County Council - Special Meeting

At this time, I'll call to order the June 29th, 2026 special called meeting of council. Our first order of business is for me to recognize council member Andy Litton for invocation and pledge of allegiance.

Stand by your heads. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to be together with the community, with our fellow council members. Please give us the wisdom and guidance to make great decisions on behalf of our community and the state. Please be with us and just keep us safe, healthy. Help us to all get home tonight safely and just do things that would be according to your will. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.

States of America and to the republic for which

Do want to welcome everyone here tonight for our special called meeting. Just so you know, a special called meeting is different than a regular council meeting in that we do not have our standard agenda items. We do not have the two minute community forum. We address only the issues that have been notified to the public previously. So once there were some questions that were asked previously, want to make sure to clear that up. I would ask, since we do have a large crowd in here, if you would please make sure to silence your cell phones so that it is quiet when folks are asked to speak. We do have three items of business to cover tonight. One of them, the first one, is going to be a public hearing item. So we will go ahead and get started on that. Our first item and the only public hearing is council to conduct a public hearing and provide second reading authorizing the execution and delivery of a fee in lieu of ad valorem tax and incentive agreement by and between York County and an entity or entities identified by the county as Project Palmetto Rock and its affiliated and related entities whereby York County will provide for payment of certain fees in lieu of ad valorem taxes provide certain special source revenue credits the allocation of fee in lieu and ad valorem taxes payable under such agreements the establishment or maintenance of a multi-county industrial business park and other matters relating there to the process that we will follow for the public hearing is this one is a little bit different because the Property owner is here to share information with the community and to share their name and to provide details on that We also have information from management as well. So we will hear from them There will be information shared and then after that we will open up the public hearing which we will allow individuals to come up and speak the way that we typically do this is we ask folks who are against the the philo to come forward and speak first and then those who are in support afterwards and just so you're aware of how that process works. So at this time, I'll turn it over to management.

Yes, Madam Chair, County Council. Glad everybody could be here tonight. Appreciate the community coming out to participate in this part of the process. I wanted to introduce our Economic Development Director, Mitch Miller, who's gonna open up with a few words before introducing the company.

Thank you, Josh. Madam Chair, council members, thank you all tonight for the opportunity to present and for hosting this special call meeting. I'll get a little closer so you can hear me as well. At first reading, I provided an overview of the economic development process and really explained why companies often use project code names and really how that's important when they evaluate locations and decisions. Tonight, we do have representatives from the company that are part of Project Palmetto Rock Rather than me introducing the company, I do think it's more appropriate that you hear directly from their leadership about who they are and what they intend to do here in York County. But I do appreciate them being here tonight, being willing to speak to the public in a different format here at second reading. Again, as we all know, this is a three reading process, so this is out of the norm of how we've done it in the past. And I think it's important that they be here and they can speak directly to you all, but also to the community. And with that, Madam Chair, I'd like to invite Barry Pomeroy and Alice Stewart to come forward and tell you a little bit about their company.

Yes, sir.

Hello. My name is Alice Stewart, and I'm here on behalf of OctoPharma. I want to introduce myself and my colleague Barry Pomeroy. We will both speak tonight and tell you a bit more about OctoPharma, but a bit about me. I am Chief Operating Officer for OctoPharma and very humbled and honored to be here tonight. So before coming to OctoPharma in 2009, I had the distinct honor of being an employee of Springs Industries in Fort Mill in Lancaster. So before jumping into the pharmaceutical world, my background is in textiles and my background is in York County. And I'm proud to be a resident of York County as well. So I want to introduce Barry and then we'll tell you some more about OctoPharma.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Barry Pomeroy, and I'm Vice President of Finance for OctoPharma. And as with Alice, we're very happy to be here tonight. My journey to this podium started in Virginia. I'm a Virginia boy born in Front Royal, a little town south of Washington, D.C. and i've worked in textiles as well worked for a company that serviced the company that alice worked for rl stow mills a family-owned business in belmont north carolina and my wife and i moved here with our two little little ones uh to take that job back in 1984 so i've been uh i don't live in in york county i live in belmont just across the river belmont north carolina just across the river but i've been here over over 40 years and Shortly after we arrived, my wife had this plaque made, and she hung it over my toilet. It says, we weren't born in the Carolinas, but we got here just as quick as we could. 17 years ago, or 16 years ago, as with Alice, we both transitioned out of textiles to OctoPharma, and we've never regretted it, and we're looking forward to sharing the OctoPharma story with you here tonight. I would like to ask a question. Has anybody ever heard of OctoPharma before right now? Well, Alice, we got quite a job ahead of us, so.

All right.

Working? All right. So on behalf of Mr. Wolfgang Marger, Mr. Tobias Marger, the Marger family, the shareholders, and the board of OctoPharma, we thank you for the opportunity tonight. We want to share a little bit more about what OctoPharma is, the patients we serve, the medicines we make, and how committed we are to the communities and the environment, as well as why we want to be a partner with you in York County for our first manufacturing plant in the United States. I think I hit on that already. Mr. Wolfgang Margare. He is our founder, our chairman, and chief executive officer of OctoPharma still today, 43 years after he started us in 1983. He started with one mission, and that's still our mission today, which is to make medicines from human plasma that treat patients with rare and serious conditions. So who are we after 43 years? Mr. Merger had this vision to make the medicines, but then to not only to make them, but to also distribute them around the world. And so we are a global leader in the development and manufacturing of human protein therapies. We have over 11,000 employees worldwide, of which the largest entity is here in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'll talk a bit about that more in a minute. But that's the raw material for our products. Almost 90% of the plasma is collected here in the US. And we are headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. But OctoPharma's overall headquarters is in Lachen, Switzerland. and 11,000 employees strong worldwide, as well as five manufacturing facilities. What we're here to talk about tonight is our sixth that we would like to put right here in York County, in Rock Hill. We are a family-owned business. Mr. Margara was the originator, the starter, and we are privately held. And as long as he has anything to do with it, we will continue to be privately held. There are four major players in this market. And we are number four as far as size. But we are the only one of the big four, as we say, that do not have a US manufacturing site. The green designates the countries of the patients that we treat with OctoPharma products. The blue dots represent, I think I've got a dot here, maybe not. The blue dots represent where we have sales offices and manufacturing or entities like ourselves in Charlotte, North Carolina. You'll notice in the U.S., we have two sales offices, one in Paramus, New Jersey, for U.S. sales, and we have a sales office also in Miami. Also represented, as I said, is the Charlotte, North Carolina headquarters for the plasma, OctoPharma plasma, where we, it's where Barry and I are every day, and we are responsible for the business for We have over 180 collection centers around the country where people come and donate plasma, and I'm gonna talk a bit about that here in a bit, but we are headquartered in Charlotte. And once again, the mission that Mr. Margare started with to develop medicines from donated human plasma, that mission has not changed today. So what is plasma? Plasma is the liquid part of the blood that is often called the watery part of the blood that is protein and antibody rich. This is separate from, as you can see from the picture, this is separate from the red cells. And so the plasma is what we use to derive our medicines to extract those proteins and antibodies in order to make life-saving therapies for our patients. And so How do we get the plasma? As I mentioned, we have almost 90% of the plasma or raw material is collected here in the US. And we're responsible, Barry and I are responsible for that part of the business and the collection. And in the donation centers, our selfless donors come in and donate, donate plasma much like you donate blood. And in that process, the machine will separate the red cells from the plasma and centrifugation. And we take the plasma in the bottle, and the red cells are given back to the donor. So the plasma, we freeze it immediately, and upon freezing, right before we freeze it, we take a sample from every collection that we collect, and we test that plasma to make sure that it's disease-free. And before we can ship that unit of frozen plasma, we have to assure that the lab results come back disease-free. If there is an issue, then we dispose of that unit of plasma in the collection centers all over the US. As I said, we have 180, 182 collection centers. So we freeze the plasma, which preserves the proteins and the antibodies, and we ship today, we ship all of that plasma to a centralized location, and today we ship all of this collected U.S. plasma to Europe to five of our manufacturing plants to make the medicines. So let me talk a little bit more about that process. So it's a really simplified five step process of the plasma donation in number one. And as I mentioned, we test every unit that we collect. And if that unit has an issue of any type of disease, we dispose of that unit on site at those collection centers today. So that everything shipping from the collection centers is disease free. Everything coming to a manufacturing site in Europe as would be for this site that we hope to partner with you on in Rock Hill, would also come disease-free to the manufacturing site. For a process that we manufacture or fractionation, we use that word, which is a cleansing and a purifying of all the plasma. That is done in fractionation and then an extensive quality control process before making the final product or the final medicine for our patients. can't emphasize enough everything coming to the manufacturing site is disease-free so what type of medicines do we make we have three key areas are three areas that we make uh... medicines as a hematology immunotherapy in critical care Hematology, I think we would all most relate to are medicines for people with clotting disorders. The most familiar for many people would be hemophilia. So patients with hemophilia don't live a normal life usually. They are, they can die. suffer from excessive bruising, from a simple bump or a touch of the arm to any area, any slip and fall, any cut, then a hemophiliac can bleed and bleed profusely, resulting in death. Our medicines help the patient to clot. So we make plasma-derived medicines for hematology patients to help them clot. On the immunotherapy side, this is for anyone who is fighting or has immune suppression disorders autoimmune disorders or anything that may affect someone's immune system The most commonly used and probably impacted everyone in this room, many, many cancer patients who have gone through chemotherapy have a suppressed immune system after chemotherapy. And they will often take immunotherapies, IVIG, in order to boost their immune system. And so that's one of many medicines that we make for those that are immune compromised. And then third, our critical care. These are our medicines that are used in not only emergency room or trauma type settings, but in most surgeries, in many surgeries in order to help the patient to stop bleeding. Just a few pictures to show you some of our patients who have received our life-saving treatments. Seth, a hemophiliac, as well as a cancer patient, has received our medicines. And likewise, my personal favorite, Isaiah. Isaiah is a young fella in the Las Vegas, Nevada market. Isaiah's had our heartstrings for many years and his battles. Thankfully, we've gotten to know Isaiah in many ways, many of our employees. But his mother, Danielle, is quite the advocate for him. He comes to our donation centers in Las Vegas and shows and talks to our donors on the benefit of donating plasma. Isaiah's a trooper, and his stepfather donates plasma with us, and his aunt is also an employee. with us in one of our collection centers in Las Vegas.

