 and his divine is joining us. Congratulations to her. I'm going to just kind of quick verbal overview of why we're here and the meeting will proceed from there. This is a hearing, the hearing is in the nature of an appeal by property owners from the notice of assessment for the city center business improvement district better known as the bid. The properties that issue are 2016 Sumter Street and 1320 Elmwood Avenue. You know, these hearings are being held pursuant to section five dash 37 dash 110 through 130 of the South Carolina Code of Laws in 1976. We will receive testimony and evidence today and request that city council vote to confirm or modify the assessments as may be warranted by the evidence at this November 9th meeting. November 9th of 2021 meeting based on the economic and community development committee recommendation from this hearing. So I'm going to ask that you please confine your arguments to a map a maximum of five minutes and you're encouraged to reference any materials you have previously submitted or any you wish to hand out today. But there are two cases as I mentioned. So let's call the case one, Ms. Charlotte. That's being performed disproportionately to certain portions of the business improvement district. We don't feel like we get any perceived value from this any center city partnership services to our property or our businesses that rent the property. In fact, we feel like we're being forced to subsidize and pay an additional tax, which in fact, in effect hurts our business and property value. We are getting less services by the city. We don't get the services by the city. And then we also don't get the services that we are being forced to pay through the city center partnership. So once again, I feel like the city center partnership is concentrating its priority and their services on a certain location. In fact, a certain location of Main Street, but portion the center and the south end and the North fringe of the BID is not given any services in our opinion. And that's where we're located, both businesses. So I feel like this is a hardship for our business. We've suffered through the pandemic. We're not in the hospitality tourism retail type of business. So I feel like we don't benefit from these services. So we're basically forced to subsidize businesses that they concentrate their efforts in this arena. So we feel like it's just not fair, basically. And it would be a hardship for us and an imposed burden that we see no perceived value, unfortunately. We would love to see it, see some value. And of course, we'd like our business and our property value to benefit from this, but we don't get any services. We have to constantly pick up trash ourselves every single day. We have an increasing homeless problem. As I was leaving the building last night, I had two homeless men sitting on my step while I was leaving in the dark, was getting dark. I'm picking up condoms, trash. We have no trash cans on our street. There are no trash cans. We have one trash can on our block that the top's always off, it's always a mess. And it was only put there because the homeless were concentrating and because of the feeding at Christ Central and transitions, there was so much trash that they decided to put one trash can on our block and it's not attended to. The curb is broken. There's just so many problems and we don't see the value, we don't see the efforts. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Mayor. I have a quick question. You say new trash service. Is that trash service through the city for your property specifically you're lacking or you have to contract out for bulk waste pickup? We have to count, we've been forced as a commercial business to contract out for, so we have to pay for our own trash. We have to clean up our own trash on the public spaces of the sidewalk. We have such a homeless problem still that there's trash all the time. There's trash in the public spaces. There's trash behind the buildings. There are people doing drugs behind the building. We're picking out drug paraphernalia, condoms, needles, and this is all the time. And there's not someone coming around shooting. If you come in the evenings and on the weekends, there are people hanging out on the private properties. I don't see the city center partnership moving them or making any effort. And it hurts businesses, it hurts our patrons, which is not hospitality, retail, or tourism, but it hurts the business, the people who rent our property. It hurts our ability to attract and retain employees because of the environment where we are. And unfortunately, I like to see it improve, but I don't think we benefit from it. We don't have twinkling lights. We don't have garbage cans. We don't have any public spaces being maintained. We have to pay and we do our own property. The public space, we have to cut the grass. We have to edge it. The city will never do it. Our trees are not attended to in the public space at all. We had a light pole that had exposed wires and we had to keep calling and calling to get that repaired. We finally got the repair they never replaced. This has been 14 years and they've never replaced the light pole. So we just, we don't get any. They did finally cap the wires off that were exposed. With that, you know, it took 14 years, but then they never replaced the pole. It's been years. Understood. Mr. Palin, is this them? What police region is this? Metro? Is Metro downtown? All right, thank you. Thank you. Mr. DeVine, do you have any questions or comments? I don't have any questions. I think she was very self-explanatory. Thank you. Just maybe one question for my own education. I do you attend meetings of the bid or the board? I do, not the board now, but I have attended meetings of some of the committees. Yes. The concerns you're bringing forth today were they discussed amongst the board members or staff? Yes. I have discussed, I have brought it up in meetings and I'll reference something several years ago where I was in a committee meeting and I constantly bring up how about the North end? And I was actually told by the committee chairperson at the time, this is not the current one, that we don't care about the North end. This is about Main Street. That actually occurred. So this is what we're dealing with. So we don't get any attention. So I've tried, I've actually