City Council - Regular Meeting

Let us bring the City of Spartanburg City Council meeting to order. We're gonna stand for a moment of silence and be led by the Pledge of Allegiance. Moment of silence. Amen. Mayor Pro Tem, do you mind leading us in the pledge?

Thank you for that. We have item three, approval of the minutes of the September 14th, 2026 City Council meeting. So moved. Second. All in favor? Any that oppose? Ayes have it. I have an amendment to item four.

Do I hear a second for the amendment? Second. and that is to add National Night Out Proclamation. All in favor? Any that oppose? So now we have the approval of the agenda for the September 28th, 2026 City Council meeting with amended. Second. All in favor? Any that oppose? Ayes have it. Good. Item five, we have public comment. Mr. Jones, you finally made it up. No. Come forward, just give us your name, and after you give us your name, you'll have two minutes to state your...

We have no other public comments that were submitted. Thank you, Ms. Lindsay. All right, proclamation. We have two, as you can hear, one was just added, but we also have a proclamation declaring October 3rd, 2026 International Festival Day in the city of Spartanburg. And we have a few folks that's gonna come down for the reading of the proclamation.

We're gonna get a nice picture right here in just a little bit

She's definitely one that's trying to work in the room. Awesome, awesome. So thank you all for coming and being represented here. So on behalf of the City of Spartanburg, whereas the City of Spartanburg is proud to recognize and celebrate the many cultures, traditions, and experiences that contribute to the richness and vitality of the community, of our community, and whereas the International Festival provides an opportunity for residents and visitors to experience and appreciate the music, the food, which I truly enjoy, arts, traditions, and customs of cultures from around the world. And whe

We also, as you can hear with the amendments, we're gonna recognize National Night Out. Do we have any neighborhood association participants? Come up, come on up.

You a participant? You a neighborhood? Neighborhood association?

Now, the city of Spartanburg, South Carolina Proclamation, whereas National Association in Towns and Watch is sponsoring a unique nationwide crime, drug, and violence prevention program on October the 6th, 2026, entitled National Night Out. Whereas the 43rd annual National Night Out provides a unique opportunity for the city of Spartanburg to join forces with thousands of other communities across the country in promoting cooperative police community crime prevention efforts. Whereas the city of Spartanburg police office plays a vital role in protecting the city through crime, drug and violence

International Festival Update, information only. Man, come on down. Come on down. This is not The Price is Right, but come on down anyway.

Questions, any questions? Any questions?

um megan yes uh first of all when we were talking about this i told you i was going to miss it this year because i was going to be in vegas well i decided not to go early to las vegas so that i can be at the international festival that's how important it is you said weather permitting yes and if you if you look at the weather it does look a little rainy is there a rain plan is this a rain or shine event so this is this is a

Anybody else? Megan, I do want to ask the, I think all of them, no, and one gentleman, the ones that stood up with us, what countries were represented here tonight, if they don't mind?

Senegal and Uganda. And, of course, Price with Jamaica. That's him in the picture. Awesome. Thank you all for coming. Item eight, we have boards and commission appointment. City Clerk, Christy Lindsey.

Make a motion we approve Mr. Sanders. Second.

Make a motion we appoint Dennis Mitchell.

Do I hear a motion? Motion to appoint Mary Fields-Tuning.

Thank you. Item 9, Consent Agenda. Ordinance authorizing an intergovernmental agreement with the Spartanburg County concerning the joint use of the government facilities. Mr. Storey, city manager. Mr. Mayor. Yeah.

Make a motion we approve the consent agenda.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Consent agenda is approved. And we have update, item 10, update on employee engagement surveys and organizational development efforts. Mr. Storey, you're still up. Yes, sir.

Questions from anyone? Yeah, Mr. Mayor. Chris, congratulations to you and the team on this. I think the strengths that were identified by this survey are clearly evident to all of us that interact with the city team on a day-to-day basis. We see their passion, we see their professionalism, and we have great appreciation for that. When was the last time we did a survey, an employee survey? Okay, so there's no benchmark for us to go back to to see if there have been improvements or if things have gone the other way. What do you envision your cadence for these surveys going forward?

My suggestion would be not to do it any less than every two years, because I think what could happen is you could identify an action plan to address an issue and you could have had the wrong the wrong plan. And you won't know it until you're too far down the road. So, you know, I think getting a more routine benchmark so that you can see the needle moving ever so slightly, I think will serve you well. And then, you know, I know we have put a lot of faith and a lot of action behind the 2023 compensation plan.

My question would be, when do we think that plan's shelf life ends? Because I worry that we're operating off a 2023 data set that is now three years old and is rapidly aging, particularly when the market dynamics are shifting. And so... I would give some thought into when we revisit that to make sure that what we did in 2023 is keeping up with the market today.

Chris, I was going to say just the last comment I would make to your point about taking a holistic view of the compensation. I do think it's important that our employees at the city understand the challenges that you and Dennis and Michelle and the team face when trying to come up with the proper balance. Because with health care costs rising, if the city takes on a larger percentage, I mean, that's real dollars. And so it's important that you communicate that. Because I think if folks don't have a full appreciation for that, they'll have a different perspective of, their compensation. So I wo

Chris, and one thing, again, congratulations to the team. 58% of the city employees that filled out the survey, great. Understanding and coming from other places that may not have had a 58%. rate with much less employees, but also in saying that there's still about 200 that didn't fill it out. So how do we reach that population within the next two or three years? What mechanism do we have?