Thank you, Alice. From European to global production network, as Alice said, we have five manufacturing sites currently in Europe, and we want to build our first U.S. site. And the big impetus for building a U.S. site is, as you can see from the slide, the U.S. revenues have now reached 50% and growing. So when Alice and I began with OctoPharma 16 years ago, that number was close to 25%. So it makes a whole lot of sense to save all the shipping, the shipping of plasma collected here in the U.S. to the five sites in Europe if we can ship a lot more of it here, keep it domestic. It can be a big time saver for us. So that's the impetus behind why we want to have a US manufacturing site. There's another topic that I'll get to a little bit later about the fact that we want to control the entire supply chain here in the US for other reasons, and I'll talk about that shortly. And now, to talk about the investment that Mr. Marguer is planning to make here in York County. It's a $1.5 billion capital investment over 10 years with 1,200 new jobs of well-paid jobs that I'll show you momentarily. And we will be relocating approximately 300 corporate jobs when we move our corporate location from Charlotte to York County. Now, you may be asking yourselves, well, that's not very far away. And you're right. It's about 13 miles. drive distance to our current site in Charlotte. So we even asked Mr. Margare, we don't really need to do that. And his immediate response was, we want you invested in this community because this is going to be our home. This is going to be our generational home. In other words, we're going to be here for a long time, a long time. So he insisted that we include headquarters as part of this. And also, as Alice mentioned, we're responsible for the plasma side of the business. We will be also building a laboratory testing site as part of the headquarters move as well. So in addition to the 1,200 jobs, 300 relocating high-paid corporate jobs, and the construction of a new laboratory. And here are the jobs, the pay ranges for the jobs. Manufacturing, on the left you see pay range from $56,000 to $115,000 annually, and with a 10-year potential of that growing to $73,000 to $150,000. And the headquarters role is a wider range because we have admin as well as leadership positions in headquarters roles from $51,000 to $168,000. The majority of roles would average around $115,000. There will be a multiplier effect. I mean, the ecosystem is gonna benefit from us being here insofar as if we're here, then there'll have to be other support businesses to support our work. And it's been estimated, Mitch Miller at York County has actually provided the estimated numbers of additional jobs there. You can see an additional 1,000 jobs. to support the work that we'll be doing here and bring an additional almost a half a billion dollars of economic benefit. So the things that will benefit would be things like housing, retail, schools, and other services. So there'll be this multiplier effect to grow the economy here even further. And we are safe at every step. One of the good things about this, we've been in business, our company's been in business creating plasma therapies for 40 years. And so it's a well-defined process. We use normal pharmaceutical items to facilitate the manufacture of these therapies. So this isn't a new venture for us. We've learned how to do this in our European factories. And we're not a research lab. We're not going to be doing any research and create bad things out of nothing. That's not going to happen. It is a clean process. It runs in a closed system. And the main solvent we use is ethanol. It's alcohol. And we recover 95% to 99% of that ethanol and repurpose it. and that the one to four percent that we, or the one to five percent that we don't recover, we collect it and have it disposed of by people who are qualified to do that. So it's a very, very safe process. And any of the other ancillary chemicals we use, if they go into the wastewater, they are well treated before they go in wastewater to well below the federal or municipal limits, way below the federal or municipal limits. So it's a very, what I'm saying is a very, very safe business that we're wanting to bring here. But I could talk until I'm blue in the face and you guys could go, he might be selling us some kind of story, but I'm not. I wanna skip forward here, I wanna show you that. Because this, is our site in Stockholm suite. It's right in the middle of town. And I need to, this pointer's not working.

The branch ground area, that's us.

That's our manufacturing site. And it's been there for decades. And what's around it, you see lots of residents right up around it. There's commercial businesses also around it. If we weren't safe, they would never let us be in the middle of Stockholm, Sweden. And we're also in Lingolsheim, France, in the middle of the city. So what I'm saying is, this is a proven technology, and over years, we've made it very, very safe. We protect the water. is treated and monitored daily to make sure it meets or exceeds applicable standards. And we reduce emissions. We use natural gas to clean a lot of our equipment. But we do have the venting of that is very minor. It's way less. It's 10 times, actually we've calculated, it's 10 times less than what's going on 100 yards away on Interstate 77. So there's no risk of disturbance there. And we do manage, so we do manage our waste responsibly, and we're always looking for other ways to have a favorable impact to our environment. So there's Stockholm again, and I will say the only added comment here is environmental standards in Europe are a lot tougher than environmental standards here in the US. Now, coming back to my earlier comment about why this is important to control the supply chain here in the US. Made in America for America. We've all seen all these global disturbances from tariffs to other things that shock the supply chain. I mean, we're experiencing shocks to the oil supply now for something that couldn't be planned. And we don't want to have to experience that kind of a shock in our supply of these lifesaving products. So that's another one of the things that is driving us to build this here in the U.S. so that we can control the entire manufacturing chain from collection of plasma to delivery of therapy. So this will insulate us from things going on outside the borders of the US, which we think is very important. The other thing that we think is very important, and if you look at the second and third bullet there, we have a product, we're developing a product, it's called a hemostatic patch. that our colleagues have demonstrated to the Department of War. The Department of War is very excited about these products, and basically what it is, it's the soldier in the field, to be able to self-treat, they have to carry all kind of apparatus if they get wounded in the field today. This is basically, it's almost like opening up a galls pack and you pull it out and if you get wounded, you can place it on the wound and it stops the bleeding immediately until proper medical help can arrive. So it really is going to be a lifesaver for our combat warriors out in the field. So we're very excited about that, about that product. Why York County? Well, As Alice and I both said, she's a president of York County. I'm close to dang enough to it. We like it. Look, when we were looking for a site, Commissioner Margaris said, I want you to look over the whole country. Find the best site for us. And so we commissioned that. And we struck up some conversations. And we looked at ourselves one day and go, well, Let's really look pretty hard where we are first before we go to Texas. I mean, we've got over 20 donation centers in Texas. So we were looking in Texas. Made a whole lot of sense. Well, let's look here. And so we did. And this property is available. And the state and the county and the offer afforded us was what we thought was a great offer. And so we entered into an agreement with the owner of the property, which is the city of Rock Hill. And we've kept our mouth shut about it. And there's been no other people to call us because they don't even know about it until after tonight. So there's no other states can call us until after tonight. And on that, I do need to say this to the council members. This is a new process. tonight. And Julie Cox called me several weeks ago and said, you know, let's make this thing public before we record. So that public really has a chance to hear from hear from us, the company representatives, because we're not we're proud of our company. And I hope you know, hope after the night you guys are, but The ball started by Chairlady Cox to get that ball rolling. And so because of that, we're here this evening.

So I didn't want to say that.

But so while York County, again, the discussions were very favorable about the property and about the benefits from the state and the local community. And we just felt that after having some early discussions that we really can work with these people. And I hate to say this is personal, but to Allison and I, this is personal. So we hope that you see it that way as well. uh... and we are going to be we are we are going to be a good neighbor a good partner uh... we're going to be involved in the community as mister margaret insists uh... and have to insist very hard we want to be become part of the fabric of this community and i think you'll be you'll be happy that that we are There are all kinds of collaborations that can be brought to bear. The STEM education, local colleges, York Technical is great. There's a ReadySC program that can actually train. The community is willing to set up an actual training center to provide the specific training that our operators are going to need. That's going to be invaluable to OctoPharma. And we really appreciate that that benefit is being offered to us. And we know life sciences is important. It's a great business. York County can, I think they can, they'll be able to gin up other life sciences companies as a result of this. And finally, long-term commitment. Now let me tell you what long, no, man, I gotta go to another picture. Yeah, okay, here we go. Long-term commitment. Let me tell you what long-term commitment means to us. Long-term commitment means to us that it's multi-generational. And that's not just a word. Because if you look at this, this is a potential rendering. Our property won't look exactly like this, but it's laid out as a possibility. you go to the edge of the green there not all the way all the way to the edge we see a little line coming down and right below that pond across that way and our property goes all the way to the interstate interstate's about 100 yards to the left so this this thing you see on the left all the way to the left that's that's a parking deck one of these days we will do that 1,500, 1,200 employees there, something like that. But we want to build that in due course to support the manufacturing, the lab, all the support buildings. But long term to us, excuse me. Long term to us is not just to absorb the production capacity that we're going to build here in this 10 years. We're going to build about 3.5 million liters of production capacity. Now, compared to where we are today, that's about another one-third of our total worldwide capacity we're going to add here. So you might be asking yourself, well, Barry, if you continue to grow like you have been, what are you going to do when you maximize that? Well, you see the green spaces up there? We've got enough green spaces up there to double that manufacturing capacity. So we can go a second generation. I don't know how long it'll take, 10, 15 years, and then we go for another 10, 15. I can't predict all that. But we have intentionally, we call it our forever home. It's our forever U.S. home. We're not gonna be looking anywhere else, nowhere else in the U.S. are we gonna be looking for any place.

for a long time to come.

