All right. Good afternoon. Mr. Brennan, Mr. Rickerman here. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Present. Mr. Vines. Yes. Mr. Davis. Here. Mayor Benjamin. President Ma'am, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, well. Mr. McDowell, would you bless us with a word, please? Yes. Let's buy heads. Lord, we pause in the midst of this day and this time to ask your blessings upon those of us who have gathered. Gathered in a very virtual way, but gathered together to flesh out and to discuss those issues that are necessary. For this city of ours. Lord, we pray that you might touch and invigorate each one of us, allowing us to sense your presence and your guidance. We ask it. We claim it in the creator's name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Are there any amendments to the agenda as proposed? Yes, Mr. Duvall. Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, I move we adopt the agenda with the following amendments on item 48, add quiet zone and bond court proceedings under item 49, defer van robotics, and add item 52 discussion regarding the development of security personnel or devices pursuant to SC code 30-4-70-A3 Nehemiah Action Assembly. Thank you. Second. Yes, ma'am. I did have one additional clarification for the agenda item eight. It probably be easier, sir. I just read that one. Council is asked to approve contract amendment number one to extend arms security guard services from January 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021, and approve revised hourly rates requested by the Columbia Police Department, the award to security management of South Carolina LLC, the firm located in Columbia, South Carolina. This clarification, Mayor and Council, are changed from $14.28 per hour to $14.80 per hour, or a 58-cent hourly increase with the projected billing for March, 2021, when the rate became effective through the end of the fifth-year June 30 is 24,314 hours. I'm sorry, yes, hours, and that billing during that timeframe, $14,102.12. This is no cost to the general fund. I'm sorry, the cost to the general fund is $8,896.62, and the cost to the water and sewer fund is $5,205.50. The agenda includes a summary of the funding allocations to date, and this amendment does not require an additional allocation funding. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Ms. McDowell. Item number 52, Howard, if you would repeat that again. We're adding item 52, and that's discussion regarding the development of security personnel or devices pursuant to SC code 30-4-70A3, the Nehemiah Action Assembly. Second to the amendment. Second. This question is called a roll. Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Yes. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of March 16th in April 6th, 2021? So moved. Second. Second. Second. Discussion. Clerk and Assistant Clerk, thank you for getting this done so promptly. Move the previous question. Clerk, roll. You're welcome, sir. Mr. Vernon. Yes. Mr. Rickerman. Aye. Mr. McDowell. Present. Mr. Duvall. Aye. Mr. Vines. Aye. Mr. Davis. Aye. Mayor Benjamin. Benjamin and Council, just a quick moment of personal privilege to recognize, as I'm sure you would want me to do this, the National Fair Housing Month and National Financial Literacy Month being celebrated the month of April. But of course, all year long, as you all are so diligent about activities in this regard. But the City of Columbia has celebrated the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and continued to support these efforts to end housing discrimination and raise awareness of fair housing rights. And this year, our Office of Community Development partnered with Richland County Community Development and Lexington County Community Development to work together to highlight the Fair Housing Act's seven protected classes, which include color, sex, gender, religion, race, national origin, familial status, and disability. And by so doing, there are various video recordings that our citizens and all of the Midlands can take advantage of watching virtually of these seven protected classes and reminding citizens to always contact us if you feel you've been discriminated against in any way. As you watch these videos on our city's website, as far as National Financial Literacy Month, the City of Columbia's Office of Community Development continued to offer financial education workshops and expanded outreach through the Bank on Columbia programs, as well as, and those programs, of course, offer second chance banking opportunities for our citizens through our partner banks, as well as our Columbia Kids Save program, which focuses on educating our kindergartners at an early age on the importance of savings at their young age. So they carry it with them throughout their lifetime. And so with that, we wanted to recognize those important principles during the month of April and all year long. That's fantastic. So thanks for the work that they did.  So thank you to all of our team for bringing you to the work. Yes, sir. Thank you all. With that, we will begin our city council discussion action items. Item two is our normal COVID-19 update. The Honorable Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin, as well as our Emergency Management Director, Mr. Harry Tinsley with the situational report. I'll be brief and that I'm encouraged, as I'm sure many of you are, with the trends that we've been seeing, we'll see a takeoff here or there. But consistently, we're seeing some pretty good low rates of infection across the state and across the community. And we hope that that maintains over the next several weeks. Obviously, we'd love to see greater adoption rate as it relates to vaccinations and there's a good bit of work going on for any of you on this call leading that charge of the community and thank you for that. We've got greater penetration, universal access to the vaccine that does not necessarily translate into equitable access. So we've got to keep grinding in that space so hopefully we'll get all of our vaccination numbers up higher. But I am pleased, particularly as I dialogue with colleagues in fears across the country, at the low rate of infection that we're seeing here and hope it persists over the next several weeks. And of course, Mr. Harrison, give this report. Harry, read it every single day. Thank you for keeping us in the loop with all the numbers that matter. And it makes the whole team for the continued sacrifice. So I'm done. Madam City Manager. Thank you, sir. Can you hear me? Hi, can you hear me? Yes. All right, thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Madam City Manager, again, thank you for your time. There's some additional information and data dashboard in your report in your inbox. I'll be brief, but I know you have a long agenda today. So worldwide, now our case count stands at over 142 million global cases of COVID-19. Unfortunately, that has led to over 3 million deaths globally due to COVID-19. According to the CDC, the latest report out here in the US, there's over 31 million confirmed cases with 564,292 deaths as of April 19th report out. And here in South Carolina, as of today's report out, total confirmed cases is 476,506. To date, there's been over 7 million tests in our state. The new case counts as today's report out, additional confirmed cases is 362. That is a 6.2% positivity rate as it was just over 7,700 deaths conducted at that report sample. Unfortunately, there are two new confirmed deaths and that brings our state total of confirmed deaths due to COVID-19, 8,237. So here in Richland County, our case count stands cumulative at 38,303 with today's additional 21 new cases reported. Unfortunately, there have been now 480 confirmed deaths to date in Richland County. As of the 14-day report out from April 4th to April 17th, Richland County overall across all zip codes had 1,034 cases. That's an average, which is significantly down. We continue to see it downward trend, as the mayor indicated. That's an average daily of about 73.8 new cases each day. The report out for this period, two zip codes, only to have over 100 cases and that will see 2,9223 zip code with 115 cases over that 14-day period and 2,9229 with 135. All others at codes were below 100 just as a sample. So also as the April 14th, Richland County's 14-day recent disease activity incident rate is listed, Richland County as medium, as the entire state is all 46 counties are currently at medium. The Richland County's positivity rate over that 14-day period was 3.8%, which is encouraging. We're continuing that downward trend. So the statewide recovery rate continues to be estimated at 97.4%. The state case fatality rate is estimated at 1.73. As stated, the daily case counts continue and they have slowed and have now roughly stable. The state does not anticipate large fluctuation in case counts over the next few weeks. And hospitalizations, hospitals still remain stable. They have good capacity. The bed utilization rate is 73.6% statewide and the ICU bed utilization rate is at 69.9. So that's good news. Unfortunately, there are 505 patients currently hospitalized in our state with COVID-19. As noted, the encouraging part, VA continues with vaccine distributions with over 3.8 million doses received in our state and 2.7 million, over 2.7 million people have been vaccinated. Here in Richland County, we've received over 210,000 doses with 130,000 residents being vaccinated as of the last reporting. And also as lastly, as you're aware, the federally supported community vaccine center at Columbia Place Mall has opened and can administer 7,000 doses per week. That will remain open for eight weeks and it dials an operation run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. As of April 11th, approximately 23.3% of cyclonic population older than 15 years or older has received vaccinations. And according to the CDC's latest reporting as of yesterday, 25.7% of US population have been fully vaccinated and 39.9 have received at least one dose. And those over 18 years of older, 33% of those have been fully vaccinated with over 50% having received at least one dose. And 64.9% of those 65 and older have been fully vaccinated with over 80% having received at least one dose. And that concludes my briefing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Harry. It must do all. Harry, are we getting any vaccination rates by zip code? I have not seen any report on that. I can reach out to our partners and see if we can pull some of that data for us. I think it would be very instructive if we could find where our vaccinations are going. We consistently see the 29223 and 229 zip codes as having high incidence of infection. We need to make sure that we're doing the canvassing out there to get them to the federal center at Columbia Mall. Yes, sir. Thank you. You're gonna see more mobile units as well. Howard, Mr. Davis and Ms. DeVine. Howard sort of got to jump on me. I was going to mention that if you were... Number one, this report is very good. I know it's easy to follow. And over the pandemic period, when we first started getting these numbers, I think you've already called it, 29203 was one of those zip codes that was consistently high. And now we're seeing that there is progress. The numbers aren't as bold as they were in the past. So that does show that we're making some progress. And I kind of use 203 and 204 as my measuring tool. And so there's progress in those areas. And I think that's good. That's one bit of measuring where we are now compared to when we got started. Yes, sir. I'm just looking at snapshot data right now. It's 29203 is the latest report out of 11,248 total vaccine recipients in that zip code. But I don't need to look, give me a moment and I'll get some information back to y'all collectively on that on the breakdown rates by zip code. That's good information. Harry, I just had a couple of questions. One, which is good. We're consistently at medium. What is the percent positive or what is the rate for us to be at low? Considering the CDC guidance of 5% positivity rate would be the matrix. Now, when you look at the 14 day incidence rate, you factor in those three categories which is the incident rate per 100,000, the trend and what is the trend then in that incident rate and then what is the percent? So you take the level of those three, if two are high and one is low, then the overall reading would be high and vice versa. Okay. So I think we're trending that way. I was just kind of wondering because I think we said we're at 3.8% of Richland County. That is correct. It's the last report in just now. Okay, okay. So that would potentially put us at low but we've got to look factor in those other two things. Correct. The incident rate per 100,000 and the trend in that rate over the last reporting cycles and both of those are medium. So the percent positive is low. So those two mediums classes as medium. We were low at our last meeting but that rate has been steady at medium. Okay. And then, and this might be information you'd have to get from DHEC, Harry, but in talking with Prisma Health and others, I know that we are seeing that there are people who have gone for their first vaccination and not returned for their second. So in addition to the information that Councilman DeVall requested regarding the vaccinations per zip code, if you could maybe see if there's a way for them to drill down on maybe the percent of folks who are not coming returning for the second dosage well. So we could just kind of be aware of, of maybe what's happening in each zip code and see how we can support their efforts to encourage people to go and get their second shot. Sure will. That's good information. Yep. I will seek that information and get that back out to you as well. So Harry, the questions that Harry. Yes. The positivity rate is lower primarily because of vaccinations. I'm not an epidemiologist, Councilman, but I would say that it's been based on community spread which would be the mitigations that we have put in place with the masks, social distancing, sanitizing and vaccines would play a part of that if you take the totality of it. I would guess that the data would push you that way. That's just my assumption. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you for the great data as usual. Director Tinsley. Any other questions for Harry? For Harry? Let's say I'm close. I guess we have the ordinance, the mass ordinance expires next month. Millen next month. Is that right? No, I can't. I believe it is. I can't. Yes. So we'll have copious amounts of data to use between now and then. Let's hope and pray these trend lines continue and we'll continue this quest to save lives and save livelihoods. So thank y'all. All right. Let's keep it moving. Thank you. Item three is an update on veterans services and housing initiatives given by Secretary William F. Grimsley with the South Carolina Department of Veterans Affairs. I believe Mr. Brennan invited him here. I'm sorry. Oh, please. If you wanna introduce the general, we'll feel free. General, it's good to see you again. There. She didn't say the very first Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the first ever ever. Yeah, so couldn't have a better first choice. Councilman. Yeah, fellow councilman, I wanna say thank you for inviting General Grimsley to present today. I had the honor to go visit with General Grimsley and his staff a couple of months ago to talk about veterans services and the growth of the veteran community here that we are seeing in the Midlands area, especially here in district three, we have the growing veterans hospital. That was a great topic of conversation. It was great to hear everything the new Department of Veterans Affairs is doing. So General Grimsley, thank you so much for joining us today and look forward to learning about all the wonderful veterans programs you are growing and how we can contribute to that here in the, not only the city of Columbia, but the Midlands. Well, thank you, Councilman. I appreciate it. Good to see you again. Thank you so much for your leadership. I'm a full-time resident of Buford down on the coast, but I'm, during the work week, a full-time resident here in the great city of Columbia. And so I really appreciate it. This is a great place to live and work. And as the first Secretary of Veterans Affairs, a 33-year Army veteran in South Carolina, and this is a great opportunity for a guy like me to try and do the best I can to give back to, I think, a tremendous group of deserving people, veterans, military members and their families. Of course, for a long period of time here in Columbia, this has been the home for literally tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of military members. My dad entered active duty as a young second lieutenant graduate of the Citadel in 1942 at Fort Jackson. And when he retired in 1975, his retirement grade was at Fort Jackson. And my sister was born at Fort Jackson. So we have a lot of history here, and I won't take up a lot of your time. We have, we're trying to continue the service to veterans and their family members as this division now department has been doing for many years and grow a department at the same time. And I came in this job three days before the governor issued his emergency executive order, public health order. So it's been an interesting 13 months. But as we continue to build them, there are an awful lot of things we have come to some conclusions on. And the first is that we needed a much better outcomes-based and evidence, outcomes-based objectives and then evidence-based practices to really go after the needs of our veterans and their family members over time. And I say all that to say that this is really a public-private partnership opportunity. This is federal, state, county, city and local community, nonprofit, for-profit corporation, veteran service organization, private citizens, you name it. And so we're trying to build this coalition again, against these outcomes-based objectives and using the social determinants of health to really get after the successful veteran population defined as individual veterans and their family members who are mentally, socially, physically, emotionally, spiritually, familially, financially sound, that they are satisfied in the dignified manner in which they're treated, that they're respected by their fellow citizens and that they're proud of their own continued contributions while they're serviced and their continuing contributions to South Carolina and the nation. And I think if we can establish a success criteria of that and then work our way backward into how we're relying our mission, how we're working against the lines of effort to assist veterans and their family members to obtain the benefits to which they're entitled and to really advocate for all of our AACBD installations and then in partnership with our great National Guard to really work as advocates for the sustainment and growth of our military presence in the state. That's active reserve and guard across all six services and really do better and inform and educate the people of South Carolina and our veterans about who we are, what we do, how we do it and what we can bring to the state and strength. And then the biggest one though, the main line of effort is this notion of integrating the effects of all entities, all groups and people who provide a service to or are interested in veterans. And that's why it's important I think that I spend a few minutes with y'all here today because this is an incredibly military supportive city and part of South Carolina in an incredibly military supportive state. And we don't see that in other places. And I've literally lived and served all of Army brat. So with the exception of my four years in college I've spent most of my life doing something in a uniform or somewhere and moving constantly. So I moved nine times in my first 18 years. I was four years in college and I moved 22 times in 33 years in active duty on my own and about 42 months in combat in deployments. And so it's a great opportunity, as I said, for me to do some introspection and then look backward on how do we take this experience and then transpose it on the 406,000 veterans across the state. And for us here in Columbia, it's, and while Richland and Lexington County it's almost 30, I'm sorry, 23,000 veterans between the two counties. I don't have it broken down by within the city limits but it's a very large number. And when you add immediate and extended family on that this is a big part of the fabric of Columbia and the community. And so there are several things we're working on as integration phase that I think might be of some import and that we can certainly always use your leadership and your help. And the first one is our different than anybody else, maybe our experience that got us here, but we all experienced challenges and opportunities in life and they're very complicated. And with addressing those complications it takes not just complex risk factors but unique tailored solutions from a wide variety of capabilities and services to deliver back to really take advantage of everything that's already resident in the state to be able to care for this population. And in many cases by care, I mean to the left side of a problem before it ever gets to a problem. And so some of the things we're trying to work on and I'll start with the great service that we've already got from the city chamber by the way, chamber of commerce as well as the broader Richland County and then working with the state manufacturing alliance and the state chamber in veteran employment. So today we sit in COVID at about, well, best numbers we have from the US Department of Labor between four and a half and 4.7% veteran employment today. And that's about 2% up from where we were a year ago not dissimilar from the rest of society. And so we have been working a series of virtual job fairs to align veterans and their family members, including transitioning service members into the right kinds of jobs based on the right skill sets. And what we have found is that in many cases we have employers who are looking for veterans who can't find the veterans and we inversely have veterans looking for jobs who don't find the right employers. And so what we're trying to do is close that gap. And we have found and I don't really know how these things work because I've been married to the same woman for 39 years, but it's like a dating app. And it has become very interesting and useful where a guy like me grimsley lists his knowledge, skills and abilities and attributes. This is my background experience. This is where I wanna live. This is where I'm willing to work, kind of my salary range and prospective employers sign on to the same thing list theirs. And if you get a 50% or higher match, it automatically generates a phone interview. So we've demonstrated this successfully now in Sumter. We're gonna bring one here focused on around Fort Jackson. It doesn't really matter where you're based because it's virtually different anywhere in the state. And we've had a really high initial contact rate success thus far, we're gonna do five or six of these over the next year. And we get between five and well, we had as few as 500 we've had as many as about 2000 people actually sign on and participate with 40 plus employers at the first one we did in Sumter. And this is really powerful. Yesterday, thanks to director Adams and admin, the governor and many others especially state human resources, we have reinstituted the veteran hiring preference for state employees. So there are 1300 empty jobs in state government today. And veteran, it doesn't automatically guarantee anything other than if a veteran applies for an empty job, as long as one of, at least one of them, they have to be interviewed for the job as long as they're qualified. And so this is an opportunity to get some sort of veteran preference and to take advantage of this population and bring them into state government. It's part of building the resilience. And then there's a whole host of local opportunities we're using through telehealth-enabled health both behavioral and physical. We're working some peer-to-peer substance abuse counseling tele-enabled. It's a federal grant through Deodas using a private partner that we're implementing using nonprofits. I can't get any more complicated than that. But it's an awesome opportunity because it's peer-to-peer and it's veteran addicted people substance abuse addicted people recovering who are actually providing the counseling. And what we're saying is a giant sign on a huge return on this investment because people are now realizing there's lots of places, lots of ways you can come in from the cold or there's no wrong door. So it doesn't have to be the US Department of Veterans Affairs, although they have enormously robust capabilities. It could be a nonprofit. It could be another governmental agency, local city, county or state. It could be a federal opportunity, but it's really pulling all these together back again back to this outcomes-based objectives based on quantifiable and qualifiable measure performance and effectiveness. So we're actually grading ourselves over time and we continue to implement this. You mentioned housing early on and I'll touch on that just briefly. As I said, I keep an apartment here in downtown Columbia over on Hampton Street. So I'm sort of in the confluence of the Methodist Church the Baptist Church and the Presbyterian Church. And so a lot of our homeless citizens get meals there and I see them and I talk to a bunch of them all the time. And we do have a homeless challenge not just general population, but across the state. And depending on whether you use the annualized data or what they call the point in time through continuum of care data and it does vary roughly in across the veterans of Richland County which as I said is about 12 and a half thousand. There are at least in the point in time count about 75 homeless veterans in Richland County. That's our best guess. And it is unfortunately kind of a swag. But when you look across the state, it's about 450. So Richland County is relatively high up there but there are some interesting statistics and there's some great programs as to how all that comes about. And by the way, and I'll use some state statistics but I think demographically we can transpose it. Unfortunately, our homeless veteran population tends to be toward those who are the most disenfranchised especially racially. So about 55% are African-American. About 10% are women, which I find very interesting. I'm a little surprised at this but our homeless veteran age range, the preponderance over a third are in the 55 to 64 year age group which is exactly where I sit. We had a long time where the Vietnam population which is older than that now was our largest population. The most likely to be homeless though immediately after service are our younger veterans the immediate transition out of service post 9-11. And there are a variety of reasons for that and I'll talk about an additional program we're trying to implement, we'll have two pages here. About a third of our homeless are chronically homeless like they consistently homeless over three years. They have challenges, they come in and out of shelter and these are not all unsheltered homeless people by the way, but about a fifth of them have been homeless for 12 or four months and again are chronically. And about 65, 66% so about two thirds of them are having a disabling condition one way or another. 50% of those disabling have a behavioral or mental health challenge. Generally also exacerbated by substance abuse problem. And then lastly, what I find very interesting about all of this is also about 66% do have a consistent source of income. So it's not that they're completely destitute. Most of them get something from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs through their own disability compensation. Others are getting it through Social Security or Social Security disability. Some of them are getting it through some other defined benefit or in some cases it's a divorce settlement. And some of them are getting some earned income. So they're not all completely destitute but it is a big challenge. And as I said about 10% are women and of that 10% almost all of them have experienced some sort of domestic violence or in some cases with veterans military sexual trauma or intimate partner violence which as we know is a recurring problem especially among our women, our women in general and our women veterans especially. And so, and then lastly, oddly enough and I can't really explain this but about 10% of our veterans nationally and also I'll just assume South Carolina is the same choose to be homeless. They're not rendered homeless by any circumstances well it might be by circumstance but they're choosing to remain homeless. They have no interest in being sheltered. I quite frankly don't understand that, I don't get it but that is a factor and we run into that on occasion especially in some of our parks here in town as well as other places around the state that's true. And so there are tons of great programs the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in partnership with us and local nonprofits administer some great programs the HUD-VASH program which is really more about chronically homeless and then the Pradeem grant grant Pradeem program has some opportunities for building and sustaining existing facilities getting transitional beds and working employment and other opportunities. The both Doran here for us and Ralph Johnson and Charleston have homeless coordinators who also work the continuum of care across holistic health promotion which includes substance abuse and employment opportunities sheltering drug and alcohol testing and in addition to mental and behavioral health and other counseling and therapy opportunities to include non-traditional or alternative therapies. So the programs are out there and we continue to strive for them and we have blessed here in town with some great opportunities through nonprofits and the grant opportunities that have been provided them. So transitions right at the end of the street here is a great example of that but Craig Curry retired Army colonel does leading over there is just spectacular and he is a holistic viewing guy but 180 place and the many others echo in the more of the Eastern part of the state there are a lot of great partners out there. So I would close by telling you I'm extraordinary honored to be in this job. I think we have nothing but bright futures ahead of us. We got tons of work to do but this is good work. This is purposeful work and I really appreciate the opportunity to be in this position to give back to our state and to do so in our great capital city. And so for what y'all do every day Mr. Mayor members of the city council thank you very much for leadership. It is it does not go unnoticed or appreciated. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Secretary thank you for your service and I'm not sure do we have a written copy of your report? I mean there's some really really good data in there that would be helpful particularly I think as we shape our discussions going forward. I think the biggest challenge as we do with veterans and our unsheltered population and quite frankly society in general is going to behave your health the next several years. I mean we the federal government, state government has historically disinvested in that space and we're seeing the results of it and it seems like there's some real wind in our shells now to get some really thoughtful long-term strategic investments and helping people get back on track. So I'd love to have a copy of the report if we already have it. Yes sir. So what I'll offer you is we were directed by the General Assembly to do a complete study on veteran issues in the last session. So three senators, three members of the house and me and I used part of my deotas grant to hire two graduate research assistants from the University of South Carolina who helped me out. And so we compiled a report much of this is contained in that it's much broader than what I laid out. I would offer that's a good start point and then if there are questions or places you want to work on more some detail I would be happy to do that or connect everybody to the right point. I'll have that mailed over to the team. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate it. All right, any other questions? General Grimsley, are we good? All right, thank you, sir. All right, take care. Thank you, General. At this time, Mayor Benjamin, we will move into our fourth item which is the Calhoun Street Road Diet and Bike Lane Project. I've asked our staff to give an update on this project. It's my understanding it was recently mentioned in some type of community meeting or format and I believe that the information that was shared at the time was inaccurate. And so we certainly want to make sure that the public has the accurate information on this project that has never been halted but certainly I've always instructed our staff to do our due diligence to make sure that we can do it the right way. And so today we want to just briefly present to you these improvements that are planned and the outreach that must occur properly in a pandemic world that we've been living in. So with that, we have Ms. Dana Higgins, our city director of engineering and Ms. Lucinda Statler, our planning administrator. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Good afternoon. Lucinda and I'd like to talk to you about the Calhoun Street improvements, the improvements that will consist of installing bicycle accommodations between Wayne and Hardin. Just to give you a little background, in 2012, the referendum was passed with a budget of $88,292 to restrike bike lanes. With that not being enough to do anything but restrike, the city went back to CTC in 2020 and we secured $556,000 additional. We've had two public meetings back in 2018 with a third meeting installed due to the COVID. Today we're seeking council approval to resume public outreach and ultimately to move the project forward. Lucinda will go into more detail now. Thanks, Dana. So just briefly, the benefits of the proposed road diet are to provide reduced points of conflict for drivers. There will be wider, more comfortable driving lanes and the roads maintain efficient turns by providing a center turn lane. And I'm just gonna briefly click through a few slides that illustrate the various configurations of the blocks. These were designed to ensure maximum safety and minimal disruption of traffic patterns. Some blocks will add shadows to existing traffic lanes. Some will reduce the number of traffic lanes and eliminate parking on one side to provide designated bike lanes. And some blocks will maintain current traffic lanes and eliminate parking on one side to provide designated bike lanes. Block by block diagram, such as this one, will be provided in the public meeting to illustrate the exact configuration of changes to each of the 13 effective blocks in the project. This is an example showing the block within assembly in Maine. The proposed schedule moving forward will be to hold a virtual public outreach session in June. The project would then go out for bid this fall and we anticipate construction next spring. Possibly a BPAC bike ride or promotional event could be held for bike month in 2022. To summarize the outreach, the June virtual meeting will use the Zoom, public input and YouTube platforms to ensure access to all. Two to three weeks in advance, public notice will include a press release, a banner on the city home page with a link to the project, pardon me, page which will have project details and diagrams. Email distribution to our existing distribution list signs along the corridor to alert residents as well as commuters. And staff will contact neighborhood leaders directly. To summarize, we'd like to point out that this project has not been halted or sold. All efforts have been made to ensure proper funding is available to provide the best outcomes of the project. Currently, all funding is in place. The CTC funding for resurfacing as well as the penny tax funding for restriping. Given the unprecedented year we've had during COVID, we want to ensure that our outreach efforts are fresh. And today we are seeking council approval to proceed with public outreach and with implementation. And that's the end of the slides. And of course we can click back to anything that you guys want to look at. Thank you, Dana, Lucinda. I know this presentation is in council's inboxes in case they also need to share the accurate information with members of the public. Any questions? Are there any questions for staff? I can't see everyone with the screen up. So Mr. McDowell. Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. Let me just ask one question. I understand that public input is scheduled for June. Yes, sir. We don't have a, I'm sorry. Is there a specific date? We don't have a date scheduled yet. We were waiting for council's blessing to move forward and then we would pick a date and start advertising that. What do we have? Let me ask you this then. Do we have public input prior? What I think you're asking is, do we approve this and then have public input or is it just the reverse? I think they want Reverend McDowell, you also approval to move forward now with public input. And then once we get that input, we would certainly be coming back to you all again to reflect anything that we hear. If any changes need to be made based off that input. Yes, sir. We just want to make sure that you all are clear on where from the evolution of the project to now so that we can move forward with refreshing public input. Well, the reason I raise that, of course, I don't want a situation that happens, say, on Fair Road to happen again without the kind of input we need so that once we start a project, we don't turn around again and have to do something else. So yes, if we're just looking, if we're just asking the council to approve, start in the process of public input, then of course I'm okay with that. Yes, sir. We're asking to get your approval to start it to get your input on how you want it to be, where you, you know, virtual in person with socially distant mechanism, whatever you want to see. I think the staff and I are asking for your input on that, but certainly ready to move forward with some type of input. All right. Or as much input as necessary. Thank you. Thank you, Madam City Manager. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, sir. Other questions of Daniel Lucinda? Thank you for the update. Let's get this one done, y'all. All right. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Moving forward, we are now moving into the budget discussion, Mayor Benjamin and council, and obviously every year under normal circumstances, we incorporate our water and Columbia Water Update and our rate study review last year during the budget. Obviously we were not able to move forward with the normal rate study progression of potential increases, et cetera, just due to circumstances. You know, I'm amazed at how this team has worked, how you all have led in order for us to sustain ourselves through some very hard times. And with that, Clint is going to give you some information about Columbia Water, our progress that we've made, as well as you'll hear from Mr. Robert Chambers, the principal consultant at Black and Beech, who's always wonderful to assist us through our rate study review. And I think what you will find to be a very remarkable proposal to allow us to get back to sustain our infrastructure and our CIP even during some difficult times. So we look forward to your feedback as we make our way through these presentations. So Mr. Clint Shealy, Assistant City Manager for Columbia Water will get us started. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Good afternoon, Mayor and council. Appreciate a little bit of time to be with you today. I know that we are under a time schedule but we'll do our best to move through these slides as quickly as we can. This has been an unusual year, a most unusual year, but we wanted to share a couple of highlights with you and also the public. And again, most importantly, I want to focus on the Capital Improvement program and our projects that are critical as we move forward and trying to advance a lot of the items and major significant projects and improvements as we move forward. So as Ms. Wilson said, Robert Chambers will follow this presentation with his review of our financial position and some great recommendations as well and what we consider to be good news. But let's move forward with our agenda and y'all feel free to interject questions throughout. We'll talk a little bit about the impact of COVID on our operations. We'll briefly mention the AMI project and where that significant investment stands. We feel like we need to provide an update about the Consent Decree. No Columbia Water Briefing would be complete without doing that. And then again, spend some time talking about our Capital Improvement and some Q project that we would like to advance. And then we'll finish up with a review of just our stormwater progress. So in terms of utility operations, I really can't say enough about our staff in all areas including utility operations, engineering, customer care, public works. Our folks have just done a remarkable job of showing up and moving forward all throughout the pandemic. I'm really, really proud of them and how they've responded to this challenge and how we've been able to provide essential services and be able to do that in an efficient way. When you see some statistics about lost workdays and about COVID positive tests, and this is just in Joey Jaco's area of operation, the operation. But obviously we've been impacted quite a bit by positive test results and quarantine from exposure. So that's impacted our response time. They're not where we wanna be. We're not responding as quickly as we would like to be for a variety of reasons. Certainly COVID has slowed some of our momentum, but we have kept moving forward and we've kept providing essential services and that's really a testament to our great staff. And I just wanna thank them for doing what they do every day. As we look forward talking about utility operations and some of our areas, you can see a lot of vacancy statistics here. We've been very intentional and strategic about bringing new folks into our operation during this pandemic. And so we've somewhat circled the wagons. We've worked a lot of overtime. We've worked our folks really, really hard, but we knew they could work in a safe manner and they've done that. But it leaves us in a position where we're not able to respond as quickly as we would like to. We're working on staffing back up and doing that in a smart way. But what we're trying to do is utilize outside contractors, some local businesses through indefinite delivery contracts to assist us in meeting some of those critical needs and being responsive as we need to. So sometimes when we all call about a water leak that's been four, six, eight weeks and we haven't been able to respond yet, a lot of times we'll engage a contractor if it's something significant. And we're moving into we just signed indefinite delivery contracts with five local protege contractors working with Melissa Lindler and her team to engage them to help us with service line yard restorations, small paving projects. So we wanna be as responsive as we possibly can and use our contracting community to fill that gap while we continue to staff up and train our folks. Our call center has also been very, very busy, particularly this calendar year. They were impacted by COVID as well. We have seen a significant increase in call volume. Part of that is due to our new phone system which we're very excited about. It's got a call back feature where folks can leave a message and we call them back at a certain time. We are rolling out a new chat feature, really excited about that. The call volume has increased because we don't have the walk-ins at Washington Square. And then finally, when you resume this connection for non-payment that generates a lot of phone calls. So we're getting an unprecedented amount of contact from our public and Latimer and her staff are doing a really good job trying to be responsive to that. And so we're working on continuing to empower and motivate her staff. She's doing a really, really good job of working with our folks and customer care. And I hope you're seeing a difference there with what we've been doing. So I'm just very grateful for her. We've got a lot of work left to do but that team is very engaged in helping us close those gaps. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the growth in past due balance. This is a graphic that you've seen before and we showed throughout the early stages of the pandemic as we suspended our disconnects for non-payment of water and sewer bills back in March. We saw a steady increase but thankfully we've seen a leveling out and maybe even as of this week, a little bit of a dip in the growth in greater than 30 days past due. So it seems that the tide is turning a bit. The message is getting out about payment arrangements and about the need to pay to maintain water service. So we feel like this strategy of moving intentionally and slowly in terms of disconnecting service and it is working, it is being effective. We did not get to this point quickly. We're looking at 10 or 11 months worth of not disconnecting. So we won't stem that tide overnight and get the numbers back down but we are starting to see a positive trend and we're excited about that. I do wanna mention just show some graphics about the payment arrangements that we set up initially. If you remember back in October 1st, we placed everybody that was in arrears on a six month payment arrangement. That was about $9.2 million of indebtedness placed on the payment arrangement. And we sent out mailers and encouraged folks to pay those past due bills. And between October 1st and January 4th, we collected almost $1.2 million of that 9.2 indebtedness that we rolled on the payment arrangements in October. In January, we started sending out notification that we would begin disconnections for nonpayment in mid-Debruary. That notification will learn between the mid-January and mid-Debruary dates. We collected about a million dollars of that indebtedness. After we started disconnecting for nonpayment, the February to March statistics looked even better. We collected over $1.5 million of that indebtedness. And then as we continued moving forward, the mid-March to mid-April numbers were at almost $1.8 million. So collectively, we brought in about five and a half of that 9.2 million that was put on payment arrangement in October. Folks were still working and paying down those payment arrangements. I wanna let you know we heard you loud and clear the compassionate approach, and we've been following that approach throughout. I would say the vast majority if not every single customer that we have disconnected their water service, almost every customer, if not everyone, who's been able to pay a minimal nominal payment, first installment of payment arrangement and have service restored the next day or same day of being disconnected. So we don't have a lot of customers out of water and without water service. We've been very, very intentional about being compassionate and trying to keep folks in water service as we encourage them to pay their bills. We know that assistance programs are on the way, and Missy Kaufman's gonna speak to those a little bit later, but we've been publicizing the county's rental assistance program. We know there's some programs coming through Health and Human Services that are specifically geared toward helping folks pay utility bills, water and sewer bills. And so we're looking forward to that. As soon as we get that information, that's the first thing that customer care folks share with callers that have had a service interruption behind on their bills. So we're gonna be very intentional about publicizing that information also. We wanted to provide a brief update about our automated metering infrastructure. We are about two thirds complete. We've got over 100,000 meters in the ground that have been updated with this new AMI technology. So we are on target estimating completion in March of 2022. We've been promoting and advertising our Island Water app and we're starting to see usage of that application increase. We're seeing greater meter registrations and decreased bill visits for meter rechecks. That's a real positive. Those have dropped by about a third. So we're really starting to see the benefit and we're seeing a really good return on investment for what we're doing there through these various programs and tools that are available for not only our staff, but also our customers. So feeling very positive about that. We're transitioning meter reading strapped into other duties. And that's been a positive impact as well. Doing a really good job of getting meter reach for those 50,000 or seven meters that are still out there that haven't been upgraded yet. So we have seen a considerable increase in the need for meter box replacements and backflow prevention devices. There were certain assumptions made for the base bid that was placed out there. And those assumptions were locally low, I would say. And so we're having to in order to do this project well and do it correctly, we're having to add some more dollars to it. So we've got an amendment on your agenda today that's quite sizable, but it does give us backflow prevention protection at every residential meter. And we're replacing damaged boxes that we're seeing out there. So we've evaluated different alternatives we put them on your agenda packet with more detail, but we believe this is the best option for us to get a good complete project and to push that to completion in March of 2022. Just a quick map show and we're touching all areas of the system and it's been very effective at canvassing the system. And again, excited about where we're headed. We have not, it hasn't been a project that hasn't had some issues and leaks and different issues with the meters. But for the most part, when you touch the 100,000 meters that the incident rate of calls has been pretty low. And so we're pleased with the work that's happening and the response to correcting any of those issues that may have come up. Again, want to give you a quick update about our consent decree. We're on schedule with all of our deliverables. We've got several very important deliverables coming up. Supplemental Infrastructure Rehabilitation Report and Capacity Assurance Program, hydraulic modeling port out there for approval. Those are very, very important. There's a lot tied to when those programs are approved. So we're moving forward. We're continuing our progress. I will say that we did lose a little bit of momentum during the COVID year, partly because we had a reduced capital improvement program. We went from down to $40 million combined for water and sewer until we weren't able to deliver on quite as many projects as we had hoped. But we are continuing our forward momentum and we're meeting our deadlines. And that's really important. And we're doing our best to minimize any capacity limitations, capacity restricted areas, but I do want to focus on those really quickly as we move forward. I think it's important to know that the second bullet item that we have, we basically matched our funding levels with our project execution for the past three years. So some of the bottlenecks that we're within within our different procedures that we need to follow have been streamlined and we're able to get the work out on the street, get the investment of the dollars that you're approving in the ground and that's making a real difference for us. So the machine is ready to chew up the next round of work and we're ready to do that. I also want to mention that we're thinking outside the box, we've got some projects that are very time sensitive and so we've challenged the team to look at various project delivery methods, alternative project delivery methods to deliver these projects quicker, to get the infrastructure investments and improvements made a little bit quicker than our traditional design did build process. So we're working our way through one of those right now and you'll see more of that type of approach to come where it makes sense for us and is efficient and cost effective for us. You may wonder where we are in terms of our total spend, in terms of our work away out of this obligation under a consent decree. And we're in terms of spend, we're at about the halfway point. We spent over $360 million investing in our wastewater system to satisfy these needs that are out there but what was estimated to be a $750 million expenditure. So we're well on our way in this journey but we're right in the middle of a very capital intensive campaign to improve capacity and reduce sanitary sewer overflow so we can work our way out of this consent decree. I want to speak just a moment about the capacity limited areas. There are quite a few out there that if we are not able to deliver projects and invest in the system, any increased capacity that moratoriums will cascade down and that means slowing down development. That means no additional capacity for folks to build and tie into our system in a lot of areas if we aren't able to meet certain project deadlines. So those are concerning for us. I don't want to mislead you. They're very concerning. We have invested heavily in areas like Lake Catherine. We've invested in Crain Creek and we're investing in the downtown area to make sure we don't have those moratoriums. Those were tied to sanitary sewer overflows. This next phase of consent decree deliverable, this capacity assurance program, begins looking at the hydraulic model and is more of a forward look anticipating where overflows might occur and that can place us into development moratorium as well. So we've got to be very intentional about meeting deadlines moving forward. It's a different set of criteria that is about to be imposed upon us as part of the consent decree until we've got to really, again, be intentional about delivering on the projects so that we don't find ourselves in these situations. We are looking at an extension request for COVID. We don't want to place our future of being able to develop our system on being granted that extension. We hope we'll be granted that extension. We believe we'll be granted extension. We're not relying on an extension. We're moving forward as fast as we can to make sure we don't have issues. I'm gonna show you a map. Yellow is an area where we're projecting one year or less of restriction of capacity limitation. Red, we're expecting greater than a year. The green is the Crane Creek Basin and downtown is not shaded. But I mentioned because of the ability to advance some projects, we feel really good about Crane Creek that we can stay out of moratorium there where we're able to do one or two more specific projects. Downtown area where we're investing in the East Rocky Branch Basin. We've got another project this coming year, CIP, that's gonna help continue to support development there. You'll see our shift is moving toward the Saloon River Basin. We've had some overflows there. We have some modeling results that are showing capacity restrictions there as we move into the future. So that's where a lot of our investment will go in the coming years. And we fear if we're not able to continue down the path of taking care of these next projects for this coming year, if those get pushed, then the Saloon River Basin projects get pushed as well and it's a domino effect. So we really wanna try to stay ahead of that curve as much as possible. A lot of projects you'll see here, Kenley Creek, Lower Saloon River, the West Columbia Saloon Reform and Extension, all those are tied to that Saloon River Basin, but there is some Crane Creek work in here, also some Broad River Basin work as well. So that's where a lot of our capacity limited areas could be. And we wanna make sure we stay ahead of that curve or finish those projects right on time as much as we can. There's not a lot of float in the schedule here. It's gonna be very tight, very close for a lot of these. And if we don't get some COVID relief, then we're looking at really just a matter of weeks, days and months of trying to finish under a deadline. So we're very concerned about this and I know you are as well, but we wanted to just remind you about these areas and these critical projects that are coming up. In terms of our delay requests for our COVID portion of the year, we submitted a letter back in February that was really an excellent summary of the impacts so far. We did not request a specific timeline because the pandemic and its impact on our operation is not over. And so in talking with our attorneys, we're anticipating fall of this year, making our more formal request for a time extension and painting the very full picture of what this impact has been. And we will be letting you know and we'll be pulling out all the stops to call everyone that we know to lobby for this delay because it really impacts. We wanna build back in a little bit of bleeding room in our schedules if possible. So that is our target for the COVID request. I wanna mention our capital improvement program has been just a moment of time there. We are requesting $120 million for capital improvements for this coming fiscal year. That has been our steady path many years and we've been able to absorb that through our rate work and through our finance, being able to finance and bonding and whatnot. But if you remember, we contracted to $40 million last year because we weren't able to make a rate adjustment. It's $120 million has split one-third for drinking water and two-thirds for wastewater. So it's a $40 million drinking water capital improvement plan. I just highlight a couple of projects here that are very, very important and some that are unfortunately non-negotiable for us. Utility conflicts, $8 million for water. You'll see another $8 million for sewer. That doesn't count the Carolina Crossroads work that's happening. DOT has been very, very active. These are areas where we don't have prior rights and the projects are so small that the Act 36 reimbursement doesn't cover our utility relocation. So there's still an impact on us. It's not merely the impact that we would have if not for Act 36 passing. So we're fortunate that passed and that's gonna help us on big projects like Carolina Crossroads. We are communicating, working well with DOT to try to minimize impacts. But the reality is there's a cost to us for relocating our lines where we don't have prior rights. The alternative raw water pump station at the Canal Water Plant, you'll see a money plug in there. We're hoping we'll be successful with our resilience grant application to FEMA. We'll find out in June. But again, that's a 75% grant, 25% match. So we really need to feed that money in there even if we're successful getting the grant to cover our 25% match. If that project will take an awful list, that slows down almost stops the entire Canal recovery effort because that project is key to derating the hazard classification for our canal embankment and moving forward with the FEMA project to restore the canal to the lower hazard classification. So very, very important work there. And I also wanna mention the Shandon and Rosewood Water Quality improvements. Moving forward with the first stage of those $7.5 million each, we routinely get groundwater complaints from those areas. We do