Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to welcome everyone to the town of Lexton council work session this evening, April the 20th, 2026. Work sessions are less formal business meetings that enable council to obtain information regarding town issues from staff and/or consultants. Citizens are encouraged to observe work sessions. However, they do not include public hearing comments. Council does not does not take an action vote on items during a work session other than to place an item on the next council meeting. I'm Hazel Livingston, the mayor of the town of Lexon. I would like to introduce my fellow council members. To my left is council member Ron Williams. Good evening. To his left is council member Todd Lau. Good evening.

To his left is council member Jenny Michaels. Good evening. To my right is Mayor Pro Tim Ron Williams. Excuse me. I did it. I'm so used to saying that. I'm Yeah. Yeah. I mess up. That's okay. To my right is Mayor Pro Tim Todd KS. Good evening. Who am I? I don't know. Can you want to tell me who you want to be? To his right is council member Gavin Smith. Good evening. And to his right is council member Will Allen. Good evening. At this time, I'm going to ask Council Member KS to lead us in the invocation tonight.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. Let's pray. Father, we do pause here for a moment and we ask for your favor on the things that we do, on the town that we inhabit, Father. The prosperity, the peace, the goodness, the camaraderie, um, and the the prosperity, it all comes from you. And so we want to be acknowledging that, thankful for that, give you gratitude for that. ask for you to let it increase so that we can take the excess of what you give to us. We can give it to others. We can bless them in Jesus' name. We can hand off a town better than the one we inherited. We'll certainly need your favor to do that. So give us wisdom in all we do. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

And now Councilman Ball will lead us in the pledge. I pledge algiance 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. Council met in executive session prior to this meeting where we discussed the following matters. One routine personnel matter, discussion of potential property acquisition,formational update 14 mile creek gravity truck project and discussion regarding the Freedom of Information Act and executive session items. No vote was taken. Do I hear a motion to ratify this report?

Some moved. Councilman Williams makes the motion. Do I hear a second? Second.

Councilman Ls it. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, raise your right hand. And it is unanimous. Are there any deletions of items from tonight's work session? Hearing none, we have a very special presentation tonight from our second youth ambassador class. As part of their program, the students spend time learning about how town hall operates, meeting with staff, and gaining a behind-the-scenes look at local government. Each year, they work together to develop and present a project as part of their program. At this time, I'd like to turn it over to our marketing coordinator, Lauren Smith, to tell us about this project.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. Good evening, everyone. It's an honor to be here to celebrate our second group of youth ambassadors graduating tonight. Um what an outstanding group of young leaders we have here. Um in my very short time being involved with this class, I've seen them grow. I've seen their dedication. I've seen their work ethic. Um and I'm very proud and excited to have had a very small hand um in their leadership story. Um as you know, it's the youth ambassador program is now in in its second year. um giving the students an opportunity connect to connect with Lexington, build leadership skills and learn more about our local government. A highlight for this year's class was their community impact project where each ambassador individually interviewed a local leader to learn and share their story. This work directly leans into and supports our one town many stories initiative bringing life to the voices and experiences that shapes our community. So I will now turn it over to our ambassadors who will each share a brief interview overview of their interviews. Uh, good evening, council members and uh, Miss uh, sorry, Mayor Livingston. Uh, sorry, one second. Uh, my name is Elijah Jacob Barnhill and I interviewed Tim Ivy, uh, the owner of the UPS store. or there's two, but there's one in Lexington. Um I when interviewing I found out that he was traveling just across America and decided to uh settle down in Lexington and opened up a UPS store at uh South Lake Drive. then later on uh opened up a store at Old Cherokee Road. Uh whenever

interviewing him, I found to be quite approachable and overall really nice. Both his UPS store and also him himself has done a lot with the community and has overall just been really impactful in my opinion. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Livingston and council members and members of the community. My name is Joshua Chow and I had the privilege and honor of interviewing Mr. Matt O'Hare, the owner of O'Hare's public house. Mr. Mr. Hera has been a resident of Lexington for over 30 years. Um, where he raised his family. Mr. Hera, uh, he comes from a large family of 15 children and he's the 12th. Growing up, his home was always full of neighbors, stopping by to share meals, conversations, and time together. And with that uh constant sense of welcome and connection stayed with him and inspired him to create a place where others could feel that the same sense of belonging. That vision became a Harris Punk house. Through my interview I learned not only how Mr. Aara started his restaurant but how deeply he had impacted our community. His mission is simple but powerful. He wanted to create a warm welcoming space where people can gather to celebrate life, music, food, and one another. Over the years, m Mr. Aera had turned the public house into more than a place to eat, but into a place to celebrate milestones, create memories, and even come together in in times of loss. Mr. Hair takes great pride in knowing his business has become a safe and inclusive place for all. and he continues to continues that on that legacy. A Harris public house is more than a restaurant. It's a second home for many in Lexington. It's a place where people feel seen, valued, and connected. That spirit of togetherness reflects the heart of our community and an impact created by Mr. O'Hara. Thank you all very much.

Thank you. Good evening, council members and mayor Livingston. My name is Ashin Chinar. I'm a senior at Lexington High School and I had the opportunity to speak with Miss Jennifer McNair, a high school principal with my youth impact project. As we spoke, she shared what really inspired her to pursue a career in education and what continues to drive her each day. She really emphasized the importance of supporting students not only academically but personally especially inside and outside the classroom. As she explained, every student has a potential and just one person believing in them is makes a huge difference. Hearing this made me realize just how much of an impact all members in our Lexington community can have, not just within their respective buildings, but also just within the overall Lexington community. Through our leadership, Lexington High School has become more than a place to learn. It's become a space where students can really feel supported, understood, and encouraged to grow. The conversation really showed me that in a place like Lexington, everyone has a place in shaping their community. Her story is just one tiny example of how leadership, compassion, and dedication can really influence the lives of others. I'm grateful I got to hear her story because it reminded me that every person in our town helps make it special. Truly, Lexington is one town with many stories. Thank you so much, Hello council. I'm Nathan and I interviewed Jesse Harmon. He is the founder and the main runner of Runhard and it has a huge impact on all of the children and all of um anyone even myself included who have ever been a part of it. It helps them gain confidence and learn lessons. um about building each other up, dedication, hard work, and finishing what you start. It really helps

everybody lift each other up and get across the finish line and have something to be proud of and be successful. And I love how it starts them at the young age so they can carry these lessons throughout their um uh education. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, council members. Today or I had the opportunity to interview Rob Lass as a part of the community impact project. Rob currently serves as the Lexington County horiculture agent with Clemson Cooperative Extension. During my interview, I learned the crucial part that agriculture plays within Lexington County. I learned about some of the obstacles it is currently facing and ways that people are currently supporting agriculture within our community. Rob works not only with commercial growers to help improve their growing practices and find ways to, you know, help their crops, but he also works here locally with those who have small gardens, whether that's providing soil samples or helping them with maybe a pest that they might have in a garden. This truly taught me the importance that one person can have on a community as well as how crucial it is to support those who are you know trying new things and those who are farmers who play a crucial impact within our community. Thank you.

Hello Mayor Livingston and council members. I'm Ellie Grace and I had the privilege of interviewing Jacob Smith, the Riverbluff principal. Uh, Mr. Smith has been principal at Riverbluff for 5 years now and he is on his last year currently. Uh, Mr. Smith expressed gratitude for the Lexington community through our interview and all it has done for him and his family and how he's seen it grow his community and friendships. Uh, during his years at Riverbluff, Mr. Smith had a tremendous effect on both the culture at Riverbuff for both teachers and students. And as me and my peers go forward in our life and our careers, Mr. Smith will forever have a lasting impact on us and our community. Thank you so much. Good evening, council members. I'm Robert McGrath. Um, I had the privilege of interviewing both SRO's at Lexon High School, Officer Booth and Officer Stoker. Um, the impact they have on Lexington runs very deep and should be celebrated every day. Um, the way they're able to connect with the youth really is powerful and it shows that they are really the best of our town. Lexon has to offer and they are just amazing people and they grew up around the area so they're very like home centered and they have made my life a lot better and they've had a great impact on everybody that I know and will truly be able to do that in the future as well. Thank you guys for your time. Good evening, Mayor Livingston and fellow council members. For my ambassador project, I had the privilege to interview Terresa Addie. I wanted to share with all of you a little overview

of what I learned after meeting with her. Originally from South Carolina, Terresa Addie graduated from Lexington High School. She and her husband Jeremy Reagan Addie originally owned a car dealership. After selling it in late 2008, their son convinced them to transition into the clothing business. When this IA when this idea came to fruition, it proved to be the perfect timing as Southern Tide clothing was extremely popular and in a high demand. Following the nine months of preparation, they opened Craig Reagan. Throughout this process, they faced many challenges that small business owners encounter when launching a new venture. For example, they had to completely redo the building's electrical and plumbing systems before qualifying to open. And now over 15 years later, Craig Reagan is one of the most successful and well-known businesses in Lexington. The Atti family not only owns Craig Reagan, but they also own the property and lease space to several other businesses in the town, including Taco Sushi, Voodoo, the Wine Bar, and Craft Axe. Teresa Addie takes a great pride in the strong sense of community she has built. Her father-in-law, John K. Addie, Senior, once served as the mayor of Lexington. Her philosophy is if you take care of the community, the community will take care of you. Ultimately, success to Teresa means waking up each day knowing she has given back to her community and she has accomplished meaningful things in her life. Thank you very much. All right. Good evening, council members and Mayor Livingston. My name is Llaya Powers and I'm a senior at Riverbluff High School. And for my youth ambassador project, I had the honor of interviewing one of our history teachers, Mr. Devin Shoemate. He's actually here with us in the audience tonight. Um I'm very grateful he's able to join us. So um if you don't know what Ella Stuff is talking is, that is a program that Mr. Shoemate started at my high school to help out um underprivileged children who won't who won't be able to have the

opportunity to have a Christmas. So basically it is a group thing that we do in our home room or crew as we like to call it where we all get together and you know raise some gifts for these children and we it's this big event that we do and I wish I could sit here and just tell y'all all about it forever and ever and ever because it is truly one of the most amazing memories that I have been able to get out of Riverbluff High School. So this program originally started with about 20 to 25 children and has now grown to about 1,652 children this past year. So, these are children that Riverbluff has been able to adopt and help out. Um, hopefully it will continue to grow. And if y'all are able to talk to Mr. Shoemate tonight about all of his experiences and what he has done to make this such an amazing program from Riverbluff, please do. Um, I wish I could really tell you all about it, but thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good evening, council members. I'm Sophia Propon and I recently had the opportunity to interview Lori Eunum uh a passionate advocate for the autism community. Lori is the co-ound co-founder of the Unun Center here in Lexington and the driving force behind Ryan's law, a landmark piece of legislation that changed how insurance uh covers autism treatments in South Carolina. Beyond her legal wins, she travels globally from Japan to the Czech Republic to improve autism services worldwide. The biggest takeaway from my time with her was her vision for the Unim Place, uh, a new residential community for adults with autism. Lor's message to us all is simple. She wants Lexington to be a place where neurody divergent neighbors are truly accepted, included in everyday life. Thank you. Next up, we'll recognize and celebrate our second youth ambassador class of 2026 as they graduate from the program. And I'll come down and you're going to read the Elijah Barnhill. Okay. Um, and parents, if you want to come up and take a photo, you were welcome to. Ready?

Do you want to you want to get an alibi? Did Mr. Barnhill's parents want to take a picture?

I'm so sorry. No, you only do this once. It's a big day. Big day. Joshua Chow.

