County Council - Regular Meeting

And our hat goes off to them. Also, our kind administrator for finalizing everything. And that's made it much easier for me. I have a lot to go through with. And as a council member, we all have a lot to go through. But we definitely appreciate that. And Aretha, she's so very helpful. She had a award up there that day. And we just thank you. We're looking for more improvement up there at the department. an outside department. And so we just, we just, we didn't think for a poet. That's all I have to say.

Can I say one more thing? I forgot. I know, I forgot.

You spurred it. Can I, may I?

You may have going to be touching on this, but we also met and we were able to give the You want to talk about that? You can tell that, because I'll just say, I want to congratulate the Thurman boys, Strong Thurman High School soccer team. Last night, they made it into the playoffs, and we won our first round in the playoff game. So, woo-hoo! Good job, fellas. So, yeah, you can talk about it.

Anybody, any other council member have a report?

Yes, I would like to thank everyone that came out. to support the annual March for Paul last month. Everything went smooth. From my understanding, I got there probably about 20 minutes before it was over with. But the 20 minutes, I think I ate myself, what they said, to death. I ate a lot. Again, it was a great, great success. Thanks. Thank you.

I guess I'll say something anyway. Now, there are some pickleball friends of mine. They requested a grill out down there at the Sweetwater Pickleball Court. And I went to David, and David said, no problem. So the recreation, Nick and his crew and Joe, they installed it last week. So if anybody wants to use the park and the pickleball courts, now you have a grill, you can grill some hamburgers and hot dogs on them. Just be careful. So thank you all. All right. Hey, Dean, your turn.

Thank you. Well, I'll hold mine, and we'll go to the administrator's report.

Thank you. So I wanted to give an update on our real property reassessment. Our assessor's office has worked hard to complete reassessment on time. Thank Gwen Stevens and April for working so hard to get this done. Some counties have to put it off a year, and that's a big deal. We are not. So our stats have been submitted to the state for review, and we expect to hear back from them shortly. In fact, I got a confirmation email just 5-15 this afternoon that they have it. They're actively reviewing it. So we hope to be able to provide counsel with a report on the impact of reassessment probably in June of this year. I'd like to talk for a second about recreation. Our summer camps are posted. And just to give you an idea of how many kids have enrolled, we have an Adventures in History Camp. We have 10 of the 20 slots taken. Arts and Crafts Camp is full with 15 students. The Cheer and Dance Camp has 12 of 20 slots taken. The two outdoor adventure camps are full with 68 registrants. Girls basketball camp, five. We've just opened an adult art camp. Soccer camp, and Councilwoman Ireland will not be surprised at all by this, only has 12 kids registered.

You want to tell them why?

Soccer kids are notorious for registering on the last day are calling to complain that registration was closed too early. And they register the day after registration.

Preach, David, preach.

I can assure you that we will end up with about 50 or 60 kids in soccer camp. In basketball camp, those numbers will go up tremendously as well. Our recreation department is having a golf tournament next Friday. And that is full. And we've received full sponsorships. for that, including a significant donation from the LUT companies to administer that camp. All of the funds raised from that go directly into our recreation department to keep our summer camp fees as low as possible and also to keep our sports registration fees as low as possible. We have to charge something, but we don't want that to be burdensome. I would now like to turn... turn this over to Hart Clark to speak for just a moment about our impact fee study. Council approved that study. Goodness, it was last year, I believe. And he has worked hard on it. It's almost done. And we hope to bring Council something next month. So let him speak to it.

HART CLARK JR.: So it is written. One of the key issues that I had with it was I included all of the data sets inside of the actual document originally. And when it started getting towards the 50, 60 page mark, I thought nobody's going to read this. So I pulled all of that out and I'll be putting the data in a separate document like an appendices basically. And what y'all will get will basically be a 20 page summary, and then anybody that wants to dig through the data, they can do so on their own time. I hope to have that going to the Planning Commission this week, or next week. So y'all will get a copy of that whenever I send it to them. I will CC all of you in it. That way you can go ahead and start reviewing it. The only changes that I still need to make is what the additional funds beyond what's required to pay for a substation goes to. As you all know, impact fee has to be spent where it's earned. So if you pull those impact fees from Merriweather, you have to spend it in Merriweather. You can't spend it in Johnston if the people paying for it are in Merriweather. So we have to pick our projects kind of specific to that. And I have to word it. a certain way. It's not like I can say all leftover funds go to XYZ. I have to specify dollar amounts. So it's very close. You'll be getting it soon, and then y'all can start voting on it shortly after that. And I will, of course, post it on the internet for the public as well.

Thank you, Don. Anything else from you? No, that's all. All right. Questions or comments from council or the administrator? All right. Then Chairman comments, I do want to say that we did have a great month last month. As you heard, we cut the ribbon on the new Northside Park. There was a good turnout, and I think everyone will enjoy the park. But I do want to point out, it's more than just a park. It's an investment in our county, and I think it'll pay off over time. So I'm glad to see we were able to do that. Also, County Council was invited to attend the Strom Thurmond High School Rebels football team ring ceremony a week or so ago, celebrating the team's state championship. We were able to read them the resolution we passed earlier this year and present it to Coach Webb and the team. And we thank the school district for including us in the ceremony. One last item. This month, I'll be holding my District 3 Town Hall It'll be May 21st at 6 p.m., and it'll be held at the Edgefield County Chamber of Commerce office in Johnston. I'll be joined there by the administrator and the assistant administrator, and I'm going to start advertising that shortly everywhere. So, counsel, we have an executive session tonight to receive a briefing on pending legal matters, so is there a motion to go into executive session for that reason? So, second. Ms. Highland makes the motion. Mr. Tauber seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. We hope to be back in a few minutes. So we're back, and no action was taken in executive session, but I will ask if there's a motion to come back into public session.

So moved.

Second. Dr. Kenyon makes a motion. Mr. Talbert seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. That means we're back in public session. Council, there's nothing else on the agenda tonight. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Mr. Moody makes the motion, and Mr. Talbert seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.