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| The following summary minutes have not been approved by Simpsonville City Council. An official copy of the minutes will be available after adopted by City Council at City Hall 118 NE Main St. Simpsonville. Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, notice of this meeting date, time, place and Agenda was posted on the bulletin board at City Hall and faxed to the newspapers, radio stations, television stations and any concerned citizens. |
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MINUTES OF THE SIMPSONVILLE CITY COUNCIL BUSINESS SESSION MARCH 10, 2009 6:30 p.m. City Council Chambers – 118 N. E. Main St .
COUNCIL PRESENT: Mayor Waldrop, Ron Bridges, Brown Garrett, Patty Sanders, Tammy Bagwell, George Curtis and Bruce Larson STAFF PPRESENT: Russell Hawes, City Administrator, David Holmes, City Attorney, Chief Charles Reece; Assistant Chief Wesley Williams; Joe Carter, David Dyrhaug, and Melinda Zeller INVOCATION by Councilmember Ron Bridges: APPROVAL OF MINUTES : Councilmember Bagwell moved that the minutes of the February 10 th and February 24th meetings be approved. Motion carried unanimously. CITIZEN COMMENTS : Council received comments from the public.
CITY ADMINISTRATOR’S REPORT – a copy of the Administrator’s report is attached to these minutes and is incorporated by reference. NEW BUSINESS A. TEXT AMENDMENTS: 1st READING TX-2008-05. Motion by Councilmember Larson to deny the Planning Commission’s recommendation to pass TX-2008-05. Motion failed 4 to 3 with Councilmember’s Sanders, Bagwell, Curtis and Mayor Waldrop casting the descending votes. Motion by Councilmember Sanders to send TX-2008-05 back to the Planning Commission for further review. Motion carried 5 to 2 with Councilmember Curtis and Mayor Waldrop casting the descending votes. OLD BUSINESS A. ACTION ITEMS Utility and Telecom Audit. Motion by Councilmember Sanders to allow the City Administrator to move forward with the Utility and Telecom Audit. Motion carried unanimously. GCRA Subrecipient Funding. Motion by Councilmember Larson to accept the GCRA Subrecipient Funding. Motion carried unanimously. EXECUTIVE SESSION . Motion by Councilmember Bagwell to go into Executive Session to discuss two Personnel Matters one concerning the Administration Department and other the Fire Department. Motion carried unanimously. Council came out of Executive Session at 9:22 PM. Mayor Waldrop reported that no action was taken. Motion by Councilmember Bagwell to direct Mr. Hawes to terminate the Fire Chief immediately. Motion carried unanimously. ADJOURNMENT . Motion by Councilmember Sanders to adjourn. Motion carried unanimously.
Notice of this meeting was given
Respectfully submitted,
Melinda Zeller City Clerk Administrator's Notes and CommentsMarch 10, 2009
Prepared by Russell B. Hawes City Administrator
Finance and Budget Update In light of reduced revenues, all of our department heads have worked diligently to minimize expenditures over the past few months. However there have been some expenses tracking higher than projected. We have had a number of large repair and maintenance matters in the Public Works and Fire Departments. Department of Corrections and detention costs have tracked higher as well. Revenues are tracking with projections. These trends are important as we analyze needs for the upcoming budget. The schedule for budget workshops at 6:30 PM in the Activity and Senior Center this year is as follows: March 12 th Expense Refinement Meeting March 26 th Revenue Refinement Meeting March 30 th Council Review of Draft Budget April 9 th Final Review of Budget, with Adjustments May 12 th First Reading of Budget Ordinance June 9 th Second Reading of Budget Ordinance
Please note that the expense refinement budget workshop is this Thursday.
Bids for Auditor The Municipal Association of South Carolina recommends that all cities receive bids for yearly financial audits every four years. I have sent out a Request for Proposals for auditing services per this recommendation. This will allow us to review the responses and determine our best course of action going forward. The proposals will be received no later than March 16 th , with selection of a firm thereafter.
Finance Director Position This past week the City conducted interviews with prospective candidates for the position of finance director. As this is a personnel matter we have an executive session for it on tonight’s agenda.
Police Grants We were recently awarded a grant for $55,973.00. This was a direct grant from the Bureau of Justice. It is called “Recovery Justice Assistance Grant” (JAG). This is a one time only grant for the purpose of purchasing equipment. We intend to use these funds to accomplish the dispatch radio console upgrade and purchase laptop computers to get closer to completing our LawTrak conversion. Both of these purchases meet the grant guidelines and we expect them to be approved. This is a 100% funding grant.
Additionally, there is a total of 23 million dollars being awarded to the State of SC for local JAG’s. These are also 100% funding grants. The agencies that did not qualify for the direct Bureau of Justice grant will be given first priority when this funding is distributed. We plan to apply for funds from this JAG but I will not have total of our request until the end of next week. I suspect it will be in the area of $300,000.00. The application must be submitted by April 1, 2009. The criteria for the expenditure of these funds will be identical to the Bureau of Justice grant. If awarded the funding The Police Department would use the funds to finalize the LawTrak conversion, purchase equipment for the Special Response Team and purchase patrol cars to replace high mileage vehicles. We will also request additional equipment.
We have also written a grant for Traffic Enforcement in the amount of $371,000.00. If approved this grant will be a 100% grant funding for one year. This grant has been written for 4 officers and all necessary equipment including vehicles. Successive year funding is yet to be determined.
We have applied for third year (July ‘09 – June ‘10) funding for our current Drug Enforcement grant. If approved, this will fund 100% for this third and final grant year. This is approximately $70,000.00.
We received notice today that the “Cops Recovery” grant will be available for application soon. The application date has not been published yet. The purpose of this grant is to hire officers, reinstate officers who were laid off and to prevent the lay off of officers. We are being told that this grant, if awarded, will be 100% funding for 3 years for entry level officers only.
Thus far, the Obama Stimulus Plan has kept these grants at 100% funding. These grants are fast moving. All of our contacts that we have concerning grants are saying they have never seen grant processes work this fast. We will be continuously monitoring these grants and the availability of others on a daily basis.
Event Information• Next meeting of City Council is our Workshop meeting March 24 th . • Budgeting Workshop is March 12 th in the Activity and Senior Center at 6:30 p.m. |
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| 118 N E Main Street, Simpsonville, SC 29681 |
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