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MINUTES PUBLIC HEARING AT COTTAGEVILLE TOWN HALL
MONDAY, JULY 7, 2008 6:00 P.M.
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Mayor White called the meeting to order, explained the sign-in sheet, led the Pledge of Allegiance and called the roll.

Members present were Mayor White, Council Member Cook, Council Member Eutsler, Council Member Thomas and Council Member Strickland.

The following takes place in open session. ATTESTATION

Page Line Change/Correction Reason

Minutes approved: ______________

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Terri Crosby, Town Clerk

MAYOR WHITE: At this time I’d like to introduce Michelle Knight from LCOG – Lowcountry Council of Governments – to go ahead and make our presentation on needs assessment for the Town of Cottageville.

MS. KNIGHT: Okay. I have the public hearing sign-in sheet being passed around, just so I can have a, a record of who all is here tonight.

Basically, each year we — I think we’ve done this for a couple of years now in Cottageville.

In order for the town to be eligible for CDB grant funding – Community Development Block Grant funding – the town would have to undergo a public participation process by way of doing a needs assessment public hearing and the idea behind the public hearing is that we solicit comments from the public about what citizens of the town feel like are the priorities for the coming year, what kinds of — kinds of things do you think the town needs to be focused on. Hopefully, out of that process you’ll be able to — the council will be able to prioritize some of those needs and come up with, you know, hopefully, two or three projects that potentially we can pursue for CDBG funding.

What I want to do tonight is, basically, to through what the CDBG program does, what types of monies are available, how much for what types of projects; talk a little bit about the Town of Cottageville and their demographics and then kind of open the floor to ask y’all to name some things that you think are important that the town needs to consider as far as types of projects that need to — need to occur in the next year.

Having said that, if there’re any questions while I’m going through it please feel free to stop me. This can be as formal or as informal as y’all, y’all want it to be.

I didn’t bring a Power Point presentation because I was afraid that it would be — it wouldn’t work in, in this room but I’m going to be speaking off of some slides and I’m gonna give the council all a copy of this so you can make some notes while we’re talking and we can kind of go from there.

Basically, The Community Block Grant Program is a state program that is funded with federal money from The Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Title I of The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974.

Each year The State of South Carolina gets an allocation based on a formula that determines how much money there is to be set aside in different subcategories for potential funding of grants. Cottageville would compete against other small communities like Cottageville. The larger metropolitan areas such as Spartanburg, Columbia, Charleston, Myrtle Beach, those areas actually get their money directly from HUD so you’re not competing against larger communities, you’re competing against smaller communities and rural counties, which is what this program is designed to address.

For 2008-2009 The State of South Carolina is getting approximately $23.5 million and there’re basically five community development set-asides and then one economic set-aside where the money is broken out.

In the community development set-aside there’s a total of $18 million and you have 7 million that will go toward community infrastructure, 7 million that will go toward community enrichment, 2 million towards village renaissance and then 1 million each toward the Paint-The-Town Program and the Workforce Housing Development Program. Both of those programs are pilot programs so it’s something new that the state has set up that’s a little bit different from what they’ve done in the past.

And then the Economic Development Program has 4 million set aside in it and then the last subcategory we have is regional planning. Basically, there’s $500,000.00 there. Each COG – Council of Governments – gets $50,000.00 a year to help do public hearings like this, help community project development because we don’t come in and actually charge any fees for what we’re doing here. If the Town of Cottageville decided to pursue a grant and if they got funded, then the grant would actually pay for our work and not the Town of Cottageville through their general fund, okay?

Basically, any CDBG project that we do has to meet a national objective. A national objective can be one of three things: We can benefit a majority of low-to-moderate-income people, we can address a slum or a blight issue within the town or we can address something that’s deemed an urgent health threat need. Typically, these types of projects are situations where you’ve had a natural disaster and money needs to immediately come in to a community to address it. For example, when Hurricane Katrina hit The State of Louisiana and The State of Mississippi, a lot of their Community Development Block Grant funds were diverted to address that disaster, okay?

Typically in South Carolina most of the projects are based on benefit of low-to-moderate-income people, I’d say probably 90 percent of them, and then total 10 percent are slum-blight type projects.

Just to know what low-to-moderate income is in Colleton County, four people living in a family, a low-to-moderate income family would be making less than $37,300.00 a year, Okay?

That figure will go up or down, depending on the number of people in a household and that number is based on census data that’s suggested annually by HUD to increase it a little bit for cost of living and that sort of thing.

Just to talk a little bit about fair housing, also, one of the requirements of any Community Development Block Grant project is that towns and counties basically do activities that promote fair housing in the fair housing law. As a matter of course, during our public hearings we always make it a point to mention this, just to let y’all know that the town wouldn’t discriminate in the sale or rental of housing or residential real estate transactions or the provision of brokerage services because that is — that is the, the federal law, that we not do that and we have to honor that participating in this program. If there’s anyone in the community that feels like they’ve had a fair-housing issue that they need to have need to have investigated, if they call Lowcountry Council of Governments and ask to speak to somebody in Community and Economic Development we can kind of take the information down and point them in the right direction to see if that, that needs to be further looked into by the state agencies.

Basically, in general, any community development project that we do has to produce an outcome that’s gonna improve the quality of life of LMI citizens in your community by addressing something that’s deemed a, a critical need or a priority need for the community and, basically, those four sub-set-asides that we talked about, community enrichment, community infrastructure, workforce development, paint-the-town and workforce housing are the community development type projects.

