County Council Committees - Regular Meeting

Microphones. Microphones. Microphones. Microphones. Microphones.

Microphones.

Microphones. Microphones. Microphones. The committee meetings filmed today will be available for viewing anytime on demand at our county website. I'm going to remind my fellow council members to speak loud and clear, and after each motion, please confirm who made the motion in the second and open the floor for discussion and then call for the vote. With that, I would move that we approve the June 10, 2026 meeting minutes. I made the motion. I have a second by Councilman Brigham. Any comment or question? All in favor? Anyone opposed? Motion passes. Next, I would move that we approve the June 23rd meeting minutes.

I move to approve.

Okay, Mr. Cohen moves to approve and Mr. Brigham seconds the motion. Any comment or question? All in favor? Anyone opposed? Motion passes. Next up, we have two executive session items. And I would move that we go into executive session for a contract negotiation and a proposed business and or industry location and expansion pursuant to South Carolina Code Section 30-4-70A2 and 30-4-70A5. Do I have a second? All right, I made the motion. Mr. Berger made the second. We will be in executive session for approximately 30 minutes. 30 minutes. All right. All opposed? Executive session with no votes to be taken, and we are adjourned.

Thank you, Garrett. Microphone.

Thank you. I was about to say, does mine own remote? No, it's working.

We had to change your password, so we just added more digits to your current one. That's right there. I need my password. Password for Wi-Fi or password for Wi-Fi? We're just going to connect you to our current open Wi-Fi that we have.

The administration committee seeking approval of the June 23, 2026 meeting minutes. Make a motion to accept. Motion to approve by Councilman Fisher. Second. Second by Councilman Bishop. Any questions, additions, deletions? All those in favor?

Approve. Disprove. Motion passes. We are adjourned. That's a busy one. That's one of those fast ones.

Order of Health and Human Services. WE HAVE A MEETING MINUTES OF JUNE 23RD SEEKING APPROVAL. MOVE TO APPROVE JUNE 23RD, 2026 MEETINGS. SECOND. A MOTION BY COUNCILMAN BISHOP AND A SECOND BY COUNCILMAN GRIFFIN. ANY DELETIONS, CHANGES, ADDITIONS? ALL IN FAVOR? ALL OPPOSED? MOTION PASSES. OKAY. NOW WE HAVE APPROVAL TO ACCEPT LIBRARY SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY ACT CONTINUING EDUCATION GRANT AWARD FOR A. Pitsenbarger. Okay, you said it right.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I have three grants this afternoon. They are the ones that we normally apply for for continuing education. The first is on behalf of one of our staff members, Amy Pitsenbarger, who has worked in the children's department at Lexington, Maine for, goodness sakes, at least 15 years. This is a national conference she has the opportunity to attend. It's called ALSC. or an association of library services for children. We do have funds budgeted for her to attend this conference already, and so this would reimburse us part of those funds. The total cost of her attendance is $3,094. The grant would reimburse the library system $1,995. Some of that is for staff and kind personnel costs. The remaining costs to the library system would be $168. Questions? I move to approve.

Very good.

I have a motion by Charlie. Councilwoman Charlie Wessinger to approve. And second, Councilman Bishop. Any questions? All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Item two.

Hi, Ms. Simler-Vein. We have the same opportunity for another staff member, Jennifer Smith. She's the YS coordinator, or youth services coordinator, and she presented to you early this summer about our summer reading programs. This grant award would reimburse the library $1,066, and our remaining costs would be $168. All right.

Any questions? Motion.

That's approved.

I have a motion to approve by Councilwoman Wessinger, second by Councilman Bishop. Any questions? All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Item 3.

We're on a roll. Different conference. This, too, is a Library Services and Technology Act grant award. This time, the conference opportunities for the Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services. We do have two mobile libraries. Jody Tyson is one of our newer staff members. She had an education career prior to coming to the mobile library. This is her first opportunity to attend a conference like this. It is also a national conference. THE ENTIRE COST FOR HER ATTENDANCE WOULD BE $2,742. THIS GRANT AWARD WILL REIMBURSE THE LIBRARY SYSTEM $1,810. AND THE LEFTOVER COST REMAINING FOR THE LIBRARY SYSTEM WOULD BE $456. NEW SPEAKER All right. ANY QUESTIONS?

NEW SPEAKER I HAVE A MOTION BY COUNCILMAN CONWELL. Second. Second by Councilman Bishop. Any questions? All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Services is adjourned.

Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I've got a phone call I have to make. If I am not in, will you please make sure you come in? get me prior to that public works. Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. I will force myself off. You got it.

All right. We're going to skip over. Bev's out for a second, I guess. So, Todd, if you'll go ahead. Just for people watching on TV, we're going to skip from... works justice to public works we'll go back to uh justice which one did michael want to be in on public works uh that one so let's don't do that let's grab beth real quick where's she at sorry i thought that was gonna take a little longer what are you doing okay

Wow, y'all really went through health and human services that fast? Yeah. All right, so we're going to call the Justice Committee to order, and I would make a motion that we approve the June 10, 2026 meeting minutes. Second. I made the motion. I have a second by Councilman Conwell. Any comment or question? Hearing none, all in favor? Anyone opposed? Motion passes. Next up, I would move that we approve the July 14, 2026 meeting minutes. Glenn makes a second. Any comment or question? All in favor? Anyone opposed? Motion passes. Next up, Captain Day is here. How are you?

Good, ma'am. Thank you.

Sorry I kept you waiting. All right. I see that we have the approval to apply for the fiscal year 26 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Award.

Yes, ma'am. So the county of Lexington has been allocated $58,727 from the FY26 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, and the Sheriff's Department and the Magistrate Court Administration recommends that council grant us permission to submit our applications for these fundings. If approved, the proposed grant application request will be $7,047 for the Magistrate Court System 45,220 for the Sheriff's Department. and $6,460 for sister care. So at this time, both the Sheriff's Department and the Master's Court are still trying to determine the best use of these allocated funds, but the sister care will receive their funds and use it for partial reimbursement for counseling services that were given to the citizens of Lexington County. This grant does not require matching funds, and there are no requirements to meet at the end of this grant.

Do I have a motion? I move to approve as submitted.

All right. Councilman Cullen makes a motion.

Second.

Second by Councilman Fisher. Any comment or question? All in favor? Anyone opposed? Motion passes.

I'm sorry, I apologize. And we're doing the Victims of Crime Act grant. The Sheriff's Department is requesting council accept a 12th year funding for this grant in the amount of $168,614. This funding will allow us to continue providing services of three victims' assistant officers to administer the needs to specific groups, which are vulnerable adults, domestic violence victims, and the Spanish-speaking victims. This grant does require a 20% in-kind match, which is satisfied through funds already budgeted. to pay salaries to these employees and also volunteer hours from the community. Additionally, this program requires the department to transfer $224,851 to cover the remaining salaries and benefits and operating costs, which are also already budgeted.

Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion by Councilman Conwell and a second by Councilman Cullum. Any comment or question? All in favor? Anyone opposed? Motion passes.

Captain Day. The Sheriff's Department is also requesting Council accept the 20th year funding for the Violence Against Women Act in the amount of $133,063. This will allow us to continue our efforts in combating domestic violence. The grant does require a 25% income match which is satisfied through funds budgeted to pay for our full-time department's domestic violence prosecutor. Should counsel approve this grant, the department will use a portion of this to pay the salaries and fringe benefits to a domestic violence investigator and a domestic violence program coordinator, both of whom are already employed. And the department will make an operating transfer of $112,124 from the general fund to cover the remaining balance.

Do I have a motion? I move to approve the Violence Against Women Act grant award as submitted.

Councilman Conwell makes a second.

