Hello, and welcome to this, the second episode of IMTV, International Marxist Television. I'm Josh Holroyd, I'm a writer at Socialist.net, Socialist Appeal. And today, joined with me in our secret revolutionary bunker, is Jorge Martín of the International Marxist Tendency, a regular writer at the website www.Marxist.com and the international secretary of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign. And this week we're going to be discussing Venezuela, where at the weekend there will be elections on the 20th of May. Now, last year you may remember all over the world there were many images of serious economic problems, demonstrations, rioting, and a huge amount of coverage, especially in the media over here in Britain. But Jorge, you have really been following the Bolivarian Revolution, the process in Venezuela, too much since the beginning of the revolution with the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998. So I think the first question that I would like to ask, and I imagine our viewers slash listeners would like to know about, is what is the Bolivarian Revolution and what has it achieved? Yes, the Bolivarian Revolution, as you said, started more or less about 20 years ago in 98 when Chávez was elected for the first time as president. And it is a revolution. That means that it is the direct entry of the masses onto the scene of history. There has been massive upheaval, a very high degree of political participation on the part of working people, the poor, the peasants who never participated before. And they basically taken the future into their own hands. That's what the revolution is. And as for what it has achieved, I will say that there are many gains of the revolution over these 20 years, too many to detail, but if there are maybe three that could be highlighted, I will say, which are also very relevant for us here in Britain, one is in the field of education where the revolution has massively expanded education free of charge at all levels from primary, secondary and higher education. The number of students enrolled in university has gone up from 800,000 in 98 to about 2.5 million now. And this is free of charge when over here we are paying ever increasing tuition fees. The massive expansion of healthcare with the creation of diagnostic centres and health clinics in the poor neighbourhoods in Caracas in other cities. And maybe third, an attempt to solve the problem of housing whereby the revolution in the last five or six years has built and delivered now three million new homes free of charge, fully equipped for people who were excluded from the housing market before. And I think that these are very important achievements that demonstrate that it's possible to do things in a different way when your priorities are not the profit-making motive of the few rich, but the general interests of the people, the poor, the workers, the peasants and so on. So I would say the revolution has achieved a lot. It's in a very difficult situation now, but there are many very important gains and also many important experiences of the people participating directly in politics, workers' control in many state-owned companies, factory occupations, land occupations by different groups of peasants, the people organising themselves in the neighbourhoods in the main cities. And as you mentioned earlier, it sounds from some of what you were saying, that there has been a retreat, if you like, in some of these gains. You mentioned that workers' control has dwindled to an extent. And of course many people would always be aware of some of the economic difficulties. And where do you think that fits in with the story of the revolution? Yeah, there's two things. Always there was for the last 20 years of the Bolivarian Revolution there has always been a conflict, a tension between the revolutionary initiative from below and the state apparatus that was trying to block that. And in most cases Chaveth played the role of pushing the movement forward and then being pushed by the movement himself. But there was always, and Chaveth recognised that, a layer of bureaucracy that would sabotage and try to prevent the revolutionary initiative of the masses from being put into place. And this has been there always. But it has had a bigger impact as the revolution has gone on because people become demoralised or become sceptical if they see that what they want to fight for is being blocked by bureaucrats who call themselves socialists or Bolivarian who dress in a red shirt. But at the end of the day they are implementing bureaucratic measures to prevent the workers from taking control. As for the economic crisis, we must say clearly that the situation in Venezuela right now is bad. It's very bad. There's been a very serious economic recession for the last four years or perhaps five years, massive contraction of the economy. And this has created many serious problems for the living conditions of working people that has been accompanied by scarcity of basic food products, medicine, hyperinflation which has now reached levels of hyperinflation. What kind of levels are we talking about? I mean, we're talking, for instance, the other day I was talking to some Venezuelan comrades we were trying to work out the increase in the price of chicken. In one year from May last year to May this year, a kilo of chicken has gone from 4,500 bolivars a kilo to 900,000 or a million which is an inflation of 20,000% in one year. Of course, wages have also gone up but nowhere near the same levels. I mean wages have gone up maybe by 1,600%. So that means that the purchasing power of wages in one year has lost about 90% of the purchasing power. But what's important to see is that the bourgeois media over here will say, oh, that's because of socialism. Socialism has failed in Venezuela. The implementation of socialist policies have led to this economic disaster. Well, in fact, I would say it's precisely the opposite. What Chavez did and then Maduro continued was an attempt in reality if you boil down the policies to the core was an attempt to regulate the capitalist economy which is something you cannot do. They, for instance, introduced price controls in order to prevent inflation. They introduced foreign exchange controls in order to prevent the flight of capital. And this never worked. The capitalist, as long as they own the means of production, the banks, the land and so on, they always find a way to go around any regulations that you want to introduce. So in reality what has not worked in Venezuela is not socialism, the state monopoly of the economy and the democratic management of the economy and the benefit of the majority, but rather the fact that too much of the economy was still left in private hands and the oligarchy, the capitalist, the bankers, the landowners used the ownership of the means of production, land and capital, to sabotage the revolution because they fundamentally opposed to this revolution. So there's an element of deliberate conscious sabotage going on. Maduro himself, for some time now, has been talking about an economic war and how much of a role do you think that plays? Is this purely propaganda by Maduro? Is it a real thing? And to what extent is it driving the crisis? There's clearly an economic war over many years. There have been, for instance, instances in which the police have entered or the National Guard have entered into warehouses belonging to private capitalists where food items that were not available in the market were stored in massive amounts. But I will say that this is part, you can call it an economic war, it is deliberate sabotage, but at the same time, if you are a capitalist, from a purely capitalist point of view, if the government tells you you have to sell mace, flour or rice at this particular price and you don't think you're making enough profit, then you simply won't sell it, whether you'll sell it in a black market or you'll sell it abroad in Colombia where you can make a higher rate of profit. So in reality it is an economic war, but at the same time it is the consequence of trying to regulate capitalism, which is something you cannot do. Capitalism is based on the freedom of the capitalist to invest or not according to the profit that they can make out of that. Capitalism is not based on the interest of the general public of the majority of the population. So that's another factor. And a third factor, I will say, is the fact that Venezuela has been hit very hard by the economic crisis of capitalism worldwide and the slowdown of the Chinese economy. So while before oil prices were very high for Venezuela and oil over $100 a battle, which they were around 2012, 2013, and then they massively collapsed after 2014, bringing a low level of $27 a battle. They have now recovered slightly, but still they are much lower at the peak. And obviously a country like Venezuela, which gets most of its hard currency from the export of oil, then has been massively hit. The ability of the government to introduce, to sell subsidized food products or to carry on with the social programs has been massively depleted. Foreign reserves have gone down and so this is really the course of the crisis in Venezuela. The crisis is aggravated by a number of other factors, but at the bottom of the crisis is the crisis of world capitalism and its effects in a country that produces one single product for export. Talk about the opposition a bit actually. The way that they're presented, so speaking from Britain, the way that they're often presented on the BBC is as democratic fighters who are facing up to a corrupt, authoritarian regime, destroying the country's economy and what they want is fair elections so that they can solve the problems in Venezuelan society. Some of what you've told me suggests that that's perhaps an element of spin in that. What else do you think is relevant to the opposition here? I would say it's almost the opposite. In fact, the main section of Venezuelan opposition, a boycotting the presidential elections that are coming up this weekend, after spending one year demanding that these elections take place, the elections were not supposed to take place this early, they were supposed to take place later on because the term of office of Maduro hasn't finished, but the opposition demanded the elections, early elections, elections for everything and this and that. Now that the elections are taking place, they're refusing to participate and what that suggests to me is that they know they're going to lose these elections, like they've lost most of the elections over the last 20 years with two exceptions. The second thing is that if you look at the behaviour of the opposition one year ago, if you look at the track record, is the track record of undemocratic coup plotting, oligarchic, US imperialism linked opposition, but if you look at the track record one year ago when there were big protests, the track record is extremely undemocratic. I mean, they used terrorist violence in these opposition demonstrations, they tried to overrun military base in the centre of Caracas, they used homemade rocket launchers and also they had a very strong content of class hatred. Most of the demonstrators, the protesters and the opposition supporters come from the upper class and middle class areas in the east of Caracas and that's where the demonstrations were taking place. And for instance there were two or three incidents in which people who looked like Chavista supporters, maybe because they looked poor or dark skin and they were set upon by the opposition protesters. In one case, one person was set on fire and he could have died from his injuries just because he didn't look the right shade of skin colour or because he was coming from a poor neighbourhood. So this is the real content of the Venezuelan opposition. They said they thought it was a thief. Yeah.  That's the way they think and they never reconcile themselves with the fact that they've lost all these elections, all these years. They now control the national assembly but if you look at the track record of the opposition dominated national assembly, the legislation they attempted to bring forward was very undemocratic. For instance they wanted to privatise the housing schemes that the government had created saying that people had the right to private ownership of their home but in reality what this means, we know this in this country, will have been the privatisation of public housing stock and massive increase in prices and the exclusion of people from the housing market again. So this is the real character of the opposition. An opposition that does not hesitate in demanding foreign military intervention. You see a week ago Mike Pence, the vice president of the United States, made a big speech at the Organization of American States and he was basically threatening with intervention. He used all the key coded words when as well as a failed state in its humanitarian intervention, it's a tyranny, it's a regime and all those things and then he said and there are a number of very courageous leaders of the opposition here and they are also in favour of these measures and they have openly called for military intervention. We know that military intervention by the United States in any country of the world only creates destruction, chaos and suffering for the population of that country. I'm still yet to see any US intervention that brings democracy anywhere in the world. These people, they don't hesitate in calling the United States to come and invade their own country with all the associated costs that that will have because they don't really care about the country, its people or anything. The only thing they care is about their ownership of the natural resources and the wealth of this country. This is the real character of the opposition in Venezuela. We should probably explain the situation currently in the political situation in Venezuela because we have a national assembly like a parliament which from the end of 2015 is now majority opposition. That's one of the very few elections that they actually