 All right. Good afternoon. Mr. Brennan, Mr. Rickerman here. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Present. Mr. Vines. Yes. Mr. Davis. Here. Mayor Benjamin. President Ma'am, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, well. Mr. McDowell, would you bless us with a word, please? Yes. Let's buy heads. Lord, we pause in the midst of this day and this time to ask your blessings upon those of us who have gathered. Gathered in a very virtual way, but gathered together to flesh out and to discuss those issues that are necessary. For this city of ours. Lord, we pray that you might touch and invigorate each one of us, allowing us to sense your presence and your guidance. We ask it. We claim it in the creator's name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Are there any amendments to the agenda as proposed? Yes, Mr. Duvall. Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, I move we adopt the agenda with the following amendments on item 48, add quiet zone and bond court proceedings under item 49, defer van robotics, and add item 52 discussion regarding the development of security personnel or devices pursuant to SC code 30-4-70-A3 Nehemiah Action Assembly. Thank you. Second. Yes, ma'am. I did have one additional clarification for the agenda item eight. It probably be easier, sir. I just read that one. Council is asked to approve contract amendment number one to extend arms security guard services from January 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021, and approve revised hourly rates requested by the Columbia Police Department, the award to security management of South Carolina LLC, the firm located in Columbia, South Carolina. This clarification, Mayor and Council, are changed from $14.28 per hour to $14.80 per hour, or a 58-cent hourly increase with the projected billing for March, 2021, when the rate became effective through the end of the fifth-year June 30 is 24,314 hours. I'm sorry, yes, hours, and that billing during that timeframe, $14,102.12. This is no cost to the general fund. I'm sorry, the cost to the general fund is $8,896.62, and the cost to the water and sewer fund is $5,205.50. The agenda includes a summary of the funding allocations to date, and this amendment does not require an additional allocation funding. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Ms. McDowell. Item number 52, Howard, if you would repeat that again. We're adding item 52, and that's discussion regarding the development of security personnel or devices pursuant to SC code 30-4-70A3, the Nehemiah Action Assembly. Second to the amendment. Second. This question is called a roll. Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of March 16th in April 6th, 2021? So moved. Second. Second. Second. Discussion. Clerk and Assistant Clerk, thank you for getting this done so promptly. Move the previous question. Clerk, roll. You're welcome, sir. Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Present. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Benjamin and Council, just a quick moment of personal privilege to recognize, as I'm sure you would want me to do this, the National Fair Housing Month and National Financial Literacy Month being celebrated the month of April. But of course, all year long, as you all are so diligent about activities in this regard. But the City of Columbia has celebrated the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and continued to support these efforts to end housing discrimination and raise awareness of fair housing rights. And this year, our Office of Community Development partnered with Richland County Community Development and Lexington County Community Development to work together to highlight the Fair Housing Act's seven protected classes, which include color, sex, gender, religion, race, national origin, familial status, and disability. And by so doing, there are various video recordings that our citizens and all of the Midlands can take advantage of watching virtually of these seven protected classes and reminding citizens to always contact us if you feel you've been discriminated against in any way. As you watch these videos on our city's website, as far as National Financial Literacy Month, the City of Columbia's Office of Community Development continued to offer financial education workshops and expanded outreach through the Bank on Columbia programs, as well as, and those programs, of course, offer second chance banking opportunities for our citizens through our partner banks, as well as our Columbia Kids Save program, which focuses on educating our kindergartners at an early age on the importance of savings at their young age. So they carry it with them throughout their lifetime. And so with that, we wanted to recognize those important principles during the month of April and all year long. That's fantastic. So thanks for the work that they did. Couldn't be more important than times like these. So thank you to all of our team for bringing you to the work. Yes, sir. Thank you all. With that, we will begin our city council discussion action items. Item two is our normal COVID-19 update. The Honorable Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin, as well as our Emergency Management Director, Mr. Harry Tinsley with the situational report. I'll be brief and that I'm encouraged, as I'm sure many of you are, with the trends that we've been seeing, we'll see a takeoff here or there. But consistently, we're seeing some pretty good low rates of infection across the state and across the community. And we hope that that maintains over the next several weeks. Obviously, we'd love to see greater adoption rate as it relates to vaccinations and there's a good bit of work going on for any of you on this call leading that charge of the community and thank you for that. We've got greater penetration, universal access to the vaccine that does not necessarily translate into equitable access. So we've got to keep grinding in that space so hopefully we'll get all of our vaccination numbers up higher. But I am pleased, particularly as I dialogue with colleagues in fears across the country, at the low rate of infection that we're seeing here and hope it persists over the next several weeks. And of course, Mr. Harrison, give this report. Harry, read it every single day. Thank you for keeping us in the loop with all the numbers that matter. And it makes the whole team for the continued sacrifice. So I'm done. Madam City Manager. Thank you, sir. Can you hear me? Hi, can you hear me? Yes. All right, thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Madam City Manager, again, thank you for your time. There's some additional information and data dashboard in your report in your inbox. I'll be brief, but I know you have a long agenda today. So worldwide, now our case count stands at over 142 million global cases of COVID-19. Unfortunately, that has led to over 3 million deaths globally due to COVID-19. According to the CDC, the latest report out here in the US, there's over 31 million confirmed cases with 564,292 deaths as of April 19th report out. And here in South Carolina, as of today's report out, total confirmed cases is 476,506. To date, there's been over 7 million tests in our state. The new case counts as today's report out, additional confirmed cases is 362. That is a 6.2% positivity rate as it was just over 7,700 deaths conducted at that report sample. Unfortunately, there are two new confirmed deaths and that brings our state total of confirmed deaths due to COVID-19, 8,237. So here in Richland County, our case count stands cumulative at 38,303 with today's additional 21 new cases reported. Unfortunately, there have been now 480 confirmed deaths to date in Richland County. As of the 14-day report out from April 4th to April 17th, Richland County overall across all zip codes had 1,034 cases. That's an average, which is significantly down. We continue to see it downward trend, as the mayor indicated. That's an average daily of about 73.8 new cases each day. The report out for this period, two zip codes, only to have over 100 cases and that will see 2,9223 zip code with 115 cases over that 14-day period and 2,9229 with 135. All others at codes were below 100 just as a sample. So also as the April 14th, Richland County's 14-day recent disease activity incident rate is listed, Richland County as medium, as the entire state is all 46 counties are currently at medium. The Richland County's positivity rate over that 14-day period was 3.8%, which is encouraging. We're continuing that downward trend. So the statewide recovery rate continues to be estimated at 97.4%. The state case fatality rate is estimated at 1.73. As stated, the daily case counts continue and they have slowed and have now roughly stable. The state does not anticipate large fluctuation in case counts over the next few weeks. And hospitalizations, hospitals still remain stable. They have good capacity. The bed utilization rate is 73.6% statewide and the ICU bed utilization rate is at 69.9. So that's good news. Unfortunately, there are 505 patients currently hospitalized in our state with COVID-19. As noted, the encouraging part, VA continues with vaccine distributions with over 3.8 million doses received in our state and 2.7 million, over 2.7 million people have been vaccinated. Here in Richland County, we've received over 210,000 doses with 130,000 residents being vaccinated as of the last reporting. And also as lastly, as you're aware, the federally supported community vaccine center at Columbia Place Mall has opened and can administer 7,000 doses per week. That will remain open for eight weeks and it dials an operation run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. As of April 11th, approximately 23.3% of cyclonic population older than 15 years or older has received vaccinations. And according to the CDC's latest reporting as of yesterday, 25.7% of US population have been fully vaccinated and 39.9 have received at least one dose. And those over 18 years of older, 33% of those have been fully vaccinated with over 50% having received at least one dose. And 64.9% of those 65 and older have been fully vaccinated with over 80% having received at least one dose. And that concludes my briefing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Harry. It must do all. Harry, are we getting any vaccination rates by zip code? I have not seen any report on that. I can reach out to our partners and see if we can pull some of that data for us. I think it would be very instructive if we could find where our vaccinations are going. We consistently see the 29223 and 229 zip codes as having high incidence of infection. We need to make sure that we're doing the canvassing out there to get them to the federal center at Columbia Mall. Yes, sir. Thank you. You're gonna see more mobile units as well. Howard, Mr. Davis and Ms. DeVine. Howard sort of got to jump on me. I was going to mention that if you were... Number one, this report is very good. I know it's easy to follow. And over the pandemic period, when we first started getting these numbers, I think you've already called it, 29203 was one of those zip codes that was consistently high. And now we're seeing that there is progress. The numbers aren't as bold as they were in the past. So that does show that we're making some progress. And I kind of use 203 and 204 as my measuring tool. And so there's progress in those areas. And I think that's good. That's one bit of measuring where we are now compared to when we got started. Yes, sir. I'm just looking at snapshot data right now. It's 29203 is the latest report out of 11,248 total vaccine recipients in that zip code. But I don't need to look, give me a moment and I'll get some information back to y'all collectively on that on the breakdown rates by zip code. That's good information. Harry, I just had a couple of questions. One, which is good. We're consistently at medium. What is the percent positive or what is the rate for us to be at low? Considering the CDC guidance of 5% positivity rate would be the matrix. Now, when you look at the 14 day incidence rate, you factor in those three categories which is the incident rate per 100,000, the trend and what is the trend then in that incident rate and then what is the percent? So you take the level of those three, if two are high and one is low, then the overall reading would be high and vice versa. Okay. So I think we're trending that way. I was just kind of wondering because I think we said we're at 3.8% of Richland County. That is correct. It's the last report in just now. Okay, okay. So that would potentially put us at low but we've got to look factor in those other two things. Correct. The incident rate per 100,000 and the trend in that rate over the last reporting cycles and both of those are medium. So the percent positive is low. So those two mediums classes as medium. We were low at our last meeting but that rate has been steady at medium. Okay. And then, and this might be information you'd have to get from DHEC, Harry, but in talking with Prisma Health and others, I know that we are seeing that there are people who have gone for their first vaccination and not returned for their second. So in addition to the information that Councilman DeVall requested regarding the vaccinations per zip code, if you could maybe see if there's a way for them to drill down on maybe the percent of folks who are not coming returning for the second dosage well. So we could just kind of be aware of, of maybe what's happening in each zip code and see how we can support their efforts to encourage people to go and get their second shot. Sure will. That's good information. Yep. I will seek that information and get that back out to you as well. So Harry, the questions that Harry. Yes. The positivity rate is lower primarily because of vaccinations. I'm not an epidemiologist, Councilman, but I would say that it's been based on community spread which would be the mitigations that we have put in place with the masks, social distancing, sanitizing and vaccines would play a part of that if you take the totality of it. I would guess that the data would push you that way. That's just my assumption. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you for the great data as usual. Director Tinsley. Any other questions for Harry? For Harry? Let's say I'm close. I guess we have the ordinance, the mass ordinance expires next month. Millen next month. Is that right? No, I can't. I believe it is. I can't. Yes. So we'll have copious amounts of data to use between now and then. Let's hope and pray these trend lines continue and we'll continue this quest to save lives and save livelihoods. So thank y'all. All right. Let's keep it moving. Thank you. Item three is an update on veterans services and housing initiatives given by Secretary William F. Grimsley with the South Carolina Department of Veterans Affairs. I believe Mr. Brennan invited him here. I'm sorry. Oh, please. If you wanna introduce the general, we'll feel free. General, it's good to see you again. There. She didn't say the very first Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the first ever ever. Yeah, so couldn't have a better first choice. Councilman. Yeah, fellow councilman, I wanna say thank you for inviting General Grimsley to present today. I had the honor to go visit with General Grimsley and his staff a couple of months ago to talk about veterans services and the growth of the veteran community here that we are seeing in the Midlands area, especially here in district three, we have the growing veterans hospital. That was a great topic of conversation. It was great to hear everything the new Department of Veterans Affairs is doing. So General Grimsley, thank you so much for joining us today and look forward to learning about all the wonderful veterans programs you are growing and how we can contribute to that here in the, not only the city of Columbia, but the Midlands. Well, thank you, Councilman. I appreciate it. Good to see you again. Thank you so much for your leadership. I'm a full-time resident of Buford down on the coast, but I'm, during the work week, a full-time resident here in the great city of Columbia. And so I really appreciate it. This is a great place to live and work. And as the first Secretary of Veterans Affairs, a 33-year Army veteran in South Carolina, and this is a great opportunity for a guy like me to try and do the best I can to give back to, I think, a tremendous group of deserving people, veterans, military members and their families. Of course, for a long period of time here in Columbia, this has been the home for literally tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of military members. My dad entered active duty as a young second lieutenant graduate of the Citadel in 1942 at Fort Jackson. And when he retired in 1975, his retirement grade was at Fort Jackson. And my sister was born at Fort Jackson. So we have a lot of history here, and I won't take up a lot of your time. We have, we're trying to continue the service to veterans and their family members as this division now department has been doing for many years and grow a department at the same time. And I came in this job three days before the governor issued his emergency executive order, public health order. So it's been an interesting 13 months. But as we continue to build them, there are an awful lot of things we have come to some conclusions on. And the first is that we needed a much better outcomes-based and evidence, outcomes-based objectives and then evidence-based practices to really go after the needs of our veterans and their family members over time. And I say all that to say that this is really a public-private partnership opportunity. This is federal, state, county, city and local community, nonprofit, for-profit corporation, veteran service organization, private citizens, you name it. And so we're trying to build this coalition again, against these outcomes-based objectives and using the social determinants of health to really get after the successful veteran population defined as individual veterans and their family members who are mentally, socially, physically, emotionally, spiritually, familially, financially sound, that they are satisfied in the dignified manner in which they're treated, that they're respected by their fellow citizens and that they're proud of their own continued contributions while they're serviced and their continuing contributions to South Carolina and the nation. And I think if we can establish a success criteria of that and then work our way backward into how we're relying our mission, how we're working against the lines of effort to assist veterans and their family members to obtain the benefits to which they're entitled and to really advocate for all of our AACBD installations and then in partnership with our great National Guard to really work as advocates for the sustainment and growth of our military presence in the state. That's active reserve and guard across all six services and really do better and inform and educate the people of South Carolina and our veterans about who we are, what we do, how we do it and what we can bring to the state and strength. And then the biggest one though, the main line of effort is this notion of integrating the effects of all entities, all groups and people who provide a service to or are interested in veterans. And that's why it's important I think that I spend a few minutes with y'all here today because this is an incredibly military supportive city and part of South Carolina in an incredibly military supportive state. And we don't see that in other places. And I've literally lived and served all of Army brat. So with the exception of my four years in college I've spent most of my life doing something in a uniform or somewhere and moving constantly. So I moved nine times in my first 18 years. I was four years in college and I moved 22 times in 33 years in active duty on my own and about 42 months in combat in deployments. And so it's a great opportunity, as I said, for me to do some introspection and then look backward on how do we take this experience and then transpose it on the 406,000 veterans across the state. And for us here in Columbia, it's, and while Richland and Lexington County it's almost 30, I'm sorry, 23,000 veterans between the two counties. I don't have it broken down by within the city limits but it's a very large number. And when you add immediate and extended family on that this is a big part of the fabric of Columbia and the community. And so there are several things we're working on as integration phase that I think might be of some import and that we can certainly always use your leadership and your help. And the first one is our different than anybody else, maybe our experience that got us here, but we all experienced challenges and opportunities in life and they're very complicated. And with addressing those complications it takes not just complex risk factors but unique tailored solutions from a wide variety of capabilities and services to deliver back to really take advantage of everything that's already resident in the state to be able to care for this population. And in many cases by care, I mean to the left side of a problem before it ever gets to a problem. And so some of the things we're trying to work on and I'll start with the great service that we've already got from the city chamber by the way, chamber of commerce as well as the broader Richland County and then working with the state manufacturing alliance and the state chamber in veteran employment. So today we sit in COVID at about, well, best numbers we have from the US Department of Labor between four and a half and 4.7% veteran employment today. And that's about 2% up from where we were a year ago not dissimilar from the rest of society. And so we have been working a series of virtual job fairs to align veterans and their family members, including transitioning service members into the right kinds of jobs based on the right skill sets. And what we have found is that in many cases we have employers who are looking for veterans who can't find the veterans and we inversely have veterans looking for jobs who don't find the right employers. And so what we're trying to do is close that gap. And we have found and I don't really know how these things work because I've been married to the same woman for 39 years, but it's like a dating app. And it has become very interesting and useful where a guy like me grimsley lists his knowledge, skills and abilities and attributes. This is my background experience. This is where I wanna live. This is where I'm willing to work, kind of my salary range and prospective employers sign on to the same thing list theirs. And if you get a 50% or higher match, it automatically generates a phone interview. So we've demonstrated this successfully now in Sumter. We're gonna bring one here focused on around Fort Jackson. It doesn't really matter where you're based because it's virtually different anywhere in the state. And we've had a really high initial contact rate success thus far, we're gonna do five or six of these over the next year. And we get between five and well, we had as few as 500 we've had as many as about 2000 people actually sign on and participate with 40 plus employers at the first one we did in Sumter. And this is really powerful. Yesterday, thanks to director Adams and admin, the governor and many others especially state human resources, we have reinstituted the veteran hiring preference for state employees. So there are 1300 empty jobs in state government today. And veteran, it doesn't automatically guarantee anything other than if a veteran applies for an empty job, as long as one of, at least one of them, they have to be interviewed for the job as long as they're qualified. And so this is an opportunity to get some sort of veteran preference and to take advantage of this population and bring them into state government. It's part of building the resilience. And then there's a whole host of local opportunities we're using through telehealth-enabled health both behavioral and physical. We're working some peer-to-peer substance abuse counseling tele-enabled. It's a federal grant through Deodas using a private partner that we're implementing using nonprofits. I can't get any more complicated than that. But it's an awesome opportunity because it's peer-to-peer and it's veteran addicted people substance abuse addicted people recovering who are actually providing the counseling. And what we're saying is a giant sign on a huge return on this investment because people are now realizing there's lots of places, lots of ways you can come in from the cold or there's no wrong door. So it doesn't have to be the US Department of Veterans Affairs, although they have enormously robust capabilities. It could be a nonprofit. It could be another governmental agency, local city, county or state. It could be a federal opportunity, but it's really pulling all these together back again back to this outcomes-based objectives based on quantifiable and qualifiable measure performance and effectiveness. So we're actually grading ourselves over time and we continue to implement this. You mentioned housing early on and I'll touch on that just briefly. As I said, I keep an apartment here in downtown Columbia over on Hampton Street. So I'm sort of in the confluence of the Methodist Church the Baptist Church and the Presbyterian Church. And so a lot of our homeless citizens get meals there and I see them and I talk to a bunch of them all the time. And we do have a homeless challenge not just general population, but across the state. And depending on whether you use the annualized data or what they call the point in time through continuum of care data and it does vary roughly in across the veterans of Richland County which as I said is about 12 and a half thousand. There are at least in the point in time count about 75 homeless veterans in Richland County. That's our best guess. And it is unfortunately kind of a swag. But when you look across the state, it's about 450. So Richland County is relatively high up there but there are some interesting statistics and there's some great programs as to how all that comes about. And by the way, and I'll use some state statistics but I think demographically we can transpose it. Unfortunately, our homeless veteran population tends to be toward those who are the most disenfranchised especially racially. So about 55% are African-American. About 10% are women, which I find very interesting. I'm a little surprised at this but our homeless veteran age range, the preponderance over a third are in the 55 to 64 year age group which is exactly where I sit. We had a long time where the Vietnam population which is older than that now was our largest population. The most likely to be homeless though immediately after service are our younger veterans the immediate transition out of service post 9-11. And there are a variety of reasons for that and I'll talk about an additional program we're trying to implement, we'll have two pages here. About a third of our homeless are chronically homeless like they consistently homeless over three years. They have challenges, they come in and out of shelter and these are not all unsheltered homeless people by the way, but about a fifth of them have been homeless for 12 or four months and again are chronically. And about 65, 66% so about two thirds of them are having a disabling condition one way or another. 