Council - Regular Meeting

Father God, in the name of Jesus, we come tonight, Lord, thanking you for all that you give us, for the life and liberty of living in the United States of America. Lord, that that is just a perfect place to be in this world right now. And Lord, thank you for the service of the people who have brought this freedom to us. want to be with us tonight as we honor those that have gone through this ugly cancer word. It is part of what the devil has brought to us in this land and we rebuke him in the name of Jesus Christ. And Lord, we thank you for this meeting and that we come together with like minds and like hearts that we're working together for the good of this community. We ask all this in your name, Jesus, your precious name. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Kathy. All that are able, please stand and join us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, we going to start off with proclamation. Um, after the proclamation, you if you want to leave and not stay here for this wonderful work session that we're going to have, I don't I don't blame you.

No, not you. You got to stay. That's why you get the big book. For those of you that are here, I got a big pot of chicken and dumplings over here. Before you leave, make sure you cuz I don't take any home. been around it all day. So anyhow, it's there. This time I'd like to read the proclamation that we're going to do. Proclamation for neck head and neck cancer awareness month for April of 2026. Whereas head and neck cancer including cancers mouth, throat, voice box, skin, sinuses, and salivary glands. account for nearly 4% of all cancers diagnosed in the United States with an estimated 65,000 people diagnosed annually. And whereas South Carolina residents are affected by these diseases which often result in long-term difficulty breathing, swallowing, and speaking. Whereas the fastest growing segment of oral cancer patients include young healthy non-smoking individuals due to the connection to the human papus

yeah HPV and whereas more than 85% of all head and neck cancers could be prevented and increased awareness of the disease process. It causes and its symptoms could result in earlier diagnosis, lower functional disability and higher survival rates. And whereas the Headne Neck Cancer Alliance and various local health care providers offer free screenings during April to encourage at risk adults to seek timely medical intervention. And whereas it is crucial to encourage our residents to recognize the signs of head and neck cancer such as a persistent sore throat, difficulty swallowing or a lump in the neck and to to discuss these risks with their health care providers. Whereas the Batesburg Leville Town Council and Mayor approved this proclamation in memory of former Batesburg Leville Town Council member Mark Delo who passed away in 2010 and in honor of Chip Simmons who is currently battling head and neck cancer. Now therefore, be it resolved that the mayor and town council of Batesburg, Leville do hereby proclaim the month of April 2026 as head and neck cancer awareness month. We urge all residents, healthc care providers, and community organizations to participate in awareness activities, attend screening events, share educational materials, and support those affected, thereby emphasizing the importance of early detection and prevention dated this 13th day of April, 2026. Chip, Linda, if I could get y'all to come forward.

Mayor think picture for Yeah. Come on, Mr. Mayor. Brother May.

All right, I'm going to move back to Martin regular position. You going to make some remarks, too? So if that's okay with you, that's fine. Welcome to the podium.

Uh good evening. Um I just want to begin by thanking uh mayor and and my brother David Baltnight. Um his family, our town council, every one of you appreciate it. And uh Jay Hendricks and uh where's Dave? Right there. and my man Dave and everyone who helped bring um awareness to headneck cancer this month. On behalf of those fighting headneck cancer and the family standing beside them, my mother and I, Linda, who is a former councilman woman uh here as well and uh we are honored to accept this proclamation. Uh this is an abstract for us. It's very personal. Uh we stand here I stand here on behalf of both of us in not just in support but as someone living this fight and I stand here with my mother in memory in memory of her late husband and my stepfather and former district 1 councilman Mark Anthony Delo who lost his battle with headneck cancer. This disease isn't just a diagnosis on paper. It impacts how people speak, eat, look, and live their everyday life. It um it challenges identity, confidence, and strength in ways most people can't fully understand. For me, it started with a small cut in the bowl of my ear. that was treated as an infection for many years. A biopsy eventually received cancer and after a failed surgery to remove it locally, I was referred to the headneck cancer team in Charleston. And six years later, I'm still fighting.

For Mark, it started with horarsseness. And after a Civil War reenactments, that wasn't unusual. But one time, it didn't go away. It lasted for weeks. what seemed minor turned out to be something much more serious and would eventually take his life. You know your body. If something doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. So, please go get it checked. Amen.

And if you don't have confidence in the answers that you're getting, get a second opinion. Especially if something still doesn't make sense to you. I'm living proof of that. I also want to recognize the people who have stepped in this fight with us. Dr. David Neski, Dr. Peter Horitch, Dr. Betsy Davis, Dr. Michael Bender

and Dr. Anage Chararma and the entire head and neck team at Trident Medical Center and the headneck specialist. They've been exceptional, not just just in their skill, but in their compassion and care. The trust and confidence placed in them to provide the best care for their patients is truly inspiring. And I believe that it only comes from the power and glory of Almighty God. Every nurse, every staff member shows up and truly makes a difference in the lives of so many. The ICU team on the second floor at Trident, they were exceptional and provided top-notch care for me when it mattered the most. My family and I will never forget him and we're forever grateful. Awareness matters. Early detection matters and access to the best possible care and treatment can make all the difference. If tonight does anything, I hope that it encourages someone to go get check get screened sooner or support someone going through it or simply understand the fight just a little bit better. I want to part and end with a scripture that I've carried with me for many years. Uh started back um during a deployment to Iraq in 2005. It's Isaiah 54:17. And it says, "No weapon formed against thee shall prosper."

Brought us home many times. I just want to say thank you for recognizing head and neck cancer awareness this month and for standing with everybody that's still fighting. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Not going to make you stay. We can give you a little short break. If you want to leave safely, you can you can go or you welcome to stay here. Hear us fight about the chicken.

Don't forget chicken and dump.

Yeah, get chicken and dumplings. I won't take any home. All right. Thank you. I've been pretty lift my head about two and a half to five. She played keep me up. He's also going to bicep too snappy. the best way to look at it.

Good to see you. She's got some issues, but we're doing fine. She hasn't been for years. Once I get off pain medication, pain medication, you can still want you to sleep, but you go back to work and take it out. just it over

exercise. That's right. All right. This hurt the first time.

All right. Dinner and cookies. Cookies. Yeah. When I retired. All right. Mr. Mayor, you ready to go ahead and then we're all settled.

All right. Uh we'll go ahead and get started with the next part of the meeting. Um so every April we kind of go through the annual action items. um review what we did over the past uh really 9 to 10 months uh during this current budget year looking ahead to next year. Uh if you have input I encourage you to give it. Um so first and you should all have handouts so it might help you follow along as opposed to trying to read some of the smaller print on the the board. Um so 2526 uh we've gotten a lot accomplished. uh the goals that we had uh going into the budget year. The 3% cost of living was obviously part of the budget. Um you all know about the water uh project being completed. Uh we're working on the decommissioning of the water plant as we talked about previously. That would not be done in this budget year. Um but we will be working on it. Um and again that is a requirement from skip. Um we did complete the compensation and classification study. Um we we want to talk about that a little bit more tonight. uh and try to maybe do look at some kind of implementation as part of this coming budget. Uh we did uh more work on the the engineering and design of Woodard Park. We did work on trying to solicit funds from the federal government. Uh we haven't gotten anywhere with that, but the federal government doesn't seem to get a lot accomplished at the moment. Um safe streets uh for all grant uh that was approved and is underway. Um we had that work session recently. Uh climate pollution reduction grant was another thing that we um you know worked on over the past year. The contract was approved. We're awaiting that contract. That was just a couple weeks ago. Um pursue purchase of needed capital equipment and facility improvements. We're going to have more discussion tonight and uh in the intent is to have that as part of the 2627 budget. Um the completion of the valve analysis study

and the water and sewer line upgrades. Both of those will be completed. Uh closeout is required by June 30th. Uh the work's basically done. It's just a matter of uh button up a few things. Uh Andrew will touch on that later. Uh we're also wanting we were able to continue to pursue the water wastewater plant upgrades as part of the North Fork Commerce Park. That contract with Aken County was approved in October. Uh we did uh get the automated meter infrastructure across the line. That was approved in January. um finish the comprehensive plan. It's still underway. Um they have a work session scheduled with the planning commission for May the 18th to uh review the um the map. Uh so it it's still working its way towards the finish line and finish redistricting which that was completed and was in place for the 2025 election. Uh so overall that was a a lot of projects we had. We I think we either completed them all or are on track to complete them all with perhaps the exception of the soliciting funding for Woodard. Um looking ahead to this

solicit for Woodard in DC. We did solicit it. We just had this March we did. Yes. When I went up

Yeah, we we have um we we may need to uh re-evaluate our plan and and figure out the best way to attack that. Uh looking at the the current uh budget that we're working on, 2627, um the items that I'm proposing as annual action items, um we're hoping for some kind of a cost of living increase or perhaps at implementation of the compensation and classification study. Uh again, I don't see that there's any way for us to completely implement the comp and class study uh in one fell swoop, but um you know, the the employees um do deserve uh some consideration there. So, uh we'll we'll touch on that in a little bit. Uh on the enterprise side, uh Andrew's got a full plate uh with completing the automated metering infrastructure project, uh the decommissioning uh project with the water plant, uh the CDBG sewer lift station grant, which is another grant um that will be uh set to close out June of 2027, the climate pollution reduction grant, which is the solar project, and complete the implementation of the utilities capital improvement plan and impact fees. So there's a lot on the the plate for the enterprise fund, but obviously, you know, the infrastructure is a huge um huge things we got to keep working on. Uh general fund side, uh completing the software upgrades to town hall. Um we had a little setback today. They were wanting to try to move forward with utility billing uh this week, but that's been pushed back to June. um they had to reassign a new uh staff member to work on that with us. Um we also need to get the comprehensive plan complete. That will certainly happen in 2627. And uh a goal and this is something else we'll discuss shortly is bid, award, and then implement the impact fee study for public safety and parks. Uh we'll touch

base on that in a second. Um and then on HTA tax, um we would like to move forward on park improvements at Wilson Street and Louisville College Park. Uh again, we'll talk about that in a moment. Uh we've got a million-doll grant that we have, u you know, applied for through the South Carolina Parks, Recreation, and Tourism. We will know about that in October. Um so hopefully that will happen and then we can uh try to fund the other uh improvements. And then also we want to seek uh state and federal funding for Hannes Auditorium as well as Woodard Unity Park. So those are the goals that um I have looking ahead to 2627. Um we're going to talk about a lot of other things in a little bit, but what are some of the ideas that council and mayor may have that y'all would like to see on the action items for 2627? I'd like to see the street department uh upgraded to a functional uh efficient department and such things as u a chipper. I mean basically you have two trucks pulling a convoy doing half a load of limbs in the back. Uh if we had a chipper uh and did it with larger sides on the truck uh make those people available for other functions. uh actually a a pickup or a suction for leaves. Uh and I'd like to see the head of the department upgraded uh to actually cover parks as well as streets. Of course, it'll take an ordinance since the council creates them. Okay. Does anybody else have other things that they would like to see uh on the proposed annual action items for 2627?

I agree with Bob. I think we need to separate the parks in the street department. I think it needs to be two separate departments. that way. I'm hoping that we may be able to use some ACE tax funds to help fund the the recreation department since it's separated from the street would be separated from the street department. And I also agree about chipper because that would be able to take 4 in bigger department cuz right now they don't take anything over bigger than 4 in and then the homeowners got me. a guy a chipper would eliminate that. I think it needs to be

well and and we'll touch on chipper in a minute. Not the road the pool behind chipper but at the landfill. Uh we we'll touch on that in a minute as well. Yes, sir. All right. So, but I think you said at the landfill, but I think what Bob was saying Bob's talking about a pull behind. Yes, that's right. You get more stuff while they on the street. Give you one at the going back and forth. Yeah, you wanted to keep Yeah, you wanted to make it through the trip

and and we have had those discussions internally with the department head. Uh their concerns have been some liability issues. They did do that at one time. Uh the roadside we had some injuries where they're feeding it into the the chipper. Uh their the the department head feels that the operation that they do now is the better operation. And then they do the grinding at at the at the landfill using a skid steer with the mulching head. Um, more efficient. It is for safety. It Yeah. The the biggest thing with safety, uh, they had had some workplace injuries years ago when they had the chipper.

There's two kinds of chippers. There is a back feed chipper and there's a hopper chipper. a hopper chipper, unless the chipper comes apart or unless some guy wants to climb up and and poke down in it, safety features are are there. I mean, they're operated all the time. You talking about safety? You talking about safety as far as operating equipment or traffic and Well, well, both. uh they were a actually in the roadway feeding the the the uh limbs into the back and that was one concern but also the injuries of uh handling the the machinery and handling the the the limbs.

That was the that was the concern from the the department head and they had had some injuries related not to accidents with vehicles but with because the trash truck they do the same thing. True, but yeah, I think that they're on the side of the road longer for a longer duration if they're if they've got a big pile and they're mulching. That that was that was what the department head had had told me with the price truck doing the same thing. I've seen the streets blocked for 10 to 15 minutes as they pick up the limbs because they do it with a backhoe at the moment. And I see you have a pitch front end, but uh the streets are blocked for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. I think it's rare that it's 10 or 15 minutes, but

Okay. Um, but I understand the trend. You're fine. Okay. Um, anybody else have any other? Yeah. On that, I would like to see us look at the options and at least weigh them out the pros and cons on each. Okay. So that we can see them if it will help us not have as many trips. That's manh hours, fuel, the whole thing. So it might I will get with David and

we're talking about a pretty good size hopper. Well, the skid steer is at the landfill. Yeah, I understand that part. It's just so about the size of the chipper. So the the chipper that we currently have is a you know a skid steer behind it and loaded it into the Well, no, it's actually got a a mulching head on the front. So they they mulch. So they they dump the piles and then once or twice a week um yes possible. Yeah. David has disagreed with me whenever we've had that discussion. He feels that this is the most efficient and has been the

um their experience. David's been here a while and they did do the the pull behind chipper. Not not a hopper. Did we not have to expend additional funds to have someone come in and work at the landfill?

Well, that was only that was after the hurricane. Uh they don't the normal routine is David is actually the operator. Um we had so much debris after hurricane Helen that was a one-time expenditure to bring them in. So, uh which was reimbured by FEMA. And could we add and I I don't know how it's working now but the training in that department and I know we have employees they kind of a big turnover there but the training for them to get the stuff up and you know we think it's easy to do but it's it's really not there the system if they can get it to play it might have been helped as well.

Okay. Okay. All right. Uh, one more action item. Sure. All right, everybody have an open mind. It's open. It's open. That door right there. Okay. All right. I was looking at that one. That's pretty close.

