uh is there anybody in the crowd that wishes to give us invocation this evening if not i'm sure we have somebody up here that would all right does it be followed by the pledge of allegiance let us pray father we thank you for this day lord we ask a special prayer today for the the families and the folks that have been in the victims are part of the storms that are passing through our area please be with us throughout the night and uh with our neighbors and everyone please keep us safe lord be with us during this meeting that we may glorify your name through our work in your name we pray amen amen i pledge allegiance to the flag all right in accordance with the freedom of information act chapter 4 title 30 coda laws of south carolina 1976 an agenda's been posted on the front door of city hall and notification of this meeting has been given to the news media just to confirm it looks like we have a quorum is that correct yes all right what do we have up up first marion council the first item on the agenda is a public appearance recognizes the greenwood chamber of commerce for a presentation of the workforce uh strategic plan and at this time i'll represent i'll recognize barbara ann hegan and jim medford good afternoon miss hegan and mr medford good afternoon mayor smith uh julie wilkie and council members thank you for inviting us here to present i'm excited to share with you a update related to the work that i've been doing uh for the past 100 days that i've been on the job here at the chamber of commerce and as it relates to the greenwood together relationship so the greenwood together partnership and relationship uh the past hundred days has been one that has been collaborative one that has all four of the organizations the city the chamber of commerce uptown and discover greenwood working closely together we are on a four-lane highway all staying in our own lanes but working together and one of the things that is under the chambers auspices is workforce development small business and retail and housing and neighborhood revitalization and today i'm here to give you the update on the workforce development initiative we just had a report written by economic leadership and they have provided some recommendations from us and to us and i'm going to give you an overview of that now julie can you just show me as i'm clicking is it this way okay so this workforce strategic plan is a collaboration also with the county that have supported this through their funding to develop this plan and the recommendations that we're looking to address includes the need to recreate a strong accountable partnership that will guide coordinated action across all workforce development efforts there's also the need to expand and amplify career awareness and work experience opportunities particularly through the k through 12 so we're really trying to target working with our youth there's also the need to increase the size and depth of the talent pool especially for professional positions and the fourth area is the need to fine-tune workforce training efforts especially around manufacturing through the greenwood together partnership the workforce development includes employers of various sizes it includes working with piedmont technical college lander university the three public school systems the city and county government and non-profit organizations we all want to use the collective impact model we have a common agenda common progress for measuring our goals mutually reinforcing activities ongoing communication and understanding the backbone of each organization that we're working with we want to amplify career awareness and work experience for students a work exposure program for every k-12 student to obtain meaningful career exposure this includes job shadowing business site visits a business mentor relationship paid and unpaid internships and other on-the-job experience and we feel one of the target areas even though we're talking k-12 but particularly 8th to 10th grade students we also wish to connect each student participating in the greenwood promise to attend two-year or four-year college with work experience through this collaboration of working with internships work study and working with the local employers and this will stipulate that every promised student completing a degree program with a satisfactory work history will receive a local employment offer upon graduation and that's making those meaningful connections to our employers i'm jumping through here just to get okay we're on we're all on the same page now amplify career awareness and work experience for students we plan to have under our workforce task force which i'll have mr medford share in a few minutes a marketing and media committee and under greenwood together there's that focus again on the k-12 career awareness and that will be a content of press releases student career awareness stories to be distributed every two months through partner websites through social media and to the parents and educators as well as community leaders we want to share the positive stories out there in the news of what's happening to the students that are taking these programs that are being employed and i think having that shared from the students perspective and from the parents perspective will increase the opportunity for others to want to be part of that work we want to continue to work with the sectors to have job fairs career fairs by the individual sector as well as looking at some of our immediate needs and in a few minutes again mr medford we'll talk about a collaboration we're working on in the coming weeks many of you may be aware that the restaurants and our food service are in dire need of employees they have help wanted signs throughout the city from all of our restaurants to some of our other just regular small businesses and we're here to help connect our high school students to those opportunities so we will be doing a job fair in the coming weeks on a saturday so that students can participate with their parents moving on to the next slide increase the size and death of the talent pool especially for professional positions we often hear from at the chamber of commerce that people that are coming to the area also have their spouses joining them so trailing spouses we want to have an initiative that includes referrals to the area to other employers for available jobs if you have a happy spouse or significant other then they're they're likely to stay and invest here in greenwood we want to explore the creation of a multi-year bonus program to aid in the recruitment and retention of in-demand professionals such as engineering information technology and health care the chamber will also take a lead on a chamber ambassador program this is to help new employees and new residents introduce them to quality of life amenities here in greenwood we wish to connect developers to look at concepts of loft departments and live work properties that are going on across the united states and that is something promising here for greenwood we recognize that housing is a need and we have great quality of life here from our education system to our colleges to a world-class health care and people want to live and invest in greenwood and in order to do that we need to supply them with adequate housing next slide related to fine-tuning workforce training efforts in manufacturing adult and edge adult focused career awareness initiative highlighting career switching opportunities for displaced workers this is people that might be retired looking for a second career or also had been laid off and are looking for other other work so we can connect them to those opportunities and we're excited to expand training to them around manufacturing skills certification that can be brought to them right at piedmont tech increasing the number of post-secondary and secondary students earnings certification getting started we need to plan execute evaluate adjust and execute it's this continual circle that we feel that the chamber is the coordinator and conveyor of this work and we know this because our members have engaged with us letting them letting us know what open positions there are how we can partner with them they're wishing to invest with us and right now we're in the process of forming our workforce task force which at this point i will turn over to jim medford to describe those activities thank you for listening please appreciate it and after his um presentation we will take a q a from council members great i'm sure there will there will be probably some questions mr madford how are you good mr mayor thank you for allowing us to be here today um the workforce development is uh is a significant piece of barbarian covered a lot of initiatives and they're all uh short-term and transformational things that have to take place when it comes to workforce we have a crisis