recognise. The president is Nicolas Maduro, the successor to Hugo Chavez of the PSUV, the Socialist Party of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and then you also have, and this might confuse people, you also have a constituent assembly last year. So what role has the constituent assembly played in this? Yes, the idea. About one year ago in May last year, President Maduro decided to call to propose the convening of such a constituent assembly. There has been another constituent assembly in Venezuela in 1999 which was at the time when they rewarded the constitution. So Maduro said, look, there is a deadlock between the different powers. Let's have a constituent assembly to rework the whole system, the ground rules for the Venezuelan political system. And then the thing is that the opposition decided to boycott this election. At that time they were in this attempt to organise an insurrection they just described and they thought they could remove the government by un-democratic means, by provoking a coup, by calling on military officers to carry out the coup and so on. So they weren't interested in any democratic election. Even though the demand was allegedly that there should be elections, so they could have participated in the constituent assembly but they chose not to. The constituent assembly had a massive turnout. People turned out to vote in order to deliver a blow against this un-democratic opposition to say, look, we are also Venezuelans, we are the majority and we want a democratic election. So the idea was to have a constituent assembly that will, one, represent people directly, that people could elect representatives from the neighbourhoods, from the peasant communities and so on, from the different workplaces. And second, the idea was that such an assembly will then have powers to deal with the economic situation. But I have to say that, in my opinion, the constituent assembly hasn't fulfilled its role. First of all, the bureaucracy has taken control over it, so there's no real initiatives coming from below. When you say the bureaucracy, is this the PSUV bureaucracy? Yes, the bureaucracy at the top of the PSUV, the Socialist United Party and the state bureaucracy that basically have asphyxiated the revolutionary initiative from below. On many different levels. And secondly, the constituent assembly has been unable or unwilling to take any serious measures to deal with the economic situation. In fact, the economic situation has deteriorated sharply since one year ago and since the election to the constituent assembly on July the 30th last year. And so people are very disappointed. So now when Maduro comes in this election for the elections on Sunday and he says, give me 10 million votes and I will fight against the economic maffias that are creating this economic crisis. Many people are skeptical. They say this might be the language used by a candidate to the presidency. But you are already the president. If you know how to deal with the economic maffias, why don't you do it now? Why don't you do it for the last one year or two years or three years? And this is very dangerous because the bureaucracy, the lack of the inability to deal with the economic crisis means that amongst the working class people, amongst the poor who are the basis of support for the Bolivian Revolution, skepticism grows, demoralisation grows. So there might be a higher degree of abstention, for instance, in these elections. And this basically prepares the ground for the return of the oligarchy to power. In my opinion, it has to be said. If these policies, the policies of the current government, the government of Maduro continue, its inability to deal with the economic problems of the country continues, then the right wing will come to power and that will be a real disaster. I suppose that follows on to what I was going to ask next. It sounds like the current situation in Venezuela, the situation that has existed for the last couple of years or so, is one that can't continue the way it's currently doing. You can't have levels of hyperinflation of that nature. I remember learning at school about Weimar Germany and eventually, one way or another, that situation had to be resolved, so to speak. And so you've already started answering what I was going to ask about, well, what exactly is going to happen. But kind of apart from that or alongside that, what do you think the tasks for socialists in Venezuela, first of all, are right now and in the short to medium term? Well, I think first of all we need to ask ourselves that is a serious, very serious economic crisis in Venezuela. No one is able to deny that. So what will be a programme that will allow the government to deal with this economic crisis? In my opinion, there are only two ways out of this economic crisis. One is the way that the ruling class, the oligarchy, wants and they will implement if they come to power, whether they come to power through foreign intervention, military coup, an insurrection or whatever, or they come to power by democratic means, by winning another election, they will implement the following programme. There is now in Venezuela a massive fiscal deficit, i.e. the government is spending more than what is taking in in revenue, tax revenue, oil revenue and so on. And the government is basically printing money in order to bridge that. That's a very important contributing factor to hyperinflation. But there's only two ways of solving this. The ruling class wants to close that gap, the fiscal gap, by cutting expenditure.  They will carry out a massive austerity package in order to make the workers and the poor pay for the full price of the crisis. That's one way of solving the economic crisis, one way in which the workers will pay. The other way to solve the economic crisis is basically to nationalise, to expropriate the capitalist class. The capitalist class is sabotaging the economy. That's funding and creating these undemocratic coup plots and attempting to bring down the government by undemocratic means. They expropriate them, expropriate the properties, the factories, the food processing places, the land and so on. And use these means of production to democratically plan the economy according to the needs of the majority. This is the other way to solve the crisis. Now the government currently is not following one or the other. It's just following a middle-of-the-road solution which doesn't solve anything, which only makes the economic situation worse and prepares the way for the right wing to come to power. So I would say the first thing that socialists need to clarify in Venezuela is which programme is needed for the revolution to continue and to be completed, because this is the problem. The revolution was never completed. That will be the first task. The second task is to discuss who's going to carry this programme out. And in my opinion, the government of Maduro, which has been in power now for four years or more, has proven completely unable to carry out these tasks. It has had many opportunities and every single juncture continues pursuing the same policies and making appeals to the capitalist class to invest in the economy, which they're not doing. And not only appeals, empty appeals, but also giving them concessions, lifting the price controls, giving them cheap loans, creating special economic zones, opening up vast parts of the country for mineral exploitation and so on. And this is very dangerous because this not only does not solve the economic situation, it aggravates it. Even the idea that the government, for instance, introduces these wage bonuses to top up wages, because obviously wages are now worth much less than they were, say, a year ago. But this is not a solution in itself because the minute the government announces an economic bonus, the prices are already going up and eating away that concession. Maduro actually did that, didn't he? He announced a 95% wage increase in advance of the elections. On May Day, and that didn't last at all. I mean, the prices in just one or two weeks went up by 100%. So that didn't solve the situation because you cannot just print money, more money to give to workers when there is no production of goods that only adds to hyperinflation. So the second question that we need to ask ourselves is who's going to carry out this program. There are many forces in Venezuela within the Bolivarian Revolution that are still attached to the legacy of Hugo Chávez. And Chávez, before he died, he made a couple of very important speeches. One was Golpe de Timón, turned the Rada, and he basically said, the problem here is that we still have a capitalist economy. All things socialist, socialist university or socialist housing project, whatever, but they're not socialist. They exist in a capitalist economy. So the first thing that needs to be sorted out is the question that we need to move towards a socialist economy, he said. And the second is that we need to destroy, pulverise things, the word he used, the bourgeois state, which is still blocking the revolutionary initiative of the people, to create a communal state, a state based on the communes, a workers and peasants state. And he was talking about the bureaucracy, he was taking aim at the bureaucracy with that, wasn't he? Yeah, I mean, he was actually, in this turn, the Rada speech, he was actually telling off his own ministers for not having carried out what they should have. And so what I'm trying to say is that there are still many forces in Venezuela who are loyal to the idea of the Bolivarian Revolution, to the ideals, which is also the democratic participation of people in production, workers' control, peasant communes, but they're isolated, they are scattered, they're not politically organised at the national level, and I think that there is a need for a revolutionary alternative to come from within the Bolivarian movement, which carries out a socialist programme that can deal with the danger of the right-wing and imperialism, and can also clear from within the ranks of the Bolivarian Revolution the bureaucracy, the reformists, which are carrying out policies that prepare a disaster for the Bolivarian Revolution. So I suppose part of your message for this election is that socialists in Venezuela are going to have to look beyond it effectively to start rebuilding really the... Many people in Venezuela will in these elections vote for Maduro, not so much because they are convinced that his policies are correct. They can see that the situation is not improving, but they will vote as a way of blocking the right-wing and imperialism. The imperialism meddling in Venezuela is very important, there are sanctions being implemented that prevent Venezuela from trading with other countries, that prevent companies from sending money to Venezuelan state-owned companies. It's very disruptive. That's presumably making the economic crisis much worse for Neri Venezuelans. That's the idea. The idea is to create such an economic chaos that then people will say, we want to get rid of this government. So imperialist aggression is very real. It's not government propaganda, some may tell you. It's very real and very effective. And it's growing. Now they're even talking about an oil blockade which will really destroy the economy. So many people will vote for Maduro, not so much because they are convinced of his programme or his ability to solve the situation, but rather as a way of blocking the right-wing. Now we, in my opinion, I sympathise with their motives. It's a class instinct. They don't want the right-wing to come back to power. But at the same time, I will say, I will warn that re-electing Maduro will not solve the situation. The elections of the Constitution Assembly didn't solve the problem. The regional elections in October didn't solve the problem. Maduro has had powers enough to deal with the situation if he had a plan for over four or five years. So the discussion should concentrate not only on what are we going to do on Sunday in the elections, who are we going to vote for or not. But above all, on what programme is required for completing the revolution and getting out of this economic crisis. And secondly, how to build a revolutionary alternative based on the workers, based on the peasants, in the communes, in the factories and so on that can carry out that programme to completion. A follow-up question from that is we've talked about the leadership of these movements. We've talked about Corbyn and the Labour Party specifically. But what should socialists in Britain and elsewhere outside of Venezuela be doing about what's going on in Venezuela? What can we do, basically? Well, I say our main and first task is to fight against imperialism, imperialist aggression in Venezuela, imperialist meddling in Venezuela. This is the main aim of the Hands of Venezuela campaign. The future of Venezuela should be decided by the people of Venezuela without any foreign interference. We're not just talking about the US. I mean, it is also the European Union has implemented sanctions against Venezuela. The British government has received the Venezuelan opposition leaders, the undemocratic Venezuel opposition leaders. We're plotting a coup. And even in 2002, when Tony Blair was in power, they gave tacit support to the coup in Venezuela. So we must fight against imperialist aggression in Venezuela. This is our first duty as socialists in an imperialist country. And at the same time, try to cut through the fog of lies and half-truths and misinformation that you see in the British media about Venezuela. This is the best contribution that we can make to help the Venezuelan revolution, as well as preparing revolution in our own country. OK, thanks, Jorge. And thank you everyone for watching or listening. I hope you've enjoyed the episode. Do tune in next time when we're going to be discussing lessons for the student movement. In the meantime, if you'd like to check out more articles, videos and other multimedia, then please go on to marxist.com or socialist.net where you can find all sorts of material there. Thank you.