Okay. Listen. We give I think I might have sent this out to y'all, but we give grants to community organizations for hospitality projects. Once upon a time, council used to have before we even had tax, they had um I think it was like three grand for each district to do something in your district um annually. I like for us to look at taking a portion of the hospitality tax for each district. You don't have to use it if you don't want to use it, but to do something to promote the town in tourism and to do some things in our community for our um citizens. And I'll give you example. Right now, we're doing a uh the community garden at the Twin City Park. That community garden fed a ton of people this summer. Um, we had tomato, squash, all the stuff that you have in the garden. And it's been many nights I come out there and parents were out there grabbing some tomatoes or something to uh to help cook with um for that night. So, it's nine of us and if we had a couple of thousand dollars each from the hospital, we could do stuff like that for the community or whatever it is in your district that you want to do. Um, I don't think it it's not taking away from our annual budget budget. You know, it's just something that we can do in our in our district. Like, everybody not going to do it. They don't have the time or energy to do it. That's fine. But something to consider.

Just remember h tax is for tourism based stuff and so I know the garden would not qualify, right? But we can do other things that will bring people I don't know. We could have a um festival in the garden that's an angle festival or something um to to bring people in. I'm sorry. What would we have to do? Same thing as everybody else to make sure we were under state law in order to do something like that. I I don't think there's anything you can to to just have it as a community garden. I don't think there's anything you can do to make that legal with state law. I mean, what things could we do?

Well, the St. Patrick's Day parade, we just funded the poultry festival that we fund. Um I know in Betty's district, they have um summer town um festival in my district. It was called Sugar Hill. Um there's there there are things you have to get creative. is something you can do a a 2k walk, 3k walk through your um through your community. Anything that gets your people involved in trash cleanup thing. Well, you know, you have to have it has to have a tourism, right? To it,

but you know, you can easily uh come up with something just to get back to the people. Welcome Bird Le was on number one, but that's only place 178. Talk about the town entrance sign. Yes. Um more of a nicer thing, but I mean you got 178 come through in and out 245 391 and in a few that would be an option of where that district could spend money at if they choose to. And and so when um Teddy was town manager, we did have uh designs worked up for new town entrance signs.

We kind of pushed that to the back burner, but we do have engineered signs and have worked with DOT about um having them in the rightway. Some of those issues permit. Um yeah, uh unfortunately the ones we were doing were were brick, so we had to get a little bit more than just an encroachment. It was a solid, but we were having to work with some property owners. But, you know, that's something council wants to to revive is is the town entrance signs. We we've got plans. It wouldn't be uh a huge expense. Um then I think from that's something that she's interested in.

So, I think the first step would the first step Hello, Miss Betty. I know she wasn't feeling good tonight. Um the the first step I think would have to be reviewing the ordinance because the ordinance is written very specifically for the areas where it can be spent. So I think that first step is uh the hax ordinance to be reviewed. Um and then if and then that would that that's the first step you got to get the ordinance right.

And the thing about it all the citizens pay age tax. When you go get a hot dog, you pay age tax, but only certain, it's li so limited that only certain groups really qualify and take advantage of it. And by extending it out to council, I think it you give us a little uh give the people back a little bit if it's legal. If it's legal, right? Yeah. And I I do think uh just off my recollection, I think council at the time wanted it more restrictive just to yeah make sure that it was being spent properly. Uh when it was still there could be millions of dollars a year. Well, um

and and we didn't have a whole bunch of tour. We we still I mean at the time we didn't have a tourist industry here other than culture. Um still, huh? still don't. Well, I mean, that's why I was This is everybody everyday folks going out to eat uh per se. 85% of the H tax in my estimation comes from people who do not live here in town. See, probably. I would say that's probably the highest. It's the bulk of I would think as far as giving money to the festival place.

St. Patrick's it's open for anybody that wants to go and so you you can't say that it's not open to everybody because it is. So that's benefits that they can all get. I think we we'd be walking a very dangerous path if we try to do that. So easy to get in trouble. And those groups are organizations where we as individual council members would I I don't know where our responsibility. Do you understand that there's only like two organizations that benefit from those things?

Well, one of the one of the requirements is that they are established nonprofit. So they're maybe not a 501c3, but they are through the secretary of state's office. Uh so that has it has limited. So you have the Leisel Merchants, which is Poultry Festival, uh Batesburg Business Association, and and then Arts on the Ridge, I believe, are the only three that have received the grant funding that you're referring to. Um you know one of the discussions uh when Teddy was here and we were discussing that I kind of advocated for church groups to be allowed uh but there was some concern of uh you if it got religious that so the religious and political are excluded from it as well. So, um,

that's why I said the council members and every council member is not going to do it, but they should have the option to to do it. So, instead of splitting the money up to for the council and each have some, why don't we have a committee that we appoint from our council district to tell us how to spend the money? Well, yeah, that's what that was my original idea for the for the Say what? then you accomplish what you're talking about. Well, yeah. Your brother's the one that said you didn't want to do it. I'm not trying to throw him under the bus, but Well, you just did. Thank you.

Well, Jay, that's that's exactly like we were talking about. Leedsville gets a lot of this stuff now where Batesburg and the Better Business Bureau that I've been talking to, uh, you know, kind of suffers a little bit because they don't get quite as much of that kind of money. But that's why I was talking to you about they would I've had several people approach me about bringing back Saturday night street dances and let's move them to Batesburg where those uh and that money could be used to pay for entertainment for like a Saturday night

from a from a grant perspective. The Batesburg business or the BBA and the arts on the ridge have they typically get three a year and there's only one in the le. So from a right but the festival I mean we give $10,000. Mhm. Well we did they but we did 77 click. Well I'm just pointing out that same project the BBA the B district got,000 if you'll add up grants. So yeah, that's going to be that's historical. And what about the what about the people in between?

But let me try. It doesn't appear that the people of Bakesburg get as much at least. Well, if you don't agree with if you if you don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day, here's the problem I got right now. We'll just discuss. Yes, sir. The people in Batesburg and the people in Le. This is Bakesburg Le. There are no people in Batesburg and no we're all Batesburg people. Quit pointing fingers and saying it's not fair. It is fair. We're all the same group. Yep. Yeah, but it's only three groups within that group that actually get money.

Well, they know how they can get it, Steve. And all they have to do is conform and do to the guidelines that are already here. Yeah, but the guidelines say that it's got to be downtown Bazford or downtown Leville or that's what the guidelines say. That's why other groups are not el not eligible or if if they want to do something at the Twin City Park, they couldn't do it because it's not downtown or a town or a town owned park. Well, it's not a town. Well, I'm just saying that is also eligible location. So that limits only certain people access to hospitality money where everybody pays into it.

That's why I said you went to council districts and you can do the the council districts can have their committees within the council district. Well, I think the the next step would be to review the ordinance and if we want to amend the ordinance or change the ordinance, I think that's the first step and then that would have to your plan has to come after the ordinance. So, so we also got to have public property within your district to spend money, right? Some districts don't have Well, you could always do well or you got a point there. um you have a point

but your district I don't know if the town Well okay take five okay is going to put some pocket yeah if you can check with the attorney and see what legally with you know law that we can and can't do that would be great

all right um all All right, moving on. Uh, we've talked about this several times. Some of it was before the election, so a few of you may not have seen it all. Uh, we've talked a couple of different options. One was, uh, traditional lease purchase, uh, or going with enterprise as a, um, option. Uh, the challenge with enterprise, uh, you do have to pay a little bit of management, uh, cost there for them to to run it, but also you can't get, uh, the equipment, uh, the heavy equipment. Uh so what we've got here is a a a grouping of police cars. There are six Dodge Durango uh for uh the police department for traffic. Uh a police department F-150 crew cab. Um fleet uh is in need of a new work body uh F250. Uh fire department um looking for a new pickup truck as well. uh it van and then a pickup truck for wastewater and a pickup truck for the water department and then three pieces of equipment. A Bobcat compact wheel loader which goes back to what we discussed with um street department that would replace the backhoe that they currently use picking up debris on the side of the road. Um that one is identified as a safer option as a backhoe. doesn't have the the part sticking off the back uh which has bumped into a few things through the years. Uh so that would replace the backhoe. Um David has also asked about a compact track loader with mulchure which is a bigger unit for the the landfill and then also a Kabota Mini X which would replace a existing Mini X at the um utility maintenance crew. A couple of items there that say budgeted items. Those were items that we'd like to just put in the budget. Um I can't imagine financing a a equipment trailer or dump

trailer. And then also uh the used street sweeper that we have that was uh worn out about 15 years ago when we bought it from Asheville. Uh it it is needing to be replaced. So what we are looking at is about a $40 to $50,000 unit. Uh on the next page uh is say on the proposed capital equipment lease plan. U well I was are there any cars?

Well I was I was going to show just that on that next page you do see the picture of that street sweeper that is a 2016 model. Sorry. Um besid just finishing that thought. Well, it's my understanding last year, more than a year ago, the police department was in urgent need of six vehicles and an average of two vehicles per year uh to bring the plea up to date. Um so you have six here and that's a fiveyear lease purchase plan. So we're going to wait five more years before we buy more police cars. Are there two cars in the Grave dealer budget this year in addition to the six?

We would love to get to that point. I don't know that we'll have finances for two in the in the budget, but yes, I would love to get to a point where that is just a cycle in the budget that we're we're buying police cars. Well, it's almost necessity our police department. Yes, sir. What? We bought two cars, I believe, uh, in the last five years. Is that about correct? They were they were grant cards. Yeah, they were grant cards. One's at the the school is with an SRO and one is with the domestic investigator. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's seven in the proposal though. Six Dangos and one in a truck.

Yeah. But yeah, that was an insurance replacement. Insurance replacement was a new one as well. It was new when it was total. It was a newer one. Um the direct six ring goes to what? The F-150. That second line there

is also police vehicle. Um we do anticipate resale values of approximately 125 to 150,000. U Jeremy I did a little bit of research estimating 30 to 40,000 on the street department backhoe. Uh the skid steer high $40,000 range. Um, and then the utility department mini excavator would be about a $30,000 piece. Um, and then there's an assortment of police cars and some pickup trucks and a very used street sweeper that might not bring much more than scrap. But, uh, so that that is what we are looking at proposing on the capital equipment lease purchase. Um what and I've had conversations with the uh the same group that did the um lease purchase for automated metering infrastructure. Uh so they would uh go ahead and and run that process. We would have an ordinance that would require two readings and it could run concurrently with the the budget and then have the payments in the budget. Again, uh the line items are in the current budget. It's about 76 $78,000 in the general fund and about about 19 or 20,000 in the uh enterprise side. This obviously would be a much higher not number closer to 200 220 range annually to to do all of these. Um the the intent is to have that in the budget for um for that approval uh moving forward with the uh the next two meetings. Uh on that next page, you do see just some pictures. If you have questions, please feel free to ask.

Yeah, street does it is it able to come over across town to the B district? Not Bber, but this tober this year. Yes, sir. It is. Okay. That's what number one, right? They just need to make a right turn down Oak Street. They can go back up. Went down that far enough. That's the only sidewalk we got in my district. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is true. It's not it's not the sidewalks. Well, no, it's just the curb. Yeah,

we don't have to have a curve. Yeah. So, Dur. All right. So, um Well, your district, but your neighborhood does not. Well, yeah. District two. They redrew my since they redrew my district. I don't do streets anymore. Well, that's what I was sitting here trying to live in. I got the whole town, but the district that I live in does not have sidewalks, right? I was looking at you cuz I'm trying to picture the district exactly where you No, I don't I don't think district two covers Main Street anymore, does it? One side of Main Street. Yes, it does. Okay. So, you got a little That's the only sidewalk. Got a little bit in front of my house. Only one side of Main Street before you get to 23.

And then in front of my house, I'm in district two as well. Does four share the other side? It cuts over on Kaufman Street. It goes over Bernard. I have Kaufman. I have three streets. Yeah. And it's only the side of number one opposite. Well, the same side the bar prices on. Yeah.

All right. Um All right. So, moving ahead. Um we are are looking at a couple of new positions. One's a a totally new position and one's a part-time to full-time uh janitor position. This is something we've talked about previously whenever we discussed the construction of the park restrooms. Uh obviously those restrooms uh add a lot more uh cleaning to the uh the town. And so we are proposing a a new janitor position. Uh it would be funded at uh the same rate as the street labor in the competent class study. Uh the salary would be$1679 an hour, 34,933 annually. Uh 61,000 with benefits. Uh proposing 75% of that from the hospitality tax at 45,750, 15% from the police budget and then 5% from admin and 5% from utility billing. Uh the position will take over the primary responsibility from the public works department or street department for the cleaning and maintenance of the new restrooms at the park as well as cleaning of the rental facilities. We hear a lot at town hall that the facilities are not as clean as uh our customers want. Uh this would address that. Um we anticipate that this would provide a more thorough and frequent cleaning of these facilities while freeing existing staff for other duties. Um we will propose the reuse of an existing vehicle for this position and supplies will be located at each site. Um the funds for the current janitorial services at town hall and the police department will roll into this position. Currently cleaning rates are $95 a week for town hall and um then there's police department which is a little bit more. I didn't break that down weekly. Sorry.

A little bit. It's more than that. It's more than that. Yeah. Yeah. It's 90 per cleaning. So, it's not one a week, but um so that's about $11,400 that would be um already in the budget that would just be covering that. So, the majority, the bulk of it would become the H tax to cover those hax duties and again freeing up the street department staff for street department duties. Can I ask a question on that? Yes, ma'am. Would we consider or could we consider contracting that out? We actually bid that. And to do what we are proposing here, it was over $90,000. Yeah. Excuse me. Yes, sir.

Go. No, go ahead. I was just wondering I'm wondering how you got from 34,933 to 61,000 with benefits. Well, that was factoring in that's a 70% benefit rate. Uh that's factoring in the healthc care. It it was it was budgeting at assuming family. Uh so it was budgeting at the highest end. I would love for it to be lower, but that was that was worst case scenario including retirement and health care and um what is our policy on healthcare as far as cricket you would be the better one uh policy on health care as far as what we cover what is required it's all state requirement but

fulltime employee yes it is a state and that also includes the health care any of the dental care envision here. Um, but this we pay for the portion. What portion do you pay? We pay it's it's right at 75% I think for um like if you have family care it's almost 1,500 a month. So we pay 75%. It's about 75% for healthare. Mhm. Well, going back to my question, if we're at 60 and someone bid 90 and we're supplying vehicles and the fuel and stuff, how close can we run the numbers again on that? Just

and not saying one would be better than the other, just we certainly can. Um, we, if I recall correctly, in the uh RFP we put out there for the janitorial services, uh we would be supplying the uh cleaning supplies just as we already do. Uh so we were going to incorporate that. So that was that uh bid was just their labor. Um now wasn't 90. It was it was it was it was extremely high. It was higher than what I thought they would have gotten.

