City Council - Special Meeting

to have a short prayer, and you're welcome to join us if you'd like. This morning I'm gonna lead us in prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for this day that you blessed us with yet again, a day to come together to do the work that you have planned for us here in our community, a day to come together to recognize how much more that we have in common than we have that separates us as a people. Dear Lord, we come to you today as we do every day here in Rock Hill, not out of our righteousness, but because of your abundant mercy. We're thankful for the love that you've shared with us and you continue to guide us with. In your name we pray. Amen. I call this meeting to order. Please join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, Okay we'll move on in our agenda item 3a is to consider planning commission recommendations. Consider a recommendation by the planning commission on petition M-2026-06 by Bolton and Mink to rezone approximately 50 acres at 3286 Palmetto Parkway from industry general IG to master plan business industrial park MPBIP tax parcel 664021 or a portion thereof. Dennis Fields.

Good morning, everybody. This is a rezoning request for the parcel that is just on the west side of Interstate 77, close to the intersection here at Palmetto Parkway. This is the area of the portion of the site that they would be potentially purchasing here that is hashed and says proposed site. It's at the very corner of Palmetto Parkway and the Interstate 77. The property currently is zoned Industry General, which is IG. That is the entirety of the parcel. It's in blue. Areas around that are not colored are in York County's jurisdiction and a variety of different zoning districts, mainly industrial, though, along Mount Gallant to the south and across the interstate. This is the site plan that is part of the applicant's presentation. They would have a couple of different roadways that enter into the site from the Palmetto Parkway to the north. They have about 50 acres total for their site and they have about just under two million square feet of floor area potential on this site. They would employ about 1500 people and they are a 24 hour a day operation. Again, to the north is Pemido Parkway. They have an existing traffic signal there that goes into what we're labeling Private Street B. That's a main entrance into their site for employees that would go to an office and parking deck, which we'll talk about in a moment, and then a Private Street A just to the west of that that currently has the mast arms up. It does not currently have signals to it. That also has a roadway area that would lead up to Eden Terrace at that location as well. They have two development areas at their site. One is development area A and one is development area B. Those are called out in the terms and conditions document. It really defines what uses can go in those two areas. In the northern portion of the site, you're going to see more of the office, the parking, and then some limited areas for manufacturing and warehousing, but the main and bulk of that type of activity would be in the development area B. And so this is kind of a summarized table of what's in your terms and conditions document that would kind of say what uses would be allowed in each of those different areas. So you have development area A and both of those areas would allow for business professional offices and research development like labs and quality control areas. Both areas would allow for those types of uses and as you get to the south, in that purple area from the last slide is where we have the main manufacturing component of it, which would not be allowed in that area A component that's up by Pell Meadow Parkway, but it would be conditional based on the conditions to the right for the area in the purple area in the bottom development area B. In both areas, a wholesale warehouse would be allowed, but there is a limitation of 75,000 square feet that would be allowed in the upper portion, which is development area A. So this is that development area A closer to Palmetto Parkway that's at the top of the screen. So as they're showing it right now, they would have an office admin building that would have some laboratory research type of things in there. And then they would have a parking structure directly at the corner of Interstate 77 and Private Street B. And then the future development parcel could be a kind of warehouse type of area. And that would be again limited to 75,000 square feet. But we're calling it future development because it could be more offices or something else there as well. Then kind of going down to development area B, this is where they're kind of manufacturing production area of their facility would be. They have a lot of areas that are labeled as future development. We'll talk about that in their facing plan in just a moment. But just wanted to point this is more of their production side of things. They do have an area to the very south that would have some of their utilities, some materials, and then what they have distillation column which is I think they use that and they can correct me if I'm wrong as far as sanitizing some equipment and things like that it uses heat to do that and so they have a column there that would use basically just to emit heat out of it. But we did have some things in the terms of conditions specifically about that column they have to have at least 600 feet away from I-77 and at least 150 feet away from the side perimeter property lines there. This is the phasing plan that they're expecting to do. The first phase would obviously be putting in the infrastructure and roadways. That's phase one. The phase two would be building that office building, which also could have more than office. It'd be research and laboratories, that kind of thing. Then phase three of the site would be their production warehouse. Then they have a lot of areas that are labeled as future after that. They would have a parking deck at some point, which is phase four. Then all of the areas that are blue are up in the air as far as what their needs are moving forward. This is an area or a slide out of their presentation that would show how they would kind of try and meet the landscaping and environmental impacts. They do have a tree save area up at the kind of northeast corner closest to the interchange where they had to have a little bit of a stream. So they have a repairing buffer, they have to save some trees around there. They do have a 50-foot buffer surrounding the entire site. Some of those areas can be shared with both the adjacent sites and with trees that are left over in SEDOT right of way. We are allowing them to grade into some of those because they do have a need to flatten out a majority of that site, but those would be replanted back based on our code requirements. Here's some images of what the lab offices could look like, the manufacturing areas, and then also the parking structure. Again, these are conceptual renderings, but it's intended to show the quality that they're going to be building here. Then they're going to have some other amenity type of areas surrounding the site, both internal to their buildings, but external or these photos showing some of the areas where employees may be able to go out and exercise or have lunch and that kind of thing throughout the site, but it would be privately maintained, everything from the roads to the amenity areas, et cetera. They are asking for some additional signage which we think you know this is an appropriate thing to do along the interstate for a unique use so that we have some increases in both the interstate freestanding and wall signage and then we have some additional flexibility should they kind of show this on renderings and bring this through the major site plan stage to the Planning Commission to approve alternative sign designs just because they're not sure exactly what that would look like but we want to make sure that it looks appropriate from the roadway. That would not include like wayfinding signage, directional signs, that kind of thing. We did have a Planning Commission public hearing earlier this month. There were no public comments. Planning Commission had general discussion on their operations and things with the applicant. We have an updated terms and conditions document that's redlined in your staff report. Happy to answer any questions about that. Staff and Planning Commission both recommend approval of the MPBIP zoning district.

