good afternoon yes here I want to know that Dr. Bussles is preparing to make her way to the hospital to birth her first child so she will not be able to can't call it we asked but we didn't get all the background going on how are you how are you know a whole nother level to zoom call they can't look the one we had it all right who gets to start this afternoon discussion is that miss Kaufman yes sir you're gonna wait for the reverend on the invocation well he likes to do it since since you're bringing a new religion to the table that we haven't had ever get some incense yeah you know a little holy water and then I'll be happy to say the blessing yeah would you mind I would not heavily father please bless this gathering please give us the insight and wisdom to do your work always be mindful of how we treat others and always keep us mindful of your service to us and please bless this city as always well we appreciate you all meeting a little bit early being that most of you probably been here all day committee and we will wrap up the discussion we started last week continuing our budget journey with today's fiscal year 2023 2024 hospitality tax accommodations tax and tourism development fee projections and budget recommendations as missy Kaufman our budget program management grants director and I will take the materials nothing changed since last week with the materials we just kept on working on materials for next Tuesday's work so the memo that you all previously received really outlines the funds and we all get into a few more specifics also make some recommendations regarding other items for consideration that I'm particularly excited to to get some direction from councilors and then many of these things y'all are excited to move forward with this thing thank you city manager Wilson good morning or good afternoon I suppose mayor and city council it's good to be with you again today this Wilson mentioned we will discuss our special revenue proposed budget which includes our hospitality tax accommodations tax liquor rebates or liquor permit rebate accommodations tax and also some other considerations for city council's discussion so first we will start with the proposed budget for the hospitality tax fund and we included information in your budget regarding the hospitality tax categories of allocate of allocation we'll start off that the projected revenues are right at about 13 and a half million this is about 6% above the current your projected budget but is in line with current your actual collections pre-pandemic we were saying about three to 4% average growth some years were a little bit better than that so three to 4% probably the lower end of that average and we're glad to say that collections seem to be back at normal rates from previous year or recent year pandemic collections so the total budget again is projected at right at 13 and a half million the included in the budget that is part that is proposed as can is the continuation of the transfer of the general fund of 3.7 million that's the same as the current year debt service of 2.5 million this is based on the existing debt service schedule that for the hospitality tax bond and then remaining for allocation is 7.2 million as we talked through the proposed budget per se the remaining allocations are of course up to city council discretion and recommendations for for these different categories and just sort of a little bit of bright background in terms of the different categories included in the hospitality tax fund fund the age tax committee of course as you all know it's appointed by city council they review all that hospitality tax grant applications they're actually meeting as we speak they started today they meet tomorrow and Thursday they are interviewing all of the committee all of the applicants for next year's allocations lime agencies are a designation of organizations that the city has some type of fiduciary or other kind of fiscal responsibility for and with historically even that predates the hospitality tax fund or hospitality tax revenues that were started a little over 20 years ago city council makes these designations distinctly themselves as opposed to the age tax committee which are the age tax grant applications the committee the committee then recommends to city council of course city council either proves those recommendations or make some adjustments as a as a wish and let me add right there while we're talking about the line item agencies I know there's been some discussion and it's kind of in a timing thing too about council hearing maybe their annual report or accomplishments or deliverables or things they've done and to that point I know miss Watkins with the museum of art reached out yesterday not knowing necessarily the time frame y'all were on and wanting to present an annual review and I suggested to her to let us get through this fiscal year budget process and then maybe you utilize your committees and I think people are starting to see how your committees are working now but maybe the arts historic preservation and philanthropy committee those line item agencies if y'all choose could come and report out on some things but she did send a report and I'll hand that out to you but just for consistency with all of them that may be something you all want to want us to implement you want to do that before we decide on the line item allocation finish this year that's what I suggested to her and miss Wilson I'll add thank you for that extra clarification that is a question we have but also in this year's the current year there is a requirement for state aid the line item agencies to submit a report at the end of the of the grant year which would be due to us at the end of July so we would have those reports by then then they get a report out or whichever committee I just thought that one might be the right city council does also make some specific allocations occasionally and so those are lower of fewer now but the allocation for the parks recreation foundation is here and then also to a contract with the river alliance that we've had on an ongoing basis and then of course transfers out which include the transfer of the general fund and the debt service payments with regards to what has been requested for city council's consideration is an allocation to the hospitality tax grant committee in terms of them out that available to for their recommendations for allocations to them to the grantees the current year is three million dollars the request for this year so far total four point five million that is not a determination whether or not all four point five million are eligible or have submitted applications for eligible expenses but that is what's been submitted so far I believe there were of that maybe seven that are totally new applications or new programs and activities yes sir we we had had some informal discussion about the allocation to the committee for this year going up the same amount as the growth in the fund which would be six percent added