County Council - Regular Meeting

This time I'll call to order the Transportation Committee meeting for June 1, 2026. We have several items to run through quickly. First item, committee to approve a $500 allocation in accordance with the General Assembly Resolution 5190, naming a portion of Saluda Street in Rock Hill in honor of Officer Robert M. McFadden. The segment selected is from the intersection of Johnston Street to Albright Road.

Motion to approve. Second.

Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion carries unanimously. Item number two, committee to approve a $500 allocation in accordance with the General Assembly Resolution H5192, naming a portion of Johnston Street in Rock Hill in honor of Officer Robert Gilmore Johnston. The segment selected is from the on-ramp to Dave Law Boulevard to South Wilson Street.

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion carries unanimously. Item number three, committee to approve a $500 allocation in accordance with the General Assembly Resolution H5189, naming a portion of Charlotte Avenue in Rock Hill in honor of Officer Stephen Wayne Jordan. The segment selected is from the intersection of McDowell Drive to its intersection with North Avenue.

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Well, we didn't even need you to speak, Mr. Hendricks, but I will want to make sure that I acknowledge you and appreciate the work. These things that have come before us are items that the General Assembly has directed the Council to do, and we're happy to do our part on that. Anything you need to add?

No, ma'am, no additional information. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Do we have a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn. Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. This time I'll call to order the York County Council, June 1st, 2026, meeting to order. Our first item of business is to recognize the Honorable Watts Huckabee from District 6 for invocation and pledge of allegiance.

Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight with humility and gratitude for the privilege of serving the people of York County. Lord, as provided in Hebrews, your word teaches us to build on a rock, not on sand, to anchor our work and foundations that endure. As we enter this season of difficult decisions, especially those surrounding our FY27 budget, remind us that the choices we make today shape the better and abiding future of this county we all call home. Give us the courage to lead with faith, not fear. Strengthen in us the conviction of things not seen, the substance and the evidence of the hopes we carry for our community. Help us trust not only what is visible before us, but also what you are quietly shaping behind the scenes. Lord, many times we ask, how can anything good come from this? Yet time and time again, we have seen realities unfold that you could only orchestrate. Teach us to loosen our grip of control, to release the illusion that we can manage every outcome, and instead to trust our county staff with what we don't see yet. As we weigh priorities, guide us in rearranging them according to York County's current and future needs. Ground our decisions in wisdom, integrity, and vision that outlives us. Let us serve not by sight, but by faith, believing that you are leading us towards a future that honors every resident of York County. Tonight, Lord, steady our minds, soften our hearts, and align our steps. May everything we do in this chamber reflect your truth, your justice, and your love. In your name we pray this prayer. Amen.

I do want to welcome everyone here tonight. It's always good to see folks come out to the council to be here and be involved in county government.

We have a full night tonight, and the sign-up sheet is full.

We do not have any oath of office or appearances, so we're gonna move straight into our public forum session. Public forum session is an opportunity for individuals to come and address council on matters that are important to them. And council is proud to offer this. Some jurisdictions don't allow this. This is an opportunity before our meeting to speak. The first 15 people who sign up are allowed to speak. And if you are here, though, for an item that is in public hearing, we do ask that you wait until the public hearing item is there before you speak to ensure that you capture the comments in that specific issue so it'll be tracked with that. When you come forward, if you can please give your name and address before you start speaking, because our clerk needs to write that down and create a record. And if you will kindly pay attention to the screen, it should let you know when two minutes is up so that you can cut your comments off before I have to do that. We do ask that comments be – that we – Keep decorum, civility in this room so that everyone feels safe to speak. We ask that no one clap or jeer or boo either one of those things. Anyone who has the courage to come and speak up in front of that podium, it can be difficult sometimes. And we want to respect everyone in this room. If you do have some folks that share a similar issue, I think a way to address that would be to ask them to stand up if they're there to support what you're saying. think that we've covered everything on that. So at this time, I will start. First up is John, and I should have said, pardon me with my reading of words. Lomay? Loman?

Loman.

I'm John Loman. I live in 1914 Harkness Road in Clover. I'm here to want to recognize a few folks for the help with York County Veterans Park. First, Catherine Jones and Jesse, York County Parks for the improvements made at the Veterans Park, making sure it's done correctly. Jesse's not here, but thank you, Jesse. Josh, I want to thank you also for your help with the Veterans Park. I want to thank the council for making sure the park is worthy for our veterans. Tommy, I appreciate all you do for our veterans and supporting the Veterans Park. Shout out to Ms. Carol and sit over there. Thanks. Thank you, sir.

Michael Plumlee?

