 We're all here. So Kyle, update me, start. We wanted to bring everybody together to talk about where we are with our legislative work and to make sure that we were all on the same page. I don't see the microphones on here anymore. Councilman Brennan, can you hear me? Yeah, they're right here. Okay, good. So we just wanted to make sure that we took this time because this this committee has not met I think since October. We wanted to take this time to take a look at the legislation that has been prefiled and that is pending. We're going to talk about our work on the budget requests that we have done and what we anticipate doing and get your feedback so that we have proper direction and that we know that we're aligned. So are you guys ready to walk through this legislation? Okay, let's try to not take too much time. Are they here? We got everything we need. Oh, they are there. Okay, good. Let's walk through the legislation. These are the bills that there was one prefiled date in the Senate and there were two prefiled dates in the House and the last prefiled day in the House was this past Thursday and when a prefiled date occurs they don't usually publish those bills until until four or five o'clock in the afternoon so it's really sort of a Friday kind of thing. We've gone through we've taken a look at bills that were were prefiled that that would relate to the city. Kind of the process on this is there's always a lot of bills and so what we do to try to keep it manageable is that you'll see these bills put in a report like this and then you won't see any of these bills again unless there is movement on the bills unless we're asked to do some special work on a bill. So let me just walk through this rather quickly and then we will come back to any questions that you guys may have. So it'll be helpful if you can just flag the ones you think will have any movement and then if MASC or any other entity is interested in that specific bill. Okay, thank you. So the first one is municipal election protests. This is responding to some things that have happened around the state in the last couple of years and the it's at the beginning because it is sponsored by the speaker and so I do expect that there will be some movement on this bill some attention on this bill. The second one I do not expect there to be much attention on that bill. The third one first responders this is an issue where there are there's always a back and forth in the legislature on who is a first responder and who isn't because if you are a first responder then it entitles you to a number of benefits that in terms of compensation and more importantly in terms of insurance coverage for anything that happens to you. So what's the story behind that because obviously because it looks like it was pre-filed so early to me it looks like it's got some type of legs going in one direction and the other. It just depends on the appetite of the House this year to pass another first responder bill. I think we passed one last year that expanded the definition of first responder to EMS workers I think that's correct maybe that's still pending so we'll just have to see. So this pops up often. A lot of counties and municipalities because like say somebody calls the fire department they have to send an ambulance fire truck they immediately go to the destination. And a lot of counties and cities because of those employees maybe at home they try to protect and pay them for responding and a lot of this is more geared to volunteer reverse I think so personally I do this is somebody who jumps in yeah this is a lot of the rural counties right right and this is a joint resolution not a bill I mean it's a joint resolution yeah okay right so that's there'll be a lot of discussion there'll be some discussion on it and Representative Cox is is gaining seniority on the Republicans out of the House so there there could be some discussions. The next two bills I don't think that there will be much discussion of it except for the fact that there may be something very close to these bills to address the situation in Hampton County this year where the hands seem to be tied of the state officials to be able to audit the fact that they lost a seven figure amount I can't remember if it's two million or four million but I don't expect they're I don't expect these bills as they are to advance but they might oh yes I'm correct myself I was talking about the architectural thing in a joint resolution this is in fact a deal okay yeah so I misspoke that's my first responders as a bill I was looking at number two and so number two I don't expect that to move anywhere it's two it's two uh that's that's a that's a I'm mad bill but no offense this month so now I'm looking at the two McDaniel bills I don't expect those particular bills to move but something in that area that expands the authority of state offices to investigate local governments might come up I don't expect 4661 to move um tick tock on government electronic devices could move about what why do you see 4661 will not move it's a major discussion by people today because prime example the zoo is putting out the bond that nobody in the public's getting to have any say when they're alternative sources I think this thing has more legs than you're given a credit it could I mean you can always draw a scenario where it could move and I think that this is maybe touching on some people's concerns but when you get into a bill that would change the authority of a local county council of a county council or a local government council over something that has to do with money and debt you're talking about having to spend a lot of time on that bill you're talking about 4661 yeah because right now the penny sales tax is required to be on on this exact thing so why would not other things like that be in there you know it's just like them you know the millage rate I mean I think there needs to be a lot more discussion at the state level around taxes and how they're done and prime example is is that if you ask for fifteen dollars per hundred thousand you ought to be capped at fifteen hundred fifteen dollars per hundred thousand you should not win get the win of the value of