 the Health, Social, and Environmental Affairs Committee. Madam Clerk, please note that all three of us are present. And we will, what? All three. All three. We will move right in. We have a pretty full agenda and looking forward to discussing the different topics that touch the three major concepts that are a part of this committee. We'll start with our senior resources, Lurie Center Unification Proposal. This is a follow-up conversation to a agenda item that was presented a couple of months ago about potentially looking at ways in which we can support some of the work that the Lurie Center is doing with seniors as it relates to their health. So I will invite Mr. Andrew Boozer, as well as Councilman Brennan, to give us an update on what they are proposing. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Fussells, appreciate it. Wow, it's been two months since we were given the task to go figure something out. In that 60 days, our good friends at Senior Resources approached us and came up with a wonderful solution to meet our needs of not just the city's health and workers, but also for the Lurie Center. So Andrew Boozer from Senior Resources, which is the local aging agency for Richland County, has come up with a fantastic proposal. I want to say this lift than what I had envisioned, bringing the Lurie Center in under the Parks and Rec banner and the programming in under the networking and the grant capability that Senior Resources has, not only at a federal level, but a state level, can make this a true long-term partnership. This is a work in progress, but an agreement, getting on board by the city for this ARPA funding mechanism will go a long way. That happened not only with the Lurie Center, but also with our colleagues at the county. I'm gonna turn it over to Andrew and I'm here for any questions. Thank you, Councilman Brennan. I'm Andrew Boozer. I'm the Executive Director at Senior Resources and honored to speak with you today and continue the conversation that started, I think back in February. But really since COVID and we do have different audiences, primary audiences and we have different funding streams. So we have been independent since the Lurie Center was founded in the early 90s Senior Resources since the late 60s. We've been two separate organizations. As the Lurie Center over the winter months began looking for strategic partnerships, they turned to us and also to the city to look for possible solutions to Senior Resources and our board. This was very well received. Because we have such similar missions and such similar main goals that we want to approach. And so we've been exploring with their leadership and with our leadership opportunities up to and included maybe even a full merger. Nothing's final. The two boards are still working together on possibilities. There's items like property inspections, legal and financial reviews that are still in process. But we're working together of this goal of a unification hopefully by this summer if things go according to plan. So following the committee's meeting here back in February, Mr. Brent and I spoke and have been in communication about potential alternatives than the city running the Lurie Center, which was brought up at that meeting. And the Senior Resources has, we've drafted a pro forma budget on what that might look like as a unified organization. This budget sees savings, particularly in overhead. And so the programming to the dollars that are allocated to the Lurie Center can be more directly put straight into programming than is currently. The goal is that this would increase the programming and would also increase the impact that the center has on the citizens, the senior citizens in Columbia to make a more livable city in a more attractive location for seniors. Both those who are living there now and the wave of retirees that we are seeing coming to Richland County and to Columbia specifically as people move into our communities. So with adequate funding, it's our goal at Senior Resources to create a new base membership model that would be free and open to all city residents over the age of 55 to the Lurie Centers. They would not have to pay a monthly membership due to have basic access. This would open up the basic access for services, things that would supplement and then have additional supplemental membership if they wanted professional classes that required a certified instructor, things like that or access to the gym. There would be some monthly fees associated with the membership, but everybody over the age of 55 would get similar to a library card, a senior resources card that would get access to the building. This would increase access to things like the broadband computer lab and open Wi-Fi for guests, all for evidence-based classes for disease prevention, those are things like arthritis, diabetes, dementia, and also just social isolation reduction, things to keep seniors involved in the community, small groups, crafts, games, lunch and learns, things like that. This program would not replace any existing senior resources offerings. So our senior centers, our seniors that meet over at the Tilla Center off of Hardin Street and elsewhere around the county, this would not be replacing anything, this would be in addition to what senior resources currently offers. We have had funding conversations with the city, with the county and also with private sources, and those are underway and I sent a funding request to the mayor last week and my understanding is the committee has seen a copy of that. The current draft budget of a unified organization includes $150,000 a year for three years through this transition period. Our goal is that after this three-year transition period the organization will be able to transform and really revitalize what the lawyer center is in our community and bring additional revenue streams and sustainability. So in three years from now we're not having the same conversation. Senior resources is the contracted council and aging for Richland County, as Mr. Brennan mentioned. So we have access to state and federal funding through the State Department on Aging and its source and that's how we do, the majority of the services that we currently do in our community is through that service. But we also have a fully staffed marketing and fundraising department, something the lawyer center has not been able to put into place that can really actively promote the center for increased use, but also for increased revenues whether that's through earned income like paid memberships or registrations or event rentals, but also through philanthropy and writing grants. Additionally, senior resources have the capabilities to contract with popular healthcare plans that often have programs in it for seniors specifically to go to senior centers and the senior centers are compensated for every visit because that is preventative healthcare for those seniors so that they don't have to go access doctors much more costly visits to the doctor. So we have the capability to do that to get some additional revenue that's not currently there. These programs are gonna take time to fully develop if this all comes to fruition, but we want to move with haste to bring those in as quickly as possible. And so that's why we are working quickly on