City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Like to call the North City Council study session for Monday, April the 27th, 20126 to order. Before I turn over to our city administrator, Mr. Clifford, I did want to, you know, we're starting to get uh more citizens following uh our meetings, our study sessions, and uh we've said this numerous times, but I did notice there were some questions somebody sent me uh that had been posted about and I wanted to kind of explain the the background of how we do our our packets, our study sessions. So basically uh city council receives their packet every Friday and just to kind of give you example the purpose is uh we have a study sess we have city council meetings on the first and third Mondays and we have study sessions on second and fourth and the whole objective was to allow more time for council to be able to reflect and discuss what we're going to be voting on and also for citizens. So the thought process is basically on Friday everyone got either every citizen we post we post the agenda for the study session and then we always post a draft of the city council upcoming meeting the following week. And the whole idea of the study session is three things and and Jim always talks about it. One of the things we do at study sessions we review the upcoming that draft agenda. So, this is a chance for citizens to to listen, take notes, and say, "Oh, these are the things." So, you get to hear us talk about it, and then you we let you have a whole week to reach out to your council to ask questions prior to us actually voting at a city council meeting. So, there really is plenty of time for

citizens to kind of let you know what it used to be. and Pat and Kevin can tell you city council did a study session one hour before the city council meeting. So you try to try to get your head around that. All right.

So So the idea is that you know we want citizens on a study session night tonight. We have a number of ones here. I know people are watching. This is your opportunity just to listen to us talk. You can pull up what the draft agenda is. There may be changes pulled or not pulled before then uh depending on the situation. But then after tonight, you've got a whole week to reach out your council person or to have questions that you can ask the next week at the city council, the public comment period. So, by no means, the whole reason we changed this was we wanted to make it to where citizens had more opportunities to learn to where they would not. And the last thing I would say is if everybody would just kind of put this on their calendar. If you want to know what is happening, all you got to do is pull up the city website around about six o'clock or seven, right? On Fridays, Jamie, you normally post it sometime in the evening, right? And you can see what the the study session agenda will be, what our draft agenda for the following week will be, and then the Monday before our city council meeting, what will actually be on the agenda. So, the whole objection is we want to give y'all everybody more opportunity to listen, to ask questions, and reach out to us. So, hopefully that might clarify a lot of the newer folks who are starting to pay attention. So, with that being said, I'm going to turn it over to our city administrator, Mr. Jim Clifford.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As is our practice, we'll have three items to go through or three focus areas, I guess. One will be the agenda review for next week for a city council meeting. Then the department directors will go through the department details. And lastly, we'll go under mayor's matters. Uh we have listed two separate items there. One under uh economic development uh and one under Riverside Village parking and cyber discussion. The second of which uh is now going to be moved to an executive session on next Monday. So we'll publish that as part of the uh agenda packet review. So we will not be having an in-depth discussion this evening about the cyber and parking. Uh but you will be getting uh the Linda Williamson update on the finances associated with u the Riverside Village. So with that, we'll go ahead and move into the agenda review. And you have a number of uh proclamations. Obviously, uh great outcomes here for North Augusta High School, both the girls and boys basketball teams. I think they'll be acknowledged here through proclamations. Uh proclamation for law enforcement week and also for public works week. Uh, and I think we'll also be introducing uh some of our new K9 officers here as well. And then we'll move into old business. And under old business, we'll have under planning and development ordinance number 2026-09 to approve the general development plan for the 21.8 uh acre The Hive plan development on the east side of West Martintown Road between Knobone Avenue, Interstate 22nd reading. Uh and as a reminder and if they have any detailed questions, Tommy Paradise can certainly uh answer those. But this was an item that went through the planning commission uh and you all have act on it once is the first reading of an ordinance. Uh and this involves uh shrinking some of the lot sizes on the hive single family homes along with the total density of the project. So there'll actually be less homes. And the reason for this uh had mostly to do with the topography of the land uh and as the uh site prep was going on at the site.

