e e e e e e e e e e e e e give me just a second pull this up uh let's see anybody wish to give an invocation this afternoon let's pray dear heavenly father we thank you for this day we thank you for all your many blessings dear Lord thank you for blessing us to come together one more time to have council meeting dear Lord we asking you to have mercy on our city and our County dear Lord you know what we have gone through through um some people lost their home some people lost their life some people just injured some people are just hurt did Lord we asking for mercy and Grace for those persons dear Lord God our thoughts in our minds and what we do today this decision that we make dear Lord we ask that it would be the best for all citizens in Jesus name we pray amen amen remain 10 pledge aliance I pledge ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act chapter 4 title 30 code of laws of South Carolina 1976 an agenda has been posted on the front door City Hall and notification of this meeting's been given to the news media I can conf confirm we have a quorum correct yes sir Mr Mayor thank you all right this is our work usual work session but we've got some business today uh what do we have up first under new business item number one is to consider temporary suspension of building inspection fees in the lake of hurricane Helen um I'm certain that I've talked to you all about this over the course of the week um Greenwood County Council has already approved this uh via a resolution however they had multiple fees they needed to adjust at the county level uh you'll recall that um per our agreement with Greenwood county that the county keeps all of the revenue from the building inspection department so this doesn't impact our budget in any way um for what that's worth um this would essentially suspend any building department fee um for someone that had was impacted by the hurricane so it wouldn't be for a new construction those fees would remain the same and if someone were to start work without a permit they would still be uh charge a penalty um so this is just an attempt to um help people get things moving a little bit faster and obviously we're we're not here to make a financial winfall off of a disaster so this runs uh in accordance with the County's language it's effective until November the 30th and subject to an extension all right and of course we've still got the requirement for certain folks that had their power knock off at their their house I I don't know really the right term but they got to have we're still doing inspections this is just the fees so what you're talking about is that you had to have some electrical work done at your house in order to get your power restored there typically would be a fee involved the electrician would come in and pull the permit and they would have to pay a fee we're waving the fee but we're still doing the inspections gotcha is is there anything you want to add to that Mr Le no um that that's you know we ran into a little issue where can you yeah I'm sorry um where what I really want to make sure people understand is when they're getting work done they need to get a licensed contractor to pull the permit so we can do the correct inspection what we're we're seeing is that even some of the elderly here in the city in the community they're getting some friends to say hey come and do this and and then they call my off office looking for inspection but what I Tred to understand make them understand I've got to have a permit and a permit has to be issued to a licensed contractor U for me to do the appropriate inspection um this ain't the only time that happens this it happens in regular normal business but other than that it's moving along pretty well and to your knowledge the actual license contractors that are undertaking the work are abiding by for the most part I have not at this time seen any licensed contractor do any work without pulling permits and I I don't want to speak for the building department so um he correct me if I'm wrong here but I would imagine that the majority of permits that are com right now are related to electrical U we do have um two um we requested Mutual Aid so we have an inspector here from the State Fire Marshall's office and one from lakon County that are here on Mutual Aid assisting with inspections so there's no delay when these electricians come in they pull these permits and CPW is ready that that we're not there's no hold up on our end to say to do the inspection yeah that's correct I mean our main priority right now is we're we're back the normal business we are taking in new stuff but we want to make sure people get their power um my two inspectors last weed was Robbie and Tyler I want to tell you what they were knocking 25 out each and they were humping it um daily h a day a day per person um today I I mean I can go ahead and tell you the two gentlemen that I had Chad Kelly from State Fire and also um Mr Brent Hawkins from town of Lexington um they pushed out 20s something themselves today so I mean there's a high volume but we're we're doing well and they're here you know for the duration of the week or until I see a point where hey I think we can handle it from here but they've been a great asset just in day one I mean just from a city county perspective we have funds to compensate these folks coming from out of town or the way it works under Mutual Aid is that um the sending agency continues to pay those people so we've sent uh firefighters before for Mutual Aid to other communities we've