 And Ms. Herbert is caught on the phone. I am, I'm ready for Madam Clerk's all the way. Here. Here. Present. Here. Present. Yes. Present. Yes, sir. Creator and merciful, omnipresent, always abounding in your love we gather here today. Sense and to witness your presence. Be with us individually and yet collectively. Allow each one of us to feel the winds of your spirit. We ask it in your name. Government, I know you. I know you and I have talked about this yesterday at length, but we're still sending a lot of prayers for our, for our police department and the loss of Officer Riley. No, sir, I met with his mother yesterday and she was still working through that. Maybe next week to be honest with you, Mayor. That and some family out of town. Mr. Mayor, I move we adopt the agenda with the addition of item six in executive session, discussion of matters relating to the proposed location expansion or provision of services encouraging location or expansion of industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body pursuant to 30-40-78-5 project framework. Second. Madam Clerk, could you read the roll please? Here's you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Aye. Aye. Thank you for that donation of your expense account to our future causes. The agenda. She said yes. Anyway, Madam City Manager. Yes, sir. We will begin our city council discussion items with item number one, the city council proposed zoning public hearing schedule, Ms. Christa Hampton Planning and Development Services Director. Ms. Christa. Good afternoon, everyone. Favorably out of committee is a recommendation to help streamline the timing of reviews that come to you for your zoning public hearing. You currently only hold those every other month. And so a project that may go to Planning Commission sometimes has to wait two months to come to you before that zoning public hearing. So what this would do is take away that month from that review time. So our recommendation to you is to hold a zoning public hearing every month that would be at your second meeting of the month. This is just the public hearing that comes to the city council. Correct. Yes, Planning Commission still meets monthly. And so what happens is some of those cases kind of late fallow while they're waiting for your zoning public hearing. So it would be one month Planning Commission and then it would come to the city council. And all of the public notice items would remain the same. And we're not going to put a time that we used to say that they would start at 7 o'clock and we had to sit there for 15 minutes waiting for 7 o'clock. No, so that's entirely at your discretion. Any other questions for Ms. Hampton? Thank you, Krista. That was a great presentation. I appreciate how you kept it very short and brief and to the point. I've had longer ones recently, so I needed a balance. Thank you, Krista. Item two, the Columbia Economic Development Department action plan update. Mr. Ryan Coleman, the Economic Development Director, will come forward. I think you all have received the final draft of the annual plan. Try opening this the right way up. Good afternoon, Mayor and members of council. Excuse me, should we say this comes as a recommendation of unanimous from the committee? Yes, sir. I think he was going to say that. Yes, sir, absolutely. Yes, sir, Councilman. OK. Yes, thank you all. Glad to be here today to speak with you about the Economic Development Annual Plan. We have been working extensively with the Economic Development Committee and staff, which we've come together on this plan that we're here to discuss with you all this afternoon. Wanted to take some time just to go through this kind of item by item and give you all an update on the recommendations that have come out of the committee and the plan as it stands and give you an opportunity to review and provide any additional recommendations or feedback you may have for our consideration. And then barring that, I think we are good to proceed with approval and enacting the plan. All right, let me ask just one question. Yes, sir. Now, this has been reviewed by Economic Development. Yes, sir. Sometimes you ought to approve the amendments or add-ons. So just as a matter of record, you're reporting that to us, right? That's correct, sir. Is that right? OK, the Economic Development Plan was born out of the City Council retreat work that was done earlier this year along with the set of seven strategic outcomes that focus on our city's priorities to secure the future of the City of Columbia. And the adopted vision statement that we have listed for that is the Economic Growth Statement, which Columbia is a capital city with a competitive tax and fee structure that welcomes new investment. The city's business recruiters specialize in urban economic development and are willing to go where it takes to bring back the best hospitality, retail, corporate opportunities, and investment capital to Columbia. While project managers work simultaneously to help our small businesses and entrepreneurs, as well as those who have chosen to locate here. Plan then doves tails into several overall areas of focus, the first area being the business-friendly improvements. Item number one, Economic Development will proceed with assembling a 15-person advisory board that will consist of a mix of existing business owners of various business sizes and types, developers, commercial brokers, geographies, and various other business community leaders. This group will also include members from the Columbia Council of Neighborhoods and a member from the Mayor's Minority Business Advisory Council. The group will meet once per quarter to provide recommendations and feedback on where the city can continue to improve business-friendly processes and procedures. Item number two, Staff will provide increased support. Right. Yes, sir? In that 15, you can do all of that and recruit all of these persons. 