Town Council - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded.

Call to order the regular town council meeting of May 26th, 2026 for the town of Surfside Beach. Please stand as we begin with an invocation offered by Reverend Kirk Lawton of Ocean Lakes Church.

Will you pray with me please? Yes, sir. As we pause for these moments in your presence, oh God, we must also come confessing our own failure and fault. So often when things go right in our lives, we fail to thank you. And when things go wrong, we often blame you. Teach us Lord, we pray that even though you are almighty, yet we are not robots who have no choices. So may we be your eager servants in the wrong, which needs resistance and in the right, which needs assistance. We're so thankful, O God, that although the devil is mighty, you are almighty. So we pray this evening for faith to remember that even when our own plans fail or when they're delayed, that though the wrong seems all so strong, God is the ruler yet. We give you thanks, Lord, for the blessings that we all have. There are so many. We cannot begin to count or acknowledge them. We pray this evening you give wisdom to those who lead our town as well as to others who are not elected but who love Surfside and who in so many ways seek to enhance the quality of life

All right, thank you very much. This agenda includes a public hearing in the 26, 27 fiscal year municipal budget.

is are there any comments related to the budget? All right, I will now consider the public hearing closed. We'll move on to item number four, motions relating to the agenda. Are there any motions to the agenda? All right, hearing none, we'll move on to minutes approval. I need a motion for approval.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. High.

I'll make a motion to approve both the May 12th workshop meeting regarding the comprehensive fee and the May 12th, 2026 regular town council meeting.

Second. Give a second. I heard skip and neither won. All right. Okay. Any discussion? All right. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. Motion carries, and the minutes are approved. We'll now move on to item number six, public comment relating to agenda items. Alexa, pause.

Alexa, pause. Never heard that happen before. Okay.

Well, that one doesn't count.

All right. I see no public comment relating to agenda items. Now move into item number seven, communications. The administrators report, Mr. Benson.

Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor and Council, you have the press release that was sent out on Friday, May 22nd. You'd ask that I not read it, but just kind of summarize. So for Counseling for the citizens, on May 27th is when staff realized that there was a business email compromise. On April 27th, there was a business email compromise. Staff immediately contacted the local law enforcement agency, which is our police department. And in turn, we also contacted SLED with the assistance of the FBI. I just want counsel to know, and also for the citizens, that We are actively working with our IT professionals, our insurance carriers, and our legal counsel to resolve this issue. And we're also looking to also provide and strengthen our safeguards within our town finance department. Staff followed standard protocol in this process, and we plan to be as transparent as legally possible once all of these investigations have been

All right, thank you. I asked for this item to be placed on the agenda, so I'm going to start the discussion on this. And the reason we did not read it was it's been a press release, it's been on the website, it's been on Facebook, and it's been on the agenda here. So anyone who's interested in that story has had numerous opportunities to read it. I will mention, just in comments, that a news story was written about two weeks ago and a couple of quotes. A Wildcat representative said it appears the town's email system was hacked and money went to a fake account. And later that we, Wildcat, had a third party come in to check our system, the representative of Wildcat said. They said it was the town system that was hacked. Those are pretty declarative and definitive statements made within two weeks of discovering the situation. And I believe the indications are After more extensive study, the town system is not hacked. And I can imagine the insurance companies are going to go back and forth on this one for I don't know how long. I just don't think it's always good to blurt out everything you think you know about any situation as soon as you're asked. Even when you're trying to be transparent, you need to exercise some discretion. Proverbs 18, 17 says, the first to plead his cause seems right until he's questioned by his neighbor. So I just want to make sure we're doing this in an orderly fashion. So just to kind of go over a few things, Mr. Vincent, you said it was reported the day you got it, right? That's correct. When did the investigation start internally?

The local law firm. enforcement officers came over immediately to town hall.

And you going through emails and looking for everything, including the whole finance department? That's correct. Okay. To the best of your knowledge, the transaction payment, was it transacted according to law?

It was transacted according to our standard protocol. Yes, sir.

But I mean, everything was legal. I mean, we did everything according to standard legal practices and then

the follow-up is yes to the town's internal processes yes sir is there any other informal double check um verifications that should have been done what we're what we're doing now is we're looking to strengthen our protocols and make it very more stringent for our contracts with local contractors and this contractor was from north carolina so we're going to make our contracts even more stringent as far as whether it's a check that's mailed to the company.

Well, I had a truck. There's two that I can't mute. This is this meeting. Please mute your computer. Hello? I agree. I tell my clients to do a lot better. We can't.

I'm trying to get it.

Excuse me.

All right, thank you. My final question is, and you kind of already started answering it, any process changes being made?

We're going to strengthen our protocols. Yes, sir. And our authorizations.

All right. That's all I've got. Any other questions, candidates? Mr. Mayor? Mr. Lawhart?

Just a kind of a point, I guess. So, Obviously, we're doing what we can between law enforcement and the insurance investigations, et cetera, to try to retrieve whatever it is we can get back from this, correct? That's correct.

Okay.

My focus, beyond the money, obviously, is to ensure we have process, procedure, training, whatever we need to put in place to ensure this never happens again. So with what you're doing, are you comfortable removing in that direction?

Yes, sir.

We already started that. Okay.

Melanie and her staff have already attended a conference, not only just on the financial protocols, but also cybersecurity. Okay.

Because it seems to me that probably for the entire staff, we need some strength and training regarding MOs for fraudulent types of approaches, et cetera. We need that. That's right.

Thank you.

Any others? Mr. Mayor? Mr. Hyatt? Yeah. i'm really concerned because frankly when i got on town council i understood that my greatest responsibility was a fiduciary one and uh this kind of caught me unaware and you know right after i was notified i ran a quick uh internet search about fraudulent um buildings and it states Just one I randomly grabbed says, be cautious of invoices that arrive unexpectedly, have slight changes in vendor details, or create a sense of urgency to pay. And also another thing that it mentions farther down is watch for misspellings. And I understand that at least one, if not more, of these were present. And I'm just kind of wondering, we seem to do a lot of security work. through Heritage, and I'm wondering why this kind of basic stuff you can get right off the internet in one little simple search wasn't a big part of our training in the finance department.

Mr. Iron, I can say that it was definitely compromised and it was missed. Even Heritage actually strengthened their awareness with our protocols, and they even said to us, as experts,

Thank you.

Thank you, Jerry. I've heard a lot of those about people in town. Some of the people in town that people are. On the count of this, you can see that anybody in town that had anything to do with this was probably or this handled anything that you can see.

No, sir. I mean, say I follow their candid

just wanted to get that out there because that's been said mr mayor ms shaw and if i'm asking something that can't be discussed because of legal issues just i get it okay we know a certain amount was transferred is it true to say we also know that we won't get the total back

And if there's nothing else, we will now move on.

The rest of the communications and directors reports will be getting the finance, Director Gruber. Oh, are you gonna do the HR report? It's in your package. Okay. You usually don't, unless you don't be staggered with it. Go ahead.

Mr. Mayor, I have a question about the department.

Okay, yeah. Well, then go ahead. It's still part of the administration.

Just a very quick question is, how come we never have her here to present her report and ask questions? Oh, she's here. She's here. Oh, I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

That's okay. She's not a director of a department, so typically I just give that report.

I see.

Yeah. We started that, so it's just for your information.

Okay. I understand that. Sean explained that to me as well.

We good now? I'm good. All right. We now move on to item 7B1. Finance Report Director Gruber.

Good evening. For the month of March, I'm sorry, April. April. We are at $9.4 million in operating revenue and $8.5 million in operating expenditures. And the franchise tax collections through April were 6.5 million. You'll notice the next part on your report that we've added a little more details. So in April, we had 43 new business license accounts open. 11 were in town, 18 were out of town. 11 were contractors and five rentals. Under the hospitality and ATACs, Hospitality collections are at 2.1 million and local aid tax was at 457,000. We were still sitting at our second quarter total for state aid tax of 762. We did receive the third quarter in early May since it'll be reported on the next monthly report. I will say it just like that. The capital projects fund, The Sandy Cooper Underground Utility Project is ongoing. We actually received our third quarter road fees from the county. We received $281,000. Last year, the total year, we only paid $190,000. So we are like double what we were last year total overall. And we haven't received . Underneath the Soar More Utility Fund, we were at $455,000, and we have no major projects going on right now. The Peer Fund, we were at $401,000 operating revenue and $291,000 in expenses. Above that revenue, $168,000 is from parking. Sanitation, we were at $1.3 million in operating revenue and $1.29 million IN EXPENSES. OUR PARKING REVENUE FOR THE GENERAL FUND, WE ARE AT $432,000 WITH OUR EXPENDITURES AT $193,000. FOR THE INVESTMENT POOL, THE AVERAGE INTEREST RATE ACTUALLY WENT UP LIKE .01. YEAH. SO IT WENT UP A LITTLE BIT. So during the month of April, staff was preparing for the budget retreat and the budget workshop, which included the creation of the proposed budget document and all presentations. The biannual peer debt payment was made. The annual PCI compliance was completed. And also the business license official was very busy processing renewals as they were due on April the 30th. Let me just follow that up.

Any questions, comments for Director Gruber?

Mr. Mayor? Yes, Wallace. Mr. Gruber, I just wanted to say thank you for the time and effort that you put into the spreadsheet that you sent us based on the five-year general. That was more than five years, but the projected years general fund based on the assumptions that you've given us, I forget. A lot of time and effort went into that, and I appreciate your effort.

Thank you.

Oh, I think I know the answer from the basket anyway. So the peer operating revenue, I'm assuming that consists of rents from the tenants, rents from kiosks. Can you just kind of run through what all that includes?

We have the floor rents for the businesses. We have kiosk rent. We have weddings, binoculars, fishing.

I thought I knew. I just went 100%. Thanks.

Transfers end.

So I got a little bit. It looks like I'm just looking at the revenues of all the different funds here. And you mentioned ATACS was down. It looks like stormwater is down, but it looks like nothing. It looks like there was a big increase in April last year that didn't have finishes. Are we just awaiting some revenues there? Because it looks like it was tracking at about 450 each year.

Didn't we have a project going on last year when we were receiving outside?

We had two grants for the drainage project. Correct. COR and the county. Okay, so.

We have no projects when we're trying to build for the next project.

So the fact that it's. still in the 472 range, that's not. That was additional range. All right, that's all I had. Any others? Thank you, Director Gruber. Well, now we move to the fire department report. Chief Nelson.

Good evening.

Been a busy banquet for us. We had to increase our staffing last weekend during the Harley bike week. If you had another member on to that, which actually helped out quite a bit. Probably an additional 50 just for that weekend alone. I'll have a call volume for you for next month. We'd like to wish Lauren, who's our administrative assistant, farewell. She's going to be moving on, opening her own basket, which will become the surf site here shortly. We've placed an offer out to Ms. Jennifer, who will be starting in June, and we look forward to working with her. Assistance to firefighter grant is open, and we'll be putting in for that as well. We hired one part-time firefighter, Stanley Wood, who will be starting with the short term. Mr. Coleman, you asked for a breakdown of call volume in and out of calls and things like that. If I leave, it's page three of my report. You should see like a graph up at the top. In the lower left-hand corner, it says core districts. Contract area. Contract area is what we're obligated to cover. And you can see that we had 64 calls in there. Horry County, we assisted them with 12 calls. Merle Central, we assisted them with four. We ran 52 calls in the town of Surfside. 17 calls are non-applicable because that could have been where We got called, we got canceled, so there was nothing put into that. We're trying to correct that issue a little bit with it, so then any calls we have, it has to be listed, whether it's in call, out of call, or anything. Are you missing it, sir? It looks like this page right here. You also asked if we can give you a volunteer breakdown number, so the next page, you'll get a page with the number of this one here. The graph right here. breaks down into two different types. So we had two different types of volunteer calls that we allow. Either they're paged and they respond by the pager, or they come and sit and they get 16 hours a month and do that, and that's how it's broken down. So there's your breakdown. And that's all I have on our board. All right, questions, comments?

Yeah, I'd like to say something. Mr. Hyatt, on page three, down here you have, down at the bottom of this chart, sir you have core district number of incidents and i noticed that you have town of surfside beach which is something we've been asking for for a long time am i correct correct and i just want to tell you i appreciate you getting that in there thank you i want you to know we know it and we're glad to see it thank you thank you chief nelson we will move on to uh

7B, communications and events. Mrs. Wall.