Hello, Michael Plumlee, 1065 Winsong Bay, Tiga Cay, District 1. Good evening. I'm here to talk to you and ask for your support for the 82X, the Rock Hill Express, which is slated to be discontinued at the end of this month. I've been a rider of the bus for 19 1⁄2 years. When we moved here, we chose Tiga Cay for good schools, and I didn't want to have to drive into Charlotte. I work in banking in there. I've learned a lot over the last few weeks about how the 82X has been funded. About half of it is federal. The shortage between revenues and the state and federal grants, the city of Rock Hill has been paying. This year it's going to be close to $120,000. So we're talking a shortage of about $10,000 a month. Rock Hill has decided not to renew the contract. I've been to the RFATS meeting a couple weeks ago, TKK City Council, and I also went to a public hearing we had last Tuesday in Rock Hill. We're trying to get a solution where the county, Fort Mill, TKK work together to try to fund the bus. The 82X serves a lot of Rock Hill. I know people from York that travel to Rock Hill to take the bus. We've got a lot of ridership in Fort Mill, and we also do in TKK. What I ask you is to work with RFATS Teague Cave and Fort Mill to try to reach a solution on this. I don't think the numbers are that off and that high. And this area is really growing versus an area that's like a rust belt. So really we should be funding public transportation. Our ridership has been up particularly recently, quite a bus. There was 25 people on Monday riding the bus. And I think it'll continue with the high gas prices. So I think that we should make decisions based upon the future here and just not, because we haven't fully recovered from pandemic. There's still people that are being forced back into the office to work. Thank you.

Michelle Schaefer.

Good evening. I'm Michelle Schaefer, CEO of Max abilities of York County, located at 7900 Park Place Road in York. I'm speaking tonight to thank you for your longstanding support that we have received over the many years of our agency's services to York County. MaxAbilities, a DBA created in 2016 for the York County Board of Disabilities and Special Needs, mouthful, has been formally in existence since 1980, providing supports to individuals who have varied lifelong service needs. Maxabilities is a quasi-governmental subdivision created through state statute and embedded in county ordinance. Today, Maxabilities supports over 1,100 people and their families across 30 programs and services. Later this year, that number will climb to 32. In addition to providing individualized and stabilizing lifelong supports, we're a mid-sized employer in York County with a current complement of 250 plus employees. Our agency helps support our local economy and has a significant impact on our job market. The county funding we receive allows us to ensure that an otherwise underfunded but federally mandated service, early intervention, is a service that can continue to operate in our home county. This service supports children from birth to age six and has been statistically shown to lessen the effects of lifelong disabilities. Additionally, funds allow us to expand workforce development supports to young adults seeking to enter the workforce but lacking the state Medicaid waiver funding to pay for that. MaxAbilities is proud of the services we provide, the impact we make, and the success that we have achieved benefiting the individuals we have the honor to support each day. This, in part, has been made possible through the support of our local county council. In a time where many important decisions have to be made by the council, we thank you for prioritizing individuals in our community through no choice of their own. Depend on each of us. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. John Wirth.

My name is John Worth. My wife, Eleanor, will help with some visuals, and we live in Fort Mill in the Baileywick neighborhood. South Carolina has two solar cell operations, ES Foundry in Greenwood and SILFAB. Why hasn't ES Foundry faced the same public outcry in litigation? well greenwood county and es foundry got it right york county and silfab got it wrong and tonight i will illustrate why here are the facts and the picture tells the story silfab is in the light industrial zone surrounded by homes es foundry is in a heavy industrial zone with large buffer areas within one mile of silfab there are 38 times more residents At five miles, 122,000 more people live near Silphab. At 1.5 miles...

In the future. We've heard concerns from residents, emergency responders, and even local cardiologists. Those concerns deserve to be taken seriously and take time now. and need the time taken right now. A moratorium is not saying no forever. It's saying let's slow down, do the research, gaps, and a density that is not appropriate with the current designation.

By unanimous vote, Planning Commission also recommended approval.

Thank you, sir. Any questions for staff? All right. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak against this rezoning? All reduction to the taxes that would eliminate some things that have been identified as as not necessary and it also allows us to accomplish the goal of retaining the executive assistant treasurer position which would basically result mean that we don't have to increase the budget to accomplish that and that this would address the staffing needs that are needed currently and that it would that's that's that one did you did you have another question about the other oh yeah how about 532 the 50,000 reduction in phone services by IP so this one was

uh as staff after the first reading of the budget went through to identify potential savings this is one thing that you know in combination with the budget director myself and the assistant managers as we talked with our directors about potential savings this was one that was identified and discussed with the i.t director and we think that there's potential savings in the IT phone services budget for this next year. So that $50,000 we were comfortable with, it was in our spreadsheet, but that's what that one is.

But is that money going to have to reappear next year? Does that mean we're going to have to increase the budget?

I would have to ask our assistant manager, David Garner, that question.

So that's our phone budget, and that's a projection. Really, that was to ensure that we did not go over in that number. But I think the IT director, in talking to them as they looked at that line item, said that they felt like there may be enough in there to be able to absorb a $50,000 reduction. But at the end of the year, after we've completed We see what it is. It could come back next year if we were to come close or go over in that line item. But he felt comfortable that he would probably be able to manage within that with a $50,000 reduction.

That reduction was one that you identified, right, in your spreadsheet. What's 320?

