 And moderating this morning's activities. So really excited to, one, to kick off an April issues meeting with these two guests. And they really don't need any introduction. They might want to do it with a big one. But I do want to welcome Richland County Chair, Melanger Walker, and Mayor Daniel Rickland, City of Columbia. And the thought behind this meeting today was really to, obviously, we've been talking about things that impact economic development and things that impact Columbia and the Midlands region over the last several months. And what better way to really talk about this region and the growth efforts is to have the two guys that are elected to be in charge of our governments here. And so, Mayor Delia, thank you all very much for your willingness to get here early. And so y'all let it up on the coffee. Have some questions ready. Because I'm going to go back and forth. I've got some listed questions, but also want to hear from y'all what your thoughts are for these gentlemen. So anyway, good morning. Morning. Welcome. I'll tell you what, let's do this. Let's just take just a couple of minutes, both of you, and talk about, obviously, Overture has been in office for two years. Almost. This is his second year, put it that way. But first year is chair of Richlings County Council. So Overture will start with you. How about just give your thoughts over council, what your parties are this year, and then I'll take it to Dan. Sure. And good morning, everyone. And let me just begin by thanking the chamber for inviting me to be here this morning, as well as, you know, who may or may not be willing to participate in this forum as well. I also want to get a special shout out, rather, to Susan Fierce. And the reason I say that is because she may be the only woman who can get me to show up anywhere at 8 o'clock in the morning. I think the first time I participated in one of these forums, I had just been elected to Riching County Council, along with four other colleagues of mine. So I think Mr. Fierce mentioned getting five of us together at 8 o'clock in the morning. And then this time around, she had to listen to me, car and moan and complain about showing up at 8 o'clock in the morning. So Mr. Fierce, a special shout out to you. And on top of that, she is a constituent. She happens to live in my district. But again, I'm Overture Walker, chair of Richling County Council. I've been on County Council now for just over a year. I ran back in 2020 to replace Councilman Jim Manning, who is my predecessor for District 8. My district begins on Decker Boulevard. And it actually goes as far out to the Northeast as Lone Creek Plantation. I'm sure any of you are familiar with that part of Northeast Columbia. But in between that, in between Decker Boulevard and Lone Creek, you have Alpine Road, this Polo Road, Two Notch. We've got North Springs, as well as Clemson Road and Hart Scrabble. And so the challenges in my district are pretty diverse. If you live off of Decker Boulevard and Hunt Club Road area, your concern is probably more so with economic development and revitalization. If you live off of Clemson Road or North Springs or even Hart Scrabble, your concern is probably most likely with traffic congestion, as well as housing development. So my district is not a big district, but it's long. And we have a lot of density. We have a lot of housing and a lot of residents, so rooftops rather. Since I've been on Council, we've had numerous priorities. I really can't say which one is more important than the other. I know that there's certainly been, we placed a premium on economic development, trying to draw more industry and high-paying jobs to Richland County. There's always a premium that's placed on public safety. Last year, we voted on a $40 million bond for the sheriff. I think it's going to be a public safety complex, which will have a new criminal laboratory and a 911 center. I believe we're going to also house the Richland County probation parole and pardons office in that building. It's going to be at Columbia Place Mall. Some of you may be aware that the county already owns property on the premises. And so rather than go and look for a new property to acquire, we decided to look at some of the properties that the county currently owns. And so that's actually going to be a pretty big deal. We certainly made it a priority to resolve any issues around the penny. During our first year, we resolved legal disputes with the Department of Revenue, as well as with the program development team, which is also known as the PDT. And then we did something that I thought was, I think for some people, maybe it was just symbolic, but also thought it was very substantive, which was some of the controversy around the purchase card or the P card program. For a while, Richland County was going to be one of two counties that had the dubious distinction of council members having their own credit card or P card. And so we decided to revamp that program and bring it in-house and as opposed to council members actually having access to those cars and having them in-person instead now, you have to go through administration to clerk's office to make those purchases. But we thought that was a pretty big deal in light of just a number of the negative stories that were coming out about Richland County in recent years. But that's just doing a handful of the priorities that we're dealing with. Obviously, COVID is still an issue. We were approved for, I believe it was, a little over $80 million in our funds from the federal government. So we've received to date, I believe, as well we've expended about $20 million to date. And so we have another $60 or $61 million that's out there. And so we're having discussions now about what the priorities are going to be with respect to what remains of those funds. So Mr. Blackson, I hope that answers the question. There's so much more. But that's just a handful of some of the things that we're grappling with. Great. Thanks. Dave? Good morning. I can't start without saying, we've got to give a shout out to the Lady Gamecocks for that world champion win. And I'll tell you what, that was pretty exciting. And I'm going to put priority. We're trying to figure out a parade. So I'm going to put that out there as something. Yeah, this is 90 days into my first term as mayor. And I tell you, it's been exciting. I will tell you, every day we're getting up. We're trying to figure out what we can do to