciate your presentation.

So, the minutes of the November 10th meeting were distributed. Are there Any corrections or additions to those minutes? First by Mr. Steel, second by Mr. Stewart. All those in favor say I. I

opposed. The minutes of November 10th pass and answer. We have one item of old business and that is to request second reading of ordinance 2518 providing for the April 7th, 2026 general election. Mr. This ordinance on second reading establishes the next general election schedule for Tuesday, April the 7th, 2026 for the municipal council for seats of mayor seats 1, 3, five, and at large seat 7. The filing period for the candidates begins Thursday, January the 15th at 12 noon and ends January the 29th. The last day to register for vote for citizens in the April 7th, 2026 election is Saturday, March the 7th. Staff recommends approval of the ordinance.

Thank you, sir. Any questions, comments. Make a motion to approve. First by Mr. Newton. Second. Second by Mr. Har. All those in favor say I. Opposed. That passes unanimously. On the second and final reading, have four items of new business. The first item is request consideration of an ordinance to reszone 409 highway 29 bypass north from LI light industrial to R20 sing single family residential. Mr. Muan,

Mr. Mayor Council, this is coming back to you planning commission on first reading uh for reasoning request um and it was recommended by approval by the planning commission. Miss Maurice McKenzie, our plan development director will go over the details. Thank you. Again, this request is to reszone the subject property from Lite Industrial to R20 single family residential in order to bring the property into zoning conformance. Currently, there's a single family house on the property. And with the zoning of Li Lightnustrial, that zoning classification does not allow residential uses. So, essentially, this property is a legally non-conforming use. In other words, it's grandfathered in. But uh say for instance if this house currently burned by more than 50% it would not be able to be built back as a single family residence it would have to revert back to to light industrial whatever those permitted uses are uh if moving forward if it is burned or something like that does happen. So that's the reason why it's coming to you tonight. They want to bring the property into zoning conformance by reszoning it to R20 single family residential. and the property has been in use as a residential property for a long time. It's the house on the property and the applicant wishes to sell the property but is having trouble doing so because it is non-conforming and potential buyers are having trouble securing loans because of the non-conformity. So that's the reason why they want to bring it to R20 zoning classification so it can be in zoning compliance and can be sold. But you can look at your zoning map attached to this. It's also on the screen. You can see that this property is surrounded by light industrial zoning. But the closest single family zoning to this is R20 single family residential. So that's consistent with this request. Now keep in mind this is a request to downzone the property going from light industrial to R20 single family residential. Essentially, the

more intensive land uses that you see in light industrial will no longer be permitted on that site. And as you know, 29 bypass has a variety of land uses and some are more unsightly than others. So, as we go through the final stages of updating our zoning regulations and zoning map over the next few months, we will take a closer look at the 29 corridor and work to find zoning classifications or a zoning classification that will help better guide future development patterns along this stretch of road. This did go before planning commission last week at the December 2nd meeting. They did unanimously recommend approval of it. So, it's coming to you tonight on first reading. The is also in attendance if you have any questions.

Thank you, sir. Any questions, comments? M Stewart.

Uh Mr. McKenna, this is in my district uh now and just wanted to ask uh I know as we're working through our zoning maps and everything. I just want to make sure, you know, because I've seen a lot of property get reszoned and I I guess my feeling has always been why are we continually reszoning stuff when we don't even know what our overall map is going to look like, you know, when we're trying to solidify an area and uh you know, because it may come back from our consultant that, hey, this may be best for light industrial. We want everything to be, you know, light industrial, but I do know there's residential on the opposite side of the street, you know, uh, which it looks like it's zon light industrial as well. So, would that wind up getting reszone R20 as well to make it contiguous? Because I know you got the storage unit right up there at the corner and the self storage and then you got the gas station at the corner. And I know this house, I've seen it for sale for, you know, many months now, you know, and I just want to make sure that as we if we're going to make this R20. As we look at the other residential units, I think there's a church back behind there as well. What is it going to be reszoned to? And because right now looking at this map, I think everything's just li.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. There's a variety of land uses out there. So, what we would like to do is to most closely match to what's on the ground with our zoning, unless it's some sort of use that we want to see go away. Let's take for instance if this situation was reversed if this was an industrial piece of property located in a sea of R20, you know, we may want that to go back to R20, but in this case it's a downzoning. But you're right, we will look at all of the land uses in the area and try to make it best fit because we don't want to see nonconformities around there. But again, sometimes it does exist

because if I'm not mistaken, right next year there's a brick house that has a pool out there. I think it's according to this zoned LI2. That's right. you know, would it fall in the same thing if it got burnt? You know, it wouldn't be allowed to put a house back there and yes, you know, so would we look at bringing that in as R20 as well or what?

