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| The following summary minutes have not been approved by Simpsonville City Council. An official copy of the minutes will be available after adopted by City Council at City Hall 118 NE Main St. Simpsonville. Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, notice of this meeting date, time, place and Agenda was posted on the bulletin board at City Hall and faxed to the newspapers, radio stations, television stations and any concerned citizens. |
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SIMPSONVILLE CITY COUNCIL MINUTES SPECIAL VOTING SESSION August 28, 2007 6:30 P.M.
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor: Call the August Workshop Meeting of Simpsonville City Council to order. Ms. Bodkins would you call the roll please.
ROLL CALL: Ms. Bodkins: Yes sir: Councilmember Bridges: Here Councilmember Garrett: Here Councilmember Lawrence: Here Councilmember Bagwell: Here Councilmember Zitricki: Absent Councilmember Larson: Here Mayor Waldrop: Here
Mayor: I’d like to say Councilmember Zitricki’s wife is having some surgery today and that’s why he’s not here tonight. We’ll try to go on without him. Now that we’ve determined that everyone is here Ms. Bodkins, thank you. We have a need to have a public hearing to amend our 2007-2008 Budget in order to issue some GO Bonds which will allow us to reduce some tax levy amongst other things. So, I will let our – I think before I declare the Public Hearing Open perhaps I should ask Mr. Hawes to give us some details on that so that everybody will kind of know what we’re doing here and then we’ll invite public comment.
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir, the Public Hearing is for the sole purpose of the GO Bond issuance that is before City Council for second reading this evening as well as setting the re-assessment millage rate, the millage levy rate at 49.9 mills from the current 50.7.
Mayor: Thank you so much. So I will now declare a Public Hearing Open. Does anyone have anything they’d like to say about this $1,000,050
Mr. Hawes: One Million Fifty Thousand Dollars.
Mayor: Well this is the wrong number because I was wondering who would get the $50. All right, would anyone like to speak to this matter regardless. Anyone up hear like to speak. All right, since nobody wants to talk about it I’ll hereby declare the Public Hearing Closed.
Now this meeting is still a little different for those of you sitting around watching us. We have a need for an Executive Session before we begin the actual business part of the meeting. I expect it to be rather brief, as a matter of fact I will insist that it be rather brief and we will go into recess to go into Executive Session and we will be back shortly.
Mayor: Came out of Executive Session and 6:49 ½ and no action was taken. We are now back in regular session. All right, next item on the Agenda is the Invocation.
INVOCATION Mayor: Is there anyone here who would like to ask blessings on this meeting in their own personal way. All right, hearing from no one, Mr. Bridges would you ask blessings on this meeting in your own personal way.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
CITIZEN COMMENTS Mayor: All right, first item on our Agenda is Citizen Comments. And we have two methods with which you can speak to us. You can call ahead and ask to be placed on the Agenda and we’ll give you four minutes to speak with us and we do have someone on the Agenda tonight. And those who signed up at the door we’ll give you 2 minutes to say whatever you’d like to say to us. And I’m kind of confused because usually our business meetings we don’t respond to comments but workshop meetings we will. This is kind of one of those we could go either way – so first we’ll have those on the Agenda. Ennis Whiddon would you approach the podium please and give us your address for the record and you may begin.
• Ennis Whiddon – 109 Terrace Lane , Simpsonville , SC And since we’re kind of short on time I’m not going to be talking tonight since I always talk way too much. I brought a contingency with me here to talk about a plan for your donating some property to Habitat for Humanity for building habitat houses. So we have people here to field questions after Gordon makes our presentation. If you have questions we have people that can answer just about any question you can anticipate. With that I’d like to introduce Mr. Gordon White a fellow member of Holy Cross, and he’s been with me from the beginning of this to develop these ideas about how this could be developed. I’m going to ask him to give you a presentation that’s essentially has a lot to do with the letter that we gave you as to where we’re going with all of this.
Mr. White: Don’t take all my time Ennis
Mr. Whiddon: Thank you.
Mayor: Well I’ll be pretty generous with the time actually. We probably should have put you on down in the body of the Agenda so I’ll be generous.
Mr. White: Thank you, thank you. We’ve got an illustration that will kind of give you an idea of what we’re contemplating as well. We’ve been involved – the coalition that is coming to you today to discuss this is a coalition of 10 churches in the Golden Strip Area. We’ve been building habitat houses for 11 years in our area. We’ve only built 10 houses in 11 years, because on year we couldn’t find a piece of property to put a house on and therein lies the challenge that Habitat continues to have and the coalition continues to have every single year. It’s fighting, fighting, fighting, to be able to find places to put our houses. So, Ennis discovered that the City had this piece of property and it was the genesis of an idea that we thought is there a way that we can construct a plan that would allow the City to essentially recoup tax base on a piece of property right now that you don’t have any tax base on and at the same time improve our neighborhoods and provide opportunities for folks for housing with habitat. So that’s generally what we’ve got in mind. There’s a 10 acre, or excuse me a 12 acre tract of land right down the street from Ms. Lawrence’s house and it’s currently a vacant piece of property. The property we believe can be developed into 9 lots which can be used for Habitat for Humanity. We’ve discussed with Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County and they are willing to contract to agree to take each of these lots and purchase these lots after we have taken responsibility for developing them and putting the infrastructure in place. So what we are currently doing is we are developing a plan whereby if the City of Simpsonville is able to do so you could donate that property to a 501(c)(3) Holy Cross Church, which in turn would take control of it and work together with the coalition so that we could put the infrastructure into this property. We contemplate that it will take about $150,000 worth of our money put into the site to make these lots available. And up to what standards would be for the area. We brought a picture so you can see what we have in mind with the site. We actually are contemplating 9 lots. And the houses that would go on those lots – Art, Wood, Holcombe and Slate has done some plans for us and what we’re trying to stay focused on is that’s an historic part of Simpsonville, the area around the mill there. There’s a very consistent type of architecture in there and what we would like to do is try to bring in good construction habitat homes that stay consistent with the community that’s already there. It would be new construction but it would look architecturally like the construction that’s already there. So it would be the best of both worlds in that it would be new property that would have good value for the community and would be good neighbors for everyone. But at the same time it’s not like we’re trying to put something in there that wouldn’t be flowing with the rest of the design for the neighborhood. The plan at this point is to work with contractors and other folks and get as much donated services as we can as we work toward the improvement of the property and we expect that over a 5-7 year period we would be able to absorb those 9 lots in our current build schedule. We started out building one a year, we believe we’re going to move towards 2 a year. Obviously, that takes more of a financial commitment from our Churches so I don’t want to sit here and tell you that we’re going to do 2 a year and we’ll be all done with it in 4-5 years, but we do believe that as we have the property available we will have the capacity in terms of people and financial support to be able to build those things out in somewhere like 5-7 year time frame. That’s basically the 40,000 foot view of what we’ve contemplated and what we suggest. We don’t really know what the proper next step is. We wanted to put this idea to you for discussion so that you could ask questions of us so that you could guide us to explore the idea in an appropriate manner so that it would make sense for the City and so that you would have a comfort level in moving forward with it. So, I guess if you are able to respond to us we would like to throw it back to you and ask what kinds of questions you would have and what we could do to better develop this idea so it makes sense. And we have much more detail that we can share as well.
