Town Council - Regular Meeting

day. We are we're six months in on our strategic action plan and this is a is an update as to where we are, what we've accomplished in the p past six months. It is not about today's not about when are we getting things done. It's but it's about the sequence in which we're going to get things done. you know, we we have um we have a lot of things and when I say we, I'm really speaking in terms of staff have a lot of different things on their plates that council has asked them to do. And and I as we go forward, I want us to be mindful um what is on the table currently and that is, you know, the land management ordinance plus about seven or eight other things. And we have to be cognizant that staff only has a certain amount of capacity to get work done. And I'm going to ask council um as we go forward if if you have ideas or you have questions, you have thoughts in a in an effort to help free up Mark's time and staff's time, reach out to me. Send your emails to me and let me address those so I can go back to Mark on our our Thursday meetings and figure out where we are. We've got to give him more time. We know that there are some staffing issues right now. We've got to be really aware of that because we don't want to burn out Mark. We want the best product possible that we can have and we need him to be on point with that. So, I just ask council that to to think about that as we go forward and utilize me as that center person so that I can have my meetings with Mark on Thursdays and and get you those answers as to where we stand or or if it's a if it's an item that you want to bring forward to the agenda um because that needs to be vetted by both myself and then the two chairs of the different committees. So, today's going to be a great day. Um we're going to look forward to hearing the great progress that we have and what's coming before us. And again, as I said, it's not about the win, but it's about the sequence in which we're going

to do these different things going forward. So, let's make it a very productive communicative day. Um, we will have a couple of sessions throughout the day for public comment. So, be aware of that. Um, I think the first one will be at 11:30 and then again at 2:45. Um, we will have a break at 11:45 or so for lunch. I just ask that when we take that break that you allow Mark, council, and then staff to get lunch first um so we can get back to work here. So, with that being said, Mark, I will turn it over to you. Thank you.

Uh good morning. Good morning, Mayor and Council. Uh good morning to my team behind me and uh good morning to everybody that's here today. I just feel a little bit of goodness. All right, we'll make it work. Um, before we get started, I just want to turn it over to Kim Gam, our town clerk, just make a couple announcements, where it's broadcast and some some logistics for today. Kimberly,

good morning everyone. Can everyone hear me? Good. Okay. First of all, thank you for being here. We're really excited. Got a productive day in store. Um, but did want to say that we are live. We're streaming live on the Buer County channel and also on an alternate stream is our YouTube page and we do have a Spanish trans translator here, Nick Tay. She is present if anyone needs uh translation, Spanish translation. Thank you, Kim.

I always appreciate Kim, our town clerk. She keeps all the things moving while we're figuring some things out. Well, well, good morning. On behalf of this amazing senior staff team and the entire Hilton Head Island town staff, Mayor Council, we appreciate your time and commitment to the strategic planning process. Uh, thinking back a little more than six months ago, you all uh adopted the three-year strategic action plan. Um, I always say it seems like a lot longer, but it sure has gone by quick. um your intent at the time and a I think a good reminder is that we and you through the strategic plan set that clear direction for public policy, capital investment, and organizational focus. Right. And so I've always leaned on the strategic plan for those reasons. This was an outcome as a reminder of a two-day town council strategic action plan workshop and a subsequent follow-up work session where we identified goals, strategies, and action items through some exercise of prioritization. At the time of the adoption, I indicated that I would provide the team would provide updates to you on a on a revamped brand new town strategic action plan dashboard. I'm happy to report that is in place. we will show it to you today and then you further asked that I provide public updates to you um uh in approximate six-month intervals and hence that's why we're here today. Uh since this time we prepared and you adopted the FY26 consolidated budget and we began our work, right? We've always said and we remind each other that if it's in the strategic plan, we should work to budget it. If it's not in the strategic plan, we shouldn't work to budget it. And so I think that that that semblance and and that back and forth has has been working great. I've worked with department heads since that time to set those expectations. Um understand

and guide their work plans, not mine, not not not ours, their work plans based upon the resources they have and to deliver the expected results you have. Um we're honest and upfront with each other. This is a great team. I will tell you that there's days that I just sit there in awe. Um, more often than not, I think this is the greatest team I've ever been assembled with as leadership um, amongst any organization I've worked. Um, we're getting better every day. We we aren't playing perfect, right? There once in a while there's uh, not a perfect day. Um, but we're tr they're truly amazing and they're very dedicated. I say they're visionary subject matter experts. They're they're they're very professional and most importantly as as you would expect of me and I would expect of them and our community expects they really care about Hilton Head Island and I think that's a very very important ingredient to our senior staff leadership culture. Um they communicate well with me. They they tell me the good, the bad. They tell me the bad stuff fast. So I'm not surprised and and I try to make sure I let you all know about that as well. Um, but but I know this and I and I think it's important I say this today because they're expecting me to to talk about this today. Like what we're doing takes time. What we're trying to implement isn't just putting something on the page and wondering when it's done. And so I do want to say a very special thank you to them because they're they're working um as professionals to implement what we're about to to go through today. As a team as well, I hear this from them a lot. We appreciate you, mayor and council. We very much appreciate you. We've had a lot of meetings, a lot of time together, a lot of great work brought forward, a lot of time spent together, um, thinking, working with you deciding, and and and on behalf of them,

a special thank you to you. So, um, we're very supportive of the time that you've put in to prepare the strategic plan. I do think and believe that we've come off a really good 2025. Hey, if you you know just even just the way I I work sometimes the the the chaos gets thrown on a whiteboard and then it's not chaos anymore. If if if we remember there have been a lot of things put on that whiteboard that started to get crossed off as accomplishments as completed items as we got better, we accomplished something and we keep going. So I do want to say that I think today is as much about sharing that great information and celebrating those early wins. um as much as it and and and way more important than is what's next? When's it due? So, um I know that everything we'll share with you isn't without challenges. And so all I'm asking today is that this is more of a conversation um than it is a presentation and an update because I keep in mind and I think that we all have to be mindful I know we are fiscal responsibilities, service level expectations and pressures, workforce and organizational capacity, intergovernmental dependencies, um capital and infrastructure investments, budget process, um and the delivery and decision making through that. And I just think it's apparent that when you add it all up as a team, I think we're at capacity. Um I don't want to say that I you give me one more thing to do, I'm not going to do something else. It's not let's I'm not saying that. But I think as a team, we're at capacity because what we know is very very important to you is very important to us. And we're just simply trying to understand what that means, what direction we're going, and how to prepare a professional product for your consideration. So, um, so at a high level, I know we're

pushing to advance a lot of those priorities, uh, with you. Um, so with all that being said, today is a conversation. I I know that I need your feedback and confirmation on how we're prioritizing, but also I do think today's the day to start talking about sequencing, right? Not everything on the priority list, even if it's just year one, is all at once, a little bit at a time. and that we continue to feel like maybe not everything's getting done you want done. I think it's a sequencing issue and it's a process issue. And so to do this and to get started, we'll reference the strate strategic action plan goals. There are 10. We'll review with pace year one, year two, and year three priorities. There are 67. And I'll walk through a highle six-month update, right? We'll, as I said, we'll acknowledge the completed items. Let's celebrate some wins. We're excited about them. Um um we won't spend too much time on them, but I think we need to acknowledge some great work that is in the rearview mirror. We will identify initiatives underway and then what I intend to do uh is work with you to identify those mission critical elements aka those ones we keep in that important urgent box the box of four the important urgent items are some things that I want to sequence first not not second and then we'll of course identify those secondary items and make sure they don't lose their strategic intent. Um, so paraphrasing, I think it today's is about my understanding of and your collective expectations of what we're bringing you in year one and what we're parking for a a different day, a different conversation. Um, so I would say this at the end of going through the updates, I've prepared I've just taken the liberty to prepare what I

believe is most important based upon your your directive to me and and what I also believe as a manager. Um, if you don't see your project in there, let's talk about it. Right? So, so whether it's a cap project, a public policy, an operational item that takes our time, my time, their time, um, outside of the regular business, it's not up there. Let's talk about that because I think the clearer I am on what that is and the clearer you all are on what that is, the sooner we'll know what that isn't. So, uh, an outcome of today, and I think this is really important, and it's been working really well, is as that as an outcome, I work with council member Becker, council member Brown, chair of community development public service committee, chair of finance administrative committee. you are all on the committees, but I work with the two chairs to set the agenda for one, two, three meetings out. And a lot of times those meetings change just depending on, you know, workflow and and and some expectations. And then at the end of all of that, I make sure that I sit down with Mayor Perry every Thursday and we go over agendas. We go over agendas till we're they're practically memorized three months out. And if something changes, even one of us are like, "Where where did that go?" and we know what's coming on committee and we know what's being proposed to town council and then I'm very clear with my team of what's needed when it's needed and I can check and make sure that the quality is what I expect and so I think that that that process is has gotten way better over the last bunch of months and I just do want to say I appreciate the time that the chairs of the committees put in and the committees themselves put in because I think that's where a lot of our good work is starting to process and filter

properly. So, um, so let's let's dive in. One thing that I I've learned, um, working in this business for a little while and with with some boards and some past positions is that strategy and Councilman Desimone and I were just talking about this, Councilman does not only and entirely live in this document. Strategy, right? strategy lives in our conversation, right? It lives in uh the ongoing conversation, but also in a shared alignment and a very well-ordered, disciplined follow-through. And so, I want today to be more interactive. I I promise I don't have blue dots, red dots, green dots for you. Um I want to and I know and and I'll just be fair, that is not a prioritization process that I believe is effective. We tried it. Um I didn't get a green dot. I didn't get a blue dot. I didn't get a red dot. And I just am trying to live by where your dots were thrown in a paper. And I've spent a lot of my time updating you all weekly, monthly, intermittently in emails wondering when your projects that you know that you and your constituents or you just have a focus on when they're coming forward. And I do think that we have to improve the clarity of what we're bringing forward because I'd like to spend a lot less time updating y'all on when and working with my team on why and what. And so I really need your help. I I feel, you know, with some obvious folks that aren't in the room today. I have two key staff members that are not here. Um I think it's obvious and and I and I pledge to you as I as I have when I started here. I'm going to work as hard as I can, as smart as I can. Um, and I'm going to support my

team as well as I can. And frankly, that's what we need. So, um, with that being said, deep breath. Let's get started. Um, we're going to look at the strategic plan, the goals, the strategies, the highle action items this morning. We're going to, right before lunch, we're going to look at our new website. So, congratulations to everybody that was involved to put a new website in place. I just think this is the best day to do it. It's a win. It's a celebration, but I think you also should see the the complexity of it and the advancement, the value ad of our new website. Um, and some and also uh to take a look at the strategic action plan dashboard this morning. And so, um, big appreciation to those folks involved, especially Jacob Duel, uh, as the team leader on that. We'll have lunch. We'll take a couple breaks. I'll go through that. And then after lunch, we're going to talk about budget process, right? The budget schedule as we traditionally have done. And then some capital projects. And again, high level cap projects. I think it's a good reminder to look at the capital projects because they're strategic in nature. They take money, they take time. Um, some are moving forward faster because our focus is different than others. And I think that this should tee up very well, set up very well um, differently. And I've talked to some of you and and asked if if this made sense to to come into February to a town council workshop to talk about capital projects this year. I think we're there. We're finally at a point in our capital project program where it's sophisticated enough that we know opinion of probable cost based upon all our priorities year-to-year. Um, and I think that we should talk about the probable cost, the expected prioritization and calibrate expectations based upon revs, fund balance, funding strategies. And so

today, simply to tee that up, set that up and know that we're going to see you at late February. Mayor Perry, you and I have talked about that that the town council workshop in February is dedicated to preparing the FY27 CIP budget from a prioritization and a cost standpoint. So, we can get in a lot of that today um just to just to get it started. So, couple things as as I know we should do. You have one of these in front of you. Um in it, the tabs are are obvious. You've got a a regular agenda, a little note from me to remind us uh what we're doing and how grateful I am for this opportunity. Uh a couple agendas, one a public agenda and another working agenda. We have breaks scheduled 10:15ish and then public comment 11:30, mayor, but that's your your call. Um lunch at 11:45 uh to 12:30. um and we can talk and then some more breaks this afternoon. One at 2:30, more public comment in the afternoon and hopefully closing remarks approximately 3:00 3:30. So if you see me talking fast, it's because I'm watching my watch to see if I'm behind or not and I'm behind right now. Um in it is also the presentation that you have. So you can scroll through it and take some notes. I have made a couple edits to this with with with our team. We've we've moved some things around and and added a slide or two. You also have in in the book your budget calendar I think is very important um from a procedural process standpoint. How we get there, how do we get to the budget proposal and it's with you. It's not just presented to you. It's built with you. And I and I like the schedule to remind you of that.

And then last but not least, I almost feel like we should put this first in the future. Annual accomplishments. Angie Stone spends a lot of her off and on time throughout the year making sure that we're not missing what we believe you would be proud of, your work and our work and the community would be proud of in what we've accomplished. What we believe is an accomplishment. So that our work, we're not sitting here trying to just continue to say we did this, we did that. Just but as a as a summation of all the great work that was done over the last year, that's your last. And so I would encourage you if if if not today, um some folks are asking what we're doing. That's a very good reference. It's a very good reference document. Um, let's jump in. Here we go. We'll see how this works. I have notes and I don't need my glasses to see that, but I need my glasses to see this. So, we'll see. We'll see how this works. So, I won't belabor this. Today's purpose, right? shared understanding that we're sequenced, that it's a multi-year plan, and that we are trying, and I just share with you, Mayor Perry and I spend so much time trying to figure out the flight pattern to know when we're trying to land the plane on public policy. A lot of time and one thing changes,

something moves, a committee changes, a committee agenda changes, or sometimes we have more on a committee than we think we can get to in a couple of hours, and then it moves. And when that moves, the council meeting moves and the workshop moves. So, it's a it's a constant game of of of process um of all the work. So, I think it's really important when I say sequence. I'd like to walk out of the room today with a smaller bucket so that we can schedule it and get it done and not feel like we keep spinning plates because I know that is some of the feedback. Um council input on this elements of the strategic plan. And I know some of you want to bring up some new good ideas today. This is the place to do it. This isn't a a book that's signed, sealed, delivered, and closed. There might be something new that's very important that that that you didn't think of six months ago, nine months ago. It's okay, and it's supposed to be brought up today, and we shouldn't if if it's that important, we don't put it in the parking lot. We we put it in the in the priority list. Um, I need your support to manage expectations. I think that's just something that's that's obvious and the faster you go the more you might lo I might lose track of what your expectations are and our agreed upon sequencing and then really an understanding that alongside the strap plan that time and capacity yours as well. It's interesting I've heard over the last year that was a great meeting. was it wasn't till 9:00 at night and then when we have some really good work and really important decisions to make you do we're out of there at 9 9:30 at night and that takes a toll right especially with committees and workshops and meetings it takes a toll on on on your capacity as well. So today is updates on projects underway policy cap projects and a confirmation

of sequencing based upon priorities and a discussion on the three-year horizon. It's not to rewrite the plan. It's to bring new stuff up, but it's not to move. We're not bringing this plan back to council for an adoption. It's not an operational deep dive. I think that's that's something that I that I do regularly. It's not a rep prioritization session and it's not just a talk year one. It's not just a talk year one. When's it due? When's it coming? When's it on the agenda? We talked a little bit about this. I'll go through strategic plan. We'll launch uh the website at least publicly. We have a press release. We're we're fixing a couple glitches. I don't want to blame Google, but I read something in an email that the search wasn't working as well and it was some glitch that we were having. So when we when we test it for a few weeks, we'll issue a press release, but today we're going to go through a little bit of it. We're going to show you the performance dashboards. Uh like I said, strap plan and CIP. We're going to have a few more. There's a few more. There's a few more coming soon. And then go over the budget prep, schedule, revenue discussions. Mr. Bird, our our finance director, he'll talk to you a little bit about what he's seeing from a a revenue standpoint. point. I think that's very important today. And then to take a a quick highle look at our projects underway. There's a lot of great projects underway. Right. a reminder um February 26 27 so about a not not quite a year ago in a two-day strategic plan workshop and we started to implement it um unanimously adopted on July 15th. Um, so we're here today and and you have asked and and we will we will plan six-month intermittent updates and we can talk about whether they're here, whether

they're at council or things like that. Um, I always think this is a very important uh slide for a strategic plan where we are vision and missionbased. We've established goals. There's 10. We've established those strategies and there's a lot of tactics in between. That's more us on how to get this work done and and when to do it um so that we can all achieve success success, excuse me. Um we do have a vision and mission statement. Um I know that I've heard some feedback over time and it's very it's always really good to examine, re-examine, test, and update that. And I think that that should be a part of our future discussions perhaps when we get together next time. Our core values come out of our excuse me, our comprehensive plan, but they're baked into our strategic plan, a pursuit of excellence, a regional focus. And I'm not going to read them all. Um, but just so you know and a reminder for everybody, including some new folks here, that those were our center lines as we started to establish our goals, our strategies, and our action items in our strategic plan, right? Where we set a a vision and direction. It guides decision- making and resources. It promotes accountability and transparency, and then it's it's supposed to reflect the community's voice and ensure long-term sustainability. And I think we've got it right. I really do. Um, we have 10 goals. I I I think it's important. I know we know them, but I'm going to read them. Not all of them, just the head the headlines. Protect island character through managing growth. That's goal number one. Uh, I leaned on this last night at the land management ordinance task force meeting. I leaned on our strategic plan to explain to the task force and those folks watch watching and and participating why we are working on what

we're working on and really to communicate confidently your voice that this is the number one priority. So it's helping it's working investing in storm water management and infrastructure enhance major corridors and streets enhance public safety readiness and facilities. support economic development and business recruitment, excuse me, and retention, reinforce island resilience, preserve, protect and celebrate Gulligichi culture and heritage, and advance workforce housing opportunities, protect and enhance environmental sustainability, enhance community well-being through implementation of the parks and recreation master plan and program enhancements. There's 10. So, we'll get into goal number one. Um, can you all see that? Okay. And for today's purpose and what I shared with you earlier is I'm not going to spend too much time here unless unless you all want me to. I think just a high level how we doing, where are we going? And then in six more months when we produce and finalize our annual report which we of align and I think that's an important uh FYI we've aligned our annual report with fiscal year so that we can report budget and strategic plan with fiscal year responsibilities and so these KPIs that that you have all taken a look at and asked to report on those get reported not not today of course they'll be reported annually in that annual report. So, let's dive in. I some of the obvious ones I'm not going to spend too much time on. Um, I don't want you throwing anything at me and I can catch up a

little bit with our time. Assess adoption of a moratorum, time shares, sub major subs, and short-term rentals. The outcome of that, as we remember, was a completion of a of a next phase update on the short-term rental rules, regs, through a town code amendment, update the land use element of the comp plan. Really, that's to prepare a future land use map. That is to support and really as a as a non-emotional but a but a but a strategic support of land uses that will be aligned with a zoning map um whether immediately or over time. um to complete and bring forward the the district plans. There's seven more to bring forward. We've had some public inputs. We're writing the plans. I've seen a few of them. I have not read them word for word. Um I noticed some edits that needed to be made and so the team is back to a a V2 edit of those district plans. I would like to bring you these district plans as that first priority of course as well as the future land use map together and I'm aiming for a June workshop but I have to TBD that just to make sure the work is quality and that my team is providing what you need by that June workshop. Update the land acquisition manual. Um I will have some questions for you there. It's obvious what we can update in there. We can add different criteria to it because it's not all preservation and conservation focused, but I know we don't want to lose sight of that, right? That has to be our number one um target. But there's some new things that we've acquired land for over time, including um some internal work we're doing right now on acquisition of right of way. Right? When we build a criteria to acquire land, including right of way, there's a difference between acquiring

right of way for dirt roads Mitchellville or paved roads main street and so trying to make sense of that I think those that work it needs to be an appendicy of the acquisition manual so it's work in progress design guide um you heard a little bit about that last night staff's brought the design guide forward to the design review board they have their input um and they are starting some edits there um Again, I have not looked at that detail whatsoever. Sean Liner, Zack Gordon, our our planning director, is Zach's really starting to dive in and get his arms around this stuff. And Zach and I communicate well and and and regularly. So, stay tuned. and and really the the largest one, right? And we said this FY26, FY27, FY28 is that the land management ordinance will be aligned with some district plans in the comp plan, which means future land use map. It seems complicated to explain it, but I I just want to say the sequence of work has to be almost three different airplanes flying. um one is the future land use map, one are these district plans, and one is the land management ordinance. So, I think I've provided at least my perspective of the clarity that I wanted to share last night at the at the task force meeting. Um I believe and you understand that we will have a good next draft of this land management ordinance in whole this month. Date TBD. It's not today. Hey, I know that I don't have it. Um, but it's definitely this month. Um, I spoke with Sean. He thinks it's sooner than the end of the month. And I spoke with someone else that that's saying, "Hey, let's just get it here." Talked to Christy last night, the codewriter, and I have

full confidence that they're providing a good next version to us. I tell you that because I don't know yet when I can put that on a public agenda. I'm in a hurry to get it done right. I don't want to throw it on a schedule and miss the mark. I'm going to bring this forward when I'm comfortable with it. And I think today's the part for us to talk about what your expectations are about that. We've amended several elements of the municipal code. Beach parking. We still have some work to do. Uh beach park rules and park rules. We have started to draft that. We we realize that the the town code as it relates to that is old and and outdated and there's conflicts in it. What time to beach parks close? It's not 100% clear in the in the ordinance. So, we're bringing that forward and and I know that the team's starting to work on that. short-term rentals. We talked about um I do talk to some of you and you still talk about short-term rentals a little bit and it's just really important that over time we know are we we short-term rentals complete or are we still working on that admin citations. The reason it doesn't have a green box on it is because as we adopted the admin citations for parking and short-term rentals, we realized we left out litter. And so there there's there's a little tweak to do there. Fireworks, noise, special events. We have adopted a really good, I would say, industry standard in South Carolina. I was just at a conference with my colleagues um other city managers from around the state and I know it's not I'm not proud of it. We all sat around and talked about uh abandoned boat ordinances but Hilton Head Island seems to be a pace setter.

We've removed the boats and DNR has acknowledged not just our effort but the ordinance that's in place and our real leadership towards that. um 12 boats were removed and it's because the ordinance was amended to provide the teeth we needed outside uh right of the land and our jurisdiction refues and recycling as well and so land act so these things over three years right land acquisitions to support the comp plan what a what a tremendous success um some data points since 2020 and I will say that in 21 and 22 the number is zero but but since 2020 the town has purchased 79.6 acres of property most conservation some for fire rescue headquarters some for some town office space 23 different properties $52.2 2 million mostly real estate transfer fee, some tax increment finance, um, and $13.3 million out of the $100 million of the Buer County Greenspace Fund. So, you know, when I say celebrate wins, I just kind of feel like uh smiles through the room that I I believe that we're acquiring property strategically. I I don't think we're just reacting. Um we've it's a lot of lot of great work. 23 different acquisitions and most of those have been acquired over the last three years. So I'm very proud of it. Um and I do know that what we've acquired are good pieces. Let's talk about Mitchellville acquisition for a second.

It removed density off the table. It could have been multifamily. It's in a heritage cultural significant location. There are real artifacts on the site of of the people of Hilton Head Island and and the county's our and the county's green space fund acquired the super majority of of that parcel and a lot of that was strategic. A lot of that was working with Bufort County and and frankly I think we had a team that wouldn't take no for an answer and I'm proud of it. And that's just one of the 23. Um, I'll also say with some of this work here, collaborate with Buer County regional regional agencies, state partners to manage growth and complete our update of comp plan and improve the interactions between town staff, council's expectations of your board commission appointments. We're already focused on that. It does say year three, but we've aligned a year three right here with when this really completes. But I will say the work that just went in to the Hilton Head Hospital resoning with input and your help to your constituents and your help and your help looking at stuff and your help looking at stuff, everybody's help. The process that we had wasn't just isolated with a staff member at their desk. It was through planning commission. It was some back and forth with y'all and I think we had a a good first reading of the ordinance and and I'm proud of Zach jumping in the way he has to explain the PD to zoning, the technical part of the zoning, but I think at the end of the day, the built environment matters more than the words on paper and that exercise with them has gone great. We're bringing the site plan back to planning commission soon and that's already been in the works. So know that a lot of this

stuff's churning. Um so that's goal number one. Mark, I'm sorry. Ah, there we go. I do press the button. Um so as we go through this, thanks for the update on goal number one. Um and as we go through this, because the LMO rewrite is so key right now, that's one of that's our probably our major focus. Um, so as we go through this, what I did when I reviewed this weekend, I looked at the other goals and there several of the action items and other goals that relate to the LMO rewrite

and I think it'd be important for us to look at those. I made notes about those. There's about five or six of them. So, as we go through that, I might jump in if you don't already and say, look, there's another relationship to the LMO rewrite. We need to pay attention to that. Yes, ma'am. We've we've done that and that's great. So if if I jump over it, please this today. And again, I keep saying I want this to be a conversation, not me just presenting to you walking out of the room hoping I got it right. So thank you. Um any others?

Yes. Um it's more of a question about number 10. So it says complete the five-year review of the town's comprehensive plan. I know a lot of work went into creating that plan and as you talk about resources and um you know laying out the pace of work to be done that one rises uh to my concern about how much time is that going to take. I see that it is listed as being over three years and um thinking of that we need to be really thoughtful about when we can put that activity into place.

Thank you for saying that. It's on my mind too. So every 10 years by South Carolina planning enabling legislation you have to update your comprehensive plan. Every five years you need to assess it. Right? Right? We can assess it and say it's out of date. It's not perfect. Here are the 27 things that are off off track. So the assessment I would say that when you add up those three years of course, but the weakest so we've assessed the comprehensive plan. We can write the report. We are compliant with any state law. But when I go back to some of this work is in the comprehensive plan. That's an assessment. We need to get to that work. I would say the real assessment of the comprehensive plan with all due respect, the land use chapter with the land use and the development pressures and the future of Hilton Head Island respecting the past. The weakest chapter in this book is the land use element. There's nothing to criticize. I think a lot of good thought and a lot of great work went into the comprehensive plan. But when I try to lean on it to understand sliding scale zoning, why or try to understand why mixed use should or shouldn't be in a certain place or a simple neighborhood development pattern. I have nothing really to lean on in that in that land use chapter. So our assessment here, the reason it's over three years is our first assessment is in that land use section and then over time. So it's not an update, right? Well, it says uh where'd it go? Yeah, review. Complete the review. And so I think that we're always going to be reviewing the comprehensive plan and we're always going to be making some amendments. But the state law part, the five-year

assessment part is not another update. It's not getting into the weeds the way this the way we have to create our plan and the and the public work that we've done. That that's not yet. So this that's that's what the law tell that's what the law says. I see a microphone on that's why I'm looking

waiting for the mayor. Yes. Okay. Good. Well um thank you u Melinda for bringing that up because that's one of the um items that's I'm often talking about. it is in my mind um I've been waiting for this fiveyear mark to come along so that we could get busy with really looking at the comprehensive plan and um I do believe it should be a priority moving forward with a little bit more of a deep dive than just an an overview and assessment. So um as you had mentioned earlier if we wanted to talk or to kind of prioritize things for me that comprehensive plan should be starting to rise to the top very close if not there already um to to be doing some solid work on it. So I'd appreciate that. But I also wanted to go back and um highlight um the successes that you mentioned. I'm so proud that we have bought the properties and the land. I don't have the statistic at hand and I'm thinking about what the numbers are. You may have it, but I know um when I talk to people the significance not of just the land, the money that was spent, but also how many dwellings, how many units that took off of the development um page as well as um office space. um 37,000 for some reason comes to mind and 200 close to 300 dwelling units as I recall and you probably have the numbers at your fingertips. But I just want us to really highlight how important that is to number one to our strategy here um to protect island character through managing growth. And that's how that's a really good start. I'm looking forward to more of it. Um, so congratulations to all of

staff, you and council for approving those and getting them done. And I've got a list of more that I'd like to see done. Uh, so um, more to come with that.

Thank you. I I'll tell you it's more than 400 uh, dwelling units, uh, which is which is great. But, you know, we're since we're talking about the review of the comprehensive plan because I had the same question uh a month or so ago and Mark and I talked about it and exactly what we're doing is somewhat of a review of that comprehensive plan, but as we go through the rewrite of the LMO and some of these other elements, it will help us go back and really take a deeper look at that comprehensive plan. And you I I don't want to I want to be able to get through some of these things so we know where the community stands with the LMO and some of the things that we're trying to change in there and then take a look at that comprehensive plan to say okay this is what we've done and this is how we can adapt or maybe alter or keep the comprehensive plan but what changes would come there would be directed by the work that had been done in the past. So, I I just think as we as we look at this um knowing that a lot of the things that we're doing is going to go into the new comprehensive plan, whether it's in five years or the review that we're going to do, you know, next year, whenever that may be,

Mr. Mayor. Yes.

