 We're going to call the meeting to order. This lady, do you mind calling the roll, please? Here. Present. Present. Here. Reverend Medaille, could you say a few words before we begin? Racist and eternal creator, we gather around this table today to engage ourselves in issues that are sensitive. Issues that are relevant to our conversation as it relates to cities, city, and communities, touch us with fingers of sensitivity that we might understand and feel the power of your presence. Laboratively bless us individually. Touch us. Your name we pray. Amen. I know that we have the executive session items. I know we need to add something to that. So we'll have to clear the room here while we address those first and foremost. I just would say probably grab your camera, leave your stand if you want as we move forward. But Mr. DeVall, OK. Move we adopt the agenda as presented. Second. With an amendment on executive session. Do you want me to read that in for you, Mr. DeVall? Go ahead, Mr. DeVall. Add it in right now. If you wouldn't mind, and then we'll call the roll. Uh-oh. You want to do the executive session motion? Yeah, go ahead. OK. May I move we go into executive session with discussion with negotiations instruments proposed contractual arrangements pursuant to SC code 30-4-78-2, homely services, receipt of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to SC code 30-4-78-2, take home car program. We'll adopt the agenda with that amendment that Mr. DeVall added if you'll call the roll. Mr. Taylor, second it. Yes. Yes. Aye. Aye. Thank you all for your patience. We had some important items we needed to discuss and move forward. We've talked a lot about the Office of Gun Violence, some mayor's office, whatever. But the reality is that we need to work together to come up with solutions to address a long-stemming issue in Columbia. And first of all, we're going to start off the presentation. I've asked Chief Holbrook and Lieutenant Cannon to speak first to give us some of the data and the history and some of the numbers that I think are very important with highlights on hotspots of a lot of the data-driven information that's important for us to share. Y'all don't have it in your packet, but you will see it up here on the screen. So I'd like them to start. And then I'd like to give an overview of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. And we put together kind of a budget. And that budget's based on a lot of national programs. But there's a lot of, there's still work to be done on this. And a lot of it has input, processes, and other things that we need to discuss. So I'll get to that as we get to the presentation that I'll be doing next. But with that, Chief Holbrook. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Wilson and Council, I'd simply feed us up for Cannon. Cannon is an investigator with the Columbia Police Department. He's assigned to our Crime Gun Intelligence Unit. And he does a lot of the analysis that drives our operations. And what you're going to hear from him is how we really have shifted to a very strategic intelligence led focus on people, places, and behaviors. And that drives our operational decisions. And it is what we, it builds our capacity to leverage the technology that this council has been so forward thinking and supporting and funding. And that is our ShotSpotter technology, our use of Knob and embedding an analyst in the sled lab, creating a special assistant US attorney position, and utilizing Knob and technology in conjunction with our ShotSpotter to identify crime guns and ballistic evidence that connects people to guns, to the violent locations. And the cannon is going to talk about those behaviors and locations that I think are fitting with the presentation. You're getting ready to bring forward today. Thanks, Chief. Yeah, I'm Cannon Fullmer. I'm a crime analyst in the Crime Gun Intel Unit at the Police Department. What I have here, this is some information that right now we're pushing out directly to our patrol division. The purpose of this is just to get 100% of the people from the patrol division on the same page with what we know about the geography of gun violence in Columbia. Like the Chief said, I think the right way to understand gun violence is to think of it in terms of people, places and adjacent behaviors where gun violence tends to pool. And so the three main points I want to make today are really that gun violence pulls at certain locations. There's reasons why it does that and there's certain things the police department can do to mitigate that. This is especially geared towards what the patrol division can do, but there's multiple levers we can pull in reference to that. For a little bit of background, we have had over the past like 12 to 18 months, gun violence has been increasing in Columbia. You can see here where we're at as of last Monday, we had 72 people shot so far this year as of the 22nd of August. So this is basically what gun violence looks like in Columbia geographically. This is every person hit shooting that has occurred in the past eight and a half years in Columbia on the map. Below is a chart that shows the hour of the week in which most of the shootings have occurred, in which any given shooting has occurred. And so you can see that in Columbia, there are some places where shootings almost never happen. There are some places where occasionally we have gun violence and there are some places where gun violence is just endemic. Same thing with the hour of the week. Shootings are most likely to happen between six p.m. and two a.m. About 40 to 50% of the shootings happen in that period. So in Columbia, like in most American cities, there are some very small locations that account for a really disproportionate number of the person hit shootings. So here in Columbia, about 2% of the city's surface area accounts for person hit shootings year over year. Over here on the right, it's kind of hard to see with this projector, but I have some zones kind of outlined in red and they're not all contiguous, but that's that 2% of the city that I'm talking about in which like a huge number of the person hit shootings occur. Yeah, can you show me what that 2% is? Yes, ma'am. Because I don't see it. My vision is a little challenging. That's King and Brandon. The North is a series of apartment complexes and other places like that. So if you take all of these together, there are 1.34 square miles in Columbia and every single year, there's 1.7 and 2.3 square miles. And these, like I said, we have areas that do have violence engagement, but in these areas, it's pretty constant for real hotspots. You might always tell them they're not a big deal. So when you look at those areas, you're looking specific to them, you're looking at them specifically. Yes, sir. On that first slide, if you could just go back to your first slide, could you just say, oh, I think this was four. It's a bonus. I'm hearing it came to you. Yeah, when you, the spot, the little red dots up there, does that distinguish what districts they are? So I have them distinguished by the colors. So this is what CP calls North Region, which I think is a different one. This is Metro Region, which includes the two-mount road corridor in downtown and the one that's in southeast region. So violence generally in Columbia, but gun violence as well, it kind of has this sort of pattern that goes up a little bit like North Maine, comes down to this part of the city and picks up grass and it's down to here. Let me ask you something, out of Garner's Ferry, I'm sorry, are we still talking? Well, no, just one second for clarification. North Region has District One and District Two. Right, I just wanted to make a note that North Region is District One and some of District Two, because that's just important to me. For example, Garner's Ferry corridor, a lot of Donut Holds County City out there. Have you taken the combined their statistics for shootings? So they're reporting, does their reporting include our reporting as a county? Following the research that's been done on this, I believe really strongly that this is, there are reasons why this happens that we have to make certain parts of the city more than the recent phenomenon, in which like, this happens with pretty much all crime types, but it applies to shootings as well, where if a crime incident occurs, there's an E3 select likelihood that another incident will happen near by in time and near by in state. So we have a shooting over the next couple of days in a week, here's a few of them, you can talk to them during that time period. The fact is that once an area gains like a very solid reputation of being a violent place, that itself is another problem. So there's some evidence for that? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I mean, when we looked at these districts and they were all on the issue of arrest, we have a one-pack area, we could just look at the region realignment and it's very effective. When it comes to the near-repeat phenomenon, I think we have some evidence that this does happen in Columbia. This chart over here to the right shows some of those perennial violent locations that I showed on the last slide, the ones that are in the metro region and North region, and it shows the number of people shot in each one of those areas per quarter. So what you can see here is that while these places do have like a long-term chronic problem with violence, they're not always hot. So for instance, with the Booker Washington Heights area, we'll have a year plus where we're having a shooting every single quarter, so every 12 weeks we'll have somebody shot in that area, and then we'll go through a period where we have a year or more where we don't have any problems there. And it's the same thing as you can see across the board with these different hot spots, they tend to get hot and stay hot or get cold and stay cold. So that indicates that when we have an instigator event, like we have a shooting and we haven't had one in a long time, that sort of activates these areas and gets them hot. What that tells us as a police department is if we have a shooting occur in one of these perennial hot spots, that applying some extra resources there over the next couple of weeks is probably a good way to mitigate the risk that has been increased by that first event. Another thing that's interesting is I think this shows that what happens at these hot spots is very particular to these specific places. So one of the things you see here is that they don't all get hot at the same time. So it's not as if that we have an increase in violence in Columbia and all of our hot spots simultaneously get high. So that's another indicator that looking at places is an important avenue for gun violence mitigation. We've taken a look at some of the features of the environment that we think are probably correlated to gun violence. This map here shows our report, the CPD report areas, they're color coded based on how many vacant lots occur in that report area. And these are like unkept vacant lots. These aren't green spaces. And then on top of that, I have the person hit shootings for a certain timeframe laid on top of it. And so you can see that generally there's a correlation between places where we have a lot of vacant lots and where we have person hit shootings. We've also seen a correlation with vacant buildings and cuts or desire paths. Those tend to co-occur in places where we have gun violence. Another aspect of thinking about the features of the environment that I think is important is the idea of network places. My understanding is that a lot of cities like I believe Dallas, Las Vegas, Cincinnati are employing a strategy called place network investigations. The idea undergirding this is that these different features and environments sort of work together to create an infrastructure that supports criminal activity at a nearby place. So we have gun violence at a specific location. It may be the fact that we have the confluence of vacant lots, vacant buildings, cuts, and maybe some other things that I'm not bringing up right now that sort of work together to support the criminal activity at that location. So like theoretically we could have say a corner store. This is a picture of Booker Washington Heights that has person hit shootings and the apparent land use of each parcel shown together. So as you can see, what I think is really interesting about this map is that we have a lot of shootings in that neighborhood but the top two thirds of Booker Washington Heights in the entire time period I have data for there's never been a shooting. And the bottom third is where all the shootings have occurred. And in the bottom third there's a way higher concentration of vacant lots and vacant buildings and the top two thirds there's a lot of single family occupied homes. The other thing that I think is going on is that a lot of these features that probably increase risk sort of have a synergistic effect in the reinforcing each other. And so hypothetically like you could have a corner store here that's probably drawing potential victims to an area maybe robbery victims so to speak. And then nearby if you have a cut or a desire path that provides a place for like effective egress if you commit a robbery. We have vacant buildings nearby that's a place to hide or stage up before a robbery occurs. These same features might support an open air drug market which we know increases the risk of gun violence as well. So you have a place to sell the potential customers. You have a place to use drugs to store things, things like that. The reason why this is important is like in Cincinnati and other places where they focused on this sort of so to speak criminal infrastructure that doing the investigative work on the front end leads to long term gains after the investment is no longer being applied to that area. So what they did is they found like for instance if they had an apartment that was being used to sell drugs or something like that they would work to get that issue resolved instead of just arresting the drug dealer deal with the tenant or the renter or whoever. Get rid of the cuts, deal with the vacant lots or abandoned buildings. And so then the problems that led to the violence in that area can't easily return as soon as the investment in law enforcement resources has been moved to another location. I want to push this out to our patrol division because I do want them thinking about this a lot while they're out on patrol so they can feed this information back to us and sort of forward our understanding of what's going on in their different high violence areas. The last point I wanted to make to them is just that a lot of research indicates we know well that when a police officer goes to a high violence area that we're gonna have a decrease in violence in that area while the police officer is there. But there's a lot of research that shows too the kinds of things that they do when they're there matter a lot. And specifically if they're there making proactive community contacts, getting out of the car, getting to know people in the community and taking proactive enforcement action that's narrowly directed at the behaviors that are adjacent to gun violence, that's where you see the gains. And I think that's kind of policing that we wanna have in these areas. And some indication that that goes on in Columbia I have here on this chart that shows the number of people shot every quarter and with the bars and the green line shows the number of FI reports that were done per quarter. An FI report is something that an officer does if he or she gets out with somebody and they feel like maybe something suspicious is going on but there isn't necessarily a crime. So they type up a report saying who they talk to and what happened. And I'm using those as a proxy to measure how often officers are out of their car making proactive community contacts and how much time they have available to do that. And I think what we see is when our officers have time to do that kind of police work that we see a reduction in gun violence when they don't, we see an increase. And FI stands for field. Field interview. Field interview. And that's the end of the slides that I have. If y'all have any questions I could talk about any more of this in detail. You identified a book of Washington that had a particular area. Yes, sir. Now