 It's Steve. Mr. Mayor. Welcome everyone to City Hall. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Good evening. Mr. Rickerman. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Present. Mr. Badura. Here. Mr. Vine. Mr. Davis. Here. Mayor Benjamin. Present. If you'd all stand up and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance, be great. Councilor McDowell, would you please bless us with a word of prayer? Let us, by our heads, create a God for all that you've done for us today, for the ability to move about, for the ability to gather in this place, in this room. We ask your blessings of sensitivity might shroud us with goodness and with mercy. Allow us to sense the growth of our city, but also allow us to be hearers and doers. We ask it in your name. Amen. Amen. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? So moved. Say a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll move the previous question. Clerk, call the roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Badura. Mr. Vine. Mr. Davis. Here. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you. You guys are rusty today, OK? All right, Madam City Manager. Yes, Mr. Mayor, we would ask for any public input related to the agenda items as outlined. Hearing none, we would ask Council to approve the minutes from the October 2, 2018 City Council meeting. Is there a motion? So moved. Moved in probably a second. Discussion? Seeing none, I'll move the previous question. Clerk, call the roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Badura. Mr. Hardwood. Aye. Mr. Davis. Mr. Benjamin. Aye. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Duvall. Moment of personal privilege. Yes, sir. I'd like to welcome back Movedara from his suspension and welcome him back to Council. It's great to have you back. Have a full dais up here. And good to have you with us. Thank you. Welcome back, ma'am. Thank you, Councilman. Well, since you brought it up, I'll say something. I just want to say thank you for all of your support and help in going through this rough time. But mostly for Howard, Ed, and all the Council members and the mayor for their thoughts and prayers in the whole town. And I thank God for giving me the will to survive this period. And I'm looking forward to do the job that I was elected to do. Thank you. Thank you, Mo. How's that? All right. Is there a motion to approve agenda items 5-24? I'll move to the second. Second. Discussion? With the previous question. Kurt Caldero? Mr. Rickerman? Hi. Mr. McDowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Hi. Mr. Badura? Hi. Mr. Vine? Hi. Mr. Davis? Hi. Mayor Benjamin? Hi. Before we slip into presentations, I do want some of you, if this is your first city council meeting, I do not wear a red blazer every city council meeting. And this is not a political statement other than the fact of wearing blue slacks and a white shirt, OK? It's election day. And hopefully, before the next 45 minutes, you've all exercised your right to the franchise, this essential right to vote. So I'm going to red, white, and blue for the good old American flag. And that's about it. You won't see this red blazer again for another year, OK? I hope not. OK, all right. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And we have several really wonderful tributes to city employees and others. Mr. Mayor, we're going to work as expeditiously as we can to get through them. Number 25, the city lights employee recognition. Mr. Mayor, as I begin to read, I'm going to quickly ask some members of our fire department to join me at the podium. We're about to recognize 11 members of our city's fire department for the heroic actions they took to saving life on October 10. They saved the life of Josh Boyd, a standout athlete at Richland Northeast High School. I'm going to go ahead and call the names of these wonderful firefighters and public servants to come join me at the podium while we show a clip that talks about exactly what they did. Fire Captain Kareem Spain is in there. Some firefighters played basketball at a gym they don't normally play basketball at. They ended up being at the right place at the right time saving someone's life. News 19's Nick Jones has the story tonight. It was God's plan for us to be there on that particular day. You never know what might happen on the basketball court. Normally, we go play basketball when we get off the shelf. Maintaining our conditioning, especially with this department in our line of work and what we do. Captain Kareem Spain and Kaya Thomas are firefighters with the Columbia Fire Department. Last week, they were playing a pickup game at Sonny Sportsplex in Columbia with some high schoolers. We knew we was older, but we had a game planned. We thought we did. We knew we were in for a challenge. Minutes into the game, something went wrong. While we was playing, we noticed that Josh went down. You might know Josh Boyd as the quarterback at Richland Northeast High School. The firefighters believed he was having a seizure and started helping Boyd like they'd been trained to do. Kaya was there at his head, monitoring his airway. And then he told me, hey, Cap, I don't think he's