 and I urge from the agenda briefly to, before we go on executive session, just to respect everyone's schedules as best we can. Madam Clerk, would you please call her off? Certainly, good afternoon. Mr. Brennan. Present. Mr. Rickerman. Here. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Present. Mr. Vine. Here. Mr. Davis. Here. Mayor Benjamin. Here. Thank you. Everyone please join me for the Pudge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic of which it stands, one nation under God, individual with liberty and justice for all. Madam City Manager, somewhere in this building, there is a state flag. I want people to realize that we do know that we are still a part of the state of South Carolina. Let's make sure we get that flag in here at some point. All right, thank you. We're proud members of the Palmetta State, citizens of the Palmetta State. Well, Mary, let me stop. Reverend Dowell, you please give us a word. Yes, sir. That is very gracious creator for your infinite wisdom, for the ability to weather the storms of life, for grace that gives us our foundation. We thank you today for those who have gathered in this room. It's our prayer today that you might touch and sensitize us to the will of the people of the city of ours. Touch and allow us to feel the warmth of your spirit. We ask it in your name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Councilman. Entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. We will defer appointments to the Columbia Police Department Citizens Advisory Committee. And we're going to move the executive session to immediately after presentations. We'll take up the COVID discussions and HTAX as well after we come back from the executive session. All right. Is there a motion? Is there a second? Second. Any discussion with a previous question? I'll call it all. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. McBowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mr. Vines? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. Thank you. Madam City Manager, presentations? Yes, sir. Mayor Benjamin, at this time, we will start with resolution number R-2021-100, approving the honorary naming of Richland Street between Toonach Road and Oak Street, Trinity Baptist Church Way. Yeah, a motion. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All right. Is there any discussion? Very excited to do this. The church has been a pillar of the community for so many years. No more discussion? We'll move the previous question. Part color roll. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. McBowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mr. Vines? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. I'm not keeping count. That's Ed McDowell 21. Everyone else is nothing right now? Is there? Is someone here to receive it on behalf of the church? Yes. All right. You can read it. Are you present? Marvelous, gracious things. We are committed to the excess. We have nothing more to do than Sunday. We are giving you today this. Besides coming up and being posted on the two streets, but this will be, I guess, for you, ma'am. Thank you so much for what Trinity Church does for us. I'm just leading you without the term and going. You're gracious for the takes in. We haven't eaten there in a long time. But, of course, that day will eventually come. Thank you so much for your leadership. And we'll see you on Sunday. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Deacon? I must say that since the cafeteria has been closed, we've all lost about 10 pounds, at least. So, yeah, you too, right? Thank you, sir. All right. Madam City Manager. Thank you, Mayor. Item 6, the business spotlight honoree for 2021, the Extraordinary Head Hunters, LLC, to be presented by Ms. Melissa Lindler, the Office of Business Opportunities Director. Good afternoon. The City of Columbia's Office of Business Opportunities is pleased to recommend Ms. Kiera Streeter, president and CEO of Extraordinary Head Hunters, LLC, as the 2021 Small Business Spotlight Honoree. The company is a full service staffing and marketing company headquartered right here in Columbia, South Carolina. The three-year-old company recently opened four new operations in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Denver, Colorado, Seattle, Washington, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her story is certainly one of triumph and resiliency. In the spring of 2018, a terrible car accident left her with a serious brain injury that would require speech therapy and memory recovery. She used her principles of faith and the foundation of family to mold what recovery would look like. Those principles became the foundation that allowed Extraordinary Head Hunters not only to evolve, but to prosper, even in the midst of adversity. Over the past 18 months, during COVID, the company has provided more than 70,000 free tests to South Carolina, Jersey City, and New York. They are also able to secure employment for 10,000 people and donated over $450,000 to those affected by the pandemic. Ms. Streeter has been recognized by the South Carolina Women's Business, Women in Business 2021, the best and brightest under 35, and the Better Business Bureau. She serves on the Forbes Business Council Committee, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce Business Committee, Columbia Chamber of Commerce Business Council, and is a member of the United Ways Young Leaders Society, and women in philanthropy, sorry. Ms. Streeter is married to Julia Streeter and has three children, Imani, Julius Jr., and Kareem. I present to you, Ms. Kareem Streeter. Thank you. Wow, when you're working so hard, you don't realize all the things that you've done. I am so honored and grateful for this amazing opportunity. Thank you all so much. Me and my husband and our team, we make a lot of sacrifices because we are committed to the community, we really care. We changed our entire business model before COVID or the pandemic. We never did anything with medical and we were like, listen, it's so negative every time we turn on the TV, we wanna be a positive solution, we wanna be a positive resource to the community. And so we were like, we're gonna change our entire business model and we're gonna find a company to partner with to provide free COVID testing all over the state of South Carolina for free. And so I'm so happy that we are present day, we're now expanding and we're gonna be starting next Tuesday in the low country doing free COVID testing in all the local schools. And I'm just so grateful for all the opportunities we've been able to provide. We love South Carolina, we love Columbia and we're gonna continue to make you guys proud. So thank you so much. And I'd say this before I, we take the picture. The most amazingly successful and persistent woman I've ever met. Julius, is that fair? She doesn't quit, does she? She doesn't quit. Whether it was recruiting new and even non-traditional employees at Juicy when they first got up and running or calling to find out how they could just do some good at the beginning of the pandemic connecting with the Salvation Army and made a significant contribution to the doing the most good academy and some of the kids who otherwise would not have been able to make it through the pandemic. And just time and time again, this team has done great work. So congratulations, this is quite deserved. So appreciate y'all. Now read into the record Mayor Benjamin while you're coming forward that you'll also be presenting the Extraordinary Head Hunters LLC business spotlight honoree for 2021 proclamation. The Honorable Stephen K. Benjamin. And she's coming up. I'll read the proclamation as he's coming. So whereas Extraordinary Head Hunters LLC was established in 2018, it is known for providing companies globally with expert job recruitment and marketing. Whereas Kiera Streeter, president and CEO of Extraordinary Head Hunters LLC is an accomplished leader with 15 years of experience in the professional services industry. She is skilled at creating marketing opportunities and growth through innovative business strategies and implementing complex technology and research based solutions. Whereas Kiera Streeter has been recognized among the Sacramento Women in Business 2021, the best and brightest under 35 and the better business bureau for exceptional service. Whereas Kiera Streeter serves on the Ford Business Council Committee, SC Chamber of Commerce Business Committee, Columbia Chamber of Commerce Business Council and is a member of the United Ways Young Leader Society and Women in Philanthropy. And whereas Kiera Streeter founded her own nonprofit, Women Inspiring Girls, an organization that supports young girls and teens as they become professionals and leaders. And whereas the City of Columbia recognizes Extraordinary Head Hunters LLC as the business spotlight honoree for 2021 and congratulates them on three years of service. Now, therefore, Stephen K. Benjamin, Mayor of the City of Columbia, along with all members of Columbia City Council, do hereby proclaim that the city honors and recognizes the business spotlight honoree for 2021 as Extraordinary Head Hunters LLC. Thank you, Ms. DeVine. And the Streeter team, we would not be offended if y'all laugh right now, okay? Okay. No, do not feel obligated. Do not feel obligated. Mayor Benjamin and Council, I am extremely excited as with all of these wonderful presentations today. But of course, number seven hits home and we would like Ms. Felicia Utesy, our Director of Public Relations, Media and Marketing to come forward. Award of excellence from the International Association of Business Communicators, South Carolina Chapter, the 2020 Talmetto Awards. And obviously you all know all that Leisha and her team, Harry and his team, all of the related departments, our executive management team and all of the departments that they oversee have done during this pandemic. And so with that, I'll let Leisha explain. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Mayor, Council members and Ms. Wilson, I'm very excited today as Ms. Wilson reiterated to announce that we've won the award. She's giving you the details and specifically it's for our Resilient Columbia Micro-Site which was born out of a need, definitely, as an online hub for business information, education, safety tips and resource information for our citizens. And it started in April, 2020. It's still going and we are updating information daily and it truly has served as a resource for our city. So we thank everyone for their input on a daily basis. We thank our mayor and council and our city manager for their vision to push us to find new ways to communicate during the pandemic. This was not a solo effort, so. All of who? My team says, my team says they're good, but my team is working. Why don't you let your team and then I'll take a picture. Yeah. Come on. Sir, I'm trying to get Wilson's shirt. Okay. She didn't say it, too. Where did you get that from? The word. I know that this is a little odd. I'm coming up here for a reason, for another little matter of personal privilege. Quickly. I would like our clerk to join me for a moment. Our chief of staff to join me for a moment. I don't know where she went. Ms. Ashley Jenkins Wood and Ms. Shanique Belton, where are they? There are these ladies. Find them, find them. I didn't, you know, the mayor switched his stuff up on me because I have to, you know how to be nimble and quick. All right. These ladies, which surprised me because where does the time go, have served our city very well for collectively 20, 30, 40, 50 years if I put it all together, but not all at once. So Erica has been with us for 20 years. Wow. And I want to give her, personally, that's for me. Thank you. Ms. Pamela Benjamin, my chief of staff, has been with us for the last 10 years. Wow. Good. She can actually have that much time. I know. You're not the only one. Oh, well. Congratulations to all of you. And thank you so much for your service. Thank you. Ms. Wilson. Thank you for indulging that. Absolutely. We did need to also adopt the minutes near Benjabur. Approve the minutes. From August 5th, 2021 emergency meeting in August 17th, city council meeting. Motion to second. All right. Any discussion? With the previous question, court call roll. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. McDowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mr. Vine? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. And if there are no questions about the consent agenda, why don't we get it knocked it out and so no one's waiting on that and before we go on the executive session. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Adams 8 through 32. So we'll move Mr. Any second? Any discussion? With the previous question, court call roll. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. McDowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mr. Vine? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. Mr. Duvall, you got a motion for me? Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion when you go into executive session for receipt of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to SC code 30-4-78-2 in a governmental collaboration and premium pay. All right. Is there a second? Second. Question, is there a question? Yes, just one question. I know in the audience there was a citizen that came to speak before us. I don't see it on the agenda from the public. I'm sorry, regarding which item, Mr. Davis? I don't see it. I thought she'd signed up. We're not at the end yet. Is she? Can we put it at the end? And what is she? She just wants to speak during the public opportunity to speak. We'll still do that. We're just going into a brief, a second session. We're coming back. I'm sorry. You'll get to come right back. No, we wish you could have a meeting that short. It's not happening today. So we're gonna come right back and pick up the COVID report. All right. Let's do it. Move the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you. Is there a motion? Did they go out of the executive session? Almost. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Move the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Davis. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you. Mayor Benjamin and council, at this time we will begin city council discussion and action items. Number three on our agenda is the COVID-19 update and related policies and protocols. The Honorable Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin. Thank you so much. Let me say manager. We're gonna have a number of different announcements today by our staff after consultation with legal council and city council and looking forward to that. We do have the privilege and we've been pretty good stewards of everyone's time thus far and it also helped us keep the room kind of clear, which is good. But it was important to me just as I look at, as we all look at the data every single day, we've been just, the data's been daunting. As we look at the legal battle that we lost in the Supreme Court last year, last week, encourage people to know this is not about who can or can't prevail in a courtroom, but how we can best protect our most vulnerable citizens, particularly our children, and all of our conversations should be centered on one guiding star, just keeping our kids and keeping kids safe and keeping our school buildings open. And if we're not talking about keeping our kids safe and healthy, then we're talking about the wrong thing. As of last Thursday, more than 17,000 children under the age of 10 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the six weeks since the schools opened back up in late July. Children under 10 make up 12% of all COVID-19 cases over the last six weeks, according to DHEC data. The surgeon infections among young children is forcing schools to suspend in-person classes and taxing children's hospitals across the state. We're very fortunate to have Dr. Kaufenthaler with us today. He is the chair of the Pemedal Health USC Medical Group Department of Pediatrics. Just an amazing individual, senior medical director at Prisma Health Children's Hospital here in the Midlands. It's important to note that as we've tried to constantly remind people that a public health crisis creates an education crisis. And yes, we don't send a whole lot of eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds and 10-year-olds home alone. An education crisis creates an economic crisis. Mom and dad have to go home to take care of the most important things and people in their lives. As of Thursday afternoon, more than four dozen schools in at least 20 South Carolina districts had temporarily transitioned to full virtual learning due to COVID-19 outbreaks. And more schools are closing their doors each day as according to the Department of Education. We've got to do so much more to protect our children, to give our doctors and our nurses a much-needed break at working the fingers to the bone of state superintendent education, our district supervisors, our teachers, our pediatricians, children's hospital doctors and nurses, and state health leaders at DHEC all agree that we've got to work harder to protect our children. I'm very proud of the leadership this council has shown in that regard. I'd like to take a point of personal privilege and ask Dr. Taylor to take the microphone and share some of his experiences with us before we go into our report from Director Tensley. Taylor, please microphone for us. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor Benjamin, and thank you council for allowing me to come today. As Mayor Benjamin said, it has been a very challenging time in our children's hospitals and across our community. You know, and data is hard to fathom. We as human beings have a hard time processing numbers and data. But I can tell you we're living it. And seeing the sadness, anxiety, hurt, fear on the families that we take care of has been very, very difficult. But our team has been up to the challenge. They've met every challenge. They're working hard. But it is unlike anything in my 35 years of being a pediatrician and leader of our children's hospital since 2002. So I am gonna share with you a little bit of information and try to give you context of what we were experiencing here locally but across our children's hospitals because we work with every children's hospital in the state. You all are aware of the data showing that South Carolina leads the nation in new cases per capita. And so that pretends what's coming down the road in terms of that because admissions and deaths and hospitalizations all follow those numbers. It doesn't occur at the same time. Presently today there are 33 children in the children's hospitals across the state. Half of those are in the ICU's and half of those are on ventilators. I can tell you that we peaked at about 15 admissions in children's hospital. We're all prior surges back when we were all locked down and everybody was taking precautions. We never got over six. So we got up to 15. Luckily today, at least in our children's hospital we're down to seven, which is the lowest number I have seen in three to four weeks. I hope that trend continues. I know our families do and I know all of you do. The main thing that I also wanna stress to you that in every children's hospital today that everybody who's there is unvaccinated. About half the children are averaging or under 12 so they have no opportunity to be vaccinated. So it falls on us as adults and parents and community to protect them. The other half have been kids who are eligible but did not get the vaccine. Now that's not typical every day but I can tell you most days that's the data that we're sharing and put out. And this data is from today. This shows you the numbers that I just gave you, 33, 17 and nine. And it shows you that every one of those kids were unvaccinated. So in many ways that is very difficult to see. We can't do anything about the kids. One or 12 but advocating for vaccinations and pushing for vaccinations and providing vaccinations is about all we can do for the older kids but that also protects the younger children. Our PICU is the only PICU in 11 County region. We had been full for five straight weeks. It's up for a couple of nights. Five straight weeks. I've led Children's Hospital since 2002 and I can tell you I've never gone more than five or six nights but not five or six weeks where every night we've been full except for a couple of nights. This also translated into our PICU not only being full but us providing care in other areas of our Children's Hospital such as our PDZD. We've had to hold children in the pediatric emergency room. And what does that mean? That means our waits has sometimes been four or five hours to be seen in our PEDS emergency room. We've engaged our private pediatrician community and they have responded tremendously. They hold children in their offices until we can get beds available. They also encourage people not to come to our emergency room for simple illness and they're also working hard and seeing more kids themselves. But five weeks except for a couple of days we have been full in our ICU and I can tell you today Charleston's PICU is at 100% and our PICU, no Greenville's PICU is 100% today and we're at 100% today. The other thing, besides I tell you about the ramifications if we hold in children in the PICU and having to hold children in our emergency room is that many children and families then are leaving without being seen. It's difficult to sit there for four and five hours to be seen so you leave and so sometimes a minor illness translates into a more severe illness because the child is not seen. That is something that we've always been very proud of in our emergency room. We've usually kept our wait times well below those numbers but we've seen that escalate. So why is this different? The reason is different in the United States. This is a graph showing the number of children being hospitalized under 17 compared to any surge that we've ever had. So this is different. More kids are being admitted and more kids are having it. The data is still out on whether this is a more severe variant and impacting children worse than did but I can tell you the acuity is different. The kids in our hospital are sicker so why is this different than last time? This Delta variant is more contagious. It spreads more easily. It may be a thousand times more infectious than other variants that we've had. So it's easier for you to contract the disease and that's why children necessarily didn't get it before because it wasn't as contagious and therefore the number of people that I would give it to if I had COVID is much larger now than the number of people that I gave it to before. In a sense, our children were protected. What I mean by that? Well, when this first came out we all kind of hunkered down, didn't we? We had our businesses closed to a large extent and I'm not here to advocate that at all please. I'm just trying to say what the numbers were. We had social distancing. People didn't go to large gatherings. Weddings were canceled, things like that. People wore masks in businesses. I know every time I went into the grocery store I still do because I have families with immune compromise and because I don't want to give it to children. People were wearing masks so we didn't transmit it. The schools that were open did take masks and they did social distancing. I'm a member of the South Carolina AAPM on the board and we advocated for schools to open. We wanted schools open but we said with mask and distancing and things that allowed it to open in a safe way. If you were looking for the proof of mask and what happened, the data's there. Our children's hospital was not busy last winter. We had hardly no flu. There was one death in the whole United States according to the CDC the flu compared to about 150 to 200 every year in children. So that shows the impacts of us not engaging in spreading the virus and everything like that. So what is happening now? Why are we concerned? We said kids were more protected last time. We said we have a more contagious variant. We are dropping social distancing. People are attending and getting in large groups and if you got a more contagious variant you can spread that more easily. So we're concerned it will spread more easily through the schools because it's more contagious and up there. Then I want to highlight for you some of South Carolina's risk factors. The children that will typically come in and the children that are highest risk are those children who have underlying risk factors. Yes, we're seeing healthy children get this. But the vast majority of the children who are the sickest are kids who have obesity. And South Carolina is one of the top states for obesity rates and that we have almost about one in four to one in five of our kids are classified as obese. Asthma, we have about one in 10 to one in 12 of our kids have asthma. And then we have diabetes and other risks. So a lot of our South Carolina kids are unique and you put them in a state where the vaccination rates are lower than the national average. Then you're setting up a perfect storm for children to get spread of disease and that's why we've been concerned. The other thing that you often hear is well this is like the flu or this is RSV. This is not like the flu and this is not RSV. The flu, we build up natural protection after exposure. You build up that protection and that's why you see flu affect the very young little babies who haven't been exposed and the very old because the immunity wears off. That is where it affects and causes the biggest problem typically because that natural immunity. The other thing is though the flu vaccine is so imperfect, so imperfect because it's not the same technology. It does prevent against death and hospitalization. So we are able to vaccinate children that are six months on up those high risk children and prevent them from getting that disease and being hospitalized. The other thing is we have drugs to give children who are high risk or children who come in the Tamiflu and other drugs that you've heard about. In RSV it typically only affects really young children and we're able again we have a product that we