Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to welcome everyone to the Town of Lexington Council work session on May the 18th, 2026. Work sessions are less formal business meetings that enable council to obtain information regarding town issues from staff members and or consultants. Citizens are encouraged to observe work sessions. However, they do not include public hearing comments. Council does not take an action to vote on items during a work session other than to place the item on the next council agenda. I'm Hazel Livingston, the mayor for the town of Lexington, and I'd like to introduce my fellow councilmembers. To my left is Councilmember Ron Williams.

Good evening.

To his left is Councilmember Todd Lyle.

Good evening.

To his left is Councilmember Jenny Michaels. Good evening. To my right is Mayor Pro Tem Todd Carnes.

Good evening.

To his right is Councilmember Gavin Smith. Good evening. And to his right is Councilmember Will Allen.

Good evening.

Tonight, Councilmember Carnes will lead us in the invocation.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Let's pray. Father, we pause in front of you as a group of your people that you've given some leadership to, given some influence to, and we want to handle that well. We want to be fair, equitable, just, kind. We want to take care of our community, take care of the people in it. We're not wise enough to figure all that out. We make a lot of decisions that are above our pay grade, and we certainly need your wisdom, need your favor. We need you to clear our paths so that we could make good decisions and make our town, our state better, more prosperous, more joyful for the people who come behind us. So we ask for all of that in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

Thank you. And next up, Council Member Smith will lead us in the pledge. I will now call the meeting to order. Council met in executive session prior to this meeting where we discussed the following matters. Discussion of two potential property acquisitions. Actually, only one property acquisition. The other one was resolved. No vote was taken. Do I hear a motion to ratify this report?

So moved.

Mayor Prochem makes the motion. Do I hear a second?

Second.

Councilman Williams second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. And it is unanimous. Are there any deletions from tonight's work session agenda? Moving on to business items. Tonight's first business item comes from Randy Edwards, road resurfacing project change order.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you tonight is a request to enter into a change order. In March of 2025, you approved a $4 million road resurfacing contract, which we are nearing the end of. And as such, we have established that One, there's a little bit of money left over in the current contract, plus the contract was for 3.4 million. We have a slight balance, but we would like to go back and pick up some of the roads that we had cut off of the original ones. We've got very good rates and an excellent contractor that has been performing very well. And so with your permission, we would like to enter into $150,000 extra work to add on to that 3.4. And then in addition to that Lexington County has awarded us a $60,000 in concrete repair work to tag on to the work we've already completed, which of course there's an endless amount of concrete repair that can be done. So before you tonight is a request for 150 in asphalt paving and 60,000 in concrete work for your approval.

Thank you, Randy. Do I hear a motion to put this on the agenda?

So moved.

Council Member Williams makes the motion. Do I hear a second?

Second.

Councilman Smith, second. Is there any discussion?

I'm a yes, sir. I'd like to just ask Randy the Lexington County April 2026 C fund program awarded the town $60,000. I just would like to state for everyone watching this. I know you know that, but see funds are monies paid by people driving cars or getting gas, essentially, that's your gas tax. And that's how it makes its way back to the municipality, correct? That is correct. So it is fair to say for 2026, we have received $60,000 of the gas taxes paid in the town.

I don't...

We got $60,000 of gas tax money, correct? Correct. That's all the gas tax money we get.

Yes. Well, again, I don't know exactly how to answer that specifically, but this is specific to a set-aside that they have in their budget that is funded through their C-Fund. Municipalities present a need, and we compete for that, and this was the award for this year. So specifically whether that's all or not all, I don't know. I'm not able to answer at the moment. All right. Thank you.

And it looks like this company is doing a great job.

Thank you. We're on top of them. But, no, they are doing an excellent job.

Thank you. All those in favor, raise your right hand. And it's on the agenda. Continuing to business item number two, which is also from Transportation Director Randy Edwards.

Again, so before you is a, we've brought before you just a simple request to enter into this agreement we have with SCDOT. This is our signal maintenance agreement annually, comes before you. And this agreement is simply a rerun of the previous agreement with already established agreements. locations and agreed paid amounts. So this is a standard SCDOT agreement and this will be our ninth year, I believe, that we've actually entered into this agreement.

Do I hear a motion to put this on the agenda? So moved. Councilman Michaels makes the motion. Do I hear a second?

I'll second it.

Councilman Smith, I can see any discussion.

Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Randy, under Section 2 of this funding? Yes. Is it maximum annual funding from $108,000 down to $105,000?

Yes. So basically last year, it's just removing some that have not yet come out of construction.

Okay.

And so... They're originally established as, yes, we're going to take them over. The US-1 signals have yet to actually be accepted by the state, and so we can't take them over until they're accepted. The way it works is once they take that, whether it be next week or a month from now, we will automatically roll that back in. So it gets updated at the end of the year. Thank you.

Any other?

Yes, just a question on that. Sure. Just for my information to the public at large, the entire signalization across the town, I know we're picking up maintenance of these lights, but that is fully completed, implemented. There's no hanging chads on that at this time, new mast arms or anything like that. What we have right now is fully completed and

and done meaning the i think it's 49 yeah whatever whatever everything is in and complete so uh over in west columbia henbet is another signal that has not yet been taken in but those are new builds um completely so the ones at us-1 this body paid for the master arms itself but then they were installed by the contractor through the SCDOT project, intersection improvement project.