50% of those disabling have a behavioral or mental health challenge. Generally also exacerbated by substance abuse problem. And then lastly, what I find very interesting about all of this is also about 66% do have a consistent source of income. So it's not that they're completely destitute. Most of them get something from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs through their own disability compensation. Others are getting it through Social Security or Social Security disability. Some of them are getting it through some other defined benefit or in some cases it's a divorce settlement. And some of them are getting some earned income. So they're not all completely destitute but it is a big challenge. And as I said about 10% are women and of that 10% almost all of them have experienced some sort of domestic violence or in some cases with veterans military sexual trauma or intimate partner violence which as we know is a recurring problem especially among our women, our women in general and our women veterans especially. And so, and then lastly, oddly enough and I can't really explain this but about 10% of our veterans nationally and also I'll just assume South Carolina is the same choose to be homeless. They're not rendered homeless by any circumstances well it might be by circumstance but they're choosing to remain homeless. They have no interest in being sheltered. I quite frankly don't understand that, I don't get it but that is a factor and we run into that on occasion especially in some of our parks here in town as well as other places around the state that's true. And so there are tons of great programs the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in partnership with us and local nonprofits administer some great programs the HUD-VASH program which is really more about chronically homeless and then the Pradeem grant grant Pradeem program has some opportunities for building and sustaining existing facilities getting transitional beds and working employment and other opportunities. The both Doran here for us and Ralph Johnson and Charleston have homeless coordinators who also work the continuum of care across holistic health promotion which includes substance abuse and employment opportunities sheltering drug and alcohol testing and in addition to mental and behavioral health and other counseling and therapy opportunities to include non-traditional or alternative therapies. So the programs are out there and we continue to strive for them and we have blessed here in town with some great opportunities through nonprofits and the grant opportunities that have been provided them. So transitions right at the end of the street here is a great example of that but Craig Curry retired Army colonel does leading over there is just spectacular and he is a holistic viewing guy but 180 place and the many others echo in the more of the Eastern part of the state there are a lot of great partners out there. So I would close by telling you I'm extraordinary honored to be in this job. I think we have nothing but bright futures ahead of us. We got tons of work to do but this is good work. This is purposeful work and I really appreciate the opportunity to be in this position to give back to our state and to do so in our great capital city. And so for what y'all do every day Mr. Mayor members of the city council thank you very much for leadership. It is it does not go unnoticed or appreciated. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Secretary thank you for your service and I'm not sure do we have a written copy of your report? I mean there's some really really good data in there that would be helpful particularly I think as we shape our discussions going forward. I think the biggest challenge as we do with veterans and our unsheltered population and quite frankly society in general is going to behave your health the next several years. I mean we the federal government, state government has historically disinvested in that space and we're seeing the results of it and it seems like there's some real wind in our shells now to get some really thoughtful long-term strategic investments and helping people get back on track. So I'd love to have a copy of the report if we already have it. Yes sir. So what I'll offer you is we were directed by the General Assembly to do a complete study on veteran issues in the last session. So three senators, three members of the house and me and I used part of my deotas grant to hire two graduate research assistants from the University of South Carolina who helped me out. And so we compiled a report much of this is contained in that it's much broader than what I laid out. I would offer that's a good start point and then if there are questions or places you want to work on more some detail I would be happy to do that or connect everybody to the right point. I'll have that mailed over to the team. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate it. All right, any other questions? General Grimsley, are we good? All right, thank you, sir. All right, take care. Thank you, General. At this time, Mayor Benjamin, we will move into our fourth item which is the Calhoun Street Road Diet and Bike Lane Project. I've asked our staff to give an update on this project. It's my understanding it was recently mentioned in some type of community meeting or format and I believe that the information that was shared at the time was inaccurate. And so we certainly want to make sure that the public has the accurate information on this project that has never been halted but certainly I've always instructed our staff to do our due diligence to make sure that we can do it the right way. And so today we want to just briefly present to you these improvements that are planned and the outreach that must occur properly in a pandemic world that we've been living in. So with that, we have Ms. Dana Higgins, our city director of engineering and Ms. Lucinda Statler, our planning administrator. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Good afternoon. Lucinda and I'd like to talk to you about the Calhoun Street improvements, the improvements that will consist of installing bicycle accommodations between Wayne and Hardin. Just to give you a little background, in 2012, the referendum was passed with a budget of $88,292 to restrike bike lanes. With that not being enough to do anything but restrike, the city went back to CTC in 2020 and we secured $556,000 additional. We've had two public meetings back in 2018 with a third meeting installed due to the COVID. Today we're seeking council approval to resume public outreach and ultimately to move the project forward. Lucinda will go into more detail now. Thanks, Dana. So just briefly, the benefits of the proposed road diet are to provide reduced points of conflict for drivers. There will be wider, more comfortable driving lanes and the roads maintain efficient turns by providing a center turn lane. And I'm just gonna briefly click through a few slides that illustrate the various configurations of the blocks. These were designed to ensure maximum safety and minimal disruption of traffic patterns. Some blocks will add shadows to existing traffic lanes. Some will reduce the number of traffic lanes and eliminate parking on one side to provide designated bike lanes. And some blocks will maintain current traffic lanes and eliminate parking on one side to provide designated bike lanes. Block by block diagram, such as this one, will be provided in the public meeting to illustrate the exact configuration of changes to each of the 13 effective blocks in the project. This is an example showing the block within assembly in Maine. The proposed schedule moving forward will be to hold a virtual public outreach session in June. The project would then go out for bid this fall and we anticipate construction next spring. Possibly a BPAC bike ride or promotional event could be held for bike month in 2022. To summarize the outreach, the June virtual meeting will use the Zoom, public input and YouTube platforms to ensure access to all. Two to three weeks in advance, public notice will include a press release, a banner on the city home page with a link to the project, pardon me, page which will have project details and diagrams. Email distribution to our existing distribution list signs along the corridor to alert residents as well as commuters. And staff will contact neighborhood leaders directly. To summarize, we'd like to point out that this project has not been halted or sold. All efforts have been made to ensure proper funding is available to provide the best outcomes of the project. Currently, all funding is in place. The CTC funding for resurfacing as well as the penny tax funding for restriping. Given the unprecedented year we've had during COVID, we want to ensure that our outreach efforts are fresh. And today we are seeking council approval to proceed with public outreach and with implementation. And that's the end of the slides. And of course we can click back to anything that you guys want to look at. Thank you, Dana, Lucinda. I know this presentation is in council's inboxes in case they also need to share the accurate information with members of the public. Any questions? Are there any questions for staff? I can't see everyone with the screen up. So Mr. McDowell. Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. Let me just ask one question. I understand that public input is scheduled for June. Yes, sir. We don't have a, I'm sorry. Is there a specific date? We don't have a date scheduled yet. We were waiting for council's blessing to move forward and then we would pick a date and start advertising that. What do we have? Let me ask you this then. Do we have public input prior? What I think you're asking is, do we approve this and then have public input or is it just the reverse? I think they want Reverend McDowell, you also approval to move forward now with public input. And then once we get that input, we would certainly be coming back to you all again to reflect anything that we hear. If any changes need to be made based off that input. Yes, sir. We just want to make sure that you all are clear on where from the evolution of the project to now so that we can move forward with refreshing public input. Well, the reason I raise that, of course, I don't want a situation that happens, say, on Fair Road to happen again without the kind of input we need so that once we start a project, we don't turn around again and have to do something else. So yes, if we're just looking, if we're just asking the council to approve, start in the process of public input, then of course I'm okay with that. Yes, sir. We're asking to get your approval to start it to get your input on how you want it to be, where you, you know, virtual in person with socially distant mechanism, whatever you want to see. I think the staff and I are asking for your input on that, but certainly ready to move forward with some type of input. All right. Or as much input as necessary. Thank you. Thank you, Madam City Manager. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, sir. Other questions of Daniel Lucinda? Thank you for the update. Let's get this one done, y'all. All right. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Moving forward, we are now moving into the budget discussion, Mayor Benjamin and council, and obviously every year under normal circumstances, we incorporate our water and Columbia Water Update and our rate study review last year during the budget. Obviously we were not able to move forward with the normal rate study progression of potential increases, et cetera, just due to circumstances. You know, I'm amazed at how this team has worked, how you all have led in order for us to sustain ourselves through some very hard times. And with that, Clint is going to give you some information about Columbia Water, our progress that we've made, as well as you'll hear from Mr. Robert Chambers, the principal consultant at Black and Beech, who's always wonderful to assist us through our rate study review. And I think what you will find to be a very remarkable proposal to allow us to get back to sustain our infrastructure and our CIP even during some difficult times. So we look forward to your feedback as we make our way through these presentations. So Mr. Clint Shealy, Assistant City Manager for Columbia Water will get us started. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Good afternoon, Mayor and council. Appreciate a little bit of time to be with you today. I know that we are under a time schedule but we'll do our best to move through these slides as quickly as we can. This has been an unusual year, a most unusual year, but we wanted to share a couple of highlights with you and also the public. And again, most importantly, I want to focus on the Capital Improvement program and our projects that are critical as we move forward and trying to advance a lot of the items and major significant projects and improvements as we move forward. So as Ms. Wilson said, Robert Chambers will follow this presentation with his review of our financial position and some great recommendations as well and what we consider to be good news. But let's move forward with our agenda and y'all feel free to interject questions throughout. We'll talk a little bit about the impact of COVID on our operations. We'll briefly mention the AMI project and where that significant investment stands. We feel like we need to provide an update about the Consent Decree. No Columbia Water Briefing would be complete without doing that. And then again, spend some time talking about our Capital Improvement and some Q project that we would like to advance. And then we'll finish up with a review of just our stormwater progress. So in terms of utility operations, I really can't say enough about our staff in all areas including utility operations, engineering, customer care, public works. Our folks have just done a remarkable job of showing up and moving forward all throughout the pandemic. I'm really, really proud of them and how they've responded to this challenge and how we've been able to provide essential services and be able to do that in an efficient way. When you see some statistics about lost workdays and about COVID positive tests, and this is just in Joey Jaco's area of operation, the operation. But obviously we've been impacted quite a bit by positive test results and quarantine from exposure. So that's impacted our response time. They're not where we wanna be. We're not responding as quickly as we would like to be for a variety of reasons. Certainly COVID has slowed some of our momentum, but we have kept moving forward and we've kept providing essential services and that's really a testament to our great staff. And I just wanna thank them for doing what they do every day. As we look forward talking about utility operations and some of our areas, you can see a lot of vacancy statistics here. We've been very intentional and strategic about bringing new folks into our operation during this pandemic. And so we've somewhat circled the wagons. We've worked a lot of overtime. We've worked our folks really, really hard, but we knew they could work in a safe manner and they've done that. But it leaves us in a position where we're not able to respond as quickly as we would like to. We're working on staffing back up and doing that in a smart way. But what we're trying to do is utilize outside contractors, some local businesses through indefinite delivery contracts to assist us in meeting some of those critical needs and being responsive as we need to. So sometimes when we all call about a water leak that's been four, six, eight weeks and we haven't been able to respond yet, a lot of times we'll engage a contractor if it's something significant. And we're moving into we just signed indefinite delivery contracts with five local protege contractors working with Melissa Lindler and her team to engage them to help us with service line yard restorations, small paving projects. So we wanna be as responsive as we possibly can and use our contracting community to fill that gap while we continue to staff up and train our folks. Our call center has also been very, very busy, particularly this calendar year. They were impacted by COVID as well. We have seen a significant increase in call volume. Part of that is due to our new phone system which we're very excited about. It's got a call back feature where folks can leave a message and we call them back at a certain time. We are rolling out a new chat feature, really excited about that. The call volume has increased because we don't have the walk-ins at Washington Square. And then finally, when you resume this connection for non-payment that generates a lot of phone calls. So we're getting an unprecedented amount of contact from our public and Latimer and her staff are doing a really good job trying to be responsive to that. And so we're working on continuing to empower and motivate her staff. She's doing a really, really good job of working with our folks and customer care. And I hope you're seeing a difference there with what we've been doing. So I'm just very grateful for her. We've got a lot of work left to do but that team is very engaged in helping us close those gaps. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the growth in past due balance. This is a graphic that you've seen before and we showed throughout the early stages of the pandemic as we suspended our disconnects for non-payment of water and sewer bills back in March. We saw a steady increase but thankfully we've seen a leveling out and maybe even as of this week, a little bit of a dip in the growth in greater than 30 days past due. So it seems that the tide is turning a bit. The message is getting out about payment arrangements and about the need to pay to maintain water service. So we feel like this strategy of moving intentionally and slowly in terms of disconnecting service and it is working, it is being effective. We did not get to this point quickly. We're looking at 10 or 11 months worth of not disconnecting. So we won't stem that tide overnight and get the numbers back down but we are starting to see a positive trend and we're excited about that. I do wanna mention just show some graphics about the payment arrangements that we set up initially. If you remember back in October 1st, we placed everybody that was in arrears on a six month payment arrangement. That was about $9.2 million of indebtedness placed on the payment arrangement. And we sent out mailers and encouraged folks to pay those past due bills. And between October 1st and January 4th, we collected almost $1.2 million of that 9.2 indebtedness that we rolled on the payment arrangements in October. In January, we started sending out notification that we would begin disconnections for nonpayment in mid-Debruary. That notification will learn between the mid-January and mid-Debruary dates. We collected about a million dollars of that indebtedness. After we started disconnecting for nonpayment, the February to March statistics looked even better. We collected over $1.5 million of that indebtedness. And then as we continued moving forward, the mid-March to mid-April numbers were at almost $1.8 million. So collectively, we brought in about five and a half of that 9.2 million that was put on payment arrangement in October. Folks were still working and paying down those payment arrangements. I wanna let you know we heard you loud and clear the compassionate approach, and we've been following that approach throughout. I would say the vast majority if not every single customer that we have disconnected their water service, almost every customer, if not everyone, who's been able to pay a minimal nominal payment, first installment of payment arrangement and have service restored the next day or same day of being disconnected. So we don't have a lot of customers out of water and without water service. We've been very, very intentional about being compassionate and trying to keep folks in water service as we encourage them to pay their bills. We know that assistance programs are on the way, and Missy Kaufman's gonna speak to those a little bit later, but we've been publicizing the county's rental assistance program. We know there's some programs coming through Health and Human Services that are specifically geared toward helping folks pay utility bills, water and sewer bills. And so we're looking forward to that. As soon as we get that information, that's the first thing that customer care folks share with callers that have had a service interruption behind on their bills. So we're gonna be very intentional about publicizing that information also. We wanted to provide a brief update about our automated metering infrastructure. We are about two thirds complete. We've got over 100,000 meters in the ground that have been updated with this new AMI technology. So we are on target estimating completion in March of 2022. We've been promoting and advertising our Island Water app and we're starting to see usage of that application increase. We're seeing greater meter registrations and decreased bill visits for meter rechecks. That's a real positive. Those have dropped by about a third. So we're really starting to see the benefit and we're seeing a really good return on investment for what we're doing there through these various programs and tools that are available for not only our staff, but also our customers. So feeling very positive about that. We're transitioning meter reading strapped into other duties. And that's been a positive impact as well. Doing a really good job of getting meter reach for those 50,000 or seven meters that are still out there that haven't been upgraded yet. So we have seen a considerable increase in the need for meter box replacements and backflow prevention devices. There were certain assumptions made for the base bid that was placed out there. And those assumptions were locally low, I would say. And so we're having to in order to do this project well and do it correctly, we're having to add some more dollars to it. So we've got an amendment on your agenda today that's quite sizable, but it does give us backflow prevention protection at every residential meter. And we're replacing damaged boxes that we're seeing out there. So we've evaluated different alternatives we put them on your agenda packet with more detail, but we believe this is the best option for us to get a good complete project and to push that to completion in March of 2022. Just a quick map show and we're touching all areas of the system and it's been very effective at canvassing the system. And again, excited about where we're headed. We have not, it hasn't been a project that hasn't had some issues and leaks and different issues with the meters. But for the most part, when you touch the 100,000 meters that the incident rate of calls has been pretty low. And so we're pleased with the work that's happening and the response to correcting any of those issues that may have come up. Again, want to give you a quick update about our consent decree. We're on schedule with all of our deliverables. We've got several very important deliverables coming up. Supplemental Infrastructure Rehabilitation Report and Capacity Assurance Program, hydraulic modeling port out there for approval. Those are very, very important. There's a lot tied to when those programs are approved. So we're moving forward. We're continuing our progress. I will say that we did lose a little bit of momentum during the COVID year, partly because we had a reduced capital improvement program. We went from down to $40 million combined for water and sewer until we weren't able to deliver on quite as many projects as we had hoped. But we are continuing our forward momentum and we're meeting our deadlines. And that's really important. And we're doing our best to minimize any capacity limitations, capacity restricted areas, but I do want to focus on those really quickly as we move forward. I think it's important to know that the second bullet item that we have, we basically matched our funding levels with our project execution for the past three years. So some of the bottlenecks that we're within within our different procedures that we need to follow have been streamlined and we're able to get the work out on the street, get the investment of the dollars that you're approving in the ground and that's making a real difference for us. So the machine is ready to chew up the next round of work and we're ready to do that. I also want to mention that we're thinking outside the box, we've got some projects that are very time sensitive and so we've challenged the team to look at various project delivery methods, alternative project delivery methods to deliver these projects quicker, to get the infrastructure investments and improvements made a little bit quicker than our traditional design did build process. So we're working our way through one of those right now and you'll see more of that type of approach to come where it makes sense for us and is efficient and cost effective for us. You may wonder where we are in terms of our total spend, in terms of our work away out of this obligation under a consent decree. And we're in terms of spend, we're at about the halfway point. We spent over $360 million investing in our wastewater system to satisfy these needs that are out there but what was estimated to be a $750 million expenditure. So we're well on our way in this journey but we're right in the middle of a very capital intensive campaign to improve capacity and reduce sanitary sewer overflow so we can work our way out of this consent decree. I want to speak just a moment about the capacity limited areas. There are quite a few out there that if we are not able to deliver projects and invest in the system, any increased capacity that moratoriums will cascade down and that means slowing down development. That means no additional capacity for folks to build and tie into our system in a lot of areas if we aren't able to meet certain project deadlines. So those are concerning for us. I don't want to mislead you. They're very concerning. We have invested heavily in areas like Lake Catherine. We've invested in Crain Creek and we're investing in the downtown area to make sure we don't have those moratoriums. Those were tied to sanitary sewer overflows. This next phase of consent decree deliverable, this capacity assurance program, begins looking at the hydraulic model and is more of a forward look anticipating where overflows