give starting now to children who are high risk and those are typically children with congenital heart disease and kids who have underlying love disease. That prevents those children from being in the hospital. That prevents severity of disease. COVID we don't have either. I can't vaccinate under 12. I can't give a monoclonal antibody if any of you in this room are identified at high risk and got COVID. It would cut down on your risk for severe death, severe illness or death or even hospitalization. We don't have those tools for children but yet we're facing a more contagious virus, a virus that is spreading more often and many of the tools that we had such as mask and other stuff are not present. So that is the situation that we're facing right now and so we as pediatricians are advocating that vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. Not only to protect those that are 12 but to cocoon, to protect those two children that can't be vaccinated. If everybody in that family is vaccinated then the younger children can't get it. If everybody in that family wears a mask so even if they're vaccinated and they get a breakthrough they won't most likely get it because they're vaccinated and wearing a mask. So our tools that we have right now to protect children are masking and vaccinations. And so it is encouraging that I've seen some data of the number of children between 12 and 17. I think this morning when I look had risen to closer about 25%. That's only 25% of the kids between 12 and 17 so far had been vaccinated. The data is very clear where there are low rates of vaccination, there are higher rates of hospitalization, there are higher rates of ED usage and there's higher risk of death. And that's in the adults. I'm not talking about the children populations because all the data is unvaccinated until recently. So I'm glad to answer any other questions. I can tell you there are system, Prisma Health is busy over the weekend. We at Prisma Health, Richland had the highest number we've had in at any point and people are doing a great job. Our healthcare system, the community in the community, the healthcare providers at every hospital, whether it's our system or others are stepping up, they're doing longer shifts, they're taking care of more patients, they're family members, they're working hard to make this happen. But this is a true emergency. I know it's hard to understand numbers. They're so impersonal, I live through the flood. Until I had the flood, watching what happened on the TV just didn't relate to me until I was leaving in a boat and had to go somewhere else. But I'm there every day with my team seeing these families. I'm hearing it in my people's voice, how tired they are, how hard they're working. So we appreciate your support to ask for vaccinations and push for vaccinations and encouraged by role-modeling like all of you are and wearing masks and all that you do to help us help our community and help protect our children. Thank you, I'll be glad to answer any questions if you'd like me to, Mayor. I'd honestly, just on behalf of all of the people in Columbia and to you representing our healthcare providers, particularly those of us who at least among our children as they give you a round of applause for us. Thank you, Dr. Taylor. Any questions for Dr. Taylor? Ms. Devine? Yes, thank you so much, Dr. Taylor. Sure. I've been following this data, but to hear it from you and also to hear it in your voice continues to hit at home for us. Just a couple of questions. Number one, and Harry may have it, but the charts that she showed us, I think I saw the daily numbers somewhere else today, but can you get a copy, leave a copy with us for those? Sure, the data comes off the CDC tracker and the South Carolina Children's Hospital Collaborative releases the color one I showed you every day. Color one is what? I can send that to Mayor Benjamin if he will share it with all of you and you can follow it every day. Okay, yes, I think that's the one I saw today and the other one is from CDC. Yes, ma'am. So for me, I continue and I'm glad that you stressed that the tools to protect our mask and vaccinations and we have to understand that that's not political, it's not anything else, that's just science and we have to protect ourselves, but I think the mask continues to go either way. Vaccination is really where we have to push and it just seems to me like there are still so many people who have thoughts about the vaccinations and I'm just kind of wondering from your experience, being in the hospital, speaking to parents that have unvaccinated children that are eligible to be vaccinated, whether or not there is any information, any anecdotal data that you can give us as we continue to talk and encourage vaccinations within our community that may have broke through to some people who may have initially not wanted to get vaccinated, but then once they experience the illness of their children and I'm assuming that that might change their mind. I'm not sure you didn't necessarily say that, but I do know that sometimes when, like you mentioned with the flood, when people are personally affected, it changes and I've heard stories nationally and some locally where people have had an experience that has changed the way they look at it. So I'm just wondering from our standpoint as we continue to be in the community and encourage vaccinations, is there any information that you feel is more helpful when you're talking to people and educating them about the importance of being vaccinated? You know, when we talk about impacting individuals as being a pediatrician, always like numbers, I like science, I wanna be able to truly have factual data and we find that unfortunately factual data doesn't always work. If it's gonna work, it works. There's so much fear, so getting rid of misinformation. So I think asking questions to the family member or to the person, we ask what is your concern and I've heard everything from, there's no long-term data so we have to remind them about the other vaccines, long-term data and how limited it is. We have to remind them that they don't see things like smallpox and polio and measles because vaccinations work. We have to also take into account any other fears that they may have had and misinformation and try to dispel those. I don't think you can hit anybody over the head with facts. I think you have to give those like in a forum here, so you are, but you have a big impact. They're more impacted by people that they know. And so some of the things that we've tried to say in our pediatric press conferences is we live in this town, our kids go to school with your kids, we go to the same churches and grocery stores. 97% of all physicians in the country are vaccinated. I think I heard and don't hold me to this at all, the living presidents are vaccinated. So you have a big impact because they have a personal relationship. So personal relationship is key. So I think individual physicians, individual nurses that they know and that they trust is key. I think also one important factor besides individuals and things like that is having uniformity of information. And that gets difficult sometimes with the misinformation that's out there about vaccines and everything. So there's no golden thing. I can tell you that I have seen people go get the vaccine when their pregnant wives are protoin ventilators so they go get it. I have heard of stories of our family members going to get it when their child's hospitalized to protect their other children. So sometimes it has to be a relative or a close friend to be impacted. I wish it wasn't that way. It's kind of tough to see because as a pediatrician, we believe in vaccination. We don't see those diseases because of vaccination. Kids are healthy because of vaccination. And but this, this just is a different time in a different way. And so get rid of misinformation, provide information, try to address the fears and use people they trust. Try to get people they trust. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Great question. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Taylor, thank you for what y'all are doing. Saw a lot of your staff this weekend and I know what they're going through. I guess the number that kind of really shocked me in this whole thing was probably the 25% of the 12 to 17. And is that that we need to convince the parents or is there a magic message? Because I know there's so much information as you mentioned earlier and everybody's trying to tag it up. That's a low number. I thought it was a lot higher than that. And that concerns me probably as much as it does that the parents aren't vaccinated. And I think some of that, Councilman recommend, you know from your wife, the pediatricians only recently were able to get a vaccination, so the access to it. Secondly, 12 year olds were just allowed to start getting vaccines several weeks ago. Typically adolescents don't come in to see the doctor unless they're well, capturing them. So offering different opportunities. The numbers are improved. I can tell you last week I would have been here seeing it was closer to 20. So it's ticking up. South Carolina's doing better, but we still, you know, the data I saw were somewhere around 45% or something where everybody's fully vaccinated or a little over 50 or one vaccine. So this is the group that's just been offered to. So it's just gonna take efforts of people they trust, their local pediatrician, their local family physician. It's gonna, getting them to come get the vaccine. So putting it in schools. I remember when I was young, you went to school and everybody got their polio. You know, she lined up and you got it. So it would be great if we could, we could figure out, not, you know, DHEC and our state schools could work together to provide vaccinations on site. And we made it very easy with electronic forms. Your parent doesn't have to be there. And so there's opportunity here to make a big, big, big difference. And hopefully if we could get them vaccinated, that would help a lot, at least in your middle school and high school. And that's where some of your highest rates are as far as obesity and lung disease and other things. So half the kids typically, half the kids in our children's hospital are over 12. If we could get half of those over 12 with COVID, we wouldn't be exactly where we were in the past with six or seven kids, eight kids, but we certainly wouldn't be where we've been with two and a half times that number like we were last week. And, you know, we are fearful of what schools opening back are gonna do and everybody gathering and things. And so I think it's gonna be really telling to see what happens in the next two to three weeks. Britain didn't see the surge kind of tuckered out and went away. I hope we're gonna be that way, but they had more aggressive vaccination and they clamped down every time something happened. So it's gonna be interesting to see how we fare. Is there something legislative that's preventing vaccinations in the schools or is it just there's not a system in place to make it happen anymore? That I'm not aware of. I would let Superintendent Spearman or, you know, the heck officials be better to answer that one. I know we'll partner with them like we did at Gamecock Park and down at Soda City, we'll be there. We'll be glad to help. And I think there's opportunity if we will take advantage of it to try to do that. And then I think there's scared, you know, people have touted the myocarditis, which has been shown not to be the seriousness, the reactions and the arms and things like that. So I think we've got to address people's misinformation. If we can get the misinformation, I think we could see a surge. I hope we can get the 12 to 17s about 50% really soon. But they won't if their parents don't. Their parents don't get it. And that's one of the reasons I went in the pediatrics is parents will do for their children what they won't do for themselves often. So my hope and plea would be that parents would say, well, even if they don't want it, they'll get it for their child. But if they would get it for their child who's nine, 10, six, and four, because those kids can't get it. Those kids don't have a choice. That's our thing as pediatricians. The kids don't have a choice in this. We as adults have always, it's always been our role to protect the children, especially as pediatricians, especially as institutions and government. Y'all's job is to serve and protect just like our jobs to serve. So I think we all work together. We can figure out a way to make this, turn South Carolina into a really exemplary of how we could come together. And if not there, our own local county. You know, where you lower the higher vaccination rate goes, the lower the hospitalization rate. Thank you. Thank you. Great questions, Mr. McDowell. Dr. Taylor, let me just thank you for the information you've provided for us today. Excellent. One of the key words I think that you said during your presentation was misinformation. Misinformation, of course, leads to some real critical issues, not only with that child, but with that