this to provide a solution. I wanna present to you today and take any questions, but I really hope this committee will consider it and endorse this proposal and this venture and as we are walking together with the senior resources board and the lawyer center leadership and board on this new unification strategy. You have any questions? Yeah, one of the questions I have given that you all are the contracted council on aging for Richland County. Have you talked about this potential unification with Richland County council to take on some of the cost over the next three years? So we have had some preliminary conversation with some council members. The Lori center currently through their leadership have a request in for funding from county council as has been the case really since they were founded that the county is involved. So those through budget season right now the county are still underway and we've had some preliminary conversations with some council members, not to the detail. This is the first committee that has received a full briefing like this. Do you have a 180,000 for the committee? Correct, so for the last number of years Richland County has supported the Lori center at $180,000 per year. Now we're looking at, I'm sorry. Go ahead. 180,000, now we're looking at 150 over three years. In addition to that. In addition, yeah. So that is not in addition to the 180. We have in some of the preliminary conversations with council and with senior resources our own request in to county. We recognize that the county has changed a little bit of their budgeting for nonprofits and community impacts of recognizing that. We realized that 180,000 may be more than what is feasible for this year. That is still the hope and requests, but we recognize that that may not be a feasible number this year. So as a sign of good faith, we felt like if we could go a third, a third, a third where we all have similar investment in this opportunity that would be a way, a path forward. Let me ask a question, madam chair. Yep. How close are we towards emerging the two? Sure. So we talked about that a little bit. Yes, absolutely. How close are we? So both the senior resources board and the lawyer center board have had meetings about this, have had individual conversations. There's a letter of intent that has been drafted by Nelson Mullins to help with the legal strategies on that. There's a senior resources board meeting this week. The lawyer center board again meets in May. And so between this week with the senior resources board, again, things have been perceived well. We've got a few outstanding items to do, mostly on the property inspection, but things are progressing along well, still some to be determined. But from my perspective and everything that I know, things that are moving along well with a target goal from both entities by July one to have things pulled together. Councilman Dua. Thank you, madam chair. I'm very interested in senior services. I'm sure. I'm very interested in these two organizations because I've worked with both of them. And the lawyer center has been struggling for a number of years. I know that the senior resources does a great job. I've had the pleasure of taking the meals out one time with my daughter. And that was a very educational trip for us to take all the meals out and see how the families reacted to knocking on the door and handing them the meals that they use. I'm very supportive of this. I think that this is a solution to a problem that we've been facing for the number of years. And I know through our conversations at the central Midlands Council of Government that the aging services in the Midlands Council of Government area is under review. And I think that they understand that we're very much under utilizing funds from the federal source for the aging population in the central Midlands Council of Government area. So I think if we can commit these ARPA funds for three years that we will see some changes in your funding streams through central Midlands cog also. I'm very supportive of it. Yeah, so my, you know, my first reaction is I think that this is a great strategy to, you know be able to meet a need that has clearly been around for a while and we're trying to figure out a solution for that. I am in favor if we are able to use ARPA funds because the general fund is limited. So I think my question would be to Assistant City Manager and to our staff is it possible to commit for the next three years given that there are certain time constraints to the ARPA funding? I don't want to get to the point where the third year we have to start, you know pulling from other sources. So if we can guarantee that it is ARPA I am in full support to getting this to larger Council to vote on it. So Dr. Buzzers, we'll have to look into that. If we look into that yet, I don't know that. We have, I think that what it turns on is what the, what Richland County does. Because even if you all do the, you are one third of what Andrew's proposing and even if you commit for three years for the ARPA funds and I'm thinking what I'm hearing Andrew saying is by the third year you're hoping you have a sustainable model where the local governments could hopefully back away anyway. So yes, we've looked at ARPA funds eligibility. Yes, we think you can do that but I wouldn't want to commit just the city because you still have the ability of Richland County to do their share as well. And I was hoping that being that they had always done the 180 which is a little bit more than what you're asking to the Lurie Center, that that would be great if they would just keep that model, maybe dial it back to 150 and they would be able to also participate. And just add to the line item for senior resources that's already there. Yeah, and that was, and you just read my mind. My thing is also, you know we can't just be the only ones when this benefits Richland County as well to be investing, that's not to say I don't think this is a wonderful cause and we shouldn't be involved but they have to partner as well. So another potential avenue that I may recommend to this committee is we commit for the first year and see if we're able to match, get Richland to match and if those conversations go anywhere and then take it year by year, it's not ideal but I think it's important that they are also at the table. Sure, that was certainly my hope and intent and it is a little bit of someone's got to take the first step forward. So I appreciate the great feedback from the committee today. I will certainly share that with the county conversations that I have and my invitation would be for anyone at the city that could also communicate that. I would encourage you to help me. Councilman McDowell. What's the timing for us, Will? Yes. Do we need to get it back to the council in May? Well, we need to, we have to be in May. We need to take this. Well, what I would love to see is a general support, kind of a letter of interest from us to go to the county to say, hey, we're committed to one, two years of this, one, two, three years of this through ARPA Fund. Can we change up the funding levels for our aging agency to meet this? Because again, the Lori Center line item which they fight for every year, the 180 gets rolled into the easier lift with senior resources. We