might occur and that can place us into development moratorium as well. So we've got to be very intentional about meeting deadlines moving forward. It's a different set of criteria that is about to be imposed upon us as part of the consent decree until we've got to really, again, be intentional about delivering on the projects so that we don't find ourselves in these situations. We are looking at an extension request for COVID. We don't want to place our future of being able to develop our system on being granted that extension. We hope we'll be granted that extension. We believe we'll be granted extension. We're not relying on an extension. We're moving forward as fast as we can to make sure we don't have issues. I'm gonna show you a map. Yellow is an area where we're projecting one year or less of restriction of capacity limitation. Red, we're expecting greater than a year. The green is the Crane Creek Basin and downtown is not shaded. But I mentioned because of the ability to advance some projects, we feel really good about Crane Creek that we can stay out of moratorium there where we're able to do one or two more specific projects. Downtown area where we're investing in the East Rocky Branch Basin. We've got another project this coming year, CIP, that's gonna help continue to support development there. You'll see our shift is moving toward the Saloon River Basin. We've had some overflows there. We have some modeling results that are showing capacity restrictions there as we move into the future. So that's where a lot of our investment will go in the coming years. And we fear if we're not able to continue down the path of taking care of these next projects for this coming year, if those get pushed, then the Saloon River Basin projects get pushed as well and it's a domino effect. So we really wanna try to stay ahead of that curve as much as possible. A lot of projects you'll see here, Kenley Creek, Lower Saloon River, the West Columbia Saloon Reform and Extension, all those are tied to that Saloon River Basin, but there is some Crane Creek work in here, also some Broad River Basin work as well. So that's where a lot of our capacity limited areas could be. And we wanna make sure we stay ahead of that curve or finish those projects right on time as much as we can. There's not a lot of float in the schedule here. It's gonna be very tight, very close for a lot of these. And if we don't get some COVID relief, then we're looking at really just a matter of weeks, days and months of trying to finish under a deadline. So we're very concerned about this and I know you are as well, but we wanted to just remind you about these areas and these critical projects that are coming up. In terms of our delay requests for our COVID portion of the year, we submitted a letter back in February that was really an excellent summary of the impacts so far. We did not request a specific timeline because the pandemic and its impact on our operation is not over. And so in talking with our attorneys, we're anticipating fall of this year, making our more formal request for a time extension and painting the very full picture of what this impact has been. And we will be letting you know and we'll be pulling out all the stops to call everyone that we know to lobby for this delay because it really impacts. We wanna build back in a little bit of bleeding room in our schedules if possible. So that is our target for the COVID request. I wanna mention our capital improvement program has been just a moment of time there. We are requesting $120 million for capital improvements for this coming fiscal year. That has been our steady path many years and we've been able to absorb that through our rate work and through our finance, being able to finance and bonding and whatnot. But if you remember, we contracted to $40 million last year because we weren't able to make a rate adjustment. It's $120 million has split one-third for drinking water and two-thirds for wastewater. So it's a $40 million drinking water capital improvement plan. I just highlight a couple of projects here that are very, very important and some that are unfortunately non-negotiable for us. Utility conflicts, $8 million for water. You'll see another $8 million for sewer. That doesn't count the Carolina Crossroads work that's happening. DOT has been very, very active. These are areas where we don't have prior rights and the projects are so small that the Act 36 reimbursement doesn't cover our utility relocation. So there's still an impact on us. It's not merely the impact that we would have if not for Act 36 passing. So we're fortunate that passed and that's gonna help us on big projects like Carolina Crossroads. We are communicating, working well with DOT to try to minimize impacts. But the reality is there's a cost to us for relocating our lines where we don't have prior rights. The alternative raw water pump station at the Canal Water Plant, you'll see a money plug in there. We're hoping we'll be successful with our resilience grant application to FEMA. We'll find out in June. But again, that's a 75% grant, 25% match. So we really need to feed that money in there even if we're successful getting the grant to cover our 25% match. If that project will take an awful list, that slows down almost stops the entire Canal recovery effort because that project is key to derating the hazard classification for our canal embankment and moving forward with the FEMA project to restore the canal to the lower hazard classification. So very, very important work there. And I also wanna mention the Shandon and Rosewood Water Quality improvements. Moving forward with the first stage of those $7.5 million each, we routinely get groundwater complaints from those areas. We do our best to flush and try to make sure we're responding. But those are really, really important projects that we wanna move forward as much as possible. So that's our water CIP. I'll show you a quick map. The items that I've shaded in red are ones that if we have to reduce the CIP or capital improvement investment, those are the ones that would have to come off and that's real pain there. It's real problems that we really need to address. So we view those two projects as critical to move forward with our phase improvement to the place and ageing infrastructure. So I'm gonna move on to our wastewater capital improvement program and talk about that just for a moment. Here you'll see some capacity projects right at the top, each rocky branch very, very important to being able to continue development and the growth in our downtown area, lower crane creek also very important. We're seeing tremendous growth in the Northeast, a lot of subdivisions and we wanna be able to continue that service. That's a very, very important project to keeping us out of any type of moratorium for that basin. I neglected to mention rehabilitation also, but this year we were not able to put as much money into rehabilitating our system. And that's something if you get behind on it's hard to catch up. And so we wanna try to continue that and beef up our investment and rehabilitation to the maximum extent possible because when we don't rehabilitate our system that directly leads to sanitary sewer overflows. So here you see a lot of smaller projects that are very, very important to us reducing sanitary sewer overflows to hitting some of those smaller hot spots that are out there. And I mentioned utility relocation efforts that we are simply obligated to do. And then there's some compliance and maintenance items in our Metro wastewater treatment plant that we really need to carry forward this year if at all possible. A lot of red on this next map with red items were identified as ones that we would have to drop off if we pull back on our CIP from 120 just to $80 million. So I wanna talk a little bit about why I'm showing an $80 million level there. The reason is because last year when we talked about rates and we were starting the pandemic we contemplated $40 million for this current year and just $80 million for the coming year. We're seeing and I think you'll hear through Robert Chamber's presentation the ability to support $120 million. But I really wanted you to see in both the water and sewer side the pain that we would feel and would be imposing on our staff and our efforts to unwind ourselves and the consent decree on the development community and also on our student base if we're not able to fully fund. So we're gonna be asking for a fully funded capital improvement program at the $120 million level. I also wanted, before I turn things over to Robert and before I start talking about our sewer expansion fees I just wanted to mention that Robert Chamber's and our finance group, Jeff Paylor, Mr. Kaufman, Dan Alonzo, the entire team has done a really, really good job of pulling together our rate work. And I think you're gonna see what we think are very good results. It's the hard work of a lot of people and the byproduct of some creative financing work, some very strong economic development work and again our staff. So I think you're gonna hopefully you'll see this as good news. I did wanna mention expansion fees as you consider a rate ordinance. We're also gonna be looking at a revision to our sewer expansion fee ordinance that will be beneficial to commercial users. And that result of a 33% reduction in that commercial fee. And we've talked about this reduction before. So this is not news and also the change calculation for large users that allowed us to recruit really big industries that make a very positive impact on our revenue stream. So you'll see that coming before you as a revised ordinance revision request at the appropriate time. But we're also looking at making some policy revisions and changes, granting folks that maybe whether it's change in use in a building that has had a large meter, they paid a fairly large expansion fee and then they're looking to maybe change that to a restaurant. We're looking to give a little more credit for what was paid initially so that the person doing the redevelopment doesn't have to pay quite as much on their end. And there's also some discussion about an economic development fund. So again, all those types of items to continue our forward progress with expansion fees and trying to recruit industrial development as well. So I'll finish up really quick with stormwater. You can see the maps and the projects that have been completed like Dills Creek degree removal. They're successful there. Our Devil's Ditch project that was in conjunction with the county MLK part detention but a lot of other work that is planned. So I want to highlight some of that. We've awarded over $17 million in construction contracts and almost $12 million in consultant contracts. And we've spent of that amount awarded. We've spent almost $17 million to date. We mentioned the projects completed. Harlem Heights is in construction. Shandom is under design. Pym branches will be moving to construction we believe next year. So really excited about the progress of our stormwater projects as well. The, in terms of, this is our CIP and we're requesting about $11 million. We're continuing to work the plan. If you remember, we paused our rate adjustment last year. We had a five year plan that we were working through. We'll be asking to me with our fourth step in July of 2019, we went up to $13.32 per month. This step is moving up to $14.15 that we'll be asking for on the monthly fee. And again, that is the fourth or five adjustments that you contemplated several years ago. So with that, I'll see, I'll pause for a moment. I'm sorry for the fire hose delivery there. But I just wanted to try to share as much information as quickly as we could and then get ready to turn over to Robert Chambers. But I wanted to see if y'all have any questions about the capital improvement program, the level of funding we're asking for or any of our programs. And Clint, I would add, obviously there's a method to this madness today with y'all as Clint said a lot of information but we're having to do it in this order so that as Missy Kauffman comes forward and we work with you through each fund, you'll have the background information as to how we built the budget. So we've got to show you the water and sewer request, the rate study. We're going to then go into the American Rescue Plan recommendations because they build into the final budget presentation that we'll give you today. So I'm sorry to add that Clint but I just wanted to make sure council was understanding why we're going in the order that we are. And if you have any questions. That's very helpful, Mr. McDowell. Clint, just let me say thank you so much for that very comprehensive report. Thank you very much. Three issues that I want you to at least briefly talk about. I want to say a word of thanks to you and with the new phones that has hit tremendously. The reason I know that is that I've gotten several calls referencing some of the issues and they've been very due diligent about getting back in touch with the clients, with the residents. Of course, the other thing of course, now Clint, there are some infrastructure leaks in the community of which you and I have talked about it. Several of those kinds of issues. We're going to continue to wade our way through this so that those things can be repaired. Yes, sir. And that's the response time that we're not necessarily proud of and we haven't progressed as far as we had hoped. And so our staff are working every weekend, councilman and really doing everything they can. But we recognize that some of the response is unsatisfactory. And so that's reason we've got indefinite contracts for leak repair and restoration. And in fact, on your agenda tonight, there's a local BBE contractor that we're receiving more money where men need asking to amend their contract so that they can continue helping us. We've got a meeting tomorrow morning to talk about how to better use those local contracting resources as staff augmentation to help us be more responsive. Great. Look, one last question. There has been some glitches in the AMI in the AMI configuration of communities and that sort of thing, which has caused, I think, some exorbitant water rates, water fees. You all have done well, of course, in when someone calls and we talk, they immediately make sure that issue is rectified. So there are some glitches there and we're constantly working on those things. Yes, sir. Absolutely, and occasionally they make the news media as well. So we are being responsive to those customers and we've got a system of catching the vast majority of those elevated bills and reviewing them. And the AMI system and the data that it provides to us has been so helpful in diagnosing those very quickly. But we do have an occasional error where there's something that's been transposed incorrectly and you get a data dump and we're trying to catch those because a lot of times they just don't look right. But we've also run into some where we've been able to help folks figure out they've got a dripping faucet or we had a gentleman tell us, you know what, I did leave the water hose running for three days in the backyard. It's so we can see exactly when they cut it on and cut it all and is that level of detail in terms of the water usage? So it's really a powerful tool in helping figure out, is there a billing error? Is there a leak? Is there something else going on? But we've touched again over 100,000 and we have had a few issues but they are very, very small in relation to the total number of meters that we've touched and we are being very intentional in trying to respond to those customers and make sure we give them an equitable resolution when there is some sort of a billing issue. So if you all hear of any others, please send them to myself or Tiffany and we will respond immediately and work with the customer to get those things taken care of. Well, that has worked tremendously well, particularly with several instances and that I know about and that I've contacted you all about. You've diligently took care of that. And so what turned into an additional three zeros, it was just one zero. So I appreciate the team doing that. And of course, it would help tremendously if we can continue to operate on that same plane. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Mr. Davis, do you unmute Sam? Sorry, is the system going down? I've gone out twice. No. Anyway, maybe it's something in the area. Ed touched on a couple of things that I wouldn't want to repeat. But I will say that I'm also getting some positives about the phone system answering and so forth and how we've made some changes there. One question that I really can't answer with folks, such as the one you got for me this morning about what, six, 30 quarter seven, Clint? Yes, sir. Bye, take a look at it. The leaks, we do have an development amount of leaks throughout. And I'm pleased to hear that we're trying to do it with some local subs, small contractors. But how do you really assess and maybe rate the system underground throughout the city? There's an exorbitant amount of leaks. And then we've got to the issue of who does the cleanup work? Does DOT partner with us on that? Or do we do the repairs, come back and do the resurfacing and that sort of thing? So yes, sir, if we have a water leak in our infrastructure, it doesn't matter if it's a city street, a county maintained road or DOT maintained road, our responsibility is to repair the leak and restore the roadway and the customer's yard to as good or better than we found it. Sometimes we aren't as fast in doing that as we would like. And so that's where our contracting help is gonna come in and help us. They're helping us already. We're trying to be a little more strategic about how we're gonna utilize those resources so that we can respond quicker. Our folks are working really hard. There's just a high volume of work right now. They are catching up. They've been working every weekend, they're catching up. But we still got a lot of lingering work orders that are out there. And y'all didn't hear me mention today, Mobile City Works, but that is an initiative that we have last year, that we really haven't advanced very far for a variety of reasons. I don't wanna blame everything on COVID and use that as an excuse, but we haven't made the progress that we had hoped and we had committed to making. We do commit to making that progress this year. That's gonna help us with our tracking and closing the loop and making sure things don't get lost so that you aren't getting the call of, hey, I reported this six months ago, where is it? It's also gonna help our call takers have information that they can share with folks that calling and inquire about the status. So the big initiative for us that we wanna push forward hard this year, we have a system that is both urban, but also very rural in parts of the county. And so we've got a lot of water mains that have some age on them and a lot of opportunity for folks to dig up our water mains and create breaks. And we've got a lot of breaks on our own, but doing things like the improvements in Rosewood and Shandon, Earlwood, Book of Washington Heights, that helps from a water quality standpoint, but it also addresses areas where we have frequent leaks. So we're trying to be strategic in replacing the more griddle online cast iron infrastructure. We know the materials that are out there and that's why we build a list to try to address not only water quality complaints, but routine leaks as well. Again, it's a long game process, but we're in the middle of working that and trying to get the infrastructure renewed and fix leaks in a timely manner until we can get infrastructure replaced. Yeah, I think a periodic updates on the topic would help. I try to do my best to explain to folks why the leaks are there and how fast it's gonna take for our guys to get there, but I don't like to say it's just an aging system. It may be in some areas, it may not be, but it would be helpful to me to know how we're progressing on that. Sometimes folks, you give them that information and they understand, but I try to assure them that the delay is not just because we can't get there, but we just have a good number of them happening. Yes, sir, I will invite you. We've got in the first two weeks of May, we haven't scheduled it yet, but we're gonna have a workshop socially distanced at our Beltline facility where we describe fully how we work through the city works process and what city works mobile and how our progression is going there. We're gonna talk a lot about leaks and how we're responding both now and what the future looks like. So I'll be sure and share that date with you as well. Sign me up. Thank you. Clint, I know that Mr. Davis is a highly-trained welder. He needs some more work out there in these streets. I think he's volunteering himself as a service. We can't plug those all the way. I was looking for the Philip Simmons train welder out there, making things happen before he put in the work. How much of me wants to ask questions for Clint? No, Clint, I mean, the significance of so many major projects you have going on from water, the wastewater, stormwater to AMI to just completely, I mean, you and I stay in Tiffany's and everything from the tone, the responsiveness, the tone, the whole nine yards. I mean, it's just been solid. And I know you're juggling a whole lot of really major projects at the same time. And I just, I think you guys done a great job. And just really lean on us as much as we can, particularly as we engage with federal policy makers, EPA, FEMA and everything else, as to how we can be helpful. But some of those projects you mentioned, I'm committed to continuing to invest in the system. We've been doing the right thing collectively for a good while now, we're seeing the results of it. And some of the things you had shading red, we can't take them off the list. We got to continue to make these investments to replace some of these old metal lines from 50, 60 years ago. So I'm impressed with the progress. Let's keep up with it and get asked. That's about to say, if you don't mind, we've come a long way with the CRE and the EPA, so forth and so on. Anybody who understands that history would know that we have made progress. And I think there's some light at the end of the tunnel, but there's some things that's beyond our control every now and then. So absolutely. Any other questions, Clint? Daniel? Yeah, I just, I would ask Clint, if maybe at a future council meeting, you could give us a little more insight on potentially the private sector growth, reaching out to those minority disadvantaged businesses and creating more opportunities there. Because it's something we've talked about for the last several years, a lot about, and looking at the staffing needs that we have, I think it's probably the best time for us really to push that even further. Because one of the struggles we have, as you and I know, is getting some, it's not fixing the leaks and so forth. It's going back and repairing the asphalt and the cleanup and the repairs that linger on. And I'd love to know more how we're growing that and taking advantage of the talent that we have in our community to fulfill those needs because our guys can only do so much. I mean, they just, they can't work 100 hours a week and it's just not possible. And I think it's a great opportunity for us to grow some businesses. And it gives them the ability to grow without having to deal with all the issues of higher binding and everything else. So it's an opportunity for us to really grow these small businesses here. So I'd really like to have some time here in the next month or so when you have time to really kind of dive into it deeper and understanding where this could end up going. Yes, sir. You do it. All right. You do. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. So Robert Chambers is next. I have Robert to share his screen if you can and present the rate study with you. Chambers. Hey, hey, Clint. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, City Manager, Council, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to present. Please let me know when you're able to see my screen. So we will go over the purpose, highlight some of your ever-evolving drivers, discuss some of your assumptions that went into developing the financial plan and then we'll go about discussing the financial plan and a few other items. So as you all are aware, we're here for three basic reasons. To establish the financing around your operating and capital program, to understand the cost to provide service and to make sure that in providing this service, you all price the service appropriately and the revenues that you recover as a result are adequate to meet your requirements. So last year we initiated this discussion and we highlighted what considerations a resilient utility would look for, what is going on in the market as it relates to the top industry issues. For example, on a few occasions during Mr. Sheila's presentation, we highlighted and discussed age and infrastructure. We spoke about resilience, revenues, you know. We spoke about the phone system and other information technology and customer systems, some of the same issues that you're grappling with as our other utilities. But then a year ago when we had this discussion, we discussed the impact of COVID-19. At the time we were in the early days of this journey and we really didn't understand even though we're trying to plan the best we could, we really didn't understand what the impact would have been going forward. As of right now, you know, we're over a year into this process. We have some more better data and empirical evidence and while we're still going through it, we're better able to plan and understand the impacts today and as we go forward. And as a result, we're still at the same point as it relates to what are our drivers, what it is we're trying to do. At its core, we're trying to maintain a sustainable utility system that allows us to appropriately plan the finances, maintain the business excellence and engage our stakeholders, okay? We know that we've looked at issues around revenue stability, how resilient our operations are, are we pricing these services appropriately and can we remain competitive? Those items still continue to be drivers and components that kind of push yourselves, the other utility leaders within your organization to make tough decisions and grapple with complex issues and we're still seeing those same drivers as we progress today. Historically, you as an entity have taken action as it relates to looking about adjusting, passing revenue or rate adjustments as needed to maintain the requirements of your system. Last year, given the existing situation in FY21, we did not go about passing a revenue or rate increase. We're proposing a rate increase in FY22, which we will go over in detail in a few slides. So what are the assumptions associated with the financial plan we're going to be presenting today? In essence, we're going to provide an overview of three basic scenarios. The first scenario is what we call the FY21 action, what we proposed to you last year and based on what we proposed, then we're going to provide scenario one, which is a financial plan that implements $120 million CIP in 22 through 26, which is a planning period. Additionally, we're going to talk about Project Sunshine, which is the addition of a new client to the system. And the impact of that addition will be evident in both scenarios. Scenario two will go about listing an $80 million CIP and the results are such in FY22. And then from 23 onwards, it would be a CIP of 120 million. One thing that we really wanted to highlight, and it's been said on a few occasions thus far, I'd just like to acknowledge and recognize staff as it relates to the diligence that has been shown through this time and even leading up to this point as it relates to financial planning, turning every stone and making sure that we've scored every alternative to try to provide the services at the lowest cost to your existing customers. You achieved some savings in your recent debt offering, the refunding offering, which has assisted and is evident as a part of the study. And then your economic development department for continuing to pursue new and significant customers on your system. And we're starting to see the impact of that initiative and your improved registration of new customers as a result of your water metering program. All these items have come together to have an impact on your financial planning. And we just wanted to highlight and recognize as such. So here we have the basic results. The third column, FY21 selected highlights what we showed you last year. In FY21, for the year 21, there was no rate increase. We lowered the CIP to about 40 million with a plan of going back to about 80 million in 22 and then 120 onward. Based on last year's forecast, we're anticipating about a 10.15 increase in FY22. And then we're at mid to high 7% onward. Based on the analysis and the diligence that was done by staff based on the scenario one, which is in FY22, 120 million in CIP, we're seeing FY22 revenue increase of about 5.02%. And that's what we'll be proposing today as a part of scenario one. Thereafter, we jump up to about a 7.96 and we average about the mid 6% from 24 onward. Now scenario two, which is the scenario whereby in FY22, we look at an 80 million CIP. We're looking at a revenue increase in FY22 of about 4.18%. And then, you know, we go up and down as it relates about 6.67 in 23, 6% in 24, 7.07 in 25 and onwards. But this is just showing you the relationship and the importance of the CIP and the impact to your required revenue increases and the diligence and the impact of that diligence planning as a result of what we were seeing last year prior to COVID and the situation you're going through. So to provide a little more detail, in FY22, which is the test year for scenario one, we're looking at revenue total of about 162.3 million. We're estimating about half a percent growth in accounts. And we're seeing decline in average use per customers, which is pretty evident because of learned and new usage patterns. Okay. We still have other revenue sources, which includes but is not limited to expansion fees, installation fees and other service fees. And then we have the incorporation of Project Sunshine, which is a high volume water and sewer customer slash user. We're estimating that in FY22, revenues associated with this customer that the city or that Columbia water will recognize will be about 25% in year two, which is FY23, about 75% and then in 24 onwards, it will build out, the project will build out and you'll see the full revenue potential. As it relates to the cost or the expense side, operating expenses in FY22 is about 99.1 million with an annual escalation factor of about 4%. We're proposing the 120 million CIP and we propose an initial FY22 debt offering of about 88.9 million. In addition, where as we always try, we're looking at a balanced approach to meeting your operating and capital requirements and meeting your established financial metrics, one of which is debt service coverage, which is revenues over debt. So just providing a little more information as it relates to the characteristics of scenario one over the forecast period, we're looking at about 68.5 in revenue bond funding, 31.5 in system funding. In addition, we've listed all your bond issuance amounts. In the first three years, where over 80 million per year issuance is and then the final two years, 25 and 26, we go down to about 78.5 and 76 million respectively. And that's in bonding that we'll go to market to seek. And this plan and this program is what we've been utilizing as a guidepost to meet the clean water program and the requirements to make sure your capacity requirements are sorted to make sure that on an ongoing basis you're rehabbing and reinvesting into your system appropriately. And we always continue to highlight and provide this overview to you just so that we can continue to follow and track the implementation of these programs. So going into the details of the financial plan and I won't go into implicit details of every line item, but the total revenues of the system, which is line 11 in 22 is about 185.1 million and it grossed about 252 million. We have line 12 are operating expenses, line 16 are total debt service requirements. The big thing we try to make sure we do here as a part of your financial planning effort is make sure we meet our financial metrics in an adequate and appropriate fashion, one of which is debt service coverage. You have an internal requirement of a 2.0 and in meeting that requirement appropriately funding your capital programs and then trying to implement the lowest possible revenue increases or rate increases for your existing customers. Those three items become the levers and the balancing components in developing the financial plan. And right now for FY22, we're proposing a 5.0 to revenue increase. Any questions here? I know this is a point where we may or may not have questions or should I continue? Why don't you continue, Robert? No problem. So this is just a basic summary of the scenario one financial plan and we've gone over it a few times. So looking at the billing facts, you know, over the life of the program as we have documented and tracked and we've presented on an annual basis, we've always tried to look at the smooth path as it relates to annual increases. And since 08 to 22, you know, the typical average increase in the bill and the compounded average is about just over 4%, which in some capacity tracks with the cost of money. But the more intriguing and real interesting component is, okay, what are you getting for what you pay? What's the value of water? And on a daily basis, water costs you, your customers on average about 77 cents per day and wastewater is about $1.42 per day. So if you had a situation where you went about buying, let's say, a gallon of bottled water for a dollar, that'd still be over 250 times more than what you pay for water. And what are the benefits and the value that you gain? You know, you're the shower, use, you know, shower, wash, drink, that water, eat, do a tons of stuff. And that's the value you get. And what we, if there's anything we want to highlight here, while the numbers on a daily basis, it may seem lower for various reasons than other examples. What we truly want to highlight is not just the number, but the value of the service that you're getting and how critical and important it is, as we all know, to daily life and living. Okay. So on average, your existing, your typical utility bill, which is just under 6,000 gallons per month for the typical customer, will grow by about $3.24 an average from about 64.55 to 67.79. And when we break it down and compare each bill water separately and sewer as compared to your neighbors, you are both in the middle. So your bill is still, you know, competitive based on the comparison we have here for water. On the sewer side, we're seeing, you know, both, you know, the same relationship. But, you know, sewer is a, there's a little more cost associated with sewer. And, you know, that's understandable, given the clean water program and other projects that you're currently undertaking to maintain the integrity and the level of service associated with the sewer system. Okay. Going on now to the high volume rate. So what is the high volume rate? What is this all about? I know we've discussed this before, but at its core, this rate is targeted for a customer that requires water service in the amount of about 300,000 gallons or greater per day. This is being established to recognize and segment the service demand and requirements of Columbia water to provide water and sewer service to this customer. And most importantly, it's been established to facilitate and support economic development within the city of Columbia and more importantly, to facilitate Columbia water's footprint throughout the region. The objectives are, you know, to have this rate and the service be representative of the actual cost of Columbia water to provide this service. The objective was that it should be simple, easy to understand and create the least possible impact at implementation to the target customers. And at its core, it should promote economic development. And that's been an important initiative for the city. And this is just another tool in the effort to keep pushing and acknowledging that initiative and its importance. It is in alignment with the financial planning approach that we have utilized and we continue to utilize on an annual basis. And what I'd like to do is just talk about the scenario that we're going to present. An existing customer or the existing customer who may suit this high use rate in your current system is potentially an outside the city commercial customer. The scenario that we're presenting will look at and target the high use rate associated with that service. As a part of targeting and going about creating that rate, we're going to maintain the usage block rates. So typically your rates have two components. As you are aware, the meter based component, which is the fixed and the component that's charged to make service available. And then the volumetric, which is charged based on the amount of water service you use. So for this rate, we're going to go about maintaining the fixed component, but for the flow component, we're going to target the outside water commercial rate and we're going to maintain the existing four blocks, but then we're going to add a fifth block at somewhat of a reduced rate. The fifth block will represent approximately usage at and over 300,000 gallons per day. And the economic development initiative and target will go about promoting economic development and incentivizing those high use customers to come to the city of Columbia based on this rate. So scenario one, as we're showing it, only applies to the high use water rate service. And there'll be no adjustments to the existing sewer rate structure. So we'll maintain the sewer rate structure, maintain the meter based structure on the water side, but then make an adjustment to the volumetric component. What do the existing rates look like? So for example, we're simulating a six inch customer and for outside water service, that meter rate would be about $346 per month based on the meter size. And then we have the block rates here for commercial outside service. So we have block one, two, three, four. And in this scenario, we're going to add a fifth block. So going into more details as it relates to the high use water rate. So this is the rate in essence or at its core, your existing rate for block. Okay, so let me just go back a step. So for block one through four, you have usage which is zero to three CCFs, which is block one, then over three CCFs to a hundred CCF is block two, over a hundred CCF to a thousand is block three. And all usage over a thousand is block four. In the case of this high use rate, we're going to go about adding a fifth block. And based on cost of service as highlighted and based on your existing rates, we're going to maintain blocks two, three and four. And then we're going to go about adding a fifth block at a lower rate in order to promote economic development. And as you can see, the scenario line 20 and 21 says the total simulation of revenues on a monthly basis based on cost of service. And you can see the differences here in. So this becomes a structure of the high use water rate. Let me stop here to see if there are any questions as it relates to this rate. I know we said a lot. So any questions? We already approved this rate. Thank you. I think we're talking about as matter of policy, prospectively how we're going forward. Is that a word? Yes. So we, we've presented this in the past. And I don't think there was a request for action. It was informing you of the direction. But no, I know the team and staff is coming back. So I think we're going to have to inform again and request action. That's correct. I'm sorry, councilman. We took it. Didn't we do this for project sunshine or. Was that a one-off and now you want to put it in for available for anybody. So councilman, we, we briefed y'all and y'all approved the concept and we were going to formally do that with this year's late ordinance revision because project sunshine is not using water or sewer yet. So we knew we had the time to do that and amend the rate ordinance just one time. So this is the official action of what you've already seen. Robert was just going back over that refreshing the memory. But this is the deal that we agreed to, to incentivize the sunshine. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That is correct. So we need to do this because they got a whole lot of concrete out there expecting it. Yes, sir. And then we don't have any other customer right now that would fall into that category. So the delay really didn't impact anything other than, you know, we had the commitment before, but this is formalizing that. Right. But it, but it would extend to other high use. If we have another project sunshine. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. It absolutely would. Yes, sir. So moving on to your miscellaneous. Can you, can you, I got a quick question. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, sir. Hey, Clint. So how many more projects sunshine can we take on before all facility upgrade the, the facility upgrades would have to be made at wastewater. It's a great question. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think they would be located. We, we know that another project sunshine or two out in time view would create some challenges from a water distribution standpoint, but because of the proximity to the wastewater collection. System and treatment plant. We're in good shape there to convey the waste and treat the ways. We're in good shape on the wastewater provision side. In the Northeast, the industrial part that the county is looking to develop in your blightwood. We're in fantastic shape on the water distribution side because we have a 48 inch water main that traverses that park or that property. But we're not as in a, as good a shape on the wastewater provision side because it's so far away from our waste treatment plant. So that we can absorb them from a total capacity standpoint, but a lot of planning has to go into where to site those industries and how much a heavy intensive wet industry needs and where they would go. So that's a long answer. And I apologize for not being more direct, but that's about as best I can do for you. No, I appreciate that. And I mean, as we treat the stormwater wastewater, I get to see wastewater. I mean, are we going to hit DHEC standards pretty quickly with, with what we're allowed to put into the, to the river shed? Well, so we, we've got from a hydraulic capacity standpoint, we've got a 60 million gallon day rated facility and we average about 36 million gallons a day. This charge to the Congaree River. So we've got a good bit of hydraulic capacity. We just went through an aeration upgrade that's going to increase our biological treatment capacity so that we can handle more poundage. We do know eventually we will have to upgrade our waste facility, both hydraulically and from a treatment standpoint, but we've got a good bit of capacity from a, a poundage loading and also how dry left. We also impose in a very strict about our, about our surcharges. And so we don't let a customer just, just dump a whole lot of high strength waste on us. If they go above a certain value, then they have to pay a penalty for that, which helps fund future upgrades in terms of biological or loading capacity. Right. Thank you. Robert. Okay. So moving on to miscellaneous service fees. So what we wanted to highlight here is the fact that staff undertook an evaluation just to refresh and understand. You know, the costs associated with providing these services. And as a result of understanding those costs, are the existing fees that you charged, you know, adequate. So what, what are miscellaneous fees? There, there's service charges slash user fees. That are levied upon customers for a specific good or service for the use of, of, of public facilities. So in the case of Columbia water, these aren't direct water and sewer user charges, but there are other services you all provide insulation services, turn and turn off services, for example. And these fees support these services because as you're aware, if you have a turn on or off, if somebody calls, somebody has to take that call, somebody has to react and somebody has to sort that customer's need and requirement in short order. And what these charges do is try to understand the cost to provide those services, price them as such. Okay. So in, in doing so, staff looked at a few of the services or all the services that you provided. And there were recommendations to make adjustments to some, and to leave the remainder as they are. So for example, your current charge for a fire hydrant installation is $800. The new recommendation is 1600 for hydrant meters is 240. The new recommendation is 1000. But there's a credit of 700 if it's returned within three years. Say for example, meter replacements. You're currently charging $45 for like a three quarter inch to one inch. But we're proposing a $300 charge. For some of the charges, there is no change. For example, say for example, on our unauthorized use fees, straight connection fee, a lot meter fee. And remove meter fee. All those charges, for example, will remain the same. So this is just a listing of the existing miscellaneous charges that were reviewed. And the proposed recommendations. We're also proposing and wrapping up, you know, what is, what is the acts? The access to consider the implementation of the FY 22. Water and source slash Columbia water financial plan. Consider the implementation of the high use. Water rate. And consider the implementation. Of the proposed miscellaneous service charges. So that's it. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you all today. And, you know, please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you. Questions for Robert. I can't see that. Can see all the hands of Mr. Duval. Robert and Clint both that that that was an excellent presentation very, very, a lot of information in there for the public and for the council to digest. One of the things that I appreciated. Robert covering was the value of water. We are blessed in the city of Columbia to have a great source of water with both the Lake Murray coming through the Saluta River. And the Broad River coming down from up in the northwest side of the state also. So we have abundant water, which a lot of people don't have. If you've been reading or hearing the news lately about the people out west. It is getting to be critical. And to the point where we may not, they might not, might even not be able to run the generators and some of the big dams that they have out there this year because the water levels are so low. We, we are blessed to have these water sources. I note on our water rate. That we are still giving the first 300 cubic feet at the same charge and no charge for the first 300 cubic feet, which means that if, if you use the 300 cubic feet, you'd have a, an increase of only 41 cents over the previous rate that we charged for that if we adopt the new rate. And people that use the water and sewer at the first 300 cubic feet, it's a 45 cents total. So, and a lot of our people are, are under those terms, those numbers. I used to use five and 600 cubic feet on McGregor. I don't, I don't use nearly that much in this apartment, but water in Columbia is fairly priced and it is valuable because we have abundant sources. So I think we need to continue to fund these water and sewer requests that the staff has done and keep the system running efficiently. Thank you, Mr. Duval. Any other questions for Robert or statements? Daniel. I just, I wrote down a bunch of questions going through this and, and I'd like to follow up at the appropriate time. Obviously, you know, today we got a full agenda, but at the appropriate time, I'd love to follow up with Robert and a little bit more to understand some of the dynamics there. But I really appreciate what you put together. It's very comprehensive, but I'd like to schedule a time in the next couple of weeks if we could to go over these questions. Certainly a couple of questions I had too, but also in the interest of time and then we have a lengthy agenda. I was off camera briefly. Did we cover today? And they usually you also show us a sensitivity analysis, looking at our population and the ability of folks to pay. We didn't do that this time, right? I think I saw that one chart. That's been included. Maybe before what have you, but I'd be curious if we have any numbers like that. But I think, I think five percent is a, is a, is a win going in the, in the right direction. I double down on everything Mr. Duvall had to say as well, including, I think, I think some of the things I've seen before in my head, and I think people should be aware of those things, and that interest. This is in place. I have one of them. So no, thanks for the comprehensive report and recommendations. I was a courtesan. Yeah. No problem. Thank you all so very much. Thank you. right now or what we look for? No, sir. It will be incorporated into the budget recommendations that we'll keep going for now. That includes the super user issue. We can handle that later. It doesn't need to be handled now. No, sir. I mean, we're looking for you all to approve it formally. Yes, sir. But as far as in the actual budget that the Water and Sewer Fund will incorporate the 5%. No, I meant the super user rate. I mean, that does not do the time issues there. We're good. They're moving forward pretty aggressively in construction. Right. Clint and Misty, I guess, when we get to the point of the budget, the vote on the budget, are you incorporating a separate motion on the high user rate? Those would be part of the rate ordinance, Ms. Wilson. So as the rate adopted, then that will be taken care of as well. And in terms of timing, the mayors, they are moving at unbelievably aggressive pace and doing really, really well. But we've got plenty of time still to approve for our normal budget process to get those leg adjustments in place. Okay, super. Super. Thank you. Thank you, Clint, Robert. So at this time, we'll move along so that we can have enough time to get everything in. The overview of the recently approved American Rescue Plan and some recommendations that we have for you all, Mayor and Council. And with that, Ms. C. Kaufman, our budget and program management director will start us off. Again, we're doing it in this order. We're building you up to the budget recommendations I fund. I'd also add on the agenda, just for the sake of the public awareness, all of the funds will be covered today. I meant for them to be actually bulleted out on the agenda within the memo that you received, as well as, I guess, why Misty said in the sub, I would say there's been, as you know, many of you with all of your national contacts and colleagues through various organizations, you know that there is an abundance of information right now regarding funding, funding sources, the American Rescue Plan, obviously, and the direct allocation we've received as a city. And then there's also many opportunities through the Federal Appropriations Act. And so we're very, very thankful for Ralph and Deborah with Capital Edge, who, you know, have served us so well for many years. But I mean, we, as a staff, our entire team, we are talking to them daily. And we are staying ahead of these potential opportunities to have funds for some projects in the city of Columbia and infrastructure. And so I didn't want to confuse you with everything we're presenting today, but Misty Gentry has done a phenomenal job of working with all of our different departments along with, obviously, our finance team and our WANA and the lobbyists. And so we've already submitted for several projects to meet certain deadlines as far as sending things to the congressmen and others. And so we have an email that outlines some of that for you. And I'm going to ask Misty go ahead and send that to you later today. We just wanted to get through the budget presentation so that you don't get confused with all the various sources. So with that, Misty's going to be, Cofin's going to take you through now our proposed budget and start with the Rescue Plan recommendations. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. After following Mr. Shealy and Robert Chamberlain, I feel like I really need to up my game here on the conversation. Hopefully this will continue a thread of good information and good discussion around this exciting opportunity for the city and our upcoming proposed budget, your proposed budget. So the first part of the conversation when we want to talk about is just an overview of the presentation. We want to remind to the council of the project, of the budget timeline, a summary of the American Rescue Plan as mentioned, as well as getting through the proposed fiscal year 21-22 city manager proposed budget. We'll cover each operating fund, which will be the general fund, our parking fund, our water and sewer operating fund, our stormwater operating fund, hospitality tax and accommodation tax. And then, as has been discussed in a couple of council meetings, we thought we'd go ahead and bring forward an introduction about a special project that we're dealing with Bloomberg's What Works Cities and our city budgeting for equity and recovery initiative. To just some highlights from the of the conversation, of course, you know, as we are still in an economic uncertainty around the pandemic, there is there is some silver linings, there was some promising days ahead. So we, we are, we are cautiously optimistic as we, as, as we have been proceeding a continuity of operations and continuing to provide our excellent day-to-day services to our community. Our city departments have not missed a beat. We're continuing to provide services day-to-day and have been and look forward to the opening of parks here in a few weeks or part facilities as summer is coming upon us. And of course, it's always fulfilling our city's financial obligations. That's one of the most important things we feel like we can do as stewards of the city's funds and making sure that we maintain a healthy financial footprint for the city. So, and as we've been talking through many of these conversations and having lots of conversations, especially with our colleagues across the country as we talk about the American Rescue Plan, as well as the impacts of COVID. This was a reassounding statement of if you're going through hell to keep going for Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill. So we're just going to keep on going and keep trudging ahead and, and make our way through together. Just a reminder of our budget timeline. We're here today. As Mr. Wilson said, we've compressed a usually pretty lengthy budget conversation into today's conversation with the expectations that just as, and you'll probably hear me say this several times today. Following today's conversation, we will be advertising the budget this week in anticipation of a budget public hearing for May the 11th, which is that will be a special called meeting date, but will allow us an opportunity to get the budget approved in and passed in May. The the advertisement date is based on state law in order to meet our 15-day notice requirement. So the notice will be sent out this week for advertisement next week. And then second reading and adoption will be May 18th. So all those discussions in regards to our budget, both with our water and sewer discussions that Mr. Sheila and Robert Chambers just went through with discussed with you as well as the budget being proposed today, would all need to be advertised by this week to meet the schedule. American Rescue Plan, this is, this will be a very high level conversation. I'm by all means not a proficient or fluent spokesperson for the discussion he's planned but has had many conversations and then on many webinars, we've had many discussions with National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors, thanks to U.S. Conference of Mayors with some great conversations with Treasury as well as ICMA, NASC, GFOA, all kinds of guidance and information out there coming forward. And of course, we can't forget our capital edge and all of the help and assistance that they give to us on anything at a national level and and really appreciate all of their help and support and providing with us with information timely and definitely reliable and they're always a great advocate for the city and we appreciate their support. High level overview with regards to the American Rescue Plan, the first and foremost what we want to express and repeat is that guidance for local government financial assistance is still dependent from the U.S. Treasury. That is very key for these funds. It's like waiting on the federal registry when we receive any of our federal dollars. It will determine for us how we can use the funds as well as any kind of reporting and requirements that we'll have. So it's very important that we receive this guidance. Also we know at this point that the city's estimated direct allocation to Columbia is $25.9 million. This will be coming straight to the city of Columbia, unlike CARES Act funds last year that went through the state. We also have been made aware that there's an additional $2.5 million in our HUD home funds. Those are subject to the HUD requirements and the HUD program, but it is a direct allocation to the city. So we're including this outline here. The local financial assistance funds the $25.9 million. The Act requires that it be dispersed within 60 days from being signed to the law, signed in the law on March the 11th. So we anticipate getting this funds later than maybe 11th. Then guidance from Treasury should have also been received or anticipated. Then the Act requires that the second part of the payment be received at no sooner than one year from the first. We have until December 31st, 2024 to spend these funds. That's specific to the direct allocation. HUD and home funds are under their own guidance and directions. They're not subject to the Treasury guidance. Some of our other key takeaways that we have been receiving and sharing with our colleagues and other discussions. Treasury guidance still is pending. Again, can't overstate that their guidance is still pending and is important. Of course, we need Treasury to provide us with eligible uses. Although there is outlined in the Act what is eligible and what's really important and key to this part of the conversation is the administration of the funds. That will be definitely a significant component of this process as well. Other guidance is also is that we plan for the recovery. Underlying a lot of the use of these funds and recovery is anticipated to be able to returning people to work and then we're putting jobs back in place. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast and that's been a phrase that's been referred to on several these conversations. I know we all like to be able to move in the fast lane on these and set the structure and the organization how we disperse and utilize these funds will be important because that's going to be the fastest and most efficient way to be able to deliver these funds where they are intended to go. With that, we are also advised to assess our needs and address our gaps and look specifically for those gaps especially as we consider the local recovery funds. These are the only funds that the city is receiving directly in the system and so we are advised to use gaps and priorities not for eligible other programs. As you'll see in the summer coming up, there's a lot of different programs in this act, a lot of different funding opportunities that cover a number of initiatives that the city council has expressed in our community so we want to make sure that we are spreading our funds with a consideration of not duplicating efforts. Of course, we take time to create a well-defined plan and with equity at its core. We're going to think strategically about how to use these funds for our future needs not only today but also building some resiliency and then we are reminded that these funds are one time and we need to treat them as such so that as we're using them for one time so that as we're receiving them one time that we use them for one time needs and one time needs expenditures. We will be required to document and provide some regular reporting on the spending as what we are anticipating. We don't know what that yet looks like. That also speaks to of course capacity for that problem but also to the eligible reasons to be important in terms of how it's supposed to be received. As for the summary of the local government assistance 360 million that's really 350 billion dollars excuse me I'm not used to referring to billion in our budget conversation with additional 10 billion for coronavirus capital project funds states are receiving the direct allocation. The city's allocation is based primarily on our HUD formulas with also a factor for poverty but the city's allocation is based on that formula. The county is also receiving a direct allocation I believe in the NAIC in the neighborhood of 80 million. As far as the legislative uses that had been designated specifically in the section 99.01 of the ARP of the American Rescue Plan is responding to public health related to COVID and its negative impact on those household assistance the household small business non-profits aid and impacted industries obviously speaking of tourism travel and hospitality. We also the act also addresses responding to workers with essential work related to public health and COVID-19. There's also provision for government services to the extent of reduction of revenues. As that relates to the city of Columbia specifically this means as it states here that local government do the COVID public health emergency relative to revenues collected and then the most recent full fiscal year the local government prior to the emergency. So the city of Columbia that means fiscal year 1819 you'll see in our common conversations that fiscal year 1819 is our foundation or for basis for our recommendations with regards to revenue. To make investments and water sewer a broadband infrastructure as well as transfer funds to private non-profits that are are designated into homeless act. Funds cannot be used for pension and they cannot be used to offset a tax increase. With that guidance that was presented there this is where the city of has uh city managers put together a proposed use of those on the American Rescue Plan and as well something I'm sure you'll want to jump in at any point um for these conversations. As mentioned our basis for these allocations are being driven from our fiscal year 1819 revenues. One of the first stated uses is regards to the recovery I see the general loan that the city received has has received our recommendation is to is to basically return that loan and pay for the funds that we have have are obligated to refund and restore then has a long-term impact in the sense that the the use of those funds would would incur is a loan it said it would be a debt on to the fund that would be that was sipping of those funds so if it was general fund it would be debt on the general fund going forward so we are recommending that we pay those funds back in place of using these funds. Revenue shortfall as mentioned we used our fiscal year 1819 as a as a baseline and determine where there are shortfalls. There is still guidance pending from the treasury of course as we've mentioned I think a couple of times now so the guidance is still pending in terms of of of how of what the revenue recovery would look like in our conversations with with other entities and with some of the other organizations that we've mentioned we're looking at things that both a a line on other revenue stream as well as a category of a revenue stream so we have programmed these funds into our upcoming budget revenue shortfalls based on the general fund our parking fund and our hospitality specifically by far parking fund has seen the most dramatic impact with regards to parking revenues and we state that based on both projections but also actual revenues received and we'll get into that a little bit further as we get through this conversation. The city manager is also including a provision for employee housing and premium pay to be discussed as we move forward and then not in any specific order or our designated amounts because we are still pending the guidance from treasury and listening to city councils specific conversations and in referencing prior meetings where some certain areas have come up with regards to external uses or even internal uses just on specific programs administered maybe through the city for housing initiatives non-profit assistance small business support broadband and student securities and as we think of those and consider those keep in mind we will go forward with discussions on some of the other programs and allocations that also will be addressing some of these same areas so we want to be cognizant of the application of the effort. I'm gonna pause there to see if there's any comments I know I'm kind of rack and fire discussion here. So Missy thank you for getting us to this point obviously this gets you know to the crux of the funding and quite frankly you know between Missy and Jeff and I and working with the ACMs and our finance team I mean the numbers just really are what they are when you back into the debt repayment and the revenue shortfall you know the only thing that we I guess played with a little bit was this idea of premium pay and it's the premium pay is taken from the terminology used in the act itself so those numbers are truly based off the formulas that we were given to work from from FY18-19 being the baseline and so I did not want to take any liberties other than knowing various categories of external uses that I knew you all were interested in really wanted feedback from you on you know how you would seek to prioritize some of those areas with the $6.5 million remaining to to use to assist in those areas and again you know we can't reiterate enough and this is coming from Ralph and all the natural sources there's just the treasury guidance is is really key here this is different than the when obviously you all were very forward thinking and we were able to put some programs together internally for external use obviously those are city funds these are federal dollars and we're going to have to follow and the the guidance as it comes out as to how it's utilized and how we comply with it going Teresa I know you probably have a good number of questions I'll go to Mika first and then Howard but before we do that in case one needs to go just pull some numbers up let me get back to around our entire parking fund budget and particularly I'm interested in if in fact we're able and unable to think perfect well we'll know the budget yes we are we at risk of not being able to meet our debt obligations on our revenue bonds on the I mean what's the impact on that because obviously if it's if that's the issue backing up our our long-term debt obligations then there's no hesitant to see her pushing that much into the parking fund if that's not at risk however I'd probably lean in the direction of some of the other issues towards the bottom of the list but but nonetheless I'm curious about what's the overall parking fund budget I'm trying to remember is it nine nine million there about so annually you want to jump to that because I do think that's illustrative for councils understand you want to just jump to the parking fund budget go ahead and address it and I'm sorry I'm gonna get up off track no I mean we're gonna have to get there anyway we talked about this mirror because it's this is a different kind of budget we're trying to fill in gaps and explain why and the actual fund but yes sir we can go to it right now well the primary question was I knew it was about nine million on budget was how does how does the the filling this gap or failure to fill this gap has the effect on bondholders uh or what have you if that's not at risk we need that more discussion about that but get go ahead missy this is Jeff so yes we are under risk we have issues covering meeting our bond com that's in parking I believe this will be showing you the parking budget I don't know if it shows kind of the actuals through this year we'll have to look and we can put information back out there but this past year and then the current year we're not anticipating meeting bond covenants because we are not generating the revenue that we need to cover our operational costs we're hopeful that we can utilize these revenues to and all we're looking to do is get it back to the 2019 levels that will still keep things kind of close but that will be where we'll go back to our bond council and others to talk about how that's going to affect the covenants and what the requirements on the system are if we don't do this we will end up having to have a parking study and that will potentially push us to have to have parking rates increased across the board but that would only be going forward it really doesn't help in the current year and potentially the next year I will point out so the numbers that Missy Kauffman is going to show you and has on that spreadsheet for parking for the ARP funds to be used those numbers are estimates so if we don't end up utilizing all those funds we do have to 2020 to utilize these so if parking comes in and if 2.3 million isn't neat I don't have it right in front of me but if the number for next year isn't mean it's a smaller number we'll have additional funds that we can roll back in that can be used for the other uses as designated once we get guidance from Treasury and approval from y'all does anybody have a question there and I was hopeful that the summary was going to be helpful it's it's it's it's helpful and then we got we got to wait for Treasury guidance and and the like but just with you know with the significant needs of our HSEC funded organizations our cultural institutions obviously whatever we can do in terms of broadband for housing and small businesses obviously there's there's a whole lot out there and and unless I mean I a little bit discomfort of a third of the of the committed funding going to to parking but we'll talk some more about that and as we as we learn as we go along Ms. Devine yeah it's still yeah I just um Missy can you go back um I just want to make sure so um basically we're working with a balance of 6.5 million for the external uses um seeing as the money will be split in half um have y'all thought through a process of um sorry have y'all thought through a process of um when you know how much would be available at what time so we're y'all are looking at the allocation but only half will be available now and another half won't be for another year yes ma'am we are taking that into consideration and also would would be also reminding city council of that same in terms of how we allocate especially as we need guidance from treasury in terms of how the funds you know they have a year to give us those funds but if we don't receive those funds between by June 30th or following year then that could have some longer term you know impacts with regards to our financial statement but we are taking that into consideration um some of the city uses you know maybe especially as we're talking about the the current budget versus those things that are based on prior years showing up on our prior years okay um and you know I've told everybody I've spoken to 25 million sounds like a lot of money but in the scheme of things it's not and I think of course looking at where we have internal needs and in this it really elevates the fact that it's really not a lot of money and goes very fast um I would you know definitely suggest that as we look at the external allocations consider um not just an official process but maybe a part of that process be some input from the community on on some of the priorities I know several people have already done that so if we could maybe look at that as well and then the last thing I would suggest is um so that our money goes as far as possible I certainly would suggest that we look at and I know that our well I know um I imagine that our process because we are used to this is is probably even though we're still waiting on on Treasury guidance is is probably going to be a little bit more defined and official because we typically do this um but I would suggest if we could um maybe seek um some kind of uh collaboration with the county in some areas for instance they are already doing the rental assistance um so certainly although we could do something similar there there really isn't we don't need to be duplicating efforts um but if we are looking at gaps um figuring out where the gaps within our community particularly the city are um so as we're allocating funds if the county is doing something we don't duplicate that effort but we also talk to our partners on the county uh to ensure that city residents get um fair um access to those funds although they live in the incorporated area yes ma'am thank you mr. byron and we have um there are a few different um surveys that are out there as well in the between um uh economic development options opportunity has done some surveys community development of course is doing surveys especially related to the HUD fund so we we have a number of input methods that have already occurred that that could be useful um for that for that guidance as you mentioned but that is important in terms of assessing gaps and your right the the whole need to not to spread out funds according to gaps whether or are available uses is key to this discussion so and we've got some input as well i'll share with you i know howard will and i spoke at a neighborhood meeting and afterwards i got a very lengthy email from the community apparently after we left they they did talk about what they'd like to see so i'll forward that and i've gotten some from others i would also encourage us to look at i mean there are several very well organized grassroots nonprofits who are doing great work in the community that aren't always weren't always on our radar and have never been part of our system of getting community promotions or anything else and so i certainly would want us to get input from them because they are dealing with things every day in the community and they know where some of the gaps and some of the needs are so we uh could work with them not just to get the money into the community but also to make sure that um that they are part of the process too all right all right mr mr duval and then mr davis then mr rick and uh thank you mr mayor a lot of my questions were answered when you discussed the parking fund because i was looking at the hospitality fund there again those funds are going to be splitting into two years my my thought on the hospitality was to try to get as much money as we could back into the organizations by using the h tax funds out of the arp as a backstop hopefully the the collections of the h tax itself are going to be going up and i think they might have gone up a little bit more than we had anticipated we might have collected more than we anticipated this year so i i think the the question is how much of this can be used um to shore up the h tax rather than a direct expenditure uh on projects in the h tax so um could you ask other going to us and say it was direct expenses or the revenue we were treating as the revenue as a as basically a transfer and that's part of the guidance that we're still taking from treasury in terms of what we discussed and we'd be treating it as a it's important in terms of how the financials would be how it ends up being recorded if we're able to treat it as a grant so that we can transfer it into the fund and then it's a funding use of that system if you will what would you use half of that 4.8 million in in the budget year that we're talking about now 21 22 so what we have included in the fiscal year 21 22 for h tax is the 1.7 for this year um the other amounts are already in the fund so we would basically be helping to show up where the forecast of where we are today and this year's funding in the course of fire year just basically building a reserve okay okay when we get to the h tax fund Mr. Duvall I mean we understand where you know where you are and and what you all want to do with showing up for the groups I think we're trying to strike a balance as to getting making sure the fund is healthy in the years ahead as well as you know your ability potentially in the years ahead to do some of the things you have mentioned you want it to do pre-covid whether it is an h tax fund etc so okay all right um Sam and Daniel Sam you're on me so we can read your lips all right that my uh my my suggestions aren't too different from what I'm hearing now um even if we partner with folks some of it we can maybe use a seed dollars for those areas where we may not have enough to do what we want to do anyway but we could help those organizations that um that are pretty much trying to do some of the things that we'd like to do and can't do the other thing is um I'm I'm hoping we can do as much as we can in partnering with or helping to support small business initiatives citywide but then you know to be honest with you there's some areas where we probably would benefit if we really target to help small businesses trying to either get off the ground or small businesses just trying to grow and maintain that's all you know I think everything everybody said is is worthwhile for the discussion but I feel like we really need to look towards and and I would look to Miss Wilson and the staff we we've got equipment needs we've got shot spotter expansion needs we've got all these internal needs that we need to take care of and I think we need to to focus it inwards um as much as we can and take care of these needs to make sure that our staff and and all of our services are being delivered because they're based on citywide needs and services and I think we ought to look to see what else we need internally first before we go out there's a lot of recovery money out there for all types of businesses and nonprofits and everybody else through other grant opportunities I do think we need to look internally first and I'd like to see some more recommendations from staff on what we could use these funds for as we get more information yes I'm happy to do that and um thank you any other questions and again my um my most significant concern is obviously we have to we run a tight ship and I'm thankful of the work our staff does this does also represent a a significant um maybe a historic opportunity to make some really strong moves and some ways that matter I agree with to make it as a whole lot of great grassroots work going on out there we can support that in the interest of our citizens we need to do that but the two um particular areas stand out to me that we have an opportunity to make strides here and that's in working with our public partners and our nonprofit and for-profit partners for that matter and delivering broadband uh to to people of this community a digital divide is real we saw it and um in more ways from education to to healthcare to just economic stability more than we ever have and then um obviously affordable housing um affecting every community across this country and but Columbia is our our primary concern that this represents an opportunity uh to really stand up some long-term efforts uh in the interest of posterity and economic prosperity in those spaces those stand out to me and I and I I raise the issue of age tags I'm speaking specifically um about um about getting monies to these arts organizations that have weathered the storm um significantly not necessarily had the opportunity to participate as much in some of the efforts we stood up collectively as a group uh last year some of them are are hanging by a thread and it's important for us uh to try and um and support those organizations and make sure they have a weathered storm as well um so we'll we'll all have more opportunities to discuss them but I wanted to continue to lift up uh those in in particular broadband afforded by housing and and uh working with our age tax organizations getting them um up and strong and running again as the economy comes back mr. mayor yes sir mr. McDowell yes I uh I certainly don't want to beat the drum but I'm going to beat it because I've been beating it continuously um I think the services and whatever we do has to be it has to be driven uh with a human consciousness that is appropriate to whatever that calls this um I've got