 I'm fine with that. I support that. Yeah, I think they find it in touch with you this time. No, I got it. I got it. You got that too? Yeah. I think we replied in the affirmative. If not, let her know the answers, yes. Now, Kirk, is Mr. Ricken going to be with us today or not? He's got a long week already, so you're going to have time to help manage that. Physically, he won't be here today. Okay, all right. Now, Kirk. Yes. Mr. Vahl. Mr. Badura. Yeah. Mr. Vahn. Here, Mr. Davis. Mr. Benjamin. Present. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just have a hearing that starts at 2.30 next door, so I'll pop out in about 10 minutes, and hopefully I'll be back by 3 o'clock. You go serve the cause of justice. We need that. I try. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro-Town. All right, let's rock and roll. Oh, yeah. Ref, won't you bless us with a word? There's our heads. Well, Lord, you've allowed us to gather in this place to feel and sense the wonderment of conversation. We simply ask that you might touch and yet invigorate each of us as we try to expand the city, as we try to grow it, grow it in a way that lives are changed, communities are uplifted, and persons feel a sense of care. We could not close this prayer without asking that you would remember the victims of Virginia Beach Lord, touch every family that was decimated by this tragedy. Allow them to know, even as we are separated by distance, that a group of us huddle in this room remembering them in our thoughts and prayers. Lord, we ask it. We claim it in your name. Amen. Amen, amen. Point of personal privilege. We have a new class of Summer Mayors Fellows. Young people, stand up for a second very quickly. Introduce yourselves and tell them where you're from, where you're in school, and what your major is, and even if you go to UGA, we wouldn't hear that too. Grace, go for it. We have five more superstars, and you'll get a chance to meet them. Remember that they are here to learn and to contribute, and they are incredibly bright and talented, so let's use and engage them as much as possible. Make sure this is a great experience for them. That is the answer, yeah. I was going to say just to recommend he's not here, because he would tease me. I can tell Robert too, but okay. Alright, you guys, thank you so much guys. Thank you, so much. As the others are slipping, I may have them stick their heads in and say hello. Since we started the program, almost 300 young leaders come through here from schools as far north as Vermont and Amherst as far west as California, so some real talent. Trying to develop it and train it and send it off and keep it and retain it and all of the above. Medical City Manager? Yes, sir. We will start our City Council discussion items with a 2020 Census Complete Count Committee report from Ms. China Phillips, our Research and Policy Manager. She is the Research and Policy Manager for the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina, but she is one of you and we're so thankful for that. Thank you, China. Alright, good afternoon everyone. I first want to say thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity to serve and then also to be in front of you once again, because this time last year I was interning with Tamika Isaac Devine in my last year of graduate school, so I appreciate this opportunity. And I'll jump right in and I'll breeze right through because, of course, I want you to be able to see the draft of the actual action plan for the Complete Count Committee. So, of course, once Mayor Benjamin appointed me as Chair of this effort, the first order of business was to find out who my partner would be and of course I chose the awesome Kayla Millet. If any of you know her, you know that she's a trusted voice and for this work, trust in the community is very important. And so I'll just breeze through. So for the census, I'm not going to go into it because I'm going to make the assumption that, of course, because you already took this up as an important thing to do that you already know what the census is, but just so you know, it's to get an accurate count of everyone, not just U.S. citizens. So obviously due to all of the reasons why individuals mistrust those in the federal government and others, it's important that the Complete Count be formed with trusted members of the community to dispel myths among others. So, of course, state funding, legislative redistricting, all of that is the reasons why the census is important and it is a constitutional mandate that we do this every 10 years. Funding, restructuring due to the current administration and procedural changes with how the rollout of the census will be done is very, very important. This go around because a lot of it will be digitalized and because of that, we just want to be cognizant of some of the barriers for those that exist within the margins. Do you have access to the internet? Can you read at a grade level that will ensure that you fill it out? Do you trust the government? All of these things is stuff that the Complete Count committee will have to grapple with. We're not the ones who are out there knocking on doors and filling it out. This committee is charged with ensuring that we're teal the soil and getting the community ready to truly participate within the census. And our strategy will, of course, be locally informed. And a part of that is to make sure that those at the table are trusted members of the community that we make it a point to dispel myths because we know that with the immigration question being added, that's a huge one that's being talked about a lot. But what most people don't know is that the information shared within the census is confidential for 72 years, right? So even if you filled it out today and Ms. Wilson, you said, I want to make sure I did it correctly and you called back. I want to see that tomorrow. They'll say, no, come back to us in 72 years. And I think that's an important thing to know, especially when we're out in the community and just making sure that we're all informed. So, of course, this is a Complete Count committee. It was actually published in April, so the full list is there. There are a few gaps that we're still missing, and I'll mention that. So the community needs that we, the committee needs that we still have to address is someone from maybe Veteran Affairs. And so I'll kind of look to all of you. I've been working with the amazing Krista Hampton and Ms. Ashley Jenkins who has really, really helped with ensuring that we answer those questions and get the committee filled with trusted leaders. Also, we know that we still want to target District 1 and 2, and that has everything to do with making sure that there is thoughtful strategy about how to count populations, and we'll go into that a little bit later. Neighborhood Association, Ms. Hampton actually connected me with them as well, but just, again, to make sure that the information that we get is infused into all of the various areas within the city. Our Complete Count committee structure, there will be five subcommittees that we've identified, and all of them seem to be self-explanatory, but I'll make the distinction between business and strategic partnerships as well as the community-based organizations. So business and strategic partnerships, that's your Chamber of Commerce, that's your Prisma Health, Providence Hospital, Affleck, the big, large ones. Community-based organizations will be more nonprofit focused, working with the great team here at the City of Columbia PR team to make sure that at each event that you conduct that there are information about the census so that people can walk away with tangible information. Any questions so far? Yes, absolutely. Go back and look it over right there. Yes. Number two, I think you indicated that districts one and two were hard to count. Tell me what you mean. So hard to count individuals, so they're two different pockets. Hard to count is really individuals who are either children for whatever reason, adults sometimes don't count their kids. There's many reasons why. Hard to count would be individuals who have a mistrust in the actual government. So any pocket that they realize, we know there's more individuals here, but why are they not counted in that number? Of those areas, excuse me, of those areas identifiable. Yes, yes. And in our action plan that I'll pass out later, we have data from 2010. And so that information has shifted a little bit, but that is really what's going to kind of make our path on how we strategize to get those populations. Is there a way for us to sort of look at some of those hard areas? And then so getting that information, we regionalize it in either one of the districts, I think, to kind of give us some how we might be able to get. Yeah, you're spot on. That's exactly the way that they suggest to approach the situation. So there's few data sources that they give you. So there's a system called Rome, and you can go down to the county level. And then from there, you take your complete count committee, and then you say based off of the educational institutions within them, this is the strategy that you utilize. And then from there, I think as we start really getting into it, that's when we'll lean on Christa and Ashley and others within your team to reach out to you guys. Of course. The next is of course the budget, and I think you guys will be talking about that. Yes. Thank you so much. And at any point, if y'all are thinking about organizations, and I'll give you this before you, any organizations that you think needs to be plugged in, there is a way for any and everybody to get involved. And we've actually identified which ways they can. So now we'll jump right into our action plan. On her way out, thanks Ms. Devine for introducing us to China. Can I go back to something? Absolutely. A lot of what you do is basically a snapshot. It just occurred, well, didn't want to say anything, but with the two districts, I know specifically, definitely the district one, one thing you have, you have a rather mobile population in terms of rental properties and people move. And so you've got to kind of take that into account. How do you keep track of folks? If you don't get them the first time where you think you where they are, they're not there so you miss them. That's what's going to be a challenge in terms of the numbers. You're so right. There are a lot of various nuanced issues that have been popping up. Another example is when you think about those who experience homelessness, that population looks a lot different now, right? When we got trained, sometimes they said they were able to go to identify hot-bun areas going under bridges, but sometimes you may be experiencing homelessness and living in your car. And so how do you get to that population? So we have a few members who are advocates in that area. And as we identify gaps, I'd be happy to reach out. And if you know anybody, of course, get them plugged in. We need as many hands, brains, minds, and expertise at the table. So this action plan in front of you is informed by the need. We talked about the unaccounted populations. Of course, community climate. And when I say community climate, that I don't trust this person because of XYZ or this person is not welcome into my community because of blah, right? And fill in the blank. That is valid and we need to have that as a discussion because as census workers go out, that becomes a barrier. So we need to talk about that. Capacity, of course, we only have 24 minds at the core table. So we'll always need to build out our subcommittees. And then, of course, like I said, locally informed. And so if you can, I want to just point out five places. I know, of course, you'll go home and read all of this. But if you concern to Page 7 in your packet there, 7. And Page 7 really just talks about the subcommittees. And then it starts once you flip that page, it gives you another kind of snapshot of who's on the committee. So that's another kind of resource for you there. Once you go to Page 9, it then talks about community needs. So as you're out in the community and you're talking to people and they said, well, what are you doing about the census? You know the questions will come if they haven't already. And they say, how can I get engaged? Well, there's different ways that you can. As a business organization, you could become a partner. So that's kind of like what Councilwoman Divine was mentioning. She knows of an organization that already concerned. I want to be plugged in. Then you could become a subcommittee member. If you know someone who's dynamic and we don't have them at the table, our subcommittees can be as large as we want them to be. An individual partner is a person who says, I just want to be on the list or give me information as they come. And then last is the 2020 year awareness campaign. We're going to need volunteers. So this is really good for students who say, I'm not really from Columbia, but I know I'm invested because I go to school here and I want to give back. So that's a good place. The next is to page 12 and 13. This is that snapshot of the hard to count and low response rate mapper. And that's just a clear indication of the information that we were just discussing where you can look county specific and look at the city of Columbia and what those hot button areas are. Page 15 really just looks at the outline of each subcommittee. We'll have their goals and strategies for how they do the work. And we want it to be prescriptive enough to where we know where we're going, but then kind of fluid enough so that innovative thinkers have the ability to dream and come up with great ideas. And lastly on page 24, that is your overall timeline. Quickly to tell you that we're educating the masses from now until December, January to March. We're doing a lot of the awareness and really, really revving it up. And then April, it's all hands on deck because we want to ensure that people are doing the count. The difference is we'll be able to track real time because everything is digital this year. So that's a good note. And that's pretty much it. Any questions? In China, one second, Mr. McDowell, in response to the issues you raised and the questions brought