Second.

Okay. Any comment or questions? All in favor? Anyone opposed? Motion passes. Justice is adjourned.

We now open the Public Works and Solid Waste Management Committee. All right. I'd like to seek a motion to approve the minutes for June 23, 2026, and also July 14, 2026. Move to approve the June 23 and July 14, 2026 meeting minutes. All right. Bishop made the move, and Clifford made the second. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion passes. Next, we have the approval to accept the Palmetto Pride Grant Award, Goal 1, Solid Waste Management. Lee McIntyre.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Department of Solid Waste Management is requesting approval from council to accept the Palmetto Pride Litter Enforcement Grant Award in the amount of $4,936. Funds for this grant will be used to purchase portable trail cameras and flashlights to be used in illegal dumping investigations. There's also $1,700 of this grant will go towards professional development for staff to attend the South Carolina Litter Summit. There are no matching funds required for this grant. Okay.

Do I have a motion to approve the grant? I absolutely move to approve the Palmetto Pride Grant Award.

Second. Motion by Bishop, second by Cullum.

Chair, I have a question before we vote. Lee, I know you don't have anything to do with code enforcement, so to speak, but I see that we're, looks like, going to accept a grant for trail cameras. Does your staff get involved with, how should I say this very politely, encampment, which generate a lot of litter typically in and around commercial areas. Do you all get involved in that? Are you guys the ones that are doing the cleanup process? We have. Because I know a lot of times the Sheriff's Department.

It's a combination of both. I do know. The Sheriff's Department kind of leads. They lead that effort. And when they have issues, I think the last one that we had, the Sheriff's Department actually did all the enforcement and the cleanup. But in the past, we do work together if the Sheriff's Department requests it.

So if we have trail cameras and such. Are you having to get easements or anything like that to put these on private properties? Because a lot of times the commercial property owners call one of the nine or other staff and report the encampment activity, and more times than not, it's always on private property.

These cameras will be used for illegal dumping on kind of secluded roads in the county. They would be placed on the right-of-way to catch, because we have hotspot areas where no matter how much we clean it up, somebody drives down and unloads a pickup truck load of stuff.

So it's really not going to be used for things of such like commercial property activity?

No, sir. They'll be on the right-of-way.

Pretty nasty sometimes.

to find another grant for that. But then campus would probably steal the cameras in there. So they'd steal the cameras.

It'll get the batteries.

Any other questions or discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Motion passes. Next, we have the discussion for possible vote on policy for traffic calming devices, public works. Tim Shumpert, director.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking a few minutes. We wanted to talk a little bit about traffic calming devices. I'll give you a little bit of just information. concerning those and maybe help set the stage for why I wanted to have this conversation. If you remember in 2023, October of 23, council adopted a policy for traffic calming devices to be where they could be placed on county maintained roads. At that same time, council adopted a policy to lower the speed limit in all subdivisions to 20 miles per hour. bring that up because I think when we were brought this to Council for traffic calming devices we anticipated that there will be a small percentage of roads that would probably qualify for this you know lowering the speed limits appeared that it may have affected, made some more roads qualify that would not at the time that we discussed it. I can't say, you know, how much that changed it, but I just want to lay out what we have. Since that time, we have installed traffic calming devices on three roads, one in Chapin, two roads out in the Gaston area. And we went back and studied those after the fact to see how successful they were. And long story short, we've basically lowered the speed, the 85th percentile speed for people. We've got about almost six mile per hour reduction on those, which is not insignificant. I think we were maybe anticipating more. We have installed two types of devices. One's a bolt down that could be removed. Another one's a type we've done in the Gaston area has just been built out of asphalt, a little more permanent. Both show about the same results that we have studied in terms of reducing the speed. We still have on those roads, we basically still have our 85th percentile of people exceeding the speed limit, posted speed limit of 20 miles per hour. So, you know, one thing is they're not as effective as we had anticipated. The next thing, the other issue with that is that they're relatively expensive. So we have seven other roads, I think, that currently qualify, I think, for... Correct. Yeah, have met the criteria for these. We have... We just weren't sure if we wanted to continue to install the same devices that we have for a six-mile-an-hour reduction or how council maybe wanted to go forward with that. Staff's not recommending that we don't install traffic calming devices. I want to make that clear. It's just I think we all, our staff at least, anticipated, we thought we would see more reduction for the amount of money that we have spent installing these. I think for the three traffic calming devices, we have spent about... On the three roads we've done it on, we've spent, I think it was $38,000, no, $30,000 on one road and the other two is about $68,000. So we've spent about $100,000 on these three different roads installing these. And while it has worked, I just don't think it's as effective as at least public works staff.

These are two different types of construction, right?

They are two different types, yes, sir. Cost the same? They're pretty similar. The bolt-down type, they're about 11,000, whereas the ones made out of asphalt are about 7,000 per.

How did you come up with 100 grand?

Well, you have to install three sets of these is considered one unit. And then we have to install a lot of cases, typically about every, no closer than 350 feet. but we probably have them somewhere staggered around 400 feet apart in areas where speeding is bad. That's typically what it takes to force people to slow down and not just go over one and then just speed right back up. So on one road, we could have as many as a long subdivision road that's just straight. You might have six or eight on that one road.

Do you find that the long straight roads and subdivisions is a contributor to that?

Sure. Chairman Cockrell, when I was in Springville, we looked at doing speed bumps in town. One of the reasons we never did it is because when the town put them in, if vehicles were damaged by those speed bumps, we were always told it fell back on the town. Is that true when a county puts in speed bumps that if cars are damaged, they go back on the county?

I would imagine that they, you know, torque claims are always a possibility with anything that happens on county maintained roads. So

I have a question. So Hillhaven, the one that was put out on Hillhaven is not in a neighborhood. It is a road that is a county maintained that houses are on it, but it's not in a neighborhood. It's not a subdivision. And I know that the citizens, the residents on that road are extremely happy that that traffic calming device is there and they feel safer walking, biking, doing all the activities that they were doing. So is there a way to distinguish the difference between traffic calming devices and their usefulness or the outcome on a regular county maintained road versus an actual neighborhood? Because I know the other ones you're talking about like they were in a neighborhood.

I think Hillhaven was one of those special cases. I don't think that's something that we'll see typically. Most times Roads like that that connect on each end typically don't meet the criteria that's set forth. This one just happened to be one that did when they were installed. So, yeah, I think that's, I have to say that, you know, you're talking about Hillhaven. One thing that we did notice is not only did it reduce the speeds, you know, not as much as we hoped, but it cut the traffic on that road, I want to say it was almost in half. It was a considerable amount. People just went around the other way.

Right, which is the better way anyway. But, you know, a lot of people were just using that as a cut-through road, which was creating the safety issue in the first place, which is why it was asked for. So I think in that instance, they did exactly what they were supposed to do, and it worked out well.

The fact that it is reducing speed means it's working. Do neighborhoods have the option if their HOA wants to fund it, that they can do it? Do we have that as an option? Because a lot of the phone calls I'm getting, they're saying we will raise the money through our HOA and pay for them if we can get them.

I mean, we currently didn't make that part of the policy. However, I mean... Anything like that that wants to be done or things that have been done through an encouragement permit process, you know, on a county-maintained road, I would think could be, I mean, it would be doable.

The question that begs after that is if you're going to buy it or are you going to keep it up?

And I guess what I would ask, are they funding it with the expectation that we would install and maintain it or who would maintain it afterwards? I think you're going right, Todd.

Yeah, I mean, just it's one thing to purchase them, but I'm sure they wear out or they have wear and tear or whatever reason they get damaged and then they don't get replaced. I have a question. I was just going to ask one quick question. If I can do one thing. I heard you say this at least three times now. Not what we expected. What did you expect? What's the speed reduction you expect?

