City Council - Regular Meeting

to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, I see the mayor has come back. You wouldn't make me do this. You can pass it down to him. All right, do we have any announcements or communications?

Staff? Nope.

I think the police officer's funeral is tomorrow at 10.30 at Pilgrim Lutheran Church. So I would encourage you all to come out to that if you can. All right, moving down to section six then, presentations and recognitions. We have a resolution recognizing Bishop Wade Roof for being elected Bishop of the South Carolina Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. And Anna Huffman will read the resolution for us.

Wade Thomas Roof III was raised in Lexington, South Carolina, and his is the son of Wade Thomas Tommy Roof Jr. and Danny Roof. And whereas Reverend Roof earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Newberry College in 2003 and a Master of Divinity degree from the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in 2009. And whereas Reverend Roof is currently pursuing a doctorate Congregational Leadership at the M. Christopher White School of Divinity at Garner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. And whereas Reverend Roof and his wife, Irena, are the proud parents of Abby Grace and Blackburn. And whereas Reverend Roof served as pastor of Resurrection Lutheran Church and St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Cameron, South Carolina from 2009 until 2014. And whereas, since 2014, Reverend Roof has faithfully served as senior pastor of Mount Tabor Lutheran Church in West Columbia, providing spiritual leadership and service to the congregation and the West Columbia community. And whereas, during the South Carolina Synod Assembly held June 11 through the 13th, 2026 at the Brooklyn Baptist Banquet and Conference Center in West Columbia, Reverend Roof was elected to a six-year term as bishop of the South Carolina Synod of the Evangelical Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. And whereas Reverend Roof will assume the office of Bishop on September 1st, 2026, providing spiritual and administrative leadership to 139 congregations and worshiping communities throughout South Carolina. And now, therefore, be it resolved that the Mayor and City Council of the City of West Columbia hereby congratulate Reverend Wade Thomas Roof III upon his election as Bishop of the South Carolina Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and recognize him as Bishop-elect as he prepares to assume office on September 1, 2026. And be it further resolved that the Mayor and City Council extend their warmest wishes to Bishop-elect Roof for a successful and meaningful tenure of service and leadership as he works to share the love of Christ throughout South Carolina through worship, fellowship, community service, and ministry.

Do I hear a motion? Second. And second? Second. Anybody want to make some comments here?

I'd like to make a couple comments, if it's okay. Go ahead. I just want to say how proud we are of Pastor, a.k.a. Bishop-elect Wade. And it didn't say anything in the resolution about all of your baseball exploits. he's he's truly a remarkable person Mount Tabor a lot of people here might not realize that Mount Tabor is really deeply historically linked to West Columbia first mayor of West Columbia attended Mount Tabor and I have a house that I bought years ago on Shoal Street that was built by the Kennedy family and their Their grandson, Wayne Kennedy, I believe baptized Pastor Wade. So there's really deep German Lutheran connections in this community. Mount Tabor has always been a church of a few families. Pastor Wade took that family atmosphere and made it contagious. And he's the second elected bishop in a row in the state of South Carolina where their last called pastor position was at Mount Tabor. And that's something that we should be really proud of. And that's something that Pastor Wade should be commended for.

I love Pastor Wade. Mount Tabor was the closest church to my house for 20 years until we moved. And it might still be the closest church even after we moved. Well, despite me being a Catholic, he welcomed me in over there for drive-through ashes on Ash Wednesday a couple times. I'm very, very excited for you, proud of you. It is a wonderful church over there. You've done a great job leading it, and we couldn't be more proud of you and thankful for you.

Anyone else? Yes, I'd like to, I guess, reiterate what Councilmember Moy and Mayor Miles said, and it is definitely the closest church to my house.

Absolutely.

And Wade and I have been friends for quite a long time, and he's helped me through a lot of things. I was at an open-door policy, and he's just a great guy and a great friend. I couldn't be more proud of you. So wish you well.