I would like to call the May 2nd, 2023 community development committee meeting to order. And Ms. Erica, and I need to say it right. Madam Clerk, if you would note that myself and Mr. DeVall are here, Mr. Brennan is on a important Zoom should be here in about 10 to 15 minutes, but he asked us to go ahead without him. And for the folks that are here, because we're going to switch the program, the agenda here. So we're actually, Ms. Jacqueline, if you don't mind, we're going to start off with, or did you want to introduce her? We're going to start off with community garden program. And the reason that we're doing this, of course, we've been talking with more justice. And this year, one of the focuses is food insecurity. And one of the things that they had questions about was community gardens. And I remember when we started community gardens. So I wanted you to give us all an update on exactly where we are, what we've done. Because it's probably been 10 years now, for sure. And then I think they have either questions or questions or statements that we'll address and have a discussion after that. Does that sound fair to y'all? OK. All right. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. I am Jacqueline Williams. And I'd like that you put Master Gardner up there. And I am also the program coordinator in Parks and Recreation. I taught school for 21 years in Virginia, second grade. So that's prepared me for everything else in life. And I have been gardening really for about 34 years. So that means I started around two. And so that also makes you a Master Gardner when you've been gardening for 34 years. And that doesn't mean that I know everything. But it does mean that I know how to grow my own fruits and vegetables. So and that's what's most important. And I just want to note, so seriously, Jacqueline started the community gardens when we were trying to figure out what a community garden is and where are we going? So I think this is good, too, to see the progression and that you're still with it. And we have the same person to help you grow. So I just wanted to give you your kudos. Thank you. Because it started, the program started in the community development. The community development, yeah. Yeah, department. And you felt like. Randy stole you from us. That would happen, but we thought it was a better fit for parks in our department. So that actually going to the next, we're going to go to the third slide. We'll skip. Yeah, we talked about that. We brought the program to city council in 2011. And it became a citywide program. And I actually went to North Carolina and visited other cities just to see what they were doing and to get the designs of how they ran their gardens. And the main part of this is just, and I'm not going to read everything on here, you can read it, you know, we have a lot of health disparities in our state, but it's more so to get people to grow vegetables at home and just to show them how easy it is. And I tell people all the time, even what I'm wearing, this is kind of a costume, but this is what the 21st century gardener looks like. So yeah, this is it, you know, I'm not a farmer. I will go outside tomorrow. You may see me in work boots and jeans. You may see me in heels. And sometimes I'm in the garden in my dress and in my heels because like I said, I don't, I'm not a farmer. I'm just going out to grow some vegetables. So you can do it in heels, you can aerate the ground. So our next slide is just, I wanted to show you where all of our, some of the sites, and I have them down by area code, zip code. So they're all, all of our gardens are on city-owned or operated property. And so in here, 29203, you can read down the list. And I have put on here how many plots are at each garden. So this is just this area. We have more coming. So at the Leroy Moss Multipurpose Center at Hyatt Park, we have our first, the city's first pollinator garden there, looking at some other specialty parks here. If you have any questions, Noma is our largest community garden. We had 50 plots there, but we needed to redo them since they were there since 2011. And if you know the lumber, the lumber has gone up. So in 2011, when we made these, when we constructed the beds, they ran about $500 a bed. Right now they're about a thousand. So, and I'll get into the size of that later on. So lumber prices are still high. So right now we're keeping it at 30, but we do have plans to put the other 20 beds back, you know, when the prices come down a little bit. And if you could explain to folks how that works, how the plots work and how people. I should have put that first. So I can, you know, we go to the next, it's in here, right? I could follow. I'm going to follow these. Is that okay? Yeah, it's in there. Yes, absolutely. It's in here. So we can go to the, yeah. Just to show you. So those were not all of the sites from your first lab. That was just, that was just one area. I have a couple. I broke them down into areas so that you can see where the gardens are across the city. So we have the Drew Wellness Garden. That's a wonderful garden. The people who work out there, they go out and walk the trail and they have some tomatoes. The Marvin Heller Community Garden, that's where the city has, has its first tunnel, season tunnel, high tunnel garden and our first children's discovery garden. So that's a nice place to go. If you've not been there, there's seating there. I like to eat lunch there sometimes and just to talk to all the neighbors there. It's a nice place. So the tunnel garden, the high tunnel is actually there for you to be able to start your garden earlier and prolong the season. So you could start your tomatoes, it's saying February. Because here in Columbia, we can grow all year round. It's all year round. This is, that's a good thing. Oh, so you have to explain it to me. You can grow earlier because. Well, because it's enclosed because you have your summer vegetables and you have your winter vegetables. So if you, in February, it's still too cold for the tomatoes. So if you start them inside and then you can bring them out around April after the first frost. And at the end of that season, tomatoes, the first frost will kill them. So if you have them in the tunnel house, then you can have tomatoes much longer. So that's a benefit to the city to have that. And that was from a grant and I actually helped build that tunnel house out there in 2017. And again, if you haven't been out there, there's a children's discovery garden out there. So there's a little trail, there are signs, 88 garden beds and walkways. So yeah, if you haven't been out there and then Pinehurst has a tropical garden. So that's some more sites. And then we have another page. Tell me what to go back. So, I'm a master gardener almost. And I have to tell the truth, tropical garden.  Yes, her husband worked with Benedict students and they went out there and planted these tropical plants and they keep it up. Every now and again, he goes out with a new group of students and they plant again. And it's on the side of Pinehurst, not in the front, or what, the right side. Yeah, by the road. And there's some signage out there. Oh yeah. I mean, we just need to talk more about these wonderful things going on. I had to get them off. Oh yeah, that would be good. We can run around all the gardens. It's fun. You get to talk to a lot of nice people. And then we have another, let's see, the next one. Oh, let's see here. We have, oh gosh, if you've not been to the Orchard, that's a wonderful place. And you remember we won the Orchard back in 2000. You love it. And it was an 80s contest and we had to vote. I was running around, vote, vote, vote. So we won that. And the Rosewood community now takes care of that Orchard. And it is wonderful. And so they use a lot of permaculture there. So no cutting grass. They use a lot of. Permaculture is a technique. You know, the forest grows itself. We're not out there fertilizing and cutting and trimming. And we're not, you know, cutting the grass. The leaves suppress the weeds, that sort of thing. So they just, everything is natural.   They just let all the bugs and stuff do what they do. That's a simple way of saying it. I like it. Yeah, you know, and not everybody has that view with the permaculture. You know, that's like the messy yard. You know, and people like my husband, he wants everything manicured and no leaves. And then the bugs don't have the place to live. And that's upsetting to some people. Well, I think it should be. It's as it should be. So, you know, leave a little bit of leaves and some twigs for the bugs. For the bugs. Yeah, for the bugs. They need a home. Let me see what else is on here. And the Discovery, the South Edisto discovery park. I do a lot of my workshops there. So I really would like, this is a nice time to talk about this. It is a wonderful park. It's underutilized. And I would like to have like our, the city's first children's garden there. And that would mean that every, people from all over the state, the United States, I think, Big, will come to that park. It's the perfect place for it. So I do work with a couple, a lot of partners and a lot of my workshops are at that park. And tell me again, there are no children's gardens in Columbia? Well, there was one at Clemson Extension. I think they closed theirs down, but not that I know of unless anyone else knows. I don't think there are any. So that would mean maybe a mini orchard or sensory garden, sensory garden, a place for the children to grow their fruits and vegetables and just some signage. And I don't know if you Google them, they're all over. So I have a lot of ideas. Jackie, do you have a list of all of your workshops? Yes, I have, that's, yes, I do, I do. Okay, well, let me move on along. So we have our last stage of, we have a peace garden and Pacific Park. So again, you can have a copy of this as well, but it tells you how many plots are at each site. Now, Jack, is that just a peace garden? Yes, Dr. Miller has a peace garden and she just dedicates the garden to some of the youth that have been killed by guns. That's the one over by Sands. Pacific Park. Bringshree. And so the lease program, we do have three sites that people can lease a garden bed. And it is at Noma, Granby Park and the Hyatt Park Garden. I'll tell you, when you see everything that they get, so the lease runs from April the 1st through March 31st and there are a set of guidelines that the gardeners have to abide by and those were also approved by our legal department back in 2011. And every year I will update those as needed and there's an application and they have to apply every year. They have, like I said, they have to stay in compliance. So I'm out there all the time and that means that they have to grow all year round. Some people, they have to grow all year round. So the gardens have to be, there needs to be something in there to plan ahead. Is the Noma one on River Drive? Yes, it is. That's the one I see is the most productive. I was amazed to see all you had listed there. But as far as producing food, the one on River Drive is certainly a show place. I go by there all the time for lunch. No, literally, I'll go by like right now, the snow peas are there. So yeah, the radishes, so I'll go when I'm out there out of Noma, the Noma Community Garden on River Drive. Is there anybody to? Well, this plot, this plot is, it's a community plot that I've put in there. So I do my workshops there. Okay. And I let all, yes, you cannot go picking out other people. That's a good question. So yeah, I am allowed to eat out of it. That's a special thing that you're able to do. Yes. Of the programs, okay.  