County Council - Regular Meeting

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight. It's 5:30 p.m. So, we'll call to order this meeting of the Greenwood County Council. Your county council has been in an executive session since 400 pm and in interest of transparency, I'll ask that uh county manager Toby Chapel tell you why we needed that session. Mr. Chair, members of county council, we entered into executive session for the following three matters. One personnel matter, one potential real estate transaction pertaining to property in the area of Hotwinger Road, and one contractual matter pertaining to Lake Greenwood Indust uh auxiliary spillway. Thank you, Mr. Manager. Council. Uh, do I have a motion that we exit executive session? So move. Second.

Motion by vice chairman, second by Mr. Teresa. All in favor?

And we have exited executive session. Thank you. We uh tonight have some special guests with us. So I'm going to give a bit of instruction now, if you'll allow me to please, to the Boy Scouts. Um, Troop 53, I believe. I think Chris Eubanks. Mr. Chris, are you here this evening? So, what I would ask you do after Councilman Allison uh gives our invocation, then we'll take just a moment. I would ask for all the scouts to come forward. Just line up here in the front if you will, and we want you to lead us in our pledge of allegiance. So, as soon as Mr. Allison is finished, I want you to I want you to come up if you will. Okay, that'd be good. All right, Mr. Alison, will you stand, please?

Let us pray. Father, we come before you asking that your spirit and your presence rest upon our meeting tonight. Give us as community servants the wisdom, the courage, and the knowledge needed to carry out the business that's before us tonight. It's in the name of your son Jesus Christ, we ask these in all things. Amen. Amen. So you guys you guys come forward if you will and vice chairman since this is out of your district why don't you give a comment. Yes sir. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

So Chris have you guys come up and this is Boy Scout troop 53 based out of 96 and as part of their citizenship in the community merit badge. they are um going to attend this meeting. Whatever kind of suffering that might be to them. Just kidding. Hopefully it'll be a good one for you. We appreciate it. Your troop leaders come up also if you care. Absolutely. And gentlemen, if you will please turn around and fa face the pl flag before you begin the pledge. If you would please anytime you're ready.

Would you please join me in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, gentlemen, for that.

We really appreciate you all being here. I have fond memories of my days in scouting. I probably could have been a better scout, but I was lazy. Um, but I hope I hope that all of you guys will stay in scouting because you learn tremendous life lessons and I know your leaders talk to you about that regularly. Um, I don't think there's any any better expenditure of your time as young men in in your development than scouting. You'll learn about nature. You'll learn about responsibility. you'll learn about patriotism and a whole a whole list of other things. So, thank you so much for being here and uh maybe tonight you'll learn a little about government. Thank you so much, council. I trust that you've had an opportunity to review our minutes from our January 6 meeting. And if so, I'll entertain a motion that we uh put those minutes into record.

Motion to approve. Motion by Miss Miller, second.

Second by Miss Teresa. All in favor? And that is so ordered. Thank you, Madame Clerk. I think Mr. Marian Moore is here tonight to speak in in our public comment session. So, Mr. Moore, if you're here, would you please come forward, state your name and address, and tell us what you'd like to talk about? My name is Marian Moore. I live at 206 John's Creek Road, Hajes. Uh, I've just general comment for tonight and for future references on these developments that are coming into our town. We have a tremendous amount of people who love to come down, developers who love coming in here and and purchase property because it's a lot cheaper than Greenwell County or wherever. These developers are not living here. They don't care. They don't they're not going to stay here. They're here to develop that piece of property any way they can to make the most money off of it. I am a prime example of some mismanagement and some misdevelopment on a piece of property on Calhoun Road right now that was annexed into the city who we diligently opposed the development of it or the way it was started because it was a watershed for John's Creek. My pond, which is a nine acre pond, is now muddy for the 14th month in a row. And you can't see Toby Chapel has seen many pictures of it, I'm sure, from Carol Coleman. And it is a disaster. They look like they have pulled out of this project for currently. I don't know what their intentions are. Can't get an answer out of them. DK has been diligently of uh inspecting the property