That's all I have. All right. Seeing nothing further, let's take a vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All right. It's unanimous. And if you will come up here and get a picture with the mayor Or anyone else that wants to go down David Thank you. Congratulations. All right, now we're down to 6.2, Safe Streets and Roads for All Safety Action Plan. And we'll hear from Ryan Eckerode.

if i can yes please since i was not here for my announcements i would just like to announce that a good friend george crowe had a birthday and uh i don't want that go by unnoticed uh councilmember boyd can you do the honors down there for us

happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear george happy birthday to you thank you all please proceed go ahead mr okay listen me up alone

Thank you, Council, for having me here tonight. My name is Ryan Eckenrode, as discussed, and I'm with AECOM, and I was the project manager for the Safe Streets for All West Columbia safety plan. I will say it's been a good year. We started this back in September, and it's a little sad that we've been communicating with Catherine every month and getting this plan together and we couldn't have got to we're here today without that Cooperation and with all the stakeholders and the public meetings as well We did squeeze in a public meeting right for the holidays which escalated to where we got here today So thank you for all that I'm here today to really give an update of the safety action plan real briefly. I think y'all have it in front of you. There's multiple appendices with all kind of project cut sheets. And if anything I hear say today doesn't come through, there's a dashboard with interactive dashboard with everything crashes and, uh, cut sheets and public comments all summarized on the internet. But I want to kind of discuss what the Safety Action Plan was, how it was developed, and give you all a little information on that. So the Safety Action Plan is data driven. Yeah, there's crashes that happen over West Columbia. We were focusing on the high severity, the fatalities, the injury threes. So that's where we zeroed in on it. Of course, we also took into account there's a big public engagement process. We met with stakeholders on December 2nd, the first meeting, told them about what I'm telling you here today, what the plan was, and listened to them. We listened to the EMS, superintendents for school, the SCDOT, FHWA. bike pit advocates, all those, and took that account and asked them what their issues were. And they presented it all to us, and we kind of gave them some crash data. And then we took all the information back to AECOM and started doing analysis and figured out where those crashes were and compared them with what the public had told us. And then our second stakeholder meeting, we said, all right, This is what the data is telling us. This is what we heard from you. And we developed 10 intersections and 10 corridors to perform recommendations on. And then we came back in April and presented them all to the public and the stakeholders. And basically, every step of the process in this plan here you see in front of you, it's been collaboration with all parties as well. So there's no surprises. So I want to go into the list of prioritized projects real briefly. And again, as I mentioned, all these projects, they're on what they call the high injury network. Jarvis-Klatman, US 378, US 1 Augusta Street, 9th Street, 12th Street. I think Hook Avenue was on there. All that data. So again, we're focusing on those high injury network areas. All right. And again, reiterate the dashboard. Here's a website right here. You go on here and again, you can set the crashes from 2023 or all five years of the crashes. You can separate into angles where the lighting crashes are, where the projects are. You can even go into this website and see all of the public comments people left on there saying this road has this issue. So it's all been tracked on this website and it's interactive. So narrowing down to 10 intersections, again, we only looked in the city of West Columbia. If there was an intersection that SCDOT already had taken and counted, we didn't put it on this list. We didn't want to give you something that someone else already did. So these are 10 new projects or intersections that we count as recommendations. Again, the farthest west one is I-3, which is near I-26. and then of course they're they're all scattered throughout the west columbia city limits i will say when i show you the corridor projects all these little gaps you see in the map they'll be filled up with the corridors um in there so The ones with the two different colors, I will say there was another part of this project we were looking at demonstration projects. And those were money that was already given as part of the safety action plan. I think it was like $100,000. Something that could be done immediately. Doesn't have to go through getting money from a source. And we're working on those right now. And I will go over the demonstration projects shortly. And again, that's with the two colors you see with I-6, I-7, I-1, and all that. So going over the projects, the first one, this is right down the street here, Meeting Street at 12th Street. Looking at some enhancements to the signals. What does that mean? Maybe left turn arrows. Maybe near side heads, because you can't see the intersection. Pedestrian enhancements. That's maybe some push buttons, some new paving. Lighting is very dark out there. As you can see on the right column, there was one fatal there, and no serious injuries. Again, we're looking at the crashes where people either have a serious injury or a fatal. And again, more details of that, again, on the website and cut sheets. Morningside at Hook Avenue. As