Mayor: All right, well I’m going to take some liberties because I believe you all thought this was a workshop meeting so is there anyone up here that has any questions or comments for these folks. Ms. Lawrence.
Ms. Lawrence: Well, I mean I talked with Ennis and Gordon both and you know I think it’s a good project. I think it’s going to be a lot better than the previous project we talked about for down there. They are going to make it just like the 300 block of Beattie Street and the houses are going to look just like mill houses, so I think it’s a great project,
Mr. White: We estimate the tax base the City would pick up would be somewhere between $800 - $900,000 as well, so that’s certainly better than the City owning the property right now with zero tax base so – certainly there’s an economic interest to the City if we could make this happen. There’s a beneficial interest to the community but there’s also an economic and almost selfish interest as well. It works both ways.
Mayor: Over what length of time do you calculate that length of time.
Mr. White: Well that length of time actually is as we construct those homes obviously. There really isn’t a tax base until you’ve gotten homes on that. The vacant lots themselves won’t have that much significant value. To be honest we would love to start building 2 a year as quickly as we can, but we haven’t gotten Habitat to commit to us how quickly they’re going to be able to support taking those houses. As we said this is in the planning stages at this point. We’ve done a lot and we’re continuing to do a lot so that we can feel like we’ve done our due diligence to bring details to you so that we’re not just flying off with things. We’ve done a lot of studies and engineering work and those kinds of things. Obviously you can see the architectural work and we’re continuing to develop the idea but we don’t have the specific details, primarily because we want to be flexible to whatever the council says we need to do.
Mayor: So we’re talking about taxable value not tax revenue
Mr. White: Not tax revenue no.
Mayor: I was imagining ways we could use that. Anyone else. Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: What size homes are going to be built on there.
Mr. White: This is a typical habitat home which is right around 1,000 square feet. They are going to be 2-3 bedroom homes. Some of them – actually it’s not the number of bedrooms that drives the size as much it is as whether or not it’s a handicap accessible home – where the doorways and things have to be wider. But generally, there will be about 1,000 square feet.
Mr. Larson: Does Habitat – do they do follow-up with the owners say like 2-3 years down the road when they need to learn how to do certain things on the homes – learn the routines like when to clean the gutters out and things like that.
Mr. White: I think we might have some other folks who can answer that better than me.
Mr. Linkous: My name is Jerry Linkous and I’m a civil engineer and I’m the leader for the Golden Strip. Basically these
Mayor: Would you speak in the microphone because the young lady here who transcribes our minutes like to hear every word.
Mr. Linous: My name is Jerry Linkous and I’m a civil engineer – I’m the coalition leader for Golden Strip and basically with Habitat, the way they set these houses up they have a training program. Each homeowner has to go through 250 hours of training. And in this training they’re taught to do everything from if they don’t know how they’re taught to maintain a checkbook, bank account. They’re taught all the different things about owning and maintaining a home. And if they get into a position that they can’t maintain something like a gutter falls or something like that and they don’t know what to do – they always have access to habitat and habitat will send a crew out either to help them find somebody to fix that or help them fix it themselves. Or if not Habitat will fix it so that it maintains the integrity of the house.
Mayor: Anyone else.
Mr. White: Well we desperately need the lots I’ll tell you that. We have a lot of challenge trying to find access to that.
Mayor: All right, well thank you for coming and making your presentation and how quickly do you need an answer.
Mr. Whiddon: Maybe by your next meeting – maybe it could be on the Agenda
Mayor: That’s a great suggestion. Just suggest it to that guy right there and –
Mr. Whiddon: I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
Mayor: Thank you very much. God Bless you for all your good work.
Mr. Whiddon: Thank you all for having us.
Mayor: All right, now we have a couple of people that signed up tonight as they came in and we’ll allow you two minutes, but because I’ve been generous with them I’ll be generous with you also. First is Rob Absom. Rob if you’ll approach the podium, give your address for the record and you may begin.
• Rob Absom – 1022 Powderhorn Dr. Simpsonville. A development started a couple of years ago which backs into Simpsonville Heritage – right between us and Powderhorn and Heritage Park . And in that two years time frame we’ve endured them wiping out basically 150 acres of hardwood trees with heavy machinery and lumbering machinery and grading it down 15 feet, for whatever reason. And now obviously there’s home construction going on and it’s gotten to the point where they’re going from 7:00 at night until 10:00 sometimes later it seems, and it’s just gotten to the point where it’s unbearable between plywood falling on going down to put on flooring, nail guns, saws and it goes non-stop Monday through Sunday. So, we’re just coming to council to see if there’s an ordinance you can put into place to make it 7-7 Monday through Friday, preferably and obviously that’s negotiable but since it’s a workshop I guess I’d appreciate any feed-back. I know there’s a follow-up behind me but that’s pretty much that’s what’s happened there and it’s just gotten to the point where you know Sunday morning when you wake up you want to have a cup of coffee and read the Sunday paper and you’re hearing nail guns going it’s unreasonable I think and the builder we’ve talked to them. Sandy has. And they just – they don’t want to be reasonable about it. Obviously, they have an agenda and financial incentive to build their houses, but in the meantime you have hundreds of residents on the back-end of Powderhorn that are suffering for it and have done so for two years. Really they weren’t up front with us in the beginning and said they would meet with us and explain what they were going to do but then they didn’t show up for 3 meetings. So we’ve tried to work with them and they don’t want to work with us and it’s just gotten to the point where it’s unbearable.