Any questions for Dennis?

Yes, I got two quick questions on the signage. The monument sign, I guess I saw a freestanding monument sign. Is any of that, would that be solely OctaPharma or would that be spaces like we've seen other monument signs where they have the biggest part and there might be other Like for Novant, for instance, are we going to be having competing signs out there or do we, what do you? I think this would be just for OctoPharma.

We are working with Novant, I think, for some additional signage out there that would allow them to put something there, but that hasn't been given to me yet anyway. But the idea is that this would just be for OctoPharma themselves. Just kind of keep in mind, though.

Yeah, Palmetto Research Park is ours, and we'll have the signage as we go forward is how I understand it.

Yeah, and that's different. These are just for a specific user, right?

Fine. I just want to make sure we're planning that ahead so it doesn't look cluttered. They want it in the same spot and all that stuff. Just to make sure we're... Yes, sir.

This would be on their own private property that they would be purchasing, so anything else that we would do would be outside of that.

Great. Thank you. Second thing. Sure. It mentioned fencing. that I think is required to maybe defense some of those facilities?

It wouldn't be required from a code standpoint. They would like to do that for the security of their use and so we haven't really got into exactly where that's that fencing would be yet but they're working through specifically maybe where that would be so that may be something that they've thought of further. We have had discussions that when they get to that point we'd need to know about where those may be in relation to at least track coming into the site because we obviously don't want that backing out onto the public streets and the interchange there but we would have to review that as far as you know for safety concerns make sure people can turn around that kind of stuff wherever they have any type of gates or or entryways through that gated area but they do intend to fence the entire entirety of the site they can't be you know chain link fans and barbed wire and that kind of stuff it can be security fencing but it needs to be more decorative in nature and that would be I guess

something like at our water plant on cherry road exactly something like that i just want to make sure that it i mean this is a great site and they're buildings it's going to be you know the high court is going to be a beautiful building uh i just want to make sure you know you got novant beside it other things coming just i just want to make sure it's and i know it will be um you know think through the fencing type we've uh we put that in the terms and conditions so it cannot be that chain link with barbed wire it's got to have some uh wrought iron or or similar like aluminum that kind of thing yep

Any other questions for Dennis?

Mayor, I'd make a motion to accept the Planning Commission recommendation.

Second. We have a motion and a second. One question, Dennis. Two questions. The plans call for Langston Road to come through the site. Can you speak to that?

Yeah, I do have a slide for that. Let me bring that up here. So as part of the RFAT Street Collector Plan, there was an envisioned connection between Eden Terrace and Langston Street that would have clipped this site. There are alternative ways to do this. You don't have to have a straight path through there. So because they wanted to create this private street through their site, we had some extensive conversations about this with the applicant, there may be a way to achieve this in a different way. So you would come down if there is a roadway that connects up to Eden Terrace and there may be a way through the Novant site which we're working with them now on how that might lay out to get back to Eden Terrace even if there would not be utilizing any of the private streets through this development.

But we will have redundancy to get to the interstate one way or the other?

Yes. The intent is that Langston Street would connect up to Palmetto Parkway in some some way.

And Mount Gallant on the other end?

Yes. Right now as Palmetto Parkway does and then it would go Langston would go all the way to Mount Gallant. Right.

Okay. Good. And then we need to put on your list of things we need to redo Langston Street from Mount Gallant back to 21. Correct. Bypass. That needs to be.

