 A minute early is, good afternoon everybody, thank you for being here today. As we call the meeting to order before we start the Pledge of Allegiance, I just want to make a couple slight changes. Before the invocation, we're going to, Mr. DeVall is going to say a few words about GC, Robinette, who worked at the city for a long time, who passed away. And then before the approval of the minutes, I'd like to ask Chris Sheffelton to come up, talk about the Harvard fellows who have been here working since before, this wearing in and just tell everybody a little bit about how hard they've been working and what they've been doing. So if y'all will join me on the Pledge of Allegiance, please. This is the Pledge of the United States of America. This is a republic which stains one nation under God, indivisible, with the labor-themed justice for all. Mr. DeVall, about GC Robinette, who is famous in South Carolina of financial circles for municipal finance. He was a longtime employee of the city of Columbia. He at one time was the finance director, the assistant city manager, and has left his mark on the state of South Carolina with a recent piece of legislation. Many of you know that Roy Bates and GC Robinette had a side business going called governmental consultants and they developed a business licensing program that they could prove and had to prove in court two or three times that it was a completely fair and unbiased way to enact a business license tax. Over the years more and more of the cities adopted the model ordinance from the municipal associations which was GC's ordinance and then a year or two years ago the state of South Carolina adopted a model business license ordinance which is in fact based on the ordinance that GC Robinette and Roy Bates developed for the state of South Carolina. He is loved by most of many of us in the municipal realm, especially in the municipal clerks and finance offices association. He will be missed and he will be his funeral will be this coming Saturday at two at First Baptist. Thank you, Mr. DeVall. Mary come in. Yes, we call the roll before we you absolutely can. Afternoon, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Herbert, President, Dr. Bussles, Mr. Vernon, President, Mr. McDowell. Yes, Mr. Duvall, President, Mayor Rickman. Here. Thank you. Reverend McDowell, would you mind giving us a word of prayer, please? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. That is my head. Gracious creator for your strength, for your grace and for your mercy. For all the blessings we've already received today, we simply say thank you. We pray very fervently for the family of Mr. Robinette and of course to all families that are undergoing these kinds of situations. We thank you Lord for the ability to move yet we thank you for the ability as as a city as we start this new journey together. Lord, we would pray that in this journey and on this journey, we might be able to sense your presence, each of us and that your anointing fold of fresh upon us. For our mayor and other new members of this council, we pray for insightful wisdom, a sensitivity to your will and yet and yet a forbearance to do what is necessary for the building up of our city. We ask it. We claim it in your name and every heart said. Amen. Mr. Chris Sheffelton, do you mind coming up with the Harvard Fellows? Chris Sheffelton is the head of the policy for the mayor's office and has been working closely with three Harvard graduate students who are here on and a fellows program and during transition and working with I believe 12 different mayor's offices across the country. So Chris, with that, would you maybe introduce everybody and kind of tell everybody what they've been working on? Absolutely. Good afternoon council. This is Nicole Kozo, Richard Hay and Irene Liu had to leave us this afternoon. They've been here since January 3rd. Their goal was to oversee a transition of local municipal government since January 3rd. They've been on the go. They've been to did you go to every department or almost every department? Almost every department have gotten to spend a lot of time with the department heads. Everyone's been very gracious and they have just they've informed me of a time. So I think they've really gotten to learn a lot and really gotten to see City of Columbia government. They've also been working helping the mayor and I with transition information. Been putting a lot of documents together, great organizational chart and helping with some study groups that I believe we'll be learning more about. I don't know. Did you all want to say a couple of words? Come up to the mic please. Thank you. Really just wanting to thank everyone throughout the city government who has been so generous with their time and with their information for me and Richard and Irene. We've been able to meet with representatives from many different city departments who have been able to really share in their knowledge and their expertise in the city which has been completely invaluable for us putting together information for the transition. Thank you all. Thank you. As we move forward to adopt the agenda, does anybody have any concerns, changes or anything as agenda stated? I hear a motion to move to kind of second second. Second. Madam Clark, will you read the roll? Mr. Taylor, Ms. Herbert, Dr. Bussles. Yes. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Thank you. We move for the approval of the minutes of the meeting from November 29th to 2021, the budget workshop and the December 21st, 2021 council meeting minutes. Move approval. Second. Second. We have a second. Madam Clark. Thank you. Mr. Taylor. So what do you say, Mr. Taylor? He didn't. Mr. Taylor is your mic on? Ms. Herbert. I don't think your mic's on. Is my mic on? Is my mic on? I can hear you. Dr. Bussles. Approved. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Mayor Rickman. I knew it was going to happen. He's not in the building. He has left the building. He's 11 years. He's gone. Thank you. This is the first meeting for lots of us. It's definitely a first time for me to be sitting in this chair. So we'll all give each other a little grace here. Okay. Mayor and council, we would like to move for with the city council discussion and action items. Number two is the 2022 state legislative update. Mr. Kyle Michael. Kyle Michelle. I'm sorry. Kyle Michelle. Michelle Law Firm LLC. Mr. Ed Givens Fellowship Strategies LLC and Mr. Warren Tompkins and Mr. Boyd Brown. Tompkins, Thompson and Brown Governmental Affairs. And you should have a copy of their presentation. Your seats on the desk. Mr. Mayor, this is on. Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. I just want to say at the outset here how nice it is to be working with this team. How nice it is to be back in this beautiful chamber and how nice it is and proud we are to be working with this new council. We're looking forward to it. And I've already enjoyed it. As was said, I am Kyle Michelle. I think everyone knows but I want to make sure that everyone here knows Warren Tompkins who works with Boyd Brown also and he's on the team. They are on the team and Ed Givens is on the team as well. So we are, this is not the Kyle Michelle presentation. This is the City of Columbia State Governmental Affairs team presentation. What we do and let me let me give everybody sort of this level set. I'm going to go through this presentation fairly quickly because I really want to get to council's questions and thoughts and concerns because I think that will be a more important part of what of our time here today. So what we do is we advocate for the city. We connect the city to the state. We connect the state to the city and we're interpreters on all matters of state government. They go a little bit more in depth on that. What we do generally is we do legislative work. I was just talking to Mr. Shealy about a bill that was introduced that had to do with with representation on councils that have water systems that have operations outside the system. We read all introduced legislation. We talked to the city staff about legislation. We answer questions from city staff. We answer questions from council members. We talk with legislators. We testify at subcommittees on behalf of the city