Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to welcome everyone to the Town of Lexington Council Work Session on June 15, 2026. Work sessions are less formal business meetings that enable Council to obtain information regarding Town issues from staff members and or consultants. Citizens are encouraged to observe work sessions, however they do not include public hearing comments. Council does not take an action vote on items during a work session other than to place on the next council agenda. I'm Hazel Livingston, the mayor of the town of Lexington, and I'd like to introduce my fellow council members. To my left is Council Member Ron Williams.

Good evening.

To his left is Councilmember Todd Lyle.

Good evening.

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

Good evening.

To his right is Councilmember Gavin Smith.

Good evening.

And to his right is Councilmember Will Allen.

Good evening.

At this time, I'd ask Councilmember Allen to lead us in the invocation tonight.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Let's pray, y'all. Oh, Heavenly Father, thank you so much for all that you've done, all that you continue to do for us, and all that you will continue to do, Lord. We are so blessed in this town, this little slice of heaven, and we're so thankful for this community that we have. We ask you, Lord, to please give us some Holy Ghost wisdom as we make our decisions here for the best that we can do for our neighbors to preserve the peace and prosperity of this community. We love you, Lord. We praise you. We bless you. And we pray all this in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Amen.

At this time, I'd ask Councilmember Williams to lead us in the pledge. I will now call the meeting to order. Council met in executive session prior to this meeting where we discussed the following matters. Discussion of two potential property acquisition, legal briefing regarding zoning matter, and discussion of West Columbia water litigation. No vote was taken. Do I hear a motion to ratify this report?

So moved.

Do I hear a second? Second. All those in favor, raise your right hand. And we do have something we need to vote on coming out of executive session.

Yes, Madam Mayor. Yes. I would move that we approve the engagement agreement with the Smith Robinson law firm regarding the West Columbia v. Town of Lexington litigation.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Councilman Lyle seconds it. Is there any discussion on this? Hearing none, all those in favor, raise your right hand. And it is unanimous. Are there any deletions of items from tonight's agenda?

Madam Mayor?

Yes, sir.

I would move that we remove business item number four, Pilgrim Point Street Lights. There is some more information and research that needs to be done by staff, so we will hopefully discuss that at a future meeting.

Okay, thank you. Councilman Smith, do we need to vote on that, right? Or no? Councilman Smith makes a motion that we remove item number four. Do I have a second?

Second.

Councilman Williams seconds it. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, raise your right hand. And it is unanimous. At this time, I would like to invite Ms. Dawn Corley to come forward and her husband, Mr. Chuck Corley. Ms. Corley and her husband, Chuck, are longtime town residents, and Dawn is a talented local artist, having generously donated two beautiful pieces of artwork that are displayed in council chambers this evening. These images were created in recognition of our nation's upcoming 250th anniversary of independence and serve as a wonderful tribute to the historic milestone. On behalf of the Town Council and our community, thank you for your generous donation and for sharing your talent with us. These pieces will be displayed throughout town hall for residents and visitors to enjoy. We are truly fortunate to have dedicated residents like you who contribute their time, creativity, and passion to making our community a better place. And to you, Chuck, for keeping us all straight on history, okay? I want to leave you out. We appreciate you all so much. And I'm going to ask all of council to come down with me and let's gather around these and take a picture with John and Chuck for donating them to us. And then we're going to let you say something. How are we going to get back there? How are we going to get back there?

She's asking. Yeah. Y'all can hold them. What's that y'all are going to hold them?

Do you want to move right up here?

Yeah.

Can we shift down some more? Just a little bit more. Come on down. All right, perfect.

Thank you.

mayor and town council, I just have a few things I'd like to say. Primarily, I painted those specifically in honor of the mayor and all of you because I feel like those sort of transcend time and you can imagine all the difficult decisions that were being made in America at the time those were originally made. They have a huge amount of responsibility, huge amount of calm was required all through history. And so, you know, I'm like everyone else that lives in Lexington and to Mr. Allen's point, we live in a wonderful place, but that's mainly because we have wonderful direction. So I really wanted to do those in y'all's honor based on the fact that, you know, with my job, I go all over the country. People tell me all the time they cannot believe how Southern people are all related, how we all get along. And I think to myself, you know, there's a lot of terrible stuff in the world, but we do all pretty much act that way. You know, and I think we're blessed to be here. And y'all have made our town a wonderful place to be. And I really appreciate it. Thank you.

thank you chuck of course he's not going to not say something mayor and town council i appreciate all the job done even the previous town councils i think hazel's probably the senior member all the way around don't tell him don't tell him about how old i am you're 21 plus but um Hazel and I have gone back for a long ways. Just standing right here, jumping up and down, said, no, you can't tear that down. You can't tear that down. Main Street looks wonderful. It's just everywhere that I go, people say, your Main Street is just so pretty and it's beautiful at Christmas time and everything. And I appreciate everything that y'all have done to keep our town looking like a town and not letting it go to pot. And I appreciate also Ms. Blondell's house being saved, too, by the Radius Church. This looks good. And I just want to say a great big thank you to all of you. Keep up the good work.

We appreciate y'all very much. Thank y'all very much. And we do want y'all to participate with us on July the 3rd, right, Lauren? July 3rd. For our 250th celebration at the Ice House. But we'll get you the details and get you there. And thank you again. Moving on to our business items, tonight's first business item is from Planning and Building Director Jessica Libran, and welcome back from vacation.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So tonight we are going to discuss the scenic corridor regulations for commercial developments. In June 2025, Town Council adopted scenic corridor regulations intended to preserve and enhance the visual character of designated roadway corridors within the town. Staff recently conducted the first pre-development meeting for a commercial project located within a scenic corridor area since adoption of these regulations. During that discussion, questions were raised regarding the application of the scenic corridor standards to commercial development and whether the town's existing commercial landscaping requirements may already fulfill the overall intent of the regulations. Site-specific environmental constraints associated with the project also raised questions regarding how the scenic corridor standards interact with existing landscape requirements and whether additional administrative flexibility may be appropriate in some circumstances. Staff is seeking Council's guidance tonight and direction about whether you would like the Planning Commission to review scenic corridor regulations as they relate to commercial development.

Madam Mayor.

Can we get a motion and a second first and then we don't have to. Well, I guess I tell you what, let's have discussion first. Yes, sir.

Yeah, I just wanted to jump in I actually spoke with Jessica about this and it's a we we kind of adopted the the county standard on this to preserve some of our senior corridors, but for instance Corley mill is one of those. And I was helping a gentleman do some due diligence on Corley mill parcel and the reality is is that with our With our scenic corridor ordinance, what we're really trying to prevent is a bunch of backyards backing up to a nice scenic corridor. But that doesn't really work in the commercial realm because when you have an undisturbed buffer, people buy commercial property so that they can have an open shot to the roadway. When you put an undisturbed buffer on them, you're forcing them to leave a bunch of garbage, a bunch of landscape garbage along the front. And our commercial landscaping ordinance is pretty robust. It requires quite a few plantings and the reality is anybody that's building something commercially, they're going to be putting two, four, six, eight million dollars into the thing. So they're going to landscape it well. And so we discussed it, asked it to bring it to work session. What I would start the conversation with is I think if we're going to zone something on a scenic corridor commercially and we're going to say you can stand up a four million dollar commercial building for instance on Corley Mill or Mineral Springs one of those scenarios There's no way that anybody's ever going to do that if they can't clear all the way to the road and do their own plantings and do their own landscaping. Otherwise, they're hiding a $4 million building behind a 30-foot undisturbed buffer that's kudzu and some small pines. And so I don't know. I talked to some people about the county, and that's kind of happened some in the county, but that's just... That's not what we envisioned for our town. There is not a single commercial property in the town of Lexington that has a bunch of brush and scrub and things sitting in front of it between the building and the road. You know what I'm saying? And I think it's just fortunate that we got to this first project before we put this burden on anybody and were able to rework this. Because again, with residential scenarios, There is something to preserving some of that buffer, but in my opinion, it's not in a commercial scenario. And maybe Jesse, you could speak to that. I don't know if we've seen that, what happens in the county, but I could give you guys a few parcels to go look at and ask you to envision a commercial building behind 30 feet of scrub. And it's like, it's a killer. It won't work.