let's see if there's anything. You mean have I compare Book of Washington to the other? Yes. So. Comparatively. So how I arrived at giving that particular attention to that particular community is I took all the shooting data I had for the past like six to eight years, put it on the map and I just saw where we had really clustered, just visually saw where we had really clustered gun violence and especially if it was like persistent over the long term. And so I did notice that the Colony Forest Department complex, the North Point Estates, Baybury and Book of Washington Heights are all contiguous and we have perennial problems with that. I thought Book of Washington Heights, I like these as an example because the layout of that community is really interesting to me because we can see different land use going on with different parcels there. And I think also it's really striking how if you looked at it at the community level you would say well there's a lot of gun violence on this community. However, it's really, really narrow. It's just micro location. So I think that suggests like really good avenues for intervention that I think fit really well with the direction that we want to take the police department in. Another area that's really similar is the Millwood Corridor, the Millwood Avenue Corridor. So I haven't looked at that in as much detail because it was kind of labor-intensive to go like plot by plot and look at the parcels and figure out the land use. So I think the next comparable place though is the Millwood Avenue Corridor. The other places that have very intense and very concentrated problems with gun violence are apartment complexes. Any other questions for Lieutenant Cannon? Yeah, let me just say a word of thanks comparatively looking at those particular areas. And I think you're probably right when you look at Book of Washington and the number of vacant houses there are in that area. And the emphasis we've placed on demolishing some of those houses in that area which will of course lend itself to a greater accent on gun violence and that sort of thing. The other thing that I think is important is that one third, I heard you say one third topographically when you look at Book of Washington, one third of those houses and that area of course, you could almost say it's renter, renter, it thrives on that renter consciousness. The other two thirds of course represents a totally different ram of things. The cut-throughs I think poses a real problem. You've seen it, I've seen it. So it's interesting that, thank you for that. Good stuff, thank you, sir. Ms. Herbert and then Dr. Bussells. And along those lines, that information was very helpful. I did wanna make sure that code enforcement with the list that we do have, I don't know if the list was made with this information in mind for the demolitions that we're funding, but do you know whether or not they? I can say that I'm pretty sure it has. I spoke to David Hatcher about this on several occasions. Okay, and that's why I just wanted to make sure we were all working together because this is great information for us to have and make sure we're moving forward with it. Dr. Bussells. Oh wait, and the last thing I'll say is, and that is why I'm not fussing about there being a lot more demolitions in district two than in district one because, I'm just being honest, because it correlates with the statistics, so I'm not gonna fuss this around. Yeah. I wanted to thank you for this comprehensive overview. I know how much time it takes even looking at proxy measures to try and understand and tell the story. One thing I wanna reiterate for council is that finding that when there are single family homes, you can be in the exact same neighborhood and there's a drastic reduction of gun violence. And so when we think about some of our strategies around affordable housing, homelessness, economic development, it all very much links together in terms of ultimately leading to prevention of crime. And these are some of the discussions, Mayor, I'd love for us to continue through this initiative of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention to really help connect the dots around all of these social factors that lead to gun violence. And then just a point to think about. I know that there are a lot of great measures around community cohesion. And it'd be interesting to see if in your field interviews you see those protective things or those kind of indicators of resilience that despite a violence community, violent community, there are these really great social connections or good things that community members are trying to do amongst each other to address some of these pieces. Thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate it. And I wanted the Lieutenant of the Police Department to share the information that they had shared with me previously but what they share with their officers. Cause I think it's very important to understand that we are very data driven and we are looking at things and I think Booker Washington was such a great example cause you can see there are things that we can do immediately. And last Friday, several of us had an opportunity to ride through several neighborhoods and look at opportunities where we can, everything from lighting to tree pruning to this that can help but it's a lot deeper discussion. So with that Corey, could you tee up our presentation and start off on page three if you could? And part of the office of gun violence and why it's important is one, when you look at last year, we were roughly about 94 shootings in Columbia and this year we're projected to be over 120 and nationwide we're seeing an increase in gun violence and one of the things that we have to focus on is making sure that we're doing things to prevent gun violence but also understanding because gun violence plays around certain things. So you gotta remember people, places and behavior is one part of it, prevention, intervention and enforcement are the other. So as we go through this, can you go to the next page? So I wanna give you my vision for this and what you've seen in the packet previously is really just hey, this is a budget, this is what we think from a national, this is where we start to develop this and we're not 100% there yet but the city, this office be in the quarterback. The element of assessing, improving environmental factors, behaviors that lead to violent crimes, cataloging, coordinating available sources, charge with connecting community organizations, job chaining, alternative life side that lead to violent crime outcomes, office connecting the city, the police department, community organization, service providers, crisis teams and communities in order to establish these stronger relationships and the details of maps like we saw earlier about places that we can touch and realizing that it's a very small portion of our community but larger portions of our community are suffering because of the small portion and so knowing and understanding where our data points, our history is and our ability to address those areas to improve the greater community. So that's why I think this right here, the framework for addressing is so important. The quarterback, the position that we would hire or RFQ out, I don't know which way you would direction. This is where I want council to be part of because different cities have done it different ways but when you look at this, these six categories are where we gotta be focused and this encompasses everything we've talked about in different strategies but don't have one coordinating office to help make it sure because for this to be successful we're gonna have to have community partners, we're gonna have to have crisis teams, we're gonna have to have our churches involved, we're gonna have to have organized events, sporting events, other things that all come in to play with this and I think so as you go through this and you take a look, you talk about behavior therapy and family programming. Turn 90 who does a redemption program for repeat offenders who have been let out and part of what they talk about is that behavioral therapy, how do I deal with a situation so I don't put myself back in that? Community building, we talk about single family homes filling up these empty lots in our neighborhood but we also gotta have duplexes and quadruplexes. We need to create security and family units where neighbors are helping neighbors and by reinvesting in our communities, creating green spaces, opportunities for public art and other things to help enhance a neighborhood instead of it leading to places that people can hide and do deceiving things. You talk about how do we help people if there's drug treatments? Talk about how these intersect, blight and a nuisance abatement. We just talked about that 68 homes that the city's helping bring down to help clean up. Now we gotta do the other part which is bring the partnerships in to help build back each community but also address, we'll be working with school districts, we'll be working with churches, as we said, community organizations. This isn't just one person, one place, one time. This is a total community outreach. You look at the enforcement side, you gotta work with law enforcement but we also gotta work with our judges and our judicial system. I mean, this is a holistic approach and so when you see this framework which is recognized nationally, and I say that because I took the time to read several books and one of them that stuck out to me and the Lieutenant Cannon's read it too, it's called Bleeding Out. And there is so much information about different strategies to try to bring peace in the streets to deter gun violence. That it makes me realize that we have a lot of the bits and pieces but we don't have an organizing entity that needs to address it and be kind of the collaborator to bring everybody together. The other thing why it's so important you got the next slide is it gives us the ability to be eligible for numerous federal grants, third party grants, there is a lot of private philanthropic organizations out there that are funding everything from helping us clean up neighborhoods to investing in neighborhoods but also after school programs, long-term investment in apprenticeships and skilled labor training centers but also opens the door for corporate funding. We spoke to Senator Scott several times in Washington and he kept saying you gotta create an office so you can have the ability to take advantage of what other communities are taking advantage of. And then of course, I hate to use the term one-stop shop, it's been used over so many times but letting us be the custodian of these efforts so that we can make sure that we're removing some of the duplicity out there but also allow the city to work with partners that are already engaged in succeeding. We got a lot of people who have been very successful but we gotta bring groups together. I even was talking with some groups the other day and multiple people doing the exact same thing where we need to bring people and collaborate together so that we're really getting a big bang for our bucks. And then there's so many case studies, there's so many offices of gun violence being created, prevention being created across the US and all of it is community-based first law enforcement is second, government entities and administration third. And so we gotta have that coordinator and what I'd like to see us do is invest in the office. How we get there, we still gotta work out. Do we wanna put an RFQ? Is there an organization that we may wanna work with? Do we wanna put out an RFP for the director and then build the different pieces? How can we use interrupters, crisis teams and others to work with existing folks in our community that are making efforts so that we're bringing it into a collaborative and we're able to hate this term but it's a good term to wrap around service piece to it to make sure that everything from mental health to job opportunities, to better living conditions, cleaned up neighborhoods, lighting, making sure that our beautification, that the streets are clean and the neighborhoods are clean so that everybody has a pride of where they live and how they live because it goes back to people, places and behavior. You see the reduction in this because you forget and every time somebody is killed in gun violence, it's a multitude of resources that go there. It's hospitals, it's the first responders, it's the police, it's the courts and everything else to it and when you look at those dollar amounts, you realize that we need to be spending money to prevent in the front end instead of putting those resources at the back end when unfortunately we usually end up with somebody who's severely injured or somebody who's murdered and so I think as we continue to work through this, we gotta have a basis so if you go to the next slide, the objective is qualified experience team to direct the resources and efforts, build a network of trained community, disruptors create the catalog as we talked about of programs to foster relationships among neighbors, mediate conflicts in the communities that have potential to spill over into violence, produce positive outcomes in those high violent areas and that means every aspect. It's all the different city services that can come together but all the outside city services that could come together and then this is a projection based on a national and we can tweak this but we gotta have a starting point and the reason I wanna establish it for the first three years because I think we can show the progress of where we are and be able to take advantage of all the federal funding, the community funding and the third and the corporate funding that's available to continue to build up and make this a long lasting program where we see a drastic reduce in gun violence in our community and with that I'll open it to discussions. Like I said, I don't have all the answers but we've spent a lot of thoughtful time about an approach and why it's important to our community backed by the data that we have in-house which I've shared with some national folks who were extremely impressed with the detail of data and what we put together for our team so chief, wanna thank you for what y'all are doing there but also thank your team because they're some bigger cities who would love to have the data and the dedication that we have at the Columbia Police Department. With that I'll open up to any questions. Like I said, this is the beginning of discussion we have obviously we haven't gotten. This does qualify for ARPA funds and that's where we're headed with it at this point. I'm sorry, I don't know. They've got a grant from DOJ for Serve and Connect. Yeah, I couldn't tell you all the details of it. Well, and I guess just to piggyback on that question I know initially the discussion, well first of all, I totally support the concept of having an office of gun violence prevention but I do have tons and tons of questions but going back to maybe what Howard was where he was going I thought initially we were going to or the intent was to partner with Serve and Connect are we no longer? No, if you read it, Serve and Connect and other community organizations are opportunities for us to work together. We have to do a process to get there. We don't have a process yet but obviously the groundwork that Ms. Leah's done and her organization, we wanna work with them in every way we can and I hope we continue to do that because they have done incredible strides and I think we can enhance some of the programs that they're doing but we have to go through a process and we gotta decide what that process is and I think we gotta get that coordinator and that's why I said is this an RFQ process that we then wanna do where we could go to an organizational group like Serve and Connect or whoever it is and go through a process or do we want to put out, use the different organizations and what some of the national standards and all those folks have done so that we can include it in what we're looking for in a director of the office which is somebody who's got to understand deep community relationships. Mr. Mayor. Well based on the first presentation it sort of lends itself to a real discussion about where gun violence has taken place in the community. That has to be figured in I think as we look at geographically where those