County Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it's 6 o'clock. I'd like to call this meeting to order of the Edgefield County Council on September the 1st, 2026. We appreciate everybody who could be here tonight. We'll begin with the invocation that will be led by Reverend George Boyd, Chapel in the Pines, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. So if everyone will please stand.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Council. Almighty God, we do come before you tonight asking for your wisdom for this county. Gracie God, we're growing at such a fast rate. There's a lot of good coming to this place, and we just pray for your wisdom to be able to handle all that and all the needs that are associated with that. Gracie God, for the folks who protect it, for the folks who serve it, as you be with this council as they provide for them as well, and just lead us into this time. Gracie God, we thank you for the blessings you've bestowed upon us. Help us just to know your wisdom, discern the wisdom from the folly, and move forward in wisdom and grow stronger together in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

Please join us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance 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. Please be seated. Council, next on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. I'll just remind you we have an executive session at the end. I have no recommended changes. Does anybody have any recommended changes to the agenda? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. I believe Mr. Taubman made the motion, and Ms. Arlen seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Next is our special recognition. This is employee of the quarter, so I'd like to recognize the administrator, if he can tell us about that.

Thank you. So I'd like to read the nomination. It says, I would like to nominate Jimmy Fagan for employee of the quarter. Nearly 50 years ago, and I confirmed it was about 49 years ago, I'm of service with the county and a very good person to work with. He is very dependable and trustworthy. The county is blessed to have him. He is the best supervisor I ever had. So with the years and love for the county, I think he would be a good candidate for employee of the quarter. Roy of Roads and Bridges. And Jimmy Fagan is our Roads and Bridges supervisor. And I can confirm that he is one of the most dependable and knowledgeable employees that I've had the pleasure of working with. So the myth, the man, the legend, Jimmy Fagan. Jimmy, congratulations.

If you would join us up here for a photo, that'd be great.

And we have a few things to give you.

Thank you.

all right appreciate that and appreciate jimmy council next in the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the august 4th 2026 regular meeting is there a Motion to, excuse me, are there any questions or comments about the minutes? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the minutes? I'll move. And Mr. Moody makes the motion. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Ms. Ireland seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next is our first public comment period for agenda items, so I'll ask the clerk if anyone signed up for the first. Okay, thank you. And so nobody signed up, counsel, for the first public comment period. So I will close that and move to reports. Counsel, any questions or comments on the reports? Hearing none, the consent agenda is next, counsel. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Dr. Kenyon makes a motion, and Mr. Talbert seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next, we have four public hearings. And so I'll do them one at a time. If anybody would like to speak on any of these public hearings, I'll read them one at a time. First, Ordinance Number 2627001, an ordinance authorizing the Recreation Department to set park hours and regulations and authorize the Sheriff's Office to enforce them. Is there anyone here who would like to speak on Ordinance 2627001? OK, Council, hearing no one, I will close that public hearing and move to the second public hearing. It's Ordinance 2627002, an ordinance adopting procedures for the imposition, calculation, collection, expenditure, and administration of impact fees to be imposed on new development, providing a purpose and intent, providing definitions, providing general provisions and applicability, providing for the establishment of impact fee accounts, providing for the appropriation of impact fee funds, providing for refunds, providing for appeals, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Is there anyone here who wanted to speak in the public hearing on Ordinance 26-27-002? Okay, Council, hearing no one, I will close that public hearing and move to the third public hearing on Ordinance 26-27-003, an ordinance establishing impact fee charges. Is there anyone here who wants to speak in the public hearing on Ordinance number 26-27-003? Okay, Council, hearing none, I will close that public hearing and move to the fourth public hearing. On ordinance number 2627004, an ordinance to rezone parcel 2008-00-00-005-000 from general residential to general commercial. Is there anyone here to speak in this public hearing on ordinance number 2627004? OK, council hearing none, I will close that public hearing. And that ends the public hearings. So we'll move to old business. And then these will all sound familiar to you now. Number one is consideration of approval of third reading of ordinance 2627001, an ordinance authorizing the Recreation Department to set park hours and regulations and authorize the Sheriff's Office to enforce them. I'll ask the administrator if there's any new details we need to consider in this ordinance.

