 Good afternoon. Here. Here. Here. Here. This is CFI. Someone already did a little ventriloquism act for you, so you're good. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We'll get his paycheck. What's up with it again? Well, we get started. We'll just take a minute. Dan Alonzo is here with our new Deputy Finance Director. I just wanted to start with a quick introduction. She sits on the board of four different agencies. You brought her here? There's no finance reports today. It's just for a while. I can guarantee she knows how to use the spreadsheets. Welcome, welcome. Looking forward to working with you. You're usually a warm and fuzzy budge, usually. Every other month we get a little ornery. This is the perfect person to train you as to how to deal with us. Just say no. Is that fair, Jeff? Yes, it is. I neglected to have some amendments to the agenda. Amendments are stated in addition to the executive session, discussions and negotiations regarding school crossing guard services, deferring considerations on items 39 and 66 from the evening agenda. Is there a motion? 89 and 66. One to other to that also to executive session. Also under contractual would be Ad Lead Generation Services. Contract for that. Lead Generation Services contract. Okay. I'd also like to add sewer extension agreement. Executive session. So you're talking about contract? Contract to contractual issues. What's the rationale of deferring 39? I do not know. I'm sorry, 66. It's open. We haven't advertised it's not up yet. It shouldn't have been on the agenda. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Add in two more items to executive session as well. Lead Generation Services and sewer extension. Contract. Second. Second. No motion. I got it wrong. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you. First item today. The discussion is a way finding project. Mr. Bill Ellen, president and CEO for experience Columbia. I think most of you know that probably about three years ago we met with several city officials and several community leaders and discuss the way finding signage throughout Columbia, what we had currently and what was needed and came to a decision that we needed to explore what our opportunities and possibilities were to start a new way finding signage project. We sent out an RFP and received 15 responses from that. There were national firms, there were no South Carolina firms that answered the RFP and got that narrowed down to three or four and through some very tedious vetting and recommendations and looking experience. We decided on a company called Yazi out of the Miami area. Over 20 years experience, very well respected in the sign business. We selected Yazi and they partnered with our local sign company Colite International which is very well known internationally signed. If no one's ever visited Colite, that place is amazing. That's something special out there. We felt very fortunate to have a company of their caliber right in the backyard that they could work with and I think they will work together on some future projects. So we started the project after we decided on who was going to be the sign consultant and the manufacturer. Is this ready? So we partnered with Yazi. It's got a little information on their history over 30 years of experience and Colite will actually manufacture and install the sign. Yazi, Chris Rogers came up and spent a lot of time in Columbia. He spent four or five days in a row. He visited every site where we currently have a wayfinding signage and I won't bore you with all of this as a 107 pages but an extensive study of every sign that's in Columbia, the location and what it has on it. He discovered there was a last time it was done was 2003-2004. The existing signs he evaluated what we had. It was 117 signs originally. Some of those signs were missing information. He said he actually followed them through the eyes of a visitor since he was visiting Columbia for the first time. He actually went in the wrong direction on some of the signs. After months of studying the market, he came up with 222 signs, which is a significant increase but if you think about what's happened in the last 15 years with the bull street, we need people to bull street, just the many different attractions and areas and we also have several new districts that were not included 15 years ago. We've got North Columbia, we've got several new ones. So we went through all the districts, identified locations of where they need to be and then we started putting together a group of local stakeholders and community involvement. See if you thought it's on the left, on the right you'll see who has been coming to our meetings and our discussion of what was needed in the direction of all the districts of their city. Several others participated in those meetings. We were told from the start by our consultant that we need to get Saffron DOT involved from an early start because of a lot of code issues, so DOT was on board from the start. Of course, USC, Benedict and the other area colleges. So we got all of them involved and we've had over the last two years since 2016, we've had numerous meetings about what we needed and where we need to get to and how to get there. This is a mock-up of a sign that we look very similar to what we're talking about doing, I apologize. They're all consistent. They have the whole and the cap on top of all consistent. They're identified at the top by what the district will have their own color. So each district will have their own color. I'll show you in a little bit. That's been about a four or five month process of getting districts to bring on what color because we needed to distinguish the difference. So when a visitor leaves one district and goes into another district, they realize they're entering the historic district or the main street district. Then each sign will have directional