Town Council - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded.

045 million in revenue and 7.59 million in expenses. Our property tax collections total is 6.27 at the end of March. That is currently 1.8 8 million above budget for that that line item for taxes. Um in March there were 47 new businesses. Um six were new, 13 new rentals, 11 contractors and 17 out of town businesses. Um hospitality collections were 1.96 million to date and local a tax is 427,000. We have not received our third quarter check for state a tax yet. So, um hoping within the next week because we are hitting May next week. So, surely they'll get it to us. I think it was about the first week of May last year. Um under capital projects, um nothing really new there. The third quarter road fees when I wrote this were expected in April. We did receive those, so we're doing well there. Um, our storm water utility fund is slightly down from prior year at this time. Um, so that is uh that has to do with tax bills and paying. So, um, that is something I'm going to have to ask the county about what is what is going on there. um on the enterprise funds in operating revenue for the pier and expenses were 238,000. Um of the revenue received 147,000 is for parking revenue. Um we should start seeing an uptick in parking because this was back for March and everything's open again. Um

sanitation, we had 1.2 2 million in revenue and 1.15 in expenditures. So you can see they're hand in hand and that was one of the reasons that for what we discussed at the budget retreat for increase. Um under the regular parking we were at 381,000 expenditures were 192,000. That is about 5,000 less than we were at this time prior year. Um, for investment pool, I won't read all that. You'll see that, but our current average interest rate is 3.86. And just a recap for the month of March, even though we're almost to the end of April, um, the administrator and finance staff met with all departments to review budget requests and make suggestions for the FY27 budget. At the beginning of March, finance staff finished preparing revenue projections and reviewing all expenditure line items to prepare the administrator's proposed budget for the April budget retreat. Business license began to see renewals coming in and of course they're due on the 30th. So Nicole and everyone else is working diligently to try to get all those into the system.

All right. Thank you very much. Any questions, comments for Director Guber? Uh Mr. Mayor, Mr. Walls. Melanie, just for uh clarification, when you say that we're over budget in property taxes collections, you're just talking about pace. We've had we've met budget and we have 1.8 more than budget on on the tax piece. Oh, pretty substantial that before, too. Yes, we've talked about that. The vehicle Yeah, it's mainly due to vehicle taxes. No, I get it. You're we're in love with those folks down the street. But yeah, I just want to clarify for the good of the order. Yes.

Quick question, Mr. Law. Yeah. On the business license, I'm just curious. Um, so 47 new business licenses, six new business. Do we track that like on an annual basis to like see how many or like you know at the end of the fiscal year how many new business licenses and new businesses versus ones that are that are no longer active and have gone out of business. I'm just curious. Yeah, Nicole says she can she can run a report. There were no business closed last month. Um it's kind of a tricky thing because contractors do it by the Yeah. by the job. So but yeah, she can run something. Yeah. I mean, I'd just be curious to see are are we making headway? Are we are we increasing? We decreasing we holding steady that that's kind of what I'm interested.

Well, I hope to know by the in the first week of May because then we'll start getting late, you know, payments. But All right. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Mr. H. I have a couple questions on the parking revenue was 380 and expenses were 190, which means we're paying 50% of revenues to pivot. Is that right? about that. Okay. Um and my other question was that that's based on their their contract fee. So when we see the revenue start going up, it should not be 50% anymore. It's just that was the off season. This is where we are today. I see. I see. Oh, so it could go down as

correct. The busy season. Correct. I see. Um although this should pick up some of the busy season from last year because this is fiscal year 2025, right? This is fiscal year 2026 that we're in right now. This is through March. This is revenues through March, end of March. June 30th, correct? So it picks up July 1 from last year. Well, it really starts picking up in um April, May,

June. That's when the season starts. Um the other question I have is there any way to get a report from pivot instead of I know they put out revenue income by lot. Can we do it by space? We can we can ask we can answer. Yes.

Any others? I'm going to follow up on the uh business license and accounts. Uh I get the contractor thing. Out of town businesses, what exactly does that mean? people who come into our town to do business who don't actually have a physical space here in town. I would have thought that would mostly be contractors. What What other things are there? Um that is a good question. Um I don't know what else there would be honestly off top of my head. I'm curious. I think like Mr. Law for the most part I would agree would be contractors.

Yeah. I'd just like to get a better understanding of I mean you know it looks great to see 47 new businesses but you know I get that that's not you know that doesn't necessarily mean what people think of when they think a new business open correct it is not and I I'd just like to have a general well actually no okay 17 out of town businesses that's not it's not necessarily okay yeah she has the new contractors separated out I'll have to ask her if she has reoccurring contractors within Would that be maybe some of the vendors we see at at events and all that because they're out of town? If there there is a one-day vendor permit, that's something different.

Um, but if someone is coming into the town selling goods, it doesn't actually have a physical space. That's what that would Yeah, it's not urgent, but it's just as we were discussing that they kind of hit me and I'd just like to understand that better. Uh, you know, next month will be fine. trends would be helpful.

Yeah. And just just to to like I say to understand these terms a little better, too. So, okay. Um but but I you know, I look at the year to dates on on several of these funds and and you know, we're doing pretty well. The 1.8 million ahead in property tax looks good, but you know, it does look like A and H A and local A and H are all very flat or or close to pretty flat. Yes. I mean I I assume because you just indicated that uh state a tax they they've run a little behind. Um

yeah to to date we've got through the second quart 762,000 which was slightly above last year at that time. So I like decided to retreat. I'm interested to see what third quarter brings. Then we'll truly know what's happening. Now with um hospitality, we are right in line with last year. Local A tax seeing a little bit down. Not much, but a little bit down. Am I right though in in assuming that H and local A are more real time? I mean, correct. We collect them right away. They go in daily. Okay. So, yeah. I mean, state a tax, right?