breathing good. And then he checked his pulse and then he realized he had a very faint pulse at the time and then shortly after, no pulse at all. The firefighters sprung into action and performed chest compressions to help bring Boyd back to life. Well, we like to believe God brought him back to life. We figured we'd do what we are trained to do and then we'll leave it in God's hands. Boyd was able to be taken to the hospital. According to the Richland Northeast Football Team's Twitter, Boyd had a heart attack and ended up having surgery. They're happy to say everything went well and he's now recovering. Regardless of we're on shift for off shift for whatever it's just about, just looking out for the next man. Because at some point in time, I would hope if I'm ever in that same predicament of that situation, someone would do the same for me. I just want people to know that we are here. We're here to help. It's not about just putting out house fires, but we have a lot of skills that we have to offer the citizens here. Josh will hopefully have a full recovery soon and then later and he can get back to his duties as being a superstar quarterback. A GoFundMe page has been set up for Boyd while his family tries to cover hospital expenses. Their goal is to raise $5,000 and so far they've raised over $3,800. In Columbia, Nick Jones, News 19 WLTX. And counsel, while this incident was very scary, it proved two things. Number one, our firefighters serving our city are well trained and number two, they are never off duty and always ready to serve in a time of need. I want to recognize every single one of them by calling their names individually. There are 11 of them that were there that day. I don't know that all 11 are here, but we have just a small token for you all. You can either use it all on yourself or share. I'll let you decide that. Fire Captain Kareem Spain, engineer Arthur Mitchell, senior firefighter Jonathan Dukes, senior firefighter Stefan Sims King, firefighter Kai Thomas, firefighter Keontae Curitan, firefighter Caleb McLaughlin, firefighter Marcus P, firefighter Andrew McLean, the third, and firefighter Cedarius Thomas, and firefighter Lynn K. Stokes Jr. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. On behalf of me and Josh and his father, we just want to say we thank God for Captain Spain and, excuse me, and firefighter Thomas and all of them, all of y'all, it was a team effort and y'all saved my boy and I cannot explain to you how grateful I am to each one of you and may God just continue to bless y'all, encourage y'all, your families and anything you need me and Josh to help with, I'll be right there for you. All y'all, thank you. I just want to give a little token from Josh and me to Captain Spain. And it's going to coordinate and making sure each firefighter gets their city lights pinned and a small token of appreciation from us, Mayor Benjamin and Council, I think y'all know it, I don't have those without saying how great these individuals are and the sacrifice they make every day. Yes, sir, no doubt. Yes, sir. Amazing. And up, this is UC wants a photograph. Oh, absolutely, absolutely, come here. We're right here, over here. Okay. All right, yeah. Yeah. Get the boys up here. Come on. Come on, let's do it. So even though Mr. Even though Mr. Davis and Mr. McDowell gave me a hard time about my blazer, a majority of the firefighters like the red blazer, I guess, you know, so I'm in good shape there. We can't begin to to emphasize how much we value our first responders, the men and women who run towards danger when we're all running the opposite direction. We have a fantastic fire department under Chief Jenkins leadership and we're so thankful for the heroic work they do every single day and that obviously see them investing in the life of this incredible young man. We know it's going to pay dividends for this community for many, many years to come. So God bless you and may God continue to keep you, son. And thank you all for all the work you do. We do every day, every day. So thank you. Mr. Mayor and Council, carrying on with our public safety theme, it's my honor to recognize our police chief, William Skip Holbrook as the 2018 Strom Thurman Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement recipient, yes. And we were very fortunate to join him last week as he received this award out at Fort Jackson in partnership with the United States Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Association and the Strom Thurman Foundation. The Columbia Police Department announced that Chief Skip Holbrook is the humble recipient of the Strom Thurman Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement. You all know all of the accolades that Skip has received since being here, but honestly, we just know him as a police chief that is truly about educating his officers and working so closely with this community and you as council members and all of the city's team. So he was so well-deserved. I was honored to write a letter of support for this and let you all say a few more words if you like. Come on, come on, Chief. I think the mayor has the actual award. Yeah, for those of you who may not know, I had