County Council - Regular Meeting

I serve as Chairman of the County Council. We're going to begin with our Finance Committee. Item 1, approval of minutes. Move for approval.

Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Ayes have it. Item number 2, we have a presentation of 2A College of Charleston and County MPA.

Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Council, for tonight. I just want to introduce our program that we have implemented with the College of Charleston as a partnership, where we have a grad student who's going to participate, working here with the county. And we're going to show them the operations, the inside and out of the county, help to supplement their academic pursuits with some real-life, real-world experience. And we have a committee that's also going to be advising and assisting that are made up of fellow MBA graduates, including myself, Nikki Grimble from Planning and Zoning, Luella Smalls from Community Development and Revitalization, Amanda Ramage from the Administrator's Office, and Ali Vitruch from Sustainability. To talk more about the program, I'm going to bring up the Assistant MBA Director Marla Robertson from the College of Charleston to introduce our fellow and talk about more about the program.

Thank you so much for letting me join you this evening. what we're actually here for so I'll talk a little bit about the program in respect to the benefits that it has for the county so the problem that we're all kind of dealing with is a lot of our highly talented individuals are phasing out of local government so what does it look like to close that pipeline and have the next generation of public leaders ready and skilled and trained to run our local government and so with this fellowship program, it allows not only for the pipeline, but also for the connection and real tangible experience with the local government agency that they'll hopefully be working for after they graduate and after they finish their fellowship opportunity. So it gives you a direct response to a problem that we're experiencing right now. So what does the county get out of this partnership? So the county gets about four different things. So you get skilled labor at a low cost, right? We're not paying, not yet. We're not paying, you know, Lillian, you know, $80,000 for this one, right? But while she's learning this opportunity, she's still able to provide and produce. She has an extensive resume and skill set that she brings to the table. And so Doug and the rest of the team are able to benefit from someone who has data analysis skills, GIS and mapping skills, policy analysis skills to help support initiatives and capacity for the county departments. Also, there's a rigorous vetted process. The students are required, before they even enter the program, to submit a resume, a cover letter. There are multiple rounds of interviews. There's a panel of county individuals that conduct those interviews so that we're making sure that we get the highest quality individual to support capacity building for the county. Also, there's structured accountability. It would be nice if the only thing that the county did was mentor interns and fellows, but that is not your primary job, right? And so the College of Charleston is able to support with one-on-ones, monthly professional development, documented work plans, evaluations to help support the learning on the back end with the county. And then lastly, this is a concrete living example of what it looks like to bring in an aspiring public administrator into local government, skill them up, run them around the departments, have that networking opportunity that then graduates and then directly continues to contribute to the county. And so we're really excited about all the potential that Lillian brings to the team. And so what does Lillian get out of this? And why is it important to the county? Fellows earn income. That's kind of important now in 2026, right? But it's a paid opportunity, right? Doug is really intentional about what it would look like to make the relationship mutually beneficial, right? The student has the networking, has a paid opportunity, but also bringing those skills to the table. And then there is no other opportunity where students are able to work directly with as many departments in a structured learning environment, right? So the student is able to get something that no other student is able to get at the College of Charleston. And so in summary, I guess there's not like a whole ask, but it is my hope that Lillian, the work that she does, and kind of have a little handout that kind of gives you a brief summary of some of the contributions that the program hopefully will add to the county, it is our hope that we were able to continue this partnership and that this is a continuous pipeline. And every year that we're offering up highly skilled and trained MPA students and that they're having this pipeline into the county so that we have individuals that are trained and networked and ready to start work. Do you have questions for me?

I just want to say thank you for partnering with us and welcome aboard. We're excited to have you all here and Mr. Worcester, awesome job. Always great to bring folks in to get to be part of the county family and hope you'll come back.

Thank you so much. Thank you all so much.