we know, Hook Avenue is a connector between 378 and US 1, Augusta Street. There's people speeding and all that. There's a hotline of crashes. There was actually one fatal at Morningside Drive at Hook Avenue. Again, short-term, throw up four stop signs if warranted. Long-term, maybe a roundabout. And that really slows people down, discourages people to travel high speeds through there, which may help with biking or whatever to speeds. Next one, Sunset Boulevard at Cromer de Vega Drive. Again, this is near, I believe, I-26. Again, signal and pedestrian enhancements and lighting, again, looking at turn arrows looking at maybe leading pedestrian intervals to help with pedestrian crossings lighting as well as push buttons and other things to help with pedestrian crossings uh the next one augusta road hammond avenue as we know that that comes in right augusta street at an angle hammond right near that signal uh we're looking at restricting some movements at hammond so that people can't just go right to that signal real quickly it's a lot of crashes you know that comes in at a angle at clapman as well and um you know helping pedestrians get across there easier lighting as well as some signal enhancements as well and some signage Leapheart, Holland, Wade. This is, again, unsignalized. And we're looking at maybe some new traffic control, maybe putting a signal in there with some turn lanes, a roundabout, or maybe just realigning the intersection a little bit. As we know, that intersection has some skewed angles at Leapheart, Holland, Wade. The next one, Jarvis-Clapman. at Brown. That's right close to here, down the street. This one has Lacey Drive, which is a fringe road, real close. And so we were looking at some innovative type of intersection or reduced conflict intersection. We'd study that. Doesn't mean it's going in. It's just something that we'd look at some traffic counts and look at, as well as some signal and pedestrian enhancements again. and lighting. This next one, Jarvis-Clapman 12th, that's right here, right up the street. Here, as you know, there is right turn lanes, fast channelized right turn lanes. What that does great for cars to go really fast and turn, but it's not very good for pedestrians crossing. It creates high speeds. So one of the improvements we can help with slower speeds and helping with not rearing collisions and maybe side swipes is bring all those right turns to the signal. So they have to stop, make that right turn at 5 miles an hour, instead of taking it at 25 miles an hour, and that would help with pedestrians as well as bikes. I mean, I guess the pedestrians are supposed to be using the bridge, but if they don't use the bridge, it would be another place to go across Jarvis-Clotman, a safer intersection. Sunset at Kraft. Again, there's no signal there. That's right at the Brooklyn Baptist Church. There was two serious injuries there. Maybe looking for a signal there. Add some lighting, maybe a RFB with the buttons you push with just pedestrians across right there. So again, those are some studies we would do for recommendations. Another one, a hook. You know, we talked about hook being a cut through. Again, maybe look at another roundabout here, a single lane roundabout. Again, if you have two roundabouts on hook, that's not going to be a very attractive cut through anymore. People going faster, you have to slow down, go round a roundabout. and help with traffic calming and be very bike-ped friendly as well. 9th Street, B Avenue, there was no fatal serious injuries, but this is near a park. There's a lot of pedestrians walking, so we're adding potentially sidewalks, adding some more stop signs so people get to that intersection and really know to not run it and just go slower. All right. How are we done? Now to the corridors. Again, the corridors you can see here, most of them are on 378. And there's a couple north-south ones, Leapheart, Dreer, C1, C6, C3, 12th Street, one on 9th Street, as well as close to Meeting Street and State Street. So the first one, Lee Park Road, from Augusta Road to Lee Park Road, very short segment. And we did that on purpose. We could do these big, long corridors. But again, you have to find funding to do that. So we kind of broke them up into manageable pieces, if they all can't be done at once, and for implementation funding, which I'll talk a little later about. But this is a short segment. There's a lot of driveways here. Maybe look at some access management for that little segment, which is right near Signal, right at that road as well. which is on the intersection list. Sunset Boulevard, Chris Drive, McSwain Drive, this is a half mile. Again, this one, look at access management, look at that reduced conflict intersection. Those who don't know what a reduced conflict intersection is, it's exactly what it means. Reducing the number of possibilities for someone to get in a T-bone or a crash. So a typical signal, or a four-lane intersection, there's 32 possible ways to get in a crash. At a reduced conflict intersection, there's only 18. So you do the math, there's 50% chance you're not gonna get in a crash there. So with a reduced conflict intersection, You come out of the side street, make a right turn, and you have to come back and U-turn around. But on the main street, you can make a left in. I don't know if you've seen those or not. Basically, you can't cut through the main line and go straight across. You have to make a right turn out and U-turn around. So that's what a reduced conflict intersection is. Next one, C3, 12th Street from Augusta Road to D Avenue. Again, y'all know about 12th Street. In fact, there's a lot of... acute angle roads coming together so we said instead of you know access management and help from BD Avenue but we need to get a traffic