our best to flush and try to make sure we're responding. But those are really, really important projects that we wanna move forward as much as possible. So that's our water CIP. I'll show you a quick map. The items that I've shaded in red are ones that if we have to reduce the CIP or capital improvement investment, those are the ones that would have to come off and that's real pain there. It's real problems that we really need to address. So we view those two projects as critical to move forward with our phase improvement to the place and ageing infrastructure. So I'm gonna move on to our wastewater capital improvement program and talk about that just for a moment. Here you'll see some capacity projects right at the top, each rocky branch very, very important to being able to continue development and the growth in our downtown area, lower crane creek also very important. We're seeing tremendous growth in the Northeast, a lot of subdivisions and we wanna be able to continue that service. That's a very, very important project to keeping us out of any type of moratorium for that basin. I neglected to mention rehabilitation also, but this year we were not able to put as much money into rehabilitating our system. And that's something if you get behind on it's hard to catch up. And so we wanna try to continue that and beef up our investment and rehabilitation to the maximum extent possible because when we don't rehabilitate our system that directly leads to sanitary sewer overflows. So here you see a lot of smaller projects that are very, very important to us reducing sanitary sewer overflows to hitting some of those smaller hot spots that are out there. And I mentioned utility relocation efforts that we are simply obligated to do. And then there's some compliance and maintenance items in our Metro wastewater treatment plant that we really need to carry forward this year if at all possible. A lot of red on this next map with red items were identified as ones that we would have to drop off if we pull back on our CIP from 120 just to $80 million. So I wanna talk a little bit about why I'm showing an $80 million level there. The reason is because last year when we talked about rates and we were starting the pandemic we contemplated $40 million for this current year and just $80 million for the coming year. We're seeing and I think you'll hear through Robert Chamber's presentation the ability to support $120 million. But I really wanted you to see in both the water and sewer side the pain that we would feel and would be imposing on our staff and our efforts to unwind ourselves and the consent decree on the development community and also on our student base if we're not able to fully fund. So we're gonna be asking for a fully funded capital improvement program at the $120 million level. I also wanted, before I turn things over to Robert and before I start talking about our sewer expansion fees I just wanted to mention that Robert Chamber's and our finance group, Jeff Paylor, Mr. Kaufman, Dan Alonzo, the entire team has done a really, really good job of pulling together our rate work. And I think you're gonna see what we think are very good results. It's the hard work of a lot of people and the byproduct of some creative financing work, some very strong economic development work and again our staff. So I think you're gonna hopefully you'll see this as good news. I did wanna mention expansion fees as you consider a rate ordinance. We're also gonna be looking at a revision to our sewer expansion fee ordinance that will be beneficial to commercial users. And that result of a 33% reduction in that commercial fee. And we've talked about this reduction before. So this is not news and also the change calculation for large users that allowed us to recruit really big industries that make a very positive impact on our revenue stream. So you'll see that coming before you as a revised ordinance revision request at the appropriate time. But we're also looking at making some policy revisions and changes, granting folks that maybe whether it's change in use in a building that has had a large meter, they paid a fairly large expansion fee and then they're looking to maybe change that to a restaurant. We're looking to give a little more credit for what was paid initially so that the person doing the redevelopment doesn't have to pay quite as much on their end. And there's also some discussion about an economic development fund. So again, all those types of items to continue our forward progress with expansion fees and trying to recruit industrial development as well. So I'll finish up really quick with stormwater. You can see the maps and the projects that have been completed like Dills Creek degree removal. They're successful there. Our Devil's Ditch project that was in conjunction with the county MLK part detention but a lot of other work that is planned. So I want to highlight some of that. We've awarded over $17 million in construction contracts and almost $12 million in consultant contracts. And we've spent of that amount awarded. We've spent almost $17 million to date. We mentioned the projects completed. Harlem Heights is in construction. Shandom is under design. Pym branches will be moving to construction we believe next year. So really excited about the progress of our stormwater projects as well. The, in terms of, this is our CIP and we're requesting about $11 million. We're continuing to work the plan. If you remember, we paused our rate adjustment last year. We had a five year plan that we were working through. We'll be asking to me with our fourth step in July of 2019, we went up to $13.32 per month. This step is moving up to $14.15 that we'll be asking for on the monthly fee. And again, that is the fourth or five adjustments that you contemplated several years ago. So with that, I'll see, I'll pause for a moment. I'm sorry for the fire hose delivery there. But I just wanted to try to share as much information as quickly as we could and then get ready to turn over to Robert Chambers. But I wanted to see if y'all have any questions about the capital improvement program, the level of funding we're asking for or any of our programs. And Clint, I would add, obviously there's a method to this madness today with y'all as Clint said a lot of information but we're having to do it in this order so that as Missy Kauffman comes forward and we work with you through each fund, you'll have the background information as to how we built the budget. So we've got to show you the water and sewer request, the rate study. We're going to then go into the American Rescue Plan recommendations because they build into the final budget presentation that we'll give you today. So I'm sorry to add that Clint but I just wanted to make sure council was understanding why we're going in the order that we are. And if you have any questions. That's very helpful, Mr. McDowell. Clint, just let me say thank you so much for that very comprehensive report. Thank you very much. Three issues that I want you to at least briefly talk about. I want to say a word of thanks to you and with the new phones that has hit tremendously. The reason I know that is that I've gotten several calls referencing some of the issues and they've been very due diligent about getting back in touch with the clients, with the residents. Of course, the other thing of course, now Clint, there are some infrastructure leaks in the community of which you and I have talked about it. Several of those kinds of issues. We're going to continue to wade our way through this so that those things can be repaired. Yes, sir. And that's the response time that we're not necessarily proud of and we haven't progressed as far as we had hoped. And so our staff are working every weekend, councilman and really doing everything they can. But we recognize that some of the response is unsatisfactory. And so that's reason we've got indefinite contracts for leak repair and restoration. And in fact, on your agenda tonight, there's a local BBE contractor that we're receiving more money where men need asking to amend their contract so that they can continue helping us. We've got a meeting tomorrow morning to talk about how to better use those local contracting resources as staff augmentation to help us be more responsive. Great. Look, one last question. There has been some glitches in the AMI in the AMI configuration of communities and that sort of thing, which has caused, I think, some exorbitant water rates, water fees. You all have done well, of course, in when someone calls and we talk, they immediately make sure that issue is rectified. So there are some glitches there and we're constantly working on those things. Yes, sir. Absolutely, and occasionally they make the news media as well. So we are being responsive to those customers and we've got a system of catching the vast majority of those elevated bills and reviewing them. And the AMI system and the data that it provides to us has been so helpful in diagnosing those very quickly. But we do have an occasional error where there's something that's been transposed incorrectly and you get a data dump and we're trying to catch those because a lot of times they just don't look right. But we've also run into some where we've been able to help folks figure out they've got a dripping faucet or we had a gentleman tell us, you know what, I did leave the water hose running for three days in the backyard. It's so we can see exactly when they cut it on and cut it all and is that level of detail in terms of the water usage? So it's really a powerful tool in helping figure out, is there a billing error? Is there a leak? Is there something else going on? But we've touched again over 100,000 and we have had a few issues but they are very, very small in relation to the total number of meters that we've touched and we are being very intentional in trying to respond to those customers and make sure we give them an equitable resolution when there is some sort of a billing issue. So if you all hear of any others, please send them to myself or Tiffany and we will respond immediately and work with the customer to get those things taken care of. Well, that has worked tremendously well, particularly with several instances and that I know about and that I've contacted you all about. You've diligently took care of that. And so what turned into an additional three zeros, it was just one zero. So I appreciate the team doing that. And of course, it would help tremendously if we can continue to operate on that same plane. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Mr. Davis, do you unmute Sam? Sorry, is the system going down? I've gone out twice. No. Anyway, maybe it's something in the area. Ed touched on a couple of things that I wouldn't want to repeat. But I will say that I'm also getting some positives about the phone system answering and so forth and how we've made some changes there. One question that I really can't answer with folks, such as the one you got for me this morning about what, six, 30 quarter seven, Clint? Yes, sir. Bye, take a look at it. The leaks, we do have an development amount of leaks throughout. And I'm pleased to hear that we're trying to do it with some local subs, small contractors. But how do you really assess and maybe rate the system underground throughout the city? There's an exorbitant amount of leaks. And then we've got to the issue of who does the cleanup work? Does DOT partner with us on that? Or do we do the repairs, come back and do the resurfacing and that sort of thing? So yes, sir, if we have a water leak in our infrastructure, it doesn't matter if it's a city street, a county maintained road or DOT maintained road, our responsibility is to repair the leak and restore the roadway and the customer's yard to as good or better than we found it. Sometimes we aren't as fast in doing that as we would like. And so that's where our contracting help is gonna come in and help us. They're helping us already. We're trying to be a little more strategic about how we're gonna utilize those resources so that we can respond quicker. Our folks are working really hard. There's just a high volume of work right now. They are catching up. They've been working every weekend, they're catching up. But we still got a lot of lingering work orders that are out there. And y'all didn't hear me mention today, Mobile City Works, but that is an initiative that we have last year, that we really haven't advanced very far for a variety of reasons. I don't wanna blame everything on COVID and use that as an excuse, but we haven't made the progress that we had hoped and we had committed to making. We do commit to making that progress this year. That's gonna help us with our tracking and closing the loop and making sure things don't get lost so that you aren't getting the call of, hey, I reported this six months ago, where is it? It's also gonna help our call takers have information that they can share with folks that calling and inquire about the status. So the big initiative for us that we wanna push forward hard this year, we have a system that is both urban, but also very rural in parts of the county. And so we've got a lot of water mains that have some age on them and a lot of opportunity for folks to dig up our water mains and create breaks. And we've got a lot of breaks on our own, but doing things like the improvements in Rosewood and Shandon, Earlwood, Book of Washington Heights, that helps from a water quality standpoint, but it also addresses areas where we have frequent leaks. So we're trying to be strategic in replacing the more griddle online cast iron infrastructure. We know the materials that are out there and that's why we build a list to try to address not only water quality complaints, but routine leaks as well. Again, it's a long game process, but we're in the middle of working that and trying to get the infrastructure renewed and fix leaks in a timely manner until we can get infrastructure replaced. Yeah, I think a periodic updates on the topic would help. I try to do my best to explain to folks why the leaks are there and how fast it's gonna take for our guys to get there, but I don't like to say it's just an aging system. It may be in some areas, it may not be, but it would be helpful to me to know how we're progressing on that. Sometimes folks, you give them that information and they understand, but I try to assure them that the delay is not just because we can't get there, but we just have a good number of them happening. Yes, sir, I will invite you. We've got in the first two weeks of May, we haven't scheduled it yet, but we're gonna have a workshop socially distanced at our Beltline facility where we describe fully how we work through the city works process and what city works mobile and how our progression is going there. We're gonna talk a lot about leaks and how we're responding both now and what the future looks like. So I'll be sure and share that date with you