Well, I anticipated to at least slow people down to be less than 10 miles an hour above the posted speed limit. And we really have not achieved that thus far.

So you think that these speed... Devices should yield a 10-mile-an-hour speed, and if it's posted at 20, your expectations are 10 below that?

My expectation would be to keep them below 30.

30. So a 50% gain rate is what you're trying to achieve.

That's not possible.

I mean, your expectation is that when he says 10, half of that, I mean, 10 is half.

Get over.

That's the 50% rate. You're saying that I'm willing to accept 50% of the posted speed limit in excess, which tells me that people are driving maybe 100% rate. Oh, yeah.

Have we requested more patrolling of these roads? No. No.

I mean, you know, we will pass along the data when we do these studies. And in some cases, I know for sure, I can't speak of all of them, but I know the Sheriff's Department has had people out there. They'll look at what time speeding seems to be occurring, and they have gone at times and monitored those. And I'm sure they have written some tickets at that. But I can't speak to all that.

I think you've got to have certain... Over the posted, isn't that reckless driving?

It's going to be, what, 85% over the posted? What's the criteria?

What do you think? Am I driving 50% over the posted speed limit or 100% over the... Reckless driving.

Is that a ticket of reckless driving? You've got to have three items on reckless driving, I think.

So here's my question. The calming devices that I've seen are literally just...

Bombs.

They're not even bombs. They're nothing. You can fly right over them and they make a noise for you, but my car doesn't vibrate, I can promise you that. So I know it's not slowing anybody down. And the reason that we... I'm just telling the truth. But the reason that we took out speed bumps and said, oh, we can't have speed bumps anymore in Lexington County, because it interfered with our first responders and their ability to respond efficiently... or tore up their vehicles, in which case we had to pay for those. So I would love to find something that actually worked to slow people down, but I'm not sure the calming devices are actually it because they don't slow anybody down, I know. And I know if I'm in a hurry, they don't slow me down. A speed bump is going to slow me down because it's going to tear up the front end of my car.

A police officer will slow you down.

They worked well on Hillhaven.

They're rarely around.

Clifford, you were in the meetings. I purposely stayed away from the meetings because I don't want to put my thumb on the scale.

It's not my job. You've already got the straight roads. You've already talked about that in subdivisions. That gets back to the geometry. of a subdivision we're not allowing our engineers to create geometry by making the roads tangents this thousand foot this and that you've already heard that tip for me so anyway i just said in the future if you if you're driving in the mountains you're going to go slower if you drive drive in saluda Over there for Andy White subdivision, you'll go slower because of the geometry on the roads. If it's curvy, you won't be doing 90 miles an hour. I think we need to look at that because a lot of our standards have created the straighter roads. And you've got 20 mile an hour speed limits, so you don't need to design it for 60 miles.

Right, yeah, everything that's being designed today, we've asked everybody to design for 20 miles per hour, without a doubt. I mean, like I said, some of these subdivisions were built in the late 70s, early 80s, on into the 90s, and like you said, our existing roads, they are what they are. Well, like Whitehall. They were designed probably for 35 to 45 mile an hour roads.

They use those connector roads to take traffic off the big thoroughfare roads and that creates a lot of traffic going through what is a neighborhood. And we don't want to put any traffic calming speed bumps in Whitehall to slow the cars down. Because it slows, creates a problem for our first responders, right?

You got a limit to what you can do? There is no good... What's the...

In some. I think we were just looking today to update you as what we're seeing as they're being installed. I guess the question I had, and you and I discussed it briefly.

Wait, I have another question. What we can do.

Yes, ma'am. Go ahead.

So, like, when I was traveling to Florida, you know, they were taking pictures right and left. I think John Kerrig said we got two tickets in the mail from Florida from... Why don't we do that here?

I was in a hurry. South Carolina doesn't allow speeding. South Carolina doesn't allow it. When you get that picture, send them a picture of the money. Yeah.

I think the answer to your question is I don't know.

What precipitated it? What precipitated it in the first place? People speaking. Did y'all bring this up? I think it's the cost.

The reason I ask is, you know, Hillhaven, for example, is the 85th percentile speed now is like 28.9 miles per hour. So they are just under that 30.

That has worked well for that location.

That's acceptable, right? That's acceptable. For that specific is acceptable. It's an improvement.

It's an improvement.

For posting a 29-hour speed zone.

And accepting 28.

You're accepting 30.

it's something meaning i just i just can't wrap my head around well and i think just for my input i think that we should continue looking at them maybe change some of the regulations or the policies some of the policy determinations for putting a traffic common device in it worked and it has done well on hill haven that is a perfect example of how they have worked well that's the bolt down right that was the bolt down device and then they had to put um Four-by-four post, two-by-four post, four-by-four on the side of the road because then they were driving off the road to avoid running over it. And so that was even more dangerous, too, with the people that were walking on the road or stroller baby pushing and all of the things. But so now that that's under control, it's not a neighborhood. It's a county-maintained road that was a cut-through road. It's a cut-through road.

They're not calming the traffic. They're just diverting it to other places. I mean, that's what I heard you say, that they're just not using the road anymore, so now we're going to put traffic on other roads to make this one less traffic.

That particular road was being used as a cut-through in a, not a neighborhood subdivision, but in a residential road. Right, it was a residential setting when the traffic should have been going down Old Lexington and down Jake Mix in the first place, so it diverted the traffic back to where it should have been going in the first place.

Okay. Okay. I hate kicking stuff down the road. We have to ask us to go. We're going to punt. Five miles an hour difference. We're going to punt right now.

Yeah, the next road that will be on the list, this is the reason I wanted, staff wanted to ask the question. It's estimated that it would take about $70,000 to $100,000, depending on what we put there.

I wish I had started the meeting at 11 this morning, but I didn't. My God. Clifford, how much does it cost to put a hump of speed bump on the road? Can we privatize it? One, when he's talking about it. I can't put five.

I mean, an asphalt. How do I lay asphalt in a hump? Well, if you did it while you were paving, it wouldn't be bad. If you put it part of the design criteria, when everything is there and ready to go, but to sit there and tack it and put it down and roll it and paint stripes.

About $100,000?

Not for one. We're talking about a line of them, three of them, four. They're about 7,000 a set, so you're talking about 10 of them.

Well, you can get the bolt-ons. You bolt-ons work. So 7,000 is reasonable for one?

Yeah, I would say every dime is 7 to 10. Yeah, so determine the width of the road.

Yeah, width of the road is about 22 feet in most cases. You've got a bunch of old bumpers.

There's a lot of variables.

Well, obviously, we've got a spending problem. We're trying to create safety, and I don't know if we've done that.

We have on Hillhaven.

Yeah, so we've got to mix reviews.

Not repair a bunch of pothole-filled roads. That might slow them down.

Can I make a recommendation? Maybe look down on a road or a case-by-case basis. Look at the price, look at the cost, look at the road, look at the traffic, look at all of that on a case-by-case basis. I know you guys are doing that already. But just take it, and if you guys want to have your input in it on a case-by-case basis, just present it to county council and say, hey, this is the road we want to do. This is the cost it's going to be. This is what we're hoping to achieve, yay or nay.

And if a neighborhood wants them bad enough.

If a neighborhood wants them bad enough, work out a public-private relationship.

Let's work on some policy. Let them throw their money in. Let's work on some policy. That's what I say. Let them pay for the labor. Do they want to complain or do they want to solve the problem?

Maybe we'll bring it back and make it a little more sense. We might not get anywhere with it.

You know what the argument is.

The intent was good. Not for speed bumps.

