County Council - Regular Meeting

is Joe Boyin. I represent district 8 and I currently serve as chair of council. And this time I'd like to ask all of our council members and key staff to please uh introduce themselves. Starting with Mr. Movie, District 7, Derby, District 4, Herass, District 1. Kristen Worster, Deputy Clerk of Council. Bill Tuten, County Administrator. Jenny Honeyut, District 9. Larry Kabrowski, District 2. Katie Fry, District 5. Rob Worman, District Three. Okay. This time we're going to go into our administration policy and rules committee uh which Mr. Prior is chair.

Thank you Mr. Chairman of Jenny Honeyat Jenny Costa Honeyat Kon Middleton and Herb Sass members of this committee along with the chair and official we move in with item number one approval of the minutes April 23rd 2026. What is the pleasure? So moved. Is is there any deletion or addition hearing? None. All in favor signify by saying I. I.

All oppose. Eyes have it. Item number two is request to consider the rule change uh allowing the the uh clerk to contact these folks when they don't uh adhere to our rules when we appoint them to boards and commission. I think we all have discussed it and um ready to move on. So, is there a motion to move this forward? Move move to uh move to move it forward. Okay. Is there a second? Second. All right. Any discussion among council members? All in favor signify by saying I. I.

Your eyes have it. That concludes our rules and policy committee meeting. So, Mr. Chairman, are we going to go into the planning and public works? Yes, sir. Mr. Prior. All right. So, uh, I'm the chair of the planning and public works committee meeting. We have, uh, three items. All council member participate. The first order of business is approval of minutes of April 23rd, 2026. Is there a second? Second. Any additions or deletions? No discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I.

All oppose. Eyes have it. Item 2A is an update to public works traffic calming program criteria and procedures. Herb Nims will be making the presentation. Mr. Nims. Thank you. My name is Herbert Nims. I'm the engineering manager and like you said, I'm here to give you an update on the Charleston County traffic calming program. Uh the last update was in 2004, so obviously a lot of time has passed since then. Uh our program is about creating safer, more comfortable streets uh for the people who live on them. And our approach is grounded in what we call the three E, education, enforcement, and engineering. So we educate residents and drivers about safe behavior. We work with law enforcement on problem areas. We use engineering tools judgment like speed humps to physically slow vehicles down. And in terms of slowing folks down, speed humps remain our most widely used and cost-effective tool. They reduce speeding and they discourage cut through traffic. So, we've incorporated several updates into the program to strengthen community involvement and expand access to the program. We've removed the initial support petition. This required initial support of twothirds of residential owner signatures along the affected roadway prior to public works conducting an initial study. This would normally stop community momentum dead in its tracks. The neighborhood support threshold postqualification has been increased from 2/3 to 3/4 uh of adjacent road users. This is to ensure that the community does in fact clearly support the installation of speed humps because they can often be controversial. State law has been updated so that prohibits physical treatments on roads that have speed limits higher than 25

miles per hour. So that was changed from our 2004 program standards. The traffic volume threshold has been lowered from 750 vehicles per day to 350 vehicles per day. uh with the minimum volume at 750, we are seeing roads qualify maybe once every three years. Uh and that's not really what the program is set up for. We have also now started to implement digital distribution of petitions via QR codes. It makes it easier for residents who used to have to go doortodoor for wet signatures. So, we've made significant improvements to simplify and speed up the process. uh requests are now handled on a first come first- serve basis instead of the previous point-based system. This makes the system more predictable and transparent for residents. The waiting period for studies have been reduced for 3 years to one year, that's restudies, excuse me, allowing neighborhoods to be re-evaluated more quickly if conditions change. Streets that are considered reasonably close to the minimum requirements can be re-evaluated in as little as 6 months. program governance has been streamlined. We used to have the traffic calming committee and if you've never heard of them, uh don't worry, neither had most the people in public works. I certainly missed all of those meetings. Um our benefits, we have stronger neighborhood consensus, more neighborhoods will qualify, and we have a faster, simpler process. So, with that, I'll open it up to any questions.

Any question from council members? Dr. Moody um Herb, thank you for being here. Couple questions. What is What do we do? Like a lot of us have overlapping municipalities or Yeah, we're cities and green trash can, blue trash can, green trash can, blue trash can where it's trouble citing a speed hump because there's not one across the street from the other. Well, we partner with the city or municipality and splitting that cost if that's the case. I think of Aenddale in my district, Mr. Middleton's district where there's a lot of blue and green green trash cans across the street from each other or do we both so you do that or we do that? I mean what what happens there?

