Council - Regular Meeting

Kathy, she will do the invocation for us. Sure will. Thank you. Father God, in the name of Jesus, we come to you tonight asking that you protect us and you protect this town and that we make the best decisions that we can possibly make that is in your will, Lord, and that you lead us and you guide everyone here and that we follow that. And we appreciate everything you do, Lord. We love you so much. And we just thank you more than we can ever express enough of. In your precious name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. Please stand. Pledge allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Start. All right. We got to do the song. You can start singing after that. Do we have anybody for public comment? No, sir.

Okay, I'm going to move straight into the new business uh presentation on safe streets and roads for all discussion. Jamie Kenny, afternoon Hendrick. Yep. You got Jay Hendricks and Jimmyi Hendricks here. Hey, you hear me?

He had more hair and he's not with us anymore. Uh, can you hear me? Okay. All right. Very good. And I should say, um, I think the last time I was here it was a prior council. So, congratulations to all of you and I look forward to working with all of you on this project as we go forward. Uh, I'm Jamie Kendrick. Uh, my firm is Wood Valley Strategies. I used to work with a larger engineering firm, but then about two years ago this month actually started a started my own shop where we could focus on working with smaller towns to help move some of these big federal grants into communities um more expeditiously, more more nimly than some of our uh bigger engineering companies. Now, we need the engineering company because I'm not one, but we can help move things forward a little bit better. So, you all um y'all were incredibly nimble and fortunate. Um uh in 2023 uh under the the fire mayor and and uh manager, you applied for a small federal grant under the Safe Streets for All program. And that program is really focused on um uh reducing the risk of serious injuries and fatalities. Uh, you know, fender benders are annoying. Um, but you know, uh, injuries and fatalities are life chain fatalities are life-changing, but serious injuries are life-changing. Uh, and so from that small, you know, $24,000 investment, uh, Batesburg got ahead of, frankly, much of the rest of the state and secured an $8 million construction grant uh, from US DOT. And that is what we are, uh, here to to move forward tonight with you. the the council approved that grant agreement back in July, I believe, um with US DOT um excuse me and uh and we've been kind of doing some preliminary work for the past six months or so and now we're to the point we're starting to need to not make formal

decisions, but at least get some head nods and make sure we're kind of on the right on the right track. So hopefully we can do some of that this evening. And the one thing there were two two pieces of this um that I think are I put these quotes on there. One was at the community meeting that we had here first of all was like 50 or so people which was an impressive number of people for kind of an abstract concept plan at the time but this lady um woman said to us you know because we're talking about there weren't in Batesburg proper a huge number of fatalities or serious injuries. There there were some but not a huge number. We talked about it being outskirts of town and she said something to the effect of and I summarize it here. Yeah, they're not our roads, but that's our people whether they're resident or they live here or they work here. You know, it's still our kind of general common responsibility to make sure we're we're looking out for some of those um for for some of those issues. So, I was, you know, I'm inspired by that. And then the the other thing here that Mayor Schul talked about was this is like a once in a lifetime but for investment. These are probably not investments that you guys would otherwise make in large part because I see DOT controls the roads, but they also Am I on TV or I'm on the press here?

You're on YouTube. I'm on YouTube. All right. Yes.

Um, this requires a different kind of partnership with SC DOT than than they have been used to in the past. The monies that are coming in are not eligible to go to state DOS. These are monies that only can go to local governments. So that gives you all a level of, you know, involvement, investment, and control that locals in South Carolina really have never had before. You you are one of three out out of the box along with Spartanberg County and Goose Creek. And we are trying to work through an SCOT process that isn't entirely geared towards this. So we're we're going to keep doing that and hopefully they're going to start to to meet us in the middle uh soon enough. So big picture, what can the grant be used for? serious injury fatalities. Um we um we have we submitted a grant that had some specific projects in it, but we specifically left ourselves some flexibility uh so that uh you know as as prices came in, as priorities adjusted, as new issues arose, we could make some adjustments in the specific projects we're doing. There's certain ones that we're kind of semi-committed to, but we have um some additional that we can be flex about. what can it um I should say and what are those commitments we made? So, uh I didn't change it. J 245 Lee Street corridor um was was one uh you know from the middle school uh up to Columbia uh and then sidewalks and pedestrian safety and we'll talk a little bit about that this evening. And then we put money in there to kind of address some very lowcost quick build kind of rural road issues that are kind of probably outside of the town boundary that we had intended to kind of hand that money directly off to DOT. They've not taken the bait yet. Um so we may will be able to repurpose that back into some of the projects that were more kind of directly town focused.

But then there's other opportunities, you know, in terms of kind of more neighborhood kind of traffic calming, um some free lighting opportunities, um coordinating some of the downtown streetscape elements that have been thought about over time, uh and then um coordinating with SCOT improvements. We are working on a design project at Mitchell and uh uh church that we are looking to pair one of our project with to you know keep our cost down frankly and let them take on some of the the management of that project. I'll talk about that in a few minutes. Um so from there what's our approach again the street corridor we'll go through a couple of ideas in a minute. Church Street um handing that off to them. One of the big things here is we want to get co- benefits. So, you know, if we just get road safety benefits out of this, we haven't done all of our job, right? We should be finding ways to tackle the stormwater issues, especially up, you know, along uh church um and the like, we should be trying to find if there's ways to make this about local contractors and local job opportunities, uh we want to get those co- benefits supporting, you know, other community and and economic development things that are going on. So safety is the driver but to the extent that we can get twofers and three furs that's what we want to do. Um so so the planned approach again Lee Street Church Street sidewalks and then from there we want to get some uh some additional input from you all tonight about uh what the other funds might be might be used for um talk about. So this is still a winding road. Um, and I'm going to stop talking in a couple minutes, maybe in a half hour. Um, but you know, the the first thing we needed to do once we got that grant agreement is get the consensus on the specific projects that we're going to pursue. So, some some head nods tonight,

not necessarily firm and final answers, but tell me we're on the right track. Um, we've got engineering work obviously to do on all of these. We've got to get environmental approvals, permits. Uh, there may be some right-of-way issues on a couple of these. uh got to get an encroachment approval from from DOT. So it's it's a process. You're for many of the the larger projects, you're not going to see a shovel for, you know, two and a half years. It's just the nature of the piece. That's probably pretty quick. Uh but given that we are not the DOT, we can move quicker than some of their normal processes. Um, so we would hope that by potentially the end of uh 20, probably early 2028, we would be able to do some start some constru some of the heavier construction projects. There's some little stuff we might be able to do sooner uh and then wrap this all up. I think we have to close out we have to spend all the money by the end of 2030 and close out the grant by 2031. So they give us a year to do their paperwork. So let me let me pause there for one second and just see kind of process-wise we good so far. Okay. Okay. So let's I mean okay let's talk about the the couple of projects that we have kind of we put in the grant that we are you know we are leading with um we've kind of prior council sessions there's been you know kind of I'll say nobody told us to stop. How about that? Uh, it's probably the best way to say it. So, Lee and um Colombia, you know, getting that uh realignment done so traffic flows smoother, reduce some of the risk of the head-on collisions um uh through there, build the rest of the sidewalk through the intersection, uh improve the sidewalk down to to Main Street on the other way. Uh that's those are some of the goals there. and also to, you know, clean it up and make it,

you know, attractive, you know, kind of gateway area for the for the town. Um, and then, um, there's but there's still issues to be worked through, right? So, there's rightway issues. The the was a gas station, now it's the title or the loan company, the I don't know what exactly it's called. Uh, we're going to have to work through some issues with them. We think the town actually owns on the gas station side, the town owns most of that right away. So, that's good. that gives us something to work with. Um there's, you know, utilities, a lot of utilities there we've got to work to avoid or relocate um the signal issues. So there's a lot to work through. It's going to take us a good, you know, year, year and a half to work through those issues from the design perspective, but we think that this is um a project that is completable, that's up to the benefit of town, that links into the main street activity. Uh and and so we are going to keep going with this. At this point, we have done all of the right ofway and topographic survey. We've done the traffic or finishing up the traffic analysis and going to be taking some concepts to SC DOT in the next couple of weeks to keep moving forward. Um, so any questions or thoughts about this one? Easy peasy. I said I was going to stop talking, but part of that was you. I'll keep going. All right. Uh, next one is, uh, down by the middle school, Lee, Sheiley, and Brody. Uh, this is an area, you know, true high-risk area. We've seen crashes. We saw a fatality here a few years ago. Um, uh, so the goal here is, you know, reduce speeds approaching town. Um, you know, the if we can eliminate a lot of those U-turns, frankly, that that parents are making in the afternoons when they pick up their kids and drop off their kids, um, that is a big safety