Go through the state months. Months. Yes. Okay. But so we can look at local A and H and have a pretty good idea. Yeah, we're pretty flat. Okay. And and but I mean those are accurate. We can make we can make assessments off of that much better than state tax. Okay. All right. That's all I have. Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Thank you, Director Drew. We will move on to the fire department report. Chief Delson.

Good evening. We're happy to announce that we've received a grant for $29,261 for battery powered tools and those have already been ordered and hopefully we'll be receiving those shortly from Firehouse Subs. Um, our department has complete our lifeguard training for water rescue and we have nine certified lifeguards on the department now. And we've been working on vehicle extrication as well. March inspection fees are $875 per month and the PA fire recovery fees from 25 to26 is maintained what it was last time $6,2165. That's all I have. Any questions, comments for Chie Nelson? I think I have one. But what was the last figure you gave us? Oh, the fire recovery.

Yes. I'm curious if we're having like 177 incidents, why is that fee on fire? Uh because we don't charge for every incident. Some of it is contracted area that the county we cover for the county and we do not charge anything in the contracted area. That's part of the contract that's in there that we will not do that. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Mayor,

Mr. I know you changed your program um about where you're going and if it's in town or out of town. Um we had 177 runs last month. That's less than six per day. Is there any way you can go old school, get the program, have a book, the date, the time?

You're looking we're looking into some of that. Uh, but I'm going to tell you right now, the out of school or out of town and in town, the way it was presented to you in the past was not necessarily correct. Uh, because if it's contracted area, that should be in town because it's contracted through us. That was considered out of town. So, a lot of times when you see that out of town call volume being higher, it's contracted area that we were assigned and maintained. So, we are working on trying to get that up for you. Uh, but I want to make sure that you're getting the correct information to begin with. So contracted area means that area, but it's part of the area that you're responsible for. Correct.

So I really like to know what's going on. I'll see what we can do. We have a new program and we're trying to work through some bugs to see if we can get that. Um, and some of the guys said that we could, and that was one of the things that we talked about is contracted being included in the correct format. Okay. And I don't know if you could even put this in also uh actually how many people responded. How many people you're actually getting to? I I could not do that. Well, how they get all get paid, don't they? They do. I would have to go through a ton of paperwork to give that to you if that's what you wish. Uh then that's going to cost more time for us to get that for you. Well, each firefighter gets what? $25. Well, it's $15.

$15. It's got to be on a list. It's got to be on some kind. There's a list that comes out once a month that for the pay period of it, it doesn't give me a breakdown per call. Give you a breakdown per call, but it has each person who came to the call. No, if if they got paid $15 and then showed up. So, it's all paperwork that's handwritten that I would have to go through every month to give you that. Oh, you have you have an assistant, right? For the time being, yes. Yeah. Well, you have a captain. you have uh I'm just saying that there's other things going on through the our department that that isn't a priority, but if that's what you feel is a priority, then I will make sure that it's done.

I think it's good knowledge to know if we'll get the bang for our buck and and even highlight how many people you actually come to your your fires. Um six runs a day. Uh break that down as 24 hours. I'll see what we can do. Thank you. While we're talking about contract, what what would that be? For instance, just an example. So, all of the campgrounds down there, those are considered contract area. Deerfield is considered contract area. Uh just outside down Glenn's Bay shortly, there's a little bit of area right there that is contracted area. That's what I was assuming. Those are the areas that Yeah. Okay. It would be out of the town of two miles.

Okay. That would be our in town, but we do cover outside of that area as well. That's considered contracted area. Okay. What is a contracted area, Mr. Hyatt? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. This is your second time, by the way. That's fine. I have two questions. Um, what is a contracted area? So, a contracted area is a contract that we made with the the county to cover those areas because we're the closest fire department for that. In return, we get radio maintenance for free, of course. Okay. My other question was under this fire recovery, my understanding is that's going to training. Is that correct? Is that what's happen? I'm still waiting on you guys to decide if that's what you wish to do, but that's what I brought up in the budget. Yes, sir.

Okay. Thank you. Any others? All right. Thank you, Chief Nelson. We're going to move into the communications report. Mrs. Maul,

good evening, everyone. Hello. Um, okay. So, website and social media. Uh, the standout here for us is that the promotional commercial um for the Kite Festival reached 261,000 views and this was a while ago before this report or prior to today um on social media with 85% of those viewers being nonfollowers. That's an excellent indicator of strong tourism reach and engagement. So, I wanted to call that out to you guys. Um, the First Baptist Church uh sunrise service, the Easter egg hunt, the community yard sale, the fishing with the cop, and the first KSVB beach sweep went really well. I do want to call a note out that uh the keep Surfside Beach beautiful committee uh was really excited about the new start time at 8 a.m. So, they've decided to go forward with that. Um, so for all of you that go to the beach sweep, just make sure you know it's Third Avenue North and it starts at 8 and it ends at 9. Um, and then I don't need to talk about upcoming events because this was prior to what what that was. But, um, yeah, that's my report for you guys tonight.

All right. Thank you. Any questions, comments for Mrs. Maul? Mr. Mayor, Mr. Tabitha, I attended the A tax meeting today and they said to give you a great pat on the back kite festival said that was really great. They'd like to see it even grow bigger said it was great to see the tourists moving in and one of the hotel people said that they even had their business partners in town at the time and they had made a point to him that they would be back next year for kite festival. So I want to give you a little praise for that. Thank you.

