Town Council - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded offered by Pastor Kate Parkside United Methodist Church. Let us come together in prayer. Gracious God, we come together today as stewards of this community entrusted with the responsibility to lead, to serve, and to make decisions that shape the lives of our neighbors. May we be granted wisdom to see clearly, courage to act justly and compassion to consider all voices. Let our conversations be respectful, our intentions be honorable, and our actions guided by a deep commitment to the common good. May we be mindful of those in need, grateful for those who serve, and ever aware of the trust placed in us by the people of this town. May our work today be fruitful, fair, and grounded in the values that unite us. We pray all this in your name, Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. All right, we will now move on to motions relating to the agenda. All right, hearing none, we'll move on to minutes approval. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Walls, I make a motion that we accept the minutes from September 9th, 2025 as presented. Thank you.

Any discussion? Mr. Mayor, Mr. Coleman, just before I came, I was looking over it again and I found a mistake under uh for the vote. Mr. I think sevenf. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yes. Yeah. It was a five to two. I remember that. Okay. You got that? Okay.

All right. So, we'll uh I know I ask this every time, but do we need to amend the motion as amended? Just as amended. We're still good. Any other uh comments? Still. All right. Then, uh we'll we'll vote on the accepting the meet meeting minutes as amended. All in favor? I opposed. None. Motion carries. Minutes are approved as amended. Uh item number five, public comments relating to agenda items only. All right. I don't see any. So we will move into communications. Mor.

Miss. Um I would like to request to um introduce one of our senior center committee members because she's here tonight if that would be acceptable. Is there any objection? All right, with no objection, go ahead. Hello. Um, the senior center of committee has been working extremely extremely hard. So, could you introduce yourself and get your address? Sure. Come on up. Come up.

Tina Carlson, 33015 Avenue South. Um, she's 104. And let me tell you, they have taken off with the senior center. They've come up with pot dinners. Um, just firemen are coming on a regular basis to play bingo. They have speakers. Um there pick a cake.

Yeah, we started a craft day which is Mondays. Um I just want to encourage people if you haven't ever been by the senior center. Um it it's actually a pretty cool place to visit. you know, people really just come to um socialize, you know, and all the other activities are just, you know, bonuses. You know, they do have their problems, you know, like they have more people come than they can afford to do, you know, which is a problem that we've been trying to figure out. Um they do uh host a monthly pot club and if anybody is interested in never participating, we welcome you know your participation. But what's really cool is people come. There's a couple guys that play poker every day. There's a couple groups that just get together and talk and talk about the other person sitting over there and you know typical you know um going on in a social environment but unfortunately um the other members aren't here. I don't think we really knew we were going to be introduced but thank you. Thank you Sean. Thank you. All right. Then we're going to move into uh item 6A, interim chief nichl, introduction of a new police officer, mayor, council, everybody present, everyone listening. This is uh J Duckworth. He's our newest police officer. Uh you see he's not new new but he's uh he comes to us from uh the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area. He did 19 years as an officer there and took a took took a

quick early retirement. So he get us uh parole from up north and moved down south. Uh I wouldn't say he's happy to be here, but he told me he can't get the smile off his or his face. Why they've been here? Uh I can tell they really like it and we're happy to have him. Also, he's a 19-year um reserve in the military. Uh like Air National Guard. Yeah, Air Reserve. He's a E6 tech sergeant there as well. So, he had another year or two to do that. But so, uh very very proud to have him here. And if you see him, please say hi to him and welcome to the town. I'm not Sergeant Blair. Call me Sergeant Blair. Yeah, he looks thicker than the lawyer, but you know, just a better looking person.

All right, we're going to move into proclamation of fire prevention week. I think actually I'm supposed to do this. All right. So, uh, proclamation 25-147, town of Surfside Beach, 2025 fire prevention week. Whereas the town of Surfside Beach is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living in and visiting our town. And whereas fire remains a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally and the presence of lithium ion batteries in many household devices introduces unique fire risks. And whereas most of the electronics used in homes daily, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, power tools, ebikes, ecooters, and toys are powered by lithium ion batteries, which if misused, damage, damaged, or improperly charged can overheat, start a fire, or explode. And whereas the National Fire Protection Association reports an increase in battery related fires underscoring the need for public education on the safe use of lithium ion batteries. And whereas residents should follow three key calls to action. Buy only listed products, charge batteries safely, and recycle them responsibly to prevent battery related fires. And whereas lithium ion batteries store large amount of energy in a small space and improper use such as overcharging using off-brand chargers without safety certification or exposing batteries to damage can result in fire or explosion. And whereas the proper disposal and recycling of lithium ion batteries help prevent environmental hazards and reduce fire risks in the home and community. And whereas the town of Surfside Beach first responders are dedicated to reducing the occurrence of fires through prevention, safety education, and community outreach. And whereas the 2025 fire prevention week theme, charge into