from Mr. McDowell and Mr. Davis, we do have two slots on the committee that you need filled by someone from district one and district two, right? So if you've got someone who's opinion or value, serve as a great community surrogate, we've got to get those names to the committee. Absolutely. And if it doesn't just have to be one, you can get multiple. Let me ask you a question. I know we rush right through. There are several, one of the things that I scanned, of course, and I'm just scanning through the material. What's going to be the emphasis and how great an emphasis are we going to put on based organizations? So that is a pillar in itself because we know that when it comes to trusted leaders, that that's a space that is one. I would say that that's even, Reverend, a gap as well. So if you know more individuals because we have the two co-chairs and they need more individuals on their subcommittee, but we've already identified that regardless of denomination, we recognize that that's an area that people get information. Some good tidbits that they did in 2010 was that they even wrote like some liturgical stuff for pastors to infuse in their messaging. And I think that that's something that we can do, but we need people at the table. Awesome. Thank you, Mr. Duvall. I had pleasure writing up on Elevator with Christopher in China. Oh, then this census is an extremely important thing for us to support because it determines a lot of our funding for next decade. Absolutely. We need to make sure we get everybody counted in the city of Columbia and in Richmond County. The other thing is that this census is not going to get the federal support that has traditionally been there. And so there may be a severe undercount in other areas. If the city of Columbia and Richmond County does it well, it might raise us up as a percentage of the population, which is the way a lot of these funds are distributed. The local oxygen sales tax being one is the percentage of the population. The local government fund is another that's the percentage of the population. So we need to support this. All of us as we go out to our neighborhood meetings from now until next April need to mention the importance of the citizens participating in the census. So as China said, there are myths out there. There is mistrust out there. And we need to put the support of the council behind getting a complete count. Absolutely. And I will share with all of you that the city of Columbia is the second complete count committee in the entire state. And so you are continuing to lead and I've had conversations with the governor's office, who has is a little bit behind and recently picked it up as well. Christie Quadron is very interested in following some of the models that we're already discussing and talking about. And so I thank you again for this opportunity and I will continue to keep you updated. Thank you. Thank you. Pardon? Sumter actually. And then Lexington was right behind us. I think a couple of weeks and then there's more bubbling up. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much. Relisha. Please talk Kayla the same. Thank you, co-chair. Discussion item is regarding the vacant building registration briefing. Mr. David Hatcher, our housing official or code enforcement division with the Columbia Police Department. David. Bless you, brother. There it is. There it is. David. Mr. David. I think that's David's right there. Thank you. I had the message. Imagine that. Sorry about that. Well, good afternoon. Mayor, members of council, Ms. Wilson. For those that don't know me, my name is David Hatcher. I am the housing official for the city of Columbia in charge of the code enforcement division. I'm excited to bring to you all today the vacant building ordinance proposal registration requirement. I also propose to have some changes for the board of building ordinance. Make sure I got this working here. I'd like to thank you all for this opportunity to present this today. Today's situation with code enforcement. One of the complaints I get a lot of a lot of the neighborhood meetings I go to and just dealing with neighborhood citizens and leaders is the vacant building problem we have in the city of Columbia. There are a lot of vacant buildings. Some are maintained and some are not, many are not. A vacant building in its own is not a code violation, but we still get a lot of complaints about them. We currently do not have any regulations regarding vacant buildings other than the actual minimum code that applies to all buildings in the city of Columbia. And it's often a challenge, these buildings are often posed a challenge for us because we can't just knock on the door and usually someone has summons or a notice because they don't live there obviously. So they're out of state or out of town or don't want to be found. So we have some issues with trying to service them and get them noticed so that they can correct code violations. My guess is there's about maybe 2,000 vacant buildings in the city of Columbia. And I know there's about 250 boarded structures on our boarded building list. We had six primary objectives with this ordinance. The first was to obviously identify these vacant properties in the city because we don't know where they're all at. And it would also be nice to kind of keep track of how long they're vacant just for our record. It also established, we want to establish a local point of contact for the vacant buildings that are owned by people out of state. Obviously we want to be able to find somebody we can go to if there's an issue with the building so we can get something done with it. We wanted to create a mechanism for holding property owners accountable. We wanted to discourage vacancies obviously. We want to reduce blight and crime with the old broken windows theory that if we could reduce blight we could reduce crime. And it also wants to revamp the boarded building ordinance. When I first started working on this ordinance, the first thing I did was I tried to find other examples in the country that had some kind of vacant building ordinance requirements. I found about 15 that I looked at different municipalities. I can only find three in the city of South Carolina. And I was Houston County, city of Casey and city of Sumter. Where is Houston? I'm not really sure. Is it what? It could be Hampton County. I might have mis-wrote that one. Let me check on that. You can't believe everything you find on the internet, I guess, right? I thought it said Houston County, South Carolina. It could have been Georgia because a lot of my found were actually in Georgia. I'll see if I can find answer that before six o'clock meeting. So a lot of the things that I found research in these different ordinances. Obviously, many of them have a registration requirement where they want you to tell them or notify them of any vacant buildings. And they often require you to renew that registration every so often. Either on an annual or by annual basis to kind of keep the database up to date. Almost all of them charge a fee. The fees range anywhere from $50 a year to I've seen one it was like $10,000 a year. And several have graduated fees. So instead of the same amount for all buildings, it's graduated based on how many years is vacant. Some are graduated based on the type of use or type of building, you know, residential versus commercial. Many of the, many require properties to have some sort of property insurance. In case, you know, there's a fire or something, we have something to fall back on for hopefully to get the building fixed up or demolished or whatever the case may be. The majority of them had a vacant building plan, which is essentially as part of the registration you have to submit to the city, which your intent is with the building so that we know there's some kind of, there is an intent, hopefully. Many require a local agent, which is something we also used in our renters, the rental permit requirement we did a couple years ago. Many have various exemptions for certain organizations or situations where it might be understandable that the building is going to be vacant. Many have a requirement for annual inspections. They have penalties for failure to comply. Several provide an appeal process, which I think is an important thing we should have in there. And at least one ordinance provided, kind of rated the buildings in different categories based on the condition that they were in. And some require security features such as fencing, trespass notices. And one in particular had a trespass affidavit, which gives the police department authority to arrest anybody who trespasses. And several required like a sign or something on the side of the building that said that it was vacant with the appropriate contact information. So with all that information, I took that information and these are the key features of the ordinance I had before you all today. So obviously we're going to have an annual registration. The proposal was from the data registration, so instead of doing them all at once, it's just whenever they register to be one year from there. We'll have some exemptions and I'll go over those in more detail here in just a second. I'd like to have the vacant building plan as a requirement. The local agent, similar to the rental ordinance within 45 miles of the building. And I've established three categories based on condition. I'll go in more detail with those as well. We should also require an annual inspection so we can go out and make sure obviously we'll have to determine the condition of the building and the category and any other issues that need to be addressed sooner than later, obviously. Some security and there's fees, some penalties and some appeals and appeals process. So the exemptions that I was proposing the ordinance, obviously if the building is being actively marketed or for sale or rent, there's got to be some leeway there because that's always going to happen. There's always going to be buildings for sale. We'll have some requirements as far as documentation so people couldn't just put up for sale and that'd be their excuse for having a vacant building. So we'll have some requirements for that. Buildings that are being actively renovated with an active permit in the process of being rehabbed. Buildings that serve as a primary residence in which the owner is away for extended period of time or work, vacation, military or medical reason, and then government buildings. Buildings, houses that are in a property situation where nobody is claiming ownership of a probate situation or nobody's in charge. That's a good point. I would like them to be registered by somebody but I don't know how you would, we might have to. My lawyers can tell. But those are some of our problem properties too so we've got to find a way to have those registered. Those are up at the lift, almost. It's probably, I mean I'm sorry, a challenge may be helping develop a process in which we can take it through the process, we can actually take it through the legal process to move things forward. And even if his heirs property, what we are able to do currently is to be in, are we in touch with the heirs when that situation arises David? When it is heirs property? If we can find them, we definitely give them notice and we give them the same opportunity to give anybody else that you need to fix the property or do something with it if you can. A lot of times we try to work with them and try to get them to at least, at the very least if we know they don't own the building, they don't want to put a lot of money into the building to at least cut the grass and make it look presentable. We try to work with them as much as we can. Now David, the other side, something that you and I have talked about, the, in particular areas of districts where there is a historical blanket over that community, you have and you have abandoned houses or a house that perhaps is covered with that blanket. How do we proceed? Or does that fall in the preview of what we're talking about now? The only, it really wouldn't affect, we just want people to register the house and we want to try to discourage the vacancy. It doesn't, it's not going to fast track it for demolition or anything like that. So it's still be protected under those guidelines. This is just really for us to, and that may be something on the checklist that we just so we can track where the historic ones are just so we have a record of it. But it wouldn't, that was still, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's your question? Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. One question. Are the government exception or government open? What do you do with non-profits? There's an organization that owned it, they can probably bottle them around the city. If it's a government agency then it would be non-profit, I don't have them as an exemption. We can consider that if you all want to. What if it's government owned building or a building owned by a private non-profit? Yeah, churches and private non-profits would have to register. They would meet, they fall under the same requirements as anybody else except government. Help me understand the fees there, David, the registration. Yes sir, I have a whole slide on that. Okay, I'll wait. I'll get to it here in just a second. So the vacant building plan, which I think is going to be a key component with this ordinance is we really want to know what people's intent are with the building. So in the plan, in the vacant building plan we would like to have them tell us when they reasonably expect to reoccupy the building. We want to make, well, how long is it going to be vacant, obviously, when they're going to plan to reoccupy it. We'd like a written letter consent that allows the city to essentially monitor their property and do inspections as necessary. A plan to address any public nuisances, if it's a known nuisance, we would want to point that out to them when they register so we can see how they're going to address those issues. A time schedule for if it's waiting for repair or whatever, we would like to try to get something on that in their vacant building plan. And also a plan of action to secure it and monitor it and maintain the property. The building categories, I mentioned a minute ago, I came up with three categories. The category one would be essentially a vacant building that doesn't have any code violations, it's just simply vacant. There'd be category one. Category two would be minimum code violations. The building is boarded and secure, but in a structurally sound it might have a minor, a couple minor things. And in category three is severe code violations. The building requires boarding, structural deficiencies are evident, history of criminal activity, and it's condemned or illegally occupied. So it's probably one of our demolition candidates at that point. And the fees, yes sir. We'll keep going back on you, but going back up to the vacant building plan and the registration, couldn't all of that be done at the registration? That'd be part of the registration. When you come in and register, you give us the vacant building plan and you also sign a waiver to let us get on your property, necessary for an inspection or a superior. Yes sir, my intent would be that it'd be part of the application process. So you come in with your application and we would then go through and approve an issue that had it registered. Right now, you may know and you may not know. If the property is known to you guys, then the owner comes in and you have a record. Other than that, you just... We wouldn't know. You'd only go by what faith you put in them when they walked through the door. Yes sir, correct. And we have some access to some databases that could help us. For instance, the water database, if we find out it doesn't have water, we could assume it's vacant. We would pursue, for enforcement reasons, we would look into that matter if we found a list that didn't have water for whatever reason. And that's kind of how I came up with the 2000 number. I was able to pull the database of properties that didn't have water service. We took that as a good indication that nobody was living in them or staying in them. Hopefully, yeah. So back to the fees. As I mentioned, the fees that I found with the other municipalities, they range anywhere from $50 to $10,000. We obviously didn't want to be so drastic, but we also want to make sure... One of the objectives of this ordinance is we want to discourage long-term rentals. One problem we have is people are buying properties online from California because it seems cheap and then they want to sit on it for 10 years because they're hoping to sell it in 10 years for more money. And they're just sitting on it that whole time and they're not doing anything with it. So that just becomes a problem for us. So we want to try to discourage that if we can through this ordinance. So obviously the ultimate decision on how much those fees would be would be up to you all. But these are some of the suggested ones. It was kind of a happy medium from what I was found. So fees as high as... $10,000 at one of the municipalities. But I think I don't remember which one it was. It's in that briefing I gave you guys. I think it was probably a bigger city, I'm sure. But for the initial registration to encourage people to register, I was proposing no fee just to get everybody in to get them registered kind of thing. And then obviously going up after that each year. And we can continue to go fourth year and fifth year if you all want or we can leave it with a third and then a thousand each year after. Again, that's up to you all. I did propose an inspection fee. I do think that we should require an inspection. By the inspector, not one of the self checklist. We want to make sure we're actually going out there looking at these properties as we add them to our list. So we know what we're looking, what we're dealing with and we know how to keep track of them and keep an eye on them for cutting force of reasons. Yes, sir. The range is $100 to $500. For us, it's going to be up to $1,000 for the proposal. Well, I thought the $100 to $1,000 initially was reasonable considering why we have to come up with this ordinance in the first place to make these fees. I'm for the max because of what it's doing to certain neighborhoods. Everybody know where I'm coming from on that. And this is happening in this city because we don't have a hammer. And then a lot of times there's absentee landlords, people who don't live in the area and they collect rent and they could care less about what the facility looks like and that contributes to unsafe and indecent places for families to live. Bottom line. I agree with you. I'm for almost everything I'm reading I've read so far and it's about time that we do this. I'm glad that we don't have to track put you guys in a car now to go find somebody in Greenville and Augusta. Although I was always about trying to go to Hilton Head or any of those places but the chief isn't going to let me do that. I already tried. That's the biggest problem. I mean, that's a part of the problem. Because part of the problem, I think, is there will be accomplishing the initial registration. We identified who those persons are. That has been one of the efforts of course when we passed the rental ordinance. Trying to figure out where folk were. We looked at a 45 to 50 mile radius and some of the folk and again comparatively I have no, I don't remember how that worked out in terms of numbers who registered and who did not register a piece of property. But I think what this does is give us some more tea but it also gives us an opportunity to find out where these folk are. We can, we can charge them but if they live in New York City and got an apartment place or got a house here that they are renting or is abandoned, we need to find out who those persons are so we can appropriately lend them give them the fees that's according to what they've done or hadn't done. Yeah, and I don't want to hold you up David but I say again that I think we're on the right track with this and because of where we are we have a couple of neighborhoods, certain neighborhoods in this city that's really targeted for what we're trying to convey. The other thing that I'm hoping that we can increase or somehow strengthen the ability to take somebody to live ability to it. Yes sir. Well and one, that's important too but one of the things that this ordinance does is it gives us a civil fine. So we can actually assess fines for non-compliance without going through the ability court and we can actually put a lien on the property. So those kind of, that gives us another avenue. We can still use the court but this just gives us another way to assess the fines and fees when somebody is out of state and we can actually issue them a summons. But. Put a lien on it and then we demolish it or what? Well, I mean potentially we could. I mean if it's one of those category three buildings that would be, that would really be on one of our radar. That would automatically be on our radar and our demo list I would imagine. And obviously we would encourage the owners to demo it or fix it up but ultimately it may be one of our demolitions. But it would at least put on our radar and we know what we're dealing with. There's a lot of support for this too and it was asking about a property and he grew up. And so I don't have the community standpoint and we have to end up dealing with it from a fiscal standpoint as well. I'm sorry. One quick question and maybe clarification on the fees you've listed here. Are they specifically for residential or commercial or both or there's no difference? There's no difference in my proposal. Now in some of the other examples I found they were residential were lower than commercial fees. So we could look at that if you all prefer that as well. To me I think, but that's just my opinion of course everybody else has different thoughts on that. I agree with Mo. My thought of a thousand dollars is that people that own these properties probably don't have a thousand dollars to pay so you might put that in the commercial and keep the property on the residential side at five hundred dollars. I don't know. I would think, I would, I think it varies but I think most of them are residential properties and these people are collecting them. My sense is the. They would fall into this. And they'd also be exempted if they were being marketed. Right. Mr. Davis said that they're collecting rent on the property so they would have the money. No, these are for vacants so they're not collecting rent. I would say. So the exemptions again, the exemptions are for properties that are vacant, actively marketed. They're going back. Okay. So they're exempted from what? The fees, technically I guess the fees in registration. So if it's vacant? If it's vacant, I'd still like them. The market if it's sale, you have to register but not pay fees? Correct. Because we want to know about it so we can put on our radar but they wouldn't have to pay, they'd be exempt from the fees and stuff and we would be kind of strict with it. I mean we want to make sure that they're actively selling and they don't just say it's for sale. So we're actually talking about two different sets of exemptions. So exemption from fees and exemption period like government on buildings. Correct. I mean that's just. Do you think somebody doesn't rent it or sell it in a couple of years? In the ordinance I have it for a year and then I have an appeal process if you need to do it for more than a year than you go to the property maintenance board of appeals and they can consider the appeal. It's kind of a plan to, because I know there may be situations where it takes longer than a year but at least there's another process in place that people are going to appeal that and get extra time. But it's family property, someone wants to fix it up, a family member, they don't have money to really hire contractors so they're trying to do the work themselves and I know there's other rules as to whether or not depending on the level of work if they can do the work themselves. But in those type of situations I guess where it is it could be inhabitable. Basically this would say if they came up with the vacant building plan if they worked with you guys on a plan to bring it up the code to make it right so it's habitable for somebody then that would, that would keep it from having the plan. Even with the vacant building plan the way it's proposed they still have to pay the fees. I mean if it's going to sit for five years and obviously the fees get a lot more we can obviously consider an exemption for approved vacant building plans or something to that effect if we have a plan that we're working with somebody on. But as it's written it does not provide an exemption for that. And typically they tend to grant on or somebody wants to live in it but they don't have the money to bring it up and so what I'm thinking is someone to accuse us of more trying to promote justification taking people's land I think we have to be positive of that concern and make sure that we're working with people if they really truly are trying to contribute to the community and not take away from it. So that was that point. And then the second question just is they're considered vacant but what about the properties that are have been affected by fire and that kind of thing and on just another recent call I got is a young man who apparently I think we're telling him he needs to demolish or we're going to demolish it the property was destroyed by fire there was no insurance on the property and now he is trying to get the money together to fix up the property and so I just told him to call you guys and see what could be worked out but I just didn't know in that type of situation it's vacant because it was destroyed because there was no insurance there was no money but this is family land this is something he inherited are there any considerations for those type of things if it's been property that is vacant because of some kind of either natural disaster or a fire or something like that there's not it doesn't explicitly mention that but if they pulled a permit with the intent to do the rehab with the permit and you're actively pursuing demolition contract or remodeled contractors and that kind of thing I did see in the research I think I saw one ordinance that has a line item exemption for homes that were damaged for active nature, fire, flood, whatever so we could add that as an exemption like a burnt out house but I do think that understanding that not everybody has the financial means especially if there's no insurance or some kind of disaster so I don't know if there is some kind of exemption based on proof of X, Y and Z the home, the vacant plan or something but I think that having being considerate that not everybody has the financial means to fix up a home especially if there was no insurance I think, I'm sorry we both want that don't want folks to move the house unnecessarily if there's a way to usually it is a family person that's kind of left with that burden and they don't have the resources at that time but if we could figure out a way to do whatever you call working with an individual put in time frame for X, Y and Z when it comes to financing the schedule of repair and that sort of thing so by default the ordinance there's no fee for a year so that already gives them the year and then maybe we can add the exemption by appeal then it goes to the Providence Board and they can make the determination that way it doesn't fall in code unfortunately we have the citizens around the Providence Board who are coming together it's a recognition of the fact that every situation is going to be very different so having not all hard and fast rules but some type of human interaction to take into account the circumstances is important I do share the concerns articulated by Ms. Devon want to make sure that we're very clear and articulate in the public policy behind why we're doing this it makes sense to anyone who pays attention to these challenges and the rights I mean I think we've got it's a cornerstone of what it means to be American so we've got to make sure that we're clear in that regard last word Mr. Davidson we can move on one of the things we do after a fire for example there's some sort of notice that goes on somewhere on the property yeah we'll post it with our notice in a case like that there's a lot of family