sent Public Works Crews um and you just continue to pay those people as you normally would now that they'll typically a cover meals or gas or something like that the receiving agency but you do it under the guys that one day you're going to need them to return that favor basically so right we we'll pay it forward correct correct there's one thing that I could just ask you Travis to explain this because at on 4:00 at 4:00 on wcrs a member of our state delegation uh made a statement that he felt like that we should not be requiring electrical inspections post this and that we should have the ability to be able to allow electricians to sign appid dat saying that that their work was completed and CPW should be able to do that work and connect their power up quickly is that something that you can explain the importance of why it's so important for for a building official to be able to do that just for because those comments were made publicly I feel like we sort of need to respond back to them yeah I mean you know our jobs to make sure that that structure or whatever operating that structure is safe um being in my fire background electrical fires there's a majority of the fires besides you know human error for cooking or something like that so you know for the safety what we want to do the inspections but for us to do the inspections we need a permit to follow up for that um you know talking about you know electrical affidavit I mean that that was brought up before but I had some backlash from electricians like hold on a second I mean I don't know if I want to do that but that has been something I took out there before but right now under this state of emergency we are at and trees falling on houses we need to do an inspection of what they're doing yeah and just to for the safy add on to what he's saying you know there was a lot of concern with um I think in some ways it was fortunate that that the power went out in the middle of the night or a lot most people were asleep but after being without power for Seven 8 nine 10 days you don't even remember what you were doing when your power went out and so I know we had some fires caused by toaster that were on when the power went out and you know I saw the fire department was on a call yesterday where there was an electrical fire inside the wall um and so we really have been trying to push out a lot of information tell people if you have damaged to your house if your power has been on for an extended period of time you really need to turn your breakers off and that flyer was was a big piece you know that I you know help you know provide with them say hey let's do this if your power does come back on and you do have any kind of damage please follow these guidelines and you know we've been working diligently to make sure that there's no delay the inspections are for safety and that's that's the primary purpose of the inspection it's a primary purpose of government is Public Safety I think we all understand that but I just felt like that publicly since some of those comments were made I think it was just wise for us to be able just to kind of put it out there we're not doing this just to do it to make people's life difficult for the betterment of and the safety of of our entire community and so this is you're following the law you're following code you're following the procedures that we've that we've created to to keep everybody safe so we're very thankful for that thank you thank you I was under the impression that you only had to turn off all your Breakers if there was damage to the house I think at a point I think that's how it started out was if you have damage turn them off but I think after the power outage became so extended it was just advisable to say if you're without power just go ahead and turn them off um and then you know I thought the recommendation from Travis and his staff and CPW and D was to turn them on one at a time and listen and wait and smell and make sure you don't hear anything or smell anything that seems unusual then do it do the next one and just do them one at a time because you don't ever know what might have been damaged that you're not even aware of so um I think that that was one I told Travis I said things you wish you never had to know right um and uh you know before we leave tonight we'll talk a little bit about I think you know how everyone just really came together to to get through this but Travis came to me on one of the days I don't even know what day it was and said you know I'm a little worried about this and I said yeah that's a sounds like a good thing to be worried about and so we jumped on that pretty quickly to help make sure that when people's power was coming back on that it was coming on as safe way as possible so do we recommend that if the power box is off the wall like a lot of people are the electricity is on in neighborhoods but they are still without power because the electrical box is snatched on the wall being ripped off and and and we're and that's where I try to tell people it's ripped off get you electrical contractor so they maybe that box can be attached back on safely that's the electrical contractor to you know let that home want to know but in that circumstance absolutely I would turn my breakers off even though when the power comes on it might be on but how do I know the sheathing of them electrical wires going from that box up through the walls to the panel are not torn and it's not hitting um insulation and it spark um there's there's a lot of friction and a lot