Hello, Belinda. I'm very happy to see you. I need to introduce you to the public, but I am sure that everybody knows you very well, but still to remind that today we are having the interview with Belinda Tainan, the Vice Chancellor, Vice Chancellor of the Open University. And today Belinda agreed to answer a couple of questions regarding the developments of open and distance learning, openness, teaching, and other challenges that we come across with integration of the innovations in organizations. So Belinda, let's start. And my first question would be, how would you describe the successful integration of technology-enhanced learning in organizations? Well, hello, Irene. It's lovely to be here and to be talking with you today. Well, that's a really challenging opening question. And if I've understood it, I'd say, well, to the Open University in the UK in particular, it's very fundamental to the way we work and the success of our organization. And probably the best way for me to answer that is to give you some examples of how we approach open. So first for the OU, and it's part of our mission, is that we're open to people. So potentially students don't need to have any qualification whatsoever coming to us, although many do. But they're not required to bring to us what a traditional university might expect when you first register for a course. So many of our students don't have the typical, what we call A-levels in the UK, which would enable you to enter or qualify to go into a university course. Although as I said, many of our students do. And also, you know, our students might come to us with different experiences or different kinds of qualifications. So first of all, we're open in that sense. And then in order to help people be successful, because, you know, we do have some evidence to suggest that if you do have some of those pre-qualifications that you are more likely to be successful. Well, then there's our number one challenge. If we've got people coming in who don't have those qualifications and they're maybe going to be less successful, what can we do to support them? So one of the things that we have on offer to those particular students is a pathway or an access route into the university, which helps them prepare for study. And then the other thing we do is that within our first year curriculum, we actually embed and design a learning experience that enables students to learn the kinds of study skills and the academic development skills they need in order to be successful in our programs. And then finally, I think a real, you know, critical part of the model at the Open University is that we have tutor support and that all our students have access to an individual tutor. And within their tutor groups, they can talk with their tutor about different issues and they can get both academic, personal, social, administrative support. And then one other tiny thing, it feels like you just keep adding all these different fabulous things on, but we also have discipline-based study teams. So students, if they are doing, you know, an education degree, for example, they have a particular team which is only focused on education and they can contact that support team which will give them, you know, support in their studies. So those things all combined, I think, create, you know, sort of the scope, I guess, of the type of offer we provide to students who come to us who don't have necessarily those traditional entry skills. So, I mean, there's lots more I could say, but maybe that's a good starting point. I must admit that continuously in the e-network, for example, we do appreciate and we mention a lot how much open universities have already done for other universities who are struggling with its integration. However, in the broader context, we see that online forms of education provision are also now no longer see as a curiosity issue or a niche market, but a lot of institutions recognize them as a central part of education for now. However, we see that openness is still quite a recent item on European agenda. What tendencies do you absorb in the efforts of education organizations in Europe that would be your, like, taking up challenges and openness? What tendencies do you absorb in the efforts of education organizations of taking these challenges? I think this is a really interesting question and I agree with you that online learning is hardly new to anyone anymore. However, I still think openness, you know, is potentially new for many organizations in Europe. And remember, I'm quite new to Europe, so I won't want to make too many generalizations about my colleagues there. But it probably raises for me even more questions, not least that open itself probably needs to be defined within the context. You know, so what does that mean for an organization? Is it about entry to study, which is a bit like the open universities, that we're open in terms of, you know, entrance into the university? Or is it more about open practices more generally? Is it about the organization's research? Is it about educational content and open education resources? And I think I see sort of generally, you know, just sort of globally, you know, when you trot around and you meet people and you talk to them about open, is that being able to define it within context appears to be one of the greatest challenges. And I think if any organization is going to embrace the field of open, that's where they need to start. You know, and I quite often see initiatives sort of start up within organizations, which are sort of situated around individuals' passions. And that's really fantastic and that's great. And you get innovation, you know, and entrepreneurialism within organizations. I really applaud it. But quite often, it's unsustainable. And so I think there are huge opportunities to be had in the open space. But I think it requires organizations to take a strategic view of it. Exactly. I understand your point. And one of the discussions led also in professional networks was, of course, that we are learning, we are all learning and we are learning from mistakes as well. And what mistakes would you identify of open education in Europe that would be maybe your recommendations not to repeat them while integrating openness in organizations? I think as I indicated previously, we often get enthused because we have very passionate leaders within our organizations. But I strongly believe it requires senior leadership and institutional commitment to agree principles in a sense before you even begin to think about what it looks like. So I'd really sort of go back to basics in a sense and say, well, what does open mean for my organization? And that would then give you the place to start. Thank you, Melinda. Another hot issue is diversification of target groups now in high education. And this makes considerable impact upon sustainability, just as you mentioned before. Which success factors again you would identify for lifelong learning service development in high education? I think this is a great time to be in the lifelong learning business. And there are plenty of opportunities around at the moment, you know, opening up around how we can deliver lifelong learning. And particularly we've seen that happen with MOOCs and what's happening in that space. Certainly when you start talking about professional development, collaboration with different companies and corporations is stronger than ever. And I think some of the challenges that we may have in the future lay in how courses might be accredited. And the formal approaches that we're seeing in universities may well need to change to reflect the shifts being accounted or being displayed in society about what kind of learning people want to engage with. And I think, you know, the challenge for formal education providers is that university education is not the only education that can be formally accepted. And increasingly we're seeing evidence of that. So if you look at, if you want to make Google Apps, for example, you do the Google training. If you want to be qualified, Cisco, you need to do the Cisco training, the Microsoft training. So there are already, there are quite a lot of influences from sort of different other accrediting agencies about what kinds of qualifications are valued particularly, you know, in the workforce. So I think, you know, we do have a challenge ahead of us here and some universities have been quite clever with that sort of embrace to those things and brought them into the curriculum. So one of the things we've done at the Open Universities, we've brought those kinds of qualifications which people need and want and are recognised into the formal curriculum and included them within them. But that's only, you know, one model. You know, there has also been some talk, you know, about, well, the degree is dead, that we need something different. I'm not sure I totally agree with that yet because I still think the degree has a place. But I do think that we need to question what we're offering in formal education and whether or not it actually is meeting the needs of the lifelong learning agenda, especially in light of the changing market requirements. So I think it's a discussion point that we need to be having. The Open University contributes for many years to Eden development, but now you personally just recently became the member of Eden Executive Committee. And I would like to ask you, how do you see now Eden development and how would you think Eden could support more governments, policy makers, other stakeholders, insustainable, scalable development of Open and distance learning more actively? Well, I should have expected this question would come in my direction, shouldn't I? Well, I've been giving this some thought and sort of talking to different people around it, but I mean, I think the really obvious things for Eden is to be an advocate, you know, for appropriate policy and to provide leadership around the key issues of open, online and distance learning. However, we're defining that currently. I think there's opportunity to lobby various governments, obviously the European Commission and get involved with other organizations like UNESCO, etc. I guess, you know, one thing being an outsider coming into the UK and being part of Europe, I've only been here for two years now. One of the things I've observed is that there are a range of other organizations that are similar but different to Eden. And so you've got the European Universities Association, you've got the International Consulting of Distance Educators, you've got the European Association of Distance Universities, EDAT2. And I think there's something to be said about how we can get those groups to maybe work together better. They all sort of subtly do different things, but they also overlap and they have very similar goals and aspirations. And so I think, you know, there's got to be a way in a sense that we can bring those things together. And perhaps one of the dreams that I sort of have had occasionally or maybe it's a fantasy is that we could have some kind of joint conference that would bring all of those groups together in a way and figure out how we can get that collaboration, you know, across all those different organizations. Because I think probably the key strength of Eden is that it's a practitioner's group. You know, it's a place where practitioners share what they do. And all those other organizations, while they have partially have that, they don't have it in quite the same way we have. So that's something that we can bring to the table in a sense. So rather than us all competing for audience, if we're joined up, I think