That's one thing that, you know, Pennies for Progress, obviously, as you all know, has Mount Gallant widening listed as a approved project that they should be starting in the next few years, and then that intersection would be improved to some extent, and we're expecting them to, we're talking to them now about anticipating turn lanes there, so we're not putting in like a two-lane road to Langston, even if they don't put the turn lanes in right now, just so we don't have to come back and make changes later on.

Yes. And the other question, the parking deck facing I-77, everyone understands that that's not something we really like, so it really needs to look good. Is there a general understanding in that regard?

We have beat that one to death with it.

Okay. And everybody understands the expectations? Yes. Okay. Any other discussion? Questions? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Approved. We'll move on to item 4A, second reading and adoption of an ordinance to provide for the disposition by sale of property located on Palmetto Parkway, Rock Hill, South Carolina by the City of Rock Hill to Project Palmetto Rock. Mr. Dillingham.

Yes.

Who thought it was a good idea to let Paul be in charge of a computer?

I think, Mayor, and welcome, thank you, Mayor, members of council, I think the reason... doing this in case something goes wrong, you'll still have a lawyer to blame. That's why I'm up here. And just in case it's not said, I just want to make a point of personal observation. Projects like this don't come to our community without the leadership and direction of the mayor. and members of council and also our fine city manager, probably the best one in the state, if not beyond. But I just want to make a personal observation about our economic development director, Lisa Brown. I've never seen an economic development director work so hard and tirelessly It's time away from her family, weekends, holidays to bring this project to fruition. She's worked, I've never seen anyone work so hard. She's professional. She has a keen intellect, but she also has a charming personality. And I think that gets the job done in a situation like this. So I just wanted to make that observation. Well said. Members of Council, this first item, which is item 4A, is second reading and adoption for the actual purchase of the property. Staff has prepared a slide which outlines the key development points. I won't read those, but you can see those and we're all aware of them. We're all proud to have the project. The closing has not occurred, but the closing will occur pursuant to this purchase agreement. There's still a few things left to do, which we'll get through and get closing pretty soon. because the developer wants to get the project underway as soon as possible to begin these life-saving therapies and bring the economic development that is promised to our community. So I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the site or the contract itself.

just for the public's benefit this is second reading we've gone through this contract once before but we've been negotiating on this contract basically since august of last year thanks to our legal team as always and management we've gotten to a good place i think so we have the contract before us and certainly paul's here to answer any questions as of david v on and lisa brown but with that if there are any questions of paul now's the time

I make a motion to approve second reading and adoption. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Questions? Hearing and seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Approved. Item 4B, second reading and adoption of an ordinance to amend the zoning ordinance of the code of the City of Rock Hill by making certain changes to the official zoning map affecting approximately 50 acres located on Palmetto Parkway from Industry General IG to Master Plan Business Industrial Park MPBIP. Mr. Dillingham.

Yes, Mayor, members of council, of course, our planning director Leah Youngblood and Dennis Fields have worked also tirelessly to make this project come to fruition. These MP terms encapsulate the presentation that Dennis went over, so I won't say too much more about it. I would suggest that if this is approved, and we've also had a public hearing, If this is approved for second reading, I would suggest that the motion include the ability of the city manager with the assistance of the city attorney to make any tweaks or changes. We still have some easements to negotiate, some design elements and some covenants. I just want to make sure that those tweaks that just further what Dennis and Leah and Dennis have already presented to council will be effectuated in the final document.

Thank you, Paul. Any questions for Paul?

Let's go ahead and make a motion to approve second reading and adoption with the caveat that the city manager with the advice from the city attorney has the ability to tweak this as it relates to any planning or zoning issues.

we got a motion in a second let's make sure the record puts tweak in the in the document a good legal term for us yeah i agree any uh we have a motion second any discussion questions appearing and seeing not all in favor please say aye aye any opposed approved we'll move on to item 5a reconsideration of previous related approval and consideration of a restated and amended resolution providing conditional consent to the inclusion of certain project property, Project Palmetto Rock, in a joint county industrial and business park for a limited period of time, providing conditional consent to the provision of property tax incentives, including special source revenue credits for the property taxes or fees in lieu of taxes to be paid on behalf of Project Palmetto Rock, property located in a joint county industrial and business park, and other matters related thereto. Mr. Dillingham.

Yes, Mayor and members of council. I would suggest two motions to cover this item. One, to reconsider the previous a resolution which has already been adopted by council and then once assuming that is approved, then consideration of the amended and restated resolution. The amended and restated resolution is required by law as the state requires that for municipal park to be included in the city limits and that these terms and conditions be approved by city council. My understanding is that, you know, we've reached a compromise about how the taxes would be both reduced on the site by a combination of FLO and also SSRC credits. And then also for the split after that, that split is well known and I'm happy for Council to talk about that, but it's in the resolution and this just checks the box that that we're consenting to this arrangement with the Okta Farmer Group. I would also like to state that this also needs to be conditioned. There's a release that the city manager with help from the city attorney will have signed basically where the county and the city of Rock Hill agree that for this site we're agreeing to these terms and we're not going to be in any litigation about it.