Uh the developer asked to uh make that change and based on you know recommendations from the staff and also through the planning commission those were recommended for action here by council and you all voted affirmatively uh for that last time. And just as a reminder for citizens for the hive, that's that large development there at exit one. Uh and it's really a three-part development. So you've got a commercial component that's up against Martintown, which is not yet started other than site work. Then you have the multi- family component in the middle, which you can see from Interstate 20 and also from Martintown Road. Uh that's getting done by Fansler Construction. And then Stanley Martin Homes is doing the single family aspect uh which is the component that goes behind North Augusta High School. So that's this change uh to prove the g development plan uh affects the single family residential that's behind the high school. So I'll pause for any questions on this, but I know this has been uh discussed both through planning and also in your first reading. Hearing none, we'll move on to new business under uh item number eight, planning and development resolution number 2026-26 to approve signage for Hammond's Ferry. I'll turn this over to Tommy for discussion from the podium. Uh but if you're familiar with uh the entrance to Hammond's Ferry over by the old electric building, uh that bridge has a sign on it that involves uh Hammond's Ferry. Uh they wanted to do an update to that sign, but that is actually on city property. So it's a pretty routine ask, but because it is on city property and public property, uh that has to come to city council for uh adjudication. So Tommy, I'll turn it to you.

Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, this is and Mr. Clifford pretty much explained it is also um zone P public use which the code says city council decides on. If you look on attachment 18 or attachment 8, it shows the before or what's there now and the proposed sign. Same size. It's just more of a bronze look. Any questions for me? Was that proposed by the Hoa? Yes, sir. This was from the homeowners association. That's who will pay for it? Yes, sir.

Yeah. I think the new sign looks better than existing.

Thanks, Tommy. Moving on to item number nine under public safety resolution number 2026-27 authorizing the city of North Augusta to make improvements at the animal control shelter. Uh and so chief's going to be able to talk about more in depth, but essentially what the the council had given guidance on I think towards the end of last year involved uh using some funds of a capital projects fund to make uh improvements on three uh separate projects. I know the dialogue on which projects are going to be went back and forth a number of times, but Chief's got I believe an update here on which three projects are to be uh accomplished and the funds would be out of the capital projects fund not to exceed $40,000 uh is what is before you for consideration. Chief, I'll turn it over to you for the specifics on what uh this resolution would accomplish.

All right. Thank you. The first one is to additional drain. additional drains inside the kennels which are trench drains so that for each kennel as the waste or the water comes out of it it goes straight into the drain to in order to help reduce the crosscontamination between uh animals and improve efficiency and cleaning to make it a faster process. Uh the second one is to make additional runs on the exterior to allow for more than one dog to be outside. Uh because the way it's set up now we only have one run so we just put one dog out there because we don't know what the interactions are between each other. Uh, and so what this will do is it'll allow more than one dog to have time to be outside. Uh, and as part of this to improve the drainage of the area, uh, to where there's no water sitting down there, so the dog's not playing mud. That way it's in a grassy area out back. Uh, and the third one is to create a separate exterior space for puppies to be outside. uh because one of the things that's recommended is puppies when they come in they can have different diseases because it's too early to detect some of them as in adult dogs. So, this would give them a separate area so they're outside, they're able to get that sunshine, they're able to to be able to play just like the other dogs are. And this is a side area that we'll be able to do that, put a shelter over that so that they're able to do that. And we've been in contacts with the North Augusta Animal Shelter uh coalition group throughout this process and also with the FOA uh working through that to make sure that everybody's on the same page, that these are the best projects we can have going forward. uh for the city

chief. Uh I think this the puppy sounds great because of phone I know has put some money into a new indoor kennel pods for puppy care. So we'll have they'll have the puppies will be taken care of on the inside and then this will help on the outside. I'm assuming that's correct. That way we'll have a place we can set them outside in order to clean the inside. Uh and it'll help make it more efficient.

Very good. Like it. First of all, I'm glad these projects are going through. It's been long since needed. I appreciate everybody's hard work on them. There's just one little um between where Officer Craig goes in and the actual entrance to where the dog kennels are. There's one little um recess there, and it seems when we flush water out of those drains, it always seems to bubble up right outside the door. So, while they're digging in them drains, can we make sure that all that water gets carried away from the shelter? Because what happens is if that water bubbles up right there outside the shelter door and somebody steps in it, then we're cross-contaminating anyway.

Yes, sir. So, while they're digging in them drains, if they seal that off real good, I like it.