So, and I do actually have a garden plot there myself that I garden just because I want to see how realistic my rules are. Because I, so, and it's, it keeps me humble. So after I go and get my bed together, then I'll call people and say, you know, what's up? What's up with your bed? But yeah. So it's just, that's a good thing to do.  So what we, what you get for that? As a 24 by 20 raised bed, the city's compost is wonderful. I know some people say some, I love it. If you put it in your garden, you'll have a successful garden. We give water hoses, water, free gardening workshops, master gardener advice. We have tools and it's all for $20 a year. So that may be something too that we can address because if you look in research, beds way smaller than that go for hundreds of dollars for six months. So we have, there's a good thing going on in Columbia. Again, they have to apply every year and stay compliant with the rules and regulations. How many beds do you have total, what do you think? Well, we have to go back and count these plots. So I say, well, there's like eight at grand B, 30 at NOMA. We have 15 sites that are recreation centers that have garden beds and some of them have two. So I'll count up the math. And then if we put those 20 back, you know, that's 20 more. So we're down 20 right now. And then we have a waiting list and it's kind of long. And so the good thing is when someone leaves or someone moves away or they decide it for some reason they cannot no longer garden, maybe a job change if I had a child or something, I go to the waiting list and they can plant anytime and just jump right in. So yeah, there's a waiting list for that. So the waiting list, can you give, when you say it's pretty long, are we talking about 10 or 20 people or are we talking about? That's all right. So yes, and it grew a lot, you know, with the pandemic, gardening just kind of grew blossom. So everybody wants to garden until they get to that summer heat and then they don't want to garden anymore. But yeah, no, but I should, you know, the point is to show them how easy it is to grow their food or so our educational gardens and that's that teaching, that's where that teaching comes in. I love that the kids love to garden and it's sometimes the adults who don't want to go outside in that heat. The kids, once they get started and once they eat something that they have grown and they, you know, they take that idea home, it's a wonderful thing to see.  If they eat a, they've grown a turnip, they want to eat it. And that's what the adults do.  So just to see their faces when they garden is pretty amazing. They take the food and they cook the food and they eat it. And, you know, just, and that encourages healthier eating habits as well. And just a different lifestyle. So yeah, I love that. So this summer I'll be doing, I visit them often. So, you know, and that, okay, we'll get to the resources and the partners here. It's because the workshops are in here as well. So I always, I utilize our city's departments, solid waste, the compost, the water, legal, when I have a document, forestry and beautification, I'm always there getting advice from them. Like I said, our city compost. And here are a couple of our partners that I work with. Wonderful, wonderful. University of South Carolina, we have the Glee programs this is the 10th year and we take students from one of the parks and we go there for about a week. It used to be two weeks. And it's nice because sometimes it's the first time we've ever stepped on a community campus. And the first couple of days with the heat, because it's in June, they're crying, they want to go home, but I'll tell you what, by the end of the week, they don't want to leave. And just to see where they can follow, you know, that seeds to the plate, they can see that. And we talk about labels, the food that they eat, how to check the labels, so important lifestyle skills during that week. And this is our 10th year working with USC for the Glee program. And I work a lot with Clemson Extension. And in the past, we've given free workshops, citywide workshops. Oh, the Department of Agriculture, my best friend, Grants, Grants, Grants, got a contact. And so we work together a lot. And that's how a lot of the projects go on, from the Glee. Vancouver, Green as well, can't forget them.  Well, yeah, sometimes you have that budget isn't enough. And then you know what, I'll tell you what, there are a lot of organizations out that want to help the children garden and adults. And they get the grant and then they come and bring their resources and that's very helpful. And a good example is the bucket gardening. This is, I worked with outside of Eden. And that happened last week on Earth Day. It was wonderful. The kids got a five gallon bucket with soil for a plant. They got a hardcover book. They had lunch. They made a name tag out of wood for their garden. They decorated some rocks so they could label the plants in there. What else did they do? It was, I don't have any pictures of that, but it was, and then they got to take their bucket, they got to take them home. So, that encouraged, because that's the point. A lot of people have the garden, they garden at NOMA, our community gardens because they may not have enough sun. You need about six hours or more or they don't have the space. So, I tell them, you can grow in anything. You can grow in anything. If it's a container and it drains, you can grow in that. And so we do drill holes in the bucket. So that's a nice program.  We're at Saludo River Walk. We're gonna have mushrooms and pollinators. I'm working with our rangers and we're gonna be growing mushrooms. That's the one thing that I don't grow at home. So that's gonna be interesting. And I'm gonna be working with Outside of Eden and we're gonna go to all of our recreation centers this during June and July on Tuesday or Thursday. And we're gonna work with them in the garden because it would be nice to have some garden clubs and all of some official garden clubs. So that's another one. So let's see what else we have. Okay, so, but then on every Wednesday, I'm gonna work with the same organization and we're gonna hold some gardening classes at South Enistel. So if they're homeschooling children and they wanna come, we're gonna put that out for them to come. And we also will be serving children with disabilities and wanna make sure that everyone can garden. So let's see, we have a pollinator workshop at Southeast Park. I don't know if you know that we have a ranger out there, Alfred, and he is like a bee expert. So he's gonna, and that's gonna be for everyone. So we're gonna also plant some pollinator plants out there on that day. You said that all of our parks have a garden spot on them. Not all of them, but so we are, let me clear, I will rotate to the ones with gardens, which is about 12, 12 gardens. And I'm trying to find ways to get the other parks, a garden, because like I said, the lumber's kind of expensive. So that's where we get created, with the buckets and the containers. And there are cheaper ways to build a bed. You don't have to spend a thousand dollars. You can, some people take, what are those things called?  Yeah, I've seen that. They take them apart and they build a garden bed so it can be free. Palate. Palate. Yeah, they go take a pallet apart and build a garden. So when they're at one of our parks, who takes care of it? And I don't, let's get that as in here. The park staff and the children and sometimes community people. Because you know- Those are identified as the educational gardens, where we, with the kids in the community and our staff, with Jackie's guidance to encourage gardening in that community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will train the staff there and then they will take it on to the children. So we do have a workshop for adults on June the 3rd. Now that's going to be really nice. It's going to be, we have a chef. So we're going to cook, we're going to grow. That's going to be a nice workshop for adults. We really have- It's a camp glee. And then at Grandby, we're going to be doing some work there with restoring the beds and planting. So let's see, is that all of them? That may be all of them for now. So if you have, are there any questions or comments that you have? See, I'm really, we're really busy. We're busy. So what's the consultation gardens and like the orchard, who can take that food? Which garden, the community garden? Yeah. The people who grow the food, and they are, and some people believe it or not, they may not eat the things that they grow. So they're growing a lot, I guess, for sport, or they have to, just to stay in compliance. So they will donate the food to local or to doctors and such. Or they'll just put it out there and say, please take that. But yeah, so they grow it. It's theirs. For the ones though that they haven't, like the plots I know when they ran them, that's who gets the food. But do we have other plots with food growing on it? And do we make that available? Like the orchard, Owensfield. That's a free orchard. And they, and the community works that, and they encourage people to come. I've seen people come from out of the state to go to that orchard. I mean, the apples, I mean, it's a wonderful place. All kinds of fruits and vegetables grow in there. And that's free. There's also these gardens at Granby. Okay. And that's nice too, because at Granby, it's like an intergenerational garden. So we have a USC professor working to be used there. And their garden is beautiful. I would like to get their story out. It's a wonderful story. Any other questions? How many of you, did you know we had these many gardens in the city? I didn't know we had that many. Oh, look at the people. And this is just, you know what? I wish I could just show so many pictures. You should see the kids' faces in any garden. And over here, we have our, you see Marvin Heller over in the corner at the Tunnel House. The ones that I'm most familiar with are Melrose, which is a very active one. It has somebody, a civilian that kind of makes that successful. And River Drive is outstanding. I'm disappointed in Marvin Heller's because Marvin was a close friend of mine and I wanted it to be more active. I mean, he worked hard to get that garden there and left us much too soon. And he would be honored if the community would step up and start using that particular place, because the city's got a lot of investment in that one. And it's very public. And thousands of people come by there every day. And we need to have it bustling with...  So, and I have been trying to encourage them to come out. And so what I try to explain to them was, because I get all the phone calls for that. And I'm like, so I call the neighborhood. And I say, you know what? No one's gonna come in my neighborhood and plant mine. It is, it's the gateway to their neighborhood. So I just hope every time I'm out there that when I'm out there planting, that they will see it and be encouraged and also come out and garden it, and it has worked. That neighborhood association is getting revitalized and I've got a young fellow that's interested in it. So maybe that'll... Well, I let them know that as well, because it is city operating property. So we can't just let it look any kind of way. So if there are any other organizations that are interested, I do let them know. And because it's not, you know, anyone can garden there, but it's still good to work with the community just so they know who's coming in their community. So it's not like they would say, you know, but it would be good if it could be your partnership. When the senior center, the senior residential from Columbia housing is done, that might be a good partner to get two blocks up the road. So that'd be some good energy there. That would be. Very good. Very good. Presentation. Well, how many of you all garden? Come on out and garden with me. You gotta go and wait. I'm not gonna. I think my daughter is trying to help me. Some of them, a lot of the weeds are edible. Yeah, they are. That's for sure. Well, thank you very much. We're gonna see some of the more justice folks. I'm only gonna share a couple of pictures with close friends of some gardening that I'm doing this morning that didn't go right. I sort of took a picture and said it. So what is it?  