So as far as the tweaking of that system or the ongoing regulation or ongoing, not really maintenance, but the ongoing modifications for the software, for the timing, for things like that, like who handles that is that is that still a manual process or is that fully out of my eyes is a taking that thing over to we ever manually it's all the levers on that what was it look like so it's both.

There's the ones that are fully adaptive which we have paid for all the computerization that drives that and it's generally maintains itself we we have an agreement with rhythm engineering. You know to to work on the software side. On the physical side that's us and that's our agreement with that CDOT is to provide physical on the ground response to conflict monitor failures, green light bulbs that go out. The wind blows and you have to set them back straight that's that's all of our responsibility through this agreement.

But at one time, I mean, we discussed, like, if there's a major event at, say, River Bluff High School and Corley Mill, like, we have the ability to go in and hold a light longer to manually manipulate the system if we know something significant's going on to hold the lights longer. Like, do we ever actually wind up doing that, or do we just entrust the software to make the reads in the field and it does real-time adjustments?

Yeah. Ninety-eight percent of the time, we just allow it to operate as it does because it generally just learns its own behaviors. The one-offs where there's, for example, when we've had gas line leaks, major closures of I-20, those types of things, we do, in fact, manually, whether it be a hold a left turn phase, and we're able to do that in-house through our software.

Okay.

But for clarity, not every single signal has that ability. For example, US-1 I-20s do not have the adaptive signalization computer module on them. Does that make sense? Those are all manual. The new ones at US-1 and I-20.

When you say all manual, you confuse me there.

Just regular timing.

They're not adaptive. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Everyone in favor, raise your right hand. And it's on the agenda. Thank you. Business item number three is from Police Chief Green. Consideration of service agreement of off-duty management and court.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. The agreement provides for the administration and management of the Police Department's off-duty management program, including scheduling, payroll, invoice, coordination of assignments. A copy of the proposed agreement is attached to the meeting packet.

Do I hear a motion to put this on the agenda?

So moved.

Councilman Smith makes the motion. Do I hear a second?

Second.

Councilman Williams seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of putting it on the agenda, raise your right hand, and it's unanimous. Next up, we have, yeah, next up, we have accommodations, tax applications, town administrator, Rachel Gladen.

Thank you, Mayor. We've been discussing the accommodations tax application process for this current year for the past couple meetings. And the cover sheet here provides a timeline of how the process has gone from the application process where our advisory committee met and made award recommendations. It references that our partner for advertising and promotion, the 30% special fund, that is the Lexington Chamber and Visitor Center at our last meeting. It was requested by council to receive a copy of their budget that is included in the packet. It's attachment two. The past two meetings where we had multiple Q&A sessions, staff has put together a summary of the question and answers. Those are in attachments three and four. And this evening, after hearing discussion from council and having a number of questions that frankly only the advisory committee could answer, we do have tonight Mr. Marvin Robinson. He's the chairman for the advisory committee for the state accommodations tax. So there's a number of documents that we attached for additional information. I'll let you tell me how you would like to do this. I've mentioned a few of the documents that are included in here. I do believe Mr. Marvin is here. How would you like to proceed? Would you like to hear from him first?

Well, I know this is going to have some questions, so before we, in case it is changed or anything is changed, I think we will go with letting Marvin, if you would, speak first.

Thank you, Mayor. Again, Marvin Robinson. I'm the chair of the Accommodations Tax Committee. Been on this committee since 2012. Others that we have on there are Michael Tucker and Mr. Champaneri. It's been on there both over 20 years. Suki Patel, over 13. Constance Fleming. She represents our arts piece. She's been on there for over 10 years, Jana Medlin about 10 years, and then our newest member is Michael McGee, who manages a hotel here in town. So we've got two or three individuals who have been in hospitality for probably 20 years, two that have been in the hotel industry for over 20 years, and then Mrs. Fleming, who has been with us over 10 years and is a retired educator and also represents the arts. And then, you know, I represent the business side of it, being in banking. I know a number of you. Some of you I know may be new, and I just kind of wanted to talk, if you guys will give me a little bit of time, just to kind of share where we've been and where we have come to. So when I first came on this committee, It's been several mayors ago. We basically were a rubber stamp committee where we would make recommendations, council would change it, and we just spent four or five hours in a room going through applications and interviews and presentations all for nothing. So something that changed at the same time as the Chamber of Commerce, who also got a portion for the Visitor Center, also would always apply for a large amount of money as well to help with their operations. So over time, through leadership changes, We worked with the Chamber of Commerce to kind of wean that away. They got new leadership. They grew that organization and no longer needed those funds. So we were able to kind of pull some of that back and then just keep the visitor center money going to those guys. And then also, you know, with the amount of, I guess, human capital that we have on this committee and the years of experience, they started getting burned out because the time that we spent, you know, making these recommendations and they got changed. It was, you know, to be honest with you, they got better things to do with their time. So I work with, I know, Mr. Carnes and maybe one other council person that's no longer on this committee. committee or on this council to kind of talk through doing a liaison so they could sit in these meetings with us, look at the process, understand how we apply the law and why we make the recommendations that we do. And something we were able to accomplish that we were really proud of is that we got to a point where council just accepted our recommendations and we moved forward. You know, part of it was regionalism, trying to be good neighbors with other folks in our region from the standpoint of trying to support events that either bring the arts to Lexington or, you know, bring the arts to the area, which also brings visitors. Because, you know, I've learned from having daughters that play travel sports, if they had a tournament in Charlotte, we would stay in Rock Hill because it's cheaper, right? So folks that do come to see events in, say, Columbia or in the region, it makes sense for them to stay in the Lexington area, number one, because it's cheaper, and because you've got a great downtown, so you can walk to a lot of stuff. And so being able to have the folks that we have that have been in the hotel industry as long as they have, as well as the restaurant industry, Michael Tucker has been with Chick-fil-A for over 20 years, they have a good hand on the pulse of when these events are happening and actually if it makes a difference. So they have a lot of input. And as well as Mrs. Fleming as it relates to the arts. So I just wanted to give you a little bit of history of where we've come from and kind of where we are. But these folks put a lot of good work in and we usually start about 9.30 in the morning and we usually wrap up about 3.30 in the afternoon. So there's a lot of discussion, a lot of thought, and a lot of application that goes into this process. So with that, I'll open it up for questions.