Yes, sir. So, these uh next items are not listed on your agenda, but Tom Caesar for director of public works has uh some potential resolutions uh contracts to discuss. I'm going to have Tom come up to the podium uh and talk about two items which we may end up putting in on the council packet for uh consideration. Both of these would be fairly straightforward. Uh, one involves, uh, adding some additional funds to the, uh, NRCS grant that we have for the what formerly was known as the Willowick Apartment Complex. Uh, so again, this falls under the dollar cost threshold of the grant. So, this doesn't require any kind of city match. There's no city funds that go along with this. It's just increases the scope of the project that still falls below uh, the ceiling of the grant uh, award to the city. And then the second item uh, will involve uh, contracts for road resurfacing. Uh and that is one of the topics that we discussed at the offsite uh about you know doing road resurfacing as part of CPSD4 and potentially bundling that with some of the sea fund that we get every year. So Tom, I'll turn it over to you for uh an update.

Yeah, not much left to say after that. Um but the uh the NRCS project uh the contractor ran into some unforeseen uh soil condition ran into rock actually and that required some specialized excavation equipment and and techn techniques and so that uh overran the contingency that we had in place for the project. So we are asking for a small upward adjustment of the overall budget and well within our overall grant project amount. So that's a resolution we approved uh recently. Well, this is a this is almost identical to the one you approved last week. Yeah. This is for the other other piece.

Okay. The other project. Yes. Then the second uh one was Yes. We received bids last week for road reservicing and this was a combined project. It combined our our 2526 C program allocation that comes from the from the state through the Aken CTC. And the other part of that was CPST4 reservicing that uh has been approved in the most recent rep prioritization of CPST4. And so uh we received those bids and and think we'll be ready to bring a resolution recommendation to award that by next Monday.

That's for Bowling Road. Bowling Road is uh is a separate project that that project um requires some some design work which you has been approved right and we we initiated that with a engineering consultant. that is not part of the what we've already bid. This that list is just pretty much straight reservicing.

Yeah. So Tom's this work that Tom's going to potentially bring to us on Monday is straight up paving. That's just hey, they're just going to lay down more pavement. There's not a lot of engineering that goes into it. So that's the majority of the roads uh that will be serviced here with through CPSD4. Bowlolan Road because of the subsurface deterioration requires uh engineering assessments and then some schematics and then we'll have a separate paving contract associated with Bowling Road. So, you're going to get a lot of bang for the buck as far as the first set of roads uh that Tom's going to bring out Monday. You've already approved the engineering contract for Bowling Road and you should expect in a future date in the council session after we have the engineering done to have another paving contract specific to Bowlan Road only. But in the meantime, we'll be able to get the ball rolling on all these other uh roads that are on the list.

Some of these roads going to be out off Walnut Lane, correct? Yes. Several roads in Walnut Grove. That's what I'm asking about. Yes, sir. Thank you. Rayborn Point. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. That covers the agenda items for this evening and I will turn it over to uh Jamie for the department details. Thank you. Uh department details. We'll start with finance director Linda Williamson.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh for our cycle one customers, uh we will have a due date for their April 10th bills coming up on May 4th. uh their disconnection date for their April balances is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, May 20th. Cycle 2 customers, they have a disconnection for their March balances scheduled to begin on Tuesday, May 5th. And the due date for their April 25th bills is May 18th. And just a reminder, our business license renewals due date is th this Thursday, April 30th. Um those penalties will begin on May 1st and it is 5% per month that they are late. Our taxes are also due at the end of this week on Friday, May 1st. Um penalties will be added to any payments not postmarked by May 1st. And lastly, the off the finance office will close tomorrow between the hours of 11 and 2 so that our employees can attend the employee appreciation event for tomorrow. That's all I have for now. Thank you, Lyn.

Thank you. Next up is human resource manager Kayla Ferguson. Evening, mayor and council. Um, if you will look on the back of your department details, you will see your employee appreciation flyer tomorrow from 11 to I think it's sure when it's over, but it starts at 11. Um, and you can also see your employ or yeah, your employment opportunities on the other page. Thank you. Thank you, Kayla. Next up is engineering and public works director Tom Zer.

Well, again, so another paving project. This one we actually awarded last year. Um it's a our 2425 C program roads. Uh that contract is uh due to be complete within the next two weeks. So we have three roads uh that will be paved under that contract and they are Dunarton Drive in Hills area. Meridian Avenue which is down off of East Point of Vista, West Point Buav Vista and portion of Marian Avenue will all be resurfaced here within the next two weeks. few days of few days of uh aggravation for the residents but uh be it for the next 15 or 20 years.

Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Next up is plan development director Tommy Paradise. Good evening again. Uh we'll have the board of zoning appeals next Tuesday at 6 pm. Thank you. Next up is public services superintendent of sanitation Jason Sykes. Good evening, Mayor Castle. Uh utility crews are going to be conducting the fire hydrant inspection and maintenance. Uh looking doing about 104 hydrants and then also we'll be reading uh meter routes 129 through 136.

Thank you Jason. Next up is public safety Chief Johnson. Good evening. This upcoming Saturday, May 2nd, we'll be hosting a toucher truck event at True North Church. The CAT team is organizing this event, putting it on. We encourage anyone to come out there. It'll be from 9 to 1. We'll have a sensory hour to start off from 9 to 10. Uh that way everybody can participate with no sirens, no horns, none of the loud noises. Uh this past Saturday, we had the DEA drug takeback occurred at Parks Pharmacy and at Kroger. Uh, and we were able to collect 168 pounds of unused medications so that they didn't fall into the wrong hands. Um, and also, uh, I just want to thank y'all again. I know we did the push-in ceremony for our new tanker. Um, I did not expect it to be needed in such a timely manner, but last Friday we had a large fire on 520 and it had to put its work uh, multiple loads of water and had to take out there. Uh, so we did that. Uh, and I appreciate y'all's support for having it here and getting it here in time so that we need it. Um, and also we had another fire out on I20 today. Uh, but it was able to maintain it small and took our brush truck out there. Uh, so that's going to be the next thing that I'll be coming back to you asking for. Uh, is for funding for our brush truck because we're currently using a 1998 model truck. Uh, so it and it's set aside to be funded in CPST5. Uh but it's important that we get it upgraded uh so that we can keep try to maintain these fires in a small manageable area before they grow into something large.

Yes, ma'am. There was multiple out there today between the uh eight and the 11. Chief, what's the lead time on brush truck versus So, it's less than a year is what I was told last week when I asked a salesman. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Next up is park and recreation director Rick Meyer. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Happy to report that work began at 700 a.m. this morning on the activity center track. So, we're going to inconvenience our folks a little bit for approximately three weeks, but they don't mind.

They don't mind. That's right. That the reward will be worth it. Uh we are going to have to close the the entire top floor starting tomorrow, but we our team is going to move some of the cardio equipment downstairs so that we don't totally knock our folks out. Uh also, uh Wednesday night is Parks and Recreation youth night with the Augusta Green Jackets. Uh all of our coaches and players will be admitted free. Uh they'll have a parade prior to the game. and tonight uh first night of spring volleyball in gyms 1 2 and 5 playing on Monday and Thursday evenings. Thank you.

Thank you. And closing out department details is tourism manager Carl Waldau.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh Chamber of Commerce going to host a women and business lunchon next Tuesday at the community center. Um the guest speaker will be Sally Roberts and she'll be covering burnout in the workplace. Tickets are still available in the chamber website. Uh Northwest Cultural Arts Council will kick off music in the park series on Thursday, May 7th in Menfield Park and the series will continue every Thursday through July 2nd and those concerts begin at 7 o'clock. And lastly, Explore Northwest will host two concerts in May, the Chair Jones Amphitheater. Uh May 15th we'll have uh Broken Hearts Tom Petty tribute and May 30th we'll have FJ foreigner and journey tribute and those concerts will start at 7:30.

Carl Mayor since is our 250th Americans birthday are we doing anything in July for that? Yeah the arts and heritage center Mary and Bigger they're heading up a lot of the events in the area. I'm not certain what they eventually settled in as a plan. I mean, years ago, we used to have hard work and we all did it the high schools around the track and it was a big deal. Speakers, yeah, I'm not I'm not certain what they settled in on be I know it's probably a little too late to do something. Yeah, they've been planning for for a year. There's been some coming and going of

I mean it will be into the building downstairs. Some of it will. They're going to have stuff scattered about. Some will be at Living History Park. Be I think they're looking for us to do a joint thing over with Augusta, too. I mean, there's a there's a whole I mean, just reach out to Maryanne. She's got a whole ton. Well, I I haven't heard about it. So, you get on their mailing list.