fire safe safety, lithium ion batteries in your home, serves to remind us of the importance of using, charging, and recycling lithium ion batteries safely to reduce the risk of fires in homes and communities. Therefore, I, Robert Krauss, mayor of Surfside Beach, do hereby proclaim October 5th through 11th, 2025 as fire prevention week throughout this town. And I urge all the people of Surfside Beach to make sure their homes have working smoke alarms and to support the many public safety activities and efforts of Surfside Beach Fire and Emergency Services. Thank you.

And thanks Chief Nelson for bringing this to our attention. We will now move into item 6 C, the administrator's report.

Yes, Mr. Mayor and Council. Good evening. Um, a couple items to report. Peer update, tenants. Um, listening doc, some inspections were conducted uh last Thursday both by the fire marshall and the building officials. So, there are a couple of follow-up inspections that will be conducted tomorrow and for the most part, even if the local inspections get approved, they still have to go through DHACK in the Department of Agriculture. So, once these approvals uh are passed by the local and state officials, my best guess is is the lava part of October as far as I did talk to the man one of the managing partners, not Mr. Wallace, but um he is in town. He's been in town for several weeks. He lives very close by. He's been there just about every day. So, um, Surf Don, there is no update on that. And also, our town attorney is working on the request and approval by council from the last meeting. um administration. Uh both the RFPs for the sale of the property on Sandy Lane in Huckabe Recreation Complex have been posted on Skibo, the town's website, and advertised in a local paper. And both of those deadlines for the Smittles are in November. We had an in-person scheduled meeting with Creature Associates on 9:16 regarding the exterior interior designs and schemes of the proposed council court municipal building. U there are two more meetings on the schedule. Uh and then there will be a presentation in October. I did send something out to Friday to the council regarding a a uh a special meeting, not a workshop, but special meeting on October 30th. So, Cherry will send something out to remind you where everybody can attend. Um and also looking at schedule um

once that approval by council in October, we're looking at a cost estimator and construction documents to be finalized in the this calendar year. Bidding in April of 26 and construction phase will be from May 26 to May 27th. So right now that is the schedule. Um, and I'm not going to take away what uh Mark Ber is doing, our planning director, but basically he's been very busy um with looking at reviewing changes to ordinances for clarification and enforcement and for review purposes such as the storm water tree ordinance and overlay district and these are all for enforcement purposes. So there's there's a lot of language changes that he is definitely working on to make it more enforceable. And then you have the human resources report and not we had no vacancies in the month of September so far.

All right. Thank you very much. Any questions, comments for Mr. Vincent? Mr. Crack. Mr. Vincent, I thought we were going to seek some outside uh help on looking at the surf dining. We are. Oh, okay. Yes. I misunderstood. I thought you said that we've got essentially some folks there conflicts but I've got somebody that I think will be able to do what council wanted to speak. I've just got to lock down a precise timeline. So your work has to find the person. Yes. That's right. Thank you,

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Kerry, the kiosk that we've approved, are they still moving forward or we get correspondence? um both need to meet John and and Keith Williams regarding the kiosk and how they need to anchor it on and thus far that hasn't happened. Uh we do have a new kiosk application last week. So that's going to go to the peer committee on October 6.

Mr. just can't I'll just volunteer that I uh I stopped at the trailer made lemonade stand on uh Celebrate Surfside Beach and I, you know, conversationally just mentioned that and he said, "Yeah, we're still planning to be there early October." And the machine that he had at that uh at that festival, he said, was what he needed to be able to move over to beer. So hopefully that's still meaningful. Okay, Mr. Mayor. Uh Mr. are you done? Yeah. Mr. Thomas,

since you open the door, I ask stuff on the chair. Um, we supposed to have other flags going up there. There supposed to be other flags. Flag poles. Yeah, John's got They're actually being installed this week. Okay, that's correct. There's also supposed to be swings about swings being manufactured. Okay. Um, There was something else. I can't remember what it was. Swings.