Something went wrong. What justice folks, do y'all have any questions? And as y'all can see, our staff folks are really like the people who know the nitty gritty and all of us are actually kind of surprised that all that I literally remember like the first time I heard community garden. So I'm really impressed with what Ms. Williams has been able to do over the years. Do y'all have any questions or suggestions or did y'all want to present any information? Make sure you speak in the mic, so it's recorded. The Marvin Heller community garden was there before we start the program. I'd like to talk with you there in 2009. Yeah, thank you, councilman. Thank you so much for letting us be here today. Really appreciate Ms. Williams, all that amazing work and good, just amazing, powerful things that are happening. So as you know, we're here with more justice which represents the 27 congregations who in addition to doing so much stuff daily and weekly to feed people or gather together in this venue to try to effect positive change in our policies and procedures and programs to make the city a more just place for everyone. And as you already mentioned, one of our focus areas for this year has been food insecurity that came out of the house gatherings we had back in the fall with several hundred people and we actually pray over God, what would you have us address this year in our community? And so that's how that came about. And as you probably remember from our previous communications with food insecurity, we're really working on two areas. One is the mobile market that's being proposed and how that could develop into a sustainable program because our meetings and research with Baltimore, New York, other places have said that it really takes about three years for a mobile market program to be successful and sustainable and so what might be the plans for that and that's probably another topic but particularly also it grew out of the aspiration for from the food policy council report about using publicly owned resources to make them available. I'm sorry, Madam Clerk asks me if you stayed at your name. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm Pastor Eric Fink from Living Springs Lutheran Church. Sorry about that. No problem. And to use publicly owned resources available for local food initiatives, one of which would be community gardens and so we might have a few questions there but I know in the food policy committee report they also talked about things like pop-up markets, produce stands, agricultural production, a whole list of opportunities that are there for use of local resources in addition to community gardens. So we have some questions about all of that and if we can't maybe you could even direct us to where we could find answers if we can't have them today but I would ask a question about community gardens. Yeah, you can ask them out. So I'll tell you what we decided to do because as you see Jacqueline's presentation took 30 minutes. So we discussed should we try and take on all the issues at one time and we didn't think we could because we had some other stuff that we had to report on. So that's why today was like, okay, let's focus on community gardens and I'm glad we did because that was very thorough Jacqueline. So any questions that y'all have because now we have the person here for community gardens. So if y'all have any questions regarding that this would be the perfect time or you can follow up with Ms. Jacqueline later however y'all choose to do. I think the one main question for community gardens would be that the community garden program serves so many purposes like the educational promoting youth all of which the peace garden just beautification many wonderful initiatives that excite us as well. But where, you know, how could we get the data that actually connected the dots for us about who's getting the food, how many people are, how many people who are food insecure are actually able to receive food on and taking advantage of the program for that particular purpose. And I don't know whether you have access to that data or could forward that to us somehow. It could be a phase two. Because right now all of our gardens are on city-owned and operated land. Right. And the people who grow in those plants they get the food. So you have to think about the interests and who would care for this area. Right. And maybe it's something that we can think about getting out, providing water. Maybe we could be a resource because a lot of times I provide resources to people to in the right direction if they want to start a community garden. The one thing that is a challenge is we have a group that wants to have a garden. And like I said, in June, nobody wants to garden anymore. So then it's something that the city thing has to take care of. So if you have a group that's interested in gardening and that's year round, because although it's not, like I said, this is the 21st century garden but there is some work that goes into it. I don't even have, maybe we can even leave some of the plot at NOMA. So that was what I was about to allude to too. We started doing community gardens before food insecurity. Right, sure. Those issues didn't. So that's why it's such a broad base that's been approached. So I don't know if you'll get that type of data since that is not how we initially purposed it. So we would have to find a way to start collecting that kind of data but it started as educational. We didn't start dealing with food insecurity till about what, 2014, 2015. And that's a good point that you bring that out that that is not how it started. I know it is the solution to food insecurity now but that's not how it started for us. So trying to collect that data. And if you could give us the specific, I tried to write down the data but if you could let us know specifically what you want then we can try and find a way to start collecting it. Does that make sense though but we weren't collecting it for food. Oh, got it, Randy. Yeah, I can speak to that. I think as we've identified. Can you speak up, buddy? Oh, sorry. You said your name. That's Randy Davis. As we've identified the communities that are impacted by food insecurities, you have to start there and begin to develop community garden concept in those communities to ensure that that community is properly served with the needs for healthy fruits and vegetables. I often tell Jack, Jacqueline, the focus is on gardening, nutrition and fitness in all of our communities. But particularly when it comes to funding and grants opportunity, you will have a better chance of being awarded funding if you identify community gardens in some of those communities that are impacted by the foods insecurities. And not to put the cart before the horse but those are some things that we're beginning to look at within parks and recreation as we identify, as we know the communities that need that type of resource. And there are partners out there that's willing to do that. I think the big thing too is going to be identifying the community and then the people who are willing to do the garden because what we have learned is just because you put healthy food in a neighborhood doesn't mean that people are going to eat it if it's not what they're normally used to eating. So, to me, it's a whole educational process but we have learned people are wanting to eat what they normally eat and unless we're trying to take on nutrition as well it's great to have all of the stuff in the garden but they're not going to eat it. And starting with the young people in particular. Starting with the children in particular and giving them something to take home to their families, to their parents and showing them, you know. And to cook it because they have to cook it. Yeah, there are other options. So, I'll be willing to speak with you later and share with you some of our context whom we're talking with now with the opportunity to address that exact issue. Okay, I'm sure. Yes. Prior to COVID, I was working with our friend, James Sanders, at the Colony about putting a garden underneath the power lines there and I think Dana had gotten permission from Dominion to plow up a gardening spot there. Is anything been done on that? Not specifically with James Sanders but I have some other plans. It was an area near the ballpark over there. I'll get back with you. I'm pretty sure Dana is the one that arranged it with Dominion. The only thing they wanted was for us to pick it up. Hi, Dana T. Dana Higgins, yeah. Oh, okay, Higgins. So, it sounds like with this focus on food insecurity, it might be, the next step might be a meeting with Jacqueline Randy, someone to kind of figure out how that piece is working out in the larger community garden program which is serving many good purposes but particularly targeting the food. For example, if a lease requires a plot to be garden for a full year, the $20 may be manageable some way but if people who, as you know, who are food insecure and already working two minimum wage jobs and still don't have enough food there, even if they had the willingness to do a garden, those folks who are food insecure, that's not gonna be a viable option for them to be maintaining a garden of year round. So that would be trying to figure out who can benefit in regard to their food insecurity from the plots and the gardens and the locations, how many, how is that actually working not to diminish all the other purposes but actually to sort of drill down to this food insecurity piece of community gardens and how productive that is for use of our public lands. Madam Chair, I think one of the solutions to marrying the two groups goals together is for the churches. You've got 27 churches involved. Right. You come up with the congregation that's willing to do the work and you give the food to the people that need the food and we will help you find a spot that you can garden in. But you gotta get the work of these that wanna do the gardening to raise the food to give to the food insecure. And I think you're probably right. Somebody that's food insecure is not gonna have the time or the inclination to go out and work a garden. But you've got good congregations that got probably places on their church property that they could raise a good bit of stuff to give to the food insecure. So the 27 congregations need to put some sweat equity into the project. And already are and would be this because we're doing countless hours of meals on wheels, delivery, food pantries. And so those hours are there. So, and there may be other opportunities for sweat equity too. Students, I worked a lot with the students. You have these students, you have these students. They, lots of them need hours in their major. So, and some of them just call me on one volunteer. Yeah. So, you know, there's another. Sure. So the only thing, the only thing I was gonna say too is in order to see where that progress is, it won't be next month or that, especially if it's gonna cost money because we just, we're in the budget year. But would, I mean, like if we're gonna take on that the data has to be collected first. And I'm really keen on making sure we choose an area where the people are gonna want. No, want to garden because that's the biggest disconnect. We assume that folks want the right