Council - Regular Meeting

You ready?

Good evening everyone. Welcome to our February council meeting. call it to order at this time and ask Reverend Libby Newman from the Batesburg Church of the Nazarene in Leville to give our invocation.

Let us pray. Most kind and gracious heavenly father, we thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight and to do the business of the town. We thank you, Lord, for those who are willing to give their time and energy to serve on our council and as our mayor. We thank you, Lord, that there's a desire among us to be pleasing to you and to see our community be cohesive and safe. And Lord, I pray that tonight as business is conducted that we will have discernment, that there will be compassion and patience. And Lord, above all, may there be love for our fellow man and for you. We ask these things in the blessed name of Jesus. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to call on Councilman Bo Turner to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Stand if you're able. 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.

All right. This time I would like to to call for a motion to approve the agenda. Slope. Second. Joe. Second. Yes.

We have a motion and a second that we approve the agenda. It's now open for discussion. There's no discussion. We'll vote. District one. Yes. District three. District votes. Yes. District four. Four. Yes. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. District seven. Yes. District eight. Yes. And the mayor votes yes. Uh we now need a motion to adopt the minutes from the last meeting. I hear a motion. Salute. Second.

We have a motion and a second that we approve the amendments from the last council meeting. It's now open for discussion. There's no discussion. We'll vote. District one. One. Yes. District three. District three votes yes. District four. Four. Yes. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. District seven. Yes. District eight. Yes.

The mayor vote yes. The motion carries. Minutes from the last meeting are adopted. Uh we have now presentation of awards and resolutions. We don't have any. Right. All right. We'll move on to the mayor's report. Next council meeting will be March 9th, 2026. This brings us to council committee report. Central Midlands Councilman Joe Montgomery.

Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, uh we met on January 22nd. Um I got to meet with two Lexon County Councilman, uh Mr. Larry Bighgam and Mr. Daryl Hudson. Had conversation with them. Uh Mr. Brigham wants me to try to get on to the transportation subcommittee. He's going to check into that. What needs to happen for that to go through? Uh there is a 208 water training planning zoning meeting or training exercise for uh all town staff or county members, council members that would like to attend. This will be on February 26 at 12:00 at the office at Stone Ridge. Our next meeting will be March 26 at Airport Campus Midlands Tech. And that's all I have, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Montgomery. Uh, environmental planning advisory committee, Councilman Bo Turner. Uh, Mr. Mayor, the advisory committee did meet last month, but I was unable to attend as I was in a training class at the state house.

Thank you, Mr. Turner. Joint Municipal Water Sewer Commission call on myself. We had our January regular meeting January the 14th, 2026. meeting in the joint municipal and water and sewer commission was held on Wednesday. Well, repeating uh at the headquarters on 2546 Two Knox Road in Lexington. Meeting was called to order by chairman Frank Shumpert. The minutes from the previous meeting were viewed and approved. New commissioners were sworn in as follows. Michael Luango from the town of Swansy, Elsie Partin from the city of Casey, and myself, mayor of Batesburg, Leville. The commission entered executive session during which time several things were discussed. No votes for official actions were needed after executive session. Announcements and recognitions were presented, including notices regarding upcoming special meetings. With no further business, the meeting adjourned. All right, that brings us to Mr. Mike Taylor with the BNL Chamber of Commerce.

Good evening.

Um, starting off where I left off uh last time. Uh on October 19th, 1945, a group of businessmen determined that Batesburg and Leville needed an organization made up of businessmen who were interested in industrial growth, advancement of town assets, improvement of civic activities, and advertisement of a town's possibilities offered to the public. On March the 1st, 1946, at the Batesburg Leel High School gym, Batesburg Leville Chamber of Commerce was organized. So on March the 1st, we will celebrate 80 years of being in this community. Mr. JP Patterson was elected the first president of the chamber, which would be comparable to our chairman we have now. He did not finish the term and Frank Holidayiday u finished the term for him. I looked at Jay because he and I both know that that name well. Um, I found it interesting also that on August the 9th, 1946, UX Cullum, who was treasuring secretary of the chamber, urged the consideration of incorporating two towns into one. So, 46 year years later that happened. Uh, I want to congratulate the uh, Batesburg Leville Rotary Club and also the Woman Society of Batesburg Leville on their uh, two successful events they had. the two previous weekends. Our first uh major event will be on Saturday, March the 21st. It's taste of the town and is smile uh say cheese. Now, that has to do whether you going to have cheese in the ingredients or whatever, Mr. Mayor, when you fix your concoction. Okay. And I'm fix say we're going to have 10 to 15 local chefs providing their culinary expertise. Uh and and for those who come

in attendance of taste and also we have some entertainment. Uh I want everyone to be please reminded that the chamber on our website we have a chamber calendar and we have a community calendar. any organization or anybody that has anything that's pertinent they'd like for us to have on our fa Facebook page or on our website if they'll send that to me I'll put it on such I think is when I first came there when we have an event or something it may be we may have 300 500 views then it got up to 5,000 then it's recently it's been 25 to 27,000 with one 140 almost 142,000 views. So, it's being watched a lot more. So, please I hope the community will take advantage of that. Um, Lexon Medical Center is our sponsor this this month for our program at the general membership meeting which is on Thursday, February the 26. That's my report, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Taylor. We appreciate that very much. All right, that brings us to public comment regarding items on the agenda. Do we we don't have anyone signed up, so we'll move on. We don't have any unfinished business that we need to take care of. We'll move straight to new business. First item is the approval of an excused absent for absence for Councilwoman Betty Hartley, the last meeting. I'd like a motion make a motion to approve her uh absence because of her illness. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second.

We have a motion and a second that we excuse the abs absence of Miss Betty Hartley. It's now open for discussion. If there's no discussion, we'll vote. District one. District one votes yes. District three. District three votes yes. District four can't vote. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight, yes.

And the mayor vote yes. Motion carries. The absence is excused. Approval of an appointment to the planning commission. Uh do you have the details on that or is it on the it it was in your uh council packet. Uh so Councilman Kane has a nomination for Geraldine Bowers for the planning commission that needs approval. It's just that one name. Okay. Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve the appointment of Miss Geraldine Bowers to the planning commission. I'll second.

We have a motion and a second that we approve. Miss Geraldine Bower's appointment to the planning commission by Councilman Kane's now open for discussion. There's no discussion. We'll vote. District one, yes. District three, District three votes yes. District four or yes. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight.

District eight votes yes. and the mayor vote chest. The motion carries. All right. Now we have first reading of an ordinance to amend the Batesburg leasable code of ordinances appendix A article 13 zoning board of appeal section 13-1- establishment membership and proceedings of the board. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve.

All right. Have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second that we um first reading of an ordinance to amend the Batesburg Leville code of ordinances appendix A article 13-zoning board of appeals section 13-1-ablishment membership and proceedings of the board. I would like to say that we talked about this in exe when we had our work session and what this actually will do it eliminates the residence requirement in a particular district to be nominated. Right.

Correct. Yeah. It would allow for at large residents for both planning commission and board of zoning appeals. Okay. Is there any discussion?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. on the planning commission. I know that it's an at large although kind of traditionally we try to pick from our districts. Uh one thing about from the planning commission everything must come before council to be approved or disapproved but on the zoning appeals there that has to go to a judge whatever zoning appeals decides upon. And it seems like not having a district represented at that point may be not in the best interest of all the districts having that as an at large and I'd just like to have discussion about that.

Anybody else got anything to say? Mr. Mayor, are we assured that this conforms with the state law? Uh I'll defer to the our attorney. Yes. Under the uh state uh local government comprehensive planning enabling act um it does uh it sets forth the uh outline or the requirements for a zoning board of appeals and this uh is in furtherance of the authority provided by state statute to appoint a zoning board of appeals.

Thank you. Any other discussion? If not, we'll vote. District one, yes. District three, District three votes yes. District four. Oh, yes. District five, no. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight. District eight votes yes.

And the mayor votes yes. The motion carries. We have first reading approval of that ordinance. Uh approval of a delegate to attend the National League of Cities Conference in March. Do we have a motion to approve to to discuss this or approve this? How do you want to handle it, Mr. Hendris? Uh, simply, you know, naming a delegate or if you choose not to send anyone. But, uh, if you want to send a delegate, you just need to identify that council member. Okay. But that's up to us.

Mr. Mayor, I've moved to approve it. Okay. You move to approve it. You want to add a name to who we going to approve? The person that has already applied, Mr. Hendris. Uh, Council McCain was the one that has requested this. That's the one we approve. Okay. We have a motion that we appoint approve. Council McCain is a delegate to the National Council of League of Cities. I'll second. All right. We have a motion and a second. A motion and a second. It's now open for discussion. Mr. Mayor, if I may.

Yes, sir. Uh, this is a significant financial uh situation unlike most of the others because it involves uh travel uh and housing uh outside. What is our actual membership cost for the League of Cities?

Off the top of my head, I believe it's about $1,200 or $1,300. And we are currently an active member of the NLC. Uh we're currently members for so that's 1,200. There's only $2,500 uh in the budget for this. That is per the uh uh budget justification submitted to this council back in uh May of last year. So there's $2,500. Um I understand there's an $800 registration fee. So we're now talking 2,000 out of the 2500. Um, is that going to be adequate for us to fund a delegate? Uh, I because I would assume that any expenditure beyond the $2,500 would come back to council for approval. Um, it is estimated that it probably costs closer to $3,000. So, uh, that in your packet and what's on the board, uh, the registration is$8.80.

880. Okay. I'm sorry. Uh the the breakfast is 65. Hotel is roughly 315 a night. Uh assuming four nights to stay. Airfare uh when I got a quote the other day was $426. Um last year it was 632. Uh and then last year it was $182 in the meal allowance. So that's $3,000 without the $1,200 that Yes, sir. the the memberships in organizations such as National League of Cities, Chamber of Commerce has come out of a separate line item, not out of the training and travel. Okay. All right. So, we're still looking at a $500

potentially. Yes, sir. Excess of what was previously allocated. Is this a funding uh conference? environment where we possibly get more funding. Council McCain, would you like to address the activities that go on NLC? I have not been. So, no.