risk. Uh, we can reduce some of those left turn crashes, uh, big safety risk. Uh, that's those are our goals for this. We need to work through there. There is going to be on one side or another on the east side there or I guess east side there will be a property impact. We need to talk to property owners, work with property owners, see what we can't figure out. That'll be the key to to pulling this roundabout off. Um, so we've we're showing it one way right now because that is the the straighter straighter path forward, even though it's more round. Um, but we'll, you know, we need to have some conversations with property owners as we we get into this a little bit more. Um there part of that is because uh there's that kind of pond uh on the the southwest southeast corner as it is. Um and the the forested areas and um so we need to kind of avoid everything on the west side from an environmental perspective, the left side. Uh and then we need to work through the school bus operations, the school pickup and drop off. The thinking is that we can create a um basically use one of the existing lanes. Uh we'll be able to get convert it into a pickup drop off lane kind of auxiliary lane for the school. Uh so that traffic is in backing into literally into the road itself which is what it does today. Uh again we've done the rightway and too surveys. We have wrapping up the traffic analysis and meeting with SCOT in a couple of uh weeks to talk through the concept and again kind of get their head nod that yes we're on the right track.

Do you want to mention Lexington County is possibility there we're working with Oh yeah, sorry. Sorry. Well, so actually technically speaking the roundabout would literally go right through the county town line almost precisely through the middle of the roundabout. Um, so we are going to be working with the county uh talking to them about C fund uh support for the project. Uh, making sure they're engaged overall uh in the project. Is that what you were asking me to talk about? Well, and then like I was you earlier with council about Oh, making sure it's in their priority list.

Yeah, it's on their they're also working on the safe streets program as well. That's an item on theirs. Hopefully it's shared. Hopefully it's a shared project, not and the school district as well. We're going to meet with them sooner rather than later to talk about, you know, school bus operations and potential participation in the project. So, why don't I pause any thoughts on this one? I'd be very curious about thoughts on this one. Yes, ma'am. Say again. So, let us let us hand out some of the I'm sorry, it's small up on the the top there. Well, this is both concepts.

This is both concepts there. Sorry. There's a more uh larger third page, a larger version of the roundabout itself. And this is Lucas. He is with me. I'm sorry, Lucas Kaiser. Meet uh which is the engineer of record on the project. I'm uh kind of in a keep the trains moving role here. Sorry about that. I forgot that we had those handouts manager. Project manager. Yes. I'm sorry. Sorry, I forgot that we had those handouts. Are we good? I'll now I'll pause for a minute, let you take a look. May I ask a question? Yes, ma'am.

With the county working with us on that and they're they're using their own safe street grant or will that all come from our grant? Um, working with them to be determined. Working together trying to get to a point where they have some level of ownership of this project, too. Okay. because the town was aggressive and got way out ahead of things. Um there may be a working assumption that this is the towns to take on. So we just got to bring them along. Okay. And I don't think I mean I think they understand the project. I like the project. It's just a matter of working it into their processes and lists etc too.

Broad there's a stop sign. So we would replace this. This is actually South Brody. Oh, South Broy. Yes. So this is down the old cow barn. That helps. This is not So instead of the road coming straight in, it's going to curse out around. Yeah. So we got you have to slow traffic coming into a roundabout past the elementary school. Yeah. This is kind of the corner by the middle school there. If not, the entrance to the roundabout would be too close. a little house on the corner or what? I see. I see. I don't know what it is. Yeah, that building building. Is that what it is?

Yeah, old cow. Cowburn. That's what I was trying to You know, and it may be that Okay. That's not Broadway, is it? Cow burns been down where the Yeah, that's the cow place of some kind later. Is that a bar or something? I think I'll let I said I've never been in that place. I never have thoughts on this one. Other thoughts you would ask. Does that answer your question? I was just saying we have to take that out into like where the field is now or keep it away from the coming up 245.

Yeah, we the the idea is to slow people coming into the roundabout, right? And then have them go slow through the roundabout and hopefully remain slow up in two on that part of section 245. We have a lot of um 18 wheels coming in because they come to Walmart plus the uh whenever they're transporting large equipment, they come there. So that's going to be difficult for a roundabout to be right there. Those trucks can Well, I'll defer to the I mean, it'll be big enough for them.

So, that's one thing. When we size the roundabout, we evaluate the truck turning movements. And that red circle is actually a mountable apron that they can track over. Um, it's a little bit too high of a profile for a car to like comfortably travel over, but a an 18 wheeler can track over it and and get through the roundabout. month and my shop is right on 245 right out of town. My my business, they haul some big trucks, a lot of a lot of trucks with flag.

We we run um a turning template that allows us to track all 16 wheels, 18 wheels of 18 wheels to see how they come through. Uh it's it as Luca said it is designed such that a car you know which is 98% of your vehicles coming through there has to go through truly around the circle but the mountable apron which is you know maybe yay high off the ground you know that they do try the trucks do track over that. Um I'm surprised they they go that way that they find their way up through the Lee and Brody Yes ma'am. Sorry. I was gonna say that that jog at Lee and Colombia. I'm surprised that's the way they go

because they're coming off of 178 and uh they come up 245 and remember last year when they bought that gigantic equipment through there it took them what 30 minutes to get through to work through it's it's I mean they move some big stuff. Did they have to move the Did they have to lift up the traffic signals for that one? Uh, well, I didn't I'm not I observe from my office. I don't go outside to see what they're having to do, but I've seen some big stuff. And I can only wonder whenever you see armed guards on front and back. And trucks and all of these all of the blue lights and and it's all covered up and you just

what are they bringing through town? It might not pay enough. They did have a truck that went before them that had a like a ladder and it was to move. Yeah. To lift they lift the wires four to six feet. Yeah. That's why they I watch that unusual event. So we will watch. That's what I was asking about on the wires. Yeah. So not just one time. No, no, no. So when we meet with Desoot, I'm sure that will be one of the things they bring to our attention to make sure it's thought about. Yes, sir. Now, not to get off track with uh the the moving of a new road there or whatever, there'll be some land that'll be acquired of this grant set up to

compensate. Yes, absolutely. Under under federal rules, you got to do fair market value and negotiate and appraisals and all that come out of the ground. Yes, absolutely. Um and and again, we've not even had an initial conversation with that property owner yet. So, We've we've not This is the You're the first group to really see this in a a engineering format. So, uh Jay Jay and I have to go knock on some doors soon and we intend to do that. Councilman Turner, this is a match grant. We do have spin and portion. Yeah, 20%. I'm sorry. Thank you. Yes, it's it comes out of the grant. It's not totally

million 1.6 six or two uh two, but when you get back down to it probably comes down to 1.6. Okay. The way that we're finagling some

We have 1.6 here, which can be goods and services and monies, but still 1.6 and that's general fund money. So um on that I mean our goal is to avoid the general fund as much as possible. Uh so we've been talking for example to the rural infrastructure authority about them taking on the cost of some of the storm water improvements on the the church street part. Uh we're talking with the county about you know sea funds. Uh you know we have a whole list of you know matching sources that keep it out of the town's general fund. That's the goal. Well, the issue with sea funds is that every dollar that the county provides in sea funds for this project will come out of our allocation for other se.

