Town Council - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded.

26 for the town of Surfside Beach. Please stand as we begin with an invocation offered by Pastor Opie Landers of High Drive Gospel Church.

Let's pray. Father, as always, we first humble ourselves before you this evening. Father, we do acknowledge that you are the God who is there, the one true and living God, in whose hands are the life and breath of every human being, and every soul. And Father, as we come to you this evening, we are mindful of this time of the year that we are in and that we celebrate for our country. And Father, in being mindful of that, we are mindful of certain lessons from the book of Daniel that you raise up nations and leaders and you depose nations and leaders. That you do your will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. and none can stay your hand. Indeed, scripture declares that you have declared the end from the beginning, that of you, through you, to you are all things. Truly, our times are in your hands. And Father, there are other lessons in the book of Daniel that we're mindful of this evening. Daniel's faithfulness was first demonstrated ever before a lion's den, actually as a civil servant. that scripture says that in him was an excellent spirit, that he was preferred before all. He served with such diligence and such excellence. And Lord, we thank you for the leaders that you've given us in the Surfside community. And Father, that throughout history, you have given us in our country. We thank you for your blessing. And I do pray your continued blessing upon our leaders, Father, not just nationally, but Lord, here locally again, You have raised these men up. We thank you for them. We ask your blessing upon them. We pray your continued grace and mercy for our country. Father, again, that all things are of you. But Lord, we would be remiss if we didn't thank you for the greatest gift of all. As great as our country is, as great as a gift that is, and as blessed a people as we are, There is no greater gift than that of your only begotten son, our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you for the so great salvation that is in him. Father, help us all the more diligently to strive to be who you in Christ would have us to be, to the praise of the glory of your grace. And it is in the name of our Lord I pray this evening.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, thank you very much. We're now going to move into item number three on the agenda, motions related to the agenda. I hear none, so we'll move on to minutes approval.

Mr. Mayor, I'll move that we approve the Town Council meeting minutes from Monday, June 8th, 2026.

Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. Motion carries and minutes are approved. We'll go to item number five, public comments. Agenda items only. Do we have any public comments? All right, I see none, so we will move on to Item six, communications, the cyber crime investigation update. And Mr. Vincent is not here today. He's out this week. So I'm just going to basically ask Mr. Bouchette to just kind of run through particularly the letter that we got from the Great American Insurance Group. Basically, what is that telling us?

So, Mr. Mayor, I understand that there's still ongoing state investigations, criminal authorities. I think we're also waiting to hear back from the bank where the transfer occurred to determine what, if any, might have been able to be recovered. That's still ongoing. With regard to the letter from the insurance carrier, anytime you have sort of descriptions of insurance coverage, it can be somewhat difficult to read. And I think this one is probably even more than your average. But I read through and also met with or had a video conference with the adjuster. And so I think I can explain it most simply as follows. The church company can only make an assessment of what's in front of them at any point in time. And at this point, what they had was a claim that was forwarded by the town. from in this case wildcat but it was ultimately simply a request or a claim for an invoice that was being owed and so the correspondence from great american is telling us that hey under this policy right now we're just assessing a claim by a third party that would be a key or services rendered that they haven't been paid for. And based on the policy triggered, it provided for forensic experts, some initial counsel, which was provided. Based on their review, as we've discussed before, it appeared that the breach, data breach, did not occur in the town system, but it did occur on the other party system. With that, they simply replied that that claim is not, they're denying the claim because it doesn't fit within any coverage that we have. Now, what prompted my attention and what I wanted to try to make clear for the council is that at least at this point, this particular letter does not, it does not and does not tend to convey that in any future dispute or future action that might arise out of this incident that we are not covered for. Basically, the policy has a first party coverage. That is to say, we have lost money. We're seeking it. We're the insurer. We're seeking indemnification or reimbursement. A second portion of it deals with third party claims. That is to say that somebody else has suffered some damages and is seeking that from the town. So long story short, under the first party claim, they assessed that the payment was ultimately made through a, I forget the terminology they used, but essentially it was made to a party that infiltrated or was a fraudster. And that has triggered the $25,000 in coverage that's available for that sort of narrows. That's our first party coverage. That is what they've made available. The third party claim, at least at this point, really has not been presented, in other words. the best insurance from insurance company standpoint, they have not found a site or event to have occurred as it relates to the town. In other words, the third party had a breach of some kind based on their investigation. Now, should should something arise later where there's at least an allegation that no, it was actually the town system that was breached and that that becomes a point of dispute or that becomes a point of claim, then at that point that may very well trigger coverage under one of these policies. So like I said, most insurance policies can get very much in the weeds. This is a cyber policy that has a whole host of different components, but I think the key takeaway for purposes council is trying to determine is that the correspondence we received did not convey that should some future action, lawsuit, future information come forward, that we are not covered for this type of event. Like I say, the insurance carrier can't tell you definitively that that it will in some future scenario because they don't know what the allegations are. They don't know what the actual basis is. We have a pretty good idea on what it would likely be if that's the case. But any carrier can only kind of assess what's right in front of them. And at this point, what they had in front of them was simply one third party that was requesting payment for invoices that had not been paid. And so that did not fit within any of the coverage amount and the claims ultimately denied. So I agree the phrasing of coverage denial or claim denial and that can be very confusing, but I don't think it was or isn't intended to convey that going forward under all circumstances this is not a covered claim. I'll also point out we have an additional supplemental claim that I believe is through municipal association that maybe appoints a review at a later point, but at least as it relates to the Great American Policy, that's really where we are. It's kind of a narrow scope that they're reviewing in providing us this letter. So I'll be happy to answer any questions as best I can that say, like I said, it's kind of a difficult thing to explain, Ultimately, I think council just needs to know that this was not the Reverend always telling us that this entire incident isn't covered.

Okay. So any questions, comments for Mr. Boucher? Mr. Hyatt.

You mentioned that there may be a supplemental policy through mask besides the great American insurance group.

Yeah. And I haven't, we've put them on, I understand we've put them on notice. We have not. They've been put on notice as well. We can see they're copied to this correspondence, but we don't, at this point, that hasn't triggered here. So we really haven't delved into.

So we really don't know that we have any additional coverage except Great American Insurance Group.

Well, we haven't made a, I'm sorry. Yeah, my understanding is we do have coverage. Obviously, that's a supplemental policy so we've not sought to trigger at this point, but it's my understanding we do have that additional coverage.

I read that letter pretty carefully several times, and it seems to me that it says that we have a policy limit of a million, a group policy limit of five million. That means if we're in a group, not just insured by ourselves. And then there's $100,000 retention, which means that we're self-insured for 100 grand, which means there's no coverage for the first time we've granted loss. And then when we are covered, there's only 25 grand Is that your understanding?

Kinda. I'll tell you a slight difference. The $25,000 coverage that we have is, it's not described this way, but it's essentially what you might think is more than default coverage. That is to say that if we make a payment that ultimately is intercepted or is affected by a fraud event, 25,000 gigs in. That is, again, not indicating negligence or anything on the part of the town. Then separately, with regard to third party claims or third party claims that should a cyber event be determined, that is a cyber event, meaning a negligence or breach upon our system, then that million dollars coverage would kick in that's when that would be invoked so the 25 000 is only in regards to a third party the well that's still technically under the first party portion of it but it's essentially a sort of no fault type coverage okay thank you mr mayor uh mr wallace if i could please garrett i need to i've done some research on this yeah i've dealt with this in other

previous life they first have been foremost have to find fault at whose policy would actually apply whether it's wildcat or whether it's iris if we're not if we're not involved then there there is to be no no claim unless we would go and ask them to cover this yeah I mean generally the way for these employees I've seen a phrase more often is that if you're simply

denying liability, then you're denying the claim, which is essentially what they're doing here. I think where it maybe got a little bit confusing was using the reference of denying coverage because of the way the policy is set up. But yes, even if you've undisputed examples of auto insurance policy, you clearly have coverage for an auto accident. But if your insurer takes a position that was not your fault in the slightest, then they will not pay on it, presumably. And that's where so that's sort of the threshold issue in the first place but from the town standpoint with any insurance contract you have indemnity which is to say that they are paying the event you're liable or held to be found liable for whatever reason and then defense which is defending you in the event that your suit or something on those lines so you know both of those are are still available and depending on precisely what's presented and the allegations and all those sort of things. But no, if under any circumstances, if ultimately they find this not to be at fault or liable, then they will presumably deny the claim.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mulholland. Okay, so a couple of questions. Do you know whether we have filed a claim on the mask policy?

Well, we would not have filed a claim on the

Mass policy or file a report or whatever it is. I think we put them on notice.

Yeah.

So we have filed a report and we filed a claim. Okay. We put them on notice. Okay. And the coverage limit for the mass policy is what? It's 200,000. 200,000. Okay. So back to the great American one. Did I understand? I'm just trying to make sure I understood it. So currently, because based on the insurance forensic investigation, we believe any breach occurred on the contractor side as opposed to our side. That's correct. And did I hear you that if the breach would have occurred on our side, we had more coverage? Did I hear you say that?

Well, for the first party claim, the cyber contracts are structurally a little bit different. So the First party claim, that is to say that our system was breached and money went out the door. That may cover a scenario when maybe it's not trying to pay a third party. Somebody just came in and took money. Money came out. That's under a first party claim. So what you have under the, so clearly Wildcat's demand did not fall under the first party claim, but we had this like 25,000, what I'm calling a no fault. we still also have a policy or a coverage under third party claims. So in other words, like the car insurance type of thing, where they're coming in seeking damages for what they... And so, but it may be a third party claim, but at least has to be a showing or some kind that the third party's damages resulted from some sort of... security breach event on the part of the town. And so the carrier is taking the position at this point that it's not a first party claim because it's obviously a third party demanding. And under the third parties, all that has been presented to them was that they've submitted invoices and haven't been paid. And their investigation indicates that to the extent there was any breach, it occurred on the contractor's side.

So that's where you fall on the third party. So thirdly, do we have any idea what kind of coverage Wildcat might have regarding these types of incidents? Is there any way for us to find that out?

No. Well, we received a correspondence, basically a spoliation letter or litigation whole email. I don't think it was a letter, but that was, I think, last week. And so we wanted the first one. see where we were from any kind of investigation, make sure we had a handle on what the position of the carrier was, and then I can reach out and ask. They don't really have to tell me, but presumably, if they are making some sort of claim, then they'll do whatever they need to do to do that.

So, sorry. Lastly, I'm sure I might have another one after other people talk. As we go through this process, I think I know the answer to this question, but you mentioned state law enforcement investigation, you mentioned the bank doing a forensics type of investigation, and obviously the insurance is doing whatever it is they're doing. Any timeline on any of this?