There are no changes and no new information. Thank you. Thank you.

Counsel, any questions or comments on this ordinance? Hearing none, is there a motion to give third reading to ordinance number 2627001? So moved. Mr. Moody makes a motion. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Talbert seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next is under old business number two. This is a consideration of approval of third reading. Ordinance 2627002, an ordinance adopting procedures for the imposition, calculation, collection, expenditure, and administration of impact fees to be imposed in the new development, providing a purpose and intent, providing definitions, providing general provisions and applicability, providing for the establishment of impact fee accounts, providing for the appropriation of impact fee funds, providing for refunds, providing for appeals, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. I'll ask the administrator again, since this is third reading, any new details we need to consider tonight?

There are no changes to the ordinance, but North Augusta has passed their resolution to collect fees within the Edgefield County portion of North Augusta. So that has been done. That's all.

Which we'll be taking up under new business, too.

The agreement with North Augusta, yes.

OK. Council, any questions or comments on Ordinance 26-27-002? Hearing none, is there a motion to give third reading to Ordinance 26-27-002? So moved. Mr. Moody makes the motion. Is there a second? Second. And Ms. Ireland seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next item under old business is number three, consideration of approval of third reading of Ordinance 2627003, an ordinance establishing impact fee charges. Again, I will ask the administrator, since this certainly is the last reading, is there anything new we need to consider tonight?

There's no new information.

OK.

Thank you.

Council, any questions, comments on this ordinance?

Hearing none, is there a motion to give third reading to Ordinance 26-27-003? So moved. Mr. Talbert makes the motion. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Moody seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Number four under old business is consideration of approval of second reading of Ordinance 2627004, an ordinance to rezone parcel 2080000005000 from general residential to general commercial. We discussed this one last time, but I'll ask the administrator and assistant administrator if there's anything new we need to know about this ordinance.

No changes.

Thank you.

All right.