and they're under an an enforcement division criteria right now. These developers will come in here and they'll rape the land. There's not a tree left on the entire property and and throw these houses up side by side. And these aren't just go out and look at these things and ride the fountain in and look at Simpsonville and look at go up to the left Highway 8. Do we want Greenwood to look like this? Every development where you can stick your arm out the window and shake your neighbor's hand, your kids can't even have an animal because there's no room to put a dog pin or anything out there. This is not what Greenwood's about. And there needs to be some addressing it. Y'all need to come up with some ordinances. You need to come up with something to slow this down because the development and the people that are doing it. One other comment, all this stuff that's coming in from out of town, y'all need to do your own investigation. I'll bet you with the capital campaign uh capital tax, I would bet $10 to a dime that if you really get into it and you have the power to investigate it and the and the building department has the power to investigate it. All these materials that come in here, they aren't coming from SNES. They aren't coming from this Lowe's. there. You look at you go to sit up at wear shows at Highway 25 every morning, you'll see loads, truckloads of sheetrock. You'll see truckloads of materials coming in here going to these developments. I'll guarantee you we aren't getting the capital tax off that thing that y'all think you are. and you and the county by not using local resources is setting it up where these developers need to use local suppliers, you're we're losing millions of dollars. Thank you,

Mr. Mayor. Again, where where's your residence? I live at 206 Jonas Creek Road. I'm in your district.

Yes, sir. John's Creek. Thank you. And and Mr. Mayor, I will tell you that county council has has had conversations in regard to um looking at future um developments and and and some of the things that we might want to change in regard to what we require on land development. So, thank you for your comments that that developers get this get this high density approved. Once it's approved for that, it looks to me like a lot of the things are going off the off the intended, you know, what they stated they were going to do is sometimes not what they're doing. Uh same thing that's happened on that project at Calhoun Road. And if you ride up Simpsonville and all, here's new developments and they and there there's so many of them out there. They're renting these houses from day one. They can't sell them because there's not enough people to buy them. We get all these houses stuck up right here and not gonna buy them. And and you got empty houses. Boy, that really looks nice. You know, uh even if they're going to develop them like that, require them to do it in stages where they fill the stage up before they start the other stage. There's a lot of ways you can slow it up, but this this development like we've got going on right now looks terrible.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate you being here.

We have a presentation I believe tonight and that is from our financial management group from First Citizens. Neil, thank you for being here with us. Evening council. Uh as always, thank you for our time today. Um we will be brief, but we of course want to cover what we typically do, which is a little bit of uh economic commentary and what we see out there in the markets. Neil will cover that and then we will transition to reviewing uh the two different portfolios that are under our care. So I'll start I'll start with throwing to Neil. Um you will look to find us on page five of So, if everybody's on page five, um good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of council, again, thanks for having us with you. Um talk a little bit about um rates, um what the Fed is doing. Um certainly affects your portfolio and you can test the scouts on bonds after we're done, see if they're listening. Um but if you look at um the yield curve there on page five. So the blue line is where we started the year. The gold line is where we ended the year. Pretty much where we are today um with the yield curve a little bit higher. Um actually the tenure um is about 42 itself as of today. So the curve is sort of drifted up which is not um you know anything that we didn't expect this year. Uh but the lower end of the curve there on the left hand side, the gold is the part that still needs to come down. And your portfolios, just to let you know, are really in that three to five year, one three year, one fiveyear. So you're in that what we call the belly of the curve, which is great. So you participated in that drop in yields. Um so when yields drop, bond prices go up. So it was great for your portfolio, which Jared will get to in a minute. Um

and we do expect the Fed uh to lower rates another time or two. uh to lower that left hand side of the page a little bit more. So if it's at 35 um as the lower bound of their range, we expect it to come down to three and a quarter. The market expects that first cut to be about June um and the second cut u later in the year. And you can see that on the left hand side of page six there where you look at what the Fed has done. So that plateau after they raise rates, they cut starting in September 2024. uh they paused for a while and then they cut a few more times. So um as we sit here today right about 36 for the Fed funds rate and you can see the dotted line there. So from a market expectation um point of view another cut or two this year. You can see on the right hand side though that um there is a lot of uncertainty um more so than certainly in past years with what the Fed is going to do. um if you follow these things um you know certainly has become much more complex uh with the pressure on Jerome Pal um at the Fed and the investigation that's going on but his term does end in May. Um the question is always whether he stays on or not. Um whether he stays on as chairman and whether he stays on the Fed period. Um we'll see how that plays out. Um I think he's probably dug in his heels after the latest um situation, but we shall see. Um we've always thought though that there are enough voting members on the Fed that they'll look at the data and they'll make the decision based on inflation and unemployment. And so from that perspective, um we had an inflation number last week. So it's actually at 27, not down to their 2% target, but but pretty close, but it's been sticky there for quite some time. Um so no, you know, rush for them to cut rates. Um what they've looked at more and what we've looked at more this year is the unemployment situation, which clearly