That's fine. All right. Ashwin Chinarum. Did I say that? Did I do it? Did I do it? Nathan Deose. First, Henley Gavin. Okay.

Ellen Kirkland. Um, I'm gonna read this next name. She unfortunately could not be here tonight. Uh, she had a death in the family and had to um travel tonight. But Prennavi Manchum, Robert McGrath Jennings Michaels give me Oops. Laya Powers.

Thank you so much.

And last but not least, we've got Sophia Propon. Congratulations. Yes. Okay. Yep. If you guys Um, do you want their certificates?

Um, no. They can leave their certificates. And council, would you mind coming down to take a picture? Rachel,

we're going to talk tomorrow. Just keep smiling. Another one.

Perfect. Ambassadors, I was just going to let y'all know that last year, I know that Mr. Smith with Riverbluff let y'all wear your cords. Um, we asked and he let y'all last year. So, I would think that your school should let you wear your cord on graduation day. I know. Thank y'all for what y'all did. We appreciate it. We appreciate all the hard work. Yeah. Wow.

Next up, we're moving on to business items. Tonight's first business item is from the special funds manager, Vanessa St. What is that how you say last? I'm not I'm not going to mess that up. Accommodations, tax applications.

Do what? Graduation party.

Jeez. Clear a room.

You know how to clear a room? Yeah. Yep. Good evening. The accommodations tax advisory committee met Thursday, April 16th, 2026 to review the 2026 accommodations tax funding applications. 11 applications were submitted totaling $371,000 and500 $371,500 in requests. In accordance with South Carolina law, the town has allocated 65% of revenue collected from the accommodations taxes to tourism related expenditures totaling $213,12040 available for 2026. A spreadsheet listing the requests and the accommodations tax advisory committee's award recommendations is attached for your review and approval. The committee also reviewed and approved the budget submitted by the Lexington Chamber and Visitors Center as the recipient of the 30% special fund advertising and promotion. For FY26, the chamber would be designated to receive 98,18589. We ask that you place this on the May 4th, 2026 meeting agenda for approval. Thank you.

Do I hear a motion to place it on the agenda? So moved. Councilman Williams makes the motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Councilman Michael seconds it. Is there any discussion? Madame Mayor. Yes. So it's my understanding that we've been doing this I've been doing this for 12 years. We have a committee of uh of citizens that come in and participate with this process. Correct. There's seven on the committee. Um according to the state law, a majority have to be from the um accommodations industry, hospitality industry with at least two of them from um hotel.

Okay. And so they they they look at each of these um 11 folks proposals and they decide what they receive based on how many um folks that they believe will get back into the hotel rooms to correct spend future funding. Correct. Correct. Yes. Okay. And um I noticed the town requested $189,000 for and was only awarded $95,000. Correct. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. Madame Mayor.

Yes, sir. Could you walk me through the justification or the rationale for why all applicants were approved for funding or some portion of their funding, however, um an event that occurs right here in the town, Lexton Community Funday um was denied funding. Could you help me understand that rationale? Yes. um during the um talks with the committee between the committee they just felt that because it is a local event um it's not bringing in additional people to for the tourism aspect of it.

Okay. Um but it was said amongst the committee that um committee members that this event does bring people in from out of town. I mean I along with a number of other I think every one of us attend that event each year or most of us attend that and many people talk about coming in from out of town um to come back to this event each year. This is an event that that uh community looks forward to um and many of them stay in hotels. Um I I've talked with the event organizers and they state that many people do um stay in hotels. So, this would uh reasonably be considered an event that should be awarded um a tax funding. So, I'm just concerned that we're not awarding them, but we're giving someone, you know, like the Columbia Museum of Art who's not in Lexington, is more of a regional institution as opposed to Lexon Community Funday is literally in Lexington and we're not awarding that organization. I would personally like to see us um amend the awards to award Lexon and Community Fund um some funding. Um I will say that the committee didn't see that within the application or the presentation. So I believe that's why. Um but it is um the council's approval and ultimate decision as to who gets the funding.

Madame Mayor, yes. Um just to address that, I I don't think uh town council has the authority to amend the numbers. I think that has to come from a recommendation from the commission. However, you do have the authority to send it back to the commission to review it again if you choose to. Madame Mayor. Yes, sir. You're the attorney and I don't mean to question you, but I read the statute also and it was my understanding that council has the ultimate authority of who to award the funds to, not the committee is solely advisory, not

well they they have the they have the applications in front of them, they had the presentations in front of them. Um, obviously if if council chose to do that, that that's council's decision. However, I I my advice would be to uh would be to uh return it to the commission to ask them to re review the list again before bringing a recommen recommendation to council for uh action. Are are we statutoily required to do that? Cuz by my interpretation, we weren't. But again, I'm not an attorney. So, if if we are

I would have to I would have to to to thoroughly do some research on it. But, you know, just off of off uh based on my my knowledge of it, I would recommend you send it back. I don't know if you're statutoily required to send it back, but you can send it back to have them review it again if you're not comfortable with the the recommendation. Okay.

So, I I have a question. Is there any guidelines of how many people they have to prove that beds and heads and beds and that type of thing because that's what it is right is from hotel. Um my understanding there's not a a number but I I do think the decision has to be based on the fact that you know do you expect um outside indivi you know individuals to come to these events and will provide uh accommodations a tax revenue for the for the town and only way that is is they have to you know obviously rent rooms to to spend the night. So obviously that's that plays a big role in in the decision-m but I don't know if it's uh a specific uh number that you have to look at you know or some percentage or or whatever. I think it just has to be a a reasonable determination that that that is going to produce you know heads in a bed kind of thing.

Madame Mayor. Yes sir. I would also just point out in the experience Colombia submission or um supporting materials that only approximately 7% of uh those associated with experienced Colombia um hotel impact only approximately 7% of um the data shows that the hotel impact is actually in Lexington and that's not even specific to the town of Lexington. That's just Lexington in general. So that's a relatively low bar. I would imagine that nearly every one of the individuals coming to Lexon Community Fundday would stay in Lexington.

Madame Mayor, also if I might add, um, one other option may be if council wants to uh to fund this this event is to look at the hospitality tax portion um, which has similar rules and regulations for what you can spend it on. However, it's not tied to um hotel stays. So, if if if there's an event, a local event that is going to attract individuals from outside town to come, however, they're not going to produce a significant level of of hotel stays. You could look at a funding option of hospitality tax to um to you know, fund that at a at a level that council may um be better

may do that. It's it's not as um gives gives council a little bit more leeway than it would accommodations tax would. Madame mayor. Yes sir.

I I used to liaz with this uh accommodations tax committee. So uh for many years I used to go to this thing every year and people would make their they'd make their presentations and fill out their application talking about uh the merits of their event. But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters as far as getting the money is any kind of documentation that an applicant can bring to the table that says we can prove that X number of people stayed in hotels in order to attend this event. It's not really based on the merits of the event, how good or bad or or anything in that realm. It's um it's just documenting what we call heads and beds. And so I think that I think we have some people here from funday. Just remember that when you go into uh into this meeting that u that that is primary and preeminent in regards to getting this funding because all this funding comes from our hotels. The other thing is I do think um I do think it is council's prerogative to amend this. I don't know that we ever have because it's hard to to put a lay committee in place and empower them and then overrule them. But I'm pretty sure we do have that right. But I'm thinking that would be done at our council meeting. Uh when we brought this forth, we would we'd make an amendment at that time if council so chose. So just my input,

madam mayor, I would agree that that this item would need to be placed on your next council agenda and then at that time when it's uh brought up for discussion at that time it can be amended or um returned back to the committee for further um review. So with that can we get it and also you can give us the justification from the committee too can't you? They used to provide us justification of why they didn't pick somewhere or why they did. No, I can reach out to the chair and see if Yeah. Um,

Madame Mayor, if I may, I was just talking with Councilman Williams. We we generally put in our own personal funds to help with this. I think we're all big fans of this event, so maybe we can just do a little more research and get back to us on this. I think it's a great event. I'm not sure this is the right vehicle to help it, but it is a good event that we want to stand behind. So, I'm not sure the right mechanism, but we would like to work something out. The committee was very um complimentary. Yes. Of the event. Yeah. It's great. It's a great event. Yes. And and it might be like our attorney said, it might be that we look at the hospitality money instead of this so that we can truly justify it. And it Yeah. gives us a little more leeway.

Well, mayor, can we ask the staff to um check into the hospitality option as well and report back to us at our next meeting? So, we would be able to fund it that way if we couldn't fund it with hospitality tax with with accommodations tax, excuse me, Madame Mayor. Yes.

I maybe I'm on an island here, but I I failed to see the disconnect. H how on earth we're justifying giving the Colombia Metro DBA experience Columbia $40,000? We're giving ourselves back $190,000, but we can award the community funday who states on their application that they have 250 people that would meet the definition of a tourist. I I'm I'm failing to see how they would not qualify here. why we need to come up with some other form of funding. Um, if I if my memory serves me correctly, we've never allocated any direct funding. Instead, we have provided them with some tables and chairs and maybe tents at some point. But I specifically remember it um I would say in the last year or so us having conversations and some of us up here having conversations encouraging them to apply for a tax funding and now we have an opportunity to award them a tax funding and we're not doing that. They they meet the criteria here. Maybe their presentation didn't say hey we're going to put heads in beds but at the end of the day this is an excellent event in the community. They unquestionably bring bring people into the community and put their heads in a bed. So, let's take the opportunity here to give them some funding. It doesn't mean we have to fulfill everything. Not everybody got their full funding request, but I think we have an opportunity to support this community, and I'd like I'd like to see us do that. So, if I'm not mistaken, and you can educate me, the um DBA Experience Colombia, they do a lot of marketing for our um events that we have. That's the reason we give them that money is because they do a lot of our marketing for snowball and whatever else that we're we're having um big concerts or whatever that.

Correct. So, I think that's the reason, Governor. I just wanted to clarify that one for you that there's a reason why that money is there in the presentation. Yes. Um if I can ask and this would be I guess I guess this would be more of a technical question for you David. Um why would we need to go through the route of going hospitality? Why couldn't we just say if that was the council's determination that we wanted to grant 10,000 to L community funding? Why couldn't we just amend what we're giving Town of Lexington by 10,000? Seems like it'd be easier for us to just subtract 95620 to 85620.

Well, like like I said earlier, I I would need to do some research to determine whether council has the authority to amend it. If they do, obviously, yes, you can when it comes up for a vote, you can amend the request to add that whatever a dollar amount council feels it needs to add for that event and, you know, reduce another line item or multiple line items to make it balance. Uh um but but yes, you can do that if if you're authorized or allowed to do that. I like I said, I'd have to do some research to to confirm that. But

so, can we do this? Would y'all be comfortable with this? Let's put it on the agenda with the fact that you talk to the chairman too and um maybe us all look a little deeper into what these are where we'd want to take something from to do this to do the 10,000. And you David, you make sure we're doing it legal, everything legal, and be ready for us on the council meeting so we'll know if we shift in the money. Yes, ma'am. and and if he says we, you know, we can't shift and that kind of stuff, you staff bring back how we could do something with hospitality tax.

Okay. Mayor, may I ask a couple questions as well? Um, Vanessa, did the committee determine whether the entity was eligible? Did they review that? Do they meet eligibility requirements as an entity, as an organization, as a nonprofit? Yes, that's okay. And then did they look at I pulled up the application and I'm looking at their request for funding somewhere. It's here. Um did the committee determine that the items the ways that they wanted to spend the money were also eligible? I don't believe they went into that detail. Um they could have prior to because they were provided the applications.