tomatoes and we assume that they want the peppers and the strawberries like I'm trying to make. But we have to face the reality that a lot of them don't want it. So we could put it out there. And the question becomes then, can a church help? Like if we put it there and work with the kids, maybe just seeing it, you know, in some level of exposure. But my biggest concern is finding the people in those particular neighborhoods who will actually do the gardening. And our other set of questions, which may be for a subsequent committee meeting, but it kind of touched on Councilman DeVall, he said, you know, if you find a place of property, we'll figure out how to use it. So that's our sort of other set of questions beyond the gardens, which is the focus for today. But the other suggestions that the Food Policy Committee had like pop-up markets, other things that could happen, where can we find, is there some process to find a map of identifiable seeded properties? Where do we go to find that? How is that? Have y'all had these discussions with the Food Policy Council? Cause that's who we depend on to help us a lot. We've met with the Food Policy Council and had those discussions, but in terms of procedures, if there are places, how do we find out where city-owned properties are? So we might could be a vehicle in doing these matches, either with congregations or the Food Policy Committee or pop-up markets or whatever it might be. Zoning, how does zoning, what sort of steps need to happen through the zoning process? So this is my question. Those kinds of questions, yeah. And this would be my question. Well, no, so my question would be with regard to that, do we need to identify the people first or the places first? Cause I think we need to identify the people first. And that's just my two cents. Well, I think that's part of what we learned from our meeting with the Food Policy Committee are the locations and where the people are. And so it's probably not- So they have a list of those. And they have that. And so it's probably not either or, but a both and. And we're kind of pushing simultaneously, identifying where the people are located, which Food Policy Committee and their subcommittee actually did some research on right before COVID in that report that you know. Right. And then trying to expedite and match the resource location, like where the properties are, what are available, how, what's the actual process that you would go through so that if a congregation wanted to do something or if some other entity had a proposal that we would know what properties are available, what kind of zoning things would have to go through, be gone through, who acts on it as a committee, as city council, just how do we find answers to those questions? Which is not gardening. I do have a map of all the things. And this was some music of all the city owned property property, but you bring a good point about the people. Yeah, but I guess what I'm going back to for the purpose of, because I think if it's for the congregations, I'm thinking that the congregations wouldn't necessarily be worried about city property, but they would be worried about, not worried about, but like how they can duplicate it on their grounds. Both and. I think if you got together with Randy and Jacqueline, you could solve a lot of the problems, answer a lot of the questions that more justice has. For instance, pop-up markets, you don't want to know where we own a lot. You want to know where we had the facilities to support a pop-up market, which would probably be in an existing park. When you would have a parking lot, you would have a bathroom and all that other thing. And then you'd have to find the vendor that would want to come in. Sure. I know Trinity Cathedral, which is one of your 27 churches, and we have a- That's another hour. That's another, pop-ups is another meeting. Oh. We're going to have the cars here. We're going to have someone here and I think they could solve all the problems if you got together with Jacqueline or Randy and look at the possibilities of solving some of those, answering some of those questions with those two knowledgeable people. Okay. And I'm sure Randy- For the community garden focus for today, so we would could get together with Randy and Jacqueline, get some of those questions answered, particularly I was addressing food insecurity, maybe initial steps to get some of that data together, but also glean from what your knowledge of what you know about identifying properties. Yeah. And as far as the mobile market desk will be one of our- That's true. Yeah. Future meetings would be like pop-up markets and mobile markets. Right. Because you see how in order to have a full discussion, like it takes this much time. So I think breaking it out is better than we can do the deep diving that we need to do on that particular topic and make sure we have the right people here. Because that's always a critical thing because we are not the right people. No. Yes. I know who's the, we are not the right people. So we always wanna make sure we have the right staff folks who- The right people in the sense that you can make things happen. Yeah. All right. And that procedure worked well as far as setting up today, we could duplicate that for these other top of the meetings. I need to check. So I check with staff to see what they are ready to do. For mobile market, the next meeting a month from now, we should be ready to talk about that. Okay. Do you wanna do pop-ups first, just to make sure? Cause I just wanna- What, what do we exactly mean? Yeah, find what the pop-ups gonna sell and how they function. Cause that's probably gonna determine some of our questions. Yeah. Well, our research has shown that there's a whole variety of pop-up markets, but it's more like a pop-up. It could be fresh produce, it could be perishables, it could be actually meat produce that are perishable but available. Could be pop-up markets where foods distributed from other resources, from restaurants, market. You know, there's this pop-up type entity where it's come and brings healthy food available and using a locally, a publicly owned property to generate that. And on a schedule, it's most of us doing it, are they individual or congregational? Yeah. It could be any of those, bro. And so we are already doing that in different places, like- Right. Yeah, we'll see y'all later. It was amazing, the whole rules. I promise. It's made of, I mean, the titties washed, the containers. Yeah. The bags, I mean, I was like, did these bags back because they were so durable? They were like, no, so it's once a month and they get to feel that they put the sign on how many of these things- Christy, Christy. The line was out the door. And where is it? Jackie- It's a high level. It was in a high class building there. And it's also important like we gave a recipe card because a lot of them don't know what to do with those things and we introduced them and they don't, it isn't about education and nutrition. They don't know what to do with it. And so a lot of times they just want to do what they like to do so. Oh yeah, but the recipe cards are important that we heard, yeah. That and for a minute, I actually, I was cooking something, experimenting. And Mayor Rickerman had already mentioned, I just, I don't have a list. So I think for that particular topic, we kind of need like Jacqueline did for community gardens. First, let's see what all we are doing and how it's working. Cause, and as you can see like today, we were surprised at, great job. You know, okay. And then, so it's educational for us. And then the biggest thing I probably caught was that we started doing it before food insecurity. So it wasn't geared towards insecurity. So would next month, pop up? No, mobile. Mobile. They can do pop up when they're in. Let us get two weeks from now to make sure we're ready for mobile. Absolutely. I think we will be. So mobile, mobile market next month is what we're thinking. We will let, so we have a process where Ms. Leigh and I meet in two weeks from today to determine what we're going to do. So let us have that meeting. Cause what I don't want to do is some kind of glitch happens with the process. And then we have to change that. So. We can wait here and then maybe pop up markets down the road. Yes. Or, and can we have a one pager from more justice about y'all's vision of a pop up? Sure. I think that would help us. Do you agree? It sounds like we're doing some of it. Yeah. And maybe we're not. Yeah. And we're really driven a lot by the vision from the food policy committee. So we can, we can consolidate that in addition to the research that we've done and get to, to send that to. Now I will say the food policy committee probably knows all of them and they have them on their map. Maybe I'll look at the map that has all of the resources. They sent us a map, yes. Yeah. I do believe that most of those things, and the only reason I'm saying this cause I'm not a tech person. So I haven't been able to figure out the map, but they have a map that they put together that has all the different resources. I'll check with Shana to make sure, but I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find those places too. Right. And, and in addition to the map of the publicly owned, the city owned properties, we could still work on that. That's not on our list to do now. Yes. So, yes. That's what we were. Right. Because we're working on something totally different with, with regard to city property. So we don't want to give you this. We're going to be parks. You don't need to know, you don't, it's not useful for you to know all the properties that the city owns. Right. Other than the fact, in some of the meetings we had with other cities, they're not just using parks. There are other types of properties that the cities or counties owned that were able to be able to either leased, converted, whatever for those purposes. So we would need to work on that. Okay. Yeah. And I think that is a good question. The email that I got just said, pop up shops. And I had my vision, but a clear definition would be helpful to. The whole variety of what that could be. Yeah. But what that could be. Do you want to introduce everyone? I'm, I don't see some familiar faces. Everybody introduce yourself. Oh, hello. We are looking for Chandler for his period. Does he get hard on staff? Sydney Gonzales on staff. You don't really have to buy anything. My mother is a part of more justice, Bernadette Herbert. And I get, I get the 411 all the time. I do, I do. Thank you for coming today. Thank you. I just want to say, what would it be helpful? It might. I can make that happen for you. Just so everyone can hear. Sydney Gonzales. Would it be helpful for us to send some of the questions on what we're kind of, because we're not all knowing, we don't know everything. So part of our process is asking you guys what you know. So would that be helpful for us to kind of write those questions down so you know what we're looking for and send those to you? I think as, I think it would be helpful. So at least like for your planning and your planning for like what to talk about in the future, you will know what we're looking for information wise. Right. With that, that's. Meanwhile, y'all set up a meeting with Randy and Jackson. Have y'all gotten a message? Yes. From Council. I'm sorry. I'm in denial. I get that message. I appreciate y'all being here really. And I hope that this process is helpful to getting what y'all need to get. Yeah. Well, and helpful to getting our folks what they need to get. Because we're not concerned about the process. I got to like zone in on one thing really hard. Follow up, but I will make sure to check with the food policy council to see about because they may already have that information on the map. Right.  