To give you some specific information or descriptions on each one, community infrastructure is primarily where we pursue water, sewer and drainage type projects, where we’re either providing new service in to a low-to-moderate-income community or we are upgrading existing service in to a low-to-moderate-income community. Basically, any type of project that we do under this particular set-aside we would have to address some sort of public health issue that’d documented. For example, with water and sewer, if DHEC has tested wells in the area and there’s contamination or septic tank issues in the area or if you already had a water or sewer system in place and you’re having issues with your annual survey from DHEC, maybe with fire pressure, the fire hydrants, for example, on the water side, or pump station issues on the sewer side, then we could get — potentially get funding to address those types of issues.

What you have to keep in mind is that this has to be an improvement; it cannot be something that would be deemed maintenance. From the drainage side, just that you’d have to document that you’ve had significant flooding in areas. Pictures state a thousand words or are worth a thousand words in those type of — types of instances and, basically, still, with the drainage you have to show that you’re making an improvement, that you’re not just maintaining. An application, for example, to do a drainage project where you’re just going in and cleaning out the ditches and cleaning out the culverts and all of that where you’re not up-sizing, because there is an issue there, will not be looked upon as something that’s fundable, okay?

MR. ACKERMAN: That’s something we’ve talked about for years, the bushes and trees and everything else growed over the ditches.

MS. KNIGHT: Well, if you were to pursue — If the town was to decide that that’s something that they wasted to pursue, whatever they give would have to be an upgrade; you couldn’t just clean what was there and leave it the same size.

The other thing is the town or the county, some entity would have to agree to maintain what was put there to be improved so if you actually got the money to clean up those ditches and redefine areas with grading and that sort of thing, then either the town or the county would have to agree to, to maintain that work so that a year from now we didn’t come back and see that everything was blown up again, so.

Community enrichment is basically designed to fund facilities, typically facilities that are going to promote community sustainable and smart growth principles and facilities that have the support of business and that address workforce development type issues or healthy community type issues or issues that would address obstacles to economic repetitiveness. To give y’all some examples, with workforce development, building or additions to buildings, to put, say computer rooms in to libraries that are — If you have a library or you’re trying to locate a library here and you need a, a computer room to go with it, to address something like that, to address what they call the Quick Jobs Program, this is the state workforce initiative so to ideally have a, maybe a satellite workforce development office in Cottageville where people wouldn’t necessarily have to go in to Walterboro or to another — maybe an office in Beaufort or something like that to, to get assessed for workforce job skills training that’s provided through workforce development program.

It could be, also, any type of training or education that would help support job skills, such as literacy issues or those types of things as well. You could look at — look at that, too, with this.

MR. MIMS: Could I ask you a stupid question?

MS. KNIGHT: Sure.

MR. MIMS: How about Christian-based use? Does that fall under that umbrella or is I’m way out of left field?

MS. KNIGHT: The youth center might. You wouldn’t necessarily — You can — You could talk about the faith-based angle of it but just solely because it was connected to the church, not necessarily, but if you’re trying to address at-risk youth with your program, the people that are gonna fall through the cracks if we don’t get to them and mentor to them in some way, there probably is a place in this for that, okay?

Healthy community examples through the program descriptions we talked — We talked before about health center facilities or equipment. You know, if, if the Town of Cottageville didn’t have a doctor, okay? Or a dentist or something like that and that was a need for, for the community, then those could be primary healthcare issues to try to, to address with this money, getting up, maybe having a building there or refurbishing a building and providing equipment to encourage a, a physician to come in and locate, okay?

Firefighting facilities, this is primarily if you’re trying to address an area that’s under served because of growth. I think the Town of Cottageville had a fire station here so if y’all told me that the town was growing at such a rate that that fire station could not keep up with the demand and service that was needed in the area, then there may be some opportunities under that standpoint to be able to, to address some issues there.

MR. ACKERMAN: We have a fire station here.

MS. KNIGHT: Right.

MR. ACKERMAN: We also have a well that we use, I went out and looked at. It’s north, north of town. It needs to be checked out to see what to do to put a pump on it where it can get water. Well can produce a hundred and fifty gallons a minute out of it and it just setting there. It’s already been cemented in so you don’t have to go through that.

MS. KNIGHT: Okay.

MS. ADDISON: May I ask a question?

MS. KNIGHT: Yes, ma’am.

MS. ADDISON: You keep saying this area. When you’re saying this area are you talking about the town limits of Cottageville itself or you talking about the outline —

MS. KNIGHT: It depends on what the project is. I mean let’s just say, you know, you were trying to locate a library here and you wanted to have a computer room. The question would be asked, you know, well, would that library be only for Town of Cottageville residents and if the answer’s no, then we’d have to define what area that library would serve.

Obviously, I don’t think it would serve a lot heading in the Walterboro direction but it may — I mean obviously the Town of Cottageville is not at the end of, of Colleton County. It may be that it’s a — you know, the town and a four-or-five-mile radius, or something like that. We’d have to — We’d have to look at the service area, which I’m gonna talk a little bit about that when I talk about the demographics of the town because a lot of these projects, if the town were 51 percent by low-to-moderate income by census data you could qualify them that way but since the town isn’t, a lot of your lower income people are outside of your town limits it may be that, really and truly, your service area is a little bit more than the Town of Cottageville. For any of these projects, could be.