Okay. So it was a quicker Okay. But ultimately the decision was they did not feel it was an event that brought folks in more from more than 50 miles away. Correct. Okay. So I just had those questions because sometimes it can trip up applicants if they ask for funding for something that the state a tax doesn't allow funding to be spent on. So that's why I was curious about that. Madam Mayor,

yes. Could I could I suggest that we ask staff just to generally look at this and not necessarily specifically tell us where the money comes from? Just just look at it instead of it must be from hospitality or it must be like let's just we got got the lawyer at the table. He can help us stay out of the ditch. But I I think the the general feeling up here is that we we we like this event. We'd like to see if there was an option to help it. I think that's definitely the feeling up here is that we want to help it. So, last word, Madame Mayor. Yes.

Can you can you just remind us of the few items that these funds can be spent on? Because these are not operational funds. It's not like something you just get run your event. It's for it's for advertising that's beyond 50 miles in your radius to bring people in. I don't remember all the rules. I sat in those meetings a bunch of years. There was about three big items and they were very niche. So, a lot of people running a $75,000 event and only $6,000 in their expenses qualify. Can you give us the broad items on that because a lot of because again a lot of times people came in and they just missed like they just missed on what was allowed.

Uh yes sir. So eligible projects advertising and promotion of tourism. So this is running ads in uh newspapers, online etc. to uh draw people to the town whether it's for an event or a venue. Um arts and cultural events, the promotion of arts and cultural events. Um again primarily advertising facilities for civic and cultural events. So this is where the town submits their application. So town of uh town of Lexington applies for the amphitheater for example. Um and uh those particular um facilities uh you can include operational maintenance that sort of thing. It can be more than just the advertising and also visitor centers. So um if there was uh if there is the the chamber and visitors center so that's where our chamber who is our DMO spends some of their 30% money or if the town had its own visitors center we could uh put money towards that but those are the the highle categories uh to your question Councilman.

Yes. So, I mean overall it's it's primarily marketing funds uh to attract people and I know historically we had some people get get in a little bit of trouble with operational funds. Thank you. So, we have a motion and a second to put it on the agenda with some caveats for staff and looking at it. All those in favor raise your right hand and it is unanimous. Item number two is a proposed ice house amphitheater facility fee from parks and community services director Jeff Mets.

Good evening, Madame Mayor, town council. Um, Ice House Amphitheater is 10 years old and is in need of several in infrastructure repairs. Other venues such as the city of Malden, Newberry Opera House, and several universities have facility fees that are added to ticket prices to assist with capital improvements and entertainment costs and infrastructure needs. The fees suggested by staff would be $2 and would be derived from the ticket sales of any ticketed events at the Ice House Amphitheater. You have the good gracious Oh, I printed it out. So, um, so facility fee would be a fee that is tacked on at the end of your purchase. Uh, so when you go through, if it's a $25 ticket when you get to when you go through Cola Daily, who we use to sell our tickets, you get through, you pay a South Carolina admissions tax, you pay a credit card fee, then that's when facility fees are tacked on. um we were looking at events that um or town sponsored promoters or rentals. We are not looking at uh non-ticked events such as church services, school events, and other free events. Those would not be impacted. So, anyone that is like doing a concert and selling a ticket is who we're looking at. Um these would these funds would be directly reinvested into our venue and guest experiences. Uh, you could look at it as a user fee based on the size of your event. So, if you have a 100 people, it end up being a $200 fee. If you got a th000 people, it's $2,000. Um, you go on, Michael. Here's some of the um venues from around the state that have these fees in place

already. Uh, some as high as $10, like at the Newberry Opera House. um some as low as 50 cents for like the Charleston horse tours that that you have. The city of Malden just recently built a stadium and they imposed a $2 ticket fee for every uh ticket sold to help with uh future needs. The addition of the fee uh helps us offset maintenance and utility cost, allows for booking of similar or higher caliber talent, and it will help us cover capital improvements and infrastructure. I presented to you last summer, some needs we had at the Ice House Amphitheater currently. Um, one example recently that popped up was two lights were burned out uh with a 10-year-old facility. Those are $1,000 a piece. So things are very expensive when you get into the audio and electrical world. And finally, um just based on the events for 2526 fiscal year, um 29 outside events, average ticket sales of 600 would bring in potential revenue of around $35,000 for the year. So, um, we're asking that, uh, if approved, um, direct town staff and town attorney to draft an ordinance for the May 4th agenda for council approval to be enacted for July 1st, 2026.

Do I hear a motion to put this on the agenda? So moved. Mayor Pro makes the motion. Do I hear a second? I'll second. Councilman Williams seconds it. Do I hear any discussion? Yes, ma'am. Madame Mayor. Yes. So, is there any corresponding increase to the facility lease like when a a group just leases it? I I don't know. I don't know if we if we have any incremental cost of living factor on that. How does that work? We do that every the finance department does that every July one. We make an adjustment

fiscal year. Yes. So when we make that adjustment though, is there I guess that adjustment just goes right back into operational funds. These funds are all for ongoing maintenance. Correct. Yes. And for talent acquisition, which seems to keep increasing as well, so for us to go get other bands. Travel costs have gone up for everyone. And so, uh, the price of everything has increased. I'm sorry. But the the $2 user fee is going to be allocated only for facility maintenance or is it going to be used for talent acquisition? Both. It be for both.

So I I think we have significant u significant restoration. We got some stuff that needs to happen to the actual structure. So why wouldn't why wouldn't we just allocate that to the structure itself? We certainly can. We've requested accommodations tax through the town and the county. So between those pots of money, I'm hoping to accomplish some of this this coming fiscal year. So the accommodations tax allocations that you asked for, can those be used for maintenance purposes? My understanding is yes.

Have we have we historically received uh funds from the county a tax funds a little bit? Yes, we have. So, is there a a round figure estimate of what kind of deferred maintenance we currently have? I know we were looking at some of the beam structures. Yes, sir. The beam structures, uh, right now we're budgeting for $80,000. Um, we would like to astroturf some of the seating areas, uh, especially down front where they get very little sunlight.

Uh, it's worked really well at the Aelia amphitheater. Um, and then we have some speaker issues and lighting issues we would like to do. We would definitely prioritize our funds toward the maintenance side before we went toward talent acquisition cost. But it does give us some freedom to go after a little larger event instead of the events we go after right now. Yeah. I I would just I would just say for me personally, I don't represent council, but I would certainly like to see us use that additional allocation to play catch-up before we went after uh other talents. We seem to be seem to be rolling. Just my thoughts.

Councilman, if I may, um this would be treated as an enterprise fund to your point. So, it would not all of these funds would go into their own fund that could only be used um for the purpose that is set forth by you all through the ordinance that you adopt. So, if I remember correctly, Malden was maintenance only. Um, so it's whatever you all would set in the ordinance that we would bring back is how we would spend those funds, which is part of the reason Jeff is giving you the various options because you could be, you know, very broad or you could be very narrow and specific. So, it's whatever you all decide. Madam Mayor,

yes, sir. Uh Jeff or Rachel, I just want to ask when the ice house uh was launched or maybe the market now or some of our other venues, do we not on an annual basis budget for ongoing maintenance so that we don't run into instances where, you know, we need $80,000 of work, but we haven't budgeted for it over the years. Do we not have a deferred maintenance budget? for the amphitheater. No, we don't. Um, traditionally budgeting has been for minor repairs. Um, we I believe we recently received a tax funding to um make repairs to the green room, for example. Um, to make some of the upgrades there. Uh we primarily have been utilizing a tax uh both county and um town and then various minor repairs. I will say you know 10 years got here pretty quick and you know without the establishment of a a maintenance fund from the beginning this is what happens.

Well and that's you know not to to fault anyone. I think now, you know, we've learned that lesson. I guess my concluding question would be as we've opened new venues like the Old Mill Trail or Virginia Hilton Park, as we continue to take on more uh venues or parks, is that something that we're considering in the budget process to establish uh funding for ongoing maintenance so that we don't reach, you know, the 10-year point of Virginia Holton Park and say, "Oh gosh, we need, you know, another million and a half dollars to go do maintenance." and I'm making that number up. Are we considering that as we are developing our budgets? Um, I'll defer to you on that.

I will just say that I've worked in other communities and and we were dependent on the local option sales tax to when you got to 10, 20, 30 year increments where you were upgrading your facilities. Um, it's tough to do through the A tax and H tax as they get diverted to other things. So um it's very difficult to do especially when you have facility to set aside enough funding because you just don't know what the needs are going to are. So typically those funds get used for other things. At least that's my experience. Madame Mayor. Yes sir.

Okay. Can y'all please explain to me? We just had a conversation about a tax applicants and there's $213,000 that we're giving out based on heads and beds, but we definitely put heads and beds for the amphitheater. If what I heard was correct that you can use a tax funds for these things, why would we not reallocate what we need from our own a tax to take care of it? It seems like a very simple thing to do, a very common sense thing to do that anybody in the town would agree we should take care of our front porch before we're sending money to Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia Metropolitan. Like I would be in favor of us saying, "Okay, let's make sure that our town is taken care of because we don't want to have an amphitheater that's fallen in disarray. Now, we don't have that in the budget already. So, I would be in favor of us totally reallocating what we're doing with this a tax.

We requested funding for all those in our application, but that would be up to you guys and your committee." So, I think that's a hard conversation we need to have to make sure that this doesn't get behind us.

So, I can address that as well. Um, and yes, and I uh appreciate the strategy that Jeff uses because I um have done the same previously. I'm going to ask for all that darn money because we do have a really important um facility. The state accommodations tax law um requires the committee and sets forth the requirements for the folks to sit on the committee. They als the the state law also um sets forth how that money is divvied up and so when we are put in to the required situation of having competitive grant applications um this is what happens and I and I'm not being facitious this is truly what happens um now as we talked about looking at how we make our awards one thing I would be curious about and David um this could be something to add to the list to look that can we f can the town further restrict what types of things we are interested in funding? For example, would state law allow us to put a restriction on we only um make awards to organizations based within town limits or within the county limits um etc. I think that might be worth looking at. I know there are some entities that um their state a tax they only use for advertising for example. There are some there's counties for example that do that. They don't fund any facilities. All they want to do is just fund the advertising and they're they have the ability to make that restriction. So I would be curious to know if there's other restrictions that we could make on that as well. Um, when it comes to state a tax, yeah, it really there's more folks that weigh in than than just town council.

Well, at the end of the day, we do vote on how we allocate it. That is up to us. So, I would be in favor of us taking a holistic look at this and, you know, not going around our elbow to get to our thumb, all these other funding sources if we're already taking that tax revenue. It seems common. It seems so common sense to me that there's got to be a reason why we are not already doing this. So that's what I'm saying. I would ask y'all to bring that back to us when we look at this at the next council meeting because I think that would be an easy fix.

So let me ask you this since we're discussing this and it seems to be all over the place about it. Would it be better if we brought the proposal back to the May work session after we looked at what we could get from a tax? So, we certainly could. The reason for the timing on this is that this requires an ordinance which takes two readings and if council were to endeavor to have a July 1 start date, the first reading would be in May alongside the first reading of the budget and then the second reading would be in June along with the second reading of the budget. So, everything is then implemented July 1. Um, we do not have to utilize that time frame. It made sense. So, we could incorporate it, but we could look at implementing at a different time frame as well.