instances are taking place. The second thing Mr. Mayor is I think at this point I like the collaborative approach. It has to be collaborative. There are programs now that are functioning within our city that does some of these kinds of things and how we marshal and sort of usher in those kinds of programs. Making it a collaborative approach. The other side of that is I think we've really got to emphasize the whole notion of having skin in the game with partners. Not only skin I would like to add to that. It's very important is that when we put this together that we have absolute outcomes and accountability measures. We can't go into this blindly and not have target expectations of reduction and touch points and it's gonna take a little bit of work to get there but we can't hold ourselves accountable and the public can't hold us accountable for what we're committed to. We got to have specifics that we're targeting and areas that we're targeting and we expected outcomes. I mean with all of the work that the chief has done and with CPD and that team that you all currently have on board. I think it does a good job but they can't do it by themselves. That's why I think the team approach and the collaborative approach works better for if we're going to look at this proposal with the kind of scrutiny that we really want to get rid of gun violence we've got to do it as a team not individually. We've got to allow folk who are already out there working and doing some of those things to be a part of that team effort. Well it's a hub and spoke approach and law enforcement, the judicial system, our community organizations, city government, everybody has a role in this. There is not one entity that has a greater role than other. It's combined collectively and collaboratively that we can make a difference but we got to be committed to it. So having said all that, Mr. Mayor, I guess the question that would probably ask is what would be our next steps as a council, as the mayor? Because there are questions that, other questions that need to be answered as we continue to do a deep dive into this. So what I would recommend or what I'd like to hope to see is that you collectively share your questions and let's get them answered. I may not be able to answer all of them and I'm gonna think but we'll work as a staff to answer all the questions. What we have to do is as we have a discussion is we need to carve out potential funding and have it set there so that we can go back to it so that we know it's there because it's gonna take some effort and it's gonna take some money to get us going and to really to make a difference and we have to be invested along with our community partners and others because this is a community issue. This is not a city government issue. This isn't a law enforcement. This is a community issue. Mr. Devald and Mr. Brennan. I've spoken, Mr. Brennan wanna go first? Just real quick, Mr. Mayor, this is a wonderful package and I look forward to seeing more information come through as we tackle this issue. It's an important issue. You've done your research. I would love to hear more as we move forward about, we talked about the hub and spoke, that hub or that individual that we need. Maybe it's not a group, a nonprofit or an organization but that one person that can bring everything together. So we talk about an RFQ. It's almost as if it's a job posting as well. It may be both and I think to be honest, Mr. Brennan, I think in today's world it makes sense for us to go down to pass so that we have options so we can pick the best option that helps us bring this all together and makes the impact. And the talent that comes from that decision to pull it all together. It's not unlike other quality of life issues that we're talking about structurally and how they can affect the city. So I just wanna thank you for bringing this forward. Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, I certainly support the idea of a coordinator for all the different services that are available and an office that would be able to go out and look for additional funding for public safety, but I don't wanna commit for $800,000 right yet without searching out what else is available in the community. And I'd like for the public safety committee to look at this and gather some more information on what's available in the community and then report back to council. Can I ask, in terms of what's available in the community and I know you use the term quarterback or convener, how do you envision that you're gonna get folks at the table because we've learned whether it's, whatever issue that you're passionate about, sometimes it's so easy to work in silos because that's just how people are funded, right? So where and what is the pull to want to get involved with the Office of Gun Violence? Like what would you envision in terms of how the city could attract people to come work together? Well, I think first of all, let's be realistic. What we're doing right now may be helping in small proportion, but it's not helping, we're 18% up in gun violence right now and we haven't even finished the year yet. So let's create a realistic baseline is that we gotta do something different and we gotta have somebody who's a lead coordinator. Right now there's not a lead coordinator anywhere. There are multiple groups doing small things. So bringing those folks together for multiple reasons is one, look, if we all really want to achieve a community wide issue, then we all got, you use the word very well, Reverend McDowell, skin in the game, so bringing that skin in the game. But it also by a collective effort, we also have the ability to get out the funding from different sources, if it's DOJ or other folks. Now you'll see a lot of people out there who have the ability to work in a certain area, but as you saw on that map, it may not be a geographic area a lot, but there are a lot of hotspots and all of those take time. It's no different than our discussion with homelessness and others is you gotta meet people where they are and it's in an individual basis. This, we're not gonna have some group luncheon and everybody's gonna walk away and it's gonna be a great day. This takes time, effort and it's an everyday process. And so I think what you're gonna see people coming to the table is, is one, I think more people are very concerned about where we are on gun violence. We're limited what our ability is to do by law, but we also have unlimited ability to work on prevention, changing our structures in our neighborhoods from cleanliness to taking down those abandoned houses, keeping those lots clean, taking those cut-throughs as we saw on Friday, where we can help do things, but also work with the other areas. I mean, there's an apartment complex that should have, to be quite frankly, they ought to have a gated entrance and out. They should know who's resident and who's not. I mean, we have to do things to make a difference. And partnering with those, nobody wants more property damage. Nobody wants to see another child or adult or a mother killed shot. So I think this is one of those issues where if we take a lead with a deliberate goal with using all the tools that we have in a collective effort, along with our law enforcement, because the reality is, is that, you know, there's some discussions, hard discussions that have to be had and we need the community support is, is we can't continue to have repeat offenders who especially in gun violence are being let out and terrorized in neighborhoods. We just, so if there's ever a time, I think it's now. I agree with you. And I'm very supportive of the Office of Violence Prevention. And as someone who's very research driven and data driven, I do ask that as we think about potential prevention approaches, there is evidence to show that the violence interrupters program is pretty mixed with some cities having success and others not. I would just ask that you and whoever's, you know, the staff that we hire for this are open to other approaches that would make sense for Columbia because that is a very expensive approach. And they, and for example, DC just did an audit and they actually saw an increase of violence. And I think the reason that we built a budget the way we did because that's been the standard model, but we had to be realistic of what it would possibly cost and how we deploy those funds. And we made partner with somebody who's already got interrupters and then put our funding in different sources. These are things that we still have to talk about, but we gotta have something to talk about. Right, right. Okay. Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry. Mr. Taylor, and then. I think Ms. Herbert. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see your hand. But Mr. Taylor has a call. Mr. Taylor, Mr. Herbert. Ladies first. No, you haven't spoken yet. Go ahead. I was just gonna ask, as part of the process, would it look at things like bonding and different ways we ought to set higher bonds for repeating criminals and things like that as well? I mean, some people would say the PR bonds that we're doing in our community today are enabling more violence rather than stopping more violence. I mean, we'll take a look at some of the judicial side of what we do, or is it really more just social? No, I think it's both. I think it's part law enforcement, but the root of it, when you dig into it and you look at the programs like Curve the Violence and Curve the Violence and all, community-based, but at the same time, you gotta have, it's a three-legged stool. So you still got the law enforcement and the judicial, and I will tell you, after speaking to several mothers in some communities, that's one of their biggest fears. They're like, we could tell you who's shooting, but as soon as they get arrested, they're back in our neighborhood two days later, we're not getting involved, and we gotta change that narrative. That is not fair to those folks in those communities, and it's not fair for innocent bystanders to have to deal with that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just think that's an important part of what we need to look at. Ms. Herbert? So a couple of comments. I do think that as opposed to maybe being the leader on this issue, I think that I would feel more comfortable with us being a resource for the issue, because if we put ourselves out as the leader, then people are gonna expect us to solve the problem, and I don't know if we have the specific capacity to do that. The other thing that I'm concerned about is we're looking at judicial issues, home ownership, blight, mental health, social, economic opportunities. I think that if we're way too broad, it's gonna be very hard for someone who comes in to really be able to hone in on any particular objective, so I would like for us to, as we further discuss this, to narrow the focus in some regard, because you kinda give folks, I think it's almost impossible if we make it too broad. I think that's why part of having a coordinator and a quarterback that's working with those different community organizations, professional organizations, law formats have to hit that, but a lot of those also hit the city touch points. And if you look the root cause of gun violence, all those aspects are interacted, so you can't just pick one or two and focus on that. We've gotta kind of draw the right experts in and the right community partners, law enforcement, the other to hit all of them, so I do think there's a little bit difference in that, and I say that because I actually took, I've had a lot of reading in it, and trying to dig into understanding what we could do that we haven't done. Okay, and I respect your reading, but I will say from a practical aspect in implementation of programs, it just makes it a lot easier to have objectives, because at the end of the day, you wanna be able to say exactly what we achieved. So that's only a suggestion that we really hone in on one of the top two or three things that we think this office can do. The other thing is, I think that $800,000 is a lot of money. I don't know if you need to hire four people to start off. Why not? And so I think the budget should reflect something a lot less than four staff folks starting off. I don't know how much work you have for four different people, and I don't know if they're doing programming or just research, but cataloging and so forth. I don't think it takes four full-time people. Well, some of these, we had originally budgeted based on what national organizations are doing across the country, which there are well over a hundred offices out there, part of it just emulating what they did, and if you look at it, a good portion of that goes into interrupters. So if we have organizations that are already doing that, that we can enhance, then we can redirect that to another. And I think that's part of why it's important that that initial person is so key to help us as we start to bring all those pieces together. Where do we need to go? What I don't wanna do is not, I'm planning for the absolute maximum of what I think it would be based on some other models. That doesn't mean that we have to go there and I don't think that we ought to just automatically say we're spending all this money. We gotta be very deliberate about how we do that. But I just use this as a basis to give us somewhere to start. And then with respect to the additional funding that we'll be able to go after, is that will the office be responsible for going after that additional money or is that something that we'll do with our consultants and our grant writers? It'll probably be a combination of both. I know that there's some funding sources from some philanthropy groups that help fund and also provide the service to help you get that. I think we're learning more and more. And one of the reasons we wanna prop the office up because that opens those opportunities for us to get that free help to go after different funding sources. Some of them are project specific, some of them are much broader. Mayor. Really quickly, just a couple of things. As we are finalizing the plans for the office, whatever that looks like, I do think that one thing that you had said, Mayor, is that you wanna be able to show progress in three years and show a drastic reduction. So I think up front, there needs to be a mission and vision of this office or three pillars of work or something that then well beyond the time that any of us are here, this office is still being sustained and we're able to show success over time or worst best case scenario, it doesn't exist anymore because we fixed gun violence, right? So I think that that is a next step in terms of making sure that you're very clear on what this person will do and what this office will do over the next three years and that'll change as the situation changes as well. And then the second thing I wanna note is that I would like to see us work closely with the Columbia Police Department who often are privy to a lot of opportunities through their networks to go after some funding where we can work closely with them. And I think simultaneously, we need to consider a couple of things as well. I know that this council has invested a lot of time, money and effort into thinking through how we can continue to recruit and retain police officers. And unfortunately, we're still seeing a reduction of sworn police officers, right? So there's a lot of things that we need to continue to address simultaneously for this to work on the city government side as well. 100%, I don't disagree, you know, having the pillars but I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of more time if the majority of council is not supportive in moving this effort forward. I think we all are supportive. Yeah, but I mean, that was the purpose why we hadn't gotten there yet, is my point. I think you're right. Mr. Mayor, let me say unequivocally, I think that there are some figures there that I need to, and I think we need to look at in terms of that $882,000. The other point that I want to raise is I think Dr. Bussells asked a question. How do we get folk to the table? I think that was your question. I think the way we get folk to the table is that there has to be stakeholders has to take and has to lean forward in this process, which simply means that you've got community leaders who are willing to step forward and say this is what we're