 Mr. Bailey. Pleasure. Mr. Brown. Here. Mr. Carter. Here. Dr. Balsi. Here. Mr. Brennan. Mr. Nodal. Here. Here. Mr. Brown. Yes, sir. You'd like to say the invitation, please. Oh, why? To today? All right. Make it this one short. But try your heads. Heavenly Father, please bless this beautiful day. This gathering of people who always strive to make Columbia the best place for all of our citizens, keep us forever mindful of our importance as well as your importance in our lives as we make decisions for the people of Columbia. Amen. Well, good afternoon. We will get started with City Council's discussion today on two items and about some of them related to each other, potentially the first being our fiscal year 2024-2025 special revenue budget. Ms. Missy Kauffin, our budget program management and grants director, will assist with taking us through the information on hospitality tax, state accommodations tax, tourism development fee, and the liquor permit rebate. Obviously, we are at the end of the budget season. And so you all did a phenomenal job last year of taking on the special revenue budgets early and then awaiting committee recommendations and the like. And I thought it was great that we were able to get information back out to some of our line item agencies and others that had applied for hospitality tax in particular. And then in addition, we wanted to update you all on the special event fees. Mr. Harold Reeves, our special event coordinator has been doing a youngest job with instituting a new process that I do think is working well, I think with the implementation and Council's directive last budget year that we go in this regard to, for the first time, try to recoup some of the costs associated with events that we've never done in the past. We've had really a wonderful start to that. And we just wanted to take a minute to update you all and the public on how that's going. I know Mr. Brennan in particular wanted us to add this. And if there's any, you know, things we need to talk about from your perspective to do any differently, we can, you know, I don't recommend too many changes at this point, but we'll talk about it when we get to that item. So with that, we'll get started with the first item missing. Good afternoon. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. I'm looking forward to talking with you all the day. This is your favorite topic, right? It's yours. Well, sometimes I would like to take an opportunity. I have a couple of folks here. Tina Saxon, y'all know she's our grants coordinator. Many of you all hear from her or don't hear from her, have to hear from her anymore or our agencies, but also Stephanie is with us. Stephanie Sears-Kean, she's a budget analyst, but in the management and budget analyst in the budget office. We have Tyler Ward, who is one of the interns with us in the intern. So I wanted to take a chance, opportunity to introduce, introduce them to you. So today we're going to talk about special revenues, which is our, that's right, it's reversed. This includes our special revenues from hospitality tax, state accommodations, local accommodations and development fee and then local permit rebate and then rebate and some other considerations. And we start with these funds in part because there's some city council direction that we need that will fill in some of the other items regarding the budget. And with regards to the committee's city council, through the budget process, we've done very good the past couple of years being able to allocate an amount during this timeframe for the hospitality tax committee and the accommodations tax committee so that when they meet in deliberations, they know exactly how much they have available as they're making their recommendations that will come back to city council for consideration. So we'll start with our hospitality budget. And you all have in your packet, we did submit a slightly revised hospitality budget, just cleaning up a couple of items just for your awareness. Not too much has changed since our original projections to you during the retreat in March, just a month ago, our hospitality tax revenues, we've projected at $14.9 million. That's an increase of 1.3 over the current year budget, which is about 10%. But it's in line with what we are, what we collected in prior year and what we are seeing in collections in the current year. So we are feeling pretty good about those projections. We're continuing to see some growth in our revenues from the hospitality tax and I'm excited to see that funding source continue to grow. I'm sorry, I want to interrupt you. Now, as council following the most recent credit version of the PowerPoint slides, they have that in front of them. Okay, because I know they also have their previous information. I know sometimes we get losing in multiple things. So I'm sorry, thank you. All of the slides, right? So the slide, yes. So Ms. Erika has provided you with the slide deck. She's also putting for you a packet of the memo that was sent to you on Friday along with the line item agency request. What we've provided today was the PowerPoint presentation and then just a revised version of the hospitality tax budget summary. The presentation that's in there. Sorry about that. Thank you for that clarification. What's your question? Nothing. I figure out which page. Okay. So on the slides, we're on slide four. So in there, it's Council on Herbers asking in their previous information would they cross out anything at this point? Oh, okay. It would have been probably page five. I'm good. I didn't have the power previous. I was just wondering if anything, this packet. The revised revision is with the hospitality tax budget summary. So what? The memo is the same. The memo is changed. Some of the, some of the dollar amounts have changed on this. We have not reached into a revised memo. That was, yeah. Okay. Because the dollar amount, there are a few slight changes to the dollar amounts based on the budget. So we'll go back to page eight. Thank you. All right. So back to the slides, the slides and then the, the budget, the revenues have not changed from the memo that was provided to you. 14.9 million. We've not projected any use of fund balance in this proposed budget because all the fund balance that we anticipate for the current year or any anticipated fund balance is committed towards the hospitality, the Phinley Park budget, Phinley Park revitalization project that is underway. But so far I'm projected revenues. We are already close to collecting the current year budget. So we are anticipating we should see some savings or surplus in the current year. Any questions about the revenues? Next is just for information. This isn't nothing new. You all have seen this information before. This just kind of describes the different allocation groups that we have in the hospitality tax budget. It is also referenced in your memo. I just have it summarized here on this one slide for reference. And this is where we'll get into a little bit about what changed the memo with regards to hospitality tax. In the hospitality tax, you have a couple of different allocation groups. The first one we'll look at is the line item agencies and then the hospitality tax grant review, the hospitality tax grant committee. So last year during the budget process, City Council made an allocation to the committee that was based on the current year budget plus the equal growth in the revenues. So in this case what we've projected in the budget you have before you is the current year allocation plus a 10% adjustment. Of course that's just a recommendation based on how the allocation was made last year. What we're here today to talk about of course is the ability is whether or not City Council wants to take that same approach or consider another amount for an allocation that would be allocated to the committee. So showing on your budget for the hospitality tax committee, you can see that the current year budget is $3,268 and next year's request or projected amount would show $3,594. That's an increase of $326,000 or 10%. That amount is what's different in the descriptions in the memo. Again, this is for City Council consideration. You may want to make some other adjustments as we proceed through the discussions but did want to point that out as the budget does have some flexibility there for that, for those allocations. Next we would have the line item agencies. The line item agencies, the current year budget is 2.5 million and we've projected an allocation of 2.8 million and again 10% of 258,000. The hospitality tax line item agencies, City Council makes those allocations. You have their applications. They've actually requested a total of $3,435,000 which is about $755,000 increase over the current year. Of course we're not looking for the direction today but consideration going forward in terms of how we would allocate the final budget for the proposed budget for 24-25. When do you want to try to finalize this? So today either we can discuss whether or not you want to keep that same dollar amounts and then you can come back and decide how you want to allocate to these specific line item agencies or if City Council wants to come back later at the next budget discussion and let us know how much you want to allocate towards. I would say that the committee allocation is probably the most specific one to make today. The committee meets the first week of May. Those dates are being set for the hospitality tax committee. The accommodations tax committee will meet the following week. So Missy, this, this sheet here, the handout sheet. Yes. It doesn't show on the projected the 10%. It does. It does. So 2.816. The 2.8 million, 8 million 38. The 2.838 is the line item agencies. That's all I'm sorry. 2 million, 2 million, 3 million 594. 800 is the committee. I'm not sure which one we're talking about. Right. And so that is reflecting the 10% recommendation. Yes. But it's also based off what we know it is under the total amount of requests, right? Yes, ma'am. But it's 10% more than last year. So just want to make sure they understood that. The committee, the applications that come through the committee process, the application process, those requests actually total 6.3 million if they were for all of them. And then I think what I was jumping to was the line item doesn't show the 10%. It shows just the total allocation. It doesn't show each group getting a 10%. It just shows a total of allocation amount of 3.8 million pending what city council may want to assume how much council may want to adjust the different groups. Right. Okay. That's a 2.8. 2.8. Right. So again, so if city council, if you all want to stay with that same 10% adjustment, then the total allocation for the committee would be 3 million, 594, 800. The allocation for the line item agencies in total would be 2 million, 838,000. Okay. So just to be clear on the line items, because you all received the packets, I'm probably the total requests are higher than the 10%. Yeah. It's like 3.4 million. Well, we've all, I think gotten letters in the last couple days as well. Ultimately, those requests, the line, the committee request would come back to city council in June. So that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. So that's how we're going to continue to do that. And then the commission, whether it's the committee request, would come back to city council in June for city council final approval and consideration. Any other questions or comments about the question? Missy. So. Last year, two years ago. Put a sad money for. Private ballards. So we that is, um. in the allocation that you made before, it was for hospitality. So is that already in here? So that is listed along with several other requests. What we have as part of the other considerations we'll talk about towards the end. This right here, we're just talking about right now, is just the committee and the line item agencies. We're just kind of taking each of the section of the allocations as we go along. So just to reverse, do you want us today to give you a committee number? Committee number two. And else we'll deal with at round two, because I mean, I think there obviously needs to be some discussion. Right, right. So the question to counsel is, do you want to give the committee the 10% increase? I do. I mean, there's more people that qualify for that process. So I think we should give it to them where the line item agencies are pretty much the same. Well, the line item, there's a big bump in line item. Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. We gotta have discussion around that. But what I'm saying is to be able to give them more flexibility to recommend more groups to be funded would always be a good thing. They had 17 new applications. Which is great, yeah. Which is a good thing. Well, I think a lot of them are including clean and safe separately as well. Those are all, that's in that other pile. It's in the other pile? Well, what we did last year is... They're in both clean and safe. So that application actually comes to the committee for allocation, and then city council made an additional allocation for a pilot project for expansion. And then obviously, the bollards and all of that we need to talk about because some of that's still needed. And that money should be carried over somewhere. Right. So we have some money in the bank. So the majority, I guess the question really is so that Ms. Wilson has a direct, y'all are good with, let's give the committee the bump and let them go ahead and move forward for their May meeting. I think so. I think we have to follow those projections like in past years. In terms of our actual collections or? Well, no, as far as our recommended allotted to at the committee level. This is, let's say four years ago, there was only a 5% projected increase. Will we, would council typically then increase? No, we actually gave them less money than we are now. We're giving them more money they've ever had. This is probably more generous in terms of consistency and the increase to the committee that we have done on a more regular basis. There hasn't always been like a specific amount that they increase the allocation for the committee by. It's really been based on available revenues and the allocations. But as we, as city council has adhered a lot more to the committee, making it more consistent so that they have an amount to project. Yes, they stick to that. When the recommendations come back to city council, y'all did make a few tweaks to what the committee recommended, but pretty for the most part, the recommendations from the committee stood. There may be some people that we feel like need to get a little more money than didn't. So we do a little penmanship there. Financial engineering. Financial engineering. Okay, I like that. Oh, I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't have a word of it. I don't. We got threats over there? I'm just gonna like the word. So I know this is a lot of back and forth because a lot of it, in terms of just trying to keep track of current year of things and then what we're looking at projecting and going forward. So I'm looking at some baseline for how we project. A lot of the committee structures there on board. What? There are a few little things coming out, but otherwise, yeah. Yeah, I'll go with it. That is very helpful both for staff and the committee. And then that way we're able to approve that City