Yeah. Um we certainly can we can certainly post it again. We can reach out to some of the companies. That was the initial attempt was to get a third party that would not be an employee and just have a a contract to service. I'm just thinking it might be one less um but the the pea coverage that we provide that is what is required by state law. We we're required to to cover that. We're not covering anything extra. We're just covering what is required by people.

We we have kicked around that. It would most likely go under public works kind of what we just talked about five minutes ago with, you know, that needing to kind of be split between parks and and street department, but at the moment that would be the most logical place because if if that person was off, the street department crew would be the one that would have to cover to make sure the bathrooms were cleaned. When you advertise this, you advertise once a week cleaner or like on the rental properties, you know, you need to clean them before or clean them after.

Well, so so what what we currently do, uh, our street department crew on Monday will go and and go to each of the rentals and and inspect it, make sure one that it was left as they found it, that it's it's just an inspection, and then they will clean the the facility. And again, it is a very basic cleaning done by guys that are are much more suited for picking up limbs than they are for janitorial. So, I clean that way.

Yeah. So, uh so it it's not a good thorough deep cleaning. Uh but but that is done on Monday, but if you every once in a while, and it happens more than we'd like, you may have a rental on a Saturday and then another rental on a Sunday, right? And we currently have no system in place to verify that what that person's walking into on Sunday is clean. Uh they could be walking into a room that's cleaner than the person on Saturday got or you could be walking into beer cans and they could have had a heck of a party. Would that cover would they be a salary person then or would that cover over time?

Well, what we go in on weekend? So what we discussed uh internally was trying to do an alternate schedule where they would have maybe their weekend would be a Tuesday or Wednesday, you know, in the middle of the week and that they would do cleaning because cleaning town hall on the weekend would be more conducive than during business hours. U and so if we could work it where it would be flexible and that traffic at the park is much bigger on the weekend than it is during the week. So we've identified the weekend as being uh valuable for that. Yeah. Um but so that is the intent. Um now finding somebody that wants to work that schedule that's going to be fun. So another question Jay, so this person would also work here at the town hall and the police department. So

yeah, so they would they would have some of those cleaning duties for town hall and police department. So contracting that out may not be as good of an idea because you might have to Well, currently those certain credentials to be able to go into certain places. Yeah, they they would have to be vetted, right? As a police officer would have to be vetted to be able to be in the police department. Right. Right. So contracting somebody and then they have employees we could run into. So we might do better with you now. Yes, sir. Question about our rental contract. Do we have provisions in our rental contract that they that they are responsible for cleaning the property after they get through? And if they if they don't have it clean, then they're going to have to pay to

so to have it cleaned, lose deposit.

So they lose the deposit. Yeah. So right now it's 250 and we're going to touch on on that in just a few minutes. Um so rental is 250 for the depot and 150 for the cafeteria and for Hannes. And after a a positive uh inspection by the street department, they'll go ahead and give the okay to to do the the deposit uh refund the deposit. Uh if they don't give a positive, if they left a mess, uh then we have revoked that and kept the deposit. So that is in place now. Um you know, you can make the argument is it is $50 enough sometimes? Um, but that that that is that that is the the carrot that we dangle to make sure that they clean up behind the

church. We we give them the option. They can either clean it up themselves or you can pay to have our people clean it up at the church. So that's an option we do. Most people clean it up themselves because you're going to clean it up cheaper than the church is going to charge. Yes. To do it. So Okay. We need to make sure we we Yeah. And if we in the rental business, we got to act like people in the rental business because I guarantee you wherever you go, you going to pay to have it clean. And if there's any damages, we need to bring in there. If they're not,

we we do have that. Um, one option that we've talked about is eliminating two rentals over the weekend and and doing away with Saturday, Sunday backs without a cleaning. Um, if we do get the janitor position and we do have that weekend schedule, I would feel better that that person would go in first thing Sunday morning and and do a cleaning. You know, that would be the priority is if somebody's coming in because they are not supposed to be in the building prior to 10:00 a.m. That happens sometimes, but it's not supposed to be. Um, Chip, I think you had your hand raised. I was just going to say the estimate of $1,500 for health insurance for a family of four, for example, is dead on what my district contributes on my behalf. Yeah. Yeah. That that's the pea.

I just looked it up. It's the PEA, right? Yeah. Um there's no way around that, I don't think. No. No, it's not. Bo, did you have your hand up? Yes. Okay. Okay. Um Paul, what do y'all don't call people janitors anymore, right? Custodian. What's an environmental engineer? Something like that. It's environmental services. Housekeeping. Environmental environmental services. Ours is called housekeeping. Environmental services. That's not called. I think you got to pay more if you call it environmental services. We have environmental assistance is what we have. Environmental assistant. Yeah. Something like I just know that was kind of PC thing that was going to happen. We don't we don't call them cleaners or something.

Okay. Well, we can we can Yeah. I'm just going to say this out loud. listening to what the duties are going to be and I think about housekeepers in a school and the number of rooms and bathrooms they have to clean up in a day. This is a lot. It it is a lot and uh especially not being in the same location having to travel from one place to another. You know, we've we've talked about that internally. You know, fortunately, you're really talking about four locations, town hall, police department, and then the two parks. Um yeah, those bathrooms need to be cleaned every day. So, they're going to hit the parks, you know, every day, summertime, maybe twice a day,

possibly. Yeah, that's possible that um and and just for your information, uh the contractor today went to Leville College Park and somebody was camped out. They had somehow gotten into the uh janitor room at the the new bathroom. They hadn't damaged anything, but they they had a little camp set up in there. Uh somehow they gotten a key. I already heard that it was a a m but a homeless guy that's taking up shelter from the contractor. I went out to his house to work and he said, "Oh, by the way, we went up there to do some work. There was a homeless guy in the in the utility closet. We had to run him out." So, I guess we don't have a key yet, do we? We do not.

So, but they have a they have a lock box there. So, if I I don't know how, but he did not damage anything to gain access. or what? Yes. Police is putting cameras up here so we can monitor that at the police department. Um, you talk about money, huh? You talk about money. Putting cameras up. It's like a doorbell camera. Well, we we've got cameras all around. So, it's They're everywhere in this in this building. Trust me, I know. See outside here. Yeah. Not in the bathroom. Not in the executive. So, yeah, there's a couple places. Yeah. So, um All right. And then the other position that we're

It's not It's not as much money as we spend on them bag on bathrooms. It might be worth it. And it might be worth it. It it will be worth it. Yes. Look at um how we what we do for homeless in this community, which is probably nothing. Yeah. We we don't really do anything for homeless. Um to touch on the camera thing, we have talked about the possibility of adding cameras in the rental facilities as well. We currently do not have any cameras in the facilities, but I wouldn't want cameras inside the building. Well, we we have had damage before. We've had people break into the depot

outside right outside of it. But inside, I mean, I don't think people rent. It's like an invasion of privacy. I know somebody looking in on our baby shower. Well, me and Bob might be having, you know, we might be having a party or something need to be have a mouse in your pocket or pregnant one or the other place and do something you shouldn't do and you get caught on camera. That's all you Yeah. I mean, if you really want to Well, I mean, I I see nothing wrong with putting cameras. They're everywhere

and most churches have them in every room now because, you know, the thing you could run into is a child, you know, something happened or whatever. So, a lot of public places are going to that because of liabilities. Well, the way I see it, we spend a million dollars on a bathroom. You talk about getting a black eye for trash not get picked up. You let somebody go down there and find where some kids gone in there and spread crap all over the wall. I don't want I don't want cameras in the bathroom, but definitely cameras around it. Yeah, there won't be they will not be in we have to have janitor down there every day. And if environmental engineers

Yeah. Well, whatever. I'm not going to argue over sematics, but anyway, we we we in agreement. Okay. I'm sorry. All right. And then the other one is uh administrative assistant at the police department. Uh moving that from 30 hour a week position to a full-time position. I currently paid 1758 an hour. Uh that rate would not change. Uh but the workload has necessitated that. Um now the the big thing is that doubles our hit because obviously you take on the benefits at that point once they go fulltime. Uh so it would go up to 53 152. Um that's our two part- timerrs. Um

you get 60 hours and same money. Y'all want to do one of y'all want to tackle that one? Just sure. Um 30 hours does not have benefits. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Part-time position does not carry benefits. You get what you pay for. Okay.

All right. So, first off, first off, just to be a mouthpiece for Nancy in her defense, without her since December the 17th, I don't think the police department would function as efficiently as it has. Um, she's been the glue to kind of hold everything together with uh with the transition of the interim chief and myself with everything that we've gone through trying to keep everything going. She's made sure we've we've ran. She's Are you advocating for a person or a position? Well, I'm advocating for her. I'm going to let you know what she does for the department right now. I'm just asking. Yeah, I haven't got to the part about the advocating for the position. That was

so um but but she does but she does a lot for us. Um we

That's right. So, she's she's the maintainer of the day-to-day operations. All we have to do is ask the right person that's full-time just we need this done and it gets handled. But a lot of the things that we put on her this might seem incidental but it saves a lot of man-hour. Uh what that position does is expungements is the biggest thing from the court system. Those are maintaining those records on the police side. the court orders it. If a ticket is dismissed, if it's a if a ticket is uh null prost not guilty in in municipal summary court like we are mandated by the state expungements. We don't have a choice. We have to expunge everything. Um and so her position handles that and it is uh it is quite sometime it can take up to 4 hours to complete one expungement depending on the type of incident that there is. Um there are expungements that get ordered from general sessions court as well. Um she does between five and 20 per month. Uh she maintains all the training and personnel files for the police department employees um keeping up with their reertification. She's received the training to do all of the reertification, make sure they're right. She's actually at a training now for um so the with the mandates from the criminal justice academy, we have to have someone certified to do background checks and she's at a training that's going to officially check that block. She keeps office supplies and incidentals, cleaning materials for the police department ordered. Um she's the first person that folks talk to in the citizen complaints process. Um the in the invoices that we code and send over, we keep a running total of everything that we've submitted. Um and in the

absence of the victim's advocate, she has her career was a 30-year career as a victim's advocate. And so that's what she does. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it's relieved the two of us a mountain of paperwork that we don't have to touch. Um I I would have never have thought four years ago that we needed we needed an administrative assistant. Police the officers did it. We didn't have anybody.

The officers did it. Chief Oswald did it. Chief Amit did it when he started and just who the was the designate by the chief to uh take care of paperwork. But bringing her on part-time was huge. And she was doing a full-time jobs work in that 30 hours. and and you know there would be times that she would stay and she wouldn't write everything down and we'd we'd fuss at her and you wanted her to be full time. Yes, sir. We we we need her to be full-time. We would not function as efficiently without especially as short as we are. That's taken a lot of the paperwork and a lot you know to do get ready to just cut to our package too.

It's it's absolutely worth but it's just she's just insuring herself. her husband is retired and uh he gets his insurance from the county. So, she would be the minimal the the current person would be the minimal person in that position for insurance benefits. Um but uh just getting when we get an when we get an application, it's that that takes I mean she does all she she calls around all of the the references that are listed. She does all of that. I mean, that would take us that would take hours away from the other stuff that we've got to get done that we've got to be out on the road doing. So,

well, the the term assistant sort of through me sounds to me like the uh position should be called office administrator or that's what I that's what I call her. Administrator. That's what I callative assistant. I'm an advocate for administrative assistance because that leaves the work that the others need to be doing to be done by them, right? Not doing the administrative, you know, the bookkeeping and the paperwork that has to be done. It's better to have somebody doing that so the other people can be police officers and do that. Yeah. I'm an advocate for that.

In terms of baseball, it's a fully functioning utility player position. I mean I mean and all we have to do is ask and she just figured out Yeah. Nancy figures out if, you know, if we able to get her full time and continue that get it full-time and and and do everything that we're doing, if you know, if we were to lose her, I mean, I don't know if we'd ever find another one like her. So, I mean, that's right. That's right. But, you know, with with time comes the training, and with the training comes the efficiency, and that's what she's doing for us now. So, sounds like she works pretty well unsupervised. Absolutely. So, therefore, absolutely. Term assistance. She supervises definitely me. I I won't speak for the chief in the back, but definitely me. Yeah, I would agree. We need to work on her job.

Yeah, but we're looking at 25,000. From what Jay's got here, well, but he's saying Yeah. her ability to have a job. That's right. She She likes us for some reason. I haven't made her cry yet. So That's the first that I know about. Hey, wait a minute. I'm sorry. All right. All right. I will note y'all didn't like either one of my job titles. All right. Well, administrative assistant is fine with me because I work under that title. So, whichever.

All right. Another one that we need to talk about and and so I'm throwing a lot of things at you tonight. One of the things that I've had some uh feedback on recently is making sure everybody's aware of things and and communicating. So, some of this is not budget related. It's just getting information out there and getting everybody on the same page. Uh so, facility improvements, we don't we're not planning to put a lot in the budget for this this year. But, uh, you know, one of the things that I would recommend that we need to look at is, uh, looking at a general architectural firm to meet with town council and and department heads to study pros and cons of renovations versus a new facility. I've heard from several of you, uh, interest in a new town hall, uh, perhaps a town hall police complex, even I've heard town hall police fire all under one roof. Um, so, you know, the police department has renovation needs. Uh, their flat roof. Uh they they would love to see and I don't want to drag Dave back up here, but a pitched roof over over that flat roof. Uh that has

do. It's a constant constant thing. We just did the roof. No, no, we just did a whole remodel of the police department. So the roof was done. If you want to come back up here, that remodel was done in the early 2000s, right? There was prior to 2010. So, the only remodeling that we've done at the police department since I've been there is we've painted some rooms. We've taken 1978 wallpaper off the wall and painted those rooms. Dispatch when this when this was built.

Um, it was loved so much. And I don't know how Chief Oswald talked the Teddy into doing it, but that's uh that that got done by the same group that did all this after they were done here. That's the only real renovation that's been done there until we upgraded dispatch with the new consoles and uh all of that equipment. We took a window out, put a wall in just to make their area more secure. Um so that they wouldn't be susceptible to someone, you know, shooting through a door window so they could come in. Um, but the roof the roof getting onto the roof the so we the roof was done 19 years ago and and it's uh some type of membrane roof that they have to come back and retreat every 10 years. This is your it was retreated.

We told them not to do it. It was retreated and and it's been it has been the most going to live to see it. that that roof that roof has been the best roof that that has ever been on that building. Oswaldwood was there the whole time. It It's the fe it's got the fewest amount of leaks, but it's it's leaking it and and it's time to treat it again and before we spend the I think it was 20 something,000 before before I eventually they're going to get to the point where oh they're going to have to remember and I think it was like $180,000 roof when it was done. I don't know. That was that was before my time. Speaking of Chief Oswel,

it was probably about we did our part of our church and the town hall the police department's probably double that size. I think we just got 35,000 re Yes. And the resealing it, the treatment that they do, they it takes them about 3 days to come and do that. They they clean it, they pressure wash it, um they do whatever. They find spots that they have to tape up, patch up, and then they recoat it with whatever fix would be better. Yes. and and air conditioning units located all all five of them. That's a problem there.