the pleasure several years ago of helping run a state law enforcement agency. Your firefighters are shown so well, Chief Jenkins. Chief Jenkins, this, for those who may not know, this is the top award, the top law enforcement award given to a public safety officer in this state. So as we all know every day that we have the very best police chief in the country, it's good that others across the state have acknowledged that as well. Skip? Good evening. Before I respond to this, our department, awesome. That's what it's all about. I was very honored to be here tonight with you. So I was surprised, extremely proud and very, very privileged to have been recognized and received this award. Ms. Wilson, I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for you. Having confidence and the courage to select me during a tumultuous time for our city, Mayor, and everyone of you all on council, the support that you have given me individually, the autonomy to do my job, the individual support and the financial support for us to do the things we need to do to make our city safe is something, unlike I've never experienced in almost 30 years of policing. So I simply have the distinct honor and pleasure of leading incredibly brave and courageous men and women that serve this city. And we absolutely are committed to professional, fair, unbiased, ethical police work. And I think they do demonstrate that every day. And I'm just proud to have the opportunity to lead a department such as this. And I'm very, very humbled to have received this award. And thank you so much for recognizing me this evening. Amen. Amen. Thank you. All right. Too much. Too much, too much. All right, MC Manager. Carrying on in the spirit of recognitions of staff that are so well-deserved. Recognition of Mr. Demetrius Rump as a 2018 safety professional of the year, award recipient Ms. Pamela Benjamin, our chief of staff and director of human resources will present Demetrius his award. Good evening. So I always tease Chief Holbrook and say that the reason why he's here is because of me, even though he gave Ms. Wilson the credit. It's all because of me. But the other person that I'm very happy that we hired was Demetrius. So it is my distinct pleasure to recognize the city's director of risk and safety, Demetrius Rump. Demetrius was recently awarded the 2018 Safety Professional of the Year Award by J.J. Keller and Associates, one of the most respected names in safety and regulatory compliance. This is the 16th annual award that recognizes unique and effective safety programs throughout the country. Rustin Keller, president and CEO at J.J. Keller had this to say, we received many outstanding applications this year, but our three winners rose to the top due to their remarkable commitment to workplace safety. Mr. Keller went on to say that ensuring employees make it home to their families every day is truly what J.J. Keller helps their customer companies do, and it is what these winners are doing. Demetrius received the award, but the third place award, but he is certainly first place here at the city of Columbia. Demetrius has only been at the city for almost two years, but he has been instrumental in changing the organizational culture here at the city as it relates to safety. Whether it was creating a safety committee that encourages employees to participate and take ownership in the safety process, or getting bumps and bruises while conducting active shooter training. He got a lot of, he had a lot of aches and pains after he got through with some of those active shooter trainings, or being the face of the city when visiting an injured city employee in the hospital. Demetrius embodies a true safety professional. Demetrius has over 20 years of safety experience and is in his own words, Demetrius says, it gives him great pleasure to know that he has added value to the employees here at the city of Columbia when he can educate, elevate, and empower them at the end of the day to complete their tasks safely and return home without a scratch. So on behalf of the city of Columbia, please join me in recognizing Demetrius Rump as one of the JJ Keller and Associates 2018 Safety Professionals of the Year. Thank you for all you do, Demetrius. Let's say something. Well, first of all, thank you, Mayor Benjamin, Councilman, City Manager, Wilson, and my supervisor, Pamela Benjamin. Thanks Pam, I would not have been here if you hadn't given me the opportunity to bring my talent, my skill set, and my knowledge here at the city of Columbia. I'm humbly honored to accept this award. I know it's an individuality award, but really and truly it's about the 2,400 employees that diligently work here at the city of Columbia who provide a public service day in and day out to all our citizens on our system. I could not have accomplished this without the team that supports me, the resources that you provide us to do our jobs safely day in and day out, but just the boots on the ground that put in a good hard work of being a public servant and providing a public service every day. I tell them all the time, I wouldn't share if I didn't care. I also tell them all the time, I really care about each and every