just need, like to Andrew's point, we just need to be the first one to start the conversation. I've had conversations with a few council members. So as Andrew, I think they're wanting to learn more about it. And since that line item, that budget line item mechanism is already there, might be the easiest way. Go ahead. Andrew, just let me say, I think we're headed in the right direction. No question about that. How we configure that is the process. The process is very, very important. I support it. Anytime we can configure services around seniors and I think Howard is very clear when he says, he's a senior and he's good person, aren't you? He's very interested. And he's very interested. He just turned 80, so this directly makes sense. They're very interested. So it's extremely important to continue this ball, to continue to roll forward. The conversations for bringing these two together continues, it makes it stronger and the resources stronger. So yes, I think we're on the right track. And if we could continue this with some kind of permanency, I think the end of the game is that our seniors are going to be served. Andrew, what's the population of Columbia residents over the age of 55, if you had to. So we have a little higher percentage than normal. Last I saw, I don't know if the new census numbers in there are somewhere around 14 to 15% of the population falls over the age of 65. That's above national average and it is trending up. So would you say 25,000-ish? Yes. Senior power. And to the point of migration of age across the country, there's going to be more seniors than youth by 2034. In South Carolina, that's 2030 because not only is our population aging, but as I mentioned in my presentation, more and more people are finding South Carolina and Columbia to be home in the retirement years. And so when I look at a competitive analysis between our other municipalities in the state, we have some room to grow in this area because we do not have that full service, one entity that really has the space the seniors can gather when they're able to get out in the community and walk uphill or when they do need to be home and they need a meal delivered to the home or someone to come in to help. And this would put it all under one umbrella. So a senior when they move here or when they reach that age that they need help reaches out to senior resources and can stay in that same organizational and be passed warmly from one service to another without having to try to navigate that outside of these systems. That's helpful. So my recommendation to the committee is that we move forward with recommending that we do a letter of interest to County Council and let them know that we are open to funding up to three years, but that will be contingent on them also coming to the table and doing the same. And I think that way it's fair and it's also just in terms of making sure that both entities are helping out our senior population that really could use some of these services. Is that okay? Councilman DeVall and I'll take that as a motion and I'll second your motion. Go. Let's go forward. All right, very good. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your affirmation of this concept and we'll be doing everything on our end to make this solution happen. Thank you, Andrew. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. I made the motion and Councilman DeVall seconded and I think we are unanimous and... You're unanimous. Yes. And then just wanted to note the ARPA question as well. Okay. All right, well, we will move right into our next agenda item. ACM Shealy, I don't know if you wanna open this one up but this is something we heard a little bit about at a work session a couple of months ago about the Ready for 100 Resolution. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And I'll invite two of our members of CPAC if they'd like to join us at the table and then Robert or Mayor Pat, Mayor Pat, you wanna come up or one of y'all wanna come up with us, Mayor Pat? Join us as well. So welcome, appreciate y'all coming. Yes, ma'am, the... I do, I believe I do, I'm impressed. Yeah, it's been probably two months ago Bob came and with several CPAC members and delivered kind of an update on what CPAC has been doing and one of the highlights of that presentation was talking about this Resolution 2.0 which staff has been working with the committee quite a bit on and so you got a copy... Hold on really good. Can we silent all side conversations, please? So you've got a copy of the proposed resolution in your PAC and I think also being passed around and for background also the Ready for 100 Base Resolution from 2017, I believe it was Mayor Pat. So kind of setting the table but that was basically at that time our Mayor and Council committing to clean energy goals by 2036. And so some of the conversation has been, wow, it's 2022 or probably 2021, that's 2022. Now it's 2023, 2036 is gonna be here real quick. What are we doing? What are some tangible steps that we can take? And so the CPAC group, we got some grant funding, we hired Dr. Artusso which y'all can explain exactly who he is to kind of help us develop a framework and out of that came this resolution that has some I'll say more interim steps or milestones that CPAC would like for the city to embrace. So it's not a full action plan but it is some of those milestones. Bob, this deal is correct me if I'm wrong, this deals in general with how the city is gonna act about the things that we control, city facilities, city resources, city funded operations, those sorts of things. Not there'll be another resolution that we'll talk about the general public and the residents of the city and what they can do and maybe what we can do policy wise as well in the future. So that I'll stop and let you guys assess the table. Yeah, and I guess what I would say to start is you have a copy of the original 2017 resolution there and you'll see that it has a whole bunch of warehouses and then we get to the final clause which commits the city to working toward 100% clean energy by 2036 or within 20 years of the time that the resolution was passed. So we wanted to flesh that out a little bit, provide some guidance to the city staff and others as to how we're gonna achieve that. And yes, the original resolution really does talk about the entire city and not only city operations but the city at large. So we wanted to start with, as Clint said, what we have control over now which is really the city operations and then think in larger terms with a second resolution or a clean resolution if you wanna call it that. There's still got a lot of warehouses too. It has. Don't you'll notice seven action items rather than just one. So, and I will just mention with regard to the city at large that we're becoming more educated about the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act and all of the opportunities that that provides both to the city but also to residents of the city and small businesses and even some for renters. So we're very concerned about making sort of publicizing that as much as we can as well but for this particular resolution we were focused on city operations. So, Dr. Bussells, I thought we might kind of go through some of the action items that might get your head around what CPAC is