to that for me and that would be a hundred eighty six percent of three million three million that would be not for the line items that would be for the committee allocation just for clarification we had six percent growth in the overall but he's not talking about the overall six percent he's just saying make that reflective of that growth so that'd be six percent of the three million not six percent of the thirteen yeah yeah right so sure everybody yeah we were part of that conversation so it's good to get some clarification on it so that would be three million one hundred eighty dollars and that would be part of what we're asking for today from City Council is an idea about allocated for the committee the committee knows what to come back to or in terms of allocation meetings they need that and last year as you would call it worked out that there were there was a second they they did not commit all of the time they came back with a second round of applications I think work for them as well as ours if we give them three million one hundred eighty thousand and then fund the line and we should have left over funds for the second no no no you don't think that you're gonna spend them all just keep keep following this story listen do we know how many visitors we have the columbia in the given year 15 million 15 million so those the problem is is it will only get about five and a half spend nine so define a visitor so a visitor is somebody from outside what counties I mean they could be if you look at the data they come from all over I mean Charlotte is a big big part of our visitors they come to the zoo and so forth I would love to get that information for hospitality tax purposes is 50 miles 50 miles that's if you draw them in for 50 miles that's what they consider this is what the state guidelines are the state guideline okay um but our goal is to continue to create as we build up the dynamic of our downtown and open up the riverfront what we hope is that we can get seven and a half millions been the night the goal is to increase that that overnight so the more people know what's going on the more opportunities people have did you say it was five million a five and a half million that's five and a half million spend the night is the last number I saw give or take probably means just pretty high utilization rate at our hotels and I had to guess well what's interesting is is if you I mean it's hard for people to get a hotel around here these days you know where every time we bring somebody to colite they end up staying at the ladies Hilton garden on ferro ribs there's no place to stay downtown they're filled up we tell them stay here here here here and here and they stay one minute away from us they stay at the courtyard or the Hilton garden in on ferro road by uh all our outer hotels are filled with all the construction workers working all malfunction junction and everywhere else I mean Monday through Friday you can't get a run that's also I love that we have specifics on that too I think that's important we we can get bill to get us something I just I think all this data is super relevant for for the now and the future one more quick question then so the debt service that's what's the term I mean that's a term loan term loans at a certain rate it is a revenue bond pledged on a hospitality tax revenues for for hospitality related yeah so the rates pretty low yes and I think we're shopping right right now and current bond and looking good got it okay so we will proceed with the three million 180 allocation for the committee and then the line item agencies um their total requests are two million their current year allocation was two million one eight hundred and sixteen thousand that included a three hundred thousand dollar final payment of a multi-year commitment to the Columbia Museum of Art for their um capital program um that was the final payment so technically their allocation the committee the line them agencies were 2.5 if you subtract out the 300 000 their request for this year includes two million eight hundred and eighty thousand um if you need to know a list of who those line them agencies are um they're included on the budget summary that's provided in your materials we can um i don't know that city council is wanting to make those allocations today or consider those and come back to us with some recommendations for those allocations you see that 300 yes final allocation 22 23 obviously the final is not represented in the 23 24 288 correct so that that 2.8 includes the 300 000 the 2 a includes i'm sorry no 2.8 for next year does not include right okay so there's a pretty significant phone that's 300 is going away as well yeah um i mean i think for obviously there there's some requests for additional funding um i would tell you that i think two things i'm not interested in giving somebody a 50 percent of all who's getting a future fill them i if we want to do some slight increase in our i mean the fireworks were one time is that now becoming an annual thing for them i've been twice and i've had it twice i think it is an annual thing that is something that we don't have to spend a hundred thousand dollars of city money on if they're going to do the fireworks so they don't do it on new years they do it on fourth of July that didn't help us at new years or six months apart didn't we spend money on fireworks for the fourth of July no we didn't do years in the new year i thought we did both no we just do new years you got two nos on each side of you on the fourth you out but i do think that you know when um you know i think these are good numbers for us to just study over and then come back for for recommendations but i would just keep it budgeted like this until we have an opportunity but since everybody's seeing it for the first time i think hearing all the information and then coming back and i think from a committee standpoint i think we're relatively all comfortable with that number so that they can go ahead and do what they need to do this week and i think for these line items and i do for the record i think next year after july one we're going to notify everybody but unless we're part of it you're not aligned and you've got to go to the committee my i think we're not provided in this packet it's from a previous packet you're looking at the memo thank you so treason do we get out the memo from what we'd like do we we know how much revenue is 135,000 visitors on the cma yeah no i can get from dela as well what i'd really like to know is what the total revenue is for those visitors and how much each visitor pays okay for the cma yeah i mean to me in my mind in my mind anybody asking anybody's asking for a million dollars they ought to uh they ought to be provided as much information as possible so some of this information is um likely included in their actual applications so it might be better that we that might be the easiest thing to do is just get copies of applications and load it up right in our links and link them in right yeah