has weakened. And so that probably gives them um some at least some slack there to cut rates that they need to come uh this year, but we would expect the rates to go down just a a bit more. Um and then for this cycle um at long last, after a couple years, um they may be at what we call their terminal rate. Um, and then we'll look forward to when they at some point in the future start to raise rates. But I'll stop there. See if there are any questions and u before Jared gets the portfolio. Thank you, Jared.

All right, if we have no further questions there on econ, um, if you'll go with me to let's start on page, it should be page 10. Um, so this would represent the electric capital fund. Um, of the two portfolios, this one being a longer durationed portfolio, um, aiming at zero to five years. Um, this is the one that we had conversations with a year or so back with Stephanie and talking through um, extending that duration given the more long the longer term uh, nature of the portfolio. That has certainly done very well uh, over this past year. with us sitting in January, we can look at uh an annual uh return, more of a total return. Uh we'll also look at yield to maturity in a moment. Um but this past year over the course of 25 uh this one clocked in at 5.77%. So um a very good year uh with with rates coming down that certainly helped valuation of the portfolio. Uh if you'll flip two more pages to page 12, this is where we can look at the yield to maturity. yield to maturity uh yield to worst and yield to maturity at 3.67. Um of course uh with with rates coming down what what you owned in the portfolio was valuated a little a little higher giving you that 5.7% uh real return in the portfolio. Um so that is your that's the electric capital fund. again. Uh that one the the longer duration. Uh if you'll turn with me to page 17, uh we can look at the operating fund. Uh a strong year as well at 5.06%. Again, this one a shorter duration closer to a three-year targeted ladder. Um couple more pages gets you to to the yield to maturity. Again, a similar number slightly lower to be expected at 3.56. So all in all, great year uh for the portfolios. we expect another one as as

Neil mentioned with the Fed expected to likely drop rates again potentially a couple more times. Um we hope to see a similar type of performance for for this coming. So I'll stop there. Any questions on on where things sit, duration or performance? All right, we thank y'all for the time. Um you know where to find us if we can help in any other way. But again, thank you for for the time tonight. It

was a good overall year. Thank you for taking care of us. We appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. We'll move first into old business, Ordinance 202540 to amend the Greenwood County zoning map as and if amended so that a portion of one parcel of land totaling approximately 46.52 acres at 2611 highway 25 South in Greenwood County will change from C2 general commercial to R3 single family residential county planner, Miss Carol Coleman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You can see this property is it's a portion about 3/4 a little over that of the overall 61 acres and change. Um 46 acres is being dedicated to residential development. The front portion would remain as commercial. Um they're showing 115 lots on a plan which averages out to 2.6 units per acre, 2.5 units per acre actually, which is considered low density. Um our future land use on that property is medium density residential in the rear. medium density residential is actually considered things above four units per acre um four five six range. So this is in keeping with the comprehensive plan. Um we recommended approval. Staff did planning commission recommended approval. If you have any questions I'll be glad to address them.

Council, what's your pleasure? I have a quick question. Third and final reading by the way. Gotcha. Go ahead. And I know developers in here. Is there is this at all tied or have any kind of connection with um the development proposed down in 96? Yes. Okay. We fin

I just wonder if there so there's no shouldn't be any further delay then what was being discussed We should be good after that. Okay, Mr. Coleman, I have one question. Can you just remind me how many planned units for this and what that I know you gave us numbers on density, but how many units is this? 115 is what they show on the plan. And how many will that be per acre? That's about 2.5 2.6 Six per units per acre on the plan. 2.5. Just under 2.5.