going to do and we need your support. Because this cannot, if we're going to incorporate a collaborative approach to gun violence, there has to be some stakeholders, not only the chief, not only CPD, not only us, but the stakeholders has to look at this and say we support this thing and we're going to make a difference in this thing. So whether it's $800,000 or whether it's $500,000, I think the figure is something we can talk about at another time, but I think to answer your question is the stakeholders that has to come to the table with some of us or all of us as we look at this thing. Of course, Ms. Wilson has, she has a responsibility. Oh, we don't want to leave you out of this conversation. But in, so are we agreeing though that we would like to provide some sort of seed funding to help get this off the ground? I mean, that would be ideal. Okay. That would be ideal if the mayor, the mayor has presented this proposal and of course, recognizing that there are other branches on that tree that could perhaps provide the same kinds of things that he's talking about and wanting to do, but there's also that community stakeholder who understand what gun violence is and the ramifications of what takes place when that happens. So we're talking about both the people and the process. Absolutely. So, okay. Absolutely. And I can buy into it. I'm sorry, please. That's fine, Rev. So the last thing, I do want to make sure that we kind of discuss in this area because if we're going to make this type of investment in our, in a city office of gun violence prevention, we've had a couple of requests. People have come and asked us for funding because they are working to reduce violence, particularly gun violence. And so how do we correlate those two? Can we afford to stand up our own office as well as fund other offices? Or is it a one or the other? I'm not saying one way or the other, but I do think that it's a consideration if we're going to make the investment in this office, how do we handle outside requests for the same thing? Well, to assist, I guess. My personal opinion, first of all, we've gotten one request. We've gotten two. We actually got one formal request. I didn't get anything from. He's, Mayor sent something to us a long time ago. But, but I will tell you, I do think that ARPA funding is where we're headed. You know, and we have opportunity and we need to look at some of these because it's not just this office. It's these other efforts. And some of it, we're gonna have to seed the rest of it. We're gonna have to work together to go after grants collectively. And what we've learned over this process is when we collectively as a community in a region come together to address an issue, we can get things done. And that's what we have to do with this. And so, yes, I think there's some of those organizations we need to fund. How we fund them and how we coordinate that with our county partners and other are very important in that discussion. I agree. Would you be willing to consider funding them out of the budget that you have, that you're out of your proposed budget? For instance, if it's not used for salaries, if we're talking 800,000, maybe 100 or 200 towards some of the entities. I think that is one of the purposes to create those community partners. Now, how do we create that process? That's something we gotta talk about because we're not there yet. But I will tell you, we got the proposal on the after-school program and basketball program. And it makes a lot of sense. And it's a reimbursable program, which is different than what we've seen with most. Now, there's some questions in there that we all have to discuss at the appropriate time because we hadn't gotten there yet. And it is an ARPA fund request, but we have to, you know, but I think that's something that we ought to look at and can we do it on a trial basis to do it? I know the county is going through a process, they're not there yet. They have not, my understanding from county council is that they haven't completely turned it down. They're going through a process. But I think there's a reimbursable and there's a way we can look at that. If we have to fit that in and that gives us enough money and time to go after other grants and stuff, that is. But I think we got to talk about that process so that we're, because so many different stakeholders are coming, but I do want to clarify, this will not be successful if it's a 100% government run or funded. And we need to make that clear as we move forward. It's got to have the community behind it at every level. That one proposal of course is before us, not before us, but of course it's been handed out to each of us, a very appropriate program, powerful program, how we fund that, whether it's through the $800 and some $1,000 or whether it's through Alpha Fund. At some point we need to make some collaborative decision that in some places it's working. Absolutely. And of course that's one of those places where something is working. I think the consensus of council is that we want to go forward with the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Let's send it to the Public Safety Committee and give you some details on how we would suggest it move forward. Well, can we get the questions and stuff first answered before we decide it needs to go to committee? Because at this point. Send it to committee if you got the questions answered. I just, the only reason I say that is is because we're gathering all the information. You're not, you know, if you all counsel as a whole feels like that's the place it should go to, then we can do that. But let's at least let me gather all the information and all the questions we have and at least try to get some of that answered first. Because we're still gonna have to talk about process and everything. My thought is that you get a director. I think that's the first thing. We've been hiring czarers all day. We'll get another czarer in here. So we get a director and we get the partnership, one partnership coordinator, and cut your budget in half and use the other half of grants. Well, I think before we just sit around the table and go this, let's strategically talk about it. Well, I mean, we do have to have another setting to have a conversation. I would like to request, because we've been trying to have that conversation a meeting with us and we may have a separate committee, Howard, I'm sorry. A mayor and a rev and Herbert committee, just to kind of get into some of the details of it if you're not opposed to that and then maybe bring something back collectively to the group. Look, I just wanna thank everybody for embracing the idea. This is a step forward. It's in the answer to everything but the fact that we're talking about things in a different manner and we're looking at things whole at listically for the community now. I really appreciate everybody taking this information in and sharing your thoughts and make continue to share those so that we can refine this and that we really can do what we know we can do which is improve our community as a whole. Well, Mr. Mayor, one of the things that I think is very important, I think Howard raised the issue whether or not it should go to the committee. And normally that's what we've done in the past but I think this is a crisis. This is a crisis of now and we could very well put it in committee unless we prioritize that and make that the number one priority. It would seem to me that additional information is gathered that it's disseminated among us and that we are able to discern what it is if we need to carry it. But let's get all the information in first before we move to committee. If we move it in committee, it's not gonna be top chef, it's gonna be low chef conversation and I don't want that to happen. Thank you. Madam City Manager. Next item. Well, we are... Yep. We're gonna take a three minute breather. Apparently, I think there's some people need to stretch their legs. Put the fat on the back of your head. Passing the plate Reverend. Mr. Mayor, can I do something right quick? I know we are pushed for time but I do want to recognize, I do want to recognize Brother Thomas. This conversation we just had, of course. Please speak into the mic. This conversation we just had, of course, about gun violence. Here's a young man 14 at the age of 14 was shot in the back and paralyzed from his waist down. A testimony that he's here today. He's here today because he wants to know what's going on and he wants to know what gun violence did to him and the resources we could use to stop it. So thank you for being here today, Thomas. Thank you so very much and I'm just gonna take liberty to ask. You want to say a word? Now that's who the media ought to talk to. That's who, that's the guy that media ought to interview and say exactly what he just said. It's a conversation, it's a lack of a conversation. Watch Fox right there, looking for Mr. Thomas right now. That was divine intervention, Reverend. You get Mr. Thomas, that's a testimony by itself. That's what happens when you put $5 in the plate. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Anybody else? $5. Just $5, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The floor is yours. We appreciate your time again today. We're gonna go through a few items on your agenda, starting with discussion of the American Rescue Plan Act and update on that information. A proposed community promotions grant program, hospitality tax and accommodations tax allocations, some continued conversations around there following the budget discussions. Previously funded and proposed city council of special events, a recap of the city manager funding recommendations, a recap of the Philly Park recommendations, both of those are if additional conversation is needed. We've highlighted that information in your packet is redlined from changes from the original to the proposed. I just wanted to make sure council was aware we're trying to follow the memo that was sent out on Friday as well, but we'll go through each of the items in detail. Hopefully we can get through these today and I really think this will provide a good closure to some of the budget follow-up budget discussions that we've been having in these work sessions and look forward to a September 6th budget amendment that addresses some of these for your consideration and action. Missy, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I wanted to connect that dot for council because you did a great job of summarizing everything in the memo. Absolutely, thank you, Ms. Wilson, that helps. So pointing out with the American Rescue Plan, I will ask for forgiveness. You do have a single page in your spot that is a replacement of one of the slides regarding the American Rescue Plan. It's just a correction of the totals and the information on there. So I'll just add it in if you want, like a reprint of the entire presentation with that slide, let us know, we will happy to accommodate. So without spending a lot of time on the American Rescue Plan program, we're all familiar with what it is for and where it comes from. It's allocation from US Treasury to municipalities. The city of Columbia received $27 million. We've received both of our tranches as it is referred to now. There are specific eligible uses that were spelled out by the American Treasury, US Treasury for the uses to include replacement of loss revenue, support public health expenditures, address negative economic impacts caused by the pandemic, public health emergency, provide premium pay for essential employees and invest in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure. Since the original filing, original ruling came out, the interim rule, final rules have come out. We do now have final rules to follow from the US Treasury regarding each of these areas. I've included in your packet two slides directly from the US Treasury just for your information. If you are interested in reviewing them, I won't necessarily cover through them. It just defines a little bit more about the uses of the programs and the allocations. We are reminded to continue to have robust compliance of the Treasury program. These are federal funds. They are still subject to 200 CFR as are any other federal programs. And there's also requirements for evidence and building a program that is compliant. Framework is very critical as we are reminded from US Treasury on a regular basis where we are required to report to Treasury every quarter. And so our next reporting will be the end of the October quarter for this year. So what we are wanting to talk with you today is about what we have committed and expended to date. And that is the slide that was reprinted and provided for you. To date, we have committed and expended 11.6 million. That includes allocations that we have made in the current year general fund budget. The allocation for the grant contracts that was awarded at your last council meeting. I'm sorry, the question is one more. However. Two million bucks. Tell me what that is. So in the budget that you approved for the current fiscal year, we included two million dollars as a part of the loss revenue in the general fund budget. We did at the time. Of course, once we end the fiscal year, if for some reason we don't need it and the council wants to return that back to the allocation, we could do so. We did. And in fact, the 21-22 budget had included an allocation from. And that wasn't the two million that was. No, we ended up not using it in parking either. So that's why the 21-22 approved is that now zeroed out. We did not need those funds in that fiscal year. So we've zeroed that out. We've also, what's well committed in terms of what will be committed on the agenda for next week with your budget or allocation is $500,000 towards police facility renovations and fire station renovations. We have categorized those under the lost revenue program. Public safety, which really as we get into those specific programs, most likely we'll meet one of the other eligible activities. But each activity and expenditure will be subject to which program it'll be best suited, whether it's the lost revenue or one of the other programs. So we have allocated, city council has allocated funds for the Pathways Unit for the police department. Yes, sir. That might be better for chief still as they're seeing how DMH is staffing monitor that. I'm sorry, Missy, replace lost revenue grant contracts, $500,000. What is that for? So last week on your city council agenda, you approved two grant contracts for consultants. So that's what's covering those contracts. At least for the year one of the proposed program use. The CPD police department demolition program for elimination of blight was allocated last year that program is underway. And then the fire department gear extractors in second set of bunker gear is also included on here. Was also allocated previously. So committed from lost revenue so far to include what's planned for next year, of course, subject to continuation of the Pathways Unit as currently proposed is $5.9 million of the $10 million that we have allocated. Public health is $500,000 that was allocated from last year. And then, of course, premium pay and vaccine incentives that were paid out over the last fiscal year. Any questions about committed and expended to date? Move forward. So the items that have been proposed, we have adjusted and revised and adjusted and revised. So this may not capture everything that has been discussed or anticipated, but some of the items that have been discussed so far with regards to that are still on the table for consideration would be police departments initiatives related to address crime and gun violence. A continuation of the demolition program if that is desired after the $571,000 is spent on elimination of blight and demolition of abandoned homes. And then, of course, the proposed mayor's office of gun violence prevention, the three-year program. I was reflecting $892 at one point. That was the items amount discussed. And y'all forgive my brain. Chief, can you tell us a little bit about the CPD initiatives that address crime and gun violence? I might have just forgotten specifically what that's about. I'm sorry. Oh, yes, she is. I know. That would be for expanding the, as we stand up the real-time crime center, expanding our technology. Thank you. Of course, these allocations would be subject to