Yeah. So, the the good thing about um two things. One, I am on the national board for small city small cities there. I've been going to this conference for the last maybe 10 years or so. The the good thing about um the the good thing about um the conference is that we have a round table around Robin with all of the um department heads um for like department of transportation, department of um uh rural development, egg, um all of the executive folks, the decision makers are there and One of the things that uh we were able to do was to speak to um EPA and right there at the conference they called um the COG and we were able to get a brownfield grant for two projects here in Batesburg which total about uh a million bucks. So, um, it it's worth the the investment and anything over the allocated funding, a loted funding, I pay out of my own pocket. Um, the first couple of times that we went, I paid out of my own pocket. So, this is um a good investment for the town in my opinion. And I will bring back any information um that we have. There's a lot of information that is um um last year I think well a couple years ago we had uh the town manager had u put together a package that we submitted to Lindsey Graham's office and a part of the conference is a face-to-face meeting with our congressional delegation. So we get to sit with uh Tim Scott and and talk to them directly instead of talking to staffers. So it's in my opinion it's

a it's a good investment. has been a good investment and we have always put that in the budget and since we've been members we've always had someone go to represent the town. Mr. Mayor. Yes, if I may. Uh if Miss Hartley if uh Councilwoman Hartley would amend her uh motion to include statement and increase the line item in the budget by $500 that would satisfy our uh financial ordinance which says that we cannot exceed the budget. I will. Yes, I will. Go ahead. I'll second.

All right. We got to have that. It's got to go out to Kathy. Yes. All right. So, we going we're going to amend the motion without amend the motion. Amending the motion by just changing it from the start and add increasing $500 into the budget to cover the cost. Yes. That is now open for discussion vote. If there's no further discussion, we'll vote. District one. District one votes yes. District three. One second. David, can I vote?

You will. Okay. On that. You recruiting yourself. District four. Four votes. Yes. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. District seven. Yes. District eight. District eight. Vote yes. And the mayor vote chest. Motion carries. Hold on, Mr. Mayor. I thought we didn't get along on this council. H I thought we didn't get along on this council. You ruined everything. You ruined our reputations. We always We work together. We going to keep it calm tonight. We work together. We always work. Thank you, council.

You're very welcome. All right, that brings us to the end of the year report from the fire department. All right. Good evening. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to come up and and speak on behalf of the fire department. You going to run the slides there, Jay, or am I clicking or it don't matter. We can Yeah, that that'll work. All right. Go ahead. Go ahead and pop up there.

All right. Um, fire department. We just got the vision statement up here of u has been ever since I've been chief here at the fire department, even before. Uh we all know that the fire department's main goal is fire suppression and at our core that's what we do. Over the years our responsibilities have kind of grown and morphed into some other things to include uh uh motor vehicle accidents, medical calls, public service calls. We respond to severe weather events amongst a whole host of of other things as as it goes out. Um, in addition to those calls, uh, on kind of a daily or at least a regular basis, our personnel will do fire inspections, enforce, uh, ordinances such as like burn ordinances and things like that if needed. Uh, we provide public education, conduct pre-fire planning, uh, inspect and can do preventative maintenance, uh, inspect, flow test, do preventative maintenance on all of our hydrants. We do recordeping for those as well. We keep equipment in a ready state, participate in training to make sure we're prepared for the different types of emergencies we run, and then on top of everything else, documenting all of the activities as kind of is the way everything works today.

We'll let you drive.

Oh boy, this might be left or right. Okay, we going to try this. All right, so we do have uh contracted areas that the fire department serves. This will serve kind of a this whole talk will kind of serve a twoprong purpose. One just information about the fire department. The second is our stats. So we do uh have two sets of contracts that the fire department operates under. Obviously we cover everything in town. the Lexon County uh coverage area that we contract for. If you see the three red circles in the purple area, the kind of tannanish area, and then the greenish one up to the northern end of town there, those are our contracted areas as it stands today. Now, the kind of tannanish one over to the eastern side of town is that will change a little bit whenever station 35 goes in service in we're being told Aprilish now. We'll see when it uh happens, but that's kind of what we're being told now. So, that will change some. I don't know exactly what that will look like yet, but that tannanish area more or less will get probably taken out by the new station 35. Uh the picture to your right is the Saluda County area that we contract with. Um in addition to these contract areas, we do also provide automatic aid for both counties. And basically what that is is just an agreement that depending on the call type and what resources are needed is that the closest units get sent to the call to deal with the emergency regardless of boundaries or anything like that to be sure that the citizens of the county get the help or the town get the help that they need as as quickly as they can. All right, our calls for service by area. This is uh what that kind of what the breakdown of what we ran last year looks like. Uh we do have the the

majority of it being in town with about 18% there in the Lexon County contract area and 2.3% in Saluda County and the remainder 14 15% were the automatic aid calls I was speaking of before. We do operate out of two stations. The station 25 which is on the old Leville end of town is where our 24-hour staff is located and housed. And station 26 is up on the old Batesburg end of town. That is where my office, assistant chief office and the fire inspector's office runs out of it. Um apparatus breakdown in the packet that I gave you. It's it gets into it a little bit more if you flip on deeper into the to the thing to describe those a little bit better. But basically, these are our engines. They are kind of the backbone of the fire service. They carry the water. They carry the hose. They carry equipment. That's the primary thing we use whenever we run to cause to to mitigate uh fires. The truck on the top left 254, that is a tanker. It is used to haul water in non-hydrated areas. It carries the most water out of everything, and that's kind of its sole purpose. It can do other things, but it's designed to haul water. To the top right is our ladder truck. Um, it is there to provide access to upper floors, give us an elevated stream so we can shoot down if we need to and assist with with reaching any roofs or anything like that that may be needed. The bottom left is our brush truck used for mainly for wildland, grass, woods, fires, and it's just smaller and can get to places either the bigger engines can't or honestly we just don't want to put them because it's a little bit rougher and keep from messing something up. uh bottom right, the support truck there, that's mainly set up for rehab lighting combination there. It we carry uh liquids, fluids, all that stuff for our

guys. It gives them a place to get in out of the cold or uh in out of the heat whenever they're there. It gives us scene lighting to be able to light stuff up. Also in it is where we refill all of our air packs while we're on scene. It's a system that is in there for for that as well. All right. The two trucks to the left are our two command vehicles. The top one is mine. The bottom one is the one Assistant Chief Evans drives around daily. They are set up to run command and control of incidents out of. The top right is our big ventilation fan, which is used just to blow smoke out of larger buildings and things. It's just we carry small ones on the truck, but that one's much better for for the bigger smoke being blown out. And then the bottom uh right truck 260 down there is just utility vehicle. We use it to move stuff around, haul stuff, kind of whatever the inspector runs out of it a good bit as well through our community risk reduction. Um last year we installed 29 smoke detectors at no charge to the citizens of the town is a program that we run. If they call we go put up however many they need in their house. We replaced over 35 batteries and smoke detectors. Once again, at no charge to the citizen that the detectors were still good. All we need to do was to change the batteries. We provided about 800 people with fire prevention messaging. That's anywhere from the smallest kid to senior citizens we will go talk to. So, kind of runs the gamut there. And uh we were recognized at the state firefighters convention in June as being a firesafe SC community. And there's a little bit more information in your packet as well about that. If you you have some more questions with that, I can be happy to answer too. 10-year incident history. In 2015, we

ran 775 calls. In 2025, we ran 1361. So quite the increase. There are two kind of little deviations there that are almost kind of an anomaly in 2020 COVID when everybody quit calling us for anything. it seems like uh it kind of hit the low part and then last uh 2024 was Helen and the difference in calls between Helen and this year we ran almost that number of calls on a day and a half with Helen. So those are kind of the two two peaks and valleys there. Uh 2025 once again 1363 calls. You can see how it's broken down from uh medicals were the majority of what we did at 43%, our public services were 17, uh fires 12%, and you can kind of read the rest of of the breakdown there as well. Our 5-year history, the exact same breakdown of categories. It's just where does it rank with what it's done over the last five years. Just so you can kind of see that as well. Uh this was a stat that we we pulled out this year just to kind of put a little bit of uh knowledge to where we are and everything else here. These are all the department stations in Lexington County. Uh Imo is leading the charge with a hair over 6,100 calls and uh West Columbia and Casey are two and three. Those are all municipalities there in the county as you well know. The rest of them from Lexington all the way to Cedar Grove with the exception of us are all Lexington County stations that are there. That is the call numbers they ran for this year. We are in the red in there for the call volume that we ran. So we are right there in the top third of stations departments that are that are running in the county. So we're we're pretty busy. Stay pretty busy

running running doing stuff. our staffing breakdown. Uh we do have five career personnel. Myself and Assistant Chief Evans work Monday through 8 to 5 and as needed from that point. We do have um 24-hour staff. They work 2448 rotating shifts, which just simply means they are on duty for 24 hours. They're off for 48. Doesn't matter if that one day is Christmas Day or the 3rd of October, they're they're working it and they get two off. We do have 12 uh volunteer personnel who are currently meeting departmental participation standards. We have one part-time fire inspector, Mr. Joe De Palama, who has recently onboarded with us. And we have four part-time engineers in case somebody needs to be out, someone gets injured, whatever. It's avoid there for that 24-hour coverage. It allows us to kind of to dip in and get them to come help cover some of those vacancies that we may have. All right, call volume and participation. I want to kind of take a minute to to talk about this one. Um, we've shown or I've shown the participation for several years and things that we've talked about. This is across all calls and this is all personnel to include career staffing and volunteer staffing. We are seeing that decline in the participation. Uh, we're seeing the call volume increase. I don't think those two were unrelated. That was kind of why I I put them there like they are. Um, I am not trying to say that we need to to do away with our volunteer staff because that is totally not it. The ones we have with us and it's several of them here tonight that came up or they're the backbone of what we do. We've got to have them to operate. Um, but what I think is happening a lot in what we're seeing, and this is a national trend. It's not

something that's acutely unique to us. It's been a problem for years, is you're starting to see that in a decline. I'm not trying to tell you right now that we're in an emergency situation and we can't handle a call when we get it. That's not what I'm saying either. But it is a trend that we are seeing to where that is going down as call volume is getting up. And I think a lot of it has to do with they're just getting the volunteers are just getting more or less overrun and inundated with calls. We run about four calls a day. I think it's like three and three/4ers or something if you do the math, but it's right at four calls a day that we're running, which is very hard for somebody who works another job to get up two or three times a night every night or most every night to try to answer calls and do stuff. Um, call runs by year of service. I just put this in there so you can see the number of people we have in what categories here. Our guys with 30 plus years are kind of leading leading the charge, but they're also one of the bigger groups as well. U only one of those people I believe in there is retired. Everybody else is still working jobs. U you kind of see the breakdown of of where that falls and how many people we have in each one of those categories. Just so you can see where that that participation is is coming from to to cover these calls. Uh, excuse me, sir. You're in that 30 plus category with eight members. Um, are they sometimes on staff full 24 hours or

all? This is all volunteer numbers here. That's volunteer. This these numbers the numbers right here on this particular slide are all volunteer. Okay. And they doing that much running the the the the eight members at the top here. They Yes, ma'am. They they are covering nine right 977 calls. Yes ma'am. So that's that's 30 calls over a period of 12 months. Is that an annual that that that's what they did last year? That was last year from January to December 31st. Actually then you're averaging 2 five calls per month for

for for them. Yes sir. It could be for them. Yes sir. That's And you are fully staffed on volunteers at 30. That doesn't add up to 30. No, no, sir. We are not fully staffed. Uh per ordinance, we are allowed to have 60 um per um is what's written in the ordinance. Right now, we have 29 and I just got medical clearance for one more today. So, that would take us to 30 uh that that are on the department now total. um look looking forward, you know, just kind of a overview of what we see coming in in times to come. Obviously,

may I ask could we do some type of marketing campaign to um bring in more volunteers? I don't know what maybe y'all have already done, but is that we have tried a few things. Uh to be quite honest, I get fairly regular requests from people in Lexington County as a whole. Mhm. Uh to volunteer and we have actually have a program where we have tried to make that work and we'll do a set number where they come in and work a set number of hours which works great for getting some stuff done that we need to have done, but they're not always there when we catch the calls that we need help on. That's

kind of the downside to it. And then if you put the people on, it's keeping the gear. The gear has a 10year life expectancy on it. And just the basic PPE, I think, is four around $4,000 a set now. So it at some point it's kind of

