County Council - Regular Meeting

I like green.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight, and welcome to this August 18 meeting of the Greenwood County Council. Your Greenwood County Council has been in executive session since 4 p.m. today. We had seven matters that required conversation. I'll ask the county manager, in the interest of full transparency, to tell us why we had that need. Mr. Chappell.

Mr. Chairman and members of the county council, we entered into executive session for the following seven matters. three economic development matters currently known as Projects Helios, Kingfisher, and Black Sable, three legal matters pertaining to the Greenwood County Public Safety Training Center, an update regarding an ongoing investigation, and South Carolina Code of Laws 12-5610 and 12-4-580, and one security matter pertaining to the Buzzards Roostdale.

Thank you, Mr. Chappell. We had no need to take action on any of those matters. So, council, I will ask for a motion that we exit executive session, please.

Motion to exit. Second.

Motion by Ms. Miller, second by Ms. Griffin. All in favor? And we are now in public session. Thank you. We have the honor of having our former chairman, retired Reverend Dr. Chuck Motes with us here tonight to give our invocation. And after such, we will honor our nation with the Pledge of Allegiance. Chairman, come forward, please.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Council.

It is indeed a pleasure for me to be back. Interestingly, wherever I go and folks understand that I'm the former chairman, the one question they ask me is this. Are you sad that you're no longer on council? And I can, with a beaming smile and rejoiced say, absolutely not.

I will say, Dr. Motz, I asked him that exact same question when I saw him earlier today.

So while I appreciate your service, I am delighted to simply back you in your service this time. Let's bow in prayer, if you will. Eternal and most gracious God, we seek your presence with us this afternoon as these elected officials conduct the business of Greenwood County. And Father, we ask you to give them guidance and direction so that they may wisely and cogently act in the best interest of our citizens and the ongoing work and progress of our counties. And Father, as they perform this service, may they reject the cowardice that dares not face new truth. May they shun the laziness that is content with half truth. And may they avoid the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth. These public service have been given an awesome responsibility, Lord. So we ask you to help them bear this authority and leadership with humility and grace and always seeking what is best and fair and beneficial for all of our citizens. And we ask this in your holy name. Amen.

Amen. Amen, Dr. Motes.

Thank you, Dr. Motes. Please join us in a pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

Thank you.

Ms. McIntyre advises me that we have no one signed up to speak during public comment tonight. So we also have no presentations as a part of our agenda.

I'm sorry. I did give you an email earlier that was for the public comment.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Let me speak to this email, Ms. McIntyre. I've reviewed the content of an email that we received sometime earlier this week. It looks like on August maybe the 16th. I have questions about the authenticity of this email. I'm not sure that the person or whoever sent this email in is exactly who they've made themselves to be, we've not been able to verify the identity. However, this email speaks to nothing that is on our agenda tonight. So I'm not going to read this into the record. That's solely my decision as chairman, because it does not comply with the requirement that it be on our agenda. So I'm going to give this back to you. Council, I trust that you've had the opportunity to approve our minutes from our past meeting, and if so, I'd entertain a motion that those minutes be accepted. So moved. Second. Motion by Mr. Templeton, a second by Mr. Pruitt. All in favor? Thank you very much. As I said, no presentations tonight, no old business to conduct. So we will conduct a public hearing. I will open the public hearing now. I need a motion to do that, please. So moved, Mr. Chairman. OK, I have a motion by Mr. Templin, a second by Ms. Griffin. item a ordinance 2020 2026 26 to amend the greenwood county zoning map as and if amended so that a portion of one partial of land totaling approximately 100.45 acres in greenwood county at 2307 bypass 25 southeast changes from c2 general commercial to r4 two-family residential mr ryan bland pardon me Thank you. Ms. Bishop, remind me once again, I've gotten ahead of myself. We didn't vote to enter into the public hearing. All in favor of entering into the public hearing, please. Thank you. I took the motions and didn't ask you to vote. My bad. Ryan, our planning director, please tell us details of this.

Mr. Chairman, the resulting request before you this evening, 26-07-001, We are on the south side of the City of Greenwood, but in unincorporated Greenwood County. The application is for a portion of approximately 100 acres to be rezoned from C2, general commercial, to R4, two-family residential. This came with a Planning Commission recommendation of approval and a staff recommendation of approval. Again, our site is at Highway 25 South, but just east of the intersection of Highway 25 South and bypass 25 Southeast. The 100 acre splits bypass 25 Southeast. It's a single parcel and it has multiple zone districts on it. You can see kind of the nature of that drive through there on either side of the road is our subject property. That's a food line in front of you here on this in this photo for your orientation. The subject property is served by utilities in multiple directions. Currently, you see here is one of the issues at hand is that the parcel is split in zoning. The northern portion, which is approximately 35 acres, is zoned R4. The southern portion, approximately 64 acres, 65 acres, subject to this rezoning request is zone C2, general commercial. property and generally parcels around it are designated in the future land use map as medium density residential with some commercial adjacent to the west and some low density residential just to the south and east of the subject property. The request is to zone the entire portion of that 100 acres R4. So it would be zoning from the C2 to the R4 to allow single family residences across the balance of the parcel. And that concludes staff's comments. Available for any questions.

Council any comments or questions after hearing that explanation from Ryan? And if not, I would ask if there's anyone here in the audience tonight that cares to speak in favor of this ordinance 2026-26. Heath? Come forward, please. State your name and address for the record, please, Heath.

