County Council - Regular Meeting

All right, let's get a head count. Hmm.

Good evening. It is 5.30. I am not Theo Lane. I am Robbie Templeton, but I'm not here with your Friday update. We are going to start this business with consent of Chairman Lane and Vice Chairman Pruitt. I will be presiding over tonight's meeting. Council has been in executive session since 4 o'clock. Mr. Chappell, would you please advise the public what those six items were?

Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman and members of County Council, we needed to enter an executive session for the following six matters. Four legal matters. The first issue pertains to a zoning issue in the area of the Greenwood County Landfill. The second issue pertains to a taxation issue with Woodfield Solar LLC. The third is a quitclaim deed regarding property in the area of 1695 Calhoun Road. And the fourth pertained to Greenwood County Code of Ordinances 2-2-9. and two economic development matters pertaining to projects Apex and Apollo.

Council, those were the items that we discussed, and there is no action to be taken, so I will need a motion that we come out of executive session.

Motion to exit. I second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? All right, we are out of executive session. So call this meeting to order. Notice has been given by Mayling and Jenison, Next Journal, and other media outlets posted on the front door of the courthouse, Park Plaza, the library, and here. And our invocation tonight is listed as being by Chairman Lane. However, Johanna Bishop is going to take care of that for us, and we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance after that.

Father, in the name of Jesus, Lord, we just thank you so much for this beautiful day that you have created. Father, I thank you for each and every individual here today. Lord, I ask that you continue to bless us and keep us in all that we do. Lord, I bless each family. I bless each home. And Father, I just thank you for the opportunity to serve, Lord. Lord, I ask that you bless each county council member as they make whatever decision you lead them to make. Lord, we just thank you and we honor you this day. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen.

Please join us in the pledge. Thank you, and I am glad to see a full house. Appreciate you guys coming out. We need approval of the minutes for the July 7th regular meeting. Is there a motion?

So moved. I second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? The minutes are approved. Got about 24 people signed up for public comment, all of them related to Ordinance 2625, imposing a temporary moratorium on the approval of data centers. I'm gonna invoke Chairman's privilege with the okay of counsel, and that is going to be that I'm going to move the vote on old business item A to the first of the agenda. Public comment will follow. If any of you would like to speak after that, you're more than welcome to. But Ordinance 2026-25, imposing a temporary moratorium on the approval of data centers and related infrastructure within Greenwood County for a period of one year, providing findings and providing for an effective date, written by Mark Allison, Kathy Miller, and Vice Chairman Dane Pruitt. This is third and final reading. Is there a motion from council?

I offer you a motion to approve. I second.

Motion to approve by Mr. Allison, second by Ms. Miller. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carries 4-3. Again, everyone who signed up for public comment signed up for that agenda item. I am not trying to keep anyone from speaking who wants to speak. However, I figured that was why everybody was here. That's what everybody wanted to see us do. There was a lot of question about whether or not I would keep my vote or not. I've been getting hit with that for a week. But it is done, so you can take a deep breath. Now before I move back up to public comment, council has asked me to make the following brief statement, which is there are no data centers being considered, built, no deals, nothing being cleared, nothing in the works, contrary to what everybody may have heard. But that is just not the case. And council has asked me to reiterate that, and I have. So I'll go back to public comment. The first, and I would just, if you don't, I would, I would like, if I call your name, you can just say, I'm good, thank you so much for your yes vote, and we'll move on. But the first person that signed up is Aaron Kahn, and he presented Ms. McIntyre with a request to be placed on the agenda and granted additional time as it relates to 2-2-9 in the County Code of Ordinances. However, he does not meet the requirements of 2-2-9 because the very first thing under 2-2-9 is that any person they're desiring to be heard during a regular council meeting must submit their request to the county manager prior to 12 noon on the Thursday preceding the regular council meeting scheduled for the following Tuesday and that was given to us this afternoon a little after 4. He also cites section D, C, D E and G. Under G, he will be allowed three minutes to speak if he would like to, but it will be three minutes only, and it will be only on any topic that is on the agenda item, just like anyone else. That is historically what we do, and that is historically what we'll continue to do. So.

Chair.

Sir, I can't hear you.

Oh, I'm sorry. May I respond to that?

No, sir, you've got three minutes.

Okay. So I'd like to start off if we're going to go that route. Are you aware that you have two criminal investigations against you?

That is not on the agenda, sir.

I think that people need to know about that.

OK, I'm going to ask you one more time. That is not on the agenda.

OK, so I'm OK. So you've got to stick to an agenda item for me. The reason why I'm speaking is because of my expertize in what I just came from and what I've been doing all of my research. I was going to say to the members here. that there is no evidence of a bitcoin mining operation here in greenwood okay there's also no bitcoin mining operation on the agenda for tonight i'm going to ask you one more time nope nope nope i'm going to ask you one more time to speak to an agenda item or i'm going to cut your mic your choice and your time is running gotcha well the moratorium let's talk about it let's talk about the moratorium and why you guys can't vote on it, okay? This is a procedural problem, okay?

We just did vote on it, sir.

Yeah, but there's other problems, and don't smile, sir, please, respectfully, respectfully. I'm a nice guy, always smile. Respectfully, okay? I mean, you know, you want it from us, the people, right? And, you know, we would just ask for that in return. I am a 100% combat disabled veteran with a handicap plate on my truck. I fought for my rights. Thank you for your service. It's not reciprocated. You know what I mean? I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to be rude, but I fought. My brothers have died. My good friends, I've been there.

I appreciate that, but I'm going to ask you again, what item on the agenda are you speaking to?

I'm speaking on the moratorium, okay? And the reasons why there are certain council members who cannot vote for it regardless. Okay. There are procedural concerns based off all of my research. It's very extensive. Okay. I'm bringing the feds in. I think the people need to know about it. Do you guys want to know about what projects payphone is?

There's no such thing as Project Payphone.

There is, because right now...

But it's also not on the agenda, so if you want to go back to the agenda, we can do so.

Listen, I tried to do this. I have documents for each and every single one of you. I have packets.

You can hand out those packets. We're going to cut that mic. We're going to take a 10-minute recess. Thank you. He's done. He's not following our items. He's done. I gave you the rules. I'm not going to argue with you. I gave you the rules. I gave you three minutes. I told you to stick to an item on the agenda, which you are not doing. You're trying to make a personal case. You've already told law enforcement tonight that your goal here was to go over time and get thrown out. I'm not going to let you make a show out of this. I'm not going to let you make a show out of this. So cut his mic, please. We will take a ten minute recess. Y'all can boo me if you want. We'll be back at five fifty one. Sergeant Womack. I'm going to make you get out.

Yeah, doctor, yeah.

I'll be the bad guy now. But I can't handle it right now. You okay with what I did? Yeah.

I'm going to speak to the chair. We're taking a rest.

He conceded three minutes, two minutes ago.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys. It is now 5.51, and that is our, we're coming out of recess. I will move to the next name on the agenda, next name on the public comment sheet. If you do not wish to speak now, just say you don't, or if you do, come on. Kalista Lindholm, I think that is. Okay. Is that you? I see you.