Council is able to approve those awards before the start of the fiscal year when many of them have events that start as early as July. So what's the timeline on that? Can you just let us know? Yes. So the committee meets the first week of May. Their recommendations will come to City Council in June. And the Accommodations Tax Committee, which we'll get to as well. Is it possible to get that before June? Sure. Tina's saying yes. Just to help us formulate some of the other decisions that need to be made so that we're prepared to financial engineer it. I like that. Well, and there is some additional funding available in the budget that's not committed to. So we'll go through as well. But yes, yeah. So yes, Tina's made note of that and we'll make sure the committee is ready to make their recommendations before June. And when is the budget first advertised? First meeting of the public? Yes, June 5th or 6th. I think the one thing I didn't have in this presentation was the schedule. Got time to needle. The other question Tina's reminded me about is last year City Council urged the committee, well, the committee made recommendations for their full allotment. There have been some discussions where in the past the committee was asked, the committee held back some of the funds to make like a second round of applications. I don't think the committee wanted to do that last year. So they allocated, they recommended the full allocation. Of course, that would be up to City Council's consideration. That's a better process than, you know, that just eliminates the discussion. This is it. Yes. Yep, so just allocate everything. Let me add, in the past... Oh. Mr. Palin, can you join us at the podium? So I do want to add, so this year any fund balance in the current year, and as he pointed this out, we'll be focused on finishing Finlay Park. Depending on how the year finished, though, we could have excess funds. That has happened multiple years and we usually have those discussions in September, October, so... Plenty of projects. So those things pop up after, because you know they will, the request will come in. We have the potential to address some of those later on. We gain excess for this year. From this year, but we have to finish paying for Finlay Park first and then we'll see what the balance is then, but it's gonna be tighter than the past years. And so when we have in your... Yes, money. That's what tighter means. What was that question? Clarification or tighter. Yes, so there'll be a good surplus, but we have committed it to finish Finlay Park. So the amount left over after that has a tendency to be probably less than we've seen like last year. If there's a... You already have a specific amount for Finlay Park and you're saying you'd have an additional up to a specific amount or unlimited amount. So when we approved the contracts back in August... August 1st. So we, the total, I don't remember the exact amount off top of my head. So we had a shortfall of maybe it was... 1.6 to 2.2 depending upon the... So we used 577,000 out of last year's fund balance. Then we're gonna use this year's fund balance. This is actually working out good because what we thought we were going to have to do is also use this upcoming year's budget to finish it. It looks like we won't have to do that. So it actually means there's more funds in the upcoming year to allocate out to everyone else. The X says we'll be up to a certain amount that is needed. Yes. We already have it. Right. Okay. Tight. And so what we're doing through today, of course, is just talking about the different sources of allocation from hospitality. So that's the committee and the line item agencies. We also have some city council specific allocations. One is to Parks and Recreation Foundation. Those are four events that are held really by the city but are run through the foundation. That would be the MLK celebration, the veterans parade. And now it did addition is the fireworks for New Year's. So they've asked for a little bit of an increase of 20,000, roughly about 25%. River Alliance is a longstanding contract that the city has had with River Alliance in support of work and activities at Three Rivers Greenway. The different activities that they do changes each year depending upon agreement among city staff and the River Alliance. Their funding request is 70,000. That's about a $15,000 increase. Their allocation has been, and we can provide you a copy of their request letter. I think they've been at like a 51,000 allocation from the 90s up until the 2000, early 2000s. And then in recent years it's been about 55,000. I had one little meeting with my fellow members of the River Alliance now. So, but there's never been a situation where we did not fund them at all. I feel like they've been in a recent years now. So they've always got some. Not a recent year. Well maybe it was non-recent years. It would have been 20 years. Yeah, I'm long enough to look at it. So we've had a very consistent support. There was probably some discussion in more recent years about the level of support. I think there's, there may be that request this year. I guess that was a, oh, hey, that's what I was looking for. When Tom's got tough, there was probably some decrease across the board. I think they get, there is this this year. Yeah, they, yeah. And so just from my, they also didn't go out and get other resources either. Well, now just for my clarification, under other allocations, these same projects are considered under, they actually apply through the committee as well. So several of the groups that are on the other considerations, this reflects the allocations that has city councils made. So there's a section on the budget that you have that's broken a little more detailed. And that has fluctuated. So there's, it's not showing really any specific allocations. If they're on there now and they show zero this year, they, those, every one of those groups that are on here outside of the foundation folks, they have requested through the actual committee. These are allocations that were above and beyond the committee's allocation, a direction of allocation made specifically by city council. Yeah. Did we, we talked about or the possibility of parades? Yes. But I don't think that's reflected there with that 100,000. That's right. It does not. So that would be another one I want to add to the list for. And you need to do that through the parks and recs. I would prefer to. Yes, sir. So what's that number? We'll have a, we'll have a good number soon. I mean, I would go ahead and just, I rather us have it, if we don't use it, we don't use it, which would be fine. You know, but I rather us allocated, we know ahead of time. We would appreciate that. Yeah. So, so we think we'll have that number by the. We'll have that number this week. Right. Thank you. Yes, sir. You expected football team to win a national championship or something, Daniel. And baseball. No, but you know, think about it. I mean, you never know what, what you never know what, what could happen at USC. You don't know what's going to happen within a deck. When we came that close two years in a row of getting there, you just don't ever know. So I think planning ahead is smart on our part. And I mean, look, nobody picked the women to win. This year. We had the one, we had the wrong year. Last year. Every year. Every year. Sorry. Tina. She's retired. She is. She is. Missy, I appreciate the, you giving us the applications far in advance. That was helpful to see what they're asking the increase for for the line item agencies. I thought that would be helpful for discussion. So any questions about the other allocation, the only two that we have made a projection on are those things that we know are consistent, consistent with city council's discretion. Of course, the amount is still subject to city council input and direction. And then we have, of course, some other projects and initiatives that we'll have towards the end of the conversation of the other funds as well. Would you maybe have a mistake because I was thinking about the right stuff, the Columbia Streams Art and Public Art Project. Thank you for your mind. Yes. So the only other two that are on here that have not, that are of question as well is the Columbia Streams Art Project and then the Public Art Project. Both have funds remaining in their current year. I don't have the amounts available for you at the exact moment, but we not need direction on whether to, those would be considered for going forward. We're gonna carry the balance forward as it is now. And I think when we were gonna talk about line items, I think the question for me would be in that discussion is do we want to supply additional funding to one Columbia on the public side of art? So one Columbia is currently has your line item, you mean in addition to their line item agency? Because the big effort for us in that line item and unless we're changing direction was really focused on trying to go after grant money and create more grant opportunities for the arts community because we just really haven't taken advantage of what's out there. So we put that emphasis on this year, but I do believe that putting some seed money in for public art or towards a big public project makes sense. And at the time that we chose to go through the Parks Foundation, if you recall, we didn't have a director at that time. We had an interim director that was out and there was just a lot of confusion. I have a lot of faith in Xavier so far from what he's shown me and his ability. I think that's part of why when we go into that discussion, there's gonna be a lot of discussion around it, but we ought to be thinking that we're probably gonna add some funding there. The Stream Arts Program is a one, I mean the Trounce a one-time project to try to raise funds to help fill that up and reoccur the other project, which is the Roving Canvas, that money, that gives us enough money to do this year 24, 25 as well. Cause those average projects are like three to 5,000. So that gives the Parks Foundation and Scott plenty of room for another fiscal year. Sorry. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Are we that boring? Is that memory portion of this? Check this out. I hope it was a good memory. It's sound though. It's sound though. It was great to see you too. We needed the first garbage. We're not judging anybody. But I do think the one we have to consider is the continuation of the extension of the city center partnership. So that was specific to hope and order. So that'll be a discussion point, I think as well. Yeah, it's all on the list. We have the... So... So then as far as the remainder of the budget, the transfer to the general fund is still reflected at 4 million and debt service is 2.5. Of course, that is based on the current existing debt schedule. Then that leaves a remaining amount for allocation 1,761,943. That is of course based on the projections that we gave you with regards to 10% to those groups funding the special allocations as is. Of course, that number. That's a net net number. So that is uncommitted at this point. And it can fluctuate based on any of the other numbers that you decide to change. That family park number's not in... It was the debt service 2.5.3.8. Is that the family park? No, that's the baseball stadium. That's the existing debt. It's really not 1,761. It's 1,761 minus the number Jeff said. So Finlay Park would come out of the fund balance we have out of the current year. This would be over. This is over and above that. You're saying this is what'll be left? This is what we have not yet out. And she knows other things she's gonna bring and obviously we're gonna have some and I think there's some discussions to be had to about some future projects if we wanna start storing away towards those future projects. One being the potential for civil rights museum and for the possible VEVL AME and other projects that you've cut it up. We have a list for y'all at the end. So Mr. Bynch just to make sure it's clear. So this is separate and apart from the balance. Yeah, absolutely. The Finlay Park is with this current part here. But we're looking at projected numbers for next year, right? Projected numbers based on what we have is the budget. So the total revenues for the budget, so this would give us a balanced budget. You have that much available out of next year's budget to allocate. We, at this point, we're not predicting any need for the next year budget to allocate to Finlay Park. We think there'll be fund balance out of the current year and some of the other, yeah. Okay guys, perfect. Yeah, so this is all from starting July 1 to June 30 to next year when you have available to allocate separate and apart from that. We just not have reflected any funds. I see it now on the amendment. Yeah. 23, 24. Okay, so we'll come back to that number. Good to hear. Oh. Yes, sir. Does that mean you said that we come under budget for Finlay Park? No. No. It's up to me then. It's up to me, music. So Finlay Park. The grand budget. Yeah, we'll be, yeah. Finlay Park, the allocation that was made for Finlay Park was based on there being some fund balance from high-spatality tax to complete the commitment for the contract that was awarded in August. That's correct, yes. So in the budget for next year, we have not programmed any additional funding for Finlay Park at this time. We are not projecting that anything is needed out of next year's budget for Finlay Park. There is a carryover in Finlay Park in terms of budget. Out of some fund balance that will be needed to complete the Finlay Park project, yes. Okay. Yes, that would be out of the existing fund balance or current years. Okay, thank you very much. Yes, sir. Okay, so the amount available for allocation at 1.7, that number will change. So based on any other changes you made to the other groups. So next we'll go into state accommodations tax. State accommodations is of course the hotel tax. And it's collected by the state. It's submitted to the city quarterly. We project a budget of about 3.4 million, which is an increase of 454,000 over the current year budget and about 15%, which is about 15%. That's a pretty substantial increase on budget increase. However, it is really in line with prior year actuals. And what we're seeing in terms of overall collections, which continue to remain pretty strong as well. The biggest sort of unknown we often have with accommodations tax is the fact that we receive those revenues from the state on a quarterly basis and sometimes that quarter collection lags to when they come into us. But we're feeling confident about those collections to date that we will make current year budget and confident with our projections for next year. All right. So on the accommodations tax budget, we'll talk a little bit about how the allocation is made based on the very prescriptive descriptions that are in state law as to how the funds are to be allocated. So your budget reflects those allocations according to those calculations. The first allocation from is a $25,000 allocation directly to this general fund. That's reflected in the general fund budget. We also have a 30% that is allocated towards advertising and promotion of tourism. That amount available is $1,013,000. 