improve the quality of life here in Columbia. And we've adapted open for business, open for innovation, open for suggestions, open for dialogue, truly an open community, trying to be very transparent, and deal with the issues that are before us. And you've seen, as we've started, my counterpart here, Mr. Walker and I have met, I think, four times already. We as both the vice chair, Ms. Mackie, and the chairman here and I have been trying to meet on a regular basis to talk about how we can improve Richland County together and uniting where we can and working together. I've had a great opportunity to meet with hundreds of people. And I literally say hundreds of people because it's true every day. Yesterday, we were in six corners of our community. Everything from children to businesses to opening up a pickleball court. But everything had to do with improving the lives of our community. You ask about priorities, but I'll tell you, it hasn't changed. A clean, safe, investment-ready community where we're emphasizing investment on quality of life. So that means neighborhoods, that means businesses because you can't have one or the other. They have to be coincide. There is a balance there. Investing internally in our city, making sure that we are providing the best service because that's what we are. We are a service industry. And as y'all know, we've talked about it. You've seen it. We're airing our issues out front and trying to tackle them one point at a time. We were 4,000 work orders behind at Water and Sewer. We're 632 employees, like. Are those great statistics? No. But what's great about it is their opportunities. They're opportunities for us to improve. It makes us reexamine the way we operate, how we handle those issues and how we can improve moving forward. And then going through work orders to give you an example, 17% of those work orders were landscape issues where it was just going back and fixing what we had to tear up to improve a water line. And some of these extended out, lost in the crack. And you go, wait a minute, how is that possible? There must be 100 landscape companies in Columbia, South Carolina. Well, when you dig into the issue and discover their own ordinances, our own procurement process adds so many layers on that it prohibits a small company for coming in and help us. So you have to go back to the root of the problem. The root of the problem really came into the way we operate. And so reexamining the way we operate has allowed us to start to open these opportunities that we can engage more small businesses to help us provide service. It is allowing us to look at technology today. How do we invest in technology, training and autonomy to allow our employees to do their job? Because we haven't allowed them to do their job. So we're focusing internally. As we invest, we want to invest in, like I said, technology and training, but also making sure that we give our employees the ability to deal with that. We're getting 1,200 calls a day at the call center for water and sewer. Some of those deal with financing. Some of those deal with emergency services. But we had to regroup and look at things differently in how we do it. So now we have all of our weekend crew and our night crew working day shift. We're using a third party call service to handle those emergency calls at night. So we're focused on the needs of our community from eight to five every day where it's needed. We started looking into hiring. What is going on? Why are we having a problem recruiting and hiring today? Well, it took us almost 28 days to give somebody a commitment letter. Well, the majority of the jobs that we have open are hourly jobs. And these are critical jobs because without these folks, we can't operate correctly. But folks, people want to have an in-person interview. They want to leave that interview and understand they have an opportunity for employment. They want to wait 30 days for somebody to get back to them because if it's me, I'll promise you I'm not waiting 30 days. I'm taking the first job that comes to me. But we also started looking at how we were hiring. And part of that was we had a criteria set and that criteria was based on, I don't know who came up with it to be honest with you, we weren't hiring for the job. We're hiring for the job now. And since we've started talking about our need for employees and talking about and changing the way we're recruiting people, we're actually getting people to apply. But it's also allowing us to go through, and especially as we go through this budget session now, to make sure that we're aligned with the priorities of the community. What's important? What gets us to be competitive? What allows us to have the best quality of life? And so as we continue to do that, we're examining where can we fill in with the small business community that can make us provide the best service in the most efficient and effective way. And we're starting to examine what we do well and what we don't do well. So it's an exciting time at the city. Clean and safe, y'all. We all know that our city is not clean. Our entranceways are not clean. And I'm very thankful for the council that I'm working with because everybody is jumping in and taking a role in helping. Well, Brennan is helping on the clean part. We're gonna break up our city into six districts and take those six districts and hire folks specifically to keep our major thoroughfares clean and at the same time working on storm drains and other projects so that we continue to keep our systems clean trash out of the way. But how does that help our neighborhoods? This is where we have a unique opportunity to invest in our youth. We have two pilot programs that we're setting up to work with neighborhood youth that we will pay them to help clean up their own neighborhood which instills a sense of pride. It puts the community back in getting them engaged so that we have a clean city. Then it comes on to us to make sure that we've got sidewalks there in good repair, that we continue to tackle these steel plates, start working with the private contractors to make sure that the small leaks get fixed before they become big leaks. This is an ongoing battle and it's not gonna happen overnight. But we've seen a difference. We've reduced steel plates by about 35% in the last 90 days and our goal is to really reduce it to a bare minimum but we're gonna have them. We have an older system and we're gonna continue to invest in that system. Using modern technology, third-party vendors to make sure that we're addressing it. Are we gonna be perfect? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. We are human beings and we deal with human beings every day. But what we are gonna do is admit when there are issues and talk about how we're trying to fix them. But this is also one of the great things. Over the last 90 days, I've probably hit, I think 65% of the employees and I'm talking about the folks that are in the field, the folks that are wastewater, the folks that are at solid waste, the folks that are working in our water department out in the field, talking with them, A, how do we improve the quality of life for you but how do you help us improve as a system? We're getting ideas from folks who are out there. We're listening to folks. And this isn't just a one-time meeting. This is gonna be an ongoing thing because we need to have the ability to communicate much better from the bottom and the top and the top to the bottom. Because the only way we're gonna be successful in Columbia, South Carolina is for us to do this together. This isn't about overture our eyes in Richland one, in Richland County. It's really about us as a community working together. Everybody has a role. And if you look at the competing cities, especially capital cities throughout the Southeast, the double digit growth they have, if you look at the energy and the community is working together, are we gonna agree on everything? Absolutely not. At the end of the day, doesn't mean that everything isn't on the table. So I will tell you our priorities have not changed and we're gonna continue to move forward and we're gonna continue to work together and we're gonna continue to improve and we're gonna continue to listen to folks. I've learned more in the last 90 days and I did probably in two terms at the city council. It is a different position where we sit today than it is as a council member. We are involved every day and engaged every day with our community. And I gotta tell you, I don't regret one bit of it. I wake up every morning, invigorated, excited about the opportunities because we are a city filled with opportunities. And the only way that that's all gonna be, as we see it probably, the best way I can say it is, is that the only way we're gonna succeed is that we continue to work together. So I look forward to your questions and keep going. Any ideas, thoughts, please share it. Look, I made it real easy for people to get to me. My cell phone is on the website and my email address is mayoratcolumbiasc.gov. I can't make it any easier for you to reach out. So in the spirit of working together, I mean, one of the reasons why we wanted y'all to vote here is obviously new insights, new enthusiasm brings new ideas to the table. Overture, what do you think are opportunities that you would like to see the county and the city doing more together? Part of the, not changing what your strategy and what your overall plan is, but where would you like to see the city and the county working more closely together? Hands down, economic development. That's one of the things the mayor and I discussed in our conversation. One of the things he's mentioned to me, he says, you know, Overture, there are times where we're talking with companies. We as a city, we're having conversations with companies that are interested in coming out here to Columbia, but then what comes up usually is the issue of taxes or about the military to what have you. And when I've said to the mayor is, well, we can help you with that over at the county. There are things that we can do, certain incentives that we can offer that perhaps the city can offer. For instance, there's the fee and lieu of a tax. That's a pretty attractive incentive for companies. There's the multi-county industrial park. There's a special source revenue credit. So there are things that we can do. I think at least prior to my arrival on council, one of the things that I heard was that the city and county oftentimes operated in silos. So you really didn't have the collaboration. And so what I said to the mayor when we were having this conversation, I said, well, look, the next time a developer or a company expresses interest in coming to Richland County and wanting to do business in the city and they have concerns about taxes, give me a phone call, shoot me a text message, send me an email or better yet, I can get director Rubell, Jeff Rubell who's economic development director for Richland County. I can get him on the telephone or we can get him an audience with that developer. So there's really no reason we ought to be losing out or any reason that we should not be competitive when you consider that there are many incentives or there are myriad ways that we can get around any sort of tax challenges that we have. So certainly seeing more communication and more collaboration between the city and county with respect to economic development. Thanks. Similar question, Dan, do you see lines of service that could be worked together? I don't think consolidation's been a part of anybody's conversations. I don't want to put that out there at all. But are there ways to look at lines of service and what the county provides and what the city provides? Oh, I think definitely. I mean, we've talked a lot about economic development. Marketing is one, which is a key element for every aspect of our community, but we don't tell our story. And I think we have an opportunity to step back and come across and tell our story. We got a very great story to tell people about what we have to offer. I mean, I don't think there's anywhere else in the state of South Carolina that we have 60,000 students that are future workforce. If you look at Charleston and Greenville, they're starting to struggle with the workforce. If a business is gonna locate down the road, they're going to look at us and we need to be geared up to tell that story. And it's gotta be a united message. We can't have the airport saying one thing and the county saying one thing and the city sending a different message. And the university sending a different message. We got to work together on, I hate to use the word branding because everybody runs when we talk about branding, but the reality is we got to tell our story and I think that's the best way to do it. There are more opportunities as Overture mentioned earlier about the new sheriff's complex, how we can work on rapid