So what if Jessica, instead of them not being able to clear it, what if they just had a larger landscaped area between the building and the road?

That can be something we can explore. I'm going to be honest. I'll leave the trees to Shannon because he's the expert in that field. But we did go over it and I did speak with my co-part over at the county just to see how they deal with some of these situations. They've added some language recently that allows staff in certain circumstances to be able to provide relief up to a certain percentage if there is a hardship. But I did want to point out that it does state in here that you do have to replant certain things the the goal here for the scenic corridor is to preserve canopy trees and understory trees not under brush it even states in here that if there is undesirable underbrush understory trees canopy trees including those in poor condition dead dying or considered invasive exotic species is discouraged And you have to remove them, but there's requirements for replanting things that are desirable. And there's a calculation to that. But we can look at how that is evaluated, especially in circumstances like that. We are talking about a small area. You're looking at Corley Mill Road, Mineral Springs, a portion of Pilgrim Church, Old Cherokee Road, wildlife, a little bit of bar, and...

it looks like maybe cherokee trail i believe that is inside of that we we kind of just tacked on and followed what the county had already identified as a scenic corridor so what you're saying is that for the commercial it's not clear cutting everything i mean it's not saving everything you clean out everything it's saving the big hundred year old oak trees all right or the 75 year old tree

But there are some situations, particularly the one that we just looked at, that it was going to make a hardship on that property because of the site conditions as well. So Shannon actually went out and looked at it and was in agreeance that the ordinance could potentially cause unintended consequences once it's supplied. And so that there should be, we could probably look at maybe changing language or working out a hardship mechanism or something to that extent and researching it a little bit more if that's what you all so desire.

Joe, be okay with him doing that? Doing a little more research?

Whatever direction you get at.

Madam Mayor. Yes.

Yes.

I actually visited this site with Shannon. So again, it never occurred to me until I started actually looking at a site and thinking about how it was going to develop. And it was a four-acre site on Corley Mill. And again, when you're doing something residentially, like a residence, they want some buffer between them and the roadway. They're not trying to get their front door to the roadway. But when you're doing a commercial site, they want their front door at the roadway. And so maybe the language in there, I mean, the language is clear. It says undisturbed buffer. And maybe there's some further qualifying language in there that says in this undisturbed buffer, you can disturb it for these reasons. Yeah, it does. I just don't. I would rather. I'd rather not hold commercial development captive to that. I'd rather just be clear that if you develop something commercially, there is a significant landscape requirement that's already on you. I think you said one tree for every X feet of perimeter.

And then there's parking lot requirements as well.

Yeah, I mean, it is significant. And the new stuff that's going to be planted is going to have a much better aesthetic than a lot of stuff we're trying to save, unless you've got like a 75-year-old oak and it happens to be in that... that front buffer area.

But the reality is... Man, you're going to have to talk about this. We're going to disagree. You can't get those trees back, and it's going to take years. Mine and your grandchildren would be older than us by the time those trees get there.

But you're talking about... but here's the reality though i mean if the tree is if the trees sixty feet off the road is coming down if it's twenty feet off the road is staying some of them have to be protected don't they like some yeah there's some that still have to be protected well you could cut them down and you replace them it's just it's it's extremely limiting on commercial development because nobody's paying a hundred fifty dollars an acre for roadside and then you tell them There's going to be a bunch of existing stuff between you and the roadside. So I don't know. I'd be curious to know what the county said. I talked to a few people about that. But what did the county say about commercial development? I mean what about all the commercial development going up and down Sunset? Is Sunset not considered?

Sunset Boulevard in their ordinance is a scenic corridor 3, which is a 10 foot buffer. It's whenever you get into these roads that are kind of off of the main commercial corridor that you have a higher buffer. So like Corley Mill is a 3, Mineral Springs is a 2. We remove the scenic corridor our last seen a court Corley know the one in mineral Springs is to we remove seen a quarter or 3 from our ordinance because it was so similar to our commercial regulations that we already had in place that we just felt that it wasn't necessary because it's a filled our commercial regulations fulfilled that so that sunset Boulevard is is a 3 which I think is a 10 foot buffer.

Last thing, but there's a big difference in an undisturbed buffer and what you're thinking of as a trophy tree. This ain't about taking down 75-year-old trophy trees. It's about taking something that's kind of scrub and underbrush and making it a manicured...

A manicured grass to area with brand new palms along the roadside for brand new commercial building and I'm good with that we keep that same buffer that change the language from undisturbed to write a planted landscape but saving those for larger trace, yes, with 3 when we can explore that further if that's the intent.

So I guess what I would like to ask is the intention of developing this scene at court or the regulations around that was to preserve areas like Corley mill that has the tree canopy said that a commercial property owner sells to a company they come in and basically take down a portion of that tree canopy correct.

Correct. It was preservation because of the unique character to include the existing long-standing natural tree canopies.

So I think the intention of the ordinance, regardless of whether it is residential or commercial, was designed to preserve that tree canopy. So I don't know that I would be in favor of making an exception, regardless of whether it's residential or commercial. But I do think that Mayor Pro Tem Carnes makes a fair point that the underbrush, you know, could be eliminated to make it look more aesthetically pleasing. However, I would like to see personally that the ordinance preserves and protects the trophy trees, the existing. Yes. Um, that would be my opinion. I would not want to drive down Corley mill, um, and see, I don't want to call it a particular company, a commercial development purchase property and take out a chunk of the tree lawn just because they're commercial and not residential. I would like to see us be able to preserve the tree canopy, those trophy trees. I wouldn't have any issue if there's some sort of calculation that you remove so much underbrush, you have to go back and put so much landscaped area. That would be my opinion.

Madam mayor yes, Jessica just for clarification on how a 3.78 that bank next to care it that beautiful landscaping they've done was that required by the town or was that something they just did the new bank, yeah.

Yes, that is that was required by the town. It was a plan was that a buffer how much is it that so sunset Boulevard is part of our preservation corridor so they have a 30 foot building buffer or 30 foot building set back in a 20 foot buffer from sunset. But they followed our standard commercial regulations and Shannon approved work with them on that yeah that look nice.

Anything else? And so I am hearing that we want them to continue to work on this and bring it back to another work session.

Well, because it isn't an order in the zoning and land development ordinances, planning commission will need to provide a recommendation. We can take it to planning commission and work through some of that and then bring it back to a work session if that's what you all would like to direct us to do.

That's what we're directing you to do.

Yeah, Madam Mayor.

Yes.

Can you pull out the verbiage? Can you just send that ordinance to all of us and kind of highlight that discretion that we're talking about there?

Yes.

And then I'll send this to you guys. Like I Again, we all passed the ordinance because we did want to preserve some of these tree canopies, things like that. But everybody needs to apply this in a real-life use case. So there's a couple parcels for sale on Corley Mill that you can go look at. And we all need to look at it and figure out how to make them actually marketable. Because I think if the buffer remains undisturbed, I think... i think they're not marketable because there's no other commercial property in town that is required to have that kind of buffer and if you go up and down corley mill you can look at every every commercial property there and i mean they don't exist so we certainly take it to planning commission and talk about it and maybe try to find some kind of some kind of happy medium but the real life use case was was hard and i will also include the map

So that you can see.

That'd be great.

Thank you. Item number two. You get to stay up here, huh? Annexation of Lexington County Tax Map 005496-01-031 Located at 186 Zinker Rd.