Okay. Anybody have any questions? Mayor.

Yes. So each year, I don't remember some of the last years, but is it different every year or some of these are the same every year that you give to?

Well, they've changed over years because when Leslie was here, for instance, And this year's been a little bit different because I know we've had some staff turnovers, so we've been delayed on getting some stuff put together and getting it set up. But when Wesley was here, something we implemented is once folks got their accommodations money and the event was over, they had to show us proof of what they spent it on. And some of those folks couldn't prove that. And it kind of got them out of the way and then others came in. And then I would also approach people in the community. Jesse Harmon, I was responsible for getting him to start putting applications in because that half marathon brings a lot of people. And he tracks the zip codes. I mean, he shows us the information of where folks are coming from because it's a very popular event. As well as, you know, the baseball fields, the county baseball field, you know, that was a $3 million investment that they make a huge impact with in the county and in the town. When they would bring, I'd say at one point they had the Big South baseball tournament there, all those teams came here. In the northeast, it gets really cold during practice season, so they're Recruiting people to bring them down here and these teams stay down here. They eat down here and they spend money. So, unfortunately, they haven't applied over the past couple of years. But, I mean, it was a great asset because, I mean, there's other municipalities that spend a lot more money on baseball stadiums that get less return on investment. So, we have, through... The right way of doing things, we had gotten out the folks that weren't probably using the money like they should have, and we've recruited and brought in the people that are actually having an impact on the company.

And just so you can educate us too, like we already know, but what happens if you've given that money and they can't prove it? What happens then?

You know, we haven't had that happen in so long. Forgive me, I can't recall what the process was. Gotcha. But it's been several years since we've, we don't have to deal with that anymore.

Anybody else?

I would just say thank you for the diligent work that y'all have done. Sounds like it was very thorough, and I appreciate all the work y'all do. Thank you. Thank you.

Madam Mayor. Yes, sir. Rachel, who's our staff liaison for this committee at this point?

Vanessa Stoker, our special funds manager.

Okay. And how long has she been in that role?

A little over a year now.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Madam Mayor.

Yes.

I think it'll be no surprise to anyone. And first I'll preface with I appreciate the work that you all do on the committee. I had every intention actually of coming to your meeting this year but had some family issues and I could not be there that day. But that said, I've spent a lot of time reading the statute online and going through each of the applications and the one thing that I still can't understand is why we are Not allocating any funds to Community Fund Day. By my reading of the law, they absolutely meet the definition. And I just can't understand why we are not willing to allocate funds to them. What part of the law, I guess, that you feel that qualifies them? Well, the law doesn't. explicitly say it it does say it must be used for tourism purposes but then if you read further down i believe it's in section yeah section two b subsection two the promotion of the arts and cultural events Okay, well, there's not really a great definition of cultural events and this statue. I would argue that this is a cultural event on the Hill. I would argue that many of the expenses by which they're asking to use these dollars would certainly promote this event. I mean, I've gone through every dollar that they want to spend and could find some justification for almost every expense that would meet the letter of the law. I also think that the Run Hard Marathon is an excellent event. I fully support it. I wish we did more things like that in the town. But they're bringing in just as many tourists, according to their application, as Community Fun Day is. So is the issue that they're not ticketing the event and tracking the number of people coming in? Is there an issue there with not being able to track it back? Because I did speak with Tasha, who runs Community Fun Day, and they're certainly willing to issue tickets so that they can track and keep track of that. But the law does not explicitly state that it has to come from 50 miles. I've not been able to find that in the statute. I know that's been cited a few times. Tourism is actually... defined in the statute, people that take trips outside of their home communities for any purpose except for daily commuting to and from work. So if they come here from West Columbia to the event, they are considered a tourist. So I guess I'm just having a hard time understanding that one of why we would not make an allocation to Community Fund Day when it's certainly a cultural event, it's certainly a community event, it brings people to Lexington according to their application, but we are giving money to other organizations. That's the one I'm getting caught up on. I got you.

Based on the application, what was presented to us, We saw no impact that it would make on tourism or culture. I mean, just reading the application here, it's designed to attract local residents and visiting families while promoting community engagement in a backpack packing event, a back-to-school event. So, I mean, if it's a back-to-school event, it's a great event. I'm not picking this thing apart, but, I mean... If you are putting together school supplies for need-based families in the town of Lexington, why would you want folks from outside of the community to come be a part of that event and get access to those supplies when it's for the community?

They do, though. I've personally met them, people that have come here from, I believe the young lady I met last year was from Greenville.

