City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. I'll send that to Facebook.

Let's bring the Spartanburg City Council meeting to order for July 27, 2026. We're going to stand for a moment of silence, and we're going to be led by the pledge. Thank you for that We do have Council person Erica Brown that has a conflict so she will not be here this evening. Councilwoman Smith is on her way. Got held up at work, but she is in the process of coming. Item three, approve of the minutes for the July 13th, 2026 City Council meeting. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any that oppose? Ayes have it. Item four, approve of the agenda for July 27th, 2026 City Council meeting.

So moved. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any that oppose? Ayes have it. We have public comments, and I think we have three here. The way it works, I'm just going to call you up. And please restate your name so we know that that's you. And you'll have two minutes after you give your name. Dr. Clark, come on up to the podium, sir.

Which podium, sir?

Either one. All right. Can we adjust our devices? Thank you.

Good evening, counsel. Members, my name is Marquis Clark, as the mayor stated. I was before this very governing body some years ago in my former capacity as principal of the Cleveland Academy of Leadership, where we received a proclamation for the historic success at the school. However, today I'm here in my other capacity as husband, dad, and unfortunately son-in-law to a move-in mother-in-law. And so as a resident of the Northside, I want to thank this governing body as well as the city's leadership for its historic transformation. But this transformation did not happen by chance. It happened because city leaders, to my right, community partners, residents, business, churches, and schools, and nonprofits believed in the potential of the community and committed themselves to the work 15 years ago. The results are powerful. Some previously reported numbers came in just this week. 85% reduction in violent crimes since 2012, an 80% reduction in teen pregnancies since 2007, and a 40% reduction in poverty since 2011. Those numbers represent far more than statistics. They represent safer streets, stronger families, greater opportunity, and renewed hope. They show what is possible when a community comes together around a shared vision. The north side is no longer a simple story of change or challenges. It is a story of progress and resilience and a testimony to what is possible when we all come together. As we celebrate this success, it is also a moment to build upon that. We should view the progress of the past 15 years not as a reason to slow down, but in the words of Bill Barnett, as proof that our investments are working and that we should actually go full steam ahead. As I bring my minutes to a close, I simply want to say before this governing body and city leadership that the north side has already shown what can happen when a city remains committed to a long-term vision, and thank you for your leadership. Thank you, sir.

School just around the corner. Marshal Jill Cooley.

Hello, how are you?

And I don't know if I made that comment, but you have two minutes, Ms. Cooley.

Okay. All right. I'm ready.

Thank you.

I'm here on behalf of Guapa Properties where I manage the properties for the company. And we had an experience during Hurricane Helene where there were three properties involved. I managed property number three. You guys have a map there to show you, plus I sent some additional visuals by email prior to coming today. And what occurred during the hurricane is there were several trees on lot one. The winds blew the trees over into lot two. It demolished the fence in lot two where they removed some of the fence and were able to slide all the debris into lot three. We have no trees in lot three. We've never had trees in lot three. We don't have any association with trees in lot three. Now, I got a bill in March for $5,500 for the city coming out to pick those trees up. Those aren't my trees. I did not put those trees there. You can look back at your Spartanburg One map at all the years that I've owned this property. We own no trees. The owner in lot two, which is 227 Dallas Place, pushed those trees over with some machinery into lot three and then immediately put her fence back up so we could not push them back into her yard. I don't owe this money, I'm not gonna pay this money. Those are not my trees, I didn't put those trees there. I own no trees, no trees fell on my property. They fell from lot one, which is 252 Rigby Avenue, they fell from lot one onto lot two, which is 227 Dallas Place, and then the owners of 227 Dallas Place chose to push them over into lot three, which is what I manage at 308 South Converse Street. That's not my bill. I have no liability. I don't own those trees. We didn't even know about this until we got a bill for $5,500 that the city had come out to move them based on a complaint. I don't even know what the violation is. All I got was a bill for $5,500. So I'm here on behalf of Guapa Properties to express to you that this is not my liability. This needs to be addressed by the city and you guys can decide who to bill and who to fine, but we don't owe you this. It's not our responsibility.

Okay. Thank you. and I'm sure staff heard all of that and we will definitely follow up. Thank you. Anna Freaks. Anna. Ann, Anna, Ann. Freaks. Okay. She didn't make a downtown seating. Good. All right, thank you. That concludes the public comments. Now we're at item six, consent agenda.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion we approve the consent agenda.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Any that opposed? Ayes have it. Thank you. Item seven, summer youth engagement. Presenter will be Ms. Kim Brown, Parks and Rec and Special Event Director, along with Mr. Kevin Limehouse, Assistant City Manager.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, thank you all. Before we get started, we have a number of people in our audience that I'd like to recognize real quick. If y'all are a part of the summer program in any capacity, an intern, working with parks, anything like that, would y'all mind just standing up real quick for council to recognize y'all?

Thank y'all very much.