Or then, again, you have to look at the other things. Not to jump too far ahead, the other thing you’d have to look at with a project like that are the types of, of people that are actually going to be using the service. With a library you can’t really say that that’s a, what we call a limited clientele activity because any citizen could walk in and use it because it’s a — it’s a public use.

However, if you had a workforce development office that you set up here, some of the programs that workforce development provide, such as having the ability to go into a computer room and do a job search, anybody could use it; you could use, I could walk in and use it. I don’t even live in Cottageville but I could walk in and use it, use the facility to do a job search.

However, any of the things that they call intensive services, where they actually take application, find out what your skills are, put you through a work keys program to see what you’re — do an assessment to see what you need, where you need to focus on as far as improving your job skills. Those are intensive services and they actually collect income information and typically those people are people who are being dislocated because they’re being laid off or they are people who are, maybe, falling through the cracks, youth who have dropped out of high school, those sorts of things, so those people would actually qualify.

Have I helped a little bit with that?

Okay.

The other examples of projects that you can use under the set-aside are things that are considered obstacles to economic competitiveness. Those will be Brownfield projects. Basically, a Brownfield project is anything, say you had a industry in town who was here for a number of years and, and moved away, basically, left the building sitting there. You know, if you had an adaptive reuse for that building, rather than going out and building something else on another site, that would be a type of project that you could look at here. Building use or conversion; downtown streetscaping, to some extent with that, provided you have significant money that you’ve already invested your downtown streetscape efforts, okay? You could look at that under the set-aside, too.

And then the final thing that you can use this money for is some planning if it has regional bent to it so you’d have to be looking at issues that, that kind of extend beyond the Town of Cottageville, whether it’s water or sewer or housing or drainage or any of those types of issues but it would have to be something that kind of extends farther out than the town limits of Cottageville.

The third set-aside that we have mentioned was village renaissance. Basically, the program describes this as a mixed use type project which would incorporate main street principles, revitalization principles where you’re doing work that goes out in to adjacent in-town neighborhoods.

The examples that the state has given us were neighborhood planning and design, neighborhood streetscape so if you already, for example, had your business quarter here streetscaped then you wanted to extend that look in to the residential neighborhoods that are adjacent to it to continue with that theme, you could do that under this program.

You could also look at building or housing facades connected to streetscape, if you were trying to streetscape in to an adjacent area that was mixed with some businesses and some residential.

Also, you could look at new housing, affordable housing or infrastructure to new, affordable housing but any of that, any of those housing activities would have to follow Habitat for Humanity’ model, basically, where you have a waiting list of people who are ready to sign on to be in those units and not just a, a speculative situation where you’ve done a market study and the market study shows that there’s a need for this affordable housing but we build it and it sits there and we actually have had cases where that’s, that’s happened before.

If you do a housing type project under the Village Renaissance Program all of the units have to benefit low-to-moderate-income people if it’s ownership. If you’re doing a rental unit, say you wanted to put a, a multi-family housing complex here to have rental units in the town, then at least 51 percent of the units would have to be low-to-moderate income. You could actually have some market rate units in that, that development.

The next set-aside I wanted to talk about was paint the town. Basically, this is the only thing that we can do that’s housing rehab. I don’t know how familiar any of y’all are with CDBG but a long time ago we could use this money for single-family housing rehab for owner-occupied units so if you had homeowners in the community who were low income, needed help addressing systems issues with their home you could actually get grant money to go in and bring the house up to code and address everything that the house touched. Now the state does not allow us to do that. The closest thing we have to it is this Paint the Town Program and what the state will allow is for us to spend up to $7500.00 per house to buy materials to address the exterior of the house so, obviously, mostly what that’s gonna do is paint it, maybe put a roof on it, buy the materials to get a roof put on if you have volunteer labor. We have to address at least ten units in that set-aside if you would do a project under that program.

Then the final community development program is workforce housing. Basically, this is designed to target key essential personnel in the community like firefighters, policemen, first-responder type people, teachers, nurses, basically to help them come into a community and live where they work, for, for lack of a better way of putting it.

A lot of — A lot of the rural areas struggle to find those types of employees or — and keep them in the area. They’ll come in entry level and stay for a little while and then move on somewhere else and the idea is that we assist with housing if there is other funding in it as well, other significant funding in it as well to encourage those people to say. It could be down-payment assistance if they promise to stay in the community for a set number of years, kind of like work-study does with education, if you will.

It could be — Could possibly be rental units, developing rental housing, geared toward those types of — that type of a group but the idea is, is to try to attract workers and keep them in the area that they’re, they’re working in so that they live where they work.

And then the economic development program, basically there’s not anything that’s really a whole lot different about this. You are basically using CDBG funds to provide public infrastructure to a business that comes in and locates in your area or either is here and is expanding in your area. They commit to jobs primarily that will benefit low-to-moderate-income people, types of jobs that you can do with a high school diploma and of years experience, not necessarily skilled jobs that require college degrees but they commit to creating a number of jobs and you provide that infrastructure through this grant funding and as long as they need those job commitments, then that money does not have to be repaid.

Yes, sir?

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: How many jobs are you talking about? Or is it —

MS. KNIGHT: Basically, basically, the maximum you can get is $10,000.00 per job.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Okay.