And they also had brought up and I want to talk about this is our Fourth of July celebration. They they a tax committee still thinks that we as a town ought to be doing more at the 4th of July is what they were saying is that we need to celebrate the 4th as we've always done and bring that tourist in because right now the business is way off for the summertime here in town and they were saying that they there was no incentive even as a town to be bringing in tours and they would like to I'm assuming get with you or get with somebody and talk about more about 4th of July which I think this council needs to hear more about because they're saying it's hurting their business by not having they said it's they know that they have the fireworks on on the beach and all but the publicity of the great fireworks would be correct. Just, you know, that was just a comment that was made and I'd like for you to know.

Thank you. So, um, as we all know, we're not going to have a gener show, um, for the 4th of July. Um, I don't want to let the cat out of the bag, but the campaign goes live on Friday. Um, I am working on the back end with the businesses, uh, through a meeting, and that includes everybody in Pier Village. um hotels, restaurants, pier and below. Um so we are going to narrow down our focus. Um but I can tell you what's going to be if that's what you want to hear. Well, I'd love to hear it. Okay. But you don't have to. You spoil it if you don't want.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. If if you guys want to hear it, I'm I'm willing to tell you, but if you want to just keep it tight right now and then we'll go from there, then it's up to you guys. ahead, dear. I think we honestly ought to make it an agenda item because it it is a uh an important idea and it's it's an awkward year this year because Fourth of July is Saturday. That's that's transition day, correct? So, um you know, it's pretty hard to put together a big event on on the day that people are coming in and leaving. But, um Mr. Mayor, go ahead.

Let me finish this off. and they said that uh that the Fourth of July is a big thing. That ain't that they didn't like the kite festival and all you're doing all year long. They're just saying that that helps the tourists of our summertime and and this is our 250th anniversary. So that was brought up to so I just to for me I just wanted you to know. Thank you. Thank you. And it is duly noted and I am working on it on that back end. Yeah. A lot's coming out on Friday. Okay. All right. Thank you. And then I'm gonna request uh on the May 12th agenda that we have a Fourth of July discussion.

I'm done. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Law, just to you mentioned the group that you got together kind of work in this. Are you including the the realy companies as well? Correct. Okay. Because they were the ones that were the most boisterous. I completely know. In fact, it was even said that some are advertising instead of the normal Saturday to Saturday for that week, they're renting rentals from Saturday to Friday. Um, good for them. I I'm assuming that means for less money, but they already they jack the money up anyway. So, there you go. For for that time of year, but anyway. Yeah, I those were the ones that seem to be the most critical.

I understand and I'm completely aware who you're talking about and all the all the moving parts. But, um, yeah, I think it's very important. I mean, let's just be honest. It's 250 years of, you know, America, but unfortunately, it falls on a Saturday. So, our businesses need to be able to pivot in whatever they do to make that understood. There are still traditionalists that like the Fourth of July events and that's what we have to look at. So, I would just say everybody needs to bend a little bit to work together and I encourage them to do that. Couldn't agree more. Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Mayor,

Michy question. I'll wait until gets on the agenda. But we did talk about banners, by the way. Never mind. But um the radio um announcement, I was driving my little one to school and um they were advertising something that happened two weeks ago. I know just if you're not aware of it now, you are. Thank you.

But because I was like, what's going on? Because if I don't have my calendar in front of me, I'm thinking, what did I miss? Right. Right. I'm aware and I've already called it all out out to them and yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. I figured all you know teamwork makes the dream work. That's all I'm going to tell you. So, anything you you know you have I'm all ears. Thank you. Any others? I have a question. It's not a very important question. Are there any festival t-shirts left over?

There are a few. Thank you for asking. We don't have a whole lot, but they are available at town hall. So, if you guys would like a t-shirt, come to town hall and get them. Um, and you know, I got a lot of good feedback off of those shirts. So, good looking shirt. Yeah, it was it was really cool. Even my husband liked it, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Are you done, Mr. That brings up something? I had mentioned this last year. Uh, towels. Towels. I knew you were gonna say it.

Towels. Towels and towels. Because sitting there with that foam machine, people are asking me, "Where can I buy a towel?" Well, I had to send them across the street, but I'm really thinking that could be a market. And we're looking into it. We have a couple vendors right now. The vendors that I've been looking into, they're just outrageous like to get a return on that. I know. Just a little I want a golf towel, too. Yes. But they want to give me like $27 just for my cost. I'm like, "Oh, I can't imagine paying more than that." You know what I mean? Just to recoup that. So, but I have not forgotten about it and it is on my whiteboard and I'm looking into other vendors for that. Thank you. You're welcome.

All right. And thank you very much. We will move on to public works. Director Dare.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, and Citizen. uh for March. Um I'll say for our sanitation division, I will say that we uh did have our uh twice a year household hazardous waste drop off event uh on April 10th to 12th and that went very well for three days. About 60 vehicles participated. About 3,500 pounds of hazardous waste was safely disposed of. In our street division, the uh underground wiring project is about wrapping up. They're doing punch list items right now and then we get them off of Ocean Boulevard. I'm sure everybody's happy to hear that. Um the road resurfacing project was completed in March. Approximately two miles of paving that was 100% reimburseable by CTC once I get the invoice. Um in our grounds division uh I had reported in my report that uh there was piece of playground equipment that was out of service that's been repaired under warranty by Play World last week at the Floral uh playground over Lakeside Drive. So that's that's back up now. Um, we're looking at a couple of other repairs at uh All Children's Park by a different vendor and hopefully I can get that under warranty as well, even though they're kind of old. Um, and in our fleet maintenance division, our mechanics completed 81 repairs on town vehicles and equipment. Additionally, 20 vehicles received preventive maintenance. Uh, if anybody has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Have some comments for director?