Council, questions or comments about this ordinance? Hearing none, is there a motion to give second reading to Ordinance 2627004? So moved. Ms. Ireland makes the motion. Is there a second? So moved. Dr. Kenyon seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next, under new business, is consideration of approval of tax millage rate for FY2627, Bill Gilchrist, our County auditor is here. And let me just preface this by saying that this is Bill's final time in front of us as the auditor, since he is not running for re-election, which means this is approximately his 30th time doing this. So 30 years. So I just want to say we appreciate everything you do, Bill, and thank you for what you've done to help us, because you have been the calming sea as we go along. So thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you to council. Uh, got a lot to get into tonight. Uh, obviously I want to talk about reassessment first as a whole. Obviously, uh, that's been the word of the last couple of months. So, uh, you know, obviously the appeal process where it applies will go on, uh, in the assessor's office until October 10th. And, uh, so people need to, you know, not shop it at the coffee club, Go inquire. Most cases I've seen so far with the market values really put everybody in the stick of shock in the last month and a half. But the taxable value is the key. And obviously, the cases that I've been called about and even looking at mine and Carolyn's, I mean, I really can't argue with the value. And obviously, nobody wants their values to go up. But what's been put in place in this state and in this county in the last six solid years, five or six years, is what's doing it. So that's something that we just got to deal with. And there's going to be some increases this year. Going to be tough on the residential owner and even tougher on the business owner. So let's get into it. We had really an increase in values of about, 13% on real property. Obviously, going with about 9.5% of that, leaving 3.5% for appeals, changes, signing up for ag use, whatever the case may be. So, you know, anyway, with that being said, we had a good bump. Usually utilities usually run about 2%. 3% a year, an increase in assessed value. We hit 10 this year, and basically I think about 7% of that, I know all of you have noticed in the last, not so much in the last few months, but basically all of last year's spectrum, putting fiber optic lines in the ground. And so that's going to be some good added revenue to the county and the school tax base. Countywide looks like about $50,000. So total tax bill, probably 375. So anyway, that's going to be a benefit. Fee in lieu of. I know the last couple of years, we've seen a real good increase. Because you know, when you take your current ones from last year, and when you get to the end of the year, those are going to come back up. That value depreciates. really 95% of those values are personal property. This year, we had two new investments come on under fee in lieu of, under current fee in lieu of agreements in the county. So this year, based on what I'm looking at right now, last year, fee in lieu of whole county, 25 was like $2,065,000, $460,000 to county operations. This year, that revenue is going up about $302,000 to like $2,368,951, which is probably going to pump about $60,000 more into the county's budget away from the value of a meal. So that's a good thing. And that's kind of what we need. I think, me personally, the residential growth is only going to carry you so far. Because now we can see the service end of it really starting to bite in the county. Obviously, getting a new law enforcement center, which has been needed for 30 or 40 years. Obviously, to upkeep that, do everything it needs to do. Upkeep goes up. Got a rec department over here now, an old law enforcement administrative building. That's growing. Obviously, EMS is coming up with a project that y'all have on tap for them. So it's just a tough situation to be in. I mean, you want growth, but it's just kind of hard to stay ahead of the game, which is why commercial growth and fee in lieu of and commercial growth itself to get into play, especially on 25. And I know basically with the county acquiring 100 additional acres around the industrial park, around the current Generac. Hopefully, when that's done, then Will can get back on the trail with Economic Development Board and hopefully get some people in there. Because the base is going to need it. You've got to have stuff sooner or later that doesn't provide services. And that's what it's going to take. You know, but I mean, obviously, Edgefield County, there's a lot of counties in South Carolina going through this. So anyway, just need to keep pumping for that growth. One highlight that's very good this year is that homestead exemption has been on the first $50,000 in appraisal value for many years after the battle royal in Columbia and finally getting it passed August the 11th. That's going to $75,000. So that's going to cut in to people that qualify with their residential increase in reassessment. That's going to help. So boats and motors, starting in January, state law passed to where every third year, January 27, January 28, January 29, that value process is going to roll back to 6% in three years, which is going to be loss of revenue to the county, but something obviously where those items are taxed now at 10.5% of the appraisal value, whereas your home is four, your vehicles are six. In addition to your home, you get the school credit. So they've been needing to do that for a long time, and I was kind of hoping they would pass it to be retroactive first of the year, but, uh, some of the bigger counties that have the major values in boats and motors were involved in that. So, um, one thing, uh, that really I don't hear really anybody talking about, and this is not only Edgefield County, it's the whole state of South Carolina, uh, what they offer like, you know, with the school credit residential with the homestead. The VA exemptions, 100% disabled due to service-connected disabilities. I have seen this grow in the last five years. It is just growing statewide. Eight years ago, randomly people come in, help them with what they need to do to file with the state, kick it back to the county for exemption on house taxes and two vehicles. Well, seven, eight years ago, you could mail your application in and be certified in four to six weeks. Now, if you do it online, it's 12 to 14 weeks. So they are covered up in Columbia State Department of Revenue with this exemption. So obviously, this is a big drawing card for the state of South Carolina that nobody talks about. And I just did a little bit of research. Obviously, savings to VA recipients that are 100% in Edgefield County right now, just county operations taxes, is probably totaled in about between $600,000 and $700,000, which is a savings to them. So that's something else that's growing statewide and in this county every day. We're getting asked about processing applications, how you do it, what you do, Bill, every day. Every day people call. They come in. Where you get the paperwork, I kind of get online with the email address of the state. So that's growing, too. And so next thing is fees. Before I get into the millage, the county's recycle fee, which has been at $100 since 2017, is going to go to $140. And last I checked, I think since 2017, we probably have about 1,600 more houses in the county. And obviously, with what it costs to haul and all that, but inflation on the end of this with fuel and hauling and, of course, household debris is growing. And I know you can tell that when you go to one of the seven or eight centers in the county, like the one out by Thurman where I go. And it's just growing, growing. Anyway, so if you turn to your page, it's got the millage rates. I want to get into this and go through this process. So in reassessment here, what's involved here is you're taking your taxes levied from the previous year. And you're dividing that by your new assessed value, excluding new homes. So in doing that process, basically, it reduced the total county millage from 124.74 down to 119.8. So obviously, then you look at your values. And if you don't have what you need to run your budget, which is what y'all are looking at, and you go to state law for this year, your CPI is 4.55%. So you put that just on the county end of the millages, and that generates an increase of 4.74 mills, which is raising it to 124.54, okay? Now, that's not enough to do it. You have a three-year look back under state law, which you can go back three years and go to the year that obviously offers you what you need to get to run your budget, which in this case, council's going back to tax year 23 and basically using a percentage rate for that year of 10.46%. which generates a little more, like 9.53 mils. Basically, to fund this budget, you're going to need 7.16 mils of that. So that's what you're looking at. Increase-wise, On a $200,000 house, you know, with the fee going up $40, you know, it's looking like about $345 net. So a $200,000 house, the value is going to $230,000 under reassessment. So that's what the increase is going to be net. And when you look at those increases, obviously the money It's steadily growing every year with local option sales tax credit money. That's good. You're going to use $3.1 million this year. Last year was $2.5 million. That money is going to reduce. I've already taken it out of the increase. It reduced the increase about 30%. But then when you throw in the $40 recycle fee increase, it reduced it about 22%. So and obviously the 3.1 is not being used just on real estate. You've got about 460,000 that will be used from vehicles from January 1, boats and motors January 1, all the way through the year. So you're looking probably at about 2.6 million that will be used for real personal that I'm going to calculate Thursday. And getting back to the fees a little bit, obviously the county is increasing their fee. Town of Edgefield, they're increasing their public works fee $24 a year. Town of Johnston is creating their fee $12 a year. Trennan does not have a fee. Trenton is reducing their millage rate like 10 mills. They're just in good shape in that area right now. So, you know, it's just all kind of arrows flying right now on where you live and what your taxes will be. So it's going to be a tough year. You know, people don't want to pay more. But like I said, the residential end of this is taking over this county, especially at 25 and the lower end. And so I kind of really hope that we can get some more business in the industrial park and commercial business on 25 in general. So that's really about it, unless y'all got some questions.

