 Can I come over here and do much? Can you give me a broader answer? Okay. Turn it a little warm. Turn it now. Have you been upstairs yet? It's fine. If it's cold. Upstairs? Oh, it's called upstairs? It's like an icing. They're going to do that. They'll still go in the best way to come over here. Unless there's a... Unless there's some toast. This week, we can get the bomb lawyers in here. They'll find a way to do it. I just asked the school board. That's why we got 300, 400 mills. 13 parking zones. So that they roll through the 8% and try to pay them off. So that they can get an additional 4% of the 8%. Yeah. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Yeah, that swap lock. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Parking. Yeah, you want to say, are they across the hall? Do we know what we're going to do? What is the first house request? No answer right here. Oh. I haven't seen a lot. So we have four. I'm kind of. We have four. Yeah, I would get some. I would get some. We're making it great. I was just wondering, can you get some? Not forced. OK, you ready? I'm ready. Go ahead and get started. Ed. I have pretend we have the quorum. We do. We do. Davis and Mr. Bedora probably be going to sort of like. I thought I saw Moe in the hall. Maybe he's doing his benefit. He has a new name now. Hey, hey. I'm glad you decided to sit at the table with us. Really? This is, this is Hammond. Can we get? Can we get somebody? It's not that. I'll say, what is he doing? I'll say, tell me, what is he doing? We've already settled one. One pair? Yes. Brother. And just a couple things. The mayor is speaking at an economic outlook conference at USC. So he'll be over as soon as he can. And I know some members are doing their benefits. So people will be in and out. So we're going to go ahead and get started. I would like to first acknowledge and congratulate our city clerk who got married this weekend. Oh my goodness. Yay! Woo-hoo! So excited for you. Congratulations. And we love you. And we can't wait to meet Mr. Hammond and put him through the ringer to make sure that... Just send Social Security number. I'll take care of that. Wow! Make sure to benefit to that. All right. You should tell your dad, right? Your granddad. Ms. Wilson, I think we've got a couple switches. We're switching around a couple things on our work session agenda. Yes, ma'am. Just to accommodate Mayor Benjamin's schedule. And he's always talking to Ralph and Kyle. So he said that if we could allow them to go ahead and go first, is he so familiar with their presentations? And then he would hear all of Ms. Reese's presentation this morning with us today. So we will start with Mr. Barbushian, our federal lobbyist, Ralph Barbushian, and his team members who have come with him. For the 2018-2019 Federal Legislative Report, followed by Mr. Comishill, State Lobbyist, and the Paralympic Committee for the 2018-2019 State Legislative Report. So before we get started on that, I just wanted to make sure we knew the agenda. If we could ask for everybody to come if you would please. Sure. That's very good. In the midst of this busy day, in the midst of all of the conversation we were hearing and the agenda ourselves around today, we ask that you might touch us, sensitize us, allow us to hear and to be sensitive to what is being said. We ask it in your name. Amen. I'm excited when Ralph joins us in Columbia. I mean, it's been years now. He and I were reminiscing this morning about when I first started this city and Barbara was with him. He was just really done a great job over the years for us and we appreciate him coming every year to join us here at Columbia. Thank you. And it's always great to be in Columbia and we had great meetings yesterday and today with a lot of city staff and I think productive meetings. And I think a lot of you have had a chance to meet my new colleague, Debra DeHing Howard. She joined us back in May and prior to joining us, she was at the U.S. Conference of Mayors for over 20 years. So it comes to us with extensive knowledge of federal local relations and we're happy to have her on board. I have, I guess this goes to PowerPoint? Okay. We have a PowerPoint presentation and then also in addition to the PowerPoint prepared a kind of a more in-depth federal legislative update that goes into some of the issues in a little more detail. And then I have a third handout that just kind of outlines some of the increased infrastructure spending we've seen in FY 2018 and FY 2019. And then a document that I think we pass out most years our federal funding chart that tracks the federal appropriations process for most programs that directly impact the city or that might be of interest to the city and its partners indirectly. So those are the handouts. And I want to... It's a little tricky sometimes for somebody to go around. It's kind of sad because it's going down and coming up. Oh. Okay. So I want to really quickly, it's always good to start with the successes and I know a lot of the talk in the media is how Washington is in gridlock and not a lot happens and that is certainly true compared to the not-so-distant past, but nevertheless there was a fair amount of legislating taking place and we're able to see some good successes. Most notably the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, that was the massive tax bill that became law at the end of last year. The tax exemption from municipal bonds was preserved in that bill. That's really the result of several years of lobbying efforts back to when there was first talk of a possible tax bill. Mayor Benjamin was head of a coalition municipal bonds for America that spearheaded that effort along with the conference of mayors and the legal studies. So we can't overstate what a big win that was. I would say that four years ago we would have lost that tax exemption if they had somehow passed a tax bill then. I mentioned increased infrastructure spending and we will... I'll get to a chart on the next page, but for FY 2018 and FY 2019 Congress and the President agreed on a two-year budget agreement where they suspended the sequester and listed the discretionary spending caps by $290 million each year, $290 million each year, and as part of that they set aside $10 billion each year for infrastructure and what they ended up doing, they did the easiest thing, they divided that $10 billion in FY 2018 in programs. So among highways, transit, water and sewer revolving loan funds, so on, and transit. And one of the nice little victories for local governments is the highway money went through the surface transportation block grant which meant half of that money was sub-allocated to urbanized areas. So that was a nice little win and I think for FY 2019 they haven't finalized transportation spending yet but that's going to be the case again. The Senate, we faced in the Senate Commerce Committee several efforts at preemption of local authority related to telecommunication infrastructure and drones. Those were turned back. The long-term FAA reauthorization bill that was enacted earlier this year did not include a preemption of drones although without getting too much into the weeds it does include a lot of language regarding drones and FAA over the next months and year it's going to be preparing a lot of regulations around drones including regulations for drones for delivery, so that could still have some impact on the city but no broad preemption of local authority to regulate drones. The city directly for Columbia your delegation secured an initial 18.5 million in CDBG disaster recovery money that HUD should be releasing actually I think the federal register notice for that will come out soon and then because there was more money for discretionary spending in FY 18 we got for the first time in seven or eight years increases for CDBG in home and it looks like those increases will hold for FY 19 as well. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act called for the designation of Opportunity Zones and several census tracts in the city of Columbia were designated as Opportunity Zones that's something that Senator Scott spearheaded in the booker. And then this isn't really so much a legislative victory but going back over 20 years now sales to the issue of sales tax fairness which would be coming worse and worse each year the Supreme Court in Will versus South Dakota ruled that state and local governments can collect sales tax from remote retailers so that was an important decision. I mentioned that increased sub allocation of transportation funds so of the share of the $10 billion that went to highways it was allocated to the surface restoration block grant and you can kind of see under the highway transit bill that was going to grow incrementally and you see that incremental growth from FY 15 through FY 17 and then you see in FY 18 that extra addition of money so that was a nice little win and that's money that comes directly to Central Midland Council of Governments for use in the Columbia metropolitan area and as I mentioned a share of that $10 billion for infrastructure went to transit and you can kind of see the impact on what CMRTA received there and again for both of those it looks like they have not finalized FY 19 spending for transportation but it looks like they're going to do the same thing so looking at a couple of stopbacks in FY 2018 rather I mentioned that the senate commerce committee we turn back language there to pre-emplical authority as it relates to telecommunications infrastructure however the FCC as it's currently composed is I would use the word hostile to local governments I don't think there's any other word you could use based on their statements and their actions so the FCC has taken several actions to pre-emplical authority as it relates to telecommunications infrastructure and to limit your franchise fees from cable companies and those are going to be probably settled in the courts and I think we'll continue to see similar action from the FCC in the years ahead we preserve the tax exemption from municipal bonds and I should add we preserve the tax exemption for private activity bonds which was touch and go for a while unfortunately we lost the ability to advance refund retain the tax exemption and we do an advanced refunding of municipal bonds so that going forward we'll not be able to do advance refundings of municipal bonds without and keep the tax exemption legislation to change that has been introduced but I think that's going to be a tough one to get back the salt deductions state and local tax deductions the tax cutting jobs act capped at $10,000 and just kind of occurred to me recently that when people file their taxes next spring that's going to be the first time that they're doing so with that new cap of $10,000 on salt so that will be interesting although the flip side of that is that the tax bill doubled the standard deduction so a few people will be analyzing deductions and then we haven't talked a lot about this but continued challenges of the 2020 census funding we've overcome the funding challenge the appropriations bill for FY 2018 and it looks like for FY 2019 we'll adequately fund the census but the Census Bureau doesn't have a permanent director they are basing challenges in court regarding questions about immigration status morale is low at the Census Bureau and so I think really for Columbia and for any city your complete count effort for the 2020 census are going to have to be above and beyond what you would normally do for a Decisional Census really get that complete count in Columbia I was just thinking about that Ms. Wilson maybe if we could dedicate some time in our retreat to talk about that because we need to start our effort so that there's not as much hope there's some time in the past but we will do that and the same thing I'll talk to the city manager the 2020 census is bringing forward time for the city of Columbia annexations that we've talked about we need to get completed so that they're in the city by 2020 I agree with my colleagues that we need to talk more about this in the future um I want to actually fund the local effort usually we see local folks but does the feds provide anything to municipality? you're in most complete count efforts at the local level are a combination of local government money and then local philanthropy in Columbia and every city does a complete count effort every 10 years I just think that in 2020 it's more important than ever we really need to pull out all the stops the infrastructure of the federal census is funded by the federal government