Um based on the the request from the town manager to make this a discussion, I want to just offer some some points as we go through these goals. And since we're on goal one, these will be relative to goal one. Um, thought a lot about the approach today. Okay. And at least for me, I'm taking a lens of our position as policy makers and staff's position as those that execute. So, as we go through each one of those, that's the way I'm looking at it. Okay. And understanding the comments from the town manager at the very beginning, I'm hearing concerns of capacity for a lot of different reasons. Okay. So when I look at the action items, yes, from a from a council standpoint, we have to get involved because ultimately we will have to make the decision. But that is a couple hours at a committee meeting and a few more hours at a council meeting, but there's a multiplier to that when it comes to the staff side. So, as I look at these, I want to understand how deep we are in the action items. Okay? And as I look at the 11 of them that are up there, um there are few that we're not so deep into. And that's okay. And I'm not for one suggesting that we go deeper because it's not preventing us from getting to a positive outcome. Okay? So, as we're having this discussion around the comprehensive

plan, I think the land use piece, it's glaring that that is missing and it's glaring that that needs to be taken care of and it will be as we go through this process of rewriting the LMO, bringing forth district plans and whatnot. So, for me, I think it's important that we give Mr. Orlando clear direction that that's where the focus is. That's where the capacity needs to lie and let's not draw outside the lines just yet. Just going to ask a question. Does everybody kind of agree with that statement? I'm just going to reiterate what I've said. I think that um our eyes should be on that comprehensive plan and looking at more than surface assessments at this point and take beginning to take a deeper dive into it. Um I felt that way for a long time as I said and um I'm going to continue to say it and push for it. Mayor, I add one thing. I I agree with M what Mr. Brown said. I also agree that you know we have statutory uh obligations on reviewing the comprehensive plan. As long as we're doing that, I'm satisfied with that part. Um, but as I look at um the core values of the comp plan, the slide that we had up earlier, and I look at our strat plan, strategic action plan goals, I'll say the full uh name. Um, so we already talked about that we're updating the land use element of the comp plan um through um our goal number one. And then if you look at the second goal, storm water management, then one of the core values of the comp plan is rightsize infrastructure. If you look at enhance our third goal, enhance major carters and streets, that's right size infrastructure. Um so we're doing some of that as we go. It's not the extensive community input process um that we had in designing the comp the existing comp

plan which would come later at the 10-year anniversary. But I think as we look at these goals, we look back at the comp plan in these um circles and say what are we doing about that? And I'll go on to say two more. Um another core value of the comp plan revitalized economy and we have as a goal support economic development and business recruitment and retention. So we are mirroring some of those um which is deliberate. And then um environmental sustainability. Um we have as a goal um number nine, protect and enhance environmental sustainability. So we're doing some of that as we go and and I think we just don't realize that we we should start calling some of those things that we are reviewing the comp plan at the same time. But I I totally understand the um uh the points that folks have raised. But I want to say that there is some connection in what we're doing. We just don't realize that.

Thank you.

Yeah. All great feedback. Thank you. Right. If you just did 80 acres times 4* 6, there's the math. We also have acquired and and you can't it's not pound-for-pound there, but we've also acquired about 100,000 square feet of commercial in that same amount of time. So, some great takeaways there. All right. Well, one comment was my words, but paraphrase how how deep are we diving in all this? This thing's a little off. We dove deep on this. This this this we spent time, energy, capacity, but the outcome was STRS. Um, we also at the same time put some abandoned boat ordinance in place. We're we're real deep with a future land use map. Um district plans and the LMO. We've started to we've started lightly to uh assess what a good update of the land acquisition manual looks like. Frankly, I don't want to break it. It's served 1300 plus acres of acquisitions with a conservation focus. Um there's some criteria in it. It's old. It's old text. It's an old book, but it's really well done. It's visionary beyond that that book. There are some things that we can help with, but I've been struggling with real criteria because I don't want some criteria to chase off opportunity, right? I don't want the criteria to say, well, that didn't make sense to acquire that because it didn't score enough. And because once I put that in place and we start using that for right ofway, it's really mostly right-of-way acquisition and housing and new buildings for for facilities, just trying to make sense of it. So, I didn't dive deep yet because it needs my time, right? I' I've been the one working on land acquisitions in

my career so far. I don't want to just delegate that and look away and say, "All right, when you got out of that on committee that that takes some time, but I've I've realized I I've realized we're we're behind." Not re I've known we're behind here. I've realized we're behind here in terms of my expectations because I want a good version of a document I can start reviewing and make sense of with my team. And I would also say this, um, this show's over two years, but it but it I believe that, you know, you walk in a room and folks are like, "The design guy is not done yet. Hurry up." It's a two-year job. So, I haven't dove too deep in here, but I know that the next real effort of the land management ordinance needs to be let's finish what we started with these risk issues. If sliding scale zoning, small lot, less acres, big lot more acres, right? That sounds like tract builder can build a lot, pun intended. Uh, lots of lots and and someone that's just a human being that lives here doesn't have that same opportunity that they would have if they're buying and combining lots with with with their equity. If that's a risk, let's deal with it. I know that we have a big house, little lot, pvious, impervious, nowhere for the water to run, nowhere to park if it's a short-term rental, setback and buffer and roof pitch problem. That's that's the problem. It's not every let's pull everything apart in the LMO and talk about it for four more years and I feel behind every day I wake up and come work for you. So, I'm getting deep into this. And I'll tell you what, the the blessing

uh in disguise as as my mom always makes me remember, I'm I'm diving into this right now. I have to just for necessity, let alone I need to bring you something I believe in. So, okay. So, I'm diving deep into those. And of course, land acquisitions. This should be a non-issue. We have an amazing person helping us. of course Curtis, but Britney has really turned into this staff resource for us with co with with town code. And in fact, I I'll give some credit to Miss Bryson. You did say, you know, back when just give it to the attorney and we weren't looking at it that way. We were Angie or Sean or some other folks working on it and we can bring those forward a lot quicker with that with that with that tactic. Um, but those are where we're we're diving in, right? So paraphrasing done paraphrasing future land use map. I've taken a look at it. It will be on my round table this week. You all want to come by and take a look at what it's starting to look like. I'd love your input one at a time. Um this is getting closer to a good next version. Um I've got to figure out with you, Mayor Perry, how we bring this forward. This is not the work of the LMO task force. This is not the work of the LMO task force and this design guide is not the work of the LMO task force is what I tried to point out last night. The work we're doing though is simply flying all those airplanes out um and then amending the LMO and and I'm I'm diving in deep, but I I want to really talk about today if you have different expectations the entire land management ordinance. We're not throwing out the old one and building from brand new and reinventing how we look at land density, zoning, culture, opportunity.

We're not doing that by May so it can be adopted by right. We're not we're not there's no way to do that by then. What we did say here six months ago is that as we started to update the land management ordinance over since I've arrived as we've talked about it more than any other topic and I've always realized the LMO is fragmented. I don't know how to find something. I'm not a planner, right? I'm a recovering planner. I say um I haven't looked at a land management ordinance code in many years. I used to work as a consultant. I read this book. I don't even know what it says. I call Chad or Curtis. And that's the problem with this book. You don't have predictable outcomes when a staff member cannot consistently understand what the what it's guiding you to do. So when we started to that when we started amending and overhauling as we called it, we started to pull apart the high-risk right 11 items in 24. 10 are done of the 11. But there's got to be and there is a next trunch of responsibility of risk related code, right? Tracked builder, clear-cutting big house, little lot, nowhere for the storm water to go except to the people that live here already. We can fix that. And the un unintended consequence, the the predictable outcome is no longer when you have a little piece of property and it's less and you have a larger piece of property and it's more. But calibrating that and taking away people's rights that believe they have a right of eight or 10 units per acre and and really because of the environment and the trees and the storm water and the capacity and the traffic counts and the intersection impacts. It should be four. You want me to just bring you four?

That's what's going on. And you can't just divvy that out to a consultant to tell them, "Hey, do the code. I know you worked in Hawaii. I know you worked here. I know you worked in hundreds of places. Bring us what we want. We all don't want the same thing." So, I'm diving deep here. We have to finish this. We have to finish that map that that helps us make less emotional decisions, I'll call it, and we should celebrate that over the past six months, we've got some real work done. That was a lot of noise and a lot of risk and and you've addressed it.

Yeah. I I think that um what you just said all of us is our that's our priority, right? because it it is about the growth management managing growth and those are the elements that really make the difference and those next trunch of five 8 10 items in the LMO are going to make that difference going forward and and I I believe that's what the public is really looking for um how do we you know as it was being discussed last night about character and I think I think what should have been said last night in terms of character is what is there now that doesn't meet the character. When we try to to describe the future character, we've got to look back and say that doesn't fit. And we can all pull out several items. We go that doesn't fit. And by working on these items, it'll correct those previous projects where their characteristics are not what we want in our community. So, I think we're all on the same page with you on that. Yeah, mayor.

Well, um I agree um with you um with regard to that and in fact part of what I was scribbling down so I wouldn't forget is just that it's the highlighting what Mark mentioned as those items is where most of the angst really comes from through the community because so much falls from that. We've gotten the development, the character of the development, the size, the mass and scale, however you want to put it, wrong over the last 10 years, 11, 12 years now, good grief. Um, and that's caused the majority of our problems. And that's folded into problems with further problems with infrastructure and storm water and all of those. And I think it's really important that we slow down and get all of those right this time and make sure that we set ourselves up for success, that the community's property value, not just their personal, but the island community value is increased by the work that we're doing. Um, and that we remain this special and unique place that we are. But I also think it's important that where failures occurred um starting with that 2014 um LMO rewrite, the issues that were created within the communities, we can't put a fix in there with setting new standards, but we ought to start looking at some ways where we can create some fixes within those communities. They deserve it. they've been harmed and they need our effort and attention to finding tweaks and fixes that improve the life and the quality um of the of of the residents there. So I think that has to be highlighted as an intentional goal for the for the future. Um, also I wanted to to take a moment to stress and and support what you were saying, Mark, which is, you know, going a little bit slower to get it right is is truly important. And we can see that just in a

couple of items that you mentioned this morning, abandoned boats. When I first brought that to you, we hurried up and we got something in place, but it wasn't it wasn't enough to be able to redo the to get the job done the correct way. So we had to go back and do something a little bit bigger. That took time. We if we had taken a little bit more time and thought it further through, maybe we would have had a better first ordinance with regard to that. Um the other one that you mentioned is litter. when we were putting those together, we should sit as a group and and and say, you know, what else could we apply to this same sort of ordinance that we're doing and get and be a little bit more careful, take a little bit more time so that we get it all done at a higher level the first time, so we're not doing it a second time. So, I like the idea of going a little bit slower. But I also like the idea of us communicating our thoughts and concerns so that Mark has more to work with um than just the one item that may have risen to the top at the at the moment. So um I completely support you on that and I encourage us all to continue to provide that feedback um so that we get get it right and go a little bit better moving forward. But I wanted to make sure um that I said that um out loud.

Thank you. Fired up. That's great. I love this. This is great. This is exactly uh as I thought through over the last bunch of days and got up to come here today. This is exactly it. So, thank you. I have to see Mike's.

Yeah. I I wanted to just uh expand on that a bit. Um, and I'm going to take a take a quote that I heard last night from Chairman Desimone as he led the Elmo task force. As we talk about this land management ordinance, I think we also have to be very clear in communicating to the public that it is a living and breathing document. it will continue to change based on conditions. Um, Mr. Desimone said that when we when we vote on this at the end of the day, it's not all going to be right. We're going to have to change it again. I mean, it's the whole purpose of having a policym group because there will be amendments along the way. Um so I agree as well as far as the pressure points need to be addressed. Uh Mr. Orlando, you're telling us that um the LMO is fragmented.

So reorganization of it is important. Um so I I think that there's a lot wrapped into 1.6 that we can accomplish in short order. Um, but not holding that up because of the deep dive sort of

I hate to use these words, but I'm going to use them so I make the point. Deep dive into misinformation and not good information. Okay. Absolutely. Um, you know, we've done a lot already as far as changing the LMO. And um I mean we can argue, but I'm hoping that we would all agree for the positive as of late. Um and we need to continue that. Um but we need to somehow collectively communicate to our constituents that things have been done. We will continue to move forward. And oh, by the way, to Mr. Desimo's great point, it doesn't mean that we're not going to have to fix something else later. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. President,

yeah, two things in followup. Um, one is I I think it would be good I I have shared my list of top 10 plus maybe 10 to 15 of issues I think we need to address. I think it would be good uh for each of us uh and I'm going to say each of us and the community. I'm going to make it that broad. uh town council members, committee members, our boards and commission members, uh the community. If if there is an issue, I'm talking about significant issues. I'm not talking about changing an A to a D, although you could share that, too. Um but if there are significant issues that you see with the current LMO, share them with us. Send them through Steve to Simone, the chair of our LMO task force. Sorry, Steve, I'll give you a little bit more to read. Um but let us pick those key issues and make sure we're addressing those especially as we go through in the next phase uh when we get the draft uh LMO task force will be looking at some of the key chapters um of the draft LMO um zoning districts uh standards and use tables um and I could name some others in there um but share with us what you think of significant issues so we make sure we're trying to address them as best we can. The second thing I'll say is our discussion last night about island character. One of our task force members Edwena Dunlap said do we have a definition of island character? And I said I dare say that we go around this table and we have all different kind of opinions as to what island character is and it could differ based upon whether or not you're born here sixth generation or you arrived yesterday. What do you think island character is? So I want to encourage and I did last I encouraged our task force to have more discussion about that and I think we will do that because how do we protect something if we don't know what it is? And the last thing I'll say about that is um and I I thought about this last night to quote um a US Supreme

Court decision when they were trying to define obscinity. One of the justices said, "I know it when I see it." Yes. I hope we could do better than that. Well,

can I just jump in on Pat's good point and say um I think that we can all agree as a starting point our environment here on Hilton Head is a is a good place to begin our definition of island character. That's what was naturally here from the beginning through all of those who have been here before, those of us who came later and for most of us and I dare say almost all of us, it was the environment that um that really set into our heart starting from the first point when you put those tires on the bridge to come on over that experience and and everything that follows afterwards. So, I would start our definition with our environment and I don't want to lose sight of that as we're moving forward. And there's a lot wrapped up in that um for the future, but we can't lose sight of our priority being protecting and enhancing um our environment around this island.

Defining island character, if if that's going to be an exercise, should say 1.12. trying to define island character with all due respect while we're updating a code and there's a shot clock from you from me let alone a consultant on the shot clock that we're paying for defining island character while we take away the risk of setback buffer height pvious impervious I'm going to ask and I will tell you I don't think that's the best exercise right now I think it's needed because even here reflects island character island character should be defined in your comprehensive plan. It should be implemented through the design manual. It should not be a part of the task force work.

100%. I agree. You know, when you get um Wow, that's loud. You know, when you get a large group of people in a room and you try to define something and if they do it privately and turn in notes, it's all different. If they do it publicly, half agrees, half doesn't agree. But I think if you're trying to find out and you feel like you really need to know what island and character is, the place to start is for everyone to tell you what it isn't. Yeah.

Because I think there's more people agree on what it's not, set that aside, and then start to work on what it is. I think it's a good exercise with the task force to talk about it, but to have the 21 people decide that that's what it is is going to take away from our time. But I I think this because we need to know what we're accomplishing. It's why I ask 6 4 8 12 per acre. Height is a 4,000 square foot building island character or is it better at 3,200 square feet? The island character won't help us with that. the the the land and the structure within reason based upon its surroundings has to start defining that an island character has evolved over time right I would say 50 years ago character was a little different that was does uh quarter deck meet island character I shelter cove calgy like so try I'm trying to steer away from it with all due respect to not have a definition of island character to make some code amendments for buffer setback height density pvious imperous traffic counts blah blah blah. So it again I I'm going to ask you let let me do this. Um that's that's a that's a that's a below I'll I'll bring it to you but that's a that's a below that line of my job.

Yeah I I agree with you. Um, but I do want to ask council, are there any other elements that you think needs to be added into here or are we moving in the right direction? This is a, you know, we're going to spend the most time on this topic because it is the most important for us. But I, but I think Mark and the staff needs to hear from us that, yeah, we're on the right track here. This is what we need to be they need to be focusing on and and we get out of the way and let them do their job. My light won't light. The light's on.

All right. See if I can speak. Oh, I can speak. Um, let me make this clear. I'm not trying to decide to suggest that a committee of 21 plus, we have two um exeicio members um that they uh make a definition of island character. What I'm saying is they need to talk about it. Um and it's like trying to what was what's the old saying? Um, if you want to design a camel, you don't ask a a group of 21 to do it. So, not trying to do that. And I'm not saying let's add a 1.12. I'm saying we need to have a discussion because this is what we're trying to do. That's fair.

And I I just want to jump in and and and agree. not trying to necessarily define you asked us to talk so I'm going to um so um I'm not trying to define a island character but what I am trying to put a strong emphasis on is the the environment that this island has is unique and special and to Hilton Head and it's not any town USA and what is the common denominator that I don't think anyone would say it doesn't fit or isn't quite right and that is our environment and all of the things that you mentioned with regard to development. All of those things that we do need to fix with height and setbacks and pvious impervious and all of those those are directly related to our environment, right? Because then, as I said, we have difficulties with infrastructure. We have storm water issues and we have the runoffs that currently in many neighborhoods are going directly into our marshes. None of that is environmentally sound. None of that is actually working in the way that we think that we are actually protecting this island. Right.

And so if we put first our environment and protecting that, everything else should work towards that goal. So maybe I got off on the wrong foot with regard to um definition of violent character, but um environment and and what we assess as being the most or at least I assess and I believe others do too as being one of the most important elements is is the environment, right? So everything we should do has to directly affect in a positive way our environment and we need to fix what we have harmed. I hear you. The way I look at that is protect what you value,

right? I think that that from from my lens trying instead of trying to understand what it is or isn't, right? I have my views. I've been here 26 years. I know what I like. I know what I don't like. I But I I think the code needs to protect what we value, right? I think there's a few buckets of the code, right? The first are the risk, the development pressure, track builders. I hope they're listening. I don't want them to show up here. I don't want them to clear cut. I I Mark I I agree with that statement 10,000%. Um if if anything doesn't meet a character code, that's right. That's it.

The the good ones will show up in respect that you clear lots when you build your house. They won't tell you that phase one is really four phases and everything's gone. and and the complexity of that with a few staff members, right? Walking a 40 acre site to make sure you catch every single tree on a tree survey to make sure that what's surveyed is there and what isn't surveyed isn't there. Um, right. to make sense of that. I just want to get back step back a little bit on this code and Okay. stabilization and then I think there's opportunity. How long have we worked on old hotels? So there's got to be a redevelopment side, right? And I call that the opportunity bucket in the code because sitting still and you're five parking spaces shy of a hotel becoming something important or not a public safety risk. We have to look at it differently. And so when you look at those three buckets, we need to value, right? We need to value those things. And it can't just be one without the other. So all right, we're gonna move on or we're going to run way out of time. We're going to be here for two days today. Um, what time's dinner, Kim? It's just a small joke. Zach's back there smiling because I

think he's helping him with the clarity he needs. May I move on? Thank you for this great dialogue. That and this this is great. This is exactly the way I thought that is our number that the one prior to that is our number one. Let's just dive in real quick. Right. Invest in storm water management infrastructure. con conduct a comprehensive storm water program assessment, town, county, state, public systems, prioritize capital project investment, prepare an islandwide storm water. You'll see that that's a year two, three, um assess reserves, um and then develop a funding strategy. This one is this this this is packed well. Um we have and fortunately in Tai on all the things that we want to get to. I think Mr. Gillan has got to capacity study on Tai that gave them clear directive on infrastructure investment, a storm water master plan islandwide and a real assessment. So they tell me that they've done a good assessment and and by the way uh I didn't even mention Jeff Netinger yet who is unstoppable in a in a for is he even here in

Oh yeah he's next door presenting on on the on the beach advocates. Um, so we've assessed town, county, state, private. The good news, one, but a massive undertaking is Mid Island tract. Why were the ditches through Mid Island track dry? Wasn't because of the Mid Island tract. It was upstream. And that meant someone upstream might be flooding in a high rain event and definitely the water's not moving downstream. So that's just one example. We have sped up the capital investment prioritization. I do appreciate Mr. Gillan. He tells me that the FY26 budget $6.35 million that you all have in the CIP included 17 projects. Never before in at least in my time and I think even well before that have we had a a draw down from the bank account of fund balance with a FY budget of $6.3 million 4 million for private system um maintenance and and and another couple million for maintenance that we're working on 17 projects either in pre-construction or construction and and by Sean's measurement not to put him on the spot But to put you on the spot, um 80% of the budget will be spent by the end of the fiscal year. How many times have we been here before and that was not the story. So great work, great work. Um islandwide storm water master plan engineering consultant selected, work began February. So we have expedited, according to Sean, he's like, "Mark, I can't do all this if I don't have this." So, we've moved this up and we've expedited some of that work. Stay tuned for a storm water master plan. I do know that when we have that storm water master plan and we put a probable cost

to it on the private, on the public, and on ours, the county and the state system, right, the state, all due respect to them, they don't clean ditches the way the county cleans ditches. And the county doesn't clean ditches the way I would clean ditches. And and and as you can imagine, a lot of conversation with Mr. decimal through through through my career, let alone in the last little bit here. Um, we just have to take a common sense approach to this. Like not just the not just the home runs, not just the primary, but the secondary and tertiary fixes because those are what's flooding people's yards. That's what's rusting under their house. That's what's causing foundation issues and it's causing a lot of our time where we're just running around kind of playing whack-a-ole when it rains. So, um, some great productivity there. When we have this, I think we can look at our rate, we can look at our costs. I would love to be able to compress and borrowing money isn't always favorable. I'm not trying to borrow money. So this conversation always um gives me a little because um and I I just need clarity when we talk about storm water management infrastructure and in the assessments which I have complete faith

town of Hilton Head doesn't address all the problems on Hilton Head. And so when we talk about this, this sounds great. And if you're not paying attention to that detail, which is significant, you think we're failing them. And so, you know, and I realize there are ins and outs of this and a little bit more um analysis needs to be done in each and every case goes to land acquisition, I guess, but we need to own the roads on Hilton Head to be effective for every resident on this island to accomplish goal number two. And so, um, and so I'm going to say that again and again and hopefully we'll get to a point. I know that Mark, you have been working on that and I know that we are making some progress in that regard, but I think that's a key element to truly being able to serve all of the residents of this island is to own the roads so we can do this work for all of them. And so, um,

said it yet again, and I appreciate the hard work I know you've been doing and the attention that staff has been given to it, but until we we shift that and we start owning those roads, not everyone's getting the same service, right?

Yeah. The time it takes to coordinate not just road, but right of for us. And so I I I struggle with that a lot. Um because you're right, you know, you call 911, sheriff's office shows up. Um you call the customer service center and say, "I need help with a building permit." We're there. When when you call and say, "I have a storm water issue." It depends. Do we have a corrective nor a a a corrective maintenance agreement with you? Palmetto Dunes, Sea Pines, and some smaller places in between. Do we have a corrective maintenance agreement with you? Let's check it because then we'll assess it. Um or you're not your storm water problem isn't our right of way. That's this that's the county or that that that's private, but you pay a storm water utility fee. And so the storm water facility fee is assessed by property and some formula um won't get into today. Um but so we don't and can't by right help it and fix our driveway in the front ditch. It's not it's not on the town property and and that is the most other than getting our development code right and making sure that new pattern development doesn't continue to even add to this problem. These two issues are our largest problems on this island.

We can solve them. I'm I'm we know, but it's cost and it's it's policy decisions. So, all right.

Yes. I have a lot to say about this topic and um I'm so glad that we added it as a strategic priority and that it's number two. we're going to need to um be aware of. So if the I see a lot of head nodding you and in the back over there that this plan will do that and I think it's going to be important to us. It's going to be eye opening to us as well. Um so I'm glad to see that happening. Um, in regards to funding, you know, we're going to have to have some once we have that information, there'll be some serious conversations then about how do we um address this financially and uh one of the things that I want to ensure happens as well is, you know, communities uh that have signed agreements also have needs and concerns. And the process that we use today is to prioritize based on a scoring um methodology. And I hope to see that in the future

we'll be able to address more of those needs as they come forward. I understand there's limited uh finances today, but we need to think about that uh structure moving forward. Uh the last topic is the owning of the roads and as you said it gives you gives you agitus. It does me too. Um you know and I understand exactly the point uh that Miss Becker is making. Um it is it's a lot of coordination uh when different entities own the roads and this conversation of owning the roads isn't just something we're having in this room. It's something that's happening in the state and actually there's some state legislation um that is pending that they're talking about um regarding a structure for transferring uh roads. So, the state would like to transfer roads to the county. The county would like to transfer roads uh to the local municipalities and what does that look like? Um and and how do you fund that? Um what I want to ensure is as we talk about these discussions that we have an understand of the financial impacts and look to those entities that we are receiving the gift of roads from for the gift of money as well uh to help support because we know that they are receiving funds to support and maintain those roads and we need to make sure that uh as we think about these things that that is a very key component because it is a large refin financial responsibility um to maintain roads and um storm water.

Right. Fabulous points. Message heard. Message heard.

Yeah. I I think that what I'd like to see, if possible, um during this process of assessing our infrastructure, how do the roads come into play? Because I think it's a big part of how we make a decision going forward, funding, ownership, all of that. What's the county responsible for? what are we responsible for? But you know, you're correct. Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, uh, Horry County, all of it is going through this and there are hundreds of millions of dollars just in their drainage pipes and it is, we just heard this yesterday, it's just every year just grows exponentially, right? So yes, it this is going this is one of our most um expensive things that we're going to be looking at and talking about and we've got to have a true understanding from okay what is the drainage system like? What is the infrastructure like? What are the roads? What does that mean to the entire project? What does it mean to the cost? Uh where does the funding come from if we don't take over the roads? What are the options to do if we don't take over the roads that we can still play pipe? That's you know all of that. And that's the kind of things that I think we need to be looking for so we've got a complete overhaul picture um of ABC options you know as to how we make decisions going forward because it is going to be very very expensive and timeconuming you what what I'm hearing and just from my lens right over here uh hearing you it's a service decision not a condition decision and we keep looking at roads and in the storm water ditch as a condition decision vision and what you're talking about is our our level of service expansion. Two other things,

Mr. President. Yes. I I'll give you my bottom line. I support the staff analysis. I'm hearing we have capacity. I'm delighted that we can move up the islandwide storm water master plan. It's been one of the things I've been pushing. Um and um I think that once we have that plan and once we have the uh comprehensive study of the program um then it'll be up to us to make those policy decisions about things like funding and what roads we take and what roads we don't take. So I support the analysis. I'm not going to add any action items. And thank you.

Go ahead real quick. Mr. Mayor, um I support the initiative as well. Um, I wanted to sort of water the financial seed that Mr. Town Manager was planting with us.

What roads aside, I'm just speaking with this initiative as far as storm water is concerned and I'm glad that we have taken the time to move forward with a master plan. Um, let let's let's remember that when we talk about larger developments and their pressures on our storm water system, that's gone. Like, you're not going to go back and ask a developer for an impact fee to help fix something

or help sustain something. You also put into the equation the amount of potential tax income we have taken off of the books with our land purchases. And then finally throw into the equation that there's not much land left for new development that could help offset some of the ongoing cost. And it's great for us to celebrate when we reduce millillage. Um, it's great for us to say that we don't need to charge folks additional tax money, but it would also be great for us to say, well, instead of reducing millage, let's now counterbalance our new needs. So, the taxpayers not paying an additional fund, they're paying the same and we're going towards you might be able to say, well, just look to the county, they'll come solve your problem. Look to the state, they'll come solve your problem. That's not true in a nutshell. And so, I think each of us as um Hilton Headites, as I think I heard someone say some years ago, um should be able to rely on the town for the same service that everyone else is getting. So, it's not an increase in a

service. It is a a fair and equitable um service um opportunity. And with those roads, while I do understand and while I said there's some analysis that needs to be made about the impact, um I believe Melinda said it correctly and I've said it as well, those roads um come with some dollars that are attached to them when we receive them. And that is part of the negotiation conversation to to acquire them. and streets. I'll go through this quick. Um, major thorough affairs corridor plan um was asked a good question earlier. What am I what am I diving deep on? We worked on this for a while. There were so many different decisions and so many roads. I realized at a naive time in my career here, too many things to make decisions on in one bucket, right? So, Main Street, Chaplain, Section, C Pines, Pope, and keep going. And and what hasn't come off of our priority list is 32. Advance the William Hilton Parkway Gateway Corridor, right? We all know what decisions were made there. They weren't yours, even with your recommendations. Um it's great the bridge especially after last weekend with the concerns there. Um DOT is moving forward on that bridge but it still leaves us with some major issues to solve safety wise thoroughare wise

neighborhoodwise and always isn't always in that same order the William Hilton Parkway gateway corridor. So I haven't moved this forward. I'd like to I'd like to know what you want me to do collectively with Main Street because I don't know if I need 5 million or 12 million to finish out Main Street so kids can walk to school or people can walk to work and that's a safer street thing. So I have no no other option than to just move that to the side for a minute while we refine 3.2. Um, I'll tell you what the the the good news is we have enough information here with your collective and let alone our knowledge to move these projects forward. Right. We are and you'll see it after after lunch. Seine Circle is a priority. Gumree roads our number one next priority and I've said that from the day we started Dylan Road to Beach City Road to make that significant investment that was 10 years in the making with 600 plus thousand dollars of Buer County impact fee money. We've said forever from that time Gum Tree is our next effort thinking this going to be done. Um, we didn't say Cines is. We have letters from Sepines. I think Cine Circle is a is a easier solution with the DO's help. And so I'm bringing forward to you a project management um uh agreement with DOT. They'd like us to transfer the funds. We are waiting on that. But I just want everyone to know Gumree Road because of North Point. But even without North Point, Gum Truro needs to be our next our next Dylan to Beach City investment. And it's not just our investment by oursel. It's collective with DOT. It's it's funded with, in my opinion, Beer County, our impact fees. And so know that we are working on that. I had some good feedback when we were just together. There's some folks that don't know what's going on with Gumree

Road. I'll work on a concept plan and get that out in a press release as soon. And thank you, Miss Tunner, for that suggestion. um as soon as we have our groundbreaking on North Point and a few other things. Um public right ofway ownership. Well, I want to work on that. Just obvious, right? We talked capacity. I haven't really figured this out yet. We haven't figured this out yet. We've leaned on Sean Gillan, Sean Linger, and Britney, and that is in the works, but but you're right, that has to be a companion piece to land acquisition as well as the the prior section. and then a feasibility study on the island trolley which is which is later. So on this we're on track. You know this is our big lift. I will say the the the biggest muscle move right there has to be a William Hilton Parkway gateway corridor. I believe a workshop is on a March date. Mayor Perry, I don't want to steal your thunder, but you've asked me to bring this forward in March. We have continued to work on it and pair it out based upon all the public comments to date and a preferred a preferred path forward with with your with your directive. I'll give you my quick bottom line. I agree with you to move 3.1 sequencing up to FY27. And I think that as we um look at the priorities of 3.3, we can look back to the suggestions and ideas from the work already done on that plan. We don't need to adopt the plan to be able to do those.