Could you start over and do it again? No, I'm just kidding. That's what scares me, Bill. I'll ask the administrator first if you have any, don't sit down yet, Bill, but anything you want to add to this so far?

Well, the auditor covered it very well, far better than I could ever do it. But I do just want to emphasize a big part of the problem here is inflation. He mentioned inflation. 2022, 8%. 2023, 4.1%. 2024, 2.9%. 2025, 2.6%. Current, about 3.4%. Our housing growth is only around 2%. You can't pay the bills like that. We desperately need some commercial, and we desperately need some industrial in this area. Housing only does so much. So we need to lean into that. We're doing that with the industrial part. That's very important. The solid waste fee at $140, I think many people would expect that might go up since it hasn't since 2017. The reason it's going up so much is the need to build a new landfill cell. Now, we talked about that at length during the budget time, and then we had an ordinance to approve the arrangement with Three Rivers Solid Waste Authority. But that is, I believe, a $23 million sale. Sounds like a lot of money, $140. If we were in the low country of the upstate, it would be far higher than that. So it's not like we can go shop for another arrangement. This is the best arrangement that we have with Three Rivers Solid Waste Authority. If we tried to go a different route, it would be far more expensive. And also, I just wanted to reemphasize the importance of people spending money in Edgefield County. The lost credit is up a half a million dollars this year. We hope it will be up again next year. That reduces your effective tax bill. So that is positive news along with the $75,000 homestead exemption. But that's all I have to add.

All right, council, questions or comments for either Bill or the administrator or anything in general?