65% that is allocated for tourism related expenditures. That allocation is 1.3. It really is higher, but the debt service that we'll also talk about would come from that number in terms of the eligible uses. And then that leaves 168,000 that's 5% general purposes. So combining the other part of the state law requirements is that the 30% tourism, advertising and promotions, along with the 65% allocation for tourism related expenditures is to be made by recommendation of accommodations tax committee. That is appointed by city council. So you have an accommodations tax committee. That group also will meet the second week of May and review those applications or do the end of this month. The total amount available for the accommodations tax committee is 2,337,000. In the past, city council has allocated, the committee has recommended and council has supported that allocation to basically two different groups. Again, as defined by state law, it's been like more tourism and the commission visitors here as the funds are to be committed to a visitor's view of the municipality. Is there anything that we're allowed to build in to our agreement when we offer these dollars to the tourism groups? I ask that because as we're working on our branding refresh, I would like for folks to be intentional, especially groups that we should be aligned with in terms of how we talk about Columbia to keep in mind the direction that we're going. And we were very, I think, intentional about looking at all of the different kind of logos and colors and feel of everything out there. And so is there a way for us to build in that with these dollars, you'll be expected to work with us as you- I'm doing an agreement. I think you have to specify- Is it a professional service? Like what is the, is it a contract? Do you make it as part of the receiving the funds? I think you could certainly make it as a part of the grant requirements. And I don't think it's too late to incorporate something that within there. Now they are already subject to branding that the city does provide and that we also do the same on hospitality. I'd like to be more specific. But we could be more specific, especially with the up-to-date that's coming. Coming tonight, tomorrow, as far as the public, well, you'll hear about that tonight when I'm actually looking at it right now. But this is right here is what you're talking about and they need to get it as well. Yeah. Good. Yeah, it's our Crawford's already done it for external stakeholders. As we talk about these things, one of the things I want to put out there in the future as we get to the allocations when we have that discussion across the board is, I'd like us to see the main street and all these groups that we give money to, just put some money towards Christmas decorations and to make our city look like a holiday city is one of the biggest complaints that we got last year. And I think with some of the requests that we're getting, I think we need to allocate it and so that they can do some things from North Main all the way to Five Points to do that. These are the things that we need to be thinking about is we allocate some of these fundings to make sure that not only the branding styles and all that is included, but some of these other requests that I think are important for us as a community. And I mean, like, I know that everybody has their own brand and stuff, but I just, I want to change the culture that like everybody does their own things. So even just, you know, encouraging collaboration and conversation as, you know, people talk about and I know like the Midlands competitive reports, this came up as well. Like we just have a lot of different mini stories that we're telling and there could be a more coordinated way. So I think this could be one of them. Everybody still can have their identity. The reality is incorporating what we're doing so that it's a clean fabric. Well, and I just wanted to say too, that I think we need to be sure we consider that on a case-by-case basis. And I don't know if right now we're talking specifically about hospitality funds, but one of the discussions that came up was the mobile food market. And I think we're gonna do some branding around that. And I was like, well, no, because I don't think that's appropriate to have the Columbia brand on it because we don't want ownership of everything. And so that is also my concern is make sure you get recognition. For tourism, but I don't think that's... Yeah, I think we're talking about tourism specifically. And if we limit it. Yeah, like ATACs relate. I'm talking about just ATACs. We're on the same page. Sometimes we just, we don't want to be the first person they call. Yeah. I'm thinking in terms of like, what are the groups that are getting people here? Wow, I can hear no problem with everybody. The ATACs is basically that. There's a couple of avenues we could look at with that. Tina and I can get with Ms. Wilson and her team and Jeff to talk about how to better reflect that in the, specifically the accommodations tax group, since that is their job with these funds. And I know in prior conversations, they would be excited to be in that loop. And they are the sort of the brand representatives from the city to the grantees. So, and yeah, for this specifically, I think I would love to see it what you guys can do for that ATAC specifically. So, I do. Positivity. Here we go. Positivity. Our engineer. Since January one. So I do want to remind everyone, because for some of us it'll be a little newer to state accommodations tax, the use of it. We can push and ask them to do the branding. When we talk about the actual marking where it's placed for tourism, we'll have to, there's a under the state law, and I can't remember the exact, but it has to be something like 15 miles outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just want everyone to remember that. So if you don't see them using the funds on a billboard, the city or promoting a championship, that's because we cannot use those funds for that. It has to be a certain range. I don't want that. I just want to make sure because we had a discussion. Our work facing we need to be, this is an opportunity to be more aligned. Our work facing. Yes, to utilize the branding. Absolutely. And that's the purpose of the goal of doing the branding and embracing it is to make sure that it is what people 20, 30 and two hours from here recognize. And I think that's an easy conversation also to have. I, Generical, would just say the convention center because through tourism development fee, which is coming up as well. They also pay for part of their marketing through those fees as well. Those have a little more flexibility in how it's used. Yeah. And Tino, I know when we've had the committee meet and when the agencies have come and presented, there's oftentimes a lot of that conversations and they bring on a lot of their marketing materials with them about advertising both in the city as well as outside the city and how to sort of balance that so that folks internal to the city know what's going on as well. And we often refer folks from the hospitality tax committee to remind them point that direction as well so that they're collaborating and getting that guidance from those two tourism boards for that sort of brand recognition as well. So certainly ways to interweave it. So for today's conversation, wanna make sure city council has any questions or comments about that, confirm the allocation for the accommodations, state accommodations tax committee. And it's a recommendation so we can adjust it as we see. So we'll make sure everybody understands in case we don't agree with the allocation. Sure. I will add though that state law is pretty prescriptive that any of the allocations has to be approved by the committee, even if they are city council directive. And we have to report those items up through the tourism committee, the state's tourism board as well for subject for consideration, which reminds me. And I also wanna point out that there is still in the current year budget a hold back from city council in the current year of about $1 million that has not been allocated. And we have a time restraint on those funds by state law. Well, I think too with the potential events coming forward in the next budget year, especially around Finley Park and some of the other events, I think we need to hold on to it for that purpose. How long can we have it? We'll sit down for two years. Okay. Two more years or two years? One more year. One more year. Well, the current year budget reflected a lot of fund balance. So I'm saying at least committed. Well, can you confirm that? Yeah. What is your current thinking when does it die? June. This June. We'd like to say June. So that means we need to allocate it by June. Yeah. That's more than time. Right. We could also argue that really that's current year. I'm worried about that. Give it another year, but... What are you worried about if we didn't do it? Well, don't worry. It's one of the few times you're gonna hear some encouraged allocation. But I would say too, that oftentimes what we obviously do is allocate those funds to the specific groups, but under the direction of city council guidance in terms of how they would be utilized. That's also an option that keeps us compliant with the committee process. Okay. So what kind of leeway do we have all those funds? The leeway is that the funding is allocated for advertisement and promotion of tourism. Yes, there are some other allowances within the state law. Those are the two primary ones that are applicable to the city. And there are, as Jeff was pointing out, there are some, I think generally, it's not in this code specifically, but other references state law about what is a tourist and how far out hospitality does it have to say we're searching for accommodations. Yes. What lump wider, casting is wider. Really? Yeah. So you can create, I mean wider from uses. So you're not as restrictive in it. There's a couple bills floating around. That is at the state level. In the future, we'll give y'all through the statute. Yes. We've provided it. Yes, we'll be so educated. It was in the retreat materials, but we can provide it again. I believe with state accommodations tax, much like how the city does with hospitality tax, we have state law and then there's also guidelines from the Turk committee, from the state's Turk committee. And so in this case, there's state law and then there's guidelines which we can provide. We did not provide those during the retreat, but we can provide the Turk committee guidelines as well. We had to do specific reporting for them as well. I don't want us to see where the gray areas are. I didn't say that. Accommodation tax is a lot more prescriptive as we say than hospitality. And certainly more prescriptive than the next fund, which would be to move this along the tourism development fee, local accommodations tax. This is the same collection source. However, this one is collected specifically by the city. And so we have, as you all may recall, we have not typically allocated these funds because previously they were allocated all towards the convention center through the contracts. Now that we are in a different relationship, these funds are coming to city council for consideration. We have projected a budget of $4,795, which is about a 19% increase. Again, just the fluctuation is based on the fact that this is now a single source of revenue, whereas before we were, it was combined from other entities. So are you saying we do not have a specific dollar relationship at the convention center? Yes, no, we do. Not yet. So Jeff and I are, Jeff is- Not a specific dollar, but we got to figure out what their loss factor is and all of that because we're on the hook, which is a further discussion for us down the road about how to reconstitute that authority and redo an agreement along with the county. So it's a more equitable split, because right now we're the bulk. So as Mayor's saying that that's really the fluctuation there, in current year you allocated 2.7, 2.7 at 50,000 to the convention center We're not under a specific dollar amount as per the previous agreement, right? It's not a specific dollar, like Jeff. For the prior 20 years ending last year, every single dollar that we collected, every single dollar at Lexington County and Richland County collected, all came to, we held it all in trust basically for everyone. First thing to do is we had to pay debt service. Each year that was about $2.6 million. Everything after that went to the convention center to pay for operations, for marketing, fixtures, pretty much everything that all ended this past year. So now I will remind you when we do actually own the convention center as the city, we have a 50 year, I think it is agreement for the group that basically manages all of it. So, they do generate revenues over here and maybe it'd be good for us to, but they don't generate enough to cover all their costs, they do a lot of marketing that is very beneficial for the city. There's a lot of positives on them. I'm not here to promote the convention center though, but the, we can, they're working on their budget now. So it might be beneficial for us to bring that to y'all before. Yes, that's where I'm going. Yes. Last year, you know, going into this, I'd only been in office for like two weeks. So, where I come from, if you lose two point, if you lose $3 million a year, you should be stressed. Okay, that's all I'm saying and you should have, I would be, so all I'm saying is I would like a more fundamentally sound picture of how the convention center operates that I had last year. And we can talk with Bill and his staff. I am sure they will be more than happy to come and talk about their budget. Yeah. I think the other question too, is it from opportunities lost? I've had two times this week, I've had different people wondering why we couldn't have certain things here in Columbia and explaining capacity issues. Well, I'll assume that's true. Right, but it just, this week I had to explain to them why we couldn't have certain things here. I mean, there's certain groups that will never have enough capacity for, they're just too large. Right. And you're not gonna build something for one or two groups that, you know, but it's very interesting that, but a lot of the groups when you dig down into the weeds and you talk to them, it's the hotel rooms that they don't have. It's not the space. Well, that's part of that discussion too. Or, I can make an argument that I don't know if it's valid and I've never seen anything that says there's just certain things that you're not gonna get here no matter what. Well, all I could say is that being in Austin, Texas and hearing the mayor tell the story about the convention centers, we're sitting in the convention center hotel and he's like, everybody wanted us to expand the footprint of the convention center. He said, when we got into the weeds, they realized there wasn't enough hotel room. So we built a hotel first and then we expanded it and then we expanded it again because then all the other hotels came and it was the seat and I was like, could you repeat that story in Columbia for me? Yeah, I don't think there's any argument that the hotels are an issue. I would say there's the second argument about what happens next. Jeff, for tourism development fees, are there guide rails on what we can specifically spend the funds on like for a qualified expenditure? I mean, can you sign a capital lease for, for, you know. The aquatic center? Additional meeting space to boost the