The Gates family owns approximately 72 acres on Zinker Road and has petitioned to annex the property. Properties in town near this one are zoned industrial and protected residential. Zinker Road is classified as a local road. The property is shown on the future land use map as an employment light industrial area. The comprehensive land use plan describes this area as a node intended to accommodate a mix of industrial office, maker space, flex tenant, and storage uses designed to support employment generating development. These areas are characterized by business activity occurring primarily within buildings while allowing for limited outdoor storage and loading manufacturing activities. The applicant is requesting the property to be zoned with protected residential zoning and Zinker Road should be classified as a local road. At their May 20th meeting, Planning Commission recommended denial of the annexation, citing inconsistency between the proposed zoning and the comprehensive land use plan. During discussion, the Commission encouraged the applicant to consider withdrawing the petition until a development plan could be submitted for review. The Commission also discussed the potential for a planned unit development that could provide a transitional mix of commercial uses adjacent to the existing industrial area with residential uses located towards the rear of the property. because this one is complex. We wanted to bring it to you all in case you had additional questions.

So the Planning Commission is suggesting that they do what we ask everyone to do? Correct.

Okay.

Mayor yes, say just get this is this prop this property is and.

Commercial or in the dust or it's it's not currently located in the towns jurisdiction, I got you so we have a nation because they would they would utilize our utilities. And they're requesting to to zone and as protected residential. But that's not what's on our land use map. Correct. The future land use map shows it as employment light industrial area.

So to get what they're probably wanting, you're recommending them bring something that looks like a PUD, but we would have to know what it was.

Planning Commission recommended that. They said that they would be interested to see what could happen in that situation. That pushes their concern, and they had a lot of lengthy discussion when we did the comp plan. In 2022 2023 and their main concern was that there is a paper plant that runs 24, 7 across the street and there's a furniture manufacturing place adjacent as well and there is a railroad. that runs through that area quite often and they have had previous neighborhoods that were built further down on sinker that are frustrated because of the noise and we get complaints from that and so whenever they were looking at the future land use map and how the town would grow they took that into consideration and felt that it needed to be industrial instead of residential directly next door and when i smiled about that it's because

I have received a lot of the calls and have worked with our administrator and our police to try to figure out the train tracks. So I only smiled because that was legit from the neighborhoods there close to them.

May I have a question for the town attorney? Mr. Everson, do we have to take action on this item? Because if we take action on this item and don't bring it in as protected residential, then they have to start the process over, correct? was if we tabled this item, if the applicant asked us to table the item, we could table it and bring it back after they got a plan together?

If council were to vote to put it on the agenda and you considered it and denied it, then yes, they would have to wait a year to do it. Now, council does not have to take any action on it. It's just being brought to y'all for informational purposes because it is a recommendation from the planning commission. So technically, it goes straight to you. Um... whenever the next available meeting is. So if you want staff to continue to work with the applicant on the recommendations, then my advice would be no action tonight and let it be brought back at another time if that's met.

And let them work with what? And we can just direct them and not vote on that. We can just direct them to continue to work with staff and go back through the Planning Commission when they have something?

Yes, ma'am. If they decide to go with the PUD as suggested, then they would need to come back to the Planning Commission and get that approved. And that would come as a separate matter. I believe they would just withdraw the... that zoning change request.

So, so again, if we, if we don't have to take action tonight, because it's going to come to us at our next regular works, our next regular meeting.

No. If you direct us to it will.

Okay.

No, what, what it would do is for you to continue to work with them. We won't have it at our next meeting, right? Correct.

That's right.

So it will not be on our next meeting unless we vote to put it there tonight.

Okay. And we're not on the clock or anything like that. We don't have to take any action any time frame on this. So I think it's in the best interest. I'd recommend that we not take any action and staff continue to work with them to save them a year's worth of time.

Madam Mayor.

Yes.

I know the family's here, and I think they got their agent with them. So I'm curious, and I know we got our planning commission director. I wasn't, obviously, I wasn't at the meeting. But has a PUD been proposed, considered?

we've had preliminary discussions with a potential developer in february um that that was just a discussion they had not made a formal submittal at that time the last contact i've had with that potential developer was in mid-march um and and they said they would get back to me to schedule a formal pre-development meeting but i've not heard back from them i think that that potential developer was going through some changes in their organization merging with another.

All right. Frank, can you come answer a few questions for us? I'll try. Would a PUD... work in this scenario given the industrial uses on two sides one side's undeveloped uh the side back towards the creek uh so sounds like we recommended a pud but would a pud be viable with those industrial uses on the property lines it depends on the complexity of the putt and what it's going to offer there let me go back to not only Can you step up a little bit so we can get you on the mic?

Thank you. He gets on me all the time about it on the planning committee. Let me go back a couple of years ago and councils ago, back when Mayor McDougal was here. We had a long, extensive discussion with our consultants. We had numerous meetings with and input from other council members at that time as well as with this council. And we drew the line of industrial and residential at the creek. We felt like that was the best breaking point for that. My concern and a lot of the planning commission's concern is that Zinker Road is a major cut through to get to the interstate. There's already road improvements that need to happen now with two railroad track crossings. There's not a light at that intersection. It's a traffic stop sign. So you've got traffic coming from both directions. Then you're dumping everything out on industrial at Highway 6. So that was a lot of our reasoning behind wanting to go back to commercial as well as, as Jessica said, the industrial plant across the street just 24 7 because we've had numerous people that live in around there and bought houses new and where they were buying come in and complaining about the noise and recently we've had people come in and talk about and we've heard rumors of people talking about the train traffic and the train noise so we felt like that area is already industrial and commercial we wanted to keep it that way with all the studies we did with the consultants and input from council and other folks. Thank you. Could a PUD work? It could if it was in the right scenario.

But again, that the 24-hour industrial use is the one right across the street?

The International Paper Plant. They're dropping trucks, they're dropping... There's machines running in there of my understanding, and the biggest thing is those trucks are dropping all hours of the night.

So in y'all's review, y'all are saying that if a PUD worked, you'd have to have a bunch of commercial or industrial. Actually, you'd have to have commercial up front, and you'd have to push all the residential to the back to give them some covering.

Correct.

Thank you.

So it sounds like to me we are going to let this stay with the staff.

Yeah.

Nobody's making a motion.

Yes, I just ask I remember a discussion on this early on I think when I came to Council and there was some proposal potentially doing that part and just tell me if I'm getting too far ahead of myself that perhaps put commercial up front on the property, but allowed there to be some residential towards the rear of the property to give that buffer. Am I recalling correctly or is this something completely?

That's not been formally brought before anybody.

Okay, okay. And then I guess, you know, just my only concern, are there any other homes that are on the Old Mill Pond? I'm not.

Gibson Pond.

Oh yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, Gibson Pond. Yeah.

There are some larger lots I think across the pond and I believe.

Okay, but more.

The main thing that this is in our comprehension plan and our land use plan of how we laid out the town and I mean some people, you were not, but some people up here were, well the majority of us were on the planning, I mean the council then when this was all laid out and done.

There are some homes off of Pondview Lane, but there's a roadway.

Right, I can see that here. It looks like there's a pretty decent buffer though. From what I can tell, perhaps I'm wrong. And then I guess there's one on the other side of the dam as well. I guess I'll just conclude by saying this. I have thought about this property has obviously come before us before. It does somewhat bother me to think that another potential concrete plant could go here if it's not homes. And then we've got a concrete plant sitting on Gibson Pond. So we've got to weigh our options here. Which do we want? I don't want to see another concrete plant sitting on Gibson Pond Park. I mean, that'd be loud. It's quiet out there. So that would be just something to consider here. And I'm certainly not indicating I favor one of two directions. I think that's important to consider. I was not on council at the time, but council spent a considerable amount of money renovating that park. And it's a very quiet, tranquil area in town. What if we don't do this? And then a I don't know, maybe the concrete plant across the street decides they want to expand, they buy the property.

There are a lot of environmental considerations that would come into play, wetlands and things of that nature as well. So just keep that in mind too. Which is why I think Planning Commission mentioned maybe a potential of a PUD option at the last one to try to get that residential as far away from that paper plan as possible to provide some sort of step-down buffer.

All right, okay, thank you. So Madam Mayor. Yes. So just for clarification, this went to Planning Commission. Planning Commission made a recommendation. So our options are to take no action, or we could take action and put it on our next agenda, and we could vote based on Planning Commission's recommendation whether or not to annex or not. Those are the only two options.