Good evening, everyone. OK, let's start with the website and social. So we continue to make the updates for the website daily. We have a lot of work to do there, of course, but we'll get there. Proud to say we hit 47,000 Facebook followers, which is really exciting. Our TV ads, our newspaper, and social media all continue to generate traffic, whether it be in person or on our social media. So that's good news. The new events and marketing and media material for the events and core summer promotions, then that's the core summer. That's June, July, and August. So that package, is almost complete, and it should go out the 1st of June. So fingers crossed, that's really exciting. The peer and veterans wall plaque orders are live on our website. So if you want to order a plaque that's placed on the peer in the honor of someone, you can order that on the website, and as well as the veterans wall plaques. Those can all go through the website. I know, really exciting, right? Okay, so our event summary, and again, this was a week or so ago, so we can update that. But the second annual Kite Festival, it was so good. It filled the sky with color and our restaurants with people, and it was really exciting to even talk to people on the beach that came down for that Kite Festival. That was really exciting to hear and see that go on. With that, the learning that I have is we don't need arts and crafts vendors for that festival. We will go with the third annual with no arts and crafts vendors. That's a beach event. We have plenty of fun for all of the families and so forth right there on the beach. Again, we tested it twice and we saw what we could deliver and I just feel like it's no good. Okay, as you've probably seen, we've done a lot of variations of the farmer's market. So I think we're in a really good place right now for a safe, basically it's just a safe area that restored parking, but also keeps our vendors healthy. And with all of that being said, the pedestrian walkway is in now. I think the public works department's working on the crush and run to put that in the pedestrian walkway. So I feel like that was very well done and we landed on something good. So we're going to test it for a few weeks, make sure it works. But apparently the farmer's market, Waccamaw Cooperative love it. The vendors are loving it, and the folks that we've spoken to since all the revisions have taken place really enjoy that extra area of parking. So the 2026 4th of July America 250 celebration is underway. Here are some of the highlights for you guys. The golf cart parade, and let me just say this out loud, it's on a check-in and check-out day. So it is on Saturday, right? And so the golf cart parade will kick off or step off rather at 10 a.m. instead of 11 a.m., which is what we're used to. KSBE, thank you so much. They're hosting our check-in area, which is going to be at the First Baptist Church as usual. And really cool that we are having a DJ there playing patriotic music will give us a really good sound system. for us to enjoy while we are waiting to stop the parade off. Flag presentations, remarks, Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem are all going to be done there and then our judging is going to be at Neal and Pam's and that immediately follows the parade. And then we're going to, you know, the celebration is going to continue over at Neal and Pam's. No parking lots will be closed. No public parking lots will be closed for the festival, which is really exciting. I worked with Neil and Pam's, and they are allowing us to use their parking lots and First Avenue South for the festival. So it's pretty exciting there. And we're also going to have Jim Quick and the Coastline Band. I don't know if you guys all know them, but they are a super band. And I'm actually excited. It took me a year to get them. So really excited about that. We'll have a Kid's Zone. And then we'll also have an ice cream eating contest, compliments of Druffy's homemade ice cream. So we're really excited about that. The salute from the shore flyover is expected to be around one o'clock, same time as last year. And then I am just going to ask that, like we normally do, if you're on the beach or at the pier during that time, just grab ahold of those gigantic American flags and help us hold them. The flyover guys really like that and they take photos of that. So it would be really cool for them to see the flags in motion by us. Around town. So American flags will be positioned around town. We've already started. If you haven't seen the flags around town, it's going to get bigger. And the 250th American flag banners. So if you know, we're like all of our poles are the Surfside Beach banners hanging from those poles. Those will be changing out to the 250 and the just regular American flag banners. And unfortunately we could not get the military banners in time. And that's the ones where you can actually put the photo of a loved one and the public could purchase, but that will be open in January of 2027 to be in place for Memorial Day next year. Let's see.

If I could, before you move on, let me just ask real quick, is it kind of like the airport?

Yeah, like if you're going to the airport or if you're going to Market Common, that's the banners that we try to implement. Yeah, no problem. And the public is able to make a purchase of those. But again, that whole campaign will go out and we'll make sure we can get it all taken care of by them. I want to encourage, I don't know if y'all seen like the avenues, the streets, but there are some streets that have really went all out with American flags. So I want to encourage all of our residents to put your American flags out, um, continuum on, on the ground, um, you know, in your grass or on your poles or whatever, I think it's, it's gonna make for a really pretty display for the entire community. So I wanna just encourage you guys to do that for our 250th year of America. So upcoming events, uh, music and memorial park, uh, that kicked off last Sunday. Thank goodness the rain didn't crush it for us. Um, and that's every Sunday through. I believe it's August 30th. And then June 8th begins the Hula and Fire Dancer shows at 7 p.m. at the Cure. New at the Cure is one of our Cure events this year. Starting on June 10th, we're having Family Game Night. So we'll have a DJ. We'll have Ed Venture. Excuse me. We'll have a DJ. We will have Edventure there partnering with the DJ, and we're going to do things like hula hoop contests and hermit crab races and all the fun things that you can think of that kids would want to do. Cornhole, all the things. And then on June 11th, our Crafters Cove drop-in begins at 9.30 to 11.30 in the morning, and that, again, is also up. What's that?

All right, thank you. I'm going to start the comments. And first with the flags, two of our council members are really into that. Coleman on his street and other parts of town. And then Mr. Staney looks like he's from Wall Street, but it's his yard. Looks great, too. But it has very big reality displays. Thanks. Thank you, gentlemen. The false flag orders, how recently did that start?

Maybe Three weeks ago? Three, four. Do we have any yet? Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully this will. Yep. This will get it out there. And I'll have a whole campaign behind that on as well that I'll release. Remind me to remember. Yeah. Yes.

We'll do it in your office. For sure. Okay. I just want to thank Director Adair and the whole fire department, Fire Marshal Williams, for working through it. I went to the farmer's market probably about three times. And yeah, the feedback I got is very positive. So a lot of disproved people at first, but appreciate you guys working through it quickly. And that is all I have. I've got one follow-up.

It's been a while since this all happened. For those that don't know, this came out of the peer committee when it was still in existence. kudos to Doug McBracken, Alex Samsell, Mr. Hyatt, Krause, et cetera. But anyway, it would be helpful maybe if you tell the folks in attendance what that is. It's been a while since anybody heard about any of that. Just kind of briefly, just give them a second. I know you can put stuff out, but it might be helpful.

So if you've been to Merle's Inlet and you've seen the plaques on the walkway, Merle's Inlet on the boardwalk area, Basically, that's it. You can put whatever you want on the plaque. Maybe Tabitha was here. It could be a memory of Rick Walhorn. It could be any of those things. Yeah, you can memorialize whoever you want, and you can actually put anything on there. There's three lines that you can do. You can choose what design you want out of, I think, there's four. So you'll be able to go through that process and see what you would like. Does it cost approximately? It's $250, I believe, for the pier fire. Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Mr. Wallace, if I could, just tell me a little bit, The June 10th, the games of the beer. It's all new. So we're just going to give it a shot that night or is it going to repeat?

It's going to repeat. It's going to go through the season. So it's going to go through core summer season. That's part of our course.

Yes.

Okay. Every week. Yeah. It'll be a fun time for the kids.

Thank you. No, this is family. So you can enjoy it.

It's coming. I love all this stuff for both July and everything. If you ever think of the possibly shutting down Ocean Boulevard, I was actually on Panem's that Saturday. They had at least 300 people there and people all over the place in the streets. Cars were parked up all the way up to the library. That's how many people were there. Personally, I would love to see every Saturday night we had a concert, shut down Ocean Boulevard, have a pedestrian plaza there, try to work it out with the fire department, police department. You get a lot more people and a lot of people would want to come here to rent, not just to come here for a free ride. And the best part of it is . The other idea is the town doesn't pay for the van. The restaurants and the bars pay for the van. So it really is a process other than . I would love to see, just try it. Shut down Ocean Boulevard. It could be for a few hours. He had it from 6 to 8, which is more like an adult time. And, you know, they're going to have it at 12 to 3, which is fine, but it would be nice to have something in the evening. 12 to 3, a lot of people still aren't even here yet. 12 to 3. Maybe. So people can get from 12 to 3. Yeah, for the 4th of July festival, yes. But he's having a family at what time? So 12 to 3. You got it. What I'm saying is that people check out at 10. They're not allowed to check in until 3 o'clock. By the time they get here, we'll see.

Okay, thank you for that. And I, too, want that area. Right.

um i've been asking for that but well there's a lot of tape there so we'll see what we can do um but it seems it seems to me that right now we we're holding on that but um i'll definitely go back and ask again chairman of the infrastructure committee i don't know if that's our overview but we can look at that too and get it on together and see if we could possibly figure out a way to do it and we try it just for one day and then

see what we can do maybe uh it might be every week absolutely it brings a lot more space it doesn't take up any parking lots right because i mean technically you know they're not big right much better than taking the kids yeah okay thank you i like that and i would love that if you would take it to the infrastructure partner okay thank you you're welcome

any others mr mayor this time i'd like to say a few things one is um great exciting plans it's neat to see and i know you're working hard to do that two i'm really glad to see the uh the live orders for the for the plaques we've been working on that for a long time and i know it took a lot of work we finally have it uh three i'd like to um tell the public works department that i'm really had really happy to hear that they've worked this fellow pedestrian walkway because I think that was a big issue at the farmer's market. And four, you had discussed with me earlier that there was going to be a banner celebrating, a Surfside Beach banner celebrating the 250th anniversary of that country for sale. Is that still going to happen? I'm saving my money. No.

No.

That's the normalizing of the person.

I see.

Yes, it will happen. Will that happen this year? No.

Okay. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'll go spend my money elsewhere.

There you go.

Thank you. All right.

If that's it. Thank you. We'll move on now. We're now moving to the fourth director's report. Director Aguirre, Public Works.

Mayor, Council, and citizens. Public Works for April. I'll try to keep it brief. In our sanitation division in April, we prepared and received the letters for the summer three-time-a-week rollout program, which took effect May 10th, and that is in effect right now. We had the household hazardous waste drop-off in April, which went very well. Over 60 cars participated in that over the few days that were there. In our streets and drainage division, The underground wiring project is having a final punch list. The item's completed. I believe the asphalt patches were redone last week, and so hopefully that will get rid of that findability problem we were having. The crews are replacing several potentially hazardous sections of sidewalk in various locations. The 12th Avenue South Beach access has had pavements installed, which is budgeted for this current fiscal year. And our schedule currently has our area being effective from early to mid-July into August. And so the mayor put out this recent newsletter. Grounds division, I'll just say the floral playground is back in service. They have been down for a little while for playground equipment repair. And the crews have installed the hanging baskets for the season. In our fleet maintenance division, mechanics completed 72 repairs. town vehicles and equipment. Additionally, 19 vehicles had preventive maintenance. If anybody has any questions in public works, I'd be happy to answer them at this time. Any?

Thank you.

How many detoxes still have to be done? Well, most of them do not. We have another one that's going to happen this spring, hopefully before the fiscal year. It's going to be 16th north and then uh i have two at least i can get done with the money you're budgeting for this coming fiscal year both current and uh last year's eight tax money i have about i think 70 or 70 000 all together what you guys have validated so we tune this year and then tune next year hopefully in the fall i'll do those and then some of them had them already yeah a lot of people uh

I've seen it. I really, really like the way they left. They want to get it.

It's going to be a slow process, but I think the way I'm selecting accesses is based on the traffic I'm getting from the parking people. How much, you know, for the whole last parking season, how much they took in. So in the case of 8th South, we've got a whole season in 8th South, so we had about a 12% increase in revenue. after I did it from the prior year. So if that trend continues, it'll pay for itself all the time. Yeah.

All right. Good stuff.

Alice?

So how much people

slides swings there's four swings and one there's a playground yeah playground yeah does anyone need to get some more equipment in there uh yeah well we had that that dome structure a couple of years ago and uh i'm sure there's probably definitely in fact the oldest piece in there probably needs to be replaced so that might be coming to you guys bringing up this conference will you ever make a nice one i'll see if i can get some great money to pay for some of that you're talking 50 grand

I mean, it's a big park, and there isn't a, it's good for kids who want around, but if they want to, there's only four screens.

It's nice, but it could be bad. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Walsh. John, just give us an update. Grand Strand Water was doing the pressure washing of their water tower down there. All their children's. How did it go? Any incident?

Well, they performed the pressure washing. They covered the garden during the process, which was great. As of this morning, my guys didn't open the park because there was paint chips all over the park. We were afraid of that. Yeah, so we called Grant Strand and said they'd send somebody out tomorrow. We cleaned up a lot of it ourselves, but hopefully by this time tomorrow, they'll be back to normal. But the garden was fine because they covered it during the process. You don't want to leave that day.

Thanks, John. Thanks for your old records.

That's how old we stay. Mr. Stanley. John, are there any plans to put in any more restrooms in town?

Access or anything? Any kind of plan for that?

There's nothing in the works right now. It's been asked in the past. And my suggestion, if council wanted to go down that road, the logical place to put it would be at the 16th, between 16th and 17th North, where we have that parking area. That'd be the logical place to put it. Most beach accesses aren't large enough to accommodate a restroom, so it would have to be by a parking lot. And that's really the only way. You can't put it at Melody. Sixth is real small. That would be the most logical place to put it over there.

So I would hope that we, in the future, look into that and see if we can get some money up and get another restaurant for that parking lot if we have to. I think that's one of the things that draw a lot of people here in town is because we do have our nice public restaurants to go to.

Yeah, well, the North is a little underrepresented anyway, so that would be a good place to put it.

I think we just think about it a little bit during the budget workshops, but it never made it to the budget.

Yes, sir. Since you brought it up, do you have an idea right off the top of your head what that costs?

Well, I'm going to say somewhere between $150,000 and $175,000 because the restrooms have gone up considerably and there's no water and sewer at that location now. We're not replacing an existing one, so you have to bring the land in from scratch. So it takes a little bit of money. All right.

Thank you.