Thank you. Move on. Break time or you want me to go through one more? I think we can get through one more. We missed break. I'm good. Y'all need a break.

All right. Number four, enhance public safety readiness and facilities. I'll have one. Um, all right. A feasibility and a a subsequent costbenefit analysis. Um, what does that exactly say? Conduct a feasibility study and subsequent costbenefit analysis pro for providing a comprehensive public safety services. I take that as cost out and staff out and right cost benefit a police department. That's what I take that as. I have not started. I'll tell you why. Um well, I have I'll say it this way. I have two different proposals. One from the IAP, the Institute of American Chiefs of Police. Um I think they're the most recognizable with what they tell us. I believe we would believe rather than just an outsourced consultant that knows how to do a staffing assessment. Um it's a $100,000 both proposals. I thought one was way high, so I got a second one and it's both 100. And I haven't budgeted it for it. And frankly, I I I this is not something that I can delegate into the organization too easily. Bob and I will work on this, but it would take Bob, myself, and Lisa Staer time, and obviously time with you, time with the sheriff's office, and time with everyone else. So, I haven't moved that forward too fast. Okay. Prepare a facility plan to design and develop a fire rescue headquarters. So, wow, what an opportunity that presented itself. I did say we should celebrate a win. Chief's already moved in. Tommy Sunday doesn't know that yet. Chief's already there. I saw his truck there on Saturday. He's probably who, you know, in his office. Um but the acquisition has right timing

opportunity um facility plan new fire rescue headquarters emergency operations center and dispatch center addressing space technology and funding. I just want to say how great we are and how smart we are because we put this up here before we even knew that we were going to acquire that building. How much how much did that save us that acquisition?

Well, if you ask our finance director, Chief's very expensive, so he'll say zero because he, you know, I'm teasing Chief. I I think it saved us approximately $4 million at a minimum, right? Because there was how how well I always Steve has two prices, one when he's buying, one when he's selling. But how much would a 17,500 square foot building that is a cat four and a half cat four building almost five cost to develop to build let alone time right time lost I I I look at the the the cost value of of time and and money let alone a three-year effort and I don't know how to add up the brain cells over three years to pick the building pick the shutters how many parking spaces where's the flag pole going. It's It's done. We're moving in in a month.

And can you just talk about the why because I think that's so important. Um why we bought that. Yeah. Why we we're looking at replacing their headquarters. Sure. Finding a new facility. I think that's

Thank you. Um well, when we assess our facilities, we know that we're in a town hall with some shaky floors and some roof raptors with some issues with the sprinkler system amongst other other systems in the building. I've never tried to prioritize that because I knew our great fire rescue team is in much worse conditions. I won't have to tell you about the rodents in the building that are near the dump and that our opportunity to rid ourselves of the rodents comes with its own challenges. They've been in that building a long time. And and and the irony of it is is this. In one of the storms most recently, I remember Sean Linger coming like un undone because our emergency manager's office space was flooding while we were all at EOC. And we were at the EOC in the second floor on the back side of a building at the public service district building. And in and about the size of not even this was our entire EOC. And we we had a I call it a near miss. We had a storm. We were over interviewing with some news channel and we're all in the room yelling at everyone to be quiet. It's just space needs, but it's also quality of the building that we had. And so we started to take a look at land that we own, location, central, higher ground, realizing that the public service district, with all due respect, at least from from my team to me, have asked a couple times, what are you going to do with dispatch and what are you going to do with your emergency operations center? And I keep worrying, do they want us out? Do we need to get out? And we've got dispatch there. and dispatchers that work 24/7 on shift were eating their sandwiches in their car because obviously there's no windows. There's no real room in that building to eat and frankly sitting outside the PSD and we know what I'm talking about isn't the right place to eat your sandwich on

your shift. And so a a tremendous amount of respect, right? I say first class building for first class people and when the times are tough we rely on them. But what this building does isn't just take care of them. There is training in there. There's rooms for the public. We can expand our services to AED training, to any type of training they do. Um, and it saves some money. And we all fit. We fit in the sense that the entire chief's administration is in there. Our emergency manager center is in there, including a place to sleep in case everybody needs to leave. where where do we go? Right? Um and then uh dispatch, they can spread their arms and dispatch has some additional room. Today, if I brought you the dispatch solution for short-term rentals, there's nowhere there for them to sit that easily. There there's room. And so, I appreciate it. It was a quick move. We borrowed we borrowed against the debt millage 35 million and we pledged some dollars towards that. I'll bring that forward to you in a first reading of budget ordinance next month. Um, it's great because it afforded the building and that was an acquisition. And then we can move dispatch there next year with the sheriff's office. There's some costs there that they're they're going to ask for it because it's their dispatch center. We just operate it. And then emergency management moves in. And and frankly, when the emergency management moves in, it's not just training. It's where do you go and where do you stabilize in a storm? Obviously, not a cat five storm. Where do we go? So, we've improved our services, we've improved taking care of our people, we've saved money, and we've saved three years.

And I just want to add that that adds a lot to our resiliency. Yes. Sorry to Yeah. Is that what you just wanted me to say earlier because it's break?

I know. Resilience, sir. Um, so yeah, we we have some costs that will come to you. We need a generator. There's a little bit of sight work. there's some minor upfit for the EOC is they they have to be in a bullpen space and then FY27 different cost um some dispatch relocation that were still TBD from the sheriff's office. So, uh expand proactive enforcement in neighborhoods, commercial corridors, and resort areas. Um, our good and great director of public safety, Bob Broidge, has done with the sheriff's help a good assessment of Calgney Beach Park. We will in the FY27 budget have signage presence and and my proposal to you is some dual lens infrared infrared surveillance cameras that the sheriff endorses at Calgi in the parking lots. We've got to look at some landscaping. We've got to improve some lowlevel lighting that that that helps to to deter and and light up and some hard wiring surveillance and a future beach operation center as we talk but talk out loud today in the WildWing building right the front I call it front of the house uh some some community space um and strategic community space um and in the back of house our fire rescue hot seat Buer County hot seat shore beach service hot seat and surveillance that we can actually monitor the beach but also surveillance records and so I think that surveillance in that presence will help all of us and it'll help Sheriff it'll help Sheriff Tanner I talked with him a ton of respect for him you know just like everybody else capacity is there enough of us to go around and and are they on the beach up and down the beach at 11:00 at night we know they're not but with at least let's get calligy right and then maybe scale

and replic replicate in different sizes and and shapes along the beach and our beach park. So, you asked for that and and I believe that's my takeaway of expanding proactive enforcement in neighborhoods. A lot of this as well is this through the short-term rental program. I will propose to you in the FY26 budget, four new people, an inspector playing offense, two code officers, and bringing and a and a full-time dispatcher. So, they are going to answer a 911 call first if the all the lines are lit up. But that dispatcher will dispatch short-term rentals to Bob in the daytime, sheriff's office at night if it's public disturbance and all the time to the property manager because there's expectations that they reply. We have some some cost savings to get away from the govos hotline in the contract, but there's some added costs there and a proposal uh per bedroom will be made to you. Um, and save you the details. Proactive enforcement in neighborhoods. I do think Bob and his team understand that construction activity is a neighborhood impact. That short-term rental activity is a neighborhood impact. Disturbing the peace and I know that Bob is focused on that in a in a different way. We will have data that we owe you and we will support our work with data. Let me just get some more data so that we can see some trends. So,

um I just wanted to highlight the plan that you were referring to in Calgney. I sat in on that presentation. There's a lot of additional benefits to what had been proposed and one for instance is um shore beach services being able to respond in a much more effective way to issues that are happening along the beach. shark sightings, lost children, all sorts of things that that occur. Um and so there's a dual benefit and um I'm excited to see how it all comes together finally when you bring it towards us. But um the initial presentation was very very impressive. Good. Thank you.

Um so back to my original lens at how I'm looking at these. Um say as Mr. So, Lando's ran through this one. They're really only four items since you already got a check mark next to to one. Mhm. And I'd even argue that there's probably half a check mark on a few others. Mhm. Um, and I guess I'm I'm focusing on from a policy side, you're going to come back and ask us for money through the budget cycle for three of these that are not checked and and I definitely support that.

Um, but I I sense a little discomfort or hesitation with you for 4.1 explaining to us that you have not done that yet. Yeah. And I'm just trying to open the discussion here to give you some confidence, right,

that that one and this is one man's opinion based on what you told us from a capacity standpoint and how you need to be involved in this piece. And also I'm taking in consideration the movement that we've made to I guess enhance the coverage, the expectations, the service in that area through the other points. Um, to me that's one that you should really shove aside and focus on some of the other items that in the other goals that going to take your 101 attention. Mayor,

yeah, I'm not sure I'd put it aside, shove it aside. That sounds I'm not sure. No, I am sure it is something that people on this island are concerned about and have asked for. They want to know what it is that we can do better with regard to public safety um in in a list of different ways. Um and so I don't want it to be put aside without being given the emphasis that we've been asked to to give to it. Um I think we're on a good start with the analysis that was um done down in Kiggnney. Um if I had to add anything there is that it's that presence that I want to make sure that we have. um in addition and that seems to be a lot of what's missing across the island as well. So, it's been asked for. It seems to be a high priority and we know that there are issues and and we cannot put our head in the sand and continue to pretend they aren't. And um so I want to see it as a stay as an action item.

Yes. Um, I would also like to see it stay as an action item, but I am comfortable moving it from fiscal year 26 to 27 uh in regards to the amount of personal time that it'll take from you and uh all the other heavy lifts that we have this year. Thank you. Gotcha. What she said, I was just going to say the same thing, Melinda. Thank you. The other thing I'm going to suggest is that we have an annual report from the sheriff. I don't know what month that's scheduled for, but I think it would be good to have that. um is a part of addressing the steps that have already been taken to um improve our service level by the sheriff's department. I'd like to hear specifics from the sheriff about that.

Can you take that note? Thank you. Yeah, Mark, I I I agree. I I don't think Alex was saying push it aside. I think he was saying you've got so many things done here that you know it doesn't require as much focus um considering the other elements that we have.

Yes, sir. Um thank you and and thank you for that. That's exactly what I need. And Angie's taking those notes. That's what we keep whispering about. Um, just real quick, too, I I do think and if you're not always out there, we have a new warning flag system in place on the beach. Zenos as as as the vision and and and a piece of the project management to put some highly visible beach prohibition signs up. I want to make sure we've get our rules right first. What time the parks close, what time they open, can you drink on the beach? Can't you drink on the beach? What can you have glass bottles? I think all of our signs, even if they weren't outdated, the sun has bleached them so much you can't see them. You know, frankly, on the front side should be the rules and on the back side should say, "Thank you for visiting. Keep the beach clean." And so, we've done a lot of good work. We've just got to up update our our brand, our awareness, our our our physical environment. And then a replacement of beach mile marker signs for improved nighttime visibility. Can't see them at night. can't even you don't even know where the beach park is for Caliggney. If you're on the beach and you need help, god forbid, where are you? I'm on the beach. It's a condo. So, we we are aware of that and and we have a great team that's that's mobilized around that work. And a lot of that's operational. I won't need to bring that to you except maybe one day I'll put you in the jeep and bring you down the beach and show you how how much we've improved it. And so, great team behind that. All right, goal five. Let's do a 10-minute break. I have some water. 10 minute break.

10 minute break is 10:50, so back at 11 o'clock. Okay. And we're behind, but we'll catch up. Thank you.

Mark, if we could and allow some public comment because we're kind of past that. Um, we we did have people sign up um to speak for public comment, but it's not required that you sign up to speak today. Um, I don't know if Kim is back at her seat yet, but she should be there in a second. So, um, we've got a microphone here for for public comment. So, if if you did sign up to speak, we'll let you go first. Um, so just go ahead and come on up. And I Somebody's got the three minutes, the timer. Okay, great. So, do we have anybody signed up to speak? Oh,

Jean Fruit right there. Is that all?

Good morning. My name is Jean Fu. I live at 9ine Kingston Cove and I'm also the executive director of the Outside Foundation. And I'm here to talk about our community-based oyster shell recycling and bed restoration project and to let you know that we've already been hard at work and we will continue to work hard on three of your strategic action plan goals. With regard to the work that we've done in eight years, we've diverted 200 tons of shell from the landfill. We've built 35 reef in and around the Hilton Head area protecting our salt marshes. In terms of investing in salt storm water management, one acre of salt marsh can absorb 1.5 million gallons of flood. And what these new reefs, these living shorelines do is that they shape the salt marsh. They actually have the dynamics to do that. When it's talk when we're talking about island resilience, number six, their shoreline protection, reefs slow down erosion, storm damage mitigation. We know that these reef are much more resilient than gray infrastructure. They don't have to be repaired as much and actually as they continue to mature, they get better. And durability in terms of number nine, protecting and enhancing environmental stability. uh sustainability, habitat creation. Oyster reefs attract and provide a home for over 120 species. So they support our commercial and our recreational fisheries as well as our quality of life. Those things that we enjoy, shrimp, fish, crab, those are the top of our commercial fisheries. S self- sustaining economic and environmental protection is a key. Town of Hilton Head really doesn't have to do anything to maintain. There's no maintenance involved in

these. It's also the most successful example of recycling on our island. Waste reduction. Again, 200 tons of shell not going to the landfill. Last year that was 41 tons. Water quality. Just one oyster at 3 in can filter two and a half gallons of water an hour. That's remarkable. So water quality and again our quality of life, volunteer power and community engagement. We've already been doing this work and we ask that the town of Hilton Head recognize and support the work that we're doing. We've put you on the map. These people out here know about us. And so because of that, I want you to to join me in really recognizing the work that we've done to help you with basically implementing your action plan. Thank you.

Thank you, Jean. Kim, do we have anybody else on the seat? We do. Um Chester Williams, I didn't see Chad here. Dave Ferguson. Yeah. and Richard busy. He left. Okay. Does anybody else want to say any words at this point? Yes, sir. And do state your name and your address, too, please.

Hi, good morning. My name is Troy Rosson. I live at 37 Old Stony Lane. That's just off Square Pope Road. And uh I'm a new resident to Hilton Head. moved here uh from Colorado to be closer to family uh last year and I just wanted to share some of my daily struggle with getting around on foot and on a bicycle. I I did ride my bike this morning. It was pretty cold. Um but it it's um on one hand it's great that we have the path network that we do. It's I mean it's really fantastic that it gets to so much of the island, but we do have some gaps um some missing links and um you know looking at goal three of the strategic plan um of course uh William Horton Parkway um is on there and uh also enhancing streets. I don't know all the details or the history, my apologies, but just as somebody new here, um it's really difficult to get around uh from where I live uh down to some of the um restaurants or or commerce that are on just just down the road on uh William Horton Parkway. Um William Hilton, excuse me. Um and you know, we can go kind of the long way, but it's just really not realistic. uh walking. So, um please please um do all you can to u follow through on improving the parkway in particular. Um you know, there there just lots of folks that um for whatever reason aren't in a car and are getting around um through some kind of active mode and I would encourage you to move fast and fix things. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else want to make some comments at this point in time? Okay, great. Thank you all. Mark, back to you.

Sir, thank you. Thanks. All right, goal five. Um, I would note if you're referring to your working agenda, we're behind, but we have we have a lot of room to catch up with website and some some CIP and some budget discussions. So, a lot of lot of room built into there. Uh, okay. I'll let someone No questions. Sorry, I thought someone had a hand up.

There we go. Poll eight. Just kidding. Any questions? It's lunch.

Yeah. Uh support economic development and business recruitment and retention. Some some activity here and again some wins and some completions that that that I think are making uh us better and adding value. So you asked that we improve the process, the ordinance and the outcomes right of the South Carolina a tax grant award application process. side. I I believe that's complete. We've learned a little bit this year on trying to figure out what what the real next step was if someone didn't spend their money. Is it going back? Is it is it being reused? Again, another maybe just a gap that we didn't perform and understand as we were updating it. Um again, that's just process improvement as well. So complete and item one affiliated agency awards application. Um Angie has done a fabulous job amending the application form not to ask for more but to ask for different in terms of justifying you've done a great job with that in terms of justifying value ad with taxpayer dollar. Right. Here's an easy one. Island Recreation Association. Um that is our rec center that is providing parks and wreck um operating and programming. Um and so that's an easy one to justify. Um I think last year was a was a good exercise where the ask was X and the and the decision was X minus but it was validated as to why because affiliated agency applications is and it's important for us to remember this is property tax for the most part general fund property tax more more

this is a tax All right. One's for tourism, one's for are we in that business or are we affiliated with that business? Whether you're USCB, Island Wreck, we have two, I would call real partners managing town property through operating agreements and long-term commitments to each other. Thankfully, Coastal Discovery, Mitchellville, Freedom Park, th those are those are the obvious ones. But over time there were some different asks and I think that that scoring criteria has helped you normalize their ask and make a decision yes or no not based upon anything other than the criteria you set. So that's complete. You'll see those come forward. The applications they're in. Correct. Um do we have any new ones this year? You don't have to tell me who they are. Do we have new ones this year?

Yes.

Okay. So we'll use that process. this comes to FNA finance administrative committee soon to tell you who applied to talk through your application and then the next meeting to start making some decisions because every decision you make there is less dollars in in the town's budget and so I look at this as folks that are helping us perform the work of the budget arts commission while it's not a check mark your decision was made you supported a resolution that allows the application to be made to the South Carolina Arts Commission designating a cultural district. We know where that was. It's it's up in that in that in the Shelter Cove area and and we're moving forward with that application. That takes time. It takes coordination amongst external partners. Angie and Natalie have done a great job mobilizing and helping people be organized. Um establish a DMO contract complete. Uh we know what it what it is. We know the improvements and the value ad made. We know that it took several um several months to simply bid out, to score, to make sense of and to and to implement, execute. Um I put a check mark. Uh marketing plan should be status quo. There's a new process though. Um you will have a workshop. Is it March 21st? 19th March 20 March 19th as a town council chamber of commerce public workshop to talk budget and to talk marketing plan expectations deliverables um as part of this part of this contract and the rest are just over time right support a local business utilization program that expands access to procurement opportunities we have a much better program in place today than we did there's there's some results to report. Um,

we've had a how to do business with the town presentation really a a program launched with Thomas Boxley and the community development corporation as long as well as our business license and our finance department. So, it's it's not one or the other. 14 different local small and minority businesses attended. Um the director of South Carolina Division of Small and Minority Business Contracting uh attended and participated in the event. Um we're planning for a contractor outreach event, right? Not just small business to bid, but contractor landscape hardscape uh facilities and and and whatnot. Janitorial. Um and then also to engage with a general contractor and subcontractor community. 74 different companies have registered with the South Carolina SCOT small minority business enterprise program that we use as their registration to understand if they're a local minority business or not. So we lean on that state registration. 220 different businesses have solicited or at least download our information and and the results are are what they are. There's $214,000 of contracts to companies that are registered. So, at least we've starting to establish data. Um and and I think that from our perspective, having a local company bid on landscaping or janitorial or or any work we're doing has has been proven to be successful. Um What's the next tier? Support town sponsored signature events. I think that's over time. It's in the strategic plan because it's time, it's money, and it's focus. So, I think that will just live in there. But, you know, not to reiterate, Crescendo successful year overyear with expansion, lantern parade. Um, we're now, you know, we're not worried

about people knowing about the lantern parade. We're at a capacity operating enforcement of of safety uh issues. Hilton Head Island jams, Christmas tree lighting, manora lighting, 911 ceremony, and a whole bunch of others. And and there's where Natalie here. Yeah, there you are. Um this just Natalie and thank goodness for Angie and thank goodness for Robin and thank goodness for Fedra and thank goodness for the however many volunteers probably more Robin guilts into helping you.

Yes. Yeah, I know how it works. And so, what a what a great team. And and we just keep pushing forward those events. It's not a large team. And I think that's important to say. I've never come to you and said, "I need five more people to do these events." But I just think we have to start realizing that more isn't better and better isn't more. Right? So I just think that we what we're trying to accomplish with the small number of people focused on it as employees and and what we rely on and thankful to the community of volunteers. So, I think that's very important. But, but this is an important one because every time there's a great event, right, I've always believed in this morale. Morale goes up. That's our that's my job. Morale of them, frankly, help with yours. And if the community morale goes up because we're actually giving back and we're present and we're investing in experience. I think that that's a very very important strategy and we take it seriously. expand and diversify business sector recruitment, retention, including healthcare, technology, and other primary job sectors. So, what a great start. Um, what an amazing start. In six months, we bid out a property that the town has asked for that be pledged towards economic development and parked it for a while. That site had a significant number of dollars. I forget the exact amount. Six figures. sight with those over time. We bid it out with your with your guidance and concurrence primarily healthcare and Hilton Head Hospital Novant bid on the site and made

We have first right a refusal to buy back what we bought it what we sold it for. So some really good work there and we know that healthcare will expand on that site. There's a lot more work to do here.

Yeah. Um just to expand on that a little bit um for for council's knowledge Mark and I met with the county economic development corporation. and Mr. Rul was asking what can we do differently? How can we really help the community drive additional businesses in and we expressed some dissatisfaction with some things that have taken place? Um it's easy to go out and get the manufacturers for the other areas, but it's tough to do that here. Um so since then, and this happened at our last meeting that it came out, um they were they were awarded a grant of $10,000 to go out and recruit u financial high-tech firms um to bring them to the area that are located in maybe less desirable areas. So they're starting to work on those avenues, but that's just the tip of the iceberg because we need to do more. We need to reach out to more of that. Um, and I've always said, you know, high-tech, low impact, highpaying jobs is great. That's something that this community could be really strong with. Um, and also those professional services. So, that's something new that's coming around from Buer County EDC. Um, which is a step in the right direction. We've got to push that a little bit more and I think 10,000 again is not enough, but it's a tip of the iceberg. Um, so hopefully we'll see some activity coming from that along with some other things. Just a quick update. All right. Thank you.

Uh, three quick things. Um, 5.5, uh, thanks to that program, uh, council adopted a policy to, uh, help foster that program, small and minority business, small and minority owned businesses. 5.6. Um, I think that, as I recall, the new contract with the DMO requires marketing and also to provide us with data. So if you look at the KPI key performance indicators on the left hand side next to the last square says visitor spending and engagement. So they should be giving us measures of that. We've asked for that. Um so I think that'll be helpful. And then the last one I'll say is 5.8. Um although it it says identify carters commercial nodes and sites including privately owned eligible town parcels for targeted investments. But I think the part about identifying carters commercial nodes uh relates to the LMO. So although that shows investment in an outy year, I think we need to remember this in the LMO rewrite.

Understood. It's it's the opportunity bucket that I talked about in the way I'm looking at the code in three buckets. It h it you have to, you know, for obvious reasons. That sounds good. Yeah. Well, sort of want to wait until Councilwoman Tana goes because this is her thing. Never mind. All right. Whatever. Well, thank you. It is my thing. It's something that I'm passionate about, and if I only had three I uh strategic priorities, this would be one of them.

Uh and so again, I'm very thankful that this was added as a strategic priority, and it it is as high as it is because I think it's critical uh for us as we think about our future. Um couple of things that I wanted to talk about uh in regards to affiliated agency, and I know you've received the applications. One of the ones that I've uh most concerned about and we've had a lot of discussions at the finance committee is Palomato Breeze. Um and any uh uh prelook that we can get in regards to that because we've had a lot of conversations uh due to the fact that they came to us and asked us to fill a gap a very significant gap um during the year and then we have a new ask uh you know for the next fiscal year as an affiliated agency and um you know and we haven't gotten uh what I think are clear answers to our questions in regards to their finances and it gets complicated and what I understand that we need to support Pome Breeze. I think they uh provided a very important service of bringing workers to the island and we need to support that. But we also want to make sure that we are paying our fair share. And so this gets into the transparency of intergovernmental relationships and making sure that all uh municipalities and areas are paying their fair share as well. And so I want to make sure that we're well prepared for that as we come to the affiliated agency ask because I'm sure that number is going to be a big one. Um and we want to be prepared and have a successful conversation. So just some thoughts there. Uh in regard to the DMO, uh there are going to be a lot of new changes with the contract. You talked about the workshop. I'm very much looking forward to that. I felt it was important that instead of having a very quick

conversation with a presentation from a podium that we sit down and have a discussion about the marketing plan and we've got a significant um amount of transparency that is required with that marketing plan so that we have a better understanding of how the money is spent and it allow us to sit down and have a com a conversation and open dialogue between the organizations so that we can you really use that as a way to build a better partnership moving forward and to become more aligned. We also have um an asked that we have new metrics. Uh I don't know that we've landed on what those new metrics are, but we know that as um web searches have changed and impact of um uh artificial intelligence that some of the metrics that we have been using in the past are not indicative of how the system is used or what is success. And so we're going going to need to land on what those new metrics are fairly quickly um so that we can make sure that we're uh supporting those moving forward. And then we have financial transparency and so they'll need to be work done to get prepared uh for that moving forward in the future. Um the other area that I wanted to talk about was um and it gets to number seven which is um what I think is vitally important for our community is diversifying our business uh sectors. And uh Mayor Perry talked about how to attract new businesses. And one of the things that we talked about with the uh modern classic sale of land uh which was an economic development is to use that money as seed money for future economic development opportunities on the island. Um, this is not money that would be given to the Beaver County Economic Development Corporation, but would stay in the town's coffers, but would be placed there for us to think about how

to leverage that moving forward. You know, Mr. D. Simone talks a lot about um, you know, commercial space that is sitting in and is need in need of being updated and there's just many opportunities um, across the island. And so that is exciting to think that now we have some money associated with uh that work. And um one of the things that uh we're going to need to be thinking about as well in regards to that is about potential business impacts uh to businesses located along the airport. So as the airport um finalizes um the various scenarios on the airport layout uh plan um there may be some impacted businesses along the fence line um as they may need to expand their area and how do we support um not only the owners of the land but more importantly the businesses that um may utilize that space. uh because uh again our goal here is to retain our businesses as well as grow uh our businesses.

So great.

I agree. Um and I'd also like to add um I guess I'm not jumping ahead, Mr. Orlando, but I'm sort of going in the verse. I'm planting a seed with you. So I'm hopeful that when we get into the strategic plan dashboard that there's opportunity to celebrate some of these wins that we're talking about Novant and so on. Okay. Um but I want to talk a little bit about um you know how uh 5.7 and 5.8 um sort of need underpinning that flow through other initiatives. Um, Miss Bryson mentioned uh the LMO and absolutely and it's not just about the dilapitated building or the empty piece of ground. Um, but there's uh there's infrastructure that is needed for recruitment to our area. Okay, that could come in the forms of capital investment. Um, we talked a lot about housing, child care. gentleman just came up and talked about connectivity when it comes to transportation. All of those things fall into those buckets and we are focused on them ongoing. And I think we just need to continue to remind ourselves that it comes back to this economic development item and not be bashful when we have to do things that are a little different than the way we've been doing business.

Okay, Steve.