Okay. 115. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I'll offer you a motion to approve. Have a motion to approve. Second. Second by Miss Miller. Any further comments or discussion? If not, all in favor? And that is unanimous and so ordered. Thank you. We'll move now into a section of new business consideration of the application for South Carolina Office of Resilience or SCORE uh Hurricane Helen disaster recovery grants and our capital project sales manager, Mr. Josh Skinner will give us details on that, please.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Council. Uh we have the opportunity to apply for uh some funds from the South Carolina Office of Resilience. Um the hurricane Helen disaster recovery grants. These are uh designated for the six counties in South Carolina that were hardest hit by Helen. Greenwood, Aken, Spartanberg, Greenville, and Edgefield, uh and Anderson, I believe. Um we're looking at five different grants as are related to the watershed study. Uh there are two buyout grants, one for Fox Hollow and one for uh the property in the flood zone at 510 Sample Road, two infrastructure grants, uh one for Brookfield Drive and Curt Curtail Creek, and one for Culverts at Champin Road and Creek Road and then one score match grant. Uh this would be for the Fox Hollow FEMA application. And uh if council approves of these uh grant applications, uh we would recommend approval with the designation and authorization of the county manager to execute any final grant documents. Um, and that was also with the approval of a up to a 10% match for each grant application which would come from uh the capital project sales tax funds for the watershed stud.

Josh, thank you. I know you put a lot of hard work into this and we appreciate it. Council, I'll remind you that we're going to vote these as a as a single matter. So, um, before we do so, any comments or questions in regard, we had pretty extensive conversation about this. So, I'll ask you now, councelor, what's your pleasure? I'm going to make a motion to approve this request. Have a motion by Miss Miller. Second, a second by the vice chairman. The motion is to approve. All in favor? And that's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you, Josh.

Thank you'all. Item B, consideration of the approval of a South Carolina opioid recovery fund application. And our county treasurer, Miss Stephanie Dorne, will give details on that, please. And Miss Carol, I didn't mention you got a brand new hairo over there. Looks good.

Thank you, chairman and councel. As you know, we have a fair amount of funds available to us in the um related to the opioid recovery and we're required to get your all's approval on these before we apply for them. We have an application the application periods are about every quarter and we have one that ends on January 30th. If you recall, we also have a stakeholders committee uh and we put these in front of them as well. We haven't done that yet. That will be done u next week. So we will make sure if if you all approve approve it that they also approve it before we submit it uh to SCORF. But let me tell you about uh this particular project that we are hoping to apply for. You may have read um an article in the index journal that talked about the problem with our juvenile crime in Greenwood County. And Judge Mindy Zimmerman is one that's hears a lot of these um cases. She moves around from county to county in South Carolina and she hears a lot of the cases here in Greenwood. And she was at a meeting and she was asked the question of what's going on with all these um kids and guns in Greenwood. Believe it or not, Greenwood County leads South Carolina in gun related juvenile offenses. And so, Judge Zimmerman, it was kind of she she recognized it, but this was kind of like the defining moment where she realized that what's happening with our juveniles isn't working in the in the criminal justice system. As a measure of that, in 2020, there were 191 petitions related to juvenile crime. 2021, 256. 2022, 373. 2023 452.

That was more than double over a three-year period, which is an alarming amount of juvenile related crime. In an effort to create a new system for addressing these situations, Judge Zimmerman has proposed a multidisciplinary juvenile treatment court. This is a partnership between the 8th circuit uh solicitor's office, the public defenders office, the family court, DJJ, and hopefully STARS 24 in addition to a large number of volunteers who have already spoken up and are in agreement to participate in this potential program. So, you might be asking me, well, I'm talking about gun violence and I'm talking about other crimes that the our juveniles commit. How does that relate to opioid funding? According to Judge Zimmerman, almost every serious case that she sees is related to unresolved trauma in children. The majority of these are related to sex abuse in addition to other uh other violations. The CDC and nationalmies of science, engineering and medicine research has has shown uh in a previous study through research that demonstrates that youth exposed to adverse childhood experiences, things such as abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction are much more likely to initiate substance abuse at an earlier age and develop opioid use disorder later in life. So when we talk about trying to stop the opioid problem, it seems obviously relevant that we start with our children. These are the children that need our help more than anybody else.

