Town Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome, it's seven o'clock on September 1st, and I'm gonna call this regularly scheduled Pendleton Town Council meeting to order. As SCDOT has been a part of our conversation lately, I thought we would talk about SCDOT in terms of Pendleton history to start our meeting. And in 1959, as a part of their highway beautification program, SCDOT planted the first crape myrtles on SD 28 through Pendleton. The crape myrtle is now one of the primary trees associated with Pendleton. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

Moving on to number two, which is council updates. We'll begin with Councilwoman Merchant, branding.

The council received an update from the branding commission.

And Lynn, can you talk into your mic?

We received an update from the branding firm and we're in the process of getting some more feedback from council and that will move forward in about two weeks.

Thank you, Lynn. And I also want to thank everyone that is on the committee. They meet frequently and they've all worked really hard. And I've been in some of those meetings. And thank you to Lindsay for your work on that. Barbara, the parade, as well as the fire department.

Well, unfortunately, I have that on fire as long as I, thank you, as I wanted to with the parade. But we will be meeting next Thursday. We'll meet here at town hall, if that's okay. you will need to go to the town website or either see me after the meeting tonight to give me your text number and your name and your email. And we do have a plan already in place. So basically it's just building and figuring out how to build. So that's where we are with the float. Float needs to be done by October 2nd. The plan is, well, I'm not gonna tell you what the plan is, because then I'm gonna get the volunteers to fill the folks, so we'll just leave that. As far as the fire department, during this reporting period, Pilliman Fire Station 2 responded to 22 calls for service, including traffic collisions, medical emergencies, fire alarms, carbon monoxide calls, grass and wood fires, a structure fire, and other service-related calls. The report also reflects continued coordination between Pendleton Fire and our local and county emergency services partners. On August 14th, the Pendleton Fire Department submitted a letter to the town requesting the release of funds. Excuse me. That matter will be discussed later in tonight's meeting. We appreciate the continued service of the fire department and all of our emergency service partners.

Thank you, Barbara. Nancy, updates on Trails Public Works.

So we're getting ready for a day of service at the end of September. I'm pretty excited about that. September 26th, and the Pendleton businesses have been really supportive. We're going to have a volunteer appreciation event with that day of service. So PF Meats at the Pendleton station will be hosting a luncheon for people that volunteer, and we'll have volunteer gifts. So we're preparing the tasks that need to be done, and we're coordinating with the community center on that. And in terms of trails, September 17th, The Green Crescent Trail is having their 5K Light the Night fundraiser. So if you like to run or if you don't like to just stand around and watch people run, come up to Kite Hill and support Green Crescent Trail. And they support us. So everything we do to support them supports us.

Thank you. Jeff, updates on the PRA.

Sure. Fall sports, all our PRA fall sports are now underway. It's an exciting time for athletes, and we're grateful for the time and energy our coaches and volunteers are putting in to help them learn, grow, compete, and enjoy the season. Super Saturday is September 26th. We're especially excited about Super Saturday on September 26th. We'll start the morning with events and vendors at Veterans Park. then transition the penalty to high school in the afternoon and evening for tackle football games under the lights. Super Saturday is a big fundraiser for the PRA, but it's also a great opportunity to showcase all the hard work our teams and coaches put into our athletes. We'd love to see everyone come out, spend the day with us, support PRA and cheer on our Bulldogs. YMCA partnership exploration. We've done a lot of work to fully document PRA's current operations and what support we need as we explore what a potential partnership with YMCA could look like These conversations are ongoing. Thank you to the mayor, council, town staff, and our community for your continued support of PRA in our athletes.

And Jeff, would you mind talking a little bit about the kind of the conversations that we've had at council regarding the PRA and the town of Pendleton, as well as the YMCA and kind of that agreement and what maybe something like that would look like? I guess starting with, I would like you to address, is the YMCA going to take over the PRA?

Well, I think there's a series of steps that are going to take place first. And first of all, though, it's just really nice that they have a new COO at the YMCA, and he has expressed the interest to move into this part of the county. And one of the first steps is looking at a partnership between the YMCA and our PRA. They're an all-volunteer organization, that is the PRA, and to get some administrative support would be very, very helpful. We have that budgeted for this year. I'm actually talking to the CEO, Mr. Osborne tomorrow, and hopefully we can move forward with some things. They could be, you know, we have always been concerned about a lack of daycare around here. Programs, I think they call their silver sneakers. Is that right?

I'm not of that age yet.

But we're looking at the idea. It's very rare for someone in the city of Anderson to look towards Pendleton to assist us in things. So we're very excited about it. And hopefully we can just take it one step at a time. One of the big things is the identity of Pendleton, the Bulldogs. And that's something we're very, very serious about retaining. There's no way, shape or form that will move everything up to Anderson. That is not the case. We want to continue with our programming in this town, our youth sports representing the Pendleton Bulldogs. And I think Mr. Osborne is in agreement with that, but it's just a step-by-step.

So if this agreement were to happen, yes or no, are we asking the YMCA to take over the PRA?

It would be a partnership.

It would be a partnership, so no. I think that I just want to make sure that things are clarified. So this body voted to pursue conversations with the PRA and the YMCA. We have budgeted, as Jeff mentioned, a recreation director, and our hopes is that we can partner with the YMCA to provide us with that recreation director, and then that would help the PRA in an administrative role. If the PRA agrees to that, the sports would continue as is, no sports would be cut. They would continue to participate in the leagues. This person would just help and assist them and correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding. And then to your point, Jeff, this partnership with the YMCA would then hopefully lead to things that I feel are very real needs for our town. like programming for our seniors, like daycare, which we talk about the fact that Pendleton is a daycare desert all the time. We really need childcare for our residents. So I'm really grateful for the YMCA for pursuing these conversations and we will definitely keep everyone updated as it moves forward. My report, so I want to begin with some celebrations. I would love to congratulate the Blue Heron on earning Business of the Year through the Clemson Area Chamber. That is a huge accomplishment. I also, speaking of the Pendleton Bulldogs, you know, we're 2-0, Pendleton High School football, and we just beat easily over the weekend. I also would like to share my congratulations to Jordan McCall on being named to the Appalachian Council of Government's Leadership Commission. Hopefully I said that right. I would also really just wanted to congratulate the town on opening. If you haven't checked out the town, please do on the corner of Main Street and Mechanic Street. And I also want to give a shout out to Janet Greenlee Day. I could not attend, but I heard it was just amazing. And I'm hoping that we will continue to have events like that with showcase different services that are provided in our community. I also wanted to take the time for my council update to address the four-way stop on the corner of Mechanic Street and Queen Street. I wanna give a timeline along with what our residents can expect. So on July 11th, 2023, there was discussions at council meetings These discussions direct staff to meet with SCDOT to discuss details of the functionality of a stop sign on Main Street and Mechanic Street. December 2nd, 2023, SCDOT completed the analysis. And basically what that analysis said was that a stop sign would function on the corner of Main Street and Mechanic Street, but only if the signal on Main Street and Queen Street became an all-way stop. I want to make sure that that detail is very well-known. The only reason that this change, in my opinion, was made is because in order to get a stoplight on Main and Mechanic, which in my opinion is very much needed, that signal on Mechanic Street and Queen Street had to become an all-way stop. In October, 2025, a conversation with SCDOT picked back up due to the closing of Riverside and, or I should say Riverside moving. And then in December 2nd, 2025, this body, this council, one day after Nancy and Lynn and I were sworn in, requested to install the four-way stop. I also want to clarify that SCDOT does not make recommendations to small municipalities. How it's explained to me that it works is we know our town the best and so we simply ask SCDOT if If things like that stop sign at main and mechanic would function, SCDOT basically comes back and they say yes or no. I also want to be clear that this is an SCDOT road that SCDOT previously paid for. paid for that light through, they paid the electric bill, but effective today at 10 o'clock, it is a flashing all way stop. I also want to clarify that council is testing this. No final decisions have been made. We are testing this for 90 days to simply see if it will work, because if this works, then we can get that stop sign on Main Street and Mechanic Street. SCDOT will be monitoring traffic operations. They will be providing us with traffic counts, traffic patterns, and our goal is to ensure that this intersection on Main, or sorry, excuse me, on Mechanic and Queen Street is functioning at the optimum level of service. If it is not, i will not vote to go through with this um i also want to say that this stoplight has been there since the kennedy administration i think 1960 is when it was installed and scdot said that under current day standards that that intersection would not meet these standards to become signalized um i think that is all i have as far as my comments on that intersection. SET does not expect failure or they wouldn't do it. Also just some statistics that I found in my research, four-way stops are a lower cost tool. Four-way stops lead to anywhere from like a 35% to a 70% reduction in crashes. All-way stops or four-way stops lead to a 42% reduction in injuries. these intersections are useful for speed management there's also benefits to pedestrians and bicyclists um i want to say that in my opinion too that having a stop sign at that intersection will really open up queen street I don't know if you've been down Queen Street it looks so good like just you know walking but yeah West Queen walking by key spawn walking over to the community center that's that's your ward Nancy and um it looks really nice and so I'm hoping that this will really allow us to just be our community become more walkable um and more more connected and I think that is all oh SEDOT has done this before. That was something else I asked them. I said, is this a common thing? Do you do this? And they said, we actually just did this in Greenwood, same kind of situation. And I said, okay, well, how did it go? And specifically it's in Greenwood on the corner of Edgefield Street and Maxwell Avenue. And they said, just like any other traffic pattern to kind of think of it like school going back in session, like the first couple of days, the first couple of weeks, a little bit of chaos, people are getting used to it, but then when things settle down, hopefully that it will be very functional. So I just want to make sure that that is addressed. I also want to make sure that we have heard all of the comments and we have asked about them. We've asked about a roundabout, it's not big enough. We've asked about turn lanes, it's not big enough. I feel like I know more about all-way stops than I ever thought I would in my life. And I've done a ton of research on them, but everything that people have suggested, we have asked SEDOT to the point where our poor SEDOT representative has had to remind me that he has a family. And yeah, so I've talked, yeah, I've talked with him a lot. I've talked to him about, you know, the kind of double turn lane or double lanes, excuse me, outside of the bookshop shop. And he was like, Sarah, it's going to be fine. Like it's, it's, we have projected it will function. So I just want to make sure that everything is noted, tell everyone that we have talked to them and we have read, you know, we've looked at all, you know, the petition that was signed and, you know, petitions were, They do require signatures from registered voters. And so as much as I would like to take into account a signature from someone that lives in Alaska or Massachusetts by state law, we just can't consider those names without signatures of registered voters that live in town limits.