the mill that should stay within the entities because that would that helps you overall reduce property tax that's the problem that we have downtown here now is prime example the library as for fifteen per hundred now they're getting sixteen per hundred sixty per hundred they just got a two million dollar increase last year based on the fact just the value of the mill well that two million dollars could pay for public safety increase that Richland county's worried about in year three so I do think that this is something we ought to be talking about I don't know if it's exactly the way they've driven it but there needs to be some type of guardrails put around or we're just going to keep seeing property tax go up on renters and commercial and small businesses that's who's paying this homeowners not so I think it's the article I think another thing with this bill after reading another article is this 11 I have no idea after reading it it kind of goes back to the fact that instead of letting the political subdivision make the decision they're pushing it back on to the actual voters the taxpayers so a lot of things will fail right and that's what I mean that's what I read in this bill but which articles this is an article 11 I don't know we talk about four six six more six six one is the legislation but it's going to have to amend a particular code section and that would be I don't know code sections but the code section that refers to the local government fund would have to be effect about this wouldn't it I think that's something we need to look into yeah if it's if it's if it's that particular code section then you have to be concerned with it if it's not amending that this would absolutely affect how the city is able to raise funds there's no doubt about that so is this whether it would actually affect the local government fund I don't know but but that's what I'm saying this section six this this would require a very large commitment of time on the part of the legislature to do something like this and I have not heard anyone from there up to now talk about this I just think understanding a little bit more because you know all of that is not they're not going to tell us that you can't do geo bonding and this and that because we're already capped at eight percent anyway so they're not going to do that but some of these other conversations around millage and imposing other direct fees and you know bonding outside I do think because if they give authority to an agency that we have no over say you know we're part of a county we we take the hit and so I mean I just think we need to just watch and hear who will absolutely be on top of it we'll also ask around and see where they think this thing may because I mean some I wouldn't be in favor of all of this but I do think there needs to be some more in there especially when you're talking about a county wide obligation to a third party you know we're the we have any idea where the counties are on it oh I'm guarantee they're against it's gonna be I agree with Kyle it's gonna be a huge fight to do anything with this you gotta you gotta remember the temperament of the general assembly though I mean this this plays into the hand of possibly majority and I'm telling you after I look at this they would prefer the general public to make these decisions it kind of hampers the hands of government when you want something but at the same time it forces it you place it back on the the elector say hey people want it we're for it yeah this is I think yeah I mean there are there needs to be some modification in some guidelines I'm not saying that I would I think what they put down here just takes every increase which you can't do but I do think there there needs to be some type of reform and overall discussion and it's probably too big of a discussion for them to handle in this session but I think given the sponsor of this bill that it's not in line with what leadership would initially support we can definitely have conversations with them I know that there's there's some foot from the leadership to do yes some some reform I don't know if that's all but it doesn't mean that this couldn't be the caveat to really push the discussion a little bit well this is easy we could just go meet with the sponsor yeah I'm just asking me your intent yeah be good tonight and it could be just a 24 since this is 24 in an election year could just be the bill for that right it might be I asked who Pace is Jordan Pace yeah Jordan Pace is he's a Republican member I think it's Jordan is he from Berkeley County or Charleston County or is he from the upstate I think he's from Berkeley or Charleston County and he is a fiscal conservative member of the Freedom Congress so that is very wide encompassing everything yeah so you know in Georgia general obligation that has to be a referendum that's a normal thing but they don't do it for everything else um I don't think I wonder if this is what you're saying this will lead maybe to certain little things but we do have certain guardrails on all to some degree millage rates are capped every year based upon CPI um general obligation that's still capped upon 8 percent there's several it's not capped to the agency it's capped as is overall growth method in this and this might be this is what to take a look and see this might be changing how that is approved this could be just saying no we're not changing any rules about how that's approved we're just saying that anytime there's a public vote on it under the current rules it has to be on the first monday in november and an even number of year in other words you can't have first tuesday oh yeah thank you uh first tuesday fall the first month right yeah in other words it might just be new election cycle we don't know about no it might it may well just be not changing how it's approved but just saying you can't have any votes on these things if it requires the public yeah you can't have any vote like like the penny tax if it's a penny tax you have to have it on that could be that yeah it could be just procedurally i wouldn't ignore this but i wouldn't get worked up over okay that was my question like what is the bottom line okay this is not