a I've got an issue with firefighters equipment uh I keep harping on that because there are firefighters that are in in need of new equipment and um I would certainly hope and we I may certain to be off the beaten path but of course I think it's necessary that if we're going to do anything it has to be it has to be driven with a kind of human consensus and um these firefighters need this equipment rate of cancer uh relative to firefighters equipment is very very important and I keep raising that issue issue but I think a large part of that has to be with that human dimension that uh if we're going to do anything it has to be human driven human dynamics driven I'm sorry thank thank you thank you sir all right I think we're um let's just keep keep moving and um yes sir we will and I guess as we move into the more specific um discussion of the funds just recognize that the budgets and balance by utilizing these proposed um numbers here particularly as it comes to the general fund the park and fund the hospitality tax so just keep that in mind you know I I hear you loud and clear about wanting um all the guidance we can give and and surveys and getting seeking input from the public on the external uses of the 6.5 if this is the breakout that you agree to um obviously I can always tell you other ways to use that internally I did not want to assume nor come to you with a recommendation that only um use the funds internally so this was about the best we could get to and again it's it's truly based off trying to um get our budget back at a minimum to the way it was and hope for some redundancy some sustainability and just quite frankly a little cushion um going into those fiscal years 22 23 etc so you did you guys exactly exactly what what you needed to do um no this is exactly where we need to start and uh I mean so no your home point and I think we're gonna have to figure out as we give you positive meaningful input and ask some of the important questions there'll be some places here I'm sure there'll be some opportunities for movement and some that just won't be um but we I think we just need to throw back very specific recommendations as to what we might want to see more or less of but you know you guys do the great job pulling this together okay yes sir so Missy why don't you um try to you know expedite some of these additional slides now that I think the council has a flavor for what what our basis is okay I'll put on the fire hose uh method here so okay the next few slides are really different ways of the ARP and bringing to attention um some areas of interest there's several other um programs that aren't highlighted here but these we know would be of interest there's 10 billion dollars in the in for um local the local government assistance that for capital projects it's specifically related to broadband so this is also addressing our broadband needs um rental housing there's various components related to rental housing emergency rental assistance is mentioned Richland County is receiving 12.5 and then another 9.5 coming as well as some other funds that are aren't listed here specifically um as Miss Devine mentioned in terms of coordinating with the county um on these funds also um and in mentioning too some of these programs coming up some are either going straight to the state or other eight um or other agencies but they are definitely finds that it will be coming into our community um in a variety of fashions so we want to make sure we're staying staying aware in the breath of how they are being utilized within our community so emergency housing voucher um through HUD um and also some additional funding for housing counseling. Many of these programs we're all aware of and familiar with um the city's the the home funds that will be coming through the HUD is mentioned there will be 2.5 million um dollars uh these actually have a uh youth time of uh fiscal year 2025 that's a little longer date uh it does have a little different um direction than our normal home funds but I'm sure Miss Dahid and her team will be able to address those as that as that moves forward uh home and assistance program also an allocation start going straight to the state uh 9.9 billion an additional rat and rental and housing assistance this is specifically related to water um assistance program this these funds without a health and human services five hundred million dollars this will be helping specifically individuals with their water and water use bills um you cannot find the city has access to but of course it finds that our customers would have access to um as well um of course we can't forget the relief to individuals and families um individuals we will be receiving uh fourteen hundred fourteen hundred dollars per taxpayer and then just for fourteen hundred dollars per dependent as well as also child tax credit that will be coming through um and various outlamps related to child tax credit um additional paid and sick leave um this is also will be helpful for us but that's also helpful for small business support with relation to the family and sick family um paid sick and medical leave as well as the um unimportant relief um and nonprofits will be able to sustain that program as well transportation the airport provisions as well as FTA um claiming that the CMRTA is also receiving some additional portion of these funds so again funds that are coming into the community that the city that's necessarily involved with but they are coming to our community uh FEMA disaster and disaster assistance the city does participate in some of these programs as well as mentioned some of these programs are available to the city by way of competitive grants to the some of the FEMA grants will be competitive um disaster assistance um funeral assistance for individuals uh the firefighter uh grants and safer firefighter hiring grants the city does um has participated in both of these programs i'm sure we would take advantage of the same opportunity um with a competitive grant and then emergency management performance grant nutrition programs SNAP WIC um EDT as well so there's also nutrition programs there's also a variety of programs that are system food banks um and food provisions that will be addressing the different food insecurity to our community directly as well that do not come directly to the city that will be be feed by several of the organizations that the city has partnered with on some food insecurity projects as mentioned this means the kamavi supplemental food program that specifically related to senior nutrition nutrition the emergency food shelter and then the usda child and adult care programs which is also assisting for food provisions for emergency for those that are in uh housing shelters next there's also the art humanities museums libraries these are also funds born directly to the state that will be assisting the arts organizations that will be assisting the humanities organizations um those and also two that will be assisting libraries and museums so and those are also of interest to our our council um and to our community um that again that's a high level overview um and by far is not it's not comprehensive but certainly areas of interest to our to our community and to our council would you would you go back one slide missy certainly so some of the national programs um obviously these are um this money goes to the state and as it says here competitive grants are there some efforts that we can stand up to maybe help some of our local organizations participate in that and maybe in lieu of h tax dollars i think that's a great approach so we have talked about that with regards to you know we did a um coalition last year with nine way and and similar to our community foundation for establishing helping to assess and capacity of some of these organizations to seek these dollars similar to the way our abo does with assisting small business take advantage i think there are some infrastructure in place together as c has done some work in this area we can certainly look i know they have done a survey of nonprofits you can certainly um look into that a little bit further to see it would be a valuable opportunity for these organizations to be able to profit these funds but also making sure that there's there's some really you know strong application um for this what's not listed here is the shutter venue um grant that's also out there and is available i know that is also being shared among our a number of our nonprofits that normally would take advantage of the hospitality tax grants as well um thank you yes okay so uh development of our budget just as mentioned you know the city manager's focus is always is continuing our operations especially as we were you know a year ago when we were faced with this we were uncertain um built some uncertainties but um had seen some progress and look forward to a brighter future continuing our to provide our uh day-to-day services and dealing our financial obligations which is as mentioned all of these are are underlining um guiding principles for uses of the amount of the reconversed plan funds because they have to support the city not just today but also helping strengthening us um for our um um for future resiliency budget drivers we know more than we did last year our department's budgets um were um submitted this year they were given the same guidance um if you recall as we're having uh some recent budget conversations the departments were asked to prepare their budgets within using the same allocation they had the current year um their current year budget was based on their FYS the 50 year 18-19 actuals so as of today that means these are um budgets that are using two-year-old financial information um to build out forward um coming into three years by the time we end this coming fiscal year there are some adjustments and we'll get to those as we move forward um personal budgets were pretty much left as they were um with some adjustments for um um positions um and moving forward and of course we are holding current service levels and maintaining existing programs not really um looking at any expanded for new programs but being able to provide the services that we have we did have a very compressed but a focused budget process um we've asked farmers to think about how they have gained efficiencies and um how they are able to deliver services from altered work arrangements um they also made sure we were trying to capture some shortfalls and gaps in services and being able to prioritize those um budget is built around some of these prioritized areas um she went through already with regards to water and sewer and storm water and of course focusing on priority maintaining our service delivery um and we are continuing to monitor and are anticipating or prepared to amend our budget in the coming months as we have more information available to us our total proposed budget is three hundred and seventy six million dollars that's a that of twenty million increase over the current year um from where we are today the majority of that coming from um our ARP funds but also our water and sewer funds the general fund is a hundred fifty five million with storm water I mean our water and sewer actually now being our leading budget of a hundred and eighty two million um being now our largest budget of course rounding that up um our enterprise funds can include water or water and sewer fund our storm water fund and our parking fund um and then our rounding our special revenues would be special hospitality tax and accommodation tax these together make up our operating budgets of the city general fund revenues um we did see some progress or some good um hopeful um information with regards to our revenues um our total budget is a hundred and fifty five million proposed for the city for the general fund this is an increase of eighteen million or roughly thirteen percent um from the revenue perspective that three point three million dollars or two point six percent over the current year budget um and I want to stress again that's over current year budget if we um if you refer to the packet of information that was attached on your agenda with regards to the budget numbers um our overall budget revenues are still below coming in lower than where we were pre-pandemic but definitely progressing better than we we were thinking we would be um a year a year ago when we were looking at this situation our property tax and lost revenues are actually coming in better than expected the business licenses and franchise what we do know um is that they are they still seem to be below where they should be at this time but still are known as both business license and franchise fees are not due um business license fees have just been are still coming in franchise fees um we do get some indications that those are not coming in those don't come in until the physical genes so it really will be um the end of the fiscal year before we really know how we are ending this ending this year um both with regards to revenues and our expenditures the majority of our increase in the budget really is coming from these transfers in one thing that has been we'll talk about this as we get on to the next slide with regard to expenditures um but we were able to incorporate into the general fund a return of our capital lease program as you recall that was one of the primary expenses that we've extended in the current fiscal year um this program is what we use to replace and replenish our rolling stock primarily in the general fund that's a key and that is a that's a a major initiative to be able to return back to the city's budget and back to operations um our I'm sure our operating departments will be much relieved to see us be able to go back to that replacement schedule um we have incorporated into this budget on 1.6 million from American Rescue Plan we brought to you in our last conversation we reviewed um the installment purchase revenue bond proceeds um there's a number of initiatives that are included in the installment purchase revenue bond that's been discussed with you um the the items that specifically have a budgetary impact are reflected in the budget and that would be this um we have incorporated funds for the implementation and first year support of the security camera upgrades the much anticipated security camera upgrades um very excited to see that process moving forward we've also restored the transfer from the hospitality tax um to 3.7 million um as well um combined of these funds this is what is able to support our ability to be able to return the capital lease program on the expenditure side um as mentioned um budgets remain relatively flat from the current fiscal year and they're using 1819 as a actual as their baseline um where there are increases those were basically um increases outside of personnel um what a personnel adjustments um would be increasing it would be used to um annual contract adjustments and schedules for instance our Microsoft enterprise license um that's in the IT budget along with some additional cloud solution software that was added to help us with the um a lot of the ability to be able to operate virtually but also our emergency communications like CAD system having an upgrade that's we're feeling there on to the council's approval um that will have um some and also some schedule replacements that are requested there the citywide election is also requested in the budget that's a one-time expense that um obviously it fluctuates as there is an election our recycling contract has been brought up that's a significantly increase of $250,000 in the budget it's been it has been an expense and this year that amount that but it has not been reflected in the budget of that amount so the budget now reflects that contract um full cost that has been a growing increased cost um as we are moving forward with our recycling that's an indicative of the industry um and not something unique to columbia there's also funding that we need to incorporate into the department's budgets for a rate increase for retirement system increases that we expected as well what's not listed here is um the capital lease that was also mentioned um i thought that mentioned pretty here on the slide but the capital lease program that that's listed um as mentioned that'd be the replacement program um we are with the nine million dollars some of the equipment that would be purchased would be a new ladder truck or a replace a much needed replacement ladder truck um a fire engine as well as our patrol cars um garbage trucks and other equipment um bucket trucks other heavy equipment as well as some of the replacement rolling stock for our general fund department moving on to water and sewer i want some of our time here since a lot of that's been covered the petal budget is 182 million with an increase of 13.8 or 8 percent um it does incorporate the 5 percent 5.82 percent rate increase as presented some of those revenues are also coming from the project sunshine it does allow us to maintain our 2.0 debt coverage um which is um a a monk standing target of the city for our financial um strength water and sewer fund expenditures uh that rate study um are the rate increase and those projected revenues uh helped to support a 120 million capital improvement program as you recall that was the stated goal for our capital improvement program for a number of years just to be able to 220 every year with the gosh our improvement with 40 million for water um improvements and 80 million for wastewater improvements so it utilizes 16 million in cash from the system or remaining coming from um or those would be budgeting cash reserves remaining being bonds and other proceeds of course the rating crease also covers the debt service for those bonds um and our debt service schedule now is at 42.9 million that's collective of all the active debt um on the on the system and and kind of and and reflect 24 percent of the budget and then we have also we retain the um general fund transfer at the same level to 4.1 million uh with regards to stormwater budget um it is proposed at 15.6 million an increase of 1.5 million right at 1.6 to 11 percent it does it does assume um the um the resuming of the rate adjustments in accordance to our rate structure that was adopted i think that's actually 2018 that 2016 for a five-year rate plan it was suspended last year during covid um and we are proposing to return back to that schedule um it would increase the um equivalent residential unit on a residential um rate from 13.32 dollars to 14 dollars and 15 cents it's an increase of 83 cents 83 cents a month um or six percent it is um this rate of course supports the 93 million dollars in stormwater improvements that were proposed for this five-year plan with 11.5 million in capital projects for this coming year you have a um a list of those proposed projects in your in your um budget package as well with regard to the parking fund um the proposed budget is nine million um with that 1.3 million or 70 percent of the current uh increase of the budget um projected revenue just below 18.19 um and we could use 2.7 so um without those funds you can see that the parking fund budget would be at a deficit um without there being um the the use of the ARP funds um these funds are allowing us to be able to restore some of our operations that also allow us to be able to adjust the maintenance priorities to be able to do some of them to be able to keep our garages not to be not just be able to keep our garages open but also keeping them functioning and also keeping them maintained so that they are safe and inviting and welcoming to our public to use them. Again this is just the parking fund budget you can see that 31 percent of the budget is for debt service um related to the parking fund um and includes which is a 2.8 million dollar um so the schedule on existing debt the 8th the hospitality tax budget um it's an increase of 4.2 or 57 percent over the current year we are pleased that revenues are coming in better than we had anticipated for the hospitality tax but one to remind you that they are still below the pre-tendent collections we do just like the use of the of the American Rescue Plan funds um as previously mentioned we are we have we have incorporated we've included um hospitality tax revenues of um our 1.7 million of ARP funds in this proposed budget um the hospitality tax budget is broken out by existing debt of 2.7 we've restored the general fund transfer to 3.7 um we've also incorporated has been brought to to the counseling discussion um in cooperation of the um repairs to the multi repairs to the five point fountain that the city owns in an amount of 250 thousand dollars um funding for pre-construction work and design a family part rehabilitation of 1.5 as we talked about um in the past that was one of the other programs that we suspended um as a result of the pandemic um we are we are anticipating that with the continued improvement we are seeing with the hospitality tax that we'll be able to proceed with that work um and have incorporated um 1.5 million for the pre-construction work and design that would be um before we actually issue the debt um and and repair the rehabilitation of this much love and and needed work of this at family park next finally also the allocation the hospitality tax grant program that's 3.4 million that's an increase of 587 thousand dollars in terms of what's programmed in the budget um this is not taking into account if there's any reserves or surplus available for allocation um in addition to the budget it is an increase in the current year we have made we staff have made no recommendations about how city council would allocate those funds um but just wanted to bring them forward as a as a whole amount and there will probably need to be future conversations about how to allocate those funds and how city council um maybe move forward we are anticipating releasing an application um for those funds um that's so many conversations about the direct allocation with regards to the accommodations tax the budget is 1.5 million it's a modest increase of 57 thousand right at 58 on 3.4 9 percent it um it is also hit by the pandemic so we are not at free still are not at we are not at pre-pandemic levels of revenue yet um it this with the way those funds come in from the state quarterly it's really a little bit harder to gauge sort of where we are today but so far we are we are making budget we are meeting our target but we are still not where we were pre-pandemic and again like with hospitality tax we have not made a specific allocation other than those allocations directly stated by state law with uses of our accommodation tax the first um allocation in state law is $25,000 transfer to the general fund with the remaining 95 percent uh uh broken out by 30 percent for advertising information 65 percent for tourism related um city council typically allocates those um for um specific organizations we do have to utilize a committee for that program we will re-engage that committee here before the June 30th um timeframe and then of course five percent for general purposes uh city council has also directed those allocations in the past as well we're prepared to do that going forward too um that I'll I'll stop there pause there with regards to the budget um I know that was a lot of information and still probably a lot of questions regarding the actual budget part of that um hopefully with the company's um the information that you have in the packet but um also if there's any comments just welcome you want to make or any other questions you need to do to the council and I want to have before we move to the next topic any questions or comments you're missing all right let's keep up let's keep moving the missing okay next we wanted to bring up the city budgeting for equity and recovery uh initiative this is a bloom burn for any what works city's program that the city was um accepted into we are one of 30 cities participating across the country in this initiative it's focusing on applying an equity lens to the city's budgeting process um we are working through with what works cities we are working with uh technical assistance um and other along with peer-to-peer meeting the other cities that are participating in the program we have specific technical guidance from GFOA as well as some other providers that are assisting us with this work um one of the the first approach that the city specifically is taking is we will be working on defining what equity means to the city as an organization and in our program um obviously this is an important area and focus of our city council and our city so having a a a definition that we all work from is very important and and and foundational in our work so we are helping to work collectively on on defining what equity means to the city um from there we will also be working on the term the curbing indicator um through this initiative that basically is um identifying an initial and equity indicator or financial indicator that indicates will indicate to us that we are reaching a result that the city desires to achieve through this effort and we'll also be incorporating um this uh the equity lens as a part of our priority based budgeting module that we've discussed in the past uh we we were a little suspended on that program with COVID but we will be reviewing that work through this initiative um and we'll be bringing some of that discussions with more to our departments along with other stakeholders as we carry out this initiative this project timeline is really between it started last October and day through September um with the supportive work that is something that is foundational as we proceed um um and and move forward in in the city okay any questions there any questions missy okay the last thing I will bring up again is just a reminder that this miss yes sir I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry um I heard you said the defining what diversity is or equity is um will you do that and it's it's staff related when you define what that is will there be input from other folk yes sir okay all right so there has not been a working definition of what that is as it relates to our city um I think there are certainly uh concepts and and maybe individualized definitions and efforts and work I know that through this work through this project because we look at our colleagues around the country that are doing this work most most most have started with um defining what equity means to them specifically so we thought that it was important to be able to do that here especially we have a number of initiatives I think in the city that are addressing and related to the equity within our community um and working from a a a a common viewpoint can only further move us along in that work and help us to better bridge that divide and be able to make sure we are addressing those gaps or disparity and it's really looking introspectively Reverend McDowell um I know a lot of times when we hear you know the big equity is it's such a a big