I do, Michelle. Mr. Mayor. Um, a resident asked me is, um, they're going to be repaving on Ocean Boulevard from all the, um, work that was done down there because you ride it and it's balump. Yeah. All their temporary road cuts that they were temporary asp they're going to be redone a level and I plan on resurfacing that whole stretch in the spring because it's all chopped up and I don't like that. in the spring of this year. No, next year when I do my regular street paving project next year, I'm I think I'm going to include that uh that area. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Uh Mr. Stamy, John, the the swings under the pier. Yes, sir. I noticed we had one down this week or weekend. It's broke. Uh what's going on with that? There was one that was uh I'll say not vandalized, but it was abused by somebody perhaps at night and one of the seat slats that was broken on it. So, we had to uh take it out of service about a week ago. Uh had a new one brought in and we installed it already. Okay. A replacement and we'll keep the old one for parts. Uh but uh we had to take it down because it wasn't safe. Is is this going to be an ongoing problem, you think?

I certainly hope not. You know, the the swings have a 550 lb weight capacity, but that's not standing up on it and jumping on one slat. That's, you know, total weight. So hopefully uh I I have asked HTC to install another camera under there aimed at those swings so that we don't capture that on our video currently. Thanks, sir. Uh so hopefully we can if there's vandalism, we can catch it. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Uh Mr. Walls, I just wanted to call out for public knowledge and and and thank if hopefully he's listening, but Mr. Ben Johnson for 45 years with our family. Yes, indeed.

Wow. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, if you're out there hearing us. And you guys did an awesome job on the arbor deck. Planting the tree last Friday. Tabitha did a great job with the whole It was fun. It was nice. Yeah, that's one of my favorite things of the year. Yeah, as I said at the event, you know, you're giving a gift to future generations. That's the whole beauty of trees. I saw you're also putting up three more up at Memorial over by the dog parks. We got three more. Yeah, some of the extra uh saplings that we had are going in over there. Good. Because we had to have we had to remove a couple. So, yeah, I saw that earlier. Thank you. Yes, sir.

All right. Uh John, when we went to some of the other peers and looked at their swings, a lot of them had to put anchors underneath the swings and put limiters on them to keep them from being abused. And it's just a possibility we'll have to do the same thing.

It's it's possible. You know, we try not to anchor too much to the beach, but if it has to happen, maybe we'll see if this continues. A lot of things happen in town during the spring bake period, which which don't which don't happen the rest of the year. I'm not going to list them because I don't want to give anybody any ideas, but we we stay busy, you know, from basically spring break until after uh finals. You know, school is getting out soon in the colleges and then things kind of change after that. Okay. But we'll see. Time will tell. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Coleman,

you look like you doubled in tonnage on recycling. Do you have any idea why? That's what I uh I do not uh know why. I mean that the the numbers we've been getting the last uh uh couple of years were a little low. We we we generally never get less than 50 something tons even in the uh in the springtime. Uh but 83 is a high number and that's what that's what was put out. Not complaining. It's good. But I just curious why all of a sudden it was really it was really lowly last year. Yeah. We haven't changed anything. We haven't done anything differently. The beach recycling is the same. It's just uh you know, we pick up what's out there. I can't explain it.

Um and I want to thank you for the signs you put up uh by Fuller Park. I don't know if they're going to work. Oh, for patrons only. Yeah. First of all, you can't write a ticket on red red lettering on white battle, but I don't I don't know if that was the intention. Hopefully, like you said, most of them were spring breakers who were talking there anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully when the tourist season comes in that that will change, you know, because people can't use the park and they can't use the library because the kids were were paying were not paying the Yeah. We match the signs we put up at Martin Field a couple of years ago and they seem to be somewhat effective. Martin Field, they actually were kind of working.

Yeah. So we used basically the same wording and we put in for the library parking lot. We got their permission to put signs along the library saying for library pages to go. So hopefully it'll have some impact. Thank you. But again, some of that is to do with the spring breakers, too. No, it definitely is. I mean, firsthand know I'm seeing they come around 10 and then they leave around three and they're all young kids and they're all beach chairs. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Mayor, if I could go ahead.

I just wanted to make a comment. during beach suite. Um was out working the beach and then I wandered off my after I finished but walked the beach and John some of those signs and I don't know if your guys your your folks that take care of your beach have noticed but some of those signs keeping off the dunes really hard to read. They're so faded. Yeah. With the big tree nourishment that's coming up, they're all being replaced. Oh, I have them hundred in my office right now. There you go. Nothing like being ahead of us. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. We obviously we want to wait until after the new sand fencing is put before we put the signs in.

Um, you just mentioned beach reourishment. I won't ask you right off the top of your head, but similar to the uh what we're talking about Fourth of July. I think we'd like to hear any updated schedule on that next time around.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. I'm I'm have a very important call tomorrow about that. I was just telling the administrator a little while ago, uh, which may move the schedule up for us, uh, I don't want to get into too much detail here, but, uh, I we were we were set to be into July into August, uh, because of the various delays and getting down working our way down the coast, but I think there may be an opportunity to put us ahead of uh, some of that uh, because various scenarios that are going on in Myrtle Beach. So, I'll know more tomorrow and I will definitely report that to the administrator.

