Town Council - Regular Meeting

Bye.

Good afternoon, I'd like to call this town council meeting of September 15th, 2026 to order, if you will stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. If you'll continue standing while we have Pastor McClure do the invocation.

Let's pray. Gracious Father, we pause before the business of this evening to acknowledge you as the giver of every good gift and thank you for the blessings we enjoy in this remarkable place we call home. Thank you for the natural beauty of Hilton Head Island, for its beaches and marshes, its waterways and wildlife, and for the privilege of being stewards of these resources. We thank you for the people who make this community strong. the families and neighbors and business owners, employees, teachers and students, first responders, healthcare workers, volunteers, and public servants. We recognize that a thriving community is built through the daily efforts of ordinary people who care deeply about their community and one another. Today we ask your blessing upon the members of this town council. Grant them wisdom beyond their own understanding, patience in their deliberations, courage to make decisions that serve the long-term good of this community. Help them to listen carefully, speak thoughtfully, and lead with integrity. We pray that even when opinions differ, there will be mutual respect, and may the discussions of this evening be marked by civility, fairness, and a genuine desire to seek what's best for all who call this island home. As we began this meeting, we ask for your guidance, your peace, and your blessing upon this council, this community, and all who are gathered here today. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Thank you, Pastor.

All right, Mr. Orlando, do we have any changes to the agenda?

Yes, sir. Proposed to move item 6E to 6D, ultimately to flip D&E, sir.

6E to 6D? Okay. Do I have a motion? We've got a first and second. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. So moved, seven, zero. We will move on to the workshop meeting minutes of July 28th and the regular meeting minutes of August 11th, 2026. Is there a motion to approve?

Yes. One slight correction, the minutes of August 11th. On page five, it's Beaufort County and not Jasper County, and I'll hand that minor correction to the clerk.

Okay. Mr. Alford, do you accept that change?

Yeah, I think so.

Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Okay, we got a first and a second. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, raise your hand. So moved, 7-0. Next up, we'll hear from Mr. Orlando and his town manager's report. Yes, good afternoon, Mayor, Council, members of the public.

Thank you for being here. A couple of things today, I've kept this short really for time's sake with the agenda, but a few great things to talk about. Our Fire Rescue Department, where's Chief? Chief Blankenship, everybody is in the room. Our Fire Rescue Department earned a national EMS accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services. So the initial site, and this is important detail to just be proud of. The initial site evaluation had zero discrepancies. That's an achievement, as we're told, only attained by a handful of departments. fewer than 200 agencies nationwide hold this accreditation and only 39 fire-based EMS agencies hold that accreditation. So congratulations to you and your leadership. In essence, it lets people know that Hilton Head Island is among the select group of municipalities nationwide recognized for excellence in fire suppression, emergency medical services and emergency management. So great job. Some roadwork, there's a lot of capital projects that are going on. But I like to tell you all when they're getting close to being completed and or when things are getting started, you're going to see some road survey work going on. It's starting in the middle of September, September 15th is the plan. Lagoon Road, Gumtree Road, and Squire Pope Road. And Gumtree Road and Squire Pope Road are important for us to know. There'll be a strong survey crew out there, but that is to supplement and to get started the work that's planned out there as part of the capital improvement program. So stay tuned on that. You'll see that the town staff out there, but also survey surveyors, they'll be on the job from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday. So there's a lot of surveying to do. Hilton Head Island Jam Songwriter Festival returns this weekend, 17th to the 20th of September. It includes concerts at Lowcountry Celebration Park and a kickoff Thursday night as well. One addition to that this year that we're proud of and happy about is that the Office of Cultural Affairs led by Natalie and Robin and Angie, they've partnered with the Island School Council for the Arts and the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra to provide a free students-only event at Sound Waves. So the visiting songwriters, they'll be present with a music publisher, they'll share tips, experiences, and discuss songwriting as a career with the students in middle school and older. So very, very excited about that. We're also having, and a big thank you to our Gullah Geechee Historic Neighborhood Community Development Corporation, and as importantly, the exec director, Thomas Boxley. There is a small business and contractor networking event, one on the September 22 date and the other on the 29th. So they'll be both at USCB from five to seven, and the 22nd will connect local businesses with staff, town staff, and resources related to procurement, business licensing, community development, and the other one on the 29th will focus on upcoming town capital projects and contracting opportunities. So great opportunity. There's also a drainage neighborhood meeting The town is hosting it on September 22nd, busy day, from 4.30 to 6.30 at USCB for drainage improvement projects on Shell Midden Lane, Hickory Lane, Cordillo Parkway, and South Forest Beach. Staff and project representatives will be present to gather resident feedback on flooding and drainage concerns. So for time's sake, that concludes my report.

All right, thank you. Next, we have a proclamation recognizing National Senior Center Month and Leah Arnold, Island Rec Association Parks and Recreation Executive Director, along with Jerry Bronski, Senior Center Coordinator, and Bethany Brown, Senior Center Program Manager of Island Rec Center are here to accept the proclamation. Would y'all come up and join me at the podium? The town of Hilton Head Island, National Senior Center Month Proclamation. Whereas National Senior Center Month is observed annually in September to recognize and celebrate the vital role that seniors play in enhancing the health and well-being of older adults. And whereas senior centers serve as community hubs, offering a wide range of programs and services that promote social engagement, physical activity, lifelong learning, and access to health and wellness resources. Whereas the theme for National Senior Center Month, 2026, as designated by the National Council on Aging, is happier birthdays happen here, highlighting the importance of social connection, health, wellness, and economic security resources and creative and cultural engagement opportunities that senior centers play for older adults. And whereas Hilton Head Island is committed supporting its growing older adult population through programs and services that empower older adults to live healthy, active, and independent lives. And whereas Island Recreation Association strives to create a community that values and supports older adults, ensuring they have opportunities to connect, contribute, and thrive. Now, therefore, I, Alan R. Perry, the mayor of the town of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, do hereby proclaim September as National Senior Center Month and encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the contributions of older adults in the essential roles of the Hilton Head Island Senior Center in our community. Congratulations and thank you.

I just want to welcome everybody to the meeting today and also welcome you to stop in at the Hilton Head Senior Center. A lot of people don't know where it is. It is in the Sheriff's Department down Mid Island there on Shelter Cove Drive. It's a great facility that the town and the island rec provides for our seniors. And just so you know, seniors are 50 and older, which is 62% of this population. So we rule here on Hilton Head Island. but we do a lot of different things we do exercise classes we have a little mini bus that we drive to Savannah and Beaufort and Tybee Island and we go to the Savannah banana game we just went to we have parties at our Center and so it's a very joyful happy no judging each other place for people just to congregate, especially if you just moved here to retire and you don't have a lot of friends or family yet here, this would be a great place for you to stop in. And I'm going to leave some of these in the back so you can get excited about what you want to do when you come down. All right. Have a happy birthday.

Thank you very much. All right. Moving on. I'm going to ask. that the Diamond Youth Baseball Group come on up. Stand over here to my right. Let's have the crowd. All right, we settled great. So the town of Hilton head Island commendation honoring the diamond youth baseball Hilton head all-stars 12 year. Whereas the Hilton head all-stars have demonstrated exceptional skill, determination, teamwork, and sportsmanship through their season throughout their season, including the diamond youth baseball state state championship in Greenville in July. And whereas the team proudly represented Hilton Head Island in the Diamond Youth Baseball Majors World Series, July 27 to August 2 in Laurel, Mississippi, culminating in an outstanding championship victory to become the Majors World Series champions. And whereas this remarkable accomplishment reflects not only the talent and dedication of the players, but also the commitment of their families. Coach Zach McCormie, McCombie, sorry, and Garrett Hamilton, Manager Rob Hummel, and all the supporters who encouraged them throughout their journey. And whereas the Hilton Head All-Stars have brought great pride and recognition to Hilton Head Island through their hard work, perseverance, and success on the regional and national stage. Now, therefore, I, Alan R. Perry, Mayor of the Town of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, on behalf of Town Council, hereby commend and honor R.D. Hummel, Grant McCombie, Graham Hamilton, Colin Heeman, Connell Rooney, Zach Metzger, Liam Schilling, Liam Dorsheimer, Owen Sanchez, Hayne Carstens, and Shiloh Cross are the Hilton Head All-Stars for winning the Diamond Youth Baseball Majors World Series. May this championship serve as a lasting reminder of what can be accomplished through teamwork, dedication, and a commitment to excellence. Congratulations to the players, coaches, and families and everyone who supported this team and their incredible achievement. Congratulations, guys. So I need to get over here real quick and grab something for you. Let me swing through here. So here you go, buddy. Thank you for making Hillbud look great and for all that you've done with these great, exceptional young men.

Thank you. I just want to, on behalf of the HHBA, say thank you to the town council for all you do for Crossings. Thank you to Rec Center Leah and her staff. And most importantly, the people who fund it, the taxpayer here in Hilton Head. So thank you all very much. And these boys have really been putting a name on the map for Hilton Head. And although it ended with a Dixie World Series title, they've been state champs. They've been runner-up a couple times. And really a class act of South Carolina. Couldn't be prouder.

Let's give them a chance to move on out. All right, so next up, we'll have the Beaufort County update on the William Hilton Parkway Gateway Corridor Project. Mr. Jared Freilichs.

Thank you, council. Thank you for the opportunity to present, provide an update on the 278 corridor project. And now as referenced as the US 278 eastbound bridge replacement project. So a lot of this information that I'll cover, you've heard before at the very end, it'll be a short presentation, but give the meat and potatoes about where we are in schedule and what our next steps are. So with that. So the project, as we all know, has been going on for quite some time. It started in 2017. We went through different public information meetings all the way up until 2022, which was our big public information meeting, and then ultimately changed courses in the summer of 25, which you can see there, the eastbound bridge replacement kickoff. So we're moving forward, and I'll provide the detail on where we're going next. And again, to just reiterate that to the public, so this is the replacement of the eastbound Mackay Creek Bridge. This bridge is in DOT's priority list of replacement projects. It was built in 1956. One thing to note, there's two creeks that the bridges are crossing, and there's four independent spans, of which one of the four, the eastbound creek, is the bridge that's the oldest bridge. The others were built in the 70s, and although they're not due for replacement, at least the eastbound spans are being replaced with this project. Next. So again, in 2022, we've had a lot that's happened since then, but that was the major public information meeting for the project, the original project, and then since then, next slide. This is really what's happened in our world. So the big thing we experienced was COVID obviously in 2020 and coming out of that in 2021, the price of groceries in our world has increased. Groceries went up about 20%, a little over 20%, but the cost of construction, we saw a significant increase. The cost of our project grew from approximately $300 million to $500 million. So at that time in 2025, a decision had to be made as far as what do we do with the funds that we have. There wasn't any available funds to cover that $200 million delta. So the decision was made to build a project within our means. And that ended up as the eastbound bridge replacement. So the difference is the purpose and need of the two projects. The original project covered not just the structural deficiencies of the eastbound, but also reduced congestion. With the new eastbound bridge replacement projects, we're still addressing the structural deficiency, but not addressing congestion in the same manner. We have the bridge and roadway approaches on both sides that will be concluded to tie it back into the existing pavement. But the main purpose of this project is to eliminate the structural deficiency of that 1956 Mackay Creek Bridge. Again, some of the differences is the whole corridor versus the shortened corridor. But the things that are the same is that we are addressing the bridge. The wildlife rescue at CC Hague is getting improved access. That's a dangerous ingress and egress. We're also maintaining access to Hog Cove and Mariner's Cove with this revised version. And one of the drawbacks in the larger project was the stony impacts and this revised project is not impacted in the stony area. Next slide. Again, this is the version of what we're taking a look at. To describe this, the new bridge is to the east. Different than the existing bridges, the bridges presently come down to the east. to grade on Pinckney Island and the proposed bridge, it will remain elevated across similar as if you're going to Savannah and you're trying to get to Hutchinson Island, that bridge is over. And then in a similar manner, it'll have a D cell lane and XL lane to get off in the eastbound direction and then you'll take the loop road that will go underneath the new bridge and that's exactly where the existing bridge starts to go up again. So it'll go under both bridges if you'd like to get to the reserve. If you're coming from the westbound direction on the top of the screen and you'd like to get to the boat ramp, then you would get off, take a right and go under the bridges and then if you wanna go back to Hilton Head, you can get back there. just to give you some census space on that. Also in the hatched area is what will be demoed out with the project, with the exception of the two bridges there on the east side, on the right side of the screen, those bridges are actually connected together across the Skull Creek. So the second bridge, which is presently the eastbound section, will not be removed, even though it's hatched right there. Next slide. So to remind everybody what the configuration of this, so the intent is to replace the bridge, but it's being sized large enough such that in the future when the westbound bridges are due for replacement, that there will be sufficient space for four lanes of traffic. So it is being sized for both today and tomorrow. Today being the two lanes that we have going on eastbound, You can see a 10 foot shoulder to the inside, two travel lanes, and then an extended 22 foot shoulder on the eastbound side, right side of the road as you drive. The reason is that is we don't have any road work on either side of the bridge as part of this project, but should road work take place as contemplated in the master plan that you guys have and we'll be talking about later or in a subsequent project, we could add a third lane with the right, and the bridge could be restriped and still maintain a sufficient shoulder. And again, if need be, we could have four lanes of traffic with separation and shoulder for a construction of the westbound whenever that project would take place. Next slide. So this is really where we are today. So we kicked off last summer with this rebrand. At the time it was a concept, so we had about a 10% plan. We were approximately 60% in design on the larger original project. So we kind of had to go back a step. We started that process and then in October of last year, we were 20 to 30%. We had a revised public information office or meeting and gained input and comments from the public. Since then, we've been working expeditiously on the design and permitting And just recently in May, we received federal FONSI finding of no significant impacts for our environmental document from Federal Highway. That's a big marker in the project. And that gives us permission to move forward on right of way acquisition and utility coordination and then final design and permitting. So that's exactly where we are today. If you can stay back on that slide. That's exactly where we are today is in that final design and permitting. Coordination is taking place right now with Fish and Wildlife on right away and we'll be reaching out shortly to the town and town staff as far as right away acquisition on town owned properties. Additionally, we're working with the various utility partners in the power company, Santee Cooper, and then the utilities, the dry utilities and wet utilities as far as their coordination plans. And then the intent is that we will have the final design complete by summer of next year. And then it will go out to bid next fall and winter of 2027 with anticipated construction to start in early 2028. So still unscheduled to what we talked about last year when we kicked off the revised project. Next. Again, the goal here is to build for the day, but make sure that we remember where we started. We had a original vision to address the entire corridor. Although we're doing it now, basically in phases, we're trying to preserve as much flexibility for what will happen both on the bridges, as well as what you guys are working through and contemplating in the master plan, next. And then this was kind of the feedback that we got in that public information meeting as far as the number of attendees and the comments received and all the views. The new website, in addition to the logo, is you can see here at scdot278bridgereplacement.com. It also, the old website, the Bridge US 278 Corridor Project still is available. It'll direct you to this. You can find the latest and great resources materials on this website. One thing to note that I didn't reference in the slides, but just to make everybody aware, in August of last year, the county and town put together a grant application to Federal Highway. It's the large bridge grant application. And for many, many, many months, we did not hear anything back. Here recently we did hear word back from Federal Highway and initially it was a direct no on the grant. However, what they provided, they didn't provide much context to that no initially. We were able to hold a debrief call with them and they explained some of the elements. Most of it was the benefit cost analysis that they had some discussion or differences in. However, they provided the opportunity to DOT and the county. They gave us two weeks to provide a revised submittal and we did that with their comments and considerations taken and have resubmitted that back to Federal Highway So now it's back in their court. They will make their final recommendations to USDOT and USDOT will then make a final determination on the grants, not just our grant application, but the program overall. Should we be successful and get that grant, then the question will be, we'll have to go back to all of our funding and strategic partners on the project to say, okay, do we accept the grant or not? We're this far along on the refine project. Is it too far or do we kind of double step, double clutch and come back and look at the larger project? As you're aware, the larger project has some differences than what you guys have and propose in the master plan. It's not to say that one's right and one's wrong. It's just to say that that larger project as originally conceived can only fit so much in it. And that would be a consideration that would have to be looked at by all of our partners. That's again, we'll see what response and when, if we even get a response, when that would be. But right now we're moving forward with the redefined project on the scope and the schedule as presented. So with that, I'll take any questions that you might have.

Thank you, Jared, for the update. Appreciate it. And you mentioned the utilities, and that's where I want to go with my question. And it has to do with the funding needed for the relocation of the Hilton Head and Broad Creek PSD pipeline. As people are aware, the pipeline from the mainland to the island provides water to our residents, businesses, healthcare facilities, schools, and the airport. And we talked about this before, and we had come up with an agreement in the resolution on February 24th of 25, that the pipe would be replaced And that reimbursement would be made to the limits defined in the state act 36, which allows for a certain percentage of reimbursement. And then the difference would be made up in local funds. And if there was an overage, then that would come from reserve funds. So the PSD completed their engineering analysis based off of the new design. and said that the construction and demolition activities for the bridge project could create a significant and unacceptable risk to the drinking water supply and the pipeline serving the island and that the relocation is necessary. But unfortunately, the South Carolina DOT at a meeting in July said that in their opinion, the pipeline does not need to be moved and that if it is moved, it's considered a betterment. And when it's a betterment, then they don't reimburse under that state program. So we're gonna need to move the pipeline due to the risk. And so the question is, how are we going to fund that? And so can you shed any light on next steps in regards to this to try to get the state to reimburse and then what the plan will be to cover the additional costs?

Yeah, those are conversations that are going on right now between the state, the county and the PSD continually. So not just July, we've had subsequent conversations since then. So first of all, as far as the resolution in February, the joint resolution between the county and the town, we included that in our update to the state infrastructure bank. We got a resounding no on our initial plan and attempt. And so from that, we repackaged the plan, basically took out some of the comments. They didn't give us much feedback initially. We had a debrief with the SIB. They gave us feedback on what those comments were and we repackaged it. And now we have a total project cost without any independent And so the funding is still there, but the state act is basically up until the point of construction. You don't know how much that is 4% in the state act. So we're working through that with PSD and the utility partners. Secondly, there's still coordination back and forth between PSD and DOT on what is included in as a betterment slash necessary relocation. And so there are elements that are already agreed upon that will be part of the project. There's other areas where that disagreement is continuing to work through. Ultimately, we're all working together that we want to make sure that we delineate and define and eliminate as much risk as possible. But those are the elements that we're working on. And so the work continues and that's part of that utility coordination.

All right. Thank you for that update.

Mr. Alford, do you have a question?

Ms. Becker?