So I think that's it for me.

Does council have anything else to say about that intersection or any other additions add to their reports?

Ms. Barbara.

did a little research because of all the sound and fury going on, but which usually signifies nothing. So I had to search one of the two of the things. There was a town similar to ours. The merchants were all up in arms. Oh, it's going to kill our business. It's going to kill our business. The people who walk. Oh, we can't walk. We can't walk. We can't walk. The town was just in a total uproar. One year later, the merchants were thankful. They were like, you know, we never thought this would happen. But because of things that that like change, people started going downtown. They were slowing down. They noticed shops they hadn't noticed before. And here's the thing. A lot of the traffic that goes through yesterday, those who are saying, oh, I'll never come to Penland again. Well, you probably weren't shopping in any of the shops anyway. So there is that. The other thing that I found interesting and this solidifies my support of it, is the fact that when all our roads are owned by the state, one of the mechanisms that has been proven is that four-way stops will cut down, if not eliminate, the number of unwanted heavy trucks, like big box trucks, things like this, because it costs them money to do four-way stops. And after a while, when it starts affecting their budget, they're going to route it up 76, and it won't be routed where we have the four-way stops. There's very little we can do as far as changing or mitigating these trucks from coming in the town, but that is one tool that experts have said is something that can be utilized that does cause a drop in the number of these trucks coming through. So there's that.

Thank you, Ms. Barbara. And just to clarify, the town does maintain 42, we have 42 miles of road that the town does own and maintain. I just want to make sure that's clear. Also, I just ask people to think about the larger vision of our town. Do we want bike paths? Do we want walking trails? Things like this are going to make that possible. So I really appreciate the patience and I really appreciate all of our residents for your willingness try this 90 day, I guess, test with us and we will see what the results have to say. And I'm looking forward to sharing them with you. Moving on, approval of the minutes. Item 3A, consideration of prior meeting minutes, town council meeting minutes from August 2nd, 2026 called meeting, town council meeting minutes from August 4th, 2026. Do I have a motion?

Motion to accept.

Barbara, do I have a second?

Second.

Second, Jeff. All in favor? Motion carries unanimously. Next, we'll move on to public comments. Just a reminder that every resident, business owner, or town property owner has three minutes, and these are comments, not a Q&A session, and we are very much looking forward to what you have to say. Presley Bellinger Kipling, 165 Spyglass Lane.

Many of you ran your campaigns on increasing transparency, and many of you are committing the same hidden conversations that you chastised in last November's election. Including clarification from the delegation for the fire department's money on this agenda is a complete farce, and doubling down on unprofessional and inappropriate choices is not what servant leadership is about. It is deceitful at best considering the delegation already voted, on what this money was supposed to be used for in December 2025 when Merchant was there, who has not stepped up to correct anything on this agenda, why? I've attached the minutes and brought copies if anyone would like to see them, there'll be, I've handed one to Ms. Barnes as well, they'll be included in the meeting minutes for this as well. It took me less than five minutes of research and due diligence to find this. The delegation has also sent letters to the town clarifying the purpose of the funds in addition to multiple phone calls. It is only on the agenda to cover the mayor because what's even more unforgivable than lying to the constituents is our mayor not going to not one, not two, but three members of this delegation to ask how she can claim the fire department designated funds for recreation. Just to start, every single one of you should be ashamed of yourselves for what you have done to Pendleton in the last nine months. Ask yourselves, are you really the best leaders for our town? Release the money to the fire department or resign so that we can elect leaders who put public safety above personal agendas and unrealistic campaign promises. You shall know them by their fruits.

Thank you. Other public comments?

I think mine's a little more black and white. Ron Osborne, 503 Watkins Drive. Me and my wife, we walk all over town, and the parking lines that were put out in front of the Episcopal Church have created a two-lane road for cars. And so what happens is if someone's going east on Queen and not turning left on Greenville Street, they hug that sidewalk, and it's created a situation where the cars are right next to you. So the request is to consider putting parking division lines to the Episcopal Church so you divide the parking up and then maybe even a dotted line that takes people from the right lane when they're going east on Queen Street and taking them to the left lane. So anyway, we've noticed... two cars going side by side. And then the one car on the right lane figures out that the lane goes away. And then we've also noticed families being on the Episcopal side and cars being like right next, you know, cause they're trying to stay in that new lane that's been created. So I don't know who I should request, but I'm going to request it to y'all and hopefully y'all will carry that forward and consider it. The other thing about walking in town, We love the idea of the double stop signs in Main Street because trying to cross from the green mall area to the candy shop or anything over there, you kind of take your life into your own hands. So I think that will improve walkability in downtown. So anyway, that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Public comments? Feel free. Yes.

Good evening. My name is Megan Christophic. I live at 433 B Cove Way at the- Slow it down.

Your name is what?