Well, the experts that were engaged, when I say the experts, basically the digital forensic experts that will pay the carrier, I believe, has concluded their investigation. I believe they might be waiting on one or two minor things, but I think they've done most of their investigation. With regard to the SLED or the FBI, really no way to know that. The bank would presume to be in the next few weeks or so.

Sorry, I'll pass.

Okay, I'm going to ask a couple and I'm going to step away from the insurance and just say the payment and the banks and the insurance or the legal lawyers for the insurance companies. I mean, we still have to determine liability, right? I mean, be out the money or they out the money. I mean, we paid a bill.

Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, At this point, everything that's been presented to us and based on the experts who have been engaged appears to show that the data breach or the system breach occurred on the contractor's side. So again, that would seem to indicate that the liability would have been on the contractor's side to the extent there was a failure to, you know, secure email systems or something along those lines. Now, I will tell you too that things usually aren't that simple if you get down to disputing issues of this kind, but at least at this point, it appears that to the extent a liability arose out of a data breach, that would appear to be on the contractor's side.

When we're talking about insurance coverage and all that, if we're not out any money, we're not going to get any insurance coverage. They may have to look for whatever, but that determination still has to be made. Who is out the $545,000, right?

Yeah, that's true. The second to that is you want to make sure that you are covered for the second portion of insurance, which is defense. Okay. And so that's where I spent a little bit more time in being concerned about the way it appeared to be phrased about not having coverage. And again, if there's no liability, then I can ultimately pay. But from the TAP standpoint, we were worried about not only indemnification, but .

Understood. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Anybody else?

I think I had one more. I think I remembered.

Nobody else is asking, so go ahead.

I think it's kind of related to what the mayor just asked. Once the insurances make their ultimate decision on the coverage, whether they cover or don't cover, whatever it is, to include wildcats, whatever they have going on, hopefully they've got something. But I'm assuming there is a defense and an appeal process that carries on to that process. So for example, if the insurance company says we're not covering anything and we then have to make wildcat hold. There is a process for us to appeal that decision.

Really to do other than to respond.

Thank you.

Court council chamber and the underground project.

Stormwater collections were at 457,000 through May. There are no major projects at this time. On the enterprise funds, the peer fund, we generated 474,000 in operating revenue through May and 192 in operating expense. I'm sorry, 315 in operating expense. Of the revenue that we've collected, 192 of that was from parking revenue. On the sanitation fund, our revenues, a total of 1.5 million, and our expenses are 1.45, so we're neck and neck. On regular town parking, we're at 483,000, and our expenditures through May were 193. You look at the investment pool, it's the interest rate, it's creeping up very slightly, like .001. So that's where we are there. So during the month of May, the finance department prepared the salary study workshop and fee schedule workshop. The finance department also prepared the 2027 budget ordinance, which included the town fee schedule for first reading. The finance department has started preparing for FY26 year end, and business license continuing to process renewals received in the portal. And we are getting towards the end of the year, fiscal year. So next month's report will not be complete. I'll give you where we are today, but obviously we still have entries that go all the way through August, sometimes September, depending on what daughters. how quick they are and how everything goes.

All right, thank you. Any questions, comments for Director Gruber?

I have a couple.

Go ahead, Mr. Hyde.

Could you explain what the May proviso is?

The May proviso is the May bike week proviso where a certain amount of money gets set back and then we request it in May.

for release so they have released that money to us and that's to cover the cost for police and fire so it's mine sitting here but we have to justify using it all right okay thank you on that uh two uh was wildcat construction hired by santee cooper to do the work or by surfside beach to do the work we bid it out certainly they have to be city cooper's requirements all right and third um You mentioned a portal. Does that mean that we have a business licensing portal now?

They always have been. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, if you go through the Massey website, businesses can pay through their portal.

Okay.

Thank you.

I got a couple. Just as you pointed out, the ATEX, local ATEX, HTEX, stormwater, sanitation, all really kind of tracking very closely. The big thing is the general fund revenue being about two and a half million ahead. And that is our- On the tax side.

Yes. So we'll see where we end up overall, but right now we are adding to fund balance.

That's a lot of that card registration stuff and all that we've benefited from?

Yes.

Don't know how to keep that going, but I sure do like it. But yeah, everything else. And then again, I know the projections of this is not to be a great tourism year, but I've been at a couple of chamber events and they say the early tracking, early in the season, late in the fiscal year is looking pretty good. And we're seeing that.

Yeah, we're tracking right where we were last. Okay.

All right. That's all I got. Thank you. Mr. Coleman.

If you have a business in town, you have to get a business. How do we know how much money they bring in?

They come in and they have to give us their revenue for the year for in town only. And that's what we were meeting about today actually too. I got to read through our ordinance to see if we can require tax. Yeah.

So if you have a business, And the payments go to someplace other than here. So they go to Spartanburg, South Carolina. Everything's paid right to the main company. How do we know that we're getting our fair share?

Tax returns.

But we don't do that now.

That's where we're figuring out what we can and cannot do.

OK.

But we're looking into that.

Yeah.

So how do Airbnb's work in terms of tax revenue?

They are supposed to be, I believe monthly they submit for the hospitality and local aid tax. That's another one I gotta get a grasp on because we had that settlement at the end of last year and I don't know if they go through Airbnb as a whole and they pay that business tax or it all goes through state. That's one I'm not too sure on yet.

Okay. So I guess the question that we have right now, I think what I'm hearing is we don't have a really good way to police that, so to speak.

The Airbnb? Yeah. I'll have to talk to Charlie about what the outcome of all that was. as far as what we can do or what the state is doing to make sure they're compliant.

And I guess same question for rental organizations where their offices are outside of Surfside Beach, but they rent out properties in Surfside. How does that work? Like Dunes, for example.

What we learned today is that anything within the town They have to record whatever revenue they are generating within this town, and that's what they pay the business license fee on.

Okay. And again, I'm just trying to understand, how do we ensure that that's getting to us?

Honestly, we need someone to go out and do more field work. So we'll see if we can... it can get there.

I mean, dunes wouldn't, for example, wouldn't be that hard, I wouldn't think. But like I said, Airbnbs, these people are, you know, they could be living anywhere. And basically, I assume it's like a private business, but they're, they have to have a license to operate a search site, correct?

Correct. Yes, this is a learning process for the entire staff.

And is that something you could get back to us with, you know, like, you know, I don't know if you need 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, but I'd be interested to see your progress in that, towards that end, because that's a lot of potential revenue that we're not 100% sure we're getting all of, is kind of what I'm hearing.

Mr. Mayor. Ms. Shaw. This is more of a comment of how do we fix this problem? We have people using their houses here, their rents. And the reason why I know this, on the south end, there's a particular address and the neighbors around them can tell you they are renting this particular house on a regular basis. And I don't know how we can get them to give us, they don't have a business license. And if you walk up to them and they say, Oh, we're family. But there's one particular house on the south end that is using basically their home as a resort rental. And I don't know how, and this is not directed to you, it's kind of like all of us here. How do you get, because I know that's not the only one, because there's one on the north end too by my house. I just don't know how we could solve that problem. the general just saying i know for a fact that these two houses rent their houses and there's no and they don't have a business so i just don't know how and if there's two there's probably a half a dozen easily so it's just something to think about how we do

I have a question for you. Do you know, are they in the R3 or are they an actual resident, you know, regular residential?

They're an R3.

Okay. So at least they would be legitimate.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

I just wanted to make sure I understood that. Thank you.

It's more of a comment than anything.

Well, and I'll relay all questions after questions that we have to the staff.

While we're on that, is that something that PB&Z does through code enforcement at all, potentially? Yeah. Okay.

I see the head nodding. Okay. We know the address. You can look into that. Okay.

And apparently there's some way to find that because Airbnb had the settlement. So there is ways to find them somehow. I don't know how to do it. That's why we got the settlement last year.

Right.

All right, any other questions coming up?

If I can have another turn. Go ahead. A couple more questions. One is on the accommodations tax. I note that through May, we have an ending fund balance of $213,000, whereas last year, at the same time, we had $354,000. Why the discrepancy?

State aid tax has to be used within two years. That's why we come back with amendment every spring. to whatever fund balance is available, that's when you guys allocate it to the different one-time projects.

And the other question I have is back to the gross receipts. I can remember when I was a business owner, we had to pay kind of guesstimates. It was like, you know, if it was over a hundred thousand, over 500,000, you paid an escalating step, but the step wasn't horribly more expensive. Like if it was a, $100,000 and then the next step was $500,000. It might have been $50 more or something. Is that how it is here?

Yes, there's a declining rate based on income that you pay. So it's not going to be astronomical if you're

So would it be easier on all you guys if we just did away with the estimate and just had them one time state what they guessed their income was and based their licensing fee off of that?

I believe that's what has been occurring. My question is that I'm trying to read through the ordinance again. Can we require tax returns?

I see.

other than when we need to audit.

So you've been doing it that way, but you're trying to see if there's a way that we can maybe collect more income for people who aren't being honest.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Mayor.

Ms. Shaw, go ahead.

One more, this is a question. If I remember correctly, A-tax, there was a, and I don't want to say the entity, but someone returned money to us that was provided through A-Tax?

Yes.

Okay. So with them doing that, where does that money go now?

I would say we hold that money for next spring and reallocate it then.

Okay. I was afraid that it had to be spent by the end of June 3rd. Yeah, it was to be spent

Thank you, Director Gruber.

We're now moving on to the fire department report. Chief Nelson.

Good evening. We've been pretty busy this last month. I attended the Southeastern International Association of Fire Chiefs Conference in Georgia. We also had the South Carolina Firefighters Conference here in Myrtle Beach last week. In that conference in the Myrtle Beach one, our fire marshals actually attended one as well there. During that conference, we actually received the 2025 Fire Safe Community Designation Award, fifth year in a row for us. We're currently completing applications for assistance to firefighter grant and the fire safety grant. A great story for you that we just happened. We were dispatched to a structure fire on June 4th at 1.30 a.m. Crews were out the door in two minutes. That's what we want them out the door in. From asleep and on scene, they were there in two minutes, and there were smoke and fire showing. Captain Kelly and Firefighter Gutierrez pushed into the home and found an occupant had been bedridden, and she was carried out of the house, also within two minutes. So within six minutes time of being alerted to this call, we were on scene, and the victim was taken out of the house. While the rescue was being conducted, Firefighter Jason, our engineer, was deploying the hose line, getting the pumpkin geared for fire suppression. The engine, the utility, and the tower arrived shortly afterwards, staffed by our volunteers, as well as Horry County Fire Rescue and Merleville and Lynch Garden City as well. A great job was done on this call to assist the citizen with getting out immediately in a dangerous and life-and-health situation. The number one killer of fire victims is not the flames, but the smoke. I'm exceptionally proud of the crews and their actions on this day. Last weekend, we received several calls for lightning strikes, and one started a fire in the attic down in Pirate Land. Crews arrived quickly and located the fire and put the fire out. The homeowner was extremely appreciative of the crews' work and sent an email thanking them for the department's quick actions. We received tools from the public safety grant for $30,000. We're pretty excited about that. Crews have been working on the betterment of the fire station as well. Our walk-in doors, due to salt water and everything, start to clean those up, repainted them, make the station look presentable. Our generator out front was starting to become weird, throwing signs of rust, and that was cleaned up and done as well. That's all the report I have. All right, thank you, Chief.