study there there's a lot that could be done study that whole area and figure out how that can be realigned to make it more of a safe area there so again a future traffic study the big one there was one fatal there and one serious injury The next one, 378 Sunset Boulevard, 12th Street to 9th Street. Again, this is right in the same segment where we're talking about Kraft, right in the middle, Kraft Street. It's right near the Brooklyn Baptist Church. Access management, looking at maybe a reduced conflict intersection there, or a signal, as we discussed, and obviously lighting. There's pedestrians across that street, and hopefully can light that up to improve their safety. Sunset Boulevard 378, another one on 378, from 9th to Meeting. Again, this is, again, access management. Try to reduce the number, there's lots of driveways, and if we can reduce the number of driveways and the access, you can reduce the conflict points. Again, looking at pedestrian enhancements and lighting, and there as well. Halfway done, all right. Drear Roads on the half of Leapheart Roads is where the San Jose restaurant is. Looking at, again, some access management. It's just wide open. Adding sidewalks on both sides of the road, extensions, so people can walk on the sidewalk and not have to walk on the roadway. And again, adding lighting. State Street, very heavy pedestrian-oriented roadway, looking at, again, access management and high-visibility crosswalks so vehicles can see that a lot of pedestrians are crossing and where those pedestrians are crossing, as well as RRFBs. Those are the ones that the flash, you push a button and it flashes on top of the sign and pedestrians, it lets the vehicles know that pedestrians are crossing and makes it more safe for them. Again, on Sunset Boulevard, another one, Hibbett Drive to Fairline Drive. You can add the C8 and C9 because that goes from Fairline all the way to Harbor Drive. Again, access management, sidewalks. There's no sidewalks on the roads on 378. Adding lighting and, again, some access management on those. The last one is 9th Street from Meeting Street to C Avenue. Again, if y'all have driven that, that's where the park is as well, but it's very wide there, but then it necks down to two lanes. So a better use of the pavement would perform a road dive, maybe add some bike lanes to get to the park with those additional stop signs, extends the sidewalk from B Avenue to C Avenue, just create a more, if people are walking to the park, create a more safer environment for them to get there. So that was the last corridor project. Last is demonstration projects. Again, this money's already been allotted for, and so we came up with a list of projects, and we're using the same treatment everywhere. If you can see, it's all around West Columbia, but this is, we're gonna be using something called a, a high visibility crosswalk. And there's a sample of it at UG Green Street. So looking at adding these at all those 11 intersections, high visibility crosswalks. And again, some of these cost more because we're putting all four legs, some are T intersections. And so just using a blanket recommendation at all these intersections to help improve pedestrian safety. And we're in the process of working through those right now with the city. of getting them out there. Finally, we'll leave on, you know, one of the reasons we wanted to get this study done, which is great that it started when it did and we finished when it did, so we could take part in the implementation grant. So we got money for a safety action plan from FHWA, but, you know, we're at the end of this. There was $5 billion that was allocated towards this policy. There's only $687 million left as of December of last year. And so there is expected to be 40 to 70 awards for implementation money. So all the projects I discussed, there's people all over the United States applying to get money to implement what they have in the plans. And so there's criteria. Again, it's got to be backed with data, which we have. You've got to have good public engagement, which we've done, as well as have a good cost-benefit ratio. If you're going to spend money, you better have some crashes to justify the money spent on it. So we've done that as well. And also, if you win the award, you've got to bill it in the next five years. So all those checkboxes have to be done. I will say, there was an implementation grant submitted. I think that was discussed at, got y'all's approval, I think, a couple council meetings ago. Again, Lexington County took the lead, and the reason we did that, instead of going in alone, we've seen better award, award given when not just one little jurisdiction goes, but when multiple jurisdictions come together, submit, there's a better chance of winning. And again, Lexington County submitted it on May 26th. The Batesburg-Leesville went in, Town of Casey, Town of Chavin, City of Lexington, Lexington County, West Columbia and they all submitted in there and then the ones the project we did just from a continuity standpoint everything on 378 was included so all the corridor studies I talked about all the access the sidewalks the lighting access management maybe the new signals RFBs they're all in this this corridor on 378 so I think those should the award will be announced later this year I think last year they announced it right on Christmas Eve I don't know if that was on purpose or not but um so that if they do award that then some of that money can be applied to this project i think the max was 25 million and i think they applied for the full 25 million for that so with that i know we're over a lot i'm here to answer any questions on the plan if you have any okay anybody have any questions i have a couple questions sure i saw in here where you said