So. Yeah, I saw someone there at the last meeting. I don't go to the meetings. I went to one, one meeting. Thank you almost. Thank y'all. I'm happy I made it now. It is 1154. So Dolly has six minutes. I was going to say, can you do, can you do six minutes? So we're going to go to community development block grant program update with Ms. Dolly Herron. Thank you. Okay. So just wanted to give you an update on the events that happened during our community development week as you have in front of you all of the items. It's been a very successful month in the month of April. And of course, the kickoff and the cleanup happened very successful. And it is still going on through April. It ended April 28th. And it's been very successful throughout the city. On the fourth, we presented National Community Development Financial Literacy. It was very, the proclamations. And of course you see on the fifth, we did the Community Development Day in collaboration with the International University and Benedict and that was very successful. On the 10th, we went through Community Development Week video was displayed on the city's website and the highlights from the importance of community development. And the video was re-edited and put out for all to enjoy. We actually did Community Development Department did day of service, which was wonderful along with Richland County. We did, we worked packing food boxes at the Harvest Hope, along with Richland County. And then there was also Watch 57, their day of service was there as well, which we got lots of coverage, free coverage on that item. And then there was on the 13th, Know Your Rights, Tenant Rights. So that was very well attended in conjunction with Richland County. So just various things. Now you've got all of this information there. So you can see all of the things that we have done up until Wednesday the 26th, where we also collaborated with Richland County for a homeowner rights workshop. So it was very well attended. Moving on to timeliness. So Community Development Block Grant Timeliness is a test that happens annually from HUD. They do a test that calculates how much money you are spending throughout your program year. That is a very intricate test. It's done every May 2nd, and today is May 2nd. And so what they do is the test is done 60 days prior to the end of your grant period or your program year. They count up or they add all of your program income, your revolving loan fund, plus all of your entitlement. That's the formula. And they divide that by the amount that you have currently in your allocation. If it is more than 1.5, then you are out of compliance. If it's less, then you are timely. And I'm very happy to say that we are timely as of today. And we are timely, we have more timeliness tests. So that is a- I'll give those a little bit more. I'ma give it up, I'll be proud of you very soon. A lot of hard work and determination that went into that. And the last item I have is the 23 annual action plan, which is a plan that is done annually in conjunction with our five-year consolidated plan. And the sources of entitlement that we expect to receive for that program year for CDBG home and our HAPA programs. We have a total revenue for CDBG, which includes the allocation that we are projecting to receive, as well as our program income that we have on hand in any prior year funding is about 2.3 million that we expect to be able to put into activities for CDBG for home. The total revenue we anticipate with the annual allocation and program income is about 1.4 million. And our HAPA housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, our annual allocation this year is 1.8 million. So that's a revenue, total revenue of about 5.6 million that we expect to have available for activities and to put into the community. For CDBG, I do wanna just go back and just the activities, this year was a little bit different. We did focus on homeless recovery and those that have been homeless, the chronic homeless. And so we did partner with the homeless shelter, Ms. Camisha Himford to help us with the process. And this year we were able to identify public service agencies that will also help support the rapid shelter. So it was a little bit different in our process. This year, but it did work perfectly through the process. So we did get some agencies that would not have normally applied for this type of funding this year to help support the rapid shelter. And so this year for funding Mercy, which we currently fund fast forward, we're funding also the main street district for their outreach ambassador, Midlands Housing Alliance transitions, and the rainy day fund. So these are agencies with the exception of two that normally do not apply for a public service dollar. So this will help in sustaining and supporting the rapid shelter. And then of course- I did have a question, is the intent to do it every year or is this starting kind of see how it works? Yes, this was, yes, to start to see how it works. Since of course the rapid shelter is new and to be able to see if there are public service dollars that can support to help support the cost of the rapid shelter. So that process did work very well this year. And of course we are funding our HAPA sponsors. We have the same sponsors every year. This year, of course our sponsors are the Columbia Housing Authority, Midlands Housing Alliance, Palmetto, AIDS Life Support Services or PALS, the Cooperative Ministry, Upper Savannah Care Services, University of South Carolina, Department of Medicine. And Daly, it's worth mentioning HAPA as a sixth county. It is, it is a sixth county region. So what you see is the statistical area that has been designated by HUD to serve those six counties. And some people don't know what HAPA is. So housing opportunities for persons with AIDS is the acronym for HAPA. And so we got a, it looks like a 10% increase. Is that because there is a larger need? So they did a recalculation, a modification last year with HAPA with the formula because they were only concentrating really on those that were initially diagnosed with AIDS or HIV. But because individuals are living longer, right? So they had to modify the formula. So that caused our allocation to increase because there are more people living with a disease over the years. So that is what caused the increase. And we will continue to get, I think, more money Wow. Our next steps, as you can see, just the, we're at, we do have a public comment period that began April 4th and it will end May 5th. And we also have a public hearing on May 4th, our last and second public hearing for the community to have comments. And then we will submit this draft plan to HUD on May 5th. And then the program here begins July 1. And now getting hundreds of people coming through the public, public farms now? No, we do them virtually. So we are getting more participation. We haven't been able to get more participation. It's hard to get people out in person. Is that the question? Thank you. Very good. Thank you. And we're gonna move my agenda item to the next month because I think I have a, I'm in another meeting in a few minutes. Thank you all so, for joining us. If we have suggestions on how we can make it work, we're open to them. Thank you all so much. Madam Clerk, do you need us to make a motion to adjourn? Do we have consensus? We have consensus. Yes, thank you all. Thank you. And thank you all so much too.


A lot of great athletes who watch you play, say Derek Henry, wow. Are there athletes that you watch play their particular sport and you say wow? I was a, well, still is. I was a Kobe Bryant fan, Kobe Bryant fan. So I always was in awe and wowed him and, you know, big Dan Thompson fan. Same thing, wowed with him and I go on and on. I can go on and on about running backs and just about players. Right now, you know, the Bryant James, you know, we best play in basketball right now.  God even telling that we were blessed with and the things that we're able to do with these sports. It's a blessing and all different sports. A lot of players that, you know, you feel wowed and, you know, appreciate the greatness that they bring to the sport. Derek, this job for you every single week involves a lot of contact. You dish it out, you take it. What is your routine like to take care of your body as you come off a game and move towards the next game? I have a team that I work with, take care of my body. Just doing the things that, you know, I've done week after week that's have my body prepare, me doing things here at the facility to give me my great training to do a great job. I'll wait and just have to do a great job. You know, I'll coach you to have a great job taking care of us, make sure you're ready throughout the week. And, you know, when you're away from the facility, you've got to make sure you know what you need to do to take care of your body so I have people that, you know, help me and make sure my body is right week in and week out. So be ready for Sunday. Derek, how long did it take you to develop that routine as far as taking care of your body? It didn't really take me long. I think the more that, you know, talk to guys who've done it for a long time at a high level and the things that they've done, you know, when you're a young guy just to see, you know, what they do to keep their body in shape and keep their body where they can play at a high level and see what works for you. And that's what I've done. And, you know, appreciate those guys who gave me some ins and out what they do to take care of their body. We've got to leave here. And I'll have, you know, my routine to work with for me and, you know, continue to do it. Ran the ball very well at Cincinnati as a team. 29 carries for 118 yards. What did the Titans do well in the run game at Cincinnati that you hope to keep up this week against Chicago? I think it was just a mindset. Lion did a great job of, you know, dominating the line of scrimmage, opening up holes, tight ends. She did a great job of getting on there guys. And I said, that's a great job. That's making no reason. You can get down hill. That's all there is to it. It's having the world to want to, to dominate the men in front of you and put the hat on the hat. And I'm like, the guy did a great job by doing that for us to have success run on the ball. You mentioned during several interviews, Jeremy McNichols and what a great job he's been doing as your backup. But I saw you congratulate Deontay Foreman at Cincinnati when he went in and ran well. What does it mean to you when a young guy like that goes in, gets a chance and does the job well like Foreman did? I think it was great. When we first came in this league, he was very effective and packed success with the Texans. Like, you know, anybody else have a little adversity, but he's back now and, you know, I'm glad he's with us and able to help us.  It motivates you. I think we all move by each other when we're all having success and it would gain yards and it would help the team and we all just beat up each other. You know, those guys are doing a great job. Finally, what's the challenge of taking on the Bears defense for Derek Henry and the rest of the Titans offense? Yeah, they're very physical, great at flying backers. It's not fun. The guys that can rush the pass are fast in the back game, very experienced. So it's another big challenge for us. You know, that's just how it is in this league. You know, they're a great defense. They play well together. They court the Sunday facing a great defense and a great team. All Titans fans, very proud of you and happy for your success. Derek Henry, thank you for the time and keep up the good work. All right. Thanks, y'all. Thanks, y'all, guys.