I mean, I I feel like we have to do upkeep on this event. I mean, a lot most of y'all join me there on Thursday night and stuff and how big it is for our citizens. And I know that other people rent it for other things and sometimes things are damaged and that type of thing. I do feel like I mean it's important to keep this maintained. So, Mayor, yes.

I I mean, I I agree with um Councilman Allen. I actually made that argument several years back and and I'm I'm hoping it was legal because back then, David, we did as a council vote to move the money around as we saw fit before we made our final vote. Um so, I you know, I think uh I think we could still leave it on the agenda, uh Madame Mayor, because we have to have two readings. So, it gives us a whole month before we have our final reading. Um that should give us plenty of time to get this. Some people are counting on this funding to come through. Um if we decide to keep it like it is, they need that funding to start in July as well. So to meet that timetable if we leave it on, we can have the first reading and if we're not satisfied with it by the second reading, we can table it to the next meeting.

Okay. Madame Mayor. Yes.

Um I agree. I agree with the will. I agree with Um, Hazel, all of you. Um, but the bottom line for me is this is our front porch. This is a very important um, place for our town. It's used from people from all around, not just locally. So, I think we're going to need any and all funding um, coming forward. So, accommodation tax, $2, anything. Um, so I think we need to really delve into that. maybe do bring it back and see about the accommodation tax for now, but in the future there's going to be a lot of maintenance as this place gets older and it's an important place. So, I think I think we need to look at any and all funding going forward.

Well, I agree with you, Jenny. I don't think it's either or here. I think it's we possibly need both because um watching the quality of people we're trying to bring in too, it's going to cost more. Um and you've got to have some different events to keep attracting people to come down there. Um so I think it's important. I mean, even our free concerts, we get some of it sponsored, but I'm sure we still have some bills out of that, too. So, and and the people love that. That's big to them. you know, you're there almost every week. So are you. So, um, it's important for us to be able to continue to give those free events back to the community. And I

um, Madame Mayor. Yes, sir. Sorry. We're just going to make sure we don't miss anybody up here on this one. Um,

we're not going to go around our elbow to get to our thumb. Um, it's a new one. I I'm going to back up to what you're up here for. I think we we went around our elbow and now I'm not going around my elbow. um help me understand and distinguish the difference between a annual budget that accounts for all of these things that comes from either enterprise or or general funding versus the accommodations fee because my initial gut reaction is kind of like fingernails on a chalkboard of it's another tax, it's another fee, it's another inability to account for expenses and income and budget like a normal family does on their normal budget for their household. and they have to figure out what are the groceries and what's the gas and what's the insurance and what am I going to make. So, is there some kind of special treatment or some kind of special use that an accommodate I'm sorry we were using combination earlier. This this $2 facility use fee like whenever I don't know about anybody else up here, but if you go to a concert and you get on ticket master, nothing's more frustrating than a $30 ticket turning into $88.75. Um why then are we doing the same thing? Is it required? Is there some special sauce that this uh special use fee can be used and usurp other rules or can we just properly budget and just generally account for it because it feels like another tax feels like another inability to budget elsewhere?

Yeah. So we we operate currently out of an enterprise fund. So what we take in we're limited by um we do have the town as our backing fortunately. Um I think our hangup is we host a lot of nonprofit and tiff events in our ice house amphitheater.

Okay. any TIFF district event is free and we anytime we have a wedding or anything at PCI, we don't book the Ice House Amphitheater for a uh concert, a paid concert because it would interfere. So, we're limited in certain areas. And with so many I have the breakdown on nonprofit versus profit and um so free events we did 66 total in the fiscal year. And so

can I stop you there? I think you're making my argument for you for me. So, if we can't charge a $2 fee to those people, then that isn't that more argument compelling to why we should just budget. What is the special $2 here? Is does it get any special treatment or any kind of use differently than if we just to budget for it? In other words, why do we need to do this other than regular budgeting annually? Tell me how this is a is this any special flavor of money? Does it have different strings attached to it that make it that's not that's not a sarcastic question. In the army side, we talk about all sorts of buckets of money and it's really frustrating. You can't spend this money here.

So any special strings would be set by council. So if it would satisfy council to know if we institute this fee, it is only to be used for repairs. And you can even give a list of examples. That's the checks and balances. And so it would be listed in our budget as a special revenue fund. And you would see every year the earnings and then you would see every year a transfer then into the general fund so that it would apply to something appropriate in the general fund i.e. the amphitheater. We would have a running list of capital items and capital needs as well. But you hit on something that I think is really important and Jeff started speaking to when Jeff talks about free events, free rentals in in the tiff. Just as a reminder, um county and school district um groups are able to utilize these spaces for free. Um that is a historical um thing that has been done. Now, when they do that, sometimes they do book something and then charge tickets to attend and the tickets run through us through our our ticket system.

So, this is revenue we would not have otherwise captured. Yes, sir. Bingo. That answers my question. Thank you. That is all I need to know. So, it's not a net sum. It's not a zero transaction fee where we could just budget it ourselves. It's actually a collection of funds we would not otherwise get. Correct. All right. That makes sense to me. Thank you.

And sorry, one last thing just to pick it up. You are correct on that. The other option is to raise our rental rates to again cover the cost of future maintenance. The key difference though is what we just talked about is that raising our rental rates goes into the general fund. You can traditionally find the dollar fordoll, well, we made this much on rentals, you know, we're investing this much in the amphitheater, but this being a special revenue fund, you would have even more checks and balances. If all things were equal, my desire would be not to institute lots of line items on a cost. However, if there is an if the structure is such that we're able to capture revenues that we would have not otherwise captured,

thereby making it more of a use fee, more of a a consumption tax. Yes. Again, I hate that word, but that makes sense to me. Otherwise, if it's our poor budget planning, we got all this deferred maintenance, but if we can just start charging per person who comes in, then the question is, why not we at the beginning of the year? Like, I didn't I couldn't pay my insurance at the end of the month because I spent all my money on groceries and whatever else. I need to look at what my grocery bill is and and budget accordingly. So, that answers my question. Thank you. I'm sorry this took so long. Kevin, you look lost now. He seemed to be trying to decide if he's tracking with Todd down there.

No, no. I mean, I I I think Council Member Law makes a very good point. I'm not sure if I'm 100% bought in on an additional tax.

Yeah. Um, but then I think the point that council member Lyall and you Rachel just made is interesting that we're capturing revenue that we would not otherwise be collecting. However, I worry about just an additional fee that we're charging our residents. We already are raising this fee and that well I shouldn't say we we hear about this fee and that fee being raised all around us. I don't know that I love the idea of us raising another fee as well. Um, not saying I'm entirely against it, but I think I need a little more time to to research it and think about it.

So, would you rather raise the rental fee because we got to do something and that puts it on the person that's actually hosting the event and do we do that or do we do this? But a lot of your people that come to these events, like Friday night, um, I had to give a proclamation. A lot of those people were not from Lexington. right? They were from all over.

I I will say first I think but I think that I like the idea of raising fees because the uh event operator or host is bearing that fee rather than the citizen that likely would be going to the event and we are able through that fee to offer our citizens who live in town a discounted rate. Whereas if we add the fee to tickets, I don't know a good way to say, "Well, are you a town resident?" Like that. There's just not a good way to do that. So by raising the rates, we're still able to pass off a discount to our citizens without bearing them with a further burden of an additional fee. So maybe we raise the out of town rate and don't raise the in town rate.

Jeeoff, how many out of town rentals did we have last year? I would have to find out on those. Okay. Don't tell me it's none. There there were 42 total events where uh renters paid uh to rent the ice house empathy. Yeah. And what happens there, Gavin, I think a lot of times somebody because I've even been asked before is get somebody from in town to rent it for him. So yeah, that happens quite a bit. Yeah. Mayor, so we have a special events policy. So to have an event at the ice house, do they have to fill out the special events packet as well?

They do not. This library's helping me out with that answer. Okay. No, that's if a private um property event hosts an event.

Mhm. So, if we don't want to put it on the tickets, we could say that any any uh private event that if someone wants to have a private concert at the amphitheater to sell tickets entitlement, they're obviously doing it to make profit. They could pay $1,200 more to rent the amphitheater than somebody that's a nonprofit or a church or a school. Um because you we had 600 tickets as the average ticket sale. that still nets you the with 42 events that nets you the same amount of money and we don't have to wait on ticket sales to collect it. We collect it at the time we register the ice house to be used.

That's true that there's just a lot of risk in in the amount of funding it takes for a private individual to do that. Um so every time you raise that cost you're you're knocking back the possibility of somebody being able to do that. The other option or one of the other options we have is we currently allow renters to um set up their own alcohol sales. Um we could set that up and take those proceeds that we normally get for our events. So there are other things we can do, but um just researching other communities, this seems to work really well and it's clean and they're they're doing it everywhere you go. So,

Madame Mayor. Yes, sir. Final word. Here now.

It's the final word. I I I would just say I mean, can we just put this on the agenda so we get moving? But I I think we stood that we stood the amphitheater up for 10 years and have used it well, generated a ton of economic activity. It's it's, you know, it's a multi-million dollar facility. 100,000 in deferred maintenance is a rel it's less than 5% of the cost of facility maybe 3%. It's not a big number relatively speaking. So I would be for putting the $2 on there and designated it solely for upkeep and maintenance so that we know we have a maintenance fund um and move forward. But I think we got time to figure it out. Maybe we can put it on the agenda and everybody can figure it out before we get to council meeting. Why don't you do that and then also look at um like you said about the sales of food or whatever it is that we set up and see if we can bring some other things in too.

Okay. Bring us some extra options so we can bring more talent to town. Okay. So I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of putting it on the agenda with staff bringing us more information and more discussion with everybody raise your right hand. And it's unanimous. Item number three, and she can't talk, so she may need some help. Here, is discussion of special events procedures, planning, and building director Jessica. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, bear with me, my voice is fading. uh leadership from police and transportation and planning and building departments recently met to review the increasing frequency and complexity of special events and how the current process is functioning. And just so that we clarify between the last conversation and this one, um this is private events such as your vendor markets on private property, um your block parties, your 5K races, things of that nature. The town's current special events permit guide requires applications to be submitted at least seven business days in advance. While this has historically been sufficient, staff has seen a notable increase in both the number and scale of events, requiring coordination across multiple departments. This increase has resulted in greater demand on town staff and resources. Current responsibilities include coordination with police and transportation for traffic control and street closures, delivery and pickup of barricades, and review of business license compliance for event vendors. Additional town resources are also provided upon special request and approval by town council, such as street sweeping and the use of tables, chairs, and tents. These services are currently provided at no additional cost beyond the minimal permit fee, even for private or third-party events, including parades, community block parties, vendor markets, and 5K races. Many of these activities require staff support outside of normal operating hours. Based on staff review, several potential adjustments were identified to better align the process with current service demands. Those include extending the application time frame to allow for adequate interdep departmental review and coordination. Establish cost recovery fees for town provided resources and staff support and clarifying public safety requirements including authority for the police department to determine necessary traffic control safety measures and sufficient police presence. We are

seeking council feedback on the general approach to updating the special events permit process. I will also add um our zoning ordinance just states that special events require permits, but there's no guidelines for what that is. So, we have a permit guide that we have historically followed, it was included in your packet. Um the fee, just so that you all are aware, is $306 for a permit. So, um that's why we're here today is just just to to see um what your opinion is on and some guidance on that policy as we have it set. Madam Mayor,

yes, ma'am. So, Jessica, how much are you thinking um the cost recovery fees would be?