MS. KNIGHT: And the maximum grant that you can get under that program is 500,000 so, you know, just for argument sake, if you had a business that was locating in, and let’s just say that you have water and sewer. I know the town does, okay? But you have water and sewer but this particular site was not served with water and sewer. The company comes in and promises to invest X number of dollars and create, you know, X number of jobs and in return we pursue grant funding to help get the water and sewer to the building and, basically, we go out and we monitor to make sure they actually create those jobs and document that are for the project.

Just in terms of application requests and deadlines, the Community Infrastructure Project and the Paint the Town Project had a spring deadline. It’ll, have another one next spring. Mid March would be the request. The Community Enrichment Program and the Village Renaissance Program have a fall or late summer deadline, August 25. That’s the one that’s coming up close to us right now.

Workforce housing and economic development have no application deadline. If we have a project we submit one and they’ll accept applications until the money runs out.

MAYOR WHITE: Michelle, what were those two, again?

MS. KNIGHT: Economic development and workforce housing are the two that have no deadlines.

Typically you wouldn’t apply for economic development money unless you had a, a company already in here with a letter signed saying that they’re doing —

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: You had a company that wanted to expand that needed to add an addition or something.

MS. KNIGHT: To their building?

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Yeah. Is that something that is part of that?

MS. KNIGHT: The only way you can do a building under that program is to have a nonprofit or a not-for-profit development corporation, like the, the COG has the Lowcountry Regional Development Corporation. Under the umbrella of that corporation the town could apply for grant money and subrecepient it to us and we could build it and lease it.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: I got you.

MS. KNIGHT: Lease it to the company but we could not do a direct —

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Got you.

MS. KNIGHT: Direct benefit to the company for that.

There are some lower interest loan programs that are — that involve public money through Business Carolina. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them but they actually use some of this same type money to make economic development loans to companies and, basically, those loans have to be paid back so the fund just kind of revolves and, and regenerates.

The request deadline, like I said, are March and August for the community development money and then the actual application deadlines, the spring round, it was April 14 and the round that’s coming up is September 22, is when your applications have to go in, your full applications but you can only put in a full application if you make a request in August, okay?

The amounts of money that you can apply for, with community infrastructure you can apply for up to 5000,000. Community enrichment, which is one of the fall set-asides, if it’s a facility project where you’re doing bricks and mortar for a building, $500,000.00. If thing’s equipment, like, say, you needed improved technology or computers, not typically — Well, typically computers are about the only thing that they will do that could potentially get up and move from that facility to another facility but, you know, if it’s, it’s equipment or services or other types of activity, 300,000.

And then the Village Renaissance Program, which is the other fall program that we’re coming up on, you can apply for up to 500,000. Paint the town is 200,000 and then workforce housing is 300,000 and then the max on economic development is 500,000 and any project that you put in has to be at least a $50,000 project so we can’t do something that’s really, really small. When you get down believe that number the paperwork that’s involved in doing it, it’s not very cost effective to apply.

Match requirements, basically, 75 percent of the project can be funded with block grant money. The other 25 percent has to come from non block grant sources. Ten percent of that has to come from the locality and the other fifteen can come from whomever. It can be another grant source, it can be private money, it can be foundation money, other commitments from other people.

The state on a case by case, if the need comes up, they will look at waiver requests. I think, based on — just based on an attempt that we had made a few years ago for a grant, I think we submitted Cottageville’s audit, audits for the last few years before that and they were granted a waiver during that process even though we did actually get the application all the way in.

I’m assuming not a whole lot’s changed about the town’s financial situation to make them say, no, we wouldn’t give you a waiver but they, they can look at that or they may come back and say if you request the waiver or we won’t waive it completely but we’ll reduce it to X number of dollars based on your financials and what your ability is.

And so are there any questions about the programs?

Yes, sir?

MR. NULL: We don’t own the drainage ditches. How do we address that?

MS. KNIGHT: Well, as long as they’re public.

MR. NULL: That’s the question.

MS. KNIGHT: As long as they’re public and they’re not going on the private property.

MR. NULL: They’re all on private property, that’s our problem.

MS. KNIGHT: Then, basically, you would have to include in your grant an ability to acquire.

MR. NULL: Right.

MS. KNIGHT: Easements to, to be able to do the drainage work because you couldn’t go on the private property and make those improvements and just leave it.

Now, I mean, the, the — One of the activities that you can use the grant for is acquisition but it has to be acquisition with an end result. You can’t just write a grant to acquire property to say, hey, in the future sometime I’m gone do something with it, so.

But, basically, anything that the money touches has to be publicly owed.

Yes, sir?

MR. ACKERMAN: Anybody here know who owns the property in front of the fire department where that well used to be there, that well? Well there we used for — back in time of steam, steam engines. Anybody know who owns that property?

COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS: Yeah, that’s — You know now who that is; that’s one of those Willis girls. That’s Noland Youmans little house. His daughter lived in Orangeburg.

MR. ACKERMAN: No.

COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS: Yeah. His daughter’s in Orangeburg.

MR. ACKERMAN: In Orangeburg?

COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS: Yeah. She owns that property and will not sell it.

MS. KNIGHT: Well, I mean if, if it were a project, part of a project that you were pursuing and it was needed to make the project work and the town was willing to affect their eminent domain rights, then, you, it, it could be acquired but, you know, a lot of people don’t want to do that. That’s not necessarily the route you want to take if you can avoid it.