I'm aware, but I'm saying.

They have a skin in the game, guys.

We're running a little behind, and we got a very important one coming up here. This next one is which one?

In my defense, Todd, I was in the fast lane.

All right, so this one.

Something else real quick, too, though. Who is it? You running this one? Yeah. Is it okay if I ask Tim a question from the previous item, or we're not allowed to do that? On the traffic coming? We moved on. Okay. Hey, I sell those cameras. It said in there $1,080 for a Tacticam Reveal Ultra. One? They don't even make that one anymore, and they're $199.

I'll have to look at the pricing on it to get that.

These numbers are way off. Way off. And I'm talking myself. I'll donate this stuff if you'll show me the tickets. I'll give you equal value of money for the tickets written.

Some of it includes subscriptions.

Yeah, subscriptions, nothing like that. I mean, that's $60 a month I saw on your subscription.

No, that's... I pay $15.99 a month for two cameras. Yeah. Yeah.

No, this is, I would say the SD cards aren't even around anymore. It's all cell now, isn't it? Yeah. It's solar. Yeah. And then the batteries, everything's solar now. I would just like, what I'm getting at is I would like to help you on this. Okay. I'll donate. We take donations. You can put me down. Whatever I donated, you showed me the ticket value.

All right, guys, we're going to wrap it up. Next, we're going to discuss dirt road issues. District 1.

This is one I brought up. We brought this up since I've been on for a year and a half.

All right, guys, look at this road. It's been going on. I don't know if, Todd, I don't know if you've had a pleasure of going out there and looking at this road. Beth, I don't know if you have or not, but anyway.

Long story short. Well, I've seen probably 100.

I've probably driven on that road once.

Where's Robbie? Pushing 10-foot deep places. Would you agree with that?

We've got pictures here. There's also a video. I think what he's getting at is this road here, you can see over the year, it's gone deeper and deeper and deeper.

That's a fence post. There's a 600-acre property that we've dug that deep that their fences are falling over. And I brought it in sometime last year. We brought it up. But that was when Brent was here. And then things kind of thought of mine or I'll take blame. That's the pictures. You can see how deep it is here.

How do we get a blade up there that high?

That's erosion, too, has a lot to do with that. Sand, it's a pretty 5% or 10% grade, I think, in there.

You can see there the post where it was exposed and now fallen, which is what Mike was talking about.

It gets from gray down to the... Yeah, we are, the road is the stone. Yeah, it's the ditch. And it's only getting worse.

Every time there's a gully, the road is gray. That was a 40-year-old road. Yeah.

I told him, I said, 40 years, no one noticed we're getting a little deep. I feel like we should have acknowledged this. This is a nightmare of a problem.

We've got to do more defense.

The request from Brent was get them to give up 15 feet of their land and move it back, and there's no way I'm going to be part of asking a landowner to give up their lands. It does improve their property value.

we built up the road and they kept on if you're going to pave it if you're going to pave it you still have to give them the 15 feet on each side more than that slopes to go to the curb so one way or the other he's going to have to give it up paved there or forget it increases value of this property yeah so on the you're you're saying he'd give up his land He would have to.

If we decided to pave it, we'd have to. Oh, we decided to pave it?

But to even get close to fixing this dilemma, you're not going to fill that back in. It's all at the bottom of the hill now.

The creek. Yeah. Yeah, and build a river.

Long story short, in a year and eight months I've been there, all we've done is let it get worse. And I owe these people an answer of what's going to happen. So I need you all to tell me. Are we just going to keep doing what we're doing, or what are we going to do?

But even if you sloped it, you still got to put storm drainage in and take care of the water. It's still going to wash away. So what do we do?

That road is over one road from that. We started back, I think, 2010. It's got catch basins on it. It's got catch basins. You got it made. Right now, I think we got close to $750,000 in that road.

And there's going to be more than that, for sure. Don't you agree?

Well, you're not going to change the grade a lot. You're going to make it more pleasant and visual by taking the slopes into his property. But you've got to do that. Huh? 720,000.

I don't know that.

I don't remember. I don't know. Same property? I don't know.

No.

You'd have to give up his property.

That is for a reason, because if it ever gets on the paving list, you've already accomplished the right-of-way. If you're going to go ahead and do it, and I still think we should condemn property for the improvement of the roads. We shouldn't pay for it if 80% of people agree with that. It wasn't our fault that the roads were terrible.

It was our fault.

We're maintaining his road, and it washed away.

We just didn't spend enough money. Michael, it's got a bank behind it. Oh, goodness.

At least a whole mile. We've got a video. It takes about 15 minutes. We've got a video to write down and see it if you'd like to see it.

It's been over there with me.

It can be fixed, but it's going to cost, like you said, $750,000.

You think it'd be fixed for $750,000?

That's a heck of a good start. Right now it's not. You can't even build a hump for $2,000. Yeah. How many speed bumps is that? 20 speed bumps. That's $9,000 into $750.

He charges $2,000 opening a truck door. He'd put 20 speed bumps on it and stop the water from running out.

He'd have a nice truck if he don't charge.

all right guys this is where we're at yeah i need to know i need to tell these people i went out there and listened to michael wall understood yes it's beyond my pay grade and i would ask clifford come out there clifford we were at it together it's beyond mine and clifford's pay grade so i took it i could lean out glenn went out there and it's now beyond his pay grade It is up to us as a county to make a decision.

Tim is going to go out there and survey it and design something similar to the other road over there and give us a price for public works to do it. Then we make that decision.

I thought we had that. Do we not yet?

Have you designed it? We know what the road beside it costs. We don't know what it is. So we're still swagging it. That's right.

How many of these are we going to fix?

I was about to say, there's a bunch of roads.

There's a bunch of roads like this in Lansing that can't be going to keep on.

Todd, if you bring something to me to bring to council, I'm going to bring it to council.

I get it.

Okay, so that's what I'm doing. All right.

Yeah, I asked him to bring this up.

Is the problem the fence? Because the fence is failing? Is that what the problem is?

The problem is the road. That's a lot of it. They've got 600 acres of six-foot fence, and their fences are falling over because there were eight feet below the pipe.

We can take the fence down and reposition the fence 15 feet back from where it is now. Would that solve this problem?

No, why would you give up 15 feet of your own land when county graded it?

When it got a foot deep, county could have fixed it back and done it every time it got a little low or rocked it back. It wasn't going to be fixed back with a motor grader.

Do you have any solutions to this?

The solution was 40 years ago and keep it up.

Not a simple solution. If you want to get anything back close to any grades that was there, I mean, there's nothing to do but come and bring in tons of fill and fill the road up. I mean, it's a huge undertaking. Because it just goes right back down. If you don't do anything with drainage, you're going to be right back to the same spot.

I don't feel any more but five years from now, I'll be back down to the creek.

Clifford, we discussed that, and what I'm saying is where is the water going to go? To the creek for erosion control.

We find people every day. It won't be a creek.

It won't be a creek. It won't be. It'd be filled in. If you go back up, there's a lot of places you could let land follow the lay of the land, and it would just run off the road.

You can see where it's coming down.

There. There, yeah. Is there one more? I know where there's some red clay. You can just take one. We don't want that on record.

All right, that's the last one.

Okay. It's falling in the road.

It's a real problem. But you probably got 480 miles of dirt roads or something. Probably got 100 miles just like this.

We probably do.

At least.

At least 100 miles.

I don't find that 10 roads this afternoon look like that.

Yeah. But not all of them have fences and all falling in. No, but I... That's the issue here is there... Some of them have telephone poles in the roads.

Okay, guys, where do we go from here? This is the day of where do we go from here.

