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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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SIMPSONVILLE CITY COUNCIL MINUTES WORKSHOP SESSION July 24, 2007 6:30 P.M.
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor: I’ll call council to order. I’d like to thank all of you for coming tonight. Would you please call the roll Ms. Bodkins.
ROLL CALL: Ms. Bodkins: Yes sir: Councilmember Bridges: Here Councilmember Garrett: Here Councilmember Lawrence: Here Councilmember Bagwell: Here Councilmember Zitricki: Here Councilmember Larson: Here Mayor Waldrop: Here
Mayor: Thank you Ms. Bodkins.
Ms. Bodkins: Yes sir.
INVOCATION
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
CITIZEN COMMENTS Mayor: Thank you. All right, this is the portion of our program where we invite citizen comment. You can either call ahead and be placed on the Agenda or you can sign up at the door and I see a nodding going on down there – so apparently no one signed up tonight and no one wants to talk to us. We may be doing something right for a change.
COUNCIL COMMENTS Mayor: But next on the Agenda is Council Comments and I’ll bet you there’s some council members that have some comments. Ms. Lawrence.
Ms. Lawrence: Well, I’m sorry Mr. Hawes, I promised you that I didn’t have any but I had forgotten that I spoke to a couple of employees about the Principal Retirement.
Mr. Hawes: Yes ma’am
Ms. Lawrence: And in fact one – it’s now going to cost him $8,000 additional dollars. Because he didn’t make the deadline and I would like to know just where after all these years we stand on that.
Mr. Hawes: Well we’re in the process of liquidation of that particular plan. As I understand it right now it’s in the hands of the Principal and we have been working with them to expedite the process absolutely so that we do not inconvenience any employees who are looking at their retirement.
Ms. Lawrence: Okay, well this one has already been told by the Retirement System $8,000 more dollars. What do we do.
Mr. Hawes: I’m not familiar with that so I’d have to look at that.
Ms. Lawrence: Okay – well if you could check into it I’d appreciate it. Thank you. And that is my comments.
Mayor: Okay – well thank you. All right, next Ms. Bagwell.
Ms. Bagwell: I would like to just publicly thank Mr. Hawes and Robbie Davis for the excellent job you did during the Municipal Association Conference with the tour that we had at Heritage Park . It was, for those of you who weren’t there, I mean it was awesome. The people from around the state that were here – all I heard was positive comments. People want to come back for Freedom Weekend Aloft – you guys went above and beyond and it turned out very nicely.
Mr. Hawes: Thank you
Mayor: Here, here. All right, Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: I would just add a little bit to that. When we got back to the Hyatt after the picnic Saturday, Michelle James, with the Municipal Association came over and found me and said she couldn’t believe how many people had come up to her and said what a great trip Simpsonville put on. And that they were actually – they’d already started talking about adding something like that to their Agenda for every year. Doing some type of field trip for the folks. So it was a great success.
Mayor: Great. And I’m sure most of you got your Municipal Association news letter – e-news letter today and if you haven’t seen it yet there was a reprint of a beautifully written article by some local reporter who shall remain nameless, in the Municipal Association newsletter about how successful our little outing at Heritage Park was for the other Mayors and councilmembers. So if you see that reporter thank him for that and thank the Municipal Association for thinking what we did was a good thing. All right, next – I sort of interrupted there but I had to dove-tail with Mr. Larson. Ms. Bagwell again.
Ms. Bagwell: I just wanted to ask – I don’t know – are we planning to talk any about the Davenport Repaving tonight at all – is that part of the Agenda.
Mr. Hawes: It’s not on the Agenda – but I’d be glad to give you a rundown of some of the things that we’ve been working on in anticipation of a report that will be presented to council. We have been – City Staff – Public Works specifically has been working to identify the best approach with regard to improving the situation on Davenport Road . At the last meeting council suggested the possibility of lowering the rise as you come out of Hunters Hill Drive at Davenport where it blocks some of the vision there and they are looking into exactly the best way to accomplish that and to determine what the actual costs of these different approaches would be. Some of what they are looking at is basically resurfacing the existing road way alone. Also, adding some shoulder width and making the road a little bit wider and also an estimate on adding curb and gutter and sidewalks as well to that. So basically three scenarios we’re looking at and tying into all three of those the lowering of that rise as you come out of Hunters Hill. So we’re beginning to get into the cost estimation stage. Obviously the last stage was the most expensive or the most costly – but it also has some very strong benefits by creating a curb and gutter scenario with sidewalks added. And we’re looking certainly to do this as efficiently as possible and we’re looking at other means of funding. There’s a possibility we could go to the CTC – the County Legislative Delegation Transportation Committee and perhaps request funding for the areas of the project that are beyond the resurfacing such as the curb and gutter and the sidewalks. So that’s always a possibility that works in and I expect that we will have this more fleshed out for our next meeting.
Ms. Bagwell: Staying in tune with that – I had spoken with you earlier today concerning that creek down there and how that drop-off is – we are looking at adding that into those estimates as well.
Mr. Hawes: Absolutely, we’re also looking at what we may be able to do to stabilize the situation in the interim as well.
Ms. Bagwell: Good
Mayor: Okay? Thank you. Mr. Zitricki
Mr. Zitricki: I just wanted to say that I saw the signs are up for the new 4-way stop at Richardson and South Street so they’ll be up next week I believe.
Mr. Hawes: At Richardson and Main – Yes
Mr. Zitricki: And then also could you give us an update on the streetscape project.
Mr. Hawes: Streetscape is on-going. We’ve actually placed the conduit for the underground utilities in the section in front of City Hall. You can see the stub-outs there through the brickwork and you can get an idea for what the brick work and the sidewalk is going to look like for the extent of the streetscape project. Also we have basically extended the work of the streetscape project to extend all the way down to Fernwood. So you’ll have that brickwork throughout the entire expanse rather than stopping at Trade Street, because really the downtown area begins in the Veteran’s Memorial corner there so that’s a logical place for it to start. And in conjunction with some other projects that we’re doing in that area the brickwork will tie very nicely into it and we’re also going to extend the streetscape up to Pliney on the North end so it will take into – it will take within its reach the new development by Mr. Dickens.
Mayor: Okay – well I’m going to take some liberties and jump in again to dove-tail with what he was talking about with the stop signs at Richardson and Main . I see that we have two signs there that says warning 4-way stop coming soon but those are facing the directions where the stop signs have been for years. So I don’t think they’re warning anybody about anything new in that direction but there’s nothing in the North/South area.
Mr. Garrett: Yeah there is.
Mayor: Well there’s not one in front of your house is there
Mr. Garrett: Unless they took it down in the last 15 minutes there was. It was there yesterday right there by the fence.
Mayor: Does our insurance have a vision program – honestly – I mean I looked for it and I thought to myself how stupid why would they not – and I apologize Mr. Hawes
Mr. Larson: Can I interrupt on that to.
Mayor: I got myself in a bind here so you can talk about something
Mr. Larson: But they also have 4-way stop coming soon signs on where Cox Street ends and crosses Richardson and did we know they were going to do that.
Mr. Hawes: That was something we had approached them with a number of years ago, actually two plus years ago, because there was concern about the angle of the intersection and the angles that are involved there and apparently they decided to add that in with this when they put in for this particular stop sign treatment they got it approved finally for the Richardson and Cox
Mr. Larson: I think it’s needed they way cars come around that curve
Mr. Hawes: We’ve thought that way for a long time. And again it’s a State intersection and they had to do their analysis prior to approving it.
Mr. Larson: Well that’s good.