I'm gonna scroll through. few slides, but I want to tell y'all broadly some of our goals with youth engagement and then turn it over to Kim to talk more about some specific programs. Um, but here recently we've been expanding, uh, our youth engagement to include internships, apprenticeships, job shadowing, and just engagement in general on top of all the great work that Kim and the Parks Department has already been doing. And the purpose of that is multifaceted. Ideally, we would love to have pipelines to engagement and employment with the city from fire and PD to IT to finance to you name it. There are great careers at the city and we wanna make sure people are aware of them. But additionally, we want them to know what local government does. We want them to benefit from it, to tell their friends and family. And also we want them to experience our culture and to spread that. We also don't have interns come in and just shred documents. They come in to do meaningful work. that helps the city and we hopefully allow them to do that in a fail safe environment where they can come in and learn and know they're in a protected and good place for them to do more. We have some amazing programs over in parks I'd like to turn it over to before I do real quick, just to show you some of the faces in the crowds and things they're doing. But I'm gonna turn it over to Kim to talk to you about all the great things they've been doing for a number of years.

Thank you, Kevin. We'll go back one slide just to talk about some of the summer interns that are throughout the agency, not just in Parks and Rec. So I think Kyler is here with us. Kyler Bailey is an intern in information technology. And Terry Johnson over note saying that he has helped design and customize our internet platform So that's gonna be huge for us moving forward We also have Mary Alice Cooper who is at the airport who has been working primarily with aircraft services Moses Smith was in fleet maintenance Jason I mentioned that he helped replace a motor and a bus and also has done some tire and tune-up work there and Shelby Clayton is in the city manager's office, has been working on some policy research, FEMA training, and attends a lot of the community engagement efforts. Additionally, we have Michaela McKenzie, who is with A Place to Call Home. She and Isabel Helms have been working in shelter and housing programs. And then we also have Sally Campbell with the airport. who is the customer service representative. So as you walk into the airport, she's helping you in all of those capacities. So like you can hear, we have a number of interns across the organization, really, as Kevin said, really putting in good work and understanding what our culture is. And there'll be a couple of other interns specific to Parks and Rec coming up. We thought we'd kind of give, as we do normally, just an overview of what some of our programming has looked like over the summer. Of course, this year, as in the past seven, eight years, we have been to full capacity in our summer day camp, 200 young people enrolled at both sites for both, the sessions combined. We have 95 enrolled in our Explorers program, which is a Boy Scout program for ages 13 through 15. We offer 336 swim lessons, and that's 46 different classes. And some of those young people that are here are an integral part in us being able to provide that number of swim lessons within a two-month period. We had 11 participants in SAIL, and then I'll talk a little bit more about SAIL and RESET, which is a pilot program that we had this year. We've heard a lot about our swim team. We had a great number this year, more than we've had before, 89 swim team members. We expect for that number to at least remain the same next year as we push forward to hopefully garner a championship very soon. And one of the programs, Mayor, that we talked about for a couple of years has been midnight basketball. So we scheduled four of those this year, two at CC Woodson and two at the Dr. TK Gregg Center. And so far we've done three of them. We've had 170 participants. The last one will be the Friday after school starts. And we've had other youth sorority organizations partner with us on those. So we're really building some momentum with those and expect to have a few of those throughout the school year. So just as we have interns throughout the agency, these are three of our interns that we've had with us throughout the summer. Rakim Stanley has worked in athletics. He's also a summer camp counselor. Cameron Whiteside works actually with the RESET program, she and Ton Fon, and they help us really help guide what that program looks like. And they'll also be doing some tracking for us. and reporting back to us where there's some gaps. So we are certainly appreciative of these three college students that we have that have joined us for the summer. And then not only do we have to show how much our interns and our young people, just our staff overall, to be able to welcome such a great number of young people, senior citizens, and just general citizens into our facilities throughout the summer and still maintain what we do on our day-to-day basis, it takes a lot of dedication. And we found that those staff members leading those efforts, they have a passion for the work that we do, and they want to grow that programming. So just a little bit talking about aquatics and specific to staff that are under the age of 19. So all of the staff you see listed on the screen are under the age of 19 and currently work in aquatics. There is lifeguards as pool managers, swim instructors. A lot of them have dual roles doing a number of things. They also may coach the swim team. And one of the things that we find most valuable is the fact that we've had a junior lifeguard program for a number of years. And so it allows us to really work with young people at an early age, help identify if they want to be lifeguards or work in aquatics, and then kind of bring them on. So we have a great number of young people who have started work with us very early, as early as age 14. And so this represents those who are under the age of 19. and we have the same when it comes to our summer camp staff. We find that those young people who have experienced summer camp or our programs, they know most about it. And the young people really, really get attached to them. And so these are a number of young people who are currently summer camp counselors, and you can see how they may have started with us. We would consider all of these young people rec mentees. So some of them started through sale. They may have been Viking early college volunteers with us, but they've come to Parks and Rec and they found something that they really enjoy and have decided to join our team. So this year we had 11 participants in our leadership program sale and some of them are here along with I think one of their facilitators, Miss Renee Mack. The second facilitator is Rachel Pinckney and that program is our leadership program. It goes over eight weeks and they really get infused into the culture of what we do at the city, not only in the parks and rec department, but they also get a chance to, to move about, visit the state house, really find out how we govern and things like that. So sale has, has been such an enriching process for us. We normally use that as the step into our rec mentee programs. Also, a lot of people who, a lot of young people who graduate from sale, they'll become a rec mentee. They'll start volunteering. Then eventually there'll be a staff person with us. This is just some of the activities that they've taken place that they've been a part of during this summer. Like I said, visited the state house. They help us in a lot of our community efforts and then they also bond together as a team. And so RESET is our newest summer programming. And it is a pilot program that works with primarily, this year it's just young men. We have a cohort of eight. And they meet three times a week. And that program is set to really help them with workforce readiness, violence intervention. And it puts them in a position to be able to really wanna make a change. So all the young men that we have in the program this year, I'm so proud of them that they have really decided to, they wanna start a path that's gonna lead them to much greater things. They have all stuck with it. They have great facilitators. Two of them are here, Roland Houston is here, John Gibbs. We do have some staff from PD. Officer Boozer works with us closely, and the program is headed up by Reggie Jeter, who is our community programs and partnerships manager. So that is a program that, all of these programs will end on this Friday coming up, but that doesn't end our connection with these young people. So we'll have a bridging ceremony, and we will track them throughout the school year. assign them a mentor, and of course always be there as they go out the school year to track their progress. Then our hopes are to receive some additional funding next year to expand the program to also include females in the next summer cohort. And these are just some more photographs of reset throughout the summer. I believe that's the end of the slides. If y'all are a part of the program. Are there any questions? I'm sorry, Kim. No, that's okay.