Is this one working? Oh, it does. One moment. And I would like to give a little bit of a disclaimer. I might stutter a bit. I have horrid anxiety, so please bear with me. My name is Calista Lindholm, and I live in Bradley. And I'm here to ask you guys to extend the moratorium permanently. A single large AI data center can draw over 100 megawatts, enough to power around 80,000 homes. And the newest campuses are built about 20 times larger than that. They can also use up to 5 million gallons of water a day. And that is what a town of about 10,000 to 50,000 people use. Fun fact, that scale has almost nothing to do with how much any of us actually use AI. A chatbot question costs a fraction of a cent and a few milliliters of water. What actually eats at that power is training massive models, because whoever has the most advanced model wins the race between a handful of a few tech giants. And they are who get government funding. We'd be handing over our land, our water, and our grid to feed that race. And Carnegie Mellon researchers project the national build out could raise the average electric bill by 8% in 2030 and over 25% in the hardest hit areas. In addition to this, the Pentagon has spent the last year signing tens of billions of dollars in classified AI contracts for autonomous weapons and battlefield targeting. And closer to home, Fox Safety's license plate cameras, already spreading throughout Greenwood, South Carolina, store their data in Amazon's government cloud and use AI to process all of the data they collect, visual, audio, and they create profiles for the people they lock. Federal agents have repeatedly accessed this data without local towns' knowledge, and the Institute of Justice has documented at least 24 cases of police officers including sitting chiefs using Flock to stalk ex-partners and families. Every data center we approve adds to the computing powder that makes this kind of surveillance cheaper and easier to scale. And it allows companies like Flock and whoever comes after Flock to expand. Nothing in our current law stops a camera from going up at the end of your street, and nothing about saying yes to data centers in the future makes that less likely. And finally, I'd ask you the way the human cost. A 2026 APA survey of over 1,000 licensed psychologists found that more than a third are seeing patients grow dependent on AI chatbots, and 15% are seeing distorted thinking tied to it. Clinicians now call this AI psychosis. At least 14 deaths and five wrongful death lawsuits have followed these chatbot-fueled spirals, including three children. 14-year-old Sowell Setzer and 13-year-old Juliana Peralotta both died by suicide after prolonged relationships with character AI chatbots.

Yes, ma'am. Okay, your three minutes is up, but I do love your comments. Thank you. Thank you, and I will remind everyone that... I will remind everyone that the moratorium did pass for the period of a year, but council can extend that at any time, but I'm sure it will be taken up again in the future. Doug Farrell is next on my sheet. Does Doug still want to speak?

I'll try to go quickly here. My name is Doug Farrell. I've been a resident of Greenwood County for about five years now. I was born and raised here in South Carolina in an Irmo-Lexington area. I earned my BS and MS in engineering at Clemson University, and I spent 30 years out in California in high tech. I don't say that to brag. I say that so that you know where I'm coming from and that these comments are based on facts and experience. I am opposed to AI data centers being built in Greenwood County for several reasons. First, as many people have already noted, they aren't big job providers. We're not gonna get a bunch of jobs. The jobs in construction are gonna be mostly from out of state because it's a specialized construction project. They're gonna use experienced firms to do that work. We'll get a little bit for clearing and things like that, but most of the work is gonna be from out of state people. When it comes to operational concerns, there are only tens of workers in these places in each shift. Some of them are going to be able to be remoted. Local jobs will include things like landscape maintenance, janitorial work, security at the site, facilities maintenance, and some low-level tech jobs. That's not a whole lot for what we're giving up. Second, these facilities, as other people have noted, are huge consumers of power. Even a small one is 20 megawatts. That is big. That's about one-third of all the residences in Greenwood County equivalent. just for one small data center. If you're talking about anything bigger than that, it's a lot more. Along with the power consumption comes water consumption for cooling, which we've all talked about, and noise. Third, as a result of the previous points, they aren't good neighbors. They just aren't. They have no place in rural areas, RDDs, or in light industrial. I know that moratorium prevents that, that's good. But, and some of the other burbage in the law, stuff that you pass, but looking forward, these are not good neighbors for anybody. You need to carefully consider the people who live here now and what the impact is going to be. So if we include on-site power generation as a possibility, that's even worse. Now you've got, if there's a gas power plant or diesel backup generators and things like that, you've got emissions in the neighborhood. Not good, and more noise. Oh, sorry. Finally, let's be clear that the companies that are seeking to build these facilities are not interested in being partners with communities they choose. That's not it at all. They simply are looking for cheap power, cheap water, cheap land, low regulatory hurdles, low taxes, and malleable or gullible local government. Right? Greenwood County fits the bill, unfortunately. Council members need to be wary of manipulation by these companies. I worked in tech. I know what goes on, all right? They're only looking to avail themselves of what we have.

Your time is up. I'm going to give you 30 seconds to wrap up.

All right.

I'll give you 30 seconds to wrap up.

I appreciate that. Yes, sir. They have legal teams that are probably as large as our entire government. They're going to out-negotiate us every time, every time. I want to emphasize, be wary when you're negotiating. It's a lot better for us to have regulations in place ahead of time and carefully thought out and use some of the community resources to form those regulations before you start negotiating.

Thank you for wrapping up in 30 seconds. I appreciate it. Steven Hogan is next on my list. And I failed to ask you all to give us your address when you come to the mic. Please do that for Susan.

108 Oak Ridge Drive.

Thank you, sir.

Okay. Not a good speaker. But my background, nuclear power plants, when they were being built until they were not being built, and maintenance, operation, all that, quality control, as well as a law enforcement background after that. And that background gave me a very good insight on seeing a problem before it happens, being proactive, stop it before it happens. Research, data, independent data is so important. We're in a race against China. That's what they keep calling it. Well, we're not paying attention to the curves, the turns. We're going full force. without paying attention to the dangers. And that's just a recipe for disaster. You're going to crash and burn. Let China crash and burn. We don't have enough information on what we're saying yes to. We have to be smart about it, not with this gold fever. You know, they flash a billion dollars in front of your face, and that's all you're paying attention to. We recently, my family and I, we recently moved from Florida because the sprawling impact of all the people moving from California and New York City trying to run from that nonsense. And now we're fighting now to try to put some common sense into our decisions. You have to be smart enough to how stupid you are, at the minimum. I'm sorry, all due respect, I'm not trying to be, I'm just trying to bring it down to a, you know, it's too big of a, we don't have enough information about what we're saying yes to. These data centers are so impactful that this type of, this large of an impact needs to be brought before the people, not seven people, the whole public. to decide whether we want data centers. I think I think it's the last meeting you explain to me that we need a referendum. To enact that. To have the people vote on the data center, not just 7 and this would get to take it off your shoulders to Yes, it would. It's a good, good thing, you know? Take the weight off your shoulders and put it on to a vote for the whole public. So is that true? That's the referendum? Is that what we need to enact?

I'm not sure exactly how that would have to go to get on the ballot, but, yeah, it would be a process.

Whatever the mechanism is, though, I'd like to see that.

Yes, sir. I appreciate your comments. Your three minutes is up. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Ms. Debbie Turner. I know I saw her. There she is.

Thank you. 306 Gentry Run.

Thanks, Debbie.

A few days ago, Greenwood Calendar published a list of our county's most notable people. Many of those names appear on buildings, trophies, headlines, and highway signs. But another group of people rarely receives public recognition. They serve quietly behind the scenes simply because they love this community. You won't find their names on the side of a building. Instead, they are engraved on our hearts. They are extraordinary, but regular people like these surrounding me tonight. They've researched the issues. They've asked hard questions and pressed for answers. They've made phone calls, sent emails, attended meetings, and respectfully made their voices heard. When they saw a potential threat to Greenwood, they said, We may not have every answer, but it's clear you don't either, and we refuse to allow our community to become part of a dangerous experiment. If something threatens one of us, it threatens all of us, and we will stand together. Over the years, I've served on many community boards and committees, and I've watched Greenwood folks accomplish incredible things together. But I can honestly say I have never been more proud of this community than I am tonight. Don't let this be the end of our involvement. Let it be the beginning of a wiser, more engaged Greenwood. Thank you, Mark, Kathy, Dane, and Robbie for listening to your constituents and for taking a difficult stand on behalf of the people you were elected to serve. You've responded to our concerns, and we are grateful for your vote in favor of this moratorium. To the other members of Council, we remain deeply divided on this issue. I respectfully ask you again to hear us. Greenwood is calling for caution. We are asking you to protect our health, our natural resources, and our quality of life. And finally, to my fellow citizens, tonight is not the finish line, it's the starting line. The future of Greenwood will be shaped by citizens who stay informed, stay engaged, support leaders who faithfully represent their communities, and continue showing up. The greatest legacy any of us can leave isn't our name on a building. It's leaving Greenwood better than we found it for the generations who come after us. May we never forget the lessons gained from this experience. We are better and stronger together. Thank you.