15, you say? Yes, sir. Is it limited to 15 or is 15 the magic number? I think that's a goal number that we set in place. We wanted to have enough people to provide a pretty good broad consensus on some of the things that we wanted to focus on without making the committee so large that it became unwieldy. That was just kind of a comfortable number that we gravitated to, but it could be less, could be more. And Mr. Coleman, I do have one question. I was looking at an old version, I guess, this morning, and we had business associations or business association members, but that's not in this final copy. I'm just realizing that. Are we including business associations? Or no? Well, I only noticed because it specifically business associations was in the wrong copy that I pulled up. And I didn't know if that was intentional or... The, I think the original format that we had for this involved the, that was the brokers and the roundtable groups that was specific to the business association. So we would have had one subgroup that was just strictly the association heads. That being said, they're not excluded from this. So we would certainly welcome the opportunity that could be included in this as well. Okay, thank you. Item number two, staff will provide increased support to create more predictability on the timing of permitting and projects to determine the steps the city can take to improve our customer interactions with developers and investors and increase the speed of approvals. Determine if staff and levels are commensurate with where they need to be in order to maximize our city's efficiency. Look at where we can more effectively utilize technology to increase those efficiencies as well and determine and define optimum turnarounds for small, medium and large project sizes. I think here, I think it's important for us to, as we develop plans to execute this improvement is to quantify what increased support means as well as the speed of approvals have a good understanding. And I'd like to know where we are now and where we plan to be. Because even when we were doing our orientation earlier this year, we learned about various technologies with you all using Salesforce, other folks using other databases, even internally within the city. And there being some immediate changes that could be made to create more predictability. So I'd like to see us continue to define that and get an update at whatever appropriate time of how you all plan to measure success in that way. Item number three, relocation to the Economic Development Department to City Hall, which will provide better access to the mayor, city manager and leadership when working with prospects. Better leverage our leadership and key decision makers as an integral part to our business and investment recruitment process. If you move it from where we are now to the city hall. We are looking at a staff of five individuals. Currently two would need to relocate. Now, will we have space for that to take place here? I think staff is working to identify that. Like I'm not taking that on. I would say, Ryan's probably gonna look to me and Jeff to answer that question. So my thought process at this point with space being such a premium in city hall, Reverend McDowell is upstairs. The suite behind chambers, honestly, there's no other appropriate location in city hall at this point. Of course, there have to be some. We will make sure that city council has another office space to utilize. But for the purpose of what I'm being told is the reason for the change to have this proximity to the manager and the mayor in an appropriate location that provides a conference room for them to utilize, provides appropriate office space. And for the ability of folks to visit city hall and walk through the chambers and to the back. I mean, space is a premium here. I don't know where else we would put them to be honest. I don't know that you wanna have prospects being taken down to the mezzanine, but we have young staff that can certainly go to the mezzanine and work from the mezzanine. We have upgraded the mezzanine, so it's perfectly fine. There's office space there. Some of the mayor staff is there now. A little drafty on the mezzanine. I don't know if it's gonna work. Just a little drafty on the mezzanine. Because there is a premium space here at city hall. It would just seem to me that if we do the third floor, that suite of offices, I mean, we don't need all, I mean, we just need a tree where we can do business. I'm well aware that I'll make sure city council has an office space to utilize, which would be probably more appropriate to be accessible to me on this floor, also near the mayor's suite back here. Well, it would certainly be the most logical place. Yeah, we can, yeah, we can, yeah, just give us a big old create. A different plan had a whole set of office spaces for council, so we moved away from that plan. So, how we were back to this building. You're good. If we could, yeah, the third floor would be fine and that would give us the available space for Ryan and four other offices, is that right? On that third floor. Well, one of them is already up there. One of the offices is there. The offices is already there. Well, one of the staff persons is already up there. You got a kitchen, a little feeding trough. Then, of course, you've got the larger, where Shanique, where would she go? I mean, there has to be some logistical changes. Well, I'm just not used to talking about all this as such a pull for them and letting staff know off the cuff this way without me talking about it with them first, but Shanique had been in here with the mayor, which is at this council conference room and lends itself anyway to her. She's always up and down. So, Shanique would probably move in here again. Well, I don't particularly want you to get into specifics. Okay. You don't have to. Yes. I agree with what the Economic Development Committee wants to do and what they are proposing. I think it centralizes everything else. Right. It put them in a building where city manager and mayor is. I think it's a unique opportunity. Yes, sir. My issue, of course, is there's going to have to be some reconfiguring down of those places you already done in terms of whether or not what is going to cost us to do that in terms of reconfiguring some of the office spaces and that sort of thing. It shouldn't. It shouldn't. Okay. I mean, we have already updated them as the name level as much as probably it can be. And Mr. Simons can speak to some of the things we've already done on the mezzanine. The mezzanine, though, is me personally. I don't think that presents the best opportunity for bringing in prospects and, yeah, it's not handicap accessible. It does, that would not make sense to put people on the mezzanine. Well, it certainly gives, and I'm sorry for it. Not this staff. I'm not asking, this is another conversation. Yes, sir. But it would certainly seem to me that because we occasionally meet with constituents, we occasionally have executive committee meetings in the third floor room, there has to be some reconfiguring where those kinds of things can take place. Council members, what we would probably need is a large oak tree right in the middle of chamber. That's where we do our best, that's where we make our best decisions somewhere under