City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Evening. I'd like to call the February 12, 2026 city council meeting for the city of North Charleston. Uh we'll have the invocation um by Councilwoman Nefertiti Brown and we will have the national [laughter]

the pleiance after that. So may we all stand? Please bow our heads. Thank you, heavenly father, for allowing us to come into this place one more time to make decisions not only for ourselves but the greater good of our city of North Charleston. God, keep blessing us and keep us in your perfect peace and keep us productive and focused on the betterment of the people. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. 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.

Now we'll have the introduction of you employees. When I call your name, please come to the front. Finance department, Miss Denise and Sterling Gillyard. Legal department, Nicholas Lewis. Police Tamara Driggers, Shmiki Gay Jones, public works, DeAndre Coker, Henry Edwards, Hendrickk Johnson, and recreation, Anthony Scup, Douglas Wilson, and Cedric Weber. Well, this is a fine looking group. Uh, on behalf of city council and the mayor, uh, let me be the first to welcome you as new employees to the city of North Charleston. Um, right now you're facing the mayor and council. Um, and and [clears throat] that's an important group because they are the ones that ultimately control your raises. So, I would uh, you know, make sure that you treat them with the utmost respect. Um, if you'll turn around and face the audience, um, you know, these are your constituents. These are the people that you're working for and being a public servant, which you all are as a city employee, um is is a fantastic calling. Um and it means a lot to to not only to uh your fellow employees at the city, but as well as the the the citizens of of the city as a whole. So, I welcome you. I'm going to ask you to turn around one more time, and the mayor's going to give you some words. And uh want to want to thank you all first of all for even investing in our city. Um, I tell people this all the time. I started here in 1989. I just really want to come back home and make a difference in my community. And you all have this chance. And like, uh, Councilman Skipper said, the number one priority, turn around. Those the number one priority, you should want to grind every day. You

should think about how you can make their lives better every day. And that's that's the quest. Thank you all so much. Now you you all can stay at the meeting if you want to, but if you don't want to, you can leave. But that's on you all. All right. God bless y'all. Thank y'all. [applause] Will the North Charleston Police Department CAP teams come up? They will be introducing the winter spelling be champions. Good evening everyone. I would like to introduce everyone to y'all right now. Um, Associate Chief Karen Cordre, Sergeant Ruben Pototts, and NO Bonnell Williams. These are all our leadership um for the CAPS program. And I'm Captain Tariq, right over the support services bureau. [snorts] That's my boss. Yeah. Yeah. We all work together very well. [laughter and gasps] So, I'm going to take a moment to read about the spelling be that we just had. It is with great pride, sincere gratitude that I share the success of our 2026 CAPS athletic program spelling bee. which was held on the January 28th here in the city council chambers. This was impactful educational event brought together over 17 outstanding middle school scholars representing Allegra Charter School, Jerry Zucker Middle School, Northwoods Middle School, Military Magnet Academy, School of the Arts, Morningside Middle

School, River Oaks, and Deer Park Middle School. The atmosphere was filled with excitement, determination, and encouragement as our students demonstrated confidence, focus, and academic excellence. The competition spanned as an impressive 12 rounds, accumulating a hard fight to the finish with the winning word mitosis. We proudly congratulate our top spellers. Third place, Riley Stamper, Deer Park Middle School. If you can come to the front. [applause] Our second place, Harper Williams, School of the Arts. He's not going to be here tonight. He has flag football. And our first place, Ford Ery Allegra Charter School. I'm not sure if he made it in time. We proudly accommodate our winners for the spelling be and thank you for your contribution to North Charleston CAPS PROGRAM. [applause] YOU KNOW um we we live in a in a world in a nation where we have good days and sometimes we have bad. We actually uh realized a long time ago in law enforcement that if we do not find a way to get to know as police officers the youth in our

community, we going to have problems. That was why in 2014, we all got together and said, "What can we do to have a better relationship with the with the youth?" And we created these programs back then. It was called CAPS. Now up north they call it the police athletic league pal. We created our own league which is CAPS cop athletic program. And having the spelling be gave us an opportunity not just to really give words to kids but get the kids to compete against each other in a in a format that didn't have any issues. they went into trouble and all the kids that we had to compete, we used our community centers and our neighborhoods. See, when we we knew before that some of our neighborhoods didn't want to socialize with each other. So, what you do, you put competition in front of it. Now, if you lived on Union Heights and you lived on AA, you may not want to socialize, but now you trying to win a trophy and award cuz you want to represent your community. Now, you're coming out and you're breaking those barriers. If you live in Northwoods and you live down in Union Heights, you broke those barriers. And that's what we learned. And when we were doing it, and we've been doing this since 14, we ourselves as cops, we became we became more engaged with these youth where they really respected us and saw us in a different light than in the police car riding around with a blue light on it. So, I want to thank these officers for stepping up and all of them were here when this thing first started in 2014. So they go a long way back. Please keep it going because we have to have to we have to maintain that that love and that consistency of having positive engagement with our youth. Thank you all again. [applause]