Members of council were consulted. Who did you consult on council?

No one was consulted by the public meetings. Besides the public meetings. Besides the meetings. Who would be consulted?

Did y'all reach out to anybody on council?

Nobody's reached out. We've had public meetings. I know David was there at a public meeting. I know he went over some stuff. But I don't think we were.

No one's contacted us. A couple points on the 378 stuff you pointed out. One, those traffic lights, hospital geared. You didn't include intersection there at the interstate, which is a, trying to use nice words, a disaster in the afternoons, absolute disaster. Intersections are getting blocked. I can see where we're having a problem with these roads because the signals don't work half the time. So people get in a hurry and they start trying to speed up and down. Both the East and West Hospital, it's hit or miss. They are moving people out of the hospital at the expense of people sitting on 378 or even sitting on the interstate now. So those lights are not working the way we were told they were gonna work or we were promised they were gonna work. For me, if you would get those things working right, half of what you've said in that thing I think would be, would be resolved. The other issue that we have now is the new apartments, Langley Point. Originally, when they brought the proposal to us, DOT was going to require access only in from 378 and then back out toward Lexington on 378. Now it's a free-for-all. You could turn across. You can do whatever you want. was part of the reason the interest was put on him that drive for him was because there's only going to be. Well, that never occurred. After I was told that's what's going to occur. Some of those things would help. What I don't want to see on 378 is what has happened out here on number one with some of that stuff. that there's ways to fix that but I just wish I would have reached out to us and said okay what do you know what's going on in your area a little bit better and had those conversations but some of that I think it was a good report I think there's a lot of good things I hope we can get a lot of those things done and that we can maybe get Lexington town elections on those traffic lights out there working a little bit more with us the other thing I will say you pointed out um intersection right here 12th and Jarvis Clapman and then meeting Street most friday mornings i'm headed through there about six for 55 seven o'clock and it takes me anywhere from five minutes to ten minutes to get the zestos because you're either stuck at this light or one of the uh the mini street light or if you don't get through that one then you're stuck at the next two i think coordinating lights a little bit would help tremendously because i do think people are trying to speed up because they're getting stuck and okay i gotta go faster now to get to the next to the next place they're going right so you need to light yeah yeah so i just i think coordinating a little bit would help um with some of what we what you pointed out in there too but it may not alleviate at all but right and again i think it was a great you had some good points in there though absolutely

will say uh 378 there's some flexibility what gets done on that so if they do it needs to be some emergency vehicle preemption or some other what we have in here it's it's a plan but it still could be modified yeah i think the modification which is impossible i think that that the way that bridge is set up on three on the interstate it's number one it's hard for somebody turning off the interstate if you're coming from um

So you're coming from the Harbison area and you're trying to take that right turn. There's a stop sign there. It's hard sometimes to tell which lane the cars are in because of the way that bridge, the lining is there. And the way the bridge does all, you know, I don't know what they call it back. It's a bow tie bridge, I guess. I don't know what they, they have a term for it. It's just really difficult through there. And then cars get confused when they're coming off the interstate. So, you know, blocking roads and it just, it creates a mess. And then when the lights ahead of it aren't working, And we're coming up, I guarantee you, next couple weeks, they're going to start malfunctioning because the sun's going to start hitting them wrong. And it's just they haven't been what they were told. I don't think it's really improved traffic the way the hospital said it was. I think they need to be a valuable partner in this. So I actually think one of the intersections you put there is not even in the city. It's in the county, east or west hospital, because those are hospitals not being in the city.

Mm-hmm.

So I do think they need to be brought in and a partner with it too because there could be some money they have. Right. Because I do feel like they need to help fix some of that right around the hospital.

Are you talking more of the congestion or just safety?

Safety and congestion. I think congestion leads to safety problems because people are running into congestion they're not expecting to, so then they start trying to maybe sneak through that next light when it's about to turn red or they try to –