Mayor: All right. Anyone else. All right, Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: I got a copy of an e-mail that one of the citizens sent to Chief Reece concerning his daughter was closing up the Rec Center and was apparently ended up being alone in the parking lot around 11:00 p.m. and just kind of out of no where some of our police officers showed up and stayed with her until she got everything finished and got in the car and got safely on her way home and he had e-mailed the Chief thanking those officers although he didn’t know their names so I was hoping the Chief could pass that on to all the officers of what a good job they’re doing.
Mayor: All right. Thank you council for your comments. Next on the Agenda
UPSTATE ALLIANCE – Hal Johnson Mayor: We have Hal Johnson with us tonight from Upstate Alliance and he’s going to make a presentation, I’m assuming he’s going to tell us all about the Upstate Alliance. Go ahead Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson: Thank you Mayor and members of Council. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you here tonight and talk about the businesses in Simpsonville, and also about the business of the Upstate. I think you all realize that we’re in one of the greatest regions in this state, much less in the Southeast, and I think it was pretty dynamic when all the municipalities ascended on this region last week to learn about what we’ve done up here. Congratulations on Heritage Park and what you’ve done there. A little bit about the Upstate Alliance as some of you may or may not know – we are a ten county economic organization that is privately and publicly funded to market the region – this region of the Upstate of South Carolina. We have been around for almost 7 years and we were created because there was a need and really the need came out of some of the folks in Greenville . They said you know what we cannot put Greenville County on the map by ourselves. Spartanburg can’t do it by themselves and Charleston can’t do it by themselves and one of the reasons why they said we can’t do it by ourselves is because they could not reach this critical mass number of about a million people and you know if you add up all 10 counties you get to about close to 1.3 million people so that reaches a critical mass companies and site consultants which are running with about 70% of the projects that are out there today are all looking for a critical mass and I gave an idea to a group the other day – you know you can go out in the middle of Iowa and you can draw a 150 mile radius and you may be able to count 25 roof tops and I can guarantee you unless it’s agriculture or a bio-diesel facility and there’s significant infrastructure in place nothing will ever go there. Now the difference is you come to the Upstate and you draw 150 mile radius or excuse me a 50 mile radius and the number of roof tops, no matter where you are in the Upstate is pretty significant. And you pull the infrastructure that has been created for this region. That’s pretty significant as well. Well it’s our job to pool the assets of the region. We’re to go out to understand what each community – what each county has to offer and then take those assets out and tell the world how great it is so that we can attract new businesses to the community.
Now we’re not going to do a shot-gun approach. We have a budget of about 1.356 – about – I’ll be exact 1.35 million dollars and it’s about $1 a person in the region. Is it enough – no it can’t ever be enough. Nike spends I think $100,000,000 a year to market their brand. I think Anheuser Busch spends $325,000,000 a year to market their brand. We’re spending 1.3 million dollars to market our brand. We’ve got some ways to go. What are we doing. We’re going to concentrate on 5 target market areas and we didn’t pull these out of the sky. We worked with all 10 county economic developers to find out what they do best in the region. We pooled the private industry sectors investing in our organization and said that on top of what we do best we’re our potential growth modes and what is our potential partner out there to help lure new hi-tech jobs into the area. Well it was pretty simply when we really started looking at everybody’s suggestions – automotive is the number one fastest growing target area in the upstate – has been for the last 12 years and I think we’re still going to see significant growth with not only BMW but Michelin and a lot of the suppliers that are out there. The next would be plastics and allied chemicals. Most people don’t realize but we’ve got 136 plastic companies within the upstate. There’s 19,000 people that work in plastics or related businesses in the upstate alone. And there’s a little rail line that goes from Greenville down through Laurens that carries a half a billion tons of PTE a year, and that’s those little plastic pellets that are made into different products out there. SO there’s a significant plastic base that’s here. So we’re going to market that group. Then we’re also going to focus on life sciences. And life sciences will focus in the area of medical devices, because what do we do best here in the upstate – we make things. We’ve been good at making things here for a long time and we’ve always been creative in finding ways to make things more efficiently. Just ask BMW’s parent in Munich , the most efficient facility they have world-wide is located right here in the upstate.
When you get the next – and we will focus some on the farmer base – the agri-based pharmaceuticals and specifically GHS has asked us to look into new nutritional additive foods or foods that we could use for natural medicines. They would be willing to support us in the marketing of those efforts under our life sciences focus. If you also look at the other areas of focus we have the logistics. And logistics is one that most people might be confused and they would think about trucks and ships and trains, but it’s also warehousing. Let me tell you how logistics will grow. We import – we’ve got a trade deficit to China right now that is absolutely significant. You think about this trade deficit that we have and the amount of product that the American market is consuming. That product’s being shipped over seas, is going through a distribution network and then it ends up to the final market place. Well with large products you can’t do that all the time. For example, lawn mowers – Electrolux makes 1/3 of the world’s riding lawn mowers in South Carolina . They’re not going to make lawn mowers in China for two reasons. Number 1 not many Chinese have grass that grow there. They’re all living in 40 story buildings over there. The second reason is it costs too much to ship that finished product over here. Same thing with an automobile or refrigerator. That’s why Hirer is in Camden . So large products will be shipped over here in commodity phases, whether it’s pre-made pieces, whether it’s kits, what have you and logistics will change into high-end robotic assembly facilities and distribution locations that is close proximity to market base. Well considering that 2/3 of the U.S. population is on the east coast you can see a significant in-bound of that Chinese product in the future especially as the larger container ships can reach the east coast in great amount of time through Charleston , Port of Savannah , through the Port of Norfolk . We’re a true destination for that location because we sit mid-point to that population base. So we’ll focus on that logistic network and I think what you’ll see is a lot of growth in there. If you looked at some of the planning expansions that have happened most recent – Adidas has just doubled the size of their facility. You look at Gordon Foods that just came into the Matrix earlier last year – that facility – food distribution related. Some imported, some not. So, the last phase that we’re going to focus us on is advance materials. And advance materials is another growth area specifically in aviation, but also in automotive and then there are going to be other areas in which advance materials take place. If you had to ask Clemson University what we do better than anywhere else in the World it’s fiber formation. And one of our greatest compliments to this area, even though textiles has declined, we’ll see textiles rise again in a different format and that’s through the use and creation of advance materials and advance fibers when there’s carbon fibers through nano-technology or products thereof that carbon fiber make-up. Great example, the 777 Dreamliner that is being – the fuesalage portion of the Dreamliner that’s being built in Charleston is 100% composite materials. There’s no steel in that airplane. You know where most of that’s made. The carbon fiber that originates is made at Cytec in Donaldson Center and they just announced a $150,000,000 expansion to keep up with the demand of the contracts that’s going through the 787 Dreamliner. So we in the Upstate are touching people every day and we really don’t realize it. Of course, we’ve got companies here like Milliken – and I’m a product of Milliken. I started right out of college, spent two years in manufacturing, 3 years in sales with them, but Milliken makes more products that we touch every day and we have no idea that it originated somewhere here, somewhere in the Upstate, whether it’s a lining for a suit, or a fabric in your tennis shoe or whether it’s the cloth fabric that you sit on in your car, or the air bag hopefully none of us ever see in our vehicle. And then even bigger with Milliken is the chemical additives that go with it. So, these target markets are the areas in which number 1 we have to understand what’s here, number 2 what do we have to support these growing industry bases that are in the upstate. And we’ve partnered with our research university in the Upstate at Clemson to focus on these same areas. Obviously, we didn’t generate the idea for I-car, business did. So I-car’s tied in directly with our ability to attract new automotive companies, and not just automotive. If you use the definition of self-propelled, or excuse me Society of Automotive Engineering, anything that self-propels is what automotive means to the Society of Automotive Engineers. So it could be motorcycles, it could be aircraft, it could be boats, it could be anything in that mobility market that we could attract new research to that center. Again, something that we have to learn, we have to take to the market. We’ve got to package it and we’ve got to package it in a custom way to present to the potential clients that are interested in our area.
