County Council - Regular Meeting

I want to see that it's coming.

of that executive session. I will tell you all that unfortunately Ms. Miller was not able to be here. District 4 representative was not able to be here with us tonight. Vice Chairman Dane Pruitt from District 5 will deliver invocation and afterwards we'll honor our nation with the Pledge of Allegiance. Stand if you can please. Please stand.

Let us pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you today with grateful hearts, recognizing the privilege and responsibility of serving our community. As we gather to conduct the business of this meeting, we ask for your wisdom to guide our decisions and your understanding to shape our actions. We know there's only been one perfect person to walk this earth and he was crucified to save us from our sins. He took the weight of the world for us so that we might be saved through your grace and his mercy. Teach us to lead with mercy, to extend forgiveness when we make mistakes, and to approach one another with empathy and compassion. Help us to listen carefully, speak thoughtfully, and seek common ground even when we disagree. May we remember that behind every issue, policy, and decision are people whose lives are affected by our choices. Grant us patience in moments of frustration, humility in moments of success, and grace in our interactions with one another. May we treat every person with dignity and respect, recognizing our shared humanity and our common desire to build a stronger, more caring community. Guide us to act with integrity, fairness, and kindness, always seeking the greater good. Let our work today reflect the spirit of service and commitment to justice, mercy, and compassion for all. We ask all these in your holy name. Amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States Thank you very much. Council, I trust if you had an opportunity to review minutes from our June 2nd meeting or so, a motion to approve those, please.

So moved.

Motion by Ms. Griffin.

Second.

Second by Mr. Allison. All in favor? Those minutes are approved. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to deviate a bit from the agenda tonight. I've had a conversation with the vice chairman. He is going to make a statement before we move into public comment. And what I'm going to do, and this is only in consideration of your time. After public comment is done, we will read the moratorium ordinance into the record after public comment. That way, if you don't want to stay and listen to everything else that's going to go on the remainder of the night, you won't have to. I'm doing that only for the consideration of your time. Okay. Mr. Pruitt.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to everyone in attendance tonight. Appreciate everyone's, um, comments, emails, thoughts. Um, a lot of thought went into, um, my decisions and conversations I have with other members of council. And I felt like at this point that the best thing that I felt like we should consider at this point would be a 12 month moratorium to do a deeper dive study on data centers. Um, in addition to that, I felt like, um, we need to look at our ordinances. Um, while I know we're still considering a text amendment, uh, my concerns about RDD or the amount of properties that are in Greenwood County, the possibility. if it's allowed to maybe create a single zone for data centers. That way we would know going in. Those are some of the thoughts that I had. I appreciate the members of council that shared conversations with me. Appreciate Mr. Allison's conversations and Ms. Miller for preparing the moratorium language. Appreciate you all being in attendance and appreciate the respect that you give all of us while we do make these decisions. That ends my remarks, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pruitt. Appreciate that. And I'm going to say this too, folks. There's been a lot of conversation that I'm opposed to this. If I had been opposed to this, I would have tried to block this from being on the agenda. I did not. Because I believe that based on the conversation and comments that we've had in the public forums and that were in our last county council meeting, that this does need the full due process, whether it's voted up or down. So I just want to say that on my own behalf. So what we're going to do now, we're going to move into a section of public comment. I have nine people signed up to speak. You'll have three minutes to speak as is normal. I would ask you please to hold to that because as you all know, at our next meeting, we will have a public hearing and there will be opportunity to speak again. So if you would please, I'm going to now move into public comment. Tracy Rickey, come forward please. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much for hearing all of us. Your opening prayer was amazing, talking about being there for the residents of this beautiful city that we live in and county.

Ever since that big, beautiful bill was signed,

I couldn't help but wonder why there were so many data centers popping up all over the place. So right now, currently in the United States, there's over 5,400 data centers. That to me was insane. I don't understand why there is so many data centers. So I did a little more digging and research. And part of what I found was this thing that is not really common. You don't hear about it. But I did find it, and I find it quite interesting. It's Bitcoin mining. And a lot of these data centers are going up by these millionaire, billionaire people, companies, and they're Bitcoin mining. making millions of dollars every day and not giving back to the community. They're taking all of our resources, our water, they're taking our electricity, and they're making millions of dollars and not putting it back to the communities, not helping us as a community. Everything that I've seen on these has been so negative, especially in Georgia. We've seen that eminent domains happening. That's a fear. These people, maybe people here that live in Hodges that are on wells, their wells are drying up in some of these places from these data centers. And dirty water. I mean, there's a lot of negative things that is happening with these data centers. And I just don't think enough research, it hasn't been long enough because they're going up so fast. We don't know what's going to happen a year, two years, five, ten years from now. So I appreciate immensely the moratorium, 100%. I am so grateful for that. I was hoping to hear two years, 24 months, because I know that had been discussed. But, you know, we'll take a year if we can get that. I just feel like the ordinances that were proposed were not strong enough. That is why I was rooting for the moratorium. I really want to say no to data centers. Greenwood is a beautiful place. I moved here five years ago, and I would really hate to not have people come here. These people on the backs of, you know, the industries that have been here, the railroads that came through here. There's so many wonderful things about this city. The data center is not one of them. I really feel that that's going to take people away from the city, and that would be a shame. So thank you very much for hearing me.

That was very good timing, Tracy. Ms. McIntyre, Tracy's address, I didn't ask her. 522 Pascal, please, for the record. Thank you. Mr. William Lester.

Thank you. It's William Leslie, and it's 108 Gunnery Court West.

Leslie, excuse me.

No problem. So I thank you all for your time tonight and for bringing this up, particularly Mr. Pruitt. At the last County Commission meeting, we were told that we needed regulations as currently there's nothing to stop a data center from coming in and thus the text was drafted. But a moratorium would stop that at least temporarily until research is done and until we put restrictions in place that to thoroughly protect the community so I ask a couple of questions what's the harm in a thorough review what is the harm in looking at or visiting other cities with data centers to understand the good and the bad impacts what is the harm in working with the state to align regulations our own state legislature representative is recommending a moratorium What is the harm in following your own planning commission's recommendation, which is a moratorium? The prayer tonight, and I agree with the lady that spoke before me, was a wonderful prayer, but it also spoke about the responsibility that you have as a commission to serve our community. I ask that you listen to the vast majority of your constituents who support a moratorium and not a rushed set of rules. And I ask that you take the time and the due diligence to listen to other cities who have had data centers and are learning currently from their mistakes. I personally am not opposed to data centers here. What I'm opposed to is the rush to put rules and regulations in place that, from what I understand at least, do not protect our community. So I ask that you consider what your constituents are asking you to do. Thank you.

Mr. Leslie, if you would state your address for Ms. McIntyre, please.

You got it.

And I will tell you, since you brought it up, we will be traveling out of state next week to visit a data center and have conversations with not just government leaders there, but residents there. So thank you for that comment.

So you're going next week.

Yes, sir.

And then you've got a third reading on the text and a vote on the text the following week.

to on the text amendment at our at our next meeting.

So that doesn't give you much time to learn anything and to put what you learn into effect. Well, that's my point. But what's the harm in a moratorium until thorough, much beyond one visit?

Well, what's the harm in that? We've made previous visits to other data centers, but our staff has been working for the last two weeks real diligently. on adding things to the text amendment, which council has before them to review now that we'll be reviewing over the next week.

Thank you, sir. I look forward to seeing that. Appreciate you.

Ms. Debbie Turner.

So my name is Debbie Turner. I live at 306 Gentry Run. If data centers were a typical industry, the financial benefits they promise might be appealing. However, there is nothing typical about the unprecedented environmental and health threats that they bring. Let's say, bear with me with an analogy, that our entire community is a family. And one day, the head of our household notices a massive creature, unlike anything he's ever seen before, approaching the open door of our home. And in one hand, this beast holds gifts, but the other hand is hidden behind its back. The beast is mouthing a lot of promises, but we already know about damage it's brought to other homes. As a member of the Greenwood family, let me say that it's unacceptable for our elected officials to see the approaching beast and the open door and respond by simply nailing some plywood to the inside of the frame to narrow the entrance. We want you, we expect you to close the door so the public can determine exactly what is in that other hand and consider options. This is the only reasonable way to satisfy your fiduciary duty to protect public health and zoning integrity. But meanwhile, let's consider the plywood strategy that's been proposed. The text amendment adds data senders as a conditional use to RDD when they currently fail to satisfy the stated purposes of that district. The proposed decibel studies are scientifically blind to the continual low frequency noise that is causing serious physical and mental health issues elsewhere. A 200-foot setback from residential property lines, schools, daycares, churches, parks is frankly ridiculous when experience is pushing these lines back much further, at least 5,000 feet. You haven't talked about data centers spiking land surface temps an average of 3.6 to 16 degrees that's detectable six miles away. Data centers are often initially powered by electricity or gas, but are expected to shift to onsite small modular nuclear reactors by 2030. That closed loop system reduces water consumption, but it dramatically escalates energy demands. The forever chemicals used in these and data center fire suppression systems, we haven't talked about them and their impact yet. If you doubt any of my concerns, I suggest you take a road trip to our sister county, Spartanburg, where they are daily discovering the true definition of regret. The window of time for Greenwood to have a data center is not closing, but the open door welcoming them in must. So I ask again, please just close the door.