Oh, 150 plus.

Are they not sewer and olive there that we can pretty well tap into pretty easy? It wouldn't be like we have to dig up a road or something to redo that.

I'm sure there's a sewer made on 16th or on that road between 16th and 17th. Yes.

Along that side of the road.

Yeah, there'll be a tap. With the nearest lot, they'll just fly off of it and trench it over to where we want it.

I know it costs, but it still wouldn't be like, you know, car money costs. Yeah, no, it all depends on where they have to pull it from.

Director Adair. Thank you. We will now move into the Police Department report. Chief Pickle.

Mayor, council, members of the public.

So this is for April of 2026. We responded to 1,181 calls for service. For the whole year, it's been 3,39,39 total calls for service for the year of 2686. 1,253 of those are self-initiated, broken out as adequate. In April, we wrote 100 citations, five ordinance citations, we gave 206 warnings. You can see that's a little bit more than we did last year. A total of 20 arrests. You can see the breakdowns for those offenses. You can see the index crime, monthly crime data as well. Nothing different there. Golf cart activity, we issued two citations, a year-to-date, 12 morning citations. Again, this is year-to-date, not just April. Had five accidents, two injury accidents, one at the time. For personnel actions, we extended two conditional offers for part-time and full-time vacant communication officers that serve in our dispatch. As of this month, they have turned into, conditions have been removed and they'll be starting here in a week or two. So we will have fulfilled our, dispatch positions. Officer Rosserman and Officer Wilson were both in their abbreviated field training. They completed that in April and got on the road and are working independently. For April, we had one police vacancy. It has since turned into three. We have three officer vacancies currently. We're going to have a testing session scheduled for the beginning of June.

Quite a few applicants that we'll be testing and hopefully come up with some great applicants out of that testing process.

So April was a busy month. Fire Chief talked about how busy they were in May. We were very busy as well during a bike week. We'll elaborate on that next month, April for May's report. But even April was busy as well. So we worked the kite festival. It was a great success. Again, thank you, Tabitha. And no police-related incidents whatsoever. We hosted an intern from Coastal Carolina University during April, and she did a great job in her internship, and she'll be graduating this year. We were awarded a gold award for outstanding DUI enforcement at South Carolina Highway Department at our law enforcement awards ceremony. The awards were accepted by Detective Bishop and Sergeant Camp. Sergeant Camp oversees this program, and we kind of had some room for improvement in this program last year, and Sergeant Camp took it over, and he got us a gold award. So in a very short order, he increased our participation and and did a great job, so thank you so much for that. We also graduated five citizens from this April from the Surfside Beach Police Department City Academy. Thank you very much for attending that. We think that was a success, and we really look forward to doing it again in the fall, and I just want to get that out there now that we have 12 openings, so we really want to fill that up. We also celebrated National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, which was also in April. We honored our communications officers who served in dispatch. We're very grateful to them. Back in 2022, Surfside Beach Police Department conducted an investigation and arrested an offender. In this month of April, 2026, that offender pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, sexual assault, and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. that this is a successful outcome based on the great investigations that were done by the detectives in 2022. And also Detective Bishop who worked closely with the solicitor's office investigators when we were getting close to trial did such a great job with the federal flood action. So we were happy to have him removed from our streets and our community. Also April officers Corman and officer Austin Smith, they went to the graduated law enforcement bicycle association police academy bike school. sure you've seen them out there pedaling hard and pure village and i've been a few hours during every day they've been out there and during the uh parades you've been seeing them out there so love to see the guys in the bikes getting great feedback from the public on that as well well we also hosted the 82nd annual fishing with a cop at the certified beach fishing pier and out last year was a great success we gave up got to interact a lot of kids caught some fish and gave away fishing poles this year and last year they were just going Borrowing this year, we had so many donations from the community that we were able to give the poles and some tentacles to the kids at the camping zone. We've been doing that every year now. We also partnered with the South Carolina Department of Public Safety and fellow agencies within the judicial district for a traffic safety checkpoint. That also goes along with the same program that Senator Camp oversaw. And so we were posting with them and then participate in a checkpoint that happened here in Surfside Beach. And that resulted in 11 citations and two arrests. That's our report. Do you have any questions?

Thank you, sir. Questions, comments? I've got a couple. Mr. Hyatt. Oh, on the suspicious circumstances, persons and vehicles on the top of the second page. I was just wondering how many, 184 of them are called in, how many of these kind of turn out to be an important bit of information?

I mean, I don't have access to the exact numbers on that. Just rough. You don't know? Probably a smaller percentage that are called in, probably less than half of those turn into . And we don't discourage that. We always say if you see something, say something. So we don't mind coming out and checking something out and making sure that it's not suspicious.

And the other thing I had was the bicycle patrol. As I discussed with you in my campaign, I really wanted to see a bicycle patrol, and I'm really glad to see that you've got one. Thank you.

It's a statement. Well, I'm going to start out with saying, Chief, this is a good report. But I also want to say something about yesterday. As anybody here knows, yesterday was Memorial Day. And our chief was the guest speaker here in town. And I hope whoever is in town is about to hear it or got to go to Facebook and listen to it.

This man veteran who has served really well for our country.

He's served in Desert Storm and one of the other ones. He spoke, I don't remember which one he was, but I didn't know he served in Desert Storm. But anyway, he served as a lieutenant. A corporal. Just a corporal. But anyway, I want to recognize him as a good guy and a professional guy as he is. And I hate, if you're being serious speech, please go listen to it. But thanks, Chief.

Thank you, Councilor. It was an honor and privilege to be asked to do that and the merit of each speech and to be able to follow them. And more importantly, it's to honor the fellow service members who did not make it home and who died so that we can be here today and enjoy our right to assemble and all the other rights that we did. So I'm privileged and I was humbled to be asked. Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to echo that as well. I appreciate what you did, and very moving and very real, very authentic. I do have a question here, though, and I realize I'm flirting on personnel issues, but pre-vacancies, are we having any issues? I mean, it has been a sensitive issue in this town in the past, and as freely as you can share, and if you can't, you can.

Yeah, I've got to turn lately on that, just issues and privacy issues for the officers to decide to move on to something different. So, I mean, I don't think it's an issue. I don't think it's an ongoing problem. You know, I just think it's a hard profession.

I guess, right. I just, yeah, I want to make sure that it's, you don't have any calls for concerns.

No, I don't think so.

Okay.

That is all I have.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Coleman. We're about six months or so into the and it's a busy scene. But on the off-scene, we haven't had any problems with it all.

We haven't had any problems yet. I almost wanted to call last week golf cart weekend, but likely there are more golf carts coming next time.

Nothing more trailers.

Yeah, nothing.

I mean, we haven't had any issues yet. Oh, that's good. With the traffic safety checkpoints, do you have to notify people that you have these checkpoints on?

Yeah, so we participate. It's a law enforcement network. It's surrounded by the Department of Public Safety. And they actually administer that program statewide. And here in this district, I'm not sure the range. It might be Horry County. Not sure who the lead agency is this year. But they take care of all the notifications. So yes, by law, they have to notify the public that this checkpoint's going to take place, where it's going to take place, the hours going to take place. And then they have to follow certain protocols of marking the checkpoint and how it's set up. And it's all regulated by state law. And there's also court case law that authorizes it and sets those guidelines. That's the law.

Yes. In my opinion, that's probably one of the stupidest laws I've ever heard in my life. When you tell a guy who wants to rob a bank, we're going to be in this bank, what did you tell somebody that... Any crime, would you give them a warning? I mean, this is the most ridiculous thing. People know that they're not supposed to drive drunk. So you tell them where you're going to be. It's a requirement.

I mean, it's a requirement that would probably be notified of the checkpoints. Did you have any idea who was this? Probably the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. Supreme Court? Yeah. You want to say something? Okay, miss shot. With that said, that we have no. Get your eyes out of it, right?

Yes, we still get DUIs and other traffic. It's a traffic safety. It's not just targeting DUIs. It's a traffic safety site. Yes, they do end up still observing and detecting violations to increase traffic safety.

I have a question. Mr. Hyatt.

Chief, you wrote 11 citations. What roughly were those for? Were they component violations or insurance violations or no driver's license?

Those statistics they have to remember. It's a checkpoint. It's not just Surfside Beach just participates. So it's every agency in the 15th Circuit that is there. So I don't rely on our stats. So DPS sends us the stats. I'm going to have to go back and look at the email from them and break it down. I don't know. They're all going to be traffic related. Anything from no insurance to DUI to equipment violations, registration.

Thank you.

thank you chief mickle all right thank you all right we will now move into planning buildings denoting director brother good evening request members of the council members of public directors report for planning zoning department um a couple of highlights for you uh the fire commission recently held two public hearings on two zone changes. We haven't had many zone changes in the past, but we had two come up on the same date. You've probably seen the postings on the site, the corner of Surfside Drive and Highway 17. And also there was a parcel behind Town Hall that was bona fide for public land of Seaguar. I believe that's what we're selling. Those recommendations will be coming to you soon. I believe they'll be coming to you on your June 9th meeting. So those recommendations, look forward to those. The Planning Commission continues to work on the tree ordinance. I'm happy to report that we're ready to go to a public hearing with that. The public hearing is going to be at the end of June. Providing the tree ordinance We've reduced the number of pages of that onerous, very onerous ordinance from approximately 17 pages to about eight pages. We're gonna save more trees. We're gonna increase penalties for offenders. And probably most importantly, we're gonna simplify the process for resident homeowner trees so that they understand. This will be very easy to understand. We're purposely writing it in simple language so that you don't have to have your attorney interpret it for you, which I think is a big, big change. That will be coming to you probably in the month of July or the month of August, depending on how we do it. The Planning Commission is amending their bylaws. Just so you know, they've amended their bylaws to start at 5 p.m. rather than the end of the 6 p.m. And that's to accommodate planning staff and to reduce staff overtime so that we get an hour in rather than sort of waiting at the end of the day to come in over here at 6 o'clock. There is a proposal for the corner of Surfside and Seven Brew Coffee. That's going to be contingent on the success or the failure. the zone change amendment that will be coming to you on June 9th. Workshop meeting on May 19th to discuss shoreline protection and vendor displays. Shoreline protection means primarily how far people who live on the dune, how far they can project elements in their yard, into their yard. There's two lines. There's a OCRM line, which is the Absolutely, you cannot build anything or put anything further than that. And then there's a setback line, which setbacks from that. And there are certain things that can go into setback, certain plantings that can go in that area and those sorts of things. So we're working on modifying that. And the reason we're modifying it is because there have been, there was, and I was in your historical, the story goes, there was a house that was torn down by the person, subdivided the lot, put the parcel out, put a pool out, and actually the pools are actually elevated. I actually had to go by and actually see elevated pools. Quite interesting. We're tightening down that shoreline protection ordinance so that we don't have people intruding onto the views. And interestingly, something I've just passed along is a piece of information. The OCRM line changes, and it changes every five years. And it changes, and I'll tell you that we're actually in what I would call a plus column right now. We are actually creating bigger dunes, deeper dunes than we've had in the past. And that, I believe, is going to continue for some time. As you know, we're going to have the beach replenishment program going on pretty soon. So that's even going to be better. So we're going to actually have a healthier dune environment. And last but not least, vendor displays. There's been some discussion recently about people placing flower pots and I'll call them just layers of the store out on the sidewalk, Surfside Drive. Also, we have this continuing issue problem of golf carts not being parked in the parking lot and being encroaching into our right of way. And that's a constant, almost a weekly, I think that Nick has to go out and sort of like walk up and he feels, got to tell you again, you've got to back your cards up another couple of feet. So we're actually looking at amending that work as well. And we did that for the month of May. Looks like we're good with that answer. Any questions you might have?

All right. Thank you, sir. Questions, comments?

Mr. Mayor. All right. Yeah, I might say something listed on here is the Planning Commission's amending the bylaws to modify the regular meeting start time from 6 p.m. to 5 p.m. I'm the liaison to the Planning Commission, so I was at that meeting, and I did a little bit of research, and I found that our town ordinance says that it's a pretty independent committee that sets its own times, and The ordinance refers to state law. The state law says the same thing, that it's an independent committee that sets its own times. So I would encourage the town administration to take a hard look at both the town ordinance and the state law regarding the planning commission and allow them to operate independently as far as setting their times. It doesn't seem like we legally can determine when they meet as a town council. Great, thank you.

All that's on the table.

Have you looked into that yet? I know the question came up a week or so ago.

I think I forwarded, John, the comments from Charlie Baranook, who gets legal opinion. And even though it's not clear in our ordinance, it's the best practice. Because January 1 is when your town clerk that works for council in every town council from January through December. So NACI has indicated best practices to have the town council approve the change in the bylaws just like it did for the ATEXA.

Okay, so it's, and yeah, it's more than meeting dates. It's approval of the bylaws or bylaw change. Bylaw change. Okay. So, I mean, I don't want to micromanage the planning commission, but on the other hand, I guess it probably doesn't hurt if town council is aware and approving. I'd be surprised if anybody had an issue. But anyway, I guess we'll await a final part. Or do you expect any more?

It's going to come to town council on June 9th. Okay.

Mr. Mayor? Mr. Walts. Might I add, that's one of the few committees that we actually do not roll within ordinance language and so forth. They have state mandated language that's in place, right?