Unless something’s changed since the last time I looked when we get down to working a project, once we’ve generated a lead and handed it to Greenville County or to Spartanburg County to work we still may be in competition with someone else in the world. We’re not competing with Laurens, we’re not competing with Newberry, we’re not competing with Columbia , we’re competing with Dubais, we’re competing with Australia , we’re competing against China , for every single project that we look at that’s commodity based or has the opportunity to be market driven. So, when we generate a lead it goes through a long process and that’s our mission is to be the lead generation engine for this Upstate. But it’s also our job to pull together the contacts of the economic development organizations of the 10 counties. And in this basis we pull Greenville , Spartanburg , Abbeville, Union, Cherokee, Pickens, Oconee, Laurens, Anderson , Greenwood . We bring them all together and we say we need your best product out there and we need to be able to market that on a web site to the different companies that are out there. Because we’re seeing more and more searches done immediately no the web site then calling us. And more than likely, most communities have already been eliminated and they don’t even know that they were being looked at. So it’s in our best interest to continue to collect data over and over and over again. It’s in our best interest to know about you guys and what you have to offer as a community. Where you want to grow in this dynamic region we call the Upstate. How we market you. So the communication part of that is both our responsibility and yours to work as a team.
As a branding organization of the Upstate we carry a vision out to the world that says we have a dynamic work force. We’ve got a dynamic growing community. Matter of fact there are multiple communities within our community that our surging and exploding in growth. Let us show you what that is. And then we’re also a research engine. Internal in my office right now we have a research team that is made up of 1 full time person and 7 interns. And you know it’s kind of nice that in our dynamic region that we live in there’s 23 colleges and universities for us to pull from. And in today’s world of technology those folks don’t even need to work in our office. They most of them do for the experience of work. But I’ll give you a good example of how we use these young folks and how we put it to work to go to market the world and then I’ll sum up about the Upstate Alliance.
With 7 interns on staff we just recently went to a Trade Show called MD&M East. There were – there’s probably 12,000 people that would come to this trade show, but 450 companies out of about 3,000 that would display that actually produce product, that we would be interested in looking at for the Upstate. We evaluated those 450 companies with our 7 interns. We taught them how to read Hoovers and Dunn & Brad Street. To evaluate the financial positions of these companies, to understand which ones are in growth mode, which ones may be in merger or acquisition mode, which ones are developing new products, which ones are going to have to develop new market basis for products that they’re developing. And after we evaluate all of these we google research on each one of them and all of their Board of Directors, as well as all their Senior Management to determine whether or not some of these folks are creating businesses on their own or maybe have the ability to emerge or expand these businesses in different directions. Once we evaluate those we came out with 70 companies that met our criteria of potential candidates for growth. We called, our interns called these groups and secured 60 appointments for us at this particular trade show. These folks aren’t being paid, they’ve just been taught well. We went to the trade show after meeting with these 60 companies. We found that 12 of them actually had real projects that had opportunities of re-locating in the south east and those 12 projects will be on-going as we develop relationships with those companies over time. But for a group doing the research and employing the interns, we would never know about these companies, or they might not even consider leaving where they are to expand their businesses here and that’s one of the ways the Upstate Alliance has brought all the assets of the region together to work as one group, one marketing, to sell how great this community is.
I will say – I told you a little bit about our budget. We do have a budget of about 1.356 million dollars is our budget. We are 30% privately funded, excuse me publicly funded, we are on a per capita funding formula from the public sector entities of the Upstate, which are made up by 10 counties and 5 municipalities in the Upstate now. And that public funding is leveraged 2-1 with the Private Sector. We have close to a million dollars in private sector funding, and those are typically from companies that are banks, law firms, construction companies, but companies that would typically benefit from a new company coming in. We never promise to any of our private sector folks that they’ll ever get a lead from us. What we do promise is that they get involved in the strategy of our marketing and the planning of the targeting of how we’re going to brand this region and in the strategy of how we pull communities together to work together. Because companies don’t know about geographic boundaries. They don’t know where a City Limit starts or where a county line starts, or quite frankly where a state line starts. I think they can identify countries but they really don’t know about state or do they care about state, county and city lines. And it’s our job to bring those resources to those companies when we get them here to make sure they understand this is a regional approached economic development.
Now our private sector really leads our organization. But of course we work hand in hand with our economic developers on a monthly basis, on a daily basis. Every month we get together with these folks and we meet in our office. All 12 of these economic developers in the Upstate come together and believe it or not they get in a room and they close the door and they talk to each other. Spartanburg and Greenville County ’s economic developers talk to each other. City of Spartanburg and City of Greenville ’s economic developers talk to each other. And then they talk about their successes, they talk about problems that they’re having. Things that they’ve overcome, whether they’re working on infrastructure issues or marketing issues or how do we re-build downtown issues or streetscape issues. All of these folks understand the economic development process and some of the issues that you go through on a daily basis in your positions and how to overcome that and they’re working. Whether it’s trying to receive grants or trying to market their location through product production. When I say product production it’s repairing infrastructure that can be taken to economic development oriented sites or sites that are slated for businesses that may be service oriented, manufacturing or corporate headquarter or R&D type locations. And without infrastructure we can’t do any of this and typically infrastructure comes from our local government. So it’s a great partnership that we’ve been able to create with our local economic developers and also with our public sector. But makes it work is when we can demonstrate to the public sector that we can leverage their funds 2-1 through the private sector. And I think everyone looks for that leverage out there and I think it’s really important that we continue to do so. Over time we may see where we need to add – take that to a 1-1 split, but I think that’s as our organization grows and matures. Certainly Charleston has just done that after 14 years of existence – they went from a 70/30 private/public split to a 50/50 private public split.
Our Executive Committee – I want to make sure you know who they are so that you can contact them so that you can talk with them. Our Chairman this year is Craig White, He comes from Greenwood County and is the Vice-President of the Self Regional Foundation. He just happened to be the first employee of Fuji Film when they moved to Greenwood County . Our Vice-Chair is John Miller the President of An-Med Health out of Anderson . Our Treasurer is Mr. Leon Patterson,. He’s the Chair of Palmetto Bank. Our Secretary is Bobby Hitt with BMW, Our past chair is Doug Harper with the Harper Corporation out of Greenville and of course I sit on that Executive Committee as well. What I want you to notice about this though is not one of these individuals represents the same County. And it’s very important that each of the people on our Executive Board represent a different county. We don’t want to have two people from Greenville on the Executive Board or that’s political suicide for a regional organization. It’s very important that we keep the diversity of that. What I will say is that our marketing missions to date have been successful so far this year. We’ve accomplished 8 different trade shows. I’ve just recently gotten back from the Paris Air show in which the State of South Carolina had a booth. We had a reception there to host some of the world’s largest aviation industries. I will tell you in summary of that we actually competed with the U.S. Embassy and we still had 120 executives come to our reception versus the U.S. Embassy. So I think there’s something going on in South Carolina regarding aviation and I think there’ll be more to come in the future.