And the other thing I'll say is I took notice of that recycling, too. And uh maybe I'm foolish enough to think our talking about it in these council meetings got people to pick it up in March. Okay. I doubt it. Anyway, that's all I've got. Anybody else? I got one question for the bumper seats, but I will. John, I don't like to admit this, but I was at a pier north of here a couple days ago, and I talked to some fishermen,

and they said that they go all the way down to Moro's Inlet to get their bait because there's no place to park to get their bait. And I told them we have a delivery spot there, an unloading and loading, and that they should be able to park there for five or 10 minutes to grab some bait. Is it possible that we add bake to that unloading sign? I don't think that was the intention of the area when it was proposed by uh either council or committee, I forget which proposed that sign. I think the intention was to help the businesses their delivery. Now, if council wants that, I mean, I think that could be really abused if you put on there. If you're just stopping in, what's to stop you from getting an ice cream cone? What's to stop?

Yeah, that's true. You know, grabbing, you know, I don't know where you draw the line. Where does it stop? Yeah. Yeah. So, it might be counterproductive. Yeah. I see that. Thank you. Thank you, Director Adair. Thank you very much.

We will now move into the police department report. Chief Mikl meeting mayor council citizens. The activity report for this is from March and March we wrote 82 citations, nine origin citations and 222 224 warning citations. You can see last year's numbers pretty close to the same. Nothing remarkable there. Made 14 arrests. You can see the breakdown of that. Um, also you can see the stats for index crimes from the two years. Again, nothing remarkable there. Um, and same with the rest of the report. See, I'm all pretty uh all pretty much uh same as last year. Nothing crazy. Um, we did have 7 1,784 calls for service so far this year. 974 of those are selfinitiated and traffic stop contacts. Any questions on that before I move on personnel actions?

Just go ahead and we'll do it all. be

uh personnel actions. We continuing to interview for a part-time and a full-time communications officer position. Uh we also have one police officer vacancy that we're currently accepting applications as well. Uh Officer Wasserman uh successfully completed a special basic academy and he's currently in the abbreviated training uh field training program and he'll be he's doing great. He should be done in the next couple days. Officer Wilson was hired as a certified police officer and he's also in the same program and he's at the end of that his last phase and is doing great there. So, we'll have both of those guys on the road here within the next week or so. Everybody out of training and pretty good to go except for that one position. Moving on to notal events for March. Uh back in the barbecue fest we had patrol officers who patrolled it and manned a booth there and loved it had a great time and there were no police related incidents which is great. Um several officers also attended a suicide prevention seminar and focused on suicide awareness. uh not only for the public in calls we go to but al also internally uh law enforcement officers uh face unique stresses and studies show that they are 54% higher in risk for suicide. So um it's important not only to uh learn how to deal with that when we're dealing with public but it's also important to learn how to deal with it internally so that we can uh identify that before it becomes an issue internally as well. Um, and then I would had the honor of attending the state house with Governor McMaster for a police chief's lunchon that was hosted by the South Carolina Police Chiefs Association of which we are a member and got to shake hands with the governor and listen to his uh remarks regarding law enforcement and leadership. So, the last thing I want to talk about is uh the town administrator mentioned he went and taught briefly at

the uh the law enforcement seminar for leadership and we do have Sergeant Broad is enrolled in that. He's been going through that for the last few months. Think we have maybe another couple weeks left in that and he'll be graduating from that. As always, we want to have succession planning and be uh training our leaders now for the future. So, constantly sending uh uh people to leadership training even from the beginning and when the patrol officer, we already got them to start learning how to lead. All right. Thank you very much. Any questions, comments for Chief ML?

I've got one. Um, and I'm I'm gonna preface this by saying I know you guys your guys can only do what they, you know, act on what they see, but um, we're I I personally been seeing some golf cart issues that are concerning. I saw some guy driving four or five blocks on 17 look like some teenagers um earlier, no, I guess it was late last week and little kids driving cars and stuff. So, it's that time of year. I don't know if that's stuff that you guys be more on the lookout once you know that season starts or not. And again, I'm I know you can only look at what what you see, but um just wanted to make that comment.

Yeah, we get that a lot of of uh juveniles driving golf carts and we we believe we look for it and if someone calls it in, we'll definitely go go look for it. So, also like uh director Dar said, spring break has a couple weeks of different activity and then it changes. So, but that that is I think we'll see juveniles driving throughout the season. So, please I ask everyone please call us at call and we're more than happy to go try to track it down. The other one I saw looked like about four teenagers and they went flying by a golden egg went about three or four blocks up and then turned again. I just kind of laughed but No, please call us. We're more than happy to go to go try. Anyway, like I said, I I know it's a tough job.

Well, I mean that's the thing too that I tell people is if you don't call us, right, we can't respond. So, you got to call us. You know, that's the great thing about living here is we don't have a huge call volume, so we can respond to every single call. So, we just we we welcome call us. More than happy to go out on a call and determine it's nothing than to just not deal with it at all. Thanks. Is there excuse me, Mr. Mayor? Is there a a call-in number besides 911 that gets us to dispatch? Yeah, there's a non-emergency number. And you think I should know off the top of my head, but I don't. You don't call it. Look at that. 6368. Say that again, please.

913 6368. Thank you.

Sorry. Well, I know the public. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead, Michelle. Yeah, Michelle. Okay. It's this time of year where everything happens and I know that. But this is not a um you can't blame this one on the college kids. The booze truck. Do your officers realize they can't do business in Surfside? They sell booze from the van. Yes, ma'am. We're aware of that where it's being dealt with um collaboratively with administration.