but the extra effort that we need to make sure everybody is counted is funded by the philanthropy and the government the feds take the census takers and the apparatus are taking the census we just need to make sure they do it a good way and the feds even pay for a general marketing campaign everybody should answer the census but a specific hey this is important to Columbia here's why this is important to Columbia that's really on the local community so I just want to hit really really quickly and some of the numbers on these slides didn't translate I blame PowerPoint but by now I think we're all familiar with the election results this was turned in a few weeks ago but the senate it looks like it goes from 52 to 48 the republicans gained a seat it will be 53 to 47 still a very closely divided senate and in the house again this was prepared a few weeks ago but it looks like the final numbers are going to be 235 democrats 200 republicans that's a gain of 40 seats for the democrats so a lot of changes in the house but well actually I was about I was about to say though about I think 100 or so give or take new faces in the house but will they stand up and act like new faces? that's to be but it'll be interesting to see how that impacts the house and it's been long enough that since there was last time the majority changed a lot of the returning republicans have never been in the minority and vice versa a lot of the democrats have never been in the majority so a lot of dynamics in the house so I think some pretty big agendas in the house and some pretty big plans but at the same time you know organizing the committee assignments finding the bathroom all that kind of routine stuff so in the South Carolina delegation you have a new member from the coast but for the Columbia delegation Mr. Clyburn and Mr. Wilson return as well as your two senators who's up for election so just kind of to hit some key dates quickly and this is about as broad as it gets but it kind of gives you an overview of the year in January the new congress is sworn in later that month the US Conference of Mayors as its annual meeting in January and February if the current congress can't complete work on FY 2019 spending the next congress is going to have to do that and then in March is the National League of Cities meeting and that's an opportunity for you all I always say that you are the best lobbyist the mayor and the council and of course any time of the year is a good but National League of Cities meeting since a lot of you are up in Washington anyway that's a good time for us to go visit the delegation and kind of hit the city priorities and I think that will be particularly important this year and I'll get into some of the reasons why but if an infrastructure bill moves focusing on appropriations bills I think that there will be a number of issues that we want want to contact the delegation about so Ralph on that though really during NLC because so many people are trying to see that probably not the best time years past we've actually taken the pivot trip and with the information that you're about to give about the priorities maybe as Wilson we need the councils that are doing a trip especially in a kind of fibering being majority with and it's a really good time for us to have some opportunity on there perfect there I was going to suggest that we do that we go and you know as a city separate from everybody else we can get more attention to you know other people clap and if you can come at a time other than actually Cities that's absolutely and like you said I think you know we can hit a good part of your delegate it could even be a fly in and fly out on the same day or fly in the night before next afternoon we can do that pretty quickly we have we did we did we did it we really got absolutely and when I say that you all are the best you absolutely are you know we hear your message and we work with your delegation closely but coming from you has the most impact you also get as what he said some of the issues that I definitely want to lobby for it becomes an opportunity to come out and talk about that what it's like and just some of the key issues and I went through the last year pretty quickly I did not hit everything and I'll hit some of the highlights for the coming year budget that's an error there the sequester is back for FY 2020 and the administration will be submitting its FY 2020 budget in February if it's on time and every indication that's going to be yet another austere budget that calls for the elimination of PDBG of the transit program and kind of across the board in the last two years under the budget agreement Congress not only rejected those cuts and eliminations but actually increased funding for things like CDBG and transit but with the sequester back with austere budget caps back in with deficits annual deficits approaching a trillion dollars preserving funding for those programs is going to be a challenge there's already talk of another one year but so far it's just talk and until that's in place the sequester budget caps will be back in place for FY 2020 so that will be a challenge infrastructure there's probably all read as much as we all have about the democrats in the administration one area that they can work together is infrastructure the chairman of the house transportation infrastructure committee the incoming chairman is Peter he is from the executive organ he has said he wants to do an infrastructure bill he wants to move it quickly and he wants it to be big a hundred billion dollars a year over ten years divided among various programs it's a long way from there to getting that kind of a bill through the senate a bill that the president agrees to that can get through the senate I mentioned trillion dollar deficits one of the obstacles there are enough senators are there 60 senators who would vote for an infrastructure bill when that spending would be deficit spending so there are some political hurdles to an infrastructure bill but nevertheless that is going to be a priority and the most likely outline of an infrastructure bill is that they divide a hundred billion dollars among existing programs and maybe a few new ones and as we look to addressing one of the city's biggest challenges is the canal that could be an opportunity to get some funding there particularly with some of the robots we've encountered under current funding scenarios what other number are you hearing other than 100 billion I'm hearing a lot of numbers but Peter Defaisio is the incoming chairman of the house transportation infrastructure committee so his number is a good one to start with and he says 100 billion dollars a year because the president ran on a platform of a trillion dollars over 10 years so that's 100 billion dollars a year you know if they decide they want to offset it and they find an extra 100 billion dollars a year and new revenue to offset that I don't know so then maybe they go down to 60 it'll be sausage making probably sausage making it it's most gruesome you know all the focus is on the infrastructure package but I want to point out at the end of FY 2020 the fast act the highway transit the law that authorizes highway transit program that expires so in the second session and the big challenge there is revenue to the highway trust fund is not keeping up with expenditures you could actually have a zero balance in the highway trust fund before the end of FY 2020 so the question is how do you pay for another five or six year bill when revenue is not keeping up with current expenditure levels and the appetite for increasing the gas tax or finding another revenue source and then the national flood insurance program is on its I've lost count seventh, eighth, ninth short term extension I think they queued up another extension through December 21st for that so we'll have to see but the challenge with the national flood insurance program is claims outstrip funds in the program and so how do you cover that delta they tried increasing endiums last time around and they ran into a firestorm of opposition so that's the big challenge there and then FEMA the challenges we face there and it looks like between the wildfires in California Florence the earthquake in Alaska responds so that could be another opportunity local control and I don't want to get too in the weeds I'm sorry but we're going to continue to face challenges from the FCC right of a way in zoning as it relates to telecommunications but also face legislative challenges on Capitol Hill drones will have to watch the FAA as they write regulations and again the list of regulations the FAA has to write on drones is a pretty long list so we'll have to watch those closely and then autonomous vehicles the the old vehicle for autonomous vehicle legislation was the FAA bill that did not include autonomous vehicle legislation but one of the issues they're still trying to work on the lame duck and if they don't work it out in the lame duck they'll continue in the next session is legislation governing autonomous vehicles threat there is again we've seen language that would completely preempt our local authority over autonomous vehicles so we'll have to continue to monitor that and to fight back those kinds of efforts public safety they have an agreement on some minor but first step towards federal criminal justice reform and what we'll have to look for in the under 16 congresses do they build on that for broader criminal justice reform and then regulations it's tough to cover this in one bullet but the administration has pursued a pretty aggressive regulatory agenda in a broad array of areas some of which directly impact the city the office of the control of the currency for example has put out an advance notice of proposed rule making as it relates to the community investment act and we've seen a number of other proposed regulations that could impact the city and then one of the handouts one of the handouts is our funding chart and I mentioned we have a two year budget agreement we saw increased funding for most programs in FY 2018 and if you look at the chart you'll see that we're going to hold a lot of those increases for FY 2019 but as I said the sequester is back for FY 2020 and we'll have to fight to preserve funding for a lot of those programs and just kind of a scorekeeping FY 2019 started October 1st five of the 12 annual appropriations bills are a lot that means seven are outstanding of those seven that's where most of the things the city cares about are funded transportation, commerce, justice although it's interesting of those five those five include defense and HHS so those two bills alone account for well over half of I think three quarters of discretionary spending so they have queued up the remaining seven the agencies covered on the remaining seven appropriations bills that funding expires on December 7th also known as this Friday so they've queued up a two week extension to keep the federal government open at least those agencies open until December 21st which means that they're going to bump up right against the holidays completing FY 2019 and if they can't do that then they will punt that to the next any questions or anything I didn't cover alright thank you so much thank you good afternoon thank you for the opportunity to continue to represent the city work with the wonderful city staff that is very confident and knowledgeable and they actually even respond to all of our inquiries how this legislation may affect them did you receive your check yet? yeah he's working on an increase contract coming up coming up always happy have a reason to go to work to represent good clients said on behalf of myself and the entire Michelle family okay this is a lot of material I'm happy to go through it as usual as quickly or as slowly as we want to I don't want to take too much time getting through the minutiae but I did want this that can be thorough for the record and I wanted to I want to get to questions and discussions as we go these were this year's adopted priorities that the council adopted a year ago and I'm going to not go through because we're going to touch on all of these as we go through the report this is what we began with a year ago as the legislature was getting underway the next slide is what happened in the budget in this past session and the local government fund stayed at the exact same amount that it was at the year before which was the same amount that it was at the year before and was the same total amount though the next six of one time and recurring money a year before that we'll talk about