when appropriate and when the city manager authorizes that. We have regular communications with the municipal association. Last year we worked to get the abandoned buildings reauthorized that tax credit which has been very very instrumental here in the City of Columbia. We are continuing to work on the tort claims act limit adjustments. There's community development tax credits that we have worked on. There are a number of bills that have already come up and that are set for hearings in this week and next week that pertain to the city. In addition to legislation we pursue state funding. We were successful in getting a proviso in the budget last year that assisted five points development. We've been working on American Rescue Plan funds for the last nine months. We secured money, worked with legislators on this for the Vista Greenway. We're all stars baseball field. We work on COVID-19 funds and we're working to try to secure some DNR water recreation funds working with the city and with the legislators. In addition to that, we respond to the city staff. These are just some examples. Can you give me some details about this bill? We've got a federal application going on and we need a letter of support from legislators. Can you help us get that together, get it drafted, get it approved and get the signatures? We have an issue that the council wants to be heard on. We need to we need you to help draft a letter, get the delegation, get it to the delegation. Or city staff will call us and say we've got something here that came from a state office. We're not sure what it is. Can you help us run this down? It works the other way around for state offices when the state calls and says I understand you represent the city. We've got an issue that we need your help with or I'm calling from the legislature and I've been told the city is wants this project. One of the members told me about it. Can you give me the detail on the background of it? Those are the types of things that we do all the time. Now let's talk specifically about 2022. 2022. I think everybody knows there's a lot of funding from the ARPA bill that's going that is available and it's going to be available. In addition to the water sewer funding and the broadband funding, there's going to be in the roadway funding. There's going to be capital projects funding. We also in addition to that have a budget surplus of about $2 billion for one time money and $1 billion for recurring money little under $1 billion. We also have the federal infrastructure bill that is beginning to make its way into the different state offices in terms of them. I set up today signed up today for an RIA Rural Infrastructure Authority briefing on federal infrastructure funds in the state. And then of course the Savannah Riverside settlement. There was a meeting on that today in the Senate. Those are funding opportunities that we that we know about that we look into that we talk to city staff about et cetera, et cetera. Legislation in 2022. Last year there was a tree ordinance restriction that we think will be around again that would affect us the vaccine and mass mandates. Everyone's familiar with traffic safety legislation that we've discussed. Possibly trying to pursue affordable housing legislation is always at the fore and local tax revenue flexibility. There's a few more that we wanted to just put on here because because these are the kinds of things that we talked with the city staff about and that we deal with the legislature on. I'll let you take a look at each one of these. So this is our happy faces all on one page suitable for framing. As you can see, boys not here with us today, but we can't say enough about how much we enjoy working with Ms. Wilson, Ms. Benjamin, Ms. Bogg Knight and all the senior city staff on the work that we do day in and day out. And I think right now we'd be happy to answer questions or concerns. You hear thoughts and you guys would probably rather hear from someone other than me. Anybody have any specific questions they'd like to ask Dr. Bustles. Being here, you know, we are very lucky to have four of you representing the city and you have unique relationships that you're bringing to the table. Can you talk a little bit more about the maybe specific lanes that you all work in and where you collaborate and where your specialty lies to help build some of the relationships at the State House for us? Thanks for the question. We as a team basically cover all the spectrum of the State House. The House of Representatives, the Minority Caucuses in the House of Representatives, the Black Caucus, Republican Caucus. We have relationships going across the board. Warren's been lobbyist probably 40 plus years now. And I've been in this space about 25 years. So we pretty much know how to contact and how to actually get things done. And most of the legislative committees, all of the legislative committees in all of the caucuses. Mr. DeVold and Reverend McDowell team with the exception of the vaccine, vaccines and masks, this could have been done during my 20 years with the municipal association pretty much the same issues over there. So things don't change that quickly in the lobby. I'm particularly interested in the money situation with all of the federal funds coming in and with the state surplus and all. We need to make sure that our priority list is focused and that we have an opportunity to get some of our much needed projects off the ground. So anything we can do to help you with tweaking some of the legislative legislators arms or like anything like that, we'd be happy to do that. But let's try to get as much of this federal funds coming down and state surplus funds for the city of Columbia. Will it now? Well, it's certainly I appreciate your presentation today, because it almost gives a blanketed approach covering a lot of issues there. And it seems like a lot of those issues are doable. A lot of those issues are the kinds of issues that you guys have already brought to the table early on. So putting that together and making that palatable and doable is a real good sign that we're on the right track. Let me ask you one other question. The ARP funds that's coming down the loop. I don't know whether or not they're congested or not. But it's coming down to the loop. And I'm sort of I'm sort of a horn the end on the fact that you all you all have got that in your parameter. Thank you, Councilman McDowell. We have met with the Ways and Means Committee in the off session. We have met with legislators. We have met with Senate Finance Committee. There's 2.495 billion dollars for South Carolina in ARPA funds and another 188 million dollars in ARPA capital projects funds. The Senate last week allocated proposed allocating $900 million to water and sewer 60% to the larger water water sewer and stormwater 60% to larger customers 40% to smaller customers. $400 million to broadband. Both of those pots of money would go over to state agencies. RIA, Rural Infrastructure Authority, which is not really rural. They do everything for the water sewer stormwater. The Edwards office that I can never remember over at the BSE ORS for the 400 million for the broadband. And then another approximately 400 or 450 million in state reimbursements that would go toward transportation project to the to the Department of Transportation and leave I think about $700 million that they're going to do in a second ARPA fund. And so they're spending right now. This is the Senate. Now the House has not yet laid their first card on the table. We've talked to them about it. We know what we expect. We think it's going to be very similar to the Senate, but they haven't put that out yet. What it looks like they're going to do is do an ARPA bill and let that money get out there and let people start putting that money to work. And then later we'll do an ARPA 2 bill. But in between ARPA 1 and ARPA 2, there's the state budget. And we have been working many, many hours in the last six months with Wilson, Benjamin, Mr. Shealy, Gentry, this Balknight, all the city staff to come up with our lists that I think you guys have. And we have them segregated by the water sewer projects, which would, and this is why we had them segregated like that, because they're different pots of