Mayor: Well the good news for you is if you’ll look further on down the agenda we’ll be discussing that very issue in just a little while. Thank you for coming. Next is Sandy Finley – and if you’ll state your address for the record you may begin.
• Sandy Finley – 1101 Powderhorn Dr. Simpsonville I live in the Powderhorn which is a peninsula but it’s not surrounded by water – it’s surrounded by building construction. Our noise problem is different than most citizens – it’s not the occasional loud motorcycle, not the occasional loud car. It’s not the party on New Year’s Eve, it’s not the sound of occasional lawn mowers. We’re exposed to potentially perpetual noise. We believe from 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. 7 days a week 52 weeks a year. And we’d like some relief from that. It’s for that reason I kind of put together an outline of what I think would be relief. And what I’d like to do is pass that out to council and just briefly go over it,.
Mayor: If you’ll give that to the City Clerk she’ll pass that around and you can continue to talk.
Mr. Finley: Trying to keep this as simple as possible. I realize that our law enforcement needs clear definition – item number 1 – current noise ordinance shall remain as is – we don’t touch it; the new construction ordinance will apply only to work that requires a building permit; that’s how we would define what it applies to; construction would be permitted mainly between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm Monday through Friday; any interior work that does not require motorized equipment, as far as I’m concerned can take place 24 hours a day 7 days a week; item number 5 – in the event of inclement weather or a hurricane coming through where it’s going to rain for the next 3 weeks whoever is issued the building permit could apply for a variance. If we got bad weather coming in I need to get my house closed in can you help me. And I really think that would be fair to everybody involved. So I would like you guys to consider that and hopefully do something to give us some relief. Thank you very much.
Mayor: Thank you. All right those are all the folks that we have signed up tonight so that will conclude the Citizen Comment portion of our program.
COUNCIL COMMENTS Mayor: We’ll move on then to Council Comments. So council members who has something – Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: Okay – I was going to ask Mr. Hawes about the streetscape project and how it’s coming – I see a lot of cones and dust in front of City Hall.
Mr. Hawes: That is correct. As a matter of fact this would be the opportune time for me to do my quarterly update, which we were actually going to have it on the Agenda the last time and it didn’t get placed on there. I can give you a quick quarterly update on all the on-going projects right now if you’d like to hear it.
Mayor: Why don’t you do that and then circle back around and answer his question.
Mr. Hawes: Well it’s going to be included in the quarterly update. To answer your question right now. The streetscape project is progressing on schedule. We’re in the process of pulling the conduit or placing the conduits under the sidewalks. Removing the existing sidewalks, trenching and placing the conduit. When that is complete new sidewalks will be poured and it’s done in segments – you can see the little sections in front of City Hall is virtually complete. The conduit is underground there – you’ve got stub-outs where the decorative street lights will be coming through the brick work and it’s going to move on down Main Street and then up Main Street – beyond the Dickens property and down Main Street all the way to the Veteran’s Corner. So – we’re working with Duke Power on getting the utilities underground. The goal here is to get the utilities underground before November 30 th . And that will keep us on schedule for the next phase of the project which is the installation of the street lights. We did receive a grant from the County C-Funds Committee for $90,000 to install – upgrade the street lights as part of our enhancement project. We received that last week and we’re very thankful to them. That was the first grant – other than for resurfacing by the C-Funds Committee that the City of Simpsonville received since 2000. So we’re very thankful for that.
This was a – the project overall is an excellent project and you’re going to see the underground move along fairly quickly between now and November so – that’s where we are. It’s also going to be on the cross street on Curtis all the way from Hedge up to the Senior and Activity Center and the Mill project there. So that’s where we are on that project.
I also want to add we’re moving forward on our gateway corridor project which will extend a similar type treatment, minus the brick work and the undergrounding but with the decorative lighting and some other enhancements all the way from Fairview Road up Main Street and then up Main Street with a soldier pattern of decorative lights – tying into the streetscape project downtown, as well as from W. Georgia Road all the way up to down town – up College Street to down town. So it’s very exciting to have both of these projects moving forward simultaneously. As a matter of fact I’ve got a meeting with Randy Britton coming up in the next couple of days – who’s here right now. To finalize the purchase of the light fixtures – about 200 or so for this project. So that’s a quick update on the streetscape and gateway corridor projects.
Other projects underway and quick updates – Hunters Woods sewer project – the bids have been advertised – they’ve been set out on the SCIBO which is statewide business opportunities. We will be receiving those bids back in mid-September – actually September 20 th is when we’ll be receiving bids on that project. The SSES or Sewer System Evaluation Study infiltration analysis that has been underway by Frazier Engineering on priority basins 1 and 2 with regard to smoke testing and videoing is wrapping up and should be complete in the next two weeks. So we will move forward on that as well.
The Shout Fest organization, which presented to City Council at the last meeting is moving forward with their event. We had a meeting with them a couple of days ago. City Staff and organizers got together to cover planning and logistics for that large festival, which is a one day event. It will bring 15 Christian rock bands to the amphitheater at Heritage Park . We have finalized the facility rental agreement with them and we’re moving forward on all fronts on that.
The City’s Annual Financial Audit is wrapping up as well. It’s progressing on schedule with the presentation before City Council set for September 25 th . So if you’ve dropped by City Hall in the last couple of weeks you’ve seen the auditors in the front office. That’s part of the project that’s part of the over-all work that they do is to be here on-site to pull files and so forth and work with our Finance staff. And we are progressing very well with that.
Also the speed hump installation on Westwood Drive . We have ordered the speed humps and they arrived last week and they are to be installed this week on Westwood Drive . There will be a total of 4 speed humps placed at an integral 600 feet apart – 200 feet from the intersection. And it should take just a few days to install them as they are the portable type of speed hump.
And that’s a quick run down of what we’re on right now. I’ll be glad to answer any questions.
Mayor: All right, Mr. Larson I’ll give you first shot.
Mr. Larson: I think it’s a good report. I appreciate what you all do and I’d just like to thank all the Department Heads and ask them to thank their employees. I know the Police Officers, Firemen, Joe’s Public Works guys down there working in this 100 degrees plus heat and I just don’t see how they do it and I’d like you guys to tell them thanks.