Uh yeah. Um thanks Miss Tuner. uh kind of got me thinking. Um I think it's so important and as she said, I'll stand on my milk crate and beat the drum, but we have all these blighted areas and we need to think about very closely about how we spend our money buying property moving forward. I know that some um some of those funds are allocated in certain ways that we we have to use them in certain situations. But moving forward, we need we need to look we look into tomorrow. It's we've got these areas and what's happening is they sit for 20 years and then some developer comes in and fights with the town or negotiates should I say with the town for two years. Thousands and thousands of man hours are spent creating a development agreement and then it ends up right back at the town and the town ends up purchasing the same property for four times what they could have bought the property before and worked with a private industry and brought in some economic development. So, we all know of areas that we could each point out. I think we need to be proactive and we need to bring these private entities in and not only and I'm about this property that was purchased

down in sepine circle and it showed the property I don't remember 8 n 10 years with plywood leaning against the wall and then it showed the property today yesterday before your meeting the same piece of plywood leaning against the wall so that property sat there for years and no one did anything with it. And I think the town needs to be proactive and see that and that way we can make it what we want it to be and not have to fight that fight and let someone else um let someone someone else do what we should be proactive in doing ourselves.

Yeah, Steve, I'd agree with you on that. And and um fortunately, there are two buildings right now that are being repurposed. Mhm.

Um you know, the atrium and then hopefully um Panera Bread. Um but we need to be more proactive and in identifying those properties and seeing how we can attract businesses to it. So when when this was two years ago when uh the now fire and rescue headquarters came available, I went to Buer County Economic Development. I said, "Hey, here's a building you need to promote for for high-tech." Um, that's where we've got to be a little bit more proactive in in attracting those businesses, not relying on just somebody else to do that. Um, but first and foremost, and Mark and I had a plan for this year to go and visit our businesses,

and we've got to retain the businesses here, and we're watching daily businesses leave. Mhm.

Um WHHHI just left Hildead and you know that that's a that's a problem and this is this is a challenge that we've got to address head on and and understand how we can help these businesses stay because without them then we really are in trouble. And it's not just housing. Um it is the transportation aspects. It is, you know, what's going to happen with the bridge and the corridor. It is going to hap, you know, it is somewhat dependent upon housing. Um, but we've got to start talking to these businesses and and convince them to stay and recruit some of them back. You know, with with North Point coming on board in in a little over a year or so, you know, hopefully that'll bring more employees in and maybe down the road bring some businesses back. But we've got to start thinking outside of the box as to what do these service businesses need to stay here. And it may not be necessarily the people because they're going to come over, but it could be the space that they need to store their stuff. So, let's we got to start thinking outside the box. Be creative. Um, and retain that business license structure, retain those businesses, retain the services on Hillden. Um I think we've got to start there before we really start going out to the others and we can do them you know coinciding but but to keep our businesses those services healthc care is growing and that's going to continue to grow. Novant thank goodness they've come around that's going to make a huge difference but we've got to have more shall I say no that come in to help drive that.

Thank you. Um, I couldn't agree with more with everything I've heard. I do think that um, and I appreciate the effort of hearing that you and Mark are going to go out and speak to the businesses, but I think that it is the job of not just the two of you. Quite honestly, I'm going to ask all of our council members to take that as an initiative as well. And to that point, perhaps we ought to do some I don't want to call it a subcommittee, but we should do some coordination work, but we should all be doing that work. It shouldn't rely fall on any one person's shoulders to do that. Um, for instance, um, I would like to get updates on things like what is transforming at the atrium and Panera. Those are things that as a council member I think we all should be aware of. And so bringing that loop um to include all of us would be a really great thing. Um and again, not sure how you coordinate it, but I'm certainly happy to offer to take a lead to try to organize um that I'm often asked and I think we all are um or we hear that why doesn't the town do something about that building? Why doesn't the town do something about this? What is happening? Why did they let this happen? And it's most often because we don't own the building. we don't have that kind of authority to do so. But to your point, Steve, I think that we should be um on the lookout maybe with some of that seed money that Melinda had referred to to those buildings that we could we could um take on and um bring up to the standards that Hilton expects and encourage the development, the businesses to come in into something that we all could have some pride in that would provide a service to the community that we we know is missing here. And um I'm just going to finalize

I hate to do a negative on on top of what I think was a pretty positive statement, but I would like us as a community um the council and our town manager to take a more proactive role in our economic development here and not rely um and I think we've all said this in one way on another, not rely on the county's economic um development uh director and those efforts. Um, so I'd like to bring that closer to home, take more initiative, each and every one of us. And I think that um we'll have some some brighter days ahead of us if we all do that collectively here.

Oh, go ahead. I'm trying to you go first.

Well, um I want I want to add something after listening to everybody. So, um, one to, uh, to Miss Tund's point, and Miss Becca just brought it back around again. Um, there the funds that we're receiving from the Novant uh, purchase, putting those into a fund that will support economic development, I think, is a great idea and something that we need to be taking a really close look at through this budgeting cycle. Uh we had a similar exercise when we got serious about housing and creating a separate continual revenue stream to support it. Okay. Um and I guess my closing thought on all of this is um th this whole economic development sustainability idea isn't that island character as well because Hilton Head was built on for a very long time even before there was a bridge here economic development right um so I think that's important for us to keep that front of mind when we talk about, you know, what we aspire to be from a character standpoint. The man and I were talking about um some buildings on Hilton Head that have been 10 things since they were built. Okay? They just continue to be recycled, right? Um to me, that's island character. Island character is not what Mr. Desimone is describing of something sitting for 10, 15, 20 years, right? Uh so I just think that that's an important part of this discussion sort of looking at those

opportunities and being proactive around the economic side of Hilton. So real quick, you know, based off what Alex said, um just to kind of get consensus, you know, of utilizing the funds from the Novant sale for an economic development account. Um I'm just trying to give Mr. Orlando direction from here. Um and then a a recurring potential recurring source of funds for economic development. Where you you stand on that? Um just to help him out. You want to go?

Sure. First of all, I was going to say I support the idea from my colleagues on the finance and administrative committee to to secure that fund to set aside those money. I agree with that. Thank you, Miss Hunter, for that idea. Um secondly, I had some ideas remining in my head about what if we establish an economic, you know, development council and I'm going no, no, no, that's more capacity, more more time. What are we going to do with that? So what my suggestion is instead is to fold that into an agenda item for finance administrative to take up

and maybe it's monthly or maybe it's every other meeting where we ask um businesses to come and we'll develop the topics and then we might invite existing businesses to come in and come. It's sort of a mini workshop if you would for finance and administrative to do that to look at existing businesses and then also to explore other ideas. Maybe we have mul come to finance administrative and report on what's going on. Maybe we have folks who are trying to convert um existing buildings and have them come. But we can take those kind of steps at finance and administrative and then help the rest of the council to develop it. And we have existing people power to do that. Oh, I see another light. I see lights. Sorry.

Um, thank you, mayor. Um, well, while I'm not on the FNA committee, I do appreciate um the suggestion that um we put that money aside as seed money to further um the topic that we were just discussing discussing. Um, I would rather wait to hear more from our town manager with regard to what a specific fund or recurring stream of revenue would look like. Um, I think that's a lot to ask him here today with him hearing it perhaps for the first time. So, I'm going to leave that for further information and discussion. Um but I also think that um this initiative that that you had spoken about with going out to speak to the businesses which we should all be doing anyway um but taking it as taking it headon and really embracing it at this point um by all of us is more important that we go into the community than we ask them to come to a workshop. We should be in our community. We should be talking to our residents. We should be meeting with our business owners and all of our visitors and everyone. This is really something that I feel strongly as a representative we should do. Folks don't need to come to us. I mean, I'm glad when they do, don't get me wrong, but I think we should have that responsibility and initiative and um and set the standard that we are involved, we're interested, and and we care. Um, and so I'm encouraged by this conversation and that was why my light first went on. I wanted to say uh that to my colleagues sitting at this table. I think these are the best conversations we've had in three years. Thanks.

Yeah. Um, I have talked with uh Mr. Orlando about how to handle the the money from the sale and I leave it in his good hands to recommend uh the best approach. He he has been thinking about it. Um, you know, cuz I originally went in with an ask of setting up a separate fund, but I'm open. What I want to just make sure occurs is that uh we all have transparency and understanding of how much money there is and that we're tracking it as well as its uses. And then lastly, um you know, any work that's that needs to be done from a policymaking point of view, I uh concur with uh Miss Bryson that that should those activities should occur in the finance and administration meeting. In fact, when we were going through those the name changes, I wanted to add economic development to the name, but we landed on something different. But I think it's a um you know, a logical place uh for any of those activities to occur. Well, yeah, we will definitely do that and that will be on the agenda, but I do want to get through some of these other key elements that we need to address over the next several months. This is one um Miss Becker's correct, we all need to be out there in the community with our businesses showing them that that we support them and we want them to stay and also find out if they're looking to grow,

you know, and how could how can we be of assistance there. So, want to hear from me on this? Yeah. Good.

Yeah, because because I I think I have a lot of perspective to add and and if and if we're in a room right now, I just want to be able to speak freely just like all of you because everything you were just talking about was at a tactic level. Almost everything. I I like a lot of what I heard. Um Miss Tunner, I think, started off by saying, "I'm happy it's up here. I'm glad it's up here. Whatever word you said, so am I. Before I met y'all, this is where I made my living. I started the Don Ryan Center for Innovation. I master planned and implemented Buck Walter Place Commerce Park where we recruited companies whether that's healthcare, technology, or even just retail. Um, I think economic development is a mindset more than it's a presentation, more than it's an update. It's a true mindset. And I would say to your great point, this is the best conversation I've heard about economic development. But I I'd have to say to you, I I think all this is important, but we don't have a baseline. This is going to be one of the most important things we measure, right? Number of new businesses and jobs created, growth in local business utilization program, yearly number of new businesses retained, right? So, done are the days of we opened 200 new businesses, but I didn't tell you 300 closed. And keep in mind where I came from took a lot of work to support the businesses that came off the island. Whether it's a school, whether it's health care, or whether it's someone's administrative offices because again, I think economic development is a mindset, but it's also conditions, right? Do we have the right ecosystem on Hilton Head Island so that when the right person, the right company, the right end user rings the doorbell or knocks on the door, we're there to answer. But with and and I just want to kind of level set it here. If we say we're not proactive, if we say it's not enough, those people are listening

right now. So why would they call us? Right? So I think the LMO absolutely the LMO how how many times have we talked about adaptive reuse of a building and and are they four parking spaces shy of a redevelopment opportunity? That's the LMO. But if if we don't know what we want to do from an economic development standpoint, I also think economic development the the cutting edge, right? It's an it's a competitive sport. Hilton Head Islands cutting edge is a lot different where I came from. Out there was a blank canvas. There were some jobs, right? I recruited Evocore was called Carecore. I was part of that. We leased the the building pad and built a parking lot and the first building built and that place was not what it is today. But then somebody came in and somebody came in and every time we went back we had these great conversations. So I think that it's simply mindset ecosystem. But it but our cutting edge here, we have to know who we are. It's placebased, right? Look it up. Google place-based economic development. It's what we have going for us here more than almost any place in the world. Why would people want to be here? Google's not moving here. Microsoft's not moving here. IBM's not moving here. But who are we? How is USCB, the building, right? The building, the hospitalityish building, how is that supporting economic development? How is that setting the condition for our work? And so, Miss Tunner was right. I get fired up about this because this is where I made my living and built my career around this topic. It's not tactical. Please forgive me if I say I don't think an update at your committee is going to help. I think it's your mindset and I think it's letting us get to this business as a team. That's going to make the most difference. And let's recruit. You're right. I think we've taken a couple steps recently. Right. Here's what they are. Miss Becker said it. It's the first time

we've had this real conversation, right? We we took a while to talk about LMO. We jumped through some other sections and then we really slowed down here. What does that tell us? We're focused and I hope people are listening. It's a culture. It's your expectations. It's mine. Like it's the development review program. It's customerbased. Someone's building a house. That's a customer. That's a mindset, right? So it has to be throughout the whole organization, not just did John Oul recruit project cloud and did we close on that deal. That that's a piece that's a home run, but but economic development and their singles and their doubles and their triples and their home runs and their grand slams and we have to be hitting all balls to win. Right? So I've said that um I think marketing the DMO reset is a massive step towards economic development. you've expected in a new contract, the DMO, and I don't mean to be preaching, but but I heard maybe we're not doing enough. We're doing so much and I love it. I'm fired up because the DMO is focused on your values of the island, not yours, not yours, the island's values. And they're supposed to be marketing that the events we hold. When you're here, you need something to do. Why are you staying? Why would I recruit a an employee, a family, a person to come here if there's not the culture, right? South Carolina Arts Commission application, that's economic development. A tax investment into nonprofits so they thrive. That's economic development. Modern Classic Motor, right? I think that's the let's call that a triple. It's not a single. Gully Historic Neighborhood Community Development Corporation is economic development. small business support for Office Parkway in the future. If we aren't going to be in Office Parkway, we've acquired it. We've invested in it. We now have a building as an asset. If we ever get to town hall, maybe those folks can come back. And so, again, I I

I don't feel like we're sinking in the quicksand here. I think we're we're we're pushing forward. um economic seed money. I would say the home run right now, whether it's popular to some or not, is 157 places to live in the North Point public private partnership with RBC investing in it. So, it must have been a good financial and community uh responsible deal for a major bank and someone close to us investing in it as an equity partner. that is economic development. And so I think we're open for business. It's a contact sport. We're better than others. We just have to really know what we're after.

You're right. But it has not been a conversational focus from council. You know, we've had our individual conversations, but absolutely it needs to be this discussion here and then the actions.

Yeah. And and forgive me for using a little bit of my rearview mirror as as some experience, but I think sometimes it's it's needed for even me to remind myself, you know, drive out there and see the accomplishment. There's primary jobs and tertiary jobs and jobs in between. And that is a place-based. There was nothing there. Why did someone come there, right? Person lived here. Their company wanted to be here, but it needed to be place-based. And so I think a couple things from a tactic and strategic standpoint divi combined is Miss Tunner is on the marketing council with Kelly Spanella. New look, fresh contract, high expectations. I also think ever since you got on the board and I think that was our disadvantage before a mayor I I listen I operated out there. I knew how things worked. I saw John Oul almost every day. But the mayor, you're on the board now of the Bufort County Economic Development Corporation. And I was very upfront with John Tul. I said, I don't hear from you enough. I don't. His job is me. His job's not you. His board chair is you, but I expect them to report to me. Let me know what's going on. How can I help? And so, to your good point, I don't know about those activities. I'm not involved with them, but I expect someone where give him $40,000 a year. How is he marketing? What's the return on investment? And it's not just a check,

right? Again, we are open for business. Our expectations are aligned and they're higher today than I think they've ever been. I just want to follow up on my earlier comment um um about our good conversation. I talked to Mark a lot. We all do. Seen him now for years. Was part of the hiring team that brought him in. I think this is one of the most excited I've seen you be with enthusias and and I don't mean that in a way that you're not otherwise. You are, but this is this is something that I think we've hit on today that is long overdue and I'm excited for the future and I'm glad you're excited, too.

Thank you for noticing. Miss Tuner noticed the other day, too. she told me. And I have nothing against the LMO, but how long can you work on something and continue to challenge if the island character is defined properly? Our island's in trouble. Jobs are moving off the island. People are moving off the island and we are expecting more and different and better and quality like this contact sport. Sure. Yeah.

And and I think with all due respect, I don't think a committee I don't think I just think it's a mindset and it's a my job more than anybody. And that's why I talk excuse me um that's why I talk a little bit about capacity because when I reflect on how I'm doing and I appreciate all your feedback through the years, I'm not doing a great job here because I'm not focused like I know how to be here. Well, Mark, this brings me to a another conversation, but you you brought it up and and and I had the conversation with Alex and somebody and and Steve the other day over the past three years. You have been challenged in different ways.

We've had multiple finance directors. We've had positions open. We have positions that haven't been filled. You have had to fill those positions. Um I'm I'm really I'm going back to the capacity aspect and and I'm letting the public know that what you've put yourself into is to make certain that this town and this organization has been run at top notch and it's cost you your time, your sanity. Um but it but it's true and and so that which should be moving forward in a normal basis has not been moving forward in a normal basis. Now we're at a different position,

right? Um getting through the LMO will will open those doors to do some of those more creative things. So don't blame yourself for it because of the situations. Um, but the reality is is that you had to do excuse me, you had to do a budget last year, right? Not your not your real responsibility, your oversight. Absolutely. You are the CEO of the organization. You're the boss. Um, but when you're having to fill every role and do it, it doesn't allow you to go out and do what else you need to do. And I just I I've got to make that statement because when you have that time, it's a different game.

Yes, sir. And I appreciate you saying that. You know, we we have it's it's obvious, right? I I look at turnover always as an angst, always as a public perception, and also more importantly than anything, how it's affecting our organization and our forward trajectory, right? We we had a planning director leave, they got out of the business, right? We had a finance director retire. Um we had an assistant my my you know our friend our person we've relied on for 25 years that knows the LMO in OML right forwards and backwards he left for sepines in the private sector with opportunity and so replacing that right is I look at economic development is how can I recruit as like if if I would have told you that a company increased its revenues and put people on the clock to provide better services and job investment and investment in the community. Would you call that economic development, but when we do it, it's not called economic development to keep up with what we're trying to economically develop. So, yeah, I appreciate what you're saying. I'm working. This team's here with me, but I I I think we're a lot further here than the collective external knowledge. That's just and sorry I can't sit still on it because I get fired up about it because I've been in this region and I know how great we're doing. We're not great at singles and doubles. We keep wanting to hit triples and home runs. Okay. Thank you for allowing that. This is going to let me tell you if we're in the right direction and this is going to let you hold me accountable to really what we're doing. and it's going to let me talk to you about the policies and the mindsets. Island resilience adopt a resilience

plan guiding the islands as the island's guiding document. We're well underway with that plan. Um I would just tell you that the as I call it the double Dutch skipping rope exercise of not knowing when to jump into workshop and and resolution and committee meeting. Th this this is something that I've challenged with. So, I've simply told my team, take your time, get this plan written as a real good document. Don't come back later and when we forget to do it properly, tell me you were in a hurry. We're in a hurry to do it right. I think that this is a priority. It shows year one, but it's definitely, as I will show you in a few minutes, priority in the twos, not in the the highest as an LMO or some of this economic development work. And so, um, open the floor for that. I just want to take a moment and do what um is probably long overdue um but thank all of the organizations but Outdoor Foundation who has just spoke and pointed out to us how much of what they do um refers back to how much we're trying to do and um it's a great community because we have the nonprofits and the organizations that we do on this island who do the hard work out there um and assist us and never get mentioned. So, thank you for the reminder and um for the opportunity to say thank you not only to the outdoor foundation but all of them.

Thanks. Questions moving on and then we've got a few others. Ensure long-term sustainability funding and operational readiness for beach reourishment efforts. We know and we continue to talk about not just disaster recovery but shoreline erosion, shoreline resiliency, flood protections. Right. Pine Island wasn't sand. Pine Island prevented future flooding and continuous investment that continues to go up in that Pine Island. And frankly, the groins, is that what they're called? The is going to look different, is going to function different. Our views will be different, but it's more resilient.

Yeah. And and just for everybody in the room, right next door, there's a South Carolina Beach Advocates Convention going on, and this is exactly what's being discussed. Um, and then next door to them is another group discussing just resiliency. Um, so it's kind of interesting that we're all here at the same time, but in this building is what is all being discussed. So we have all the the beach municipalities from South Carolina next door, all the mayors and town managers, um, city administrators talking about beach reourishment, talking about resiliency, talking about storm water. Yeah.

Um, so I'm on that board as well, but it's about getting ideas from each other and how we can improve and work together and force the state to assist when need be. So, just know there's a lot of different things that happen out there that that we do and and Jeff Netinger, unless he's back in here now, he's next door talking as a panelist, right? Getting ideas, um, learning from each other. So, it's really an amazing thing. So, I I'll say real quick, Jeff's with his people right now. So you you couldn't we couldn't get them in here if we picked them up and carried them. And then Mr. Gillan, Sean Gillan, presented on the panel yesterday with all of his experience

and he did a great job. And he said he would if he was if he was able to keep his job and I said, "You're good. You're good. If he was any better, we called him Jeff.

I just wanted to um follow up on that. I was able to attend yesterday. So yes, it's there are town managers there and mayors there, but there are also a lot of council members there. Um Paty Bryson was there with me yesterday and there were a lot of advocates for the um for the beaches and for the towns and for resiliency, etc. And it is a really great um opportunity to have them here on HiltNet this year, but something that everyone should take a peek at, maybe have some interest and show up next time wherever they're attending. Y, it's great. Good. Thank you. Um, almost almost through this. Um, I went too fast. Yeah. So, we know that we have some open houses for the resilience plan. The draft plan will be due Q calendar year. Staff review, more open houses, and then when we're ready, we'll put this on workshop. And hopefully uh this next initial or this next phase of the the LMO amendments are are behind us and some of that edge is subsided. Um anything to add to this section? I know you chat a lot. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we talk a lot about, you know, when we get to this resilience on the ocean front rather than fine island and um what I've always thought of over the years is is, you know, how far can we really go uh financially? You know, uh we we all saw a bridge go up 70% over three years. Just imagine, right? You know, our first beach reourishment, $6 million when I moved here, and now it's 49 or $50 million,

$47 million. Um, and it's not going to go down. But the only way it will go down is if we try to if we protect what we have. So, I I really think that uh what's been taking place on the back side of the island, we need we need to focus and and move forward with finding out uh what we need to do on the front side of the island. And that way hopefully uh we can retain some of our sand, we can protect some of our properties and uh and not look back 20 years from now and go, I wish we would have. Uh so those are tough tough decisions and and they're almost like they're non-material in your hands today decisions but they will impact us for generations. So we need to look at it

and I know Mr. Gillan's taken some good notes there and looking at this from from a different lens a long time to work through something like that environmentally. um you're four or five years down the road, but it's something that we need to kick off and initiate and maybe get the guys down in Florida to take start taking a look at for us.

Well, Steve, I'll tell you that there's there are municipalities up and down the coast that have done some things like that. There are, as we learned yesterday, there are challenges when you try to do a pilot type situation, whether it's a, you know, a geo tube, things like that. You know, the state will only allow one. And then after 20 years, they say it works. So, there's a lot of things to look at there. And and fortunately, you know, up and down the coast, we've got some of our partners and Chris Creed, who's who's our consultant, has a lot of knowledge there. So, we need to bring him back in to discuss that with us. Right. I just say sooner than later. Yeah.

Um Mark, do you want comment on just six, sorry, 6.1 or on all the action items? All of them might speed up my Y review. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Yeah, as you know, I've been a champion of adopting a resilience plan. So, I'm always excited when we get closer. I'm I'm mindful of all the other things on our list. Um, but as I've said before, if if we don't have a plan that we can implement, it's all going to wash away and none of the rest of this matters. But anyhow, I'm I'll keep saying that. I know people think that's ludicrous, but I'm serious. Um, so I'm I'm delighted that's going to happen in Q2 and look forward to having um our council discussion of that. Um 6.2 um ensure long-term sustainability funding and and beach nourishment is listed in there. We we had great exercis as council did with looking at our funding and we established a reserve account and we looked at you know how are we going to save money from beach preservation fees in the out years so that when we come to the next beach reourishment we have some funding and we don't have to go borrow it all. We are lucky here as as Allan said and and um we heard reports from other communities along the coast they don't have a beach preservation fee. They're robbing Peter to pay Paul. They're begging the state for money. We heard from uh the department head of parks, recreation, and tourism that he asked for 15 million in recurring fund for beach nourishment and protecting the coast um for other jurisdictions, not us included in the list. And he got 1.5 million from the state legislature. Um he's asked this year for 20 million and when asked yesterday, we are not in that list because we have our beach preservation fee. But we heard from members of South Carolina legislature yesterday who represent the coastal communities and they are in support of getting the 20 million for those other uh coastal um communities. But we are fortunate here because we have a beach preservation fee and we have a plan going forward. So that's very good news. Um in in 6.4 um aligning the town municipal code and

the LMO to reflect resilience objectives. So, there's another direct tie to the LMO and and I'm hoping we're going to hear a little bit more from the staff about how the chapter on um uh the natural protection elements in the Elimone, forgive me if I don't remember the exact natural resources. Thank you. Um so, how that aligns with the resilience concerns that we have. So, that's important as well. 6.5 aligning the CIP with resilience scoring criteria. So I think I see that in an out year. Um and I think we'll move towards that once we have the plan because we don't know what to implement until we have the plan and then we don't know what to include funding for in the CIP until we know what to implement. So I'm fine with that being an out year until we get there. But I think those are key things um in it. And and the um state office of resilience, they had two representatives there yesterday presenting to the beach advocates group and it was very helpful and they had some brochures out there. They're probably still out there at the table um with these uh information. But one of the things is um in one of their handouts, how can communities build resilience? And there are a number of different things. Land conservation is one of them. Green infrastructure projects as well as gray infrastructure, the storm water system as opposed to what you can do with uh we're fortunate here to have lagoons and marshes to help us out with it. But another key one is regulatory processes. Um and that is um by aligning land use and comprehensive plans. Um and that's the LMO. So right there is something that we can be working on today.

Thank you. And that refers all back to our environment. And thank you. And I just want to um thank you Fatsy for for going over what you did. That was a good highlight of yesterday. And um and in terms of those dollars, the $20 million ask um even though we have our own beach preservation fee, I was not shy. And while we're not included, I think we ought to be asking for some of it when it comes our way. And I also had conversations with our delegation with other representatives um who were there yesterday um so they're aware of the fact that um Hilton Hood does support ourselves. However, sometimes when monies are available it's appropriate for us to get a little bit of that share too.

One quick followup on that. Um, uh, Tammy and I were talking with Senator Davis and Senator Camson and and Dwayne Parish came up and they were asking him about how much money he was asking for from the legislature for um, beach renourishment um, in this current budget that the legislature is discussing and they both heard Hilton Head gets nothing from Mr. Parish's mouth and they were going like, "Oh, like maybe we need to make up that some."

Yeah. And that's that that does bring up a future discussion because um while we get nothing for it, what we provide back to the state is substantial. Um and Dwayne would be the first one to say they're not getting their fair share. But it's how you go through it. Of course, if you do ask the state for the funding, it comes with those strings that creates other issues that delays the process and actually cause causes the cost to go up. So, um, but that's, I think, a future discussion.

Thank you for all that. It took some good notes. It it it it's part of this whole LMO. What's first, what's second, what's third, and we do know that if we try to do it all at once, it it it's a major, massive undertaking. So, thank you for the comments. Um, I'm not going to get into the community rating system. We know that the the code will be with some elements for resilience to get going and let alone refined over time. I think our setbacks, our buffers, our wetland ordinance that matters that with some impacts most important among some other things. CIP. So it's goal seven, 8, 9, 10. We have four left and it's 12 something. So could we I I suggest this, right? We're I've completely underestimated how much time we're going to talk about. That's on me. But so why don't we grab some lunch, take a couple minutes, and frankly I'm not that hungry. I might grab something quick and then talk about this while you eat so we can catch up if that's okay. If

I'm not mistaken, that's what we did last year, too. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I'm good with that. It's hard for me to learn new tricks, but I agree. All right. So, we'll take a few minute break. If you would let council go first, y'all, to grab some lunch, that would be great. Thank you. So I can softer

ahead and get everybody to take their seats so we can get the afternoon session going.

Miss Becker, your car is now being towed. If you're not here in two seconds, you can't can't say anything else. Oh, look at her. She was Speedy Gonzalez. All right. Hope everybody enjoyed lunch, but Mark, go ahead.