the local government fund toward the end of this when looking forward to the coming legislative session because there's a lot of there's a lot of momentum building to change the way that it is written so that we sort of admit the reality that it is resetting at a lower level and that it is not going to go back to the fully funded level that we discuss every year that the legislature has not seen fit to give us for 10 years this is kind of a sleeper issue but it's something that's important to the city because the big pension reform was done in 2017 the pension reform requires this step up in contributions from employers in the state pension every year in the first year the increase was 2% and then it went up approximately 1% for the subsequent years the legislature paid for 1% in the first year so they paid for half of it in the first year and they continued to pay for another 1% this year and this is something that we worked on with Ways and Means to make sure they were going to do that because had they not if you do the math had they not put that in the budget this year then we would have increased 2% this year so they're catching the 1% they're catching half of the first percent as it goes through the pipeline moving up and I had a lot I had I say that slowly because there was some confusion in discussing this but if you untangle it they have or if you peel the layers back Mr. Palin could tell you why if they don't continue to fund 1% every year then we will go up twice as much as we otherwise would so we worked on that this year we will work on that next year to continue to keep that increase until we get to the final year of the increases then the next year we'll see if they'll fund that one too how about the retirement system actually make more than 4% that would be a good way to approach it no comment there's been a lot of great-wailing and mashing of teeth in the legislature over the performance of the retirement system and some of the decisions that were made over the years and how they place those funds hold on yeah right but Kyle advocating for that every year just like you did last year it's not going to be that we're going into this if they don't fund it if they don't fund 1% the next year then we'll have to come out of pocket 2% because they are catching that first 1% repeating so we continue to advocate for that each year we'll pass it here this was the may have required the most time of anything we dealt with this year may not have but in the end we passed the abandoned building's tax credit extension which was important for a number of investments in the city that people were contemplating the abandoned building's tax credit was needed to make those projects go forward before this legislation was finally passed when we overrode the governor's veto back in October the tax credit expired on December 31st 2019 which was not enough time for these developers to get their certificate of occupancy and claim the credit and claim the credit on these properties so by extending it 3 years now there's plenty of time to finish the make the investment, finish the project get the certificate of occupancy which is required before claiming the credit at the department of revenue so we are anticipating that this well we have every expectation that this is this extension for 3 years we were trying to get 5 but the senate finance chairman would not allow 5 he allowed 3 we have every expectation that this is going to unleash investment in at least at least 2 and maybe maybe 4 or 5 projects in the city where people were waiting for this tax credit to apply how do you hear any rumors of a lawsuit on 1043 because it was bomb-tailed? I hear that it is something that could be brought but I have not heard any rumors that it's anywhere in the office talk about trying to pass a cleaning no I heard there's not somebody in the upstate that usually does it right yeah and if he does I think that if it is invalidated the legislature will go back and they will pass a clean bill on ours that was not part of the heartburn we should probably try to get that done I've already passed it so it shouldn't be a force to bear but they ought to go ahead and do it now making notes so yeah that's everyone talked about that Christmas they took some ornaments off the tree before they finally passed the bill but it still had a number of tax provisions on that might attract a lawsuit relocation of utility lines this is an issue that we worked on a lot this last session that we're still working on today the I think I finally got this down after a lot of good coaching and Joey and Missy I mean sorry Dana when they do something like Carolina Crossroads if our utility lines are in our right of way they have to pay us to move them they have to pay for the moving because we have the right of way they're taking it away from that's called prior rights we have the prior rights to be there because we signed the deal to be there right of way they say we're doing Carolina Crossroads you got to move your utility lines you got to pay so we had legislation that we've been working on with the state association of there you go, American Water Works Association we've been working on this legislation so that DOT would pay when they come and tell us that they're going to have to move their we're going to have to move our public utilities that's in their right of way and so in the end what we ended up with at the end of the year was language that said um state DOT may but not shall pay for the relocation of these water lines we received a number of assurances not in writing but verbally from state DOT that they want to assist in paying for those costs associated with Carolina Crossroads the big project um we're working through that now with DOT um to try to secure their agreement to pay for the relocation of those water lines and that's still up in the air in the meantime we will go and pursue legislation again this next year that says shall not may with the DOT with the Water Works Association because it's just too much of a burden on utilities to have to pay those to have to shoulder those costs when the state comes in with a mandate that says you have to pay them now the whole issue has sort of been amplified by the passage of the gas tax two years ago because now DOT is flush with money so I shouldn't say flush with money has an extra they have an extra amount of money to spend on all these projects around the state which is the whole idea of raising the gas tax to address infrastructure so now you're seeing utilities having to come out of pocket for these costs more and more at a greater pace than we did before they passed that gas tax okay those we're still on enacted laws it was a busy year these are three small ones that affect the city we didn't lobby heavily on them but they are all enacted laws because they're not that many laws that pass that directly affect the city we like to put them in the report so that they're there 2018 legislation now we've moved to things that didn't pass but that were that we worked on that we dealt with and the business license tax was a really big issue in 2017 and to some degree in 2016 it came to a head in 2017 and in the second year of the two year session in 2018 it just did not have any it did not come up much I think for all intents and purposes right now this issue is going to kind of recede a little bit it might come back up if there's somebody who wants to come back and try to address it there are a lot of valid concerns that people have over how burdensome the business license tax can be if you're a business operating in the Columbia metropolitan area and you have to pay a business license tax and register in City of Columbia and Arcadia Lakes and Forest Acres and West Columbia and Town of Lexington and Blythe Wood and and and and it's really difficult different registration different times to register the same papers the tough issue trying to solve it and streamline it is something the municipal association has taken on they are still working on it but I don't think we're going to see legislation like we did two years ago to try to hammer local governments into doing it one way the association has their portal up and running now they do good and it is a lot of cities and it's going to be sort of like no smoking in public places the state never would do anything and we did it through the association 80% of the population is covered by model ordinance of the association and I think we will do the same thing with business license and that needs to be on our agenda sometime in the future trying to form our ordinance and and be listed on the portal where a business can go and click click click and get it done and to the extent that there is participation in that it really is a proactive against state legislation if everybody signs up then there's not going to be all these issues that businesses have are going to be taken care of the concerns of the businesses that they raise the portals being handled by a third party so a lot of the obstacles passing the legislation have been taken care of this is an issue that you see every year and it is it's not a small issue but it's a really discrete issue the PVC industry which is American Chemistry Council has been working state legislatures for several years now trying to get legislation that would essentially the legislation sounds very innocuous but it would essentially give them a legal standing give them legal standing a legal toehold to file an action against the procurement of pipe in an RFP that they have today so what they want is they want to be able to they want to be able to challenge when a utility water sewer purchases something other than PVC they want to be able to review it and challenge it in court if they think that PVC should have been chosen because PVC would have been cheaper all the utilities in the state are against it all the public utilities are definitely against it because the public utilities like Columbia water and sewer we want to be able to choose whether we put Dr. Lyon down there or whether we put PVC down there and we will put PVC when it's cheaper and it's appropriate conditions and we will put Dr. Lyon when it's the appropriate conditions and it may be more expensive but we're not going to have to dig it up in five years to repair it because it was not the appropriate condition for PVC we fought this battle for four years now and I have every anticipation to fight it again next year and we're just trying to save our money from having to go litigate all these costs in the future if we are if it goes through another comment to make is that the argument of the American Chemistry Council on this is that the local governments have these institutional sort of good old boy systems where they've just been doing the same thing forever and they're married to the Dr. Lyon industry and they don't want to take a fresh look and try to change things to save money for their citizens so you get a little traction with that at the legislature in South Carolina there are places where you can get traction on kind of the don't trust those local governments line that's where they get traction and we've so far been successful in not having them pass that bill okay this is the same issue we've talked about for a number of years we got this issue farther this year than we have in the past and we've got a plan to try to get it a little bit farther this coming year issue is that the state of Columbia has to spend money on a property let's say we have to spend $7,000 to go in and demolish a home it's either a health or safety risk today we can put a lien on the property but if they don't ever sell the property we can't get the lien through the property system but we can't get the money back any sooner than that all we can do is put a lien on the property what we would like to be able to do is to put it on the tax bill so that the person has to pay it when their taxes come due the next year so that we get reimbursed and they keep their property the state law is ambiguous in whether it gives counties the ability to do that so we have we were trying to work this from a municipal we were trying to work it from a different angle until this past year in this past year we joined with the county association to try to pass a law that would clarify that counties can do this the law was written in a way that the county association had a good reason for but I didn't think it was as good as it could have been written so I'm talking with the county association now about writing that law in a different way so that it avoids