Thank you, Debbie.

And you measured that out perfectly.

The next name on my list is Sam, and I'm sorry, I cannot make out that last name. Thank you. I can see it now.

Hello, my name is Sam Rowland, 2261 Montague Avenue Extension. So first of all, I'd like to thank you for your vote. It kept me from having to play my speaker and my 70 decibel humming noise from a data center the whole time I was up here.

Thank you. We appreciate that. We appreciate that. Thank you very much, Sam.

So I want to thank you for that.

We thank you.

I think you all did the right thing. It's ironic that you have New York, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Michigan, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, red states and blue states, all those states have house bills against data centers and placing them on a, up to 2028, do not do anything with them. Then you have Florida, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Virginia, again, blue and red states in lawsuits against AI companies right now for the practices they have, whether it's water, electrical consumption, or not doing the right thing of what they said they would do. The biggest thing is the forever chemicals that are involved with these places. A forever chemical, there are 15,000 of these synthetic chemicals that never go away. You basically can't burn them away, you can't dissolve them. It's so bad that 3M decided to stop making these forever chemicals. Polyfluoroalkali and perfluoroalkali are two of the biggest ones. Data centers use them in the cooling and the fire suppression and everything else. And every two years all the water that's there has to be taken out. We need to have, even if later on you decide to use data centers in our county, hopefully you won't, but there's got to be a plan for what to do with this water. Everybody knows Erin Brockovich and you know her big statement, the solution to pollution is not dilution because these chemicals never go away. Just because the waters return to the lake, they're never going to go away. They're going to go downstream and they're going to sit in that lake forever. Again, I want to say thank you for listening. I hope that you continue to listen to the constituents. Some of you did the right thing, and some of you, that's like an opinion in a butthole. They all sometimes smell. I would like to encourage you, though, to not go after the sweet taste of greed, because it is sweet. It would be hard to turn down, so in 120 acres to a data center and all that money. But greed is only sweet for a short time and the taste of karma will last you forever. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam.

You sure can.

Before Mr. Templeton moves to the next person, I just wanted to tell everybody thank you so much for being here. I am not feeling well and have pain, and so I am going home and rest. I was in the ER this morning, and so like I said, thank you guys for coming, but I need to lay down and rest because I don't want to be in pain.

Thank you for being here, Johanna. All right. Next on my list is David. And again, I can't read that last name. I'm so sorry. 136 Roman Circle. Come on up, sir. Or come on down if we were doing prices right.

Thank you very much for this opportunity. Just a few questions that I felt we need to address. They talked about the 65 dB level, noise level. And having worked in industry, I know that you have to start up those generators, those emergency generators. Many of these data centers will require three or more. And this is an awful lot of noise coming from them. I assume that the 65 that was mentioned last week or the last meeting was the standard DB reading, which is normal. But I wondered where we would be with the generators running. So that's maybe something you might want to look at. Cooling systems is another thing. I didn't hear him say, the representative that was here last week, if that was going to be an open or closed cooling system. A closed cooling system would require less water. But the contaminants would be the same. I don't know how we would deal with them. I don't think that our... community is set up to deal with that type of water. One other question came to mind, and this was because of the numbers of $20 to $30 million revenue, realizing that once the building is built, there goes most of your revenue as far as individual employees. because then you're gonna have a minimal staff, possibly two janitors, one watching the other. You're gonna subcontract things out to be brought in like cooling tower filters. But if we're talking about property taxes, $20 to $30 million seems to be excessive. If we were considering considering the electric bill that they might require, that can't be considered revenue because typically communities give away utilities or a portion of them. So we wouldn't see the full advantage of that 20 to 30 million. The one thing I didn't like about last week where there's a lot of personal feelings hurt, a lot of things said that shouldn't been said, And I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't be better by having this decided in a vote. We have a general election coming up. They've had to rearrange the menu on that so they could put an item on there for Greenwood County to vote on this, up or down.

I'm going to ask you to wrap up again. I'll give you 30 seconds. I'm trying to be consistent. That's your time. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Hey, and I appreciate your comments. I agree with you on some of the things that were said the other week were not nice. And I'll also just say that part of the reason for this moratorium is for us to answer all the questions that not only you've asked, but so many other people have asked as it relates to data centers. But the revenue, I can answer that very quickly for you. The revenue comes off tax revenue off the total investment. So those numbers came from, I think, the number of $4 billion with a B investment. So that's where that came from. That's strictly tax revenue. But anyway, thank you for your comments. I really appreciate it. Next up is Adam Jackson, if he still wants to speak. Here he comes. And I don't have your address here, Adam, so if you'll give it, that'd be great.

Yes, sir. Adam Jackson, 605 Johns Creek Road in Hodges. First thing is I just want to thank Councilman Allison, Councilwoman Miller, Councilman Pruitt, and of course you, Councilman Templeton, for hearing what the community was asking for and being responsive to our requests. One thing people don't tend to think about is all of our counties are data centers are looking to put one somewhere. And we all share the same water sources. A lot of us share the same electrical sources. So I'm hoping going forward, maybe a commission can be formed with all of the counties under the head of the state to actually get some proper procedures in place that would protect everybody upstream and downstream from wherever a data center may lie.

Yes, absolutely.

I also want to thank the citizens of Greenwood for showing up. This is important, but this is not the only time that we need to show up. We need to be here consistently to know what our government is doing, what our representatives are doing in our name, and to give them guidance if we do not feel like it's what we want. So thank you all for showing up, but please don't let this be the last time. And I encourage you to continue to listen to the public, give us some input as you go through this process. You've been great about allowing us to speak, and I hope that you will continue to do so. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. All right, I'm going to keep us moving. So Tracy Rickey, if you would like to speak, it is your turn to the mic.

Hi, my name is Tracy Rickey. You guys have seen me at every meeting, so I won't take up your time. Thank you very much for imposing the 12-month moratorium. I appreciate that very much. And I will be watching and I will be attending to make sure that this stays as a moratorium for 12 months and nothing's going on, nothing's sneakily coming in. So I will be keeping an eye out, and you will be seeing a lot more of me. So thank you very much. That's great. I look forward to it. Thank you.

Thank you, Tracy. And thank you for keeping your comments brief. Jody Johnson, next to the mic, if you want to come. Nope? Okay. Thank you for that. James Hollingsworth, if you want to come to the mic, step on up, please, sir. And give us your address. I forgot to do that with Tracy, but it's 522 Pascal Drive, Susan.

Mine's 108 Townsend Road, Hodges, South Carolina. Thank you, sir. First off, I want to thank you all for passing the memorandum. Thank you. But I got a question. What's going to happen when the one year's up?

I would hope, okay, I'm one member of council. I would hope that during that year that we would have some type of citizen forum committee. And again, this is just me, okay? But at some point, I would like to see us have some form of citizen committee put together to try to answer all the questions that you guys have asked and some of the questions that we have asked and try to see if we can't see if it's right for us, if it's wrong for us. Whatever that comes out, it comes out. But the whole idea behind the moratorium was for us to gather information and do what's best for this community. And I believe that's what everybody in this room wants is whatever's best for this community. But I agree that we don't have enough information right now, so we're gonna try to get it. And again, it won't be just the seven of us making that decision. In my world, we would get some of you that are sitting here tonight that have great ideas and thoughts and processes and experience on this that we could get together and try to figure out what's best for the community. I don't know what that is right now. I don't think any of us do. But that's the reason for the 12 months. And if we get to the end of 12 months and we still don't have the answers, council can extend it. So I hope that answers your question.

No words you don't know. It's basically. I'm sorry, what? Basically what you're saying you don't know. Well, I think... I mean, this is a statewide thing, it looks like.