final approval from city council an actual allocation via a budget, an allocation from council. I would also, because I've seen the need for it personally as many of our council members have to, but the command unit, the mobile command unit, I would also categorize that it could fall in that category and it's definitely needed. I know Chief didn't mention it just now, but that is something that he's requested as well. A mental health crisis unit, command unit, right? No ma'am, this would be, for example, when we were at Columbia Anna, when the shooting occurred. Okay. Or any type of, you know. Does that have a question regarding this? I'm going to issue there. Ms. Wilson, these are things that if we come back, we can come back anytime, since it's all for money, at any time during the year and do these. We don't have to do this as- That's- Yeah, I just want to make it clear, because like I said, I agree with you two on the command bus, I'm not so sure. I like it at the price that it's at. And so maybe we want to do a little more work on that before we make a movement on it. Exactly, and I think the purpose of that, this grouping that we have right here is kind of broad for that very reason. We just sort of, we put it a mouth, it's tied to some of the technology and other needs like the command unit or some portion of funding going towards those things. Yes, sir. Ms. Wilson, on them, we've got three more years to spend this money. So, there's some things up here, obviously, that we budgeted that have changed drastically and there's some grant opportunities that can come and some other things that have changed some of those. Would it be helpful if we kind of figured out we don't need to vote on this today, I don't think, and it's not part of our agenda because there is a discussion of looking at the program recreation is put together for working with transporting kids, getting them involved in these after school and the basketball and these other programs. It's a reimbursable, it's a quality, I think we want to talk about it, but I think we've got to have a little, the appropriate time and I don't know if that's now or when that is to talk about that program because it is one of the proposals that we got that has a lot of merit to it. And I'll tell you where I am on it, I support it. I think, though, because it's a reimbursable program that it's a month-to-month situation for us to see because if we're invested for a certain amount for a period of time, but yet we're not seeing the participation and we're not seeing the thing, then we can stop it. So, committing to funding up front, I think what some point will be when the appropriate, I don't know when council wants to talk about these issues, we have to look at that and say, all right, well we could do that because it's reimbursable, we do it on a month-to-month and budget it because I think the original proposal was for 275 and that was based on the volume of 12,000 young people identified between the various apartment complexes and neighborhoods that would be transported to these different programs. So, I guess long story short where I'm getting at is we don't have to spend all this today but we may want to recategorize this because, you know, originally we thought there may be a grocery store opportunity for food insecurity. Well, that's not something that we can get done. But there are things we can get done. Is this up for discussion? But so I guess what I'm asking is that, you know, we don't have to make the decision today, do we want to try to pull stuff together and have kind of a discussion saying, here's some community projects that we feel are appropriate for this or not? I don't know, mayor, I mean, I think that's for y'all to talk about the line item here under public safety that, you know, doesn't have anything to do with those outside community initiatives. This was just our attempt at putting a number towards more, you know, internal needs of CPD and that sort of thing. I was just looking at the bottom. I'm sorry, I skipped ahead. That's okay, are we still in front? Yeah, because I was kind of going back to Mr. Taylor and making sure I don't want to put things off indefinitely, I think we need to know what kind of time restraints or what's priority because if there's something that we need to do and that you all want to do right now and you need the ability to go forward to get the information, I don't want us to not give you that ability to start working towards it. So I'm just trying to get an idea of what is time, you know, what is time sensitive versus what we can decide to work on next year. I hadn't really gotten into the external stuff yet, Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry, I jumped ahead. May I add something, Mrs. Wilson? So obviously our real time crime center is well underway and as we staff, as our cameras come online and we're staffed up, to me that creates greater capacity and as a force multiplier. The only thing I would say about the command bus discussion, yeah, I agree Mr. Taylor, we can knock the edges off that, I think and bring a more affordable package. It might have been the Harry Tinsley model. It was, I wasn't gonna say, I'm listening out there. We love Harry Tinsley's models, but yeah. But we are using a bus right now that's 20 years old, it has outlived its capacity both with its electronics and just its capabilities. As we have, we continue to have our university growing, our festivals growing, we're getting ready to invest millions in Finlay Park that's gonna attract more people. We have got to have a mobile platform that we can connect to these events, connect back to the real time crime center and support our operations in the field that's forward. So I think it's important and it takes almost a year to build those out. So about a camera for that. Howard, I hope Mr. Taylor has a floor then you. Oh, excuse me. Been quiet today, Howard. No, I'm with you on the bus, okay. I just think, I think from discussions I've heard around that we need to reprice that to what's appropriate for us and bring it back. I think I wanna go back and touch on two other things. Number one, these are ARPA monies. We should be able to bring these things up as projects as when soon as you got the pricing, boom, almost as close to what we do with PO approvals. Isn't that correct? If I could speak to that piece, any allocation from ARPA would need to come back to city council for an actual allocation to those programmatic funds. But my point is there's no time restrictions on that. We can do it as soon as he's got the pricing, we can see if that's what we wanna do and do it. So the only time restrictions is that we are to have the funds committed at this point in time from Treasury by December of 2024. Understand. And that's why I would go to the next piece that you've got up there on the neighborhoods and community investments. We really have not had a chance because of timing to have our discussion with the Community and Economic Development Committee on the community development deals. And the fact that we've already appropriated the $500,000 for the new grant writers and things like that, I think there's some significant opportunities for us. And I think we need to look at some CDBG funding that may be available for some of those things. And I would rather see us take our time, make sure we get that right, see if there are not some grant opportunities that'll deal with that, and hold that money and obey it. Or if something comes up, we can always come back and do it like a grocery store, Ms. Harvard, or something along those lines. But let's just leave it in the fund unencumbered for the time being. And that's where they are relying until the city council does make allocations. Next week's budget amendment does include some allocations from ARPA. Those will be noted specifically as well. And then of course, our one- But not these. Not these. There's other than if unless there's- No, the stuff that you had on the previous sheet that was up- Right, there are some things in there that will be reflected on that. The only one that is on, I think, for consideration under the proposed, so at this point is whether or not the mayor's goes forward on the agenda for next week, or if that's still a hold. Otherwise, it is still for city council's discussion. I would point out the part that we want to keep an eye on is that we have $10 million of the loss revenue. Everything else has to be allocated within those spending categories allocated or determined by the eligibility of the Treasury program. And the loss revenue doesn't have to be budget spent until 24? Well, we're spending, that's what we're spending from now unless we can figure out some of those allocations fit under some of these other programmatic areas that are much more subject to the federal spending. We don't have to be in a rush. We can- Correct. And the chief will get a reprice on the bus and bring it right back to us. We just, some of those things like that, we just wanted to keep it top of mind. So we tried to attach some categories here for you all to think about. We are looking to evaluate the items under the public safety to see if they will fit more programmatically. And then otherwise the allocation from loss revenues are what's noted so far. And so I guess at this point, just for you all's consideration, because I keep hearing you talk about it and the mayor just mentioned it, going on down into neighborhoods, community investments. I mean, we certainly understand there may be some programmatic things that you've been presented from external groups while we've been sitting here. Mayor Walker asked me for you to pass out his program that he briefed y'all on last week. So I'm happy to pass that around. He emailed it just a little while ago. But we're used to working through some type of notice of funds availability, some type of pool of funds that people would apply for. That's always my recommendation so that whomever out there might wanna apply if you all put together a program of ARPA funds for those purposes, however you do it, if you don't do it through a process, then either way, these funds to Mr. Taylor's point, you'd have to let us know how much of these funds you're wanting to put towards these type external initiatives. Just correct, right now there's $4.3 million in the neighborhood community investment funds. That we haven't allocated yet, is that correct? That includes public safety. I'm just talking about the neighborhood community investment. That pool is $4.3 million that we haven't committed, correct? Right. Yo, that includes. That includes public safety, doesn't it? It includes public safety. Mm-hmm. 2.6 million. 2.6, okay, I'm just looking at the columns. That's rare, let me say this. I think the staff has done a very good job on the capital budgets this year. I mean, really taking a very disciplined look at how we do it. And I think rather than putting things in pools and stuff, hopefully this next year we'll get an earlier start and we're building a three or four year, five year capital forward look, which I think is fantastic. And again, the more we hold back that we can fill in the blanks and gives us just more flexibility to do smarter spending that we get a bigger bang for the buck. And again, I just think, I'd rather keep our options as open as we can and spend it within the time frame that we have. But I think it's gonna be really good to build this next year's capital budget, how we go on. I think. Yes, sir. I only brought that up, sir, because of the reference to some external requests that had come in, you know, I'm not a big proponent of using any of the money for external requests, but that's just me. Let's don't bait the trap. Well, I think it's been, it's on the table, so I was just trying to give a little guidance. Well, now I just wanted to make a couple of comments because some of these things don't need to go into an abyss. It would be helpful with the commercial retention and redevelopment just to know if they have any funds, if they don't have any funds, right. With the food and securities, I'm too excited about the $1 million that's sitting there and the Food Policy Council, which has had a mobile food market that we have been discussing since 2017. To me, that's way overdue. And I think it's gonna be on the agenda, on our agenda for community economic development. And I believe that that is a great place for it to be funded from. I'm just putting that out there and it's nowhere near a million. And then I do need someone to explain to me broadband accessibility because if that's dealing with our parks, to me, that's urgent. When it was originally put on with the previously seated council and they discussed it, councilwoman, it was more broad and it was also more broad than internal needs. It was a discussion, I think former mayor Benjamin had about the need for accessibility in the community and certain areas that might be, McDonald's and kids sometimes go there because that's where they go to do the homework after school and if there's no, or a mobile bus. We're still going to negotiate our franchise agreements with certain vendors out there. And again, one of the things I would hope that we're gonna be able to do this year is incorporate things like better lighting in our parks and frankly Wi-Fi in our parks, hopefully as part of our franchise fee renegotiation. So like I say, those things are absolutely important. I agree with you, they need to stay on our radar. But if we can find a better way to get other people to do them, so we have our funds for making our city even a better place, parks and things like that, I just think keeping that flexibility is important. There has been some conversation about broadband and Wi-Fi connections within our parks. And if I could, I don't wanna put you on the spot. Could you just say a word referencing that conversation? Because there has been some vendor request which is, in my estimation, is not that good. But of course, I want you to just say a word about that quickly. Sure, Ms. Wilson alluded to it already. There was a broader discussion with the previous council about Wi-Fi in our parks. And as we evaluated that process, we worked internally with our IT team and this year in our operational budget, we are improving our Wi-Fi capabilities internally. Not only are we improving our Wi-Fi capabilities internally, but we're also adding public use computers, updated public use computers in the parks. So what that does is that gives a young man an opportunity to come to our parks and access a public use computer if he doesn't have one at home. But it's internal to the actual parks. If you all wanna get into a broader discussion about connectivity into the community, that'll be a decision that you all have to make. Right. That's another conversation. Correct, correct. And Henry, that's a young man or a young woman come to the park. Correct, absolutely. A senior, absolutely. Just checking. Very diverse, absolutely. One of the things that I think is crucially important is that providing Wi-Fi services to our parks and not, for lack of a better word, not into the community. It's going to cost us an extremely amount of money to do that blanketed service outside of that park. We are talking about 25 to 50 feet beyond the park. Beyond the park. Ed, you're not talking into the microphone. 25 to 50. If you can't talk in the microphone, you cannot speak anymore. Thank you. Thank you. Next subject. Let me have a question for you. Next subject. Let me finish this point real, and you can have it. I think it's, I think it's... It's extremely important that our parks are cared for in terms of Wi-Fi service. IT has the capability of doing that. They've already looked at that, making sure that this would be taken care of. We're looking at 25 to, no less than 25, no more than 25 feet beyond the park itself. We're not talking about a community being blanketed with Wi-Fi, but making sure that the parks are Wi-Fi sensitive. What is the total original allocation that we got as a municipality from ARPA? 27 million. 27 million. For the proposed, the update proposed, this sheet right here. Previous sheet you have. Recommendation target of 5% for administration. 1.3 million. Right. Are you, is that to be pulled from these bottom line totals for proposed? It would as well if we end up utilizing that amount at all. We actually could use some of that towards the park. So that 1.357 is deducted from the 20, would you say four? 27 million. 