So I think we'll take a resolution 5A1 to reconsider the previously passed consent resolution. Is that correct? Yes. Is there a motion?

So moved. Second.

All right. We have a motion, a second. Any further discussion on that? Questions? Hearing is seeing none. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Approved. 5A2. I don't know how that motion is going to be stated.

We just motion to approve the amended and restated consent resolution with the understanding we still have to do a legal release.

Okay. Is there a motion? As stated.

This is where we missed Jim Reno.

Yes.

Sorry.

No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. He was our resident attorney.

May I make a motion to reconsider? I guess we've already done that. So a motion to approve the restated and amended resolution. understanding there may be some legal release that needs to be made.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Okay, so now it's time for discussion. Anybody have anything they'd like to say? Mr. Black?

Yeah, just bear with me for a minute, but first, and I'm sure it might be a little redundant, Mayor, for some people that want to speak, but first I want to thank Octoparm. And I want to apologize to you as a company, you as an organization, you as a people, because what we experienced the last few weeks was completely unnecessary. I want to apologize to the state of South Carolina. And I just appreciate everybody hanging in there and letting us work through this.

You know, this was...

and very embarrassing situation, not only for York County and Okta Farma, but for really all of South Carolina. Any future development that might come here, let's watch it. And that's embarrassing, and I'm sorry for that. You know, unfortunately, this is really not new for my typical dealings and the mentality that we dealt with the county over the years. This project wasn't big enough that it brought attention to the public. We've had to deal with this kind of antics for quite a while, and so I want to thank the people of York County as well for standing up and making their voices heard. I think it made a huge impact, and I really appreciate that. um you know this project came to rock hill um we spent several years after this panther debacle repurposing the site, marketing, trying to figure out what to do with this site. And we started to go on this little biopharma medical thing, try to parlay off of the research park in the Winston area, Greensboro, Raleigh-Durham area. People kind of laughed at us. I think people thought that we were not going to pull that off, and here we are. So... This project came to Rock Hill. It didn't come through Commerce and it didn't come through the York County Economic Development. So I just want to make sure that's known that through our work and efforts from a lot of different organizations, a lot of different people that we brought this project here. This deal was worked out months in advance. And it was voted on in first reading based on what was negotiated and what was worked out. And for a couple members of county council to pull the stunt that they did during second and third reading is nothing more than a mob shakedown and extortion. You can't start a fire and then run to it and put it out and claim to be the hero. And that's what's happened. calling out on social media that tried to derail this project and then trying to act like they're the hero for doing it. Unfortunately, the state gave this ability to the county to negotiate these fellows. One thing I've learned through the process is that without consent, the county has been taking haircuts of 10% off the top. So there's been skimming, that's like a mob shakedown. Go around and skim 10% off people who have not agreed to do that. So keep in mind, they're touting, the county was touting how much they want to help the schools. That 10% came off the top. top of everything who pays the majority of those taxes the school so they're skimming from the schools at the same time they're talking about how they want to help them if you want to skim from the top skim from your own money so you know the county said they would give up their money they want to give up the money to serve the schools and that Rock Hill was made up of York County, so it should be Rock Hill that was supporting the Rock Hill schools. I don't know what the percentage is, I heard it, I don't remember it, somebody might can tell me, but there's a significant portion of students that go to Rock Hill schools that are not in the city limits, but yet they wanted Rock Hill taxpayers to subsidize all those people by giving up all the revenue. That's just not right. Speaking of schools and the school district, over the years they've had increasing budgets, but yet student count is shrinking. You have one school board member who's been touting on social media how they've cut the budget, got 70 million in reserves, and how they want to reduce taxes. Okay, you can't have it both ways. You can't beg for money and say how bad a shape you're in and tout for political and personal gain, political and personal gain that you need, that you've been doing all this good for the schools and the citizens of Rock Hill. It just doesn't work both ways. Other things that were brought up was the TIF and how bad the TIF has been on the schools and everybody else. There has been successful TIFs that's brought a lot of money into the school districts. But one big difference, TIFs and FLOs are very similar. They both are economic drivers to provide future benefit, future development. One big difference is the TIF was assigned in a negotiated agreement between all parties. This FLO was not negotiated nor signed or anything. Again, it was like extortion. So during those TIF agreements, the school district and the city negotiated for months and months and months, and there were some wins they got up, I mean the school resource officers were one, they got out of it. So there was a negotiated agreement that they signed to. So why do we do a TIF? Well, if you remember the University Center, it was burned out buildings. Okay, there's a lot of challenges with that. But you are not going to get a private developer to go in and tear that building down and redevelop it for the tax base. There's a lot of environmental things. The entity like RHEDC is the only one that can actually get a VCC, environmental cleanup contract. So it was very important for the city to bring that into the TIF. get that VCC done, clean up the contract, because that alleviates liability for anybody that wants to develop that property. The property then was developed. We do have to bond it out for the infrastructure. So the school didn't lose money. They received the same amount of money that they'd been getting for years. The difference is the increment in the taxes would go to pay the bonds off because we had to spur the development. It was not going to be developed. So they didn't lose that money. We didn't take that money from them. They never would have gotten it. I can promise you that burned-out factory would have never been developed. So it will be a windfall in 2039. So, you know, I'm just tired of the spin. I'm tired of the lies. The city has taken the high road for many years, through the Panther debacle, through defending lawsuits and winning lawsuits from the county and the city. And I'm just, we try not to fight this in public, but I need to have my say. Thank you.