And if it fails, they have to go a year.

Right. Then it's a year out. But the people asking for the annexation, they got a recommendation from Planning Commission. Can they request that we take a vote on this? Or is this something that we have to put on the agenda via work session?

a lit legal thank you councilman it's my understanding since it is a a annexation request um it can go directly to you for consideration um i don't think it has to be considered with a work session to to go on the agenda unless you know if that's you know council's policy is to consider everything before it goes on the agenda and also we need to consider that but all that's the the the applicants can they have a they've been to the planning commission planning commission has made decisions the next step is to go to the full council at some point to take action on it.

That's what I was thinking. I mean, ball's really in their court, not in ours. That's correct. So they can either withdraw their annexation application or they can request that it be put on a council, an actual council meeting and get a vote on it. That's correct. Thank you.

I don't want them to come forward. Especially when there's some concern and them to have to wait a year to do anything if they did come across somebody that wanted to buy. Because it sounds like most people would want to annex it with the classification that we have out there, but not knowing what it would be.

Well, the... They've made the request to annex and in compliance with the zoning that would be assigned to that is based on our current zoning and the comprehensive plan. So they want it zoned. something alternative to what the town has and is contrary to the comprehensive plan. So the Planning Commission denied the request for annexation. Now obviously council can, when it comes before them, council can now go, you know, say no, we think it needs to go that way and we can approve it. You know, you don't have to go by the recommendation of Planning Commission, but it's always good to take their recommendation into consideration when making those decisions. But the PUD offer, or not offer, but discussion is the applicant can either, I mean, it's up to them whether they want to go in that route or not. If they say, no, we're comfortable with what we want and we want it to proceed, they can move forward and council can take action.

How does that affect us for holding what we would need with improvements to roads? I mean, that's a pretty good-sized piece of property and all that kind of stuff.

Right, so I mean until something we review traffic mitigation requirements and what improvements are required at the time that a site plan is submitted so that we can ensure that it is proportionate to the impact that development would have. And so we won't know what that is until we have a plan to review.

And we don't normally annex without plans, do we?

Typically no, but they've made a request for it to come before you also so we've you know honored that request. And the only reason we did on the work session tonight just because it is complex and we wanted to make sure you had. A great amount of time to discuss and understand planning commissions recommendation.

Mayor?

Yes.

Mr. Everson, if it comes to a vote for council at our next meeting and we decide to bring it in as for a PUD and we vote to bring it in as a PUD and not as residential, what happens then? Because a motion can be made from this diocese from any one of us to bring this piece of property in. Is it whatever we so choose?

Technically, you will have two motions. They're under one vote, but it's really two actions. You're taking action to annex first because you have to give yourself jurisdiction to be able to rezone it. So you would annex first and then you would consider the request to rezone it to what... what they would want or what the Planning Commission wants to have it at. Now, I'm not sure whether you can approve a PUD at that point. I think that you would need to review the zoning that would allow where a PUD could go, I think, at that point. So, I would not recommend changing

at that point I don't think you can do that bring a party and as the zoning without anything.

I think you because the put creates its own ordinances, yeah, it comes in and it creates its own ordinance and so you need that document. Yeah, then the zone at that.

So but you could bring it in as or we could that I mean most could be made and passed. Possibly to bring in his commercial. And not as presidential.

I think it's already, the zoning would be commercial, wouldn't it?

It is shown on the future land use map as industrial.

Yeah, if it comes into town, it's going to be zoned the industrial, unless changed. Right.

Which is not what the family wants, and then we got that. That's correct. So now we're in a real situation. Okay.

Madam mayor, yes, I think I just want to re emphasize again, I'm looking at the map here and the comprehensive land plan. I don't think I've to the best of my recollection. I don't think I've ever voiced any concern over that. But I do have some concern that this piece would be one of the only pieces of commercial property sitting on Gibson Pond based on what I'm looking at. I see...

The adjacent property is owned by Shatt Decor?

Well, I said one of the only. Oh, okay. So I see Shatt Decor owns it. If you look around the pond, the rest of it, from the best that I can tell, is... rural unimproved, it's homes. I just think you really need to think about what we're going to have on Gibson Pond Park. I think that has to be taken into consideration here.

But I think she said there's a large buffer too from the pond, correct? It has to be.

I just said we need to consider that there will most likely be environmental conditions there such as wetlands and if I remember correctly when looking on the map there were some through that area, that would affect how you develop the property.

I think, Gavin, the part you're talking about is on the other side of the pond, too, where the bark and everything is. This is on the back side.

If you're standing on the dock, you're looking at this piece of property. Do you want to be looking at a concrete plant? I mean, I don't. I like looking at trees. I mean, maybe... maybe a pot is a good option for this. And I will say if I remember correctly as well, this is an area in town where we have a hard time moving water around because there's not a lot of usage. So adding additional homes in this area of town, while I certainly understand the concerns of placing homes in a commercial area, I mean, I personally wouldn't want to do that. I personally wouldn't want to live there. Maybe somebody does. They bought the home. They knew it was there. But from a water perspective, it could be a good thing. It would increase usage and we wouldn't. David could correct me on this, but I believe we have to discharge water at times because it sits stagnant over there. We're not able to move it around. This would move the water around.

David's nodding, yes.

I learned something. And I do want to be clear. I'm not saying I'm in favor of One Direction. I just think this is important. It is very important to me. I love going to Gibson Pond Park. I don't want to be looking at the back of any kind of plant.

complex piece of property.

Not that I want to be really looking at the back of any homes either. I'd really like to, I'd love for y'all just to leave it trees, but I get that you don't maybe want to do that. But I guess my last question I'll conclude. Could we have some sort of special, I hate to use the word overlay, overlay for Gibson Pond that would require such of a buffer in between that area since it is kind of a special area in town? Could we do that?

Well, after we complete the vision plan, we will be reviewing our comprehensive laying use plan because the five-year update's due in 2028, so we will start that hopefully in 2027. So that would be an appropriate time to mention that and look into that. Unless there's urgency to do it now, that would be...

I'm just asking.

Yeah, no, I mean, that would be an appropriate time to start looking at that.

Thank you.

I would like to have not seen all of, I've seen some of the planning commission, but I did not see all of it. And I'd like to look at all of it. I mean, I'm not comfortable. They're in that position for a reason. Jenny served on it many years. She knows that they put a lot of work into this, and that's what they do. And so I really would like to watch that before I have any say. But, I mean...

madam mayor yes i um yeah and note to that i was going to say that yes i was on the planning commission all through that talking about putting those neighborhoods that are currently there and it was a big discussion back then because we knew that it could be noisy there could be all the things that have been and i just don't see another neighborhood Being happy, you know with all the surrounding so. I don't know about the PUD, not entirely sure how that would work. I'd have to, you know, have to see it. See what? But I do know that it was a big discussion and the resident, the neighborhoods that did get passed or neighborhood. I think there have been a number of complaints and I'm not sure. I mean, we talked about that again, should we put any more?

Right, and just for history, because I think the Planning Commission did discuss that, the Brookstone neighborhood, if I'm, and Frank, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Brookstone neighborhood Planning Commission actually recommended denial on that one, and it was one where council went a different direction and approved the recommended zoning.

And I have been to quite a few of their, and they bought the homes there. They know that, but they said they would not. A lot of them were from out of South Carolina, and they bought a home where they could find it. But they said they would prefer to not be in the industrial section. And I think they thought at the time maybe some of the pieces would change. But then again, no. So it sounds like they can make a choice to force us to do it?

I mean, if they want to move forward, my understanding from David, they have the option because it is their request for it to go to the next meeting for you to take action.

But the first thing we'd do would be annex it as commercial. and then we would do their request of whether it would be residential or not, correct?

That's correct, yes ma'am. You'd have to make the decision to bring it in and then once you've done that, then you would make a decision on the zoning. Like I said earlier, normally it's done under one motion, but in this situation, I would recommend doing it as two separate actions.