The request for funding is for a program coordinator as part of this program. As as part of this request, we cannot organize the group of volunteers, the requirements of uh of what the juvenile court intends to put into place without somebody to monitor all of these activities. In addition to that, we are looking at funding from from the Good Life program. Now, you might think that sounds familiar, and it does because we have already received funding from opioid recovery funds for the good life program to go into two of our schools. We have the funding in um Emerald High School and Brewer Middle School right now. Uh the intent is to expand those programs. This program that we want for the juvenile uh discip multidisciplinary treatment court is more intensive than what is being offered in the schools. It will also include group counseling and potential security needs at STARS 24. So what we're looking at is a program that would require juveniles to participate. It would be held at the STARS 24 U campus or facility. U we've already uh Judge Zimmerman's already visited the site and spoken with the um director Sabrina Miller and she has um some valid concerns about security um with the with the juveniles that would be coming through. And so that's why we want to have part of this package to include security funding. the vision of this program. Um I can't do it justice. I wish that Judge Zimmerman could be here, but she's in a um I think Chesterfield County this week.

Um she is so passionate about about the idea of this program and she can um she could stand up here for an hour and talk to you about how important that this that this potential program is. But her vision includes teaching our children um basic things that they aren't being taught um in that they can't be taught in school and that they maybe aren't being taught at home um that that will serve them in life. But most importantly, none of these children are going to be able to succeed if they're involved with gangs and if they're turning to opioids to solve their problems. I want to tell talk to you about um what is happening right now with the good life program because that's always a question, right? We throw our money out and we hope that it works. And so I asked um the director of the good life program, tell me um show me how it's working now in our schools. Even though this is a different program, I want to know how the Good Life program is working. These are two stories he shared with me. A sixth grade student who had participated in Good Life stopped a facilitator in the hallway to share that he had accomplished a personal academic goal set during the program, earning all A's on his test. As he celebrated this win, another student overheard the conversation and asked how had he done it. The student responded simply, "Good life helped me do it." In that moment, one student's progress became a catalyst for another's belief in what was possible, illustrating how goal setting, accountability, and shared language ripple outward among peers.

This is a student that now will probably go much further and have a career rather than turning to gangs and opioid use. In another classroom during a good life lesson focused on emotional awareness and focus, students were invited to write about challenges they were carrying. One student, previously perceived as doing well academically, shared deep concern about his parents ongoing conflict and fear that it was his fault. When the teacher read the journal entry, he immediately recognized the need for additional support and connected the student to counseling resources. This interaction occurred after just two sessions of good life instruction, demonstrating how the framework creates trust quickly, surfaces hidden trauma, and equips educators to respond with compassion and action. I have um multitudes of information and one more thing I would would like to share just about the good life program. Um they originated in Ohio, but they've been in the Abyville County schools. They've worked with um criminal justice systems in other areas. And they also won a uh national award from the National Association of Counties, an achievement award for the best in category for human services. They label it as a system built to react. It's built a system that was built to prevent and not to react. And so I can answer any questions that you might have about um this request for funding, but I would ask that you approve our app uh ability to apply for these funds from the uh opioid recovery fund.

Stephanie, first I really appreciate your passion on this because I know you're passionate about it. I missed the county council meeting, the last meeting and I think it's the third meeting I've missed in my 10 years on council because I had the flu. But during that time, I was having trouble sleeping and oftentimes I don't see any news but the late night news. But I had the thought during that week that it was staggering that it seemed that every time I turned that television on late night news, I was seeing reports of kids killing kids or kids killing adults or kids home invading. It was it really was shocking. And I guess I don't have a lot of free time to sit around and watch television, but it seemed like every time I turn the TV on. So, it really resonates with me as to what you're saying. Um, council, having heard Miss Dorne's u presentation, what is your pleasure?

Off you a motion to approve, Mr. I have a motion by Mr. Allison. Second. Second by Miss Teresa. Comments or questions? Council, I I do have a question. Thank you. Um, the value of this grant. Oh, that would be important. I'm curious about 200,000 and and the length. So when you're hiring a program coordinator and a security team, how long will that fund that?