some of the issues that the property rights advocates have the property rights advocates in the South Carolina legislature are alive and strong so they are our hurdle on this issue and on in our next issue I'm sorry the word just went out of that was 833 applied to municipalities as well as only counties annexation is the other way I'm sorry it does not apply to cities we try to make it apply to cities it's DOA so what we're trying to do is to make it apply to counties because what we need is we need counties to have the clear authority to put these liens on their on a person's tax bill every year if the county can do it then the county would have the discretion to also accept that same thing from a city that's also in the county so we have to get the county language clear from a local government I'm assuming when you say discretion that's you were just throwing that out but if the county is granted the authority to do that then they should automatically accept I guess complaints or referrals from the city from a municipality that's the only way they would know that property is there or not I and Scott yes and Scott Slatton at the municipal association I have worked extensively with the counties association and they assure us that if we get this language passed that clearly gives counties the authority to do this that we will not have a problem at least in the city of Columbia we will not have a problem with doing exactly what you said so the bill was drafted with language that was copied over from another part of the code and that language that was copied over did not it raised the concerns of the property rights crowd and their concerns are this we don't want some local government to identify we don't want the city of Columbia and they don't necessarily point at the city of Columbia they just say any local government we don't want them to have some clean team it goes up and says that Mr. Jones yard out on Garner's Ferry just strung with junk all over the yard and so they sent a clean team in there because everybody in the neighborhood complained that Mr. Jones had toys and old tractors the guy was a hoarder and had stuff all over his yard so the city sent a clean team in there and then they put a $2500 bill on Mr. Jones tax bill and we say we agree with that we have that concern too we're not going to health and safety it's a crack house if there's vermin in the yard if there's something I mean when I say crack house I mean if there are homeless people living in a house that's otherwise unopened if it's being used for some kind of illicit activity there's a health and safety risk you know it needs but not just to clean up somebody's junky yard well that's that's part of it that's that's that is that is that's what we're going to say weighted right now in terms of what this city has to do and we put leans functioning as yard men and landscapers and junk men hauling things away if they don't do it so somebody has to pay for that I think this is great I think it's also just important and clear that we are also property rights supporters. Right. Right. Absolutely. But obviously, I think even as we articulate that to others in the State House, we support that as well, but we recognize the larger responsibilities to the wider community. Let's just make sure we don't position ourselves as the property rights advocates. I spend a lot of time assuring people that we're not taking property. That's not what we want to do. But there's a certain degree of responsibility and impact on negligence of property. Impact my property and her property in terms of value. The lesser values properties have, the less the county is able to collect also. There's parts of the state that we could all, outside the city of Columbia, I'm thinking of now, there are parts of the state where if we were able to put, you know, if you were trying to send in people to clean up that part of the state, you'd have to have 15 crews for three years to clean up every half the properties in the county. So the idea that if a local government wants to go spend their money, I'm telling you what the State House, the general view in the State House, if a local government wants to go spend their money on that, they can do that all day long. But we don't want to have every property owner in the state getting tagged with $1,200 a year, $1,500 a year, $900 a year every year because somebody decided that the grass was a little bit too high or they had one too many washing machines in the county. Now, if it's health and safety, that's different. They don't have any problem with spending the money. They have a problem with putting it on their tax bill and then they lose their property the next year because the tax bill was so high. Now, as this continues with the drafting, I would encourage you to work with our staff and those with the staff, et cetera. Maybe even the development staff will make federal definitions of life and the quality of life and what constitutes, particularly if there's been a suite of those issues of quality of life or just around them, whether they're in life or not. I think there's some other parts that are familiar with this, whether they're in life or not. And then there's more about that than that. Is that everything that's got to do with that? I think that's what they do in hospitals. If you don't pay the hospital, they put a lien on your tax return, you'll pay the hospital there first before you go down. Sort of, yeah, we have something like that. I'll check into that. I was thinking, I don't think that's been discussed. I'm familiar with the program. I knew you wouldn't heard the property value of the mountains. Okay. More? Just as a question. What's a ballpark number for the amount of money the city spends on property that would be where we would have money to put on a county? One lawsuit after the lawsuit. Four. We can get you that. Four figures. Three figures. Five figures. And it actually could be less. But it could be less if we had the ability to do it. Some of those are just, it gets so bad that the cost ends up being up there. And we have to go on. We're able to do it. Yeah. Okay. We'll get you all of that. This is a bill that we got a long way this year. But we didn't get it passed. This is a bill that will allow a portion of hospitality and accommodation taxes to be used to repair, make infrastructure repairs from flooding. Okay. The easy thought here is Charleston and Myrtle Beach with sea level rise and the amount of money that they're having to spend to deal with sunny day floods and other associated issues. When the issue came up, there were a contingency of legislators who wanted to limit it to just Ory County and Charleston. And there were the rest of us who were saying, you're not going to do that. We've got a canal sitting down here that we've got to spend tens of millions of dollars on at least to fix that. And so we've got flood issues too as do other areas of the state. The bill broke down over the argument of whether it would apply to just those two counties or whether it would also apply to all the other people. So we're going to be working on that again this next year. That bill has sort of, that bill has kind of taken the place of that capital projects improvement tax bill that the Municipal Association was leading on for a couple of years but never really got traction. So this has sort of become the main revenue bill that the Municipal Association is pushing, which we'll see in a minute. This is a bill that was of great interest to the city of Columbia and to a lot of non-profit organizations here in the city that are struggling to provide as much low income housing as possible. And it would have given tax relief to housing properties that were owned by non-profit housing corporations. This bill, again, advanced into the legislative process but broke down in the Senate over disagreement on how it would be applied. And then at the end of the day, they just decided to quit working on it because they couldn't reach and then pass over their disagreements over how the bill would be applied. I think that bill will be back again this next year because of how far it went. We'll see. And that's different than the tax exemption that's given to a typical buy tax project. I mean, they paid lower property tax already. This is separate from the part from maybe 9 percent. You're looking for an exemption. No, this would be like, this would be like, you know, they pay tax on their properties so they wouldn't miss the exemption. They could apply and put their properties. Any non-profit housing corporation that owned... I'm not sure that we can favor that. Well, I heard... I would be happy to take instruction from the city and the council. I think we ought to pull what was put up before and really get to go through and talk about it because we got a fine-line balance. I mean, the addition part probably makes it a little bit broader. But, you know, one of the things that has come up in our committees, especially before we passed our bill, was, you know, it's the cost of building and operating. So, this would... If you had a non-profit who... Cost of building. Like Lala Anna, the development she's about to do. Yeah, if the taxes end up being... She doesn't pay tax. That's what this would do. She does pay tax. She pays property tax. She pays property tax. The property says she owns the same... We pay property taxes. They pay property taxes. They're organization... What's that? Let's just... They're organization and non-profit. Yeah. So, one of the things we got to be careful with is making sure that that's a balance. Because you don't want a large development. A ball under that. The multiple... But y'all have a mile. Yeah, they have to... So, this basically says if there's a project that comes to you and someone who's traditionally exempted owns 51% of the LOSC or partnership, then there's no tax liability than even the private... That part... I don't remember the LOSC. But Jeff... Jeff, I don't know what's talking about this. I think the middle of housing trust fund was interesting. That's kind of how it came when I already are. And I did ask Marisa to have a look at it because Jeff said this was something that the middle of housing trust fund was interested in. And so he was probably better... It's a way to bring the private equity and the equity value that would be tax liability. I'm happy to discuss further. Maybe you can educate me a little more. Sounds like it. The council will probably be supportive of like our development corporations or a homeless or more. But when that second bullet is added we probably don't understand that or how that... what the implications are with the private sector. That would seem like... right there. Then from the non-profit housing supply chain and then added. We have Jeff also look at... tell us what was their rationale for bringing this into the radar. This is a more straightforward bill for community... well, of course, that's not saying anything, right? For non-profit. This is for community development... certified community development organizations. Today the South Carolina Association of Community Economic Development administers this program that gives people a 33% tax credit for any donations made to a certified organization and they have a million dollars to distribute it. So when they hit that cap which is sometime in February or March they're doing for the year. Similar to SCRA has the same kind of thing where you can donate 5 or 10 million dollars for one of SCRA's funds. You can get a tax credit back from the state. This bill would have taken it from 33% tax credit with a cap of a million dollars in tax credits up to five million dollars and over a three-year phase-in period. So they were trying to... they were trying to take... and the tax credits would go up to 100% contributed. And the 100% of the... that was... this is a... this is something that I received some phone calls on and people wanted to support it if we could and let's see what we can do. And this was the second year they tried this and it got momentum this year but they didn't quite get the authority from the Ways and Means and the House and Senate Finance went up to the five million dollars over a three-year phase-in. I think that this bill will be back this next year. In fact, I'm almost positive. I know I've personally supported this in the past at least the raising of the cap. I remember what I did and you made a little bit of credit but obviously these parodies will be given to SCRA which will work for a good solid team development. I'm surprised