Heath Davis from Greenwood, Raleigh Land Group president. I want to thank you for looking at this for us. This is part of Raleigh Land Group's master plan of rooftops with gated communities. We've already got approval from you and also DHEC for the first partial, which is up near the road. We're starting to work on it. But basically what we're trying to do is create another gated community right behind the first one. And then maybe behind Food Line doing a little bit more senior housing if possible. And the next step will come back to you for more commercial, which will be across the road. But right now it forms from y'all's master plan, I think, 10-year plan. of what we're doing. And as you know, it's harder to get to C2 than it is, I guess, to residential. Everybody's asked me, why would you go backwards? And the only way we're going to grow to south end is with good neighbors. And that's what we're trying to do here. If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer it for you.

What is your projected number of residential units, Heath?

Unsure, we gave you a map that he showed last time, but until we go in there and actually see, right now we don't own the land, we will after everything's over with, and then our Dan Proctor with Piedmont Surveying can go in there and give us a better direction how many acres. The first time we bought land, it said it was 67 acres, and once Dan got in there, we found it was 61 acres. So until we get that, I mean, we're going to use all we can. We'll have green space, but, you know, there will be nice homes in there. You know, so I just don't want to – later on I could tell you whatever, but just right now, if you've got that – picture that was in there last time he put ron put up yes you'll see a little bit better and we just really put that in there until we get exact data of exactly how how big everything is and what we can use this it's just basically show and tell be honest with you okay

All right. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have one question. I'm sorry.

Yes, Ms. Miller. I remember that you were before us a few months ago with a project in this area. So what was then versus now? What's the one you're already working on?

This one right here, Ms. Miller, is the gate community. That front here is the restaurant. Okay. I knew it was in that area. So we actually have a place here to... Go over here because this is actually one partial of this is landlocked because of a creek. So this will be the second phase of chimney, old chimney. So we named it old chimney after the chimneys are still there.

Yep, got them. Council, any other questions, comments? The manager.

Mr. Chairman, can I ask a question? Did I hear you say you don't own this property yet?

We are in the midst of buying it. So in other words, we have to make sure it can rezone to be able to purchase it. We're under contract.

I guess, Mr. Chairman, my question would be a legal question of can a non-owner ask council to rezone property that they don't control?

We had permission from the sales and they signed the sheet. Okay. Yeah. We're on it.

We have something from the owner.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Attorney, any comment on that? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Appreciate you. Is there anyone else here to speak in favor of this ordinance? Seeing none, is there anyone here to speak in opposition to this ordinance? So seeing none, I'll ask for a motion to close the public hearing.

Motion to close.

Second. Motion by Ms. Miller, second by Mr. Templeton. All in favor of closing public hearing? We're out. Thank you. All in favor of closing at this point? We did. We did. Thank you. Sorry, I was reading something else. Excuse me.

Before we move into new business, I want to... We got a vote on... Chairman, I offer you a motion to approve.

Second. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys. I'm getting all over myself here. I don't know what's wrong with me. All in favor? As presented. It's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you. Before we move into new business, I have a statement that I feel like I need to read tonight. Many of you, I'm sure, who are in attendance tonight are aware that Councilman Templeton recently had allegations made against him. And today, I'm very pleased to inform the public and council is now aware that Robbie Templeton has been exonerated from those charges. The allegations, as they were investigated by the State Law Enforcement Division, determined that those were baseless and meritless. I unfortunately believe that there was some malice in those charges being brought against Robbie. However, now that the State Law Enforcement Division has completed their investigation and notified Greenwood County and Robbie, of course, have been notified. So this matter from an investigative standpoint is closed. But the question now is where do we go from here? Mr. Kahn is in the... in the audience tonight. He presented information to the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department several weeks ago. And some of his supporters in this regard kind of just merely seemed to move on to the next scandal attempt to be initiated. For those of us who are actually here to help Greenwood County grow greater, And we have to deal with the aftermath of this. So this damage includes reputation of a long-serving Greenwood County council member, and it also includes damages to institutions of Greenwood County. For example, our safeguards of taxpayer money. While some may view the actions of the past months as citizens having the ability to have their grievances heard by their government, I believe that most of us can agree that there is something different afoot. When an individual exercises their kind of Andy Warhol proclaimed 15 minutes of fame to besmirch someone who's been a pillar of this community, Robbie has been. And the, and to also challenge the financial system of Greenwood county and Greenwood county council is a body of this county for these efforts. Aaron, you and some of your supporters have been vocal and those that instigated this kind of in the shadows are somewhat not held in a good position now by us. According to a September 2023 Pew Research study, only 2% of Americans have ever run for public office and much less ever won election to public office in their entire lives. Having someone criticize your position on policy matters, on hiring decisions, or on how we administer taxes is a legitimate part of our democratic process. the ability for citizens to have their grievances addressed by their government. It's as fundamental as the right to a free press, the ability to avoid being searched without probable cause, and the right not to have a state-supported religion. However, we have just experienced something a little more sinister, in my opinion, than having grievances addressed. What we have just experienced was the weaponization of the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, that weaponization was trained and targeted at Greenwood County Councilman Robbie Templeton. Due to personal animus, I believe, towards Councilman Templeton, and that's unfortunate, the criminal justice system was used to prosecute him.

Please allow that to sink in for just a moment.