I think we should look at what we could do to fix the road, how much it's going to cost. Our public works guys are engineers. They know how to do things.

I thought we were already there, but we're not there yet. So, yes, you're correct.

I think that's the next step. It might be a question for Jeff. So I agree that the road probably needs to be fixed, but I also know that there are probably 10 more out there. So if we fix this one and 10 more people come up and say, well, you've got to fix ours because you fixed that one, where does that leave us?

being responsible, and we figure out how to fix them.

Right.

County-maintained roads are responsible for that.

They got fences falling in, and we graded it below their fence lines. Yeah, I'm not saying we should fix it.

I want to be clear. I'm saying we should fix it. We should probably fix all 10. I'm just saying, where's the money going to come from without raising taxes?

We can fix them all. Michael, we're not grading them below the fence lines. The gully is there and there's a hole after rain. We're taking the existing dirt and filling it in so it keeps leaving and we're getting lower. It's due to rain. It's caused erosion, which we're filling in the erosion problem. And all that dirt is down at the bottom at the swamp.

Oh, I agree with you there.

And like I said, we find people for two bags of sand on the grading site, but we haven't found their cells yet. Or erosion. The Army Corps would put us in prison. Yeah, they should be because you saw how far it's filled in. A hundred feet in that swamp, you could walk on it now because of the sand. At least. And that's in every creek on the dirt road. I've got one.

It's going to be the same thing over again.

Yeah. So we've got to put storm drainage in. We've got to get the water under control after it hasn't.

It needs to be fully engineered as a paved road.

Well, it can be still. It's hard to do dirt because the storm drainage will fill up with dirt if you don't watch out. So you've got to catch the water pretty darn quick.

I know in my area, I don't know a property worse than this. You think there's a bunch of them that fences are falling in like this?

I don't know about the fence, but there's probably 100 miles.

I'm talking about one where it's adversely affecting the property.

Move the fence. Pay them for the right way.

I can't think of any road names right off, but I mean, I've seen some where we've... Power poles are leaning over. Yeah. Trees, other things that are affected by similar situations. I don't know if I've seen one like in this situation where there's as much linear feet of fence along the roadway.

We've got 800 million. We can fix them all, probably.

Okay, guys. We're doing the dog battle.

All right.

So I'm going to call them and tell them we'll come up with a number. We're looking at other information. We'll come up with a number. We'll provide the counsel and see where we go from there. Okay. And I would tell them up front it doesn't sound favorable. Just be truthful with them. I'm not saying it's bad or good.

I just got a feeling we're going to spend the same amount of money on attorneys. I agree.

I agree. I understand.

I'm sure they're going to sue us. I understand.

Yep.

But I want to make sure that you...

I just want to give him an answer. Right, exactly. All right. It's been long enough. That is all for public works. It is adjourned. Okay.

The meeting of the whole is now in session. Looking for approval of June 10th, June 23rd, and July 14th, 26 meeting minutes.

Move to approve. Second.

A motion by Ms. Kerrig and a second by Mr. Cockrell. All in favor? All opposed? Update on Riverbanks Zoo Garden. Lachlan Wooten. Lachlan, welcome.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm going to leave these for those of you who can't see that screen. I'll ask that Jessica, whenever, they're not critical, but y'all might like a visual. I'd be very grateful for your help on that.

Jacqueline, I went last Monday. I texted Tommy, and I didn't get to go on the opening night to ride the, y'all call it a tram or whatever? The Skyride. The Skyride. That is awesome. You're going to move some, it wasn't bad. Okay. It wasn't bad at all. It was hotter outside than in it. Can't wait until it cools down. Yeah, it wasn't bad.

Give it another week or two. Yeah.

You're going to move a lot of people in that thing.

About six times as many per hour. Yeah.

No, it was kind of rollercoasterish at first. I was surprised. I thought it was going to be like a sky lift, you know, when you go skiing. It takes off. Still on my roller coaster. Go ahead.

Council, thank you all. I'm Lachlan Wooten. And I wanted to give you guys a couple of updates on the zoo itself. It is cooling down, so I do hope you'll come out. It's a little less painful there. As soon as temperature gets below about 95. So I hope you'll come out and see us. And actually starting next week, we have a new dinosaur, a traveling exhibit. You've probably seen them, the big, giant, animatronic dinosaurs. Oh, the real ones. Thanks. Next week. They'll be there about five months. So come out. It's mostly in the garden in Waterfall Junction right here in Lexington County. So come out, come see them. It will be, it's free with admission. It'll be a pretty wonderful addition. We haven't done it since 2019. So we're really excited to have that back. Additionally, and what I really wanted to update you guys on is obviously the project that we're building right here in Lexington. THE BRIDGE TO THE WILD PROJECT. AS WE'RE GOING TO TELL YOU WHERE WE ARE AND WHAT'S HAPPENING, YOU KNOW, IT'S BEEN THE PLANNING AND DESIGN OF A PROJECT OF THIS SCOPE TAKES QUITE A LONG TIME, AND YOUR TEAM HERE HAS BEEN ENORMOUSLY HELPFUL TO US THINKING ABOUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PROTECT THE ECOLOGY THAT WE HAVE RIGHT HERE AND PROTECT OUR NATIVE RESOURCES AS WELL AS GIVE FOLKS IN THIS COMMUNITY AND IN THE MIDLANDS INCREASED VISIBILITY AND ACCESS TO THE SALUDO RIVER. and the resource that I know we're all really excited about being able to see and enjoy. So I thought the best way to do that might be to actually provide you with a video. So if you don't mind, I will show you guys a quick video. IT'S WORTH SORT OF SETTING THE STAGE. IF YOU'RE REALLY FAMILIAR WITH RIVER BANKS CAMPUS, YOU'LL KNOW THIS VIDEO. IT WILL LOOK FAMILIAR TO YOU AT LEAST IN THE BEGINNING. SO THIS VIDEO BEGINS, AND FORGIVE ME, BECAUSE ONCE IT STARTS PLAYING, IT GOES. YES, SIR.

YOU WILL HAVE TO CLICK ON THE GO BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM.