Sure, but my question is, if we're supporting families that are need-based with back-to-school supplies, why would you want to pack backpacks for folks outside of the community? Why wouldn't you want to support the families in our community?

Well, I mean, the word community would certainly be ambiguous because many of these people come from the county. They don't come from the town of Lexington. They come from just outside the limits. I mean, that would be supporting our local communities still.

Well, the way we define it is they have to advertise outside of a 50-mile radius of Lexington. So greater than 50 miles is what's going to drive people to want to stay overnight here because that's what fills this pot of money. is people staying in hotels and the taxes that get charged for that. So, you know, we're very careful about how we spend the money on events that actually bring people that are going to spend the night here. And so that's what we focus on.

Can you point me to where the 50 mile is actually in the statute? Because I could not find that. It is not in the accommodations tax law.

Well, it is actually in the town's application package. But that's not law. I understand that. But that's what we advertise. That's what's being advertised. And I'm not, I'm not an attorney. So if there's council here that can maybe translate that, um,

Madam Mayor, if I may, I think that there's a fundamental point of the law that we can explain. It's called administrative law, which is the function of creating rules and applications that are put in place to fill in the gaps where statutes have limits. Our town attorney can fill in even more if he'd like, but I think that would be an application of administratively looking at a statute and creating... We can't just print out the statute and give it to people and say, here's your application. We have to give them an application which puts it into... uh plain layman's terms and looked for the the drafting out or the drawing out of the granular data as one of our normal guests like to use that word um but yeah i think that if that's the town's interpretation that was made in good faith there's not a requirement that it's say 50 miles in a statute or an ordinance there's plenty of examples you know the speed limits are not in the statutes the statutes allow for the town election to create you know violations based on speed limits, but you can't say, can't give me a speeding ticket because there's no statute that says the speed limit on this road is 45 miles an hour. That's not in the statute.

Right. But we also don't have a policy that I'm aware of or an ordinance that requires the 50 mile radius.

It's in the guidelines and application instructions.

So I can solve this for everybody. and maybe if there needs to be some changes, however they are, we can change them. But I have talked to several of these committee members because after the last meeting, I had several business owners here in town reach out to me and say, We don't think they qualify for this from watching y'all's meeting, but we're willing to make a donation because we think it's a good event. We think it's more of a community event, supporting people in the county that comes in, and so far about $7,000 in donations have come through for this event. Another thing that the committee has told me, and Gavin, they probably told you too, they were a little bit confused thinking they were going to have to pay for chairs and tents and tables this year and set up of them where we've never done that before we've always let them have them and to best of my knowledge we haven't changed that they thought they will have to rent them and everything so pretty much the money that they were looking for has come in so whatever has to be worked on as far as changing if somebody think something needs to be changed, we can change it for next time. And they're well taken care of this time from businesses coming in.

With all due respect, that's great. And I'm so grateful to the business community. I told, in fact, Tasha today on the phone that my business would be happy to make a donation to Community Fund Day. However, by our ordinance, by our policy, And by the letter of the law, no one is still giving me a convincing argument as to why Community Fund Day doesn't qualify for these funds. I mean, their application explicitly states that they're going to bring in 250 tourists. Tourists is really defined here in the statute. So I haven't heard anyone say, well, you're not going to do that. That's what the money is meant to be used for. There's nothing barring them from these funds. And then you can look at the expenses by which they gave us the expenses. And you could make justification for nearly every one of the expenses. So it's great that we've gone out and got private donations. But they are equally as qualified for these funds as the other organizations. And I'm not saying any of these organizations are bad. I mean, again, I think Run Hard and some of the others are great. But, you know... We're essentially saying what you need to go get private donations or will help you do that because you don't qualify for this when in all actuality I still have not been shown where they don't qualify for it.

We're just saying we don't want to get to that matter may yes. So I would say this like I don't remember how many years I participate with these guys may be 3. First off everybody needs to put on their calendar and go watch as a ex officio member. and see kind of how these things come to fruition. I think what Marvin is saying, I think his argument is right. We're not arguing about the statute. We're arguing about that piece of paper out there that has the town of Lexington logo on the top. That was their directive, and whatever their directive is came from this body at some point. That's right. And they're bound by that. And so if that's incorrect, that's incorrect. But that's what they were bound by. So we need to live by that. I think the other part, I mean, the terminology we use is heads in beds. I hear what you're saying, but the bar has always been, can this organization produce some form of evidence that people participating in this event will stay in hotels in the lexington area or is this money going to advertisements and promotions in cities counties states More than 50 miles outside of Lexington to invite people into, is it used for advertising in those arenas to invite people here? Because I think the 50-mile rule is generally if people travel 50 miles, they're more likely to spend the night. You can't prove it. I would also say, Gavin, I mean, I hear the sentiment, and I'm sympathetic to it, but when I was there, Marvin, you probably attested this, that the vast majority of the time, year one, when people apply to things like this, they generally don't get it. Because there's a learning curve to figuring out the application. I was just looking at the application. And I don't know if there's anything against funding the entirety of the event. Their event budget was $6,800. They made an ask for $10,000. I don't know that you can ask for more than your event expenses. But I think if they go back, and maybe this year, And what I certainly encourage Run Hard and others to do is the reason they bring the zip codes is, like, you've got to bring some hard evidence that says, I brought this many people from out of town to this event. I may or may not be able to prove that they stayed at a hotel, but I can certainly prove they're from Greenville, they're from Myrtle Beach, they're from wherever. And then that bolsters and strengthens your application for next year. I'm glad that this year seems to be solved, and so they can certainly set themselves up for success in the application next year with some of those types of facts and data to back up the back of the application to sound to sound fair right Marvin said oh I'm sorry and the other thing I do I do think we we well we wrestle with this back and forth, but But certainly not for such a nominal amount, certainly in this scenario. I don't think it's prudent nor wise for this body to second-guess five hours of work and presentations, application review, and 20 years of experience of a bunch of high-level executives, hotel owners, and others that invested in this i understand we all got opinions like i said there's seven of us you put all seven of us in a room you get 10 opinions that's just how it works right uh which is fine that's just that's just human nature but i don't think uh i think we should honor that work and if we want to get organized we want to work on that document we want to help this particular applicant bolster their uh application for next year i think we can and should do all that but i don't think we should upset the apple cart this year and while i got the mic and just boring everybody to death i think the other thing that's coming down the pike is the amphitheater scenario. So if we're done with this, I want to talk about the amphitheater scenario.