I just want to thank you, Bill, for letting me sit down with you whenever I got a question and explaining everything to me in layman's terms. You may be getting some more calls after tonight, though, but this man right here, he's a godsend, I'm going to tell you right now. We're going to miss him.

Well, so who are these tax bills?

Bill, I'd like to say we definitely appreciate the work you've all done. I know I ask you a question a lot of time, come by and visit your office, and you stay busy, and my hat is off to you and your staff down there. I appreciate that.

I'd actually wanted to bring Josh down. He's going to be taking over for me next July 1, and he had a conflict.

Right.

So we'll get to it like everything.

We definitely appreciate that. Thank you, man.

Anything else?

All right.

Nothing else, counsel? Is there a motion to approve the millage rate as has been presented to you tonight? So moved. Dr. Kenyon makes the motion. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Talbert seconds. Any discussion?

I don't know how many of y'all got a copy, but some departments have gone down a mill or two. I don't know if we explained that very well earlier, like EMS. And so the numbers have switched a little bit. And so it's not as high as bill, you know, but Some things went down. Debt service went down a little bit. EMS went down a little bit, like I said. But it boils down to if you want good services, like from EMS, Sheriff's Department, we've got to pay for it. I mean, we don't want our deputies riding around 200,000-mile cars. It's an incentive, I think, for the sheriff to get good people here in our county, offer them good equipment to operate in. And like David said, it's inflation, inflation, inflation. Look at Sheriff's gas bill and Garrett's gas bill alone, diesel, $5.50 a gallon. So that's the bottom line.

Thank you. Any other discussion from council? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next is number two under new business, consideration of approval to award The contract to Lucas Refrigeration, the amount of $29,700 plus $100 an hour journeyman rate and $50 an hour assistant rate for HVAC maintenance services. So I'll ask the administrator for details, please.

Thank you. For our HVAC contract, we have selected a local contractor, Lucas Refrigeration. Out of the seven bidders, there were a couple that didn't meet all the requirements. There were four categories that we would rate as to who had the lowest bid. Lucas was low bid on two of the four bid categories. They have performed a great deal of work for us in the past, always reliable, always prompt, and great reputation. And again, they are local. So we're happy to recommend them as our HVAC contractor. That is a one-year contract with the option to renew for two additional years with the agreement of both parties. That's all.

Thank you.

Questions or comments from council?

Hearing none, is there a motion to award this contract to Lucas Refrigeration? So moved, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tower makes a motion. Is there a second? Second. And Ms. Ireland seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next under new business is consideration of approval to award the contract to Threlco Inc. in the amount of $1,836,163.04 for the construction of Star Park, located at the intersection of Star and Rabbit Trail Roads in Edgefield. Again, I'll ask the administrator for some details, please.

Thank you. Before we get into the bids, let me just remind everyone that Star Park's been in the planning for quite a while. The funding for Star Park comes from a $750,000 appropriation that we received a year or so ago from the legislative delegation from the state from a half million dollar land and water conservation grant and the match from that, which we took from Plutonium Interest, which was again funds that we received from the state for the law enforcement center. Well, we invested those funds while we were waiting to use them and were able to leverage the interest for the grant match. There will be a little out-of-pocket from general fund, but 90% of this project is coming from outside money, which is a very good thing. We'll get a large park with a lot of amenities at very little cost to the local taxpayer. So for the Star Park bid, we have selected Threlco. They were the low bid. They are a reputable company. They're a large company that's done quite a bit of work in the region. The actual award amount will be about $70,000 lower than what's listed in the agenda because we're going to sprig some of the fields rather than sod them. The job will be complete around spring, so that's the ideal time to do that. And that's all I have. Thanks.

Questions or comments from council?

Just very excited to see this. We've made recreation one of our priorities. We did that a long time ago when we... updated that list and I think we've seen a lot of movement in that. It's a quality of life issue and we've got so much more that we can offer people now in our county and this is going to be huge because we're going to tie the rail system in as well and I think that it's just a really cool thing that we're doing for the county. Appreciate your work on it. I know the bids didn't come in as low as we wanted them to but they never do. Thank y'all.