MR. ACKERMAN: Well, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

MS. ADDISON: Would any of these grant monies be something that we could use for refurbishing the school that we are going to sort of inherit that has —

MS. KNIGHT: Essentially, depending on what you’re putting in there. Now, obviously it couldn’t — It couldn’t be used to refurbish the school to have a town hall office but if, you know, the town were going to try to have satellite offices of services that right now you have to drive in to Walterboro to, to get, like —

MS. ADDISON: The library.

MS. KNIGHT: Like the library, like —

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Adult education of some sort?

MS. KNIGHT: Pardon?

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Adult education of some sort?

MS. KNIGHT: Potentially. Like adult education of some sort.

DSS services that are provided because all those groups — Senior services, you know, because if y’all had a, a senior center. I don’t know if the Town of Cottageville actually has a – quote, unquote – senior center but senior services, those sorts of things and those things would qualify.

What I was gonna mention was based on the demographics of the town, the town’s only 22 percent low-to-moderate income so anything that we do, if the service area doesn’t exceed the town limits, then we potentially either have to survey the community that would be using the service or if it’s those type things that we were talking about, DSS, adult ed, senior services, as I mentioned, all those groups are groups of people that we assume are low-to-moderate income. Now, I know every elderly person isn’t necessarily low-to-moderate income.

MS. ADDISON: Sure Feels that way.

MS. KNIGHT: But, but — Well, I understand that but I mean not every, every one is but it’s assumed that the majority of them are so, basically, anyone using — If you had a center senior on there anyone using that senior center would be deemed low-to-moderate income just by virtue of the fact that they’re elderly. Same thing with literacy. Same thing with abused children, okay? Same thing with, I think the other groups are migrant farm workers and disabled, the disabled, special needs groups.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: When you — When you talk about the demographics of the town, that it’s by majority low-to-moderate income, we expand the service area you’re saying towards — more towards the Dorchester County line, without actually annexing that property but making that — those resources available does that then change our demographic picture?

MS. KNIGHT: It could potentially.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Do we have to annex the town — that property or just make it available?

MS. KNIGHT: If you argue that your service area is greater than the Town of Cottageville then —

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Well, someone providing resources that they would always have to drive to Summerville or Walterboro.

MS. KNIGHT: Right.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Then it would be —

MS. KNIGHT: Right.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: It would really — It would be more than the one mile.

MS. KNIGHT: Right, right, so, I mean, you wouldn’t necessarily annex those groups in. If you —

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: You would have — My question is you would have to —

MS. KNIGHT: You wouldn’t have to.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: — make those resources available and then thereby qualifying easier.

MS. KNIGHT: No. The issue will come in. With some of them, obviously, it’s universal use. You have no way of knowing if the person who comes into the library is, is from Colleton County, if he used the computer, or from Dorchester County, you know, unless you’re asking for a library card to do it. Same thing with the workforce development aspect of that. When you’re talking about DSS services it gets to be a little bit more tricky. It might be that you’re, you’re addressing some people that are right on the fringe but you wouldn’t necessarily be going in to —

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Do you have any numbers on the — on, like, the workforce development or do you know if there’s a potential need for something like that, necessarily, from, from your — MS. KNIGHT: I don’t — I don’t know that for a fact. I can get that data.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: I’d be curious to see.

MS. KNIGHT: I can get that data from Sandy Fowler (phon.) to see how — you know, how many people she serves through the Colleton one stop that are actually — you know, maybe have an address that’s Cottageville and greater Cottageville, looking at Cottageville, those sort of things.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Sure. Some of the things that you’ve mentioned are exactly what council’s been thinking about uses for that, the building. There’s a lot of space and a lot of opportunity and if we can somehow work with these block grants to retrofit or refit or somehow make that usable and more of good resource generally and not —

MS. KNIGHT: Right.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: — then obviously we can identify the greatest needs then that makes good sense for us to pursue this.

MS. KNIGHT: Okay. The last time we had a needs assessment public hearing the things that were mentioned during it and how they ranked was the first thing was planning and then the second — the second priority was infrastructure, particularly drainage. The third priority was streetscape improvements which was sidewalks, walking paths, lighting in to town. The fourth — The fourth priority was a new park and then the fifth priority was acquisition of the old school. Well, y’all have the old school now, right? I think or just about?

MAYOR WHITE: Yeah. I meet with them Thursday.

MS. KNIGHT: It’s pretty much a done thing so the acquisition part’s being taken care of pretty much as we speak so, you know, we can build from that list, we can throw that list out and make a new list and prioritize but that’s, that’s something that this group needs to discuss. What do y’all think? We talked about the school but is there anything else that you think is a need that we need to — need to put in this, or add? Or do you want to — Obviously, I don’t think y’all want to keep the list in the same order it’s in but are these still the same basic needs, they just need to be shuffled around?

MAYOR WHITE: I think we need planning for sewer and water.

MR. NULL: That and annexation because our demographics with the low-to-moderate income. Most of our moderate income folks do not live in the city limits so we need to expand in order to qualify for more of your grants.

MS. KNIGHT: Well, I mean there — I don’t want — I don’t want to discourage the town from applying because there are people, there are communities that are not low-to-moderate income that get, get this money. I can — I can pick off a number of them on my hand right now in our regions. Bluffton does. We know Bluffton’s not low-to-moderate income.

MR. NULL: Yeah, because from what I’ve heard you say discouraged me because it’s just about anything we can’t qualify for.