somebody's tree. So yes, I'm in agreement with that. I think it's a unique opportunity for us to bring everybody on board. Thank you, ma'am. You're welcome. And we can talk more about this, but I think, I know space is a premium, but I also think some of these offices, especially on the first floor, are huge and only one person is in it. And I think that we need to think about ways in which, especially if you have recruiters that are gonna be out in the field a lot, it's very common to be sharing a large office like that if you're just in here to be meeting with people. So I just like to talk to you more about some of our options in terms of what makes sense because I do think that there's a lot of space being underutilized in the city hall. Well, we can talk about it. I've been here for about those 15 years and I probably disagree with that, yes ma'am? Well, the only thing I wanted to say is that I do know for a fact that we can make offices out of space because there was an office made specifically for me when I was here. So there are some ways to divide up larger spaces if you're really determined to move a particular person. Yeah, exactly. All right, moving. Didn't think that item was gonna take up most of the conversation, but I'm glad we got the feedback and put it on the table. Go ahead, Ryan. All right. Item number four, creation of the business liaison position which was enacted in 2021 and will be moved under the economic development staff. Item five, keep city council and the city manager better apprised of the issues that are affecting business growth and recruitment, coordinate with other business-facing city departments such as our Office of Business Opportunities to make sure that we are identifying and addressing these challenges in a comprehensive manner. Item number two, recruitment. The number one, prioritize the importance of our urban development targets in new capital to include restaurants, urban residential opportunities, hotels, corporate office, back office, retail and shopping centers, grocery and food stores, new capital and investment, and businesses which utilize our universities for talent and operate in an urban environment. Number two, fill the newly created business recruitment position and structure the office to support the recruitment of these urban infill projects and startup recruitment. Create more engagement opportunities that will involve the mayor, city manager and leadership into that process. Three, create data set to sell the city, tap into our local higher education expertise such as Darwin Moore School of Business to create modern data sets and demographics that will aid in soliciting urban development targets and use this information to create a newly updated Pitch Book for the city of Columbia. And we've already reached out to the Moore School and begun the process of having conversations with them about getting those students involved in that. Number four, targeted geographic development efforts that focus on building a strong core as well as corridors where our opportunities are most prevalent. Include the priorities for developing high traffic pen corners and our nodes. Focus on areas of opportunities for future growth such as North Main and Broad River Road which are just as important as a continued focus on improving the urban core. Item five, leverage USC and our other local colleges for recruitment opportunities targeting alumni, students, parents, university affiliates and others. Make sure that we are incorporating all of our local colleges as much as possible. Include local college interns who can help assist with program development and execution. Identify opportunities to sell to students and others who have historical ties back to Columbia. Item six is 2022 targeted conferences and trade shows. And below that, I've outlined a small chart with just a couple of priority items that we would wanna consider over the next few months. ICSE Southeast Retail was coming up. The ULI fall meeting is in mid-October. I've already signed up to attend that. ULI Capital Markets is here in the state planning on attending that in November. And then there's some various site selector consultants towards the end of the year as well. Under number five, the opportunity to employ interns. Yes, sir. College interns that are specific, that's in their wheelhouse of their matriculation. I think that would be, I really think that's ideal. And the more interns you get, the more hopefully when they graduate, they'll come back to us. So I think unique opportunity, sir. And what's interesting about that, it plays into long-term from the other colleges as well, Dr. Artis is really working on trying to push her graduates into some of the graduate programs at USC so that they'll become more attached and be more here and try to keep some of that talent here. So there's a lot of crossover, so it'll be very beneficial for all. So it becomes really all-inclusive in terms of our college participation. Yes, sir. Yeah, it's a great retention strategy for our students as well. Thank you. Moving on to marketing. Per council's instruction, develop a new marketing strategy and collateral using the data set to sell Columbia. So leveraging and continuing to promote the business-friendly improvements and ongoing tax modernization initiative. Restaurant-target recruitment programs currently under development, and we'll have a draft prepared for that shortly, working with colliers to help put that program together. Looking at reinstating video production projects, we had a series we had started called Developers Takes where we focused on projects that were currently under development, trying to just get broader exposure to the public on what's happening right here around their city. So I think there's some opportunities there. And then leveraging our relationships again with our six colleges to help develop strategies. Wait, hold on a second. To help develop that strategy and program. Again, I think that's an area where we want to speak to the tech and the talent of the community, and we wanna use some of that young talent to help us refine that messaging. Implementation of a new email automation system. So we've gotten this system in place and are in the process of getting it set up as we speak and it allows you to just create automated email flows so you can send these auto-generated emails out to people and it will help you identify people that are filling your forms out or connecting to your webpage more. It helps you kind of prioritize where you're getting the most engagement from your emails and who you should be spending more