320. Okay. So this was another one that budget staff identified in that spreadsheet after first reading, this is 30,000 related to having a community survey. And so historically your county hasn't had a community survey. So anytime I think about budget cuts, I think about what are the nice to has, what are the things we haven't done before the new things. And those are the things conceivably that I would recommend to take down first. And this 30,000 to me, It's not something we've done before. Will it be something potentially in the future that would be good to do? Yes. Does it have to be next year? No.

So this community survey is something that we can wait a year for.

Not that it's not important to do at some point, because I do want the public to be able to weigh in. Is there another way we can do it? Potentially yes. This was going to use an outside firm to do a statistically significant survey. So there's other ways we can do this, and we could wait a year. So I thought that was something to put forward.

And 320 is?

The next one. So there's also 320. Are you talking about the 11,000? Yep. and I would let our interim county attorney weigh in on this, but this is a line item in HR and HR budgets has historically budgeted some money for an outside employment lawyer, but I would then let our interim county attorney answer that question in terms of is it something the county attorney's office can handle.

Yeah, and so typically retention of outside legal counsel is done through our office. So I don't know to what extent this is utilized by HR specifically, but when you're looking at the county as a whole and you're dealing with the risk factors that come with different legal areas, I think it's actually helpful to have all of those things be coordinated through the county attorney's office.

Yeah, and depending on the year, to Laura's point there, sometimes HR has paid for that and other times the county attorney's office has paid for that outside attorney. So it makes sense to locate it in the county attorney's office.

So is that money, should it be transferred to your account instead of just wholesale removed?

Well, that's one that has fluctuated. So I don't know that I could say with any specificity that $11,000 would, would make the difference for us. Um, but certainly happy to, to work with Josh and his team and continue to evaluate that this year and see if we need to recommend any adjustments to it next year.

Cause you know, one of the concerns is we spent $360,000 this year on outside attorney stuff and went over budget. and we're gonna just cut things and end up over budget again just to look good or whatever.

I'll just say that was one that was identified as an area since we're investing in the and making sure that the positions in the attorney's office were completed. and funded that, that would be a better approach. I'm sorry, I was thinking that was one that was, all the ones before were items suggested by others.

But as we've learned over trying to hire people, you may not get those people in there hired quickly, so then we still have to get outside attorneys for this, because you're still down to one attorney?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Just so everybody recognizes, we are working our employees as hard as we absolutely can, above and beyond probably.

Salary contingency fund, what is, would you like to explain that one more? Yes, sir. This is another contingency fund we have. We actually, as staff, looked at this when I first got here as a potential fund to find savings in. This is used for things that come up that we potentially haven't planned for. It's 126,000 total in this recommended budget, so it's not a huge amount. But the kind of things that it's helped with historically is when the magistrates have received a raise through the state that we have to pay for. after the fact that the budget is approved and so we've been able to utilize this funding for things that happen after the fact but historically the last year or two i think the last year was used was 2024 so we haven't used it so i do think this is this is a as an opportunity if things come up mid-year oftentimes with our current vacancies we can afford it in this environment if we get an environment in two or three years where all of our vacancies are filled or close to being filled then we'll have to explore bringing something like this back but in the current environment with vacancies i think we can do this one I we have left based on this motion. There is, I believe, about 32,000 remaining in there. So there is something remaining in there of the 126. So this motion reduced it. But if I have what was the no, this says eliminate it. In that amount? In amount of 90, can you read that amount again?

93,729, that was based on what you recommended.

Right, so right now there's 126,000 in there, so it's taking it down 93, so there'll be about 30 and change left, which will help us if one or two things come up that we need the money for.

And we'll just keep down the list. 110? I'll let David Garner speak to the next two.

That actually harkens back to the employees, the fire employees. Without taking on any other county employees, there would be a reduction in the workers' comp and the liability insurance on that side of it. So that is a savings that would automatically be taken out of the county budget, the general fund budget, because workers' comp is paid in that fashion, by not having those employees. So that increase is not incurred by the county.

And the 525?

That was the liability, the tort liability that the line item. So in the budget, these were items that can be eliminated by virtue of what proposal that had been come up with the half mill. I'm sorry, maybe I might have spoken to the wrong one. The second is tort, right? The first one, and I apologize. When I printed this out, because we were talking about this as we came here, there was a little bit more explanation than there is here. but yes the the 110 is uh what was line itemed savings as workers comp and the 98.5 is what are the savings um through the tort liability and that's for not hiring the four people that's for allowing them to they're being hired but they're being hired through their special tax district right but that's by the york county not hiring them

For them, right. Flint Hill is hiring.

Flint Hill is hiring. Okay. Right. And again, that's where we were from second reading.

Okay, next. Somebody else.

Okay.

Does anyone?

Go ahead.

First of all, Josh, thank you. I do appreciate what you've done here, so thank you very much. Taxpayer dollars, it's not our money, it's taxpayer money. It is critical we look at every dime. We know what these things are going for, and we need to make sure that we're making the most efficient we can with every dime that comes in here. you know, with a roughly 8% increase over revenue over last year that's coming to this county, I really think that, and again, you got to see the sausage being made through this process. I think as we move through this, we've had a lot of open-ended discussions about this. And again, I want to harken back to having these discussions like we just had now. I think we've gone from a point where we can address our needs, but actually offer some type of tax break to the public, I think is a great thing. And again, as we do these discussions, again, we just make sure that we always keep in mind that this is not our money, it's the taxpayer money. So we need to make sure we're monitoring it and looking at this very closely as we go through this. So I do appreciate it again. your work through this, Josh. Thank you, thank you. I do support this, what Christie has come forth with, so thank you, Christie.