Megan. My first name is Megan. Last name, Christophic. Do you need me to spell it? Oh, no, I'm good at phonics. Okay. I was just here today because I wanted to speak out and support our town to continue curbside recycling instead of getting rid of it. It's something that's very important to me. It's actually one of the reasons I chose to move to Pendleton four years ago versus other surrounding towns. I do 100% agree that community education about contamination needs to be improved. I have several ideas for how that could be done, such as bin labels and passing over any person's recycling that is contaminated, they will learn really quickly to shape up or get fined or not have the service. Many other towns I've lived in have done that with really great results. So I just wanted to mention that I think our trucks are beyond their useful life and we needed to invest in new trucks anyways. So the depreciation and amortization of those trucks is about seven to 10 years. I've heard figures that ours are about 25 years old. So let's count our blessings and get some new trucks. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Other public comments? Seeing, hearing, no other public comments. Public comments are closed. Moving on to reports. We will begin with Owen and our planning department. Also, did you know we didn't have zoning in Pendleton until the 80s? Sorry, I learned that in my little book. I thought that was very interesting. That's not that long ago. I was born in the 80s. Anyway.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. This month, we had 21 permits issued in August. This is a falling breakdown of those. We had eight new homes. Three of those were in Sunrise. Three of those were in Lawton Ridge. We had one in Morton Farms and then one was a single-family house on Duke Street. They're going to be removing a house that's there and then rebuilding a new house there. We had no new businesses apply for any renovation permits. Four electrical upgrades or mechanical upgrades as well. Four renovations. Two new roofs. uh two new signs one subdivision of land and it was for a property at the corner of church mcgee street they split off just to make one new parcel um and then one rezoning application which was for the 610 cherry street property to go back from r2 to r1 so It's going back to a lesser dense zoning district. On August 13th, the Planning Commission held a work session on the items from Resolution 03-2026 at this meeting that provided further clarification to the consultant and staff on the lighting and sidewalk standards being implemented. as well as additional modifications to the tree ordinance the final work session for these items from the resolution will be on september 10th and the public hearing on these items is scheduled for september 17th at 6 30 they're going to send their recommendation to the planning uh to town council um and also have a public hearing on those as well on august 20th the commission met for its first work session on developing historic overlay for the town of pendleton which was item b of resolution 03 2026 at this work session the commission discussed potential names for the historic district and the overlay boundaries, as well as their ideas for the preservation and design standards they would like to see included in this district. Staff was tasked with combining the district names mentioned. So I've just wrote down a list of the things that were mentioned during the meeting, redrawing proposed historic overlay. From the map I'd showed them was our current overlays, which includes Town Square, and then your your highway overlays with north mechanic west queen greenville street and south mechanic street in the town square and then village hills as well just for reference um so they have some i'm going to give them the town square standards that are more aligned towards protection and maintenance and then i'm going to give them the infill standards as well because those are kind of about neighborhood continuity which i think is one of the things that historic overlays try to implement um So yeah, on August 17th, the staff and a commission member attended the orientation training for planning officials at the ACOG facility in Greenville. And this was about a six hour course that was very informative for us. And I think it went very well. So as far as code enforcement goes, I received 14 new complaints in August and I'm currently addressing those. Found one contractor working in town doing a roof without a permit and they didn't have a business license. And that was a result of $72 a fee collection. some upcoming meetings for the boards and commissions in September. On the 10th, they're going to have the final work session, as I mentioned before, on those zoning ordinance amendments. And then on September 17th at 630, they're going to have a public hearing on making a recommendation to town council where they can receive the input from the public, which they can always do in public comment, but there's a longer period for them to address their concerns. to address that item. So the design review board doesn't have any meetings scheduled for the month of September. The board of zoning appeals has a meeting scheduled this Thursday. It's going to be here at town hall at 6 PM. They're going to hear a few requests. One of them is the Regional Housing Authority off of Central Road. They've requested to use an accessory building in the front yard of the property as a storage building. So they're going to request a variance to move that up there instead of having to place it in the back. The 74-acre property off of Lebanon Road owned by Gogo LLC, which is the fertilizer plant, has requested a variance to allow outdoor storage there. and a homeowner in the Falls of Meehan has requested a variance from the accessory structure setback requirements. The International Property Maintenance Board does have a scheduled meeting this month and they're going to elect their officers.

About that, so when will they be functioning after the officers are elected?

Yeah, they can function at this meeting as well if I receive any requests they have an appeal from them.

Okay, so They govern the apartments over on Cherry, correct? What board looks into violations?

So the way the International Property Maintenance Code board is set up is basically I would send that property owner a notice of violation and then they would appeal to the board. And that is how they cover this. Similar to the Board of Zoning Appeals, but they go for more of the maintenance standards.

So that's who basically will look into any complaints from Cherry Street Apartments?

I'd send the notice of violation first. And then if the person that owns that property appeals, they would go to the board.

So how do people, how do you get violations? People who live there have to report it?

They report it and they go investigate it and then I go investigate it. I investigated the property last week and a resident requested me to go out there and visit them. So I walked around a few units and I've gotten some images from them and I'm going to be compiling some more information before I send the official notice to the property owner.

And also I'm wondering not only for people who live out there, but also for the people in the senior citizens apartments as well. So where's the post office?

okay thank you oh and i just want to congratulate you you've been working two jobs for three months now and uh i mean i know anthropology major can handle anything but uh but uh i went on a constituent call with you recently you did an excellent job with this very um upset uh citizen and uh but you've been doing a great job thank you sir appreciate it i second oh sorry

How many houses have totaled?

Off the top of my head, I do not know the exact number. I'm going to guess probably at least 15. I think it's 174 is the total number in there.

Can you provide some updates on the UDO and where we are and

Things like that. Yeah. So with Resolution 03-2026, it prompted the zoning amendments first. However, it took items from the UDO and it wanted those implemented into the zoning ordinance. So essentially what they've done with those is corrected them to see how they would like to be changed. So whenever we go back to the UDO, those items are already going to be fixed. So essentially they've worked on those sections already. So they're still in the process of that. And once that zoning ordinance amendment is done, after September, they're going to start getting back onto the UDO. So October is probably, I'm going to say, a good estimate for the next work session on that.

Thank you. Anything else for Owen? Thank you, Owen. I don't know what to call you, Chief, not Chief Paulson. Former interim, David. David.

Mrs. Mayor, Council, good evening. It's good to be with you all tonight. So in the month of August, the Pendleton Police Department answered over 730 calls for service. Of those 734, 24 reports were taken, nine of which were cleared by an arrest or a warrant. And additionally, 163 warning tickets were issued and 119 citations were issued. We're also still looking at the four-way stops, monitoring those for people who aren't stopping for those signs. During the month of August, all the officers on the roads attended CPR and first aid training to give them the skills to assist in medical calls. Also during the month, officers were seized in illegal narcotics and illegal firearms during a traffic stop. They're getting really good at finding those things. Officers also conducted traffic enforcement as this was the first week of school on the first part of the year of the month that they watched all the traffic at Riverside Middle School. and the Pendleton Elementary School, which is the new middle side of 187, had no incidences. Everybody had paid attention and was nice and slow, and it really went well with no problems. During the month of August, the Pendleton Police Department hosted the monthly Anderson County Police Chiefs Meeting at the Depot Building. This is a once a month meeting where all the police chiefs in Anderson County get together and kind of just discuss what's going on, things going on in the state, how do we do better for our citizens. And how do we enforce the laws better and protect themselves? So it's a really great meeting. We had an honor just to host it, and it was a lot of fun. Pendleton Police Department also assisted with the Indivisible Clemson event held on the square. There was a lot of fun people there. They were a lot of fun to hang out with and made us laugh some. We had a good time. Pendleton Police Department also attended the Clemson Area Chamber of Commerce annual luncheon. That was a great event where we got some good food and got to hang out. So one last thing, if you don't mind, Mrs. Mayor, as you know, this is my last report, and this is going to be tough. But I just want to say thank you all for giving me this opportunity. You allowed me to come work here, and I really appreciate that. Thank you, Ms. Lynn. Thank you, Ms. Barbara. Thank you, Mrs. Mayor, Ms. Nancy, and Jeff. Thank you for giving me that opportunity. six years ago steve miller amber barnes let me come in here and uh you know they treated me like family since i was here and i appreciate that i would be remiss if i didn't say that the town of pendleton's got some of the best employees any town could ever want and every one of these employees cares about this town and they love this town So I appreciate what they did for me. And then finally, a town is not a town without its citizens and businesses. You know, I practiced this the whole way here so I wouldn't cry tonight and it didn't work. So, but anyways, a town is only a town as good as its residents and its businesses. And thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to serve you guys for the last little bit of time. And it's been great. I've learned so much from y'all and y'all are just tremendous. Thank you for what you've done for me. And if there's everything I can do for you, please let me know. And that's all I have, Mrs. Mayor. Thank you.

You can't go yet. I have some questions for you, but I guess you could answer.

I'm sorry. I thought I was done.

You are on our agenda as an action item. So I'm gonna save those words for there. So this is business. Yes, ma'am. Would you feel comfortable telling our residents like where where you went? Because there's rumors like going around that I ask you to leave. And could you kind of. Sure.