Thank you. Good to be back. Um, as I was walking by, uh, Mr. cold train. He said to me, "You know, it's interesting, Mark, and I I I do want to say, and I I think every once in a while I always say, let's slow down and embrace and celebrate. I I want to say a special thank you to Curtis because as much work that we've churned and worked, Curtis, Curtis, whether it's nighttime or weekends, this has, and he hates that I do this, but his name is on it all. Um, but he he did say something to me that's really important. what you've gone over as an accomplishment, you haven't even scratched the surface of what really got done. Right. So, uh, Curtis, I I appreciate you very much and and all all that you do and every once in a while you smile at me and I realize I'm not screwing up too much. So, uh, I appreciate it very much. um

um ditto from the council I'm sure but certainly for me

um one thing I I jumped through earlier for me what I think that we're starting to figure out based on your your your expectations our pattern of work where things are going we we jumped over quick with economic development and housing right we let's just be open about it we have a chief housing officer position open I I have not rehired that we had a housing action committee. Um we have economic development. What I what I've done is I've identified somebody internal that has a is a unique skill set that is not a planner but they have come to us from the I would say the business world and I have aligned them for now with some focus on housing action committee which I'll talk about but also economic development because th those two are combined and so outside of what I'll do every day I just think what you all are talking about the businessto business connection the conversation of How are we doing? That leads to something else is going to be with a point person on town staff. So, I'm I'm I'm very pleased about that. So, all right. Um, goal seven, preserve, protect, and celebrate Gulligichichi culture and heritage. Um, I would say that, you know, well, well, we know Mr. Boxley, Thomas Boxley, is the executive director. Um, he's a fabulous addition to our team and and we appreciate you everything you do, how you how he thinks, how he cares, how he supports you. I'll tell you, Thomas is also this the first person, not that there weren't others, but he was the first that came to me with a few folks out and said, "What do you need?" So part of the Gulligi Historic Neighborhood CDC leadership is just part of our team rather than an out parcel, rather than a separate. It's just part of the team. It's part of our work and and what we do. We've aligned somebody out of the planning department,

Chironica Gavin, with the planning department work and that design studio and that direct connection to neighborhood and to people and and so on so forth. Uh they work directly with and and all the time for Mr. Boxley as well. So I just think you knowing that internally that's that's in our wheelhouse from an operations standpoint, but I say that we're we're well aligned and supporting each other. So it takes a team um in a 360 degree lens. Um let's see. Facilitate the work. Galaguchi Cultural Preservation Task Force. Um not to go too fast. Um, you have placed two folks on the task force for the LMO, both the chair of the CDC and the chair of the Golagichi land and cultural preservation task force. And so we're at our second meeting. They're there and we've talked in in the past knowing that the task force, the the land and cultural preservation task force is a subcommittee of planning commission. We've talked that they're going to stay involved and be involved in in with LMO amendments and and some of that intel and and guidance um aligning the Gulla Gichchi land and culture preservation task force with the CDC historic neighborhoods. A little bit of that with the vision coordination and delivery of community priorities. I think a lot of that is that alignment with staff internal to town and and internal to the CDC. I know they're working well together. Um 73, establish a Muddy Creek neighborhood stabilization plan. And so I would call that more of a capital project, right? There's a series of capital projects that that we have scoped, $ 1.5 million worth with some

storm water, lighting, and sidewalks. We have bid out an RFQ for the Bryant Road site, as we call it, as another public private partnership. Those bids are due early April. We have conducted a neighborhood cleanup. That was as much about helping folks clean up as much as it is uh for the town to help and know and meet and mobilize. So, as part of the I'll call it subdivision bid, we've we've performed and and with the neighborhood um a cleanup And then it's also facilities maintenance focused. This is this is one of those ones too where it's some of our assets, some of somebody else's assets, but at the end of the day, it's all the neighborhood. It's all the neighborhood fabric. So, um, what's next here? Prepare a relocation and mitigation agreement to preserve St. James Baptist Church and Cherry Hillkill because you haven't voted on that formally yet with everything. We know that there's a lot of productivity and positivity moving forward. I intend to bring to you some solutions that we've been working with the county on as you know um in due time. And so um I really look forward to that. That's our year one. That's a that's the highest priority um in in in some of our land uh and and and partnership preservation work. Support the Gulligi Historic Neighborhoods Community Development Corp. Strap plan to implement neighborhood revitalization, land retention, business incubation, and alignment with the town's programs. I don't know how far back we go. I I know this is 6 months old. Um, but wow. Right. Great productivity. the town with the use the town funding the I would call it the nonCDC funding

with tax increment finance dollars JVD partnered with Gulligichi Historic Neighborhood CDC grant dollars and acquired the Memory Matters building. We closed on it. They're still in there leasing it. Mr. Boxley's working on a plant. I saw that. It's it's fabulous. It's well thought out and it is about neighborhood stabilization support um business incubation strategies and and whatnot. Um I mentioned earlier the FY26 money talks financial education series in partnership with TD Bank is completed. Uh Thomas worked on that and and led led well. The goal of the program is to increase access to capital and financial literacy. And so we've got some good results there and I know it's just a start and a good good first step. um and and more planning for next next one. Um the Gulligichi Historic Neighborhood CDC and specifically Mr. Boxley um as well as others are involved in our LMO update, some district plan depending on the district with with some of that input. And then there's other acquisitions that you all approved with the CDC board and with Thomas and I on some land land acquisitions. So great movement there. 7.6 Six, prioritize public infrastructure investments, right? Roads, parks, storm water, hydrants in gulligichi, historic neighborhoods through the CIP program. And so with that, um, we've we've been at it for for years making some investments, but the the measurement of this, if we just to me, this is what this this means. Just simply in those historic neighborhoods, where are we making our investments, right? And what are we investing in? Jonesville, right? horse barn pathway intersection at Spanish Wells some dirt road paving um Taylor Patterson Parks old schoolhouse park it's pickle ball

but it is an investment and and there is basketball and an improvement an improvement there Mitchellville Freedom Park through the CIP several road projects and especially I'd say Mitchellville Road I'm waiting for that to get started again Um, and there's some dirt roads that we have had some I don't want to say we're at a standstill, but we have to talk and figure out a better different strategy to acquire dirt roads than can we please have. Um, so I think that there's some some good common sense solutions there. Um, of course I mentioned the Bryant Road. Here's a a data point. The percentage spent in historic Gulligichichi neighborhoods is approximate of the CIP budget is approximately 30% of the total budget non-beishment. So if you pull out beach reourishment, you look at CIP, 30% are on what I just talked about in this one fiscal year. So at least uh some measuring points movement in a great direction um facilitate and create a a stable funding model. We've got some work to do in this year's budget. I have some thoughts with that. U Mr. Boxley continues to look for grants. Um and those opportunities and then establishing a cultural asset mapping landmark recognition program. A lot of lot of homework, a lot of research, um a lot of pinpointing things on a map right now, but again that's to come forward in a later time. So feedback, comments, move along. Uh, two quick things. Um, 7.1 is another one I earmarked for LMO task force to focus on and and grateful to have two folks serving representing uh the land and cultural preservation task force and

the CDC. Um, so we need to be mindful of that because when we look as so many times I've had folks remind me of the land that's not yet developed, uh, what high percentage there is that's owned by Gulla families and to remember that um the the sacredness of land that's held by the Gulla culture and the way that uh, land was treated and developed is different from what most of us think of when we think of a land development ordinance. So we need to be mindful of that as we work through the LMO. Um then secondly uh with regard to um 7.6 and thank you for pointing out that 30% number. I think that's very helpful. I think I would ask as we go through the CIP process each year maybe put an asterisk or something uh by for instance if there's road improvements in a a historic Gala neighborhood. Some of those we know but some of we don't know. And as my colleague Mr. Brown has reminded us before, except for it used to be W five. I don't know whether Ward 5 includes any historic Gulla neighborhoods anymore, but all of us represent historic Gulla neighborhoods. So I think it'd be helpful for us to be mindful, especially when we look at the KPI um completion of public infrastructure investments in the Galaguchi historic neighborhoods. you've just given us a a stat on that, but as we go through the CIP to be mindful of where we're spending funds to improve um historic neighborhoods. Thank you. But everything else looks great. Um I like a lot of the check boxes that we're already moving to complete and I would give a shout out to Mr. Boxley as you did for all the work that the CDC and and his he and his limited staff are doing and the partnership with the other staff member in helping in design um is is wonderful partnership. Thank you for that.

Yes. Um, as um, Miss Bryson mentioned, we all have uh, historic neighborhoods within our wards and I have bag in Mitchellville and I've had the opportunity to build relationships with some of the native island families in that community and uh, they're very appreciative of the investments that have been made and you listed some of them, not all of them. Barkerfield, um, you know, the beach reourishment,

green space, etc. Uh but there are some um additional items that I am hearing from my constituents on uh for consideration in the future. Uh first is a playground for children in the area. Uh we do have town own land that we might be able to leverage for that. Um as well as now that we own the Mitchellville Road from um that goes to the beach. Um there's a there's a question about whether we want to keep that as a dirt road or if that is something that we would want to pave. So I'm just teeing that up as a topic right now. You know, we need to get more feedback and input, but I am receiving some feedback about a desire to potentially look at that.

Okay. Thank you and appreciate the feedback. Right.

Yeah. I uh I was talking to the mayor earlier. There a lot of new faces in the room as far as public is concerned. So I think I'll take the moment to uh just say a few things about the initiative as a whole and I appreciate where Mr. Orlando started which was this is just part of the way that we're doing business, right? And that's so important to to say out loud, okay? Because I know as a fifth generational and from the information that has been passed on to me from the elders that I duly respect and appreciate for helping me cut my teeth through this process. That was not always the case and it is now. And I no longer have to say that other members of council represent historic color neighborhoods. They're saying it themselves. So, we have made a lot of progress in this area. Okay? I want to say that out loud. And I want to also say that uh Chairman Stevens made a comment yesterday at the LMO uh task force meeting. And Miss Bryson's right. you know, as we go through this LMO process, we have to keep this um in mind. Um but the comment he made was, you know, the culture is about the people. You know, we talk about the land, which is so important obviously, but the people and just to sort of bring this home so that everyone in the room can touch it. The Mitchville Preservation Project is in the midst of a $22 million capital call. to go upright in that town owned park. It's part of our community and I'm not going to get into the history of it, but we all know that it's very significant.

Once that happens, that will be an anchor on the north end of the island for a lot of reasons, but one in particular is cultural tourism. We want to make sure that the Gullet people have the opportunity to make good on that economic opportunity that will come with the development of historic Mitchville as a destination. So, as we think through LMO and think about how we want to diversify our offerings here on Hilton Head, we have to think of it in that aspect. And that's going to look different. It's it's going to be different someone coming to Hilton Head and want to experience Gulla culture. We don't want to have to have a Gulla person renting a spot out in Sepines to do that. I think it is going to be more authentic if it is within the Gulla neighborhoods, right? So, we really need to be mindful of that. Think through how we're going to accomplish that through this LMO rewrite. All right. Thank you. Seems fast. It's good. Good. um in and over time what again I keep drawing attention to the bottom right corner the the performance indicators that will tell us how well or not we're moving in the right direction or in the direction that you all have have uh prescribed all workforce housing um enhancing workforce housing opportunity through a balanced and long-term approach that

supports economic vitality and community well-being right so um that helped me out the other day when I met with and I'll tell you who they are. It's it's it's simply it's Michelle Mueller who we know in the planning office who's who's jumping in and helping with the LMO. Her her job opportunity and her career opportunity when she came to Hilton Head Island was was really start helping us connect the economic development from the business mindset standpoint. So when she asked me the other day, what is it you need me to do for workforce housing and what's the difference between housing action committee, town manager's office, and town council amongst others. Um I lean I leaned on this as I said to her and and as we know as a team, this is the business we're in and this is the only business we're in, but it is a good business that we're in. Um assess the finding home plan is is up there. review finding home plan, establish a unified position to strengthen workforce housing tools. Um, that will start. I will tell you that hasn't started yet, but it will start. Uh, I believe that was adopted and just let's do the math and back up and different people at the table, but in 2021, I believe November, I think it was, um, uh, I started here in February,

November 2022.

22 I was going to say. All right. November 2022. I started here in November or in Februaryish 2021. But a year and a half later, finding home plan was was put forward and adopted as a resolution at town council. Um at the same time, that plan asked that a housing professional be hired and that a housing action committee appointed by town council be put in place. Um and then on the finding home plan, there were several things. And again, I think we had the same issue then as we we somewhat have here is when everything's a priority, nothing's a priority. when when these are our priorities and these are our steps, what's first of the steps, right? And so I I think we're learning uh some of the pattern that's caused a little bit of that conflict in in my my humble opinion. Michelle's on point. We have scheduled a housing action committee meeting. It's for early February. Every member has had some direct con communication with Michelle and she is doing a great job and she works with Zach. Michelle's doing a great job in my mind from from feedback I've received from her as well um orienting new membership, providing the documents that they need to read and understand. And I think the first meeting we have, she has um chair, vice chair, and go through this with with them. And and it's important that mayor and chair or council members and committee members have more direct communication on that because the the the system that needs to be in place needs to be your appointment is connected with you including through with us through and with us but direct communication. But membership is in place now. Member orientation is underway. Meeting is scheduled. chair, vice chair, start looking at finding home and really starting to align the housing action committee with the directive of town council, which to me

is this. But I but I would say that the housing action committee is not in place to help with North Point. That is so far gone. Where I think we need some some knowledge from you and and direction is are they going to be involved with Bryant Road? I believe that we addressed North Point well with a I'll call it a a group that understood real estate development, money, marketing, community positioning, and so on so forth. And through that North Point uh advisory group that helped Ben Brown, and Ben helped me tremendously, I I believe that we should set that up the same way for Bryant. doesn't mean we can't go to housing action committee and talk about the data, the metrics, the market and and some of those wins that we need together. Um, assessing a housing fund, we know that there is a fund of six, one of six as a housing fund and that there have been some earmarks for a tax towards it. We also know that I' I've pledged some American Rescue Plan dollars to it. Those need to be spent sooner than later. the public private partnership should take care of that as well as our community or I should say capital improvement program fund investment should take care of that. So I think all all of this is aligned at the end of the day. Housing doesn't stand alone but there's some integration. Um Bryant Road is bid out. The RFQ is due early April. I think I mentioned that. Um, some more work here securing grant funding for lateral sewer and home safety repair. This is another great example of of the what I call awesome expectations but very high expectations of y'all in this community. We spent out of American Rescue Plan Act dollars $1.6 $6 million towards those mostly home repair, some lateral sewer and some lateral sewers,

you know, through the PSD and other programs. And as soon as we finished, we still had applications and we still had folks that thought, right, hey, you're going to help me, but then we ran out of money before all the help. And we spent $1.6 million, $15,000 at a time. I don't have a calculator. I'm not that smart right the second to do that math, but that is a lot of $15ish,000 scope, schedule, permits, paperwork, families. A lot has been done. So, I do want to say this is incredible. I I don't think any community in the state has put that much money that fast into programs that matter. And it was through some American Rescue Plan. But now the the ask is well we still have momentum of the program where Mark are we going to find some more dollars. So we found some we found some through Buford Jasper Housing Trust I believe we've asked I don't have a grant agreement I don't want to get out in front of them but we're together and I'm just going to be in real time sharing lateral sewer connection funds. I believe while we've asked for some dollars, I believe that we have an opportunity to have $50,000 of a grant from them. So, those are our dollars invested and and returned um a hundred towards Home Safe Repair. But the the issue is that with that, at least from what I'm being told, is that we need matching funds. So, I don't want to get too far in the tactics, but I want you to know we continue to look for dollars. the dollars have dried up on those two programs for those two programs. We could use I think we could use and and Miss Toner, you've asked that good question. Can we use some CDBG for that? I think the answer is yes, but it is a great return on our investment. I think we have to ask the the folks and

powers that be because they like those dollars invested in different more public infrastructure than that privatelyowned and and again utility line for sewer hookups a private asset at the end of the day. We don't want to own that public asset and a home repair of course speaks for itself. So CDBG is is is tricky like that. So long-term return on investment. It's always been easier to invest in a park or invest others do bigger programs that that public are involved with. So, we're looking into that. I think the easy answer is maybe. Um, but it's harder to justify and I know Michelle Bunts uh is diving into that as a staff recommendation for for clarity. They've recommended to me no for that because we have other needs at least from a a staff perspective. So I think the sooner we talk to you about that at the finance committee at that high level in terms of directives, the better. So all right, Kim told me I was breathing in the microphone. Imagine that. So I had to lower it. Am I doing better a little bit? Mayor accused me of deep breaths at council meetings and Kim accused me of breathing. I think I just got I earlier you're breathing. So, um, sorry, I lowered the mic.

You want comments on Sure. just now? So, yeah, first of all, great report. Um, and and we have, you know, there have been stumbles. Uh, acknowledge that publicly, but we we keep moving and we've done some things. Um, again, I'm going to say the link to the LMO. Um, if if you look at what can be done for um housing nationwide, one of the recommendations is increasing density. I'm not sure that's the the the um answer we want to find. Um it depends. Um but I think we need to be mindful of housing opportunities during the LMO rewrite. Um where um on the island are there needs um and where is it a good opportunity to have housing? Um so another LMO rewrite link. Um, I'm glad to hear that we're still continuing to look for grants for lateral sewer and also home repair. One of my constituents sent me an email and said, "Don't you care about laterals um in your award?" And then I said, "Of course I do. We don't have money right now. We're looking for it and we're continuing to look for it." So, I'm glad that that's all three years. I'm glad we're sequencing that all through the years. I'm glad to hear that perhaps we have some money from Buford uh Jasper Housing Trust Fund to use money we have sent there which will come back to our area to help with lateral sewer connections and maybe home repair. I'm not sure whether it's just lateral sewer. Um but I'm hoping we can keep looking for money. Thanks Miss Hunter for continuing to ask questions about can we use this fund or can we use that fund. Um and uh perhaps we need to be creative about that. I don't know where that creativity could be. I like our new grants administrator, Michelle Bunts. I think she's doing a great job. Her reports to us have been wonderful. Um, and I I have confidence that she will keep looking for those opportunities. Um, so I want to encourage us to do that. But, um, the last thing I'll say, I'm also glad to

hear about housing action committee getting up and running again. Um, I suggested, um, that we have a town council liaison. One of us appointed to be a liaison with that committee. I think that that will help to improve communications and I'll alert to my other colleagues and um if no one else wants to volunteer I'll volunteer but if there's somebody else who wants to do that someone more appropriate um I will defer to that as well.

Yes. Um I think we'll all be interested to see um the housing action committee and what their focus is going to be on as they stand up a new committee in February. Um, one of the other things that's kind of missing from here um, which is really helping to drive uh, housing opportunities is when other businesses step up to the plate. So, Navant um and even though they've come to us, it is has created a lot of work and we should acknowledge all the work that is being done by our town resources as well as our community and getting engaged and there are other um potential opportunities that are coming to us as well for future workforce housing and so we don't want to lose sight of that. Um from your action item point of view um I know that you have under let's see where is that one regarding metrics which one is the metrics one where am I missing um the dashboard

is that something that uh can be maybe moved to another fiscal year given everything that's going on and since the fact that the committee is just uh being restarted. Those are my thoughts. Oh, and then I also have been uh receiving emails regarding uh sewer connection and funding. And so I appreciate and just wanted to share that uh I received some statistics from Pete Nardy and we have 489 customers that are not connected currently but could be. And so that opportunity is there and that's why I continue to ask questions about what monies and grants that we can look for to support that initiative. That's great feedback. Um, thank you. I missed that far down there.

Um, okay. Thank you for that. Yeah, I'll backtrack a little bit, right? Because you asked a good question. You You're interested to know what the housing action committee will focus on. I'm interested to know what you want them to focus on. And I think when they go focus on what they want to focus on, my team is sitting in a room and they are they are just wired to support the chair in a committee. And so, right, let's the obvious is are they on the same page is what you all expect. So, here's at least my direction to my team. One, let's go through with them the finding home plan. There's some things in there that are very relevant to what we're talking about. some of which are making sure the LMO, some of which are making sure we at least know the data, right? Um, aligning the committee with the town council direction, right, needs to be some of your thought and some of your feedback and intel. And if not today, soon maybe there's a public workshop that's needed joint between town council and housing action committee. one because I know we all want we all want to be successful but sometimes let's I think what's missing is maybe defining what that what that is establish a workforce housing index I will tell you I saw a version of that thank you for suggesting that be in the next fiscal that's going to take some time um I do think that that more than anything the housing action committee can help us with just from a a knowledge standpoint here here's and and I'll say this Sean was working on this. He sent it to me and it was titled workforce housing. But a lot of the data were affordable housing sites, governmentf funded sites. That's is that is that our workforce? Because I asked them one thing that that I've leaned on is the Urban Land Institute housing index across the nation. And they've done a very good job

assessing data that is wage v cost. that that that's what I think we're struggling with. Are we making enough money? Do we have enough income opportunities here? Revenue opportunities from a job, from a career? Because I'll ask the obvious question. Is on the index on the dashboard. Is my house going to be on there? My daughter works. She got a job. So happy. Um, of course, my family. your house, y'all's house. So, I think that we have an issue understanding data that is cost comparative of cost of living from a house standpoint to wage as well as where are people living. And so, I think that dashboard once done right will be our best friend in this space because it's that calibration, right? You you you can't density bonus your way. And I hate to say that. I've sat down with a lot of developers. The reason our density bonus doesn't work, it doesn't work for them. You can't density bonus your way out of investing in workforce housing with a 30-year covenant. It there's no one knocking on a door here trying to build what we expect here to solve that. So, that index is intelligent enough to help them know we're open for business, but to calibrate what we want. And so I I really think that's a that's a lot of work from from Michelle, the team, Jacob, and that dashboard will be live at some point. Deliver North Point, right? North Point on Jarvis Creek. I think we coined it. We have a groundbreaking February

12th:00

1:00. That's incredible. That public private partnership should be something. And again, to Curtis's point and my point earlier, we skim right over the success. We skim right over. We invested $1.6 6 million of American Rescue Plan grants into programs. We we did this so fast and so furious, we've ran out of money and we're can and not just be so concerned we're not doing something right the second. So again, I'm trying to get the morale and the momentum of what these folks behind me are hearing because that's an incredible story to tell and we are still at it looking for more. But North Point is a massive undertaking. With all due respect, I don't know any other municipality, let alone county in the nation, pound-for-pound, that put the risk and the reward on the table and and made it work in this regard. So, I really thank you all, right? A lot of every one of you were very involved from different different angles um keeping us on the center line and I'm really looking forward to that that that ground the groundbreaking housing fund sustainability. We talk about um grant funding we talked about and an annual housing summit. And again for clarity, we are not preparing the annual housing summit. If someone has an annual housing summit, we will start participating. I just don't think we're there yet to have our own. So

I I forgot one point and I apologize. It you had asked um about Bryant Road and whether uh to have the housing action committee involved or an advisory group. you know, I was um we were all involved in the interview process uh for members of the housing action committee and there's some very talented people on that committee and I wonder if there's an opportunity to look for some skill sets within that committee to assign to the advisory group and in that way there would be that connectivity. I want to thank Miss Tuner for once again reading my mind. Great idea. I was just gonna say

I was just going to say thank you for a great idea. This that's awesome. So

I was going to suggest the same thing. Um and then as far as um aligning with town council directions, I agree with the talent on on the housing action committee. I think it'd be good. I don't know it's going to be at their first meeting, but maybe soon thereafter. Um, and I I think it's a good idea, Mark, to have them uh review the finding home. But I think it'd be good for them to brainstorm a list of things they think they should be working on and for us then to take a look at that. Uh, because they're the ones that we have selected who have expertise in this area. Uh, we don't. I don't think we do. Um, I'll admit I don't. Um, but any rate, I think it'd be good for them to come up with a list and then have us check it out. We we did have a workshop together last year. I think that was productive. Um, but I don't think it's time yet to have a workshop together, especially looking at our schedule of workshops we've got for this year. But if they would come up with a list and then we could share that list and maybe have a discussion ourselves. Um, but I totally agree with Miss Hunter's suggestion. Thank you again for reading my mind.

That's a great point. I see Zach, can I just Zach, are you is that what you're writing a good note? We can ask I think that's a good ending of the meeting on meeting one and asking let's focus on that meeting too just to plant the seed. That's great, great, great intel, great feedback. We'll talk about the committee. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I'm uh obviously very much still in support of this initiative. Um and I'm glad that the housing action committee will continue on. Um there there's to point a lot of talented people there. I think there's opportunity there for germination of of ideas. Um, but I I wanted to just sort of get our minds on on on this. So, Mr. Orlando, as we were talking about economic development, you were using the baseball analogy, right? Like

grand slam, triples, doubles, singles, and I think we we have as a council and a community spend a lot of time and effort on the big plate. Yeah, North Point. I mean, that's a grand slam. Other places will be following that model because of the time and effort that we put into that.

But we have not done a very good job with the singles and the doubles. And when we start to take into consideration the finite amount of land that is left on Hilton Head to do stuff, people now have making a decision. Is it going to be a 6,000 square foot home picking up that short-term rental opportunity or is it going to be six 1,000 square ft homes that will be helping to support our economic infrastructure?

So, we definitely have to keep that front of mind as we're going through the LMO rewrite. But I also wanted to to sort of get us to take that same energy that we used for North Point, which was very out of the box, by the way. Right. When we look at these singles and doubles, uh, Miss Turner gave a a statistic that we got from PSD as far as the amount of folks that are not connected to sewer, that's a quality of life. That's a public health. I can go on and on about why that's not good, but the bottom line is even though there are opportunities through the PSD to uh take care of the connection to sewer on a long-term basis, they're putting on your tax bill. They'll finance it for you, people are not doing it because they can't afford to do it. So, why not in my mind get creative about that? We've got funding in our housing fund that is coming from a tax that at this point I'm not quite sure we have earmarked. I'll add to the out of the box thinking the CDC was created to spin off cash that could be reinvested into community. So I think we're leaving a lot of opportunities on the table because one um I'm not sure that we are comfortable because no one's done it before but this is helped we are trends setters so why not let's start it. So I just want the housing action committee and you got up here that we're looking for them to be following our directive. I think our directive needs to shift a bit to out of the box and not so much grand slams because let's face it, I mean, there probably not many 5 to 10 acre tracks left for us to do another North Point, right? Um, but why not take advantage of the places that we can and that's going to take out of the

box thinking,

M. Becker. So, um I just wanted to reiterate something that I've said previously, but I know that Melinda just said, and it is important for us to acknowledge. Um we have also had great um success um that was driven by the private investor who came in and um has provided workforce housing and I want to a thank them and encourage other folks to do the same. Um Mark said it before that we are open for business in many ways and one is to look at a opportunity like Novant that came across where we just had to look um and and to be careful about what was going to be developed but provide the opportunity. And so I encourage other private investors to work with us in that regard. And um and I will say that I think that it should be town council's um initiative um our thoughts that drives what the housing action committee may do in the future. Um we only have to look to the past to know that the best step forward would be to make sure that we have some that our thoughts are being put into place. we are the elected officials and we should be driving that and um so that's what I have to say about that. Thanks.

This all great um little feedback at least what I'm what I what what the sponge over there here is hearing. I I like the thought to pull some of the talent, some of the people, some of the very interested people out of h housing action committee. Don't have to be all of them. It could be a subset to help with Bryant because Bryant, if done well, is another big lift. But to keep the housing action committee aligned with what your directive is, I keep saying your directives is right there. I've always felt this awkwardness of, well, they're in that swimming lane. North Point's my swimming lane. I I didn't set out to work with housing action. No, no offense to housing action. Council set up for me council members and developers and finance minds on on that. So, I love the the opportunity to bring those those folks that are talented in as well as some of you um that understand the real estate and the community investment and and also perhaps some other folks. Um, I think that kicking off the housing action committee and going over some of this stuff, we're going to perhaps rely less on what finding home says or doesn't say and focus on Bryant, celebrate the success of North Point, really get the housing action committee looking at that dashboard because it's simply data. And I think that there's well, we know there's a big difference between affordable housing and workforce housing or attainable housing or sustainable housing. When I grew up, I grew up in a little house. I called it a house. And I I want to uh use that dashboard to simply understand where we're going as a community from an affordability because I think Curtis said it a couple years ago, if if no new people move here and grow up and learn and grow in their

career and become a fire chief that understands the community for 20 plus years, what are we really after? Right? But it can't just be density bonuses to get there, right? So, all right. Make sense? Good.

Trying not to overstep my bounds, but I know that housing housing is aligned with economic development and it's all aligned with our our built environment. So, all right, I'm going to speed up a little bit because Jacob told me I'm three hours late for him to talk. Sorry, Jacob. uh protect and enhance environmental sustainability. These next two were I would call maybe not late or last but but additional priorities because we're already doing the work. You know, I'll call these next two pieces of the business we already do, but without them listed and without them without them measured and show a trend, how how do we really celebrate it? So, we amended the business license requirements for solid waste haulers um some time ago. Um but we started to look at uh existing ordinance and and and really did a SWAT analysis of that. Um and then in FY27, I know that there's going to be a regional ordinance and best practice uh look at that is senseless for us to do it by oursel, right? And so I do think that that solo group, let alone Buer County mobilizing on that going to help. We implemented another celebration that just wasn't overnight. We fully established, amended, and now implemented an organic first integrated pest management policy. So, thank you to all of you. Um, Miss Bryson pushed um I think I pulled um our staff learned um is something I believed in. Um we'll see the results. So, when you see the weeds around the sea pine circle, it's organic. I'll be out there to help pick them off.

When you see the ant hills at the soccer field and a fire and you see island wreck shoveling them off into the woods, it's organic. But but it's the process. I I'll say this. There he is in his sport coat with a big old smile in the back. I couldn't do this, right? It's easy to come up with an idea and it's easy for me to say, "Yeah, that's great." Because I I'll share I don't spray I hope she's not listening. Weed and feed on the front yard where the dog walks in my yard. I just don't. It's still green. If Derek didn't buy in the way he bought in and lead and push push some things around, whether it's vendors, contractors, or even staff members, some of which don't work here anymore because they perhaps didn't believe in it. If Derek didn't believe in it, um I can't tell you the day. Sean was excited because Derek came back from, you know, who knows where Derek was, but he probably Buford, Northern Buford, Savannah, and he came back with an expert. He came back, he says, "I met someone. They know what they're doing. I know Kim knows what they're doing." And he started to look at more opinions than just his. Bless you. More opinions than just Right. And and he he's hard at it. and and I and I think that this program without Derek's leadership and Dererick's mindset doesn't get implemented. Um that doesn't mean that we shouldn't blame Derek if there's weeds in the roundabout because we pull those, right? We pull those or we spray something on them, but the organic first approach is what we're we're living with and it's going to take us some years to get better at it. So, can we just can I get a couple thumbs up? That's a good accomplishment. There we go.