An individual based on an allegation that was not supported by evidence attempted to have the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division criminally investigate a county council member simply because apparently didn't like the way Councilman Templeton ran a contentious county council meeting some weeks ago. Our 40th United States President Ronald Reagan was famously quoted as saying this, Freedom is a fragile thing, and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It's not ours by inheritance. It must be fought for and defended constantly by every generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those who have known freedom and lost that freedom never regain that freedom. For many, this quote is often attributed to our military and our country's willingness to engage in conflict and preserve democracy. But I think it's greater than that. There's a much more pervasive and imminent danger to our democracy than a military invasion, and that is... is what happens when good people decide that they are no longer willing to serve at the local levels of government so that they do not have to endure any kind of nonsense like Councilman Templeton just experienced. If people have concerns about the decisions that we make, decisions that are being made, what happens when the best and brightest of people are no longer making decisions? Do we honestly believe that less qualified people making decisions would improve this process and these outcomes? Councilman Templeton has been cleared of all allegations made against him. And for that, both he and Greenwood County are thankful. Councilman Templeton is a coach at Greenwood High School. He's a former council chairman and former chairman of South Carolina State Council Coalition. He is a time-tested true and respected member of the Greenwood County Council. The ask of you is that the next time someone makes unfounded malicious and sensational claims on social media site that you take pause and you ensure that the presenter is credible and most importantly that you are not participating in the further erosion of our democracy. I'm very passionate about this because I have also had allegations hurled at me over the last several months. We're better than that as a community. And I hope that going forward, we will just take the time to really evaluate what comes before us. That's both for this body and for the public. Thank you for that.

Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. You want me to make a comment now or you want me to wait until... Go ahead. I was just going to say that there was never an investigation. There was an inquiry. It was opened on 727. It was closed on 86. That's how long it took. It was opened on 727, closed on 86. I want to thank the GCSO for forwarding it to SLED because the GCSO could not have investigated me as a council member. And the sheriff and I went to high school together, so I wouldn't want anybody to think I got any special favors. So I am thankful that SLED looked at it. I was never concerned. However, I will say I've given a full statement to Renee that I hope she will print. Um, I'm a grown ass man, so I'm, and I've been doing this a long time, so I've heard a lot of things and I can take it. But for my elderly parents, my children and my grandchildren, this is absolute crap and nobody should have to endure it. Um, I will make no further comment as my attorney and I are in discussions now about what we do next. Thank you.

No, sir.

It's not a public comment session, Aaron. That was my statement and Mr. Templin's statement. Look forward to it.

Yeah.

Aaron. Aaron, you don't have the floor. Be quiet. We're going to move to new business. item a consideration of the appointment of an ad hoc committee to consider the appropriateness of data centers in greenwood county what i have asked the greenwood county council to do is to and if you all watched our last meeting you will know to bring forward a name of an individual from each of our seven districts that would be willing to to serve in helping us to evaluate and vet any companies that in the future come forward with the interest in building a data center in greenwood county so council i hope i know it's been a short time short turnaround and i know we're in the process of putting those names together now i would ask that when you have your appointees and they have agreed to serve that you provide that to me and susan and then we will start convening meetings and the educational process for getting them involved. One of the requirements that I would tell you that I would like to see of them that you can convey in their consideration of serving for us is that they have to be willing to visit and evaluate current state data centers in this region of country. Does that sound good to everyone?

Mr. Chairman, I also think it needs to be, and I love the idea, I also think it needs to be a diverse group. I think it needs to be, it doesn't need to be a whole bunch of folks who are pro data center. Doesn't need to be a whole bunch of folks who are anti data center. It needs to be a balanced committee. And I think if we get that, then that will help the community at least better understand and figure out where to go next. But I think it's gotta be a balanced committee. And I think that's important because if it's not, I think we'll lose some of the public trust. So I want it to be, like I said, it needs to be diverse and it needs to be balanced. Not everybody in favor, not everybody against. All voices need to be heard. But I think it's a tremendous idea.

Ms. Miller and I were just having a similar conversation. And I want to say this also before we move off of this topic. You know, a lot of work was done along the process. A lot of public comment was taken in and considered and amendments and changes were made to the text amendment. But just several weeks ago, we were at the South Carolina Association of Counties governmental training conference. And we didn't know this was gonna take place, but there was a presentation taking place and the county manager and I just happened to be in that session. I didn't know the guy giving the presentation. Don't think I'd ever seen him before. But toward the ends of his presentation, he talked in reference to data centers. That wasn't the whole presentation. It was more an economic development type of initiative. But he said to the people there in attendance in that room, basically, and I'm paraphrasing here, but if you have, if you're considering data center interest in your county and you haven't yet put together an ordinance, if you have friends in Greenwood County, please reach out to them, because I have evaluated ordinances and believe that Greenwood County has the most robust and comprehensive data center ordinance in South Carolina. We didn't know he was going to say that. Certainly it was pleasing to me to hear that because I know how hard our staff had worked. So we will continue that. We will move forward with that. We will enhance that. And that's what I hope that this ad hoc committee can do for us. So any comments or questions, council, before I ask you to approve that? Hearing none, what's your pleasure?

I offer you a motion to approve, Mr. Chairman.

I have a motion by Mr. Templeton and a second by Ms. Griffin. All in favor is presented. And that's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you. Item B, consideration of the approval of a variance to the procedure policy 10.4 to commit and purchase ambulances from the 2024 capital project sales tax. Mr. Derek Oliver, our emergency management director, please, and Ms. Dorn, our county treasurer and assistant county manager.

We're asking for this variance for the policy in order for us to go ahead and order these units now. We understand that we don't have the funding on hand, but this was approved in the 2024 capital project sales tax, so we want to go ahead and get the orders in before the prices of these units go up.

I would just add, we came to you with the same request related to the fire trucks. And we actually will have the funds on hand many months before the ambulances actually come in and need to be paid for. So the funds will be available before the purchase and I know that I can't recall if Mr. Skinner covered this in his last update but we are actually ahead of our projections on the collection of the sales tax so there's no concerns about making that making the mark to the funds that are needed. The request through the procurement policy is related to the same contract agreement that we have that's like state purchasing, but it's the Houston-Gableston agreement where we get the same benefits similar to a state contract where the prices have been negotiated to get the best price.