Any questions or comments?

No. Just a hug. Juan, it was a great job to you and your men. That makes me feel good, and I'm sure it does our whole community. On the graph on the next page, you have a response of, it's small, but it's called good intent. Could you explain to me what a good intent call is?

Absolutely. So sometimes we get called for a lift assist, helping out with, we get a lot of lift assist and stuff as far as that goes. Your smoke detector, it's beeping. So we'll go out there and place the batteries out and stuff like that. Those are good intent calls.

Thank you. I have a couple more. You've talked about 97 calls and contract area. I think we mentioned this before, but are the contract areas a written contract? Yes. So the county contracts with our town to provide services to these areas? Yes. Okay. And again, I appreciate the fact that you broke out that roughly 41% of the calls were in town. I think the citizens need to know that. And I think All I have. Thank you, Chief. Any others?

Thank you, Chief. We'll now move on to communications and events. This is Mo.

Good evening, everyone. It's the 4th of July. Just saying. It's looking really good out here. And I don't mean that just like the things that we as a town did. But all of our residents, if you ride around town, I can't wipe the smile off my face because it's just really looking great. We still encourage everyone to decorate with our American flags and get things out there. And I'm just going to say this right off the top. Our website, let's do social media and website first. So we continue to update those. And we are improving the processes for that. Our Facebook followers hit 48,000, really exciting. Our tourism and advertisements with cable TV, newspapers, social media, radio continue to generate a lot of traffic for our town and visibility. The graphics and marketing for 2027 slash 2028 are already in works, which is really good. Our core summer season is is the marketing part of that. Of course, summer season, we're doing a great job there. We added the new game night at the pier, so that's really exciting. The event summary for Memorial Day Golf Cart Parade and Service, I just want to say this. It was very well attended and received, and I want to thank Chief Mechel once again for his amazing presentation at the service. And of course, my peers out there, Many things go to the police department, the fire department, and of course, couldn't do it without our awesome Public Works team. So it's really exciting for that. Tuesday's farmers markets and the arts and crafts markets have a new safety plan that is working very well. And it is being well received by not only the vendors, but the patrons. So I think we've got it exactly where we want it now. So that's really a good thing for all involved. Like I said, the family game night at the pier was well received. We had to cancel one last week, but for the expected rain and that's a lot of equipment out there. So unfortunately it didn't rain, but okay. But with that being said, I think it's going to grow like crafters code. People have a lot of questions about it and there's a lot of interest in it. And there's different themes every week. So our visitors to our town can bring their kids to something basically on the daily that we have going on in town for the core summer season. So that makes me really excited for them. Our 2026 4th of July American celebration is from right around the corner. I can't believe it's this fast. But all events are going to take place on the 4th of July. Our golf cart parade kicks off at 10 a.m. And that's right on 16 North. We have a flag presentation. We're going to have some remarks down there, a Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and everything is going to be held right there at the First Baptist Church before we stop the parade off at 10 a.m. So please be there if you guys are going to do that. And I just want to also say Registration for golf cart parades are those that want to be eligible to win prizes. It actually helps us figure out who they are and be able to award those prizes to them. You do not have to register if you just wanna ride in the golf cart parade. But you do have to bring lots of candy, please. Right, Skip? There you go, thanks. Okay. I love it. Okay. So then the celebration continues after the golf cart parade at the Neal and Pam's parking lot and first Avenue South. And that's from 12 to three. That's called the fam jam. So it's all about the families and, and all the fun. So Jim quick and the coastline van is going to be there. We have a really cool kid zone this year. Splash.

That's all I'm going to say.

And we're going to have an ice cream eating contest and a really cool hula show that day. Salute from the Shore takes off around one o'clock. So if you're out there at one o'clock, I would really love it if you guys would help us out, including KSBB, to hold those ginormous flags that we've got for the flyover. They do take pictures and video from those planes. So it's really cool to see if we can get our town on there. That would be really fun. And with that being said, we can't do this without Keep Surfside Beach Beautiful. So I want to thank them for all of the things that they do in their town. They are volunteers that give their time to us freely. So I appreciate them so much. And it's not just KSBB. course they are our core and but it's also just any general volunteers that come to help us out so we appreciate that as you were noticing american flags and 250th commemorations our banners are up and around town which is really exciting and we've got some flags and clusters around town so that's really exciting um and i just think it's going to be a great fourth of july for us And what an honor to be alive and present on 250 years of celebrating America, right? And not only celebrating America, we're celebrating that we live in the best town ever, right? On the beach, right? A couple of housekeeping things for upcoming events. Sundays through August 30th continues Music and Memorial Park. If you guys weren't there yesterday, it was packed. I mean, I'm sorry, yeah, yesterday was Sunday. Mondays through August 10th, the hula and fire dancer shows, which have elevated this year, they just do such a great job. And that continues through August the 10th. Wednesdays continuing through August 29th is our family game nights at the pier. And then Thursdays through August the 14th, our crafters code drop-in continues through the season.

any questions i'll be happy to answer them questions i do have just one yep the clarification so are we partnering with neil and pam's on this band and all these things the kids because i i originally thought this was a neil and pam's thing that they were doing it's not a neon pants it's an approved

place. And Neil and Pam's were very gracious to us to let us have those lots.

So it's keeping us from having to close the parking lot. You got it. Yes. Good deal. Absolutely. Thank you, Neil and Pam.

Yeah, they were gracious. That's great.

Yeah. I've got one question. So after the advertisements, newspaper, cable TV, graphics market, is that stuff that the chamber is doing for us or? It's our accommodations money. I wanted to make sure that we were getting something for that money. We're sending them every month.

Yeah, we are. There you go. Yeah.

All right.

Thank you.

You're welcome. I love the flags. It's crazy. I saw you added the 250 anniversary flags. Yes. You just get the job out there. There's some of them won't properly placed on and they're hanging down.

Coming off the pole. Oh, they're coming off the pole. Okay. The ones probably because of when maybe I bet. Yeah, we'll take care of it. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's great.

It's just that someone wants to go. Okay. I just got, why is the whole thing stop at all this time? Because they go back to school. Kids go back to school. Yeah. Okay. Because our season ends a little bit later. Right. As if they could have done it longer. Yeah. It's great we're gonna elevate yes, sir

i just think it's great i do too but we're also remember i said a couple weeks ago we're going to bring the memorial day yeah we're doing that you got it yeah yes yes and i'm partnering with meredith on that so it'll be pretty flawless thank you mr mayor well i want to tell you hats off for the game and i can imagine it's going to grow every week

I don't know who was more excited, the kids or the parents or the grandparents, but they just thought it was really cool. As far as the hula show, hats off for you for getting them a stage. Because let me tell you, sometimes there's over 300 people, close to 400. So that stage allows them to be elevated. And believe it or not, we actually have several four-year-olds They're about this big. So just hats off to you, because that really, really worked well. Thank you.

I just want to make a comment more than any question. I attended a meeting. I think Mr. Hyatt was there. I'm not sure if anybody else was. But about the farmer's market, six, eight weeks ago when it first started, and we were getting complaints about the parking and so forth. because of schedule things and so forth. I haven't been down there in a while, but I was there on Tuesday. And the way public works is define the parking. People were using it properly, wedged in there tight, tight, tight, and people in and out, but it was moving smoothly. I mean, you almost had to turn sideways to walk through the booths. Very, very well attended. Things were moving, and a lot of happy faces. So it's as good as it ever was. And I want to applaud. I mean, we had police. We had Director Adair's folks. We had fire marshal. Everybody had to rework the plan, and it worked out well. So I just want to say thanks. It is definitely working properly.

Absolutely. Teamwork makes the dream work. We all have ideas. When we come together, we make them better.

I got something I wanted to say. I like the gravel ramp on the east side for senior citizens. It was used by at least one person I know. My question would be, will that eventually be paid?

I can get back to you on that.

All right.

Yeah.

I will ask that question, but I'll get back to you on that. Can you clarify for me what The pedestrian walkway.

What's the name of that road? Willow?

Willow. Oh, okay. Willow, they've made a ramp now where you can pull up in a golf cart, someone that has a hard time walking, and now easily walk up into the venue.

Yes, I did see that, okay.

It was mentioned they were going to do that, and they've done it, and I'm glad to see it. Absolutely.

All right, thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Any others? Thank you, Mrs. Mull. Thank you. All right, we will now move into the Public Works Report. Director Adair.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, and citizens. Public Works for May. In our sanitation division, the R3 and C3 summer rollout program is in effect. Now it continues until September 12th. The new sanitation rates approved by Town Council will be in effect for July. They'll appear on the customer's August 1st water bill. In our streets and drainage division, Our beach refuse and recycling services are now on a summer schedule, seven days a week that's being picked up as of June 1st. Crews are replacing several potentially hazardous sections of sidewalk in various locations. We've had some trip hazards. Crews have been repairing beach showers and walkovers, sand fence, et cetera, to be ready for the high season. And I'll give a brief beach renourishment update It's not on here, but I just got an email over the weekend this Sunday, I believe, that their schedule, they'll be leaving Myrtle Beach about a week sooner than they originally anticipated. So you should start seeing some activity around here after the 28th of June. They're going to bring a subline on shore in Garga City and another one up into Surfside Beach and around 5th North, just north of the Myrtle Swash. And then they're going to pump that one first. And they're going to go all through the north side of town, all the way to the state park with that line. Then they're going to turn it around and go southbound with the same line. So you'll be seeing that pipe for a little while. I think we've done our best to manage people's expectations. We've had it before. Essentially, once they've re-nourished an area and the sub-line, the lateral line is going across the beach, they build sand ramps over it so you could walk over it easily. It's only a three-foot pipe. to get to the water. And I remember the last re-nourishment, people were just hanging out on the chairs right next to the pipe. It wasn't affecting them so much. So hopefully it's not as chaotic as some people may think it will be. In our grounds division, the repairs are being, maintenance are being performed in public restrooms and on town properties. As always, crews have begun installing the first few pier plaques that were purchased online. Those are up on the pier already on the railing. In our peer division, the annual fire alarm and fire sprinkler testing and certification has been completed for the year. And we got our DNR whole peer permit renewed as of a couple of days ago as well for the next year. In our fleet maintenance division, our mechanics completed 72 repairs to town vehicles and equipment. Additionally, 13 vehicles received preventive maintenance during May. If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Okay. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Walz? John, I'm a little concerned. I've heard some complaints about some of the underground wiring and the patching and the road work is settling, as we know it will. And now with this situation we have with wild gap, are we prepared to go in there and maybe repair some of these low spots? that are crossing Ocean Drive and so forth? Some of them are pretty abrupt.