Okay. I just saw it last week and I was like if I can't get my Mr. Soft things, nobody's going to get those by truck. We're aware of it. It's being done. Okay. Thank you. Um I I got a question about um and maybe you know from your veteran background too, but the uh police officers 54% higher risk of of suicide than general public. How does that compare to military service? you know,

um it's I think the military it's very similar. They're very similar. I don't know the exact numbers, but the percentages are are higher in both both those professions. And then of course, you know, a lot of police officers are veterans as well. So, and it compounds it. You know, one thing and you know, veterans, they're exposed to traumatic events, you know, big traumatic events and you know, that lives with them forever. Police officers see a traumatic event every single week, every month. and they see more I think it's said that you know a police officer sees traumatic events that most people see two or three times in their life. A police officer could see that two or three times a month. Um you know maybe we're fortunate and blessed here in Surfside where that's probably not the case but they still see critical incidents all the time. Um and so that's just you know you have a your brain heals itself seeing traumatic but you can't you you know police officers see one trauma and fire any first responders are seeing this trauma over and over again. their brain just don't have time to heal before they hit the next one and it catches up to them. So, um it's very important to recognize that and for us to be able to recognize those signs and uh to make sure that the officers have access to resources when those traumatic events pile up.

Okay. Well, yeah, I would just say I mean I appreciate this information and uh obviously if anything comes up that you think this council can add any support, let us know. I appreciate that very much. All right, that's all I have. Mr. Uh, Mr. Co, seems like you have a hard time keeping dispatches. What's the problem?

We've had a hard time recruiting dispatchers. We've been given this um conditional offers and by the time it's they end up turning it down, they get a job with more money or uh they decide that the shift work isn't for them. So, it, you know, it's it's not an easy job. It's a hard job. um they're kind of the unsung heroes. They're stuck in a little room working their butts off and you know they don't get paid as much and the shift work. So you know we're actually trying to think outside the box a little bit how to make that a different or a better position to to for that. Maybe we'll change some of the shift work around or we're playing with some ideas to to figure that out. Um, I mean, of course, we can only do we can do with salaries, but so yeah, I mean, we're trying to we're trying to figure that out. Also, you know, we have an off we have um a dispatcher, too. Another one is probably going to leave soon just because he got hired as a police officer somewhere else. So, he very well may be leaving soon if that comes to fruition. So,

what's the uh the difference in pay from here in Myrtle Beach? Do you know? Um, I don't know off the top of my head. I think it's probably close to seven to10,000 difference parking that can find out for us. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah,

because a year ago I saw it there was a difference in pay for cops here compared to cops of Myrtle Beach and we closed the gap a little bit and uh we're starting to get great candidates to come in and we actually have a bunch of guys who actually came back. Um, so and if if we can't keep them, is there any way we've just fallen out to some other other uh entity? We're actually looking at all our options. Um, I I'll be in discussions with county about what kind of um assistance they can give us while we work to get fully staffed or

Yeah, we're not counting anything out. I mean, we don't listen, we we I don't think there's a lot of money to be saved by farming it out. Um, and I think we lose services that way. So, but yeah, we're we're we're going to have a lot different ideas. We've been throwing a lot of ideas around and trying to come up with some different ideas on how to mitigate this. Yeah, because a good dispatcher is worth their weight and gold. I mean, they're like your partner out there. They're not there, but they they help a lot. They save a lot of cops lives.

Also, I'm glad you guys are doing suicide prevention. I personally know 30 cops have killed themselves. So it is a problem and I think maybe down here you're a little bit behind the times with doing this stuff suicide suicide prevention and stuff. Um we have we had groups that were off duty cops but actually you can call up any time of the day and night. Wasn't reported to the department or anything like that and they were helped. Um yes we have those resources as well and I make sure the guys have those. Okay. I'm glad you do.

Yeah, it's important part to me as well and I know it's touched your lives and probably everybody in this room has some experience and knows someone that that took their own lives. So, uh we take it seriously and I appreciate that. Only one more question. The cop car activity um this year you only had two accidents and last year at the same same time frame. No, those are um year to date. Those are year-to- date numbers. Yeah. So year to date means from January to now for both years or is that No, I'm sorry. That's all of all of 2025. Okay.

So they had 17 accidents and three of those were injury last year in 2025. This year we're at two accidents with two injuries. I thought you were doing a spectacular job. Not too much. No, sorry. I just thought that was

All right. Thank you, Chief. Thank you very much.

Uh we're going to wrap it up now. The uh reports with planning, building, and zoning. Director Broer Batter is here. Uh, first of all, I'd like to start with an apology to Jared, who I filled his email box while I was on vacation with all kinds of requests for code interpretation. So, my apologies to them. I think that's a sometimes he's an unsung hero and providing the code enforcement and the zoning department with interpretations that come to us and requests for those interpretations come from members of the planning commission as well as the public. I'm inviting all residents uh to attend the public workshop on the tree ordinance.

I think it's that. Yeah,

on April 29th at 5:00 p.m. uh this will be the second public workshop on the uh on the tree ordinance. And I'm pleased to say that I believe the members of the planning commission with the members of my code enforcement staff working together have turned out a really great draft and we've reduced it to a sizable page number that I think everybody will be able to read and understand. Um we have two public hearings coming up before the planning commission. Um I don't know how many historically how many times the council reszones properties but we have two reszone properties on the same agenda uh coming up on the May 5th agenda which is a bit unusual to see that number on one agenda but we do have those. Um Sean I wanted to tell you a little bit about boobs. They came in and applied for a zoning permit and we are limiting exactly what they can do to uh basically providing loose pops at parties, special events, and not being able to drive around or sit in a parking lot and sell booze pops anywhere. I'd want you to know that. Um the uh other thing I wanted to bring to your attention is sometimes it's we we fail to look at our comparison annual comparison of permits and I wanted to just point out to you that we're a little bit we're between five and 8% down on our numbers here and I think we can all agree that we know why that is happening. uh state of the economy, interest rates, um the the sheer or the lack of um available parcels that have been available in previous years. So, we are running out of those vacant parcels slowly but surely. So, that's a reason

for seeing those numbers down on on that. the um we are um looking at um bringing in a u a new user um on one of the two zoning um zoning change sites and that's the the parcel I think that we all know and love which is the parcel at the corner of Surfside Drive in a corner of Highway 17. Um that zone is currently C2 which is a downtown type zoning which is pedestrian orientation and the big proposal is to reszone it to C1 which is a highway commercial which is more I think in line with actually what the existing use was there was a gas station and that's a highway commercial type use which wouldn't be allowed in C2. Um, so I would uh hope that members of the public would come out and provide us with their input um on those two zone changes as like I said we don't see very many zone changes here in an annual basis. And that completes my my report to you. I'd be glad to answer any questions that you have.