one of you, each and every day, going home to your families, unhurt, unscathed. I found out over the years my career is paved but your calling is made. I answered the phone call for being a safety professional back in 1998 and it's the best phone call I've ever made in my life. It changed my career. My mom and dad always told me, do something you love to do and you always love what you do. And that's what I love doing as a safety professional because it's about impacting people's lives. As a public servant, we impact lives every day. But as a safety professional, you impact lives not just with the worker, but beyond the worker, his family or her family. So with that being said, I just wanna thank everybody who has supported me on this journey. Winners never quit. Quitters never win. I'm just a spoke in the wheel among many spokes that help the safety culture that will turn each and every day. So thank you so much and I appreciate your support. Let's keep driving this train down the track. Yes sir. Mr. Mayor, I don't think we need to pass what all four of us are. I'm about to move to adjourn. I think we're done here. No, I will say this and Pam did it justice. Mrs. Benjamin did it justice. You can't go into a meeting with Demetrius if it's a little meeting or a big meeting, something bigger, small. You're gonna walk out of there feeling like a safety professional. He's gonna make sure we check every box, cross every T, dot every I, and he's gonna leave you something just like he did. A whole bunch of nuggets with him. So appreciate your brother. All you do, you make us better. So thank you. Absolutely. All right. Mr. Mayor, I'm just gonna keep on this train. As he said, I've got a matter of personal privilege really quickly because it's we're overdue to do it. I wanna ask Ms. Melissa Smith Gentry to join me at the podium. She has no idea. Who is Melissa Smith? Melissa Smith Gentry. Ms. Missy Gentry, our assistant city manager for development. I would like her to join me at the podium. Missy, my colleague and dear friend, who is, I can't believe it, but you know, you start here at the city as babies. She celebrated 20 and still babies celebrating 25 years of service. Wow. September 27, 1993. And I know she likes a little bit of animal prints and bling. So we just had to honor her while she's here with us and thank her as she moves the needle forward every day for development and growth. She's so passionate about it in our city. Thank you, Missy. Thank you. And she will always give you the waterworks too. Don't, don't, we, we, you know, we love you, Missy. And Missy has a great misfortune of being right next door to me. So she gets everything first, just an amazing professional. We're thankful for you in your service. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Missy. We will now have the epilepsy awareness month proclamation by the honorable Mayor Stephen K. Dencherman. Thank you, Madam city manager. Whereas epilepsy is a central nervous system neurological disorder in which brain activity becomes abnormal, causing seizures or periods of unusual behavior, sensations and sometimes loss of awareness. And whereas epilepsy has several major symptoms including temporary confusion, a staring spell, uncontrollable jerking movements of the arms and legs, loss of consciousness or awareness and psychic symptoms such as fear, anxiety or deja vu. And whereas there's, though there's presently no cure for this disease, medications are available to help manage the symptoms. And whereas research efforts continue to work to find the cause of impossible cure for epilepsy and are contributing to the development of improved treatment options that can help enhance quality of life for those affected by epilepsy until the day a cure is found. And whereas Hardy-Hands Foundation is the only organization in the state that works to be a catalyst for positive change and awareness of epilepsy driven by the ideals of support and empowerment and progress while holding strong to faith through advocating, educating and supporting. And whereas the city of Columbia recognizes the importance of heightening the community's awareness of epilepsy and the treatments available to those who needed. Now, therefore, Stephen K. Benjamin, mayor of the great city of Columbia, along with my fellow members of city council, do hereby proclaim November 2018 as Epilepsy Awareness Month in the city of Columbia and urge our fellow citizens to recognize and participate in its observance. Thank you. Who's here to receive this on behalf of Hardy-Hands? Okay, all right. Mayor Benjamin, Mr. Davis. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Mr. Mayor, I'd just like to say that this is one recognition and award that the city, I think really stands above the rest when it comes to support and recognizing citizens with special needs. I think everybody knows my son has epilepsy and we know what the challenges are. And also that people with epilepsy are talented and they do have skills and that it's always important that we share with them but we also allow them to be themselves because they do have talents and they do have a lot to contribute. So I think this is one thing that the city should be proud of and as you all know also, it's kind of like a quiet, silent group of people who provide services and deserve recognition. So the best thing we can do. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Mr. Mayor, item 29, as you proclaimed in your state of the city address, so we are very happy to say we are checking this off of our box and on our box finally, the MyColumbia SC app launch. Mr. Clint Shealy, our assistant city manager for Columbia Water will come forward to help present this wonderful new application that we are going to launch tonight for the citizens of Columbia. I know Mr. Vine as you travel to NLC this week has been a big proponent of such an application so we're excited about it. Thank you, Ms. Wiltson Good evening, Mayor and Council. We are very excited to unveil the MyColumbia SC application. We've been working on this for quite some time and it is the next step in us becoming a smart city and improving our customer service for both our citizens and the customers that are outside the corporate limits that are served by our water and sewer system. The development of this application dovetails very nicely with our envisioned Columbia vision through empowering our residents and providing and leading the way in high quality and innovative municipal services. So there's some cards out in the entryway and information sheets and I just wanna run through quickly just a few highlights of the app. It's available for customers to communicate with us 24-7, 365. In addition and supplements are manned call center that's available for customers but if they see something that they wanna report an issue about or a service problem, they can do that. They can snap a picture. They can submit a service request. The application is also loaded on your iPads and ready for your use and it's ready for download and the iTunes Store and the Google Play Store. So you can also pay your bill through this application. You can search for city jobs. You can call our customer care center from that application as well. Access to frequently asked questions. A lot of information that's available on our website is also available through this mobile platform and they can access. Our customers can reach that. You can interface with our GIS system and locate where you are. Locate information about your council contacts. Contact information is there. So that is very helpful to folks and citizens as they're looking to interface with our elected officials and reporting a concern and that's the main thing. Just an easy way to report an issue. If a customer sees a pothole, they can snap a photo, upload that. They can use their location to track that, upload that to our customer care center without ever having to make that call. They can log in and create an ID and they can track their service request as we move forward. So this is quite an advancement in our response to our customers and we think it's really gonna enhance our customer service. I'd be remiss if I didn't thank our team that worked so hard to develop this application. Our program management team led by Missy Kaufman, Carmen Fleming and Tequila Wilson. Thank you very much for that. Our customer care team led by Angela Adams just really spearheaded this effort for us. Our CDPR team and our Columbia Water Communications team with our new manager Robert Yannity and Jennifer Satterthwaite in the back. I'd like to thank them, certainly the IT department, all the city departments that have supported us and given us the content that's loaded on this app. So we are very excited and we encourage our citizens to download the application either on the iTunes Store or the Google Play Store. Awesome, awesome. Thank you, thank you. I'm excited about it. No, this is exciting, exciting major step in our mission to become a truly smart city. So thank you all so much for your work on this. I was just gonna add, as Miss Wilson said, so I'll be leaving for National Legal Cities tomorrow. But on Saturday morning, I'm doing a presentation about what your budget says about your city's priorities and our amazing staff has put together some great PowerPoints. But I think Missy, we need to make sure we include this in there as well. All right. Love it. Moving into a period of ordinances, Mr. Mayor. Please. Okay. I'll let y'all. Thank you. All right. Item 30, ordinance number 2018-063, authorizing the city manager to execute a signed location lease between the city of Columbia and the Lamar companies for lease of 207 Gervais Street at Canal Street in Richland County. There will be a few edits or amendments. Mr. Duvall. Mr. Duvall. Okay. I'm on. Yes. Mr. Mayor, this is the lease for the billboard in the Congaree River, and I had some perfecting amendments I'd like to make, three perfecting amendments to the lease. On item number six, removing the last sentence. It's not necessary in this particular lease. Item number seven, assignment of the lease to some third party is not needed in this lease, and we're removing that sentence. And item number eight, striking it all, except the last part, dealing with a condemnation award for Lee C's property shall accrue to Lee C. These are minor amendments, and I would like to move for the adoption of the amendments in first reading of the ordinance. So moved. Motion by Mr. Duvall, seconded by Mr. Badura, and I think just for clarity's sake, Mr. Duvall, we're gonna have some discussion around no-disk requirements, and to discuss with Lamar, exactly. All of these have been agreed to by the law. Full meeting of the minds between now, and... It's a full meeting of the minds. We had a great compromise, and I appreciate them cooperating. All right. Move to the previous question, Kurt Caldero. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. Mcdowell. This is for first reading, is that correct? Yes. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Badura. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Item 31, ordinance number 2018-065, authorizing the city of Columbia, South Carolina, to execute and deliver an equipment lease purchase agreement in the amount of not exceeding eight million dollars between the city and the lessor thereof to defray the cost of acquiring certain equipment and other matters relating thereto. So moved. Second. Caldero. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. Mcdowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Badura. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Moving into a period of resolutions, item 32 resolution number R-2018-09-0, adopting a policy and criteria to consider the inclusion of real property and a multi-county industrial part to apply Richland County Special Source Revenue Credit incentive to real property within the corporate limits of the city of Columbia, developed for rental mixed income housing projects. Right. Is there a motion? So moved. So moved. Second. Second. All right. Moved in probably a second. Any discussion? This is an exciting move forward towards the provision of workforce housing, affordable housing and market rate housing in the city. Let's keep this train moving. Move to the previous question. Call her all. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Badura. No. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. And Ms. Wilson, if I could just say, I want to thank staff for, I mean, I know we went through several iterations of this. We had some amazing public hearings with a lot of input from the community, from the business, from the builders. It was just wonderful. So I think Mr. Rickerman and his leadership on this committee, and I'm so excited that we've gotten this passed. So kudos to staff. Amen. Thank you, Mr. Bond. And the committee members. Item 33, resolution number R-2018-104, authorizing the city manager to execute a memorandum of understanding between the city of Columbia and the NCRC Housing Rehab Fund, LLC. So moved. So moved, Mr. McDowell. Second. Any discussion? With this question, part of Colorado. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Badura. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Again, another significant opportunity to provide some new housing to folks all across the city with this MOU. All right, ma'am, city manager. Other matters, item 34, a council is asked to approve the 2018 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant JAG application for drug analysis laboratory improvements at the Columbia Police Department in the amount of $83,475. All right, so moved. Moved approval. Moved. Moved by Mr. Duvall. Seconded by Mr. Davis and Mr. Badura. Any discussion? Seeing none, move the previous question. Court call the roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Badura. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Erica, how soon you need this? We can wait till the next meeting. We can wait till the next meeting. Can we digest it a little bit? Yes. All right, let's just, OK. Thank you. All right, there's no work session. Any committee reports or referrals? Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a recommendation for infrastructure committee, and I could be wrong on that. I am looking to maybe put a city to develop an app to give residents of the city time of the train crossing streets. So if somebody wants to go on Blossom Street and there's a train that's going to be delaying their route or whether they're going to class or work or pick up their kids, they have an app that tells them that the train is crossing Blossom Street. Study the proper plan. Refer to the committee. It's not part of the quiet zone, no. I thought it would be a good service app for residents to have so they can, and once again, this is a discussion for the committee or whether it's possible or not. Mr. Mayor, is there an existing app? It's not an existing. I couldn't find one. No, just asking Mr. Madura whether or not there was an existing app available. He says it's not. Daniel, myself, and the Howard first. I think it's me. That's fine. I mean, that's fine. We can talk about it. And we can look at, in the meantime, the other apps like Waze and others, and Research and see if maybe there's an ability to help promote another one or if we need our own. So yeah. Second. Mr. Rickerman. Hi. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Hi. Mr. Madura. Mr. Vine. Hi. Mr. Davis. Mayor Benjamin. Sure. What you got here? Raise your hands. You should raise your hand too, trainer. All right. Are you having fun yet? You're bored to death yet? Has it been relatively interesting so far? All right. This is a special night. Usually it's a lot more boring than this, OK? Hope you are enjoying yourself. And we really want to invite you to come back as often as possible, kind of see policy being made. As you can tell, some of the stuff is interesting. Some, you know, literally downright heroic. And some of it not as interesting. And even sometimes the most important things we do, we actually rush right through them on the consent agenda, significant expenditures of public funds, but things that we've discussed previously in committee staff has vetted them. So I encourage you, if you get bored sometimes, turn on Channel 2 on cable and watch us in action or just go to the website and kind of dig into whatever interest areas you might have. Mr. Bedour just sent an item. I know, of course, train issues are big issues for you guys. Maybe attend one of our committee meetings or see what we're talking about. We'll be talking about historic preservation issues and affordable housing issues. And obviously we have some of our unsheltered citizens who are here to speak tonight too, so before we wrap up. So there's always something to talk about. And this, obviously, whether you're from somewhere else or you're from here, while you're students, you are our citizens. So we want to make sure that we're being responsive to the things that are important to you. So thank you all for being here tonight. And you don't have to wait until it's a class assignment. Come hang out with us every other Tuesday. Students at the university. OK, all right. Anyone want to, where'd your professor go? That's on somewhere. And no one here? OK. All right, so you guys, all USC students? All USC students? From everywhere. From everywhere, yeah. I'm going to fight in Gamecocks. You familiar with it? All right. I hope you all voted today. And yes, if you haven't voted, you got five more minutes. Two minutes. But if you're in line by seven. And we have a couple of citizens who sound to speak. Mr. Regis Solis, three minutes. Sir? Good evening. Good evening. You're members of the City Council. I am Regi, Director of Needle Things that provides informational services to the homeless to help them survive being homeless, just as a reminder. And because Ms. Devine was not here last month, I'm also a board member of the Homeless Helping Homeless Homeless Advocacy Group. At United Way, I'm a steering committee member of the Mealshare Program and a member of the Midlands Area Consortium for the Homeless or MOC. I'm here again to hopefully see if we can come up with solutions to the way Columbia's homeless community is treated. Before I ask about them, I have one request to make of the mayor. December 21st is celebrated in other cities as National Homeless Persons Awareness Memorial Day. I ask that we proclaim this day as Homeless Persons Memorial Day here in Columbia. I have already had the support of the United Way of the Midlands as well as several churches and organizations who are trying to organize this event here. Both Charleston and Spartanburg as well as Atlanta and other major cities and capitals, I think it's 179 cities total, have celebrated this day. And what does it take to get this done here and come? I provide any other information on this. We'll get it done, Mrs. Ellis. Yes. Last time I asked for solutions to three items, I spoke to a gentleman about dealing with these problems, but have been told by efforts by a colleague to reach him have not been successful. The first item was about the inclement weather center and the mayor informed me that it was on the flood line. It was not considered a safe place to be. How can we find a safe place? Last time, I brought copies of two other items, news articles for each of you. I hope that Mr. Vine got her copy. I hope that you took the time to read them and have you come up with a way to deal with either of these situations. In the case of Boise, I still hear of Columbia police telling folks that they have to leave Findlay Park so they go to the post office and get woken between three and six and told it cannot be there. There is no place to go. In the case of Los Angeles versus LaVon, the personal possessions are to be considered unsupervised, not abandoned and therefore should not be seized and disposed of. Again, I still hear folks, stories of folks, personal belongings being taken and disposed of to realize what things are being thrown away, the personal items that I've listed last time, family possessions, your mother's broach, your father's watch that gets thrown away and you lose it forever. Columbia, again, in South Carolina have a reputation of being one of the last cities or states to accept any of these new policies. I'd like to see the state in which I live to be a leader in these topics, an example of two others that we care about, our fellow human beings. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Soles. Thank you. We have Mr. Allen Browning. I'm Allen Browning, one of the ministers that live in Water International Church. I came, excuse me, a couple of city council meetings ago and I did my demographics. Me and my wife started a charity, Hearts for the Homeless and Homeless Veteran several months ago, which we fund out our pockets. I like to be repetitious with those things because repetition is the key to learning. Myself was homeless four and a half years ago. We're not four and a half years, four and a half years. Eight years ago I went from being homeless to a business owner and a minister. And I'm starting a new business in January of 2019. I just want to say that because I want to give a person a perspective because we have the wrong perspective of what a homeless person is. There's people in that park that I came and I spoke on a few weeks ago and I haven't had any response. After 10 attempts of trying to call the liaison that I was given by the mayor, I haven't got one phone call back. Sorry to say that, but I had to make that known. I have ideas in representing the situation we have in the park. I have ideas. Mayor, you promised me a meeting to do more dialogue. I'm asking you again for that. I'm also asking for some of the funds of the city to be funded into some of my ideas once we can hash them out and I can give you guys my ideas. I have good ideas because I've been where these people are at. So again, I want to know how and last time I think I talked a little too much and I heard a little buzzer. First time ever in the city council I mean I like to apologize for it. I want to know how I can come and give you all my total format like these guys that came up and brought their situations to you guys. I want to know where I'm going to have more time while I'm going to be buzzed out so you guys can really hear me. I have a lot of great ideas. I'll tell you what, we're going to wrap this meeting up as soon as you're done, minister and you and I can talk right now, okay? Amen. Thank you, sir. So again, I want to give you guys a different, we have this Lord, how can I say this? We have a perception of what a homeless person is but there's a lot of people that's in that position that want to go to another level in life and I can't help everybody but the ones that I can help, I want to help and I'm asking you guys to help me help them. If there's any grant writers and here that would like to help me donate some time on teaching me how to write a grant so I can get funds for the said cause. Get with my wife here and give her your number if y'all will. If there's anybody here that know how to write grants or have a person that has a heart for God and a heart for people in this season of giving that want to help me, I really would accept your help. Thank you, guys. Thank you, thank you. And since we have all these young and impressionable minds in here, it's important that everyone knows that we do actually spend millions of dollars a year on, no, no, it's okay. You can walk away. We're gonna talk as soon as we're done. You can, you can, you can, yeah, you can have a seat. We spend millions of dollars a year working with United Way, working with transitions. Yes, funding the inclement weather shelter that, yes, is not the primary, the best location when we're talking about hurricanes and storms as we discussed at the last meeting. But every single day we are interfacing with several organizations that we work with on 67 organizations on meeting the needs of the homeless. So I don't want anyone to leave here thinking that we're not working closely with meeting the needs of the homeless. No, we're gonna talk. You're not gonna have a dialogue as soon as we're done. So we need as many soldiers on the battlefield helping to meet the needs of every citizen. Every citizen in this community has value. Every life has value. Whether you're sheltered or unsheltered. And we wanna make sure, also, obviously, thank you for the legal information you provide last time, Mr. Seles. We work to make sure that everything we do is not only constitutional, but also right and just and making sure that we do things. We live in a very different world now where unaccompanied packages obviously cause a great deal of public safety concern as well. Packages explode a number of different places around the country on a regular basis. So there are a number of different concerns that has to be played here. So we're gonna talk a little bit. As soon as the meeting's over, as I think you asked for more time on the agenda, all the presentations you saw earlier were actually city employees actually doing presentations. So unless you get a job here and you're presenting, you're probably not gonna do a full presentation at any point. But we certainly will have time to discuss things. We're gonna do it right now, all right? So we won't have Groundhog Day. Next meeting again. If there's no other citizens who sound to speak, we're gonna have a non-debatable motion to adjourn and me and the minister in Mississippi is gonna have a dialogue. Moved by Mr. Davis. Seconded by Mr. McDowell. Moved to the previous question. Call the roll. Mr. Rickerman. Mr. McDowell. Mr. DuVall. Hi. Mr. Badura. Hi. Mr. Vines. Mr. Davis. Mr. Benjamin. You all have a good evening.