And that's probably what we will look into doing as we go through this process. Did this bring the light to us when we started looking at this property, this request when it came to us, we're like, hey, you know, you have a variety of land uses, you have some different zoning classifications in the area, but you do want to make it best fit. So there's very likely you will see that the residential properties will be zoned residential type zoning so it can move forward as a conforming use but we're looking into that right now. Anything else? So Mr. McKenzie, real quick. So this was probably a house before it got zoned, right?

That's correct. This this house is um don't know the age of it, but when our more modern zoning came into place in 1968 I think it was it was probably zone something but then when the update happened in 1998 a lot of times they look at just larger broader areas you really don't want to see a just a bunch of spot zones everywhere so a lot of times certain things get absorbed into a larger zoning classification and that's what I would yeah you know assume it was a house for correct from what we can tell according to the applicant this has always been

and then it got then it got zoned when did the zoning in the 60s and then reszoned it. And that's sort of what we're doing with the zoning study coming up is just clean up things that have got overlooked through the years. Is that Yes, that's accurate. Yeah. Okay. With that, I'd like to make a motion to approve this. Mayor first by Mr. Harvin, second by Dr. Thompson. Further discussion.

So So Mr. McKenna, as we're looking at the reszoning, I guess, you know, there you got light industrial, then you going to have residential probably on top of each other. You know, is that typically a, you know, suitable to have light industrial on top of residential? I mean, I think from a zoning purist type standpoint, yeah, probably not. You don't like seeing those abuing land uses like that, but that's what exists out there right now. So, and if somebody did come back and, you know, want to develop the other parcel next to them for light industrial, I guess we could require something our zoning to put a natural buffer, I guess, for noise to, you know, because you button right up to a residential.

Our current guidelines do require buffers, things like that when you do have incompatible land uses adjacent to one another. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any other questions, comments? And for that property next to it, you talked about house there too. That property come in if it needed to issues not correct. So again, this is just kind of follow this kind of captured but this is kind of because

correct right yeah it happens from time to time with that anything else good discussion I think the the work that we're doing we found a lot of things and lot sizes that are different from other lot sizes within neighborhoods soc process and we appreciate everybody u working on that and we'll um obviously keep doing that obviously in 2026. So we had a first and a second. All those in favor say I.

Opposed passes unanimously on the first reading. A second item is consideration request consideration of a contract for value and hydro maintenance. Miss Mchuan, thank you. This is uh dealing with our uh water system and the ongoing maintenance to that that's required by the Department of Environmental Services. Uh Mr. Scott Banks, our utilities director, will go over uh the services that we bidded out to help our um our staff. Mr. Banks,

good evening. Um as Mr. Qan indicated uh Department of Environmental Services regulation require our valves and hydrants to be exercised, evaluated, inspected um every three years. Due to the growth we've experienced in recent years, getting this accomplished is very difficult with our current staff levels. Therefore, we're recommending contracting this out. The scope of the contract not only includes exercising one-third of the valves in the system and flow testing one third of the hydrants, but also part of this service will be uh helping us update our maps and making sure that they're accurate and and refining those. Um this will consist of exercising approximately 1,33 valves and 389 hydrants which is onethird of our system for a period of three years. We had three respondents uh QCC Services uh LLC out of Pamelook, South Carolina. Uh the fir all three of the years was $55,65 for a total of $166,815. Hydroax USA um Flower Mound, Texas, uh $61,541.50 the first year, $63,392.91. second year 65,29087 uh the third year for a total of 190,225,000 excuse me $190,22528 for the three-year total. We also had Emmy Simpson Company um out of uh Valareereza, Indiana respond for $196,885 the first year, $196,480 the second year, $196,480 the third year for a total of $589,845 for the three-year contract. Um, this

complies with our strategic goal of of of maintaining regulatory compliance uh while maintaining uh water distribution infrastructure. We would pay for this out of our water funds. Um, and with that, the staff recommends approval of a three-year contract with QCC Services LLC in the amount of $166,815 with a 10% contingency of 16,8 excuse me, $681.50. 50 for a total of $183,496.50. Thank you, sir. Questions, comments? Mr. Roberts, may time.