Yeah. So, it's a balance. Um, let's play the game. Okay. So, let me um let me skip to potential sidewalk segments as a a jumping off point here. So um we have been in discussion with DOT about um the area between Raven Street and Walmart. So east of Walmart. It's all done. Sorry. West. East. Well, you're going west. You're going west. Okay. West of Walmart. Oh, wait a second. East has been done. West. East. Yes. East has been done. East of Walmart has been done.

Now we need to get from Walmart

west. I get see I'm figuring this out. You know, I've been here a couple times. Uh so SC DOT as I started to say has a project at uh Mitchell to put in a center turn lane for I don't exactly remember what it is, couple hundred feet on each side. As part of their project, they will be putting in the sidewalk from roughly the Walmart. They're going to end up putting in the sidewalk from the Walmart to Mitchell. And then the idea is that with this grant, we would then take the sidewalk from Mitchell out to Raven to connect with the Batesburg sidewalk, which is where I think it stops at about Raven. So that's uh all told about 3/4 of a mile of new sidewalk. Uh that's and that would also give us the opportunity to work through some of those stormwater issues um along Mitchell and Church. So hopefully I don't know exactly I don't know exactly what the answer is yet.

I don't know exactly what the answer is yet in terms of how that hydraology works, but that's our again kind of co- benefits of all of this. So other sidewalk priorities that you may have, we had a a laundry list of possibilities, but I'd be curious to hear what your thoughts are on if we may go back. Yes, sir. What standard is going to be used for the Walmart for the uh streets? Are we going to use the our prominade ordinance or are we just going to ignore that? That that hasn't been discussed yet. Um, you when DOT put in the the other one, it was built to the DOT standard and not

the ordinance is sitting there on the books. It does require and should have been enforced with Dunkin Donuts, T-Mobile, uh, all of those should have put sidewalks in for us had we enforced the ordinance. I'm just wondering, are you aware of our prominade ordinance requiring bricks on each side of the sidewalks? That part I was not directly aware of. The sidewalk sidewalk in general. Yes. No. But the Mitchell Street sidewalks comply. The US number one sidewalks comply with the ordinance. Uh but nothing else.

So we'll have to um have to get into that design detail. It's also straight line. It also requires straight line. Yes. I'm glad you're aware of that, Mr. Wise. Yes. Um, is there roadway lighting there now? One or two maybe. There he is. Is is a is the requirement for pedestrian scale street lighting? Is that what it is? Or it is decorative street lighting. The Boston referred to as the Boston style globe pole. Yes. We used to call them the acorns. Acorns. It's fine. Yep. Okay. that. So, we'll need to keep that in mind as we want to change that to more of an LED situation.

Well, yeah, LED or or there's now there are LED acorns now. Yeah, but we may but we'll also need to look at a solar option too as well. DOT is not excited about um street lights and they're going to make you all pick up the utility tab. So, we probably we want to take a look at solar options too. Now the used to be the solar options but the street lights were you know massive and now they're getting considerably smaller. So we have existing street lights. I would assume that the uh acorns would replace uh a one for one on the pole mount per se.

We'll have to take a look. So other areas where you know if you had the next dollar where would you do a sidewalk? WDs weren't weren't available. Street. Yeah, that's a definite line street. Especially for me because that's in my district and I've had a lot of um complaints about it and it it's a dangerous South Brody Road. South Brody from roughly where to where? From 245 to the town limits. Yeah. From South Lee is that that's one right there.

Yeah. That's coming off the sidewalk on South Street going out. Got it. Got it. Toward the schools. Yeah, that's actually run through Simmons Town. So, what what what I'm going to do with this feedback is we're going to give it a highle um review like okay right away utilities here. The Brody Road is the third. You brought it all with you. That's SC D's drawings for Lion Street. Even better. Maybe. Yeah. The Brody Road one is your third bullet point. The one that he just raised is the third bullet point. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Third. Yes. Brody from Cedar.

Got it. Okay. So, what we're what we're going to do is you give us some priorities. We're going to kind of go out and say, "All right, is there a major drainage issue here? Is there what right away do we have? You know, I'm trying to get to the simplest ones, simplest but most impactful ones first. So that's and then we'll come back to you with a sense of what the technical sides of of those sidewalk priorities are. We feel good about church from Raven to uh Mitchell. Yeah. What did you hand me here, sir? Sorry. I gave you the sed drawings of the roadway. Okay. For Line Street.

Got it. Got it. Got it. From Line Street uh to the city. Got it. Cool. That will be helpful. One bridge involved. Say again. One bridge involved which uh you may have to do an outhanganger sidewalk. Extend a culbert or something like that. I'm sorry. extend to Culbert or could be. And what year? Yeah, I think that's a six foot box. Okay. What year did you say those were from? Those are the latest ones. They're 195 something. That's the latest one.

That's the latest one that I see and they had to dig for Well, you say no. Sorry, Jay. You were That was your You might have done this. No, no, that was way before my time. Okay. All right. So, we've got line and we've got um Broady as kind of two next to take a look at. Very good. Um let me go back here. Uh we're running a tab here. Where are we on on 8 mil?

Not sure yet. Uh, and that's why I'm just trying to get a sense of priorities at this point. Like, so we can go back and say, okay, the line is here at this point. You know, where where do we draw the line? Three, two, eight is gone. I think you're in that neighborhood, right? Yeah. Eight is gone with sidewalks from here to Yeah. Yeah. between those three project that we talked about where if you can do the roundabout from 3 mill, you're good. We think it's probably in the three to four neighborhood now. We're dealing with eight mil.

Yeah, we're Yeah, I would say we are. So, that gives us then in my mind at this point probably 750 to a million for these kind of quick build, smaller scale neighborhood traffic calming um uh types of things. Some of the rural road improvements. Part of what we're trying to do to be honest is to get other partners into this so we can stretch that you know 8 mil past 8 mil. Um we'll see how that works out. Right.

But that 8 mil is again I don't want to be uh but we also have to look at the fact that you're not going to put a shovel in the ground for two years. We're talking another seven 8% uh cost escalation on actual construction related cost. So we're that 8 mil is getting it doesn't it goes quick. Yes. Yes.

Yes. We're also we were talking earlier today looking at contracting strategies that could get us there quicker. So design build for example or packaging the two leaf street projects as one construction project to get more productivity for contractors. It would probably hold up some or it would bite into some of that inflation but not you know. So anyway we're trying to be creative to get us Will any of our um downtown areas fall under this grant or is that going to go? So, let's go to that real quick. um do.

So we when we started this um a few years ago that one of the ideas was what can we do with this money to get some of the um two downtown streetscape projects at least you know something to push them a little bit further. So we are looking at for example could we do what I'll say is like the end treatments the bumpouts the crosswalks um things like that where we can clearly tie them to a safety risk right uh can I do the main street repaving and brick sidewalks just as a replacement with this grant? No. Can I do some um can we do some of the end treatments? Uh maybe the middle treatment perhaps. So we we're going to spend some time getting into this over the next

two or three months. use this for replacing existing sidewalks. We can, this is where Jamie likes to get creative. We need to um certainly we can do it to replace ADA ramps, right? Or install ADA ramps and then how far you can extend that, you know, we can we can see. Um so yes, as a general matter, simply replacing in kind is a no. How about repair for sidewalks or replace

to get to get to get to an ADA compliant pathway? You're thinking like I am. So, so there's there's just a balance that has to be struck so that when they ask, well, how is this safety related? We could give them an answer, but ADA compliance is one of the eligible expenses. So I think I mean from my view getting some of the the new sidewalk in you know is you know what this was intended for but if there's ways that we can get again those co- benefits then let's then let's look for those uh Jay anything else on on this

well and and there would also be some cost savings even if we aren't able to pay for the replacement of 400 ft of sidewalk If we're able to bid that project along with ADA compliance, there will be some cost benefits on mobilization and and the actual project and becomes a way to match the money up too. Yeah. So there there's other options there. So it may not pay for every portion, but there's options.