this is one of those election europeans uh tiktok on government electronic devices i would be interested in hearing i think that this could be a discussion this year because it's a good election year issue that has been discussed uh by the majority i'd be interested in hearing if we have any thoughts or positions on that also the city doesn't allow tiktok anymore and the federal law thank you that's helpful and the federal government i think we're going to put some parameters around on these tiktok periods with governmental agency they may even tie the fund if you draw around federal dollars right yes yeah it's it's it's absolutely an issue that's floating around but thank you that would take that would that would make the need for this bill go away that doesn't always a lot of times as you guys know they'll be like well we know when we have the federal government we're going to go ahead and do it you see where it says another chinese owned application i was going to say are those specific or are those open-ended chinese the next bill is mark smith isla palms not the speaker this looks to me like a bill that came out of a personal circumstance i don't expect it to move but it could can we talk to the chair of threan to see she she's pretty honest certainly they're very close yeah i know i'm saying we talked to her and she said hey this might move that way kind of interesting yeah i'm not a yeah it seems like a very specific yeah it's some certain circumstance some experience yeah this is definitely personal right somewhere firefighter cancer benefit uh maybe i don't understand it i'm confused unless unless somebody is living in another state and working in in state what i don't i don't when i see that bill i'm just like can we get some some contacts almost sure yeah it might have just for just so we know because it seems very strange to me right i have something to do with their um that cancer fund those those funds that go to firefighters who i think it's limited to to the south carolina so if you're if you're on the clover fire department or the york fire department you live across the line but i mean if you retire i have somewhere else that shouldn't that shouldn't affect the fund anyway you know you still well the cancer benefit i think is the i'm talking about 4680 right yeah that's what we're talking about so that's um what you could be an active firefighter and and get cancer and get money out of that fund yeah but if you're active working in the state to qualify but you live somewhere else that i guess i'm not understanding what they're trying to do that's why i'm saying it'd be great to get a little context yeah so that fund is a little bit different than the retirement is different than the retirement it's like a benefit like an insurance policy per se yeah and if you can if you get cancer while you're a firefighter then you get access to they give you some of those funds and i can get off i had a question for you daniel it's mayor rickman how well do you know celeste davis jason we probably need to spend some time with her that's another person to reason that we need to add to the list of people to go meet because a lot of bills in relation to the city are going to go through her committee yeah we need to get to know her whether we like the bills or we don't we need to make sure we have good rapport with her right i talk to her fairly regularly both those bills you can see if they give refer i mean they already referred to committee but if they get scheduled for a subcommittee meeting first couple of weeks of session then maybe there's something to it oh right all likelihood these two bills are not going to get a subcommittee meeting very soon but it will make our job easier because we can go to the chair of the committee and say hey if you want to make the city of columbia i don't think you're interested in it we're from the city of columbia we need to know what's the likelihood of this bill moving yeah and if we have a good relationship i don't worry about that or hey you may want to go talk to the sponsor but i look i don't take anything for granted because you never know well and that's why the three of us are all up there monday tuesday i mean tuesday wednesday thursday and then sometimes on fridays and mondays for 18 weeks a year keeping an eye on this stuff our office monitors everything that is read across the desk and all of the new committees that are that are all the bills that are set for a subcommittee hearing and this is kind of the challenge of what we do which is it'll be thursday afternoon and we'll get a notice the bill that we're interested in is set for a subcommittee hearing on tuesday after german and so you kind of have to move very quickly and um okay so first respond to retirement income again this is uh they're trying to follow the military and this is mr kill martin which is probably a i think that this should be done bill and then the question is whether you know he's our uh he's lexden county representative came to our uh opening of the of the finley park and i think he i think the chances that this bill moves this year unless it gains a lot of ground and momentum and sponsors just is low but we'll see that's why we have it in here because we keep it on and because if it moves we need to know it local government application reviews is the same is the same um uh it's in the same boat as the one that we were just talking about which is if it gets if the sponsor is able to bring a lot of support to to it and and the sponsor is able to make this a priority then i think that there's a chance that it moves but i don't think that there's a chance i don't think that there's a high likelihood that we're going to have to worry about we're gonna have to that this bill is going to be on our list of bills that start to move and then um the next bill is in the same the dei cannot be promoted by cities is in the same i put that in the same category of bill that we talked about earlier which is the social conservative bills are bills that there's going to be some of these that pass every year that are bills that are strongly supported by the family caucus and that are preferred by the majority leadership