I would definitely want to research some surrounding neighbor um cities that are similar to ours. Um, you know, I've looked at city of Columbia and the city of Greer. They have a fee schedule for different um, services provided by the city. Um, and we would like to get some more research before we, you know, make a suggestion. Um, they also have tiered time frames based off the size of the the event. So, if you have a very large market that's going to have 30 plus vendors and going to need um traffic control measures and things of that nature, we can review that application and then send it through a review par process starting with the police department um and be able to determine the review time based off the size of the event. Obviously, if you are just doing a openhouse event that's going to have one or two vendors, 7 days is sufficient, but a 30 vendor market that's going to close off an entire parking lot um needs a little more coordination or a 5K race needs a little more um coordination to ensure that we have adequate police and safety measures in place.

Right.

Can I piggyback on that as well? I'd also like to mention um so currently if um someone wants to block off um a parking lot, let's just say because they're having a large event, um they will request barricades that the town has historically provided free of charge. So if that's on a Saturday or a Sunday, that is a town staff person, typically transportation, it's my understanding, who comes in on that weekend. We're paying them overtime to come in, pick it up, drop it off, and then we come pick it up as well. And there's no cost recovery whatsoever for use of the facility or the item, I should say, or staff time. Um, and when we do that, like I said, we're paying overtime. And once those wheels are rolling, if something were to happen, then the liability is on the town as well for that employee and for our um for our asset. So, those would be other sorts of things that we would want to look at as well.

Yeah. And the and just to piggyback on that, the timing of this is very similar to what Rachel was talking about. This is coming before you because we set the special permit fee in our SK um fee schedule that happens during the budget process. Um so, you know, if we we would like to this is what kind of prompted the discussion. So, if we put this on the agenda, you going to have all the ifs, ands, and buts ready for when we come back together so we'll know what we're voting on. Um, yes ma'am. I can pull some sister cities and we can we can work together with administration and finance to and chief. Yes, he's he's vital and police and transportation. Yes. Okay.

Make a motion we put on the agenda. Councilman Williams makes a motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Councilman Allen seconds it. All those in favor of putting it on the agenda with a lot of information coming back to us with different options to pick from, raise your right hand. And it is unanimous. Thank you. Our next item is from Randy Edwards. It is the Lexon County SS4A collaboration.

Uh good evening, mayor, council. Uh hopefully make this quick. Um, in June of 25 last year, we with your authorization applied for a uh SS4A grant to the tune of um 9 million with a um $2 million match. Uh that was denied in October of 2025. Um and then we were debriefed this past winter around January. From that, they explained some of the things as far as how our application was put together, but what they suggested was that communities like ours that have applicants from multiple municipalities and the county as a whole to actually come together and collaborate on one application and that we would actually stand a better shot at actually getting something through. So, tonight we just simply are asking you to authorize us to piggyback with Lexon County. Um, and we've already had some preliminary discussions as to which projects we would move forward, which is probably the number one that ranked in our SS4A, um, which is basically access management and those types of tools, um, that we've already seen some of our own, but to, uh, hopefully get some funding in that regard. Um, so with that, um, we just ask for your authorization so that we can, um, move forward and just piggyback on their application. Madame Mayor,

we need to do the motion in the second. That's That's what I was going to do. Okay. You I was going to make a motion that we put this authorization on the agenda. Mayor Proin makes a motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Um Councilman Williams second. Is there any discussion on it? Hearing none. All those in favor raise your right hand. And it's unanimous.

Thank you. Our next item is council discussion on intergovernment meeting planning. Town administrator Rachel Gleeton. Thank you mayor. I'm happy to tee this up for you all. This item is for your all's discussion regarding the planning and coordination of intergovernmental meetings. The purpose is to provide and discuss clarity on roles communication and notification processes to ensure consistency and shared understanding for future collaboration. And so I turn it over for you all to have a discussion and provide direction to staff.

Okay. Um I guess I'll kick it off. We know that there was something brought forward to meet with the county and the town and the school board. Gavin brought that forward and um there's some discussion of how that's going to work, what it looks like. Are we using town funds to support this? uh what all it involves. I think when it originally started it was to be a small more intimate group and I'm speaking here and then the school board has to do things a whole different way and um I think there's just needs to be some discussion so I'll let whoever wants to jump in and

I'm happy to jump in. Um I help put the group together. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, I think what you described is uh quite accurate um and gets to the heart of what we're trying to do. I think if you know any of us get out and talk to the community, what they want to see us do is talk to other elected officials and our staff work together, which you all do quite well. Um, and this group, uh, I went to the mayor, I believe it was last August, and said, "Hey, what I would like to do is put together a working group between the county, the town, and the school board, uh, three members from each group um to keep it small so that we could actually have conversation and get things done um and discuss. This group would be advisory. Um, there would be no, you know, authority to this group. we would have to bring the information back to our councils um or in the school board's instance to their school board and essentially uh relay that information back to our various bodies uh if any action were to be taken. Um but this is really just collaborative in nature. It could be on topics, you know, the contentious ones such as development or traffic, but also about how we could support the school district when they've got homecoming going on or they've got, you know, some awesome fundraiser that they've got going on. how can we all jump in and support one another as a community? So, that's what this group was meant to be. Uh, somehow this evolved into this grand elaborate production. Um, don't really know that I understand that. I don't agree with the notion that the school board um, attorney apparently made that they have to public notice the meeting, that they have to live broadcast the meeting. Um, that they required to do that. Um, if they didn't have a quorum present, I'm not actually convinced they have to do that, but respect their opinion. Um, however, I don't take any issue with a meeting being public noticed or broadcast. Um, I think the more the merrier you want to watch us do the work that you elected us to do. I'm perfectly okay with that. So,

I would love for us to come to a conclusion on how we'd like to proceed so that we can actually get this meeting uh rescheduled. It was supposed to be last Wednesday. Um, and uh move forward. I um I would also like to say that we did there's several different angles that's got to go at this. We did have a meeting. We I don't know who else was there from the town. No one was there.

We're from the school board. Myself was there. I was there. And there's some two county council members, maybe three county council members and two school board members, I think. And um you know there's got to be some rules of engagement and that type of thing too because that one was way out of hand the way each other treated each other um or at least some people treated the others. And so there's got to be some rules of engagement if we're going to do this with respect just like we do up here of talking. There's got to be some how does the agenda work. I know a couple of school board members I talked to today, they called me about this because they knew we were going to be talking about it tonight and um you know they felt like it was a good idea when there's something to talk about. They didn't think you but they felt more importantly of like our staff meeting on a regular basis pretty regular you know um our top people meeting on a regular basis and um I mean I know they've got their May the 5th or something they're going to be talking about their numbers of their capacities and everything and they would like to discuss that with all of us. Um, but then if we're going to do public notice, I know a lot of people up here have said if it's going to be public, I want to be sitting at the table, too.

So, do you let all seven if it's public anyway? Madame Mayor. Yes.

So, my thought process is that if it goes public, it does need to have a a firm rules of engagement. It also needs to have a firm agenda. So we're not just all over the place in this meeting. It should stay formatted and I'm all about a open it to the public. I don't you know we don't have to do any closed door if you don't want but it needs to be um a strict agenda for each meeting. So we're not just you know people aren't just talking over people and it's actually true collaboration of items that are important. Um, I'm open to staff doing that, you know, going to collaborating often with, and you probably already do, but, um, you know, maybe on a more regular basis and bringing it back to us to discuss, you know, important agenda items, um, getting answers and I spoke with attorney David. I mean, just your thoughts on the legality of once it gets over a certain amount of council members, it does need to be um everyone, you know.

That's correct. The the law does not differentiate between informal and formal meetings. it basically once you have the once you hit the number um you have to notice it if you feel like there's going to be a quorum there is there's no differentiation. So um it's hard when when the when the the meeting is is proposed as an informal meeting where no action is going to be taken. It's just there to round table discussion kind of purpose, but then when you hit the number, it becomes public and then you have to go through all the formal legalities and notices and and whatnot just to make ensure that um that you're covered under the law, you know, to to make that that that selection. So, you know, I would my my and my advice would be, you know, like you mentioned earlier, if it if it hits the the point where you have to notice it, then at that point it becomes public and then you had you need structured rules and regulations regarding the the setup of the meeting, especially if the town is going to be the one hosting the meeting um at that point. Now if it's strictly informal where it's obviously you can ensure less than a quorum will be there um then I don't think you need to go through all obviously go through those hoops to to to have the meeting. Um so I I I think that having some some parameters and some rules and of engagement for c for staff to be able to follow would be very beneficial. I do think um on that note that if you're having a meeting um informal or formal during the middle of the day and our staff becomes involved then you're taking staff away from their job during the day and that sometimes can become an issue as well because that

makes it more in my mind it makes it more of a formal meeting and needs to be more strict guidelines of what are they doing there and what are you going to do um at the meeting and why are you there? You know, that kind of thing. And one thing I may add, if if um by having procedures in place that council adopts and puts in place, I think that that is evidence that council understands that town resources will be used for those types of meetings. And y'all have essentially authorized that by adopting that policy and and um so it doesn't have to come back on a case by case basis and get voted on each time.

Gotcha. Okay. I think I know Gavin's was and none of us have a problem with the public coming and showing up while we're sitting around the table talking and that type of stuff, but I think that your mindset was it wasn't going to be that formal. it was going to be more of like a roundt discussion and stuff, but if it's going to become formal and everything's got to been notified, I'm hearing from most of the council that they want to be there and involved too. They want to be sitting at the table table also if it's formal is what I'm hearing. So, and I don't think it's just us. I think what comes out of this tonight and talking if we're going to do this, we need to see how they feel about what the rules of engagement look like, what the agenda looks like, you know, is it one each person each um board picks one thing to put on the agenda. Um what all of this looks like. I'm not opposed to the meeting. I think I just kind of like you, Gavin, thought it was going one way and then all of a sudden we're this way and so it's kind of confusing.

Madame Mayor, I I I agree. I think we all uh from the outset, I don't know that I'd use the word all, but the majority of us uh that discussed this, it was meant to be an informal style. Um and then it has evolved into this very formal um event. Um, so I understand this sentiment that there needs to be structure. I would say that, you know, it's taken us 8 months to get from last August to this April when the meeting, the first meeting was supposed to happen. I think we need to figure out how we can accelerate that timeline. The the public is yearning to see us not just send our staff, with all due respect, y'all do wonderful work, but they elected us to do a job. They elected us to go work with Lexington County and the Lexington One School Board and not do it behind a closed door or in these meetings at someone's house. Do it in front of the citizens that elect us so they can see us doing our job. And that's not saying that we're not because I know each of us put in a great deal of time. But I think we should set some very basic rules and then at that first meeting, this group should get together and discuss what does this group want to be as a group? What are they trying to accomplish? I don't think it's inherent upon the town of Lexington to dictate these are the rules and this is what we're going to accomplish. Let's allow a small group of three people get together and say here's what we proposed. Let's bring that back to our councils and then let each council adopt some formal rules of engagement or whatever it is if we need to do that. But I don't think we know what we want to accomplish or how we want to proceed or what issues we're going to take up until we can get together as a group and discuss that

initially.

Well, I think my thought is if we really want our public to be able to see us and attend, it don't need to be in the middle of the afternoon. First of all, it needs to be when they're off of work and they can attend it. I mean, that's ridiculous that we're going to have it in the middle of afternoon when somebody can't be there if they work. The other thing is if the school board has to have something filmed, the school board needs to be responsible for that. It does not need to be our staff having to be responsible for it or whoever's hosting it. It needs to be the school board's filming it if that's what's got to be done. Not saying I'm not okay with it being filmed or whatever, but if that's the requirement, um I know like I said again, everybody up here has is like if it's going to be public, I want to be sitting at the table. So, I'm going to let y'all let the majority decide this. Mayor Hazel Hazel, I have um what do y'all think about and Gavin if it was if it stayed informal um rotating in even school board members or county council members on a rotating as council members coming in and being in the informal meeting instead of the same people forever.