Well, I think what... The gentleman... I mean, I don't want to get into a question and answer because that's not what we do in public hearings. I mean, in a public comment, we just get your comments. We take it. So I'm kind of giving you a little extra here. I'm trying to be lenient. But just to answer your question, this is a fact-finding time for the next 12 months. And the gentleman that spoke earlier about we also need to take into consideration what happens upstream from us. And we just need to look at the whole picture. So I will just...

stop the question and answer banter by saying this is a time for all of us to research and figure out what's best for greenwood county and i thank you mr home i got a suggestion sure why come every quarter or every six months or something like that you couldn't have an open forum that the public could come and ask y'all questions about what's going on in greenwood county We could probably... I mean, what would that hurt? We stay in the dark all the time. Well, we do have... Y'all have the minutes on the internet.

Well, we do have two meetings a month. They're open to the public. We have an opportunity for you to speak at those. They're aired live. They are archived on our website, so you can pull each and every one of them up for the last however many years. Well, I appreciate that. And then Abby, our PIO... put stuff out all the time on our social media platforms. The Index Journal does a great job of reporting on our meetings. Yes, that was my shout out to you. Thank you for the thumbs up. So the information is out there.

not saying you don't have to look for it but and please y'all don't boo me when i say this but there is some personal responsibility involved to keeping up with what's going on in your community and y'all are doing a hell of a job of it right now so thank you i'm talking about an open forum where we can ask questions you know as well as i know i've been some of the meetings and i started asking questions and you was for one told me that's all that's not on the agenda well that's you know until we change i guess we'd have to look at changing our rules mr hollingsworth we won't we we would like to have some say so in what's going on or put opinions in what's going on and know what y'all doing well i think this meeting tonight shows of the meetings we've had the last few weeks

would show that that is the case, that we do listen, you do have an opportunity to speak to us. I have said for a long, long time that local government is the best form of government there is, and the reason I say that is because it's closest to the people. We go to church with you guys, we see you at Walmart, we see you at restaurants. We can't hide from you. If you want to get us, you get us. You got our cell phone numbers. I think everybody in Greenwood's got mine, because I know they've called me in the last two weeks for sure. And I'm okay with that, thank you. That's a blanket. Thank you If you screw up at the national level nothing ever gets done You screw up at the state level nothing ever gets done if you strip at the local level You can fix it if you make a bad boat. I've seen it happen. I've been here long But mr. Hollingsworth you and I had a great conversation I appreciate your questions they were nice and polite, but I'm gonna have to move on to the next person Thank you so much Elise McFarland, you still want to speak? Yes, she does. Come on down.

I'm going to make it pretty quick. 219 Forest Lane. First, I just want to say that I'm kind of loving the Robbie chairman vibe. It's very open and nice. Thank you for that. I just want to say thank you, guys, those of you that voted for it, for listening to us. And like Robbie said, local government is the most important form of government. It is the backbone of democracy, really, Um, and I just want to as someone and I also want to say that I believe you guys that there's not a data center. In the works that you've not been talking, you know, you don't have something secretly going on. Um, but as someone that works with these companies on these specific projects around the country, they are coming. So I just want to encourage you guys to take the next 12 months to really. flesh out some solid regulations and listen to third parties, third party experts on the different impact areas and just really take the time to get something solid in place that will protect Greenwood when they do come.

Thank you, Elise. Appreciate your comments and thank you for being brief. Jean Kroll, you still want to speak?

You know, I think everybody ahead of me have said what I was gonna say. I thank you for what you've done.

Thank you, ma'am. Sandy Sutherland? I see some movement.

Sandy Sutherland, 2002 Mount Moriah Road. And I too want to thank you guys for passing the moratorium. And I thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak and all of us and for listening to your constituents.

Yes, ma'am.

So there have been like many, many hours, as you all know, over the last few weeks of people giving incredible convincing and factual information concerning data centers. And so just kudos to Greenwood community for that. So I don't want to repeat any of that, what they have to say, except that, you know, I agree with the extended moratorium. I hope it will be if need be longer than a year. But what I do want to share is a piece of history to help with the ongoing looking into this. And we can learn from this. This is our founding fathers. And we can get some excellent advice for them because when they were attempting to draft a constitution, this is a huge thing. And the founding fathers, the leaders of each state, the 13 states were brilliant men with a brilliant record. But They actually had confusion and arguing and all of these things. They could not come up with any kind of unity. They all had different ideas to write our Constitution, such an important document that we would base everything on from then on. And so they struggled and struggled until finally Ben Franklin stood up, and a lot of you know about this, I'm sure. And he reminded them, and I won't quote him because it's too long, but he reminded them that when they, 10 years prior, were in impossible situations with Britain, and they prayed, He said they prayed and God answered their prayers in miraculous ways. Well, he said our prayers because he was a part of that. God heard and answered miraculously, he said. So from that turnaround, from then on, they had unity, they received wisdom from God, and they, of course, drafted a constitution unlike any that has ever been drafted and has lasted much longer than any countries have ever lasted. So I would just like to quote from the leader over every king, every authority.

I'm going to give you 30 seconds to wrap up, Sandra. Sorry. This is really interesting, but I'm just trying to be consistent. 30 seconds. 30 seconds.

You got this. So Jesus asked us to pray. for all the people, for leaders, all in authority, that we might lead a quiet and peaceable life. And I just urge you to look at that picture of the offending fathers on their knees and go there seeking his direction. And you will come up with the same. You will come up with unity if you do that.

Thank you, Sandy. Russ Fitzgerald. I know I've seen him. Come on down, Russ. Give us your name and address. Please, sir. I know you will, thank you. Russ Fitzgerald, 63 Fairway Lakes Road.

Now, first of all, I want to thank those of you who voted for the moratorium. And for those of you who were opposed, I'll have to persuade you. I'm gonna gently ask y'all to consider making this a permanent ban, and this is why. While I was distributing more than 800 flyers for moratorium on data centers here, I spoke with more than 500 people face to face, all backgrounds, all ages, levels of education, economic brackets, in every one of the districts. In all those conversations, only one person said he'd be okay with the data center here. under the right circumstances, won. Even then, he had his reservations. With that lone exception, everyone else I spoke with is opposed to data centers here. Some of them very firmly opposed. They do not want them, and some of them are very angry that anyone would consider allowing data centers here. Everyone I spoke with was familiar with the problems of data centers and most of them have followed this issue nationally. Many of them were concerned with how this is happening in South Carolina. They especially looked at what's going on in Spartanburg. Now they knew all the arguments that are gonna be made by supporters that data centers will pour tax revenue into the county and they're gonna fund all kind of public spending without prompting They start asking questions about tax breaks, special deals, special incentives, and then they shift to concerns about air quality, noise, and other health and environmental effects. They'd look at the money thing and then they'd say in so many words, the only thing that ages worse than technology is milk. They understand that There's going to come time. These things will go obsolete probably very quickly. And then we're stuck with these massive, massive platforms that are filled with rapidly aging junk. Our citizens understand that dollars are not the only measure of value. And overwhelmingly, they think that data centers are a bad bargain for Greenwood County. Now, I'm grateful for the for the moratorium because we need it because we need it to gather facts about how data centers affect people and their health and their environment. We need this moratorium so we can look at questions like why does 2026-19 prohibit piston engine diesel generators but does not even approach the issue of gas-fired electrical turbine systems to generate massive amounts, which is what the whole fight in Spartanburg seems to be going down to about. We need this moratorium, and I'm grateful for it, so we can have an open discussion about how no amount of money poured into a tax base can outweigh the loss of our community's quality of life, which is pretty amazingly good. And finally, thank you for the moratorium because we need it, because we need to have frank conversations about just exactly which irreplaceable places, things, and experiences that we, the people of Greenwood County, are expected to give up for what in the end is only money.

You know what I'm going to say, Russ, 30 seconds.