Hey, Jared. Thank you for your report. A couple things. You kind of went quickly through the construction time period. So I understand perhaps that bids would be lit in the winter, hopefully fall winter of 2027. Yes. And then construction would start in 2028, in the early part of 2028. And then the timetable is completion of construction in what part of 2030?

Yeah, there's a 30-month planned construction timeframe. So that would give us the mid to late 2030 for our construction delivery.

That's a question I'm most often asked. When is it going to be completed? So I wanted to confirm that. The other thing, it's interesting about the resubmission of the grant to the federal, I guess it's USDOT or Federal Highway.

It goes initially to Federal Highway, Federal Highway up to USDOT.

Okay. All right. And we don't know that time period. But if that grant is awarded, then we're going to be back to the situation of if there's additional money, then we've got to decide whether or not to reconsider this current project and go back to the previous project. It seems as though, what will be the process, so once the county receives that information, and I guess it's SEDOT and the county, who are the applicants, once that information is received, what is the process for informing the town of Hilton Head about those results?

Yeah, as soon as we find out, we'd let all the partners on the project know that the grant has been awarded. But award is, here's an award you have to then physically accept. So there would be discussion by all parties collectively And specifically DOT is the one because the current bridge, the Mackay Creek is in a condition that they have to manage and they have to make a determination if they think this will, extend the project timeline? And can they continue to manage that project to get to the larger project? And I mean, that's the first answer that has to be done. Secondly, would be how would we go about doing that? So that would be something as soon as we get notice of a potential award, we would coordinate with all of our partners.

And my concern is because last time there was a lag in providing information to the town of Hilton Head as to the status of the grant. I think I finally heard it during a chat with county council members at the library. So I think we need to be assured that there's gonna be right away notice to the town about the determination of that grant. So that's the first thing. And then the other thing is I asked you at a previous meeting about the time period. Folks are concerned about the condition the span going over Mackay Creek and understood that SEDOT is working on some measures to increase the stability of that section during the time period it takes to actually do the reconstruction and that we would not be faced with weight limits on that bridge. Is that still the case?

I'M NOT AWARE OF WHAT ARRANGEMENTS THEY ARE MAKING OTHER THAN THE COMMENT THAT SECRETARY POWELL HAD MADE PREVIOUSLY THAT HIS GOAL IS NOT FOR THAT BRIDGE TO BE WEIGHT RESTRICTED. BUT I'M NOT SURE OF ANY SPECIFIC MEASURES THAT THEY'RE TAKING OR HAVE TAKEN.

OKAY. BUT THAT IS THE GOAL OF SEDOT?

AS SECRETARY POWELL STATED, YES.

GREAT. THANK YOU. AND GOING BACK TO THIS GRANT REQUEST, IS THERE A TIME IN THIS PROCESS ON THE EASTBOUND at which we need to say, go ahead, no matter what the determination is on the grant, is there a time period during the current timeline that we must say, no matter what you do with the other money, we got to proceed? And what would that be?

Well, definitely once we receive bids and award a contract, that would be one specific bookmark in. But between now and then, that would have to be a consideration. DOT is going to be really the driving force because they're the ones responsible for the safety and maintenance of the bridge. But I don't know specifically a timeline when is the cut date of go or no go as far as accepting the grant.

But probably during that bid process, the fall, or winter of 2027. That's probably when we're looking at that, if you will, drop dead time.

Yeah, the drop dead date is we're ready to award a contract and we haven't heard anything. And we've got a contract, a bid, and we're ready to award. That would definitely be a bookend date.

Thanks for addressing those tough questions. That's what my constituents are asking me, so thank you.

Sure, absolutely. Ms. Barker. Sure. Hi, Jared. Hey.

Thanks for coming tonight and updating. And thank you, Melinda, for asking the question on the water pipe that was also on my list of questions. We have that out of the way. I think mine are a little bit easier now.

Sure, take it.

You're welcome. You mentioned in your presentation that with the grant that they would also review, I wrote it down, hopefully I wrote it correctly, the program overall?

No, I think the benefit cost analysis, is that what you're referencing?

Yeah, when you were discussing the consideration for the grant, that they would consider the grant. and the project.

So the project that was submitted in the grant was where we left in 2022 with the last version of the preferred alternative. That was the version. So if the grant gets awarded, that would be the project that moves forward, the elements that are in the master plan that the town is working through and considering tonight. With the overhead, the the walking path across Squire Pope, and then the Spanish whales considerations, those are not part of that preferred alternative.

So you knew where I was going with the question. So then continuing on that, so then none of those additional funds, if they were to come through, would apply to any pieces?

They wouldn't apply to that project, but both of those projects, just mentioned that Squire Pope and Spanish Wells are on the 2026 transportation referendum, so should that pass, regardless of the other project and the funding attached to the previous, the large corridor project, there would be funds there if that passed.

So some of the segments in our work that we'll discuss later tonight has to do with some areas in unincorporated Beaufort County that was originally part of the bigger project. Would it apply to those areas?

Yes, some of the stuff on the mainland side is in the original project, yes.

Okay, all right. Well, I told you my questions would be easier. These ladies took most of all of mine, so I'm good for now. Thank you for coming tonight. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Thank you. Any other questions? Couple quick ones. Outside of the grant and FONSI, you mentioned Fish and Wildlife. You've got to get the permits through them. Is there anything else besides that that could cause hiccups?

No, really, the utilities with PSD, that's really one of the major things that we're working through. And then we've already had good conversations with Fish and Wildlife. They're going to handle that locally out of the Atlanta office and local Savannah office. So we've got good points of contacts there. The two major holdups on most major infrastructure projects other than the environmental are utility coordination and right away. So on the right away, it's either four or five parcels. So a $300 million, I mean, we have more than that on our pathway projects that we're trying to do. in the 2018 sales tax. So there's limited hurdles that we see at this point that would hold up the schedule that's been presented.

Okay when do you really expect for the public to start seeing designs because I know that that there are certain areas at the basis of the bridge whereby some outlets or inlets have been blocked previously some outflows has created some let's just say some silt buildup in some areas. So at what point in time would you expect to see some of that come around?

They're starting to move the plans and advance the plans pretty far. I don't know specifically how to get with DOT when they would release elements of that. I do know that some of the hope to reestablish some of that waterway and blockages. That ability's been limited with the reduced project because the intent was in the larger project where we're doing all six lanes, we were gonna extend the bridge closer to Windmill Harbor so we could recapture that. Well, in today's environment, we're not doing anything with the westbound lane, so that's still blocked, regardless of whether we can create it with the bridge. I know that's something that's been looked at a little bit further, but as far as release of plans, I'll have to get some more intel from DOT on that.

Okay, that'd be great. Because I know there's some people that are talking about how they can potentially open up some additional waterways, not on Hilton Head, but in Jenkins and other areas. So that'd be great. Yeah, absolutely.

All right.

Any other questions? Great. Thank you so much. Sounds great. Thank you. Next we'll move on to, where are we? Destination Marketing Quarterly Metrics Report. Arianna Pernice with the Hilton Head Island Boston Chamber of Commerce, Vice President of Visitor Convention Bureau. So Chase and Ari, please come on up. Ari.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Town Council, Town Manager and staff. My name is Arianna Pernice and I represent the Hilton and Island Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.

And I'm Chase Odell, also with the Hilton and Island Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.

And we are here to report out on our quarterly report based on our contract that we have that's new this time around. So I believe everyone has received the report and we have a If you don't mind, we'll just kind of jump right into it. Is that good? This is May through July of 2026. We're gonna touch on first public relations. As you know, that is the earned opportunity. This will be for May through July. And the opportunities in front of us are to tell that story in the out markets, to really dive into our core values and our efforts that we've put forward that we've talked about. and really pitch to our partners at the media through Heather and her team, all the good news that's happening. And so as you'll see from that timeframe, we had over 2,400 stories and mentions, 4.9 billion impressions. And if you were to take that and try to pay for it, it would be over a $4 million ad value. So I think what we take away from this slide is that the good work that's being done to tell those stories and to get those mentions is really paying dividends for us. Some of the pieces that to mention is the Forbes article, the NBC Sunday Today with Willie Geist and USA Today, but there's a deeper dive in the report that you have. Next, we'll move on to the destination official vacation planner guide. In total, we print for the calendar year 65,000 pieces. From the timeframe that we talked about, there was over 39,000 distributed. And I really wanna talk to this piece in particular and how it's distributed. I think it's important that we look at how hard this piece works for us. When you think about the touch points of how people access our destination, we are still a predominantly drive market, right? So people come in and as much airlift that we have into the Savannah Hilton Head International and Hilton Head Airport, we do see about 50% of the visitors that we capture here on the island still drive. And so it's important that when they're stopping through the nine South Carolina Welcome Centers, when they're visiting a trade show or other ways in which they're accessing it, that they're able to pick up this piece. And it's a piece that we have oversight with and that we can tell our story. And we do that in partnership with the town and we're very proud of it. So it's 65,000 copies, 39,000 plus year to date. It's at AAA offices, the nine South Carolina welcome centers, our hotels, our trade shows, all of our PR and media, make sure I'm not missing one, airports. So I think again, and then any individuals that are mailing and requesting it or do the walk-ins. I mean, again, it's just a piece that works very, very hard for us to tell those stories.

So I'll talk about this piece pretty quickly. So I know at first glance, you see a lot of those year over year numbers being down. It doesn't look great. But what you're actually seeing is a pivot in strategy that is designed to be more tactical. The idea here is that previously we ran a paid campaign that ran for 12 months a year. We decided that to be more tactical, we would prefer to run that for a two, three month period throughout the year with the goal of driving off-season visitation in those shoulder seasons. So right now we are in peak season, so that campaign was not running. So the year-over-year numbers look, you know, they look a little bit wonky this time because we're comparing to that 12-month campaign. As we move forward with this, we do expect those numbers to normalize a little bit. But I do want to call that out because I know at first blush that looks a little bit surprising. But that is a tactical decision we've made, and we believe it will make a difference in the shoulder seasons. The other piece of this I want to talk about, we've talked about several times, is the impact that generative search is having on website visitation. Obviously, that is still something that is ongoing. But it is part of our strategy to make ourselves more of a source of authority when it comes to generative search. You guys have heard us talk about this before. So I'm not going to go into a lot of detail with it. But I did want to call out that is still a huge part of our strategy. It's still something we're working on. And we're seeing some pretty promising metrics. in the full report in your packet, you should see a little bit more information on that. Yeah, so there's also this really cool thing we launched on our website back in April. It's called Mind Trip AI, but it's an AI trip planning tool that is tailored to whatever user wants to use it. If you go to hiltonheadisland.org, it'll be on the right side of your screen. Basically, you can tell it how many people are in your party, what your budget is, what you wanna do while you're here, when you're coming, and it will build you out a personal itinerary tailored to how you want to experience Hilton Head Island. It's a very cool tool. We're already seeing a lot of traction with it. Of the people who, of the destinations who are on board with MindTrip, Hilton Head Island right now is in the top 10 for all of the destinations that they partner with. And they partner with a lot of destinations. They partner with Visit the USA as an example. So that's a pretty good crowd to be in. So it's a product we're very proud of. And I do urge you to go try it out. All right, so social media right now, again, a tactical choice. These things kind of run in cycles. Right now, our strategy with social is built on growing our audience rather than necessarily conversions. It's an awareness-driven campaign to make sure that Hilton Head Island is out in the market. People have heard of us, and we grow that audience. We're seeing that happen. You see our total audience has increased. Our number of sessions on social has also increased. So that's a sign that this awareness strategy for right now is working.

And talking about our local events, we've worked very closely with the town and Angie and team to understand how we can best present opportunities to the nonprofits that are promoting tourism throughout the year for our destination. And so Chase and the team have worked to create one sheets, if you will, that provide that information, essentially really trying to meet the partner where they are in terms of promotion and reporting. And so there are several different options that they have based on their level of where they fall between the three options. And we worked very closely with the town to understand how someone would fit into the community, which applies to everyone. Someone would fall into the featured category or they would fall into the premier. The premier, items or events were decided upon at the DMO workshop with recommendations from the town on who those eight initially would be. And then from there, again, it's open, I think, for conversation to how that list adjusts or moves around based on needs for the nonprofits as we move forward. But I think in general, the opportunity is great that we can provide everyone an event listing, everybody a post-event place or AI geolocation report, because I think if you look at what's required by ATACS, having that geolocation information is so important for when someone from an event standpoint is looking to gauge, did we perform well? Did we garner the right type of visitors to the event based on what the criteria is from ATACS? So again, I think that the, community component really serves all and serves them well.

All right, so I'm going to touch on lodging here for a second. I want to call out two things on the slide before I dive into the numbers. One, I am not a designer. I live in Excel all day, so I apologize for the way this looks. And two, we recently switched data sources for our hotel data. We now utilize CoStar, which is the industry standard for hotel metrics. So that's a change we're really excited about. It's something that allows us to kind of benchmark against other destinations more effectively. And so if you see numbers here that differ from what you have seen in the past, again, that's intentional. We have a lot of faith in this data set for hotels. So as you can see, this summer, or the May, June, July timeframe has been particularly strong for hotels. We're seeing occupancy up, we're seeing rates up, and we're seeing, you know, red par up as well. Short-term rentals, a little bit of a different story. They've had some dips in occupancy. Their rates continue to be strong though, which is a good sign. So overall, it's been a, it's been a pretty strong summer. Now, one thing I do wanna call out as we look toward the future is that the Westin Resort will be closing for renovations in November for a few months. We do anticipate that having obviously an impact on a tax collections. So I just wanted to call that out, knowing that as we move into the next reporting cycle, that we're gonna see some of those numbers start to come through. So just wanted to call that out.

And so for the budget update, again, we're just not at the cycle where we would present the budget numbers versus the actual, so that will be coming in our next report. However, in terms of the audit and the financial report that is a requirement of our contract, those are tracking to be delivered on 9.30 per the requirements of the contract. It will go to our board next week. And then again, on track and working with Angie to make sure they're here by 9.30.

And when those are available, they will also be posted publicly on thinkheltonhedeisland.org.

That's it.

All right, thank you. Questions from council? Mr. Alford.

You recently went through some material on short-term rentals and hotels. Hotels were up, short-term rentals were down. Our finance department report indicates grocery sales were down. That kind of goes with short-term rentals going down. Do you have any insight as to why Is it a matter of foreign visitors or is it a matter of people not having as much travel money as they used to have? I have no idea what's going on.

It's a conglomeration of a couple different things, but definitely gas prices have played a pretty significant role in how people are traveling this summer, so the dip in short-term rental occupancy we're particularly seeing that hit the smaller rentals uh the one two three bedroom rentals so um and we're seeing this trend across the southeast and nationwide some of those people who may have come in past years and stayed in a short-term rental uh maybe this year are choosing to stay at a hotel instead um a lot of people um you know they're choosing shorter trips that are closer to home um just for gas price reasons and so that's been a major driver of it uh again that's not unique to us but it's a trend we are seeing uh but that seems to be the main

driver just promised following up on that chase the year-over-year for short-term rentals in July there was slide day it's showing 1% decline in July I'm assuming as versus July of 2025 correct But then when I look at 2025's year over year, which I'm assuming is against 2024, I'm negative three. Correct. You use the word trend. Yeah. I'm curious and wanting to know as we move along, is this truly a trend that we're seeing? Because by my rough math, it means we're down... probably four percent over 2024's numbers right so i think it's something we need to pay attention to um obviously we've had this discussion around uh lesser of the short-term rental market here on hilton head which could potentially lead to a higher level visitor i'm not quite sure that that's definable but I am concerned about the busiest month of the year and us showing a 4% decline from 2024. All right. Um, so whatever you can peel back on that, I think is important. The other piece I want to mention, I appreciate the, uh, I think you guys use the word tactical move, um, in the shift. Um, your January and February are not, huge numbers in this town, but they are numbers. And those numbers are down, particularly because of the Canadian market. Okay, so just curious to know if there's any intention to try to fill that gap that normally would have the Canadian visitor here on Hilton Head.

Yeah, part of the, like I said, part of the tactical change, especially with that paid campaign running for shorter periods for three months, twice a year, is intended to help buoy some of that shoulder season or off-season visitation with exactly that kind of situation in mind.

We might have to look for those visitors domestically or in our other key international markets that are willing to take the trip over. So we're fishing where domestically we have the opportunity to do that. But I think we're going to see that in some of the results. And I just want to chase to talk to some of the strength you're seeing in the short-term rentals going forward.

Yeah, so another piece of the short-term rentals that I do want to call out um as we look forward um september still had a little bit of a dip when it comes to occupancy but right now october for the short-term rental market is looking very strong uh we're talking a double-digit um a double-digit percent increase year-over-year uh for october um october occupancy uh at least based on what's on the books right now versus the same time last year um and since booking windows have gotten longer we do expect that to actually um you know hold we don't expect that to eventually you know even out a little bit more so october and November are, as of right now, shaping up to be pretty strong months for the home villa sector. So that's just a bright spot to look at.

No, I appreciate that. And I guess this comment is probably more from my colleagues than anybody else. A percentage up in October is great, but it may not equate to the percentage down in July, right? So we just have to be mindful of that. Thank you.

What are y'all seeing in terms of length of stay between the hotels and the villas?

Yeah, so the hotels, the length of stay, stays pretty static just because a lot of people who are coming to hotels are gonna come for a Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So it's right at three days, basically. But the short-term rentals, the length of stay, if I remember correctly, this is going on memory, is still slightly north of six. I think it's like 6.2 days. But I can get more granular information for you and share that.

I'm just curious, I mean, you know, because if we look at a hotel stay of three nights, then they've got, from a standpoint of art center or some other groups that have sales of events, you've got two different groups coming in within a seven-day period. So it actually creates more value to some different organizations, hotels, I'm sorry, restaurants. So I'm just, you know, looking forward, is there... Could we see, or could we get the data to see if there's an increase from a Sunday to a Wednesday, you know, because you got Thursday to Sunday, but what about those other days, you know, to build up? So it'd be interesting to see. Others? Ms. Becker?

Thank you. Thank you guys for your report. Appreciate it. Again, I guess sticking with the key theme here on short-term rentals. Where do you get your, reading the footnote, I see you get your information from key data. But you don't get the information directly from the various agencies on the island our property managers?

Yes, so the way Keydata works is that they have data agreements with the back-end booking systems for different short-term rental property agencies. So the information that we're getting is directly from the property management companies here on the island, just because of the data agreements that Keydata has with their booking systems, if that makes sense.

Do they all participate?

I believe most of them do. There are, what, about 7,100 short-term rental units on the island, I believe, based on the permit number. We track about 4,500 of those, so a large sample.

And I would note on that large sample, it takes into consideration the property management companies that have the majority of the portfolio. So when you're looking at who subscribes and inputs, it's representing most of the larger management companies across the island.