Thank you. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Mr. Clifford. All right. So, for this uh evening, we have our quarterly update on the Riverside Village financials. And Linda Williamson, I'll go ahead and uh put this out here. Now, I would also say we may be approaching a point, this is the first year that the city has not had to enact the mid payments because the tax base has been above uh the requirements. We only have an annual requirement to do a a fiscal report like this through Emma. I understand we're used to doing these as quarterly, but uh just for something for the council to consider, I think we're certainly at a close enough spot to be able to consider doing these semiannually twice a year as opposed to four times uh because the information doesn't substantially change uh quarter to quarter, but I'll leave that for the council to determine and give us that guidance. So, until other guidance is given, we're still on the quarterly clock. Uh but it would be certainly helpful for the finance staff to do this uh twice a year instead of four times. But Linda, I'll turn it to you. Thank you. Um like I said, I have our first quarter update for tonight. Um and we did decide to do these on a voluntary basis to keep a timely report financial reporting for the uh Riverside Village project. Again, we uh voluntarily upload these onto the um electronic municipal market access website. Um and you can see those at um www.mma.msrb. bm a.msrb.org. Um, and tonight's, uh, report will be uploaded tomorrow morning. Um, okay, we can, um, and this is the what our bond council recommends that's included in our, um, report every uh, quarter. So, we can move on to slide two.

Okay, this chart is the um table that is included in our statistical section of our annual financial report. Presently, this uh table remains unchanged since the last update. Um we will be getting this table updated once we finish the 2025 financial audit. Next slide. Tax rates. This table has been updated to reflect the uh tax rate for our 2025 tax year. Again, our 2025 tax year revenue is collected in the fiscal year 2026. As you can see, our um mil millage increase by two. Um council approved that in November. Um that 2 mill tax increase allowed for um 3% cola to all of our employees, the addition of seven new positions citywide, and the purchase of replacement of new vehicles, machinery, and equipment without having to finance those items. Um again with that 79 79.5 millillage rate 3.8 is going to the capital projects fund. Next slide. This next table represents our 2026 budget. The um annual or Emma likes for us to publish this outside of the regular budget. Um and you will see that the budget's broken down by revenue type as well as our expenditure functions. Um, and this 2026 budget actually represents about a 4% increase over the previous year's budget. Uh, next slide. This, uh, is our 10 largest taxpayer slide. It's not going to change until my next update with the 2025 audit completion. Next slide. This is the tax collection of the city which will also be updated in our next uh update with the 2025 audit as well as our outstanding um debt. Again, it's this is all from our will be from our 2025

statistical section of our audit. All right, general obligation bonds. Okay, this is the table where um sorry, this table shows our general obligation bonds. Now, we did do one for the public safety headquarters. Um this bond was actually done through referendum, so we still have our entire 8% borrowing capacity. uh excuse me, a principal and interest payment was made in February and that is reflected in this 2025 or 2026 figure um for the first quarter. Not reflected in that number is um a principal and interest payment that we have made in April. Um you will see that reflected in the next update. So with that prepayment, we saved about $20,000 in interest. Yes, sir. Next up is our local hospitality taxes. Again, as a reminder, the city collects 2% in hospitality taxes on prepared foods in the city. However, 1% is dedicated to the debt service. Um, in quarter 1, we've collected uh over 700,000 in taxes, which is up about 96,000 from the same quarter last year. Um, so we're looking about a 15% increase starting the year out. Uh, while the figures for 25 have not been audited yet, as you will see, we collected almost $3 million in hospitality taxes, which uh shows a 7% increase over 2024. Um, the receipts of our tax dedicated to uh debt service outperformed our financial model by over 540,000 last year.

Next slide. This table represents our all of our accommodations tax. And again, only the um accommodations tax collected from the Crown Hotel is dedicated to debt service, but we use the total amount for our revenue reporting. We do have a 3% tax rate for the city. Um the unodudited 25 collections show that we received over $550,000 in accommodations taxes, showing a 13.5% increase over the previous year. Quarter one collections are roughly about the same as they were in 2025's first quarter. So, we expect to kind of see that balance out. Um between 23 and 24, we had uh the true hotel coming online. So, that um help with that bump. So, um until we get another hotel, we'll probably kind of see those kind of flatten out. All right. Next table we have is our tax increment revenues. This includes all of our tip revenues including what we receive from the county as well um as what we bill ourselves. Uh we also do have to pay a $350,000 payment to the county as part of this in our governmental agreement which we will do in May. So you'll see that reflected in our next update. Our TE revenues remained about the same as the previous year. Now, you'll notice that we do have a big little um increase in 2025, and that is actually due to Grreyville Ironwood paid their uh taxes um for the 2025 tax year two months early. So, it reflected in our 25 revenue. So, depending on the timing of that payment, we may see a little bit of a reduction in this graph for the 2026 tax year.