No, but I got a comment. I got a comment, Mayor. Yes. I just want to say to Kim and the staff that I had a visit with the reset program and I thoroughly enjoyed the young men and I know that program can be beneficial and I hope that we can find the funding as well as continue the program and probably do something after school if possible, if the money comes in. Thank you for what you do for us.

Thank you. First of all, congratulations. I just love seeing this investment, love seeing all of you show up, work, do what you need to do to not only better your futures, your lives, but the lives of our community. These programs are essential for really creating pathways and providing diversity of information and opportunity to what life holds as an adult. So thank you. Question about the internet platform. Is that an internet platform for Parks and Rec? Is it the city internet platform? Just a curiosity question.

It's intranet. So it is for the organization as a whole.

Okay, okay, that's fabulous. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Kim, thanks for that presentation. I think we, you know, I think on the outside looking in, people don't realize what exactly parks, recreation and special events you know means to our community and the and even in in just any one of those areas um you and your team do a tremendous amount of uh of work particularly in the summertime when we have a lot of special events going on in addition to all the different programming that you're doing at our parks and recreation center so it's it's great to see that and and thank you for all that you do i was curious in the first slide i think you you had some numbers as it related to the participation levels i think you had 200 which I think you said was consistent with the years past. Do you have any progression of data or any data that shows the progression of the number of people that are participating in the programs year over year?

Yes, we can provide that data. We have a platform that we use that shows registrations and we can track zip codes. We can track where they live in the city or county, what programs they're actually taking part in, and even down to how many times they attend a certain session.

Yeah, I think that's really, that's very helpful because I think it really shows the efficacy of the programs and probably helps you evaluate whether one program should be expanded or one program should be phased out, things like that. So I think that's really helpful. um you know really important because it seems like to me you know just again not not being in the weeds on on on the day-to-day level um that you're that you've increased the number of programs you're getting a tremendous amount more uh involvement and engagement from from the youth in our community and and if that is the case then then that's a positive thing for for our community

And part of it is attributed to that youth voice, us understanding what those needs are and having the people that are closest to those situations help us determine what our programming looks like.

Yes, Kim, thanks to you and your team for the wonderful works that you're doing. Thank you. You're welcome.

Kim, may I just build on, I think numbers and engagement is really important, but I think you know, continuing to build other programs, but retention and returning engagement is actually, I think, a quality metric versus a quantity. And I think we want quantity, we want to reach, but retention and the fact that, you know, eight young gentlemen continued with the program and started and finished with the program, that's a huge win. So I would love, as we explore data and as we talk about data, wanting to make sure we're talking about retention and returning engagement. Thanks.

Three people are asking for y'all to come meet with Fisher. So if you're a part of the program, how about y'all come up here and let's grab a picture for Ms. Littlejohn's newsletter. So when y'all come on up,

Come stand right in front of me, so I'm in the picture too.

Kevin, I want my separate picture with the boys.

Keep coming. Fill on in. Fill on in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fill on in. Get the swim instructor right there. Don't teach. Come on to the other side. Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm sure we can stand and they'll get us in there. Come on over this way. Roland and Reggie. Roland and Reggie. It's going to be more. All right.