I will say that for the rest of the year we have 4 additional trade shows left that we would go to. We have two additional site consultant events that we will host inside the area for the rest of this year. And then we also have 4 separate marketing missions in which we’ll go on. The next one happens to be in Canada . We leave on August 13 th – Ambassador Wilkins has granted us the opportunity to host 150 companies from Canada at his residence and he’s sent out invitations to each of these companies on his letterhead welcoming a delegation from the Upstate Alliance to represent this region while we’re up there and we will do that on the 14 th of August at his residence in Ottawa. From there our group – most of the Upstate group will return back here but we will have two – a minimum of two teams. One will split to Montreal and Quebec and the other will go to Toronto to make sales calls on companies that we have already identified that would consider moving to the Upstate. So that will give you kind of an idea of some of the things that we’re doing. One of the things that I hope I can share with you – and I brought some things to pass out – these are Alliance Fact Sheets and it talks about our mission – it talks about our marketing events that we have left for the rest of the year. Of course, all of this is on line but I do want to leave these hand-outs with you and I’d be glad to leave them with the public. But what I would like to do is open up an opportunity for you guys to ask me anything you’d like about the Upstate Alliance and how we market the region.
Mayor: Okay – well thank you. You can give those brochures to Ms. Bodkins and she’ll distribute those. Great, thank you. Does anyone have any questions. Well I have a question. What can we do for you. I know you’re here to give us information – but I suspect you have some other motives.
Mr. Johnson: Of course we always do – I met Bruce at a presentation a couple of weeks ago and shared with him the information of the Upstate Alliance and he was very interested in what we had to say. Obviously, we are growing, when the Upstate Alliance was first formed, we looked at the public sector originally from a county standpoint because that’s where the economic development offices were that represented each of the municipalities. As of last year we’ve had several municipalities approach us that don’t have an economic development organization that want to be a part of the planning of the marketing that goes on. They want to be a part of some of the visits that we either host here inside the region, which quite honestly we believe that the more people we can bring here and show off what we have to offer – it’s a whole lot better than going and telling them because they can see it for themselves. But there have been – there’s been a great interest in communities coming on to be a part of what we’re doing. And in that fact we wanted to make sure that we’re sharing that with everybody out there including your community. Simpsonville is growing. It’s a dynamic place. You had great success with the first Freedom Weekend Aloft. And there are great things to market here and we want to make sure that we’re telling the world about that now. Just because you’re not a member of the Alliance doesn’t mean we’re not out there telling people about you because we are. You show up on our GIS maps – our mapping system is one of the best out there in regards to any economic development mapping system – especially with our demographic and measurement program that we have. I can give you a good example – I talked to you about drawing a 30 mile radius – you can locate a site anywhere in or near the Simpsonville municipality boundaries and whether it’s outside or inside and you can draw a circle starting at 2 miles up to 30 miles and you can ask it any question regarding demographics that you want and from a business standpoint – whether it’s a retail facility – whether it’s a commercial facility – whether it’s an industrial facility or distribution location it can pretty much tell them what they need to know about the availability of work force and the support that community will be able to offer just through a GIS function. They never even have to pick up the phone and call us. So those are the types of things that are already out there that you guys have access and we want you guys to know it’s there. We would love for you to be a part of it – want to tell you about it – want to ask you to be there – because shame on us if we don’t. But we won’t be upset if you aren’t. But we do want to explain the Upstate Alliance and how we are working for you and how we want to continue to do a great job for you.
Mayor: Great – well there was a gentleman that you may have heard of named Bill Workman that has talked with us about this down through the years – we just never seemed to get to the point of actually making a move – but
Mr. Johnson: Well I’d be glad to sit down with you and show you on paper what it would look like – how it works – what would be your expectations – what should be our expectations – you know we can do that in a session like this or we can do that whether it’s one on one drawing on that and bringing it back and talking to the group. So you tell me how you’d like to do it and we’d be glad – Bill Workman is obviously a mentor to every economic developer in the southeast. You know he’s now doing for Bluffton what he did for this great region and as you look in our materials here you’ll find that he’s the Chairman Emeritus of our organization because he was one of those guys in Greenville that said we can’t do it by ourselves. He and Art Welling were the brainchilds behind this thing.
Mayor: Well I think we’d probably like to hear more and talk to you about that. Perhaps we can have our City Administrator work with you to set up some time and date and place and that sort of thing to talk a little more about what you do and tell you about some of the things we’ve been thinking about down here and see how perhaps you can help us with that.
Mr. Johnson: Be glad to. Be glad to.
Mayor: Well we appreciate your coming tonight. It was a great presentation.
Mr. Johnson: Thank you for the opportunity to share with you and again if you need any information on us – if our Web site doesn’t have it – which I’d be very surprised if it didn’t – please ask me – I’d be glad to provide it. I do have several copies of our annual report and I’ll leave those with you as well.
Mayor: Fantastic. Thank you very much for coming.
NEW BUSINESS • GCRA Service Program Allocations Mayor: All right ladies and gentlemen, next item on the Agenda is New Business and we’ll start with Mr. Hawes telling us about the GCRA Service Program Allocations.
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir, Mayor and Council, each year the Greenville County Redevelopment Authority administers CDBG Funding for the City of Simpsonville for service projects. It’s an allocation specifically for those types of projects that benefit the low to moderate income and senior citizens and it’s for program type projects such as the Golden Strip Center or Senior Center here at the City, things along those lines rather than capital improvement type projects which most CDBG funding is for. For the service program funding we have received information from the Golden Strip Center whereby they requested $8,000 of this allocation and the remainder of the allocation would go to City Senior Citizen Program and the City Youth Program. And this is very similar scenario to what we did last year at this time. So I would ask that the City Council consider these as a no vote today but we wanted to get this in front of you before the voting session at the next meeting.
Mayor: Okay is that an increase to the Golden Strip Center over last year.
Mr. Hawes: I believe they were $7,500 last year.
Mayor: Okay. All right, anyone have any questions about that before we move on.
Mr. Bridges: What were the amounts for the Senior Center
Mr. Hawes: I don’t have those right in front of me right now but the total amount is very similar to last year. We were close to $23,000 last year and the total amount is $22,900 this year so I believe the break down is almost the same last year as it was this year – as what we have this year. But I can have those specifics for you at the next meeting with no problem.
Mayor: Great. All right, anyone else. All right thank you Mr. Hawes.
• Construction Noise – Discussion Mayor: All right, next you’re going to talk to us about construction noise.
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir Mayor and Council
Mayor: That’s music to some ears you know…
Mr. Hawes: I understand
Mayor: Excuse me – I was just trying to interject a little humor Mr. Hawes – apparently a very little humor but go ahead.
Mr. Hawes: That’s all right. I was approached by council member Larson concerning a citizen who had contacted him regarding construction noise at dusk, basically as it was getting dark in the evening that could be heard for some distance from the construction area. And what Mr. Larson – I believe had spoken with this gentleman, I had spoken with him – a gentleman named Mr. Finley who lived in I believe Powderhorn – yes – and he was concerned about the noise that was emanating from the development at Heritage Creek which is down below Powderhorn – a new development – and had requested basically that we just bring up a discussion concerning construction noise in order to facilitate that discussion I attached an example of our ordinance and an example of an ordinance that Mr. Finley had provided from Folly Beach. Where our ordinance regulates right now is construction activity in the day time versus the evening. In the daytime specified in our ordinance is 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. of the same calendar day. So therefore, construction noise regarding to building activities is allowed in the City up to 10:00 p.m. on any day, because it is allowed during “day time hours”. The Folly Beach Ordinance that was submitted to us by this gentleman who is concerned and spoke with Mr. Larson, specifies construction to be happening only between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. weekdays. Now that is – that’s a different definition of the time frame for construction noise to occur than what we have here in Simpsonville and that’s where the discussion could start.