Any other questions or comments from council? OK, hearing none, is there a motion to award this contract to Threlco? So moved. Mr. Moody makes the motion. Is there a second? Second. And Mr. Talbert seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next, under new business number four, consideration of approval of an intergovernmental agreement with the City of North Augusta for the collection and administration of impact fees within the Edgefield County portion of the City of North Augusta. Again, I'll ask the administrator if he'd like to walk us through some of these details, please.

Thank you. Again, I'm happy to report that North Augusta did pass their resolution to impose impact fees on new construction within the Edgeville County portion of the city limits of North Augusta. This intergovernmental agreement that we have before us simply outlines the process whereby they will collect the fees and convey the money to Edgeville County. Our county attorney, Andrew Marine, has looked over the document and found it acceptable. So we recommend approval so we can finalize this process. That's all.

Thank you. Questions or comments from council?

Okay.

Hearing none, is there a motion to approve this intergovernmental agreement with the City of North Augusta?

So moved. Mr. Moody makes the motion. Is there a second?

Second. And Ms. Ireland seconds. Any discussions? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. All right, council, we're down to the second public comment period. I'll ask the clerk if anyone signed up.

Yes.

And while she is bringing me the clipboard, I'll remind everybody that it's a maximum of five minutes and is for items not on the agenda. All right, and we have one person who signed up, and that would be Louise Sellers. If you wait one second, now you can start.

Good afternoon. My name is Louise Kemp Sellers. I represent Glean, and tonight I'm not just here talking about my early Head Start and Head Start kids. I'm talking about and asking money for our 60th anniversary, which is coming up on the 8th of next month. Now, we had to pull through strings and do a whole lot of praying, but we finally got Senator Claiborne to be our guest speaker. And along with that, you know, we had to come up with some extra money for security. I told him that I had his back, but, you know, we had to do it the legal way. So that meant extra money. And two, now when we talk about dreams, again, I'm not just talking about my babies, as I referred to them, you know, down at the center. You know, we do more than take care of kids. We take care of grownups, too. We educate grownups. You know, we have programs. We call it preparing people to be able to help themselves when they get older. And I realize that, you know, with the grants being taken and The economy being what it is, everybody's in a bind. But I'm asking, can you all just kind of split the ticket a little bit and give us something? Because like I started saying from day one, my babies are our futures. And we need to do what we can to prepare them for days like this. Because nobody thought that we would be going through what we are going through now. Three years ago, we thought we were going to move. But everything has changed. So along with change, that means change of money, salaries, food, and everything else. And I just want to say, the last time I was here, I was asking council for $800 to sponsor a table. But then, me and my mouth, we worked it out. Instead of a table for eight, we would ask for a table of six. So instead of the $800, we're coming back to ask for six. And hopefully, you would be able to attend. It's going to be at Newberry College, October the 8th. And of course, there's going to be food and entertainment. I don't think I'm going to sing, but we will have entertainment. Again, I know council has to split the ticket and somebody's asking for money on this side, somebody's asking on this side. This is not something that we have or I come here asking for that type of money every year. This is our 60th anniversary and it's such a big change as when we went through it 10 years ago for our 50s. Like everything else, everything has doubled pretty much in price. I don't like to beg, but that's why I'm here. Please work with me, okay, so we can work this out together. Thank you. And by the way, our meeting is on the 17th. That's this month. And that's when we're going to tally up everything. So please don't let Israel come up short because I have worked too hard, okay? Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Settles. All right. Council, that's everybody who signed up for the second public comment period, so I will close that and move to reports. So the first one is reports from county council members. Does anyone have a report?