No, you go ahead.

I don't know if any of you have looked at Lancaster County's budget for this year, but if you hadn't, you should probably pull it up and take a look at it. Sometimes it's easier to look at, you know, if you're the barber, looking at your hair is not like looking at the hair of the person you cut, because the hair probably looks better than yours, right? So you can look at Lancaster County's budget and get a good glimpse of what Lancaster County is beginning to go through from their growth, which is very similar to what York County has been going through and what we will be going through moving forward. Unfortunately, that when you when you have the fiduciary responsibility to put a budget together, our budget coming into the year, I think was 524 or $526 million. 155 million of that are pennies money. So you take that off the table. That's that's really the budget that we're trying to manage. And as you go through that budget book, which is 200 pages, there is a lot to absorb. And as much as we want to be good stewards of the money of the taxpayers, which we're all taxpayers as well, It's pretty difficult to understand the logic that goes into putting our budget together. Even in mention with the first item that's on the list, if I'm not mistaken, which storm was it in 2023, 2024? It wasn't Helene, or was it Helene? I guess it was Helene. 2023, or when was Helene, somebody? What year was that?

24, I think.

24. So York County got criticized because we didn't respond properly as a county like the municipalities responded to Helene. So our citizens didn't get their trees removed as quickly as they wanted them to. We just didn't assemble quickly enough. So that was an issue that meant we needed to address this. So when it came up the next time, we had the resources. We had the plans in place to respond properly like the municipalities, right? So you have to fund for that. Those are the kind of things that are in the budget that you're just not aware of why they were put there in the first place. But it's easy to pull them out and use the money for something else. But then when you have a tragedy like that, again, you don't have money in the budget to fund your response to it, though. A couple of things I do want to mention. So I want to go back to There was mention of double dipping from the county manager's office related to the executive assistant and an ombudsman. So the county manager came back to us originally and stated that Number one, our county manager has not had an assistant. And to some people, you'd say, well, why does a county manager need an assistant? I own an insurance agency. I have an executive assistant. And why I have an executive assistant is so I can do the highest and best uses of my time for my agency, which is going out selling. So if there are things that she can do on my behalf that she enjoys doing and she's good at, that's a good use of time for her and a good use of time for me not to have to do it so I can be more productive for the agency. It's really no different here. So he's gone without an executive assistant. But what he said he wanted to do was he was willing to go without an executive assistant to hire an ombudsman for council. And I joined council in 2023. We've complained that the residents are not getting proper response times to issues that could be resolved if they had someone to call and talk to. Well, that's the role of an owns budsman. An owns budsman reduces resident frustration, improves service consistency, identifies inefficiencies in our processes so we can improve them. strengthens public trust, helps elected officials get ahead of problems instead of reacting to them. So it gets us out of the weeds. And we have a constituent call us. We're not resolving the issue for you in most cases. We're going to somebody saying, hey, going to staff. That's what we should do to get them to help resolve the issue, right? That's what they're hired to do. They're the professionals. We're not. We just need to make sure it gets done. So that owns budsman takes the pressure, it's like a pressure release valve. It's a quality control mechanism so that we can begin to prove the experience our citizens are having. That's what an owns budsman does. So I have to ask, how does that get funded out of the economic development fund? It doesn't make sense to me. The Economic Development Fund is there to promote workforce development for one, to attract industry in New York County, good industry that's paying good wages, high number of employees, and paying significant property taxes to keep our taxes as low as possible for our citizens. So why would an owns-budsman that probably belongs in the planning department, but I'm going to ask Assistant County Manager Tom Couch to speak to this if he's comfortable doing it, but I, for one, don't see where an owns-budsman should get paid out of the Economic Development Fund. It should be paid out of another source, so I'm going to ask... Assistant County Manager Tom couch to make a suggestion on where that might could be paid for it because it is a needed position That was taken out of our budget last year. So we're now Potentially before this reading we're gonna be two years behind on this which is critically important to us. So I'm curious Where else could we fund that position time?