Yeah. Yeah. What's that balance going to be? How much are you getting out of them versus how much are you doing? But we do have a handful on that are that are doing what they're uh that are meeting the goals that we said and and are kind of doing that that we're we're trying we were trying it to increase because it's been a couple years until this one that we've got now where somebody from in town to run the traditional volunteer role. The the one we got the one I got clearance on today is an in town person. That's been the first one in two or three years that at least that we've got that that is on now. Okay. Thank you.

So, looking forward, where does this leave us? Uh, you know, it's no secret that that town's growing and u we're we're looking at, you know, potentially hundreds of houses and things that are coming in and probably some industrial growth to go with that. Uh, right now 19% of our calls are handled by only one person. A lot of times that's the person that's on shift. not always the case, but it's only one person there, which kind of leads to some safety concerns for me. Um, absolutely.

And that can be anything from a scene safety issue to honestly a bigger concern for me other than that in some cases is just trying to move somebody or pick somebody up and strains and sprains and things like that, which cause time out of work, which is workers comp stuff, which is, you know, you got all those things that that increases. And then workload. We talked about all the stuff that we're doing. Uh myself and Assistant Chief Evans during the day we try to help. We've got the volunteers and several of the guys back here in the back of the room will come in and help do stuff and get stuff done during the day for us, but it's it's still a a pretty massive amount of of lifting that needs to be done. Chief, if I may.

Yes, sir. Um, what kind of timeline do you visualize us having to increase our full-time staff? I would first say, um, obviously I would love to see it. Now, I I understand that there's a lot of complexities that go with with that. Um, what I would love to see is us go to two on a shift initially. Mhm. Let's run with what we've got. That way some of the medical calls, the things like that that are I hate to say lower acuity calls,

but but yet to where you're not getting there. The volunteers don't have to feel like I've got to come out to go to this call. There's enough people that can handle it with what they've got to relieve some pressure. I think if we can relieve some pressure, I think then my hope and anticipation is that you will see those numbers kind of start creeping back up some because like I said, I mean, I talk to people now and and people will tell me I it's it's just too much. I turned the pager off last night or whatever because I had to get some sleep. And I I understand that because I leave mine on all the time and listen to all the calls we run and there are days when it's dragging coming in just listening to the guys, much less getting up and going and doing it. So, uh, but like I said, you you've got the workload that's there that we need to do. Uh, with the addition of the staffing, there's going to be some level of renovations that would need to be done to kind of accommodate that. and then an equipment replacement strategy that we kind of adhere to. We've got uh air packs that are coming up for replacement in 2028. That's going to be a fairly significant uh amount of money that will be there. Um I am kind of projecting right now probably somewhere 2030 2035 needing to start doing something for another engine to come in which is going to be another massive debt that the town is going to have to go into there. Just something I I feel like and I think I will speak for the guys behind me here. We have enough stuff and equipment to do what we need to do. Now, it's just a matter of the upkeep and the maintenance and the keeping it current and just keeping it moving and going at this point. I I think we have what we need. It's just just that keeping it up and keeping it updated and and honestly the expense that comes with that which is once again I I I know that's a everybody's coming

talking about money and that's just where we are, right? as long as we could get some kind of an idea of what you're you see in the future coming on far as uh full-time help and machines or whatever you need to go. Can you get us something? Not not don't say it tonight or just sit down and kind of figure up a 10ear plan or something like that so we can at least try to budget for it. Absolutely. we have an idea of what we're dealing with because you're right, we're growing. We're going to have more calls. We got to do something. Um it's just something to plan for.

Absolutely. Yeah. Um I think there will be I think next year you will see a little bit of a decrease in call volume because of station 35 coming and taking that area. So I think you will see a dip next year which I'm hoping honestly is really going to help some of that too. But I don't exactly know what that nobody really knows what the number is until it it it happens. We ran about 250ish calls in that area last year. Um so ideally you would say it drops 250, but that's probably not going to happen because

if it's a woods fire or something like that, we're going to be on. If it's a house fire, we're going to be on it. Uh depending on vehicle accident, we're going to be on it anyway. So I I really don't know what it's going to do and we'll just have to see how that kind of plays out next year. But I think you will see a decrease in call volume next year due to station 35 coming online. Okay, chief. Yes, ma'am. You're talking about staffing and the decreasing in the call as well. I'm looking at your medical calls. It's a very um high percentage there. When you have those medical calls, are you assisting the EM the emergency services as they go out?

Yes, ma'am. Yeah, you it depending on what the type of call is. We do not run every call. Okay. They are all broken down into severity and we only run the most severe severe level calls as broken down by u dispatch. Whenever they dispatch it out, you know, we we get toned and go from there. So then you said then the other station will help with should be able to help with that. I I think you will see it. Yes, ma'am. Because like I said, it's about 250ish total calls in that area in that in that particular in that particular area and I think you will see some of that definitely drop off. I just don't know how much. But like I said, I I hate to say all of it because I don't think all of it is going to drop really. You need some more manpower.

That's so uh especially so if we if the area is going to continue to increase in residents, even with the new station, you still would need this area still the town. Yes, ma'am. because we're we're still covering the town and that's where I believe it was 64 65% something like that of our call volume is at and the automatic aid and you that contract area that Lexon County contract area number will decrease next year. So the equipment is fairly good for now and what about the facility itself? the the fac the facility itself, like I said, there are some things we need to do, especially if we it whenever it comes to the point that we add another person. We we'll need to

Yeah, get ready for that because neither one of the stations are really set up for two people on a the one in B. Can you house some there? We we can. That's probably where we would move because I think it's going to be the cheaper the the better place to send it is to that uh that end. And if you look at percentage of call volume, if you break it down even further than that, generally speaking, that's the busier side of town, too. So, if we kind of move to that way, it it should help with response times as well. Thank you. And it really splits the difference between the two stations as well. Thank you,

Chief Ry. If I may, if we did hire three more people to give you that second person per shift, what's an estimated cost for three firefighters? Just estimate. Um, I don't know what the backside cost would be. You're probably to get competitive and I know y'all are talking with Archer and they've got all of this, all the numbers laid out there. I'm probably going to just ballpark and save for just salary 45ish somewhere in that 40 to 45 range. Now, like I said, I don't know what the back end of that does for workers comp insurance. I don't know what all that. So, maybe 150 give or take for three people

two 225 figure retirement and health. Whatever whatever the and business whatever pay is is going to be double whatever. Five uh three would get us to two per shift. Okay. Okay. Three. So basically you're talking 200 grand. And I chief comment real quick on medical calls. U the percentage where you were involved with EMS. What's the time lapse between your response and EMS's response?

Honestly, that is a very loaded question. I can probably get them maybe to give me a little bit more data, a little bit closer, but sometimes we're waiting 15 20 minutes on them to get there and sometimes they beat us there. That's right. I have one other it it it's usually I would probably guess um and let my guys speak up in in the back here. U if I'm misspeaking here, but probably 5 to 10 minutes on on on average just like I said just spitballing a number there before an EMS unit gets there.

Okay. From a financial standpoint, I really like the fact that you guys work for free and reality you do. Uh the public may not be aware of the fact that in your property taxes uh we get a 23 mil uh if you live inside the town your county property taxes are 23 mills less than someone who lives outside of the town. So that contributes I also noticed that under our contract last year we were budgeted for about 101,000 and came in at 100. your two contracts brought in an additional 135,000.

This year it seems to be down to about So my concerns is how long is that going to continue? If when station comes online, I'm sure county is going to look at that 23 mil uh situation which would reflect uh indirectly because it would show up in an increase in property taxes for the county uh per se. But the other issue of course is uh whether or not this is going to impact the uh contracts. Uh I noticed this year we took it down from 100,000 to 71,000. Was that in anticipation of looking at the budgets? I'm looking at November. Last year this time we had gotten a check for 25 grand. This year we through November we had zero. So that was an error from the county. Uh the contract had been 75,000 the previous year and then went up to 100. So they had made a mistake and only paid the 75. So when we questioned them that extra 25 came in in the following budget. So the revenue didn't reflect what the actual contract was. The contract for this current budget year is 100,000 for Lexon County.

What is it? What is our bud? What is our contract with Saluda County as well? uh 6,000 right now. Okay. The the budget is 106 for the the budget appropriation for the fire district. Okay. Flex and but basically again like the fire department is is actually technically free to our citizens from the fact of revenue sources the rebate that they get on county or the county taxes that they don't pay and obviously the contract. So, um, you know, financially, we're going to need to look at where we can find some additional money.

Another thing that I wanted to mention, and you may be getting into this, um, is our ISO ratings.

Yes, our ISO ratings, they are due to come back in u next year. Now, whether they do or not, that's a whole another thing, but it's every five years. Our last one was in 22, so 27 should be the next one. So they're eligible to come back in. Uh the staffing is going to be an issue on the front end because we are down across, you know, all the or the calls even there of people responding to the calls. I don't know how much it's going to hurt or how much it's going to help. last time. The way ISO works is it's kind of like when you were in school and had a 60 to a 70 was an A or a B or you know whatever it was. It's kind of the same thing with ISO. They're and forgive me for the numbers, but a 70 to an 80 is like a three and we were a 74 something whenever they came in from their previous one. whenever they left we were I believe a 72 point

something and a lot of that was for some was from training documentation stuff we have worked very diligently in the past year and a half to get that back up to gain some of those points back as much as we can um but I don't really know whenever they come in they're going to look at everything in totality and go from there so we still have two two and a half points if you will, to lose before we lose the rating. And it it may get affected, it may not. And that's part of kind of why we're showing this is just so in the event something happens, it's not some shock to you. So you say, well, you never told us it was a problem. It's

I'm not saying it's a problem, but I'm saying it's a concern, right? And ISO ratings affect the whole community. It can homeowners insurance and and different things like that. And the greatness of our fire department has kept those rates low over the years. Yeah. And and I think what Councilman Hall is different companies use it different ways. Um I know I talked with a friend of mine who uh they were talking about going from a five to a six and it made I think they said about a $200 difference in theirs using their company, right?