asking for the city to do. I'll also mention one other thing. The version of the resolution that you have is marked up a little bit. It's got a couple of things that have been taken out and a few things that are underlined. That was based on feedback from city staff who had a chance to vet this. Sounds good. Give us some feedback on that. Yeah, I think it'll be helpful to go over the key actions also help us in being able to communicate with the public and our colleagues about what this is. Why don't you take those out of the warehouses and make it into an action? Sure. So, an item. Our attorneys are gonna help us with that. This is more content, and I wanted to make sure we kind of coalesced around that content. That sounds good. And then we'll get the legalese right. So, we had some, I'll say non-attorneys. Who used the old resolution to guide. Right. So, there's lots of grads. So, TK, your team will take a look at this. So, part of the, and you'll see it in the title, part of the crux of this resolution is let's get some more renewable energies of additive capacity. As we think about renewables in the city, we've got a hydroelectric plant that we're really trying to get up and rolling. We wanna do some energy efficiency measures, but I think part of the big push was additive type renewable capacity. So, that's where you'll see a proposed 75 megawatts of additive capacity. So, Henry Simons and I and the team, Robert Anderson and Mary Pat, we worked with Kelvin Kiesler, and we looked at what's our total energy footprint of city facilities. You know, what are we doing now, and what do we project that we'll be doing in 2036 and 2050? It's much less than 75 megawatt. You're looking at more like the 30 to 40 megawatt range. As we talked with solar manufacturer solar panel and solar farm installers, scale's a big deal. And we've also been working with talking with the county, talking with the university, several others that might be interested in potentially going together on a larger scale solar farm. So, I think that's what led CPAC to target 75 megawatt. Anything about that capacity? We also have things like, there's gonna be greater load needed for electrification of fleet and things like that. So, while we're hoping to do some energy efficiency work where we're using less power, there are gonna be some things coming online with new technologies that people are taking advantage of that actually may increase the power. So, that's something that with city staff, we're trying to project out what are new technologies going to need? It's a little hard to get your hands around. But also that 75 megawatt number is something that targets what's available to us and funding opportunities and really what you see the community scale limit. Smaller than that really doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. So, that's where we suggest to you all setting the bar for our future goals. Do we get the credit for the LED lights that we're putting in and is that accrued to the city or to Dominion? So, we get that savings over time. Yes, sir, we do. And so that transition is happening. That's more of an efficiency measure and CPAC, we've been talking about that for a while and we're all very happy we're doing that. It's gonna be a pretty big move. Yes, sir. Oh yeah, it's definitely significant. When the city does it for your own buildings and operations and also when our residents and our industries and things like that do that, what it does is it brings the finish line closer to us. So, that's a really positive thing. And you may be referring to street lighting. Yeah. That's gonna help. Gretchen mentioned electrification and of course we're thinking about electric vehicles replacing gasoline powered vehicles, maybe moving from natural gas powered boilers to electric heat pumps and things of that kind. So, the load is gonna change over the next 15 years. We're also looking at the possibility that there's lots of new technologies coming on and so we can't anticipate everything in little, in some ways it's kind of a moving target but what we tried to do with the wording of the resolution was to make that make those possibilities as flexible as possible so that somebody comes up with a super insulator, maybe that can fix lots of things that we don't know about today. So, that's really part of the purpose of the resolution's language, for example, not saying wind and solar and hydro but saying non-combustion based renewable energy. There may be other forms of renewable energy or similar kinds of things that could come up and we just can't anticipate them now. As you can imagine, in the Southeast we're in a place where solar is the way, it is the easy low hanging fruit. So, we're lucky that we have that little bit of hydroelectric. We're not in Oregon where they have a lot more. So, yeah. And also the fact that we don't have 100% control over this because we're working with Dominion and some of this is dependent on their decision-making as well. So, we have a franchise agreement with Dominion and so we have been involving Dominion in these conversations throughout as well. So, there's not been any resolvable resolutions made with that conversation with Dominion. No, sir, I think that we're getting to the point of, okay, how do we best contract if we were gonna do a larger utility-scale solar arrangement? How does that contract look? Is that a public-private partnership? Is it Dominion doing part of that investment? So, a lot of those conversations are happening. I won't say we're at a disagreement. We're just evolving in our conversation. But the conversations are ongoing. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Now, if you flip over to the second page and not to minimize the whereas portions because they're all important, but item 10 I think would start the real, this is the ask of the city. So, the first one being perform energy efficiency audits which is something we all think is a really good idea. And this provides a timeline. 25% of our facilities and infrastructure by 2025 have performed an order on 50% by 20, 28, 100% by 2030. That would give you three years to implement whatever the audit found for that final round of. So, staff has been meeting with different offers of these energy auditing services and performance contracting. Originally, you can see we had performance contracting was in the resolution. Sometimes it's better for us to have an audit performed and depending on what the list of projects are, we might want to fund those ourselves and do the lighting upgrades or HVAC upgrades, whatever you might have. So we didn't want to box ourselves in and so we work with the committee about that. But those are tangible things and we'll need to get to going and doing those things. From the staff perspective, Mary Pat, you're correct. And if I'm wrong, we think those are really good ideas. Depending on the outcome of the audit, how much capital is necessary, that's where you start getting into more difficult decisions. But it's also, it's better to know where you are than not and be able to have those conversations. So. And we're doing some of that work now, but this will help us summarize and get our hands on what's happening at all of our facilities. Moving on to item 11, here's where we talk about that