of heat that goes through them lines and also Miss BS um CPW does have a form on their website and it's for these sort of pocket outages so I've heard a lot of people say well everybody my neighbor or everybody around me has power and I don't and so you know they're encouraging people in that scenario to go to that form fill it out and basically say I live at 123 Main Street all my neighbors have power and I don't because it probably implies that there's something specifically wrong with your residence and not the larger um electricity that's feeding the area where you live so if you know anybody like that I would encourage them to go to go online it's at the very top of cpws website I filled them out for two people today instead of saying just going on out SP it out for you thank you thank you that's good information all right thank you you're welcome set we we have a motion regard to this proposal uh motion to approve temporary suspension we have a motion by Mr M was that a second by second by Miss BS any further discussion about the motion on the table all right all in favor of a temporary suspension of building inspection fees in the wake of hurricane Helen all right that motion carries unanimously with seven votes okay and a new business item number two is to consider authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with SC do for storm debris removal again something that we've talked about I think individually with almost everybody um but I'm I'm going to try to cover the highlights so dot has standing contracts annual contracts with debris removal and clearance teams that have already been bid out embedded through the through the state procurement process and when they need to they activate those contracts so there's 16 counties that have been it's been made available to um essentially what this does it allows do to come in here here they're already going to come in here and clear all the St all the state owned roads in the city uh this allows them to also clean any City own roads within our Municipal boundary private roads will'll have to manage separately because we can't authorize dot to go clean a road that we do not own um so this will cover any storm debris removal on City and do owned roads that's basically um vegetative debris and also C and D so construction and demolition debris so if you had a shed in your backyard yard that a tree fell on if you can get it to the curb they will pick it up um if it's a huge tree if you can get it to the curb they will pick it up I talked to them today they said there's no restriction on the size or the pile the size of the pile or the size of the limb they can't get it with their grapple they will cut it up and load it up so if you can get it to the curb they'll pick it up um as I mentioned the city would be responsible for the clearing of private roads which will have a separate you know we can have a separate sort of educational campaign about that piece uh do has said that they will begin the week of October the 14th that gives all the time that's already passed plus seven more days for people to get their debris to the road um Draper and I were working on a educational flyer do did put out a press release we wanted to make it a little bit more specific to our city residents um talking about basically if you can get it down there by the 14th you need to have it down there because they probably only going to do one pass through the city and as I said our equipment cannot collect the things that do can collect one day one pass so once they go through an area they're not going to double back and do it again they're going to go through one time one so we're want to encourage everybody to have everything by the curve by the 14th um now they're not going to pick up the whole city in one day obviously but I believe once they come in here and get started they're probably not going to ask us where we think they should start organize themselves and start in the place that they think is best Monday the 14 and well are any of our employees this is all the information that I have right now it it's subject to change this is just what I have at this moment will any of our employees accompany them I mean is that something they to my knowledge they will not so these are private contractors hired by do if they want our assistance we can help them my thought is that we will probably focus more on the private roads while they're doing all the other roads um they have a time frame so do has a contract with the private providers that they've already activated um they've told me what the time frame is for collection I hate to say it out loud because it might not uh it might not come to fruition but I know that they have set an allotted time frame for the debris to be collected in this County um begin wait beginning October 14th correct okay yes but that's the city it's going to go beyond the city it's going to be countywide the county has discussed entering into the contract with do as well I don't know exactly where they are in the process I know they don't have another meeting until I believe the 15th so I don't know if they'll have a special call meeting to discuss it or how they'll move but I believe that yes the county is going to enter into the agreement as well and I also think Lander is going to enter into the agreement um and I know it was pushed out to other municipalities too if they own any roads um the um the caveat here obviously is that the city is responsible for any portion not cover not covered by FEMA public