 Madam Clerk would you please call the roll. Good evening Mr. Rickerman, Mr. McDowell, Mr. Duvall, Mr. Vines, Mr. Davis, Mayor Benjamin. Thank you. Mr. McDowell, would you please call the roll. Good evening Mr. Rickerman, Mr. Vines, Mayor Benjamin. Thank you. Please call us to feel your presence. Particularly we pray for children everywhere, for families everywhere. Particularly when there's crisis in our nation. We pray for peace and development. We ask it in your name. Amen. Amen. Would you all join me for the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge, my God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Mayor Benjamin, at this time if you would bear with me for several changes and additions, amendments to our agenda prior to its adoption. There's one that I would say first at Reverend McDowell's request as well. I know we have several votes here for the item. Withdrawing item 32 as requested by the applicant. This is the zoning map amendment for 1400 Hugh T Street. And making it clear the request for rezoning has been withdrawn. Yes, sir. As requested by the applicant. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Alright, that's good. Okay. The rest of the amendments, please. Additionally, we would be removing item 10 from the consent agenda. We're going to amend item 13 to read. Council has asked to approve an agreement for Park Street streetscape and trash storage options versus enclosure services as requested by Columbia Water. The award to Chow and Associates in the amount of $110,610. We will be deferring consideration of item 17, which was a resolution regarding the operation of Soda City relocation from the 1400 block to the 1600 block of Main Street. We are withdrawing item 25. And it's really more of an amendment to item 25. The item 25 was always intended to be a restatement of your health care related item from last meeting that got first reading. It's the actual health care motion, which now reads item 26. We'll be deferring item 31, which is the fiscal year 2018-2019 accommodations and hospitality tax grant funding recommendations. Alright, so moved. Is there a second? Any discussion? We'll move the previous question. I'm Kurt Colorado. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Alright, so let the record reflect we've complied with the Freedom of Information Act. Yes, I did. Removing certain items and adding by more than two-thirds vote. For those of you who are here for the rezoning, it has been formally withdrawn. So, no mass exodus right yet? Thank you, Councilman, for his leadership. Alright, alright. Alright, let's keep on moving. Yes, sir. We would ask for any public input related to the agenda items as they were outlined. If there are none, we would ask for counsel. We'll go ahead and deal with the consent agenda. I'll come back to item 10. Item 11 through 16. So moved. Is there a second? Is there a discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the previous question. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Aye. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 10. Council has asked to approve an agreement for preliminary engineering services for the Jervais Street Bridge painting project. It's a contract to Norfolk Southern Railway Company in the amount of $12,000. The firm is located in Columbia. Move approval. Is there a second? Second. And discussion. We'll move the previous question. Clerk will call the roll. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mr. Vines. Aye. Mr. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. My vote was no. Thank you. Ms. Devina Ray voted for you, so it's too late. Go ahead, please. One more, though. Thank you. I will move into a period of presentations. Item 18 is the June 2018 employee of the month. Mr. Well, I know Chief is not here. Is it Deputy Chief Kelly? Okay. Deputy Chief Melron Kelly with the Columbia Police Department will present Mr. Jeffrey Brink, Columbia Police Sergeant at the North Region. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Good evening, Chief. I would like to present our June employee of the month, Sergeant Jeffrey Brink. Jeffrey is a Sergeant over in the North Region, which is District 1 area. He is a 10-year veteran of the Columbia Police Department. He came to us by way of the Kalamazoo area of Michigan, moved here after college at Western Michigan State, and he's been here ever since. He's a dedicated employee of frequent community, participant in our many activities, including driving an ice cream truck. Jeffrey's been married to his wife, Christian, and they have two daughters, Addison and Sydney, who are seated here in the audience. He's a valued City of Columbia employee and team member. I just want to take this opportunity to thank him publicly and show him our appreciation. Thank you. Thanks for all you do. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. I think I'm up next, actually. I want to do a little bit of a teaser. I think the majority of council knows what we wanted to make sure that a contingency of staff and some helpers are headed to Denver for our All-America City Award competition presentation. The City of Columbia, we applied for this. We had no idea how involved it was actually going to become, but it's a wonderful thing. We've been named a finalist out of 20 cities across this country. The City of Columbia is an All-America City finalist. And so we are very, very excited about the opportunity. The All-America City Awards process is the flagship program of the National Civic League. The theme this year is promoting equity through inclusive civic engagement. And on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, the National Civic League proudly announced the City of Columbia as one of the top 20 All-America City finalists. Finalists were selected through an application process that highlighted various city projects and community-based initiatives. Each finalist represents the diversity of American communities from the largest cities to the smallest towns from east to west and north to south. On Thursday, June 21st through Sunday, June 24th, a delegation from the City of Columbia will be traveling to Denver, Colorado to participate in a live presentation. The presentation will determine whether the City of Columbia will become an All-America City winner. The All-America City Awards were established in 1949, and Columbia was a winner in 1951 and 1964. So it's time that we bring it back again. And our public relations team will be promoting Columbia by posting on all of the city's social media platforms using the hashtag AAC 2018. They will tag the National Civic League, and we are asking our city leaders and our citizens to like and share these posts to help build momentum for our city. All-America City finalist status speaks volumes about our diverse entrepreneurial and community-focused city. Columbia epitomizes the characteristics of a city that emphasizes civic engagement, and we are so honored to be recognized and excited to, I think, participate in this very interesting live presentation that our staff and some folks that are helping us have put together. We hope to come back because we can't give it away beforehand and share with you all the presentation upon our return. So we wish us safe travels, and hopefully we'll bring back the All-America City Award. Let's bring it home. Let's bring it home. I will say, Teresa, you and your staff, this process is rigorous. I had no idea how rigorous it was until they made it start working. Right. And Ashley and everyone else in the team have done a really fantastic job, so we're looking forward to bringing it home. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Miss UC would like you all to take a photo with the All-America City poster. Can we do it before we leave? Can they do it before they leave? When we get back up? Don't forget. See, we'll get you. We will do it. We will do it so we can include it in the packet. Yes, absolutely. I do want to also, are you done with the All-America City? Yes, sir. I want to recognize Taylor Wright. I can't see Taylor. Can you stand up for a second? He's a student body president at the University of South Carolina. There's a pre-med superstar doing great things on campus and he's looking forward to making sure we have continued great dialogue, not just between the university and the city, but also the student leadership there. Yes. So I want to recognize his presence here. Welcome, Taylor. All right. Our next item is the Parks and Recreation Month Proclamation, the honorable Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin. Thank you. No, it's a pleasure to recognize this as Parks and Recreation Month. Whereas Parks and Recreation programs are an integral part of communities throughout this country, including Columbia. Whereas our Parks and Recreation are vitally important to establishing and maintaining the quality of life in our communities, ensuring the health of all citizens and contributing to the economic and environmental well-being of a community and region. Whereas Parks and Recreation programs will healthy, active communities that aid in the prevention of chronic disease provide therapeutic recreation services for those who are mentally and physically disabled and also improve the mental and emotional health of all citizens. Whereas Parks and Recreation programs increase the community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of the local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses and crime reduction. Whereas Parks and Recreation areas are fundamental to the environmental well-being of our community. Whereas Parks and Recreation areas improve water quality, protect groundwater, prevent flooding, improve the quality of the air we breathe, provide vegetative buffers to development and produce habitat for wildlife. Whereas our Parks and Recreation areas ensure the ecological beauty of our community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors. Whereas the United States House of Representatives has just designated July as Parks and Rec Month and the City of Columbia recognizes the benefits derived from Parks and Recreation resources. I, Stephen Benjamin, Mayor of the City of Columbia, along with my fellow members of City Council do hereby proclaim July as Parks and Recreation Month. We recognize, obviously, the beautiful silver environments and built environments that make up our Parks and Rec, but more importantly, the men and women who make our Parks and Recs a special place for our children and our adults to prosper. And so when we take this picture, then we'll also take Ms. Utsi's picture. How about that? Randy, you hear the word, brother? Randy Davis, our Director of Parks and Recreation. Randy. All right. I just want to take this opportunity to thank the Council of Mayor and City Manager for your continued support for what we do in Parks and Recreation. Thank you so much. Seder Terrace. All right. Seder Terrace. Let's get a two-four in the picture, y'all. It's just for tag. Good tag. Good man. Y'all are too much. All right. All right. We're making some progress. Let's keep it moving. All right, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Yes, sir. We are at the introduction of Ms. Charlene Slaughter as the new Director of Communications. Mr. Bill Ellen. Bill Ellen. Bill Ellen sounds familiar. Who's Bill Ellen? Yeah. The President and CEO of Experience Columbia SC. Hey, Bill. Who I spent the morning with. They had a great meeting this morning. You might want to put the microphone back up. Hey, brother. How are you, man? Hi. Hey, Mr. Mayor and all members of the Council, thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. First, I want to thank the City of Columbia and Chief Jenkins for all your support and help last week as we hosted the State Firefighters Convention in Columbia at the Convention Center. We had over 2,000 firefighters. First time in Columbia, they've been in Murl Beach for over 40 years. So they're in Columbia, and we're negotiating with them for a contract for the next three years. So it was a great event. Thank you for all your help. Awesome. It was a great event. And now I'm here to welcome and present to you our new Director of Communications, Miss Charlene Slaughter. And before Kelly officially introduces Charlene, she's going to give you a little update on what we're doing from a marketing standpoint to market the city as a destination. And then Charlene's going to say a few words about how busy she's been. Thank you all so much. As you know, we've been marketing Columbia through our billboards, which have all of our new branding on them. We have those in Charlotte and Augusta and Greenville and Charleston, the routes leading into Columbia. We're also almost 80,000 Facebook fans on social media and almost 20,000 on Instagram. So really growing our marketing all across the board. We've done projects with Garden and Gun, Southern Living, the local palette, and we've hosted travel influencers from around the world here in Columbia recently. So lots going on. But one of the main areas of focus that we're really proud of right now is our communications and media relations. And we have had Charlene on board for about three months now, and she's going to tell you a little bit about what she's working on in terms of earned media and media relations. I'm Charlene Slaughter again. No stranger to South Carolina. I'm a proud South Carolinian. Born, raised, educated, and still living in my grandparents' house. I renovated. So I'm no stranger to this area. Spent the first 10 years of my career as a print journalist. The next 10 in higher education, marketing, and PR at Claflin University, and most recently, Darla Moore School of Business. I like to cap it at 20 years. So we'll just stop there. My job at Experience Columbia SC Center is around telling the Columbia story through earned media. We do that in a number of ways, but a few of those is by hosting travel writers nationally and internationally. We just had an international writer here from the Netherlands last week. We also do media immersion trips where we go to markets where we may not be as known or where we may not have contact with certain writers like New York, not like Atlanta, to make those connections to tell Columbia's story and get them interested in writing about us and that earned media piece that Kelly mentioned. I wanted to mention just a few things. We're proud of the growing amount of national coverage that we're getting from publications like The Thrillist, from National Geographic, Southern Living, Smithsonian Magazine, Gardening Gun, Food & Wine, Cosmopolitan, the list goes on and on. We've garnered headlines like American travel destinations that are about to blow up and the best small cities in the United States, Columbia, state-of-the-art destination, the five best most affordable places to travel where we were mentioned alongside places like Aruba and Shanghai, China. Columbia's Congaree National Park was deemed the best place in North America to see synchronized flies, not in the South, not in the South, in North America. And if you pick up your July edition of Family Circle, you'll see one of our festivals, our love piece and hip-hop festival that's listed as one of the best family festivals in each state. So it's an exciting time to represent Columbia in this capacity. We're certainly here as a resource for you all. For example, I don't know if you heard Mayor Benjamin was on CBS this morning recently, and we got a call from them saying we need photos from the destination and that type thing. So we're certainly here as a resource to provide anything that you need related to media relations, communications in terms of traveling tourism. So feel free to reach out and we look forward to continuing to taking Columbia to higher heights on a national and international level. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Duvall. Charlene, last year, Kelly was able to get the total eclipse in August and I'm hoping you'll be able to get it back this time. I'm working on it. Good job. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Thank you so much. All right. Come to the manager. You're looking at Erica's grandbaby on the phone. So cute. Okay. We are at our budget ordinances second reading item 22, ordinance number 2018-06 to raise the revenue and adopt the budget for the city of Columbia, South Carolina. Motion. Move. Second. Second. Discussion. Seeing none, we'll move to the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Ryan. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. Thank you. Ordinance number 2018-07 amending the 1998 code of ordinances of the city of Columbia, South Carolina, Chapter 23, Utilities and Engineering, Article 5, Water and Sewer Rates, Section 23-143, Water Service Rates, and Section 23-149, Sewer Service Rates. Motion. Move approval. Second. Move and second. Discussion. Seeing none, we'll move to the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. DeVine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 24, Ordinance number 2018-025 amending the city of Columbia, South Carolina, Chapter 15, Parts and Recreations, Section 155, User Fees, A, Definitions, 3D Parts, 3, Ensign Keenan House, 4, Earlwick Community Building, and 5, Eau Claire Print Building, Aye. Athletics, Fees. Motion. Move approval. Second. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move to the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 26, Mr. Mayor, is a health care motion. Yeah. As listed. Sure. And I have a motion. I want to make sure that we stay this clearly at the last meeting, but want to get it on the record. We've adopted the budget and we've made it clear that we have to maintain our DDB. And we're going to shift to the AD20 split as well. Want to get it and put that on the record. But as relates to plan design, I'm not sure where Mrs. Benjamin is. She's here somewhere. She's probably behind the sign. We got a lot of work to do on plan design. And Jacob and Vick, you guys are here. And I'm sure several others here who want to have some input in that. And we're getting a numerous, innumerable solicitations. People who have different ideas. It's going to be a process over whatever the horizon is, hopefully a shorter one in which we can get everyone's input and see what we can do. That's very best for our employees. And for our retirees. But I wanted to get this consistent with exactly what we said last meeting. Want to get on the record. Okay. So I moved the city to maintain the established defined benefit contribution for pre and post 65 eligible retirees and their dependents for the 2019 plan year. And approve the recommended phased in premium adjustments for active employees resulting in a city sharing 80% and the active employees sharing 20% of the costs for health care. These changes are effective on January 1st, 2019. Future plan design changes and premium adjustments may be necessary in order to maintain the 80 20 cost share. That is a motion. Second. Second. Seconded. Discussion. And again, this is consistent with exactly what we articulated last time. We just want to make sure it was on the record. All right. With the previous question. All right. Mr. Rivera, Mr. DeVall. Mr. Davis. Mabin Ram fella. And let's, this is, I know the summers get tight and crazy. Um, but um, Pam and missy and everyone else who's tasked with this, let's. As methodically as possible, let's get old stakeholders um, in a room of the same room or different rooms. Let's work through this and, uh, see if there are that we have not considered that might, in order to the benefit of our employees and retirees in a way that makes some sense, okay? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Let me say it real quick. Thank you guys, CFFA, for always being actively involved, constructively in the discussion. Jacob, who's the proper contact to make sure we have that communication? So Jacob, the president of CFFA, let's make sure we dialogue. That looked them last week. I know. I know that. They're always, always share good information. We're moving into a period of public hearing. Madam Mayor Pro Tem, I will read item 27, and then you can open that. Resolution number 2018054, in support of the issuance by the South Carolina Jobs Economic Development Authority of its education facilities, refunding revenue bonds, vented at college in one or more series taxable or tax exempt in the principal amount of not exceeding $25 million. Okay. And so this is on our agenda for public hearing. Is there anyone to speak for or against resolution R-2018054? Explain. Explain to people why we're doing this, because I've had several people ask. Okay. Yes, or would you like that on the record, Mr. Rickerman? Yes, please. Yes, sir. I'll do my best. I mean, the city really acts, it's not even as a pass-through, it's more of a formality when I think Benedict College is, they're not doing new projects, is my understanding, but I guess they are refinancing. Is that right, Mr. Bayland? Oh, Mr. Jones, how are you? Oh, hello Ray. Why don't you help us out for your clients? Evening Council and city staff. So this resolution is a support resolution that's required by Jetta. So what Benedict is doing is, of course, Benedict's under new leadership, Dr. Artis and her chief of staff, Dr. Seon Smith's here tonight. We're actually refinancing some debt, and so in order to do that, the Jetta statute requires a resolution in support of the bond issuance to be adopted by the locality in which the college is located, which is why we're here tonight. The city has no responsibility for these bonds. The city is taking a ministerial action tonight in connection with the bond issue. Thank you, Ray. Again, is there anybody here to speak for or against? Seeing none, is there a motion? Who moves? Is there a second? Second. Second. It's been probably moved in second. Ms. Moore, would you call the roll? Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McNally. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Aye. 28 is also for a public hearing, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, resolution number R-2018-057, public input on closing and transfer of an unopened portion of Stetum Avenue, otherwise known as Brook Avenue, containing approximately .13 acres in Richland County. And this is what Mr. Wright briefed us on. So this is just a formality is an unopened, unused portion of a small block in the northern part of the city. Is there anybody here to speak for or against R-2018-057? Seeing none, is there a motion? Move approval. Is there a second? Second. Okay. It's been probably moved in second. If the clerk will call the roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McNally. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. And the Director of Community Development to come forward to do a brief presentation prior to you opening the public hearing for the fiscal year 2018-2019 annual action plan for community development. Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, divine and members of City Council, Ms. Wilson. Is that time of year again that we present our annual plan for approval to HUD? This is our third plan under the current five-year con plan that was approved back in 2015. We have with us today Mr. Tog Watts, who is the Chairman for the Citizens Advisory Council. He's going to come forward and tell you a little bit about the process that they've gone through to vet and approve the activities that we are proposing for the coming year. So I'll ask Mr. Watts to come forward. Thank you, Ms. Sayed. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, divine and distinguished members of Council. It's a pleasure to be here this evening. Want to share with you the details of the fiscal year 2018-2019 annual action plan. As many of you are already aware, the City of Columbia's Community Development Department has prepared the fiscal year 2018-2019 draft annual action plan, which represents the fourth year of the City's 2015-2019 Consolidated Plan. The action plan is the City of Columbia's application, if you will, to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Entitlement Grants and identifies the proposed programs and projects that will be funded during the City's fiscal year of 2018. Working in collaboration with our partners, neighborhoods and community stakeholders, the action plan identifies how the City proposes to utilize these funds to address its community development, housing, and public service priorities and goals, as described in the Executive Summary. On page three of your guide, you should have some recommendations for funding from CDBG Activities and HOPRA Program Awards, which were ratified by the Citizens Advisory Committee formally on March 13th, 2018. The three HUD entitlement grants are covered in the annual action plan. Those being CDBG, HOME, and HOPRA funds, and those expected resources are detailed on page 28 on your packets. The Community Development Block Grant, we have a total of $2,351,323 in CDBG revenue that's available for project activities, which represents roughly about an 8.1% increase. Out of that total, a little over $1 million, $1,026,764 comes from new entitlement money, another $199,650 comes from prior year entitlements, and then $650,000 comes from program income from the Revolving Loan Fund for the anticipated fiscal year, as well as $474,909 worth of previous year's program incomes. The primary objective is the development of viable urban communities through the provision of decent affordable housing, improved living environments, and the expansion of economic opportunity. Funds are intended to serve low and moderate income residents in areas, eliminate slim and bright, or eliminate imminent threats of health and safety due to disasters. CDBG activities included in the fiscal year 2018 address community development priority needs addressed in the consolidated plan, and such projects include public services, acquisition, demolition, economic development, and affordable housing. A complete listing of those activities can be found starting with page 44. Talk a little bit about the Home Investment Partnerships Program. This year we have $867,617 in revenue available for projects for this fiscal year. $617,000 comes from new entitlement money, whereas $250,000 comes from program income. And the home program is dedicated to increasing availability as well as the access to affordable housing for low income households. Activities include affordable housing loans, residential acquisition, rehab and new construction, and other projects. And then finally the last group of money that you're looking at in front of you is the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, in the amount of $1,406,384 for programs this coming fiscal year. HOPWA funds may be used for a wide range of housing, social services, program planning and development