And I would suggest every one of y'all if they decide to move forward and it's on our July meeting to watch the planning commission meeting and to hear what your planning commission people had to say since they put so much time into our land use plan and everything.

Would you like for me to send the link?

Yes, please. So I am going to move on to item number three.

We removed that. We removed that. Do what? We removed that item.

No, we removed four.

Oh, I'm sorry.

But we can remove this one too if you want to. Come on, David.

Sorry, I'm sorry.

He's trying to take you off the agenda. Proposed updates for town ordinance governing the cross-connection control program.

He was doing so well.

I think I might have said item three earlier, so sorry.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Town Council. I'm here, I want to talk a little bit about our cross connection control program. We need to update that program and then similarly update the ordinances that are involved with that program. So taking a page from Chief's playbook, because he's so successful, I have a presentation for you. Now let's, we'll go through it and then we'll watch the video at the end, I think. All right, so the key takeaways for what I'm asking for. Number one, the program is how we protect our water system. So this program, is set up to make sure that everybody has clean water when they turn on their tap. The town's previously existing cross connection control program was inadequate and it did not comply with South Carolina law. The law's there for everybody's reference. And during our sanitary survey back in 24, it was noted as a deficiency. So what we see on the presentation is actually the wording that was in our report that they gave to us. The town's current ordinances are out of date and contain procedural steps that are no longer valid. And we are requesting that the associated ordinances be updated. So a little bit of background. The primary drinking regs were updated back in June of 2000. At that time they, S-E-B-E, DHEC at the time, classified lawn irrigation systems as a low hazard. Previously everything was lumped into one group. And so as such, they began requiring an approved testable backflow prevention device be installed. Connections of any kind with chemical addiction require classification as a high hazard, which the program should address. Our old one did not. The one I put before you does. They began requiring that any pre-existing non-testable backflow device must have a minimum replacement frequency established by the program. And we had to ensure that all the records documenting that existed. It also reiterated that all public water systems shall locate and eliminate unprotected cross connections. So our previous policy grandfathered any lawn irrigation system installed before June 2000 and created a loophole for connections of one inch or less, which those of you who have lawn irrigation know that that's pretty much every single lawn irrigation because they're all three-quarter. Testable backflow prevention devices were not added to the program. Non-testable backflow prevention devices were not added to the program. There was no replacement schedule for the non-testable. There was no record keeping for grandfathered systems. It did not address high hazard connections, did not clearly address contractor connections. Thus it didn't address non-compliant contractors and it did not ensure that all commercial connections were protected. So we had quite a few deficiencies there. The town's current ordinances do not provide explicit approval of the town's program as required. They contain out of date procedural information and the ordinances I'm referencing are right there. We have them in your packet as well so that you can actually read what I'm requesting be changed. Just a little oversight or understanding. The water system works utilizing gravity. We put all of our water in those big, beautiful tanks you see around town. Gravity pulls that water down. That's where our pressure comes from. That's what sends it to our house. In the instance where we have a break or it could be a fiber company hitting one of our water lines. It could be a hydrant that's hit by a car. When that happens, you have uncontrolled flow. The rush of water going out of that break can create negative pressure pulling water from homes or the pipes nearby that break. So what we have here, and I'll refrain from reading all of them, are a list of issues. These are headlines that we do not want the town of Lexington attached to. I picked this group because they deal with issues that could happen in this town. We have issues, it could be if one fails, let's say a fiber company hits a water line outside a neighborhood and somebody just put chemical down on their lawn and there's puddles of water around a sprinkler head. If there's negative pressure and no backflow, the water around that sprinkler head can get sucked back into the pipe and you now have fertilizer impacting the neighbors around that area. You can go through and read all those at your leisure, but these things do happen and that's the point with that one. And again, just reiterating that we do not want to be a headline, and those are the headlines for each of those instances that we just referenced. So there's two here that I wanted to run through real quick. We actually ran through, came across a situation where a homeowner had an irrigation well in their yard and they decided they were gonna tie that well into their house plumbing. So what we ended up with was a well in a shallow aquifer that was then tied into house plumbing. So a shallow aquifer, that's great for watering lawns. It is not great if you are supplying drinking water because shallow aquifers are... they can be impacted by anything that's on the surface. So farm fertilizers, dumps. So what I had up here, which unfortunately one's blocked, but in this instance, for example, what's up there is actually a letter we received from SCDES notifying us that a toxic plume was leaching had been discovered and it was moving underground towards us and through our property. It was just a notification, but the thing I wanted to kind of drive home is, If that plume reached that well, that well could suck that up and pump it into our system. Pumps are scarier than a main break because they, pumps can overcome the pressure of our system depending where you are in town. There are areas where you have very high pressure and that's very unlikely. There are areas we have very low pressure and that's very likely. So the idea is we don't want to even test whether we're in a part of town where that's likely. We want to have backflow preventers that prevent that scenario from happening. The other picture you see on top there is a picture that somebody texted me one weekend, March 28th to be exact, and they said, hey, does this contractor have permission to hook up to your water system? But that's not really important. I'll check Monday whether that contractor has approval to hook up. What was important to me was looking at that. This is somebody who has a trailer full of chemicals and they connected to our water system. Now in this instance, we're able to look at that picture and see that there's an air gap on top. So I knew we were okay in that instance. I didn't have to worry about a cross connection. If this is a company that bought an old trailer and they wanted to start up a business, they may have had a trailer that does not have an air gap and now we're at risk of all those chemicals mixing with the water and possibly being sucked back in. So those are just two examples that actually are pertinent to our town. So I want to just point them out. So what did we do to the plan? We addressed the high hazard connections. We closed the connection size loophole. We established a minimum backflow prevention device standard, the double check valve assembly, Properties currently unprotected will have to meet the required standard of protection as required by law. We establish proper complete and updated record keeping protocols and we created a complete process for the contractors that prevents illegal connections to the town and we went ahead and rolled that one out. We worked with finance and it's been working pretty well so far. So the question remains, what do we do when we find properties that do not have protection? And the short answer to that is we let them know that they have to come up to standard. So one of the ways we thought would be least impactful for our customers would be if we reached out, we got group of contractors who would be able to put backflow preventers in place and we would be able to call one of them, they'd come out, they would install backflow preventer device, and then the homeowner would have the option of either paying for that in full or in installments if that made it easier to swallow that burden. The town would go out and find the best pricing we could, and hopefully having a larger amount of work, we would get the best price, and then we would be able to pass that on to the customers. So that's kind of what we're presenting right there.

David, while you're on this, can I ask a quick question so I don't forget? Who is qualified to put those on? A plumber, landscaper, who?

Some, yes. You have to be certified for backflow preventers. So you have to be certified by DES. Okay.

And you think that it wouldn't be lower than that? I guess it...

So, what we did, we reached out to five contractors and we threw out the low price, we threw out the high price. What you see there is the range that was left in between. Now, Those prices were not for bulk work that was for one of my staff who is in this situation she has a pool she has no backflow preventer so we used her as a guinea pig she called and said how much would it cost me to have one and those are the prices we got. So hopefully we be able to get something a little bit lower as as the town for bulk work.

And so do all homes have to have it or just ones with irrigation?

The municipalities around us, if we take Joint, for example, they have one on every house. Best practice is one on every house. Irrigation is what's called out in there. That's not going to help you if you have a homeowner with a pool and they leave a hose in the pool and you have a main break and the backflow at the hose connections fails. You can suck pool water into the system and that was one of the examples I gave you. So we would want one at every house. All new construction, that's what they do. So new construction, you know, this isn't an issue. We're talking about going back to everything before 2000. And some of those, I'm gonna say this too, some of those, this isn't a black and white issue, some of those have protection. Some of them had a backflow in there, but it was a non-testable backflow. They have a lifespan of five years, and if they haven't been replaced, they probably expired 20 years ago. and have since failed. But that's a matter of just taking a spot out and dropping one in between. So there's a wide range of scenarios that we're gonna run into.

Mayor. Yes. But again, is it required for a single home without an irrigation system to have one of these by law?