Thank you, sir. You got it.

Thank you, buddy.

Dave Schofield.

If you're here, come on down. Thank you, Dave. I know this next lady is coming down. Tina. Thank you, Tina.

Tina Escalona, the Johns Creek area of Hodgetts, South Carolina. First of all, I want to give the flowers to Theo. Thank you very much, sir, for arranging the GPAC center so everybody could come and be heard. I reached out to you on behalf of all the citizens. And you quickly said that you would do this for us. So thank you so much. We really appreciate that. Allowing us to have a forum where we can voice our concerns and also to share our thoughts. We want to say thank you. Thank you guys for hearing us. Thank you. I know this was a painful process. It was for you guys. It was for us as advocates too. This was not easy work. for anybody whenever there's a big chasm between the decision makers, the people who hold the information, and those of us who are confused. You have access to the attorneys, you have access to the information, we don't. So there was a lot of angst. I know it was really painful getting to this point, and I wanna say thank you. Thank you especially to our champions who stood up for us, who led the way. And thank you for the guys who listened, but even didn't come along beside us now, we're really hopeful that We will find a way to be able to work less painfully together going forward because the group isn't going away. The group has issues to focus on, but we want to say that we are so grateful to live in Greenwood County, South Carolina. Greenwood County is a wonderful place to live. It's a wonderful place to work. We welcome people here. We welcome good industries here that will bring jobs for our people. We welcome the retirees here. I've met through this experience some of the best people that I've met in my entire career and my life. that have moved into the area that have been lifelong residents like myself. I still have the acreage that my grandparents had a dairy farm on in the country. We care about this land. We care about this community. We have failed a lot of times by not being positively engaged with you guys. We waited until there was a crisis or an almost crisis to be connected to you guys, and it hasn't been pleasant at times. And for that, I'm sorry. I wish it could have been easier for all of us. But what I can say is that hopefully we'll find a way. I know that the Ann Eller Show provided a wonderful opportunity for Mark and Kathy, council members Mark and Kathy, to go and explain a really complex issue in ways that people understood. The index, the media with Erin and Pig News, everybody has taken time to try and get some questions answered and get information out there. and we need more of that. I think that where you have the Friday videos and those types of things, rather than Abby dropping videos, perhaps doing these conversational videos with Ann Eller and with the media where you can boil down those complex issues, the things that are coming down the pipeline, and kind of fill that gap of information so that we don't just hear about something and get enraged about it, but we are kind of walked along the process. I think that that will help us as a community. Lastly, I'm really thankful that we are not Spartanburg, South Carolina, and some of these other communities that are catching up and trying to put that genie back in the bottle. You guys did a good job. This is a model that I think other communities will be looking to.

30 seconds.

You guys will probably be asked to speak to that. Lastly, we would like to have the state step in. As Adam had mentioned, it's time. The state needs to step in and not the least prepared communities have these data centers pushed upon them because it's going to impact all of us upstream and downstream, just like he said. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Tina. Rachel Arnold, would you still like to speak? Are you still here? Yep. Here she comes. No worries.

There's a lot of money laying around up here. Okay. Good evening and thank you for the time to speak tonight. I first want to say a huge thank you to Mark Allison, Kathy Miller, Dane Pruitt, and Robbie Templeton for voting for the citizens of Greenwood instead of the data centers. I had to revise my speech a little bit, so I might flip around. I am opposed to data centers in our county forever. And I urge all of you to not sit back during this next 12 months, but to truly do your due diligence. Watch our neighbors, see what is happening in their communities, watch how the quality of life and the environment significantly decreases. And over the next 12 months, I pray that you will work to keep the charm of our small town the charm and the quality of life that keeps people here and brings new people in to Joanna who has left Teresa and Theo I also ask that you evaluate your position on this council for those of you who voted against the moratorium you three please ask yourself why are you serving in a position of power for the people when you don't even listen respect and care about us in the last meeting hey Rachel I appreciate your comments but let's don't direct them at people please that's okay I'll just say the ones that didn't vote for it the ones that okay so the people expressed at the last meeting that feelings that start with I me and my but in the position that you are in it is not about you and what you want If you're in this position for money or anything else besides representing the people who are behind me and in our community who voted for you in this position, I ask that you resign quickly or simply do not run again. Please let someone that actually cares about what the citizens and taxpayers of Greenwood ask for and desire and have your position instead. And I do thank you for your time. I mean that with respect. And thank you again for those who have voted for the moratorium.

Thank you for your comment. I will butcher this last name. So let me just say Nadia, if you're still here and would still like to speak, please come on down. I see you. Pronounce your last name for me, please. I would not have gotten that, but thank you. That's right.

Good evening. My name is Nadia Permakoff. I live on Briarwood Road in District 1. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. Thank you for everyone who showed up and keeps on showing up and getting involved in the process. I ask that everybody continues to stay close to this. It truly takes a village, and the data center conversation is not going away anytime soon. So I ask that we all stay engaged in this. But tonight, I want to specifically address you, the council members. I appreciate that you are all here doing your best to represent Greenwood. To the four of you who voted in favor of the moratorium during the second reading and today, Kathy Miller, Mark Allison, Dane Pruitt, and Robbie Templeton, thank you for standing with the public and choosing the Greenwood community first, even if your own private views lean another way. Thank you for holding the line with the people's voice tonight on the third and final reading. And to the three council members that voted against the one-year moratorium, Theo, Teresa, and Johanna, as our representatives, you are the voice of the people that live here in your districts and elected you. You're not our judges. The public have spoken, and the recurring feedback from constituents again and again has been to slow down and pause with the moratorium. People want transparency. People want answers to questions first that directly affect our Greenwood community. People want to be part of the process, not handed decisions after the fact, like in Spartanburg. Please consider what your final vote shows us tonight. When you voted against a one-year pause, you signaled that the concerns raised by this community here are not important enough to slow down for. Many of us see that as dismissive, especially after the feedback you had already received from the community these last several weeks. You're not voting in a vacuum here in Greenwood. The whole country is paying attention and watching what communities do with data centers, and residents across the country are raising these same concerns. We, the people in Greenwood, are paying attention. We're paying attention to how you vote. We're paying attention to how you hear us, to what you say about transparency. By voting against the moratorium, you choose to move forward faster than residents believe is responsible. That decision carries consequences in the form of scrutiny, in the form of focus and public accountability through the civic process. If you do not represent us, we will have no choice but to vote you out. Greenwood deserves a process where the public is respected and informed before commitments are made that will be too hard to untangle in the future. I know this job is not easy. Well, I should say, I can only imagine that this job isn't easy, but thank you again, especially for the four voices that voted yes for the moratorium that we all asked for. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Dan Michael Carrington, you still here? You still want to speak? Thank you for your comments, sir. Tori Miller, you still want to speak? Yep. Come on down.

I'd like to say thank you for getting that passed. Also, folks, tonight, we the people of Greenwood County gathered to initiate and codify that moratorium on data centers here in the county, and it did happen. But since the last meeting, I've learned that a data center owned by Vera Holdings in Spartanburg, and actually got to see it, has been shuttered, meaning shut down, and they are being sued by the concerned citizens of Spartanburg. The data center was constructed at 4000 South Pine Street, within a few miles of schools, colleges, churches, a residential neighborhood, and downtown. And I used to have a house in that residential neighborhood. Now you don't want to have it there. The monitorium that you put in effect for one year, I wish that you would just continue it on or just cease on everything. It does give us some time for the people to get to know about it, the data centers, as well as you folks, too. Just remember, not all our folks are really highly educated in knowing all the little parts of a data center. So make sure you take this time to explain. and I'll gladly help you set up those explanation sessions.

Mr. Well, thank you, Tori. Thank you for your comments. Mr. Jay Self, are you still here? Mr. Yeah, I'm here, Robby. Mr. Hey, Jay, come on up.