MS. KNIGHT: Well, it’s not that you can’t qualify, it’s just that you have to take a different route to get to that point.

MR. NULL: Well, that’s what we need help.

MS. KNIGHT: And that — And the different route is, you know, looking at things that are limited clientele type activities, the things we talked about, the seniors, senior groups, adult literacy groups, those groups. The other thing is looking at — It may be, for example, with the drainage project that y’all have talked about that some. It may be that you look at a drainage project that addresses a portion of the town and that particular part of the town is income qualified.

MR. NULL: Okay. But, again, we go back to the issue of it’s private property.

MS. KNIGHT: Right. Well, I mean . . .

MR. NULL: All of our drainage ditches do not belong to the town.

MS. KNIGHT: And they — But they definitely belong to private property owners? They’re not, like, in DOT right of way or something like that?

MAYOR WHITE: Very few of them are.

MAYOR WHITE: Okay.

MR. DEAN: I don’t know, when I bought my land up here it states on the — on the deed and everything that the highway department has the right to take twenty-five feet from the middle of the road.

MR. NULL: Like your paint the town, most of our main street is owned by individuals.

MS. KNIGHT: I think y’all have applied for some DOT money, right?

MAYOR WHITE: That’s correct.

MS. KNIGHT: Y’all haven’t heard yet if you have that DOT money. If — Let’s just say for argument sake that you had gotten that DOT money a couple of years ago, you were just about through with your project, you could show that you already had an investment in a streetscape effort then pursuing a streetscape project for the town would be easier to do right now because you have to show — Basically, with that particular program, unless you’ve got some significant investment that you are putting in, they’re looking for even more than a 25 percent match for that on most of those.

MAYOR WHITE: Well, Michele, on that, one of the thing that’s — with the transportation commission we’re trying to get roads improved over and Sally Ackerman and Pierce Road. Now, they said that they’d be willing to work the roads but the — here’s some right of way issues there that the town would have to handle those right of way issues.

MS. KNIGHT: Right.

MAYOR WHITE: Is that something that we can apply for through that or is that — You know, like —

MS. KNIGHT: If you were — If you were doing — If you were doing it as part of a drainage project, you were gonna improve the drainage of those roads and add a sidewalk and it were addressing drainage issues in a low-income area, not necessarily the whole town but, say, that particular area or part of town had a low income community or lower income community where we could go out door to door and survey those people and say, yes, this area’s over 51 percent low-to-moderate income then it, it could be done and I mean we can do that with any type of an infrastructure project. That’s a spring round project; that’s not a fall round project but it could be done. The other thing that we can look at is if y’all as residents of the town tell me that you don’t really think that that percentage number is right, that 22 percent, that really maybe it is closer to 51 percent, we could try to argue that point with the state if we’re willing to go door to door to every resident within the town and try to collect that survey information to, to see what the number is. And we’ve actually — The reason that we could address that or we could ask that question now is we’re so close to the 2010 census that, really, the data that we have now is pretty dated, okay? So there have been communities in the past where we’ve done that. To, to give an example, the Town of Brunson, based on their census data said — It said that they were 40 percent low-to-moderate income and the mayor and town council there said, no, that’s not right, I don’t know who did the count but it’s not right. We were about three years away from the 2000 census. Some of the town staff and the town council members along with, with the COG staff, my department, went out door to door, fire department officials with the town went out door to door, collected that information survey on 90 percent of the town’s residents and found out that the town — the town as right, the town council was right, the town was over 51 percent low-to-moderate income.

MR. DUPREE: What about the sidewalk going from 17 all the way to the schoolhouse, just on the other side the schoolhouse the kids walk?

MS. KNIGHT: You’d have to look at — Really, that’s pretty much all business, right? That area?

COUNCIL MEMBER COOK: Residential.

MS. KNIGHT: Residential? It is all residential going out after you get off of 17?

MR. DUPREE: Yeah.

MS. KNIGHT: If you could argue that that residential area that it goes through is low-to-moderate income, if we could survey it and determine that was the case, that might be a possibly, not a guarantee as a part of the drainage project. You’d have to tie drainage in to it. You couldn’t just put a sidewalk out there and that be the only thing you do.

MR. DUPREE: Well, I understand but, you know, some kids be — probably be walking to school.

MS. KNIGHT: Yeah. That’s a dangerous situation if you don’t have a sidewalk.

MR. DUPREE: Yeah.

MS. KNIGHT: So I mean I don’t — I don’t disagree that it wouldn’t be a need; I just don’t know. We’d have to look in to it a little more to see if it fit a program.

MR. ACKERMAN: Additional water lines put in with your water and sewerage system?

MS. KNIGHT: You could do that in the spring, look at that but what you’d have to do is do it a part of a much bigger project because in order to be — One, in order to be in the water and sewer business the town would have to vote and decide they want to do that. All the residents of the town would have to vote and decide that that’s what they wanted to do. After that was done and all the legal work was done to set up — set up that effort, then you’d actually have to, you know, at the very least, drop a well and have some kind of a backup system where the water’s concerned and the sewer gets more extensive than that, being able — Usually you put the water in first and then you do the sewer later but you could — You could theoretically — If you were going that route, if the town decided they wanted to move in that direction you could use some of this money to potentially extend that water service to an LMI system who maybe couldn’t afford the tap fees and that sort of thing, be able to run lines in to those low income neighborhoods and actually tap those people in to your new system, if you were to get in to the water business.