Oh, yeah, do this first. All right, yeah. All right, everybody, one, two, three, say... Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec.

I didn't know what she said.

All right, I did the best I could.

To that piece, before you sit down, Ms. Brown, one thing, what you got?

Ms. Sally. Ms. Sally.

um miss brown one one other piece in visiting with you guys over over the past several years i've noticed some of your uh your rec mentees are actually staff members now. Do you just right off the top, can you tell me how many? Speaking to your camp counselors this summer and I came in and I'm just amazed because so many were participants just a few years ago and I remember when they were smaller. so that that really just excites me to see these kids playing that part even sitting beside councilwoman smith i remember her son was a participant in summer camp when my son was a counselor and now he's working and my son has graduated from college but he's thinking about kids but if you could so i think this year we have either nine or ten

summer camp staff who are what we consider rec mentee. Like I said, we would consider any of our aquatic staff also rec mentee. We've had four permanent part-time staff, and we did have one permanent full-time staff who was a rec mentee.

Awesome. Awesome. You're talking about growing your own, just a perfect example of what can happen when we start working with them young. Thank you, guys, and thank you for all that you do. Mr. Limehouse, you back up already. Yeah, long time no see. Item eight, update on micro transit pilot program. Kevin Limehouse, assistant city manager, information only.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, thank you again. I know y'all have been asking for some updates on micro transit. We wanted to give it to you this evening, but I want to give you a little preamble. Well, first of all, I've got listed on here Dennis Locke as well. He's not with us this evening, but I gotta give him due, because he's been such a big part of this. We've spent so much time going over data, looking at best practices, organizing with state agencies, federal agencies, and other partners, local partners like SPATS, to try and take our time to understand the data that we're getting and figure out the best way to use that for our citizens. We're still in the process of that. So tonight there's not going to be any recommendations and we're not going to talk about future plans. However, we do want to very much highlight to y'all the success of what's been going on so far with the intent that more is coming y'all's way. But it is very much our intention that anything worth doing is worth doing right. And with so many people relying on transit, we are, we are using data in the best way possible to help inform our decisions and running that by partners to make sure we can do this efficiently. And so, uh, if y'all bear with us, more is coming, but we wanted to tell you about the good for this evening. Uh, so just, uh, some, some quick updates. Um, we've had tremendous success with micro transit so far. Uh, incredible ratings and you'll see some numbers here shortly about the steady ridership. The 90% rider completion, that is only 90% because people counsel rides. Occasionally, someone might not be able to complete a ride, but most of those numbers sink because someone says, oh, I got the app, I'm going to try it, and then nothing happens with it. so that's actually higher than it is. Based on the data we've been able to collect, the feedback we've gotten from riders and working with our provider, we were able to increase the initial pilot zone, which I'll show you all a map of here directly, which included more destinations. and particularly the areas that y'all guided us to get people to, which was medical education and groceries. So if y'all recall, we originally started the pilot with the North and South side broadly, uh, but we expanded it out, uh, to the East side and down, uh, union and pine to get to, uh, that angles out to the East side. We wanted to get to the high school. We wanted to get to more medical. and we wanted to get to the Walmart and Publix and the shopping centers there surrounding. And the reason we did it in this way is we're, we're pacing ourselves to see what the system can handle. So our idea is we never wanted to go beyond 20 minutes on a wait time. And so when we started with the initial pilot zone, we were able to, with the vehicles we had, we knew that we could, we could reach that threshold. And so we knew people wanted to go more and we expanded out. Expanding out, we did not have to increase the number of vehicles, the number of drivers. We were still able to keep that response time to roughly an average of 11 minutes, which is great. And so, Expanding this map, we've been able to collect data and show that it's feasible where it is now and where we can go in the future with it. So just to show you all some hot spots, various places downtown, particularly around the square. Obviously, you can see some of the neighborhoods, but the ones to really highlight, the high school, various grocery stores, and a handful of medical. And so we're really excited about that. That's been a goal of this program. We almost have 7,000 riders so far, which is huge given when we started. Almost 2,500 rider accounts, so that means someone has an app. They've taken the time to fill out the information and have it ready and ready to go. And again, just people are incredibly positive about it. 97% writer rating. And then again, I just want to highlight that average wait time. I think we're putting some heels on Uber and Lyft. I wanted to highlight this. When Chris asked us to go about this program, he was very clear in his goals of the constituents that we wanted to make sure we're able to help. And you can see from the data we've been able to collect, we've been able to reach people that did not have access to a vehicle before. whether that be from challenging times to health reasons or whatever the case may be, we were able to get to folks, populations that we just couldn't fix with fixed route. So we've been very, very pleased with how it's gone so far. The takeaway we'd like y'all to have from this is that, So far, things are going well. We're really excited about the data we're seeing. The data we're seeing is driving where we're gonna go next, no pun intended. Maybe a pun intended. And how we evaluate our long-term strategy. But based on that, we really have to do our homework to make sure that we're doing everything right from a federal level, a state level, and then a local level. So we've been working again with a number of great partners to do that, and the data has been just, game-changing in the ability for us to see what's going on. I do want to highlight for folks online or in the audience, if you haven't already, the link on the left will download, get you to a website that will download the app either from Google or Apple Play Store. And then on the right is our website with more information about fees and writer time and all the rest. I certainly, to the best of my ability with what we're doing right now, happy to answer any questions that you all may have.