DNA lab, where we can work together, enhance, the county has an incredible GSI system. Are there opportunities that we can work on technology and stuff to improve and enhance the customer's experience in Columbia, South Carolina because this is part of Richland County. Can we continue to work on improving our fire service as jointly as we can? Is this a great time for us to talk about how we integrate EMS when you look at the service calls and we took 911 and broke it down into where the majority of service calls went and the effect that has on draining resources, well, is there a better way to deploy that? Can we look at like other communities as we build new fire houses, invest in those by having the EMS there so that we're spread out and the response time is much, much better, quicker to getting to that. But that allows us to deploy maybe an EMS as a group versus a fire truck, EMS and police. We start draining our resources to one incident. I mean, there are a lot of things like that that we've talked about that take time and we're getting through. We're actually funding the fire department fully and making the changes second gear for our firefighters. Looking at proving the quality of their living conditions, investing in clean rooms and things that they need for their safety. We're doing this together as a group and talking about it, not, oh, well, they're doing it and they're not doing it. It's no, we're going to do that together. And I hope what you see is more opportunities that come forth that both the city and the county will work together to improve the quality of life. Right, and that leads, which is really great to hear in the sense that we are a small community. Somebody told me this the other day, it makes so much, you know, Columbia is just a really large small town. Amen. Yeah, and that doesn't mean just the city, that the community as a whole. And one of the challenges we've had Overture alluded to this as well, but one of the things we've got to work on is the taxes, right, and that's been a big issue I know for the mayor. Overture has had a list of me for a number of times talking about the tax structure. Where do you see, the city put in a modernization, tax modernization study. I know you're making headway there. What's the status of that committee and how do you go look to the county for assistance? So I think where we are today, so we've constituted the Tax Modernization Committee, Dr. Stephen Walters, a well-known economist has agreed to come on, we're actually paying him and Dr. Rebecca Gooden-Lachs, and they're working with a mix of community leaders and business folks to take a look at the whole project and come up with several different options for us to look at. And then the plan is to then bring the county together and sit down and start going through this list and showing exactly what we need to do to change over a period of time. And I think there's, people are going, oh, well, you're gonna put all this burden back on the homeowners. No, what we're talking about is the non-owner-occupied structure. Which if we don't change folks and we don't make an effort to have a plan, we're not gonna grow. We are not gonna grow as a community. Look, everybody is, the Southeast is where all the growth is gonna happen. Columbia Metropolitan has had 2% growth over the last decade. Other cities in our similar situation in Southeast have had double-digit growth. The Sun Belt's been about a 6.7% growth and people are coming, they're looking to relocate in their homes, they're looking to relocate their business, they're wanting to make investments. So as much as having tools in our toolbox to deal with big things, we gotta remember the majority of our businesses are small. They can't get a tax break. The other thing is we can't talk about obtainable, affordable housing if we have a tax structure that penalizes the renter. I mean, the average person who rents a home in Columbia pays three and a half months worth of rent to property tax. That takes away from the quality of the rental units they have, the ability for people to continue to invest in it. Look, we have 46,237 homes in the city of Columbia and close to 27,000 of those are rented. So we have a dual role as one, we've gotta fix the tax structure to make it affordable and attainable in our community. Second part of that is we also gotta make sure that we're making an effort to create home ownership opportunities. Because home ownership is a single way to create wealth individually and generational. And we need to take the opportunities and look, city has to change things and we're doing that. We're looking at zoning, how do we change zoning and density so that we can create more opportunities in that realm? Because that's all part of the tax discussion because it's more than just taxes, it's all the other pieces that go with it. We're examining how we're using HUD funding. It costs us more in the city of Columbia to do a HUD program than it does anywhere else in the state. So we're having to step back and examine well, what are we doing here that doesn't make sense? Because we're getting the same allotment of home money that Charleston and Greenville does but yet it costs us double to provide those services. We've gotta change that and that's what we have to do and that's what we are taking. The other part is is that after spending several hours with Secretary Fudge and her deputies about what's available to a community like ours, I realize we miss a ton of opportunities. Part of it is that we don't have the depth in our departments to actually go after all the grant opportunities. So we're interviewing, we have our RFP coming out, I think next week, to hire third parties to help us go after that. These are ex-deputies, these are folks who worked in HUD and that's just one department that we're looking at but to help us make sure that we don't miss the opportunities that are gonna be available to us between the infrastructure grants through the HUD availability, if it's Choice Neighborhood Grants which we've only applied one time in our community. That's up to $35 million. That's what DC, Atlanta, Charlotte, St. Louis and Nashville have used to change zip codes. If we got a $35 million grant and we can leverage that with the private sector both from a housing and a commercial side, we're talking about leveraging that at well over $150 million. We can change a zip code in Columbia, South Carolina. You're talking about