it's a much more powerful message. But you know, these are just thoughts. And being new to the committee, the committee might just go, no, don't even think about that. But I don't think that will be the case. Great ideas. I'm sure we have more people who will support your ideas. So now Barcelona conference is coming. What discussion would you anticipate in Barcelona? Well, I mean, as I was saying before, I think a real strength of the Eden conference is that it's a practitioner conference. And so I'm expecting that there will be practitioners who will be talking to each other. They'll be sharing their innovation. There's going to be networking amongst their peers and establishing links potentially for new collaborations. And this year potentially there's going to be more discussion, hopefully, around leadership and change. Because I'm involved in, I hope it's going to be a really exciting keynote with two other very senior women. And we're going to talk about leadership. Leadership and innovation and change within organisations. So I hope that becomes a topic of discussion as well. And then third, you know, we really do need a more robust evidence base and hopefully delegates will continue to talk about the kinds of research methodologies and approaches they take for providing the evidence base, which supports our arguments, you know, about, you know, the potential of online and distance learning. So I will just jump to the next question because you mentioned research. And you are also a famous researcher in the field. I wouldn't say I'm not famous. I'm also a very precipitous literature and I've read some. And in your research, teaching receives considerable attention. This is what I personally appreciate a lot. And you are mentioning but also now in higher education institutions we see that teacher workload increases. And the institutions do come to face different challenges like teachers have to implement teaching, research, curriculum designing, opening up virtual mobility, different initiatives. So what could you suggest for institutions how to meet these challenges and what should be the roles of the teachers? Oh, well, thanks again for that question too. And I feel a bit embarrassed to say I'm a famous researcher. I'm not. I'm just an ordinary researcher in the pack, you know. But I have a particular focus, which you're right, which sits around teacher, teacher identity, teacher professional development. And in one recent piece of work I did with some colleagues, we were looking at the role teachers play in supporting distance and online learning and their identity within that, which is absolutely fascinating actually. So I guess one of the things that we still haven't resolved is, because it's really hard for me where to start with this, being clear, there's something different about how we go about online and distance teaching. I mean many of the principles are the same. Good teaching is good teaching. But there are some subtle differences in that and there are many aspects to it. Including things like curriculum design, learning design, being able to facilitate appropriately in an online environment itself. And there are only some of the aspects involved in good sort of online and distance teaching. But I think what we're seeing change is the role and identity of the academic in that dynamic. And so workloads changing too. And so our traditional conceptions of what the academic or the teacher was, you know that they do some research, they do some teaching and maybe potentially some community engagement or enterprise of some kind. That's very much shifting within universities themselves as teachers are being asked to do different things. And so in some universities, teachers are being asked to almost be multi-mediary experts for example, or learning design experts. And that hasn't really traditionally been part of what their role has been. So we're seeing a great shift. So if an organization wants to get into online and distance education, they have to actually shift their academic workforce in a way into more of the kinds of skills and the role expectations of that dimension. So I've been looking at that a lot with my colleagues. And what we're discovering really is that organizations need to have very holistic strategies and have a very clear idea about what the roles and responsibilities are in order to define just what an academic or what a teacher is within their organization. And I think that that's some hard thinking because there's a lot of tradition and there's a lot of sort of history that sits behind what an academic is. And you know that's very challenging not only for the organizations themselves but for teachers and academics within those organizations. The last question will be related to the last major Eden event in Oxford when you were moderating a very interesting session at the very end of the Oxford research. And it was a question opened up for the public and somebody else from the public answered it. But now I address it to you Belinda. I would be really interesting. You're now in the settings of the Open University but let's move now to the settings of a very traditional middle-sized university in Europe.  Now I understand that from your previous answer somebody would have to define the openness first. But if not all the areas of openness could be addressed what would be your first steps and your first areas of openness that you would address in a traditional sized university? Well, I'd probably address this by putting together a strategy. You know, I'd want to develop an aspiration and make sure that that aspiration met the context and situation of the organization I was in. And as every organization is embedded within a specific context and the range of controls to consider I'd be sure that I'd explored the market opportunities sitting around that, you know, all those typical things around assessing the returns on investment.  I think as I was saying before, you know, my concerns around there's a lot of enthusiasts that sit within organizations where there are inputs of excellence, where they fail and are not sustainable is that it's not driven from a holistic strategy. So probably, you know, if I was, you know, a rector in one of those organizations I'd be starting off with, well, what's the aspiration here? You know, what's the actual need? Why would I want to do this? You know, how would it benefit students and be asking those very fundamental questions before I would be leaping into any kind of form of change or implementation? Thank you very much, Belinda, for your time and for your answers and for your continuing contribution to Eden events and Eden professional networking. So we just had a lovely talk with Belinda Tyman, who is the Vice Chancellor at the Open University and myself, I don't know, I'm a Vice President of Eden. So let's see you in the future events. I'll see you in Eden. Lovely to chat. Bye! Bye.


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Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Still here. How long has he been practicing that one? I am present, ma'am. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Teresa. How are you? I'm well, how are you? Doing great, great, great. Vacation, Mr. Mayor. Absolutely, Reverend Dow. Would you bless us, please? Today and for all that you've done for us, for the blessings of this time, this harvest time, for the winds of the Spirit that blows on us and in us and through us, we ask that you might bless us and touch us and yet sensitize us to the issues of this city of ours. Thank you so much, Councillor McDonald. So, Mr. Mayor, it is always a blessing to staff when we have a few weeks off to get caught up, but then the reality hits that we had a few weeks off to get caught up and having not had a council meeting we've got a lot to cover today. So, excuse me in advance if I'm a little pushy today I'm just going to try to keep y'all on schedule. How's that different than usual? I don't know. I was just curious. I'm excited about it today. I'm probably not going to be. And the other reason is I have a hard stop, which you don't have to. I know, Mr. Mayor, you may have to run out too, but I have got to just go out for a brief moment of round five to get my child who I haven't seen in four days who's been on a retreat with school. No electronics, haven't talked to her. I really need to see her today at 5.30. Yeah, I can't. I would recommend we take a hard stop at 5 and take right back up before 6.30. Sure, okay. As Jeff is prepared to keep going if we need to. But I think if we are, you know, if we're good with our title, yeah, we need to be efficient today. So we're going to start with a continuation of a discussion we've been having regarding the implementation of a commercial corridor and more redevelopment program. And we as staff have been working on several action items in that regard. So we want to start with the parking side of things. Parking improvements, Ms. Missy Gentry, our assistant city manager, and Ms. L. Matney Director of Parking Services. Of course, this program, as we know, is a pilot to be started at a five points corridor. So a lot of what we say today can be implemented potentially city-wide, but with a focus on five points. L. And we know that that is parking in time. We'll move forward with a couple of facts that you may or may not know. That 98, excuse me, 96% of a time a vehicle is parked. Half percent of that time they're looking for parking, often setting in traffic. And 30% a vehicle is driving around circling, looking for that ultimate parking space. So let's talk about some parking improvements on the right and here at Columbia. Quick look back at how far we've come. So the parking meter that you see on the top left, we still have some of those donkens right here in Columbia. And the gentleman in the top right photo, that was how we collected meters back in the 50s. As you can tell, we've come a long way. No longer are we a place in Columbia that we pull up to the curb right out front often as we refer to as kind of course up right out front. Columbia has dynamically changed over the years. Let's take a look forward in smart devices for smart cities and where we're headed. We have on the top left smart meters. They accept multiple forms of payment dynamic pricing that we've talked about many times and improved enforcement. On the top right we have a multiple space again multiple forms of payment dynamic pricing. They generally come in two versions. The larger ones that can maintain surface slots for up to 25 spaces and the smaller that can maintain up to 12 spaces such as a pay-by-block that we would hopefully see on Long Main Street. Task Force parking as we know was implemented three years ago and we have crossed over now 1 million transactions with Task Force parking as well here in Columbia. As well as being recently selected for one of 14 test markets with Google Maps Task Force parking and Google Maps are forming a partnership on your where to come on that. That is just as well as merchant validation Task Force parking has updated your merchant validation options. Vehicle detection sensors on the horizon. They can be placed in ground surface mount. There are multiple apps that you could pull up on your mobile device or many of the newer vehicles navigation systems and it will tell you where you have parking available based on these sensors will also help integrate with more efficient information. What kind of space the spaces that are occupied so if a particular block is not before the vehicles, we may not need to pick time to announce this. Some of the technology