Yes, they have state.

I mean, we don't approve. Do we approve their scope of work and all that kind of stuff like we do with the other committees?

Well, it's defined by statute. Okay, so we pretty much adopt state's language? Right. So long as nothing is inconsistent with that state language, that's great. If I recall, the primary issue, or at least my familiarity with this whenever it came up, wasn't necessarily that they wanted a change of times. It was that there had been a notice to be, I believe, at 6 o'clock on one notice for the meeting. They had made this change internally. They were then given on the second notice for it to be at 5 o'clock. So there was an issue about whether the public got proper notice of when the meeting was being held. But I think with regard to changing it going forward, I think it's maybe a little bit in the gray area, town council conservatively. pass it just to request if they want to. But my involvement, when I heard about this, dealt more with the fact that we had a meeting upcoming that did not have . That was the primary on that particular date. Okay. Thank you. Mr. American.

Mr. Cullen. On June 9th, you're also going to bring a Zolman chain amendment for . Yes, I can bring that in June. Any commissioners that they don't want it, it still comes to council.

It always still comes to council.

Council still has final say on any zone change, whether it's a recommendation for or...

I wasn't sure I could see you. You were talking about the golf carts on the right-of-way. There's a lot of that, but I also like where the old RVs were, 6 North. There's a whole parking lot. A whole parking lot. Full of golf carts. If you wanted to buy a rental golf cart, you could even walk there.

But that is one of the things that we talked about in the workshop, is that how many golf carts being displayed by a golf cart, either rental or sales company, is appropriate. And literally, the number, like, well, is 12 enough? Is 13 enough? property that you're talking about, that's their entire inventory is out on the parking lot. That means they're taking up all the parking spaces for anybody who even wants to come and buy a car, because you have to park next door and the trap traps over to the property. So that is exactly why we have the workshop this. It's not an easy issue to unravel, but we're working on it, and I think we'll arrive at something that everybody can do.

Thank you.

If I'm not mistaken, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry. Don't we have language in our ordinances that specify a number of parking spaces? Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. And business and its occupancy.

And that's the issue. The issue is, is that they come into a, usually they don't build their own building. They usually, with an existing parking lot. That parking lot number of spaces were defined by that previous use, retail use. Now you're a golf cart, now you're selling golf carts, and then what you're doing is you're taking those, let's say, 12 golf carts that you want to display out for everybody to see, and what happens is if you take 12 of those spaces, generally speaking, what you're doing is you are now reducing the number of required spaces that were there. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how we all look at it, Most of our parking lots are over-parked, meaning let's say that parking was a 30-space requirement. They go ahead and they put in 40 or 50. So in many cases, many of the golf cart places have plenty of parking. But like Mr. Coleman pointed out, they have your entire inventory out on the road. So that's an issue, and that's why it came up as an issue. You have to do something about that.

You have to figure it out.

Back to the time change where it's mandated by the FOIA law that the agenda time, place, and date be posted annually. The law doesn't say that it has to be immutably posted. And what happens if the Civic Center burns down? We're going to make a change. and notify the public of that change. And the same can be true if they make a time change. I don't understand where we're getting this idea that this is immutable and cast in concrete.

I'd say you can change it. You certainly can change the time. The issue that happened on this particular case was, as I understand it, there had been notices for, I believe, to be at 6 o'clock. Then through... change where the K-2B was then planned to be held at 5 o'clock that time. For whatever reason, that's when they wanted to do it. My concern was that if you have people anticipating to come in at 6, they come in at 6, and in fact, the meeting was then held at 5, the notice that they received, they did not have opportunity to participate in that meeting. And we discussed some different options that maybe could mitigate that to allow it to go forward just so that there's not an issue of public not be allowed to participate in what's the public meeting so not my comment or my model is really limited to that factor but yes you can you can the specific dates and times of where you hold any public meeting can change according to census i i would just encourage the town to look at the alternative rather than get the town council mixed up and what's pretty much by law thanks

thank you director brother all right that concludes our uh directive reports and our open communication section we'll now move into our business items the first one is the compensation pay study plan options administrator vincent yes sir mr mayor and town council the purpose and the facts of this item is uh dr campbell presented his final results and expertise in conducting the compensation pay study to the town

last, on the 19th of May. 105 positions were reviewed, as well as 54 job classifications. In addition, he presented two options for consideration, an open plan and a step plan. The results identified that the town lacks at the minimums, midpoints, and the maximums. It was stated at the special meeting that we should fix just the compression issues, but Dr. Campbell had indicated that it would cause more pressing issues over time. Also, it has been mentioned over the last three years that employees should be hired at the minimum, which at best would have created a deeper issue for establishing market comparables. The compensation pay study is established as a matrix to assist the department heads and human resources when decisions are considered for new hires. The study reviewed also job descriptions to tell organizational charts. Job profile questionnaires with provisions of recommended three classifications and human resources events and facilities as managers. Lastly, town council requested staff's input and recommendation with two options. While both plans, open range and step plan, are designed to compensate employees fairly and competitively, they differ in flexibility, administration, transparency, and strategic impact. Below, I've indicated and recommended the SPED plan option. And I've indicated a couple of reasons as far as the pros. Also attached is your pros and cons with plans from Dr. Kennedy. The reason we recommended the plan option is employee morale. That's a simple understanding of where the employee is with regards to compensation. Reduces disputes about compensation, which insists department heads and HR Compensation is predetermined and structured. Employee transparency, and it helps with budget predictability, assists payroll forecasting, budget development, and also to help council's considerations.

All right, thank you. So before we get into discussing this, I need a motion.

Mr. Stamey? I'd like to make a motion that we accept the first reading of the plan, reading of the step plan for Councilor Sundby.

Well, let me be clear. It's just, this is just going to be a motion, a resolution. It's just a motion. Yeah. A verbal resolution. So it won't be a first reading, but it will be part of the first reading of the budget as presented. So the motion is to approve the compensation stand, a study plan option as presented. Okay. All right.

Mr. Samy, you made the motion. If you want to start, go ahead. As we all know, we sit through a... a pretty long session with this, and as we discussed it and talked about it, all thought that this was a good plan that we talked over and went over with. So with that being said, I think we ought to go ahead and accept this document for the faith study.

Mr. Mayor? Mr. Wallace. May I ask for clarification on the motion? We're approving this as requested, Administration is asking for the step plan. There's a lot of plans listed in here, but we didn't say. As presented. As Chief presented the step plan. He said the step plan. He does clearly ask for that. There's a lot listed in here. Okay. So if we're approving Mr. Shane's motion, we're approving the step plan. Correct. Thank you.

Is that all you wanted? That's all. I'm terrified. Okay. Any others?

Good job. Okay, so first of all, I'm in favor of this. I was in favor of the last meeting. I'm in favor of it again. But there are a couple of things, and Mr. Vincent, Director Gruber, and I have kind of talked about these things a little bit, and that's the issue of making the transition for employees with specific concern to the longstanding employees that have been here 20, 25 years or so. that are still kind of at the bottom of the pay scale, and how do we fix that over time? So we've had that discussion. In addition to that, it's also kind of thinking through it. There have been some people over the last several years that were hired mid-range, high range, or whatever. They're going to get the benefit of this transition while the folks, I mean, it speaks even more so to the point that we've got to figure out a solution for the long-term police, because like I said, You came in four years ago at a mid-range. You're going to get placed in this step process based on your current salary with four or five years experience, whereas the folks that have been here 20, 25 years who might be at the lower range are not going to get to where they should be any time right away. And I recognize there's financial considerations with this, and we've had that discussion. So I know you're looking at it, but Can you kind of address that and what you're looking at trying to do and how do we get there?

I think Beth has put together a finance forecast regarding that.

So what you need to remember, this was an unbiased.

Right.

Understand. They took that compression into account. There was adjustments in that step plan to give people where they should be so they're not compressed with people who can't come to the board, or after them, sorry. So to me, the step plan is a good start. And we can look, I did the calculation, if we record everyone where they should be, that'd be over $300,000 additional than what's already in the budget. So it's something we can look at as we move forward into the next year or two to see how our revenues pan out.

to make sure what we're seeing is going to continue to happen if that makes sense i mean i understand that it should probably be a two maybe three year process to get where we need to go i am interested to know if there's if there's some particularly egregious you know somebody that's been here 25 years 20 whatever you name it whatever the number is could could we what can we do in the interim trying to get us in the direction of where we're going where we want to go

I believe what's in the plan right now addresses that as best it can at this point in time.

So we couldn't move them up an additional couple of steps with the idea of trying to get where they need to be eventually?

Again, that would cost about at least half of another 150 at least.

Just to go up a couple of steps?

Yeah, probably. and we'll go from there because you have to have a cap on it.

And I completely understand that. I'm just, I'm looking for a solution for these folks over the next, you know, whatever period of time it takes. It's just, in my mind, it's fundamentally unfair if someone's been here for a long time. And I know we can't fix all the issues from the past, but like I said, if I've been working here and I've devoted 20, 25 years to the town, I'm still a low range of the pay scale. Someone who came in three years ago doing essentially the same job I am is also at the low end of the pay scale. It doesn't seem right that they should be given this.

Right, and this plan does put those people above those people you're talking about. Okay. They're just not going to be at the max step.

Right, and I get the no max step. I'm just like you said, I'm looking for how much can we accommodate to get them in the right direction. I think that's my basic question.

I think this is a good starting point.

Yeah, this plan definitely corrects those fresh issues.

But it is a start. All right, I heard several, so I'm going to go to Ms. Shawn next. All right, don't go anywhere.

My concern is we're very healthy, like extra healthy this year due to a particular company. But if we go into this plan, You're saying it costs about $300,000? No.

What's in the budget right now, the stop plan is covered within the budget.

Right.

I was saying if we were to do everyone at like top tiers, that would cost an additional $300,000.

Oh, okay. I mean, are we going to have, are we healthy enough as far as budget-wise to walk in to the staff plan? Say that particular company, we're not going to get that much money. Where's the money going to come from year after year?

I don't know if you looked at my five year projection.

I had a hard time looking at it.

So the assumption was that the personal property and vehicle tax, I did less 20% of what we're seeing. would remain stagnant. So I was trying to be very conservative. Our real property, seeing a little increase around 3%. So that's the only thing you'll see in my projection going up slightly. Everything else I did, same revenue, did a slight decrease in our franchise fees over the next five years. But right now, according to what I've come up with, we will be adding to our fund balance every year in spite of having this deadline. So my assumption here of payroll benefits is a 3% increase each year, just to be safe. And same with operations.

So are we working towards, first of all, I like the step. I live the step when it's very structured and it's very helpful. And employees seem to like it. But with this step plan, are we also looking at every year of having a COLA with the step plan?

That depends. We'll have to look at CPI and inflation, all that, and see.

So the step plan is a 2% step every year. And council decides if you want to put a COLA on top of the step.

Okay, gotcha.

Okay, that's the one that came up.

Okay. Mr. Wells, I'd like to make a request that maybe perhaps, and Melanie, I think you and I have talked, you have this in mind on some of these folks that are where there's a wide gap and can't get them caught up right away. There is a plan to step and catch them up over two or three years?

Well, I mean, plan in place, I'm saying what I've calculated is it would cost another 300 to get them, say, someone who's been here for 27 years to get them to step 27. Oh, I understand.

We can't do it right.

Yeah. I want to see if these revenues pan out for this year. But we're seeing next year when we go into 28 budget, try to start addressing some of that. Okay.

Thank you. i'll put you on the spot a little bit a director there we talked about this at the uh at the base study and i i thought you said to deal with most of the compression long-term issues for eight or so guys you thought it could be like a hundred thousand is is that different than the 300 or it's not just his people okay and you gotta take into account the fringe too okay so we have that many more fringes fringe Oh, I'm thinking of people. Okay. All right. So yes, I do understand that.

So what they sent me back on that, I recalculated everything.

Okay.

Just for general fun.

Okay.

So an additional 64,000 for the sanitation.

Okay. Does this, help your guys at all, especially those six or eight or whatever it was to handle this?

11 people are under this. Below their step, some three or four step, below some nine, 10, 11, 12 steps. The plan that was presented is exactly stays as it is. That's exactly how it's going to stay.

Mr. Mayor. Well, before we move on, I'm just, is there any alternate we can do that gets one or two more steps in there that's less than $300,000? And I know it means rework everything.

You have to go back and look at everything again. But they took all those types of things into account when they were trying to come up with a step plan to make sure those people are above the others. We've come in afternoon. Just, we can't afford to put them all the way up to the top at this time. I don't feel comfortable doing that yet.

I will have to study that a little more, I guess. Okay. I'll let it go. I think Mr. Staley asked, go ahead.

Yes. Now, we talked about this. The people who are on the lowest scale of the pay scale of this pay study, Can we not look at moving them people up maybe a couple steps every year or something to help them out and get to where they need to be? Because if John's got somebody that's been here 27 years and they're at pay level 11, they should be able, them people should be starting to move up somehow way in the next, I don't say.

I'm going to look at that to see if we have the revenue sources. coming in next year, continue this revenue source so we can start doing that.