Mayor: Okay thank you. Mr. Bridges
Mr. Bridges: Mr. Hawes you told me the other day about the grant. How much did you say – there was money in there for working on the traffic lights
Mr. Hawes: That is traffic signals – that is exactly right. That’s what it’s for – it’s for replacement of the existing traffic signals at Hedge Street and at College. The original enhancement project the signal was at Curtis and Main were going to be replaced. But, this actually will replace the traffic signals at Hedge Street and Curtis and College and Main and allow them to be synchronized where as currently they are not. Currently they are hard wired. All the signals turn at the same time and I’m sure you’ve all recognized that. And it will also allow emergency transportation to pre-empt – radio control pre-emption.
Mayor: Next is Ms. Bagwell
Ms. Bagwell: Mr. Hawes I know that you updated us by e-mail but for the record can you tell us about what’s going on with the Grandview Drive , right there in front of Ruby Tuesday.
Mr. Hawes: Certainly, certainly. What you all requested at the last meeting – I did update you all by e-mail and basically we have spoken with SCDOT with their engineers about a plan to add a right turn lane at the intersection of Grandview and Fairview. The portion on Grandview where basically it’s just the single line that’s used for both right turns and straight forward traffic movement. DOT has indicated that that type of change that’s being requested will require a restubbing of the signal activation loops. It certainly can be done and they’re going to be getting back with us on exactly when in time and DOT will take that project on.
Ms. Bagwell: One other thing – at that same intersection coming off of the exit ramp going to Fairview Road they’ve marked off a lane there with just white stripes and I don’t know if there have been any accidents but if there haven’t I’m sure there’s been quite a few near misses. For people coming off of the exit ramp and just getting in the turn lane to turn right down onto Grandview . Can we look at either maybe putting a concrete median or something – I know we can’t do it but can we ask DOT to look at it. I’m just afraid someone is going to get hurt with people going into that area. If that’s not going to be a turn lane it needs some kind of median.
Mr. Hawes: I believe their transportation engineers reviewed that situation when it was designed and what happened was it was actually a turn lane added for right turns – when it was designed it was actually a single right turn and dual left turns coming up that ramp and it backed up all the way down to the interstate and they added, as I understand they added the right turn lane and they ended up with some extra pavement and that created what you’re describing right now. We can certainly discuss with them – I expect that they’re going to say however that they feel that the treatment that they gave it is the best treatment for the situation. But I will be glad to talk with them.
Ms. Bagwell: I would appreciate it. I know simply because I’ve come down Fairview Road and I’ve stopped right there. I obey the law – I don’t get into that hatched off lane but there are a lot of people who are going around me and they’re doing that so if they would address that or if we want to have our Police Department sit there and write tickets for that.
Mr. Hawes: Well we will write tickets for that situation no doubt. I’ll be glad to address it with SCDOT and see if they would be willing to extend the actual curbing and remove pavement – we can do that.
Mayor: And additionally and I talked with an engineer about this early and I haven’t followed the call up and you haven’t – but folks who are coming east on Fairview but turning left and crossing over the median for the north bound ramp on 385 and there’s clear evidence there that people are doing that because you can see the black tire marks where people are going over it. I’m not aware Chief of any accidents that have taken place as a result of that but it’s really a dangerous maneuver and while we’re looking at all of this I’d like to be sure to include that in there and perhaps some baubles there or something to keep people from coming across there.
Mr. Hawes: Well the City actually added that median to prevent that type of activity that you’re talking about and people are still trying to – SUV’s – that’s the thing – we can certainly see if they’ll put up a guard rail or plastic type things that bend over or
Mayor: I think the bollards would be more pleasing to the eye I should say.
Mr. Hawes: I don’t know that we’d have to go to DOT on that because that’s a City median.
Mayor: But it’s a state road. Well whatever it takes. One other question I have going back to our streetscape project and our relationship with Duke on this project. Are we following schedule close enough so that Duke is going to be mobilized and ready to go if we move our equipment out of the way they’re going to come right in or are we going to have a 2-3 week delay. Can we have some assurances that we’re working with Duke and comparing schedules and that’s going to happen so this project continues and doesn’t have a stop.
Mr. Hawes: That’s one of the reasons we’re meeting with Duke in the next few days to make sure that we are coordinated on every aspect of this project and that is our full intent to have no delays whatsoever with regards to the completion of the underground conduit and the pulling of the wire through.
Mayor: Then I don’t have to attend that meeting because I just said what I wanted to say. Thank you for that. I just want to make sure we don’t continue to have delays. All right anyone else. All right hearing none, thank you for your report and council members for your comments. We’ll move on to some Old Business now.
OLD BUSINESS • Council Discretionary Fund Policy Mayor: First up is the Council Discretionary Fund Policy. Mr. Hawes
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir, Mayor and Council you requested that I provide some options in regard to treat possible changes to existing policy on discretionary funds for Council Members. What you have before you are 4 options that basically based on some of what we discussed at that meeting and some analysis by yours truly in trying to find a good way to treat this situation. As you can see option 1 basically leaves the policy as is except to add the statement “Funds are to be used for a general public purpose, specific allocations to be interpreted through and approved by City Administrator, with appeals to the full City Council.” Option 2 would be split the discretionary funds by purpose per council member. This was suggested by a council member and the suggestion was for the allocation of $2,000 for travel and $1,000 for other purposes. Option 3 basically would create a bank of discretionary funds in the budget rather than having individual council allocated $3,000 per as is currently – from which the individual council members may then draw with the majority of council approve on a per request basis. And Option 4 is to leave the policy as is. Certainly council may come up with numerous others but those were the ones that I felt were valid and appropriate in light of the discussions we’ve had.
Mayor: Who wants to go first. Well I guess since it’s a business meeting I need a motion in this regard before we discuss it. Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: I make a motion that we go with option 1.
Mr. Larson: Second
Mayor: I have a motion and a second to leave policy as is except to add “Funds to be used for a general public purpose, specific allocations to be interpreted through and approved by City Administrator, with appeals to full City Council.” All right I have a motion and a second. Discussion. Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Well I just think that’s fair. I mean it gives us $3,000 to do with however we deem appropriate whether we want to do community projects or public purpose projects and it gives the approval to the City Administrator thereby allowing him to do his job which we talked about last time – it would have to be approved by him – I guess if we didn’t agree with you and you said we didn’t agree well then we could appeal to full council – but I don’t see that would probably ever be necessary – so I just think that’s number 1.