Um I've become good over time at stitching together monies to get, you know, two and a half out of two. We'll see what we can do. Um, let me go to the next kind of set of things which I'll say are these are like my the quick fixes the um the uh the raised pavement markings to give better you know sight at night. Now DOT to their credit has done a lot of these in the past three to five years. Um there's still a lot of signage that is out of compliance. So, there's supposed to be these highly retroreflective signs at curves. Most of them are old, faded still. Um, you know, it's a small dollar amount, high impact from a safety perspective. The rumble strips, um, uh, restriping or striping crosswalks, you know, the high visibility crosswalks, those flashing beacons at some of the crosswalk locations. So, you know, I'd like to have some kind of quick wins so that you can show, you know, your residents that a they're not waiting two and a half years and b, you know, there there is a direct neighborhood benefit here. So, if you have some of those kind of call them smaller bore initiatives or ideas, you know, please, you know, either mention them now or we can come back to it, but we'd like to get a package of smaller things. You know,

what are the cost of rumble strips? Um it including maintenance of traffic and all that stuff. You know, maybe a th000 a location. Say that again. Maybe a thousand a location. Okay. And that's say if we did that on a curve on each side of the curve, we it would be $1,000 then for each side of a sharp curve. Yes. Okay. Uh you know 50 yards out, you Yeah. Does that include getting SC DO's approval to put them down? Um, that's a lot of time.

Yeah. I mean, there's there's there's a design plan, but there's a simplified um design that they have now that they'll basically sign off on a onepage um kind of permit and then plus the plus the minutes traffic. Yes, it is to your point a thousand for the actual work and frankly some what we find is sometimes the engineering and permitting is more than the actual construction work but I would think for all told to get one curve you know straightened out on each end $5,000 okay maybe seven but but five to seven maybe okay if you just give me an idea

Yep those um the rapid flashing beacons uh the solar ones these days. So is a pole base and a pole and the beacons 12,000 15,000 at the most for the highintensity flashing beacons. Um simply restriping a crosswalk like the ones you see kind of in the bottom middle there. Um if it's a four-legged intersection, you're probably looking at 8,000ish, maybe 10,000ish depending on which location when when you're able to do it. um and the like. So, we want to find some of those quick winds. You say the rumble strips are located.

Yeah. Maybe, you know, 100 yards in advance of curves to get people aware limit that could be, you know, we we've we've defined it as being a kind of a three mile radius is what we've what we've said. I'm trying to see where you put those. I talk about deeper just talking about a street would turn. Yeah, it wouldn't be it wouldn't be a neighborhood oriented street like No, no, it would be much more one of the uh the the summerland. Yes. Man's curve on Summerland by the cemetery there.

But that road is scheduled that road is scheduled to be repaved. SCOT should be leing a contract probably in the next three to six months. Uh possibly we could get that if we are aggressive. Well, they and they actually sent us their list just last Friday and I've not gotten into it yet and said, "Is there anything in here that we should be looking out for 391 from from Church Street to uh Mitchell Church?" Okay. is on their priority list.

I need to get I need to get into that list and get back to them in the next couple of weeks. So, I'll check with Reggie to see Edco to see Reginal. Yeah. Um, I have seen these rumbling strips do wonders coming up on crossroads where, you know, I go down springs going to West Columbia and right there at the old Charleston Highway crossroads before you come up on that crossroad, you got those rumble strips and it makes a big difference. Low cost, high impact. Okay. Yeah, it does. And it it it makes you remember that the crossroads right there. pure law by the citizens.

So in town it would be things more like they used to be speed used to be speed bumps now speed tables you know for more neighborhood interior kind of neighborhood kinds of things and you build them in a way these days that um fire apparatus can get through um without losing uh a whole lot of time but there but the wheelbase of a regular car or SUV can't get through in the same set. So, if there are neighborhood traffic homing, things like that, throw them out there for us. Um, trying to think of what else um would be. So, there's there's small things like that. So, if you have a um kind of a a constitu a constituent list of little things that we can do, let's you know, put them put them on the table and we might be able to package them up early and and move because they are low cost, high impact. It's on Saluda Highway as well.

Say again. I'm just cutting up. I said coming into town on Saluda Highway as well. That's kind of Did they just repaint that in the last couple years? That's a speedy spot. And then Pine Street on the other end. So Pine Street, Willlet Street, Pine Street, Willlet Street somewhere. We could just throw a couple strips around town. Yeah. Anywhere you want. 245 to do it. until we address the intersection at church and saluda. You're Yeah, that's an issue spot. Church church. Oh, the that's the one I was. Yeah, former church.

This one you wanted to. Yes. Jay told me that some of you need to put speed mounds, not speed. Speed speed tables we call them or speed cushions. Um, so yes, if I mean if there are those kinds of places, I mean, SCD is not going to let them be on Highway One, but we're seeing them be more open to places like uh a Pine Street near a school, for example. Pine Street. Yeah, that's SC 178. SC. Yeah. In in a in town, they're more open to it. You know, when you get out, obviously out. Not going to say they'll approve it, but Yes, sir. Sorry.

I'm right there on 245. my business right across from Leville Gardens. When the kids get out of school and they come off of that stoplight at number one, you would not believe how fast and how loud they are coming down. The kids are the cars. They they taking off going out qualifying to get out of town and you got all of these people. That's a very a lot of walking on that street and you got a lot of kids out of school and these kids don't realize that one day somebody's walk out in front of them and I see it every day.

This is from the high school coming south or going into town when they coming out 245 or head turn off number one head south. Okay. Yep. And like like um councelman Hall was saying from Church Street all the way down it's part of line and then it goes into Summerland. Soon as they leave that red light come around that curve it's on till they get dead man's curb and then they cross that around that it's on again it's in that curve. Mhm. Yeah. Let's see how fast I get from curb to curve. Yeah boy. in my lifetime. So, you know, tightening tightening curve radius,

um, you know, is a way to to do that cheaply and quickly. Guard rail, things like that. There's ways that we can, you know, mitigate some of that. line street line street park street uh line street park street uh intersection there is going to become a very very it's very dangerous line street if we don't do something about the uh intersection at saluda and uh church they're going to very quickly find that they can either go down ruby or they've already found it I promise well I don't see it on my trucks yeah even trucks are coming. So, so maybe on a Ruby then you do these speed tables, you know that you know,

well, they're they're coming through there and it's really not a street design for trucks. Exactly. And now not your 18-wheeler trucks and stuff because they're backed up so far through the highway. They're coming across park in Ruby and coming up through that way to get to the red light. We can make it a less attractive option and you're blind right there. You can't turn. Coming out park coming out park. Just the elevation of the sidewalk makes you a blind. That's a terrible spot for them. That's my second for our next fatality. Tell me about Tell me about your district. Which which district are you, by the way? Sumberland all the way up. Oh, that's okay. Street. All right. Yeah.

I think that's just a poor designed area right all through there. Y with South. Well, you have to understand Park Street is named Park Street for a reason. Yes. The poultry. Yeah. They come down. Saluda. No. No. You do those on the You do those on the neighborhood streets. Around the railroad. All right. But you could do it on the that interior street where they're trying to, you know, kind of cut through to keep them from cutting through. Potentially. We don't want to create another problem either. Wait, wait till later.

What else did I I have anything else here? Yeah. So, um you you raised it kind of before. Yes, you can get up to the 8 to10 million pretty quickly. Um and given this is kind of order of magnitude where we are uh the intersection projects between you know Lee and Chile and Lee and Highway One you know including you know that sidewalk there you know we could be at 5 to6 million for those two projects combined. Uh, and then we want to get the sidewalk work in. Um, hopefully partnering with DOT on that and they're going to So, we're really talking 10 mil.

Yeah. 8 plus two. Okay. Really? Not it's not. Okay. Yeah. 8 plus two. Although part of the two is to your point about kind of in kind. So, we're trying to get every as a matter of fact, you will all have hours shown as volunteer hours on this project because every hour that you spend tonight is going to be valued at $60 an hour, which means that we are getting for each one of us. Yes. Okay. Um times four. So, each one of you is contributing an extra help. Do the math. Come on. $240. So, so you just got $240 in federal funds by sitting here for an hour. Cool.