You know, sometimes in life, opportunity just knocks on the door and you have to answer it. So I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the city of Walhalla as their city administrator. It's a great opportunity for me. It's a great opportunity for my family. I love this town. I'll never forget Pendleton. This is a great little place and I'll never forget it. Nobody made me leave. Nobody asked me to leave. I had that opportunity that, you know, you just can't say no to sometimes. But this is a special place to me, and I will always remember Pendleton.

Thank you. And you gave us two weeks, which those of us who have ever hired anyone knows that it is literally impossible to hire someone in two weeks. And so after we found out you were leaving at approximately 4.45 on Friday... You know, it was good. You know, we all had a lot of conversations on what do we do and how do we replace someone who's truly irreplaceable. And so I, you know, after looking at all of our options and realizing that there's no way that we could have an interim, you know, in here in 14 days, I reached out to Sheriff McBride, who is the sheriff of Anderson County, And I said, listen, we are losing our interim police chief and these are his strengths. He is great at community policing. He has really brought our community together. We also have our police chief that is serving our country right now in Kuwait under deployment. Do you have someone that you could send to us that could just kind of fill this void? And so Sheriff McBride has sent us Dr. Jeremy Pickens, who will be our interim police chief. And so I just want to make sure it's clarify how that came about. And I'm really excited for Jeremy to join Pendleton. And I think he already sees how special it is. And thanks to you and Chief Crosby for leaving this place. Literally people can just walk right in and pick up because you've done such a good job. So I just want to thank you and thank you again for helping I guess interim chief Pickens while he picks it right up.

It's been my pleasure.

So I know you're not doing this, but you could pass this on to the next person. I've been watching the, in addition to our elementary school and our middle school, there's been a pretty much an increase in traffic on tri-county tech. So it's Woodburn road. And I'm just asking, I saw an officer there today, but can you help? The next police chief, we need to be mindful of that road.

I can answer that. I talked to Tri-County Police today and Jeremy today about that.

And I can tell you that Corporal Murray usually sits there most mornings, and Tri-County has also been sitting there. So we've kind of been tag-teaming a little bit. So that address, yes, ma'am, we can make sure that's passed on. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Anything else for interim chief, not chief, just David?

That's right.

All right.

Yes, ma'am. I know the work order has been put in and it is a state road. We're at their mercy. There is a work order to put that tape down or the paint down so they don't think it is two lanes. I just don't know if they've followed through with that yet. Yes, ma'am.

So can you say that again, that what road is an SDDOT?

It's the Queen Street. It's the one that Jim was talking about earlier. So it does, it looks like a racetrack.

Yes, and that is an SDDOT road.

It is, it is. But we have requested that they paint the line back on it to show that it veers into the other lane. And unfortunately, you know, they're as busy as everybody else and we're at their mercy at getting it done. We've also taught them about putting the crosswalk back where there's a sign with no crosswalk.

And are we going to put parking on the... side as well. Barks and stalls there in front of Anderson District 4.

So that's a decision that you as the councilor. That's something we can do. Well you have you can you so typically what SCDOT will do is they'll allow you to do it on their road. If they do approve it then you have to pay to do it. That's typically what they'll do.

Thank you.

Moving on.

All right, moving on to public works.

Well, you won't be getting in the falls.

Yeah, no.

Well, hang on. I did talk with SCDOC engineers today, and they are looking at the three-way on East Queen. They looked at that today. They're going to take care of that. So they are tracking. I did verify with engineers and the work crews today while we were at the four-way stop. all right before i begin david it's been a pleasure thank you for hiring me here thank you so much uh okay for august are you leaving too jay i just want to make sure you're not okay no you have no plans i'm not leaving okay i live four minutes down the road it's too good okay thank you thank you no i'm here um so public works for the month of august so we continue the gis work with seaman whiteside we have water lines hydrants valves sewer manholes and we've just finished up locating sewer force mains we did do a site visit with them today here and every thursday we'll start weekly meetings with them because we're at a point where gis has really got a lot of information in there i'm still having trouble viewing it owen's helping me with that so hopefully we'll be able to view it through my login sooner than later we do have the digital as belts for the new irrigation on the green so we'll add that into gis so we've also started updating our sewer right away in inventory so far we have identified 44 sewer right-of-ways so keep in mind some of these are very short some of them are long they get utility cuts they're usually cut twice a year and there's some that haven't been cut in quite some time that we're still struggling to get to. A lot of that has to do with crossings, washouts, creeks that we just can't get across yet, and we've got to be careful on how we get across it so we can get the right-of-ways cut. So we've got Silver Springs, Riverside, the area on Dalton Road, what I call it connects to the Motorola line that you connect to the wastewater treatment plant those have been cut once the weather cools off again we're going to try to cut more because once the vegetation dies down we'll be able to visibly see these right-of-ways a little better then we're going to try to widen them up water staff crew they're continuing we're going to get our backflow and fog program back in operation so be prepared that's something that des requires it's nothing that we are just coming off the hip to put in place. We're required to have these programs. So you'll see that start back up. We recently got insert a valve installed here on Greenville street. So now we can get the leaking hydrant that's caused such a mess on Greenville street fixed. The reason it is not fixed yet is I kind of jinxed myself last month. The other side of the 18 mile Creek bridge started leaking on the Pickens County side. We finished those repairs today. We're bleeding that line off now. We're going to let it bleed off overnight, and we'll fully pressurize it tomorrow and watch it. I'm not even going to knock on wood because I jinxed myself. But those repairs should be complete, and that bridge should be no more issues moving forward, we hope. Sanitation, we're going to continue with normal operations as we prepare for upcoming changes to recycle and dumpster services and work through the operational details associated with that. Overall, we've had a productive month. I do want to add that we did do an on-site visit with HDH for the Bruce parking lot. So the stormwater issue there, we're going to change the grade of the pond or the water garden. So the grade is going to be shifted away from the stormwater drain. The stormwater drain will still receive stormwater as it has before, but we're trying to push everything opposite direction and then use the Buddy Dern parking lot will kind of function as a broad natural service drainage rather than a concentrated discharge, which seems to cause a lot of our problems. That's the most cost effective thing we can do right now with that issue. So we'll watch that and see how that works out for us. CEC, I touched base with them today. They're geotech engineers. ARE GETTING PREPARED TO START THEIR ANALYSIS ON THE BUDDY DURHAM WALL. SO HOPEFULLY SOONER THAN LATER WE'LL HAVE A CONCRETE PLAN TO MOVE FORWARD. I STILL THINK THEY'RE GOING TO WANT THE CANNELIVER WALLS BUT WE'LL KNOW FOR SURE HOPEFULLY WITHIN month month and a half maybe sooner i don't know how quick they can do that and i don't want to put words in their mouth but they did reach out today so they're all prepared to move forward with that with geotech uh surveying so any questions yes ma'am when geotech comes to look at when the company comes look at the wall how much would it cost to have them also look at a set of stairs to come up either on the wall they'd have to be engineered understand but on the back side yeah stairs that would connect buddy durham to the municipality lot behind brews because i've heard that from several people it's yeah apparently people just walk up up the the the only thing i know right now that might be an issue is the the pond or the water garden itself and as far as placement of those stairs we can absolutely have them look at it Well, I say that.

You might need a change order, but I was going to say maybe we could ask them what the estimate would be for them to engineer those steps so we can get an idea what that change order might look like because I think it would be worth looking at.

It is, and Amber said okay, I think.

Yeah, we could ask for a cost opinion. Hey, what do you think this might cost us?

I would like that to be asked. Because if we're going to spend the money and do it, let's get an opinion as long as they're out there. With that said, can you kind of give an update on the Buddy Durham lot, specifically the cost of the engineering? Because I know when I first saw the number, I about stroked out. But I think it's really important that... We are really open with our residents about the cost of things.

I'm sorry I don't have it down to the penny, but I know it is $28,000 and some change.

I thought it was $26,500.

Hey, look, let's save this a couple for you. $26,500.

We're going to use that on the sidewalk.

Oh, yeah, that's for the stairs. That extra money is for the stairs.

Yeah, it's not cheap at all.

So the pond.