And I've got to back up before I go forward. In my haste to move the meeting along, I was remiss in allowing my folks to be able to introduce themselves. So I'd like key staff and our council personnel, the members, to introduce themselves. I'll start with Mr. Moody.

Brantley Moody, District 7. Darby, District 4.

Herb Sass, District 1.

Kristen Salisbury, Clerk of Council.

Bill Tootin, County Administrator.

Jenny Costa, Honeycutt, District 9. Larry Combrowski, District 2.

Teddy Pryor, District 5. Rob Wurman, District 3.

Natalie Hamm, County Attorney.

Thank you all. Moving on to Item 2B, Fleet Internship Program, a presentation.

Good evening. I'm Chris Ayers.

I am Fleet Operations Service Manager here over... We've been working this program for about the last year in its very beginning stages, just from word of mouth through our different, well, really different people we know in the school district, Trotty Tech, Stratford High School. So we decided to formalize it and have... excuse me i've been going singing the good praises of the county to all the local high school programs anybody who's willing to listen to me talk i'll come talk to you and give them the the spiel about how great it is to be at the county it has really absolutely just paid off these three gentlemen are it has spent the summers with us Joshua Mita, he spent summer of 25 with us and came back full-time May when he graduated. Daylon Bell, he worked with us while he had a early out, worked part-time with us and came to work with us full-time during, when he graduated in May as well. And then Marquis Larry, he came to work with us for this summer and came on with us full-time as well when he, right after summer, August. So The big selling point of the programs, obviously, is more help for us. We've seen a huge decline in qualified applicants. I've seen more people with no experience at all come up across my NeoGov. And so we got to thinking, well, you know, Where could we find someone with at least a little bit of experience? Give me something trainable. Give me something trainable. A good friend of mine actually went to work for Stratford as their auto tech teacher, and we were talking, and he's like, you know, we really need places to help these kids learn. So that brought up the whole idea. Why can't we go to these local programs? So I was at a guidance counselor meeting about my daughter and asked West Ashley, hey, can I come talk to your auto tech program, see if anybody's interested in coming to work after they graduate? And it's really just gone on like crazy, gone on from there. With them, what we do, starting off at a mechanic's expense. You know, most of us have to supply our own tools. But we take their tool allowance for the first year and buy them a basic handset of tools, toolbox, storage, something for them to even be able to grow into. We use their tool allowance that first year to pay for that. And then if they, as long as they make it a year with us, it's their tools to take with them, whatever, if they decide to leave us, it's theirs to take. But we have their tool allowance to cover it. They get all the training, all the online training, all the in-person training, the out-of-state training after they finish their probation, of course. They get to be a part of all of that. So we really just had to take on the mentality of growing our own. We can't find them where they're going to develop them. So in less than eight months, we have three full-time technician ones that are It seems to be working out really well. I really would, though, also want to thank you all so much for approving the donation of that truck to West Ashley. That really helps solidify our relationship. I'm also involved on the advisory board with Berkeley County's auto tech programs and working towards that with West Ashley and hopefully East Cooper and Cooper River. I do believe I forgot to tell where y'all came from. Joshua's from Stratford, Daylon is from West Ashley, and Marquise is from Cooper River. Yes, sir. So we're trying to keep it local in the Tri-County area. I hope the future for the program is that we get a real work-based study program where they can come, get credit for being at school, make a couple dollars, and we get a good base of mechanics wanting to turn out to us. And hopefully one day we never have to put an ad up again, and I can help supply maybe some other counties that are having trouble finding qualified mechanics with good fellows.

I'll say a couple of things. Much like our EMS program and training our own here, it builds loyalty and camaraderie and a sense of team and esprit de corps. As someone who began my career right here at Charleston County and loved it so much to come back to it, I'm telling you guys, you're making great choices. I'm so proud of y'all. I see before me a bunch of soon-to-be master techs in the making. And what a great place to start. And I hope you guys stay and continue to be part of our Charleston County family.

Yes, sir.

Thank y'all.