that the SCRA thing hasn't survived and had more criticism because when you give a thousand-dollar donation to something and you get a thousand-dollar tax credit back from that you get the value of that tax credit to put on your tax bill and you pay DOR every year as a state tax credit but then you also get the value of the donation on your federal form so you actually give them a thousand dollars and you get more than a thousand dollars back because it has persisted and that's what these guys were asking for. I don't want to speak for them or make their arguments for them but I think that they would if they came back at 50% they would be fine. Let's start at the top and negotiate down the offer that they have but until the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committee give them the authority to spend that extra money because as Senator Leatherman always says $1,000,000 that I give a check for is the same as $1,000,000 that I don't get in the first place so as soon as they give them that authority then I think that they'll be able to to get to the $5,000,000 over three-year phase-in period and the 33% may go up probably won't go up to 100% but it'll probably go up somewhere. These are the pieces of legislation that didn't pass. These are legislation that did not pass as adjourned. They're going to have to be reintroduced next year. Right, which is why I'm talking about what I expect to be reintroduced. I don't expect This is the second of the two years. Yeah, we start new just like Congress. We start swearing in well, we already had swearing in the legislature but the Senate doesn't start new but the session starts new so all the bills from last year I did. But the new session is also a two-year session. Right, yeah, a two-year session. I do not expect to see that business license I do expect to see this bill reintroduced. This is the municipal tax release at back. I don't this one probably will not be reintroduced. This was tried for two years and there was just no traction on it for a variety of reasons. We've talked about it the last two years would have provided local option sales tax of up to 1% but I think we would have already been capped in the city of Columbia so we would have had to have reduced one of our other local option sales taxes that we already have. 20% of it had to go to mandatory property tax rollback. I think Mr. Rickman asked last year whether that was business or residential and the answer was whatever the city wanted to do. Again, I don't want to spend a lot of time on it. It didn't pass and I don't think it's going to be back this next year. It's not a terrible idea. It was really being pushed by Ory County and people in Myrtle Beach who have a lot of costs that they have to pay every year and they have a whole lot of human beings in their county and most of them don't live there. So we're trying to figure out a way to pay for a lot of those costs with something like this. Like Columbia. Like Columbia. Annexation is the other one that we talked about with the property tax rights crowd. We are going to try again this next year to get an annexation bill out of committee. Okay. Animal control shelters. We put this up here because this has been something that we've spent a fair amount of work on because there have been a lot of attempts to do things that would have good impacts and adverse impacts on the city of Columbia animal shelter. And there was a bill passed two years ago that took care of the big issues that the animal control groups, animal rights groups, animal care groups had this year. This was sort of mop up legislation that was introduced in 2017 and in 2018 and it didn't get addressed and the reason it didn't get addressed is because most of their most partner concerns were taken care of in 2016 after a lot of or maybe in 2017 after a three year effort. And the city of Columbia was content. We were content after we worked a number of changes into the bill that ultimately passed. That bill was a good bill for us or I should say it wasn't a bad bill. This is a very quick slide. City of Columbia took an action. The state legislature said we oppose that action. The president of the United States said I am in favor of that action. The legislature of South Carolina said we're fine with it too. Municipal court reporting. I'll put this on here because it's likely to be an issue going forward. And we've been in touch with Dana on this to make sure Judge Turner, thank you. Well, she was there back in the spring when we talked to her. Yeah, good. So we'll work with the court administrator. We got her perspectives on this bill when it came out. This bill is a bill to address the Charleston loophole as they call it. What happened in 2015, the billing and it is dealing with the reporting of activities at local governments, local municipal courts and state courts and magistrate courts and how they get reported to SLED and who keeps the registry. And so the issue is going to be back because this system is antiquated and it's 2018 and there's technology out there to make the system work better. And so, and I'm not saying we're behind other states. We're not necessarily behind other states, but just in life in general the way that we report crimes in this state and the way that we report actions that have taken place by law enforcement officers and by courts is very willy-nilly. Some of them report them daily, some of them report them three times a week, some of them report them weekly, some of them report them by hand, some of them report them by electronically, it's very it's not well coordinated. So there's an effort put forward to try to make this a better system over time. What we wanted to make sure of was that there was not an outsized burden placed on our courts by what they were asking for in this bill. At the end of the day the bill did not pass because people who are opposed to the gun rights crowd was opposed to the shortening of I'm sorry, they were opposed to what the bill would have done to the rights of the person trying to buy a gun in the background checks associated with that. So when I talked to Senator Kimpson about this bill after he introduced it, he said we need to get the language in this on the reporting right. But this bill is probably not going to pass this year because the gun rights crowd is going to shoot it down. This bill is not going to pass this year because the gun rights crowd is not happy with tightening up how we deal with the reporting matters that led to Dillon Ruth being able to buy a gun. Not that they're in favor of Dillon Ruth getting a gun, they're just in favor of not having more constraints on people buying them. So it didn't pass this year but we're going to continue to deal with this because the whole system needs to be tightened up. Had they not had the provision in there that would have required a longer wait, I think today somebody can correct me on this. I think today if you go to buy a gun and they ask the system if the person is allowed to buy the gun, if the system doesn't give them a response within either 48 hours or 72 hours where the system's responses don't know when the person can buy the gun. So this would have modified that and I don't know exactly how. But separate and apart from that the reporting of crimes to sled needs to be streamlined and modernized. So we'll be working on that. The last two issues. Good. Okay. Right. So if council is familiar with the issue it's fairly self-explanatory. The community charge was proposed by Rutherford. I don't think that this bill got a lot of traction. It got a lot of attention but I don't think that it got a lot of traction. Because the people who would have had to have paid the community charge were quick to oppose and it's always easier to not do something than to do something in terms of passing legislation when there's opposition. You can see that the alcohol lies is I think everyone's familiar with that bill and I think everyone's familiar with that issue. The bill got introduced. I think that Senator Harputlian is going to be pushing hard for something like this this next year. I'm not sure. This will remove the restriction. They'll be pushing in the opposite direction. I'm sorry. My bad. I'm sorry. Right. Right. Right. Right. Either way it's not going anywhere. I think I mean that's the reality because you got one senator on one side and one and we all know it only takes one to kill it so it's dead. Now what they ought to do is sit down and craft something that makes sense so there's no gray area. I would hope we would encourage them to do that instead of both babbling each other. Well the big thing is that this restriction is not even the state laws from the state constitution but in order to remove what Russell I wanted to do with this piece of legislation we have to get an amendment for the state constitution. There's a two third vote for the House and Senate and the referendum for the state plan. Well I think you can go in and you can change the definition of what on alcohol license so you can create a bar in some other state constitution which is part of the problem is we only got one desert If you find there's any in the state 4800 please let us know that because Right Okay Did we hand it out? Did you get the mail out? Yes, okay. This was just released over the weekend actually. We found it on the website yesterday morning which we usually have it before we do put this packet together. Municipal association has really streamlined this year to just three priorities. They usually have 8 or 10. Local government fund updating the local government fund formula as I talked about earlier so that it sort of recognizes where we are and tries to reset and go forward from there the proposal that's been made by the county association would be that the local government fund would go up each year up a maximum of 5% but we would go up at the same amount the same percentage that recurring revenue goes up each year. The same one they steal by provisor every year? They strip it out of the local government fund by provisor. Have you ever taken a firm position asking them to stop doing that? Oh yeah, yeah. Every year. This is a Brian White thing. This is a Brian White thing and the senate just kind of goes along with what the house does on this and kind of take the easy way out. Keep on talking. But the house has voted to change the way local government fund is done. They voted two years ago. I don't think they did this last year. They voted two years ago for a bill that would make these changes and the senate just said thank you very much. They just don't have a meeting of the minds on it. And there was more back and forth between the house and the senate this year than usual. I'm going to try to move forward quickly here. The second one is expand flexibility for the accommodation this is what we talked about earlier. Being able to use accommodation tax and hospitality tax for infrastructure and law enforcement and tourist related areas and then the other one comes from the municipal association's work with criminal justice academy on trying to get people there for their training sooner than they were able to go to now. These are the proposed priorities for the city of Columbia for the coming year. I'll run through them very quickly. Local government fund funding for secure state funding for city projects you guys saw the other night that we with senator scott's lead we were able to get some money for the elite of street or harlem heights project which was very good for us. There should be other money similar to that hopefully available this coming year not necessarily for that project I'm just saying we should have an open we have an open door to go try to find money for these local projects. And I have had a conversation we're all over the canal and I've had a conversation and we can discuss where we are on that. The next time we publicly talk about that kind of relationship I think we ought to make sure that we kind of show number wise also where the city was actively participating in I think I understand. But we were happy to have all the states help that we could and the city has done a great job on that project because I've seen all the paperwork on it for the last three years utility relocation which is a we are continuing to work on making sure that we are not paying that we are paying as few of the cost of Carolina crossroads and others as possible pension plan reimbursement this is the next one is one of the municipal associations priorities which is supporting this is being able to use hospitality and