as well. Sign me up. Thank you. Clint, I know that Mr. Davis is a highly-trained welder. He needs some more work out there in these streets. I think he's volunteering himself as a service. We can't plug those all the way. I was looking for the Philip Simmons train welder out there, making things happen before he put in the work. How much of me wants to ask questions for Clint? No, Clint, I mean, the significance of so many major projects you have going on from water, the wastewater, stormwater to AMI to just completely, I mean, you and I stay in Tiffany's and everything from the tone, the responsiveness, the tone, the whole nine yards. I mean, it's just been solid. And I know you're juggling a whole lot of really major projects at the same time. And I just, I think you guys done a great job. And just really lean on us as much as we can, particularly as we engage with federal policy makers, EPA, FEMA and everything else, as to how we can be helpful. But some of those projects you mentioned, I'm committed to continuing to invest in the system. We've been doing the right thing collectively for a good while now, we're seeing the results of it. And some of the things you had shading red, we can't take them off the list. We got to continue to make these investments to replace some of these old metal lines from 50, 60 years ago. So I'm impressed with the progress. Let's keep up with it and get asked. That's about to say, if you don't mind, we've come a long way with the CRE and the EPA, so forth and so on. Anybody who understands that history would know that we have made progress. And I think there's some light at the end of the tunnel, but there's some things that's beyond our control every now and then. So absolutely. Any other questions, Clint? Daniel? Yeah, I just, I would ask Clint, if maybe at a future council meeting, you could give us a little more insight on potentially the private sector growth, reaching out to those minority disadvantaged businesses and creating more opportunities there. Because it's something we've talked about for the last several years, a lot about, and looking at the staffing needs that we have, I think it's probably the best time for us really to push that even further. Because one of the struggles we have, as you and I know, is getting some, it's not fixing the leaks and so forth. It's going back and repairing the asphalt and the cleanup and the repairs that linger on. And I'd love to know more how we're growing that and taking advantage of the talent that we have in our community to fulfill those needs because our guys can only do so much. I mean, they just, they can't work 100 hours a week and it's just not possible. And I think it's a great opportunity for us to grow some businesses. And it gives them the ability to grow without having to deal with all the issues of higher binding and everything else. So it's an opportunity for us to really grow these small businesses here. So I'd really like to have some time here in the next month or so when you have time to really kind of dive into it deeper and understanding where this could end up going. Yes, sir. You do it. All right. You do. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. So Robert Chambers is next. I have Robert to share his screen if you can and present the rate study with you. Chambers. Hey, hey, Clint. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, City Manager, Council, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to present. Please let me know when you're able to see my screen. So we will go over the purpose, highlight some of your ever-evolving drivers, discuss some of your assumptions that went into developing the financial plan and then we'll go about discussing the financial plan and a few other items. So as you all are aware, we're here for three basic reasons. To establish the financing around your operating and capital program, to understand the cost to provide service and to make sure that in providing this service, you all price the service appropriately and the revenues that you recover as a result are adequate to meet your requirements. So last year we initiated this discussion and we highlighted what considerations a resilient utility would look for, what is going on in the market as it relates to the top industry issues. For example, on a few occasions during Mr. Sheila's presentation, we highlighted and discussed age and infrastructure. We spoke about resilience, revenues, you know. We spoke about the phone system and other information technology and customer systems, some of the same issues that you're grappling with as our other utilities. But then a year ago when we had this discussion, we discussed the impact of COVID-19. At the time we were in the early days of this journey and we really didn't understand even though we're trying to plan the best we could, we really didn't understand what the impact would have been going forward. As of right now, you know, we're over a year into this process. We have some more better data and empirical evidence and while we're still going through it, we're better able to plan and understand the impacts today and as we go forward. And as a result, we're still at the same point as it relates to what are our drivers, what it is we're trying to do. At its core, we're trying to maintain a sustainable utility system that allows us to appropriately plan the finances, maintain the business excellence and engage our stakeholders, okay? We know that we've looked at issues around revenue stability, how resilient our operations are, are we pricing these services appropriately and can we remain competitive? Those items still continue to be drivers and components that kind of push yourselves, the other utility leaders within your organization to make tough decisions and grapple with complex issues and we're still seeing those same drivers as we progress today. Historically, you as an entity have taken action as it relates to looking about adjusting, passing revenue or rate adjustments as needed to maintain the requirements of your system. Last year, given the existing situation in FY21, we did not go about passing a revenue or rate increase. We're proposing a rate increase in FY22, which we will go over in detail in a few slides. So what are the assumptions associated with the financial plan we're going to be presenting today? In essence, we're going to provide an overview of three basic scenarios. The first scenario is what we call the FY21 action, what we proposed to you last year and based on what we proposed, then we're going to provide scenario one, which is a financial plan that implements $120 million CIP in 22 through 26, which is a planning period. Additionally, we're going to talk about Project Sunshine, which is the addition of a new client to the system. And the impact of that addition will be evident in both scenarios. Scenario two will go about listing an $80 million CIP and the results are such in FY22. And then from 23 onwards, it would be a CIP of 120 million. One thing that we really wanted to highlight, and it's been said on a few occasions thus far, I'd just like to acknowledge and recognize staff as it relates to the diligence that has been shown through this time and even leading up to this point as it relates to financial planning, turning every stone and making sure that we've scored every alternative to try to provide the services at the lowest cost to your existing customers. You achieved some savings in your recent debt offering, the refunding offering, which has assisted and is evident as a part of the study. And then your economic development department for continuing to pursue new and significant customers on your system. And we're starting to see the impact of that initiative and your improved registration of new customers as a result of your water metering program. All these items have come together to have an impact on your financial planning. And we just wanted to highlight and recognize as such. So here we have the basic results. The third column, FY21 selected highlights what we showed you last year. In FY21, for the year 21, there was no rate increase. We lowered the CIP to about 40 million with a plan of going back to about 80 million in 22 and then 120 onward. Based on last year's forecast, we're anticipating about a 10.15 increase in FY22. And then we're at mid to high 7% onward. Based on the analysis and the diligence that was done by staff based on the scenario one, which is in FY22, 120 million in CIP, we're seeing FY22 revenue increase of about 5.02%. And that's what we'll be proposing today as a part of scenario one. Thereafter, we jump up to about a 7.96 and we average about the mid 6% from 24 onward. Now scenario two, which is the scenario whereby in FY22, we look at an 80 million CIP. We're looking at a revenue increase in FY22 of about 4.18%. And then, you know, we go up and down as it relates about 6.67 in 23, 6% in 24, 7.07 in 25 and onwards. But this is just showing you the relationship and the importance of the CIP and the impact to your required revenue increases and the diligence and the impact of that diligence planning as a result of what we were seeing last year prior to COVID and the situation you're going through. So to provide a little more detail, in FY22, which is the test year for scenario one, we're looking at revenue total of about 162.3 million. We're estimating about half a percent growth in accounts. And we're seeing decline in average use per customers, which is pretty evident because of learned and new usage patterns. Okay. We still have other revenue sources, which includes but is not limited to expansion fees, installation fees and other service fees. And then we have the incorporation of Project Sunshine, which is a high volume water and sewer customer slash user. We're estimating that in FY22, revenues associated with this customer that the city or that Columbia water will recognize will be about 25% in year two, which is FY23, about 75% and then in 24 onwards, it will build out, the project will build out and you'll see the full revenue potential. As it relates to the cost or the expense side, operating expenses in FY22 is about 99.1 million with an annual escalation factor of about 4%. We're proposing the 120 million CIP and we propose an initial FY22 debt offering of about 88.9 million. In addition, where as we always try, we're looking at a balanced approach to meeting your operating and capital requirements and meeting your established financial metrics, one of which is debt service coverage, which is revenues over debt. So just providing a little more information as it relates to the characteristics of scenario one over the forecast period, we're looking at about 68.5 in revenue bond funding, 31.5 in system funding. In addition, we've listed all your bond issuance amounts. In the first three years, where over 80 million per year issuance is and then the final two years, 25 and 26, we go down to about 78.5 and 76 million respectively. And that's in bonding that we'll go to market to seek. And this plan and this program is what we've been utilizing as a guidepost to meet the clean water program and the requirements to make sure your capacity requirements are sorted to make sure that on an ongoing basis you're rehabbing and reinvesting into your system appropriately. And we always continue to highlight and provide this overview to you just so that we can continue to follow and track the implementation of these programs. So going into the details of the financial plan and I won't go into implicit details of every line item, but the total revenues of the system, which is line 11 in 22 is about 185.1 million and it grossed about 252 million. We have line 12 are operating expenses, line 16 are total debt service requirements. The big thing we try to make sure we do here as a part of your financial planning effort is make sure we meet our financial metrics in an adequate and appropriate fashion, one of which is debt service coverage. You have an internal requirement of a 2.0 and in meeting that requirement appropriately funding your capital programs and then trying to implement the lowest possible revenue increases or rate increases for your existing customers. Those three items become the levers and the balancing components in developing the financial plan. And right now for FY22, we're proposing a 5.0 to revenue increase. Any questions here? I know this is a point where we may or may not have questions or should I continue? Why don't you continue, Robert? No problem. So this is just a basic summary of the scenario one financial plan and we've gone over it a few times. So looking at the billing facts, you know, over the life of the program as we have documented and tracked and we've presented on an annual basis, we've always tried to look at the smooth path as it relates to annual increases. And since 08 to 22, you know, the typical average increase in the bill and the compounded average is about just over 4%, which in some capacity tracks with the cost of money. But the more intriguing and real interesting component is, okay, what are you getting for what you pay? What's the value of water? And on a daily basis, water costs you, your customers on average about 77 cents per day and wastewater is about $1.42 per day. So if you had a situation where you went about buying, let's say, a gallon of bottled water for a dollar, that'd still be over 250 times more than what you pay for water. And what are the benefits and the value that you gain?  