So, that's that's the kind of leveraging that we're trying to do. Now, it's not cash that we can spend on bricks and mortar, but it helps to eat into the mat raw. Right. I'll see you another hour. All right. Tomorrow, too, if you need me. Damn, my paycheck does not reflect that. Right. Oh my goodness.

Um, okay. other ideas, please let Cricket or Jay or somebody know. I I would love to get a package of those kind of small quick win things um that we could do, you know, within the next year. Um it's not unreasonable to think that we could do that while we're working on some of the bigger ones. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. Well, that sidewalk list looks Say again. That sidewalk list looks pretty close to our major needs, I think. And that was pretty much compiled from that public input session some years ago. Yeah. Okay. You got another agenda item, J? Yes, I do.

All right. Does anybody have anything else for Jamie or Luke? Uh, will hard copies of this be available? Can you send me that? We can. Yes. Before we leave. Yes. Sorry, I didn't even appreciate that. Didn't even think. Yeah, I'd appreciate Go ahead. If you email Cricket, she can go print it for us before we leave. Okay, we'll do that. Thank you, J. All right. Thank you. I'll see you in a couple months at the most. Yes, ma'am. Broad Street have an issue with a problem. It's not. No, it's not.

So, I've seen you down there. months ago. It's not a lot there. No, it's not. So, we that's we're going to do a high level scan on these to say, all right, which of these sidewalks can we do with the least need to acquire right away? You know, the least drainage, you know, impacts. Uh the homeowners may be surprised where the rightway lines really are. We do we do find that a fair amount. They those houses certainly do not comply to current setbacks. Uh, and I'm afraid some of those owners are going to be surprised to find out that their doorstep

steps onto a highway. So, so when we put that in front of you, you'll say, you know what, it's not worth the the fight about it. Right. We realize that, but they also, like you said, for ADA compliance, something they did do that over two over there. brought it. It's not going to work. Yeah, I know. I understand. I'm I'm looking for Okay. But I also know the people that live there and they have been there for over 70 years. So we'll just drive out and walk up the street side and I know they're popular.

Yes, I have one other question. Um being is there needs to be a total redoing of the road situation at Line Summerland at the porch the road there and park and the way they all come out Ruby. A lot of that just needs to be revamped. If DOT takes on that like we're talking at Mitchell would they incur some of the cost of maybe those sidewalks? Yes. Yes. So that the Yeah, that could help us here, you know, rearrange. I don't know. We had one idea that actually took away that curve. I guess you called dead man's curve there. By the cemetery,

yeah, dead man's curve a little further down. Okay. All right. Right by the cemetery. What worse than that? Federal money comes down to

shut down. Yeah. Right there. Goss right there. Marian Street, rehab and safety coming. I've always said I would not want to live in that house. You going to come through? All right. Uh, does anybody need a break or we good to roll into the next unit? This one should not take as long as James. You need you need a few minutes. Okay. Okay.

Well, oh, you're talking about 10 minutes. Maybe not quite 10. All right. So, the next one we need to talk about is the rehabilitation of high hazard potential dams grant. Uh, so that was in your weekly report several weeks ago where we had received notification from dees. Uh, we we had a little back and forth because the original number wasn't quite right. I'm not sure if it's right yet. Uh we um in talking with dees they asked that we reach out to the engineering firm Walpert to to verify if their cost uh projections from a year ago are still accurate. So uh these numbers could change. But uh just to give you the background uh several of you were not here during this process. This this really started after the storm of June of 2023 when we had the that unusual heavy rain event that dumped a lot of rain. Uh and that led to the uh crashing of the pond at the the town pond. It crashed over the dam. It overflowed. We've got a picture and a video of that coming up. But that was um what caused DHECK to come in and and they rated the the dam as poor. Uh so that that led to uh this project. Uh it's on the Central Midlands hazard mitigation uh plan as a high hazard. U below it is a flood plane. Uh it's also on the SE Dams site as a high hazard. So we'll we'll kind of touch on all that. Uh that's what led to us working towards this grant. Uh just for your information, November of 2023, council approved 9 to0 to go ahead with the uh engineering firm Walpert uh to perform the analysis. That led to applying for a brick grant. That didn't work. with the HHPD grant which is federal funds managed through DHECK or now dees. Um we were successful there and so we are subreient of that grant through dees. Uh that grant was submitted in November of 2024. They they

asked for more information in April. So we sent more uh and then we finally got notification end of January. So it's been a a a process. Um and then we received that revised paper work on the 9th of March. So it was just a week ago and that's when she asked for us to verify with Walprit on the prices. So right now what is set as the U phase one grant is a $370,000 total price tag 65% federal which is 240,500 and then the local match is 129,500. May I ask a question?

Yes sir. Why are we spending $129,000 that uh we really currently are on tight financials for something that we're not going to use in the future? And that is part of the the presentation later is to get y'all's input on what the future goal or plan is for the town pond. Uh if we want to jump Okay. So that is one of the options is to sell the the pond. Um,

and if we sold the pond, why are we putting $149,500 into it? Uh, let the new owner uh let the new owner pay for it. And and that's one of the things that I've had to cover conversations with others about is whoever buys the centerfit property would probably be interested in the dam or in the pond. Um, but I don't know that there would be much of a price tag when they know that they're not eligible for these grants and they're going to be taking property has very little uh footprint against adjacent. Isn't that property owned by the rituals on one side? The uh um

that Summerland property on the other side and of course Ms. what is her name? Miller. Uh so owns part of that. So jumping ahead, there's your Yeah. your plan right there. That's your all that center property is the entire west side on the top end. The west side, the west side of the park. Yeah. So they've got the most direct frontage. Uh so the metro the original on the bottom. All right. Um he's got a couple of ponds.

But let me back up. We can get to that one in just a few minutes. So um but that that's your numbers for this grant. Uh again, this process started in 2023. Um and and it's taken several years to get here. So that's the numbers for phase one, which is just engineering. Uh and then phase two would be construction. Um that price would obviously be more wouldly exceed a million, possibly even a million and a half total project cost. Um and so what the the grant is for again this is from homeland security rehabilitation of high hazard potential dams and is going to update the auxiliary spillway uh improvements to the access road crossing which is was washed out by the the spillway discharge in the 2023 storm. Update the primary draw down system. Uh new trash rack which just is a great to go on the the draw down system. and then tree removal plan on the back side of the dam. And we've got pictures that Andrew so graciously took last week. So again, just for your um because not everybody has been here. Uh so this is the town pond in the center of the picture. The red circle indicates the location of that emergency spillway kind of on that souththeast corner. And then the the blue arrow is just pointing to where the pond dam is located. Um and the water flows to the bottom of that picture. Uh just for your information, DHCK dam safety hazard classification, we are in the high hazard dam category. Um have a good night.

Thank you all. Have a good night. Thank you. Thanks. So just to read that definition, uh dams located uh where failure of the dam will likely cause loss of life or serious damage to homes, industrial or commercial facilities, important public utilities, main highways or railroads. Um this is the Etsy dam safety. That just shows that that is a high hazard uh dam. Also upstream uh the Sheileley pond is also a high hazard. Um could I ask a question? Yes, ma'am. Does this cause an increase to our insurance because of this issue? Uh, no. This is we we've been paying insurance. So, I I have not noticed that there was any change in that. So, I just wasn't sure because of the high hazard.

Yeah. It it's had that designation for for a little while. Okay. So, there's no agency mandating that we keep the dam. We can draw the pond down. Yes. You you could you could remove the dam and allow it to go back to a free flow if you wanted to. You could go back to a creek if that was the desire. That that certainly we could draw it down until such time as we sold it. Well, you do get water flowing into it. The water's coming from up, but we have actually maintained the level in it by pumping out of We have not pumped from Brody since December when we Oh, I'm saying in the past. Oh, absolutely.