of your time to try to outreach to. Looking for creative ways to promote inner city neighborhoods and promote small businesses and make our areas fun and walkable. And then potential future addition of a possible research staff member who could help assemble collateral as well. Moving on to entrepreneurship. Continue support for our partners with GroCo and the new Boyd Community Innovation Center. And then some new partnerships that we've seen arising up out of the University of South Carolina around their work in technology and cybersecurity as well and they had a very well-attended SC Decoded Conference just a few weeks ago. Got some great engagement there. Support and involvement with new initiatives. This one's coming out of GroCo which is the Builders and Backers Program which is an ideas accelerator. And they're gonna take 10 of our young entrepreneurs here and they're gonna take them and run them through an idea modeling program that will help them hopefully establish and start some new businesses here in the city. Office support and involvement for the Gross Summit which is coming up in just three weeks on October 21st and 22nd. This has kind of become a marquee event for the city, for the small business community. Really excited that they're taking this event and expanding this to a two-day event this year for the first time. Discuss the concept for a pitch pilot where the city and or major employers we can work together and present our most urgent unsolved problems and need of innovative solutions from local entrepreneurs and investors. And I think Councilwoman Herbert was the one who brought it to our attention that a HBCU-oriented pitch competition would also be a great program to implement as well. Had they already done one of those Councilwoman Herbert or was it just kind of a spinoff variation for the pitch project? Well, this one they asked us to submit ideas of our problems and the schools are gonna use their tech teams to actually solve the problem. So not necessarily, I guess we are more or less pitching our problems to them but not like a pitch competition necessarily. But you do know I love pitch competition so we can do that. Let's see, ongoing efforts to identify small business growth opportunities and directing city staff and council to support where needed to provide assistance and make policy changes that will be beneficial to our small business community. And then finding ways to promote our success stories of our founders. We've got a lot of great people here in the city who are in the process of starting businesses, a lot of entrepreneurs who have been successful at doing that in the past. And we wanna continue to tell those stories of these homegrown business owners who are the fabric of our community. Existing business retention and expansion continue our outreach and reaching out to businesses of all types, sizes and locations across our community and continue to focus on assisting the growth of small women and minority-owned businesses and doing a little more work to include our city leadership on our retention calls and outreach efforts as well. And then, How will this be different than what OBO does? Some of the small business stuff. So what we've typically done with business retention and expansion is generalized. There's thousands of businesses here in the city of Columbia. And even when you add economic development and office of business opportunity staff, there's just no way to get to every single body. It's a lot of ground to cover each year. And so we typically set up target for the number of businesses that we wanna reach out to. We try to include office of business opportunities on that when possible. And I think we look for opportunities where if we meet with somebody that the OBO hasn't talked with and we know they have a need for those resources, then we become a referral resource for them as well. We've sent a lot of people over there who are asking about facade improvement, the Grease Trap Program and some of the CRLF funding as well. So we try to not be duplicative as much as possible and kind of stay in similar tracking lanes. But at the end of the day, we know small businesses are gonna need things that we simply can't provide. And I just wanted to tag in that Ryan, I'm sorry, Mr. Coleman. I think you made the correct distinction too because OBO offers particular resources and they're more resource oriented with the sessions, the classes, the money, which is not what they do with economic development. So I don't see it as duplicative. Yes, sir. Just an observational question. The existing business retention and I guess I want you to spell out the difference. Compare it one to the other. The recruitment piece and the existing business. Businesses, that's a tough job. And that person or whomever is going to be doing that, that part of the pie becomes a real resilient job because you've got existing businesses. And the second bullet point, of course, recruitment sort of feel like those two things could be in some kind of way collaborated together. Never heard? You get on my, let me pull my mic too. So we've got, You hear what I'm saying, right? Yes, sir. At the other question, of course, which I think it's a data driven question because we've opened up a tremendous number of businesses within the city. How many of those businesses are owned and operated? New businesses by African American women? I think that there is a number. Someone asked me that question and I did not know the answer. Nor could I find the answer anywhere. Could we at some point give us that kind of data? Yes, sir. So are we talking about the new openings that have happened this year? Yes. We've got, I think all of those tracked or almost all of them and it wouldn't be too hard to go through and that list and kind of quantify. Would you please? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right, 25% out of 46 openings. Well, that's just what we're talking about. We're talking about 25% out of 46. That's just the first nine months. That's the only people we did ribbon cutting for. Yeah, that's an estimate. Yeah. If you could, if you haven't done that or if you are doing that, if that could be tracked in such a way that that question is asked, we've got a legitimate answer. A business ownership SM? Yes, if you could. Sure, thank you. We can add that. All right, and finally moving down, support city council in the process finding solutions to reduce the burden of commercial taxes, which is the ongoing work of the committee. And then at the bottom, we've discussed kind of some general measures of success, things that we want to continue to focus on and prioritize in our growth as a city. So the business license, kind of keeping track of that growth year over year, the announced number of new jobs and that capital investment that's been coming in. City center population growth year over year as we're focused on building our urban density downtown. And then how this impacts and increases our city revenue streams, such as property taxes, accommodations tax, hospitality tax and water sewer revenues. With that, I'll open it up to any additional questions that y'all have. Thank you, Ryan. Yes, sir. Thank you all. Thank you, Ryan. Great job. Yes, sir. I'm just full of questions today. That's great. What's your question? Let me ask you this. That B12 shot did it. Yeah. Yeah. Miss Wilson, let me ask you this. And of course this can be a question you can answer later on. Yes, sir. When the offices are moved from city center to here. Yes, sir. Will there be a savings for us in terms of the dollar amount? Absolutely, because we'll no longer lease the space over at the former capital center. All right. Those funds that we will save, can we direct those funds? I have something in mind, councilman, already. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Well, we'll look at that, yeah. Just wanted to just kind of throw that out. Yes, sir. And what that's saving, what that's saving the is. Sure. All right. Thank you, ma'am. This was a good timeline move on. Yes. Now, you, this was just for review. You're gonna go ahead and execute the plan, correct? Yes, yes, sir. Yes, sir. It was just for sharing with the council. Thank you. Now, this will, we will execute it prior to economic development, bringing this to council. This was, this was our effort in bringing it to council. This is it. Wait a minute. This is it? Well, it doesn't necessarily, it doesn't require both. Not a ordinance, not a resolution. What you've got. Practice. All right. This is an operational deal. It's up to the city, ma'am. Okay. So there's nothing on general consensus. Yeah. Okay. I got a little trepidation with that. I mean, the report is fine, right? You all in this committee did an excellent job and identified. Yes, sir. But it would seem to me that, what are we going to report to council? So this is- If it's consensual that all council members approves it, then I think it just gives it a better look. Well, I was hoping that's what I had just now, Reverend Dowl, but if, are you suggesting that you want to take a vote on the annual plan? Not really. Oh, okay. Okay. The committee has done their- Right. Done a real good job in doing this. Yes, sir. But I think consensually for the sake of transparency, it would certainly be good that when we make this report, or if there is a report included, that those issues, not issues, but what we've consensually agreed on is put in the general public. This is a public meeting, right? It's online. All this information's online. But everybody is not on the line. I just think we just need to make sure. We just need to- I think Ed, send it out on your social media if you're worried about- I know, I ain't putting it on social media. I think we need to do it the fiduciary way, and that's to be put in our payout. Well, here's what I would suggest. Like I said, the Economic Development, Community Development Committee brings it unanimous support. If there are no additional questions, I would ask the city manager just to include it in as part of the Economic Development Report at the next, the print copy of this at the next council meeting. That way it'll be on public record and that's it. We shouldn't be voting on it. No, I don't want to vote on it. I think, and that was the echo I heard from Joe. That's what I want to say, and I think it would be better optically to make sure that everyone knows that. And if we could do that, Joe? Well, that's what I was saying. Just we should put it in as- If we could do that. Include it as you're in part of your city manager. We don't have to go over the whole thing. Just put a copy into the agenda. We'll link it as part of the report report. Can we do that? Yes, sir. We'll link it to the next count on October the 4th. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir, absolutely. But you should feel free to go ahead and execute. I will do it. I'll do it, absolutely. Put it in the report now. I will do that. Mayor, can I speak? Yes, ma'am. Stop it. What I wanted to clarify, Reverend McDowell, are you saying that you just want the public to know that we have a specific strategy and that we're working towards it more of a, let people know these are the changes or are you, is this more of a transparency? Like, is it more of a, this is what we're doing. It's both of them. It's both of them. I mean, sort of similar to our business friend, they're excellent job. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. We could include that. Okay. Send them to the boss. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, sir. Our next item for discussion is the Grease Trap Rebake Program, Mr. Jeff Palin, assistant city manager and chief financial officer and Mr. Clint Shealy, assistant city manager for Columbia Water. Again, all three of these items, the first three are coming to the full council from the Economic and Community Development Committee with favorable recommendations to proceed. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Sorry. So for the last several meetings, we've had discussions on our Grease Trap Program. Clint is also listed on this, but unless y'all have specific questions on the program, which we've talked about more than a few times over the last couple of years, but we'll just remain back there. But y'all really need them. So, but I will go over what our current program is kind of the basic outline. It was authorized by city council initially back in 2020 by a resolution. We updated it this past year during 2022 in the program for the Grease Trap's. All food service providers in the city come participate. Under the current structure, it's set up as a loan that after a period of time it becomes forgivable. That's kind of important. That has certain ramifications on a new business's finances. I'm sorry, it can have, I'm not saying it will. It also covered one half of the cost to a maximum amount of $5,000. And we funded the program to an allocation from the Water and Sewer Fund. We transferred $100,000 out of Water and Sewer to a bucket to fund this program. The new program changes that we're recommending after a lengthy discussion would require a new authorization by city council via a future resolution. All