Yeah, it certainly, I think, was prudent that we go ahead, like you said, Derek, and order those because price is only going to increase. I mean, we see it with fire trucks. We see it with ambulances. We see it with everything associated with public safety, certainly. And the county manager explained to us when we were talking about this that you're going to kind of stage these in as needed rather than putting them all on the road at the same time. Is that correct? Yeah, I think that's why it's two because that way they don't all wear out at the same time. That's correct. Okay. Council, any comments or questions before we vote?

I have one question, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, ma'am.

Is this simply issuing the purchase order, or is there some kind of deposit that has to go along with it at this point?

Just the purchase order. There's no deposit required.

Mr. Chairman, I offer you a motion to approve.

I have a motion by Ms. Bishop. Second. Second by Mr. Templin. Any further comment or question?

I have.

Mr. Pruitt. It's project number two.

Anything else? All in favor is presented. That's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you. Item C. Thank you. Consideration of the purchase of tires for the FY27 for the county fleet garage and awarding that bid to Snyder Tire. Mr. Rushin, our deputy county manager for operations.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our purchasing policy allows us to make purchases through state contract pricing as long as we follow certain conditions. Some of those conditions include soliciting quotes from local vendors for the same products before going with the state contract. Each year, we spend in excess of $100,000 on tires throughout this county. In calendar year 25, I believe about 120,000. And typically those purchases are made on an individual basis when those tires are needed. However, the sum total of all those purchases put together push that into the formal range for our purchasing policy. So with that in mind, we went out. Schneider Tire, which we've been dealing with for a good while now, who delivers the tires typically next day to us when we order them, is the state contract pricing. Their pricing in most cases is well below that. The pricing that we did receive from local vendors, we solicited three quotes. One vendor provided a partial quote. Two other vendors did not quote for different reasons. But we went out there, solicited them, and Snyder Tire is by far our best vendor. way to go here so we're asking council permission uh to approve snyder tire and the purchase of tires for this fiscal year um for the amount of around 120 000 total i can take any questions quick question you said you solicited local vendors yeah so we looked at what you have in your packet is the 10 sizes of tires that we typically do. Those first two categories by far the most, those 10 categories represent more than half of the purchases that we did. We did look at a bunch of other tires and we probably, in full transparency, we will probably use some of those local vendors still when they have those tires in stock at the same state contract price. Some of those tires that we use, the local vendors like M&M can provide the tires, have them in stock. We will use the local vendor from time to time. But Schneider on the tires that we use most has much better pricing as per the state contract.

Council, anything further? All in favor, excuse me.

Mr. Chairman, I offer you a motion to approve.

Motion by Ms. Bishop. I'll second. Second by Ms. Miller. All in favor is presented. That's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Item D, consideration of the appointment to a vacant seat on the Accommodations Tax Committee. Ms. Dorham.

Chairman and Council, I spoke to you about this at the last meeting. We were able to secure a person for the lodging vacancy, Missy Wines. She is currently affiliated with the Holiday Inn Express, Fairfield Inn, Hampton Inn, and the soon-to-open Home to Home Suites. So we would recommend that you approve Miss Wines, and then I would also remind you that we still need a

general position field we need that submission from one more at-large is that right okay having heard that council what's your pleasure I'll make a motion to approve second motion by Miss Miller second by Miss Bishop all in favor is presented that's unanimous thank you Thank You Stephanie Item E, Resolution 202624, recognizing Greenwood County as an NTCA smart, connected community. Mr. Steven Taylor from WCTEL. Good to have you with us, Steven.

First, I would like to say I appreciate County Council giving me a few minutes tonight. I want to talk briefly about the Smart Connected Community designation and why we're asking County Council to consider this resolution. At its core, a Smart Connected Community is a community that has the broadband infrastructure in place to support its residents, businesses, schools, health care providers, and future economic development growth. We all know that broadband has become essential infrastructure. Years ago, we talked about economic development. We talked primarily about roads, water, sewer, electricity, and access to transportation. Today, broadband belongs on that same list. The Smart Connected Community designation recognizes that Greenwood County has made significant progress in building that infrastructure and position itself in the future. West Carolina has made a substantial investment in Greenwood County to build a fiber network that today passes approximately 72% of the homes and businesses in the county. And that investment is continuing to include additional expansions in areas such as Hodges and 96. But this designation is about more than simply having fiber in the ground. It's about what connectivity allows our communities to do. It allows business to grow and compete. It gives people the ability to work remotely. It provides students and educators with better access to educational opportunities. It supports telehealth and healthcare services. It creates opportunities for economic development and gives Greenwood County another asset to market when recruiting businesses and families to our community. We've also tried to make sure that connectivity reaches beyond the home or businesses through certain areas that have public Wi-Fi locations and educational programs that help people better understand and use technology. So when we call Greenwood County a smart, connected community, we're really saying Greenwood County is connected, prepared to grow, and investing in infrastructure that will be necessary for the future. This resolution before you today will only recognize that designation and the partnership between Greenwood County and West Carolina. I also want to emphasize that this isn't intended to be West Carolina designation. This is a Greenwood County designation, and we want this to be another tool for the county economic development officials, business schools, health care providers and other who can use when talking about what Greenwood County has to offer. following the adoption of this resolution we plan to work with d.o.t and the county to promote smart connected community designations and look at opportunities for signage and other ways to recognize greenwood county as a connected community we appreciate the partnership we've had working with the county in this area and appreciate council's consideration for this resolution today thank you for your time and i'll be open to answer any questions you may have council any comments or questions

Steven, thank you for everything you've done. I think back to, I don't know, three, four years ago, time gets away from me, when we were talking about the significant need for broadband expansion. And WCTL has certainly been a leader in that area for us, for our county. And I think it's remarkable now that you are at 72%. I didn't realize it was quite that high. Congratulations. So thank you for all that good work, and thank you for your partnership with us. Council, what is your pleasure? Thank you.