you know they zoom around and zoom in and out i mean i see it every day um so i do think i think it's both i think i think the congestion leads sometimes to safety issues there's a point of view there's also speed um there may be some more crashes when there's congestion but they're slower unless you some pull that lets you in t-bones them but um one of the things i'll point out that during covid the number of crashes went if fatals went up Because there was no congestion, people were just flying down the road. So there is a balance between safety and congestion. I do agree with you. And that's the trick we do. You want people to go faster, but when they're doing the crash, it usually ends up in a fatality. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? I've got a quick question. After attending the public meeting and talking with you for a while, I thought it was kind of interesting how this focuses on a lot of corridors. A lot of our corridors were kind of made after the fact, and the corridors themselves made Our network of roads that was formerly very walkable up until the 70s or so made it where they're very separated and very dangerous to travel through. And I've noticed when we went to the MASC, they had some trails projects and stuff like that that seemed to really benefit the communities that they're in and stuff. But we've got this... road network that's kind of overlaid over a lot of these corridors. And it seems like it would be a good idea to separate the bikes and pedestrians where they can get around from necessarily following the same way the cars go. And then there's much less danger. How do you think somebody would go about because because the way that this process is done inherently just kind of collects where there is crash data and we will react to that crash data how does one approach you know possibly possibly doing like trail projects and things like that that kind of work outside that data set i mean obviously the the newer the area the more right-of-ways available it's easier to get a lot of stuff in so out west they're doing all that they're separating bikes and

in cars immediately, but now you can go back to more or less right away and stuff and have to impact. I mean, obviously, looking at railroads, converting railroads to trails and stuff like that, that's always a big thing that's going on. But it's really just... Having a plan, and it may not get there immediately, but as things evolve, having that plan, so when new products do happen, you can incorporate those missing pieces together and connect.

Oh, you're saying like have this, if you make a plan like that, you can kind of coordinate something like this with that and find, okay.

I mean, that's one of the things, I mean, everything, When you work on a project, you should re-reference every single plan that's going on, because you don't want to step on someone's toes and incorporate someone else's design. And if you don't act fast enough, then a hotel or a resident gets put there first, and then you don't have a chance to.

Well, hey, I love the plan. I love all the work that went into it. I was kind of surprised that they've got all this crash data and stuff up online now. I think that's going to be a valuable tool for us in our discussions moving forward when we can just pull the data up very easily at our city website. So thanks for all the work that went into it and everything, and I very much appreciate it. No problem.

Any other questions?

Got one more.

Go ahead. Talk about bike lanes. You all see probably more bike lanes than we do. In this part of the country, how often are bike lanes being utilized? Are they being utilized the right way?

Obviously, There's a lot of bikers who are discouraged until they get the bike lane. It's kind of a catch-22 sometimes. I mean, there's a lot of bikers who choose not to drive on a certain road. But you put bike lanes on there, there's different types of bikers, too. There's avid bikers. There's recreational bikers and all that. Obviously, the recreational bikers, they'll ride on sidewalks and all that. But if you're an avid biker, you use it. But it also depends on what it's connecting to. What are you trying to get to?

um you know trying to get to the zoo i mean that's a destination or you're trying to get to downtown columbia you just have to create that network and people use it the reason i asked because up until a couple months ago i would over a thousand miles a week just in columbia driving and saw bike lanes but I did not see a ton of usage going on and I do think they calm traffic because they narrow the roads a little bit but I also don't just didn't see occasionally you would see somebody but you didn't see I didn't see a lot of people on bikes period but especially where bike lanes were I saw I started to know how I mean I'm all for them if they're used if they're not used and I think we need I know there was a project in Colombia where or was it on Farrow Road somewhere, they put one in and they had to remove it pretty much immediately because it would create more of a hazard than it helped. So I just don't want to spend money on something if it's not going to be used.

It's a plan, again. If there's no parking spaces, people are going to take their bike. It all comes together. People take transit if there's nowhere to park for them to go or you as error uh it's all there's a lot of factors you know gas being ten dollars a gallon meanwhile people start taking bikes i mean it's all kind of uh until it becomes a hardship or or exercise but and councilman brooks i will say that just coming here to the council meeting um i saw three bikers on platte springs road uh headed all the way down here so

I mean, there's a spinners group that meets at Steel Hoops, right? That bikes from outside of there.

Yeah, good point. Platte Springs Road was widened fairly recently, and it was very wide, and it could easily accommodate bike lanes when they did it, and those bike lanes are used. And Platte Springs Road, out of all the roads, doesn't have some of the crash, has far, far lower crash statistics than some of these other roads we've been talking about.

It's also not used as much as some of these other roads.

Oh, I know. I know. I'm just saying. Well, but they could do it there because there wasn't a physical constraint. And it's adopted. But it doesn't have the fatalities and stuff that some of these other roads have.

All right. All right. Any other questions? I just had one question. Can you remind us of the website? Is that just on our website, or is there a separate website for your information? I can get back to it.

I can send, I think it is.

Yeah, you have a link there. Oh, I see.