We want this to be our forever home. And for more information, and I know this, that link is already live. If you have other, for more information, you can email PalmettoRock at OctoPharma.com. PalmettoRock, one word, all one word, at OctoPharma.com. And that email address is live now. I would ask if there's any questions, but I know I can't do that.

Well, I will add one thing to what Barry said. The laboratory that we will be putting at this facility as well is a duplicate of the laboratory that we already have in Charlotte. This is the testing, as I mentioned in the slides, I think I can go back, in the slides on the When we test each unit of plasma today, we are in step two there. All of the testing is coming to the Charlotte laboratory. We will keep that laboratory in that building, but we need, because of our volumes and because of the increase of our volumes around in the US, we will build a second lab here. So again, this laboratory is second to the Charlotte laboratory. This is not a laboratory of, it's not a research laboratory. I want to clarify.

Good point, good point. What she said, it's not a research laboratory.

It's the laboratory for number two, the safety of the testing of the plasma. Yes. Okay. I'll put this back up. Yeah. There we go. All right.

Mr. Pomeroy, Alice, we do appreciate you being here. And I know it's extremely important for our community that there be greater transparency, especially when it comes to the issue that is before this council, which includes philos, which are statutory provision that we have to navigate here as a council. I'm very much thankful to you and to your organization for sharing that information with the public and for making yourself available to the community to answer the questions. I mean, I think what folks want to be able to do is to ask those questions publicly to get those answers on the record and to feel comfortable with a business that's coming into the community, and we appreciate you doing that. Before we open up public hearing, I will ask if there are any questions from council to staff before we do that. And I'll just go ahead and put a couple of things out there. I think you've addressed them, but I think it's important. Some questions that we're getting is, is there any potential for biohazard or chemical exposure to anyone who lives around the surrounding area from the business that you'll be doing?

No, there is not. No, there is not.

Any other questions that council has either for them or for Mitch? And our economic development director has shared a lot of information at first reading that deals with how philo agreements are done. And so I encourage folks who had not seen that, I think he's done a good job of doing that. Is there any questions before we open up the public hearing?

I'd first like to say thank you all. I say this is the information you shared tonight is critical. Again, with the crowd that's here and hearing it, I said this is what it's all about is that communication. So we appreciate that immensely. Thank you. Secondly, I just want to say that, you know, from a job perspective, you know, when you look at 1,200 new jobs in the area, It's a, it's a cyclical process because what you're going to also attract, as you mentioned, is phenomenal. Can you give me an example though of some of the business you've attracted in your work to have come in to support y'all?

I'll start. Well, certainly medical supplies. We've been able to, we attract companies who provide medical supplies. We have two large medical suppliers that are our partners today. Soft goods, that's in our business.

Yeah, component, yeah.

Yeah, other component items that we use that are more generic, not specific to plasma manufacturing. So there's all kinds of supplies because to support a business at 3.5 million liters, it's gonna take a lot of things that aren't around normally to come to the community, Mr. Audet.

Thank you very much, I appreciate that, thank you.

Any other questions before we open public hearing?

I want to make a comment real quick. I want to say thank you for being here also and thank you for being open to the process of coming forth at second reading, making the public aware. That means a lot to us and the community. I know when you and I met, Barry, we talked about that multiplier effect. People sitting here may not know about that multiplier effect. And we framed it when you and I was talking, we used the reference or the analysis of car manufacturers, how when BMW came to the state, how several feeder businesses located around the Greenville, Spartanburg area to help bring stuff in to BMW. Can you explain to the public what you see that multiplier effect being in terms of whether it's number of jobs, number of companies, how will your company be located here have that extra effect to bring others like you just touched on?

Well, I mean, I've done my own research into that. I mean, it's a bit unofficial, but my research said one to two times the number of employees we bring will be the benefit here. But Mr. Miller has done a more specific research and indicated it would be at least 1,000 new jobs. And so I can't really identify exactly what those would be, but it just seems to make sense. that if a company with a capital investment of 1.5, I mean, I interrupt myself to say this, even during the construction phase of this, which will take about 10 years to fully complete it, now we'll have some portion of it up and running long before that, but just imagine the construction economy is going to be affected by this. And so that's just one thing right off the bat, that once we get started, and we'll start just as quickly as we can. A lot of design work has to happen, but we'll certainly be turning dirt in, I probably should, should I go ahead and say it? 2027, we should be turning dirt out there.

Sorry, Mr. Miller, I didn't mean to.

Part of my day job to look at things like that, so it's probably easier for me to answer. Typically, the way we look at that, it could be suppliers that come in to support their operations. We talk about additional manufacturing. You gotta think about 1,200 employees that need a place to eat, need a place to buy gas. They're gonna support small business. You'll see more small businesses in and around that area start to pop up. That would be a direct impact from the people that go to work there every single day. I think you'll see other things tied into additional offices being attracted in, maybe from different sectors, this being part of that research part. I think also too, you all have heard about Novant Health coming in. You're gonna see more healthcare related industries probably look directly at that site and in and around the I-77 corridor as well. As we look at that, the primary factor there is is that we're looking for high quality jobs for the residents of York County, diversifying our tax base in a more effective way. Y'all probably have seen a lot of distribution, things along those lines. The hope is to start attracting more businesses that are going to have higher wages and really have a greater impact to the citizens of this community.

And I want to make one more quick comment. I know when Barry and I met, we were talking about the life science. And he referred to what their business does is life saving. So I thought that, and that stuck with me after we parted ways.

Thank you very much, Mr. Roddy. Thank you.

Any other questions before we open public hearing?

I'll just make a quick comment. Really thankful for the South County Department of Commerce for helping negotiate this deal. And you guys, considering York County is home for your headquarters and your manufacturing and your labs, that's great. It's gonna be wonderful for us. It's gonna have a significant impact on our tax base, which is a good thing, right? After Act 388, we need all the industry coming in that we can that's the type of industry we want. And you all fit the mold with the number of employees and your average compensation that you pay your employees. So we're appreciative of that. Connecting in the community, it was good to hear that you are community partners, and we validated that through our due diligence process, so we're excited to have you guys as partners in the community. That's critically important. And then last, with education, from Winthrop to Clinton College, York Tech, and even the school district, I'm guessing, and this will be a question, I'm guessing that you all will engage with them for internships in positions at OctoPharma? Yes, sir, absolutely. OK, that's great. Thank you.

All right, thank you very much. We will now open the public hearing. If there is anyone here who wishes to speak against this item before council, if you'll please come forward and give your name and address.

My name is Steve Penland, and I live in York County on Campbell Road. I'd like to speak out against the second reading of the authorization of the execution and delivery of a fee in lieu of ad volumar tax and incentive agreement by the York County and Project Palo Alto Rock. First, we have not yet learned, until tonight, York County residents know in advance of the first or second reading the name of this company. If known, residents could check out the company to see if they felt that it was a good fit for our county and avoid the fiasco that has come about with Steel Fab and Data Center under construction. Second, what kind of tax break are you giving this company to locate in York County? I hope it's not like the data center under construction, which received a reduction from 10% to 4% with an additional 35% tax credit for the first five years. That took them to a 2.6% tax rate versus the residential rate of 4%. Third, the company's employees will demand a great community to bring their families to live in. York County has that. and will be an asset to the company in recruiting quality employees. That's the reason the company chose York County and not because of the tax incentive. Quality employees make the company profitable and grow, not tax incentives. York County has so many advantages of the other states and South Carolina counties that companies want to locate here. Don't think that you have to offer tax incentives to attract companies. They want to come to York County. Thank you.

Anyone else? I'm going to go ahead and ask folks, typically I do this at the outset of any public hearing. I'm going to ask that when folks come up and speak that we be respectful of them, that we not talk in the gallery, that we not make comments in the gallery, that we treat these four walls with respect and everyone. It takes some courage to get up and to speak, whether there's folks that agree with you or don't. So I'm going to ask that folks refrain. This is not a rally. Refrain from If you want to show your support and say you're here with a group of folks and say, hey, if we think the same, will you please stand up? We can recognize you that way. But it's really important that we keep this room safe for anyone who wants to come and speak. And so I'm going to ask that you all work with me to do that. So is there anyone else who wishes to speak against this item? We're in support of the state. Well, I don't mind doing that if that helps folks. Mr. Penland got up and spoke. If there are folks that agree with his position, will you please stand? I think we need to hear more.

This is the starting point.

We can't have comments coming from the, if you wanna get up and speak, you're more than welcome to speak. That's what the public hearing is for and it won't capture your comments if you aren't standing in front of the microphone. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak against this FLO request? I wanna make sure Overflow has had a chance. Is Mark over there? OK. All right. Not seeing anyone else stand up to speak against, is there anyone here who wishes to speak in favor? If you will come forward and give your name and address.