I'll start and then I can kick it to you. I Think this one it's important to think through all the things we're trying to accomplish as a county right and and our needs are great but our we have some opportunities here so so obviously you know the manager's office could utilize an executive assistant we had an amazing one prior prior to this and As I went through the interviews, you always think about, oh, what else could we do if you have an amazing executive system, but what are the other things above that that we really have a need for? So my goal with this was to wait and try to see if we could, through this reclass, utilize that position to grow it into an ombudsman. However, if there's a way to conceivably think through how we have an executive assistant and potentially an ombudsman, I think this is trying to get there. One of the things that, and this conversation was a year ago, so I don't expect anybody to remember it, but when I was in Athens, Athens ombudsman actually was an economic development employee that sat in planning. But that was the way they worked it because so much of the work that comes for the ombudsman is small businesses, business recruitment, navigating the code. So yes, the ombudsman might work a lot on planning items. My vision for this position though is it's more than just planning, it's organizational. But I think if we are to take a step forward, potentially this ombudsman and obviously our economic development director's here and he hasn't heard this until tonight, but in theory, if I think about the things facing our county that are of highest priority for Ombudsman, it's the small businesses that I've heard from that are trying to understand our code and are looking for opportunities to navigate the code with help. Is there other things too? Yes, but that to me is the highest priority for the ombudsman on day one. So conceivably it's some combination of economic development and planning and the manager's office. So where it sits between those three, I think I'm agnostic, but I would kick it to assistant manager Couch because I think in the economic development department, it's an outside view into some of our departments that I think an ombudsman is needed most in. And that, to me, is what I think is most important.

And I concur with the county manager. I think he makes some very valid points. I was somewhat familiar with the way that position was structured with my knowledge of Athens-Clarke County. And I would probably say, in terms of funding, If we're trying to look at broader austerity, I think is what the theme of the council may be. This position may not be permanently paid in the economic development or out of the economic development fund in the future. But I think it is a start and it can help accomplish the goals and the visions over time that the county manager has spoken of. So I can support that, and I have a very strong feeling and confidence we can make it work from the beginning and let it grow from there.

All due respect, I hear what both of you are saying, and I can understand how you might concede this paid out of the Economic Development Fund, but the Economic Development Fund The economic development benefit to this is incidental to the benefit to planning. Planning is the department that needs and owns Budsman, not economic development. I think what makes this attractive is that we have $5.6 million in the ED fund. It's not being used necessarily. It is invested, by the way, taxpayers. It is invested, and it's earned, had a pretty good return so far this year, and it did last year as well. And unfortunately, Well, fortunately, I'd say our strategic plan has actually put some initiatives in place to help invest that money for small business and for other initiatives. We've already had two requests come to council. One was presented and it was voted down. The other one has not been discussed yet. But those are workforce development initiatives, and those are the kind of things we should be investing the money in with that ED money. Because when a company comes in and they're giving up part of their revenue to go in this fund, the ED fund, it should be promoting economic development. I just don't think this does this. I think the reason this is there is because there's $5.6 million in the budget. And that CIP component to this rate study.

Okay.

Are we going to close out this motion, or are we going to start talking for a county that's attempting to keep up with the growth that's coming to us, whether we want it or not? A lot of this growth is by right.

um anyway this the priority i think it adds role clarity to have it be a cfo that is in the finance department and adds a position in that finance department and it adds somebody who can have the organizational view of our finances and help with bond issuances and other things as it relates to departments and finances i think that in theory we do we are a size of a county the size that needs a third assistant county manager but the question is is when and when when might we be able to achieve that i think that as david said about other items we've talked about tonight there's there's short-term things that we can do and then there's a long-term view that we can take as we as we move into fy 27 but i know that as county manager and with my assistant county managers, we can provide the necessary supervision of public works and utilities. The question is, How do we continue to make sure we take the long-term view and make sure we're doing what's best in the long-term for those departments too? And I think the more help you have in the manager's office, the better, but I understand what I'm hearing and seeing in this budget conversation and process over the last few weeks. And I think what makes sense at this point, based on all the facts before us, are to prioritize the CFO over that third ACM position. So that, I hope I answer everybody's questions, but.

I do want to just piggyback off of what Kristen just stated. Again, just to emphasize, there is a director for both. There's a director for each of these departments. So I just want to make sure the public understands that. There will be a director for both of these departments. That's right. Both great directors. Yes, that's right.

I would like a little bit of clarification. First thing is... I don't expect when your boss comes to you that you say, hey, I want you to cut this stuff that anybody kind of fights back much. Right now, there's telling the county manager, cut your hand off. And he's going, no, let's don't cut my hand off, just cut a few fingers off. Yeah, he's still agreeing, but it's not the optimum thing that we need. And there's no need in it now. I mean, we're just cutting budget to just cut budget and put our services down less. But I would like to know, as clarification, how many departments the other two county managers are over? Yes. Individually. Individually.

I don't have it memorized, but the way we're set up, there's 19 departments that report directly to the manager's office and then you have 10 appointed and elected positions. You get to that about 30 department number that people throw around. Each of the assistant managers has a different number that report to them. What I try to do is I try to group it into portfolios that make sense. I'll let each of them speak to the number that report to them. There's an org chart in the budget document too, which might be even easier to point to the org chart, but I'll kick it to y'all real quick while we get the org chart pulled up.

I don't know, it looks like a lot of departments under the Assistant County Manager, there's, unless we're taking the CFO and Treasurer position out from under Assistant County Manager and just putting them directly under County manager and CFO treasurer right Back under the county manager

Josh, I think the CFO treasurer was going to, the whole point of the CFO treasurer solution was to have the four departments that deal with finance. Yes, so the CFO reports to me. It only leaves utilities and public works. Either way, they can report.

