 We are not going to forget the call from Roland today, like last week, two weeks ago, but we are calling the meeting to order and before we do the invocation, I'd like to have a personal minute to honor one of our greats that we lost yesterday. Good afternoon. Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor. Mr. Herbert. Here. Dr. Bussells. Here. Mr. Brennan. Here. Mr. McDowell. Here. Mr. Duvall. Here. Here. Here. Thank you. Before we do the invocation, and Reverend McDowell will call on you to do that, I did want to just take a minute for a couple of things in one, is take a moment, a moment of silence for Judge Mildred Weathers McDuffie who had an incredible impact on this community, on probably everybody in this room at some point or another, I don't know why that's that way, but Judge McDuffie was not only an educator, a council member at Richland County, council, our judge, but she was a mentor. She was a lion during the civil rights movement. She impacted so many people's lives, and I remember when I first got elected in 2004, she took me around to a lot of the churches and to the neighborhoods and introduced me, and she used to tell people I was her son, and it was pretty funny to watch their reaction. They couldn't tell if she was kidding or she was being serious, but she was a great lady who, I don't know that we'll ever be able to have another woman that have such an impact on our community as she did, so as a trailblazer and her legacy, I know we'll continue in our community. I would ask that we just take a moment and have a moment of silence for Judge McDuffie. Well, Lord, you brought us to this place, this place where decisions are made. You brought us to this place where we are engendered each to the other. You brought us to this place because each one of us and every person gathered in this place, in this hall today are akin with the expansion and the love of the city. Lord, we simply ask that in the midst of our deliberation today that you might entrust us with sensitivity, compassion, and with a true sense of worth for every person in this city. For Judge McDuffie, with all the energy she exerted during her lifetime in this city, for the countless number of hours she gave of herself to point ways and avenues of justice and humanity, we thank you for her life and particularly we pray for the McDuffie family as we grieve and yet as we celebrate a life well lived, we ask it in your name. Amen. Mr. Mayor, as you adopt the agenda, we have one amendment, add an appointment to the short term rental ad hoc committee that's requested by the Honorable Howard DeVall and certainly that can go where it's the end of the agenda where those items are normally handled, Mayor Rickman. We're going to add that to appointments please, bit of 24. Any other changes or anything? No, sir. I move adoption of the budget as amended. Excuse me, as the agenda as amended. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Further discussion? Not hearing none. Madam Clark, can you read the roll? Mr. Taylor? Ms. Herbert? Approved. Dr. Bussells? Approved. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. McDowell? Yes. Mr. DeVall? Aye. Mayor Rickman? Aye. Mayor Rickman and Council, we are always going to make sure at the beginning of the council meetings if there's any public input on the agenda items after you have adopted your agenda. So at this time I would ask if there are any and of course Ms. Hammond and I will be monitoring any of the sign up sheets as if someone changes their mind as we go along and they decide they do have some input. None at this time. We will move forward with the approval of the minutes. Council is asked to approve the January 18th, 2022 council meeting minutes. Move. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion about the minutes? Hearing none. Madam Clark, can you read the roll please? Mr. Taylor? Ms. Herbert? Approved. Dr. Bussells? Approved. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. McDowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mayor Rickman? Aye. Moving into a period of city council discussion and action. If you have any action, most of these two items are for your information. The first is a COVID-19 situational report. Mr. Harry Tinsley, our Emergency Management Director will come forward. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Madam City Manager, thank you for your time. As an additional, there's more information in your inbox. So for today's report out on case rates, hospitalizations, and deaths, the highest case counts occurred on January 20th so far at over 22,000 combined cases reported in our state. Over the last 10 days, however, that has been trending down, which is a good thing. The highest hospitalizations occurred on January 26th. That was over 2,700 hospitalizations or 28% of inpatient bed utilization. For the last five days, that has been trending down. The highest deaths occurred on January 27th at 121. Those are combined deaths posted out by DHEC. And over the past four days, that has been trending down. It's encouraging that we see those numbers continue to move in that direction and we'll continue to report and update you as that has that way to move forward. So as far as South Carolina case counts confirmed stands right now over 1.3 million. There have been 14.9 million just under 5 million actually test to date during the COVID-19 pandemic. New case counts for our state today combined were 4,137% positivity rate has started being posted again. On this sample today that posted it was 23.9%. That's down from 32% at our last meeting. So today 28 combined deaths reported out by DHEC and that brings the state's combined total deaths due to COVID-19 to 15,508. So here in Richland County, our case count confirmed case count stands at 91 over 91,000. Today's numbers that posted were 274 combined and that's down from over 900 at our last meeting on the 18th. So we're trending in a good direction. We're hoping it stays that way. So as of statewide hospital bed utilization, the bed utilization rate is stable at 77%. As of the 31st of January's report, there were 2,459 patients currently hospitalized due to COVID-19 confirmed or suspected. And also in Richland County, our bed utilization rate is stable at 65.9% with 181 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in our county. Also Prisma Health Richland today reports out the pediatric patients there are four at Prisma Health Richland. DHEC also reports over 6.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to our state. As of the 29th of January, 53.1% of the eligible population in South Carolina are fully vaccinated. 17.2% of children aged five to 11 have received at least one dose. 66.6% of children aged 12 or older have received at least one dose. As far as our snapshot here in Richland County, 56.1% have completed their vaccination series and 66.1% have received at least one dose. And additionally or lastly, our vaccination clinics DHEC is our partner. We have another clinic tomorrow, February 2nd at Martin Luther King, Jr. Park. Another one on February 8th, which is next week on at Melrose Park, February 15th at Woodland Park. And we're also showing the testing and vaccination at the Columbia Place Mall location at 72012 Knox Road. Any questions that concludes my report? Thank you. Are there any questions for Harry? Mr. Mayor, may I just make on a personal, Harry, just let me say a word of thanks to you. A very comprehensive report, every council meeting day that has helped us a lot. We hope that it's trending down, as you said. And that's good for each of us. But I also want to thank Demetrius Rump. Demetrius has in YouTube, I've got masks now that I can interchangeably take off and have a supply. Thank you all so much for being who you are and I know you all are perhaps in separate departments. But thank you all for taking care of us in a very tough time. Not only did you not only do you give a comprehensive report, but you've also given us the tools to help us stay healthy. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Please convey that to Brother Rock. Thank you. Mayor, I just have a quick question. So I know last time we talked about maybe the percentage of the workforce right now that's been affected by COVID. Do you by chance know if we still have? I think the number last time was 13% of our city workforce was unfortunately out with COVID. Do we have an idea of if that's trending downward now? I think anecdotally it is trending downward. Dr. Bussells, we're not out of the woods. We're every day still experiencing that. And I mean, I think you all are seeing the effects of that sometimes with the get you a percentage, but that changes and it's very trending down. The numbers 11% now. Thank you. We. Mr. Taylor, if you're comfortable when you come to the the micro when you're talking, if you could take off your mask, it's hard for some of us to hear it. Besides this hearing hearing up here. Yes. Yes, please. An introduction to procurement and contracts. Miss Sandra A. Middleton, our director and purchasing agent and Miss Shannon was she and I always mess up your name was this key was this key direct director. I'll let you repeat it when you start talking our deputy director for the Department of procurement and contracts. I wanted to say before these ladies get started that one of the goals that I do have with you all this seated council, particularly with several new members is to give you some introduction introductory materials, which is also kind of a refresh for some of our more seasoned members of council, particularly as we're going into our budget season. And I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about that too before we wrap up today. So some of these type presentations by staff, you'll begin to hear more of them. So with that, I'll let them get started. It'd be great if they can get through the presentation and if you all could just jot down questions you might have as they go along for the sake of time. But obviously if it's something just burning and pressing, you need to ask right then, please do that as well. Sandra. Good afternoon, Mayor members of council. Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to present to you today. As Miss Wilson just stated that we would like to give you an overview of our processes, but we just want to start with just the basics. And at any time that you all have any questions, please feel free to access. I'm going to start with the first few slides. We're going to cover several different things here today. But I want to start with our authority, what authority we have as far as conducting procurements here at the city of Columbia. And I want to talk a little bit more about some things, our processes, things that we're trying to improve, like our timeliness, as far as the time frames that it takes for getting procurements done from the start to the finish. Also, I would like to talk about minute track, a lot of things that come in front of you. There might be different definitions that for the new members of council that you might not quite understand. So Shannon is going to go a little bit more deeper into the different terms. It also should be part of your packet. There should be a memo there that also will have those terms. But if it's still not clear to you, please let us know. And at the very end, we wanted to conclude with discussing some of our suggested recommendations. But we're open for some comments and feedback where we're headed with that for over the next year, as well as concluding with our accomplishments. Who we are. First of all, our department is the Department of Procurement and Contracts. Can you hear me okay? Okay. Our department is the Department of Procurement and Contracts. And we have currently 19 members on staff, 17 of those are permanent FTEs, and two of those are temporaries. We have six vacancies. We are in the process of trying to fill two of those. But what I try to do at the city is take a look at our processes before we just add new members to our staff to make sure we can tweak our processes as much as possible first. But what we do is basically we support all operations of the city. Whatever is needed, no matter which department, we try to assist with the needs of the city. So if they call us, we get started that way. But we have a requisitioning process that we'll go through in just a little bit, where we basically get things through an automated process in most cases. And most of our procurements, they go through fairly quickly. And we support, again, all the operations of the city. But also what we have to consider, as it all times is making sure we're conducting ourselves in the appropriate way. Because of course, we are good stewards of public funds, and we have certain rules and regulations that we must abide by. Not only do we hold our own sales accountable, we also hold others accountable. There are so many people within our city that actually touch procurement. We have so many different departments. So one of the things that we do is that we have an internal policy. And a lot of that actually came after the flood on procurement integrity. There are certain things that everyone must abide by because we deal with so many federal funds. And their restrictions are a lot deeper than some of ours, or a lot more complex than ours. And then the other thing we do is we hold our contractors, our vendors, our contractors, our consultants, we hold them responsible as well. So when you bid on a procurement, when you bid on a procurement that is formalized and formalized procurement started $25,000. Thank you. If you bid on one of those procurements, you have to sign, if you're a bidder, you have to sign an organizational conflict of interest. And again, that is required on federal procurements, but we thought it was a good policy. So we also use it for our city procurements as well over that dollar threshold. We also follow the State Ethics Commission. And I know some of you all are getting ready to file your statements of economic