literally going on right now we have many of our major industries have significant number of openings that have not been able to be filled i've met with lonza i've met with fuji i've met with vilux i'm to be meeting with tasian and eaton later this week my task in meeting with the companies is to gauge exactly what open positions they have to try to get a salary range that will not be shared with other companies but just to have an overall range of where we're at this is a national problem it's not just a problem here in greenwood i've been running a pharmaceutical company out in california for the last four years and it was a challenge really challenging out there as well so we need to i use the word put on our spikes lace them up and we need to start playing on a national basis and not just here in greenwood obviously our homegrown is the best approach and we and we have a lot of different things that are going on but that takes more of a time to develop we have an immediate need to give you a quantification of what that need looks like we have over a thousand open positions today in greenwood and many of these so half of them are middle management and on these are areas that have salary ranges of fifty thousand dollars plus and then the other half is is factory team members um whether it be mc and some of these are very high skilled jobs as far as maintenance mechanics so it's significant if we just filled what we have open today it would be one of the largest economic development gains that we've had in greenwood in a while so we already have one we just need to fill it um so one of the things that we're going to do is first and foremost we're adding some marketing staff and we will be outsourcing some marketing experience to develop something that can go out through social media nationally talking about greenwood we have a beautiful quality of life here we have a lake we have parks we have a museum we have a theater being out in california on and off for the last 20 years with businesses you know they have a lifestyle that they're able to talk about and that is you can be skiing in the mountains in the morning and surfing in the ocean in the afternoon well guess what we have pretty much the same thing we're only an hour and a half away from the mountains and a couple hours away from the shore so we need to be broadening what is our lifestyle here we have a lot we have a world-class hospital we have great activities we got anything that you would choose to have and when you broaden this scope as far as we are you can get about anything you would ever want or need within no more than an hour's drive of greenwood nikki knows this my wife's a realtor as well as nikki we have today i don't care where in the city you are or out at the lake as soon and jonathan i think you were just telling us your story if a house goes on the market today it's not on the market more than a day or two and multiple offers are coming in and many at above asking price where these people coming from everywhere they're coming from california they're coming from new york they're coming from the upper midwest name it and a lot of these people there's a migration going on from the higher tax states and also the higher populated states they're looking for a simpler lifestyle many can work from home so it doesn't matter where they live there's trailing spouses that come along with that that move so housing is going to be a critical component because if we're going to be filling a thousand open positions they're not all coming from greenwood um they're going to be coming from outside the area we're going to be sending out a quality of life a cost of living because that's part of the the data that came out and you can always look at how you know two sides of a coin it shows that we have a lower cost per capita of income compared to the state and definitely on a national basis we need to turn that into a positive for right now and that is it's a lower cost of living with the quality of life we have and then we're going to do the third part of that and show the career opportunities that currently exist today in greenwood in the types of industries we have and what those salary ranges are so people can sit there and look at everything they need to know to make an intelligent decision is why they should choose greenwood to live in we're going to be attending regional job fairs i'd like to say whenever there's two or more people meeting we need to be there talking about greenwood and recruiting so that's that one little aspect we could be up here all night and i know you've got other things to talk about everything else that we are working on but we have um when you talk about a task force last thing i wanted to have was 20 something odd people sitting in a room because it's hard to be focused you're going to be bouncing all over the place so we're breaking that down into smaller working subgroups i haven't broken out into manufacturing small business food service training in education health care our government group i've already spoken to our south carolina delegation and they're all going to be a part of this working group as well as the county in the city we've also gone to gleams we've also gone to ready sc we want to have a group that hears exactly what's being talked about needed in the workforce arena because there's type all types of programs that are out there that will help augment for the manufacturer of the business financial aid to to add the staff to train the staff to add new equipment whatever it takes and they could be our best ambassadors to go back to the state house or locally once they hear firsthand what's going on with the major industries so i always believe it's good to have everybody right at the table i have we're going to have representatives from each of our major institutions so like in healthcare we'll have the obviously self regional we'll have the rehab hospital we'll have carolina healthcare we'll have nhc we're going to have representatives from each of those areas so that they can talk about many things they have in common that they need but they're also unique differences that they may also need we're in the manufacturing we're going to be having you know the the lonzas the the uh the fuji's the eaton the tasians the colgate we're going to try to get a good cross section in that arena [Music] we're also going to have a non-profit group because there is discussion that needs to go on in that arena as well we want them to have a seat at the table so it's going to be a lot i'm i'm racing around as fast as i can get out there we i've been on the job if you will for two weeks and we've made a lot of appointments we've had a lot of calls and i can tell you to a point we're getting financial support along with getting personnel to be representatives on this team so we're capturing the dollars that were spent used to be just in economic development to more broader focus than what we're doing today so now what we're going to do immediately is because food service is a significant challenge and it's a big part of what is going on here in the city but it's also what's going on in our county we have restaurants that really either can open or they can't open fully not because of any covered requirements because they don't have staff to do it i'm going to use an example and i'll name it i went to the ihop saturday morning and i'm using this because it's an important thing because they just came back they were closed for two years and a franchisee opened it back up well saturday i'm sitting there and they had a 30 minute wait list and 15 cars in the parking lot and you know i'm looking over there and you can see three quarters of the restaurant was empty they were only able to serve what they have staff to do so people were leaving people were getting frustrated and you know when a business had been closed for two years and somebody was bold enough to come and bring it back up and this is the experience that we're having it's not it's not looking encouraging so one of the first jobs if you ask anybody that they've ever had a good percentage of that is in the food service industry so we are putting out we have over 40 restaurants that are member of the chamber but we're going to be reaching beyond that to other restaurants that may not be a member at this point in time we're encouraging them next monday morning because mondays a lot of restaurants are not open on monday and we're doing it early so if they are opening we're not affecting their lunch or dinner service and we're going to meet at the frank russell career center i don't know if you know this they have a fully equipped training kitchen there but not everybody can be a chef we're looking for serve or wait staff serve staff but they we're going to set up tables so that we can have a two-day training program for any student that