 and welcome to City View, where we bring you an inside view of the City of Columbia. I'm your host, Alicia Utsi. In our top story for City View, we would like to inform you of the results from the City of Columbia's municipal election. The Mayor-elect is Councilman Daniel Rickerman, who again now will be known as Mayor-elect Daniel Rickerman. Also, we have new incoming council members. Councilman-elect Joe Taylor for District 4, Councilwoman-elect Tina Herbert for District 1, and also, at-large Councilwoman-elect Aditi Bustles. All council members, including the Mayor-elect, will be sworn in on January 4th. For details regarding the swearing-in ceremony, please continue to watch City TV and check in on our website at columbisc.gov and follow us on our social media platforms for more information. The City of Columbia held the 43rd annual Veterans Day Parade on Thursday, November 11th. The parade started at Suffer Street in downtown Columbia. Known as one of the largest Veterans Day Parades in the southeast, the parade featured active and retired military personnel, military vehicles, supporting organizations, and local high school bands and JROTC programs, as well as local elected officials. The parade included representatives from the South Carolina National Guard, who served as the marshals for this year. Thanks to everyone who came out and for supporting the City of Columbia's 43rd annual Veterans Day Parade. In addition to military personnel and other organizations, the parade also included local public safety departments, including our own Columbia Police Department and the Columbia Richland Fire Department. A few days prior to the parade, the police department was also featured during a very special press conference. Police Chief Skip Holbrook and Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin offered a first-hand look at the city's real-time crime and emergency operations center. This press conference highlighted the city's continued technology efforts and data-driven intelligence to prevent and reduce crime in our city and the community at large. We are extremely excited about this real-time crime center. We think it's gonna be very impactful on our efforts to reduce violent crimes. I cannot say enough about the investment that Ms. Wilson has put into the police department in these efforts and the support of the mayor leading in charge with counsel to make sure we have the best tools and the best technology that's available to help us do our job. Later on the same day as the city's press conference, Chief William Skip Holbrook and Deputy Chief Melron Kelly were both surprised by the city manager and city council with a very special pinning ceremony. The pinning recognized and commemorated all of the long-standing accomplishments and longevity of both men and their contributions to public safety. Skip Holbrook received his fourth star and Deputy Chief Kelly received his third star. Both were pinned by their wives and honorlookers were there as well as family members for both of the law enforcement officials. The Columbia Richeson Fire Department was also making headlines this past month for their outstanding work in the city. Recently, four firefighters with the department will recognize for their quick and decisive action when they took a surprise 911 call earlier in October. On Friday October 8th, the crew on engine 11 responded to a call of a woman who had gone into labor. Not too long after their arrival, the firefighters delivered little miss Ellie Dempsey into the world weighing seven pounds and eight ounces. A huge shout-out goes out to members of the Columbia Richeson Fire Department engine 11, including fire captain David Cooper, engineer Devon Ash, firefighter Shannon Peters, and firefighter David Pelvic. It was a it was a really welcome site and the way y'all handled everything and even just being as conscious as to once you know everything was good and everything like that um you know asking if i wanted to bring in you know Zoe and see that mommy was okay and you know the baby sister was okay and everything like that i i cannot thank y'all enough and you know i'm you know in the army and i'm all about family too and you know y'all families are like and so we'll see you at the uh the birthday party. The city of columbia's payment and customer care center has a new location. In October the city of columbia held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new payment and customer care center now located at 3000 Harden street. The payment center allows you to pay bills for water and sewer solid waste for commercial customers and parking tickets. In addition to the payment center the customer care center staff are also on site to assist customers as needed. They will be able to assist you with bills regarding water and sewer, establishing service and disconnecting service and reconnecting service bill and account inquiries and reporting maintenance concerns. Many of our citizens still like and we do too that firsthand experience and so when this opportunity presented itself to create a new and better payment center in our city we jumped upon that in our our very forward thinking thinking mayor and council embrace the idea and I always appreciate them for um thinking that way and and knowing that many times that those touch points with our citizens require us to move in a different way and think big and figure out how to get it done. In addition to the new payment center the city's parks and recreation department held a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new structure and equipment at T.S. Martin park located at 2700 Edison street. New structures include a covered shade structure, basketball courts, a jungle gym, a climbing apparatus and walking trails. So some of the amazing play elements you see around us you see the physics full moon climbing area the bamboo climbing jungle, the multi-level elephant play, basketball tree with five hoops asphalt basketball court, a walking perimeter play path and of course a shade center with sight amenities we hope and pray to see many families out here enjoying this amazing space. Again really proud of these play elements in phase one because T.S. Martin Park is one of the very first parks in the entire country that happened. So again thank you everyone for taking this this vision cast so many years ago and manifesting it in such a meaningful way. City Manager Theresa Wilson recently served as the luncheon welcome speaker for the National Association of Women in Construction South Atlantic Legion. Their fall conference was held here in Columbia at the Hilton on Bush River Road. During the speech City Manager Wilson welcomed attendees and spoke about the city's leadership in the midst of a crisis navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. I love when I can take the opportunity to showcase our leadership. Men and women but of course as a female leader myself I want to always put that shine on our women professionals in the city because we have so many and they're doing so many great things. I certainly could not do my job every day without our team and many of those members of the team are some very high-performing women and so I'm so excited to take the opportunity to showcase them today. Well Columbia that wraps up this edition of City View. As we wrap up the show we want to leave you with some sights and sounds and footage from the 43rd annual Veterans Day Parade. Thank you for watching and staying engaged in our city. To watch more of what is going on in the City of Columbia tune in to City TV on Spectrum Channel 1301. Streaming devices including Roku and Amazon Fire TV and our City YouTube channel. Please continue to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and also visit our website at columnsc.gov for more information. Thank you and remember we are Columbia.