And that's the value you get. And what we, if there's anything we want to highlight here, while the numbers on a daily basis, it may seem lower for various reasons than other examples. What we truly want to highlight is not just the number, but the value of the service that you're getting and how critical and important it is, as we all know, to daily life and living. Okay. So on average, your existing, your typical utility bill, which is just under 6,000 gallons per month for the typical customer, will grow by about $3.24 an average from about 64.55 to 67.79. And when we break it down and compare each bill water separately and sewer as compared to your neighbors, you are both in the middle. So your bill is still, you know, competitive based on the comparison we have here for water. On the sewer side, we're seeing, you know, both, you know, the same relationship. But, you know, sewer is a, there's a little more cost associated with sewer. And, you know, that's understandable, given the clean water program and other projects that you're currently undertaking to maintain the integrity and the level of service associated with the sewer system. Okay. Going on now to the high volume rate. So what is the high volume rate? What is this all about? I know we've discussed this before, but at its core, this rate is targeted for a customer that requires water service in the amount of about 300,000 gallons or greater per day. This is being established to recognize and segment the service demand and requirements of Columbia water to provide water and sewer service to this customer. And most importantly, it's been established to facilitate and support economic development within the city of Columbia and more importantly, to facilitate Columbia water's footprint throughout the region. The objectives are, you know, to have this rate and the service be representative of the actual cost of Columbia water to provide this service. The objective was that it should be simple, easy to understand and create the least possible impact at implementation to the target customers. And at its core, it should promote economic development. And that's been an important initiative for the city. And this is just another tool in the effort to keep pushing and acknowledging that initiative and its importance. It is in alignment with the financial planning approach that we have utilized and we continue to utilize on an annual basis. And what I'd like to do is just talk about the scenario that we're going to present. An existing customer or the existing customer who may suit this high use rate in your current system is potentially an outside the city commercial customer. The scenario that we're presenting will look at and target the high use rate associated with that service. As a part of targeting and going about creating that rate, we're going to maintain the usage block rates. So typically your rates have two components. As you are aware, the meter based component, which is the fixed and the component that's charged to make service available. And then the volumetric, which is charged based on the amount of water service you use. So for this rate, we're going to go about maintaining the fixed component, but for the flow component, we're going to target the outside water commercial rate and we're going to maintain the existing four blocks, but then we're going to add a fifth block at somewhat of a reduced rate. The fifth block will represent approximately usage at and over 300,000 gallons per day. And the economic development initiative and target will go about promoting economic development and incentivizing those high use customers to come to the city of Columbia based on this rate. So scenario one, as we're showing it, only applies to the high use water rate service. And there'll be no adjustments to the existing sewer rate structure. So we'll maintain the sewer rate structure, maintain the meter based structure on the water side, but then make an adjustment to the volumetric component. What do the existing rates look like? So for example, we're simulating a six inch customer and for outside water service, that meter rate would be about $346 per month based on the meter size. And then we have the block rates here for commercial outside service. So we have block one, two, three, four. And in this scenario, we're going to add a fifth block. So going into more details as it relates to the high use water rate. So this is the rate in essence or at its core, your existing rate for block. Okay, so let me just go back a step. So for block one through four, you have usage which is zero to three CCFs, which is block one, then over three CCFs to a hundred CCF is block two, over a hundred CCF to a thousand is block three. And all usage over a thousand is block four. In the case of this high use rate, we're going to go about adding a fifth block. And based on cost of service as highlighted and based on your existing rates, we're going to maintain blocks two, three and four. And then we're going to go about adding a fifth block at a lower rate in order to promote economic development. And as you can see, the scenario line 20 and 21 says the total simulation of revenues on a monthly basis based on cost of service. And you can see the differences here in. So this becomes a structure of the high use water rate. Let me stop here to see if there are any questions as it relates to this rate. I know we said a lot. So any questions? We already approved this rate. Thank you. I think we're talking about as matter of policy, prospectively how we're going forward. Is that a word? Yes. So we, we've presented this in the past. And I don't think there was a request for action. It was informing you of the direction. But no, I know the team and staff is coming back. So I think we're going to have to inform again and request action. That's correct. I'm sorry, councilman. We took it. Didn't we do this for project sunshine or. Was that a one-off and now you want to put it in for available for anybody. So councilman, we, we briefed y'all and y'all approved the concept and we were going to formally do that with this year's late ordinance revision because project sunshine is not using water or sewer yet. So we knew we had the time to do that and amend the rate ordinance just one time. So this is the official action of what you've already seen. Robert was just going back over that refreshing the memory. But this is the deal that we agreed to, to incentivize the sunshine. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That is correct. So we need to do this because they got a whole lot of concrete out there expecting it. Yes, sir. And then we don't have any other customer right now that would fall into that category. So the delay really didn't impact anything other than, you know, we had the commitment before, but this is formalizing that. Right. But it, but it would extend to other high use. If we have another project sunshine. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. It absolutely would. Yes, sir. So moving on to your miscellaneous. Can you, can you, I got a quick question. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, sir. Hey, Clint. So how many more projects sunshine can we take on before all facility upgrade the, the facility upgrades would have to be made at wastewater. It's a great question. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think they would be located. We, we know that another project sunshine or two out in time view would create some challenges from a water distribution standpoint, but because of the proximity to the wastewater collection. System and treatment plant. We're in good shape there to convey the waste and treat the ways. We're in good shape on the wastewater provision side. In the Northeast, the industrial part that the county is looking to develop in your blightwood. We're in fantastic shape on the water distribution side because we have a 48 inch water main that traverses that park or that property. But we're not as in a, as good a shape on the wastewater provision side because it's so far away from our waste treatment plant. So that we can absorb them from a total capacity standpoint, but a lot of planning has to go into where to site those industries and how much a heavy intensive wet industry needs and where they would go. So that's a long answer. And I apologize for not being more direct, but that's about as best I can do for you. No, I appreciate that. And I mean, as we treat the stormwater wastewater, I get to see wastewater. I mean, are we going to hit DHEC standards pretty quickly with, with what we're allowed to put into the, to the river shed? Well, so we, we've got from a hydraulic capacity standpoint, we've got a 60 million gallon day rated facility and we average about 36 million gallons a day. This charge to the Congaree River. So we've got a good bit of hydraulic capacity. We just went through an aeration upgrade that's going to increase our biological treatment capacity so that we can handle more poundage. We do know eventually we will have to upgrade our waste facility, both hydraulically and from a treatment standpoint, but we've got a good bit of capacity from a, a poundage loading and also how dry left. We also impose in a very strict about our, about our surcharges. And so we don't let a customer just, just dump a whole lot of high strength waste on us. If they go above a certain value, then they have to pay a penalty for that, which helps fund future upgrades in terms of biological or loading capacity. Right. Thank you. Robert. Okay. So moving on to miscellaneous service fees. So what we wanted to highlight here is the fact that staff undertook an evaluation just to refresh and understand. You know, the costs associated with providing these services. And as a result of understanding those costs, are the existing fees that you charged, you know, adequate. So what, what are miscellaneous fees? There, there's service charges slash user fees. That are levied upon customers for a specific good or service for the use of, of, of public facilities. So in the case of Columbia water, these aren't direct water and sewer user charges, but there are other services you all provide insulation services, turn and turn off services, for example. And these fees support these services because as you're aware, if you have a turn on or off, if somebody calls, somebody has to take that call, somebody has to react and somebody has to sort that customer's need and requirement in short order. And what these charges do is try to understand the cost to provide those services, price them as such. Okay. So in, in doing so, staff looked at a few of the services or all the services that you provided. And there were recommendations to make adjustments to some, and to leave the remainder as they are. So for example, your current charge for a fire hydrant installation is $800. The new recommendation is 1600 for hydrant meters is 240. The new recommendation is 1000. But there's a credit of 700 if it's returned within three years. Say for example, meter replacements. You're currently charging $45 for like a three quarter inch to one inch. But we're proposing a $300 charge. For some of the charges, there is no change. For example, say for example, on our unauthorized use fees, straight connection fee, a lot meter fee. And remove meter fee. All those charges, for example, will remain the same. So this is just a listing of the existing miscellaneous charges that were reviewed. And the proposed recommendations. We're also proposing and wrapping up, you know, what is, what is the acts? The access to consider the implementation of the FY 22. Water and source slash Columbia water financial plan. Consider the implementation of the high use. Water rate. And consider the implementation. Of the proposed miscellaneous service charges. So that's it. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you all today. And, you know, please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you. Questions for Robert. I can't see that. Can see all the hands of Mr. Duval. Robert and Clint both that that that was an excellent presentation very, very, a lot of information in there for the public and for the council to digest. One of the things that I appreciated. Robert covering was the value of water. We are blessed in the city of Columbia to have a great source of water with both the Lake Murray coming through the Saluta River. And the Broad River coming down from up in the northwest side of the state also. So we have abundant water, which a lot of people don't have. If you've been reading or hearing the news lately about the people out west. It is getting to be critical. And to the point where we may not, they might not, might even not be able to run the generators and some of the big dams that they have out there this year because the water levels are so low. We, we are blessed to have these water sources. I note on our water rate. That we are still giving the first 300 cubic feet at the same charge and no charge for the first 300 cubic feet, which means that if, if you use the 300 cubic feet, you'd have a, an increase of only 41 cents over the previous rate that we charged for that if we adopt the new rate. And people that use the water and sewer at the first 300 cubic feet, it's a 45 cents total. So, and a lot of our people are, are under those terms, those numbers. I used to use five and 600 cubic feet on McGregor. I don't, I don't use nearly that much in this apartment, but water in Columbia is fairly priced and it is valuable because we have abundant sources. So I think we need to continue to fund these water and sewer requests that the staff has done and keep the system running efficiently. Thank you, Mr. Duval. Any other questions for Robert or statements? Daniel. I just, I wrote down a bunch of questions going through this and, and I'd like to follow up at the appropriate time. Obviously, you know, today we got a full agenda, but at the appropriate time, I'd love to follow up with Robert and a little bit more to understand some of the dynamics there. But I really appreciate what you put together. It's very comprehensive, but I'd like to schedule a time in the next couple of weeks if we could to go over these questions. Certainly a couple of questions I had too, but also in the interest of time and then we have a lengthy agenda. I was off camera briefly. Did we cover today? And they usually you also show us a sensitivity analysis, looking at our population and the ability of folks to pay. We didn't do that this time, right? I think I saw that one chart. That's been included. Maybe before what have you, but I'd be curious if we have any numbers like that. But I think, I think five percent is a, is a, is a win going in the, in the right direction. I double down on everything Mr. Duvall had to say as well, including, I think, I think some of the things I've seen before in my head, and I think people should be aware of those things, and that interest. This is in place. I have one of them. So no, thanks for the comprehensive report and recommendations. I was a courtesan. Yeah. No problem. Thank you all so very much. Thank you. right now or what we look for? No, sir. It will be incorporated into the budget recommendations that we'll keep going for now. That includes the super user issue. We can handle that later. It doesn't need to be handled now. No, sir. I mean, we're looking for you all to approve it formally. Yes, sir. But as far as in the actual budget that the Water and Sewer Fund will incorporate the 5%. No, I meant the super user rate. I mean, that does not do the time issues there. We're good. They're moving forward pretty aggressively in construction. Right. Clint and Misty, I guess, when we get to the point of the budget, the vote on the budget, are you incorporating a separate motion on the high user rate? Those would be part of the rate ordinance, Ms. Wilson. So as the rate adopted, then that will be taken care of as well. And in terms of timing, the mayors, they are moving at unbelievably aggressive pace and doing really, really well. But we've got plenty of time still to approve for our normal budget process to get those leg adjustments in place. Okay, super. Super. Thank you. Thank you, Clint, Robert. So at this time, we'll move along so that we can have enough time to get everything in. The overview of the recently approved American Rescue Plan and some recommendations that we have for you all, Mayor and Council. And with that, Ms. C. Kaufman, our budget and program management director will start us off. Again, we're doing it in this order. We're building you up to the budget recommendations I fund. I'd also add on the agenda, just for the sake of the public awareness, all of the funds will be covered today. I meant for them to be actually bulleted out on the agenda within the memo that you received, as well as, I guess, why Misty said in the sub, I would say there's been, as you know, many of you with all of your national contacts and colleagues through various organizations, you know that there is an abundance of information right now regarding funding, funding sources, the American Rescue Plan, obviously, and the direct allocation we've received as a city. And then there's also many opportunities through the Federal Appropriations Act. And so we're very, very thankful for Ralph and Deborah with Capital Edge, who, you know, have served us so well for many years.  