comes to a job fair that will be having from lander and or the graduating areas of high schools and they will be taught either how to cook in the kitchen or they'll be taught how to properly serve somebody at a table and then we're going to be talking about with the restaurants and i this is going to be a challenging statement and as that is our pay scale the restaurants are going to have to step up too when you're sitting there and the covert has put out unemployment and all kinds of benefits when it when it is more economical to stay at home and not work than it is to go to work we have some smart people they're going to stay at home so when you look at the hourly wages that's being paid in the food service arena and yes when you add tips but we're going to talk about the intelligent discussion of this is the starting salaries at some of the restaurants or fast food places that are doing quite well i'll use chick-fil-a as an example i think it one can argue be hard to argue the type of service you get when you go into chick-fil-a well they're paying on an average 16 to 17 dollars an hour our minimum wage here's 7.25 and when you go to a restaurant many restaurants pay less than the minimum wage on a per hour basis because of the gratuity that adds to it that brings it up but if you don't have that intelligent conversation when you're recruiting a server what is your average tips to go along with the hourly rate so they can get an idea what the average salary expectations might be they're going to sit there and look i'm being paid four or five dollars an hour why why bother so that's going to be an intelligent conversation i'm going to have a lot of data points that will be easy to read for the restaurants and then those that want to participate on the saturday before memorial day we're going to have a job fair out at the piedmont tech center where the restaurants can have a table a booth a little sampling of their foods and where b uh lander is coming in with some of their students and we met with district 50 we'll be meeting with district 51 and 52 as well as far as their graduating class because we wanted to get there before summer break so that they can come out and be looking at a summer job possibly a way to augment their college education as it goes forward we met with rich constantino i think you probably know this lander has a lot going on just a few years ago they had under two thousand students today they have thirty five hundred they're growing to over five thousand when you look at the economic impact that a student has in extra spending it's significant but it's also a workforce that's sitting there that we need to tap into so we're going to do everything we can to address a very immediate short-term problem in a very quick way and that's the restaurants and food service and then we'll be expanding other job fairs that will be more appropriate for health care manufacturing or whatever the case may be while we're marketing nationally to recruit people so that's a mouthful but that's kind of what's going on so far already in the workforce development so thank you thank you mr medford any questions yeah we'll we'll open it up um for mr medford and miss segan are you guys hearing from folks that all of our industries and again we're talking about we're talking about the plan that you guys are working on right now i've noticed recently that industries are beginning to compete with each other local industries are beginning to compete with each other for staff and i think that's that's that's the worst case scenario for us here in greenwood um where we have people pulling we don't need lines of fuji and and all these folks and all these great companies that are investing in greenwood to compete against the asset they're looking for and that's that's us that's the people that are in greenwood so i appreciate what you guys doing are you hearing that from them as well absolutely it's been going on for some time and that's a zero-sum game stealing from somebody because they're going to turn around and steal from you and it's a vicious circle one of the other things that we found is a lot of the training i'm sorry how you doing um so when you look at it um from another perspective there are key positions within every manufacturing business and i'll speak to that because that's my my background and i'm going to use one called supply chain that's a very broad topic but it's such a critical component because they buy the raw materials they haven't come in just in time to match up with the production schedule to match up with the financial budget there's a whole lot that goes along with that if you don't have a strong supply chain group your your progress becomes very challenged so people are stealing that type of an element from one to another because it's so critical do you know how many in open positions for supply chain there are in greenwood right now today i googled indeed and glassdoor there are search engines for openings in supply chain there is 15 open positions in greenwood today when you look around the surrounding counties to us there's over 50 open and when you look at the state of south carolina there's over a thousand open positions the salary ranges for somebody in supply chain go from 50 000 a year to 150 000 a year depending on experience in the size of the company and the scope of the work so these are significant that's just one tip of part of an iceberg that's at the surface to what's going on right now so i've been working with piedmont tech for some time now and we now have a supply chain certification program that's unveiling that will give somebody anybody that can come in and learn what it takes to be an effective supply chain a team member and then eventually a manager that's an example but yes it's going on and and nobody likes it nobody wants to do it because nobody wins at the end of the day one of the biggest concerns that i've had in the past um 20 months or i guess 22 months that i've been on council is housing it's been a big problem um and because people can't move to greenwood and it's a lot easier to move to a simpsonville or now a fountain inn and soon to be a gray court this 25 corridor that we have that's right here is very impressive i mean it you know we we can continue to ignore the fact that we are suburb of greenville but we have a lot going on here too and and so um would you contribute how much of this of the other problems that you have um you know we have mr bailey who's here tonight with us that's trying to develop um uh developments here in our community we have folks that are calling us and saying hey we don't want this development in our in our backyard but we have to have housing um or or or we we we shrivel up and die as a community we we cannot prosper in my opinion without people and so it's kind of i say this at church is our church always says hey we need to grow we need to get more people into our church but when somebody sits in your spot in the pew that you sit in every single sunday it's not fun anymore um and so but i i i think of i think of that situation we need developers and right now we have developers that are coming from augusta from spartanburg from all over the place and we need developers even even homegrown developers sorry todd but but we need we need people here developing and and and a plan uh which which our planning office city county planning office has done an amazing job um but how much do we contribute the lack of housing to these problems i i think it's probably you know i hate to pull numbers out of the air but looking at what i'm hearing as far as looking from what i'm hearing as far as recruiting when they bring somebody in and i just i'm going to just give you a rich constantino story because he was last week he was trying to recruit 20 new professors to lander expanding their programs they bring him to greenwood they have an exact route on how to do it to give it the best view they drive around showing them you know what we have to offer the career opportunities there no issues with that then it comes time to find a place to live and they can't find one that's and so now they go out to simpsonville they go out to greenville even that's becoming challenging nikki can probably answer you know say the same thing we have greenville realtors down in greenwood now because there's no more inventory up in greenville so and so we have people that are working here living there and we have greenville realtors up there looking for homes down here the housing i mean quite frankly there's two things because i deal with the trailing spouse i deal with what are we going to do in greenwood i've a place several plant managers that now have called me i've got a name for you that i need to give you of a plant manager that has an employment issue that you can't get i mean he he's working the factory line because