local economy stuff. I mean, what do we have as far as, because there's obviously some guide rails with the last pool accommodations. So there are, under the local accommodations tax, there are, the state has guidelines on that. It's very similar to state accommodations tax. The biggest difference is the fact that we don't have a committee requirement. Yeah. It's a council decision. And we do receive the financials from, they come from both the tourism agencies through the accommodations tax. And it's kind of a growing process when we first, as a city, passed tourism development fee in the 1990s. It was really meant to be us and others were collecting it for the purpose of the convention center. So it had always been the focus. Then in the 2000 state, the state updated, I don't know if they passed it, or updated local accommodations tax and the uses for it. I don't think we had a huge focus on that because all the dollars always went to pay debt service into convention centers. So I can get with Michael's season in them as well, just so that we can revisit the exact uses of it. Because we have had them take a look because we do use, if you look further down, this is the right budget. We do use, we're paying debt service for Finley Park out of here for six more years. And we also have city ordinance as to help the director. Where's the debt services in the million? So debt service in current year is a million budgeted, but we revised it the actual, based on the schedule for next year is 972,000. So that's the debt service for this portion. It's fund, the debt service, full debt service for the Finley Park revitalization spread across multiple funds. Going back to the convention center, do we want to just have them make a report to the economic development committee with the council? Well, council, I think that's kind of where I was going if we own it, how are we managing it? I don't know, we're not. So I think we do make appointments. Do we understand they don't make money? We know that. But none of them do. So the real question really becomes is as we take these next phases, the ability to build a hotel on site, get some more meeting space, utilizing the footprint that we have to then conquer and then look longterm, I think in understanding, but I think the agreement has to, because we're 70% of it in the county's 30% roughly, right? Yeah? Yes. So having a more robust discussion with them and understanding and then having a conversation with our county partners, how can we partner better in it? Because we're absorbing, I think this past year, we put $5 million in it, right? Yes. Between the two. Between the two. Between the two, five. 2.7 out of this budget. And then the other million out of the... Give me the 2.7. Give me it. 2.7. So yeah, I think in total, we spent $5,100,000. I don't think anyone else has spent even... Within their budget, they can show you all of the funding sources that come from all departments because you'll still have West Columbia, the town of Lexington and others. They do contribute small amounts to them as well, but we're by far the 90% of the funding. I don't think that's part of the overall discussion too. This is a driver for the Midlands. It's very important for Richland County and the city. So I think having further discussions, but I do agree we ought to have them come first, kind of give us a preview of the budget, allow us to ask questions and then for us then to have a deeper dive about how do we make this a more equitable relationship? We absolutely can set that up. I also don't think it's about whether they make money or lose money. It's about the purpose that the convention center serves and it's about future investment and then future purpose. So it's really, it's not about... Utilizing the space to its best ability is not just to fill it. Right, we're not here, right. So the answer is there's two ways you lose money. One, you got too much cost and the other one, you don't have enough revenue. So, or both. So the question is, are they losing money under the right circumstances? Would be my question. And when we say they're losing money, their marketing budgets are huge. I mean, I'm talking millions of dollars. So that would go to, so again. So that's still promoting the area. That'd be like, we don't get, there's an indirect return from what they're spending out there on promoting Columbia. I think what Mr. Brown was trying to say, he wants to make sure that our investment is actually paying off. And I'm sure they'll be more than happy to come in. And so by the marketing, are you saying that a lot of their marketing dollars are spent on bringing people to Columbia here? Yes. But not necessarily for the convention center? Yes, we're the only one of them, more than happy. Now I'm just happy, more than happy. Yes, absolutely. Tina and I are just rejected. They normally, obviously when they, when they present to the committee they also provide the same kind of information. But now with the introduction of the tourism development fee, a conversation directly with council might be equally warranted. So, so this one again, there's no specific direction at this point. Although we will point out that the current year budget included some funding for marketing and promotions. City council allocated a total of $700,000 across multiple funds in the current year. So this is a portion of that. We haven't reflected anything yet pending additional conversations as to where we are, both with remaining funds from this year in direction that Ms. Wilson will be talking to you about soon. All right, the last special revenue fund is our liquor permit rebate. We're bringing it forward in part because there's, it does provide an opportunity for some other funding sources. The budget, projected budget is rather small compared to the other funding sources. It's roughly about 438,000. That's a big reduction from the current year budget, but that's because the current year budget reflected the fund balance of 1.8 million, which was the collection of several years of unallocating of these funds. Historically, the city has utilized these for primarily to fund capital projects and other restoration projects from Historic Columbia for repairs of the two, the city's two historic homes. And so that's what the allocations are for this year, as well as an allocation to Gemini Studios' outfit. So at this point, the budget reflects available of 438,000. We do have a couple of requests that have come through regarding some historic properties, none of which are specific dollar amounts at this point, but know that they are being considered. So when they do come forward, they would be considered here. There are some other eligible uses for liquor permit rebate, but they are also restrictive as well. We can provide those to you as well. We're not spending any money on beach, we're not spending money on beach, re-enourishment, that is true. I don't see it. We thought Finley Park beach, re-enourishment might work, but it didn't quite fit. And the city has some historic homes to through, but we've done restorations to Kenan already. I'll be working on those historic homes when my daughter gets married as well. Make sure Historic Columbia knows that. Actually, that work is underway right now. I saw it. You could be like our local architect and import a whole plaza from Italy to be put in the way. That's why I went there to see it. Never seen anything like that in my life. Did you go? To the wedding? Yeah, no. Maybe you got invited? No, but we saw it. It's been a week setting it up. Yeah, I know. It's a tractor trailer load. I wouldn't buy it there to check it out. These are big front gardens, put a tent up. We clearly have been overpaying him in the past and Robin has not been asking him for enough money. I wish I was, I wish actually our wedding may be very similar to the convention set. We're running a deficit. I hope your daughter's not watching this on YouTube. I was thinking. I was thinking. I said, so moving on. Morning of the budget, trust me. So most of what you all have discussed today with regards to some other projects. Are listed here, but I think I did hear one or two that maybe wasn't listed. So some of these are items that have come up from conversations with Miss Wilson or through council, through emails, through a couple of different methods. Some of them are continuations from prior years. We've not put projected amounts. Two of the projects actually also submitted applications to the Hospitality Tax Program, but we mentioned them here because they have some significance to the city in terms of city operations. So maybe city council wants some additional considerations. Plus it would lessen the burden on what the committee would have to consider for allocations. I would kind of capture a few of them. Maybe the first two is a signature event. So even if the organizer may have put in a committee request, like number two, I just at least wanted y'all to be aware of it because I think you're gonna probably hear about it. I think there's an effort underway to do maybe a scaled down version, but the intent is to incorporate, even from meeting with formal organizers of Three Rivers Music Festival to really maintain the integrity of it to do something revamped, but probably scaled down and to try to continue it going forward. We should be putting one and two together then because you're gonna end up trying to do two different events that are very similar. Well, I mentioned this to organizer when asked because they were looking for some direction, but I suggested that they go ahead and at least have their application in without me knowing. I think the timeframe for Finley Park reopening may be a little bit different than the timeframe they were thinking, but not too far off. So I mean, I would just say from the songwriter, what they're creating is a singer songwriter Hall of Fame here in Columbia. And part of it was to create a music festival out of that. So on Friday night, there'd be a gala event where people were inducted and obviously their ideas, certain songwriters and bands from South Carolina get inducted on and then Saturday, Sunday, there's concert series, but if Three Rivers is gonna do, there's not enough room for two. We ought to try to figure out how to put them together. Yeah. And as organizers of that have put on Monday after the masters and all these other major events, so they know how to do it. So it may be a good fit. Well, I'd rather do that than have competing interests for the same pot of money and we don't get either one on the ground. Well, I think they're, you know, they were open to, thank you Elizabeth, open to that. So when are we gonna learn more about the Three Rivers Music Festival application? It's in. It's actually in the committee. It's the consideration for the committee. Is it the H-Tex committee? Yes. And so is the songwriter series. Both of those are applications in the H-Tex committee. Which is why we want it, not that we're trying to call out any thing from the committee process, but I do think these are somewhat more signature events and maybe had crossovers that we wanna try to be aware so that if there's any guidance to be given. Well, and I think it's important that they go through the committee even if they don't get the funding sources needed because they've gone through the process. And I think for us, that's always been the best way because we can make an adjustment based on some of the other things we have. There's a request in from the town theater, but it's a capital request for $100,000. I mean, we don't have to get into detail of these, but I just, I've got some of the numbers for some of the other ones that have been given to me. So I can share those with Missy. So that when we do talk about the projects, we have an idea of what the costs are. That would mean for number five to go on there. That's more of a H-D-D, that needs to stay kind of, yeah. Mayor mentioned Bethel Church AME restoration. Not sure if there's any connection there with historic Columbia potentially. My understanding is historic Columbia now is the holder of that property. And so, I think there's still $400,000 sitting around, obviously this is a project that's been going on forever and ever, but I think it would be interesting to tie that in because we don't have the civil rights research and museum center out there, which I just got all the information today. That's separate. That wouldn't be tied into the Bethel. That fits in the bigger picture as you think about the possibility of the civil rights tourism trail that we've been talking about. No, they're not, they're separate, correct. But we don't have it up there either. I think we ought to add it for discussion purposes. We talked about it, but I think we were, I wasn't sure. So capture it as civil rights tourism trail, Mayor. Yes, ma'am. And so someone is, and I guess I should know, but are you actively continuing to work on the restoration of Bethel AMA? Well, it's at a standstill, and that was the conversation I had with Dr. Donaldson today and others. So, they still have like their foundation. Yeah, well, they took that away because of issues that were preventing them from moving forward. They did, you know, they have protected all the windows and all that, but it's still a significant project. That's something that needs to be considered. Thank you to the grandchild of the future. Yeah. I'll put this on my radar. For us, radar, you know, there's a little bit of conversation around the future of the penny to include possible beautification, financing for cleanup and others, from my understanding. Or true litter and beautification. That would actually make a lot of sense. It would be great. And the apparently, I guess there's gonna be some more dialogue tonight, but not in depth. But I do think this might be a time for us to sit down with our counterparts at the county and really dig down. I'm a still believer in that we need to push for roads and sidewalks and the beautification fees, but think about it. If we had folks like they have on the highway that spend all their days cleaning up our ventric ways and all that, I mean, it would really reflect great on us as a county. Pride in our county and our city. And our main thoroughfares free of trash and. We'll just don't a hose. May not. County don't a hose out of the big step. Yeah. That's a great point. There's just a few of those. Thank you. Obviously, you know, one of my main priorities is the continuation with our lunch and the city marketing and promotions, which we have obviously some funds to carry forward. There's the, I think to want to make sure all the council's aware of the two video productions potentially that were funded last, I think it was out of this pot of funds or was it separate separated out? So there was a $700,000 towards those different things like the one allocation for the video productions was part of that funding, but we don't actually don't have an award for them yet on that. So we need to make some. That's all. That's the 175. Right. That was part of that. We're going to carry that out. But there's not been any activity. Is your intent to carry that over and use that in conjunction with the marketing and the promotions? I need to make sure I'm clear that we're understanding what the intentions are. So there is the Dennis Quay video. That's, and that is moving forward. And that's happening. That's happening. Right. So was that part of this? It was, I think it came out of that budget. What is that for? 42,000. 42,000 came out of that. I think it came out of that budget. Okay. So there was that one that came up and then there was the potential for another one, which I think now the thought is to have that focused with the Black Wall Street production. Is that right? I'm just trying to make sure I'm clear on what they are. I think originally, remember we were talking about creating the series that we could use for marketing, but based on, I mean, with what we're doing with the refresh and all the branding, I think pushing that more towards Black Wall Street in the history makes a lot of sense because that could then tie in to the potential of the trail. But I think we were holding off on everything if I remember our last discussion about that until we knew, until the marketing piece was launched and so forth. So we could see how that would coincide with that. Because that was 175,000 that we specifically put away for that for a project. And that came out of tourism dollars, if I remember. So, but there were two original thoughts, the Dennis Quaid, which is underway and then there was another thought about a series. And I would suggest, and yes, until we get to this point with our marketing consultants, so things are consistent in the messaging, not to bring in another person. I agree with that. Okay. So he is now prepped and ready and we just need to communicate that, I think to him that we would prefer him to use those same funds. I'm just trying to make sure there's not expectation that there's an additional allocation from this pot. Okay, so he would now be directed to focus on the Black Wall Street production. Which I think makes the most sense. Okay, and OBO is a part of that as well. Okay. At least, and I think we were waiting to communicate kind of more details until we knew because we wanted to make sure the branding stuff was tied to that as well. Okay, sounds good. We did not have anything committed to this. This works out fine. There hasn't been a letter of commitment to them for the other project anyway. Right, no, we allocated it, but we never committed to a specific project. It's kind of been in hold. Okay, so that's good. And then that kind of leads me into the riverfront part with MBLG and we're kind of waiting on some clarity from them on what they're trying to do, my understanding like an umbrella, marketing campaign of the river. Yeah, where they have all the entities. West Columbia, Columbia, Lexington County, Richland County, everybody buy into it. But one of the things that we specifically told them is that we are going through that marketing campaign and that we need to have some conversation. I have not seen anything yet from them other than the request, which I have portrayed as we got the request, we're going through the budget, but we need to see detail. And I don't, was there a number in that request? They put a hundred thousand in it. But my question is, is what are the other entities? Her entity or? Well, that's my question, because it looked like to me, we were 50% of out of six organizations. Okay. 23 miles of riverfront. Yeah, but I meant it there for MV, MV. What are we, 11 of it? Maybe seven. And then of course. For Grammy all the way to sort of the MVs. Amir, you want to talk about the aquatic center. So we have gotten a request, the old school site off Faro roads for teen acres. It has been approached us. I mean, this is the second time folks have come to us, but they came very prepared with an outlook at an aquatic center to draw tourism, but taking advantage of building multiple pools for therapy, everything else. But part of that being also looking at the other property to maybe build either soccer or utilization fields that could be soccer, lacrosse, whatever, essentially so that we can draw some of this travel ball and these swim tournaments and everything else here that we're not getting here now. There is a group. They just worked with Huntsville, Alabama and several other cities. They come in and they'll help you take a look at it from a cost structure, what it's gonna cost, how many events you need to do to make sure that you generate enough income for the maintenance of everything, which is the key similar projects or somewhere between 15 and 24 million, depending on how vast and how you build it. This could be the shot in the arm in that area to really do some economic development. Whereabouts on Faro road? It's past our place off, I'll get a map site. My question, they're working with the school board to attain the land yet. But my question to council is, is that this might be something, this where we would partner and why it's interesting. Columbia College needs a new aquatic center so they may participate in it so you can make a collaborative effort to build this. This would be a stand the line, this wouldn't be a city park. The question comes, do we want to participate in getting the professional study done so we can really look at it? I would. It's about $25,000 to do that. Pretty good investment, no word? Faro. You said Faro road. North Main. Did I say Faro? You did. Yeah. Okay, no wonder I got it. You confused Peter. You did, because that's my area and then you come back with North Main and then I'll be like, that's not what I heard. Scratchin' out Faro road. I wanna make sure we're... So North Main, North Main where? North Main. So isn't it, it's old Sanders? It's the, it's the school district's property there. Oh, is that right? Now y'all got me complaining. It's on North Main Street. Sanders is. Sanders is on Alita. And then there's the wooded area which is the originally school district property and then there is the school which is behind the wooded area. So if I was going down North Main... It's the old site, they got torn down. That's part of it. So that's not 14 acres. Yeah. They need to clarify where that's going. That's why I wasn't trying to get down one site. To buy our fire station. I got my self-use down. I have the fire. So yours? Right after the fire station on Alita. Pretty far down there. Yeah. North Main. Yeah, come off the highway. Okay, I got you on the car. Yeah. North Main, D.R.I. 12. Our fire station. I don't like to see an option with that under Parks and Rec, not fully private. I just think it'll be easier for us long-term. I mean, I like the idea. I think it's something needed. But I worry sometimes about long-term sustainability of these public-private partnerships when a private partner wants to walk away. On something like this, if it's truly an investment to the area. So just in the study, I would like to see that factor considered. Is this site, once we lock down the site for sure, and I want to make sure it's in the city limits? It is. Let's take your district. It's in Greenview. Maybe County. One of the other sites that starts when you want to tear is which will forever be in the County. Forever. But the other site, between AEDX and Greenview Plaza. We'll track it down. Anyway, conceptually, once we nail down those, they all got the enable of the views. I will tell you though. Because there's two 14-acre sites out there, and one of them is privately held, and one of them is... You want to do a study, you can see that there's a real science. All of Sanders is still all about a school district. Yeah. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. And they're reaching out. In the school. They're right next to me. The woods right in front of the school. Rocky and the school. I can't look at the model, but... No, the one in Raleigh as well. I sold the soccer club that property off of Monticello Road. That was my dad's property, and his buddy's from like 1970 and that whole area over there. And I'm just telling you, they're weird places where these things work and where they don't work. So these guys, that's what I'm saying. That's why you have to do a study. You cannot, there's a science team in this... Business. We'll then look into the hotel aspect that we were talking about, too. That and the capacity. They all, they do everything. They've done Panama City Beach. I mean, they've got a whole process. This is what these guys do. I met them at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, but... Yeah, but people who are on a project like that, having somebody really analyze and say, here's the worst case, best case. And the objection, I mean, the objective in this is really to generate enough funding to keep it state-of-the-art and upkeep, because that's the most expensive part. And we learned that at the Bruce Center. I mean, we were originally budgeted for the Bruce Center. We budgeted $250,000, a lot more than $250,000. So... $50,000. $50,000. $50,000? No, it maintained... $50,000. ...of more than $50,000. That's different, right? But I think we can put some numbers around here and look at it, but I think that's a pretty good list. I know we got another request today, which I don't know, did they... Will, you spoke to... to... The pair, okay. CMFA. They said they talked to you. The letter I got today... They're asking for funding for something. That's what I was saying. Art space or something? CMFA. Yeah. I don't want them to... They're telling my followers to pop up when the... We're talking about Bear Cakes. So the ballers are listed, but I meant for dogs, so... Which we'll add so that you know the distinction. There was always the ballers discussion that we've maintained and kept on here, and we would like to get those. But just based off Sunday, for example, we really have to have Bear Cakes, like the bike racks going all the way down Main Street the next time it was, you know, everything was fine, but we just need to make them... So that it just did that we really needed to have extra Bear Cakes for that situation that it got out of hand. So bike racks, it would be like the... What you saw on the Statehouse grounds, Chief, is the Major Zach Carroll. We would implement those all the way down. Can we get more money for the ballers? The ballers are what, Clint? You want to describe the ballers? They wouldn't pop up out of the ground. Either the areas are retractable or the sockets that you can place them. They're retractable. You know, that's what we talked about for five points in some areas, especially, you know, they can deal with flooding, but also Main Street, so that we didn't have to have our officers' cars and everything on each intersection. They could just pop them up and down necessary to let people in and out. So are we talking about the ballers now? Are we going to wait and come back to that? So the conversation from that last year really stemmed around the fact that there needed to be a concerted conversation with city staff and direction in terms of where a baller would be put in, what types of ballers, the different locations for the ballers. So then the funding was sort of redistributed a little, so I think we're coming in. Well, we put a million dollars originally. And then we sliced it up. We put a million dollars originally. So is the 500 still? Waiting to be spent? Okay, so it's in the bank. It needs some direction, yes. Okay. And so the question becomes really, do we try to go to some of those prone areas, you know, especially like Blossom Street and others to keep people driving through? I thought it was a timing thing for the five points for innovation to put them in at the same time. The ballers down there was the conversation we had a year ago. That, and then some places, conversations about Bollard, some places about Saluda Avenue and somewhere, maybe like the main in Whaley, where it's an arm that comes down. So there's been different conversations. We have the rollout. So the money's there for last year. The conversation is, do we do the other half of it? And we need to, I think we've got a, do you have like a, did y'all tell me an estimate on barricades of the top of your head swag? Another 500,000. That's, that's for the ballers, 10 grand each roughly for the electronic. Really? No, I didn't think it was bad. So how far can we go on the, but an intersection would require multiple. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're 10,000 each. Yeah. Yeah. One ballard and one intersection would require about. Can we do it? No, but you wouldn't do it on all four intersections. On Main Street, you would do it, but we think about the resources that we put on each corner for every event. You don't have to have every vehicle out there if you have ballers. So how do we start moving that already funded all year's program forward? So I think some of it is the direction for staff in terms of the, and then available. I'm hearing is they want the bike racks first for the ballers. No, I listened. You're going to have a hospitality village there, not very far from here. This can be bringing off the, off the chain. We don't get them the ball year's. We promised them two years ago and we funded it. So that's all I'm saying. So what's, what's that? Do you have something? You said it. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm pro ballers for five points. Are we clear from staff perspective on the actual location, no and then the timing of with the work under one? Yes, ma'am. I mean, we've given some specs to DOT for it to be included in the project five points. So we'll follow up with them. But if you're sad, the only location, maybe that's what Mr. Brennan's trying to clarify too. Cause that part could, that's all we have coming for. But the only, but the only two locations, Miss Wilson, we were talking about was the main street and five points. It sounds like we probably might be able to get it done for the half a million. We've already, just the five points. Well, I'm talking about, I'm not talking about the new parade investment. No, no, no, I'm saying the ball, is it 500,000 for five points ballers and 500,000 for main street ballers? That was a general number, I believe. General number. Originally it was a million. You remember, we toned it down. I know we've toned it down, but I want to know what toned it down means. Yeah, is that still cover the infrastructure for both locations? How many did y'all project for five points? So again, the five points were to be included in the DOT project. As we specify those, there'll be some back and forth there into whether or not they had the full funding for the retractable ballard or not. We threw an estimate out there to, without knowing, are they traffic rated? Are they retractable? Are they sockets? And we put them so. It could be traffic rated. Yes, crash rated into what level and that sort of thing. And all that impacts the cost and exactly where you put them are you, if they're retractable or they're storm drains and utilities underneath. So there's a lot of layers to it. We threw some money out there to have a placeholder, basically is what we. How many and how much? So we were, the answers to all those questions. I get it. So I think we can do Main Street and we'll probably end up sharing a little bit of cost for five points as well with the 500. But we've got a map out exactly where we want to put them. So you think we can possibly do both with the 500? Depending on what we get from DOT. Depending on what comes out of DOT. I don't think they had an additional crash rate. It's possible. So we can get you some better numbers, next week if that's helpful and then that can inform the final decision of DOE. And then we need to budget somehow through this discussion, the additional bike rack so that we have them in hand ready for probably going to use those more often than we think. Yes, absolutely. We definitely. Can we get more on the rental market for those? I don't know. I mean, we probably would have used them at Finley right now versus what we had to pay to have the contractor when we were staging. Well, they would have been too low. My mom said it would have been too low. We've been much safer. What's the point of having a power book? Can you assign it to a bike rack? Yeah. I thought this climb weren't a power book. There will be reasons for them for sure, outside of just a price. We think that's a half a million. And three, the music festival. They rent those, right? I mean, they would rent those. We would invest. Music festival or whoever would rent that stuff. Well, we would add that to the list. I mean, they have to rent fencing every other city to do a concert and stuff like that. They just not provided. Well, as part of the special events package, if we have them and we weren't using them for something. Makes sense. But OK. How many racks is that? Do we know? To go all the way down Main Street. We've got a lot. I think we can do that easily, just a lot of math. Because those things are for like six feet long, right? Future career. I would say like eight feet long, probably. Oh, wow. What happened? Tray list. We're going back to five points now. So obviously, since we're already working in five points, we don't want to finish five points only to start over in five points, right? Not like a medal bearer. So we want to try to figure this out in a right way. They'll all call the location, they'll call Allen to do it. I understand. All right. We'd ask. They know there. Yeah. I was just trying to make sure that. I know there's different reasons for tolerance. So I can still remember 10 years ago, I think Joe Taylor and I were in Europe together. And you know, you go to a city and they just, you know, traffic area and become a pedestrian area real quick. Then a bunch of bollocks go, and that's it. And beyond with you, I mean, I would, I would like to see five points become a pedestrian area at some point at night and not a part of it. Watch out, Richard will come after you for that. I don't care. He can give myself up. So I ain't no problem. Just did great. Yeah. It's OK. It's OK. I'll be in all of this. OK. I just want to make sure on the Aquatic Center, it's funding of $25,000 for a study. Yeah, I don't think that we can, I mean, we need to have a study to understand and other partnerships coming to the table. I know that Columbia College and some other groups, this US swimming about having a centralized locate, because the only thing they can use now and it's limited is the Aquatic Center at the University. What about the, we now want to try to partner with Liberty Wrestling County Recreation on this? And they're going to say it. The first thing out of their mouths is going to be like, well, why aren't we part of this? Well, because their track record's so stellar. That's the best. All right. I'll forward the text from Rob with any of you on this. I'm talking about it. I mean, he gets it. All right. I'll tell him to take care of it first. But I mean, bringing everybody to the table, I just don't think we want them to own and operate. I didn't say that. They're buying a new center for $7 million. They said to be part of the study. I mean, it may be an option of looking at all potential partners, and I think maybe it's to look at them. Oh, yeah, no. As well, that's just a one option. Well, OK, well, I feel like the study is going to tell you. Because I'm just telling you, I've been to enough clubs. I've come to a lot of weird locations for club soccer. I mean, you'd be like some industrial park. And next thing you know, there's this huge club soccer fields. And that's exactly what we did at the Montseller Road. This could be a new one. I never know there's soccer fields behind all that stuff. I-20 and that frontage road. We sold like 12 acres back there. It's just going between buildings to get there. I can't tell you. Let's see. I'll take you there. Can you come by? I'm directionally challenged a couple of times. I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. OK, so this is kind of what we knew. Are there any others that were not including anything else you can think of that? The question comes up for civil rights pleasing research center. But I mean, some of these projects, to be honest with you, probably could be in 25, 26, 24, 25. But I do think we ought to be thinking ahead as we're talking about future allocations and fund balances and other stuff. I think there's agreement, though, I guess from my perspective, as far as internal city needs the Christmas lights somehow addressing that, that seems to be decorations. Don't we have decorations that go down Main Street? Do I know this? So it is the goal to have consistent? Yeah, that's what everyone can do their own kind of thing. I think we want to have all our districts to have decorations up. Consistent? I think it makes sense if there's and is this us compiling additional decorations or is this us acquiring partners to attribute something toward that risk? We're giving all of them money because what we want them to requirement is to take a portion of that. And I'm hoping that we would have spruce up for Christmas. I mean, I tried to get them to put Christmas trees out last year with just little lights on it to create some atmosphere. We did. On the side of City Hall, and it looked awesome. But I was like, I know, but it'd be nice to have it all the way down, yeah. I somewhat have some type of gateway in the Columbia College that is complementary to everything else. So I think, again, as some of the discussion is, I'm just trying to get direction. You want us to potentially have some funding that the city utilizes. But if there are partners like City Center Partnership, who has typically would have been there, and then what they've got going on there now, I mean, that means. Well, I think the bigger discussion with them is they're looking for permanent lighting that the foundation wants to pay for. But I think they still got enhanced with some Christmas stuff. It can't just be the lights. Because we can't afford to put lights up everywhere. OK. Can I ask you something real quick, Ms. Moore? Sure. Under city beautification in your mind, what is that? What's that entail? So I wanted to continue and expand upon the programs we've started, where we have dedicated teams and sweeps in the main corridors. I mean, from your perspective, Clint, with Robert, do you want to speak to that? What we're trying to do, but we just we need dedicated funding. So I'm going to consistently accomplish that. So I think a lot of how we've used the funding that we've gotten so far and how we plan the rest of the plan for this fiscal year is contract mowing. We're adding two more corridors, North Main and Fairfield Road, to the mowing contract. So our folks aren't doing the mass mowing. We've got contractors doing that. We've certainly got our litter and edging crews that are doing their work on the corridors. We've done several beautification planting projects around the city. And I've got a breakdown of how we've I've got a breakdown of how we spend every one of these dollars or what the plan is. Yes, sir. I think we do a good job of the actual plantings and the beautification, the stuff that's supposed to be not on our plate, that is trash, the most frustrating. The medians and the trash, the mowing of the corridors that really aren't ours. We know and lead the trash there. Let me ask you a question. A lot of that's DOT. On that subject, let's say you're in an area by Golden Acres where they have all these ditches. And it looks like there's a water sewage pipe right there. Can those be closed up? Those are DOT ditches. Those are DOT ditches. That entire neighborhood's DOT roads. That's why I've been trying to help them. And I think Chris can help with that. So anytime I'm thinking about any neighborhood rush these ditches like that, is that usually a DOT ditch? No, not necessarily. It depends. You've got to look for the road sign. It depends on who owns the road, is usually the person that owns the ditch as well and whether or not it's piped or not. So we look at beautification as closing up some of the ditches that are our roads. Some of those neighborhoods that you check your mail and go to the right, you may break your handbook. Piping some of the ditches next to them, sure. Yes. We've also got to be prepared that they get clogged up too, so I think it's warranted not just because somebody wants it, I think it's better. But if it's warranted because we had that situation where we did out, I don't know if that was Northwood Hills or somewhere we did something and then it got all clogged up and created a whole another problem. Some of them they need because they're trying to work. But are you talking, are you talking about storm water? Storm drains, yeah. Because you remember when DOT put a lot of the roads in, they never got right-of-ways and stuff and so they just spill or standing, they get clogged up. There's not enough continuous maintenance. Is that a donut hole? What you're talking about? A city, but it's all. City but DOT streets. They've been wanting to get the roads repaved and we looked them up on the ladder their way down. We've also found, in terms of the median sweeping, we pilot tested several pieces of equipment, pieces of equipment and we did find an attachment that can go in one of our trucks that has a sweeper arm that'll do a fairly good job of getting the dirt off of the medians and that's why the weeds grow on the medians. If we can get them cleaned, occasionally do painting but doing the sweeping of the medians as well as the streets is gonna keep the weeds down quite a bit. Arnberg and Sumter both have bought what looks like a vacuum truck. That's actually a trash truck that they can go buy and ride down and suck up all the stuff. Robert says, you can get an attachment like that that can go on our street sweepers. So they could actually, instead of sweeping, they could go buy and suck up all the trash first and then go and he was gonna look into it to see what that kinda cost. I told him he should ask for it in his budget if he hasn't but he should. I think he has. So what is all that cost in the past couple of years? Cause we've tried to make that a priority, Ms. Wilson. What did we plug in for that? So 800,000 in this last year? Yeah, 800,000 and there was an additional 300 that was coupled with what was carried forward. So total over the past few years is an odd number. That took into account, us taking care of rows we were not on, we shouldn't. Yes sir, mowing the main corridors that are not our responsibility but again, DOT mows them twice a year and they don't pick up the trash before their mode. And so it looks terrible after their mode. I'm not throwing rocks at DOT, it's just the reality of that. But to keep those cleaned up and cut every two weeks, we're spending a good bit but I know we're seeing some return on that. So DOT moders, how many trash do you mow? They don't pick up trash that's buried in the, when the grass gets high in the summertime, they don't see the cuffs and different things that are out there and then when you mow it, it just shreds it to pieces and it looks terrible. So we try to keep it cut down and picked up along those corridors. I'm pretty sure we've already expressed that in your problem. Oh, yes sir, you know. And we hear about resources and so that's the response. Is there an amount you all want us to choose for? $0.8 million, add a million to it. That's what it's gonna take a lot. It takes a lot. I mean, is it like the secondary streets? No, it takes a lot, it absolutely does. Last question, some sort of beautification plan that we have, like we were talking about the corridors and is there a plan that we have that we can say, hey, here's what we're doing on this side of town or that side of town? Yes, sir. And I owe that to y'all. Where we've got plantings, what we've done, where we've got additional plantings planned, the corridor cuttings that we're doing, we've put that together and we've got an accounting of every dollar that we spent. So they're doing a good job of keeping up with that. So I'll share that as well. And again, I think the forestry team does a great job with the plantings. The medians look good that we're in charge of. That's right. And it's a combination of forestry and beautification folks and then also the solid waste, that streets weeping and that sort of things. Some of that was already part of the program that was part of the regular operating budget. That's right. This other money that we talked about has done one time most. It wasn't programmed as the... But I think what I'm hearing is we need to get to a sustained number that we are setting aside because, well, to sustain the program that we aspire to have. It has been included in submitted budgets, but that'll only be about... And if the legislation's happening for that to be included in the extension of the penny, we should know that number. To really take care of every mile of every neighborhood. That's what Councilman Brown was here talking to me about. So he's proposing that as part of it that they carve out X amount. And that's what we need to know what that number looks like for us to truly take, I don't know, DOT right away is everything. Within the city. Yeah, 492 miles worth of roads. So what is that equate? That county or city? That's us. A city line? A city line. 72% are owned by the state. So if we could figure out what they charge on the highway for that cleanup service, then we could put a number to it. Once every one. Three weeks. Yes, Ms. Herbert. I know, because the men were talking. I just wanted to... Oh, as far as the Christmas decorations, making sure we include Harveston, that they're considered as a part of it as well. That's good. Because of all the hospitality dollars that they bring to the city of Columbia, that they do not use. So our notes were really reflective of getting Main Street up to speed, but is that the direction you all want us to address the other hospitality? Robin and I had talked with Harveston a while ago about doing something. Their plot? Well, I think it was going to be a departmental thing with the Christmas stuff. And we needed to have a follow-up meeting and didn't have that opportunity. But it came out of the discussion of how much income comes from them, but they aren't organized as such to take advantage of using their hospitality dollars. Well, they had multiple times. They've had different directors and this and that, but they're also, they're not generating the funds that they used to generate either. These are for Christmas decorations. No, but I think from the application process, are they applying for money? Because part of what we were talking about in the Christmas decorations is making that part of the requirement is we fund these multiple groups. We fund Five Points. We fund Vista. We fund NOMA. We fund, you know... Well, when we met, we talked directly with Robert. It wasn't through a funding process, but putting it in his budget, that was a discussion we had. Yes, for Harbison? Trying to figure out what can we do? What's the appropriate best thing that can be done? Nobody does. Nobody does. It will talk to him about it. I don't know. This is equipment I wanna add. But we pulled, I pulled in Robert for what can we do in order to figure out where it comes from. We needed to look at it and we were just trying to figure out making sure we have something in Harbison. And I am saying that that may have dropped off the radar in the follow-up on my year. We used to fund ice skating. Ice skating, right? Yeah. What happened to that? What was the closer deal? Well, we had a window of opportunity to use the Museum of Art location and then there was construction going on and then that went on. We didn't do it that year. Where did we do it? Harbison? We put it, we did it at Columbia Anna that year. And for the, I mean, people liked it but for the amount of money and the security necessary to do it right out there, it wasn't sustainable. But... That'd be a great time for a taker's feature. Have to do a wrist and maw if you're listening. Part of, as we talked about Christmas lights is trying to have a Christmas market where you could put local vendors, like the people that are on Soda City in a place where for two weeks or something, they're in one of our parking lots and it stays open and it's a place people could come visit like they do in other cities, a true Christmas market. I mean, that's what's on, that's what we put here. But I guess that's what I want to make sure I'm clear about and then we probably need to turn the corner here for the last session. Whatever funding we are able to dedicate is the effort for Main Street Christmas lights in some shape or and or decor in some shape, form or fashion. Is that the first priority of what you, because you can continue to tell us that you were being inundated that it wasn't best. At Christmas time, it was really about, but I think we really want to push it towards our hospitality, the districts that there's some Christmas decorations. I think the lights that we're seeing on Main Street are gonna get taken care of by the foundation. They're in discussions now with the Boyd family who wants to do a canopy. The question is how do they do the canopy? I suggest to those folks that they do vertical lights, not the other lights. Okay. I'm asking you to agree on what are the house of houses? Right, right. So I've heard, so if there's an effort with the hospitality districts, you're, are we talking about the behind street and Rosewood, are we talking about the main ones like North Main and Park. I think that's right. I mean, I think you start with the corridors there. The hospitality corridors and. We should have a good list of the merchants associations that are active, right? I don't know. I don't know. That's why I was asking if we're talking about consistency or we're talking about just having something here. Because North Main. I mean, you know y'all, it could be as simple as buying 254 foot Christmas trees and having one in every storefront with lights on it would be super inviting. It doesn't have to be these ornate things hanging from poles and all of that. I think if you put clear lights down Main Street and trees, that's gonna make a difference right there by itself, just consistently. But again, if we're just trying to understand what the intentions are. You can also turn it into like, sorry though. Something fun where like the businesses get to decorate the tree to advertise, you know, their stuff and like when you have pride, like, oh, our business put this together, you start to see some cool things. Well, I'm riding through those neighborhoods that have a Christmas tree at the end of their driveways or whatever. I mean, it just makes you feel like, you know, I don't think we have to go elaborate decorations, but maybe it's, you know, Christmas trees for all these main corridors and it just creates that feeling. I don't know what the answer is, Teresa. I just think we'd look at. You can tell us who to haul my watches out here. I love Hallmark and I love, I mean, I love the idea. For years we had, you felt Christmas-y downtown and you know, some cities are putting up, you know, tents and putting these pop-up bars in a way for you to go make a reservation and have drinks and appetizers, just, and a different way of doing it. I mean, I love Hallmark and I love the idea. I mean, for years we had, you felt Christmas-y downtown and you know, some cities are putting up, you know, in a different feel where it feels like a winter lodge, you know, we just, That was my under, that's why I'm just asking because I want it, you know, when you focus in on downtown, so that was what I thought the focus was and not getting so much into the districts if there's some needs there then we can help with that maybe, but yeah. But I still think that we should put in some kind of language if they're getting these hospitality dollars that they have to work with us for a holiday decor. I don't know the right language, but something to encourage them. And I'm not in the weeds on the numbers either, but yeah. But I would love to consider bringing ice-gaming back if we could have it. I'm proposing a wife on the ice-gaming in 2000. I wish you had the gentleman. Hey, well, hey, hey, I can't do, I can't remember you. Hey, mate, we're not here to take care of your, and I think you're the first one to put a mom in this, guess what I'm gonna do. Did you really? I think I did. Oh, God. Yeah, love her. I remember when he was just going to camp. That was a sign right there. Hey, you can go to Chaffin' any time. Exactly. You got an ice-gate rink right there off the table. Yeah, but take the ball. You get a hot chocolate and you go to the main street. Cancel ice. Cancel ice roasting. Yep, cancel ice skating without ice. Yeah, Daniel, it's nothing like your nose. It was very well utilized when it was on main street. It was. Yeah, I mean, riverfront is also beautiful. Riverfront's gonna be a little busy. All right, so we will take all this under advisement and we'll be back for more. Let's switch gears if that's okay. To our last item, which is the update on special event fees. Mr. Harold Reeves, special events coordinator. Can we put that face in to cheer up for that sound? Send him the Harold. Address. Home address. That's right. Good afternoon, Ms. Wiltson and Council. First of all, I wanna start out by saying it's great to be back home. I literally grew up in the city of Columbia and raised my family and now to have the opportunity to come back and perform a job that I love and have passion for is just an incredible opportunity. So I wanna say thank you for giving me this opportunity. If Councils will, I'd like to kind of give you a high level overview of where special events and the fees were this time last year and then where we are now if that's okay. This time last year, the only fee that was collected to have any event in the city of Columbia was a $5 special event parade permit. There were no fees for road closures. There were no fees for constructions or cranes. Nothing to help offset or cover the cost for events. Fast forward to June of 23, whenever city council revisited the city ordinances that took effect in January of 2021. I was hired in December, started working immediately with staff and the community. The fees were instituted in January as described in the ordinance. One thing that I want to make clear is that staff did a great job of presenting council with comparisons of other cities and municipalities our size to get an equitable and fair fee structure of what they were charging to make sure that our fees are either the same or lower than what our other sister cities have around this region. And they've done that. One question that we have and that everyone has been talking about is when it comes to street closings for neighborhoods and what is a neighborhood block party versus a neighborhood doing an event where you're inviting people from the outside in? And what I'm talking about is so far this year we've had five neighborhood street closing requests. And of those cotton town art crawl, they requested to close six streets. They had 18 barricades, 14 roll carts. They did street sweeping for a total of $885. Lent on loan was an event that occurred in Shanding, South Prospect. It was a little neighborhood get together. They did the $25 parade permit, nine barricades for a total of $115. A community Easter egg hunt on Ashley Street by the Gamma New Omega $25 permit fee for barricades, $65. Art in the gardens, Wales gardens. We had some pushback there. That was $25 permit fee, six barricades for a total of $85. Crosthill Neighborhood Association was a special event fee of $25, six four barricades for a total of $65. We have one coming up, Art in the yard, Melrose Heights, which is five streets, $25 permit, $160 for 16 barricades, for $185. Why do I say that? Because I'm looking for recommendations from you all. A normal neighborhood street closing, as y'all know, I'm the neighborhood president for Hampton Ridge Neighborhood Association. Okay, 25 for the mic. Neighborhood Association. We collect an annual membership to cover these costs. So we expect to be able to do that. A normal neighborhood street closing would average about $65. That's the $25 special event permit and then $10 per barricade and it normally takes four barricades. I think what we need to look at and get direction from you is whenever the neighborhoods are not doing just a simple neighborhood street closing, but they're encompassing art crawls or art in the yard where you're bringing people from outside the community into the community. And I'll just use Melrose Heights. As an example, I went and met with them, had lived with some band-aids, this was when we first started. But before we left, I was able to give them some recommendations about finding other opportunities to raise funds. And they did, they took sponsorships. So they got some businesses from that area and received sponsorships to offset the cost. Harold, can you go over that specific charge for Melrose? Yes. What does that entail? That's a $25 permit, the special event permit fee. They're using 16 barricades because they're closing all five streets. And then that's it. Barricades are $10 a piece. So they're 16, so that's $160. And then the $25 special event permit fee, $185. $185 is the expense from the neighborhood assessment. Yes. And they're not using any off-duty. No, they've never used off-duty officers in the past. And the permit fee, that $25 fee, that's in line with any neighborhood. That's different. Is the permit fee different for a different type of entity? Yes, and we can go over that if you don't mind. Of course, the major festival or events, permits are $100. Festival or any kind of outdoor event is $100. When we get to private or public gatherings, that may be sale or service of food, beverages, outdoor entertainment is $50. And then our private or public gatherings, which includes food, beverages, outdoor entertainment is also $50. And then neighborhood gatherings, block parties are $50. I'm sorry, it's $25. So you've made some provisions from normal festivals to where it's least impactful on the communities and neighborhood associations. We have shortened the timeline of when they have to contact you to put the permit in motion for that permit, right? It used to be a pretty long lead time. It's 90 days for most of them and then 60 days for the public or private gatherings and 30 days for a neighborhood. 30 days for a neighborhood. But I work with everyone. I mean, we understand that things happen. So as long as it's within reason, we work with them. So no one has been denied on a time basis. Is there any kind of liability coverage in that permit process? I mean, what is the core reason we do a parade permit? I mean, there's got to be some sort of official record. Yeah, we've got to have some type of awareness so that the police department public works. Every year has an opportunity to be aware of it, to be able to respond to it, plus 911 fire. Everyone has to be made aware that that's a car. You're all made aware of it. Yes, yes. So Cotton Town, they would have had, their permit fee would have been 100. Cotton Town was eight, yeah, it was $25. The art call. Yes, yes. And so how did we get to the total price was 800 and sometimes? Yeah, they closed six streets, which was 15 roller coasters, but they requested the street sweepers. That takes eight hours at $50, so that's $400. That's, yeah, that was something that they requested. And of course, they did pass that along to the vendors and all that they had. How much are the roll carts? Roll carts are $20 a piece. And we come out there and pick up, drop off and pick up full cans. And understand, I know that you all did this whenever you passed the ordinance, but this is not covering the cost. This is just merely trying to offset some of the costs. And real quick, while I'm thinking about it, you know, when you did the permit processing fees for the cranes and contractors and all, it's working. I'll tell you that right now. From January one to now, we've raised, or not raised, but we've received $13,500 in permit fees. One story I shared with several of you all, back in January, I had a contractor come to me, wanted to close the 600 block of Assembly Street, the outside lane, and I gave him a bill for $16,000. Automatically came back for eight days. So I mean, it's making them, it's holding them accountable. They had originally asked for what? Yes, they wanted a 30 days, so that would be $16,000. You need that long. And so it is holding and making these contractors and crane companies think about what they're doing and they're being accountable. So Mr. Mayor, let me ask you this. So if some neighborhoods are more organized than others, is it can we have staff look at creating some sort of grant opportunity for neighborhoods that don't consistently have those funds available if they wanna go a neighborhood gathering route? Sounds like our contractors fees alone for closing the street might be a good source to do a set aside for neighborhood community-minded events. I mean, what's, I wouldn't thank them for a qualifier for that, I mean, because I heard from a neighborhood who was like, I think, and then I find out they got 40 grand in the bank. Oh, yeah. That's why it was like, wait a minute, I don't understand. Let's rely on staff, community development, CCNs, tell us, give us some parameters of what an applicant would look like for a grant. I would like that, I mean, because I've been to some neighborhood meetings where you have, it's a big deal to try to get $10 dues from some of them. And staff can make the decision, maybe community development. They'll know if it's a neighborhood who has money and is just trying to, or just him and Hong about paying a little bit versus a neighborhood that hasn't had a event and they really don't have to pay members. It could be good for the neighborhood. Throw out an option of consideration. You could give away, and maybe you just use national night out is, is that when they close streets and they do all that, that's a gimmie on us. Cause we're part of the, we're sponsoring that event. We're encouraging it with our, and so these neighborhoods, that's usually the main event that they have anyway, so that would be the gimmie and everything else you just pay the fee. It's not that much, you know, instead of because, because if we start