money. Yes, we've been working on it. We appreciate all your support and help and input that helps us. I don't believe we have that. Can we make sure that we receive that document? Thank you. Absolutely. Anybody else have any other questions? Anybody have any other questions? Just like to get copies of that. The list has been evolving over a period of months. Sooner y'all can come to a conclusion and bring finality to what your rankings and your priorities are. Make it a lot easier for us to advocate. Also for y'all to come and do the same because what you most important things council can do is speak with one voice. It's just a voice particularly when it comes to dealing with our legislative friends who are going to be down there asking that the money be inserted in the bill. So the sooner I think you do that, maybe you get this in concrete, better our chance will be. Let's make sure Miss Benjamin that all council has a copy of that as soon as possible. I'd also like to say gentlemen, I appreciate you being here today. We also would like to make sure that we're getting up to date information as things are transpiring down there. This is a very hard working council, very inquiry about understanding what's going on. And we all have a lot of relationships down at the state house. So we want to make sure that we're engaged that we know what's going on. We don't want to find out after the fact on a lot of things. And if you need us, please reach out to us. We want to be available. I've had an opportunity to go down to the state house this year already. And, and it seems everybody's really wanting us to be a lot more engaged than we have been in the past. So I'm really expecting y'all to keep us informed as we move forward, especially when things pop up. Anybody have any last? Everybody's good. Thank you gentlemen. I'll just say one other thing. Yes, sir. As you know, this is an unprecedented year for as far as the budget and what's available for as these are for fun. So they're billions and billions of dollars there. We hope to have all of you engaged. I think it's a great opportunity with the new relationships that that some of you have and that old relationships that others have that we really can really can make a difference and bring some real serious projects home for the city of Columbia. Well, we hope to make a big difference across our community. Thank you. We'll certainly get the listings to the new council members. We have done some priority listing for you all so you can see staffs and the city managers list of important projects and we have them in an order, but we certainly want your input on those projects and be able to move forward because it is some exciting times with lots of funding available and we want to move the city's projects forward as as best we can. Alright, number two on our number three actually is our COVID situational report from Mr. Harry Tinsley, our emergency management director. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of council, assistant city manager Benjamin. Thank you for your time. I'll be brief. There is already a report in your email inbox with today's data as there were four days of data that was in that in that report because of the holiday weekend. So we continue to focus on vaccination clinics and testing. We have our five of our city parks for January and February already scheduled for COVID-19 vaccinations. That is we partnering with DHEC on that. That is at Drew Wellness, Martin Luther King Park, Hyatt Park, Melrose Park and Woodland Park and all that information is on our website and we push it out through our social media as well. Also worth noting DHEC has established eight lane testing site at Columbia Place Mall. That is running that operation runs daily from 730 a.m. till 7 p.m. at night. That allows some folks from after hours time to get to get there. I did visit that site today. It's running pretty smoothly. They also offer vaccinations at that location too. And we still have our testing site at 2221 Divine Street up and running that's running daily. Yes, sir. That's running daily nine to six p.m. And one over here at the the transit center is operating as well. Yes, sir. Right across. Yes, absolutely. So today's data that dumped out Sakai confirmed case count stands at over 968,000. That's 1.2 million north of 1.2 million combined cases together. That's the confirmed cases in probable. As far as testing to date have been 14.2 million tests to date. Just over the last 14 days, over three quarters of a million have been test have been completed. The new case confirmed case counts that post today where 11,737 total combined for that sample was 12,950. That's a 32.7% positivity rate. Unfortunately, there were two new confirmed deaths reported out today by DHEC and one probable. That brings the total combined to our state at 15,115. Here in Richland County, where our case count stands at 82,335 confirmed cases. Today's report out was just a little less than the previous several days. Richland County posted 872 confirmed cases in with a total of 933 combined. Currently, there are 812 combined deaths in Richland County. As you'll know, as of the January 12 report for Richland County's 14 day recent disease activity incident rate, we're high as is every county in the state right now. So the entire state is high statewide hospital bed utilization rate is stable at 77% as of the 17th of this month. Yesterday actually, there were 2381 patients currently hospitalized in our state due to COVID-19 confirmed or suspected. Richland County's bed utilization rate is stable at 69.7%. There were 204 patients hospitalized currently. Prisma Health Richland has 21 COVID-19 pediatric patients as of today's yesterday's report out. Also DHEC report 6.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccinations have been administered in our state as of January 16th. Approximately 52.6% of South Carolina eligible population is fully vaccinated. 61.6% have received at least one dose. And 16% of children aged five to 11 have received at least one dose. 62.2% of children aged 12 or older have also received one dose. As far as Richland County, the 55.5% of our citizens have completed their vaccination series and 75.6% have received at least one dose. Lastly, staff continues to ensure proper sufficient PPE, personal protective equipment and supplies in our fulfillment center through our contract and procurement and safety and risk management. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Tinsley? Yes, sir. Let me ask you this. Has the percentage rate in terms of vaccinated employees? Has that figure changed or is it is it going up? We are at 89% of our employees that are vaccinated. So we did bump up one or two percentage points. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Tinsley. In terms of employees, I'd just like to add we are seeing some effects of COVID throughout our workforce. It is affecting us. We've got about 118 people who've tested positive positive in the last three weeks. And so we're looking at about 13% of our employees affected in some way by COVID. So we've got quite a few people who are out, quite a few people who are dealing with it, which completely affects some of our ability to provide services. So we just wanted to make you all aware of it that our population has been affected, as well as the rest of the state and the rest of the country. Give me a little snapshot of that. Thank you very much. Management. Or with our next items, Cassina Jenna items four through 15. Since with this is a new first meeting for a lot of people and new, I wanted to see if instead of taking a straw that everybody wanted to go through each one, if that would make them just for the first meeting. So that if there are any questions, we can kind of address those. I know there's been a lot of chatter going back and forth as everybody's trying to understand how we move forward. But I think it'd be okay if we take a few minutes longer today to just make sure that we're addressing these so if we could pull them by item and we'll try to move quickly through. But I think it would be good for everybody to understand as we go for on the consent agenda. If you don't mind. Yes, sir. Certainly. Number four, Council is asked to approve fiscal year 2021 and 22 agreement for the Three Rivers Greenway Project Development as requested by city administration, award to the River Alliance in an amount not to exceed $55,000. This firm is located in Columbia. We have a motion to move. Second discussion. Anyone have any discussion questions? Madam Clark, please call the roll. Mr. Taylor. Ms. Herbert. Dr. Boussels. Hi, Mr. Burnett. Yes, Mr. McDowell. Yes, Mr. Duvall. Mayor recommends. Thank you. Item number five, Council was asked to approve contract amendment number two for professional janitorial services as requested by the support services division, award to Goodwill Industries. Second. Discussion. Just a quick point. Can you describe the difference between these two five and six? And if there were any bids from Columbia, South Carolina. So these items were our, our low bids for these, these particular items. And the differences are really the, the buildings are split up and there they are cleaned by the different vendors. Henry, did you have any other information you want to share about that? We have added some additional buildings and sent them additional cleanings and that's kind of impacted the costs for these two items. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that question. Mayor, members of council, assistant city manager, Benjamin. Yeah, on these two particular items, five in, I believe five and six, we have four main contractors that provide janitorial services for the city of Columbia. And we have two listed here. And based on those five, excuse me, four across the city, we have an overall contract that provide that provide services broken down by varying buildings. And that comes with size as well. We want to make sure that our small businesses had an opportunity to to bid as well. So you get you go from smaller sized buildings to a larger building as well. This particular contract for goodwill, goodwill industries is one of our larger contracts that provide services for some of our larger buildings. I think assistant city manager, Simon's, I think one of the questions really was is focused on local. And I know there's been some challenges with contracts in the past at the local. And that's why we ended here. But we do have come July new contract period. And I think what my understanding is is that we're going to try to reach out again, and encourage more of our local vendors to participate with some new ways to market to them and open up the process to make sure that they're no know about it. But I know that we've had some challenges in the past, working with consistently getting folks to stay within their contract terms. And I know that's been a challenge. But as always, let's continue to try to figure out how we engage more of our small businesses here, and make sure that we're spending those dollars with them. Is that that was my concern. Thank you. Thank you very much. Sir, Madam clerk, Mr. Taylor, room is Harvard. Yeah, Dr. Bussles. I Mr. Burnett. Yes, Mr. McDowell. Yes, Mr. Duvall. I Mayor recommend I thank you. Mr. Mayor, of course, sir. Just a technical question. Do you call the roll on everything or when we do the consent agenda will do it all at once vote unless somebody objects to today we're just doing each one for the first time. I understand. But I'm saying on each one, do you call a lot of these things? Can you do it always by a roll call vote? Or no, we'll blanket it. Normally we would take all of them. I'm just talking about votes in general, not just specifically these consent. It's always by a roll call. It's always by a roll call. Always by a roll. Is that that's the parliamentary rule? Yeah. Okay. Item number six, Council is asked to approve contract amendment number three for professional janitorial services as requested by the support services division, award to American facility services and amount not to exceed $166,842. The vendor is located in Aforata, Georgia. Do we have a motion? Move approval? Second. Any additional discussion? Madam Clark, please call the roll. Mr. Taylor approved. Ms. Herbert. Yes, Dr. Bustles. I Mr. Burnett. Yes, Mr. McDowell. Yes, Mr. Duvall. I may recommend. I. Item number seven, Council is asked to approve a contract to purchase a 2023 MV 607 dump truck for the water wastewater maintenance division as requested by the fleet services division, award to Carolina international trucks using the South Carolina state contract in an amount of $128,465.66. This vendor is located in Columbia South Carolina. Move approval. Second. Any discussion? Ms. Benjamin, could you describe exactly what that kind of truck that is? That would be a 2023 dump truck. That is the kind of vehicle that it would be. Madam Clark, me call the roll please. Thank you. Mr. Taylor. Approve. Ms. Herbert. Yes, Dr. Bustles. I Mr. Burnett. Yes, Mr. McDowell. Yes, Mr. Duvall. I may recommend. I thank you. So item number eight is another lovely dump truck. Council is asked to approve a contract to purchase for 2023 international MV 607 dump trucks with dump body and hoist for the solid waste division as requested by the fleet services division, award to Carolina international trucks using the South Carolina state contract in the amount of $436,061.60. The vendor is located in Columbia South Carolina. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? I did want to know that this is part of a program enhancement that we've talked about where it gives us the ability to use dumpsters in areas so when we have moveouts in neighborhoods and other areas where we can lower a dump container and allow that to be filled and then picked up on the weekends, which will help us as we continue to push to beautify our community and keep keep trash and other stuff in heavy heavy times out of the streets and on its way to the landfill. So this is a good thing. So thank you very much staff for listening to the constituents. Madam Clark, please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Yay. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Blussel. Aye. Mr. Burnett. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Item number nine, council was asked to approve a contract to purchase a 2022 western star dump truck for the wastewater maintenance division as requested by the fleet services division, award to Shealy's Truck Center, Inc. using the South Carolina State contract and the amount of $161,443. The vendors located in Columbia, South Carolina. Is there a motion? Move approval. Second. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none. Madam Clark, please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Approve. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Blussel. Aye. Mr. Burnett. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Number 10, council's asked to approve a contract to purchase a hail python 28 full eject automated side loader for the solid waste division as requested by the fleet services division, award to Carolina Environmental using the source well cooperative contract and the amount of $310,025. The vendors located in Kernsville, North Carolina. Is there a motion? Move approval. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Madam Clark, please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Approve. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bustles. Aye. Mr. Burnett. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Item 11, council's asked to approve change order number four for project WM 3906 construction along Sylvan Drive and Satchel Ford Road as requested by Columbia Water, awarded to Stutz and Williams in the amount of $97,855.20. The firm is located in Lexington, South Carolina. Is there a motion? I have a question. On these items, is it possible as we go forward to add a date to these things when the project kind of started or when the request, original request came in? I don't see why not. We can make that note. Thank you. I'll make the motion to approve. Can I have a second? Second. All right. Any discussion other than the request for further detail? Seeing none. Madam Clark, please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bustles. Aye. Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Item 12, council's asked to approve a professional services agreement for the Metro wastewater treatment plant operations and maintenance manual updates and training as requested by Columbia Water, awarded to Brown and Caldwell in the amount of $146,000. The firm is located in Columbia, South Carolina. Is there a second? Any discussion? I just want to clarify. So this is to provide training to the city and it updates some of our materials. So it's more of a technical assistance contract. Yes, ma'am. Our assistant city manager, Clint Shealy, will give us some explanation. Good afternoon. Yes, ma'am. This is a three-year contract with the consultant to update our operation and maintenance manual for the facility to include some of the large capital improvements that we've recently completed and also to provide that necessary training to our staff. Having that operation and maintenance manual updated is a requirement of our consent decree as well. So I want you to know that. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Any more questions? Discussion? Seeing none. Madam Clark, please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Move. Ms. Harvard. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. May I recommend? Aye. Thank you. Item 13, council was asked to approve a contract for project SS 7558-SD 8496, 8-inch sewer main location and storm drainage improvements at 2511 Clark Street as requested by Columbia Water, awarded to LAD Construction LLC in an amount not to exceed $397,423.90, which includes contingency. The firm is located in Swansea, South Carolina. Is there a motion? New approval. Second. Any discussion? I have just one technical question for what it's worth. Yes, sir. Ms. Taylor. When I look at this, I say one, at least four businesses. So that's four business licenses. Just curious for one project on this. Just checking. Yes, sir. They would all have to have a business license to do business with the city of Columbia. Gotcha. Yeah, and they're all listed mentors and mentor protégés as part of our mentor protégé program. Any other questions? Seeing none. Madam Clark, please call the roll. Mr. Taylor. Approve. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bustles. Aye. Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Number 14, ordinance number 2021-100 granting an encroachment to 701 Center for Contemporary Art for the use of right-of-way area of the 200 block of William Street and the 300 block of Whaley Street for the installation and maintenance of a wooden art sculpture adjacent to 202 William Street and 329-331 Whaley Street, Richland County. Is there a motion? Move approval. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? This is the second reading. So with that, Madam Clark, would you read the roll, please? Mr. Taylor. Yay. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bustles. Aye. Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Item number 15, ordinance number 2021-102, authorizing the city managers to execute an office lease agreement between the city of Columbia and Main Street Technologies for office space located at 1401 Main Street, second floor, suite 200. Motion is there a second? Second. I have a question. Yeah. Discussions. Mr. Taylor. Does the um there's like the cost to outfit that if there is any come by I'm just curious does it come back before the the council or does it not? It's already it should. It will. We do have an agreement with the management company that's managing the building for us for certain floors that we've already have an approved allowance. The second floor is not part of that. I don't believe so it should come back. Okay. Thank you. Well, it certainly sounds like it certainly sounds like a win-win situation for both sides I think. It is and I can briefly describe what we're doing if that would be helpful. You don't need to do that today for me but I would like to see your allowances just by floor and everything just for. We can certainly do that and the second floor might be included so we'll get that to you shortly. Dr. Brussels did you have some questions? Just make sure you share it with everybody when you send it out. Thank you. Thank you. There's no other questions. Madam Clark please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Approved. Mr. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Hi. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. DeVall. Hi. Mayor Recon. Hi. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Yes sir. Since we're doing a little on-the-job training here for our new members let me give the clerk a perk here. There is a very good app that we have on our computers that if you download that when she sends out the agenda and you can look at it on the left side and it's a pull-down menu on that side and you can see all the contracts all the maps to go with this. So it answers a lot of the questions that's why a lot of this stuff is on the consent agenda because it's normal operations of the city. So the other thing is if you had if you go through the exercise of doing your homework and reading all the stuff and you still have a question you can go to the assistant city manager who is in charge of that and ask them that question and if you still have concerns after that you can ask that item be taken off to consent agenda in deferred or taken off to consent agenda just for discussions before we vote. Mr. DeVall just so you know our newest members of council have all been utilizing the system and have been downloading and actually using the comment section in there to speak back and forth to things. Unfortunately the app is not yet available. I think they're way ahead of you all on the learning curve. Thank you very much for that too. I'm glad they're using it. You said that was for what? Yes sir they are. Ms. Benjamin thank you. Everybody's learning this is great. Okay now next are resolutions. Item number 16 resolution number R 2022-004 authorizing the city manager to execute easement agreements between Bright Myers, Fort Jackson, LLC, and Katz Rosewood LLC and the city of Columbia for storm drainage improvements along Ghost Creek located at 4717 Divine Street. Motion to approve. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none. Madam Clark please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Approved. Herbert. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. DeVall. Mayor Rickamon. Aye. Resolution number R 2022-005 item 17 on our agenda approving and ratifying mutual aid agreements between the city of Columbia and the city of Columbia police department and various law enforcement agencies and authorizing the city manager. Second. Seeing any discussion. Seeing no no hands up. Madam Clark please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Approved. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. DeVall. Aye. Mayor Rickamon. Aye. Number 18 resolution number R 2022-006 authorizing the city manager to execute a 911 communication center consolidated agreement extension between the city of Columbia and Richland County. Is there a motion? Move approval. Any discussion? I'd just like to commend whoever worked through this. I think this is a great step in the right direction. That'd be our senior staff. Thank you. Did you get a second with that? I did not. No sir. Can I get a second? Second. Thank you. Mr. Taylor. Yay. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. DeVall. Aye. Mayor Rickamon. Aye. Thank you. Well we'll go into event resolutions. The safety plans that here the safety plans that these organizations have put place adhere to the COVID-19 pandemic safety and social distancing protocols as published by the CDC and SCDHEC. They have been reviewed and approved by the city of Columbia's police department for each of the following events and actually it's only one event this time. And that's number 19 resolution number R20-2022-001, authorizing consumption of beer and wine beverages only at First Friday on Main Street. Is there a motion? Motion. There a second? Second. Any discussion? Seeing none. Madam Clark. Read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Yay. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. DeVall. Aye. Mayor Rickamon. Aye. Number 20 is the ordinance first reading. Ordinance number 20-2022-008, authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement of sale and purchase between the city of Columbia and brick and mortar LLC for the sale of property located at 1701, 1705, 1710, and 1715 Washington Street, Bristol County. Move approval. Is there a second? Discussion. I know that there was some discussion earlier today between parties and I know that we were going to make sure and tweak some language between the first and second just so the public knows that there were some concerns about how it was written in the contract. We wanted to make sure that we're moving forward that it is on the straight and narrow as we like to say. With that, Madam Clark, will you please read the roll. Mr. Mayor, just a quick comment. I received several calls from people today that really supported this sale and the cleanup of that area. It seems to be very well received by the neighboring property owners. That's always a good thing. Thank you. Mr. Taylor? Yes. Mr. Herbert? Yes. Dr. Vossels? Aye. Mr. Brennan? Yes. Mr. McDowell? Yes. Mr. Duvall? Aye. Mayor Rickamon? Aye. Now we'll enter our public hearing and first reading for zoning and planning matters. We'll have Mr. Hampton, our director of planning and development services come forward. Good evening, City Council. This is your zoning public hearing and I generally go through this pretty quickly, but tonight I'll be a little bit more deliberative to allow for questions and a little bit more explanation of these items. Thank you. So we do allow public comment in addition to those here in the chambers. The public may comment via telephone. So when calling, please include your name and number and the case address. You can listen to the audio and participate in the meeting via telephone by calling the number 855-925-2801. When you're prompted, the meeting code for this evening is 4587 and then you'll press star one to listen. You'll stay on the line until your case is announced. When your case is called, you have two options. You can press star two and leave a voicemail that will be read that will be played back or star three and you can be placed in the speaker queue to speak live. City staff will unmute callers during the comment period and you are limited to three minutes. Just a note, if you are participating by phone, please remember to turn off any other audio because that will provide feedback. Our first four cases are annexations and they have accompanying land use map amendments and zoning map amendments. So this is incorporating land into the city and assigning a policy of a land use classification and then the regulatory zoning classification. The first one is at 2708 shop road. It is a request to annex the property, assign a land use classification of industrial and a zoning of light industrial at the time of annexation. The property is currently classified as an economic development center corridor and zoned a similar light industrial in Richland County. Land use and here is the zoning. We would just then open it up for our public hearing. So with that is there anybody here to speak for or against this project or is there anybody online? We do not have anyone online. Okay. Hearing no no objection from the public. I move approve. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion from council? Hearing none. Madam clerk, please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Hey. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor recommend. Aye. Second case is also an annexation with a land use amendment and a zoning amendment at 3923 Bright Avenue. Kristen. Yes, sir. May I ask you a question? Certainly. I need one of the texts. I'm not getting this on my device on the DS. And I can't, I can't really see that. Do we have someone from IT who can assist with the iPad? We'll get you. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Got it. Certainly. Thank you, Ms. Hampton. 3923 Bright Avenue. Again, this is an annexation with a land use and a zoning map amendment request to annex the property, assign a land use classification of urban core residential small lot and a zoning of residential single family small lot. That's RSF3. The property is currently classified as mixed residential high density and a similar single family residential high density in Richland County. It's a location of the property and that is the zoning. Is there anyone here to speak for or against this item? Do we have anybody online? No, sir. No, sir. Any discussion from council? Move approved. Can I get a second? Madam Clark. Mr. Taylor. Approved. Mr. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. An annexation with land use and map amendment at a 44.3 acre portion on County Line Trail. This is in the Wood Creek Farms area. It's a request to annex the property, assign a land use classification of urban edge residential and assign a zoning of a plan development. For information, Wood Creek Farms is all a plan development, both in the Richland County and the remaining in the city as well. This portion, however, being annexed into the PD from the county is currently M1. Large acreage there at the bottom is, for references, I-20. And the remaining to the north are the developable lots. Is there anybody here to speak in favor or against this item? Do we have anybody online? No, sir. Is there a motion? Move to approve. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clark, please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Approved. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Final annexation today with a land use and map amendment. Is it 40.21 Trotter Road? A request to annex the property. Assigned a land use classification of urban edge residential large lot and a zoning of residential mixed at the time of annexation. The property is classified as neighborhood medium density and zone single family residential high density in Richland County. Where is the property land use to the north as you can see is Leesburg and the zoning. Is there anybody here to speak for or against this annexation? No, sir. Hearing none. Can I have a motion? Move to approve. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Madam Clark, please read the roll. Mr. Taylor. Approved. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. We are now moving into zoning map amendments also called rezonings where we were asked to consider changing the zoning district classification of a property. The first is a 2401 two-notch road and .21 acres on the east side of Waits Road. It is a request to rezone the property from community activity center corridor district, which is a commercial mixed use district to a residential mixed district. That's RM1. So this is actually a request for a down zoning, which you don't see very frequently. Here is the property. So it will be subdivided. The front portion of the property that is on two-notch road will remain commercial and the remaining in the rear will be if approved, zoned residential. I believe we have forwarded a letter from Dr. Soles, who is advocating on behalf of this request. Is there anybody here that is to speak for or against this property? Anybody online? No, sir. We'll move, Mr. Mayor. Is there a second? Second. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Madam Clerk, please arrange a roll. Mr. Taylor. Approved. Mr. Herbert. Dr. Bussells. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Final case of your zoning public hearing tonight is a rezoning request as well at 2632 Millwood Avenue and 26272526 and 2623 Cherry Street. A request to rezone the parcel from mixed use, that's MU1, an office and institutional, OI, and RM1 that's residential mixed, all with a historic overlay to a singular MU1 with a historic overlay. This property, as you can see here, has multiple zonings. It is being consolidated to facilitate redevelopment and rezoning to facilitate that redevelopment. Is there anybody here to speak for or against this project? Do we have anybody online? Yes, sir. Is there a motion? We should approve. Second. For a discussion point, I'm glad to see this happen. This has been a kind of a bit of an eyesore for a long time and a great corridor and thanks to Mr. Rhodes and his brother for making an investment and we look forward to what comes out of there. Can I add to that, Mr. Mayor, these pin corners, which are important corridor corners in the city, I think one of the places we've historically had some issues is seeing positive developments on our most important corners and again I would reiterate what you said. To see this corner come back to life, we'll do wonders for that whole connector street of Millwood. I would encourage us to be as business friendly as we can when it comes to permitting on time and additional costings and those things because these are the things that will make us create a real difference as we move forward. As we like to say at our new theme, we are open for business so let's keep with that theme. Madam Clerk, would you like to? Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. Ms. Hampton, we confirm Council District on that. I think that might have been a property redistrict but just confirm that. Certainly. Mr. Brennan's district. I think that's in yours. I guess we'll share it. He'll take credit for it so don't worry. One of the interesting things about that piece of property, Austin roads his brother and his dad, they've done considerable work on that piece of property. I've always included when they've asked me whose district that was, I always said we're Brennan and I hear that we'll is saying that it's mine. We love you, brother. So we're going to share it together. So the love. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. With that, Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? Mr. Taylor. I apologize. I have my hearing is not the best in the world and with mask and screens, sometimes you just go out to bear with me till we get this code and I can look you. I can look in Howard in the eye and see lips move and know what you're talking about. I mean, thank you for telling what we can do is very symptomatic when that happened as we get whatever. Let's do a thumbs up or thumbs down. Thank you, sir. Ms. Harbert. Dr. Bossels. I, Mr. Brennan. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. I may recommend. That concludes your zoning public hearing. Thank you. Krista. Now we'd like to move to a period of appointments. Number 27 city council committees. You all should have a handout at your seats of the Columbia city council committees and which council members are members of each of those committees. I want to thank council as we work through this and shared a lot of different ideas and I think we have a really good representation on each of these committees, bringing both the talents that each person has but putting them together with some teammates to really move us forward because I think we're going to be a pretty active council over the next several years. So I think this is a great thing. So I would move this grouping forward. Second. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none. So, mayor, I'd like to read this just so we can put it on the record. Absolutely. Administrative policy committee. The chair will be councilman Ed McDowell. Members will be councilman Joe Taylor and councilwoman Audity Bussles. Arts and Historic Preservation Committee. The chair will be councilman Will Brennan. Members will be Ed McDowell and councilwoman Audity Bussles. Economic and Community Development Committee. The chair will be councilman Joe Taylor with members being councilman Will Brennan and councilwoman Tina Herbert. Environment and Infrastructure Committee. The chair will be councilwoman Audity Bussles. Members will be councilman Ed McDowell and councilman Howard Duvall. Public Safety Committee. The chair will be councilman Howard Duvall. And members will be councilman Joe Taylor and councilwoman Tina Herbert. And the last committee is Technology Committee. And the chair will be councilwoman Tina Herbert. Councilmembers will be councilman Howard Duvall and councilmember councilman Will Brennan. Thank you. Mr. Duvall. Mr. Mayor, I would also like to ask the council to appoint councilwoman Tina Herbert to the short-term renal committee. As you all remember, the committee is an ad hoc committee that Mr. Brennan and I are on. And we had Sam Davis from district one. Ms. Herbert and I have talked and she's agreed to serve on it. And district one is one of the places where the rentals are a problem. I think procedural wise, Mr. Duvall, we will be doing those ad hoc committees in February because we have affordable housing. We have the tax and other. So all of those need to be done together and we didn't have it previously on the agenda. So let's try to keep all those together if we could and approve that. With that, Madam Clark, can you read the roll? Mr. Taylor. Approved. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussles. Aye. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mayor, recommend? Aye. We have any referrals to any of the council committees at this time? I know we don't have any reports, so seeing none, we'll move to a period of public input. I would like to say for the record that moving forward, we will make sure that anybody who has comment about agenda items will be done prior to us taking up the agenda, and all public comments or general comments will be taken up at the end of the agenda as we have now. It's caused some confusion with the public and heard a lot about it over the last nine months about having more opportunity for input prior to our vote. So I just wanted to go on record with that. Mr. Mayor, I have one question. Just a procedural question, because this is our first meeting. Is there a place at the end for new business or if you have any comments or something that you might have missed earlier that you want to make for the record? Is there a place on the agenda for council members to do that at the end? We can do that by you just raising your hand. Okay. I just want to follow rule. Do we have anybody signed up tonight? Yes, sir. We have Mrs. Diane Wiley. Good evening, Ms. Wiley. If you don't mind, maybe you lower your mask. It's really hard to hear you. Congratulations to everybody. I just want to come and congratulate everybody. I've met some of you all. I'm the president of Belvedere in district two, Mr. McDowell, and I want to make sure everybody know me. Okay. My concerns, and you have heard it, the old ones, the seasoned ones, you've heard we dealing with flood 2015. I've been out of my house ever since 2015, me and my husband. Through the flood, we're having the ditch trouble, snakes, we have insets, turtles, they're just crawling around in our neighborhood. We have problems with speed bumps, and we're a neighborhood with 650 if I have houses, and we need some help. I've calmed down a lot, but I'm going to be here every Tuesday, so you can see me every Tuesday. And I want some help. We need help in the 29203 and four areas. I'm speaking for some of my aunts in the 29203. In our neighborhood, we need more lighting, and we need a cleanup. And I was here the last time with the thing with the abandoned cars. I'm for that. And the rebuilt of our neighborhood. Our neighborhood shouldn't look like this because we're coming into Columbia off a two-night road in Beltline. We are getting a new service station there, but we want positive stuff. We don't have a decent restaurant in our area, and that shouldn't be happening in Columbia. I'm paying taxes and insurance in a place I can't stay in. My husband almost died before we live in it now because the ambulance service is not really good down there. I will be traveling 55 miles here every Tuesday, first and third. And some of you all I know didn't come in our neighborhood when it was time to vote, but understand we are the neighborhoods that you're supposed to listen to us. And I'm going to be calm, but if I don't see anything going on, then you can see my horns go up. Our neighbors are really upset. Every time I go, we have our meetings. They ask what's going on, what we're going to do. I can't tell them nothing unless you come in and tell them. And I wish you could come to one of our meetings. We meet on the second Thursday of every month, but we don't even have a place to meet at now. But that's all I'm looking forward to working with you. I love all of you, but I want to see some action. Ms. Wiley, we're going to get you a report on the ditch where things are going. I know that's kind of your hesitation of moving back and starting those repairs until you get