he can't get employees you know right but the two issues that i see are not until unless you have a really good what i call 25 cent tour of greenwood and you tell them about i think when you do that marketing plan the marketing has to include that we have educational programs here that they're not aware of the school district 50 site maybe they've improved it does not tell about the montessori school doesn't say that they're expanding it doesn't talk it doesn't really make it easy for them to find the magnet schools because a lot of people the two things it's housing and they look at the education and they just look at the numbers and they don't actually have someone because i usually take them take them to the district office take them to talk to the curriculum people take them to the art center take them to the museum take them around the genetic center take them to the lake even if none of that is of interest i try to say this is what greenwood has to offer and for a smaller community it's rather impressive coming especially from other places but sometimes and some of the companies that have come here have been their own worst enemy in a sense by having people that are not from greenwood introducing them to the area and so it's been uh a struggle to convince people that greenwood isn't dull and boring as it appears to them right so but as far as the housing issue is concerned for example now we're basically saying anything that's under uh 200 000 that's in the marketplace that's cute and whatever it's like you've got four days bring your highest and best offer until next time today i mean for example i just had 25 showings on a a little house it's bringing over list price we have not had what i call construction active construction for at least 10 years because when the recession hit everything died everything went under and until people like todd bailey came to town most of the greenwood builders a lot of them didn't build speculative they were scared to and now we have a housing shortage that's nationwide it's not just here right so nikki it's more than just i agree with you on the uh under two thousand two hundred thousand but i can tell you about where we are it's everywhere it's everywhere i mean if an 800 000 lake property goes on the market it's gone within three days i mean it is every price range i mean a million two lake house it's every price range but again with this this middle management you know engineer level where you're looking at anywhere from 200 000 to three hundred 350 sixty thousand there are still there are more realtors i think than there are properties for sale right well mr bailey has been building out in uh stony point doing spec homes as well and i'm sure he'll echo what i'm about to say before the house is built it's sold and we're going to be working a major project out in stony point uh my wife and i are under contract to buy the rest of the undeveloped land in stony point we're going to be building 130 new rooftops in the next 36 months and based on a conversation i have with mr bailey hopefully he'll be a part of that but there's and it's because there's more demand a lot more demand than we have supply and if we don't try to find the strategic intelligent level for what that looks like we're we're we're in a world of hurt we're going to start losing population and not gaining population we'd love we'd love to talk to you about uh annexing maybe then if you're building that many new homes i love being a free agent i'm ready we have a great infrastructure reimbursement program i think julie just about got sick trying to find that line to let greenwood well we could talk about a number of different things in in the presentation i think housing is absolutely important i think we've we're starting to hit our stride with folks like mr bailey and some other developers from out of town and homegrown that have expressed some some great interest but i know the workforce initiative is is much more than that um as i i have certainly some questions but i don't want to take up too much time um there were just a few things that piqued my interest in the in the presentation um i saw just kind of go in chronological order you mentioned a work shadowing internship type program has there been discussion with the districts about about that actively uh having conversations with the superintendents and part of that is exposing those superintendents to the number of jobs educating them of what we're hearing from the industries so what we're learning through our industry meetings we are sharing with the superintendents that partnership is key and that is one of the workforce task force groups that is actively engaged i'm heavily involved in piedmont tech as you may or may not know and there is state dollars that will help fund an internship program that we have will be able to have access to more importantly allow the manufacturers have an age limit a minimum age before they can enter the shop floor the state has taken care of all the liability insurance everything that can guarantee that that individual to shadow at a younger age is possible and being compensated for by the state that's why the government group part of the subcommittee is going to be very very important because there's funds that we can be accessing that we're not today um thank you and as i saw something about the multi-year bonus program for to retain i guess professionals but probably also across all skill sets um can you explain that and kind of how that's funded who's funding that that is through the industries themselves working with their human resource department uh those are active conversations that they're looking inward to say what can we be doing differently that will be attractive so that's part of the conversation with wages as well exactly so here's an example i had a conversation with the manufacturer not too long ago had nothing to do with what i'm doing right this minute but it does and we were having the same discussion and that's how do we retain the people that we're investing in that's critical to our business and it's not always just bumping up the salary because you're going to reach a point where you know it it just doesn't justify it but there are other programs that can be done like free college tuition to piedmont tech for their kids we were looking at creative ways to offer a lot of different benefits for an employee to stay where they are and making sure that they're still getting a competitive wage group which goes without saying yeah and i mean i think some of these things if you which we we obviously did had a group come in and give us all the the playbook for for how to develop workforce i guess i like the execution part of it being up there twice because you know i think with with good intentions a lot of the stuff we've tried before it's it's but it's making sure we evaluate and execute um and that includes you know programs like like chain like ambassadors i know we've had chamber ambassadors in the four in the past with varying degrees of its success so you know i think hopefully a sustainable chamber ambassador program would you know it would work um but i i guess my question is for for y'all a lot of these programs is is this gonna involve the chamber undertaking i mean hiring a lot more folks undertaking yes i'm in the process right now of doing interviews and hiring two new individuals that will be joining us as mr medford mentioned our marketing effort hiring a new director of marketing and communications as well as a recent graduate from piedmont that will be joining us that bringing the skill sets of computer science and technology and from the community so those announcements will be coming in the coming weeks and we're absolutely looking for talent just like many of our other workforce partners because they're coming to the chamber for our talents and expertise and collectively working together to showcase the open positions and um showcasing the work that we're doing around all of our industries is something that's attractive in keeping our members engaged with the chamber one of the key things of course is funding you know this there's no magical you know wand out there so what i've been doing when i'm meeting with all of our our key stakeholders in each of these subgroups as a as asking for their financial support uh support and commitment and we're doing it for over a three year period of time because to hire a staff to bring in a marketing firm to do all the things that we need to do to go to regional uh job fairs where it makes sense to go there's a cost to that and and without exception they've all recognized that and stepped up in a pretty meaningful way now we know you've got to invest to make that happen are those are those positions going to be full-time dedicated to the workforce yeah good well you know it in that regard you know