Thank y'all.

Consent agenda.

3A. I'll move for staff recommendation for all items.

Second. Let's take 3B separate. I've got some questions.

We'll move 3B out. 3A, C, and D, staff recommendation, please.

Second that. All right. Any discussion on those three? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it.

Staff recommendation for 3B.

Second.

Second, any discussion? Mr. Weirman.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I mean, I just, you know, with the name of the dang thing, which, you know, whatever. I mean, unnecessary and mainly makes me roll my eyes. But I just want to make sure that's all I need to do and that this isn't something with strings attached. So can someone give me some assurance that this does not carry any sort of requirements for the county to assist in any kind of federal operations through the grant period? Mr. Administrator.

This is the coroner's office, so I can't speak for her, but what I was told it was not.

All right. I might wait until I hear that, but we can move forward with the vote.

Okay. Anything further? All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. All right.

The ayes have it. I'm going to be in there until Tuesday to get some more information.

Move along to item 4, 4A, operation and maintenance of material recovery facility, MRF.

Staff recommendation. Second.

Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Okay, item 5A, reallocation of urban entitlement funds for program.

Recommendation.

Discussion?

Nebraska.

I have a few questions from the staff. What is for the struggle in the Humanities Foundation vision to learn in the Shifa free clinic?

Yes, sir. I'd be happy to talk about this. For the struggle does critical home repairs. Let's see. Humanities Foundation helps with emergency rent and utility assistance. The Shifa free clinic provides medical clinic in a food pantry.

Where is that?

I'll have to check.

Who runs that? The town of Mount Pleasant runs it? No, the town of Mount Pleasant I don't think runs it.

I think it's a non-profit, but I'll make sure I have those details to you. Envision to Learn? Envision to Learn is a program. It's a non-profit that provides kids K through 12 with eye exams and glasses.

I'm sorry, did I ask for a 180 place?

180 Place provides homeless shelter services in downtown Charleston.

Anything further?

Maybe I can get with Mr. Tootin tomorrow or next week. I'm going to support this. I think this is a wonderful list, but there's one or two on here that were in some other rounds of funding that we had some issues with documentation that I think we've straightened some stuff out, but I wanted to just confirm that everything was straightened out with those folks, so maybe we can talk after the meeting or tomorrow.

Can I ask one more question? This is a little confused as to the There are two streams about almost exactly the same. How are we changing it? Is there anything from the 2025, 26 that's not in the 26, 27? I know they're different things. So you're asking to us approve both. Is that what you're doing?

Yes, sir. I'll give you a little bit of context. Usually this happens like annually so the 25 funding would have been approved. It actually was approved last May but and then we brought you a reallocation plan in June of this year for for those funds The 26 funds just came to you in June as well but what had happened is we had previously set aside some money for the city of North Charleston and but now Charleston County is managing all of that funding. So in June we brought you basically a lot of these items and updated contingency plans, and this is more for transparency, just letting you know how we reallocated the money under the contingency plans that you approved.

Anything further? Mr. Pryor, go ahead.

Maybe you can tell us. Sidewalks for the city of North Charleston, you know, what are these? Stuff that we know we help them out with or they don't have any funding to do it because I see we got almost half a million dollars of sidewalks in the city of North Charleston. That wouldn't come out of the CTC to have any sales tax, you know, for these sidewalks.

I think sidewalk, so the CTC and the TST are separate.

Right, I know it's separate. That's what I'm saying.

I think these are additional sidewalks that they get to build with this set of funding.

So, okay, do we have any idea where these sidewalks are going to go?

I know that I can get a list, but they are in the city of North Charleston.

If you have a list for me on Tuesday, I appreciate it. As a matter of fact, if you email it to everybody, that would be great. We can study it over the weekend.

All right.