I make a motion to approve.

I have a motion by Ms. Bishop.

I'll second it.

Second by Ms. Miller. All in favor is presented. And that is unanimous. Thank you very much. Item F resolution 20, 26, 25 off authorizing our County manager to execute a community development block grant disaster recovery mitigation set aside agreement between Greenwood County and the South Carolina office of resilience to fund, to, to fund the update of Greenwood County's hazard mitigation plan. Mr. Robert Cribben is our emergency management director. Robert, tell us about that. Please.

Yes, chairman members of the Council. I'm here before you tonight to ask you to approve this resolution before you so that we can accept this grant so that it's for up to $150,000. We were before you. I don't even remember how long ago, probably over a year ago by now. with the way the government was open and closed to ask for a match for a FEMA grant that I also wrote. We did not hear from that, so we are not using that. This is a non-funded, fully supported grant from SCORE so that we can do our hazard mitigation plan for the county and all the towns and everybody incorporated in the county. they assign someone to work with me and the committee and they'll help put the whole plan together they'll make sure it gets submitted to the state and then it'll go to femur and then once it's approved by femur we're done for five more years okay so i'm just here to ask um if you people will approve it for us and you can sign it along with the county manager And then we can get it back to them and get the ball rolling because we're very far behind in this. But that's not our fault. It's because the government's been shut down so often.

I understand. Good work.

Mr. Chairman, I offer you a motion to approve.

I have a motion to approve by Ms. Bishop and a second by Ms. Griffin. Any comments or questions before we vote? Yeah, Ms. Gruen.

I just want to make sure I understood you. So this covers all municipalities within Greenwood County? Yes.

It covers 96, Ware-Scholes, Hodges, it covers the city, and it covers Self, the school districts, it covers Greenwood Metro, it covers everybody. Troy? Yes, and Troy. There will be 25 people on a committee, just like there was last time.

I'm sorry?

You'll just be consulting with them and working through that.

Yeah, there'll be actually somebody writing the plan for us, and they'll be going through myself. And then we're going to ask for, it should be four meetings with the committee, and then two open public meetings, one when you first start so the public knows what we're doing, and then one when it's put together. that the public can hear what we've done, and if they have any more input into it, they'll put the input into it before it gets submitted to the state. Thank you.

Good. Excellent. Good work, Robert. Thank you. Any other comments or questions before we vote? All in favor is presented. And that's unanimous. Thank you, Robert. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, sir. I appreciate you. Item G, Resolution 202626, to establish the Freedom of Information Act response guidelines. Ms. Carson Penny, our county attorney, and I believe, Abby, you as well. Are you not coming forward, Carson?