Madame Mayor.

Yes. If I might suggest, I think it would be very hard for this group to accomplish anything if we're constantly rotating members. Perhaps, and I'm just uh proposing this, maybe it were approached as we do the COG or joint water. We agree on three people and those three people go and serve for a one-year time frame and then it's revisited and those people are renominated and appointed again. I guess that's how you would do it. or I mean I don't personally feel like we need to make this that complicated. I think this is part of the reason that the average citizen hates government as we are over complicating things. Um but I understand everybody's reservations and utilizing staff resources. I get it. Um so I see both sides here. But I think the average citizen would just want to see us get something done, go meet with these people and figure out the most simple way that we can do that. I'd be in favor of that. And I think Gavin when his idea came forward it was the mayor needs to be on it. The chairman of the county council and the chairman of the school board needs to be on it. And then it was ad two members is kind of the way

I'm sorry to interrupt you. The chairwoman of the school board I don't think was actually on. Yes, she wasn't. It was the co-chair but she now has said that she would be on there. Okay. How how I guess my question would be to this council. How could we in the most simplest way move forward so that everybody's comfortable um without dictating to the other two bodies this is how it's going to be. I think we need to get in the room and and figure out that together and bring a proposal back. Madam Mayor,

yes. If I may, I think to the to the issue of what you just brought up, Gavin, which is a great question, and I think the answer lies in that we're never going to dictate what other two bodies do. I think that's the point of collaboration is we bring ourselves, we contribute, and we are responsible for what we do. Um, I think where we're losing sight of this is on the um overs systematizing of something that's supposed to be organic or naturally flow in day-to-day lives and day-to-day conversations between um our town administrator, county council um administrator or the uh school superintendent. So, I'm think the paradigm of collaboration is great. I think we're all on board with doing something in some way, shape, or form. I'm not sure what the right answer is in terms of how the council's involvement would go. And that's where I I'm open to hear how some other jurisdictions might have done it. Surely, we're not the first ones to come up with this idea. In fact, I think this has been happening all along. We've just asking the question, um, which is wise, I think, to do is how can you do it better if you can do it better? But I I would venture to say that, you know, city of Rock Hill and the Rockill School District and the Rockill, you know, or York County, they probably have a system in place or, you know, Charleston County with the school board and city of Charleston. Like, I think it's worth asking those questions because obviously open communication and shared goals and anytime you can have synergy is important to to um to to execute. And so I I'm open to hear how that's done. I don't think a rotation or coming up right now and coming up with a bunch of ground rules for something that we don't really know how to make formal because it already exists informally is is the kind of million-dollar question.

So I don't think anybody's going to be able to come up with the great ideas here tonight at this bench. But I do think that it'd be worth asking our staff to maybe see what are some better ways to do this or what can we do because at the end of the day we we come up here and we sit behind this bench and we talk a couple times a month and we might have some other conversations have some engagement but at the end of the day I don't work here 40 50 hours a week like you do or like you do um or like you do like what can you do Lauren and Lauren to help interact with with your counterparts at the county because I think what you do is important and what the county does and your your counterparts are important. So, I don't know how can we get in a room and get around a table and have all the elected people with cameras and minutes and all the formalities. I I don't I'm just I question that we're we're not seeing the forest through the trees. Um, I would be more interested in hearing what can we do to help facilitate that because I I I think we're all um going around our elbows to get to our thumbs if we want to um figure out how we as elected officials can really drive that boat. I mean, we're we're the visionaries, but we're not the the day in and day out grind. So, um Chief Green in the back, I know him and and Jay you know, they got How often do you guys sink?

Too many days. Just secret, private. Secret and private. But but would you agree? But but Chief, would you agree with me that that you and and Jay probably do a lot better work between the police departments than than county council and town council could ever tell you how to do your job? Like okay, so I'm not to say that and that's not to say that we don't have a role in this. I I do think we have a role in this, but I think we we need to ask the right question of what is our role in this. So that that's what I want to make sure we do. And and coming up with it right here behind this table may may be a theory, but you know there's we're not we're we're not reinventing the wheel today. We don't need to do that. Madame Mayor.

Yes, sir. Could could then the council not u in the spirit of what council member Lyall is proposing allow uh the three of us that were moving forward with this meeting to meet in a singular instance to have this collaborative discussion amongst the three bodies and then bring that information back to this council to pair that with staff recommendations because based on our conversation, Madame Mayor, you uh and I discussed not kicking this down the road, you know, through the summer and all that, like we're going to get something rescheduled soon. Now, it sounds like we want to wait on staff recommendations. That'll be the next work session. You know, we're talking four or five months, you know, from now before we can do anything again.

Why don't we do this? Why don't we while staff's working on that instead of and maybe the um we could meet smaller with the school, what if if it was okay with y'all if Gavin and myself met with Todd and Daryl to see their thoughts on the rules of engagement, the agenda, how this kind of worked. And then the same thing with um Kathy Henson and maybe McKenzie and just get their thoughts and bring that back to have with y'all to have with what y'all have just to see.

If I may, it still feels like a matchmaking game. Like why can't you call school chairwoman tonight on your ride home and ask some of these questions like why why does this need to be a matchmaking of putting three and three and three? Well, I was saying two and two, but okay.

Or two and two or one and one or all of us. I guess the point is we have to observe like there's this bubble of foya and and procedure that we need to observe and follow and we don't want to run a foul of that. But at the end of the day, I've had two or three discussions with uh the school board members because they run a booster thawn and a field day across the street from my office a couple times a year and I can't conduct any business because it's so loud. So I had conversations with them and we worked out

uh some collaboration for my office and and their school. Um but that kind of work can be done. And so maybe asking the right question of how do we work together doesn't necessarily need to be how how do we as elected officials go do more elected official work as much as it is how can these bodies communicate, interact? Because I I've said this before and I'll say this like on the record is I sat through one of these a couple years ago without an agenda and it turned into grandstanding. It turned into procilitizing great points and negative inferences that if one body said it, the other body clearly wasn't doing it. And that's not what that was not productive. And so if I see us going down that road again, I'm gonna want to jettison off or at least for my vote, I'm gonna want to jettison that off because that's not productive. That's that's politics. And you said earlier, Gavin, that reason a lot of people don't like politics because we do politics stuff. So if we can get that aside and start actually really worrying about what it is we do, I think it would be better. So, I don't have any I don't have the the secret sauce here tonight other than to say what we were doing earlier probably was birthed initially in a good idea, but it very quickly turned into a whole bunch of formalities at the last minute and um turned into a little bit of a shoot first and ask questions later type approach. And I think that would have been a poor use of public funds, poor use of public's time, poor use of our time, and had way too many opportunities to be misunderstood or misinterpreted. So, I I still think I'd like to hear what staff thinks. How can we facilitate your collaboration better rather than how can we lead the charge with our couple of meetings a month? Um, so that's still my take on it and I I would discourage us from rushing to do this prior to a June primary where there

would be a lot of uh excitement or desire for grandstanding or political speak um with an upcoming election just a few months away. I I would discourage that especially with a school board special election here on the horizon. So, madam madam mayor, let's let's um let's I'm going to go to Will because he never talks.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I I would just like to make the point um from my perspective, I think the spirit of what Todd was saying is what is the goal with this? Are we wanting to have collaboration with county, town, and school board? I think that's the spirit of what everybody wants. But the problem is is that when you get elected officials in a room, it's going to be political. Whereas if you have staff talking with staff, by definition, it's not political.

And I think that's his heartburn. And I can understand that heartburn. So for the good of the actual purpose of this, it seems like an easy equation to remove the politics out of it and just have staff commuting with staff. I I don't I guess I don't see the benefit of having a bunch of electeds in the room that we wouldn't have if our staff who was already said y'all are here 40 50 hours a week. Y'all are in the meat and potatoes of everything that's going on. So y'all know exactly how county can help us, how we can help county, how the school board can help us, and vice versa that we may or may not be aware of. So I don't I guess I don't see the benefit of getting a bunch of electeds in the room. That's why I don't understand the point. I don't understand the point of this meeting.

All right, Todd, you haven't spoken yet, so I'm gonna let you before I go back to Gavin since he's spoken.

Yeah, at the uh the hazard of being misunderstood. I I just think that the philosophy of collaboration is is really good. This started off as a simple roundt discussion. Um nothing nefarious because there's no authority to do anything. So, it's not one of these closed door meetings. It was just a roundt discussion to see if we're missing anything. But I've been I've been on this council for 14 15 years. And I just I have no desire to sit in a room with 10 elected officials from various bodies with the cameras rolling, with no defined agenda, with no defined moderator who's going to lead it. Are we going to grow Robert's rules of orders? because it it just by the nature of it, it just gets chaotic and everybody's everybody's got a stump speech they want to make and you do 10 of those at five minutes each, that's 50 minutes and then you hit the gavl and go home. So, unfortunately, that's how those things tend to go and so I think it's really easy. I think I think we need to to back up and get something that we can all buy into. We all bought into a small round table. We just didn't buy into a big public meeting where it's all going to be a bunch of stump speeches and undefined. So, we got to back up and figure that out. Here's what I would propose. I walked into Chipotle today like I do most days and I sat down and had lunch with the chairman of county council, Darren Hudson, because he was in line in front of me. We sat down, we had lunch and we talked about things. So why why don't everybody on this council like we all know each other

like we don't need WLTX and WIS there with a big agenda for us to sit down and talk about this stuff like if everybody here wants to collaborate why don't you get a lunch with somebody from the school board and somebody from county council in the next 30 days and 30 days from now we and ask them and and actually you got to think of something you got to think of something that we need from them and something we could provide for them. you got to have some kind of substance and then in 30 days if we had that's about my math 21 conversations maybe more then we'd have something to talk about. So like let's start small and figure it out because the big platitudes and the in the stump speeches is not it's just not going to work.

My thoughts. So did Daryl have any thoughts to you today when you were at lunch? Yeah, it's all confidential. Sorry, shouldn't have asked that question. We talked. We talked. Um, okay, Gavin. I'm sorry. Well, I I I appreciate all the sentiments up here, but I think that if you go and walk in neighborhoods, which some of you will be doing next year when you're up for reelection,

they want to see us work together. They want to see us get around a table and actually work together, not go to an enclosed door or go to someone's house or go to lunch. They want us to do those things. And I think we all do those things, but they want to see us sit next to one another and be able to have a conversation like adults, not argue, not lob insults, not uh, you know, be rude and disrespectful to one another, but talk about the serious issues that are facing our community. infrastructure, traffic development. Uh I think we all hear about those and we all have our own ideas and our staff does wonderful work of going and talking to the county that Jessica does and uh David talks to his counterparts and chief talks to his and then what happens? They bring it back to us and say, "Well, no, no, no. We don't want to do it that way. Why don't the decision makers just get around a table and be able to talk to one another? Because we put our staff in the middle of it and then what ends up happening is they bring us the recommendations back from their meetings and we blow it up because we want to do it a different way and then we start back at ground zero. Further, I'd say, well, we don't want to do this before a um June primary. Well, that was the exact excuse used last September. Well, we don't want to do it before the November primary. So, we'll get past the June primary this year and then it'll be time for next year's November primary. Well, we can't do it before then.