Thank you.

I would like to speak.

Please.

I want to thank the City of Rock Hill staff who have worked so hard on this project, and I'm going to read my statement so I don't forget anything. The city has spent more than a year working on OctoPharma. We have hired consultants. We have invested staff time and taxpayer dollars. We have done the work required to recruit companies like OctoPharma to Rock Hill. Before the second reading at County Council, I was under the impression that the city and the county had reached an agreement on this deal. If I had any reason to believe that this agreement was in jeopardy, I would have been calling every county council member and doing everything I could to explain why OctoPharma is so important to Rock Hill. The carelessness that was exhibited by five and then four county council members through this completely avoidable debacle should make everyone question not only their integrity but their ability to hold public office. I also have a serious concern about the role an employee of Rock Hill Schools played in advocating for the city of Rock Hill to receive less from this agreement. I had a conversation with a school board member who said that employee had every right to talk to whoever he wanted to because he's a private citizen. I understand that agreement, and from a legal perspective, he's right. But as a business owner, I have a really hard time with that. Excuse me, I need to take a breath.

Take a sip of water.

If one of my employees went to a bank or an investor and advocated or negotiated on behalf of my company without my knowledge, that employee would be fired. And I think my seven-year-old daughter actually explains this pretty well. She can tie her own shoes, and when I try to help her, she says, mama, I got this. There are seven highly capable members of Rock Hill School Board, and if they needed money, we as citizens need to know that, and they have a responsibility to advocate on their own behalf. I also want to address the numbers that have been suggested. Our staff spent more than a year working through facts, figures, data, projections, and the details of this agreement, so when arbitrary numbers and percentages are introduced, it is laughable. If we are going to change an agreement that has been carefully negotiated, then I expect those changes to be based on facts, not vibes. Finally, I want to say this. I understand family feuds. I understand family trauma. I understand that people can hold onto hurt feelings for a very long time. But this has to stop. We have a major economic opportunity in front of us. We have city staff who worked incredibly hard. We have taxpayers who have invested in creating the conditions that make opportunities like this possible. If the County Council wants to take credit for deals that we bring to them, then roll up your sleeves and go to work. I respect the County Council, I respect all of you, and I respect the school board, but if you know me, I'm gonna call you out on your bad behavior, and in my opinion, that is what happened here. We all have jobs to do. Let's do them. Let's respect the work that has already been done. Let's respect the roles of the city, the county, and the school board, and let's focus on the people we were elected to serve. Thank you.

I would. Please.

For those of you that don't know me, my name is Ann Hardy. I've been on the City Council for just over a month. But I just wanted, for those that don't know me, I want to say that for 14 years I served as the York County Treasurer and Finance Director. And then I came to work for the City in 2005 and spent 20 years with the City of Rock Hill as the Chief Financial Officer. So I've been intimately involved in these fee-in-lieu-of deals for decades. more than 30 years, and I understand how they work. And I'm not gonna repeat anything, but I do wanna say that I agree with the comments that both of you have made. It's different for me to be up here in a position expressing my opinion, and this is my opinion, but when you elect people, you as citizens of Rock Hill, and keep in mind, sometimes I think our elected officials and the other governing bodies tend to forget that the people of Rock Hill also pay county taxes. We are part of York County. So everybody that lives here pays those taxes too as well as the school board taxes. But each of you elect us to represent you to provide certain services and we're three different entities which do three different things. So for a governing body to take or to propose that we take money that you elected those people to to provide Rock Hill School District for York County to come in and say, we don't think that the people that elected Rock Hill School Board really know what they're doing or that the school board knows what they're doing, so we're gonna change it all around. That's just poor representation, in my opinion. I just think that you as people go through a budget process, and I'm a finance person, but you go through a budget process, you have public hearings for all of these budgets, and you have an opportunity to stand there and tell the elected officials that you agree with the budgets that they are proposing or disagree with those. And then they elect those. pass those budgets and each of us have the ability to raise taxes or provide for revenues or fees and to provide the services that we're to provide. So for one organization to come in or entity to come in and change that is a disservice to the people they represent, in my opinion. And that's all I've got to say. Thank you. Kate, anything?