So one of the things with having a department director, we're likely not to have other department directors report to it. So assessor and procurement are things that we can divvy up. The public works and utilities are likely things that will report to me, along with the CFO, auditor, PIO, and internal audit and HR. So that makes sense. A lot of county managers have the HR and the financial components reporting to them. I think what we'll have to do, obviously this is something that we talked about today, is we'll have to look at our workload and manage that across. Assistant Manager Tom Couch has four departments reporting to him, as well as David currently has four, five reporting to him. So we'll have to assess workload, and that's something we can do in the future to figure out how best to do that, but something we will do.

So we're now adding...

for position for more departments to you uh... budget director to you uh... some other work that's not accurate that's not accurate for other department see if the treasure what would be dealing with it it would be part of the manager's office and work There's only two left out of that. I think we can move on. We've kind of beat this one.

No, I just want to point out, and then we're asking for the directors to operate as assistant county managers without having them employed as county managers.

No, the directors would still be in charge of their department.

And they're having to report up to the county manager or to some other group or something.

They report directly to the county manager. If there's no other discussion, the motion is to add an assistant manager position into the budget. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Opposed.

So it passes.

No. I don't think it passed.

A silent vote's a yes vote.

Do a hand raise.

Those who vote no, raise your hand. Do we have any other amendments on the budget? Any other discussion or amendments?

I wanted to ask on our increase of 0.5 on the rule fire tax. Right. which I don't know if this is the right place to ask or not. But I know that they're going to need some more mechanics and welders at the shop. DAVID BURRAGE- David, is that being looked into?

DAVID BURRAGE- So this does still include one additional mechanic in the shop for this fiscal year in this budget? That is still included?

As it currently stands, they're still the mechanic, the three firefighters. They'll be over there, an additional firefighter, and I think there were two other support staff in the budget, too. Yes, ma'am. That was purchased with that half mil.

Aren't we looking at three getting close to retiring out there?

Or would that just be? You're referring to the shop? Yeah. So we have several tenured employees at County Fire. I don't know the specific years of service in the shop. There may be one or two.

But I guess what I'm basically saying, mechanical welder, through the year, if need be, that could be brought on as needed?

It could be considered, yes. I think the real goal would be to get this new position hired first and then assess the workload because there's also a logistics position that was added and that would free up a shop superintendent to be more engaged in the shop versus ordering some of the managerial things that he has to do. So before we would make any future staffing decisions in the shop, we would reassess the workload with these additional positions and that would be a future consideration. But I think this will provide some immediate help and alleviate that. But it'll take a little while before we assess what that workload looks like for them.

Any other discussion or motion? We get now to the main motion to approve the budget. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

No.

Motion carries four to two. Appreciate folks sitting out here and going through that. It is a difficult process. It goes up and down, I will say. Not all folks agree on things. That's how this system works. But I do think and I appreciate the county manager, the county attorney, all of our staff for their support and for their help in us arriving at this budget. Once again, we have included a ton in this budget, and it's like we talk about the small amounts, but we've been able to reduce the budget by general fund mill and still provide the services that are needed, and it's important that we watch every penny. And I think that this is a good result, this is a good budget, and we'll move on. Can I get a piece of clarification?

Sorry, I'm just thinking about it. Does Eric go back down to a director? Yes.

So any time we have a vacancy and I ask somebody to serve in that, I want them to have the time to really invest in that position and be interim for a significant period of time to try it on. And so, yes, Eric's been serving honorably since March and has done an amazing job. We've had an intern public works director at the same time. So yes, Eric Wilt will go back down and be the Public Works Director and do an amazing job at that.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure.

Yes. All right, we do have one item of new business. Council to consider authorization to apply and accept, if awarded, the South Carolina Coordinating Economic Development Set-Aside Grant C264185 for Project Brisk. No local match is required. Do we have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion?

Oh yeah. Can I discuss it? Sure. I know that the public hates this. They see this as with a project name, doesn't say what it really is or anything else. Is there any information we can provide at all to help the public to be a little more comfortable that we're making a good decision on this without without just voting. Yes.

One thing I want to point out, this particular situation is not a grant that the county is offering. This is not us. This is us serving as a pass-through solely for a state program. incentive that they provided and I am we have to your point I know I and many many on council have said we want to get to a point where these code names are eliminated especially when it comes time for public hearing and public reading especially when it concerns anything that the county is giving an incentive to in this particular case this is not a county incentive it is simply a state incentive that has to we have to pass through

It's tied to us. I still think we should have some information if it can be provided. I have no problem with that.

Sure. Economic Development Director Mitch Miller is here to answer questions. And I'd ask him if he would come to the podium and speak to this item.

Thank you, council. Just a little information on this project. And then also, David Bell with Ryan Consulting, representing the company, is here. And he can speak to the project in more detail as well. Just a little briefing on this. This is a company looking to locate at the Karis Cold Storage Facility in Rock Hill. Address is 3623 Lazy Hawk Road. Again, as Councilwoman Chairman Cox mentioned, this is a state grant. This is a pass-through. We're simply receiving the funds and passing it through to the company, and it's a state incentive. There is no local match on our part. A little bit about this project. It's a $9.35 million investment that will create 80 jobs located in the facility. Those jobs will pay roughly $28.10 hourly. And again, this is to allow us to fill out our portion of the application to move this project forward. I would like, if David is willing to come up and speak a little bit more to it, I think that might be more beneficial and helpful for you, Councilman Landon.