interest. So you understand that we have to follow state guidelines as applicable as well. And Sandra, let me just say this while since you mentioned that, because it's very important, I don't think it goes unsaid, the only three individuals in the city other than you all that have to file with the State Ethics Commission are myself, Jeff Palin and Sandra Wright. So that is a very, I'm sorry, Mr. Taylor, I was saying that the three of us, other than you all who have to file with the State Ethics Commission are myself, Jeff Palin and Sandra Wright. I mean, so when she says she takes this very seriously, is personally serious for the three of us as well. Thank you, Ms. Wolfson. And we also have a national organization. It's the National Institute of Public Procurement, I'm sorry, National Institute of Governmental Purchasing. And in 2010, we came up with some values and guiding principles. And they are listed here for you. But basically, this is what we do. We try to do the right thing. So we have listed here accountability and ethics and impartiality. So we try to be fair in all of our dealings. Actually, I think that we are fair in all of our dealings. But of course, there's always probably some room for improvement, professionalism. And I always tell my staff, no matter where you go, your city employee, your city employee after hours, your city employee when you're on social media. So we are represented here. And being in the procurement profession, we have to hold ourselves even to a higher standard than even some others, I think finance would also be one that would state that. Because again, we are actually making sure that we are spending our public funds in the right way. And transparency. Transparency in government. A long time ago, I was worked for the auditor's office and I got my first taste of transparency. You have to be transparent. You have to be transparent. You have to have your records. We have some records, open records acts that we have to follow within the state as well. So once the solicitation is released on the street, we basically state that all activity should be ceased until that procurement actually closes in as awarded. And typically those are the ones again that are brought before you all in council. Okay, here are some frequently procured goods and services. We do a little bit of everything here at the city of Columbia. One of the things that came through my box this morning. I think this Wilson signed off on it probably this morning as well was spot shotter, right? So you all are very familiar with that. So we do a lot of things for our first responders. We do a lot for Columbia water, whether or not it's for water, wastewater or any other of the divisions under Columbia water. Also the PPE, I'm just going to stress a few of these, personal protective equipment. We have a COVID center that we have set up for city employees. So if you're needing anything, if you're needing masks, you need gloves, you need an air purifier, you need sanitizer, whatever you're needing in your city employee, we're encouraging the departments to come to us. There's a little simple process to come to us. Tell us what you're needing. We'll even bring it to city employees and city departments. So we set that up to adjust to our pandemic. The other thing here that is on the list that I would like to hit on is a lot of our procurements are professional services and some of those take quite some time. Some of the most complex ones. We have to work very closely with our departments to understand the technical specs. We understand the procurement and a lot of the rules and breaks under that. But the technical specs, we have to work closely with our departments on. And there are other professional services that may not stem out of Columbia water as well. We might have something like auditing services, legal services and other things and the like. And general office supplies, we have a lot of those general offices supplies as well. Okay, here are thresholds. I talked about that I believe at the very beginning. Our code, we have both media code and under our ordinance under article five. It goes into this and is all out on our website, but I can make sure that you have the link. I think it's in slide two that I might have skipped over, apologize. But Munich code basically talks about the policies and how procurement is supposed to be handled here in the city. And to supplement that we have appendix G. Appendix G basically talks about the processes and the procedures and this. Like right here it talks about if you purchase anything, city of Columbia that's under $5,000 in value, you have to get a minimum of one quote from qualified suppliers. And the quotes must be fair and reasonable. But like I tell my staff, there's a big difference, $5,000 for one quote. So you need to check and make sure that it's fair and reasonable get at least another one just to test. The way our system works is that the end users usually get those quotes, the smaller ones under 25,000. They get the ones in the first two columns and they send them through our electronic system for us to take a look at and then we make the awards from there. So if it's over 5,000, they have to get a minimum of two. So what we do, we do the same process, but we suggest that you're always reaching out to a local or a small business because that those would be the areas especially that a lot of small businesses are able to compete in successfully. And then over not that they can't over 25,000 because they can, but we want to make sure we give them every opportunity that they have a chance to participate in the process. And then we have over $25,000 procurements. Those are basically you formally solicit. They we call them formal procurements. We advertise them. We put them in the state newspaper. We send them out through the South Carolina business opportunities. We also sometimes send them out through other forms of media and through other procurement modules. So what we try to do there, we try to always make sure that we are getting competition. The code tries to seek a minimum of three. That's why it says that we that's what we try to do. But sometimes we end up only getting one or two. We do try to push it as hard as we can because we want to get the best thing for our buck that we can. And after that, and all of this is under Miss Wilson's purview. But after that, it comes in front of you like it's going to this afternoon. This afternoon is we have some items on the agenda. So you're actually going to be approving items that are over $50,000 in value. And Shannon's going to talk just a little bit more about in just a moment. So I'm going to quickly go through this next slide. Request for quotes. Like I was talking about the small ones that are informal that if they're under $25,000, they pretty much go through in a short period of time. Okay. And then if they are an IFP, that's formal over $25,000 in value. You can send out an IFP for less than that if you want to test the waters because you think you're not quite sure it might be $24,000. So we sent out a lot of our construction bids through the IFP format. And then we have requests for proposals. Let's say that the work that we were doing down at Family Park is starting to do. We sent that out through our request for proposal. So therefore it's a tool that you use. You don't use it sparingly. Anything under procurement that is not just based on price alone that you're both the price is fair and reasonable. Anything else that you're adding in other factors that you might consider other than just price, then therefore you might use an RFP. But it should be justifiable. It should be a justifiable reason. Like if you think about Family Park, there's so many different things and components to it. We want to see different ways that people want it to propose how they were going to revitalize our part. And then we have requests for qualifications. Excuse me. Requests for qualifications. You can do it as a two step. You can qualify contractors for something like janitorial services. And then after you get your shortlist from that, you can go ahead and send out and say now I want your price because you want to base public funds whenever possible on lowest price. If everything else is the same and they are responsive and responsible. Okay. Ability to carry it out is responsibility. Responsive is that they got it in on time and they checked all the boxes of what's needed. Then we have all kinds of different various construction procurement methods. I'm not going to go through those today. But request for information. Sometimes right before solicitation, we don't quite exactly know how to get our buildings all secured. I'm just giving you one example. So we want to just test the market without it being formal. So we want to be able to talk to everybody. We want everybody to be open. We want to bring them to the table. We might do that virtually now. We haven't done one in a little in some time now, but that sometimes is helpful and it helps us to make sure not just one contractor is helping us to assist with writing our specifications and emergency procurements. Emergency procurements. I actually I had someone to call me about one today. That's every time that we need something like there's might be a water main break or something that happened that we definitely need to act quickly and responsively because it's an issue is critical to the health and safety of our citizens and residents. So therefore we would declare an emergency and we would move forward. We'll bring it forward back to you all to ratify. After we have all the end voices in on it, we'll bring it back to council to ratify. Then we have sole source procurements. Soul source procurements are not just the only source, sometimes is the compatibility reason or sometimes sometimes is like our chemicals. We want to test our chemicals. We don't want just everybody providing us with chemicals. So therefore you want to make sure that they are right before you actually put them out for bid if they have, if there is a way that we still can put them out. Then in other cases, sole sources is something unique about it. There's something that has to be something that you can't always readily get. It's unique. It's one of a kind. I think about artwork. Sometimes we buy something that's unique. I think there was something in this building that we did that was unique as well. But anyway, sole source is not just single source. I just wanted to make that clear. And then unauthorized procurements and my deputy here, she asked me, is that really a method? I said, I want to bring it up because it's not a good method. We should not be using unauthorized procurements. We should not be committing the city to expending funds without approval, even if it's a verbal approval like we did today. Even if that, we just need to have something on file that we did made an attempt. Okay, so here, I'm sorry I'm taking a little long. Here is our cycle. In general, it starts up top with planning and deciding what do you need. So our end users say contact us. They tell us, this is what I need procurement. And so therefore we might have another meeting and we might talk about it. It depends on the complexity. We'll talk about it and we'll develop the scope of work. We get the scope of work and then we decide, okay, this looks like it can fit for an IFB because typically you want competition. You want it to be a competitive process. Or it might end up being, nope, it's something similar to something like one of our parks need to be redesigned. So no, we have too many factors to consider. We might go the RFP route. But let's just say it wasn't. It's just one of those little short ones that's under $5,000. Hey, I just need to buy a desk. Just get me a desk and I need it now. So therefore it skips a lot of these steps and it goes straight to acquiring that acquisition phase. We're going to get what we need then. The other step of acquiring might mean that it's formalized. So now what I need to do is be able to move it on and send it out. We call it putting it out on the street for bid. So after we get our bid, sometimes you need a panel. Different things, other steps have to happen. But then you would want to, after you decide on who is going to be your highest responsive bidder on a proposal, say, then you want to be able to evaluate it and negotiate with them. And I'm going to show you at the very end how we did that successfully very recently. You make your selection. You bring your awards. Then the performance starts. Somebody, OK, now I need you to get out there and fix those pie holes. And then after that fact, we get into my invoices and things. And every now and then, there's a scope change. So therefore, we might end up having a contract amendment done to that, or change orders, what we call a lot in construction. So then we have our contract administration phase. Basically, this is the cycle. But it can be shortened, of course, depending on the complexity of what you're actually procuring. And my last slide is the slide on our procurement. We have a couple slides in here on some statistics for you. We have, excuse me, we have a database that's called IFS. You all might have already be familiar with that term in a great financial accounting system or solution. I think the S can be for either. But anyway, that's basically where we have our vendors listed. And we're going to talk later. But basically, we need to do, we need to update our vendor database. Because sometimes we might be releasing it out. And we think that we have the right addresses and email addresses and locations. And sometimes we don't. But in IFAS, we have approximately local businesses. And I want to be clear that the local businesses here for the top number is not necessarily certified local. They are just within that eight county region. So 3,851. In our portal, we have a separate system for sending our bids through. In that same region, we call it our CSA region, we have 1,161. Through OBO, and OBO will probably