At some point, November election, whatever it is. Yeah. At some point, put the politics aside and sit at a table with one another and talk. If it doesn't go well, don't go back. Gavin, that's exactly what Todd K just said. Go sit at the table with somebody. Like, but as a group, Todd. No, I think I'm open to collaboration. I'll go have lunch with Daryl or Beth or Todd or any of them any day. If I can be clear, what you just said, what you just did right now is exactly the kind of thing that happens when the last time we did this, you just made the negative inference that I don't do that. You just said, "I'll go sit down with Beth." Like, and then looked at me and said it as if that was implying that I don't go in class.

I do believe I said all of us do that here at this table. Did I not start at beginning by saying that? I do believe I did. So no, there wasn't a negative entrance. My my the opening of my statement was that I can I believe all of us go and have lunch or talk with individuals from other bodies. Listen, this is it's not personal. This is just we can agree to disagree. I think that what what you're proposing do is all sizzle and no stake. I think it's all politics. It's all what are the cameras going to see? And the reality is, if you want real conversations, have them in the bathroom.

No, it's not at all what I said. Have them at Chipotle. Have them at your open door after four. There's no reason why you and Beth Carri can't have a conversation and and record it and video it and share it on social media and let everybody know that you're doing what the people elected you to do, which is collaborate. But this body, as a group of seven of us, of which a majority is needed, didn't feel like the way this last meeting was going was the right approach. And so I still stand by that. I'm I'm all for collaboration. How we do it though, I think we look at different ways of trying to do it. Yeah, I understand. Um I just think it's mighty convenient that um the votes were garnered at the very last minute the weekend that I was burying my grandmother.

Okay. I find that mighty convenient that I was able to talk with everyone. Let's don't go negative toward each other. Ron, you haven't spoken. Do you have anything to say? Yes, ma'am. I've been waiting my turn. So, I don't have a problem having an informal meeting with the the um different bodies. Um I actually had a conversation in person with Mr. Hudson before he went to eat lunch with Mr. K. So, uh Mr. Hudson made his round today. He told me all about it and that's why it's confidential. Okay. Classified.

Yeah. So, we you know, it's it's you I don't have a problem with us getting um together as groups and discussing and coming up with solutions for for things that we think aren't working as well as they could be. Um but I do believe if we're going to make it uh if we're going to hold a meeting, then everybody on every body should have ample opportunity to attend it and not be told two or three days ahead of time. And I also don't believe it should be held during the day, should be held at night like we do our meetings. Um, I didn't appreciate getting notified that it was going to be held in less than a week. Um, I h I don't have any recollection of any council meeting ever being held that fast except for an emergency meeting. We were dealing with CO issues. Um, so I just think it was inappropriate the way it was was put to us by the school district that it had to be filmed, that it had this had to be done, that had to be done. That gave me reason for pause. Um, and uh, for the record, I think I actually made my decision known on this the day the email came out. I didn't wait until the weekend. Um, I I didn't didn't like the way it went. I didn't think it was appropriate um, for it to move that way. I u, for the record, I've talked to all the school board members. One of them even called me and said, "Why are we doing this? what are we going to accomplish at this meeting using all these resources and all these dollars? And I said, well, the original idea that I had a couple years ago was a couple of us get together and have a coffee and just talk about what can we do for the school district, what can this school district do for us? How can we save tax dollars on both sides of the coin? How can we pair up with the county and save tax dollars? How can we team up on projects just like Randy brought us tonight? We're going to collaborate to try to get some more funding. How it got to this mess, I don't know. Don't care. I just didn't appreciate the

way it came down and will not support it unless we do it publicly and with plenty of notification so that every council member on every body that's going to attend these meetings has an opportunity to schedule with their normal job to be present and represent the citizens equally. Okay. So, with that said, just so I can clarify here with what you just said, Ron, you're saying that everybody should be able to be there. Does that mean everybody should be able to talk? If you're going to have that, that's where the problem comes in. If you're going to have is it seven? If if you're going to have that meeting, everybody should be afford to be afforded the opportunity to be there and represent

it. But I don't believe that meeting is necessary. I believe um like Mr. KS, Mr. Ly have said that the staff could go make some conversations with the different bodies and come back to us and say, "Hey, school district like the town's help on this. The county would like to jump in and help the town with this and we've asked the county for this or we've asked the school board for this." And then we could set a meeting, a public meeting, and notice it and a and a a publish an agenda that the public could look at and know what we were going to discuss. and we could all come together with specific topics to talk about that were already dealt with by staff and brought to us by staff.

Madame Mayor. Yes.

So by that philosophy um if the staff should only collaborate with staff and there's no need for this elected official to elected official uh I guess we can call it at this point formal communication. Should we dissolve our participation in the COG because that's elected official to elected official or perhaps how we participate in joint water because our staff I'm sure David who does a wonderful job managing our utilities collaborates every day with joint water but we still have an elected official that goes and sits on their board to foster collaboration amongst the electeds. Um there is no formal uh body or even informal body of us a group of two or a group of three that goes and just tries to foster some sort of camaraderie or some sort of collaboration there. We all have our individuals that we talk to. Every one of us do and we all I think do a good job talking to our friends. But couldn't we all get around the table as a group of elected officials once a quarter or something like that and have a conversation about the hard issues that are facing our communities rather than just sticking our staff smacknab in the middle of it only for them to bring a recommendation back for us to blow up and start over again.

So first of all I think that the cog and the water have their own bylaws and stuff the way they do things. So, this is different and this is a board that we're sitting as our council, but I I'm not disagreeing with you, Gavin, and I don't have I mean, I'm fine with trying the meeting. Only thing I want to know is what the rules of engagement are, what the agenda looks like. And I'm hearing that the majority of the council up here want staff to at least see if there's anything out there that is done like this. And should it be they bring us something back from the staff that's on the agenda for us to talk about? I mean, the school board and Rachel and and um the county council, I mean, Lyn get together and say, "Okay, let's put these three things on the agenda and then us get together as a group and talk." But we still got the problem. I'm okay with moving forward and trying, but we still got the problem of does everybody get to talk? How does it look? Is everybody gonna be sitting at the table? So, we got to have some kind of answers to this before we can move forward. I'm not trying to kick it down the road, but we got to have some kind of answers cuz right now it's just me and you even discussing moving it forward. And so, it's stopping. I I don't know if you've ever heard of this and how it works and what it looks like. And madame mayor, just to tie in to to what you said, I think I just wanted to be on the record and say when I approached the mayor about this and I called council me or now mayor pro Tim KS, my one of my first statements was I don't want anyone on this body to feel left out, but I'm trying to be mindful of the quorum requirements. And I said, I don't want uh council member Michaels or Lyall or Williams or

at the point he was mayor prom or or Allen, anyone to feel left out. And we discussed, could we perhaps rotate in and out? How could we establish this? We didn't have the right answers. So, we said, why don't we have our first meeting and let's talk about that as a group. Maybe it'll go nowhere, but at least we tried.

At least we tried to talk to one another. I think unfortunately Gavin, we've heard everybody say they want staff to see what they can find of how it works in other places is what I've heard. And if I'm wrong, y'all tell me. But that's what I've heard every one of y'all tell us is y'all go do some research and tell us how this can work. And at the same time, I guess we can continue conversations with seeing what other I mean what the county and what the school board has to say of how they think it can work. Davis, one more question. Okay,

David, can I just ask for the record, would there be anything barring me or the mayor or any I guess any member of council from calling three members of county council, three members from the school board, and three of us and getting together and meeting. There's no quorum. Correct. I could do that tomorrow. I could say, "Let's all go to breakfast at O'Hare." A as long as there will not be a quorum from each body at at that gathering, you you're technically within the bounds of the law. That's correct.

All right. I just wanted to ask that question because for the record, that's where this started. And somehow with the school district, we got to well, it's got to be televised and it's got to be public notice and and I guess that's their own problem to solve. I I don't really understand that. But there will be nothing barring us from moving forward with an informal group and inviting the three of them. And if they want to participate, they can. And if they don't, they don't. Correct. That's correct. Yeah. But you would say that would probably need to be done somewhere other than town hall where staff would be affected and that type of stuff because I know I've heard very clearly from everybody that they don't want resources used during the day for if if staff were going to be you used during that meeting. It needs to be

it needs to be off off site or in an or or it it could still be used had it could still be held at town hall but town staff would do not need to be involved. So in other words, we could meet up in the mayor and council office as a group but not include any staff. That's correct. That's what you're saying. How is that any different than us having a one-on-one meeting though? Like I attended a meeting with the mayor and myself, I don't remember if any other council member was there. And then Rachel, you were there and we met with two or three constituents. Well, we didn't have all approval of That's because there was constituent issues that you brought forward to staff to deal with and you wanted to sit in in the meeting.

Yeah. you would have to um it the meeting would need to be tied to some type of town business for staff to be involved in the meeting. In that situation there obviously there were uh issues that staff needed to address um or um that's why they were invited to the meeting. So if we took up on the agenda to informally discuss building and zoning standards, I don't know. Um, could could we not invite Jessica because that is constituent issues being addressed?

But I think Gavin, if we really are trying to do what's right and you wanted to have that just initial meeting, you would leave staff out of this right now because that pits them between the council up here and we can't do that to staff. That's not fair to Rachel or or Kevin or Jessica or whoever. It it's not fair to them. So, if we're going to do that, just invite people to come to the mayor's office or to the county's office or wherever, we do that instead of putting them in the middle of this cuz this is not their argument. This is a divide up here among all of us. And all of us have different opinions. I mean, if you give me some rules of engagement and some truly why I'm there, um, I don't I'm fine with it to the public. I'm fine with all of it, but I'm not okay with the middle of the day. I'm not okay with a lot of the staff having to be tied down, especially when it's not our requirements that some of it has to be done. But you still got the problem of people think they should be able to talk. And you you were in that meeting where it went. You weren't.

I didn't know about that meeting. No, I'm talking about the one where I didn't know meeting that was at before you another member's No, no, it was small. We're talking about the small one. Oh, no. I was um about a week into the job. That that one had an agenda. That's when you know I mean it's just got to have some ground rules and I think they can go surely there's something in the United States where people collaborate and y'all can bring it back to us fairly quickly and Gavin if you want to do that we can move forward. We're just informal and who shows up shows up and rocks on. Madame Mayor. Yes.

I mean all three bodies are aware of this and everybody's having backdoor conversations, offline conversations. And some people are curious why are we doing this? Who's going to do this? Who's going to lead this? How's it going to go? Is it going to be a dog and pony show? Like all those conversations are being had across bodies. So I would highly encourage everybody from this body to get in front of one person from each of those other bodies in the next 30 days and just have the conversation and let's see if there's any synergy and energy for it before we invest a lot of time in it. And everybody should be able to do that in the next 30 days. I think I don't think we have an actionable item outside of that. So maybe we can move on from this.

I think it's okay for staff still to do it. Somebody do a little research and just see if they see something. Sure. I mean, don't spend hours. Okay. But see if you come up with something, Madam Mayor. Yes. I think Mr. Wyman has some guests who have been waiting very patiently to update us on the uh 14 mile. All right. Jessica Librand's up next. You going to be quick, right? Yes. Thank you. She can't talk. You want me to read it for you?