Good. I know how some of you All right, two quick things about that. Um, I've been on one panel with Representative Kurtzman who wants to um somehow introduce this on a statewide level, not to make local governments do what we did, but to find a way to encourage that to happen both at the state level and at the local government level. And in addition, the Rotary Environmental Club has asked me and Kim Conte to be on a panel to come and talk to them on February 5th about the same thing. Fabulous. I keep getting calls and emails from people uh around South Carolina saying how can we do that in our jurisdiction. So we are the leaders in South Carolina. Thanks to the town manager and his staff for working with us to do that.

Thank you all.

Thank you all. Um expand recycling across and we're not going to get a lot of this is operational but it's strategic in house. It's just important you know we updated our contracts for all waste and recycling collection. We implemented recycling programs at all our beach parks and parks through this new contract. So, we are doing business different and better than we were before. This was an expectation. We also installed solar powered compacting waste and recycling stations at Islanders, Follyfield, Caliggney, and Old Schoolhouse Parks in FY25 and got to learn how those work a little bit. Um, it it of course compresses the trash and recycling. Of course, we know how they work, but it's also helped our staff time. they're not there as much. They're not changing them out as much. And the system that's in place is is improved. Um, an installation of upgraded waste and recycling in parks by the end of FY26. A whole bunch more including all seven beach parks and a few other things. Protect environmental sensitive lands through acquisitions and easements. That's a that's a that's a double up on section one on growth management. I think at a certain point what I feel what I believe the town council needs to do when you're ready um and not in this fiscal year but but start thinking through it of the land that the town owns what is conservation what is preservation what is used for the future what is preserved because at some point that decision is is needed because I just feel like that there's there's ash more tract Is that where pickle ball should go? Right. So, if if it's not, then we have to just kind of go through the the index of all of those parcels over time and make sure that there's covenants and restrictions on them to protect them for for the future. It's a big decision to make as a as a body. I think that I

think we're getting closer to having should you probably getting closer to needing to make that decision because you're talking about using land and buying land for economic development and housing. And I think the sooner we decide what what's off the table, the sooner there's confidence of what's on the table. Well, it's also about what we decide, but what have what properties have opportunities, right, that we don't want, right? because some of it has been purchased with dollars that protect it. So, it's that understanding as well.

And these others in in some out years I I won't necessarily go through long-term materials recovery townwide composting. I just saw a press release from Beaver County on a composting program on Hilton Head Island. So, I've got to look into that a little bit. Um but all these are two year two year three deliverables and part more of our operations and reporting system than not. All right last but not least

sorry before you leave you still on number yeah still on number nine. So two I think two quick things. One is I'm going to say LMO amendments again um because of 9.4 protect environmentally sensitive lands. assist through acquisition and conservation easements but also through the natural resources chapter. We will be looking at how to do that in the LMO rewrite. So that's important. Um the second thing is um under the KPIs uh the second bullet on the left hand side business license ordinance amended to improve waste hauler reporting requirements. That's something that our consultant doing the SWAT analysis suggested that we do. I think that's again something to have an attorney to take care of. I think it's a simple fix to the municipal code language and it could be done easily. Um, not saying it has to be done tomorrow, but I think we can do that as quickly or quicker than removing boats ordinance.

That is one of those ones that we're probably six or seven. Um, my on the list. Yeah, on the list. Yeah. And that's that to follow up on that, Paty, that's one I think we should take after it's done, take it to Soloco and push for other municipalities in the county to adopt because that's a that's a countywide issue. Um, which which has been discussed at Salokco.

Yeah. And and one that's not up here that I think that we're going to have to decide on sooner than later is the plastic bag ordinance that Beer County just sent to me. I have not had a chance to understand it. And I know you all have said earlier, you know, me wearing a bunch of hats if people come and go, I lean on Angie, too, because Angie's been there with me and changing hats with me as we go. And she's jumping in on a lot of these ordinance uh priorities with Britney. And I appreciate Angie so much as well. So, just five or six things, a little more that we're working on with Britney, led by Angie. And then it makes Curtis's life a little easier where we can package it up and say, Curtis, is this ready for town council? So, All right, last. This is a quick one. Let's continue to implement our parks and wreck master plan and program. It's not just capital projects, but it's programming. I know we're a lot better aligned today than ever with Island Rec. I know that not just our facility group, but other folks, including Sean Gillan, Jeff, Derek, especially Derek, are aligned at Island Wreck. But um if we take a look at aligned capital improvements for community parks with approved master plans, we're well underway. And again, I just know that this these three years, if you laid this out in a fiscal year, they're they're laid out for a long time. We can't afford everything we master plan. Um but but that's okay. Now we can start making informed decisions on how to phase the the projects, right? So when I when I look at that list, Mid Island Park is a TBD, but phase one, as we talked about, based upon what we think the phasing is, is $20 million. We don't have $20 million for phase one. So with you at CIP workshop, with you at not just

fiscal year 27, but fiscal year 30 and then beyond, how do we how do we uh build that project properly? um Crossings Park pickle ball complex. I will bring to you, so no surprises. I will bring to you a fully funded pickle ball complex um in the FY27 budget. I will also bring to you a phase of that pump track skate park that we heard about. Not the whole thing, not the not the cupboard arena. There's some work to do there, but the pump track and skate park as a budget proposal. You all can make the decision. I will not be bringing to you the phase three baseball. That's the big lift, the lot of money expenditure. Chaplain Park, it's on hold for a minute because we just can't get to it and there's other funding priorities. So, I could just keep going. What is live? That's exciting. Taylor Family Park, we had a great groundbreaking. We'll soon have Patterson Family Park, similar. That'll be under under construction this fiscal. Islanders Beach Park, right? We put that on a hold. um for beach reourishment and also because it came in about seven $800,000 over budget over our opinion of probable cost when we first started working on the project. Right. I think there was scope creep as well as construction cost escalation that will be a part of the FY27 budget proposal. So a lot ready to go. Shelter Cove Park phase two where we adopted the Best Buddies

program. I think sooner than later we should expand the playground. We do not have full funding for that next whole phase of that park yet unless I unfund some other things or we find some money. We don't know that's there yet. Caligigny Circle, we've talked about Old Schoolhouse Parks under construction. Barker Field, the extension is is near completion and Chaplan Linear Park is is on a TBD right now. So, we've also started renovating existing parks with phased upgrades tied to demand, barrierfree design, ADA, safety, and I could go through all the same ones I just said. A lot of the ones I said, the worst ones are prioritized in that in that bucket. Um, so I want to go back to Mid Island Park real quick. Yeah.

Um, $20 million phase one. What was it two years ago? We didn't have a cost two years ago. So it wasn't one of those ones that are shovel ready, cost ready like Islanders was. We we just got our pricing recently.

Yeah. So if I'm not mistaken, we had some budget conversations about it and I think we put in about $2.5 million, $3 million. Um and I'm really doing this for for the public's awareness as to when we talk about expanding costs. um not only from just across the board, right? So, a couple years ago, we'd put $2.5 million to do phase one and then after engineering, it comes in at $20 million. It's So, when people ask where are the next phases of Mid Island Track? Well, we know that when it first came out, it was about a $75 million project all in. is probably now a $200 million project all in. So where's the value right in today's world of a 200 plus million dollar park? That's a question that has to be asked. So as as we go through these things, we've got to revisit and and engineer cost down right as to what we're doing. So I just put that out there as as a as a placeholder to say that the cost of parks have skyrocketed. The cost of everything has skyrocketed. Um, and it's creating more challenges as we go forward on those great things that we're trying to do to keep our community excellent. So, there's going to be a lot more conversations about parks and then how we move forward on them, how we fund them. Um, so I just I just want to make that public awareness,

Mr. Brown.

Yeah, just following that train of thought. Um, you know, you can argue back and forth each way, but because some will argue that we've got too many priorities and some will argue that we don't have enough. Um, but um, and Mr. So Lando brought this one to us so that the 11th hour to add to the book of work and I'm glad that he did because outside of the parks landing up in our CIP program, it doesn't give us the opportunity to pause and talk through that cost and how that is a return to our community. Right? And you know, I'll say it out loud. You know, um, when I first got elected, at least five of these parks that are on this list were in a CIP program with like $50,000 per year to get them done. And here we are today about to be finished with at least four of those. Like they're going to be done,

right? We have to keep this in front of us. We can't argue about if we should cut back to eight goals and then we forget about this, right? So, it's so important that we keep this in front of us and to to the money part of it. Yeah, we've got to have that discussion about how we get there, how long it's going to take us to get there. But I go back to that whole idea of measuring our quality of life and uh you know no disrespect to the pickle ball people because I want to make sure that we get pickle ball done. Let me make sure I'm clear on that. But those two young boys that showed up at our meeting Yeah.

Yeah. a couple weeks ago with their very very formal petition. That is important. You you can't put a price on making sure that those kids have positivity within the community that is built by the community. You you can't put a price on that. And if we have the expectation that those young boys at some point will be sitting around this table helping to make decisions for their kids and grandkids, we have to do things like that. So my point in all of this is we have to keep things like this as a priority. And I'm sure we're going to have a little bit more vivid discussion when we get to capital improvement in a little bit. Um but it but it's important. It is so important. I'd like to continue to see action items within that we continue to talk about for the longevity and the betterment of our community.

Right.

Um I'm glad you brought up those kids. Um that is really why we do all of this, right? and to hear from them directly about what's missing in their community for their life um was not only impressive that they did that but some of the most important information we could ever gain and Mark you said it earlier right you want to attract people here you want them to live here and then what what do they do here and um we can't forget um those children and the important pieces that we're building into the community to keep them here to help them develop into good humans here and um as uh you correctly pointed out um Congressman Brown to have them sit around these tables in the future. There is nothing more important. So um in that respect this is all what we are sitting here today is providing for them for tomorrow. So I would like to make sure that as we set priorities within this section that we address that that petition

and bring that forward as quickly as possible for them. I think we can uh put on the side um Mid Island Park other than what needed to be done which was the cleanup etc that we've been involved in. Um but those kids they came to us we should respond to them quickly. Okay. Thank you.

Yes. So, I think some of the next steps that you're going to be going through is really going to help us address this issue, and that's laying out a five-year uh capital plan and uh understanding uh what that looks like and then having a real honest uh dialogue about how we can or cannot phase uh and fund uh some of those items. Um it'll provide a lot of transparency that I think that our residents will appreciate. um just saying out loud the $20 million for the phase one for Mid Island. I mean, it took my breath away when I heard that original number because, you know, I was uh using our books that said $2.5 million. Uh and so the public is looking at those numbers as well. So to be able to have updated numbers um really helps to tell our story um in regards to what it is that we can um do and what we might have to face a little bit differently. One of the other pieces that you've added too which I appreciate in the capital improvement plan is a label maintenance versus discretionary because I think it's also very important that out of that capital um planning process um a certain amount of money is going to be needed each year just for maintenance and it's all the things that we talked about understanding what the useful life of items are and and having our replacements and our safety and that type of and we know that we're going to spend that. Um, and then what is truly discretionary? Um, that way we can balance those pieces because we must do our maintenance. Um, and so having that understanding I think is going to help us moving forward as well.

It's music to my ears. Um, thank you. Uh, and you've you've helped me a lot from a from a new lens take a look at our CIP projects, right? And so I I give credit where always as much as I can that that helped me identifying what was maintenance versus discretionary, right? That what do you have to do to keep it up, right? By state law, there's a definition of what a CIP investment is. A lot of our maintenance dollars are in our operating budget, but uh Kney Beach Boardwalk, it's not because we want to, it's because we have to, right? And so that's helped. Um, we're going to talk a little bit about CIP this afternoon. Just well, after lunch on your plans there. I think it's after dinner. I I mislabeled I mislabeled that. The salmon There's leftover salmon for dinner. Um,

I think I want you to sweat out the door. We're keeping it warm. We got to keep the cookies.

Yeah. Um, but what's going to be really, really important, and I appreciate talking aloud about it because it's angst I have, right? Let's back up a little bit. Five years ago, when I arrived in the budget, we did not have a CIP program. We had a couple of line items. Let's just be fair. I will I will print that out and I will send it to you. It is not what it is today. Um, it didn't identify sources. It didn't identify uses. It didn't phase anything. And there was no plan for chaplain. There was no plan for crossings, right? No soccer, right? As a soccer coach to my kid, I was out there and the kids were getting hurt on sprinklers that were this high out of the ground and water pooling and the soccer ball would stop dead and everybody's looking at me as the town manager, let alone we're g we're giving them a hard time where they're parking and I'm trying to coach, right? So, those master plans are in place. Right, wrong, or indifferent. I don't think you all love the Mid Island Park master plan. So, that's not something you love, I'd revisit it. Let's take the take the plan and look at it and say what's most important. And if you calibrate it and it's got a bigger music venue and a smaller garden, so be it. But the sooner we start understanding what we're trying to build, the sooner I can start helping with it. The angst I have is this. I only had a one-year CIP project list and that I thought would take two years, but by the time we found the right contractor, a surveyor to show up, truly understanding cost. Richard Lden's in the room somewhere, maybe. Is he here? There he left.

Oh, okay. He's great private sector. And he told me this one thing. He says, "My disadvantage, our disadvantage is I don't have any history on cost." So hoping we know what to cost. We know what the opinions of cost on engineering and contractors say, but we can't go back too far to know what costs on our CIP. So now that we have all that, we we were challenged with putting a five-year CIP program together. And I only know how to fund one year at a time simply because we've always been in a pay as you go mindset. In fact, pay as you go mindset, but at the same time, just like everything else, capacity. How many master plans did we set? They're great. Mid Island, Barker, Chaplain, Patterson, Taylor, roads, intersections, striping patterns, all that stuff. So now that we have that, we've revamped the CIP program into portfolios, right? Beaches, we know what the beach is over time, we can see that trend, storm water, pathway before we'd fix a pathway and build a $20 million park and call it success. So what's been very interesting is now that Richard has an opinion of probable cost on every one of those years priorities, Dave Bird and I are like there's no way we can build all that. And so we have to do is calibrate revenue and funds with expectations because in the past we said they're priorities. Let's let's fund fa phase one year one and let's just keep moving year one forward. Well, I we're finally at that point where we can show you right now our five-year CIP should probably be an eight or nine year CIP. And that's great because there's a good spreadsheet. The formulas all work. The priorities are easy to move forward skate park pump track and move outward phase real phase one of Mid Island. And I think that that workshop in February we have needs to just have that

calibrated discussion. So the bear with me for a second. Mid Island Park phase one is for drainage. $20 million for drainage. That's 113 acres. We just talked about storm water. So you take that number and then you start looking at everything else. Gives you an idea of what the total cost is going to be when we look at infrastructure. Um, I'm just trying to correlate the relationship as to Steve's point, you know, that we were talking outside a minute ago about how much it's really going to cost. Phase one is storm water at $20 million. So, as we look at these things, there's a lot of there's a lot a lot of big lists that we've got to start taking into consideration as to the resiliency of our community. So, I'm not trying to be Debbie Down there. I'm just trying to bring the realistic side as to we've got to have some of these once we get through these certain priorities, those other priorities need to jump up pretty quick so that we're really looking at it and going, "Okay, this is how we need to move forward because it's going to tell give us a lot of information and really set a direction."

I mean, you got to put it in perspective. Yeah, mayor. Um, it's 113 acre track. Yep. If you were building a 113 acre commercial development shopping center, it'd be way more than $20 million. So, putting it in perspective, it it does sound like a lot because it's a park, right? But it's really not, right? And when you run that multiplier across this island,

uh, and it's not even accessible the rest of the island like this is accessible. You can put a multiplier on that because you're in easements and rightways and driveways and trees and roads and utilities that exist. All kinds of interference. and you're working out there without any interference. It's basically open and it's still $20 million. So, um we we need to think big. We need to be out of the box a little bit. Y appreciate that. All right. It's almost lunchtime. Uh

sorry about that.

No, it's not you. It's me. It's my It's my complete missed target on how long we should talk. So, here's what I've done. I've just taken the liberty to uh understand what is somebody made the comment earlier what are we really diving deep in already not that I'm not on on all of them but where are we really deep right now point of no return and trying to land the airplane right LMO first on the list district plans and future land use map as a companion piece but separate several town code amendments that I think got a lot easier just by having some good guidance and some suggestions. Um, William Hilton Parkway gateway corridor master plan and funding strategies. I have to live and breathe these funding strategies with Mr. Gillan as soon as you make a decision on the master plan storm water master plan, right? Because when we go to Colombia and we say we want money for the road and I'm also going to say we want money for the beach and we also want money for they they want to know what we want money for. Um and so some alignment with those organizations are needed. Stormwater master plan, public safety enhancements, St. James Baptist Church relocate and mitigation. Gulligi historic neighborhood CDC strategic plan, especially with the investment, the joint venture investment into the memory matters headquarters, uh CDC new headquarters, uh implementation of North Point on Jarvis Creek, key capital projects that are underway or funded. Right? Those take my time. I'll just say that a little, not selfishly, but I don't want a a false start. I don't want to miss an opportunity with a press release. I'm still with a new team. They're delivering on your expectations. I know yours the most. And so, I'd say we're getting way better at that. We've put some really awesome people at the table. Donda Adam is in the room with us

today. Um, second to none. Um, building high-risk um, highreward projects across the country with private sector. Um, and then the FY27 consolidated budget, making decisions financially about all of that. So, um, Jacob, you're late. Did he leave? Is Jacob even here anymore? Are you at the beach conference, too? All right, come on. Jacob told me that he doesn't prepare ahead of time. He just going to say stuff. And I said to him, I trust you. You're great. He is our chief information officer. He has oversight of our website, of our dashboards, but more importantly, we're not just looking at it from a collection of data standpoint. We're trying to understand our data so we make better informed decisions. And I would say that through our GIS, we used to be in the mapping and the geographic information system business. We are now in the real information business with Jacob. So, where is he? Oh, you're sitting down. Okay. Well, I did prepare, but Mark just said everything that I was about to say, so I'm not going to uh repeat myself. Um,

no, thank you for the opportunity to to just sit down briefly with y'all and show some of the work that we've been working on internally. Um Renee Tuttle, our website developer, has put together um a really good product for um that really promotes transparency and um access to information through our website. And then uh Matthew Kerry, our GIS administrator, has um he continues to thrive and um and put really really good information out through uh performance dashboards. um you've seen the capital projects dashboard, town and property stuff like that. So, we're really going to continue to build on technologies like that. Um but just to kind of set the tone from a technology standpoint, um I just want to make the point that um you know, and I've heard this discussed at the council level that our data is really one of our most valuable assets. And so, um, you know, uh, my team, um, along with, you know, all of, um, our co-workers here at the town, um, I've seen a shift in the past few years, really since Mark got here, um, a commitment to, um, communicating clearly and transparently. Um, you know, communicating progress and performance. And that's really what my new role is going to be doing is um tapping into a lot of the systems and all of the data that we do have and building out really easy to use dashboards for you all to access and for the public to get in and kind of get the information that they need and then and then uh carry about their day. Um and really ultimately um you know what you'll see here today with the strategic plan hub site um is is supporting

successful delivery of the strategic action plan. Um and you know data is so important. Why why does data matter and why is it valuable? Um because it's only valuable if if one you can find it. um if one can you understand it and then finally can you trust the information that is provided through the website and through other avenues that that we have. Um so today what I'll be doing is I'll just briefly highlight our new website and just kind of walk through a couple new functionalities. Um, one disclaimer, um, and and someone that's, you know, Renee has been with the town for 28 years, um, and she continues to work her tail off to, you know, make everything the way that everyone wants it to be. And so, I think the point that I just want to make is, um, in the disclaimer is that our website's never going to be final. It's a work in progress. Uh we do we do welcome feedback and if you do find something uh you know a piece of feedback with our new website is that videos aren't as easy to find on the calendar. Um that was a custom build back when we had the old website and that's something that we will be addressing and and trying to work out in the future. So um so I'm going to go into demo mode. So really, you know, from a from a benefit perspective, um really for me in managing Renee, uh one of the biggest benefits that we have with the website is that it's it's truly an enterprise content management system. Um it it enables more people to have their hands on the website and help Renee with with building and um

delivering information. Um we we as an organization have worked really hard to um um to be ADA compliant and so our new CMS delivers that. Um you'll see in the bottom right hand corner that um that there is a new HHI helper. And so what that is is it's a AI chatbot designed um specifically so that so people could come to the website and and get the information that they need. So if I was a member of the public and I wanted to know um how do I get my you know well I had this pre-loaded. What is North Point? Uh it kind of it runs through the website and and mines the information that's in there. and then points the user to um to the information that they need. Or if I wanted to say, you know what, uh how do I get a short-term rental permit? it would process um give information on um how you would submit it and then send you to the to the right website um you know the right page within our website. So really cool functionality. Um one thing to note about about this is that we we are training the AI chatbot. So, it may not deliver the the best results initially, but over time, what you'll see is that it will be fine-tuned and um deliver a lot better information. So, you'll see the results here um you know, instead of someone going and, you know, trying to

find their information, they can just ask the chatbot and it um gives you everything that you need to know. Um and then you can go to the appropriate website. So, um, you know, and then I now understand why sales teams have a account manager that can talk and then a solutions guy that can like drive. Um, so bear with me here as I work through this. Um, we did add, just to just note, we did add videos in here to one of the main buttons based on um, some feedback that we got that videos were hard to find. Um so you know you have your agendas and m agendas, minutes and videos. We are working to populate videos in this space back to um you know at least a couple years out. Um so more to come on that major initiatives uh permitting and licensing uh report of concern um any latest and greatest news from the town and then um down below the the meeting calendar. So, like I said before, um our intent is to is to continue to improve this and build this out so that it contains that same level of detail that we had before. So, show the chat. So, another another um thing that we do want to showcase is this performance dashboard section of the website. It's really a a expansion of of what we used to call open data. Um and so our performance dashboard section is really built to be the one-stop shop. So um several months ago, Mark and Sean Linger came to me and Matthew Kerry, our GIS administrator, and asked for said, you know, I know we have all these dashboards, but where the

heck are they? And so the the idea behind this site is to have essentially um a dashboard of dashboards where um town leadership staff or the public can come in and get um you know any information. So you'll see you know the his the um capital projects dashboard is there. Um, one thing to note, since Sean Gillan arrived, we have fine-tuned the financial information within the CIP dashboard to include um, encumbrances and so you all will be able to track that um, a little better over time. Um, I'm going to hit strat plan last. building permits is one that we have um been working on recently and and just recently added. So um one thing that we hear a lot um around town is that you know our staff are inundated with requests uh you know how do I get information on a permit? What's the status? You know all of that. So, we have this dashboard that shows, you know, a 30-day, 12 month, and then, uh, three-year picture of permits. Um we also um historically have had a permit finder on our website that people can use and we've we've built that in directly to this site so that you can go um oh lord you can go in and um search for the permit finder. So basically what you can do here is so if I were an account manager I would blame my solutions guy for not having this set up correctly. So I'm going to blame myself and um and move on. But

essentially here the public and I'll fix this after I I sit down back in my seat. But you'll be able to search for an address and then see any permits that are located around that address. You can search by permit number and you can also go within that map. You can go and um it links directly to the citizen self-service page within Tyler. Um and it you you kind of get in the weeds there, but you can deep dive and see exactly where um where the permitting process is for that specific property. So, apologize for that not working. So the the other thing is just you know the main thing is the strategic plan hub. So if you think back to a year ago we had um a technology called air table that was on the website and the main that was really the main way for you all to to get in and see status. And so it was essentially a spreadsheet embedded on the website. was really hard to read. Um the feedback that we got, you know, project updates were appended to like the far right. You kind of had to sift through. It was really difficult. So, um in working with Sean Colin and and then eventually Sean Lininger, um we have we have um built out a strategic action plan hub site. And so it's it's a real um it's a robust dashboard that is provided um in a very easy to use format. Um the first thing that a user will see is you'll you'll have a link to the strategic action plan digital book which is the digital book to the document that you all are um using through this meeting. Then we also have a Spanish version available um as

well. um down below. Well, before I go down, you can if if you knew what goal you wanted to look into, you could just go right here and uh click this little drop down and select, you know, if you wanted to see protectile and character through managing growth, you would select that there. We also have all of our goals listed out here. So, all 10 goals are here. If I want to go in and um let's just say I want to look at um let's see public safety and I wanted and I was interested in um action item four which is the purchasing of the the new headquarters. I I could then so first what you're going to see as a user is you're going to see the description the goal description and and then the strategy of of how you're going to go that go about doing um about meeting those goals. This text matches um is in line with what the text is and the document that you all approved. And then down below we have a live dashboard that our staff is keeping up to date similar to what they did with Air Table. um but a lot easier to read. And so if I wanted to go in and and check on the status of um you know the park lane and and all that project, you could actually click on the left here and then the milestones to achieve that action item display over here. So again, um we have worked really hard on this. Um we've um our goal has been really to improve the way that we presented data to the public um you know historically through Air Table but um in a really easy to use um manner. You'll you'll

notice down below we do have our key performance indicators for each of the goal areas. Um these are listed out by design. And so um you'll notice here that it says KPI progress is reported on an annual basis. We would then have um we we would work and and display those um in line with our town annual report. Um so a little bit about what's next. You know we obviously have five dashboards that we're displaying here. this number will grow. And so our intent is to have um to have this as the area where you know, let's just say um you know, one of y'all or the public, you have a question about something, you could go here before inquiring with staff or or something like that. So the design here is to really facilitate information flow so that you can get answers easily um and quickly. So a couple things to come um you know we'll be working with finance to provide a a budget report a dashboard of sorts through here. Um housing which y'all were talking about um I think it was 8.3 we would have a housing dashboard. This is where this would live. um fire rescue incidents and uh we're also um and we're working on a code enforcement and short-term rental dashboard as well that will be on there. Um so yeah um you know in close in closing you know this is the fun stuff you know me and my team get to work on you know

to be data nerds and go and create all these cool applications but um we we do welcome feedback if there's something that you don't see that you want to see you know um let us know but daily um as far as the dashboards yeah a lot of the stuff earlier you were showing Yeah. Um I think it depends on the data but you know an example would be for like my HI requests um that that's a real time information. So as information is flowing from the public through my HHI and you know let's just say facilities is managing that data. It's real time when it closes it updates here.

Um open right now. Yeah.

Is our traffic system available?

Um, in terms of the operational system. I don't know. I'll look into it. I just don't know that answer. But you ask a good question. I'll jump in. the town. Um, well, so my HHI, right, real time CIP project dashboard, strategic plan dashboard. I expect that those be updated monthly by the department head. And so the the opportunity right now is great. We're all getting on the same page with a new strategic plan dashboard. The the last really three months into this into four months has just been having each department head think the same way, right? We have criteria and what we should update milestones activity. We just want to make sure that it's high level and not inundated with too much information at the same time have enough information for you to know hey capital projects as part of the strategic plan we're going to have a workshop in we're going to have a workshop you know whatever what is it February. So some things like that are are bucketed as quarters right now on here. And so you're not going to get that real time look on every project, but it's going to hold us accountable and it's going to allow me to manage from my laptop and take a quick look to see how everybody's doing on all 67 or however many of those items there are. Um and just just one thing to note there in addition to the performance dashboards on this hub site, there are interactive maps. So we do have a property search which is like you know your typical government property search, but I think ours is pretty good. So I would encourage anyone to go check that out. Um you know, town council ward

search, uh building permit search down here. Um someone was talking about road ownership earlier but we do have that road ownership map and then we we have a number of um GIS data layers that are available for download. Um historically what's happened is we get a data request and then we have to provide that to like an engineering firm or something like that. Um and we we offer uh this data just real time so people can go and download download the data themselves. So, and those are two good uh data points, right? What own what roads do we own, right? It's not a town road. Whose is is it? And then also that permit map too, that permit finder map, so that we know in real time what what building permits have been submitted. That's always helpful, not just for y'all, but for the public. You sitting at home and you wonder you wonder what's going on next door and you hear some hammering on a Saturday, do they have a permit? It's right here. Um, and then there's also a number to dial um for direct as well as an email for direct. Right. So um something we're proud of. Here we go. River club drive. Hopefully they have a permit. Jacob, I already looked. Yeah.

So this is what would have come up on the other page if it wasn't permissions locked. So, um I mentioned that you can link to the citizen self-service here and you would literally just click here and and um the permit information comes up live to the public. The benefit of this is I've been using this myself internally. I do think our new website with that hub, right, the the dashboard of dashboards is going to make this really important for y'all, the community, um, and anybody wanting to look look us up. This has been a tremendous lift and effort by Renee Tuttle no less Jacob Matthew I could say 50 names including every department head that is accountable for what their details right their information is and isn't on this website I know was very involved um so many great benefits to our new website

how long has it taken how long ago did did you start working on this I'm Not even going to look at Jacob. It's just Jacob, go ahead and answer that. How long? I don't know. Um, it's been at least a year for for the website. The hub page is I I mean, I've been here I started in 2013. Um, the the GIS side, like the the hub page has really been something that we've been working on for that long. Um, and and I I feel kind like I I feel like we have one of the better GIS operations in the like I would say in the state if not

Well, I I asked that question because good things take a long time. Yeah. My only comment is that it says 41 degrees out there and honestly, thank you. The website is amazing and I'm not a technologically savvy person whatsoever and I've gone on and been able to surf my way through it um successfully and I appreciate what you've done. Thank you. Is that accurate weather? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Should be. Should be obviously It is.