Mayor: Okay – well I’ll just say two things – one you referred to it as our money
Ms. Lawrence: Well it’s City money but –
Mayor: But it still puts the onus as I see it on the City Administrator and one of the comments that I made before was it kind of puts employees in awkward positions – if this City Administrator feels he’s comfortable with that responsibility and can handle it in such a way I won’t fight that – not because –
Mr. Hawes: I don’t have a real problem with the onus here because I can determine a general public purpose generally as such and if I feel that it isn’t I wouldn’t feel that I was being pressured necessarily because there is an appeals process before the rest of City Council
Mayor: Okay who initiates the appeal – you
Mr. Hawes: No I would expect by rendering a decision that I wouldn’t approve that – I would expect the person asking would do that – that would be totally up to them – if they wanted to carry on with that.
Mayor: Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Well I mean – if I wanted money to do something I would come to you first to see whether you would approve it before I did it I mean – but that would be first
Mr. Hawes: That’s explicit – it says with allocations to be approved by City Administrator so therefore it would have to come to me before it was submitted to Finance or anything along those lines
Ms. Lawrence: Well before it was even done I would think
Mr. Hawes: Oh yes. Correct.
Mayor: Mr. Hawes tell us what you think would be appropriate use of this money since you’re going to be the Judge and Jury in this thing.
Mr. Hawes: Well for general public purpose – define the general public purpose – purposes that can be shown to have a benefit to citizens city-wide, a benefit to citizens because of a hardship that is a public hardship, not necessarily an individual private hardship. It would be an interpretative thing no doubt.
Mayor: Mr. Holmes how’s that lawsuit with Greenville County coming.
Mr. Holmes: I haven’t been following it. I probably should but I haven’t.
Mr. Hawes: If I could ask Mr. Holmes to render an opinion on what we’re talking about I’d be interested.
Mayor: I’ll ask him. Mr. Holmes could you render an opinion on the topic at hand here.
Mr. Holmes: Well my problem with it is vague when it says general public purpose. And in my own policy issue is to never put any city employee whether the employee accepts it readily or not to say no to the very body that appoints that person – you can obviously have problems because whether it’s intended or not there’s always going to be the pressure that I need to approve this because it’s someone I directly report to asking me. I think council would probably be better to make those decisions so the employees are carrying out the decision and not getting potentially into an adversarial position with the people to whom they report. That’s a policy issue I have.
Mayor: Mr. Garrett
Mr. Garrett: Well as I said last time and I’ll say it again – I think if you don’t have a discretionary fund and if you have receipts you turn them in and if they’re approved or not approved they get paid or don’t.
Mayor: Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Well I was just going to ask Mr. Garret so it would be like if you went somewhere you would pay up front and when you came back you turned in expenses. Yeah that’s corporate America
Mr. Garrett: I’ve always had to do it and I’ve never had a problem with it. Everybody knows what’s going to be approved and what’s not going to be approved. I’ve never had a problem with it.
Mr. Holmes: Can I say something about that Mr. Mayor. In the past while that is a good policy it assumes that depending on the activity that you’re engaged in that council member would have the financial ability to advance the money and that’s the only difficulty – there has been times for example when you would go to the SC Municipal Association meeting which I personally believe is a worthwhile endeavor – in most cases for a council member to have to put out for the hotel and those expenses and come and ask for the City for reimbursement – that may be an issue. And I think that in those cases where council approves the activity in advance – my only concern that it be understood that those expenses were and then the city could approve them.
Mr. Garrett: Well I wouldn’t have a problem doing – the City you know usually we get a block of rooms or whatever and have travel advance and then you bring back what you don’t spend or turn in receipts – I don’t have a problem with that personally.
Mayor: Well let me take us back to the original thing here. When you were here you remember – Mr. Bridges may have been here so old foggies will remember that this was all about specifically travel – and we passed this ordinance that related to traveling and then because of the general terminology it became something else so we were talking about travel here and that’s what we’re supposed to be talking about I don’t see why we can’t just have this policy that says it shall be the policy of the City of Simpsonville that the city encourage and allow the members of council to attend the annual meeting of the Municipal Association and period. And that should take care of that. Now if you want to create a discretionary fund where we can go out and spend it to get re-elected then we probably ought to in my humble opinion re-word this to say something to that effect that there is a fund available for individual council members to make individual decisions about individual wishes that don’t affect the entire city but this particular sect of society. Would that not make more sense and be easier to legally – or more reasonable
Mr. Holmes: No I think you’re correct. Historically if there were certain members of council who wanted to travel to do one thing and other council members wanted to travel to do other things so a policy was developed in the budget that a certain amount of money would be available for travel and if you decide to do this there may not be city money for you to travel and do the other thing. If there is to be a true discretionary fund similar to what Greenville County has had where each council member can spend that money in whatever manner they see fit as long as it is used for a public purpose then I think that would be clear. And I also think it would be clearer to your employees that if a council member said I’ve determined that this is going to be spent this way for public purpose then they wouldn’t be in a position to say no. It would just be up to the individual council member to have to answer to his fellow council members and the electorates about these types of things.
Mayor: Ms. Bagwell
Ms. Bagwell: Mr. Holmes would a public purpose include something like if someone had a vacant piece of land and the grass was overgrown on it paying to cut that grass instead of finding the individual who owns that land and letting our people do it.
Mr. Holmes: That would all depend on the circumstances. If there was vermin in that stand of grass that was affecting the neighborhood then I could certainly justify that as a public reason – but if you’re talking about something who just didn’t mow it then that might be different.
Ms. Bagwell: But we have Public Works to do things like that. I mean they have the equipment to do it and we could still find the – and this is just one example – still find the owner of that property so we still have other ways to remedy it without seeking discretionary funds.
Mr. Holmes: Yes and the question I was answering could be done – the answer is depending on the circumstances you might be able to justify it. But that is always the problem anytime you say it is – that’s why the use of the word discretionary fits because it is discretionary to that council person – they will spend that money this way – the caveat that there’s a policy that it must be for the public benefit is appropriate and necessary to protect the expenditure of tax payer money. That is that you don’t for example – let me give you a different example – a friend of yours cannot make their house payment this month so you get that money – obviously that is not a general purpose that benefits the citizens, but as long as you can defend that this does have an appropriate public benefit then that council person would be privileged to that money and they would only have to answer to the other members of council and to their constituents that they used the money appropriately.