costs for the benefits of individuals living with HIV and AIDS and their families that reside within the Columbia Metropolitan Square area of Calhoun, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lexington, Richland, and Saluta counties. Public sponsors being recommended include the Columbia Housing Authority, PALS, the Cooperative Ministries, Transitions, USC's Saka Hatchee, and USC here. Citizens have had the opportunity to comment during the city's comment period which began on April 12th of this year and was extended until June 20th of this year due to the delay in the HUD allocation notification, the city's annual action plan submission is delayed until next week on June 26th. And in addition to tonight's public hearing, a public hearing was held on April 19th of this year at the Wood Forest Community Development and Education Center located at 3730 North Main Street, Suite D in Columbia. The action plan along with citizens' comments will be submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development prior to June 26th and all public comments can still be submitted to the Community Development Department located at 1225 Lady Street, Suite 102 in Columbia, South Carolina. They can also be emailed to COC, C-O-M-D-E-V, compliance at ColumbiaSC.net, or they can be faxed, if we're still in the 20th century, to 803-255-8912. For more information, we always encourage folks to call the Community Development Department which is located at, which can be reached at 803-545-3373. Before I throw it back to council for the opening of the public hearing, I do also want to take a personal privilege and thank you, Mayor Benjamin, for being here. It's always a pleasure to present this information to you, but I really want to brag a little bit about our committee, Citizens Advisory Committee does a lot of work throughout the year. The funny thing is we can kind of compress it down to about four months because we're that efficient. But doing so, we couldn't be as efficient if it wasn't for the contributions of six talented committee members, which include David Jackson, Marvin Heller, Trey Taylor, Ursula Polaris, Pat Brown, and Walter Skipper-Marx. And then finally, the committee would also like to extend its thanks to the fine members of the Community Development staff, specifically Ms. Gloria Said, Dolly Bristo, and Andalyn Rodriguez, who work so closely with us. That is all I have to share with you today. I'll open it up to any questions you have, and we can begin the public hearing. All right. Fantastic. Ms. Devine, and is this a public hearing or an amendment? Public hearing. Both, okay. All right? Ms. Devine. Well, first I would like to thank Mr. Watts and the committee, but Mr. Watts, you've been doing this for a long time, and we appreciate your work on this. And then the second thing I just wanted to, because I know you said a lot, so I wanted to just reiterate, make sure it was on the record that for 2018-19, the City Council is reaffirming our priority areas, targeted redevelopment areas, Book of Washington Heights, King Lion Street, Farrell Road, Business Corridor, and Edisto Court redevelopment. I just want to make sure that was reiterated. All right. Fantastic. All right. Any other comments? Anyone here to speak in favor of or against our annual action plan? Thank you, Ty. And thanks not just for this, but all the work you always did to keep us in the national stage. Appreciate it, bro. All right? Yes, thank you, Ty. Laurie, did you have something to say as well? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We're going to have a motion, I think, as soon as that, so do we move on the annual action plan, or do we? That's 30, right? No, sir. That's a separate item. Separately. Separately. All right. Is there a motion? Second. We moved in probably a second. Any discussion? With the previous question, clerk Colorado. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Byron. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Under other matters, Mr. Mayor, item 30 is a separate item, a community development block grant substantial amendment for the 2017 annual action plan, and Ms. Zayi will also present information on that amendment. All right. Ms. Zayi. Good evening again. As you all know, we have had some challenges with the current year's action plan in terms of the approval and when we were actually funded and getting a lot of our programs up and going. So consequently, we are requesting that council approves a substantial amendment of the fiscal year 17 action plan and that approval will include three items. We're asking that you approve us expanding from the current four areas that you just mentioned, Councilwoman Devine, to expand the four prioritized areas, to redevelopment areas, to the citywide areas that we can do a project in. And also we're asking that you waive the requirement for our standardized NOFA process due to time constraints in order for us to meet our timeliness demands that have been placed on us by HUD, and we're also asking that you approve us transferring funding from our CDBG program income revolving loan fund to the CDBG regular entitlement pot. And that's so that we can use those dollars for other activities other than housing. In your folder, you also have some specific information about the request that we have before you for the substantial amendment, and it actually outlines where we're moving money from what we've had to de-obligate from certain areas or certain projects to new projects in order for us to get this money spent in a timely manner. Is there a motion? So moved. A second. Second. Discussion? With a previous question for Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Carol. At this time, we will move into a period of ordinances first reading, item 33, Ordinance Number 2018-010 to Externet Systems Inc. and Successors and Assigns the Right Power and Authority to Construct and Install, Maintain and Operate. The motion. So moved. A second. Second. In discussion. We'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 35, Ordinance Number 2018-029, amending Ordinance 2015-034, granting an encroachment to the University of South Carolina for the use of the right-of-way areas of the 1100 Blocks. Second. We'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 36, Ordinance Number 2018-033, granting an encroachment to Jeremy Long for installation and maintenance of a landscaping and a concrete walkway within the right-of-way area of the 2700 Blocks. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 36, Ordinance Number 2018-033, granting an encroachment to Jeremy Long for installation and maintenance of a landscaping and a concrete walkway within the right-of-way area of the 2700 Blocks. Is there a motion? We'll move. Is there a second? Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Moving into a period of resolutions, Item 37, Resolution Number R-2018-052, authorizing the city manager to execute a lease between the City of Columbia and TN Development Corporation for the lease of approximately 13 weeks. Second. Any motion? Seconded by Mr. Rickerman. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Aye. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 38, Resolution Number R-2018-055, authorizing acceptance and dedication of streets known as a portion of Allen's Mill Drive, Beardmore Court, Calabash Lane, Peppercorn Lane, and a portion of Sorrel Tree Drive and Allen's Mill subdivision, Phase 1. Any motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 39, Resolution Number R-2018-056, authorizing acceptance and dedication of portions of streets known as Allen's Mill Drive and Sorrel Tree Drive and Allen's Mill subdivision, Phase 2. No approval. Second. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 40, Resolution Number R-2018-061, authorizing the City Manager to Execute a Professional Services Agreement between the City of Columbia and the United Way of the Midlands for the Regional Coordination of Homeless Services in the Midlands for FY 2018-2019. Motion to move. Second. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 41, Resolution Number R-2018-062, authorizing the City Manager to Execute a Professional Services Contract for the Housing First Program between the City of Columbia and the University of South Carolina. Motion. So moved. Moved and approved. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 43, Resolution Number R-2018-065, authorizing the City Manager to Execute an Agreement between the City of Columbia and the Midlands Housing Alliance, Inc., for 2025. So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the previous question. Clerk, Carol. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Madam City Manager, let's make sure we have hard copies and electronic copies of all the previous questions. Okay. So, we'll move the next question. Clerk, Carol. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Madam City Manager, let's make sure we have hard copies and electronic copies of all the previous questions. Earlier today, we had some great presentations from our partners for delivering frontline services to the homeless. She had some concerns that Council and our staff and other partners have about making sure we step up our effort with some of our folks who are chronically homeless, particularly several who may be dealing with some mental health issues and just making sure we redouble our efforts in a thoughtful and compassionate way. So, just want to make sure those presentations are made available broadly. Yes. Thank you. All right. Appointments. The first is Item 44. Council is asked to approve the appointment of two individuals to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Ms. Belton is here. Do you need any assistance? Well, I need to get some candidates. I like. Well, I like Jenna Stevens. I like to move the approval of Jenna Stevens for the Board of Zoning Appeals. I have a District 4 seat. Hold on to that one. Hold on to that one. Let's move the appointment of Jenna Stevens and hold the other one. Mr. Rickerman will source some candidates for District 4. All right. Is there a second? We'll move it by Ms. I mean as the motion second. Motion by Ms. Devine. I'll second that motion. Move the approval of appointment of Jenna Stevens to the BOSA. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. We're not going to adopt the second one. Mr. Rickerman would like to see. What does the breakdown of the BOSA look like? Mr. Davis wants that vacancy of District 1. Mr. Rickerman, y'all can talk about that. He wants to put a Clemson guy on there. District 4, my guy can't serve. I know you can't serve, but. District 1 has one. District 2, one. District 3 is the current. We do have representation in all four districts right now. We do. These are not District Pacific seats. No, no, they're not. They're not. Yeah. But we want to make sure that we have city-wide representation. Geographic distribution. I'd like to move approval of George Shaffer. For what? The other slot. There's only one slot. There's two spots. There's only two slots available at this time. One slot. Well, one. Yeah, we have one slot left. I'd like to move to approval of George Shaffer. Who's the current District 4 rep? Do you know? What's that? That's the only district 4 rep. Right. Okay. And he's coming off, so. So you need the District 4 rep? Yeah. No, but she was saying that there was. So there were two from District 4 and one coming off? He said, when you take the next one. There you go. What about this? Charles Sallie. Chuck is coming off? No, he's the one. He's in District 4. And he's District 4. He is on there. So right now. That's not on my list. She doesn't have an incumbents on there at all. So Chuck's still there? He is. Okay. So for future, when we do the appointments, if you could give us the current ones as well, and then that way we can always see the makeup when we're trying to figure out who would be good. Daniel, you good? Yeah, I'm good. Okay. All right. So Mr. DuVall and Mr. Davis have nominated Mr. Schaefer. All right. Moved by him and seconded by him. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll move the nomination of Mr. Schaefer for Boza. Move the previous question here. Move the previous question. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. DuVall. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Benjamin. Aye. We have a DDRC next. We have three great applicants for three slots. They fit right into them, two reappointments. And Mr. Young is a new appointee. He served previously and he served with DDRC. Different board. Different board, okay. But the code requires one individual as a realtor and two, one serving as an architect and the other as a community representative. So I'd move forward the names of Paul Bachnight, Tom Savery and Preston Young. Second. Moving to second. Any discussion? Community. All right. Any discussion? Yes. And so recognizing Mr. Bachnight and Mr. Savery will be serving as second terms and Mr. Young is initial term. With the previous question. As a motion, there was a second somewhere, right? Second here. With the previous question. I'm sorry. I thought so too. It was one of the boards. I'm not sure. There's no district two rep on there, is there? One in three. All I see is one in three and one in four. Yeah, Bob Winn serving out of district two. Who's in two? Who is that? Bob Winn. Who's district two? Yeah. So three has three, one has three, and two in four have one. That's not representative of the city. Well, the challenge is that we have geographic representation, but we also have subject matter expertise requirements as well. I think Preston Young, isn't he in district four? He lives in district four. Preston's in my neighborhood. I'm one of your constituents, Daniel. Can we defer that until... Yeah, your wife calls me to get things done. She does. Did that sound right? Mr. Mayor. That didn't come out right. That didn't come out right. Mr. Mayor, could we defer DDRC appointments until next time so that we can get adequate representation on all throughout the district? Do the two reappointments and save the third one? Yes, sir. Can we do that? Is that what happens? Is that what happens? Is that what's going... Where are we now with the district reps? Who else do we have on the... Your current makeup is... Three, two... You have three in district one. You have one in district two. Who's your district two rep? Bob Nguyen is district two. In district three, you have four representations. I mean, I'm saying four because Ryan Heiler is vacant, so that is a district seat. District four? District four, you only have one. Tell us again, because remember, DDRC, again, is also occupation in such a matter specific. Yes. So if you move forward with the two reappointments, the two reappointments are filling which seats? They're filling the architect and community reps. So the only one available is the realtor. Correct. And so... You can hold it if you choose to. And district four is currently... Who's the one person in district four? Harris Cohn. Harris Cohn. Harris. He's a real estate. So that puts two real estate... Well, he's more of a contractor. He's a developer. But Preston Young is realtor. And he's in district four. I mean, how do you want to do it? I think Preston's an excellent appointment. He served on our land use boards before. I'm trying to remember which board he served on in the past. But if you want, if we... I think we should move forward with the two reappointments. They're both stellar appointees. You know, Park Knight is a past resident. Got to be seeing them. And Mr. Savery... Tom... Tom's actually just inducted into the AIA Fellows. So he's one of the best architects in the country right now. So if we want to hold on district four, I'm fine. If you want to move forward, I'm fine as well. What have you wanted to do? We can hold it. It's just... Well, y'all got to decide if it's going to be four or two and just know that it has to be a realtor. Well, I mean, to be honest, I think it would be beneficial to have somebody from two since the majority of the issues that come forward are in the central city. Well, let's move forward with the two reappointments. Y'all talk about the others. I think Preston's an excellent appointee. That'd be great. But if geographical considerations are something that y'all can figure out, y'all figure it out between now and then. Just making sure that everybody's in... Move the advancement of Mr. Bach Knight and Mr. Savery. All right. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All right. Please call the roll. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Devine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Shanique. All right. Any items taken up in work session that require consideration? Madam City Manager. Any... I'm sorry, Ms. Devine. Well, I was going to say that we did discuss an executive session, the Speed Humps on Walk-A-Maw and I know that we have several people here to speak to address counsel on that. Oh, absolutely. And we have... I guess we have at least four or five people who have sounded to speak. So I can start going on the list, but there are no community reports or referrals. Are there? All right. All right. Seeing none, I'll go in the order of those who have signed up. Ms. Sarah Schreibel. Ms. Schreibel. If I... Hey, Sarah. If I... If I destroyed your last name, you can correct me, okay? Fine. Thank you. Good evening. Yes, I wanted to address the issue. I know that this was previously discussed at length and voted upon in City Council. So I'm a little bit confused about why the item is up for discussion again, but I want to speak briefly about the situation on Walk-A-Maw Avenue. Walk-A-Maw is a street that houses AC Moore Elementary School. It's situated between Edisto Avenue and Hardin Street. Right now, Edisto Avenue has Speed Bumps and Hardin Street has Traffic Light. And so we are seeing a large uptake in very high-speed traffic. As I know, Council members are aware there was a traffic study completed within a year ago showing alarming speeds over 60 miles an hour and a 25-mile-an-hour road that also contains an elementary school. There are sidewalks on part of the street, but not on all. There are a number of families who live on the street with small children, a number of children in the neighborhood who walk to and from school on that street. Again, there's high-speed traffic. It has been marked in the traffic study both in the afternoon when children are walking to and from school and late, late at night when many of the college-aged students who live on our street are walking to and from five points. As a resident of the street, I'm deeply concerned that there's going to be a tragic accident if we don't take a definitive action to slow down the speed of traffic. Thank you for your consideration of the issue. Sarah, say your last name for the record. Schwaebel. Schwaebel, okay. Thank you very much. All right. Mr. Timothy Stewart. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. I've been living on Walk-Em-Off for about 24 years now, as a homeowner there. Sarah took almost everything that I had planned to say. There is one thing. For the first 10 or so years that were there, the situation continued to get worse with traffic, with students, with Cypatrick's Day. The last 10 years, things have improved a good bit. Thanks to the city. Thanks to USC. Thanks to the Wells Garden Neighborhood Association. Thanks to our street representative. But there is still a real issue with cars going through there too fast. There are small children. The sidewalks are only part way and the ones at the upper end, but directly onto the street. There's no green space there at all. So I believe it's a very dangerous situation and lots of cars have been hit in that area. And I think that the speed humps would do a marvelous job of slowing things down. Thank you very much. Ms. Judy Holiday? I'm Judy Holiday and I live on Waka Ma and have for 32 years. I'm the street representative and have been for 17. I had no idea this was going on, on Waka Ma. We had the 2017 meeting of the Waka Ma neighborhood association, Wells Garden neighborhood association. And one of the ladies stood up and said that she had had a traffic report done. And she told, for the first time, we heard about all this speeding on Waka Ma Avenue. And since the discussion got busy and there had already been a two-hour meeting, one of the neighbors stood up and said, let's postpone this. And why don't you go back with your street on Waka Ma, get a consensus, and bring it back to the neighborhood board. And then we will look at your plan and see if we want to recommend to the city or not whether there should be speed bumps. And that's the last I knew for a year. Then I saw that there was an announcement that there were four speed bumps to go in on Waka Ma Avenue in March of 2018. And come to find out when I called Mr. Duvall. He looked it up for me and said that there had been a proposal and that it was on the agenda. And I tried to talk to the city manager, but she was on leave, so I talked to Jeff Palin and he gave me Mr. Brewer's number. And he is the traffic engineer, so I asked him to explain to me how this got on the agenda without my knowledge. And he said that Sarah Schwebel had represented herself as a representative of our neighborhood association and had said that approval had been given for speed bumps to be examined and for the tests to be done. So I told him that was not true. And I called Mr. Duvall back and he verified with the neighborhood association that that had not occurred, approval had not occurred. So it was taken from the agenda. Then we had a neighborhood election because we had a neighborhood, I mean we have a, yes, Wales Garden neighborhood association annual meeting. And at that annual meeting, no representatives came talking about speed bumps. So nothing was said. There was an election and come to find out without my knowledge there had been a reassignment of the speed bump project on the agenda for a city council. And I went, does that mean I have to stop? Yes ma'am, three minutes up. Okay. And so I feel, I know that there is supposed to be consensus. That's what the traffic engineering protocol is. And right now I feel divided and apparently there was a petition of the 11 people on our street. One said no. And we were completely excluded from this process and so there was no discussion in my opinion. And then one lady whose elderly was left out. But we have a small amount of, we have about 11 unoccupied residents on Walk-A-Mon. The rest are rentals and we've made great improvements. Double and I have worked with parking and gotten limited parking for our street which has made a wonderful improvement. And so I'm very disappointed in the fact that we cannot have consensus. And I feel bad on the street that we're going to have to go over these four hops when we haven't even seen, we just now saw the pictures of them and we didn't know that it was coming. Thank you, Ms. Holliday. And Mr. Mayor, can I just address a couple things? I want to make sure that it's clear, Ms. Holliday. Ms. Schwebel never indicated that she represented the neighborhood. She and several moms who live on the street came, they actually contacted me as one of their at-large representatives with the concern and that, and I think, and Sarah, I hope that you all can talk. It sounds like in the past you all have worked together so hopefully you all can talk. Ms. Holliday has provided information on the petition. We do have the traffic study that our staff has done. I have no idea who saw the petition. So how do you know that those are the residents? Well, but still, as a resident of that, she contacted us and this council heard the concerns. Mr. DeVall did tell... But that is not the protocol, Ms. Devine. Well, as a representative... That is not the protocol of this traffic engineering department. Ms. Holliday, I don't want to argue with you. As a representative of the community, any person, whether they're a member of the neighborhood association, not has a right to contact any of their elected members and bring it forward to this council. And so that is what was done. But do you know who told me that she represented herself to him as a neighborhood representative? Was David Brewer. Well, I'm telling you and it's on the record what she represented here in front of this council was that she was a resident of Walker Ball. She is a resident. Okay, and that's what she represented. So I just want to clear that she did not misrepresent herself. But she was not the neighborhood representative. That's not what she told us. That's not what she told us. So I don't want to argue with you. I just want to make sure that it's clear. I'm talking about the association. I understand that. Now, what I'm telling you is that what she represented to this council, when a majority of this council voted for the speed hump, was not that she represented the neighborhood. She actually very clearly said that the neighborhood association had not taken a position that it was on the 2017 agenda, that it wasn't voted on, and that it was supposed to come back and it was not on the new agenda. So she was very clear. Regardless of how we got here, I think that it is important that you guys talk for my standpoint, and I can only speak for myself, I'm concerned that you've got elementary school students walking down there and independent of anybody who lives in the neighborhood, our city staff has looked at it and said that people speed 60 miles an hour down that road. So that is a concern. We have not had a chance to hear the traffic report, but when I asked Mr. Brewer about it, he said that it was moderate traffic and it was five miles over 30 miles an hour, and 90% was five miles over and 5% was five miles under 30 miles. That's what I was going to say. If she's not seen it, then David, I would suggest that you share it with them, but our staff recommended, and, well, David, is he still here? I watched the video on YouTube because I was unaware of what happened on March 20th and I saw that Mr. Duvall said to Mr. Brewer, did you get neighborhood approval from Wales Garden and he said no. Mr. Duvall said, I recommend that we postpone this until we find out more about it. And you said no. I think they can't have a meeting for another year and they don't have to wait a year. We're going to have it right now and you voted right then. And we all, and four members supported that. And we support that vote. I think it's the right thing to do. But how about this? We're actually not taking up an item right now. This is community input. Mr. Adams has the microphone now. Frank, please. Thank you for signing up to speak. And if anyone else wants to speak on this issue, you can certainly sign up and just make sure you speak. Good evening. Everybody smile, okay? I'm Frank Adams, a longtime resident of Wales Garden. And thank you, Ms. Holliday. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm a past officer in our Wales Garden Neighborhood Association. I'm a taxpayer, a voter. You know, I support the city financially and otherwise. I'm here tonight to best diffuse this, okay? I think what we've got to do, I had an office for years in the State House and some of the expertise is rubbed off on me. Sometimes when you get a situation like this, you really need to kick back and look for a win-win. And I'd like to say, hey, what's the hurry here? We got time for the Neighborhood Association to meet, hear these people out, maybe even receive a copy of the city's work with the traffic engineering, which has never been provided. And if we just take 30, 90 days to wait, we can still do this before school starts. But here's the thing. The big issue is why are we concerned about children in the street? And I'll tell you why, because the sidewalks are impassable. Maybe we're looking at the, we're all frustrated, but looking at the wrong parts of the problem, right? But there are areas of walk-a-mall in our neighborhood which are covered with dirt that is eroded from yards, that has been there that even have shrubs growing out of them. There's parts that are broken. This is a new thing going on in our neighborhood where we are having children again. We have three sets of baby scooters right now on Edistone. That's a first. So we're starting to talk to people, we've got to fix these sidewalks. Mothers should not have their children in the street except to cross from one point to another. If you're using the street to take your children to school, it's primarily, I would think, because the sidewalks are impassable. Sidewalks are for walking. Streets are for driving. Maybe Wendy, can we take a few weeks? This whole process, I'm asking you to follow your process. The process was a win-win for city council. The neighborhood associations always had to fight it out. All we had to do was send you something for y'all to ratify. You didn't pick a winner, you didn't pick a loser, you just signed on to what we had worked out. It may be we may not be able to work something out. It may be that we can. Edistone does have speed bumps. It took us six months of hard wrangling and going door-to-door and talking to each other and well, politicking, y'all ever heard of that? So I'm asking you today, what's the hurry? We need time to communicate. That's not going... And I guarantee you, we can have a neighborhood meeting to address this. All it takes is 20 signatures. We've had three meetings in the last year and only the two annual meetings of one in December. So we do meet. And I guarantee you, I'll be the first to sign a petition as soon as we get these issues resolved. But you've got to have more than a he said, she said, more than... I mean, let's have some black and white and let's have some numbers and some of the city expertise maybe can be brought to bear. I'd be glad to work with anybody because our city manager wants to sign to me or forces her staff to work with me, Mr. Bayer. But we can identify some issues and maybe we can solve this problem. It won't be a problem. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Adams. Thank you. Sir. Thank you, Mayor and members of the commission council. My name is Michael Anzelmo. I'm the current president of the Wales Garden Neighborhood Association. I took office in March of 2018. Michael, it's A-N-S-L-E-M. A-N-Z-E-L-M-O. Good Italian name. All right. Good deal. Thank you. As I've learned and as the council is aware, this is a divided issue in our neighborhood. I echo Frank's thought to bring some reflection and thought in our neighborhood to this. The city intentionally put together the plan, the traffic control plan, that requires neighborhood association involvement. Have the plan come to us. Have it have a consensus. Then we come back with a recommendation to avoid this exact type of situation we're dealing with right now. And as president, I have the ability with my board to call a neighborhood meeting any time we need to. I will pledge to this council. We'll have them within 30 days. We'll invite members of the city. We'll look at the traffic study and come back with a recommendation for you other than having to pursue it in another avenue, perhaps, that nobody really wants to go down because, frankly, the policies, our policies weren't followed, nor were the city's policies followed at this time. I can pledge we will look at it and be back to you within 30 days with an answer. I think that is probably the preferred course of action for everybody. It would help alleviate some tensions in my organization. And it will allow us all to really understand the facts to review the report. I've glanced at it. Obviously, there is some incidence of high rate to speed. There are. But the vast majority of them are, in fact, within five miles an hour. This would be a limit either way. I think if our neighborhood had the ability to talk through this, we could come to you with a reason plan and allow this issue to be taken off your plate. That's all we ask. Thanks, Mr. Ansama. Sure. Have you guys seen the traffic story or not seen the traffic story? I saw it today for the first time. You saw it today, okay. So it is in the public domain. If not, let's make sure it is. And thank you, Mr. Ansama. Make sure you have your contact information as well. All right. Anyone else want to speak on this issue? Although this is community input, obviously. So I want to kind of restate for the record. There is no item on the agenda tonight here, but please. Hi. My name is Andrew Greitach. I'm a resident on Wakama Ave. I wanted to say first, I was one of the people who helped go door to door and collect signatures in support of the speed pumps. We have a considerable representation from owners on the street. My children use the street. I have three young boys. They may use the sidewalks, but also they would like to bike around, at least until they're 15. And when biking, they use the street. So an iBike, and I use the street, and the speed that people drive there is frequently unsafe. It's not the most cars. It's the dangerous cars that cause the problem. Also, one of the speed bumps has actually already been installed. It's in front of my house. It's really very mild. It could not possibly impede emergency vehicles. I don't hear a suspension creaking in the night when people go over it. So I think that the plan seems to work. So I speak in support of this. And also... I'm Rachel Edwards. I love Max and Mr. Dreytag. Is that what you come through the microphone? The speed bump is in front of my house, and I love it. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, and although I don't let him play in the street, if you know toddlers, you know their movements are unpredictable, and the speed bump has slowed down traffic significantly, and I feel like my child is safer, and I thank you for voting on it and making it go in quickly. Because the summertime is when kids play outside on the street. That's when it's going to happen, if it's going to happen. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate the efforts of the Wales Garden Neighborhood Association in improving the neighborhood. However, the announcements of the meetings are not always comprehensive. There's times that go by where I don't receive a notification, and new owners on the street don't necessarily receive those as well. So I think if it's going to be describing itself as speaking and as representative of the owners on the street, it needs to be more proactive in getting that representation. I think we all have the privilege and right to talk to our city council members. Thank you very much for your work on this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Greatact. Ms. Edwards. Most of you please sign on the list, so we'll have your contact information. Yes, ma'am? We're going to wrap this up. I think Sarah wanted one more very quickly so we can wrap this part up. Thank you again to the council and everyone in the room who is patiently waiting for this conversation. Just really, I want to explain one other piece. The Neighborhood Association meeting was highly complicated. The initial meeting, the issue was brought up, there was support, there was an objection raised, and the neighborhood street residents were told to go back and address the problem, discussing and work towards consensus. And so the route going, working directly with council representatives actually enabled us to move forward towards a vote. There was more than a year's work to move towards this vote, speaking back to Frank Adams' comments about Edisto. And the requirements for the Wales Garden require that the meeting be held at a certain time each year. It's actually written into the board minutes, and it is scheduled during the weekend flanking USD spring break. So most of the owner-occupied residents living on