MR. DUPREE: Could we use that same well there and build — you know, have our own tank, like, run to the schoolhouse if the water go bad or something around the school? You understand what I’m saying?

MS. KNIGHT: That —

MR. DUPREE: And if the town do get water would it help the low, low income people?

MS. KNIGHT: If the town — If the town were to get in to the water business, then grant money could be pursued to help the lower income people be able to tap in to that system or to run the lines through the lower income neighborhoods. It couldn’t be used to actually drop the well because the whole town would benefit from the well. It couldn’t be used to necessarily have a pump unless the pump was to pump specifically in to low income area. Serve a low income —

MR. NULL: Can’t use the money, then, to put in the new system? We don’t have —

MS. KNIGHT: You can use — You can use part — You can use the money in part to put in a new system but it’s gonna take other monies, too, either rural development or, you know, a public bond effort or something like that, or potentially if you have development, business development coming in maybe economic development money through another source other than CDBG because there’s some other sources that you can use as well but — that don’t look at the LMI criteria of the town but they look at the number of jobs and investment that are coming in to the town, you know, or something like that, we could do that but that would be a project that would have to be partnered with other money but it could be a good project because this would be a small piece of that project and not the biggest piece. So we talked — We’ve talked about planning; we’ve talked about the old school. We’ve talked about sidewalks and drainage to the new school.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Still — Still looks like we’re stuck on planning and infrastructure. Looks like where we’re still at.

MS. KNIGHT: Okay. But I mean is infrastructure more than drainage now? Are y’all seriously considering water now or is that still not . . .

MR. NULL: Well, at some point. How can we grow without it?

MS. KNIGHT: Well, I mean I don’t disagree with that but —

MR. NULL: Well, that’s why we asked you to come.

MS. KNIGHT: Yeah, yeah.

MR. NULL: We need your opinion. How are we gonna grow? We can’t grow unless we get that, right? Otherwise, that’s it, we’re never gonna get bigger than the one mile, half mile radius from the center of town up there.

MR. DUPREE: Talking about a six-inch well right up there. What’s wrong with that? That’s pumping 350 gallons a minute. I mean as small the town of Cottageville ain’t gone use that much more.

MS. KNIGHT: Yeah, but depending on — And I mean I’m not an engineer but it depends on the size of the town and how many customers you have. You have to have a backup and all that. I don’t think there’s many systems now that apply without a backup, am I right?

MR. NULL: We can’t — We can’t get any businesses in town because we don’t have the city water, city sewer.

MS. KNIGHT: Well, I mean DHEC’s not gonna allow it until y’all agree that y’all want to get in the business, I don’t think, and then you’re gonna have to show that you got the wherewithal to be in the business which means you’re gonna have to, you know, figure out how you’re going to establish your rate, how you’re going to fund having someone operate the system, all those things. I’m getting — I’m getting in to an engineer field that’s not mine but, but I mean all the — All those things have to happen so —

MR. DUPREE: Right.

MR. NULL: It’s a Catch 22 situation, you can’t grow without it.

MR. DUPREE: That means like somebody to be running the water you gone have to run to the school or something, right?

MS. KNIGHT: Well, I mean right now the school obviously has water but it had water because the school has expended money, either their own money or grant funding to drop a well and to have some kind of a small treatment system to be able to support that facility, that new facility but it’s not because the town is in the water and sewer business. They’re doing that on their own. They’re having to pay to manage it and operate it and maintain it, all of that.

MR. DUPREE: Oh, no, I’m talking about the town get water and sewer.

MS. KNIGHT: Then the school could — Well, if the town gets water and sewer then the school could potentially decide they want to be a customer.

MR. DUPREE: Yeah, but I’m talking about you have to send somebody to treat the water, get somebody —

MS. KNIGHT: Well, you either have to — You either have to have somebody on staff that can do it or hire somebody by contract.

MR. DUPREE: Right.

MS. KNIGHT: Okay? So we’ve talked about — We’ve talked about planning for sewer and water and for annexation. We’ve talked about renovating the old school for, for workforce development and service type programs to have kind of a — Or what I’m hearing it’s kind of a one-sock, right? We’ve talked about sidewalks and drainage to the new school. We’ve talked about drainage in general to other areas if we own the, the drainage ditches and then we’ve talked about infrastructure in general if we were actually in the water business. Okay. What do y’all think’s most important? MR. DUPREE: Sidewalks and drainage for the new school.

MS. KNIGHT: Okay. Well, let me ask it this way. If you think — If you think — Let’s just go through the list. If you think planning is most important raise your hand. (Hand count taken.)

MS. KNIGHT: Okay. If you think renovating the old school for public use for the town is most important raise your hand. You can vote for more than one. I just want to see how many people think. I’m gonna total them all up. (Hand count taken.) MS. KNIGHT: Okay. Sidewalks and drainage to the new school.

MR. NULL: I disagree how you said new school, though. We need sidewalks and drainage, not necessarily for that new school.

MS. KNIGHT: All right. Well, we can — I mean we can change what we’re calling it.

MR. NULL: It’s gonna stop — From what I’ve been told by the school officials, that bus has to stop at every house on that street so it’ll be no kid walking. That’s what they say, that bus has got to stop.

MS. KNIGHT: Well, let me — Let me rephrase that. Sidewalks and drainage improvements in low income areas of the town, not to also include the new school area. Can, can we call it that or . . .