there's a lot of things can't we come up with some sort of notice because people in the neighborhoods they are aware of that property and from time to time they'll walk and look at it so if they could see that see that we're somehow working with the person for whatever reason that might allay some some concerns at least for a period of time knowing that there is an effort to correct that problem which was not necessarily the fault of somebody who lived in the property on the property something like that down the road and of course Mr. Wilson and I think you alluded to this earlier in this conversation a lot of pieces of property that have already been taken have already been tagged and they are ready for demolition of pieces of property that's not a part of or inclusive of our budget I mean it's a budgetary issue and of course you look at a piece of property and it's been sitting there cold has come through there we've tagged it we know exactly what we need to do but it becomes a budgetary issue and that's the piece I think you alluded to at the very beginning of this conversation there are some pieces of property of course that we can save then there are other pieces of property that has been tagged inspected we know we've got to bring it down but it becomes a budgetary issue so I think there are pieces of property that are redeemable we all do all we can to redeem them then there are other pieces of property that we've got to bring down because of the appearance of the piece of property but it becomes a part of our discussion in budget and I think this is just another example of several other things we should be talking with you about during this budget season that attempts to hold and also take into account the balance of their property rights and their concerns as the Mayor just said the ability of us to be flexible obviously and work with people for very real reasons but there are properties we just have to be honest there are just people are not trying to be part of a passionate city and I have one more item if I may part of this ordinance I'm proposing a change to the board of building ordinance it's already existing currently the way the ordinance is written we only allow people to board a building for 90 days which is really I would just be honest it's unenforceable because you have some areas that they board it for 90 days you just don't want them to still keep them with the key target 90 days but I have an option for one year boarding but I propose that we use I don't know if y'all are familiar with the grant we had a couple of years ago where we reboarded and took the plywood off and put the polycarbonate on the buildings this is an example here in this picture the one on the left is boarded traditionally how we normally board them the one on the right is also boarded but it's boarded with the polycarbonate so my proposal in the ordinance helped reduce the blight so that's also as part of the ordinance is going forward but this is an existing ordinance just a modification to it and that was all ahead that made a big difference but you know it's for rent now and they've already got two vehicles not operating in the back yard oh really I did see that that one did get rehabbed and it did look good for a while but that one a visit I'd appreciate it all right thank you thank you so do you feel like this needs to go to a committee can we move forward with just some of you can we move forward I just I'm okay moving forward for the first reading I just texted Rebecca Best with the Builder Association they want to look at it it will make it forwarded on with the notes as well Patrick did just note that we're going to have to address that the fee versus registration edit that proposal let's get as much feedback as possible think of a robust list of people Susan's here let's make sure our business community and our other stakeholders are aware let's keep moving quick point Emily Gale introduce yourself to everyone tell them who you are and where you go to school what you do Oh we're non function working hard David this is on your agenda for tonight for presentations of the public as far as yeah leave this fine all that first reason so how do y'all want to handle the where I've talked to do the public hearing and the first reading I think we ought to move past That's my case. I was going to say, at least I have two reasons why not just let sort. Let's do the first. And then if someone has a comment, then we can entertain it before that. No, so because I'm telling y'all, these property issues are impacting property values. And I got to call a postcard from somebody there. Thanks just because we have these issues in my neighborhood. Do I want to buy my house? I'm waiting for my return call to him. Unless you see a sales sign in my house. It's that perception that that area right now, that neighborhood is targeted for those so-called investors. It is on your report tonight. We're going for the bill on this. Let's rock and roll. Let's talk budget. All right. Thank you. Thanks again, David. We're going to try our best to recap the last budget workshop when I know Mr. Mayor, Mr. Davis, we wanted to make sure we did this and benefit as well. But also try to streamline and move forward with a balanced budget, general funds balance. Took some effort, obviously. And there are things that I want to be real clear about that are not in there. But those alternative approaches to revenue generation are still on the table and we're going to talk about y'all get clear direction. Mr. Davis and their menu and I think are probably on board with the same direction, just from my general discussions with them. But I want to be clear still on the idea of a public safety fee and then which revenue options are being moved forward for January 1. Because as we discussed, there needs to be more due diligence. It requires some auditing and some kind of business license fee ordinance and ordinance to be written as well. With that, we're going to start with the overview of the general fund and move back into the revenue options we have. Discussion. Mr. Rick, I know you wanted to be a part of this but we're going to try to get them on the phone. You said 330 would be best for him and he may be able to pick up. We'll see you. Do we need to call him on this phone? Oh, you were asking him to call. All right. Okay, good. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. As Ms. Wilson said, we were recapping where we are. We'll prepare for a full budget presentation for next week. But with regards to the general fund, the budget is in balance. As we have discussed in prior meetings and reviewed what we have presented before, a lot of the budget reduction came through requested new and expanded programs were eliminated or otherwise reduced. That doesn't mean that all things were done or all things reduced or we also have retained many of our existing programs and efforts that we are working towards with regards to some of the Envision Columbia programs and initiatives. So we just wanted to reiterate and that list that we gave you last week is available for you today as well. In order to address the remaining $3 million that we were out of balance when we brought you the budget last time, the city manager did make additional reductions to department's budgets. We will have to continue working with departments to actually review those reductions in more detail, working with departments in terms of where they will make those reductions and how those reductions will be applied. So all the goals still to maintain current year funding for most of the departments are at a minimum of current year funding levels. So that means just basically flat budgets for the FY19-20 year. Of course, we will continue to work towards envisioning Columbia goals of high quality municipal services. Now we have to face the fact that we have got to do something to regenerate revenue. We need to bite the bullet and now we are calling it a smart city, a safe city, that will take the $3 million that was presented to us by the chief and others. It's one of our budget meetings. We will fund that. That's maybe other things that will fall into the safe city category. And move the money out of the war sewer fund that 75% of it comes from people that are outside the city. That's the only way we will ever get this budget to a healthy state. Now we are going to talk about public safety fee. We are going to talk about that. We will talk about that. That is different. It essentially does. What Mr. Devoll is suggesting, but it's different. The citizens of Columbia are already being taxed for it. Moving it out of the water to a fund. 30% of it is paid by the city. Citizens 70% is paid by non-resident. It would not, what we are proposing or what we proposed to you last time is obviously creating a fee. What Mr. Devoll proposes it can be done as we have already told you and explained to you all. That's more of a philosophical discussion for the council. And when we talked about that, we talked about possibly $2.5 million if we did that. What I proposed because I didn't think that the council was moving in the direction of the water sewer transfer. Not because I don't agree with you doing that. I think you should put everything on the table. But I understand from a philosophical point of view. Please, I would like to speak first. Mr. Davis, Mr. Davis did Ms. Divide. We were going to get to all that. Not the water sewer transfer. I didn't put that on the table. You don't want me to just weigh in on this? Let me say this. Going back to our initiative discussion about alternative funding. I think we really do need to build a full 10 yards on that to see where we end up. But I have always believed that when we get where we are now with water and sewer. That could be a general and intelligent discussion for the council. Simply because your numbers, whether it's set 30, 70 or whatever. There is an imbalance in terms of who's contributing and how much. But at the same time, when a municipality is in this position, that's not a bad thing to do. Because it becomes a, some may say a profit margin for the city. But water and sewer is something that you sell. It's a return on it. And at some point, that may be the only thing that's left. But right now, I could continue the discussion to see where we end up. But it does cost the city to provide water, sewer services by 10 miles away. Northeast, Foster Bridge or wherever. And there's an outlay for that. And then we need to be reimbursed for it. And we're doing quite well now with meeting our obligation with the system. Ms. Devine. I think I've already made clear I'm not in favor of that. But for Missy, two things. Number one, this question, and I understand the statement that it's a flat budget. But realistically, there's got to be increased expenses to the department. So in essence, it's not really a flat budget. It ends up being a decrease. And I'm not saying anything to you. But as we are doing our public hearing this week and talking about it, I think people need to completely understand just the people's households and always come to us about reaching the water and doing this and doing that. We have increased costs as well. And so people need to look at our budget like they look at their own budget and see that we have to be able to be fair. And I'm not going to provide service even trying to keep it flat that means there has to become panoramic and revenue-driven. So to that, that's my first point. The second question is, are you going to be able to see that today, but maybe as it is in the slide that I propose to you being able to do of this visualization as far as what our budget, how our budget breaks out and align with our goals? We're working towards some of those efforts. A lot of where we are in the budget in terms of the timing of everything. And the revisions that we're making, it's been a little more difficult to do, but we are still working towards that with our priority-based budgeting tools. And I agree with you. Departments basically to hold them flat means they are absorbing the increases, especially with regards to state retirement increases. And any other increases as a result of just operational cost? Right, Mr. Bynum, I think when we say that, we are saying it's the cost that we have to afford, but we're trying to, Mr. DeVall's point about maintaining our ability to provide the best possible service delivery. We try not to cut programs that it would be obvious to us. Does that mean that we're growing programs in the way that we want to and need them to go on be as old as we can? That's probably not the case. And I think the final, it's just acknowledgement that that's what we're doing. Instead of saying, I think from the listener's perspective, they might say, okay, they've, you know, cut the flat budget. Everything's fine. And so people need to understand it's not. And so, especially when we have so many requests and partners that are coming to us as well, and I think that some of them hear it and they get it, but to actually see it, we need to continue to acknowledge that we are continuing to provide services and there are increases internally. And so if we are having to live with that, that's also the position that sometimes we're not even able to exist. Other people, our partners, our traditional partners, and we just, I just feel like it's something that even though we inherently know things, I have to say. I agree with you on that. And there's a slide in here that, you know, it's never my intention to put any organization or group on blast, but there are organizations that sort of become like line items to the city almost out of the general fund. And so we are showing you that because we didn't, we're holding them flat. But that's another probably point of discussion, maybe at some point. I've already started getting requests from other organizations and communities and we don't have funds in the budget right now for any community groups for community promotions with this budget. And, you know, we did that last year. We were able to come back and try to address it. But you're exactly right. We'll see whether you'll keep on getting through your presentation. Try to at least. I think y'all are doing a great job of saying everything