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MINUTES
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

COTTAGEVILLE TOWN HALL
MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2009
7:00 P.M.

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 Thomas, Council Member Eutsler and Council Member Strickland.

The following takes place in open session.
ATTESTATION

Page        Line        Change/Correction        Reason

Minutes approved: ______________

_________________________
Terri Crosby, Town Clerk

MAYOR WHITE:     At this time I’ll entertain a motion for approval of the March, 2009, minutes.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     I make a motion that council approves the minutes from our last meeting.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUSTLER:     I second.
MAYOR WHITE:     All in favor?
(All council members indicated yes.)
MAYOR WHITE:     Ayes have it.
At this time I’ll have the mayor’s report.
Good evening.
Before I get started I want to clear something up that I said in the February meeting.  I mean I’ve upset a few people by my comment about the town missing out on a Chinese restaurant and I said that it was okay, we already had one restaurant.  I was not complaining about the one restaurant.  It was my way of stating that without water and sewer it will be very hard to have additional restaurants, not only additional restaurants but, in fact, any business that has a water and sewer demand, it’d be real hard for them.  I mean it’s evident with what George Seago’s (phon.) going through, the business that he wants to put in town.
Businesses not only provide jobs to our citizens, they also provide tax revenues to our town.  To me, this is very important to keep our town viable.  This is why I wanted water and sewer.
Another reason was because water and sewer comes storm drainage.  You know how important that is with what we had going on last week.  I’ve a picture of how bad the drainage is in town.
Mr. Card (phon.) has suffered long enough, through three administrations and before anybody says that I didn’t include myself in there, I am including myself and he’s suffered through three administrations with no relief.
I’ve had an engineer working on a plan that addresses the problem.  This plan will be something that a construction firm can bid on to help clear up with problem.
People will have to act as neighbors and help the town with access to their property.  This is something that must be done.  I’m not trying to scare anyone but look at the pictures.  I have pictures up here.  After the meeting’s over you’re all welcome to look at them.
This lake resides on top of Mr. Card’s drain field.  I do want to show you that.  This is — These are a few pictures.  You can — You’ll probably be able to identify where most of those are at.  Some of those pictures are the day after, also, so it’s not like this, the day of.  And you know how much water we still have in the ditches.  Something must be done.
Now, this lake resides on top of Mr. Card’s drain field.  I don’t think I need to say any more.  The South Carolina Department of Transportation will help with some of the problems but they can’t do it all.
I did put in for a work order for them to clean, pull out all the lines going across 17A to clean out all the catch basins but they will not go any further into the land than the right of way and we’re going through some right of way issues right now with them.  With them, they’re doing some research but they say that we don’t want to go onto the property owners’ land.
But even with that, even putting in the work order, their time estimate they gave me was four to six weeks.
Last Thursday two lanes of Highway 17A were just about impassable.
So, anyway, I do, and I may as well go ahead and go in to this while we’re on this subject right now.  Mr. Card and myself, Danny Lee, several others have looked, but anyway, we actually went around and saw what the problems were.  The ditches haven’t been maintained in quite some time but it seems like the biggest problem we have to give Mr. Card any relief is Sutton (phon.) Lane.  If that’s — If Danny would agree to that.
I asked — I asked Danny to go ahead and provide the town with an estimate as far as cleaning that out.
Part of the problem we have is, you know, we have, of course, on most of the ditches in Cottageville the line runs right down the middle of the ditch and you’ll have one neighbor that will say, yeah, you can come on my land and another neighbor that will say that, you know, you can’t come on my land.  So
what — Terri and myself have drafted a letter we’re gonna send out to the attorney for approval and, basically, what it will give is the town permission to go back and start cleaning the ditches.
The bylaws of the town and the town ordinances actually state that, you know, it’s up to the property owner to clean their own ditches but — And it will be if they don’t give us permission to clean them, you know, allow the town to get in there and clean them.
A lot of it is, you know, things have grown up just like before and they need to be cleaned out, need to have ditches start flowing again but the really bad problem that we have was with Mr. Card’s yard, is his ditch actually resides at the — It’s really, if you ever look at 17A, the one picture that’s out there — Well, yeah, I forgot I drew this the other day.
Excuse my map-drawing ability but this is Depot Road.  This is — just depicts that big old puddle that was in 17A and there’s actually a catch basin there at the end of or at Mr. Gray (phon.) Card’s yard.
This area all in here, and this is depicted.  This is his house and his house crawl space and all is actually flooded because whenever they have a rain it backs up in his yard.
He’s approached me about this before and, just like when we went through the drought last year, I enjoyed, just like he did, the summer of not having water in your backyard but now that, you know, we’re going through a rainy season and coming in to hurricane season again there’s always a chance of this happening again.
Problem being is right here is Mr. Card’s drain field so whatever reaches out here goes all the way through and you can see, this is Sutton Lane right here which, looking at it, we have the biggest blockage and I asked — What I asked Danny to do was to give us an estimate to go ahead and clean it from this point to the point of this ditch back here, to, to go ahead.
There was so much debris in there from the car lot and all, and also there’s a good many trees that are in there, that I felt like that was, really, the first phase or the first area that needed to be cleaned out.
This ditch goes on back, Mr. Null’s, Mr. Addison’s land, and runs along Nina Ackerman’s (phon.) property and crosses over Griffith Acres land.  It continues right along behind my property – which my property’s right here – and because of all this flooding, just goes to show that this isn’t the only problem but it was a tremendous amount of water in my yard, too.
What people have done to get access from their — to their property along this way is they’ve just simply — You know, they’ve put in little pipes here and there and I think that’s a lot of the problem, too.
Now, Danny Fausberg (phon.), the engineer that I asked to take a look at this, he is actually getting a geological survey map and he’s trying to get us the points of what things should really be and he said he could walk this and tell us exactly what that thing needs to be cut down to.  It’s what’s causing the blockage.
But what’s so important about this ditch is it drains everything, everything interconnects.  There’s also some other branches that feed into this.  This ditch comes all the way down behind Bobby Young’s house, cuts across between Sally Rhodes’ (phon.) and Bobby Young — I mean Michael Huff’s (phon.) property
and . . .
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     I’ve got a question.
MAYOR WHITE:     Comes on out to the front of 17A, the branch.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     Is that part of the ditch that was behind — that’s behind the school that’s covered up?
MAYOR WHITE:     I don’t think — I don’t — I don’t know how that one gets in there.  Now, I haven’t gone all the way through there.
The main concern I had is because it got to that point and — But like the ditch behind Miss Thomas’ (phon.) house, it feeds into this, too.
Now, some of it does run to the Jacksonboro Road area but the majority of the water is still, everything is feeding down here, gets to this point, comes on down to the BP and feeds into Reeves Town Branch, I think that is called. And that’s where it’s at.
But anyway, short-term is what I’d like to ask is to allow Danny Lee to clean that ditch out from down Sutton Lane.  Tom Sutton’s (phon.) agreed to allow us to go in there and clean that out.  It will be cleaned out from his side of the property and it would — This whole area the other day, everything up Sutton Lane was nothing but a lake.  There was no way for that water to get out.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     Well, that’s the ditch that’s right up beside the car lot?
MAYOR WHITE:     Yeah.
I’ll go ahead and pass this estimate around.
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS:     Is that gone relieve Mr. Card, now, George?  If we do that?
MAYOR WHITE:     Well.
MR. REEVES:    It’s gone help him some but the main problem is the one going behind the car lot.  That’s one of the main problems.
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS:     That’s what I say, that’s our big problem right there.
MR. REEVES:     And then we’ve got another blockage across the road by Carl Null’s place going on down.  Somebody else’s problem over there that’s gone cause the problem there without getting permission.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     That’s in between the old gas station when Mr. Ernest (phon.) used to have . . .
MR. REEVES:     Yeah, yeah.
George put in a pipe long time ago over there to cross on piece of land he’s got behind Carl Null’s and it’s probably blocked up right there.
Of course, that might be an act of Congress trying to get that cleaned out over there but what he’s, you know, proposing to do, either let them clean it out or either, you know, y’all can clean it out, one or the other.  Something’s got to be done because it’s, it’s terrible on lot these neighbors.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUSTLER:     When do you expect to have that letter?
MAYOR WHITE:     Well, Terri actually has a draft of the letter and we’re gonna go ahead and send that out to the town attorney and, you know, just be a — as far as his recommendation what changes.
Basically it will say either I’ll allow the town to go on there and hold them harmless or I’ll take care of the problem and I gave them a time deadline of 60 days, which I figured was fair to anybody.
You know, you know, I mean they could arrange anything in the 60 days.
But anyway, that’s the short-term fix but because there’s actually a — When I went to Kingstree, there is a grant out there for projects such as this, storm water projects, and what I’d like to do is Elizabeth Allen just completed a grant for us for sidewalks and I’d like to go ahead and get her to work on that and eventually get a storm water drain all the way from 17A to this area, if it’s engineering feasible, if it’s something we can do.  That grant goes through the Army Corps of Engineers and they’re actually the one that controls all this anyway.
So I think it’d be worth putting it in.  Even though we may not get it, it’d still be — There’s two billion dollars allotted for that and I feel like we could get some really good support from the highway department this time.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     That’s federal money?
MAYOR WHITE:     And that’s federal money.
But I think that with the issue with Mr. Card’s property and we all depend on those ditches and also not only the highway department but also all the homeowners around here depend on those ditches.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     Now, that ditch that starts from the property that George Seago has purchased and cuts across, correct?
MR. REEVES:     Goes through.
MAYOR WHITE:     It actually, this right here, this is Depot Road right here.  It actually crosses the street here, had a catch basin on the other side of the road that’s the beginning of this ditch.  And it just runs back behind here, behind the car lot and comes out on Sutton Lane.
We’re hoping that once, you know, that is — a lot of that debris’s cleared Danny says he’s gonna go ahead and tie this elevation point here and this elevation point here, basically -
MR. REEVES:     Same, same height. At least it’ll have some relief.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     How deep are you gonna dig it?
MR. REEVES:     As deep as the ditch is going under the road.  I’m gone try to hold that same level and you hold that same level water will still go that way because it’s got other water forcing it.  But hopefully dig that ditch deeper it’ll clean out that ditch behind it by relieving it, making it easier to run.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUSTLER:     My only question, my only question would be if you clear one part without cleaning the other blocks that are in front of it you just move the puddle from point A to point B.  You follow what I’m saying?  That the puddle now coming behind your house will just be bigger than what you used to have.
MAYOR WHITE:     Well, you know, that’s true.  I mean the ideal situation would be to go ahead and license it all the way from here, to engineer it all the way through there but I feel like -
COUNCIL MEMBER EUSTLER:     Is that what you’ve given people 60 days to respond over?
MAYOR WHITE:     I’m actually sending it out to every homeowner in Cottageville.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUSTLER:     Okay.
MAYOR WHITE:     So any ditch that needs to be cleaned because of this similar situation, we won’t have that problem.  They’re either gone clean out their ditches or we’ll have to clean them out for them.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     I mean all those ditches on Depot Road are holding water.  I mean they’ve been there at the same level for two days.
MAYOR WHITE:     Yeah.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUSTLER:     My question would be, is rather to look, instead of clearing one section, rather wait till those letters go out, wait til the 60 days expire and just deal with the whole problem.
And at least put a plan up there to deal with whole problem in some sort of method because then we will know.
MAYOR WHITE:     That’s fine with me.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUSTLER:     That would be my only — My only question is why not look at the whole thing instead of doing a piece.
CHIEF OF POLICE ROBERTS:     If I could, Mayor, I’d like to just say one thing.  To me, the importance of Danny being able to work on it as soon as possible, from my standpoint, public safety, was the road.  The number 2 lane on Cottageville Highway at Depot was covered.  It was — It was definitely a hazard.
We contacted DOT but so much water was coming out and, you know, flooding was taking place, they were over-swamped so we wasn’t able to get immediate attention to it.
And where the Card’s live at, of course, what they’re facing, you know, they also have it on the front side of that and then when you add — That’s a — US 17A, major highway and traffic coming through there, I’m worried on my end that we may have an accident there.  So I do feel like if Danny is able to take care of it quicker we can at least eliminate that part for right now in case we do see some more rain.  That’s just my only input from the public safety part.
MAYOR WHITE:     Well, you know, the thing is if we actually do get some flow through this point here, I know that there’s a tremendous amount of water that comes down this way.  Now, I don’t know if it’s all coming out from there but, you know, from walking that ditch when it was dry, this Sutton Lane point is really — I mean it’s gonna have to be done whether now or later but I really think that . . .
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS:     Well, if you clean out Sutton Lane, is that gonna relieve some of that stuff back behind the car lot?  Maybe some of that stuff would start moving?  Might get flowing?
MR. REEVES:     Yeah, it would help a lot.  That would put more pressure going across the road and try to maybe push a little more of that stuff on down, further down the line.
COUNCIL MEMBER EUSTLER:     That’s what I say, if that could — Something — Could get something flow through there would relieve that stuff behind that car lot and that’s where the problem is, behind that car lot.  And we’re just walking around it.
MR. REEVES:     Behind the car lot and I think when you go across the road, it’s on the other side the road, just a little bit of blockage over there.
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS:     But if you do Sutton Lane and if you clean up from the other end, that ought to do something behind that car lot.
MAYOR WHITE:     I would like to ask council for permission to clean out Sutton Lane but the one thing that, also, you know, before I turn Danny loose on doing that, and I’ll be in contact with Danny.  Danny Fausberg contacted me right before I came into the meeting, so he had some additional information.  So before we do clean out Sutton Lane I will get input from him because if he says, look, there’s no sense in doing that right now we won’t proceed but if he — If he thinks that’s — Because when I did talk to him he was concerned about that area, too, so.
But I would like to ask council for a motion to go ahead and get Danny Lee and clean out that ditch.  Along Sutton Lane.
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS:     I make a motion that we get Danny Lee to clean out that Sutton Lane.
COUNCIL MEMBER STRICKLAND:     I second.
MAYOR WHITE:     All in favor?
(All council members indicated yes.)
MAYOR WHITE:     Okay, Ayes have it.
Let’s see.  Moving along, I know I’m getting kind of long-winded here.
Along water lines, the ground water report is back.  Anyone that would like to read it, you can come to town hall and do so.  It’s not available to copy because the report is very large.  If you want your own copy you can get it from — through The Freedom of Information Act because we cannot copy the report ourselves because it was generated by somebody else.  You can actually get it from DHEC.
But I’ve read it briefly and what I understand from reading the report, there’s still testing and assessments to be made and the flume, the flume that they talk about being in the ground water line extends past Sally Ackerman Road.
The new town hall complex first phase is nearing completion with the next council meeting to be held there.  The building will provide safety to our citizens with ample parking and being off the main street.
There’s plenty of room for court. Actually, I measured the distance between where our bench starts and that back wall and that will come to the first, first pew that we have set up over there, so there’s plenty of room.  It ought to be very nice.  Ought to be a lot more comfortable.
Security will be a lot easier to handle.  The room is large.
We did have to do more work than what was estimated.  The roof leaked, plumbing was bad.  The electrical was inadequate and the ceiling had water damage but I mean we really made some strides over there.                  There’s still some items to do.  We have to complete the benches up front but, other than that, I think we’ll be — Everything will be ready to go at that time.
I do want to thank Terri for what she did, not only with the pews but also taking her weekends to clean up over there. She came in early to meet the subcontractors over there when I couldn’t.  She cleaned all the pews; came in, brought her equipment from home, cleaned everything up, did a lot of work over there.  I mean the main thing that needed to be done was cleaning and Terri has done a tremendous amount of work over there, so I definitely appreciate it.
Let’s see.
I attended a meeting in Kingstree.  I’ll let Terri speak on that.  She was there with Elizabeth Allen.
I did ask one question while I was there, if this grant money that’s available, or stimulus money will actually get to the municipalities. They assured me that it would.  This was one of the reasons they went ahead and generated this.
The other thing was, is we have a good chance to — You know, always say this about having a good chance to get money and it’s always questionable but because we’re one of the lower income counties, and I think that they named several of them and we were one of them.  So I think we stand a good chance.
We were up there and also there were some people from Walterboro, member from county council.  Peter Arnitie (phon.) was there.
I don’t know if y’all realize how much Peter Arnitie does for the county but he works real hard to try to get — to keep things moving and he’s kind of like myself, he’s up against bunch of roadblocks but he’s moving forward and he was up there for that, on that day, also.