Town Council - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded.

Okay, sounds like a perfect time to stop. No, um, but Miss Gruber can actually go over the policy.

So when will we be able to come with as much information as we can provide to the town? I understand there's criminal investigations. I understand there's insurance investigations. But I also understand that we stand to lose a lot of money. So, I mean, I agree. I think that citizens deserve as much of information as we can possibly provide. I'm not looking to out the person involved. I mean, I understand that it was a one-off from what I've been told. So, I want us to be as transparent as we can. I mean, it certainly hasn't happened in the timeframe I would have liked.

um or you or myself yeah so i just like to get an idea where you know when are we going to get to that point as long as soon as i can get that transfer report we're going to put it on the council agenda okay all right thank you mr mayor mr stevie i'm gonna i'm gonna follow up on sort of what rick started off on uh and judy brought up herself who are the people who sign off on Right now. I don't want you to tell me who signed off on it. I don't know who the people were.

Anytime there's a check request or a purchase order, it's signed off by myself and the finance director.

So...

Right. So that is a sign-off on the check request. Then it's processed through accounts receivable. So if there's an ACH request for Grand Strand Water and Sewer, or any company that we pay, it comes as a check request. And then the process is through our accountants.

I sort of hope that helps people understand who does sign off on the checks, these checks that go down.

Every dime that goes out of this town is signed by two people. Thanks, sir. Yes, sir.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Walls, if I could just help me understand, Jerry, This is something that we commonly do in the natural course of taking care of business for the town, paying the bills. We will do electronic transfers.

In our new policy that Melanie will explain to you on the 28th, it's got many triggers to it that this will never happen again.

Okay.

Yeah.

I understand. Thank you. I look forward to that.

Okay, I'm going to make a couple comments. For those that don't know, the Wall Street Journal came to do an interview with Mr. Vincent and myself and Director Gruber as well. He is sitting right here in the front of the room and still continuing on the gathering information for the story. So we discussed some of these things that were brought up in the comments. The two signers for the ACH request. That's the way it goes, correct? When a contractor says, or anybody, wants to be paid through an ACH, you have two signers for that request. And that's what you get.

Every bill, every ACH has got a purchase order request for the check.

Okay, so that's the two signers. That's the two signers. And that is processed by accounts payable. That's correct. And in this case, we received a request from a valid... email address, not a misspelled email address. To the best of our knowledge, there's no mischaracters in that email address. It was a valid email address from the contractor, correct? That's correct. So there was no reason to do anything further. We had already signed off on the ACH based on that, and then we completed the payment based on that, correct? That's correct. Okay. And I believe the contractor believes otherwise, but as far as we know, our system was never hacked. The issues came from the contractor side. The insurance investigators are still working through this, and we will most likely abide by whatever they tell us. We'll have our town attorney review and all that at that time, but at this point, we believe we paid a legitimate request, and there's nothing else for us to do at this point until we get that report. And then obviously, as you said, you've addressed the two signers, you have discussed the ACH verification policy, and you're changing some other policies going forward to tighten things up. So those are the questions raised. I don't have anything else at this point.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Coleman. I just want to clear up another thing. Did the two people who got fired have anything to do with the transfer of these funds?

No, sir.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments on this item? Mr. Mayor? Mr. Hyatt. I'd just like to say that I attended the interview this afternoon, not to participate, but just to listen and take notes. And I wish that this information could get to the public before it has to come out through the news. We've heard a lot about this fraud from the news and from social media. And I just would like to say, I wish we could get more out from the town quicker, faster, and have a method to be more clear to the public, because I know there's a lot of judgments being cast and those judgments are being made without adequate information. And I would like to see the truth shown to the public so that you can make judgments based on what the truth is. I can't even make a judgment yet because I've always learned there's two sides to every story. And the side we're still missing is the SLED report, maybe a police department report, insurance fraud investigator reports. Until we have that information, we're never going to have a clear picture of what really happened. So please don't jump to conclusions. I feel the town is working very hard. to find out what happened and correct what happened. Thank you.

Can I do a second? You may do a second. It's actually kind of a question for you. At one point, there was discussion of once we get the reports from insurance and whoever else we're awaiting reports from, that the council itself would do some sort of after action review, investigation, inquiry, whatever the right word is. Is that still in the plan?

Well, somebody's going to have to make a motion for that, and I'm prepared to do that, but any one of us. Can we make a motion now, or do we need to wait? This is a communications item, so we can't make a motion today, but I mean, we can, Mr. Hyatt has already brought up that he'd like to move it to a discussion item, or we can just put it on the agenda specifically for the purpose of making, you know, we could put internal council investigation or something like that on the agenda.

That's fine. I just want to make sure that doesn't get lost. I think that's an important part of the process.

And I suppose we could put it on the 728 meeting. We don't have to start it immediately. Right.

Yeah, I'm not saying we shouldn't start it immediately. I want all the facts in first. But I do believe it's our responsibility to look into this to the extent we can.

Okay, we can't make a motion to ask Mr. Vincent to put it on the 728 agenda, but if we thought that was a good idea, somebody could bring it up before the 728 meeting and specifically ask for it. You'll have an email. Without a motion. All right, any other comments? All right, very good. Thank you, everybody. We'll now move on to our goose traffic incident, everybody's favorite. Chief Mikkel? I guess I'm going to ask to just give a quick brief.

I guess there was some social media interest in an incident that occurred within the town on July 9th. I'm not going to give you all the details of it, It was regarded that some geese were hit and killed by a vehicle in a roadway. Our investigation, we conducted a complete investigation, and our investigation determined that there was no intent and there was no probable cause to lodge any criminal charges against any individuals, and that we just documented the incident as a traffic accident. And then we also referred it to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources They also went over the investigation and they came to the same conclusion that there's no probable cause to charge anybody with any wildlife crimes. All right, any questions, comments for Pete Mickel?

Mr. Coleman. So we did an investigation. What just happened on Cedar? Yes, sir.

and that's on the curve between the two lakes yes sir and he has witnesses he interviewed the witnesses correct does anyone have any video tape with it uh there was a video but um of the accident I don't have that in front of me at the moment he's having a report that uh stated that reviewing the video he and I also reviewed the video they had access to and none of it showed any intent or uh any bring anything for probable cause for

need to lodge an attorney and you interviewed the driver with the vehicle and he said he had no did he say he had any intent of running over the piece uh correct the officer in uh talked to the driver and it was concluded that there was no intent to harm any animals so it was just basically an accident correct no intent correction thank you all right so yeah i was one of the ones that asked for this

So it was a traffic accident, not even worthy of a ticket.

Correct. We couldn't even articulate any probable cause for any traffic related violence.

Okay. So goose protection, we've been hearing about that for a long time. Who has jurisdiction in Surfside Beach? Surfside Beach Police Department or DNR?