So the law is primarily dealing with irrigation systems. So if you have an irrigate irrigation system, you have to best practice is the House would OK, it's not required by law for the House to have it. Thank you.

Mater yes, so how are we going to maintain this each year is an annual Is there an annual fee, is that, or no? Is something, how are we gonna?

So backflow testing, the way the town does it is it's up to the residents to go out, get their own backflow. As a customer, I'm required to have my backflow tested. I submit my results to the town. The town logs them and we have the records of that. If I forget, then my department reaches out to me and they say, we don't have your results, your annual testing. Joint does that for their entire customer base. They have a fee that they put on every single water bill. They contract out with a tester and they have it tested automatically. um that's not something we're proposing at this time maybe down the road the you know that pencil's out for us right now we're just trying to get up and into compliance where where we're not yes what is the fee that joint municipal charges i believe it is 15 a month we might be checking that 15 a month to check everybody's

Backflow?

Something to that extent. Maybe it's $8. Actually, it might be $8. I know when I look at it, it pencils out to somewhere where I get mine done annually for $35. I think they pay $80. Once it's all said and done. They have RFP'd that.

So the same thing that We're getting a private market there are being paying 3 and a half times.

I can't talk about what the fee covers for joint I just know what it what it is what is the date.

I guess what I'm getting at is either this is really important and it's water safety. This is one of the core functions of government, even for our libertarians. I don't really understand why it's suggestive. I would venture to say there's some other safety features that if there's that important It's not really brought to us to discuss and debate and talk about. If it's that important, then it should be done. I was kind of expecting you to say joint municipal fee was like a dollar a month and it was cheaper because they were offering that out at some massive bulk discount. So I'm surprised you said the number you said because it kind of veered me in a different direction. I was originally going to say why not have the town election and do that because it's a pain in the butt every year to get solicited with some folks, and then you get some people to do it, and some people do it later, and they offer to turn in paperwork, and sometimes they'll turn the paperwork on time, and it's just, that hassle every year.

Yeah, there's a lot of that. Just to be clear, that's something we can look at down the road. It's not part of what I'm bringing forward to everybody. What I'm bringing forward is the things that were supposed to be record keeping were not, and we need to get up to speed. So we have a large, I say large, there's a significant group of folks out there who have a non-testable backflow. By law, we are supposed to have record keeping. We're supposed to say every five years you have to replace that and you have to prove to us. The town doesn't do that.

I don't think that testing is what we're on. I think my concern is the $5,000 to $850,000 hitting some of these home homeowners right now with this. As everything is and how we go about doing that especially some of our own fixed incomes.

So that's my concern. Yes, a $5.50 per bill for backflow for joint municipal.

Okay, so that sounds better.

Yes, a 550 times 1266. It's probably that.

The paperwork and everything too, but we can come back to that. This is about having these homes that don't have them to have them installed.

Yeah, so to your point, Madam Mayor, that's why we suggested having payment options. The only downside to that is it has to be tracked manually.

And you don't have a list of who would have to have this done right now, right?

No, that's going to come over time. It's going to be a matter of As we discover them and we have to we have to address there are some some I guess subdivisions where we go OK will will take yours for example would Creek we know has a whole gamut we know there's people in there with without protection we know there's some with protection that has failed. So that would be one where we would go through and say OK. in this subdivision we go we look and we believe these are them then you have to go out to the field and confirm it once you do that you go okay this is what has to happen and it would be you know a conversation with those homeowners so do you have an expectation of how long they'll have to get this installed um once we find it they're going to have to have it installed relatively quickly which is why we are suggesting that we be the ones to initiate the fix I imagine, and I would ask the attorneys in the room, that if we identified a potential liability and then something were to happen, that would not be good for us.

So, is this one reading or two?

It would be two readings.

I've heard it. Y'all got any questions?

Um, the last piece, um, which I didn't touch on was that there's also a component of going out and working with the public, you know, primarily when we, when we find things. Um, and as part of that, we did put together a PSA alerting people of the importance of that too. We have that this evening if you'd like to, if you'd like to watch it. Um, if not then you know my request um i have two requests actually one that we approve the program um and the second would be that we approve the ordinance language um as noted in the in the package you were provided madam mayor just for clarification

So the program and or the ordinance, we're talking in those scenarios about irrigation systems only? Or are we talking about every single family home?

We are talking about ideally every home.

I mean, what's the language say in what you're asking us to approve? Does it say every home? okay and so from what i was hearing every home is not exactly uh it's not a legal standard it's a what we're calling a best practices standard but you like you gave us one you gave us one use case which sounds extraordinary to me that an individual with a pool who doesn't have an irrigation system, which would be extraordinary, and they leave a hose in a pool, which would be extraordinary, and they happen to be on a main that breaks. Like, you'd have to have three extraordinary events. That doesn't... I mean, to spend $500,000 trying to mitigate that kind of extraordinary event and put that burden on taxpayers, that doesn't seem realistic to me. Like, are there... Are there more vulnerabilities than that? I mean, I understand that is a real vulnerability, but that is extraordinary.

There's a list there.

But I'm talking specifically vulnerabilities that are outside of irrigation. Like, I understand the vulnerabilities of irrigation, and that would make sense, and I think But to put it on every single family home, I mean, like you could fire protect. You could put sprinklers in every single family home and prevent one fire, but at extraordinary cost to the consumer. And that was actually considered one time in the state of South Carolina. One of my fireman friends told me that. He was frustrated about it. So there's some kind of fine line there. I don't want to – I can't mitigate against that kind of event. But the irrigation side – seems to make sense and then i guess the other thing i was curious about you talked about these things expiring i mean does the language that we're contemplating does it say we're going to test every year or does it say we're going to or just say we're going to look at some kind of date stamp on it and automatically disqualified after five years no no we what i've requested is that we are

naming the backflow prevention device. It's gonna be the one that's tested in annually so that the entire town is under the same watch. It's so that my staff, as we're doing backflows, we only have one type of backflow that we're doing.

If we- Do they do those anymore?

They do. They're not as common because there's no way to know whether it's working. You're setting an arbitrary date and saying, okay, every five years we're replacing that. You have no idea whether it's working or not working at the time of replacement. There's no way to test it. But you would still have to maintain that paperwork, so that would be a second group of backflow.

Yeah, I would be opposed to just automatically disqualifying it after some specific period of time. That'd be like telling everybody you've got to flip your HVAC every 10 years just because it's likely to go out.

If you allow that type of backflow, you're required by law to tell them.

And that kind of backflow I have on my house. And I didn't know that until just recently when the tree roots were through everything. But I had that on there. But my irrigation system don't come out of the city water. It comes out of the pond. So there's a catch there of do I have to have a backflow or do I not? I mean, my husband said he don't mind having a backflow. But it's just, you know, I didn't know I had that kind of backflow on there.

Right.

And I guess you didn't either until we found it. Correct.

Yeah, I'm just for us finding a happy medium ground.

Yes, I think there there's leeway but with direction certainly the focus is on irrigation because that's what's required by law and say that's what you're going to we're not up to this way. We're not going to go out looking for back flows in the yards of houses we don't have the people that I'm the resources. The irrigation systems are the ones that are going to be the focus of going back. Because here again, everything after 2000, we know is fine and protected.

But do our current ordinances require backflow on a house without irrigation? No. Okay. So we say we're not going to look for obviously we're not is not an ordinances and we're not proposing passing an ordinance to that effect correct.

Okay, that's why we're in this says every house.

I said some of the municipalities around us.

I guess your ordinance here that we would be passing that say every house it doesn't get just with irrigation. Any other questions.

matter.

Yes.

So the range was 500 to a 50. But you're saying that there's a potential 5 year expiration. No that would be for a back flow.

That's out there that we would not allow any any longer.

Okay, so citizens are going to be shelling out 500 to 850 bucks every 5 years. Now to replace their back flow devices, I'm asking.