Councilman Rogers.

Yes. Could you just remind us about the marketing and the different connections that the city has done to get news of the pilot out so we know what is the 2,452 ridership come from?

Yes, absolutely. We've had the great benefit of our in-house team, who is wonderful, putting a number of programs out on social media, print in media that we've worked with local vendors for either up in a window or something they can hand out, flyers, newsletters, or little postcards. And then we, because, actually Christian's here, because of the Post and Courier and articles about microtransit, Wake Forest University reached out to us and wanted to be a part of our marketing to help do some research and see what we could do. So they found what Spartanburg was doing. And since we were the first microtransit pilot in the state, they were excited to see if they could do some survey work with us. And so that went out to a good number of our folks We've had a number of good partners from one Spartanburg help promote this. So it's, Councilman Rogers, it's been across the board. I'm very pleased to say a lot of great people spreading the word and word of mouth. Like one of my favorite stories is the mayor will come in and I'll say, Kev, let me tell you about, you know, this student who's now able to access it because he was able to tell them about it and they spread the word. So word of mouth, I don't think can be under emphasized. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Councilman Smith.

Thank you, Kevin. That tees up my question perfectly because you showed on that kind of heat map that the high school was a main spot. And I wanted to confirm that it was the high school, not the Walmart.

Yes, ma'am.

And just to see if we had any information on if it was students accessing it or parents, if we knew more of the story there.

So, yes, ma'am, we can tell destinations. I'm not saying it's not Walmart because it certainly has been, but it has been a significant amount of folks going to the high school, which has been wonderful. And, again, I think that word of mouth has helped. When people see Spartago coming to pick them up, you know, or parents can rely on something, it's really spread a lot. But, yes, ma'am, so I can't tell if it's a – I mean – a parent or a student, but you know, we can, we can gauge by the destination.

Do we have any demographic or age breakdown on that 2400 accounts?

Yes, ma'am. We have, cause we could kind of tell. Yes, ma'am. We can take some, you know, broad assumptions. Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Yeah. Thanks.

Part of it is, uh, not only students, it really is a good number of, uh, employees maybe having car troubles or what have you. So they, they've actually kind of throughout.

It's the lighthouse looking down the road. How long do you think it would take for you to estimate going towards the west side for those who live inside the city and the area you're already serving who have medical issues outside of that boundary?

Yes, ma'am. So I don't want to put a timeline on it for the reasons I mentioned. However, I will say, you know, some of our next goals are citywide adoption. You know, that's what people have been asking for. Just like we did with this expansion, we have to, you know, assess what's possible and will that accrue additional vehicles or time, can we make sure that we're still providing the best level of service? So that's what we're doing right now. But that's the route. Yes, sir.

Mr. Mayor, thank you. Kevin, thank you for that presentation. I've long been bullish on this pilot program as a way to transform our public transportation system and make it both economically viable but also user practical for the citizens of Spartanburg. I'm like Councilwoman sally i want to see it expanded citywide as quickly as possible the east side the far east side districts are are not uh included in that as of yet except this destinations and i think when you look at the the numbers um i think and you're absolutely right in your pilot and the expansion of your pilot to try to steer toward those three priority areas but but one of the areas that was missing in my opinion was employment place to work. You mentioned work. Um, and I assume that once you expand the pilot across the city, you may see the work numbers improve in that.

I actually, I, I cut it off a little bit in this picture, but that's one of my favorite pictures cause this is outside of Wade's. Again, when the article came in the Post and Courier, one of the peoples that called us was Wade's. And we get often calls from employers about how can we work. Actually, a place to call home is a great example. They're a partner of ours and use our services frequently. So we get calls from hospital systems, from employers, from partners, from education institutions. And so one of the things that is pros and cons is it's amazing to get all these requests. Now we have the challenge of how do we balance all of these things because it would be ideal to do as much as we can with all of them. But yes, sir, employment is very much on there.

yeah i also think i mean you know that historically at least in my lifetime public transit in spartanburg has been used by um you know uh the the demographics that you described i believe that that done right this this could expand that demographic and and make our micro transit as i mentioned not only economically viable but but i think a real asset to all of our city and and uh you know i think about downtown we talk about the parking challenges and the you know some of the issues that we're that we're dealing with temporarily in our downtown as we construct um you know the the buildings that are being built i mean this is a way for a lot of neighborhoods to access our downtown and and do so conveniently to the door front of where they're going and so you know i think i think that is gonna you know if we do this right i think the expansion of this as quickly as possible will really have a tremendous impact in our city. And I think we'll show very strong numbers as to what we're trying to accomplish. And you mentioned that we're the first in the state piloting this. Yes, sir. you know i i joined the mayor at a delegation from another city prominent city in in the state of south carolina uh who brought their team of leadership here to look at what we were doing with our microtransit program and they were you know very impressed what we were doing and and i think uh look forward to closely following on our heels and so i think i think it's exciting that this is being piloted in spartanburg i think it will be the future of public transit for Spartanburg. And I'm ready for it to keep growing. Yes, sir. Thank you.