27 million. Is deducted already. Well, at this point it would add as part of the 1.3 plus the 116, but at this point it's not been actually allocated. It's consideration if we go that path. What is the seven, where's the seven 298 on this sheet right here, Missy? So if we could use it. 2122 approved. We could use it. What does that reflect? So that's actually carried forward. So the very bottom line on the total commitment proposed is just the total of the first sheet of what's been allocated and expended plus what's been proposed on this sheet. So it's just carried forward. So what's proposed from prior year is nothing. We have 2122 is done in terms of being proposed. Can, I know we're getting removed to community promotions in the next thing. I wanna get one point clarified. We're getting Mayor Walker is reached out about this. We have the other proposal. Can we put this on discussion for next week so that we can make some decisions there? I did and I haven't seen it yet, but I mean, do we wanna send it to a committee to be discussed? Do we want council to discuss it next week? And I just think we gotta get some things moving. We either gotta move forward with it or not. I would suggest that we direct, we need to make a decision. Are we gonna allocate some money to external organizations or not? I think we just gotta make that decision and we can see if that's the will of council today or not. If it is the will, then I say we have to have a process and we can give that to staff. Like they're about to talk to us with the other one. But I mean, I think today we can make a decision on is it the will of council to allocate any funds? But I don't think that we can pick and parcel which ones we're gonna do, because then we'll, I mean, I don't think that's a fair process. You mean ARPA funds or any funds? ARPA funds, that's what I'm talking about. Mr. Taylor, please speak into the microphone. Thank you. Well, no, because I think we do need to have a fair process where everyone knows that the funds are available and not just one or two people who happen to put a request in. And I think so if we're gonna do it, we need to do a fair process so that folks don't come back later and say, well, I didn't know the city was giving out money. And so the question I think is, is the city really? We're not getting away with money. We're making investments. Yeah, investing in our community to, yeah, to better our community, but. Unlike other politicians, we don't believe it's free money. I'm not a politician. I'm not, I'm a public servant. I'd be happy to, back to McCreary. What is that? You refer this thing to a committee, to the Economic Development Committee, the Community Development Committee. And let's work with, we'll work with Barry and see if something can come of it that makes it work for everybody. Well, I think for me, it's not just Barry. It's the other proposals, Barry. And there's a lot of moving parts to it that are very important to the community. And we need to have a discussion about it because it just, we've been waiting to get to the ARPA because it's the only place for it. So we've got to make some decisions if we want to try to move forward and have that discussion, but we got to have some direction and council's got to. I would like council to consider setting aside $200,000 out of the mayor's office of gun violence prevention for any other external groups. This is just for y'all to consider any other external groups that have the same mission of reducing gun violence. That is just to start that discussion so that if there are other folks that agree, great, if not fine, but I think we can start shutting down issues or move issues forward today, if it's the will of council. Not that we're voting on it or anything, but. Go ahead, Mr. Duvall. I agree that we need to set aside some money in the proposed $800,000, $900,000 budget for grants, but I don't want to make that decision this afternoon. I think $200,000 might be appropriate. I think $400,000 might be appropriate. Just have the two people, the director and the coordinator, and that would leave you money to let them have some funds to do aggressive things with, but I don't think we can make that decision right now. I'd like to think about it. I'd like for the public safety committee to work on it. But what are you gonna use your basis on? I think that's where I'm a little confused. You're just saying, oh, we're gonna cut this out and we're gonna do this, but you don't have any basis for that. Well, you don't have any basis for putting the $800,000. Yeah, I do. It's nationwide basis. That's what I built the model of. That's what I've said three times today. We might not. Nobody seems to be listening if we want to reduce that because we find a community partner. That's the right way to do it. But this is why we have discussions. Now, have we settled with the figure of $882,000? Is that figure etched in stone? Mr. Mayor. Yes. I'll tell you what, since we haven't fully vetted out the mayor's thing, so if Ms. Herbert, if you wanna take $200,000 and recommend that it be set aside out of this for community promotions and we keep it at $200,000, I'm fine with that, but not out of the mayor's deal. That's a separate thing that needs to be debated on its own. I don't think we have $200,000 in community promotions. No, that is a problem at the bottom. Oh, we haven't committed any of that number down there. Let's say just take $200,000 of that and make it a thing. I mean, as long as you keep it at $200,000 or $150,000, I'll give us a place to start. I'm fine with that. I just think that, because these, some of these proposals we've had for like three, four, five months, and I think we just need to get to a point where we need to say yay or nay in a process for it. What do you think the right number is? No, I mean, whatever, $150,000 to $200,000 is fine. I suggested $200,000. I think that's more than fine right now. And then you would put it out for the community to make applications for that? Is that what you were talking about a minute ago? Yes. I mean, it has to be a fair process so that other folks know. And I think that- Are you all blending now, items three and four? Are you moving to item four in your agenda? Or are you saying out of the ARPA funds? No, she's talking about out of the ARPA funds. Out of the ARPA funds. I think Mr. Kain is. Qualified. I don't care either. I don't. Here's what I would just say. If you think you need a place for people to be able to come to, and we're gonna cap it at $200,000 this year, I would yield to wherever the city manager recommended that it come from, whether it's from ARPA money or general fund money or whatever. I mean, I know it's difficult sometimes when individual elected folks are tasked with pressure from neighborhoods and things to do this that if it helps us, and they're good programs and we fully vet them, I'm happy to do that too much. And does that satisfy kind of what you're looking for? It does, and you all make sure to put that on the record. Me and Joe are in agreement on this, Joe. Put it on the record. I'm gonna ask you to agree on something else a little bit while, but I'm just kidding. In terms of what we're moving forward for the ARPA funding, we are gonna move forward these public safety investments then, are we in agreement with these numbers to then vote on? Public safety investments, we said yes to. Okay. Right? It's the community investments that we're, the only thing we're talking about here would be if the city manager recommends that a $200,000 community grant fund that meets the ARPA requirements, and I would just set whether the money comes from ARPA or some other place, we're gonna say it has to meet the ARPA requirements. We put that in. What? In there. Joe, my only concern about that is that we have some organizations, I'm thinking the Lurie Center, that the only time we've ever been able to fund them is out of general fund money. And I don't wanna restrict it to ARPA because would ARPA cover the Lurie Center? That's the next item, which is why I was asking where y'all blend, where you're blending the discussion. You wanna move to the next one and then we can decide what you want. Well, I think this is a different one. I do because for one reason, just looking at the level of some of the requests that you've got in that I know the mayor was probably connecting as being related to gun violence, which is a public safety issue. It does seem to fit more with some of the ARPA eligibility requirements. And then that request, you know, I'm not saying, and I'm definitely not recommending that you would fund any request at the full amount. But hypothetically, if you're considering funding, one of those that you've gotten, it could take up the whole amount if you're setting aside 200. I don't know what y'all's intentions are. So yes, sir, I think you might wanna consider keeping it separate. If you, and what will drive all of these discussions which we have a slide about this for the next item is what are your intentions for the funds? Is it for neighborhood cleanup? Is it for beautification? Is it for youth programs? Is it for senior programs? Or is it for anything if it's a nonprofit? So it just depends on how you set it up and we'll set it up that way. And that might help you distinguish if you're gonna do 200 from the general fund or 200 from our fund. Well, that's our, I bet, what I said earlier. Yeah. I think $200,000 for community, and you can call it for community betterment for lack of better description, which is wide open that gives you a $200,000 pool that people can pull from. You make the call whether you want it to be a general fund deal or whether you want it to be an offer deal. Well, I think she's saying this would be general. That's what I'm saying. Let me just say, you make the call. What are the auditing levels for programs like this if it comes through ARPA? So thank you for asking. Excuse me, the ARPA funds, depending upon if it's the, if it's the loss revenue, it's not subject to the same, it has to meet what the city would have been doing as part of our service base. It's primarily the crime there. If it's programmatic, it's gonna have to meet one of the programs outlined by the ARPA allocation categories, and then of course the actual spending will still be subject to federal procurement requirements and other federal requirements. So there were requirements, yeah. If we gave money to a program like this, there would be a federal audit, probably what happened on it to make sure. Federal audit of the city. The city, and the city's responsibility is make sure that the funds got used properly. They're compliant. According to, this is the business plan they put forward. For the program? I think the mayor will approve it. Right, but that, this is being discussed as ARPA funding as well. And I will note that they have ARPA funding from Town of Irmo. I don't know anything about any of these requests. I'm just frittin' it off and hand it over to you. Yeah, they used 100,000 of their funds, which is why they came to the city, saying the city should be putting in. I guess the point is for whatever we use, whether it's neighborhood cleanups, there is the auditing level behind it that we're on the hook for. If it's from ARPA. Right, correct. If it's a general fund, as you know, we have more flexibility to, yes sir, you're absolutely right. And yes, sir. Yes, we're moving into the. You never move on from ARPA. And to be honest, the items on here under proposed were just for conversational. I don't think there's, other than, I think the mayor's office proposal, the question is whether or not it would go forward on next week or if it's still, you know, on hold. This is almost like just a reserve of what things have been discussed. I'm not necessarily what we would bring forward next week in the budget amendment until, unless there's specific direction from city council. I think the mobile unit requires it a little more. Tweaking there, the CPD initiative. He said he'd take a short bus. Right. We cut that price in half. Next agenda item. I have. Yes, sir, can you say a word? Can you say a word about the housing stability? Other than that. The next area, right? No, sir. Could you just say a word about that, please? It was a placeholder for prior city council, some discussions and just programmatically addressing, for instance, the city's home loan programs, possibly, or some of our affordable housing. It's not designated or specific, programmatic. Is that CDBG-originated, initiated, or? No, sir. I mean, it would be just one of the categories that was open for discussion when the funds were first awarded to the city. So it's still subject to city council consideration and discussion. So the general fund, the community promotions program, your fiscal year 2022-23 budget included $140,000 allocation. 100,000 is in the general fund, 40,000 is in the state accommodations tax, 5% general purpose. We are proposing, in terms of going forward, of course, we'll talk a little bit about the city's grant guidelines and eligibility. As Ms. Wilson mentioned, for city council discussion, as has been discussed from some of our prior conversations with you, whether or not you wanted to make these funds programmatically specific, or if you wanna keep them broad and open in the past, the past notice of funds available from the city have not always been for specific areas of programmatic use, especially when it comes to the general fund type of activities, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be here, especially in line with city council strategic outcomes. But as Ms. Wilson mentioned, there has been conversations about public space beautification, community cleanup type of events, youth programs or senior programs, anti-violence and crime community safety programs, neighborhood or community events, or other kind of categories. Some agencies may want to request operating type activities such as capacity building or facility renovations, if they may have those. We would discourage reoccurring costs as a part of this allocation, because these are one-time funds, even for the general fund, they are considered one-time. So I think at this point, it's just a matter of whether or not city council wants to consider a specific programmatic type of activity with these funds or to keep it broad. Well, I think one of the things is we talk about guidelines and eligibility. I mean, it's very important that there's some parameters around it. There's other funding attached to it that they've raised some. If it's a community event, let's say it's a community cleanup, that 25% of the community is engaged in the cleanup or something. We need to come up with some parameters to make sure that because part of the beautification, and I think some of the youth programs especially, is we need to make sure that there's participation and it's not just us. There's other elements to that. Hate to use the word skin in the game, but the reality is that that's what we mean, so that we're making sure that this money is able to stretch out. I know you put in there that can apply up to $25,000. I don't know if we want that high of a threshold. I think that's something that we wanted to discuss as well because I was thinking we wanted smaller thresholds so that these are for some of these smaller programs, plantings, after school, one-time events. They don't have requests, 25,000. Yeah, but you put on there, you can apply up to, I mean, why wouldn't you apply up to? Let's lower that so that we can stretch those funds because let's say what happens if you get four great programs, you wiped out $100,000 like that. Well, this is the fund that we've been able to fund the Lurie Center and they are a very popular organization and they will be all over you if we don't fund them again and I think it's been funding at $25,000, has it not? We have funded them two years for $25,000. Right, so I would not lower it below $25,000 because when the time comes, I want to recommend that we fund $25,000 to the Lurie Center. Yeah, but may I want to lower that? Well, maybe if we could consider, so I've really looked at this pool of funds more for neighborhood activities and beautification because I get a call every week about who's maintaining