GOT IT. PERFECT. THANK YOU. This video begins as you are standing on the existing Saluda River Bridge, the bridge that actually crosses the Saluda right in the middle of Riverbank. So this video begins and you as a guest are standing on that bridge facing the beautiful hillside in Lexington County. And from there, it departs and takes you on the path of the project that we will begin breaking ground on, hopefully in March. So with that as the preface for where we are, I will walk you through it. As I said, on the left-hand side there, the existing bridge, and it launches you straight into the Riverside Restaurant. This facility is an elevated facility, gives you beautiful views, gives us the opportunity to not only welcome the daytime guests to see downtown Columbia and the river itself, but also a great opportunity for evening dining. and a wonderful opportunity for event space. This facility transitions directly into an elevated boardwalk right along the river that goes into a primate facility. This facility is going to allow us to continue our partnership with the Department of Natural Resources and Fish and Wildlife on a federal level, where we've been caring for confiscated animals who are part of the wildlife trafficking trade, which is a significant issue here in the state of South Carolina, being a port state. We see a lot of these animals coming in, and this is a facility specifically engineered not only to show people beautiful and amazing primates, but also to give us the ability to solve a real problem that exists. So that boardwalk continues up this hillside. It gives you elevated viewing of those same primate habitats overlooking the Saluda and continues up this hillside and gives us the opportunity to fix some of the invasive species that are on that hillside. stabilize and replant with new trees. The elevated boardwalk continues to a red panda facility, which is the building you see right there. And at that point, the elevated boardwalk actually transitions to being on grade. The red pandas are not terribly heat tolerant, so they will have a beautiful indoor facility, which actually gives our guests a great opportunity to get inside as well. Just adjacent, there's a sonaris vulture, which is a really wonderful species of vulture. And around the corner from that, continuing, on that on-grade pathway will be the first of two tiger habitats. The smaller one is actually designed for a mom and cubs and gives folks a face-to-whiskers opportunity, if you will. Additionally, it gives keepers the opportunity to show guests what it really means to care for and even to train a tiger, which is something they'll be able to see right here at this viewing opportunity. This pathway continues around the corner to a much larger open top habitat that includes a beautiful water feature and backs straight up to the West Campus Gondola Plaza, which you guys have seen now. This will be directly adjacent. So just steps away from exiting the gondola, you'll be able to begin this journey right there from the 378 entrance. So you see this sort of gives you a sweeping view of the end result of that hillside expansion. and really is a unique opportunity to explore that ecology there that has not been accessible to our guests. I will pause for a second. I do have another, well, actually, let me, for those of you who are a little bit more familiar, I just want to lay this into the context of campus. Again, I mentioned that you see the bridge there on, forgive me, on the right-hand side. You see the bridge crossing and you can see within that box is the restaurant facility. And then you can sort of see the development traverse up the hillside. The green almost rectangle is the garden as it exists right now. So you can see how this lays in just planned north and the existing gondola plaza there too. So all of this four and a half ish acres of gives a really unique opportunity for people, regardless of where they've parked, to immediately be immersed in a really remarkable wildlife journey. So we are incredibly excited about this. It is transformational and visionary on an extremely large scale. So seeing, I am at a conference at the end of the month presenting this to national colleagues alongside of folks from the Georgia Aquarium and folks from the San Diego Zoo and some others. So this project that you guys have had the vision to support and allow Tommy and myself and the rest of the team to steward your vision is doing some really remarkable things, not just for this community, but on a larger stage. So we are incredibly grateful. And as I mentioned, just to sort of lay that into what does it look like? Well, that's great. That's beautiful. But when? We have begun that process. Like, fortunately, your staff has been kind with their time to help us along the way about how do we do this right and responsibly. So we really hope to move pretty quickly now that we are entering into construction design phase. We think we've got the logistics pretty well managed, so we'll keep moving. And West Columbia, working with them as well, obviously. So we expect construction to begin in 2017. I THINK IN 2028 YOU'LL SEE VERTICAL BUILDING SYSTEMS GOING, AND THEN I LIKE TO SAY THE END OF 2028, BUT WE ALL KNOW HOW THESE PROCESSES GO, SO LIKELY IT WILL BE EARLY 2029, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU LAYER IN SORT OF THE COMPLEX LAYERING OF ANIMALS MOVING HERE AND GETTING ACCLIMATED AND TRAINING OUR STAFF ON THESE SPECIALIZED SYSTEMS TO CARE FOR THESE ANIMALS. IT IS TRULY REMARKABLE, AND IT IS BECAUSE OF YOEL'S VISION AND WILLINGNESS TO do something really outstanding. So we are grateful, and I'm happy to answer any questions on this or anything else.

Yes, sir. How many workers do y'all have viable to expand? Do you know?

That's a really good question. Not a lot is the answer.

Like less than 10, 20? Less than 10? And will the zip line go back or it's gone because of the...

So it was in conflict with the...

I saw the old pipelines and I was riding.

Potentially, but there's more of a conversation there about what does it mean to come to the zoo and what's the demographic. We had a really hard time filling those slots because it's a little bit older and it was like a 90-minute... It wasn't just a, let me tack that on to my visit while I'm here. So it was a little bit in conflict with the standing normal demographic. So I think... We've added some zipline-style things for younger kids to do, and I think that's been really popular. So I think there may be some opportunity for smaller ziplines, but I think that big one was a little too thrill-seeking.

I don't realize how tough it is to do construction on that hill. Holy crap. Oh, I'm sure.

As you guys might imagine, we had national interest in this contract, and I'm thrilled to report that it is someone local that we've partnered with. and their understanding of that hillside because they actually helped us build the sky ride. So they understand the granite that's there, and they understand what it means to protect that, the wetland that runs sort of downstream of where that restaurant facility is. Everything is rock.

Did they have the blast to build in there?

They had the blast to build in there. They drill and put some stuff in there, and it expands.

It's about planning where the facilities go to be the latest on the land rate, so let's move them away from the places. I mean, there's rock everywhere, to your point, but also when we're building that elevated boardwalk from an engineering standpoint, working with Cox and Dinkins on what does it mean to adhere to different types of rock and what are the ways we can do this and be the least invasive.

Yeah, I know the kids of Airport and BC are really upset. We spent a lot of time down there, didn't we? Yeah, but can you talk about that time? Yeah. There was no iPhone cameras back then. Thank goodness. I guess the invasive species that you got rid of was kudzu. I don't know how you got rid of all that kudzu.

A lot of English ivy on that hillside still. So we'll be managing that. Our director of horticulture has been really focused on cataloging the invasive species. that hillside and ensuring that we go back with the right stabilizing plants that invite the native species to continue to thrive there without allowing some of those species to thrive.

Where's the old grits mill compared to this? Is it west of?

Upstream.

Okay.

Forgive me, my directions are bad. But upstream, the skyride itself, it's well upstream of that and everything, this development is fully south or downstream of the skyride. Okay. Dinosaur exhibit opens on the 15th. February 15th. Got time. Got time for it to cool off.

Any other questions, guys? Appreciate the update. Thank you so much. Thank you all for your time.

I THINK IT'S YOU. YEAH. ACTUALLY, JESSICA WANTED TO.

YES. IT'S YOU. LAST YEAR, Y'ALL ASKED FOR US TO HAVE AN APPLICATION PROCESS FOR THE 30% FUND DESIGNATION. SO WE NEED TO SEND THAT OUT SOON IF WE'RE GOING TO DO THAT AGAIN. IF YOU WANT TO DO THE APPLICATION PROCESS, AND IF YOU DO, IF YOU WANT TO HAVE THEM COME AND MAKE PRESENTATIONS LIKE THEY DID LAST TIME.

She has two questions.

You can't say yes. You got a yes on all of them.

30% is what?

Budget from year to year to year. 30% is what we've always done with Lake Murray, isn't it?

Yeah. I don't know why we'd keep changing that around from year to year because that's why we got a little problem.

Have we changed the 30% from year to year?

We took applications and we listened to multiple organizations come in, and we did stick with Lake Murray Country for the 30%. I think Jessica's question is, do you want to do that process every year? The accommodations tax process is still the same. It's just the 30%. We kept it with Lake Murray Country. But due to timing, if you want to look at it again, she just needs to know.

I would like to. It gives other entities there an opportunity for them to come and present. to actually have part of that 30%, or you could break up that 30%. There is no rule that says we have to have 30% to one entity. So it could, based on presentations and need, you could say 15 to this entity, 15 to this entity, which is why the presentations and opening it up is a benefit to other entities.

Who would you have an idea? I mean, you obviously have an idea who you want to get the other 15%. No, I don't have an idea.

I think it's up to, I think it's important that we give the groups the opportunity to do that.

I think Lake Murray Country does overall a great job of marketing for the whole region.

They do, which is why they were chosen again this year. But that doesn't mean we always have to do that. I think it's good to give other groups an opportunity to go forth with that.

I'm going to leave it to the body, so we're not in an executive session.

I would just ask, how does an organization that size budget from year to year to year not knowing when they're hiring professional staff and they do more marketing than all the others combined? And they're in the business of selling hotel nights. Some of these things we've been funding, y'all, do not sell hotel nights. They simply just don't. From a director perspective, and I've talked with folks at Columbia and with Lake Murray, if you can't effectively know what your budget is from year in, year out, how do you hire professional staff to be able to know that, well, your job is only contingent on your funding every 13th month?