Yes, Mayor, I do have something. I want to first say thank you to our city management staff for all the hard work that you guys put into this. Unlike Anne, Sarah and I came on at the same time. So we pretty much pretty got into this in January when we heard all the news about Dr. Farmer coming. And thank you, Dr. Farmer, for choosing Raquel. We greatly appreciate that. My take on this is, it comes from several different angles. What I saw and what I interpreted was just a bunch of people just wanted to fight and have their shine and have their glory, but at the end of the day, ultimately forgetting about the people who we serve, forgetting about what this is going to mean to the city of Rock Hill. There were a lot of conversations that were had, and I think a lot of the conversations that was had after the fact should have been had prior to. But as Sarah said, there are a lot of egos at play, and we as elected officials, we should set our ego aside so that we can make sure that we're making the best decision for our citizens who we are here to serve, and secondly, to the city, and to the county, and for the school board. I just saw a cat fight that did not seem like it was going to come to an end. But then when I really sat and thought about it, I said, you know, sometimes things just have to happen in order for the good to come out of it. Things have to come into play so that you can get that all out. We wish that could have happened behind the scenes so that it wasn't in public display, but yet it was. In my household, I was raised in a household with my grandmother and grandfather. They had disagreements, but we never saw those. But at the end of the day, the decisions that was made was for the best for our household. And so I just hope moving forward that we all can get together before things play out in public for the public to see how ugly it can be and how ugly it did get. Was I happy with some of the decisions? No, I wasn't totally happy, but I was glad that we were able to come to a consensus. Now, what does this mean for the city of Rock Hill? For me, and to the people that I serve, it's gonna be a life-changing event. It's gonna be a life-changing event that's gonna transform some household. But now we have to come to the realization that we're here now. And what does that mean? What does that mean for the county, What does that mean for the school board and ultimately the city of Rock Hill? And because things were handled the way that they were, we now have to charge the school district with, now that you're going to be receiving this money to improve the schools to what you say that you're going to use it for, we need to see true investment in our students. At the end of the day, you're getting what you're asked for, now you're gonna have to put up. Now we're gonna have to see a transformation in our graduation increase. We're gonna need to see the fact that our students who are gonna be matriculating through your school system will be able to get these jobs that will be coming to our city. And we're gonna hold you accountable for that. Because at the end of the day, this could have played out a whole lot different. And I hope that now that it has, that you're going to be able to successfully educate our children, have a place that is gonna be safe for them to learn, and also ultimately helping to invest in their future. Because this is going to ultimately change and transform our community. So with that being said, highly disappointed in the way that things played out because this could have transpired a whole totally different way. But now the ball's in the court of the people who started this debacle. It's in your court.

Mayor, I'll be brief. I know there are a lot of people in this room probably need to get to work like myself and help keep this economy going. Let me just say a lot of comments. This has been very frustrating over the last couple of weeks to the Okta Pharma folks. Just thank you for being here. And again, as Mr. Black said, we apologize for kind of what you went through. But and I don't want to focus. There's been a lot said social media. Otherwise, I think I'd just like to take a few minutes and just think some partners that we had along the way. I'd especially like to thank County Council Member Watzhuckabee and Andy Litton who have been there from the start advocating for this project. They have been great partners. After second reading, I reached out to Council Member Tom Audet trying to bridge this gap and come up with an agreement that we could all live with. And Council Member Black met with us that night. And thanks to Council Member Audet for making an attempt to try to get us there at second reading. I know the Chamber, there have been people all over the community that have come together. I really just want to say thank you to everyone because without your pressure that you applied and making your voice heard, I don't think we'd get this across the finish line. So thank you for that. And I see Chip Hutchison here, their family, we can't lose sight of the fact that they put this property up for sale some years ago thinking that we were going to have the Panther project there and this council has turned down data centers and warehouses because we wanted a transformational project on that site for what this family did you know they wanted something great to go on the site for Rock Hill and so I think we we are doing that where this and finally i will just say that the last two weeks have proven that a few years ago this community had a choice and two individuals for mayor and i think the last two weeks just proved that we made the right choice so mayor thank you for your leadership on this issue

Thank you.

Can I add one?

Yeah, please.

I was hesitant to start naming names, but Heath Sessions was another one. I'm sorry, he's on my list. Yeah, and he was a huge, huge benefit of trying to bridge that gap. So we might be getting some more attorneys, obviously, Paul. So thank you, Kevin, for bringing the names out. Thank you.