And I hope you're not getting it that we're wanting to move them people up to start with to that top level. Some more along the line where we can start moving them people along to get them up on their step where they should be. Because that's what I think most of us up here is saying. We understand that you can't come up with $300,000 more to get them up to the top level than they need to be. Not saying that whatsoever. But I would like for you to start looking at how we can start maybe moving them up two places or something over this next period of time.

That's the plan.

That's what I want you to get.

I mean, that's where we want to get.

Yes.

We'll have to see where we are. We may only have to do half of it.

When we discussed this in our workshop, when we used to have a workshop, this same subject or same thing came up in the workshop that we talked about this identical thing to try to these lower people to try to move them up somehow or another along the way, not just all of a sudden. You can't go do that. I understand that. We can't do that. Thanks. That's what I was trying to get at.

I have quite a bit. I don't want to throw a wrench into things because I really kind of support this, but I did some research to compare this to other communities and I was a little astounded by what I found. I compared it to the Isle of Palms, which is a town very much like Surfside Beach. It's about the same size as Surfside Beach. Please keep the chatter down. It's 4,300 people versus about 4,450. Their land mass is about four square miles. Ours is roughly two. They have roughly the same number of households. Their median income is a lot higher, 76 versus about 41. Please keep the chatter down. It's a golf cart community, and it also has a pier. What they have to do, we do it as well. Once a year, you have to publish all your highest paid people over $50,000. And so they have a list on their website, and it's accurate as of December 31st of last year. So it's four or five months old. And when I compared this, there's a midpoint, a medium, and a high point. And I compared medium to medium. So I knocked off the low and I knocked off the high. I also rounded the pay to just thousands. I left out all the little details so not everybody gets lost. But anyway, the Surfside Beach proposed midpoint under the salary schedule for a building official is $104,000. The actual being paid for the same position in Iowa Palms is $52,000. The public works foreman in our proposal is $82,000. The actual in Iowa Palms is $58,000. The public works director in our proposal is $139,000. The public works is being, in Isla Palma is being, director is being paid 108. A firefighter in our proposal is 65,000. And they have several firefighters listed up to the top level, not the lowest. In our proposal, firefighters listed at 65,000. Their top paid firefighter was 55,000. The fire captain, I'm not sure we have a captain, but, oh, Throw it out here anyway. Fire captain in our proposal is 88,000 in their town. It's 85. Pretty comparable. Fire marshal in our proposal is 87. In their town, it's 60. Police officer in the proposal is 80,000. Their police officers are being paid 63, midpoint to midpoint. A police corporal 88,000 under our proposal is 71,000 in Isle of Palms. Police chief in our proposal is 143,000 in Isle of Palms, 123. Finance director in our proposal is 139 in Isle of Palms, 116. City administrator in our proposal, midpoint, 196,000 in Isle of Palms, 171,000. I did the same thing under the South Carolina Association of Counties. They did a compilation of all the counties in South Carolina, and they divided them into five groups. The number one group was the biggest counties, and the smallest group was 25,000 population. So I just looked at the population in the, I mean, the comparison in the 25,000 population in the number. This was as of 2026. And I'm not gonna list everything again because the findings are pretty similar and I don't want everybody to fall asleep. But I am really kind of concerned that we may have an overly generous new proposal. I'm feeling a little bit rushed to pass this and I would really like to see the town council study this a little more thoroughly. It's not that I'm against it. It's just that I'm worried that it's kind of a Taj Mahal. And I don't think that's where we need to be. Thank you.

The market survey that was conducted did include all of the bombs.

I know it did. I just wonder why all the bombs is so much lower if it was in the survey than what was proposed.

I want to ask a clarifying question, I guess. You talked about comparing midpoints to midpoints, but you also said you pulled actual salaries from Iowa POMs. Is it midpoints or actuals?

That's a good point. Good question. And yes, I kind of stated that. In Iowa POM, it was the actual salary being paid to those people. In the Association of Counties, it was midpoint to midpoint.

Okay. But what But it was our midpoint for the record. But we may not be paying those midpoints.

Correct.

Got it. They're not paying the midpoints, we're not paying the midpoints right now. Okay. And I don't want you to answer back to every one of the salaries, but I think what is in here is substantially less than midpoint for most of those positions. Am I correct?

Yes.

Okay. All right. I just wanted that for clarification. We're not approving $139,000 for you who are direct originator. No. Or $196,000 for Mr. Vincent. I can say that's enough. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that.

However, if I can, John, the midpoint is in the schedule to eventually be paid at that level. So I think that it's a pretty fair comparison.

Well, I mean, we work toward that as things change someday. I mean, but yeah, I mean, we're not there and we're not proposing that at this point. And I mean, yeah, the guidelines are out there. Can I make a comment? Yes, you may.

So as we progress through this, if we run into some financial difficulty, whatever it might be. If there's some sort of an emergency that we have to pay for, a hurricane, you name it. At that point, all bets are off, are they not? We have to approve a budget. So just because the idea is that people will get an automatic 2% every year, if there's not money for it, it won't happen.

All right, then the motion on the table is to accept compensation pay study plan option as presented which is including a step plan uh miss poston will you call the uh role yes sir mr walls yes mr stamey yes mr lawhorn yes mr coleman yes mr hyatt no miss fallon yes And they're gross yes motion carries 6 to 1 and it is past we will now move on to the 1st reading of our municipal budget for this coming year I need a motion.

I'd like to make a motion that we accept 1st reading. Ordinance 26 dash 1 0 0 0. The municipal budget for. fiscal year 26-27. Okay, we'll start the discussion. Do you want to kick it off, Mr. Wallace?

I think we've all worked diligently, and I believe

From what I studied and saw on it, other than the few highlighted reds, was everything that I expected. They worked back in the fees that we broke out and reviewed separately. They put them back in. So everything looks to me as what we had already verbally approved and asked for in first reading from the beginning. So that's my two cents. Other comments?

I'll make one. law so um i guess i'm just going to say this um budget isn't perfect no budget ever is but i want to give some folks an understanding of some of the things that are going to happen under this budget that directly impact the residents and first and foremost um sidewalks this fund sidewalks all the way down cedar drive north from 16th avenue north all the way down to 8th avenue north to hollywood so in essence you'll have an ability to walk on a sidewalk from 16th Avenue North all the way to Melody Drive or Melody Lane, whatever the heck it's called. We're also getting, there's gonna be a sidewalk on Fifth Avenue North is funded in this budget. One of the most highly traveled roads in town. And I know the infrastructure committee is, we're looking at the future to see what else we can do in the next years. We're also going to do a redo of Fuller Park where the tennis courts are to basically accommodate some additional pickleball games. We just talked about the pay study. We're going to modernize the way employees are paying. Up to this point, essentially any raise has been done through a COLA. My view is this is a better way to do it. So we got that going on. There's not a millage increase. And I can tell you that the goal here is to never have a millage increase as long as I'm on the council. Can't guarantee that won't happen, but I can tell you my response to that is always going to be if there's a request for a millage increase, what are we going to cut in order to get whatever we're short of? So police, fire, public works, they are the priorities in the budget. I think that they are funded the way they need to be. So in any event, like I said, I just want to say it's not perfect, but it's a pretty darn good budget. And we owe that to the additional . We've got to always be looking at expanding that .

So that's all. I'll just take a second just to say well stated. And yeah, I like that. We are improving our image. People want to be here, even as some A-tax revenues are a little dicey in the area. We continue to hold our own better than most of the Grand Strand. And it looks like we're off to that kind of start again this year. And we're saying maybe down a little bit, but there was significant decreases last year in some municipalities and unincorporated areas. And when I look at what we do with police and fire, We did a millage increase a couple of years ago because everybody wanted a full fire department. And I've heard only good things since that has happened. We've added a couple of police officers so that we can be fully staffed, especially at night. You don't want just two guys trying to, even a small town, you know, you're just at too much risk. So, and then, you know, public works, everything is being done, the pavers, the accesses, you know, the crossovers, just taking care of the streets, sanitation, all the grounds. It's good work. And that is, what, three-quarters of our people, probably? Then we have an office staff to manage the finances, do the events, and generate the ATACs, and then just Mr. Benson to steer the whole ship. And our facilities group, which Our group is one guy who's going to become two now, and that makes a difference, too. A couple of years ago, we tore down a courthouse because we didn't maintain it, didn't put any money in the budget. A year ago, we put some money into the police station. I know it's still crowded there and maybe needs a little more, but we're able to keep that building going. So, yeah, I'm going to echo your comments, and I think it's just the right thing to do. Mr. Mayer. Mr. Cohen.

I agree with the manager. It isn't a perfect budget, but we're getting a lot of stuff done. Salaries are going to be better for our employees, which should have been done a long time ago. We're getting sidewalks in. And a lot of different things we're doing. Now, you can complain about your garbage trays. I don't know. on the curb, and magically it disappears. Nowhere in the world is it like that. I mean, I broke up the concrete in my house, big, big heads, and I went out a certain amount each week, and the next day it was gone. You can't get that kind of service for the price we're paying. It's unbelievable. They're out there seven days a week picking up stuff. You put all the yard waste, don't we get it? You're not getting that in any other town. And I don't think we've raised sanitation, what, 13 years or something? 13 years. 13 years. So I was here, I've been here 18 years. So I was here the last one. People were squawking about that. 13 years. Where else in the world do they not raise something for 13 years? about your sanitation, it's a tax, you're getting, yeah. Stop. Yeah, stop. This is a paradise. There's nowhere else in the world like this place. We have problems? Yeah, we have problems. We've become a victim of a crime? Yeah, we've become a victim of a crime, folks. So, I don't see anything from this budget. Can it be better? But in a year and a half, There's gonna be an election. And all you loudmouths who think you can do it better, step up. Step up. Thank you. I got off track a little bit. It would, but I'll do it again. Anything else on the budget? Yeah, I have a question.

Mr. Hyatt.

A couple people have contacted me and asked where they can get a full... All that is on the website.

It's on the website. So I can say it's on our website. Finance department?

I think it's under council.

Under council.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

All right, then the motion on the table is to approve the first reading of the budget as presented. Ms. Poston, will you call the roll?

Mr. Walz? Yeah. Mr. Staming? Yes. Mr. Lawhorn? Yes. Mr. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Hyatt? Yes. Ms. Fallon? Yes.

And Mayor Krause? Yes. The motion carries unanimously. The first reading has passed. At this point, we have concluded the business of our meeting. We will now open the agenda up to public comments on town services for business conductance.

Mr. Mayor, could we take a short recess? Very short recess?

We do that. There's a lot of people sitting here waiting.

Well, they've been going back and forth to that, and we haven't had that choice. No offense.

Well, you know what? We'll vote on the recess. How about that? Any discussion on it? Don't hold it. No, make him hold it. I'll just do a voice vote. All in favor? Aye. None. The motion carries. We're going to go to recess for five minutes.

This conference will now be recorded.

All right. Please take your seats.

Ready? Yes, sir. All right. This meeting is now back in order. We're starting public comments. Go ahead and introduce yourself.

Good evening. Carolyn Patlick, 512 13th Avenue. First off, I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sidewalks. Now I've been a proponent. Yes. Let's go with secondly i sat here for a long time tonight looking at the agenda and i see here director's reports and there's director or chief next to everybody staying except for tabitha why isn't tabitha a director he should be a director next Please do something to make our ordinances stronger when it comes to the wildlife in our community. It has become an issue in this town where the residents, for the most part, are treating these animals as the wildlife they should be. But there are certain folks in town that are treating these animals like they are pets that should be brought onto property, to be fed, to whatever. That is not healthy for those animals. And unfortunately, the publicity that's being given to the folks who are not treating these animals as wildlife is very unfortunate. because it is being used against the other residents of the town to create this divisive something or other. The citizens of Surfside are treating these wild animals appropriately as wildlife. That is what the majority are doing. People are not running them over. They're not doing this. They're not doing that. People are respecting these animals. That is what I see all over town, with the exception of a few. Now, it is not against the wildlife or harmful to the wildlife if somebody shoos them off their property or shoos them away out of the street so a vehicle can pass. They're not harming these animals. They are just trying to live side by side with this wildlife. And the wildlife needs to eat what wildlife is instructed to eat, not food that is meant for other animals or other birds or what have you. We have a situation where we put the natural balance off if These animals are fed something that nature doesn't intend them to be fed. And you can see the effects of that by some of the animals whose wings have been affected and they are not able to perform as nature intended. So let's do something to help strengthen our ordinance. help strengthen our signs around town so that everyone who comes to visit Surfside and the residents themselves understand not to feed these animals. They know how to feed themselves, and their feeding themselves will make sure that all of the natural reproduction, death, everything occurs as nature intended. depending on how much food is available. I still have time? Okay. My last subject, the Planning Commission. I know. I'm speaking for the Planning Commission this time. The Planning Commission did not ask to change the meeting to 5 p.m. The town asked the planning commission to change the time to 5 p.m. And planning commission was going along with that, even though the majority of the folks on the planning commission have jobs that make coming to a meeting at 5 o'clock difficult. So we need to resolve all of this. But our bylaws were changing for more than just that time. It was having to do with elections and things like that, that election of officers and things like that, which frankly, I think you all have nothing to do with. It is the planning commission's decision as to how we are to elect our officers.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn.