Okay. Okay. And one more, this Metanoia new construction. I'd like to know what they're planning on building as well, too, because I'm getting a lot of complaints from some of my constituents. They're coming in, and it's not like they're driving up the market, but folks feel that they're driving up the market by coming in. I know they're supposed to be less expensive than others, but most of those rentals, are they going to be homeownership? If you can get those information and let me know, I appreciate it. Yes, sir, I can.

I know that the 25 project and then a portion of the 26 project is for Wright Avenue, and I believe those are for homeownership. It's three houses. And then the other funding that they are getting for homeownership is just in the Chikora-Cherokee area.

So Wright Avenue is in Liberty Hill. Okay. I got you. All right. If you can just send that to me, I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, sir. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. All right. At this point, we'll adjourn the Finance Committee meeting, and I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Pryor for Planning and Public Works.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All members of council gets to participate. Item number one, approval of the minutes. July 16th and 21st. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Any deletion or addition? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. all opposed eyes have it uh item number two amendments to charleston county zoning and land development regulations ordinance zldr round six what is the pleasure uh move for staff recommendation sir is there a second okay any discussion all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye all opposed the eyes have it okay item number three a is the transportation projects and Charleston Water System presentation. So we're going to go with someone here. Okay, I see Mr. Pritchard is here. So you can go right over to that podium over there. You can introduce him yourself if you want to, sir.

Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Thomas Pritchard. I believe I know everybody sitting up there, but I'm chairman of the board of Charleston Water System, and we appreciate the opportunity to come talk today. I know that as I was sitting at my office at 430 and hit the panic button right there at Wesley and Savannah Highway, I was reminded of our infrastructure needs in the county and how I was going to get here on time. we're here today at the uh invitation of councilmember pryor and i believe also councilmember moody i wanted to say preface this by saying we're here today to talk only about um water and sewer relocates as it relates to the TST. I'd ask y'all to let's stick to that and let's don't go back and replow old ground on LCRT. That's a settled issue for Charleston Water. We've signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the DOT and we're fully on board with that. So this is about going forward, okay? So I just want to say up front, I've got Jonathan Ladd, who's my assistant CEO right here, who's going to go through our presentation. I've got... A lot of my – actually, my CEO, my capital projects, my – Russell, who is our guru on everything as it relates to what's going on in the world of cost and everything, water and sewer infrastructure-wise. But what I wanted to say to you all from my behalf is – We're sort of the big player in this area, but I think we can comfortably say we speak on behalf of all of the water and sewer utilities. It just so happens that we have hundreds of miles of water and sewer lines underground around here, and so that's why the transportation sales tax is of particular interest to us. We believe that History shows the working relationship between county staff and Charleston water system during the current half cent sales tax program has been very beneficial we've had the act 36 money which the county has obviously been reimbursing us along the way for a portion of the infrastructure relocates is required under act 36 and also We're fortunate enough here and there to have some prior rights, too, which helps us out a little bit. But we also recognize that there's going to be some adjunct costs to us. I think one thing that I would caution everybody is, Don't focus on the numbers, okay? It is truly a wag right now. Very rarely will you hear me quote Donald Rumsfeld, and Chairman Boykin heard me do this recently, but here it goes again. There are way too many known unknowns here, okay? There are so many different factors, but one of the things that staff that you'll hear in Jonathan's presentation that your staff has done a great job of helping us out with is working with us to work with the DOT because a lot of the DOT issues are remain under pavement. As long as the DOT can allow us to remain under pavement in certain areas, then the cost goes down dramatically. And your staff has worked well in concert with our staff to push some of that. Also, the other thing I'm just encouraging is continued open dialogue. We think that so much cost savings can result if everybody is on the same page as we go forward so that we can have a further look out at what your staff is thinking and plan accordingly. Because there may be opportunities in there for us to do things we were already needing to do. Anyway, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jonathan. If you have questions at the end, I'm happy to answer questions at the end. Jonathan is happy to answer questions at the end. We have everybody here who can answer questions if you all have questions. But thank you for your time. Go ahead, Jonathan.