I was going to say. So yes, this is good. So general fund, again, just trying to recap some of the last few weeks. We will be a little more specific next week when we get to the public hearing. But just to recap with where we are with the proposed budget in the terms of what was advertised for your public hearing, the total revenues is 152 million. That includes revenues and transfers in with the, it's a 2.7% increase over current year. A lot of which is coming from just some aggressive revenue projections with regards to our business license collections. Overall, though, as we've demonstrated to you, our revenues are remaining fairly, I mean, they're maintaining where they are, which is at least a positive sign in certain conditions. However, they're not growing certainly at the rate in which we would want to see and with rate, our expenditures continue to grow. Expenditure wise, the budget, of course, has to, is 152 million. It's a balanced budget. I would reflect, though, that coming back, I would remiss if I did not say, though, as part of our revenues or transfers in, we are using 3 million in fund balance, which in essence, some folks will determine that that means what we budgeted at a deficit because we are using some of our fund balance. The city has historically used fund balance. It's not necessarily a bad practice, but we have tried to get away from using as much fund balance in prior years simply for the fact of not trying to rely on those revenues or that source on an ongoing basis. There's other uses, of course, that we'd like to see grow our fund balance and be able to utilize those surpluses and those savings for other means. But in this case, we did include part of our budgeting balance and was using fund balance. With regards to expenditures, public safety did retain some increases there. The non-departmental and transfers out, that's really a reflection of some of the debt service increases. So that's, percentage-wise, it's larger, but dollar-wise, it's not a significant dollar amount. External request, as Ms. Wilson mentioned, just pointing out sort of where we are with regards to some of our external groups that we have funded on a reoccurring basis. River Alliance is funded at a amount of $51,000, of which includes $25,000 from the general fund and $26,000 from hospitality tax. Fast forward has remained at $100,000. That's a general fund and a water and sewer expenditure. One Columbia is funded with the accommodation tax, the 5%, and those are identified, usually referred to as the general purpose funds, meaning they can be used the same as though any other general fund activity. So we consider those general funds. And then the other half of their funding comes from hospitality tax. Home of services is maintained budgeted at a million dollars. Of course, those funds are used for various organizations, some of which we have funded through an RFP selection, and the others we have maintained from their ongoing programs and partnerships with the cities. Going forward, right now these reflect the amount that they've requested. This does not reflect what we've, which is more than a million dollars. So we'll have to work with those adjustments and in some cases work with their savings from current year. Public Defender is currently allocated. Ms. Savings from current year might be. Usually it runs around 40 to 50,000. It depends on it various years. It has been, this year they had a little bit larger simply for the fact that the shelter wasn't open as much. Transitions and housing first sometimes does leave a little bit of funds. The only one that really leaves any funds available is the inclement weather simply because it varies based on the number of days. The other ones are expended almost to their complete amount. The regional homeless coordinator, the funding for that, that one would fluctuate in years past if there's been a vacancy in that position. However, that position is currently staffed. Public Defender is allocation of 100,000. That was a recent addition to the budget. They have requested 225,000. We currently are reflecting them in the budget at 100,000. Solicitor has also requested an increase. Their current allocation and their historic allocation has been 215,817. They requested 343,498. They are reflected in the budget at their current year amount of 215. The detention center is budgeted at 660. We have not had to increase the allocation for that yet at this point, mostly because the amount that we've reflected in the budget for it is maintaining at current cost and trends. Although we will point out that based on the schedule that the county has provided us, the detention center has provided us. The new rate effective July 1 will be $71 per inmate per day. The current rate is $55. The record to reflect the presence of the public defender and councillors Cawthon and Burns in tow in full support. Please. Our budget is what our budget is. Right on top. They're hanging no rants. If he rants, we're going to mute him or hang up one or the other. Make sure it's him. That means he's on the speaker. Can you hear us? This is to me. I'm midpoint and then you can say whatever you like. So as we're looking at the public defender and the councillors office, I'm not sure. We always kind of look at the request and maybe Ms. Knox could help us with this, but I think that we do need to look at equality, I guess, fairness on the way that we fund them, what we get for what we're funding, and acknowledging that the recent case that came out, that dinged a couple cities for not funding public defender services, and we were ahead of that curve because we already were. But, you know, from my understanding, we get two... Two quarters. No, two full public defenders and a partial, right. Two full public defenders and a partial. I know traditionally in the past we've had, I think, one full solicitor, but I'm not sure we still have that anymore. So I just think we just need to look at it and just look at the best way we want to move our cases. We've talked about that, the backlog and other things. We need to make sure that the whole court is working the way it should be and our resources are allocated to reflect the way that should happen. That's the first point. The second point is I don't know if there's any way to look at the cost, and this could probably help us with that as well, but the cost of the homeless court and making sure that if there are, if there is any way, because I've been very candid with Mr. Kauffman and Ms. Pringle, but to get to 225 is not possible, but we certainly understand and appreciate that we're making our courts work, but if there's way to look at the way we're expending either our homeless services or our detention services monies to make sure that specifically the homeless court is working the way it should be, maybe that's the way to look at what we're paying for with them. I have a question of presentation. I can also ask this question. We have a second session about what court and I think all of these things are related today. George, at the appropriate time you have some recommendations. Speaking to Tamika's. There's a presentation of the status of your rules for talent transitions. We did put in 100,000 for two partial to cover the cities. I guess what I was my point is my understanding of it. So we currently give you 100. What we currently give the two full public defenders plus, if you have help with what the home was before, it's really the real conflict one going back. The real cause is not for the court. So anyway, I was just saying that I think we appreciate it. There are creative ways to streamline or have you. I just want to make sure that as we're going through this process, we knew what you were going to share. I'll set the presence. I'm not sure if it's the first lady solicitor, I'm not sure why you, Denise. I know the solicitor sent you here for some reason. I didn't know. Okay. Just making sure. Just making sure. Ah, okay. So you're here to keep an eye on Mr. McDowell. Okay. Okay. That's good to know. That's good to know. This is what I'm going to make sure of. Every opportunity I have to embarrass you, you know I'll take it. It just happens to be the one. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Missy. Thank you. Give me another doghouse. Thank you. Well, that pretty much wraps up just the, again, the general fund sort of recap of where our last prior conversations have gone with regards to what we need, what was done to balance the budget. Obviously we still have more work to do and working with the departments and the city manager. Definitely points are taken with regards to the fact that the general fund has a revenue issue and also to being able to address our ongoing growth and services and cost. Follow-up, Jeff has already sent an email with regards to some geo and just some HT debt, just some follow-up questions with regards to that. So we'll continue those discussions in coming months. Follow-up, we also know we are still seeking to pursue a property tax audit. I would like to do so with Richland County and continue those discussions. And then, of course, legislative actions with regards to some options with regards to revenue that have been discussed that would retake more of actions from our state house than necessarily from this body. Obviously we are not looking at just one single source of how to address both our revenue and expenditure needs but just being able to also pursue those things that our city already rightfully is an insurance of the city sources of revenues. Okay. All right. Otherwise the budget public hearing is advertised. Public hearing is next Tuesday, the 11th at 6 p.m. We'll have the budget public hearing and first reading. And then your second reading will be June the 18th. And the budget is already published or not yet? The budget is published. It's just published. All right. Fantastic. Thank you. Can you hear that? I'm going to sit and talk between now and then. Any time, sir. Any other questions? I'll give you a call. Questions? I'm going to get an old one. I saw that. I'm great. Always. I'm not finished. So recapping the previous meeting, the previous meeting we were still out of balance with the general fund. We showed you two alternates in addition to the budget being $3 million out of balance. So what we've done now is balance the budget. Those optional items are very critical. They're still not in the balance budget. So we want to recap the direction the council gave on the report with revenue options for January. I still have on the table the public safety things that you could have in it right now. The budget has a $2.5 million. It does not. It does not. That's the public safety thing. That's correct. All right. So you're going to do a statement. An issue. Come to background. We're just going to. For most of you it is recapping some prior conversations. I'm more so for them and for people listening. We live, eat, and breathe this. But I think at times it's important that folks realize just the current state of affairs. They do. Yes. Thank you for allowing us to continue to repeat what may be repeat conversations for some of you. But in this case we are trying to reiterate again sort of the recap the conversations that we've been having. Go ahead. I won't jump in yet. So again we're going to what we're proposing to talk through today is just a statement again. An issue in background. Two options that we've discussed. We've proposed several options but we've coming through our discussions. We've continued with two others. A lot of what we're looking for today is direction from city council on at least one of the options. One option we're pretty clear on where we're going on that one. We also want to make sure that we're clear that these revenue options are not exclusive of the other. They're independent. It's not one or the other. Both can be considered. So just sort of reiterate the fact that a couple of challenges that the city has and that is that a lot of the city's property as we've demonstrated is non-taxed parcels. Which means that the city shares a lot of the tax burden to not all of its property owners or all of the users of those services. That's not immune in terms of other places in South Carolina or especially of other capital cities. But we feel like ours is a fairly significant proportion. So what city council has challenged us or charged us to do is to look for some revenue options that would allow us to better distribute those costs of services among users that also benefit from those services. City's current millage rate is 98.1. That represents less than 20% of a property tax, Richland County residents property tax. I know there's been a lot of discussions outside of this council necessarily with regards to the city's property taxes. It has not been changed in 10 years. That's been the same millage rate for 10 years. We are going through reassessment later on this year. But at this point, the millage rate that we're proceeding with is 98.1. Do you know what the bank village allow for the city is? I don't know it off the top of my hand. In the past couple of years, it's been maybe five to six in terms of the past three years. In other words, looking at the bank being the past three years of bank millage that we did not adjust our millage rate from cost of living or from property growth. I think prior years it's been five to six, five to six mills. It's been as high as 106.1 mills at one point. And that's of course a cumulative total. So again, just to reiterate, the city's property tax rate has been the same for 10 years. And it's about 20% of the current tax base, of the current tax, of a property owner's tax bill. We generate about 57 million in property taxes that represents about 40% of our revenues. And we generate, and then of course as you've seen, our public safety functions reflect more than 50% of our total general fund budget when you include their public safety vehicles and equipment. That's included in our lease program. State law obviously has limitations with regards to those things that we can do was with regards to what we can do for our revenues in terms of revenue options that we have in terms of to charge certain fees for services or even with regards to our