exempt and what's the limit though, who says that a neighborhood then is not gonna start closing down the street every other weekend cause they wanna have a gathering. You know, I mean, I'm just, I'm thinking of the reverse of the devil's advocate, where does it draw the line? And then how do you make that inclusionary all the way across? Cause everybody, some organizations don't have any dues. Some of them do. But we sit here and we, great points, but we sit here and we wanna say we wanna build CCN in the 117 neighborhoods in Columbia because what, maybe 20% of them are active. I mean, we should look at this as a way to start bolstering interest in your community, hey, this is available. Do you wanna just close down a street on a Sunday? But we don't want that to be abused, obviously. We don't want wine tastings every weekend in whatever neighborhood. So again, I would just rely on, I would like to get feedback from staff, from community development, from Harold. What are people saying? I mean, I think about the Belmont neighborhood. They don't shut down a street. They take over the church parking lot that's their partner in there. Well, that's like my neighborhood takes over the park, but a lot of my neighbors don't have parks to take over. Thinking about that. So I mean, I think there are options and I get, I just think if we're gonna give a gemmy there, we need to figure out what that gemmy is. I kinda like that this year. What I really like to do is let this year kind of play out, you know? And let's kind of do a 2024 review at the end of the year, kind of see what worked, what didn't. And if we wanna make some slight changes to it, I'm all, I think it'd be good before we tweak it to let it kind of resonate. Some of the complaints I've got is most of them are, but we've never had to do this before. But that's gonna happen. I know, that's what I'm saying, but that's not technically a legitimate complaint. We can't do it. That's what I'm saying. We've never had to do it. Because we haven't done it before, it's not a legitimate complaint. If it was onerous enough where it actually stopped behavior that we wanna promote, I would be the first to say, we messed up. But I just think it's because people don't want, haven't had to do it in the past and they don't want to. I'd rather pay for the barriers myself out of my account than start exempting because then I just don't know where you draw the line. Well, that's what I was, you know, seriously. I mean, I hate to say this, but in a lot of these places, you know, and we have one specific group, you know, and what really made me go back to saying, I think we're doing the right thing was, the person said, I have 400 people I have to report back to about $65. So, I mean, do the math and you can put a jar, okay, at the event and it would be taken care of. So I think in a certain way, though, that we just, we should let this kind of play out before we start tweaking it. I think if you look at the volume of the events that we've done, and apply exactly what we've done. All right. Don't let Eric to get the ruler out. Sorry. I think if you look at the steps that you all've taken, which is a complete route, you know, it is something brand new and it's changing. And we all know how everybody adjusts to change, but you're talking about, you know, two or three, you know, outliers that where somebody's not really happy in the grand scheme of things, this has worked beautifully. And I think it's probably checked some people that we would spin up for an event that was, you know, was for a very small group. And maybe they've reconsidered and just done something that they can manage better without, you know, involving the city. And I mean, it's been, to me, it's been a widely successful one year mark from when we put it in place. January one. I mean, to be honest, I'm kind of like Daniel, you know, I mean, I would, you know, I would rather help the neighborhoods that I represent, figure out how to find sponsors and actually kind of raise the level of what they're doing than to go backwards. So that's what I'm going to write is from the city managers to try to find alternatives. Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, I would rather, I would rather say, let me help you. Let me help you. Okay, because that's what my job is anyway. I mean, Councilman Bailey wanted me to interrupt. And I said, I was raised as a lady, so. But I did have a question. So Cotton Town, I think probably had one of the bigger bills, but they also get hospitality funds. And can you use hospitality funds to pay for some of those costs or that would have to come out of their money? Are y'all listening to the question? Or do they not get it this year? They have an application next year, but then some of the, like permits would not be one of the eligible expenses. Okay, that's what I was asking. Some of the expenses would not be eligible. But certainly there are some, and I think we could, I had Tina look to see what of our neighborhood, mostly some of the merchant associations, which neighborhoods do actually have requests in for hospitality tax dollars for those bigger community-wide events that the public is coming to. Yeah, I think they get like 15,000. They don't get a whole lot, but they do get some. I do encourage you all to not have a knee-jurt reaction and to give it a little time and know that we're committed to working through with the organization or neighborhood. We need to reference churches as well. We've got a request in, and I'll let Harold talk about that. Let us make a couple of judgment calls if it's truly something which we've done to do a one-time exception or waiver to let people kind of ease their way into the new process. We couldn't have a better face of this than Harold Reeves. He's very great about educating these organizers and helping to provide them some options. And for the most part, you know, people have kind of fallen in line and understood it better and or if they just didn't, we did a one-time exception or waiver to say, hey, we know this is new, but after this, you know, you're gonna, yeah, and maybe what you need to start organizing with your neighborhood. About what this is gonna look like going forward. It's not a real onerous request on what we're asking of the neighborhoods and it truly is about safety. So when they start saying, well, we can get our own barricades, then no, you can't because they may not be the right guy and we wouldn't know you're doing that. And the first time a child is injured or hurt, then that is why we're saying you have to follow. I think people don't understand what goes through the process, there is a cost to do all that. And, you know, let's be realistic. The majority of people who have complained about it have the resources, which is. I wasn't gonna say that, but it's been interesting and to me that, you know, yes, that part has been. What is the harm? Tell me you understand the harm of somebody with having a grant application that staff has discretion to prove or deny. Well, that would cost us more than to do the grant. Than how much the cost of the grant would be. I mean, you gotta think about that too. You think about all the staff time that would take just to do a grant for 50 bucks, 65 bucks on average. My thoughts were the grant application completed, the mayor is gonna pay out his own pocket, remember? For that. So besides, to pass it from my people, I would. From your people. It feels people's minds, because I've done it. I'm also worried about it being a deterrent. Let's say some neighborhoods. I'm sponsored by the Bailey law for our much. I'm having, I promise you, I'm having sponsors. But I'm worried about it being a deterrent to smaller neighborhoods, right? We just here to work fee and just say, oh, we don't have any money. We haven't met in six months. We can't do this. And then not even, they're not even gonna go to step and call. So. They're gonna call. They're gonna call. Yeah, they're gonna call. Why don't we be what the manager said Let's give it the rest of the year, because most of these neighborhoods have been doing these, especially in neighborhoods that we're concerned about could afford it. They've been doing different things. They don't close streets. They take advantage of their churches in the neighborhood. So why don't we see what happens over the year? And if we need to come up with a process, then let's do that. But let's give it time to flush out at least till January. Don't y'all agree? That would give us a full year to really look at it. I think Mr. Gray is gonna stop having his, the kids coming and eating the hot dogs. I mean, they, you know, and we would, we thought I don't want you to, I think we, because we have a pretty good handle, whether it's through community development staff or just our relationships with some of our neighborhood leaders. I feel like they won't reach out if they are feeling some kind of way that like before they would not do something. I really do. Wow. Ms. Wellman. And I have worked with Ms. Kay Patterson, CEC and neighborhood president. I'm actually meeting with them in April. And I think he'll communicate, Harold's gonna, we will make sure, Councilman, that we communicate that. If you know of your smaller neighborhoods where you've never liked an issue, let us know. So we, and then you want just, and with the churches too, you know, but one that's coming up where there will be the fee. I'd like to get, you know, churches are not notated anywhere in here. And I want to get your input on how do we treat churches when they're going to do a community event or an event coming up like Trinity is gonna do an event Thursday night. They want to host food trucks on Sumter Street. That would be a hundred dollar permit fee normally along with the barricades. That's what I'm prepared to move forward with. I just want to get your approval before. We're using the street, not the parking lot. So they do have an option to do it inside the parking lot. Exactly. They have a huge parking lot right there. Right. I guess we'll treat them like any other nonprofit. Some of the neighborhood nonprofits. That's what I agree. That's what I'm prepared to do. I just wanted to make sure that it was. Unless we wanted to make some exception for nonprofits. But that would require, so not paying. That'd be everything. That'd be 34% of what happens in Columbia. Putting that out there. I did want to note too, Mr. Reeves, that Ms. Swellman, I think most of y'all got her letter, but she did note that working with you was a pleasure and working with your department. And you were very patient and thorough in your outreach and explanations. And she found you to be very sincere and responsive. It's our team. It's not me. It's our city team. Everybody that works together. City process. Thank you. Who's that last part? Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't have to tell that. I'm sorry. Thank you, Councilor. I had a hard time. I had a hard time. I'm going to go ahead. Thank you. And then in the effort with the website. I was going to go over that next. The whole team, Harold and Jay, and all are going to. I think sometimes. Council directed. They wanted us to really look at our City of Columbia special events website. And Jay Carter and Doug with InDesign has done a great job of improving that. We do now have street closing steps, everything. And you can also see that there are all the forms that you need to fill out are there downloadable. So our team has done a great job. We have a lot further to go. But I mean, we've addressed it. The Columbia Police Department website mirrors what our City of Columbia website has for special events. So a lot of work's been done there. But as you all know, we partnered with extra duty solutions to actually do our off-duty scheduling of officers, as well as collecting and invoicing for all of our city services. And I just want to say we are not trying to generate revenue. We're just trying to offset some of our costs and be able to help prepare our barricades and all this stuff as we move along. Just to give you an idea, we started the process February the 5th with extra duty solutions. That month, we recouped $2,030.15. We had 55 roll carts, 52 barricades. The police department, their part of the 2% that we recoup was $377.75. And then all of the other, the admin fee, the barricades, the roll carts, everything else was $1,652.40. In March, of course, we had St. Patrick's Day. We've had several large events. We recouped $76,232.38. That was 310 roll carts, 391 barricades. The police department recoup was $49,070.72. The fire department, who is now moving toward extra duty solutions, recouped $2,791.31. And then public works and everything has to do with barricades, roll carts, traffic engineering was $24,370.35 for, like I said, a total of $76,000. That is a cost that we've never been able to recoup to help offset some of the things that we're doing when it comes to special events. I think the city manager put out that State of South Carolina is 10th in the nation as far as growth. And we've grown 5.7% since 2010. And so we're having a lot more requests for activities. We want to make sure that we have all types of events. But I think this is going to be an opportunity not to make money, but to help offset some of the costs that we do have. Let me just, can you make one clarification? We have recouped CPD off-duty fees in the past. It was just simply the organization's cut checks. There's not this direct poorer where invoices come in. Because festivals have events. Yeah, they paid off-duty officers. Yes, Seth. This is just an admin fee, like 2% wedging. I'll say and go to the mic. Huge distinction. We've always had vendors paying directly off-duty. This third party vendor coordinates all that now. But the fee he's talking about we recouped is the administrative costs that we associate with the use of equipment, their vehicles, fuel. The $40,000 in the month of March. What does that entail? Is that that recoup fee? Or is that the hourly rate we paid? No, that's just a recoup fee. Scratch anything to do with payment of office. It's $10 an hour. It's 2% of the hourly rate. $50 or 2%. We actually collect. EDS collects 10%. So it's 12% admin fee. So towards fleet maintenance. OK. Yeah. Yeah, I can change that. I didn't know they were getting 10%. That was what was voted on back in June. It's a 12%. They get 10. We get two for administering the program. This company works with a lot of others. Yeah. Highway patrol is getting ready to go with them. I mean, it's a national organization. Well, I mean, part of trying to recruit, because the officer makes money, but we've got the cost for the car, the gas, the insurance, the uniforms, the guns, everything. And it's a minimal fee to offset some of the things that we have. So it's only been, it's only $5. It's $50 an hour plus the fee, right? So it's about $10 more an hour than it was for a decade. Chief correct me if I'm wrong. I think the Sheriff's Department is 55 or 60 major. Something like that. So it's still, I'll say, compatible. Yeah. What's that company again? Extra-duty solutions. We're committed to monitoring this very closely, but I do appreciate the opportunity to let us try to see how it works for the first year. Just the more we can see how it works, the better. Any other questions? OK. Thanks, Harold. Thank you. Thank you, sir. We're done? Yes, sir. I just sent you.