We just wanted to let you all know that um the impact fee phase 2 update will be reviewed and discussed by the planning commission this Wednesday morning at 8:00 a.m. Um and that that's just to um as part of the established process, we're going to re bring that back to you with planning commission's recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. And last but not least is David Wyman, 14 Mile Creek Gravity Trunk Project and guest

and guests. Uh good evening, Madame Mayor and Council. Um yes, we're going to give an update on the 14 mile creek trunk project. Um we're not asking for any actions, of course. This is just um update. So, we have a little presentation and um John Epting with CDM Smith is going to start off walking us through it and then uh Jessica Carlson will join in. Madame Mayor, members of council, appreciate y'all having us up here tonight. Talk a little bit about your sewer system. Uh you got my slides? Yes, sir. I'll take the next one, please.

So, we'll be brief uh to get us home tonight. Uh we want to go through a few items here to talk about your gravity sewer system within the town of Lexington. Uh talk a little bit about the past uh what we know about your system, what we've learned about the system, next steps that we feel we need to take with the system, and how we're going to get there. So for starters, uh the 14 mile trunk sewer system, the the town of Lexington has two primary trunk systems. One is the 12mi system that runs along 12 mile creek and the other is the 14 mile system runs off along 14 mile creek. Generally, if you're riding along Highway 378, you're heading from Lexington back to Colombia. To your left is going to be the 14 mile system and to the right is going to be your 12mi system. It's easy way to divide line a high point there across the city. And so you can see where that 14 mile system is. Uh generally that 14 mile system collects sewage from a large area as you can see on this map. Uh it it collects a lot from the western portion of the town and unincorporated areas out that way, but also everything from the Corley Mill area to the lake area. Um and then down through a lot of your commercial districts as well. Um take that next slide. So uh taking a step back, um the 12mi sewer improvements were in 2016. I tell you that to let you know that side of the system is in good shape. you've got another 40 years of uh good service to get from that utility without any more action over there short of some serious growth. So 12 mile systems in good shape. And so once we finished that project, we moved over to the 14 mile side of the system. That was about 2019. We began doing some flow monitoring. We wanted to take in some information to understand how the system's performing, where it could do better, what additional needs may come in the future. Uh we compiled that into a report in 2020. That report uh is available here at the town. If anyone wants to do some deep reading one day, it's a a good one

to dive into. Um we took that to the next step and begun some preliminary engineering. We wanted to look at different alternatives to determine what the most effective and efficient way to deliver the capacity that you're going to need is going to be while also meeting the need in the future. So that per was uh conducted in 2022. Uh and then in 2025 we finished up our intermediate design. This advances us to a stage where now we're confident. We know where this pipe is going to need to go and we know the impacts it's going to have on your community. So with that, we're ready to take those next steps. Uh so back to the 2020 study, we wanted to look at those flow conditions. And so what we were able to determine was that on a dry day like we've had for the last several weeks now, that sewer is in good shape. It holds the sewage. It conveys everything as it needs to and gets down to the bottom of the hill. However, on wet weather days, it's a little bit challenged. That's when your sewer system becomes sircharge is flowing more like a pressure pipe than like a gravity system on some of the most severe days. And so, that only happens maybe once every couple of years, but something we need to keep an eye on because it can be detrimental to the sewer system and its light longevity overall. Uh, part of that study, we're able to see that inflow and infiltration was not a major concern. Typically with a lot of older sewer systems especially, you'll find that when it rains really hard, a lot of that water that goes into the ground eventually makes its way into the sewer. That can inundate the sewer in a way that would take away the capacity that you need to serve your constituents and your rateayers. And so we don't want to see that. But fortunately, your sewer systems in good shape. The 14 mile sewer that's there now is installed in the 1990s. It's plastic pipe. It was installed with modern technology. And so it's doing really well right now. We even put some cameras in there a couple years ago just to check it out and see how it was doing. It's in good shape. The manholes could use a little bit of work, but the sewer system itself is in good shape. Um, and then I guess the uh the crux of what we found with that study was that as you continue to grow

that sewer will continue to need additional capacity and unless more pipe is installed, that capacity is not going to come. And so, understanding that we needed a little bit more pipe to convey through there. Oh, let me take a step back real quick. Just give you this visual real quick before I move on. Um, I'm sorry. I did want to see that map. You You want to see it?

Yes, please. So, this map will show you as we conducted that study where we had capacity issues. Those red lines that you can make out up there on the map, that's where we start to see the pipe is over 75% full. That means it is inundated. It is got about as much flow as it's going to be able to handle. And we're starting to get up towards where we were concerned. You can even see a couple circles on the map where we're flowing like a pressure pipe. We're above the top of the pipe and we're starting to see sir charging in the system. This was in 2020 and so now we're in 2026. And thank you. And so we wanted to review some options to provide the additional capacity we need. And the best option that we came up with, the most cost effective was to provide a new parallel sewer directly next to the existing sewer. about I'd say most of this sewer pipe about 30,000 ft of it would be an 18inch sewer line. So we uh made that recommendation to the town. We completed a uh I'd say objective study to determine the best way to do this. And the parallel sewer improvement is what we determined. So in order to install a parallel sewer, we need a little bit more room on the ground. Uh currently as we did our research to figure out what the existing condition was, we found that there was about a 20 foot sewer easement down there. Uh we were not able to find uh easements for all the parcels, but fortunately we have uh Jessica Carlson and her team to mine some additional uh information. We've been able to verify that typically across the entire sewer alignment is about 20 foot easement and critically that sewer easement only allows for a single pipe inside the easement. Um, this was, I assume, a negotiating tactic in the 1990s to get you all the property you needed to build this sewer in the first place. Um, but now that we're ready to add capacity, we need additional sewer easement to be

able to do that. Take that next slide. And so with that existing 20ft sewer easement, we're going to offset our new sewer by 10 ft uh usually up the hill because your existing sewer is pretty close to the creek and so we want to move further away from the creek. So, as that happens, now we're 10 ft offset from that to provide the type of room that your utilities department needs to be able to conduct maintenance, to be able to provide service to the sewer system, they're going to need about 30 foot easement. That that's a modern uh I guess uh space they would typically want to see for that type of work. Uh when that's added on overlapping with the existing easement, that comes to an easement that's about 40 feet or just under 40t typically. Um, in addition, when we're building this the first time, we need some extra room off to the side. Some room to string out the pipe, room for large borrow pits and fill and the fill materials taken out of the hole, uh, the manholes to be strung out, and vehicles to be able to traverse back and forth so they can install the sewer efficiently and effectively. And so for that, we're going to need a 20ft temporary construction easement. So that's off to the side. This accounts for a total of about or a little bit under 60 feet of easement that we'll have total to procure. 40 feet will be permanent. 20 ft is temporary for the life of this project while we're constructing. Okay. Next slide. So that I'll turn it over to Miss Carlson.

All right. Thanks. Good evening, Mayor Council. My name is Jessica Kraussen. My law firm has been brought in along with a separate ride ofway acquisition group, utility land surface, to acquire the land rights that will be needed for the new pipe that's going to go in. Um, so we're involved in the easement acquisition project. So the first thing that'll happen is a notice letter will go out to all of the property owners. There's about 117 impacted parcels. a notice letter will go out and then utility land service which will take the lead on acquiring the land rights and hopefully getting as many easements signed as possible. Uh they'll be in contact with these property owners and we'll work to get the easement signed to the extent they can. Uh as you can see on the screen there's a number of instances where they will be unable to get easements signed. At that point it kicks to my team. We'll send out a notice letter. We'll engage in negotiations with the remaining property owners. get as many signed as we can and we usually have a very good success rate with that. Uh but inevitably there will be some where we will not be able to get easements signed for a number of reasons. Um and at that point we'll proceed with condemnations on the remainder of the parcels so that the town will have the easement rights it needs on all the parcels along this line and construction can begin. Uh so once we go through that and we've got an outline of the condemnation process, we've got to serve the unfiled pleadings on the property owners so they'll see that this is coming. We file the condemnation pleadings and then serve again. Uh once we've done that, uh this will give you an overview of the whole timeline. We've allotted about 18 months for the entirety of the easement acquisition process, which includes both what utility land service will be doing to get easements signed and then what my team will be doing to get additional easements signed and then acquiring rights through the condemnation process. Once all the rights are obtained, the bid process will begin and then construction process follows. That' be

an additional 18 months after all the rights are obtained. Um, we've got a public outreach process. We'll be working with the town's public information officer. Uh, information will be publicly available on the town's website so that property owners will be able to track progress of the project and reach out for information as they need it. Thank you. Thank you both for all your work and David for all your work. Is there any questions? I know we've seen this

madame mayor something I just wanted to say thank you um David for when since you've come in you have found a lot of things that needed attention and I for one um water and sewer system is very important to me a priority um so I'm just thankful that the town of Lexington is being so diligent on working ahead of time for ouruture future um putting the infrastructure in that will um help with any growth that we do have. And we're not talking about excessive growth, just this is normal maintenance. And so I appreciate y'all for being involved in staying ahead of um trouble.

Thank you very much. Any questions from the public regarding the items listed on the agenda tonight? Yes, ma'am. I don't have a question, but I'd like to speak. Three minutes, ma'am. Sure. Good evening, Mayor Livingston and council members. Good evening.

As many of you probably know, I am Tasha Hill and I'm a member of the Lexon Community Fund. And first of all, I would like for you to thank you all for allowing me to speak. And I'd like to thank you all for always advocating for the Lexon Community Fund Day. Um, and I want to thank you, Rachel, and um, Vanessa, for y'all hearing our presentation on last Thursday. Um, while we were disappointed highly that our application was not awarded any funding, I do understand that beds in the head heads in the bed stereotype and and theory that everyone has. However, our organization deeply is concerned about serving families, serving our underserved community. Um, I know they may not get bed heads in the bed, but they are still an important and vital part of our community. So our event though it serves children and underserved families through initiatives such as free back to school event which provides backpacks, school supplies, essential resources, community job fair which connects individuals to employment opportunities and outreach that brings our community together. We have partnered with Mission Lexington. They have provided things for us. Senator Katrina Sheiley has um assisted us and all of you on the council. So, we'd like to thank you all and we are hoping that maybe the hospitality tax can help us and that you all will um consider assisting us again this year with what you have to offer, what you've done for us before, and maybe even a little more. So, I thank you again for your consideration and the work that you

all do to support our organization under three minutes. We appreciate we appreciate you and you can tell up here all of us are very fond of what you do. It's a great event. Lots of great things happen and I think that I'll commit myself to get out and help you raise some funds, too. If you'll get with me and let's go to coffee and you tell me what to do. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I'll call you. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions from the news media? We don't have any. Any comments from staff, from council? With that, the annual wine walk will take place on May the 9th, 2026 from 400 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. along Main Street. Tickets are currently on sale, and we encourage everyone to come out, enjoy this wonderful community event. And this year, guys, it's not just wine for your ladies. There will be stuff for the guys there, too. Our spring concert series at the Ice House Amphitheater is in full swing. The next concert will be held this Thursday, April the 23rd, featuring Mottown Throwdown. I'm excited about this one. It's always a fun evening and beautiful setting, and we hope to see you there. As a reminder, the Splash Pad at Virginia Hilton Park will officially open for the season on Friday, May the 1st, 2026. Um, we're looking forward to another great season at the park and invite everyone to come out and enjoy the space and be also be looking in the next week or so for the date for a reading in the park with the mayor. It should be scheduled for May coming up. And before I close, I'd like to send condolences to Stuart Bond's family, especially his daughters, Laura Touchberry and Meredith CS. Um Stuart served on council here in 1998 to 2002. He served with me. He was a good friend of mine and um he passed away yesterday. And so I would just like to send condolences out to that family. That concludes our business for tonight's work session. We thank you for watching and without objection, we're adjourned.