We were unable to maintain the level. Now that we're out of the surface water business. Yes. Uh I I'm, you know, uh I'm really concerned why we want to spend $130,000 for something that uh we uh don't really have a firm idea what we're going to do. Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Let's Okay,

we're working there. That that's towards the end. I'm just giving you the background real quick so we can run through it. And this is just the flood insurance rate map just showing again in the center is the town pond or Batesburg reservoir is how it's often referred to. Uh and this is your flood insurance map showing the flood plane in that. You can see the black line is the actual creek and then the gray the dark gray is the the flood planes. Uh when we had the overflow in 23 there was some damage downstream. It wasn't catastrophic. There was no failure of the dam. It just overflowed. Didn't it wash the road out there and stuff?

It washed out the the dirt road, the access road. Uh but it did not wash out Town Pond Road, but it did damage a mobile home that's on the other side. Do you have a date on that in 23? June 22nd, I believe.

Okay. Our rainy our rainy season here is June, July, and August by virtue of approximately onethird of our rain occurs in those months. and that's that we're coming up on another rainy season. And that was not a 100year event. That was could be a well the the problem there and and I'm getting to that in just a second. Um is that that one wasn't forecasted. It was it it caught us by surprise. So when we have major storm events, uh Hurricane Helen was one. uh you know, we get notifications uh Scott McNab at the with the Sheileley Pond, they get notifications to release water to prepare for that storm water. And so we have had multiple instances, well several, maybe not multiple, several instances in the last couple years where we have drawn down the pond. We have uh you know, Scott has drawn gone down on his. So we have not had a a second incident but that has been due to the state u deck reaching out to all pond owners and dam owners to to do that. So and we also have utilized the the utilities department's uh large pump to just kind of help pump it down quicker. Uh just for information 1935 you could buy it for $221. Not a bad deal for a large pond. Uh yeah, right now it it covers roughly 19 acres and the total property according to GIS is 36.16 acres. Um and as we mentioned, uh as of December, it is no longer used for our our water source. Uh so we are not pumping from that. Uh the pumps of Brody Creek have also been turned off. So it's not being supplemented by Brody Creek. It is just uh natural flow coming from

the upstream tributaries. If if you call it a tributary for creek, I'm not Could we ever use it again for water source? Yeah. Not in your lifetime. Yeah. That that that is part of that's a four-year deal with joint mutual and they are they're locked out for any other areas or anything. Believe me, it's an ironclad.

So part of the skip agreement is to do the decommissioning. And so decommissioning in this context is removing the pumps, removing the probably the pipes that are in that pump house. Uh that is being worked on right now. But uh we will not have that ability to to pump from. Yeah. the days of town pond being a water source for the town or just just for a little bit of information for you doubters who would love it go ask Lexington the town of Lexington after they joined in whenever they had a problem over there and they ran short of water town of Lex said we going to start our system back up and guess what and it went out

they ruined everybody's system for a month because they couldn't get it back up they couldn't get the water say then when they had the big rain, the dam broke. So their source of water's gone, right? But you can't you can't get something that's 100 years old and start it back up. It just doesn't work. I was just wondering for any future thing if we would ever use it for that for somewhere else. I didn't think so. We just wanted to to verify. We can fill it up, too. There you go.

All right. You know, I'm hope for drawing it down and and let's make a decision about what to do with it with the future and let's not spend $130,000 of our taxpayers money. Well, we're going to get there. So, just just Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah.

All right. So, again, just trying to give y'all because I know most of you have probably not been to the site or if you have it, it's been limited. Uh, so this was June 22nd, 2023. This was when the the pond overflowed. The still picture on the left is the access road driving up with the pond dam straight ahead at the top of the the screen. You can see the water cresting over the the pond dam flowing down the access road. The image on the right is the video and you will see as they pan to the right the emergency spillway and it's ripping through there but obviously could not keep up with it as it comes over the dam. So

that flow on down there. We're lucky we didn't lose it with all that water coming across.

So, we'll play it one more time for you. So part of the the engineering would be to design the spillway to handle more water and then it would also have some kind of a culvert to go under the access road because that access road was washed out and and fortunately that Lexon County Public Works came in and assisted in in making it drivable again because at that point we were cut off and could not reach the uh well couldn't drive to we could walk to but could not drive to the the raw water pump station that is on the far left over on that image. So So we'll give you a little quick tour of the town pond. Again, these pictures were taken last week. Uh so this is standing on the pond dam looking back towards Summerland. If you see the uh dirt in the distance, that is the new Summerland phase 6 that's been cleared. Uh a lot of trees have been taken down. um and this is again kind of standing on the pond looking back again. Summerland still out there in the distance and you can see on the left um we've got about a 500 square foot storage building. Um and we'll see that closer. U couple other exciting items on the tour. This is over towards that emergency spillway. The image on the left, you can see a black pipe in the foreground. You may see it better on your printed copy. Uh that is a raw water line that was coming from Brody Creek. It is not being used obviously at this time but that is visible in the foreground. And then the image on the right is the emergency spillway again located on that southeast corner of the dam. So this is you know that's where your overflow is. If it gets to a certain point it starts flowing through that. Um again looking back towards town standing on the dam. So the view from the top of

the pond dam looking north, you can see the small building in the distance. It's very pretty out there. Uh but also notice the trees on the left which are what is recommended to be removed. The uh thinking with the the engineering is you take the trees down, you pull out the the root ball, and then you pack it back with approved clay or or some type of substance. Uh they do not want you to have a tree that dies and then the root system rots inside and then that leads to the damn failures. Um I I you know it is kind of fun to have a damn grant that we can talk about damn failures. So pardon me. So u and then there's another view. That's Andrew's truck. I think that was like a glamour shot for his pickup truck. So uh and again this is a view back down the driveway. On the the left is the dam. You see some of those trees on the backside and again of you on the dam looking kind of back at the driveway just to show you some of those trees.

We don't have a picture of Andrew fishing. He didn't take a picture of that. I don't know if he did or not. That Well, since you brought it up, you were on the other side of the truck. I caught fish. He was pretty big. I mean, the picture weighed 3/4 of a pound.

Don't believe a fish story. Um, and then just kind of give you that tour again, here's that 500 foot pole building that's located by the pond dam. Uh, the boat that was used to take chemicals out. Also, the um air compressors is we had to airate the uh pond. So, that's obviously not in use either. Uh, this is below the pond dam even below the that driveway access. So, it's about a 400 foot square foot steel building. Uh that that is the raw water pump station uh that pump the water back to the water plant. Uh that is the interior view of that. Uh that building is air conditioned and has a lot of electrical uh capacity and I believe that one has generator too. Yeah, that's got generator power as well. Um so that just kind of gives you an idea of what is inside.

What size generator? I'll repeat another question I asked frequently. 100 said 100KW 100KW will run the town hall. Um

so all right so the next step there's grant approval would be required by council to to move forward. So that would be on the agenda in April. Um, you know, again, Walpool is the one that has done the engineering. They would be the or has done the scope of work, came out and did the site visits and would be the ones to contract with that engineering. Again, what that would be paying for is the plans to uh update the auxiliary spillway, the improvements to the access road crossing, specifically where that spillway discharge comes. uh update the primary draw down system, new trash rack on the draw down system and then also the tree removal plant. Um the construction phase those applications uh will open up in May and there are you know the question and answer sessions and some of the uh pre- stuff is just now starting. So if we were to move forward with phase one then we would go ahead and apply for phase two. Uh which brings me to that last question which um we kind of jumped ahead on. You know what is the future use? Do we want to use this as a town park? Is there a desire to sell it? Is there another desire um

what are the likely uses that someone else would purchase it for to develop it and build houses? the the majority of the property in my opinion and I'm I'm not an expert majority of prop property that is up at the north end is going to be wetlands. Uh that's those creeks coming in. I don't know that there's a lot of buildable property. Um there is a a lot that is next to Francis Miller's house on Town Pond. Certainly you could build a a house there, but it wouldn't be it would not be conducive to a large development. I think it would be bought by whoever bought an adjacent property.