property millage. Obviously Act 388 is still impacting not just Columbia but any of the municipalities and local governments with regards to property tax in terms of our assessments as well. So what we're trying to figure out also is how we address options for increasing our overall assessed values and then so we can generate additional revenues from those assessed values. How can we increase property of the overall tax base and what does the city do to generate revenue to cover the cost of operations to prepare ourselves for growth? I think we've already covered it. Maintaining our levels is not necessarily growing our city or growing our services, especially those services that City Council have expressed an interest in and our citizens have expressed interest in. Many of those services warrant additional looks and review, however, maintaining existing services at this point is key as well. To talk a little bit more background with regards to our non-tax parcels, there's about 46,000 parcels in the city of Columbia, I mean in Richland County, in the Richland County portion of the city of Columbia. Of those parcel-wise, less than 10% are non-taxed. Market value though, it's about 30% of the tax of the market value. The total market value is about 12.8 million, billion of which 8.6 billion is taxed, and another 429 million is non-taxed. So that's about the assessment value of that. So about 3.4, almost 3.5 billion is non-taxed. That's almost 30% of our tax base. In terms of area, 76.5% of the land in the city is not on the tax rolls. Dollar value. Parcel-wise, that's right, an area, you're correct. I did not show in here area, but you're right. Area-wise, it's about the same, because one parcel for Jackson is one parcel. So just to, I guess, make it an easy and language to understand, 25% or 27% of the residents who live in the city of Columbia pay 100% of the expenses of operations for the city. Well, property taxes is not our only source, but yes, I mean those would be the tax payers. Right now, the property tax owners, whether it be residential or commercial, are the only source of property tax revenues. About a third of the people that, the third of the residents of the city, basically, they pay the whole operation. I understand there's a business license, but the property tax, yeah. Two thirds of the business pay the property tax. You're welcome. I think that's very elusive. So yes, this schedule here demonstrates who are the owners of the properties, both by the number of parcels as well as the total market value. As you can see, the state of South Carolina, obviously being the capital city, the majority of the property is owned by the state of South Carolina. The graph, or the pie chart, has also been changed to reflect the net market value in terms of percentages. So government is, of course, and some of that is consolidated to make the pie chart a little more easy to read. So government makes up 36% of that and higher education makes up 28% of that when you look at it in terms of market value. Number wise, homeowner and homestead exemption make up a fairly large number of parcels, but also is third in terms of the number of the market value of that total. Reduced, but there are some that get none, right? And then some that are reduced. And so also it's combined, there's homeowner. So there's homeowner and homestead exemptions combined. We consolidated those two categories. So what we've looked at too in terms of, you know, this exercise has been valuable for us in terms of being able to truly see where that 27% of the property of the non-tax values comes from. Let's go on. There's one property worth 200 bucks. Where is that? That's the, actually, well, you know, the pump. No, I think that is good. Looking at this list, the other things I think are good. And those nonprofits are nonprofits distinct from hospital properties, right? Yes, hospitals and medical facilities are separate. And it's also different from churches and private schools. So again, this has been a valuable exercise in informative information. And just for some of you looking at this for the first time, what we're trying to determine is there's a limited amount of resources coming in. We are kind of an outlier. We're a capital city, large university and several other colleges, universities, large healthcare infrastructure. The Army's most significant training base in the world. We train a majority of the men and women for the Army. So in terms of area, again, 76.5% of our real estate is not on the tax rolls. So they don't pay taxes. Act 388 limits the amount that property owners have to pay. The ability to raise taxes are property owners. And then the general philosophy that we don't like to raise taxes. We like to make sure that we keep taxes low because of some of the other issues that our businesses tend to pay a disproportionately higher amount of taxes than they would in other communities. So we've intentionally not raised taxes. But you'll see on arguably on the left side of the column several institutions that receive services that you all as taxpayers pay for. If it's fire protection or police protection we don't do sanitation anymore but general services don't pay into the pot. So we're trying to find ways to be more equitable to those who are helping pay the freight and more thoughtful in how we spread the responsibilities of government. Or just lack of a better term. That's the discussion that happened philosophically. Can I add something to your statement? Please. Because that's a really strong statement. Down to the bones of what we're talking about. But a lot of those fees that we're trying to generate is to support the public safety when it comes to fire and police and public works when it comes to sanitary and budget. So a lot of those core services that you expect from municipal government is what we're trying to balance to actually balance this year. I don't know, but we've done an in-house and this is very good. Much of the public fully understands this circle, this path, contributing versus non-contributing properties. I would suggest that as we continue this discussion that we include some specifics here and I will discuss it just a minute. Yes, sir. Please. Thank you. So one of the first items we'll discuss is the recommendation for a public safety fee. To piggyback on the discussion, so that was a great summary the mayor gave and Mr. President had it. As philosophically as alive, I think what doesn't rest easy with me at this point is that the revenue options that council knows take a little bit more work and resources and diligence that we're getting towards that would totally address that, specifically to non-passable parcels, entity, business license options, et cetera, which is going to take us until January 1, hopefully to implement working with legal and everyone else confirmed. This option is a good option as well, but in order for it not to be considered a tax, it has to be a fee and it has to be applied across the board. I just again want to reiterate what I said last meeting that I hear you, your first priority is to address the non-passable entity. We're not quite there yet and I do believe that a public safety fee, a minimal fee that would still be across the board and so I get it, that's going to pull it back to everybody that you're trying not to address. But I do think with the growth of the city and the need for public safety needs, everybody should probably be touched by that because they would be benefiting from the dose of this or the dose of this or the dose of this or the dose of this or just much of these types of efforts. That spotter or anything in terms of evidence to the city, there has to be something about the advance of our security camera as a structure and there has to be that. Those things are not in the current budget to be sustained and so again, that is why I'm still proposing this to be as an option as well at a very minimal level. Philosophically, I know there's discussions about how you do it by formula, by residence, should they pay the five dollars the same as a university after we can look at maybe how many water taps you have or something like that, but it's not about your residence or where you live, it's about the city infrastructure we have across the city. You may live in one place if you may play in another and so you come for the visit or five minutes from North Columbia and we are expanding camera infrastructure. You're benefiting from that no matter where you live and then we want to expand those in the legislative order as well. I just want to give that backdrop because I don't want to hear you. I understand that the first option is going to impact the entities but I do think this would be considered option. Let's talk about it. I'm sorry, Mr. Duvall. Do you want to talk transfer again? No, no. Okay. Okay. I'm late at the ground work for another chance. For another attack? I just want the city manager to, while you are studying the public safety fee and you put this on your water bill. Is that correct? Yes, sir. I want you to get our smart legal team to look into the legality of putting a public safety fee on the water bill and collecting it as the water bill. There may be some precedent cases out there that don't allow an interest on it. In other parts of the country it is morphed into being called a public services bill or what have you said about it? Municipal services. City services. You're exactly right about that. It can be done to have one still. That's just the only mechanism we have right now to build it. It's currently used for our stormwater fees as well. I mean it's, stormwater fees are billed and they're separate entirely from water sewer. Mr. Davis. I'm just trying to get a visual picture of the building. Can I, since we're continuing the discussion here. Please. And the public safety and action. I know we talked about this last year. I mean, I'm sorry, last week or last meeting. The two and a half million dollar you're generating is a specific fee that yours exactly to spot spot fire and the camera. So with that being said everybody will benefit. Yes, sir. So that being said it's also it's our council's I guess choice to implement that fee for this year only until we figure out what we're going to do with the non-tax. So we can take No. I know, well that's what I'm saying. It's up to council whether we want to continue the fee every single year. Because what people hear is okay well it'll come up if we're in the same thing with the franchise fee. When you said that was going to come up the obligator. So I would put it out there to make sure that people don't hear this is only for a year until we implement something else. We know we have a ton of needs and if we still want to grow our law enforcement we may want to continue. That's the only. Once again it's an option that you put on the table whether you want to continue the fee every single year or just until we figure out what we're going to do with the tax exempt. But I still think and I don't know if Daniel is still on the phone on that but I still think the tax exempt is you missed it when Howard said the transfer but that's a different story. I think it is our I think from my understanding from the last meeting was to focus on that as much as we can to bring back the revolution so again funding public safety is a top priority for this council and of course the city manager and the management team city council has directed us to identify those sources kind of reiterating what we've already discussed public fee and of course the fee would be support public safety funds that benefit everyone. I think if you're going down the public safety fee I think we need to do a home market that needs to be based on the parcels and the folks I'm very uncomfortable charging the fee to everyone because we're there already paying for public safety the tax property and businesses who are paying you know six percent they're already paying for that if you look at the breakdown of the tax bill they're paying for it twice so my feeling is we've got to look at everything you know looking at our numbers I think there's something we in turn will need to question this you know the city has under the development courts we really need to be holding on to those nine pieces what are we doing to reduce our children as well and consolidate and I think we're things that we need to do at the same time as we're doing those audits so I think we need to really take a focus on going after or should be not going after but really pursuing the avenues to make it more equitable and I think before we look at any other source and go back to the constituent we have to make some effort here I mean that's just my personal belief I agree with Mr. Rickerman all right those we got okay just continuing conversations with regards to public safety it's proposed at five dollars of course an annual collection of that would be 2.5 million based on the projections that we've provided to you with regards to the items that we've identified for first year funding this assumes a July 1 effective date so we're looking for direction specifically from city council with regards to this fee as we proceed through this process just to sort of identify we of course need direction from city council we need to finalize an ordinance communicate and public information regarding the fee both the collection and the uses we would have to publish for the public hearing have a public hearing first reading and then effective date at this point is proposed for July 1 the items that we will still forgo for now and then continue to do the research we have to continue to do the research in hopes that by January 1 some of the other revenue options will come to fruition so these four bullets that are here they're right here the four bullets that are that's what will be covered if we get the fee yes there's some portion there what are the ones they're not in the budget no she's saying what else is not on that list if we do the fee that only cover the fees were you saying that there's still items here that are still not covered in the budget and won't be covered under if we do this fee or not we would have to address them the second column I'm sorry so the previous discussion that