and so you never know which one i don't know exactly which one those bills are going to be but there will be some but but all of the bills in that category will not pass so this is you said freedom caucus or family well i said i said family caucus we're not really referring to is those and there are there are more than a i mean there's a lot of of the of the majority members um want to pass bills that show that South Carolina is a socially conservative state and so that's that's that's just fine in terms of when you're trying to manage the body the leadership can't entertain and pass all of those bills but there's usually some that pass and so it's really hard in december to see which ones are going to be the ones probably whichever ones pass this year not going to have a big impact on on the city but they could and so that's why we watch these in case one of the ones that passes does have it and then we have to jump into action and make sure that we minimize the uh impacts on on the city okay interesting um same with the uh environment social uh no i'm sorry the ESC ESG it's ESG that's a typo should be ESG promotion environment and social governance what is what is that is that a term concept that's taken i've never heard that before is it what your mission and vision is you can't be judged on that yeah uh or your values of a company if you're yeah ESG is environment social and governance goals and social and governance goals of a corporation and it's growing all the rating agencies now put in the ESG score on a lot of stuff it's everything yeah today it has been shocking to me in the last and companies are using it as a gauge who they do business with as well right and a lot of people are opposed to diversity equity and inclusion policies and they're opposed to ESG scores and that's where these bills M&A from yeah i think some of the you there's been some backlash Wyoming, Texas and a few others have really pounded and some of the banks now i know this because some of them deal with their struggling because they they have to walk a very fine line on who their clients are but they're being told by some of the states now that if you deal with some of these companies we're not going to deal with you and they're trying to figure out how they're going to this is corporate social responsibility yes okay that i've heard of and and what the bills basically what it sounds like you shouldn't use that in the rating system shouldn't be a disqualifier if you are or you aren't yeah friend i've already argued so you wouldn't have to support a company and give us back to the community well it's saying you can't use it is to give them an upper hand on getting a deal higher rating higher rating because of that is there any movement on this one or does this follow with the tiktok and the dei okay again these are things that get really um dicey when you get into it yeah so you there is always a chance that bills that you don't every year there are bills that no one thought would move that become enacted and passed by a body it would be interesting to know what the feds are doing with the uh which administration current administration yeah just a little body might be a little bit different than the prior administration yeah not not necessarily the president but so well these same types of bills are at the at the federal level right so you know um the next one is mr beach from pickens county his bathroom bill and our legislature has not had an appetite for taking up bathroom bills so i don't expect this will pass but it would affect the city were it to pass abandoned buildings ding ding ding ding ding ding ding this will be something that we will work on in concert with the people who work on this because it's important to the city unless you guys tell me that it's no longer it's not important to the city anymore but in the i think uh councilman brennan could probably give us uh chapter and verse on on the different things that he's seen in in his private life that would highlight the importance of the abandoned buildings um tax credit which they're never extended indefinitely they always put a sunset date on it so that we'll have to come back and take a look at it again so this is the year for that but december 2035 it's pretty far out compared to what they've done in the past mr palin you always ask for more than you expect to receive and when given options take both i'm sorry i just said when given options take both absolutely and maybe the appetites changed but under under uh the prior finance committee chair it was rarely were you given more than three or four years so we'll see so we'll probably get five out of it hopefully see oh well and it's it's an important bill and that's one that i do expect to move and um we will be paying attention and helping get it through um the next bill is very interesting because i look forward to having a conversation with mr hewitt on his uh short term rental bill because he introduced another bill that looks in pre he prefiled another bill that looked exact that looks exactly like his um existing he prefiled his bill that's already i'm sorry that looks exactly like the bill that he prefiled last year so just going to figure out what that is we have been cited as an example of what he prefers short term rental regulation by local government to look like so we will be closely following this as we were last year but it's not something that's going to impact us because we're in line with what the bill if his bill passed into law it would not change wouldn't have an impact on on columbia on city columbia operations currently but i do expect there to continue that that bill wins the prize for the most articles written on the bill the most media attention on the bill versus how far it's moved so far it has not moved out of committee in three years and it's there's been no activity on a there there is no uh companion bill in the senate so no activity in the senate only subcommittee perhaps committee discussion in the house but it hasn't moved but there have been you know there's articles written on that bill every year and i'm sure there will be again this year a lot of attention on it because it's such a