Y that's that's WHY [applause and cheering]

can Can he spell ox a lot? [laughter] [applause] March. Okay. He plays sixth in the district and he's going to the regional spelling bee on March the 10th. [applause]

Our first item on the agenda is a request to approve the city council minutes from January 22nd, 2026. Move for approval. Second. We have a motion to second. Any changes or corrections? Hearing none, madam clerk, please call the role. Mr. Perry, I. Mr. Rome, I. Dr. Palmer Roberts, hi. Mr. MD, hi. Miss Brown. Hi. Mr. Brown, I Mr. Hudson. Hi, Mr. Skipper. Hi, Mr. Brown. Hi, Mayor Burgess.

Hi. We have the first reading of an ordinance reszoning a portion of the property addressed at 1657 East Monu Avenue, Charleston County, TMS number 470 03, partial 128 from R1 single family residential to B1 limited business in council district Hey,

I'm happy that happened. You got it.

All right. Um, let's see. We can get that go rolling here. All right. So, as was said, this first item is a request to reszone the property at 1657 East Monagu Avenue from R1 single family residential to B1 limited business. This is a splitzoned property with uh B1 zoning on the front, fronting on Monagu with the R1 designation at the back. The applicant is requesting to reszone the R1 portion to B1 to match that frontage. So, this property is designated traditional neighborhood development, which is a designation in the comprehensive plan that supports single family on smaller lots as well as a mix of uses, including some light uh commercial uses within uh the these areas. Um this is uh these are photos of the subject property. You can see here it's currently a vacant cleared lot. Uh you can see the public notice sign here. And these are adjacent lots. Uh uses include single family homes, some small businesses as well as uh institutional uses including churches. Um staff's recommendation uh is denial uh based on lack of support from the comprehensive plan and that we feel that R1 designation is more appropriate. The planning commission also recommended denial unanimously at the January 12th planning commission meeting.

Without objection, this item will be referred to the public safety committee for further review and consideration. The next item on the agenda is the first reading of an ordinance reszoning the properties addressed as 5437 and 5445 Assembly Street, Charleston County, TMS number 47102, parcel 61 and parcel 63 from R1 single family residential to M2 heavy industrial and council district 8. So, these properties highlighted here in blue are located in the Charleston Farms neighborhood. Uh, the current zoning is R1 as you can see here with the light yellow. Uh, the neighborhood does have a mix of uses including some R2 which is multifamily, residential as well as commercial. Uh, a little bit further down. However, uh the comprehensive plan does designate this area's traditional neighborhood development. Uh again, that is in support of single family uses. Uh some light multifamily, smaller scale. Uh as well as commercial uses. Uh a an M2 designation of heavy industrial is not consistent with that particular designation. You can see here the subject property currently has a warehouse and a vacant lot uh as part of its current development pattern. Uh adjacent lots uh include uh other residential uses as well as uh some undeveloped lots. Staff's recommendation of the request to reszone the property from R1 to M2 heavy industrial was denial. Planning commission also recommended denial unanimously at the January 12th planning

commission meeting.

Okay. Without objection, this item will be referred to the public safety committee for further review and consideration. Our next item on the agenda is the first reading of an ordinance amending section 3-2 of the zoning regulations of the city of North Charleston to update and clarify the definition of heavy commercial trailer. So, the purpose of this uh revision to the zoning ordinance, specifically the definition of a heavy commercial trailer, is to clarify some unclear language within the definition uh to give us uh a better definition of what that is. Heavy commercial trailers are not necessarily compatible with residential development. And uh we wanted to make sure that we were able to enforce the um the separation of those types of uses. There shouldn't be heavy commercial trailers within residential neighborhoods as uh is here in this definition. Uh so that is the purpose of this update.