Thanks so much Mitch Council. I like Mitch said, my name is David Bell. I am the representative consultant. 1 of 2 working with the clients fortunate enough to work with them. They 1 of our largest clients. Most important ones as well, but we serve them in the capacity of site selection. So they approached us about potential locations for. Their next operation, which I can give you a little more detail on, but I will say I am authorized to give you the company name. So the operating entity would be GMRI Inc. That, more importantly for you to know, though, they are a subsidiary of Darden Restaurants, one of the largest operating restaurateurs in the country, or the largest by certain measures. But anyway, no, they approached us about the facility on lazy hawk. It does require, like Mitch said, about 1.5 million in sorry, real property improvements that is to outfit to the particular type of operation that it will be. So they already have a growing demand in their industry sector related to ambient or room temperature refrigerated freezer prepackaged food-based goods. That is a growing sector. Yes, that's great for companies expanding and moving into new areas, but additionally to that, and what's very important is the company has slated several locations or right now just looking at regions to become a location across the country. I say two or three. They let us know that. The intention is to co-locate manufacturing at some point. That is not a part of this project, but I will say that goes into the decision-making of what type of facility that they need. This particular facility, considering its location, great location, considering its quality, it's very difficult to find some of the newer industrial product to this type of quality around the country, and the fact that it's positioned for what would be the next mid-Atlantic regional logistics hub, would make it a great candidate, one of the best candidates for the co-locating of manufactured goods. Part of the reason behind that is the competitive pricing that occurs specific to the food industry right now, as well as the advantages of having it co-located with a distribution function. But just to reiterate, this is a distribution operation with the freezers needed, the refrigerators needed for that type of distribution to occur. Excuse me, and as Mitch, I believe you said, you might have said the number, but so for the purposes of the grant, or I should say state incentives, the committed number of jobs is at 80. We do expect a target number a little higher than that, incrementally higher, but that's why I say for the purposes of the of the actual incentive. That would put a year one, or we're currently in year zero, so the first full year of a payroll that would exceed four and a half million, and that would go higher than that in the following years. And that's not including the incremental jobs above the 80 that we do expect. But they do expect also to be operational here in 2026. Operational in October, hope to have all hires completed by end of year. SO WE WANT THIS PROJECT TO BE OPERATIONAL QUICKLY, THEREFORE I SHOULD STATE WE'RE GRATEFUL FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS ON THE LOCAL LEVEL HERE BECAUSE THEY'RE IN TOUCH WITH THE WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT NEEDS WE WILL NEED WITH THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT AS IS THE STATE THAT HELPS FACILITATE THAT PROCESS. THEY'VE BEEN PARTICULARLY HELPFUL FOR THIS INDIVIDUAL PROJECT INSURING THAT WE CAN MEET THE NEEDS ON A TIMELY BASIS FOR THE CLIENT AND BE ABLE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH A PROJECT THAT REQUIRES In this particular industry, it requires the improvements to be able to be done quickly so that there's not downtime on the actual facility itself. But hopefully the target to begin on that project is after this process is over in late July. Oh, and by the way, it's important to the incentives process. We do note that with these jobs, not only discussing pay, but full benefits, competitive packages are offered. There's more than your disability insurance, your other employee assistance programs, things like that. There's also tuition programs and 401 matches, so this is a very competitive offering for these AD jobs.

Welcome to the community. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I look forward to them being here. I look forward to y'all getting awarded this grant. And thank you so much for being able to provide the information. And thank your clients for giving you that opportunity to give us a little more information. I really appreciate it. I know the public really appreciates it when that's a possibility. So thank you for that. Thank you, Mitch. Absolutely. Thank you all.

All right, all those in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Committee and other reports, Planning and Zoning Committee meeting. Chair Willman, Debbie Cloninger.

Okay. The Planning and Zoning Committee met on May 26th, and the first item of business was the committee did recommend that the full council consider a nine-month moratorium. We certainly need more time to continue some research and some other changes, also some other conditions to the ordinances. So I would like to move that forward.

I certainly support that and the process from here on out is to put up for first reading since this was council initiated at the next council meeting, first reading of this matter. I assume it may be in title only and then referred to the Planning Commission thereafter. That would be the process to move forward. yes is that is that the right process yep to go the council and then back to Planning Commission and then back to council first reading my title only since its council initiative goes to the goes to us and then it we can refer it to the Planning Commission correct

So the next item is something that actually was in consent agreement tonight and that is a schedule of the ongoing existing townhome rezonings to RMX 6 and that is just paperwork. There's nothing like they're not adding town homes, it's just going back to recode. So it's just clearing up some odds and ends. Then we had a discussion on the Newport area plan, and we received a very in-depth discussion in-depth information on that. So to give us time to digest the information, we did defer that until the next meeting. The other part to this was a follow-up discussion regarding industrial uses. Actually, this was kind of two items rolled into one. The first part was the, some industrial uses that we were adding to, And then the second part was a little more complicated, and that is we received information on the North American industry classification system. So again, to digest all that information and to understand what they were talking about and wanted, we did defer that to the next meeting, the discussion on that.