Mayor: Okay, Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: It seems like we’re talking about 2 different things – on one hand you’ve got travel and on the other hand it’s discretionary funds –
Mayor: I apologize but that’s what I was talking about – bifurcate and make it two separate issues, but we have a motion before us so we need to stick to the motion before us. The motion is on the floor and we have no more discussion. I’ll call for the vote – all those in favor signify by saying Aye (aye) opposed No (NO) All right the No’s have it so it did not pass.
Mr. Holmes: Mr. Mayor the Clerk has got to record the vote – was there a single no in there.
Mayor: Ms. Lawrence was the only yes and all the rest were no. All right
Ms. Lawrence: Don’t we have to come up with one.
Mayor: Well does somebody else have an idea they’d like to propose.
Mr. Larson: Can we ask our attorney
Mayor: I will not say my favorite comment
Mr. Holmes: Mr. Larson did that for you the last time when you were absent
Mayor: Oh so it was not me that did that – I read the notes and I thought that was me. Thank you.
Mr. Holmes: But if council would just give me some direction – you want to have a policy about travel expenses and another policy about discretionary funds.
Mr. Larson: After hearing some of what you said with Russ saying he was confident to do that I think it’s putting him in an unfair position to say no to – that’s not fair of us to put him in that position so I think you are more in the position to come up with something that’s legally safe.
Mayor: Ms. Bagwell
Ms. Bagwell: Do you suggest that we just put this into one bucket and call it travel funds – would that just alleviate all questions concerning general public purpose.
Mr. Holmes: Not necessarily I mean because understand that if I need to visit my son in another state that’s travel and that’s what I’m saying that we always have to say that even the travel expenses have to be a demonstrative
Ms. Bagwell: That’s understood – however, for the city – for city purposes
Mayor: I think before we ask Mr. Holmes to develop something for us that we need to give him some direction as to what we want. I think we need to decide clearly what we need to do and we need to say Mr. Holmes this is clearly what we want to do now we want you to put it into clear legal jargon so that it can be easily interpreted by the staff. I don’t believe we’re ready to do that tonight. I see questions on everybody’s faces and hearing their words so I would recommend that perhaps we talk about this again at a later date if that suits everybody. If it doesn’t give us an idea – throw an idea out there that we can run with. Okay everybody seems to agree with that so we’ll move onto the next
Mr. Hawes: You want to workshop this at the next workshop session.
Mayor: Yes let’s do that and in the meanwhile let’s all see if we can’t decide what we really want to do.
• Construction Noise Mayor: All right, next item on the Agenda is construction noise. Mr. Hawes’ you’re going to make some construction noise.
Mr. Hawes: Actually Mr. Holmes would probably be better suited since he was asked specifically by council to develop a policy or proposed ordinance.
Mr. Holmes: Mr. Mayor you should have in front of you what I call they current noise ordinance. You will see language based on your last discussion which I’ve struck out and there are insertions and you’ll see bars on the left-hand margin that will indicate where all of those occur and mind you this is not what I’m telling you you need to do based on your last discussion I tried to come up with something. The first one is the daytime hours were 7:00 am to 7:00 pm – that could be anything you want it to be. There was some discussion that it should be sunrise and sunset. And the reason for that simply that during the winter months you expect people to shut down earlier because it’s darker earlier but in the summer time some folks like to work longer and maybe that would be appropriate. Of course night time would be the opposite. So the ordinance is based on what people can do during day time and night time hours. But I’ve gone through all the details but probably the thing the public is interested in and you all are interested in you’ll find in Section 18-91 which is a new section. What it does is regulate construction activities and defines construction activity as any and all activity incidental to construction, erection, demolition, assembling, altering, installing or equipping of buildings, structures, roads or appurtenances thereto, including land clearing, grading, excavating and filling for which a permit is required to be obtained by the city. The purpose of that is if it’s activity that you don’t have to get a building permit for it wouldn’t be covered by this suggestion.
Construction equipment means construction activity utilizing any equipment or devices such as, pile drivers, power shovels, derricks, hoist tractors, loaders, rollers, concrete hauling motor vehicles, pavement breakers, bulldozers, and so forth and including pneumatic power equipment or other mechanical apparatus operated by fuel or electric power.
Noise sensitive area is defined as an area where a school, hospital, nursing home, church or a public library is located.
Residential area will mean any real property which contains a structure of building in which one or more persons reside, provided that it’s legally zoned. The hours would be regulated. No construction activity under this proposal for the use of construction equipment therefore shall be permitted within one thousand feet of any residential or noise-sensitive area from Friday at sunset through sunrise the following Monday. In other words it can’t occur on the weekends or during Federal or State Holidays. For the purpose of this section the distance of 1,000 feet is to be measured from the property line of the nearest residence or structure in a noise sensitive area in the direction of the prohibited construction and operation. In other words that’s more than 3 times the length of a football field. The exceptions to this would be it would not apply to emergency or public safety vehicles, vehicles owned or operated by the City or any utility company. For example if you have another ice storm and they had to come out with power saws to get trees down and power back on obviously you wouldn’t want to shut those down or any other vehicle used in an authorized public activity for which a permit has been granted by the appropriate agency of the city. Those activities in violation of this would create a public nuisance and subject to a penalty of $500 a day per offense.
And as I researched this recommendation I will tell you I found everything from leaving the current ordinance where it is – and to remind you what your current ordinance provides is that any activity given the time of day which duration from those types of things would disturb a person of ordinary sensibilities that would be an illegal act. Those people could call the police and ask to have them shut down. In addition your current ordinance provides that even if it’s lawful construction taking place based on complaints the City Administrator has the authority to issue a stop work order and say that won’t occur. That’s already your current law. One of the recommendations is to leave it alone.
You can go from there all the way to where I researched some ordinances that state that no construction activity can take place of any kind, not just in residential areas but no construction, even in commercial areas can take place during legal Holidays and some cities actually set up two different construction periods. That period from say December 1 st through April 30 th being one period and then May 1 through the following end of the next year being a different period.
What I recommend to you is somewhat in the middle of those extremes and is merely a suggestion based on what I heard you all discuss last time at your council meeting.
Mayor: Okay I’ll entertain a motion so we can discuss this.
Mr. Larson: I’ll make a motion that we accept the current noise ordinance as recommended by the City Attorney.
Ms. Lawrence: Second
Mayor: All right, Mr. Larson and Ms. Lawrence seconds. All right discussion. Mr. Larson why don’t you go first.