arrows pointing them through what's in that district that's significant. Now, everything on the signs is public. There's no direction to private businesses or private facilities, all public. It's all done with the thought in mind that if a visitor came and did not know his way around the plunge of the issue, they were looking for something to sign that would help the record. The consultant said many of the signs were in this position that by time he saw the sign and read it, he'd already come up on the intersection to turn. It was too late. He also said the parking garages are part of the signs also. He said the parking garages were very misleading. He had a city parking garage. He said he went in and there was literally 14 spaces available to the public in the whole garage. So he said as a citizen, I mean as a visitor, he got very frustrated driving around with the existing signs. So what he has proposed answers all those problems. There's another mock-up of the sign with Columbia District with their colors blue. The things that it points to are relative to what's in the city. You can see the small blue circle feet that showed where the public parking line is. That's actually the right parking sign and on the opposite side it will have the district. This is a mock-up. Obviously it's just on a stand. It's not permanently into the sidewalk. It's showing you this is one existing old one that was in the front. That's on a cemetery down near the client property. It's an old one. It's good with this. You see DOT on the major thoroughfares like assembly, they're a bay. They're requiring five inch lettering. Believe it or not, one from four inch to five inch. Precinct size of the signs are different. So it would only do the five inch on there. Wide visitor affairs. This is on Fairbay Street right in front of the Hampton Inn. This is a smaller lettering. Now this is not correct in the amount of time that it existed. Put it up just for the purpose of seeing the size of the signs and the size of the letters. So he actually, somebody asked to stop at the street and said, attention, they're straight away when you turn left. So this is all the district signs I was telling you about. It's not real clear, but each district, so every way finding sign located in our district will have this color on the top to identify that. On the reverse side of this sign will be photography that's significant to that district. USC district, they provided photography to master photography from each district. The historic district has a historic home, dual street, fireflies that the spirit gives the part. It would have a sign that's relevant to that. So will there be a master map for people? I mean, I get the color, but as far as identifying the district, that's something we can do right now, we can do it from the signage perspective, but we can certainly do a map that doesn't make the district come down. I mean, I just assumed that's why you did it by color, because if not, why wouldn't you have it all the same so that people knew those were the directions of the city? Well, it is. I think a lot of the businesses and the stakeholders in the area, we can certainly do a map that's not very important. It might be nice to have in the high entertainment areas and other places of central map, where people can go, look, hey, I want to go to green because that's you know, Robert Mills historic district. I want to go walk those houses right over there. We'll do that. We'll have that conversation. Well, it's going to say there's a few signs, not many, but there's a handful that lie outside of the district, not many of them, but those half a dozen throughout. The houses, especially the ones by the historic Columbus, someone in the area, they want to go to a particular house, Robert Mills. During the day, there's somebody at Robert Mills possibly. Or how do we handle that? Because there are two, I know that's probably not on the map now, the Book of Washington One Room Schoolhouse, One Tease One Room Schoolhouse on North Main, Major Corridor. Probably nobody there during the day, but I think as we tighten up on this, we probably can work with them as well as the Keenan House to be available or have some sort of contact number so the visitors can call and someone can meet them. I would see that. Right now, historic Columbia has tours that you're going to walk up on on the historic tour, you have to book them in advance. So those two, yeah, we've got it, it's all one. And they would be on the map. Well, signs will take you. It's all one, you just don't have them all. Very good. Thank you. Go back to these types of signs, like for North Columbia, it'll be on one of those. Yeah, thank you. Your cell phone number. Yeah, let me ask you. How are you interacting? The buses will be part of getting folks where they need to go. They're empty now, so it's great. I think that would be great. I think it's an educational process. We need the drivers trained on the different districts and what's in those districts, because I think it's important that the driver knows where to take them and they may not be on the route. Yeah, but the reason I asked that is that we've got the soda top. We've got the soda top as a part of the bus route. That's a cap. Right, most of the time, the old buses are once in a while. We've got some new routes that are, of course, right below us. But that soda top route, the riders here, I don't think it's that great. They'll have me envisioning that. Yeah, I'll talk to John. I'll talk to John. I think the concept is great. I think the working out. It would certainly be good. I want to say desert, native buses, get folks where they ought to go. We want to be where there's North Columbia, where there's throughout the city. It would certainly be an advantage for those folks who are busy tonight. To be able to get on the bus and say, I want to do