assistance grant so for purposes of of uh math um someone said and I don't know if this number is accurate or not but for just purposes of this conversation someone did mention to me that they estimated that the debris removal in this County would be somewhere between between 10 and $20 million so assuming let's just go high side $20 million um we would be responsible for 4.3% of that because we own 4.3% of roads in the county um which is $860,000 and then our portion of that is 25% which is 20 pull that memo for me please scroll up just a little B for me it is 20 $15,000 I understand the state has the governor has already asked that FEMA cover 100% of it so they'd cover Do's part they'd cover the city's part um but if for some reason they did not do that or the state didn't step up to cover it then we would be on the hook for whatever that portion of that would be uh I think that even if it came down to that it's well worth it because it's going to take our staff tremendously more amount of time and and also we again don't have the equipment to make this happen uh y'all seen the trees down in a lot of our older neighborhoods um these are massive um so do has put out this debris uh removal guideline flyer which we will add a little local touch to and we will work with do to disseminate it in areas where they have not like the index Journal gwood calendar gwood how however we can disseminate it on our social media on our site um and perhaps some even some door to-door delivery of these flyers to make sure that people know hey we're coming and we really want you to have your debris out by the road they're not going beyond the right of way so they're not going in anyone's yard they're not taking trees off of anyone's homes if it's at the curb they're going to pick it up and if it's not they're not going to pick it up so um exactly how far in technically I know it's from the middle of the road isn't it from the middle of the road most most right away is back of curb or back of sidewalk that's that's the typical so back of the sidewalk yeah if it's you know we don't you know we tell residents all the time try not to put it in the road and try not to block a sidewalk so if it's right behind the sidewall they're going to grab that and there's a lot of debris so I doubt it can be placed out there without blocking a sidewall they're all in the side if some of it has fallen and nobody has gotten to it to cut it up yet so and are they gonna help if it if it's into Sidewalk Road because I know there's some you mean if it hasn't fallen yet if it is a tree is already fallen and we came in and cut it on just so you can get a car through if it's within the R so their their goal is the clearance of the road and the rideway for safety okay so if it's laying in the rway they're going to get it but they're probably going to cut it off back of curve or at the right of way and pull what's in the RightWay out and load it up okay I can't say for sure exactly how they'll do it but that's my that's the best understanding that I have of it they also so turn it so turn it this way then so it's all laying the right away if you can kick it out if you can um and then also my understanding is that they will get leaners so if there's a tree that's leaning and threatening the right of way they will remove that as wellers leers leaners there's a bunch of those well it's yeah MH so tonight we're just asking if Council will approve uh the city manager to sign this agreement so that um we can get it down to do and let them get started would there be any type of mapping system where we can follow I have no idea I mean we'll do our best to educate but I mean the the way that do has explained it to me is let's just say they say hey we want all this debris cleaned up in 3 three months that let's just say that's the contract time frame and they're going to tell that subcontractor we want it done in 3 months and you bring whatever equipment you have to bring to get it done in three months uh you can get it done faster than that that's fine but you know three months so they may come in here Miss BS with a 100 trucks and hit you know a third of the city in three days I have no idea because the contract is not between me and the debris hauler the contract is between the city and do so there managing the contract and we're just saying yes we would like we want in basically so I don't have that level of detail and just we we have four days the city have four days to get ready well based on the number of calls that we've been receiving at City Hall and otherwise I feel like people are already putting it down there because we've gotten a lot of calls about why haven't you picked up my limbs and people are people are wanting this stuff picked up because killing grass and everything else yeah I think seven days from now is fair time if you haven't already moved it and there are Miss BS I think I sent you guys the crisis the that number that people could call if they needed assistance getting things to the curb that's a that's that team Rubicon they're here they're a retired military folks they may not all be retired but they're military guys and they mobilize from all over the country and they respond to disasters and they help with debris clearance and removal and all that type of thing they've been here since Sunday I believe so um that number will if y'all would to give that to people who are struggling to get debris to the curb I'm sure that be willing to help um with that and again I'm not they're obviously not going to