Uh so some companies use it and it makes a huge impact. Others don't really use it as much and it won't make as big of an impact. So that just kind of you your company that you've got will do that. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Any anybody have any more questions? Are you done? I'm done. Sorry about that. I didn't mean it like that. Listen, I I wanted I wanted to know if you could get Bobby to uh write a grant for uh common car common carbon dioxide carbon monoxide detectors as well. Well, well, we've got two problems with that.

Okay. One where it said get Bobby too. I I meant ask I meant ask by Yeah. And Yeah. Yeah. And and and the number two was for him to write that grant out. We we going to try we're going to try to do some stuff to get some uh the people where we do the uh fires safe SC. Sometimes we'll have some carbon dioxide detectors and stuff like that we can get. That's a lot of times where we'll get them from. Uh other times we will have civic group. So any civic groups that are paying attention to the meeting tonight. Uh if anybody has smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors that would be great because we're starting to run low. uh if they want to donate some to the cause. But but yeah, that so all of that stuff that's where we get a lot

what they call uh roughly if we wanted to do a drive with some of the churches together the what you remember what Okay, 25. Yeah, I couldn't remember what those numbers were. Dylan Dylan heads up our community risk reduction stuff and he uh he was getting some pricing on some the other day just in case it got to the point that we needed to buy some to keep cuz we don't want the program to go away. We don't want people to call and say no we can't we don't have any smoke detectors that's we're not in the business for that. So we were proactively calling around okay if we've got to get some where do we need to you know to to look at getting some budgeting stuff to to make that happen. So,

all right, that works. And listen, uh point of uh personal privilege. I want to thank you, Chief, for uh months ago, I did have a fire at my house and and it was um uh handled very professionally. I really appreciate the uh the department and the professionalism. I think I told Jay that um that night. It was um it was kind of scary, but um everybody was very professional and and handled it very well. So, I I do want to uh commend the fire department for um all your hard work and uh professionalism throughout the community. So, thank you very much. Good. Thank you. Thank you. That's what that's what we try service, professionalism, preparedness. I guarantee that

and congratulations on on being a fires safe, making us a fires safe community. Thank you. Thank you. Y'all have a good evening. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chief. All right. At this time, we're going to call on the police department to come up and give us their final report. Their book's bigger than this book. I'm just saying. Did you have a det?

No, probably not. Turn it off. No, he turned People lost. All right. So, we're going to give you the ours. We're going to go backwards. We're going to do the uh stats first and then we'll go over the the department. I'm Dave and this is Corey. He is your inter chief and I'm just the uh assistant chief. So, there you go. It is not working. And you're target.

Yeah. No, but it the light's not I was letting you use your investigative skills to figure out what

point one for the fire department. You can just go ahead. All right. Uh, all right. Okay. So, the first thing you'll see here is the number of phone calls that our dispatch answers annually. In 2025, they answered 18,230 telephone calls. Of those, 3,561 were 911 calls. Those 911 calls were all either from cell phones where the cell phone was in our jurisdiction or the landline was in our jurisdiction at least by what the cell tower thinks.

Um if it's not able to pull a GPS location from the smart devices, which that number is declining and has been over the years, is based off the cell phone the tower that it's hitting off of. And we have several towers that are here in town. But that's a that's a lot of phone calls for a dispatcher. Um, and we've got the past two years, um, but over the past three, I'm sorry, past three other past three year total, 56,183 times they've answered the telephone in dispatch and 10,426 were 911 calls. Next slide. Is it working? Y. All right, annual calls for service. These are the number of dispatched calls from those telephone calls that dispatched answers. And in 2025, officers were dispatched to 12,69 calls for service. That was up 15% from 2024. And you can see 2023 and 2022 numbers. It's roughly the same from year to year except for this pretty big uptick from 2024 to 2025. The number we're most proud of is this one right here. Of those calls, this is our response time and average response time to calls. Our number that we shoot for is less than five minutes. In 2023, we were under that number at 4.17 minutes. 2024, it reduced to 3.28 minutes. And in 2025, we were down to 2.66 minutes from the time the dispatcher took the call to the time a police officer was on scene. That's average overall of those calls. Now, with the increase of numbers, that does help the average out be a little bit better. How? But 2.66 minutes is phenomenal. If you ask our counterparts in Saluda and Lexon County that are un in unincorporated areas, if they get

that fast of service, they're going to unfortunately not be able to tell you that. Um, but we we strive really hard, as short as our manpower is, our guys are out there, guys and gals, are out there busting their tails every day and every night to try to keep this number down. And that's that to me is just a testament for the for the dedication that they give to the town of Batesburg, Leville.

Total crimes reported annually. This is the number of incident reports that we write from those uh calls for service that we respond to. And in 2025, we completed 1,614 incident reports. Uh those are for assaults, domestic violence, thefts, um vandalisms, um harassing telephone calls, missing persons, um disorderly conduct, driving on the influence, and a number of traffic violations. Okay. types of crimes reported annually. Um these are the these are the the broken down into um 2024 and 2025 and our highest call types. Um you can see there underneath how they're how they're classified. Sorry, I got away from the mic. And then the uh the orange is 2025 and the or I'm not going to say colors. That's just the lighter color is 2025 and the darker color is 2024.

Yeah, that's not orange and purple. Yeah, I I don't want

Yeah, I colors and colors and identifying are not good for me. All right. Drugrelated seizures. In 2025, we seized 1,825.5 grams of illegal drugs in Batesburg, Leville. That equivocates out to us over here in the United States to 4.024 pounds of drugs. There were also an additional 175 pieces of drug paraphernelia also confiscated. Wow. Number of firearms in 2025 that we seized. Unlawfully possessed. firearms is 54, which is up one from 2024, 53. 606 pieces of ammunition were seized from those same firearm seizures. In 2025, of the 1600 1,614 incident reports, 1,286 of those were assigned for further investigation, either by a road officer or one of our investigators. um of those 510 of those incidents are still open. Now, that doesn't mean that we haven't been able to do anything with the case. If we were have obtained an arrest warrant for some someone that we've identified as a suspect with through probable cause and the judge has issued that warrant, um those will show open until that arrest, which a large portion I do not have that stat. There's no way I can pull that from our system. Um but um but those still show open even if they have an arrest warrant outstanding. Uh we had 445 of the uh incidents cleared by arrest. 292 were administratively closed. Um administratively closed means um we we know there's a crime. We know it occurred, but we have exhausted all of our resources to try to identify a suspect and we we can't we can't do

anything else until new information comes to light and so they get closed administratively. 31 are exceptionally cleared and usually those are cleared by the victim not wanting to cooperate with the investigation. Um or they just decline to want to prosecute. And then we have eight that are unfounded. And unfounded means somebody reported it as a crime and it either a didn't happen in Batesburg Leville's jurisdiction or there was no crime to report at all. All right. The one you probably hear the most about is the number of tickets and warnings issued by our officers. In 2025, we issued 3,428 written warnings and 1,284 traffic citations. Um, back when they've made the seat belt law primary law, they went where we have we have to write a warning ticket when anytime we stop a car for a traffic violation. And that that's um that's that's why we issue written warnings. You'll see in 2024, we doubled written warnings from 2024 to 2025, but there's two significant things that changed this year. Uh we've had two officers that two officers that were struck and killed um by folks driving up the road while they were out just doing their job. So, we really focused on the move over law. Also, the second half of the year, the new law for hands-free, no sale devices, the the grace period. So, we stopped a lot of cars, just letting them know about that that warning time. We're in the in the penalty phase now. So, if you get a ticket now, it'll be a ticket, not a warning. But that's why those numbers really up went up for the written warnings. We wanted to make sure we made those contacts with folks and just slow people down. But, and it's not just for police officers, it's for firefighters. It's for tow truck drivers. It's for EMS workers. Anything on the side of the

road. We want to make sure that that they're protected and the cars slow down whenever they go by. Yes, sir. They can you talk to them about the um distracted driver. Is that what you're talking about? Distracted driving. Well, the cell phone. Yes, sir. The hands-free the hands-free law. Yes, sir. That's um distracted driving is one of the top indic causes of automobile collisions in South Carolina is distracted driving. cuz we had some guests in town Saturday morning and they warned me. So I'm want to warn everybody. Oh, we state troopers. Sounds like a trooper was so but people need they do need to know you can't have the phone up to your face and you can't have it in your hand at all

when when you're operating. Okay. Can't have it in your hand at all. There are some exceptions uh but you can't have it but you can't have it in your hand when you're operating. I had a a question about that also. Um what about eating people? I see tons of There is no law about eating while you're driving. There's no law about um putting on your makeup. There's no law about tying your tie. There's no There's no law about just your cell phone right now. Just cell phone. Well, okay. All right.

Um automobile collisions, that number stayed relatively the same. 251 for 2025. It was down a little bit in 2024, but 2024's number really was a big increase. So number of folks arrested 445 for the year of 2025, which was up 35 from last year. Well, from 2024. This is a new stat that I don't believe we've included before. We've always had it available, but I don't think we've included it in the presentation, but we wanted to break it down for you so you could see the demographics of of who we arrest here in town. U of the 445 arrests, 213 were black, 28 were white, 21 were Hispanic, and three were other. The percentages, that's 48% black, 47% white, 5% Hispanic, and less than 1% other. The this is the demographic for the town by population from the 2020 census. So, uh, population 2,629 is white, which is 50%. 2193 black, which is 42% and 448 and 8% is other. So, that's our numbers are pretty much right in line with what our our town's demographic are, which is what we expect to see. I'll leave that one for y'all. This is a this is a number that's important to y'all. In 20 in the budget year, uh the town received the police department received $292,89946 that was awarded during this budget year for us to use that $292,000. It cost the taxpayers and the residents

of Batesburg Leville $6,492. So we ponyed up 6,000 and we got the rest from grants and other sources. Very good. And that's all thanks to Walter Goss. Thanks, Walter. That's right. He's and he's retiring retiring at the end of March.