Well, we don't have to do it. They actually have had a patching crew come back and redo some of their work, the original crossings. I'm not satisfied with it. I let them know it was a poor job. They are going to redo them at their own expense, not at ours.

I'm just saying it's the same company that we're... Yeah, yeah.

Well, they haven't let it affect what they're doing for us. that's yeah all the punch list items are being completed I took a look at the the patching work that was redone about a month ago or so now and I complained about it I said you know hope you didn't pay a lot for that patching job because it's the worst I've seen so it needs to be re-handled they promised that they would redo it so I'm waiting for that to happen okay we're not gonna have to do

It seems like they did okay on Fifth Avenue, but all the cutouts are speed bumps still. That's what they feel like.

We tried to manage the scope of the contract to do as much of it in boring as possible, boring under the road, but there was so many conflicts under the road, the boring wasn't possible, so you have to trench. If you can't bore, you have to trench it. But there was a lot more of that really was anticipated. Once you start digging and you see all the services and utilities on the ground already, there's always surprises. Surprise water mains, surprise this, that were never marked by the utility, surprise. So a lot more trenching had to be done than was really anticipated. Otherwise, if we had known all that, I probably would have had them overlaying the whole thing like they did on 5th and just added it to the contract. But hindsight is 20-20.

Mr. Coleman. Speaking on Ocean Boulevard, a couple of years ago we had the swash by 11th and 6th. It's starting to depress right now.

Anything on that?

Yeah, it's settled a little bit. You can definitely feel it when you're driving over it. When we redo that, probably next year, that whole stretch, That's going to be on our paving schedule anyway. It'll be handled probably in the spring.

I just hate for it to be, well, it seems like it's more, I don't know, it's doing more than settling, but it's a few inches down.

Yeah, it's just settling. It's a box covered there now. It's not like a wooden brick. The water's not getting in behind it.

All right, so it's not sinking. It's just settling.

Yeah, the asphalt that they put down, the base material has settled from the trap.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm pretty confident after we redo it again in May, it'll last a lot longer.

Mr. Mayor?

Ms. Yellen?

I have a couple things. As far as guys doing a great job cleaning up and everything, if you could get them to go down fifth north a little bit, what happens is they must hit fifth and Cedar, that corner, And they use their clothes or something, the blankets, whatever. So right now there's a blanket, there's a couple of T-shirts, and they're both on property that have older people. So they're not going to clean it up. And I'm a little afraid to pick up that blanket.

In the right of way?

No, it's not the driveway. It's like the corners.

Oh, yeah, but not on the property, but more closer to the road.

Right.

I'll have somebody look for it.

Yeah, if they could just every once in a while go down there. I don't know what happens with it. It's just, I guess the golf cart keeps going and they keep losing stuff. I mean, I've seen shoes out there and it's just, and I know those individual houses, there are older people there. I would go and clean it up, but I'm afraid to pick up the blanket because I don't, I'm not interested.

Yeah, I'll tell sanitation to look for it.

I'm not interested at all. Another comment I wanted to make, I wanted to thank your, The peer attendants?

Yes.

They got a hard job doing hula, okay? Especially with the surf diner not open. So a lot of the public, I saw it last week, they can stand there where the tables are. So I don't know if surf diner could get a chain or what, but whatever they have up there, they had to clear it out, I think, two or three times. And I just felt sorry between them and the captains.

Police department. Well, it's pretty, if you look at it, they have several planters out there, and there's chains in between the planters, but you can still slip through there if you really wanted to. I mean, it's pretty obvious by looking at it, you're not supposed to be there, but maybe there's a way to close it off a little better when they're not open.

Yeah, I just think it's an unnecessary job for them to do, because they did it like two or three times last week, so I just feel for them.

Yeah, well, yeah, it's challenging at times, this time of year especially.

Yeah, but everything else should Once again, that's a great job.

Appreciate that. I've got a quick question. So Serf Diner, any indication that they're going to start opening for dinner other than like Friday and Saturday night or whatever it is they are opening?

I've been told by the proprietor that it's strictly a matter of personnel. He's ready to do it. He's just waiting to hire enough people. I guess there's just not enough interest in working or working there. I don't know. But as soon as he has enough personnel, he plans on opening seven days a week. 4th of July is next week.

We're not going to get a higher season than the rest of the year.

Oh yeah, it's not for lack of wanting. They want it, but they just haven't been put into them that they just can't hire the people. And I've heard that from a few places.

Remarkably, they're not open during the whole of the show for example. Easy revenue, but it is what it is.

Yeah, I ran into Mr. Howard. I got a chamber of commerce meeting not too long ago and told me the exact same thing 27 people he says he needs to stack the place for an evening so it's not it's not just two or three people missing i guess so uh big business anyway uh mr stanley john are are there any plans for the sidewalks when you don't get started on the own start

Can you think about sidewalks from Hollywood to 17th? Oh, yeah. Well, now that we've put the funds forward, now it has to be bid out.

After July 1st, we have to bid it out. July 1st? Yeah, that's when the new budget year starts, so that's when I can spend the money. I'm scared for real bad. Yeah, you've got to put a bid package together. You have a little bit of engineering I have to do on some of those stormwater crossovers. Then there'll be one big package and we'll bid it up, 30 days or whatever, and then probably sometimes fall in the winter when it happens.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Walsh, I'm going to throw something out. And it's not just because it's the stretch of sidewalk in front of my house. But if the ADA ever comes around there and sees these wheelchairs that are going around in front of my house on that sidewalk, I was just going to throw it out there and wonder if we might be able to get that repaired. I know the state put it in though.

No, the state gave us an encroachment permit to put that in years ago. But we did build those sites.

Why would you build it like that?

It was an engineered property. I'd say, yeah. That's why you can't have more than a certain percent cross slope. You can have an incline grade. It all matters. certain widths, detectable warnings at the corners, all that's ADA compliant.

I just wondered, while you're at it, if you get down to that area, John, it would behoove us liability-wise, not just for me, but I think liability-wise for the town because wheelchairs and stuff that come around there and have to get off and go in the street. Yeah, that's a particularly bad block.

I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Maybe it could be added on to the job as a changeover or something. We'll see. But... Certainly that was done at a time when that was done at a time in the town's history where they weren't paying a lot of attention to that. I'll leave it at that. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Coleman, go ahead. Yeah, I agree with Skip. It's like walking in the fun house. It's really not fun.

Oh yeah, I've been hearing about it my entire time.

I know it wasn't your job. The rest of it's... It's pretty much just that one block. Yeah. Eight to seven. It's just his house.

It's actually just in front of my house, not all the way to seven. Seven is great.

Maybe 100 feet of concrete.

Just the area in front of my house. They didn't like who lived there. Yeah.

Maybe they were crooked.

I don't know. We'll look at it when I walk in with the engineer. Thank you.

I already talked to you about this, but the swing, the first swings didn't work out, right? They were... made for more of a residential application. Yeah, more for residential than public.

Well, yeah, the type of abuse that they're getting.

Right, they're getting a lot of abuse. So you've gone to a different spring.

Correct.

And it's going to be more heavy duty, one that possibly will put in the playground somewhere.

Correct, yeah, it's up there. There's one up there right now.

Okay. If that doesn't work, I don't know if we keep buying. The ones you're buying now are $1,000. It's close to it, right?

Yeah, about $900. I don't really anticipate the new kind of having, this is where you put the playgrounds and stuff. They take a lot of abuse. You see extruded metal with the PVC coating on it and stuff. So what's gonna wear out is the swivel mechanisms and stuff, which all our swings wear out and they have to be replaced. The bench itself, I think, shouldn't last a while. Especially since it's down by the ocean.

um here i don't know where we are with it we're talking about the windbreaker up on the pier for uh grippy's first of all is grippy's door being impacted with heavy winds it still is yeah yeah we just changed the closer on it the other day and we're doing surf down at one next oh we're gonna have to do something right yes yeah that's the house it's going to be made out of wood uh we actually i'm having

engineering on a tweak tweet i should say because uh first they designed it in stainless steel and we fit it out and the bids came in way way higher than we could ever afford to pay stainless steel so i said let's redesign it in wood similar to the shade structure in the back bid it out i think january or february zero bids so i have a couple local contractors interested in but the way that they drew it up in like 10 by 10 posts and everybody says that's overkill. You know, you don't need that. So I sent it back to the engineers. I said, could this be done with a smaller, there's no uplift on it. It's going to be all open, you know, and it'd be done with a smaller timber. So you don't have to crane the material up there. And I'm waiting for an answer back on that, but they can revise that drawing for a little bit lighter timbers that are manageable. I think I'll have somebody who will do it. Okay.

But you're on it.

So yeah.

Any others? All right, thank you, Director Adair. Thank you. We'll go to the Police Department report now, Chief Mickle.

Thank you, Mayor, Town Council, public, and the media back there. So for May, May 20th this year, 1,463 calls for service up to 5,402 for a year to date. And out of that 5,402, 1633 are self-initiated, such as traffic. In May, we wrote 152 tickets and 260 morning citations. You see that's a little bit more than what we did last year. And we made 31 arrests in May. As you know, May is a real busy month for us, usually. There are 31 total arrests. You can see how they're broken down there. If you look at the crime index, that's the next coordinator there, pretty close to . For personnel actions, we said goodbye to one of our communications officers. He got hired as a police officer of the county. we wish brett anderson great success in his position at the county and we thank him for his service to surfside beach and we also had an officer resigned and decided he wanted to pursue a different career path and uh need a break from law enforcement so we're also grateful for his service as he moves on something else and we did fill two full-time vacant communications positions so that's really great for us uh we've been struggling to find some some uh qualified people for that and we found two great ones so uh We were able to fill those and we're still looking for a part-time one. We have no vacancy for that. We're still interviewing and accepting applications. We currently have three police officer vacancies and we're actively recruiting and testing every week. Every month we're doing at least one testing and recruiting event. Notable events for May. We celebrated National Police Week in May. It was great. Corporal Corman was recognized by Mothers Against Dark Driving for an award ceremony in Columbia. He was recognized for his efforts in DOI enforcement. Sergeant Brogue graduated from the Law Enforcement Education and Development Program from Coastal Carolina, a nine-month long professional program focusing on law enforcement leadership. For nine months, he and other officers from around the state Went to Coastal Carolina and had a very interactive course, and it was pretty intense. I had a graduation, and they went through it, and I was pretty impressed with that. It's moving up with the leadership training, and as always, we're trying to have succession in our department. And then, of course, during Bike Week, we were assisted by state law enforcement agencies. We conducted enhanced and saturation patrols during Bike Week. We were very busy, but we had no major incidents and no fatalities. So it went smoothly to the camp for biking. For large cases, we did respond to a financial institution where an individual attempted to withdraw $68,000 from using a stolen identity. He fled before we could get there, he blocked behind some evidence and already hitters were able to identify him and then also work with other agencies and link him to some other fraudulent activity and we filed charges against him as well then as i think that indicated we were heavily participating in the memorial day events across town that's our may what's for any questions all right anything for chief nickel mr mayor mr wallace okay let me um

We're three police officers down. Yes, sir. But this is really the two that we gave you. You've still been seeking.