Um, up until this point, we've self-performed these inspections. We have and we've we've been able to do it, but it's been with a lot of uh rushing and and last minute and and working it in between just right currently with our current levels. We're struggling to in the last over the last few years, we've struggled to get that all done within that within that time frame just with all the current work that we have. I'd rather do this uh and rather than add bodies at the current time or rather than recommending adding bodies understand so after 3 years we will re-evaluate whether to do it

yes sir this provide these services at that time these services at that time we'll evaluate whether to do another contract or if by that time if development has slowed and we can do it in house then we bring it back in house so it really has the potential being a recurring cost. Yes, sir. Year after year. Yes, sir. And and did we build that into our sewer? Yes, sir. Excuse me. Our water budget. Yes, sir. This was in we we had 70,000 for this year in this budget. So, we're we were a little bit lower than what our budgeted amount was. Well, that mayor proposal for annual valve and hydrant maintenance.

We have a first by the mayor pro 10. Second. Second by Mr. John Roberts. Any further discussion? So on new systems on new construction, are they exempt in the three-year period or where's what's the cut off with with the they would come into that and so within three years of them being in in in our system, we would have to hit them. So more than likely they would roll to the end of the three-year period. We'd snag them and then they just get into the the roll. So, it's a roll in three years. Yes, sir. Gotcha. Guess I will. Any other questions, comments? All those in favor say I. I.

Opposed? He passes unanimously. Thank you. Our third item is request consideration of a contract to upgrade the sewer line on East Store Street. M. Mchuan. All right. This is upgrade that we're proposing to a sewer line. Um that's a lateral system that runs down or street downtown off of North Muffy Street and have a a change here due to a a u a point collapse in one of the lines. Um Mr. Banks will go over the details of that and the the bid and the uh the budget as well for that. Mr. Banks,

thank you. Um, our city crews uh encountered an issue with a sewer line on North McDuffy Street uh where there's a single customer connected on that uh that segment. Um, and upon investigation, crews determined that the line was partially collapsed um and is also 20 foot deep. Uh since that customer is the only one served by that segment and because there are three additional customers on a 4 inch line along East or Street um we recommend abandoning the problematic portion on North McDuffy Street. Uh and in its place we propose installing a new 8inch line along East Street to consolidate the services of all four uh customers. Um, we had uh uh three folks that we uh um requested bids from. Davis Plumbing and Sewage LLC of IVA, South Carolina, $187,000. Roper Brothers Incorporated from Fountain in $191,22 and LBG Plumbing of Greenville, South Carolina was a no bid. Um this meets our strategic goal by sure sustainable uh growth and maintaining a viable um sewer collection system. This was would be funded out of our utility sewer budget. With that staff recommends approval of a contract with Davis Plumbing and Sewage LLC in the amount of $187,000 plus a 10% contingency of $18,700 for a total of $25,700. And I will add it did come in under budget about 100,000 of what you were sping. Is that correct?

Yes sir. Any questions, comments? So from my understanding looking at this, it was the uptown lounge that was just basically instead of coming in from one place there. Correct. And and like as I said, the other three customers along Or Street, they're on 4 in line. That should be a minimum of 8 in line when if you have more than one customer. And so we're we're basically killing two birds with one stone. Mr. Where does that line run on or street? Right down the middle.

It's uh to one side, I think, but it's mostly in the middle, but it's it's there's a manhole right there in the intersection of ore and Maine. Okay. that that that uh ties into ties into Yes. Along those lines, is that is that a city road or state road? Um section that session city the other side the state because I do know that you know right cutting that up and then there'll be an opportunity in the future maybe to pave that. Yeah. It's not in the greatest shape I know as of today and I know that's not going to make it any better. That's growing pains. Any other questions, comments?