It's been part of the plan since day one to catch stormwater coming off that parking lot at the bottom. It's trying to help mitigate so much water that's feeding into those stormwater drains that are existing now and unfortunately going across the property next door. So if we can regrade that and mitigate some of that water to kind of flow over, riprap into the Buddy Derm parking lot. I mean, I'm hoping it doesn't look like a waterfall, but if it can reduce what we're discharging on the property next door that's i don't know if you do one of those waterfalls over the wall that would be good it'd be nice it could be yes what about parking lots over across the street the gravel parking lot yeah we haven't went forward we have a packet for it

no because we don't need to enter anything yes i just want to know if it was made we did we do have a packet for it but it'll probably be next fiscal year

um so yeah so just the wall is around just the engineering is 27 000 and we'll wait to see how much it's going to cost to totally redo that wall um yeah can you go ahead and talk about as long as we have you um can you talk about uh recycling because i know um i guess before i was sitting in this chair when i first heard about curbside recycling and that a lot of what was put on the curb didn't end up in the recycling bin and how much money this was costing the town. It kind of changed my perception on it a little bit. So can you talk about recycling? And we do have a really great fact sheet too on our website, which spells it all out. I would encourage all of our residents to look at that. But yeah, can you please talk about recycling? And then can you talk about the Anderson County Recycling Center?

yes um so we've attempted to either not pick it up which in turn called the ladies at the front office to get bombarded with phone calls on why we weren't picking it up and we only pick it up if it's contaminated or has issues that are not recyclable or we've even pilfered through it which i did not like and set stuff aside and then we get calls on Why did you remove this out of my bin? Not the fact that it shouldn't have been in there. We've put flyers out and unfortunately we just continue. It tends to be an 18 gallon trash can for the most part. We do have a percentage of our citizens who do a wonderful job of recycling. But when you look at the complete route and we average a little over 500 stops a day, by the time it's over with we have so much contamination on it that sometimes it goes to the landfill and it's sometimes when we take it to the recycling center when as soon as we lift it to dump it they hear glass they automatically cut it off we've already been this was last year they actually threatened to not let us utilize the recycling center anymore if we continue to bring glass in glass was our big issue last year if it's wet They don't want to deal with it if it's wet. There's just so many restrictions with it that makes it frustrating. Now, I'm not going to say that recycling cost us. I would say it's cost neutral because currently I say we probably, when you look at recycling, it's about $1,900 a week. I say cost neutral because if we went away from recycling, that's going to be another core service that will take its place. So it's not like we're gonna save that money. It's just gonna be invested into, now we're gonna run brush earlier. We're gonna run bulk earlier. We may run two brush trucks. Leaf season comes here, we'll run a brush truck and a leaf vac together. It'll start at seven in the morning versus one in the afternoon and maybe not being able to finish a route. So I would be careful to say that we're gonna save that money. I just think it's cost neutral because it's gonna go into another core service. um that in recycling one of the ladies mentioned up here we've got some old trucks our recycling truck is a 2004 and i've actually had to put it on the hill and quit using it it needs a complete rear differential we're looking fifteen thousand dollars to fix it it's not worth fixing so we're having to use one of the other trash trucks a rear loader to pick recycling up when i don't have one of those in the shops i'm running three trucks right now i've got another one in the shop in greenville we only have two trucks to run so it's difficult to run recycle as well and a trash route and get it done all in one day we just have some factors that play against us on it and uh going to the side loader option would put us two personnel for a training period, and we can potentially go to one person operating that vehicle. Whereas our current setup, we got three guys involved with every route.

Does Anderson County actually, when we put things in the 600 Queen Street, does, because when I was there watching them, they kind of just ended up dumping everything into the same truck. Do they actively recycle? Because Are they just going to landfill?

I don't want to speak for them, but I can tell you this. Everything that's marked out there that says this is mixed paper and this is cardboard and this is a flat box, there's one truck that comes out there and dumps it all in one truck.

That's what I saw, too. So that was not unusual that they just did it that way.

It is all recyclable stuff that's supposed to go in there, but if anybody comes there on Monday morning... you can see it gets turned into a dump on the weekends. We get mattresses, we get furniture, TVs, oil cans, paint cans, and the county picks it all up. I mean, they can't leave it.

So we don't know for sure that anything that goes into Anderson County, if they're actively trying to resell plastics or paper or cardboard.

I can't say for sure. I do know, I believe there's a third party out of Greenville Spartanburg area that gets that stuff. They make the money. I don't think Anderson County makes any money on either.

Um, I'll have to call them. I think the recycling Anderson County guys, his name, Greg, I know he has a family too. Um, so talk to him a lot. They come five days a week and if they don't, maybe he gets a call from me.

Um, yeah, he really is.

He really is. Um, okay. I, um, I think I mean in our house we've just completely had to change the way we recycle we have you know cardboard boxes with you know paper glass cardboard and then we take them over to the recycling center about every other week but I also think it's important for our residents to note that recycling is not the only way to be sustainable you know you could be sustainable by you know watching your water consumption. You can be sustainable by not utilizing your washers and dryers and dishwashers during peak times. You can be sustainable by turning your air conditioning up when you're not in the house. So I think as a society, we have this idea that I have to recycle in order to be sustainable. And I think that's just one small part of sustainability. I'm going to ask you one last question. If we were to invest, not in this year's budget, because this year's budget's been done, but let's say next year's budget, there was a proposal for a new truck just for recycling. In your opinion, would it be worth it?

Me personally, seeing how the operations work, I don't think it would be. But I'd also have to ask you, what kind of truck are you looking at getting, too, though? Oh, Jay, I mean, I need a wall. I know. All right. Well, you're looking at a minimum of probably a $400,000 investment just on the truck alone. They just get more and more expensive every year.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Anything else for Jay? All right. The administrator's report. Amber, you're up.

And let's talk about a little pressure. I mean, I really have to do this. Even the audience here. So I'm going to stay on script and I will not tell David goodbye. So I'm just going to basically give you the basics. You know, we rent the depot building. We rented it six times this month, four times last month or two times last month. Barrett's Place, we still rent. We were down one of those rentals this past month. Business license revenue has increased right at $6,000 this month, but that's pretty much normal as they come in. Motor vehicle taxes, we're looking at less than right at $7,000 last month, but again, that's just how they're paid and sent to us from the county. In-house transactions this month, we were down 142 from last month, and the amount was about almost $360,000 difference. Our online transactions from July to August were down about three, actually, just three. And our online transactions amount were up almost $10,000. Open forms and our new website transactions were up plus two from June to August. And our website brought in about $7,500 in revenue through that site. So staff processed 527 in-house transactions that totaled a little over a million dollars. That includes the City of Clemson and Anderson County share of the wastewater treatment plant upgrade. Staff also processed about 1,300 online transactions that totaled almost 150,000. It's not much change from July, but if we compared it to August of 2025, it looks like our online transactions have increased from last year, which is what we want, of course. During the month of August, the town received and completed 12 Freedom of Information Act requests. At month end, five additional requests remain in the queue for completion. And we actually continue to get those daily through our website. And we are actually up to number 76 on our open forms for those since we started open forms. And we'd have to go back and look at that date. Staff completed the walkthrough for the final punch list at the wastewater treatment plant. As Jay and I were walking through that, I'm not going to lie, we kind of wish Steve was with us. We looked at Derek and Dusty from Clemson and Anderson and we're like, we're here representing Pendleton, help us know what we need to know.

So they actually did a good job walking us through the plant along with the engineers.

It's definitely an interesting process. I encourage anyone that flushes a toilet to go figure out how to watch that process. We also met with the representatives to discuss possible utility service on Porter Road. That's another partnership that we're gonna have to look into with our neighboring municipalities. And council actually authorized staff to do that in December of 2025. We still work to continue on the oil mill small area plan. We're working with council now to find the path forward to reengage the public so that it can then go forward through the proper process. Our wonderful decoration committee was trying to put clear lights over Exchange Street, and we really, really want clear lights over Exchange Street. However, that's not going to be that simple. So it's gonna cost about $14,000 just for the engineering study for that project. That's not even including the project. We may be upwards into the six digits for that project. So it may be on hold from the decoration committee. I think we're still waiting to see if they wanna put some of their funds toward that or not. But one day we will have clear lights over one of our streets in town. The mayor's beautification committee met in August and they agreed to allocate funding within right at up to $25,000 for a beautification plan for Highway 76. That area needs a little bit of work if you can't tell by driving it. And so maybe by this plan, we can work towards beautifying that area. Lindsay Whatley, our community engagement manager, submitted the town's application for Anderson County accommodations tax funding.