Well, there's gonna be different concurrent jurisdiction over some things. As it comes to wildlife crimes, any town ordinance, such as the feeding, the wildlife ordinance, would fall under jurisdiction of the town. That would be our responsibility to enforce that. Many state wildlife crimes, although we do have jurisdiction over them, the primary agency tasked by the state for investigating and enforcing wildlife crimes would be the Department of Natural Resources. So anytime we come across a crime that would lend to their expertise, as they are the experts in wildlife crime, we either consult or refer And this happens routinely, not just on this incident, but in other incidents as well. If there's an allegation of a wildlife crime, we routinely either bring them in or refer it back to them.

So if a resident is concerned about a goose being harped here, says they're federally protected, blah, blah, blah, SCDNR is who governs that for the state of South Carolina. Should the resident get in touch with Surfside Beach Police Department or with DNR directly?

Both would be appropriate. We go out on all calls of service. And if it's wildlife crime or any other crime, if we determine there's another agency they would have, we better well serve or they're the primary, have primary jurisdiction over it, then we refer it to them. So you can call us, we'll come out. We'll probably call or refer to DNR. They can also call DNR directly if they feel that there's a state wildlife crime violation.

Okay. So, you know, I've quit reading social media, but people tell me about it. Things pop up when I'm just trying to look at the town, just to even see my own post. So I couldn't help but see a few things. And so there was no goose murder.

That's what was written. I don't believe the state statute of murder.

Yeah, murder is killing a human being with malice of forethought. So there really is no such thing as goose murder. There's not a statute for that. I think we've wasted your time and your department's time and efforts with this issue. I came from Michigan and 55 to 58,000 deer are killed in traffic accidents every year. And I mean, it's just a fact of life and death. And it sometimes happens to geese too. So I apologize for my part in bringing this forward. I think any rational person listening to this discussion and see this as a complete non-issue. The Goose Guardian community in this area that serves as its own judge and jury will almost certainly not accept this decision, this simple, reasonable explanation, but will also offer no logic or reasoned response, but rather continuous rants and outrage in the echo chamber of that community on social media. But I believe the town needs to stop playing along, so I'm done with this. Thank you.

I actually have a comment. Go ahead. Just a quick question. So this occurred on July 9th. Yes, sir. And today's the 14th. So the investigation was completed in less than five days. When was the investigation completed, including interviewing the witnesses, reviewing the videotape, et cetera?

I mean, there was some follow-up done over the last few days. The final report was turned into this morning. Okay.

So anyone commenting that we basically ignored the complaints would be incorrect.

That's correct. We responded. We talked to everybody within those five days. Also DNR did a parallel investigation and they did exactly the same thing.

All right. Thank you. Chief, I'm familiar with where this occurred and I drive by there almost every day, maybe twice. And I have seen a person feeding geese at that location for, I don't know, two or three years, maybe more. It would seem to me that if someone's attracting geese to that location, they have some culpability in the death of geese that might get run over by accident if they've been attracting them. Am I incorrect in thinking that? Yes, sir. And that's why we have a wildlife feeding ordinance. Thank you.

Anybody else? Thank you, Chief Mikkel.

Thank you.

All right, we'll now move into our business items. The first one is a resolution for the Celebrate Surfside Beach Festival. This is Maul.

Good evening, everyone.

It is six years in the making. I can't even believe the Celebrate Surfside Beach Festival has, this will be our sixth annual one. So I'm really excited about that. More so I'm excited because this group gives their proceeds to charity every single time. And I'm really excited to say that the canine program will benefit from this particular year. So I want to thank them for that. In your packets, this is exactly the same thing we do every year. We're not asking for any parking. or any parking forgiveness or any of those things. All it is is town services. We're just going to forego the cost of our town services because it is for charity, just like we do every year. But everything else is status quo. So we're good. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. And I have Melanie here, who's the organizer.

Mr. Hyatt, go ahead. Do you need a motion? Oh, yeah, right. Sorry.

Can I make a motion? Certainly. Okay. I make a motion that we approve. I guess, which one are we approving here? You're approving the resolution. The resolution. All right. I'll make a motion that we approve resolution number 26-0223, resolution of the town of Surfside Beach temporarily suspending enforcement of certain ordinances of Chapter 12 and Chapter 9. Second. All right, Mr. Hyatt, you made a motion to start the discussion. What are we doing this year that's different than we've done in the last year as far as waiving fees?

Nothing. None at all? No, sir. Because it's charity, council has always waived those fees for them.

Okay. And what services are waiving down services for the participants? Exactly what are those services?

So like closing the roads, barricades, just the town employees portion of those.

But nothing different? Nothing different. Thank you. Any others?

I have a question. I didn't notice this in my review over the weekend, but what about selling beer and wine? Don't they typically do that? Yes. So that's the closed portion of the but don't we have to suspend that portion of ordinance too?

Well, we haven't in the past, and Sherry, correct me if I'm wrong. We haven't in the past because it's a co-sponsorship. So it's like the town and the organizers together. So we haven't had to ask for that. I don't believe in the past. That's correct, right?

To the understanding, isn't this where they use that enclosed space off of that?

So they stay on their property? Right.

They stay in the enclosed spaces.

Okay. So, all right. So it's still on their property. Okay. That's why we don't do it. All right.

Okay. Mr. Coleman.

I don't have them right now, but I can get them to you for sure.

How much money did they raise last year?

A reason why I'm asking this question, I love the festival. Years ago, we used to have a circus tournament in town. The town would donate $5,000 for scholarships. People running the circle would charge people to participate in the surf contest. And then they would give a scholarship for $5,000. And it doesn't make sense. Why don't we just give $5,000 at the scholarship? I argued it many times, but I didn't get in my way. Understandably. I just want to make sure that the town fees aren't more than what it's raised. For sure. I think they typically... The short is just transparency, just so people know how much we're waiving and how much we're waiving.

Okay. That's all. And I'll get it to all of you guys. Okay. Appreciate it, thank you. No problem. I do have one other thing I'm gonna request of each of you now. And I'm sure Melanie would want this as well. We need some Don't Tank participants. All right, Skip, we've got it. All right, thank you. So that'll be in the email as well.

All right. Yeah, I've been pruning from that. Any other questions, comments? All right, then the motion on the table is simply to approve this resolution as written. Ms. Medina, will you call the roll?

Mr. Stamey.

Yes.

Mr. Coleman.

Yes.

Mr. Wald.

Yes.

Mr. Longhorn.

Yes.

Mr. Hyatt.