Mr. Lindsay?

I think this played out the last two weeks. It didn't have to happen like Councilwoman Jackson said. Yes, it was ugly, the way it played out in public.

But it has happened.

It is water under the bridge to me right now at this point. Is it muddy water?

Yes.

But it has happened. My question is, can we move forward? and what results are we looking for as we move forward? Was this a cry for help? Some say it was. I say it fell short of a cry for help. And if it was a cry for help, we don't wanna reward bad behavior moving forward with this. This could be a bad precedent that we set going forward, a dangerous precedent going forward. And we don't want to reward it. We don't want to reward the actions of people that allow the egos to get in the way to get this deal done. And I'll apologize again to Dr. Farmer. This shouldn't have happened. Yes, people are watching throughout the state. This past weekend, I was in Greenville with the Municipal Association, and that's what we talked about there. So people are watching. As Rock Hill goes, the state of South Carolina goes. And this is what the leadership of Rock Hill is doing, the leadership of York County is doing. So the state is gonna follow suit? No. This is a moment for all of us to reflect, look in the mirror, and ask the Lord for that humbleness that we all should have as we lead. So my question is to the school board and to York County, and as we reflect as a government body ourselves, what does that look like going forward? You all say you need help, but this cry for help wasn't really a cry for help. It was a flex of your muscles to see what can you do, what can you take from us, and that's not a cry for help. I can't take things from my neighbor to help another neighbor. And then when I'm caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I say that, oh, I was trying to help them, you should give it to me. No, that's not how that works. We should have collaborated on the front end. Lisa Brown, thank you for your work you've put in. Yes, you have been working on this for over a year, close to two, you and your team. That was the time to collaborate then. not two weeks after the first reading, and then sandbagged the city with this decision. Yes, we had to capitulate. Why did we capitulate? We wanted Octo Farmer here in Rock Hill. We wanted the economic development that it was gonna bring. We wanted the 1,500 jobs. We wanted the wages of over $100,000 a year. That's huge for the city of Rock Hill. We want people to relocate to Rock Hill, which yet increases the tax base for all of us. the school board, the city of Rock Hill and the county, but our actions put this in jeopardy. So I would like to ask the school board and the county to figure out a way how we can move forward. And as we move forward, what does that look like?

I have one more thing.

Yes, please.

And to OctaFarmer, again, thank you for coming. But also be fair in allowing our citizens here in the City of Rock Hill and County to get those jobs that, again, will be life-forming and transforming for them. I know for myself, what going from making a little bit of money to possibly making six figures, how that can transform your household, how that can leave legacy for families, children, to build on what they currently have. So just be fair in providing jobs and allowing our residents to partake in getting those jobs.

Thank you. Any other discussion? I'm coming back. All right. So after we finish discussion as a general rule, we go to questions and that's an opportunity for anybody to speak if they feel like they need to weigh in on the item before us. And I'd like to start that by inviting Barry Pomeroy from OctoPharma up front to share a few words.