That's probably one of the first times we've applied for accommodations tax through the county.

We've applied for other, but not accommodations. And hopefully if we're awarded that, she's going to use that to promote the upcoming fall festival and scarecrows. Casual conversations were held this month on the 13th. And then we have our final casual conversations with the mayor and councilman Jeff Vandrie on November 12th at the new high school. Council member Merchant mentioned the culture and identity project. We are working on that to move forward. Lindsay is gathering feedback from council so that that feedback can be included in all the public information that we receive so that we can try to find the overall goal of all the feedback that we have gotten. And then we held a PRA meeting on August 12th, as Councilman Bandry mentioned. And that's just part of working through with them on providing rec sports for the town. And you've got your agreement tonight on that item. And that's basically as of right now, they are performing a service to the town on town property. So we need to give them permission to do so. And you'll have that on the agenda tonight. We met on the gap analysis that council has approved in the agenda and we're waiting on the proposal back from the firm on that. Staff also completed CPR and first aid training and hopefully no one ever has to use that. And I may have had an employee in this room that said they would never perform it. So hopefully you're never around if Jay is with you and you need CPR. We also completed our annual general insurance renewal. And if you don't know, that can be a nightmare. I've started turning that over to Angeline. It's been fun watching her do that. But our general insurance averages about $208,000 a year. So she has to reconcile all that amongst all departments.

So that's fun.

So you've got the water and sewer numbers. I won't bore y'all. I know we need to get to action items. So if you have any questions, let me know.

Thank you, Amber. That was great.

Thanks.

All right. Moving on, I guess, 6A, discussion regarding the town's intent to gather information on the potential elimination of commercial bull container and curbside recycling services and to provide direction to the staff on a path forward. I will open it up for discussion. All right, well, I have a lot to say. So per our last council meeting, we, you know, directed staff to kind of figure out how those that utilize these services would be impacted. And so a survey was sent out. And they're currently 31 people in town or 31. There's 31 accounts in town that utilize commercial bulk containers. And, um, they were all sent a survey and of those 31, um, customers only nine responded to, uh, to the survey. And so I don't know how, um, I wish more people would have responded, but essentially what I got from the survey is that we need to work towards a path to eliminate these services if they're going to be eliminated and provide the customers that are impacted with an alternative of where they need to go to seek these services as I believe only two indicated that they would transition to roller carts. So that's what I got from from the survey anybody else can you the the nine that it didn't say what they were where they're located can we know that do we have any information on like the where the nine were located that took the survey or was it anonymous no it was not an honest and i can't actually tell you that um you're probably gonna have to give me a few minutes

While we're looking, is there any other kind of conversation surrounding this issue?

I just think that if you have a business that needs this type of service, then that's on you. We should not go above what is provided for everyday citizens and businesses. Because all businesses do not require having a container. And usually the ones that do are your restaurants and things. you know not not trying to be anti-business but i i do like to see everyone treated equally in this and i just feel that if we are paying for it or they painted us so it's a service that the that they pay us so this we we contract with them to do it and our costs are a little bit above what the commercial costs are but it looks to me like an educational my impression of it was that

we need to convene a meeting or maybe we need a door knock because it's only 31. And they seem like a lot of them are unaware of what private services they could use or contract with. I just wasn't sure. I was surprised at how many people did not know that there were private dumpster services.

but then there was one, there was like two people that were like, I feel a hundred percent confident that I'll be able to get their service on my own. And so I, I feel like if we were just to provide these, you know, 31 customers with high, we're discontinuing the service effective, you know, the new year, here's a list of your options. You have, you know, you have four months to figure out what you would like to do.

And I mean, I, I, You know, everybody can use Google for everything. Let them Google it for their business. They have no problem Googling up everything to batch people. Put it on Facebook like they do everything else.

Could we possibly approach PABA and ask them if they would be willing to do a combined contract?

See, I think that's what they need to do, Nancy. It's fine to do a combined contract, just have one contract.

Do I need to make a motion for staff to work towards a transition plan?

So, yes, we have a transition plan. But your motion would be to allow staff to move forward and then do the ordinance that would eliminate those services.

Can I just be clear? We're going to eliminate all of the residential recycling and all of the commercial dumpster pickup. and all cardboard for businesses? Is that we're eliminating those three services? Is that what the plan is?

That is what y'all are deciding to direct staff on how to move forward with amending the current ordinances.

And just to clarify, if a resident puts a whole TV box out by their trash can, that will get picked up or that will not?

If it is not in their trash can, it will not get picked up because the side layer will not be able to empty it.

Everything has to go into the container. That's right.

It's a big change.

Jay, don't y'all go around and pick up large items?

With a bulk truck, a knuckle boom, like couches, dishwashers, we have a bulk knuckle boom truck that will go out and pick that stuff up.

Right. But now, let's just say that somebody's living in and they have large boxes of furniture and stuff like this. They can call and have that.

We do excessive or in abundance. It's on the fee schedule. So if you have an excess of stuff that needs to be picked up, We will do it, but it's typically a $200 fee for it per load. But we're talking about a 15 cubic yard.

It's a big load. Well, I guess I need to go get me a 350 and start making some money.

That's what you charge. I'll do it for 10. So was it last meeting? Does Clemson do a cardboard pickup every other week? They do? Jay, what would that look like on your staff if that was? They have a different type of truck.

They can still do that operation with one name.

Okay, so describe it from a Pendleton perspective.

The trucks we have, the dumpsters are actually, you back up and they hook up to the back to a tool. For lack of a better term, you've got two little hooks on the back that the dumpster locks into. You put a winch on it and it winches that dumpster up so you have a guy on either side and then the driver is actually operating keeping the truck at a high level so you got three different kinds and it winches that that dumpster up clemson is set up to where they go straight at the forks are in the front of the truck it'll grab the dumpster just like the recycling center pick it up over the truck and dump it set it back down if we had trucks like that it probably would be a good point but you're looking every dumpster in town would have to be replaced and a four yard dumpster probably $2,500 and a six yard about $3,200 the ones that we get so I don't know these with the side sleeves if they would cost more or less but that's a general idea of what it would cost to replace dumpsters for that type of service

I have an agenda item question. So this is a discussion item. Does it need to be an action item for us to make a motion on it? Or can you move on a discussion item?

So we do have it worded so that you can direct us on how to move forward with it. Because as of right now, everything is set up to eliminate these services beginning January 1st. So in order to do that, we have to have a lot of time to be able to pass the proper ordinances and educate the public once we have the final decision.

So this is to move forward with that and there'll be continued citizen input as we go? Correct, yes, ma'am. I move we go forward with?

A transition plan. to eliminate services or just a transition plan?

The transition plan includes the bulk container, curbside recycling, and residential cardboard and business cardboard. All right. All cardboard. All cardboard.

All right. So your motion is to work towards a transition plan to direct staff to work towards a transition plan. Barbara seconds. All in favor?

All right.

Motion carries unanimously. Okay. 7A is the consideration of a special event application, the Neighborhood Alliance Gathering and Picnic. Nancy, would you mind just telling us a little bit about this?

So this is a Neighborhood Alliance, which is the group on... Basically it's west of Mechanic Street. It's just a neighborhood alliance and we gather every, the neighborhood gathers every year and has a picnic just to get to know each other again and to have free hot dogs and bring your own chair and visit a bit. We are not, in the previous years when Vince was in this chair, they would close the road above Keys Barn the old keys barn. We're not going to do that. We're going to meet at the hundreds this year. So we don't need to close the road. We're just going to meet in the field, the part of heritage, the hundreds. So it's from two to five, please come, bring a chair, eat a hot dog and have some great sides. Everybody's making some great side food. It's going to be awesome.

Okay, further discussion. Do I have a motion?

Motion approved.

Second. Second, Barbara, all in favor?

Motion carries.

Item 7B is the consideration of proclamation recognizing September 17th through 23rd, 2026 as constitution week. This was a request that came from the state. Any discussion?

Second.