hot issue all across the state the next bill is interesting and this is uh i would i would we probably should have put the and the bill the next bill is 4586 by wooten private landowner protection act and then down at the bottom is the annexation fairness act and by mr beach and i think those are the only two in this um as we've discussed before the legislature has not taken up an annexation issue with any meaningful um effort if any meaningful work has been no no meaningful work has been put into changing the annexation law over the last 10 years and it's because this is such a difficult issue i don't expect either of these bills to move forward but we will watch them if they do and if they do it will open up all kinds of opportunities for all kinds of interests to make changes to that section of the code it's interesting that somebody's pushing the annexation because that's come up a couple of times right and you know mr wooten is uh over in lexington county and they've had more than a few discussions on annexation and de annexation over there so i this i'm sure relates to something that he is dealing with in lexington county oppose both the county association and municipal association completely disagree on this particular you have a very keen antenna mr palin um you know i used to work for the county well you know the county is there's annexation was totally different discussion than when i came to work here we have been in discussions with county association on donut holes the ability for the city to take these three properties or these seven properties that are in a donut hole um and be able to just bring them into the city and the county association they have a um have a policy on this and their policy has about 14 points to it and if you meet all 14 points then they're in favor of your proposal to for donut holes and the 14 points are you can't comply with them all so the answer is that they're not in favor of filling in donut holes they're not in favor of giving the city councils the ability to fill in donut holes without going to the property owners and getting a substantial majority of the property owners to either vote in a referendum or sign a document that agrees to be taken into the bill and so it never goes anywhere the about five million dollars a year the uh the hickson bill uh mr hickson from achon county is a committee chair in the house so you always want to pay attention to bills from a committee chair i'm going to refer him to file a bill that requires the state to actually maintain the roads they already have within city limits this bill is um i'll be surprised if this bill gets any substantial traction only because this is the argument that goes on all the time because because of the historic because for historic reasons our state DOT owns so many more roads than most state DOT's own therefore they get the great lion's share of the road maintenance money in the state and it's never enough and there's always a fight over what they're maintaining what they're not all the money is only geared to the highway every bit of the gas tax everything is geared to the highway expansions and redoing there there's no money being spent I mean I got entire neighborhoods in the city that are are completely DOT roads completely we don't have one inch in there that we control and they're not spending the resources to maintain the roads they're not spending any money in it they don't have them the commissioner will tell you that you know we we're continuing to ask for for funding for those roads especially our gateways because they're highways I mean jerry street is a highway it's a u.s one right so um yeah I'd like to see a different type of bill file so we talked about annexation there housing this bill was in the news we'll wait to see if anything happens on this Mr. Jones is representative from greenville county there must have been some situation where a church wanted to build some affordable housing charge rents and maybe there was a threat to their their property tax exempt status but we'll see if this if this moves I very well could move but we'll also see if there's issues about it that I think the question keeps coming up is is that churches have logged land and never done anything with it and I think from a local standpoint you know if they're built in public housing and rental I mean that needs to be constituted differently than church property um and I think there's a fine line there I mean I you know one of the questions comes up a lot with folks who are big on audit we need to have a county wide audit to make sure that the people who are supposed to be paying property tax are those who aren't and I don't know the last time that that's happened a lot of property changes hands quickly you know on the church properties it's been a constant struggle we've had numerous meetings with Buddy Maybank on this to discuss it and with its church on it I'm actually kind of surprised on this one it seems odd I'd be interested to see the situation because here locally we struggle that churches and caterers coffee shops and everything else as long as they have one little word that says this provides funding for our overall mission the church poof their tax exempt and that's just and we've argued that well I think the definition can't even Bernie has said we're just not going to win that yeah and I don't think it's really geared to to religious or I think we have to define the difference between religious and charity and I think that's the part that gets cloudy and I think trying to make sure that what moves forward because we need help with housing a lot of our or religious organizations own a lot of land but there's also ways to do that through through CDC's and others so you know hopefully we can create this bill will create more opportunities create partnerships than controversy maybe that's a good way to put it well and that's why the bill is on one for the reason you just stated mayor that's why the bill is on this does this affect the operations of the city of Colombia to the extent that it affects taxes them status yes but it's not something that's going to it's not going to it's not going to have effects other than