tried, I've been a member of the public space committee of the bid and I've tried to bring up that we don't have flower pots, flower containers. We don't have twinkling lights. We don't have signage. We don't get our, we don't have landscaping. We don't have tree scaping. We don't, we don't have basic services, yet a small business is gonna have to subsidize things to make a certain part of the perceived value area of Main Street or hospitality and retail. And my thought is that we wanna make the North end better. That's one of the entrances to the city. I would like to see that area look better. Not only because of property owner there, of course, but also because I think it's important for the city. But it continues to be ignored because a lot of people on the board and some of these committees are invested. They invested in hospitality and retail and their voices are heard more than some of the other property owners, especially small property, small business property owners. So I don't think it's fair. And I don't think it's fair to make people pay for something when we don't get the value and we're not being addressed. And it's something that committing for for 10 years, that would be nearly, of course, it would fluctuate, but that could be $30,000 for something that I don't see a value in. Thank you, anything else you'd like to share with us? No, I would appreciate your careful consideration of our request and concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm not, the intent was basically to hear the concerns to be shared. You want to respond to anything that has been said for the record? Yes, sir. Yes, Devon and Brevin. Yes, I'd be happy to. And thank you, Dr. Thompson for your comments. You, your building and your medical practice is an important part of the bid and we do appreciate your work on the Public Space Committee. I just like to say, you know, first of all, that we do take her comments to heart and we will continue to try to improve our services to the area in question. It is true though, the one thing I would like to say, and I think council knows this, but not everybody does, that we do track the activities of our yellow shirt ambassadors. They have a smart system where we, we actually know what they do on a day to day basis. And I can't say, excuse me, exactly what we did for her business, but I can say from January 1st of this year till October 5th in the 2000 block of Sumter, I'm not saying they're her businesses. We've made 55 business contacts. We've dealt with homeless people 41 times. We've provided, we've actually picked up over 9,000 pounds of trash in that area. We've abated weeds 24 times and we've dealt with panhandlers four times. So we are in that area. We obviously, after hearing her, can do more and we will, but we do focus on that area and we try to provide services to the entire bed area. We have any questions? Yeah, yes, Mr. Kendall, thanks for coming today. Is there a specific board representation for regionally for that corner of the bed? Thank you for asking. Our newest board member actually brought up as a concern from Councilman Rickerman is Dr. Richard Wasserman who is directly in that area and he had some of the same concerns that were voiced today. Rita Patel is on the Sumter Street corridor. Jonathan Harvey represents the Tower on Javay which is on the far end of Sumter Street and Heather Mitchell of the Boudreau Group is also. So we do have four of our board members that I can think of that do represent the Sumter Street area. And I think it's also true to say that our board, if you look at the bid plan that we did, for example, actually references the fact that we want to expand. It's taken us a lot of time. It's downtown revitalization takes time, but we are aware that we need to expand our efforts off of Main Street and eventually even connect and try to help with North Main Street and South Main Street and others. So that is definitely in our plans to continue to expand and do more in those areas. Would you say you're mindful of board appointments to try and get business owners, property owners? We are. From regionally? Yes. What is it, 36 blocks? Yes. If you break that down, it could be six regions, six people. Very much so. We have categories that are small businesses, large businesses, private sector, public sector, those kind of things, but we also, it's not actually in our bylaws, but our board is conscious of it. And I know in the recent appointments, we went out of our way to try to expand and make sure that the outward areas of the bid are represented. Yeah, yeah. Growth is definitely coming from that direction with connectivity of Bull Street and some of the larger parcels for sale in that area. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them. And I wouldn't, again, thank Dr. Thompson for her comments. We appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. Devine, any comments? Also, woman Devine had to drop off of the call. Okay, all right. I would like to, Chairman, Chairman Davis, if we can make a note, staff to talk to public works about placement of trash receptacles in that area, if we could get the team out there to take a look, maybe drop some out there on the corners. We will. Thank you. This would be public works participation with the resources of the bid. With, you know, working with the folks at the City Center Partnership on those placements. So we have the, I appreciate your input. And we will interact with Council regarding this and with suggestions or recommendations based on the information that's been shared verbally and in writing. And actually, we'll be reporting our findings as I mentioned earlier on November 9th and provide you both parties with the written decision as expeditiously as possible. Erica, we're. Mr. Davis, the City Corp's office received a second letter of appeal from Ms. Melody Hearing of 1320 Elmwood Avenue. Ms. Hearing was not available to attend today's hearing, but she has sent a letter that we would like to read into the record. Okay. Okay. The letter is dated November 1st, 2021, says, thank you for taking the time to assist me. After I received notification of the hearing, I realized I had a time conflict for attending the meeting in person. I would like to object to our building being assessed the city center business improvement fee. We are on the outside of the area