i'm i'm glad to hear that the city is is intended to be a part of the the i don't know if it's the task force initiative or the part of the process i mean i personally haven't been contacted but please know when it comes to being a cheerleader for greenwood i'm always available in whatever capacity i think i speak from fellow folks on scene we had a conversation with julie today and we this was our opportunity to meet in advance again it's been two weeks and i'm running as fast as my little chubby legs can take me to get to all these little places and well are you back from california i'm back yeah mission accomplished at the end of the year great you guys are stuck with me now oh no mayor smith i just wanted to add on the chamber ambassador program through the greenwood together partnership we have had a lot of community stakeholders come to the chamber saying how do we get involved how can we showcase greenwood county greenwood we love it here so those are ambassadors to us and that's how we're going to engage the community well you know and as we talk with the county a good bit i mean we are the county seat of greenwood and and we want to be able of greenwood county and we want to be able to provide like nikki and jonathan mentioned is housing quality of life events that that attract people to greenwood and and make and make sure we retain those folks in greenwood i think as we probably discussed there's there's some folks that are just going to want to be close to greenville but i believe i believe the the majority of the folks you get here in showcase greenwood would uh would choose to to to stay here and live work worship play everything that's right um i don't mean to jump around but you mentioned there are um a thousand open jobs right now is that is that an estimate or is that something we you know there's a thousand jobs we know of that is a thousand jobs we know of by talking to our industry partner so let me use an example for somebody that's sitting their company has 50 open management positions today and they're using outside contract labor to the number of 150 to run the facility they've expanded they've invested heavily into the community and their campus their business demand has grown significantly and they're not able to meet their even higher demand without being able to get this taken care of so that's one stop on my hit parade that if you look at it combined was 150 positions by itself anybody else have any thoughts questions there is a way that business and industry can help city council and help builders that want to bring housing to greenwood because i think a lot of people think it's just the city wants greater tax base and that we're making money and we're being self-serving and they don't understand they that it would be very helpful if people from the community say hey we really do need this housing and this is the way we can grow greenwood responsibly and we want your input and that we are aware of that but it would may it would be very helpful that if some of these manufacturing executives the chamber would come and give the numbers and give the statistics so the community understands the need because i think a lot of people in the community don't get it don't understand it are not aware of it don't know of it everybody is living in their own little bubble so it would have been a great help for us if we got support in some of these decisions that i feel that in the future we will probably be beat up on i think that's something we can help you know encourage we have a ceo roundtable coming up in two weeks so the way that when you saw execute execute it talks about reporting and presenting progress so the the task force with its subcommittees will have a report for each subcommittee to the task force and then the task force will be updating the ceo roundtable on a regular basis as the progress is being made but at this upcoming ceo task force we will be presenting and meeting uh pretty passionately then because we're we're trying to be their advocate to do what we need to do to grow to grow our businesses and that's a very good point and we need to encourage them to be here because they'll be the first ones to say that housing is a problem so they need to be a part of the solution in solving making the need prevalent and we need your help for the job fairs that we're doing if you could help share that with your constituents would help us immensely the more people that we get back to work will help our economy thrive and also help people living in poverty our families that are here in greenwood you give them the opportunity to get employed these employers are willing to take people under their wings train them provide them the resources to grow and one of the greatest ways to get wealth generation is to buy a home so for somebody living in poverty to have a goal one day to own their own home that is phenomenal if that could happen right here in greenwood then all of you are champions for supporting workforce i'm going to tell you there's one i walked out i never felt better about sitting with somebody for 15 20 minutes than i have in a long time and that's shawna and she was with um essie works ann skinner well and anne skinner but shawna is with gleams and they have a program because transportation has been always been discussed and it needs to it's a problem and it needs to be addressed she had a very creative answer to that i don't know if you're familiar but when you work for bmw you get a discounted lease on a car a bmw car to showcase their their vehicle she's working and has a program funded where you can they can give a forward edge to an individual that has a job and keep that car for 12 months and then afterwards that person has hopefully developed well at the job then there's assistance for them to lease their own car and that other car gets circulated back to somebody else so people that need transportation to get to work that's an immediate answer because we have a lot a broad area to get to and trying to get some type of bus system or whatever the case may be when you have different hours and different shifts at different companies in different locations it's it's something that we need to look at but that's going to be a lot more challenging than something as simple as giving them the pride of having a car to get to work and that's going to also incentivize them to keep their job because that's the only way they get to keep the car so i mean there's there's things that are out there that we're looking at that it'll curl your socks mayor and they're nice looking socks by the way so well thank you all for your time and listening and your support and we support uh the city and we're excited to partner with the city thank y'all like i said we we are glad to hear we have a seat at the table so appreciate it all right under unfit unfinished business item number one is to consider ordinance number 21-013 annexing one parcel of land approximately 37.75 acres located at 1925 calhoun road this is second reading this is the property sorry ryan's clicking for me while i'm clicking for myself i don't know okay this is the property in question if you'll recall our last meeting we had first reading and public hearing on this this is located in 1925 calhoun road and slater for future future development by mr bailey is adjacent to the city limits and would be located in ward 5. the zoning will be assigned by the next item on the agenda thank you i think we're all rather familiar with this do i hear emotion i'll make a motion to consider ordinance number 21-013 annexing one parcel of land approximately 37.75 acres located at 1925 calhoun road i hear a second you're making a motion to approve that correct i'm making a motion to approve that yes motion by mr bass second second by minnesota is there anything else uh any discussion or anything that that uh anything else since our last meeting that um that you needed to tell us about anybody no i would mention for the record that ms bowles is not on the line okay thank you all right we'll take a vote all in favor of ordinance number 21-013 all opposed i'm sorry i want to make sure i got that i think the uh i wasn't quite sure where hands were coming up all in favor of ordinance number 21.013 all opposed that motion carries by a vote of six to zero under unfinished unfinished business item number two is to consider ordinance number 21-014 to amend the city of greenwood's official zoning map by rezoning one parcel of land approximately 37.75 acres located at 1925 calhoun road from agricultural this is county agricultural ag-1 to city r7 which is high density residential this is also a second reading all right obviously it's related do i hear a motion i'll make a motion to approve ordinance number 21-014 to amend the city of greenwood's official zoning map by rezoning one parcel of land approximately 37.75 acres