that however we are very interested in affordable housing so it's on there tax haven't saved oh excuse me one question I'm sorry is there going back to the previous bill is there do you have on the road annexation thing do you have amendment language for that bill because that's something that you would probably want to have some amended language ready for that especially since it's an issue for the city well the bill itself is is talking about cities given I mean we're not giving any more roads to the the state because they're not maintaining what we got but you said you'd like to see a different bill yeah I'd like to see a different bill that says that they're required to maintain the roads that they already have that's not going to get included in that but why wouldn't it be because it's not going anywhere the tiff for affordable housing related to redevelopment of military installations clearly uh Charleston naval base right and again it's just an affordable housing bill that we want to make sure that we just in case it starts to move we would want to see if it we could we want to make sure that nothing happens in there that would not be that that we wouldn't you know that we would we would need to be on top of it inclusionary housing act this is one more swing at inclusionary zoning which is not allowed in uh South Carolina as our fellow councilman reminds us all the time mr. Duvall is that inclusionary zoning is not legal in South Carolina you can't pass an inclusionary zoning act so this would limit it to this population hub what is there a bill that says inclusionary zoning is not legal that was passed or is it like what makes it illegal I don't remember that okay exactly whether it's whether I don't think I don't think there's anything that says this it's not that it's not legal I think that there's limitations on the power of local governments that that maybe it's been challenged in court that says the local government cannot pass an inclusionary zoning act and in the case this is this is trying to um give some some limited authority for passing inclusionary zoning um in South Carolina but you don't see it check on that yeah that'd be that'd be helpful the next one is the patient with me hey let me just add on the inclusionary housing act we don't require it obviously but it does come up sometimes to some degree when we talk about these development deals we're going to give a 35 or 50 but it's said more as it asks them to consider it including affordable housing because we I don't know if we've actually done one in any deals but the discussion has been coming up more and more so I don't know if that is going to if this would affect that or not but was it a requirement or was a it was a requirement I agree to I don't think that there's any prohibition on a negotiated agreement for a this for me this for you we'll do this if you'll do that I don't think there's any prohibition on that there is a prohibition on passing an ordinance that says if any developer is going to build anything here they have to have this amount be um affordable or pay into a local fund for that which is what inclusionary zoning basically is and missy if you am I sounding correct to you yeah you are there's a lot of entities who want us to pass that that increases the cost of development so that's um that's the next bag there's a lot of there are better ways to do that groups who want us to pass that which we can't right now but yeah there are better ways and so when and so this is these are the kinds of bills that come up that would say okay well can we can we can the state let can the legislature let local governments do at least inclusionary zoning in this particular situation or this discrete circumstance so summary says voluntary mandate right the other thing is anytime you're going to take a bill up like this you're going to start talking about property rights when you start talking about property rights that's going to be a long discussion on the house floor so these bills often unless somebody says unless the leadership is convinced that the bill needs to pass it's usually not something that they want to make a lot of time okay the next bill is a bill that I am happy to bring back a full summary of this bill to everyone here when I read the summary of the bill and then I looked at the bill personally Mayor let me start over on this one because this one this 856 by Senator Davis is somewhat important this this bill when I read the summary I didn't understand it so then I went and looked at the bill and then I was reminded of the limits of my intelligence and when that happens I emailed Scott Slatin and I said this sounds like something we would not be in favor of and he's he's at the municipal association and he said just the this is a bill that we put together with Senator Davis and so we had we drafted this bill to address to to address concerns the municipal state the municipal association wants to address and so we are a hundred percent supportive of it this is the municipal association so I can bring but I was bringing it to the committee to see if anybody's heard anything about it you guys are on top of the this issue has any resonance with anyone but we can certainly bring back a summary of this bill because we expect that it will at a minimum get a a subcommittee hearing in the in the senate and move begin to move which means could it pass this year it could but it usually takes a couple years for a a bill to like this to pass the full legislature the next one is development impact fee changes this bill provides that a city county or both may impose an impact fee that applies only to residential developments only to commercial developments or both I thought this was an interesting but when I read through this I thought that was interesting because I didn't really know that impact of the impact fees how they had to be applied but my guess is that according to legal advice you have to apply it to everybody right you have to apply to everyone and I thought that this could be an interesting thing for the city as well in but I don't we'll watch the bill and see if it moves sounds good okay law enforcement crime and guns the first one