discuss this with you later. They do have 200 businesses that are certified. And Shannon's going to talk a little bit more during her presentation. Maybe you won't, so maybe I will. OK. Basically, if you're within five percentage points, if you are, if you submit a bid to us and you're within five percentage points and you're already in this area and you're certified through the Office of Business Opportunities, then you're allowed to match the price. OK. It's only a price match situation there for bids. There is one other part to this is if it was in an RFP situation and you're in that same CSA region, we would allow, if you're certified through that office, we will give you five points to your cost. We're not going to help you to get qualified, so qualifications don't count. But we'll help you on your cost factor. So there's two different little ways of looking at that. So that that concludes my portion of this. But I want to turn it over because some of your questions might be answered in Shannon's part in just a few moments. Thank you all. The 200 businesses that are certified, let me let me make sure I understand that it's clear to me that OBO matches that or what? Give me a little bit about that. OK. If you're speaking of the procurement piece. Sure. Yes, they would just state to us that, yes, OK, let's say XYZ and ABC bitter. Yes, those two both are within that area. So we would apply that five points on an RFP. But let's just say only one of them would be qualified. That's the only one. Say they could be in the area, but they're not already certified through the Office of Business Opportunity. So that's why we tried to show you the information both ways, that you can be in the area, right? But you don't get the advantage of the points. OK. That's clear. Thank you. Give me as well. That's clear. Thank you. And the reason really primarily to bring this up before you today, this is not a program that procurement and contracts would put together. It definitely is something that you would see discussed with the Office of Business Opportunities. But those programs definitely impact procurement documents. And so that's why we wanted to at least acknowledge that and list that here today. So my name is Shannon Lozeschi. I am the deputy director with procurement and contracts. And I'm also very pleased. And I get to be a part of this presentation. My portion of this is really more in the area of statistics. The first slide up here is really more as it relates to things that you see on as you meet primarily about twice a month. How many items of those are you actually seeing from our department? And overall, over the last two years, you see approximately 200 items that come out of our area. Those items are over $50,000 in value. And they do include things like amendments and change orders. Actually, we've got a list here of the frequently used or the frequently things that you will see on these agendas, such as agreements and construction contracts, contract amendments, renewals, sole sources that Sandra even alluded to. So one of the things that we would like to pull out of this list and talk a little bit more is indefinite delivery contracts. This is something that you have seen, this body has seen previously. And it is likely something that you will see again in the future. This has been something that has been pretty successful, beneficial in the areas of unforeseen and urgent types of repair needs. Some of the areas that we have used it for are listed above, asphalt and concrete restoration projects. The waterline and hydrant repair projects is another example of that. So those situations are very helpful in helping us respond to get the contractor community out a little faster, making sure we're being more nimble and engaging that contractor's support, however we can, and as quickly as possible. Yes, sir. Delivery contract is the mechanism we're using in the Columbia water situation with four contractors. How quickly can these be executed? What procedure, once we have an 8-inch waterline break on the ferry road, how soon can they use those parts of money? That's a great question. The indefinite delivery contract piece does start from a formalized procurement, so it will go through an RFQ process where we're qualifying those contractors to come in. Once they go through the whole selection process and the award piece comes through, those contracts are presented to you for review and approval. And then once those needs are then, and actually let me step back just a little bit, those contracts are really more giving you more of a high level. In this case, like the first one would be asphalt and concrete restoration services where those needs are specific to asphalt and concrete needs. So now the contract is initiated, it's begun, and Columbia water has a need that comes up and that's more specific to a specific location. Then we are very able to create task orders and identify those a lot faster than going through a whole professional service agreement kind of process. A lot faster in executing that task order piece. You've already seen the umbrella contract, whether that be $500,000 or $750,000 or above. And then you would, those specific areas through the task order piece would not have to come back through this group. So it again would be faster as a result. Does that make sense? So Shannon at that point, Mr. Duvall, Clint and Dana and those are working with procurement all along the way and Gary Port and all those and they are being very expeditious at that point. What we needed you all to do, you've done and you know about refilling the buckets. So sometimes we're coming back and we're asking you all, hey, those IDCs are really working good, we need to refill those buckets and right now that's night happened again. So they are able to be very nimble at that point and keep deploying those forces to compliment our internal forces. But those contractors are able to keep working and we're able to do that internally without it having to come back to council. Is that your question for the most part? Yeah, I would just, you talked about nimble. I wanted to see if we can make it more nimble or is it nimble enough? Yeah. Well, we're closely talking about that. Go ahead, Clint. Thank you. Great question. Originally as we were utilizing the indefinite delivery contracts, we were putting together batches of work to be done, sending that out for bids. We have since, and that would get that work done, but it may not be the most efficient way to respond quickly to leaks that might be in a major way or higher priority. So we work with a procurement team. We've embedded a project manager in December within water distribution. And just for an example, this morning I had a leak complaint in Irmo and it is fixed. I just got a notification that that was fixed. It wasn't on our list, but one of the private contractors was working just right down the road. So we had him fix it with a phone call while we were out there. We're recording quantities, keeping track of payment and everything, but we are refining that process as we go. And I think you'll see our efficiency really improve from that. I noticed on one of the charts that you sent out recently how the line shot up in the last several weeks, several months, well, not months, weeks, in January. That's because you redid the procedures on these indefinite contracts. Yes, sir. And embedded that project manager in water distribution. And so as the issues come in, we can have them work a community and fix all the leaks in that area before they move on somewhere else. So I think you'll see that efficiency really pick up. It'll be more cost-effective in how we manage those contracts. And thank you to the procurement team for giving us some flexibility to do that. But so we're refining that process. But again, you may see us come back and ask for more resources as we're fixing the problems that are out there. Thank you for giving us that tool. Mr. Taylor, then Councilman Brennan. Is this microphone on? Just a second. Councilman Duvall asked about speed on a big project. I never really heard the answer. I mean, you're able to move immediately on it or do you have to come back somewhere or what? That's the first question. Yes, sir. So if it's under the umbrella of an indefinite delivery contract, then we can move. We are refining our procedures where we can in the field direct the contractor to move over here and get this fixed. Oh, it's, you can make it. The answer to your question is upon request, you can do it. Yes, sir. Second is on some of these things, are we able to go to unit pricing on some of these type indefinite delivery contracts but unit pricing on things to where, let's just, I'm just asking, say something like setting of meters. You know, if we can go to a unit price for setting where you can just make it happen. Yes, sir. And those are things that you're able to do in your department. We are utilizing unit price numbers for the indefinite delivery contract work now. So we know based on the fill materials, asphalt paving, that sort of thing. But that's only a partial part of it, right? Like, again, going back to Councilman Duvall's question, I mean, it's tough to unit price an eight-inch water main break on Garner Street Road, isn't it? Or is it not? Yes, sir, it is, but we've got certain things that we can unit price in certain things or more time of material because every job is a little bit different. Something like setting meters, absolutely. Our AMI contract, the contractor's company, you got it on an acronyms, you can't just initially. So what's AMI? Our automated metering, where we've replaced 155,000 water meters, the contractor is being paid based on each meter that they put in up to a certain contract. Very good. I would encourage you to look at as much of that as you can possibly look at. Question. You know, a lot of these small contractors that we have contracted with for this wonderful program or homegrown here. What, you know, the front end, you describe the process, how we make that happen back in, getting them paid. Have we tightened up the payment lag time to get the payments into these small contractors' hands to keep them wanting to be a part of this program? Have we tightened that up? Yes, sir, it's always a work in progress as we work collaboratively, but that timeline is tightening up and certainly from things, through the indefinite delivery contractors, they're getting paid right, regular, and fairly quick. Wonderful, wonderful. And are you able to provide us the, from the indefinite contracts, the amount of work that's being done by each contractor, so the Columbia Water Reports you are giving us are amazing and we appreciate you putting those together. Just so we know that this program is chipping away at that long list of work orders, if you could kind of show us that through the summary of these indefinite contracts, that'd be very helpful. Be glad to. Great, thank you. Next, we really want to talk a little bit about how we do business with our end user departments. We are, those are individuals that we really like to do the planning piece as well. And sometimes you can blur the lines when you talk about planning and at what point do you hand off information to another area? So, as a result, we have defined what a procurement package completion date is. I know when I go and meet with an end-using department, they have a new need, they've identified that. I'm gonna put on my procurement consulting kind of hat and talk through what are the types of things that I'm gonna need to help you get to engage a contractor. Once all of that information is gathered, pulled together, whether that be budget information or just articulating the overall project need, the details of that, it might be scope of work, something more technical that I'm not really as familiar with, or if you need certain licenses or permits, things like that we want to make sure are all together nice and neatly into one package ready to go. And the reason for that is so when it's all together, you can very easily pass that baton to the next group of people, procurement and contracts, and we can run with that. So that is the line in the sand, so to speak. That procurement package completion date, how we define that. And we can go a little bit further into the details as far as informal procurements, what that means for things that are valued under $25,000 and things that are over $25,000 or we call them formal procurements. Some data that we have been reviewing and thought may be of interest to you all as well. When we look at the number of purchase orders released over the last two and a half year period, we've got that on the chart over to the left-hand side. We're right around the 6,000 range. This first seven months of this fiscal year, we are pretty much on target. And the last year for fiscal year 2021, we did dip down below just under 5,000 purchase orders released. The chart to the right really does pull out more information for this specific fiscal year, 21, 22. It gives you the number of requisitions that have been completed, as opposed to what purchase orders have been formally released. The difference between a requisition versus a purchase order would be primarily, when does that need start? I've got a request. I'm now putting it into a system that I have fully identified the things that I need. My budgets are identified. That would then go through our IFAS workflow process. And once everything is official and approved, then our buyers can release the purchase order. So that would be the primary difference between the two. You notice in the chart to the right that this gives a little bit of a snapshot on our workload. When we look at overall on a monthly basis, where is our heavier workload? And it's definitely the summer months, which is really of no surprise to us. Once you have budgets that have been approved, our end-using departments are often running, they, I guess, are eager to go ahead and get started. And the work volume certainly shows in what