Not really a report. I guess it's more of a public service announcement. Every now and then you'll see something on the Internet. Us five up here, David, we get blamed for my water's dirty, my water's not this, my cable's out. We do not control the water system. It's Edgefield County, of course, but it's a private company. They have their own board of directors. They meet publicly once a month, just like we do. If you've got a problem with them, go see them. We do not control the roads. The roads are owned by the state. We do have some county roads. You need to learn Bill Hickson's number, Senator Massey's number, and Representative Clyburn's number if you want your state road paid. Internet, Carolina Connect, or Comcast or whoever, we don't control the Internet. It doesn't have that symbol on the side of the truck. We don't have anything to do with it. Appreciate it.

Thank you for that public service announcement. Well, I would just like to give thanks to the Northside Department. I noticed on August the 23rd, A lot of our church members coming from church. And it was a big fire, y'all. Out on Gilchrist Road and ML Weiss Road. And the fire department from north side was doing an excellent job. It was hot that day. And we very, very appreciated this. Most of the time, we see our fire trucks and things. And we see them out, we don't thank them enough. But sometimes we get so busy to them, we forget to say thanks. But I just want to let everyone know that Northside Fire Department has done a great job. When he was out there fighting for that other son, I mean, that lady was out there. They asked me, said, dude, I have one in the boots. I told them I have my son to close. They said, well, we let you by this time. But I definitely appreciate them for their service. Thank you.

On behalf of Mr. Albert and myself, we serve on the COG board, so I'd like to just give a little update there. We had a guest speaker at our COG meeting last Monday, and she was with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. She confirmed what we already knew that South Carolina for the third year in a row is the highest growing and the fastest growing state in the nation. She spoke to us about the importance of balancing economic growth and conserving our resources. I thought it was a very, very good presentation. I was gonna ask Doc about seeing it, about getting her down here to talk to PC as well. But one of the things she noted in her presentation was how developments come in and they just clear cut everything and how she is trying to educate municipalities how this is not a good thing and how we can work, we can do better. And so at the end of that, we always get to share things with our different counties. And we were able to share that Edgefield County has already gotten out in front of that. And we have put a mass grading, a tree preservation ordinance in place. And the other counties just kind of looked at us like, what? And it was really kind of neat because I feel like we are trying to be proactive instead of reactive. and the data center and the mass gratings ordinances are just two examples of that again at our cog meeting i don't think there were any other counties there that have either of the two and in fact many of them spoke about waiting on the state to do something for the data centers and um of course the state drop the ball this year and if you drop the ball then you're opening the door and they come in and they take over your county you don't get to tell them what to do they tell you what to do and we work very hard to make that the other way around in fact we had people come up to us after the meeting want to see copies of our ordinance and i think we've done a great job on that and just wanted to again commend david planning commission and the rest of council and to just show y'all what we are learning, share with y'all what we are learning and the impacts, but to also reiterate how we are coming out in front. And a lot of people are still way behind. And one last thing I would like to mention is soccer. We have started our soccer program. Recreation has started all their fall programs. Soccer has, again, one of the highest seasons I don't know if it tops last season, but it's like maybe 20 children off. We have 26 adults this time. That's our biggest number in the adults, which we just started the adult division last year. So this program is growing by leaps and bounds. I'm so proud of it. Thank you for all the parents who... And trust us with your children who come out and participate. Again, it's a quality of life issue. We have these different programs. We've added new programs. We continue to add new things to make new things available to our children and our adults. And so I wanted to just mention that and thank everybody. And if y'all would like to come see some soccer, we would love to have you. We're out there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And so y'all come on out. we will have to be we had to pivot this year through no fault of our own we don't have a soccer complex this season and so we have to be at the Dixie baseball fields and so like to thank everyone involved in that pivot who got this together the rec department has done a phenomenal job of marking our fields getting equipment we needed down there the layout is not ideal but the discussion was carry on or cancel our season. And if we cancel our season, that's almost 200 children who are not playing a sport this season. And so we don't want to say no to 200 children. So we pivot and we do it the best we can. And those guys have done an amazing job. I'm just so grateful. And we look forward to a great season. Thank you.

I can speak at the October call. And I told me we're having a CTC meeting on Thursday. So I'll bring a report in October. OK.