is worthy of attention because it is sponsored by Mr. Johnson in the house and the Mr. Alexander in the Senate who are both senior leaders in the party so the president of the Senate and so I'm pretty sure that we have municipal prosecutors is that correct is Knox and are they full-time or part-time full-time prosecutors okay so this would apply to us so this is something that may well pass in the current age of sharpness and divisiveness in the world this is a trend where people who are involved in the judiciary and in law enforcement on all sides are being harassed and so they're trying to keep their personal information away from the public as much as possible the next one would not really have a strong impact on the city of Columbia maybe we could take it off of our monitoring list but we had it on there oh I'm sorry it's for local law enforcement agency yes it would so it would impact our local law enforcement agency to develop mediation standards so that's there in case it moves we'll be on top of it and then the final one is senator Davis when we see that it says that a community provider I think that's a final one isn't that correct yes I'll jump to the others a community provider may create a safer syringe program and a community provider is defined as an organization public or private to provide substance use disorder assistance and services such as counseling health services advocacy harm reduction etc that's the city I assume that that encompasses the city of Columbia and the work that we are currently doing at our rapid shelter rapid shelter and other things so it would apply to us so we put the bill in there okay now this is where we go back and we try to touch those neurons that were really firing heavily in May and June to refire them so that we can remember where we were when we left off and I'm going to need the help of my colleagues on this constitutional carry graduated sentences for gun offenses this has been a big priority for our cpd the graduated gun offenses not constitutional carry for many years and those two bills are the are I remember correctly the constitutional carry and the graduated gun sentences are married into one bill in the senate and there is enough resistance and and opposition to constitutional carry that the graduated gun sentences is sort of that portion of the bill in the senate is that the people who are in favor of constitutional carry are trying to make sure that those those two things stay married in that bill so that they can get their constitutional carry because they know people want graduated gun sentences and that's got the bill stuck in the senate so we will stay on top of that and I expect there to be a lot of attention on that this year because there always is attention on second amendment issues like constitutional carry and to some degree the other issues on graduated sentences there is a constant push me pull you on return to covered employment and this is a bill that would allow us to have officers in cpd retire and stay at the force without having to take 12 months is that right colleague yeah thank you and so the bills made it out of the house but it's sitting in the senate finance committee just so that everybody understands these bills always the resistance to these bills usually is the impact on the balance of funds at the retirement system so let me ask you a question if they ever actually give you a report that shows that effect will you get that to me nobody's seen that because I've heard that now for 20 years when we went back to 2000 and made those changes you can't even get the report it makes no sense to me if someone comes back they're putting money in the system that they're going to get zero benefit from so I don't understand the actual study that proves that that's a perfect system but I think that the concern is that next year there are going to be this many people who retire that's what we expect that's what our actual study say if we pass this bill next year there's going to be this many people that retire because there's going to be a run on the bank because you're going to have a disproportionate number of people who are going to retire saying this for 23 years now so I mean it's I'm I'm not buying it and so the actual aerial studies that they put out there for it we do our own actual aerial studies and certain things study I'm more into one of the parameters that they put because I can make any study come out to what I wanted to say based upon the parameters I put in the front end and those usually aren't shared very well unless you read in the small part of the study so I'm just looking I've asked now for 10 years trying to find that information and it always seems to disappear before it ever gets actually put out there I'm not saying I'm going to ask y'all to go bully anyone but I have been just trying to get that information for a long time and it's not just police officers it's actually for everyone so right now didn't they do a proviso each year for the last three years of keeps put rolling forward anyhow for critical yeah workers or critical workers we have found you know we've given them our list and they approve we don't want to change that by the way it comes in law it's an issue that is constantly at the forefront of people's considerations especially in these times of challenging personnel retention and hiring and so we we stay on top of it is the city of columbia's position on this bill going to carry the day make the difference probably not but we certainly need to know what's going on and weigh in if it if something starts to get out of line that would really be obtuse to us then we need to make sure that that we're on top of that and join it with other people and deal with it municipal election changes this is the bill we're held harmless in this bill now because this is a bill that is trying to get little small local governments that don't do a very good job of running elections out of the business of running elections and transfer that to the county when this was originally written this said this got rid of local election commissions and city of columbia and multiple other jurisdictions local governments went to we all went to