additive renewable energy and the request is 25 megawatts by 2025. That's pretty close. There's a couple of ways to achieve that. We had talked about, we'd love to have something local so people could see, touch, feel, do public education and outreach, keep the dollars and jobs local. There are opportunities to buy into these mega solar farms that are out west as well. And so- Like satellites or- What? Yes, sir, there are different developers are putting these large scale, very large scale solar farms out west and you can buy those, buy the energy from that through Dominion. So there are avenues to get through this. I think our preference collectively has been we'd love to have something here locally if possible. We really, really, really want to drive home that to keep the investment and the dollars, the investment not only development wise, but also in our workforce, the tax dollars to keep it here locally is definitely the best way to go. This is a big chunk of land and having, citing something like this in the city is probably a non-starter, but part of this cohort that we've been talking with, we've been talking with Richland School District One as well, they've been involved in the county. There's some other problems. Our target has been Midlands, right? Not city, but Midlands and then city being an off taker of this one. Yes. Let me ask a question. If that were to happen and we are, because there has been some conversation about renewable energy and of course, planting places in strategic unincorporated pieces of property where that would 25 megawatts, kilowatts, whatever it's called, feeds a particular neighborhood. How doable? And once we get to that point, how do we strategically list those places? Yes, sir. Identification of available properties when you start looking at the scale of this. It has to be a property issue, right? Yes, sir. You're looking at five acres per megawatt, you know, rough. So if you're talking big tracks of land potentially here, citing that in conjunction with Dominion and load management and where is their demand, oh, that's very important. But, and we've started working on a map that would identify properties around, but that isn't early work in progress, but. No, one thing to just let you all know, this is very important. It's becoming more prevalent is called multi-use land where you are not just giving up that land for the solar farm, but you can actually have farming or other activities happen underneath those solar panels. So that technology, And I'm up in the air. Put them up high enough, you can then farm under it. So then you're not giving up that land for no other use. You can get multi-use out of it. Then it's much more productive. That's actually referred to the, the farming aspect is referred to as agrivoltaics. It's called agrivoltaics. So it's basically generating power up above and growing things underneath. And you can, you know, there are places where they're grazing different kinds of cattle. They're growing berries, you know, things that don't need full sun or can even be damaged by full sun. So there's some really kind of cool things. You know, we probably have a couple of megawatts worth of space on top of parking buildings downtown here. I'm not, I mean, I wasn't authorized to say that. Right. Don't want to do that. But just, I mean, there are lots of kind of creative options. And also the potential of maybe taking brownfield sites and turning them into production. Clint just gave me the figure. I was going to ask the question about well, five acres to get one mega one. Yes, sir. That's the rule of thumb. With today's technology. So, you know, as every year goes by, it becomes better and better. Your battery storage is very important as well. As if you've talked with Dominion that that's, that's very, very important to any new development they're going to require a good bank. So these, one of the other things that I probably should have mentioned is, you know, we've talked about jobs local. The other thing that I think has been really important in our conversations has been we don't want the power bill to go up for ourselves or our citizens. If it goes up operations, that's a cost to the taxpayer or the rate payer. If it goes up for the general citizens, that's a cost in their direct power bill. So that cost neutrality has been pretty important in our discussions as well. And it seems like the technology is evolving and things are moving in that direction. Dominion has a plan to get to this point by 2050, ours with the rate for 100 resolutions more aggressive. I think we talked about... I'm sorry, Madam Chair. I just want to go back just a minute. We got energy up top, vegetables underneath. What's the pushback now? Please know that there are going to be some for lack of a better word, conspiracy theories where a potato turns, where you plant potatoes and it turns into a tomato. And I want to raise that. I mean, I buy into it, but I think obviously there will be some pushback with some theories that are over in left field because the energy up top and the food underneath poses and gives to us a real opportunity to do two things at one time. What are some of the pushbacks? I think we... Well, will that be... I'm sure there are going to be... There's always pushback on everything, my goodness. Oh, absolutely. Particularly with energy up top and food underneath and whether or not if it's consumable and whether or not the food is going to be of such way it's for lack of a better word, digestible. We're very fortunate yet unfortunate. We're a little bit behind in the times in implementing this kind of technology. This has been done in many, many locations around the world. And we can probably provide some well done case studies so that council, anybody else who's involved can look at success stories from around the world. I mean, the reason... I'm sorry, Dr. Russell. You're very good. The reason I raised that is that some years ago when we went to the AMI's water digital water system. You remember? Some of you remember that. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah. Some of you remember that and how that system, of course, supposedly radiated energy from other places and into people and that sort of thing. So I think it was certainly to be helpful at some point to look at a fact sheet. This is what can't happen. These are the safeguards because I want to be able to energize folk up here but also to feed folk down here. And it's almost like how John Wesley says it, feed the lambs and not the giraffes. I'm supposed to say yes. That's my concern. It's not a concern in terms of a conspiracy theory because it becomes real in the lives of people in these areas that need the electricity and underneath the food source. I think the dual purpose, multi-purpose is something that obviously we'll have to look at looking at availability of land, brownfield discussions come into the play as well. If you remember, we were looking still at a smaller scale solar farm by our Metro wastewater plant. The internet is prone to flooding. How many acres do we have on there? Oh gosh, unencumbered I'll say for potential future plant expansion 30 years from now. We've got probably an additional 50 acres. So there's some property there. The challenge has been those panels and