All right. All right. Next. Um, Jacob, you good? May I have my uh

Oh, I just wanted to say a couple things. First of all, um, I appreciate that, uh, you've updated the website. I know from prior experience, having something homegrown uh, only gets you so far. part makes it very hard and difficult as you attract new employees to be able to uh continue to support uh and grow that website uh for the public. Um you know I the website went live over the weekend and I I save favorites and one of them is the town calendar and suddenly it didn't work and I was like what what's going on? Um so if you've saved favorites you're going to have to go into the website and save new fa favorites. And then in regards to the videos, thank you for uh working on making them more accessible uh prior to this because I uh like to watch the meetings on demand that I miss and currently uh it used to be you could just click on through the calendar and it would have a link there to any on demand videos. Uh now you have to it there is a way to get to it. You click on the agenda where it shows the agenda and the packet and on the left hand side there are all these little buttons that you probably never even paid attention to and there's a little one that has a camera on it. You click on that and you can see the video. So you can get to it. It's a little bit different and I appreciate that you're going to make it easier for us to find because that's one of the things that I think is so great about the transparency um of the uh of the town is having meetings videoed and having them accessible. And did I hear you right that we're going to start posting our financial results on the website? I know in the past we uh did post our monthly financial reports um and we got away from that and there were good reasons. We were changing the package. We had changes in leadership. I didn't know if that would be something that we would be doing moving forward.

We will do that. I didn't know we weren't. But so we'll we'll start posting our monthly financials as well as as we transition into a new FY budget, we'll have a financial transparency page uh plugged in as well to your point. Yeah. And then this website is used by the public. So I urge the public to go out there and give it a try and to give feedback. I appreciate that you're collecting feedback and it's a it's, you know, in process and you're making updates and you'd love to hear uh what enhancements or issues people have to make it easier to navigate. Mr.

Yeah. Uh job well done. Um very quick, Mr. Orlando, I will stop bothering you now about posting stuff to combat the misinformation on Next Door. This is this is amazing because too often stories are told about things that are going on on Hilton Head that are absolutely not true. And if we're going to give our public the opportunity to go find the truth, that is so important. So, um, this is this is bigger than just some fancy videos and whatnot. This is true information is so important in in today's conditions.

Quick question. I was looking over the weekend and I know this just got launched. Are archives of our minutes, are they on there now? I couldn't find them on the weekend. Archives of minutes. Archives of the minutes. Is it hidden somewhere? It's not in the I just checked again and when I look under agenda's minutes and videos I don't see a link to archives. They are working on that. Okay. They are working on that. Um we have I believe up to 2022 that are visible and they're working on the back end to pull in um the historical ones. Yeah, I was looking like 23 24 and uh those should be on there.

Okay. So when you click on minutes I don't see it. There used to be a really nice link in the bottom to talk about right and that is still there. Um if you go to the agenda page it should be at the very bottom. I can show you offline. I'll keep looking. Thank you.

So one thing just a note. So in line with the video I those were those are that was a functionality that was kind of grouped together. Um Renee like when I brought this up what the feedback that we've received about the videos um she was like I knew that this was going to be the one thing that we heard about and so she you know all all I would ask we're we're getting through the initial sprint and then we will then what we're going to do is she's going to develop that custom for that just that little embedded calendar and then all the minutes would would then show as as they did back in the Um, but if if you need help finding the minutes through that one page through civic clerk, we can we can get it to you.

That's helpful. And and what we are going to do is release a press release, right? So, we had to draw a line somewhere and just to, you know, bore you with the detail. We we were maintaining two websites for a while. So, we we had to draw the line to just go all in with this new website. And so what we will do in the coming when when we make sure this stuff's all sorted out, we will release a press release and we will put on there for the budget. Click this link. So to find the agendas if things are different, we will provide a little bit of that detail with some different links in that in that press release. So some of your questions today have helped me wrap my head around it. It's just full transparency um in that regard. But where's the video? Where's the archives and minutes? Where are the agendas? Where are the dashboards? We can provide some good links in the in the press release. And then you all can rely on that if folks ask you. You can know where it's at rather than say, "Well, I know it's on there bottom right corner, four clicks in." So, we'll help. Thank you for this. Great job. Thanks.

All right. I just got a couple things and I'm There we go. I'm gonna turn this over to Dave. Dave, you're on the batteries box, sir. Yes, sir.

Um, for me, just real quick, um, budget, we're getting closer. So, as we've worked every year, we know that budget, while it's a year- round group of work with you, we start working on budget in December. So, in December, the town council awards the ATA tax grants for calendar year 2026 and then the affiliated agency funding applications go live. January is a lot of lot of work starting to uh take shape. budget kickoff meetings with council members. We've scheduled those for late January, really after today, so I can wrap my head around things. We're going to share with you some projected revenues. Mr. Bird has put together at least a five-year operating budget as a as a projection. Um, I want to talk to you about FY26 budget amendment because it affects FY27 preparation with some with some uh staffing. Um, we have those kickoff meetings with you. We have all budget requests due to finance, not yours. The departments though at the end of January. So, we start understanding is chief asking me for people because they can't keep up with the calls for service because they've increased or, you know, are some staff members asking for more resources to finish what we say is a priority. Their proposals are are from them. They're through Dave to me. of funding funding applications to finance in January. town council strap plan workshop today and so hard to believe we're getting into February FNA committee to discuss agency affiliate agency funding requests first reading of of FY26 budget which is really CIP carry

forward some unexpected CIP expenditure we'll you see that in your in your budget bless you um short-term rental calibration based upon your direct directive to me at time of ordinance adoption and a few other things. Um, town council review of the fiveyear strategic plan or the CIP plan. I think that's going to help us quite a bit. Help me a lot and know what to expect. That way, no surprises as we're preparing and presenting to you the budget for you. DMO preliminary marketing plan and budget are due March 1st. So, they're working with the marketing council. Miss Tunner and and and Kelly Spanella are on on that marketing council. Um finance committee considers um the funding applications March 9th. Then I know how that's affecting the rest of our budget. Right? If you're you're selecting more than last year, then we've got to calibrate our budget if we don't have revenues uh equally. Second reading of the FY26 budget is in March. Planning commission prioritization of CIP projects in March after your workshop. So that's so helpful this year for you and for planning commission because by law they have to simply prioritize capital projects. They've done that traditionally. They haven't changed a 10 to a one priority and and we go through those motions with them. um this year will be uh much improved DMO review the marketing right the DMO review of the marketing plan and budget at the workshop we talked about and then in April budget meetings with council this is where I sit down with you one or two at a time and start talking to you about what you asked for talked to me about

here and what I've asked for and talked to you about here and how all of that is making sense especially with the operating budget being proposed by the department heads CIP program finance administrative committee considers affiliated funding apps. Is that on there twice? All right, I'm going to jump over that for a sec. Um DMO will finalize their marketing plan and budget and then the ATAX um committee considers the DMO marketing plan and budget and then May and June are are are really right. We know that budget ordinance first reading with an extra public hearing, a workshop and a workshop. We've traditionally held two workshops, all funds, general debt, storm, CDC and housing in one workshop and then a capital improvement program in a second. I I would estimate that if we do our if if we meaning staff does the job right into that February workshop and prioritization from planning commission, this should be a lot smoother and a lot more clear this year of what you expect from me, what I think we can fund and where we're heading. So that that's a much improved process. And then second final reading of budget in June. We always start with what's our finance director think? What's going on in the economy? Are revenues up or down? How does h tax or a tax look? You know, sometimes those those tour well not sometimes those tourismbbased revenues are the canary, right? Canary in the mine and we start looking at that because we know those um quicker and and and in front of property tax. Um, and so at this point, uh, turn it over to Dave.

All right. Yeah, sit. That's it. Thank you. Uh, good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Um, not a not too much going on over the next few months, I would say, but, uh, we're getting through it. Um looking at kind of the dovetail into how we're tracking, we have a historical view of our millage rates here over some 2017 through this year and the reductions made in the 2026 uh budgeting process. But I would say really a a good a good exercise here to look at and going back to our values of our um property that they're that they're assessed on just dramatic growth uh leading up to 2026. just we kind of covered a little bit of this in the GO bond review last month, but from a perspective of how we're tracking and going forward, um we're going to model out a modest 2% growth of excess value happening in the future uh right now with our expectations not changing millage and see what those numbers look like. So that we kind of give you a forward view uh state of the economy. Um I this word's been used a little bit today, but I came up with this slide on this word, but I said resilient. Um and what I mean by that, um you know, there's always a lot of headwinds that a tourism economy deals with for folks being able to come travel and spend time and money here. Uh it's could be inflation, it could be tariffs, economic uncertainty, global events, those types of things that every I call those headwinds. Um but if you look at our a few of our drivers related to um tourism whether it's accommodations tax, hospitality tax, business licenses which is a a view of our business revenue that we have and

then real estate transfer fees uh modest to pretty good growth rates but cure from 23 through 26. I kind of look at 23 as a new baseline year postcoid if you will and um you know so one thing we've been talking about is to try to peel back the sales tax by month for the different categories um happy to say we do have that information now from the state so we're building that as uh we speak it won't be for the February but coming up in March we'll be breaking down different uh categories into eight eight segments which you'll to kind of give a diff a more detailed view of what's happening within Hilton Ed. So, that's good news from that perspective. Um, just a quick visual view of accommodations revenues. We've we put the local, state, and beach fees all under one just to kind of get a view of that as a as a whole. And if you look historically, um, we normalized out 2025 for Airbnb settlement and the actuals are now for the first and second quarter. Um and just having uh using the actuals for the first half of the year and looking at quarter three quarter four we took a 4% reduction but we still are running from a comparison to a normalized 25 versus 26 you know relatively flat. So we we're we're I think uh we have a modest forecast projection and are holding our own from that perspective. Looking at hospitality that's been relatively consistent. uh we took the year-to- date first two quarters and then we just kept it flat to last year third quarter last year fourth quarter and we have a modest growth in 2026 projection uh versus uh the 2025 but if you look historically it's it's keeping right within the same range from uh no major swings from that

perspective. Um business licenses have been a little bit more on a higher growth perspective if you start with 23 as the baseline. Once again, we had some one times we needed to address in 2025, which we've done to take that 176 down to 147. And then if you look at 2026, we have our budget um on the right, which is 13.6 million, but we're we've upped our forecast to about 14.8 million for the year. So, you're going to see that when we do our 5-year operating revenue review. And then finally, our real estate transfer fees. a really strong growth. Um, you know, 8.4% KGAR as we talked about before, this has a runway through 2044. Um, and just using the first two quarters year to date and leaving the next two flat with last year without projecting any continued growth. Um, substantial growth this year, which is, I think, a sign of continued investment that's happening on the on the island from that perspective. As as Mark mentioned, we have done a roll up of the five-year. We've we you're going to see a bible, I call it, of every revenue stream for the town historically and carried out through 2031 uh coming soon. And uh uh we will be working on the operating expense side of that as well. So you'll have a general idea as you look at capital investments going forward. What are we looking at from uh from that perspective of what we can't afford? So that's it. concise.

So, as you reported at our last finance administrative committee meeting, I don't see any red flags on revenue. It looks like green flags. Well, there's I would say going forward, there are no red flags as we see today. And when you see the future, I think the cager from 27 through 31, if I remember, was with a lot of different assumptions, which you'll see rolled out to be about one and a half%. So not any aggressive growth. I don't have any grants in the future. Let grants I always say let grants be upside. Um so from a perspective of that just a modest growth kind based upon what we're seeing today.

Okay. Thank you for the report. appreciate all the detailed information and the continued um details that you and your staff provide as town council and the committee has requested. It makes things very clear and easy to understand and to um see the continued conservative position that we put ourselves in so that that growth is uh suits the town and um and we farewell into the future as we have in the past. Thank you for all of the work that y'all have been doing. Well, thank you. I want to thank the team back at town hall because they're putting up with me. So, thank you.

Dave, you're you're a blessing to us. Um Dave Dave does not like compliments. I've learned I've also learned he's a Dallas Cowboys fan. Yes. Um not the only I I did I did learn I did learn how to make him smile. Um, he doesn't smile about any of this stuff, but he does smile about his cowboy. So, um, how about we take a a couple minutes and then I'll dive into CIP with with Mayor Perry of the room.

I I want to change it up just a little bit right now and allow for uh public comment. Um since we've gone a little bit over and we had that scheduled for 2:45. Um Kim, do we have anybody signed up to speak now? No. No. I know Dave Ferguson we have just our normal Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I I know Dave Ferguson had signed up to speak, but he had to leave. So, who would like to speak? We'll start in the front and go back. Joselyn, this is tall.

Uh Joselyn Stiger, government affairs director for the Hilton Head Area Realtors and the Buford Jasper County Realtors. Just wanted to mention two items that had been in my head as I sat through this. Um, and I thank Alex Brown for bringing up what he did about affordable housing. I sat through the Alamo rewrite for three and a half years the last time it was done. And back then the push was it's too restrict restrictive. It's unfriendly. Developers can't do things. Builders can't build. It's too hard for citizens. And we've got to come up with a way to make it user friendly and easier. Well, now you see what that's resulted in. the pendulum's going this way now and everybody wants to make it more restrictive and more regulations. I'm afraid affordable housing is going to get lost. So, I've been saying for about six or seven years, you can't be anti-growth and pro-affordable housing at the same time. It's a conundrum. What do you do about it? So, my suggestion is look at those areas where we actually can have the density. you're not going to build affordable housing with just density. Um, but you certainly can't do it without it. So, the other thing is we made it possible for native islanders or people of Gulla descent to have family compounds and to have businesses on their property. This was needed. They fought hard for that. Don't reverse it. Please don't reverse it. So, all I'm asking as you move forward with the LMO rewrite, see where some of these things went wrong. We did made it easier for commercial buildings to be converted. Well, how many have converted? So, some of the ideas were great, but obviously it didn't work. All I'm asking is we don't completely reverse course and then lose affordable housing completely, which is part of economic

development and a diverse healthy community. The other thing I want to stick in your brains real quick is we did a survey of Buer County and the municipalities last year. Overwhelmingly, transportation, infrastructure, roads, and bridges was their priority. There's going to be a transportation sales tax referendum in November put on the ballot by Buer County. Please look at what you're doing this year. Be in support of it. Help get it passed so we can fix our roads. And that's it. All right.

Thank you. Next. We'll work our way back. Hi, John Parsons, currently chairman of the parks and recreation committee, co-chairman, excuse me. Um, I was very involved in the mid island track planning and uh I want to talk about that a bit before we throw the thing away. Uh, one of the there were two goals. One was to develop a catalyst so it would result in the redevelopment of Pork Royal Plaza and Northridge. Second was to in to change to to to bring some amenities to the Mid Island uh to increase our quality of life. So there were three facilities proposed in the Mid Island tract that I want to focus on. One was a gulla cultural center. Second was a botanic garden and third was a uh nature facility or nature center. Now one thing was lost in in in the presentation of this and the reception of it. We can't afford $70 million. Whose crazy idea was this? Good thing we got rid of that mayor who wanted it. What they were saying is what other uh cities are doing is marketing these as as private projects. That is there are a lot of people with a lot of money in this country. Uh recently a lot of people have done quite well and the stock has changed. So we're talking about not raising nickels and dimes with like the Salvation Army. We're talking about people who've got $80 million to get rid of. Uh all they want is their name on it,

which could get out of hand if it's done in neon. But my point is that the Botanic Garden, the nature center, and the and the Gulla Cultural Center could be built with private funds. And before we re-evaluate what we can afford, at least try to involve the private sector. Thank you.

Thank you. First of all, I'd like to uh thank all of you for doing what you do for the community and for allowing us to come up here and um present. I'm not sure if this is the right venue to do this, but Melinda assured me that it would be all right, so I'm going with what she told me. So, I live my name is Rick Gillette, and I live on in um Hilton Head. Um I live very very many places. is around Hilton Head and had several business here. But my primary residence now is in Mitchellville and there's a new community you may know which is Hammock Breeze uh which was developed over there about three or four years ago and I became interested and became involved in the HOA there to help the community grow. Um we're in the process of getting a boardwalk to go to the beach who will make it more valuable trying to add more value into our homes and and specifically in that area. So I spoke when with Melinda and told her we would really like to volunteer as a community to go out and try and help the area because we have people that come down Beagal Road. I don't know if anybody's familiar with that or not, but it it looks third worldish um at best. And um that has a tendency to um you know have the the property values uh go down and they are starting to go down now and I think it may be because of that. Anyway, we wanted to volunteer to go in and clean up the areas, and I think you've done that in a couple of neighborhoods around Hilton Head over the years with some success where the town cooperates and and helps with uh with people and power and money maybe and and dumpsters and then citizens to come in and help that initiative, too. So, we proposed that. I think it was approved for uh to do in October 25th of last year and then for um a reason having to do with um some

issues going on with u potential ICE and so forth coming into the area that was cancelled and which um anyway it's um it needs to be put back on the table again. maybe it has and my community I could tell you is is standing ready to help build that back up um so that we can prove Mitchellville and um uh we had a realer who maybe a lot of you know which is James Wedgeworth that came by yesterday and he says you know nobody knows about this area of the island and um and so it I don't think it gets the attention maybe that other places do and anything we can do to improve that I want to help do that and one of those things that was mentioned was to put into the um there's no property maintenance code there and that that could be maybe written into LMO and so we're trying to facilitate that. That's really what I want to do. Just bring focus to that and let you know we're here to help the community.

Okay. Thank you.

My name is Frank Babel. I'd like to throw out some economic infrastructure ideas that I had, but I had no ideas when I came here. Number one, we all know we have an issue of workforce availability and it's not going to get much better. And so, we need to start thinking about alternatives. We need to start thinking about alternatives very seriously. I happen to belong to a committee. that the chamber and it's it's uh it's it's it's alternative alternative uh transportation and we've looked at different alternatives. Brian is the uh head of uh the Breeze. He's the chairman and and we're looking at different ways of getting people across the bridge back and forth. And I think the town needs to take an involvement and a role in that. Start experimenting with um with things like uh ride share and park and ride and uh things like that and and there's a ferry that's being considered. So uh I'd encourage the town to get some involvement and start experimenting with that before it gets a little bit too late and we have to do it too fast. The second is another idea. We have somewhere between 20 and 25,000 bikes that are for rent on the island and about every five years they have to go and they go to the scrap heap or they get reconditioned. We have a lot of people. We have 34 uh uh companies that uh rent bikes. They need mechanics and we have a lot of people need jobs and we need to reskill people. So, we should think about putting together some sort of a an an organization or nonprofit that gets people who perhaps need jobs, need to be reskilled, and can teach people how to be bike mechanics with these 5,000 bikes that come up every year like a machine and uh you know, and rebuild them, send

them up to Buford, keep them here, give them memory manners and and uh a lot of other places. I think we ought to seriously think about something like that and it's being done all around the United States. We have a new gentleman used to do it up in Colorado. Another thing uh another idea is we need to start getting more people on bikes going to the beaches. They've done it in Sea Pines. They don't use cars, they use bikes there. And you know, I just hate to see some places that have 50, 60, 70 jobs that don't have the jobs anymore because we have to park cars there. You know, if if they were on bikes, those jobs might still be there and these restaurants may still be alive. So, uh I I just encourage you to again, I keep on standing up here and talking to you about do what Seines did. Just look what they did. And they got people to ride bikes to the beach. And you can you can do it and it's really easy. The very last thing is we got a lot of Oh, no we don't. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Frank. Thank you for being here everybody. Thanks for what you do. Thanks. Next, Heather.

Amber, you'll be next. Good afternoon, Heather Wrath for the record. Thanks for allowing us to all be here and thanks for giving us a great lunch and Mark, great job on your management and your presentation. I just have two comments. One of the things that I think that I heard from council and I just followed up with Melinda and I'll follow up with Alex is that there is an appetite to do more of the home repair program. I represent a client on a federal level that does bring matching funds. These are funds that are already allocated. they've already been pushed down and that's something that we can partner with the town on and perhaps go through the affiliated agency process or whatever. So Mark, I'll get with you on that program. Um, and I'm excited that I was here today to hear y'all say that. The second is on a county level. Um, I don't know if y'all are aware of what's going on with the residential boat landings here on Hilton Head Island and what's going on at the county level to turn them into commercial entities to allow for jet skis, kayaks, boat rentals to operate out of them on an unfettered basis. Um, this is going to the county council committee meeting at 2 PM on Monday. I highly recommend you go in, look at the meetings, read the minutes because staff at the county level recommended there be some restrictions and some permitting and all of that got stripped out by the county council saying, "Nope, let them go ahead." Um, you know, no minimums of six packs. You guys can go to 12 packs. Yes, jet skis. Yes, kayaks. So, I just want you all to be aware of what's going on and the ordinance that's coming up and I'm happy to answer any questions on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello everyone. Amber Cune, uh, executive director of the Sea Turtle Patrol. I just want to thank you for keeping number nine, environment. Of course, I would be surprised if it wasn't. 9.7, uh, creating a campaign for ecological education in schools. Just remember that a lot of our nonprofits already do that. Uh, Sea Turtle Patrol has one that has all grades in elementary and middle school public school, all but third and sixth grade, just because their pace and their schedule doesn't work. Um, another thing is the beach, and I'm excited about being done with the beach reourishment and also replacing all of those beach markers that was mentioned, which we have budgeted for, you have budgeted for. Um, but with all of that, remember that some of us have worked on the beach for over 20 years. So, the resources with some of these nonprofits definitely there. So, please lean on us because I would like to make suggestions on what goes on that traditionally known as the no sign, which we don't call it that anymore, but we'll have to redo those because of the ordinances. Uh, I was participating in the the revamp of the lighting ordinance in 2021 and I will tell you that it made a huge difference and I can prove that with the data that I have for misorientation of hatchlings. It is a dark beach now simply because we put that ordinance um into effect in a current uh mode. Um, the environmental co-op, the LEC, the Low Country Environmental Club that Paty mentioned is a co-op of executive directors and other um, members of the community that come together and try not to duplicate efforts, which is what I'm asking you guys about. Um, we

collaborate to make sure that we're not both doing something. for example, my school program, Jean does a seventh graders through that um ecology kids and kayaks. So, uh definitely check with us and lean on us because we can help and we can not reinvent the wheel. I think that's really important. In April, South Carolina resiliency conference. Um it's Tom Milikin who's also the executive, well, he's the director of the SEDDNR now. and I'm going to speak about what the nonprofits on Hilton Head have done to advance resiliency and environmental um forward momentum. And uh I'm really proud of everything that's been going on from recycling um and and Jean's efforts and all of the the ordinances that have been updated and the it's just really great. And the recycling includes things like picking up the contractors picking up chairs and beach equipment and redistributing it. the chairing shack will open up again when the season comes back around. So, thank you for supporting the town affiliated agency right here. I'm happy to help and I really want to participate as you know. So, let me know.

All right. Thank you. Anybody else? Public comment. All right. Seeing none, Mark or Zack? Zack. Huh? Zack. Zach was just excited that the millillage went up since he got here. That's all he was doing.

Yeah. Sorry, Zach. Told your secret. All right, we've got a few things to do. It's It's 10 after 3 CIP. And so, what I'd like to do on here is just a real highlevel push to get us ready to talk about all this in February. So won't bore you with the whole details, but we always look and and review prior year projects carrying forward and working on year one of the capital program. We build the projects as well as we can with the resources we have and then while we're doing all of that, we continue to plan for the future. I'd say that's the hardest part of the CIP program, not just planning it and building it, uh, but making sure that we continue that annual, uh, investment of our time with planning commission. We're aligned with you. We know what's coming in the future. Um, I think a lot of those moving parts that used to seem more difficult, even with me, with with the with the new teammates that I have here are starting to make a lot more sense. Richard, Don, and Shawn. Um they're a great team amongst all the great project managers that we have. So I'm I'm excited to get into the February workshop with you to normalize our expectations and that'll settle down the priorities um because it's all revenue based. Mr. bird has figured out um that we will have you saw right revenues are more than projection more than budget and so that means a little bit of money every prior year if you'd like in the budget is going to be available for capital programming and it's my job to present the budget but present a budget that we're you know

surprised by um my goal isn't to bring you a capital program that after being excited that our fund balance went up a hund00 million over five years and we're and we're moving towards the future and paying off debt and using some excess millage to borrow some dollars for mostly land and in some project at your will, including fire. I'm not bringing you something that is going to be debt heavy or fund balance useheavy because and I'll just say even if I wanted to I we can't build it fast enough people contractors pricing materials look at we're in the middle of Mitchellville and Mitchville we can't get am I it's real we can't the plant shut down for a minute and so we have those and so I think that I want that to sound a little bit chaotic because we are managing some of that unknown within a really refined project management system, right? They're building projects on your markets that go. They're great project managers. It's this other un unknown learned new employees, let alone we haven't had new contractors until one of our last bids. We had a new contractor show up. And so I think that we're learning and we're getting way better at CIP. What's really important is that we stay aligned. And in that February workshop, we're going to talk about a lot of these CIP projects. These projects, uh, the CIP project map is on there on purpose. It's to remind us that the capital improvement program, right? You can be specific here. Caliggony Beach Boardwalk, right? um crossings phase one and two pickle ball Jonesville Road, Jarvis Creek Pump Station, Patterson Park, Palmetto Hall outfall, Island Wreck, North Point

Access, Coastal Discovery Museum, Taylor. I think it brings to life that our capital improvement program is well organized and it's well spread out through our entire island. So, I'll show you a little bit uh some of the FY26 progress to date. I think it's real important for us to just peek at those priorities in 27 through30. Um I talked a little bit about balancing funding with priorities and that's going to be our real heavy work to do in the February workshop. We have a $77.6 million CI pro CIP program budget adopted. That will change in the budget amendment. It will change a lot. those numbers will go up. It's land acquisition for the most part. Um you will see though of that 77.6 a considerable amount 48.8 19 of that is debt out of that 77. So so what what we've done here and big help from Kelly for me just to jump out at the page for you. I have made a bright green star, a darker green star, and a blue star. I didn't know a better way. We talk about asteris astricing things. Um those are your planning commission prioritization. Uh this shows us design, permitting, construction. What I think we should just do today is just some confirmation from me to you that the the real heavy lift priority projects that are on time and on budget or they're slowing down and also to hear back from you what you're hearing from others or seeing for yourself. So on this this is an easier one. Beach nourishment is on track. It's on budget. Um and we're we're seeing some new things with the sand come in. I talked to Mr. Desimon about that yesterday. um projects on pace. Uh Harbortown dredges on hold and some of

these are just status quo, right? Beach park maintenance, beach management and monitoring and CGNY boardwalk. Those are just, you know, those aren't a heavy lift and not a big push and not a not the most important priority. uh Jonesville Road pathway um is the design of that is proving to be very difficult because there's a lot of front yards, a lot of drainage swailes, a lot of ditches, a lot of crossings, a lot of trees with an expectation to put the road through there. What I've given this team some direction on is let's quit trying to design that whole road because I do believe that um we could probably get half of it from Jonesville up halfway done a lot easier than the other part of it. So we might as well break apart some of our design and construction so we're not here for two more years trying to design it all. And so you'll see that Dunigan's Alley uh pathway um somewhat on hold because we've been trying to put a sidewalk, a wide one in the power line easement and we haven't had a great response from the power line, the utility company um to allow for any expansion of any side I'm surprised by it, but any sidewalk in their power line easement. We have we have not been successful in getting a better decision, one that we'd like to see. Um this is a a grant opportunity William Hilton Parkway eastbound Waxford Drive to Arrow Road. Um and and that's it for our pathways this year from a funding standpoint as well as a lift. You you'll notice though um while there aren't a lot of new projects, we have more than a lot of years in the past $500,000 towards maintenance and improvements. And so every little project is a project in in and of itself. So don't be fooled by the less of priority. Know know that at

least a half million dollars is improving what we have versus building just new. So $1.6 $6 million all in roadway maintenance, the signal system maintenance, the landscape lighting, uh Mitchellville have been where the where the teams focused mostly Teresa, mostly Jeff Jeff's doing this as well as beach renourishment um with with now Sean's help. These projects um will you can see them design some permitting. none of them in construction yet except Mitchellville. But I think that we're building some momentum and I and we have to talk about how to properly advance right-of-way acquisition. Um hypothetically you have 12 folks on a street 11 people say I agree and one doesn't project stops. And so we have to talk about that. And in in my opinion, you know, right-ofways are acquired through an easement or a right-of-way acquisition and and we we make it part of the project cost because as we look at everything, if we're going to look at streets, we we in my opinion, I I think that those will sit there if we continue to ask for free easement or free dirt in exchange for future density. I just don't feel like that strategy is current. You've seen some islandwide intersection and ped vehicular improvements. You know, one that jumps out at me is um Squire Pope Road. We have put new signs. We've put new striping, but that doesn't mean the RRFBs are up. Um, similar to what we did on Dylan to to Beach City Road, Jonesville Road and Spanish Wells intersection, North Point access became a priority. It went from $150,000 soft

cost with a window, a construction window predicated by the United States Postal Service of when we can make that improvement. Um, and you'll, excuse me, you'll see that in a budget amendment to uh, punch that road through and then also get on with improving Gum Tree Road. So, I won't go through everything, but you can see our largest lift here only has $100,000 in it. Um, we talked in the morning about the the policy part, the the master plan part and and this is something that is a a a very heavy lift along with North Point, the Jonesville intersection and those intersections. What what isn't the highest priority, but we are working on it are the Pope Avenue streetscape improvements, Lagoon Road intersection, and some of that work. We are Matthews Drive to Follyfield Road. You'll you'll notice that we were out there surveying. We're in that design phase. Um but we're surveying the right of way to truly understand because again it's a DOT road and whatever we do there to add a call it a a center median, make it safer, slow the cars down, especially around that blind curve and that crosswalk at Burks. No matter what we do, someone will be impacted. So, if we close it off, it'll be similar to some of these other, but they don't have businesses and homes trying to turn left in or left out. And so, we're in a really difficult situation with some of that. I see a light on over there.