Okay. Without objection, this item will be referred to the public safety committee for further review and consideration. No speakers at all. We have the Deltas here. Is there anything going on with the Deltas? You guys just coming out to check it out? Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um any other um business coming for the body? Yes, sir. If I may, we received our Uptown from Municipal Association today in the mail. Yes, ma'am. And the cover was done by none other than our Tony. Yes.

Which um highlights Park Circle. So I know he's not here. Yes. But I wanted him to get credit for it since it came in the mail today.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. It looks good to be on the front page doing something good. Yes. [laughter] Um we actually uh took some city council members up to um to Winston Salem uh police department. The reason why we did that is because we actually when we sold the former city hall to uh Roper, we took uh it was like $9 million plus for the sale. Mayor Sumi gave uh me as a chief of police uh $4.5 [clears throat] million there. So, what we did with the 4.5, we're actually going to actually uh build a a uh crime crime realtime crime center. That real time crime center is going to be uh it's it's being built right now, but it's going to give us an ability to be able to have eyes in the skies more often. And it it's a it's a center that for instance if we have if you have somebody that was going to Tanganger making a right on International Boulevard and let's say they actually ran into another car and then they ran from the accident that those camera systems can actually track the car before he even got there. And once it gets there, we can track the car, you know, from where it's going because most all our main intersections will have real-time camera systems and we have automatic license plate readers and uh we have a whole lot of other things that I can't share with y'all right now um on that. But it it would actually help us to manage a lot of things that the city needs and also traffic as well. The last thing I would say is we have the transportation sales tax that's coming before you all. The TST, uh, you all have heard it. It's going to be a Charleston County sales tax referendum

um, in November. What the city of North Charleston needs from the transportation sale tax, which is going to be $4.25 billion uh, divided in four parts. City of Charleston, city of North Charleston, my pleasant and Charleston County. Uh the city of North Charleston, if you don't know, we are the economic engine for the state of South Carolina. We're the only city in this n in this world that manufactures high in airplane boings and high-end cars. Mercedes, we have the C17s, which is a home base for the air cargo ships at the Air Force base. We are going to have the super coast guard base right on Spruel Avenue near Union Heights. Uh we've got Roer Hospital, a $2 billion hospital right there. And we have a whole lot of other things going on. What I'm asking you all to find in your heart to try to support that because we have to improve our infrastructure. Everybody always says to us at these uh civic club meetings, we we can't I can't get anywhere driving. I understand in the state is backed up. 526 is backed up. Rivers avenues are backed up. Dorchester road is backed up and even Spool Dorchester Road, Rivers Avenue and Spru avenue all state roads, but they go straight down our city. We cannot widen those roads and even improve the infrastructure when you talking about traffic flow without having that money. There are other things that we're looking to do sound barriers. We're looking to do um the Rivers Avenue Durant which is a low country rapid transit system. Um and there we're looking at bike peds. Our people that live in North Charleston in the southern end of the city, most of our citizens work in West Ashley,

SNS, different places, Publix, all all those places in West Ashley. Our people live work there. Some of our people don't own cars. Some of our people do not have a a a mode of transportation to get across that bridge. Some of them can't afford Ubers, so they have to take a chance to go across that bridge, north bridge. There are no bike paid accesses there. They take their lives in their hands across the middle of that median which has have cones in it that they have to do like a serpentine. We have to do better, people. We have to do better. So, we need to look at the transportation sales tax. And I know sometimes you're like, "No, I'm not going to vote for it." But this goound is going to impact North Charleston, my pleasant, city of Charleston, Charleston County. It's not going to be the I526 expansion. I'm not dealing with that. I am supporting with the what we need in our cities. And I and I'm a team player. City of Charleston can't do the things they want to do without North Charleston improving their situation. My president can't do the same or Charleston County. We have to work together and we all working together but we we need you all to support this. Uh if we get the support we'll get to work and and work on all these mentor affairs and other things that we can do to improve the quality of life for our citizens in all these these cities. Anything else come for the body? All hearts and minds clear.

I got one thing, mayor. Go quick. Mike, I just wanted to shout out uh this beautiful group of Delta Sigas one more time. I see a couple uh members of the church I play for new Francis Brown. So, I just wanted to shout y'all out. Well, you know how it is. I mean, everybody knows what's going on with those girl ladies in there. I'm not going to say anything cuz we have some AKs up here. So, I'm not going to get that deep. But my wife

is a Delta Sigma Theta and Gwyn who's our deputy assistant as well. and other people. But we love all but it ain't nothing like DST. But anyway, uh y'all all hearts and minds clear. God bless you. Meetings a German.