making a major impact. And what's great about it is we don't have to start from scratch because in 2005, we created this East Central plan that's been sitting in the basement and the shelf that I've taken off, blown the dust off and we're going out and we're making sure that that is modernized to fit the landscape today and we're going to put that into play. We're going to take advantage of what we have so that we can improve the quality. So all of those pieces come together and we're, like I said, we're meeting constantly and we're talking about these issues and we're going to bring them forth to work together to improve it. But we're going to have to come together. We're going to have to make some decisions that are going to be tough. We're going to have to be a little more efficient and effective on how we spend our public dollars. But we're also in the most unprecedented time in history. We'll never see the amount of money that's coming down from the federal government or it through the state ever again and we got four years to get it right. So let's, let's, we're going to continue to do that. Carl, just chime in. Certainly I agree with the mayor that taxes are a challenge for businesses that don't qualify for incentives as well as for our citizens that don't own homes. And, but I don't think that local government can do it by ourselves. You know, it may require legislative reform. You know, as far as from the general assembly, it may require us to actually revisit Act 388, which places the tax responsibility for our schools solely on industrial, commercial and rental properties. And when I say, when I refer to the cost for our schools, I'm talking about operating costs, not bonds or what have you. I think we have to ask is Act 388 working the way that it was intended to? I know that shortly after its passage, the legislature increased state sales tax by one cent to replace any sort of loss, you know, tax revenue. And so I guess the question is, whether or not the reimbursement mechanism that's in place. So is that sufficient to replace the loss tax revenue that was supposed to go to schools? Look at Charleston and Greenville as well. And, you know, oftentimes we hear about, you know, taxes being lower there, but understand that the assessment ratio that's set by the legislature, you know, 10% for industrial, 6% for non-owner occupied or commercial, and then 4% for owner occupied. But the difference is, you know, the military, right? And what oftentimes drives your tax bill is many of you know is property values. So I know at the county, we have placed an emphasis on trying to increase property values, you know, in Richmond County. In Charleston, for instance, you have a lot of beachfront property. Well, Richardson County is never going to be we known as a beachfront county, right? Don't say never. Never, never. Okay, well, in the foreseeable future. But then you look at Greenville, there's a lot of manufacturing, but the property values there are higher than what you see in Richardson County. So, you know, we've pretty much placed an emphasis on growing the tax base by attracting, you know, more industry, more commercial development with the intention of increasing those property values. So at some point, perhaps you can get the mill down. I think another challenge that we face in Richardson County is the number of properties, the number of government owned properties and many of them are off the tax roads. And I think that's one area where the city and county can work together. We can have a discussion about the number of properties that each entity owns and how we can get those properties onto the tax rolls and perhaps by maybe considering selling some of those properties to the private sector. Great, thank you very much. Let me take a break. Anybody got a question? Yes, sir. So with regards to the property taxes, how much of the average homeowner, how much of the tax bill goes to paying schools and can the county or the city go alone and tackling the tax issue? Or does the school districts, do the school districts seem to be involved? Well, if your property is owner occupied, then what you're paying school with respect to your tax bill is just construction, construction costs of bonds. But if it's not owner occupied, I think it's nearly 50%. It's perspective to understand, Richardson one who's indomitably in Columbia, the majority of their almost all their money is derived from obviously non-owner occupied, which is an imbalance because there's more non-owner occupied property inside the city limits than out. So when you're having these discussions, we have to, the school board actually has to be at the table as well. But the county's actually the taxing entity. So they control that. Where we differ a little bit in our thoughts on taxes is that, I'm not sure that I believe that you have to tackle Act 388 because I don't think there's not enough will of legislature to reform that tax because the homeowner would get penalized and the homeowner as you know is the voter. So I don't see that, but I do see an opportunity for us as Richland County as a whole to tackle it. If you look years ago, the state went and used Act 90 to reduce the industrial rate from 10 to 9%. 1% change in our community would change the landscape. You're talking about 25% reduction. So is that something we can do together? Can we modernize the tax structure by committing that in two years we're gonna freeze for five years that then reduces us? And everything over that rate that we have from new investment goes into a special fund that then can follow any shortfall. But in a time when we've all gotten recovery money, in a time when there's surplus at the state and their federal dollars coming down a thing, there's not a better time for us to tackle this issue than now. Anybody else got a question? I got a whole slew, so I don't give everybody else an opportunity. Hey, I clearly need some more coffee in the crowd. Yeah, I have no kidding. Yes ma'am. Thanks for hosting us today. I'm curious to know who is just a model city for patient health, economic mobility when you look at that study. I'm curious to know how you're... So thank you for that question. Let me clarify that. That study that was done incorporated Lexington, Richland and the city of Columbia. So it's very hard, part of it's hard is that for us to move forward and using that study and one of the ideas we have is to work with the Community Relations