all the electrical here have to be elevated because of flooding potential. That adds to the cost of it. It makes the payback right. At least a few years ago when we looked at it, the payback wasn't quite there to be able to do that and make that a viable capital. But if you could do something underneath, there are all kinds of ways to look at this and availability of the property and the potential uses are all part of that. So that's an evolving discussion but obviously things would need to evolve pretty quickly if we're gonna meet these. Right, I guess that also really kind of points up one of the things that one of the principles that we want to incorporate here which is that we need to do what makes sense here and not what makes sense somewhere else. And that means that we'll have to be a little bit creative maybe and make sure that we're attending to local conditions and there might be some spots where it's appropriate to do certain things where it wouldn't be appropriate in other places. You know, talking about agrivoltaics which is just sort of an idea at this point it's not really a part of a proposal. But you would think if that were gonna happen it would have to be kind of a public-private partnership because the farming operation wouldn't be something the city would be doing. But those are the kinds of creative possibilities that are out there that will allow us to kind of move forward and a couple of the things that I'm really concerned about this idea that we don't wanna raise anybody's bills. And if possible we'd like to reduce people's bills. But the other is that the benefits of whatever we do should be equitably distributed. So that everybody, all citizens are getting some kind of equal benefit from what happens. So question for the committee. I would be in favor of moving this forward to all of council. What would the council have to do? Would we have to vote on this? You would need to adopt the resolution. Just really quickly. I mean, a few other things, Dr. Bussells and I'll pick up the pace here asking for us to make sure we evaluate and incorporate as necessary any solar. So if we were to build a new building, we're gonna need to look at rooftop solar. If we were gonna do that, probably something we would do anyway. And move forward if appropriate. If we're gonna, a 60 day multi stakeholder input session with the public, if we're gonna change any energy policy, do things of that nature. I think that's appropriate. We try to get public involvement anyway. And then finally having a cohort of city staff that's kind of dedicated and charged with how are we doing on this and giving routine checkups? Okay. Because this touches every part of our city operations. That has to be continuous, I think. It has to be continuous and overlapping because please know this multi-interests is very important not only in the lives of our city, but in the lives of the constituents here in Columbia. It provides an opportunity. And the thing that sort of resonates with me more than anything, and I think I'm like Dr. Bussells, I'm ready to move on with this, whatever steps we need to take in terms of actualizing, getting rid of some of these warehouses and making it more simple and doable. Action oriented, yep. Can we get our, before it goes to council, can we see a redone version? Absolutely. What was the thing that I was gonna ask? Yes, sir. When I look at this and I look at the resolution, if you notice, I sort of mark the way a lot of the warehouses get to the right. I know it's important to tell your story, but in telling your story, I think it has to be concise and very shortened. And it's in its own way. And I'm reading, when I read this, I get a little tired. There's a lot of words. It's a lot of words. And I think my colleagues have also noticed that. So yes, I can support that. And I'm like Howard, I would prefer seeing it, seeing this resolution with it being, let's do it over and let's look at it. And I think we could probably shorten it and make it more, I think it makes it more effective. So, Gretchen, I know you let this committee, are we okay with doing a little bit of wordsmithing? Oh, absolutely. And we can get the legalized and we can provide you with a final copy for committee referral at your next meeting. And that helps Dr. Bussell in terms of moving this forward. Until she's able to help us move that forward, we can't go any further until we look at that. But there is support, I think, for us to move this along in the process. We'll have something, I don't want to speak for the committee. I think we'll have something. We can do the legal part, but I think what's important for council to focus on is the bullet points of exactly what you're agreeing to. I think that's getting lost in all the words. So I think- Which is why I think we need to see it again. Just do the bullet points that we're going to do. And the words is, we need the words is for legal part, but we can add those after- That's correct. We did bullet points, this is separate action. And that's what we do a lot of times out of an official document like a resolution. We need an action plan that gives the staff and myself and then the council- A clear direction. A clear timeline. So the action items on the timeline. Great. So next steps is- The legal part to come up with exactly what we need. The next step is for us to have a clear action plan that will help kind of lay out the next steps for both staff and then from a policy perspective for council as well as to what we're committing to. Yes. Is there any way, can we get that prior to our next meeting? Must that- That would be great. So that we are able to at least digest it? Absolutely. And if there are questions, I'm sure that won't be any question, but if there are questions- There are always questions. If there are questions, if we could see that prior to- Considerably, if we could see that prior to the next meeting, to considerably when we meet our next, when we meet the next meeting, problem at all, we'll make sure we get it to you in putting your time for a thorough review and some back and forth questions in advance. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on this agenda item? Now I make one last comment before we leave you. Just because you'll be seeing us again, there's another resolution or however we craft it that will be coming after this, which discusses the bigger entity of the city, all of the residences and et cetera. Think of it this way, you all use a coffee cup full of energy, but the urn full of coffee is what the rest of us energy hogs are using, including University of South Carolina as a huge energy user. We're gonna need y'all's creativity to kind of help us think about, it's gotta be more of a care and a stick solution to incentivize industry and commercial and residents to be able to get on board with this vision. So anything that you hear, think of, et cetera, this is really a great effort. It's gonna take some interesting and unique solutions for us to be able to get the rest of the city on board with this solution. So I just want to say I'm really encouraged. I really appreciate this conversation and your thoughts and questions have been really helpful. And I'm looking forward to getting to work on pairing this down a little bit and focusing it on the action steps. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. She needs, I was thinking of you. I was thinking of you. I was thinking of you. I know I think I'll be back. Okay. We should continue with that. All right. So we will go ahead and move forward to our next agenda item, which is a climate pollution reduction grant opportunity with Ms. Mary Pat Baldiff. Did I say that? Baldiff. My friend. I think it's our first time meeting. So nice to meet you. And Councilman McDowell has a speaking engagement but we'll try to get back. Come when you can. I'll get back. I'm sorry for you. But I look at it on the right. We had to see it. Good to see you Mary Pat. I'll pass it over to you. Okay. We finally are getting in more information about this money coming down from Washington and the Implacian Reduction Act. We've got an unique opportunity for a million dollars, non-competitive, and it's called the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant. And the grant's focus is to create climate for the whole country. And in South Carolina, we were chosen to help with the metropolitan statistical area, which includes Richland County, Lexington County, Hershaw, Bearfield, and Calhoun counties. And because we're the largest municipality, I'm sorry y'all. We have been asked to be the lead. So we would get the million dollars and we would kind of help do the plans for these areas. The grant funds are available. You can see the list for all kinds of different costs. So they would cover everything. The deliverables are on the right. We would need to do, on the 28th we're doing a letter. That's like tomorrow. Okay. And we're interested and we're working on that. Let me add this, Mayor Pat. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but Dr. Bussells, these grants came out and we were below the cut line in population served. And then we were offered, there was another opportunity that came up two weeks ago. Somebody else dropped out. Others dropped out that slid us into the pool of eligible funding. And so we- Hey, I'm all for non-competitive too. Yes. We've been tracking this throughout, hoping that we might slide into the pool and thankfully- And Dr. Bussells, I think it's worth saying, we actually have two draft letters that were drafted last week. We're ready to go with it. Okay. That was my next question is, do you feel like you're ready to, so in terms of the create climate action plans, could this align with our, the discussion we just had? Absolutely. And some of the work that we already did with our Dr. Artusa kind of lays an outline. And then this is really to get into the meat and potatoes of the plan. Okay. And they dovetail together nicely. And then Clint's also worth pointing out, I don't know, Mary Pat had missed it yet, but the cog actually reached out to us last week, Gregory Sprouse, and they're very interested in, I don't think they can lead it, but they're very interested in morphing everybody together and trying to get everybody to play. Which would be helpful, I think. That's very positive. And they're also very good at, to administer it, to do this work. You know, we wouldn't hire two staffers and okay, let's go get, we're hiring, bringing a consultant on board to help us do this work for the group. The cog is really, could be a good agency to procure those services for the larger group. And is there any benefit for us to being the lead? Do we get to keep some indirect costs from this grant? Or is it all restricted funding? That's a good question. I know that the, there is the opportunity for some staffing costs and those sorts of things. Those are eligible. And so I think there's the potential for us to get a little more benefit out of that. Yeah, we had an assay question. The one question we did ask was if one of the counties decided not to participate, did it exclude us from having this? And I think the answer is no. So next up, you would have the climate action plan due two years from the date of the award, which is gonna be the summer of 2025. And then after all of these are done, there's gonna be competitive grants out there to implement the projects that all of us have come up with. So that's exciting, that we can make the plan and then hopefully fund what we wanna do. So the million dollars is just for the plan and not, it would not be the, you'd get more money in for the actual action. Invalentation, right. I think this is a great, I think as long as we can align some of our existing efforts out there in the community and leverage our CPAC and some of the other kind of momentum around the stuff that we're even doing within the city, I think this would be great and gives us an opportunity to have funding to support some of that coordination work. What do you need from us? So I think at this point it's the, this is for information, that we would like to go ahead and pursue this week with our letter of intent. So the letter of intent, which says, hey, we're interested, we wanna participate, this is the groups that are supporting. And then the real fund starts with the application. So if we do the letter of intent and we decide, hey, for some reason there are too many strings attached, we don't have to apply, but we wanted to go ahead and throw our hat in the ring here. So I think the committee can go ahead and give the go ahead for the letter of intent. And then perhaps between now and May 31st, we could just either share via writing or email just to larger council that we're pursuing this opportunity. And I'm happy to give an update at our May 2nd city council meeting as well about it. Yeah. We will proceed and we'll keep you posted as this thing to proceed as well. And also good information in case some of your other colleagues from the other elected bodies start asking questions. We're excited about it. It's gonna be great for our region. I think so too. And I will also say, Mary Pat was worried about the way she was dressed today. There is a great job fair going on down at the convention center. You look great. Are you representing your department? She's like, I'm wearing a shirt. I'm like, yeah, we're hiring people today. So I was hoping Robert would wear his. And then he said that he dressed appropriately. So, but no worries. What do you wear? I would do more. Thank you so much for being here. You know what, people will show up. So yeah, there's a lot of people coming into the convention center. Good, good. Good afternoon. All right. Last but not least, our last agenda item. We're doing good. We're doing good, Howard. Time to eat. Trustee, I'm thinking about it too. You're between them and left. One minute. Here we go. Our coal tar sealant alternatives with Miss Dana Higgins. Thank you, Dr. Bussles. Thank you for allowing us to come today. We have had a lot of questions from the community about coal tar sealants and our alternatives out there. So we wanted to just bring this to your committee and talk about what coal tar sealants are, what they do. Coal tar sealants are used for sealing asphalt, driveways, roads, when there's a crack and water intrusion occurs, it can open that crack even further. So sealants are great for prolonging the life of driveways and roadways. What's not great about some of the sealants is the ones that have the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. And