Well, we've had them full. We were full for like two weeks. Oh, okay. We had everything full for about two weeks, and then we had some personnel issues. I'm not worried about it, especially with the new thing. I'll be honest with you, the new pay scale that you approved last, we're getting a lot more interest already.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Coleman. On that, why didn't the dispatcher want to come to office? Why would he want to go to Horry County, which is really under a black cloud?

He's young, sir. He wants to get some action. I'm sure he'll come back to us once he realizes.

Granted. He's a good kid.

He's just young.

How long was the officer here who left last year?

He'd been here two or three years. He'd been in law enforcement for a while. He would have been in law enforcement longer than that. He was just here for two or three years.

Okay. Seems like a lot of waste of money. Putting all his training in.

Well, that particular person didn't We do actively recruit certified folks so that it does because it is cheaper to hire certified officers than it is to hire people from a different department.

Yeah. Mr. Mayor.

Oh, you said that Harry's down.

I just got one more question. Oh, go ahead. With the golf carts, we're still having a problem with that, right?

uh no uh stats here yeah we've written four citations two of those at night yeah yeah seven hours we've had seven accidents at nighttime correct um just to get into the season so we'll see how it shakes out has uh any other uh area police departments or towns or cities possibly other places are thinking about going i believe they have a contact with us about it but when we have the chief's meeting uh every month we have a chief's meeting and maybe that'll come up the next the next game and what your opinion is applying with 24 hours or not i mean at this point there's no issues okay yeah we'll look for us whatever you guys throw at us Right now there doesn't seem to be a problem based on our statistics. We're getting into the season now, so we'll see at the end and revisit after we see someone else. Is that it?

I'm going to go to Mr. Stavey first because he has the time.

What I want to know is, are we enforcing state law for kids pretty regularly here in town? Because I am seeing a lot of children who are not up with the state law since they had D2D, and I'm wondering if we're actually looking at that a lot. If we see it, we'll stop them and deal with it every single time. i hope so there are a lot of riding around without young kids but no secret yeah call us if you don't see it we'll look for them i hate to call you i'd go see you out doing the business instead of me calling you yeah no i mean we're uh of course anything that occurs in front of us from the large smallest and largest violation we're gonna we're gonna deal with okay michelle

31 total arrests. Do you ever, now is that people, I don't even know if you capture this kind of stat, but are they residents or are they visitors?

We don't capture that. Okay.

Yeah, we don't capture that. I'm just wondering how, that's a pretty high number for us, 31?

Well, it's May.

Yeah, okay, got it. Yeah.

If you go back and look at the crime data from the month prior, May of 2025, it's really not much different.

Ms. Hyatt. I have a quick question here, Chief. You have 31 total arrests, parentheses 18 additional arrests. So is that 49?

I probably did my math wrong, so I don't know for the IRS.

You see where I'm looking?

Yeah, it's 13. Yeah, so it was probably whatever it was. There was 31 total arrests and 13 arrests with Lawrence, and I probably just got the EPR. All right, pretty good. Yeah, I'll fix that typo. No problem. We'll call it a typo. I'm not a math error.

You can still talk for the IRS. Mr. Mayor, I had just one quick answer. So I need to understand that A mother riding around in a golf cart holding a young child.

They're seatbelted in. I understand in the law, seatbelt.

So mom and the child would have to be within the seatbelt.

Right? That seems to like fit the elements of the statute.

I see that a lot. You know, two years old and younger, maybe still sitting on mom's lap like they always have.

Yeah.

not like that would be illegal if they weren't seat all of it we need to focus on that a little bit more so here in town for the for the season you're getting started now i mean i know everybody it's on our website it's on the website and we've got a flyer hanging up with that is that not something we should

I mean, I could throw it up on social media as well.

I think we need to let people know that against the law, we're going to ride around with kids.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Coleman, go ahead. So the rental cars, the cars, do they have seat belts on them?

Yes, they should have been retrofitted.

we haven't seen anybody riding around without them so i mean everyone i've seen has been retrofitted we haven't gone and spec and each wanted their place of business but during this during the seasons the most golf clubs are rentals and that's mississabia stadium i mean i know the police can't be everywhere all the time but that's true but i've seen a lot of them families riding around and they're not using seat belts a little time tomorrow. And I'm going to look. If they're not running cars with seat belts, how are these people supposed to know? How are they going to know?

I would assume that they are at state law. I count them there. You know what happens when you assume. We haven't seen any that aren't. I haven't inspected each one of these business, but that would be legal in the state, not just in town. The state has to be compliant.

Maybe it would be, have somebody drop by and say, Take a look and tell them, listen to me. I'm just suggesting, I'm not telling you. There should be seatbelts. You're running into people here who don't know the laws. And you're supposed to be telling them what the laws are. And if they don't have the ability to seatbelt their children, whose fault is it other than... Every single one I've seen has not only the seatbelts, but also has the laws posted right there in the software.

I believe that's part of the... I think they're required to have that as well, part of our ordinance, that they're required to have those on there. And again, I'll remind the staff to keep an eye out for that as well.

I would appreciate it. Me too. Because you can't use something if you don't have it. Right.

All right, well, that's it. Thank you, Chief Mikkel. We will now move on to the planning, building, and zoning report, Director Broder.

Thank you, mayor and members of council. I'm gonna start out with a shameless plug to ask members of the community to sign up for our boards and commissions. This past month we held, we were going to hold a zoning board of appeals meeting. And if you know, zoning board of appeals doesn't meet that often. They maybe meet historically once or twice a year, maybe three times a year. A lot of work goes into clerical time, staff time, time of the members who received their packets to review those, only to have the meeting postponed because we didn't have enough people on the board. So I'm putting a shameless plug for somebody to get on the, for a couple of people to sign up for the zoning board of appeals. It's not a hard job, it's not a frequent job, but it's a very important job. And the item before the zoning board of appeals was The first I've had so far was an appeal of a decision that I made. So it was very important for the board to hear that and to get through that.

But alas, we'll have to postpone that, possibly until next month when we can get the board back together again.

The Planning Commission will not meet in its regularly scheduled July meeting. I'm going to be out of town, and the board wanted to wait until I came back schedule that meeting so we won't be doing that the department with the assistance of human resources will be advertising a vacant position for code enforcement officer and i think i think i want to thank the council for adding that position to our enforcement team i think that will help with our workload particularly on tree permits which are very busy this time of year and speaking of code enforcement Nick reports that at the end of spring retrieval, are demanding most of his time right now. Nick also reports that some derelict vehicles that you all know about in yard maintenance cases have been forwarded to the judge for action. We're actually taking a much harder stance on some of these than we have in the past. You may be interested to know that you may be seeing, based on permits that I'm seeing, an O'Reilly Auto Parts and a Davis Tire facility being placed by Highway 17 in the near future, so look forward to those. And I had one more thing I wanted to hit. Oh yeah, of course. The Planning Commission will be holding a duly advertised public hearing on June 30th at a special meeting to discuss the final version of the tree organ. And once we get through that, We'll be coming to you for final approval to the true ordinance. And that concludes my report. I'd be glad to answer any questions that you might have.

Anybody? This is David. Do you know anything about the hotel? The new hotel? Can you give us an update?

Are you saying what's going on there? Yes, sir. About two weeks ago, the entire team, the entire construction for the hotel showed up at town hall. And we had standing room only. We had every contractor you can think of that's gonna be working in that hotel at that meeting. They are currently pulling construction permits for the start of the hotel. So the news is good. And even better was the fact that so many of them showed up and found out exactly how we work. We had members of staff there, we had fire marshal, we had police, we had everybody there on board to sort of onboard their contractors who may have worked in other communities and never worked in ours before. So it was a good exchange of information, and it lasted about an hour and a half, which was great. And all of those contractors left, I think, with a feeling of, here's my contact list, here are numbers that I need to find if I need to call somebody to counter-call. So I think they left the meeting knowing that we're gonna do stuff, we're gonna be breaking ground very, very quickly here. Glad to hear that.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Lawler. Yeah, Mark. There's a bullet in here about the gas and go. Yes, sir. Location. Yes, sir. Where the water park was, I guess. Correct. So I've seen some stuff written that your approval of that needed to go through the planning commission. No. Okay. Can you explain?

No. Development permits go through me. They're actually, the only things that go to Planning Commission are appeals, decisions of my appeals, zone changes, modifications of the zoning ordinance. Approvals of projects rest solely on my shoulders. So what I do when I receive one of those, and particularly if it's on Highway 17, the A number one thing that I go to is the design overlay. And I was pleasantly surprised. I guess that's probably the best way for me to put it. But when I reviewed the plans for the GO gas, which if you've seen one, you know that they're kind of a bare bones, low, sort of a low cost kind of a gas station where there isn't even a live person literally outside. There's literally convenience machines there for you to extract and so on. The requirements for landscaping and the design overlay are pretty strenuous. We have all kinds of buffers on all four sides of these properties that have very specific plantings, how far apart they have to be, how large they have to be. And I'm pleased to report that I went through those with a fine-tooth comb, and they met every single one. So they had somebody on their staff literally checking the box as they were going through the design overlay. So the design overlay is going to have the GO-GAS on one location on the water park, and I just received the permit today for Mavis Tire, which is going to be their twin basically on Highway 17. So you're going to have GoGas here and Mavis Tire fronting that property.

And these would be right on, like, access would be through frontage, right?

Yeah, their access points are not going to be directly off of Highway 17. They're going to be actual roads. So you're going to have to pull off the highway to get into either one of those two businesses. And I'm sure that that was a state requirement, state highway requirement.