All right. So, now we're going to talk about the police department itself. The building was constructed in 1978 and it was originally built to house the Batesburg Town Hall, the Batesburg Police Department, the Batesburg Fire Department, communication center, detention facility, and municipal court. That's a lot in one building. But back then it was ahead of its time and it was laid out well and it worked perfectly. Um in 93 we all know that the towns consolidated. Mr. Taylor mentioned the history on that earlier and um the town hall and the fire department moved out to their own buildings away from there and the police department, municipal court and jail got to take over the whole building. Did I mention that building was built in 1978? Yes, you did.

All right. Remember? Well, we have made some updates. This is our lobby and our dispatch center. Um, our lobby is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every visitor or person that comes in that needs a police officer walks into the police department, pay a ticket for court, they come into this lobby, and this is where they're greeted. Uh when we renovated dispatch and and upgraded everything in dispatch to get us um the most up-to-date modern equipment, um we redid the lobby at the same time. Um does the laser pointer on this work, J? Probably. You won't be to see it.

Oh, this one doesn't have a laser pointer. Never mind. Okay. All right. So, when we redid the lobby a while back, the where the the pass through window is there on the left side, the kind of far side, um Chief Oswwell was still here and when he closed that wall in, he he put some 2x4s in there and stacked them flat on top of each other and then behind that the uh he took some expired bulletproof vests and and closed it in wood. And then the piece of glass that's on top. When the fire department renovated, we wouldn't let them throw away the glass that they took out of the old drive-through window at Batesburg and we saved it and we held on to it and it that's where it got used is that passed through. So that opening was where the dispatcher walked up to greet the folks is u bullet resistant. Well, the wall where the police department's patch is now didn't have anything. It was just a piece of plywood and u a little knee wall of concrete block. Well, when we redid this batch, we ripped that wall out and we did the same thing with 2 by sixes all the way up to 6t high. We didn't put the vest, old inspired vest on the back side. We didn't have enough, but uh we did the same thing to 6' high and then on top of that, we did 2x4s from there to kind of give that dispatcher a safer area to retreat should some knucklehead come in and try to do something silly. um they can lock the door, the front door remotely. So that's it's just a deterrent and glasses there so they can get through glass and come on in. But there are ways that they can do that and they have ways to contact us so we can get there and deal with whatever emergency. But we gave them a little bit safer place to be housed when we did our renovation. Um if you see here on that second picture, uh that's the one of the new consoles. The second one is around that corner to the left. Um, and uh, that's just where all the six, seven monitors that they have over there on on the main dispatch desk. They

monitor 911. They monitor the, um, other equipment, NCIC, uh, rapid SOS, which integrates with 911 to get them a little bit more information. Um, CAD, uh, security cameras around the police department and inside the police department. uh our detention facility that is the original color of the building. Um it's been it's been painted numerous times over the years. Chief Oswwell did a really good job. It has not been painted in probably about seven or eight years if I remember right. Um but usually that's done with some some fell needs to do some want to work off some time instead of paying a fine and he would be assigned after being found guilty be some given some community service time. Um, but those those folks don't exist anymore. That work ethic's not there. They'd rather just go sit in jail. And uh and so we don't have that too often. So we have we have three cells with two beds in each cell. And that's kind of a representation of what it looks like. And in each cell has a stainless steel uh toilet, sink, basin, and water fountain. the cubicles here in the squad room. This the original wallpaper that was up when the building was built. But the cubicles um we reached out to our friends over at State Surplus and the um fleet services for the state of South Carolina was relocated from a building that was on USC's campus to another facility. They did not need the cubicles when they moved. So, we were able to acquire those for free. Um seven of us, was it six of us? I don't know. Myself, Cap, Captain Nimmons, we all went over there and we took all those cubicles apart. Um, Mr. Tommy Sheileely let us borrow one of his bots trucks so we could load it all in one vehicle and uh, we loaded everything up, took everything apart, loaded everything up, brought it back, and then we put them together back

in our squad room to give a little bit. The other cubicles were hand-me-downs from the FBI that were given to the sheriff's office that were then given to us. They were about 35 years old. These are only about 12 years old. They look better.

Yes. One of the other things that Walter has uh worked on for us is um our history of the Batesburg and Leville Police Departments. Um Batesburg Police Department. I believe the date that they were founded was August 7th, 1877. Um, we still use the ORI, which is our identifier to the FBI for the Batesburg Police Department. The Batesburg Legal Police Department uses that ORI number. So, where I'm going with this is our 150th anniversary will be next year. But Walter put all this together. The photo on the wall has a representation either original or uh reproduction of every patch of the police of the police department. Uh there's some badges and other historical items in the in the display case. That's right outside of the uh courtroom. So, and the the light air in the bottom, he's got it where you can turn it on when he's got kids come through. All right. The police department You'll see in there, this is our uh hierarchy, our organizational chart that's broken down into these positions. Currently, we have six officer positions that are unfilled. We have a chief's position that is unfilled. We have a victim's advocate position that will be empty um at the end of this week. Um and then we have another officer that is leaving at the end of that week. So that's that is six officers short, a chief, a victim's advocate, and then we have an officer out that's on a active military deployment. He is on a rear detachment. He gets to ride by us every day as he drives to Graniteville, but he can't do anything because he's on a rear

detachment deployment. So, um, the good chief here is going to give us, uh, little overview of what each of those positions are and what they do.

Uh, good afternoon or good evening, everyone. Again, I'm Corey Nimmons. I'm your interim chief of police for the base police department. Um, as the major has already said, I'm going to go over a brief synopsis of what each individual or each u officer does at your base per department. Again, I'm the chief of the police or the interim chief of police. Uh, a little Ronian joke. I didn't ask for this job. I was kind of thrown into this job, but um, so we're doing a little on the job training. Uh, as the commander-in-chief of the Base Blesville Police Department, I answer directly to our town manager. Um, and I oversee the overall law enforcement of the town of Ber Leville. Um, and I ensure that strict enforcement of federal, state, and local laws are being uh, adhered to here in our town. Um, underneath me is the assistant chief of police, the good major here. Uh, and his job is pretty much the same as mine. Uh, in the makeup, he answers to the position of the chief of police. So, he answers to

That would be me. That's right. Oh, okay. Uh, prior to beingcoming the interim chief of police, I was or am I still am? You're the chief now. I mean, you're sure, whatever. Um, I was your captain of operations for the town of Base Berlesville Police Department and I assisted in the planning, coordinating, supervising of daily operations uh of the of law enforcement here at your uh baseville police department. Um, and I answered to the assistant chief of police. He's chief

up under me. I had two watch commanders and those are sergeants positions. Uh, one of our sergeants is uh, currently have administrative duties um, as a result of an incident that took place at in market. The other sergeant is working as a patrol sergeant. And they basically are what is referred to as the chief or the sheriff of of the night. Um, when when command staff is not at work, they are the ones who are in control of the agencies. So we actually in put a lot of trust in them um to run the agency in a manner that is professional for the citizens of Berleyville. And so they supervise uh well they work on rotating shifts and so they supervise the actual shift structure under them. They usually have about two shifts up under them that rotate um each uh watch commander, each sergeant. Um and under those watch commanders, we have uh we're slotted to have four. Uh right now we have two uh have one um and those are your corporals and those are the supervisors of the shift. They are the one they are the ones that are out there with the troops ensuring that not only that the troops are responding to the calls as needed that they're patrolling that they're out there being seen that they're making positive positives in our community um they too have the responsibility to respond to calls as well. So, in the Marine Corps, we call those working supervisors. They are the ones that are in the trenches with the troops doing the same thing that they're doing while supervising them um as they're doing it. Yes, ma'am.

Um did you say we had one corporal at this time? President. Yes, ma'am. Okay.

Underneath that corporal who is that shift supervisor, we have the patrol officers. Um and they are the ones that do the work of patrol. They are generally the ones that are going to respond first to a scene regardless of what the scene is. Whatever the call of service is, uh it is generally speaking that patrol officer that's going to respond to that scene. Uh if we are fully staffed, it would be that patrol officer to respond to scene. Whether it's domestic armed robbery, whether it's a kitten up a tree, whether it's someone uh can't get in their home, uh whatever the call service is, that patrol officer is going to respond to the scene while ensuring that they too are enforcing those uh federal, local, and state laws for the citizens of Bird, Leville. Um

does that person have a backup? I'm sorry. Does that Does that officer have a backup in case it's needed? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Um if as as you stated as far as backup, if the call requires backup, there are officers that are available uh to respond uh for backup. Now, in those extreme cases where we might need further assistance because we have uh worked and built a working relationship with our sister agencies and now we have the capability with our radios. We can communicate with them now directly and ask for assistance and they graciously will respond and we we've had that happen. Lexington or Saluda. Yes, both. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

With the with the radio upgrade that we did last year. Okay. We're able to communicate directly with the sheriff's office. Very good. And during the incident with uh at the in market, I was the bird officer on scene for that one. And I was listening to one radio, talking on another radio while I was trying to pull my boots on to get out the door to be there. And the county sent everybody in, half of the south region and folks from the north region were on the way to us as well. Same thing when the the second incident happened out in front of title. Okay. They they we had everybody that would come.

We are waiting on a firmware upgrade for those radios to be able to talk directly to Saluda with our radio. The reason we went with those because they're on a different system everybody else is um the same system that the school is on. So um our SRO's only have to carry one radio once that comes out and we'll be able to switch over to a different channel and talk directly to Slooh. We have that capability in dispatch. Um but but we don't have that in the field yet. Okay. We're concerned about your safety. Yes, ma'am. Right now we have at minimum two officers working 247. Okay.