We have a very close relationship with the city. So we'll typically if it if there's a cost split, we will work with them very closely. Normally it depends on what the breakdown. If it's a 60/40 split, say there's 60% city and it's 40% county. Typically we'll ask the city to take on most of that cost. So, it's kind of broken down into who actually has most of that jurisdiction, but um you know, obviously we are willing to work with them and they are they're quite open to working with us.

Second question, what are emergency first responders think of these because typically, you know, you you can't have fire trucks flying over these things or ambulances. I mean, does it slow down response time? Are we incorporating their needs into this as well? Yeah, and that's something that's important. We get their feedback. Um, like I said, we've we've raised the minimum requirements for the citizens to get threequarters uh of people adjacent to where the speed humps are going to be installed for their approval. But we also reach out to all law enforcement that are required to use those roads to get their feedback whether that's fire um emergency services and police get their feedback. We require written approval from them before we install something. Thank you.

Anyone else? Mr. Chairman, Mr. worm. Yeah. And I appreciate uh this presentation. I do just want to clarify this is for unincorporated areas of the county though. Likewise. Yes. So we the DOT actually has stopped implementing traffic calming. Um so we do take on traffic calming services in a lot of DOT areas. Uh and as you can imagine that there are a lot of DOT roadways that are in areas that are unincorporated. So that can be cumbersome.

Okay. And maybe I'm maybe I'm just not as familiar with the program as I as I should be. I'm I thought that the certainly there are DOT roadways. I mean in North Charleston for sure. Um are there do how many DOT roadways would qualify under this if there's a 25 mile per hour threshold though? I don't and I guess there are some but y'all y'all see some overlap with those. There are quite a few. Okay. Um well with that being said maybe I missed understand that the the petition threshold um has been you know modified here. How does one of these get initiated? I mean how does the process start?

So we'll have a citizen call in and we we call them road captains. They'll call into our admin uh front desk and we have people that will guide them through our process. That process includes assigning the road captain to um walk them through step by step how the minimum requirements must be met which is an 85th percentile uh speed which is se 7 miles per hour over the posted speed limit. So we take uh data on weekdays typically and typically we want three consecutive weekday during the school year. So, um, we'll evaluate, uh, Monday through Friday. Sometimes we'll leave, uh, the collectors out for two weeks just to be thorough. Um, and obviously the volume thresholds as were mentioned in in the presentation. When they were at 750, no one was qualifying. So, we've reduced that to 350. So, uh, vehicles have to volume has to be over 350. Um the 85th percentile has to be about 32 miles per hour. Um and that's an average over that 3-day period. And typically we're not super strict. If there is one day where it's 32.3, we'll we'll say that qualifies. Um but as far as walking through that process, once they qualify, we'll give them the petition via QR code. Then they distribute that through with their neighbors. Um if they want uh pen and paper, we will also give them that. They have that option. They can distribute that with their neighbors. Uh and then they can mail mail that back to us. Snail mail if if they'd like.

We will get that. Once we have that and then we have, as Mr. Moody mentioned that input from law enforcement, emergency services, fire, um we will put it forward for allocation, our annual allocation, and whether that's we bundle that into our paving or our CTC and TST process. Uh but that's typically how a normal process would work. And before it was based on a a point-based system, which can get cumbersome and it just kind of it slows everything down. So now it's first come first serve and just speeds everything up.

And so I mean so it sounds like you know obviously qualification might be a hurdle but to get the study done is is really just a call. It's a call. Okay. That is good to know. Thank you sir.

So I'm going to wrap it up with with with questions. Um are we being reimbursed back from the state when it's a state road for these common measures? Because the reason I asked that they already the taxpayers pay a 6 cents extra a gallon on gasoline to have these things done. And it seems like to me more and more the state is pushing these stuff to local government and local municipality. It's no wonder why they got a surplus of money because we're doing the work for them and then they're saving the money to make themselves look good and either we got to raise our mills or we got to cut back on services. So are we being reimbursed for these roads that are state roads?

No sir. And why would we invest in these traffic caling measures when we don't get reimbursed? Mr. FP, you raise your hand. Mr. Prior, um most of the speed humps that we pay for now are coming from CTC funds which are state funds. Um it comes through the gas tax. um is but it's not a we um the CTC committee will fund these projects as they arise um during their annual allocation process and actually council will vote on us the staff administering those projects um but since we're using typically using state funds we typically don't ask for reimbursement

yeah but and and I get it to a point but I mean if we use those CTC funds for you know for stuff in county on county roads, then that would, you know, we wouldn't have to expend it much of our money. What I'm saying is if the state is going to turn this over to us, I think we should be getting some kind of reimbursement. Have we asked? Uh, we just haven't asked for any reimbursement.