All right. Thanks for explaining. You're welcome. Mr. Mayor? Well, it's only at the same vein. Mark, have we heard any more about the state's plans to work on that intersection there? We were supposed to...

Personally, I haven't heard anything. I believe that that's a project that the state is taking a very close look at. And the reason is because of what could have been a mess. I mean, could have been a mess. I mean, those projects that are fronting on could have accessed directly onto Highway 17. And if you know, if you've got two driveways within a hundred feet of each other, and you've got opposing cars trying to crisscross in front on a divided, you're going to have a mess. So I haven't heard anything possible, anything from the state on that, but I'm sure we're going to get a look at that probably fairly soon.

At one time it came to us as a fairly strong feeling that the state was going to do that. I don't know where I got that implication.

Maybe it was from that developer. Well, it's a state highway and they have to approve every encroachment permit onto that highway. So the two encroachment permits that I believe they have are for two roads, not for driveways coming out of the fronting properties. Those fronting properties are going to have to load onto a road to a signalized intersection, which is going to make that so much more safe.

Yeah.

But again, I have not seen the actual as built.

Okay. So there's been no movement on that.

As far as I know.

That's going to be tough for you, isn't it? With trying to do the overlay and lay that in and then they come in later and want to work on the intersection.

Well, the overlay is on private property. It's not on public property. So I imagine the state will have some taking from those front properties to actually make some of those things happen. Yeah. Which will then to meet the overlay. I'm hoping that impact is minimized because that can create a whole sort of new can of worms for both properties and the town itself.

Yeah, that's wonderful. Thank you.

You're welcome. Oh, Sean, I wanted to mention something that you were talking about, short-term vacation rentals. And I'm a little off, I'm a little, is that okay? Yes, go ahead, sure. The problem with short-term vacation rentals, in my opinion, isn't the ones that are in the R3 that aren't paying. It's the ones that are in the R1s and R2 who are completely underground. And we are finding those through various sources of where they advertise, because they're not members of Airbnb, VRBO, or any of those things, because those platforms require collection of fees and permits to go directly to us. So these are truly what I call the pirates out there. They're the bad pirates out there doing this. And we're actually finding them. And we're writing letters to the owners. And your comment earlier about that when we walk up to them, they say, oh, no, it's just our family. Well, we've heard that story. It's just our family. I think to myself, my goodness, you've got a large family every week coming in here. So we're actively going after those and getting them off the books because they're not in the R3. You all know that the only place you can have those is in R3. We're finding that the problem isn't in the R3, it's the pirates who are in the R1 and R2 making use of their properties. From Shookter in particular.

Can I get a number?

Anybody else? Mr. Coleman's scope went far, so let's do that. Then I'll go to Mr. Hyatt then. What happened?

Why did they have to cancel the meeting?

had one member, well, a total compliment on the board of seven that have six active, so we have a vacancy. The quorum for a board of seven is four. We couldn't get four to the meeting. We had to have somebody dropped out at the last minute. We just couldn't get a quorum. If we had had that extra person on the board or we had had a full compliment, we would have had four. two of the members were actually going to drive, they were out of town, were actually going to drive into town for the meeting. So we were obviously disappointed that we didn't have a court because first of all, it was an important meeting in that they're appealing a decision of mine. I think that's important. But number two, I can't stress enough the amount of clerical work that goes into all of the requirements of getting a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting ready to rock and roll. I mean, all the documents that have to be placed from both parties of the appeal. So can we get another member of the Zoning Board of Appeals? I guess that's what the point is.

You had six belong on the Zoning Board of Appeals. Correct. And you only can get half of them to come in? Correct. And they only do this two or three times a year? Correct. And how long did they have, what was their time that they knew about this meeting? Four weeks. Four weeks. And they never told you they couldn't get there until last winter?

One of them had what I would call an extenuating circumstance. They couldn't make it at the last minute. I mean, everybody has a life. I guess I have to understand that, too, and that's what happened. But the rest of the members, like I said, I had two members who were on vacation outside of town. We're going to make a special trip to Megan. I had to call him literally at the last minute to pull the plug on me. So he went, oh, good. I'm glad you told us because we were packing up the car.

If I'm not mistaken, one member never responded.

That's right. One member never responded.

And I know Ms. Medina is trying to see if that person is going to.

She wants to continue.

Otherwise, we will have to take action and remove that person.

Yeah, I'll need the council's help on that. So if you had, so if you did have the six, and one that, well, we only have six now. So you had six, and so one couldn't come, and then two have to recuse themselves because they possibly.

There was one recusal. That was the part of the issue as well, Councilman. There was a member of recusal who are relative of the immediate family was an employee of the company bringing the appeal. So they had to recuse themselves from the .

I thought there was another person also on it that would possibly have to recuse himself because he's a lawyer. the rental agents.

That never rose to my level, Councilman. So yeah, that could have probably been a further problem that would have really shut us in the foot. Because then we would have only had two voting members rather than four that we needed for the quorum. Yeah, it was tough. It was tough.

So do you have a date for when the meetings go?

I do not. I'm going to poll every member of the board individually and ask them what their calendar looks like for the month of July. And since we can move the Zoning Board of Appeals meetings kind of around in the month, I'll find a meeting where it's not on a planning commission night, not on a council night, and try to get them to come to one of those meetings. Hopefully we can, I'm sure we can get them lined up. and the one member that didn't respond i'm sure will respond to this i think that's the same person who has somebody who's a relative that works for the company it might have been it might have been all right thank you all right i lost jack uh i think mr hyatt was ready to go yeah i had a quick question um

Where you talked about Nick reports that some derelict vehicles in yard maintenance cases are being forwarded to the judge for action. Could you kind of give us a rundown on what those cases are and the procedure that this is involving?

Yes, sir. The derelict cars, let's start with derelict cars. First of all, those are cars that are unregistered, untagged, and literally have the wheel sinking into the ground and it rumbles up to the frame. Many of the derelict vehicles that we all see and think of as derelict vehicles have tags, have current registrations, and since the car still hasn't moved, doesn't make it a derelict vehicle. Derelict vehicles are the ones that don't meet the, I call it the first two litmus tests. Those are being forwarded to magistrate to actually, actually for us to be able to take tow truck, go in with a tow truck, remove the vehicle from the property, and then have the property owner repay the city through either an attachment basically to their mortgages, a lien. Sometimes it's called a construction lien, but it's a lien that's placed on the property. We remove the vehicle from the property. Other one, we've actually got one house that we're actually in what I would call condemnation process. One house is just literally falling down around itself. Neighbors have got rat infestation from the house. There's a myriad of problems. We're reporting that to the magistrate to be able to condemn that property. I don't know what the action will actually be once the magistrate comes forward, but I believe it's probably going to be a demolition. of the property, again, will contract to have the house demolished, materials removed, place a lien on the property. The last one is there's a couple of properties in our town that I'll just say that some of the things that they're doing in their backyard, some of the things that they're constructing illegally are imposing on neighbors. As much as we go and we try to talk to those individuals about removing those, they give us the sort of what I would call the head nod, yeah, I'll remove it, and three weeks later we come back and they haven't removed it. So at some point you have to enforce it, you have to come down, and again, those properties have been turned over the map straight for immediate action on those, for removal of those structures or whatever they are in the backyard.

I've heard a complaint about a property, I'm not sure the address, but on Highway 17 down here that's got lots of derelict cars on it. Do you know anything about that?

Oh, I know more about that property than I care to share. Okay, there's a pizza shop and a store, what I would call a junkyard, posing as a used car lot. And anybody who knows, if you go to a used car lot, you can usually walk between the cars so you can look in the windows to see what's going on. Now, see if the car's at the upholstery. You can't get in. And some of those cars are literally sunk down to their frames in soil. So through a series of actions on that property, we are getting that in order to make changes to the junkyard used car lot. That will be a lot. will probably be the same automobiles but it will start to appear more like a used car lot where there's actually cars are placed to what you know the better cars be placed at the front the older cars placed at the back and we're working very diligently with that property order to make an improvement on that but uh that's uh that's one of our work in process that's a hot button for us yeah that's a real hot one thank you we've gotten the reviews and lots of complaints from members across the community about that probably thank you pretty much

I actually have two questions. To go off on the pizza place slash junk cart, used cart lot, sale place, whatever you want to call it. Do they have a business? I know they have to have a business license to sell pizza. Do they have a business license to sell cars? Do you have to have both?

They do. You actually have to have a state license to sell used cars. And they were able to present us with a state license to sell cars. Now, what I'd like to know is if they've sold the car there in the last two years, but that's not part of the process. If they have a state license to have a used car lot, then the state allows it.

Okay. Number two. You said the go gas is going to be located where the old water park was? Correct. Is that also where the O'Reilly all the parks?

No. Oh. No, the O'Reilly, the entire place is going to be next to the go gap. So at least that's what we preliminary site plans. The site plans haven't been approved, folks. I'm just giving you a little, I like to give you a preview of like the businesses that might be coming to town.

no that's going to be go gas and the tire place the o'reilly auto parts god i'm not going to remember the address i'm sorry but it's it's in another location okay my concern is i haven't seen much drive where the old water park is i mean it looks like a dumping ground to me um is there a process that we're getting them to clean up more or

Actually, one of the processes that we're actually working with them on very hard is we have actually contacted the state about the permit that they had to grind and crush concrete. This is a long story, and I won't bore you with all the details. However, they're importing concrete onto the site to crush, and we don't believe their license went that far. So we are working with the state right now to make sure that No more concrete gets imported to the site to be crushed. They were allowed to crush the concrete on site, and I believe they've completed that. However, concrete seems to be showing up in the middle of the night for them to crush the next day. Getting after them with the state is a little more difficult because it's a state issue because of air quality. It's an air quality issue.

Those other residents

The residents in the back, I must tell you that I feel badly for. They have shown me videos of them taking their finger and going down the banister on their porch, holding their finger up and seeing just white dust. It's a horrible situation for anybody who has to live next to it. And we've got the state on it. And the state knows that they're importing concrete. And fingers crossed that something gets done.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I think I'm good.

Okay.

Thank you.

I was going to say, an hour to 45 minutes into communications.

Thank you very much. Okay. That concludes our communications items. We'll now move into business. And I'm going to request a motion on Business item 7A. Mr. Coleman.

I just see my name here. I didn't look at this this closely. Well, okay. This is the ordinance for bike events, free trailer parking.

If you remember from last meeting, we defined that, clarified that it's the 13th Avenue South lot, not on the beach, but rather between Ocean Boulevard and Dogwood, and then clarified the one behind Holiday Inn as being between 16th and 17th Avenue. So is there any discussion on this? All right. Mr. Hyatt, go ahead.