Thank you, Debbie. Mr. Walter Kimball. Address for the record, please, Walter.

Walter Kimball, 217 Heathwood Drive, Greenwood County. Honorable Chairman Lane, esteemed members of the Greenwood Council, friends and neighbors, I'm here to speak briefly in support of Ordinance 2026-25, the temporary moratorium on data centers in Greenwood County for one year. In short, as I see it, It gives us time, in layman's terms, to let the dust settle. There is so much information coming through daily. This is not a unique situation to our county. No. A lot of other places are having some of the similar questions. Some other ones have regret. Other ones are doing, as Chairman Lane indicated, doing due diligence in, is this a good fit? All right? And so let's continue to do that due diligence to make sure that it not only works for the people that want it, the companies that want to put up the data center, but all the folks that are here and the ones that are at home that live in Greenwood County. And I also want to just go for a second back to the wonderful invocation. Part of that invocation this evening, find common ground. Folks out here and you look at what's on social media, not sure we found it yet. All right. And I think but I'm not saying that it's it's something that's way out by Pluto. But I think that through research, through making sure it's not a cookie cutter fit for Greenwood County, but for our county, that's what's important. And lastly, as other folks have just said, this door is not going to close. You're not going to lose if there's a concern of losing prospective builders to come in and do these things. I don't see it. A year from now, there's still going to be a demand. Part of this is when we turn on our personal devices. That's not going away. So let's take that year. Okay, and do some good due diligence. Let's look at what the legislation may be, what some of the other concerns from power authorities and our municipal water supply can yield here and make an informed decision at the end of this 12 months that will work in a common ground for everyone. And again, in closing, I would just like to say thank you to Mr. Allison, Ms. Kathy Miller, who's not here, and Mr. Pruitt for putting this forth and to just give us some breathing room here. And I think that's what we're looking for, to get some fact-finding and some breathing room and get it done right the first time. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Walton. Appreciate it. Tina Escalona.

Good afternoon. My name is Tina Escalona. I live on the Johns Creek Road in the Hodges community. First of all, I want to say thank you to each one of you for allowing us the opportunity to take advantage of these periods of getting together and being able to communicate our thoughts and our interests. I hope that you, by this point, appreciate advocacy. I know that this makes the process a little bit messy, but this is the beauty of living in America and having these processes available to us so that we can share the information and do the right things for our community. I sent to you this afternoon right as your executive session was starting an email, and what it was is a cumulative grouping of the concerns and the information that we've really been emphasizing and communicating to you guys for the last couple of months. As soon as we started talking about the data centers coming to you, people would talk about the health concerns, the decibels, the boundaries, and all of those types of things. So we took all of that information, kind of boiled it down, also compared it to some of the things that counties in the surrounding areas are looking at and sent that over to you. We also posted that on our group advocacy page. Um, our advocacy is 1200 plus strong and we also are working with a couple of other groups. So we are influencing four to 5,000 people in the community. While on that spectrum, everyone doesn't believe the same thing. We do have some people that believe no data centers ever forevermore. Um, others that believe, okay, they can be done with certain criteria. So there's a spectrum of belief within, um, our group, just like there would be within community. But I think that what you're hearing over and over again and what we've said from the very first meeting was that we need information, we need good information, and we think that this is too complex, that we don't think that we as a body have all of the information to make the decisions today. And that's based on the fact that we still have our state legislators that are fighting this out between them, language in their bills, what are they looking at. And it's not just going, I applaud you for taking the initiative to go to some of these centers and talk to people, but it's more than that. There needs to be an unbiased analytical review. You need to look at the data centers in Georgia, the data centers in the different states, take a look at the evolution of the problems, how they solve some problems, also the evolution of the standards, what certain data centers promise and then what they deliver at the end. Because what we've seen is that, okay, we're going to commit to a closed-loop system or we're going to commit to this type of electrical configuration, and then they change. Once you invest so much in the infrastructure or so much in the plan and you go so far down that path, The game changes and I think that from the outset we feel and citizens across the United States feel that by design the data center developers are having you sign the NDAs. A lot of this is done away from the public eye. A lot of data that communities are having is independent data and it's not unbiased data. And then we also see that within the framework of making these decisions, the EPA now has pushed back just last week and said, we aren't going to set standards, we aren't going to help you if you screw up your state and your community, you are on your own. That makes it even more imperative for you guys to use this moratorium to look at the data and not just the data that you're giving from the data center developers, but analytical data from industry experts and analyze that for what's best for us. We get to allocate our resources one time, one time only. We've got to do it right and protectively for our interests. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Dana. Mr. Adam Jackson.

Adam Jackson, 605 Johns Creek Road. I just wanted to take this moment to thank you all for hearing our concerns and taking the time to vote on a moratorium. Hopefully that will go the way we want, but I guess we'll find out shortly. One thing I really want to emphasize is things always look great in the beginning. If you think about the 1950s, thalidomide was a wonder drug that cured morning sickness. until all of a sudden babies were born with deformed arms and legs. So it's really important that you kind of know what you're getting into because once we do it, we're stuck with it. Those babies can't go back and grow new arms and legs. We can't go back and fix any deficiencies in the legislation or in the zoning laws that you all write. So I think having the moratorium and having the time to do this right so that if a data center comes, then at least the citizens are protected and y'all have done your due diligence. And so I really appreciate you all considering taking the time to make sure that you can do that due diligence so hopefully Greenwood doesn't become a deformed baby. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Adam. Ms. Kelly Aberhart.

312 compass point a little nervous so bear with me my husband I wanted to thank you all for taking the moratorium vote under consideration particularly mr. Pruitt miss Miller and mr. Allison We feel like you can't make decisions in isolation. There's a lot to be learned from other communities. Senator Martin in the past week gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor explaining that Spartanburg has already experiences the challenges of a developer making a soft sell to get his foot in the door, or her, that I don't know, and then changing the game. They now want 459,000 to 581,000 gallons per day, 2,000 times the daily residential uses. They had requested 50 megawatts of power originally, and the goalpost has now moved to 400. They had, and now that their foot is in the door, they're asking for an expansion of that project that will require even more power and water. If I understand correctly, and I could be wrong, those developers had come in talking about generating their own power and they are now asking to expand gas turbines, which makes a lot of those sound studies, excuse me, pointless. Given what's already happened in Spartanburg, perhaps they are learning lessons. They are now even in the process of putting forth a vote for a 12-month moratorium. They want to give the state time to develop regulations. There's so much information that can be collected from communities and states. Developers are coming in, changing the game partway through in so many places. Please take the time during the moratorium to investigate any communities where a data center has benefited them and how they make it work. Most importantly, we should be visiting and calling a lot of communities where data centers and energy suppliers have reneged on promises. We can't put an amendment forth to protect ourselves if we don't fully understand what we are protecting ourselves from. The moratorium gives time to understand health concerns as well as utility concerns. Time for technology and the production of that technology to catch up to the data center boom. Time to put together an amendment that doesn't look like a gift to a data center. Time to prepare an amendment that has teeth to ensure our health, safety, and wallets are protected. Time to ensure a way to keep developers and utilities from moving the goalposts. Time for the county to ensure that the jobs promised are kept. We respectfully request that the three council members who put forth the moratorium vote be included in researching and visiting the struggling communities, as well as any who have benefited from the data centers. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Everhart. Mr. Dave Schofield.