At minimum and the sheriff's office listens to our channel. Uh they are able to listen to our encrypted traffic and they know they they'll pop up on the radio and say, "Hey, y'all good? You need something?" They're really good at nighttime. They help us out tremendously. It's a great work. That's very good. Thank you. Uh and just to add to that, uh some of the reasons why you will see our guests in our town, Highway Patrol, um is because we have worked diligently not only to try to build a bridge between the law enforcement and the community, but also our sister agencies. Um so that's generally why you will see highway patrol unfortunately uh you know pulling someone over. Fortunately, we need them here. Fortunately, unfortunately

and as part of that radio upgrade, we do agreements with all the agencies, all law enforcement agencies in Lexon County, Saluda County, Aken County, Edgeville County, and Richland County to be able to they have permission to have our channel in their radios and in and reciprocally actual I'm making it up if it's not. No, it is. They uh they they gave us also the permission to have their channels and we didn't put everything in there cuz we don't we don't need to go to Richland, but they may need to come to us. Okay. So, we wanted them to have it. City of Columbia, you know, they bring stuff to the Pure Festival to help us out. So, we wanted them to be able to have it. So, and and they do and we appreciate everything they do to help out

and it's good it's good that we have those connections.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Uh we also have uh detectives here at the Base Leville Police Department. Um and they conduct criminal investigations under the direct supervision of the patrol detective sergeant, which we do not have. Um including reviewing evidence, reports, interviewing victims, witnesses, suspects, and obtaining and serving search warrants and arrest warrants. Um they provide testimony and expert opinion in court. uh those individuals who are slotted to be detectives with the Bassport Leville Police Department generally have the most um experience in that field because as we stated, they're going to be those expert witnesses on the stand. Um and so the the patrol officers sometimes to include the supervisors will generally go to these those detectives to get more clarification on a case, on a statute, what have you. especially if myself or the major are not in the office to help them, they would generally go to those detectives to get more information. And um that seems to be a working um something that works well at our agency. Um we get a lot of officers off the street who have no idea what we do in law enforcement. They go through the academy um and they go through FTO process and get cut loose in the road. It's always good to have that seasoned officer readily available to help them um and guide them through the process. um sometimes through the weeds of paperwork, responding, uh interviews, things of that nature. So, um that's that's good. We also have for the first time a uh DV uh detective who works uh majority of the time on domestic violence cases. Um domestic is domestic violence anywhere is horrible. Um, and so it's it's it's something that I'm getting used to saying that we need a a um domestic violence detective, but we have one here whose main goal is to focus on those DV cases. Um, and uh from seeing how she handles those cases, I

see a positive impact uh on in our community because through her well actually through the officers who are the first responders, she gets those cases. She works those cases, does what's necessary. we're actually able to get those victims in contact with with our VA, get them the assistance they need um to try to make better decisions uh for their life in the future. So again, we do have a detective for our uh domestic violence and child abuse cases. So she handles that. We also have a VA. Uh our VA is under general supervision. She provides victim services to victims of crimes that occur within the town of of Batesboro, Leville. and she does an outstanding job. She will go above and beyond just to ensure that all of her victims, regardless of their color, race, creed, whatever it is, it does not matter if they're a victim, she goes above and beyond to ensure that they get the needed resources and tools uh to make better decisions in life and be safe. um she lets them know that they have been heard, they are seen, that they're being taken serious, that their their issue matters to the agency, and it does. Um and it's always good to have that point of contact to reinforce and reassure the citizen, especially the victims of these crimes, that your police department is here for you and we are concerned about you and we want to make sure that we do the best for you so that you can be uh continue to be successful citizens in Berlesville. So, we do have that. We do have a uh community service officer. If you have not picked up, myself and major are a team. We are a team. Even though

we are a team, what I'm getting to is our community service officer is Al Wilson and he is doing a phenomenal job. Unfortunately, he is out right now uh because he had a a loss in in his his a close loss um in his family and he's dealing with that right now. He hopefully he'll be back Wednesday. But however, uh when I first got thrown into this position, um I don't I didn't have time to ask why we are not doing this. I did it. All right. So, the major and I came up with ideas as to how are we recruiting? How can we get our name out there to recruit individuals to come and work with us, work here at the Base Leville Police Department, not only in town, but possibly even outside town? So, now we're working with our um our community service officer. We got banners. We're going to do job fairs. We're going to um wrap his vehicle so it can be a moving billboard putting our name out there in the town and the surrounding areas, letting people know that we exist. All right? um and that if you want to make this career a part of your livelihood, come and join us. Um so we're working with our community uh community service officer who is also making contacts with our local uh uh groups, uh the Rotary clubs, things of that nature. Uh and like last year, we did we handed out fans to those who needed fans. Uh during the summer times, we make sure that we check on our less fortunate, the needy, um things of that nature. And it's done. is filtered through our community service officer. Also, if someone needs an officer to be at a grand opening, that's filtered through the community service officer. So, he's doing an outstanding job. And I want to commend Al Wilson on that. Uh law enforcement support officer. We don't we don't have that. Uh

what is that? Yeah. So, we can for forget I said that one. All right. Yeah. Forget that.

So, next we will have the sergeant over the SRO. Sergeant over the SRO. These individuals are the ones that are watching our babies. They're in there watching our babies. They're out there in the front giving them high five, welcome them back to school, things of that nature. And they're also unfortunately the same ones, the handles, the fights, the uh weapons being brought in, the vape pins that are uh somehow another being given to them. Um, so they're out there uh not only handling and providing the best security for our babies, they're also enforcing laws because they are law enforcement officers. All right? So they are enforcing the local, state, and federal laws even on those campuses. All right? And they are through the sergeant of the SRO, they are constant communication with the command staff and the SRO so that we know what was going on in the school. um any fights, any threats. We ensure that our road ser I mean our road officers stay in constant communication with our sergeant of SRO so that if they get on a call with a juvenile that may be in one of our schools then when that child goes to school and that child's not acting as they normally would the SRO would have a heads up as to what possibly may be the issue. So they also play a very important role in the agency of baseville and they're head up by um a sergeant. Under the sergeant is the corporal and then under the corporal we have two SRO. Uh and our our sergeant of S Rose is Charles Hway Holloway. Um our corporal is Jason Hildebrand and our two SRO is uh Scheler and Deborah Miller. And hitting on that, the with the juvenile calls, the we don't send the SRO's the information so that they can further beat up on the kids. They have a different rapport with these kids than what the road officers do. And so it's that

we have that time in front of them when they don't have those outside influences that are tr that trick them into doing not smart things. So these SRO's build that rapport with these kids and it's an intervention or you know an opportunity for them to remind them hey you don't have to do this to be and you can be a good productive member of society and h how they do their thing they're they're experts at it I'm not I just know that that's that is just another avenue to try to reach the community that needs that interaction

and there have been times where we we on the law enforcement side of the house, the the road officers get valuable, credible uh information through the kids by way of our SRO's. There's a lot of times that we can uh nip things in the bud because our our kids, our our babies are talking to our SRO's because they develop that relationship with them. They're not afraid of them. All right. Right. Um and we've done our best to ensure that we put the right people in the right place so that we can uh be as professional um in all aspects of our department. Uh we also have dispatchers as was talked about earlier. They answer

calls from being someone being kidnapped to why is my water being cut off? They call Dave.

All right. that they answer a gambit of things. They not only answer those all information as far as uh what is called NCIC check to see if someone's wanted things that nature. They uh dispatch those officers. They may be one phone in one hand and the speaker on the other hand dispatching the officer while getting information at the same time. Um so they have to have that stamina to be able to handle those situations. Uh we are unique here in that not only do our dispatchers dispatch officers, they are also our jailers. So as the jailer, they uh do checks on the the inmates in the back, make sure that they are being fed. Um that makes they ensure that they're being transported to the county if necessary, things of that nature. They do uh periodical checks of the facility as far as um the fire alarms, uh uh fire extinguishers, first aid kits. They do all of that stuff. Um, and they have they they they do work in uh in tandem with each other. We have a sergeant over the dispatchers who is generally there during the daytime um with other dispatchers to ensure if they need to go use the restroom, things of that nature that there's someone there to answer the radio and or check uh the inmates in the back. All right, so that's our sworn side. The uh nonsworn side is comprised of uh our VA who I've already talked about and also our administrative assistant who I say is really the chief.

She is she runs the department. She is in charge.

I did learn if I've learned nothing else as the interim police chief. I've learned that our admin administrative assistant runs the department. Um, she handles uh scheduling uh anybody who puts in an application to be a future law enforcement officer, a future dispatcher. She does the background. She does she she handles the email. She has a gambit of things. I'm amazed that she's able to do it without flipping out. Um, but she actually runs the department. Uh, she is my chief. I ensure that I tell her thank you for any and everything she does and she has shown to be a valuable asset to the department. It is amazing to me that we were we we were running the way we were running without her. Um it's amazing that is it's amazing to me that things were getting done. Um I hope everything was getting done. Um but I know for certain that since we have an administrative assistant, things that need to be get getting done are getting done. She crosses every tea, dots every eye. She makes sure that I'm right. She She will let me know in a heartbeat. All right. Sometimes when when she's heading my way, I kind of close my door. But she does a phenomenal job as administrative assistant. And finally, the guy that has the post of the agency, Walter Goss, who is our grant coordinator and our accreditation manager. Uh, a lot of stuff that we have we have because of Walter Goss and knowing how to write grants the correct way, making sure that it's being issued the right way, making sure pictures are being taken. Sometimes he can get on our last nerves, but we understand why he's doing it. He's ensuring that we can get that grant again next year if possible. He's making sure that all the paperwork is together. uh making sure that the money the money that is allotted to us goes to

the gear we ask for. So I I learned uh in this in this seat that if you ask for the money for for uh vest you got to use it for vest you can't use it for nothing else. All right that's right.

Um on the flip side of that he is ensuring that we're becoming a accreditated agency. All right. And he has uh started virtual academy where we do our FTO process online to ensure that uh our trainees are being trained appropriately within a certain time frame. We're able to track any problem officers uh and try to nip any problematic issues in the bud before it becomes too drastic. Uh that's because of his work as the accreditation manager and he's doing a phenomenal job there as well. So those are our that's the breakdown of what we do in law enforcement from our sworn side to our nonh sworn sides side.

Remember a while back we talked about that 2.66 minute response time and we talked about how short we are. When y'all see our guys, our when we y'all see your police officers out, just tell them thank you for busting their butts for y'all in the town to that they're they're overworked. They're working two to three extra shifts on average every pay period just to make sure the town's covered with that two people minimum. We would love to see more than that, but while we're trying to fill positions, it's it's tough to do that. If I may, what's your total department headcount authorized and actual?

26 sworn and we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight vacancies and a military deployment. So you actually have nine out of 26 sworn. You only have 17 staff and and four of those are SRO's in the schools and two are command staff that are not routinely responding to calls. The SRO's are helping fill shifts on the weekends. So the day shift folks where where we thin things out a little bit, have some have some days off. SRO's they they go and help us out. So we can do that current budget would cover full staff.

I I was not I have never been a part of that number in our budget um in historically. I assume that it would if we were full staffed that that that would pay for that. There is always going to be some built-in overtime with court and training and that's why there's an overtime line item. But that's really getting hammered hard right now because um they they're they're working all those extras just to keep make sure you have at least two officers 247 to be able to keep that response time less than 3 minutes. So how many officers do we normally have during the day on the road patrol? How many on the on the road on We have two that are assigned to take calls on dayshift. Okay.