I want to piggy back on Mr. Newton. So, does that include repaving that stretch or just patch? Yes. Well, that's a a a patch for the width of the a solid patch. It's not repaving. It would be considerably more if it was repaving the whole road. And I was intrigued. The sewer line in McDuffy is 20 ft deep. Yes, sir. Well, where the connect where the sewer line is because that's where the the connection was that deep with So, How deep is this excavation?

Well, it doesn't have to be as deep because from uptown you're kind of running the the land runs uphill. So, you're you're the lateral would be deeper, but so you're since you're coming out the side and or runs downhill, it won't be near as deep. It'll be probably five to six feet at max. I was going to say some of those buildings are right up on the road there. Yes, sir. Okay. Would there be a possibility when Main Street's pave to possibly a change order addition to to maybe add that on there. I mean, I know that's a that's a costly, you know, endeavor, but also I mean, I know that that's

Yeah, possibly. So, I mean, we do have some in and out of the hospitality of the financial report. They just went over um you saw the the fund balance, but 2.5 million is actually reserved in there for Main Street Haven after we finish the utilities, but that's the 2.5 also includes some anticipation of there might be some other areas that we need to get into while we have uh mobilize and that might be an opportunity there to get some cost savings and do that street and it's it's not very wide and I mean I think you get it for since the equipment is mobile for main street I think you could get a pretty good bid on that any other questions comments I'll make the motion to approve

first by Mr. Newton second second by Mr. Harvin. All those in favor say I. I. Oppos. Last item of new business is request consideration of a contract for the installation of a water line along a portion of Michelin Boulevard. M. Mchuan.

There's also a map attached to this as well. This is to the west side of the city. um on the other side of Highway 28 bypass. It's in our water service territory. Uh we do go out a good ways to the west side outside the city limits um as far as our water territory. Uh this is an area that we currently do not have a line um but that we're starting to see that we're being approached by um different interested parties and building uh certain buildings there. And so this is an opportunity to expand our water system. And uh Mr. Mr. B, if you would go over the proposal of the expansion and u the summary of the events.

Thank you. Um, as we said, Mission Boulevard from a standard road uh to Continental Street contain several parcels uh with development potential and as as was stated earlier, this section uh currently doesn't have water service. Um but a commercial building is presently under construction on one of the parcels and plans are underway for an additional building on an adjacent site. Uh to support existing and future development, we propose installing approximately 1550 ft of 8 in water line extending from the existing 12 in uh on Standards Road uh going north. Um, we actually had eight respondents to our uh, bid request. Uh, Davis Plumbing and Sewage LLC of IVA for $157,547.25. J&M Construction Inc. from Pinnacle, South Carolina, $176,450. 7 Hills Construction Incorporated from IVA, $179,90. Palmeta State Underground LLC from Gaffne $231,300. Morehead construction in Anderson, South Carolina, $239,275. Garcon Pickins, $242,825. Uh Trace Clearing and Grading LLC of Six Mile, $285,150. Pay McIn and Cummings Incorporated Travels Rest $385,981.50. This uh complies with our strategic goal of assuring sustainable growth by assuring long-term infrastructure projects and maintaining water distribution capacity. We would fund this from the utility water capacity funds and with that staff recommends approval of a contract with Davis Plumbing and Sewage LLC in the amount of 157 thou 100

157,45 $54725 plus a 10% contingency of $15,754.73 for a total of $173,31.98. Thank you, sir. Any questions, comments? I have two questions. Yes, sir. Mayor Pro, I know you can't estimate or guesstimate how how long it will take to develop out this stretch, but what would what would you say would be the approximate payback time on this investment?

Years. Mult multiple years. Multiple years for sure. Yeah, absolutely. It depends on what type of customer you get. So commercial customer, larger tab, fire suppression system as well. I know there's no real answer to that, but multiple years of pay. Well, and if it's a if it's a large indust industrial customer, if they're high water usage, the capacity fees would would short it would shorten that drastically. And also, do we have sewer service in this area? That's that segment or that part parcel is sewered by the county on the back side. Their lines are on the back side of that parcel. So we have we'll have water and sewer. Yes.