food service providers in the city still be able to participate. Instead of a loan, it would be a rebate. It would cover the full cost, not just half, but full cost up to a maximum. And our suggestion is to increase that maximum rebate up to $10,000. And then the program funding would be actually through hospitality tax collections from that particular food service provider utilizing one half of the monthly actual collections. So if I have entered the program and I've spent $5,000 on my grease trap over the next year to two years as I'm making my hospitality tax collections and remitting that to the city, the city will then rebate half of those collections back to the restaurant that put the grease trap in. What's that? I have problems taking it out of the hospitality collections. I think this is definitely a water sewer expense. It's on grease traps. And although I know that there is a section of the law on hospitality that says water and sewer infrastructure, I don't think that it was ever intended to be used for grease traps. It was to be used for, that means big water and sewer infrastructure, not the grease trap. So I would hope that we would keep the money from water and sewer if you wanna judge the rebate based on the hospitality tax collections and be one way to judge it, or you could actually just rebate the maximum up to $10,000 based on water and sewer funding. It'd be simpler. Disagree. Mr. Mayor, I would suggest this program has a positive fiscal impact on the city. The other has potentially a negative fiscal impact. Couple of corrections though. Only food service providers who collect hospitality tax would be eligible, not all. As you, if you're not collecting the age tax, you can't get the rebate. This puts us in a competitive place with other municipalities around the city. And again, we're only rebating back half. So if this allows us to attract more places to serve food, you will have a net positive impact, not a negative impact on age tax. Again, I think it's way better than, it sounds way better than alone. I think, if I remember correctly, Ms. Herbert talked about some of the struggles at smaller businesses and some of our more developing areas have with funding grace traps. And I think, I really think this program's a real winner. Still, let me ask you, what's the negative side of this? There is no negative side because we're not putting out any funds unless those funds have been collected by via age tax. The negative part would be the $10,000 reduction in age tax. Well, you would, I wanna. Yeah, but think about this, Howard. You have a business that makes a decision to open up and is not deterred by the cost of this and they're collecting more over a period of time. You're gonna be well above that in collections. You're making more money in hospitality than you did before. This is a maximum of $10,000. I don't think anybody's gonna make that. But see, what you're missing in this is that if a restaurant opens up, long-term they're collecting more taxes than the $10,000 per annum. They'd have to get half of it back. Ms. Herbert. A couple of things I did mention during the committee meeting, Main Street Bakery. You all may be familiar with them, but. Cinnamon rolls, by the way. Right, and when they bought that building, they intended to be a restaurant and they were operating as a restaurant until they found out that they needed a grease trap. And we said, we'll give you a loan. And Ms. Roses said, I am not taking out a loan. And so that is why it is solely a bakery right now is because by the time you buy the building and do the outfit, you know, they just didn't have the money for it. So I do believe this is very valuable. But what I will say is we do have funds left over in the water sewer from the previous program. And so there is some consideration. I mean, I think there is some merit in still using that money before the rebate because it's. Return the unused portion of the money to the water and sewer fund. I think that was the motion. That was the motion, but now that I hear more discussion, I'm just saying, I think that that is an option. Instead of using the hospitality dollars, use the money that we've already allocated for this program. And then maybe use the hospitality, that's all I'm saying, because we already had it allocated. I don't have a problem not spending it putting it back in the water and sewer account, but I will say this and Ryan mentioned it. And as he went through our economic development thing, one of the things that we intend to do, I think as a city is recruit more urban developments, that's restaurants and things like that for downtown. Because if we want to bring people back from the suburbs into the city and the evenings and stuff, I mean, I just think that's a critical, critical step for us. I mean, Joe Riley used that same premise to rebuild downtown Charleston early on. And I think when we're out beating the drum and talking about the opportunities to come into Columbia, I think being able to not say we're loaning money, but to say it's a rebate program, I just think it gives us a lot more gravitas. Now, candidly, I would tell you in today's business, you know, most folks are going to more interceptors and some things like that, except for the bigger operators. And it'll never, you know, it's just not going to have that much impact. And again, what I would, huh? No, no, no, what I'm talking about, we're not going to have a big impact on H-tax while I was talking about because you're using interceptors and things like that. And it just, again, I think what we're dealing with a lot of times is what Ms. Harvard was saying about that nice lady that opened that bakery. Loan has a negative connotation. Rebate has a positive connotation. Well, I'm perfectly happy on the rebate. I just don't want it to come out of hospitality. I think the water and sewer fund is a whole lot healthier than the hospitality fund. Well, how are we? I think one's hospitality. It's future funding in the hospitality fund. Guess what they both are, taxes. And it's future, it's futuristic. Yeah, you look at it as this fund wouldn't be there unless this incentive wasn't in place. That's the way I look at it. These restaurants, these fast and fresh, low impact receptors. Those restaurants, those small business entrepreneurs wouldn't be biting off these projects if it weren't things like this. It's not a big, it's not a big expense. It'll get paid back, what, two years, 18 months maybe. But you gotta look at it as these investors would not be biting off these projects to help our needing corridors if this wasn't in