pick up the whole city in one day but I do think we um need to tell everybody get your debris to the curb by the 14th because that's when they're going to start with the week of the 14th and I may have a little bit more detail once I send them the agreement up tonight and I'll keep you guys informed and we'll make sure that our um educational campaign is as clear as it can be thank you do I hear a motion with regard to this proposal so second a motion by Miss hudos second by Mr Miller any further discussion regarding authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with Scot for storm debris removal all in favor that motion carries unanimously with seven votes the new business item number three is considered an executive session forther discussion on matters relating to the proposed location expansion or provision of services uh encouraging location or expansion of businesses in the area served by the motion to enter executive session second have a motion by Mr Miller second by miss hudo any further discussion anticipate any action or just discussion I don't think there'll be any action just discussion all in favor of entering into executive session the discussion of matters relating to the proposed location expansion or provision of services encouraging location or expansion of businesses in the area served by the public with no action anticipated motion carries unanimously with seven votes are we headed back there yeah e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e before we adjourn to a work session I'm going to read into the record a a proclamation that we issued last week in a um emergency type situation and this Proclamation is recognizing the collaboration between the city and the county but in addition into the cooperation between the city and the county there's cooperation between a number of entities I tried to list them all in the uh press conference that we had last week I'm sure I left some out um I I'll I'll I don't even have them again here but I mean you had the state you had uh Representatives I mean that that one guy was he not a representative of FEMA with the oh he was from Jasper County Jasper County he was wearing a FEMA visor one day well he's a FEMA guy he's like a consultant okay anyway what I was United Way the school districts um Church churches are religious institutions nonprofits the Red Cross team Rubicon like she mentioned um the the list goes on and on a lot of us um in here saw all those collaborations and I got to tell you what I I I had I I had conversations with some Mayors in other um counties it sounded like they were doing better but certainly not they did not have the level of cooperation like we had in in Greenwood County I I mean we we we do sometimes have difference of opinions and fcker in normal times but man when when things are are are when when the chips are down I mean we really did pull together um our our city staff I know we'll talk about this in work session a little bit um really job responsibility hats changed and I can't say enough about our staff County staff and just everybody that was at the table so and and certainly obviously our utility providers CPW and Duke um it's just it was if if if You' have told me that uh last Friday the the amount that had been accomplished and the power that had been restored I'd have said you were crazy it's just been a Monumental undertaking one hopefully we never have to undertake again so anyway I'm going to shut up and read this Proclamation uh this is a proclamation of well I won't shut up I guess I'll read this but um proclamation of of recognizing the collaboration of effort between Greenwood County and the City of Greenwood to respond to the aftermath of hurricane Helen whereas hurricane Helen significantly impacted the City of Greenwood Greenwood County and the surrounding areas resulting in significant damage from high winds down trees flooding and widespread power outages and whereas the safety and Welfare of the citizens of Greenwood are of utmost importance and the damage to property infrastructure and essential Services requires immediate action and whereas city and county resources may be insufficient alone to respond to the damage caused by the hurricane requiring coordinated assistance between the city and county and whereas it is essential to implement emergency measures to Pro protect life and property ensure the safety of residents and provide the necessary support to First Responders public services and Emergency Management personnel and whereas both the city and county recognize the benefits of collaborating and pooling resources to address the needs of the citizens of Greenwood County now therefore I Brandon Smith mayor of the City of Greenwood along with Greenwood city council do hereby Proclaim that Greenwood City Council and Greenwood County Council resolved to work together to address the needs of the citizens of Greenwood county in the wake of hurricane elen dated October 2nd 2024 and um of course our Administration Julie Draper uh Tiffany all y'all thank you so much police fire police and fire my gosh this is what ours this is what our our firefighters train for um and they were they were ready to put those skills to to good use so hopefully it's something that you know another Council never has to deal with but not going with I just want to add to that if I can can um the Department of Social Services have been incredible and and what we've seen them do and I you know I think we also need to always recognize them that what they did at