it'd be great we'll do that because that's ask that that clarifies all the things that are asked for in terms of meeting the h-tax application grant um godlines so uh missy the the committee here's the uh request from the line item agencies do they do they adjust the number or do they just give us back the number so the line item agencies do not present to the committee so it's not adjustable they still have to do an application the applicant so the line item agencies are still subject to the same rules of meeting h-tax guidelines and state law of course and they are required to submit an application but they do not present to the committee okay so dancer how much question it's not adjustable they don't adjust the number so it would be up to us to do that if we want to and i think to miss wilson's point is the question is to whether or not to bring the those line item agencies to presentation for two city council committee um in future in future discussions or what what what might be a i guess more uh consistent way for there for them to present or if you're wanting to right or you all may decide that you're going to push them back to the committee process i mean i'm not i'm just going to get clarity in the new fiscal year how you want to do that it's too late now yeah because the process is already started i think i do think we ought to see the applicants the applications yeah i think that's a great thing to give us because that that lays out everything i believe all the questions are more questions correct good we will do that finally we have the parks and recreation foundation and then of course the river alliance the river alliance contract is is partially funded through the hospitality tax funding and then partially funded through general fund it was split that way some years ago um in part because of some other um discussions we had about not fully funding activities out of one source um when we're advised to not utilize them that way so they are split between here and the general fund and there of course their contract helps with different services that they provide for through support of the three river screenway any other questions about the hospitality tax before we move on to accommodations moving on to the accommodations tax this this would be state accommodations tax these are the taxes paid by by folks who visit hotels of course it's collected by the state of south carolina and remitted to the city quarterly and these funds are very state law is much more prescriptive about the use and management of these funds than they are um say hospitality tax so for the state accommodations tax we're projecting a total budget of right at 2.9 million um or right almost three million that is um 11 percent of the current year budget but is in line with what we've been collecting for the current year and the previous year we only have two year two quarter collections to date so we are often much more conservative on our projections for next year since we're this still early in terms of the collection season we don't have yet the third quarter to sort of gauge how we're how we're marketing but as the mayor's mentioned obviously our hotels are pretty full especially with constructions and other activities so we will confident that we will we we will meet the 2.9 um in terms of our of our collections the other component with regards to the accommodations tax is that um um as mentioned state law is pretty prescriptive about the use the one thing that is new in this budget that has not been previously there is the inclusion of debt service and that's for the bond that will be issued for the um renovation uh revitalization for fendley park so there is inclusive city council authorized fall of last year to proceed with that project that included multiple funding sources um that would be issuing this debt so an accommodation tax is one of those so we included a million dollars out of this budget for that debt service the remaining allocations are pending city council input um so that budget reflects pending allocations based on the breakdown by use of state law state y'all state law explicitly states that the first $25,000 is a transfer to the general fund 30 percent allocated for advertising and promotion of tourism 65 percent allocated for tourism related expenditures and then five percent for general purposes um this application is due the end of april or was just due this past weekend they will meet um in um i think a week or so as well for review and the accommodations tax committee and this is a separate committee it's also determined by um state law in terms of who is supposed to be serving on that committee all requests are all funding considerations are to go to that through that committee for um consideration before making recommendations to city council i've missed it just just for information purposes you've been saying several times how prescriptive the state law is it also has a oversight committee on this tax that's not on the other taxes the tourism tourism turk the tourism expenditure review committee we have to be that they check what we do to make sure that we have used it for an eligible expense that's correct yes sir that's for reason that the previous councils have taken the proceeds and done them 85 percent for the experience going to be in 15 percent for uh lake murray country yes so that's correct there's been probably only two groups for allocation um aside from the five percent the five percent um we have used those funds as more of a community promotions type grant as well as some other activities um you have funded in prior years you funded um one columbia from these funds as well as hospitality tax um and then this past the current fiscal year you did a community promotions grant which are the general more like general purpose grants consideration and then of course we have some other other expectations of the other item that's not that's um included or reflected in the budget or considered for this budget is for possibly for um our internal market yes internal marketing thank you which we will have some um additional points to talk about that as we proceed through and even with that you were explaining to me missy that we would have to submit to the committee yes which is interesting to me but if you already submitted we have not i think go ahead and submit but put a placeholder in your name we will that committee hasn't met but miss wilson um we discussed having something for really for that committee for them to review right and then that way we will be in compliance with the church committee that um councilman devolve mentioned and so just so i'm clear have we have we not i'm looking at the projected 2324 we are going to determine what the expenditure is going to be in this blank stage right here so much is not zero these are to be determined those are to be determined the dollar amount the one million seven hundred seventy eight thousand is a total amount that's the amount that would be subject to the 90 that