I'm a little concerned. from the public, and they're wondering why people that are driving fancy pickup trucks, hauling fancy trailers with fancy motorcycles in them are getting to park for free. They feel they can afford to park for a fee of like $75 a week or something, and they're wondering if we're giving away too much income. So I'd kind of like to understand better why we're not going to charge a fee.

Okay, well, we haven't charged for years and years. We do charge at the gravel lot in the center of town if you want to park a trailer there. Director Adair has left, but I believe he has. He's still back there. Hey, Paul, you want to ask John to come in here? He did. my understanding is, you know, it's not the busiest time of year, and we've allowed them to use those lots that are not full, not really generating much income at this time, and it's just a minimal loss of revenue. That's the way I understand it.

I'm sorry. Thank you. Mr. Coleman? recommended that years and years ago and the problem was everyone was talking all over the place it was terrible dangerous 13th Avenue South and 16th Avenue North parking lots are not used at all it was a good way to have a safe parking environment for those trailers yeah a couple extra bucks isn't going to help us

if somebody's getting possibly get hurt or have an accident that's why it was thought of and i think it's still it's still a good idea today it's we're not going to get any revenue out of those lots anyway and again to be perfectly clear the only thing this uh ordinance is doing is defining the lots better making it clearer there's no change to what we've been doing for years Thank you. All right, any other comment? All right, then the motion on the table is to approve this as presented. Ms. Medina, will you call the roll?

Samey?

Yes.

Mr. Freeman?

Yes. Mr. Lowell?

Yes.

Mr. Lawhorn?

Yes.

Mr. Hyatt?

Yes.

Ms. Fallon? Yes. Mayor Craig?

Yes, motion carries without objection. I'm not gonna do that again this time. All right, item 7B.

mayor mr coleman i'd like to make a motion to approve second reading of ordinance 26-1002 ordinance on then section 2-39b 13-14 agenda and order of proceeding as written second all right uh this one is just to remind everybody uh adding the ability to uh adding the ability to make motions from executive session

and are adding it to the meeting template. So again, this is second reading. We discussed this last meeting. If there's any other discussion, speak up.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Hyatt.

Yeah, I'd like to say a little bit on this. Last meeting, I opposed the addition of item 13 as I wanted matters that were not of an exigent nature to be placed on the next town council agenda so that the public would have a chance during the public comment session to make their voices heard. Unfortunately, the issue devolved into issues of citizen comfort while awaiting outcomes from the executive sessions. And then I was timed out of speaking time and couldn't make my point. My point is, is that this isn't about citizens comfort. This is about the public's opportunity to see an item that was discussed in executive session on the next agenda and then be able to address it in the public comment section of that next agenda. The purpose of the FOIA law in South Carolina Code states, the General Assembly finds that it is vital in a democratic society that public business be performed in an open and public manner so that citizens shall be advised of the performance of public officials and of the decisions that are reached in public activity and in the formation of public policy. However, in the last meeting, many people on this board made some good points that were considered so i'd like to consider have the board consider or the council consider a change to the wording and i think this would make me happy and i think it would be okay for all of you instead of just saying in number 13 motions from executive session i'd like to make the motion to add which may be to place the matters on the next agenda if circumstances warrant. I have a copy of that for you if you want to read it.

Okay, yeah, I'll use this. Yes, thank you. Okay, so to clarify, you ended that by saying you want to make a motion. So you are making a motion. Amended. Yeah, an amended motion. Yes, okay. So Mr. Hyatt is making an amended motion to add the wording And I'll just repeat it here, motions from executive session, item 13, instead of just motions from executive session, it will say motions from executive session, which may be to place the matters on the next agenda if circumstances permit. I'll second it. All right, so it's been seconded, okay. Michelle, you've kind of already explained your point, I think.

I would like to address it.

But go ahead, okay.

like to point out that there is no mandatory language in this no future town council could be criticized for the course of action they choose because there's nothing mandatory the wording is just there to serve as a reminder that in the interest of transparency and public participation a matter should be placed on the next agenda unless there's a good reason not to so it's there just as a reminder for future councils to try to place the matter on the next agenda so the public has an opportunity to read about it and make a comment if they want.

Thank you. Okay. Any other comment?

Can you read that one more time?

Okay. The new wording would be, motions from executive session which may be to place the matters on the next agenda if circumstances permit.

Mr. Mayor, are you still here?

Can I just see you? Sure.

I don't know what the wording sounds like. You were selling. which may be placed, which may place the matters on that you're doing. I don't understand, which may be to place. It doesn't flow right. I understand. I get his idea. I have no problem. I just want to make sure it's the correct thing.

Is that it? Yeah, that's it. Okay. Anybody else?

Mr. Mayor?

Mr. Lawhorn? Let me see if I can. summarize to make sure I got it. So my recollection of the discussion last time was that as a matter of course, there was kind of a general agreement that unless something was an emergency or had to be acted on then, we would make an effort to the extent we can to just push it to the next meeting, correct? And that's what this is intended to address, correct? That's correct. I mean, with that, I mean, I have no real objection to it. I mean, yeah, could the words be a little better, but I, you know, it's not worth it to me to wordsmith it. I think it gets to the intent of what we were talking about. At least I was talking about the last one.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to take a turn then. I think it's already incumbent upon us to understand what motions from executive session would entail. So I think I pointed out the last time that if, when we were doing negotiations, for instance, with Mr. Vincent's contract or negotiations discussing terms of the Huckabee use agreement, and we're talking with the attorney and so on and so forth, those items, when we concluded, We said, okay, they're going to be agenda items at the next meeting. We did not make any motions. We didn't vote on anything. We just brought them to the next meeting. I think we're already doing that. And again, it's incumbent upon us to do those things according to state law and the intent and good spirit of transparency. There are many things that come up, personnel related type items and things like that, that no matter when we do them, if there's a motion to be made, it has to be done out of executive session. There's nothing to discuss publicly. And again, it's incumbent upon us to understand that and make it. So to me, this language is not clear. I don't understand what this does. I mean, I understand what Mr. Haidt's trying to do, but these words don't do it, in my opinion. And I think We already have the responsibility to do what this is intending and to write down a sentence, and I'll try to be clear, a motion from executive session that has to be done this time. I just don't think that adds anything. I mean, I think that's what we're saying. The motions have to be done at this meeting. That's what we're trying to only allow, and I just don't think that's necessary. Mr. Staley.

Do you know, does everybody not think that what's here already says that? Basically, because we could come out of the executive session and make it for the next. I mean, to me, it's already here. You know, I don't see where you need to add that into it.

Any other comments? All right. In this case, then, we have a motion on the table, an amended motion, to add or to revise the verbiage to motion from executive session, which may be to place the matters on the next agenda if circumstances permit. That is the amended motion on the table, and we will vote on that first. And if it passes, that will be the way this will go. That will be the second reading. If it does not, then we will go back to the original motion. With that in mind, do I need to read it one more time? Okay, Ms. Medina, call the roll.

Mr. Stamey?

No.

Mr. Coleman?

No.

Mr. Wall?

No.

Mr. Lawhorn?

Yes.

Mr. Hyatt?

Yes.

Ms. Fallon? No. Mayor Krause?

No, motion fails five to two. We'll now revert back to the original motion, which is to accept the motion ordinance as written. Is there any other discussion on that?

I just got a quick one. Go ahead. It's a motion, so we can always turn it down if someone doesn't think it deserves to be the motion to be made.

Correct.

Right, so it just gives us an avenue to make a motion if we think we have to make a motion.

Correct, yes. All right then, Ms. Medina, will you call the roll?

Ms. Allen? Yes. Mr. Hyatt?

No.

Mr. Lawhorn?

Yes.

Mr. Wald?

Yes.

Mr. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Steele?

Yes.

Mr. Kraft?

Yes, motion carries six to one and the ordinance is passed. We'll now move into item 7C and this is, oh, to lease on the land that was recently sold.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve second reading of ordinance 26-1005, ordinance to amend the town of Surfside Beach, South Carolina zoning map for zoned land located at gate number 461-010-40085, vacant land from TL public land to C1 highway commercial. Second.

All right, Director Broderick, you got tagged on this one, so if you want to just have a sentence or two.

I think we have, if there's anybody who isn't familiar with this, please let me know. But this is a property behind Town Hall that, as was zoned PL, public land, being, I think, probably adjoined to the Town Hall to be used for a parking lot at some point or something like that. We have now sold that property, one of the conditions of the sale of the property. was that we would rezone the land from PL, which is unusable for commercial purposes, to C1, which is purposeful for commercial uses, and that parcel is surrounded by C1 uses.

All right, any discussion on this one? Okay, then the motion on the table is to accept this as written. Mr. Dana, will you call the roll?

Mr. Staley? Yes. Mr. Coleman?

Yes.

Mr. Walts?

Yes.

Mr. Walhorn?

Yes. Mr. Hyatt? Yes.

Ms. Fallon? Yes. Mayor Crouch?

Yes, motion passes unanimously. I got it out that time. All right, we're now going to go to 7D. And this is what, oh, this is to accept the town's signs from private side regulations.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Coleman.

Make a motion to approve second reading, ordinance 26-1006, ordinance to amend chapter 17 zoning, article 6, section 17-601, sign regulations to exempt municipal signs from regulations applicable to private signs as written. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Director Browder, I mean, we kind of just said it, but...

This is an item that was brought rightfully by one of our planning commissioners to the rest of the planning commission for your consideration. No zoning ordinances actually have this exemption built into the ordinance. Without this ordinance built in, it could be construed that people in the community could say, well, you've placed a sign on a location that's not on a city property or it's in a right-of-way, and that's been done illegally because you haven't followed the regulations that control private signage. It probably was something that luckily we've always dodged our bullet. Nobody's ever come forward. But a planning commissioner saw the, I call it the light, and said, we probably need to have something in our ordinance that exempts our public signs from the requirements of private signage. And the only thing I think that the planning commission added as we debated this was that they wanted the public signs to be removed within a reasonable period of time. I think that was in the ordinance. And that was approved unanimously by the Planning Commission. And this ordinance was also approved unanimously by the Planning Commission, because they didn't want to see us get into that situation that I just described to you, which would be, are we regulating our public signage using our private signage regulations? No, you shouldn't.

Thank you, sir. Any additional discussion on this one? All right, in that case, the motion on the table is to approve this as written. Ms. Medina, will you call the roll?

Ms. Fallon? Yes. Mr. Hyatt? Yes. Mr. Loffler?

Yes.

Mr. Loffler?

Yes.

Mr. Corman?

Yes.

Mr. Seeming? Yes. Mr. Crefton?