We could draw the water down, eliminate the danger that the dam currently that that would reduce as well. Yeah, you could you could lower the the what's the word the the draw down system the the overflow. Yeah, you could lower that 6 in 12 in and and give it more height. Where is the intake? Uh it is I think that is visible 6 feet down 8 ft. No, it's not. I don't think it's that you if you look in the I'm just thinking if we can eliminate the threat the dam currently poses.

Are you saying are you talking about six foot from the top of the dam? No. Did I worry about it when we had the thousand flood on the bottom? But it should be pretty close. We won't need I went down not here, but it's a it's a place over stagnant water. It's a water. I'm not sure about that one. I don't know what the name of it is, but the road muddy forward. You drive through the road. Drive through the creek. Yeah.

You go down and you drive across that creek and you come out on the other side. It's over in where they developed it and it's deer field is what it's called. Whenever the thousand-year flood, I had the opportunity to go down there to work. And I would work. Whenever you work, you just go down and drive across the creek. So, I wanted to see how high the water was when we had that big rain just because everybody said that whole area was the road was flooded. went down there and it was 25 feet from where I was standing at the creek to the trash in the trees where it went down through there. So, it

Yeah, you get a rain like that coming through here. I don't care how far you draw it down. You can't draw it down enough across the top and it can do damage. We were fortunate that it didn't happen here whenever it did die. You know, it's amazing to see that kind of water. And we were pumping water out of it. Yeah. I I stood on top of the pond dam with firet truck, the one we're just putting up for sale, pumping for a long time that night just or that day uh to help pump it down.

The thing that probably towns in the most liability, everything that we would be in the most liability for is if that damn breaks. I think the last thing, my personal opinion is it's doing us no good. Cut that dam and let it go. The liability. So certainly that is an option. Yeah, you could just basically let the creek free flow and and do away with back to nature, take it back to where it was. Then we'll change Town Pond Road to Town Creek Road or something. And uh

can we draw it down without actually destroying putting a hole in the dam? I don't think you're going to be able to. You going have to go all the way down to get it down to the creek. Yeah, I Well, you or close to the creek, but you know, I'm not a I'm I'm not able to answer that question.

This this is typical creek uh creepy. We start with $10,000. Now we're at 370,000. And close shortly thereafter, we're talking a million plus. And even though it's not our taxpayers money, it is government money, which means it comes from some other taxpayers. If we don't take this grant, uh it might put us in a position to get another grant for something that we really do need. Uh so you know I I'm if if we have a liability and if there is definitely a liability there uh the other liability is you know we're still liable if somebody walks up on the dam falls in and drowns. I mean not to not not to mention one if if the dam bursts. I'm saying, you know, let's make a final decision somewhere and this is not the place to do it since it's a work session, but let's reduce the liability to zero and increase our coffers because I'm sure the property will bring 39 acres,

36 uh 400 500,000 uh as say bottom line, uh, probably better than that. Even with all the wetlands, well, I have a couple questions I'd like to whenever you when you get it down to the creek and that a lot of that wetlands is dry will dry up because it's backing up because of the pond.

Uh, it wetlands is that's a sticky thing. These developers get by with wetland, right? All you got to do, a developer that wants to develop that, all he's got to do is go put money somewhere else and he's fine. He can go in there and destroy wetlands. It's okay. But he's got to put money somewhere else. He has to compensate the government because he's messed up that spot forever. But so we're eliminating that by breaking the dam and letting it if we get it back to nature, that's going to take away some of the thing. I know. I had It's going to make it more right in my neighborhood, too. Yeah.

We had We sold in property that had a pond and before anybody went back there and looked at it, we were advised to cut the dam and it and it did. They they were wanting to classify as wetlands because of the pond, but it was before we filled it up and the only time it got water in it is when it rain. Property with a stream on it is more valuable than wetlands. Well, that's what I was going to say. Are we making it more marketable by getting rid of that? That's what I was going to ask you two questions. If we spend the money, will that make it more than that? Will it sell for more by spending the money? What would we have to spend to break?

You just get a what? The way we broke ours. A big track. Run somebody down there with a big track. Cut it slowly. You can't take it all at once because you can't let all that water go. But once you start cutting and it's gonna take itself, it takes itself out. Erosion is going to it's that's the thing you have. We didn't have near this much water. We only had three acres and it's still that's a it's unbelievable the amount of water that comes down to do that thing.

It's all coming out. Another question I would ask because I've heard people around town, I'm not saying that I'm one of them, but I've heard some people say they'd like to put a park out there. Is that something we would be interested in at all? I've heard that as well. The liability of a park with a pond. I go to I go to Lexington and I walk that pond often, you know, over at the old mill. So, I'm just throwing it out there cuz I've heard people say that because they go to Lexon like I do and want the old meal pond and they say that about the town pond. I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there. It would be pretty. It would be pretty. But I think when people find out what it's going to cost,

this is probably not going to want a park cuz you know to make that thing where you could use it as a park. We spending millions of dollars. Hold on. Take a take a look again at the land that we have around it. Where where are you going to put a park? You may have a walking trail, but you can't even have a walking trail now because you got to walk across to get around the pond total to go 360. You have to go across Miss Miller's land unless we draw it down

way down. All right? Because that's that pond doesn't go like this. That pond goes and has filled in over the decades. But you right now if we tried to put a park in, what are you going to do? You're going to have them you could walk up to Miss Miller, but now you got to walk around and go back the other side. Miss Betty had been trying to ask if we were to sell it and someone else come in and purchase it and want to do a part. So that's that would also be it would no longer be our responsibility, right? But it doesn't negate the fact that someone might see that property and would have in mind that this might be a nice location

to put a restaurant into a park or something. Who knows? So therefore, we would not be responsible at that point. We sold but there is a possibility that it could happen even though with the water insurance hall, somebody could still want to come in. So what would we do? Well, it's zoned I I I would have to look, but I'm I'm pretty sure it's zoned R1 at this time. So, because all of the property around it is R1. Uh so, if they were wanting to develop it, they would have to come to the plan of commission and council to get a zoning change. It could absolutely if you sell it, you it's in private hands. The center property back up side of that

and it's up for sale now. So, not know what will happen to that property. That's the only place that it's enough land get a consensus to do much be valuable to anybody for putting houses out there. It wouldn't be valuable to anybody else. Um so so basically what I I am bringing forth to you is what what has been

kind of taken place over the last few years uh to get to this point. Obviously, we haven't committed to anything that requires council's vote to to move forward with this project. Uh if we So, what I'm intend to do is I will have this on the agenda for council for April. If you vote it down, then we are we're returning that money. We're just saying we're not taking the grant. Now, I will I will say this. We need to have a plan and and I don't know what dees will say. I would have to speak with uh John and and Britney about it, but I think with it being the on the hazard mitigation, they want to at least know what we're going to do to it. Is currently rated as a poor poor dam in their system.

Question. Yes, sir. Can we schedule it? Can we try to find out? Give us some options that we can make a logical decision as to what we do. is try to find out how much it would cost to cut the dam and drain it. Find out if there's really any land around it to sell it to a developer to develop it as is. I don't think you're going to get many developers with that thing being a high level risk and the amount of money that it's going to cost to ensure that. I don't think you're going to find a developer that's going to ever touch it. Not with the dam. Not but that damn.

Not looking at a million. not looking at a million five a million four. I mean, we're talking 370 just to do the engineering. Then we're talking a million to fix it. You got a developer who's going to buy it with no actual developable land around it that they own and then they're going to put a million four in this. Uh how are we going to sell it at all? A million4 divided by 400 houses is But how will we even sell it at this point? said you can't find a developer. Why would we take that responsibility, right, spending that kind of money?

Well, well, I will say this. We currently have that responsibility. We have to make a decision. Either we repair it or we either repair it or we cut it. One of the two. We have a decision to make. How much can we lower it with spillway? I mean, isn't there something? You could you can drop that overflow. I'm not sure what the you know that correct it. I would just refer to it as a stand pipe about five foot six foot in diameter physically just stands up water overflows it you know reaches a certain height. I've got a better picture on my phone. Yeah, I didn't. So in 23 when council voted to spend the money to do the engineering study I guess. Yes.