So you feel it's statistically significant. I'm just wondering, though, if a better source of information would be a simple phone call to the short-term rental property managers on the island, who I'm sure would be happy to fill in a quick survey for you. But that's just a recommendation of mine. The data would be, for me, a little bit more cleaner and specific and leave less questions in the end. You mentioned that the reduction that Councilman Brown was discussing was mostly related to the smaller units. Can you tell me about the reverse now that you see in October that there's an increase coming with occupancy? It would logically seem to me, and I could be wrong, that that would now reverse and that the smaller units are the ones that are being rented. Do you have any data or specific information on that?

I do have access to that data. I don't have it in front of me right now, but I'll add it to my list and I'll make sure I follow up with you with that information. But it is something we have access to and I'd be happy to share it.

Okay. I think those trends would be important to see. And I also think that as the team here at the town is finishing up with approving permits, to add that piece into the overall picture so that we can really see the wares and really drill down into how these short-term rental property management companies are faring on the island. So thank you for all the information. Again, we always appreciate you coming. Mr. Bryson.

Thank you for the report, both written and what we heard today. First of all, thank you for promoting our island events. And I know you had some data in here, but I think it'd be good to see a little more data about perhaps a return on the marketing investment to see if there is hopefully some increase in attendance to island events. I think if there's some way to track the data, that'd be helpful.

And I do want to speak to that. We do have, obviously some of the fall events are starting here this week. So at our next time we report, we will have some information on those events to be able to share. So we're excited about that.

Great, great. And the other thing I wanted to thank you for is the, sharing of data, I guess it's the geofencing data, to the applicants to ATACS grants. I either sat in on or I've listened to almost all of the applicants' presentations. I have a few more to go. But a number of them said thanks to the chamber, the DMO, for sharing that data with them because one of the data pieces that the committee wants to know about is how many people did you have and where did they come from? And so a number of applicants said yes. when they were asked, what did your data come from? They said from the chamber, the geofencing. So thank you for that. Some had meetings coming up with you to talk about that. So I think that's an improvement for that process. I want to thank you for that.

Ms. Turner.

Yeah. Speaking about the geofencing, you had an exhibit in our package that you, didn't show on the screen that lays out all the local events and how many impressions and website views and links and attendance. There are attendance numbers in there, but the attendance numbers are very similar across the various events, at least as it's demonstrated in the exhibit. about two and a half, 2,500 visits for the Gullah celebration, similar number for Hilton Head Island and wine, similar number for Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival. And so that caught my eye, why were those so similar? And then I went back to the presentations and this is 2025. And then I went back to the presentations for the ATACs committee and the numbers are much higher that are presented at the ATACs meeting. So I think there's an opportunity to calibrate between what you're seeing in Tracer and what the nonprofit organizations are submitting for attendance and try to figure out why there is a difference.

Gotcha, and I agree. Part of when we are meeting with the event partners now, keep in mind, so if you're seeing 2025 was before some of this partnership had happened. So now that we're actually communicating with them, we can get a lot more specific with the fences. They can collaborate with us and show us, you know, how to correctly draw their fence, what hours they're looking at, time of day, specific days. We can get a lot more specific and actually work with the event on that. So yes, the numbers may look different now, but now that we're having those relationships with the event partners, we can standardize that based on the partner. And so then going forward, that information will be more reliable because we're actually getting input from that partner. So we did notice that. That is part of what we're working on.

Okay, great, I'm glad you are partnering with them and I hope that all the organizations take advantage of that so that we can get some accurate numbers from their process and your process and be better calibrated, so thank you.

Yeah, any other questions? Great, thank you all so much for the information.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, we will move on to public comment, non-agenda items. We have added another opportunity for the public to speak at this time regarding non-agenda items. There will be a total time limit of 30 minutes allotted for this agenda item. Before we begin public comment, I'd like to briefly review the town's rules and procedures, which are established in Hilton Head Island Code Section 2-5-70 and 2-5-80. and are also displayed on the screen. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. When you come forward, please state your name and address for the record and identify the subject you wish to discuss. Comments must be made, must be directed to town council and not members of the audience or town staff. Speakers may not use profane, abusive, defamatory, threatening, or obscene language, make personal attacks, or engage in behavior that disrupts or interferes with the meeting. These rules are in place to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to be heard and the public comment is conducted in an orally and a respective manner. With that, Kim, who do we have signed up to speak today?

Good afternoon, Amber Kuhn, Manager of Sea Turtle Patrol on Hilton Head, resident of Bluffton. Thank you for putting this public comment where it is again. I was here a month ago asking if you guys could revisit the ordinance that Beaufort County has put forth about the plastic bag amendment. When we passed this plastic bag ban, we did not foresee that the result would be a thicker plastic bag. That was not the intent. With the ordinances that I have drafted with town staff, the holes in personal property, the lighting ordinance revision, they've all been so successful. The environment is our priority, at least it's mine, and I'm passionate about it, and that's why I'm here, not for personal gain, obviously. But we have always done the right thing for the environment when it has been brought to our attention. It's not an ordinance that is new. It's an ordinance that was intended to do a certain thing and it didn't result in that. So we just have to amend it so that people don't take advantage of it. I have heard at Beaufort meetings where someone said, you know, I don't see those plastic bags on the ground. Well, the reason they don't see it is because these people pick it up, our environmental crew, constantly. People have used the thicker plastic to make sandbags at the beach to put the legs of their tent to hold it down overnight, which I'm so happy to empty and take the tent with it. We just don't want that look on Hell in the Head. We don't want a plastic bag. We also added to this ordinance the styrofoam container, which does not degrade, neither does plastic easily, but when I was a child, there was a styrofoam container for a Filet-O-Fish sandwich at McDonald's. I was a waitress for years and I cleaned ashtrays at the end of my shift. And everybody thought it was the end of the world when you couldn't smoke in a restaurant. And now it's just commonplace. Without the bag, you're not gonna see that it's missing after a certain amount of time. Same with the personal property. I picked up so much in 2020 and every year it gets better and better. So it's just an improvement that we need to make. We have a deadline. It's February of 27, eight months past the time that Beaufort County... County Council decided to offer it to the municipalities. The four municipalities are Hilton Head, Bluffton, Port Royal, and Beaufort. Beaufort has done a first reading, working on the second reading. Bluffton has had it in a workshop. Port Royal will do whatever Beaufort does. That leaves us. I don't wanna be the last one to hold this up. We've gotta get it done by February. Please, we need to be the leader like we normally are so that I can keep bragging about us. Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Shannon Wilkinson.

Good afternoon, I'm Shannon Wilkinson. I live in the preserve at Fort Indigo Run Drive on Hilton Head. And I'm here to discuss the Beaufort County Beautiful, Keep Beaufort County Beautiful Plastic Reduction Ordinance. As an Island resident who grew up here, I'm a member of Hilton Head Audubon and of Rotary of Hilton Head Low Country Environmental Club. As a member of Palmetto Rowing Club, I'm out there every week on Broad Creek and all of these activities, I see examples of plastic that is littering Hilton Head. I'm here to voice my concern that the Keep Beaufort County Beautiful plastic reduction ordinance is not on today's meeting agenda, excuse me. The longer the town of Hilton Head waits to place it on a town meeting agenda, the later the bill will be enacted. In order to pass, this bill must be approved by all local municipalities of Beaufort County. I urge Mayor Perry, who ran on supporting environmental issues, to make the passage of this bill a priority. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jean Frew.

Hi there, my name is Jean Frew and I'm a resident of Shipyard and I'm here to talk about the plastic reduction ordinance. And this will be the last time I'll stand before you as the executive director of the Outside Foundation because I'm retiring in October. But there's a role I don't get to retire from and that's one of grandmother. And that's why I stand before you today. And that's my next job. because what are we leaving our next generation is my concern. And having spent the last umpteen years cleaning up underneath bridges and waterways and such, I can tell you that when you talk about plastic bags and styrofoam, you can't pick them up because often they crumble in your hands. And when they crumble in your hands, they're gonna end up being micro and nanoplastics. And we already know that these nanoplastics are getting into our food web. We don't know that because of research from California. We don't know that because of research from New York. We know that from research from the Citadel. So it's very local research. And I know that in passing this bag ban, there is some concern that small businesses will have to pay a higher price for some more eco-friendly products. But you have to stop to think what is the price when our seafood is no longer available to our tourists? When our shrimp cannot be sold? Because we want to buy local shrimp and not imported shrimp. What happens when our oysters are so full of plastic? It doesn't matter how many reefs we build a year. So Mr. Bayer, I ask you as soon as you can to bring this here. And in my retirement, I'm at your service to help with education and enforcement in helping those small business to make this transition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jean Zapfel.

Good afternoon, Gene Zupful. I live in Hilton Head Plantation and I'm here as a resident of Hilton Head, but I'm also the co-chair of Keep Beaufort County Beautiful. And you've heard me speak to this group before. Ditto everything that was just said and everything that will be said. Two special notes. I went to a fast food restaurant a few months ago. I know I shouldn't, but I did. And they're still handing out very thin plastic bags. So we are not enforcing the rules that you all set in 2018. Secondly, at our friend's biggest retailer in the world, a woman pulled out in front of me 25 thick plastic bags is how she took her groceries out of the store. We got to do better than that. Every one of you either ran specifically on environmental issues or have talked a lot about environmental issues, and it's still not on the agenda. I wish you could answer my question. Why is it still not on the agenda? We are willing and happy to do all the work that you could possibly need, any analytics, cost data, engagement data. We have worked at this for a year and a half and we are ready to keep going. Even after you do pass it, we're gonna continue to be part of the communication strategy for the county. Keep Beaufort County beautiful. We'll run that communication plan, touching every business, touching as many residents as we possibly can. We think we have, all the necessary energy to help make this work and it's still not on your agenda i would love to get an answer to that at some future point and see it on the agenda as soon as possible thank you thank you skip hoagland skip hoagland longco windmill harbor soon to be annexed when was the last time you booked a hotel room on a chamber website in a magazine

Mayor Perry, leadership has to be judged by the record. So let's look at the record. You took control of the 278 corridor bridge and have failed miserably at both. They have both consumed years and hundreds of thousands in studies, closed door meetings, including a meeting that excluded most of town council and avoided a quorum. Residents are still waiting for solutions. The LMO was supposed to be addressed years ago. It still isn't finished. And we all know why. You don't work for the residents, you work for the real estate lobby, the chamber, the GIC, and special interests. Public safety, it took a tragedy over July 4th weekend before this town suddenly held an emergency meeting and started taking seriously about prevention, cameras, security, and a stronger law enforcement presence. You didn't put one public safety conversation on the agenda the first six months of the year. Why is that? Transparency, even one of your own council members have publicly challenged your use of executive sessions and your control over what goes on the town council agenda. Then there's the Island Jam. Over a million dollars in town sponsorships since 2023 for an event with connections to your own family. Your brother helped bring the event here and his name was listed on the LLC. Your nephew has performed in it. Yet year after year, the money continued without votes from the council. Why is that? Finding a technical reason why you didn't have to recuse yourself misses the point. Ethical leadership isn't just about what you can do, it's about knowing what you shouldn't do. And then there's the way residents are treated in the room, interrupted, dismissed, talked down to, sometimes answered only after their microphone is turned off. Mayor Perry, leadership isn't about controlling people or the room. It's about earning the trust of the taxpayers. Four years is enough time to judge, and the record speaks for itself. It's time for you to go, Mr. Perry. Next week, I will file a lawsuit against this town, and many more lawsuits are coming. It will be against the Chamber $12 million funding, redacting overcharged legal fees, and the Windmill Harbor fraud and illegal actions. I will be filing 11 lawsuits next week with the clerk of courts in Beaufort County. I'm filing these lawsuits drafted by me and an AI robot. I'm no longer using lawyers. I now represent myself on all my cases. So prepare yourself. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Bonnie Brill.

Good evening, my name is Bonnie Brill. I'm a permanent resident at One Pine Island Court in Sea Pines. I am here speaking on the Beaufort County addendum to the plastic ordinance. You know, I moved here almost 10 years ago and I moved here not as a temporary stop, but as a destination, as a place to build my forever home. and I didn't move here for the Tanger Outlook Mall, that's for sure. I was really struck and moved by the beauty of our island and the community, the caretakers, and as someone aptly said earlier, the stewards. I was raised with a deep respect for protecting the environment. And when I arrived, I was so proud to see what the town was saying and even to find that on our website, it says, sustainability is more than a goal, it's the way of life. So my question tonight, like others are why are we waiting to put this addendum on our agenda, we need to move forward. We claim to be the leaders in low country sustainability, we have actively promoted eco tourism. Since this 2018 ordinance past businesses simply adapted by using thicker plastic bags. They are so plastic, they still clog up our marshes, pollute our ocean and our storm waters. One thing everybody worries about is flooding, right? As a local artist who spends every day photographing our marshes, ocean views for painting references, I see the problem firsthand through my lens. Also, as the chair of the Lowcountry Environmental Club, I network with over 130 Rotary clubs across South Carolina. You know, we discuss these exact challenges weekly. Cities like Charleston's and community along the coast have done this, are doing it, and it's not hard. This is happening not only nationally, but worldwide. Please, Hilton Head shouldn't be lagging behind our coastal neighbors, we should be leading them. Let's not be last, let's be first, and let's give up, live up to our promised eco first. Hilton Head, thank you.

Dave Ferguson.

Dave Ferguson, Shipyard. I want to address something today that I believe goes directly to how this town is being governed. Mr. Mayor, between August and December, you took it upon yourself to cancel half of the regularly scheduled town council meetings. And as far as I can determine, town council never voted to do it. That matters. The town ordinance requires town council to adopt its schedule of regular meetings each January. That schedule belongs to the council, does not belong to you, Mr. Mayor. So I have a very simple question. If town council adopted the meeting schedule, why hasn't town council asked to vote, be asked to vote before that schedule was changed? Why did you decide for all of them? This isn't simply a scheduling issue, it's a governance issue, it's a transparency issue, and it's also a leadership issue. Look at what's happening in Hilton Head right now. We just heard about the plastic bags. Why is that not on the agenda? Why aren't we working on that? We're dealing with the 278 corridor. We're still dealing with unfinished land management ordinance. We have serious public safety concerns. We're dealing with growth, redevelopment, traffic, workforce issues, and millions in dollars of wasted taxpayer spending. yet you wanna take a break the rest of the year. This is when our elected officials should be meeting more, not less. And let's remember something else. Every canceled regular meeting is one less opportunity for us residents to come into this room and speak to our elected officials. One less opportunity to watch issues debated publicly, one less opportunity to ask questions, and one less opportunity to hold you accountable. There are seven members up on this dais Mr. Mayor, you're one of them. The mayor presides over the council, the mayor is not the council. If the seven elected members collectively decide that meeting should be canceled, that's their decision to make. Put it on the agenda, discuss it publicly, take a vote and let every council member be accountable for that vote. That's how I believe government should operate. And since I'm asking the residents of Hilton Head to elect me as their next mayor, let me be very clear about how I would handle this. I would never unilaterally cancel half of the town's council regularly scheduled meetings. And I would never leave the council out of the decisions like this. If a schedule adopted by council needs to change, change back to the council, let council discuss it, let council vote on it and let the public know why you're doing it. Because the mayor's job isn't to control town council, it's to lead it. You have failed at this. Are you just planning more legal two by two meetings to keep the public out? Next, please.

Richard Busy, Indigo Run. I have an idea. Let's do another public safety study, and let's spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a consultant to help us decide what to do about public safety, especially since the mayor and the town council can't decide what to do in the wake of the mass shooting on July 4th. This will be the third study of the public safety issue since the year 2000. Back then, the town paid a consultant, untold, thousands of dollars, I don't know what the number is, to study long term public safety needs. That study recognized that Hilton Head's public safety needs would continue to evolve as the community grew. 18 years later, 2018, the commission, the town commissioned rather another consultant to conduct this time of performance audit to evaluate the effectiveness of the services provided by the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office. And the town now believes that it is the appropriate time to conduct another assessment. That assessment will have the consultant look at three options. Option one, status quo. Option two, a hybrid model. And option three, a full service municipal police department. Let's face it, what this all means is really simple. It's gonna be months before a consultant is hired, Then it will take months and months before any report is completed. And then there will be endless public debate on whatever recommendations are made, which means perhaps some decision by 2028, perhaps. And let me make reference to a meeting that was held yesterday by the finance committee. What you did yesterday, Mr. Brown and Bryson and Tonner was not only improper, but illegal. The agenda clearly stated that there would be a public safety presentation from Bob Bromage, the town's director of public safety. Nowhere did the agenda say that the committee would authorize Mr. Orlando to issue a request for proposals. And yet that's exactly what happened. Well, sort of. No motion was made. Two of the members, Tonner and Bryson, said they were in agreement with the RFP. And with that, Mr. Orlando made it clear He was ready to get it out the door ASAP. Mr. Brown had asked Mr. Orlando before the so-called vote, are you going to need formal action by the council? Mr. Orlando did not directly, as is his case, answer the question. He simply said, and I quote, we're ready to move forward with the RFP, another non-answer. So the third study of our public safety needs in the last 26 years is about to be launched without any discussion or any debate at the town council table. Shame on you.

David Arnold.

I'm David Arnall, I live in Hilton Head Plantation and I have a farm on Mid Island in Mr. Brown's district. I'm the president of the Beefer Jasper Beekeepers Association and the former director of the Master Beekeeper Program for the state of South Carolina. I'm here today to talk about yellow-legged hornets on Hilton Head Island, give you a quick update and also outlined some public safety issues. I'm not gonna talk about the pollination effects, the effects on our food safety, just only on public safety today. So I brought some show and tell. These ones were flying this morning up in your district, Mr. Brown. I collected them and I've got some for the public to look at as well. These are an invasive species from China whose primary prey is honeybees. They are in the news. I was recently interviewed by NPR. It just was broadcast last week. They've been discussed on Good Morning America and a number of other shows. And that's why I want to bring up the public safety issues. First, I want to give you the facts from a perspective of biology. The Hornets showed up in Savannah in 2023, came in on a cargo ship from China. They've been DNA tested. They are from China. I personally believe that here by accident on purpose, probably agroterrorism to affect our food security. But that's my personal opinion. In 2024, they flew across the Savannah River. were captured in South Carolina in the Wildlife Refuge. And by the end of 2024, we had nests all the way up and down Highway 278 with three nests on Hilton Head. Last year, we had 11 nests on Hilton Head. This year, we're almost at 100 nests. This follows a classic pattern that these hornets do. They establish a foothold, Then they spread out that footprint, then they surge in population like they have this year and they go exponential. So next year we maybe anticipate as many as a thousand nests on Hilton Head. It goes in that fashion. My concern for public safety is that these things feel like someone burns you with a cigarette on your skin. It's not like a honeybee sting that just burns, it really burns. And secondly, these hornets, when you approach their nest, spit venom in your eyes. So when I collected the hornets up there this morning, I had to wear goggles and gloves and that sort of thing as I captured them alive. So I think it's essential that people on Hilton Head are familiar with these. I think it's essential that especially fire, EMS, police, and other public safety officials are aware of it because if you step into this situation, these hornets will tear up the fire and EMS people just as quickly as they'll tear anyone else up. You have to literally wear two bee suits and a helmet when you're removing these because they can sting through your clothes and one bee suit, so you need two layers of armor. What's going to eventually happen though is Clemson and the USDA, which are doing an eradication program now, that will eventually end and we're gonna have to somehow at the town level take responsibility.