Do you have the next slide? Is the clock ready to go now?

Yes, Rob got it on the phone because this is not working. Yes.

Yeah, because we want the speakers to be able to see their own time. That happened once before I remember. To me.

You know, it was 22 seconds. That's a lot. There you go.

There you go.

Tabitha again for the win.

Hey, Tabitha. Director Tabitha. It's going to work. I mean, it's supposed to. Okay. All right. Good.

Yeah. Okay. Reset. There we go. All right. Any other public comments?

Please speak into the mic so it's recorded.

I have a question. Why is the federal protection of the gays not enforced here?

We cannot address that.

Well, think about it and let me know, because I've been asking that every day for the last 10 years. I have been watching these kids hit by cars, hit with poles, hit with rocks, firecrackers, hit, abused, pieces of piece on the road. Kids get upset when they see that. Well, kids, the tourists, they love the wildlife. A lot of us love the wildlife. Most of us make the wildlife. We all want everybody to coexist. I don't understand why there's such a hate problem here. There isn't a goose problem, there's a hate problem. And I don't know why it's even a battle. I don't understand that. I have to get up every day and not know what I'm going to face here when everybody should be getting along. Yeah, they're wild animals, but you don't let them be faced because people are running them over. They're running them over. They're trying to run me over for protecting them. I've got plenty of videos to prove it. How would you guys feel if it was dogs or cats that were abused like that? There would be an outlaw on it. Everybody would get upset. if it was dogs or cats, but it's a goose and their lives don't matter. Goose lives matter. Every animal matters. I'm just tired of the hate here. Most people that come up here and complain don't even have the geese in their yard. I go, I spend so much time riding around this town just to make sure the roads are clear. I spend time, my own gas, my own time, spending my time making sure that the geese are on the road so they're not getting slaughtered. Okay, and I've seen people running over on purpose. I've been seconds away and they're killed just like that for kicks and nobody does anything. It's disgusting. And anybody who hurts geese for a living is disgusting. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it all. And I'm not alone. There's a lot of people on my side, on the goose's side. This has to stop. This hate has to stop. The whole world is watching Surfside Beach now. Everybody's watching. It's like a very hateful place. Unfortunately, most of the people here are nice, but they're getting... Just to stop here. The numbers go up and down. The geese migrate. I know that because I can tell. They're in my yard. They're not the same numbers all the time. They're not even the same piece all the time. You guys don't know. You don't know, okay? And I'm just tired of the hate. I'm tired of the mutilated little vitas on the side of the road. It's disgusting. And there was a goose that was shot 10 times with a pellet gun on the edge of Surfside the other day in the water.

What did you guys do to Roscoe?

Thank you.

I live at 113 North Myrtle Drive, next door to Maria.

Surfside Beach was once a feather-friendly town where fowl and wildlife were respected. People cared for those around them. But over the past 10 years, the narrative of once being a small, friendly town has changed. Maria is a local Surfside resident and wildlife advocate. She spends all of her time educating our community on local wildlife while protecting it. doing so in a number of ways, whether it be helping a flock of geese safely relocate out of busy roads, looking at newly hatched goslings, or educating neighbors to create positive environmental impact. Maria just spoke about, we named him Charlie. He was shot 11 times with a pellet gun. I'm the one that retrieved him from the water, and I'm the one that removed every single pellet because I was asked to. It's hard, it's hard to see the cruelty and the human abuse towards these animals that are just trying to live their life. Of Charlie's. in and around Surfside, whether it's animals being run over by people who don't care to stop, or just really assholes who justify shooting innocent wildlife because they might poop in their yard. It's insane. It's hateful. It's cruel. I question everybody here right now, why do you live on a lake, a pond, or near a retention whatever retention pool that they continuously build with all the buildings so that we can all live in a concrete jungle. Why move there if you don't like waterfowl? It's insane. Waterfowl comes to water and grass. Does protecting geese and doing all of this really justify reasonable enough concern to harass and bully Maria? Our goose whisperer. Since Marina started caring for the federally protected geese of Surfside Beach, she has faced nothing more but bullying day in and day out. People have swerved at her in their trucks, threatened to hurt her, kill her, harass her at her door, mocked her, and purposefully attempted to hurt animals in her general care. And I know this very well because I live next door to her. And I've seen it all. And I rescue all of the ones that might have a chance of survival. And just this past Saturday, an anonymous resident purposely left a bunch of corn feed in a busy roadway because, near Maria's house, because they wanted to attract the geese. So what they did was they put it in the middle of the road And so we find them, Maria finds them, and all these baby goslings are in the middle of the road, right where they can deliberately be hit. And I specifically will say it's between Second Avenue and Oak. I think, I for one think this is sick and disgusting and despicable. How can this family beach be like this? And the worst part is that Surfside Beach does absolutely nothing The police have been called dozens of times over the past 10 years, yet there's been no arrests. Proof has been recorded, shared, provided to Surfside Beach Police, and still absolutely nothing is done. No one has been, not a soul, has been prosecuted for tormenting Maria or the local workout. I am, we are sick and tired. It's time for something to be done. I urge this council to push the Surfside Beach Police PD, or better yet, South Carolina prosecutors to invoke change. Maria needs justice for what she has faced. Our local wildlife of Surfside Beach needs to be protected, and this city council needs to step up. It's time for Surfside Beach to actually really, truly become a family, goose-friendly, wildlife-friendly, waterfowl family beach again. Oh, I'm done. Block out. Find out.

I have a comment. I live on the left side of court.

And there's what was your name? Okay. And it's a brand new neighborhood. Yeah, there's ponds there. But we are overrun with peace and there's. You know, they deprecate all over the place. You know, this stinks and I'm not opposed to wildlife, but people are feeding them and there's ordinances against feeding them. You know, people are running them over. Everybody's got a cell phone. You know, just take a video of somebody doing something to a goose, you know, and then if you got it on video, you know, they should be arrested. I agree. At the same time, anybody that's feeding them, Should be also arrested. I got somebody right in my backyard every day feeding them. And it's not good. Same reason you don't feed the bears. Same reason you don't feed the raccoons, right? They can do it on their own. If you have a cat and a dog, you have to feed them. They're a pet. These are wildlife. They survive on their own. If anybody's caught shooting them or anything else, everybody's got a cell phone. Use it and then come up here and say, hey, You know, that's wrong. And I agree, that's wrong. But enough is enough. If you're feeding them, you shouldn't be feeding them. Period. That's the ordinance. That's the law. We're a nation of laws. If there's a law, it should be enforced. I got somebody right in my backyard. I've called the police plenty of times. It continues. They just keep feeding them. Nothing happens. That's the other side of the coin where nothing happens. So you can have it both ways, I guess. Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

I think there is a lot of confusion about what the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is about and other wildlife protective measures, as well as the Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines. No, absolutely no feeding, watering, confining, encouraging geese to move onto your property or interfere with them in any way, shape or form. That goes for everyone. These are deterrent measures that are put in place, like chasing them off of your property with a glue, as long as you do not harm them. You cannot harm them or hurt them or bust up their eggs, move their nests. Those are the acts in which the police can come in and take action. There is a necessary need for education for individuals to understand what harassment means. Harassment is not just chasing after them with a stick, trying to get them off your property or your driveway. It also means enticing them to come onto your yard to eat good food and water, or having them come nest there in confined space with large numbers. This is also part of harassment. That is very important to know. There is no provision in the act that is protecting a person's right to do those things. That's all part of the protection of geese. So doing those types of activities harms them. It makes them less fearful of the danger that may be encountered by coming near cars, or being fed by others who maybe want to feed them poison, and so on. So it's both sides of the coin. Everybody is required to follow the rules. Everyone is required to do their citizen bid. Like the gentleman just said, take pictures, send evidence. Police have to basically be an eyewitness in which to take an action. So what are they eyewitnessing? People feeding them, people having them on their property, going into the middle of the street and stopping traffic for really no good reason, because most people in this town slow down. I've never seen any car race off trying to kill a fish. So we need to have the full gambit given to protect, to follow the guidelines, to ensure that we do not have that kind of behavior happening on both sides. You cannot kill them, you cannot harm them, you cannot move them. You must follow the Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines You have to be in reason with police when they can't come necessarily, because not everybody gets to see everything. Those massive amounts of brutality that's going on, I don't see it. I don't hear it. And I look for it. I have an entire street I live in that faces Lake Elizabeth, and we don't see people chasing the deer off their property. Or not the deer, the geek that used to be here. So it's very important. The police department have a delegated authority to protect the birds, regardless if the individual who's feeding them, watering them, petting them, feeding them out of their hand, filming them, et cetera, whether or not they think they're doing no harm. Just the mere fact that they are is harmful. It is harmful to a wild animal who doesn't need it, doesn't have to have it. The exaggerations that are going on with our town, are ridiculous and they need to stop.

Thank you. My name's Terry Garrett.

I live about five minutes outside of Surfside, office 707. And I spend a lot of money in this town. I go to your bars, your restaurants, I go to your beach, I pay your parking. My husband and I bring our family and friends here and then come down with David. We love it. And guess what else? We love the geese. We like the environment, the nature. But every time I come down here, I see dead animals on the side of the road. So somebody's hitting me. I mean, you go to the Walmart going around Beaver Run. You know, that's not downtown or near the HOA areas of Surfside. But it is a problem. I mean, it's nonstop. You always see it. And you I've seen people swerve towards them. Now, I also know that Surfside calls itself a autism-friendly beach, but I've known Maria for many, many years, and she tells me stuff, and she also reports stuff. Yeah, you can report stuff on your phone. Then where's these recordings of her feeding geeks? We know who everybody's talking about. They're mean people, and they're bullies. There's no reason to bully one person who has a passion, a focus on a certain being. Some people really have a thing about penguins. I like spiders. Don't hurt a spider in front of me. So find a better way in dealing with your constituents and the wildlife. I see the geese as a feature, just like when we go down to Key Largo, I know all the chickens running around. They're adorable. I highly like the big iguanas, except one they got from falling out of the trees. I know, it's a mess. But there's ways of dealing with people that love the animals and the animals themselves. You don't need to be chasing them off of your glyphosate roundup green yard because they're attracted to that short grass and the water. If people planted native grasses along the backside of their yard where the water is, geese don't like that. They can't see over the grass. So that's a natural deterrent. You don't have to spray chemicals or put a net in the grass around them or traps other small animals. I mean, work it out. Show some compassion. You know, be the family-friendly, autism-focused, we all talk together, and find a reasonable solution kind of city. When Maria calls and says, hey, I just saw somebody trying to hit this goose with this golf cart, then they're like, what are you doing? Are you feeding them? Are you harassing them? Oh, we've heard about you before. And it's just wrong. Talk to them like a human being. Talk to everybody like a human being. And sorry, the geese are here. Yeah, they're kind of like wild dogs running around. Some of them know their names because they're rescuers to take fishing line off of their legs almost every day. Like today, I think we just saved an egret, Michelle did, and had a hook and line, got it off, and he flew away. But if you leave it on there, that animal would die and, you know, that's kind of sad. And it's human's fault. A lot of this is our fault. We build these beautiful places that are so enticing to the birds. They like that short grass. They like having that water right there. They like having a place where they don't see other predators, like coyotes and, you know, lead dogs running around, goose chasing them. So they're like, this is great. And I wouldn't mind if I had a goose in my yard. Their poop is not toxic. It's not. It's actually great for your grass. People put chicken poop on their food or in their gardens. So I don't see why goose poop would be any worse because I'm not filling geese with antibiotics and things. Anyway, this is us getting sidetracked. What is this? I mean, figure it out. Put some things in place where there might be, make it fun for kids to come to visit. Instead of making kids buy, what, racing hummock crabs that die. I mean, you know, you give a kid a fish or They go on vacation. That thing's dead. And then it's thinking of mom's backseat because it probably lost it underneath the car. Don't do stuff like that. Have them like take a goose tour. Learn about the offlands or make it a feature of the town. Make areas where you can kind of entice the geese to nest instead of people's stars. But in a nice way, working with the community. And I'm out of time, but thanks for listening. I mean, it doesn't have to be so hateful when, finger pointing.

Thank you.

Brilliant.

Anyone else?

Tina Carlson, 330 15th Avenue South. One of the most beautifully decorated streets in the town with flags. Anyway, I just wanted to ask the council to consider doing some education about the swashes in the town. I see so many kids and adults swimming in those swashes. And you don't always, some people are approachable, but we all know it's high bacteria and people should not. So maybe we could do it in Victoria.

Thank you very much.

Any others? I'm not even sure I'm allowed to speak here.