Thank you. All right. Thanks, counsel. Then that ends the council reports. And I'll turn it over to the county administrator for his report.

Thank you. So I am happy to report that the legislature approved $3 million to go towards the construction of our EMS station, which is predicted to cost between $4 and $6 million. So that will go a long ways towards constructing that project. And $549,000 to pave Cary Hill Road. Our delegation worked very hard to make this happen. If anyone followed the news, earmarks or appropriations were in doubt for a long time. They passed a budget without them. Our delegation joined the fight to get these community projects back. on the agenda, and again, they were approved. So this is money coming back to Edgefield County for important services. This is a road paving project and an emergency services headquarters that will also house EMA. So they're not frivolous projects. They're important projects that go to public safety. Our engineers tomorrow, since council approved the award to Threlco, will send that notice to them. They have 10 days, I believe, to accept the award. We're very excited to finally get this star park project under construction. To remind everyone what we're trying to build out here. The features will include a very large playground with much of the playground being accessible to those with disabilities. Probably the ground covering will be either the rubberized covering or artificial turf, not the thick mulch that causes a lot of people difficulties. It will include picnic shelters. a football field, which can convert to a full-size soccer field, a U-10 soccer field, pickleball courts, I believe we're looking at a six-court complex, a basketball court, walking trails, and in the future, a splash pad. Now, the town of Edgeville has lined up two different grants, which will extend their 10-governors trail all the way down to Star Road and then across the driveway of the Law Enforcement Center to tie in Star Park. This will provide about three continuous miles of walking trail. We have offered to provide equipment and labor assistance for several tasks to get their project ready to bid out. You may remember Jimmy Fagan, who was here. be instrumental in leading that effort to help their money go as far as it can so we can have that amenity for the county. As Doc pointed out, there was an old railroad bridge discovered. Fortunately, it's just over a ravine. So Jimmy will be demolishing that and replacing it with a pipe. So we are so fortunate to have him with the county. And that's all I have.

Thank you. Questions from counsel to the administrator on this report? Okay. If there are none, then we'll move to my report. First, I want to thank counsel for passing tonight an important financial restructuring in our millage. I believe it sets Edgefield County up for future growth, gives citizens transparency, and rebuilds a solid foundation for conservative financial governance in Edgefield County. So I'm really pleased with that. I want to thank all that were involved in this process. It's taken a lot of number crunching and planning to get to this point, so thank you. On a separate topic, I want to announce that we will have a joint meeting with the Planning Commission here in Council Chambers on September 15th at 5.30 p.m. It's an open public meeting. We have this joint meeting scheduled every couple of years to compare notes on what we all think some future planning commission work should be. This is a call meeting for this purpose only, and the no votes will be taken. Again, it will be September 15th, 5.30 p.m., right here in council chambers, and we'll post the agenda the same as we do prior to a regular monthly meeting, so you'll see that agenda ahead of time. Council, I believe there's an executive session to discuss a legal matter if we have our attorney.

Have you been in touch with him?

Said he would be 15 minutes late.

I just sent a text, and I haven't heard anything that he just said.

If you would... Allow me to step out and make a quick call.

Sure. The council will just call a brief recess, so to speak, and just sit here for a minute. So if I can get counsel, where is, oh, there she is. All right, counsel is assembled. Are we ready? Back on? Okay. All right, so we are ending this recess and coming back. Our attorney, thankfully, has arrived safely. And so, counsel, we do have an executive session to discuss a legal matter. Is there a motion to go into executive session for that reason? So moved. Mr. Talbert makes the motion. Is there a second? Ms. Ireland seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you all for being here.

Let's go to executive session. Please.

You ready?

You ready? OK. Everybody ready?

Yes.

All right. So we have returned from executive session. We're now in public session. Is there a motion from council to return to public session? So moved. Mr. Tyler makes a motion. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Arlen seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. Now that we're back in public session, no action was taken in executive session. There's nothing else on the agenda tonight, council, so I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Mr. Moody makes the motion. I think Dr. Kenyon seconds. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously.