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MINUTES
TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

COTTAGUVILLE MUNCIPAL COMPLEX
MONDAY, JUNE 8, 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 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 May, 2009, minutes.  If y’all had a chance to read them.
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS:     I make a motion that we approve.
COUNCIL MEMBER STRICKLAND:     I second.
MAYOR WHITE:     All in favor?
(All council members indicated yes.)
MAYOR WHITE:     Ayes have it.  No opposed.
Okay.
Mayor’s report.  I’m just gonna go ahead, I normally have a formalLY prepared statement but I’m just gonna go ahead and let you know a few things.
Tonight was — There was a piece that came out in the Cottageville paper about, you know, letting your council members know.  Tonight was not set up as a public hearing as far as zoning was concerned.  We’re gonna go ahead and set a date later on in the month for that.  But where we’re at with the zoning ordinance right now is the zoning commission has gone ahead and made their changes and all.  They presented it to council.  I gave council, or Terri gave council members a copy of the zoning ordinance and they were supposed to review it and make any changes that they had or any of the concerns that they had and get them back to me and that’s where we’re at right now, before I went ahead and I called for a public hearing.
But since it came out in the paper about the zoning concerns and all, I do have, on the podium up there I have a tablet that says zoning concerns.  If you do have a concern other than — You know, please put on there what your concern is.  You know, it needs — If it’s a certain section in there, or whatever, just, I just can’t go with I don’t like the zoning ordinance as a whole.
Right now let me tell you where we’re at with our current zoning ordinance.  We have a zoning ordinance which, as Mr. Erickson pointed out to me earlier this evening, that we enacted back in 1985 or ‘86 and that zoning ordinance, after it was passed in this town the — one of the ex-mayors went ahead and took that zoning ordinance and did line-throughs with it and also, you know, just basically lined out what he didn’t want, signed, signed in it and that was the end of it and now we have a zoning ordinance which cannot stand up in a court of law.  There’s no way that anybody can take that ordinance and if they’re concerned about it, about something or change or anything in this town which directly affects them that we can actually — you know, that anyone could take and the town could take it and make a case with it.  I mean it’s in very bad shape.
So it’s time for the Town of Cottageville, if they want to move forward, to go ahead and have a new zoning ordinance enacted.
The zoning ordinance that, you know, the planning commission has gone through with the help of LCOG, it is not — It is not a perfect ordinance and it does need changes and there’s concerns.  You know, I read the concerns in the papers and all but, really, what you need to do is I need to know about those concerns.  I’m willing to look.
You know, we’re not gonna go ahead and approve this thing without public input.  We’re gonna have a public hearing just to be scheduled later on this month and, you know, we want to have something — We want to have a document that’s workable for the town.
Not everybody in the town is gonna be 100 percent pleased with this document.  Myself, I’m affected directly.  Y’all don’t know, I run a cabinet shop in town and where it’s located at, basically, my cabinet shop will be impacted by this to the point that if a new administration gets in here in a certain period of years they could turn around and say we don’t want the cabinet shop there anymore.  So I mean it’s not that I’m not concerned about the zoning ordinance.  I’m very concerned about it.  I know that it’s a document that this town sorely needs and I do want your input.
Like I said, I see Mr. Null at the tablet right now.  Please let me know what your concerns are and I will try to address them and we’re gonna make sure that this, this document is workable for the Town of Cottageville before it is approved and we want — We want to try to satisfy the majority and — But it is something that, like I said, any document that you have you are not gonna satisfy everyone 100 percent.
But that’s pretty much the — I didn’t really plan on having a lot of discussion on zoning but as we get to public participation we’ll go ahead and handle it at that point.
Just to let you know a few other things that are going on.  One thing, we are working on PA system for the town.
I’ll get to ditch concerns, which we are — We’ve been working on this month, being that it’s working towards hurricane season.
The school had its auction and there is still a good bit of material that’s around here.  A lot of stuff was auctioned off.  We’re trying to get the dust settled down from that and we’ll — We’re eventually gonna get to the point where we’ll be cleaning up the old buildings and getting everything back in to shape.
Mr. McClease (phon.) has done a wonderful job on the yard.  I was kind of disappointed to see as much of the playground equipment go.  One thing that did stay is the basketball goals, which are used right regular by a lot of the young people and they’re used on Saturday and Sundays but they were actually put in place by the businessmen of Cottageville.
But that’s pretty much where we’re at right now.  We’re still working on trying to get the offices moved over here.  We’re slowly making progress on trying to get some of the partitions put in place, changes to the computer system and also trying to — I’m working with Palmetto Rural right now as far as trying to get the fiber optic network set up in to this building and also a fiber optic network set up in to the kindergarten building.
So, you know, that’s two of the — You know, that’s — As far as with the — If we can get that network in to place, that would be a big relief to LawTrack and also for any data entry problems that we have.
And that’s pretty much all I have.

At this time we’ll have the town clerk’s report given by Terri Crosby.
MS. CROSBY:     I attended my first census meeting.  The July meeting Miss Terrace Seabrooks (phon.) will be here to go over the 2010 census program.  I’ll be filling out a census grant that is due June 19.  This grant is to help organize the census program for our community.
I attended a business license class which finished my 18 hours of study.  I graduated as to the class and I will be taking the exam in the near future.
Business licenses are now past due.  Starting June 17 citations will be issued and every day after that until licenses are paid.
I received the free prescription discount card.  This card is for anyone who doesn’t have health insurance.  You can receive 20 percent off a prescription drug.  You can pick one up at town hall or I’ve got some here.
I met with the highway department concerning the ditches in town and I’ve also contacted Alvin Brown (phon.) concerning Pierce Road and he hasn’t got back with me on that.
That’s all.
MAYOR WHITE:     Thank you.
Police report given by Chief Shane Roberts.
CHIEF OF POLICE ROBERTS:     How you doing?  Good evening, everybody.
This past month the police department, or I should say for the month of May police department answered — We did 35 incident reports.  That’s pretty typical going in to the summer months.
I will tell you that more of our incident reports, though, are criminal related.  We are seeing in increase in a variety of crimes and, again, I think that’s coming because of the summer months when people are out and about, so forth, more mobile.  The sad part is, you know, it’s occurring in the town.  We want to push that out of the town.  That’s what we’re working hard to do.
In that, one of the things that come up, as I spoke to you about last month, and that’s 9-1-1 calls.  Again, even this month I’m receiving 9-1-1 calls on my cell phone.  People are calling me and saying, hey, Shane, we got an incident, we need you to come here, can you come here, can you have an officer come here.  I don’t mind people calling my phone but 9-1-1 caller has to go through, has to go through the central dispatch which is Colleton County.  Let them decide whether it’s an emergency in nature.
If it’s not an emergency, if it’s not, they will actually transfer you to another call or another line and be able to address it then.  If it is, they can dispatch us immediately.
To give you an example how, how it’s working, somebody calls me, they say, Shane, I need you or I need an officer over here, I got to hang up my phone, I got to call the officer.  That officer or officers are on traffic stops, they might not answer the phone.  Some are five minutes away.  If I’m out of town at that time, then I’ve got to call dispatch; they, in turn, have to do it.  So we’re talking about precious minutes that are going and it’s some crimes, that’s valuable and some health emergencies, that’s very valuable.  So I’m urging everyone again to dial 9-1-1.
Also, the litter campaign is still going on.  I want to advise people that we’re taking litter very seriously in Cottageville; we have a zero tolerance on it.  If you have any information on people who are littering please give us a call. We want to take further action on that.
I had a hurricane meeting this past week with emergency preparedness.  We’re in the process of working together with emergency preparedness and other agencies in the event of a hurricane. So the Cottageville Police Department is aware of what we need to do and we’re ready to implement all procedures. So that should be on the least of everybody’s minds.
Miss Suzanne Gant was here last month speaking about the importance of preparedness and the police department’s there for it.
I’m pretty sure everybody’s seen we got a lot of new faces at the police department.  So we actually have some new employees there, some very good employees that we’ve hired.  These employees allow Cottageville to have some coverage or protection throughout the night, and so forth, seven days a week.  We’re doing a good job on that.  So as you see these officers around I ask you to introduce yourself to them.  You know, get to know them.
One of the biggest things that Cottageville’s had a hard time doing is keeping law enforcement officers around here.  It’s been a very high turnover rate.  My job and my goal is to prevent that, to keep officers here, to make this a department that people can grow so you won’t see them just for two, three months, you’ll see them many years down the road as we grow with it and so I’m excited about that.
As you see them around, we appreciate your support.
And last I would like to speak about one of the employees and that is Officer Ricky Valentine (phon.).  Ricky Valentine came to us just at the end of last year and Officer Valentine has really excelled for the Town of Cottageville.  He’s gone above and beyond.  I’ve actually had to call him a couple of times when he wasn’t scheduled to work to come in to work because the manpower needed him.
He goes out; he’s been very courteous.  I’ve gotten several good reports from violators who Mr. Valentine has stopped and spoke about his professionalism and his courtesy towards him.  That’s huge for the Town of Cottageville.  That is absolutely huge.
So when I go out and about, I was in Columbia a couple weeks ago; they spoke about it, spoke about how they see things and hear things are changing as well as the officers like Ricky Valentine and that’s why I’m happy to announce that he’s our employee of the quarter.  So if you see Officer Valentine I ask you to tell him thank you for doing what he’s doing.
That’s all I’ve got, mayor.
MAYOR WHITE:     Thank you.
Judicial report given by Miss Dawn Boren.
MS. BOREN:     We had the average walk-ins and phone calls.  I am also getting my files in order for the new fiscal year.  I’m preparing for the close-out report.  I sent off my report to court administration where they give you the go.
Chief Roberts and myself have been organizing an easier way to control the warrants in and out of our system.  That will make our records easier to keep and this will benefit the town and the county.
We’re also going back through warrants in to my past administration to ensure that these people are held accountable.
MAYOR WHITE:     Thank you.
One thing I want to mention, too, under the — Because I didn’t mention it during the police report.  We have a reserve officer and, really, that speaks a lot for the chief.  You know, we haven’t had a reserve officer in awhile.  The last reserve officer I think that we had was actually our judge now, Judge Butterfield, and we have a reserve officer, Steve Gill, and he has been just great for the town.  He’s willing to come out at all hours.  He’ll stop by the shop; I’ll speak to him there but I mean he is — When you have reserve officer, I don’t know if all of you understand this or not, but they work without pay and he is — He’s come onboard.  He’s very serious and he’s definitely a hard worker.  So I mean and he’s somebody and he’ll come out at any hour.  So I think that’s a credit to you, chief, that somebody’s willing to come onboard and do, to provide a service like that for the town and, like I said, you know, this is somebody that comes onboard at no cost to the town.
Okay.
Committee reports.  Peggy Thomas, revitalization committee.
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS:     No report.
MAYOR WHITE:     Carlie Strickland, emergency preparedness.
COUNCIL MEMBER STRICKLAND:     I don’t have anything.
MAYOR WHITE:     Okay.
Charlie Cook, public works.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     Yeah, we got some lights that are out in town and I’ve got to get with SCE&G so they can replace the bulbs in them so we can get them back on.
Other than that, that’s it.
MAYOR WHITE:     There is actually a light that’s on and I don’t — I mean it’s — I don’t know if it’s photocell or what but you know that property by — It’s by Nancy Sisk (phon.) and I think it’s Sissy Lavare’s (phon.) property.  There’s a light that’s on there and it’s one of those — It’s either a 2 or 4,000 watt light.
Rick Eustler is on vacation.
And Sandra Addison, planning commission.
MS. ADDISON:     I just want to make comment that a grave injustice was done with that rag that Rick Eustler calls a newspaper for Cottageville to the women and the one gentleman on the planning commission.  Mr. Capshaw nor Mr. Eustler ever came to any of those meetings and there were many meetings twice a week for a long time.
What right does Mr. Capshaw have to write an article and paraphrase that some poor person in Cottageville will believe because they believe it because it’s written and printed?
And it is very unfair to this, this planning commission.  It worked hard.  We solicited people to come and to hear what was being worked on for this town for no pay.  And it looks like no appreciation.  And it was a lot of hard work and I just want it on record that I think that a grave injustice has been done to the planning commission as a result of that piece of trash.
MAYOR WHITE:     Miss Addison, I do want to say, I do want to comment on what you said.
In all fairness to Miss Addison during this, you know, since we’ve had you working on this zoning, every time that you’ve come to the meeting the one thing I remember you saying out of anything else that was said is that you said that, you know, if you want to come and make input please come.  You’ve said that at every — at the beginning.  I mean we could go back through the minutes and know and you also made the comment that, you know, you may have one person there or whatever, but, you know, there was, basically, no one there and, you know, I know that, you know, myself, I didn’t come to them because I wanted to go ahead and give the zoning commission a chance to work on this but I know that you have solicited input from the beginning.  So I don’t think that the planning commission can be faulted for what they’ve done on this.
Okay.
Unfinished business, the ditch update.  Where we’re at right now is we have sent out approximately 13 letters to the people that are actually affected by the main ditch that runs through Cottageville.
If anybody’s not aware, we have a major concern whenever we have a rain in Cottageville as far as the streets, actually 17A in particular draining off.
There is some really interesting pictures up there.  I’ve taken them, I actually took those pictures and took them on several, several different times because of the complaints that I’ve had from Mr. Card (phon.) but right now where we’re at with this, if you’ve been coming to the meetings, there are three property owners that I haven’t heard back from and, basically, it’s concerning this, this one ditch here.
Tom Sutton (phon.) has given me the right to go ahead and clean this ditch here and then when it gets across the street, I haven’t heard anything from Mr. Addison.
But what I did is I sent out a notice to each one of them because if you have the — If you have a chance to take a look at these after the meeting I would really appreciate it if you would.  You can see that this is Highway 17A and we had a severe problem right here with the amount of water that is left standing there.
I actually went back two days later to see what — You know, this was the last time we had a major rain and I don’t have the actual dates on there but this was two days later I took this picture and 17A going to Mr. Card’s house is still affected by the amount of rainfall that we’ve had.
This is his, this is his yard during a rain.  You can see this.  It’s a pretty nice lake.  He has this area here that’s affected and it all boils down to, from what I can see, is that we have a severe blockage in this area in here.
Where we stand right now, I met with the attorney for — and I actually met with the landowners for this piece of property.  The attorney, Mr. Bubba Unger told me that he was gone go ahead and try to come up with a solution to take care of — to address this problem in working with the highway department and all.
This area really does need to be addressed and you said, well, you know, this, this doesn’t affect me, the homeowner should have — should’ve worried about it when he bought the property.  That is not the case because you can see from the amount of water that’s laying, these ditches and the color of this water that not only are you getting a lot of flowing out of septic tanks, I mean this is perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and I mean every one of the ditches around Cottageville is affected.
This area here, this is the main ditch and, basically, actually, it runs up past Depot Road but this is the main ditch that drains off Cottageville and it feeds all the way down below where the BP station.  It’s actually a pipe in front of the BP station, a branch that’s down by Reevestown (phon.).
I just want to let you know that we are working on it.  I’m waiting to hear back from the attorney and it’s really in their court right now but something has to be done to go ahead and get this property drained off.
Most of the homeowners or landowners are very conducive to go ahead and get their ditches worked on and we’ll see what transpires in the next few weeks.
Also under unfinished business, zoning ordinance, receive any input from council.  Did council have a chance to review that?  Have you made any changes or recommendations?
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     I’m still reading it.
COUNCIL MEMBER STRICKLAND:     I haven’t finished it.  I’ve been reading it.
COUNCIL MEMBER THOMAS:     I’ve look at it and I have some concerns.
MAYOR WHITE:     I’d like to set up a meeting date for this so we can have it before we have a meeting with council and of course the public is welcome to attend.
And then we have scheduled the twenty-fifth of this month at 6:00, which is a Thursday, we’ll have a public hearing concerning the zoning ordinance.
Tonight we’ll have the first reading on Ordinance 2009-3, Budget for the 2009-2010 Fiscal Year.  This ordinance is provided for the collection and expenditures of town revenue for the fiscal year July 1, 2009, til June 30, 2010.  And where we stand at right now, our expected revenues is $703,294 and our expenditures are $670,579.
It’s a lot lower than what it was last year and the main reason for that is decrease in court fines, decrease in local option sales tax and also aid to subdivision.  All those, those fees have slowly decreased.
And we have actually been over — Council and myself have been over there.
All court fines and assessments shall  be duly recorded and deposited in the town.  All general fund revenue shall be duly recorded and all disbursements from the town checking account shall be done by the mayor and town clerk.
This completes the first reading and the budget will require two readings.
Is there any questions or I’ll entertain a motion for approval of the first reading of the budget for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.
COUNCIL MEMBER STRICKLAND:     I make a motion we accept first reading.
COUNCIL MEMBER COOK:     I second it.
MAYOR WHITE:     All in favor?
(All council members indicated yes.)
MAYOR WHITE:     Ayes have it.  No opposed.
Thank you.