Remarks by A. Watts Huckabee, Sr.
76 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 4
- Play at 1:02:32
“Are we talking about the second 30 minutes now?”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:02:48
“No, we're talking about a response to what is brought up in the 30 minute, two minute session. And there's not consensus on that yet.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:03:14
“will strike down so we think it'd be step up to thirty minutes staff and a representative strike councilman some point and future like and so i can't i i definitely don't think we need thirty minutes no it's to respond to anything it's up to thirty but at a fifteen just come up with something so we can respond to what we're here or or staff can respond to what we're hearing so we can get the truth out on something if in fact it needs to be correct who's going to tell staff to answer a question”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:04:19
“So the reason this came up was because when we get to... Well, people are coming to speak on topics that happened months ago sometimes. And so you've had a chance between meetings, the last meeting you heard it, this meeting you heard it, and staff could respond if we chose to so that we're addressing it head on. Because what happens is the citizens leave and they don't hear any discussion later in the meeting typically. They're definitely not going to hear it in non-agenda at the end.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:05:54
“Yeah, sure. Be glad to. I just was mentioning that they have assigned place to sit so that they can come up orderly and quickly and really get it done in 30 minutes. Person speaking, somebody standing behind them. Also, whoever's sitting in the designated seats would know that they're here to talk about an agenda item that can be explained to them. The second section had to do with the response, give it up to 30 minutes for us to respond to something that was said in public comment to kind of give the different perspective so that something doesn't go into the media, but we've already covered…”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:07:27
“That'd be good to refer. Last item was Consider holding executive session, if not before every meeting, but maybe one meeting a month from 4.30 to 5.40, and also ending meetings by 9.30. So no matter where we are in a meeting, we end at 9.30. And part of this has to do with our staff being here. We're sometimes here at 11, 11.30 at night. Most of our meetings, we have attorneys that are participating in these meetings, and if our taxpayers knew we were paying these attorneys to be on the clock at 9, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 o'clock traveling back to Columbia, you'd have a heart attack knowing,…”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:08:53
“That's an hour and 10 minutes, but I hear you, not 30 minutes.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:09:00
“It may not work. I'm just throwing a suggestion out. I mean, I'm just saying I can't make it at 5.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:10:49
“I think the suggestion to send this to committee and let them present what it is they have interest in, improving the process, makes sense. Which process? I think the process for the public hearing. I think come prepared is a very good point, but the other point is that we really don't have a lot of discussion on issues. We make comments. We really don't have a discussion, right? One person speaks pretty much, and then we try to end it at that point. So it's an unfortunate process that some of the conversations have to take place outside of this building, which means that only a few people…”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:11:44
“The last bullet point is irrelevant to the public hearing. The last bullet point just has to do with establishing some guardrails for our meetings.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:13:55
“So is it possible to get the agendas out by Wednesday at lunch?”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:17:15
“Well, I have a suggestion on workshops. First of all, I think we need to put them on the calendar. Just go ahead and put them on the calendar for the rest of this year, this year through June. And you can always take them off, but you have the workshop on the calendar. At least it's held. I thought they were. They are.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:17:35
“Well, it's the special call. We've had four or five special call meetings.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:17:47
“And the second thing I was going to suggest is that we talked about executive session. Maybe there are a couple of items that we could cover at a workshop and executive session so we don't have so much on the docket the night of the meeting. Spread it out a little bit. Because we spend a lot of time in executive session. We go in there at 8, and we come out at 10, 10.30, 11 o'clock. It's just going to make workshop go longer. It might.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:23:43
“So I had two items, either share it at a workshop or share it at council, and that's the trail.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:24:15
“updating the trails master plan updating us on the trails master plan and where we are with that because a lot's happened over the last year with the carolina thread trail and the municipalities trail programs understanding what's what progress has been made there and the second would be an update on the small area and corridor plans whether that's a full council or a workshop, either one. I think it would benefit all of council to hear an update on those.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:26:01
“Should have passed the 930, ended the meeting.”
County Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 7:41
“Everybody can stand, please. Dear Heavenly Father, I just want to thank you for this beautiful weather we've enjoyed today, the low humidity. We thank you for bringing us all together tonight for this very important meeting to talk about workforce housing. and affordable housing. We thank you for all the leaders in the room, those that sacrifice for the areas they represent. And just look over us and give us wisdom as we listen tonight and we plan for the future here in York County. In your name we pray this prayer. Amen. God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
County Council · Aug 26, 2026
- Play at 57:29
“Yeah, I'll ask a question, comment and a question. So when I joined County Council, workforce housing was one of my three major initiatives. And I'm very thankful that our County Council agreed to commit the monies to this project so that we could get to this point. I read a lot, I listen a lot to people that are talking about affordable workforce housing. And a developer told me recently that they can build a three-bedroom townhouse for the same price as a two bedroom. And I said, help explain that. I need to understand this. So what he said was due to waste, because if you have a two by…”
County Council · Aug 26, 2026
- Play at 1:00:38
“All right, let me ask this question. If you'll go back to another slide that you had, this slide was showing the amount of money an individual was spending on their home today, and some were in the 50% category, which meant they were having a financial issue living in the home they were living in. And I didn't write down what page that was on. I apologize. Yep, here we go. So if you look at your AMI. So my question is, not only do we need to build homes for individuals to purchase that they can afford to purchase, but we need to build smaller, I'm asking if you agree with this, we need to…”
County Council · Aug 26, 2026
- Play at 1:02:30
“Okay. I do want to ask this question too. So you mentioned early on about, I think this is what I heard you say, That unincorporated York County, that means the areas outside of the municipalities, right? Unincorporated York County has an opportunity to take advantage of building affordable housing. But two things we don't have, and I'm gonna use this as an example, and we're working on this with county council, thank God, and that is take Lake Wiley as an example. Lake Wiley is not an incorporated area. It may not ever become an incorporated area. Andy Litton would have to lead that charge.…”
County Council · Aug 26, 2026
- Play at 1:04:51
“All right, one more question, then, since you answered that one. and I appreciate you answering all the questions, but in a residential area, are you seeing in certain areas, and I've seen this in Greenville with Homes of Hope, which was an entity I support, but nonetheless, do you see a quadplex being built that looks like a home? It's 4,000 square feet, it's 3,000 square feet, but it looks like a home assigned to other single-family homes. Are you seeing that happening as well, Some of these are being sprinkled into open lots or areas where you can get away with building this creative look.”
County Council · Aug 26, 2026
- Play at 1:06:02
“So if York County were committed to this, we may have to go back and take a look at our zoning laws and rewrite those to accommodate the acceptance of affordable housing. Would that be correct?”
County Council · Aug 26, 2026
- Play at 1:15:48
“Jeff, can I ask one last question, please? So do you have any examples of planning and zoning departments around the United States that have created, I don't know, I wrote down a fast pass, a fast pass to get to construction and completion, like building a Chick-fil-A is an example. Chick-fil-A's are built in, I don't know, a couple of months, depending on what needs to be done today, where it was a year, years ago. AI's helped out a lot with this, I'm sure. But do you have examples of counties that have created an efficient path to build out like what you have on the screen here, something…”
County Council · Aug 26, 2026
- Play at 1:17:56
“I'm smiling because I'm looking over your shoulder, and our planning director is so giddy, I think he wants to come up and respond to the question. But it's good to see staff excited about this topic. Thank you.”
County Council · Aug 26, 2026