will actually tell you if they're paid or not paid right from the device. So you will know when you look down the 1600 block of Main that vehicle has not paid or has listed ahead. Will it tell you how long that vehicle has been there? They could also be excited for time parking in addition to some of the existing opportunities that we have is parking availability itself, both on street and in our debt facility parking rates. The on street demand pricing that we continue on to discuss and present options in your future and the specification and key structure that we have in Columbia. In a moment you'll see how that compares to some of our neighboring cities. Enforcement, we have a continued issue on both sides of the fence with short term parking on either of the spaces. Local staff members taking up that viable on street space on the evening night and weekend. We have USC Hub students who are parking along Main Street parking spaces versus parking in various facilities. As well as local hotel guests who may be fine not want to violate their vehicles or taking up these on highway parking ways. What is this, happy to understand this infraction citation? That's how much an average citation would cost you if you're here in Columbia and we'll see in just a moment whether or not cities to give you an idea where we for the average expired meter citation is $8. What other cities may be approaching where our parking is. We also cover residential but that's we are working on our current management. We have lots of hospitality inquiries and overall from me for taxing with Uber the carriers that have bike lanes we need to take a closer look at our future road management as we begin to implement many of these programs. This is a snapshot of what's happening in other cities across the country as far as expired extended enforcement increasing meter rates they are dynamically being utilized if you want to park along Main Street maybe that will cost you $3 an hour if you want to walk a block maybe it's only $0.50 Dynamic pricing with some of the technology on the horizon continued marketing short term on street versus the long term social media having a more stronger presence in social media that facility maps finalizing we are going to generate oversize punctures with maps and information about parking throughout corned in all of our parking facilities with emotional parking incentive getting the word out there where it is recommended you can and cannot park enforcement extended hours of enforcement parking services along with city management we like to recommend Monday through Saturday for enforcement 9 AM to 9 PM infrastructure will be determined by the space the block itself or we can maintain the pricing by time of day so maybe we don't determine the 1600 block of Main is going to cost $3 each and every day but at 6 o'clock it may cost you $3 until 12 midnight and you can control that with this technology I want to make sure we move fast extended hours of enforcement help me understand 9 to 9 does that help move cars what's the practical effect of that it actually turns the spacing in the evening and weekend hours where we see the hub students parking near the hotel guest and many staff members of our businesses are parking in those spaces so let's say I pull up to a meter and I can feed it at 5 o'clock for an hour because I'm working the night shift they know that we're not going to enforce after 6 so that vehicle is there for the remainder of the season so we receive the complaints from the local businesses that no one has a place to park there's no parking along Main Street no one can run into my business pick up food at my restaurant and we receive the appeals come from staff workers that there's nowhere to park I just ran in it was raining so we know staff members are picking up those spaces so by extending the enforcement until 9 o'clock we'll turn those spaces if you want long term parking there's multiple facilities that you can park it should be a couple hours you're in and you're out and it may be something to consider space and heard work space parking where guys you gotta walk a block but you could have a view or you know it seems to be working or you know that was kind of the purpose of it you ever been around during the shift change it's amazing you watch them they come out of the restaurant wherever they're working often they're calling they're taking all the premium parking for that view and thought of even considered around the county building where folk are constantly moving in and out parking in and out the taxis there has been some concern when I talked to folk that by the time they get there and of course if there's a long line there it runs out and then they're ticketing have any thoughts been planted as it relates to parking around that county building don't pay the taxis it wasn't real and we can't turn this case so we can definitely look at that another one of the initiatives we're talking about the peace structure whether it's by space or block time of day as other cities you may have been to have a flat rate in the parking facilities so if you're in after six if you're out by six a.m. it's five dollars flat or maybe it's three dollars in high steam for those longer term parkers to pull them off the early bird special early bird late bird but from what's the interesting is the time of day because certain areas like if you're five point four eleven o'clock it's kind of parking but from eleven to two is prime lunch which creates and you have a gap and you have the evening which obviously turns in so which of them time of day and blocks of time to have a higher rate to your courage in the turnover and especially since we've had multiple parking lots and just a little sidebar that we may or may not come back to but for the Thanksgiving holiday the city will not have enforcement citywide traditionally that's what we've tried to do in the last few years to encourage shopping local business etc five points we're hearing both trains of thought but I guess last year or a year before they were very adamant that they wanted enforcement so we're going to have to deal with that and make a decision you know I like to be consistent and do what we're doing citywide but to your point about eleven to two or I don't know what the time frame for Black Friday or the day after Thanksgiving if you did enforcement and five points what would you do so what time from what to what both ends of that spectrum they were upset that we did they were upset that we didn't right so bringing that up is it possible for us to mobilize twenty to twenty folks who go working and stuff to use that during that weekend absolutely we're still there because we've already thought about that because that's what we want to go to ultimately anyway but we can try it it'd be the first time we've tried it and we thought about that or Missy and Elle brought that to my attention I think there's also the thought that I don't know if people will do it because it's new but anyway that's an option I don't know if the convention center has events that parking lot ought to be utilized for shopping etc in the VISTA during the holiday weekend if they don't have an event parking and shuttling from the convention center the shuttles you're two feet so we don't want to belabor that so we can stay on time but that is something we're a staff we're going to have to make a decision about in the next few days are you talking about just on Thanksgiving day or Thanksgiving weekend that Friday the Friday after Thanksgiving we don't normally enforce on the Friday after Thanksgiving we never have Thursday and Friday everybody else seems to like that but you know five points is not so we'll talk about it the merchants are asking for it are asking for enforcement some are we've asked for a hard line as far as the merchants association what is your take on this I don't think so not clearly 22-21 would make a difference in that discussion I'm not talking about five points they love no enforcement everybody else is fine with it everyone else is good with no enforcement strong opinions on everything else I don't want to miss feet but that's correct we did last year advertise the state owned the facility we signed an agreement we did promote it I don't know if it was utilized 22-21 we did advertise that with Amy Beth last year I don't know if it was utilized because it's during the day there's not as much concern let's remove the obstructions to doing business in five points let's make it available to everyone I think we should enforce but without some clear direction from the merchants association you think we should enforce in five points honestly we do something there we have a love loved or not loved blame for everything I mean my recommendation is that we're consistent city wide and we don't enforce if that's what we've been doing and that's been well received everywhere else across the city with maybe the stronger promotion of 22-21 divine for five points even the other divine lot next to the police department underutilized these types they're parking options what's going to be successful is if the merchants if the merchant themselves the boss tells the people you park at 22-21 right that's true and this problem of the employees parking in prime property goes back years and years and years long ago but the key is getting the boss to say you've got to park over there sure just FYI in case you hear about it but we'll make a decision unless I hear from you all otherwise oh for it thank you the box you'll see on your bottom right is a few examples of what other cities offer as an expiring meter citation so we in Columbia are at $8 if you go over to Savannah it's 20 Knoxville has 11 Charleston's up to 30 and then Portland's at 44 as well as also what their enforcement hours would be and it does vary whether it's 7 o'clock 8 or 10 o'clock where you will see a variance in some of the cities is their dynamic pricing that they do have some of this innovative technology and they have it broken out more so by zones or time of day so you'll see a little bit more of that versus the variance in enforcement hours because again as we we become ambassadors wanting you to pay rightfully for the parking being the appropriate space and move along it's not about issuing everyone citation but we want to protect that space for our business community that gives you a bit of a perspective of other nearby cities what are you working on I was wondering I'm afraid to kick my nose man so with regards to I know as soon as I go in there the camera is going to start clicking so we've been in discussion of this high point parking plan I apologize you may carry on please L thank you a few updates with regards to some of the updates that were in 5 points again we've been talking and partnering with various groups for a few weeks so some of the recommendations and solutions there was an update of construction plans in compliance and prepare for rebidding at the end of the calendar year plans in preparation for construction so that is progressing forward the extending of enforcement hours to generate the needed turnover as presented we recommend that that is citywide not only for our 5 points folks the dynamic pricing model we are currently in review of various vendors and products that integrate with our current systems there are some wonderful products on the market but we don't want to work with 10 systems and vendors we want to narrow it down to 2 or 3 so that eases the pain over in parking as well as the lovely friends in the family so we are continuing to partner with area businesses and promote