No, because we would not allow that style backflow. So the backflow we are mandating would be the ones that are tested annually. So we'll use me as an example. My backflow was brand new in 2008. I have yet to replace it. You better knock on wood. I know. You know that bill's coming this year. Yeah. So that style is the non-testable backflows. By law, if you allow non-testable, then you have to say every period, whatever that period, there's some that say every three years. The majority of people say every five years you have to replace it. Okay.

But they're not going to allow that, like...

We would have to track that, and we would have to go out and say it's been five years, time to change your backflow, which we don't want to do that either.

So David is looking for a motion for this. Does anybody make a motion?

Well since we since we got to readings, I mean this a lot to digest.

The motion is just to place it on the agenda for the next.

Yes, we got to readings 45 days. So I'm fine to make a motion to place this on the agenda. And we got some pushups to do between now and then to make sure we get this thing right.

May approach in May's mission to hear second second. Councilman Smith's second set. All those in favor of putting it on the agenda with further discussion between now and then and hopefully voting on it, raise your right hand. And it is unanimous. Item number five, discussion of contractual agreement for information technology services.

Yes, good evening Madam Mayor, Council. Staff is requesting that Council consideration and approval a professional services agreement with Bradshaw Consulting Services or BCS to provide geographic information systems or GIS consulting, tech support, data management, application development and staff training services. The proposed agreement will provide the town with on-demand GIS expertise to support the ongoing operational needs while enhancing internal GIS capabilities through the knowledge transfer and staff development. The agreement is structured on a task-based as-needed service contract with work not to exceed 20 to 25 hours per month. A copy of this agreement has been placed inside the meeting packet.

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

So moved.

Councilman Williams makes a motion. Do I hear a second?

Second.

Councilman Allen second set is there any discussion. Yes.

Mister action where I see this rates at 200 an hour. So 20 hours where we're going to pull that funding from.

So right now that funding will come from the vacant jet jazz position and the I T manager position currently. While we are restructuring internally.

We'll leave those positions in place, but restructure and possibly eliminate a position to make up this cost?

Right now, those positions will remain vacant. We will not eliminate those positions because those are critical positions. What we're doing is redoing the foundation of the IT services and making sure that we are structured in such a way for the potential growth of the town going forward. And then we will fill those positions once we've stabilized operations. Okay, thank you.

Madam Mayor, so is this something that the town will take over at some point and we won't use this group anymore?

So right now the thought process is we'll use this group right now to train our employees and then as needed, as they gain proficiency and we become fully staffed and whatever that looks like in the future, which will be a future discussion, we may have them for additional support as needed based on the needs of the organization at that time. but it will be basically a time of materials at that point. It wouldn't be a regular occurrence. So say we have a massive project that our staff just is over-inundated with stuff, we could then farm this out to that company if we so choose at that time. Does that answer your question, Councilwoman?

Any other questions?

Madam Mayor.

Yes.

Yeah, just I'm sorry I might have missed it if I did you can excuse me, but we just passed a budget like where does this money come from?

So the.

Did I miss it? Yes, give me the give me the 30 second answer. The vacant positions from the GIS position and the IT manager. OK, thank you.

All those in favor of putting this on the agenda, raise your right hand. And it is unanimous. And our last item this evening is from town administrator Rachel Gleaton.

Thank you, Mayor. On the agenda is for your review and consideration is a new franchise agreement with Windstream Kinetic. Previously, we had an agreement with Windstream, but it was limited to just a certain location. Prior to that, we had an agreement with the company Altel before it. So this draft is based off of what we negotiated with Loomis and Ripple. So it is identical.

thank you so much that's all i got to say and i'm going to make a motion to put this on the agenda do we have a second second any discussion yes based on us learning that this is

habitually and repeatedly in industry that likes to play fast and loose with utility easements and HUPs markings and all the alike, is there an opportunity to have more stringent oversight and or ability to make more stringent requirements in this agreement? Have we contemplated that to the fullest? Because I think I'll speak for at least myself when I say that this entire industry is raced to the bottom in terms of how fast can they get it in the bottom of the ditch and move on. And I think I can count on more than one hand the number of utility hits that have caused stop work disruptions. I've been a part of some of those meetings and I think it'd be foolish for us to expect anything different. So what have we done to the extent that we can in this agreement curb that kind of repeat behavior as well as encourage more safe and non-disruptive activities by a utility contractor.

So those are great questions. Once we were able to put into place the proper franchise agreement with Ripple and Loomis, it helped us to significantly hold them accountable for what their limitations were and what they are allowed to do, what they are required to do when there is an incident. Windstream has had, like I mentioned, a franchise agreement with the town of Lexington and previously it was applied more liberally than probably what should have been allowed. So when Windstream Kinetic came back into town to start updating their fiber, they got to work. They were under the impression that they had the proper franchise agreement. It was only once they started having issues when they were working in town and we did the stop work order and we had the meeting with them that we discovered that they did not have the proper franchise agreement. So as we could have educated them from the start, they were fully unaware of all of the requirements of the town of Lexington. So we have met with them, had numerous meetings. They're fully well aware of what their requirements are. We have a much better relationship with Windstream now.

Who drafted this agreement?

This agreement's from 2024, and it was the attorneys from Ripple Fiber and our prior town attorney. If you recall, when we negotiated Ripple, Ripple and Loomis wanted identical agreements, so both Ripple and Loomis have identical agreements. Their agreement was provided to Windstream for review. Their attorneys accepted it as is, so all three companies are identical.

Madam Mayor. Yes. Rachel, I'm kind of along the lines with Todd right now. I read through this and it feels like it's still not stringent enough in my opinion to I'm not an attorney. I don't know what we can do, but I did read in there that they have to provide the neighborhoods they're going into in advance, but there was no exact wording of a list or it just said a map. It would be helpful to us to get phone calls for people to know when they're fast and furious going to rush through somebody's neighborhood. Because I think Ripple and Lumos both said they would do that and then they didn't. Lumos especially, I feel like never had a map or never, they might have, but I never was able to get a copy. The other things that I looked was, Is there anything in there that says they have to put something flush to the ground and how much what the size will be because when Lumos came through they just fast and furious dog they promised it would be this much and then the neighborhood neighbors got this wide in their front of their yard. It's like the people just have no They can't tell, and I get there's some things where you can't tell them where they have to put it. There are rules in their book. But if there was something stated in there, they have to put it on the property line or they have to put it where other boxes currently are. Is there anything like that, any change from Lumos and Ripple in this agreement?

No. No.

No. Could there be any restrictions on that legally?

Counselor, they have to submit for encroachment permits when they are going into a certain area and I think when they do that they have to provide more exact information to the town to show exactly where they're digging and because they're digging within the right of way of the town basically. So Anything outside of that, obviously that's a private matter between them and that landowner to have to negotiate. But when they submit the, for encroachment permits, they have to provide that more detailed information and we can ensure that they are digging in certain areas, that their holes are gonna be certain sizes, and that information can be determined at that point.

Okay, so along that line, If there's nothing changed from the Lumos and the Ripple, then they can come in and do what they want, basically, because they can put it anywhere they want in that utility area. Is there nothing we can do to specify how big and where it needs to go?

Well, I think when they submit the request for the permit, they have to submit the drawings and the map showing where it's going to go. Obviously, if it's going to jeopardize or come in contact with the town's utilities in that area, we can ask them to move the line or to somewhere else within that right-of-way.

I think what she's asking, David, and since I've been so hands-on with it, is can we require them to do certain things in the road right-of-way? I don't think so until we go to the statehouse and get them to change because they've got some protection, too, of working in that road right-of-way, which is part of your yard. Most people do not realize that. Trust me, I've about figured out how to even measure them. But I know Gavin worked on some things and got some changes at the State House for us, but there's still a lot of things that need to be changed at the State House. And Jenny, this is not perfect, but it is way better than what they have right now. And they do have plans to do more neighborhoods. And trust me, we don't want the same thing that happened already in the three. So we need something Till we can work down at the statehouse. I know Gavin has said we can go down there and work on some more language and that type of stuff until we can get some of that done. But they have a right to work in the road right away. And most of the time they'll work with you on moving that if they can to wherever the previous one was located.