Council to help take this on. But we have to do it with Lexington because the study's not broken down where we have any measurables. And I'm saying that is that we wanted to take a similar path that Spartanburg did. And what Spartanburg did, I think was done very well. They took the entire study and went to their community and said, let's pick three priorities to focus on because you can't do 12. We all know that especially if government's in charge it'll be a fumble left and right. So by doing that, but that's what we're trying to work on is setting a path forward to take that information but work with Lexington County, Richland County and think but have a community-based organization that is reaching out in the community. Now all right, let's pick off the three things that we can affect. And let's focus on that and let's do that right. And then we go to the next stage. But you're right. There's some numbers that are in there disparating and they're affecting our community. Look, we lost 9% of our population in the city of Columbia over the last decade. That's what we've seen. Predominantly of that community is African Americans that have moved out of the city. They've moved to the county for multiple reasons. Well, that's part of why it's so important that we go after choice grants and we focus on investing in the city because we need to make sure that we have a well-balanced community and people have an opportunity to live in the city. And so that's part of the focus. But thank you for bringing that up. That is in the works and we're having dialogue every day to try to get. And I hope by the end of this fiscal year we'll have a plan forward which would be at the end of June. Well, the county, we have not commissioned a study yet I know that's something that we are considering as far as an equity study. Conversations that I know I've had as well as my colleagues on counts have had with business owners and contractors and engineers and minority contractors and engineers is that it's difficult to do business with the county or try to get business with the county. It's my understanding that we just, we can't have a set aside if you will. We can't mandate that a certain percentage of minority participation because we have not done an equity study. I know that the city has already commissioned one but we just can't take their equity study and apply it for Richmond County. So I know it's something that is being considered by county council and but we're doing it with the intention of trying to make sure that we're pulling talent from all over the county and that every community has an opportunity to participate or at least share in the prosperity of the county. John. When I used to live in the city or when I used to live in Columbia I lived in a giant doughnut hole that was completely surrounded by the city of Columbia it was probably an eight block area. In forest acres we have 1500 homes that are inside of forest acres but they're in doughnut holes. Forest acres in Columbia gets zero revenue from those property taxes because that all goes up to the county. Can we maybe work together instead of working on 388 maybe work on some annexation, modernization so that if you're inside, if you're geographically inside of the city limit there's no such thing as a doughnut hole anymore. I mean have you guys looked at how much that can just increase revenue to the city? Well, we didn't look at it from a revenue standpoint but we have looked at how important is you're a perfect example of forest acres. We suddenly got this in the counties coming between you the city of forest acres and the city of Columbia to provide service to a group. It doesn't make sense. And I think one of the things we've talked about is as we move forward is how do we address that? You know, as Richland County's working on their overall rezoning which has brought up questions that people think is the perfect time for us to have this conversation. And I think it'd be great for forest acres to participate with us in that. I don't know that Mayor Brunson has shared with you but we've started kind of putting a regional mayor's group together, including the county and Fort Jackson stuff to talk about these type of issues. And I think that's a great forum for us to kind of do something that impacts all the different jurisdictions and takes out of play. But you're exactly right. I heard from a lot of people during the election that thought they lived in the city of Columbia and they weren't in forest acres but they weren't in the city of Columbia but they really were in the city of Columbia. But we also seen it from a service. And there's an opportunity to tackle these because it's not just forest acres. It's, you know, you look around old woodlands. You got a part of it in, part of it out. Little pockets here and there. And I think you see that throughout. So I think that's a great suggestion. And then John, you know, hopefully we can, three of us can work together on that. Mr. Chairman, nothing to add to that, not on the car. Well, he brought up a good one. So this was one of them. Sorry. The land development code rewrites the elephant in the room. How about, I'll be honest, I recognize the zoning rewrite is important. The city did this a couple of years ago. Modernization is actually the right word because what worked 30 years ago does not quite work today. So I was a big proponent of the county doing a land rezoning process. How about the status? What's going on with it? Just give an update. Absolutely. And so Carl on the mayor mentioned that the land development code rewrite has brought on a lot of questions. But if you're on county council, it's brought on a lot of whaling and national teeth. You know, but, you know, there are two phases to the land rezoning process. We have the land development code text and we have the map, right? And so we had a third reading to approve the text back in November of 2021. So now we have the beginning phase of phase, well, the beginning of phase two, which deals with the map, which puts the new zoning designations on place and just ask the text required three readings. The map is also going to require three readings as well. As for the timeline, you know, the ordinance that we passed back in November, pertaining to the text, it was set to going to effect in July of this year. But it looks like we may have to amend that ordinance to change the effective date and allow more time for public input. I