availability in remote areas over in 5 points again that is a continued message partnership we can give them the information in the guidance but we necessarily can't make those businesses and entities make their staff park there because for example up on divine street I mean that's free currently so I know we have the daytime versus the night time so we have to continue those conversations you definitely have to because employers that allow employees to take out special precious parking it impacts their business also and I don't know if they understand that it may be your employees it's not allowing leaders to turn over in front of your space thank you talk among the property owners are trying to work together to create some kind of agreement between each other to let people share more parking and utilize the spaces that aren't being used at night by the businesses that are owners and writers I think there's some discussion there I think the big key will be figuring out they work that out among themselves that's important we have business owners that have actually taken photos of other businesses staff members and sent that to parking services so again we can be the communicator but we can't necessarily knock on your door and close down your business because your staff are breaking the rules what is your timeline for getting agreements from the business groups in these areas against what you want to do with regards to staff parking or extended enforcement I think I'm looking at extended parking by employees in particular we very much believe extending the enforcement hours will rectify a lot of those evening parking miss parkers if you will so the staff that's parking there during the evening and weekend hours that will stop because you cannot refeed the meter so many of the meters whether it's 30 minutes or 2 hours you have a block out period and you can't refeed the meter so I think they'll get the message and further discuss what other options if it's some of those other lots in the areas or whether it's Divine Street for 5 points we do offer hospitality parking for many of our service industry businesses throughout the downtown area so they do have options they're aware but often it's the convenience of parking right out front so we are also continuing to develop a plan for the connectivity between 5 points and 221 Divine if it is lighting if it's the sidewalk we're enhancing that entire walkability the connectivity between 5 points in general in the Divine Street parking facility let's get right ahead and do yours any questions thoughts concerns one of the things we'll need feedback from council on regarding the enforcement I mean we're not asking you to pull the trigger today but 5 points has since a lot of this piloting of things is happening there they have asked for the extended enforcement the question would be as L is recommending that you go citywide or do you pilot it and start off only in 5 points let's pilot it I think everything we do that's new and different let's do at least unscientific baseline see what merchants think beforehand and see what they think afterwards and it might give us some more guidance particularly if we're not getting clear direction from folks as what they exactly might want so let's pilot it when you go from there the boundaries if you take college street and blossom street create kind of the center use that as the boundary I think for the pilot would make sense and then you could expand it out from there but that gives you the kind of the meat of 5 points because once you get from Chick-fil-A up parking there anyway though right I mean I assume if you want to do 5 points I think we're going to do 5 points let's just do 5 points let's execute there I'm willing to do the city but let's walk and run and maybe with the clear intentions if it works well we'll go everywhere that's going to be a huge psychological change paradigm shift let's just see if we can get some type of useful data including some some opinions on the process before and after oh you will you will anything else specifically as far as direction you need besides those items that item and then of course we're moving forward with the lot and getting that bid okay alright thanks though and good afternoon this is a very quick follow-up to parking in 5 points very specific here we're talking about so this was the request was to review height and parking requirements for 5 points businesses and so we're talking about parking currently in the 5 points overlay all uses have a 20% reduction for parking and if you are a use that has a demand of 3.5 spaces per 1,000 or less in existing buildings you do not have to provide parking other than what's there so that includes office uses retail it was intended to try to encourage those businesses to locate in existing buildings so we have here for your consideration two options for amendments is based on some of the conversations we heard from 5 points which was to extend that exemption for providing parking in existing buildings to uses with a demand of 5 spaces per 1,000 or less what that would do is extend it to uses such as yoga studios doctors offices so it would not extend that exemption to restaurants or bars the other option is to eliminate parking requirements just bring it down to a zero you could do this either for existing buildings or for new construction just for clarification the Sheraton hotel on Main Street was not required to have any parking and that is not because of the exemption but because of the C5 that's not a new concept is my point the C5 zoning district which takes up most of your central business district has no parking requirements and in the new code we are extending the elimination of parking requirements to a greater swath of the central business district the code requires and what your bank requires are two different things that you can do and sometimes we are concerned about eliminating parking requirements in areas adjacent to residential districts but we aren't here because all of the districts generally have residential parking permits so they are already covered with that protection the studio uses a lot more parking than everybody realizes if you go down divine street you see it as the classes turn that overlap with non-profit and non-profit doctors offices that was a joke I know I just wanted to get you guys going a little bit and so either of these would just require a text amendment that's fairly easy to draft bring it to planning commission into city council whatever the direction is that's it having these two conversations back to back parking requirement be tied to the height restriction that you are also studying that wants to build in 5 just going up I think it ought to be anything that's 4,000 feet or less from a business standpoint because if you do like you said a hotel or a big retailer it kind of changes the dynamics but anything else that fits in that village which I think 4,000 tell me if I'm wrong that's the average big space down there I mean you have some larger but you're right looking at maybe a little bigger I think if you look at that I think that makes sense I don't think you can just say everything is because you could you could end up with another hotel down the road something could happen behind closings because they're actively pursuing air right contracts so my recommendation be we look at 4,000 and less so we didn't bring that discussion back today because that was another area where we had asked for some feedback from the merchants, the residents and all I don't think we've gotten that as of this week, past week but we were prepared to talk about it today I had informed them that they could I think they're doing like a survey or something if the Rickman's plan is good if we can limit it to 30 size building and less a biggie in there that's going to bring a lot of cars we need to have those is that the is there more to what you were looking for feedback? well this is more just the parking so this is a bit of a twist and we can certainly look at that what we can look at is the average kind of square foot in there as well as so would that be for new construction and existing buildings because we do have some larger existing buildings that currently extends to them which probably you want to keep so you're talking about new construction you'd want to limit how many of those larger ones I'm trying to think of what's dynamically different because some of those buildings always had multiple businesses in them it's some of your newer buildings that are the larger buildings some of your banks and going up further towards but they already have existing parking so they wouldn't be but those guys that are sandwiching between Lynn Skye's building she's going to be empty for a year now so she's got whoever's going to have to go get a variance to get in there because there's well she can do office or retail now with no requirements she wants to do a breakfast place for example that would require parking for breakfast in that period of time there's not competition so I'd like us to look at that change and do 4,000 square feet or less you want us to bring that back as a recommendation and the only reason I keep pushing and asking is because we'll make these recommendations and we'd love to hear out of these two which you prefer but the stakeholders want to weigh in but maybe not so much we can move forward maybe on this but the other part I think they're going to be working for a while I believe I think I'm fine with both of them and I'm fine with the amendment I think obviously always being sensitive to if we're going to be in a near residential neighborhoods where of any impact that might have all of those fortunately in this area already have residential parking restrictions that first block I'll bring it I'll bring it yeah bring it sounds like I'll whisper with my hot mics around okay so I was asking Krista to state which recommendation with the addition that we would bring that to you and that would be 4,000 or 4 or 5,000 and below would exempt all parking requirements and above that we just maintain the status quo and with the 20% reduction we currently have in this area is that good okay progress today thank you alright so next up thank you Krista we will continue the discussion of these related action items with Ms. Melissa Lindler office of business opportunities director and she will go in a little more depth on a couple of things you all asked about previously regarding the commercial retention and redevelopment CRR program with some updates and recommendations of course this was formally known as our facade program thank you Melissa thank you and a lot of people still call it facade specifically in the five points plan they reference the request for greater access to the facade program we call that now the commercial retention and redevelopment program and I wanted to give you a little more background a couple months ago and we talked about the key components of CRR which is our commercial retention and redevelopment program formally facade I will call it facade because people still refer to it as facade and not to confuse it with our current pilot project when we talked about the recommendation of expanding the existing CRR project our program into our current pilot program councilwoman Tamika mayor pro tem Tamika Isaac divine acts and some others acts about the historical areas where we've been previously and that's what we're going to talk about today where have we been and thanks to Tanya who doesn't throw away anything right she's our archivist she keeps all of our records so and gerryland too she's been very