All right. Any questions, comments for Director Broer?

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Walls, I did just want to make the comment mark. I'm glad you called that out because I was starting to pay attention to a trend here. Uh, you know, 26 versus 25 and now February is five grand behind. Now March is five grand behind. So it's it's certainly now Janu January was flat, but it's become it's something I was paying attention to. So I just appreciate the fact that you you called it that. I think Angie and some of your predecessors would tell you that I watch those numbers

and I called them out and and I don't think we always and I think every time I come before you, we don't I don't make a lot of comments about the numbers, but I think every quarter it's a it's a good idea to bring you up to date just let you know, hey folks, we're running a little bit behind. I'm frankly not surprised by the reduction simply because of the economy that we're living in with right now. Uh but it is uh is something to to certainly make the council aware of. Just another thing of observation. If you'll if you'll look at your May 24 versus the 25, I was around I was around for that line item last year. I called that out and said, "Wow, wow." Yeah. You know, I mean it's so Yeah, believe me, we watch we watch them and thanks for calling.

Yeah, that's a big jump in May, right? Yeah. and and I was told that sometimes there's just extraordinary circumstances. Everybody kind of lines up and does it all at one time. So, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Hyatt,

I have one question. I think I heard you say that where the seven brew is looking to operate was used to be a gas station which was improperly zoned as a C2. I wasn't here, but I believe that it was I believe they got Jerry, do you recall? I believe they got some kind of a special dispensation for that site to allow it to be a a highway commercial type use in a C2 zone. I think it was probably in existence prior to that zoning the district being created, right? So, it may have been grandfathered in. Right.

So basically, we're really not trying to change the zoning. We're just trying to make it conform of what it used to be. In actuality,

in actuality, correct. Technically, we are changing the zone from C2 to C1. Uh but I think anybody that would look at that site today would say, is that a downtown looking building on that site? I think we'd all agree, no, it's not. It's a highway looking type building. It's a gas station. And the thing about, and I don't want to get too deep in the weeds with you all here, but I'm glad you asked the question. Um, Seven Brew, as we all know, there's a remediation on that site that needs to occur. There is contaminated soil. Seven Brew is going to take care of that contamination as part of their agreement with the owner of the property. Seven Brew at this point isn't going to be the owner of the property. They're going to lease the property long term. I think it's admirable that they're thinking of doing that. Now, I want to caution everybody and I don't want to sound like a school teacher, but on a zone change, we don't discuss what the proposed user is. We talk about the benefit ver the pros and cons of going from C2 to C1 and we should try to keep our language and our our conversations at planning commission and council specifically to that. Now I know that that never happens but I'm just want to caution everybody that that's what should happen.

Thank you Mr. Michelle. I remember when the other business attempted to have the zone changed in board. Okay. And the big hiccup was the drive up window. Yeah. And I know seven bro wants a drive up window. They do. Is that going to be a hiccup with this? If it's in the C1 zone, windows are not an issue. In C2 zones, they are an issue.

Okay. Gotcha. Any others? Mr. Mayor, if I could just one comment. I know that there are federal grants available. I know the federal government at one time had really been pushing money on municipalities to get these areas cleaned up and we're making money available. So, I I hope they've explored that now. Certainly, that's been a while. It's been a while. They still make brownfield grants available and I believe that the owner or the potential owner guessing the property knows about those. I hope so. I hope so. Help them a lot. Absolutely. Thank you.

I I know the owner knows because we had conversations before. I don't know about the tenant or potential tenant, but yeah, he knows. We've even talked to Russell Fry and Val Guest about it. Nothing happened. I think the stipulation is you have to own the property to get the grant and we don't own the property. Right. And and yeah, we communicated with the actual owner. He wasn't trying to sell it. So he at the time he just wanted to lease it. So yeah, it just kind of went nowhere. So I mean this could be beneficial. So I'm glad to hear that. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Broer. Okay, that concludes our communications items. We'll now move into business and we have our uh budget amendment. I'm looking for a motion. Mor, I make a motion that we accept budget budget amendment on ordinance or on ordinance number 26-099.

All right. Um let's bring director grouper up to explain. I mean we this second reading. Yeah. Um just refresh our memories. Yeah. Just a little refresher. This is the um 164,206 is uh jvied out by the recommendation of the a tax committee. And then the second part of this amendment is the sale of the land to purchase the land near public works to put the new um storage building on. Any questions, comments for Director Groover? Any uh general discussion?