the sponsor and said we want to maintain our local election commission we do not want richland county election commission which this is two years ago or a year at least a year ago i think it was two years ago this bill was here we do not want or maybe three we do not want richland county election commission which had had some issues at that point to be in charge of city of columbia local elections the bill was changed after our petitions and strong opposition to what was written the bill changed to allow to to not require local election commissions to be abolished and to go away but to put the local election in the hands of the county government only if the local government asked for it to be so it's permissible so we can hold on to our local election commission we can continue to run our local elections at the city and not have to turn everything over to richland county so where is that you think it'll be the house approved it it's in the senate i think that there's um no senate judiciary is a pretty um i would assume that's in yeah it is in senate judiciary senate judiciary has a lot more bills in the committee than they pass every year and so we'll have to see whether this is something that the leadership thinks needs to come out and if they do then it will and if they don't start it over in the house again in 2025 what we did uh as i always tell people when i'm talking to them remember the system was designed to preserve the status quo and not make change it's always very hard to change things passing a bill is five times the effort if not more than stopping a bill especially an election because there's no right the next bill is a bill that would impact our um animal services and our finances and uh that's why it's on here and so the bill is out of the house after a lot of work on it last year i believe it's i believe it's uh mr hickson's bill i'm sure but the bill is out of the house and it's into the senate and i think that the people who are in favor of this bill will be spending a lot of effort trying to get the senate to take care of the bill basically this if you guys want me to get through it i will otherwise it's summarized sorry mr murphy's bill so basically it's saying that they would have to pay for the care of their animals until they get it back what like how would it affect our finances for animal services well in just a minute i'm trying to refire those neurons i think it's the second paragraph yeah okay because okay so here so so what's happening is that there are a lot of people who are arrested and their animals are seized because the animals have no other place to go and they're turned over to the animal services and the person has who was arrested has absolutely no plan to come back and get the animal and certainly not going to pay back animal services for all the time they had to take care of them so this bill would say if that if the animal services want to they can say hey person who has just been arrested and we had to take your animal you got to pay up front pay up front we'll take care of your animal pay us now if you don't pay us now we're going to adopt this animal out because uh and the expectation is that if that occurs that they will have a very small percentage of people in that circumstance who will pay up front but they can pay up front to keep their animal but that's probably not going to happen because that's not what happens here they never come back and pay meantime that animal could have been adopted out to somebody maybe you could at least try and not have to go through everything waiting on the court system to adjudicate the underlying offense charge excuse me so that's so that bill is through the house and it's in and um it's pending in the same community development tax credits i was a little surprised this did not get passed last year because they sunsetted um last year community development tax credits this is the community development we always call it the Bernie Mosaic bill because Bernie Mosaic runs the South Carolina association for community development organizations i think it's called corporations thank you and this gives them i believe it's five million dollars a year that they have are five million dollars over three years um and it did not get passed last year to extend the tax credit so i expect something to be done on that we have these organizations in the city of Columbia they do work in the city and this tax credits would benefit um so unrelated i know one of the ones that you're interested in last time was the increase in potential municipal fines there was some traction i recall that you had said mesc was working on that did anything happen with that we see that coming back up because one of the things that mayor and i and councilman taylor we had talked about was the um some more accountability for litter and illegal dumping and illegal dumping and but that would require the threshold for what is the max municipal fine to be more than 500 so that bill is still alive okay it's not in this report because it didn't move last year okay um if we if we were to print out the this this is um nine pages and some change if we were to print out the list of the bills that are in our tracking system maybe like a hundred pages 45 ish 4045 ish and we were finally requested several years ago to quit sending that report every week just send the ones that are moving because it was choking up the system yeah well i mean i feel like that one would affect so many of the other things that we're interested in so that would be something we want to continue to follow yes oh we're definitely following it and and i can't remember i had a conversation with whoever that was um thank you uh so you you you're done i'm done i want to amend it make a motion to amend agenda to add executive session to relieve get some uh attorney client privilege legal advice on some legislative issues um can i make a motion you make a motion and we lose mr brennan yeah so i second it so and with that my motion is to receive legal advice related matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to sc code 30-4-70 a2 legislative priority um do you read the role yes yes we're gonna move to executive session