Wakama Avenue are employed by USC and out of town during the one meeting a year that is held. Sarah, I don't want to interrupt you. Not at all. I think we don't, however we got here, we just probably need to put some of that aside. Your president has committed to have a meeting within the next 30 days. Everyone who is here, you all need to exchange information. And if maybe also those of you who went door-to-door in Wakama, can make sure that the meeting, that there's representatives at that meeting. If we can also make sure that it is set at a time that is reasonable for people to be there. It is summer and people will do vacations and we know we can't plan around everybody, but it's important that we get this issue resolved. I do want to say, and as I just shared with Mr. DeVall, and I've been here long enough to see it, that even when there are neighborhoods that are split and things come up, ultimately the decision to put or not put speed humps is up to council. It does not, I mean, we don't have to have the neighborhood, although we put it in a policy and we put that policy to have this consensus and have people discussing, but it doesn't say that we cannot vote for speed humps if a neighborhood is against it and vice versa, especially if our professional staff recommends something. So I want people to be clear on that. But what I would like to do is when you guys have the meeting, if you can make sure that Mr. DeVall and I, at least the two of us know so that we can be present if our schedules permit, David Brewer will be there and we'll make sure that we have the information. Are you, what, you want to be there too? No, no, no. And make sure we all know. I don't need that speed humps. But, you know, this council, and I just want, it just has to be clear, this council knew that there was, there was some people in the neighborhood who did not want the speed humps and we heard the information. We clearly did not get any misrepresentation about who was representing the neighborhood association. We heard from residents of that street and a majority of this council felt we needed to move forward, but we do want to encourage you guys to work together. So we'll give you guys that 30 days. You have our promise that after the meeting and if you have the meeting within two weeks, we can still move forward quickly after that, but we'll move forward one way or another quickly after that. But we would ask that you guys go back and have that discussion. I greatly appreciate that. I think it's important for us to have conversation and also recognize that, you know, that the city traffic engineer saw the results of the traffic study and recommended some traffic calming measures as being essential. I just, I want to reiterate again how concerned I am about the safety of those walking and using the street. I am too. We are too. And we'll have that addressed, but we want to make sure everybody has some input. Absolutely. Thank you again. So, thank you. Frank, did you want to say something else? Ms. Downsamo says you don't want to say anything else. Ms. Downsamo says Mr. Adams doesn't want to say anything else. And I'm going to trust Ms. Downsamo on this one. But please, you guys obviously, we're your representatives, feel free to dialogue with us and share your thoughts with us. My understanding is it is a sense of counsel that you all, Ms. Downsamo, put your comments. You will broadly make sure every voice is heard at a meeting in which even those who may not routinely receive communications are included. I think it probably is also want to be very clear that the council has made its decision. If in fact we choose to reverse that decision, that's going to be based on conversations that you all have between now and then. I understand our staff will probably cease and desist until we hear back. But the plan is to still move forward with the speed humps unless you all come back to us with some other type of decision that helps inform us in a different way. So we're going to rely on Ms. Downsamo and Ms. Swayble and others. I don't think it would be any shortage of communication. I would strongly encourage, however, that while we are your elected representatives, I think the communications should probably be centralized and go straight to the city manager or whoever you ever prefer, Designee. I've shared Mr. Anzoma's information with our public works director, Robert Anderson. My guess is there are a whole lot of well-meaning but differing opinions right here. Because I assumed that he would be charged with setting the meeting. But my guess is not just a meeting, I'm saying any other. It's going to be so important. You guys feel free to take copies of names and email addresses here. We've got to make sure everyone is contacting and has an opportunity to have their voices heard. So if you have communications, should they email you or Robert? Robert. I figured you said Robert. R.A. Anderson at ColumbiaSC.net. Mr. Anderson, for those who may be listening and unable to attend, R.A. Anderson at ColumbiaSC.net. If you have a position on the Speed Humps on Walk-A-Maw in Wells Garden, please share those thoughts with him. Please make sure our staff, Mr. Bruin and Mr. Anderson are fully involved in whatever this meeting is. Let's make sure that the document, the traffic study is in the public domain as it is public information. And we're done with that one for right now. I thought we were. Mr. McDowell. Mr. Mayor, if after 30 days there has been not a reasonable conclusion to this situation, does that simply mean that the decision that has been made by council stands? My sense is it's at our attention. So Madam City Manager, you need to report back to us exactly where things are and we'll take it from there. Okay. All right. All right. As opposed to some type of a silent trigger. All right. Thank you all. All right. Ms. Ursula Pilaris. Ms. Regina E. Wimps. Hello. Hello. Good afternoon. Last night I had the unfortunate opportunity to assist in locating the next of kin for a community resident and a former educator, a quiet woman who minded her own business. After locating her brother to see a six foot four man rock to his knees because his only sibling was now in a body bag. This was very unsettling. Sorry, I stand on the stand with you. I'm not understanding what you're saying. He didn't hear the last sentence you said. This was very. This was very unsettling. He kept saying that he kept trying to tell his sister to move from that neighborhood because it was becoming dangerous. But she loved where she lived. She loved the house that she lived in. Her father was an artisan who helped to hand lay the stones that created the house. This was the fourth suspicious fire in four weeks in the Book of Washington Heights neighborhood. The difference is this last suspicious fire had a death attached to it. I don't know who's benefiting from these fires. I know that once the fire occurs the houses are raised and you have the land. I don't know. What I do know is that I'd like to request a lighting study for our neighborhood. And before I go any further I have Mr. Reginald Garrett with me from the neighborhood and his family has been in our neighborhood for 45 years. And we are getting ready to work with Dr. Donaldson this coming Thursday regarding the historic preservation of the neighborhood. Did you know at one time we had our own council? Our own mayor. And we want this to stay a part of our history. But we are positioned to be on the positive side of change. So to help us we'd like a lighting study. We would also like cameras, a camera study. Not just on the exterior along the Beltline and Farrell Road corridor but on the interior. Someone is moving in the darkness of our neighborhood. And we need help. If you could do this for us we would be forever grateful. Another thing that would help us is to come through and board up the houses that are not boarded. The ones that you're trying to reach the families, the absentee landlords the houses remain unboarded therefore remaining a nuisance or a possible nuisance. If you could help us with that we would appreciate that also. Thank you. I shared this with the city manager Mr. Davis earlier about Sorrow Willingham that's a huge loss to our community. And we will certainly law enforcement fire department will be looking into everything surrounding that. I was out there last night from the time they called until they roped it off to escalate the importance of it. So we're very thankful for the work that the city of Columbia fire department did the police department we're just very thankful. Thank you Regina. Thank you so much. Alright, no one's assigned to speak is there a motion to adjourn? Is there a second? Second. Alright with the previous question Kirk Caldero. Mr. Rickerman. Mr. McDowell. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vine. Mr. Vine. Oh aye. Sorry. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Have a good evening. Thank you all so much.