i'm going to start yeah i'm going to start for us carson's going to cover um the resolution but we thought that we haven't really given you an idea of how we process for your request for the county so we thought that it would be good as a good time for us to explain that to you and what that looks like so you're understanding where this resolution comes from and the need to have that so for For Greenwood County, I serve, the public information officer serves as the primary contact for all of our FOIA requests. So I'm the primary contact, and I work closely with our paralegal, Allison Scott, and of course, our county attorney, Carson Penny. to make sure that all of our requests meet the requirement and are accordance with state laws but our individual departments and our subject matter experts are responsible for pulling the actual information and locating so while i am the main contact and i am sorting information out i don't pull records um i also handle uh the i'm the main point of contact for the sheriff's office as well so any four-year request that comes through greenwood county is going to come through me whether it's a sheriff's office whether it's 9-1-1 or whether it's county business related that's going to come through me so i don't pull any of the records for any departments the only thing that i would pull myself are things that would involve me directly or my department anything else is going to be pulled by that department head or that person that needs to pull that information directly and i don't have any access to sheriff's office information or 9-1-1 they pull that individually and upload that. Again, the department or agency that maintains the records is responsible for locating them. But to give you an idea of what that information looks like, in the winter of 2025, we started using something called a Next Request. It's a Civic Plus product. They also do our MUNIS. But they're an online portal designed to manage our public records requests. So the requests are submitted online through that Next Request portal. It allows us to track. track requests, deadlines, communication records, and everything's contained all in one place. So there's not lots of emails bouncing around throughout the county. Things can't be missed. They're all put in one place. When a request is submitted online, Allison, our paralegal, and I receive an email notification. As soon as that request is submitted, the requester is going to get an automated response that lets them know it was successfully submitted. and that it will be reviewed by staff and they will hear back. And all subsequent communication with the requester is handled through that portal. So everything is in that portal all in one place. They can go back and see all the information that they need, where documents have been updated. And if we have questions about it, if we need clarification, they may not have given exact details on the information they need. It's all there in that portal for us to speak back and forth. When it comes into me, I review the request to determine what department's being requested and which county department or personnel may be able to review their request. So Next Request has it set up where... They have it set up where it's possible for people requesting to assign it to departments. We don't have it set up in Greenwood County that way because a lot of people don't know which department it needs to go to. So we forward it to the appropriate department. So, for instance, if you let the public just say, I think that the treasurer's office is going to fill this request, it may be IT who is filling the request. It may be tax office that's filling that request. And then you've got staff time that's looking up information and responding that it needs to go to another department. So we'd assign it to which department it needs to go to and which personnel. Once that initial review is complete and that staff member confirms that we do indeed have documents to reply to a request, because there are sometimes we don't have documents that reply to a request. It's not for us. More often than not, that's going to happen with the sheriff's department when people are asking for things that are actually for city or highway patrol. But there's oftentimes that we just don't have any information that's involved in what they're requesting. So after that initial review to say, do we have any information that goes with this request or do we not? There is a response that lets them know that that that request will be filled. That initial response to let them know whether we're going to fill it. If it's less than 24 months old, that's that's filled in 10 business days. And if it's more than 24 months, that's 15. And that's automated. Like we just go in there and select it and tell it how old it is and which response it is. And then it lets the public know if it's going to be 30 days till it's filled or 35 days, depending on the age of it. But once that is assigned and the appropriate documents are located in the next request portable, and someone uploads them, then I'm going to review them before anything happens, before they're released to the public. I review everything before it's released to the requester. There are some things that are gonna come through, like from the sheriff's department that may already be redacted, and there are some things that are not. But for instance, anything that we release, if we release a 911 call, I'm gonna listen to it before it's released, because I need to make sure that the 911 call that's been sent to me is a 911 call that's being requested. If we have two hours of dash cam footage, I need to watch two hours of dash cam footage to make sure there's no personal information given out in the audio of those information. But documents are reviewed page by page for any information that must be protected. And so when we're talking about like time that it takes to pull FOIA requests and what it is, it's mainly like some of the documents take a long time to get, but it's the review and redactions that really take a long time, especially for things that involve the sheriff's office or any kind of human resources or personnel file that would have a lot of personal information in it. I will make all the routine redactions. So routine redactions would be personal information. If somebody's requested a personnel file, it's got social security numbers, birth dates, phone numbers, addresses. I'm going to redact anything that is personal information. Any redaction that goes beyond personal information, is reviewed by our county attorney. That's not something that I make the determination on. So anything that has any other exemption, FOIA exemption, that we would not release for protected information, Carson gets the final decision on that. That is not reviewed by me. A significant focus of our review always and our FOIA request is to make sure that we're protecting victims and any individuals that have sensitive information because we have a lot of requests that come through the sheriff's office and we want to make sure that those people that are victims are protected when we do that. So that's the most significant of our time spent. Like, what are we going to redact? What is releasable? We work with our sheriff's office, including Captain Josh Hood. We talk with him a lot to make sure that we also don't release any information that would jeopardize a case that hasn't been tried yet. So There's a lot of interaction between them. Our goal is always to balance the public's right to access for government records and legal requirements that we protect confidential and sensitive information from those requests. So that's what we're always trying to balance in that. Once all our responsive records have been provided and reviewed, I complete just a final review of everything that's in there and then we release the documents within that next request portable and they're available for download for the requester. They can also respond back and forth. In there, if they have further questions or they need more information, they are welcome to respond to that. The reason that we are talking today about this, resolution is that FOIA requests are increasing. And this is not something that's happening in a bubble with Greenwood County. If you watched the city council meeting last night, they also discussed their FOIA policy at their city council meeting. I help teach the FOIA portion of the basic PIO for SCEMD. And when we talk about FOIA and those training classes, everybody is on the same page that FOIA requests are increasing. But to give you an idea, I started in December of 2022 with Greenwood County. And FOIA requests have more than doubled since 2023. So the first year that I was fully doing them from start to finish, we had 108 FOIA requests. Okay. Okay. 2026, well, let me say 2024, we had 126, so 108 and 23, 126 and 24, 169 and 25, and as of today, we've received 261 FOIA requests. So, significant increase. The majority are always going to be still with Sheriff's Department, 911 calls, and the bigger and more active our community gets, the more you're going to see FOIA requests come through. But again, we've already had a 54% increase over last year and we're not through the year. The requests are also getting more complex. So while we're having more requests, we are getting more items within each request. For instance, I had a four-year request yesterday that had 14 items. It had 14 items inside the four-year request and up to seven bullet points that it wanted under each request. So that's one request. with all those items um seven under each bullet point so that's 150 items just one request just different questions like it's it's detailing it might be this i mean yes yes very very detailed um lots of lots of time i mean for instance we had a One request involving the tax office, we want, we asked the tax office how much time will it take you to pull this, for you to pull this information, and they said it would take us 20 to 30 hours of staff time to pull the information that was requested in this FOIA request. So, it is a lot. The FOIA requests require a lot of staff time, not only to locate records, But to review, organize, redact, and just make sure that we're legally looking at everything to make sure we're releasing property properly and make sure that we're protecting victims, especially from anything that is coming from the sheriff's office. I will say that we have historically been very, very generous in absorbing the staff time associated with FOIA requests. rather than charging fees. Like we are allowed to charge fees, but we have been very, very generous with our time. But it is becoming more and more of our time across all of our departments. My time, other staff times, department head times. This year so far we've only charged for one request, and that was for a personnel record with extensive redactions, more than like seven hours of staff time. involved in review and redaction from a personnel file. Again, as these numbers increase, the time that staff devotes is just going up. And, you know, this is only, nobody's, nobody in staff has time allotted to pull for your request in their day. So, This is all extra things that are happening. We're committed to transparency and the right to access government records, but at the same time, we have an obligation to protect information that the laws require us to protect and to make sure records are reviewed appropriately before they release, and we want a process that is consistent and transparent and predictable for both the residents and county employees. As our four-year requests continue to grow in both volume and complexity, we want to make sure we are appropriately accounting for for staff resources required to fill these requests and applying our existing guidelines consistently. The goal is not to discourage public records requests. The goal is to have clear rules and a sustainable process so residents know what to expect and county staff have a consistent framework when responding and charging for requests. Transparency remains our priority, and we want to make sure that we are responsible stewards of our time and resources that we provide the taxpayers from our county government.

Abby, I want to ask one question to make sure I heard you correctly. So if I heard you correctly, we're seven months into, a little better, seven months into the new year here in 26. And so you have already doubled the amount of four-year quests from 2025. Is that correct?