Hello, and thank you for the moratorium. I think that's greatly needed. My wife and I moved down to 96 from Loudoun County, Virginia, specifically Ashburn. Loudoun County, Virginia is known as the data center capital of the world. And Ashburn is part of data center alley, where 70% of the world's internet traffic goes through. So to say that we're well versed in data centers and what needs to be done, is an understatement. Loudoun County did, although they've had data centers being built for years, just in the last two, did they enact some regulations that eliminated the by right development of data centers and made them conditional use and set up a special zoning exemption process that makes the county take into account what the noise levels are going to be, you know, what the setback is. Is there coverage for the building? What electrical use is going to be needed? Because there's been instances in Loudoun County to where a data center was built when it was by right, and they said they were going to connect to the grid. But unfortunately, once they got in, Dominion Power told them, you can't connect to the grid for up to two years because we're restricted on usage. So they fired up their natural gas wind turbines to power their facility. And all the neighbors in the area, communities near them, or neighborhoods, were experiencing a high whirring noise. Nobody was sitting on their decks. Nobody on their patios. Kids were getting sick. A lot of instances with that. But part of this special exemption process for zoning is to take into account all those things and try to be in front of this. And Loudoun County has been doing this for a number of years and they just recently enacted that. I think you all have made a great choice to take a moratorium now and go ahead and take the time to do this right. Now they've taken over two years to do theirs. So a year is a little quick. But the one thing is I think that you could benefit greatly from either reviewing some of the Loudoun County information that's on the internet or specifically a phone call or a meeting with somebody from the Loudoun County government. I think there's a lot of lessons learned there that would benefit us and you all because there's no sense reinventing the wheel if it's already been done and they've done it on a grand scale. So I think there's a lot of benefit there from doing that, and I appreciate your time.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Russ Fitzgerald.

Russ Fitzgerald, 623 Fairway Lakes Road. I'm Russ Fitzgerald, and I'm here to speak in favor of the proposed moratorium. My wife would be joining me to speak also, but she wasn't running a 102-degree fever. For the record, we support a 24-month moratorium on data centers in Greenwood County that was unanimously approved by the county's planning commission. It's supported by State Representative John McCravey, the Index Journal's editorial board, and the Southern Environmental Law Center. Our neighbors in Newberry County have joined Nashville, Tennessee, inside the Beltway Atlanta, and Charlotte, North Carolina, along with Decatur and Thomas counties in Georgia, in passing moratoriums that allow time to create meaningful safeguards for the public. Now, these communities are not afraid of killing all economic development, so why should we be? Closer to home, last night, Spartanburg County Council voted six to nothing for their attorney and county manager to draft a one-year moratorium on additional data centers. They're kind of trying to put the pin back in the grenade because they've got one data center being built, another one's planned, and that one even without a tax incentive of any sort. This must not be our experience in Greenwood County. Ordinance 2026-25, creating a moratorium on data centers, must be completed and it really must be passed before County Ordinance 2026-19 to prevent a July 8th construction launch before real production protections can be put in place. Thank you.

Thank you, Russ. Thank you. ladies and gentlemen that concludes public comment so what what I'm going to do now I'm going to move to what would have been new business item which let me see yes entitled only first reading entitled only what's the number I'm sorry yeah item a So what I'm going to do, I'm going to read that ordinance into the record. At that point in time, for those of you who were just here for this, I'm going to give a few minutes for the room to clear if that's what you care to do, okay? Give me just one minute to get to it. No, it's not item A, it's item C. yeah one moment please too many pages folks excuse me here we go all right It would have been under new business, item A. So I'm going to read the ordinance in. Ordinance 202625, imposing a temporary moratorium on the approval of Dallas centers and related infrastructure within Greenwood County for a period of one year, providing findings and providing for an effective date. As again, this is first reading and title only. This was proposed by Councilman Allison. Councilwoman Miller, and Vice Chairman Pruitt. Again, first reading in title only, so there was no vote to be taken. So, that concludes the business on that matter. If any of you don't care to stay for the rest of this terribly exciting meeting, please have a nice evening. Thank you for being here. It's the only good thing that's been said about me this week, so thanks.

They don't trust us with that one.

Do what?

What did you say? Sir, Thea, thank you.

Sorry for being so blunt with the last couple of minutes.

Don't worry. My shoulders are wide.

So am I.

By the way, you can also look those things in the face.

Ma'am?

I don't even watch.

Really?

Put Musk on that. SpaceX. Put him on Mars. Scott Shirley, good to see you again.

Good to see you again, Scott. Who's your new plan for the week?

Ron?

What Saturday? Saturday.

All right, I'll check the schedule. All right. Yeah. What?

Scott. All I had to do, when I was talking earlier, I failed to write the item number. All I had to do was do that, and we could have moved right on. We wouldn't have had to even pull up the page.

We're checking on you.

Make sure you make it back.

I'm hanging on there.

We'll reconvene as soon as Mr. Pruitt's back in the room. Good evening, Mayor.

Ma'am? I said he was just leaving. Come on, Pruitt.

The public did real well. We're not doing nearly as well. Can we move on? There he is.

All right, Mr. Pruitt's back in the room now. So we'll move now to presentations. We have a presentation regarding the reassessment of real property values. Our Deputy County Manager for Finance, Ms. Stephanie Doran, will present that, please.

My apologies.

That's all right. You're doing it.

nice we had the full room to to learn about reassessment but we'll still talk to everybody that's left i've got with me here lynn hammett our county assessor we wanted to provide this information to county council and we'll be working or lynn's working with abby get information out through our social media we've also been in contact with the index because we're getting ready to send out these letters and it always causes a lot of Questions and sometimes a little confusion so we want to make sure that councils educated on it and then hopefully we do a good job of Educating the public as well So first just background that reassessment of all of our properties is required by South Carolina Code section 1243 217 a and we're required to do this every five years and And part of that is that notices are mailed to our property owners. And so that's the process that we're getting ready to complete. And that reassessment is done on all real property. So all of our land, buildings, homes, all of those things are reassessed. This does not include personal property like vehicles or boats. Those are done every year. That is an annual process. So this is the process we go through. And I'm gonna let Lynn talk about that because she's the expert.

We start off in year one basically collecting property data and sales information. That continues to the end. We're constantly updating because we are responsible for using sales during that four to five year period. the process begins in year one collecting data countywide and we collect property data we collect sales information and we continually update through the end of the process We analyze the trends in the market. We build valuation models. We had a CAMA that we used built in house for us this year. We also use Excel programs with statistical analysis. And that goes on year one through four all the way to the end. In year four, we are completing our appraisals. We're getting a review of how it looks in the market. And then in... early from what we're doing quality review the whole time, but we get pretty diligent with quality review during the final year up until we get these reassessment notices out. We want to make sure that all errors are accounted for and corrected. We want to make sure that any anomalies or variances that are outside the bell curve are addressed and recognized and would say I don't want to use the word corrected because we don't necessarily correct them sometimes those anomalies are the facts and we just leave them but we have to analyze them all early to mid year five which is where we are now we begin we get a ratio study completed we get it approved by the South Carolina DOR and we prepare to mail out the reassessment notices. Right now, the reassessment notices are planned to be mailed on the 25th of this month. From the time people get their reassessment notices to 90 days, we will be hearing appeals. We will finalize values based on any input that property owners give to us. Property owners may appeal. They may think that we have overvalued because the square footage is wrong. So we'll go out and we will remeasure and verify our square footage. They may... need to apply for a legal residence so the ratio is wrong we'll get them we'll get that done for them we will give them the paperwork we will get them approved so that when their tax bill finally comes out that it has the correct ratio what other things can they appeal so with values square footage. We may think that they have three bedrooms, they have four. We may think they have five and they have three because we're using third party data to get this information. And so we'll correct all of those things and revalue for them so that when they get their tax bill, it reflects the true value based on the units of comparison that the property owner has given us. And then once the appeal period is over, which is 90 days, when it goes out on the 25th, the 90 days is September 23rd, we will implement the new values, flip the file is what we say in-house, we'll flip the file and then the tax bills will go out in October. And that is the process.

Thank you, Lynn.