And two that are assigned to take calls on night shift. the investigators um when they're not busy doing case follow-ups or anything, if there is a urgent call for service or something that the other guys are not are busy and they can't get to, they'll jump in and take calls. Um when we're at work, we also will jump out. Yeah. And that's why I'm not wearing a uniform because I was in in involved in an incident where I can't wear my uniform yet. I'm waiting on the attorney general's office as well. Right. Um, so we are um we, you know, we are we all take calls for service and it and for the chief and myself

um we we we it doesn't matter what time of day or night we you know we both stay late, we both get here early depending on what we have going on during the week. So we all try to take calls during the day and at night. So that means you constantly have some overtime going, right? Yes, ma'am. Until we get Except from us, we don't get overtime, but that's okay. That's okay. Until these eight basancies until we get some of these vacancies. Yes. Yes, ma'am. It's going to be there. The overtime is going to be a little higher than what you would want to see in the budget on affected on the line item. Chief and major, y'all stay on call 24/7. If it's a major call, y'all come out no matter the f the first critical incident at the end market. Remember, I was the third officer on scene.

I beat the sheriff's office, right? That was that was almost at midnight. if um our overtime budget seems to be almost as high. I know I'm stretching a little bit as what our actual pay is. So, um I know I'm stretching that a little bit, but our overtime is way high. It seems that we might could increase maybe some salaries to keep people so we have to pay so much overtime and also the safety of the officers from working so much over and that is you have tired officers.

That's the work session on the 23rd. Well, it's funny you should mention that we've we've identified some critical needs. Um retention of certified police officers. Um that key for that will be the competitive salary and salary merit system that that we're going to be a part of all having presented at the February 23rd meeting. Awesome.

Um second, replacement of fleet vehicles. Um we we we need cars. We need pay. We need cars. Oh, and it doesn't stop there. Um, also I mentioned at the beginning the building was built in 1978. Um, that's uh little over right at 50 if I can do math right. We're we're almost 50 years on the building, right? 48 almost 50 years.

I like 50 better. I like 50 better. Um, you know, there's some things there. It's a flat roof. I've been roof repair on that building. I've I'm 18 and a half years as a town of Batesburg Leville employee and I think they've been here 1880 times to fix a little leak on the roof. Um it is a one of those membrane roofs that's a better roof than but and it's the best it's ever been, but it's it's time to be redone. Um so uh you know pitch roof something we need to do something different for that building. Um yep. Uh we the generator that we currently have is just enough to run lights and um it's not good communications equipment in this when Helen came through and the police department was out of power for 9 days. Uh the generator ran nine days and without without failing but it did not provide any air conditioning for the facility. So our dispatchers who couldn't leave who were sitting on a desk that and to monitor the jail they didn't have any air conditioning. Um, we were worried about the ice storm that would never came to fruition. Thank goodness. They wouldn't have had heat. So, um, we're we're working with those same 1033 folks over in Colombia, military surplus equipment. They're they're looking for us a large generator that we can hook into the building. There will be some cost associated with it for electrician and and automatic cut over switch. Um but that's significantly less than what the generator would cost. Um couple other things that we have on there. Um we will our report writing software that we use in CAD now um at the end of this year will no longer function. So we will be needing to replace that. Um we are working diligently to get the quotes and all of that and make the best decision for what's going to work for us. problem is

right now the complete package the the shock and all number is $500,000 for five years worth of software that has everything the software that we anticipate that we'll use they don't have the CAD portion up and running yet that's supposed to be end of second beginning of third quarter this year that'll be significantly significantly to the tune of around $15,000 annually so it's much less cost there and then We are at the end of produ the the in-car cameras that we have in our patrol cars and our fleet. Uh they're no longer being produced. Our server is good and we'll handle the new the newer cameras that have been released since. But hopefully we're going to be able to get in on a grant this year for incar and body camera replacement. Um hopefully that'll be but with uh the good Captain G's leaving at the end of March. It's due April. I I believe it that the the grant's due April 18th, and I can't in good conscience ask him to write a grant that he won't be here to administer. So, I guess I'm going to get to figure out how to write a grant unless we find somebody.

Yeah. But that's uh that's that's a little bit of overview for the police department. Major, I have a quick quick question for you. Absolutely. With u I know the state statute says uh you said the victim advocate was actually leaving. I know by state statute you're required to have one. Yes, sir. How quick will that position be filled for the people of Batesburg, Leville and or will you try to utilize the counties? We have internal interest in the position. Okay.

Um our administrative assistant is a certified victim's advocate who when our victim's advocate is out of town or on vacation, she fills in for minor stuff, u bond hearings that are for, you know, DVs that'll be handled in summary court. Um we if it's a big case and we don't have a victim's advocate, we would utilize whichever county the crime occurred in Saluda County or Lexington County. And we already have that working agreement in place for when we have Lynette. So, you know, when we don't have her anymore until we get that filled and her certified, we we have a we have a something in place to take care of those.

Okay. Thank you, sir. Yes, major if I may sort of grossed over police cars. That's a hot topic as far as I'm concerned. Uh assuming you have eight open positions, do we have eight vehicles sitting in reserve at the current time? We have question was eight open positions. Do we have

we have we have vehicles for all the positions. We have no spares for for anything else. So right now those open positions are serving as spares. I believe the last check there are three in the shop right now. So we are we we've been un unable to maintain the ones that we've had to retire from the fleet and we haven't had any replacements. So it's we're in dire straits for vehicles and average vehicle cost is uh 55 to 60,000 for the vehicle. Uh what about uh transfer of equipment or is that required new? So you're looking at 90 grand.

It it depends on what the vehicle is. If you know we're deadlining a what most people would refer to as a Taurus, which is a police interceptor by Ford. You know, you can't buy those anymore. So we wouldn't be able to use the majority of the equipment that's in there, the cage, the the back seat replacement. um if the new cameras that if it's still in operable order, it can be moved for now. Um you know, but the console and everything else, you know, it's it's they're they're So, you're looking for a check for half a million dollars immediately and uh I don't have another 150 a year.

I don't have the exact number, but yes, sir. there. It's it would be a pretty significant check for to to have six new vehicles is what would get us through right now. That would that would take care of the fleet that needs to be the rest of the fleet that needs to be retired and that would give us at least two spare cars, but you need on an average we should be buying two to three cars a year. I would think that would be on a regular basis. I would think that would be appropriate. Yes, sir. Thank you. Major, I have one other question and it's concerning your dispatchers. Yes.

Are we in good shape right now on dispatchers? And if we are to lose them and we're short for somebody to cover a shift, do we go to the county? We we we do not ship anything to the county except for the calls that are not in Batesburg, Leville or it's a fire EMS call that's in Batesburg, Leville. Okay. Um right now as of this moment we are full in dispatch but on Monday we are losing one of our dispatchers who is coming over to the police department. Um so he will start as a police officer on Monday. He will no longer be a dispatcher. So what do we do to cover?

So the supervisor will move to night shift to cover until we find I know that they've received an application or two but it just got posted last week so it was all finalized. Um, dispatch is usually a little easier to get applications in. Okay. Um, mayor, I have a question for Tubs and Crockett here. I thought it was Abello. Oh, wait. Hust. Do I get the car? Long as I can be Huggy Bear, we good. So, I have a a question. Um, do each of the vehicles have um assault weapons? How we doing on that?

All right. So, so the good news is is we do have 10 assault rifles that we acquired from 1033 a number of years ago. I think about 13 years ago. Um, it hasn't been finalized yet, but from what I understand, the 1033 program is getting out of the weapons business and they are going to sign those weapons over to the Batesburg Lethal Police Department. So, they will be ours. Um, historically the police department has upgraded pistols every 10 years. We're in that 10th year now. Um we are by the end of the year hopefully we will go through our um weapons that we've confiscated and have been given by court to us and then we will work out something so we can trade those in to a gun dealer that's on state contract and we can do some of the it's a common practice in law enforcement so we can upgrade our weapons and then we would be able to take those Vietnam era 1033 rifles and trade those in in as well because they'll be our property if that comes to fruition. And then uh we will upgrade everything for for our officers.

Okay. The reason, you know, I asked because one of the worst sounds I ever heard in my life was the sound of AK-47 down on Lynwood. Yes, sir. A number of years ago. That was two weeks before I started here. Yeah. That was so about almost 18 and a half years ago. Yeah. I think Steve spent the whole night He did marking He did bullet holes. was Leon was laying in bed and bullet went right right right right above inches above where his head was laying on his bed. So um we definitely need to do that. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Thank you all for the time. Sorry we were gentlemen. Appreciate it. Damn. We appreciate the info.

All right. Manager Hendricks, if you will come forward and give us your report. And we need a bathroom break soon. I will not be as long-winded as our fire and police friends. So, um, so I'm sure everybody I did hand out copies of the manager's report earlier. Um, my bad.

But just a quick run through for the public. Uh, planning commission will have a work session on the 16th. They do not have any um items to cover. Um February 17th, which is uh next Tuesday, is the special election for district 2. Um we are going to have the work session on the 23rd. That is not on there, but we will do a work session. Uh we were shooting for the uh compensation and classification study to be January 23rd. We got ice, so then we moved it to February 2nd and we got snow. and the lady that will be doing the presentation is out of Raleigh and they got lots of both. Um, one thing that also I I had left off, it hit me while we were sitting there, it was in your weekly report, uh, town hall will be closed in the morning until 12. Uh, there is a planned power outage by Dominion. They're changing out some poles right next to the building. So, they'll be starting at 7:00 a.m. They're projecting 4 to 5 hours. So, we will open the doors at 12. Uh to keep our staff busy, we will be uh doing some spring cleaning at the train depot and the cafeteria since those are our two big rental facilities. So, uh if you want to grab some gloves, come on over. Um spring clean is coming up March 21st. That's going to be from 9:00 to 12:00. We've uh we're working with some churches. We'll be recruiting civic groups. Love to have you come out and help. Uh there will be a free paper shredding event through keep the mill beautiful as well as uh we'll be collecting tires. Waste management is going to be working with us on that. So if you have old tires you need to get rid of you can bring those. That will be at the Leville College Park.