I think Thomas stole a little bit of my thunder there. That's right. All right, well, let me jump into it. Thomas mentioned this, but the background here is really to focus on those future proposed TST projects and how they may impact our water sewer infrastructure. So this is really a forward-looking dialogue, and we appreciate that dialogue with the county. A couple of objectives, hopefully we walk away with these, is, again, continue that dialogue, give you a little insight in terms of the uncertainty that we're dealing with right now related to these relocation projects. We'll go through a little bit of our capital planning and our rate setting processes internally. And then, of course, we want to talk about that collaborative approach. Thomas mentioned it. We want to come with some thoughts and solutions that we can collaborate with on the county, with the county. Okay, so just baseline, just setting the stage. Here's our water service area. This is just our retail water service area. This doesn't include our wholesale customers, many of whom are contiguous to these boundaries. But again, a good chunk of Charleston County here. On the water side, our sewer side, a little bit smaller. We have some different providers in there, North Charleston Sewer, James Allen PSD, et cetera. But again, mostly in Charleston County there. So I think this is really sort of speaks to the need for this coordination, this partnership, and this conversation is we were able to, through the county's GIS, overlay the future TSD projects in those locations, right over the top of our service area. I think it's pretty obvious that a majority of those projects do, in fact, sit over top of our service area. So, again, this conversation is necessary as we continue to work together to manage our infrastructure proactively. So I'll get in a little bit on, I mentioned the processes that we have, our capital planning. We do have a 20 year master planning outlook on what's going on and where our needs will be. And then we break that down into four year increments for our capital agreement program. Got a few bullets in there. I was kind of liking it. All of these things are kind of hitting on all cylinders right now. It's kind of like, you know, the guys in Polar Express with the hot chocolate, right? They're trying to balance it all and not spill anything. That's exactly what's happening here. And at the bottom, you'll see utility relocates is absolutely a piece of our CIP planning. I did want to mention, and I think it's important, our asset management initiative. We proactively manage our assets, and we have several lots that are old. Age is one factor that we consider when we talk about refurbishment and replacement, but it's not the only thing. It's really condition and our ability to serve our customers. You see a picture there. That's a 1903 24-inch cast iron water main. That was a coupon we took last year, so about 122 years worth of service. And if you want to, you can come up and take a look at it right here. We brought it in for ages to have a peek, but it's in beautiful shape. They don't make it like that. They don't make it like they used to right there. That's great. But I want to give you an opportunity just to see that and some of the infrastructure we still have in the ground serving our customers. Moving into TST, we wanted to bring an analysis for you all. Thomas said it. Don't focus on the numbers. Really just focus on the fact that we've been proactively looking at how these TST projects may affect our infrastructure. You can see here, we took your GIS information, overlaid it on our utilities, and we took our best informed guess using a couple of different methods to quantify what the potential costs could be if our infrastructure is impacted. Again, qualified. This is intended for these discussion purposes only. This is not for rate-setting purposes or otherwise. A couple things Thomas mentioned, these variables we played with, is remain underpayment versus not remain underpayment. Those have big cost implications. So given these analyses that we did, we saw, again, rough guess, maybe on the low end, $40 million in impact, potentially up to 220. It's about 5.5x wide range there. Qualifiers, you can read them. We didn't do a lot of analysis. The best we could do with the information we have. The point is there's a lot of uncertainty there in those costs that we need to plan around. To translate that to our rates, this is what it would look like. Again, high level, very simple. Paying those in a single present worth analysis, if it was $40 million, it would have had approximately a 2.5% impact to rates. If it's $220 million, around 14%. And there at the ends, you can see the effects to the average monthly bill to our customers. Okay. So focusing on solutions, a couple slides here. Really, Thomas mentioned it here, but what we really want to do is have a collaborative approach with you all. Kind of like the reduce, reuse, recycle. If we can avoid and if we can reduce those impacts, that helps us. From a capital cost, it helps you from a schedule perspective. We've had a great example here on Savage Road.