located at 1925 calhoun road from ag-1 to r-7 second i have a motion by mr bass second by mr miller any discussion regarding ordinance number 21.014 all in favor of ordinance number 21-014 all opposed a motion carries by a vote of six to zero all right under unfinished business item number three so consider ordinance number 21-015 amending ordinance number 20-027 which is the city of greenwood's 2021 budget this is second reading i'm gonna go through this really quickly we've covered this several times this is the um one-time employee recognition pay these are the stormwater issues that we're dealing with on kitson and wade avenue let me click the storm water repairs are 86 205 the total budget amendment that you've given first reading to was for 276 423 dollars now i am i typically don't like to bring things to council that we haven't discussed previously in work sessions so i apologize in advance however um there s the staff is making a request that council um amend this ordinance to add the purchase of a 2021 pierce engine this is currently available we could have this uh here in three weeks the price with the equipment is 546 761 dollars we would request council approved this from the 2020 cares fund that we received at the end of last year um the reason i'm asking that council amend the or existing ordinance on the table is because it's sort of a emergency or exigent circumstance wherein if we do not purchase this truck another municipality or county is certainly going to snatch it up um if we wait the cost is going to increase by a minimum of 65 000 and we're going to be in a position where we're going to have to wait at least 10 to 12 months to build the truck that's typically how long they take i would say that as the american rescue funds hit municipalities and counties you're probably going to see a higher demand in order for fire trucks which is going to push that out even further and likely drive the price up additionally um chief strange and assistant chief hall are here they have a brief powerpoint that they're going to present to you right y'all feel like they could build a spaceship faster than the fire truck and mislate them they're presenting jointly so one of the first tasks that the other julie asked me to take on when i came on board was a five-year capital improvement plan i started with fire because that's where our greatest need is i met with the chief and assistant chief back on april 21st to discuss the current state of our fire trucks and equipment nfpa standards recommend that fire trucks be moved from the front line to reserve status after 15 years and replace after 25. we currently have a 22 year old engine in our front line one of our front line engines was damaged in an accident it's been out of service for approximately six weeks and will remain out of service for four to eight more weeks while repairs are being completed our reserve fleet consists of a 17 year old engine which has mechanical issues a tank that still leaks sporadically despite having spent about 10 grand to fix it and some lighting issues our other two reserve trucks are a 29 year old engine that will not hold all of the necessary equipment and a 48 year old ladder truck that is now out of service because it recently failed certification when i met with these guys on the morning of april 21st the chief informed me that he would have to close the station if one more truck went down later that same afternoon he called me and informed me that he was going to have to shut down station 3 because that 22 year old engine that we're using on the front line had broken down they've since gotten it back running and reopened station 3 but the engine does have some other issues that need to be addressed and we don't know how long it's going to run obviously when we shut down the station there will be a prolonged response time to parts of the city a fire can double in size every minute so every minute that we add to that response time puts lives and property at greater risk like julie said if we ordered that new engine we would be looking at approximately six hundred and twelve thousand dollars and would have to wait you know ten to twelve months to receive it with the demo we could have it within three weeks um and save sixty five thousand dollars um there are other agencies interested in this truck we were kind of holding our breath hoping it would still be available today and we need to issue a purchase order for it as soon as possible to ensure that we can get it as you know last year we received the 2.6 million in the cares act funds right now that money is sitting in the general fund's fund balance which was almost 8.5 million at the end of the year and it's my recommendation that we use part of this balance to purchase this demo truck to save both the city money and to ensure that we are able to keep all of our fire stations open to serve the citizens of the city even though do you have any questions well i was going to say even that the ladder truck was was here before you started barely it was three years before i got here um the unfortunately we've been kicking the can down the road for some time um and it is starting to um pile up on us and it's gotten to the point that it's critical that we've got to start replacing his fleet um so this is the the one opportunity that we had with this demo truck is very similar to our truck we just purchased in 2020 and it's actually cheaper to buy that demo now with equipment than it was for us to buy that truck back in 2020 because it is a demo so we're saving considerable money by doing that it's not a need to have it's a have to have at this point and uh ms latham mentioned some some maintenance is i understand that some we we don't do the maintenance in-house on these yes sir we do a lot of maintenance not in-house that is the city shop repairs i should say that city shop repairs that they can't do we have to send them off the problem that we one of the problems we have with the older equipment the manufacturers no longer back them up they no longer make the parts if they happen to have the part on the shelf you're great but if not then you go to searching and a lot of times we can't find the parts um as is in the case of the ladder truck lynn brian tried to manufacture a hydraulic pump for us that may get the ladder where we could get it in service they no longer make those pumps and it wasn't enough to get the truck where it can get back in service so it's basically just there we can put some firemen in and take them somewhere but we can't put the ladder up i would also point out that based on i don't know if you all saw the article in the next journal based on the most recent quarterly capital project sales tax collections um it does appear that we will be able to fund a new ladder truck which is included in the in the pre-project list sometime around 2024. gotcha and ms latham also mentioned that we're working on a capital um improvement plan five year capital improvement plan so we will be coming back to council likely with the 2022 budget asking you all to approve some capital needs um that we know um are significant in this city and i would also like to point out that station one was only closed for station three was only closed for a very brief period of time overnight yeah i mean we want to keep it it wasn't closed for weeks i just wanted you all to know that we want to keep that iso rating that y'all work so hard to get for sure i worry about ihop being open and the fire department being open and uh and so we got to make sure you guys are open um miss latham was there anything else in that in that study that initial study that you did that was or chief strange anything that is i mean that if if this happens then we're not gonna be able to do our job uh that that that i don't like i have a hard time with urgent decisions when when an urgent something it makes us make bad decisions i understand this this this was not something that came as a surprise to me today i knew about this problem but is i know our equipment's getting older but what else what else is there that we need to know about now so we don't have a surprise in six months from now that's that's my concern i i this is a no-brainer for me but as while you guys are here that's i want to ask that question what up what else is there that could come up and miss latham um just i want to clarify this is this money can be used from the the money that we got in the last year for this purchase crack yes okay um there there are a lot of needs i've got actually a two-page list of notes in my office um some of the bigger ones we've got aging and damaged bunker gear that needs to be replaced we've got um air packs that are they're still usable but they're past their their life and um they don't meet the new standards so that they can do i'll let tanner explain buddy breathing a little