You hang on, because by the time we finish, they might have a question for you. Oh, that's true. I do want to make sure we, I told Lynn to invite some of her team here tonight, and I think they were probably intimidated by what they knew might be coming, but I just do want to thank Lynn and her staff, because if you think about it, this is a four-year project. And I know all the time I get frustrated when I work on a one-week project just trying to get to that finish line. And so it takes a lot of patience to work on a four-year project until you get it done. So we certainly appreciate the efforts that they do in this process. So we want to show you what a notice looks like. This is just the top section of a notice. Unfortunately, they don't come out highlighted like this, but we hope that most people notice that what this is is not a tax bill. And so if you are familiar with your tax bill, it looks a whole lot different from this. But people that haven't gotten one or two might not recognize or they think we've changed the format of the bill, but this is not the bill. This top section is just the mailing information and letting everybody know what exactly it is. The middle section is what is the important part, I think, of the bill. These two sections here are the information about the property. And so if you own multiple properties, you'll get more than one notice. And so you want to make sure you pay attention to which address that the notice is for. The next section is where you're going to actually find out what's happening with your particular property. So our owner-occupied residential, which is what a lot of us would be looking at, this is for if you have your primary home, then that section will be at the top and show you the 4% ratio. As Lynn mentioned, if you are living in your primary home and your information is on the next line and has a 6% ratio, that's when you need to apply for legal residence. So that's a separate issue from reassessment, but it's important to notice that so that we can get your tax bill correct and not bill you too much. And then there's two lines also for agricultural property. So some pieces of property might have all four of these classifications on them, and you might have data on all four lines. But at the bottom of that box is what the total assessed value is. And that assessed value is what we're going to take and multiply by our property tax millage rate. Now, the millage rates are part of the budget that you'll approve here in just a few minutes on final reading, but those millage rates are going to most likely change, and we'll talk about that in just a minute. Finally, this section over here is an important section as well. The top box is the total cap value estimate, and so what that is, that would be your prior year's taxable value, correct me if I say it wrong, Prior year taxable value times 15%, which is the maximum amount that your property value can go up from year to year.

On primary residence?

On anything.

Anything. Okay. Thanks.

And that is in the year of reassessment. It is subject to the 15% cap. The middle box is the fair market value. So this is the value that Lynn and the other staff members that are certified appraisers have determined is the value of your property just in the open market. And then the final box is the tax value estimate, which is what is going to be used to bill your property taxes, and it's going to be the lower of the top two boxes. So in this particular example that I gave, the cap means that that is 15% of what it was in prior years. It might be worth 225,000, but we are limited to using the 179.4. And so that's, and that is where you see in the previous box section where we take that times your rate, whatever your ratio is to determine the assessment. And again, the assessment is what we multiply times the millage to determine what your property tax bill will be. Millages are different based on where you live, what communities you're in, if you're in cities or not, and special tax districts and so forth. Any questions about all of that?

Can I go, Chairman? Absolutely. Lynn, quick question. You know, when the bills go out, or I'm sorry, the paperwork that this is not a bill goes out this is not a bill goes out um and the appeals start can that be started the appeals process online or will they have to come in and present they could email us we have to have it in writing oh i'm sorry

they have to have it in writing so they can email us or they can mail it in we have forms online that they can use the form but they don't have to use a form they can just email us and say I disagree with my reassessment and I would like for you to review it and we'll review it we try to make it as easy as possible but we can't take a phone call because it could be anybody exactly I understand that and then

Also to piggyback off what Ms. Doran was talking about too, this is also a good time to, address things like homestead exemption and 4%, 6% primary residence.

Anything that a taxpayer thinks that they should have, it's the time to call and let us know. We can fix it after the bill comes, you know, some things. I can't revalue it because there's a 90-day cutoff, but if you don't have legal residence when your tax bill comes, we can do that. We can take care of homestead exemptions at that time. we can't take care of agricultural use at that time. I need to know now. I need to know in 90 days that your ag is not here. So some things have hard time frames, but legal residence, homestead exemptions do not.

And last thing, is it, Is it kind of listed, these things listed out like that on our website somewhere where they might go?

We have a form. We have a form that they can go and look at. It gives all of the details on the form. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, sir.

Again, down here at the bottom, as Lynn has talked about, is the information that you have 90 days. These dates are what we believe they are today, that the notices will be dated June the 25th, and you will have until September 23rd. appeal any values and so if you receive your notice and everything on it looks fine to you then you don't need to worry about it just wait until October and then we'll be mailing the bills I would also point out that if you happen to receive your notice but your address is incorrect That's another thing you need to contact the assessor's office about because we don't know to change your address if we haven't been notified. And so if you don't get your tax bill, then that's going to be a problem because you'll wind up paying your taxes late potentially. So make sure you go ahead and let the assessor's office know. I think one of the keys that I have encountered with a lot of people is most people don't understand who they need in the county. for their particular situations. And so you definitely need to talk to the assessor's office when it comes to your value and the address of your property tax bill. May I? You sure can.

So one of the things that I keep in mind and I tell taxpayers is the assessor's office is the keeper of the records. If you believe the records are wrong, we're the ones to talk to and we will work with you to fix that.

She's the keeper of the money.

She's the keeper of the money, right. All right. And finally, once we complete this process, we'll go through the rollback of millage. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that tonight because I'll go through it again when we bring it in front of you. But basically, when we roll back the millage, we're going to take last year's taxes that were levied and divide them by the adjusted reassessed value to determine the new millage rate. And because we know that property values went up a lot during this reassessment period, we feel fairly certain that our millage will get rolled back. And the intent of that is to ensure that the county doesn't recognize a windfall of revenue from increased property values. So we'll talk again more about that in September. as we close out the appeal process and have all of our reports put together for that. Any last questions?

Mr. Chairman, I have a question. Can you go back to the other form? Just want to see if I understand. So that piece of property has been reassessed and it was originally valued at what? What was it originally valued?

It doesn't tell me that.

So it ain't on this form.

It was originally valued at, it would be on your last tax bill, but it was originally valued at 15% below 179.4.

Okay, my question is, how do I know I want to appeal that within 90 days if this form don't tell me that there's been a change? I don't know if the public's going to see that. and know that this is necessarily a reassessment. I think what's going to happen is if there are increases in October when you get them bills out and they're going to all start lining up then saying, Why does my taxes go up? And you're going to say, well, we sent you a notice in June, and they're going to say, well, they didn't say my taxes was going up.

What we say is that we deal with values. We don't deal with taxes at all. We don't most of the time even know what the millage is without going to look. We deal with values. So what we're asking the taxpayer is, is this value correct?

My question is, is there any way, and I know these forms are probably state, or I don't know how they're put, is there any way to note on there that your value went from this to that? Most of the public would recognize that if your property values went up, your taxes are going to go up. But I don't really see anywhere on this, not necessarily.

Not necessarily. That's the point she was talking about, the rollback mill, to determine how much your tax bill is. There's two components. There's the value, and then there's the millage. So when the value goes up, that's what she's saying, the millage has to come down. That's the windfall protection.

Right. But my question is, again, how do I know whether or not in 90 days I want to appeal it or not is my question. What do I see on here that says, wow, I need to appeal this?

You would need to focus on that middle box, which is the total fair market value. If you do not believe that your property is worth $225,000... Then you should appeal. Then you would need to appeal.

But I'd have to go back last year and see what it was.

I mean, that's one consideration, but ultimately, is my house worth $225,000? If it's not... then I need to see Lynn. It doesn't matter that my bill isn't going to be based on the 225 because that 225 is going to be a part of the record forever. And if it's wrong, it needs to be fixed, even if it's not what I'm being taxed on. Now, as far as whether it can be included, the prior, I think I'm not, I mean, I know we have to have certain information on these notices per state law. I don't think anything prohibits us from putting that on there, but it's going to be a programming question. as to whether we can actually put it in there, because I don't think it's in the same file. I don't know that you know that. That's a Sandra question, as we say.

One other question is it says you've got 90 days to appeal it, but you can still appeal it in October. Can't you appeal your tax bill in October?

No. Not based on the value, no, sir.

Not on value?

Not after the reassessment. It's 90 days, and that's in the state law.

Ms. Bishop.

I was thinking, just listening to what Mr. Allison was saying, do we send, like, with the notices, do we send, like, a explanation of what okay so that's probably going to help to that explanation so people do understand you know this is what's going on this this is a risk the reassessment year and to really pay attention to you know and if you have questions I'm sure you have the phone number there as well right each notice has the appraisers phone number for that area because they're the experts in their area

up there at the top. You see the difference is the top phone number is just the general number, and then the bottom number is the appraiser who actually appraised theirs. Any other questions?

Council, any questions, comments before we end?

We will check on the notice.