We're currently working with your staff on we want to continue that.

When it comes to DOT coordination, they remain under pavement. We've said it three times now. Why does it matter to the county? It matters because of schedule. If we have to get out of pavement, we need to get into private easement. That's time, and that's time required and wasted to deliver the projects that you're looking to execute on. So it's important for us to have a common voice to DOT, and we've done that at Old Town Road. There's a great example of collaboration there. Really briefly, and I'll wrap it up at the end of this one, demystifying any question around the Act 36 and what that is and isn't, that is the law that governs utility relocations in the state. We are a large utility, and so here, those relocation costs are recouped by us at a cap of 4%. If there's any other large utilities in there, there's a pro rata share that we have to share amongst us. Anything beyond that is really borne by our rate payers. That is our way to get revenue back in. And that does have a sunset provision, so there is some uncertainty on the future of that law. So we've got another six years. So takeaways. Mentioned the uncertainty that we have. We're trying to clarify that and gain better uncertainty to give our ratepayers a better look at what future rates will be. We appreciate the collaboration and coordination. We really want to continue to partner with the county on that to improve that. If done correctly, there's millions of dollars at stake that we can save. And although Act 36 is very much appreciated, it is capped. And anything beyond that is borne by our ratepayers. So with that, I will close.

All right. Thank you. But before we go into questions from council members, I'm going to go down. But I hear you keep saying, don't worry about the numbers. But numbers are important. It's like me going to a dealership and you tell me to take the car home and he'll give me the numbers later. And it's a big surprise when he gives me the number. So numbers are important and they're important to our constituents. And I know you said that there are some costs and we all bear costs, but the reason why I brought y'all here too and Mr. Moody did is I don't want the public to think that just because we are doing these projects is the reason the rate is going up. Because from 23 up until now, y'all have had three rate increases. One of them is 19%, and I think with the sewer and the water, it comes about 17. So this has been an ongoing thing. And I don't want this council up here to get blamed and say, well, the reason your water bill is increasing is because you're moving the water line. You have a 4% contingency built in for this stuff anyway. So, you know, that's one of the things I wanted to clarify because I don't want to get blamed by nobody saying I caused their water bill or their sewer rate to go up. Because that's just not true. They were the boarders' cause regardless because it's your responsibility to keep the lines and keep the water flowing. And if we coming in and we, you know, going over the road, I think Steve was what, 4% already built in? You know, that y'all are reimbursing. Some of these courses, you know, it's not as expensive as they seem to be. But I just hope you quit saying don't worry about the numbers. It's like, you know, telling your child here's a credit card, don't worry about the numbers. Just go ahead and run it up and we'll talk about that later. So I want us to be responsible. And, you know, we want to be partners. But I don't want anybody to blame Charleston County for a rate increase because this has nothing to do with the rate increase because y'all have already had three in the last three years. And I think y'all are proposing another three in 27 some way. But I'm going to move the council members for questions, and then we can wrap it up. Mr. Darby, you had your hand up.

I was going to say, since the numbers was a norm not to speak of us, I don't have any questions, sir.

All right, Mr. Moody.

I do. Thank you all for being here tonight. I did have a couple questions. I agree with Mr. Pryor. I mean, I know we've got a lot of unknowns, but don't pay attention to the numbers. We can't do that. Before I start with a few questions, you mentioned an MOU with the DOT for the SRT.

Yeah, sure.

Say that five times. Can you explain to us what's included in that, or is that confidential, or what's...