know I for one would like to have some more time to talk with staff just to make sure that this land development code rewrite, it's balancing the economic development needs of the county with the housing development needs of the county as well. I wanna make sure that we're doing things that doesn't hinder economic development but allows us to increase property values as well as which I think could ultimately result in a decrease in the millage. As for providing feedback, I think our process has been orderly and organized. We provided citizens with ample opportunities to participate in the process just yesterday. I'm told that we had several citizens show up at the planning commission meeting to express their concerns about the proposed map. I know at the behest of council, planning staff sit down notices to all property owners, Envergston County, most people thought those were tax notices because they looked very similar. But these were notices regarding, I guess, the new proposed zoning designation for their property. We've had several community meetings that held throughout the county where we've received input from the public. I know I've attended a couple of those meetings as well. But additionally, if folks that they want to get involved in the process, though they can email or contact the planning department, get in touch with the county administration. I know the clerk's office has been inundated with emails and letters regarding the land code rewrite. And then of course, you can get in contact with council members directly. Great, thank you. It's a top priority. And one of it is utilizing the programs at four. Two things that I discovered as we started looking at it is working closer with the Housing Authority to make sure that we're helping people get into home ownership. But what we talked about earlier, I mentioned about the HUD money. We get an allotment of home money and how we've leveraged that to help people get into home ownership. But when I found out part of the issue too is that as we're talking about zoning and other things, you know, that plays a big part of it and the affordability. The other thing that we have to work on together too is regulation. Regulation in average home in Columbia, South Carolina. So if you have a $100,000 home, almost $22,000 of that is due to regulation. So we need to work together with the builders and the legislature and everything and re-examine because you add a 22% cost in regulation, then you add supply and demand right now and then, you know, look at interest rates where they are. So how do we help those first time home buyers? And then also the inventory, you know, requirements and neighborhoods have big lots and smaller. Well, there's a large portion of community that would be very happy to have 1,000 square foot house that they own that's theirs. So constantly working that, as you know, we had an opportunity to speak both to the Senate and the House about the tax credits for affordable housing as well because part of what they were talking about removing is the 9%, which is a new construction. Well, we need that too. And it's a housing crisis. Right now, we need 6,700 units in the city of Columbia and long-term projection is somewhere between 16 and 18,000 units over the next decade in our community to fill the needs. That's workforce, I think, but there's a good opportunity for us there to create some transitions for home ownership. We're taking, we're putting a half a million dollars into taking down roughly about 68 homes that are condemned and creating the conditions for those lots for people to go back and reel with the incentive to move forward and how we can do that through different HUD programs, help with closing costs, but also look at the tax benefits that we make and deliver for them to reduce that initial first bit and build stages up. So it's a high priority for me, one that we can measure because we know what the numbers are. And I do think that is all the things we're talking about are only gonna work for us folks if we have measures and goals that we're committing to that are accountability. And that means for us as elected officials to be a held accountable but the community be held accountable for their part as well. And I think that's one of the things that we haven't done in the past is really put some goals and use the information we have to hold each other accountable. And Carl, if I may just add to that. Recently, I met with the group called more justice here in town and I know that affordable housing is a top priority of theirs. And specifically they want an affordable housing trust fund. I looked into the issue and I can tell you that in Richland County or Richland County government, we were certainly, well, I discovered that there, I guess, different functions here in Richland County with respect. Well, different, we're carrying out affordable housing trust functions, rather, already in Richland County. For instance, I know with county government, we serve as an administrative, if you will, for CDBG grants from HUD. I know that the county has a down payment assistance on program. Perhaps we need to look at allocatable funding for that or perhaps beefing up that program. Obviously we have the Columbia Housing Authority and then you'll discover that we already have a housing trust fund in Richland County, which is the Midlands Housing Trust Fund. Up until, I want to say a couple of years ago, Richland County was allocating funding for that trust fund. And so I certainly want to take a look at, as far as allocating more funding for that, as opposed to setting up a separate housing trust fund and having duplicative services, which is something we want to avoid. I'd rather take a look at the structure that we currently have in place or the mechanisms rather that we have in place and see if we can now beef those up in the way of funding, but I think also engaging the private sector. Government can't do it alone. So engaging developers, to find out what it is that they need or what certain that they need from government to actually provide, I guess, more affordable or workforce housing, what incentives that government can provide in order for them to do that, which I think would be pretty important. And I'll tell you, as part of this land development code rewrite, what we're running into, we have developers are telling us that the map doesn't lend itself to more affordable housing. But then we're running into