comes into procurement and contracts. There's also some things like renewals, term contracts that we really look at right around that time of the year as well. Keeping that same first seven months in mind, we really wanted to zoom in on the average processing time. How long does it take to get things done? And we are always looking at that. It's really of no surprise that the number of days are a little bit higher where the higher workload is and in the summer months. And it does generally level out through the fall and early winter. This, I wanna say. Can I ask a quick question about that? As you, and I think if you're gonna touch on it in a second, just tell me I'm happy to wait. Looking at some things, it goes from your department over to other departments for input and then comes back to your department, correct? It does primarily begin with the end-user department. They do identify what their needs are. They start that right through the budget. OBO and the mentoring program. You do a part sort, then it goes over there. That's a great question. Actually, OBO is pulled into the process early on before it even comes to procurement and contracts. That's one of those areas. So when I'm looking at this date here, back from OBO and then it's the start date or is it going to you and then? Ideally, and then that's what we shoot for. There's not something that always happens, but in the ideal world, we want all of that information together to include the OBO information before it comes to us. I'll look at 8.82 days. Is that after it comes back from OBO or before it goes to OBO and that includes the OBO time? I see what you mean. Okay, so let me give a little bit of background to see if I can help answer that. To Mr. Tate, where does it fit in this nice chart you gave us? Where are the eight days in this? I think might be what you're asking. Well, I was going to come up. The OBO piece is not in that chart and I was saving most of my questions to the end, but. So the OBO piece would have occurred on the, can you go back to the slides, Shannon on the procurement package completion date? Slide four. Yes. For Mr. Brennan, yeah, but that's not what I was talking about. But go ahead, go ahead, Mr. Brennan. We finished with one, we're bouncing, so we're. Yeah, I'm trying to help Shannon answer his question better. I mean, I think part of it is what everybody's trying to understand is what's the point of the time that it starts, you know, cause this, I'm reading this and this talks about requisition. The question is, is this the timeline? Once you got the completed package and it takes you eight days, have you accounted any other time frames that are in there? So, you know, I'm curious, my question was on follow up. I want to wait until Mr. Taylor, cause I have a follow up that gets played into that. I do think you all are breezing over the whole procurement package completion date. Yeah, you've got to explain that first. Okay, so when an end-using department has a need and they're putting something into the IFAS workflow process, there are a number of people that it goes through for approvals. The buyer is the last person that it goes through. So, once you hit that buyer, all the way through the end for the award piece, that is what that eight day period would consist of. Process is beginning when the end user puts the request, I think if I heard you right, it would push the request in ISIS and so... It would be longer than eight days. Okay, I mean... What you're describing, it would be longer than eight days. Yes, the procurement or the end user, when they put that information into the IFAS workflow, by the time it goes through all of the different approvals, then it comes to the buyer, that's when our clock starts ticking. So, you're just stealing it from the buyer, that's what I'm saying. Yes, correct. I understand, I mean, like I said, I think a lot of this drove off of a date request that I had and now I think the date request I was literally looking for was the date that it went into ISIS. You want the birth date. I mean, I don't know how to say it anyway. There's a birth date in procurement. When does that process start? Because that's how you see, and for us to understand fully how the system could improve in some of the comments that we get as things flow is what's the true timeline from start to finish? So, for me, well, I mean, it's, we're just trying. Yes, ma'am, that's correct. That's correct. Yes. That's not what I'm looking for. Yeah, once we start the process, you know, once the process has started, and I think what I heard you say was a pretty clear deal and let me say, I think what you've showed me so far is absolutely fantastic, but what I'm looking for is once, I think I heard you say it, when the end user puts in the request to ISIS, that's when it comes to y'all and y'all start the process, somebody starts the process of documenting this, verifying that, you know, birthday, and then that's the date we're looking for. That flows, because that helps us understand. Ma'am, I'm sorry. Is it before it goes into ISIS? I think I understand your question, Councilman Taylor and they are rigmen. So, in our system, we can give you the days it enter into ISIS. Those days, again, are out of our control. So today, to present to you, we tried to do our best to state the ones that are in our control, we can give you that date because we can run reports different ways. So if you're needing that very first date, and that's what I think I hear, we can definitely go back and get those dates for you, but depending on the procurement, they could request it and not have the money for it yet. Right, so there's so many different variables, so that's why we wanted to just go with the control part when things are pretty much in our queue and have went down all the paths of approval, and they have a lot in some cases, and it drops into one of our buyers' boxes. That's the date, that's the eight days. I did just a quick review to say how many days was in the month of July? And don't quote me, but it was about double, okay? It's at least 16, right? From the date it actually dropped into the box to the date that a purchase order was issued. So when you're looking at our chart that Shannon's showing you, it's from the date we actually had control to the date that a purchase order was out the door. I understand. Okay, just wanna make sure, okay. Any other questions on that? But the question is, I'm looking, I'm just trying to understand how long the buying, maybe that's a better term. Well, I don't use the word procurement. How long the buying process lasts? We have so many procurements that are really quick, like two days, right? But because there's a few that take a few months, right? Or more, you know, something like a park or something that takes months, that skews our numbers, that changes our numbers. But I think what you need to understand is the part of the understanding of this in the process is so that we can understand exactly the different nuances, why it takes so long, because is there better practices that will help us produce a better, more effective system? It's not about saying, hey, you took seven and a half days versus nine days. This is about understanding the process from start to finish. That's why those understanding that, I call it the birth date, because to me, that's what it's initiated. And that process, because when it does have to flow and things have to be corrected, well, is that part of that issue, the department not doing that correctly, providing the correct information to move that forward? Is it a glitch in our system that causes us to take two extra steps of inputting? Is there a better way for us to do that? I think part of what we're all trying to understand is, how do we become more efficient, effective, and quicker in getting things done throughout the process? And Mr. Mayor, let me say. It's all taken. And it's, I wanna make it clear. I mean, nobody said there's any issue. I mean, I think this, frankly, in all candor, in lots of cases, it's gonna say, what a great job you're doing, you know? And that's basically it. I'm just trying to get an understanding of how the process works. I mean, nothing more, nothing less. Absolutely. So we will just take a note of all of those different suggestions. And thank you. We're open for doing things more efficiently. I love the word open. Keep it going. Keep it going. We're open, so anything that we can do. So we just have a little bit more to presentation. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to add one thing. Yes, ma'am. Just for clarity purposes, and I think for the new council folks and for staff, I think the ultimate goal, just so we're all clear, is to get a better picture. And we wanna know which things only take two days. Okay, and why, you know, these are easy. And so tell us, these are really easy. And then tell us what has taken a year and give what ideas, you know, here, these are some recommendations. Here are the problems, or at least what we think are the problems. But it's just a real, to me, what I would be looking for is just a candidate. This is where we know we're doing great. These are our strengths. These are our weaknesses. Because we all have them. And then maybe a clarification of terms for folks, because if we're not talking apples and apples, this conversation is gonna confuse some people. So that would probably be helpful if you do. And I'm looking for one page, like a one-page, maybe two, just for understanding, but something that helps us talk apples to apples, oranges to oranges, and it kinda helps us see where we could potentially help if there's something that we can help with. Well, I think that the clarification of terms piece is key, which is why we were asking, I'm asking some of the questions of you of what you're looking for, because I don't think that was clear, which is why we're having the discussion, and it's helping me, and I think Sandra and Shannon and Jeff understand what we can do better to help you understand those terms and processes, because you can't just arbitrarily put a date out there, and I'm not understanding exactly what is the date you're actually asking for. I mean, that we do have to establish before we start putting dates on the agenda and that sort of thing. So it was some introductory conversation and also some feedback we needed to help understand if we do get to the point to put a, when this started on the agenda from the procurement side of the house, y'all need to have some foundation before we put that, start adding that to our packages for your agenda. And just to add to that too, there's so many different ways that things get started. And so that discussion includes me just calling over and saying, hey, Sandra, I'm trying to figure out how to do something. You know, I don't think that's an official start, but there's so many different ways that things start. Maybe that's a part of that discussion too, is just helping everyone understand all of those different things that can potentially happen. Absolutely. And I think one way of addressing exactly what you just said is as Sandra had mentioned about the different types of methods. So the very first one requests for quotes, those informal procurements under 25,000, those are the majority of all of those 6,000 plus purchase orders that are released in the year. Those take very little time. You have the end user group that are pulling quotes together. We're reviewing that for fair and reasonableness. Sometimes we might add another quote, but for the most part, we're able to get those purchase orders released very quickly. So you would not see those particular ones because it is under $25,000. So the ones that would be brought before this body is over 50,000. So as a department, we talk a lot. We get together, we brainstorm. We are constantly trying to make sure any kind of challenges or opportunities are right front and center in front of us. What is the current environment? What is just a few steps ahead? And what can we do about that in preparation for that? So we've listed some of these challenges out. I will go over just a few of them first and foremost, probably the most obvious one that everyone talks about is the global pandemic. So the supply chain disruptions that have come out of that are real, they are still here. We have seen things like shortages of materials and pipe and steel and the prices of chemicals. We've also seen it on the other side of the house where it impacts delivery issues, transportation needs. So that is something that we are constantly working toward, how can we de-nimble? How can we add things to our contractual documents to help with that? Those are conversations that we have often. Another one right off of this list that I'll just pull out is the limited contractor vendor pool availability. One thing that is very real, Sandra had mentioned about the bidding portal that is our e-procurement system. It's on our website. If I'm a vendor and I am interested in what the city of Columbia has different needs, I'm gonna go through the e-procurement system and review everything that has been put out there publicly. And if I'm interested and I can respond to that, I will review it, but if I want to respond, I have to register to be part of that bidding portal. We have found that we have a lot of things that we are able to package up together, ready to go into our bidding portal, but we also want to make sure that we're very strategic and very intentional on when we release that information. We don't, for example, want to send out 10 construction projects all at once when the vendor pool or the contractor pool may be limited and their resources are limited. So we wanna make sure we're very strategic in how we release that information as well. That is a challenge. That is something we talk a lot about. Here's a few more of our challenges that we have listed out, one that I'll just pull out in general. Some of these are things that we, as a department, are constantly honing in and making better