Good evening to council. It's great to see you. My name is Stacy Moore and I serve as president of York Technical College. I personally live at 1931 Hayes Drive, but I'm employed at 452 South Anderson Road at York Technical College. It is great to be here tonight. And as you know, for more than 60 years at this point, York Technical College has connected people to opportunity and employers to talent. Our dedication to this mission remains steady as our communities evolve and economic development evolves, and tonight you're seeing evidence of growth and evolution. We take pride in being a cornerstone of higher education in our community, and we are uniquely qualified to serve as the region's workforce innovation hub, a hub where industry, education, technology, and talent come together to power economic growth. Our data backs this up, as you well know. We develop talent, bottom line. And that talent enables industry, communities, and individuals to thrive in our communities. We work closely with our employers. We'll do so with OctoPharma. And we do that to understand the workforce needs and develop training pathways or evolve training pathways that then transform students into highly paid and successful employees. As life sciences has emerged as a strategic priority for the state of South Carolina, as an intentional strategy in York County and in Rock Hill, We have been working hard. We have been researching, studying, and preparing for months to meet the workforce needs that accompany the growth that OctoFarmer will bring and that we know additional life sciences companies will bring as we will create an ecosystem for the life sciences that will attract more and more companies. As you all know, workforce readiness begins long before a company opens its doors. After months of that research and preparation, we've already created two pathways to address the workforce needs of the life sciences sector and meet the region's growing needs for professionals in bioprocessing, in pharmaceuticals, and generally in life sciences manufacturing. First pathway is a laboratory pathway, which has multiple stackable credentials. The second one is a biopharma manufacturing pathway, also with multiple stackable credentials. As you all live here and are as proud of York County as I am, you know that York County is emerging and in many ways has already emerged as a center of excellence for healthcare and advanced manufacturing and is certainly poised to do so for the life sciences. We are ready to develop the talent at York Tech that strengthens our own communities and creates opportunities for generations to come here at home. It's our responsibility, in fact, to ensure that our residents have the skills and the credentials and the opportunities to participate in this incredible future right here at home. We've made some strategic investments to make this happen and to meet the needs of this evolving workforce. We have a major campus expansion that will serve as a comprehensive hub for health sciences education and for life sciences training. It will, in fact, be the first life sciences training center in the state of South Carolina. It'll be a regional center that serves all of York County and beyond. It's a place where, for example, we will continue our powerful career and technical education dual enrollment pathways that will serve and give students from the Rock Hill School District and from every single school district in York County and Chester County and in Lancaster County opportunities to be present and to work and understand how these processes work. and to earn those, get that head start for college credentials, the kinds of college credentials they will need for these 1,200 high-paying jobs. This is a huge investment by the state and by York Tech to meet the comprehensive and very specialized training that is needed for this company. And most importantly, we are in that location is fondly, we fondly refer to as York Tech West, but you all know it as the Business Technology Center. We closed on that property last Thursday, so we are very excited. We are working with our amazing partners in York County, education partners, business partners, community leaders, to ensure that we're building a life sciences ecosystem that, frankly, will compete with the likes of the Research Triangle and the Houston Life Sciences ecosystems, all for the benefit of the communities that we serve, as you all do. Thank you. I appreciate your time.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else who wishes to speak in favor? If you see someone leaving and you want to speak, please come forward.

Thank you, Council Members. I'm James Chappell. I'm the President and CEO of SCBIO, the South Carolina Life Sciences Trade Association. I personally live in Greenville, but we are a statewide organization and have employees in the York County area. And I just want to say that we are absolutely thrilled about the potential of this project. Life Sciences, other people have mentioned, is a top priority. for the governor, for the state, for commerce. We're one of the fastest growing life science ecosystems in the country statewide. We've grown over 80% in life sciences jobs in the past decade. And as we saw earlier, these jobs are high paying. This one is even higher paying than the average of 102,000 that we see statewide for life sciences. And it's just such a tremendous opportunity to create wealth across all kinds of different people in the area. From the technical colleges that we just heard from, there's going to be a massive amount of two-year degrees and certificates that are needed, all the way up to, obviously, four-year and even PhDs. So not only does it create great jobs, it creates great jobs across a whole host of different areas and education levels. And this is exactly all the growth that I've talked about. This is exactly the kind of thing that we need to do to show people across the country who are just learning about South Carolina and the life sciences. This is such a big project with such a well-known company that's been around for such a long time. This will put South Carolina more on the map and more specifically York County. I guess like a lot of other people have mentioned, as we know, companies like to cluster around other companies. That training center will bring a lot more companies to this area. As much growth as we have in other parts of the state, Rock Hill and York County is really suited because of the location to the airport, because of the proximity to Charlotte, the interstate, the Pearl, all the way down to University of South Carolina, that 77 quarter. This is a game-changing, wealth-building, multi-generational project that we're talking about. And the last thing I'll point out, you know, I know there's been some safety concerns. Obviously, they've been doing this for a long time right down the road in Covington, Georgia and right outside of Raleigh. There's two very, very similar manufacturing doing the same type of work. One of them has been there for 40 years, and I don't think there's ever been any issues with safety or or anything else. So right down the road in Georgia and North Carolina, very similar size and very similar manufacturing processes so I'll just add the life-saving piece we couldn't be more excited and proud to say a company like this that not only does it create great jobs but to know that we are I'm doing something in South Carolina and specifically in this case in York County to save and improve lives across the country and across the world so thank you for your time thank you sir

Madam Councilwoman, Council, Robert Alexander. I live at 1818 Bonita Road right on the lake. I'm also the chairperson of the board of the Rock Hill Economic Development Corporation and retired from as the managing director of Coroplast Tape Corporation right on Galleria Boulevard. One of the things I wanted to mention is I also do site selection work as a fractional CFO. and so I understand a lot about incentives and the reason why we have to do FLOs here in South Carolina, especially in York County. Safe Corporation received a FLO, and without that, we would not have come here. So we grew from 20 million in revenue to about 125 million in revenue, from about 15 employees to 120, excuse me, 200 employees. We extended our field a couple of times through the benefit of Coroplast and that kept us here rather than going somewhere else. So with that, the reason for the incentives for the taxes is that South Carolina tax structure for businesses is not competitive. We have low cost of living and low property taxes for residents, but extremely high property taxes for businesses. And so I believe it is necessary to be able to be more competitive with those other places, especially in the southeast, to offer FELO programs. So with that said, I mean the vision for this site, this is exactly the type of project that we had for the site, and the city did too. It has great jobs, great investment, corporate citizenship, which I feel is very important. And it's an industrial area. There's no schools anywhere near it. The closest resident is 1,600 feet away. It's right in the dense area of the community. And therefore, I think it was a good fit. Once again, it's heavily regulated by the FDA. And having worked for a German corporation, I understand completely how operating in Germany and Europe and how strict they are on environmental things as well as health and safety. They're way more strict than we are here in the States. And so I think that with their knowledge, I believe they'll be able to replicate that here. But one of the things I wanted to mention is that we hope that the property tax benefits, which some estimate to be $324 million, that there's probably 60 some odd percent of that goes to schools. And then the other entities should retain their percentages of that. And I think that is a gift that we'll keep on giving. Um, and so I certainly appreciate your time today. I wanted to keep it short and, uh, wanted to say that, uh, I stand for this, uh, this, uh, philo and for this recruitment and RGDC does too. I was talking to Dean, uh, fail a little bit earlier and Dean's right here from the chamber. He said he expressed his, um, support for it as well. And I wanted to thank you all for letting me get up and speak today.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Council. My name is Dugan Meredith, and I represent Palmetto Cabling Solutions, which is based at 649 Sail River Road in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which will be approximately about one mile away from this proposed site. As a small business located here in York County, and as someone who has performed work and partnered with other pharmaceutical companies in the past, I want to express our strong support for welcoming OctoPharma to Rock Hill. We also recognize and respect that early stage that early stage announcements like this are sometimes handled carefully for planning and security reasons, and we appreciate being here today as the project is officially shared with the community. An investment of this scale in the creation of more than a thousand jobs is a meaningful win for our community, and we appreciate the commitment expressed tonight to become a strong local partner. As this project moves into the construction and build-out phase, we hope and encourage OctoPharma to utilize local contractors, trades, and small businesses whenever possible. From experience, engaging local resources creates immediate economic impact, strengthens the local business community, and helps ensure projects of this size are successful for our community from day one. We're grateful for the investment in York County and look forward to seeing this grow, and we'd welcome the opportunity to support those efforts in any way we can as the project develops. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Pickleball is orthopedic's dream. My name is Chip Hutchison, and I am a neighbor of this property. I think I might be, Robert said somebody's 1,600 feet from, I guess he's talking about me. But I can see that OctoPharma can be a household name in York County. I see the little soccer teams out there with the OctoPharma t-shirts. So it's very exciting, and my family is in favor. But a question that Bump asked about businesses around it, real quick, quick history lesson. In 1880, the very first steam-powered factory, a textile mill that was in Rock Hill called the Rock Hill Cotton Factory. Within 20 years before the beginning of the 20th century, there was 10 other factories. and the little village of Rock Hill grew to be the city that it has blossomed to become today. So it sounds like to me that there's very possibility that all of this, what this could really spark something exciting like that. But I'd like to, we all know about the recent history of this property, but there's more to this property. There's some older history. My family has been on this property for seven generations. My family settled here when the Scotch Irish migrated down the Great Wagon Road at Nation Ford Road. So we settled in the Revolutionary War time, and we've been there ever since until some guy from the NFL wanted to buy the property. We were there when the railroad came in 1852, and look what happened there, the commerce that generated there. We were there in the early 70s, and I was a kid that played on the construction site of I-77. Look what's happened since on that corridor. So it's got a huge, it's a very historic location, and it's an ideal place to have something significant. And I listened closely and I took some notes. 1.5 billion investment in York County. Wow. 1,200 jobs plus 300 corporate jobs to be relocated. That's a new one on me. It's clean and safe. My wife and I wanted to make sure we heard about what the outcome would be, and that's important. But the rough average is $100,000 per person, a rough average salary per year. That's amazing. So back in 2019, that property was owned by the family, the Hutchinson family. It was a family partnership, three generations, four different families. My dad was kind of the partner, general partner. And he finally made the call to develop it with a warehouse group who was going to build warehouses out there. 30 days after he signed the contract, David Tepper came a knocking. And my dad did not want to go back on the original contract from the warehouse because he was a man of his word. It took John Gaddis to come and sit down with my dad and tell him that this opportunity was a generational opportunity to benefit the whole region. So my dad agreed to allow that conversation to happen, and y'all know the rest is history, good and then bad. But my point is this, a generational opportunity to benefit the whole region, We've been waiting to find out what is going to happen. And I feel like OctoPharma is going to be that. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else?