I live in Garden City, but right, right close to the public meeting. Okay. New Seaside Elementary. Yeah. Mark Jager. Okay. Something that all of us in this room and everywhere around here, you got to, People have to realize that retention ponds, I mean, if you're driving around going up to Costco or going up to Bypass or wherever, anywhere close to the ocean, there are retention ponds, okay? We all know that, because you gotta have the drain water to go somewhere. These geese are flying and they're saying, hey, look at this pond right here, check it out. They end up staying there. There's so many retention ponds in this area. I don't think it's from people feeding them. I think it's from retention ponds. And we have to have retention ponds in order to build so all of us can live here in this beautiful place. And, I mean, their brains are probably half the size of this microphone right here, a goose. They're not smart like we are. wake up every morning have coffee it's kind of gross i go in and sit on the toilet when i get up i turn around and flush that toilet i'm privileged it goes i don't know where it goes it goes somewhere but the goose the geese don't you know like i said their brains like half the size of that thing compared to mine were yours so i mean give them a break you're creating the ponds that they want to live at and then everybody complains about the poop, you know? If it's that bad, get yourself a beer or a Coke, start spraying off your driveway. By the time you get done sipping that Coke or beer or coffee or wine or whatever, your driveway's gonna be clean. You know, we're all adults. My neighbor told me two days ago that the guy that lives next to me who I don't like at all. Killed my cat. Him and his wife were out there. They buy a house right on the detention pond. They were throwing large rocks at little, I call them gooselings, goslings. And this lady just moved in and she's witnessing this. And she told me, there's a eight little baby ducks, and there were six goslings. These are adult people. I'm 65 years old. They're my age, maybe a couple years older. And they're throwing large rocks at these little innocent animals that were just born right in that retention pod. It's BS. People need to, you know, get off your high horse. If I could Grabbing my driveway, I spray it off. I witnessed somebody running over a goose in the Circle K, whatever it is. Splattered one of them right in the parking lot. The other one, I picked it up, took it to the vet, and he put it down. It had blood coming out of its eyes, out of its mouth, and it was just sitting there like this. And the other geese are standing right there across the street. Why did they do that to you? And I've noticed something. I've never been to this meeting before, but I've been sitting right here watching all you guys up here. And I notice a different look on your face. All of you. When it's somebody that's against the geese, you're up here like this. When it's somebody... who's supporting Maria, you're back here with literally a shitty grin on your face. It's true. I was going to film it, and I didn't know if I'd get in trouble. Well, a bad look. Like a little grin.

So anyways, thanks for letting me talk. There's too much background noise. Thanks for letting me talk. All right.

Thank you.

All right. My name is Johnny McCoy. Saka Z. Yep. A couple of y'all know me or have heard of me. I represent clients all throughout the state of South Carolina in the Burdock case. I don't know about that. And I'm a civil rights lawyer, but I focus my attention, especially tonight, on an individual who has mental health issues. That's why I showed up. made sure that she was respected, and to his last point a minute ago, no, she wasn't. I mean, listen, I got no dog in this fight other than my law firm is suing the city. I chose to speak at this moment because I'm going to talk about two things that are most important in this meeting, and that is the budget, because money is where things talk, and that is a resolution that I think might take place. I'm sure you guys will hear from Stuart. He's 72 years old. He's a little bit more demographic for Surfside Beach area. And I think that Stuart's probably going to keep doing this and keep representing her until he actually retires, which he tells me is every week. But it's probably going to be for the rest of his career. I know that he has his heart set on representing everybody who's charged criminally in this thing. So if you arrest them criminally, you're just going to be paying Jarrett and the wonderful prosecutors over here. So there's got to be another solution, right? First of all, Chief, I think you deserve that 140, first of all. My car is out there illegally parked. I don't want to get into anything like that. But 140 for the Chief goes without saying. Secondly, honestly, I believe that after reading some of the comments online, and obviously now there's a big network here. We did not call them. I swear, Jared, we did not call the network. They found the Geese Whisperer. It begins with an H, and it will be on national TV next year. I promise you guys that. Um, and 1 of the things that I continues to point out is it shouldn't be Maria of her city of Surfside. I mean, she's city of Surfside resident. Got a lot of city of Surfside residents behind her. We've looked at what it takes to win an election here. I think we're getting close to those numbers for Maria. At least I'm giving her a hope that 1 day she can actually speak on behalf of the residents here to be heard. Um. But the reality is, I honestly, if you guys continue making laws, like the first speaker said, like, hey, let's make a law to tighten up on this thing. Laws, if you don't get them right and you apply them inappropriately, turn into lawsuits. That's the number one way that you guys are going to lose money in this thing. You already got a federal lawsuit because of this cease and desist letter that you wrote Maria and that was signed by the chief. That's the first cease and desist I've seen in 17 years of doing criminal law. You either give somebody, you arrest somebody or not. And by writing that cease and desist letter, you guys probably violated the First and Fourth Amendment. By the way, let me explain the Fourth Amendment here real quick. The reason that they have to post where the DUI stops, quote unquote, are going to be is because you can't search somebody unlawfully without reasonable suspicion. The Supreme Court said, hey, if you guys want to search people who are driving down the road, you got to do is post it and then you can search so i wanted to make that comment as well uh fourth amendment says that you got to post that and it's because the only places in the world where you can just grab somebody and search them or stop them or stop their car is in uh dictatorships and other places like that so proud of the uh chief for making sure that they're following the fourth amendment but for this case it's not maria versus the city of surfside it's maria and her group versus the other side of the group. And you guys have seen them all come up here. And my resolution would be to mediate this thing. And I promise you, I can talk Stuart into it. You guys can stay out of it. Jarrett could find a reasonable mediator that Stuart and him agreed to. And you could have, instead of the city of Surfside being a party to this thing, you guys are going to be a part of the First Amendment action. But instead of the city of Surfside having to figure out this goose poop thing that you guys are stuck in right now, agree to a mediator. Maria will sit on one side. I don't know who the other guy is, Gooseman Jack, I think, will sit on the other side. The mediator will say, all right, well, how is it that you want to resolve this thing? And they'll approach you guys and say, what do you think about that? It takes all this stress and responsibility off of you. And I think that that would be something that Maria and I'm pretty sure the rest of the individuals around this town would agree to. If you don't want to do it, you want to tighten up the laws and you want to keep, you know, send a cease and desist and all that other good stuff. The lawyers are going to stay here. I told Stuart, I said, now I don't know if there's any money involved in this thing until I heard that budget. Now I'm like, all right, Stuart, I guess we'll stay at Surfside and make sure Maria gets taken care of. Yeah. Skip, you didn't like that, did you? I know you didn't like it because of that reaction. I was just wanting to prove to the group here. But anyway, 10 seconds. Anyway, I love Surfside. I come here a lot. I know that the issue is out of your hands. I know you guys got better things to do. Just do a mediator in between the two groups and y'all stay out of it. Thank you very much.

We appreciate the opportunity to clarify.

The company does not kill geese. We provide humane geese management services designed to safely deter nuisance geese from properties while maintaining professional and ethical wildlife management practices. We take these accusations seriously and remain committed It's a lawful operations. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. I have to say my name before you start the week. Can I get my camera? No, no, no.

My name is Axel. I'm a lawyer.

I represent Maria. I think we've sued you in federal court. You know, I think you're listening to everything and I thought about it, wrote down the word wisdom.

Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, I've just been called a stupid bitch, and I don't appreciate it.

Let's stop the talk. Was it somebody back there you met? I didn't hear it.

The woman right there. Yes, you did.

Of course not. Okay, okay. Just hang on.

I want to say that, in general, everybody's been pretty well behaved. There's been a little bit of chatter. Can I get my full five minutes back? No, you can have it to 4.40.

4.40.

4.40. Count it down to 4.40.

And then I'm going to ask all of you to just stop chattering. Stop the chat. You're going to give me 4.40. Thank you. And it goes low while you're waiting, but when you're talking, it goes fast.

I'll give you five seconds. All right.

Listen, the name's Axler. You know, the man was right. When people talk for the geese, in favor of the geese, I saw them as megaprotem walls. I saw the gestures in the streets. But I want to talk about wisdom for a second, because that's what I wrote down. And I've learned that only time and loss can teach. Only time and loss can teach. I lost $542,000. We all make mistakes. And the important thing is what you said tonight, what do you do after it? The important thing is that we learn our lessons. And I've been watching what's been happening to Maria for 10 years, a representer. What started as a neighborhood dispute has now become a full-fledged war. I saw on Saturday night the person that threw down the corn running over the geese. We are in a war right now, whether you like it or not. It's against the law to take a broom to a goose. You don't know the law, lady. It's against the law. And here's the reality of this. Maria's friends have hired an investigator. We have all the videos. We're going to go to Chief Mickle with the videos of the people and their addresses. We're going to ask that Chief Mickle have them arrested. The fine is $25 to $500, no more than 30 days in jail. If you touch a nest, it's $200 to $500, no more than 30 days in jail, and it's a misdemeanor. If Chief Mitchell does not want to arrest them, we will call SLED. If they do not want to arrest them, we will call the United States Marshal. We're coming to you to stop this. If anyone thinks that the only reason geese are in Surfside is because of Maria, raise your hand, because it's not. Geese eat grass, and they like water, and this is insanity. It's going to stop. We're coming to you now. We're going to have you have him arrested. That's the law. You said, I believe, maybe Mr. Hyatt or Mr. Laughorn said, or no, I think it was a administrator here, a standard legal process. Well, we're going to follow that. You're going to have him arrested. And we're going to start. And if someone catches Maria feeding the geese or somebody else doing something wrong, arrest them. But your residents are going to get arrested. I know the vehicle that threw the porn out. They did it on purpose to kill the geese. It's sickening. And you're allowing it. And we're like going in a circus. And the circus is going to stop, Mr. Mayor, because we're going to ask Chief Mikkel to arrest them. We will bring you the videos. We will bring you their names. We will bring you their addresses. And Migratory Act of 1918 makes you have to arrest them. This is insanity. They are not here just because of Maria. They're not. And until you figure that out, you know, You know, you're drinking the Kool-Aid. I do want to buy the first plaque. Is it this mold? I wanted to say, actually, I'm a guardian of the geese. I've been elected by the geese. I went to the lake. They all raised a one wing, and they elected me guardian. And I'm going to look after them. I'm going to look after your geese. I'm going to look after everybody's geese. It's a problem we have. I live in Plantation Lake, so there's geese everywhere. We deal with it. We watch the driveways. You look at them. People feed them all over the place. We're a two-square-mile war zone over geese. You're not the family beach. You're murderer's row if you're a goose. You know, those guys fly in. They go to the reservoirs. They go to all the water. And they're eating the grass around it. And you can say what you want to say, but as long as you build ponds and you build more houses and you put manicured lawns straight to the water we're gonna have more geese it's not maria if maria was that they wished you well like you know in memory of if it was in memory of maria she wasn't here any longer the geese are still going to be here and and i i think that you know sometimes i feel like i'm on the beacon of reason here you know it's not a mediator thing we're going to start with pushing for prosecution and then we'll see where we go right now it's been everybody against maria And I just don't think that's right. And the law is you can't take a broom to them. I'm sorry. They're protected federally. And only time and loss will teach us. And you're all learning from your mistakes. And Maria will learn from hers. And these people will learn from theirs. And I just wish you well. I know she's watching feverily. It's four seconds. God bless you. Thank you for letting me talk to you tonight. All right. Thank you very much.

Anybody else?

I'll probably shoot me in the foot because I'm going to have an unpopular question for some of the people here.

My name is Kim Taramelli. I am the director of Rumble Beach Wildlife Rescue Center. I do not live in the town of Surfside. I do come here a lot though for various rescues. I want to start off by saying I love animals and I fully support keeping them safe. Over the years I have learned a great deal working with state wildlife enforcement officials that are the agency that are actually responsible for enforcing the federal laws that are included in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which acts to protect geese and other native species. Through these conversations, I have gained a lot of insight on how to manage wildlife and the legal enforcement and how it works. Meaningful changes to wildlife laws and policies are not made at town or city or county level. They occur at state and federal levels through established legislative regulatory processes. Unfortunately, I believe what has occurred in our area has done little to accomplish the meaningful change and has instead become a highly . I'm so sorry. These issues have often been presented to the public from a one-sided perspective and one person portraying himself as a victim. I hope people will take a moment to step back and look at the bigger picture of what is actually happening here without exclusively focusing on social media narratives and emotions. Many residents have likely experienced driving through Surfside only to be met with hostility, profanity, and accusations of attempting to harm peace simply because a bird happened to be standing in the roadway. Should a motorist slow down when an animal is in the road? Absolutely. Should they exercise the same caution as if a child were present? At the same time, not every driver navigating the narrow roadways down here in Surfside near these have a malicious intent. While some individuals may intentionally provoke confrontations out of frustration in the community, it appears to stem from a repeat accusations directed from the people who have done nothing wrong. The frustration does not excuse this inappropriate behavior, but it definitely helps explain why tensions have been escalating in Surfside over time. The unfortunate reality, as this is an ongoing conflict, has generated significant resentment, not only towards this one resident, but also towards the geese themselves. It is counterproductive to the very goal of protecting wildlife. One of the most important facts often overlooked is that being geese is harmful to their natural behavior, While many geese in our area are considered resident geese, they still naturally move throughout different locations to forage. Feeding encourages them to remain in concentrated areas, reducing their natural movement patterns and increasing dependence on human provided food. When geese are regularly fed, they often are associated with people, lose some of their natural caution, and congregate in much larger numbers in residential neighborhoods. Large concentrations of geese in neighborhoods create additional problems. Geese are drawn out of yards into roadways with food, which puts them at greater risk of being hit by cars. They become more likely to generate complaints by residents as well. What may begin as a well-intentioned effort to help wildlife can unintentionally place those animals at a greater risk. This is precisely why our county enacted the ordinance years ago, prohibiting feeding of waterfowl. The purpose of that law was not to punish people who care about animals, but to reduce the over concentration of geese in residential areas and help prevent the larger conflicts that often follow. Unfortunately, not everyone likes geese and that's okay for people not to like them, but intentionally hurting and killing them is not okay, nor is it legal. There have always been people who will not like waterfowl, even though they moved to the places where ponds, where we literally set up exactly what draws these birds in. There are places that are safer from predators, because they are near people and ponds are plentiful with food. Many people oppose goose roundups and understandably so. However, allowing large populations to congregate in neighborhoods often increases the likelihood that communities will eventually pursue removal programs. Ironically, actions intended to keep the geese safe can sometimes contribute to the very outcomes that people are trying to prevent. I believe most people involved, including wildlife advocates, residents, and law enforcement officials ultimately want what is best for the birds. The challenge is finding solutions that genuinely protect birds rather than creating additional conflict. Unfortunately, not everyone likes waterfowl and that is a reality that will never change. It is important that management decisions prioritize what is actually best for the bird. Sorry.