All in favor? Motion carries unanimously. Item seven C is the consideration of a resolution recognizing the service of interim police chief David Paulson and authorizing the presentation of his badges and service weapon and appreciation for his service to the town of Pendleton. Over the last six years, David, as he is known as effective about an hour ago, David has served our community as a police officer, as the town planner, and as interim police chief. He has been, I don't even know, you are what it means to be community and so community centered. And we're just so grateful for your service. And any other comments from council are welcome. And then we'll present you with your firearm and your badges. Yes.

Thank you, David. I've worked with you in a lot of capacities. You know I'll be calling you. I won't be calling you every time the fire truck goes off anymore. Thank you. I'm not going to thank you.

I feel like if I don't thank you, you'll do a terrible job. And then you'll have to come back. all right let's do this amber said i couldn't open the case

Thank you all. He's got something else.

Did you want to get in there?

Okay, one more answer. One more. That is true.

You told me what to do. I did tear her nerves up just a little bit.

Did you put the timer on?

One more. Hold on.

Family pictures with someone that doesn't know how to operate the camera. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. You're very much going to be missed. All right. Item 7D. I might have missed the first and the second on that.

Here's my screen out. So if we could just do a first and a second and call the motion, that would be great.

Okay. A motion of consideration. It's probably because I just jumped the gun. And anyway, sorry. Okay. 7C is a consideration of a resolution recognizing the service of interim police chief David Paulson and authorizing the presentation of his badges and service weapon and appreciation of his service to the town of Pendleton. Do I have a motion?

Motion to accept.

Barbara, do I have a second? Second, Nancy, all in favor? Motion carries unanimously. So thank you. 7D is the consideration of a resolution approving a recreational service agreement between the town of Pendleton and the Pendleton Recreation Association and authorizing its execution. So essentially as Amber stated, The PRA is currently operating on, you know, at Veterans Park, which the town owns, they don't have any sort of agreement. This would give them that agreement. Do I have any discussion? Barbara, all in favor? Motion carries unanimously. Item 7E is the consideration of a resolution of the town council of the town of Pendleton, South Carolina, directing the mayor to request formal guidance from the town of Pendleton state legislative delegation regarding state appropriations received by the town.

So I'm gonna read this.

Whereas the town of Pendleton received state appropriations in the amount of $250,000 during fiscal year 2019-2020 through the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, which with the stated purpose of construction of a new building. And whereas the town received an additional $250,000 of state appropriation during fiscal year 2021-2022 with the town of Pendleton identified as the recipient And whereas the town has previously considered the use of these funds in connection with the development of a new fire station and has evaluated potential locations and funding options for such a project. And whereas no final location funding or financing plan or construction project utilizing these state appropriations has been adopted by town council. And whereas Pendleton Fire Department LLC, private nonprofit corporation separate from the town of Pendleton has requested the town of Pendleton transfer the state funds together with the funds associated with the appropriations to the corporation. And whereas town council desires to ensure that state appropriations are administered and expended in accordance with the intent of the South Carolina General Assembly, applicable state law and the public purpose for which the funds were appropriated. And whereas town council believes it is appropriate to seek clarification and direction from the members of the South Carolina House of Representatives, Senators and the South Carolina Senate who comprise the state legislative delegation representing the town of Pendleton regarding the intent, authorized purpose and appropriate disposition of the state appropriations. Do I have any discussion?

So I want to begin by saying that on August 4th, so

The matter at hand began seven years ago in 2019. I want to say I did not live here in 2019. And I really want to just tell the fire department that I do not know what all you have gone through in the last seven years. I don't. I didn't live here. But what I do know is that when I was elected, I looked Chief Brock in the eye and I told you I was going to help you get a new fire department. And I keep my word. And so in 2019, essentially the state gave the town of Pendleton a grant. And that grant was through the South Carolina Department of Public Safety. Then in 2021, the town received, and I should also say the grant from 2019 was for the town of Pendleton to build a fire station for the Pendleton Fire Department. That's what it said. Then in 2021, the town received an earmark for $250,000. If you look at what that earmark says, the earmark says town of Pendleton. So what we are asking, because regardless of the intent, and I will say, I know the intent was to build a fire station. That's never been a question of that money is going to be used to build a fire station. The question is, can this body hand over a check for over half a million dollars to a nonprofit without them telling us that we can do so. Because right now, the way that it is written, we cannot. I have tried. I really have. And our attorney is like, Sarah, you cannot legally do this. We require two signatures on every check. Amber and I, we don't want to go to jail for doing something that we literally cannot legally do. The letter the fire department sent was on August 14th, 2026. That's what, two weeks ago. And immediately after we received that letter from the Pendleton's fire department's attorney, we have been trying to figure out how we can get this money to where it was intended, to whom it was intended and what we can do with the money. So this resolution would allow council to reach out to our delegation for clarification and hopefully of what we can do. And I also want to say that this basically, so I'm going to go through the process of what's going to happen if council does approve this. TOWN COUNCIL WILL DIRECT THE MAYOR ON BEHALF OF THE TOWN OF PENDLETON TO SUBMIT A FORMALLY WRITTEN REQUEST TO THE TOWN OF PENDLETON STATE LEGISLATIVE DELEGATION, INCLUDING THE MEMBERS OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE REPRESENTING THE TOWN, SEEKING CLARIFICATION AND DIRECTION RECORDING THE TWO STATE APPROPRIATIONS RECEIVED BY THE TOWN OF PENDLETON IN THE AMOUNT OF $250,000 EACH. section two the mayor shall request guidance regarding the original legislative intent and authorized purpose of the appropriations and the appropriate disposition and permissible use of the funds including whether the funds may or should be transferred to the pendleton fire department inc retained by the town of pendleton for an eligible public purpose redirected through appropriation state actions or otherwise handled in accordance with the intent of the state of south carolina's general assembly section 3 the mayor is authorized to provide the state legislative delegation with such documentation and background information as may necessarily be and be necessary to explain the history of the appropriations the town's prior efforts concerning a potential fire station project and the request made by the pendleton fire department section 4 upon receipt of guidance or direction from the state legislation delegation the mayor shall provide the information to the town council for consideration if or and um any further action deemed appropriate so any further discussion how much does it cost to build a fire station over three million the cheapest bid and that's wasn't for a full fire station was five i mean yeah not even for a fire station we weren't even looking for a full

for a substation and that wasn't for a full fiber station, that was like three and a half million.

So I met with the Anderson County Fire Commissioner this week, Tommy Keaton, and he was very nice. And it was a really insightful conversation and I'm very grateful to his time. And I wanna say that our Pendleton Fire Department has gone through everything that it has needed according to the state, sorry, the Anderson County Fire Commission for this substation. They have submitted all their plans. They have submitted the location. It has been approved. And the fire commissioner has assured me that whenever they will fill out all of their permits to get this done, that they have to like check like fire station. And then all of that, you know, how, I guess like how it is, what am I trying to say? The building requirements, Those will all be followed up on, but I talked to the fire commissioner and it was really insightful. I learned so much about our fire department and I am so grateful for our fire department. And I want to say this council is so grateful for this fire department. I would like to get the opinion of the delegation and if they would allow us to sign over this money to our nonprofit fire department, I would bring it back to this body and I would like to do that.

I'm not being difficult, I'm just trying to understand. I mean, that was a great bunch of words, but so a nonprofit LLC is going to take $600,000 and build a building that normally costs $5 million And the Anderson County fire commissioner is going to approve that building and it's going to pass all of our zoning and

So what we're asking in this resolution is just for direction from the state delegation, which our state delegation, I have talked to members of our delegation, but not our delegation. Yeah, I've talked to Blake Sanders. Blake Sanders is not our representative. I... all this is doing is asking the state legislature, our delegation, hey, we received this money. This is what it says. We don't know what to do because legally the way it's written, we cannot just write that check. So tell us delegation what you would like us to do. And if the delegation says, this was the intent of the money, you can absolutely sign it over to a nonprofit. And you, Town of Pendleton, have no, what am I trying to say? You're avoided of all liability. That's what we're doing here.