I just would love for the homeowner to have a little more control over where that went and if we as a town had to specify that if we could, I don't know if that goes against the state law or if that is something that we could do to make it less invasive in these people's yards. But I don't know if that's something that goes against the state law and we have nothing, no rights to do that. I don't know.

Madam Mayor.

Yes, sir.

So I spent a lot of time working this last year. It's House Bill 3571 or Act 65 now. I read through this franchise agreement and I do have a few concerns as well. However, I want to practice with section 1.3 essentially says that we have the authority as the town to adopt ordinances regulating the use of public right of ways. So long as ordinances apply equally to all certified providers in other words we can't require kinetic or wind stream to do something that we're not requiring spectrum to do. So our in my opinion and tell me if I'm wrong, I do believe that we have some authority as the town to require certain things and listed a few things I would suggest but the only way by doing that to apply fairly would be to adopt an ordinance applies equally to all providers would that be correct.

That's correct. Y'all need to pass a general ordinance that governs the use of town right away for all types of services, utility services.

Now, I will also say it would be somewhat questionable if that conflicts with state law because state law and the Public Service Commission really regulates the right-of-way. But we as the town do have certain authorities, some of which I'm interested if we could do is the agreement says that the town must reimburse the town for damages, says that they must reimburse the town for damages they cause. However, it does not say how quickly they have to respond, how quickly they must repair. Those things could be adopted in an ordinance. That way we could specify those things. How quickly did they need to notify the town? What happens after repeated utility violation or repeated instances where they hit utility lines? All those things I think could be governed in an ordinance. And I don't think they conflict with state law. I don't think that our ordinance could limit the number of locates that are requested however state law was updated last year so that is somewhat addressed but one and I'd be curious of maybe your opinion David or Councilmember Lyle is could we not use some sort of construction bond that essentially says that if roads aren't repaired, sidewalks aren't repaired, resident yards aren't repaired to a certain standard that we could go and use funds and those bonds to make the repairs ourselves and bill against them. I find nothing in the state law that says we can't do that.

That's a question. As long as there's nothing that prevents it, Any law or regulation that prevents that, I don't see why you can't put those requirements on anyone who installs utilities or services inside the town's controlled right-of-ways.

Okay. I would be interested in us researching an ordinance that we could adopt to make our requirements more stringent. And then I know for a fact I've spent a lot of time talking on this issue with Senator Kennedy, and he's willing to take or pre-file proposed amendments for us next year if there are updates that need to be made in the state law that would be again to age 3571 he could pre file in the Senate I'm sure we could find a sponsor in the House for any roadblocks that we hit so we've got a good 6 months before those bills need to be filed we could. If if Council so chooses direct staff to research updates to an ordinance and then if we run into any red box roadblocks provide those to our legislative delegation to make changes to state law.

While we're doing that it would it cause a problem if we approve the franchise agreement so we have it in hand while they're working so we can hold them accountable for repairing things and stuff.

If the town.

Or is it better to wait?

Which is for them to go ahead and start working, you need the franchise agreement in place. If this is not in place, technically they can't proceed because there is no agreement at this point because the other one expired.

Okay, so the neighborhoods that they've got torn up right now. They would be just in limbo land until we got this in place. And that is not fair to those neighborhoods. That's where my problem is. I think we got to do this and then we can work on the ordinance separate. We've got to leave.

Well, the agreement gives us the authority to adopt something, and I think if we put it in place, then it complies with it.

And I would agree with the mayor here. I believe we could not, based on what I'm reading here, we can't require Kinetic to do something in a new franchise agreement because it's essentially we're not requiring spectrum or you know and i hate to call them out but any other utility provider so really the best course of action is to in my opinion would be to approve this agreement and then adopt an ordinance that governs all of the other agreements right mayor would if we did that would we be able to change it midstream with connecticut with kinetic

Well, the way the agreement is written, I don't think you'd have to change the agreement.

They have to follow our orders.

They have to follow your rules, basically.

So they would have to change along and along.

We would notify them that you've adopted an ordinance that governs how they operate within the right-of-way, and we would send it to all the franchisees we have.

right that notifying them of that and that that's the purpose of having a uniform agreement with everybody that way it all applies across the board i'd like to see personally and this kind of thing done sooner than later okay you can work on that but we need this in place so we can get those neighborhoods fixed so i'm okay with them working on bringing whatever kind of ordinances they can work with our staff to bring back But we do need something in place so these neighborhoods can get fixed and we can hold them accountable.

And Madam Mayor, I would just add to conclude, I mean, they are still bound by the requirements of 3571, which are relatively stringent. They don't necessarily address some of the aesthetic things that you're discussing, which I agree with. But as far as safety parameters, I mean, it is a pretty strict law. And Maybe I wouldn't use strip, but it's relatively stripped. Now from an aesthetics point of view, it's not, it's lacking.

We can get this in place and then they can work on the ordinance of what you're talking about, Jenny, some of the stuff that you gave and some of the stuff that Councilman Smith gave also. Do I hear a motion to put this on the agenda?

So moved.

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

Second.

Councilman Williams second. All those in favor of putting it on the agenda, raise your right hand. And it is unanimous. All right. We have any questions from the public regarding the items listed on the agenda. If you do come up to speak, give your name, your address, and you are limited to three minutes, and the clerk will start the timer when you come up. Yes, sir.

Robin Jones, 2551 Augusta Highway, Lexington, South Carolina. I spoke with the Gates family after your consideration for the annexation of the protected residential, and they would like to withdraw that request. However, we'd like to ask if the council members would consider providing us water and sewer without being annexed into the town. Is that a possibility?

Yeah, I think that would be something we'd have to talk about, but it's not something that we make. It would be setting a precedent and plus it would be putting a lot of our requirements when development is done. That's with inside our town limits is at jeopardy with road improvements and other things. So I'm not sure that's a decision we could make right now at this point in time.

Is there a time frame that we could expect that you know you guys could discuss it and then get back to us or we get back to you guys or I know this wouldn't be the precedent because I understand that international paper was allowed to have water and sewer without annexation. I think I'm correct. Madam Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Isn't it true that if the, I could be totally wrong here, but if the annexation was denied, wouldn't we still have to provide water and sewer?

Town Council can choose whether or not to provide the utilities. Okay.

I think the thing is though, maybe we would have to discuss it at our next, can we discuss it at executive session?

We can. I would request that the property owners need to make a formal request to the town manager or to you, Madam Mayor, and ask that it be put on the agenda for consideration at the next available meeting.

So it wouldn't be, you wouldn't want it on the...

It would probably need to go to a workshop first and then have it moved to full council.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Okay. So we just make the formal request. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions? Do we have any news media? Any comments from staff?

Evening, Madam Mayor, Council. As you know, the town of Lexington is hosting three public drop-in style input sessions to get feedback for our next vision plan. I wanted to let you know that the details of each drop-in are as follows. June 23rd, Mount Horeb Church from 5.45 p.m. to 7 p.m. June 24th, Saxegotha Presbyterian Church from 12 to 1. And then that evening, June 24th, at Rosenwald Community Learning Center from 5.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. We'll have more details posted on the website in the coming days, which is also where you will find an online survey that will launch around the same time if you can't seem to make it in person. And that online survey will be open to the public through the end of July.

Thank you. Anything from council? I have a few announcements. Tomorrow morning we have the mayor's second story time in the park will take place at 10.30. Join us for a great story, some rock painting, some popsicles, some cupcakes, and a whole lot of fun. We look forward to seeing you there. A reminder that the Market at Ice House takes place every Saturday morning. Stop by to shop local vendors offering fresh produce, flowers, handmade goods, a lot of fresh bread because I had some a week or so ago. It was delicious. please note that town hall will be closed this friday june 19th in observance of the june 19th holiday finally father's day is this sunday and on behalf of all town council and staff And the women up here on council and the mayor, we wish all you fathers, animal fathers, grandfathers and father figures a very happy Father's Day and thank you for all y'all do in our community. That concludes our business for tonight's work session. We thank you for watching. Without objection, we're adjourned.