Yes. Mayor Craig. Yes, motion carries without objection. We'll now move on to the first reading of our job descriptions. I need a motion.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Longhorn.

i figured i'd jump in um i i make a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance 26-1008 an ordinance of the town of surfside beach to modify altered established job description thank you all right we have a motion in a second uh administrator vincent or miss steigerwald who's ever i just started off mayor council before you there are seven job descriptions um

I can read them to you. The deputy fire marshal, job title changed only, used to be the fire inspector. The police K-9 handler is a new job, it's a new title, not a new, and the job description is actually a K-9 handler and a police department, a police officer combined into one, so that's the job description title change. The human resources manager, facilities manager, events and communications manager was a part of the comprehensive pay study that was approved by the town council the only new position there is the tourism community development coordinating position that's a brand new positions position that the town council did approve and then the one the last one was the facilities technician used to be called facilities labor all right any questions comments for administrator vincent or miss nigerwald

all right i'll jump in so um deputy fire marshal uh he said this from the fire inspector but but he really has uh the same authority as the fire marshal correct so that he can substitute for the fire marshal yes yes all right also it's part of the retirement system except

You can't get away with that, yes. Because we're not live streaming everything. Absolutely. So one of the issues we had is it's called Pennsylvania Officer Retirement System. It's a fire inspector. They couldn't put him under that. The whole fire department's under that as well. He holds the same job qualifications as the fire marshal does. He goes in, does inspections, can cite people and everything else. Just by giving the different title, we can actually put him into the core system as well.

Okay, thank you. I'll continue, not with you. But the canine handler, that was assigned to a specific police officer position before?

Sonia, if I remember right, it was a sergeant position, and the duties included being a canine handler.

So now we're saying someone in the police department who meets these qualifications to be a canine handler patrolman, corporal, sergeant, doesn't matter, correct?

It's a police officer that is going to be in charge of the canine. It's a specific position. It pays more than the police officer. And the purpose of it was to reclassify one of the police officer positions to be a specific canine handler. for retention purposes, because it's a position where we need somebody for a long time. So that was the main purpose, and so we can pay a little bit more and perform both duties, police officer and the K-9 handler.

But it could be assigned irrespective of rank, whoever we decide is qualified to be the K-9 handler.

Correct.

Okay, okay. All right, let me see if I have any more. I think I'm pretty good now. I made a comment about the new tourism and community development coordinator with the responsibilities to assist in developing, implementing, and managing business and economic development strategies to attract, retain, and support local businesses. So the coordinator assists in that, but it seems to me that the events and communications manager, which that title doesn't include the business functions, but that person will be managing the new one, doesn't say anything about the business functions.

Yeah, and also keep in mind that job descriptions, they don't have every single duty lineup, okay? So it's a broad... visual of what the position does, but it doesn't mean that it has to have every single duty stated under the essential functions. That's what we also always have other duties as assigned. And the first line of that job description, it does state, let me find it here. It does have supervisors directs and evaluates assigned staff. So I figured that that already covers all the supervisory duties and that, that the manager will have over this new position. And like I said before, we have to see what direction this position is going to take. Okay. Yeah.

Then I'm going to put, do you, do you think that's workable for you?

I think it's great.

Okay.

All right. That's all I have.

I got a question. Go ahead. You're next. Just about that exact. So I'm a little, I'm confused. Okay. So we have, current position, Tabitha's current position, and then we have a part-time events coordinator. The new job is the second one. I'm asking that. The events and communications manager, is that the new job?

Tabitha's position was reclassified to events and communications manager.

She's one of the three managers that went from... The coordinator job is the new job. That's correct.

Correct.

Okay. Yes. And the existing part-timer is events coordinator.

okay so the manager is this would be the supervisor of the coordinator and the current and the new on the brand new position okay so tabatha we have a free timer and a part-time excuse me tourism and community development coordinator is the new position under cloud report to the events and communications manager who would supervise that position and the current part-time position that's correct right yes all right thanks i was a little confused

Mr. Mayor, I have a few questions. On the fire marshal, Chief, the special certifications and licenses, do those have to be in possession at the time of employment, or is those something that they- We have worked with them to get it, but at this time, we have all those licenses in place for the people. Okay, but I mean, if you hired somebody new, would they come with these?

We try to get that. It doesn't always happen that way. But if not, they have the majority of what we need. Maybe they need one other certification and we let them get that and go through. So, yes. Okay.

I don't know if I have anything else for you. No. Sorry, I have to go through something. I'm the human resources manager, so I'm not...

says coordinates with third-party vendor the processing with payroll for employees i thought we brought our payroll in-house i thought that was under the budget so why are we still coordinating with a third-party vendor well the thing is if we if we change items like that in each job description and then we fall into the same situation and we have to get the third party vendor again then we have to change the job description again i see now

Just did their precautionary. Exactly. Thank you.

And yes, we're still processing payroll with a third-party vendor. Hopefully that will end soon.

It says completes MASI risk assessment. Yes. What does that entail? What is that risk assessment?

We do that every year. We have a series of questions from the Municipal Association on what kind of the questions we take uh regarding safety and uh we go through a bunch of uh policies and paperwork basically yeah and we get points and if we do certain activities throughout the year we get points in favor to that and you pass with a 90 or what do you do with those points oh no no it's just it's just how they rate us so well actually the higher the point to lower the premium But you have to have at least 90, yes, to pass.

Down here in the Events and Communications Manager, this is the new hire, the new position, says review cases and reports accordingly.

That's a revised position. What does the class title say, I think?

I'm not sure.

That's the revised position.

Oh, okay. Very good. Very good. Thank you for that.

If I may say something, I am really, really thankful for you guys allowing us to do this this year. I think it was so needed. The job descriptions were clean. Everybody has revised them. Now we have a really good pay system that we're implementing this month. The job descriptions, like I said, they look great. I think it's a huge step forward. towards the whole competition package for the employees. We have been updating things since last year with insurance, now with pay, now with job descriptions. I am very excited about all this and I really wanted to thank all of you for allowing us to do this.

One last question. Facilities manager. Is that someone assigned to one particular facility, or are they in charge of a whole lot of facilities?

No, no, that is Eric Robinson's position. Our facility's supervisor currently. It was the recommendation of the pay study for him to also be a manager.

Okay.

And all those recommendations came from when Matt, when the company that did the pay study, asked us for all the initial information, pay, date of hire, all that stuff. They also asked for our organizational chart and I specifically asked them to look at that because we have three departments that was events, human resources and facilities that they have only a coordinator or a specialist or a supervisor. So they suggested the first step forward for those three positions to be managers for now, because technically those are three departments that didn't have a head, if I can explain that. So that was the suggestion from the study was to reclassify those three positions to managers because they are technically department heads.

I understand that, but my question was, are they assigned to just one facility or are they in charge of a whole That's all I have.

Anybody else? Mr. Coleman.

Since you gave all the job descriptions, some of them really don't make much sense. Deputy fire washer, he happened to be 18 years old.