a historical tour. And to have some interaction with the bus route and say, Robert, I think that has to be it. That's certainly something we can look deeper into and try to work together and find it. Which is kind of a different issue than they find in signage, but it does tie together. But right now, I think it's important. We had put a kind of a time frame window on trying to get this project done in time for March Madness in March because 20 plus thousand visitors coming. We thought it'd be a perfect time. And we are on schedule to do that. We have actually moved the schedule up for some of the signage. We want to have some of the signage installed in place in the Vista area and Main Street area in time for the National Mayor's Conference in September. And we're working towards that goal. They told us that it is possible to get some up, but we're pushing up against the ultimate deadline pretty soon. We've got to confirm everything to move forward. And we're about at the deadline, but I think we can do that. Everybody make sure you have the September 27th to the 29th. I think your calendar's here. September 27th to the 29th? So everybody but you. 27th to the 29th. Also, Mayor, I know that an important part of this project, an important part of this project, was your interest in electronic digital type signage. Yeah, what's up with the next question? We have, we have, we've thoroughly explored those opportunities. I think you met a gentleman who was one of the major companies. Was it New York, Kansas City, or talked to them? Initially we thought it was that they would provide them free for the advertising, but after meeting with, or after discussing, discussing with them on a conference call, they said that in a major market like in Chicago or Denver, New York, they would put X amount of free digital knowing that they could sell enough national advertising. From your market, they think is, is on the fringe of being able to do that. They said they may be able to sign enough advertising to make them free, but they would not guarantee it and it would put us on the hook that they don't sell the advertising for the difference, which is very significant. But I mentioned this to you today because I think during the mayor's conference, with all those mayors here from across the country, if we could get that guy to do a sample and let him know there are going to be how many mayors here from across the country, or 50 mayors, he ought to do one free for us as a sample so that all those mayors could see it. So if you really endorse us getting in touch with him and pitching that to him, or if you would like to, I think that's something you can apply. Any other questions? Most all the money, and I will tell you that we've had partners in the community that are chipping in money. Right now we've got the city money that you approved to fund. We experienced Columbia is paying $50,000 of the toll bill. We've got $10,000 from the Vista. We've got $10,000 from Main Street. We've got $5,000 from Historic Columbia. We are in discussions to get another $60,000, mainly from USC. We have requested $40,000 from USC. They have the 222 signs. They have about 50 of them that are USC related. So we're asking $40,000 for their share. And they're telling us everybody's on board to fund it. They just haven't given us a number. We're also waiting to get a number from Rosewood, Divine Street, Bull Street, North Columbia, that would add to our number. The signs are about, the Circle P is about $1,500 a sign. These signs are between $2,000 and $2,500 a week. That's installed. So we're close. If we don't get the full amount, which is about $555,000, we'll have to eliminate whatever signs to make up that difference, which is about $2,500 a sign. Whoever doesn't pay it gets eliminated. I don't know. That's kind of worth the next council meeting. Everybody's going to be lined up here wanting us to get a grant money. I think we're closed. And I think it's... Yeah, extra $500. Jeff is coming. I was going to relate it. Howard and I had a lady from Columbia, but she's been in the military. She's traveled and she's now come back. She's going to raise her two boys. I respectfully disagree with her. And that said that maybe life doesn't have ties that we have with our soldiers. But anyway, one of the things that she brought as a suggestion to us is that most recently she lived in Salt Lake City, and they had this path, went to pass the kids when they were out during the winter time, and some of them didn't go with you because of the fact. So I shared that with the bill. First of all, we had something locally called the food path. The adventure state museum and the zoo participate. But I had talked to Bill about reaching out to other tractors and let them sign on and then also get with the cattle too so that we could maybe help promote it. How old are you? Promote it in my book. It's 27 dollars. Yeah, no, this is Howard's children. Um... How old are the children? Seven and ten. Is it Isabel? I'm not hearing this. Yeah, I mean, particularly she... So the lake, the lake, the zoo, the museum, three museums of the city. Yes, yes. Most particularly she had talked about New Year's and how they had a, you know, a ball drop that early in the day. But why are you talking about adventure though? They didn't do the same thing. Yeah. And that, you know, they didn't do that. Expand it, expand it faster. Yeah, so you have young children, so you have young children, so you, you were, all right. He was all that. We were going to do a ball drop in Blackwood. You said Mabar and Historic Columbia are all the way too easy ones to get on that thing. They should be. When we did this three years ago, four years ago, we went to a dozen. You know, we were, we were hoping, we were trying to get a very small discounted twice on the ticket, so it'd be a track that somebody'd buy in