I want to ask you a question first. He just mentioned something and I just need you to clarify it from my head. That the budget was $6,800 you said?

That's what the application says.

And then they asked for $10,000. Do we normally give over a budget that they present us?

Madam Mayor, we didn't get that far because we just saw that it didn't qualify so we didn't

Okay, but I'm not talking about just then. I'm talking about normally we go by the budget exactly, right? Correct. Okay. I was just clarifying that from my head. Kevin, did you say you had something else?

On this topic, I mean, if we want to finish this before we move on to what I expect will be Will's topic, if we would like. No disrespect to you. It's all the email traffic. We are not bound by that document. And I respect all the time that the accommodations tax committee spends. It's no disrespect to you or any member of the committee. But I'd also remind the council that we had a small business advisory committee that spent hours and hours and hours. And I haven't seen many recommendations we've taken from them. So we've taken our own discretion to have our own opinions and make our own decisions. And the law also affords us that ability here is we take their recommendation, but we can change it. We're not, we don't have to follow what that document says. I recall during, you know, election season last year, everybody's at community fun day. And I recall people saying, we want to help you get funding through the town next year. Well, this is our opportunity to do it, to fulfill what we promised some of those people we would do is, help them get funding for their event that yet no one has shown me where it doesn't meet the qualifications for funding.

If they've got the funding though, Gavin, why would you try to give more money if the funding is already there?

Where's the funding?

It's coming from sponsors. There's a list of people that call me. I mean, you've got a list.

That's private funding. That's not guaranteed.

It's guaranteed. It's waiting to be picked up.

Right, and we did that behind the scenes so that we could try to not get.

No, people call me from the meeting, and I'm not going to argue with you because they did, and I can give you the names.

Well, I'm also aware of phone calls that have been made asking for dollars as well.

I've made one.

So I think it's wrong that we have an opportunity to give this community some money for their event. I'm not saying we have to fund everything, but I think it's wrong that we have the opportunity to do so. No one has shown me where it doesn't meet the qualifications. yet to show me that and we're not going to do that all because in between the committee's recommendation to us, we decided to make some phone calls and ask people for private money.

For me, one person. Another thing is, the others came in to me, the other thing is that one of the people on the committee told me specifically that they've never paid for advertising before. It's always been free because they're a non-profit. So that's where some clarification needs to be, too, that they're on Soda City. And I'm not arguing. I'm just saying, you know, some of this, I think, needs to be clarified. I mean, they said they get their advertising free from Soda City on some radio stations because they're a 501C. I don't know. She did say they could buy some billboards and stuff if that would help, you know, That's what I was told. And I think that's where Gavin, Todd, all of us could get in and help them do a better job on their application and show... where the people if they are staying in the hotels like you said or what it is um that they actually need the money for because they thought too they needed money for the tables and the tents and all that kind of good stuff and unless everybody up here tells me different i don't think they're going to madame mayor um and you guys may be aware of this because i know um

town staff kind of directs this, but I mean, the $40,000 that goes to the CVB is advertising money that you guys direct. So they either put that on billboards or whatever you guys direct, and I think some of that advertising goes to the, I don't think it's called the Wine Walk anymore, but some of the events that you guys have here in town. So I mean, you can also use that money as well to help advertise for the community event to... just to get more visibility for it. Just thought, I'm just making you aware of that.

Madam Mayor?

Yes.

Just real quick, Marvin, just so we're clear, and this is a friendly argument, right? But I think what I hear you guys say, at least when I was in these deliberations, it was always, is this an event? that we can reasonably believe or have some data to support the fact that they are going to put heads in beds. They're going to have people come from out of town and stay in our hotels for this event. Isn't that your kind of base level question? And then you look at the application to go from there. Is that correct? That's correct.

Because that's what, that's where this money comes from. In order for us to grow this bucket of money, we have to continue to do that. and help these events grow.

So as the chairman of this committee, if you were talking to this particular applicant, and I certainly remember, and I know RunHard very well, I remember RunHard making applications and not getting anything. And they started keeping data better, but as the chairman of this committee if you were advising these folks. Wouldn't your advice be to go do your event this year and collect some data and be able to provide some tangible data that says people came from out of town for more than 50 miles away or some reasonable number where we could expect that they would stay in hotels and sharpen up the the application that way which would make it more credible and probably put you in a better position to receive funds. Am I reading that right? I could be totally off.