I understand. Some of them in the police department also are like that. I mean, it's just a standard requirement. I don't know why. Also keep in mind that these were also reviewed and done by people that are specialized in writing job descriptions. Within MAC, they have a specific person that just writes job descriptions. And if they left it like that, I wouldn't really question it.

I know I understand why don't we change it? So it sounds right you're saying 18 years old then the firefighter would have to be Five years of firefighting you have to be 12 years old in the fire fire doesn't make any sense If you guys want us to do that And then when it says a summary objective of canine handling, what's the responsible for canine training? That sounds like he has to pay for the canine training. He doesn't have to. He's responsible for making sure. I'm sorry, I'm old and half deaf, if you care. Repeat that, sir. For canine handling. It says what's the responsible for all canine training? What does that mean?

So the canine officer would be in charge of all the training for the canine itself and for his training. Was he paying for it? I don't know. He's responsible for overseeing it, making sure it's done and in compliance with all the state and federal requirements.

And then that also says five years resource experience preferred.

21 years old that means you can be 16 years old but it means preferred so I'm sorry just preferred yeah it's not required and I think that's legal language required for job descriptions through best practices and they're required to have that language and I understand with the uh

Vincent communications manager actually says supervise, so I have no problem with that. But the facilities manager doesn't say anything about supervising anybody. Usually a manager supervises somebody. Now we have somebody underneath them like that, that's fine. I'm just saying the description usually has to say what you're doing, you're supervising. And with the human resource manager, you open the box in there or you have one person?

I don't have anybody. I'm the only one, the only department of one. Who are you managing? Who are you supervising? The operations of the department. Manager doesn't mean just managing people. It manages the whole operations of the department.

How does your job change?

It did not change, but like I said, human resources, if you look at the organization chart, is a department that doesn't have a department head. Now we have a manager that manages the operations, the daily operations of the department.

Unless you want to make me a director. I just did. Now we have a department.

It is a department for the organizational charts.

It just seems like we changed titles to give a little more money. I hope that's not what's happening. Thank you.

Any others? Mr. Merrick. Mr. Wallace, I would just like to make a comment. You were kind enough to give us some kind words up here, but I would like to say to you that I sincerely appreciate where you've taken that department and the care that you have brought to our employees versus what we've had in the past. Thank you. It's nice to have a true human resources professional in that chair taking care of our town.

I appreciate that.

It's a lot of work. I'm sure you started from basically nothing.

I appreciate that, sir.

Thank you. You've taken us a long way. Payroll study, job descriptions, the organization has come a long way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any others? Yeah, I've got a second. Okay, so I think I realize why I was confused about the two positions. If you look at the minimum education experience for the coordinator position, those requirements are higher than they are for the higher level position. It reads bachelor's degree in marketing, tourism management, business public administration, two years experience, blah, blah, blah. The higher level position, it says high school grad or GED equivalent and two years of experience. That doesn't jive with me. I mean, it seems like, I'm not sure if these were mixed up on the PD or whether, it doesn't make sense that the, qualification for the manager position would be less than the coordinator position.

I think it's because the new position is going to be focused on the marketing of the town. So that is a more specific area. And I think that the aim is to market the town to bring in more money. So you're not going to find somebody that doesn't have a degree.

I'm fine with that aspect of it. I'm struggling with it because the manager position is responsible for overseeing the work. So I don't know how you could have someone potentially with me. And I'm not saying have it that doesn't. This isn't direct.

It's just the wording.

Yeah, it just fundamentally doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I've never seen. a hierarchy PD written like that. And I've been looking at PDs for 30 years. So I think there needs to be a change there.

We could lower the requirement for the new position.

I don't care how you do it, but I think it's wrong to have a lower requirement for the person that's going to be managing the other person bringing in. I get you want highly qualified people. I do too. Yeah. But I want them at all levels.

If I may, then, instead of lowering the coordinator spot, since this job is moving from a coordinator to a manager, can we not require more out of that?

We can.

I mean, that would make sense. And it's not going to provide any hindrance, because as far as I know.

Yeah. But also, if you compare the events and communications manager and the HR manager, I am not against degrees and all that, and I'm not saying this because I don't have a bachelor's degree, but sometimes what counts is the experience, the personality, the skills, the people skills, all that counts. And you may be losing a great, amazing candidate for requiring a degree. So I am always in favor of you know, let's find great people that might not have a degree. I couldn't agree. And then if we require a degree in the job description, then we might be exiting out some great candidates because they don't have a degree.

Okay, well, I get that. And I was an engineer, and I worked with people who did engineering without degrees. And those with the proper requisite experience were just as good. I had no problem with that. So it seems to me that we would say three preferred, or maybe in lieu of, but more than two years experience if you're gonna be a manager. Maybe that's five years experience or something like that.

We can do that.

Okay, okay. So the motion on the, well does anybody else wanna say anything before we go? Okay, so the motion on the table is to approve these job descriptions as written. Would you like to make an amended motion

You brought it up. Yeah, sure. I guess the amended motion would be to approve the first reading of ordinance 261008, an ordinance of the town of Surfside Beach to modify, alter, and establish job descriptions with the modifications as discussed.

And just to summarize, that would be changing really all we boiled it down to was changing the events and communications manager spot to bachelor's degree required. I don't think we have any specialty. Or five years preferred, and four or five years experience.

Or the equivalent envelope.

Yeah, something, however you work. That's what we're looking for. And I think five years would be appropriate?

Yes. OK. For a management position, yes.

Okay, so that would be the amended motion. Ms. Medina, you capture that?

Yes.

Okay.

I'll second that motion.

Yes, thank you. Before we move on, thank you for keeping that straight. Okay, any discussion on that? All right, then the motion on the table now, the amended motion, and we'll deal with that first, and then if it doesn't go, we'll go back to the original motion. The motion on the table now is to approve these job descriptions as written with the change that the communications and events coordinator manager job says bachelor's degree preferred, four or five years of equipment experience. Okay. Ms. Medina, you want to call the roll?

Mr. Samuels?

Yes.

Mr. Coleman?

Yes.

Mr. Walz?

Yes.

Mr. Lohmer?

Yes.

Mr. Hyatt?

Yes.

Mayor Crown?

Yes. Motion passes without objection. We will now move on to item 7C, which is our comprehensive emergency plan. Again, I need a motion.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Coleman. I make a motion to approve resolution number 26-0221, resolution of the town of Surfside Beach, approving the comprehensive emergency management plan.

All right. Chief, do you want to just run through it before we get into the discussion?