Thank you. Thank you all. Lynn, thank you for being with us. Thank you. Always good to see you. Thanks. Stephanie, thank you. We'll move now into old business. Item A, Ordinance 202621, providing for the adoption of fiscal year beginning July 1 of 26 of operating in capital budgets for the operation of the government of Greenwood County, the identification of the sources of anticipated revenue included taxes necessary to meet the financial requirements of the budgets adopted, the levy and collection of taxes necessary to meet all county purposes, including bonded indebtedness to the Greenwood Metropolitan District, payable during the aforesaid year. The expenditure of the aforesaid taxes and other revenues coming to Greenwood County during the aforesaid fiscal year, the establishment of rates and fees and other matters relating to Greenwood County. Again, Ms. Doran, this is third and final reading.

Yes, sir. Thank you. You should have a copy of the final budget that Susan provided to you on your desk. This is all of the different budgets by line item. It isn't abbreviated. I just put the current year's recommendation rather than some of the other columns. Makes it a little bit easier to read. I'll just kind of go through this quickly. We've said this, but I never think it hurts to hear it over and over again, especially for the public. We do not have any millage increase in this budget. We do have a $5 road user fee that is on vehicle bills that will be billed. And as we've talked about before, those funds will be set aside and dedicated to add to our CTC funding to help with resurfacing of our roads. We have a field maintenance fee at our Parks and Rec facility of $25 per field. This is during tournaments so that we can return the field to the proper shape in between those tournaments. The dock encroachment fee, that is for Lawrence and Newberry County residents. That is an increase of $50 per year. We send those bills out the first part of July, so those bills will be going out in a couple of weeks. The airplane hanger rent had a 10% increase for those who use our hangers to store their airplanes. And also at the airport, a $15 fee to replace any lost gate cards or for additional gate cards that are needed. And then our fire fee has a 13% increase that will show up on the property bills in October. And just as a review, the majority of our taxpayers, just over 12,000, will see an increase of $11.34 per bill. We have some that are a little bit, we have a good number that are less than that and some that are more than that. And your larger categories are your commercial businesses that are seeing over $100 increases. Our major initiatives. Again, we have a 3% COLA or cost of living adjustment for our full and part-time regular employees that will go into effect with the first full paycheck in July. We have up to a 3% merit increase for our regular full-time employees that will go into effect in January. Those are based on performance evaluations that are completed in the fall. We are adding four sheriff's deputies to the uniform patrol division. We will be completing the triennial compensation study, and that will be considered for implementation in the following fiscal year. Completion of some of our county policies, the implementation of our strategic plan and a reporting platform. At the lake, a FERC required comprehensive assessment that is every five years. Major repairs to our retaining wall at the dam And then as we just talked about, implementation of the reassessment. Some changes to the budget since our first and second reading. In the general fund, we were made aware of an audit that had been conducted by DOR related to heavy duty rental taxes. And we will be receiving an additional $9,000 in the general fund for the next, I think it was seven, or 12 years, I can't remember now. But we have some notes in our budget so that we properly account for that and then stop when those funds will no longer be available. We also realized we finished our RFQ process for the firm to do our compensation study and we will save $4,500 less than we thought that we had budgeted. Our printing of our reassessment notices is being done in this year, so I was able to remove that expense. And then we finally got our information on our liability auto and building insurance, and it was $37,000 less than what we had budgeted. So then we needed it in a few other areas. Our email secure, a new email security system that our IT director had recommended to be put in place. Some FMLA software that the HR department has been using but had not gotten into the budget. And the additional $30,000 added to our merit increases to ensure we have the funds for that. A few items that had no impact on the budget, we moved our grant matches out of the economic development department and into the proper transfer so we don't have to do budget amendments for that. reallocated $36,000 in the emergency communications department. We received a request from the sheriff and the director of the emergency communications to eliminate a position and add software that uses AI to do training and provide information on the recorded calls. And also we received information on our workers' compensation insurance and we had to adjust a few lines between departments. So overall, what you will see in the general fund is that it increased by $9,154, which were the new dollars from the audit, and everything else was just kind of rearranging numbers. In the hospitality tax fund, we had failed to include the CDL stipend for Amber, so we had to increase for that. In special appropriations, we found out that the indigent fund was $37.85 less than what we thought it would be. We reallocated that to our MAT transit program. And then our SRO grants, we received our grant award and it was almost $14,000 than we originally budgeted, which was primarily for salaries, which will help with the cost of living increase and merit increases that we have planned. And then in the landfill, You heard from Mr. Russian at the last meeting about the waste tire program, and we believe that it will be a $10,000 shortfall, but the landfill fund is still in balance. We are not using any fund balance to cover that. One other item I would note to you all is that our comprehensive plan update was budgeted in fiscal 26, but we were not able to get that started. We're in the process of selecting a vendor at this time, so we do not have a cost. So at some point I will be coming back to you in the FY27 budget asking you to allocate that out of fund balance because we have not spent it in the current fiscal year. Just wanted to point that out. And finally, just a summary to show you total funds that you're allocating in this budget are $58.3 million made up of various funds, primarily in the general fund. Happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Not questions, but a comment. I say this every time you stand before us. The work that you do to bring a ballot, you and your team do, to bring a balanced budget to us year after year, year after year, to me is almost magical. There may be a better treasurer in South Carolina, but if it is, I don't know where they are. So congratulations again. Council, any questions or comments for Ms. Dorn?

Mr. Chairman, I offer you a motion to approve. Second.

I have a motion by Ms. Bishop, a second by Mr. Temple. All in favor is presented. And that's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephanie. Yes, sir. Thank you. Appreciate all you do.

Item B, Ordinance 202622, providing for the levy and appropriation of taxes for educational purposes in Greenwood County for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 26, and other matters relating thereto. Again, Ms. Doran, third and final reading.

This is for our school districts, and they had no request for any changes to their millage rates, and so I would recommend that you approve it.

Mr. Chairman, I'll offer your motion to approve.

Second. I have a motion by Mr. Templin, second by Vice Chairman. All in favor is presented. And that is unanimous in so order. Thank you. We'll move now into a period of public hearings. What I will do here, I will open. There will be two public hearings. I'll open the public hearings. And then after closing the public hearings, we will vote those individually. Do I have a motion now, council, to move into public hearing? I move, Mr. Chairman. I have a motion by Mr. Templeton, second by Ms. Griffin. And we will move to item C, ordinance Pardon me? I'm sorry. Please vote to move into a public hearing. Thank you very much. Item C, Ordinance 202623, to amend the county zoning map as and if amended so that three parcels of land totaling approximately 33.33 acres in Greenwood County at 803 Deadfall Road West, 797 Deadfall Road West. A lot of numbers here. Changes from R5 multi-family residential to Ag One agricultural. Mr. Ryan Bland, our planning director. This is second reading public hearing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As you stand, we are located, we have three parcels totaling 33 plus minus acres, 33.34. We are about a quarter of a mile east of Montague Avenue on the south side of Deadfall Road. The properties you mentioned is currently zoned R5. All three properties are zoned R5 and are an extension of a larger R5 zone district in that area, generally surrounded by R1 single family residential on the other three sides. Our comprehensive plan land, future land use map has the area designated as low density residential. You could see here the general water and sewer near the the property uh the the statement from the applicant regarding uh the the reason for the zone change request uh is to be able to use the property more um that would more align with agricultural uses that are available in the r the a sorry one district You have a photo here of the subject property that has the primary entrance. You can see the nature of the surrounding area on both directions down Deadfall Road. It's just generally low density, single family residential through there. The property does have a secondary gate on the eastern side of the property, kind of that smaller third property on the northeast corner with a a cattle gate in that area and a final picture here is this is the nature of the property across the street with that said Planning Commission recommended approval and staff recommends approval for consistency with comprehensive plan guidelines Thank You mr. bland having heard that is there anyone in the audience here that wants to come forward and speak in support of this ordinance I

Seeing none, I'll ask if there's anyone here that wants to speak in opposition to this ordinance. If none, then we'll move to item D. Ordinance 202624 to amend the Greenwood County zoning map as and if amended so that two parcels of land totaling approximately 104.6 acres in Greenwood County at 1641 Emerald Road and a portion of 6876-533938 changes from Rural Development District to I-1 Light Industrial. Again, Mr. Bland.