And I guess that's the key question there. How do we grow? And the cost. If folks don't know the cost, you haven't mentioned that yet. So just so we get that out and be totally transparent. the cost is $2 a ride, $2 a ride. So you're picking me up at the high school and take me downtown to city hall. Yes, sir. $2. That's it. And I know it has been mentioned several times, but I mean, we, and I think this goes as the group here, just looking to expand a little bit more. And also with our hours a little later, I know we're out and running at seven. Oh yeah. Six. Yes, sir. Six. Yes, sir. Okay. And, and, uh, but if we could go just a tad later, if we look into that possibility.

Yes, sir. We sure are. Um, and again, that, that factors into the calculation, right? Which locations do we want to go? Which timeframes, how many vehicles, et cetera. And so they're just, the more we add the, you know, the, the calculation increases.

so we're just trying to find the right balance and i think jamie hits uh and i always think about i think about the walford students and just possibly going downtown when we talk about you know just the viability to uh transporting downtown councilman rogers and mr mayor i would say that just to reiterate the door-to-door i mean really like uber lift i think the door-to-door movement is

such a key part of this for a number of reasons for all the different audiences, but that immediate, you know, for safety, for ease, for accessibility, there's so many positives to that.

Well, I'll try not to be terribly hokey with y'all, but the calls that we get or the conversations that we have, some of the quotes that you see there, yes, ma'am, we're able to get to people that did not have access before, could not get to groceries, could not get to medical, and now they do. It's been powerful. Yes, ma'am.

I just want to say they cover everything I was going to ask, but thank you for bringing that report to us.

I do have one question that just came up in the conversation. How often do you have all three vehicles running at the same time?

So we only will run two at a time. The third one's, you know, in case something happens. But fair often. You know, one of my... that probably annoys my kids is every time I see it driving around, I'm like, look, there's Sparta Go. It's nice. And I mean, we have the privilege of being in the parking lot where they're parked and it's nice to see how much they're out and about. It's fair often. Yes, sir. I won't say this all the time. And again, the data helps us because sometimes it will be more than others. And we know that. And so we're able to anticipate, and this data has been critical to be able to say, we need drivers at this time more than we need them at this time. It's, it's, it's been great.

What's the average ride per user?

Like length of ride?

No. Well, at this point with the limited, uh, timeline of, of data to pull from the, like of the 2000, you know, app, uh, subscribers. Sure. If you use it once, how many times on average do you use it?

I don't know offhand. We can find out, but I know that people repeat. It's usually not a one and done. It is usually a repeat process.

Okay, that was my next question is what percentage of our 7,000 uses in the last month that you report were returned users?

I can find out. I don't know what it is offhand, but it's a sizable challenge.

Because I think that'll help inform our marketing strategy as it relates to are we getting new users? How do we connect with those new users to let them know that this program is there and available to them and get them signed up and on board.

To that end, we have bi-weekly meetings. Christopher and Jess are there and they help us with exactly that as we look at those numbers and say, okay, well, how can we make sure we're getting to new people? Yes, sir. Spot on.

And so as we see the time increase is really because of the usage of it. If my weight is over that 11 minute, basically, I know that's on average.

Yes, that's correct. That's a metric to tell us you know, what kind of resources we need or how do we need to shift? When we originally pitched this to y'all, uh, we pitched it as a 20 minute wait time. I'm ridiculously pleased where we're at 11 minutes. Like, um, you know, and I can't promise it'll always be at 11 minutes depending on what we do, but, uh, you know, so far so good. Awesome. Mr. Limehouse, thank you for that information. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Item 9, we have Boards and Commission Appointment, Housing Board of Adjustment and Appeals. Ms. Christy Lindsey, City Clerk.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. I'm here before you this evening with recommendations from staff for two people to be appointed to this board. They are recommending Tor Elstrom and Dawn Maddox. So I will look to you all for direction.