So we actually cut out quite a bit in there and stuff. We went through it. There was some stuff in there where we had names of people that had been here and gone. We got rid of that, put title names in there. There were some other issues in there. We got a little too deep in the weeds, basically, is what it came down to. So we refreshed it, we put it back out, and we're going to keep on working on it as we go. One of the things that we're going to be adding this year is some peer issues and stuff into the emergency operations plan, but that's where we're at.

right any uh questions comments for chief nelson mr hyatt um not all towns in the county have these emergency plans because the county has them so we just work with the county so i'm wondering why we're having our own so what we have is how we will operate during an emergency operations plan would you just like last month you had the county

and what we did is we piggybacked off some of what the county is for the theme and grants and everything else that we would be asking for this is our comprehensive and how we would operate in a situation uh the one that we approved before does not go into as much detail as this one does so for instance we have trees go down how do we get those trees out of there uh we're going to have to work with john and public works we're going to be getting that he has people that we already have contracts established with that how we are going to move them out. If we would just rely on the county one, we would have to go to the county and say, hey, we need you to come in here and figure out how you're going to get these trees out of here. And they're going to say, well, when we get an opportunity, we'll get in there and we'll get that done.

That answers that question. Yeah, man. Is this plan put on the website anywhere? Yes, sir. Yes, okay. Once it's approved. Once it's approved, yes. Okay.

Okay. Okay, so I got a question or two. As you said, if it was a Surfside Beach specific incident counties. Right.

If they've got a hurricane, they're not going to come in and set up an emergency operations for us to do that. They might assist with it when we need to get state government and stuff like that into it, but we would have to have our own system.

And that was my second half is that in a wider emergency like a hurricane that the entire Grand Strand is affected. Nothing in here precludes us from working with the county.

Absolutely not.

Matter of fact, we would be working with them.

Okay.

Any other questions, comments? All right then, Ms. Medina, will you call the roll?

Mr. Stamey?

Yes.

Mr. Coleman?

Yes.

Mr. Lauer?

Yes.

Mr. Lauer?

Yes. Mr. Hyatt?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Resolution is passed without objection. We will now move into item 7D. This is the, oh, I see why you're still standing there. The Lowe's grant.

Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Mr. Hyatt, go ahead. Mr. Coleman does a lot of these. Give him a break. I'd like to make a motion that we pass resolution number 26-0222, a resolution of the town of Surfside Beach to accept the Lowe's Community Impact Grant. Second.

All right, you want to fill us in there? Absolutely, very excited about this grant. We put in for it several months ago. We were notified that out of, I don't know how many exactly, but they narrowed it down to 200, and we were in that top 200. We weren't allowed to put out anything, but we were excited to be in that 200 group. We narrowed it down and were awarded $50,000 for the remodel of the fire department's kitchen. We're going to be getting new countertops, new appliances put in, some electrical. If you've seen our kitchen, it's drastically in need of it. It has formica on it. The formica, it has gotten water behind it. It's peeling off. We're going to put granite countertops over the last lifetime in there with it, new appliances, and it costs the town nothing to do this, and we're receiving $50,000 to get it done. So we're very excited about that. Very good.

Any questions, comments?

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Stamey.

I'd like to thank Lowe's. for providing that grant to you. So I, as a council person, would like for you to reach out to Lowe's and tell them that I appreciate it. Absolutely.

Thank you, sir. And you can tell the rest of us.

I just wanted to say, Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to ask again, I think I made this comment back when we found out about this, but this took a commitment of time and follow up and so on and so forth. And now that the council had approved your position, this is allowing you to chase some of these things.

We had to go through and put a diagram together with the changes we were looking to do, put cost together for it as well. So there was a lot of time that had to go into this. We had to describe our town and why our needs are for that. And this just helped out tremendously. And having my executive assistant to be able to help take care of some of those issues, extremely helpful. We're continuing on with grants. This year we've received $80,000 in grants that we don't have to spend tax money. So that's great. And we're still continuing to do that. We have other grants out there and there's a few others we're looking at. So we're hopefully going to be extending that.

Just like to make a comment that I know firsthand that there are a lot of organizations such as our town that have highly paid grant writers that do nothing but that 24 seven for their towns or their company or their association. So to have this person on board with us is, Well, obviously. One gram.

Thank you. So I'll just say, to replace it for Mike, it's kind of tough. Please tell me that it wasn't because somebody put a hot thing right on it.

You guys know that. Just over the years, the water got into it, and where the joints are, it's just peeling off. It's just a torment.

Just want to make sure. That's why we're going to agree. Okay.

Anything else? All right. In that case, the motion on the table is to approve the resolution accepting the Lowe's Community Impact Grant Award. Ms. Medina, will you call the roll? Mr. Staming.

Yes.

Mr. Coleman.

Yes. Absolutely.

Mr. Walz.

Yes, ma'am.

Mr. Walz.

Yes.

Mr. Hyatt. Yes.

Yes. Motion carries unanimously and it's approved. We will now, we're moving past 7E. We removed that from the agenda. So we'll move to the kiosk location of the pier. Mr. Coleman, would you start with a motion, please?

I can make a motion to approve a decision paper on allowing one food truck trailer at the pier parking lot specifically for . Okay.

All right. Go ahead, Mr. Coleman.

Currently there are several kiosks located at the pier, both on the pier and below the pier. Admission was granted by the town council while food kiosks below the pier. Then the kiosk was using propane and had to be at least 10 feet from the pier. Currently a food bed and a surf dog has attempted to operate a food kiosk below the pier, but it needs to be placed 10 feet from the pier. This has placed it in direct sunlight most of the day and isn't conducive to operating food vendor has proposed allowing the business to place a trailer eight feet by six by 16 feet in an unused space which is approximately 89 wide and 16 feet long next to the handicapped spaces the trailer would uh mr adair had some concerns a trail of any size would require the emergency access sign to remove one or two feet enable the tongue mounted generated from the handicapped parking space As he wrote in an email, it's not a really big deal. His other concern was the trailer would come carelessly close to the hot box and could cause damage. My answer to that is bollards should be placed there to prevent damage regardless if the trailer is allowed to use that space or not. Because sometimes the public works with using it and or police departments. The tongue of the trailer will stick out past the Thumb of trailer will stick out past the curb by at least a foot, which puts you close to pedestrian vehicle traffic. The answer to that is the mock handicapped parking space next to the closed trailer space extends over four feet past the curb. So cars will park there already. feet past that curve so it doesn't really uh have any uh adverse effects uh and then we just put a couple of phone the tools there just to notify people of the trail and mr williams the fire marshal is concerned with the size of the location of the possible adverse effect for fire response we along with mr adair recommend a slightly smaller trail Emergency access measures 16 feet wide, which is a little bit wider than the next largest emergency access. If the sign in the access was moved two feet, it would still be the largest access by far of any other access in Surfside Beach. The fire department would never place a ladder or engineer in the sand-based access. Another concern was the possible dispersion of grease-laden vapors and the necessity of a hood. trailer will only have a warming plate, will not be cooking anything. They're just warming items. Hot dogs are already cooked, and no grease-laden papers will be used. If there's concern about fuel storage, the hot dog trailer's gas-powered inverter is equipped with a gas tank that supplies power to all valves. So my recommendation is, should approve, preserve dogs, and in the likelihood that it didn't work out, Any other food company will then use that space. The unused space is in the parking lot. Town should put pallets in front of the box to vent damage to it and move the emergency beach access sign two feet to the north to make the unused space wider. A little history on this. Years ago, before most of you lived here, In the parking lot there was a suntan lotion trailer in a parking space. The parking committee recommended that it was removed and placed right in the exact, almost exact same spot. This way we could get revenue from that spot and the trailer was just about the same exact size. It worked. The big issue that Mr. Madera came up with is that the fire trucks wouldn't be able to possibly, wouldn't be able to get onto the beach. I don't know how this fire chief feels, but the other fire chief said there's no way he would ever put a fire truck on the beach because he'd probably never get around. Unless the chief has a different feeling, let me know. So that's basically it. Concerned by Mr. Hinken about trucks offloading. I've never seen them, maybe they do, but most of the trucks offload either on the space that is already marked or big tractor trailers offload on Seaside Drive each and every day. So I think that's really an issue. And that's all I got.