accommodations taxes for flooding in tourist related areas flighted property annexation piping material the next one I will we can put a hold on that until we figure out what we want to do on that we can put that one in an abeyance of tax exemption for property devoted to low income housing case eds effort to increase the tax credit municipal we put that bullet in there when we drafted this three weeks ago before the municipal association's priorities were out and then the other one is we expect something to come up on ethics we don't expect to have a lot of lobbying on that but we want to let everyone know how it will affect we just don't want it to be overly burdensome on a local government we will monitor animal welfare I don't expect anything else on that I don't expect anything else on business license tax we will come back this last year it's a licensing issue that would have greatly burdened our summer camps municipal court reporting we will monitor see what happens alcohol licensing requirements we will monitor that and come back to council as the city manager on that and then that's all of it can we add since there's a billion dollars worth of surplus and about 450 million of us going to be reoccurring from now so we get some relief well and that's the local government fund yeah the specific request that effect I think we talked about the property tax exemption for housing or income residents I think philosophically it's something we support the way that bill is structured it's just a reason for pause I'd much rather take the approach that we're taking here as a city question for housing also I didn't get a sense from the body that you did on the ASED tax credit cap for community development organizations I'd like to see the cap go up I'm going to show 33% to 100% is the way we need to go but I think it's one way half the other right and I think just supporting an increase of the cap would support increased donations to those community economic development organizations I may be on the record support the whole I don't remember fine and obviously we've been doing our best to manipulate existing state laws particularly multi-kind industry apart to meet more urban purposes over the last several years should we go ahead and just push or something that courts of rules not favor that's good but you have to start pushing for more policy changes I was talking about earlier but just being much more specific on putting more tools into the toolbox that speak to the needs of cities as opposed to just our traditional events, manufacturing it's not helping just some additional tools not toolbox we need more and it's not going to happen unless we put something forward and honestly it's looking at the stuff that we're already doing in not operating on the on the periphery getting some horses up there in advancing our agenda that was one of the problems I remember incorrectly of the municipal association of the president shouldn't it be a great question should there be a tool should there be a tool this is this person that bought this or said it sounds crazy but should there be a tool for cities across the state not just I should think about places like Newford I assume kind of solid maybe but but cities that that post a significant amount of public incentives our city for example the state government for the benefit of the entire world here there are some additional incentives that maybe a sliding scale for municipalities and or counties that fit different that maybe 10% or 20% that suggests that 40 to 63% of our real estate tax is up for one reason or another I mean something that would make sense to even least rational observer but go ahead and just put some ideas that on the table that might appeal the folks of different political philosophy that might work for us and finally horse and see if we got one in the house and one in the city to advance the idea the guess is based on just the DNA of the state we did the worst but there are a whole lot of communities around the state that have significant public sector probably Shaw there other places just start thinking a little more creatively about some additional tools that might work for urban areas right down that path I would want to look at streams of funding if there are any that flow from us back to the state that we could deduct that from as opposed to creating a stream of funding from the state directly to us only because if it annoys our bottom line right in a real way right actually I'm talking about something in addition to that it's very clear in this common sense once you talk people through the DNA of what makes up our city people get it you take a property owner and mix that with Act 88 it's a really interesting challenge to talk about that makes it difficult for a commercial interest to perform I think we discussed about putting some ideas out and getting some real champions in the House and the Senate on both sides of the aisle how much would Act 388 reform of the business property tax real property tax how much would that have an impact if there were relief I don't know the reality is that everybody in the entire state and I I'd never hand a cap that changes in time in our respective life but what can we do about the other pieces of the project at least recognize the influence of public sector about the I think you know we need to move on I want to be respectful of the time of the council in the upcoming sessions I would like to be in attendance one of the things I thought we initially what we were trying to do in this area was it made sense everybody can pretty much see and understand financial impacts obviously that doesn't work and we obviously don't have a particular tool do we know what other municipalities in our conditions have done to kind of figure out really figure out a other state that we if you say Greenville Greenwood which is still in South Carolina a few other places have either worked with their state governments or New Haven Yale at one point it runs again we've got I guess getting the lessons from the state so well that's my point so I'm interested in what folks have done to kind of wiggle something out of it Greenwood is the two best example we'll talk and you and I talked about it when Scott spoke the other day put together the information of everything we were doing on the street I'll give that to Mr. Davis and mail it out to your constituents I saw it thank you thank you thank you God Kyle thank you so much I wanted to thank Wano Wano really helps Kyle and Ralph and all of the staff communicating back and forth with them so we appreciate you Wano and Mayor while you were with your colleagues this Saturday do you want to put together a trip to Washington this year particularly on some of the issues Kyle put before like advocating for instance that becomes an opportunity and I always suggest you all do that as you said you all learned the best obvious for us and if I could get Wano to work with you Ralph on some dates would you like to do it outside of the NOC legislative so that they're not competing for time absolutely let's try them out okay and census they're much so willing to discuss that but also coming up with an aggressive plan for census 24 we need to appropriate some income money because commerce is not voting resources so we need to make sure that we have a good account of the year all the measurements are great work and some other places but it's only going to happen if we do it alright thank you safe travel nice to meet you Mr. Mayor our next presentation is on Amplify and the Columbia Compass are update to you all if any of you are ready Margie thank you for waiting for me Ms. Margie thank you all good afternoon Council Member Mr. Mayor City Manager I am happy to be back in Columbia I seem to be spending quite a bit of time here you'll remember late January of this year we kicked off our cultural planning process and since that time have continued to work with your own planning department staff so that we could make sure that the comprehensive plan which this is a component of and our findings are intersecting so that as we together come down to final recommendations the arts work that we will be recommending will have as many opportunities to partner with other areas of the city as possible so I thought it would be important for us at this point as we're closing out about 11 months of just inquiry and community conversations just give you an update on what we're hearing and what we're finding we're not at the point yet of making hard recommendations for you there are some ideas that are coming to play but we're at a point where I thought you might want to just digest what we've been hearing from the public and ask any questions so that as we go forward we can't make sure to keep those questions in mind. So as you know this part of our work is connected to the Columbia Conference Plan and just so you'll know for those of you that I haven't had a chance to be safe safe I've been working with other I live in a little state called Texas and have been working in the area of arts administration professionally for about 40 years it is a career plan and I've been general manager for both the city of Dallas and the city of Los Angeles and following that work for the 4th foundation of the grant movement in West Texas a lot of the work that we're hearing over the last year is going to benefit from all of that experience but even more importantly our ability to just be patient and listen so that we can see a specific Columbia I just want to state simply that the goal will be objective of Amplify Columbia this is the city's part is to identify the most effective and efficient way for the city to respond to this this is not necessarily a plan that's going to just think about the contact funds for arts administration but I'm very comprehensive we don't should the city's role be going forward in arts administration I also want to say that we started first looking at the city's vision where the city said wants to go and so by the year 2036 we've been talking to them with that destination in mind this isn't a short term band aid kind of conversation it's a vision and to help us look at all of these areas there are several different bodies in the community that we've been relying on so the city contracted with Amplify Columbia to produce this one Columbia contracted with Amplify our partner working with us as advisors in the board of Amplify Columbia a steering committee that's made up of a cross section of Amplify the residents of indicators to artists of arts organizations but also to members of the neighborhood business community neighborhood association and then the second tier of advisors that we have is a group that we call thought leaders and there are folks that work inside of neighborhoods that meet with them every time we come to say here's what we're hearing and you advise to give us who else should we be talking to in the group that's been advising the group of artists facilities the Columbia resident artists we engage to go into communities and neighborhoods and have conversations that might be more difficult for an outsider and then artists as you know lower people's anxiety so we're looking with all of that advice and with our planning structure so to date as we're still standing we've engaged over a thousand citizens in direct conversations we've held about 90 town hall and community conversations with all these areas including all of these individuals that you see on this list and for the survey that just closed on the Amplify on the website over 400 and it's really pretty good about community awareness and about ability to get involved in a spot we're going to replace this map with a little bit more sophisticated one that has come from the planning department which is one to show you where our footprint has been I want to just go quickly through the top themes that we've been hearing so areas or chapters or recommendations first one has to do with leadership and this is a really broad bucket conversation it talks about leadership among the existing fitting funding of all the working groups their capacity, their strength of areas that we need to continue to grow and it looks at leadership in the neighborhood though so churches for example may be a leadership like in the neighborhood but they are the culture keepers we're also looking at future leadership we're doing a really quick desk study to see the average length of service or the executive director of the organization some leaders have been in their jobs for over 20 years some to the spectrum of