I do need to stop you there and please take this, this one. But thank you for that. You're welcome. We'll definitely have more conversation.

Alistair Crosby.

I am a transplant from the Philadelphia area. And many times we listen to sports radio with passionate fans. Name and address, please. Sure. My name is Al Crosby. I live at 76 Spindle Lane. First, I want to say thank you. I've been a longtime watcher, first-time caller in here today. And each of you have your points. And to take up public service, as I learned very long ago in the military academy, is probably the best thing you could ever do. But it also makes you the biggest target, Mr. Mayor. I don't know how you do it. And Mr. Orlando, probably one of the best town managers I've seen in a long time. My background is I am an accident reconstructionist. I can do with insurance fraud from Medicare, Medicaid to auto accidents. And I'm here for a couple of things today. Number one, one that I think is a safety issue is e-bikes. We have an influx of e-bikes on this island that I'm all for them. As long as they're a class one e-bike that doesn't go over 20 miles an hour. The state of South Carolina does not have a helmet mandatory law, but yet we have very young people putting chips into class ones, twos, and threes, and some that aren't even riding bicycles or riding e-motorcycles with helmets up and down. I do understand that part of the population here that works in our low-level hospitality utilizes them for travel, so there's a purpose, as well as people who are elder who come to this island to enjoy riding an e-bike. I do believe the council should address from an insurance standpoint, the issue of these non-compliant non-e-bikes that are above a class two, because it creates a precedent. I can advise that in the state of New Jersey to have an e-bike now, you must have a license. If you're over the age of 16, you must have insurance and a mandatory helmet. it kind of dovetails into the Beaufort County Sheriff. They're not gonna enforce it going down the road. So clearly your code enforcement, which after watching these calls has an enforcement capability and it should be an ordinance that is enforced and enforced immediately. And then I'm just gonna leave you with this. I believe Sheriff Tanner has served this county very well for the last 25 years. I do think clearly it's come up that there's a conflict of interest when a report does not get out to the council because of a former colleague that you have employed. That in of itself is a conflict. But I'm a statistician. When I find fraud, when I find wrongdoing, I look at stats. Just take a look at the 2025 citation stats alone for Beaufort County. They were 6,600. 6,600 countywide. This town has a population that could fluctuate in the summertime between 2.5 and 3 million. You do the math. I believe, and I do take by word that when Chief or Sheriff Tanner says he doesn't report to you, hogwash. I'm a citizen, he reports to me. And if those stats are showing that traffic violations are happening, I can tell you, I've written letters to have it looked at. They're running lights accidents are causing because there's a non-enforcement because of the balance between a resort and the community safety at home. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Chester Williams. I live in Spanish Wells. Lots of different topics discussed today, but I'm here to either inform or remind everyone that September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. I am here because I am a prostate cancer survivor. I had my prostate taken out 15 or 16 years ago, something like that. And for 11 years, I thought I was cancer free. but then all of a sudden I had a PSA level again, you know, and if you don't have a prostate, if you're a male and you don't have a prostate, you shouldn't have a PSA level. So there was some small metastases that got out before they took the prostate out. And it's just took 11 years of slow growing before it became evident. I'm still going round and round with it. I've been to a clinic in Germany three times for treatment because they offer therapies that are not approved in the United States, are not available here. But I'm going up to MUSC. Let me tell you, I cannot say enough good things about MUSC. I mean, that is a world-class facility. The Hollings Cancer Center folks are on top of it all. They're one of like 60 hospitals in the entire country that offer certain therapies that are very limited in scope. Urologists will tell you typically, if you're a male and you live long enough, you'll come see me because you'll have prostate cancer. It's the most prevalent cancer in males. The incidence in black males is substantially higher than the incidence in white males. So everyone, I would, well, not women, but all the men, I would urge when it's time, have a PSA test when you have your blood test done. It's no different. It's all part and parcel of the test. And early detection helps with early eradication. If anybody has any questions about what I've been through, I'm more than happy to talk about it. but I want everybody to remember that this is by far and away the most prevalent cancer in men. It's easy to address, but you gotta catch it. Thank you. Thank you.

Bill Bosley.

Thank you, I'm Bill Bosley. You've seen me before. I warned you, you'd be seeing more of these shirts. So here we are. I live at 70 River Club Drive, which is part of the community of Indigo Run. And I'm here to campaign to save the rookery that is on Otter Creek and the backside of Indigo Run. Last time I was here, I introduced you to all the birds in the rookery. they're all gone now for the season they'll be back in march but you've got you can see this i have this campaign poster not campaign to show you the kind of birds that are that are there and show the audience there's everything from spoonbills to wood storks which are protected uh black and yellow crown herons, egrets, you name it, that rookery has them all. And the spoonbills just showed up about three years ago. And this is the first year they've had seven, you might've heard this before, baby spoonbills referred to as a teaspoon. So we had seven teaspoons and we have wood storks, which are protected in South Carolina still. So, We're urging you to help us to stop the development of 229 Marsland Road, because we're convinced if you look at how close 229 is. It's literally 10 yards across the creek. Some of the photos you see there are proof. Developers are saying that there's no nesting on their property at 229. That's not true. We have a photo to prove it. And we have other photos to prove there are lots of birds on the 229 Marston Road site as well. So that's one thing I wanted to address real quickly. And I met with Tamara this morning. I made a brief proposal to the Chamber of Commerce. So thank you, Tom and Tamara for your comments this morning of support. The last thing I want to say is I want to touch briefly on Marston Road. I got a minute. Marston Road is a dangerous road. I go up and down it every day. It doesn't have shoulders. It doesn't have any depressions to let you know you're going off the side of the road. I have a son who ran into a tree five and a half years ago on that road, and he's still recovering five and a half years later. He's just now learning to walk again. But that, I can't imagine another 58 homes contributing to that traffic. And you also got the development across from, I keep forgetting the name of it, down by the fire station that's being developed again. They're doing the other ones. So it's a dangerous road. It has no shoulders. And I can't imagine another 100 people in 58 homes using that road every day. So it's just never designed for that. And the construction traffic that'll happen if this development happens will block that road. I mean, it'll just be a disaster. So again, my time's up. I wanna thank you for your support. I wanna thank you for your service. Thank you. Thank you.

Lastly, Terry Orr.

Thank you, Council. I appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you this afternoon. And as the rest of my colleagues and friends, I am here in support of the rookery and against the development of the driftwood project at 229 Marshland. We believe that the current design plans for the driftwood project will cause irreparable environmental harm, critically threaten the survival of a unique and irreplaceable island rookery. and substantially diminish the character and property values of the surrounding long established, low density residential neighborhoods on and near Marshland. We have closely studied the town's land management coordinates and state laws, and we believe that there are major and significant violations of their principles and policies, including Section 6-6-101 of the LMO stipulates that wildlife protection and preservation is a core precept of the ordinance. Hundreds of birds have begun nesting and raising their young outside the rookery along the banks of Otter Creek and in numerous trees within the driftwood property, clear cutting this land as proposed. will irrevocably destroy this valuable wildlife habitat. Section 16-3-104.E of the LMO stipulates that the neighborhood character must be protected and preserved. This project consists of exceptionally dense residential units that are at deep odds with the homes and community of Indigo Run and with a quiet, peaceful, native island enclaves of marshland and Gardner and the surrounding working class neighborhoods. State code 48-1-10, which defined waters of the state stipulates that Otter Creek qualifies as a named creek. The South Carolina Department of Environmental Services general permit mandates a 30 foot undisturbed natural buffer along all waters of the state. The site plan for the driftwood development does not include this buffer and is thus in violation of state law. The driftwood project clearly fails to comply with numerous state and local laws and ordinances. And we urge you to work with us to prevent this harmful and destructive development from proceeding. Thank you, council.

Is there anybody else?

Sheila Broadbent.

Bill had neglected one important item that he wanted to tell you and so I have been elected to say it. My name is Sheila Broadbent. I live on River Club Drive. This afternoon we had a postcard campaign and this afternoon Bill delivered 870 petition and postcard items that were We were not allowed to bring in here. We understand that, but we wanted to make sure that that was put forward to the committee so that you are aware. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Okay, great. Let's see, we will move on to general reports, town council. Anybody have any general reports at this time?

Mayor, I'll repeat my request twice before to add the ordinance regarding plastic bags and styrofoam to the agenda. That's my general report.

Thank you. Any others?

No, I have a question that I guess I'll ask later, but it has to do with why a petition couldn't be delivered.

Okay. Any others? So I do want to address something real quick. there was a lot of conversation regarding Islanders Beach Club and in the timeline into which things happened and this was an item that was brought forth to council. It was discussed in workshops, it was vetted through the community and it was well publicized that this project would be moving forward and we were limited to a timeline based off of beach renourishment, which drove this timeline for the Islanders Beach Club. So I just want to make it clear that everything was put out there. And it was discussed and we all knew about it. And it is something that was very transparent that we were doing and moving forward. And this was discussed for several years. And I just, I wanna clarify that because the community seemed to forget that we had had those conversations and someone council forgot that we'd had those conversations. And I just wanna make that statement very clear that it was known. Anything else? Okay, seeing none, we will move on to reports of council, Lowcountry Area Transportation Study. Ms. Becker.

I have no report tonight.

No report. And Mr. Alfred, Lowcountry Council of Governments.

No report.

Thank you. Beaufort County Airports Board, Ms. Tunner.

Yes, the airport launched a new website. It includes real-time information on incoming flights, more information on the flights that are available to and from Hilton Head, and you can actually book flights on their website as well. On the general aviation side, there's information on offerings for private and corporate jets, flight school, and helicopter tours. So if you have a moment, go out and take a look at their new website. The airport will be expanding parking and that will be at their property at 32 Hunter Road. A boardwalk will be built to connect that property to the public parking lot in front of the airport. To begin with, it'll be used for employee parking and long-term they'll look at demolition of the building and use of it for customers as well. The airport underwent an undercover TSA inspection and did so well they received accommodation letters. So congratulations to the airport. And in regards to the number of passengers, deployments and employments, that totaled 191,628 through August. I mean, the numbers just... You don't think about how many people are getting on and off the planes here at Hilton Head. And it's up 8.9% from prior year. Every month was over the prior year, except for January. That's it.

Thank you. Ms. Bryson, Southern Low Country Regional Board.

Yes, sir. So Low Co-Met on Tuesday, August 25th, 2026, with two items on new business. One was the introduction of Dr. Laurie Voting, the new president of the Technical College of the Low Country. She started July 1. She had previously served at Trident Technical College in Charleston. She worked there for 24 years. She announced that their fall enrollment had a 14% increase and that they have 43% dual enrollment, which means high school and community college. and gave us more details about what was planned. In addition, Brad Thompson, who's the general manager for TS Conductors, a new industry in the Hardyville area, is an innovative conductor. It's very interesting to learn about. If you look at electrical wires that sag a lot, they have a different kind of conductor. This is a different kind of conductor. I'm not going to try to explain the engineering of it or the science of it. But it makes for straighter lines and less sag in the lines. It also means that with less sag that you have to have fewer towers to convey the electric lines. So their building is more than 300,000 square feet, which is about a little over five football fields. So it's quite the size. It's $134 million investment. and 462 jobs. It's located in Jasper County, but it will impact us because a lot of folks who work there will want to come and visit us as well. So anyhow, that's the report on those two. It was mentioned, Mayor Harry Williams, one of his pet projects is the tri-share program, and he said he needs $18,000 to come from the town of Hilton, and he has money or pledges from the other jurisdictions, so I'm supposed to report that to the town council. The next meeting will be Tuesday, September 22nd. Next Tuesday, it'll be in Beaufort, South Carolina at 500 Carteret Street. And the plan suggestions for that time will be happenings in Beaufort and also an update on the Beaufort County sorry, town of Beaufort happenings. And in an update on the Beaufort County referendum, those are the planned agenda items. That's it, sir.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Brown, Island Recreation Association.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, as usual, a lot going on at the Island Rec. I'll just mention a few here. They have a kids night out scheduled for September 25th with 34 kids registered thus far. High school swim programs at Hilton Head High School, Heritage Academy, Hilton Head Christian Academy, and John Paul II. Pickleball memberships are up to 622 for the year and a new partnership with Outside Foundation to host kids in kayaks at the fishing co-op.

That's it, sir. Thank you. Beaufort County Economic Development Corporation. I was not able to make that meeting, so no report. Mr. Brown, back to you with Gullah Geechee Historic Neighborhoods Community.

Yes, the CDC will be meeting tomorrow, September 16th at 10 a.m. The corporation will receive the report from the executive director, discuss our... fiscal 2027 to 2030 strategic plan and discuss and consider small business funding opportunities and discuss and consider proposal event partnership with the historic Mitchellville Freedom Park. And the corporation will also in the executive session to deal with personal matters relating to the executive director's performance evaluation and discussion of a proposed contractual arrangement for legal services. Community Development, Public Services, Ms. Becker?

We did not have a meeting this month. Thank you.

And Mr. Brown, Finance Administration.

Yes, sir. We will meet on Monday, October 12th at 10 a.m. The committee will receive the Town Hill Heads Fiscal 27 Monthly Financial Update, receive the Local, Small, and Minority-Owned Disadvantaged Business Annual Report. and consider a resolution approving the recommendation from the accommodations tax committee for the 2027 calendar grants. All right, thank you.

Next we'll move on to new business. We have consideration of a resolution approving the William Hilton Gateway quarter master plan. Mr. Sean Gillen, special projects director will be conducting the presentation. I know Sean Leininger, as soon as I said that. So, Sean.

Mayor Perry, as Sean's walking up, may I just say a few things to introduce what we're about to talk about? So first and foremost, we're pleased, very pleased to present the corridor master plan for your review and consideration this evening. It's timely, we just heard from Jared Frailix, it's very timely, especially as we're all considering and keeping up with the eastbound bridge infrastructure project. At a strategic level, what Sean is about to talk about is a master plan that establishes a few things, but I think I just wanna tee this up, set the framework. It will establish, it should establish a shared vision and a public policy framework for the corridor for the future. Its purpose is to identify priorities, establish direction and guide town council's future decisions. And so there's a few things that are outcomes of that, right? As Sean talks and gives the presentation and these are things that you've seen most recently, you've seen them April 28th and again on July 28th, but we've looked at safety, mobility, environment, neighborhood revitalization, economic vitality, preservation of island character. I'd say importantly, and it also provides a framework for ensuring that future public infrastructure decisions respect the heritage culture and needs of the historic Stoney neighborhood. Approval of the plan is not a green light to just move forward with everything. Approval of the master plan would move the town from considering individual issues and projects in isolation towards a clear and coordinated strategy. That's something that you've asked me for since the day I arrived. Implementation of this is definitely going to occur over time with careful planning, prioritization, and sequencing. And I think that we all know that, but I wanted to state the obvious. Major projects and funding decisions will return to you through capital improvement, planning, and programming. workshops, budget workshops, special capital project workshops. Example, when we talked about Main Street, not just Main Street, but the decisions that needed to be made. And then also at the annual budget, the annual fiscal year budget process also considers these projects time and time again. At that time, we'll talk about any additional analysis and opportunities for public input. Funding must include, and I wanna say this out loud, Sean knows this, he's shaking his head. Funding must include a combination of town resources, grants, county, state, and federal participation. A town council adopted master plan, if nothing else, it strengthens our ability to pursue these opportunities by demonstrating that future infrastructure investments are a part of your deliberate, coordinated, approved strategy. So the plan before you, I believe, we believe as a team, as staff team, has been a substantial process. It was informed by analysis and engagement with residents, Stony neighbors, Hilton Head Island community members and neighbors, businesses, stakeholders, staff, consultants, partners, agency partners especially, including SCDOT. Town Council, you've also provided significant direction, right? There were some things we weren't proposing, you've proposed. All of that has been a collection over time and provided direction at several public meetings. This project's also informed by the obvious, the Beaufort County DOT US 278 Bridge Replacement Project. And so we're trying to understand that, the three lanes coming on our island, that'll impact our corridor to and from. The time and effort invested in this plan reflects its complexity. I think it also reflects its importance and our responsibility to consider all these issues carefully. I do wanna thank very specifically and clearly Town Council for your input and direction. I also wanna thank everybody who's contributed their time and perspective to this project over time. I'll turn this over to Shawn Leininger. Shawn Leininger didn't build this on his own. I'm here to answer any questions as well. And Shawn's been doing a great job. Shawn will review the plan, some recommendations, some proposed project sequencing, some funding discussion, and then ask you for your guidance and directive for next steps.