place. That's the way I look at it. Well, I'm delighted to have it in place. I think it's a great program. In the $10,000, I think we'll incentivize some people to make it. But they're not gonna care whether it comes out of the hospitality tax or whether it is paid back by water and sewer funds. But the people that use the hospitality tax are gonna miss that $100,000. Future, it's future though. It's not in arrears. That money was never there. It's still gonna be future. Then the future is gonna be half the age tax for 18 months. So after 18 months, they got another $100,000 because there's 200,000. You're missing the key words in there. I'm not missing anything. I'm noted it's coming out of age tax and you're taking half of it out each month. Well, if the business is not there, you're getting zero. That's the point. I'd rather have something. I want to have the rebate but I don't want it to come out of age tax. I think it needs to come out of the department that's gonna benefit the most from it, which is the sewage department getting the grease out of the sewage that they have to treat. Well, I will just say this. When it comes to rate increases on water and sewer, I will certainly not be in favor of taking out a water and sewer and those people on fixed incomes that don't need out all the time and pay the taxes. I mean, I just think this is a, I think Jeff developed, again, a very well done program. It makes us competitive. I think when we sit down with hospitality businesses outside of South Carolina and we're saying this, I just think it's gonna make us look good and help us be successful. Again, the committee brought it to unanimous. I'll be honest. I will tell you that these are the people who are collecting it and gonna generate more. I think it's a wise investment. I'm not sure that water and sewer, we can equate it the same way. They're not gonna care where the money came in from. They wanna get their rebate back. But Howard, that senior citizen, where there is no increase in waters and when it does increase, it's gonna come out of water and sewer, man. And I just don't see us. I just don't see that right now. I can't. Any increase in water as it relates to a senior citizen, any constituent who's over 65 and they're retired, that's going to impact our water and sewer. Particularly, simply because we did not do a water rate increase and it's gonna eventually come futuristically. We're facing a water rate increase whether you like it or not. Yeah, you're exactly right. But if you make that inclusive, that's more you gonna spend. I think it'd be safe to say that we can note for the record that the majority of council is for it. Mr. Howard DeVall is against it and in hospitality for the record, that'd be a 6-1 if we were voting. So I think we can move on to the next. This will be a, this is a resolution or ordinance, yeah. This will be a resolution. So let's still get a thumbs up. It'll come back up. It'll come back up. Yeah, that's great. We intend to bring a resolution on the October 18th meeting. Thank you, Jeff. Another good job. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. You've done well today. Just for you. You've concretized that report. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hey. Thank you for being. Thank you for using me now. I have to request, you know, concretize with two meetings ago. We need a new word for this week. Smart string test. We need a new word for the week. Screamtize. Before it's over, you'll get a new word. I'm going to treat. I'm going to get a nice one. Did you hear that? We talked about that open tree. Just plant the seed now. In about 10 years we can get under the tree. Shade tree theologian. That's right. Reverend Edward McDowell. Got it. Yes ma'am. Okay. Who's the lucky person who gets this one? Missy Kaufman. Miss Kaufman. Let's see how she does. You have won a free trip to the podium. The community promotion's grant overview and timeline, which is Missy Kaufman budget program, management and grants director will go back over with you all. We are just really bringing this for council's endorsement and making sure we're on the same page with you all about starting the process for a community promotions fund and a process for allocating those funds. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Good afternoon, council. As Miss Wilson mentioned, just an update with regards to where we are with the community promotions program, just as a reminder, you've included $140,000 in your city count, your FY22-23 budget, 100,000 from general fund and 40,000 is included in the general purpose portion of accommodations tax. We've attached the guidelines for our community promotion grants, of course, general fund or community promotion grants are a little less restrictive than our hospitality tax in the sense that there's not specific restrictions from state law other than, of course, following public use doctrine, which is required for anything that we spend funds on grant-wise or otherwise. So, of course, we'll be in compliance there. We have, in the past, not made allocations specifically for types of programs or programmatic allocations. We have allowed, whether it be for specific events or programs or even in cases, we've made operational cost allocations. So, I know we have city council and over various budget discussions and other discussions you have made indications about wanting to make some allocations or do some programmatic type of funding. So, that is a consideration we could do or just leave it broad as has, of course, been done before. That's probably the one thing that we would talk about with city council today if there is any preference or desire to do that. Otherwise, we've also provided for you some of the requirements that would be a part of the grant program. Of course, this would be a grant. Grants are reimbursable. Therefore, reimbursments to the awarded applicants are subject to eligibility based on the criteria set forth in our guidelines. Of course, in this case, applicants that are awarded a grant, the expenses would need to be in compliance with their grant application and spending on what it is that they indicated they would be seeking funding for. Your intent is you're not gonna go retro, though, because you've got on here July one, which is really, it should really say October one or whatever so that people aren't thinking past events qualify for this. Precisely, we've thought about that and talked through those pieces. Absolutely, I think that probably is a better approach than is to think about it proactively in terms of October 1st through June 30th. We