I still, the only thing I would add to this, if the delegation feels, says that we can't turn it over, then they need to give guidelines as to how the money can be spent. No matter how you look at

And they did do that on December 10th in a delegation meeting. And those meeting minutes say that they can use this money towards a substation. What those meeting minutes did not say, or at least I did not read it was, hey, town of Pendleton, give the volunteer fire department a check to do this. So the delegation has given permission for this substation. The volunteer fire department has done its due diligence. This has been approved by all of the, all of, you know, all of, I guess, their, what am I trying to say? It's been approved by the Anderson County Fire Commission. And they are asking, they have asked us, like I said, on August 14th, if we would release the funds so they can build the substation, which the delegation has allowed them to do.

So we got a new mayor, we got a new state delegation since this was written. So we need to get clarification.

I think that, yes. And that's a part of the problem is I believe there is only like, well, maybe the Senate hasn't changed, but our house representatives have changed. This council has changed and we have looked, we have pulled over every document that I can. I mean, And it does. And, you know, and we've, know we're and we have um you know i would like to put this all out to the public through a press release just so members of our community can see that when it says earm with the earmark literally says 250 000 town of pendleton that's all we can find and so um yeah and like i also you know i i've been trying to be really you know just thinking about my you know what i would do in this situation and I'm unsure why this fire department hasn't already been built. I think seven years is way too long. That's neither here or there. I can't change the past, but I can change what happens from now on. And I'm asking for a motion here.

Once again, motion to accept. Oh, thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor? Okay, three. Okay, so I want to make sure I saw it. Okay, so Jeff, myself and Barbara approve Lynn and Nancy oppose that. Okay.

All right, moving, moving forward.

A lot of Okay. 7F is the consideration of first reading of an ordinance to amend section 24 of the town of Pendleton fiscal year 26-27 budget ordinance to remove the postponement of the hiring for budgeted positions and to authorize the mayor to proceed with the hiring process. So essentially we We don't have a town administrator. We don't have a town planner. And we originally thought that at least the administrator position would be filled right now. But also during the last budgeting, we approved a gaps analysis, which would address kind of like the needs, um, in terms of hiring in, of our staff. Um, but I ha you know, after I feel like that was in June and it's now September, um, our staff's getting burned out. We need, we need help. We need to hire people. Um, I, uh, I called Jay and I asked him if he would mow veterans park twice a week. And he literally said, Sarah, we cannot do that. Like we, um, we need help and so we have several of these positions that are budgeted for and this resolution would allow um would allow us to start hiring for them and specifically the specific I think need or immediate need is for Jay to get people to to help him with Public Works and field maintenance and all these other things did I misspeak Jay okay

I move we go ahead and start hiring people. Do I have a second?

Second, Barbara.

All in favor?

Motion carries. Okay. Item 7G is the consideration of first reading of an ordinance amending ordinance number 24-16 to approve and authorize amendment number one to the real property lease agreement between the town of Pendleton, South Carolina and Medshore Ambulance Services for a proportion of the property commonly known as the Rescue Squad Building located at 111 South Depot Street, Pendleton, South Carolina, and other matters related to. So essentially this would just extend their lease through 2027. Do I have a motion? Do I have a second? Second. Jeff, all in favor? Motion carries. Oh, yeah, okay. Lindsay, upcoming opportunities to connect.

And I think Steve left because I didn't want to make one announcement about trash service.

We are closed on Monday, so trash pickup for Monday will be picked up on Tuesday.

So I just want to make that announcement as well while I'm speaking. So Monday, trash will be picked up Tuesday. The quarterly conversations we already mentioned in the meeting, but that is the 12th at the high school. Our scarecrow registrations are still open until September 25th. We've only had 10 entries. So we are slow to ramp up this season. It'll be a very sad square if we do not get more scarecrows in. So you'll be seeing me push that. Remember, residents can make scarecrows and put them up. So if you want to make a scarecrow, we would love for you to do that or get your neighborhood to do it or your block or whatever. you want to participate, so we need some more scarecrows. It is a patriotic thing this year. And the next slide talks about the Fall Day of Service, if you would like to sign up. They're also gathering information about walking trails, biking in Pendleton, so your feedback is appreciated there. And then we have the Pendleton Historic Foundation is doing ghost tours. at Woodburn and Ashtabula. So all that information will be on the website. You'll also be getting a trash can flyer soon that will have all this information. I know y'all love those to hang those up. So we'll have lots of information on that. And Read and Rise is coming up September 26th. They give out free books to the community and have guest speakers. And the Gypsy Sallys are playing. So it'll be a great event at the community center September 26th.

So could you ask that when they give ghost tours they give them somewhere besides the plantation because if you got to say play cash and i don't know i will give them your feedback thank you

Nancy, was Pendleton Pride in Motion, was your day of service on there? Yes. And then was the Pendleton area advocates for intellectual freedom? Yes, Read and Write.

Read and Write did not send me their graphic.

Okay.

I think their thing was the same day as the 26th is the PRA super day, the day of service and the read rise. So that's a day to stay in town.

Yes. And if the PRA will send it over again, I can put it on the website. I haven't received information about it. The PRA. Oh yeah, it was.

Yes, ma'am. And we're pairing read rise with the day of service. So people that work in the morning picking up litter, then we're going to, Have lunch at the station and then send people over to the Community Center for the redress.

One of the things that I found and this has nothing to do with the town per se, but I went to the library for me and they have a activity book for all of Anderson County. Y'all with a lot of good programming that is happening free programming at the library, especially for kids. And, you know, mom and dad's families have interacted, so I'm going to implore all of you, because they have something for all ages, to go by the library and get their monthly activities book. And it's not only just for filming, it lists all the Anderson libraries. And sometimes they're duplicates, so if you miss them filming, you can get it in Anderson. If you miss the thing, you can get it in Belton. But I'm not a big proponent of the library.

And for any of the nonprofits you do want to get information onto our calendar, we have a request on the website under How Do I, and these organizations send me those flyers using that form, and that's how they end up in the folders and on our calendar is that they provide that information for me. So I just wanted to put that out there. If anybody wants to put an event out that are one of those approved nonprofits on our social media plan, then I'll be happy to do that if they use it.

Thank you, Lindsay. We're very grateful. We have a really busy month. I'm excited.

It's Sunday the 6th of October. Oh, you're talking about her parade, not my Christmas parade.

I'm not that far ahead. When is the parade? It's a Sunday of October. Yes, October 4th.

Yeah, and I do know that Anderson County is really hoping for participation and they're hoping people go. So that's been a topic of conversation as I talk to people around the county.

All right, number nine. One more question.

Fall festival. October 10th. And there is two youth scarecrow build days at the library. I'm working with Dan on October 1st and October 3rd. So they're youth events where they can build their own scarecrow. We presented them last year at the stage. So we are doing that again. It'll be on the trash can flyer. Chris Kindle Market's on there. Christmas Parade, Tree Lighting, some stuff from the theater, as well as Century Friendly Santa is on there and Shop with the Cops.

So you're going to get a lot of... And Kun Kun Parade.

That is the October, the Wednesday before Fall Festival. October 7th, is that correct? You know me and Dave, Amber. Is that the Wednesday before Fall Festival? What is that? Hold on.

Homecoming.

I think it's October 7th. So that's Peloton Week.

That's Peloton Week. So the parade is October 3rd to the 4th?

October 7th is the Homecoming Parade.

And the 4th was the Anderson County Parade?

That's correct. And then the 10th is Fall Festival, so buckle up.

Bring it to the police. Yes, I'm glad that we reopened hiring. Okay, nine, consideration. I have a lot to read, so bear with me here. Consideration of executive session to recall, to recall. to receive legal advice where the legal advice relates to a pending, threatened, or potential claim, or other legal matters covered by attorney-client privilege, settlement of legal claims, or the position of the public agency in other advocacy situations involving the assertion against the advocacy of a claim. SD code of law, sections 30-4-78-2, civil action number 2026-CP-04-00160. Do I have a motion? Nancy, do I have a second? Second, Barbara, all in favor? All right, we're going to enter executive session.

All your chemicals.

Do I have a motion to come out of executive session? Just a reminder, no votes or actions were taken in executive session. Barbara, second. Second. Nancy, all in favor? We are out of executive session. Do I have a motion to conclude tonight's meeting?

Motion to adjourn. Second.

All in favor? Meeting adjourned. Thank you all.

Have a happy Memorial Day. What's this one here?