Um we I spoke when the when we had to replace the one this past summer um with uh when I spoke with Darren at Custom Comfort who does our work. Um he said that it it would be an expense obviously because they would have to relocate stuff, but it would not be terrible because they would be able to they would be able to take it up kind of like they did right here at uh St. Paul's when they put their roof on. They just moved them down and then they piped up and then tied into the uh existing area. Yeah. But it's just something that we wanted to throw out there because, you know, that's a that's a going to be it's going to be a big expense to put a pitch roof on that building. But it's the

we want it to last another 50 years. So that's right. We know about the restrooms. Which restaurants? Oh. Oh, yeah. We've got cold water. Um the electric water heaters. Uh it's time to replace those again. Um they don't they don't last long. Uh that was an energy efficiency grant part of something that we got. I well I say they haven't one got struck by lightning but I think the original ones are in there and they don't no none of them work anymore. How many restrooms do we have out there?

All right. So you've got two right outside the courtroom. You've got one rest a male and a female right outside the courtroom. There is one in the jury room, a single stall restroom. There is a staff restroom kind of in the middle kitchenet area between what's the squad room and the back hallway. You've got two in dispatch U and then you've got three in each cell and then there's one in the back where the old Bakesburg fire station was right outside my office. Yeah. And we've we've recently replaced all of the flush handles on almost all of the toilets, the ones that get the most use. Uh so we have done that. Um we what on demand wouldn't even really be an option?

Well, they we we have the on demand water heaters now. They're just electric. Um, so it I mean for the little bit of hot water that we use it, I know it's not the most efficient way to heat water, but you're talking about just wash your hands is all we we do really other than when you make a bucket of mop water. So, but uh but there are some issues with the jail. the jail inspector noticed that uh the tile floor is coming up and things like that, but things like that could be all rolled into to uh one big, you know, right? I like that. I'd like to see

Well, we're going to we're going to still have to utilize that building even if we were to build a new one if because the jail we are currently grandfathered in with the requirements of the jail. Um we we pass our inspection. We passed our inspection this year, but they come annually to do those inspections. Um, I think when I was talking to Sheriff Roland, I saw him at uh, one of something at Cal's store, and I think their new sheriff's office they built cost them around $25 million. Um, I think he said a little over 10 was just for the jail portion. Jail part. Just for the jail part. $10 million for the jail.

For the jail part, because you have to do the controlled access doors, you have to have the remote place to to do all it. It's a lot of Now, that's not apples to apples, but but but but percentage-wise, it would it would be the same.

As I say, I like to look at um what it we take. I mean, this this idea Well, this was a dumb idea from the beginning. We should have took the the building where um uh Maxway was was in Rose and we could have done everything we needed to do in that building, but we got this building and then we tried to get the building across the the way there. So, we probably need to look at um

we probably need to look at building new town hall. Well, and that's mentioned there. Town hall needs obviously all the offices are occupied. Um u looking at future needs. Yeah, that's that's coming. Um the Yankee me says we need to go up and that out all the time. We could we could go up, folks. We don't have to go We don't have everything to be a ranch um style building. Um, but I'd like to see us look at um three or four options for for council because we do have a big box that is vacant. Um, I think behind um some of the old

No. Well, that's a big box, but also over a newer B box is over here behind next. You got a big box. Good. You got a big box right here. quarter bump. That property was sold 18 months ago for 1.2 million bucks, which included u all of the property here. Uh and it was bought as a venture capital um investment. Uh so someone needs to ask if it's could be put on the market again. And it is a two floor, but the problem with two floors is ADA. Elevator elevator. Well,

it depends on what's on the second floor. Might have employee on there. Okay. Yeah. I would love to see if there's any way possible to find that spot to locate all of our services. Okay. So, what do you say, Dave? He said he knows the ideal spot. Where? I do too. Right over here. the old school property. That's where that's where Rob said, "I'd love to see you. The old school, the old school, the old high school, the old middle school." At least that field. Yeah. I mean, that's that's about the most central part. Yep. Yep.

Fire out there and have the offices of the town hall where the building is still sitting. To me, that would be the most logical place to put if you want to build up everything. have everything in one and we could even get a drive through this. You think Benji could sell it to us? I don't think Benji can stop. I don't think you have anything to say about it really. I don't know.

Even if for a while we would have to move the jail up there that have dispatched there could have everybody else, you know, and then slowly but surely move it. All right. So, so yeah, what you know what we just need to think about is is perhaps engaging an architectural firm. There are tons of them when y'all go to the MASC conference in July up in Greenville. Uh there'll be plenty of vendors that will give you plenty of uh paraphernalia about their their companies. do what? They'll give you plenty of handouts and pamphlets and uh stuff all the different firms that'll be at the MASC conference. Talk about architectural firms.

Oh yeah. No doubt. The company I work for has arm and then on the utility side obviously working towards decommissioning the water plant. Uh that includes Brody Creek pump station, the town pond pump station, demolition of certain facilities. Uh again that's underway with the final phase of the water project. Uh we will be uh I believe it's required to at least at minimum take the Brody pump station the Brody Creek pump station back to dirt. It has to go back to we need to by the end of the year is is Andrew. Would you like I don't have anything better.

Yeah. End of the year is kind of the end of the year is what has been talked about. Oh come on Andrew. Um, good. And then while we're talking uh, you know, bigger projects, you know, I I think we do need to consider, you know, a utility mainten utility maintenance operation facility. Um, utility maintenance crew currently works out of the White House that is next to the water plant. Um, you know, having some kind of facility to make sure we keep all of our equipment um, indoors protected. I have used the description of a a fire station, you know, with with bays and then office space. Um, down at the water at the water plant at the water plant. Yeah.

You going to put more bays down there? That's that's something we I think we need to consider. Yeah, that that would be one option. Yes. Um cuz right now we we have some stored inside, some that's kind of some's out in the weather. Most of the equipment, the min and stuff is under a roof. But um we can do better and and qualify for as a community facility. Probably not cuz usually community facilities have a a a public space that can be rented out. Is that what you're getting at? No. No. Like the the fire departments and stuff like that. They use rural development. Rural development has the requirement, I think, that you have a community room that's available for public use for I think I think that's the u I mean we could check into that, but um

right. That's why they call public. We could rent one of the rooms in the old water. Well, we're going to put a We're going to put a big beautiful ballroom in the new town hall, right? Yeah. Donald Kane over here. Steve Trump, one of the two security. I mean, why not? Oh my goodness. That would qualify for as a community. It would. It would, you know, and if you look at Lexon, Lexon Town Hall has a room that is is is used a lot for weddings and different events, graduation, a lot bigger and a lot more places to get tax money from. Goldplated gold. Um, so

what is in here? I don't know what you're bringing. You want to see go down and look at Akens. Really? I think Lex is really y'all wrote by and said damn is that Aken County or is that the town of Aken or I it's I don't know it says Aken only a year worth of that's the county it's big

it is it is big yeah um all right so just jumping ahead uh again just kind of going over some stuff reviewing things with you Pine Street Corner Parking talking about hospitality tax Pine Street Corner parking We are going to have to get a tree replaced. Those trees did have a one-year warranty, but we got one tree right there in front of the liquor store. Maybe somebody poured out a drink or two. Maybe what Steve's got in his cup. And uh so that one's that one's going to have to be replaced. Um we really want the trees right there, honestly, because as they grow, I mean, trucks are going to be hitting right there. They they'll probably need trimming absolutely in the future. Um yeah, that's going to be a lot of a lot of work. I mean, better not putting another tree back there.

I go through it every day. So, I look at them and I'm thinking if that's something, you know, if we want to have that discussion and it, you know, and just not put that tree back, you know, that's put in the tree box on the sidewalk. Well, and that's what this one is right there in front of the liquor store. It's right there on the side of side of the road. Yeah. So, it's kind of in a park what used to be a parking space out into the road already. Does it have does it does it have irrigation? What was that sir? Have irrigation. It Are we watering those trees? Does that tree by the road have irrigation? The irrigation tree should be getting wet.

Yeah, everything should be getting wet. Yeah, there's irrigation. And I wasn't sure if it went out in that parking space out there, but but yeah, it must be plumbed under the the ditch. describes as being everything's going to die if we're not watering. Yes, it they do have irrigation. Yes, sir. And I wasn't sure about that specific parcel, but Andrew says it does. Um, but Pine Street Corner parking was completed this budget year. Uh, the restrooms, we have the final walkthrough tomorrow. Uh they are going to swap out the the door locks to a timer lock so that we will have timer locks on the the bathroom doors, not on the the u utility closet door. That will still be a key, but uh but a rental unit.

Yeah, we can make some money off of that. Um but that is the um uh that's tomorrow with final walk through. Uh there will be those door locks will be swapped out uh later, but hopefully those will be put into service this week. Um Woodard Unity Park again uh just an update, you know, we have not gotten an appropriation on that. We have requested twice. Um, one thing I would like for us to pursue this year, I did not put it in the uh actual annual action items, but uh trying to maybe use CDBG funds, getting a small uh end of the year kind of opportunity to remove the underground storage tank that's at that old gas station. And if we can remove the tank and some of the concrete in the area, u at least it would clean up the area and then be one step further along. Uh, we should be able to get some

as as we're doing the Wood Unity Park there. And I know some of you know that I'd like to see it swapped as far as the parking on it to to make that part because it's already engineered um for thousands and thousands of dollars. Yes. But the road is going to wind up probably having to change right there. That's what I was gonna ask. Is that going to affect you talking about if we make it a one-way street? Yeah. And whatever happens there with the roads, is that gonna affect That'll be a DOT problem. Yeah, it'll be a DOT problem. I guess they would I don't see them, you know, the the traffic circle idea that was floated a year or two ago. I that would not work there in my

there's still an issue there going on the DOT. So, would they be um if they come over into our property, could they be a help in removing some of those tanks? Yes, but I don't see that in in the near future happening. I I don't see them encroaching upon our our property there. Yeah, I thought that um that um the um brownfield is going to be so we the conversations that I had with Kataba Cog recently was there is no more brownfield money available right now. There this was last year. This one's

So, we've gotten the phase one and the phase two environmentals done. Yeah, the environmentals have been done. Okay. And so, they know what's there, but we there's no funding to to do the work. Yes. Okay. Um, and so 26 27 again, but how much you think it would cost? I don't really think it' be that much. I think it would be

50. Yeah. But I'm not that that's as long as it don't go under sidewalks and then somehow impact the roadway. You you never know what you might find. But um so just to again remind you, we did apply for that million-dollar grant through parks, recreation, and tourism. Uh we should learn that in October. It is a 50/50 grant. Uh one of the things it would be for a specific parcel, and that was Wilson Street Park, which was the one we identified. Um, so in order to do the park renovations, we would need to do a revenue bond based off of HAX revenue uh to fund those improvements. Um, we have, you know, had conversations with Cal and submitted, uh, information to the legislature for improvements to Hannes Auditorium. Um, I don't want to sound pessimistic, but I'm pessimistic. Um and then at least for the big for the big amount. Hopefully something will happen. Uh and then also the federal request for Woodard. Um the next one you see is uh Leville College Park. Give you something to look at some pictures. Uh again that's your artist rendering um from kind of hovering over Dr. Speaks's house looking back into the park. So the main things would be the new playground uh completely redoing the playground that is there and then the parking lot. Uh rough estimate that

well is that different from that? No, they're all No, it's the same. It's just a different view. Yeah. If you see the top left over there, it's the same. You get a little different bird's eye view. So, um, but roughly 1.9 million is that cost estimate. Um, turnkey. Was that engineering? No, that we've already paid the engineering. This is for the construction. This will be an estimate estimate. Joe's got Joe's listening there. We have actual engineering drawings for this. Uh, I do not have I've got I've got PDFs of them. Yes. Uh, but the

Yeah. Uh, Land Plan Group South is the one that has it and they Yes. So, time to have all this stuff done, right? Like 12 mil. No, no, no. That's a month to get everything done. Oh, no. 19. Okay. 19 longterm plan in here. Did you bond it 19? Oh, it do. We want to bond it and do it all at one time or no. Well, that's a discussion to have. That's 4.2 for 1.9 here. You've got the two main street projects. Oh, yeah. If you're talking about all of those, yes. Well, okay. He used the expression all in 19.

Okay. Cuz it's not going to build. Oh, yeah. It's it's it's definitely going up. uh

so on the the part about the downtowns and that's something the mayor has has uh stressed recently is we need to do something about sidewalks on in the historic district. Um, you know, that was a conversation uh with uh Jamie Kendrick about the safe streets grant is, you know, that we could try to utilize some of the state straight safe streets money towards those improvements, some traffic calming measures. It would not pay for all of the sidewalk. It would pay for certain aspects. Um, but in conversations with Andrew, uh, we still have a lot of old water and sewer lines in those districts, uh, there there's some opportunity for us to get grant money to try to, uh, there are some lead connections. They're not lead pipes, but there are some gooseenecks that are out there still uh, that we might can get lead money to to pay for some. And as we're tearing up, we got to put it back. So, uh,

it all, do it all at one time. make one big big mess. Yes, ma'am. Uh question on that too. Um as some people that are wanting to go at least in Batesburg district, I don't know what's going on in Leville, but some are wanting to put you know Airbnbs and apartments and sprinkler systems having to go in. Could we maybe get something that where we might have to increase our water lines because those have to be 5 in going in to run a sprinkler system. So, so would that we would money from somewhere to be able to update our systems to work for the what we're going to have going on there.

So, and and andrew may be able to speak more in depth on it, but I know that the downtown districts obviously the lines are older and corroded. Uh I I'm on the assumption that most of the pipes on Oak Street, um Fulmer Street, maybe not so much Pine Street are are 6 in. I would as a fireman updated enough to run. They would need to be upgraded to eight or 10 inch. I would think you've got 10 inch across the tracks over on Railroad Avenue by BNL Sports. So, from a fire department perspective, we know that if we've got a major fire, we got to shut down the train and and and pull from there, right?

But in the case of a sprinkler system, obviously they're going to be coming off that main that is right next to the building. um because we know that that's something they're going to try to do on the corner and if they have to put them in and then if we have other places that want to utilize that same idea. So fortunately the whole town. So fortunately in in the case you're talking about I think you're talking about the old Owen drug u I think you do have adequate water there that you would be able to put in a a significant tap.