Thank you, Mr. Orlando. Good afternoon, Mayor Perry, members of town council, Shawn Leininger, deputy town manager. I'm gonna pick off where Mr. Orlando with this great introduction into this project and kind of remind us where we've been and where we are this afternoon with the resolution that's in front of you today. The William Hilton Parkway Corridor, Gateway Corridor Master Plan as before you this afternoon is the result of an extensive process. That process involves data analysis of traffic, data analysis of crashes and accidents through this corridor. We coordinated with the state, with the county, with regional partners in preparing this document. We've also had a number of community meetings, including those with the Stony Historic Neighborhood. and two recent town council workshops held on April 28th and July 28th, where we collected all of your feedback and helped inform this version of the plan that's in front of you this afternoon. The specific request that's in front of town council is an adoption of a resolution that if approved would do several things. First and foremost, it would adopt The master plan based on your direction and your feedback as our vision for William Hilton Parkway and this gateway corridor from Jenkins Island through the Stoney Historic Neighborhood and the Spanish Wells Wild Horse Road intersection. It'll also implement goal number three of the FY26 through 28 Town Council Strategic Action Plan. That goal is to... is to enhance major corridors and streets and specifically action number 3.2 states that we will advance the William Hilton Parkway Gateway corridor with a focus within town limits through intergovernmental collaboration that prioritizes safety, mobility, aesthetics, and the preservation of the Stony historic neighborhood in alignment with the town's core values. The other thing that this resolution will do, and this is contained in your resolution, is it'll authorize the town manager to do several things. And these are on the screen as part of the staff report as well. They will allow the town manager to utilize the master plan as a framework for future consideration on Beaufort County, the DOT, federal agencies, property owners, and other project partners. It'll allow us to advance improvements in phases based upon documented safety needs, operational deficiencies, community benefit, funding availability, and constructability. It'll also require subsequent engineering and project development to demonstrate that specific public benefit and need for each major improvement is justified. And as Mr. Orlando mentioned, we'll ultimately return to town council with funding strategies, sources, and planning level estimates that'll be informed capital projects as they're authorized by town council. So this isn't the beginning. This certainly isn't the end. This is the step forward. This establishes our vision so that we can go and go to work with our project partners in this corridor. I'm gonna switch over now to the plan. Much of this, hopefully looks familiar. There's a few key changes that I'll highlight as I go through the slides with you this afternoon. The first one I'll note is we did do a little bit of a reorganization of the document itself. We had our technical details, precedent images and other items all put together with our summary recommendations and projects. All that information is very important to this project and still part of the plan. We simply pulled that and made it its own section as an appendix. So then the plan is focused on that background, the recommendations, the project benefits, the phasing and the pricing. All that other information is still there and supportive of the document, but we didn't move that into an appendix. The background for the master plan remains the same. The project limits remain the same as we've had previously discussed. Really the area in question that's subject to the master plan is outlined here in magenta. extending from the foot of the bridge on Jenkins Island over through the Stoney Historic Neighborhood to the Spanish Wells Wild Horse Road intersection. But then we also are cognizant of the fact that there's a lot of work as we heard this afternoon being done by Beaufort County and the SEDOT on the bridge extent. Jared Fralicks gave a great update already on the bridge. I won't share too much additional information on this slide. Everything that you see here is moving forward as outlined by Mr. Fralicks. The bridge project itself has not changed, it still contemplates an eastbound bridge being built first with three lanes of capacity initially built or initially strapped though for two lanes of capacity. And then a future project to build the westbound bridge at a later date, westbound bridges I should say at a later date. As we move into the master plan itself, our core objectives and guiding principles that will show up on the next few slides have not changed. Our goal here was to develop a comprehensive plan that will define the future of US 278. And how we are going to approach that was gonna be a data-driven approach utilizing turning movement counts, traffic data, crash data, all to help guide our decisions and our recommendations that are here in front of you this afternoon. We were also directed to ensure that all improvements result in no private property impacts, and that we sequence our projects based on need and overall corridor benefit. Those principles have not changed. More specifically, we identified corridor guiding principles. These have also not changed and they include fixing transportation issues, improving safety and quality of life for our residents and our businesses, create a great gateway to the island, to our community that we'll all be proud of and the region will be proud of. And while we hope to not utilize this too often for this purpose, we have to also recognize that this is our transportation corridor on and off the island. And so to ensure that we have the optimum for hurricane and emergency evacuation routes. I mentioned there were a couple of changes to the document itself. This is a new page that's been added. This is based on your collective feedback that we had heard over two town council workshops on April 28th and particularly on July 28th. Because these are new, I would like to spend just a minute and go through these to make sure we're all on the same page and for the benefit of the public that's seeing this for the first time. The first is these are town council directives. And the first is to examine continuous flow traffic in the Windmill Harbor area, allowing for the elimination of the existing signal by routing cross tree drive and see Hendrick circle traffic under the bridges. And our conversations with the County as part of their bridge planning project or bridge planning, The bridges will be able to accommodate this in the future if other issues that can be resolved with right-of-way widths and property acquisition can be handled as part of that in the future. We'll also provide new mast arms at Windmill Harbor entrance as a minimum improvement. We'll ensure that left turn stacking for C Hendricks Circle exists. We'll explore continuous flow from Squire Pope Road to Old Wild Horse Road. We'll reduce lane once to 11 feet on the inside lanes and 12 feet on the outside lanes. We will re-examine the striping, the westbound cross Allen Parkway into two lanes and corresponding adjustments to William Hilton Parkway, reducing the number of merge lanes. We'll also examine the use of pavement markings and other signs to improve vehicular mobility and safety. We'll reduce the speed limit to 40 miles an hour throughout the corridor. We'll also provide roadway improvements and pedestrian accommodations on Humane Way. Those are marked on, shown on the master plan as we get deeper into the presentation. We'll provide public parking for the Stony historic neighborhood, maintain business access, minimize environmental impacts, and again, no private property impacts. And then ultimately with the future bridge, provide bike and pedestrian accommodations on US 278. We've discussed what the SODOT, the owner of the roadway, what they define as successful corridor. This has not changed. We have to keep in mind that this is a major corridor running through a community, through a neighborhood. And so when we look at that, it's not just about moving people and freight, it's also about the community. And how do we integrate safe and efficient transportation connections? How do we balance that with environmental stewardship and economic vitality? And all of those principles have been held near and dear as we've gone through and put together our recommendations for this corridor. This just further defines those SEDOT principles, efficient connections, economic vitality, resource protection, and those metrics that I shared on an earlier screen, as far as data that we use to help inform our decisions. This is another new page that's been added to the master plan based on comments that we heard from town council. This helps provide some regional context to the traffic that's influencing people coming and going from the island. And this is very important because we think about the delays that happen, potentially happen in our segment of the corridor. But generally our workers, our visitors, our residents are also going places outside of the island and they experience traffic and growth pressures that are happening in Jasper County and the larger Beaufort County, Bluffton area. And this starts to show some of those traffic pressures that are happening off the island. Looking at I-95 with 55 to 66,000 vehicles on I-95. And then how that traffic disperses as you move through the corridor towards Hilton Head Island, as you come past Highway 170, and we have 70,000 vehicles that are passing, and this is average daily traffic, so 70,000 vehicles a day going either direction, passing through the western end of Bluffton. As we get closer to home this slide will look familiar, these are the traffic numbers that we've shared previously as far as the vehicles, the average daily traffic again, doesn't matter which direction going total traffic passing through these points on the map that pass through this corridor 57,000 to 63,000 vehicles as you pick up traffic from Squirepope. And then the inputs of all the surrounding roads that feed into the network. This is an important slide because it shows how traffic patterns have changed as people enter onto the island before 2021 when the toll was still in place. We saw a pretty significant divide in how traffic would utilize the cross island versus stay on the business route. More people choose to keep the coins in the cup holder and would take the business route. Once the toll was removed, we saw those traffic numbers come together. And we see a pretty even split as far as traffic when they come onto the island, they go to business route or on square, I'm sorry, across on Parkway. So that's a summary of kind of the traffic data that's helping us, guide us and shape us and push us towards our recommendations. The other key component of that is traffic safety. These next series of maps, if you've seen before in your workshops, but these really highlight where the highest rates or highest number of accidents are present on our island. using the highway 278 or the William Hilton Parkway cross Allen loop through. The yellow is the more frequent number of crashes. The blue pink is the lower number of crashes. But what we see when we look at the corridor, we look at this area, there's bright yellow areas on Squire Pope Road intersection and Spanish Wells Road intersection. We have a couple of other areas that we've talked about through other projects that we identified as William Hilton Parkway segment three, that's the area from Beach City to Dillon Road, where we've recently implemented some improvements to help particularly pest and safety improvements to help address that issue. And then also at Sea Pine Circle, where we have another project going on where we're working with SCDOT to help us develop proposals to make improvements to that area. Sticking within the corridor, you see those yellow areas at Squire Pope and Spanish Wells Road highlighted here on the map. This is seven years of traffic data. Over seven years, there was over 1,100 accidents that were reported. You can see the breakdown of that. Thinking about that, if just in seven years, what does that mean? Well, about every other day, just on average, there's an accident that impacts that corridor every other day. As far as the master plan itself, there are a number of improvements that are considered. Those improvements include improvements that will help level of service, traffic flow, congestion through the corridor, help reduce conflicts and improve safety through the corridor. enhance pedestrian connectivity, enhance streetscape improvements to really help make this an asset for the community. And then specific recommendations as far as how we reconfigure intersections at Squire Pope Road, Chamberlain Drive, and also Spanish Wells Road, Wild Horse Road intersection. How do we think about establishing a park in the Stoney Historic Neighborhood, Gullah Geechee Heritage Park, and then longer term, as you heard from Mr. Frailix earlier today, once the bridges are built, then the additional eastbound and westbound lanes and the capacity that's added in the removal of the bottlenecks that happened from the change from two to three lanes as a longer term improvement. We'll stay focused on those segment areas that I shared previously with Jenkins Island and the Stony Historic Neighborhood. We'll start with Jenkins Island highlighted here. So from the foot of the bridge, through the causeway connecting to Hilton Head Island, And these improvements will look the same as you've seen in the past, and I'll highlight one change. As you come onto the island, the main change that you'll see here is the consolidation of traffic patterns or intersections with C Hendricks Circle and Crosstree Drive and Jenkins Road. The proposal here is to take and turn Jenkins Road into a right in, right out, which then requires improvements to happen at the Cross Tree Drive and C Hendricks Circle intersection to include turn lanes, but then also to provide supportive infrastructure so that people are able to access Hogs Island to access the RV resort, ultimately then to access Jenkins Island Cemetery and take advantage of this tremendous asset that the town owns on Jenkins Island? And how do we provide public access with public parking and a trailhead on this property? Another improvement, something that was discussed and shown as a potential solution to maintain continuous flow traffic through this section of the corridor. We're showing this as a magenta line as a potential, something really for Beaufort County and SCDOT to consider as they further study this corridor in the future, showing this potential for a under the bridge roadway connection, again, tying into the cross tree drive intersection at Windmill Harbor. Other improvements that are shown here are the, new westbound and eastbound additional lane, but then really a host of pedestrian improvements with pedestrian connectivity that will come from the island looping around underneath that bridge and providing circuitous circulation of pedestrians through this area, which doesn't presently exist today.

Mayor, just wondering, there's a lot here to go through. I'll try to make notes about the whole thing, but Is it possible to ask questions in these segments?

If we could, I'd like to get through the master plan and get to the phases before we do that, if that's okay?

Okay.

The next segment then is the Stony Historic Neighborhood Corridor. Again, from the causeway over through the Spanish Wells Wild Horse Road intersection. First thing I'll note here is the note in the top right corner that no right away acquisition is required in Estonia historic neighborhood with these proposed improvements. That was a directive that was set very early by town council. We have held that near and dear and have continued to hold that near and dear through this entire process. As you approach then from the Jenkins Island area on US 278, in addition to identifying that there's potentially new future eastbound and westbound lanes, we also heard through our community means with the Stony Historic Neighborhood that the roadway access that the Stewart family currently has was very important to them and they wanted us to maintain that to the extent that that's possible. As proposed in this master plan, we are maintaining that access that they have today, full access across that section of roadway. Then the balance of the improvements are really centered around two key areas. One is the Squire Pope Road intersection, Chamberlain Drive intersection, as well as then over at Spanish Wells. at Squire Pope Road. We've talked about this idea of a continuous green T. We have some additional slides that show that in a little bit more detail, but because of continuous green T limits access, particularly for Chamberlain Drive. So people can't drive straight through from Chamberlain Drive to Squire Pope Road. And conversely, Squire Pope Road can't drive across over to Chamberlain Drive. That caused us to have to consider a couple of additional improvements. because the pedestrian path, the pedestrian passage right now is at grade, but if eastbound traffic is permitted to be continuous flow, we need to separate that pedestrian traffic. And so this contemplates a, proposes a new pedestrian bridge over William Hilton Parkway that provides that connectivity of the neighborhood across the roadway. The other thing that has to happen is because since Chamberlain Drive can't get eastbound, I'm sorry, westbound on William Hilton Parkway is we need to extend Chamberlain Drive through town-owned land past the old school house park, working with DOT and their property over to Humane Way. And then improve Humane Way with roadway improvements and pedestrian connectivity that ties us all together to get over to Spanish Wells Road. And that provides the connection that's needed for Chamberlain Drive. As part of this then we have opportunities to create a Gullah Geechee Heritage Park. And as we move farther to the east, towards the end of the master plan area, contemplating what do we do with Spanish Wells Road and Wild Horse Road. And this ultimately shows the ultimate improvement, which is a two lane bridge with a pedestrian path coming up and over US 278. This bridge is proposed just slightly to the east of the existing intersection shown here. And the benefit of that is where we can continue to utilize that existing intersection today while a bridge is built and not have to interrupt traffic significantly while we make that improvement. There's also some other improvements that we've identified since this is going to be a long-term effort, it's gonna require significant design funding as well as permitting. There's some additional improvements that we've identified that we can make at the Spanish Wells Wild Horse Road intersection. We're calling them baseline improvements and I'll explain what those mean here in a minute. But those are in some interim improvements that we can make at that intersection. The balance of this then contemplates the connections to North Point, a new connection between Old Wild Horse and Wild Horse Road, improvements to the Old Wild Horse Road streetscape, and we have a slide segment on that, and then median plantings, and then similar to what we saw on Jenkins Island, all new pedestrian connections to provide everybody with opportunities for pedestrian connectivity. So looking at these items a little bit closer detail, this is the continuous green T, William Hill Parkway, right here, Squire Pope Road, Chamberlain Drive. As you saw here, what happens is Chamberlain Drive, there's a median that comes across, so Chamberlain Drive becomes right in, right out. Squire Pope Road cannot go through that median access Chamberlain Drive, but Squire Pope has full access from right, left onto William Hilton Parkway. And the same thing with William Hilton Parkway has access to Squire Pope Road. The benefit of this is that it allows for continuous flow eastbound. It also allows for less conflict points, so it enhances traffic safety. And we'll see on the slide that we have coming up the number of benefits that this intersection can provide. These are some renderings showing the overall image of what that would look like. The pedestrian bridge here in the foreground, and then continuous green T, and I apologize, we've changed orientation on you. US 278 is now up and down. Pedestrian bridge, Squire Pope, Chamberlain. And this is just a little bit closer shot so people can see and start to visualize what a continuous green T looks like. We actually have one of these on the island now. It's at Port Royal and Coggins Point Road and that intersection. It functions exactly the same way that that road is designed today and functions today. Moving on over to the Spanish Wells Road area. I mentioned their baseline improvements that we believe we can implement quickly to help provide congestion relief, help provide reduced conflicts and help the overall intersection and corridor with traffic flow. These generally are expansions or new lanes to help us separate traffic movements right now, traffic movements are combined. So if you're in one lane, you can go left or straight, or you can go right or straight. We are taking all of the traffic movements and separating them into their own lane. So every lane is dedicated as a left turn, right turn or through movement. In the case of Spanish Wells Road, we do have a large number of left turns. And so we are proposing that there are two left turns to help manage that peak hour traffic for Spanish Wells Road. And the same thing happens across a wild horse road where everything is separated and we do see benefit from this proposal. And this is just a perspective of what that looks like. As far as then the ultimate improvement, the final, the recommended long-term improvement, this shows US 278. the existing old wild horse, I'm sorry, wild horse, the existing Spanish Wells Road, and then bringing a new road slightly to the east, east is up on this slide, to construct a new bridge and then to minimize conflict points, utilize roundabouts to manage traffic as you come off of US 278 through these roundabouts and be able to cross back and forth above William Hilton Parkway. So also shows a little bit more detail humane way in that connection of Chamberlain Chamberlain drive back over to Squire Pope road. Perspective of rendered perspective of what that would look like. I mentioned Old Wild Horse Road, there are suggested improvements to Old Wild Horse Road. Right now it's a ditch section with pathway on one side, irregular shape or irregular width of pathway and location. What we would propose is to through this, particularly through this neighborhood commercial area, spruce that up with new curb and gutter to help with stormwater drainage, new street trees, new sidewalks. really helping provide an anchor point for the neighborhood on this side. And this is an important detail just to show some of the, that we're able to minimize, can fit within the right of way number one, but we can also calm traffic by using 10 foot lanes and two foot curbs. When we think about then the gateway corridor plan, as I showed it to you in a bunch of segments, if we stitch that whole thing together, this is what that looks like. Beginning with, of course, the bridge coming through the C Hendricks Circle, Cross Tree Drive intersection, and Jenkins Island, to Squire Pope Road, and then ultimately over to Spanish Wells Road, Wild Horse Road. project benefits, phasing and pricing. This will also look familiar. This slide takes all the data that we now have in the appendix, turning movement counts, traffic counts, track crash data, takes all the data that we've collected and tries to show you what type of improvement using a sliding scale of zero is minimal benefit to 10 is an optimal benefit of what these improvements could accomplish. both on the operational side at the intersection and the corridor, but then also at the safety side of this project. The baseline improvements, as I mentioned, we do see a number of benefits from just providing those additional lanes and turning movements, both at the intersection at the corridor level, particularly on a safety benefit. Certainly it is not as robust of a benefit as the two lane bridge, but it is a meaningful impact that we see from making those interim improvements for right now. And something that we believe we should implement upon adoption of this. And we have funding in our CIP budget to begin some of that work today. The other items then are Squire Pope Road, the continuous green T allowing that eastbound continuous flow. We see significant benefits at that intersection and then some moderate benefits in the overall corridor. And then of course, then the additional capacity that's created with additional lanes eastbound and westbound. So if you take all those projects that I just ran you through, I walked you through, there's 12 projects in total. This is them all get broken out into a map. This hopefully this map looks familiar. We talked about this at the workshop. It is sequential project A through project L. So beginning with those major intersection improvements at Squire Pope and I'm sorry, Spanish Wells and Squire Pope with baseline improvements. And when you map all those out into a table, it looks like this. One thing that is new on this slide is we took the, based on the feedback we heard at the town council workshop from town council, we took and added this bold green line across here. Everything above that line are high priority, high impact projects that we can get going on relatively quickly. to help implement and make improvements into this corridor on a quicker track than building bridges that need permitting and significant design and funding. Those projects, those baseline improvements at Spanish Wells Road, the implementation of the continuous green tea at, I'm sorry, the baseline improvements are at Spanish Wells Road, the continuous green tea at Squire Pope, which then brings with it the pedestrian bridge and brings with it the connection to Chamberlain Drive. We'd also recommend that we move forward with the streetscape improvements on a wider horse road. And then the balance of these projects while we're working on those, it's not that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time, but these would be longer term projects below that green line that we would focus on longer term. So I just shared with you, there's an estimated cost in almost today's dollars of around $125 million in projects. So the question becomes, how do we pay for that? There's a lot of different vehicles out there for the town to consider funding. And we've talked about those. You heard a little bit about those from Mr. Fralick's today. The federal government has a number of programs that are highly competitive, but they are available to us. The state similarly has programs available to us as we can also work with our delegation. And then we also have some things that we're more in control of on the regional level with TIFs, with sales tax referendums, with obligation bonds, impact fee and town funding. So we have a lot of different vehicles to help us navigate the funding strategy of how to implement these over the short period of time. And the last thing I wanna share is we're really focusing on this corridor from Jenkins Island through the Spanish Wells, Wild Horse Road intersection. But we also recognize that there's things that have to happen outside of those corridors because there's gonna be impacts downstream and upstream. So we already have teed up a number of projects, Gumtree Road, Squire Pope Road, Main Street, Wilborn Road, looking on that business route, but then also coming around and looking at the Cross Island Parkway and what the impacts might be there with traffic getting there sooner with improvements to Palmetto Bay Road, Sea Pine Circle. But then also we do manage the traffic system here, the adaptive signal. So there's things that we can do from a timing and operations assessment to make some improvements. So all of, we are looking at the whole context of the island, although our focus right now is right here with this area. The last thing I have then is there is a fly-through animation. We have shared this before. It's about a six minute video. Mayor, I'll defer to you and in the interest of time, if you want me to share it, I'm happy to. Otherwise, everybody who's at home or here in the audience, you can... and you can watch this at any time on the link or the button that's here on the screen.