All right, thank you very much. Anyone else?

Bill Kinkin, 14th Avenue North. First of all, I want to thank you all for your budget. That's a good budget. Talking about geese. And my problem is you wash it down the street. Where does it end up? It ends up in our ocean. We have to close the ocean because of pollution. We want to be able to do this budget because we want to have aid tax hospitality. I'm not against geese. I don't like cruelty to animals. But if we quit feeding them, they'll move on. We've had the same ponds in Surfside Beach since 61, as I was here. We did not have geese in 1961 or 71 or 81. When the people started feeding them is when they started congregating. That's what needs to stop. Let them eat whatever natural they can find here. If they like the grass, fine, let them eat the grass. Don't feed them. What's the difference of taking a handful of corn and throw it in the yard so you can feed geese? Don't feed the geese or any other wild animal. It's just nuts. And we're running a $6 million gamble that we won't have to shut our beach down someday. But all that water that's accumulated over by the bypass ends up coming through Surfside. Between 544 West, it comes through Surfside. Think of all that. So that's what is the real problem, is if we ever have to shut our beaches down because of pollution, because people won't come. There are a lot of other beaches you can go to. Thank you. Y'all have done a good job. All right. Thank you.

Do you have to speak twice?

No. All right. I don't see any other comments, so I'm going to close the public comment at this point. Actually, I do want to applaud everybody. I think it was generally respectful. There was some talking over, inappropriate, but not too bad. And not repetition. So I do appreciate that. People each had different and unique points. So we are now going to move on to town council comments. And

I'd just like to thank everybody for coming out. I'd like to thank everybody that came by and gave us their opinions. I guess I have to speak since it was mentioned twice that I do have a very expression-filled face, but my disappointment is mainly that they're just big guys coming in here trying to exploit an opportunity on our little town, and it disappoints us And I guess you can see it on my face. But anyway, thanks, everybody. I'll see you guys in another couple of weeks. And great budget coming. Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir. Mr. Coleman.

I just want to thank everybody for coming out.

My personal opinion is we can stop feeding the geese. it wouldn't be about. The geese might still be here, but no one would complain. You have somebody or groups of people who feed them. Don't feed them. No one can say you're doing anything wrong. I don't get the whole idea is we'll feed them, we'll do whatever we want to do, and then we don't care if you get mad. Just stop feeding them. I got geese. I live on a pond. I have no problem with the geese. I don't feed them. If a tourist comes and he feeds them one time, I really don't have a big problem. But we have some people who feed them each and every day. That's the problem. Stop feeding them, and no one can say you're doing anything wrong. Just don't get it. And I just think people want to cause problems. My problems. I believe lawyers like problems. Because lawyers make money when we have problems.

Woo!

So let's all, yeah, I know. You should go and get, don't quit your day job because being a comedian, it ain't working out. It really isn't. You should grow up. You should say, Scott, you're dressed up. You are hysterical.

I just don't understand why people just can't do it.

I've lived there 18 years. I stopped the comments. That's there. I've occasionally seen a boost in or hurt, but I've never seen anyone do it on purpose. Maybe it relates to a story she stored up at, you know, by Walmart. That's not here. You know, if people are doing it, They should get locked up. They're hurting them on purpose. They should get locked up. I just don't see the big problem everyone's talking about. People don't like, I don't particularly like geese pooping and my dog eating them, but, you know, I get by. I love the animals. I come from New York City. You know what one of the animals were? Rats. And some people fed the rats. You know, they just had a piece of pizza that's still on the ground. I'm agreeing to the same thing. Do not feed them. And no one can complain about what you're doing, about the geese, honestly. I mean, you're going to have people always going to complain about everything. But I think the problem is they see somebody or a group of people feeding them, and this is what the problem is. They're blaming the person for the geese. Just stop.

All right. Thank you, sir. Mr. Sagan, I want to thank colleagues for coming out. and your comments, but I want to say one thing for sure, and I want everybody to hear this. Chief Michaels, if you catch anybody feeding the geese, lock them up. Mr. Axelrod said that's what he wanted done. So if you catch anybody feeding the geese, anybody, lock them up. That way we'll know who's doing what in town if you can catch it. I know, I've watched, I've seen, I know the people at Phoenix. I've seen it happen. And for some of these lawyers to come in here and want to make a big scene, bring HBO with them to make a bigger scene is ridiculous. There are no one in this town that I know of, and I believe I'm sort of like Mr. Mr. Coleman here. I've lived here a while. I've never seen nobody chase going down the street to run over. I've seen people go out of their way and stop and get out of their car and shoo them over the road. I have seen certain people chase people down the road and cuss them for everything that's under the sun. I've seen it. I know it happens. To sit here and tell us that this council don't care? Both of you are Way out of line, sir. I'm talking to good care.

We're not engaged. We're not engaged.

You were talking to me too.

Mr.

Walls, your turn is over. Mr. Mayor, I'm talking to you just like you stood right up here and talked to us while ago. I didn't comment back to you. Mr. Walls didn't comment back to you. So why do you want to Jump back on this tonight when we have the right to speak to you and everyone else in this room. If you don't like it, don't come to our meetings. If you've got something to say, we give you five minutes to get up here and talk about it. You did. I listened. And I respect what you had to say. I respect every one of these people who come up here and said what they had to say. But as a town, we have to do what most of our citizens want. Not one or two of our citizens, or 10, because if we did, we'd be in a heck of a trouble. We're saying that with that. Everybody have a good night and come back next week. I hope all of you come back in two weeks when we're here again. Tell us again how bad you hate us. So that'd be great. All right. Thank you, Mrs. Staley.

Ms. Shaw.

Okay, now that I stopped coughing, and I appreciate you putting up with that, I have a sinus infection and two . So, common sense to me. Everybody says that I'm the, you know, I like to look at everything common sense. And I sit up here and I have to respect everybody that walks up here and talks. And I expect my turn, but I can guarantee you by the time that I'm done talking, People are going to whisper over there. That's wrong. You wouldn't let a child do that. Why are we letting adults treat each other like that? Okay. I want to say, think about this. Is it illegal to hurt a goose? Yes, I agree with that. Is it illegal to feed them? Yes. Well, guess what's happening in this town? I've never seen somebody hurt the youth. I've never seen a film. You want to bring me that film so I can see the true picture? I would like to see it. And I would also like to know if it happened in Surfside, okay? I'm open to that. But at the same time, You don't feed the geese. Bottom line, you don't carry a pouch around. It's illegal. It is illegal. Think about it. It's in stone, a law. You don't feed the geese. Well, guess what? People do it. The problem is coming. And I personally have ducks that fly into my pool. They poop in my pool. They poop and I have to clean it up. But guess what else I have? Black algae every spring because they're pooping in my pool. And that cost me $200 to clean it. And I don't feed them. It was the neighbor before me that had the house. So I'm telling you, you want me to be on the right side of the law? Which I've never heard of goose or duck. I get upset when... My cat meows the wrong way. But both, if you're saying this is happening, somebody's being mean to a geese, at the same time, feeding them is illegal. And it's happening. I see it. You have people that take bird feeders that are supposed to be this high and put them close down so the geese can feed from it. So You know what? Let's compromise and all follow the law. That's all we're asking. The other thing I want to mention, there was a woman. She's gone now. I looked right at her. She said, I hate her. She whispered, well, guess what? I know how to read lips. And she also called me a dumb bee. That is so unfair. You're just not a human being. If you cannot sit and listen to both sides of the story, we live in the best country in the world. And to come to this meeting and act up and talk while other people are talking, that's rude. We don't let our children do that. So you shouldn't do it either. I have to respect you. You should respect us. So for everyone else, I am glad both sides spoke up. I can't help It's not our job to help with Walmart problems down the street. Bring me stuff that happened here, okay? And also, I appreciate the residents come up. I have people in Surfside that cannot walk down their street because they have so much poop on their street. I'll show you pictures if you don't believe me. I'll take you down there every day and show you. So keep an open mind, guys. It's a two-way street here, and we all need to work together, but we also need to follow the law. With that said, I appreciate everybody coming, and I'll see you in two weeks. All right. Thank you, Michelle. Mr. Hyatt.

I think there's been enough words spoken on a whole lot of issues tonight, so I'm not going to add. And I appreciate your opinions. I appreciate seeing a lot of people here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hyatt. Mr. Mulholland. Yeah, I'm kind of tired about talking about the goose talk myself.

But I'm going to say a couple things. First and foremost, I echo what Mr. Coleman and Mr. Allen. It's illegal to feed the geese. It's illegal to harm the geese. We have a draft ordinance out there that I believe we need to push forward because it strengthens the penalties for both. And guess what? It's exactly the ordinance penalty information that's in the Horry County penalty phase. So, in other words, what you can be penalized for in Garden City, if we pass this ordinance, it'll be the same in service IP, whether you harm the geese, whether you're feeding the geese or domesticating the geese, whatever words you might want to use. I, for one, believe we need to get that ordinance back in front of the council and have that addressed so we can all move forward on the same sheet of music. Secondly, I've only lived here about six and a half years. I've owned property for 10. I've been around Surfside Beach off and on for 25 years. I have never one time seen a resident harm a loose or any other. I've seen dead squirrels on the side of the road. I'm sure they got hit. They run in front of the cars. Happens all the time. It happens to me. I never hit one, but I didn't close. It's an accident. So if you've got evidence, absolutely. I believe anybody that harms a goose purposely should be held accountable. But I also believe anybody feeding the geese would also be held accountable. That's my position. And lastly, I want to say, the individual you said didn't know the law is a managing partner. environmental law firm in Washington, D.C. for about 25 years. She knows the goddamn law.

All right.

Thank you, sir. I'm going to wrap it up. I do find it ironic that the examples of the goose destructions were a pellet attack in Garden City, stone throwing in Garden City, and the walmart beaver run pot those were the ones that were pointed out um i've seen one goose that was hit by a car um or a golf cart i don't know i saw the aftermath um i don't know that it was intentional i have had emails come to me from from both sides actually it's kind of settled down some but uh the first year 18 months i got more complaints about peace than i got about anything else in town of my term. And I've also gotten emails from the other side, and I have any time they say something about geese being killed in Surfside Beach, I say, send me the videos. I will take them to the police. Never, never is there a follow-up. I've talked to the police. They're not getting videos. If you got them, bring them. What are you sitting on? And that's rhetorical. We're not going to engage. I've been hearing this for years. Oh, they're killing geese in Surfside Beach. And they have these obscure videos with no background, no nothing. And it's just like, if you've got stuff, bring it. I am sure these guys will look into it. But I wonder why, after all these years, why hasn't it been brought forward? It makes me very skeptical. We have had an ordinance against eating geese for some time. We're just looking because it seems to be treated with disdain or just not being considered at all. We're looking to strengthen the penalties and that's it. I don't believe there's anybody in here who thinks feeding geese bread or corn or oats or anything like that is good or bird seed. And to make this like it's a vendetta against one person, that was brought up by the attorney last meeting. We're not looking at one person. I've seen several others feed the geese, and I've heard others. We're just looking to increase the penalties. The birds should be migratory. I lived in Michigan for 35 years. They're called Canada geese. They're in Michigan, too. But at this time of year, that's where they should be. They should be up in the north, and they come down for the warmer weather when the ponds freeze over, the ground freezes over, you get 18 inches of snow on the ground, then they have to come down south. to find food, and then they should be going back. And anything you do to encourage them to stay, whether feeding, whether herding, any of that stuff, it's wrong. I just can't see any rational argument supporting those activities. And if you got one, I'd like to hear it, but I never heard that in all the comments. I heard about vendettas. I heard about lawsuits. I heard about attacks on geese in other places. But nowhere did I hear anything about why we should be feeding geese. So I'll wrap up the goose comments at that point. I'm pleased that we did pass the budget. I think it's going to take care of our employees a little bit better. And I think we had a lot of good discussion on some of the other issues. And I look forward to a great future for this town. Everything looks good to me once we can get geese feeding taken care of.

With that in mind, I will now request Mr. Mayor to adjourn. I'd like to make a motion that we adjourn this regular meeting of the Town Council to adjourn. All right, any discussion?

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? None.

Won't you guys meet each other?