constituents who are saying that they don't want any more housing because they feel like the infrastructure in the county, gets at its current state, it's just not sufficient to absorb additional housing. So we kind of have that tug and pull. We have a county that has grown, right? But according to the most recent census, Richard County has grown by 40,000. And I think that number may be a tad higher if you consider that not everybody responded to the census. And so making sure that we have adequate housing or affordable housing for a population that is growing, while at the same time being mindful of what we hear from constituents, which is their concern that we may end up with more housing, or at least housing ends up outpacing the development of infrastructure. Great, thank you. Jim, last question, we got a... About short on time, Jim. Mr. Chairman, I really, Jim Morris, I appreciate you tackling the whole land-developed piece. I'm sure it's under-governance awards. I would like to point out that you're zoning. The folks at zoning, when they talk about the clothes and they tell people, here's what you can or can't do on this property, they own the process. So when they tell folks, oh no, there's no rule here. You can build anything here. You can put a trailer out here. That's not always correct and they're not being clear about it because sometimes there's de-restrictions and covenants and they are not clear about that because when I've gotten into the discussions and where they have allowed, they have said no. You're allowed to have a trailer and there's supposed to be a process where the person who's buying the property signs something saying they know they're aware of that. That is not being necessarily done. And so you get people buying a piece of property thinking they can put a trailer on it or do X, Y, or Z on it. And zoning's saying, oh no, they're supposed to fill out a form that doesn't get filled out. And so then you end up with lawsuits. So as this moves forward, if you could be aware of that, this process is very important to keep us all moving in this direction. Well, Mr. Morris, it's because of that, we've had to slow down this process with respect to the mapping and so we can get more input from the public. I know there have been a couple of instances where we've heard from the public, they've expressed their dismay or their disapproval of a particular propose. I say propose zoning designation because nothing has been finalized and it's led to staff going back, reconsidering what they initially proposed and then changing it. So that information is very important for us to have. And in fact, before I leave today, I'd like to connect with you, get your information and maybe you and I can chat a little more online about it, okay? Great, thank you all very much. I'm gonna wrap up and let y'all have last words. On behalf of the Chamber, we've got a bunch of board members here and thank y'all for being here. We appreciate both y'all for wanting your service but two, for your willingness to be here with us today. And thirdly, I find in Columbia being out and about there's a renewed optimism, there's excitement, there's energy in the air so thank y'all for your leadership there. One goal that y'all have that y'all can measure, what would you like to look back on in this first year of y'all's chairmanship and your mayoral duties? If you could look back, what would you say success looks like and what are you excited about? Mr. Chairman? Wow, that's a very good question, Carl. A hard one to answer. I guess for me, I think everything centers around economic development. If you're able to attract those sort of jobs, high-paying jobs that pay y'all the living wage, open for business, that's our cue, right? But being able to attract the sort of jobs that pay y'all the living wage and that can transform people's lives and that can change generations in a family. That is what I would like to see. And so just working more closely with the mayor, working more closely with city council to see what we can do as a city and as a county to actually, you know, improve the quality of life. There's a way I sort of view economic development and just in its purest sense, it's an effort to improve the quality of life through the attraction of high-paying jobs. If you've got folks who are gainfully employed and if they're making a living wage, you have better educational outcomes, you have better housing outcomes, you have better health outcomes. It addresses the issue of public safety as well. So for me, it's just having a more collaborative relationship with the city of Columbia, as well as a more synergistic relationship with the private sector and just attracting those jobs. And hopefully as we get more commercial development in here, we can see the milletry come down and ease the tax obligations of that many of our citizens have. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, that's a hard one, because, you know, I live by Peter's law, which means multiple projects lead to multiple successes. So, you know, obviously, clean and safe is the cornerstone for all economic development, so they're really tied together. And part of that safe is, is to be quite honest, I won't violent crime to stop, you know, look. We had 93 shootings in the last 12 months in our community. 95.7 of those were committed by kids between the ages of 18 and 19. That is a problem. And so, for us to move forward as a community and grow economically, we have to tackle those issues. You know, the FBI's recognized us as one of the highest murder rates, I think it's 17. We've got to continue to invest in our community and in public safety. And, you know, part of that is a clean safe. And clean and safe is part of public safety. People forget that lighting, cleanliness, sidewalks, and everything make a difference in a community. So, you know, for me, I think it's multiple projects. Obviously, economic development helps, because if we have more jobs, it deters a lot of bullets, folks. So, you know, I think that that would be my parallel path. If you made me pick, I'm not going to do that. If you made me pick, I'm going to pick too, because when offered a choice, I always take both. So... Listen, thanks again. Thank you all for being here today. We appreciate it very much. Listen, we're here in the chamber here to help you all. So, please let us know how we can... Absolutely. Thank you all for being here. Y'all have a great day.