So the the SCORE funds are only for one year at a time. So we would have to apply again for for funding a year from now to continue the program. Thank you. And I have I have talked extensively with um Judge Zimmerman and um Jamie Steel in the solicitor's office about that eventually these funds run out and and we're always hesitant to hire people with that information. Um but they are hopeful that once we stand the program up and show its success that there will be opportunities for funding elsewhere as well. I somewhat to do with this, but um are you getting good participation from the committee or the group that you guys brought together for this?

We are. Um I I I think just with every committee, you always have a few that are always there and and some that are a little bit more sporadic. Um we're meeting every other month. Uh, we had we had one meeting where I think I was the only one that showed up and um I told I talked to um the staff at CHC and I said, "Y'all got to send out reminders and because people forget even if it's on their calendar and then and then it's time for it." So um once they started sending out reminders, we've been we've been doing better with our attendance.

Yeah. And I mean that's kind of a unique thing and I know some of us gave suggestions on that and um I think their input's valuable, very valuable and I just was curious how that was going. Thank you. You could put Craig Stucky on that committee. He always shows up. How you doing Craig? Council, any other comments or questions before we vote? If not, have a motion and a second. All in favor? That's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you, Steph.

Item C, consideration of the appointment of special P tax district commissioners for the following subdivisions. Lewis SL Sly will cover that for us. We have uh Kimbrook and Wellington Green. Three uh yeah, three in district 4. one in district six. Lewis,

thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I'll start with the three for Kimbrook subdivision, and Kimbrook subdivision was one that was recently dissolved, but they have a little over $2,000 in funds still available. So, they need commissioners in order to use those funds. The three for Kimbrook are Tanner Hall, Terrence Dorsy, and Richard Liry, and they'll all be for one-year terms. And then we have a reappointment for Wellington Green um Nancy West to a four-year term. Okay. Thank you, sir. I call for you a motion to approve, Mr. Chairman. Second.

I have a motion by Vice Chairman, second by Mr. Allison. Any comments or questions before we make these appointments? If not, all in favor? That's unanimous and so ordered. Thank you, Lewis.

Thank you. Pardon me, my pages are stuck together. Item D, resolution 202605 will amend the fiscal year 26 budget to allocate funds from the general fund to match the locate South Carolina fund grant increase for due diligence required by the Palmeta Sites program for the 96 business park. Mr. Billy Ray Morgan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, councel. Uh, yeah, we acquired additional land to option to add to the 96 uh industrial park and in doing so, we have to do a title opinion on the additional land. And so, we need to move some funds from the general fund to the grant fund.

And what's that amount, Billy? 500 $500,000 $500. Yes. I'll offer you a motion to approve. Mr. Chairman, 5 cent. We rarely get the opportunity to approve something that small. Council, what's your pleasure? We have a motion. Second. We have a second by Miss Miller. Motion by the vice chairman. Any comments or questions before we vote? All in favor? And that cheap allocation is so ordered. Thank you. Thank you. Item E, ordinance 202602 will remove parcels from the Ferncliff Special Purpose Tax District. Miss Dorne, again,

should I asked him how much you had already approved? Okay, only a treasurer would point that out. I'm

sorry. this um we received a request from the uh Ferncliffe uh special tax district commissioners to remove four parcels. Uh if you recall, you all passed an ordinance, excuse me, an ordinance previously established in the Ferncliffe Special Tax District. And there's four parcels that they're asking to be removed. Two of these parcels are owned by the Ferncliffe Homeowners Association and have no tax value. The other two parcels are owned by adjacent property owners. Uh one with a value of $200 and one with a value of $300. Uh we put these into the district through an ordinance. Therefore, we must take them out. And of course, this is just uh the first reading. We would have a public hearing at the meeting on February 3rd. Th

Thank you, Stephanie. I'll remind you council this first reading in time only and we'll take a public hearing on this in our next session. Thank you. Any questions? Any questions, comments? I'm just curious. I didn't know once you were in one how you get out of one when you talk I understand the two owned by the POA, but the two that are adjacent were they originally part of that neighborhood? So that's why they were included that all four of these parcels are in the the boundaries of the neighborhood. Um but the commissioners are asking that they be removed because uh two of the parcels are not the the two that are owned by adjacent property owners are not developable.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Lots. Yeah. Anything else council? If not, we'll move uh we have no pending items before us, so we'll move in to our district reports. Uh Miss Teresa, District One. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um like to say good evening to each and every one of you. Uh we want to thank the um troop 53 for coming and um leading us in the um pledge of allegiance and for staying.