active as well as brad they did a lot of research to come up with these numbers to look at exactly where we've been so since 1997 we've done 118 facade projects throughout the city for a total of 1.7 million dollars and 34% of that has actually come from cdbg 38% from our facade 505 program that's program income when people pay back their loans that goes back to the principal and the interest and 16% empowerment zone funding and 12% general fund dollars that keep in mind this is to date the money that has been allocated for this fiscal year has not totally been spent yet but we do have projects that are out for bid and that have been awarded they just have not been expended yet now I'm going to ask Jerry Lynn to come up and go into a little more detail about the eight different program areas since 1997 that we've been in thank you Melissa good afternoon I am Jerry Lynn with the office of business opportunities I wanted to take you back through the previous target areas which I am thoroughly familiar with except for one and that is the first one labeled obo loans those were loans done between 1997 the early 2000s by the obo department of which I was not a part of but between Tanya and my records we were able to discover most of the information about that area it was not targeted however from what we see we saw a focus on main and north main and a bit of two-notch with a smaller percentage just being anywhere citywide for the inbiz five points that was the neighborhood business improvement zone um installed by the south columbia development corporation we did two slates we did five points and the row I'm sorry rosewood areas you can see the timelines the last line before the number of projects there was some overlap you can see the private investment and public investment and the years they were enacted and the total number of projects the business improvement district will be probably one of the more familiar areas we did that in 2010 I believe starting 2011-12 and that was the downtown business center after that we did two phases to cover main and north main and that was from elmwood avenue to I-20 forgive me the business improvement district that is the 36 square blocks of the city center partnership territory main and north main we just talked about elmwood to I-20 also two phases for the next program we did two nights road we went from roughly providence hospital to covenant and the second phase was covenant to the city limits which was roughly kushman and pine belt where it becomes forest acres the area we were in just before this current area was ferro and west belt line and we did a like 3000 to 3400 block of ferro road and 3000 to 38 or 3900 block of west belt line right now we are doing portions of harden street jervais street taylor north millwood and millwood and you can see currently we are at seven projects and we just recently closed on a couple a couple are in the renovation process that's the current standing and that's the historical record any questions thank you the next couple of slides will actually give you a map to show you kind of like where those areas are we've been in every district so far just gives you a visual of where we've been and some of the projects really small dots some of them over each other so you can't really see 118 but there they are and this is where we are now and this is where we've been last fiscal year we're also in the same location as Jerry Lynn mentioned we're currently in harden millwood jervais and parts of jervais and parts of taylor and there are the seven projects that she mentioned that we've already awarded well this fiscal year and last fiscal year Andrews auto service trips find cleaners caroline flowers magumory creative styles star beauty supply grill teriyaki those two last ones recently closed and the pending projects are currently out for bid is that correct jerry Lynn morgan realty free times house of styles and mary's beauty salon we did have two other projects that were pending when we previously met a couple of months ago those owners or tenants have since said they don't want to participate so we do have funding available to do two additional projects what we want to do what is the trader having to get out of the room right before free time time did he just walk in he walked out so one of our recommendations is what why do we need to stay in the area one because we still have a great need in the current targeted area where we're in and we also had a number of requests that came in for the side streets so we mentioned at our last meeting that I participated in that there are a lot of inquiries and interests from the side streets off of harden street which is in our pallet area so we have an overlay there of the side streets but you also can look at our code commercial code violations there's some similarities there in correlations with those side streets and where our code violations are so if we were to stay in this area we could probably possibly address some of those other commercial code violations that we haven't had an opportunity to address along the side streets question oh sorry something so again a recommendation for next fiscal year is that we stay where we are because one that's where the pallet project is it encompasses the pallet but also we can expand it to the side areas that we weren't able to address with our initial funding the other part of this is the increase in allocation for CRR funding by 10,000 as an incentive to encourage the recruitment of new businesses either locating vacant and abandoned buildings in the targeted area so this would actually increase the per award cap to 35,000 in those areas for abandoned or vacant buildings from 25,000 and of course as always we will request additional funding not for only for our traditional CRR project but for the expansion to include the vacant and abandoned buildings pallet so with the changes how does impact our current CRR project more of a comment I'm sorry I'm sorry so our two programs that have been in existence will not change the current CRR the facade improvement loan will stay the same the commercial improvement loan will stay the same but the new piece will be the vacant and abandoned building incentive program again an additional 10,000 dollars for those interior or exterior improvements that they would like to make in addition to the two loans that we have up there so everything would just level those up together and then the incentive could also be used for the purchase of an inventory furniture and our equipment required to operate the business which is not something that you can do with the first two loans and in order for them to be eligible for this loan they would actually have to be approved apply for and be approved for both the facade and the commercial loan and none of the three loan programs would require a match oh oh I'm sorry excuse me facade facade and that's the one that she implements so she's very adamant about that 20% I do apologize unless council wants to change that right now there are so three things could it join together or yes sir so we could it will be attention yeah if you would like that's some of the conversation we had a few weeks ago yes sir because everybody is totally familiar with the facade when it's retention correct so putting that together of course poses a real advantage it does yes sir it does and with everything that we do in the office of business opportunities everything it's across departments so one thing that we will be doing more of and you'll talk more about this with Frank when he comes up to talk about the fog program but it would also have us interact more with code enforcement when it comes to the commercial code violations as well as implementing the new vacant abandoned building ordinance that was just recently passed as well so we could utilize those two tools to help make sure that we're meeting the greatest needs in this area to make it I think we had it had to be greater than a year though to be considered a vacant and correct and we have some of those at five points that probably had that meet that there's one building that's been vacant for as long as I can but it's because of the owners not correct but those are some tools that we have put in place hopefully to help us do a better job at that and you have a comment before they switch off did you have a comment before they switch rock and roll alright and so again another thank you another component that would help expand the CRR will be what Mr. Frank Smith talked about good afternoon mayor council Ms. Wilson good afternoon let's see there we go at its September workshop we expressed a desire for staff to find innovative ways to help restaurant owners and property owners who might convert their property to restaurants with ways to meet the city's existing fats, oil and grease or fog requirements every restaurant has to have a way to pull that out of the wastewater stream so that it doesn't cause problems in our sanitary sewer system one idea that we've been working on since that time gave a brief description of it a few weeks ago is the idea of having a fog forgivable loan program that would be administered through the office of business opportunity commercial retention and redevelopment program we'd be working with listen her folks the idea is the technical review and the construction inspection that normally goes with a grease trap installation or a grease interceptor installation would still be done by the wastewater compliance section at Columbia water where that type of work is occurring now the idea is to make this available to existing and we call them FSEs food service establishments existing restaurants or property owners who want through economic development to convert their properties to restaurants the idea is to make up to $5,000 available per applicant with matching funds it would be a 50-50 match toward the cost of labor equipment and material for the installation of a grease trap or interceptor this would apply inside the city not system-wide because of course the Columbia water system extends outside the city the forgiveness requirement would be such that the applicant would need to be in business and compliant with the requirements that we have for two years and at that point the loan is forgiven the idea is that this would be funded from Columbia water revenues and that we would if the council if the sense of the council is that you'd like for this to proceed we're ready to put things together so that we could begin this on January 1st is the requirement for fat oils and grease to fog program a city requirement? well it's everybody we have a city ordinance the federal government liked our city ordinance so much that they incorporated it into our consent decree so we lack a little bit of flexibility that we would have had because even though this was a municipal ordinance to begin with it's now in a federal document that we have to abide by and the state also requires that this be addressed most of the utilities in the state of South Carolina have a fog program because it's required by other entities oh absolutely it's nationwide this is a nationwide situation two questions I have one is I think one of the things that is not stated in here and I think would be important is the ability to work with the business at what options there are because not everybody needs to put in a tank not everybody really and I think that's one of the things that we haven't had a clear delineation in the past so I think that'd be a good thing to add the second I was just curious what you're seeing the average cost is because 5000 bucks from what I've seen