Good job, Chip.

He deserves a round of applause just for getting up here and back. Now Dean. Sorry. So Dean Fail, chamber president, York County Regional Chamber, and also president and CEO of the York County Chamber Foundation. I asked Robert to point out that the chamber is very supportive of this. I'm glad it was also pointed out that in the state of South Carolina, fee and lose are just a way that we have to do business to be competitive with our neighbors in North Carolina and Georgia. It's a fact of life, especially with Act 388. And our school districts certainly benefit most from this tax revenue because our personal home property taxes, while we enjoy a low personal home property tax rate, it does not go to pay for school operations. And those schools that need to be built for the children that we have in there, those school districts need that revenue that this taxes will bring in. So I appreciate that. Lastly, I will say and commit that through our chamber foundation, Celeste Tiller could not be here. She's at the University of Georgia doing some training this week. Many of the programs we have in the lift initiative will support this through the health science sector strategy work that we do. The working with our middle schools, our high schools, creating work-based learning opportunities, career awareness planning, we'll all work real closely with OctoPharma to make those jobs that are available there to our students locally. So thank you for consideration and thank you for this opportunity tonight, Madam Chair.

Thank you, sir. Does anyone else wish to speak in favor before we close the public hearing?

Move to close. Second.

We have a motion.

Can I speak?

Sure. You need to stay at the podium because folks can't hear you in the overflow. I'm so sorry.

They did give me a thing.

I know you were walking around before, but I've now been told that people can't hear you. There you go.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair Lady. I appreciate that. We've thrown around a word tonight. Plasma manufacturing is called fractionation. It's probably not a word any of you are familiar with. It's kind of a technical word. maybe even a clinical word, but to us, it's anything but clinical. Because with every product we make, there's a life that hangs in the balance. And when our products leave here, going to hospitals all over the world, York County's name is going to be attached to them, too. And whether it's a mom taking care of a child who now feels a little bit better because the therapy works, or whether someone's won the fight against cancer, or maybe somebody's got a bleeding disorder but finally for the first time feel like they can lead a normal life. Or think of the immunodeficient child who for the first time can go play with his or her neighbors. York County will be just as much responsible for that as the department is. And under your all's leadership, yeah, we'll be creating a lot of jobs. But more importantly, you're going to be a part of creating lifelines. And it's not just fostering economic development. We're talking about improving the lives of millions of people every year and saving the lives, actually saving the lives of thousands. I mean, the products we make, they're not what you'd call lifestyle products. They're life-extending, life-saving products. So our humble ask is that you would join us in that, that you would believe that science and compassion can live side by side. Because if we work together at this, we're not just going to be building, we don't want to build just a facility, but we want it to be a beacon where healing can begin. And we ask that you join us there, because together we can save lives. So thank you very much. And the very last thing I would say is that after there's a vote, Alice and I will excuse ourselves in the foyer. So if there are those here that you're here just for the plasma thing, then We'd love to at least meet you. We're not going to do any kind of debate, but we'd love to meet you, whether you spoke out for or against, because we hope in just a very few weeks we can not just be acquaintances, but we can start a long partnership toward making this thing a reality and improving the world. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Seeing no other folks moving, do we have a motion to close?

Motion. Motion to close.

Second. Motion and a second to close public hearing. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the public hearing is closed. Do we have a new motion?

Motion to approve second reading of Project Palmetto Rock and its affiliated and related entities as presented to us tonight.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion?

You second?

First of all, when we have companies such as this coming into the area, I think the transparency is critical. And I think tonight it was on display, and we greatly appreciate that. The ability, as you mentioned, to save lives It's priceless. It's priceless, the opportunity that you're going to have for us to put a stamp on that as a community. So we appreciate it. So I'm 100% in support. I'm looking forward to having you in the community. I'm looking forward to a long future with you all. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yeah, I agree with everything that Councilman Odette just shared. I hate that Novant got ahead of you with an announcement the last couple of weeks, but what a great corporate partner I believe you all could be for York County, and the entities that will follow here in York County I think are going to be really important as well. You've kind of set the standard, and we're appreciative of that. Thank you.

I guess we'll just go down the line. As you probably can tell by the presentation, the head nod says on this council that there's a huge amount of support for this project coming to York County. Several people have come over the weeks and months and talked about and the jobs, and as we heard here tonight, what significant contribution this company intends to bring to our community in the form of those jobs. It was briefly touched on about the tax incentive or the property tax reductions or what we have to do to attract new business in this community to provide livable wages. As you heard tonight, these wages are well above the median income in our community. And that's a great welcome, because in a growing economy and an increasing cost-to-living economy, we want to bring these good-paying jobs. We want to bring companies that offer a good tax base for our city, for our county and our school district. And as much as we've talked about those things, We still have to get down to what the business part of what it looks like and what it's going to cost to bring this company here. You all have heard the term a fee in lieu of tax, and that's when we basically reduced the property taxes from 10%, and I think if I'm correct, this one's going to 4% or 6%. It's going from 10% to 4%. That allows this county to compete, to bring companies like Octo Farmer here to our community. Otherwise, they would have looked somewhere else. It gives us an opportunity to be competitive. And to be competitive with a $1.5 billion company coming to our community, that's huge. You may have heard in the past that our state has given up, I think it's approximately $65 million to help lure this company here to the state of South Carolina. And there's some business dealings that this county has been charged with when it comes to the fee in lieu. And part of that entails as to how this money or where this money is going to come from with the property tax reduction. And so as it stands right now, a fee in lieu across the board is the city gives up 50% of its tax revenue, the school district gives up 50% of its tax revenue, and the county gives up 50% of its tax revenue. And we all have sit here over the last several years and heard our school districts come and ask for impact fees. Clover's coming to ask for an impact fee. Fort Mill is coming to ask for an impact fee. York is coming to ask for an impact fee to help support their schools. And as we just heard, the chairman of the, I think the chairman or the president of the Rock Hill Chamber talked about how important these revenues are to our schools. If you look on your tax bill, the school district is the biggest recipient of your property taxes. The county is the smallest recipient of your property taxes. And so when we're doing these fee and lieu tax agreements, we take a huge chunk of money from our school system. So if you have the biggest dollar amount on the tax bill, and if you cut that by 50%, that entity gives up the largest percent of its money. If you have the smallest... item on the tax bill. When you cut that in half, which is us, we give up the smallest amount of tax dollars. And I've sit here for 15, 16 years and seen money that leaves our school system. And with the business of the day, we have to come up with a formula that supports our schools as well as be a part of the recruitment process. So at this time I'd like to make an amendment to the motion that we adjust those percentages so that we're not taking 50% from our school system. And so I have, I've worked with Mitch with Economic Development to come up with the new offering that we would like to move forward with our fee in lieu of tax agreement. And this is no surprise. When I met with Barry, I alluded to this action when I met with him, so this is not out of the blue, no surprise to the company. It doesn't change the amount of money that the company is going to receive in the property tax reduction. It just shifts where this money is going to come from. And so he and I said we met almost two hours before you know it. We were talking about our families and things of that nature. So at this time, I'd like to make an amendment to the motion that we reduce the Rock Hill School District's portion of the fee in lieu from 50% to 31.9%, remain 50% for York County, and from 50% to 100% for the city of Rock Hill. I'd like to make that in the form of a motion that we adjust these fee and lieu tax percentages to fit as such. Second.

I'm not open to amending the motion.

We have a motion and a second on an amendment. Just to clarify, we may need some help from Mitch and from others. As I understand the motion, the motion is to amend the internal allocation of the funding. It is not to change the funding mechanisms that have been negotiated with the business owner. I think now we have to.

But it is counter to my motion. Because my motion was to accept. Motion is to approve. Second reading. And this is how the amendments are done.

You can always offer an amendment. I'm not open to an amendment. It's not whether you're open to it. A motion has been made for an amendment, and it's been second. So that amendment is on the table. Can we get a legal ruling?

The amendment is, this is the only way to allow the amendment, so we have to debate the amendment now to determine whether or not to proceed with the amendment. Either the amendment is approved or it fails. Right.

Yes, so the amendment itself will be discussed, voted upon, and then you would go back to the main motion.