I don't know that the DOT has actually turned this over to us, but since they have stopped doing the program, it's the really the right thing to do for the citizens of the county. I I understand, but I would like for somebody to reach out and ask them if they'd be willing to refund us for us because you have not because you asked not. And so they they could say yes or no. But I mean, they all our citizens. But what I'm saying is I just seems like they may be taking more money from local government now to do things for the state and then the state has a surplus of money. They going to cut sales tax or they going to cut this and but we got to raise our mills. So it's like um you know the shell game. you know, you don't pay over here, but you paying over here. And then, you know, pretty soon people going to get mad at us because we've got to start raising our mills to, you know, to continue to do these things.

We'll ask them. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Anybody else? Thank you, sir, for the presentation. All right. Okay. So, we move on to item number three. Move for staff recommendation. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose? Eyes have it. Mr. Chairman, that concludes our planning and public works committee. Thank you, Mr. Prior. We'll now move to the finance committee. Um, all members of council are members of the finance committee and I serve as chair. Uh, agenda item one, approval of minutes. April for approval. All those in favor say I. I. I. The eyes have it. Move for approval. Two. Second.

All those in favor say I. I. Eyes have it. All right. Uh item three, consent agenda. Move. Can I move for 3 A and B? Yes. All right. Any discussion? Mr. Moody. Question on 3B. I I support both of these, but um was any consideration? They put a hawk light on at the crossing there. Was there any consideration or is it too close to other stop lights to put there? Because hawk lights in my opinion are very dangerous.

Um the stop light. So it's it's just a signal for pedestrians and um it was a request through the CPC. Um a lot of people like there is a tunnel for the golf course but it's only one way for back right. Yeah. And they didn't design it so that you could go right. So this wasn't as a lot of public came to a CPC meeting and asked for it and got CPC to support it.

Okay. My my concern is I had a hawk light outside of office on Daniel Island. They finally put a stoplight there. But when people come up with these things, they push a push a button, four lane run, they push a button, lights go off, maybe one lane stops this way, the other lane, they go mo, they just they're safe, they feel safe, they go mossing out, and here come the other cars barreling through there. Um, I don't think it's I think it's in some cases more dangerous than what's there right now, which is nothing because people just get safe with these things. So I I'm going to support it, but I just I am concerned about that. I think those things are dangerous. It's the first signal, I believe, in Charleston County. I do have a feeling We're going to hear from people complaining about traffic. People are going to blow right through them and and the people that do stop is going to stop the traffic coming from both ways and there's going to be the griping about that too. So,

but I'm I I do support this, but I I'm worried about that. Mr. Sass, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um I I want to make sure this is the first hole. This is where you where the going across from 9 to 10. 9 to 10. Right. 9 to 10. Right. I'm sorry. You're right. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I opposed. Eyes have it. I'll move to item four 4A. Sea island habitat. Move for staff recommendation. All right. Uh have a second. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Prior. Uh any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Eyes have it. All right. Moving on to

move for approval on 5 A and B. Okay. Second. All right. Chairman, I'd like a discussion. All right. Go ahead, Mr. Kabraki. For 5A, um I just set financial incentives for project number eight and um who should I address the questions to? Mr. Johnson. Okay, Mr. Johnson. Good to see you. You too, sir. Um obviously the name of the company isn't number eight, is it? That's a That's correct. It's a code name.

Can we reveal who that is? Again, I understand the reasons for do it and and the incentives, but I'm not comfortable voting on something when we don't know the name of the company. So, and also I'm looking at it again. It would be 12 new manufacturing jobs. Is that correct? That's correct.

And and then, you know, I wish I had the grid just because it's a public meeting. Um what is the incentive in plain words? What do we obviously the incentive I understand that they're saying we're going to get all these benefits. What is the incentive that we're giving up this in plain terms so that anybody listening to this would understand it and I understand the justifications. I'm just trying to get out there what the incentive is.

Yeah. In this case, Mr. Robsy, there there there is no uh cost to this. We're offering them a 20-year fee in Lou uh with a fixed millage rate uh along with the 6% assessment ratio. So what does that mean 25 years in loot? I mean a fixed rate we're just guaranteeing their rate for 25 years as long as they make their investments. That is the correct answer. Yes sir. So what is being changed other than we're guaranteeing it for 25 years we're not reducing the rate is what you're saying? No sir. It's a fixed mill rate for the 20 years which is what they would have had anyway. Am I misstating that?