Mayor: Okay – well Mr. Larson since you got this you can start the discussion
Mr. Larson: The gentleman contacted me and I actually rode over there the following evening and I’m not sure of the definition of dusk – but this was like 10:15 at night and they had light towers up and were up on the roof with nail guns just banging away and these guys – you could hear it inside the house even if you were trying to go to bed. And then they were also like back, according to Mr. Finley at the next day at 5:45 a.m. on Sunday mornings. You know got the painter sprayers generators going and the nail guns going so I’m not sure I necessarily agree with this Folly Beach – it may be more restrictive than we need – but I just don’t think you need to have guys up on roofs across the way from you at 10:00 at night with hammers and generators going and portable lighting so…
Mayor: Okay – well I’ll have to agree with that – I think as I say – that’s music to some folks’ ears but even I don’t listen to music until 10:00 at night so I think we should certainly consider backing up on that some – the late hour – and I kind of like what Folly’s doing on Sundays.
Mr. Larson: There’s several folks that said before 6:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings they were awakened by the construction equipment gearing up.
Mayor: I wouldn’t even be opposed to never on Sundays. Not for religious reasons but because I always have believed that there ought to be one day where you can have some piece and quiet. I get a little aggravated with my neighbors that mow their lawn on Sundays, probably because I’m jealous that they have a nicer lawn but – also because I kind of like to sit around and read the paper and have a quiet day so – anyone else have any thoughts on this. Ms. Lawrence.
Ms. Lawrence: I agree with you Mr. Mayor. Sunday I just think should be out – I mean people who are home on Saturday and Sunday – the citizens that live there have a right to their quite and privacy and I know we’re in a rush to get all these houses filled but it seems to me that that could be done from 7:00 to – and I think 6:00 is fine – I don’t see why people should have to put up with it after 6:00 Monday through Friday and that would be how I would look at it.
Mayor: Ms. Bagwell
Ms. Bagwell: I would have an issue with 6:00 especially during these longer summer months when we’re going to have longer – with the change of time – we’re going to have longer daylight hours for longer and there are a lot of people who – they count on that as income to – but I think that 10:00 is not very reasonable – I mean it’s dark outside right now even at 9:00. We don’t need to have – if somebody woke me up at 5:45 in the morning they would know that they had woken me up at 5:45 because I’d be out there talking to them. But I think that – there has to be some reason put into this but that’s not reasonable for someone to be out with light at 10:00 p.m. and at 5:45 waking somebody up. And I do like the idea of having at least one day where we don’t have to hear it – any of us.
Mayor: Mr. Zitricki
Mr. Zitricki: Do we send this back to the Planning Commission to look into our ordinance and do some revisions to it.
Mayor: Well we can do that or either we can all agree here tonight on the hours that we’d like to see changed and ask Mr. Hawes to draft
Mr. Hawes: Yeah – this isn’t a Planning Commission item – this would be something – this is a nuisance item that is controlled by City Council not the Planning Commission. So I’d be glad to draft up whatever you would like me to draft up for your consideration for the next meeting.
Mayor: Can we have some consensus on what hours we would like to see – first let’s start with the Sunday thing – do we have consensus on just not allowing construction noise – that’s not to say if they want to send their painters over there to pain – there are things they can do on Sundays if they feel like they need to do that – just no noise on Sundays. Is that – all right so you’ve got step one. How about hours during the week. Mr. Garrett
Mr. Garrett: I would like to see us set 7:00 in the morning with a business emphasis on commercial construction where they started at 4:45 on S.E. Main St. pouring concrete. I think that’s a little ridiculous. I’d say 7:00 – most contractors go to work around 7:00. Most people are up by then but
Mayor: You deal with these people on a daily basis so you have a little experience. How about 7:00 am until 7:00 pm – that gives them 12 hours a day.
Mr. Garrett: 12 hours – most of them don’t work 12 hours any way.
Mayor: 60 hours a week – I don’t know many construction people that can hang in there for 60 hours a week.
Mr. Garrett: And I say Saturdays 7-1 – half a day on Saturday. I don’t see any reason to
Ms. Bagwell: I sleep late on Saturdays – I say 9:00 to 5:00. I mean seriously
Mr. Larson: How about 11:00 – 5:00
Mr. Garrett: A lot of people have to work on Saturday a few hours or whatever but –
Mayor: Mr. Bridges
Mr. Bridges: Obviously people are doing that now and don’t know what we’ve got already so how are we going to notify them all – and enforce it.
Mr. Hawes: They would be notified in the same way we would notify any building permit – we’d let the contractor work in the city be aware of it immediately by a letter and announcement that there was an ordinance change regarding that. And if someone who comes in who is not a typical one then certainly when they come in and get a business license they would be notified at that time and we could just make that a part of an announcement when they come in.
Mayor: And as a part of the building permit. Do we have some sheet that we give to all contractors when they
Mr. Hawes: That’s what I mean it would just be a statement on there that construction hours to be x and x.
Mr. Larson: I don’t know if I agree with the Saturday part. I think for a lot of businesses now a days Saturday is just a regular work day like any other day. I don’t know if I’d just want to keep it maybe all 7-6 Monday through Saturday and then I agree with the Sunday.
Mayor: I think I might like that better to.
Mr. Larson: I personally think I would like the Saturday thing but I think just practically there are a lot of businesses it’s just another work day for them just a regular 7-7.
Mr. Hawes: So I can draft up something 7-7 with no noise Sundays construction activity.
Mayor: Would that keep BMW from coming to Simpsonville? (Laughter)
Mr. Larson: Is 7:00 a little too early for the long summer nights.
Ms. Bagwell: That’s my question.
Mayor: Well like I said they can put up the nail guns and start painting or something.
Mr. Larson: Yeah, okay
Mr. Hawes: If you could differentiate noise and this is just a suggestion - some ordinances do this – is differentiate machine drive noise versus hand drive noise. In other words you can only make so much noise hammering a nail but a jack hammer produces a huge amount of noise. So you could just say no machines to be run – that might be
Mayor: Four guys on a roof hammering – that’s pretty noisy.
Ms. Lawrence: I was going to say you’ve obviously not sat and listened to somebody pounding next door with hammers.
Mr. Hawes: Oh I know but I’m just saying the intensity is going to be more from a machine than from a single person
Ms. Lawrence: I think the Monday – Saturday 7-7 is good – that gives them 12 hours a day work – that’s ample time and then it gives the citizens time to wind down and everything before bed.
Mayor: And then I think you start trying to get finite like that you’re going to end up with arguments out on the job site – well this wasn’t that and that wasn’t that – and just make it clear – of course I don’t know how you’re going to make that clear – no noise means any talk or walk or
Mr. Hawes: That’s why I was trying to differentiate
Mayor: That’s why I figured we’d turn it over to you because you’d figure all that stuff out –
Mr. Hawes: We’ll try to figure out something for Sunday’s treatment that works.
Ms. Lawrence: No construction
Mayor: Well like I say if they – I understand production and all of that – and if they really feel like they’ve got to keep moving forward they can paint, or paper or wall paper – there are a lot of things they can do that doesn’t make noise, rather than just cut it out altogether and totally – can’t we just cut out the noise on Sunday.
Ms. Lawrence: Well see I don’t look at wallpapering and stuff like that as construction – that to me is something else – and I’m not in the building industry
Mayor: Well I was just holding that out to our friendly local contractors as something you can be doing if you think we’re shutting you out. Yes ma’am.
Ms. Bagwell: The way it’s worded at Folly Beach is building operations which have a low impact to include minor repairs and renovations. The way they worded it kind of cuts out the noise because of the way its worded.
Mayor: That’s very subjective to – I mean rather than being specific –
Ms. Bagwell: Yeah because if you start talking about hammers on the roof – they’re using pneumatic nailers now – it’s like – that’s just as loud and sometimes louder –
Mayor: I’m sure Mr. Hawes will come back with something that will just make us all happy. All right, thank you very much.
• DISCRETIONARY FUNDS POLICY Mayor: All right, next item on the Agenda is the Discretionary Funds Policy. I asked that that be put on here and I’m sure you all know why. There have been some e-mails going around that we spend some of our discretionary funds on things that don’t line up with our policy. So for the benefit of mostly the new folks here I wanted us to have a copy of that policy and have us all understand what these discretionary funds – they’re not truly discretionary – they’re discretionary within limits – are for. And you should have that in your packet and I think that was sent out to you earlier so – it’s all before you there if anybody has any questions or comments about that we’ll go into that. Ms. Lawrence.
Ms. Lawrence: Yes sir, Mr. Mayor, I would like to see it be a true discretionary policy. That it would be up to my ethics what it was spent for. I mean yes, it should be spent for what’s here but also it says community functions, that could be interpreted as what some of us spent ours for is a community function. So I would – for the sake of simplicity I would just like to see this policy say – each council member will have a $3,000 discretionary fund. Because I have little small projects in my Ward and stuff that I have enjoyed doing over the year and it’s benefited some people and I would just like to see it changed. I think this to be called discretionary is really kind of pushing the button because discretionary means exactly that my discretion.
Mayor: Well that’s what I said it’s discretionary within limits.
Ms. Lawrence: Yeah – so it can’t really be called discretionary – but I would like to see this done away with and have an actual discretionary account.
Mayor: Well I remember specifically the debate back when we did this – back when all this took place and I remember the point was made back then and I think it’s a good point that if you have something that you want to spend money on that doesn’t include these things – which this was mostly for our travel and we tossed in the things at somebody’s recommendation about stationary and magazines and stuff like that. But if you have a project that you want to spend some money on it should be worthy enough to come before council and have all of council pass judgment on it just like we do with every other expenditure. So I believe, and Mr. Attorney you can help me with this if I’m getting this wrong but I believe that’s why we arrived at what we have before us here. We decided that any kind of street paving project, or kitty cat project or whatever should come before all of council and let all of council say grace over it. That would be a better way to manage tax payer money than to just give us all a blank check to go out there – that didn’t question anybody’s ethics or anything else it was just accountability is what it was.
Ms. Lawrence: Well I mean I think I can be very accountable – I don’t mind telling anybody what I spent mine on – don’t mind – never would mind. But I still feel like I do not choose to travel – and so that just kind of leaves me out of the loop. I choose to stay here and work on my little community projects as I call them. So you know while this is fun for you all to travel it will cut my legs out from under me with my projects.
Mayor: Not if they’re worthy projects.
Ms. Lawrence: But why should I have to have permission for my projects and yet to spend – which by the way some of this I find a great waste of tax payer money – why should this be carte blanche.
Mayor: Well I’m with you – I’m ready to take some of this out to. But if that’s what you want to do – does anybody else have any thoughts on this. Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: I’d like to hear what Mr. Holmes has to say because
Mr. Holmes: Well the history of the policy is that prior to 2003 there was no such thing and in 2003 there became a discussion about certain council members want to attend certain functions that hadn’t been approved by council as a whole – there was a general understanding that the annual Municipal Association Convention for example – every member of council would attend and that was normally paid for. So in 2003 the council adopted this policy that will allow some council members to have discretion. So for example if a council member thought that a function for example – something was going on in Columbia and they wanted to attend that it would require an overnight stay – that that council member could do that but then – and obviously the way this policy is written it included travel to the Municipal Association Convention as well. So it did give council members some discretion there. But the Mayor is correct as I recall the discussion council did not want 4 years ago to have a fund similar to the one Greenville County has where council members spend that fund of money on anything they want to spend it on. (TAPE CHANGED SIDES)
Mayor: I find that very interesting – how do the rest of you feel about this – while we’re having this discussion - Mr. Zitricki
Mr. Zitricki: How do we define community functions
Mr. Larson: That was going to be my next question
Mr. Zitricki: It says costs associated with community function – what’s a community function –
Mr. Holmes: Well at the time community function had to be something like I just suggested – travel to Columbia to do something – there may be a local – I want to use Garry Smith’s function – where he had something in the park where he wanted to interface with the electorate and tell them what he was doing – where Council members may want to do that. I think in the past there have been meet the candidate things for example that Powderhorn has done and they paid for that might come within that where you were informing the electorate about what you were doing.
Mr. Zitricki: Well I would think that community function going back to the Mayor’s statement about the cat population or control of the cat population that affects the whole community – that’s a community function if you want to donate money to that cause – that’s a community function – I mean that’s my definition of that because it affects everybody. I think if we want to be – if we want to limit ourselves to the spending we need to have a better definition of what we can spend it to or bring it back to council for any expenditure and have an open debate or open discussion for public record.
Mayor: Okay anyone else. Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Well okay if we bring every expenditure back before City Council so I mean we know all the municipal association trips will get approved and then if I bring back cleaning up a cat colony is it going to get approved. Because the municipal association trip is.
Mayor: I don’t know.
Ms. Lawrence: See I don’t know either but I bet it wouldn’t be approved as easy.
Mayor: Well I think what – and I don’t know if Mr. Holmes went there or not but what this was all about was to address this meeting thing – there will people – let’s get real specific – there were people at the time that wanted to go to the Municipal Association meeting – they wanted to go to the meetings in Columbia that the Municipal Association has – they wanted to go to some other meetings that were totally unassociated with the City and you know it was just kind of getting out of hand – some people felt like they had been elected to council they had this blank check to go anywhere they wanted to and the City would pay the expenses so this was really aimed at reeling all of that in. And the conversation at the time did get into it being a true discretionary fund like the County has and there was a lot of active debate about that at the time and in the end we decided that this should just be to take care of those expenses for going to the meetings and the wording here I didn’t see but community functions is kind of a broad term – I don’t know whether you picked that term or you found it somewhere else but that was the intent of what went on at the time.
Mr. Zitricki: I’d like to see us utilizing Mr. Hawes more as a check balance. As putting it to him and saying Mr. Hawes we want to use discretionary fund money for this reason. Do you feel that’s acceptable yes or no. If yes it is it meets our criteria guidelines then we have the opportunity to use that if not – then it would come before the full council for discussion.
Mayor: Before you respond Mr. Hawes let me say something. That’s exactly why I brought this up is because recently we have had some folks go to Mr. Hawes – we’ve had some folks go to Mr. Harrison and say I want this amount of money for this – take it out of my discretionary fund – well that puts them in an awkward position because if a council member comes to an employee and says I want you to do this they’re not going to say oh I’m not going to do that – they’re going to say uh – duh – uh – so what I was trying to do was make everybody aware of this so that you would know that these are the rules, these are the guidelines so if you go to those people and ask for money for something if it doesn’t fit within these guidelines don’t expect them to just give it to you and just kind of take the onus off of their backs. If we do that if we turn it back over to him we’ve done the same thing that I’m trying to avoid here.
Mr. Holmes: Well Mr. Mayor let me also interject – one of the reasons you have a policy is to give staff clear directions about what they can and can’t do. Secondly of all, as you know, we have a dual signature policy, which means that someone else has to sign the check so it would then put a council member adverse potentially to the Mayor, to the Mayor pro tempore or someone acting in that position who would also have to sign the checks who has to sign in accordance with these policies. So rather than pass judgment along to staff I would recommend that if you think the policy is not clear enough then what we do is amend the policy to give clearer direction.