parent. What do we say hypothetically? We've got a child in the hospital with COVID. That parent is unvaccinated. What do we say to that parent? What can we say long-term that will not only dispel some of the misinformation that is out there? And I know it's an educational process. And I just hate that children are in hospital beds as we speak and suffering with this Delta variant. What do we say to those parents who are standing there by that bedside, child sick, and there is still perhaps a refusal to not do anything progressively about a vaccination? So I go back to what I said. We have to understand who they are as people, understand their own personal experiences because there's no one good approach. You have to individualize the approach just like you often do for care. So I'd individualize that approach. And that approach would be first asking them what their concerns are because they're seeing that their child has it. If it's been accessed, as I've talked about, we tell them they can go right across the street and we'll walk them over there and get the vaccine for them. If there's concerns about it, we try to identify people who maybe they trust more, a nurse that works in the hospital, their local pediatrician who can call in and talk to them. But mainly since most of my team just see the child when they're there, they hopefully will gain trust in us as they hear how we talk about things, how we take care of their child, how we're honest and transparent with them about the child. And then trying to provide data that comes from factual places. Often in our country, we don't sometimes trust factual places, CDC and others have gotten a bad, things have changed in that. So I think it's talking to them if they have a minister that's been there. I know we engage the religious community off and on to give vaccines when we first started way, way back. So that's important. So I think it's the individualized approach, understanding what that parent is feeling insane and how they're thinking. But often once they see their child, it's not a problem. It's rare that there's resistance at that point. It's more before we get to that point. It's just so rare after they see their child or their spouse suffer with it. Most people then wanna get vaccinated and protect the rest of their loved ones. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Will. Dr. Taylor, to that, to continue the conversation, Councilman McDowell talked about, a lot of residents of the city county and state don't have the easy communication outlets to the healthcare providers that a lot of us do. Is there a hotline, a direct access for communication that Prisma offers for a parent that might not have the resources to get those questions answered and doesn't rely on the Prisma website, CDC website, DHEC website. Is there a hotline to talk to a healthcare professional? So we do have online where you can engage with a healthcare worker and get screened and have conversations. I will get our people who manage those numbers and those systems to provide that back here and provide that to you. So you can share that information and be 100% accurate. That's wonderful. I think that'd be a great outlet for the city to promote for a wonderful PR staff. Thanks a lot. I'm not sure exactly what resources are, but I know we have some other ways to get it. And before I can say 100%, I was reading something today and I was reading so many things. Sometimes I get confused if the hotline's Prisma's or the hotline's SCHA is the Prisma. I'll double check for you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Another great question and suggestion. Councilman Brandon. Any other questions or statements? Don't tell, thank you. And that took a lot away from your conversation. And obviously we had the benefit of seeing a hockey stick that you showed us in terms of youth infections. And again, that can be found at the Health Collaborative website. So all of our citizens watching us can go online and see the steep trajectory that we're looking at. But I'm inundated with data, just as you did and I know all of our colleagues are. But I think probably what I take away from this conversation probably the most compelling part is that there's a power of public narrative in recognizing that everyone who's choosing not to be vaccinated right now, we're not talking about a whole bunch of folks who are just given in the social media conspiracies that everyone has a different story. Everyone has a different reason. Some good, some maybe not so good. Some maybe informed, maybe not necessarily as such in taking that personalized approach to hopefully intervening and encouraging vaccination and acceptance of the vaccine before a devastating event occurs is what we need to do. The more people you get vaccinated, the less people you have in hospitals, particularly those of us that are not yet eligible for the FDA-approved vaccines and those still under emergency use authorization. Again, just our greatest appreciation to you and all of the men and women that you represent who are laboring in the vineyards every single day on the untold, completely unanticipated circumstances and unnecessary circumstances, avoidable circumstances. We appreciate you and what you represent, Dr. Taylor. Thank you and just what you can do as we've talked about but just what you've done, Mayor Benjamin, thank any nurse you see. Thank any doctor you see. Thank anybody who does environmental services. It is a team and they are all working hard and your appreciation will go a long way. Anybody's appreciation, it means a lot because they are working extremely hard and have done so. Like I told you, it's been the most five weeks that I have seen and therefore the just acknowledgement of appreciation of what they're doing will mean a lot to them since you're their leaders and represent them. So thank you again for this time and if I can help, but I will get you the two things that you've requested. Thank you again. Thank you. Are you on please, are you on? Yes, I'm. At this time, we will ask our emergency management director, Mr. Harry Tinsley to come forward for COVID-19 situational report. I'm sure much of what Harry will share maybe echoes some of the numbers from Dr. Taylor. Harry. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of council, Madam City Manager. Yeah, the numbers are reported out today. We're just not heading in the right direction. As you know, there were four days of data posted from DHAC this afternoon, that's Thursday through Sunday. Of that time period, cumulative cases were just over 20,000 for that four day period. Here in Michigan County, there were over 1,100 of those for that four day report out cycle. At our last meeting, we were just over about 3,000 cases per day in our state. And now, that was to a 14 day cycle. And now we're north of 5,000, so that data that shows today actually represents that as well. Interesting, there have been almost 10 million tests to date, 500,000, almost 500,000 of those in the last 14 days. So the testing is really ramping up and we're seeing that through some of the case counts that are being posted. Today, case counts confirmed cases were 3,453, 304 of those were probable. That makes the total cumulative post for the day. And this is as of Sunday's data, 3,757 cumulative cases. That's a 12.3% positivity rate. And unfortunately, 23 new confirmed deaths were reported out today, five of those were probable. That brings our confirmed deaths in our state to 9,583. And it's interesting, over the last 14 days, 652 cumulative deaths have been reported by DHEC. Here in Risken County, our confirmed case count stands at 48,983. Today's numbers for Risken County posted 146 confirmed, 24 were probable. That was a cumulative daily count of 170. That's down slightly from yesterday, from the previous day, but we're still trending in the wrong direction. And unfortunately in Risken County, we've had 564 confirmed deaths due to COVID-19. And our, at our last meeting, Risken County's average case count, confirmed case count was a little over 170. Now we're approaching 225 cases per day on average. That's 564 deaths, what was that, Harry? 564 for Risken County, that's confirmed. Yeah, there are 84 probable. And so as far as the last 14 day recent disease activity, incident rate, we're still high at 759.6 per 100,000. Our percent positivity rate for Risken County is 10.1, that's down slightly. We were at 11.5 at our previous meeting. And as Dr. Taylor spoke on, I mean, acute hospitalizations are above 80%, they're at 81.8 as of today. And unfortunately there are, as of today's posting, 2,486 patients currently hospitalized due to COVID-19 confirmed or suspected. And that is, if my numbers are right, that is at or near where we were back in mid-January as far as the number of hospitalizations. Here in Risken County, as of today's post, there are 177 patients hospitalized due to COVID. There is starting to see an uptick in some vaccinations, almost 4.6 million vaccines have been administered in the state. I think the last number was 4,585,000 in some. Also, as of the fifth reporting, 48.7% of South Carolina's population, greater than 12 years of age, have been fully vaccinated, and 57.7% have received at least one vaccine. And according to the DHEC data here in Risken County, 60.8% of residents in Risken County have received at least one vaccine. And 51.8% have completed their vaccination process. And again, the numbers as of the DHEC post, I mean, the CDC post as of the 4th of September, 62% of the population, US population above 12 have been vaccinated. 82.1% of those above 65 have been fully vaccinated. And those numbers for Risken County again, Harry, for what? Risken County numbers, you want the case count? What did you just say? Oh, for Risken County, 60.8% have received at least one vaccine, and 51.8% have completed their vaccination process. So 214,734 residents have received at least one vaccine according to the DHEC dashboard data. And pending questions, that concludes my report. Thank you. Questions for Dr. Tensley, Ms. Devine. I really probably don't have a question for Harry, except I mean, Harry can comment on this, but more so, I know Mr. Mayor, we had talked about potentially, surveying and finding out kind of the hesitancy and why people are hesitant, going to what Dr. Taylor said. I mean, people have various reasons in being able to combat the misinformation with actual, the correct information, maybe as a way that we can encourage vaccines. So in addition to what we're doing with, it's your shot and making sure that we are making the vaccines available. I'm just thinking that there should be something else we can do as far as whether it's our own dashboard or information that we're pushing out that combats that misinformation that keeps people hesitant. And I'm just wondering, Harry, even from the folks you deal with at DHEC and others in the professional world, what your thought is, but Mr. Mayor, what are you thinking on how we can amplify what we're doing with also providing the information that encourages more people to get vaccinated? Some of the information that Alicia's team was recognized for early on in the microsite, was sharing a good bit of information with our businesses and our citizens. And I know before there was a statewide website, Sung Jung and others provide us with our own information. I'm not sure if we've continued to push that out. It seems like now since we're looking at new highs, eclipsing the January peak and I've been wrapping that up in the public narrative that often has to follow the data that Dr. Taylor highlighted earlier. I mean, I think it is time to either revisit our website. I'm not sure how we've maintained that, what it would take to get it up to speed. But again, I'm more interested in the public narrative piece that might help people get past the hesitancy prior to an unfortunate situation. I think that's something, and I actually, I'm glad you asked that question because I was specifically gonna ask Teresa, you and Harry to follow up with DHEC in the governor's office to see if we've had an opportunity to revisit our potential campaign to go door to door. I mean, we have an aggressive and still I think a very well executed campaign encouraging people to get shots in their arms with a very important piece of that puzzle was taking the vaccine to people. The governor expressed his concern about that and gave DHEC some directives and we of course responded accordingly and did not go door to door. Indeed, we shredded our door hangers in accordance with his directives. I'd like to revisit that since we are not where we were a few months ago that we all know that and see if we might be able to get some relaxing of that and let us take this messaging directly to citizens again. At least I asked the question and I'd be happy to ask the question of Dr. Simmer and the governor but through our constant staff communication I'd like to see if we could do that. Sir, we may have a question. But dashboard I think is very effective and ways to get but our key's gotta be how we message it and how this is not an us versus