Any other comments, discussion?

I guess I got a question. Chief and Chief Mickle, thoughts, concerns?

I'm going to stick with what the fire marshal said as far as reference to that. As far as us putting a fire truck on the beach, no, that's not going to happen. However, could we put the aerial ladder up into the sand to reach Yes, we could, but that's the access that we have as far as that. My only concern I would be concerned with is the same thing that we talked about when we decided to put an offloading spot right on that corner. That makes it very difficult in the case of emergency for us to get a fire truck in there and do that, and that's all.

i just concur with my colleagues and it's gonna compress that area and we use that place to park too but whatever you guys decide we can work around whatever you want would that not part of

uh having a place to park the patrol cars in the case of emergency uh say today was other i mean i know that you could use the whole parking lot but that place is sort of there uh ready for you to pull in any time that you need with income you ever use it a lot but i mean it's not designated for us well i know it ain't designated to y'all it isn't designated to just food truck either yet but i'm just saying just for the general principle having a place that you know that you can go down and park y'all's car for emergency would be to have that place would be great instead of a trailer being in it that would be preferable yes thank you anyone else before i watch this i'll say something but i'll for you yeah i'll go um yeah i uh i think uh

surf dogs opened up over Memorial Day weekend. And that's when I was still looking at social media once in a while. And the response was outstanding. People loved it. One person just asked how it was legal and he got crucified for even asking the question. But I find it an interesting proposition. We're trying to still make the pier and the pier area, if not pay for itself, at least contribute more mightily to its own operational cost. I'd be inclined to try this, especially since we're already halfway through the season, to see if we could try it. I do support Mr. Coleman's idea of putting the bollards there anyway. I think that box should be protected. You know, somebody ran into the palm trees at the front of the parking lot a year or two ago. So, you know, somebody could come fly in there and hit that. So I think the bowlers make sense no matter what. And, you know, this would be the impetus to make that happen. I'd like to give it a try. And I think if it really gets some concerns, we just don't renew it next year. That's my thought.

Anybody else? Yeah, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Hyde. I'm kind of in favor of trying to make as much money down there as we can. I'm a little bit concerned about this. I think this is the trailer that we all saw in a picture at one time and said, how the heck are we going to put that on the beach? And now they want to put it in the parking lot. Why is it that we can't just stay where they are? What's the issue there? There's a lot. Yeah, two people quit over the Memorial Day weekend. Oh, okay. And they were the young ones that wanted to get some better. Then I think I would be in favor of an amended motion allowing them to use that spot for the rest of, to the end of the season. And then we re-examine that at that point.

I don't think we need an amended motion because we only do the kiosks annually anyway. Oh, okay. I mean, I think that's the way, isn't that how we're doing it on the annual program? Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's,

calendar year, not... Well, they submit based on in-season, off-season, so maybe twice a year. Okay, okay.

You okay with that, without an amended motion?

Because I think he's just going to go through... Well, as long as we have a way to reevaluate it at some point, that's what I want. I want to look at it and see if it's working.

I don't want to... You know, go ahead and make the amended motion just to put a termination in order if you want.

Admitted motion is Harry's motion. until the end of this season, and then the town council should reevaluate.

What would you call season, though? I mean, if he wants to go to October, November, if the weather's nice, are you okay with that? Yeah, that's season. Okay, so you're saying until next spring? Yeah. Okay, okay. All right, until next spring. Well, until next year. Okay, okay. All right, I just wanted to clarify. I don't think he's going to I'll second. All right, we got a second.

Any additional discussion? Just to clarify, we're going to say until the end of calendar year 26?

Yeah. Yes.

Look at it. Okay.

Anything else? All right, so we have an amended motion on the table now, which is to approve this decision paper. And I want to point out that Mr. Coleman has the ballers, in here and moving the uh beach access sign as part of it so that's included in the motion already that was your intent correct yeah so uh approving all of that but terminating it uh december 31st or january 1st whatever end of the year we'll just say end of the year um so that that's the motion on the table now mr dean will you call the roll mr steamy no

Mr. Coleman?

Yes.

Mr. Wolf?

Yes.

Mr. Longhorn?

Yes.

Mr. Hyatt?

Yes. The motion carries five to one and is approved. There's no need to go back to the original motion. So yeah, we'll see if he can make this work. That brings us to committee appointments. Okay. So committee appointments. We have a Board of Zoning Appeals. We have two candidates for one vacancy. The candidates are Jonathan Christ and Tyree Carlson. Keep Surfside Beach beautiful. We have one vacancy and one applicant, Susan Ward. In business committee, we have one vacancy and one applicant, Melanie Peek. So obviously, we can't just do a blanket approval. But go ahead, Mr. Stamey. Go ahead and make a motion.

john gilchrist candidate for that board okay um yeah okay so uh mr staney you uh you got the floor go ahead i know john and john's been uh involved in the town and a whole lot of stuff and john has been on um three he used to be a builder i don't know if he's really still built anything or not anymore but he he would know a little bit about this and he is involved

any others question I don't think there's a rule but I think and I think John's highly qualified but I believe he's also already on the parking committee and the business committee is there a concern about the number of committees an individual is on just throwing that out rhetorically

Well, I'll pick it up then. Yes, we have addressed that concern in the past. In fact, I think we addressed it with Mr. Gilchrist in the past. I know him pretty well. He's extremely qualified, but he is busy, but he puts the time in. I don't think he's building anymore, but he has a wealth of knowledge. I am torn, though. I would like to... expand our base, but the qualifications of Mr. Carlson were not as broad, I think, in the building and knowledge of building. Technically, the Board of Zoning Appeals does not require a builder's license or anything like that, but still, I think the knowledge, the experience that Mr. Gilchrist would pick up has picked up over 50 years of building, as he says, is invaluable and worthy of consideration. So I realize it sounds like I'm waffling back and forth, and I guess I kind of am, but it's too bad we can't take them both. So I'll just leave it at that at this point. Anybody else? All right, well, the motion on the table is to appoint Mr. Gilchrist to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Ms. Bedina, will you call the roll?