bit more for you but um the admin vehicles that fire you is using um some of them you know they're not designed to be emergency vehicles and we're using them for emergency response um and he can tell you more about the problems with that and then i think that was the bunker gear air packs the admin vehicles the ladder truck we covered was there anything else i can see tanner since you open the floor i mean we may be here all night we're not going to be here all night but since you asked the question what are we looking at in the future and to be honest with you we're looking at more personnel on the stations with all of this infrastructure all these this new housing is coming in i can't guarantee you that we'll be able to respond to these some of these locations as quickly as we can others 2015 i sent a letter to the city manager at that time and part of that was we needed additional stations and we needed additional personnel we have the same amount of personnel working now that we had 50 years ago and the city of greenwood has grown exponentially since then so that is something that we're going to you know at some point i'd sit down since you asked a question that's that's probably the biggie that's on the table that we need to talk about but um i'll let tanner talk to you some more about the truck one thing that i'll ask you to look at in that figure right there the 2020 engine that we ordered we ordered completely custom and we did that with little to no frill you'll see other trucks running around with whirlybirds and things like that on the front of them so so we cut that truck down to the basics and i want you to notice that 559 i had a budget of 560 000 when i built that one we took a truck that was out of service i mean from 1987 out of service it was no longer it no longer met the standard had an open cab so we had several pieces of equipment that we were able to remove um from that truck and placed on that engine the number that you see right there at 546 761. that is a brand new fire engine and that truck comes in the door ready to go so we saved 14 000 by going with the demo truck and plus we we equipped it with some other equipment that we didn't have to buy in 2020 um there's what you see right now that's the 2020 versus the demo and a new custom truck if we ordered that same truck that we ordered last year the base price on it's 547 thousand dollars so the total coming out 612 193.58 so the difference in savings is we're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of about 60 thousand dollars by doing this now not to mention we have a truck that's ready in three weeks to answer your question about other needs that we have miss latham spoke on air packs and she spoke on bunker gear we're just waiting on the guidance from the american rescue plan we think we can get that in there so that's not going to come at an emergency rate we think we're going to be able to write that and get what we need there and then get back on track with bunker gear miss wilkie's asked miss latham to come up and she's talked to chief strange to come up with a capital plan a five year and a 10-year plan and there's hopes that we don't get ourselves in this position anymore with things like air packs because standards and air packs change and the problem that you'll run into is you can't just go buy four of them because manufacturers put a different system on them different buddy breathing system we wanted to order packs with that 20 20 engine but we didn't feel like it was good for us to spend thirty thousand dollars on four air packs that only four guys were going to wear the other eight that were responding to that fire could no longer provide them buddy breathing systems or could no longer give them air because the standard had changed and we didn't have a half million dollars to go up fit that so what we're looking to do is we're looking to reduce the number of facts that we're running and that we're maintaining and in hopes that in the the american relief plan we're going to get 26 air packs out of it which is going to put us back above water we're going to look at some retrofitted adapters to kind of tie in the rest of them so so we think we can do this over a period of time so to answer your question we hope not to come back with anything last minute or in need of emergency ordinance to keep our doors open this this engine will certainly help us out we're fighting an aging fleet the 99 that we're currently running we have an o4 in reserve that she talked about it's got some issues we can run it two or three hours at a time when we're getting another truck serviced or something but the 99 that we have three weeks ago we responded to a structure fire and rock knoll that truck's coming out of station three and it basically malfunctioned three times on the way to that fire we don't like doing business like that we have a duty to provide our firefighters with good equipment to get to scenes just as we serve the public the public wants us there when they have an emergency and that's the need for doing this in emergency orders mr bass the capital plan that we're working on will certainly highlight some of those gaps that we need to look to fulfill over the next five years i think you'll find that the american rescue plan is probably going to help us fill a lot of those gaps for emergency needs and response related to coronavirus and other things we've been all as a staff really trying to stay on top of it but unfortunately they just have not issued any real guidance at this time i think there's going to be a lot of opportunities out there like like assistant chief hall mentioned and we're going to take advantage of every single one of them and julie you mentioned obviously you dove into the fire department have you gotten into other departments too in terms of capital um i have not yet because fire has been depressing urgent one so that's the one that we kind of went with first um i think we've well we've looked at some i.t needs to but um then i think you know we'll go from there to public works police stuff but this one was was urgent is there a way that since this demo seems to be such a deal well relatively speaking is there a way to basically keep a constant eye out for demos to keep a constant eye on getting the best best bang for your buck and knowing if they're a good deal comes along that we could be aware of it yes ma'am i mean they companies build trucks based off of what is ordered on a regular basis from fire departments across the nation okay and the thing that you guys have to understand when we keep our eye out when we look at demos is we have to pull the trigger really quick so to speak we don't have time to to do to make it a six month process because the truck's not going to be sitting there um well do we have dibs on it i mean if we i mean are we is it possible that it's too late now i spoke with chris harris 15 minutes before walking into this meeting and it's still available okay um so there are other trucks out there on the market we just when we were going out there looking through this this was a really great price point it's it's pretty much um it mirrors what we have now with the minus a couple of options so it's going to service our needs when you start looking at demos and other trucks miss hutto like ladder trucks and things like that we have to be um we're going to have to be a little more open-minded our station doors are at 11 foot 7 inches and industry standard builds a ladder truck for a 12-foot door now which means they come in at about 11-7 so when it comes time to dealing with ladder trucks and other things like that we're going to have to go custom just to get it in our buildings okay okay all but right answer yes ma'am we can we can constantly we we see trucks coming off the line that could fulfill our needs but if we're going to do that then we have to be able to to put that po in and in order to put that po in that money's got to be sitting there or either you guys have to approve the budget amendment in order to do it well let's also remember when we if and when we have station 4 that we build if that day comes to build it 12 feet high okay gotcha i got you all right thank you i think the most important thing we need to do with fire is to get on a rotation of replacing things and to actually stick to that because when we cut you know cut this year and cut that year and then we get to a point where all of a sudden we need everything yeah and that's kind of positive of course i mean i think it's important to understand that we're in a particularly good financial position with the cares funding to to be able to use that force and capital equipment when previously we haven't had the revenue to be able to do this fire trucks are half a million dollars it's tough to just pull the trigger and buy one we're fortunate that we're in the position