Um um the final uh due date for the taxes are May 1st. So um our next uh quarter update we will see that number jump up a little bit. Next uh the next table represents our mid assessments which this year will be zero. Um and as Jim mentioned we u pulled that report in February that showed that our tax revenues for 25 were going to exceed the annual parcel assessment. So we did not levy any mid fees this year. Next slide. Parking revenues. This chart um actually shows us a positive balance over over the last two years. So that was great news. Um so we've been working with uh the hotel and the green jackets and making sure that we're keeping those uh parking revenues coming in to us and um honoring those agreements. We had again this um chart shows our net parking in revenue. So our expenses are coming out of the gross um revenues and um so that's why you will see some negatives. Uh we do tend to get parking kind of delayed from crown but we do get it. So um I would expect that number to turn positive for next uh the next report. And finally stadium revenues. Um, so all of our 2025 agreed payments were made last year. So that's great news. Um, our emissions tax we usually get um in August in the fall um after the green jack green jackets have finished their season. Um the retail and um rent we actually received that in April as um planned and so you'll see that reflected in our next update. and then our um corporate name and rights we get in December of of the year. So that is all I have for you

today. Why is the admissions tax so high in 2025? Does that have to do with attendance? Um we uh receive emissions tax from two um sources. Uh the um we have uh forget what the name department of revenue the department of revenue sends us what the green jacket submit but there's also another agreement with the department of revenue where they will send what they receive as well a portion of what they they receive at the state will come back to us in a sort of as a refund. It's just the most we've ever had. Yes. 30,000 about every year and now we jump to 98. Um, so I don't expect to see that this year. I think we just had a lot that had come in um that they had held for a few a few years.

Thanks. Mr. Mayor, Council, subject to any additional questions from the DAS. That's all we have for the staff this evening. Just want to make a couple announcement upcoming events. Um the North August National Day of Prayer will be on May the 7th. Uh Fair View Presbyterian Church is hosting that. Uh doors will open at 8:00. Uh the program starts at 8:30 and then there will be a prayer walk that night from 6:00 to 8:00. For any folks who go to church, if you want to know where your church is walking, I'll just tell you to reach out to your church. Uh they're aware of the prayer walk. So they can kind of give you that information.

And mayor,

we're going to do one. I talked to Amber Porter at the wreck and Rick and I got to get We're going to do one at the ball field like we've all at each tower. Perfect. Great. Uh just want to give a big shout out to our merchants alliance uh as well as uh Avery Spears Mahoney and Northwest of Ford for the springfest if you went down this weekend. Huge crowd. Um and for the you know we approved the uh the the art for the bathroom that looks great. You will not be scared of it. You won't be scared at all, Pat. I promise. Uh but the artists started putting the art on there and again uh you know that park is getting so much use now and we're very fortunate with the partnership. Northgus of Forward is the one who funded the bathrooms. They look great. So with a new park and with the bathrooms just fantastic just want to very very thankful for that organization and doing that. Um I want to let y'all know about a loss uh Tom Arnold. He is the He was the oldest World War II veteran still living in North Augusta. He passed away last week at 100 years old. I know David Buck was able to make the service on Saturday, but it was a blessing because about two months ago, David Buck, John Felak, and myself, we got to meet Mr. Arnold at his house and he is just he was as sharp as I mean, the way he was known, I figured he'd go by 110.

He is a um he was a phenomenal person. I mean, even right up there until the end, he was taking care of himself. Um, he fell and that's kind of yeah, kind of what happened.

But anyway, just just great to know that. And the last thing is uh Northwest Chamber of Commerce had their what they call the impact business summit last week and uh two of our downtown businesses, Carpenters Tire and Ardo. Uh shout out for Pat Carpenter and her family and then Orange Otter. They won the two different small business or two categories. I don't remember what they were, but Aubrey Henson at Orange Otter, which was fantastic. And I thought this was interesting. One of the companies is a staffing agency and they received 27 applications for jobs in the North Augusta, Aken area from that summit and they're confident they're going to be able to place those whether it's Aken, North Gusta, Augusta area. So anyway, just great job of the Chamber of Commerce. very thankful for what they're doing with this impact business summit and it's always nice to sit on the das with a with a small business person of the year Pat Carver. With that, thank y'all very much and we stand a journ.