There's probably a website, probably dashboard. I don't have a link to that. But it should be attached to that or not.

Yeah, I can.

Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. I can't see very well, but I see it now. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. No problem. All right. That brings us down to 6.3, presentation of the officer of the quarter. We will hear from Chief Marion Boyce.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, Mayor, Council. Appreciate y'all giving us that opportunity to come up here. It's always a pleasure to present our Officer of the Quarter. Today I'm going to present you to Officer, I'm sorry, Investigator Will Branham as our Officer of the Quarter. He was nominated by his peers on this. It's a peer-nominated program that we do. Very deserving of it. Will's been with us for About 10 years? Yeah, 10 years now. So time flies when we're having fun. What I love about Will is he never turns down any work. So he's always looking for something to do and out there helping us with things that we need to do. There's no shortage of work, obviously, at the police department. So it's very beneficial to have somebody that's always looking for work. Will enjoys serving on our golf committee. that we have for our golf tournament on our West Columbia Police Officers Foundation. If I may, shameless plug, the 12th annual one is coming up this October 23rd at Charwood. We always enjoy having those annually, and Will's a big part of helping us get that up and running and organized. He also serves on a traffic collision reconstruction team. So you heard about fatalities that we have in the city. Well, Will is one of, I think, two, maybe three officers that come out and work every single one of those fatalities that we have in West Columbia. So if there's a fatality that happens here, then I've got a team that comes out and they reconstruct all of that data and information so that we can investigate it and figure out what happened, what caused it, all of that good stuff. So Will's gone through a bunch of training at the academy to get certified as a reconstructionist. He also serves as a negotiator on our crisis negotiations team. He is one of my more senior investigators in our Street Crimes Unit. That unit handles all guns, gangs, and narcotics for the City of West Columbia Police Department. He serves as a TFO, or a Task Force Officer, on the Lexington County Narcotics Enforcement Team. That gives him a little bit of more jurisdiction countywide with a focus on narcotics, gangs, and guns, so that helps us tremendously as well. um one of the things that i'll i'll highlight on this is uh one of the cases and this is um it hasn't been adjudicated uh at this time but there is some news articles on it so i'll just speak on the public information aspect but will took the lead on our walmart shooting i don't know if y'all remember that back in april where we had a bunch of rounds fired and people were shooting at each other in the walmart parking lot on a very crowded afternoon So we were able to quickly track down four individuals. We were able to find those individuals and then they were charged. I'll just read off some of these. This is public information as well, but we locked up those four individuals for attempted murder criminal conspiracy, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, possession of marijuana, assault and battery first degree, discharge of a firearm into a vehicle and accessory after the fact to a felony. Those four individuals are still at Lexington County Detention Center. They are currently on no bond and awaiting trial. I was present at a bond hearing for those individuals and Will was too. I got to listen to a seasoned investigator testify to the judge on why these individuals didn't need to be out on bond and they aren't out on bond. So that keeps our community safe as well. And I appreciate Will taking the lead on that and and putting a case together. That's what I think would be a very strong case, according to the solicitor that was handling it as a very prosecutable case for us on that. So we look forward to seeing them in their day of court as always. We have incredible support here in this community. I've got an anonymous donor that loves to donate a $100 gift card to the Officer's Choice. I'm going to present Will with that tonight. And then we've also had a bunch of our businesses step up here recently. And so unbeknownst to me, it's kind of spreading a little bit. And so I've got several gift certificates from local businesses that said they wanted to be a part of this program and wanted to donate on these quarterly aspects. So I've got them here in my secret pocket. So we've got Zestos, Brickhouse Coffee, Shooter's Choice, and Savagecraft. So very thankful and appreciative to our community. What a, what a... Blessing it is to work in such a place that supports you and that we don't see on the national media a lot of times. So anyhow, that's my presentation for this evening. We're going to take a picture up here, and I just appreciate y'all's support in letting us present this officer of the quarter. Thank y'all.

Thank you both, we appreciate all y'all do.

Thank you. Thank you. As we move to section 6.4, we have introduction of Kyle Cooper, Finance Director, and we'll hear from Justin Black, the Senior Assistant City Administrator and Treasurer.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, Council. Just wanted to introduce y'all to our new Finance Director, Kyle Cooper. Kyle's been with us a couple weeks now and is fitting in really well with the team. Kyle comes to us with lots of experience, leadership experience and finance experience. And he was the director of finance and administration at a nonprofit here in South Carolina. So just wanted you all to meet him and introduce him tonight. And we're always here for you to help in any way we can be.