the neighborhood signs and we have this debate. So I was thinking the lower amount because it was more geared towards neighborhoods but I guess if it is dealing with programmatic things it could be more and maybe we have two different categories. I don't know if that makes it, like I don't know what kind of beautification project would cost $25,000 but I do want to make sure that the neighborhoods really have the opportunity to take care, I mean to take advantage of using these funds. What if we lowered it to a lower amount except for organizations that are named after a former Senator from Richland County? I think also there's, I know the mayor, the mayor's been working with community development department regarding the program. They normally do action grants, they normally do but maybe reframing it for Love Your Block I think is what, and I haven't looked at all the details about Love Your Block mayor but I know they've been working on that and I want to say that might be more in line with what you're talking about. Ms. Herbert, I think that would be probably the best place for the neighborhoods because that's using some CBG funding that's there for those type of programmatic so that may solve the problem there. So the goal here, having a couple of different options out there, I do want to get clarity though so I mean we can definitely help design a NOFA I think y'all said earlier for a notice of funds ability, eligibility requirements as Missy has up here just hearing some of the things that you're saying you're interested in, we can help put that together. Is that the direction you want to go with the 140 we have recommended from the general fund? I'm fine with that. The process of a NOFA from when we only have 140,000. Well. Can you give us 200 more jobs? 200 more jobs for that fund. The 140 was what you'd already budgeted for, right? So if you, I think the 200 was recommended out of ARPA, is that what I'm understanding? Yes ma'am. Okay. You have the 200 out of ARPA. But it only for a 140, whatever needs the eligibility requirements of ARPA. Yeah. And so would your intention be that you run it through this program? Is that your thought? No, I would not. You would not, okay. So you'll keep them separate. I think you should if you're gonna have to. I just want to make sure I was hearing that because I think you're right. You need to. 140 and 140. Right. So move on. Next. Thank you. Yes. Okay. So another topic, favorite conversation, is the fiscal year 2223 hospitality tax. Continue conversations with some remaining discussions. The total budget just as a reminder was 12.7 million. You have allocated to date to the hospitality tax committee, 3 million. Debt service at 2.5, transfer to general fund at 3.7. And line item agencies to date have been allocated 2.5. What is still proposed or under consideration? And these are funds, this would be funds that are included in the current year budget. Not anything above the budget that's remaining. An oversight on our part when giving council the list of recommendations from the committee was an allocation to the Carolina, Carolina Parade of 25,000. The committee's recommended 25,000. It was proposed and reviewed at timely. It just was missed whenever you were reviewing your applications in July. We still are reserving $400,000 for consideration and discussion of the cultural affairs office. The river alliance, we have an annual contract with river alliance. It's partially funded with hospitality tax in the amount of 26,000. The parts recreation foundation allocation is requested at 40,000. This is for city special events. Normally this is about a 70 to $80,000 allocation, however they have funds remaining from the prior fiscal year that they will carry forward. And some of those events were noted in your memo. Leisure fund is an annual contract that the city typically awards for an online calendar and promoting active event of different events and advertisements, that's a $10,000 contract. And recently added was consideration for a marketing and TV campaign proposal to the tune of about 28,000. Can you tell me a little bit more about the leisure calendar? So that's an online event calendar promotion promoting both events as well as promoting the community and the surrounding areas. On what platform? A website, leisure fund activity. We can send you that website. It's been around I think for a decade. Yeah, it could be. They promote the H tax organizations events as well as of course any others. So if we don't move forward with any of those proposed my items they would just go back into the hospitality tax general fund and see what it's on. Reallocated, I should say. Other than there would be obviously considerations if those things were not done. Right, right, right, yeah. So we can't vote on this today but you want us to shake our heads if we approve the suggestions of the staff to. Where does. They're not our, and I want to be clear we're not trying to suggest anything. We're just trying to give a little history on what you have done, you know what historically the money has gone towards. Just so it will. Is that cultural affairs office your proposal? Right. Which would replace something or add to something? Replace. Okay, I like that and I like the. That's coming up in a work session. Okay, so you want to. Or all of us and then sending it to. Okay, so we don't need to do it here. You want to just hold off? Yeah. Okay, and then I gotta tell you. No way I'm ever voting against the Christmas parade. Period. But the one thing I didn't see here is, is a lot making sure we have funding allotted for New Year's Eve. I have talked to a couple of private sponsors who want to, to add. It's in there. It's actually, yeah, it's on. It's not on the page. I'm looking at. It's right there. Sorry, it should be reflected here as well as under the city events. If that is the discussion, if we want to continue the $15,000 towards a fireworks program for New Year's. Yeah, I think there's some discussion about having kind of a toned down event, not with all the different rooms and that thing really just a community concert with possibly fireworks. So I think we need to make sure that we're accounting for that. Mayor, we also did not finish the allocation of the line item agencies. We funded them at their previous year's funding. And I'd like to go back and finish their request with the exception of adventure, which I think is an exceptional request. Before we jump to that for the, we haven't decided on the two communications proposed requests, right? Advertising and marketing and the leisure fund. Yeah, what was the TV marketing proposal? Yeah. Isn't there some TV show or something you wanted to do? Yeah, but that would be through experience, Columbia. I mean, we don't know Mayor, so we just put it all in here. Well, it's more than 28,000. That's why I didn't know what that was. And I would just, before we jump on that, the interview we were supposed to do today that got switched with Dennis Quay. Yeah, right. They want us to pay for that. There's a bunch of ones, two different ones. Well, that's news to me. He called to interview us. Yeah, there's actually, I think, two different. Yeah, well, I don't know. We were just trying to put a placeholder. I don't know anything about any of them, so it's... Before we jump, the 10,000 devoted towards Leisure Fund, I'd like for us, I'm all about getting events and attractions out, but we gotta visit some other options and come into the 21st century in terms of what people are actually using to get their news. So I'm fine with that $10,000 allocation, but I'd like to revisit what that would be used for and not just Leisure Fund. There's also repeated something that one Columbia does. That's a $10,000 you could use for COLA today for all of this different outreach and... Yes, Joe? The only thing I was gonna add is on the marketing and the TV campaign. I do think at some point in time, we've talked about this off and on about how do we do a campaign for appearance in Columbia so people understand that they're responsible to the curb on the sidewalks and not necessarily here. I just wanna, if we're looking at things like that, I do think as we roll in before next spring, we need some kind of idea on some kind of campaign on appearance of Columbia. And I guess just to throw in the pot, I don't know if it would qualify for hospitality, but we did talk about with the Affordable Housing Task Force literally having a campaign that all of city council is involved in, really explaining to everyday citizens why we need affordable housing and redefining affordable housing so that we can continue to grow our city. It would be lovely if that falls up under the air, but. The mutification piece we also accounted for just as a reminder to you all with the allocations made towards public works with the bigger campaign. So we were factoring in some of that for that to Mr. Taylor. And then we'll add affordable housing, you said. Ms. Herbert affordable housing campaign. And again, these are, we're just trying to give you a little history of what you have been funding. It's no one's wedded necessarily to it. Of course, the vendor for leisure fund, I think would need to be notified that if we're not doing it for this fiscal, I'm not sure what Cynthia's time process over, but. I'm not sure. Tina wouldn't know I could talk with Tina in my office about it, but I would need to get clarified. And as pointed out, these items are already lined on a sort of reflected already in the budget. Right. They're just, as Ms. Wilson's pointed out, things that we were bringing forward, other than the marketing campaign, we added that on there, it really should probably be on the next page, which is about items consideration for funding. So that went a lot, but it sounds like that, maybe a hold. I have no idea for anything about it. And then the $15,000 for fireworks would be another. You know, at this point, I can't comment. The River Alliance contract would actually come to city council for full approval, because it's as well. Right. So, but we can reallocate the $10,000 to something else. I think we need to. The desire is to not go forward with them this year. I think we need to find out what the contract is first. Yeah, we do. Are you gonna cover the line item agencies? So the next, that would be on the next couple of things. The H-Tex committee, just as a wrap up, based on the allocations that were left, if you recall from your conversations in July, the $3 million allocated for the committee still has $256,000. I do see some of the committee members are here today. And that's set for the second half of the year. A second half, what's proposed is there are a second round of applications. They are willing to serve again on the committee to review those applications. They won't give preference to. January to June. Events that weren't funded first, is that the. Correct. For events not funded, that will take place January to June. It's another application process. You're not restricting it, but you're opening it up to smaller events who may have missed the date. And just so, for my clarity, going back to the line item agencies and the additional funds, that would come out of this $256,000 as well. No, ma'am, that would come out of the $553,000 that's remaining unallocated if council wants to consider. And in the information that you received with the memo, you can see what was allocated and then what was left from the request that wasn't allocated if there's any condition. Come let's take it on the written brochure. It's in the memo, not in the slides. That's a left mind. Now just for my clarity, I think, were we supposed to get additional information? Applications about their additional request? Yeah, I believe we were supposed to get additional information about the increased amount before coming back to this. That was a request at our last work session. That's really what the project descriptions were providing, but I think that, I think you're asking for a little bit more than what's there. That's what the program was. That's what these funds would be used for. Most of these are items that would have been returning from reduced activities during COVID era, which is part of what's bringing this back because it is more in-live. Live and it's not new programmatic. It's bringing back events and activities that are in-person and re-engaging activities that were previously suspended. I think one of the discussions of last time when we went over this was we were given the general feedback that it's just about marketing for their events, and I think I was the one that requested more information because some of these are jumping $200,000 extra dollars in terms of investment, and I just wanna know what that additional money will go towards. So I don't feel like I can make a decision because we had asked for that information last time we talked about this. That's why we held off. Well, let's say the Museum of Art, they were asking for $100,000 increase on a $700,000 budget, a proposal from last year. They've had three years of almost no budget. I was gonna be generous and give them the $100,000. We approve what they got in 2122, which is $700,000. They asked for 800, balance being $100,000. So I didn't think that any of the request on the line lines were exceptional except the adventure. They're asking for $275,000 increase, and I would recommend we go with $100,000 so that Museum of Art will get $100,000. Music Festival will get $5,000. Adventure will get $100,000. Foundation, Historic Foundation will get $25,000. Historic, that's the Columbia 63's, 25, and the Historic Columbia 103. And Will, I don't know if there's 74,000 in there for one Columbia should be. That's the difference. That's moving their original approve from 2122 for. And I feel like I'd probably agree with you, but I still think it's a best practice to not just assume based on a skim or a summary from staff what this increase will be going towards. Like when you look at some, like some of them voluntarily provided a breakdown of this extra, for example, 103,000 is gonna go towards personnel, for example. I want to know what it's going towards. And more than likely, yeah, I'm fine with the increase, but this practice of us constantly just saying like, oh, it's just going towards marketing or coming back from COVID, that's making assumptions that I have nothing to back up. I do think that we said we weren't funding any more of one Columbia till we decided what we were doing and got more information because we weren't, no one told us directors change. We don't have a director in town. There's a whole lot of series and I know Will is working on this cultural office. So I think we are a hold off on that one. As it goes to the other ones, I mean, I think if we need more information, let's get it done. The money's there, it's not going anywhere between now and next week or the week after. I defer what the majority of council wants to do. The only one that I would say is I don't know that we should give it venture 275. I do agree with that. Columbia 63, yeah. No, that's not 25. That's 25. Heritage Tourism has the historic Columbia. Historic Columbia was the 103, not SC 63. Right, they're right. They're running through Historic Columbia. I would just recommend. Okay, so you want to put this off until next Tuesday and see if we can get some information until then? Well, I was just going to recommend to following, unless we see something glaring and we want to point it out, go ahead and funding based on the committee's recommendations. Which we have done except for the line item. The committee doesn't review the line item agents. This is our decisions. Right, and I would point out for one Columbia, the other 74,000 is actually the one Columbia contract to split between hospitality tax and state accommodations. So on the state accommodations conversation that is coming up next, you'll see the request of the other balance of their contract request of 158. I don't know that we reviewed and approved a new contract. You haven't received a new contract yet. And we haven't approved anything so we don't need to talk about allocating funding. But it was only one year. It was only through June. It's actually expired June. So we're actually, this would actually fund the contract that they would need today for July. So it was, and yes, everything that we're