Mr. Thanks, Robby, Kathy, Dane, Theo, all my friends up there and all my friends out here and neighbors. Thank you. And, you know, I've got a family member, Adam, who spoke a minute ago, he's married to my cousin who's my largest shareholder and we're on the opposite side of this issue. So we have interesting family discussions just like we're all having discussions here. I'm concerned about our stance on data centers and the data infrastructure is the largest infrastructure build out in this country's history and most significant since the railroads were put in in the 1800s. I don't want us to miss it. Greenwood was founded on railroads where five of them came together. And many of the residents here at the time, such as my great-great-grandfather, S.P. Matthews, used his own farm labor to lay the tracks through his own land in order to have access to that new economy that it brought. He parlayed this success into investments through his two son-in-laws, John Abney and JC Self, into two textile companies. The railroads led to the textile industry and the other industrial developments such that we enjoy today, which led to the neighborhoods, the schools, the churches, and our modern medical community. We need continued industrial development. whether it's data or anything. I heard on the news this morning that the data build-out nationwide could top $13 trillion, and Greenwood needs its share of that money. Today's data centers use closed-loop cooling systems that don't tax our water systems. The current generation of data centers are quieter and the noise levels are less than many of our current industries. I challenge you to go sit in the parking lot at the YMCA and tell me if it's too noisy right there because the factory next door is louder than a data center. Data centers have resulted in improvements and upgrades to the local electrical grids where they've been done. They are catalysts for upgrades in generation and transmission and in many cases are using clean energy to do it. In fact, in the case of natural disasters such as we had here in Hurricane Helene, critical infrastructure such as the hospital, data centers are the first places to get power back. then we are in a race with China for this data center and this data build out. And most concerning to me is it's a vote for no economic growth. In a world where it costs more to provide the essential services this county provides.

30 seconds, Jay, to wrap up.

Wrapping it up. It was a de facto vote to raise our property taxes. So I urge us to continue and do not adopt no growth, high tax policies. And because we don't need the next version of the interstate to pass through Lawrence County. And we don't need to become the next Allendale or Hampton.

Thank you, Jay. Okay, come on. It's okay to have differing opinions. We can disagree without being disagreeable. Y'all have done a great job so far. I'm proud of you. Last person on my list is Noelle Ireland.

Yes.

Come on down. Hi, 324 Lake Greenwood Boulevard. I'm here just by chance. I live in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina and hope to retire here someday. We bought our property a year ago and Um, I'm here for the 1 year warranty with their builder. So, um, I saw this on next door because I'm trying to be aware of what's happening in this awesome city. And, um, there wasn't a lot of people responding and the ones I've seen posts on next door, but I did sign the petition. And while I was here last night, I just happened to see that this meeting was happening. So I have prepared nothing, but I do want to say I feel surrounded by the whole data center issue, being that I'm a native of Virginia, lived there for 21 years before I moved to South Carolina. where there is a huge percentage of data centers, particularly in Northern Virginia, 600 of them. My mother lives five miles from a large data center that is Meta. And I forget what the, I think it's QTS. That started at White Oak Technology Center around 2017. She lives in a very small, very rural town. that I grew up in was born into and I will say that I didn't know that there was a data center down the street from her and so I was just there this past week and I sent my sister asked me to look into what was happening because there's a large detour that's requiring double the amount of time to get to town for her she's 81 years old so driving will be probably delayed here in the future. There's a large pipe they're laying under her streets for thirteen miles to bring water direct to these places where they have three data centers. Now they're putting seven more in. So it's particularly concerning to me. She has been moving around to different sisters houses and just went home for a few days and she has had issues with her stomach, and she's also had vertigo, which she hasn't had in over a year. She also dug a new well to get a 300-foot well because she was having some water shortages that I didn't connect to possible data center, but now I'm wondering. And her new well that she spent $14,000 on is not functioning well. She is still using water that she brings into the house because It smells like rotten eggs, and while that smell went away a few months after the well was put in, it is back and worse. So it has me questioning, and I would just urge everyone here to not let this end tonight. Go home and do your research. There's an article in People Magazine this week. It's about someone who turned down $26 million for her and her mom for her farmland in Kentucky. There's some really interesting statistics in there. It's about one bottled water for one question to AI is what is needed. And so I would just say, everybody, do your research. I've learned a lot in this past week. Didn't know really anything, and I hope this moratorium is forever.

Thank you for your comments. Okay, so I want to thank everybody who spoke for being respectful during the process and those who listened as well. I want to say that we do appreciate your comments. And I just want to say on behalf of my fellow council members, I do think that everyone up here wants to leave Greenwood better than they found it. I think that's why they ran. But I do thank you for your comments. We're gonna keep moving with the meeting. I'm gonna ask you to hang with us. It's only gonna be like four items. So if you'll hang with us, I really don't wanna stop again because if I do, we'll be here all night. So we're out of public comment. Now we need to move into public hearings. Council, I need a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? We've got two items under public hearings. We'll do them both, and then we'll vote on them before we go out. The first one is a quick claim transfer for Greenwood County to Great Scott LLC for approximately .09 acres of land, which is part of Greenwood County tax map number 6836-585-882, situated directly to the northeast of Greenwood County tax map number 6836-598-579 at 1703 Calhoun Road, Greenwood, South Carolina, Carson-Penny. You need your mic on. Mic?

It's on, it's not on.

You want mine?

Oh, now it's on. So do you guys have the slide with the map on it?

Correct.

thank you um so you can see next to lot three directly um what would be to the right i'm not sure if that's east or or not but to the right of lot three the point zero nine acres broken out that's what we're talking about it's old railroad bed that had been deeded to the county we don't have any particular use for it we actually usually it's dot that is using that right away rather than the county the owner of lot three Great Scott LLC approached us and asked if he could buy that or have us quick claim it to him so that he could build a driveway off of Calhoun Road. It is a commercial property. So that's what this public hearing is about.

Thank you, Carson. Before I ask anybody to come up and before anybody else leaves, I need to remind you guys, because you've asked about this as well, We have a strategic plan community meeting tomorrow night, 5.30 to 7.30 at the Greenwood County Library. So I just want to remind everybody of that. Now, anyone who would like to speak in favor of this quick claim transfer, please come to the mic and give us your name and address. And again, I'll give you three minutes.

My name is Bobby Scott, 115 Tryon Court. So I own the property. Um, this piece of abandoned railroad is directly in front of my property, so it would, I guess, feasibly could block entrance into my property off of Calhoun road. Um, several other parcels along Calhoun road. I think hunters headquarters, the old music masters also have this issue. Um, it didn't seem to affect them, but rather than taking a chance, I just wanted to go ahead and get it over to me and. I started paying taxes on it, you know, to help the county.

So we appreciate that. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak in favor? Anyone like to speak in opposition? Seeing no one, we'll move to the next item, which is the lease of hangers at the Greenwood County Airport. The lessee and the designated hangers are specified in a table below that you have in front of you, counsel. Rhett Templeton will bring that to us. Rhett.

Thank you, sir. as we've done for some time as we lease hangers we do have a public hearing um these are the hangers that are we're up for lease right now and these are the general these are the people that we'd like to put that put down any questions for rep before we okay i have one question mr chairman go ahead miss miller um could you please explain to me the difference in the hanger and then one of them says ramp what does that mean so we have space on our ramp that's the the large concrete pad out Behind the terminal building, we do lease that space if someone wants to park a vehicle there, a plane there permanently. And like each of the hangars, the numbers, they have rows, A row through E row, and those numbers correspond with the hanger down on those rows. But I'll have a map with me today to kind of outline it, but I'd be happy to do that sometime.

So it's not actually in a hangar, it's outside on a ramp?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? All right, anyone who'd like to speak in favor of this, please do so. Come on. Anyone I see no 1, so anyone who'd like to speak in opposition. I see no 1, so I'm going to ask for a vote to come out of public hearing off your motion to come out of the public hearing. Got a motion in a 2nd in discussion. All in favor. All right, counsel, what's your pleasure on the 1st item on the quick claim transfer on great Scott? Mr. chairman off your motion to approve this presented.