thing for people to grasp globally and as a community but we want it to start um internally um and the way that we approach our work um so I just wanted to make that little bit of a distinction that we're trying to start with ourselves as well with how we are um going about our business well that's that's great and I think it all to I think it should be ought to be an internal movement and an internal definition of what it what it what it is yes but it's also important I think once we decide internally of what the group decides on what that definitely definition consists of it would certainly be good to draw in others to make sure that that definition is a collaborative effort and not uh not anything else I guess that's my old point yes ma'am yes thank thank you thank you sir any other questions for missy so this is we're just to enclose um just a false thank you to the council of course city manager um this is definitely a team effort um and to our department um and bringing this work forward and so we're pleased to be able to bring this to you the just a reminder that everything we discussed today um at this point is being proposed or advertisement this week for a budget public hearing and first reading on May the 11th which again would be a special call meeting just want to make sure we we stress to reiterate that so that we are all on the same accord to be what we finish up today's conversation and thank you again missy thank you so much I know this is we all had to step out of our comfort zone a little bit to get through this process in a um reimagined way but I think we tried to do our best and I really appreciate missy's hard work um and Jeff and Jan and everyone but you know the our finance professionals are amazing and I appreciate their um thoughtfulness about such an important part of city government and it's our budget and what our citizens expect so with that we will move forward with the advertisement unless you all are directing us otherwise all right thank you Mayor Benjamin we um recognize that I know there's some national news um pending and we just wanted to reassure you all that um we have been in preparation for that whichever way it may go today with the chauvin verdict and um just getting lots of messages here about that as I'm sure you all are as well so we'll continue along unless you direct us um otherwise we can move into the instant agenda item seven through 29 just mr. mayor just um very happy to see um the progress on moving forward with the disparity study and and to count from a mcdowell's point earlier I think a lot of the things that we're working on disparity study uh uh equity survey that should be done soon and as well as the other conversations I know we had we are making great strides and I'm excited to see uh this team that's assembled it's very impressive miss ma'am thank you absolutely all right yes sir I'm sorry ma'am just to back up for just one moment will there be an opportunity for any of us to be a part of that conversation on uh equity yes sir of course absolutely all right thank you all right please follow along mr. brennan yes mr. recommend hi mr. mcdowell yes mr. bevall hi mr. vine hi mr. davis hi ma'am thank you thank you prisa yes sir the zoning planning matter here is a first reading um with the again unipot development ordinance adoption um for our city a new city of columbia zoning map i know krista has um given you all binders about the timeline is there a motion move approving is there a second second discussion with the previous question call her all yes mr. brennan yes mr. recommend hi mr. mcdowell yes mr. bevall hi mr. vine mr. davis both of them how do you thank you for the hard work and time and patience and collaboration on this i'll go back thank you thank you all moving into ordinance's first reading item 31 ordinance number 2021 010 granting an encroachment to the municipal association of South Carolina for the use of the right of white area okay approval don't move you can't move for the Taj Duvall you can't do that i have no financial connection or that i know i just move the previous move the previous question correct call the roll mr. brennan yes mr. recommend hi mr. mcdowell yes mr. bevall hi mr. vine hi mr. davis hi near benjamin hi item 32 ordinance number 2021 011 amending ordinances 2014 032 and 2012 059 granting encroach was to the University of South Carolina for use of the right of white area of the 1500 block of green street and 800 block of pick and street second discussion with the previous question mr. brennan yes mr. recommend hi mr. mcdowell yes mr. Duvall hi mr. vine hi mr. davis hi near benjamin hi item 32 ordinance number 2021 020 granting an easement to dominion energy south carolina ink along a portion of city on property identified at the richland county tms number is moved is a second second discussion with the previous question correct call the roll good morning yes mr. recommend hi mr. mcdowell yes mr. bevall hi mr. vine hi mr. davis hi near benjamin hi item 34 ordinance number 2021 028 consenting to the inclusion of property in a multi-county industrial business part for project katawa 919 katawa avenue 318 lincoln street and 312 lincoln street in richland county um i do believe that um some some who may if you have any questions in other words we were holding for i think mere cobalt and adam beck um we're in the holding room if there are any questions let's get to the discussion period for their motion i'm i'm overproofal is there a second all right this is my discussion mr. mayor yes sir yes all right second i miss mr. vine secondly but i think she i think she'd happily take your replacement as a second so so discussion we got a good discussion period let's do it all right um you see you have you have bob and who else adam beck okay all right and um i said daniel had a question would that may be for staff or for the applicants daniel well i i i think it starts from staff um you know i haven't talked to anybody about this project so i'm not sure who who's bring this forward but i was a little concerned uh about several issues that weren't addressed in our packet which one was safety um the other what was brought up at the county about the my understanding this was a solicitation as part of it for public parking and it seems like there's only from what i've read only 11 spots that are public parking included in this but yet no mention of any of that in our briefing packet um so i'm i'm concerned about those issues um for sure and and would like to understand from our staff did did we it's something did we not get some information um you know as i said i hadn't been contacted so i don't know who the lobbyist is for this i'm assuming it's it's mayor cobalt since i'm here he's on the line but um just out of curiosity do we have any information on um the safety measure and how that's going to be deferred around those tracks along with what was the the agreement original agreement around public access parking ryan are you on i know we sought some answers to some of that i'm not sure um regarding the parking mr recommend um what responses did i know ryan forwarded everything that he got when he's 20 you said daniel you say this is part of a public parking solicitation what do you mean what does that mean my understanding is part of the the reason that the county and i'm this is what i'm told that's why i'm asking the question i couldn't find any of the information in our packet that there was supposed to be a greater portion of public parking as part of the incentive that was granted i'm not familiar with that aspect of it mr recommend ryan or um and the county is over one when they approved this happened there wasn't a pretty significant vote by the county county's approved up to two readings so far like nine two right so i assume they met there there are requests or there whatever the demands were it's come through the standard you know commercial development incentive process i will say with regards to you know the public parking um while it wasn't mentioned it um heavily in the uh the application that was sent out there wasn't attached um presentation that outlines there there will be um probably 11 uh on-site public parking spaces provided as part of the structured deck for this and then there will also be uh 17 uh parallel uh parking sites uh added along the street fronts of lincoln and katalba i believe as well as part of the uh pedestrian and and right-of-way improvements that will be required when they install the sidewalks there um but that's that's the also public parking now is that obit street or a public street i'm confused public street that's that's along uh winken and katalba streets um so that the streets adjacent to the south and west of where the project will be right um let me ask you this um the issue of safety was that considered talked through at at the county and the county side i know it's been brought up and and discussed and um i believe even some of the neighborhoods have have kind of had some concerns about it and have been in discussions with developers so i know it's been a topic of conversation i wasn't involved in a lot of those or in any of those conversations so that may be something you know that um mayor cobalt or mr beck could speak better to um it's my understanding that some safety concerns were brought up because of the railroad proximity and that the developers have um made some changes to address that but they would need to provide you specific the um mr beck and mayor cobalt on or no mr beck is on he's able to speak at this time yeah be curious to hear as well about the about the railroads because i know we got a bunch going on down there regarding the quiet zones and some of the railroad improvements curious as to how they affect this when we talk about neighborhoods we don't have a lot of residential housing down there if i if i know and when we're talking about this is i guess you got olympia to the to the south and grand be pretty far away on the other side of of everything to the to the west so but but um you heard the questions mr beck out soon yes and appreciate the time uh this afternoon council members and you're happy to answer any any questions can everybody i guess hear me okay kind of first of all yes yes we can perfect yeah so i think the first one i guess kind of question addressing safety i think is as part of our boza and fight plan approval uh back in december of 2020 um i believe the planning commission uh as a condition of our approval um has required us uh you know to to do some additional signage striping um kind of you know reflections to again kind of help help with the safety concerns i think that were brought up at that time i think the same safety concerns you guys uh as well have and i believe also and and you guys don't defer to you i'll probably know more about this and then we do but during with the quiet zone discussions i believe there the improvements i think are already been funded i think it's either the state or or county level for kind of improved um safety crossings i think over that linking crossing and so i think with the combination of both of those things we feel like we've we've met kind of the the concerns that were were brought up during planning commission then also at the county level and mr rick the question about parking um i think ryan addressed it specifically um but i'm trying to remember when we first um brought this incentive to the county i mean obviously the major concern was wasn't trying to get free public parking it was it was it was about the the significant tax burden uh that that six percent properties were were bearing and how stymie development we're talking about a 70 plus million dollar development here um even with the abatement paying close to a million a year and and two times that once the um the property matures in 11 years i just think i want to just keep our eyes on on that on that significant development so and if in fact this is not something we want to do prospectively uh let's keep that in mind too but um if someone could just take a look too i because i want us to the county and one of the county council people told me that they voted significantly in favor of the stuff um but what are the questions we have for mr beck and and i don't know if the man if mayor cobalt wants to any other questions thank me or cobalt's available um i see to me guys right now well i was just going to share i um i spoke with mr beck and mayor cobalt earlier i shared some of my concerns and reservations um you know i do think that we need to have the bigger conversation about prospectively as to whether or not where there is a need to continue to incentivize these types of projects um i think that we primed the well we certainly did what we needed to do we we sunset it and then we continued so i think we need to really look at that um but one of the things when i did discuss with him um the student housing portion mr beck addressed um maybe um changing the structure so that it was not um primarily for students and so mr beck or mayor cobalt can you address that for everybody so that we can discuss what you're willing to do on that piece yes absolutely i appreciate that hope sorry i was gonna look this is bob cobalt first i've been listening to the last two hours and i've had a flashback uh and uh i had to call uh kirk mcvenley just to get grounded in uh in a city council y'all do a terrific job um let me say the um issue that arose was would they lease or rent per bed and and they don't really do that but that seems to be an issue that they will be delighted to address in rent per unit um and uh you know get the however that needs to be done in a way that you're comfortable it'll happen um that then it would be just like any other commercial property i do think this is this is the policy the city and the county adopted in 2019 and if you want to change it we certainly understand that but you know they've gone through the process uh boza planning commission uh two readings that um county council and actually it was only one descending vote in each one of those two third readings scheduled um and so they're willing to do anything to work in any way to address safety issues um or you know how it operates uh these would be student housing in any way that you you think appropriate let me ask uh adam if he would add on to the uh per unit issue and any other issue yeah and thank you mary coble so yeah it's kind of to direct the direct to the question yeah we're obviously open to leasing by the unit you know our kind of original discussions and i think kind of message we've had through through most of our conversations with the county and i think even through our initial kind of means city and planning commission and boza was you know we you know we leased uh you know anybody that would qualify whether it was on a per bed or per per unit basis and i understand there's you know stigmas that go with with either one of those um and we didn't want to kind of you know limit limit that you know the the target renter there um but again if there's concerns over over the idea or the thought or the structure leasing by the bed we're um absolutely okay leasing by the unit um to kind of address you know any concern that may have and one other thing adam if you could address i believe there are 56 public spaces that will be as a result of of this project um 11 of them are in the garage the rest of them are outside which of course would be much convenient uh for the public that might want to use it but adam could you address that yes that's yeah that's correct so it's it's we have the 11 in the part in the in the bar garage and then the rest will be a long um kataba and lincoln as well as 10 surface spaces kind of just outside the garage um that will be available for public use um and then as well as kind of the the rest of the i guess kind of overall you know improvements we're doing and i don't know if this isn't kind of the the documents that were um shared was you know we're doing a significant significant amount of uh environment of cleanup on site obviously removing kind of the existing kind of light industrial buildings we're improving obviously the streetscape landscape you know along lincoln and kataba streets you know hopefully trying to kind of you know bridge the connection to kind of you know downtown drivet street you know u.s. creek village june you know the grand bien on p.mill's neighborhoods um so again it's it's not specifically just related to parking but as well as those other improvements uh and utility upgrades and um such that were you know is part of the over application and commercial incentive all right thank you any more questions for sabbat may i call has there has there been has there been community input relative to the prop uh to the project yes there have we met with uh the grand bien mills and all the neighbors associations uh a few times actually had a couple phone calls as follow-ups as we've gone through the process uh we got actually their input before we've been submitting um i think for our planning commission and in bosa submittals uh because we want to come in and obviously be good neighbors and make everybody aware of what what we're doing and what we're projecting we're not trying to um you know hide anything we're going to be honest enough front and i think what was great is we showed some preliminary elevations of what we were kind of envisioning and our first kind of cut or draft of renderings and actually present that's the neighbor associations and actually um got some very good and constructive feedback actually we incorporated in our next rendition of renderings uh which i think you guys have seen through our submittals um that the neighbor association uh honestly basically was the main reason why we made a lot of changes and kind of went for more of a modern industrial look as opposed to some other designs that we were thinking we were we were going to go down so um long long answer to a short question uh yes we've uh made in communication throughout their throughout our process well with that said Mr. Beck did are they supportive of it did they give you a letter of support for the conversations yeah that's what i was asking yeah yeah that's what we're all i mean i'm sorry yeah i mean we i don't i mean i'll go back and look i don't know if we have a letter or an email but um i've gotten i guess verbal support and i guess maybe other way to say it we haven't they haven't come out against us or at any point in time so um that's not on the letter specifically for you i can share but um in all the common communications we've had they've been supportive of project now that's let me make sure that's 675 beds or 575 it's 278 units and 670 um ish beds in one two and three bedroom units can can you address uh we've talked about it before you got on line um the safety and traffic concerns yes is this in relation to the lincoln railroad crossing yes yes so i think again as kind of part of our site plan approval we've agreed to work with the city to you know address any kind of safety precautions whether it's you know signage painting striping reflectors to kind of help improve that that crossing to address safety concerns and then as well as i think you know again i think that quiet zone or that specific crossing has already been funded i think at a different stage to your level for even you know more improvements above that um so we've incorporated that and that's the condition of our site plan approval which we received back in december and then i guess in terms of traffic i think that you know will be dependent i think what ultimately is decided by the railroad and by the city and state on kind of what the plan is for the railroad in you know that specific section so we're we're going to work with anybody and all agencies to to alleviate any you know specific traffic concerns without a traffic study completed and there wasn't any things specifically stated that you know any additional remediation was needed based on our project thank you mr mayor i call for the previous question previous question correct color mr brunnan no mr rickham is no mr mcdowell no mr google no mr vine no mr davis can hear you say i'm no mayor benjamin um i'm actually going to vote in the affirmative and um we need to go ahead and make a determination and maybe this specific project the developers the location maybe the proximity to the railroad whatever it happens to be but as it relates to the incentive and whether or not we choose that we want to officially sunset not yet set i think it's um it's supposed to sunset and at the end of next year then we need to make an affirmative policy decision these developers have expended significant sums of money to move forward on the policy that we have approved and it's not pro business for us to to change things mid-street so just let's let's pray over that think about that going forward and we're going to the next item on the agenda yes sir item 35 ordinance number 2021 029 amending the 1998 code of ordinance is the city of colombia south carolina chapter 23 utilities and engineering article 1 in general section 231 civil penalties for violations related to wastewater collection and treatment or treatment and distribution article 4 wastewater service section 2021 second second in discussion move the previous question for color oh mr bernand yes mr rickerman hi from mcdowell yes hi mr vines hi mr davis hi someone's got to take away sam's mute button can we disable sam's mute button is that possible you don't want to do that yeah i know we don't actually i know we don't thank you sorry erica did you say something no man thank you solutions again as we move forward with safety plans there in adherence with covet 19 pandemic safety and social distancing protocols as published by the cdc and d-heck south carolina d-heck and we had these for the various events reviewed and approved by our colombia police department the event on your agenda today is the resolution number our 2021 029 authorizing consumption of beer and wine only within void plaza adjacent to the museum of art miss miss wilson yes sir what's the size of the event what is what was the detail on the paperwork i don't know that we necessarily we we can't address capacity necessarily any more ever mndow um you know it's in a bit that's open to the public the um i do know all kovic all kovic and cdc requirements the plans are in place those that we can authorize their city processes just are um but it's it's a public event yes sir thank you ma'am all right move approval um second now i would say um ed uh just as a um as a venue manager the art museum does a pretty good job out there um at boy plaza so my my guess is they'll be they'll be managing things effectively as well if they give you any comfort um not oh move the previous question mr brunnan yes mr rickerman hi mr mcdowell no mr vall hi divine mr davis mr benjamin hi thank you ma'am let me into a period of resolutions item 37 is resolution number r 2021 043 approving the honorary naming of the lion's street community guard move approval so i can i move the previous question i know i mean we love we love we love marvin missing something awful good man move the previous question ma'am mr brunnan yes mr rickerman hi mr mcdowell yes mr duvall hi mr vine hi sorry all right right little sand all right hi mr david hi mr benjamin hi marvin was the smoothest bossy man i've ever known he would get he would get what he wanted but he but he was always nice and smiling um every step of the way we miss him and it doesn't necessarily it wouldn't necessarily have to be in a council chamber i mean he'd do that in the grocery store it wouldn't even have to be it wouldn't even have to be in his neighborhood either yeah no good man good man item 38 resolution number r 2021 048 approving the honorary naming of the intersection of colonial drive in the street bill shab's way i move approval second discussion remove the previous question court color all mr brunnan yes mr rickerman hi mr mcdowell yes mr duvall hi mr vine hi mr david hi mr benjamin hi item 39 is resolution number r 2021 026 supporting the housing authority of the city of columbia engaging in the maryon street high rise disposition project and i will say um maryon council that i've asked several questions about this um i didn't want to ask you to hold it unless you know that's your decision i'm i'm trying to just get some clarity on what you're actually endorsing here um with the disposition and and the adjacent property so miss wilson um i talked with i've met with miss um mac use and uh karen comarty um and miss commissioner sunclair yesterday so this is a hud requirement they're going through all the checks and this is required for them to actually relocate the residents um i've got commitment from her that this does not um commit any particular disposition um but there are some questions and i we can we got a long agenda so i'd like to maybe talk about it with um particularly christa um and amy there are some concerns i have apparently about um historic columbia um and their role in uh they're one of the boxes that have to be checked um for hud and there are some discussion as to whether or not there's some um artifacts that are more on the property so that that's a bigger discussion i think we have to have this but um my understanding this is just to allow them to move forward with the relocation of the residents and they'd like to start that process so this is time sensitive because this the historic columbia pieces out man simon is that is that that or something on the on the property itself on the property itself apparently um in 1980 something there was some archaeological dig that may have revealed some artifacts that um are on the housing authority property um and so under from what i understand it was really um it was a little confusing that's why i'd like our staff to be involved but as miss nathy's indicated to me um south calin archives and history actually has to be part of the people who agree and there is some conversation as to whether or not the man simon's footprint is indeed larger than we know and that it would extend towards the marron street property um and if so there's a desire to obtain that property which would reduce the footprint already existing for the housing authority so it seems like there's a lot of um discussion and i don't understand why it's a little any different than full street and how we were allowed to do the archaeological dig but they it didn't affect the the sale of the property so i think we have to ask more questions and understand that because that will affect their potential redevelopment of that site well remember that entire whether it's man simon's of that entire neighborhood was a you know significant african american community and we just conducted the man simons dig just a few years ago and found um you know some significant artifacts that told a lot about columbia's history my guess is that it should be some sandborn maps out there from the