put in is probably a 10% of the total cost the reality of what we're talking about is massive and I know there's some other neighboring entities that are doing some other creative things so as I appreciate this I think we really need to look at it a little more in depth and make sure that we include the options but maybe look at a different way to create a balance if we're going to push to encourage some of that growth in those areas especially in troubled areas of where we have some of these folks are I'm not even sure where they put a grease trap that's right and I didn't expand on that because I was going to try to be brief but staff is already working with applicants to find creative solutions whether that means an above ground grease trap in an alley that takes care of the problem or grease interceptor that's designed more vertically than horizontally because of confined space but we understand that and we're already doing a lot of that right now there was an interest in combining grease traps at the workshop and I'm going to plead new on this okay I didn't even realize it but we were already doing that okay it has to be done very carefully though because the same laws of physics and science that cause fat soils and greases to build up in our sewer system would preclude us from having a regional grease trap where it travels two or three hundred yards it's just not going to go that far before it clogs the line grease traps have to be close to what they're serving and also in all fairness we put a lot of strengths on the small business person to do that but yet the biggest abuser of the system is our home owners and we have no requirement on them for anything well we do encourage them to can it, cool it and trash it but yes you're exactly right let me go I will bet you on Friday morning if you went through about every neighborhood and put a skimmer through there you'd find a lot of deep fat fried turkey grease this is probably not the week to crack down let me have the Crisco can I had a big one where I put all my bacon but I reuse it let me tag on to Daniel's point about the war and Thanksgiving the smaller businesses in my experience has been those that are looking to occupy an existing building with a system that we approved in the past and the challenge is upgrade to the requirements that we place on them and financially that's not it has not been practical so especially again when we look at areas where we want to see businesses new businesses come in I'm hoping that we could really make some allowances for some financial assistance and be accountable in the requirements that we're placing on them we're looking for a solution we're trying to work with the property owner and I've seen some systems that were in place that kind of makes you wonder how will they improve and approve in the first place and if it was good enough for the previous business under our rules we'd change for a new business coming into the same facility that's a great point I think the FOG program that we have dates back to 2008-2009 so of course there were restaurants in Columbia prior to that time so I'm not sure how it was handled back then but if you're putting devices under kitchen sinks which is one place that these go you may be dealing with a situation that's just hundreds maybe a thousand, maybe two thousand dollars if you've got to go outside the building and put a pit that's six feet by five feet by ten feet you're probably up in the ten to fifteen thousand dollar range so the price can vary wildly but we felt like this was a good start anyway and if we get started January 1st the fiscal year is just six months down the road we'll be coming back to you hopefully some experience and success successful stories but some idea of the level of interest and the effectiveness of this amount I think the options of working with people figuring out really what the right fit is because I think when we started the program we had a pretty vanilla requirement that didn't have any flexibility and created some real hard chips on folks other people have tacked it different ways that to me is probably the biggest point we can do is make sure we're working on an individual basis because there isn't no two buildings unfortunately are exactly right. No you're right there's one set of rules but it is case by case case by case. So with that overarching premise of definitely looking at each individual situation and having some flexibility which I think the staff is doing we would recommend the five thousand dollars to get started and they're ready to do that per applicant and combining that with Melissa what were you going to say I think we need to be creative if not aggressive in making that known to a lot of the smaller business we still have some of them that don't want to come to us the five thousand dollars would be for a ten thousand dollar trap because the owner would put in five we would put in five up to five that's right in matching so we're at 304 and my goal is at three o'clock we'd be hitting item three so we're doing pretty good that's a recommendation that we'll move forward with Frank thank you Melissa's recommendation would be for funding as we hit the budget cycle I think they're doing well right now with what they have and I is the recommendation received to stay in that in the area where the pilot is and expand on the side streets yes right thank you so our next item number three economic development partners update Mr. Ryan Coleman director of economic development I'm sure Miss Kay Hampton is going to be assisting him his deputy director and again this is a conversation that we have had before and the last time that we taught you all wanted and I wanted the staff to bring back some more hard and fast recommendations on numbers for our partner agencies they're deliverables that need to be very tangible and the funding to go along with that so that is where we are and we'll get started Ryan hey good afternoon everyone we are back today we promised council we'd work on the economic development partner funding per the meeting in September we presented council with a couple of different options as far as the funding for partners maintaining things going with very specific itemized scope of work along the lines of essentially just having a straight professional services contract with each one and then provided some recommendations we took council's feedback we have come back today to get into some of those details with you all as you all would like to discuss for the most part the levels that we discussed in September are relatively consistent with what we talked about until that day one of the changes that we did make there's another line item in there for the insurance technology and services cluster of its SC that had been formally a part of ingenuity SC and their scope of work as that cluster group has come out from underneath their management we've rolled that out and added an additional line item in there for your consideration it's a not incredibly high funding amount about 10,000 but these are all consistent with what we discussed and we can definitely get into specifics on any of these and we've laid out some individual items as well this is kind of where our partner agencies come and fill in working with various items along business recruitment, trip scheduling entrepreneurship, small business initiatives, retention and expansion of existing businesses marketing and then some assistance with talent, retention and attraction did all of you get your flu shots by any chance who won at one because nurse Sylvia has been there for you since a little bit before the council meeting so if you need to do that it'll only take a minute just a quick sting for the first time ever I actually took care of that it's good, me too after being harassed by my children okay, thank you sorry Ryan Ryan I know you said there is consistent I'm not contradicting you I mean there are changes so we just need to go through each one I don't want the council to think we're bringing them the same thing that we talked about in September because there are some significant changes I think okay right and so at the bottom the overall special projects funding for 1920 is 382,000 of that 204,500 is allocated to annual recurring funding of ED partner agencies and you will see the breakout of how that's allocated currently so the partners on top Central SC Alliance, Ingenuity the Technology Incubator Columbia World Affairs Council and ITLogy are the partners that we have recurring allocations and scopes of work with as we've mentioned before City Center partnership gets allocation in lieu of taxes there's the Mass General Interest and then the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce is funded for some of the BRAC and military initiatives the CCC budget is those are monies city center partnership yes when the bid was renewed in 2011 essentially what we give city center partnership is a payment in lieu of a tax contribution so as the city does not pay taxes somehow they came to the amount that 70,000 was kind of the fair market value of what the city would contribute to city center partnership should we pay taxes and then we've entered into a contract with them and we pay that amount each year and we'll have a tax payment to the bid just for clarification Miss Wilson this may be for you when this was put together originally that was prior to them getting hospitality money CCP years ago you're asking and then the second part really for me is I guess probably have just overlooked it but really should come out of general funding because it's a water and sewer because it's a general fund expense and it has moved around I think over time maybe even part of the rationale of the time was if we're focusing on development you're expanding more businesses and that probably was in the case in the beginning they're fully funded they're collecting a lot more than they ever collected before I'm just curious okay we can do a little digging on when things change to get with Miss Wilson the intent of my question was just to see whether or not the $70,000 $70,000 is a part of hospitality tax that part is not Mass ends this year right it's the last year Mass will roll off this year we'll see the breakouts for the current recommendations for the partner agency funding we've reduced Central SC Ingenuity Columbia World Affairs Council there were a couple of other requests that came up around the time that we were looking at this so you'll see a few of the items that we've added in at the bottom for Council's consideration you know as part of these reallocations so Greg Hilton and his group Croco have started their new concept down in the Vista they requested a funding amount for a period of up to three years and the amount that we discussed last time was around $37,000 Midlands Technical College Enterprise Campus $10,000 for them the ITSSC down there at the bottom and then the vendor could be allocated for the use of economic development grants we met last one of the requests I think we had is really for us to get kind of a memo what have we gotten in the last five years from each one of those agencies instead of just looking at reducing their amount based on part of it was to legitimize giving them any money what have we really gotten what has been the benefit then what was the deliverables and did they deliver those deliverables and how in conjunction that should be tied into funding and so I think it's one of the things I'd still like to see because it's great that we have a reduction but we need to understand do we still want to fund groups that have been funded