All right, the motion on the table is to accept this second reading. Uh Miss Medina, will you call the RO? Mr. Yes. Mr. Corner, yes. Mr. Here. Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Motion carries unanimously and the budget amendment is approved. Thank you, Director Drew. That's the only business item we have today. So, uh, I'm going to open it up for public comments, town services or business conducted. And I see none. So, I'm going to now move into town council discussion and andor comments. And I'll start with uh Michelle. Well, once again, um, TA always says she learns from each festival she has. And let me tell you, the kite festival, huge improvement with the kitty area in the pier lot. Parents were happy, grandma was happy. So, that was an excellent move. Um, just the right amount of food trucks, right amount of um, vendors. Um I'm glad that we're getting a new stage and we'll talk about that offline. And um just want to thank everybody um public works the just every department. You guys work hard. I know that. Um a lot of times I'm big first responder, but it does take an entire team to make this town work. And I appreciate y'all. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hyatt.

Yeah, I have a couple things. Um, one is that at the budget hearing last week, there's a pretty significant change to the town fee schedule. So, we asked for a workshop which would give the public a chance to look over the fee schedule and uh come make comments. And I certainly hope the c the public will take advantage of that opportunity. Um, the other thing I'd like to mention is that we've kind of neared uh where we've reached the finalization of a new ordinance called no feeding of wildlife. And that applies to squirrels, pigeons, I mean uh well pigeons too, but u

seagulls and geese. And um we work pretty diligently with attorneys, the prosecutor, etc. And I it's going to be its first reading I believe at the next meeting. So people that are interested in that issue should also probably uh want to review and maybe come and make comments. Other than that, thanks thanks for everybody's attend and attendance. Right. Thank you, Mr. Hyatt. Uh Mr. Coleman,

just want to thank everybody for coming out. Um just have a comment about the budget retreat. I had a lot of complaints from people that they they couldn't understand the uh what was going on because the microphones had to be passed back and forth. I didn't realize it until I went to the second budget meeting and that's actually the way it was happened. I don't care if only one person wants to listen from home. It has to be available and it has to be so you can actually hear it. So, I'm going to try my best to bring it back to the civic center next year. Um we have microphones here. We have it set up so you can see and you can hear everything. Um, it's not the perfect uh perfect equipment we have. Hopefully when we have a civic center it'll get better, but uh I I kind of made an issue about having it at the holiday end and I let it go. I I was told that it was going to be the same as here and it was that's all I have. Thanks.

All right. Thank you, sir. Uh, Mr. law. Um, actually the couple things I was going to talk about is Sean and John already kind of addressed it. So, um, I'm not going to go into much deep any more detail on that. Um, other than I appreciate all the work that everybody put into the kite festival because that was it was a lot of stuff. John's folks, police, fire, Tabitha, volunteers, there was a lot of people involved in all that. it from where I sat, which is was in front of the the the band the entire day, it it all seemed to go pretty well to me. So, um other than that, thanks for coming and uh we'll see you in a couple weeks. All right. Thank you. Uh Mr. Sty,

thanks for everybody coming. I want to tell everybody to remember on May the 5th um planning isn't going to have a public hearing on any res. So, if you like the way it is, if you don't like it the way it is, you best get here and tell them because this could be a change, a major change to town. And better have their eyes open and ears on to listen to what's going on. Uh, with saying that, everybody have a good evening. All right. Thank you, sir. Mr. Pauls.

Um, just wanted to uh thank everybody for coming out. Wanted to thank our directors for another great month reporting, taking care of business for us. Captain, it was a it was truly a privilege to represent the town, you know, going around and and shaking hands during that county festival. Everybody was happy. I didn't I didn't anybody, even the babies that were running around in the bubble. It was wonderful. And the kites, the quality of kites that you're getting, those two whales. I mean, it was it's wonderful. It's it's fun watching this thing grow because I know there are some uh there are some big time kites out there that do nothing but tour those festivals for all that. We need to get some of those coming. So, we're we're getting on the map there. So, thank you. Um, and having said that, um, we look forward to, uh, to seeing you guys at the upcoming, uh, workshops that we have. Keep your eyes up. We're very busy this time of year. So, uh, thanks again for coming and we'll see you in a couple weeks.

All right. Thank you, sir. Uh, I'm going to wrap this up. Um, we're going to do an executive session, uh, today. Um, negotiating the administrator contract. Uh we have reviewed it with a pre preliminary review. Mr. Vincent has seen it. Um and uh we're going to discuss it, work through any issues we might have. Uh we will not be voting on it today. We will do that uh at the May 12th meeting. Uh we'll also hear from uh our town attorney on the goose lawsuit that was served to us uh late last week. It was mentioned at the workshop, but it took a full week, maybe even a little more before it actually got to us. So, uh, we've all seen it now and we're going to get a little, uh, uh, update from his perspective. Budget, you heard a few people talk about it. Uh, it's moving along. Um, we don't intend to have any other workshops that should be handled in, uh, regular meetings going forward, but if you have any input, get it into us. Arbor Day went well. Kitefest went well. You've heard all that. I'm not going to uh belabor those. Last point I want to make is that uh Miss Medina is going to be taking some leave. Everything is okay, but she's going to take some leave for uh a few weeks and uh we're going to miss her presence at these meetings. And uh we'll we'll see how well we do. Um with that, I'm going to ask for a motion to uh exit the regular meeting and enter executive session.

Mr. Mayor,

Mr. Make a motion to adjourn regular meeting and enter session pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act section 30-4-70 A1 discussion of employment appointment compensation promotion demotion discipline or release of an employee town administrators evaluation and contract renewal. Section 30-4-7A2 discussion of the receipt of legal advice where legal advice relates to a pending threatened or potential claim or other matters covered by attorney and privilege settlement of legal claims or position of the public agency in other adversary situation the following assertion against the agency of a claim. Maria B. Pessie versus Surfside Beach second. All right. Is there any discussion? Then all in favor? I

opposed. None. Motion carries. We are now exiting the regular meeting and entering executive session.