is made up of the 30 percent and the 65 percent um once the committee comes back with their recommendations that's when the issue wasn't zero already no any questions about accommodations tax state accommodations tax anyway the next we'll talk about the tour what what we the city refer to as the tourism development fee this is our local accommodations tax the city actually collects these funds and historically these funds were used as you're aware to support our bonds for the convention convention center they're still in use for the convention center now that that is retired we are now presenting this is i think the first year we've actually presented a budget to city council for consideration with opportunity for designation so this this budget is projected at four million dollars in terms of the city's collections we have um programmed in as mentioned a million dollars for the finley park revitalization project the bonds that were issued for that work um city staff is recommending allocation of two million seven hundred and fifty thousand towards the conventions that are operations these funds is what we have used historically to support operations of the convention center building them up here in the sense that we're also funding from they also have received funds from accommodations tax specifically though for their marketing and tourism whereas these funds would be for the operations of the center um you know i think you know we're working with richland county and the convention center to come up with obviously a new agreement about how we split i mean we need to move forward with what's been allocated because you know the convention center loses roughly two point something million dollars a year and this is what we've covered along with our portion of the bond payment that's why we've never actually had it before in front of us but once we have allot gotten that agreement i think one of the things we're working towards is creating a more balanced um allocation of the of the debt moving forward and i'm i'm talking really about the loss i should say loss not debt split and then what goes into marketing but i think this is a very safe conservative number for now until we get some more solid numbers but it's it's been somewhere between two and two point five i believe over the last several years there's richland county put anything towards the loss now no where are we with that because we're set it's like a 70 30 split it needs to be more like a 50 50 split i don't want to talk about that so neither where are we with that what's the timeline it's the hashing that out working all it now i mean is there is there is there a date that it needs to be done i mean or is it just kind of good we're gonna we're gonna pick up the losses it's a flu it's a fluid conversation because they're still closing out the overall partnership yep okay and there's some discounted funds and some funds that may have to go back and forth that that were captured in long-term that's just a lens working on okay so um i wish jeff was here to kind of give him because he's really been working on it um but yeah i think we'll bring it back i think it's coming to us before before we vote as a convention center have they given us some type of business plan that maybe one day they won't lose 2.75 million dollars to be honest with you i don't know a convention center that actually breaks it yeah i i mean all i can tell you is the plan is the plan is something that at least makes them aware of their role in this whether they did it or not that would probably be a different discussion i'd rather i'd rather have a plan that uh that i knew wasn't going to work than to have no plan that i knew wasn't going to work so i mean i think i think they should work for 2.75 million with just some and i'm you know part of this kind of goes back to the whole discussion about you know expanding the convention center you know which and we could probably all argue the the merits and the and the the negatives about it but i mean i wouldn't i wouldn't vote for a dollar to go to come expand it unless we had some plan that at least shows what they're doing has to be so i think we should ask for that for sure well and i and i think i think now that you know they've got the r which we should get an update anyway it may be a good time for us to get bill to give us an update because they have the rfi out on a potential hotel and that's all and um i didn't know it would hotel and um all room expansion space that would encompass their own footprint without having to go out give up parking and some others which i think is a natural step for for future but yeah i do think it how do we increase this you know parking part of that rfi no parking parking wouldn't have to take away but the creative approach using the no i mean it depends on who the responses are yeah i mean i think that plays a big role in it i also think that you know one of the things that when i read through that hunley study that they the hundin study that they had done one of the things that was apparent to me is we had we had a lot of events but were they the events that maximized our footprint to get the maximum out you know we did a lot of events and covered but they weren't using all the spaces so we were left with underutilized um i understand you know there's a ballroom being used as downstairs yeah i mean you've got some events in columbia that are exceeding 4 000 people and they can't they don't have anywhere to go anymore they're having to go outside so at some point yes it's coming i mean we can't do it for one or two events but let's make sure before we do that that we actually are utilizing and maximizing um our program there to to move forward because i think that that makes it a lot easier i know this if you read it there's some hotel issues in there too so i think the fact that we're able to move forward now and kind of re re put that plan together and we've indicated to bill and others that especially that with the reconstruction of the board that you know the other folks that benefit kc west columbia and others should should contribute some as well i think that's i think if we put together if they put together their plans a lot easier to get people to participate so just for the record i'm pro i'm pro convention center but everybody's everybody nobody i nobody i know gets to go home losing a bunch of money without being stressed about it repeated i agree with you and i think in order for that to happen that's an access to that plan has to be inclusive so it incumbents everybody yes sir how do how do they show that in their yearly the yes or no man it can come up with 147 you know a deficit and covered by city economy or what's been covered by that tourism development fee that our portion paid our debt portion and and the thing so we've never really actually because all of that was designated to to cover there now that we don't have that anymore we have some flexibility and that's why we were saying this is a good opportunity