the chief delivered the briefing on competitiveness, competitive salary increases the operate some additional probably equipment needs the commercial code enforcement briefing that they they gave last time on the needs or additional commercial code enforcement particularly now with the multifamily issues housing issues that we face recently there would be the salute of greenway that we talked all about coming online the Gold Street park coming online the needs or additional park rangers and various maintenance issues there those would be probably some of the major items that could be incorporated hopefully what's the total 5.1 so the upgrades is the camera system include shot spotter does not include shot spotter I understand I just saw the cameras and shot spotter on the same line here but those also so so these are all these are all non-recurring costs as well most of those most are non-recurring non-recurring right these right here the security camera is the largest chunk of that the largest amount of that and it would be for the initial investment but after that it's an ongoing cost because it's a service like shot spotter is a service it's not hardware or equipment cost I'm just trying to think of how do you continue to lever up that 2.5 if you just did this over time it's recurring it's recurring fee all these are not recurring costs 2.9 is a blend of both upfront costs for some and then several other things that are re-occurring costs that's a firefighter gear one time but there's other needs we could identify of course whether it's facility needs or equipment needs or beyond the 2.5 we just identified the manager identified first some first level of funding I'm just talking about head wrapped around what might be covered in year 1 that's not a responsibility for year 2 and just trying to get a sense of that 200 3.25 a year the plan is yes sir talking to some new folks coming to town about that what's another zone 200 well it's about 3.25 3.25 a year it's done in 3 square mile increments we're at 6 square miles now so it would take it 3 additional miles ShotSpider is a new gunshot detection technology that the CPD is using very effectively to take some guns off the street and put a real dent in some of the violent crime we're seeing and I just ask that because just like it was when we did the cameras initially in mayhem we've done a really good job at promoting what we're doing and how we're being proactive but then everybody wants to know when is my area going to get it well how am I going to do this so as we're talking about a public safety service fee I think that is something to talk about that's not in our budget it's not anticipated to be covered in our budget foreseeably if we the question was asked about what potential is it reoccurring that could be I just think we need to have a plan people are asking well what's the plan to expand it when is that going to happen that's on that now but if we at least have a plan then we can say looking at our budget we may be able to expand it in the next couple of years so what would be a good reasonable expansion is it three square miles for those into the rest of the miles but our plan just to find that address it's not haphazard everything data driven just like when we did the camera rollouts a few years ago we addressed the neighborhood concerns because obviously everybody wants a camera so we put it in strategic places obviously in our business district and where we were having our crime hot spots but we covered entry and exit points for neighborhoods man through affairs and Scott spotter we recently relied on where our farm discharges are incurred our non-fable shooting and obviously shooting people get property debt so we let that drive our locations it's proven out spot on but we are seeing alerts on peripherals and we do have reports beyond our footprint so we know that as we continue to be affected with our responses and apprehensions we're probably going to maybe just place some things and we know we have some neighborhoods that we recognize are vulnerable to maybe not at the level of our hottest spots but certainly at a level that we recognize is not the quality of life that we expect but that's what we want to do actually one of the things that has given us some success with the camera has been the mobile camera how does that play into some of your long term projections in terms of cost well as works war in our next phase of our cameras in our technology we also one of the things we're putting in the request is that it's compatible with shot spotter the technology exists now when you have the alert and it is talking to the camera that it orientates the camera towards where the gunfire occurs we think that will be a tremendous tool and we want to get to where we're more real time and what we're watching with our cameras as opposed to having to go retrieve the information we want to fill with when we know we have things going on or hot spots so we can monitor it from a real time crime center or emergency operations center with this people and they can watch multiple areas at one time alright we're considering and looking at weak options some of them are going to take longer but you know I would have no problems with closing with that until we fund the basics and the police department is what they need for competitiveness equipment the fire stations and all others that we reserve are free all funding to outside group economic development you name it, whoever those sorts are I think we need to re-evaluate some of our internal functions as well are they still useful are they still providing the return on the investment but I would suggest we could make it free the funding and the functions until we've taken care of those things first and that's 6 months free essentially because it's going to take that long to come up with the right solution alright and can I add something also it's getting to the point where we need we need a constant funding for the public safety you know I want to look at providing police cars to all the policemen I want to make sure that we have enough fire stations that we need to serve all the departments and all the development that the city is expanding I mean I think it's just something that we need to continue pursuing and push hard to pay for the next 2 months or 4 weeks or 6 weeks whatever it to find that constant funding so we can assure the public safety is still on the top priority and I think it's a top priority for everybody that sits around the state and I think so for us to find a continuing funding source it's the ultimate thing so how many officers short I got that positions we got to continue to make the drive more competitive we got to get some cars in the street absolutely and that's my part a part of that is the funding piece that allows those things to happen I got you thank you Jay I think we have to keep in mind I said that before especially when it comes to our cars but it's easy to say okay we need to take care of all our internal needs and I certainly agree with that but again looking strategically at the point I made about the homeless support and services if we can keep that vulnerable population from committing crimes that's less stuff that our law enforcement is dealing with so that they can deal with other things so I think it's hard to say we're not going to find anything outside because certain partners might be providing something that actually allows us to provide the basic services that we're trying to do so I think we need to look at it holistically but I do agree with Daniel that we've got a every year has to be analyzing what we're getting for what we're partnering with people for and if that are suited for us to handle it internally or it's cheaper for us to handle it internally or it makes more sense to partner with them but they take a bigger role that we need to look at those arrangements and deal with it that way but I just asked the question of law enforcement we can get into that a little bit more just understanding what the plan is and what financially it will help us get there and I think that helps us look at this not just this year 19-20 budget but over the next five years where do we need to be to get law enforcement where it needs to be so that we can keep growing that in just in case of point we thought we were handling competitiveness and salaries is it three years ago now? I mean it wasn't that long ago and now we're back in the situation where we're needing to make some decisions to help get with the group's own attention so we need to know what our longer-range plan is and try and address our budget not just for the current fiscal year but looking forward the reality is that the chief and the team have done a fantastic job recruitment and diversifying the force building a force that's not only focused on 21st century policing but also a force that looks like the city reality is that we've got to make sure we continue to be competitive because we train really good people and other folks take advantage of they and you can't blame me any jurisdiction or individuals for being offered more pay and or vehicles would have you so we just have to continue to put our ideas make resources available and continue to iterate it's important that we have significantly increased police department funding over the last I just want to make sure that the public takes that over the last eight, nine years we've reduced our budget by about 60% so it's a significant but investment but it is indeed the most important thing that you can do as a city so the that's in Ms. Devine's comments the realization that there are things also that the department has to do that it ought not have to do if in fact we continue to fund the right partners if it's the PD or if it's homeless services and those funds are being used effectively and efficiently there's some things that I thank God for our men and women in blue but they have to do every day on the streets of the city that they ought not have to do they ought to be able to focus on making sure that we maintain good strong ties with the community safe and they do it well so I'm open to as much creativity as possible that we can exercise within state law there's some things some places we've been there done that not gone back at least one man's vote so let's continue to hash things out I think it's important I wasn't here at the last meeting I was abroad but it's important that as much as we can discuss publicly let's do that because we've been having some robust discussions amongst ourselves and it's so important that as we step into the period where the rubber hits the road that the public understands that we've been digesting and sharing and iterating and testing the bounds of the law and realizing that we are a state of 46 counties not a few hundred cities that most of the tools that allow us creativity and not necessarily city tools and some will be pushing the envelope but we have an educational process we have not only go through but we also have to take a legislative delegation helping them understand that we are unique Howard's been at his job his previous position for decades and all of you have various experiences and expertise in different areas I don't think there's a city like us in the entire country the military installation significant nonprofit infrastructure state government colleges universities we're different we're just very different than every other capital city up and down the eastern sea board different than every capital city across the south we're just different and it's important to note that those those entities that may not be paying property taxes also make us strong in other ways and also service economic engines in other ways just not the ways that provide the services that we need to be a 21st century city so it's important that folks know that we've been having discussions we've been having them both publicly and privately and we're going to have to at some point just bite the bullet and just rock and roll and let the chips fall where they may but knowing that we've gone through the predicate steps to making good public policy decisions Mr. Davis you're reading my notes I was reading I was reading those that's not what they say I'm just saying I'm agreeing so much because when we move around probably say to folks this is why just this month last month chief sent out the notice re-information on the accomplishments of some of his key staff people training, education and that sort of thing and their nationwide involvement we're going to lose those kind of people if we don't do what we need to do and we won't be able to replace them in terms of recruitment and I agree being the state the capital of this state our situation is unique we have a partnership with the military but technically that massive piece of land where there's no dollar returns on it but there are returns in terms of partnerships but as you said we need to fund our guys they partner with with Jackson and unfortunately there are some institutions in the city that are not contributing the posture that we are but we provide services I think we've got a good case to go down this list and come up with alternatives that we can all buy into and at the same time did we lose Danny? Mr. Recony? We were just voting Daniel you missed the best part too but I think we're all of the same mind it's just a matter of again collectively making the case and be prepared to defend may I add one thing this would be the part where I probably get kicked on the table but to what you said we have immediate needs and that's exactly what you are talking about I participated in a very really exciting conversation with some of our planning folks about what our future annexations look like and it's exciting it's part of what we're seeing with the growth of our city it's needed we have to grow with that it's exciting but it also creates challenges we're already seeing what the annexations and the demands look like now and what used to be kind of a sleepy area that was just an extension of the city we're seeing a much different dynamic just in the last 12 months and the requirements different types of part one crimes that we never saw out there before there's lots of different reasons we've