I don't believe it's confidential. What's kind of the highlights of that? So, obviously, I hesitate to talk too much about the LCRT because, of course, that's in the Transportation Sales Tax Initiative we're already under. And so that's money that you all have already committed and the federal government has committed on LCRT. I think that what brought this entire situation into focus for us is just how expansive the program for Charleston Water in terms of relocate for LCRT was. And when we started realizing the numbers there, we just started, our staff started sort of pre-planning for this. because we weren't, up until a few years ago, we weren't really planning for that one. And now we've got two major water transmission lines that run down Rivers Avenue, two 30-inch lines, 24, sorry, two 24-inch lines. And both of those are going to have to come out of Rivers Avenue. They cannot remain under pavement in this instance. And frankly, we don't want them to remain under pavement because if they did and they were damaged and damaged, resulted in a break, then we would be on the hook for any delay cost that might result in the LCRT. So we're working in concert with the DOT to relocate our lines out of pavement And our MOU specifically puts us in contract with the DOT such that the whole thing is bid as one. We just commit to paying our share of what that cost is associated with the water line relocate. Again, we'll still get Act 34 money, I mean, Act 36 money, so there will be some mitigation there and and we appreciate that and you know while i'm on the issue of act 36 that's one of the reasons that i welcome the opportunity to come talk to you all today because frankly none of us are getting enough of what we should be getting out of colombia so i just want you all to remember to speak with the same voice as us because act 36 sunsets again in 32. And while it's not a huge sum of money in the grand scheme of things for us, it is a welcome relief. So when the time comes for the legislature to reconsider that again, we hope that the county will be on board with us. But also in Act 36, and back to the conversation about your staff's collaboration with my staff, is It is mutually beneficial to the two of us because your payment to us of Act 36 money comes out of your revenue from the transportation sales tax. So it reduces what you might otherwise have to spend on projects. So anywhere we can find for cost savings there is a welcome benefit to both parties. But back to what Councilmember Pryor said, I wish, my friend, that we had only had rate increases for the last three years. We do do rate increases in three-year cycles, but since I've been on the board, I can't think of two or three years we haven't had a rate increase. It's just the nature of what we do, because just like y'all in what you're seeking to accomplish with the half-cent sales tax, We have to go to the bond market for our infrastructure needs. And in order to go to the bond market, we have to have the revenue sufficient to cover our obligations. And so we have to do rate increase. I hate rate increases. I wish we would never have to do rate increases. But I also recognize that If anybody were to ask me, I wouldn't say county council is the reason your water and sewer rates are going up. I would say growth in our region and our constant need for infrastructure improvement. I mean, some of our infrastructure is aging. There's no doubt. You see the coupon there. It's in great shape. But it's still a line that was installed in 1903. And I would tease my fellow board member, Billy Coopman, if he was here, that he was the only one around in 1903 when they were installing that line. But it's an old, you know, some of our system is old. So it's always in need of updating. And we would never seek to lay the blame at the feet of county council for that.

Following up on that, we've got, you know, If voters approve TST, we're still years away from construction. To that point, wouldn't you have plenty of time to plan for these infrastructure pieces? And I'll follow up by saying I don't think, Mr. Thigpen, these plans are fully developed. We have road concepts, but they're not developed. So how can you forecast or project? Are you just saying, well, just wipe the whole thing out and that's a number? I know Glenn McConnell, I think, Mr. Thigpen, we didn't have any relocations.

Right.

correct so I guess my question is how do you how are you forecasting any numbers when you don't really know the scope of the project yet well you're exactly right candidly we were just asked could we provide a number so we provided a number based on the overlay as you saw it but that's why I'm saying don't focus on the number because the number is nothing more than a guess I understand that the the taxpayers deserve to know what they're facing But we can't tell them with any level of confidence that this is a number you're facing. That number was prepared by my staff at my request, and that request came from others in government. The mayor asked us for some numbers. My good friend, your good friend, my fellow commissioner, but also city council member, Keith Waring, asked staff for some numbers. guess and that's all it is based on the overlay but that's part of why I said today that I'm here to ask let's continue the collaboration and cooperation because you're exactly right the more we know the further out the better we can plan so if let me ask you this you've got some plans that would include possible utility moves with projects for TST if TST fails what do you what do you guys want to do there I mean you've got

$400 million on your balance sheet. You've got years to go. You said yourself that stuff's aging. What are you going to do then if TST doesn't pass? You still have to replace those pipes. No question.