the past. At the time, these three were the only ones willing to give us a discount. It was a success of it, and we saw it look good many online. I think now's the time to go back and add, I think we can get a dozen to participate. Any questions on? Rock a roll on the ones from the district. That's going to go on. Okay. All right. You like the concept? It looks great. It looks great. I still want, I still want the key eye, so we have to talk about that. I know. It seemed to have to have a conversation. Oh, we had it. And then you wanted to tie us up, too. A million dollar commitment. Why do you have that? I'm sorry. That's too much. I'm sure, I'm sure on the Columbia District one, that's the inside of the zone. Yes, we stayed on that. No, we're not. I mean, I don't know what you all think. I always think the most beautiful thing is the skyline. Well, let me point out that there are six of those people who have a different U.S.C. They gave us a library of 40 something designs that probably got 10 different designs. So it won't be the only one. They'll give us a update on the business center how you got to open the business center. If you've ridden by the corner of Lincoln and Gervais, you've noticed it's there and we're almost ready. We've got a few technology things. We don't have phone system yet and some of the technology wiring. We should have that completed this week. We're trying to get, city staff is trying to coordinate with you, the council and the mayor to do a ribbon cutting the end of August on that last week, the week of the 27th. If you can work out your schedule, we want to do a ribbon cutting and grand opening then. But I think that I've had a lot of people comment that it's such an enhancement of that corner where you were staring at long horns, coolers, walk-in coolers and loading ramp and some other ugly AGVAC. Now all that's hidden behind the building and I think the corner is just a lot more, it looks a lot nicer and more inviting. I think it's going to be a welcome addition. That's wonderful. Thank you. And we'll have extended hours. We'll have some nighttime hours and we'll have weekends, including Sunday afternoons that we'll have at staff. And we may adjust that as we go along, as a need for directors to... Some of the signs direct people to the visitor center? Yes. Awesome. Thank you for your time and thank you for your support of the project and we'll wrap it up soon and we'll have signs installed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Bill. Number two, item number two is upcoming city council retreat, Ms. Melissa Kaufman, Budget and Program Management Director. I'm calling to take a square footage out of my area with everybody but I used to have plenty of room in the school. I don't know. Good afternoon. In preparation for the next city council Envision Columbia retreat, we're going to discuss a couple of dates for planning purposes. We e-mailed out yesterday some potential dates for the week of November 6th to the 8th, which is general election week but there's no council meeting that week. Is NLC that week? Okay, I wasn't sure. Okay. What's your run for? Congratulations. I wasn't sure the NLC dates and we didn't get a chance to check as before. Yeah, it starts on Wednesday. Okay. November. That would be November 7th. All right. Then that leaves the November dates. No other specific dates were provided for January other than exclusion of dates for the week of the 19th or the 25th. So if we can either narrow down some specific dates now we're going to do that or we can look back for some other. What are y'all preferring? Or what are y'all? Tyler would be on site to do this. Those were dates she was available. This far in advance, I'm very flexible. The venue? What was that? Dates. What was the move in target? Dates for Envision Columbia Recreation. I think so far folks for January were pretty open but we can work with you. Third week of January is horrible. Right. That's also the same week that we're referring to that's out is the week of the 19th or the 25th which I believe is the date. The earlier in January? You don't want to do it the first week because you're coming right off. Maybe the week of January. Look at the week of January 7th or the 14th. Follow me. We need to go ahead and book a date. Absolutely. We do. We have not discussed a venue. Why is what I heard? It really right. Keenan House. Renovania. Already? That's probably what I should call them. But y'all look at options. News gray, USC's gray. I mean, I've seen about historic houses probably. So in Tam. As long as it has to deliver AD you all need our capabilities. Let's more usually make sure that she has what she needs in order to do the proper recordings. And we will get back with you on dates for the week of January 7th or January 14th, along with some Tuesday, Wednesday. Everybody blocks Tuesday off already. So go ahead. What's being proposed is a day and a half start. So the first day is a half day and then the next day would be a full day. And then some individual interviews. I like the idea of Tuesday and Wednesday. I don't know. USC's prefer to those two weeks. 16. I wasn't saying Earl Wood Park too, but let's let's, we might need to be removed a little bit. Great to still be in town. Right. Like solutions. When we went over to the water plant. All right. 7th and 8th to figure out where we're or 8th and 9th, whatever Tuesday, Wednesday. We'll do it. Find us. We'll get back with you as soon as possible within the next few days, just sort of from on some dates and some locations. Thank you kindly. Thank you. Executive session. You don't mind if we hold on all, all board and commission's appointments today? Okay with that? Follow me. I'll make a motion. We'll hold on all of that. I'm going to move. Is there a second? Second. And discussion. I'm going to do a special part of our role. Aye. Yes. Aye.