early part of last century that should tell us exactly what was there um so that yeah i think let's definitely make sure we cross those season dot those eyes i think our staff has been asking those questions and has some missing information we were just concerned that if you go ahead and approve it maybe we need to adjust this letter to reflect um you know that all of these things are dealt with properly um but missing what you want to add yes ma'am this is what can i suppose of having authority earlier today and they have um agreed that when those parcels are identified they all already have a survey plant showing which parcel they would donate to the city to combine with the man simon's house they've got a few more questions they need to clarify before that actually happens but certainly they're receptive to us including that acknowledgement in any letter she did reiterate the time sensitivity they cannot file with HUD the motion they need to file to vacate the property until they have our approved resolution so it's very time sensitive from their standpoint davis true question who owns who owns the survey and um what when did they do it when the date on the survey they he sent it to me earlier they have recently performed that survey after conversations to include historic Columbia about the need to make sure that we're protecting that site there's actually two smaller parcels one is point oh six acres they refer to that as the ghost parcel and we know for sure we want that there's another parcel that's point one nine acres that we believe may also need to be deeded over um to combine with the man simon's house and they're willing to do that their one question is can they still um need all of the code requirements for the remaining parcel and sell that parcel once they do those two smaller sites to us and we're working through those answers right now certainly they can sell it we just need to make sure that it would be code compliant without those two small parcels they would need to us let me look and see if I can tell you the date of the survey I'm looking for that right now if y'all have more questions I'll answer that shortly I think we just got a guilty verdict absolutely good um would y'all mind read me down would you would you mind would you mind Ed he's watching it I know he is I'm sorry would you would you mind give us a word of prayer before we go on with the rest of this discussion just in the wake of this verdict sure thank you brother these are turbulent times in our nation turbulent times in terms of chaos rod we would simply pray that this nation of ours is and it confines itself into a vacuum of peace and harmony but we know that there are things happening throughout this country of ours and particularly in this city of ours okay we would simply ask that you might continue to wrap your arms around those of us who understand and sense the tenets of peace and harmony but we know that violence is contagious and we know that it metastasizes everywhere so lord we just simply ask that you might give us a kind of peace that passes all understanding for decisions that are made we simply ask that in your wise counsel that you might allow us to vent and to feel your presence lord we need your help in these coming days we ask it in your name amen amen thank you um rare um a lot of people doing this some very difficult times and uh it's um uh it's important we we work hard to remain together so thank thank you very much thank you um Daniel um yeah we gotta get a briefing from the housing authority um on what the plan is and and what they're where they're relocating the residents and what their long-term plan is because this is going to be the third area in our downtown area that is going to be vacated by the housing authority and we know Gonzales Gardens is not complete and it's been sitting there for a long time ABC Allen Benedict which I hate that we can't rehab it because I think it'd be an incredible project with some incredible talent but that's not our choice and then we're going to have this building and you know there are a lot of rumors flying around on what's going to happen at Allen Benedict um there's a big push you know I'm hearing a lot of different things I think it'd be great if we just get some clarity so that we we understand what their plan is moving forward I think that's important we've gotten um I think we may I'm not sure the last official briefing we got and then had some conversations with the chairman and other commissioners that indicate some action but I've not seen the final plans and some very clear direction as to what's going to happen with these properties I think that's important we get that sooner rather than later because I believe even the timelines that we were showing last time there's a presentation I don't think we come close to meeting those timelines I'd like to see that as well uh Mr Mr Davis um I uh I kind of agree with Daniel but my concern is um we're talking the downtown area we are relocating a significant number of advocate Americans and the question is where do they go all they have another opportunity to live within the inner the real inner parts of the city keep that in mind that's a significant number of people that are going to be relocated question is where are you going to put them so so I briefly spoke with housing authority again this morning the first question you had the survey dated March 19th of 2021 Mr Davis so it's a recent survey the I would only be interested if that survey matches the the uh what's 19 whatever I remember that one I remember both of them so you know this is kind of okay I will share and what this survey does is show the two parcels that they would subdivide to deed to the city if we are interested in that which I think we are at least in the ghost parcel based on historic Columbia's input I do know that there's a total unit count in this property of 146 that there's only around 80 individuals in the property right now Columbia housing has told me they can't really start talking about their relocation plan for those 80 residents until they file with HUD or they they've got to follow the HUD rules and they have to file an action with HUD prior to really laying out the relocation plan however they have worked with these residents and they're very familiar with the interest of these individuals as far as where whether they would want to stay in the city whether they're specific properties they want to go to or if they have family elsewhere and would want to go somewhere else in the state um I don't have those details but it did sound like they've worked with the individual residents to to identify options at the time they are able to do that and Mr. Van I know you're working with housing authority a lot too I'm glad to ask for a briefing if you want me to do that or if that's something that you want to reach out to I've read to for um I'll defer to you no you guys go go ahead I mean I think that she would be happy to come and talk I think to just elevate what Missy said there's a process that HUD requires and so this they're they're checking boxes um but um you know Councilman McDowell and I met with Miss Miss Matthews maybe two months ago and we made it clear of our desire that relocations happen within the city and where they can adaptively reduce properties that they do and she heard that loud and clear and I spoke with her about that again yesterday I think that they have significant challenges of the the the maintenance of of the facilities and so I think that that they're doing the best they can I do know that there are new properties that they have obtained that are within the city um and that that is part of where their relocation so they're being very cognizant of the fact that they want we want to maintain our residents in the city and certainly make sure that they're they are on bus lines and other things so they're very sensitive to that and I just think it's probably well over over time for a briefing and we can raise all these these concerns and questions and get a briefing I would say Missy we probably would need to figure out what needs to be in public and what might need to be an executive session because I do know that there is information that they cannot share publicly at this time. Mika and Ed did they give you any idea of a timeline I mean obviously a number of different reasons that um different projects have gone offline but it'd be nice to see a start date on one of them at least very soon because I know they're not just the gardens or Allen Benedict and now uh Marion Street but I know there's several other projects they've been looking at working with some developers on but are we going to see Gow on anything anytime soon? I think Gow on Gonzales is imminent um and so I don't know if Councilman McDowell has additional timeline but I think that's very close um I do know and I think it may have been on our agenda one time um the the bonds um are also something that they're looking at and they um I know she sent us a list of the uh the different bonds that they want to look at so I think that's part of um their immediate plan as well is get the funding in place to get some of these projects up and running. Steve um Mr. Mayor there has there was a timeline Daniel um that was emailed out to us some time ago um and I want to say it was early March uh that Miss Matthews did send out a timeline particularly for uh Gonzales and for the place there off of two knots road I can't I can't call them Carter Street. Carter Street that's correct uh Carter Street. There are some architectural drawings uh that they've put together and of course that looks very very promising but there Daniel there is a timeline schedule that she did send out because I just checked my email I haven't received an email from Miss Matthews since January of 2021. Okay January 20th January 7th to be specific um yeah and and um and I don't have it either um the uh I was most still thinking about the the report from I guess well over a year uh a go on on how some things would move forward and and I'm sure I mean hopefully the the time it's given us the opportunity to really make some even better from our solid decisions but I if I'm going to start turning dirt on the gardens that be that'd be wonderful um obviously the proper relocation of the residents um preferably in and there they own their their own communities and then the opportunity to repatriate those properties uh is um is so important but obviously they eventually use those properties highest and best use mixed use mixed income whatever it looks like if it's be nice to see that and actually see some um um I'm we're we're still in the middle of a pretty dark on a hot market it would have with a significant need for affordable housing uh let's not miss the market because people need it and uh and so if things if things are moving I'd love to see that too and it doesn't have to be a full presentation to council I mean I'll take a written report with some um with some specifics as and when things are actually happening the uh the emails from the housing authority don't have ivory Matthews name on the address it's a funny funny licking thing but she has been sending out uh communications about every other week and she has talked about just about all the things y'all have talked about right now yeah that's the one it'll say no reply yeah um and they yeah they're continuously sending out stuff but those are the public ones I do think that based on the comments maybe a private briefing would would um answer some of these questions all right let's let's get it's getting updated on all the projects great to see good okay um so for item 39 or um how do you all want to proceed today um said times are the essence um I want to be real transparent uh I'm I'm I'm tired of asking the housing authority for things and and uh not getting what we asked for um we we had a pretty serious back and forth Ed smiling because he knows exactly where I'm going on on the uh shopping center uh that I I'm trying our darned estimate where people had access to healthy foods and um we got the stiff arm uh there and I didn't feel good about it and I shared that very directly uh I understand if the housing authority is going to focus on the central role of simply providing housing as opposed to trying to address all the social determinants of health I understand that that's okay but at the very least let's start seeing some housing come out the ground and and post haste uh I'm fine with voting for this resolution but I would hope and pray that we'll start seeing some movement and not more talk we don't we don't need more thinking we need action I'll move the previous question Mr. Vernon yes yes Mr. Rickner hi Mr. Mcdowell yes it's been involved hi Mr. Dade I'm not holding sick brother I thought you had turned over I share the mayor's concerns my mode is out I'm voting the affirmative and we'd like to prompt the report from the um from these I could direct in in the chairman yes sir I just forwarded you guys a timeline as well on some of the projects so that might be helpful and while we're waiting on the report thank you did you get that Daniel I'll let you know I want to I want to know what specialists y'all on that me and Daniel are on by the way but we'll talk about that later I think y'all are talking you miss miss the extreme everybody got it except you mr. man but then you got it Daniel you got the no reply I just searched no replies and I got a bunch of other stuff I don't think they still got what we're talking about Reverend Dowling Mr. he had turned over in his chair no I'm not home sick yet brother I'm still alive and well all right item 40 thank you resolution number r2020 1037 certifying building site as a textile mill site pursuant to the south Carolina textiles communities revitalization act title how many approval back in any discussion we'll move the previous question correct color room mr. Vernon yes to recommend yes mr. mcdonald yes mr. Duvall hi divine mr. davis hi mayor benjamin hi thank you ma'am welcome 41 resolution number r2020 1039 authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement of sale and purchase between the city of colombia and a minute dominion energy south carolina ink for the purchase of 2.24 acres known as 3000 harden street in richland county move second all right with the previous question i'm sorry discussion with the previous question correct color all mr. brunnan yes mr. recommend hi mr. mcdonald yes mr. Duvall hi divine mr. davis hi mayor benjamin hi thank you item 42 resolution number r2021 041 authorizing the city manager to execute a purchase and sales agreement between the city of colombia and eden's grand partners for the purchase of approximately two points first second second in discussion we'll move the previous question correct color all mr. Vernon yes mr. recommend hi mr. mcdonald yes mr. Duvall hi hi mr. davis hi mayor benjamin hi item 43 resolution number r2021 044 encouraging governor henry mcmaster to request the u.s. department of the treasury to release south colinas allocation of appropriated funds from the homeowner assistance fund authorized through the american rescue plan at 2021 and i think mr. devine sponsored this yes i'm just kind of related to our conversation earlier there are monies that we got direct allocation there's also monies that go to the state there are certain things that our state actually has to request in order to get it and so i'm working with habitat for humanity and as well habitat for humanity and some other homeless providers and we've they've asked that we do this resolution i've already spoken to kyle so once we pass it we will make sure that it goes to the governor's office i do understand that others have sent similar letters or resolutions so hopefully there will be a request from our state for this additional funding to help our homeowners and rental assistance get help so move the previous question for carlo roll mr. vrennan yes mr. rickamann hi on the dowel yes did you all hi mr. vine hi mr. davis hi mayor benjamin hi thank you uh a period of appointments uh mayor and council on your agenda with two items the climate protection action committee and the columbia housing authority which i think that is the resident um seat but i'll allow miss wood to help you all who thank you manager who's miss wood miss jinkens wood i didn't know who that was who do we have who we have with c-pack actually you know i haven't teased you at least one time i know i do i me too mayor uh how many seats we have my c-pack oh c-pack uh there's three officers um it's actually the new slate of officers are left on your memo and they're asking for you to increase the slate of the was the emotion discussion my approval of the slate produced by c-pack second and discussion with the previous question carlo roll mr. vrennan yes sir rickamann hi mr. mcdowell yes mr. duvall hi mr. vine mr. davis hi mayor benjamin hi next up we have the columbia housing authority resident commissioner again this is to select a resident and meet the qualifications of actually living in one of the properties um living within the same unit um and to be considered to assist with c-h-a uh input and we have um the applicants that you were sent please also look at your uh recent email as well ashley can i add um and looking at the list that miss wood has um provided us there was an applicant um that was missing from the list that i know senate application i'm not sure if it got lost in the mail um but when i when i saw review my package not over there i confirmed with her that she did send it so she has sent me a a copy of her application along with a copy of a letter written by the mlk neighborhood endorsing her application and i've sent that miss wood i don't know if we can get it sent to everybody but um the applicant would be is this kimbelin hicks kimbelin hicks yeah she'd be an excellent appointment appointee yes so it misses miss so mr. green is turned is termed out he is yes yes yes he is i moved the appointment of kimbelin hicks i'm sorry miss mr mr mcdonnell uh ashley let me ask you a question miss wood i'm sorry um let me ask you a question um there was a vetting process um yeah well essentially um the applications yesterday were open for a month and they applied either by mailing in or sending it online um and from that point on you all received all of the applications that were submitted however the board made additional recommendations that you estimate though from the administrative committee of course we've had long and genuine conversations about the renaming of the park there in bull street uh dr bobby donelson and and robin weights have been very resourceful in allowing us to look at persons and look at names uh the committee at its last meeting decided to go ahead and do some additional vetting of those names that were submitted uh somewhere between 15 and 17 names uh the committee which is composed of howard and uh and sam uh we consensually decided on the name of page ellenton page ellenton there has been conversations with uh with uh the hughes company and of course uh in our deliberations we thought that mr ellenton was the person uh to name that park afterwards of course mr ellenton whose house is still standing there in the uh i think in the wheeler hill area uh arsenal hill arsenal hill i'm sorry in the arsenal hill area uh he was a self-taught architect that worked very closely with uh dr uh babcock uh he was very instrumental in his studies in the forming of of uh domed for the buildings he was very instrumental in the building of bakery there and several other buildings in that area of course we bring this name to you for your approval and of course there are other names that we'd like to see throughout the park as it relates to toppers uh street naming and that sort of thing so mr mayor we bring this name to the council and there are other members of the committee perhaps that would like to uh see some howard yeah um thank you ed page ellenton is a really special person when it's connected to the bull street property he was an enslaved person from rocket ham north carolina who was sold to columbia uh he taught himself against his master's wishes uh the the art of bricklaying and became a master bricklayer uh he was befriended by dr babcock and because of his architectural skills he actually designed several of the buildings that are on the campus we know that he did the park or annex that's still standing down there and we are using dr babcock's book called asylum doctor who has extensive footnotes and references where these where these uh documents are kept and dr dollison is going to the carolini and our library and get that box uh and see what else he mr ellenton built on the property he had said his house is still standing uh down on arson hill he built the original people for first preparatory church and he was instrumental in in the founding and the worship and several of the churches that are still active in columbia day during recent reconstruction he was in political office and had a lot uh a lot of influence in in the politics of the city uh and he is a very worthy person to name that park after we hope to name other facilities and other put other wayfaring signs in the park to take care of the 14 or 15 other uh very creditable names also to honor the people that um helped develop the bill street property i i concur with ed and how it said it well he represents for us in columbia he was very ecumenical in his service to churches uh he was a member of the washington street methodist church a member of the uh Bethel AME church and of course uh a member of the lapson presbyterian church so he was a guy who had who had all the credentials of leadership for our city uh i understand that he was uh an elected official uh joined the board of health and um joined the board of health as as a member of that board for mental health in 1875 i believe so this man represents a real gift to to uh columbia so i bring this name i raise this name for your consideration was it was the plan to get approval today or um uh have y'all have y'all dialogue with obviously bobby and and and robin were very involved in advancing this and have you have y'all um conferred with the hueses as well yes yes yes yes sir huge uh robert and claire i think that's claire chandler chandler that was chandler they were right in the midst of that conversation so we're ready to act on that today mr man i think it's a wonderful recognition and i love when that period in our history um the reconstruction era in particular was such an amazing time particularly in south carolina we led we led the country in many in many ways in many respects and lifting up a name of someone who others might not ever have known existed an ordinary person with an extraordinary life is a pretty amazing opportunity that's a motion um second second motion here uh i mean just any further discussion thank you all for your work on this and um then move the previous question apart for a while mr brennan yes mr rickamon i could y'all send out the bio on the gentleman please yes yes sir not for that information mr mcdowell yes mr google hi mr vine hi mr david hi mr benjamin hi thank you mayor i have a report as well all right thank you i'm sorry i'm sorry mr vine erica if you would not only send it how about sending that bio to all of us i mean we have it already and uh how it has that delightful book that the asylum doctor uh but the bio would be helpful for those of you who don't know miss ellie uh erica send the powerpoint that the historic columbia used it has not only page ellington but the other considerations on there yes so send it'll it'll have the bio for him but it's got everybody else on there too sure will thank you thank you you're welcome ready yeah yeah mr vine um just mr mayor the uh just an update from the tax study committee councilman davall councilman rickamon and i met this morning um as previously reported in our initial meeting we decided um that it might be best to get each of us uh find an economist who can review dr galatzen's um study and meet with us to give us any feedback and any considerations that uh as we move forward so uh we have each selected an economist um we've got steven walters jk walters uh james london and holly obrick um and all three have agreed to serve in this capacity um we uh plan to meet and miss hamon will send you guys the bios for these three um as well as uh professor derrick black um from the law school he is not an economist but he is an expert on school equity and school funding and so we thought as we elevate this conversation we certainly need to have someone with his expertise that could maybe help us um can make certain considerations that aren't um just economic base but certainly equity base as it relates to our schools and the way they are funded in tax so our goal is to have an initial meeting within the next two weeks with the three economists and ourselves to uh hear their uh their assessment of dr galatzen's report as well as um any considerations that they think that we need to have as far as how the process should move forward especially bringing in the county and other stakeholders as part of the conversation um after the six of us meet along with staff we plan to bring in professor black uh so that he can add um in his input as well and then hopefully by then we'll be in a position to bring back to council a path forward a recommendation for a path forward on how we want to have this discussion moving forward um we do uh we have provided the report to each of them along with we were able to obtain a copy of the Lincoln study and so miss hammond will send those to that to you as well um but we want you to know that we are moving forward and we think that hopefully within the next month or so we we can have a recommendation for council to consider or first thank you mr fine are you all did you all have any other reports or i think that said i think we're we're ready to go um i'm sorry any any citizen in the cube public input no sir not at this time all right mr duvall mr may i make a motion we're going to the executive session for receipt of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to scco 30-4 s78 to covid 19 redistricting uh quiet zone uh bond court proceedings uh discussion of matters related to proposed location or expense or expansion of services to encourage location or expansion of industries or other businesses pursuant to scco 30-4 s78 to affordable housing projects discussion of negotiations instant to propose contractual arrangement pursuant to 30-4 s78 to owensfield park and storm water fees uh receipt of legal advice related to appending threat and a potential claim pursuant to scco 30-4 s78 to former council member and discussion regarding the development of security personnel or devices pursuant to scco 30-4 s78 3 the amaya action assembly is there a second okay any discussion saying none of the previous question third color all mr bernie yes mr rickamon i'm sorry yes hi mr vine