historically for we went through and booked for one year happy to do it but that is how we came up with some of these line items in the past year based off of what they said they were going to do I think we want to be able to have a clear line I know there's some foggy lines there where multiple agencies taking credit for the same talent being recruited well I think one of the things to your point Mr. Rickman and at some point we just have to move forward is that you know Jeff and I talked to Ryan and Kay about with the benchmarks they're going to be challenged to me and the deliverables you are asking for right now going forward with certain things we're doing you know there's a lot going on what what are the value adds for these entities that will pull in the direction of where we're asking them to go right now so I get the history part and as sort of you know I probably would say we should have taken the stance before now but we're here and so I was hoping that they would you know take historical look but be very deliberate and specific with these entities about what are the things they can do to assist us right now moving forward with the things we're asking of them I'm hearing you say basically is that you've given them a pretty narrow scope so that we come around to budget time next year we'll know if they can deliver or not deliver right and I think Kay you may and Ryan I know Kay was explaining to me when I met with you both an example of what you mean by that so you were talking about there's some allocation in here for certain things as far as leads and if you don't get that lead then they don't get that funding. It's all very specific very tangible things focused on output, focused on outcomes the usage of funding for overhead we've gotten away from that that's why I kind of alluded to that near the beginning that what we're essentially doing is we're providing an itemized professional services contract and say you know here are the things that feed into our strategic plan as our office here's specific things that you can do to contribute to that and that's what we're looking for. I think you've got to have in there that look you know we're expecting X amount and if they're not delivered I think it's very important that we kind of draw the line at this point and it can't just be leads and others I mean they've got real tangible you know because some of this money we ought to consider making a real. We have a great opportunity I think you ought to be involved in it mayor. Really do a real about Columbia and get it out there. We're missing opportunity we're just we're not getting the marketing reach that we should with all these entities that are so-called providing services. Again that's really been my general concern if we're looking at I thought we were looking at deliverables all the time but I'm also interested in if it's a matter of recruitment you know bringing in investments I want to know where do they steer businesses companies also there are areas that could use some enhancement in terms of a shot in the arm from new businesses new investments and jobs creation but I don't feel that with a couple of these entities that we've been funding for years and if they can't show that then I would not be inclined to continue to support them and that's always been my concern we've got for example a couple of industrial parks in the northern part of the city and I venture to say that they're not on certain lists I don't see and feel we're there but some of this investment is being targeted in that part of the city so that's a deliverable for me and I'd like to see on paper areas that they can show companies and entities that they've had conversations with talked with then we also should be able to know what part of the city that they've been asking folks to take a look at or that they can honestly sell that's what I'd like to see back to one of Daniel's requests are we producing a document or a video or some type of marketing document that will be available by xDate there's so much good content out there already we know but what are our purposes and when can we we'll be working on a couple things this year actually internally and I think we have the opportunity to do some of those in conjunction with these partners where you want to do it around something industry specific as insure tech or do something around talent, retention, attraction or just the city in general we need a package for this to be city focus but yes all the above I think this shows the engine excitement there's so much good content out there right now but just pulling the things together for our purposes why is this included with the investment but having a hard target date to have something produced by is so important the microphone I can't hear you I didn't understand a word you just said alright soon that was intentional I would be remiss if I didn't continue to express the counsel and everyone else that I'm concerned about reducing the central SC Alliance funding as well as ingenuity I support I think Greco presents some excitement I've been an advocate for the midlands tech the hardening of that relationship and this is important I've been an advocate as you all know in the past of increasing the central SC Alliance funding understanding the role they play in regional economic development and how central our positioning is in there whether or not that investment lands in the four corners of Columbia but certainly our folks don't all live and play in Columbia they work in the county they work in Lexington County Bury County and Kershaw County and the like now we have been very clear and what some of our expectations have been and there have been some challenges in meeting those expectations so I understand that but I still think that we play a larger role in the regional economy that's manifested in our funding of the central SC Alliance I would again I want to encourage everyone I serve on ingenuity board since the organization was founded as a central regional Columbia Regional Technology Council the mayor of the city and the chair of USC has always served as the honorary chairs for lack of a better term I do believe the work that ingenuity SC does is amazingly important in some tangible ways but also the ways in which they get a number of stakeholders around the table I've served on that board I know Ms. Devine has I would encourage that more of us prospectively serve in a number of different capacities on these different boards so it's not just me or Tamika bringing back the good news so I've expressed to you all a few times so I'm not going to belabor those points I did have to make sure the chamber funding is how harmless that's still the same the ongoing role the chamber plays in keeping our eyes on future BRAC so whatever it might be down the road and just have to keep a steady presence in Washington it's so important so I want to make sure that that's not touched I think the chamber is funded out of the general fund we still manage that contract but it is a little bit different than our special I saw in the chart just want to make sure that it wasn't touched one of the things that you all may want to just clarify a little bit and not we may have glossed over this you said it but the IDSSC $10,000 was a function of ingenuity one of the things that I encouraged this to have to do as I just said was to be more specific in every deliverable so I thought why not you just go direct with them to get the specific video produced specific to that type industry or whatever else you might want to do with them versus the money going through ingenuity has become more of them project managing things hosting meetings I mean sure there's value for that I'm trying to get ingenuity to we got to pay for what is going direct with the city so it's almost like we are paying them to project manage for IDSSC is that fair that was a portion of it yes ma'am also in your packets you'll see how it got broken out we don't have anything in there it will be the similar SOWs before they also are not sure the status with the Central SC Alliance would likely change we're not sure exactly what that would look like for the city the standard membership for Central SC is 72,000 a year and I think it has been that way since they were started initially you know when we went back to them and said you know we're looking for something that's very specific to the city that's very tailored around returns and deliverables there was some pushback there but you know we kind of reinforce them this is the direction that council has given us and so Mike did indicate if there was a change there that he would have to go back to the Central SC Board and we may not be a standard member with the Alliance anymore and that's something we have to consider and be comfortable with I think we still want to participate in these partnerships with people but I think we've been very clear with everybody you know that we need these things that are specific to the city that are going to produce these outcomes over the next year 72,000 eight counties in the city the university I think pays 15 to 25 their social partner they don't get to play golf let me let me say I Central Alliance I won't comment on that but I don't have a problem or any heartburns about NGC and the Enterprise Campus Midlands Tech I've been talking that up even when Sonny White was there about the relationship that campus can play in a city you have a high school directly down the corridor Eau Claire and that campus has the ability to not just recruit but provide but recruit businesses that provide jobs in the immediate area so I would hope that we can I don't see too much we coordinated with the Enterprise Campus working with Chuck Whipple on $180,000 rural infrastructure grant that is helping provide some of the wastewater infrastructure out there to the backside of the campus which those parcels were not previously served and this was before our consideration here and I think that's a real tangible thing they've definitely brought value to the table in that aspect and I think that's what we're looking for from everybody you know it's things along those lines that are concrete and that we can point back to yeah I understand that but the ultimate goal of the project is very creative in terms of the typical technical college in this state private enterprise on site that's something that we could lend our expertise to because we can it's tangible to us tangible is real solid recruitment and some high-tech jobs on that campus and the students it's a conduit for students graduating from that school so Mr. Mayor I think that's something that we should really put the full forces of our economic creativity to provide some assistance absolutely I know we've got to rock and roll Teresa but the incredible work I think whenever Tom is right in the update from Dr. Reims and Chuck Whippel and others they're doing some really awesome work and I want to expand dramatically we've got some creative ideas we had a meeting schedule I had to reschedule last week and co-brand the city it all makes sense not just so clear but also Keenan as well Keenan right across the street robotics projects maybe last words Mr. Badura I know I'm not sure if this has been talked about before we discussed this before when it comes to Midlands Tech we're going to be creating a culinary school that would obviously be something that we I think the city is interested in because it generates more students and hopefully create more jobs and open more restaurants and that kind of thing is that a discussion we've had with Midlands Tech that we can maybe start looking