Hi, my name is Andrea with Foodimentary Adventures in Food, and today I'm sharing a recipe for one of my favorite side dishes, sweet potatoes, also known as candied yams. Whatever you call them, they're absolutely delicious. And the best thing about this recipe is that I make them in a skillet on a stove top so it only takes about 30 minutes. So let's get started. For this recipe, you're going to need unsalted butter. Now, if you want to balance some of the sweetness from the sugar, definitely feel free to use salted butter. You're also going to need cinnamon, nutmeg, brown and white sugar. And you're also going to need about four medium sweet potatoes. And I will make sure to leave the recipe with exact measurements in the description box. So the first thing I'm gonna do is peel my sweet potatoes. All right, so I've got my potatoes all rinsed off. I cut out the bad pieces. I've got my cutting board ready. And what I like to do is put a jar opener right underneath my cutting board. And that kind of helps it keep from sliding all over the place. Now what you're gonna do is just cut your sweet potatoes into slices, try to make them as even as possible. If you want your sweet potatoes thicker than this, feel free to do so, but please be aware that it is gonna take them longer to cook. So I've got my cast iron skillet heating up and I'm just going to add my stick of butter. And I am just going to let this melt completely. Now you don't have to use a cast iron skillet. I just like the way it cooks. Use whatever you have. So my butter is melted. Now I'm gonna carefully add in my sweet potatoes. So I'm gonna add in my white sugar and my brown sugar. Gonna add in a little bit of water. And I'm going to add in my cinnamon. Add as much cinnamon and nutmeg as you'd like. And my nutmeg. I'm gonna get this to stir. And I've got this on a medium heat. I'm gonna let these cook. And I'm gonna stir this every five minutes or so. Okay, so it's been about 15 minutes and I have been stirring these potatoes every five minutes. As you can see, they've started to cook down and that sugar mixture is starting to get nice and dark, which is what we are looking for. The potatoes aren't quite ready. Probably have another 20 or so minutes to go. Okay, so I let the potatoes continue to cook for another 20 minutes. And as you can see, they are fork tender. The last 10 minutes, I did cover my pan to let those potatoes kind of steam a little bit. I do like my potatoes really soft. So I've turned off the burner. I'm gonna take the pan off the heat. I'm gonna let these cool for just a little bit. And then I'll show you what it looks like when that sauce has thickened up. All right, so I've been letting these potatoes cool for about 10 minutes and that sauce is thicker and it's still thickening up. This is such an easy recipe. I really hope you all enjoyed it. If you did, please make sure to give us a thumbs up. And if you have not subscribed to our channel, we'd certainly love to have you. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you all next time.


Cell phone, yeah, but I'm not going to be giving that out readily just yet. You got to pace yourself on that one. So yeah. Yeah, I can reach you. No worries. So. Yeah, it's usually nothing urgent. So good news. So. It is my job to help TPW to get you all what you need. So. You don't have 50 people coming to you. I can tell you or put it in the chat. What would you like? You can put it whatever you want to do here. Just put it in the chat and I'll cut and baste it later. Can I do that? Yes. Okay. Let's do that. We've started recording. So we'll get started with our presentation this evening for the halting road. Project here at about 605 we'll give everyone a few more minutes to join on. And we'll get started here shortly. All right. Welcome everyone to a presentation. It's about 605. We'll go ahead and get started. Just a few housekeeping things. We'll keep everyone muted and go through the presentation and then we'll have time for questions at the end. And you can post those questions in the chat button, which can be found in the web X control panel in the bottom right. We've highlighted it here. Or we can go around and unmute if anyone has any questions, you can ask them then. The presentation this evening is being recorded and we'll be put on the projects city web website after that, after the meeting this evening. And can be a link to that can be shared as well. So we'll go ahead and get started this evening talking about. Halton road part of our hazardous roadway over topping mitigation or H ROM as we like to say program. And that includes some water and sewer. Infrastructure improvements, but most notably the paving. And of course, improving the drainage at this location. Myself, Mike Crenshaw, I'm the project manager. Also have online this evening is Jane Widmer is the assistant project manager. And so we'll start this evening. We're talking about. Halton road, we're just south of 121. This is a area where a local creek drive branch. Actually crosses this location before it gets to the West fork of the train river. There have been numerous incidences reported of overtopping and vehicles stranded at this location. The location. I'm showing here, you can see there is the project limits. Are being shown. This will be the section of new paving. And that will. Extend that 1,000 feet along the roadway, including the new culvert. Upsized culvert at the culvert crossing sized so that it's not overtopped by the floodwaters. And so, that's making the crossing safer for this area. The existing road out here is if you're familiar with that is the. Narrow county road type section has very little. Guard rail lighting things like that. It's a sharp 90 degree turn currently today. And as you can see with the, we lost your screen. Oh, okay. Sorry. Let me, Mike, this is Laura. I am so sorry if I. That's all right. No worries. We'll start over. I just got to change this real quick. Okay. How about now? Yes. Yes. Okay. Swap things around on me a little bit. So, I want to make sure I was showing the slide and not the. Information so I can back up to the project limits. Not sure if I got through that or not, but. This is the area that's showing the over topping in. Where the flood waters over top roadway. Today and the limits of our paving. Improvements and water and sewer improvements are shown here. So it's localized, but the crossing is that's being improved will eliminate the flooded over topping section. Back to the existing condition today, it is a sharp 90 degree bend. I can see from all the foliage and trees that it's a blind curve more or less and is over topped. Pretty frequently in existing conditions and so this project is aimed to improve the roadway to take some of the sharpness of the bend in the road out. Make it a little smoother transition as well as use concrete paving. And improve the crossing so that it's not over topped. In the large events and it over tops, you can see some of the. Dangerous conditions here in this sharp turn as well. This is also 1 of the cities because it over tops 1 of the cities flood warning locations that the. Flood warning folks use to notify others of. And barricade the road when it's over topped so what kind of work are we going to be doing? So currently you can see existing today. It's a fairly sharp bend. In the road and the project will. Again, make that curve a little smoother so to improve the site distance. And as well as widening the road and. Making it a concrete carbon gutter street for our current standards will also be. Improving the culvert crossing so that it's not over topped. And 100 year event and as well as connecting to adjacent properties. We're also providing for maintenance so that as debris trees, things, et cetera in the creek. Are washed downstream that can be. Uh, cleaned and maintained by our field ops maintenance. Folks as well to keep the new culverts clear and functioning properly. So with that and widening of the road as well, there's guard rail. As well as sidewalks along the. The roadway planning for the full future section. That will be anticipated a little bit of details about. The project again, this is to reduce the over topping. Uh, improve the overall road safety with the better curvature of the road. Uh, improve the pavement rather than the asphalt, it'll be concrete paving. Um, as well as, uh, you doing water and sewer improvements. And counting for that. Uh, we are completing design right now. Um, Baird Hampton Brown has been working feverishly to wrap up design. Daniel and his team are on the meeting here that we appreciate them and all they've done. And we're wrapping up plans now. And the plan right now is to advertise this to bid actually next week. We'll be starting advertisement for bid and. Receiving those bids and going to council. Late summer early fall before the end of September is the plan. With anticipating starting construction. Around the late fall winter of 23. Early 24 and then roughly a year for construction. Put it sometime fall winter of 25. Or completed construction. The project is funded from the recent storm water utility bond. And right now our estimate is roughly about $4 million. There is of course 1 challenge or many challenges, but 1 of the bigger challenges with. This location is going to be a construction phasing. And potentially the closing of the road because it's existing conditions is such a narrow road. And in our proposed conditions will obviously vastly improve that. There will be a period of time. That the road will be closed and so we've laid out a couple of detour routes and you can see. There are folks to the south that will go back to North Beach Street to get. North and then the folks come from 121. South on Hultham Road will have a much shorter impact, but. But we'll not be able to get through. So, of course, all existing residents in this area that are affected. Will have temporary access to their property during construction. The detour exact details of the detour and the length of time. That the detours up, we will, we will know more when we accept bids. Here in a month or so and have a contractor. Working on getting the contractor on board, they will prepare detailed. Traffic control plans and give us dates, et cetera, for closure. So, there is anticipated traffic impacts, but again, it will be being able to close the road. It greatly shortens the amount of construction time that's needed to construct it. So, there is going to be some temporary impacts to traffic in the area. And that's all for this update. Again, we are planning to start advertising for bid. In the month of June and look to having contractor on board and go to council. By September timeframe and we'll have another update. Once we get a contractor on board and we'll do another community meeting like similar to this. With more details on the traffic impacts as well. In the meantime, if you have any questions, my email and Jane's email is shown on the screen. Please feel free to email us and let us know any questions that you may have. So, at this time, I will open it up for any questions if anyone has any. Or if there's anything I left out, perhaps also have on here. Justin Naylor who saw this through project development. I don't know if I left anything out. You may want to mention or designer Daniel and his team are on. If they have anything to add, feel free to unmute and ask away. Okay. Well, that was short and sweet hearing no questions then. We can call this a meeting and this update again is recorded. So, that will be posted on the projects website, which you can get to off of the city's website. As well as I believe it will be put on YouTube as well. So, others can get to it from there and can send in questions later. And or share it with their neighbors and friends. They want to watch an exciting video. That's all I have. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.