them discussion. This is how do we communicate with more and more people on the importance. The reality is that is that we're gonna have to get through this together. If we don't move forward together we won't be able to get through it. And I think we have some opportunities to lead by example as we're about to talk about next. Other questions of Director Tensley? Thank you. Thank you, Harry. Thank you, Harry. Harry, thank you. Mayor Benjamin and Council, this takes us to our last discussion point for this item which is our premium pay cost of living adjustment and vaccination incentive package and I will give my recommendations at this time. We have for the duration of the pandemic and I'll speak for myself but I know you all would wholeheartedly agree that the work ethic shown by the City of Columbia and employees has been nothing but impressive. We've worked throughout the pandemic from when we had to pivot and work differently in some ways but nevertheless kept working the whole time. As the federal government allows for through the American Rescue Plan funds, we have identified our frontline essential workers, those in critical infrastructure, infrastructure, sectors like police, fire, public works, Columbia water, et cetera. They were performing regularly, never stopped in-person work, interacting with others. All that comes with or the ability to get vaccinated early on in the pandemic. We also had essential workers who may not have been frontline but they were also in critical infrastructure, sectors performing essential work. They were not always required to perform it in person or interacting with others but they were still back office support working remotely, making sure that our frontline essential employees could do their jobs and that all of our citizens never had to miss a beat with the essential services that we provide as a city. So with that said, I'm very happy that we've gotten to the point trying to make sure we're in compliance with what the federal government will acquire of us and still waiting on some information as it becomes available. But we are at a point to move forward with our premium pay package for our employees and that will consist of a $2,500 premium pay out to frontline essential workers. This is the net amount that they will receive. We will take care of the taxes if they are vaccinated and we're working in a vaccination incentive that will include an additional $500 if they are vaccinated. So our frontline essential workers will receive $3,000 if they're vaccinated. Our essential workers as I described will receive $1,250 and an additional $500 if they're vaccinated for a total of $1,750. Any employee in the city that becomes vaccinated and that's fully vaccinated by November the 1st will also receive the $500. So anyone will receive that whether or not they were deemed frontline essential or essential during the pandemic, they won't be eligible for the $500 incentive pay as long as they're fully vaccinated by November the 1st. We know that having these funds in their hands right now is not the end all, but we do think it is something that's so well deserved and so we want to do that right now so that employees have something to assist them for all their hard work and to assist their families in addition for all city employees because as a manager you are always wanting to ensure that your staff is always moving forward in their pay bands in an effective way. So we have as this council has allowed us to quite often implement cost of living adjustments and so we will do that again in February. We will implement a 3% pay adjustment for all city employees. The days of implementation again is by the end of this month all of our frontline essential employees and essential workers will receive the premium pay and vaccination incentive if they have already been vaccinated they have the ability to receive that additional $500 if they're fully vaccinated by November 1st and we will implement a cost of living adjustment 3% in February of 2022. Let me say that hearing the words of Dr. Taylor today and understanding from you all where you stand with how important it is for us as a community to move forward and get beyond where we are right now is certainly resonating with me. I know it resonates with our employees but I do understand that sometimes employees have different philosophical reasons for what they do about getting vaccinated and we understand that what I've always told them that in the workplace where they have chosen to work we are a service provider. We cannot provide the services to keep our city going which makes it a little bit different. It is not for me about your philosophical differences. It's about being able to provide the services from picking up the trash to keeping the water clean to keeping everyone safe. And those are the dot jobs we signed up for when you work for a municipality. We can't do it without the people and what I'm seeing and witnessing on a daily basis at times is troublesome because right now with where we find ourselves as a community and the high, high rates of positive folks for COVID it is impacting us on a daily basis. We have a lot of vacancies. We have individuals unfortunately who because their children are being affected at schools with quarantines, et cetera. And unfortunately as Dr. Taylor said, sickness they are being affected having to stay out of work and all kinds of implications come November 1st. And with the urgency of this council and our discussions today we will be moving forward with mandatory COVID testing if not before November 1st that may come before. And we've talked about that for some time now as we've asked our employees to verify their vaccination status. The COVID-19 testing protocol is being finalized it could come before November 1st but at the direction of this council we will implement a mandatory vaccination policy on November 1st and a mandatory testing policy as well. So this ability to give out the premium pay is notwithstanding anything about moving forward with vaccination it is owed and they have earned it. But we're moving into a different phase and I have heard from this council and so as of November 1st I would certainly encourage and hope that as I've continued to say this over the last several weeks we are giving yet another 45 days please city employees please be the example take advantage of the incentives that this council has have allowed me to offer. And hopefully we will see an uptick in our rate of vaccination for our employees at the city of Columbia between now and November 1st. Move approval. Second. Second. Second. Discussion. Again just summarizing the directors of council and I want everyone to understand these are not places we come to easily and I think Dr. Taylor's testimony supported by the data that Director Tensley shares with us is incredibly timely that we recognize that the ultimate way out of this is through vaccinations and we mitigate that in the interim with solid testing that we're asking all of our folks indeed to help us get to a point where we can continue to render the quality services to the people of the city that so many of them did so well throughout the earliest days of the pandemic a full year before many were vaccine eligible providing exemplary leadership and modeling what shows them deserving of this premium pay incentive. This is a strong move in the right direction. The vaccine incentive is consistent we're seeing both in the public sector and private sector and this is the carrot and we're encouraging people and I think we have to really spend some quality time with second places both private and public, non-profit have had some success in vaccine adoption and do everything we can to again communicate with folks in ways that not only deal with here but also here as the importance of us being able to continue to serve the citizens, the oath we've all taken but also stay healthy and strong and take care of ourselves and our families. I know that no one in this council takes these decisions lightly. It's something that we take very seriously and when the bank staff or their leadership are helping us pull this together. No approach is perfect but we know it's important to never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We have a previous question, I'll call her. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Von. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. And it's important to also note as I've gotten several questions about it this council is still considering a number of other mitigation tactics that we're going to spend some time working through building consensus around to try and make sure we're doing what we can in a collaborative way with our fellow jurisdictions in the county and even across the river to do everything we can to slow this aggressive spread of the Delta variant. We know we can do this if we work together. Thank you, Mayor Benjamin. Thank you, council. Item four is the fiscal year 2021-2022 hospitality tax supplemental allocations. And there's more for Kaufman, budget and program management directors available to you if you have any discussion points or have any questions. We got a motion. Mr. Mayor, Ms. Kaufman has given us another $130,000 from both the carry forward money and for unspent surplus from the previous year. And I would like to suggest that we spend $35,000 to Parks Foundation, 10,000 of which will be used for education leaders of color, $35,000 for sports council, $35,000 for Jam Festival and $25,000 for Anne Brody Ballet. Second. Discussion. When the previous question, Park, Colorado. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McVowell. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Missy, you talk too much sometimes. You just dominate the whole conversation. I like that one. Thank you. Mayor Benjamin, you all already approved your consent agenda. Thank you. And that will take us to item 33, I believe. Which is an ordinance first reading, ordinance number 2021-063 amending the 1998 code of ordinances of the city of Columbia, South Carolina, chapter 15, parts and recreations section 15-1, prohibited acts and parts and section 15 for hours of operation. And this is simply cleaning up what's already in practice. Mayor Benjamin and council. All right, is that a motion? Move approval. Second. Any discussion? Move the previous question for Colorado. Mr. Burnett. Yes. Mr. Rickiman. Aye. Mr. McBowell. Aye. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Resolutions, item 34, resolution number R-2020-1084, authorizing the city manager to accept the transfer of approximately 31.43 acres of surplus property located between South Carolina Highway 277 and Park Street, and to accept as consideration for the transaction portions of Gray Street, Henderson Street, Washington Street, Wayne Street, Chester Street, Aiken Street, Honors Road, and Croson Road, and Richard County. Second. Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. Mr. Duvall. Mr. Mayor, this is a long-awaited resolution where we're taking over some property that was designated for DOT 277 at one time, and we have promised the neighborhoods that we will not make any definite use of this property until we go to the neighborhoods and get their input on how it should be done. So I would just remind us of our duty to go get the input of the different neighborhoods that are bordering these pieces of property. This is a wonderful gift, not gift, because we're paying for it. It's a great project for us to undertake, and it will give us a lot of flexibility to do some things that need to be done, but we need to go back and talk to the neighbors before we commit anything. Mr. Davis. I agree on the intent. I don't know that everybody in the room recalls how we got to this point, how this land became vacant and sat for quite some time. When, just recall that 277 had a starting point, and today we see it junctioning with I-20 on down into the city proper at the foot of Bull Street. And I think it's important that we do have some discussions about what happens to this property. For those who don't recall, this property ended after DOT and whoever else came through the neighborhoods along Farrell Road down to the foot of Bull Street. In other words, properties were obtained by whatever means, and that left a void in that part of the city. And hopefully that will never happen again. So it is a gift, we need to do something about it, but we need to do that proceed in a way that it keeps us mindful of how we go about doing things and how we go about obtaining properties and the impact on the people who live there, the property owners who live there. All right, thank you, Ms. Devine. I was just gonna say, Missy and I have been talking about this for a while, and so Mr. DeVall, you and I have been at the Downtown Neighborhoods Association meeting several times, talking about this specific property, and so staff is well aware, and I think Ms. Gentry and Ms. Wilson have some ideas about what that public participation process will look like. I do think the timing of this, we've got some time to have a very thoughtful process on what