It wouldn't be our sewer. It would be the county sewer unless we go through our normal purchasing of of that territory. But to answer your question, all utilities are available except for the water line at this point. And probably the majority of our outside water rates are on the west part of this service area. Yes, correct. Why was that negotiations of the water system? I would imagine Mr. Stewart something like that subject I don't like the Brooks

anticipation of growth is north but anyway any other questions comments Mr. general question semi comment. So Davis is the low bedroom project and the previous one we bet on think I've seen the trucks doing some work for us Lily Park is that okay so with regard to being lowest better twice in a row we just want to make sure they're Yeah I don't think it'll be that because especially the this Michelin Boulevard project it's on the side of the road mostly in dirt. So it's it's I think that's why we had so many biders is because this is a a quick quick dirty quick and easy project

and with that they shouldn't have difficulty doing both. Sounds good. Motion to approve unless it was already first by Mayor Pro Tim second by John Roberts. Any further discussion? All those in favor I

opposed. Passes unanimously. You know, Michelin Boulevard, I mean that area would seem bright or some type of develop at some point. I would hopefully sooner than later. Um I see three young men up here. What are y'all doing? It's fine. Somebody say what your class. Good. What class? What's What school?

Oakwood Christian School. Thank you for coming. Well, I'm on We'll see everybody next year, Thursday, right? hopefully at the city Christmas dinner um at Thursday

Thursday at 11:30. Um but if I don't see you, merry Christmas everybody. Merry Christmas everybody. M I just like to say, you know, everybody's going home and getting ready to get their Christmas presents. You know, the city, this city council and this staff's been truly blessed with a lot of presents this year as well. you know, we've had, you know, the acquisition of our fire department land this year. You know, we've had the completion of our Lley Park. We've had the starting of the construction on Kers Lake and most recently the groundbreaking at Murray Franklin. So, I think we've been truly blessed with a lot of presence here at the city this year with the project. So, thank you to the staff and for everybody that you've done to make these things come to a reality. So, I appreciate it.

Thank you, M. Martinez.

Yeah. I wanted to wanted to share with you guys. Uh I had the pleasure of hosting uh little holiday party at my house last Friday night. It was for uh this girls softball team that I coach and we don't get a chance to celebrate very often and the holidays pack up pretty quick here at the end of the year. So we did this thing in the living room of my house and uh I asked everybody to go around and say one thing they were thankful for represent Thanksgiving. uh one gift they would give somebody that would represent Christmas and then one thing they were looking forward to in the following year and that was to represent New Year. And I just thought I'd share with you guys just just kind of how I feel about that with the city. One, man, I'm thankful for for the colleagues and the council members that we have here and the leadership that we have through our mayor. I'm thankful for our city leadership and their vision and and the way that they lay all this out for us. It makes it very easy uh to help try to govern the city with leadership like this. Um in regards to to Christmas, if I could give somebody a gift, I would give him the gift of living in the city of Anderson. It is just a beautiful place to live. U spend some time here and it doesn't take you very very long to fall in love. And then lastly, when you think about the new year, man, I mean, just to Tony's point, we had so many great things in 2025, and I think the best is still yet coming. Um, so I'll encourage everybody to take this time of of the holidays to slow down a little bit. Uh, take take an opportunity to have one of the greatest gifts in life, which I would say is just to be moved naturally to emotions. uh give yourself some time to laugh, give yourself some time to love, and uh just give yourself a time to really appreciate all the great things you have because uh I truly believe 2026 is going to be a great year.

So that's what I would like to thank everybody for this p not just this past year, but this past many many years that I've served with the city council. I don't think there's any council in South Carolina, maybe not abroad or any place else, as good as the Anderson City Council. You've been great and I feel really good that um as we come into the new new years, but keep in mind something all you already said, the unification, the love, and working together because as I always say, working together makes what? A difference. If we keep on doing that, we'll make a great difference in our city of Anderson. Merry Christmas to everybody.

Merry Christmas. I entertain a motion to adjourn. So move. First by Mr. Stewart, second by Dr. Thompson. All those in favor say I. Oppose. with Senator.