Thank you. And I'd like to point out, that I know that's how it works, because I've been here as long as I've been here, and some of you new guys coming along think you know the process, but here's the process, this is how it works. Thank you. Experience speaks for itself. So the reason why I'm pointing, the reason why I'm looking to do this is because we've, constantly taking money out of our school systems. We've had, like I mentioned earlier, Clover School District has come asking for help with funding their schools. Fort Mill has come to ask for help with their schools. York has come to ask for help for their schools. Fort Mills impact fee now is about $31, $32,000 per new construction home. the city of Rock Hill and the Rock Hill School District has not come to this body to ask for help with building and running their schools. We put a similar deal in place, a similar fee and lieu tax agreement in place when we recruited and landed the Costco's deal. This council by majority passed that agreement. We sent it to the city of Rock Hill and they voted on it. So whatever we decide to do here tonight still goes to the city of Rock Hill. They can accept it or deny it. So this is not pulling the rug out from under anybody. They still have a say in what they're gonna do with it. And I remind this council, We heard Mr. Hutchinson mention about the situation that was present several years ago when the city of Rock Hill was willing to give 100% of their taxes to the Carolina Panthers to land that deal. This is the same deal that's on the table today for them as it was with the Panthers coming to Rock Hill. We're not doing anything different than they haven't agreed to four or five years ago. With Novant Health, which is a non-profit, they're going on the same site. Novant non-profit doesn't pay any taxes to the school system, they don't pay any taxes to the city of Rock Hill, they don't pay any taxes to the county. So the city is still in the same boat as if this was the Carolina Panthers bringing their training facility. We're not asking for anything other than what has already been agreed to for this property. Now, if a company locates there that doesn't ask for a fee and lieu tax agreement, Everybody gets their full slate of taxes. The county gets its full slate, the city gets its full slate, and the school district gets its full slate. The premises of adjusting these percentages is to make sure that we continue to support our schools. We heard how valuable York Tech, Clinton College, Winthrop University, and our high schools will play a major part in funding, or play a major part in providing workforce to get these jobs. It's asinine that we don't continue to support our schools as much as we can to continue to educate our kids so that they can get these $100,000 jobs. Because the worst thing that we can have happen is our Rock Hill School District comes before us and say, we need help with building and funding our schools. We've seen it in Clover. We've seen it in Fort Mill. We've seen it in York. This is a way, and this is a way to support our school system, this is a way to recruit businesses, as well as the city of Rock Hill is not walking away empty-handed. They're selling this property, they're gonna sell water, they're gonna sell sewer, they're gonna sell electricity. to each and every company that comes to this property. We don't have a way to recoup what we're about to give up. The school system doesn't have a way to recoup what it's about to give up. And we're talking millions of dollars. So this is a way to support our schools, recruit good businesses, as well as allow Rock Hill to grow because Rock Hill sells a ton. Rock Hill's our regional water provider. Rock Hill's our regional utility provider. Rock Hill's our regional sewer provider. So this is not taking fully everything away from Rock Hill because Rock Hill was in the same boat as it was four years ago, five years ago, when the Panthers deal was on the table. They were set to offer up 100% of the fee in lieu of taxes to the Panthers to bring that business here. I'm putting, and this body is charged with structuring the deal to go to the city. The city doesn't call up us and say, do it this way, do it that way. York County is charged with structuring a fee in lieu of tax And like I said, I've been here for a while. I know how this process works. And I'm not doing anything illegal. I'm not doing anything immoral or unethical. This body has the right to do what I'm asking it to do. It's just whether my colleagues have the gumption to support our school systems. Because we voted for impact fees. We voted them up. We voted them down. So I'm asking my colleagues in this body to join with me and help support our Rock Hill school system because if this was in Fort Mill, I would say the same thing. If this was in Clover, I would say the same thing because we have to find ways to not script our school systems of every dime that we can. We can pass it at 50%. but that's not the right thing to do going forward, so. Madam Chair, Councilman Roddy, I won't hold your experience against you.

So impact fees, very quickly. So impact fees are issued when your school district is growing. I've spent first grade through 12th grade in the Rock Hill School District, support the Rock Hill School District financially, but The school district has not come to us for an impact fee because you have to have a growing population to qualify for an impact fee. They don't have a growing population, so they haven't been able to come to us and ask for an impact fee. That's why they haven't got the impact fee. Now to clarify a few things. So, yeah. Rock Hill School District is gonna collect 62% of the collected property tax revenue. City of Rock Hill gets 24% and we get roughly 14%. So they're already getting the lion's share of this. And I said this earlier, and this isn't being derogatory towards the school district or any school district, but the South Carolina Department of Commerce, York County and Rock Hill and other municipalities go out and find these businesses and bring them into York County. And as a result of that, the school district funds a lot of their budget out of the revenue created from these fee deals we do. So if it weren't for these fee deals that we're working on to bring into York County, they wouldn't have the revenue to drive their budgets. So I, for one, I mean, the math I did before with our director of economic development, in the fifth year, the Rock Hill school districts will be collecting over $5 million a year from this deal. We're getting less than a million. So we're getting the short end of the stick, because we don't pick up a 14% of their revenue. I'm not opposed to supporting the Rock Hill School District, but I'm not in favor of supporting it this way. I can't do that. And that's consistent with how I voted consistently since I joined council four years ago. So I cannot support taking money away from Rock Hill and giving it to the Rock Hill School District. Now I have three questions to ask. Has the Rock Hill School District sent a formal request to county management or our attorney asking us to do this tonight?

Not that you're aware of? We have not received anything formal from Rock Hill School District.

Has the Rock Hill School District Board voted in favor of this that you know of?

Not that I'm aware of, no.

So is it true that since this is in a multi-county industrial park, we could vote for this to happen, but the city of Rock Hill would have to agree to this because it's in a multi-county industrial park?

That is correct, so you can change the revenue distribution similar, and I'll use this as an example. When Costco located here, the distribution revenue did change, and the city of Rock Hill, since it was already within city limits, they had to vote to authorize that revenue distribution change, so they will have to vote on that. That is correct.

Yeah, so I apologize for that last differential in what you shared earlier. Four years of experience, I guess, but thank you.

Any other discussion?

Yeah, I'd like to just say I don't support reallocating these funds. Many of the reasons Councilman Huckabee already mentioned, you know, the school district can come and ask for more money. They didn't come up here and sit in front of us. They didn't send a letter. They didn't vote on anything. We're just throwing random money at them. Those other projects that were brought up, the Novant or the Panther site, The city made those decisions in part of the whole negotiation. The city hasn't made a decision on this. They haven't said that they're willing to give their money up and so we're gonna sit up here and put a poison pill into this project and gamble with it to try to kill it. If Rock Hill votes this down and this project dies, Rock Hill School District will get exactly zero tax dollars from the project. I would say that getting $30 million versus $40 million versus $0, I would take the 30 all day. I just can't imagine why we sit up here with the rules that the state gives us, with these high taxes, and we compete against all the other states. but now we're gonna turn around and we're gonna compete or blackmail or whatever our allies that we have in the county, why would they ever wanna have anything to do with us at any time? If I was them and this happened and I was spiteful, I'd put storage units on that thing, sure as the world, and everybody would get $100,000 each. and that would be all the taxes, and then the school would still be out of money, we'd still be out of money, but the city would be out of money. The other thing is, when we talk about them selling water and sewer and electricity, those are enterprise funds. Enterprise funds can't be used to fund anything except for the things that they're, sold for, which is water and sewer and electricity. They can't be used to fund fire department. They can't be used to buy school buses or activity buses or police cars or whatever. They are allocated specifically for those enterprises. So there's just no chance that I'm gonna vote for this. If the school comes up here and asks for the city to give their proportion away, that's fine, and the city agrees to it. But once this is done and we vote on it, it's over and we don't have another say to come back if the city decides they wanna do something else. And I just find this to be an inappropriate way to handle this type of funding.

Madam Chair. I need to make a correction. I need to make a correction. Since we asked have the school district sent a letter of support or denial, I want to ask county staff has the district sent a letter of support in the past of anything that we've done with a fee in lieu?

I was just answering the question. I hadn't received a letter related to this one.

So my question is, it's not a requirement for the school districts to send a letter for us to do to adjust these percentages. Am I correct? is not required that we receive a letter stating that they support or are against what we're asking to do.

There's no requirement.

OK. And I do want to point out that Councilman Litton pointed out that you can't use enterprise funds to do operational or buy police cars or pay salaries. Well, little do you know, with the experience that I have sitting up here, over the last 10 years, the city of Rock Hill has transferred over $100 million out of its enterprise fund to its general fund, which allows them to buy police cars, pay salaries. And that's on paper. This council has been made aware of those funds being transferred. So we can't sit up here and say that you can't use them. Rock Hill has devised a way that they can use them, and that's factual. And that's the only point I wanted to make, to refute those points.

Any other discussion?

Well, while we're at it, I will say that with the enterprise funds, the users pay the fees. So every water, sewer, electric user, the higher fees that come up because they aren't getting any tax revenue, if they're transferring money to the other departments, let's say they transfer $100 million. Those are paid by the user fees instead of by the company. So all of us out here that are customers of the city of Rock Hill, which includes York County and TK and Fort Mill and on and so forth, it gets water and sewer, you will all be paying for this tax reallocation.

So I do have one question bump, actually. Can you speak of those allocations one more time for me? Just repeat them real quick.

The percentages would be to reduce the Rock Hill School District's percent from 50% to 31.9%. York County will remain at a 50%. And the City of Rock Hill will be at 100% give up of their tax revenues from this property. And these are numbers provided by Economic Development.

So, you know, as we go through this process, and it's, you know, at least this happened on second reading, right? We've seen things happen on third reading, which, again, should have happened before first reading. But I think that, you know, as we go through this process, I mean, these discussions really need to have happened up front, prior to any readings that have occurred. You know, as I look at this here, I think that, Because it is second reading, I am contemplating on supporting this. I think that the school district is going to play a role to be a support, I think, for this company coming in. I think as we look forward, and we talked about that overall in the conversation. So I think that there's a real value in supporting our schools. I'm struggling with the timing of this, though, and this coming out. This conversation should have happened before first reading. This is my major concern.

I mentioned it at our last meeting.

Any other discussion?

I'm gonna support the schools. That's my decision. Plus, I did wanna say something about the process that we are looking at. You guys, I really, really support this as someone who has a husband who has donated plasma of his life and has had many encounters where he knew that his giving of his plasma saved lives and so this is now has become near and dear to me very so that's any other discussion

Yeah, I support the company also, and I think that it's also worth having the conversation with Raquel on it also.