Mr. Mayor, I'm particularly pleased that these two applicants are District 4 residents. And unfortunately, although they won't be able to use microtransit to get to their meetings, I would make the recommendation that we...

approve these two appointments second we got three seconds on that so all in favor any that oppose eyes have it thank you very much let them know thank them for their service and willing to serve uh mr story resolution to appoint the city attorney mr chris story yes mr mayor this is a

this is an exciting item I've been looking forward to this day and want to start by thanking Max Hyde who has served us in interim capacity as an acting city attorney for several months now and continues to help us on a number of cases and that are specific to a number of complex tasks and we're grateful for his time and if you don't see him at the next meeting we will thank him between more thoroughly between now and then The city attorney role is a terribly important role in our organization. It is one of three positions that are appointed directly by the council as a body, those being the city manager, of course, the municipal judge, and the city attorney. The city attorney is an active part of the senior leadership team. and represents the city in a number of capacities on legal matters and advises internal operations and departments, but importantly has unfiltered direct access to advise and inform the council on all legal matters. So a key part of our organization. And it's my privilege to present this resolution recommending or that would authorize the hiring of Stinson Ferguson to be the city attorney. Ms. Ferguson is a native of the city of Spartanburg. She began her education as undergraduate degree from Converse University. She went from there to the University of Georgia School of Law, where she received her Juris Doctorate there, and from there went to receive a Master's of Law in Environmental Law from Vermont School of Law with a concentration of energy law and policy. She comes to us most recently having practiced as a municipal judge with the city of Greenville, South Carolina, and has assisted our court as well in a judgeship role. She holds a certificate in sustainable management from Duke University, and she's a Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt from Purdue University. She's got a very long resume. I'm just hitting some highlights. You can see I only highlighted a few. The full version will be accessible elsewhere, but I'm going to hit you with a few. She was previously a special counsel to Hainsworth Sinclair Boyd and worked in the areas of environmental law and construction and utility litigation. She was once staff attorney to the Southern Environmental Law Center. She was once director of the pro bono program for the South Carolina Bar. and worked with the South Carolina Environmental Law Project. She has been active in a number of civic and community organizations and programs such as the Furman University Women's Leadership Institute, the South Carolina Bar Leadership Academy, the Furman University Riley Institute of Diversity Leaders Initiative. She's been a member of the Board of Directors of Upstate Forever. She served on the Spartanburg African American Heritage and Cultural Committee. She's been a trustee of Converse University, of 10 at the Top, and of the Greenville Housing Authority. She has a depth and breadth of experience that will significantly strengthen our organization from day one, and I heartily recommend your approval of the enclosed resolution miss ferguson is with us tonight but i believe uh the floor is yours to handle the resolution and then i might see if she come forward yep sure do we have any questions at this time listen i just have one question look what is a green belt does that mean that she can kick um It's in another capacity. I will offer no comment to that. I don't think we need to adjust our workplace violence policy.

You can adjust. You can ask at a later date.

It's all about continuous improvement. Yes. Okay.

Mr. Mayor, just a comment. I'm excited about this appointment, but I also was excited about the pool of applicants that we had the opportunity to review. And I think that shows genuine interest in our community, in our city. And I think it speaks very well of what we're doing here in Spartanburg. And so I want to thank all those people that applied. And I think while we have a great candidate to put forward, it was a tough choice. and and so i think uh again that speaks well with the quality of candidates and then of course uh thank max hyde the epitome of a public services he answers the call when when the call comes and and max has proven uh that he'll do that time and time again for our community and so i want to thank him for his service during this interim period councilwoman sally

I just want to thank Max as well because I've enjoyed working with you and continue to work with you after everything is said and done. And I am appreciative of the chosen one for this office. And if possible, I'd like to make a motion.

See if we have any other comments real quick.

Yes. Let me thank Max for everything that you have done. It's always a pleasure to be in your company.

i think councilman former really hit it on the head when he said the pool of applicants that actually applied for this job here i'm sure there were many many years ago where it wasn't that attractive to be a part of the team in spartanburg but right now we we really from developers to businesses to just about anyone coming on this is an attractive place and an attractive opportunity So with the applicant that we have before us today, I do want to say thanks to Max and all you've done, Max. We will continue to see one another, I'm sure. But with that being said, with the resolution here, we do need a motion to make it official. Do I hear a motion?

I move that we accept a resolution as presented for hiring our new city attorney, Ms. Stinson W. Ferguson. I hear a second.

Second. all in favor aye do i hear any names eyes have it unanimous we do bring miss stinson ferguson on board thank you you want to come down front and say a few words we uh we won't put the clock on you but you do only have approximately two minutes no i'm just kidding

just briefly uh mayor rice members of council chris uh mitch everyone christy y'all have been really excellent um just with me throughout the whole process thank you for pointing to me to this extraordinary position i look forward to returning to my hometown and serving spartanburg thank you thank you

don't leave we got to get a picture of you okay jamie want to be in there so he can be another pitch on the news there and uh mr stewart we have for staff uh updates no no particular updates mr mayor but certainly welcome any questions seeing no questions we have council updates

Thank you. I just want to say thank you to each and everyone who have come out tonight, especially those who have never been here before. And I welcome you with open arms and I appreciate you very, very much. And to Stinson Ferguson, you are the first and I appreciate you and looking forward to working with you. And Mr. Max, I'm calling on you probably tomorrow. Thank you all.