Not quite double. We were at 169 last year for the total, and we're at 261 now. this year.

Okay. So a hundred more seven months in, but you will more than double presumably. Yeah.

If they stay on the same thing. And this is across the board. Like when we talk to other counties and other municipalities, this is not unique to Greenwood County. This is not something that is just us. This is across the board. Again, this is why the city dealt with this yesterday as well, but this is across the board. Um, and part of it is it's easier to submit requests than it ever has been. Um,

Well, and my belief is, and the ones that I've seen and the ones that I've discussed with you all, the implementation of AI just exacerbates the volume of a request because you can put information in, then AI will give you a series of questions, I believe, to ask of the governing entity.

And it can. And when you have a high-profile crime in any community, I guess when FOIA laws were created, we didn't have such a thing as true crime podcasts. Right. Things like that. So, I mean, obviously those things are part of the increase that people have seen everywhere.

Well, I know in talking with talking with staff and conversations I've had with with with counsel. um, it's coming at a significant cost to county government. And, um, and as you said, you know, it's not, it's not our desire to, to shut down communications, but I think, I think we've got to start charging because if the, if you are the county attorney, spend seven and a half hours of your time on a day that you, that was not allotted for you, that's an, that's an exceptional cost to county government. So thank you for that work. I know this, I know that's been kind of tough. Um, Council, what is your pleasure on this? Excuse me, Carson. If I could just briefly.

So what we've done in this resolution is sort of a reaffirmation that we will, that you are directing us to charge per page in accordance with the fee schedule that's already there. It's 25 cents a page for a printed page. Normally we're doing electronic requests now, so the more... the bigger deal is how much time we're putting into it. So we're also asking you to, within the law, this has always been available to us, but to reaffirm and to direct your staff that if it's going to take us more than 15 minutes to fill a request that we start charging. This is in line with what the city did last night, as far as I know. So we would be aligned with the city so that after 15 minutes of staff time, we start charging the hourly rate for the search, retrieval, and redaction of public records. And again, in compliance with FOIA, what we're gonna do is use the person with the lowest hourly rate capable of achieving that. But sometimes it's Abby, sometimes it's me, depending on how complex it is.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because for the benefit of the public, I wanted the public to know that that a requirement is that we try to do it at least cost. However, we only have one county attorney, right? And it requires three hours of your time. That means somebody is going to be billed for three hours of your time, right? Thank you for pointing that out.

So that's what this resolution does it it directs staff to act in that way.

Thank you, man. Council, what's your pleasure?

I'm going to make a motion to approve it.

I second. I have a motion by Ms. Miller, a second by Ms. Bishop. Any comments or further discussion before we vote?

I do want to say thank you, Abby, for giving us that information and explaining the process. And I feel like we need to charge. I mean, that's taken away from tax dollars, honestly, when we're having to spend that much time to pull information together and make sure that we're redacting what needs to be redacted. So thank you, and thank you, Carson, for bringing this forward to us because if we don't know about it, we can't do anything about it. But I think it's very important to make sure that we put this in place.

Any other comments? All in favor is presented. that's unanimous and so ordered thank you no pages are stuck together okay that concludes um the items on our agenda tonight uh there are no further pending items um we'll move now to district reports district one miss griffin what do you have for the good of the public thank you um mr chairman

Um, just wanted to say, um, thank you to everyone that attended tonight. And, um, of course it's always good to see Dr. Motes and we thank you for that prayer tonight. Um, and we just ask again, as I always say, is that each one of us just remember, um, to pray for one another because we never know what one person is going through. But if we keep, um, each other lifted in prayer and, um, You know, as everyone has said tonight, that what we're doing should be for the best for Greenwood County. We want to make Greenwood County better than when we found it. So that's our goal every time that we're coming in here and sitting in these seats. And other than that, Mr. Chairman, all is well in District 1. and pray everyone have a great rest of this evening.

Thank you, Ms. Griffin. I'm glad you enjoyed your recent vacation as well. Thank you, I did. Ms. Bishop, District 3.

Thank everybody for coming, and thank you, Mr. Motz, for being here. We really do appreciate you, and I just hope that everybody has a wonderful evening, and happy belated birthday to Ms. Griffin. Her birthday was yesterday. We didn't sing? Yeah. We should have. So that ends my report, Mr. Chairman. Are you not going to sing?

Ms. Miller, District 4.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I had the opportunity to go by and visit Discover Greenwood's new location. Quite impressive. It's certainly something we all should be proud of in Greenwood County. If you haven't gotten by there, please drop by. I believe it was funded by our capital project sales dollars. Yes, ma'am.

We've done a number of Friday updates. Thank you for that.

So I got a personal tour from Kelly McWhorter, the executive director, and she wanted me to let you all know that she is working closely with the parks and rec staff to market the Greenwood County Recreation Complex and the Boozer Complex and Lander in the sports planning guide. which is a national publication for sporting event owners. And so it's a beautiful, please go by there and look at that facility. I also wanted to give a big shout out and congratulations to one of Greenwood County's students. I noticed in the SCAC, our South Carolina Association of Counties booklet, and I did take the time to read through that, that Greenwood County student Anna Kate Erickson was one of 13 students that was awarded the SCAC $5,000 scholarship. She's a student at Greenwood High School and plans to enter Clemson this fall to study biology. So hats off. Congratulations, Anna Kate, if you're listening. We're proud of you. And I know this is up here on the kiosk for us today, but I had it on my list already to remind everybody that the Veterans Hall of Heroes program will be held on Saturday, August 22nd at 2 p.m. at the Greenwood Performing Arts Center. And it's a wonderful program as well, honoring our veterans, and I encourage everybody to attend. That concludes my report, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Miller. Mr. Pruitt, District 5.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Moser, I just had one question. Did you drive the Mustang with the top down over here? Not today, no. Okay, okay. Just checking. um i wanted to recognize brian cromer and his wife for faithfully attending our meetings and they were at the 96 town council meeting last night which i also attended we had pretty good attendance there We had folks visit from the American Flood Coalition, the group that I visited in Washington, D.C. We were able to visit a couple of places in Greenwood where flooding was very prevalent, Fox Hollow as well as Chinquapin. Thank you, Ms. Miller, for the video you sent from your area, showing how bad it gets sometimes. Also note that if you want to get up and visit the town of 96, WSPA TV will be in 96 on Friday as part of their Zip Trip series. They will be there as early as 3.30 a.m. I would encourage all to attend. Set up by 5.30.