So I'll start with my comments, and I haven't had a chance to speak about, you know, Octo Farmer. First of all, I think that this development fits very well with the vision and the objectives that the city of Rock Hill and the county have worked hard to come together on. We want to see quality investment at every exit, not just one exit. And that is my personal goal, is that we attract higher quality investment, not investment that can just come here by right and provides lower wages jobs. It does present, it's a difficult situation. I'm a staunch conservative, so when you talk about what's really in front of us tonight, it's a tax incentive. and I hate the word, I cringe at it, but as I have served on this council, I do believe that our economic development director that we have on board now is looking for developments that fit in well with our community, and is presenting options for us to consider that are competitive, that do not give away the farm, but that allow us to recruit business like this, a headquarters, that is going to fit in with the community, that the neighbors welcome, that is going to help us with life sciences, that is going to help us with our children to find better jobs, to get them boots in the ground from early education into being with these companies and growing with these companies. And I do think that the communications that I've had With mr. Pomeroy and with Alice that they have been forthcoming. They have been willing to come forward to the community There were a couple of folks that I felt like wanted more information This is second reading you have between now and third reading to ask any questions you want to ask to get that information Before third reading and to reach out to your council members if there are issues I have asked the hard questions some of the crazy questions that have come across. Well, they're not crazy sometimes, you know, they are they're We want to make sure there's no biohazard exposure. We want to make sure that there's no chemical here that's going to expose our surrounding community. We want to make sure that we're not testing on animals and killing animals next door or inviting viruses over. I've heard that one too. So I think to those who are here who were concerned, you have time before July 13th to ask the questions. They've made themselves available to answer them. Take advantage of that. Reach out to your council members if you don't have any other questions. But I will tell you, what I hear from this entire council is that we support unanimously this project. We think that this is in line with what the community wants. The issue that has been brought up as an amendment has solely to do with internal... how to measure the property taxes that will be generated amongst the varying political, I mean, governmental parties. And I am, I do have some concerns that we need to be careful with the Rock Hill schools. They do have one of the highest free and reduced lunch rates uh... rates they are the only school district that's been subjected to tips where the funding has been taken from the schools and put into development projects within the city uh... others have not others other school districts have not had to do that. There also is a lot of funding has gone into this particular parcel. We're excited about Novant coming, but as a non-profit, they do not generate any property taxes, which means the school will not have property taxes from that. So I do think that it is important to make sure that we support our schools. And one of the biggest things that Rock Hill Schools is looking at spearheading, and they've already been transparent with us, and they've already gone to the state to request funding for an ATC program. I heard it referred to as an ATC on steroids. And this is going to... That program has more kids than they can serve. And we need to serve all of our community. We need to help our kids find jobs. We need to help them. And we need to help our Rock Hill schools. So I do think that we still have another reading. I'm not sure that number that number that's been proposed is is what was presented and what was approved with the partial of the Panthers project. So I would think that would be that there would be receptiveness to that. So I will support the amendment on that. But I think what's important is for this community to see that this entire council is supportive of this project. And it's the internal component of that that is the part that's gotten much of the debate today.

Madam Chair, before we, one comment.

Sure.

I think it's important for this audience and everybody listening We do support the full school districts. And I'm not going to vote for this, but that doesn't mean that I don't support the school district. I do. The other thing is that you would think in personal life and in business, if you're going to propose something like this, It seems like the school district would have a conversation with the city of Rock Hill. Wouldn't you think that? That's what I would think. That would be the thing, the proper way to handle this, is to have a conversation. Coming to us and asking us to make a decision on behalf of the school district that takes all the property tax dollars away from the city of Rock Hill, is not the right way to approach this. But that's why the county's relationship with the city of Rock Hill is strained for decisions like this, and it'll continue to be that way. And what should be happening here in this county is we should be working strategically with every strategic partner in this county, all nine municipalities, all four school districts. We should be working together. But what are we doing tonight? We're tearing the rest of the bridge down. We should not be doing that.

couldn't disagree more I think that this this is a proposal that can be discussed at the city level and I do think that we've got to start looking out for our schools especially with the situation here and I do think that impact that we should That we have to we have to make those considerations. That's and if and if the city disagrees, I mean this is There this is the this is the vote on the amendment only all those in favor say aye Any opposed opposed? Motion carries 5-2. On the main motion to approve the FLO incentive as in full as recommended by the ED committee in terms of the total numbers, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We appreciate all the folks coming out on that matter and anyone else wishing to share information with council before a third reading, you can certainly do that via email and the property owner has made himself available to the community. Sure, we can do that too. Everybody in favor of this project, if you'll stand. Thank you very much. All right, I'm going to let folks clear out. We do have another two more items on the agenda.

Good night, Barry. Good night, Al.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you.

Well, you know, you know. Okay. No, I mean.

I'll professionally give it back to you.

I stayed at my points. That's all I did.

You think it's a good look for you to say those countless numbers that don't look the hell the same. You said two things were incorrect. What did I say? What did I say? What did I say was incorrect? Do we need to take a two-minute break? Two-minute break to let folks go to the restroom?

OK, we are back. And our next item is an old business item. counts to consider amending and second reading of an ordinance establishing a temporary moratorium for a period of nine months on the consideration or issuance of special exceptions or conditional use approvals on the acceptance of site plans and on all other land use or development approvals for data centers within the unincorporated areas of York County in order to provide an opportunity for the county to study and examine the impact of data centers on critical resources adjacent and nearby properties and or infrastructure, thereby enabling the county to properly amend the York County zoning and land use ordinances with regard to data centers to provide for extension of time by further resolution of the county council if after proper notification to council it determines that the extension is necessary to complete the studies or examinations contemplated herein to provide for a public hearing and to provide for other matters related thereto. Do we have a motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion and a second to approve. Any discussion?

Yeah. Well, you all want to start one end and work your way down? Or does it matter? You seem eager. You can go first. I do. OK. Man, I really thank you for reading that big long thing. I think it's so much longer every day. Anyway, the only question I really have in this ordinance is does it need some performance standards either under section two or section three? I know last time we discussed there needed to be four areas of research, and this one, it kind of leaves the open-ended, I didn't know if we needed some specifics in it that weren't in there. That's about the only thing I saw of question. I don't know, does that go to a, that's for staff? I don't know if that, yeah. Or is that for y'all?

Is that a question, I think you probably need to pose your question to, if you have a specific question.

Staff does, or maybe interim county attorney, does it need to have specifics under, I guess, section three, the staff direction during pendency of moratorium? or somewhere in this ordinance does it need to have the specifics of the four areas of study that we discussed?

So the areas of study, Some of those are laid out in that first section under the legislative findings, which is based on the feedback from the committee and the council discussion last time. So to the extent you want me to narrow that down, I'm happy to take direction tonight on that point and make those adjustments as I hear from you all tonight so that it can be prepared for third reading.

I didn't know if the legislative findings counted as the direction or if that was just kind of statements. If you feel like it's sufficient for.

I'm happy to extrapolate on some of those things that are in the legislative findings and include those in the staff direction for the third reading, absolutely.

Does that need to be a motion for an amendment or anything that we need to?

or I can simply take that direction, and it will be the same language, it's just kind of shifting where I'm putting that, so it's clear direction to staff for third reading.

I don't have a copy of the specific, I know we were given that, and I've looked at it when it was sent to us, but I don't have a copy of the ordinance itself, so I'm not sure what question we're asking, but as I understand it, this ordinance provides for a nine-month moratorium so that council can can continue to study the issues that have been raised, including those items that were enumerated. And to ensure that, basically we have subject matter experts advising us about data centers in general. I mean, that's what I understood we were doing. And to ensure that the pending ordinance would be, would have the correct information available.

So I'm not sure, Andy, is there a concern in what's been proposed? It was Section 3. The stuff's under Section 1. It's kind of in all the little things I was thinking it needed to be.

If I understood Councilman Litton correctly, he just wants to ensure that those legislative findings are also included in that direction so that those two things are directly flowing together. And that's certainly something that's easily amended.

because it's my understanding that a moratorium has to have specific requirements and not really open-ended. Maybe I've misunderstood that.

I mean, I'm personally comfortable with the way that the motion is drafted from legal, but if folks want to consider something different, then you need to consider a motion.

No, I think it's drafted fine.

I think, though, as you stated, you could take this as a step request directive, as you mentioned, to update it.

I'm fine with that too. Yes, sir.

I'll just make sure that that language is reflected in both places. I think Mr. Edwards and I are of the same understanding as to the direction, but I have no issue making that correction.

Yeah, sounds good. OK.

Yes, Mr. Ryan. This is directed towards county attorney. I know you and I had some conversations about how does this apply to the current project going on. Would you clarify for those sitting in the audience and those on council how this, if or will it apply to the current data center being built?

So the moratorium is meant to be broad, as broadly applicable as it can be. And so what you have when you're dealing with an ordinance like that is you run into things like vested property rights in South Carolina. So it is applicable to anything that does not have vested rights. And so then you're looking at what you mean by vested rights. and so if you have a property that is an active site and that site already has specific site plan approval to the extent that site plan approval constitutes vested rights the moratorium would not be applicable to something like that because your moratorium ordinance cannot run afoul of other south carolina law one more question could

the existing fee in lieu be considered a vested right?

That is a much more nuanced question and certainly would involve legal advice. We'll get that on the next one.

Yes, sir. Okay, thank you.