Mayor: Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Well and I do understand where Mr. Hawes needs clear policy and I do know where we have gone to him – in fact recently four of us gave money to the Girls State Champion Softball Team to get them to the regionals – which to me is a community function. I mean they need the support – they’ve been out a raised a lot of money and four of us helped them out. To me that’s a community function – why would you not help them they’re wearing the shirt that says Simpsonville on their back. So see, as long as this is what we’re going by it’s too unclear. And it certainly needs to have the word discretionary taken out of there because there’s nothing discretionary about this.
Mayor: We ought to call it our travel fund policy.
Ms. Lawrence: Well that’s fine but what about….
Mayor: Well – you’re not serving the city if your not attending these meetings
Ms. Lawrence: I consider that a waste of money – that’s not a meeting that’s a conference.
Mayor: Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: When was that next Paris show.
Ms. Lawrence: Yeah – we’ll just go there.
Mr. Larson: Seriously, a while back the Westwood Neighborhood Association they were talking about forming a neighborhood watch and Officer Chambers was trying to get that going and Geneva and I think we’d actually talked about using some of our discretionary funds to help advertise the meeting for the neighborhood watch. Would that be a community function – I’m not sure that would even fall under this
Mr. Hawes: That’s where if I could just – from the Administrator’s perspective regarding this – community function is a very broad term – it can be interpreted on its own or in context in the sentence that it’s written. Community Function can be all kinds of things. In the sentence that it’s written in it could almost be interpreted to be a meeting but and I want to say I think that’s what it was written to mean. But in my interpretation of when these requests come into me it would greatly assist me in determining me if it serves public purpose and so forth which I have to do as arbitrator of the City’s budget basically – I have to control all the City funds and make sure they go where they’re supposed to go. I have to make sure there’s a public purpose first and foremost. Otherwise it needs to be taken out of the budget and made a truly discretionary account that is separate of me. And then the onus is on the individual council member – and I think that’s what the County has right now. Because it does not go through the County Administrator . And that’s being questioned, as the Mayor brought up. But if it’s in the budget it’s incumbent upon me to make sure that it is for a public purpose. Beyond that council can set their own guidelines.
Mayor: Okay Mr. Garrett
Mr. Garrett: Well I’ve got a question now – funds allocated will lapse at the end of council members term. Can we get $3,000 a year – does that build until you don’t use it.
Mayor: No it’s a use it or loose it
Mr. Garrett: Well yeah but I mean if you don’t use it at the end of the fiscal year that says until council members term expires. Does that mean that it keeps building and if you get at the end
Mr. Hawes: No the budget ends at the end of the fiscal year for all line items in the budget. There is no carry-over. This is a budgeted item. If it were separate from the budget it could carry-over but it is not. Therefore – the budget ordinance
Mr. Garrett: It needs to be reworded then because it says council members term.
Mr. Holmes: You are correct but when you do a budget you do not budget to carry those things forward – you could do that by this policy but you just haven’t.
Mr. Garrett: I’m just reading what it says.
Mr. Holmes: But then you violate it when you do the budget and you do not carry those funds forward
Mr. Hawes: There is a bit of a conflict there – I do think taken again in the context here I think it means when your term ends those terms don’t necessarily carry over to the next person coming on board. Those funds lapse. Is that not correct Mayor?
Mayor: I think that’s very correct yes.
Mr. Hawes: Yes, I think that’s what the intent was with this line – it was not intended to mean that they carry on through budget year through budget year through budget year for as long as your term extends. But it does read if you interpret it that way to be a conflict otherwise.
Mayor: Okay – Ms. Bagwell
Ms. Bagwell: Thank you. I would like to take issue with a couple of things that Ms. Lawrence said. First of all the Municipal Association meeting that we had in Greenville I went to several of those that were very informative. They were not a waste of the City’s money for me to attend. Some of them were free for the City and it didn’t cost them anything for me to attend as I recall. And they were very informative and educational. I’m sorry if you don’t get anything out of that but I got something out of it. The City didn’t pay for it – I didn’t turn in receipts for parking. I parked myself. Having said that the other issue I have is I choose not to carry most of the City’s insurance, I do carry some dental but I don’t begrudge that from someone else just because I choose not to carry it that’s a choice that I make. So if you choose not to go that’s a choice that you make. But I’m not asking them to put that money into my paycheck because you’re getting the money in insurance for someone else – not you in particular – I don’t know if you get it – but I’m not asking anyone to put that money into the small paycheck that I get to compensate for the insurance that I don’t utilize.
Mayor: Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Well I mean that’s my point exactly – I’m not asking anybody to compensate me in my pay check either. I’m just saying if we’re going to have a fund and everybody’s going to have a certain amount I choose not to travel – why should I be penalized. When I have little projects that I want to do in my ward or anywhere in the City for that matter. Why should I be penalized because somebody else chooses to travel.
Mayor: Well you call it penalized and I call it being stewards of the tax payers money. I mean
Ms. Lawrence: Well that’s fine but while I’m staying home supporting everybody else as their family somewhere at a meeting – and that’s fine if you get anything out of it but I’ve dealt with them for 20 something years Ms. Bagwell so I guess maybe I’ve got everything out of it I’ll ever get out. And they are good for the newer people that come on board. You have no problem with me there. But I choose not to do it. So if we’re going to have a discretionary fund I would like to be able to have some discretion with what I use it on. That’s all it is.
Mayor: Well in that case we’ll just have to change our policy because this is the policy now so if you want we need to change the policy but I will not be one who will support changing that policy. Mr. Bridges
Mr. Bridges: Why don’t we just go back to the way it was before – it worked well –
Mayor; Well actually we did Mr. Bridges. Before we would all go to meetings or go to this Municipal Association Convention and some people would over-spend and so this was part of the reason for this was to limit expenditures. I mean if you want to go down there and stay in the finest room and live high on the hog as they say then you should being doing that with your money. The City should pay for the minimum charge – that’s what the conversation was at that time so – yeah there was a problem with it and this takes care of that problem. All right – Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: I was just going to suggest maybe Mr. Hawes, with the help of Mr. Holmes could look this over and maybe based on our conversations just now just maybe take another look at this based on what some of us have said.
Mayor: Okay – Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Well if we could agree what a community function is – because you know I think girls softball is a community function. I think boys baseball is a community function.
Mayor: I don’t think that was the intent of this.
Ms. Lawrence: Well I know but regardless of what the intent was – we’re 5 years down the line from this –
Mayor: All right here we go
Ms. Lawrence: Because this was before my time so I feel –
Mayor: Well it’s like I said in my response to your e-mail – I believe that those kids going to that tournament is a wonderful thing. And you’re right they are representing Simpsonville and that’s a wonderful thing. But I believe it’s our duty to provide from them the recreational facilities and opportunities to play softball, baseball whatever they want to play and excel and do very well. But if they want to go out of town to a tournament I believe that should be not paid for by tax payers dollars. But if you want to support them then write a check and take the money out of your pocket and make a contribution and do that so that you don’t get the City in the position of creating any – precedent – what if we had 15 teams that wanted to go out for Championships would you pay for all that. I mean I know that’s a what if and you can say things to that but seriously everything we do here sets a precedent and I just fear that we’re going to set a precedent that we’re going to regret some day. That’s my humble opinion. Call me an old curmudgeon if you will – Mr. Hawes did today so –
Ms. Lawrence: No I mean it’s obvious this needs to be worked on.
Mayor: In what way
Ms. Lawrence: Well discretionary should come out of there for starters.
Mayor: Well I’ll agree on that it’s not very discretionary I guess. We should call it a meeting expenditure policy or whatever.
Ms. Lawrence: And this community functions why are we paying for mileage and automobile rental for us to run around town. I mean this to me needs to be worked on
Mayor: I’ll agree with you.