databases, for example, records management. Procurement, protest, and contract controversies. If those do come up, they can be very time consuming. So that is something that is always potentially there. Hopefully not, but it's potentially there. A current focus area for us improving customer service delivery, I would say whether we're doing customer service fantastic or not so well, I would say this one area is something that is paramount and will always be a focus area for us. We have whittled that down into four main areas, whether that be response time, we wanna make sure things are really easy, we're easy to work with, we're approachable, we have things organized that you can do things quickly. Our databases, policies and procedures and our contracts management module, which Sandra will talk a little bit about later. Some of these flow into our procurement recommendations. We did talk a little bit about the IDC contracts or indefinite delivery contracts, how they have been successful and you will likely see more of those in the future because they have been such a benefit. Minimizing response time, I talked about efficiencies there with making sure that we're very easy to work with. Some other procurement recommendations here, the first one talks about our disparity study that is going on right now. Procurement and contracts has been at the table for that. We are there just to provide the third party independent consultant with any kind of contractual data to help them in those analyzing of data. But we also realize that any of those recommendations that come out of that study will likely impact our procurement documents. So we're very interested in what comes from that. Training, just to talk a little bit about training in general, we are very present with the contractor community. We do a lot of training also in-house with our in-using departments. We do that every year in March and we do many sessions during the summer. And then we're also doing stuff internally for our own staff. I wanna make sure that our staff, when they get a phone call, they know the answer. They don't know just what Shannon or Sandra are gonna say, but the why behind it. That's really important to us as well. This slide, these four go into some areas that I think are really more related to how we can spread city of Columbia dollars as much as possible. So there's some definite work that the procurement and contracts group does work with the Office of Business Opportunities on with the CDBE program. That information definitely goes into our procurement documents. Expanding different architectural and engineering professional services right now in the code that is pretty limited to architectural engineering and land surveying. And we're looking at potentially expanding that wherever possible. This goes a little bit further into breaking solicitations down into smaller units wherever possible. Our bidding portal that we talked about, anything that's $25,000 in value or over definitely goes into that EBID system, but we're not restricted to put the things that are below $25,000 into that portal. So if we would like to have additional quotes, we can use that mechanism to do that. Mayor, I did have one question. Looking at the improved customer service delivery. And so who all do y'all consider as your customer? Yes. So basically everybody. Everybody. Okay. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. So I'm just gonna just finish up really quickly here with three slides please. Procurement accomplishments, yes. We talked about our challenges, right? We know we have some challenges and we're open for your ideas and suggestions on how to improve them. But the virtual meetings, the pandemic, we've had so many challenges through the pandemic and Shannon went over some of those challenges, but the virtual meetings, our contractors are stating they love it. That's saving them some time. They can just get to work, right? Get right back to work. They attend our meetings and they're back to work right there. So we wanna definitely keep pushing that. We have most of our meetings that way, but and we don't have any in person, but I think that we can even have, we stop having some of our conference calls and have them all virtual as well. But anyway, we're working on that. We were able to pivot very quickly. We shifted. We shifted, we moved to a remote working environment very quickly. I think that was an accomplishment. And that was throughout the city. Everybody was doing that. Those pre-qualified lists, we've got in place. We have some work to do, but we got them in place and that it is disparity study. That's definitely assist diversity, but the disparity study, that's definitely I think is another accomplishment since it's been so many years and they're supposed to be done every five years. And I talked about the COVID fulfillment center as far as incorporating the compliance. We're working very closely with OBO to make sure that everybody understands what kind of program was put towards this. Was that an SOP program? Was that a menoproject program? So we're working on putting that information within our solicitation documents now. We're an up closer to the front where they can not miss it, hopefully. And then we're rolling out this, I think this is our last one. We're wanting to roll out, we're continuing to roll out our contracts management module. It was always there in IFAS. It just wasn't being utilized. So we wanna make sure, I think we have about 350 contracts now that we're tracking. We're trying to get caught up. We started like in July of 2020 and we didn't really officially roll out to everybody else until like 2021. So we have to go backwards because a lot of our contracts after the flood, we need to have that information anytime that an article comes that they want that information. They want it now and they want the details. So that is going to be, to me, one of our accomplishments. It's our accomplishment now, but we have some work to do to make sure that we get, you know, grab hold of all of the contracts in the city and put them all in that same repository. But you can also get a notice every Monday. We have certain people set up throughout the city. They get this notice and it tells them that you have four months before this contract is supposed to expire. So therefore you know that, hey, you need to get the contractor, you know, make sure the contractor's going to finish on time or if necessary, let procurement and contracts know so we can go ahead and put an amendment. And most of those usually come back through council over $50,000. So I, sorry, I was speaking a little fast. I did want to cover the savings on Finley Park. Our savings was almost a million dollars. So our department used the negotiation strategies to state that we have it. We have the option on our code to negotiate on proposals. We don't have it for bids. I'm going to be trying to work closely with our legal office, by the way. They have been awesome helping us, but I'm going to work with the way that we can do it on bids because it's not in our code to allow for that. But like this savings here was basically one of our teams, professional services team, said that you're going to have to sharpen your pencil. You know, you're the highest ranked, but you still got to do better. They came back with better. So we said, of course you're best in final offer and we got that big savings. So kudos to that team for that, as well as our contract administration. We only have two people right now on that team. But what they do, they take a look at things that have already been sourced and then they find out that they want to have a change order on it. But we're not technical, we're not technical experts and we don't play that, but we want to make sure that is that a valid change or is that something that's totally outside of the scope? Is that just going to be a way of possibly increasing something? And in this particular case, they sent through, excuse me, not the department, but actually the contractor had sent us the same bill twice basically. And because we reviewed that, and I think this was within the last year, because we had a team in place to review that, we saved $19,000. It's not a million dollars, but it's a lot of money, right? So we do that and we try to do that well. So that's the end of our presentation. We greatly appreciate the time that you all have taken out with us here today. And if you have any other questions, we're here. Mr. Mayor. Jeff, the new members of council will understand what IFIS is. Have you all talked about IFIS? IFIS is really kind of the backbone. You've heard them say IFIS, it's our software system. Thank you. It's our software system that we use here at the city that kind of pulls everything together from accounting through procurement. A lot of our departments have that to enter their requisitions and everything. So generically, you'll probably hear us say IFIS, you'll see renewals, things like that on the contracts, but that's what that system is. And I think many of us will see that as the backbone for the city. I think it's an acronym? Yeah, that's the acronym. Yeah, actually, I might be missing to answer that. The actual name of the company is, I don't even remember what it is now. It's been purchased over, I wanna say Central Square is the name of the company that owns it now. But it is, in general, you'll always hear us call it as IFIS. So in one of the challenges identified, I saw, we talked a little bit about how there's supply chain disruptions and that you all have continued to see kind of a limited contractor and vendor pull availability. There's probably a lot of factors leading to that. Has there been anything that you've identified that maybe on our end that we could be doing? Is it that the system's too hard to deal with or is it that people don't know that this is where you find the bids? Like what can we do on our end to incentivize more folks to try and apply for these bids? That's a very good question. I'm sorry, that's a very good question. I'm not exactly sure. We definitely, definitely is seeing it across the board. So it's just, I think it's just within the industry. I'm just thinking that there's so much work and just fewer contractors that possibly handle it. But anything that you all could do to spread the word that call us, you know, call us, reach out to us, whatever you have to do. We're looking for more qualified. And again, some of our things are very technical and specialized, but still there are things there aren't. So if we could just get more people to the table if you have some people within your own, your constituents that are actually business partners, please send them our way. Our main number is 803-545-3470, 3470. Any other questions? Great questions though. Mr. Brennan. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Wonderful presentation. You all did a great deep dive. And I really, I think we really appreciate your procurement recommendations. Mr. Mayor, what would be the best path forward to review the recommendations by the department? Send it to a subcommittee. Ms. Wilson, what do y'all recommend? I think we wanna make sure, number one, that we quantify all the questions. Cause I know I have some follow-ups, but you know, we've spent a great deal of time today and I think it'd be good to follow up. I think we ought to submit our questions. This may be a great opportunity for this to go to maybe to administrative policy committee, take a dig or dive, because I do think there's some outstanding questions. We talk about IFAS, IFAS has been here as long as I have, and probably longer than most people in this room. You know, is it time for us to evaluate the technology and is it the best that allows our staffs and everybody to do their job to their best ability? We've talked a lot about technology, tools and autonomy and for us to be able to succeed as a city, this is an area that I think we ought to look at, which may be a great time for us to have the technology committee dive in as well. Hey, should we consider a consultant to take a look at our overall system and what's the most effective and efficient system for us to provide? Because if we're not providing the tools and the training that everybody needs, we can't expect different outcomes. And the reality is, is for us to make sure that we're doing the best job, a job that is making sure that we're getting things out timely, that information's passing quickly and efficiently. I know we still push a lot of paper around, which in today's age is not something we ought to be doing. So, you know, I think if we start taking this in a deep dive in, I think we can really improve things for all, and that includes our customers, internal, external and of course our staff. I think that would be my suggestion at this point. Does anybody else have any other suggestions? Gonna submit your questions, Mayor, first and then we'll reevaluate whether you want to refer it to committee or are you referring it to committee? Well, I think the questions for people in general would like to get answered. So, you know, questions for other questions, things, but it'll help us give a clearer direction to the committee of what we would like them to review and work with on policies and, you know, hey, this is working, this isn't working, this is working, you know, how we define that. That would be my suggestion. Yes, sir. If you all would submit those to me and Jeff, that would be great. Wonderful. Thank you, thank you ladies for taking any time. Thanks to your team as well. Thank you, Zandra and Shannon, great job. Thank you. So we have reached the part on our agenda for today's Consent Agenda Items 4 through 19 and again I would ask if there is any public input regarding a Consent Agenda Items 4 through 19. Do we have anybody who'd like to speak on for, against, question any of the items that we have on the Consent Agenda this evening? I'm hearing any from the public, so with that, entertain a motion for Items 4 through 12. 