that fixed. As for the lighting, we will make sure that somebody comes out and does an assessment and gets it to you, and then you and the neighbors can decide if the lighting there is appropriate, because it's really up to the neighbors to decide on where that goes. But we will be in contact and we'll make sure that you see some action. And another thing, it's a neighbor in our neighborhood. He was getting ready to build a house without a builder's permit. We stopped that. It's on Truman Street. You can't come in there and do what you want to. I got spies and spies. And I'm sure you do, Ms. Wiley. I know everything. And to the police department, I can tell you everything that's going on. Well, hey, call us any time. I don't get paid for that. But you know, you can be my crime prevention. I can do it. And I want to be on some of those committees. I really do. Can I ask one question? Yes, sir. Did I hear you right? Did you say the ditch? We got trouble, real bad ditches. Is that the is that the same ditch that I've read about two or three times? Yes, yes, yes, school district. Yes. That's correct. Yes. Let me say this with all the ARP money that's coming down the tubes, somehow, you know, I know it's an argument, whether it's the library or whether it's the county or whether it's us or anybody else. This is one we need to get fixed. And I don't know who needs to sit down with who at the county. But we just, Mr. Mayor, I'm just telling you it's a new day. There's a new council chairman. Let's figure out how to make it happen. And sir, I want to let you know we have so many little doughnut holes. When you call for a problem, they'll tell you it's the county, they'll tell you it's DOT, then they'll tell you it's city. I understand. And we don't know where to go to. Mr. McDowell is trying to fight, but he can't do it by himself. That's why we're here. We're one. Thank you. Anything y'all want me to do? Let me know because I, you know, I'm a tight person. I fight for what I want. And when we first moved out there, it was gorgeous. It looked terrible now. Mr. Taylor, I think you're absolutely right. In reference to funds, particularly ARP funds, two years ago, I think we talked about this problem. Five years ago, we talked about it. But we're talking about the collaboration of funds with the county and with the city. And an amount was approved, of course, which equals somewhere, I think that's what the mayor wants to do is to do a comprehensive report on funds. There you come. I think Clint can give us an update. I didn't want to put you on the spot, but it is very necessary that we at least mention the funds that are perhaps already there. Yes, sir. We have, excuse me, one second, Clint. I think I said library. I meant to say it's the school district, not the school district. It's the school district, the county, and the city all been doing this, right? Yes. Okay. Yes, sir. As a city, we have, we are funding the evaluation and design of the restoration for that ditch. And we are working with the county to look at splitting those costs as soon as that design is ready to go to construction. And so that project is advancing in terms of the main ditch work. And we've also talked with the school district. The school district has got some liability on that too, don't they? Well, it bluts their property, yes, sir, goes through there, but the county had an easement at one time for that. So we've been working very diligently to try to get that design done. And about three and a half million dollars is the estimate for that. That is front and center on our list of ARP projects that Missy will be distributing shortly. Well, school district is getting 100 million dollars of that money too. So I mean, let's just, you know, less old. Well, I think part of that is that this isn't the only area where we have some issues with the school district. And drainage, as we know in your new part district, Mr. Brennan in Meadowfield and several others, I think we need to group these up, have the conversation and see where it's going in advance. But all parties need to be at the table. Yes, sir. And we're also looking at the swell beside your home, Miss Wiley, which is outside the scope of the larger project we had public works and engineering staff out there since our last meeting looking at that. And so one of our elected officials is actually asked for that. So thank you. Thank you, Clint. Yes, ma'am, Miss Wiley. Get back in session where we could have a meeting at the old water treatment place. I would like to invite all of y'all there to have City Council meet at the water treatment place whenever we can get back in there so you can talk to the neighbors so they won't think I'm lying. They wouldn't think that, Miss Wiley. Well, they do. They do. They do. Like I told them, I'm not giving up my position until my house get fixed. I got my neighbors next door to me. They wouldn't go in with me and now they got breathing problem because they live in the house with Mo. My house inside is green. The walls don't turn green. Thank you for being here, Miss Wiley. Okay. Thank you for being an advocate for your neighborhood. But I'll be here next week. I know you will. Was there anyone else who had signed up this evening? Yes, sir. With that. Mr. Mayor, before we do that, I want to just mention one thing. I thought Mr. Michelle was still here. I think he must have just left. I just wanted, as we, as they were talking about the American Rescue Act money and things like that, Miss Kaufman was kind enough to forward to me and I think maybe to you and I and some others an update on how some of that money could be used for anti-crime measures and things. I was going to ask our lobbyist to have some discussions at the State House to see if there was any possibility of establishing a gun crimes court especially in our larger cities is a way to eliminate any backlog we might have because that money can be used for special courts like that and some things and just I just think that with what we're seeing in violent crimes and gun crimes that that will be something that capital cities and larger cities in South Carolina ought to be having some discussions with the General Assembly about. I don't disagree with you and as you know I mean we're up to about 83 plus shootings in the city of Columbia and and we're also having as unfortunately we see in a backlog in the system and we're seeing a lot of repeat offenders so I think this is a great opportunity for us to be advocates not only at the State House as we continue to move up there as a group but make it a priority and I would ask that we contact the lobbying team and ask them to start drafting something that we could present and I think it'd be good for all of us to make calls to the folks we know and say look this is very important to the capital city and it's important to our communities and we got to make a difference because the gun violences and sadly 93% of those offenders are between the ages of 18 and 19 so we've got to we've got to make a difference. Mr. Mayor might we have this some preliminary discussions let our lobbyists do it with Charleston and Greenville and Spartanburg Florence other large larger cities in the state where it might be a coalition that rotates around eliminates the backlog and takes those repeat offenders off the street. And I'll mention it I'll see Mayor White and Ted Lindberg and talk to them about that as well. Thank you. We're at a period of executive session and I think we really we we just have one item Mr. DeVall would you like to do your specialty here? Thank you Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor I move we go into executive session for a seat you want to go for COVID? Do we we don't have any COVID items? So we just have one item for a seat of discussion of matters related to proposed location or expansion of services to encourage location or expansion of industries or other businesses pursuant to SC code 30-4-78-2 Mark Anthony Brewing. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion with that? Madam clerk can you read the roll? Ms. Taylor. Ms. Herbert. Yes. Dr. Bussells. Yes. Mr. Brennan. Yes. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. DeVall. Aye. Mayor Rickman. Aye. Thank you. Thank you.