Mr. Stavey?

Yes.

Mr. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Walz?

Yes.

Mr. Walhorn?

Yes.

Mr. Hyatt?

Yes.

Mayor Kress?

Yes, Mr. Gilchrist is approved unanimously. We now have two applicants and two vacancies in the other committees. Anybody want to make a motion?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we just do a blanket approval of Ms. Susan Ward for the new KSBB vacancy and Ms. Melanie Peek for the business committee vacancy.

All right.

All right. Any discussion on these? All right. Then, Ms. Medina, will you call the roll? Let me say, sorry, the motion on the table is to approve. Both of these at one time, Susan Ward for KSBB and Melanie Peet for Business Committee. Okay, go ahead.

Mr. Stamey? Yes. Mr. Coleman? Yes. Mr. Wong?

Yes.

Mr. Laughlin?

Yes.

Mr. Hyatt?

Yes.

Mayor Kramme?

Yes. Motion carries unanimously and both are approved. So welcome all new committee members. I know one of them's here. So thank you and we look forward to your service. We have now reached the point of item eight.

public comments this time on talent services or business conducted evening gentlemen uh ken carlson not tyree carlson 343 50th avenue south also known as the speed pump block right first mayor i'm very disappointed you're not going to the dump tank We could, we could generate and send it. We could charge people to go.

I didn't say that.

And thank you for clarifying that two people fired had nothing to do with the other incident. Back to speed homes. The block up from us, the 600 block, I've already talked to a couple of y'all about this. The 600 block 15th Avenue South is a problem also, just as ours was. It has the same circumstances as our block, just a little bit shorter. But in addition to all those circumstances, it has a ton of kids living there. Because you've got the townhouses or the condos, whatever those are, lining the entire side of it. I've asked a couple of y'all about it, and I know one of the residents up there has asked about it. And I understand that we're considering doing a whole town graphic study, I would just ask, in the meantime, can we look at just that specific block? It's a problem. And we're just asking for a kid to get hit. I mean, they leave my block and speed right on up, or they speed right on down until they get to my block. So rather than wait for the whole traffic study, I don't even know if we've even started that yet, i can't imagine how long the whole town traffic study will take but man can we just like look at that block and also what do i i mean people have speed hump envy i'm asked all the time how'd you get them how do i get them and i don't have a good answer for them so if you guys can consider putting something out how i don't know what you want to do but i'm getting asked all the time i'm sitting out there pulling weeds and hey, how did you get your speed homes? It's like, we prayed hard. So that's all I got. And come on, do the dunk tank. I'll address it at the end. The dunk tank?

I'll address it in my comments.

OK.

Thanks, gents, gentlemen. Any other public comments?

OK. Carolyn Pravlik. 5, 12, 13th Avenue North, good evening again, two things. Number one is we need more bike racks at the pier. Saturday morning, I went to Yoga at the Beach, as I usually do. The bike rack was full, save one space for me to park my bike. And that was before 9 a.m. so we need more bike racks at the pier secondly please change tabitha's job title to director and do whatever needs to be done to the job description she works so hard in this town she works as hard as the other people who have the director title give her the director title it's not fair that she doesn't have it thank you

Thank you. Any other public comments? All right, in that case, we're going to move on to the council comments.

So I'm going to start with Mr. Hayek. Well, thank you. Thanks everybody for coming. I just want to mention something. I happen to live near Pointe du Pic services, folks. And he told me that July 4th was the most people they have ever seen on our beaches ever and he'd been in business, I think, 20 some odd years. He also was amazed that in spite of the heat, there was not one single medical emergency on the beach all of that day. So anyway, it's kind of neat to know that a lot of people were able to really have a good time and nothing serious occurred. So thank you all for coming and see you next time. Thank you, Mr. Hyatt. Mr. Walts.

thanks everybody for coming thanks we did get some listening right we were streaming but anyone who's uh the folks online for hanging in there and listening um but i do mr bradwick i do want to comment there there were during one of the festivals that we were down there i had two or three different folks that asked me for more bike racks So it's something that's a legit request. So maybe we can further investigate that down the road. But I won't steal your thunder. But anyway, thank y'all for coming. Well, we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Thank you, Mr. Walz. Mr. Stanley.

Thanks for everybody being here. I want to address a little bit about, again, about the cyber crimes and the duck killings that we did here in Georgetown. As you read social media, y'all, believe me, we're trying to get out anything that we can publicly. Sometimes it's not You can't at the time that you want it. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than people want. But as you can tell as of tonight, we try to get it out as quick as possible. As we learn it, we want you to learn it as the public of this town, because y'all are a town. for me just saying that i i want y'all to know that we are trying we try hard to get things out quicker and quick as possible and i think territory being the dunk tank and on top of that and uh thanks everybody for coming all right mr stemmy thank you uh mr lawhart well i'll start by saying i highly endorse you going into dunk tank

Beyond that, back to the cyber thing and even the goose thing. One of my frustrations in this job has been that we either aren't able or we don't get information out to the public as quickly as I personally would like to see it. There are a lot of restrictions on the government from that standpoint, but We owe people as much transparency as we can get them. It has been a frustrating experience for Mr. Vincent and Mr. Bush. Everybody involved in this, I know, has been frustrated by this. So I just want you to know that, at least from my end, I think that all of them would vouch that I've been pushing hard to try to get as much information out as we can. I get the restrictions sometimes. I don't get the restrictions. Sometimes, some restrictions I don't get. Some I do. But in any event, I am concerned that in many cases we allow the narrative to get ahead of us because we don't say anything, maybe for valid reason. But sometimes an interim response is better than no response at all. So in any event, I completely agree with some of the comments that were made earlier that we need to do a better job. And I'm also very serious that we need to have an after action review done of this when all is said and done and the time is right. Because the most important thing, other than trying to get as much money back as we possibly can, even though technically we're not really out any money yet because we paid for a service. But beyond that, the most important thing to me is to get it right so that we never have this happen again in any way, shape, or form. So anyway, that's basically all I've got. I appreciate people coming. And I do, again, endorse the mega for the dump tank.

Mr. Coleman. I'm not even going to say thank you.