also indicate that the event would need to take place in the city limits as with our other programmatic activities, of course. At this point, we have discussed the staff committee or possibly the H-tax committee. We have a variety. There's not always been a committee or community promotions. Ms. Kaufman, I just wanted to clarify, so on page the first page of the application applicant to be funded must be within the corporate limits of the city of Columbia. We probably wanna change that just to say that the event itself. Right. The applicant or the event or program. Right, okay. And then I would feel a lot more comfortable too if we put that $25,000 limit in the guidelines. It's in the application, but I'd just like to see that. And then is this intended to be based on reimbursement or is this, we cut a check and you are able to, what's the intent, is it more like hospitality? Intent is that it's reimbursable as would all grants typically are, okay. I'm sorry, repeat that again, Ms. E. It would be reimbursable expenses. The entire $140,000 is intended to be. The applicants, the applicants when they're awarded the grant. Oh, I'm sorry, I got you, yeah. Sorry. You see on the guidelines, I think it would be wise if we added a sentence that's notified recipients that they may be subject to FOIA. Sure. I think that is stated, but we'll make sure that it is clear. I just know that they've just been around and around in another city and low country about that. And it turned out everybody that took the funding is subject to FOIA. It's kind of like that old joke, you know, you take money from your mother-in-law, she thinks she can tell you how to spend it all. And I think when you FOIA, you get FOIA, you can FOIA it all. So. Right. And for clarification, that's only if you receive the funds. Right, right, right, right, yeah. Missy, quick question. Could Neighborhood Associations use this for beautification efforts? Absolutely. We have in the past. I'm so close to that. That's why we added just a different eligibility because I just want to make sure I'm clear with the council because you all discuss various things and even when we talked about the ARPA funds as well, you're good programmatically with any of these being considered public space beautification, community cleanup, youth programs, senior programs, et cetera. We are. Is that the intent? I don't have any problems with it. I think it would be helpful to include that list in the guidelines. As recommendations. Or examples, you know. We would, absolutely, we would also include examples of eligible expenses and eligible expenses. Yeah, I would. Sure. Just so it'll help. Because I've already told a couple of neighborhoods, I told them last night, you know, that we have some funds coming out of it. I want to make sure it's not a bit needed to use. I thought there's also some community development has discussed some funds as well. Missy. Until we get there. Great to. I'm done. Let me ask you this. You know, usually there is a granting program of about $1,200 for communities, for beautification. Is that included in this? Or is that separate? Yes, sir, I believe those are separate. I believe that might be through the community development. I believe that might be the community development program. We'll follow up and see. But that's. Two different funds. Yes, sir. Okay. And this, did we include up to 25,000 Missy as our recommendations? Yes. Does Council find with that? You were going to add that to page 15 or four A. In the application. I want it in the guidelines. But we're going to put it in the guidelines as well. To release the notice. Our goal is to release the notice next week with intention of bringing back, of course, City Council would make the final allocations or approval of the allocations as you do now with the other grant programs. And we would target your second meeting in November or possibly your first meeting in December. Right, thank you. I do think we need to establish what committee will do it. And it should hopefully be one we've already established. We don't need to create any more committees. That's right, thank you. The council committees, Mayor? No, one of our established like age tags or somebody that's already staff or city staff. Yeah, yeah, very good. On that note, since we're talking about these allocations and the note for going out, the age tags are plus messy. What was just for a reminder for council that process? So that process, we're prepared to reopen those applications again for applicants to submit for events and activities from January to June 30th. The committee is ready to serve again to review those applications. So we'd follow a similar type of schedule as we have for community provisions. And we need to, I think, advertise because we've got a conflict there that we need to resolve. Advertise for the committee? Yeah. For a member. Look, there it is. Got it. Whoo! You got a new word today. Amen, amen, amen. Thank you, brother. Conflictual, amazing, truly. Just to make sure you were listening. And just for those out there who want to know, we will have the Edisms t-shirts for sale for your holiday enjoyment coming up. They will be for sale and all proceeds will go to Ed McDowell. District two fund. Thank you very much. He's retired from passing the plate. Now he's going to pass the t-shirt. It's called love offering. I think it's important for us to note that if H-TAC, if H-TAC's committee does the evaluation of these funds, I'm sorry, the application, we will use the same criteria if I heard your rightness when evaluating those funds. Is that right? Or is it based on this document? So community promotions will have its own set of criteria, somewhat similar hospitality tax for the next application period for January to June. They would use the same criteria that was used for the prior hospitality tax. But community promotions has a slightly different because the use of the funds is not as restrictive as a hospitality tax. But that's the issue I was on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. DeVall, a question. Thank you for being concise. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to go into executive session for discussion of employment of employee pursuant to SECO 30-4S70A1 municipal court discussion of matters related to proposed location expansion or provision of services, encouraging location or expansions of industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body pursuant to 30-4S70A5 project framework. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Brennan. Madam Clerk, can you read the roll? Aye. Yes. Yes. Aye. Aye.