for you some other projects that's why we hadn't had this conversation before because they just well we just came off the car came off the 20-year funding you know so it all just ended this past December this this is not usually a budget we bring to you so so we need to leverage it wisely moving on um the another one that we have not typically bought is our liquor permit rebate and also is a special revenue with specific prescriptive uses um as determined by state law the city has historically used these funds for allocation to historic property renovations and for um specific color the mental health fund specifically used for um historic columbia in terms of capital repair capital projects related to the city's historic homes that they that they manage for us we've done things in the past where we repair the trestles that see old seaboard diner and some other places some of the historic things that we own correct we've done a number of other projects stormwater studios and claus and cmfa and stormwater studios were both received these funds so really that's part of there's one we haven't brought these funds back to you it it's a very it it only collects about three hundred thousand dollars annually um so it's not another significant amount there but um we have um obviously um some opportunities for use of these funds going forward we have not received yet but have asked historic columbia with regards to uh capital projects that they have um that they anticipate in this coming fiscal year um so we're waiting to hear that information from them as well in terms of whether or not there will be any that they need for this coming and state law is pretty specific about it has to be capital so and then our contract with them also designates um the distinction between capital versus operating and of course the city has a part of creation has um some historic property keenan else which um obviously that we've been renovated now so any questions about the liquor permit rebate let's get to the fun part all right the fun part there was a now was a list of this is part of the reason why we've left some blanks and some of these recommendations for you um in terms of some considerations for city council that have been brought to our attention the city manager's attention um with regards to allocations for um variety of park improvements um funding for some city marketing and promotions um so that list is available to you we can discuss them at um as as city council desires um line by line or starting top all right so starting at the top we have we have identified the the projects along with potential funding sources um but park improvements would include owensfield site improvements and park enhancements um some work at hampton park playground equipment greenview park and clumbia tennis center um so it's greenview park and the tennis center plus the tennis center clumbia tennis center so that's not all just for the tennis is that tennis slash pickle ball centers or just tennis we'll look around to our parks folks and let ours are you gonna start playing i just want to know i just want to know are you pro pickle ball or anti-powder no no no no no no pp he was a staunch supporter i mean so bad for like 14 months and then we go out there to dedicate and we find out he didn't even play i'm waiting till i retire he wants to play during happy hour i don't want to see any part of that i do hope we'll get consideration to owensfield and that's gonna mean we got to get another negotiation with the county to unwind that legal mess out there well i don't think we have to unwind anything i think we could just this is if we put in the um sprinkler system and get modern turf or somebody like i do think there's an opportunity for us to deal with the rugby folks at the same time and put that out there on a duel but we haven't done anything out there in so long and i don't know about y'all but i've been getting pictures from the parents and they're like where's the grass well i think now is also a good time to look at that that lease the lease we have in place these words and then also look at the lease and then also reprogram the space that the ymca uses you know to take into account maybe some some for the rugby field and stuff like that because they do mainly during the week and and in the afternoon so there's a good way to cross utilize so that property better um you know if we're going to make this type of investment this is i think a great way to do that and and that kind of investment will feed back into getting more hospitality tax and more accommodation all those restaurants around owensfield are going to be great yeah i understand that that means they can pay rent lots of pizza i don't know who some phantom corporation over there but yes uh at least a dozen pictures a weekend i'm sure mary you know and yeah people i told people that we're looking at trying to do some pictures i got it yeah but they you know i do think it's a center and it gives us some opportunity though if it grows up it also could be they could get some smaller tournaments and stuff and that's just and that has proven that it's done really well for for our community because these families travel i mean oh yeah and a little bit different on a different note i just want to inquire from henry whether or not we're on the same sheet of paper because we did revitalize most of our parks actually all of them actually we're in but they won't process the parks that we revitalized parks and recreational came out of parks and recreation is that right that's right so all of those parks were rededicated prioritized and uh so i just wanted to make sure we were on one is hospitality tax related the other well this is to help to help offset that so we can move the the whole purpose of what we're putting up there is to move it advance it because we're only limited funds this allows us to do the things at greenview melrose and hampton park's been you know got its first renovation and we haven't been able to go back and put the equipment for almost what four years now three at least instead of sitting in queue for the general fund this is a good delivery model to get these projects moving quicker mr. man what was the name of the park there on uh before he tried to turn them around that's mays park that's in this year's budget this year okay that's why i grew up that's where you grew up you know what it looks like just when i grew up that's what you got a facelift coming okay no more than a face here thank you the last park that was mentioned is melrose park is also included here the the parks that are listed here um obviously are more eligible that fit more with the hot use of hospitality tax the tourism development you look like a rebate permit permit fees um hence why they are recommended here oh man as well good list yeah as uh i'm not in melrose park but i'm really close to it do you say mr. brown i grew up right on the hill but he lives near melrose yeah look in the mirror so i can i'm not in uh i