Yes. Motion carries unanimously, and the ordinance is approved. We'll now move on to our final business item. Mr. Hyatt, this is yours, so why don't you take this motion on?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion for the second reading of ordinance number 26-1003, Surfside Beach Ordinance to Repeal and Replace Chapter 3, Animals, Article 3, Birds and Waterfowl, Section 3.52, Birds and Waterfowl, Findings and Determinations. Section 3.53 prohibited activity and Section 3.54 penalties.

Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Mr. Hyatt, do you want to just give us a brief rundown?

Yes, I covered this quite specifically at last meeting, so I won't go over the same road again. But basically, a lot of people put a lot of time into this, including the town attorney, the prosecutor, the prosecutors, uh, uh, paralegal people on this body, people in the community. And I think this is a good ordinance and I would encourage that we pass it for the good of citizens. Thank you.

Any other discussion?

Mr. Coleman, I like everything, but I don't like the incarceration of the 30 days. So I would like to make an amendment motion even the way it is and just eliminate and or by incarceration up to 30 days, amended motion. Leave out and or by incarceration up to 30 days in jail. I like the free service, I like the escalating fines, but I think it's way too much to incarcerate somebody 15, anything.

We need a second? I'll second it.

Can we just restate what the amended motion is, just the amended motion?

Just the amended motion. The amended motion is leave the ordinance the way it is and just eliminate the sentence in section 3.54 penalties A, the last part of it, and or by incarceration of up to 30 days in jail.

Okay, you got it? All right. Okay. Well, I'll just take that on and say, I think we've had an ordinance that has civil penalties, fines, and it hasn't been effective in deterring feeding. And as I indicated last meeting, we have a multitude of misdemeanors in this town, things like violating the design overlay, signs, beach obstructions and holes. You can go to jail for all of that stuff if you disobey. It doesn't happen very often, but the deterrent is there. And I think this just falls in line with that. So I'm perfectly okay with leaving the incarceration part in there. Any other comments on this part? All right, then the motion on the table is to approve this ordinance as written with the elimination of the incarceration penalties. Ms. Medina, will you call the roll?

Mr. Staney?

No.

Mr. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Walz?

No.

Mr. Lawhorn?

No.

Mr. Hyatt?

No.

Ms. Fallon? No. Mayor Kronk?

No. The motion fails six to one. We'll now revert back to the original motion. which is to approve this as written. Any other comment on it? I do want to make a point myself that was contacted, and all of council was contacted by the, I think the old Humane Society, one of the humane worlds for animals now. And first of all, we were applauded for taking this approach. I mean, I believe the true, wildlife advocates support not feeding wildlife. So I think we are actually on the right track. This organization did suggest that we address feral cats, and that is a tricky subject. I'm not going to make a motion at this point. because I think they sent us a sample of how to handle feral cats. We could just say, this doesn't include feral cats, but what does that mean? They sent us, it's actually another one full page worth of ordinance, and I think that's something we need to kick around at a future time. I'm not inclined to hold this up at this point, but probably bring it back maybe later this summer or in the fall, and maybe amend this to address feral cats at that time. That's my personal opinion. Any other comments? All right, then the motion on the table is to approve this ordinance as written. Ms. Medina, will you call the roll?

Ms. Fallon? Yes. Mr. Hyatt?

Yes.

Mr. Walhorn?

Yes.

Mr. Walz?

Yes.

Mr. Coleman?

No.

Mr. Staney?

Yes. Yes, motion carries six to one and the ordinance is approved. With that, we have concluded our business and we will move into public comments on town services or business conductment. Are there any comments?

Anne Westcott, Lincoln Cedar North. It was mentioned during a meeting that money has been set aside to construct sidewalks on Cedar Drive and Fifth Avenue North. I am not happy about this, but I realize the town will do to us what it wants. There is a hidden danger recent SSB homeowners are not aware of that concerns me. It is no secret that Horry County and the state have tried for many years to push our town into installing a bicycle path. In their less lucid moments, they really believe residents in a town with an average age in the 50s, where everyone who can afford one has a golf cart, People would be enticed into peddling bicycles to the store, bank, out to dinner, et cetera. In order to qualify as a legal bike multi-use path, it must be at least eight feet wide with the possibility of a buffer between it and a busy street. There has been an ongoing battle on citizens' parts to block this for well over 10 years. During the last skirmish, town hall was filled to capacity and people were in the parking lot. obviously we won that one yes you can fight city hall and win if you try hard enough my concern is the county or state will offer a matching grant to entice our town council to agree to a multi-use path think about what this will do to the value of property or how much an eight foot wide asphalt path would curtail the use of driveway space homeowners use to park their vehicles parking on a bicycle walking path is not permitted Don't think this will not affect you if you do not live on the designated streets. If it can be done to us, it can be done to you. People on Hollywood Drive have reason for concern. The existing sidewalks could and probably would be expanded the required eight foot width. Be vigilant. Be prepared to fight this tooth and nail if we must. We have much to lose and nothing to gain if we do not.

Thank you. Any other public comment? All right, with that, no other hands up, we're moving. We will now move into town council discussion or comments. And I'm going to start, Mr. Hyde.

I'd like to address that a little bit. My intent is to see that we have a sidewalk people can get onto anywhere in Surfside Beach, walk on it, and get off at the same point that they've gone on. Many of the sidewalks in Surfside Beach are just standard neighborhood sidewalks. I believe some of Ocean Avenue are much wider. I think Ocean Avenue are also varying power cables and such so that it has a, presents better as an oceanfront boulevard. But the intent is not, To my knowledge, I've heard no talk about trying to expand sidewalks into bike paths or anything else. All we'd like to do is make sure we have a loop people can walk on and maybe have some feeder loops to that loop in a few places. Other than that, I don't see us trying to push for something different than what we've stated we're trying to do. Thank you.

And that's all your comment? Yeah. OK. Thank you, Mr. Hyatt. Mr. Coleman.

Thanks for coming out. I was going to trust that. This is not a bad, this is a sidewalk. When I was campaigning two and a half years ago, numerous people were asking me, can you please put a sidewalk in? We're getting more and more traffic here. It's not going to be sidewalk on every other block. It's going to be a sidewalk that's going to get you from 17 Business and 16th North. And you can walk down 16th North to Cedar. From Cedar, you get to Hollywood. From Hollywood, it takes you all the way up to the other side of town, to Melody Lane. And if you take 14, it's going to take you down Ocean Boulevard. So it's going to connect you. You're going to actually have a safe place to walk. Is it going to inconvenience some people? A little bit, maybe. But I think it's, especially Cedar, between the two lakes, it's a blind curve, a terrible place, and it's almost, I'm surprised people haven't gotten killed. And then Fifth Avenue, Fifth Avenue North is also another place where heavy traffic, and you can't walk on that path. You really can't. That's how dangerous it is. It's going to be somewhere where people can walk safely. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Coleman. Ms. Shawn.

Well, I like to commend the people with social media that don't respond to the negative about this town. I think I read a post that proposed We live in paradise. And even in paradise, if you want to find negative, you can find it. But I choose to find the positive. This is the beach, people. You know, if you've got something to say, say it face-to-face.

Don't hide behind Facebook.

And I want to say that I've never had a problem with any of the chiefs or the directors in town hall. I have a question, I get a response. So there's more pleasure in this town if you just don't vote for all the negative. So with that said, our friend used to say, some people just need to bless their heart. And y'all have a good evening, and we'll go from there. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Shawn. Mrs. Stamey.

It's hard to follow. I'd like to say thanks for everybody coming out. I'd like to thank the fire department for the great job they've done on saving, probably saving this person's life. That was a great job. Our town does respond quickly to any kind of accidents or anything we have in town. And on the sidewalk field, it's going to affect me it's probably going to come right by my house i don't care it ain't going to be about as far as i know this council has not talked about a bike path nowhere yet they might in some day it ain't going to be about it's a sidewalk that we budget money for and we're saying that everybody have a great fourth of july and we'll see

Thank you, Mr. Stamey. Mr. Lawhart. Okay, I guess first I'd just like to thank Jared for the update on the insurance matters that are going on. I am for getting as much information to the public on this issue as we can. Behind the scenes, I've been pushing for a while now to try to get more and more information out because frankly, the more transparent you can be, it just disarms those that believe the worst. So I'm going to continue to do that relating to all these issues. So anyway, I appreciate what you provided and I'm hoping we can continue to provide more each particular meeting as this progresses, whether it's regarding the insurance situation itself or anything else related to

that matter so beyond that appreciate everyone coming out we'll see you in a couple of years all right thank you sir uh mr walls sorry uh no it's uh yeah yeah um just um just so you know this councilman uh ma'am would never support putting sidewalk or putting bikes on a sidewalk i know people do that i just do not think it's safe i would never support that nor do I believe that our town is built to do that? We're not big enough. We don't, you know, we're nice little quiet neighborhoods and I don't know about y'all, but I have bikes running up and down my road all day long. They're out in the road. So anyway, I would not support such a thing and nobody on this California has ever discussed it. So state grant or not, we're not talking about, um, I just want to thank everybody for coming out. Appreciate your involvement, appreciate your understanding of the process. I know sometimes it's, even at second reading, we re-debate the first reading debates. We appreciate you hanging in there because we do, as councilmen, we're passionate about what we do and we want to make sure that even though we said it when we debated it, we said it at first reading, we'll say it at second reading. needs to be made that this is how we feel and we're adamant about it. So I appreciate Mr. Coleman. I appreciate Mr. Hyatt following through on theirs. And I appreciate y'all being here and listening in. And we'll look forward to seeing you in a couple weeks.

All right. Thank you. So I'm going to wrap this up pretty quickly. This is our last meeting before the 4th of July. So you heard the festivities planned. So, you know, calendar open, hope to see you all out there at the golf cart parade and all the other festivities. This is one of those months that gets a five Tuesdays. So it will be three weeks until our next meeting, which will be July 14th. And I also appreciate Mr. Bouchette's rundown of the insurance claim issue. I doubt this is gonna satisfy everybody. but this is a very complex issue and determinations about responsibility have simply not been made. To be transparent when we don't know all the details, there's only so much we can do. So we're trying to share that. I will guarantee at some point, I don't know exactly when, we will look carefully at our processes. We will work with staff to make sure that we've identified any holes where we should have done a little bit better job or something, and that we'll make sure that it doesn't happen again in the future. But as we heard, the responsibilities still haven't been figured out by the insurance and legal experts that know this stuff better than we do. So just, you have to be patient. There's nothing being hidden here at all. So that concludes my comments. And with that, I will just ask for a motion to adjourn. Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead. I make a motion that we adjourn this regular meeting of the panel council.

Second.

Is there any discussion?

All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, none. Motion carries, meeting adjourned.

That was all of us. We did like to talk.

Right? That was nothing but second reading.