leadership that is concerned that we want to focus on but also leadership transition how are the next generation of social managers being groomed and trained and where they're getting good college business practices some of the things that arts leaders need to be fully aware of they need to be connected to communities connected to good trends and practices and arts business they need to be the partner so these are the trends around leadership that we're focusing on so this is more than just the voice that we hear at a council meeting that says we want more money it's about how to grow as a strong public the other thing that's rising in our conversation is about spaces where are the facilities to identify them and also where are their opportunities for spaces in neighborhoods where people live where are safe havens for children who participate in arts business it can be very non-traditional it might be a pop-up space on the front it might be a partnership with a school it might be a partnership with a library system or in some cities these partnerships emerge as new development happens and we have plans as part of that development where we're doing an inventory of existing spaces we're looking at whether or not they are ADA accessible we're identifying those areas of the city that lack our spaces and we've been looking at underutilized city-owned so except by just as you're doing the inventory of existing and performing are you also looking at its utilization particularly those spaces that are not located down because there are some opportunities maybe for combining these with others we think about non-traditional spaces we're thinking about shared spaces for educators I won't need all these to look at them but what we're hearing from neighbors and residents these are non-archorganizations people are saying for example if I live in a public housing apartment I live in a very restricted area for transportation I need my children to access the market we're looking at the cultural heritage crisis not just in the city but in the region also this is where there are opportunities for artist residents we're not talking about building new spaces we're talking about how do you use your inventory this is just a couple of case studies I'll show you the top one actually is a public housing community that was being rehab and so the housing department and the city worked together to create a number of units for artists to live by their homes and then in return to provide architectural programs for families and children and then for non-arch money and then outdoor spaces how do you think about developing new arts degree spaces we hear a lot about the classroom teachers in the area of the lack of opportunities for students to play that would be putting away the fun in the computer it might be or it might be using the computer to provide guidance valuing artists is a big conversation on the use of the art the individual art of the foster system as well as artists who work with art and innovation there was a lot of data about the steep edge about artists leaving for London or they come for a short time to get training or they get jobs if they don't stay and try to understand why that was happening and what we're hearing from artists are issues that I can assure you are natural issues and have to do with individual art integrating artists into the operations of the city they feel like they have something to offer but how can artists be embedded in the public a safe community named with safety services health care issues promoting Colombian art makers more aggressively it felt like the artists community felt like they were invisible are there opportunities for more long-term art establishments we have a list of things that we've heard that from the artists we'll wrap some thinking around about how do we keep, grow and expand the knowledge that the artists are making this whole idea of enterprise as artists live work spaces video spaces for artists to sell their work to the public a lot of the input around that really big conversation arts learning and mastery as we talked to K-12 teachers to the parent and then to the parent groups inside of neighborhoods who represent ultimately distinct backgrounds they want their kids to participate in other things this is not necessarily art in school this is art and culture and art is coming to the center this is a big deal I want you to see some of this slide I'll just talk about this this is what we heard in all of our conversations about what parents and families want for their children this cuts across the economic culture race everybody wants the same time to do what they're doing emotional and physical well-being they want kids to be innovative speakers they want them to master their academic work be engaged in civil society take responsibility and these are obviously printed with your credit words these are the things that families can't say we have some additional data on this slide that we referred last night from just a really rich conversation that we had with the Latino community they're also thinking about their children to the being bi-cultural and they want to make sure that their indigenous culture is diverse so they understand their own traditions but they also learn how to move to make it a community of a society of 8,000 so the arts play a part in that and how do we bring that recommendations to you that could encourage empathy and positive self-esteem that's our challenge so when you had these conversations you understood what was their commitment because so far I've heard a lot of what do you need to do but I haven't heard what the commitment is from families they have a responsibility for all of these to be successful and unfortunately in the past it's been the tendency for the city to have to carry 100% and that's why programs are different because you don't have the buy-in from the community the parents and so I haven't heard any of that you haven't heard that because we haven't asked that in question yet we need to find out first what is the broadest lens for the service of the public so that Columbia as a whole is stronger in providing arguments as we go back to the community with a series of recommendations based on what they said that'll be a better time but there are 10 things on this how many of these things can happen in the private sector how many can happen in the neighborhood in fact it is one or two programs we were able to ask about that hasn't been our line of questioning it will be key because all of this will be lost if you don't if it's not a community driven together for the success right now so right now we're getting from the community and your point is not one that we would say history and heritage is another theme for Columbia but the history the tangible history building iconic spaces in the city needs preservation but also needs interpretive work so that new generations of Columbia but also we need to think about how do we re-shape current structures for bringing new people to the city so as a generation changes somebody's history is not embedded in a building on its own we need to make sure your point of view that we have some connection to that otherwise there's another big area that we can see and this isn't just coming from people who want more money this is looking at the cultural infrastructure the buildings that exist the spaces that exist the ways we have been funding and how you're using their time to dollars what is that investment really looking so for the average person they look at how you provide grants where the money goes we in this case want to think about the broader picture of investment I really like I was not distracted but I was just doing a quick study on my phone looking at for example money that Columbia is leading and let me just tell you what I quickly was finding there is a grant program several this has to do with investment I was just looking at the amount of money that the city of Charleston and Dallas the city of not as our organization the city of Charleston not as our city received $50,000 for a public art project $70,000 for the city of Dallas this is one federal funding in one year $15,000 to support a contemporary art agency $36,000 for the organization $10,000 for the big reason and that doesn't include the $25,000 for the label festival these are grants that the city and I didn't have time I probably should have thought about it sooner there are four major arts funding agencies that the national that invest in cities public art arts and neighborhoods building policies looking at equities institutes for museums and library services there are a limited number of organizations that can aspire for that but local governments don't want and it is in fact the largest source of funding so the point is when you think about investment I know it's easy for you to go to the money house but in investment we also want to talk about investing in Columbia we are also eligible for public services so we want to see how we can increase the investment for full funds that support some of the elements of it some of the things that are going to drive the application for our recommendations we have engaged the product sector I think there's a huge application for us looking at some of the recommendations that we'll also make suggestions about potential funding sources developing a system for arts and education as we've been meeting with the United Way but where do you go for us and what are our findings excuse me aren't all going to be targeted at city government must do they're going to be talking about the city of Columbia as a whole public sector public sector so let's complicate who is the best founder to respond to some of these things generating a public art plan but in fact there are a lot of public art but what's the plan for that who's going to maintain them over time how many murals do you how many international art how many local art and then perhaps where are there opportunities for a larger footprint in the area of public art we're learning about some possibilities preserving the integrity and dignity of the neighborhood how can we do that with non-art skills that protects the cultural heritage but when people come to visit Columbia they're coming to see what a good job you're doing handling your police and fire and safety that's really cool they all want to know and then finally we're looking at the consideration for what's called a local arts agency which does solicit for them for additional investment to manage as a public art how do you already skip what's your what's the system what's the system for you there seems to be a piece missing maybe I missed it don't understand it but to me it seems that the art community is missing what is their investment you got artists you got art programs you got all these people you mentioned a lot of these directors who've been around for a long time where's their role in this because I haven't seen it yet maybe I missed it so I'm curious how that fits into the weave that you're creating so many of the conversations that you've had have been focused specifically on innovation their needs, their budget that is only one piece of the city of Columbus so you keep asking about commitment we'll probably come back to that but right now we're looking at what does the community the taxpayer, the resident school teacher how do they interact with these artists and then how do they define art and what does cultural expression look like for them so we may have a very strong roster of artists but if they're not meeting everything and reflecting the people that live in Columbia we've got to talk about how do you think those things are going to be I think it goes back to one of your first slides where the arts folks made all their comments that they didn't feel like but I think we have to ask the question the other way as well what is your dedication what is your commitment because it doesn't work if the two parties don't work together well you're right because right now the perception is is that a lot of people get a lot of funding and so how do we make sure that and I think that's where you're going to get to at some point that we're really engaged the most and get the most out of our community as a whole not one sided so be curious to see how that leads and I'll be happy when we get to that point with you we've looked at your applications plus their evaluations how are you holding those who are getting these values and there's some so it's going to be a strong touch at the right moment because someone is going to have to do accountability