Oh, blacks.

Yes, I've responded to uh the chair of the peer committee. We've been working. There's a platform with Civic Plus that we can utilize for merchandise purchases that go directly to the re to the manufacturer and then it gets sent back to town hall. But we're also working on three other different platforms. I don't think we are trying to b bundle all three of those packages together for a better price. It doesn't seem like it's going to work out. So now we're going to go just with the merchandise platform. So we're going to roll that out in the next few weeks. Also with the lawyer, we have a time frame of when we're going to have it. I'd hate for it to be two or three, four months down the line and they're still working on it. Yeah, Mr. Coin, I I reached out a couple attorneys had um either personal or professional conflicts. The person I'm speaking with actually used to serve as style attorney several years back and has some level of institutional knowledge. Uh she advised that she had case work this week. So, I'm hopeful that maybe by next week we could at least um have a review and maybe schedule for the following, if not this next council meeting sometime very soon to meet us in executive session.

Are we looking at someone maybe who doesn't uh have an office or something in county? Maybe Georgetown County said it's in Georgetown actually. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Let me see if anybody else go ahead. Um I see at the uh HR report that we have developed and launched an employee of reporter an employee with the leader programs. Um is there for lack of a better description an SOP or anything that's kind of describes how it's supposed to work? Yes sir. Be glad to send it to you. Okay.

Yes sir. We just wrote it out uh last end of last week. Any any other questions, comments, for Miss Spitzer? All right. Thank you very much. Then we will move into the director's reports and we'll be we will begin with the fire department report to Chief Nelson. Good evening. A couple things we got going on here. Uh we put in for several grants. Uh there's a Gary SE grant. Um, so we put in for that roughly around 60,000 to get some new gear, about six sets of that. Um, I was made aware of another grant today for public safety. Uh, we already purchased four sets of gear this year. This grant would give us half our money back, so we'll be able to get two more sets of gear as well. So, that's good. Uh, October 17th, we'll be having open house uh at the fire station. So, come on by. It's Friday evening. Um, and also October 6, we'll be starting live fire burns for the next three days. Uh so you'll see our apparatus out of the station and stuff like that as they go over Mur's inlet or Myrtle Beach and we do live fire burns for Rory County which is something we have to do every year uh to keep our ISO points and everything and we'll also have somebody monitoring our station over working it. So that's not a problem. Uh station painting is going on. Looks pretty good. I'm pretty impressed with it. As I pulled up the other day, I was like, "Holy cow, it's really popping out." I like that. Uh we had some plumbing issues in the men's room compartment and uh we had to replace a whole bunch of pipes. So uh that's completed and now the men's room's back up and running. Um uh Ory County's uh planning mitigation uh has been put together and finalized. I've been sitting on that for the last six months or so. Uh we'll be have I'll be setting up a time period that uh I can have the guy or county come in as well with us so we can sit down and

review it. Uh we're going to need a sign off from you guys that it's acceptable. Uh we're not the only uh department in it. Myrtle Beach is in it. North Myrtle Beach is in it. Conways it. Pretty much every jurisdictions in it. What it is is a five-year program uh for any type of issues that we should have. Hurricanes, if we had a tornado come through. Uh we put our weaknesses in there and what we think our strengths are as well. uh so that if any type of the pier goes down uh there's a grant that could do that. If we put that in there that's a weakness we can help push grants toward that to help our town get back on speed after a large scale and something like that. Uh so it's something uh we want to be doing as an entity with county not just on our own that would take quite a bit of time as well as we would probably have to hire some people from outside to help get that done. Um so this is a great way to do it. We came together as a unit came up with these uh mitigation issues and you can read it on Ory County and I can have it sent to you or whatever you want as well. But uh it's out there. Uh we've already uh gotten some comments back on it. I think they said they got roughly 25 comments back on it. Some of them were a little but uh others were really good. So that's all I have.

All right. Any uh questions, comments for Chief Nelson? I got an add Mr. Mayor if I could. It just happened my timing going down to Walmart on 544 the other day. Big mess. You all recall I was sitting at the light when you all responded to it and made the left. But just wanted to say pulled in there. I happened to be the second car that got stopped. Okay. 7 minutes. You guys got the truck in place, got out, got the cones, got the traffic moving. seven minutes. So, I just want to say that was very impressive and please pass it along. They're doing a great job on track.