I support the moratorium for data centers in the future, since it doesn't apply to QTS. Second thing is that, one second, the more conversation I have on this, I don't know, the more I'm, I don't know, my eyes are open to considerations. I mentioned to you before, when I first started looking at this, I was looking for ways to apply any standards for data centers. But then I got to thinking, why are we singling out a data center? I think we should be considering any business that comes in the future that has an impact on our capacity. So I think while we're going through this exercise of a moratorium for data centers, we need to look at it for future businesses that we haven't even thought about. But look at their capacity. What I learned today though is that it's almost as if in this exercise we're going through, we should look at further look at pre-construction requirements, construction requirements, and capacity needs, short-term, long-term. And a lot of this has been addressed by the authorities that are providing the capacity needs. But I learned today, and I didn't know this, By QTS listening to the public, they've actually gone back and they were pouring concrete at night because they needed to give it time to cure. So because they were pouring concrete, it was loud at night. So they stopped pouring concrete at night. Now they're pouring from 6 AM to 9 PM, which is what the ordinance allows. Other things too, lights, lights are shining down instead of lighting up the sky and the neighbor's properties. And there could still be some light overflow. Backup alarms on any vehicle that's backing up was beeping, so late at night that's beeping, that's annoying, right? So they've changed that now, they don't have the backup alarms. My point is, there's a lot to be learned about not just the data center and what's going on in the construction of the data center. We can apply it to any industry that comes in here, right? So we're creating a standard and an ordinance for everybody, not just a one-off. But I mean, I almost support the moratorium, because we don't have anybody looking at a data center in York County as of right now. But we do need to not only think about the impact data centers have, but these future businesses as well. I mean, you can go online or go on AI, and you can research this and see what industries they say are coming in the next three, five, 10 years. And we're going to have this same issue, if not more. Thank you.

I DEFINITELY SUPPORT THE MORATORIUM. AS WE'VE GONE INTO THE LOOKING AT THESE DATA CENTERS, AGAIN, I THINK THIS IS AN ONGOING EDUCATION FOR NOT ONLY YORK COUNTY BUT THE WHOLE STATE. THERE'S A LOT OF WORK TO BE DONE IN UNDERSTANDING AND the impact in the process, et cetera. For the existing building, I would just, again, I think the communication between QT and the public is critical to have those conversations. Just continue to talk, continue to have those conversations. I can't stress it more. So thank you. Appreciate it.

I think the honesty that QTS can give the community is a critical part of this whole process. And made a suggestion that rather than a quarterly meeting, that they consider having a monthly meeting with the community. And it's just... going through situations that I have been through, I cannot stress enough the value in being totally transparent and honest with the community because we have very smart people out there in the community that have done their homework, they've done their research, and it's, It's gonna be very hard for things to happen or if you're trying to do something that you shouldn't be doing. So the moratorium for me is a pause to be able to make sure that we don't continue to make horrific mistakes, which we have made in York County recently.

Well, naturally, I support it. And like Tom said, not just state, but U.S. as a whole, this is probably the most heated topic that you'll find out there on the Internet the whole time, and it does branch a lot further than just store data, natural security, or anything. Matter of fact, you can find out more and more about it every day whenever you look into something. So I'll be supporting it.

Anyone else? I support the moratorium and I want to get some clarification. As I understand it, the council's request was to put in place the strongest moratorium that legal could put together. Is that what was done?

Yes, ma'am.

Can the council ban data centers?

No. No, the council cannot ban data centers in South Carolina. Items that are uses that are permitted in the state are just that. They have a right to exist. So an outright ban on a use that's otherwise allowed is prohibited.

There have been some comments that this doesn't apply to certain individuals. This ordinance applies countywide. Anyone who owns property, anyone, is subject to this ordinance, correct?

Yes. Unless a vested right has been established, this moratorium would be applicable to anyone who wanted to move forward with a data center as a use on their property.

And vested right is a legal terminology that means that you had to have gotten far enough along in the process. And one of your comments was a site plan. Is that one of the triggering factors to get closer to that? But it's a legal determination.

Yes, so did a lot of research in preparing this moratorium ordinance with the understanding that county council wanted this to have the broadest applicability that it could have that is also legally appropriate and the ordinance has been drafted in that way. Again, the only thing you run into is if someone is far enough along in their process that they have established vested rights and a specific site plan approval is one of those triggers to ensure that that person can essentially move forward with their development, then they have vested rights. Absent that, this moratorium ordinance is applicable.

So a property owner who owns land in the county who does not have a site plan, this moratorium applies to them?

That is correct.

There were some questions that were raised about process. Was the process followed throughout? I mean, it seems to me that this was discussed at committee stage. This was also then, it's been referred to planning and to the planning commission, even though moratoriums aren't required to do that as an added precaution. Has the process been followed in this instance?

The process not only has been followed, the County Manager and I have spoken about this a few times now, and what we wanted was to take the most cautious approach possible. So overabundance of caution, because the Planning Commission, who is not required to weigh in on a moratorium, because a moratorium, you are suspending a part of your ordinances that would otherwise be applicable. You're not amending them right now. You don't need the Planning Commission's recommendation to move forward with that. However, the Planning Commission was involved in the pending ordinance that had taken effect right before we started on the moratorium process. So out of an abundance of caution, we thought it's best to send this to those folks also, let them give any feedback they might have before we get the third reading.

And as I understand it, the philo question is being researched thoroughly by legal as well.

Yes, it is.

Thank you, ma'am.

Can I get some clarification? Sure. The first item to go back to banning, I guess, uses. Generally, as long as you are more restrictive and not less restrictive, on some laws. Does that not apply? We can't be more restrictive than the state?

You can be more. In certain things, yes, you can be more restrictive. In other things, the state preempts local government. And in baseline things, if you're talking about something that, I'm using baseline for lack of better phrasing, but they establish a baseline and you can operate from there, but it doesn't mean you can drop below that.

Right, not be less restrictive, but you could be more restrictive. So if they allowed 100 uses, you could allow 98 uses, maybe. You can think about it. I didn't wanna put you on the spot, I'm sorry. I thought it might be a little, I know for environmental laws and things like that, you can always have more stringent regulations. That's kind of.

Except if you are preempted, yes.

And then the last thing, the process, it was me, I questioned the process. And I found it interesting to have planning commission after second reading. So they're not required, but we feel like we should, allow them to have a say, but let's say they need another month to do more research because they actually feel strongly about it for some reason. Would that delay this or would we just ignore what they're asking for? I hate to waste somebody's time.

So I think this is more to get their sentiment on it and if they have things that they think are appropriate for consideration, certainly I would come back to county council with the county manager and present those things and you all could decide whether you wanted to amend this third reading to incorporate any of that or not. But this, a moratorium is different than the regular process of amending your ordinance because you're not getting into the nuance so much there. You are to an extent because you're studying things, but those are kind of broad categories. Public hearing and the planning commission, that is to get that sentiment and that feedback to make sure everyone's on the same page and for county council to be able to take it up in good faith at third reading and have those have those understandings.

OK.

So Laura, to put it in simple terms, we're putting a pause on it. And all eyes that can look at it, the better.

Yes, sir. I'm working with county management to put together a plan for how we're going to approach this thing over the course of nine months. And they've put a lot of work into that. And I think we will be ready for the polls and be ready for the studies.

I will just add that one of the things that makes this situation a little unique is that the state has done a lot of discussion about needing to regulate this at this stage. There is no regulation from the state and that also presents a unique reason why the council needs to take this action is to gather additional information. I would say that I am fully supportive of and intend to suggest to council at the next council meeting that we also look through the entire use table and identify any other industries that may fall within this category to determine if there are any issues that council, let's be proactive about this, and new technology types of things that may need a closer look since recode was adopted in full force. I think that's an area to take a look at. I fully support this, and I think it's warranted, and I think our community is asking for it. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion carries unanimously. The public hearing on that issue will be at the July 13th County Council meeting. We do have one other item tonight of new business. Council to consider approving the collection of cash surety bonds in order to complete the necessary road repair improvements associated with Bailey's Run subdivision phases four, five, and six. Do we have a motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? Mr. Edwards.

I just want to clarify real quick that we're asking for the surety bond at this point. We'll come back to council later for the acceptance of the roads. So that's going to be an additional item later in the process.

so i wanted to make sure that was clear for everybody just for purposes of my information this particular item was added to the agenda because as i understand a developer did not complete the requirements of the road within a subdivision and because of thankfully the changes in the ordinance that we made that required developers to post a bond this bond will be executed on so that the taxpayers are not funding the completion of the project that will be funded through the bond. And so this is something, the first step that we have to take in order to get that done.

Mr. Roddy?

I do wanna point out that after speaking to several people today with the county staff, is that this work now is supposedly, with the funds that's available, our county staff will I guess, contracted and do the work because I don't think the bond was large enough to go out to an outside contractor to perform it. Something similar to that.

We're actually going to be doing the work ourselves. Yes. That's what's going to be performing it. I think that's what I was saying.

All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Sorry, I didn't know y'all were continuing on. Motion carries. We're fine. We're fine. Committee and other reports, finance and operations. Chairman Tom on debt.

So June 15th, with Councilman Atkins and Councilman Roddy, we had a meeting for the Finance and Operations Committee. In that meeting, it was in essence approval of committee funds for allocations in multiple districts. So I'm just going to go through the district fund approval. In District 1, for greater things ministry, the amount of $1,000 was approved. for District 2. Project Safe PEP for the amount of $5,000 was approved. In District 2, Clover Area Assistance Center for an amount of $5,000 was approved. In District 2, Writable Therapeutic Writing Center for $8,000 was approved. In District 3, Jefferson Remembered was approved for $4,000. Again, in District 1, Blessed to be Blessing Outreach for amount of $1,000 was approved. In District 4, Greater York County Chapter of Ladies of Distinction for $2,000 was approved. District five, greater things of ministry in the amount of 2,500 was approved. District five, again, worthy boys and girls camp for 2,500 was approved. District seven, American Legion post 43 for 1,000 was approved. And lastly, District seven, Boy Scout troop 219 for $1,000 was approved. And that is it.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Do we have a motion for executive session?

Yes, I got two. Receipt of legal advice, legal matters litigation update, and then again, a receipt of legal advice consideration of settlement agreement for project 11149-014 track 97. Second.

Motion to second. All in favor say aye. Aye. We will go into executive session. We are out of executive session. No action was taken. Do we have any motions?

You have one motion. Motion to author a settlement agreement for project number 11149-014, track 97, as discussed in executive session.

Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned.