 President, here, in the midst of all that is happening in the midst of situations and circumstances that seem to come by, but we ask for your grace and mercy as we talk about our beloved city. We would simply ask that in the midst of all those things that you might continue to let the sun shine, and of grace and mercy shine clearly upon us. Be with us as we liberate you of those who might come and give insight and information. We ask it in your name. Amen. Mr. Baylon. Our first item on the work session today is our financial report. Jan Alonzo, Finance Director, will present to answer questions regarding February 2018 financial report. If anyone has some. I had one, but I can't remember what it was until I had e-mail. I just wanted you all to know that we have finally hired our business license administrator. Her name is LaKeisha Shannon. She comes from the city of Marion, where in addition to being a business license administrator, she was also a department clerk. So, she's got lots of experience, and she's ready to get started. So she met Jed Brogdon. Beside her is Greg Williams. He's the deputy. He's been here for about six months. But I think between the two of them, we'll give you some of the time. Thank you all. Thank you guys. What a work with you. Item two on the work session today is our water and sewer rate study update. Mr. Robert Chambers, MBA Consultant at Black Beach. Mr. Chambers. Good afternoon. Thank you all again for giving us the opportunity to be here and present and go through this process with you. Before I get going, any questions or anything on your behalf before I get going? So today, as a part of the agenda, we'll discuss the drivers. Look at a few of the assumptions we've utilized as a part of the study. We'll review the financial plan and then look at the utility bill impacts based on our recommendations or proposals. What does that mean to the typical customer? So, drivers, we are looking at this from an integrated and a holistic business perspective. This is the financial planning arm, and we're developing an integrated financial plan, but it also has aspects on different parts of your business, how you operate and how you achieve business excellence and ultimately what it means to the customers you serve. So as we go through this process, this is in the forefront of the thought leadership and everything we do as it relates to planning. So what are your drivers? Increased demand for utility services. You have typical organic growth and then you also have significant customers that are coming in with special usage requirements. That has to be considered. You have a diverse and informed customer base, so how do we keep your customer base engaged? How do we make sure we understand what they require and serve accordingly? Ultimately, we want to be able to assist in implementing sustainable operating and capital plans. And finally, we also want to make sure that we achieve revenue stability and we meet the financial metrics that were set about for you as a utility. So we've seen this slide before and not to go over it, but first of all, I'd like to commend you for having the willingness to take action. As I've highlighted in the past that the goal here is to not have too many consecutive lumps, meaning a higher increase one year, no increase. It's to have a smooth plan to create as least impact for the customers we serve as possible. So we're not going to go over this slide in detail because you've seen it a few times. So coming back to what we did last year and what was presented to you last year. During last year's presentation, we came about presenting a revenue increase for FY019, which was forecasted to be about 13%. Since FY019, we had a few edits and adjustments. I wish it's natural with regard to how you operate and we'll be presenting a proposed revenue increase, which will be less than this 13%. One of the main things that happened, growth came in but not at the rate we originally anticipated. O&M and other costs came in just about what we forecasted and then other revenues, line 11. If you notice last year, we forecasted about 7.4. That number is a little higher this year. So the combination of those things creates a new situation which we'll present this year. Is the debt ratio coverage at 2.0 because that's a requirement? It could be a 1.5, our target, or that is one of the... Sorry, Robert probably answered this a little bit. No problem. I get used to you. Sorry. Anyhow, it is not a requirement. However, what we've done in the past, we've taken a look to see what the averages are for other AA plus AA1 utilities. Roughly the same size as ours. So for the last several years, 2.0 is in that range of what others are and also the amount of cash we keep on hand is 137% of O&M. Those two are two targets that we look at whenever Moody's posts the information out there on all the utilities. So we try to stay in that range. If you read our prior rating reports, they seem very comfortable with our cash and with our coverage. It doesn't mean we couldn't look to make adjustments to that in the future. That's traditionally what... That's what we've been targeting. We get a lot of good discussion from the rating that you see by using those two items. And Jeff Mayan, two things. So in addition to what Jeff highlighted, one of the big things the rating agencies look at with regard to measuring your credit word analysis, what kind of a financial plan do you have in place? How have your metrics done over time? And do you have the willingness to take action? And they put all those together and come up with a score which then is a measure of your credit wordiness. You've taken the step to implement internally a 2.0 metric and meet the cash requirement, which then demonstrates the credit wordiness and the rating you currently have. You could look at adjusting it, but if you do, there's going to be questions with regard to why is that new direction taken, strategically where you're going, is there a strain. So as much as you can maintain the metrics that you have and maintain the stability that you have, the better it will be as you go forward with regard to your credit wordiness and demonstrating your ability to meet your obligation. Question? Sure. In terms of some of the questions that would be asked as to why would we make the change, how does our progress on infrastructure, repairs infrastructure in terms of our goals where we need to be, how does that impact that number? So looking at progress and... It impacts the number in a few ways. The first of which, from a financial perspective, is your ability to actually put your CIP in the ground, execute and implement the CIP you planned, and then service the debt or the cost, the debt service related with the CIP. And that's demonstrated through your cash position and meeting your debt service coverage. Secondly, the agencies also look at how you operate, right? What kind of complaints you have? How do you maintain your level of service and what... How are you reinvesting in the system and how many breaks and all that stuff as a part of your organizational analysis? And the manner by which you keep renewing and replacing your infrastructure, getting the right infrastructure in the ground at the right time to maintain your level of service, it then plays in the rating agency saying you're operating a good business. You see little risk, there's always risk, but we see little risk and you can maintain your credit wordiness or get a better score going forward. So in combination, that's how the infrastructure component works. And let me add to that. Periodically throughout the year, Flint, Sheila, you did a quick call for us and they'll usually come in with some of you in our 2020 other staff members and they'll talk about the various projects that we're doing and how they have an effect on the system. I say that's at least two times, it might be more than that. Well, I've kind of tried to stay on top of both, but it does make sense to show periodically how we're doing with the dollars we've targeted and earmarked for certain projects and that's why I'm asking. So if we're not, or if we appear not to be reaching our targets, then the rating and agency would tend to look at that. Yes, essentially as a part of the bigger picture how they evaluate the utility, it will be demonstrated in shown. And we will have one that we can schedule more during the year. We've had over the last, I'd say, four to five years, kind of in some years maybe we've had more. I think the whole team's pretty much ready on almost a quarterly basis to bring a presentation. What will happen is typically when we show y'all four or five or five quarters, then it kind of slows, we slow that down because y'all will see a lot of the same stuff. But you're right, we haven't had as many and as we go through this discussion, it should be a good time for us to bring so y'all can see all the projects that are going on. Okay. So to continue going into our assumptions. So starting with revenues, we're starting with FY 2018 revenues at about $137 million. We're forecasting about a percent growth in customers. Is that conservative? It is a forecast of growth and I wouldn't say it's conservative, but conservative is of opinion, if you know what I mean. But we feel that one percent is appropriate. So what you're saying is we can achieve one percent. My question is what's our stretch growth? What are we doing to stretch that growth? How much more growth can we achieve? Okay, so if we take a look at historically what we've done, we've done maybe just over a percent, percent, percent and a half in some cases. So that's why we've taken that approach. It's also one of the reasons we're doing an annual update so we can really capture the growth in just the past year to put it into numbers. I think maybe three or four years ago we had a higher number in there because I remember I was standing up here talking about it. I felt like we had two percent or maybe three percent and that ended up being a little too aggressive. So the numbers didn't come in and that was just several years ago. So one percent, if it ends up being greater than that, it'll all get updated because we do our annual study and they look at our actual consumption up through just this past December. So how do we have... I understand the one percent being very conservative. So if we hit two to three, we really stretch it. If we hit two to three, that'll actually help the following year. But in addition, if we hit two or three, then we'll look to consider utilizing that going forward but we also have to look at still a positive. That's because one big user came on and that busted you up to three percent but probably don't want to use three percent the next year. I guess my follow-up to that is, should we have somebody who is their sole job is to create what a customer is worth between being at every unbuilder's meeting and all the things and all the aspects of seeing where the growth is and encouraging as people are looking, well, yes, we can bring water to that area so that your project can happen. But don't think we have a business development person in there. And that goes on to the PR because as we discussed, having that person who is our advocate out there because at the end of the day, we're going to grow a lot of competition for water here. So we need to be actively working with those partners and some of it may be, well, we have to make some investment on our side for the growth, but I think we need to kind of reach out there and become more partners so that we can grow our system. The only thing we've got Ryan and Ryan's development but then one of the other initiatives we've got is kind of just going to show you, this is where we've got important to have to be out of this area and make that really available for development. I think that's a great idea. Which would do a better job. And a double play on that is to go in too is Ryan's out there. We need to encourage this involved zoning, planning, economic development is we've got to grow in our corridors where we've already got infrastructure and push up. Traditionally we try to limit people's growth from the standpoint of going vertical and vertical is where we ought to be. That's creating more customers in an area where we already have infrastructure investment. We're not having to reinvent the wheel there which then becomes a net one. And looking at the system as we talked about too. I think there's already good points. I think some of that we already do, I think a lot of our builders when they have an interest in there, they reach out directly to Joey and staff to talk about when is it passing in the area. I don't know that we've ever formalized it though as a process to push it, other than probably through maybe Ryan's efforts and just in general Ryan's one person. Well Ryan, with a thousand directions and seven bosses. So I think we ought to figure out a way to That's what I'm saying. I think we can take a look at how we formalize that process. So continuing other revenue sources estimated to be about 11.1 million in FYO 18. This is impacted by loss of Nye America revenues. The service will end or ended in FYO 18. So as a part of the FYO 19 forecast. Okay. It's a carry. If you put that on the internet someone's like why'd you lose? We didn't lose. It was a carry. Fair. But the point from is in 19 those revenues aren't included in the forecast of 19. We have the lower Richmond County agreement and it has some impacts with regard to revenues. And then we have other other revenue sources. So this is just a breakdown of the revenues. This and that. Clearly, there's a problem. I won't dispute that at all. The billing adjustment number is higher than it needs to be and I think we've been through a crisis of customer confidence and we're trying to restore that. I do think the AMI system is going to help us substantially restore some of that confidence and that information about leaks or water usage being in the customer's hands every day through a mobile device or internet or however they choose to access that information. I believe that's going to reduce our billing adjustments. Our consultant is telling us that's going to bring those down. That's our big tool that's out there to make a significant dent in it. In the interim we're trying to use our customer advocate process and to regain some of that confidence and try to buffer that number a little bit. It's never acceptable so I probably shouldn't use that term. What do you see out there? To be honest with you, I don't have an exact ratio off the top of my head with a billing adjustment. But I can't, to be honest with you, I can't give you an exact... Because sometimes I say they don't but they do. So what I can say is typically the billing adjustment or any adjustment it could be a bad debt adjustment it's specific to the utility. I could come and say 10 utilities in the southern USA are looking at a 5 or 2 or a cent and a half adjustment your adjustment may be different but the biggest thing I always preach is if you're making progress in reducing that adjustment, whatever the measure is and it based on the forecast we have here progress is budgeted and forecasted and I think in 3 years we should be 3-4 years we should be close to less than 50 to 60 percent of the adjustment that we currently have. So that's a good thing, that's progress. So revenue requirements O&M we're looking at in FY19 about a 91.7 million forecast in O&M it includes inflation clean water efforts and we're utilizing about a 4% escalation factor. We have included debt service payments which start at about 32.1 and we are reviewing debt annually over the forecast period which is 19 through 23. What is it? What is the O&M budget? What is that adjustment? Can you read that please? Sorry, I didn't realize it was a cookie. I think he's hungry too. The 2020 so when we get through what is that? Meaning if O&M will fall off? Well I think part of what we're doing through the program is changing the way we operate and part of changing the way we operate is you can probably speak better this to me but we are investing in our system as we go and so hopefully you won't see big spikes of 150 or 180 million to try to level off that level of investment from a capital perspective but also from the O&M perspective and so some of the things the program management staff is doing for us we are trying starting to try to do ourselves take over some of those activities we'll need to do that we may have to staff up in a few more areas so you may see a little bit of growth in the O&M budget for that to offset what we're paying for with program dollars the investment of 120 million dollars a year right now and for the foreseeable of 5, 6, 8 years that seems like a good level of necessary investment if we project out once we finish this round of projects that we've got identified the cycle starts over to some degree so there's always that continual investment so we don't find ourselves in a whole again so do we have a forecast of what you think those investments will be down the road we do for 5 years right now that's what we've been looking at a 5 year we haven't done a 10 and 20 year look to that level of specificity is that something that we should look at now I mean 20 years of stretches we don't I mean there's technology in the 10 year stretching especially in the wastewater world is in our 5 year CIP there are the projects laid out for the next 5 years and then there's a group of year 6 projects that haven't been planned out but those are really the next 5 year projects and some of it is dependent upon growth a lot of it is just reinvesting in infrastructure that we've already got we can look at those numbers and have a more detailed discussion about that so looking at the billing packs meaning the typical bill customer in 2008 that bill was about $37.37 in FYO 18 that bill is about $54.94 which calculates to be about a 3.9% compounded annual growth you know we look at this and there are various perspectives that can be taken by looking at this one of which okay it's close to inflation we're doing something we're taking action yes that's true it is, we've done something we've taken action and we're able to you know implement infrastructure and provide the service as required the other side is there are a few years where we didn't have an increase and we had a few lumps so the argument could be made that that 3.9% could even be lower if in some of those initial years where we didn't have increases we had small and steady increases so the point is you know steady increases over the long term of the system helps to sustain the financial health and you know the operations resilience of the system so looking at revenue adjustments and just making some points about revenue adjustments it's a balanced approach whereby we go about funding all your operating and capital obligations we maintain your debt service target of a 2.0 we utilize a combination of debt financing and cash on hand and with that 9 and just that 9.76 increases across the board applied evenly to your water and wastewater sewer rates and to reiterate the increase goes to support your operating obligations so looking at the financial plan and looking at the assumptions around the financial plan we've highlighted a 9.76 revenue growth revenue increase along with the 1% customer growth it's $120 million CIP of which 28 official service customers are hiring 21 81.9 22 and you'll have more detail on the next slide so this is this is the financial plan as we said we started out with revenues of about 138.6 and a 5.98 in 20 an 8.97 in 21 a 7.28 in 22 and a 6.78 in 23 yes sir this becomes a part of what we call at the beginning the integrated financial plan which then is a part of your budget in cycle that we take a look at on an annual basis so looking at the financing plan any questions there as it relates to the financing plan okay so this slide goes about highlighting the FY019 scenario based on the major components you know that make up the plan the revenues and the revenue increase which is about a 9.76 the capital financing that shows the distribution between bonds, cash and west colombia and the debt service coverage the thing I want to highlight here is whenever we go through the process of rate setting it somewhat becomes an art as it relates to the level of the increase that we have here the amount of cash you have available that can be used to support the financing of your capital program and meeting your debt service coverage so at times if you don't have enough of a rate increase we may not hit that 2.0 but if you have some cash you may be able to use some of that cash to reduce that capital requirement which then won't will allow you to meet it with regard to you know what type of a rate increase you can put in place to make sure we meet our coverage requirements and how much cash we can utilize the offset that requirement so this is the balance that we have in place for your 4.019 any questions there so looking at the utility bill impacts on average for as you can see it's about a 9.7% increase across the board to all customers will see the increase for the typical residential customer they'll see an increase of about $5.30 36 and then how you compared as it relates to neighboring utilities this highlights that you are about in the middle or at the lower end of the middle so you are currently can you repeat that please from $60 to $100 okay dare about yes sir sorry about that I will yes sir so do you all have any questions with regard to the process where we're at what we've done where we're going okay well thank you all very much take into time next up on the agenda item 3 is our fiscal year 2018-19 budget workshop budget and program management director I'm sorry I don't have the nice soothing voice that Mr. Chambers has for everybody but hopefully I can still keep your attention my voice is probably normal it just doesn't sound like his doesn't have a nice accent Miss Erica is passing out a copy of the PowerPoint presentation which wasn't in your packet so if you want a hard copy you may have some and also another copy of the agenda that was published on the agenda if you would like a copy of that it's available on the table for anyone who might want to follow along so we are continuing our water and our FY 18-19 proposed budget workshops we are still going through our budget cycle with city council of course as we are here today we're talking about water sewer our water and sewer operating our storm water operating and parking operating I will touch base a little bit on the water and sewer budget not to sort of maybe add a little different perspective from the information that Robert's already provided to you with regards to our water and sewer sales and our revenue streams first up is just to look at our water revenues for water and sewer of course our revenues are $160 million projected majority of that revenue coming in from water sales 60% and then 38% coming in from sewer the revenues that the water and sewer revenues that are before you today include the reflected 9.76 rate increase that's proposed to you so as we're going through this budget discussion just want to keep that into perspective any additional questions about revenues on the expenditure side of course the water and sewer budget I want this is just graphically just to demonstrate that the pie chart on the top demonstrates the entire budget you can see the largest portion of the pie is our operations and departments which is about 58% so that would be all of the departments charged to water and sewer which would be the folks that help maintain our water and sewer system of course debt service and transfer to capital improvements both of which are funding of our annual 120 million water and sewer improvement program they make up 25% of the budget and about 25% of our budget annual budget goes into the improvement system of course we also fund our water improvement system with bonds so this just reflects the cash portion of the actual annual allocation the pie chart on the bottom just reflects the actual departments that are charged so 71% if you recall we've rearranged the water and sewer organization a little bit so utilities and engineering are now each separate departments so utilities alone is 71% of course utilities includes the operational folks that includes the plants both the water treatment plants the wastewater plants as well as our water maintenance crews our wastewater maintenance crews and the folks that maintain the system of course those budgets also include as we'll see on the next slide that that's the their budgets include not just the personnel but they also include those projects that are annual reoccurring type of maintenance projects that are not capital so of course that's a large portion of their budgets as well the next largest department in the water and sewer fund is going to be the engineering services and I'm sorry that piece of the that description of the pie is kind of high is covered in the actually in the pie itself that's about 13% of course we also have public works streets divisions those would be the portion of streets that actually goes and retails utility cuts as public works street division has has an account just most of our operating funds based upon the activity that streets is doing of course the police and CSO security reflects the security at our at our treatment plants and our water and water and sewer owned facilities that's the portion that maintains their fire portion of course is the fire hydrant maintenance folks the fire hydrant flushers and those folks that help maintain the hydrant systems finance as a portion economic development GIS systems and then general services is of course our our water and sewer facilities building facilities and then customer care is our customer care center and it also now reflects our field service folks any questions about our other issue charts just some highlights and these are very very highlights of the water and sewer budget as mentioned the proposed budget is a hundred and sixty one point nine million which is an increase of nine million dollars over the current year budget about six percent or six percent of an increase it does reflect the nine point seven for six proposed rate increase CIP again the capital improvement program as discussed our annual our annual consideration for CIP has is a hundred and twenty million as it has been for recent years and projected to be for the next few years as we'll discuss earlier come back with a longer term view of that what that CIP looks like this year in the water and sewer budget twenty one million is being transferred to the CIP that's an increase because ten million for the past two years was going towards our flood recovery program so we've set aside those funds now to help us through the reimbursement for the repairs program so we didn't need to transfer out at this point any longer for that as we continue to make our way through the FEMA process and also through the HMGP or hazard mitigation process the remainder of course of the hundred and twenty comes from issuing of bonds as well as some fund balance from water and sewer the water and sewer improvement program of course continues to focus on clean water twenty twenty efforts of the water and sewer I don't have this on here forty million is for forty million is for water projects eighty million will be for sewer system projects pretty much every sewer project is somehow related to the clean water twenty twenty program in the consent decree and fifteen million of the water and sewer program is towards the AMI AMR project that is also included in the CIP program and that's a phased in approach the operating budgets as shown earlier is ninety four point three million which is an increase of about three point seven or right at four percent most of that increase is related to personnel matter or personnel cost for healthcare and state retirement system again as mentioned some of those increases some of the operating budgets also include maintenance annual maintenance contracts or annual maintenance work it's not capitalized but it's of course part of our ongoing maintenance and regular are trying to get to more of a regular and routine schedule of of our system maintenance one of the challenges that you're going to hear us talk about with regards especially to an area like water and sewer which has a lot of a lot of the has a lot of employees who are having difficulty in terms of hire and retaining with regards to skilled labor but also especially those folks with CDLs a lot of challenges you're going to hear throughout the city with departments that have employees that requires the commercial driver's license ability to hire and then retain them because of right now the job market being so competitive for that particular kill set oh yes and you know the city we provide a very good training program to get those folks trained up so as we get them trained you know they quickly can turn back out so there's been a lot of challenges sort of keeping that system that those employees retained and then of course to also the professional side which is as previously discussed with regards to sort of values the program managers especially Clean Water 2020 as we sort of hit the intersection of where the consulting staff intersects with the hiring of city staff being able to bring on that professional staff to do some of those programs in house is also somewhat of a challenge with regards to being able to hire and of course also retain them we have something well training I don't know if our training costs are that extensive as much as it is just to be able to retain them even once they're trained at all we have to ask more of the folks who are handling the training to be able to address that piece but I don't know how much of lore we have with keeping folks in here once they've done it's a cdl challenge right now we tend to train them up and they'll move on and they can make a lot more money so there is a the issue is with jobs that folks are required to have the cdl for when they get that level of license and they've met the job requirement we don't reward them for doing that level of license so we've been talking internally a little bit about some sort of reward system to try to hold on to the folks once they achieve their cdl they've met that requirement the job may say you have to get it within 6 months or 12 months and they will retain that job but if they get that that's something that can help them advance in their career yes sir yes sir about this might have been a year ago I'm not sure how far she's gotten with it but I had a conversation with Crips and one regarding partnering with them and helping train the seniors at cdl the areas that my seniors have done have jobs waiting for them I mean I think as a workforce development that would be something we should look at because it certainly would help us but with people being with the cdl all of those avenues are certainly being explored and I think some of them they'll be able to help bridge some of the gaps again with the market sort of challenges right now that's also it's harder to keep up with that pace but I think there are some efforts and programs that are being taken advantage of to help fill that void most of what water and sewers department's budgets are operating are focused on this year is related to our customer care as Clint mentioned earlier our customer advocate program and activities and then of course a lot of activity that will be coming with regards to our mobile field services so that improvements in mobile field services so that the crews will be able to better ascend and receive information while out working on the sites instead of having to go out on the site with static information and come back and read and load information so hopefully a lot of advancements over the next 12 months we'll be able to demonstrate any other questions about water and sewer next we have stormwater stormwater of course primary source of revenue for the water the stormwater program is going to be the stormwater fee there are some other small revenues that attribute to the fund but as you can see very minimal expenditure wise there are several departments operating out of the stormwater fund public works as mentioned our street division storm drains maintenance folks and they are also the construction crews so that's also out of stormwater that represents 30% of the budget and then 22% for engineering that would also include engineering services in real estate areas so being able to design projects and also to be able to handle all the easement work as you some of you are aware of that's required to be able to do a lot of the work on these properties so those make up the majority of the operating departments there is a 20% now reference for debt service that's new obviously to the stormwater project now that we have the stormwater program and will be issuing debt on the stormwater program so that represents 20% of course that's for funding that would be comprehensive stormwater improvement program we also have a indirect cost transfer or cost allowance for general fund and then reserve that's also part of our funding requirements to meet our debt coverage I'll move on to the next slide so under stormwater budget the the pie charts referenced earlier that budget is $13.4 million that's an increase of $836,000 over the current year about 6.6% of course it continues the proposed rate adjustments that city council adopted last year of course that still would require that we need to adopt them again for this year however the rate adjustment for this year is much significantly less than what was adopted when the original plan was in place last year so the stormwater fees for this year are proposed to increase $0.74 per equivalent residential unit or ERU which is what residents pay per month for the stormwater program so that basically takes the fee from $11.80 per month to $12.54 a month a little less than $9 a year total increase that the residents will pay for the stormwater program the CIP program reflects $10 million for this year that's actually because there's a number of activities still going on for this year the total projected CIP over the next three to five years at city council adopted from last year is $93 million in stormwater improvements so pretty significant pretty expensive considering prior years activities for our stormwater stormwater system some of the other activities that have occurred recently is that the stormwater program manager contract was awarded in March so that's going to help to get things moving a lot quicker and sooner here with the program tonight on council's agenda for the first approval of the first bond issuance for the stormwater program and that's going to be $50 million so that's going to really start to progress things along very well the operating improvement continues to focus on the needs of alleviating flood and flooding especially nuisance flooding and then of course helping to promoting our water quality program those things that are currently underway include Wall Street and Martin Luther King Park improvements Harlem Heights I think some of you are familiar with those activities will happen as easements come into place so those will be some activities happening here soon and then 18 we met last night on the CIP we're ready to go with the easements where are we with the Shandon project which has been on the board we had 18 consultants that submitted for our stormwater RFQ the selection committee has met I've not received back those results yet but I understand we'll be moving forward with those and they will be coming before you once those are on board the highest priority is getting these studies performed by these consultants that negotiation of scopes will be a couple years it's going to be a couple years and we've had neighbor meetings with the Shandon group I'm not sure if you were there last year but once we get the consultant on board we'll have another meeting and try to lay out what the time frames are but we let them know that it would take the time to do the feasibility because we'd like for them to not only look at the hard piping but also the green infrastructure I thought we did we have done a traditional hard piping and then Dr. Gorgal came in and we did the green infrastructure which some of it was did work according to some of the constituents and then we brought Cox and Dinkins back and they looked at the restraints the constructions under Rosewood so they made some suggestions there what we had talked about is some of these critical areas that are flooding looking at creating a park in some of these areas if that's what it would be the neighbors were very open to looking at it out of the box thinking so that's what the consultant we're going to have them help us with the Pervious asphalt so they took the the wide streets in Shandon and they were able to create along the parking aisles the Pervious asphalt not under the drive lanes but under the parking stalls Robert has been infiltrating and it's stored underneath the boxes they have stored under the boxes and eventually overflow would go through our hard piping system the neighbors seem to think so we've talked to them both Robert and I Anderson as well as our construction management group and they came out during the construction and said they've saw major improvements definitely on Amherst that group came out and they were very pleased yes sir yes sir that's correct yes sir they've started construction we were waiting until after MLK I mean sorry the St. Patrick's Day where they have a lot of the activities in that park but they were beginning at the beginning of April so they're out there right now starting construction yes sir so next the projects for 1819 include Penn Branch Creek Rocky Branch at Whaley Street Randall Avenue at North Main those were some highlighted projects we'll bring back to you the actual CIP for the coming year we'll bring that to you in one of the following council meetings so you can see exactly which projects are scheduled and planned and as mentioned in our water and sewer budget of course healthcare cost and state retirement system are impacting all departments budget throughout the city we just make sure that that's also noted as one of the impacts on the budgets overall finally we have the parking fund budget one of our other one of our three enterprise funds which would be the parking fund we have the revenues for parking include street meters at 34% non-moving violations at 25 and garages and lots that count for 39% expenditure wise parking services the departments in the parking fund there's basically four areas the largest would be parking services and then parking facilities all over parking services and Kelvin and Robert Anderson with parking facilities we also have finance which is the parking payments very small portion and then a small portion for public work sign shops also those are combined are really less than 2% of course the large portion of the parking fund is going to be debt service at 33% and there is some transfers for internal service activities general fund transfer 500,000 which is 6% as far as the activities of the parking fund the proposed budget is 8.6 million the increase of about 684,000 or about 9% over the current year as mentioned all of the sources of revenue of course the increases are due primarily to just improvements of collections but then also the passport parking system that's now fully implemented in place it's been very beneficial in terms of helping to generate revenues or collect on those revenues and then the addition of enforcement of our parking contracts operating budget is a total of 4.9 million which is an increase of 678,000 or 16% part of that addition is two new positions that are being added to help expand our residential parking enforcement program that has issues on pretty much I'm hearing a daily basis enforcement of those parking issues and helping to address some of the concerns that our residents are facing on a regular basis can you elaborate on that? sure well either that or if Elle wants to come up and talk about it as well not that much some of the residential areas and some of the residential areas more in the downtown area you're only allotted homeowner versus tenant so many parking permits and the number of students living in those homes are taking up over their allotment we're in the negative we are I might not regard to it as a disconnect as much as an ongoing partnership of communication of what is happening in what particular area so we do have communication certainly when we no longer enforce after 7 then it would fall upon but it's communication between the two of us to enforce those areas they were trying to explain it to me and I couldn't understand it varies from the streets from my permitted permitted parking permitted parking not permitted parking unless they're parked unsafely or in front of fire hybrids and then it would be on CPD and that's the after hours and that wouldn't be parking services so we do recognize the influx of students and more students are living in those residential areas and they're struggling with the parking solution the two positions from enforcement both day side and night time but during the day the two additional positions will give us the opportunity to better enforce those areas after 7 o'clock communicate with that man right over there we continue that partnership of communication and that's ongoing our partnership the vast majority of our complaints are day side and trying to get to all of those areas those two positions will make a significant difference they're on foot they're dropped off in a particular area where they're driven and dropped off and then they're on foot it's a little bit longer I did get a residential package yesterday from my car so during the break off passport wasn't working my knowledge I'm not going to take it but it wasn't working I was on Assembly Street it usually works from there I don't know maybe there was a connection to something but I tried it but it worked and then later like about an hour later at which time we confirm we receive complaints with passport not functioning and we confirm with passport the system is down during that time and generally an hour or two thereafter we stop enforcement so we're not wrongfully citing folks if the passport app is not working because it's doing so well for the city at the moment now that USC brought it on board live in the fall so it's just as much a win for them as it is us and we anticipate additional revenues in the future based on that partnership with USC students doing very well I've never had a problem with it before does it go out often? I've never had a problem with it before generally it's a system upgrade on their end that they may be slow to inform us of but again we cease enforcement so we're not wrongfully citing folks my apology Mr. Davis I should have probably been more clear it's residential permitted areas not just residential we're not going around enforcing neighborhood parking although I'm sure there's probably some areas that would like you can do that in the university neighborhood so absolutely well just to sort of wrap up some of the scheduled programming of course with the parking garages one of the major activities will be painting of one garage of course and then the routine maintenance preference of course is to do more than that however this is what we're able to find within this coming year and finally other partners that Elle would also mention would be our economic development department in regards to helping businesses know the services that we have with regards to our parking and the attraction of doing business downtown any questions about the parking fund just as a reminder unless there's any other questions about what we've already presented so far today of course we did a high level overview of the water and sewer stormwater and parking funds next week we will be bringing back to you health care employee health care discussions we are also bringing back the hospitality tax proposed changes of the funding process that was requested and has been asked to be considered so we will be bringing back that discussion and we'll be bringing back part one of the general fund is it possible as soon as we have them available absolutely so that's the schedule for next week's budget workshop that was being scheduled I believe we've scheduled for our typical time from two but there won't be an evening meeting it's just starting at two o'clock and wrap up whenever we finish up going forward the May 1st the May 15th is when we'll be bringing back the entire proposed budgets and then bringing back capital budgets as well not sure which order we may bring those in some of that will depend on our discussions from next week then we are scheduled at this point the May 15th is the last advertised meeting before we advertise the budget so unless there's of course that doesn't mean there couldn't be more discussions if needed be or necessary however that would be the last regular council meeting before we have to advertise the budget for the public hearing on June the 5th so that would be public hearing and first reading and then we will do second reading on June the 19th any other questions or concerns sorry I can't do the A's okay let's just make a start with dialogue it works as it does not the 24th to confirm we're doing just a workshop that afternoon meeting correct that was what was scheduled to plan for just a regular wrap up I think both all three of those are going to take some time should we start it normally start it too but I think those are especially number one and number two and number three all three of them they're going to take some time and some discussion soon work I rather get done earlier than we then roll into the evening I'm fine with meeting here at nine morning let's look at the morning y'all want to try to shoot for nine fourth we have a scheduled meeting at two but what we're saying is start early thank you folks thank you alright we got a little break hey young people how are y'all are you going to students or were you in school as if I can't see the game talk have a day are you guys doing some for class or who's the spokesperson usually democracy is a little more exciting than this what are you guys studying glad to have you here good afternoon everyone everyone's got busy days and afternoons so I want to go ahead and get started we already called the roll downstairs so we want to do that again but in the effort of trying to make sure we accommodate significantly differing work schedules we want to do something a bit different and plan two public hearings today to accommodate everyone's challenging schedules so this is the first of two on ordinance 2018-001 I have at least the first sheet of people who signed up to speak but just looking at the crowd here there are only seven people who signed up I'm sure there weren't seven people here who planned to participate today so I think Niki's going to check and see if we have another one but unless there's a presentation of sorts on the ordinance as presented by the public safety subcommittee then we can go directly into the public hearing seeing that is there something from Hemlup or anyone else to make sure okay and we jump right into the public hearing and the first person we have signed up is April Lucas hey council when you have to be out of town we could have we scheduled this meeting I would think Steve you'd be more than happy to get me out of town Mr. Mayor I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this proposed ordinance and I would be less than candid if I didn't think it's same old same old the recommend ordinance is the same ordinance with some minor tweaks and here's my question why wasn't the old ordinance enforced what is the promise that they're going to enforce this one when he didn't enforce the last one it was against the law to do a bunch of stuff after two o'clock they did it sled busting for selling liquor after two o'clock no one ever went after two o'clock not one or not one one violation was written up in seven years so this is lipstick on a pig this is much ado about nothing and and Mr. Rickman I know you've got friends that run bars and I'm sure they have families and they need sustenance but there are people who went to the emergency room last year with alcohol poisoning 80% of them said they had their last drink in five points five points is out of control but no you can shake your head those are the facts I'm sorry my turn to talk you can talk all you want afterwards the fact of the matter is the conditions down there are important the two a.m. ordinance is should be easily done they don't need to serve any alcohol we have succeeded in shutting one of the bars down without your help we're going to shut down every bar in five points without your help apparently because the city does not have the will to enforce its own laws and I swear I've been coming to city council since 1972 and this is pitiful thank you thank you mr. Portland safe travels miss Lucas are you up next did you thank you mr. mayor members of council if you'll indulge me this is the third public hearing on this topic we had two separate public hearings at the committee level but of course some of you were not thank you for being here I know this is a day in which emotions maybe days in which emotions can run high this is an extraordinary effort by a whole lot of us to work to control the rhetoric and the hyperbole acid lace comments so everyone else if you can judge yourself accordingly this is a public hearing so this is our opportunity to hear from you hopefully the words in which comes from everyone's mouth on any side of the issue and if there's several sides we'll be identifying and we'll just move forward accordingly so just wanted to say that thank you April thank you my mama always told me I was too reasonable so hopefully that will come through today in any event it is the third public hearing and some of you have not had the benefit of the record that we built at the committee meeting so I would beg your indulgence if I go a little bit over three minutes what I'll try to do is just summarize for you all the record that we think we built at the committee level we think that that record amply supports outright repeal of the all night permit program however we understand that there are a lot of people who think differently than we do so we are certainly open to discussion on ways that we can perhaps limit the number of all night bars excuse me I'm kind of dry from all this pollen and if we can come to some find some common ground in that regard then I think we can keep right on going but let me tell you why I think outright repeal is still something that you should consider there's an over saturation of bars in five points I gave you copies of my prepared remarks and attached you'll see a map this is a map of the five points overlay district sorry members of the public can't see that we didn't do an overhead projection but on this map we mapped out 42 businesses in five points now that's a small district a small geographic area 42 bars that have ABL licenses meaning that they can serve beer wine and or liquor on premises of those 42 23 are bars now there's could be some discussion about what constitutes a bar but the five points association has got a classification for membership and this lists bars under one classification and restaurants under another so I think that's a pretty good indication when you've got bar in your name and when you don't serve a lot of food that's another indication so we count 23 bars in five points not restaurants but bars of those 23 18 are all night have all night permits citywide you have about 23 all night bars that number 18 are in five points now my remarks relate to five points but this could happen citywide it's not just a five points issue if you'll look at the next attachment there is a map of the neighborhood surrounding five points that's the one that's blue and white if you see that one five points is right smack in the middle of lots and lots of single family residential neighborhoods not high rises not downtown condos or anything like that single family the ones that are in dark blue have been designated as historic neighborhoods so you'll see many of your most historic neighborhoods are surrounding five points historically we've used five points as our commercial district we've shopped down there we've eaten at all the restaurants and we're all very concerned about the loss of mixed retail restaurants are relocating maybe they're operating under a different name but they're relocating we have strictly running running is gone, Gibson's is gone et cetera et cetera am I being cut off? yes ma'am why don't you use the other two minutes and thirty seconds I didn't use go ahead you asked whether there was another sign up sheet there was not a lot of people who are here today I'll ask to stand and they're not going to make a specific statement but several of us are going to be making reports remarks that will take a longer than three times so these other people I think would be happy to see their time to April to me and to a few others who will try to make this not take all day I just gave for Dick's time too we'll get there but if we can we got a lot of folks y'all and a lot of folks differing opinions so we gotta tighten up as much as we possibly can but thank you this is very helpful just summarize what we presented at the committee this is what distinguishes the five point situation from other situations around town because it is surrounded by a single family residential historic neighborhoods when people come into the city of Columbia to visit they go through our neighborhoods as well as our commercial districts so that's one thing oversaturation of bars really another thing that distinguishes five points is that it's proximity to three university campuses three counties there are thousands and thousands of students living close by the ones in the dorms at the University of South Carolina are almost all freshmen almost all underage and yet they get fake IDs they head right down to five points they wander through our neighborhoods and they wreak havoc in our neighborhoods I won't go through the litany of things that go wrong but I will just summarize instead of giving you anecdotes I'll summarize vandalism you know banging on your door at 2.33 o'clock in the morning because they're so intoxicated they think they're at a friend's house passing out on your front porch having sex on your car urinating on your car and a penis art in the street I mean it just goes on and on this is disorderly conduct it is a nuisance it is a danger it's a danger to us as residents it's also a danger to the patron these young inexperienced drinkers because they're subject to being preyed upon by criminals they're also subject to accidents we had a young man killed by the train in coming up from five points drunk as a coot I'll try to condense this a little bit oversaturation of bars is also driving businesses out of five points and I just sat down in about ten minutes I came up with two dozen restaurants or other retail outlets that I used to patronize they're gone my hair dresser left Gibson's is gone strictly running a lot of these didn't go out of business they relocated and part of the reason they relocated is because of the bars are creating the wrong kind of atmosphere also they're impeding parking and the traffic late afternoon traffic traffic so I'll come down to maybe the nut of it and that is that the current proposal before city council was drafted by staff we had asked for outright repeal staff has come back and put together a draft ordinance which changes the enforcement protocol we have great respect for Chief Holbrook his police department is wonderful they've done a grand job with the tools that they have we don't oppose shifting the enforcement to the police department however the neighborhoods do not believe that that is sufficient if we can't figure out how to limit the number of all night bars and the number of all night drinking outlets then we don't feel secure the reason for that is right now we've got a good team in place with Chief Holbrook with members of council who are very aware of all the problems that have been created however you guys may be running for governor for other office Chief Holbrook may be recruited for a fabulous salary someplace else and in a few years we have different department heads so the institutional memory lapses they don't understand the need for vigilance and we find ourselves right back in the same boat we don't want that we need to figure out how to limit and if we can find some common ground in that then we'd be more than pleased to continue discussions and I would also point out that Columbia is an outlier do we really want that status New York City doesn't stay open as late as we do Chicago doesn't stay open we do Los Angeles Los Angeles doesn't stay open as late as we do why is it so essential that Columbia stay open all night long Charleston got rid of it Rainbow got rid of it Myrtle Beach got rid of it so anyhow I think I'm pretty safe in finishing up by asking folks who support repeal of the all night permit program please stand so some people said they couldn't be here because of work I don't know if they got the message about the six o'clock hearing but you can see we've got a lot of people who have many of these folks have been here three times now and so we ask you to please hear our plea for your help thank you thank you thank you I think the microphone is on Dan April I want to thank you and I've had some great conversations and we've been working together unlike the human hand grenade who left a little bit ago we are trying to work and I really appreciate the effort that you've shown on behalf of folks and I just wanted you to know that and I wanted to say it publicly because we've met and you've had an opportunity to meet Mr. Harris and understand his family and everything else so we've been able to get through a lot of things and work together and I think there's probably some compromise somewhere in there I don't believe that there's an all out repeal as you and I have discussed but I just I wanted to publicly acknowledge I wanted to thank you for for the efforts that you've done and in the manner that we've communicated we would love to find ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder you know waving an ordinance that works for both sides the way it's currently written unfortunately does not work for our side but thank you I appreciate the comments Daniel Thank you Alright Mr. Michael Drennan Good afternoon councilmen everyone here I've been thinking a lot about this issue I live in Shandon and trying to figure out how to chart a course for our city that will meet the residents some relief without being unduly burdensome on public resources so there are my thoughts about that I feel like in our city that we do have an issue with a high density of bars and a significant number of bars who seem to be routinely operating in disregard to our state and local laws and this has led to adverse impacts on the security and peace of the surrounding residents and to poor health outcomes in our city I believe this has been documented by the testimony of neighbors academic research sled inspection the social media posts of the bars themselves, press coverage and also under burden of proof in a court of law neighbors are seeking relief from these adverse effects to that end many neighborhood associations have endorsed repeal of the extended hours permit the neighborhood council there has voted nine to one in favor of repeal of the extended hours permit this is after they had conducted several discussions with residents, city council members and bar owners who also happen to be residents of Shandon now I understand that there is a counter proposal to amend rather than repeal the extended hours permit I feel like that repeal is just a better public policy solution for the following reasons one, it has the virtue of simplicity and provides immediate relief to residents two, repeal does not require additional public resources whereas the proposal for amending the ordinance will require enforcement and public resources and perpetuity and vigilance, continued vigilance on the part of neighbors also to my knowledge the existing ordinance has not been enforced I wanted to ask briefly a question here recently there was a sled infection and 11 bars were cited for serving liquor after 2 a.m. in violation of state law and the permitted an issue to them was there any city enforcement for those recent violations due to the sled infection under the 2 a.m. ordinance that was a clear demonstration recently the issues been raised I don't think even now we're seeing the existing ordinance so I feel like the bars who hold these extended hours permits have not demonstrated a good faith effort to follow the law as documented by these investigations and news coverage and I believe it's improper for the city to allow these bars the privilege of continued extended hour alcohol sales if however the council decides to amend the existing ordinance I feel like for the sake of the neighbors and the residents there needs to be an understanding that if this amended ordinance doesn't provide substantive relief to the neighbors we need to come back and repeal it after some period of time if you amend it's got to be the last time we try to make the 2 a.m. section work but I hope that you will support your colleague councilman Duval's proposal to repeal the ordinance now I believe it will provide to residents on burden city staff and police and preserve public resources thank you Mr. Jen Mr. Gotshaw I'm Gotshaw good afternoon members of council Mr. Mayor I'm delighted to be here as I've said before I'm the neighborhood president of the University Hill neighborhood but I speak for a lot of others as well I do want to thank you for your attention to five points I want to thank you for turning your attention to heighten enforcement at five points under what I will say is the Rickman plan but I suggest to you in fairness Tom and Dick made the reference as well this is a recommendation of the entire public safety community unanimously the council so as you guys reference it going forward this is a proposed ordinance not the Rickman plan I understand that but just as council member Duvall has recommended introduced an amendment to repeal it I think Mr. recommend is the principal proponent of this thing but I take your I know I was there for it thank you the problem with this proposed amendment to it is there's really nothing in it for relief for the neighborhoods of the overflow of uncivil behavior which continues unabated that's the problem from our standpoint and opting for the heighten enforcement also requires certain things it requires in places a greater burden on the police the police force is understaffed we all know that the neighbors who are your constituents have had enough of this overflow and they want repeal of the ability of bars to remain open after 2 a.m. until dawn because that has not happened because we haven't gotten relief we've had to turn to the courts 13 were protesters for the roost more including the University of South Carolina have protested for the rooftop which is now on the agenda for the court as April said there are 42 liquor licenses at 5 points 23 bars 18 of them open all at night this status quote is not acceptable to the neighborhoods that surround 5 points the experiment with all night bars has failed Charleston which has a real hospitality business closes its bars at 2 o'clock Greenville does and no city that hosts an SEC university stays open as long as Columbia, South Carolina it is the outlier 5 points is like bourbon street without the charm what is the hospitality what business hospitality model supporting here in Columbia the 5 points business model is based on illegal activity it serves students who are underage who have fake IDs that's what this business model is all about and the model has as a consequence changed students not only into perpetrators of crime but of the victims of crime as well and so I suggest when all of you who have not supported the repeal of the ordinance that permits bars to stay open at 2 a.m. at night go to bed and lay your heads on your pillow your heads should rest uneasily and you should probably offer a prayer especially Thursday, Friday and Saturday night that when you awake in the morning there's not been another shooting a sexual assault or another beating at 5 points so your constituents have turned to the courts and I want to read just a quote or two from Judge Debra Brooks Durden's opinion filed earlier this month this is what she says I find 5 points is an area where underage college students congregate in loiter many of them have falsified identification and are entering the bars and drinking to access these students and their drunken unruly behavior become a nuisance to the surrounding neighborhoods of even greater concern they are vulnerable to being victims of crime as they congregate in 5 points and travel back to their residents in an impaired state underage students she addresses again the presence of crowds of underage students many armed with sham identification and intent upon drinking in 5 points bars is an important factor indicating that the proposed location is not suitable for that type of business which petitioner intends to operate that was the roost this is especially true in light of the fact that petitioner roost's business model is a bar intended to attract and serve students and young adults proximity to a place where young people congregate in loiter has been recognized by our court of appeals as a factor demonstrating that a particular location is unsuitable the sale of beer and wine here the evidence demonstrates that crowds of young people gather in 5 points many become intoxicated putting their own safety I'm almost to the end at risk and disturbing the peace of nearby residents granting the permanent license for such a business exacerbates significant problems and this is what's important as well the court goes on to say that the bar is responsible not just for inside but outside the term license premises the court says includes not only the interior but also the areas adjacent to the entrance and exit as well as the parking areas so what's out on the sidewalk is also under their jurisdiction I know a lot of you have college age or have students as children or young children who are not yet college age is the future of them that you look for that they will go to 5 points when they get of age is that what's Columbia stands for I don't think so we want relief the last point is this the proposal as now before you which amends this ordinance leaves a lot of things untouched the bar hours remain the same the number of bars remains the same despite the 400 foot distance required by our ordinances the illegal business model persists and the overflow of uncivil behavior to the neighborhoods persists more work is needed and we hope it can be with you we'd like to speak further but we also are going to pursue our rights with the courts, thank you thank you Tal Sean McGinnis McGannis excuse me thank you for allowing me to speak to you today I'm here in favor of the resolution that is before us a few comments on the resolution as well as the issue of repeal start off with the repeal of the permits all of these issues that have been brought up today and these other days the crime you know vandalism sex on cars the overcrowding of bars and on and on and on the issues are not addressed by repealing the permits they are all that's going to happen is all of those things that are already occurring will continue to occur just at a slightly earlier time repealing the 2 a.m. permits doesn't close down any bars it doesn't put extra police on the streets it doesn't magically make college students not want to drink too much all it does is hurt some businesses and put people like me I like to go out and have a beer and dinner after work I work until 2 a.m. it's people like me kind of out of out of place I don't have anywhere to go I just go from work to home to work to home it's nice to have a place to break that up I'm a responsible citizen I've never been arrested I've never had a DUI I don't get into car accidents any of those things you're punishing me for the business owners if you pursue a repeal and I'm glad very glad to see that that's not what's happening why I'm in favor of the resolution in front of us it's great because the issues that have been brought up by the neighborhood associations and the individuals from those neighborhoods are absolutely legitimate I understand I used to live next to a college nobody's lying about the fact that college kids drink too much nobody's lying about the fact that vandalism occurs when young people drink too much nobody's lying I don't think anybody there may be some exaggeration going on but there's no reason to disbelieve at least from my vantage point because I've been through this I also went through this in a city that had it 2 a.m. close that's why I know for a fact that that's not going to make any difference but this resolution in front of us actually does provide relief and I like that the issues part of the issue much of the issue is what happens when underage people people who aren't good at drinking so to speak have too much and then they go out into these neighborhoods cause issues well something we can do to prevent that is to not serve them at these establishments so what the resolution that we have in front of us does is it sets out stricter guidelines stricter penalties a larger attempt at avoiding that happening in the first place not just after 2 a.m. right because if you run into these issues if you run into penalties and things like that your business is at stake right so I'm just about out of time and I'm not going to stand here for 10 or 20 minutes and demand that other people can see their time to me so I just wanted to state that I am in favor of the resolution I'm glad that city was able to come to a compromise that attempts to at least address the issues brought up by the neighborhoods and those issues would not be taken would not be dealt with by a repeal thank you Will Green how are you all it's a pleasure to see you I'm sorry I'm not happy to be here again once again defending my business my livelihood from a group of people that seem to have no understanding of and no respect for our industry to hear folks talk about the hospitality industry it's very dismissive it's as though we are beneath them it's fine for folks to come to our bars to come to our restaurants and be served by us but when it's time for us to go act like human beings once we're off work well hey just go sit at home somewhere it frankly feels as though they decided to declare war on our industry and this is an industry that has given so much to this town we can't pack up and move away I guess we could move across the bridge you know but we'd lose something by it Columbia would lose something by it it's really ironic that we're having this meeting today because we just had a weekend that proves how much the hospitality industry does for this town we just had indie grits come through town and yes we served those artists and those musicians and those filmmakers till well past two in the morning and everybody had a good time nobody got hurt and things were nice and calm we also had the Thunah Wine Festival free time just put that on massively successful and it was amazing to see almost all of the entire hospitality industry in one room it's an occasion that we don't really get very often and it was just touching to be honest you know and that's one of those things that you get late at night in the bars I know it seems we're talking about these kids out late at night but I'm talking about adults out and when we are together late at night in the bars we get to talk to each other and catch up and trade stories and trade intel tell stories about how to pick out the fake IDs for example as for the neighborhoods and community leaders I applaud your passion I feel it is misplaced I ask you to turn it where it belongs and where it can do the most good apply pressure to USC I find it funny that at some of these meetings on this side of the room sort of nodding along and pointing fingers and giving statistics yet we don't hear about what they're doing to students we've heard this number about 280 students going to the hospital last year how many of them are underage USC knows how old those kids are was there any punishment when they were caught drinking underage when they were caught doing something illegal was there any punishment that came down from USC bars are not the problem at least not the bars that serve adults the children are the problem if the neighborhoods decide to get angry at USC to throw their influence in that direction cut off funding to the football team start punishing kids for their off-campus behavior we'll see how quickly things change I don't want to get too anecdotal but I was driving I was driving through town today and I hit some traffic up around Blossom and I was thinking ah it's so much traffic I hate it and I realized oh wait in a month this traffic will not be here and then I thought oh wait in a month the chaos in five points disappears for the summer it significantly reduced why is that because the students went away their number significantly dropped in the summer and there goes all that chaos there goes all the lawn peeing now to switch away from that I want to focus briefly on the ordinance as written I generally agree with it I think that the changes the committee has made can be very effective if enforced but it still manages to punish my bar specifically and I've been up here several times defending the overall late night permits but I want to talk about the way it affects us and we believe that we are very good actors in this situation surely that can't be the intent of the law but it is the effect of the government for all of our extended hours now we sell plenty of food but there isn't much call for it after the time that we already have established to sort of put in a little plug that's midnight most days of the week Friday and Saturday that's one o'clock now if we had a demand for that after that time we would certainly keep it open and sell more food but we don't also the nature of late night business is sometimes we stay open until one sometimes we stay open until four sometimes we ask for us to keep a kitchen guy on staff keep our ovens up and running keep our fries up and running for three, four hours when somebody may or may not sell another thing in that whole time so we would just ask that you consider changing the language to a total percentage of food sales rather than when the food sales cut off that would be very helpful for us I thank you again for your time and patience I hope that it's a long time before I have to see you again exactly the kind of business that we are and the kind of model business that bar none and night caps are as well thank you, thank you alright Lynn Shirley Mr. Mayor, council members I'm Lynn Shirley from the Hollywood Russell neighborhood I don't have any written remarks which is probably a good thing but I did want to start with a quote that just occurred to me as I heard the other speakers you may know the name of the speaker his famous quote was first they came for the socialist and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist then they came for the trade unionist and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist and then it ends up then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew and then they came for me and there was no one left to speak up I live a block and a half from Rosewood Drive I am marginally affected if I want to be flipping our once a year drunk co-ed that passes out on someone else's front porch is as much as we hear we just hear the traffic coming and going but it appears to me that my background is in geography and the comments I've made to some of the core people on the issue of repeal are that it is a density problem there are too many bars that attract too many kids that stay up and too late and if you didn't have that density you would ameliorate those issues somewhat and that was the whole 400 feet how can you have this many bars in it I also question that if business is so good why so many specials for drink specials have to be given out for kids that tells me that the market is saturated in five points and that through some factor whether it's denying permits as bars change ownership or whatever you do need to look at how many bars there are that stay open regardless of the hours I do agree with the last speaker that the hours may not be the problem the problem is consumption of alcohol and the type of clientele that consume it hours is one way to potentially control that we can argue so those are my primary points as a property owner and someone who understands property values this is a business license that generates versus people that choose to live nearby I'll leave you with this one I was contacted by friends of mine who lived in Columbia on South Saluda with me 15 years ago they're associate pastor at a good United Methodist church is coming to Columbia to be a faculty member at Lutheran Seminary and my neighbor said hey Lynn would you give this woman some idea of neighborhoods that might be good she enjoys living in a city where the AC flora and the drear zone is where she wanted to be the other thing her realtor whose name I didn't know told her is you don't want to be too close to 5 points I'm afraid a lot of these good people back here live too close to 5 points for comfort for that so those are my thoughts I appreciate your time and also appreciate what a difficult issue this is as are most things that you deliberate thank you Mr. Early Mr. Douglas Carlisle Good afternoon Mr. Mayor and Councilman long suffering that y'all are this issue elected officials often have to endure such scenes so I appreciate your listening I am a professional economist for the state but I'm not speaking for the state today but I am going to address something that is dear to many economists hearts hidden costs there is a hidden cost to be paid for the current situation there is a hidden cost in all the USC police enforcement actions there is a hidden cost in Columbia police enforcement actions and ambulance costs and so forth more over there is a wider damage there is a wider damage because of businesses foregone I knew a businessman who 10 years ago thought the situation was getting out of hand and moved things are just crazy I have to work late and I'm afraid to go outside there is a cost to be paid for people who would not be patronizing those businesses there is a cost to be paid in the future potentially from civil suits that have to be paid by bar owners there is a cost paid by the people and individuals who suffer violence a policeman said there are people who look like students they act like students they dress like students they are predators predators own students there is a cost for Columbia just before I came here I mentioned I said you know I have a concern about the five point situation immediately before I could finish one person said I don't go to five points I never go there the second one said oh yeah I went through there two in the morning I was a free there is a cost for real estate our property value is going to decline we don't know what they would have been had these situations not have occurred and finally there is a cost being paid by some of the people defending it because in fact they have a cutthroat bad business model many of them that involves really a very core group of students going down there and they are competing among each other for them and there is just simply not enough business to go around so there are all these hidden costs and we are all burying them and even some of the people who don't want repeal are paying so I urge if you can repeal it you can grant something stronger than what is before you and certainly enforcement I appreciate your time thank you Mr. Carlisle Miss Anna Edwards you have to walk too fast walking time doesn't count against your three minutes I just want to get up here and move along I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you all I'm Anna Edwards from the University of South Carolina and we spoke at an earlier hearing and obviously we want to continue to represent the University and our role in our community USC is committing to be a part of the solution by educating our students and holding them accountable off campus but we ask and we need to work together to create healthier and safer environments for those who choose to enjoy our entertainment districts Five Points is the location where the vast majority of our students or the vast majority of extended hours permits have been granted where inexperienced underage students can walk into most bars and drink until the wee hours of the morning we're opposed to the current draft of the ordinance because we don't believe that it substantially impacts the current practice of targeting underage and overly intoxicated students the University again is committed to holding students accountable for creating a nuisance in the neighborhoods in 2015 we implemented an off campus incident reporting form and system which allows local neighbors to report nuisance properties or behavior concerns off campus to date we've received 263 reports and once these reports are received a staff member meets with the students the local neighbor and other parties to reach resolution there's also work with code enforcement zoning officials the office of student conduct and law enforcement to address the issue we have a mechanism for receiving off campus reports from law enforcement and the entertainment districts when a student has been cited thus far this year there have been 345 reports related to alcohol and drug citations from off campus that we work with local law enforcement in receiving when students are sanctioned there are fines these fines have increased in the last three to five years from $25 to $250 to $350 per sanction conduct probation which means that if there's a violation the student risks suspension parental notification they call their parent to say hey this is what's happened and educational workshops and programs the university implemented a three strike policy several years ago which is a national model for college campuses and we've seen recidivism decline at the university without question five points is a wonderful attraction to greater columbia community we're committed to working with city leaders business owners and community members to find practical solutions to impact the problem associated with underage and high risk drinking in our community however allowing bars and clubs to continue to promote late night and early morning drinking as a primary activity with little regard to identity enforcement and other existing legal ordinances places undue burden on law enforcement and diminishes the quality of life of our residents and I do have just a letter to each of you that you can get after the meeting asking for further conversation and maybe a broader presentation to the council on the efforts the university is doing to educate students who's the letter from Anna? from myself with the endorsement of our president and the university administration thank you absolutely I think you might have a couple of questions Anna some questions yes let me just ask I think it's important for me to say that and I guess the question that I have why did it take so long for us to come to this point and everybody owning up to their responsibility why did it take so long I know that I've been involved in this conversation for about seven years and most actively in the last three and I think we're driving a large ship and we're committed to representing the university and the community and making sure that our students are active citizens and they represent the university their families and this community to the best of their ability we can't control every behavior that our students make but we know that we're a player in this I can't speak to the length of time I know that in the department of student life and the division of student affairs this is what we do we recruit students we encourage students to come to the University of South Carolina for the academic experience and also the community that's built here that many of you participated in as students we also can't control every hour of every day but we provide education and we provide the structure that hopefully encourages positive decision making and holds them accountable when that doesn't happen I guess my concern is that the community is taking on the university's responsibility in terms of managing what has taken place in five points and that's it ought to be collaborative and I'm not sensing a real collaboration until all of what has happened has happened in five points the community stands but the community can't do it by themselves there has to be some collaborative something collaborative has to take place with the university and has that conversation been a part of what the community ingest and digest it has not been a part of that conversation and I feel a little torn because of that and there are great partnerships with our neighborhood associations we meet regularly with them we have a community campus coalition that many Tom I think is one of the founding members of that town down type of relationship so recognize that maybe the public display of our support and collaboration has not been as present as it is currently but we work alongside our community members and community officials city officials I did have one question and I tried not to attend too many of the meetings as we tried to avoid quorum the help me understand the policy decision behind moving students to five points but not bringing students back the shuttle, the current USC shuttle is or the hours I should say that is not in my unit but the hours are 10 p.m. until 3 a.m. and the goal is to get students into five points for any entertainment activities regardless of age and their pickups throughout the campus perimeter so it is not just an on campus delivery from a residence hall to five points and that shuttle has reduced crime in the area I think Chief Holbrook probably shared in an earlier council meeting about the reduction in the aggravated assaults and some of the robberies along the corridor Ms. Devine has a question going back to some of the statistics that we've heard a lot the number of students who went to the hospital can you tell us a little bit more about that and what the university does when those incidents happen when a student is hospitalized they go through a brief motivational interview and it's a public health interview where students meet three times with a trained coach to go through the decision making factors that led them to get to that point so is it their drinking is it other factors related to their status as a student that are impacting their excessive drinking that leads to hospitalization because typically students who are hospitalized for alcohol are drinking liquor we have not had a student yet who has been transported for drinking beer and so many times there are underlying issues that students are dealing with that lead to their excessive use of alcohol and so we work with the students on a plan to get them back on track so that they can be successful as a student and receive counseling sometimes it's a situation where a student needs to take a time out from the university their behavior and their alcohol drug use is such that they can't be successful in that environment right now and out of those numbers do you guys segregate which ones are because I would imagine the majority of university students I mean I didn't turn 21 till I was a senior so the majority are underage so out of that number is there any difference in the fact that they're underage drinking and are there any stiffer penalties I mean I think certainly taking a time out from the university is pretty stiff but outside of that are there other things that go to help more prevent slash penalize the behavior so that not just for that student but so that other students recognize that the university takes that very seriously yeah so typically if a student is underage there could be a citation that they have received from law enforcement which that will compound their sanction or their outcome with the office of student conduct we don't publicize the number of students or the names of students who have come through this program we have a federal law that requires or prevents us from doing that but there is word travels pretty quickly for students and once students the three strike rule that was implemented a couple years ago has really I think had somewhat of an impact because we're seeing few students come back through the system so that you don't have to suspend students for their behavior they get back on track and they're doing what they came here to do Miss Edwards I wanted to follow up because one of the things that's been in this discussion is we've talked about numbers but the university has talked a lot about what they've done for the students but one of the missing pieces is the university has made a pretty clear stance that they want bars to be regulated they want certain things from the bars but the university is not doing the same thing with its venues Colonial center last night young lady in front of me got two beers at the Eagles concert which was fabulous by the way nobody ever asked her for an ID I couldn't tell you if she was 21 or not she was a lot younger than the average age there because the average age was mine and older but same at football we encourage tailgating it's the only place in Columbia that you can walk around and drink and the enforcement is not there so what I would ask is we move forward that what you're asking other people to do that you do the same thing because I do think it's a little hypocritical to put the pressure on one group when your own venues don't do the same thing and I've had that conversation with the university and I wanted to make it a point because it is something if we're talking about an overall underage drink and then everybody's got to be on board absolutely I also believe that this thing didn't start seven years ago we all know that there were no permits required everybody was allowed to drink what we have is a concentration some people say it's bar some people say it's students but the one conversation that we haven't had as a group is when do we hold the individual who makes the crime accountable the problems that the neighbors are having it can be a bar but what about the pre-gaming what about the grocery stores what about the convenience stores what about the people who are selling it to these kids and as we went through the statistics as you and I talked about a lot of these drinking issues and hospitalizations were before 2 a.m. now I've heard and I don't know if this is true but if a kid gets caught at the university have a choice they can get arrested they can go to the hospital we had two students stand up here and tell us that so I don't know if that's true or not but so as we look at those numbers but I would ask is that we continues that we have better dialogue together to work there's some of us and I think there's probably a lot of universities would agree that 18 for beer and wine would solve a lot of headaches because people won't be trying to have their last drink before they leave not knowing they can have another drink later I do think the campus activities that aren't there also you know create an atmosphere where you were pushing kids to the entertainment unlike Georgia North Carolina or other places where fraternities and other places can have on campus where they stay on campus so whatever we can do to work together we want to well and I think that's why we're here we want to be a part of the solution and regardless of what happens with the ordinance repeal not we're not going away and we want to be a part of the solution so we look forward to further conversations and work Miss Edwards it would be helpful again some of us weren't part of the committee so we didn't hear those things and you might have someone testify to one thing that we have even heard today and there's background behind the statistics can you find out for us whether or not that's true regarding if a student is caught excessive drinking on campus if there is a choice between the hospital or jail because that would certainly play into the numbers that keep getting cited of the number of kids that go to the hospital so that would be interesting information for us and secondly I forgot to ask this regarding those numbers and I asked that before and I didn't get an answer it's being recorded as well so you can go back and look at it in channel 2 at Nozium but I didn't get an answer well I think the answer I got was that there wasn't any information but regarding the students that get cited if there's any information regarding where they had been drinking because I think that plays a role in the bigger conversation for us as a community there will be a decision one way or another regarding the 2 AM but there is a bigger conversation that we need to have regarding underage drinking enforcement and making sure that the students that call Columbia home for this period of time are safe and if we know where these things are happening we can address that absolutely in my letter I offer a kind of review of our prevention and education efforts and all the details related to what we do from point of a student being admitted to graduation in terms of this topic and responsible decision making and some of the highlights that you cover Ms. Devine I'll make sure you get copies of this that came this was the second draft Ms. Edwards provided to us that had the footnotes so that you could follow and see what the real percentages were before you get copies and I look forward to I'm sorry Mr. Duvall please off campus yes sir I think the 345 what yes I can get that for you make sure that wasn't our off campus new sense reports Mr. Davis please I'm sorry everyone's got a question please just one question the students are the focal point in terms of allowing them to be able to enjoy the the atmosphere and surrounding areas of campus and I'm hearing that there are some or there have been some education initiatives in terms of getting students to kind of understand impact and that sort of thing what kind of feedback do you get from the students and what and the things that you you're trying the things that you've tried so we do an online alcohol education and I can give some of you a broader overview of this one day hopefully very soon but where we require all incoming students to take an online assessment as you can imagine that is not their favorite activity prior to enrolling at the University of South Carolina but it gives us a really great perspective as to what their familiarity is with alcohol what their drinking behaviors are prior to coming to campus and then they take another assessment after 45 days on campus where we see the impact of this environment on those students and their drinking behaviors we do a number of educational outreaches and special populations like Mr. Rickman noted fraternity and sorority life where we know that that's a population of our student body that attracts a more high risk student so we do work with the students that coordinate tailgate and we provide education to them on the laws the expectations and being a member of the Carolina community this is what we do as you know that sometimes students are interested in receiving that information and sometimes it has to be reinforced in other settings after there is an incident or they have a situation on their residence hall floor with a friend that gets into trouble or has an evening that they don't want to repeat and that's when students come back to us wanting the reinforcement wanting us to again go over some of the things that will help them be successful we reinforce a lot you know students we don't do what we do because students enjoy hearing the information or they like it frankly we do it because we know it keeps them safe it keeps them healthy and it makes them a vibrant member of this community and you know so they can go out and represent us all one day I look forward to reviewing the letter and following the conversations with you and Dennis and Dr. Besties and whoever else I've always been somewhat circumspect when I speak about the university everything I think I've been able to do in life to the grace of God some awesome parents and the education I've received at the University of South Carolina I have a lot of questions about some of the policies some obviously may seem practical but if in fact we are greatly concerned about underage drinking I'm not sure why we would transport underage students to five points I'm curious about some of the policies and practices that lead into that do we check students for sobriety before they get on the bus do we when we track this data who's been admitted to the hospital do we see if those are some of the same students we took down there and brought back and the connectivity of these issues and obviously the larger public health and mental health issues that you're attempting to address there some of the challenges that we see are I don't believe are unique to five points or any other district like that around the country but five points has been five points for a number of years we've seen rather explosive growth at the university which is good I believe for the Columbia and good for opportunity but some of the spillover effects are having an effect on the neighborhood so I'd be curious to dig a little bit deeper and obviously I know moving students there and back is a public safety issue and want to make sure that so is there an internal acknowledgement that the students are going anyway so we'd rather transport them than not transport them and if we transport them it is the responsibility at the public corporation as the university attached to that and just some deeper questions and they may not be referenced in the current letter but as we continue to discuss I'd love to dig a little bit deeper into that if in fact this ordinance was repealed the permits were repealed with the shuttles then stop they go at 3am that continue just want to dig a little bit deeper and realize that we are indeed interdependent absolutely and the shuttles started after Martha Childress was shot in 2011 so that was a safety initiative that was implemented due to the crowds there so absolutely all valid questions and I look forward to further conversation. Thank you so much and they are a lot longer than you expected to be so I appreciate it. Oh, no. Alright. Beth Richardson I'll see you back. Congratulations on partnership. Thank you Mayor. Appreciate that. Good afternoon I thank you all for holding this special meeting to address what is obviously a very complex issue for which admittedly I think we all recognize there's no ace in the hole here and we are really looking at an issue in which there are going to be many approaches to resolve it overall and it's going to take time that being said I, to me you know I have not been at it I will step back and say I have not been at every committee meeting I do not profess to be as well educated as you all are on it but it seems to me as I still can't understand why the repeal of the 2 a.m. ordinance is really a big deal for some of you who don't know me my name is Beth Richardson and I moved to the city of Columbia in 2001 I moved into the old Shandon neighborhood near Lower Waverly and I now live in the University Hill neighborhood I have been very active in my community I've used Martin Luther King Park where my 3 children who are now 11 10 and 8 grew up playing in I go to 5 points not so much with my children but with my husband for dinner we enjoy the walking aspect of our neighborhood but I will not I hate to admit because I love to tout the beauty of these historic neighborhoods around 5 points but it is embarrassing the way in which the 5 points is kept on Friday morning, Saturday morning and Sunday morning often times I also am embarrassed that I have to see this man on my runs at 5.30 in the morning picking up all the trash everywhere and that my taxpayer dollars are going to that effort why do I have to pick up for the bars not picking up after themselves who are open that late I just don't know what we gain by this new middle ground what research have we done to say that this new middle ground is the best resolution of Columbia, the capital city when we have examples of Charleston, Greenville and Myrtle Beach who have clearly passed this ordinance with no adieu to their cities do this whole concept that we are losing out on hospitality by not allowing the bars to operate after 2 a.m. I think is misguided Sean Brock, Mike Lada the owner of Husk and Fig left Charleston who has repealed the 2 a.m. ordinance and I just really encourage you all just from the most simple approach that we do not make a big deal about the 2 a.m. repeal and we just I recognize that is one necessary step to a very complex problem I know my time is up but I also want to talk just very briefly about USC I recognize needs to have a deep conversation with the city and how to work with the city to tackle this problem but they have been for the last 3 years very involved in the neighborhood association efforts and responsive to our complaints about problems with our neighborhoods so I did want to mention that that's fantastic thank you thank you very much Beth Sue Darn I wasn't planning on speaking but it dawned on me when I was driving over this afternoon that this feels familiar it reminds me of when we were trying to ban smoking in bars years ago there was a fear that bars would lose business and it ended up being resolved as I was talking to Councilman Davis about earlier it ended up being decided that it was a matter of public health seems like this also has become a matter of public health and public safety and I hope that we can do better thank you let the record reflect Ms. Dorn did not yield her time to anyone else okay so that don't plan to use it is it Martin, is it Driesen? I can't really add a lot to that some of us have some of us have really good business models Barnard's been in business for 23 years as a late night bar a certain food till 4.30 in the morning and we've done an excellent job I think we're an asset to the city thank you guys for letting us do that a lot of things I don't disagree with what they said but I'm not going to go into that just I hope you give me the chance to keep on running my business the way I have I'm sorry can I ask some questions I don't go after 2 so I just want to know logistically these are some of the questions I've had reading this so you mentioned about the food you currently at Barnard do serve food until? 23 years ago we started the whole idea was to get the service industry after they got off work so we serve food till 4.30 in the morning sales, food sales have gone up it's probably getting close to 30% of ourselves between 2 and 4.30 or whatever what percentage of your revenue or drinks and what's revenue is between 2 and 4 4.30 is probably 50-50 very much so most of our clientele aren't students most of the students we get they come there after other bars close and get cheddar cheese fries and glasses of water good clientele we don't cater to college students I really don't want them in there I don't want them to tear up my bathrooms a lot of responsible people out there been there 23 years only had an A from DHEC never had a work since comp claim never had an unemployment claim never had a ticket from CPD until recently the sled thing but there's still a due process of all those I don't think anybody's paid those tickets yet had a lot of employees gone to to have career in architecture banking officers in the military people forget about employees that are working I only see us in not all bars are created equal we don't have the same business plan I don't cater to students other bars do I don't know how you guys deal with that but I have a good business plan I have a good business plan I don't have any other choices just as nightcaps some of us go for an older clientele we do serve food I hope I get it continue doing it did you have another question didn't expect all this did you just tell everybody done when we don't say anything it's time to sit down I heard you say been any any incident is at Barnard. I would you know when you say when I say incident is I'm just let's just say occurrences. I would say there's not a bar in the world that doesn't have an incident. I would say there's not a bar in the world that doesn't have incidences where there's an altercation between customers or something like that you know but none of them are significant enough you know where we don't call the police department I think you could probably ask the officers down in five points and they would speak highly of how we run our place and how we take care of things. So Barnard is is a older crowd. Yes I would say so yeah you know and we're open for happy hour to our happy hours is an older crowd I'd say average age is probably 40 you know running the bar is tough it's probably you know you're responsible for everybody in your bar and you're responsible for them when they leave you know and I don't know what I was responsible for the university in the neighborhoods I'd pay myself more. It's a tough business my parents had a bar for 31 years and my dad said he wouldn't wish the bar business on his worst enemy you know but I like it I like people so I hope you let me continue to do it. Any other questions? Oh good thank you. Walter Marks. Thank you for the job you do. Councilman one question I'd like to answer for you being the president of West Garden Homeowner Association a long before your own council and member of many committees at USC. I feel like they've been very committed in the last years to help the neighborhoods also serves at the university on the university associates which is a conglomerate of business leaders in the community. One problem that I personally had but not with this council was working with council and that would be all of the landlord order set that hadn't been Mr. Davis and my missing councilman and to me we'd still be out in the neighborhoods trying to get city to come do ordinances. Unfortunately councilman I do agree that I want you to say same methods of debt. I think this is the same old same that I've heard before. I won't go into a lot of rhetoric again about the old one didn't work. We know it didn't work. I worked a moment or five years ago on that ordinance. Nobody's to blame but the one thing that we can blame is that we didn't enforce it and that's what I think's wrong with this. That we're going to enforce it. What I think is I'm not here to go against the bars or hospitality. I think we all enjoy going out at night. I think we're looking at something much deeper. I'm not here to pick on the university because they're an 800 pound gorilla. It's easy for a councilman to pick on them because that just deflects the real point here today in my mind. The thing that I think that this is a bureaucratic attempt to change something that hasn't been given enough thought. So I'm not here saying get rid of 2 a.m. Maybe there's a better way. I know we have a great cheer. I know we have great councilman and I know we have civic leaders that should be involved before we get up in the morning and read the paper and say well maybe we can have staggered closings. I know in the door and I talked about this constantly of putting all these kids on the street when this came up the first time. I get that. What I don't get is saying that the university has a responsibility to do certain things but I don't hear that the Constitution of South Carolina did not give bar owners, not all bar owners. I'm only talking about questionable ones here today. I know they're good bar owners. I've been