I I have no issues with it working for us. They're all doing a great job. It was a really really bad wreck and they got they got things just moving right along. Got it in the We actually had one off Motion Boulevard the other day, a vehicle with enttrapment. The guy wrapped his car around the tree and they cut him out pretty well too and got him out of there. down Ro Boulevard. Yeah. See, how how fast you got to be going to wrap yourself around a tree down there, right? I'm going to leave the rest of it in there. M and his fellas visit with addressing. Yeah. Good job on the 544. Thank you,

Mr. Mayor. I am. Yes, MH. Um, under inspections it said mo mobile kitchens. What is mobile kitchen? So anytime like we have a fair or anything like that you see those food trucks come that would be the mobile kitchen. Thank you. Mor one time you were thinking about possibly hiring firefighters. was supposed to or

uh I don't I've been kind of putting it that off a little bit. We're going to look at that toward the end of the year getting that hiring process started. Um the main reason is I'm trying to spread the budget out a little bit there. Uh we didn't plan for the volunteer picking up as much as they did. So I'm just spreading that out a little bit. We're probably looking at October, November starting that process. We still have one part-time right now. Uh the goal is to quit six more months. So, we're adequately staffed now, correct? With the volunteers that came back, about 32 volunteers. Yes, sir. Maybe 12, 13 of them are interior firefighters. And we have one guy getting ready to go next. So, we don't want to go back.

Mr. Mr. I guess this is more of a comment than a question, but the the blue reflectors that mark where the fire hydrants are, it seems like a a really good idea that would have been done in the 60s because I assume that all the trucks have GPS and it tells you it does they don't.

There's no GPS on the hydrants or anything like that. Well, no, not on the hydro bar, but to have a map with GPS that shows exactly where they are, and then it would even tell you the gallons per minute that it's rated at. Uh, and I would think that for the most part, that's part of your training is to know where the hydrants are and where the ones are that you really need for a fixed fire. So, hydrants are supposed to be marked by a certain color. Okay.

Okay. um down here they are not. Brand strand has one color. Conway has one color. That's how you find out what the GPN's are. There's a color rate that's supposed to be the hydrant self is supposed to be marked that. They're not that way. Red's green strand in here. Yellow is common. That's kind of what I'm saying. Correct. Markers just tell you one's there. It doesn't tell you.

That's all we're looking at at that time. Correct. Uh actually the flow of the hydrants in the town are well established for us and work well. Uh we were just down off Cypio Drive. They're putting in a new subdivision down there. Uh they had some hydrants in there and last night or Monday night the guys were out doing some training pulling hose and hooking up the hydrant and I call it Buckport Water. Uh because when I was out at Buckport the large diameter hose you could step on it and it was real squishy and it's not supposed to be that way. It's supposed to be really solid and stiff. Uh we don't have that issue with our hydrants in here. So I would say that we're well over what we need to be as far as the hydrant. I would have to look into it to get your GPS. Um as far as the being able to look at it where it is, it can uh but however the issue is uh let's say the computer goes down. How do we find it? Um this is a very quick marker that you see that blue reflector. Hey, there's a hybrid. and we put it off to either the right or left side of the divider line to tell you it's on the right side or it's on the left side. Uh very easy to track and work uh in the middle of the night when you're waking up and trying to rub the sleep out of your eyes. It's it's visible. Um, the other issue is I found this problem back when I was up in PA getting the water company to give you the uh GPS coordinates sometimes kind of pain because uh terrorist actions and stuff like that that they start coming back saying we we can get them but it it's an act and a process of getting it done. Um the system that we have currently we don't have a choice in it's through the county uh the mapping system uh and it's kind of 1970ish uh it's not really the diagram system on it isn't really well mapped. It's uh we're supposed to be going to a new program here shortly at the end of

October and I'm hoping that that system would be a lot better and a lot faster. Um, one thing I've learned with computer systems, uh, when you have a computer, it has connected internet, you have to go back and forth. It's a long process. Uh, the processors aren't as fast as per say iPads. Uh, we had iPads when I left here and we went back and went to MBTs and I don't know why that we went that way. uh the iPads move a lot faster and upgrade and and you're able to pull stuff up, but I don't have a stake in that program. I get what I get. So, did that answer it? I'm sorry. Yes. Yes.

Mr. there. I I'd recommend on other towns that I've seen where the fire hy has the donuts on it.