Ms. Lawrence: I mean I’ve never turned in any mileage have you
Mayor: Mileage yes –
Ms. Lawrence: No I mean to run around town
Mayor: To run around town no – I haven’t rented a car either but – Mr. Garrett has the answer
Mr. Garrett: I guess you don’t have to deal with corporate America enough. You’ve got limits and you turn in receipts and you either get reimbursed or you don’t get reimbursed. I think we need some guidelines on whether you can spend $100 a night for a room – if there’s no $100 a night rooms then you’ve got to get $150 night a room but within reason – if you’ve gone 200 miles on City business turn it in and give them a receipt. I don’t have any problem with that and do away with this.
Mayor: That’s how we had done things – that he was talking about – Mr. Hawes
Mr. Hawes: We have a set per diem for City Council members on approved conferences and the hotel rates are typically for conferences – the ones that are set at the conference rate – it’s usually less than the rack rate on the hotel. So we try to keep those costs in line through those means, and of course those are approved conferences that council members or City staff for that matter attend – are approved by the City Administrator at the time of request.
Mr. Garrett: And I don’t see any –
Mayor: And we also set – excuse me – we also set mileage for these trips so that you don’t take the scenic route and buy your own gas but –
Mr. Hawes: Yeah it’s there and back
Mr. Garrett: Then that basically does away with all of this except for paying for ink cartridges for a printer – I don’t believe I’ve used enough since I’ve been on council to break me up over that – I can buy an ink cartridge. I say do away with the whole thing.
Mayor: And set limits on
Mr. Garrett: Set limits on spending. You have this amount – you have this amount – if you spend more than that you don’t get reimbursed on it. And that’s as simple as that.
Ms. Lawrence: You can just go back to the old travel voucher – the old timey travel voucher that people turned in.
Mayor: We had travel vouchers for as long as – if we can agree with what Mr. Garrett said and limits on each meeting I would buy into that pretty quickly. I mean here’s what we expect this to cost – here’s your budget. If you can’t live with that – if you want to take a tent with you then – well you won’t get any money back but any how. Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: That’s not addressing Ms. Lawrences’ issue of being able to use her funds for community functions whatever we decide community functions are.
Mayor: Okay
Mr. Bridges: It does address it – it removes it.
Ms.Lawrence: Well it removes all the periodicals and all the business cards and the postage and magazines
Mayor: Well the City provides you with business cards
Ms. Lawrence: Yeah – so why’s it even in here.
Mayor: I couldn’t tell you. Did you write this Mr. Holmes
Mr. Holmes: I did and at the time council members had specific requests. For example some council members wanted to be able to send Birthday Cards to employees and others didn’t. They wanted to have the postage to be able to go buy that if that’s what they wanted to do. So there was things about stationary. Some council members discussed wanting to write a letter to their constituents and let them know what they were working on – this gave them the opportunity to do that. The community events was written pretty broadly apparently – but if you read the sentence in context it was talking about meetings, travel, lodging, the registration fee and all those types of things. So….I mean it was for council members. It was for council members to spend for them to do those things. That’s what the intent of it was – not to give to someone else to do those things.
Mayor: That was the original intent.
Mr. Larson: Well if that’s the original intent then I don’t disagree with that but maybe it should be called something other than discretionary funds then.
Mayor: Well I agree with that. There’s not much discretion left when you say this is what you’re going to spend it on and if we’re going to go back to
Ms. Lawrence: Well I thought we were going to get rid of it.
Mr. Garrett: Well if you get rid of the whole thing then you don’t have discretionary and you don’t have to worry about it.
Ms. Bagwell: Having said that though if you want to send a mail out to the constituents you don’t have funds to do that. We won’t have those funds – we’ll have to come before council to request those funds as I understand it and so that kind of ties our hands behind our back – whether we’ll do it or not I don’t know – but that’s there and it’s available. So…
Mr. Hawes: My concern if this were – I’m sorry Mr. Mayor – if this was done away with where do the monies go – do they go into a pot that could then be re-allocated amongst all of council by council.
Mayor: What do you mean
Mr. Hawes: Well there’s already money in there in the budget right now – if you do away with the policy governing those then does that just sit there?
Mayor: Well – yeah – they just sit there until there’s some meeting that comes up or whatever and we all decide that we need to attend this meeting – or be involved in this function or whatever and then we all 7 or 4 say yeah let’s do that – then you would allocate the funds out of that.
Mr. Hawes: That’s the thing but there would be 7 separate line items – I mean or we just basically pool them.
Mayor: You can do that can’t you
Mr. Hawes: Yes I can I just want to make sure that’s what council would be intending. Now I know we’re all hypothetical here because there’s no voting in this session – but you know as soon as I have an idea of exactly what you’re – if you’d like me to prepare you some options I’d be glad to do that.
Mayor: I think we’d like that very much. Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: I was just going to say when you combine them all you could just call it council contingency fund
Mr. Hawes: Right, well that’s kind of what I was gathering.
Mayor: Okay – anyone else have any great ideas about this – Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: Well I think or my feeling is that there are like some community functions that I think we should be able to use our own discretion on using these funds. I mean I think that example with trying to help the Westwood neighborhood start a community watch I think that would be a good use of funds that were in our discretionary policy. I don’t know that that should be prohibited quote unquote. And I think those are some of the things that we should be able to use our discretion with. Whether that needs to be approved by more than one council member on what you’re going to spend it on or whether it still has to come before the whole council or –
Mayor: Well how much money are you talking about there.
Mr. Larson: $150 or something like that
Mayor: Well perhaps we could establish a – all right – I’m sorry Mr. Garrett will answer that –
Mr. Zitricki: Mr. Mayor I thought we already settled on that – if we’re going to have this money in a general contingency fund with all monies pooled together and if a council member wants to spend money on a project for the community they come before council to get it approved. And 4 members have to agree on that to get that moving forward.
Mr. Hawes: If that were set up that way that would be correct.
Mr. Zitricki: And that settles all other issues. That way it’s brought before a public forum and we discuss it openly and we vote on it.
Mr. Hawes: For clarification the options I would be looking at presenting to you all because I hear multiple things being spoken of here – option 1 would be basically null which is exactly what you have right now – option 2 would be pooling the funds for approval by council for any individual expense out of such or collective expense requiring a 4 – majority vote and the 3 rd would be adjusting the description of discretionary funds that we have right now to include clarification of community functions or something along those lines whereby public purpose is identified that would still keep them discretionary up to that point but it would clarify to me in approving them. Those would be the 3 options that I’d present to you at your next meeting.
Mayor: Sounds like you just did but do that – put that in some well written understandable clear
Mr. Hawes: That’s where our attorney comes in.
Mayor: He did this one. And bring that to us for our perusal. Can everybody agree on that even though we can’t agree on anything. All right great. All right thank you very much.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: • Contractual Matter – Fire Department Mayor: All right we have a need for an executive session to discuss a contractual matter regarding the Fire Department so I’ll entertain a motion in that regard.
Ms. Lawrence: Mr. Mayor I make a motion that we go into Executive Session.
Mayor: Thank you Ms. Lawrence do I hear a second.
Mr. Larson: Second
Mayor: Mr. Larson seconds. All in favor signify by saying Aye (AYE) opposed no. Aye’s have it it’s unanimous. We are in recess and we may or may not be back.
ADJOURNMENT Mayor: All right. Now, Ms. Lawrence it’s time for you to make your motion.
Ms. Lawrence: Mr. Mayor I make a motion we adjourn.
Mr. Bridges: Second
Mayor: Thank you Ms. Lawrence and Mr. Bridges seconds. All in favor signify by saying Aye (AYE) opposed No. Aye’s have it. We’re adjourned. Thank you all for coming.
Respectfully submitted,
PAMELA J. BODKINS City Clerk |
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