I think that I think that's fair. any anything like that uh any any sizable project like that that would likely require engineering on the owners for the record so that he would have to pay for that. Well, what No, what I'm talking about is if we have to remove those sidewalks, there might be some grants. Oh. Oh, I got sidewalks to have to put in lines because we have this going on. So, you follow

I I don't think that if there's a grant that would give my department money to if if if there's a grant that would be available to the utility department to do sidewalk repair. Uh that would be probably a very unique situation. I'm not saying that that's out there, but that would tend to more. Now, Jay mentioned earlier, I will back that up. Some of this um the gooseeneck he mentioned before, some of this does have some verbiage in there that may help cover some of the situations to repave or redo sidewalks, but that's going to be a very desirable pot to get your hand in. Yeah. Um but

well that but the lines are not under the sidewalks. The lines are out. Well, it various situ. I was just saying for instance, some of those would be available. And the tap uh the cost of coming from the building to the mine is the building owner's responsibility from the from the from the meter to the to the structure would be the responsibility of the owner. ter the goose net the goose net that he's talking about brings it up from the line puts it in the meter to the meter and it that leads been led the big cities have been excused from that requirement

small systems have not but I think miss uh miss Kathy your your original question about the specifics of how would we handle a large sprinkler system that would likely go back to an engineering design that would be the responsibility of the property owner that would have to be coordinated through our department would have to be approved the drawings would have to be approved all that and we have a very similar situation in town now the whole process has to be approved through our department

okay I know in one town where I was before that and it was Sumpter we had to um the town was involved in that and and I don't know what how they wound up working out where they got the money from but they didn't had the actual lines large enough to push the sprinkler systems in some of the buildings downtown and they were and you know this has been 15 years ago to be able to run the systems and it came down to was the town going to do it the owner we couldn't put that on the owner because they didn't even have it wasn't from the building to the meter it was they didn't have it was the supply side

so you know that was I was wondering when we're talking about sidewalks are we going to have to dig up sidewalks to run these lines. Then we How could we coordinate? No. The town's got to supply the Well, we're not obligated to supply that. No, no. All you got to do is supply water. You don't have to make them. They want a certain requirement. They got to they got to spend that. It's their issue, not not the town's issue, right? That's that's

you have to have enough large enough water flow. They would have to pay. But but in in that situation, if if company A wants to put a second floor on this building or or the other building down the street and they needed, you know, x amount of gallons per day, we have the right to say we don't have that capacity. You're more than welcome to throw your money out there and put that water line in for us, but we're not obligated to do that for you.

Right. Um, what about places where we have to dig up lines and and an owner will have to dig up lines through the sidewalk for a new meter because some of the old lines and I know in Batesburg they run under other buildings and so there are buildings sitting up there now that have no

I I think that question is going to get out of my department if you're talking about how if somebody has to dig up a sidewalk. I'm the water guy. I'm not I'm not the how do we do the sidewalk guy. You know, if the homeowner has to dig up the sidewalk, that's a fight between uh you guys and somebody else's department. I'm just the guy that says I'm I'll I I'll put water over there. I don't know about your fight with the with the sidewalk. Okay. So, I just wonder how we would utilize that between the water and the sidewalk. You know, I was just wondering how we were going to, you know, I don't want to see us fix sidewalks and then have to dig them up.

In in my opinion, if I understood your question, if if if developer B wants to develop some existing structure and that requires demolition of sidewalk on the property owner's behalf, I would think the town council would make the property owner be liable for that repair. Now, I've stepped out of bounds a little bit because I'm the water guy, but that would be my thought on that. Okay. I, you know, I can I can make him say, "Well, yeah, I can I can make him put in a a water line." I don't know that I can make him fix the sidewalk. Okay. But none of our water lines at this point that we know of are going to be in an area where we're going to have to dig up sidewalks to put in water lines.

There likely could be a there very likely could be a spot where we have a water line under a sidewalk. Okay. Well, yeah. Well, we are on page six. We are on page six of 14. So, uh, does anybody need a quick break? Right. Good for me. Yeah. Yeah, if you want to take a a few minute break, grab something to eat, go to the restroom, smoke them if you got them.

All right, and we're back. All right. Uh so just to again just touching on the last thing we got sidetracked. There's the uh view of Wilson Street depot park which would be you know new playground with a splash pad little bit of a walking trail and and a smaller parking lot obviously than um at Leisville College Park just to use the space. But that cost estimate is 2.3 million. So again that's the one we've applied for a grant. I was told that I should be speeding up. I think we we had that little conversation that I need to move faster. So,

so um uh and then this is just a little bit of information for you. Again, nothing uh really just just for your information. Uh so this is 2025 uh train depot, Hannes Auditorium and the cafeteria. Uh 60 dates at the train depot were booked last year, 55 at Hannes, 66 at the cafeteria. Some of those were uh free for staff, but uh the normal it's 250 for uh train depot, 150 for Hannes, 150 for the cafeteria. Shelters only booked 14 weekends during the year. Uh shelters are not very expensive. Um yeah, there's not a whole lot to it. So, um my intent just while we're there is um with the new uh Wilson Street uh restroom with the picnic the the patio area in front not to rent that because I don't want people to feel that they have ownership of the restrooms that it's still public access. time. Um so, um another thing that we've talked about, um I sent it out to you, uh Friday. Uh we did get the phase one environmental study in for the Middberg Mill site. So, now it's kind of that next step of what does council want to do uh with that? Um, does does council want us to go ahead and and talk with Republic Services about ownership of the property?

And then and then what what would the future use be? Again, we don't have to make that decision tonight. Uh, it could be the town hall. Um, it would have to be a lot of cleanup before the but we'll see. Uh, so again, park is an option using the brownfield grant to attempt redevelopment of the site. Um those are those are options. I did speak to EPA in DC and we are on the economics um um what do you call um radar for for that brownfield for that site

for that particular site. All right. Um, so Joe Joe definitely made it known that he would be interested in us getting uh ownership of that property. Is that kind of the consensus? Something's going to change with it being the conversations that I've had with Republic Services was that they were they were interested in in giving it to us. So, um, does that include the other three lots? Yes. Also, across across Highway 23? No sir. 15 acres thereabouts. Thereabouts. I don't know the exact do easements. I mean that would be part of that discussion. We

Yeah. So uh but yeah the the conversation did include the property across the street where the old parking lot was and I think it's 23 across 23 school. Yes. The property across schoolhouse is not Republic service. You think it would cost a big I I don't even know. I don't even know. Um

yeah. Um and brownfields typically cover about 50% is my understanding. So um so I I'll reach out to Matt um and and see what that next step looks like. Um all right. So just again for your information, this obviously will tie in with the budget. Just want to give you a quick grants overview. uh fire department uh they they did finalize that CDBG grant for the new support truck last year which was a 9010 grant. Uh the Vsafe check actually came in today which was 14,600 I think from the state. Uh and then as we approved in March the u the grant writer for the safer grant and the AFG grant. Safer is the staffing, AFG is equipment. Um just in general the safe streets and roads for all grant which is through the federal highway administration now only goes till 2030. Uh we have used C funds grant money to uh help with that local match to start with. Obviously there's $8 million of grant money, $2 million of match. Uh another one that we had this past year was the Palmeta Pride Arbor Day Foundation grant for the trees.

Thank you. Yep. Um yeah, cuz you got a if y'all notice if you go by um the park um in my district, the Twin City Park, there like six apple trees across the front, three pear trees across the um the Maple Street side, and these all came from J. Yep. Not me. No. Uh Pa Well, the Palmeta Pride uh keep the Midlands beautiful. You're the president of the boy, right? I I used to be the exe or the uh whatever I was the chair that that's where whatever I was.

So, but I'm on the board, but I'm I'm not uh anything important. Um

Trouty got you that. So, um H tax again, the land water conservation fund through parks, recreation, and tourism. Uh the utility um high hazard dam grant u that one still has to come back to council. Climate pollution reduction grant for the solar array. Then there's those three CDBG grants. Um, flipping the next page, police department has a lot of grants. Uh, school resource officer grant funds two positions fully including benefits, vehicles, fuel. Um, 100% funded, no local match. Um, then they also have the JAG grant for the domestic violence child abuse investigator, which is 90% state funded, 10% local match. Uh, there's also some money for body armor assistance and body warrant cameras. Uh then often times we get Walmart grants for uh more public events such as shop with a cop. Um and then also working on a $215,000 uh funding for upgrades to incar cameras and body warn cameras which rolls us to the next thing which is those police department needs. Police department just as a reminder is our biggest department uh most expensive department. Dave, remember that Corey? Um, so this will be in the budget this year. Um, is we do have to update our reporting software that is uh 30,000 obviously the first year conversion and it'll be 22,000 uh in following years. Uh the current provider has been bought out and the product is being discontinued. Um Dave, if I recall correctly, you're saying that that is required by the end of the year. Yes. Slid uh told us well it s told us December 31st. It's it's a product that's 32 years old. Um there's nothing wrong with it as far as day-to-day use, but they're worried about security concerns. Even though it all housed inside of our network, our firewalls protect it. They've mandated that we can

no longer use it. So they're sending money. They're absolutely sending lots and lots of zeros with the money they send. Are they sending money? No. It'll be they're not sending any money.

I mean the software that the software that we're looking at the $30,000 upfront. So what that is is we've gotten there is no state contract offering for it. So we we did I have received three quotes. Uh the three companies that we reached out to um two were there two were close. Um, Patrol Logix, a lot of the employees from Law Track that the software that we use have gone to that company to help build them up. They haven't delivered a product to anyone yet. Springdale has signed contract with them. Gaston PD has signed contract with them and of in Lexon County. I only talked to Lex County folks and um

they they haven't been delivered and it's been promised and it hasn't come yet. um smart cop which is what DNR uses um the town of Lexon Casey I don't remember anybody else off the top of my head in Lexon County uh that was almost $500,000 over a 5year period um ARMS is who bought Law Track they bought all the rights they're the only company that is not charging for full data conversion from our existing system where we have 31 years of data Yep. So, um we uh they're the only ones that aren't charging for it all upfront. Part of that 22,000 recurring um that's in year one and thereafter.

Uh we have currently pay Verizon for their Verizon Connect GPS tracking. This we would transition to their AVL. That's part of that cost. So, they're actually a little bit cheaper than what Verizon charges and all integrates with their system uh and integrates with the CAD that they'll be able to provide that we'll be utilizing. So, we've got some money from different parts that are coming forward, but ARMS is definitely the way to go. Um they I've I've been to I've seen Smart Cop, I've been to the Patrol Logix demo, and I've been to the Arms demo and um Arms is definitely who we want to be with.

Are they more user friendly? They all kind of look the same, but patrol Logix is just in their test environment. They don't have a they don't have one in the field yet. L Medical Center is already utilizing ARMS. Okay. They are using a lot you're they're utilizing it for CAD and for report writing. So, but we're the we're one of the few agencies in the state that would need CAD and report writing and jail management.

Uh Smart Cop offers it. Patrol logistics has told us that they will not be able to provide live CAD when they roll out what they roll out. That will come later. Uh originally it was June. Now it's September. That's just for their report writing piece. December 31st. That's right. Their cut date is that. That's right. But I've been very pleased with what I see from uh ARMS. Like I said, I've been to all of them. They all look very similar. They all do. But this seems to be the most bang for our buck. still over 5 years. It's still what you have that total number. You didn't put that in there about there. Um but you know, how the date of conversion Dave um

will we just keep what we got until it all gets it will it will be it will be converted when we're when we go live. Okay. So, and they'll have and we haven't decided if we if we go with ARMS. We haven't decided how many years we'll keep in our live environment, but they'll have a separate section within their software for all of the archive data. That's right. Mhm. But all of our all of our people in our master ID system, all of our property and evidence, all of our jail bookings, all of that stuff is 100% moves over. Okay. Um so, but so we'll have we'll have that. That's right. Okay.

Um tasers. We currently have the Taser 7 CQ. that is no longer an option. We're paying 10,000 per year for that. This was the last year, this budget year. Um the new Taser 10 is what uh they're pushing. Um it's $174,000 over 5 years, 39,000. I know that's a lot. That's a pretty significant increase to that line item for that contract renewal. However, what this will provide us is um this their system. And you have to get VR training pieces with it, right? So, it comes with two VR headsets, a VR controller, two VR tasers, and two VR pistols that will match what we carry. So, they'll go in our holsters just like we're doing that. And then part of our uh Let me go get my Jay. Everybody knows how to use this,

the new software, they all know how to use it. They're not there yet. We're talking about the new report writing software. Yeah, you know how to use not yet. But the training is included in that cost. But it's going to convert. We're not going to have a issue with converting.

They say that we won't uh the uh Lenon Medical Center Police Department public safety. They were a law track customer and they've converted and they are alive. I've spoke with their dispatch supervisor um about the CAD function and she said the officers are trying to get to used to the new flow of how they put information in. But what this will provide now we can't pull live CAD data over into the report and officers can't see it on scene. They have to wait they get it over the radio or they don't get it at all. So they'll have all that live in their car on on there. No hardware on our end to have other than the laptops that we already have in the car with printers. So there's no servers that we'll have to maintain. With smart cop part of that almost 500,000 for 5 years there depending on the features we add. There will be at least two servers that would be required and possibly a third and that would be that would be another $60 to $70,000 based on the specs that they've sent us and the current increase in pricing on um hard drives and RAM. So, so tasers tasers tasers would be the one at the back. All right. So, tasers, these new taser 10s, u with that VR training, it will allow us to uh work on deescalation, uh risk assessment, situational awareness, and threat mitigation. It'll help us be more do more proactive policing because we'll have we'll have those reinforced tools of deescalation. We can go out there and get into we won't wait to be reactive. We'll be definitely on the proactive side. And should we encounter difficulties, it'll give them by annually training to practice those skills and stay on top of them and be good at them so that you know we can interact

and that is included in that price. Yes. Um something was was noticed here that 39 a year or 174,000 is that if we is that if we pay it by the year it cost us a little bit more. Uh yes, they break it out that far. Most people don't want to pay for all that up front, right? So be like less a little bit less than 35 if we paid it up front. So save, right? Um $20,000. And so they gave us a preliminary budgetary estimate when we asked for it. Um we don't know that there may be some things that get tweaked or whatnot whenever that comes in,

but um but this would also give a refresh at the 2 and 1/2 year mark. So they would they would replace the tasers we have in the field with brand new ones at year two and a half or and if the Taser 10 isn't available and they don't they aren't selling or they're pushing a new one, we'll get an automatic upgrade based on that. We just be locked in at that price. Overall, it'll enhance officer safety. The Taser 10's actually have 10 taser cartridges that are individual pins that come out. So you place each shot where be with the current tasers as they were before this development. Uh you had to be within so many feet and you had to be the right distance apart so you can get the proper spread so you can get the most effective use of the taser. Now with the taser 10, you place each shot and so you will be uh and you have a little bit further distance. I'll take getting tased twice over getting sprayed with pepper spray. I don't want either one of those.