Mr. Chairman, your second case here is located approximately 8 tenths of a mile east of Old Brickyard Road and the CSX Railroad crossing of Emerald Road. The subject property here, as you see, the issue before us is the two subject properties. The smaller one is sown to RDD, a Rural Development District, and the larger parcel is split in zoning from I-1 and RDD. The action before you would essentially clarify the zoning on those areas to be consistent throughout. The future land use map has identified these properties as industrial. You can see here it is served by water, sewer, and multiple modes of transportation. You have the railroad on the north and Emerald Road on the south, making it suitable for the industrial development. This is the existing property on the smaller piece, we'll call it the smaller piece, in the southwest corner of the approximately 104 acres. The larger parcel is generally wooded, so this is on the north side of Emerald Drive for that larger parcel. Properties up and down Emerald Road are of a similar context, mostly undeveloped through this section. And as across the street, again, property very similar position to the one, the subject property in this case, the wooded property. Staff reviewing the amendment criteria in the ordinance for rezonings recommends approval. Planning Commission also unanimously recommended approval. That concludes staff's comments.

Thank you, Mr. Bland. Hearing that explanation from Mr. Bland, Ordinance 2026-24, I will ask if there's anyone here in the audience who would like to come forward and speak in favor of this ordinance. Seeing none, I would ask if anyone would speak in opposition to this ordinance. Seeing none, I'll ask for a motion now that we close the public hearing. I move.

Second.

I have a motion by Mr. Templeton, a second by Ms. Griffin. All in favor? The public hearing is closed. We will now vote these in the order that they were received. Counsel, what is your pleasure for item C? I offer your motion to approve, Mr. Chairman. I have a motion by Mr. Templeton. I second. A second by Ms. Bishop. Any comment or discussion before we vote? All in favor is presented, and that's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you. Council, what is your pleasure for item D, Ordinance 2026-24 regarding 1641 Emerald Road zoning change as presented?

I make a motion to approve.

Motion by Ms. Bishop.

Second.

Second by Ms. Griffin. Any comment or question before we vote? All in favor as presented, and that is unanimous and so ordered. Thank you very much. We'll move back now to new business, and if you recall, we amended this, so Item A has been covered. We'll move to Item B, which is consideration of the approval to proceed with contract negotiations with Cayenne Bro for the repair of Gate 2 at the Buzzard's Roost hydroelectric facility. Our county engineer, Mr. Rhett Templeton. Rhett.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you read, we're trying to enter into negotiations with Chinbro. We had some damage to Gate 2 during Helene. We've been working through insurance to get this handled. We did bid this through our procurement policy, and Chinbro is the lowest bid. We've also let the insurance company review that as well. They agree with moving forward, but we're asking all's permission to move forward the negotiations of that contract.

Thank you, Rhett. Counsel, any comments or questions before we Approve Mr. Templin's recommendation, I assume. Council, what is your pleasure?

So moved.

I second. I have a motion by Mr. Allison and a second by Ms. Bishop. Comments or questions before we vote? All in favor is presented. And that is announced and so awarded. Thank you, Rhett. Item C, consideration of the approval to award the contract for the 2024-25 local paving project to Satterfield Construction. Rhett?

sir thank you again um as we do every year we bid out our local paving from our ctc funds um this year satterfield construction was the loan bidder and when we feel like that was a appropriate bid and would like to move forward with awarding that bid to them thank you very much council what's your pleasure i do have one question yes ma'am please um is this date correct

Is the date correct, 24-25?

It is. We typically get awarded, like the funds we just were awarded last week, we've been about a year behind in the way the cycle goes and getting them done. We're trying to move that up sooner. But, yes, the 24-25 is the funding from CTC.

Okay.

Okay.

I make a motion to approve.

I have a motion by Ms. Bishop. Second. Second by Mr. Templeton. All in favor is presented, and that's unanimous in so order. Thank you. We'll move to Item D, consideration of the approval of grant application and contractor for improvements for an access road project at the Greenwood County Airport. Mr. Templeton.

Yes, sir. Thank you again. At the Greenwood County Airport, one of the projects we had on our capital improvement plan was to do an access road. We did whittle that down to be a phased project, and we're looking to do that first phase. We have federal funds to cover the majority of that. Our match is going to be between $16,000 and $20,000, depending on a few details we're working out. But we're asking to move forward with the grant application to try to get that federal funding.

Brett, my question is, how many phases is that going to take?

It'll depend upon how, right now we're just doing the first phase. We could do it in one more phase. Depends on how funding comes in.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Council, what's your pleasure?

I make a motion to approve.

I have a motion for approval by Ms. Bishop.

Second.

Second by Ms. Griffin. All in favor is presented. And that's unanimous. Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you. Item E, consideration of authorization of a six-month continuation period for selected items in C1 of Greenwood County Policy 10.5, dealing with special purpose tax districts. Deputy County Manager for Finance, Ms. Dorn.

Mr. Chairman and Council, as you are aware, we have been working through some changes based on the policy change that was passed by County Council on May 6th of 2025. We have resolved a lot of issues, but there are still some concerns with some of our tax districts. from a couple of different perspectives, one being that some do not already have an organized HOA and they need to get their HOA organized and then have a time period under which they can start actually collecting the funds so that they can pay any bills that we will no longer pay for. And in addition to that, some of our, tax districts have a lot of funds on hand and they don't have enough qualifying expenses to be able to spend those fund balances down. So what we are asking for you to consider is to allow another six months. So this would end on December 31st of 2026. and allow the tax districts that need to be able to continue to spend funds on insurance for common buildings or spaces not including any kind of HOA board liability for common area maintenance and taxes for property owned by the HOA or the neighborhood and for any legal fees to establish an HOA but not to amend an existing HOA. Now I would say that I would hope that we are granted in my office a little bit of latitude. Just as an example, we had one tax district who did provide us with a copy of their HOA agreement or documents, and in their documents, they have no provision to collect funds. So, they're going to have to amend that, and they don't have any funds to use to amend it. And so, you know, we would grant that. common sense things that we have to decide in our office without bringing every one of these issues to you as a council. So I just want to make you aware that I believe that we have to make those decisions and we should make those decisions when there's a special circumstance like that. But outside of that, these are the conditions that we think will satisfy the majority of the remaining concerns in our districts.

So that will be allowed that one change. Right. Okay.

Thank you, Stephanie. I know that in our deliberations, council's desire to give additional time was more work for your staff. Appreciate you always being flexible in handling these anomalies. Uh, council, uh, what's your pleasure?

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to offer you a motion that we approve. And I'm going to also say that in my motion that I think their staff should be allowed the latitude they need to make decisions and not bring everything back to us. And I would encourage you to do so because we're trying to help these folks out. And most of them are in my district.

I second.