19, excuse me. I second. Any discussion on any items? Hearing none, seeing none. Madam Clerk, would you read the roll please? Yes, sir. Mr. Taylor? Approved. Ms. Herbert? Approved. Dr. Bussells? Aye. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. McAul? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mayor Rickamond? Aye. Thank you. Moving into a period of Ordinance's second reading, item 20 is Ordinance number 2021-089 amending the 1998 Code of Ordinances of the City of Columbia, South Carolina, Chapter 5, Buildings and Regulations, Article 4, Demolition of Structure, Section 5-330, and Chapter 8, Environmental Health and Sanitation, Article 2, Nuisance, Section 831, and Section 836. This is for your second reading approval, hopefully. We have our housing official, Mr. David Hatcher here. If there are any additional questions, I know David has spent a lot of time with community members. There's a CCN letter of support that we received and I know our city clerk shared with you. So, if you have any questions for David, he is here. I have a question, but I'll defer to Council first. Who's? I have a comment. I don't have any questions. You have a question? Yes, sir. I said, and only look at one portion of that report. And we're looking at a report that is blanketed, has total coverage of all the areas you covered. I just wanna make sure and ensure that the one item that I'm hearing more so than anything, and that's the removal of vehicles that have been stored, not stored, but just arbitrarily placed in the community, that this is not the only thing that we need to be concerned about. I mean, we need to be concerned about it, but it needs to be blanketed. Yes, sir. That's one of the things in the ordinance. Also, we're talking about ending the point system to give it more teeth and make it a little more strict for the repeat offenders. So those are the two things that we're addressing now. This is really the first step in a big picture item. I've been tasked to look at all of our city ordinances and try to come back to you all with recommendations for making them stronger and tighter with more teeth. These are the first two things I'm bringing to you. I envision, I hope to see you all a lot more over the next year or so. So this is just a start, but I do anticipate when I go to these neighborhood meetings, so far most of them have been supportive of what I've recommended so far. And I'm getting all kinds of feedback for all kinds of other things they wanna see. So I'm taking that information in and I'll be working with legal and we'll be coming back to you with some more recommendations. But right now, the only two that are in front of you for second reading is the ability to remove abandoned cars from private property and then make the point systems stricter. Well, one of the interesting things, of course, Sam Davis, of course, was very instrumental in making sure that this was on our radar. And of course, Councilwoman Herbert is on her radar now, but Sam was very forthright in making sure that that was going to be a part of our emphasis. Yes, sir. He's not here anymore. But I've had a lot of conversations with him about this. He's definitely had a lot of feedback and input in this process. Yes, of course. Mr. Brenner. Mr. Hatcher, thank you. Talk to me for a second about the employee time increase that is gonna come from these two changes. And it sounds like all the changes you're gonna be bringing forward. I know you have a limited staff. What more are we piling on you and your team? I think that a lot of these things that we're asking to change, it may be a lot of work upfront, but I think in the long run, it's gonna make our lives easier. For example, when we passed the rental ordinance back in 2016, just the fact that we were passing the ordinance, we had landlords calling us, what can I do to get my property in compliance? So I think just the fact that we're trying to address these issues, people like the banning cards, for instance, I think a lot of people are just gonna abate it automatically because they don't want us to show up and abate it for them. So my ambition is making our lives easier going down the road. And how many open positions do you have in code enforcement? We have six open code enforcement, I'm sorry, six open for housing inspectors. Then I have a customer service rep that's open and a work crew guy. But the day-to-day responding to reports, how many of those positions? 12 inspectors are available right now. We're down six. So it'd be total of 18 more. Total of 18, okay. Thank you. And I? Ms. Herbert? Can y'all hear me? I just wanted to thank you, David. So you did a great presentation at CCN on Thursday and I was very disappointed because many of the communities that call me about these particular incidents weren't at CCN. So I scheduled another meeting last night and thank you for working with us, but we met with about four or five neighborhoods and really just gave them the opportunity to truly understand the changes. A lot of them, we have to be careful when we're using words like abatement because sometimes folks just don't know. But it was very important to me to make sure they really understood the changes. And I think that you'll agree by the time the meeting was over, everyone, there's always gonna be a sentiment that it's not enough. But in understanding what you were trying to do, I think that we did a good job in conveying that message and getting the support of the community. And then I just want to let you know, Sandra Rich from Golden Acres, I happened to talk to her today and she said, the only good person over in code enforcement was David Hatcher and he's gone. I hadn't seen him. I said, because he's gotten a promotion, he's a little bit higher up. And so hopefully it brings you some peace that David has assisted in making those recommendations. So I want to thank you. Good morning, Megan. And I think that the more we can help the community members truly understand what the changes mean and the impact that they'll have, then you'll get less calls because I know that y'all are getting tons of calls about things that you can't do. So thank you for working with me in those neighborhoods. And I look forward to hearing future changes too. Thank you. Thank you as well. David, I've heard from several folks who have been through the process and one of the complaints of the system, the way we have it is, is that there's no ticket given to the tenant in the first round. The landlord has automatically given the ticket first which for most of them, tenants come and go as we know more than they leave and come and go. Is there a process that the actual tenant gets the first ticket? Then the landlord gets it because the landlord can't remedy a problem that the tenant's not getting any responsibility for. And the majority of these cases it looks like from what I got, that's where it stems. Is there a process that that tenant gets that first ticket? The landlord gets the warning per se. Obviously if there a repeat landlord, obviously we have a system for that. It's this first one though because there's no teeth for the tenant. And you and I both know that going through that series we can go to that landlord three times in a strike system but the tenant, it'll probably take him five times to get that tenant out of his apartment. So there's an imbalance there. How do we cure that before we finalize this? Because that is a real concern and I think we have a series of probably events like this that we can point to. I know that the landlords I heard from. Yes, sir. We actually do when we start a case on a property, if it's a rental, especially if we know it's a rental, we send the notice if it's something that's within the realm of what the tenant would be responsible for. We actually send the notice to the tenant and to the landlord for overgrown grass and if there's junk of debris in the yard, that kind of stuff. We actually do rely on the tenant to abate those issues. They still can get assessed the points because that's the way the ordinance is designed. The landlord gets the points but we do look to the tenant to address those issues and we actually write summons as to the tenants all the time. So we do try to get the tenants to address the issue first. The way the ordinance is written, they automatically get the point because we started the case but that's why the ordinance allows for 15 points because we know there's going to be issues at properties. I guess the landlord opportunities to correct those issues. Yeah, but we just shrunk that. What's that? We just shrunk that. So when you look at that and you look at the quickness and I'm more concerned what I've heard is from nuisance complaints and other stuff because that's what's really tenant driven. Most of the repairs and other things are landlord responsibilities for the most part. Yes, sir. Got into nuisance. It puts landlords in a very unique position because the tenant is not getting the ticket. If that's our fault or if it is, I'm just trying to understand how the remedy that because if we're gonna have a system there has to be some balance in it. And this puts a lot of onerous on a tenant and we can say, well, you got screening, you got this, you got that, that's reality but when you got more than 52% of all the properties here are rental, it's a bigger issue. And so I wanna make sure that we're dealing with folks fairly, I don't, I'm not trying to give a pass to a landlord but there is some responsibility on that tenant and situations. And if we're not addressing it with them and strictly going to the tenant, you've taken 30% of his, well, one of those violations I think is five points. That's 30% without him ever having an opportunity or a way to go to the tenant in the beginning because there's no, the tenant gets away with a lot more in that situation. So I don't know if there's a way to remi that, that that first initial ticket goes to the tenant with a warning to the landlord. I mean, I- I'm sorry, because I just need clarity. So what would help me understand exactly what you're trying to achieve? I'm trying to create, I'm trying to understand the system, the initial system, especially when it comes to a nuisance. Let's say the officers show up, somebody's having a big party or whatever. They don't issue a ticket to that tenant who's having the party. That is the violator of the nuisance. That landlord at one o'clock in the morning has no control over that. He's not there, right? But he's getting penalized in that situation five points roughly, right? If it's a second offense. Not if it's the first offense. But that's probably the exception. That's probably one of the few cases where I know that we don't issue a notice. But if there's overgrown grass at the rental, we send the notice to the tenant and we try to get them to the tenant. I get that. I think it's the nuisance portion I was trying to figure out is there a balance to deal with that so that the tenant has responsibility as well. And just to give you the other side of that, in our, in district one, we really are trying to put more of the onus on the landlords to maybe put a little more effort in looking at the types of tenants that they are getting. And I've been a landlord and had people that I'd expect to be a problem. And so what I took from some of the changes that were made and what we thought were, the things that I hear from my citizens is that we want to make sure that the landlords aren't just putting it on the citizens and letting it continue to go and continue to go and continue to go and that they understand that in all communities, we want to make sure that we have some pretty nice neighbors that aren't causing problems. I think the point is, is that we're talking about the first initial because then that gives the landlord, let's say the landlord has no other violations but somebody has this, they get a nuisance call, that landlord gets the points, the tenant gets nothing. There's no consequences to the tenant. But that's not correct. I think that depends on what the offense is. Well, and I'm sorry. In my experience, most landlords will pass that fee down to the tenant. So they do, from what I understand, they do feel the pain. I don't know if that's in every case. That makes the landlord a repeat offender. I'm just trying to figure out, is there a way to create a system that creates a little balance in that first charge? That's all I'm asking. I mean, I get it, we're here for a reason and we've gone through this and we painstakingly had it but this is one of those unattended consequences that nobody's talked about but yet has affected people who are in that business who have a great track record otherwise. And so, they're stuck in that system. I'm just asking if there's a way to address it. Sir, maybe instead of charging, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, sir. David, would the nuisance be a criminal violation that you cannot give a ticket on or would it be a code violation that you can't give a ticket on? The nuisance ordinance is considered a criminal violation if we write you a summons. If we write you just a notice to comply, that's not a criminal act at that point. If you don't comply, we write you a summons and it becomes a criminal. Your code officers are not allowed to issue criminal violations, are they? They do issue summons. Summons are considered the criminal or criminal in court. Okay. Go to court. It's one of the issues, Mr. Mayor. Yes. One of the issues that I think is very important as we talk through this is accountability. Who's accountable? If you've got a grass issue over there, who's accountable? Is it the tenant or is it the landlord? I think the issue for me has to be and I think that's what the councilwoman Herbert is alluding to. Who's accountable for that? Is it the tenant's responsibility or is it the landlord's responsibility? And I think that that needs to be a real clarifying statement about how that embellishes itself. Any more comment? Look, I'm supportive of the ordinance for the most