Thank you for all coming up. For the people listening online, we have a power shortage here. So if you didn't get 15 or 20 minutes of it, that's the reason why. In reference to the SOP traffic study, you have luck if you put the speed humps on your block. I've had at least 15 people requesting . I'm not going to do that just willy-nilly. We're waiting for a response from SC DOT. That's the way government is. It's slow. We have to do it the right way. Once we get it, we're going to start working on it. Weekly, I ask, have we received a response? We have not. There was a little for me going down there. He goes to how to put a DJ in the corner with a bike rack for him. He was down there. He's looking to put more bike racks down. He knows that there's a problem. He's going to try to find out where the best place to put the bike racks are. So let's go out the way a little bit. On the transparency, I believe in transparency. I believe in giving out the information as soon as possible. I don't believe in giving people Special alert, special alert. We're going to tell you what's going on with the cyber crime. And you get here and we tell you, well, we don't know anything. Things happen. It takes a while for things to be investigated. If you will be an investigator or you had something, you would want us to do the best job for you. You'd really want us to look into it. You wouldn't want us to be dragging you out in the street and tar and feathering you. on something we haven't finished looking at. It takes a while. Insurance is going to take a while. Sled's going to take a while. Any other investigative body takes a while. That's the way it is. I don't agree with every meeting we come up, we're going to give you an update and give you nothing. It doesn't make any sense to me because it's just frustrations. And for the people out in Facebook land who have assumptions, and they have a source and they know this, maybe. They're just trying to sell clicks on their Facebook page. Nothing's going to happen until we find out. And once we find out, whoever's responsible is going to, you know, if somebody did something wrong, something might happen, but we're not going to do anything to anybody. And it's taking over a month to tell you people that And you weren't going to find out about it until I asked the question. The people who got fired had nothing to do with the transfer of money. It was all over Facebook. There were receivables. How could they possibly get fired? Well, they weren't fired. And we should have came out right away and said that. That was a mistake. We have to tell people the truth. Be it you like it or you don't like it. It's the truth. So, Papers like to sell With news stories and they love to get people all excited Facebook the same thing that I love to get people excited Same thing with the goose thing. I don't see you know what I see less goose geese But the goose was me then I don't know on it. Why I Got it. I got an idea. She doesn't feed him anymore.

I

And nobody, I haven't seen anybody. If I seen them, I would make sure they got locked up for running over geese intentionally. But I've seen where people come around a blind curve and almost clip some geese. I've seen squirrels. I've seen raccoons. I've seen possum. I've seen deer. I've seen birds who are laying in the street because they got killed. And every once in a while, thank God it hasn't happened here, a person gets killed. It's an accident, folks. Let's not make it more than it is. It's a great little town. It really is a great little town. But there are people out there who want to make it a terrible place to live. They're telling people not to come here. We're a reach down the road. They have problems. They can't get people like they got years past to come to the place. Our place is sold out almost every single week after the season because people love to come here. It's a great place. And let's start appreciating the great place we live in. Thank you for being a part of this. It's good to see people in the audience. It would be better if we could fill this room. And if you have a problem, get up at the podium, state your name, and state your problem. Don't hide behind the keyboard. Just a bunch of calories. Thank you.

All right, thank you, Mr. Coleman. I'll wrap this up, and of course, the first thing I'm going to address is the dunk tank. What I said was I got pruney several times over the past few years. I didn't say I wouldn't do it again. I think I've done it three years in a row. So yeah, I'll be back. I think I'm kind of not allowed to skip it, I'm not sure. Mandatory. Yeah, I'm already signed up for it, I'm sure, whether I filled anything out or not. Talk a little bit about some of the infrastructure stuff. Mr. Coleman is chairing a subcommittee of this council with a little bit of the administration too. I know they're trying to work through some of these things, along with the sidewalk issues and all that kind of stuff. So things are moving as fast as they can. One thing I would wonder, and I'll just offer it out for you guys to consider, for the major thoroughfares that have the speed limit, the radar signs, I believe data can be collected from that. formal study or something like that. But I believe that when we did 15th South, Chief Davis put the portable one there and did collect data. And I think, I'm not sure, but that they can't even, the stationary ones can be outfitted. And I'm not going to ask you to comment right now, but it's something to look into. No, no, no. This is closing comments. This isn't a discussion. But I think it's something that maybe we should consider to do an informal and speed it along, you know, But anyway, it might be worthwhile. Completely different course. I met Attorney General Alan Wilson today. The Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce set up an event for local politicians. A few of us got some invites. I literally spoke to him for one minute. But I just want to kind of make those connections that anything we can do to work with the state to get more attention to this area and to also differentiate I mean, we wanna work together with Horry County and the Grand Strand as much as possible, but we also wanna differentiate so that they know what Surfside Beach is and the uniqueness of our town. So again, one minute, but it's a first step. Tree ordinance, I'm looking forward to it. I wish we could have done more, but I just think we were gonna bog down today. So I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of that. And again, I think a stormwater committee should be invited as well. Social media, it could be a great tool if people used it for real debate, but 90% of at least the political things just seems to be outrage. I don't see, it's non-productive, non-constructive. I think this council is pretty amenable to meeting. And I know I try to answer every email I get. And I have open office hours. Few people used to come in early. Rarely does anyone come in now. Come and talk to us. Writing your preconceived notions on social media, talking, you know, the echo chamber that I mentioned before, where you just validate your own thoughts and feelings, it just gets nowhere. We keep being told we're not being transparent. We went through the scenario again on this payment issue, and I don't think we said a whole lot of new stuff today. We've been going through it for, several weeks several months now um we don't believe i mean we believe we got a legitimate request from a legitimate email um we processed it we went used our policies procedures we did it according to our own rules we have not lost any money and we'll determine we'll have to see if that determination holds true but right now we paid a bill and we think we're done The contractor thinks otherwise, and the insurance investigations are proceeding. We'll see what they tell us. We may have to pay something. If we do, we may get reimbursed. We'll have to see how it all plays out. But this loss of money hasn't happened yet. We've made a bill, and that's where we are now. I don't know in two weeks if we'll have this again. I mean, we're talking about doing a motion to set up our own investigation, our council investigation. And we should do that. We should fully understand everything. And that's more about the policies and procedures of town, in my opinion. But we need to do that. But I mean, I see us in two weeks coming back and saying pretty much the same things, unless, of course, we get those final reports. I guess, you know, hopefully somebody will say that they can see some transparency here. No, we're not giving names of people and we're not assigning blame and all that kind of stuff. And I think really that's what some people want. And we're not going to go down that route. So I'm done. What's that? Congratulations. Oh, yes. Well, yes. Ms. Parsons, we already did that, but yes, let's congratulate her again.

We'll do it again.

And at this point, now I only need one more thing.

Mayor, I make a motion that we adjourn this meeting.