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Thank you all for coming this evening. We were hoping to have the first reading of the new zoning ordinance but LCOG still is making the changes to the document. I would rather have the document reviewed carefully than to resent council and the town something that is incomplete.

We have had a busy month this month. I have an update for the ditches. We have three people that have not singed to have their ditches cleaned one way or the other. I have met with the attorney representing two of the landowners. He is trying to come up with some alternate suggestions for the ditch problem I will give him the opportunity to try to come up with a plan. I did meet with the scdot resident engineer to show him the problem and he will be sending a response to the attorney. The attorney did write a letter to one of the highway commissioners concerning this problem. The highway dept cleaned out the piping across 17-a. This is not a permanent fix and it doesn’t address the main problem, which are the ditches themselves. On Wednesday of last week I received correspondence from the attorney stating that the problem is out of the scope of the Walterboro office and referred the situation back to the Highway commissioner. This is the last contact I have had, but I’m sure the attorney will respond soon.

I met with Rev Cook of the St. John’s AME church. They are interested in classrooms for an afterschool tutoring program in the fall. They want to use classrooms two days a week to start with. They will be using a volunteer staff and I think we should try to support them in their efforts.

We have started work on the office area of the cafeteria. I eventually want to move the office staff over to this building. This will give us record storage and a safe and comfortable work area. We have submitted a request to apply for the eecbd grant for help with our heating and cooling. I hope this grant makes it to our town; most of what I see still does not make it to the municipal level as was promised by the personnel involved with the stimulus monies. We got shot down on our sidewalk grant that we applied for the first of the year with SCDOT. This upset me because I feel that we have roads leading to a school that are not adequate let alone no sidewalks. We need to be concerned for the safety of our children.

Some of you may have noticed the dumpster near the old gym. We are slowly trying to clean all the trash out of the old buildings. After the auction was over there is a lot of debris let that have to be disposed of, we are trying to get rid of them so even if the building is not being used it is still clean. Anyone that would like to assist with this project may do so, just contact me and I will show you what needs to be done. I want to say one thing about this site. The old school means little to me since I didn’t grow up here, never took a class here, my children didn’t go here. But I will say this, I was lucky enough to know some of the people that did, the ones that were teachers, students and lunchroom workers. I think that it would mean something to them to keep this facility clean.

I want to also say that we had a member of the school retire; Mr. Nagle Mr. Nagle was a supporter of the town and a friend. I think he had an impact with our children and will be remembered for a long time. Our new principal is Tracy Mc Donald. She has lived in the Cottageville area for a long time and I think that it is great to have someone close by to hold this position. I taught her daughter in Sunday school. I spoke to one of her colleagues the other day about her commitment and concern for the school and our children. We should be happy to have a home town person here at our school. If you have never visited the school please do so t is a beautiful building .I congratulated Tracy and please let us know if we can help you in any way. Tracy called me last night and said that she would not be here tonight, but will be here next month.

Terri has applied for and received permission for the town to receive surplus state material. So far on one trip Terri found used radios that can be used for the police dept. Carter was able to program these radios for our use. The total outlay to the town in the radios and the programming was approx. $300. The approx. value of the radios was $22k. We are going to track this site to see what other equipment come available. We also bought a few laptops and some printers. Palmetto rural has been able to reprogram this equipment for our use. We bought two laptops, total cost to the town, $200.Thank you Terri for this savings. In just the past few days Terri and Shane went back to Columbia and bought five laptops for our patrol cars, this in preparation for automated ticketing. The five units cost five hundred dollars and PRTC will be able to program those units also. The units we have been able to purchase, even though used run over $4k new. They are a hardened unit for use in the car’s want to tell everyone that PRTC has been increasing their staff in the IT area. They provide excellent service in this field.

I spoke to Bob Charlock with PRTC. He will be planning our fiber network to this building. This will greatly improve our data entry for our ticketing. The fiber already exists in the old building and the kindergarten building so when we get to the point of using it will be ready.

I normally tell you of the financial picture looking so bad. Our employees are always looking for ways to reduce cost which we should all appreciate.

I have been told of a petition going around town to remove our municipal certificate. This is a short sighted plan for our community. Another negative idea from negative people. If we turn everything over to the county we are back at ground zero. We have no representation and no voice in government. I would have loved to see on of the people say they were going to do something to help the town other than destroy it. If you don’t like me that is one thing, but to destroy our town and take away its name something that your forefathers, not mine but yours, set in to motion is another. Sure, it would be cheaper for me, a business owner to not be in the town. But I’m willing to pay my license to operate in the town and be part of something even though I’m not from here. As I said before, instead of complaining, put that effort into something for the town, your home.  I have tried to be positive no matter what I’ve heard about things in this town. I can’t believe people would want no police presence in our town other than county. Drive through Jacksonboro at 55 miles per hour, you won’t be touched. Maybe this is what you want, no, I’ll tell you what some people want, they want the good ole boy system back. Where because we are from Cottageville the law doesn’t mean anything. We can break the rules and someone will come to our aid. Open container, ok. Disrespect to a police office, fine. Avoid business fees, ok, Speeding, great. No seat belts, who cares, so instead of following the rules let’s do away with our government. Smart idea, but small thinkers.

I got a story to tell you about Brian Bradshaw. He was a young man who said, Quote; Service is the foundation of life. The whole meaning of life is to pass over to others that which we value most and what I value is service. You ask Who’s Brian, I never heard of him I don’t know who he is Well let me tell you Brian was a Lt who died in Afghanistan last month so you could have a town a county a country without terrorist. I bet he would love to be alive right now, and he would probably thank god to be alive even if he was living here. But he gave his life for us. But you won’t even give five minutes to your town.

So you want your town to go away, maybe it just against me for not fixing tickets, or looking the other way when someone is avoiding a permit or business license. Or maybe you want the clerk to go for doing her job. Or the police for pulling your children and the mayor won’t fix a ticket. Ask my kids and family what I told them. They know what I will tell them. I will stand for what I have tried to do, which is pay bills, get our records in place and protect your property. I didn’t say that I was running for mayor to be popular, to fix tickets or look the other way, sorry we already had that.

So vote to do away with the town, and when something criminal goes on, and you or your family is in danger, or your business gets robbed, just remember this is what you wanted because I wouldn’t play the game.

To let you know about zoning, I did away with the downtown commercial area because of how it looks. It is an embarrassment. Buildings with broken and missing windows, building in disrepair. My business will be grandfathered in, as each of your businesses will. My home is located in the heart of it, how do you think I feel, if I could do something about it I WOULD. Look at Mr. Hubert’s old store; you would never remember it as a thriving business. Maybe you would if it had glass in the front. It has been out for over three years. If we want to have a downtown commercial area make it look like one and not how it looks now. Tell me I’m wrong. I’ll bring you a picture if you don’t believe it. The big complaint was that the downtown area was too restrictive. Well, come up with a better idea, you have another month till the first reading. But don’t wait till then let us know now, so we can make some changes.

This job isn’t easy, but I thank god our council, our employees and the citizens that volunteer. I used to serve on the original Cottageville volunteer fire dept. You know how many people volunteered, not many, and not one of the people that are pushing this petition to do away with your town I never saw them on a hose.