had a lot of different housing displacements and things we've had different types of hotels that service some of our I would say about a week but sometimes it becomes about an hour but it creates challenges so we have to as the city is growing additional parcels lots of new construction residential areas those are all service requirements so we have a our operational tempo has to match our capacity we're a little bit out of line right now and if we continue to grow that disparity is going to create additional problems so I think we have to be sensitive to that to the capital city police department to carry ourselves like that thank you Scott so our final our next step here then it sounds like it's advertising for public hearing in order to proceed with the well in this case we would have to be the public hearing we would have to be like the first meeting in July back to Mr. Rickimans in certain that he raised there's no legal way to apportion the fee amongst those who were non-tax paying versus those who are tax paying it has to be uniform I can't answer that but I will say that's what we've gone around and around it's important to state that affirmatively I think probably important to point out this lesson yes we weigh a privilege we then drop from 6 parcels to 4300 parcels I'm just saying legally is that the case Theresa can you add to your answer I think what he kept raising before was using the model of the gas tax is there a way to say you're going to apply it across the board but give a rebate to people because that was one of the questions you suggested again no not a way that we know but I'd just like to remind everyone what it is and we do have some things to talk about well we have some things to talk about it's important to say what the chief has said about all the annexation and everything else that he requires is that we are committed to find a continuous funding source to give him all the tools I mean that's the key as continuous funding source we agree I'm going to go on to that we're going to discuss this in the second session there's opinions across the board but we would need to decide today if it's something that we wanted to even consider so that you could advertise for a public hearing and it wouldn't start July 1 it would have to start after that it would have to start consecutive with but at this point at the rate in terms of what's been proposed to look at a July start necessarily July 1 but a July start we'd have to advertise if you were to stay with your normal budget your normal council meeting because your first meeting in July would be the earliest we could advertise a public hearing for but it's just an ordinance for a fee it has nothing to do with the amending the budget that would be at this point they have an ordinance prepared and ready for you the way we're proposing to do it without any type of rebate back or formula it's a straight out five dollar right but until you have to you'd have to approve that and then at whatever point you decide to move forward it's just backed up the collections because that's all we're saying right? I mean the sooner or the better from our standpoint but it would be whenever the council if they wanted to do this and then we go through the process of the ordinance and the readings and everything and to meet the timelines we have to do in order to publish and be ready for a public hearing in July we look for some direction if this is the direction you're interested in going right now then we need that direction if you're not I just like to wait until we zoom all the other options and bring the whole plan into how we're going to fund and how we're going to attack when you say that which are the options what do you mean when you say the other options? look at the tax exempt properties number one the business license people and tax exempt number two all the other things that it's on the booklet so I think it's important to know that all that is going to generate revenue source continuous revenue before we impose a $5 fee on everybody so we want to do that before we do anything? that's what I'm saying but keep in mind with what staff is saying number one just so noted because last meeting you mentioned well staff hasn't done this staff has done all this it's time for us to make a decision and that's what I meant that July 1 January 1 would be when they had the audit information if we are to wait until we have all that and you're talking about not implementing anything that would cover the first 6 months of the 19 budget that was out of budget also we're going to have to figure out how do we address that and then you're talking about implementing something January 1 which still wouldn't be revenue change it would be further down further down the road and I guess what I heard you saying was that we do all of this what I said is that the $2.5 million impacts I want to say immediately and when it impacts immediately it goes towards cpd those kinds of things if we wait until January and if we load it all that in at one time that means 6 months down the road for any of that to take place is that right thank you let me just actually we're still talking about the $2.5 million my point is it's an ordinance once you go through the two readings you can make the ordinance effective August 1 or July 15 or whatever it is it's an ordinance that has nothing to do with January 1 I think when they're talking about January 1 the next year's budget is the tax exempt property regulations I thought you were saying you didn't want to talk about this until that's what I heard I like not to pass the $5 the public safety fee until we bring everything to the table but if that's the case we need to impose the $5 fee we can impose it any time we decide to after we get all the data that we need first that's what we're saying no no no what we're about to go over we won't have that yes we will not have that process of data to support doing that we don't know any other legal reasons about it January? we're actually the business license fee would be more like next fiscal year we would start now it would just be the data to support it and as soon as we get support implementing it we would move down that path and you pass the ordinance and all of that if you get all that January I think Mr. Rickam is clear on that Mr. Rickam again that was my whole point of this is doing something until we get there I'm fine moving forward with that also if we pass it then there's no guarantee that six months later we're going to repeal but that's the issue Sam the issue is not the two and a half million the issue is continuing the source of funding for safety so if we can pass it we'll find anything by January 1st we have a situation now that's what I'm saying I don't have a problem view the way but I'm just saying it's not that easy to repeal once we impose if we repeal it if we impose it then that's fine but the conversation continues because of the other funding sources we need and at some point if we you know we meet our goals there we're able to deal with parcels and that sort of thing again there's no guarantee that council is going to say okay now let's repeal the $5 otherwise you're going to hear Howard again that he wants to transfer more water from sewer funds to the general fund so I'm just moving things along he's got to be right about being clear I think what Mr. Bein was saying earlier about the intent behind it I'm sure legal will help us as the ordinance has to give you all that flexibility in the language regarding when it would if the council wanted to repeal it and when and that sort of thing so it's going to be kind of two different orders one will be the fee itself the other will be that's second the first one is like this is what it is the reason for all that stuff that's what we're presenting today the other part you have to decide is the exact amount of how you are implementing the act of rape so that way you decide to do it to change the actual fee can we keep moving Bobby in the interest of time we got to keep on moving Missy you need a chair are you good? No I'm good we're still on the way I'm still not to the record yet so the record of standing up here for that business license just to sort of recap some information we've shared with you in the past the city issues is about 10,000 business licenses last year I think that's consistent with prior years of those right at 5906,000 are actual in-city businesses there's another 3,800 out of city businesses that do business within the city 267 of those non-profit fee exempt are issued business licenses but they pay no money of that 107 of those are medical related services physicians offices and hospitals so just to demonstrate sort of what our business license our business license landscape looks like I know we talked about this like with the non-profits like some of the churches that have something that some of them are paying now so I guess the ordinance allows for that as far as the medical services and physicians offices automatic exemption or is there something in our existing ordinance that allows for them to pay a fee we're just not sure I probably should clarify then why we put it there medical services they're not exempt what's exempt the medical services I should clarify here is that those doctors offices are medical services that have been bought by the non-profit hospital a medical facility or services that are not owned by the hospital more than likely pay a business license fee as they would be the ones that are not paying fees or those hospital or university related because obviously the university has some medical services part of the exercise is to go back and determine before they may have been bought up proper next to now they're not and so that's part of what and we can't we're going to do a combination of things internally this requires them and this one is already in the no sir right this is the one we actually do we will have council action we're not looking as I mean of course we want direction from city council but this one we're clear on the direction we have with regards to this one just to make sure what we're talking about is that the business license the current ordinance has to be revised to remove the exemption for non-profit entities that have a business type activity for those that are currently and Mr. is right some are paying a business license on their business type activities but we we can't say if all of them are so that's one of the next things that we would do would be finalizing the business license ordinance if there's any changes to what's been done so it's the existing ordinance is just revising it to reflect those changes higher firm to assist with the research that isn't that that process is underway to evaluate firms that are for a selection process for hiring a firm we would do a public hearing because it is adjusting fees as a question which would have a first reading we'll put effective date for this one for January 1 because this follows along with where our business license process our business license states are already so that's why that's proposed as January 1 whereas the other is not set on any particular date of a service time or any kind it's not tied to a calendar that one is really just simply tied to looking at when and if council were to pass it looking at a full year worth of collections would need to generate 2.5 would be a July start date so sorry for any confusion about the dates but that's really why this is that and we wanted to help clarify the pieces with regards to the date because it just falls in line with the business calendar the business license calendar yes so again and what they will probably miss like is as they file their business license at that point we'll begin to make projections but that won't begin until April of next year so really we're looking at revenue projections from this the earliest would be next year that's it and do we have a list as well as you talk about nonprofits those that are not contemplated in this medical services category like charities who they are like charities if they have a business license we would part of this process is we have to be able to identify those that don't actually apply for and get a business license they are required to get a business license even if they don't pay a fee and I was actually talking about the previous presentation a hundred and some million properties there a hundred and fifty five million and total market value property three hundred and twenty six you have that list of who those are all nonprofits are not quite equally equal yes nonprofit doesn't always mean a charity or a charitable organization okay thank you thank you thank you Daniel Howard says he supports you because he wants to do word of sewer transfers but thank you very much it's important that these are not either or propositions put it in yeah she wants to know if she can move forward with the five dollar fee to forego on the expenses that the public safety is acquiring we need to talk some more we need to talk some more okay we need to talk some more in the conversation yes then we need to talk some more thank you alright what else we have before the executive session Mr. Duval you have a motion I apologize I'm there a couple of other amendments Mr. Mayor I move to go into the executive session for discussion of employment of an employee pursuant to thirty days four days seventy-eight two municipal court judges discussion of matters related to proposal location or expansion of services to encourage location or expansion of industries or other business pursuant to seventy-eight two development incentives recede of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to seventy-eight two law richland soar smoking ordinance ban the box gills creek debris removal public safety fee discussion of negotiation it's proposed contractual arrangement pursuant to seventy-eight two capital city stadium organizational structure discussion of employment of an employee pursuant to seventy-eight two discussion regarding development of security personnel or devices pursuant to seventy-eight three is there a second is there a discussion is there none on the previous question call the roll aye aye you made us to call you for the evening meeting