Thanks, Chris, for all of this information. I think it's really important for any organization to be transparent about our challenges and our strengths. You know, there's very little that we have to do with the day-to-day operations of the 435. 425 folks on the team, but there was 1 question and I wasn't able to pull it up really quickly. So I don't have the exact verbiage, but where it asked about if folks felt like they're elected officials or city council understood their role or value valued what they did. Again, I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was a much lower response than

Councilwoman Rogers, I see you reaching out.

Thank you. Yes. I was going to thank Christopher and Jess for the day in the life of series. It is so much fun. And I would say hope I know that encouragement is being given to members all across the city team. But I just want to reiterate, we hope that every member of the city team volunteers for at least a moment or a question so that we get to see your face, understand understand the role. Just to echo the thoughts here, I think you know, we truly do know how integral all the different roles of the city are. And I just want to state it again, because that is so important to our functioning

If I could just add, I think as we do this more regularly, I think with, how many questions total was the survey?

Okay. I mean, just having a couple key priorities. What are we really, you know, what are we really trying to achieve? What's important? Where do we want to improve on? And then a consistency so that we can track that over the years. And also so the staff knows that these are the things that are truly important to the city.

Absolutely. Good, good. Thank you, Mr. Story. Really appreciate that and thank staff for putting it together and taking the time out to take the survey. We're at staff updates.

Chris, thanks for introducing Code Spartanburg. I'm excited about that process. Can you just elaborate a little bit more and kind of forecast what the rest of the engagement process is going to look like beyond those first two meetings? Sure.

And Planning Commission votes on that document first? Yes. And then it advances to us?

Chris, didn't I see a website specifically for Coats Barber, this process?

I want to thank the police department about this baby. That was something that touched me in a way that I cannot even explain. And I found myself crying so much about that. And the thought that a baby going to bed to sleep and then be shot in his bed in the morning hours was something that was beyond me. I couldn't even comprehend that. So I am grateful, Art, your department, everybody that was involved in that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. Thank you.

Chris I think I read somewhere heard somewhere on the news media where monies was being given to the county for grief of certain issues like what we're talking about was that also encompassed Spartanburg City getting some of the funding

With the victims, not themselves, that one has gotten... who may die from an incident, but the parents, do we have special services for them for grief sessions?

All right, thank you, Mr. Story. We have City Council updates, item 12. Councilwoman Salah.

Well, thank you all, and special International Festival representatives. Glad to see a friend of mine being pictured, Mr. Price. He's such a happy man. And love to share Mr. McInview's. So, in the meantime, I'm looking forward to the International Festival. Two days. It's one day this time. So I guess because of our construction. But I hope everyone come down and enjoy the festivities. I want to say thank you to Little John and his staff and department for what they have done for Mr. Sariah and their family. And I know you continue to work on other situations that is out there. And... The 17th

Councilman Foon. Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. Echo the sentiments about the recent arrest. And I know from Chief Old John and our other meetings with the leadership team of the police department in the days after that, how deeply affected they all were. And, you know, I know this is a point of relief to get to this point. And as Chris said, I know there's a lot of hard work that went into it and the people of Spartanburg appreciate it. On a lighter note, since our last meeting, we had the opportunity, many of us had the opportunity to attend one Spartanburg's annual celebration, which was a great oppo

Mayor Pro Tem. Yes, I didn't get to the PoetFest up until the very last, but I did get to spend about 45 minutes there. And it was very, very nice. I attended a dear friend of mine's got a funeral yesterday because somebody that I've known for over 50 years and Aubrey Tucker. And so, um, attended his funeral question that was the reason that I wasn't able to get there sooner and Mr. Tucker if you knew him but you knew him before you saw him because that voice was one it was a bass tone and you could hear him a mile away but you could recognize that voice it's something that I want to I ran int

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you for that. Councilwoman Rogers.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here. It is definitely fall with fall busyness. I will echo Councilwoman Sally. The RB Sims 100-year anniversary was so educational. It was amazing to see just how much infrastructure was there, was put in 100 years ago, and how Spartanburg Water has thoughtfully replaced, upgraded. But I think I, you know, As we're talking about staff, the staff that were our guides that day were truly not only vested, but extremely knowledgeable. And it was really fantastic to see, really fantastic. I did want to mention that same weekend, th

Yes, thank you. Ruth, I haven't thought about the stroller in a long time. For those of you who don't know what that is, you can ask Baker Maltz to be back there. You're going to bring it back? All right. Not much for me tonight. I want to thank Art and his team. And one thing that I was really struck by was how young the young men were that y'all arrested. Erica and I were talking about that, and that's a tragedy in its own self, its own right. I've also been thinking about another young man that lost his life this weekend that we worked with at Spartanburg Academic Movement. Our college succ

Thank you. Just Councilman Smith mentioned Crawford kid. We all work, not we all, but Che and quite a few folks at the high school work very closely with the young man. But gun violence is something that we all have talked about. Of course, Amir, the baby. We continue to do what we can, guys. That's not just a Spartanburg issue, but a national issue that we really have to take control and do more with our folks to have them understand that gun violence is not the way. You know, it's just not the way. There's so much all of us can say. I was on the trail Saturday, actually walking with the 31st

Don't start, Jamie. Don't start, Jamie. See that? See that? Don't start, Jamie. I will tell you something. No, I'm not even going to go there and put Shay on blast, but she's looking at some of her old videos from the baseball pitch. But anyway, do I hear a motion? I make a motion.

All right, let's go home. You guys have a good evening.