Right. Right. Um, incar and body cameras. We would love to stay with Axon to go with their in-car and body cameras. We currently have uh the incar cameras uh from Motorola. They bought WatchGuard. The body cameras we have are are Axon. Uh the body twos are no longer to go with Axon. To go with Axon, it would be a lot of a lot of money. We looked at did a 10-year quote for 26 body cameras and for 16 incar cameras and that would be around $1.2 million over 10 years. Um who what currently we have to um every body camera we have to touch to download the video. There's two of us that do that. Um it's protected. No one only the network administrators have the authority to remove items off of the network. So it's safe video. So, it can't go anywhere, but we want to go with the Motorola system. It's significantly cheaper. Um, I just got an updated quote. I talked to them. I had an appointment to talk with them this morning for two weeks. First time our schedules could get together. I printed that out and brought it with me. So, where Motorola is $210,000 for 5 years, and that gives us licensing for that entire 5year period. That gives us 30 body cameras and 16 incar cameras. The 16 incar cameras that we currently have are no longer being manufactured and no longer can be covered under warranty, but as long as they work, they will work with our server that we have in house that we currently house. So, we have our data inhouse. So we would be able to have cam incar cameras in our entire fleet and we would have not just the the vehicles regularly assigned for patrol and then the body cameras that would put one on everybody to include a couple of spares and then one for the onduty jailer should they need one with an incident back in the jail. Um like I

said Motorola is definitely the way we want to go is significantly cheaper. Um I mean if we went with 10 years it's half of the money. I mean it's and it's right. We currently, like I said, use the WatchGuard system, the older model. It automatically uploads. We don't have to touch it. Going with these body cameras and the incar cameras, that system would stay the same and our body cameras would be automatic and we wouldn't have to touch anything else to to upload them again. So, that would free up manh hours.

Also, the state has a annual in body camera and incar camera. They're separate grants. Um, we have applied for that this year. If we do agree to purchase um these, we are eligible for reimbursement. We just don't know how much money we might get. Um we have no idea of knowing. They'll only fund 10% might be 50, huh?

It could be it could be 75%. We don't know. But they'll only refund the the total number of officers at the time of awarding. So if we have 26 allotted slots and we only have 14 of them filled, they'll only fund refund 14. That's right. And that's at the time of award. And we've already talked about fillings. I think that's it, Jerry. That 26 people at the time. I wish it was that easy. They pull their numbers from the academy, not on our good faith numbers. Sir, I've already tried that. I've already tried that.

Freom assistant can do this paperwork. Well, that's correct. And the grants administrator, it does the other part. So, that's correct. I was everything. All right. Thank you.

Yeah. And then at the bottom was those facility improvements we touched on earlier. Anybody have any other questions? I know and and again, a lot of this information is, you know, again, uh some of these things are not going to be in the budget this year, but these are some needs that are coming up. Um all right. So, uh, we've had conversations, uh, recently about generators. Uh, so we've been working on some, uh, looks at at reusing those two 100 kilowatt generators at the, uh, town pond and the Leville Clear Well at the water plant that are both operational, but no longer needed due to the decommission of the water plant. They are both nearly 30 years old, but operational. Uh the utility department has wanted to consider uh relocating them to the wastewater treatment plant and then the Hartwell sewer lift station. Uh we did get one quote from GSI that shows 38 and $30,000 respectively. Uh Andrew is working on some other quotes. Um we had them consider what would that look like for the town hall and they said it was overkill. Um again you're looking at similar pricing to relocate those units to town hall. So in the $30 to $40,000 range. Um what they recommended um was two units uh so each building would be independent operating uh one with a 22 kW and one would be a 26 kW uh at 12,910 and 15,730. So that would be your high-end worst case scenario uh to provide generator power to town hall building A and B.

Who gave that price? What what company is Mark onsite power solutions genre 2K that was that must be a lot of money to hook them up uh there would be electrical Michael I'm looking at you uh I know you were on that discussion with

yes site A or suite A is a little more because we have a 400 amp service uh versus this build is a 22 part uh 200 amp service. So, some different equipment involved in more power demand on that building versus this building. The 22KW Genrack generator right now, natural gas, you can buy 7,000 bott,000. Well, well, this is the automatic switchover. That does that comes with a that comes with

Yeah. Usually for that six or seven grand in that market, you you're buying the transfer switch. In this case, it's going to be about an extra $1,000 for that special switch. And then the remaining amount is is labor and materials to wire that in. And that's where I guess we would have to if this to go ahead and maybe have a couple more Oh, yeah. We we would have to get other prices. So this would be your high-end uh for that. At worst case scenario, it's your highend. Wait, is that worst case? Worst case, I guess it's low.

Um and then the other generator need that we've identified the police department. Again, we've touched on that a couple of times. they need, you know, the the I haven't received a quote on that. Those five HBAC units are are probably going to be close to 100KW. So, three ton units and I spoke with the same fell at the other power. This is they want to charge $750 to give us that estimate and evaluate our stuff. So, I uh have not g any further with that until kind of got a feel for what he wanted to do.

U and so one of the conversations with the gentleman that gave the when I spoke with him here at town hall, you know, the possibility of converting it all to one. Currently, they've got a 26KW unit that's 20ish years old at the police department and the possibility of just going with one large unit to incorporate everything into one as opposed to having running in series, but that's that's yet to be determined. Um, so just wanted to give you that update on generators and again, uh, staff's been working on getting some different pricing. Um, and so, um, we'll have more information next month with, uh, the budget workshop. Um, compensation and classification study is our our next one. Um, you know, we we talked about that in February when we had Maryanne come in. Um, you know, I there there's no way I see without significant tax increase uh to fully implement the compensation and classification study in year one. Um, you know, the number she had thrown out there was 285 for uh total cost to to proposal. Um, and then that that is setting up the um scenario two, which you have on the on the slide there and on your packet handout. Uh, that gets everybody on the scale. And if you're already on the scale, gets you to the the next step. Um, and then and then on the next page is is that 20step plan, which is a lot of

I I really have a problem with a non-mmerit compensation uh system. Also, I have a problem with not acting. We need to break it down. uh we are in dire needs in the police department to address those that salary restructure and

and I would say street anything wrong with addressing the police department first and then phase in the others particularly but a 20step program simply says that you're and I'm probably going to hurt some employee feelings but uh you know after six years in a position um your value just you're just paying them to come here. It also a non-mmerit system stifles um motivate or stifles motivation to do better. I mean you're not rewarding. All you have to do is do your job, show up and you know you're going to get a pay increase because simply you've been here another year um per se. If you go with a step program, you know, I I think it ought to be limited at like like six years or eight years. I mean, you know, people who are eight years in a job and not motivated to u

promote

to get promotions or whatever is a different and also uh my I'm not sure I understand if if I'm a clerk a uh entry level clerk and I've been here eight years. Uh, so I go to a clerk B. I I get what a clerk B who had been in that job eight years. I get paid the same. That I'd like for us to look at this uh thing again and look at it from the approach of a uh merit system. uh limit the the steps and address the police department like immediately. And when I say immediately, I'm talking about let's have a work session and see what the recommendations are. Uh I don't want to compress the salaries, but at the same time, I think maybe the first uh four positions in the hierarchy need to be changed immediately. Yes, just my expression.

I think that the street department as well as the police department are our two really departments that have got to have some work on salaries. Well, I question that. They're pretty good. We have basically money left over at the end of the year in the street department budget. That's that's not that's not changing salary structure. Yeah, it's not that much left over, but we need to look at what salaries we're paying them to hire people who are Well, what's the overall budget cost for scenario?

Well, 289 was the number that she quoted, but that doesn't factor in all of the the salaries and benefits. Obviously, um, yeah, I mean, you're you're not going to see a change in your PIA insurance because they're already being paid that insurance. Yeah. Insurance doesn't change. And so, you're looking at just those other fringe benefits, social security, Medicare, all that good F stuff. Retirement. And retirement. Yes, sir. Um, which is the baby. So um

and again I don't think this can be addressed overnight. Um so I mean is there a desire to have as part of the next work session you know some kind of specific on police salaries that is that we do have a press in need there. Yes we do. Uh next work session at at least will be May 25th would be the

but we have there is also uh a discussion I had with about contract for solar uh array. So that might be something we could do. I think we were looking at May 2nd which is No, not May 2nd. May 4th. May this Yeah, it's May 4th. Yeah. Uh so that would be next Monday.

I don't know if they will have a contract ready for us to review. So we hadn't nailed that one down. But if we want to um tackle that next Monday, we can same bat time, same bat channel. Going back a few years a um All right. Anybody else have any comments on what what dates? So, what we were just talking about was May 4th, which would be next Monday. Well, that's a work session or that'll be a work session. I won't be able to make it.

Uh we wouldn't want to do much later in the week cuz that would be running into What about Tuesday? I mean, I'm looking at y'all if that works for y'all.

That could change, huh? Yeah. All right, we'll shoot. Yep. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. No, it's okay. All right. Yeah.

All right. And so when we talk about the the salaries, uh, one of the things uh that has been discussed by by many is business license fees. Um, this is a lot to take in. I just take this printed way. So this is Oh my god. Yeah, if you have bad vision, this might not be the right thing.

Um, so so just working on some different scenarios and options as far as business licenses. Um, no names. try to protect the innocent. Unfortunately, uh actually there are names there. If you can't figure out who they are with Well, should be should just have had the NIC codes.

Well, we're we're not we're not going to name names here, but this was the information that was sent out to council recently. So, you've already received this information, the at least the left side of it. Um, and and so the different scenarios that I I kind of put together, and this is just my thinking. I I assume y'all have different ideas. Again, there's a lot of ways to skin a cat. Uh, if you're looking at the the presentation, uh, the the gray box is the current business license and how it does a declining scale. So, it goes 0 to 1 million is paid at 100%. Um and and that changes based on the rate classification. Uh 1:2 goes to 90%, the 2 to three is 80%, 3 to four is 70%, then 4 million plus pays it 60%. Um so one idea I've got there for you is just adjusting that range to 0 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 6, 6 to 8, and then eight plus. Um and roughly a $5 million gross would be about a 15% increase. hold steady at 10 and as you get higher it drops to 10% at the 15 and at 20 it drops to 7.7%. Um as you see uh 39 businesses do reach that million dollar threshold currently um 21 meet the $2 million threshold. um those 19 businesses um saw on average less than $100 in savings that were I think I meant to have 18 businesses there. The ones that are in that million-doll range and then 13 businesses are over 4 million, but they're actually almost all 8 million and above. I think seven 7,955,000. So, um rough estimates and and that information is here. Here you got option one, option two, and then the no declining rate on your your handout. Uh the proposal above

generates about 35,000 in new revenue. It doesn't hit as hard. It just kind of expands the the uh the declining scale. Option two removes the 60% part. So instead of 6 to8 and then 8 plus, it would just be 6 plus is 70%. And so that changes it to about $60,000 in additional revenue. I am not advocating this, but if you just eliminate a declining rate, not everybody does a declining rate. There are different avenues out there in the in the state. No declining rate would generate about $400,000. Um, but again, that would be a significant impact on a lot of businesses, and I'm not advocating that, but I'm just providing that for u information purposes. According to this, that would probably only hit about eight locallyowned businesses. And that's a rough glance. I also question some of the numbers. For instance, um we all know who the $104 million is, but my calculations put that at 70 something million. U 70,000 73,000. They're buck 20. times 60% is 72 * 104 is $73,000. So I'm not sure uh how that's handled whether we don't specify in our ordinance whether or not you follow it with the first million is at 100% the second million is at 90% the third million is at 80% the fourth million is is at 70% and then all is over 60 or does it mean at 4 million plus you do 60%. According

to this calculation, we're actually giving people who are over 4 million 60% on everything. That's that's not my interpretation of it. That may have been the way it was calculated in 2425. That was 25 numbers. Well, that's what these numbers are. That's 60. That's 60%. You're pointing to the 62255, huh? You pointed to the 6255. Yeah. Uh I did not calculate that one. My my calculations are off to the right, but um so well at the current rate, I mean that should be 73,000. I know your your other calculations are probably

well and and and that was what what we received. Uh whether it was right or not, that was the number that came out of the system.

See us do it in two stages. the 555 and then go to a um I mean essentially these people are are making money. All right. And if we don't do this, we're going to have to pass it to our residents and it's going to hurt some people. Uh but it only affects again how many of these are actually locally owned and I I won't count directly but it looks like maybe seven or eight are locally owned. Most of these limited service are are Wendy's, McDonald's, uh out of town. Um

can you elaborate on your 555? I wasn't tracking on that. first year uh we go instead of 10 10 10 instead of uh um 90% you go uh 95% 85% 75% 65% and then either go with a straight 10% off at 2 million or go to a zero uh discount. the Walmart in Newberry uh on that 104 million would pay $104,000 or a little more than that it would actually pay u because they have no discount and uh Dylan Darlington a lot of them uh we just simply have been following the Casey model uh Colombia for instance uh doesn't actually uh go with a full discount down until I think 12 million or no I'm sorry Columbia is 40 something million Casey now goes 11 million so there is the the small businesses are paying a bigger cut of their their bottom line

oh yeah than the big businesses yes and so we're we're discriminating against small businesses the way we do it and as being a small business I don't I'm paying my fair share, but I don't like Walmart not paying their fair share. Okay. As a small business, and that's the way most small businesses feel. I don't mind being in town. I don't mind paying for what I get just because they're a big box store and do all that. They shouldn't get a break. They should have to pay the same percentage off of their bottom line that we have, agree. Yeah. I'm going to bring up with that. I mean, It's a buck 20.

It's a buck 20 on $1,000. Casey does 0 to 5 million 100%. Yeah. Yep. They have changed 5 to 7 million 95%. Yeah. They have changed. Uh I would say that's last year or the year before. So again, if if a change is made, uh again, this is an ordinance that requires two readings. It would not go into effect until next spring because money, right? It would still fall in the fiscal year. Fiscal year. Yes, sir. It would still be revenue that would be generated u in the coming year.

Yeah. I just want to make clear that that would be this would that timeline would would fall. It would be for the major it would be for the 20 Yeah. for the 2027 renewals. So, um the the thing of it is nobody wants to raise taxes. Nobody wants to do it. But you keep looking at these numbers and what we plan to do. It ain't free. And the only way we gonna get it, somebody's got to pay for it. So, it's either going to go up, somebody's got to have an increase. And probably all, even taxpayers and and and businesses both, and I'm sorry if it hurts,

if you want these benefits, it's got to be paid for. But one thing about the business license is it's shared with out of town residents as well because they come here to shop. Well, we we the whole bottom line is if a business has got to pay more business license fees, he's going to pass it on. He's not going to he's not coming out his profit. His profit is going to be the same. He's he's going to do price increases to match. So, the citizens are going to pay it one way or the other, right? They're not going to complain complain as much if prices go up a little bit. that they going to they going to belly ache and do all kinds of stuff a 15% tax.

Well, so economy furniture will have to raise the price of their 75 in television which is $800 something dollars. uh they'll have to raise it approximately a dollar, but still they're going to do it and it's not it's right. It's not going to be as as big a burden on the consumer to do it like a 15% tax increase, right, on our property tax on property tax. And but I say do it in two stages to 5% 5% 5%. And then come back the following year and make it zero 0. I but that's a proposal.

Yeah. And and obviously we're we're not making decisions tonight. We're not going to have this on the agenda for May to vote on. This is something for us to discuss. Um we can have that on that work session with the uh the police salaries if you'd like. Uh so I would encourage all to to look and do some studying and come back with some other ideas. Well, we we basically have until uh January to do it because it's 31st. No, I thought it had to be done by the end of this year.

Typically, when we're doing our our business license updates that are mandated by the state, yes, it's got to be done by December 31st. I'm not sure if we would have to have this done by the state mandate is that you have a uniform requirement, but there is no the limiting item is the ability to get it into the MASC database uh for the year. Yeah, I would not want to push it that late in the year. No, I wouldn't either, but I'm saying yeah,

we don't have to we don't have to do this one. This is not a um May or June drop dead in order to have it impact our fiscal situation next year. All right. So, the one y'all been looking for is the last item on the the uh what was that game? Last item on the showcase showdown. Was that Bob Barker? Um uh so one other item that we do need to uh No, actually, sorry, I spoke too soon. We do. There's there are more. Sorry, I thought I I'm jumping ahead of myself.

Sorry, I got excited there. Uh permitting fees. Um it has been a few years since we updated our permit fees. Uh there have been some CPI increases that have come from Safeuilt. Uh just as of end of March, we'd received 89,215 in revenue with 54,288 in expenses. So we are still obviously in the good, but uh it has been a few years we have had increases. Um, I put a couple of different uh numbers there. I gave you Sluda County. Sluda County uses Safeuilt as well. Uh, theirs is a much cleaner, way fewer steps. The gray on the right is ours, which is wordy and complex. Uh, the blue in the middle is safe uh, Sluda County and then Lexington. Town of Lexington's at the bottom. Town Lexon and Sluda are very similar. Um, you know, I would I would hope that we could um do an increase going to Sluda County's model would be seamless. Um, and um, you know, again, information purposes there. I do not have a breakdown of how much that would benefit. I don't think it's going to be major major numbers, but I do think you'd see possibly 10 to 15,000 in in revenue there. Right. And even some contractors around have said that

we're surprised B&L hasn't up theirs and they probably need to because everybody else Yeah. Yeah. We if the contractors don't seem to mind they feel like oh pass it on just like just like everybody else. It's the cost of doing business cost of doing business, but they think we're low.

Actually, Safe Build uh is responsible for call back inspections. Uh how is that covered with this? So the next page is the uh updated fee schedule. Uh so that does uh go into it. Uh they do take a percentage of the business license or excuse me the building permit u 90 85 80% negotiable above 150. Uh there is a reinspection fee of 33.99 per occurrence. Uh and so I did talk with the u our uh customer customer support guy uh Ron and so yeah that that number that 90% 85% 80% does stay the same. uh he said if the pie gets bigger, we both get more out of it. But uh so an increase in those rates would benefit us, but also Safe Built. Our cost would go up, which is kind of odd, but um but those are the the updated fee schedule from about a month ago.

That contract is up for renewal in June. I don't have that in front of me. I would have to look. it I mean is I feel comfortable assuming. Okay. Um All right. Trying to pick up the pace here for you, J.

Um All right. So, uh last month or two weeks ago, uh Councilman Hall asked a question about impact fees and what our balance was. And so, uh Lisa got that for me. The balance on our impact fee account is $376,583.72 and we've brought in $31,998 in 2025. Um I did not get the current year but uh the water and the sewer breakdown are there for you just to see again uh earlier in the year uh January February yeah January council voted to to conduct a new capital improvement plan and uh update our utility impact fees. Uh so we should have those soon. Uh but just wanted to give you that information so that uh you've got that. Uh again reminder impact fees are on new services. So uh even if somebody is getting a a new tap for uh uh be it a swimming pool or just a yard meter they would pay those impact fees.

U well I I have an issue here. So we took in 325. That would is that about an average year? Actually I think that's probably up a little bit. We we've been seeing over the last few years.

The problem and maybe I misunderstand the state law, but the state law is that those impact fees must be spent within three years from the date they are collected. And so therefore, we have a 10-year balance here. Uh we are skirting an issue here. Um but and the reason I'm aware of this is I'm working with Lexon County with a couple of the council members uh and they're looking at impact fees and they will not move on impact fees because they say they're they can't meet the three-year mandate. U they can't spend the money within three years of the time they collect it. So they're looking for a seven-year. But I'm just we're concerned here that we are not complying.

I'm not I'm not going to uh argue the three year. I've been under the impression that it's 10 year on utility impact but I cannot argue that fact nightly. 10 years has been my thought on utility as a separate but I I I offer no argument other than that's been my thought.

Okay. Well, up until recently, utility impact was the only permitted impact fees. All right. I know that Lexington has stretched the uh issue and they use it for just about everything. highway for road improvements as well as and I see we're talking about using it for police and for public safety but we need to include sidewalks

and and we can certainly do that. Um I have talked with uh the administrator at Lexington and and very complimentary of the company they use. So, um, what my recommendation and going to the next slide, um, is put out a request for qualifications for a firm to conduct a study. Um, again, Lexington's, uh, proposal, their plan is on their website. You're able to go look at it. Um, off the top of my head, I don't recall what else. I know sidewalks, but public safety and parks are the two biggest ones, but yeah, we could certainly take a big bite and and implement all of them. Um, it just puts more work on that finance department, right, Lisa?

So, for what it's worth, uh, it's got to be spent within seven years. Be first in, first out, and if it's not spent, it's got to be refunded. Is that the state law? Is that the proposed state law? Uh, as of H31652526, which has not been passed. That's what Lexon County is waiting on that bill to be ratified. However, prior to that is the three years. Okay.

But we'll get we'll get some clarity on that. Um uh so again, you know, the request for qualifications for other proposed impact fees. U does anybody have an objection to us posting that? Obviously, it's got to come back to council for uh ratification of that, but All right. Um and it's it's no restriction on the money you can spend it on. Anything is as long as it's going to these things that we it's it's going to be capital. Uh so, you know, for public safety, that could be fire trucks, police cars, facilities. You can spend it on anything in there as long

it's got to be a capital it's capital improvement capital improvement you have to specify what the project is. Yeah there would be a just as we are doing for utility we would have to have a capital improvement plan and then those items would be in there. So what is being done with the capital improvement plan that we have now part of it is given a value to our system as it is the pipes in the ground the water tanks the facilities that we have. So that valuation is then divided by the the population to determine what the impact of a new person would be. So if it's, you know, $500 or if it's a,000 or 1,500, whatever that math spells out,

somehow. Yeah. And so similar thing would be done for public safety for parks. Um, so obviously with public safety, you'd be looking at two fire stations and the equipment and then the police department and that equipment. Um, and I think you would have that divided between those two agencies. So it wouldn't just be one pot for public safety and then the police department steals all the money from the fire department. Just trying to get a joke there. Yeah, everybody's um has any of this money been allocated for anywhere else in any of our plans? So Andrew, you want to you talking about the utilities?

Yes. You want the impact fee impact? So, I don't have in front of me what impact fee money has been spent in the past. I don't I didn't pull that with me. Um, I mean, because we're talking what basically $150,000 it's got to be spent. If it's got to be spent seven years, what on the average something more than Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't know. Whether or not they make I'm sure they're not going to make that retroactive. Well, and and it may be worth us to lose. That's what I'm saying. I'd rather spend it on the police department or

Well, we wouldn't be able to spend the utility impact fee on outside of utility. It would have to stay in utility and and we probably need to go back. Could it be from some of those generators like that? So, it's it has to be in that capital improvement plan. Um the the there was a capital improvement plan that we do have. I don't have it in it. The original thing, didn't you? Yeah. In 2005, there was capital improvement plan and that was what was adopted and has not been updated to my knowledge since then. So, whatever was in there, what you got to

Yeah. So, it would be interesting to go back and see if like when we redid the the water tanks if that was actually credited as as impact fee money or if it was spent out of the capital improvement account but didn't actually get obviously debited from that account. We probably need to go back, Lisa, and do a deep dive into some of those projects. Uh because that number could be out of whack. It could be it it could have been an accounting error years ago. The fact that we did use it used to be three.

Yeah, it is. It's still true until that law is passed. It is and is. So therefore, I have serious concerns there. The other one is even if we have to pay a premium to expedite the study. Uh every month that we delay you are talking maybe 20 houses being built in between the ones that are already permitted. You can't go back and say, "Oh yeah, you built these 10 houses last month. you owe us because we just got it approved. So, we need to expedite the study so that we can go ahead and pass the increased impact fees and apply them to all the

new houses. All the new houses otherwise we're we're losing revenues at both times and I hate to see this I think built without having these impact fees in completely. I agree. Agree. I mean, you know, that's uh we got that that's in the pipeline. We know it's coming. So, we need to we need to op we need to act on the Yeah, agree. You have a dip or a time frame? I know I asked you that the other day. We've just been given a general um late summer, early fall time frame.

So, we'll we'll follow up with them tomorrow. Um, fortunately the uh the law doesn't it says only government entities that have a comprehensive plan. It doesn't say it has to be updated and and produce the fees. You think that's and it's got to be we got to explain the calculations.

Well, that's that's what the study is for. Yes. That's that's that's what the whole capital improvement plan that was the math that I was just talking about where we the plan you you study the valuation of the town and all the the equipment and infrastructure that we have divided by the population and that gives you that that number. Um all righting on into

is are we the last slide? Next to last but we're getting close. Um just as uh some information still working on I'm still waiting on a little bit more information from Saluda County but just giving you an up a current update tax assessments and millage rate current rate is 93.4 4 U value of the mill pending the Sluta County vehicles is 23,494 which is a decent increase from a couple years ago was 22 and change then um but those are the assessments that we've received so far uh from the counties um the calculation uh South Carolina revenue and fiscal affairs millage rate increase limitations they haven't posted that yet for municipalities they've done it for school districts and counties um just for your information. 2.85 was the school district's valuation for this year. Uh 3.16 was ours last year. 4.63 was the year before. And again, that's taking into consideration population growth and CPI. Uh we did a 2 mil increase two years ago uh which was uh going back previously. So all of that is available. So uh assuming 2.85 that would put it about 10% that you could go up on millillage. I'm not advocating for that, but I'm just saying that you do have that ability.

Well, we did a roll back of what 8% 9%. It went from 101.5 to 93.4. So, it's about 8%. We did a roll back of 8%. uh in the last budget. So it would actually take us back up to but it will still put us as the highest millage rate of any of the taxing municipalities other than Swansea. Are we showing an increase in population? Yes. at this

I I haven't run no I haven't run numbers recently but yeah the things that I have seen recently was they were estimating 5400 which is up from the 5250 or 5273 or whatever and and if you look around town you've got uh this harbor what is it harbor view or whatever over on raw strip there's like eight units there terrace So, Terrace Way has uh six or eight units. You have here you have a couple on Bond Street. You have the Ruby Street project

and you have the Bethlehem area. So, we are we are quietly adding units. There's been a lot of infill. Um and my question is how many more then are we having get going into the homestead exemptions? You know, well, we get reimbured on the homestead. That's going to be reimbured. Yeah, we get that specifies that they will reimburse. Okay. I've been I've been on that one for uh believe there are Yeah, there Lexon County Republican Party took that on. Thank goodness.

And I think all of our elected officials know that they might face kickback from us old folks if they don't go ahead and get it on the governor's list. Right now the the holdup is that the Senate decided to be generous and move it from 100,000 to 150. And they are locking out uh our northern snowbirds. Uh they're requiring that you be here five years and they're also to get the full you have to be here 10. That's good. So they're locking out the snowbirds. But, uh, you know, I'm just saying with our property tax people that are paying, do we have more coming in or do we have more that are being called? You're you're seeing

kind of evening out. We're seeing about 20 to 25 homes being built every year that's all been infill. But we should see it in water in water customer. Mhm. Yes, you can track it that way. Um, but but yeah, you may build 20 25, but you do tear down a few here and there, but uh, property value obviously is going to be higher on the new ones. Um and and that is reflected in the the assessments on those homes specifically in Lexony County. Right.

Um you know J we we're in this crazy echo chamber about growth base for Leville cuz if you you have 100 people move in, you have 25 30 people die. I mean I mean honestly we we're in the same cycle that we've been in. We're really about the same spot. We in the same spot we've been in for 20 25 years. Okay. We get a new Dunkin Donuts and a new phone place and then you have uh root seller clothes. You know, you add one, you take one. You add one, you take one. We we're in the same boat that we've been in. Just just be patient. The school been patient 20 years.

Sit on sit on your hands and watch it happen. The school district is down uh 100 students over the last seven years. Uh they're now at 1950 with the 45day rate with the 135 day. It also allows students to come from anywhere if you can drive to school. Necess one reason our our millillage rate is higher than any other small town in Lex County is we support a fire department of our own. The rest of them are done by the county. You take that percentage off and we're not the highest in the county.

It might be on paper, but in practicality, it's not because the county is not as high as it would be. My only point is that we don't have a coherent plan for this growth. If you really want to grow, you grow with people, not with businesses, right?

We have we have these um uh subdivisions coming in. There's no provision in in in these uh divisions that we have affordable um attainable housing for people that work at Walmart. They deserve to have uh a place to stay and live too. We don't have any plan to have uh apartments. You have to have uh mid-range apartments. You can have luxury apartments and you have low income apartments. But you have to plan for a cohesive village of people and have uh people with dignity in where they live. We just kind of kind we're we're going by the seat of our pants. Whatever comes over there comes over there. Whatever goes over there goes over there. And Casey found out the hard way that some of those luxury uh apartments turned out to be now they're going to be section 8 apartments.

Okay. We have people in this town right now who are plotting and planning to invest in some of these um um uh new development, new houses to make them section 8 houses. So, we have no control of what what's going on. We we don't have any any set plan about what's coming and what we need to have come. People that work at Walmart are paying $900 in Ramblewood for what was section 8 low income housing. They they deserve to have a decent place to live. They should be able to afford a house in uh in Bayford. Depending on what their job at Walmart is, they're doing all right.

They doing damn good. Some some people some people at Walmart some of the managers at Walmart make $70,000 $78,000 a year but can they afford a house? You're off by about 45 45 what? Grand. What do you mean off? If this one here is not knocking down $175. Well, I'm just talking about the the average the average the average team leader or whatever they call now. Yeah. Is is at about 70 grand uh 70 grand a year.