We can't operate like that around here. Yeah, but I don't think they should be relying on us to fund their business either.

Exactly. That's why you have an accommodations tax collection is because of what they're doing.

Money's supposed to go back in to attract more people to come spend money here. They do a great job at doing that. They're the engineers.

Yeah. I hear you. I'm not saying it's wrong or it's right. I'm just saying that.

What I'm saying is if you go through the application process every single year, you don't know that you're going to have that funding could be cut 10%, 15% of the full 30. So how do you operate your staff year in and year out not knowing that? I mean, we've been growing the accommodations tax collections year in and year out because of what they and Experience Columbia have been doing. Not because of what the museum has been doing or some theater place or some softball tournament. These guys are doing the advertising nationally.

I say unless a council member requests someone come give a presentation, I would leave it the way it is.

We had five to come and present. One was the Experience Columbia group from the Convention Center, Adventure, Ice House Amphitheater, Lake Murray Country, and Riverbank Zoo. I will mention that they do have to either have an existing tourism promotion program or they have to have the ability to implement one in order to qualify for the 30%.

They certainly say the zoo's in there now.

We give the zoo money outside on the 65%.

They get money. They're doing a lot. They do do a lot. And it's getting to be more and more. What do you want to do, guys? I can't read your mind.

I would like to keep it the way we did it this past year.

Same. I'm good with that. Unless a council member wants to bring a particular organization forward.

So I think y'all were talking about two different things. She wants to bring people in.

Oh, I thought you meant what we came up with at the end of the year.

No, the coming up with it at the end of the year was fine because that's what the accommodations, what it is for the 30%. But I still think you should give groups the opportunity to come in and present.

Let me ask you this question. If we do that and our accommodations tax board that comes and spends a whole day here and listens to every one of these presentations, are we going to save for 100% for the first time in 15 plus years? No. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

You know that and I know that.

Leave it alone. They've taken the time to do all the, they've listened to every presentation. They've reviewed all the paperwork. They've looked at all the audit statements. That's not our job. And then we come over here and we just dice it up, you know, like fresh vegetables.

...argument more of somebody comparable to Lake Murray country that could compete for that dollar, that could bring him... That is, if you just say, automatically goes. I mean, you're pretty much... Venture's not going to put people in... Who else in this area would even be able to compete with him?

I put the letter down. I want to read you. I talked to you about it last week. All right, so I wanted to bring this up, too. I did receive a letter recently from Experience Columbia, Mr. Bill Allen, because if you recall... We did, council did go through and make a decision to modify the accommodations tax request or what the board had recommended to put money into the Purple Martins for Bob Miley. He did write a letter because he was one of our experience. Columbia was one of the organizations that was impacted as well. And I'm just going to read you a paragraph or a couple of paragraphs here. It says, when I was informed that the funding was cut to help address the problem at the Purple Martin phenomenon, I was honestly a puzzle. We are one of the few organizations that actively promote the Purple Martins and help attract the visitors to go to Baum Island to experience the birds. We literally brought in a national travel writer to see the phenomenon. They flew in from Chicago. They saw them and they wrote a national article on their experience in Forbes magazine that was seen by over 250,000 people. And so they were just saying how they go on to promote the Purple Martins and so forth, but yet their funding was reduced. These are just some simple things that we do to market Lexington County. It goes on to say, but unfortunately, due to zero funding, we can no longer use our resources, tourism relationships, staff time, and actual dollars spent to promote Lakeson County assets for the coming year. It's just a business person. I trust any business person will realize the economics involved in this decision. I have discussed and notified both board members for Layston County, and they understand. So as experienced Columbia wrote us a letter because of what we had shifted it to, I told him that I would make sure that council did know and shared it with Daryl and would share this with council if there was anything for any consideration or anything that you would like for me to look at.

That's a magazine, right?

That was a...

No, no, that's not Forbes. It's not Experience Columbia.

Experience Columbia is basically Bill Allen from a convention center in Columbia that, again, they brought in guys to do a national magazine on a Golden Hills golf course. And it's just other examples like that that they've done and put out that he just wanted you guys to be aware.

Yeah, I heard through the grapevine that we had cut $35,000, $40,000 from them. That's not true.

No, the request, their request was $50,000. The accommodations tax board recommended $15,000. And then the $15,000 was shifted during the budget process.

So where did the number 30 come from?

That was the word that was floated. That's what he asked for. You cut $30,000 out of our budget.

I said, you know, I said, no. I did provide him these documents.

I said, that's not the case. I said, we are trying to fund the Bomb Island for it to fall apart. And I said, I'm sure you'll get some money next year, but we had to get some seed money to get going on engineering for Bomb Island. And you know what?

You just have to make the tough call.

I know. He said, well, the person, two people said, well, you took $37,000. I said, we have not taken $37,000. And I called Len. I said, Len, what was the request? He said $50,000. I said, what was it they're giving them? $15,000.

How did the $50,000 request it? Yeah. And again, that was what the Accommodation Tax Board recommended.

Somebody sterned something up that wasn't reality.

I did provide Mr. Allen with what the Accommodations Tax Board did recommend, plus our final number, so he does have it.

So if it's okay with the council, you and I can discuss, and we might send them a small check for participation or something. Y'all good with that? No? Yes?

A small check for participating in what?

Ford Magazine article.

It's just not that one. There's multiple. Yeah, there's other articles. He's got a whole list here of what they've done to include, again, like the Palm Island, Golden Hills Golf Club, Golden Hills Golf Course, and some other stuff that they've done.

I just hate the way the letter was slanted.

Kind of a strong one.

You know, if you don't give us money, we're not going to advertise for you. And I hate the way that was slanted.

And our board is aware of this stuff, of what all they do. Yeah. There you go. We gave them 15 years before.

I think hand in hand.

I'm just curious, how much advertising do they actually do for Lexington County based on the percentage that they do for Richland County?

Let me read you another piece because it kind of covers that. It says, when I was informed the funding was cut to address the problem at the Purple Martin... Actually, I did read that. We conservatively estimate that we actually spend more than $150,000 in time, effort, and true expenses each year. And as an example, an ad placement in a magazine like Southern Living exceeds $50,000. We've included Lexington County assets in these ads we place every year. We've done this for much less funding than the effort actually cost us. And he says we're happy to do it. We recognize Lexington County as an asset in our overall package, and we promote to thousands of visitors each year. We're proud to showcase Lexington County to the world.

So if we open up the applications for the 30% funding, they can present to it just like everybody else would present if they qualify for it. And the 30% could be.

But the 30% is not what he asked for.

No, but it could be divided up. It doesn't have to be 30% to one agency. Isn't that right?

Yeah, I think what's happened is the 30% was given. Then the board went through, made a recommendation, and then we used, as Daryl said, seed money, and we shifted some of that from the recommendation. Right. That's what he's asking about, that recommendation.

My personal opinion publicly is no. But if you feel like we should do something, Mr. Administrator, then I'll respect your decision. Is that fair enough?

Yes, sir.

Is that fair enough?

If we get it, I need to report it to you, sir.

Yeah, then we're good. But I think this body will respect your decision. Because he needs that relationship, and I understand that. Okay. Bobby, you're going to be here a while. I have got to take a little break, but you can start. Just make it quick, Baffert, unless you wanted to carry on.

Just take five minutes.