Was that a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that it had almost failed? I think it was a situation that we had to find out how bad it was because they put us at a high time. It was it was still our water. It was still our water source. So we had to see why. Right. Okay. So So was the current our current water situation even on the radar? Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. We Yeah. We started construction in May of 24. So, I'm just trying to get the timeline in my head for why the So, obviously,

what is the property worth with the pond sitting what it is now? If we're to just out and out sell today and somebody walked in and says, "I want to buy it." What is it worth that we could sell it for? And if we draw it down like Mayor is talking about draw it down, will it increase it, decrease it for us to sell it? I really think we need we would have a limited number of buyers. Well, if you to find out what it find out what it's really truly worth, you got to pay for appraisal. Appraisal on that property that size with what you're looking at is going to cost $25,000. That's what I think. And we probably have to another $25,000 we want to spend, right? Find out what it's worth to sell it. I mean,

yeah, but if you draw it down, if we take it down to the stream bed, then now you're selling property that has a stream running through it. Yeah. and and believe me has good foundation. Yeah, it would it's going to be good solid that that clay under that clay under. Do you think it would sell be more marketable drawn down? I don't think any I don't think you're going to find any developer that's going to be anyone with any brain that would be interested in that. I mean, I just can't see it. I can't see the liability. Yeah. Not when they've got to spend that kind of money and like you said, they can't get to do it. Insurance is a big thing now. I haven't heard anybody say why we should keep it.

I if we keep it if we keep it. The only use that I can come up with is a park. Councilman Councilman Kane's not here. Well, the only thing that I can do is people have talked about a park, you know, and putting a walking thing there. But it's going to take a lot of money to make that thing. It would. It would. We're not in Roman times. We could pacify people with parks and games. Well, they see that it could use the money. Oh, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that they like the freaking property. The thing of it is we can't go on what people like. We have to make the decision.

What we're here for and what we're elected for. Is to make the best decision for the town. You don't make the popular decision. That's not why you were elected. You were elected to make the best decision for the town to plan for the town's future. We got a potential that's a liability disaster that we own. And like you said, we're coming up on rainy season, so we need to draw it down. But I only Which one of the five or six are you talking about? Which many disasters that are? Oh, that's that's one right there. That's one of the many. That's a that's a big disaster and I'm talking about financially

if we're not going to if we're not going to do anything with it. Well, this one has a big financial for the liability that could happen, right? The thing of it is too knowing our financial situation knowing that the the study commission. Well, let's get serious and talk about who gets first option on the fish when we draw it out because I'm sure there's one or two. I'll get out there. I I'll be fine without any. So, I let whoever wants mine have it. We can have another foodie in that just cook for So, does anybody have any We're not going to do anything. I tell you what, that'd be a big fish fry for the town. You're right. And let's get y'all pick them up and clean them.

Enough grease. All right. So on the agenda uh other than the money then do you want to also include going ahead? I I don't I don't really think it's worth doing to an appraisal. I don't either. I think it's I think we really do need to find out how much it's going to cost to cut that down. I don't and you know we going it's going to take somebody with big equipment. It's not going to take some little fl to go out there and cut that down. It's also going to dehack's going to have to approve how we do it. Yeah. But how how do you control that? How do you control that from the erosion and stuff? I' I've seen it done. Yeah.

You just you get out there and you you get somebody doesn't dig too deep. Hold a lot of rock in where you're going to make the cut. Yeah. And you make sure the rock rip wrap is there so that when you make the cut, there can't be a dramatic wash out. It doesn't wash out. You got to have somebody that's got the capability. Cutting the dam is not going to be cheap. No. But it's not going to be 129,000 and it's going to result in and a reduction in our liability and a possible uh income somewhere down the road. So, do we need to get figures to find out? Well,

so we can but if we do that draw draw down like the mayor's talking about and we take it back to the creek, do we still then want to sell the property or that I mean I I think I think if we're taking out the dam then there's I think at that point yeah you're selling the property. I mean either way you're selling property. I think I think we don't we don't need to own we own enough property now. Um, so I I will reach out with you only knew dees and and talk with John and Britney and get an idea. We got six who who could be um

I guess we'll find a contractor that is capable of doing that. So never done that one before. So but John and Britney dees would be our starting point. I just can't help but think of what we could do with that. Right. with the money. Other priorities other Yeah. Other things. You can do a lot of work selling that property. Do a lot of stuff that we need money for. A lot of sidewalks can be fixed. Main Street Le will quit being a death trap to the people that employees.

But that's that's exactly we come in here every other or once a month and we talk about all this debt that we incur. How we're underpaid. our police departments, cars, our our sidewalks. So many things we need to do. But we keep adding to that list and not coming up with Yeah. We got to solve some problems. And this is I really think this is a high priority. I do too. I really do because of the potential there. And we never know when we're going to get a big rain. We missed the potential for another big rain with this storm front that just came through. Wasn't nearly as bad as they predicted that it could be. But but June through August, this is a high risk, really high risk area. So

should we go ahead and draw it down as much as we can we start drawing it down, Andrew? The short answer is yes, but we won't be doing anything but pushing a road because, you know, you would have to have something constantly pumping because it's it's constant. You got water coming in all the time. when the water plant was running, we were we were constantly pumping a million gallons out of it and it sometimes it did get low, but it's coming from up. It would be a constant battle. But the short answer is yes, we could pump, but it would

Well, you can you can ask DSS whether or not we could dees whether or not we can actually lower the uh overflow pipe. That would be the only way I think you I think I think you probably could get a little help call getting DNR because this will affect the downstream. It's got to be coordinated. It's got to be you got a lot of places but I think I would start with DNR. But if you if you take that over

if it's flowing through there it's flowing somewhere else. If you take that overflow pipe down foot at a time, you can, you know, eventually lower it because that's like a five foot 5 foot diameter or better. Uh, it would be controlled flow. You're not talking about that's one way to do it. But again, you know, you have to be careful because once you start destroying it, you got to control how you take it down. You don't want to just We all look out there with a bucket. But still the outflow pipe there is a outflow pipe under the dam. Uh and that's 6 foot also 5 foot probably probably.

So if you accidentally destroy the whole thing, it's still limited by the outflow pipe. So we don't have any promises or anything with the developer Summerland any that's going to be here or that's not not to my knowledge. I've never heard of that. I don't I don't When that was done, that was that was water. I mean, it was, you know, when someone started out with water. Yeah. We were still debating on how we were going to get other water at that point in time and they were arguing back and forth. I wasn't on town council then. I thought it was funny. It's amazing how that changes, isn't it?

So, so just to to summarize, wrap it up because I think we we're beating the horse at this point. Uh we'll have this on the agenda for April. Uh if if y'all want to move forward with the plan of getting rid of it, then you just need to vote down that accepting of the grant. Uh and then that way we send that to dees and and decline the grant. So we don't have to have a plan that night other than I don't I don't think we could possib we could have a what was it? President Trump said he had a idea of a plan or a something like that. Uh we there's no way we could have a plan in three weeks. This is share with them what we are

and and I absolutely will with Britney and John. Yeah. And could you go ahead and get some estimates on what you what I think my first step would be is to talk with John and and um his name is actually John McCain not the senator but uh but John and Britney are over the dam pro or dams at the so you can talk to the damn man. I'm going to talk to the dam need to start. Yeah, that that would be the starting point and then they can help walk us through what it was. I'm sure they've run into this before because you see dams cut all the time.

Yeah, it it happens and and so they're familiar with the process. Obviously, we've been working on the joke my uncle told me once about went to the dam to get some damn water and told me I couldn't have any damn water. And what's the other one? What did the fish say when he hit the wall? Damn. All right. Then I'm done. I'm turn it over to you, Mr. Mayor. All right. So, we we're done. We We don't have to. Well, we we really we technically can't vote. Nope.

So, if there is no objection, we are a journal.