that's gonna look like, but I know that staff is very aware that the community needs to be not only engaged, but involved as we move forward. I did want to make sure also people understood because people are asking about the process. This is now public, well, always with public property, but as it's our property, we have to go through a very transparent process about what will happen, so we will be doing that, and certainly bids will be able to be put in, whether or not we're gonna sell it and other things. So I know there's some misinformation about what might be already planned for the property or anything else, but I know that staff is very cognizant of that, and it's going through a very thoughtful process. Thanks, ma'am. Lou, your previous question. Yeah, and just final comment, in addition to the comments expressed, this is a real opportunity to right a historic wrong. I mean, this conversation is happening in every community across the country, the decisions we made around automobile-centric infrastructure over a half a century ago, destroyed neighborhoods, indeed, unearthed cemeteries, and some were bold enough decades ago to say enough was enough, preserve Elmwood Park, and some of our great treasures along the way, Cotton Town, parts of Cotton Town as well, so this is a real opportunity. Ms. Devine hosted the session for most of last winter online speaking about the tragedies that occurred all across this country. So we're very much in the vanguard of good things happening in this space, and in this important, we don't waste this opportunity to do some good, some real good, some collaborative community-building good as a result of it. Theresa, Mesey, Dan, Chris, everyone else, this is a big move in the right direction. I don't know, it's taken years to get here, and I know we're not done yet, and by the time this is all done, I think we'll finally have a real balance of property that ought to be in the public domain in the city, being able to use it to our highest investors. And thank you, Mr. Palin, Ms. Coffin of this right to check, we appreciate it. Really do wanna echo those things to the staff, Mayor Mesey Gentry has, I think, I guess I can say it's become a labor of love, it's been a labor for sure. Oh, she isn't holding on, she won't let go of it. She wouldn't let go of it, and we're thankful. Thankful. I'm trying not to also thank the Department of Transportation and the Highway Commission, Mr. McWahorn, and Mr. Hardy and others before us. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm part of the Colorado Police. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. McDowell? Aye. Mr. DeVall? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. Thank you. Resolution number R-2021-089, certifying two building sites as abandoned buildings pursuant to the South Carolina Abandoned Buildings Revitalization Act, Title XII, Chapter 67, Section- Second. Second. Any discussion? We'll move the previous question, correct Colorado? Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. McWahorn? Yes. Mr. DeVall? Aye. Mr. Vine? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. Thank you. Resolution number R-2021-099, the City of Columbia Policy on the Carry of Concealable Weapons During Committed Organized Events Within the Jurisdiction of the City of Columbia. So moved. That's up. All right, discussion period. Move the previous question, correct Colorado? Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. Rickerman? Aye. Mr. McDowell? Mr. DeVall? Aye. Mr. Vine? Aye. Mr. Davis? Aye. Mayor Benjamin? Aye. The event resolutions listed, Mayor Benjamin and Council adhere to the safety plans for the COVID-19 pandemic safety and social distancing protocols as published by the CDC and DHEC and they've been reviewed and approved by our police department. I'm not sure if you're interested in taking them up collectively. Collectively, please. OK. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, Mr. McDowell? Well, it seems to me with the cases continuing to rise, I just got something where 20,000 new cases. And I'm sure that the protocol for COVID is intact. But if the numbers continue to go up, do we really want to continue to have these kinds of perhaps events that could perhaps become super spreaders? Yeah. We do? That's a real and legitimate question, Mr. McDowell. Just case by case. And I'm sure the protocols are intact. And I'm sure that each one of the organizations that's requested these kinds of events. But the numbers continue to rise. Do we still want to maintain the protocols that are there? Do we want to engage ourselves in protocols contingent upon the numbers? Well, I mean, one of the things that I get from folk, when we look at the number of events we have, and I think you all may have heard to comment some months ago, we're having a beer and wine party in the city every other day. I think we got to be sensitive to that. And whether or not we want to continue to do that, do we want to set a threshold? Do we want to say, look, I think you need to be sensitive to where the numbers are and how they continue to escalate? Well, prayerfully, Councilman, as we come out of Labor Day weekend, we won't see what so many of us fear you might see. I share your same grave concerns. And I'm not sure how many more of these we have in the pipeline. Quite frankly, I can go either way on each of these. I am, however, curious if, obviously, we just passed Resolution 99. Will all of the events potentially approved today also be made aware of new policy around 99? No, a legitimate concern. Let's see if we get some. I think we probably can take them up one by one and see if we get a second. And we'll take them up discussion period and we can vote in the positive or negative on each one. One of the greatest challenges we had, and obviously Dr. Taylor laid it out much more clearly, obviously, is that we are not socially distancing anymore. People are just tired of COVID. And the challenges is we're not dealing with the same virus we dealt with last year, even when these protocols were put in place. We're dealing with a much more contagious variant than when we dealt with before. And you have to figure out how you balance, obviously, the ultimate objective of preserving life with the very serious and important objective of preserving livelihoods as well. How do you continue to engage in commerce in some degree of social life? Because it concerns me where we are in the lack of gravity, which some of us are addressing the pandemic. I think that's a great question. Ed, let's take them up one by one. Yes, sir. And I'm sorry, I'll tell you. The only thing that I would add that, obviously, we've looked at protocols in other cities and things that they're doing. And one thing, obviously, in some cities may be larger than us. They are looking at vaccination, but showing proof of vaccination for certain events, certain, I mean, just going into restaurants, et cetera. So we're just trying to think outside the box to help you all as you are trying to wrestle with this. And obviously, the earliest of these events here, I think it's October 2nd, maybe. So I don't know. We never want to put the event planners in a predicament waiting to approve. I know they would at least probably need two weeks if I had to imagine. We could certainly hold these into the next council meeting, but I'm just trying to give you all some feedback. That's probably about the best I can give you at this point. Ms. Devine and then Ms. Duvall. Just a couple of quick things. Number one, I would just say, I guess, question for Ms. Wilson. I know last year when we started having more events and improving these, we had them sign off one COVID protocols, et cetera. We are still having that process. Yes, ma'am. So I agree with Reverend McDowell. I think we have to be very cautious and look at this. But I will share that one thing, if these aren't approved, some of these events, you push people to indoors, which is even worse. And so we are having outdoor events, and we continue to stress the social distancing that they need to comply with COVID protocols. And I think that it's at least better than some of these events turning into indoor events. And the conversation I had with Dr. Bell about an event, she mentioned, we're going to be living with COVID for a while, and people are tired. And so for her standpoint, she said, we need to make sure that we have events that are showing, how do you do it right? How do you get back in having social events, reduce capacity, following protocols? So I don't know if it is adding Reverend McDowell to the protocols that we've asked them to sign off on, based on the previous executive order, and I'm not sure legally, if we have the wherewithal to start doing capacity. But I think those are some things that we might want to consider before we think about not approving events at all, just because I think there is a balance, and as we have some mild temperatures this fall, the more people who are outdoors, hopefully that will be better than people moving events indoors. Mr. Duvall. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Some of you may have said some of the things that I said, I'm gonna say, but I can't understand all of it through all these masks. My decision process is that all of these events are outdoor events, and that all of the people should be 21 years of age, because we're talking about beer and wine permits, so at least a great, great majority should be 21 years of age. And they have the vaccine available to them, and I think it's a personal choice now if you want to take a risk and go out unvaccinated into a crowd like this, you're crazy in the first place, but I would let the people make that choice since they're all outdoor events. Okay. Well, Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir, please. COVID has no respect to a person whether you're inside or outside, simply as that. Say what you will or may. I think Mr. DeVine is on target, but I think if we don't take seriously what we've been talking about, being at the tip end of the sword in terms of vaccination, there has to be something that's additional to the planners who are putting this thing together. Right now I'm going to vote no on each one of these things because I'm extremely cautious and I'm extremely aware that if we sort of say that COVID can just affect those persons who are on the inside and we're okay outside, I think that's a misnomer. It's not a respective person. And I'm just afraid that a super spirit, excuse me, a super spreader will take place in one of these situations. Thank you, Mr. Davis. My instinct was to also suggest that we look at the protocols we have on the books down. I'm hearing that we're following those, no problem with that. But at the same time, I think we need to continue to communicate our intentions when it comes to prevention. And if that means maybe going back and tweaking what we have now as far as guidelines based on what the trending is, I think we ought to maybe position ourselves so that we can communicate that to the public, our position as a council. And that's a step one from my perspective. And as we continue to interpret the data, then I think we should remain flexible enough to tweak as we go. Everybody's not gonna like it if it's not in their favor, but that's our responsibility. And I don't have a problem with that. Do we maintain the prerogative to cancel events if in fact data indicates great public threat? I would include that. About liability? Yeah. Okay. And so I think that we keep in mind that that is in fact that the numbers dictated, that's our prerogative, we have to be sensitive but making sure everyone knows that that's clear. We should reevaluate probably each of these and maybe two weeks before the event. I would completely support an idea, prospectively looks at a vaccination for entry to events. The challenges of these are not our events. Obviously they're actually being, using public right away, but these are private events, mostly nonprofit events. I'm gonna be sensitive to that. But we're in a different time and different times call for different measures. So let's take them up one at a time. Some of these might be more worthy than others. When I have a chance to vote the contents on them. And obviously several of events last year were postponed in anticipation of future considerations. So I think making sure we communicate to the folks who've applied that particularly if they're recipients of age tax money or what have you, that money is not at risk. That in fact, if they want to postpone, we'll make that money available to them in the future as well. But again, prayerfully we won't be coming out of a very difficult time that some folks have predicted from the Labor Day holiday. All right, let's take them up one by one. Yes, sir. Item 37, Resolution number R. Mr. Mayor, move for approval? Move for approval? Okay. Okay. Good question. All right, we're gonna do the rocket docket. Let's do it. Any discussion? I'm gonna move the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. No. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Item 38, Resolution number R, 2,01094. Authorizing consumption. Move for approval. Second. For the record, this is the Columbia Museum of Art. CMA Contemporaries. Move the second. Any further discussion? Move the previous question. Court call roll. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. No. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Resolution number R, 2,01096. Authorizing consumption of beer and wine. Only at Jerry Fest at the 5.0. Move for approval. Who's Jerry? What is the Jerry Fest? Jerry Garcia. Okay. I know it's an ice cream named Jerry Garcia. That's Jerry. This is Jerry. This is Jerry. We're the Jerry. We're the Jerry. We're probably gonna be consuming more than beer and wine of his Jerry Garcia. That's all those things. Well, it's better than what they used to consume when he was playing. Very, very good. Very good. All right. It's been moved and properly seconded. And again, I'm not sure what the threshold is, what the crisis number is, but we better figure something out as to when we're gonna start reaching out to folks and saying the numbers are just too high. Someone said they missed McDowell. Maybe right on point, they may be too high right now. Let me do a previous question for our caller. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Hi. Mr. McDowell. No. Mr. Duvall. Hi. Mr. Vine. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mayor Benjamin. No. I keep in mind, I would keep in mind on this one, there are multiple dates there. Yes, sir. I missed one earlier, because the first one for this is the 21st of September. Okay. Just for clarification, isn't this the same group that's making the investment down on Canalside to build the brewery? 39 or 40. 40 is, yes. Isn't that the same people? Yeah. 40 and 41. 40 and yes. Okay, so for item 40. Not yet, I don't think so. Resolution number R2,0197, an authorizing consumption of beer and wine, only at the Beer Keller at Riverfront Park, fall happy hours in the amphitheater area of the Riverfront Park on Tuesdays. Move approval. Second. I think these are all carefully timed with city council meetings too, aren't they? Any discussion? With the previous question, clerk Calderon. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Hi. Mr. McDowell. No. Mr. Duvall. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mayor Benjamin. No. Resolution number R2,0198, authorizing consumption of beer and wine, only at the Beer Keller Artel on the Trail in the amphitheater area of the Riverfront Park on Saturday, October 2nd, 2021, with rain contingency date of Saturday, October 9th, 2000. Move for approval. Second. Move in second. Any discussion? Move the previous question, clerk Calderon. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Hi. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Hi. Mr. Vaughn. Hi. Mr. Davis. Hi. Mayor Benjamin. Hi. And for those of you wondering about the consistency between our votes on 40 and 41, it's a lot of dates in 40. 41 was a tighter one event and see how it goes. Thank y'all. Everybody vote in the contents and we all saw as a council and as a city reserve the right to revisit each and every one of these and also to change protocols as the data dictates. Thank y'all. In the meantime, Ms. Wilson, can you send all of us a copy of what currently we ask? And we may wanna think about asking for incentives like, you know, some of them may wanna consider requiring vaccinations or a discount ticket if someone has proof of vaccination. We can give them ideas, but I do think that looking at our protocols and what we're encouraging and some things are different now than they were when we first did it. So there might be some additional things that we would like to request these groups put in place. And to make it maybe even consistent with our philosophy with our own employees, you might even wanna think of ways to incentivize people to adopt the protocol. Obviously some of the protocols are mandatory. If we don't get to a point where we have a vaccine mandate as protocol, maybe incentivizing some folks to go in that direction as well. Let's keep that in mind. Yes, sir. So in the next round of events, those questions will be asked of the planners. Is that correct? Yes, sir. All right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We have some places with a vaccine mandate. You have some places that require people to be tested to get in. So you can think of a number of different approaches. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir. Madam Park. There's a, I'm sorry. Is there a, I'm 41? 42. Okay, 42, the public input on road closure addresses the closing of Rugby Road adjacent to Richland, in Richland County adjacent to the property numbers is outlined. This is a resolution that city council will act upon only for the purpose of receiving public input on the closing of the described property. All right. And no further action is needed. Okay. Do we have anyone from the public who wants to speak on this item? No one has signed in. Thank you, Madam Park. All right. Thank you. Both the public input period. Yes, sir. We are deferring item 43 and moving to item 44 appointments to the municipal election commission. I need to actually first say the second part of that statement, I didn't realize it was still on the memo. It is just the appointment of one. I copy was updating our old memo within it. So it is just the appointment of one individual to replace Tyler Bailey for the municipal election. I'm gonna use myself in that vote. Yeah. May I? Yes, sir. I'd like to appoint Austin Nichols. Yes, sir. To the election commission. Yes, sir. Second? Okay. Second, please. Okay. Yes. All right. We're moving in second. Thank you. May I? I think Mr. Rechman has a question. Okay. Mr. Rechman has a question. Mr. Rechman? Yeah. I wanted to nominate Pete Kennedy who's been on it before and is a member of district one and got some, a lot of history and could really help us. So as an alternative, I'd like to put Mr. Pete Kennedy up. Okay. Pete Kennedy. Daniel, I didn't hear you. I didn't hear what was going on. Pete Kennedy is Mr. Rechman's nominee. Are there any others here? No, sir. There are two slots, one slot. Just one. All right. Yes, sir. So I'll assume then that we call for the vote. Is that right? Is that correct? Yes, sir. How many, I've lost that temptation. How many are on? There's only three. One resigned due to a conflict of interest to them running for current. Those that are there now, what areas? So the current district representation is correct of the applicants and what you currently have them on the commission. It's currently the representation district three and district four and no representation from one or two. And the applicants that have applied both that within that district. Both of what? We have an attorney applicant. Yeah. Okay. Justin. And then Pete Kennedy has been nominated as well. So you've got three and four slots? Only one slot. And that's the, that's a mistake on my part, my apology because I was fixing it within an old memo. It is only one spot because the other person resigned due to the conflict of interest with their campaign. Okay. So you've got three and four represented. Is that correct? Yes, we currently have three and four represented. Yes, sir. And there's a slot for district two. District two is not represented and district one is not represented. So district, okay. Yes, sir. For district two, of course, of course, nominate Austin Nichols again. Hold on to two of them. Yeah. Ashley, can I ask a question? Yes, ma'am. So the Susan quote? She was, I apologize for that because I made an update within the same memo. It was an old memo. There's only one appointment and it's because the individual resigned. What's her date? She was reappointed. I think it was 20, it had to be 2021 or 2020. Yes, ma'am. It was recently. Of course I looked at that too, yeah. Yep. And that's my fault. I thought we had an opportunity for district one also. Well, we have the opportunity to appoint someone one to fill the one spot that has resigned with the person that resigned. I was talking about, yeah. Yes, sir. I'm understanding that we had two possibilities. There's, now Ashley, is that in addition to one and two? No, sir. So there is only, I'm so sorry for the confusion. There is only one spot and it's due to the resignation of the one individual that was serving because they're currently running for a city council seat. But it's a total of three. But it is a total of three people on the commission. One resigned, so there's two currently on the commission. Yes, there's two. We're looking for one. Yes, sir. We're looking for one in the district two. We're looking for one and the two districts that are currently not represented. Citywide. Citywide are one and two. So we were 12 points. So every district what we represent. And we have nominations from both districts, yes, sir. And I'm sorry, just to point out Pete Kennedy, that's the one that was on Richland County election commission. Yep. Oh, I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm not familiar with it. I think I knew the name, but yeah. Okay, yes. He lives in Elmore Park. You're giving him. I will, let me just share and both sound great to me. Okay. I will share that as we know, we've had issues before on election. And I see Mr. Kennedy out and about on election day a lot in the county when he was on that commission, always trying to address issues. So I would just say personally, I've seen him in this role very well, but I definitely think having an attorney is a plus too. Yes. Got it. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Show of hands. Madam Ms. Wilson. I don't clear it. We've got a number. We've got, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know if you wanted to hear from Madam Clerk. I mean, in a respectful way, because obviously she has firsthand dealings with the commission. And maybe she could help offer anything if you have any questions. I did have the opportunity to speak with Mr. Nichols about his scheduling and his availability and what the expectations were for the election commission. I felt like he would be a good fit. At the time, I was not aware of Mr. Kennedy's application he did serve. And I do agree that he was very active in that role. I was looking for it to working with young Mr. Nichols. But of course, we will work with any appointee that you all deem as the right fit for the committee. So just a point, the application for Mr. Kennedy was one that's on file, as in he previously applied. It's from 2019. So, and the one from Mr. Nichols is a recent application. But we keep things on file for two years. And that's why the application is included because it fits within the two year time period. So he didn't ask you to remove it? No, he did not ask me to remove it and it fits within the guidelines of keeping it on file. Thank you. Both of them. So we have a, how, what district did he live in? I don't know why he's stepping down because he's a candidate. And it looks like he lived in district one. What does that have to do with that? He lived in Elmwood Park. Oh, I thought you were talking about the one that resigned. Oh, well, same thing, he lived in Elmwood Park as well. Okay. Oh, in Elmwood Park? Yeah. Okay. All right. Just show a hand. So we've got, so we've got, so we've got Mr. Kennedy. I'm for Pete. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. So we've got Mr. Kennedy and, I can't, I can't turn a nipple. Yes, sir. That's before us, right? Yes, sir. All right. We might proceed by taking a vote then. Yes, sir. That's what is appropriate. All right. If you would then, and I think we, what we're gonna have to do with two candidates, of course, is to split the house and we'd vote for each person. Is that right? Yes, sir. All right. Those in favor of then Mr. Kennedy, would you indicate by saying aye? Aye. Madam clerk, are you counting the votes? Yes, sir. That would be two. All right. Those in favor, all right. We have two, two persons. Yes, sir. All right. Those in favor of attorney Nichols, would you indicate by saying aye? Aye. All right. It's done. Is that correct? Why don't you draw a map? Can I add on a quick one? Yeah. Yeah. But I will tell you, this is very... He knows that, I think he can get a little more points. Yeah, he knows that, I can't. But I will say officially, I mean, I know sometimes we've had a problem actually getting people on this. This is very encouraging that we've got such great applicants. I mean, I think growth levels are really good. And well, I think Mr. Nichols will start very well. So it's good to know that we have this kind of interest. Ms. Wilson. And the, and the election commission need a real good attorney. No question about it. I think you're right, Mr. Vine. There has been some in the past. And I think you all know that there has been some, some problems in the past. Yeah. And not with us on our hand. No, not with us. But yeah. With the... Yeah. But never as a candidate. Of course, that is very... Council member, let me ask a quick question. Yes, sir. Just in general, three appointed election commission members. Why is there not four in an at-large to represent each district in an at-large time break? Is that, is that something? It's state law, Will. For the three? Yes. It's state law says you get three. That's it. That's it. All right. That answered my question. Mr. Municipality, I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. How it will throw a state law on me. Not complicated. All right. Ashley, is there anything else? No, sir. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Madam City Manager. Thank you. Thanks to all of you all. And at this point, we have city council committee referrals and reports. I have one report to my colleagues and of course, city manager. The administrative committee did meet this morning and we had a good start, a good kickoff. I do want to acknowledge that there was one email sent referencing the health officer and their position. That email can be circulated to you guys so that you might read it. But we're in a good position. We are in a good position today to at least get the ball rolling. It was a very productive meeting. There are some things that will come before you all once the staff continues to do its work. Yes, ma'am. I'm through. All right. Any other reports or referrals, Ms. Devine? I just wanted to kind of follow up on kind of our conversational and events. Due to the COVID numbers, the mayor's walk against domestic violence will switch to virtual this year. But I do think that we have to understand that COVID has revealed so many things in our community. One thing that doesn't get a lot of conversation and attention is the fact that domestic violence numbers went up during quarantines and things as well. And so now more than ever, it's very important that we continue to shed light on this and support sister care, our local shelter. And so I would just ask that everybody continue to amplify the message. And I miss you seeing her staff are doing a good job. But when people hear virtual, they think they don't have to participate. So we still want to have as much attention around this issue as we would if we had hundreds of people marching. So I just wanted to make that report. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any other reports or referrals? Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. Can I just make one just if you would just give me a point of personal privilege. There has been a lot of conversation about who won our book supplies drive. And of course, I have not had an opportunity to say this to counsel and for those who are here today. My brother and my friend, my colleague has already touted to County Council that he won. Well, let me say unequivocally and unalteredly, he didn't win. Of course, the children won. And of course, all of our partners, all of our team here in the city. I want to say just want to say thank you. Chief Jenkins was right on point. We packed the bus and it was through him and the many firemen and their contributions helped tremendously. So just to set the record straight, the children won, Derrick did not win. The county, we won. And I thank you all so much for your participation. It went over successfully. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. All right. Any other referrals or reports? All right. Seeing none, I think we still have a motion from, I'm sorry, public input. Anyone signed up to speak, ma'am? Yes, sir. We have Ms. Jenner for powers. Who would like to speak for up to three minutes? Any power? How are you? I'm gonna try to talk as loud as I can. So Mr. Duvall can hear me. You move the microphone down a little bit. It carries it really well. I'll pull it closer to you. Feel free. How about that? Is that better? Okay. Thanks for listening to me today. What I want to address is your mentor protege program for the city and some issues that I have with water and sewer engineering department. Okay. For those of you that do know me, y'all know that I've got many trades and I've been in the city for a long time. I'm a native Columbia. I have been trying since basically 2014 to enter the general contracting and the public utility water and sewer construction industry. So that being said, I've had some serious problems over the years getting postured and positioned for that. In 2014, I asked Eric Castle what I could do to get into the system. He gave me a pretty concise plan that I needed to be certified. I needed to have a licensure. I needed to be a grocery list or an adisha of things that I've worked very hard to get. One is bonding. Bonding was a huge, huge hurdle for me as it is for all small contractors. I've been in many programs. I'm certified with the DOT. I'm certified with the state as a minority business, the county, the cities, et cetera, et cetera. For seven years, I have heard about the Mentor Prodigy Program and I went through the Mentor Prodigy College to discover that this mentoring business is really individuals that are marrying up with each other based on personal preference or professional preference, as you'd say. It has not really worked for me. I'm also a general contractor and I don't know if that plays into it, but let's just say that as a general contractor and a water and sewer contractor, I can pull up and help many, many endless trades. In the program, I've noticed that there are the same players, the same prime contractors, the contracts are huge. There's not been any provision for a set aside for a minority business to do their own work because the Mentor Prodigy thing is not gonna work, hasn't really been working, but as a taxpayer, I would ask that this council would look into what is the feasibility of this program and is it working? And if it is working, I'd like to know what the magic is with it because I haven't seen it thus far from what I can tell. Now, I'm sure that there are some success stories. I'm sure that there are some smaller guys that have business relationships with already with their mentors and they pulled them up. I'm sure there's been family members and wives and daughters and sons that have been pulled up. I'm just not seeing that a business person with my background and ability can enter this program and it be successful. So I would ask that the program be looked into. I'd like to know kind of where the awards are going and how this is really happening. The other thing is, I think in my opinion that the city in spending its many millions of dollars in water and sewer could really have a program for an engineering mentoring program for contractors like myself, like my subs, that could use knowledge from the actual engineering department to assist the city in building a labor force to serve the city's needs for futuristic business. I watch, I look, and I see all the out-of-town IPRs, all the big contractors that are coming in from Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and all this. When you've got somebody right here, I went to Crane Creek, Alcorn, Eau Claire and graduated from Kenan. I am so entrenched in my city and my area. I have been doing business here since I was 14 years old, I worked in a law firm. I did business with Tamika's mother and father. I have been here forever and I am aging out and I can't seem to get my company in the game. And I've got bonding. I've got all of the tools necessary to be right here to help city engineering do water and sewer work. And I cannot seem to get anything. So recently I had a virtual meeting with OBO office and the engineering department and I was told that they're doing a diversity study that will take 18 to 24 months before they can decide about set-asides. That's ridiculous. It's just, in my opinion, it's just incompetent. They have, this city has known about the lack of labor and expertise for water and suing infrastructure for years. And you got to do a study to just get a set-aside for a minority business. I'm not buying it. So I really would ask that this council get some answers to some of these problems and I would like to be informed as a taxpayer and as a business and as a person that has spent copious amounts of money to position myself to work for the city. I'm seeing, has Ms. Power's been in close contact with staff over answering some of these questions about access and approval? I'm happy to connect her personally with staff. Obviously the council has received all of the numerous reports we give on the programs that we have multiple times a year. So I'm happy to provide her reports to Ms. Power and also personally make sure she connects with the right staff. Well, since she's coming to us directly now, let's at least want to make sure that every other avenue has been exhausted to try and receive some type of a, have you talked to extensively, you mentioned Eric Castle and he's been gone for a long time. Have you been in dialogue with our staff since then? Yes. Okay, let's see if we can address this very specific. I know it's an issue of broader concern. Mr. Davis always raises Ms. Davis, please. I'm listening to the presentation. There are some elements of the presentation that I would be interested in in terms of where we, I think, I think you're right. I know where we ought to be going as a city when it comes to some of the smaller businesses and that sort of thing. But I think it's worth some dialogue given our successors up to those points and some of the things that we have tried and where we think we need to go in spite of the disparity study, you know, being a minority, but anyway, small business. I still think it's important that we can do a bit more, should be doing more to grow smaller businesses in the city because I think I look at contracts and where the entity that wins the bid is based locally or Tennessee, Ohio, whatever. And we just, I'd like to see the city, I think the city ought to be diligent. I'm not saying we're not doing it, but I think we can start to show that we're growing and developing the kinds of skills, technical as well as, you know, business-wise, to have some of those money and those dollars stay in this community. All of mine. Yeah? Yes, sir. I'm sorry, we've had some various efforts over the years. Some have hit and some have missed. It's not been for lack of trying. Let's just make sure that we're all singing from the same hymnal. I do know, for example, that the disparity study is a predicate towards putting certain policies in place just under federal law. So it's certainly what you have to do as a city, but let's just make sure if we have to revisit this at some point because there's some challenges we don't understand, but if in fact qualifications are being met, and we can maybe assist with some of the teaming opportunities, let's just make sure we're crossing those T's and doting those I's. And if there's an opportunity before us, we'll take it. If not, then we need to explain why not. And let's have some dialogue between now and next meeting. Fair enough? Yeah, yes, sir. I just also wanted to note on your agenda today, you approved two protégé-led projects. I know sometimes that we go through the consent agenda and we don't go out certain things, but those are for small minority women-owned businesses to lead the project. So I just wanted to make note of that. Thank you, sir. Absolutely, no, we've been very intentional and gotten some W's and sometimes we come up short, but it's not for lack of trying. Let's see if we can address Ms. Power's specific concerns in a meaningful way and get back with us as a council. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Any other citizens sign up to speak? Mayor, no, sir, but we do have one very short voicemail to play into the record. Who is it from? I'm not sure who the caller is, sir, but it is short. It's not sweet, but it's short. All right, well, good deal. Thank you. All right, please, play the record. Yes, I would like to be told how many tax dollars were wasted by city council and the mayor in defending their illegal ordinance. As a taxpayer, I think we are allowed to know how many tax dollars y'all spent fighting this when you knew you had no chance to win. Thank you. I know it's recording, so I guess I shouldn't talk about the recording. Just in case the citizen is watching, no, we disagree that the ordinance was illegal and all services rendered to the city were rendered pro bono. Folks who work hard every single day, the ones who work hard to put the work together. We saw amazing intergovernmental support from municipal lawyers and professionals from all across the state, public and private sector. And we do it again. And we'd love to see if you actually had a taxpayer in the city. All right, Mr. Duval, you got a motion for me? Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move we go into executive session for receipt of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to SC code 30-4-78-2 COVID-19, Sylvia Copeland versus COC, Rugby Road, discussion of negotiations in the proposed contractual arrangement pursuant to 30-4-78-2 legislative affairs. Second. So moved. Any discussion? Move the previous question, Carl Carlisle. Mr. Vrenan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duval. Aye. Mr. Vine. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Aye. Thank you all.