No, you're correct. And to take that a step further, have them sit down with Vanessa and let's let her help them put the application together. Yeah. She knows this stuff just as well as we do.

Thank you, madam. Thank you, Marvin. Thank you, madam mayor.

I would just essentially say what we're telling them there is we need to help you navigate red tape. I mean, that is what we're telling them is the process is complicated and your application needs to say exactly the right thing to get approved. When we as a council have the ability. to alter the recommendations when we can see it clearly in front of us. Their application says that they're gonna bring in 250 people that are tourists. And the definition of a tourist is someone that's coming from out of town. We obvious, all of us, to the best of my knowledge, all of us have attended this event. We know there are people that are coming from outside of town limits. So again, I just go back to no one's showing me where they don't qualify for this, but we'll come in next year, which is what we told them last year as well, I remember specifically, come in this year and we'll try to help you get funding. Well, now we're telling them next year, And we have the opportunity right now to just help them get the funding. It's really not that hard. And I would just also, do you want to call for the vote, Todd, or could I finish? I did want to call for the vote. That's the posture of this body now is we just cut people off and call for the vote.

If I may, you have repeated yourself about four times now. Right, I'm getting ready to make a new point. I know your point. You've made it.

We all heard it. Okay. The last question I wanted to ask actually is for David, our attorney. Correct me if I'm wrong, but also the state statute that establishes the accommodations tax would allow us actually, by my interpretation, to use these dollars to promote facilities for tourism, correct? Yes.

As long as the use of the funds meets the definitions or the requirements set forth in the law, yes, you can use them on those items.

So just to be clear, we are considering a transportation facility that is before us, and that is explicitly outlined in the law that we could use these dollars for transportation facility. because that helps promote tourism. So we could, I'd remind everyone that the day before I was elected, Smallwood Cove was announced and people did not want tourism in the town. We heard that a lot. We could take those dollars and put them towards what people are telling us they want and we could spend it on roads. or a transportation facility.

Okay, facility, not roads.

No, you can use it actually on roads as well, I believe.

Madam Mayor, I think what Councilman Smith is confusing is with discretion, there's not requirement. So we have discretion. We have a body that has reviewed all of these and given us, with all their body of background and all their experience, this is their recommendation. And I would also venture to say that if there is a particular applicant that is your you feel so strongly about. I would encourage you to help them out with that application so that we're not doing it after the fact because this is like the 11th hour that you this is the the good idea point and so I think what this body has done is excellent work for for no no fee no charge whatsoever purely out of their desire to help the community I think nobody appears disagreeing with whether or not the fun days a great event we're saying let's help them with their application next year so. The longer we debate the merits of this one particular event, there are other applicants who didn't get fully funded. There's other applicants who didn't get funding. There have been many applicants if you look through the past applications. And so we can continue to beat this dead horse, but it didn't make the cut this time. And we all desire up here to help them make the cut next time. But we also desire to follow the guidance that's been set before us. I don't recall ever having this long of a debate about the Accommodations Tax Committee's results.

It's been years.

Well, and I'd just like to say that I'm not confused on the difference between discretion and requirement. Actually, that's kind of the point I'm making is this body is choosing to ignore this applicant's qualification for the funds. We are choosing to not award them.

We are choosing to follow the guidance that was given to us by the, or at least there's a majority of the body up here that want to take that recommendation. Again, this is not personal. We just think that this body has done a great job and we want to appreciate what they've done and we'll do better going forward. I also think the mayor spoke about having heard that this initial immediate need has been met. And so I think we're beating a dead horse. We're doing the exact thing that makes government look bad right here.

so david can you clarify for me in there does it say that it should bring beds heads in beds or whatever the saying is i mean is it clear um or is it just tourism and is i guess you know maybe that's something we've got to work on i know i spoke to our administrator about making it clear about how much of it we can keep for the town ourselves going forward Yes, but that is what outlines that on what y'all go by, correct, Marvin?

That's correct.

So if we want that changed, we need to change it before next year?

Correct. Okay. Because that is...

So that's what you went by to give guidelines?

On the town of Lexington letterhead, accommodations, tax guidelines, and applications instructions, that's what we tell our applicants, and that's what we apply.

Madam Mayor, the statute does reflect, it says a municipality or county and its advisory committee shall adopt guidelines to fit the needs and time schedules of the area. The guidelines must include the requirements for applications for funds from the special fund used for tourism-related expenditures.

So what we created is part of the law because we are directed to create something for them to go by.

That's correct. And also back to the 50-mile rule, that is a... interpretation that is used throughout the state by all accommodations committees, hospitality tax committees. That's a common rule that has been developed over time that As Councilman Lyle said, it has been read into the law and is used by entities to determine what qualifies as strictly a tourism-related event. If you're attracting individuals from outside of the 50-mile radius from your area, then they're classified as tourism and they're more likely to stay in a hotel for that.

And is there a certain percentage?

I don't believe there's any percentages. To be honest with you, the law is very general and it leads to a lot of interpretations. But I think over the years there's been a consensus on a lot of areas what different committees have utilized as the requirements for qualifying for the funding.