We don't know that Mr. Kowski because the millage rate can go up, it can't go down. I I I can't answer that at this time. So again, just making it clear, we're not giving any uh tax money up fixing because we can't anticipate the future of what will happen with the militaries. Correct. It it is to give them certainty to make sure that they know what their tax bill will be given every year. Well, then isn't there I know the attorney is not here, but isn't there a principle that one council can't bind what a future council does? Contracts are an exception. Okay. you the attorney now that's

okay I'm sorry is this an exception to that rule then this would be an exception uh you know felos under fairly st standard you know in state law and it's a practice the county has been doing so I I believe what uh Mr. Johnson is saying is that uh by signing this the county would be guaranteeing for 20 years that this company will pay whatever the state of millage is whereas in the future the millage rate may go up but they are certain that their their tax bill will be whatever it's set at per this millage rate.

Well, thank you. Now this saying that I understand contracts are different but I know it's um my issue is that a future council we're binding them as to what the millage rate for this is but no no no sir um the future council can set whatever millage they want to in the future and you know they are free to do that and all this is saying is that then this company will be able to pay the millage rate that is set today for this particular company not saying that you cannot that whatever mill rate you want to in the future for other companies. Correct. That's what I meant. But thank you. Thank you for everything else.

One more. And also, so the millage rate could go down. So that mean they still would be paying the same thing. So it's a it's a win-win because if the millage rate goes down, we already got the assess to say a certain amount. And if it goes up, they already said. So, you know, we don't know. You know, if it goes down, we still going to get the same amount that they're getting a break on. So it all balances out. Mr. Gabaska, I understand. Mr. Moody, quick question, Mr. Johnson. We're currently 30 We've collected $30,000 over the last five years on this site. Is that correct? I believe that's what I read. Uh, that is correct. Yes, sir. And we and with this agreement, we'll be collecting 541 over the next five years.

That is correct, sir. So that's a roughly $510,000 increase over five years. where so without that 510 thou that money where's that 510 the 510 assess the collections go to to all the taxing entities Mr. Mr. Mr. all the tax if we didn't do deals like this and the other ones that we do, where does the revenue come from? So we if if we if we passed on this and we left $510,000 said we don't we're not going to do this. That's $510,000 we're not going to get who pay who who assuming all taxing entities expenses stay the same who pays that $510,000 that I would assume that the military would have to go up for those taxing entities. Sir, thank you sir. I just have one additional question chairman. Yes, sir.

Wait a Mr. Wouldn't that same principle apply to every small business or large business in Charleston County? If you tax them less, or give them the benefit, and they invest more, create more jobs. You're just simply saying by taxing somebody less, we'll do more and we'll get more tax revenue. That same principle would apply to every small business in Charleston County. Correct. That that is correct, Mr. Thank you.

Mr. Johnson, I also ask you one thing. um had the opportunity to be over in y'all's space the other day. Um and y'all had some interesting um numbers and do you recall uh what percentage or portion of uh small businesses are as far as the people that receive some of these benefits these fi over 70% sir. Thank you. All right. Any uh anything else? All right. Um all in favor say I. I n. All right. 1 A. All right. Moving to item six. Move for 5B. I think we did we did A and B this. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Okay. So, 6A move for staff recommendation. Um I think Mr. Darby had called me about this the other day. And I think it's something good that's needed in this area. So, if we can help these uh people achieve that, I would uh request that we move for staff recommendation. Mr. P, I don't think there is a staff recommendation. Well, move for approval to enter into a contract, bring it back for legal to look at it and and discuss knowing that there is a 30-day termination of convenience to all our uh contracts. So, I think it needs to be explained to them if something happens and we need that belt, we got the right to come out and say 30 days, you got to be out. Second. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? I

I just have a quick question on this. Was there another group that had applied for this as well? There was this one is just Jan. Jan and I think the one you're talking about is uh Holy City, right? Uh they initially I think talked with real estate and express interest in uh one of the units. We have two vacant units over there. Okay. So this is one of the two units. Yes, ma'am. And the other one would still be available. Yes. But we have uh furniture stored in there. So, as a swing space, we're looking at that as well. So, yes, that's too big. Too big. Thank you.

All right. Anything further? All right. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Eyes have it and and we are ajourned. Continue again. I come along with you.