District 5 will be in charge on that.

Yeah. You know, we do have lots of conversations with constituents. And I had one call me this week about something going on at the lake and sent me a real nice email back. I just kind of wanted to share the last part of it. I thought it was pretty good. Um, he just said, but all is not lost because I did enjoy getting to talk with you and I appreciate all you do for this wonderful county. Um, it's nice to know you're accessible to your constituents. Thank you. So, um, I appreciate the kind words, uh, this gentleman sent me that lives in the district. Um, as always, I'd like to end on a Bible verse. First Peter three, eight says, finally, all of you be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another. Be compassionate and humble. That ends my report, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pruitt. Mr. Templeton, District 6.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank everybody for being here tonight and participating in their local government, as local government is the best form of government we have. I want to thank Kathy. I wasn't going to go here, but I want to thank Kathy for bringing up... the GCRC and Kelly McWhorter because as y'all know when we went through the through this whole process of redoing the Greenwood County Recreation Complex we were wanted to do that to provide the best recreational opportunities we could for our local for our citizens but also to promote sports tourism that was a big part of it and they've done a tremendous job of doing that so far and it's only going to grow and get better and better so thank you for mentioning that Kathy because I always like to talk about CPST and then I just want to thank all the citizens for the tremendous support that I have gotten throughout this whole process, not just from District 6, but from all over the community. It has been overwhelming and touching. I couldn't go anywhere where somebody didn't grab a hold of me, give me a hug, and tell me that they were supporting me. And just while sitting here tonight, I've received multiple messages of support and congratulations. And so I appreciate that so much from this community. That's what I love about it. And I want to ask Kenny to stay, because I want to see you before you leave. And I want to thank Heather for being here, because I have multiple great conversations with her. So thank you, Heather, for showing up. And again, Renee, thank you for bird-dogging or bull-dogging the whole inquiry with SLED and staying on them. So I appreciate that, too. And that ends my report. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Tumpkin. All is well in District 7. Some of you may have noticed tonight that Mr. Allison from District 2 could not be with us. He had a pressing business matter that kept him from being here. I do want to mention that we tragically lost a longtime town councilwoman, Patty Walters, from Ware Shoals. this past week, Patty had suffered with a cancer ailment and had just come back from RD Anderson in Houston when she was tragically killed in a car accident over by Emerald high school. I think last Tuesday or Wednesday, that was just heartbreaking. She was in good spirit. She actually attended. a town council committee meeting on Monday night before being killed. I think she was killed on Tuesday afternoon. So that was a tragic loss and a great loss to the town of Ware Shoals. She was a very committed and dedicated public servant and she was a fine lady and we're gonna miss her. I wanna thank the county manager our County Fire Chief Steve Holmes and Volunteer Fire Chief Chief Baber and the Mayor of Hodges. We had a meeting earlier this week to talk about our future plans for fire services. We have a wonderful process here at work in Greenwood County that the volunteer fire services support so well, our professional fire services. And our recruitment and retention of volunteers over the last several years has gone up dramatically. At a time when volunteerism across America has kind of waned, our volunteer firefighters have really risen up. And I think in Hodges, in my district, we have What did they tell us, Toby? Is it 31 volunteers total on the roster? That's a lot. And Chief Baber out of my district there in Hodges has been a significant force in helping conduct the training sessions. A lot of that takes place for the entirety of Greenwood County at the Hodges Fire Station. But what we were basically looking at, in our recent meeting with the county manager and the mayor is to decide when we build our next fire station probably in within the next two years probably about a year from now maybe be able to break ground whether or not we'll be able to keep that placed in inside the town limits of hodges which we i think would prefer to do or whether we have to move a bit north on highway 25 and a lot of that's going to really come down to our ability to acquire land i think the county manager would agree with that but anyway thanks to toby to fire chief steve holmes uh chief baber and and mayor uh george who also participated in that meeting with us Former Chairman, great to have you with us. Great prayer, as always. I apologize to you that you're probably embarrassed that I stumbled across a couple of things. I've had a bit on my mind here lately. And so between shuffling these papers up here and thinking about what's next, I don't have to explain to you how that goes. But great to have you with us, Chuck. We really appreciate it so much. Thank you. I don't believe I have anything else for my district.

Real quick, I fail to thank the GCSO for what they do for our community, but also for being here at all of our meetings. Thank you.

Yeah, of course. So if there's nothing else, Ms. McIntyre, anything for council? Mr. Manager? Nothing. Madam Attorney? Yes, ma'am.

tells us that we, you, our employees should not comment on threatened or pending litigation and should not speak to other parties to that threatened or pending litigation except through me. I ask that you continue to follow this particular nugget of conventional wisdom.

And have a great

Yes, ma'am. I think you've made that very clear to us, and I think council has taken that council, and we will all be governed accordingly until you tell us there is no further threat of pending litigation. If there is nothing else, we'll adjourn this meeting. Thank you all for being here.