coal tar sealants specifically have a large concentration of this chemical compound that is known to create dangers with skin irritations, birth defects, cancer, and with the runoff to its toxic to aquatic life. So after discussing our stormwater manager, AJ Jesse, here with me today, he reached out to some of the businesses that install sealants. And there are alternatives that are more asphalt-based with the lower PAHs, which that's the key, is the lower than 0.1% PAH is much better than the higher concentrations that create all those issues to public health and the environment. The effective businesses are Echo Shield and Sealmaster. Like I said, we have been talking to them. We invited them today, so I don't know. Okay, Echo Shield's here, if anyone else is. But thank you for coming. We just wanted to make sure that they had a seat at the table as we discussed the potential removing that ability to install the coal tar sealant with the high PAHs, from our ordinance. So what we would need to do is revise our ordinance to make this happen. And this is something that Charlotte, North Carolina has done, Washington State and Austin, Texas. So just get the conversation going. One thing they do have the alternatives they can install, of course, but there has been a request to roll this out maybe at the beginning of next calendar year. So to say it back to you, we have identified that high levels of PAH can be harmful for various reasons. And so we wanna update our ordinance in terms of the threshold of what's allowed. And so there's two companies that we work with currently that provide this material for us, right? But both companies have alternatives that are lower in threshold. That's correct. Okay. So it's not just that work for the city of Columbia is for any resident. Yeah, within city limits. Okay. So any... It would affect all of, okay. So these are the alternatives and both companies do have those available to install. Is this in any way connected with the... What was it? PFS. EPA rulings coming out. This is not the preferred well reports on all the time. This is a different chemical. This is something that can impact the environment and our water quality as well, but it's a different group of contaminants. Okay. So is there a reason why we're waiting until January 1st? Well, that's part of the discussion point. We can roll it out now. As we were discussing it with the area businesses that were impacted, and they do have the alternatives. And thank you for coming today. I don't know if you wanna speak to that. Is that okay, Dr. Bussell? Yes, that's fine. As a member of the public and business owner. Thank you. My name is Jason Weaver. I'm an asphalt contractor and silk coat manufacturer for most of my life here. South Carolina native, we are EcoShield asphalt products. We manufacture one of the safe products. We are actually 0.00% PAH content, which is very doable by any manufacturer with just a little bit more money. And I think that's why some of these measures haven't gone through yet until they're required of the manufacturers. That just costs a little bit more. But the industry will not only survive but thrive without these products. Coltarcyants in general are very irritating to the skin. They can make your skin peel. We use these products for over 10 years. And I always dreaded having to get inside the tank to clean it out because you will receive a significant burn. It's basically like a rain on the beach all day. It is significant. And there's really no reason for it anymore. This is kind of like a sure it might last a little bit longer but there's a good reason we don't use it. And a good reason I don't paint my daughter's room with it. The same with asbestos shingles or asbestos brake pads. There are better alternatives available and they're readily available by all manufacturers in our region. They all manufacture at least one product. So. That's helpful. Yeah. Jason, is there existing stock that would need to be worked down? Say if we made a resolution effective July 1st versus January 1st or some interim period in between is from a business owner's perspective what would point you toward pushing it out versus doing it soon? So we only manufacture the one single product which is environmentally friendly. So our stock is completely ready to roll. And really the, I think the only modification actually happens during the refining process because this is a refined food product. There's just a little extra refining to be done. But like I say, all major manufacturers in our region they have a formula currently for sale and currently manufactured. This should not be any problem. Certainly getting the word out in advance. Yeah. My inclination is then is as we're already preparing for the new fiscal year it might make sense to try and align this with the July 1st. It may. Will this impact the local hardware stores Lowe's and Home Detail the five gallons that they sell for tar sealants? I don't believe so. I know that all of the Lowe's Home Depot and Nards we don't have. They've all moved away from coal tar and high PAH sealants several years ago. So liability issue with the products that you see Robert really is using any of these sealants that we're not, we actually have a contractor that's like to do a sales to the old parking lot. They're not using it either. So we've already verified it. And our products actually have gone down for Richland County last year. And they went down beside a high PAH sealant so there should be plenty of evidence out there that our products are as durable if not more durable than the alternative. Thank you, Sharani Fuller, engineer. She can provide you with any information. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Anyone else here to speak? Okay, great. May I just say something? Just because now that I've seen this on the agenda just wanted to say. If you wanna come to the... All I wanted to just say is I didn't know this was on the agenda. We wrote something else, but I didn't know if... Is this a polyurea type of product that you have? Or have y'all looked into any polyurea? No, no. It's kind of a polyurea product. Okay. Well, just maybe you could explore that a little bit before you make a decision that polyurea we've been talking about that for a long time is a sealant. It is an application for parking lots and different things like that. And it doesn't have any environmental issues to it. So just something, another alternative. Thank you, Ms. Powers. So we can do this on July 1 and there are readily available alternatives already. Sounds like they're already using the less than 0.1 pH for some of our existing product or projects. So unless there's something we're not thinking about, I think starting with the fiscal year makes sense. Okay. Sounds great. And you're going to put these two in the form of a... Or ordinance. Yes, sir. Or ordinance made. Yes, sir. We'll make that forward. That will come before you and you can report that out about your buses. Okay. Right, pending ordinance changed. And we've already talked with... We're just moving things along. Well, thank you very much. Absolutely. All right. It's just us two. Are you ready to adjourn? I'll move to adjourn. Okay. Second, we are adjourned. Thank you all so much. Oh, yeah.