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: I like just sidewalk.

MS. KNIGHT: Okay.

COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS: We need drainage in the whole town.

MS. KNIGHT: All right.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: You know, when it comes to public space or, or bicycles paths or anything that can help it, help people get out of their houses and be safe about it. I tend to like to walk on Griffith Acres but you’re taking your life in your own hand and you get two logging trucks coming across and you’re gonna be road kill. Not much — Not much left, so.

MS. KNIGHT: Okay. Sidewalks and drainage for the whole town, then. Who’s in favor of that? (Hand count taken.)

MS. KNIGHT: Okay. And then infrastructure, meaning, I reckon, water. (Hand count taken.)

MS. KNIGHT: Okay. It looks like planning is the thing that’s the least, as far as those. Let’s do planning again. (Hand count taken.)

MS. KNIGHT: All right. So based on that it looks like planning would be number 1. Sidewalks and drainage in the town would be number 2 and the renovation of the old school would be number 3. Okay? If y’all — I mean if council — If council decided that that was — You know, they agreed with that ranking based on the polling of the — of the group.

MR. NULL: Question. Could we have two ways on that drainage situation if we put walking paths along those? Then it covers two grants we’d be qualified for, right?

MS. KNIGHT: Two grants? You said two different grant programs under CDBG?

MR. NULL: Uh-huh. The way I kind of read you. One, health issue; two —

MS. KNIGHT: Well, I mean —

MR. NULL: — elderly.

MS. KNIGHT: — you would argue — You would — You would hang your hat on one thing and then say as an ancillary it’s —

MR. NULL: Benefits are all the way around.

MS. KNIGHT: But you wouldn’t necessarily be qualifying for two, two grants or anything like that. You just — You talk about —

MR. NULL: But we should try to go for it, though?

MS. KNIGHT: You’d talk about both aspects.

MR. NULL: Okay.

MS. KNIGHT: Is what you do. I took Terri’s clipboard to have a sign-in sheet. I don’t know if every — I know everybody hasn’t’ signed in because the room got full but if you were here for the public hearing I’d like to have a record of your attendance so, you know, I’d appreciate, appreciate y’all doing that and Terri has a sign-in sheet behind it for the town if you’ve got public comments, public participation for the town meeting so I’m gonna run this around the room again.

MAYOR WHITE: Michelle, thank you.

MS. KNIGHT: What the town’s gonna need to do at some point, whether you do it at tonight’s meeting or next month’s meeting, is you’re gonna have to officially rank what we’ve talked about or vote, vote that you agree with that, the ranking.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Is there a minimum number we have to choose?

MS. KNIGHT: No, you could have a list as short as three or you could have a list as long as ten. The only thing that you have to do is if I write a grant project for the town whatever project that I’m writing would have to fit in one of the top three categories. If it is not — If it is not the first one, okay? Then I have to be able to explain why it’s not the first one. Obviously, let’s just say for argument sake, since we’ve talked about the school so much, if we decided to pursue a project for the school for the September round my argument based on what this ranking appears to be right now, is that the planning aspect is for water and sewer and annexation which really doesn’t have to do with school renovation project and that the sidewalks and drainage issue isn’t eligible under this funding round and y’all need to do a study before we actually pursue a project so I mean I can explain —

COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS: Now, what did you say came under the planning? The water? What did you say?

MS. KNIGHT: I said water and sewer and annexation because those were the only two things that were mentioned with the planning.

COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS: That’s the right order right there.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Does it make any sense for us to move the school to number 1 if that’s kind of a priority? Kind of our short-term goal as we’re looking to potentially take possession of that September.

MAYOR WHITE: That will be, probably, actually, if everything goes, probably by the end of the week.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: So I mean so that’s kind of like a now issue versus planning the other stuff that’s kind of a later issue. Does it make sense for us, if we’re going to give something to you, give something to you, have you work on it to bump that to number 1 because that’s a now issue? I don’t know how that would affect the grant process.

MS. KNIGHT: As long as it’s in the top three it’s not gonna hurt us. If it wasn’t in the top three then I’d have — I would be engaging in an effort in futility.

COUNCIL MEMBER EUTSLER: Okay.

MS. CROSBY: You need this before the thirtieth you say?

MS. KNIGHT: Not necessarily. Y’all can — If y’all wanted to add it to the agenda and vote on it tonight you could but y’all meet again the first part of August correct? So as long as you were gonna have that ranking done before that August 25 deadline where we put a, a request in we would be okay. If you wanted to contemplate it for a couple of weeks and make a decision at the next council meeting you could but you have to do it so we’ll have the — have the ranking in place. And this is done every year so I mean if we do this next year and this, the ranking changes, that’s fine, that’s other it or if we see something else coming up within the year that we didn’t anticipate now we can always do this again before the year’s up, if we needed to, okay?

MAYOR WHITE: Thank you, Michelle. — Meeting adjourned at 7:05 p.m. –

I, the undersigned Donna Hartley, Official Court Reporter and Notary Public, do hereby certify that the foregoing is a true, accurate and complete transcript of record of all the proceedings had at the Town Council Meeting for The Town of Cottageville, South Carolina at Cottageville Town Hall on Monday, July 7, 2008. I further certify that I am neither of counsel nor kin to any person attending this meeting nor am I interested in any manner of its outcome. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and seal this nineteenth day of July, 2008

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