But can they buy a house? All right. Um, let's let's try to circle back to I mean I I don't disagree with on on some affordability issues and that's comprehensive plan stuff and that's coming. Uh, just again information uh water purchases just so you know. Um, there's nothing really there but $2.3 is the per thousand rate. Um, just giving you that. Uh, Councilman Hall had you back up one more time. Yes, sir.

Uh, is it possible to get the uh actual water usage uh for uh FY2324 by month? I mean 23 24. You're talking about what was the information that was in is what has been in the newsletter adequate? Yeah. Well, the newsletter I I don't usually keep them. Well, I mean, if that's the if that's what you're looking for, then that's an easy question. Well, what I'm looking for is the fact that we have an agreement with Joint Mutual. Joint Mutual is that they will supply us 1.5 million gallons. Uh, and once we hit 85% of that,

we have to go back and do another buy in. All right. uh this 20,157,000 gallons uh comes out to be uh and that was in a 28 day period. All right, that's running somewhere between 700 and 800,000 gallons a day. That only leaves us a half a million gallons. And if you start figuring these houses and or freight coming back online, do we have an idea what their usage was in 23 24 25? We're not going to have a lot of excess water. All right. Now, our sewer, we're in great shape. 2 point we're at 2.5 mil. U

that's our permitted. Sewer permitted. What can the plant actually run? 80% 80%. You can't go over 80%. All right. and and now but we have plans to go to five and then five so it's the to be built to four the permitting is for five okay but so ensure we're in in good shape I'm just concerned that we need to to see that we are using u we don't have shrinkage well I think consumption

I I think your concern may be misplaced a little bit I think that getting Two, as we approach 1.5, that is growth. That is selling more water. Buying capacity is is just a cost of doing business. The infrastructure is designed to easily handle 2.5 million. Take an IOU and it's a big Oh, it it it's a big chunk to be it is it is. But if we had the situation of needing more water, then that means we're growing. Yeah. As long as we're going to have increased revenue.

Is not involved. All right. I mean, we don't we have water system number two, which is prone has been prone for years to high have high shrinkage rates. All right. In fact, I don't I'm not sure. I was looking at the last financial reports and we paid uh we budgeted like $40,000 for Gilbert Summit and we paid them 120,000. Well, the the biggest expense this past year was a lot of flushing off of that Gilbert Summit. That new line had to be flushed. And so that was all Gilbert Summit water on on that system two line. So we were paying for water but not turning around and selling it. So well that's called shrinkage.

Well that's that's called shrinkage. And if we don't like I'm saying we we we did this with Ted. All right. It took me two years to convince Ted that water system 2 had a 30% shrinkage rate. Are you meaning leakage? Yes. Okay. Leak. It's not shrinkage. Well, it's shrinkage. If it's leaked, it's lost in the system. I It's, you know, Walmart says we got a shrinkage. Shrinkage is because of damage, because of theft, because it covers a mult I'm I'm sorry, I use the term as a to cover a multitude of sins. In this case, it's leaks.

All right. DHECK frowns upon it. Uh they don't like systems that have more than what 7 8% is 10. 10 is a good number. 10. 10's a good number. Uh we did not put a meter back on the system. So we have no idea if we in fact are having shrinkage whether or not that's the cause. And I is it a lot a big expense to put a meter on that system too? 100,000. Huh? 100,000. Can we move the one that we got between here and the ridge rank? I mean,

that stuff's gotten ridiculously expensive. What's that? 10 inch land. The 12 12 in there. as a thought that we couldn't. You your your question is can we meter the water flowing to the lake? I understand that's a 12 in uh line. There's a alternate thought of instead of metering that water. I'm trying to think of our viewers. So your your question six six viewers I got three over here and one of

one of been actively texting during the meeting I think um so your question was can we technically measure the flow going to the lake that's a 12in line an alternative thought is can we put a meter in the booster pump station and only meter to the water that's coming to the town. Then simple do the math. We've got a master meter that measures everything. Let's deduct out what goes to town. Then the balance would obviously would be going to the lake. Would that be a cheaper alternative to put that meter in the booster pump station? So there's two avenues that I've looked at. The answer for putting the meter in the booster pump station. I've not got a good quote on that yet, but I have specifically asked your question and the $100,000 figure was the ballpark. You know, not gonna charge us anything to come up with a price, but you're looking at 100 grand basically the answer I got.

Now, the line that was already in place where we tied in uh what size line is that to the lake? We connected to an eight. So we have eight from a price road or what or or in Adams Road was was the original connection point. Um we came off of Cedar Grove and went approximately a half a mile down windmill with an eight.

So we backed our 8 in up toward town roughly a half a mile. So we have a a new 12 feeding the eight. We we added about a half a mile of 8 inch line from Orin Adams back this way. So when you cross 378, you uh have an 8 inch line. It's an 8 in. Yes, sir. And this side of 378. Orin Adams is this side. So we could run down 378 with an eight, which would give us uh could run from where to where down 378? We're we're we're over around county. Oh, sure. Sure. Service area. Sure. We we could we could we could we could tie in to an eight. Go wherever we want to go. But I

I know we're getting late, but that's maybe we can have this. Well, a a better a better conversation. I'm just concerned bumping against up against someone said 5 million to buy another because they will only guarantee us 2.5. That's what the contract says. We can only go to 2.5 forward. That's pretty iron. Although they have a 24 they have a 24 inch line. 24 in 24 in feeds the tank. Yeah. From from Gilbert um from joint minister.

Why they put a 2.5 cap on our ability to draw in the contract? I'm sure it's I'm sure it's in their plans to pick up Gilbert. Well, the the the 24 inch line really in my mind doesn't have anything to do with Batesburg Leville. They they did that. Now, they did that with with the thought of supplying us. There very well may have been a thought that they might supply Joint Municipal off of that. Yeah, I'm sorry. Gilbert Summit off of that. 2.5 million for a 24 in line is is running.

Probably pretty easy to do. Probably pretty easy to do. Almost worry about stale water. Yeah, I I can't remember anything since I had my accident. I don't even remember my accident, but I thought that I don't remember. I I thought and and I'm tell you I I can't I I can't remember. But I thought the contract was 1.75 million and then could go to 2.5. You okay? I I' I've had that number, not disputing it at all, like the 10 year, threeyear thing a while ago. Again, my memory I can't remember things. Mhm. Um we slept last night.

Yeah, I have that problem. But if if it's 1.5, you know, it is it is what it is. Um, if it makes you feel any better, that problem gets worse. The problem is now I remember that I forgot it. People tell me one day I'm not even going to remember that I forgot something. I got a question for you. All right. And this question is about um emergency. What's our backup plan? Lake turns over. We have interruption in the pipeline. Bottle of water. I'm talking about long term. Um what's what's the background?

So I I think every water system has vulnerabilities. If you're talking if you if you if you take that back to Lake Murray, it's not only us. It's going to be portions of Newberry, lots of people. So you know, we we'll all be in a in a in a predicament. I don't know if we could ever put ourselves in in a spot where we could guarantee that we wouldn't possibly get in the predicament. Now you're buy from Walmart. You're asking me something that the council would have to approve, but it wouldn't be that hard. How you going to get it here? That's what I was fixing to ask.

How you going to get it here? Because right now, water and sewer cannot supply Manetta. I just asked a question long term because of the pipe size coming through spring. We got water infrastructure. What? We got water to Red Spring, didn't they? You're correct. But what's Okay. And they're getting water to spring now, right? On the from the other side. They have to come through with a reduced line. But let's not get it. It's not impossible.

I'm sorry. If we have shrinkage, we have shrinkage. All right. If if you're if you're ask if you're asking if it's a possibility, I would say it's a I'd say, you know, lot of lot of options out there for possibilities to to answer your question about the vulnerabilities. There are some vulnerabilities. Those are things that I have on my mind to try to address to put Bates Leville in a better spot. And they can happen 36 years ago that pond turned over and the point that you made, they can happen, but we dealt with it. We would be the only ones. The pond turned over because they we would not be the only ones. The city of Columbia would be in trouble. Lex Casey West Columbia is the only one sitting in the cat bird seat.

They have two plan since it but joint municipal does own land to build their own plant. Right now they just buy from the Casey plant, right? West Columbia. Casey still Casey's the other end. Casey controls it. Casey's got her own plan. All right. But they're ask and they handle the I know Jay's want to get back up here, but I I actually have a bet with somebody in the room that we're going to stay later than 10:15. So, I'm going to hang out right here a little bit. Yeah, he got over now. That's fine.

That's called insider information. That's That's what the guy the special ops guy got in trouble for. I'm sorry. All right. So, um but yeah, just

All right. The question also came up uh the other last week or two weeks ago about long-term debt. Uh at the moment, the only long-term debt we have or the 30-year water and sewer revenue bond from 2021, which is a $4 million um bond, it's not a loan, 2.66% through Truis. We paid that annual payment 260,000 plus. Uh and then the the new 20-year waters, it's called a water sewer lease purchase agreement uh from 2026 for the automated metering infrastructure 2.9 million at 4.82% through First Bank. Uh that annual payment will be 226,308. So those are the only long-term debt we have right now. Uh obviously we just finished um the lease purchase agreement from 5 years ago and we finished off the uh revenue bond for town hall. I think that was in this budget could have been last budget. It all runs together after a while. So uh that was a 10-year payoff and then believe purchase was five. And the question also had been asked about outstanding financial commitments. um CDBG water and sewer line improvements. That was approved at 952,000 with 299,000 of grant funds showing a 652,000 commitment from the town. To date, we have paid 249,570 with a remaining 702 balance. Uh but that's going to change. We've there's been some reductions with um at least 81,8575. So, uh hopefully there's going to be some more potential savings from resurfacing cost. But that was the water lines on Maple and Peach Tree and the sewer line improvement on Oak. Um

today 249 is what the town has paid. Yes, sir. It's not part of the grant. Okay. We're still on the hook for $43,000. All right. Um the CD CDBG uh water valve assessment um again approved at $497750. Uh grant funds were 399852 with the town. That was the the one you didn't like. Um with Hayes and Saw that was not a bid process RFQ.

Uh okay. I don't Was there money involved in the No, it wasn't even Okay. All right. So, so that uh the town had a a 97,892

97,898 uh commitment there. Uh the Spring Brook conversion uh the second payment is 41,625 which will be in the next budget. Uh climate pollution reduction grant that is the the solar project that we just uh approved the contractor for. We sort of have that contract that we'll bring back to you. So, it was approved to 1,ion335,000 and change. Grant's going to pay 60%. Town funds committed 534, but that is what the IRS um direct pay investment tax credit program will cover. And and what you saw in the weekly report was the email from Jory kind of explaining how they had reached out to uh uh one of the kind of the energy law firms um that basically said that they had not seen anybody not receive that reimbursement,

but we haven't approved that that contract is what we were talking about bringing back and we may have that for that May 5th. uh in talking with Jocelyn, she had jury duty last week, so I hadn't talked to her this since, but we talked a few days after the meeting and the hope was to have something for a work session to review. Uh and then the park restrooms, uh the remaining remaining balance is 49,46923 and that is those that covers those outstanding financial commitments. Discussion questions. I think we've had a lot of We've had a lot of all of those.

All right, real quick. And I I know people are getting to sleep and so am I. But uh park restrooms uh from 1,148,000 included the 10% contingency. So we actually ran over budget. No, sir. We part of the contingency the the the 10% contingency on that would have been 114,000. We only owe 49,000. Yes.

So we actually did have to go into the contingency. No sir. Well, there was two change orders. There was two change orders which were uh adding conduit for uh the running of some security cameras at the two sites. Uh we did change to have motion sensors on sinks so that we don't have sinks being left on uh and losing water. Shrinkage. Um there might have been one other, but it was just Oh, and it was underground utility. Um there was some underground utility costs that were uh over. So we went into the contingency a little bit, but

So we still have money to put the bullets up around the uh that that is supposed that is supposed to be coming. Yes, sir. and the bullets uh for the Klein Street park uh to prevent uh entrance and uh from the laundromat. We have that was not approved. We didn't I mean we've talked about putting some kind of sign there. There was some concerns about putting a ballard in the ground with the amount of utilities in in that area storm water. I was not aware of that restriction, but

well, that was a conversation we'd had, but because we looked at that um and that was a concern from the contractor and it was there's a lot of utilities in the ground to pull in one of the uh concrete barriers that the highway department uses and paint it a very nice color, but it needs not to be there because somebody's going to have an accident. I mean was rather adamant about probably two access to a GPR.

Okay. Yeah, we've got GPR with ours, but I don't know if we trust our guys enough to put it down in there to but yeah, we we can discuss that. We can talk about that. You got enough money left over to put cameras out there? Uh we do have enough money in that contingency for cameras. Y is not I mean that we are for legitimate mistakes on our part. It's a mistake that we didn't let any members out there. So let's put it back there for security. We use continuous wire. We just had the the electrician ran the conduit while he was out there. So anything else, Mr. Mayor?

I do something Walmart. I don't know. He said he couldn't get uh council members, all the council members of Walmart invite for their grand opening. So, if you didn't get one, the new date is going to be June 5th. All the council members are invited June the 5th at 9:00 a.m. at Walmart. They'll call the grand opening. Are they going to really do it this time? This Yeah, it was going to be May 1st and they had to extend it out. So, if you did get an email, they um I'd like to invite Car Marshall now to Walmart. And they do have a sign up that says thank you Leville. And I've talked to them about that. I'm like you don't get a business license from Leville. You get a business license from Batesburg Leville. And they are changing the sign. So they are changing it. They are changing it. Thank you.

Ordered the correct one. What's that date? June. I also got an invitation to the we have a an invitation as council to the uh banquet free festival banquet at at uh TNS farms Sunday night and I'll I'll go and grab those. Is that plus one or just members? Uh is that plus one or council members? I'll get those invitations in a second. This Sunday night, that's this Sunday, the prefestestival banquet Sunday night. And then the breakfast that morning too, right? I don't know who all get.

I know. I got invitations for breakfast, but I got it. Yeah, I I got and working on Thursday night. Thursday night, we got a we we got setting up for interviews with the attorneys. time 7 p.m. 7 o'clock here. Same bat. Same bat. Is that an executive session or 9:00? So, we'll have to open up. Yeah, we'll have we'll have Yeah, because we got to go in the exe. Yeah, I guess that will be executive session for interview and then we'll hopefully vote when we come out. Okay. Do we have a set of questions we're going to be using? Our set of rules.

We're going to work on it this week. Yeah, we got questions called you like to I think cricket is going to be cricket can be that one question. She did a good job last time. Who did we hire though last time? I think she's he's referring to town manager manager. Town manager. We we hired a town attorney by default last time. It was a temporary hire when we didn't. We don't have any objection. You won the bet. We all right. Some cheating going on.