discussing is included as a part of the current year budget, not anything from, this is all in there. Right, and I would say that you would add as a part of the unallocated if you're considering additional allocations to the line of agencies, if we're gonna consider funding for the fireworks that may come here unless there's some of the 10,000 from the, depending upon what we do with the other. So, that'd be it. So we would add, that would come from the 553 here. We'll provide you the additional, that's what we did last year. For what we did, because it was just the fireworks. I mean, we may need to get better quotes. No bad events, it was just. How about giving it a bit of a. I mean, it wasn't, you know, it just wasn't like. So the year before was the full, famously hot New Year's, which was 100,000. That paid for the band outside of their additional, they got sponsorships, but that paid for bands, activities, things like this. We would need to determine who would actually do the fireworks. We'd have to determine who would actually put on the fireworks show. I'd be fine with that. It's not burning a hole in anybody's pocket. It's in the budget. You're getting ready to get over. We own a billion. I'm following instruction. Missy, Missy on this, on this thing. We would ask you to probably look at raising the Columbia Museum of Art, their number. Okay. Can I ask for a little, the same thing, add their capital campaign number? Can I have a moment? Can I have a moment while y'all look at this to just take a moment out from this deep thought discussion that we're having and turn the floor over to the Chief for one minute, if you would mind. And I introduce you to Orlando Santos Madura. Okay, Santos is pulling security downstairs to keep everybody safe up here, as we speak. Orlando is assigned to the traffic unit, but I have the privilege of giving him his 10-year service pin. And what I'd like to say about, we do these service pen and these service anniversary dates, and all the time we do them at Command Staff. We did it last week, and he pulled a night shift and couldn't make it. But they're more significant now than I think that they've ever have been. In particular, these five-year and 10-year service pens show a commitment to an agency that has been through a lot in that time period. This young man is the epitome of professional all the time. He has the best attitude. Talk about an ambassador for our department with our young officers and being a mentor and then with our public. This is a guy. He represents us in the highest of standards all the time. He was the very first person I met after accepting this job. We were the local cleaners doing our laundry together, and he introduced himself. But I'm very privileged to be a fellow police officer with him. Our profession's all about congratulations on 10 years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Steak dinners on the cheek. One more. They're having a smile. I can't afford it. They won't afford me my money. Okay, so this collective brain trust here has come with a solution here so that we can give staff direction so they can move on and we can get to all the other important business that we have before us. Is there a consensus here? Yes. Could we clarify what that consensus is? Well, I'm about to ask Mr. DeVall because he seemed very confident. Joe, you do it. You got 63 stays at 175,000. Does that mean they don't need it? I mean, there may be administrative costs to it, but are you saying that they don't need it? Well, that is for the two of us. That's the two of us and everything. Well, I just want to make sure I know why we were distinguishing them with the other ones. Right. Yeah. Yeah, can we get more information? We can always revisit it. What about it? We can answer that question. So can y'all go back through that one more time, please? Tell further information. Zeroed out, meaning you're not approving they're 83-88 anymore? We're not approving. No, the additional one. The additional one. Okay, all right. They're getting no additional funding. And then do you want to also include in that 15,004 towards the fireworks program? If we know that's the number, I think we just hold what's left until we can get. Figure out what, right. Yes, ma'am. I think we'll need some. Fireworks. I'd like to be on the record that we're going to do something for new years, Mr. Mayor. We'll come back to you with a record. I'm not so sure 15's enough. I would suggest 25. Can you put 25 to hold? Yeah. So we will include on them next week your budget. You're not amending anything. These funds are in your budget. You're just approving where they're allocated. And just on the fireworks, just allocate it to new years. Okay, I will. And then also too, the items that were discussed on this other line, with exception of the marketing campaign, the others will keep on there as well. We'll get in for additional information. We're still holding the funds for the discussion that Mr. Brennan's bringing for. Right. The River Alliance, yeah. We're holding all those. No, we're doing those other than leisure fund. Well, leisure fund is, either way, it's just, it's still as a matter of the contract being reviewed by. Right, okay. So we're just holding. We're holding the cultural office. It's just to hold in the budget. We're holding leisure funds and we're holding marketing. That's correct. Is that, everybody's clear? I just, regardless, before we make final decisions, I want more information. Like these are great numbers, but I mean, I wanna know about the 25,000 and what they're gonna do with the additional money before Tuesday. We can provide you the application. Okay, moving on to state accommodations tax. The total budget was 2.6 million. You have allocated, as per state law, $25,000 comes straight off the top to the general fund. 5% is for general purpose activities, which 5% of the 95% available for allocation is 131, of which 40,000 has been allocated for community professions. And then the ATACs committee was allocated, the allocations for the ATACs committee was 9.75 million. What's still under consideration is one Columbia has requested remaining amount of 74,000. Why is that in both categories? Their contract was split between hospitality tax and accommodations tax several years ago for their full funding. Okay, we're gonna hold that at this point. Yeah, we gave them half an ATACs, we're gonna hold the rest until we decide what happens with the cultural office that Mr. Brennan's been working on. And then the unallocated allowance of 527,000 for the 65% tourism is still just a hold. The only thing that was really for consideration today, I believe, is whether or not to move forward with allocation for one Columbia, unless there are additional allocations for the two groups receiving funds from accommodations tax committee. I think we just hold on to the unallocated remaining balance at this point. And then if something comes up, further discussion, some event, or something we have something to go to. Or Mr. Mayor, we can use that in next year's capital budget. Yeah, I think we just wait and see at this point. I don't think we're in a hurry to spend that money. Moving on, city council special events. These are activities of events and programs that have city council has sponsored or promoted or encouraged over recent years. Prior city council, city council. These are some activities just looking for some direction moving forward. This includes the mayor's walk for domestic against domestic violence that is held in October. The costs that are on here are what has been average spend. And with this event specifically, this is if the event is held in person, if it's held virtually, the cost is significantly reduced. The breast cancer awareness breakfast. Which I'll tell you that for the breast cancer, that we are making a full campaign to bring in the community and really kind of build that up. Our goal is really to pay for this next piece of equipment. That's a $50,000 equipment. So our goal is really to raise funds and get the community behind it. The event will happen at the Boyd Plaza this year. So I'm really excited about there and Erica has done an incredible job of putting a sponsorship package and reaching out. Traditionally, council has taken money out of their expense accounts to put towards it. But I do think the base funding, so if we have some extra funding that we can put towards it, obviously, we would appreciate that. The mayor's walk against domestic violence I think is very important, especially today with the uptick that we've seen in violence. And I would encourage us to continue to move forward with that. We just addressed the New Year's E-Fire works right there. So we've got that. And then the Women's Heart Disease Awareness Campaign also has been one that we've done traditionally and I think we should. Now I see there's a new diabetes event. Do we have any type of idea yet? So I guess for this, Madam City Manager, how do you recommend us handling that moving forward? Diabetes awareness event or all of them? All of them, because all of them, we haven't allocated those funds yet unless you have built them in magically. We are assuming you would want to move forward with them so we can definitely handle them at this level. So but the 15 we just took care of so that kind of changes that number, correct? Correct, right. So we're really talking about, depending on, you know, 16,000. But yeah, 15 or 16, I think that's perfect if we'll budget that. That'll give some funding to see the diabetes awareness event, which I think will be based on what our numbers look like in our community, a great investment. Yes, for diabetes. Yes, for diabetes? Oh, okay. No, no, we raise the money for the breast cancer thing to pay for it. No, we're not allocating. Do we need to add anything about it? We're not, we're not. Do we say domestic violence? This'll be live. This'll be the first year in three years, right? Yes, ma'am. The 8,000 covers the in-person life, okay. And then we'll add 15 for the potential of some type of diabetes. Well, I think what, to know ma'am, I think what we're talking about is the whole budget being around, we're gonna allocate some of the 15,000 from that, you can't put 15,000 in one event. That was his request. I thought that's what I heard. Well, I know what you thought you heard, but the reality is that's not what it was. Of course, I mean, yes. What you're saying, though, is that out of the... Yeah, because we've funded the fireworks separately. I mean, that's fine. Yeah, because if you're getting 15, I gotta wait, I got breast cancer breakfast. November. So is the consensus then to build around the 315? Yes, ma'am, and whatever's left over, we'll reallocate it to something else. Yes, ma'am. Or the balance around what? Whatever, if we have leftover, we can move it because something will pop up. Got it. So the next items are recaps just for clarification and redlining those things. We initially gave to city council a list of proposed items at last week's council meeting. We wrapped up rather quickly and just wanted to point out those things that had been discussed and reflected changes from the original list. Most specifically, allocation for Finlay Park from Fund Balance, Congru Vista, as well as Hospitality Tax Fund Balance. The Parks and Recreation Master Plan was reduced to 100,000. The Catherine Belfeld Teaching Kitchen Grant Match. There is a tentative ward of 1.2 million, so this would be the grant match should that grant come to fruition. Of course, once we get a grant, we need to be able to act quickly to be able to allocate those funds. I had just missed the conversations from the original list. There's also been a request to include Soluta Greenway bathrooms that are needed, so we've recommended funding for the bathrooms from the Congru Vista allocation. And then the Assembly Street grade separation in the quiet zone are not new items. They just been previously shown to be allocated from Fund Balance. We're putting them here because as we put together the budget amendment, we wanted you to reflect to see that this will be the part of how Council actually takes the action to approve those allocations for those activities. The only other change was to the proposed and planned programs to include the allocation for the homeless coordinator, of which we will also make an additional allocation potentially from American Rescue Plan funds once we have a more defined number to include there. And then of course, pointing out the Cultural Affairs Office really would not be a part of a budget amendment because it's already included in the budget, but it was just pointed here, brought forward as a list for City Council as part of your discussions. When the budget amendment comes forward, the majority of these allocations will be allocated to our capital projects. Some of these items are actually line item or operating costs, so they will be amending the actual line item budgets. Any questions or concerns about the capital, post-capital or city manager funding recommendations? Going once, going twice, no comment. Of course, this does include the office. Congratulations, you survived. We got one more. Here, I knew it was too good to be true. Just to clarify, there's nothing new. This is just restarting some existing prior information, maybe clarifying a little bit more. I don't know if Jeff, you want to come up or if you just want to talk through to see if there's any specific questions? You got the votes, Jeff. Don't say much. They say thank you and let's, on a new word I learned today, can we concretize this right here? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well, Jeff, if you're gonna use it now, say it right. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. So what makes the house included in the budget? I'm gonna say it about effort three hours. Ha ha ha ha ha. I cannot wait to make my edisms, poster. Thank you, sir. Might be a bestseller on Amazon. So unless we have questions, if y'all want I can walk back through. This is the total funding for Finley Park and the renovations. Total was 21,500,000 is the budget. Last year, y'all proved 1,500,000 out of hospitality tax. A lot of that has been utilized towards design. This current year, the state has allocated an additional $1 million. As Missy showed y'all, we're also looking at using general fund cash, the conga revista cash and hospitality cash. That's total cash in grants, 8,500,000 there. So that leaves us a balance of 10,500,000. So we're taking, we'll set up a five year loan that'll be payable not out of this year's budget but in next year's budget coming out of tourism development fee and state accommodations tax. The total is approximately 2.5 million each year. It'll be a five year loan and in five years we're done. Great. Thank you. Well done. My question, again. So I don't see where the 3.5 is reflected in our hospitality presentation. The entire conversation about hospitality tax. The prior conversation about hospitality tax was part of, was already included your 22,23 budget. Everything discussed here is out of the fund balance of hospitality tax. So we will be amending the hospitality tax budget to include these as a part of the hospitality tax budget for allocation to this specific project. And this does not include if there's any future income stream to the city from a user of a family park. But there's a mixed use development, whether it's a- You're correct. That does not include, it's not correct. You're absolutely correct, Mr. Brenna. Hey, before we sign off, I got a text from our clerk who's in the eye and the sky. Could somebody restate the recommendation she couldn't hear them clearly for the hospitality tax a lot? All right, Missy, can you make sure she gets that? Erica, you hear that? Wave to us through the camera. These are subject to change, right? Given more information. I'll get you the information. Thank you. I am not committing to anything but I know everybody else's recommendation. We will have your vote by next year. And if we don't, it'll be a six one and we'll move on. Yeah. So it's a chance for us to do it. I mean, you guys are talkatized. Thank you, Missy. Thank you, Miss Wilson. You're welcome. Hey, look at that. Thank you all very much. It's quarter to five and we made it. Very good. Great job. Thank y'all so much. Undebatable motion to adjourn. Yes. Good job.