And it's on the town website.

And it's on the town website. And so mayor with that, I just start an end where I started, which was this isn't the beginning, this isn't the end. We believe we've taken all the feedback we've heard from the public, from US town council and incorporate into this plan with the adoption of this resolution, we're ready to get to work and move on to the next thing.

Okay. So with that, is there a motion on the table? Move for approval.

Second.

Great. We've got a first and a second. Kim, do we have anybody signed up to speak on this agenda item at this time?

Yes, we do.

Okay. And remember that the same rules will apply to the non-agenda items applied here as well.

Give me just one second. Sean, let me get the.

And we'll give you a minute to get everything set up.

Skip Hoagland.

That was a great presentation. It now gets down to the funding and who pays for it. And I have that answer to pay the entire 125 million. First, it's been meeting after meeting after meeting that has become not a very well done process. The only thing that matters now is a vote to fix our one bridge, which is more than 30 years beyond its recommended service life. This is our top priority and could become a very serious public safety issue. Tell us the cost and we will pay our fair share, but the cost should be shared by the approximately 3 million visitors who use this bridge, not solely on the 40,000 residents. Just issue a municipal bond and pay the bond back by the 3 million tourists. It's simple and here's how it works. add a $5 per day tourist impact user fee on top of all the other taxes that we've got and all the other fees that's not covering our costs. This is on top of accommodations, hospitality, and everything else. The fee would be collected at checkout, like a toll. This will raise approximately $75 million annually and help solve our infrastructure and corridor problems. The visitors will pay their fair share into perpetuity. instead of forcing residents to carry the burden of what I believe is an absurd, illegal, $220 million budget, higher taxes, and a bloated, wasteful bureaucracy. Our community is being abused by a very well-spoken Canadian town manager. He's a nice guy, but there's a lot of talk there. He has enormous power, and we have a weak part-time mayor who continues to support these burdens on taxpayers. And both of y'all want to give more power to our chamber to run the town and profit its pockets at the expense of taxpayers. A bigger bridge alone will not solve traffic any more than a stint will cure every heart problem. We still have one road and an artery running from I-95 to Sea Pines dead end. The traffic chaos just ends up at the south end and Sea Pines circle much faster. 10 pounds does not fit in a five-pound bag. Bluffton faces approximately 40% more development, and much of it's influenced by the approvals involving the town of Bluffton's Finger Law Firm, while Hardyville is just getting started. Now the Finger Law Firm is our Hilton head firm. There's a lot more to come on that, a lawsuit, matter of fact. Folks, we must be honest and accept there's no more complete traffic fix. Congestion will only get worse. We are no longer living a small island life. We are now a small city. There is no one to blame. Our mayor and council need to start being honest with taxpayers and voters about this.

Thank you. Your time is up, sir. My advice is... Mr. Hoagland, your time is up.

Okay, sorry. I couldn't hear. Sorry, I couldn't finish that rec.

Palmer Simmons.

I'm sitting so long, my throat's getting dry. Palmer Simmons, 584 Spanish Rails Road, resident of Hilton Head. I was glad to see that you had this resolution to pass. I had an opportunity to look over that plan, and if you live in the Spanish Rails area, you would know that in the evenings, it's absolutely murder in that area. I think the plan, though it be that no plans are perfect, I think it's an excellent start to solving some of our traffic problems here on the island. So I would ask that you continue to move that project forward. There was some options to get it paid for. I would think if you investigate those as well, it would be a less burden on the citizens. I especially liked that the plans in Estonia and Spanishville did not impact any of our historic neighborhoods. So I think some thought went into it. And I ask that you continue to moving forward as best you can. Thank you. Thank you.

Chester Williams. Lola Campbell. That's all I have.

All right. Thank you. So we'll bring it back to the dais for discussion. Council members, Ms. Bryson, you had something to begin with, so I'll let you go first.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Leininger. I think it'd be helpful to ask you just a couple of questions. And it's page 21 of the slides. Give me some time to pull that one back up. Yeah, that's it. So a couple things. One is, as I understand it, the, I'm not sure, white cut, I guess it's hot pink color. With the potential under bridge roadway connection by BCSC DOT. Beaufort County SEDOT. And that's, was that new? Did I understand that? I know we talked about it before. I know a lot of people have talked about it. I think it's, I think it's a good idea. No quarrel with that. But I just wanted to make sure, is that something new that's been added since the last map we saw?

Yeah, this was added as a result of the town council directives. There was a specific one on this one. And so we went ahead and added the magenta line.

Okay, that was my first question. And then the other is we don't have a cost estimate for doing that. So are we then looking to, and I think for the public, it'd be good to say, and I think it is in gray, if you will. The gray is the current Beaufort County SEDOT project, the eastbound project. Am I right? The gray color across the bridge and then see Heinrich Circle and then back towards Hog Island. Okay. I thought it would be helpful to at least point that out to the public that we are not doing that project from the bridge all the way down there. There's some separate things that are included in project H, which is the mast arm, new signal mast arms and some intersection improvements. I think that's all we're doing in that area. Is that right?

Correct. And a lot of that'll be a coordination effort with Beaufort County and through their project, they can pick some of that up. We'll work with them to pick some of that up.

Right. Just, yeah. Okay. And then, The rest of it, this doesn't show all of the different projects, but I did think it would be helpful to point out to the public what we're talking about right there, and that that is something that we're looking to the county and SEDOT to include in their current project, not that we're including in the master plan.

That's correct. It's listed here as a potential under bridge roadway connection by Beaufort County, SCDOT. And we've had conversations with their teams about this. It is not part of the current program, but the current program acknowledges from the standpoint that when they designed the bridge and they set those peers, they won't be set in a manner that will potentially restrict this from happening in the future.

Okay, good, good. But it's not really, On the list of projects, it's part of the master plan. It is not. Is my point, okay. All right, I just want to clarify that. And then the other thing, and I did write down, sorry, the page number, but where you show Project B, Squire Pope Road with the continuous green? Yeah, one back. Perfect. And this issue I raised before at the workshops, and that is just to let the public know that what this means is if you're coming down Squire Pope Road and you wanna go over to Old Schoolhouse Park by using Chamberlain Drive access, you won't be able to do that because you cannot go straight across. You'll have to turn left and go make a U-turn and come back and make a right on Chamberlain Road. Or you can go all the way around the other way and come in on Adriana Lane until that access is closed off.

or go to Spanish Wells Road and pick it up through Humane Way, Chamberlain Drive.

Yeah. Well, from Squire Pope Road, how do you get to Spanish Wells?

Squire Pope can still make

You can't make a left-hand turn there.

You can make a left-hand turn. You can make a left-hand turn.

You can make a left-hand turn, but not straight across.

Yeah, the left-hand turn comes and you enter traffic from the left-hand side, similar to the Port Royal Coggins Point intersection.

And then you have to go across a couple lanes of traffic to get quickly over to Adriana Lane. So that's a really tough navigation. I just want people to know that. It's not that I'm against that plan or against the continuous green, but I want folks to know, coming off Squire Pope Road, it's a different way to get to turn left and to get to old school house park to play pickleball. So, okay. And then the last thing is that we have some money in our current budget for some of these projects to start with. And I think it'd be helpful to remind us of how much money is there in the current budget to start this. I wanna remember about 1.1 billion, but I'm not million, not billion. I didn't say billion. I need more hydration. At any rate, I can't remember the exact number, but I thought it would be helpful for folks to know that we're already thinking ahead in putting some money towards these projects with the current budget.

And I don't have that number up here with me. I just made eye contact with a couple of people in the back of the room there. They're trying to find that number for me. And we'll share that with you once I have it.

And perhaps the point is, is that we do have some money in the budget, not all of this money, but some money to start the coming up with the drawings, not the permitting and construction, but coming up with the design.

Good evening, Don D'Adam with Public Projects. I just need to find my page here. I anticipated that question too.

There we go.

Okay, so for fiscal year 27, we approved the following. One more page. We make these lists too long. I got it. Okay, sorry about that. So for Squire Pope and William Hilton Parkway, $400,000. Spanish Falls and William Hilton Parkway, $300,000. And that was just predominantly for a soft cost. Now there's other investments also being made on Squire Pope and Gumtree, but that's outside of the scope of what we're talking about.

okay thank you sorry about that and the last thing is a technical thing about the resolution itself um uh before the um for the signature lines um in um it's on the last page of the resolution number three um three a i think there's a verb missing so um it seems as though it says town manager is authorized to do the following and a says as the framework there's no verb maybe it's should say serve as the framework but i didn't want us to get that signed without a technical correction that's it mayor thank you okay thank you other comments questions from council

Beat on these dead horses. But, you know, we had these workshops and expressed a lot of opinions about how this ought to go. The difference is tonight it's a vote. And I still have to go on record in saying that, first, I really like what's been presented. And I'm going to vote in favor of it. but I also have to say that I think there's more ways it's gonna get. And we're talking about this, the green tea, to put in the green tea, It seems to me you have to build the overpass for the pedestrians. But to spend $16.5 million on an overpass for pedestrians when there's other ways to skin that cat, and you could do a whole lot with $16.5 million and getting people across the road, and that would be utilizing the new construction for Spanish Wells. and save that 16 and a half million dollars or a portion of that 16 and a half million dollars. Other solutions that we discussed in, or I discussed in some of our workshops, I was asked to, I haven't told anyone this, but I was asked to meet with the business community out there and I did. And the town may get a proposal to maybe solve this Squire Pope intersection. Will it come? I don't know. But the sequence of events, the way, I think Sean, if you could bring up the screen of what you said was available to do now, and you had a big green line between it. Yeah, to build the green T, 900,000 bucks, you're gonna have to build the pedestrian bridge, which is also in here for 14.1, where in my other notes, it was 16.5. So why is that different, by the way? I only noticed. Is anyone down? Where do you get 16.5? Where do I get 16.5? I don't remember, but in my head it was 16, five, maybe it's 14, one. Okay. But for four, that's why I said that a moment ago, but for $14 million, I think we can find a better way to get pedestrians around, um, around that and then using that access. But what it does is it tells me that we shouldn't build the green tea until the Spanish wells overpass is in now. And in our workshop, I was completely opposite. Um, But again, I just have to go on record just saying that we're not all the way there. If we wanna move traffic, we have to get rid of both lights. And to get rid of both lights, we have to be bold and we have to make decisions and we have to vote and raise our hand and agree to make that hard decision. at a minimal, I can see us getting rid of left-hand turns on Squire Pope Road. Now I know that's an inconvenience to some people on the Squire Pope Road area, but you know, they can make their way around and it would solve what Ms. Bryson was just talking about being very difficult to make a left-hand turn out of Squire Pope, moving across three lanes and getting off into Spanish Wells. But to eliminate the, the possibility of these accidents or these fatalities at Squire Pope Road, the only way you're gonna do it is get rid of the light. So I would suggest that once we implement project B and whenever that's done, that we, at least at a minimal amount, eliminate the possibility of turning left in the a.m., say between the hours of seven and nine a.m., and in the p.m., four and six p.m. And what that would do, that would allow traffic to full flow through that intersection in the morning and full flow through that intersection in the evening. No reason really to do that until Spanish Wells is fixed, but it's a possibility if the green T is built. But anyway, like I said, I just need to go on record and make this announcement known because I pounded so hard during the workshops. And I know I talked everyone up here on the dais ear off about the overpass, the great separation in Spanish Wells. And that finally we got that through, but please, if you would take another look at that and we can move this on tonight, I'm for it. but I still think we have a little work to do.

If I could ask a question, and I'm not sure Mark or Sean or Brittany who it goes to, but approving, if we were to approve this resolution as it is tonight, does the opportunity still exist for adjustments within the schedule and or the different projects that may come through? Question, is A through E set in stone as the first? Is there a way for it to be adjusted a little bit based off of cost benefit pricing, cost benefit engineering,

Mayor Perry, to answer your question, I'm trying to answer it directly. You say, is it set in stone? Nothing is set in stone until you vote on it. And so what we're talking about tonight are really two things here in this presentation. One is the concept and the vision of the master plan. And two is a game plan for these projects A through L. Let's just, case study, we go and we obtain funding from a great source in the state of South Carolina for $27,600,000. To receive those dollars, to receive them, I would have to bring that to you as part of a budget or a budget amendment and a grant agreement or some sort of funding transfer. We would also talk at that time about the specificity of the road projects. We have workshops scheduled for all of next year with the exception of budget, a couple of workshops and with the exception of a couple other projects, I've actually anticipated many capital project related town council monthly workshops for things just like this. So I want you to understand that case scenario. We go out and seek some money based upon the master plan and the alignment of your vote. And then I bring back to you the funding and we bring back to you those project details. Because when we start surveying, we're going to learn a lot. And when we start asking DOT or somebody else for no left turns at certain times of the day, we're going to learn a lot. I can't confidently ask that yet until we have this approved.

And that was kind of my question because Steve brings up some good points. And as we go through that process, after the resolution is agreed upon, and we move through that process, what changes? And that's exactly where I wanna make certain that we're not eliminating.

Yeah, I don't know how these numbers were derived, but I'm sure that utility interference is nowhere in these numbers, correct? Right, so that could be massive. That could be massive. It could move roads, positions. Elevations.

We've received opinion of probable cost from transportation engineers from... ICE. Yeah, but what's that? What's the name of the company? Infrastructure Consulting Engineering. Yeah, they've been at our workshops. They've provided that based upon some of their projects. I would ask Mayor and Council that if you would like some additional components that you aren't seeing here as you vote tonight, and I'll rely upon... but I would be in favor of having some specific additional conditions for us to go look into above and beyond if there's something here that you collectively want me to do.

If I'm not mistaken, that utility, the PSD, the main is an interference here as well, so. And that's not been revealed until the surveyors get out there.

Okay, other comments from council questions? Ms. Becker.

Well, I always appreciate when there's a conversation. So thank you. And what this really in front of us is, is the collective of a lot of conversations over a lot of years with a lot of people involved who've brought their expertise to the table and I think delivered a good product. There's a couple of questions and there's a concern that I have. First of all, I'm thrilled to see that there is a specific pathway to protect the walkers over at Humane Society who volunteer. on a regular basis, so thank you for putting that in writing. I'd like it in blood, no, I'm only kidding. It's late and I'm getting punchy. But thank you for making sure that that is documented in there. The green line is really helpful. I agree with Steve that there's probably other considerations. When I look at Project C, $14 million at 2025 prices, I get very uncomfortable I frankly don't like the way it looks I don't like how much it costs, I understand. The reason that it's been put in as a safety measure for pedestrians but. I still would have rather seen something else, and certainly something far less expensive than $14 million. And I guess that answers, the green line answers one of my questions, my first question, which was which pieces can be done with the current money that we, the current money that we can get together. And I'm okay with that then. I do have a question about, and Patsy, you brought it up, the funding for any of the items within the segments outside of town limits I would like to have more certainty that Beaufort County or someone else is paying for that. I'm not really comfortable with the idea that the town is covering the costs for areas outside of the town limits. I understand that they help overall, but given the fact that they have some money there from 2018 that they should have been addressing these issues, it'd be really appropriate that they manage the costs associated with anything outside of the town limits. So I would like to continue that conversation to make sure that that happens over time. There was one here you mentioned in, and these aren't gonna be any specific order, but you mentioned a pathway, future pathway from North Point, which I think is one of the new things that have been added since we spoke. Is that going over water?

I don't believe this was a new thing. I believe this was part of the workshop on July 28th. But yes, this looks at a connection. North Point's just off the map here. And it has come across Jarvis Creek.

I do recall talking about something like that, but I thought that the conversation pretty much ended in that it really wasn't a feasible project to

Is it budgeted? It is not budgeted. It's just listed as a potential future connection. It does not show up as a recommended in our list of projects.

So that leads me to the question I have. So when we approve this master plan with things like that in it, what does that mean that the town council is committed itself to?

You're committing that it's a vision, and I just wanna make sure and slow down and say, let's say, and this came from a council member, right? The ask was from a council member. I think that there was at least some collective, and I'm trying to understand the consensus in the room at the time, but that a potential future, and I say potential because there's a lot of permitting and a lot of cost estimating to go into that. But let's just say that there are some funds out there that are a part of our, whether from DOT, whether from some grant and whatever that cost would be, I would bring that to you. We would place it for consideration in the budget as a budget, as we start a fiscal year and or a budget amendment, and you would talk about it then. This is simply a policy document at that time. There's a reason these are dashed in the way they are, different than some of those true road markings on the rest of the plan, because we have a lot of exploring and assessment to do. I've tried to make sure that I said that as I started to talk to say that there is still a lot of careful planning, prioritization, sequencing, and that we'll return to town council for capital programming, we'll return to council that time of budget, and that once we find the dollars that we'll deliberately look at them. I understand what you're asking. It's just why I wanna say it's so specific.

Sometimes people approve something and it sits on a shelf and someone comes along and they think, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. And they move forward. And then those who were questioning it at one point are long gone and can't place the argument on the table. So I hope you'll be here a long time.

If you remember, recall the thinking behind that was if North Point overruns Gumtree Road and we have no avenue to get people out, this is the back door.

I understand that. What it overridingly says to me, however, is the other issue that I have, which is an environmental issue. that's a lot of environmental impact that I can't even begin to get comfortable with. And similarly, in honesty, because we don't have anything to scale, this is a beautiful picture, and I understand the concept and the movement of the traffic, but that flyover over Spanish Wells going out into the marsh, I'm super uncomfortable with. And it's below the green line, so... So it's not an immediate thing that we'll be looking at, but I just wanna make sure like Steve has put things into the record. I would like to put this into the record in really big letters. That is a huge environmental impact. And if there's any other options, I'd like them seriously to be looked at and developed to get us out of any type of wetland marsh area. In fact, that's the only way to go, that it is so minimally, I have no idea how far that goes out into the water or any of the rest. I'm not sure if that drawing is actually accurate in terms of its dimensions, but I just wanna be clear on the record. In fact, I'd like to actually pull it out as a separate piece so I could vote no on it. It makes me that uncomfortable. So yeah, those are my comments for the time being.