can throw a tennis ball into the neighborhood okay we scored two points right now the basketball yeah so after this list of considerations the next slot will be funding availability so we can go through this list and then maybe consider based on the funding availability um as we have um each each air each um item has a has a potential funding source uh city marketing and promotions initiative um this includes a project that's been proposed from seven sunday as well as a project with se and tv se tv and then um an allocation for a city the city of columbia our own internal marketing information um and that would coincide with what we carve out of the tourism dollars right for those outside marketing efforts correct this the city marketing and promotions would be in addition to what we do out of the any of the questions about well obviously we're in the process with r.i.p for the marketing the city internal marketing so you know as those kids come in by the timing looks on that they just got the addendum this week for the economic development piece um i do have the timeline you also keep going and i'll share that with you um we don't have a number on the Christmas market in new year's eve we know what the the obviously what if we just want to stick so the question became do we want to stick with just doing fireworks or do we want some kind of of music to go with it but keep it very low key not over top what's everybody's thoughts my thought is to keep it low key with just the fireworks and let the private sector have their events we got five ordinates over to that right the ordinance yeah but what i'm saying is if we make it low key and just do fireworks and focus on the other side of the corner going to do their own personal their own personal there plenty of ordinances out there there's a lot of venues especially in the main street area and vista and fire points area that could have celebrations and enjoy the fireworks you see it from about everywhere we did get a request to have uh no noise fireworks how's that work no noise you said it's all visual they don't have any bang to it i don't know how you have fireworks without the noise that's this part of it call me old school yeah so the allocation for the fireworks for this current year was 15 000 so is that the christmas market is is an idea other cities do that where we could take one of our parking lots and create uh the little permanent stands for like two weeks so people vendors could be there food could be there away just to kind of enhance get people in the mood and get excited about the holidays we're trying to get a pricing on that so we don't know but hopefully we'll have it before the final budget um the expansion of city center partnership clean and safe in the elmwood corridor y'all we it's our gateway and we really need some help down there it's the number one area that we get complaints day in and day out from everything this gives us an opportunity for us that to help worse than complaints people shaking their head and saying what are y'all doing over there this is where people come into the city so it's even worse than that it's almost like disbelief uh so was there any consideration for cotton town to the business strips that's my only concern because if you do elmwood and well the line is it stops it down but it's not elmwood park it's this whole area right here okay the business community on this side that is in but next to transitions and actually i got you okay um and then obviously bollard is something we've talked about staff is confirming but that would be where we would have bollards on main street five points in some of the other areas that then when we have events they can just pop up but also use it for flooding that's a great idea where we're having this issue on waley street and five points where people drive through and other places that we end up having to deploy folks and trucks and everything where we can have these automatically go up and prevent people from going through but that has been that has been a real concern for one or two businesses right there on main street having bollards there and those pop up those pop up bollards i don't know whether or not they the developers are looking at that but rather because there's a motel there and missy and i have talked about that a little bit and um we want to be busy in that place yeah so we're looking at doing that so when we have public events we can put them up that keeps us from having cars and everything means we can have some less folks tied up accidents crazy stuff there are some of the the communities that if we do it they want to chip in while we're doing it and pay for some extra ones around some closings where we have a lot of churches with funerals and things like that so um but i think this is something we got to and then obviously the next one the public restrooms on main street um we've got to go ahead and get this done with more and more people coming down on main street we got to have a place to go the businesses that that have been allowing people to use it they're overwhelmed i mean when you got a five block long soda city or major event and there's nowhere for people to go now when we do something with public restrooms they'll be monitored they also they're not going to be open 24 7 they'll be really for during the day and special events and then locked up we're not going to have something where we're going to end up with an incident are these in our current real estate assets or what are we do you want to talk about that real quickly so there's a couple options um we've looked at we've identified some spaces in our public right of way i'm not overly thrilled about that because of just safety concerns i personally worry about but i think we could make it happen and then we taught with me recommend about identifying an actual um space on main street that we could lease and up to accommodate bathrooms and hopefully we haven't asked them yet but work with ccp on some type of partnership they already um stage out of our garage is a good bit so perhaps they could be more present it could be not a visitor center so to speak on that level but they could have a friendly presence there if they need a place to stage anyway and maybe we could factor in some additional funding to to help with some of those hard to take a retail space yeah walk in a door you have you know 10 bathrooms on each side a central place to clean but then you have somebody there station then you can lock it you know clean and we identified i'm sorry mr man have we identified where those places i thought i heard you say something yes sir we had we initially had identified some public right of way spaces where we would stand up some type of bathrooms which isn't as ideal but we do have at least one location if it's still available on main street that we might look at if that's yeah if y'all are thinking that'd be the better to me it makes more sense primarily because i'm concerned about you know these turn into homeless centers