at some derivatives from there I seem to remember going on so lately but if you'd like to request that we can definitely reach out that would be something that we might be worth looking at it I remember years ago we discussed it even before that we had that kind of I think that's something that could be tangible results that if they start opening and looking at a program and the USC program will not compete with them because USC program culinary does not accept a new age or anything like that this would be a credited program that we can maybe help with we'll be glad to have a discussion this would be an item Mr. Mayor that you all could take up this evening for action as an item discussed during the work session the funding amount Wilson are you planning to go over this scope and I've only got it today but reading ingenuity scope is way too broad there's no way that you can do I don't think that that's their previous so that is their proposal and this is what we felt like we could contribute to I think looking at it this is there this is the asked the man this is a response from the staff on what the dollars should be worth all right we're going to rock and roll we want to date certain on this reel on this video so when y'all finish whispering come tell us something thank you thank you and you're fine with bringing this tonight Mr. Mayor council are you fine with acting tonight all right we don't oh yeah alright our final discussion item is the Kilburn Road traffic calming measures and Mr. Rickman honorable Daniel J Rickman Mr. Rickman asked for us to revisit this item so Jeff Mr. Rickman is going to I guess kick us off on this item or I think there was there seemed to be some confusion I think we discussed it at our meeting that we were going to look into Kilburn Road added to the list of the streets we were looking to take over and maintain from the county to promote yeah we talked about it and for some reason the minutes glad to let us know there was some confusion and I know Robert had not been able to talk about it at SCDOT because it didn't seem to be a clear so I wanted to bring it back up to look at it speaking of traffic calming it was very interesting to go indicator Georgia and look at what they've done downtown and then some of their high speed corridors and they basically took the four lanes and put it into two lanes they took the parking row and moved it out one and took that parking row and added another strip of sidewalk and then a little thin bed with some type of grass that kind of bounces off but to encourage not only the merchants on that street to utilize some more of the sidewalk space and have a separate sidewalk so they could keep things kind of moving without having to tear everything up the other interesting part is they put out the bump outs but it hasn't affected their traffic the traffic slows down but the volume is still the same and they've had very little complaints so when we talk about Hardin Street Divine Street Millwood areas, things like that especially Divine where we're talking about you don't have to eliminate the parking you can change it and cut it down to two lanes and still handle the volume that is coming but make it much more safer for walkability and make it more of a neighborhood anyway I'm going to take some pictures of it tomorrow when I'm down there send it up but I thought it was very interesting what they did and they said it was not that expensive to do because they weren't it's a very cool downtown it's a very cool downtown have y'all been having any discussion with DOT about redesign of Hardin and Millwood we have not I know it's still under consideration and they're still doing the study on those and I'm sure we'll get a full report once it comes up if I could run through about three or four slides I think this would kind of remind everybody of where we are and as a city currently our DOT owns about 69% of the streets the city owns about 30% there's 1% that are private of city streets sidewalk storm drainage to include signage and signalization the two slides I showed last time was we did a pavement study back in 2011 this was done in-house and our current rating was sitting around 78 or somewhere in the 80 range which is really just a preventive maintenance our program has the ability to run itself forward so what we've done now is we've got a current rating of about 65 or 67 and that's because we're not doing a lot of maintenance on our streets right now so if we add something else to it then we need to make sure that we can maintain if you remember our condition pavement we're sitting in about a 67 so right now we're in about a fair rating so we need to look at the 30% of city roads that we currently have and take some kind of action on them we talked last time about opportunities currently there's no funding in our general fund we do use that funding if we have it for leverage funding through CTC we've got a couple CTC projects that are going on right now one of them is in the Chestnut Hills subdivision where we just did a major rebuild and the other one is we've got some money that's coming along for Germany that will probably take up to have the road over to the city based on its condition and the only reason we're taking that is because we've got that funding from them we've also in the past got funding from CDBG and we try to do public and private partnerships yes as those documents for the dating of that piece of property right there by the amount of stadium has that been sent over to us yes it's sent over and I believe they're preparing them now for council it may be on the next week's agenda I'm not sure yet it is Erica said it was on the agenda it is so the last thing is what we've done on Kilburn Road according to DOT is a major collector so we've had neighborhood meetings with DOT we've actually had two of them and listened to their concerns and tried to act on what those concerns were one of them is speed humps DOT has said no to speed humps based on the number of traffic volume and the amount of traffic volume that comes down Kilburn Road three-way stops which David Brewer has always not been proponent of DOT is also not a proponent because three-way stops generally don't work we've got one in my neighborhood and everybody runs it because they can look to the right and see that there's nobody else coming so generally nobody slows down four-way stops four-way stops we did do an addition of the speed radar signs I believe DOT paid for the speed radar signs we actually installed them and that's the ones like five points at flash to show you how fast you're moving the police department set their speed trailer down there several times and I know police has done quite a bit of enforcement down there so that's currently what's been done on Kilburn Road I told you I'd be brief with you of where we are with our pavement management system and where we stand today on Kilburn Road Good deal One of the challenges and I spoke to you earlier about this is we're having a lot of sinking roads and almost all of the ones that identified this weekend walking around the district are all DOT roads and so we need to figure out how we do that and some of these are repetitive converse been fixed two maybe three times in the same spot Chacour has got longer than this table like this you got them going down Woodley you got them I mean it's just literally every DOT road Right and I know we talked earlier and if you will get those to me I want to look at them from our perspective first to make sure it's something the city doesn't have any responsibilities from and if we don't we will get them straight over to DOT as soon as you get them Robert so that myself or somebody will ride by them and take a look at them I'm familiar with what he was talking about and a lot of those I think are the water system and then there's a whole other batch of them that are the fault of the communication companies that are digging up the streets putting in these fiber optics especially the small ones they're about two feet by four feet and you see them going down the street and they'll last about six weeks and then they start sinking and so you got a big pothole out there that looks like it's caused by the city but it's really caused by the and that's why we would like to look at them because if they don't go to DOT and if they're ours we want to take care of them if they're not ours we'll go through Dana's office and through Michelle and make sure who had the easement and who was doing the cuts out there and we will hold the contractors accountable Robert what was the could you help me clarify something for me what was the situation at Middleburg was it a busted pipe yeah Middleburg had a busted waterline that I'm not sure it's been repaired but we're getting it worked on it's covered it's not the other one of course was I want to say Hampton and it was also a waterline on the corner there also alright good I appreciate that and just to address the utility issues as Robert said we'll find out who the culprit is and why the road is deteriorating and then if it was a utility cut or a utility sinking issue we'll get those taken care of you're going to see coming to you in the not too distant future a package where we're going to have an outside contractor come help us repair leaks that are active and help us get caught up on utility cut restorations because we've got some staffing shortages and we're behind so we're going to supplement our staffing with outside contracting resources so we're going to try to re-zero we're going to do that every quarter until we can get staff back up I noticed you had Trunham Gervais and Taylor all out in the last six weeks oh I get good work you're doing make sure there are no other action items in that regard are we good really yeah you got to get the amendments thank you all right on target a little ahead so it's great there's an um you want to stay down here today yes sir we do need to stay down for the first one of the presentations is a power point Mr. Mayor move we're going to executive session for receipt of legal advice related to pending and threatened potential claim code section 30-4-70a2 Allen Benedict Court automatic meter reading infrastructure meter installations and taboo receipt of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to 70a2 125 Peyton Road sewer expansion fee Columbia Urban League external funding requests hospitality funding revenue options legal update 2019 and add save a lot discussions of negotiations incident to propose contractual arrangement pursuant to 70a2 family park park streak improvements and deferred 2221 Divine Street discussion of matters related to proposed location or expansion of services to encourage location or expansion for other business pursuant to 70a2 project blue ballpark lsc profit Dixon Klein discussions appointment of a person to a public body pursuant to 70a1 parks and recreation foundation no there's one more and deferred item 10 and deferred item 10 why are we let me ask a question why is there can we talk um we just dealt with taboo last week are there additional things other than what we decided upon at the last council meeting I think y'all is that a source of formality that something you need to discuss with them but we can take that off I thank you do you want to talk about taboo? thank you Reverend McDowell I appreciate him trying to get to the house I gave the notebook I'm glad I did I gave the notebook brother that was something I got to tell you why you don't want the pictures second second he's like second that's one of the reasons cause I didn't want to see that notebook and uh