and that's actually one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation because change moves at the speed of trust and the community is a trust in the art school the city of the city the city of the city and the city as a whole so we're going to have to have more transparent funds seeking and we're going to have to think about professional management of your culture just like most cities across the country the arts in mid-sized cities write out as community-based art schools and you do have your records to the management from the passion and you're at a point in growth that's going to be where you see management coming and I would probably say to you that you probably figured out we have the cultural counseling and we have that there seems to be a lot of fat things there maybe that is hurting us instead of hurting you and the other thing is that you've got a lot of young artists that are dedicated so traditional structures of management are not allowing enterprise art making and cultural enterprise projects really different so we're going to have to look at how those things really make that idea of money new money has to be made so you can take better risk with the risk so I'm open, I think that's my answer I do want to make a comment on the investment slide you had earlier I wonder why the University of South Carolina was not part of the discussion or part of the investment I think the arts and the students they major in that and be a good pool and a good measurement we actually have been meeting with the fine arts director couple of them and then we have a very separate conversation with them there is a very specific role for USD their student body is automatically a trans but the institution itself has some resources that could respond some of the things that have been particularly on the leadership so when I'm meeting with a few of the council members and I hear you ask for higher levels better business not for profit organizations operating more like a for profit business so the business school and your art school at USD are perfect partners for helping developers but so is the philanthropic community so they also want to see that growth in administrative potential so that perhaps might be a good link for USD we visited with USC helping with somebody at Allen University Columbia College Benedict College we have talked to those guys to make sure that whether or not their students their students are a part of their response but their system so thank you Brice I mean I think this is an update there's another piece that's good and I look forward to seeing where more we can get to some recommendations and discussion around that but my question would be looking forward to that next piece the city of Columbia is this one this is a cultural plane for the Columbia area has there been any conversations that this might be a year or a letter is somebody else but connecting the county about a resource is because the city can't find everything and as we move forward some of these some of these pieces would mesh better together if there was a collaborative effort to say this is a plan and this is the direction we want to move forward for this reason thank you for that question you have been meeting with the county and I'm thinking about turning into an interim intent and I know as elected officials will be enjoying the city so what are the connecting opportunities that we are looking at how can they benefit from this plan and then how can this play a benefit for the community the city of Columbia is our ultimate plan but we know that the forest nature of the city boundaries there are opportunities that are possible possible of collaboration there is room monitoring recommendations that can be provided for this climate for us people in the city of Columbia for America but I think that our education out of school the kids are moving around cities and then Columbia is the lead one of the cities that we talked to as Columbia goes so I think you're going to see some massive because artists live here they work there and I was just wondering were they included one and number two if the conversation had and what had happened was their appearance was accepted to being part of this I think I think this is needed and I go back to the session we had with artists and moving forward the message from that group I think I heard was availability of resources for small and young artists going to business business part of the art I think that's going to be important especially folks starting out because I've seen a lot of starting artists that's what they're known for they don't have any money and I go back to when I got started my money came from the state arts commission but I could not do to get started now like I did in the past because of the costs and the meaning especially in a city we have to deal with environmental issues and inspections and that sort of thing I think if we move forward when we look at the funding sources that you've highlighted I hope we keep that in mind because we have people now in this city but they just can't get off the ground and so going after dollars is really some of the costs of really starting a business in that area there were two conversations that we could do one of the things that clearly is arts learning for artists is building a business and it's reading and writing and reading and writing and that is a set of evaluation methods before you get started so it sounds like I'm a bureaucrat and you don't we need to make sure that the arts have the kind of resources that they need to do it better and that service is missing now that is arising from the city planning process but it may not necessarily be right because we can't do it all but you've got to say here's what we need I think this will be very important because we're talking now about really spreading opportunities and accessibility for the arts this is important everybody please I think I'm excited too and really looking forward to the teaching direction that you're going to give us recognizing that there's something that the city will do there's something that the city will do to help support others play their role in this that we're recognizing just the changing nature of the arts everything we're talking about here we're talking about money everything we're talking about here is not necessarily funding we're talking about providing some comprehensive teaching direction for the region we're talking about a cultural plan that helps us make that 2036 go a reality here in the midlands we get a monthly update I'm not sure if you've seen that yet Margie on every grant we've ever applied for that one right? kills a lot of trees when you print it out you wish you hadn't but they have been decidedly heavily public safety focus community development focus probably lately because we worked at really focusing on transportation mobility both literally tiger grants around biking and place making we found some success in certain spaces we shot up Bloomberg Lee and the crew did a great job helping us pull that application together but some of the places where we haven't I've had the executive director of IMLS at a hit not mob twice over the last few years we spent a lot of time with her just a few months ago but those places that obvious opportunities were in our blind spot because we're doing everything else that's what we need you guys to let us know and that's why we stood up for one Colombian so happy with the work that's happening there but we won't see everything so we need to make sure we don't miss any opportunities to at least ask for it we only have one person in the house out of her she does a great job we have some subject matter expertise in certain areas but we are we have some good folks but we're devoid in the face of what you all are we're like everybody so we need to know if we need to go after 10,000,000 100,000,000 whatever happens to be we'll give it a shot we'll give it a shot but my sense is with the volume of different things like Cal and Rob and Deborah doing earlier that we're dealing with I guess is we won't be able to focus on those issues unless you bring them to us in a way that they should be I'm very interested and I think it's also worth noting as you noted that several of those sensitivities that concerns raised by artists are not just Columbia issues those are national issues so we can address them in our space which not only it won't just be a bomb but it may also help us get ahead of other communities on a regular basis for that talent this is exciting I really appreciate that because I hear from people regularly I sat down with those people I sat down so this has been really grassroots and grass tops and exciting and that's one last thing if we are able to provide the cultural plan and the strategic direction capital will flow from a number to a place there are people who are looking to be a part of something much larger and much bigger but they need to know that we've got a plan and if we do that some of it will be us don't be purely private capital people want to improve their communities and some will actually be these artists who have incredible talents and skills actually being able to monetize that in ways because we've helped them build the infrastructure to be good, strong, solid sustainable businesses there's a whole lot even patrons they do want to see a more robust people they didn't make the best of it and so that's for the issue of leadership and vision we've been supporting these five organizations all these years because we've got a run-up so that's the kind of conversation we really need your advice and counsel we're going to wrap it up right now but you always get from us or from several of us depending on the day of preponderance or a majority a real sense that we want accountability and we've got to focus as much on helping build strong organizations that won't be forever out of public support because I believe we have a robust responsibility as a government to help support the continued development of the arts but we also want to see some type of measured commitment to sustainability coming from our partners in the arts community it's there but it's more there in some organizations than others and we've just got to figure out what our role is other than succession plan really making sure that we're asking for more more yeah absolutely thank you so much thank you Lee you had some nice hiring I'm sorry I just wanted to brag on Grease her I've attended several of her meetings with the public and she does a great job of pulling out the opinions from a diverse crowd better skills than I've ever seen from anybody else and I'm looking forward to doing a final product we have a quick video that I won't show now but I'll leave it to the manager's office it just showcases our work with as they think about building Columbia for the future and what culture and creativity I need to look like but I'll leave it with the person thank you thank you you want to say something? you want to say something? you want anything you need presenting? stay here please it doesn't matter if y'all prefer to go ahead and transition I'm curious about one item if there's something to show electronically it may have shown better down here what do you think about this? I do I can't oh I wasn't planning to leave actually I'll tell you what I'm thinking alright okay let's do it you want to make a motion first? you make a motion on the record Mr. Mayor I'd like to make a motion we're going to executive session for a seat of legal advice relating to pending threatening potential claims on the section 30 days 40 and 70 a curvy bishop at all versus city of Columbia claim of Clarence Hall the seat of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege to doctors transportation stand-up street scooters metro wastewater treatment plant discussion of matters related to proposed location or expansion of services to encourage location or expansion of industries or other businesses pursuant to 70 a to project plan project bull street and project 604 UG discussions and we have deferred on Greg Park Hill Creek discussion discussion of we deferred that to the next week discussion of negotiations proposed contractual pursuant to 70 a to AMI and Finley Park you do city of B. Sawyer city of B. Sawyer amendment, is there a second? did y'all add in it? yes I I yes I I that's not man who was here with us today? they found it on the floor city of Columbia they haven't given me a pen yet you ordered it I wasn't necessarily going in this room but you're gonna get your Google