and other well we had a great the other cities have done this outdoor and we were looking at that going way down the path but then you start worrying about all right well suddenly you got that in the right of way what happens with accidents exiting you know control how are we going to control it if it's out there visible with no i like the services a lot i mean then you got you know it serves multiple purposes uh even like a visitor when they go up and down you'd be centrally located main street and there's like a rest game and hopefully you know no either way you go at things of course both we think would like it but i mean we would certainly want to talk to the business owners and the block that we're thinking of make sure they're on board and understand but to the mayor's point that's really his idea that it would you know take some of the pressure off the business owners who are a lot of times fielding people coming in and out using the restaurants i hear from several of them who are just they they're they've done it for as long as they can and it's just too much because it's growing it's good i mean they get the growth is good but at the same time they can't hit a burden and then it's just created other unfortunately under other circumstances that they don't want to do with can we move that that along like now yeah i mean if you have identified some there's a there's a space that we've been looking at what i have to probably grab that space yeah yeah the 1600 we need to do that well and we could get it up up and running quicker and to start that process i don't want to say media for sure but in close proximity of making this happen sure i mean based on this discussion we'll be very intentional about starting that process i think you got a wink and a nod because don't look i mean we give the yellow shirt space in our parking deck for their office i mean could this be transferred to the space works you know i think we'll maximize the bathrooms and you know space for people to wash their hands but not any space for somebody to camp out definitely that's right water closets a set of big room big bathrooms you know like this is a big trend now you're seeing it across in other cities and literally just have water you'll have enough room other than take care of business there was one project on here the neighborhood public art project that wasn't mentioned i don't know if you want to go back to neighborhood public art project was a mention of you want to get back to that one one of the things that that we've talked about previously we've mentioned it before is creating in some of our our more challenged neighborhood areas is a way to do some enhancements doing some public art projects that are spread out in some of our our neighborhoods to help put that sense of pride back in it goes hand in hand with the free libraries program where we're taking old newspaper boxes and setting them up so people can share books and stuff but really trying to just add some things to some of these neighborhoods that we want to help build back up but put that sense of pride and i think having some neighborhood art uh the bloomberg uh group shared with us the the numbers and how well it helped when you start to rebuild neighborhoods and get investment in because people start to gather around the pride and these are centers so we just need to identify as a group kind of the neighborhoods we believe would be good um candidates sit down with the neighborhoods and then allocate we've got some properties here and there identified that we could possibly use mr man i um was at the columbia rotary uh on monday and they mentioned that they're doing a little free libraries fundraising but if there's any we should reach out to them to see if there's any you want to participate by hey the more the more the merrier they're about they're about 399 a piece yeah they come fully changed and painted i talked to the state paper and other pips but they only had like three or four machines left and it would cost us twice as much to get them done then just buy them we did one in ml king and i can't remember the group that did the little portable libraries but um these are all these paper boxes they're weather sealed so you can prop them up and and they're all different colors so we can spread them around ideals try to get like 24 of them and kind of make a major impact and fill them with books and i was oh i'm sorry let's see the rfp for the marketing the responses are due monday oh great next we have the fund balance from these different allocations and um i want to talk through a little bit about what what what's here and what's available because it's it's pieces and parts of different things so just kind of talking through so hospitality tax um fund balance city council did make significant allocations in the fall to a 27 million dollar capital improvement program um so this is just reflective of what was at what portion that was out of the hospitality tax so 3.5 million was allocated to finley park 500 000 for southeast park and 300 000 for the beautification project so um hospitality tax fund balance 4.3 million is already committed that left a projected balance of 820 plus in the current year budget you still have a remaining 430 000 it hasn't been allocated so that gives a total of 1.2 this available for allocation of the hospitality tax that's in addition to the proposed budget for next year this is what's available today 1.25 1.25 so who who was the who who did the beautification line item was that robert was that your team so that was the commitment for the city's gateway and beautification project that was the portion from hospitality tax and yes those were allocated to public works so they've been allocated have we done the work so we haven't actually started our beautification program so those solicitations were done the that war was made in the fall by council and i think the solicitations were done on the robert you must speak to yeah so there was a separate portion of this that became part of that was 800 000 dollars so we have done a few things uh the pots across the hall or across the street here at 1800 ports part of that we've actually got our mowing contractor into place and i'll share we had a mowing contractor who already failed so we had to get another mowing contractor so that contract is in place so he's mowing all the gateways every 10 days and your work starting to see better pickup included in that the first guy mowed over it and didn't mow halfway so it took us a little while to get rid of him but we've got a better contractor in now so and i think that contract's a little over 400 000 that's just focusing on gateways it's not focusing on concrete medians on major arteries let's focus on gateways planting new plants the new pots we just finished lady street uh we've got bull street we've just finished rosewood drive so there's uh we finished each survey with some new plant material so a lot of that's replacing plant materials we go so how are we