that we're in right now and that's why i think it's really important for council to consider this tonight and hopefully let these guys get struck and get in service quickly i think the thing that i've probably driven julie crazy about is i don't understand why government does not fund depreciation and it's just like we just we just decide we're just gonna make it work and and we have this problem that we have in the future but we'll worry about it then and then we'll figure out how to pay for it then it just doesn't make any sense to me um any other business would defund depreciation and government doesn't it doesn't make any sense to me it still doesn't that's why i think capital improvement plan would works the best for all departments and we make educated decisions like you said get on a rotation it's it's critical otherwise i'm telling you two years ago i don't know what we would have done because we didn't have this cares that money if you said we needed five 500 000 i would have been terrified of knowing i mean we we would have tried to figure out what we're going to cut that's scary but right now we're just like hey we have eight million dollars we're going to spend it on something and and we have this problem saying yeah we got this problem that's i have a problem with that and so i feel like that we luckily have that good problem to have but but i just i look forward to seeing the capital improvement plan from all the departments yeah thank you anything else you want to add i appreciate it y'all thank you ladies and gentlemen all right do i hear emotional so let me just be clear before you make the motion that's important if you're since you're gonna assuming that you might make a motion to amend that you outline the exigent circumstance associated with amending the ordinance since this will be a final vote uh do i hear a motion i'll make a motion to approve ordinance number 21-015 also amending ordinance number 20-027 for the city of greeno budgets for 2021 and also approving an amendment to include five hundred and forty six thousand seven hundred and sixty one dollars to purchase a 2021 pierce engine based on the outlined exigent circumstances is that sufficient all right thank you motion by mr miller second second by mr abels any further discussion regarding this proposed ordinance all right all in favor of ordinance number 21.015 which is amends the ordinance number 20.027 the city of greenwood budgets for 2021 and request approval for the amendment to include 546 7761 to purchase a 2021 pierce engine based on the outlined exigent circumstances opposed thank you that vote carries by a vote of six to zero thank you i'm gonna ride in that one in the christmas parade sorry i think i was going the wrong way under new business item number one is consider evaluation of the emergency ordinance number 21-0-1-1 requiring individuals aware face coverings and the municipal limits and matters related there too i really don't have anything to add here i feel like council is pretty well versed in what you can and cannot do this is an opportunity to discuss what you want to do as a council moving forward this is not an action item it's a discussion item if council wanted to take some additional action you would need to call a special meeting okay the existing ordinance does expire on may the 10th i think we ought to let it expire any other discussion regarding the mask well i mean it makes sense to let it expire and then have common sense and do the same thing that the county is doing because numbers are going down i mean the recommendation would be to be sensible use a mask where appropriate and not mandate it again and let it expire on the 10th i feel like that everyone's had the opportunity to become vaccinated now everyone has i believe we're past the emergency stage i think that covet is still an awful problem in the entire world right now but everyone's had the opportunity or or can take the opportunity now to to protect themselves i think when we originally created the emergency ordinance and we voted on those things those were difficult but i think now we are past the point where if you want to be protected and you want to protect others then you have to take on a personal responsibility to become vaccinated and i hope that we can have a proclamation very soon of of of encouraging people to become vaccinated through we have an additional one with with maybe a very um um of of i yeah we do have that proclamation but i'm talking about maybe even a proclamation of for a week of a very concerted effort for us to be able to help people become vaccinated we're in my professional career we're working on on a plan right now with south regional united way and um and others to be able to work on a grassroots effort to be able to go out into the community to help people get signed up so i feel like we have i will not be voting for any other additional ordinances related to mask wearing yeah and uh i think and i've talked with dr logan and and the folks at the hospital about about a public service announcement i'm i'm doing one this week and i know some other leaders are to like you said encourage people from a grassroots level but just to reiterate what what you mentioned mr bass is i think especially i think it's especially important to note that for for several months now all folks that we know that are in vulnerable categories whether that's by virtue of age or underlying medical condition have had the opportunity to get the vaccine and and that also means i know we've had a lot of agency partners that have reached out to people that may live off the grid i say that literally and figuratively that may not have social media to to know or may not see the advertisements i mean it's reaching it's reaching all the people that need to be reached and i feel like that um that there's been a good job of that and so i do feel like it's it's appropriate to not to renew the mass coordinates well by removing the mass coordinates i don't think we as a council are saying don't wear a mask if you feel that you are still vulnerable you haven't been vaccinated you can't be vaccinated if you feel in your in your heart that you need to continue to wear a mask you know do so with common sense i mean analyze what your situation is and do what's appropriate i don't think we as counselors should come out and say hey don't wear a mask anymore i mean it's just that we're not gonna i feel that we have taken the emergency long enough to basically see that the numbers have gone down so in essence i'm not saying don't wear it but i'm not telling you not to wear it i mean make your own common sense decision based on your health and how you want others to perceive you and the welfare of others around you yeah i'm not telling everybody to throw your mask away monday but i'm just saying that it shouldn't been i didn't vote for the mandate from the very start but anyway we have been doing it and like say i think the threat has done pretty well past now anybody that can get the vaccine i mean it's open to them yeah and i agree nobody's nobody's telling people absolutely don't wear a mask but at the same time i do think i do think we need to take some leadership that can encourage people to get back to large scale events that i think we've been missing and just that it's part of our humanness we we need and so i look forward to um to the summer festivals and um and uh of course we we uh we're grateful to our our medical staff for all that they've done i don't mean to say this to be an obituary for covet 19 but we're uh because i know there are there will continue to be uh people who are afflicted by it but um but i think we are generally out of the woods in terms of any other con as with any other condition that we face so um and and we certainly remember those who've who've suffered from coronavirus and and ultimately paid the ultimate price for it so any further discussion regarding the mass coordinates all right you gonna say something what do we have next under new business item number two is to consider executive session to receive legal advice related to the proposed purchase of various properties on washington avenue park alley park avenue and owen street i'll make a motion that we consider that we go into executive session to receive legal advice related to the proposed purchase of various properties on washington avenue park alley park avenue and owen street do we expect any action afterwards no sir okay second all right we've got a motion by mr pass second by mr miller any further discussion regarding going into executive this executive session all in favor of going into executive session to receive legal advice related to the proposed purchase of various properties on washington avenue park alley park avenue and owen street without any action expected afterwards [Music] all opposed not available you