Thank you, ma'am. We do not have any citizen concerns tonight. Do we have any council member new non-agenda comments?

Can, I would like to, I have just drawn a blank. I knew I should have wrote that down. Does anyone else? Event centers. Can we move that to the Planning and Zoning Committee to re-look at those regulations? I've heard from some people that are having issues with them. I've talked to assistant manager. Tom Couch about it. He's had that in his list of things to get fixed and he expressed the desire if we could help move it along.

Thankfully those that supported the budget, we have an attorney now that's going to help us because I heard from our county attorney that we ran into a statutory issue and I know that of how do we craft a solution that allows us to do that. I know that previously our county attorney had come up with a solution and there was some back and forth with council. So I guess just so that we frame this accordingly and that we make sure, I mean obviously what I heard from you last Laura was that there really needed to be some It's likely that we're gonna have to have some state help to get where we wanna get, perhaps. How do y'all want to approach that? Do we need to narrow that down? Do we need to forward it to committee now? Give me some suggestions about how this would be the best way to handle this.

Do you know specifically how you would like to address this? Or are there particular things you want us to kind of explore

So there was, oh, well, I don't know.

I can tell you that regardless of whatever specific situation he has, it's a situation that we're having throughout the county that has languished. And so I don't know, if what you're trying to do is hone in on what the specific issue is, I can't speak to what, Andy, what you came up with, but I think it's a broader issue that I know, how do we tackle this and get it right?

It is a broad issue, and... and I realize there's a state portion to it, and part of our portion, and I know we can't really change the state portion immediately, so I don't know if we lump them, I know you're gonna answer this question, but lumping them together, I was thinking if we could just fix the county portion of them as much as we can, the issues that are there, and then also work on the state portion. at the same time, but they would be an A and B portions.

I'm with you now. Yes, and so ultimately parts of that are likely going to require changes at the state level, but to the extent you guys want to dig in and start looking at what is the county's approach to that going to be and what are the things we can do on the county side of it to gear up for those proposals that ultimately the county would make to the state. I'm happy to participate and work with Tom and help how I can.

How do y'all want us to, I mean, since we haven't narrowed the scope, I mean, I want to make sure when we refer it to committee it's not just event centers, how do y'all, do y'all want to get back to us with some information, or do you want to go to the current?

And we can do that, but maybe Tom, could you just share maybe a couple ideas or potential areas that you were thinking about as you worked with the Planning Department and County Attorney's Office?

Yes, sir. And as y'all may recall, we're working on what we now call Project Decode. And this would be certainly a part of that. And I think in my experience here in the last year and a half, event venues have been problematic, not necessarily controversial. I think when you have different kinds of structures and a lot of the structures where there's issues tend to be in rural areas but not exclusively. But you're dealing with two main types of structures. There are some folks that want to build the smaller event venues from the ground up. That doesn't really harness any issues with state building codes or local building codes. I think one area of problems is where people try to up fit old barns that can't necessarily meet the standard building codes without some substantial success or expense. But what I was about to say though, I think we can have some success If we're given the opportunity working with planning and development and even code enforcement who sees a lot of issues in the field, what we'd like to do is prepare something of a white paper, if you will, that way we can have appropriate preparation if this topic is referred to the Planning and Zoning Committee. We want to be fully prepared to chronicle all the issues that you know about that are important to you and just have a very strategic method for going into this. But I seem to have some confidence that we can split the baby, we can work with the state on the things we need to work on. But I think people who are upfitting these older barns, And now I don't think our ordinance is necessarily keeping up with what I call the cottage industry of these kinds of special events because people are wanting to open up, well, some of the property to have the bride and the groom parties prepare for weddings and things like that. But we need to have something organized to bring back to you or to the Planning and Zoning Committee for referral. But we're prepared to do that.

I'm wondering if, I'm sorry.

Well, when we do look at it, and I want to dial a little bit further, seeing they shut down a bunch of farm ones over here. But when we look at this thing, I want us to get down to the fact there is a difference between private and public. Most of us that own farms, we have liability insurance and everything else. And if someone individually chooses to want to come to my farm to have a wedding and it's private, I don't see where the government's got any business in telling them they can't get married in the middle of my cow pasture. It's the dang stupidest thing I've ever seen. We used to not be this way. I want limited government. I don't want big government. And the more government you ask for and you want, you are becoming a socialist. And if you've got to holler to the government every step that you take, then you are tending towards socialism.

And that's what we're looking for is to get this narrowed down. That's right. But, yeah, I mean, if you're having a one-off wedding, that's one thing. But if it's your business, you're making money at it, that's a no.

At the same time, we need to consider the theme of occupancy rates, too.

Delivered.

Thank you, sir.

Perfect. To be delivered. Perfect.

Any other questions?