part, but this part I just think has unintended consequences and we haven't addressed it. I would reserve the right to amend this ordinance at a later date and ask that the committee, we send it to committee to help figure out how we take, look at that to make sure that we're addressing the issue correctly, but there's some examples and I'd like to bring those forth for us to look at. I will support the ordinance, but I will come back for amendment around the nuisance piece and have it clearly defined what I mean because I don't, I'm not trying to open a gap anywhere, but I do think that there's an issue there when it comes to certain areas and how that point system works. Mr. Taylor. Can you pass the abandoned cars part into for the nuisance part until, let's pass it on and then go back in a minute. There are two different ordinances. One's the nuisance ordinance. The second one is the renters. And there's different pieces to come back and amend it. We can study it and come back. I move approval of the ordinance as presented. Mr. Devold, if you total just a point of clarification, Mr. Mayor, we talking about that we want to amend it and send it to committee with the approval of this today or we want to do that later. I'd like to write it up and have it down in detail that I present it in full, but it was a question that it's come up several times this week. So I would suggest that we put that together then we refer it to the committee to amend it. You want to pass this and then come back and amend it, I have to state. The motion is on the move. To move. I'm sorry. Clarification. Yeah, any clarifications? One ordinance that encompasses these both changes. One ordinance. You're approving the ordinance today and you're going to draft an amendment, send it to the committee to clarify that specific piece. Yes. Thank you. Second. Any discussion about hearing any? Wouldn't I do, so I do have a question. So if there are changes, then we have to come back for the clarification or whatever changes you're gonna make. The amendment. We would just amend that one piece so that we can move forward with the others, which are critical items. Okay, I got you. Go for the question. Clarification, part of the motion now is to refer this to the committee and if so, which committee? Now we'll make a motion to go to the committee separately. Yes ma'am, at the appropriate time. Mr. Taylor, Ms. Herbert, approve Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Thank you. Thanks, David. I wanna say thank you to David and the legal team and all the CPD for working on this. I am very glad you did approve the ordinance and its totality today. Just a little report out for you. I spent my morning really deliberating over an issue out in Golden Acres, Reverend McDowell, that you may have seen a news report on last night. To have held this today, wouldn't have given you the teeth to go out for us to go out and make sure that this 10 year old vehicle that's been sitting there as a public safety hazard is now gonna get moved today, I'm being told. So I think what you're doing is very critical and we appreciate y'all's help with that. Moving into a period of event resolutions, these items, the Columbia Police Department has reviewed and approved safety plans that adhere to the COVID-19 pandemic safety and social distancing protocols as published by the CDC and South Carolina DHEC for each of the following events. They include item 21, resolution number R-2020-02, authorizing consumption of beer and wine beverages only at the official kickoff to St. Pat's and five points at the five points fountain on Friday, March 4th, 2022, the rain day contingency of Saturday, March 5th, 2022. Is there a motion? Is there a second? Any discussion? Not seeing or hearing on Madam Clark. Mr. Taylor. Ms. Herbert. Hi, Dr. Bussells. Hi, Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Item 22, resolution number R-2020-003, authorizing consumption of beer and wine beverages only at the St. Pat's and five points festival and authorizing. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Madam Clark, will you please read the roll? Mr. Taylor. Hi. Ms. Herbert. Hi, Dr. Bussells. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Item 23, resolution number R-2020-02, 0-07, authorizing consumption of beer and wine beverages only at the Columbia Mardi Gras Festival at City Roots Urban Farm in the 1,000 block of airport. Move for approval. Second. Any discussion? Not seeing or hearing none. Madam Clark, will you please read the roll? Mr. Taylor. Aye. Ms. Herbert. Aye. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Thank you. And we are adding, I think, 24A, which is the short-term rental ad hoc committee appointment. But we will start, Mayor Rickman, with Mayor Pro Tem for 2022. Yes. I'd like to nominate Reverend Ed McDowell to serve one more year as Mayor Pro Tem ending December 31st of 2022. And we will rotate on a yearly basis as we have done in the past. Second. Any discussion? Not hearing none. Madam Clark, will you read the roll? Mr. Taylor. Absolutely. Ms. Herbert. Thank you, sir. Dr. Bussells, approve. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Item 24A, the short-term rental ad hoc committee. We have a nomination. I believe it is Councilwoman Tina Herbert from District One. Is there a second for that nomination? Second. Second. Any discussion? Madam Clark. We're not hearing any discussion, so you may roll. Thank you. Mr. Taylor. Aye. Ms. Herbert. And Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Ms. Jenkins. I'm sorry. Ms. Wood is present to help you all with the final three which include the Central Midlands Council of Governments, the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority or the Comet and the City Center Partnership. So, Council of Governments, Reverend McDowell has said that he'd like to have a replacement in there. So we have two opportunities for council members to join that and or I believe we could set a designee but I think they encouraged us to keep council members on the board from my understanding. So I would look for two folks who were interested in serving on the COC. So we get together with the long queue? Would y'all like to defer this? Just defer. You'll want to defer to the 15 and join all the other. That's right. Does that suit everybody? Do it on the long run next when we have a lot of standing committees and short-term committees to go through? As long as Councilman McDowell attends until he's replaced that. That's right. Very much appreciated. I'd like to see you there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. So moved. So with that, do y'all want to defer all three and do it all at one time? So moved. Does that satisfy everybody? You don't need a motion. I'm sorry? You don't need a motion for that. No, we don't need a motion for it. And I think the city-centered partnership is more of a formality. That's really just you, Mayor, from my perspective. Okay. I mean, we can knock that out. That's fine with me. Can we not comment out too? Wait a minute. On the city-centered partnership, I'd like to defer that to the 15. I haven't seen any candidates. That's me. I'm the 10-1. I'm the replacement of mayor. Neither of you, that. And of course you got district two revved. Is that right? This is just solely, yes. Let's just do it all on the 15th so everybody can see everything as a whole and then we'll move forward. Does that work for everybody? Yeah. Can we do the short-term? We already did. We did that? We've already done the short-term. Yeah. I missed it. You slip through it, but it's okay. Are we gonna appoint another mayor? Are we gonna appoint another mayor for city-centered partnership? Yeah, mayor. I mean, it's just you coming onto city-centered partnership and they've already written the memo. They've been through the steps. I think that's a very easy decision for us to make today. I can go either way. I think we should not motion to approve city-centered partnership recommendation from staff. Get it done. Yes. Just a second. You, it was emailed to us. They want the mayor on there. I want the mayor for goodness sake. They want the mayor. Is that okay, Councilor Jepsen? Okay. It really doesn't matter. I just want to make sure everybody sees everything as a whole. I made the motion. We need a second. It's been seconded. We have a, okay. Well, we're moving forward with city-centered partnership. Okay, so motion to appoint mayor recommended to the city-centered partnership. Mr. Taylor? Do you approve the mayor? Ms. Herbert? Aye. Dr. Bussell? Aye. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. McDowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mayor Rickerman? Aye. Thanks. So to be clear on the 15th, we're going to have all our ad hocs, those short-term and ongoing committees to go through. So we need to be thinking about all that because there are lots of appointments and where Vios be, along with Central Midlands, which would be two appointments. Yes. So we let the cog know that that's how we're moving forward. Okay, yes, sir. As well. And then we have one appointment to the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority, better known, aka, is the comment. Yes, sir. And we've also included the memo from the office of the mayor regarding the ad hoc committees and each council member's binder as well, so you can review it. Mr. Mayor, what's the timeline on the Columbia Housing Authority appointment from the city of Columbia? We're going to have part of our meeting on the 15th. We're going to send out a memo about that. We need to discuss the Housing Authority or as a whole and where we're in a transition period where I think council needs to come together and have discussion. I'm hoping that we could put one of my requests today when it comes to referrals was that we set aside some time at the next meeting to discuss this as a group around what we're looking for and in a trustee, the Housing Authority, but also what we expect we're with a direction of a new leader. I have sent a letter over personally to the Housing Authority asking them to make sure that the search is done with a nationwide firm, somebody who that really will find the best and the brightest for our community as a suggestion, but we as council as whole will have to sit down and decide the criteria and how we want to go through the process of appointing the next because there is two seats that will be available in 2021 now with Ms. Sinclair resigning but also in September of 22 as a second seat on the Housing Authority. Good deal, appreciate it. Ms. Sinclair did reach out to say she'd be willing to continue to serve until all of that's resolved. I know her letter to you indicated the 31st of January but she did reach out and say she would continue until you all. Because I don't believe that we've even begun advertising. We have. We have. We did a few months back and then we sent in a follow up. Yes, sir, we have. We did it around the holidays and then we also did a follow up in January but we can always re-advertise it and it's on the website. Sir. Yes, we just received an email today to all city council that Ms. Bean has become the interim director. Yeah, I got it. Yes, sir. We're also discussing the two positions that are open due to Ms. Sinclair resigning and another one that's coming up in September. The board seats. The board seats. Thank you. And again, if you all would refer to the memo, I know Ashley mentioned that but I don't want it to get lost in the shuffle of all the paper but that is a good outline for you regarding the various ad hoc committees. It should be in the front of your board and commission binder, the black binder. If you don't have it, we'll get it for you. Do we submit to staff what we'd be interested in? All of those or two? No sir, I rather you actually not. I think that each one may recommend gave some direction on each one. When you have time to read it, it probably make more sense to you because a lot of them are, it's you all serving on some of those. Where do we get that list? It's in your binder. We may need to just email it. Is this it? Yes, sir. I think Mr. Shepulton emailed it to all of council today. And there's a hard copy there for you. Mayor, do you want to get followed with your colleagues between now and the 15th, correct? That we'll set us out of time to talk through it and discuss, make sure that everybody, one thing I do want to make sure is that everybody has an opportunity to participate in committees and that they're able to be involved. And we're in the process of also finding out what committees are out there that none of us have ever known that have been going on forever and are they still viable for us to be involved in or not so that we can kind of have a clean slate and everybody knows exactly who's on what committee and what that role is that they're representing the city. And I think to Mayor Rickman's point and again after you have time to read through all of it, majority of them also have a sunset date. Some are kind of an ongoing but not very many of them are and you'll understand the ones like the, for the military obviously that's an ongoing partnership but there's a few on there that have been on there and then a few additional that, this is just my soft cautioning as staff to you that you've got six standing committees of the council and I think that's enough to say grace over almost days with staff trying to help you facilitate that. I do see the purpose for ad hoc committees for defined periods of time to deal with certain bigger issues which I think is what you'll see before you. Not a big fan of a lot of ad hoc committees for a long period of time. So just sharing that and I think that it's all well intentioned and once y'all work through it, we're happy to help. I do wanna know that there's one committee that was requested today after meeting with Chairman Overture Walker which is a Richland County City, Columbia committee consisting of three council members from the city, three council members from the county to kind of meet on a quarterly basis to talk about issues or opportunities where we can work together, we discuss donut holes and other things, how we can kind of put some of these ongoing issues or questions or opportunities to bed. So I think there's a great willingness for everybody to kind of work closer together and so I hope we can get all this done on the 15th and we can really get to work, get these recommendations in from the short term committees and then really engage in the long term as we talk with the military as the Brigadier General was here last week, very excited about getting us more in tune. He's going to invite all of us over to the fort for a tour and visit. He thinks it's been too long since we've been there and would like to engage more with us to make sure that the military families and the citizens of Columbia are integrating and working together as he reminds me Fort Jackson is the gateway for the military and it's a very important partner for us in the city of Columbia we're going to do everything we can to have a better working relationship with the military. Thank you, sir. Moving into a period of any other city council business committee referrals reports. I would like to refer to the technology committee to begin a process of discussing what our potential IT needs could be and could we have a look at a review of all of our IT and where we are and are we using the best and the latest equipment to provide the best service for our community? That would be one of my requests. Pacific to anything in particular, Mr. Mayor? I think one of the things we ought to start with is ITIS because I think it's the oldest piece of software we have at the city. But I do think understanding an overall plan for our technology and where we're going and how we're taking advantage of the latest and greatest that's out there that really provides service but also protects the system how well are we protected as we dealt with the payroll situation and other things. So I think it's time to establish some protocols and looking at and really seeing how we operate. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Okay. We can talk about Intergov. The payroll system issue is Kronos, which is an outside that was not a city issue. It's an issue all over the country with that outside vendor that was hacked. So now we're doing paper time sheets until they are back online and we've been doing that for six weeks. So we're very anxious for that to get resolved but that's not a internal issue of the city but it does present an opportunity I guess to kind of look more broadly I guess is what the mayor is saying is what other systems might be out there. I mean, the reality is a lot of systems use Kronos. So that one I'm not sure that we can deal with but we'll try to look at it. But their problems become our problem and I think that's my concern. Yeah. You know, that becomes a bigger discussion about outsourcing payroll or you know and we can talk about all of that. Now has there been any instances of someone hacking into the system? I think we talked about this initially, I think at our last meeting, has there been instances where that kind of activity has taken place? Ever, Reverend Dowd? I know about ever, I know about a few years ago. Right, when that was something that was more you know directed at you all as elected officials and me and personal information. But no sir, we haven't had any internal, no internal issues like that. Thank goodness. Any other, any other referrals? I will work with you to schedule that. No more committee referrals? I don't think so. I did want to mayor recommend you and I've talked about just our meeting schedule and how it's working and the fact that the four o'clock meetings have been very good and concise and we're getting pushing the work to you all that we need you to approve consent agenda items, resolutions, ordinances in not the olden days, but I've kind of been here a long time. So I've seen this done a lot of different ways when you have started your meetings earlier in the days on the same council day, we would have work sessions and those work sessions would then bleed into the council meeting evening. What mayor recommend I've talked about particularly for me it's important as we're going into the budget season. This is when typically you will find that the presentations by the staff and me really ramp up because we are gonna be working now, we're already working with the department heads, they are preparing their budgets and then it goes into us presenting all this information to get to an ending point well before June where I present the budget to you for approval as we have to do by state law. So this notion of presentations becomes important and we were thinking that the off Tuesdays may be a good time to have the presentations. I know Mayor Rickman liked the idea and I told him I would present it to you all of doing it. I think you suggested in the morning mayor potentially like nine to 11 or 10 to 12 or whatever may work for you all and you don't have to answer right now because I know some of you have work schedules and all different things to work around but just trying to work from a Tuesday because typically that's your council day anyway and maybe adding the off Tuesdays for that purpose. So you all can think about that and let Mayor Rickman know your preference or me and we can get started on those. Today would have been a good example for you of Sandra and Shannon's presentation those kind of presentations that we're gonna get a little deeper dives into things. Mr. Mayor and Ms. Wilson would y'all go ahead and do that? I mean the problem is if you're gonna start it I like to get schedules and stuff meaning my schedules and everything. I think it's a great idea. I'd like for you to go ahead and see when you might begin that so I can clear those times out on my calendar ahead of time if you will. I think that's, you would do the same type thing that like the program on procurement today. I think that's a wonderful idea. Yes, sir. I would suggest that we start our meetings at two o'clock on council days and have a briefing session from two to four and then start the council at four to six like we did today. And if you have a four o'clock meeting you've already missed up the afternoon anyhow so coming in at two would give us four hours a month if we take the two meetings that we have start the meetings at two or briefings, budget briefings or whatever else and then at four o'clock start the council meeting go through six or whatever. That way you don't miss up. And that was really important to me when I ran for office to make it accessible for young people that work full time and I'm able to complete eight hours of work before coming to this meeting. So as much as we can try and do it in chunks where it's nine to 10 or nine to 11 and then I'm able to adjust the rest of my day to make up my time or in the evening I think that is the reality of a lot of people that are part-time legislators so just something to keep in mind. And I think the purpose, Mr. DeVall was is that A, we're much more efficient in shorter hours. B, because most everybody here is not retired. It's smaller chunks over different days allows people to get their full day and their business moving forward or their meetings. So trying to do it that way seems to be more effective and easier especially if we schedule them out everybody knows exactly. And then we're not here for four to five, six hours at a time. Ms. Hammond also just reminded me rightfully so as we'll be staffing these, whichever way y'all go we're gonna be here. So y'all have to decide what works for you but you're going with all these wonderful committees that you're going to have we're gonna be having to schedule those too. So typically your committees have been scheduled on Tuesdays, a lot of times the same Tuesday as your council meeting Tuesday. But let's be clear, we're not gonna schedule a meeting to have a meeting. If we have agenda items to be discussed we're gonna meet but it's not an idea that every other, every three Tuesdays in a row we're meeting just to meet. I'll just comment we'd rather see them, sorry Howard, rather see them in the morning sitting in these chairs for four or five and six hours of the stretch. Well I think one of the things that I think would certainly be highly, we can't do that tonight. I think if we could consider perhaps some time schedules considering persons working, other schedules submit that and let's see where there is some common ground. Yes sir. I don't think, I think it's needed. I've gone through that two o'clock to 8.30, I've gone through that. And it feels pretty good right now to come in at four and be through at six but we were 15 minutes late. But I think your right Ms. Wilson there needs to be a time in between on Tuesdays that we're not meeting to look at that budget because that's gonna take a voluminous amount of time. But I don't think we can do that tonight. I think what we ought to do is give input, everyone give input in terms of what's doable for us. Well we are here to serve and we will adjust and pivot based on what you all deem is best for you, the seven of you. I know Mayor Rickiman is wanting to receive on all your suggestions and let me know. And we're ready to get started though as soon as you're ready. I think the sooner we can get input back for everybody that we can get the clerk to provide a proposed schedule based on that input and we can get it down so everybody can plan accordingly. You wanna get that input by Monday? With the retreat? Can we do it during the retreat? Same Monday if that's okay, just if you don't mind and that way it'll get you through the weekend and all that'll be going on there so. Who will we send in this input to? Oh to me. Me and Erica if you don't mind, to me and the clerk that'd be great. For the meeting. For your preferred meeting times right? Yeah, I was just suggesting that when y'all send it to me we're just taking what you say it's not the kind of discussion y'all need to have with each other so maybe you can have some of that discussion at the retreat that's a great idea, Mr. Duvall. All right so we are at public input again, Mayor if you have anything else? No ma'am. Okay. You need to get a full motion on the committee referral. Oh thank you. We didn't do a roll call, did we? You made a motion, we need a second and a roll call. Oh I'm sorry, on what? Need a motion for the IFAS review technology. For move. I need a second. Second. Discussion? Not seeing any, Madam Clerk. Thank you. Mr. Taylor. Approve. Ms. Herbert. Approve. Dr. Bussells. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. All right. Mayor Recoman. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Erika. Any public input? We do have one voicemail that I would like to play into the record, Ms. Wilson. It's Marilyn Coward. I was chosen as a juror for the municipal court for the city of Columbia the week of January 10th through 14th of this year. And on the instructions for the first day, it was to be there to report no later than eight o'clock a.m. That I should, the first day of that report no later than eight o'clock a.m. I arrived at 735 to make sure I was there on time. I had to wait outside with a lot of other people for 25 minutes or more in the bitter cold while the officers inside were just standing around not doing anything, just waiting for eight o'clock. And it was very cold out there. And I know that it's our duty as an American citizen to participate in the jury system. But the juror should be treated as if our service is of honor and a duty to our judicial process. Now, if the doors can't be open until 8 a.m., I understand that. But when it's bitter cold out there or inclement weather and the instruction on telling us you gotta be there no later than eight o'clock, people gonna get there early trying to do the right thing. So I'm requesting that in the instruction, can the wording be changed to arrive at 8 a.m. Just leave out the no later than eight o'clock a.m. Because if people trying to do the right thing and be there by 8 a.m., but you gotta wait out in the cold or the heat or whatever, that's not a good look. And that's the only voicemail that I received. That was the voicemail that she received. Well, obviously for the record, we need to remedy that no reason for people to be standing outside waiting to get in. There's plenty of space there in the lobby to wait. So hopefully we can resolve that sooner. I did before we adjourn, wanted to make sure and acknowledge that February is Black History Month and also Heart Health Awareness Month in the city of Columbia will be throughout the month recognizing accomplishments of noted African-Americans in our community during this month as well as sharing information on our website. So please go there and look, but also encourage people to take the walking tour of Columbia 63, look at the murals that we have spread throughout our city through all four districts, but also take the time to go get your heart checked, folks. Take the time to be healthy. You haven't been vaccinated and boosted. I'm gonna encourage you to do that too, but do take the opportunity. We wanna be a heart healthy city. We wanna have a good, healthy community. So let's do what we can to help those, get to the doctor, make sure you're checking and take advantage of all the events that will be going on here throughout the city over the next month of February. Please refer to our website if there's for the upcoming events. And I know our PR staff will be sending out weekly information for us to look, but I hope everybody will take the time and celebrate and learn something new about our community or somebody. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Does anybody like to have discussion on that issue? Hearing none. Madam Clerk. Yes, sir. Mr. Taylor. Up for it. And Ms. Herbert. Aye. Dr. Bussells. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. May I recommend? Aye. Thank you. Have a good evening. Thank you all. Good evening.