Okay, five minutes. Five minutes. If I get out of my chair. Excuse me. I'm trying to get this going before the end of the year so we have this done. There's been only meetings he's had is with me. So I asked Robbie to reach out to you guys instead of y'all trying to coordinate it and come up with some times. So it'll force you to come up here and spend some time with him. I want to get this passed by the end of the year. So we start fresh here and go when that's the goal. We spent a ton of time working on it. And I think, Clifford, I think you're ready to move forward with it. Charlie, Beth, Glenn, you ready to move forward with it? Larry, you ready to move forward with it? So it's just a matter of us dotting I's and crossing some T's. So if you'll cover this briefly where we're at. We want to do first reading tonight to get it rolling. And then please, I know... That's why I want to have a special call meeting if we can. If we don't need to, that's fine. But I don't want this to lapse. I want to get this done. And I will make that decision by Thursday and let you know. Okay? So, Robbie, rock and roll, brother.

Members of Council, the three amendments before y'all are Ordinance 2614, which are amendments to the Zoning Ordinance, 2615, which are amendments to the Landscape and Open Space Ordinance, 2616, which are amendments to the Land Development Manual. As directed by Council, we brought this back today. I know the goal is to potentially have these three amendments completed by the end of the year. In order to do such, if you have first reading by title only today, that'll set the standard for a public hearing for all three of them being October 13th. We will have to post the land development amendments this week because there's a mandatory 30-day requirement for that particular ordinance. There's 15-day requirements for the other two. second reading will be excuse me planning commission will be october 15th with the amount of material within these ordinances i want to call it have a special call meeting with the planning commission to basically a work session prior to that planning commission meeting so we can sit down and go through those and we don't bog time down during the actual planning commission meeting on the 15th so i need to coordinate that probably a week or two prior to that planning commission meeting We'll have to have a Stormwater Advisory Board meeting to discuss the amendments to the Land Development Manual. I've already got Matt Rowland working to schedule a special call meeting in September for Stormwater Advisory Board so we can get their comments to present to the Planning Commission in October. Fast forward, a second reading, the earliest possible second reading will be October 27th or November 10th, and putting third and final reading December 8th, depending on when second reading is.

That's cutting it close.

I know it is. I have reached out to Marilyn Pratt, and I have some dates that Lynn and I are both available over the next couple weeks. I'll be reaching out starting tomorrow to schedule dates for that. I know Councilwoman Westinger has mentioned some questions, concerns with the information in her area. Because it's going to impact the Stormwater Advisory Board, I'd like to go ahead and get your schedule as soon as possible. I need direction on whether I need to meet individually with council members, meet with the group of pods themselves, or the individual spokesperson for that pod. So I'm trying to gain what direction I need to start the process.

I'm sure Ms. Kerrig is available.

I think we're aligned, so we're good.

Okay. Well, we'll meet just to make sure. Or I'll call you from his office to make sure. You are in charge of this group, so you need to get that group going. Perfect. Larry, you and Charlie. But it's frustrating for me because I've been pushing this. We had a special session on it. Let's get it rolling and get it going. And out of respect... For Beth and Larry, who will be leaving us at the end of the year, as much as the efforts they put into it, I would love to see it pass by the end of the year.

Absolutely.

Because I know that's what I'd want if it was in my shoes. If the council wishes to proceed, we do need to first read my title on all three orders tonight, and that will require a motion and a vote for all three of the agenda items separately.

And you can do a high-level summarization of it right now if you'd like for him to as well.

That would be great. For landscaping, for the zoning ordinance, it's the creation of three overlays as referred to, Council, as the pods. One for a neighborhood district, which is basically the five council members in the east and southern portion of the county. the Central Lexington County District, which is Chairman Hudson and Councilwoman Kearig, and the Western District, which is Councilwoman Wessinger and Councilman Brigham. Each three has their own residential design standards. The zoning works amendments will also include provisions for transportation impact studies countywide. For landscape and open space ordinance, most of these reflect upon open space requirements, generally mandating a 50-foot road corridor buffer for new residential subdivisions and require potentially tree canopy coverage requirements within the western district of Lexington County. It does have some other additional provisions under council discussed, overhead utilities and tree plantings. So those provisions discussed about that are included within those provisions. The Land Development Manual currently has a special protection area, including additional measures to protect the watersheds that feed into Lake Murray. I know we have discussed about the roads, design standards, and sidewalks. We are still ongoing discussion and review of those standards. So those will not be included initially as part of 2616.

Sidewalks and what else?

Sidewalks and road design standards. That's ongoing discussion and review by our staff, public works, and administration.

Those two standards won't be in?

It will not be in 2616, that ordinance. The only thing including ordinance 2616 or special protection areas for Lake Murray.

What I want to ask you is the first ordinance is going to create three overlays.

That's correct. That's for the zoning ordinance.

You did send me some information before about the three distinctive overlays and commonality between them, right? Yes, sir. Especially for old people. I'd really like to see if we could keep the text in each of them in a sign of color for each overlay. Because I'm sure that one ordinance can cover each of those overlays, right? Are we going to have three independent ordinances for each overlay?

It will be three individual articles within the zoning ordinance. What we've done is traditionally your density standards have been included within a separate article. We have put the density requirements in each one of those articles. So you know if you're in... The Hudson and Cary District, this is what your density standards are. If you're in the lower part of Canada, this is your density standards, and if you're in the western part of Canada, these are your density standards. So we've simplified that.

Right, great. So you know you're going to get a ton of questions, not just from the development community, from people at large, folks that are interested in designing a property. So if we can identify colored text right now for each of the overlays, it would make it much more simple, I think, because if If it's written in orange, it has nothing to do with the south and eastern side of the county. It only has something to do with maybe... That's a good idea. Okay. If it's written in blue... That's a good idea. It has only to do with maybe Daryl's district. Good idea. And then that way, when we're having those discussions, I would personally say, are we talking blue language, orange, or green, whatever? I don't care what the colors are. Because in that... just going to be easier to keep it that. Now, anything that's common and standard between all the jurisdictions could be just in regular black and white text, right?

Yeah, I think we did. We developed the text as we put the individual standards in each article. It spells it out basically, but we can go in and color code them also.

Well, the thing is, what's going to happen invariably, I can already see this has already happened over the last two years, three years, is that some text that's going to be applied in certain areas is going to be said, oh, well, you can do 12 houses per acre here, and you're going to say, no, you can't. Oh, yes, you can. It's written right here. What color is it? Well, it doesn't apply to the area you're talking about. It only applies in this area, right? What do you call it? Your KISS principle or whatever it is? Keep it simple. Yeah, there you go. I don't know how any simpler it can be if we just keep them separated or segregated like that.

I think what we can do is the overlay maps we've developed are already color-coded, so we can just use those colors and overlay maps and just reflect those within text.

That's a good idea.

That's a good idea.

Yep.

colored on the map?

I wish I'd have thought of it.

I don't know. You ain't seen it yet. Gold star. Somebody might tell you just go ahead and get your crayons out and start coloring, right?

Need a motion? I'll need a motion for all three of the agenda items. One for the zoning, landscape and open space and one for land development.

This would be by title only to begin with tonight.

I'll make a motion. Can I do all three under one? Yeah. I'll make a motion that we approve 2614 amendments to the Lexington County zoning ordinance, 2615 amendments to the Lexington County landscape and open space ordinance, and 2616 amendments to the Lexington County land development manual. And then we'll have first reading tonight. By title only. By title only. And that's my motion. Second. We have a second by Ms. Westinger. Any questions? Didn't take as long as I thought it would. Very good. All in favor? Very good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. We'll go into executive session for probably 30 minutes. I have a motion to go into executive session. We have two items. I'll read them. Employment matter, which is 30-4-70-A1, and second is contract negotiations, which is 30-4-70-A2. We have a motion by Mr. Cockrell. Second by Ms. Kerrig. All in favor? All opposed? It'll be about 30 minutes.