Yeah, just um the previous slide, Mr. Orlando, um you know, we've number 41. uh we put a lot of time, energy, brain power into that and um obviously I'm not looking to look in the rearview mirror, but look forward. Um it is a critical part of our uh infrastructure when it comes to the way that people travel on and off of this island. It also is critical to uh workforce economic development, but more importantly, it's critical from a safety standpoint. As we start to look at this master plan that you'll be bringing forth, uh there's data that says that this is the most dangerous section between Hilton Head and I 95. and we've got a list of fatalities that we can go back to refer to support that data. So, I guess I'm sort of planting financial seeds here now because we're going to start having budget discussions tomorrow. Um, I know that we're going to ask our state delegation and SCOT, maybe the county about funds to take care of the entire corridor. But there's some baseline improvements there that I think are very important for us to take a look at. So I just I encourage us all as we go through the CIP discussion and the overall budget discussion that we increase that from 100 grand. It's just too important.

Okay. There's some baseline improvements that we as a town can afford to do and I think if we if we take that step forward, we can then leverage that as we have discussions with state and county. Uh, so I'm I'm I'm sort of not just planting a seed, but poking a little bit here. Um, because again, we've been talking about this, I don't know, few years before Mark got here, and we're still talking about it. Um, and we we've had fatalities on our watch. So, it is something that, in my, uh, opinion needs a financial commitment from us here locally. Okay. Thank you.

I would ask I mean obviously this is approved budget 100,000 but what's 27 and all? I mean that's

Yeah. And and I forget how it how it it lines up. I may be asking you unless we have used this um unless we've used this contingency. I may be asking you for a little bit more to finish this master plan. So again, yeah, I I agree with you in FY27. I understand what what what's at stake. Sepine Circle. This says Sepine Circle to Wexford Drive. It is truly segment 8. It is Cine Circle. We've spent a little bit of those dollars on some soft costs, engineering costs, and the rest DOT has requested, right? They wrote us the letter. We talked with them. The the and and I will bring to you for your consideration a financial agreement where those dollars, the residual remaining dollars would be transferred to DOT. They will serve as a project manager with our close involvement. And no matter what they would ask to do about the sepine circle to improve safety and throughput and and time um it would have to have a municipal consent on a small level similar to what we talked about in the past. So um I know that that that some want that project to be the highest. We we are going as fast as DOT will let us. I see a light. Go ahead.

Yeah. Um can I just ask about that? So, we just heard from Councilman Brown and about the um area that he just spoke about and the safety issues there. We know there are others. Gum tree we talked about earlier. How does how does this how does the segmentate um rise to a point where we are willing to spend those dollars ahead of those other areas when unless someone can help me and and god knows I don't remember everything there aren't the same issues with about safety there I mean I I I know the issues I get them and part ofly it's safety but it's not to the extent that we we are talking about the fatalities and the accidents etc in these other areas and I just you know

I would anyway yeah

well I can help with it a little bit as as we get ready to start work and and this isn't a project that gets done next year but as we start working on the William Hilton Parkway gateway corridor right and let's let's be fair we're not trying to stop everybody at a signal hold them for 2 minutes let people walk across the street and slow that down like it's like I guess it's a real street with real intersections and crosswalks. We have been talking about moving vehicles flowing at hopefully 40 m an hourish. Um when those folks flow, it's a video game, right? We've seen it. When you push through there, you will eventually potentially get to see Pine Circle sooner. And so that's as much of a future capacity issue than it is just a safety issue, right? because today it does take a lot of time to get in and out of sea pines. Um, more than in the past, you know, pre-shortterm rentals. Um, more than just our patterns of of how we use and and live on the island. It it's changed. I used to live in C pines. It's different today. Um, even from my own very short reference there. It's capacity. It's the future. I think that if we are looking at the corridor, we should we should look at that. We should also look at Main Street as a parallel route. Main streets, a very parallel roads to your main road. Our main road are are the most important roads as well as where cars are slowing down and and moving through. So, I think this is as important as Main Street. Nothing's more important than the corridor.

Right. And I don't disagree with any of that. I would just put as the highest um priority those areas where we know that there are um have been abundance of accidents and fatalities. Um I get the capacity. I get that time is valuable to everyone and and I do understand sometimes I guess it's a little bit of the chicken and the egg thing here but um people's lives should take tough run. Yeah,

just a question. I'm just going to put this in in everybody's uh back of their brain for when we come to CIP that um it's categorized as a highest priority but I think once we start having discussions we might realize that it is not the highest priority because it's not our project. Right? So just think about that as we come back together and why would we make a DOT project our highest priority? So keep that in the back of your mind for our CIP meeting.

Exactly. With that being said, the next obvious one is is Follyfield Road. It's not our road. It's it's it's it is a pedestrian situation and we've never really bared out what the priority is. That's not our road. And to that it's a great point what you're making but that that also needs to stay a priority and we're getting close to that working with DOT. It did take us a couple years for them to understand how we think and for us to understand how they think.

The the difference is segment 8 number 55 is a DOT pro they're the project manager. Folly Field they're not the project manager at this point in time. That's the difference in my mind. Okay. Well, well, the priority is is that we do our part. Yeah, absolutely. Whatever it is, we do our part, we do it quickly, right? Yeah. And then assist in pushing the road. Well said. So,

yeah. I just want to Follyfield Road is a safety concern with the amount of traffic, foot traffic that is on that road. it's an entrance to one of the beaches and the um speeds at which people travel on just create a situation that needs to be addressed that can be addressed that we've talked about and I believe we have some approvals and some ways to really um start moving it along to to get it so that folks can travel safely up and down that road. Anyway, um I won't go into all of it.

Well, I'll go into a little more of it. I have been working with me Becker over time and and what I appreciate and and in all sincerity there's there's quite often isn't like isn't isn't being asked of me when is it coming? When's it due? It's pass. It's like have we made any progress with DOT? Have have we made the assessment? Do we have the traffic counts back yet? Do we have the analysis DOT has asked for? And what what we've done, frankly, over the last couple of years, sadly enough, because it's not our road. We first heard a no and then we heard a maybe and now we've heard a yes, right? And we've spent some time, money, and energy on the data, right? So, we have asked DOT to allow speed humps up the road. They said yes. I believe they've said yes. Right, Sean? Reduction of speed limit, pedestrian signs, including a sign that tells you how fast you're going. Right. And those have been very effective to help with traffic calming. Um that intersection where the road goes towards the beach or turns left towards um right if you're coming from 278 very problematic and we're still working on some solutions there. We've met with community members. We've met with DOT several times and I think um while that's a small number, it's really paint and signage and time and common sense that we're going to make a a much needed improvement where two of our beach parks connect, right? So

here's what, you know, going back to segment 8. Yeah. when it's a it's a DOT project. Yeah, we do our work and which is just us giving them the money so they can move forward. But it I'm afraid that that sets up the public to say, "Well, it's a it's a highest priority. Why aren't you doing anything?" Well, it's not our project to do it. So, that's why I want to have that deeper conversation at the CIP because it's misleading. Um, all we're doing is giving DOT $350,000 to go do their work, right? the others are totally different because we have more of a hand in it. So that's that's where I I want to be careful. Understand?

And and I just want to follow up with a thank you and we have been working on the Follyfield area for a number of years. It's in that situation there is exasperated by the um time shares that were approved without any type of traffic analysis which we've taken some steps to correct those types of things in the future. So again, more work that's been done um for the betterment of the community. Um and I want to thank Mark and staff for how long and how hard people have been working to to see us get to a point where that'll be a better situation for the residents and all of the visitors who go down to Follyfield in ander beach.

Yeah, I think it's another great case study. I'm very proud. It's not it's not perfect. It's not exactly what I would do with between Gumree and or between Dylan, excuse me, and Beach City, but it's a very good case study of county money, town effort, DOT road with an agreement. And that was a I would say a first in a long time other than just kind of painting some intersections uh where where pathways are. Um Folly Fields another good example and Gum and Gumree rem will remain that next highest priority. So I think we're we are building some momentum and and and learning about uh what DOT will and won't do. Another significant uh effort needs to be Squire Poke Road at those crosswalks, not just Gumree, right? Uh parks, park maintenance, nothing nothing out of the norm here. We're just working on all of this. I won't reiterate the projects. We know what these are. They're they're in the FY26 approved budget. You will see Calligney Crossings Park phase one, Crossings Park phase two. There Caliggney is in construction. I'll get out of your way. Um, crossings phase one is pickle ball design permitting. It'll be complete this fiscal year. Ready to go next. If if that's your choice for funding, and I think it is, it'll be the proposal ditto with phase two skate park pump track. probably not the Bristol Sports Arena just based on funding. I wish I wish we could figure out that it was all it would be a lot easier to just mobilize and do it once, but um we'll see how that works. But again, both of those will be ready to ready to go um shovel ready for next fiscal. Patterson Park is well, I think we're missing a construction check mark, but it it should say construction. Um, Taylor Family Park is under construction and

Old Schoolhouse under construction. So, um, again, three parks, uh, really investments and improvements in things we haven't had before. Um, and I think they'll add a lot of, uh, community neighborhood value. Four office way is under construction. We should be in there in late February, very early March. It will be on the second floor and all of engineering, which are cap projects, storm water, and transportation. Sorry, it's getting late. On the bottom floor, I I owe you a memo. I have it 90% complete to just let you know about Wildwing for Office Way move in ready for fire rescue headquarters. I'll get you that memo soon. But but but pushing on some things, right? We we've in invested, you know, dollars to simply just keep the lights on and and improve our buildings, equipment, town hall. We've slowed down here. Um I I I do believe that when we're done four office way um fire rescue headquarters, we need to talk about town hall at some point in the future. Um so not we don't need to get in this. We can talk about a lot of this at the workshop. You'll see these all of the coastal discovery museum investments fire rescue headquarters is is complete but with the upfit and then next year dispatch we talked about that this morning. Um working on the Jonesville horse barn bids were due. I haven't looked at them. the team's vetting and and qualifying them, but but by the time we find an operating partner on Jonesville Barn Paddic Stables, we're going to need to put some money in to stabilize that site parking ADA and a

couple other things, but it is a it is an investment. uh Mitchellville Freedom Park. Um we're in the permitting stage, town refuge recycling and and I put a green dot on that because that that that's not an easy just let's call the recycling company and recycle better. That that's been an investment of our time and strategically as a new piece of our business. And then storm water, I I shared a lot of that earlier with you. We won't have to go through all this today, but storm water the maintenance agreements programs and the maintenance and improvements on on our own without the agreements have been a real focus of Sean Gillan and and Jeff and team Bryant Road Pond Restoration as well. And again, that's in the construction. And this a little project, but a big lift. More storm water. More storm water. $6.3 million budget. I shared that information info with you earlier really fleet uh staff vehicle replacement and land acquisitions. We know what that is and we have had a very good great 2025. I think we can have a really great um greater 2026 with some specific investments as well. So um funding strategies we can save this for the workshop but the way I look at it is we can come to the workshop on the 24th. We can talk about prioritization and sequencing just like we did today. What are the ones? What are the twos? What are the threes? Funding options, right? Cash. We have an existing 35 million with a 26 remaining. Um future bond of storm water. I do believe it's time for us to at least even just assess a TIFF district since we're closing out the one we have is very very beneficial. Um especially for projects

existing and future fund balance. I know that we just need to have a conversation about it. And I've shared with you earlier, I I am reluctant to say we've paid down debt, we've saved more money, let's use all of it if we don't exhaust other options for parks or 278's a different story. We have to keep at least in our mirror or front windshield, however we're looking out the window. We have to be cognizant of the Buer County sales tax referendum. It could put some dollars in into Main Street. It could it it might not. It it might. So I think sometimes when you're shovel ready for stuff, Cine Circle particularly, Main Street particularly, if if we're if we're going to keep, you know, in the same direction and get it ready, when we do uncover some dollars, we can we can act quicker. So there's a little bit of that. Um, and then we talked about this with the GO bond in FY28 and 29. Feels like a long time from now, we'll be in a similar position if all things remain equal. um and and moving forward without any major catastrophe um we'll be in the same position to look at debt millage again at that point and at that time maybe that's a town hall look or maybe that's different capital projects look or it's millage reduced so all right thank you Mark so town council discussion anybody got anything,

Mr. Brown?

Yeah, before we leave the I've got some stuff for general discussion, but before we leave the capital improvement, um so I appreciate um the pivot to the 5-year look. Um but I'm curious to know, Mr. L, how are we going to plug numbers instead of just continuum of a priority? So, right now 77 million obviously there's going to be a burn there. we got to carry over some of that money to fiscal 27. So we'll have a a new bottom line. However, as we start to look at outer years against priorities, there will be a significant number there as well if our capital improvement team has been doing a better job with probable costs. Mhm.

I I mention that because we've got to look at funding strategies. Um you know, obviously we can cash pay as we go. We can borrow, which we have tons of capacity. Um and things like tiff districts are also opportunities. But each one of those have a political will component. Okay. And um the TIF district, which I think is a great idea, you know, I wasn't a part of the last TIFF discussion, but just from a common sense standpoint, I think TIF districts are attractive because those agencies that are going to be participating, there's not really a loss of revenue during the freeze because you're looking for economic development to happen. So, you'll have more happening to sort of support the deficit. I want to make sure that we understand that opportunity before we go asking our partners. I don't know what that looks like. Right? We talked about the Mid Island area. Um you know what that could look like having a tip district to support, but are we putting a condition in front of our partners to make that attractive? Okay. And I'm not quite sure that we're we're there. We're we're just saying tiff is great because we've seen some success, but there's a lot more to it as far as the political will piece is concerned that we have to consider. So now backing into the the debt discussion that is more of our control as far as political will is. So I want to understand a little bit better within the five years what that big number is going to be at the end of it because that's that's a more valuable discussion. So,

you asked you asked the $40 million question. Um, more

what what we need to do and I and I' I've got to work with Dave and and others to get ready for the February workshop. But my advice always is let's keep this simple, right? We know what the five-year prioritization looks like right now. It's up there. You adopted it. It was it helped us understand at least schematically, conceptually where the priorities are outside of year one. And so as a CIP program, I'm always looking at it as year one is next year, right? For me, it never ends. I never get to year five. And so we've just got to realize that while it's a five-year program, and that's what's asked of us from a prioritization standpoint, you we we will run out of money in year two and a half at this pace. And so if we just simply look at what the priorities are and what is an FY26 and our sh and share with you just real opinion of cost what we're going to do this year what we're not going to get to this year but it's current money how it rolls forward into 27 and then what those FY27 projects are and aren't

the rest just push out right the five-year CIP if we put opinion probable cost on it and try to fund it. I don't know how to fund it yet because I don't know if we're going to uh tiff district uh storm water bond beer county sales tax project referendum or grants like we we don't know that yet. But I I keep it simple and I've been working on this for a long time with some success in capital projects. Let's let's just really wrap our head around this year and next, but know what's on the horizon. And what's on the horizon is not either a affordable or b our highest urgent priority. And if we can think like that, cuz as for on your end, it doesn't have to be as tactical where we're going to put all the priorities in place and and and have have you all do that. So priorities, opinion of cost, we'll share with you. It it scared me, right? The priorities funded scare me. Here's why. We can't afford it. We don't have enough money and I'm not going to present a budget where I use and propose $100 million of fund balance to pay for the project. So, if we just go out one and a half years and know what we can build and know the team is very capable building high quality neighborhood impact uh benefit projects, I think we're fine. Um, but if we're trying to prioritize five years and figure out funding for five years and do all that, it's too much right now. That's just my And again, a little bit of perspective. I've I've worked on this and I've built some real good projects. We've built some real good projects, which has always been why I've been reluctant to put a number on the five-year priority list. And when you do it,

you stop because you can't afford it. But I think what it does do is help build the business case of looking at these various tools uh to consider funding.

Um and TIFF is a great example of that. And I I don't know how long it takes to set up a TIFF. I I think it would be good for us to understand because you talked about how we you know want to focus on the next year year and a half but if you know setting up a tiff district takes I'm making it up a year and a half two years then that's something that we'll need to think about sooner rather than later so that we can set ourselves up for success for the sequencing of other pieces and I think one of the activities that we should do now is focus on the full tiff. You know, if I think about going to our partners to sell the idea of a tiff, we should be able to tell them about the success of the last tiff and how they played a part in that and what we all got out of that as a town. Um and and we we did somewhat of a discussion as we were closing out the TIFF about some opportunities that we saw um in in regards to the projects associated with that TIFF and you know um taking that knowledge and moving it forward. But I think that would be a good activity to do.

That's great. I will at the workshop have a critical path and a and a high level schedule for TIFF. In my mind, it takes about a year. And to your great point, I agree with you. It's it's setting up the business case for that tiff. Um, all while we're trying to get ready for 27. So, tiff high level raised what, more than hund00 million in the last project. It funded Celebration Park. It funded USCB. It funded a bunch of things in between. And in my mind, it didn't fund some of the, and I'll use the baseball analogy again, the singles, the doubles, and the triples that added value, the crosswalks, the ditches, the storm water, and some of those some of those eye level issues, but has done a very good job funding the big stuff. It's all about your project list. So, and it's all about your partners at the end of the day. if Buer County is our partner and Buer County School District is our partner and I think that we have a lower or higher probability with one or the other and I won't say who um here um but it's I think it's all about the project list. So we don't walk in the room and say we need a tiff, we need a hundred million bucks because we have Mid Island Park. To the public comment earlier, I want to make sure I'm not I'm not under underestimating what that park could be. Um, there is some sticker shock to the dollars for phase 1 and two when we know that we need dollars for William Hilton Parkway Gateway Corridor. That's that's all I'm I'm reacting to. I was part of the master plan for Mid Island TIFF. But if we walk in the door to the school district and we say Mid Island Park is an outdoor classroom for nature, conservancy, preservation, environmental, and we say that Main Street sidewalks are safe routes to schools and that shows up on our project list, then our project partner. Maybe there's a poss a higher probability. I would say I would I would hope I would ask that the representatives that we all

lean on at the school district as one example would say I believe in the safe route to school. I believe in the outdoor classroom and and so on so forth. So even if it was a portion of the dollars it it's compounded on ours. So again it's project list. It's how we position it and the project list matters. Everything else is is is a math equation. Go ahead.

Thank you. Um, so first I wanted to say thank you to to you Mark for the presentation. Um, and for the opportunity today to have the great discussions that we've already had. Um, and because it was the last thing you said which struck home for me, the idea of um, of having building the case for TIFF and utilizing Mid Island Park um, specifically for educational opportunities. You named a few and as you were naming them, they were rattling off in my mind. There is such great opportunity within just that. Um, so I would be encouraged to learn um a little bit more about that process and you as the CEO leader of this um town um I would look to you to to bring those thoughts to us um to um consider so that we can help support you in that.

Thank you. Thank you. Can I add a little bit of discussion to the tiff timeline things? I think high level is good, but I think we also need to remember um that as part of that timeline, you have to develop your project list and build your case um before you then start the process. And then on the back end, there's some time for the money to roll in before you can actually spend it. Right, Steve?

I guess I'm the last one to speak and then the mayor, but I'm going to change the subject just a little bit. the, you know, for a tiff you need just economic development. They kind of work together. And not to get too technical, but if you go outside, you can feel the wind always moving from east to west. And for some reason over 5 years, it's been moving east to west. And technically what that is, that's Bluton and Hardyville sucking the air out of Hilton Head, taking our employees, taking our businesses, taking our economic development. And what we need to do is we need to focus of all the things that we're doing today, that's great. That's internal. That's here. But to sustain Hiltnet Island and to have the funds to do all these things, we have to grow our economic development. We have to be able to find just within our own boundaries. We have thousands of business owners that own businesses all over the world and we should be able to knock on the doors of the people we know and get some of that corporate headquarter corporate thinking and build some great economic development opportunities in Hilton Head and more of a reason for us to not wait for 20 more years for that piece of plywood to lay against the door but go get these areas is bring those areas into the town of Hilton Head, find these private this private money and take care of ourselves because no one else is going to. And so you get more economic development. And when you look when you look 25 years ago, there was more business on this island 25 years ago than there is now. Because

the places that we're looking at that I'm we've been talking about that are blighted, those were all businesses that were thriving. Our mayor's family had one of them. All these businesses were thriving and now they're closed. So, we can't lose that. We got to go back after it. There's so many blighted areas that could be an economic development um bonus for all of us to sustain us. So, that's my two cents.

Yeah, Steve, you're absolutely right. I I was going to kind of say the the same thing about the economic development with the tiff. They do go hand in hand and um and it really goes back to that to the LMO discussion as to what are we going to let allow redevelopment where um are we going to allow mixed use? What are those things that are going to bring in the businesses but also the employees as well. So yeah, it's there's a lot on the table. Um, and I agree with with your statement and you know I I I I use this analogy often because it's one that I was directly involved with and that was the expansion of the Island Rec Center. You know, I worked on that for 13 years and when I started it was a $5 million project. When it ended it was uh ended up being about an $18 million project. Took over 13 years. And I remember my son saying as these little kids came in the other day with their petition, my boys saying, "Council, do something because I want to be able to enjoy it while I'm still in school." It didn't happen. And you're right, that piece of board's going to sit there for 20 years unless we are proactive in creating opportunities for economic development. And I think that, you know, Mark made a statement statement earlier and I cringed u when he says, you know, we're in trouble. You know, that that's it's a real statement. And, you know, I was interviewed by WSAV and TOC and they asked me about it. I said, well, it's a challenge. We're good at coming back and and and making things right, but it is the economic development side of it that is going to secure our future. And we've got to be very careful in how we do that.

I don't want to confuse people. You know, people say no growth, no growth, no growth. It's different. It is. Economic development in areas that have already been developed, that are redeveloped property is not expanding us past our, you know, our limits, but it's sustaining us. And we just we just have to be really um we just really have to go after that and not let not let the next council do it or the council after that because we're not they're not going to get a chance. They're just not. Betsy.

Yeah. Um, two things. One is that kind of future discussion. I'll set that aside for a moment because I want to go back briefly to the previous TIF in USCB. I do think it's time we put on the table what is going on with that building. Over $20 million of that TIFF money spent. And all I know is there's some oy classes going on over there. We need to know what's going on and what are we going to do about it. It's time that we answered that we ask those questions and answer them, get get answers to them. Now, with regard to the future, I agree we got to figure out what to do about um our economic development, our existing businesses, and what we can do to support our economy going forward. We absolutely have to do that. So, that's kind of the inside look. And then there's the outside look, what's going on beyond the other side of the bridge, so to speak, all the way out to I95. We are going to be greatly impacted by all of the growth out there and it is going to affect us immensely. So as we look in the future, look out the windshield, right? I'm not looking in the rearview mirror. I'm looking out the windshield as what's coming towards us. So we have got to plan for both of those. What in this strat plan helps us prepare for those two? We have one goal about economic development and business retention, but what do we have about the impact of the rest of the world coming towards us? We got a plan on both those two future events.

Correct. Absolutely correct. We got 200,000 people in the next 10 or 12 years that when they take a break on the weekend and go to the beach, they're coming to Hilton Head. So, Saturday afternoons, the wind blows east. Saturday mornings, the wind blows west. So, I'm staying at home and letting the air conditioning blow on me. Well, I go ahead, Alex. Yes. So, I'm going get to my closing thoughts here. Yeah, there you go. And I agree with all that's been said. Um, I

I wanted to just circle back to to where we started. Um, obviously the town council plays a critical role in how we move things forward, but nothing moves without the town manager and the staff. And I think we've done a really good job sort of pivoting as far as process is concerned. Um I'm just going to reflect a little bit here. We went from three subcommittees to two. I mean we had some internal arguments about that but I think that's working well for us. It has now given the town manager more structure or better structure to get us to an end result. I think we've had much better discussion amongst ourselves to help get to that end point. This year we will be changing how many times we meet for policy decisions, right? Um, and I'm hopeful that that will also be something that will help us get to success. So, you know, this council has shown the ability to to be very agile, okay? And I just want to encourage us to to keep that type of mindset. That's very important. Okay? And as we're doing that, give the new process time to develop. because it's going to look and feel different for a little bit. Our access to Mr. Orlando may look and feel a little bit different as we go through

this this new process. But I think that's okay because we understand that we have some things in front of us. LMO as a prime example that's going to take a lot of his time that in a normal situation if he was fully staffed and everybody up to speed with years of experience may not take his eye on it as much. So I just ask that we as a council and as a community really give some grace there so that we can move forward. Okay. And the only way that that's really going to happen is if the seven of us have a clear message to our community that that is where we're going. We can't let the community beat us up about when is their issue going to get solved tomorrow when we know that we've got a bigger issue in front of us that we're trying to get through. so we can start thinking about some of this long-term stuff that's so important because let's face it, as we're going through the LMO rewrite over the next four or five months, we're going to have slippage on this east and west blow that Mr. Desimo was talking about, we'll have slippage that we can't pay attention to. So, the sooner we can scrape that LMO off of our plate so we can get back to swimming in a much higher uh altitude, then the better off we'll be. But that again is going to have to be very clear to our constituents. And I want to say constituents again because not all constituents are voters. It's just face it. It's a fact. And depends on what time you're going to go to the polls, that number even fluctuates even more. We we got less

voters in midterm years than we do in years where we're electing the president, right? So, let's get out of the the the voter count and get into the constituency best interest. That's a whole different ballgame. I think that's a commitment that we have to make. And I'll just close with uh Mr. Orlando um was whispering in my ear that today has been one of the better discussions we've had as a council and I wholeheartedly agree with that. I really do. But it has a lot to do with the way we have sort of set the cones out for ourself. We're having a very structured conversation.

Mhm.

Very structured conversation. And this is um probably after Mr. Desimone was on council and Mr. Babel's here. Uh, Miss Bath's here. They can attest to what I'm about to say. There were years where you would have a strategic planning session in January and people would come off of the streets and stand at a podium like this and they get a lot more than 3 minutes by the way. and depending on their influence in the community would depend if something was going to be a priority or not. We are so far past that. I give us don't have a lot of credit for that because he has structured us so we're having more qualified conversations. So with that, continue to give him grace, continue to support him as we move forward.

Thank you. Any other closing statements? just yours.

Just mine. May I say one thing? One, go ahead. Thank you. And and and Mr. Brown's right. What a day. What a great day. I I woke up fired up with a little bit of of trepidation on on looking at 6 months and and trying to figure out with y'all what's first and then what's second. And so I I think we did a a great job at that today. And and what's jumping out is we really talked about high level and in the future. And so, um, great team behind me. We've prepared. We're ready to roll. I will just tell you a couple quick outcomes from today. We will issue a press release. I think it's very important that the community hear what your priorities are. Um, website alone, but the priorities and the accomplishments that are all focused on strategic plan. We will see you at the CI before then but at the CIP workshop in February and the William Hilton Parkway gateway corridor master plan workshop in March. Um bunch of other uh a lot of other work to really start and then really aligning uh this new staff member Michelle Mueller with housing action committee and economic development. I I do believe we'll start seeing some real results in those programs to catch up with with some of this other stuff. So, I appreciate it. I I cannot tell you uh enough how much I appreciate uh serving as the town manager on this island and and absolutely uh enthused for working for you and I appreciate it.

Well, we appreciate having you and the rest of the staff. Um today was great. Everybody had a lot of great input and everybody respected each other and that is a big thing and um just proves that we can move forward together civily and I'm very proud of that and there are a lot of big things ahead of ahead of us and I started off this morning with saying we need to give Mark the opportunity to do his job. Um sometimes we don't do that as council. You know we're in his ear. We want to know we're we're pushing for things. Well, right now we need to step back a little bit and let let Mark work with his staff, let them move forward and bring some projects to completion. And by by allowing him and creating additional time for him, he can do that because he is in the role to execute these things until those staff members come back. So, um I I appreciate everybody that's been here today, those that spoke, um those that stayed all day. Um, thank you staff. I appreciate all y'all being here. Um, and it just goes to show once again how great our town is and we are moving forward in a great great pace and things are going to be great. We have challenges but we'll overcome them. So, anything else?

Thank you. All right. Great. Everybody have a great day.