Mr. Larson: I was going to ask a question about the day and day time periods. During day light savings time sunrise could be as early as you know 6:00 and 6:30 and sunset is 8:00 – 8:15
Mr. Holmes: Sunset tonight is 8:04 p.m. We aren’t quite there yet.
Mr. Larson: Even those days sunrise to sunset – that’s not going to take care of the problem that we were hearing about earlier.
Mr. Holmes: That’s Monday through Friday only. And one of the reasons you may want to think about that is roofers have a difficult time putting a roof on when it’s 104 degrees so they would typically want to show up as early as they can show up and knock off maybe during the middle hours of the day and come back late to finish. I mean you just have to understand how this might impact construction as a whole. And I don’t think – this is me personally but if it’s Monday through Friday during a normal work week, even though that might still be early people might understand it because it wouldn’t happen on the weekends. But what I’m hearing the complaints are is that on Sunday morning when I want to drink my coffee and read my newspaper at 7:00 they’re putting shingles on the roof next door they’re not complaining about Monday through Friday.
Mayor: Why did you decide to select a 2-day weekend instead of – a lot of folks work on Saturday
Mr. Holmes: Because daytime is the time in the ordinance. If you accept this recommendation from sunrise to sunset so the activity couldn’t occur after sunset on Friday evening.
Mayor: Well a lot of people work Saturdays
Mr. Holmes: Because I was hearing (TAPE SWITCHED SIDES)
Ms. Bagwell: In the evenings when they get off work until the sun goes down they could work on it – but they wouldn’t be allowed to work on it on the weekends at all. Saturday or Sunday if we accept it as it’s written.
Mr. Holmes: Under this that’s correct.
Ms. Bagwell: And I don’t know about most people but I would take issue with that. I think a lot of people work until 5:00 – if you want to shut it down at 9:00 fine – I don’t have a problem with that – I think 10:00 is late but 6:00 is early. So you know it depends on what your sleeping hours are. There are people who sleep during the day and don’t want to hear construction noise Monday – Friday while they’re trying to sleep either so I think we’re walking a very fine line here. I personally I know that construction noise is a nuisance at times but I also know that it is temporary.
Mayor: Okay anyone else. Mr. Bridges
Mr. Bridges: You did say that the Administrator has the authority now to shut it down if it’s making too much noise right?
Mr. Holmes: Yeah, under your current – section 18-88 which is in what you have the City – it says City Manager or his designee may issue administrative stop orders to prohibit temporarily or reschedule the activities exempt under section 18-85 which is construction activity from the prohibition of this division, when the continuation of the activity imposes a great hardship or substantial and aggravating inconvenience. So he could say I am directing that this activity not occur during these hours.
Mayor: Another decision for him to make. Ms. Lawrence
Ms. Lawrence: Well now that would apply to habitat to who I imagine most of those people build on the weekends.
Mr. White: Your habitat builds are on Saturdays all day.
Mr. Holmes: Well just so all of you understood because I’m feeling the heat as I’m sitting here – remember during your last meeting I actually had this discussion. I understand this is an exceptionally difficult issue because I don’t frankly believe you can create normal commercial construction activity – I mean it’s construction activity or it’s not. Whether it’s done for the purpose of profit or non-profit or somebody’s personal use if it’s the noise you’re going after that is it’s the disturbance of your neighbors then all of those noises should be treated similarly which is exactly what the current ordinance was designed to do.
Mayor: I’m going to increase the heat on you because I’m going to ask the same question I asked way back when we crafted this little diddy. We have an ordinance a public nuisance ordinance in place. Why do we need a whole new ordinance to try to get specific and try to talk about all these little things that we’re talking about here. Is it 7:00 is it 10:00 is it 9:00 is it Saturday is it Sunday – I mean it seems to me we’re just further complicating the rules that our police force have to enforce and I seem to recall some input from the Police Department back then when I asked that question so I’d like to hear you respond Mr. Holmes, and possibly if you’d like to call on the Chief of Police who has joined us here tonight to tell me why we couldn’t just use the public nuisance ordinance – for instance if we’ve got somebody out making noise at 10:00 at night and a resident calls why can’t we just have the Police Department respond and if it’s determined that it’s truly a nuisance to the public use that ordinance to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish without another whole 8-9 pages of an ordinance.
Mr. Holmes: Well – I mean understand this is your existing ordinance with some changes to it – so you already have that – but the recommendation that Mr. Hawes and I made at the last meeting was it’s okay the way it is. We understand that people are complaining.
Mayor: But I’m going past that I’m saying why don’t we just do away with the whole thing and use the public nuisance ordinance to address these problems.
Mr. Holmes: Because it does provide your Police Department with some – I mean it describes the type of sounds – you have first amendment rights and it describes the type of sounds that are – and the reason that they’re prohibited is not because of what the sound is but it’s impact on someone else. And so I think this is necessary and we’ve actually used this ordinance and successfully prosecuted people who continue to violate it. So I believe it works.
Mayor: Okay – any other discussion. Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: I think didn’t some of the Powderhorn residents say they had called the police and the police came out and determined they really weren’t able to do anything.
Mr. Holmes: That was reported at the last meeting. The Chief is here you may want to ask him how that ought to be handled.
Mayor: Come on up Chief – you didn’t think you were going to – you thought you were going to get away but –
Chief: It doesn’t bother me at all. Welcome to our world. We go through this with almost every ordinance that’s on the books and you pick the subject. Mr. Holmes will tell you he and I had a discussion today about this. I don’t like the decibel levels. But the way it’s written if I go out there at 7:00 on Sunday morning and somebody wants to sleep I understand that might be a nuisance to me. But if one of my third shift guys goes out there and he’s been up all night and he says hey it’s 7:00 everybody else ought to be up – he don’t see it as a nuisance. So you tell – all we’re asking you – and I appreciate you doing this – you tell me what you want it to be – I like the 7:00 – I understand why Mr. Holmes did sunrise to sunset we talked about that today. But if you tell me you don’t want this action to occur between 7:00 in the morning and 10:00 at night tell me that’s what you want and that’s what we’ll enforce. But when you leave it up to what’s my interpretation or what’s Mr. Holmes interpretation and what’s the officer’s interpretation out there in the street you get three different answers. And that’s precisely the problems with – it ain’t just this law I promise you – it’s every one of them on the books. Like I said welcome to our world. Tell me what you want me to enforce.