Thank you. Councilman Foreman. Mr. Mayor, no updates. Stinson, congratulations. Look forward to working with you. And in the interest of time, that'll be it.

Yeah. Yes, Mayor, I stood in to do a proclamation for you on Saturday at Cornerstone. He didn't tell me that I should dress like I'm going to a ball. listen i went like i'm going to a city council meeting and i got there and i felt i walked in the door and i saw this beautiful young lady standing there like she was going to a bold fashion show and i looked around and i saw everybody else and i said oh my god i don't have time to go back home and change clothes I felt so underdressed. I was dressed like I was going to a city council meeting and here it is. Oh no, they were really, really, really dressed. And so the next time that I go someplace for you, please tell me.

We're just invited. Your fashion faux pas all over shows. Thank you. Does it? Councilwoman Rogers, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just have a couple of thoughts this evening. I think just, Mr. Mayor, just saying this term, growing our own, I had some additional time this weekend to really dive into annual reports from some local organizations that are really, really helping channel investment, channel energy into our community specifically um our our families and our young children and i i just wanted to reiterate that you know i ask that you take a moment and just ask a question about a local a local nonprofit a local community event have the take the time to learn something new about all that we're doing and all the people that are involved to actually make this a place that We know and love and continue to make it a place that we love and choose to live. Really, really amazing numbers and asking the right questions to really set us so well to continue to evolve. I also wanted to challenge everyone here to take a Spartago ride by Labor Day. You got some time, but by Labor Day, download the app, take a Spartago ride and then provide some feedback. And then the other thing, just since the last meeting, I had the opportunity to represent our city at the Municipal Association of South Carolina with a number of our council and Mr. Mayor. It was such a productive experience. I think it was... really moving to be in a room of city leaders that were truly trying to figure things out and learn from each other just being in the room with cities that were larger than 10,000 people and hearing some of the common problems hearing how you know Myrtle Beach and City of Hilton Head for instance handled you know tourism and movement and common places just you know, not only did I see that we're doing amazing things here and we continue to ask the right questions and do the right work, but I also learned how other cities were approaching things and it made me ask questions that I hadn't had before. And then, yeah, I think it was clear that we are busy. We're doing the work that we need to do. So thank you. Thank you.

Councilwoman Smith.

I want to thank all of our interns. I don't know if any of them are left in the building tonight. I see one, yes, from a place to call home. It takes a lot to commit your entire summer to work with adults that you've never met before, try something new. And so bravo to you, to the rest of our young people. My son got to work with Jason. Thank you, Jason. He had an absolute wonderful time working with you and all of the guys in fleet maintenance. He doesn't show a lot of excitement, usually kind of maybe like you, I would maybe think, but he would come home excited about oil changes in a way that as a mom brought me a lot of joy. So just thank you. Thank you to all of the supervisors that invested in our young people. It makes me really proud. kim you were his supervisor last summer um so he's done two internships with the city so thank you for for that um we have we have some of our wonderful people that are leaving the city she's not here with us tonight but beth rutherford um this is her last week with us if you know her she's worked with the a place to call home team but has worked with our population that faces housing challenges way before a place to call home, um, existed in name, but she's an incredible woman. She deserves a retirement. So we're happy for her. Uh, if you see her or want to shoot her an email before Friday, thank her for all of her work, her professionalism, her passion, and for all the lives that she's changed and just how well she has represented our, city um over these years so i think that's i think that's it for me so thank you all

I'm glad you mentioned Beth, and she well-deserved retirement. I did meet her years ago in the same capacity with this work with our homeless population, but also since you brought up retiring or leaving the staff, we mentioned Park and Rec early on, but Wanda Cheek has been a staple in our Park and Rec community with a lot of young people that she's touched over the years, and she will be leaving us at the end of the month as well So, um, yes, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, um, if you see her, you know, stop by and she, she says she would always be around. She'll be over at Dr. TK, Greg. She still lives in the community, but, uh, just some time for her to spend some time with her family. And that's the way she expressed it to me. So anytime we have that opportunity, let's make sure we take advantage of it. Um, While we were at the, while I was at the municipal association meeting in Greenville, they asked most of the participants to sign the civility pledge and just being civil. in your actions when we have these interactions from the council to the audience and to our citizens and just even on the streets, let's be civil to one another. We may not always agree. I don't the six of us today is usually seven. We don't always agree. but you don't see us going back and forth with one another. We're going to be civil. We're going to be civil about it. Me and Jamie may put the gloves on back then in executive session, but when we come out here, we're going to be civil about it. but really i thought that was truly important that that was put forth with the with the municipal association and all the uh participating cities and towns and municipalities that we uh at least get that out and and really play a major part in it so uh again thank you all for being here this evening um thank you all for coming and um i'll make a motion to move into executive session second all in favor aye any that oppose eyes have it thank you all Wait a minute.