So, an awesome opportunity for you all. Um hopefully everyone enjoyed their day off yesterday and maybe did a little day on and helping others. Um and I would just like to leave um the quote um from um Dr. King. The time is always right to do what is right. And I think that serves us well here at um on county council. And I would just, you know, like to um ask that we all would just think about doing that. Um, so we don't have the option to to go left, go right. You know, you're always gonna do what's right regardless of whatever situation you're going through. And that so ends my report, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Allison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Real quick, I would like to uh wish a very happy birthday to uh my aunt Louise Allison Young, uh the sister of my late father. She was born January the 18th, 1923. If you do the math, this past Sunday, she turned 103. Wow. Wow.

And she attends church regularly at East Side Baptist Church. and uh still getting it at 103. I just hope a little bit of those jeans bleed over onto my bloodline, but I want to wish her a very happy birthday 103. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Alison. Miss Miller,

thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to um give a brief shout out to Discover Greenwood, basically in Greenwood in entirety. uh Greenwood last weekend hosted the USA state singles tournament um and played across different sites in the county had about 260 players participating and what is important for this audience is to know that it had about a $150,000 economic impact with people staying in hotels and restaurants and things like that. That's a big positive for Greenwood County. Thank you, Miss That's all. Thank you so much,

Vice Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too want to reach out. Thanks Chris for reaching out to me. Um, thank you to the Boy Scout Troop 53 from 96 for showing up and leading us in the pledge. Um, always good to have you guys here. Um, hopefully it didn't bore you too much, but uh, hope you had a good time with it and good luck on the merit badge. Um, condolences to the Goldman family in 96. um a lot of members of that family are in96 and um had a tragic accident. So just keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Normally I end my district report with a Bible verse, but today um in honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, just a few of his quotes, one of which Abby posted today on social media, but definitely worth repeating. The first one is, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. Second one is I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. Third, faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. And the last one, the ultimate measure of a man or person is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. That ends my report, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Puit. Appreciate that. Um, I've been reminded in my district by the Wesol School District that uh that the vice chairman does a great job of of recognizing his district and I do a very poor job of recognizing my district. So, we're going to have a healthy competition going forward and and and probably even though the football season has passed us by, 96 High School had one of the best years in football that they've had in a long time. So, I'm going to have them come forward at some point in the near future. They're going to be mad again. You wear shows

to be so Oh, I'm sorry. I said 96. Yeah. Well, you can see it's wearing off on me. Yeah. Where Scholes had had they had a great year. So, I'm going have them come forward. Um um sorry that Miss Bishop was unable to attend tonight. Um she's dealing with a medical issue and Mr. Templeton was also absent. Uh Mr. Templeton, as many of you know, unfortunately lost his wife recently, but District 50 was honoring Robin tonight with a special ceremony and so Robbie is exactly where he should be. So, u I just I just wish that it hadn't been tonight so we could have attended. Um, all is well in district 7 as far as I know. Uh, so with that, I will ask the manager, do you have anything for us? O only briefly to say that if you have a chance to go up 25 north, two of the four walls of our new spec building are already vertical. So we have started going vertical in the new industrial park.

Yes, sir. I noticed that last week while I was out with the flu. Um um Miss Susan, anything for us? No. Madam Attorney, just quickly, I'm so glad y'all are here. Boy Scouts. My nephew is getting his Eagle this weekend in Colombia and Boy Scouts have meant so much to him and I've seen him grow so much over the years and I hope you all take the same opportunity to make it a big part of your lives and it's great to see y'all here. And before we adjourn, scout leaders, who's the highest ranking scout in the in the audience tonight?

Raise your hand. Who's the highest ranking scout? What's your scout rank? I'm almost first class. Almost first class. Almost first class. And what age are you? Uh 13. Good job. Good job. So if there is nothing else, we will call this meeting a journ. Thank you all for being here tonight.