the Y this past week was absolutely incredible um and there I think the majority of them were local people so I don't know if you know anybody works at DSS here at our local offices please please please tell them thank you if you know anybody there because they have been incredible so very thankful for them I I I heard they they were they were incredible they were very helpful and thank you to the W yeah they DSS I'm telling you they really stepped up and we need to be very thankful for them they were great United Way also helped out quite a bit yeah I just can I add one thing sure I um J we had a lot of staff that was out of town when this hit a lot of people were at trainings um Chief shadowen was in Myrtle Beach um and one of our Majors was there as well for the chief's conference um we had Draper was on vacation with his family um he had U three staff members that were at various other states at conference it was a a low Staffing time for this thing to H and um and I said in the department head meeting and I want to call anybody out um but a lot of people stepped up to do a lot of things that were way outside their wheelhouse um and because Laura's here I'm going to recognize her she on S on Saturday I caught her and I said I really really need somebody to go in the EOC like the city has to have representation in there I cannot be there and she came she said what am I what in the world am I supposed to do in there and I said just go in there and just sit there and the work will find you and and I know you'll figure it out and she was really integral with helping me communicate um with outside to in right if the county needed something they would say Laura this is what we need and she would get with me and we would figure it out um you really can't function in a disaster like this without having eyes Anders outside and inside and so that was really helpful for me and Public Works was so heavy with tree removal and and and just a million things uh that they weren't even able to fill sanitation work orders those things weren't stopping right my trash can's broken my lid is broken um and so for the finance St through the finance stat and Gibson said hey we'll fill sanitation work orders for you and they got in a truck and they rode all over the city filling sanitation orders um you know you had firemen cutting trees all day and responding to calls at the same time and we never had to request assistance from law other law enforcement agencies or from fire agencies or um Public Works other than debris remover we had a lot of amazing debr removal teams in here I'm not really an emotional person but just watching Everybody work together and I really really think it's important for city council to understand how well the county did running that EOC absolutely I mean we had you know if you heard Derek Oliver say in the press conference we had 100% power loss in this County and almost every tree every Road in this County was blocked by a tree or power line or flooding and and in 5 days all all the roads for the most part the ones we could get to and that didn't involve power were cleared and we made sure that residents could get in and out one way or another um and so I know that residents were getting frustrated because of course not having power for that long is hard but I think the magnitude of this and the quick way in which we were able to to get things reopen has been really remarkable and so all the credit goes to the staffs of all these agencies and um um really the county did an excellent job absolutely they they they uh there's a lot of leadership do you personally have power last night I had power and I'll tell you the one thing I've learned that you cannot live without Mr Fortune really wants to say something one thing you cannot live without is water I was on the verge of tears on Wednesday on my way home and I called my husband I said I don't even need P I really just we just need some water and when I got home they had figured out how to get our water going and that just made my day I just need to say one thing before you before you speak I like to thank our city manager oh thanks you took a lot I mean I know I call you like every day sometime twice a day I just you know you get to a point where you don't know which way to go so you know you always patient you always text me back you always send me an email you directed my calls I know you had a lot and then on top of that you had no electricity but um in no water now but in no water but I just want to thank you for your organization skills and for being there for the city because we couldn't do it without management we appreciate times like this for sure yeah it looked like uh let's not do it again the it looked like the festival Discovery crew was just uh drafted into a different situation wow um I I I delivered a couple chainsaws to the fire department and brand new chainsaws and to see them play with these toys There Were Trees that were essentially already cut up and they just said let's let's dig in and it was it was it was there was some funding I have the man with a toy with a toy saw cut down a tree on each Cambridge in the road I know that was a toy saw I tell you what I'm I get to you let me let's let's uh let's adjourn to the work session and I'll um we we'll hear from you but thank you and your staff yeah thank you do we have a motion to adjourn to work session motion to adjourn we have a motion by Mr Miller second by Miss BS yes that'll work all in favor of journeying to work session motion car next