Yes, I would like to make a few comments. First of all, I've heard what you said about the the rancor between the two groups back and forth. Look, I don't even know how to spell the word politics, so I don't want to know how to spell it. Alice Stewart, our Chief Operating Officer, and she apologized for not being here today. Believe it or not, today's the day she had to take her youngest son to college, and we'll maybe give her a pass that she's taking him to the university. Well, that depends on what college. Well, I was getting ready to say we would normally give her a pass for that, but she's taking her son to the University of Tennessee, so maybe not. But when Mr. Marguerite tasked us, that's our owner and founder, to find a site for this manufacturing, he did not restrain us to anywhere in the U.S. And we work in the plasma side of the business. We have 180 locations across the country, a lot in the southeast. in Texas, all the way to California in 35 states. But Alice and I are, we're actually not natives here, but if you combine our lives here, we've been in this community over 70 years. So we've gotten to know it and love it. And so we looked at each other one day after a couple of weeks, she said, why have we commissioned this nationwide search? Shouldn't we, let's look locally. So again, Mr. Marguerite did not restrain us from anywhere, but we chose you. And the only thing he told us back, I believe it was August of last year, he said, and he's a wise gentleman, 85 years old, been in this business for over 40 years. He said, there will be obstacles that you can't identify today. But he said, I want you to overcome them. So to us, this particular obstacle is just like we treated like any other obstacle. We want to get to the finish line. I'm thankful that the county voted in favor of this transaction earlier this week and I'm looking for hopefully full support from you all when we have that vote because as some of you, as Ms. Jackson has said, we're going to be bringing great jobs here and lots of them, 1,500 jobs. We're going to be bringing a lot of investment here, $1.5 billion over 10 years. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Can you say it a little bit louder? Up to $1.5 billion over a 10-year period. And so to me, I think Ural's legacy may even be, as leaders of the city, may even be defined by this transaction because this is not just a 10-year deal we're entering into. This is going to be multi-generational because we have no plans to actually locate any other manufacturing in the U.S. anywhere other than here. And the reason I say that is we bought... We bought more acreage than we really need for this 10-year project, so that if whatever number of years down the road, 15 years down the road, we need to double the productive capacity at this location, we'll be able to do it on that 50 acres. So I look at it, certainly it'll outlive my lifetime, but I look at this as a lifetime decision that OctoPharma has made to come here and We're going to bring innovation, economic development, jobs. We're going to be a great corporate citizen. Mr. Marguer insists on that wherever he goes and really he's the one that was very supportive of us relocating our corporate presence and I'm not going to get too far into the weeds but the plasma business is our corporate presence is in Charlotte. just 13 miles away, it was his support to bring our corporate to relocate here so that we could really become part of the community. And so you will see that happen. And some of those renderings you saw, they may not be exactly what it's going to look like, but Mr. Marguerite does things first quality. So I would just like to say on behalf of our owner, and founder and chairman Wolfgang Marguer and his son Tobias Marguer, who is our deputy chairman. On behalf of Fleming Nielsen, who some of you met back in January, who's president of our sales operation in Paramus, New Jersey. On behalf of my colleague, Alice Stewart, our Chief Operating Officer, OctoPharma Plasma, and on behalf of the other 11,000 employees that work all over the world for OctoPharma, developing these life-saving therapies. Look, these are not lifestyle therapies we're making. We make life-saving therapies that are used in over 120 countries. We thank you for what I hope to be your full support, not just today, but as we march down the path together to build a future that we can all be proud of.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Barry. Is there anyone else? Okay, that brings us to the ultimate vote, if you will, and I'm going to take just a second to say a few words because I think there's a lot of people we do need to thank, which we have. I want to start because this story started for us some four or five years, it was six years ago, with Chip in conversations with his father. and through an iteration of how things came and went and now have been born again. And I think it's important for us to take just a second and thank some people we haven't, but we all know had an instrumental role in getting us to this point. Kathy Pender, Brent Falkenberry, Jim Marino, Perry Sutton, our management team throughout. This has been a long road for us to get to this point, and today we're turning that page once and for all. This is now the Palmetto Research Park, not in theory, but in practice. This is an opportunity provided to us, the taxpayers of York County, the taxpayers of Rock Hill, because of leadership of Governor Henry McMaster. because of his Commerce Department, because of Henry McMaster's mama who went to Winthrop University and all of his aunts. He loves Rock Hill and we love him for his love for Rock Hill. Winthrop University and York Tech recognizing what this means to us as the people have turned their focus to start to make sure our people get these jobs. We'll have some announcements in September of partnerships we have with both Winthrop University and York Tech to help make sure that happens. York Technical College, for those that may not know, bought the Business Technology Center, which is that big building right across the street of Anderson Road from them. They're retrofitting that building along with funds that the state of South Carolina is giving them to train people for these jobs. They're not training them for life in general, as they always have, but for these jobs. York Tech understands the future. They are the tip of the spear as it comes to our prosperity to come. Dr. Stacey Moore deserves all the credit in the world for her leadership over there. It is my pleasure to work with her every day and I wish we had three more Stacey Moores. We would be a wonderful, wonderful community if we did. Dr. Cerner and Winthrop University is starting an advanced manufacturing degree for these jobs and those to come. Lisa Brown's going to go get them. We're going to cheer her on because that's what she does and her team at the City of Rock Hill. David Vion, we've said it a hundred times, if we've not said it once, thank you for everything you do. The team you've created, the team you support, and the team that you make, world class. We are an all-American city not by name but by practice and that is a distinction from most all-American cities. To Wolfgang Marguer, thank you. Thank you for deciding to invest in us, Barry and Alice and your whole team, for choosing this site, for reaching out last fall, and for all the times you got to yell at me and I got to yell at you and we still like each other. Yeah, praise God, I agree with that. It has been a wonderful ride being mayor in the City Council, and this team right up here is exceptional. It's my pleasure to work with them every day. I see Dean Fell out in the audience and his leadership at the Chamber, especially during this time, was a determining factor. Thank you, Dean. And thank you to all the business professionals and individuals in our community that stepped forward and said, this is us, this is our future, and we're happy to seize it and take it from there. That is our story as a city. It's one born of grit. It's one born of resilience. It's one born of never quitting and getting things to the finish line. Thank you all for your role in that. So with that, we've had a motion and a second. Discussion, questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? You better not. Approved. Very welcome to Rock Hill. Are there any City Council Committee reports? Miscellaneous business? Without objection, we'll stand adjourned.