I second it.

Got a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none. Okay. Item two, lease the hangars at the Greenwood County Airport. Is there a motion from council?

I'll make a motion to approve.

Mr. Allison with the motion. Ms. Miller with the second. Any discussion? All those in favor? No and opposed, so that moves on. All right, that ends our public hearing section. New business, we have a consideration of appointment to the GLEAMS Human Resource Commission.

Toby Chappell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On page 37 of your packet, you have a letter from the GLEAMS CEO, Dr. Thomas. There are three positions to be filled. One is a public sector position. They're asking that you appoint attorney Randall Williams, which will be a new appointment. The second one is a low-income position. They're asking that position to be filled by a reappointment of Reverend Willie Norman. And the third is a private sector appointment, and they're asking to have that position filled by DeMarco Ryan. So this board, this council appoints these positions onto the Gleams board, and you've been asked to do so.

Any questions, Mr. Chaplin? Is there a motion from council? So moved, Mr. Chairman. Got a motion from Mr. Lane, second from Ms. Griffin. Any discussion? All in favor? And none opposed. Thank you. Item B, consideration of the non-capacity amendment to the FERC license, the Buzzard's Roots project. Rhett Templeton, county engineer. Thank you, sir.

So as part of our fuse plug project, prior to doing any construction, we do have to get a non-capacity amendment from FERC to our existing license. This is strictly to the changes that we will be making as part of that project. So the non-capacity amendment is the review of That work by all the different agencies view, especially wildlife and basically review this, but we have done some of that review already, but we need to officially apply to the fork to make this amendment. And we're asking permission to do so and. Set us up to be able to move toward construction, hopefully very soon in the project.

That would be amazing since it's only been how many years now exactly 20 plus. Yeah, that would be amazing. Any questions.

Is there a motion council move to approve this presented?

Mr. motion from Mr. Lane 2nd from this Miller in discussion all those in favor. All right. Thank you. Susan, we don't have any pending items that I see. Okay. So we're going to move to district reports. District 1.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I would like to just say thank you to each and every one of you for coming. Just let you know that I did not take my no vote for granted. I did pray about it and I felt good about the decision that was given to me from God. I do not just take things and just move with them. So I am willing and open to the discussions that we will have for these 12 months. um and praying that once those um 12 months are up or how long it takes that we will um have all the information that we need to make a better decision as to data centers and um my other thing i'd like to give a shout out to my dad whose birthday will be Saturday and he will be 89 years old. So again, I just say thank you. I ask again that you all would just keep us in your prayers. When we come up here, we are not just coming for ourselves, we are coming for the constituents of Greenwood. So please just remember that when you are standing there, we're standing here. so you know i don't think you all would want to walk a day in our shoes but i do thank you for all that you did and doing this whole process but just remember on our end we're just human just like you so we have to ask each of you just to pray for us as we pray for you all so ends my report thank you ms griffin district 2. Mr. Allison?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say also thank you for the folks that have come out and expressed your concern. I have concerns, and I think tonight, I think we made the right decision to put the moratorium, and I do believe we need the state to get involved in this because What a lot of people don't understand is that we are under gag orders when we're dealing with industries and different things coming into our town, and we can't talk about them legally. We're legally bound to that, and other counties are the same way, so we don't know what a county's doing upstream from us, and they don't know what we're doing because we can't discuss it. It's illegal for us to discuss it, so they could be There is a situation to where they could be a county upstream from us taking water out of either the Reedy or the Saluda River, and it could affect our water supply here. So I think this memorandum gives the state time to look at the state as a whole and make sure that other counties also, not just us, because we could be affected even if we decide that we don't want one in Greenwood County. So that's very important. Another thing I want to mention to you tonight is be careful where you get your information. There are a lot of stuff being said out there that is not true. It was said to me that we were already building one in 96. They're down there clearing the land. That's an Amazon warehouse that's being built down there. It's public knowledge, everybody knows that. And they said, well, it cleared land way down below it. That's the sewer line that's gonna be put to it. So it's not a data center going down there. That is false information. So be careful what news outlets you get your information. I have been very impressed by some of the organization. The Residents for Responsible Growth, those people have been very professional. very informed. Their conversations that I have had with them were very respectful, and I learned a lot myself from them, and I have been impressed with that organization and other organizations. But there are people out there that's trying to get your attention. They're selling subscriptions is what they're doing. They're wanting you to log on and they will say stuff that is not true. They'll get up and they'll go off on a tangent on something that does not help our cause. It hurts when false information, fake news gets out there, it hurts the cause. So be selective as to who you listen to, because I can tell you for a fact, a lot of that information is not true. So we need to be sure we're listening to the right voices. They're good voices. You've got good representatives. And we, like Robbie said, and I'm one member, I want to involve some of these people. There's some very educated, knowledgeable people that's been involved with this and in development of data centers. And we need to utilize them. But we've got to have people who are speaking the truth because what happens is people start trying to get their name out there, get noticed, and they start putting false information out and saying things that are not true. Be very careful. I struggle this day and time. I'm just going to be honest with you. I struggle finding the truth now. It's hard to find the truth. I mean, you've got to really, really search because I can find 100 articles that tell you a data center is the greatest thing that happened to Greenwood, and I can find you 100 that tell you it would destroy your whole town. So you've got to do your research. Be sure you're listening to the right voices. And let me tell you how you can know when you're listening to the wrong voice. It's when they start personally attacking people, okay? That's when you know you got the wrong person you're listening to. Now, I'm not talking about political things. You have every right to look at these members of council and say, I don't like the way you're voting, and I want you out, and I'm going to vote against you. That's your constitutional right, and that's the way it works. But when you start saying you're a criminal, and you need to be in jail, and you're stealing money, and you're drunk, and I mean, I have heard it all. We need to be listening to the good voices because they're out there, but you got to dig through them to find them. So I want to thank all the members of council. This has been a tough decision for this council and it's probably been the most dividing issue we've had in a while but we worked our way through it I think we've done the right thing and I work just starts you're right a year will be gone before you know it you'd be here before you know it so we got a lot of work to do and I thank you for those of you who have added a lot of good input thank you

for your input it has been heard and it will be carried forward thank you very much for coming tonight thank you mr allison kathy miller district 4. thank you mr chairman mr allison well said i will support what you've said and now the next steps begin and we hope that some of you will be willing participants in panel discussions that we'll be having And we don't want to wait until 12 months from now to say, oh, gosh, we've drug our feet. So I expect that we'll be having some conversation about moving forward and trying to get some of these questions that you have answered. And so with that being said, I'll move on to something that I think it's very newsworthy. Again, congratulations to the 25th Festival of Discovery. I saw on social media, and I will say this was probably pretty accurate, that there were 36,000 attendees. That's great for Greenwood County. So hats off to that team for that successful event. And I did want to let you know that I will be attending the SCAC conference. on Monday and Tuesday and taking the last three classes that I need to get my level one and level two certification. And these are educational classes so that we can learn more about how county government works. So I will be there on Monday and Tuesday, coming home on Tuesday. So just want to let you know that. And I'll give you a report on what my classes were all about and how I'm going to apply that knowledge at the next meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Kathy. District five, Dane Pruitt.