Have a motion by Mr. Templeton, second by Ms. Bishop. All in favor, well, any comments or questions before we vote? All in favor is presenting. And that's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you. Item F, consideration of the adoption of the Greenwood County Policy 12.3, Capitalization Policy. Again, Ms. Doran.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Council. We have a lot of different policies, but it had come to my attention early on that we didn't have an exact capitalization policy. We kind of have an unwritten policy, and that means that we have the information in our audit as it relates to what we have to have in our audited financial statements, but we don't have a lot of detailed information. Um, as is recommended by our practitioners and, um, by most of us in the work in government finance, uh, a detailed policy is always a good thing to have it. It gives us the direction, um, that you all will agree to. And then we are able to convey those messages out, um, to our departments to make sure we're all operating on the same page. And I want to be clear when I talk about capitalization, I want to make sure everybody understands what we're talking about. And when we're talking about this as it relates to our financial statements, we have this statement that's called a statement of net position. This is a statement that takes all of our governmental funds that we have and groups them together and then presents the information. So if you were to look at our financial statement, one of the things we focus on a lot and talk about a lot is our fund balance. The fund balance is not a part of the statement of net position. And so when we buy capital assets like new vehicles or you bulldozers and things like that it's just an expense and our fund balance is reduced by the cost of that equipment but then we produce this other statement that is this net position and it actually shows any assets that we capitalize so when we're talking about this it's really a financial matter of whether we are going to let it show up on our statement of net position I know that's a lot of accounting geek talk, but that's what it is. So, we want to have a policy so that we can ensure that we have accurate financial reporting. We want our financial statements to be correct and accurately reflect what our position is financially as it relates to our capital assets. And so we need this policy, again, to provide clear guidelines to our staff. We want to make sure that we're capturing our most valuable assets, but also ensure that our resources of staff time are being utilized in the best way. In other words, we want to make sure that our staff aren't chasing small assets and exceeding the financial reporting benefit of that work. We also want to ensure that we're following accounting principles, which have a consideration of materiality. And when I say materiality, I mean does it really matter to the overall picture of our financials when we talk about how many assets are being recorded. And as the cost of assets change, it's important that we review our threshold because, as we all know, we used to buy a vehicle for $20,000 and now it's $40,000 just to get a certain type of vehicle or 50, depending on what we want. So we need to review these thresholds routinely. I'm not sure. I know it hasn't been done since I've been here, but our threshold currently is $5,000 for all of our assets, and it's probably been that way for quite a while, I would imagine. I want to point out that the accounting of our assets is different from our control of our assets. What I'm talking about is what's going to show up on our financial statements. That does not mean that we aren't keeping up with our assets. Our departments are responsible for maintaining their assets. And just as an example, a laptop is less than our current threshold of $5,000. But I would assure you that our IT department knows where our laptops are and if they're missing because, well, I can't do my work without it. So he's going to know if it walked off. So there's this not, the financial reporting should not be the control mechanism. That's done separately. And so what I did recently is I participated in an exercise from the Government Finance Officers Association who is really promoting that all local governments and state governments look at where we're at with our thresholds and determine if they're still valid. And through that process, I evaluated our assets and found that 45% of the assets we have in our financial statements make up 2.8% of the total value. So that means we have an awful lot of assets that really aren't contributing to the total value that shows up on our statement of net position. And the general goal that you really try and achieve is that 20 percent of your assets make up 20 percent of your value and so forth and so on. So we're way off from really where we want to be. So my proposed thresholds in the policy are that our equipment vehicles improvements be moved to $10,000. This will really have a very low impact on our current financial reporting the majority of our equipment vehicles cost more than $10,000. Our buildings are proposing a $50,000 threshold. Again, the majority of our buildings are going to exceed $50,000, but this also is going to ensure that upgrades to our buildings don't have to be capitalized. So if we were to go in and reconfigure an office and spend $5,000 or $10,000 on it, we would have to capitalize that, and that seems a little silly because it really, again, doesn't make a big difference on our financial reports. Our infrastructure, I have it at $100,000. Mr. Rushin's in the back, and I'm sure he can confirm this, that infrastructure, new infrastructure, is going to cost well more than $100,000. But again, the attempt is that we don't want to capitalize when we dig up part of a sidewalk and replace it. To try and track those things is very time consuming and not the best use of our time when it really has no impact, again, on our financial statements. And finally, leases and subscription-based IT arrangements This is a relatively new item that we had to start tracking, a pain in most of our sides, definitely in mine. But leases are where we're leasing equipment, like copiers. We don't lease a whole lot of things, but we do have some. Our bigger areas are what we refer to as a SPIDA. I don't really like calling it that because it doesn't sound right, but these are Basically, what everything is going to where you have software and it's in the cloud and we pay every year for these agreements to continue to have access to those software agreements. And so, I have these set at a $50,000 threshold. Right now, our total leases and subscription-based arrangements are less than half a percent of what we're recording. which is even more so silly that it's even on our financial statements to begin with because it really has no impact to these. I have talked with our, with David McAllister of UHY, our current audit manager. He has no concerns with the changes. His and most auditor's view is that these are operating decisions that we have to make. And unless we had really unreasonable thresholds, like a million dollars for equipment, which would clearly not capture things that we should be capturing, then it's not something that the auditor is really going to issue an opinion on. Their focus is going to be on what is our policy and making sure that we are recording all of those assets. So the policy itself is really just putting into word what we are already doing. The only thing that is changing in what we are doing are these proposed thresholds. I'd be glad to more thoroughly review the policy, but I have a feeling you probably are not concerned with that.

Thank you for offering it.

But I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have.

Council, item F, adoption of the capitalization policy. What is your pleasure? Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Pruitt and a second by Mr. Templeton. Before we vote, any comments or discussion? All in favor is presented by Ms. Nguyen. And that's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you. Item G, consideration of the appointment of special tax district commissioners for the following subdivisions, Heathwood, Idlewood, and Crestview. Ms. Thorne.

Mr. Chairman, we have documents signed appropriately, and we would recommend that you approve these commissioners.

I'll give a motion to approve, Mr. Chairman. I have a motion by Mr. Templin, second by Mr. Pruitt. Any questions, comments before we vote? All in favor? Those appointments are unanimously approved. Thank you. Item H, quarterly update from Mrs. Dorn. I hope this is real quick.

I hear you. So you have a copy at your desk. I'll be happy to take any questions now or later that you can ask. There are just a few things I will point out. One is obviously our office is working on year end and preparing for the annual audit. uh, which will be conducted again by UHY formally, mainly Garvin. For anybody who doesn't know, they, um, they do have a name change, um, and, and, uh, actually sold to a company called UHY. And we are also continuing to work on the public-facing budget that we have available to the public. One thing that you heard Rhett up here talking about the project at the dam, just would point out that we have received over $770,000 of FEMA and SCEMD reimbursements we have about 1.2 pending primarily for debris removal and disposal at the landfill but also includes some bridges culverts and the dam repair the other thing that I would note to you is that when we received our renewals for our liability and workers comp insurance. We did get the news that our modifier, which is basically based on our experience, and that affects our premiums. Our modifier unfortunately went from .77 to 1.02. So that did make a difference. We still had enough in our budget to cover the cost, but it's definitely made a difference in what we're having to pay. We are working with our risk manager to review our claims history to determine and to continue to work on things that we can do to try and alleviate some of our workers' comp-related injuries that we are having. What caused that, John? We're still working through the claims data. We have to get that. So we know every month, and our risk manager reviews those with me as far as the claims that we have. And then as we get finalized costs and things on them. But the modifier is based on three years, the most recent three years. It doesn't include the current year of claims history. So if you have a really bad year, it comes on and then it affects you for three years.

So we're under one for a while, though.

It has been under one for quite a while. Yes.

Can I go backwards real quick? Mr. Manager, we talked about when I was in Washington about FEMA reform and restructuring. Was it $2 million that you told me at that time, and since then we've received the $700 million, or was it $1.2 million?

I think when he got the information from me, we were waiting on $1.5 million.

Okay, so we've gotten a little bit. If you've got any additional...

data information you want to share with me I have pretty good ears now yeah so really the the as far as the bridges and culverts and the dam repair all of those I believe we're waiting on us to get quotations okay the debris removal and disposal was kind of a battle that we were fighting with FEMA about how we were going to get reimbursed. Right. We kind of lost the battle, and so then we had to submit additional information, which we turned in. We had two weeks to turn it in, and we got it turned in on Monday. So we continue. We're probably making better progress now than we were in the beginning. As I think I passed on to the county manager, our primary problem was they kept changing our project manager. And it was like starting over every time.

Every time. Senator and representative we spoke to, we echoed that same sentiment and we talked about female reform. So there definitely needs to be reform.

And I'll tell you, in my personal opinion, the probably worst, worst part of the process is that everything goes through a FEMA review and then it goes through a state of South Carolina review. If South Carolina is going to review it, why is FEMA reviewing it? Or if FEMA is going to review it, why does South Carolina have to review it? That is part of, you know, what takes so long. And then it gets through the state, and then sometimes the state has something, and then it turns around and gets sent back to FEMA. And so you're in purgatory trying to get your project pushed through. But we finally received a project manager that seems very determined to help us get all of these closed out, and hopefully it'll be soon.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Doran. Any comments before we move on? If not, item I, resolution 202618 to amend the hospitality tax budget for a replacement roof at the museum to include variance to our procurement policies. Your last one, Ms. Doran. Congratulations.