included in this assessment. We have not benefited in the past and do not foresee anything being implemented that is going to better our property. We are struggling to keep our building at 100% occupied as the area's homeless population activity has increased over the last five years. One of our long-time tenants is moving out on November 30th and has made numerous complaints regarding the presence of people sleeping in front of her door and leaving their trash. Cameras have been installed and we encourage all tenants to keep their doors locked and offices lighted at all times. I have personally had to remove untidy underwear, cigarettes, sleeping bags, et cetera from the premise. We have viewed people urinating and defecating in and beside the planners, smoking substances and drinking in front of the cameras. Our property taxes are already unbearable at $20,145 for the last year. We cannot pass an increase for this assessment to our tenants out of fear of losing another one. We're doing our best to maintain the building and keep it aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. It is a constant struggle to keep our costs down due to the taxes we have to pay, cost of maintaining the building while also keeping the rent at a desirable rate to keep the building 100% occupied. Thank you in advance for reviewing our situation as we do not benefit as the other areas do that are on Main Street. Melody Herring, member of Aaron and Dorton LLC. Thank you. Any questions about it? Ms. Hammond, what was that address again? The address is 1320 Wood Avenue. Great, thank you. You're welcome. Ms. Devine isn't still not with us. Erin. No, sir, Ms. Devine was called into court so she had to drop off of the meeting entirely. Okay, so we'd have to respect her obligations there. Yes, sir. Just a quick observation and note and we will probably address or make reference to it when we communicate with you. Again, it references to boundaries, activities that may or may not happen as far as benefits as we refer to them. I would assume that as we try to come to some sort of conclusion or agreement on how we address this moving forward, areas of boundaries as well as maybe some of the stated benefits would be addressed or if they're actually, if they're really challenges, not questioning any references to them. I believe that's probably something we may reference in terms of the feedback that we're getting and to share with counsel just information and not making any judgment on these. That's fair enough. That is the intent. We're not making any decisions a day and that sort of thing, but to hear it and give you the opportunity, book all parties the opportunity to state their concern and I'm satisfied that we've done that unless there's some. This is Shannon Davis. Got one question for Mr. Kennel. Impressive statistics on tracking the wonderful work the Yellowshirt team does for the 2000 block Sumter. Do you, I would imagine you have the same type of statistics for the 1300 block of Elmwood. And you don't have to tell us, but do you provide that to all the members of the city center in a monthly summary? That is a, no, and that's a very good idea. We do report to our board and to the public space committee on a fairly regular basis, those statistics, probably not monthly but quarterly, but we do it in the aggregate. We don't do it by block. That's probably a good idea too. And that's something we can look at is to try to segment those districts because we do have it broken down by districts and to give people an idea of that because we do it aggregated. We do not do it by, we have those statistics by block, but we don't share them like that. Yeah, I think that'd be wonderful to share with them. That's a really good idea. Thank you. Good. We again, appreciate the input. Ms. T, is there anything that you need to, that said, we're going to adjourn the hearing and it appears that both parties could benefit from, I think we sort of touched on this earlier, the concerns and there are some concerns that may go beyond the authority of the committee that we'll keep those. Yes, ma'am. I think it's one thing to say that perhaps the yellow shirts are including and that the whole BID is included, but it's another thing to see any value when I am there every day and I'm picking up trash every morning and I have never seen any landscaping in the public space where I have been for more than 14 years on our properties. If we let it go, the city does not cut that grass or edge that or have any attention to the trees or the public space and I don't see the city center partnership doing it. I've never seen them pick up trash. I've never seen them mower edge, but we talk a lot about tree scaping and beautification of certain segments on or near Main Street, a certain segment. We don't see the value and that's what I'm going to bring up. You can look at statistics and say we're driving around but maybe you're not driving around and stopping in that district and ensuing the homeless that are sitting on the curbs. They're constantly there every weekend. I go down there every weekend, I'm doing work and I don't see anyone pushing them away. They'll sit there all day and all night and I just don't see any value. So I just want to bring that up that it's one thing to say that you're doing the whole BID and it's another to actually see the value and I don't see the value. I see the North area being not given any priority and not given equal services and being ignored basically. So I just want to bring that up and bring that to the attention, your attention. I appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. As I indicated that in terms of any conclusions today that we're not in the position to do that but it does also I think sound like there are some opportunities for some discussion regarding the issues beyond the committee. And as I said, we'll so note that in our communications to the BID and to the concerned parties here today. Madam Clerk. Okay, sorry. At this time there is no other business for the committee and you all may stand adjourned. Thank you. All right, and we'll report our findings to the Council on Tuesday, November 9th. Indicated that earlier and communicate with you in writing both all parties. So I appreciate you bringing this to our attention and allowing us to participate in the discussions. Thank you all.