Okay, thank you. Ms. Tonner.

Yes. No, it's interesting that Jared was here today and he talked about the change in scope of the project. And I can remember when we found out that there was less money and the corridor wouldn't be included, I wasn't happy. But the circumstances has really allowed us the opportunity to take time and to build a better solution than what we had before. And so I feel really good about that. So it's interesting how life works out. And we're in this place today talking about concepts that are new, the continuous screen, the bridge over Spanish Wells, the connector to Spanish Wells in Chamberlain. I mean, these are great concepts that weren't included in the original design that are really gonna make a difference. So I feel really good about that. I also appreciate that we continue to acknowledge that this work doesn't solve all of our issues. I appreciate that. And we've identified what some of those issues are within the materials of the other areas that we're gonna need to focus on. But this is a start and it's a start focused on some of the most heavily trafficked pieces of our roadway. and those areas with the highest number of incidents. So if you think about it from a prioritization process, that makes a lot of sense to focus on those areas that are the heaviest trafficked and have the highest number of incidents. And even though people challenge us to say, well, it doesn't include this and it doesn't include that, I think we shouldn't bite off more than we can chew. And so I think by having the scope that we have today, It is something that is manageable. And I know $127 million is a lot of money, but it's a small number compared to some of the other numbers that are floating out there in regards to roadway projects. So it seems like it's much more manageable. And we've even identified how to fight the apple with the immediate priorities, which is a very, much more manageable number at 27.6 million and then the longer term areas at 98.2 million. So I believe it's a step in the right direction and it doesn't solve every issue and we're not pretending that it does because there are other roads and other areas that we're gonna need to work with. So I think we have to start somewhere and I think this master plan is the right approach And you have to think about this as this isn't the finish line, this is the start of the journey. And the start of the journey in solving all of our transportation issues. And so that's what I'm thinking about as I think about this project.

Mr. Alford.

I concur with a number of the sentiments expressed by Ms. Turner. This is a very complex, difficult, confusing project. And If there were simple solutions, we would have had them a long time ago. So there are no simple solutions to this very complex situation. I personally am very appreciative of the work staff did between our last discussion of this and a workshop to pull this together into a form that makes sense and is understandable and permits us to take steps to go forward. In order to construct a project, you need to have money. In order to have money, you need to have a plan. And that's why we're taking this step at this particular point. Now we are in a position to begin to go out and seek the funds and see what kind of reactions we get, which will have a big impact on what actually gets built. But I am also pleased to see that the above the green line figure is very close to a figure that was floated to the legislative representatives that we have in the Senate and the House as to how much money we would ask them to try to obtain from the state. I like the coincidence of that number. So I think this is a good step. It is not the final step. There will be a lot of changes along the way, but it's time to get going.

Mr. Brown. I concur with Councilman Alfred about this being complicated and complex. And if I can offer something to my colleagues that may have some hesitance on this, it's a master plan. And trust me from experience, with the Ward 1 master plan that was adopted in 1995, Things don't always get done the way that we put them on a piece of paper, okay? There will be plenty enough time for us to argue about if it's 14.1 to get people across the road or 3.6 to get dogs walking through the trail. We'll have plenty of time to have those discussions. What we need to focus on, in my opinion, is cutting loose our town manager to go start brokering the deals that we need to get the funding in place to move forward. Instead of having conversations about fatalities and such in this area. And yes, there are a lot of hidden costs that we haven't even talked about. I'm not making any argument about the fact that we may need to have mitigation in this plan. because things that are already going on in that neighborhood as far as impact is concerned but i've got trust in all of us that we want to come together make the right phone calls make the right visits so we get to a point where we got cash in hand to deal with the immediate fixes that we can do and i want to mention out loud to all of us that the 30 million dollars You know, in next year's budget cycle, we have to have a conversation about our debt capacity. We've got money. Yes, I want to spend other people's money, but we've got money. So I am more than ready to vote on this again so we can let Mr. Orlando go do what he does best, broker so we can get this done. Mr. Hunter, anything else? Oh, Patsy. Mr. Rice, I'm sorry.

Yeah, mostly it was about questions before, but I did want to say something about the plan itself. I particularly liked all the work that's gone into this. Somebody else said, maybe it was Mr. Alfred said, if there were a magic fix to this, we would have done it well before now. There have been a lot of ideas provided to us. We've thought about them. We've studied them. We've considered them. We have not ignored them. But I do like that there's no impact on private property on this plan. I do like that we have identified projects that we can do sooner rather than later. Take the intersection at Spanish Wells by changing the lane configurations. That can be done sooner and improve that intersection. And then also the other improvements are included in Stony here without the impact on Stony that was planned before. with a larger SCDOT project. So I like that. And also improvements to the Stoney area. The heritage park that is planned as part of the second group, if you will. But other improvements, especially to assist with pedestrian and bicyclist crossing in the Stoney area, which was asked for, and what was that, 2002, Mr. Brown? It was asked for a number of years ago. And finally, we do have a plan to include that. And I'm happy that it's still going to be included in this plan. So I will be supportive of this. And I wanna also point out that I'm glad we're doing this now because this fall begins the cycle at the state funding and looking towards their budget. And let's not get behind that again. Let's make sure that we're ready for our delegation and I'm glad to point that the number has been pointed out. It's about in the range of what we ask our delegation for. It's not in place of the 80 million, it's part of that. There's more that we can ask in the second tranche, but it is a big step for our community and I'm gonna support it.

No, not really. I'm just listening to everybody reaffirm what everybody else has said. And I just want to say, I agree.

So, um, Oh, Mr. Brown, I'm sorry. That's why you're in like, I was going to say, call the question. Well, I was going to try to speak for a second, um, not to affirm everybody, but, but I do want to bring to light some very important parts here. Um, The money that was taken away from this corridor has driven us to create a better product, to Mrs. Tunner's point. It's allowing us to address our destiny as to how we address the issues that we're being faced with, with development and growth off of our island. We're addressing our growth on island. there's more that does need to happen. There is the modal transportation, the other areas of transportation that have to be considered. So it does not solve, but for us to take the responsibility and finally push something forward where Mark and staff can work on it intelligently and diligently with the proper gets us to a solution where one, it starts to eliminate those accidents and injuries. Two, it starts moving people better through the island, gets people to work. It creates a better workforce opportunity. So there's a lot of things that go into this or through this that'll make it a better community. So I heard Mr. Brown said he wanted to call the vote. So we have a motion on the table from Mr. Brown, seconded by Mr. Alfred for consideration of a resolution by the town of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, adopting the William Hilton Gateway Corridor Master Plan. All those in favor, signify by raising your right hand. So moved, 7-0. Thank you. Next, we have consideration of an ordinance of the Town of Hilton at Allentown Council to amend budget for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2026 to provide for the budget appropriations of commitments and the expenditures of the debt service fund to allocate sources of revenue for the said fund and to provide severability and effective dates. Mr. Byrd.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. What we have here today is a second budget amendment we have done for the 26th budget related to the debt service fund. As we close the books for the year, we look at all the funds to see how our spend came to the amended budget. Everything was under except for the debt service fund. When we did the original amended budget, we put in the face value of the After closing happened, we received 36.8 million, about 1.8 million more as a premium. So part of that though is requiring us to make a payment of 1,697,000 to that first payment, which happened in June. That did cause us to go over our amended budget spend. So this amendment here is to reflect the appropriation for that. And the other $125,000 will be used in June of 27 in addition to that second payment for the GEO bond.

Do we have a motion from council?

Second.

We have a first and a second. Kim, do we have anybody signed up to speak on this agenda item?

Yes, we do.

Okay, when you're ready.

Skip Hoagland.

You can stand right there. Parts of our $220 million budget is illegal and has many questionable expenditures, including overcharged legal fees, worse redacted by the lawyers to hide charges, $12 million for the chamber unaccounted for, $600,000 to dredge Harbortown as an HOA expense. And God only knows what else we haven't caught in this budget. Even worse, the budget has never been independently and forensically audited. Not one single person on this council is a CPA. On behalf of our community and all taxpayers, I demand that we add qualified volunteer CPAs from our community to the town's finance committee and follow free instructions from mayors and councils available on citydoge.com. Read it. It's simple, legal, and effective. This should become a true finance, Doge Finance Committee, not led by a chairman who knows as much about finance, again, as I know about beauty salons. Worse, he says the chamber only receives four million when the number is 12 million. How did he miss $8 million? Was this a beauty salon coverup for chamber friends? I'm recommending reducing our $220 million budget to $150 million and lowering taxes instead of continually increasing our taxes. Again, my plan is simple, and I'm going to repeat this, and I want everybody to listen. We should immediately adopt the tourist impact user fee, raising an estimated $75 million annually from our 3 million tourists. Tourists should pay their fair share rather than placing the entire tax and cost burden on 40,000 residents. It's also way past time for independent oversight, transparency, and a city DOGE AI forensic audits. This will cut waste, legal fees, defund the chamber 12 million, and much more towards infrastructure, police, bridge, et cetera. If Orlando and Mr. Perry and all current council members don't agree to this today, that 3 million tourists should pay versus raising our taxes, and they should be replaced. It's easy to criticize others, but much harder to offer real workable solutions. Can anybody offer a better solution than what I just proposed today? If so, stand up and tell us all what it is. And Mr. Perry, no, we're not going to take your suggestion and give more town power to the chamber and the rec center for their influence to run this town. That's not going to happen. That's in your own words and your 2018 campaign. So when I tell you something, it's going to be your own words. Thank you.

Chester Williams. That's all I have.

All right. Questions, comments from council. Questions, comments from council? All right, seeing none, we have a motion by Ms. Becker, second by Ms. Bryson for consideration of ordinance of the Town of Hilton Head Island Town Council to amend the budget for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2026 to provide for the budget appropriations of commitments and expenditures of the debt service fund to allocate the sources of revenue for said fund and to provide severability and effective date. All those in favor signify by raising your hand. So moved, seven, zero. All right, you just wanna run out and come back? Okay, does anybody else wanna take a quick break? Or you wanna keep moving? Okay, we're gonna take a recess for five minutes. We'll be right back. We will now come back from our five minute break and we have, let's see, let me get my drawers here. Next up, we have consideration of an ordinance to amend the official zoning map of the town of Hilton Head Island to modify the Port Royal PD1 master plan with respect to 4.667 acres of real property identified as a portion of parcel R5100900011990000 Mid-Island track located along Union Cemetery Road to allow religious institutions as an additional permitted use. Mr. Lowe, it's up to you.

Trey Lau, interim planning director for the record. Good afternoon or good evening now, mayor and members of town council. Before you tonight, we have a request to amend the Port Royal and surrounds master plan for a 4.667 acre portion of the town-owned parcel known as the Mid-Island Track on Union Cemetery Road. The amendment would retain the property's existing open space designation and add uses limited non-residential density, which is necessary for the relocation of St. James Baptist Church and the historic Cherry Hill School next to the church's current cemetery. And this item is for you today for first reading. Right, do we have a motion?

So moved.

All right, so the. We got motions, we got motions.

I was writing down.

All right. Kim, do we have anybody sign up to speak on this agenda item? Hey, this works out for me.

We have Chester Williams.

Good evening again. As you all know, I've represented St. James through this process. In November, it'll be for two decades. This, I think, is a great way to go about resolving the issues with St. James and the airport runway. And I'd very much appreciate it on behalf of St. James if y'all would go ahead to approve this this evening. Thank you. Thank you.

That's all I have.

That's all? Okay. Discussion from council. Seeing none, we have a motion by Ms. Bryson, seconded by Ms. Becker. We have consideration of an ordinance to amend the official zoning map of the town of Hilton Head Island to modify the Port Royal PD-1 Master Plan with respect to 4.667 acres of real property identified as a portion of parcel R51009000011990000, excuse me, Mid-Island Track located along Union Cemetery Road to allow religious institution as an amended, as an additional permitted use. All in favor, please signify by raising your hand. So moved, seven, zero. Next, we have a consideration of, excuse me. Next, we have consideration of an ordinance approving amendments to town procurement code section 11-1-315, small purchases, first reading Doug Broyles.

Good evening, mayor and council. And Kim, we could just do the PowerPoint presentation, but it's coming for you tonight on behalf of town finance administration staff with the ordinance update request to amend section 111315 of the town code related to small purchases and the threshold definition. contained in there. You have a staff memo packet that has supporting docs that we'll touch on within the PowerPoint. We shared this with F&A committee within their August normal meeting, and they voted 3-0 to move it forward to you all tonight. But with regard to the presentation, first part of the slide here, obviously just the code citation that rests with you all. Code states that any procurement not exceeding the amount of $25,000 may be made in accordance with small purchase procedures promulgated by the town manager promulgated by the town manager in this instance means approved within the town procurement standard operating procedures document. So, Currently our levels within that document, less than $7,500 purchases, departments have authority to make those purchases directly with a vendor. Over 7,500 up to 25,000 requires either a minimum of three written quotes or use of an existing contract. And then over 25,000 in new purchase would require a public solicitation or a separate approval within town code, such as a sole source or use of a cooperative contract. What we're recommending is that we move those levels to less than 10,000 being the departmental authority level. And then the small purchase threshold be updated to a level of 50,000. And then over 50,000 would then require public solicitation or separate approval. And to come to this recommendation, we did quite a bit of benchmarking with municipalities across the state and our local area to see where they sat with regard to this. As you can see, most are either at that $50,000 or over in some instances up to $100,000 level. profiled both state, town of Bluffton, Beaufort County, Greenville, Rock Hill, and coupled that along with reporting on our spend and benchmarking of our spend, looking back over the last fiscal year, that average spend was falling above our current level, which is 25,000 and landing at little over 26,000. So that's the reason you see the recommendation that we're putting forward at 50,000. A little bit of additional rationale. This particular piece of code definition was written in 2007. So as we all well know, there's been significant inflationary pressure since then, particularly since early 2020s and COVID. This update would allow us to more directly engage small businesses locally, which is something we're charged with as well. But being able to go directly to those businesses that might not be adept or willing or able to respond to a public solicitation formally. As I mentioned, most comparable municipalities are already at a $50,000 or higher limit. I touched on our average purchase in the trailing 12 months, 26,135. We did have after discussion at F&A committee, town attorney review state requirements as to whether or not we need this small purchase definition within our code. And town attorney did confirm that. The compliance process that we utilize internally on these purchases is no different at the $25,000 level than it would be at the $50,000 level. We instituted a formal review on those things in April of 2025, shortly after I arrived here. And then just as a final note, when we provided the recommendation to F&A committee, they voted 3-0 to put it forward to you guys tonight. So you have within your staff memo packet, the ordinance itself for review.

All right, do we have a motion on the table? All right, so Kim, do we have anybody signed up to speak on this agenda item?

Yes, we do. Give me just one second.

Certainly.

Skip Hoagland.

This town has done nothing but violate fair bidding and procurement requirements during the 50 years I've lived here. Insiders received many of the contracts. The chamber DMO, town lawyers, landscape companies are perfect examples, and God knows what else. We must conduct an AI City Doge investigation of every vendor, who the vendor is connected to, whether any conflicts exist, what work the vendor performed, the cost, fair and legal, what reporting, performance metrics, and accountability. taxpayers receive for their money. Where there are less expensive ways to perform this work, this is a reason for fair bids under procurement. Also to assure no favors, kickbacks, payoffs, bribery involved like free chamber memberships, tax paid memberships to attend lavish tax paid chamber ball parties to drink the tax paid Kool-Aid. That's another lawsuit I'm filing. Our $12 million chamber DMO funding should be reduced to zero. Legal fees should be cut 90% through AI with in-house staff lawyer. I ask to terminate our outside lawyer immediately. We must examine our town's largest 20 expenditures immediately and analyze every department with AI. Why are we not doing that? some vendors have received contracts for 30 or 40 years with no fair opportunity for others even worse the town has allowed and assisted and voted for some chosen vendors to receive millions in tax money without accountability and worse you're violating FOIA to conceal how these funds were spent the chamber and lawyers tax robbery must end more recently Hilton had bluffed in town lawyers have redacted legal fees, preventing taxpayers from seeing the basis for their legal fees at approximately $285 an hour. With AI and in-house lawyer, we can complete, can do that at a fraction of the cost for free. Mr. Orlando, Mr. Perry, where are the competing bids from our other lawyer and law firms? I want to get those. The Island Packet reported on the chamber's so-called secret sauce and the overcharged legal fees. Read it. imagine 35 years of tax funding the chamber perhaps 300 million without complete public accounting disappeared 35 years of using the same insider lawyers paying millions of legal fees committing malpractice and drafting illegal multi-million dollar contracts our chamber and all the lawyers must be fbi investigated begin with finger alfred ward coltrane gruber and holbert and god only knows what we don't know This town has got to look deep into the problems that we have. With no transparency or accountability, we're lost. No CPAs, no forensic audits. We're lost. You gotta follow the money. Follow the money, you stop 90% of the crime. The FBI has been very specific to me about that. Just follow the money and that cleans it all up. You're not doing it.

Lance Pyle.

Lance Powell, Port Royal Plantation, members of council, Mayor Perry and Mark, thank you for this opportunity to speak. While the procurement requirements are primarily used for general operations of the town, what you may not know is that they are also used for the community's drainage agreements. And those drainage agreements right now is a partnership between the town, the tax dollars, and the stormwater drainage in the communities. The partnership includes working with town staff to manage qualified draining projects and communities managing the work within those communities. Currently, the managers, the general managers for the community have met with town staff. We've asked for changes to the way the procurement process works. We've asked for potential changes to how the tax funds are being allocated. Currently, this is the first step. While we agree with the procurement change, we are struggling with the fact that it's not far enough. The Bluffton dollars right now or the Bluffton procurement makes a lot more sense and loosens up and loosens the handcuffs from us. If you looked at what you just saw in the 278 corridor piece and the changes of cost in the project, that's what we're dealing with when we're dealing with your drainage projects that we're managing. And so if you look at a 20 foot pipe under a roadway, for drainage pipe and inlet, you're at 15,000 plus. That doesn't include survey, mobilization, demolition, restoration, road patching. You run into one underground utility, one storm main offset is $9,000. what you're gonna approve to potentially or vote on today isn't enough for us to get these projects done. And these are your projects that we're doing. We're getting reimbursed for it. So what we're asking you is to reconsider this and amend your motion to adopt the Bluffton Guidelines They're there and they will not hamstring or tie us to work that we're constantly battling to get your work done. So we would ask for you to reconsider that. Thank you. Thank you.