And I know Marvin and I appreciate everything y'all have done and I appreciate it's been years that we trusted y'all and let y'all do it instead of because I remember some of those knock down drag outs where couldn't get anywhere and everybody was upset about what to change and who to give what and all that. Um, but I do know that council member Allen sent out his email because he has some concerns about the town, especially with us having the ice house amphitheater, not getting enough of the money back. Cause we do bring in a lot of people from out of town too. And, um, I had asked Rachel to look into that for future that we might, you know, probably didn't need to do that this year, but to look into that for future and to set what percentage goes forward. But, um,

Yeah, the challenge is that we got $213,000 and we had $371,000 in requests. So that's the challenge every year. But what we focused on with the amphitheater that we always focus on, because it's a big asset for this community, and it had, what, over 100 events last year. I think it was 50-50 sponsored events versus private events. And, you know, the challenge there is it gets a lot of use, and it requires a lot of maintenance. And I know in the past we've put new equipment in there. I think now we've got to put a new roof on it. You know, and just from looking at application and I'll just say this is a personal opinion. It's not paying for itself. So, you know, it's a nice asset that if people are going to rent it privately, should pay a fair cost for, in my opinion, to help pay for some of that so you guys can build a maintenance reserve and continue to upkeep it. But that's the challenge there is that that's always going to be the biggest piece of the pie when it comes to accommodations taxes, is making sure the amphitheater gets what it needs. Okay.

Madam Mayor.

Yes, sir.

I'll just conclude by saying I respect everyone's opinion up here. And I want to emphasize that I do appreciate the job that y'all do. I have heard it stated that I don't appreciate it, but I do. I want you to know that I just disagree with this one decision. But I disagree with the decision that is obviously impending. I think there's a lot of ambiguity in the law. I think our ordinance needs to be updated. I think our policy is not very clear. We're requiring them to do things that the law doesn't require them to do. And we have an opportunity here to give them money, and we're choosing not to, it appears. So I will not vote in favor of it for that reason, but... I yield any further comments. So the vote isn't called on me.

Will, do you have anything to say?

Sure, thank you. Well, I do want to thank you for all the work, obviously. Looking at it, there's kind of an emotional response when you're seeing something that seems like a clear discrepancy based on the serendipity of our agenda. And so I want to clarify that I don't have any issue with anybody on that list whatsoever. So I think I may have said a comment like kicking money across the river, because that's like the emotional response of like, what are we doing if we have a roof here in town we gotta fix? So I don't have anything against anything that y'all have done. My viewpoint of this was more high level, not getting in the nitty gritty of, like I have full assurances y'all have done all the legwork. Like I know that's what y'all are doing. For me, it was if we have a situation, can we adjust it? Just adjust it down. So that's the email that I sent. Basically, I just said, you know, a percentage of what y'all had allocated to everybody who was not a town applicant. And that same percentage applied to a bucket were basically given back $35,000. thousand five hundred to the town for this project for the amphitheater so that's what I'm in favor of and it's not against anybody it's just a simple high level you know we trust y'all to give us recommendations but at the end of the day we are the electeds and we're the ones who have to get in front of the you know our neighbors and they're saying why you know if we're having to look at adding a fee to our tickets to fund this and they're thinking, well, our tax dollars are already going to this. And I understand where the mayor's coming from in that, well, we got a lot of people who are outside the town who do use the amphitheater. And so for me, I'm not a smart man, but it's like, One plus one equals two. I mean, heads and beds, these are people who are not living in town. We know for a fact they're using the amphitheater. It makes perfect sense to me. So that's my concern with it. I don't want you to think there's anything personal against y'all or the recommendations y'all had made or any of the applicants because I think they're all perfectly great programs. That was my due sense. So I'm not in favor of it for that reason because I think this is an opportunity that we as the electeds can just tweak it so that we're not having to add a fee to tickets. But I understand that there's not a lot of appetite for that. That's fine. I'm just one vote. But I still appreciate y'all.

Sure. Well, thank you. And a lot of these, I don't know if you've been, I'm not making an assumption, but I don't know if you've been through the application, but some of these folks are having their event, even though they're not in town election, they're having events at the amphitheater. So the River Alliance, I know, does an event here. The Varna International Music Academy, I know we're really excited about that because they're going to do a show here at the Amphitheater, and most of their students are from out of state, and all of their families come from out of state and follow them around so they can watch them do their performances. So while some of these are outside, they're actually, some of them are bringing it back to the Amphitheater, and we're bringing the arts to the town of Lexington.

I see that's good things to know of why you chose some of the things you did. And I agree with Todd that we should encourage to come sit through and listen what y'all are looking at and what you're hearing. And if we want to adjust anything going forward of how much actually comes back to the town and encourage all of that, we can make all those adjustments going forward after this process.

We'll buy you lunch, too. Mayor, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I was just going to say I'm in favor of us having more discussions about maybe making some changes moving forward, but I appreciate everything y'all have done, and I'm sure you're going to keep doing it. There might be some tweaking we can do, but I think for this year I think y'all have done a good job, and You know, I, for one, would probably just go with your recommendation. Thank you.

We work hard at it. Madam Mayor. Can I just say, for the record, for those watching, the statute does say that we are required, the first $25,000 collected goes to our general fund balance. That's the first $25,000. Then that balance, you take 5% and allocate that. to the general fund. And then the remaining funds, 30% of that, we have to give to a, I think it's DMO or designated marketing organization, which are just the chamber, which is why we give that 30% to the chamber of commerce. Now, I do have a question of around that budget and maybe Rachel, you could answer this, but in our general fund budget, I don't remember if it's in the enterprise or not, but we pay for a chamber membership. But we're giving them $90,000. Why don't we get the chamber membership? I mean, I know that's small dollars in the grand scheme of a $70 million budget, but when we're spending taxpayer dollars, why don't we get that membership included in the $90,000 we're giving them?