J is there going to be any electronics? The electronics portion got kicked. Goodwill was going to do that with us and then they they had some change and they backed out of that. So unfortunately no. I apologize. Um, now you can put it by your by the road and you put it in one of those green bags and just say somebody just dumped it in front of your house. I don't I'll put it in front of yours. Okay, there we go. All right. Uh, no console TV. So, uh, Easter egg hunt is scheduled for April the 1st at Leville College Park. That starts at 5:30. Uh, there'll be thousands of eggs, plenty of chocolate if you need your kids to get hyped. What's that date again? April 1st. I can't

believe that is a Wednesday. It's a Wednesday before Easter. Um, just a couple park uh project updates. Park restrooms are almost complete. We got uh the confirmation for Dominion Powers being hooked up. May have been hooked up today, but uh we'll be hooked up this week. Uh final completion is just around the corner uh hopefully by early March. Uh parking lot, they are still last step is the trees that need to be installed. Um couple of CDBG grant updates. Uh, and this was in your packet as well. I apologize for my cough tonight. Uh, we have closed out the firetruck grant. U, Josh showed you the picture of that one, the white support truck. Uh, the reimbursement was received recently, so we have closed CDBG on that one. Uh, the Maple Street section of the water and sewer repair is is a holdup. Uh, we had a break Friday night. Steve was out there uh, doing that. And uh once they make that final connection to the water line and get the uh sample testing done, that will be closed out soon. Uh we should also be closing out the water valve assessment project soon as well. So marking a couple of those grants off. Uh one item that is kind of a new one, uh we have I think I mentioned this a few months ago, I have been in contact with Republic Services, uh the owner of the Middberg Mill site. I've also talked with Central Midlands and the Kataba Cogs about some environmental studies. uh Republic Services is interested, willing to perhaps gift that site to the town in order for us to qualify for brownfield grants. Steve mentioned brownfields earlier. There needs to be an environmental phase one before we take ownership. Uh so we were working with Kataba and Kataba Cog has been one handling most of those u environmental grants. uh they do not have any more grant money available, but uh we have posted the um an RFP uh for that study.

It closes on the 18th, so hopefully I'll have something for you next month. We can maybe even touch on that the 23rd just to see what the flavor is from council. Uh right now it's vacant, ugly, scarred area. um and and see if the town wants to again move forward with an environmental study that would allow us to be eligible for brownfields and then what direction do we want to go? Do we want to do a cleanup that could cost ungodly amount of money? Who knows? Or or where do we want to go? So, that's something we can discuss in the future. But I did want to bring you up to date on that that RFP has been posted. Um, I know that, uh, giving you the rundown through all the the account balances is a little, uh, crazy, so we won't do all of them, but you've got those numbers in front of you. Uh, just the big ones for the uh, local government investment pool. Uh, general fund has 487,998.88. um with the town account for the general fund at 681759. I believe we're actually going to be transferring money back into LJIP now that we're starting to get some of those property tax dollars in. Uh the utility LJIP is 3,399,94. The uh utility U account is $169,760. And then there's capital impact or capital improvement and impact fees which is also enterprise money which is $863,98516 censes are all enterprise money. Uh on the htax side the eljip is $982,627 and then that checking account is $373,306. Then there's some smaller ones in there as well. Anybody have any questions? Are there any outstanding balances due on the Pine Street?

Pine Street has a small amount remaining on the trees. Uh roughly 20 25,000 I believe. Uh we have we should have one more payment coming with the the the park restrooms, but it's under 100,000. I think it's more in the 70 75 range, but I don't know that off the top of my head. Um those are the two big one outstanding projects on the htac side. Will the fence be replaced at the Wilson Street project?

Yes, sir. Uh they we were discussing how far out it will come because the the straight fence line would be right up in the uh drain line. So it's going to come out a little bit. It won't be the same footprint, but there will be fencing there. And will that uh will that pavilion be u ADA compliant? Well, compliant. Well, it is ADA compliant whether it's truly accessible like you would ask that question. Uh there's no sidewalk for it to tie into. So, as I was told by uh the the contractor and the engineer, it is by law, sir.

Uh they were and again I'm just saying what they told me that that it was compliant because there was nothing for it to be tied into. We what I have asked them to do uh the plans the the full plans for the park you know do have a ramp that goes to it that ties into the parking lot. So Land Plan Group is is kind of pulling that out to see if that can just be added in. We just have to bring that number back to you to see if we can include that. But that was not included in the original bid. Thank you.

Anybody else? Now we can go to executive session. All right, that takes us to executive session, economic development matter, discussion of utility rates for existing in industry. At this time, I'll entertain a motion to go into executive session. So move. So move. That's like three. Yeah, we all ready to move. We have a motion and a second that we go in the executive session. It's now open for discussion. Uh, if there's no discussion, we'll vote. District one, yes. District three, District three, votes yes. District four, yes. Five, yes. Six,

yes. Seven, yes. Eight, yes. Mayor votes yes. We are in executive session at 9:01.

At this time, I'll entertain a motion to go back into regular session. So move. Second, third, fourth, fifth. We have a motion and a second that we return to regular session. It's now open for discussion. No discussion. We'll vote. District one, yes. Two is not here. Three additionally was yes. Four is not here. Five. Yes. Six. Yes. Seven. Yes.

Eight. And the may and the mayor votes yes. We back in regular session at 9:39. All right. Since there's no action that can be taken from our time in executive session, we'll move on to possible actions by council in the next council meeting.

Mr. Mayor, there's a couple of things I'd like to bring up. One is we had spoken a few months back about BBA money and whether someone's going to be returned to them. I'd like for us to go into that and then uh have a suggestion that as a comprehensive plan is moving forward that the planning commission offer us some potential ordinance changes to get to council for us to look over. That's all. And if May mayor, if we're going to do that, then um I would ask that we also um put the moratorum um restriction on on the meeting agenda as well.

Okay.

We're going to vote on this as a group or as individual motion. One at a time. One at a time. All right. and and and I don't I don't know that the the planning commission request I don't know that that's really an item that's something we can communicate just yeah for them to come out of their work session next week. All right, we vote on each one of those items that go on there. That's what we're supposed to do. All right, make your motion. I make a motion that we settle the BBA money that was discussed back in a former meeting and I forgot the amount. I think it was 10,000. We have a motion. I have a second.

I second. All right. We have a motion and a second that we put the refunding the money back to the BBA just to make it final. But I think it's the women's society that actually paid that money. That's correct. And not the BBA. All right. We're discussing the motion. Yes. I I would like to see proof of Yeah. Let's just do a finality. Yeah. All right. I agree.

All right. Who you going to talk to them and find out or I know when just in my conversation with Lois when we fixed the cemetery and they're going to use it to put money back for what they paid for the fence and all of that. She told me at the time that the actually the women's the the women's society paid for that and paid for that those improvements up there. I don't know. I don't know who's going to prove what, but they but they would need to be able to show us that they actually did it and not the Batesburg Business Association because we don't need to give it to them and they're not going to in turn give it to the women's society.

We can we can work on I I know who the contractor was that did the paving. They may have record. We may have record in we just want to make sure if we going just back we want to make sure we give it to the right play or if we're not going to give it back but let's just get a finality on it. I don't think it's I mean I think it's perfectly fine to give it back to them because they spent the money to improve the town. So, you know, to do things that needed to be done. I don't have a problem giving it to it. I just want to make sure we get it to the right. Right. Yeah. It was just left open-ended from some time back. So, let's just get a final on it.

All right. So, we ready to vote on that motion. Does it look like we something that we need ready to vote on? Yes. Cuz I don't have anything up here to write it down. So, Lisa's got good. That's great. District one. Yes. District three. District three votes. Yes. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight, yes. And the mayor vote yes. That motion carries. The next item to be put on the agenda was what do we want to do? The morator the moratorium question.

Yeah. I was just asking that we asked the planning commission to work with us on sending stuff over, not necessarily put on the agenda, but if that could be asked. I'll restate the fact that we need I think I think we need to Well, is there working on it? They can send ideas over to us so we can be Do we need to do that or we need to have a work session and then do that? We did a work session already. We could put it on the table if it comes up. We're not ready for chapters one through. That's fine. You're talking about for one through

the the updates or some corrections? We have sent some, yes, but I haven't had any feedback from council members. We had feedback from the planning commission on some changes. Um, so has council seen the changes recommended by

most most of the ones they had were grammatical errors and stuff. They they didn't say anything substantial. It was just cleaning up some of the document. Well, I I have a big one because uh you know from a council standpoint and I think we may need to carry this discussion separately, but they're forecasting a loss of population between now and 2030 and uh 20 35 and 2040, which seems to be very impractical seeing the number of new houses that are coming online. I mean, that one just jumped right off the page. per se and we discussed this with the original presentation from college that any uh decline in population was not a correct direction. I think the I think I remember that discussion because that had been in the past but it was changing

drafts if you've looked at the drafts they they they show a decline in population starting now and and I I think that that is simply their whatever their analytics are to determine that. I I don't think that was Gregory or Phil that night that were really the ones that had done the those numbers. They were simply presenting the numbers that had been worked up and I'm not sure who does that work for Central Midlands. Well, I I just can't see how a council could sit here in good faith and talk about uh future population understanding that population is going to shrink.

Fair enough. Can you can you call um Greg tomorrow? We can talk to Greg. Okay. I mean, uh, that that's something they will be coming back. I don't have a date, but they will be coming back later with more, uh, presentation for council because there's still at least three chapters to come. But y'all have all seven that have been seven drafts that have been said submitted to us. But they they do they don't make that those numbers up. They they go No, they've got there's some science behind it. I Yeah, there they more of a think tank, right? That is a fair way to put it. Yes. Okay. Well, at least could we get an explanation as to why they got Yeah. Just some more open communication would be great. That's what I'm asking for.

We have coal. Not ordinances, just communication. All right. Did we vote already? No, you haven't. We have not put that up yet.

Well, that that was not something we were going to vote on for the agenda. that was to give that data back. But uh what council McCain is and we are talking about is putting the moratorum on permits, issuing permits until we get this stuff straightened out because we don't want a developer coming in here and signing up to do to do a project that is going to go against zoning that we may not want in the future.

So that's what we're talking about issuing there. That motion or that is what he's talking about making a motion to propose a moratorum on issuing permits well for development. If I may not interject again, MASC strongly recommends that you have a plan in place uh before you place a moratorum. Uh and that is a plan not a vision. that is a the 1 of March we are going to do this the step by step we just don't know how we couldn't have that as a white paper prior to we vote yeah we well we had a work session we need a work session

we've had a work session so we can do that in the white paper so that if the if it does pass you know you can stipulate that in before you actually pass it all this This is saying let's put it on the agenda and then we can figure out how to go forward from there. We don't have to pass it. Right. We don't have to pass it. We just have to It's just for discussion. Do we need a motion? There is There hasn't been a motion or a second on that item. We'll have So move. All right. Got a motion. Do I have a second?

No second. Not at this time. Then the motion dies from lack of support. I move that we adjourn. Motion second that we have a motion and a second that we adjourn. That is a privileged motion. There's no debate. District one. Yes. District. Yes. Or district three. I'm sorry. Yes. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. Seven. Yes. Eight. Yes. And the mayor votes yes. We are a journey. We're in full agreement.