Thank you, Rob. I too want to say thank you to all the people that came up and were respectful. Like Mr. Allison said, it's okay to agree to disagree as long as it's professional and respectful. I've received personally some of those nasty emails as well. It's unfortunate. Um, like Robbie said, our phone numbers and emails are all over the Internet. Uh, I'm usually not hard to find if you've been to 96, you've probably seen or heard me down there. Um. So, I like to have that conversation some people that are in here. I've had conversations with, um. I think it's important. Um, I did attend a, um. Sorry, I'm trying to get back to my Bible verse here, but I did attend the 96 town council meeting last night. I always like to stay in touch with my district, which includes 96 and much of Lake Greenwood. I've had constituents reach out to me. The gentleman was talking earlier about meeting and listening to people about what's going on. I've been invited to HOA meetings. I've been invited to local meetings and social gatherings, and I try my best to get to all of them. but you know, sometimes life happens and just like everybody else, uh, you know, I'm human. We've had some personal things go on lately and I take my role on council very seriously. Um, but sometimes, you know, personal things come first. Appreciate Mr. Templeton stepping up and, uh, Me not being able to take on the day I just was not able to prepare for the meeting once I knew Mr lane was not going to chair. So I apologize that I was not able to do so, but, like, anything else I'm competitive and. I need to be able to prepare and do the best job that I can do. Thank you again, Robbie, for stepping up.

Thank you, Dane. And y'all, Dane, I know he's got a Bible verse to go, but I just want to say, you know, he and Theo both were traveling last week, so that was a big part of why this transpired. And the other thing, Dane has had a lot of personal stuff going in his life, how he keeps all the balls up in the air, I do not know, but y'all need to pray for he and his family.

Thank you. And prior to the... Some of these things happening back in May, I was able to go to visit Washington DC for the is a group, the American flood coalition and I did want to say to staff that received a text today that they will be in town the afternoon of August the 12th. I'd like to maybe have Mr skinner ride with me and show them some of the. Flood locations that have been identified in Greenwood County, at least Josh or someone else just please make a note of that. If you don't mind Susan and Toby. They're a nonpartisan group driving transformational adaption of protecting communities. And I think that was a wonderful example of. 1, 1 person, and I will say it was a female that was. you know, tired of seeing all the flooding where she lived in the Northeast and she just started and she got donors to back her up. And now they have over 500 members, a staff of close to 100. We were fortunate enough to visit with, and I hate Lindsey Graham was not there. We visited with his staff. We visited with Tim Scott's staff. We visited with Sherry Biggs' staff. We went by Nancy Mace's office and we visited with Representative Timmons. It was a great visit. I felt honored to represent Greenwood County and talk about it. And hopefully that'll do some good for FEMA relief and funding in that. And as always, I'd like to end on a Bible verse. Proverbs 19, 21 says, many are the plans in a person's heart. but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. That ends my report.

Thank you, Mr. Pruitt. District 7, Mr. Lane.

Thank you, sir. It struck me when the young lady was speaking earlier tonight talking about the founding fathers of our nation and how how ingenious they were in being able to craft a document that could survive now for over 250 years. Throughout this process, I'm not gonna belabor the point, the moratorium vote has been taken, that's the will of county council and that's what's going to happen. What I do wish for Greenwood County and I wish for everyone is that we not fall victim to trying to take our differences and turn them into hate. Mr. Allison's exactly right. There's always gonna be misinformation on various sides and we all have our differences of opinion and our own thoughts as to what we think might be best. You've seen that through this process. But I think that what we're losing as a nation, and I don't want to see us lose it as a community, is the ability to be civil even in our disagreements. I think that when the young lady referenced those founding fathers, that to me is an element of what makes this the greatest nation on the face of God's earth. Certainly we have our challenges, we always have had, You know, for all of history, we've had our challenges. But as a people, I do believe that we are best when we come together. Doesn't mean we always have to agree. Doesn't mean that at all. But I do believe throughout this process, I've said this before, that every single person involved with this, and you heard I think Robbie and Mr. Allison might have both said this seems to have been the most divisive issue. I know it has been in the 10 years I've been on council. But it doesn't mean that we have to attack each other. It doesn't mean we have to go away disliking each other. It just means we had a difference of opinion. We've had differences of opinion throughout history, guys. But I'm going to move away from that now. I do appreciate everyone that's come out in the process because I believe in that process. I believe that everyone should have their right to say that's what it is to be an American. I'm going to move away from that now and talk about something in my district people might care more about. It's current. Week before last, I attended a meeting in Ware-Scholes because we've got problems with the Patriot Hydro Dam in Ware-Scholes. Patriot Hydro purchased the Ware-Scholes Dam in 2022. In my view, they purchased the dam that had Has structural integrity issues and my belief is they got a good deal on buying it because of those issues. And since 2022, my opinion is, and I've stated this to our state delegation, I've stated it to local leaders there and where shoals. They sat on those problems. They didn't invest. I think they ran the hydro and made the money that they could make off of it on the energy that it was generating, but they didn't make repairs. So now today they want to walk away from it and they want to, they're asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to allow them release of their license. So what I did, I wrote a letter. And by the way, let me give credit to Representative John McCravey, who also wrote a letter. But we each individually wrote letters to the director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. And I was probably a little more verbose than mine, and mine was a little longer. But, you know, I talked about the fact that this is bigger than just the hydro dam and the condition of the hydro dam and the finances associated with the hydro dam. We have people living downstream of that dam who are owners of properties that front the river or used to front the river because what's happened now, that river is shallowing out every day. There's sediment and sand that's moving through into Lake Greenwood. So, you know, I'm going to stay involved with that process, and I hope that the FERC will use their leverage to slow down. We talked about this tonight. Slow down and... take a closer look at what's going on with the patriot hydro dam and where shows because it's damaging our lake is damaging the downstream property to those residents so for my my one voice i'm going to do all i can do to keep pressure on them you just heard tonight that We have issues at the fuse plug. We've been dealing with FERC for 20 years, and it's almost become a joke. The only good news about us dealing with FERC for 20 years, we've been earning interest on the money that we put away to fix the fuse plug. But that's a critical issue that's going on in District 7 and where it shows right now. I'm glad that I'm able to lend support to it. I thank you all again for being here. God bless you all. That ends my report, Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Blaine. All right, District 6, that would be me. I just want to thank everyone for being here tonight. I want to thank you for your comments. I want to thank you for being civil while other people spoke, whether you agreed with them or not. I found out tonight that it wasn't just that y'all didn't like Mr. Lane. I got catcalls and boos, too, so it must be something about this seat. But at any rate, it's all good. I want to also thank District 50 for making this facility available for us so that we could all fit in here comfortably. I want to thank Council and especially Mr. Lane and Mr. Pruitt for allowing me to preside over this meeting tonight. I want to thank staff for getting this facility ready. It is not an easy job to move everything over here, but thank you all so much for that. I want to give a tip of the hat to Tom and Kevin in the back for keeping everything going. Thank you guys. And I got to thank law enforcement for keeping everything under wraps and under control. So thank you all for being here. Please give those guys a hand. And lastly, I want to just congratulate, and I did this last time, but she just keeps getting accolades. I want to congratulate Christy Wright for getting appointed by the governor to the South Carolina Governor's Juvenile Justice Advisory Council. Congratulations to her. That ends my report. Mr. Manager, do you have anything?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two very brief things, both for council. One, believe it or not, it's time for our three-year compensation study to be enacted. diverse selection group including representatives from hr derek oliver who represents ems fire emergency management it and the sheriff's office all came together and they have selected evergreen which is the firm that did the last one to do the next one so beginning this year we will begin our compensation study to be ready for the f528 budget Second issue is, I think someone already mentioned it, our strategic planning meeting is tomorrow night from 5.30 to 7.30. That is for the public. If the public wishes to be engaged in how the county moves over the next several years, this is probably the most important opportunity to do that. This is where decisions will be made as far as at least guidance or areas of concern or areas of focus over the next five to seven to 10 years. So the impact of this meeting is going to be significant, and anyone that wants to be engaged, I would say this is a golden opportunity, 5.30 to 7.30 tomorrow night at the library. That's my report, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Carson, anything?

No, sir.

Susan? No reports. If no reports from them, then I will, again, thank all of you for coming, all of you for being civil and participating in what I think is the best form of government, which is local government. God bless you. Have a good evening. This meeting is adjourned.