doing on the like the weeding and the medians the trees that are growing in on jervay and hard so we're nice christmas tree growing in front of the public's on rosewood i think so we did the pilot program it's almost tomato season we're gonna see our tomato plants like you're gonna go on it soon i'm pretty sure so we did our pilot program we're waiting for the state to make any allocation they do and i believe that's what council's direction was is you know we did the jervay street cleanup we painted jervay street we did the huger street cleanup we did not paint that but we're waiting to see if the state wants to proceed with that if not we'll look at direction from council i mean i'm not so concerned with the painting but just the weekly maintenance of the weeds i mean that's when i when i my thought was when we put money towards beautification that there would be that consistent upkeep of the of the medians that are in every district um i don't know where was that your mindset when the money was placed there no sir that was not my understanding my understanding was is that was going to be part of the state issue to see if they were going to provide extra funding to clean that up so that our funds was actually maintained what we already asked for d of t to give us 10 million for maintenance on bare street yeah right there was how long is that 10 million supposed to last hey i'm just asking trying to get something because right now their budget is zero yeah all right thanks accommodations tax also as a female typically city council would allocate those funds to the two groups that had been receiving the funds like marian's convention experience columbia um those allocations were not made this current fiscal year so there's a fund balance there along with funding that was not yet committed out of the current year budget so that the accommodations tax has a two million dollar available allocation at this moment and um that's factored into everything we just talked about correct don't you say that's that's how we're funding the all the projects that we're trying to get done true and whatever is left with that you know will that be somewhere to go add to the you know i mean if we're spending 400 on the gateways and you know if i mean i'd love to see us be able to get up to a million dollars through the different funds towards keeping all of our if we got nine major gateways i mean if you've been out the monicellar road lately you can't even see the street lights that we we've paid all that money for those beautiful street lights are completely covered up you know you can't when you come off the highway you can barely see the signs i mean they're just all of those need to be but i want to leverage that money with the state like we did with the project last year this past year on ug and jervay it made a difference oh absolutely made a difference makes a bush ax on jervay right now though jervay and harden oh so you got through that intersection and see it take me we'll take a look so with the time we have remaining just a hit hit real quick on the resiliency funds um city council has made allocations from the result the balance of three and a thousand dollar balance of the resiliency funds that you've allocated so far 96 000 you have before you tonight at tonight's council meeting another allocation of 60 that leaves a balance of 144 which is what's recommended for use for the little free library uh missy we also i think whenever we have left we we should maybe allocate to the food desert delivery program because uh based on the conversations i've had so far and then when we see i think this i think it's gonna boost up pretty well missy we time's been sitting back there for two hours and i always expect him to bring in a beautiful plan of something that they don't do a presentation he's just here when he's got available to work with are you here just to answer questions he's chasing nickels i was i've been trying to think what big project this time i've got let's go show us tonight i've been working hard on the field yeah a couple big ones and the phasing approach to let the athletic fields you know stay open while we that would be my number one vote um so yes on those resiliency funds i know never met dal had asked us to bring that back as well the balance so your balance is here um and then of course after this afternoon's consideration of community community relations council um agreement for 60 144 is left a couple of things that we went ahead and took into account was the food desert grocery access program out of those funds that you all previously approved and the um um to bell fill book of washington high school central funding as well as there is a request in your area i'm just from the urban league for the summer job so did we were you able to to see what we had collected 37 this year 37 000 was collected since July out of the water water bill insert money and they asked for how much 100 so you're you need 63 000 of that to make that request if we want to move forward what is i mean you are sometimes urban league for the summer work programs they want that hundred they only we only collected 37 in the water bill so it's a delta of 63 we don't we don't we don't know they sometimes they sometimes you know in the past it's been done different ways since the pandemic i'm not exactly sure if they've gone back to the full scale program where it's um you know they have different companies the city being one we're like the students work in our various departments and other companies host students i can't the letter you all received it as well i don't know that it went into detail about how the program stretched for this time sing a little bit now it's 92 000 from the 37th okay they got 92 perfect let's just fund them the 92 it's what got collected let them budget from that sure unless y'all want to round it up to 100 from the water bill insert current let's scrub that miss there hey we might need that for weed control because the code i'm not going out there you want to do weed control what do you want to observe how it's going to do that when you're tired then i would do that we're going to give them a sack a picker up and a little weed eater and set them up and down to the whole battle yeah get a lot of lives and a helmet with two uh drink containers so that the 92 then yeah urban late one of the okay i mean if we've collected it and haven't dropped let's let's use that absolutely absolutely i did not hear any opposition to any of the items on the other list um that i just miss miss hamon could you go back one i just completely broke them the only thing we need to get a number for the christmas mark uh we know what then fireworks roughly cost so 15 000 of the fireworks um wait for the market otherwise everything else is recommended allocation wise we'll go forward so we will line up which item out of which funding source and those things will start to come back come back as you guys um that works thank you missy thank you guys thank you miss