to them. I've been to Mr. Rickman's restaurant numerous times and I'm sorry I went out of business because it's one of the best but they didn't give these bar owners the right, no constitutional right to put set up a bar wherever they want to and serve alcohol to who they want to at any age at any time of night. Now the one difference is I work for a public corporation and we handle very sensitive material and we are liable just like Facebook was to get that information on the street before it's time. That bar owner when he picked up that license agreed to obey state and local laws. Clearly there's no council here today to say that there are few questionable bars and not doing it and I don't think that the ordinance that came back to this for whatever you folks want to call it from your legal terms clearly addresses all those issues and we have some good council in here that have not looked at this totally it wouldn't be to make acts she's terrific she's represented my neighborhood I remember her coming to my neighborhood with a little kid and I know the mayor and I don't think the mayor spent enough time on this either and I think that this council needs to slow down and decide what's going to be a good thing for the city of Columbia that represents the neighbors there's nothing in this new one that takes care of the neighbors and I won't say the neighborhoods don't take care of me as a citizen and I think that'd be the responsibility of this council to make sure when that comes that it represents the citizens of the city of Columbia and I would ask anybody that's in this room tonight stand up and if they live in the area around the university or if they don't stand up because we're the ones living with these problems and thanks to council with landlord orders things have gotten better thanks we hired a good chief in Columbia things got a lot better I feel safer for sure I think we have a good council but I'm asking this council to this is clearly a case of a little bit of a tail wagging the dog and you know you're gonna be on the wrong side of history if you represent a very small portion of bad bars and five points whatever you want to say about it's giving this town bad reputation I get costs from all over place one about five points and I say you know I feel safe down there but this is a clear case that you can I wouldn't want to be on this council and make a wrong decision and I'm asking y'all to in your heart think about slowing this train down and figuring out what you're gonna say to the city thank you I just want to add one comment and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna debate but I would ask you to read this ordinance because the same person who helped you with the landlord ordinance help put this together and it does have teeth and it addresses a lot of issues it's not perfect yet but we're not done yet either but I would ask you to have what you've asked us to do I would I would ask you to do the same thing is ask those folks to also come to the table because I think it's a two-way street and and and I'm gonna say it again because miss Lucas has made grounds that other people have not because she hasn't been a sitting throwing hand grenades and everything else at everybody she's actually tried to work for a solution and so I would just say please read it because it does it to say it's lipstick on a pig or whatever dick likes to throw out in his his typical rant and raves this this thing actually does make a difference and is it perfect no or we willing to listen yes but let's let's let's not throw the baby out with the bath water because these people who's sitting here mr. Driesen mr. Harris and his wife and his family these other folks who've been running legitimate businesses for 20 plus years deserve the right to run their business legitimately and I don't think any of us would like us to go and change your business model and tell you you can't run your business the way you did it now do we need to enforce and and do things I believe we have teeth but at the same time I also believe that the bad actors they're not in this room today if you look around they're the ones not here today and they haven't been here the whole time and I believe that we have ability to do that but I just I just ask you to please look at it before you say it's just lipstick well sir since you don't know much about my career I'm known for that I was an artillery in the office of the army so that would start that if you to listen to my opening statement I breathe they're good bars I'm not picking on these but I'm picking on is this bureaucratic piece that came out of council and uh and council says y'all also you know it just looks like lipstick to me so I'll call it what I want to well thank you where you're what I would add on that though honestly um and because you indicated about slowing down to be real honest and all due respect to my colleague you know mr. Duvall presented a ordinance that no one had seen yet for us to talk about and potentially vote on before we had this discussion so when you talk about going through and slowing down this process has slowed down because we've had an opportunity to and I say we have not been part of that but we've had the count the the council committee has had an opportunity to go through this and bring forward a recommendation the rest of us are getting into this you know for the first time in the weeds and as I've shared with April and others I think it's our job to have these public hearings to hear comments so that we can look at this and ask the right questions and maybe tweak it to make it better um but that's part of the process I mean that is our democratic process and I think it's unfair um to present a ordinance to to that may potentially affect someone's business without going through our due diligence absolutely and I agree whole hardly and I'm glad to finally get to council because I feel like I'm better represented today than I was it to me here and um and Howard wasn't disagreeing with what I said and this is this is what we're going to do um unless you have a question for for skipper we're gonna um if you have a question if you ask them directly otherwise um we'll let you have a seat and if you have comments we can make some comments more order more order you the the lady the lady from Earlwood addressed you directly you want a chance to respond I would like to have a moment of of correction of the uh misspoken uh way this thing came about um I did not ask for a vote on this ordinance when I proposed it I proposed an ordinance that was helped I had to help from Mike Hamlet writing it up and I asked that it be referred to the proper committee which was the public safety committee for its review and to report back to council I did not ask the council to vote on it without hearing about it that's the way public policy is made you have something that you think is a good public policy you present it to the proper legislative body which was the city council and its subcommittee the public safety committee they have studied this thing odd infinitum and now they are reporting it back we're gonna study it a little bit more I've got some correcting amendments I would like to offer at the proper time maybe tonight or or during the interim period that Mr Rickman has talked about but I have not rushed this thing and I want it studied I want to repeal and and uh I think we had handled it properly thank you Mr. Duvall will it really agree to disagree on that but it it actually initially on the first agenda it appeared as an ordinance to be presented I think after discussion it was referred to a committee um and then we got to this process which is fine I mean we need to get it to the process to have discussed but that's that's that's how it was how would I have meetings with people who were asking me to vote for it when you had a little agenda so just be honest am I gonna have to grab the gavel I miss uh I'm done Mr. Davis uh well I appreciate your comment I'm also talked with with April and uh I'm uh of the opinion of Daniel that she is just kind of looked at this thing and sort of tossed it around put it in the oven brought it back out and and it's kind of um hoping that that we could at the end of the day come to a meeting of the minds on what is best what is the best approach to get the product that we want um and I'm hearing you say the same thing and knowing how you are I would want to ask you um when you know to I guess to further define slow down what would you do that we haven't done I'm gonna hope I'm not putting you on the spot but if you want to do that moving forward that would be helpful because I'm hearing you say that there's something we could have done would have done differently and that would be short of uh just leaving it as is or short of of um going for total ban I think that's what I'm looking for from you and that's and I think you're capable of doing that well that's a good thing and well well thank you for all the leadership you've done and I know in various neighborhood associations citywide um but that's that's why we have this process y'all so this is a public hearing uh we'll share ideas we've heard some some good things some some helpful things some not so helpful things and and uh we'll continue the process of policy making between now and however we choose to act prospectively so if you got some more stuff uh just as as we've received from um Miss Lucas and others let's keep it coming let's keep it coming and and to answer your question um you know I don't disagree with councilman Rick when he was on council the first time he probably remembered I knew that but um I thought he had great ideas I'm not seeing that he's wrong I don't want to hurt good people either I think what we're looking at is a situation of a few individuals that are operating businesses that are outside state and local loss and I think that unfortunately um that also works good people now I think there should be a way with this council as smart as you are and much brainpower is I shouldn't wake up in the paper and say well maybe we'll have staggered closings maybe we'll do that that sounds like a brain trust that you folks get together with the chief and say hey which of these can we really enforce to protect the citizens against people that want to break the law I know there's many people in this room that don't and I think that's what I've seen lacking especially from that committee and I came to all the hands but today as it is I know I came today because I knew I would see the full council and I know the leadership y'all give call them so I'm just asking for some more of that and I'm glad that it's back before all y'all to think about this but again openly thank y'all for all you do for the city and my time today I appreciate it thank you thank you for the marks April the John leave okay all right okay yes ma'am and the last person signed up is Jim Daniel Jim I'm here on behalf of the wheelio neighborhood association I'm their president at our meeting in January we voted to support the coalition's request to terminate the after hours our permits but there's one other thing that we learned during the recent AOJ case and it's not applicable to all these bar establishments that particular bar said that during their peak season school year they could generate as much as $20,000 a week in revenue so we're going to pile that by 52 you see seven figure figure when y'all if you when you look at what's been proposed you might want to look at a different kind of way of establishing a fee for these establishments when you a sliding scale based on how much business you have when you when I found my business license my what I pay for my business license is predicated on the income I've had the year before so maybe it would be fair when you determine what the fee should be the little guy pays less because he's smaller the big guy pays more because he's bigger so if you're generating a million dollars a year in income you pay at a certain figure if you're generating $150,000 a year you're generating a difference so thank you Jim I just you mentioned that to me in an email and and and if they were generating $20,000 every week our business license folks will be going to collect a check from them because I don't think they've been claiming that so that was a sworn testimony from these guys and that question was asked over and over again and it was answered over and over again during our big seasons we can generate $20,000 a month so I mean yes sir Mr. McDowell are we done yeah thank you thank you Jim we are done Mr. McDowell that was the last person to sign up for the 330 hearing just a moment of personal privilege and of course want to thank each of you for being here today and exercising your right to come to this podium and speak your piece some weeks ago and and I must I gotta say this Daniel Rickerman has taken some hits that he didn't deserve this is not Daniel Rickerman's ordinance Sam Davies and I worked on this all of us worked on this together there has been some tremendous hits on both sides of the field and I don't think that's fair I don't think that's fair it's our fiduciary responsibility what we wanted to do was to initially is to have a public hearing to sit down and after gathering all of the information to put that in written form not anything that was going to be concretized with anything but of course given opportunities to tweak the document so I've had a very ravenous here here I've heard everything I think it's to our it's to our it our ability as a city and as a community is to move forward and to hear what folk has to say and to say without consequence we can speak passionately but we don't have to tear each other down one of the good things about this council that you will find nowhere else in any city is that we can disagree with each other and not get mad at each other and I think that's a plus for this council so in in in closing I think it's necessary that we not slam each other that we speak our passion and that allow us I think skip you said it a few minutes ago allow us it's not bureaucratic in in in notion but allow us to get all of the information and then determine in a very collaborative way where the road is going to lead so I thank you all very much for allowing us to hear your concerns thank you sir thank you mr. McDowell and second public hearing is scheduled for what time 6 p.m so when we get to it on the agenda so Groundhog Day is at 6 p.m y'all and I don't think there's any need for everyone to be here again unless you sit you for the public hearing portion but um thank you all for sharing with us I think we're going to have a moment to be recessed between now and and six all right so thank you all so much oh my second session I'm sorry ma'am so who has emotion I wouldn't move can you hear me Erica can you hear me Erica I would move emotion motion for executive session for receipt of legal advice relating to pending threatening or potential claim Amanda Krill Gottfried versus City of Columbia Odum versus City Cumberland versus City Cricket Store versus City in resolution 2018 032 City versus Hotel Guides discussion of matters relating proposed location expansion of services to encourage the location expansion of industries and other businesses regarding rain living and the discussion of negotiations incident to propose purchase of property at a stoke court that she's cute yes sir mr rickamann mr mcdowell rickamann mr dissolve mr vine hi i'm davis mere benjamin thank you