I don't know that I can answer that right now.

I believe that on Jill told me that balances back out. They take it back out Gavin. I think is what she told me that they don't charge us now. They do charge us for our breakfast tickets because of it's something that they have to pay like the food and stuff. But I thought the membership she said they gave to us.

I don't recall seeing a line item for the chamber membership like I have in other communities. I can go back to look and we can look before final reading of our budget. But I do know that we pay for the breakfast and that sort of thing.

Okay. And then my last question on the chamber would be they're supposed to operate the visitor center, but the visitor center is not. open on the weekends when most visitors would come to the town. So is that something we should be looking at as well? I know you and I've had offline conversations about that. You know, that the statute is pretty explicit about that, that, you know, visitor center. So is that something we should be looking at?

We can absolutely talk with her about that and what the expectations are.

Yeah. I mean, and it's no disrespect to Angel. I mean, I think she does a great job and everyone knows I support the chamber, but ultimately these are tax dollars and you know, if we have the opportunity to use these dollars for road facilities or paying for the amphitheater so we don't have to institute a fee, maybe that's something that we should look at instead of sending these dollars elsewhere other than the required 30%.

So, Council Member Williams.

Thank you.

Rachel, I know we're required to give...

the portion to the visitor center, to the chamber, to handle our visitor center, are they required to report their expenses just like everybody else? If they are asking us for billboard expense or radio expense, do they have to provide us with the receipts where they spent those funding before we reimburse?

No, they are not reimbursable expense.

So, Do we get a report? Maybe I need to get Vanessa up since I'm asking all these technical questions, but do we need to? They do a report to the state at the end of the year. Showing what they spent versus what they received? Could we get a copy of that to see if it matches what we're giving them and make sure we're not giving them in excess?

Vanessa may. Okay, yeah, they submit it to Vanessa, so Vanessa receives it every year.

Okay, great. And I would just say, Marvin, I appreciate y'all's work. I know it's not easy to sit in that room and try to figure out who gets what. And I know some years we've had some really good years. I remember when COVID was around, y'all didn't meet. And so the next year y'all had like twice as much money to decide over. But I do appreciate the committee's work and recommendations to us. Thank you.

Madam mayor, yes Ron just so you know and section 3. It does say that they have to provide us a budget for how the funds are expected to be spent, but then also at the end of the year there to provide us an accounting of each expense as well so they are required to give that to us and they do.

Madam mayor, yes me. My mistake and I think I'm looking at that in the packet right. Yeah, they provided that right budget actuals and then budget for the next year.

Attachment to yeah, so word. Here it says that they they asked for 122 and I spent 54 where the $68,000. Where is that city?

They're only halfway through their year. I remember correctly. Their fiscal year ends June 30, 2026. And what was submitted, I believe, was just for the first portion of the year. Because this budget, I believe, is due, is it January or February? The Chamber submits this budget well in advance of the end of their fiscal year. Because they have to have the accommodations tax committee review it. So this isn't their full year.

So, you know, what I was trying to get to is if they aren't, you know, this is $68,000. If they have $10,000 left over, we're required to give them this 30%. But if they don't spend it, what's the law say we can do with it? Could we therefore bring it back in-house and use it on some of the projects that Marvin couldn't fund? Or do we have to...

For the 30%, I can't answer that. We'd have to ask because, again, it's treated slightly different. Whereas if we were to give competitive grants and those grantees didn't spend it all, it would remain in our fund and we would just reallocate it in a different way.

Maybe David could look into that for us and tell us what the law says we have to do with that money in case there is excess.

Did somebody called a question?

Do I hear a motion to put it on the agenda?

So moved.

Mayor Pro Tem makes the motion. Do I hear a second?

Second.

Councilman Lyle seconds it. All those in favor of putting it on the agenda, raise your right hand. And it is five to two opposed. All those opposed, I guess I need to erase. So it's five, four, and two opposed. Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. And you'll probably have all seven of us there next time, so we'll probably have to advertise, okay?

Sounds good.

Any questions from the public? And I don't think I see any out there tonight regarding the items listed on the agenda. Any questions from the news media? Any comments from staff? Council?

I got a comment.

Okay.

I would like to wish our beloved mayor a happy birthday. Thank you. I hear it's coming up on May 22nd. So happy birthday to you. Hope you have a great time. Thank you. Get your husband to take you back to that fancy place in Mexico.

Now I'm going to North Topsell in North Carolina.

That's close.

That's okay, too. Now our announcements. And Gavin had a birthday while he was gone. He had fun. He was in Mexico having fun.

I was.

So happy birthday to you, Gavin.

Thank you.

We're closing out the spring concert series with a party this week on Thursday. The Fringe Benefits Take the Stage at the Ice House Amphitheater is from 6.30 until 9, and the concert is free. We've had a great turnout this year and hope to see everyone at this last concert. The market at Ice House has started. Come out and get fresh produce, flowers, and crafts from local vendors. There's also live music. The market runs each Saturday through the end of September with the exception of July the 4th. The Mayor's Storytime in the Park is back in Virginia Hilton Park tomorrow at 10.30. Join us at the Azalea Amphitheater for storytime, and the Lexington County Garden Club will be there as well to plant flowers with the children. Storytime is the third Tuesday of each month. That concludes our business for tonight's work session. We thank you for watching, and without objection, we're adjourned.