 Hello, Columbia, and welcome to CityView, where we bring you an inside view of the city of Columbia. I'm your host, Lisha Utsi. In our top story, Mayor Daniel J. Rickenman, along with Columbia City Council members and city leaders, joined at the site of Finlay Park for a groundbreaking ceremony, which marks the renovation of the site. I want y'all today to really take time. Walk around here and look around, because the next time you see this park open to the public, it's gonna blow your mind, and Todd, that's that. The second person we got acknowledged is former Council member Joe Taylor. Joe helped us figure out how to finance this thing in a short period, so we could get it done. And of course, I want it to be the envy of all parks again, the crown jewel, as Mayor Rickenman described. An essential asset of the planning for and design of the revitalized Finlay Park is devoted to public safety and ensuring that everyone who uses this park will respect the integrity of its public recreational partner. This park is a community's effort. A community's effort, not my effort, not the Mayor's effort, or anybody else's effort. This is a community's effort to expand what we're doing here in this park. A new stage, a concert, a place where children can come and really be impacted by other folks' presence. In another very special ceremony, Columbia City Council members, along with City Council members from West Columbia, South Carolina, joined for the naming of Joe E. Taylor, Junior Way. But Joe told me something several years ago and I've never forgotten it. He said, you know, God bless me with two hands and I'm gonna use one of them to support my family and I'm gonna need the other one to support our community and people. He loved this community more than anything else. He chose to bridge the gap between West Columbia and Columbia as the start of a regional approach because he believed we were stronger as a region together than we were separated and he saw that. He knew our biggest negative as a region was collaboration and he did everything in his power to pull that together. For art lovers, Mayor Daniel J. Rickman recently announced the Columbia Streams Art Project that will be held across the city of Columbia. As we launch Columbia Stream Art, a multi-faceted art program designed to engage Columbia's creative community by inviting local artists and students to express their imaginations through unique projects to display throughout our city. The program aims to celebrate Columbia's unique access to our three rivers, but also captures student, local arts creativity by bringing together our diverse communities. There are multiple streams coming together to make up public art initiative. The first are our leaping trout sculptures. We have the first fish here today that was painted by our Columbia Art Studio. Here for the announcement and his house at City Hall. Moving over to our Office of Business Opportunities, which was recently a sponsor, along with the city of Columbia, for the annual Women's Empowerment Conference. And it's very important as women are 51% of the state of South Carolina and a big part of our community. We've celebrated this month by having more women-owned businesses open up in Columbia, South Carolina than we've ever had in our lifetime. Let's give some hands for that. Women are the backbone of our community, the creativity, moms, teachers, professionals, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, the glue that keeps families together. It's the time of year for the Mayor's annual Isabelle Law Breast Cancer Awareness Breakfast. That breakfast was held recently and there was a great turnout to support this very worthy cause. Incredible, named after the incredible person dedicated and put more passion, serving advocate for folks battling breast cancer. Not only from nine to five, but from five to nine, she was there all the time. Weekends and nights with everybody holding their hand. And it's just an incredible role model for us on how important it is to be part of the community. As we've been moving around the city, talking at our town halls, talking about being a piece of the puzzle. Isabelle Law was the original piece of the puzzle. She touched more lives. So y'all, let's give her a hand because I know she's watching, making sure that we keep moving forward and we keep supporting the patients in their journey. And speaking of worthy causes, the Mayor's Walk Against Domestic Balance was also recently held. And Mayor Daniel J. Rickerman, along with leaders from across the Midlands, joined to lend their voices to awareness against domestic violence. And we wanna make sure that everyone has the opportunity to know that there are resources, there are signs, there are folks here to support you and help you get through it. And we hope that we'll work together as a community to push back, make sure that folks know that there are advocates here, their survivors, their support groups, their services, not only through law enforcement, but through agencies, sister care, on here to make sure that we... Leading up to the Mayor's Walk Against Domestic Violence, there were also some events held sponsored by the city's public relations, media and marketing department. The events were named Sister Care Saturdays. These events included dunk tank fundraisers and also a toiletry drive from the Sister Care wish list that was held throughout the month of September. Mayor Pro Tem Edward Dowell recently held a press conference along with community leaders at the Katharine and Belfill Brooklyn Washington Heights Cultural Arts Center to announce the Little Library Project. Cutting this ribbon, you are providing each one of our children who enters this room, this building, giving them seeds of hope by reading this book. So thank you South Carolina Center for Fathers. And now in other business news, the Office of Business Opportunities along with the Economic Development Office have recently been hosting several ribbon cuttings and grant openings for businesses in our city. Businesses this month in the city of Columbia. Thing for our community, but also it really shows that Columbia supports small businesses and continues to support it. You have all folks know, being a former restaurateur, I'm a little bit of a foodie, so I like to eat. It's not good for my waistline, but I enjoy it tremendously and so excited to try the table side with some friends and family down here on Main Street who has continued to grow. But as Matt said, it's always great to see a retail space get converted into a space that creates a whole lot of activity for our community and having a restaurant here just adds to all the attributes that are on Main Street. As we continue to push for more living downtown, we wanna make sure we have more options and so excited y'all chose to be here. When you watch somebody's dream come out and it started off with a thought and idea, a napkin, hey, we're gonna do this and then suddenly there are pop-ups happening and there's this little buzz going and the next thing you know, they're replicating what for me is coming home. Both my parents moved here from Switzerland in 1967. My entire family lives overseas other than myself and my immediate family here. So growing up, I spent a lot of time overseas and walking in here just reminds me of spending time with my family. A part of your culture from Jamaica, you brought it here to Columbia and for that we are grateful and thankful. This is going to be an exciting time in the life of our city. When our city grows, everything within the bounds of the city grows. Thank you for watching City View when we bring you an inside view of the City of Columbia. We hope you've enjoyed this program and if you're looking for more news and information, please stay tuned to City TV. Also follow us on our various social media platforms and visit our website at columbiasc.gov. Remember, we are Columbia and together we make it a greater city.