And I'm going to say that the length of this is not my fault. This presentation was put together by your facilities director, Christian Loner. He is on vacation, and so I am making the presentation, the majority of which is his words. I'm going to do the best I can with it. So facilities have been working for over a year to locate a water leak within the museum, which again, as a reminder, is a building that is owned by the county. It's caused a substantial amount of damage. We've had some mold over there, which was probably linked to all of this. Done a lot of work to try and figure it out. After the most recent rain, which was over Memorial Day, I think that was when they really started to be able to narrow it down where the water was coming in through the building. And so I always love pictures. I wish I could put more pictures in my presentation. So I'm excited about this one. But you can see the actual damage here. This is how the water is getting in. There's been multiple repairs made. And really, we've just reached a point where you can't put but so many shades onto the situation. And that's where we're at. So you can see where, you know, as time goes on, there's been holes that have been gouged in it. And this was a tar and gravel roof. And you can see where gravel is just flat out missing from parts of it. And then here we have some damage that has been done within the museum itself. Sheetrock got so wet that it actually is falling apart. And then, of course, stains on our ceiling tiles there. That to your left is the roof on the theater and that's the type of roof that will be put in. A thermoplastic, now I looked up how to say this and then I've forgotten how to say it again, polyethylene. I don't know. Rob helped me with that TPO. But it's basically plastic, a plastic coating on the top. And that's what's going to replace the existing roof that we have. We solicited quotes from six different roofing companies. The lowest bid, and this changed from what originally was in your packet. I think Susan updated, loaded an update for me on it. But the original packet that you had, Had some different information because we were waiting on our quotes. But United Contracting and Roofing has the lowest bid at $75,907. This is more than a 5% differential with our local vendor. And so we did not go through the formal RFQ process because we believe that this is an urgent project that we need to get underway as quickly as possible. And so we're asking for a variance in the procurement policy by not having done a formal RFQ. And we're also asking, of course, for the resolution to be approved, which includes that variance, and ask for $75,907 out of the hospitality tax fund balance. Any questions that you might have?

Those of us who have been in terrible shape for a long time, I'll offer that motion myself. Second. Second by Mr. Templin. Any comment or discussion before we vote? All in favor is presented. That's so ordered. Thank you very much, Stephanie.

Thank you and good night.

Good night. Item J, Mr. Bland, Resolution 2026-19 for the Pre-Certification of a Special Tax Assessment for Rehabilitation of Historic Property under the Bailey Bill Ordinance by Mary Catherine MacArthur. This request is to pre-certify rehabilitation of a historic property located at 159 Cambridge Avenue East. Mr. Bland.

Mr. Chairman, just as a quick review, the Bailey Bill program is a program designed to encourage restoration of historic properties. The to be eligible property has to be either been evaluated for a National Register nomination or meets essentially the same requirement that you would look at for a local nomination. So it has to be where those two thresholds, the Minimum rehabilitation cost is 75% of the property's fair market value to satisfy the requirements of the program. And then the result of that is that the property is assessed as pre-rehab value for a number of years. we are right now looking at pre-certifications and pre-certification essentially establishes what that assessed value is. It can either be assessed value or it can be an appraised value. Either one, you have the ability to look at either. We go by assessed value in this case, which also established what our 75% rehab value is. So this looks at proposed work to be done prior to initiating work. typically and requires a staff recommendation. So in the case of 159 Cambridge Avenue East, this is generally Cambridge and Blythe in the Greenwood Village Overlay District. Staff reviewed the property was eligible via prior National Register survey and staff Felt that it met the requirements for rehabilitation work proposed, and staff's recommending approval of this pre-certification.

2026-19 Pre-Certification Bailey Bill Act 159, Cambridge Avenue East. I have a motion by Mr. Pruitt, a second by Mr. Templeton. Any comment or discussion before we vote? All in favor? Unanimous. And so ordered. Thank you. Next, Ryan.

Mr. Chairman, yeah, I'm sorry.

Resolution 20, excuse me. Go ahead. Resolution 202620 for pre-certification of special tax assessment for rehabilitation of a historic property under the Bailey Bill ordinance by Jason McClendon. This request is to pre-certify rehabilitation of a historic property located at 208 Main Street. Yes, sir.

My apologies for jumping the gun. That's all right. The property is 208 Baines Street, so this is north of Maxwell Street, commonly known as the McLasen's Bookstore building. The property was eligible under the second criteria in that it meets what we would look at for a local nomination of a local historic building. And so we, as staff, recommend approval of this pre-certification.

motion to approve second thank you very much motion by mr pruitt second by miss griffin any comments or discussion before we vote all in favor unanimous and so ordered thank you again mr chairman while on that subject where are we on are we still trying to structure guidelines to allow for

how we're going to change Bailey stuff going forward.

Yeah, I was looking for Rob Rushland. He's gone.

No, he's not gone now.

Oh, there he is.

No, no, I'm good. I was just asking, are we moving? Dr. Dorn got way too much mic time, so you know Roberto needs to get up.

How the municipalities would be handling that, does that come through us or go directly to them, like where Shoals and 96?

I'm going to let him answer both of those.

All right.

In the case of the city, it goes to the architectural review board first, does not go to city council, then comes to us after staff approval. In the case of Ware-Scholes, a 96 comes directly to us because they don't have a board like that. So we're currently running through, got how many more? About six more that we have. We'll bring for pre-certification here shortly. Consultant's currently working on that piece.

Thank you. Appreciate the update.

Council, that concludes all items before us on our agenda tonight. I don't think there are any pending items. Ms. McIntyre, so we'll move into district reports. District 1, Ms. Griffin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd just like to say good evening to each and every one of you, and thank you all for staying to the end. I know this has been a long day for you. And also, I want to end with wishing all the fathers a happy Father's Day this weekend. So ends my report.

Thank you, Ms. Griffin. District 2, Mr. Allison.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really have no report. Pretty long meeting tonight, but it wasn't as long as our last one. I was going to say, it wasn't as long as our last one. Kind of early getting home tonight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That ends my report.

Thank you, Mr. Allison. District 3, Ms. Bishop.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank everybody for coming. I hope that everybody has a wonderful evening. I will be having my District 3 cleanup on this Saturday, the 20th, and we will start at 8.30 a.m., so if you love picking up litter and you want to help me, because I'm going to be out there, I would love to see you. We will be at 1102 Reynolds Avenue. And that is my report, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bishop. District 5, Mr. Pruitt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll try not to belabor too long either. At some point, I'd like to talk about my trip to D.C. and what was learned, but I did want to comment on the meeting tonight. I thought everything was handled very well. I thought the the speakers were very professional and engaging and came up with some good ideas i tried to write down as many as as i could um enjoyed the interaction and as always i'd like to end on the bible verse hebrews 4 16 says let us then approach god's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. That ends my report, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Pruitt.

Mr. Templin, District 6. Mr. Chairman, if everybody would like to stay here until 10 o'clock like last time, I can read through this budget if y'all would like to and use my time, or I can just yield it and say.

No, sir.

Okay, I'm just making sure. I'll just make sure. No report, Mr. Chairman, other than Friday. It's Abby's birthday. I think we should sing to her. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Abby. Happy birthday to you. All is well in District 7.

Mr. Manager, anything to report? I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Again, not belabor as others have said. However, we have an occasion that I think needs to be recognized. As many of you are aware, Brad Cuddle, who had been our Parks and Rec Director for many years, retired recently, and he replaced Tripp May, who'd been our Parks and Rec Director for many years before that. So we were very fortunate when Tripp retired to get Brad Cuddle from Abbeville, who I think did a phenomenal job for seven years, I believe. And we have now had the opportunity to replace Brad with Mr. Phillip Mitchell, who is here tonight. Phillip, if you'll come up. I'll give you a brief rundown as y'all talk to Philip. He has a master's of arts in sports management from Dallas Baptist University, has a bachelor of science in rec event in sports management from North Texas University, has 14 years of experience in recreation, four years as a professor of sports management, and I'm gonna try to say this word correctly, kinesiology. Kinesiology. Kinesiology. Took that in college. I give you Mr. Philip Mitchell.

Good evening, everybody. How are y'all doing today?

Great. Thank you. Good. So, yeah, just like County Manager Toby said, my name is Phillip Mitchell.

I've been in recreation, higher education for the past 14 years. So, yeah. Love South Carolina. My wife is from out here, so we moved here as a family unit. My family will be here in August. So just here to hit the ground running and provide the best opportunities for the county and Parks and Recreation. And also maybe one day I can... join a video with Templeton over there. Come on. Tell all the good stuff that the county does in parks and recreation.

We'll make that happen, sir.

All right. And so don't have too much to say. Just know, like I said, hitting the ground running and provided as much. opportunities and programs and sports for the youth and for the adults as well. So thank y'all for allowing me to come speak to y'all and hopefully get to meet everybody individually one day. So thank y'all. Welcome aboard.

Wait, stay, stay for a minute. All right. so you came all the way across the country to join us and the manager had shared with me a couple of weeks ago when i think you had been selected that your wife was from greenville maybe yes that's correct so where are you where do you originally hail from i'm from dallas texas you are from yes born and raised yeah so cowboys fan all that good stuff so yeah Well, great to have you. Thank you. Welcome to Greenwood. I know you're going to love it here because everybody does. Thanks, man. Appreciate you being here with us. Thank you. That's it? That's it. We will stand adjourned.