Chester Williams. Peter Christian.

For the record, Peter Christian, General Manager of Hilton Head Plantation, members of the council, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Orlando. I'm going to digress for a second. Last week, we had a tree come down over in front of our Cypress Gate, and Fire and Rescue Department came in and bailed us out because their equipment could not get in. You have Taylor Ladd back on staff. I work with Taylor on the BZA, on the Planning Commission, on the Comprehensive Plan. Great addition back to her. Tom Dunn gives me weekly updates on the weather and he's been fantastic. And I sat down with your group of folks to discuss the topic we have before us today. My authority to spend money in Hilton Head Plantation is $25,000. So to have staff have only a spending limit of 10 just seems totally out of proportion with the budget that I have, a $10 million budget, and you have multiples of that. Lance is absolutely accurate. We manage these projects for you. They're actually your projects. We have a 50 year old infrastructure throughout the island, and it's failing. And when a person gets a pothole in the middle of this street, in the middle of the driveway, and I have to wait because I have to go through this type of policy, it reflects badly on you, it reflects badly on me, and it goes back and forth. Let us manage the projects. Give us the Bluffton dimension and we'll work with you on it. The other thing before this was in place, I would get $60,000 a year from the county directly, posited into my repair and replacement fund. And I had the authority with my board of directors to use that money for storm related projects. No strings were taxed, no procurement policy, Those were the stipulations. And we used that for years until we adopted your policy, which was much, much better. We appreciate everything you've done and all you do. And thank you for dealing with all the aggravation you've received. You don't deserve it. You do a wonderful job. Keep it up.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Okay, thank you. So I'll bring it back to the dice for discussion from council. Ms. Tonner.

All right. So at the finance meeting, I voted to approve what was recommended. As you saw, it was 3-0. And then after that meeting, I was contacted by our GMs in Ward 6. And you have two of them here. And the third is Courtney Struna, who is not here today, but I did have a conversation with her today. And she also that supports the recommendations that Peter and Lance have offered. It is unique that the town has this policy that allows the communities to handle the stormwater projects. And they do that because of the capacity or limited capacity of our stormwater resources. And they can work on these projects, but they have to follow the procurement rules if they wanna get reimbursed. And of course they wanna get reimbursed. And so their experience has been that the threshold is low. So I've listened to stories about how they are dealing with an incident They're opening up roadways, people's yards, water is spilling out, pipes are crushed, whatever. And they think it's gonna be a small amount of money. And then when they see what is happening, it is a large amount of money. And so they have to stop the project and go through this process with procurement. And there are a limited amount of vendors that do this work. And these vendors work both on the island and in Bluffton. And so we're competing for these resources on these very important projects for stormwater and water. So the feedback that they gave me was to align to the Bluffton numbers and they feel that that will help them to be able to support this work. But my idea is to only make that change for stormwater related. to keep what is recommended by staff for everything else, but for stormwater to have a different level of definition of small purchase. So that's where I am and I'll just lay that out there right now for people to react to and then eventually perhaps make a motion.

Okay, Mr. Desmo. I couldn't agree with Ms. Tonner more. Being the only person up here I'm sure that's got this experience of doing this type of work, I can tell you over 40 years and being in a tidally influenced area, things happen in six hours. They happen overnight. And so there's been many, many, not a handful, dozens of occasions where we could have stopped tremendous damage if we were able to get in and do it like now, this afternoon kind of an answer. And it's turned into a $200,000 project because it's taken two and a half months to get the process to work where it could have been fixed for whatever. And I'm just here to tell you that looking at the list, when you look at Bluffton, they're at 100,000. I think you have to kind of throw Rock Hill and Greenville out because when I look at this, for me, what's critical is we're tidally influenced and things happen quickly. Once you have a problem, it grows quickly from there when we have tidal problems. So I'm with Ms. Tunner, thank you. Ms. Bryson?

Yes, thanks, Ms. Tunner. I learned about this this afternoon, in fact, on the way over here to the town council meeting, because as she said, when it came before a finance administrative committee meeting, we didn't know about this issue. So I'm certainly supportive of addressing the issue. I've been trying to, advocate for several years now for an island-wide, I'd call it an island-wide cooperative stormwater management program. And that's what this does. It moves us towards that. There's still a lot of areas we need to address, but separate from this. And the ability to not stop in the middle of trying to address a stormwater problem is not a good thing. So I think the only thing we need to do is figure out the exact language because it's an ordinance. And I've got a copy of it before us, so I think we need to ask the town attorney how to change the language that's proposed to say not exceeding the amount of 50,000, to not exceeding 50,000, but to have something in there that says, except for storm water management agreements, which may go up to 100,000. I don't know how to word that, but I'm looking to the town attorney to help us to word that if we want to make that change tonight.

If I could give her a second to kind of figure that out so that we can continue talking and then we'll come back to that.

That'd be fine. That's why I went in and asked the question right now.

Ms. Becker. Oh, sorry.

You want to go now? I've heard that twice today or the last couple of days. Thank you. Thank you for that. I do have a question about how this impacts our stormwater agreements and how that process works. So if someone can explain that to me, I would appreciate it.

Mr. Mayor, I think I may be in the same line as Ms. Becker. I guess first of all, I appreciate Mr. Christian and Mr. Lance being here. I don't know, I'm a little offended. Maybe my F&A meetings aren't exciting enough for y'all. WE TOUCHED ON THIS BRIEFLY DURING THE F&A COMMITTEE DISCUSSION, OKAY? AND WE WERE ASKING MR. BROWLES ABOUT THE, I GUESS, THE PEER STUDIES THAT WERE DONE, OKAY? OBVIOUSLY, it coming across the bridge in itself is an additional cost, right? And if it's stormwater or anything else, we want to make sure that what we were approving made sense for us to be competitive in this world, right? So while I appreciate the stormwater piece, I have some questions about how procurement works with those stormwater agreements. I mean, it'd be my recommendation that we push this back to F&A, give staff a little bit of time to talk with the general managers and bring back a new proposal that makes sense that we can be confident about voting on. That would be my suggestion.

I agree with that, Alex. I like the collaboration. I think that additional information would be helpful. I'm not opposed to the idea, but I'm really not understanding exactly the interactions.

And I agree with that. I think that's a good way to table it, do some more investigation regarding the stormwater agreements, have conversations again with our general managers and then bring it back to the table so that we can be very thoughtful about it. So I appreciate the support to do that.

Mr. Orlando. Yes, sir. And thank you. It's great feedback. This is the first time hearing of it too. So shout out. Thank you both. Give me a shout. We can talk through this and not figure this out on the dais. What we are intending to do is allow a procurement that is a better process, easier to find, which is why I appreciate how much how much different threshold examining you have done, Doug. I like the idea of bringing this back to committee. I do have some thoughts on stormwater. We did think that raising it from 7,500 to 25,000 and increasing that from 10 to 50 helps, but Everybody up here is bringing back or bringing up some very good issues we always have with some of these stormwater agreements. We have a series of stormwater agreements. They are not for, they're for corrective maintenance, not routine maintenance. They are worded specifically, and town council over time has adopted many agreements, one in Port Royal, one in Hilton Head Plantation, and a whole bunch of others in, well, one in Sea Pines, and then also smaller communities. Those agreements are for corrective, and Mr. DeSimone is spot on when he says, An issue occurs, it's an emergency, it's corrective and our procurement is, we can let you do some work with the agreement in place according to our procurement. So you can get to work. So Jeff Netzinger, our head of engineering and our department head that oversees the stormwater program has up to $7,500. I thought he liked $7,500. The above $7,500, a good example, we talked to David Mills. David Mills calls Peter. Peter calls Councilman DeSimone. Peter calls me and says, we're in an emergency here. We need some help. but we say, well, it's over 7,500, you have to go get three quotes. And then the three quotes come back and we're all sitting here hoping they come in under $25,000 so that we don't have to do a public solicitation. happens all the time, I think that would help. What we've done recently that's helpful is for the first time in a long time, I've directed through Sean, Sean's been great, our director of engineering to write a letter to these agreement holders and ask what they believe they're going to need help with. We have a laundry list. We have way more projects than money. And so while it's an emergency in Hilton Head Plantation, the money may be called out or that our three staff members are working on other emergency projects outside of Hilton Head Plantation. So this isn't just an on your market set Can you give me the dollars plan? This is a capacity issue of staff having to look at the project. We can't just go like this and put $60,000 in someone's account. We have to be very careful. We read the newspaper all the time about procurement issues. And so I wanna stand firm on what we proposed. I will also bring back to finance committee a stormwater. And I like how that, I like that Ms. Tunner, provided that maybe we could have a special clause for stormwater, because we're spending a lot of time as partners trying to solve a problem that procurement's in the way of. But at the same time as a town manager, I wanna advise us, I wanna be very careful of not spending the dollars too fast and finding out it was wrong when I wasn't looking.

And I agree with that because there's also the what if scenario, as you just put out there. what is best, why is it set at this point? Is there a question with finance? And those are the things that I think we need answers on as well when we start answering that. So I'm going to ask Mr. Brown if you would pull back your motion. I will withdraw my motion. Okay.

Before you do that, I think it might be helpful to make sure about what process we're gonna follow. And you're gonna ask that.

I was gonna then table it and send it back to F&A for hopefully next month if ready. That's okay. That's what I'd like to do and then bring it back to that channel.

Yeah, and my only other question is that I thought I was hearing Mr. Orlando say something about it'd be nice to have already the 50,000. So my question is, do we do this for other purchases and then come back with a stormwater issue later? Or do we go ahead and do that now? That's my question. And then we ask the town attorney what motion we use to do whatever we need to do.

I appreciate that. If you're asking me my advice is let's table the whole thing, bring it back to you collectively so we understand it in whole not in part. Okay, so Mr. Brown.

Mayor, if I may, please do not make a motion to table. It can be a motion to move back to committee, to the Finance and Administration Committee.

I'm sorry, say that again.

It is not a motion to table. It is a motion to move back to the Finance and Administration Committee for further consideration.

Do I have a motion?

I would move to refer it back to the Finance and Administrative Committee. Second.

Any more discussion? Seeing none, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by raising your right. Yep, seven, zero. Okay, let's keep going. Consideration of a resolution authorizing the town manager to execute certain documents associated with wetland mitigation for the Crossing Park Project. Mr. Don D'Adams.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Town Council. Before you is the consideration of resolution authorizing the town manager to execute a wetland and stream mitigation purchase agreement associated with the wetland mitigation for Crossings Park, as you mentioned. This was reviewed by the Finance and Administrative Committee on 8-10-26. All members voted in the affirmative 3-0 to forward this to you. In your packet is some background on this. Of course, this is associated with the Crossings Park project. And this would allow us as one of our last hurdles to move forward to advertise that here in the next month or so. Move for approval.

Second.

Kim, is there anybody signed up to speak on this agenda item?

Mr. Wood.

Nope. Okay. Any other discussion from council? We have a perspective.

I'm sorry. Just a question. So the wetland mitigation can, Can you just tell me a little bit about what we're doing? Just with the wetland mitigation, are we buying space elsewhere? What are we doing in terms of where we're mitigating, what it's costing the town?

So in the packet there, what happens is you apply for this permit, it goes through two layers, the core and then the CZC. In this case, the core rendered opinion and then kicked it down to the CZC. The CZC then stated as mentioned in the document here, They do a scoring criteria, which is kind of complicated here for the quality of the wetland. And they come up with the wetland credits that you need to purchase in this case, 5.148. That basically is then managed by them. They go to open market through pre-qualified vendors, in this case, Weyerhaeuser. The wetlands that are purchased are in another basin. They're not next door. And then that's the offset. This is similar to air pollution credits is probably the best example in our society. And so that's the amount there for 5.148 fresh freshwater wetland credits is $84,942.

Thank you, I just thought it was important for everyone to hear what that really means instead of just those of us who had the papers in front of us, so thank you for the explanation.

Apologies for going through quickly.

Nope, that's fine, it's late, and I understand, it's just that folks wanna know.

You bet.

Okay, thank you.

All right, any other questions or comments? All right, so we've got a consideration of a resolution authorizing the town manager to execute certain documents associated with wetland mitigation for the Crossing Park project. Motion was made by Mr. Brown, second by Ms. Bryson. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. So moved, seven, zero. Next up, we have consideration of a resolution authorizing the town manager to execute and deliver a permanent use agreement with the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services for access to a groundwater monitoring well. I had Jeff Netsinger, but I don't see him. So Sean, come on up.

Good evening again, Mayor Perry, members of town council. Jeff Sensory's guard, unfortunately, he was not feeling well today. The item before you today was reviewed by the Finance Administrative Committee on August 10th at their regularly scheduled meeting and all members voted in the affirmative 3-0 to forward this resolution to town council for approval. In short, what this does is the state operates around 180 wetland, I'm sorry, not wetland, that was last meeting. Groundwater monitoring wells, I'm sorry. Groundwater wells throughout the state of South Carolina. We have one here in our community located in Chaplain Park as shown here on this map. Chaplain Park's right here with the tennis court, Singleton, the overflow lot, and then we have a little storage area that we utilize for managing trash and things that come off the beach. There's a monitoring well there. Essentially the state utilizes this to monitor groundwater, to understand where the groundwater levels are, especially during times of drought. This has been here for some time under a little bit more than a handshake agreement. There was a letter that gave approval to it. The state is going through and cleaning up all of these monitoring well locations around the state and is putting formal agreements in place. This doesn't change anything related to the well. It just puts a formal agreement in place that'll run through 2035, at which time we'll have to either, they'll either ask to continue it or they will discontinue it.

Do we have a motion?

Second.

Kim, has anybody signed up to speak on this agenda item? Okay, any discussion from council?

This is the only one that they asked us for an agreement for. Ms. Bryson?

When it came before the finance administrative, I asked about the paragraph about data ownership and disclosure, and I asked, you know, if the state would share this data with us, and I understand that they normally do, although the agreement doesn't say that. But since they normally do, I'm ready to go.

Mr. Becker?

Any other comments, questions? All right, we've got a motion by Ms. Becker, second by Mr. Alford for consideration of a resolution. Oh, that's the wrong one. Consideration of a resolution authorizing the town manager to execute and deliver a permit use agreement with the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services for access to groundwater monitoring well. All those in favor, signify by raising your right hand. So moved 7-0. And finally, for new business, we have a consideration of a resolution authorizing the town of Hilton Head Island to apply for a big idea grant to support a drone first responder DFR program and a resolution authorizing the town of Hilton Head Island to apply for a problem solver grant to support a roof replacement project for the fish hall park restrooms committing a local 5% match for each grant and confirming compliance with the town's procurement policy. Both grants are offered by the Municipal Association of South Carolina through its impact fund, Innovative Municipal Projects for Advancing Change and Transformation. The fund is supported by MASC Technology Services Strategic Partner, VC3. The Big Grant IDEA up to 100,000, Solver Grant up to 25,000.

That was a mouthful. Getting to mayor.

We've got a motion to approve a second. Kim, has anybody signed up to speak on this item? There's a first and a second. Kim, has anybody signed up to speak on this agenda item? Okay, discussion from council.

Well, just like in the other item where I felt it was important that for anyone who's watching or listening understands what we're doing, and granted it is all online, I did also have questions about the drone piece that I'm sure other people will have out there in the universe somewhere. So I'd like to ask those questions before we rush through this. I didn't, I apparently was presented at FNA at the end of the meeting, correct? Yesterday, but I left before the end of the meeting, and I apologize for not hearing it then, but I think others might be interested as well.

We're both here to answer questions. I'm here to answer any grant-related questions, and of course, this is the pro on the drug program.

Well, I guess I'll just jump in, you know, on the obvious that a drone and the concerns with flock cameras and it's all kind of interrelated and in people's concerns about surveillance, etc. So I'd love to know more about how this program is actually going to work, be monitored and tailored to just emergency situations.

Sure, I'll take a step back as we are, we're on the ground floor of this. We haven't even got that far yet. We're just beginning to develop what potential criteria we may use a drone first responder program for. And as part of that, that will include some of the security, the safety and the privacy issues along the way. So we're not there yet, so. really the intent is to be able to put a vehicle in the air to a scene rapidly and literally be a first responder and give us eyes. But the rest of those pieces will come later.

So as those pieces come together later, do they come before town council's policy?

We sure will bring those. We're just getting into that. This was part of, of course, Mr. Dunn's great work. There are other communities that have been a part of it that use drones for site inspections for stormwater and trees and whatnot. You have eyes on projects at a much closer level than you can walk through the woods to check. There's some opportunity here. We will definitely start scoping it. It will definitely come to town council as a policy so that we're not surprising you and that we're operating confidently.

Thank you, that's what I wanted to hear.

Okay, any other questions, comments from council? All right, so we have a motion by Ms. Bryson, second by Mr. Brown for consideration of a resolution authorizing the town of Hilton Head Island to apply for a Big Idea grant to support drone first responder DFR program, committing a local 5% match and confirming compliance with the town's procurement policy. All those in favor, signify by raising your right hand. So moved, seven, zero.

Thank you.

You're welcome, thank you. Next, we have a consideration that they were all together. So I'm sorry, Kim, I need to redo that if I'm not mistaken, because those were both voted together, correct? Or was that just the drone? Thank you, my bad. It's late, consideration.

Although when you were reading it, you were actually referring.

Well, I read the whole thing. Yeah, so. Referred to both.

Just be careful, that's all.

My motion was just on the drone application.

Right, right. Thank you. The next item is still to be presented.

Right, so that was the, yeah, okay. So now we go into consideration of resolution authorizing the town of Hilton Island to apply for a problem solver grant to support roof replacement project for the Fish Hall Beach Park restrooms, committing a local 5% match and conforming compliance with the town's procurement policy.

Ms. Blanch.

Move for approval.

Second.

Kim, has anybody signed up to speak on this? Mr. White.

Okay, discussion from council.

So we have a motion by Mr. Brown, seconded by Mr. Alford for consideration of a resolution authorizing the town of Hilton Head Island to apply for a problem solver grant to support a roof replacement project for the Fish Hall Beach Park restrooms, committing a local 5% match and confirming compliance with the town's procurement policy. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. So moved, seven, zero.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you to our grant application person.

Kim, do we have anybody signed up for public comment on agenda items? We covered them all earlier. Okay. So Mr. Orlando, do we have a need to go into executive session?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Mayor, as shown on town council agenda item 11A, items number one and items number two.

Motion to go into executive session. All those in favor signify by raising your hand. We're in executive session. Are they talking in there? I'll ask for a motion to come out of executive session. All those in favor? We've got a first and a second. Brie, raise your hand to come out. That is a six to zero. Ms. Becker's missing. Mr. Brown, do we have any action coming out of Executive Sessions? No, sir. No, sir. Thank you very much. Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. We're adjourned.