Thank you, sir. We look forward to you being on board.

Thank you.

You want to say any words?

I'm excited to be here and grateful for the opportunity. Just looking forward to getting going.

Well, good. Thank you so much. All right, moving down to sections 7.1 and 7.2, I'll take up a motion to combine these to approve the minutes for the previous meeting for the regular council meeting on July 7 and also on July 20.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Now, all those in favor, please raise your right hand. Looks unanimous. All right. Moving along to Section 8. We have the first reading of the consideration of an ordinance approving the conveyance of the B Avenue ballpark to Lexington County Recreation and Aging Commission. And we'll hear from Justin Black, the senior assistant city administrator and treasurer.

So moved. Second. Second.

Any discussion.

Yes, I am heard something very interesting in Richland County related to a recreation Commission that had that had control of a facility. And then the facility ended up getting imperiled as sold off or whatever, which was running counter to what people in the community wanted. And I just want to make sure after we pass it in first reading that this conveyance provides for it to be

kept as as a park or something like that you know in perpetuity councilman dickey can you provide any insight on the ongoing over richland county recreation commission i am unable to provide any of the insight that you may want or request regarding the richland county i'm unaware of what councilman moore is referring to but i'm not sure that that is the I guess, particularized, I guess, recitation of events.

I'll put it that way. I'm just repeating stuff that I'm hearing third hand. But as it relates to this, I just would like to make sure that we got some protections in here. Absolutely.

I just make one comment so I drove by there the other day and it looks like that some of the concrete is very moldy and you know, I mean and lots of leaves are over there. Maybe we can refer this to some community volunteer groups that might come and went to power wash and clean up some things. I also saw the roofs are I mean there's some shingles starting to miss from some of the roofs there. Are they planning to invest some money there?

They do currently have plans to invest and make improvements at that park. Yes, sir. We can discuss that.

I thought the tennis courts was on the other side of the road, right? Is that the same park? Is it all in one park? Yeah, this is this is for the ballpark.

This is not for the community center, correct? Right. Correct. Correct.

Yeah.

All right. Did we take a vote on that? Oh, yes. All those in. Oh, if you'll raise your right hand, if you want to do that. All right. So unanimous moving along to Section 8.2, we'll have first reading consideration of an ordinance for a non-exclusive franchise agreement with PBT Communications Incorporated doing business as Comporium. And we'll hear from Justin Black, our Senior Assistant City Administrator and Treasurer again. So moved. All right, any discussion?

Where is this at in the city? I see what this is right here. Yes, sir. There really isn't a whole lot of that in the city, is it?

There's not. They're headed to Quill Hollow subdivision. They just have to get through ours, and it touches some other pieces.

Anything else? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All right. It's unanimous. Moving down to section 8.3. We have the first reading of a first reading consideration of an ordinance to annex a total of 3.2 2 acres of property at TMS numbers, 0, 0, 4, 5, 9, 6, dash, 0, 1, dash, 0, 2, 1, also known as one 84 lot court in West Columbia. We'll hear from EJ and thank our director of economic development. So move a discussion.

Thank you. Keep up the good work. Thank you for doing that, BJ. Thank you.

Is there something going in there or not?

It is being purchased by a user and you know, that's confidential. OK, that's the last the last parcel on lot court. So it's exciting to have that.

We've had some issues there with some homeless. Yes, we have. So they knew it was not in the city, so they run in there. So I appreciate you getting that.

Thank you. Good job. Great. Anything else? All right. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. It looks unanimous. Moving down to section 8.4. First reading of an ordinance to annex a total of 1.2 acres of property at TMS number 00574-04-012 and 005747-04-021 and 005747-04-001, also known as 521 through 523 and a half, and lot next to Taylor Street and 529 Taylor Street, West Columbia. And we'll hear from BJ again. I'll second. Any discussion? You look like you're going to say something. All right, all those in favor, please raise your right hand. Any opposed? Unanimous.

Thank you.

And we're down to section, 8.5 considering of a resident considering of a resolution adopting the safe streets for consider it considered consideration consideration of a resolution adopting the safe streets for all safety action plan and establishing a long-term goal of eliminating roadway fatalities and serious injuries in the city of West Columbia will hear from Catherine call director of community development. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. It's unanimous. Thank you. And I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor, raise your right hand. And it's unanimous. Thank you all.