We go to the bond market on average about every three years. As we go to the bond market, there is a capital program in place. The other issue too is, without getting way into the weeds, there are a lot of unknowns for us at Charleston Water right now. we thought in by 2027 originally and then now maybe 2029 and who knows when that we were going to be facing a massive upgrade at the water plant to address forever chemicals a problem not of anybody in this room's creation but a problem that everybody in this room is going to have to pay to solve despite the fact that others created it for us all it alone our water treatment plant upgrade could cost as much as $150 million, and that doesn't include the annual added cost of powder-activated carbon, which is shown to be the best treatment process for removal of forever chemicals. But these are the kind of things that we're already having to sort of plan for, so that's why we're asking, let's make sure we're collaborating here so that we're planning for your

Mr. Thigpen, you all mentioned the 4% Act 36. We would be theoretically working on state roads. We would be taking the place of the state as the contractor, I guess, on these projects. Would we be paying the same 4% to them that the state does?

Yes, sir. We have the 4%. It doesn't matter if it's a state road or a county road. For wet utilities, we have a 4% already cooked into the estimates that we're doing for our projects.

Okay, that's in the pie. Yes, sir. Already playing out in the pie. Okay. Okay, I think I'm good for now. My concern, I want to make sure, Mr. Thigpenny, y'all have done a great job of this, is that If we've got to relocate a four, whatever, 20-inch pipe, I don't know the numbers, that we're not putting in a 28-inch pipe, that we're not replacing a pinto with a Cadillac. So put a Ford in there, but don't put a Cadillac in there. I want to make sure that we're not jumping up to the top of class on the TST back. Is that clear?

We work with our staff to replace what's needed. Usually if it's deemed to be an upgrade, they kick it a little bit more than the 4% or what that upgrade delta is.

I agree. I mean, if we're in there, we're in there. Let's do what's going to support the growth. I don't disagree with that. But, you know, let's don't go nuts.

No, no, we would bear the cost if we saw an opportunity to upgrade our infrastructure while road was open and we were having to do it anyway. We bear the cost of the upgrade. That doesn't get passed along to the county. I'd love to hear that. And again, the 4%, which you all have baked in, Any opportunities that my staff and your staff have to reduce the impact on utilities is money that y'all would have allocated otherwise that can be used for your purposes, which is further road projects and improvements. Thank you, Mr. Pritchard. Thank you.

Mr. Darby? None. Mr. Sass? None. Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pryor. Chairman Pritchard, I just want to say thank you very much for coming up here with your staff today. I agree with you 100%. Collaboration and cost savings and avoiding relocation where we can is to our mutual benefit. And I look forward to working with you and your staff together on these projects. And at the end of the day, it's all either ratepayer or taxpayer dollars. And so everything we can do to lower those costs and not waste any money is a mutual benefit to all. So thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Grabowski, you said no. I think that the questions that you, Councilman Moody, and the comments by the others that cover my questions. All right. Mr. Wehrman.

yeah uh mr pritchard i just echo a lot of what's been said i mean you know no one no one should have to choose between water and and transportation improvements um and i i thank you all for coming coming here it sounds like you know known unknowns i mean i wouldn't have any shame in using that phrasing because i mean that's how we get ahead of that's how we get ahead of issues and um look forward to being collaborative in that way you know moving forward regardless of whether it's TST or any other infrastructure project. So I think that's certainly something that we want to do for everyone in Charleston County.

We appreciate your time, and my staff's always available to you or your staff.

Thank you for coming and answering the question, and look forward to working with you all in the future. Appreciate it. All right, back to you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pryor. With that, we stand adjourned.

That's his pipe.