Mayor: Okay, very well put – thank you. Stand by. All right any further discussion of the motion we have before us and what is that motion again Mr. Larson it’s been so long – maybe the Clerk can read it back to us or – okay Mr., Larson what was your motion.
Mr. Larson: I’d like to amend that motion to accept this but change sunrise to sunset to 7:00 am to 7:00 pm Monday through Saturday
Ms. Lawrence: Through Saturday
Mayor: Okay – do I hear a second
Ms. Lawrence: Yeah I’ll second through Saturday
Mayor: Okay Ms. Lawrence seconds. Now we have the discussion about the motion to amend. Anybody want to talk about that. Well I like the fact your adding Saturday I think that’s more reasonable. Even before I thought about habitat I just think it’s reasonable and you brought up the point that somebody wants to build a deck on their house I’m sure working folks are usually going to do it on Saturday
Ms. Bagwell: Or Sunday
Mayor: Or Sunday and that’s their choice. Of course we’re not going to leave it up to their choice are we if we do this. But at any rate. I like that amendment. And that’s all I’ll say and I just said that to sort of fill in time to give all the rest of you time to say something. So Ms. Bagwell you appear to be ready.
Ms. Bagwell: I am ready and again, I hate it for the people in Powderhorn, I truly do I know it’s a nuisance but again I think we are walking a fine line. There are people who worship on Saturday and Sunday is their only time to build their deck or their garage or whatever it may be and I think if you – I think we walk a fine line in restricting individual rights.
Mayor: Okay – anyone else. All right
Mr. Garrett: I’ll put my two cents in to. When we’re affecting the citizens like Ms. Bagwell said that they cannot work on their personal property when they’re off – I can’t support it. And I just don’t think that’s a place for us to go to tell an individual he can’t build a deck on his house on Sunday if he wants to work on Sunday
Mayor: Okay
Mr. Larson: I thought we had differentiated between
Mr. Garrett: If it requires a permit – and you’ve got to have a permit to build a deck or build a room – you can verify more what you’ve got to have a permit for – I don’t know all the details but I’m sure you have to have certain things.
Mr. Holmes: Well I’m not positive about that but I think if you were adding on a room obviously you’d have to do that – redoing the electrical, plumbing, those types of things you’d have to have an inspection. I don’t know that just building a deck you wouldn’t have to
Mr. Hawes: You do because it has to support people and you have to have an inspection of the supports.
Mayor: You can paint, you can paper, you can do any of that stuff. Okay. Well we have a motion to amend the motion and that’s what we’re talking about right now and that amendment is the things that you mentioned which was to add Saturday and change the hours in this proposed noise ordinance from 7:00 am until 7:00 pm am I correct
Mr. Larson: Correct
Mayor: All right so hearing no further discussion about the motion to amend I will call for the vote on the motion to amend the motion. All in favor signify by saying Aye (Aye) opposed No. (NO) So do I need to do that again. All in favor signify by saying Aye (AYE) all opposed No (NO) a roll call vote please.
Ms. Bodkins: Yes sir Councilmember Bridges: Aye Councilmember Garrett No Councilmember Lawrence No Councilmember Bagwell No Councilmember Zitricki Absent Councilmember Larson Yes Mayor Waldrop Yes
Mr. Holmes: A tie means the motion did not carry it has to have a majority to pass so the motion fails.
Mayor: So it has not been amended but we still have the motion before us which is to accept the current noise ordinance as presented by Mr. Holmes at tonight’s meeting and you have it in front of you. So we will resume discussion on that if we need further discussion. If not I’m going to quickly call for the vote. So if you have any thoughts throw it out there. Any thoughts. All right, I’ll call – well let’s do a roll call vote
Ms. Bodkins: Councilmember Bridges: No Councilmember Garrett: No Councilmember Lawrence: No Councilmember Bagwell: No Councilmember Zitricki:` Absent Councilmember Larson: Yes Mayor Waldrop No
5-1
Mayor: So we have gone through all this
Ms. Lawrence: For nothing
Mayor: All this fun and we’re right back where we were but thank you for your hard work Mr. Holmes and thank everyone for their consideration. Thank the folks that made the presentations tonight but we’re right back where we were so –
ORDINANCES – Second Reading • G.O. Bond Mayor: All right next on the agenda is ordinances up for second reading. Mr. Hawes you want to tell us about the G.O.Bond.
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir, Mayor and Council what you have before you is basically a restructure of some of the city’s debt to better comply with new laws set forth regarding operating millage and millage levies. The State of South Carolina Legislature created a law that impacts operating millages as we move forward year to year. One aspect of that is the millage levy to pay bonded indebtedness is now impacted by the limitations set forth by the State of South Carolina . SO therefore, municipalities and counties around the state and special purpose districts all are working to take their debt that is not bonded and to bond it. With what the City of Simpsonville has done here is basically rolled our current purchase of the Arts and Cultural Center, the former Simpsonville Elementary School and future planned lease for capital equipment into a single issue of a GO Bond, general obligation bond. This bond totals one million fifty thousand dollars. This would be for those purposes so what you have before you is second reading on that issuance.
Mayor: Okay, thank you Mr. Hawes. I will entertain a motion in that regard. Mr. Larson
Mr. Larson: I’ll make a motion that we accept the ordinance of the issuance of the GO Bond.
Mayor: Thank you Mr. Larson do I hear a second.
Ms. Bagwell Second
Mayor: Ms. Bagwell seconds, any discussion. Hearing none I’ll call for the vote, all in favor signify by saying Aye (AYE) Opposed No. Aye’s have it it’s unanimous.
• Reassessment Millage Levy Mayor: Mr. Hawes tell us about the reassessment millage levy
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir Mayor and Council state law requires that we set our millage in a re-assessment year and this is that year. Greenville County is planning a re-assessment this year that will go into effect. This is an ordinance to change our millage rate charge throughout the City to 49.9 mils from the current 50.7 mils. Now state law requires this the year of a real property assessment. Cities must set their millage including the roll back from the previous re-assessment taking into account the new 15% caps set state wide. The City of Simpsonville has done this. Our current mil rate is 50.7 mils. The ordinance up for first reading before you tonight sets the millage at 49.9 including these re-assessment roll back including adjustments for inflation and population changes as set forth in the new state law. And this is second reading of this ordinance to set the millage. |