And we are staying ahead of these potential opportunities to have funds for some projects in the city of Columbia and infrastructure. And so I didn't want to confuse you with everything we're presenting today, but Misty Gentry has done a phenomenal job of working with all of our different departments along with, obviously, our finance team and our WANA and the lobbyists. And so we've already submitted for several projects to meet certain deadlines as far as sending things to the congressmen and others. And so we have an email that outlines some of that for you. And I'm going to ask Misty go ahead and send that to you later today. We just wanted to get through the budget presentation so that you don't get confused with all the various sources. So with that, Misty's going to be, Cofin's going to take you through now our proposed budget and start with the Rescue Plan recommendations. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. After following Mr. Shealy and Robert Chamberlain, I feel like I really need to up my game here on the conversation. Hopefully this will continue a thread of good information and good discussion around this exciting opportunity for the city and our upcoming proposed budget, your proposed budget. So the first part of the conversation when we want to talk about is just an overview of the presentation. We want to remind to the council of the project, of the budget timeline, a summary of the American Rescue Plan as mentioned, as well as getting through the proposed fiscal year 21-22 city manager proposed budget. We'll cover each operating fund, which will be the general fund, our parking fund, our water and sewer operating fund, our stormwater operating fund, hospitality tax and accommodation tax. And then, as has been discussed in a couple of council meetings, we thought we'd go ahead and bring forward an introduction about a special project that we're dealing with Bloomberg's What Works Cities and our city budgeting for equity and recovery initiative. To just some highlights from the of the conversation, of course, you know, as we are still in an economic uncertainty around the pandemic, there is there is some silver linings, there was some promising days ahead. So we, we are, we are cautiously optimistic as we, as, as we have been proceeding a continuity of operations and continuing to provide our excellent day-to-day services to our community. Our city departments have not missed a beat. We're continuing to provide services day-to-day and have been and look forward to the opening of parks here in a few weeks or part facilities as summer is coming upon us. And of course, it's always fulfilling our city's financial obligations. That's one of the most important things we feel like we can do as stewards of the city's funds and making sure that we maintain a healthy financial footprint for the city. So, and as we've been talking through many of these conversations and having lots of conversations, especially with our colleagues across the country as we talk about the American Rescue Plan, as well as the impacts of COVID. This was a reassounding statement of if you're going through hell to keep going for Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill. So we're just going to keep on going and keep trudging ahead and, and make our way through together. Just a reminder of our budget timeline. We're here today. As Mr. Wilson said, we've compressed a usually pretty lengthy budget conversation into today's conversation with the expectations that just as, and you'll probably hear me say this several times today. Following today's conversation, we will be advertising the budget this week in anticipation of a budget public hearing for May the 11th, which is that will be a special called meeting date, but will allow us an opportunity to get the budget approved in and passed in May. The the advertisement date is based on state law in order to meet our 15-day notice requirement. So the notice will be sent out this week for advertisement next week. And then second reading and adoption will be May 18th. So all those discussions in regards to our budget, both with our water and sewer discussions that Mr. Sheila and Robert Chambers just went through with discussed with you as well as the budget being proposed today, would all need to be advertised by this week to meet the schedule. American Rescue Plan, this is, this will be a very high level conversation. I'm by all means not a proficient or fluent spokesperson for the discussion he's planned but has had many conversations and then on many webinars, we've had many discussions with National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors, thanks to U.S. Conference of Mayors with some great conversations with Treasury as well as ICMA, NASC, GFOA, all kinds of guidance and information out there coming forward. And of course, we can't forget our capital edge and all of the help and assistance that they give to us on anything at a national level and and really appreciate all of their help and support and providing with us with information timely and definitely reliable and they're always a great advocate for the city and we appreciate their support. High level overview with regards to the American Rescue Plan, the first and foremost what we want to express and repeat is that guidance for local government financial assistance is still dependent from the U.S. Treasury. That is very key for these funds. It's like waiting on the federal registry when we receive any of our federal dollars. It will determine for us how we can use the funds as well as any kind of reporting and requirements that we'll have. So it's very important that we receive this guidance. Also we know at this point that the city's estimated direct allocation to Columbia is $25.9 million. This will be coming straight to the city of Columbia, unlike CARES Act funds last year that went through the state. We also have been made aware that there's an additional $2.5 million in our HUD home funds. Those are subject to the HUD requirements and the HUD program, but it is a direct allocation to the city. So we're including this outline here. The local financial assistance funds the $25.9 million. The Act requires that it be dispersed within 60 days from being signed to the law, signed in the law on March the 11th. So we anticipate getting this funds later than maybe 11th. Then guidance from Treasury should have also been received or anticipated. Then the Act requires that the second part of the payment be received at no sooner than one year from the first. We have until December 31st, 2024 to spend these funds. That's specific to the direct allocation. HUD and home funds are under their own guidance and directions. They're not subject to the Treasury guidance. Some of our other key takeaways that we have been receiving and sharing with our colleagues and other discussions. Treasury guidance still is pending. Again, can't overstate that their guidance is still pending and is important. Of course, we need Treasury to provide us with eligible uses. Although there is outlined in the Act what is eligible and what's really important and key to this part of the conversation is the administration of the funds. That will be definitely a significant component of this process as well. Other guidance is also is that we plan for the recovery. Underlying a lot of the use of these funds and recovery is anticipated to be able to returning people to work and then we're putting jobs back in place. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast and that's been a phrase that's been referred to on several these conversations. I know we all like to be able to move in the fast lane on these and set the structure and the organization how we disperse and utilize these funds will be important because that's going to be the fastest and most efficient way to be able to deliver these funds where they are intended to go. With that, we are also advised to assess our needs and address our gaps and look specifically for those gaps especially as we consider the local recovery funds. These are the only funds that the city is receiving directly in the system and so we are advised to use gaps and priorities not for eligible other programs. As you'll see in the summer coming up, there's a lot of different programs in this act, a lot of different funding opportunities that cover a number of initiatives that the city council has expressed in our community so we want to make sure that we are spreading our funds with a consideration of not duplicating efforts. Of course, we take time to create a well-defined plan and with equity at its core. We're going to think strategically about how to use these funds for our future needs not only today but also building some resiliency and then we are reminded that these funds are one time and we need to treat them as such so that as we're using them for one time so that as we're receiving them one time that we use them for one time needs and one time needs expenditures. We will be required to document and provide some regular reporting on the spending as what we are anticipating. We don't know what that yet looks like. That also speaks to of course capacity for that problem but also to the eligible reasons to be important in terms of how it's supposed to be received. As for the summary of the local government assistance 360 million that's really 350 billion dollars excuse me I'm not used to referring to billion in our budget conversation with additional 10 billion for coronavirus capital project funds states are receiving the direct allocation. The city's allocation is based primarily on our HUD formulas with also a factor for poverty but the city's allocation is based on that formula. The county is also receiving a direct allocation I believe in the NAIC in the neighborhood of 80 million. As far as the legislative uses that had been designated specifically in the section 99.01 of the ARP of the American Rescue Plan is responding to public health related to COVID and its negative impact on those household assistance the household small business non-profits aid and impacted industries obviously speaking of tourism travel and hospitality. We also the act also addresses responding to workers with essential work related to public health and COVID-19. There's also provision for government services to the extent of reduction of revenues. As that relates to the city of Columbia specifically this means as it states here that local government do the COVID public health emergency relative to revenues collected and then the most recent full fiscal year the local government prior to the emergency. So the city of Columbia that means fiscal year 1819 you'll see in our common conversations that fiscal year 1819 is our foundation or for basis for our recommendations with regards to revenue. To make investments and water sewer a broadband infrastructure as well as transfer funds to private non-profits that are are designated into homeless act. Funds cannot be used for pension and they cannot be used to offset a tax increase. With that guidance that was presented there this is where the city of has uh city managers put together a proposed use of those on the American Rescue Plan and as well something I'm sure you'll want to jump in at any point um for these conversations. As mentioned our basis for these allocations are being driven from our fiscal year 1819 revenues. One of the first stated uses is regards to the recovery I see the general loan that the city received has has received our recommendation is to is to basically return that loan and pay for the funds that we have have are obligated to refund and restore then has a long-term impact in the sense that the the use of those funds would would incur is a loan it said it would be a debt on to the fund that would be that was sipping of those funds so if it was general fund it would be debt on the general fund going forward so we are recommending that we pay those funds back in place of using these funds. Revenue shortfall as mentioned we used our fiscal year 1819 as a as a baseline and determine where there are shortfalls. There is still guidance pending from the treasury of course as we've mentioned I think a couple of times now so the guidance is still pending in terms of of of how of what the revenue recovery would look like in our conversations with with other entities and with some of the other organizations that we've mentioned we're looking at things that both a a line on other revenue stream as well as a category of a revenue stream so we have programmed these funds into our upcoming budget revenue shortfalls based on the general fund our parking fund and our hospitality specifically by far parking fund has seen the most dramatic impact with regards to parking revenues and we state that based on both projections but also actual revenues received and we'll get into that a little bit further as we get through this conversation. The city manager is also including a provision for employee housing and premium pay to be discussed as we move forward and then not in any specific order or our designated amounts because we are still pending the guidance from treasury and listening to city councils specific conversations and in referencing prior meetings where some certain areas have come up with regards to external uses or even internal uses just on specific programs administered maybe through the city for housing initiatives non-profit assistance small business support broadband and student securities and as we think of those and consider those keep in mind we will go forward with discussions on some of the other programs and allocations that also will be addressing some of these same areas so we want to be cognizant of the application of the effort. I'm gonna pause there to see if there's any comments I know I'm kind of rack and fire discussion here. So Missy thank you for getting us to this point obviously this gets you know to the crux of the funding and quite frankly you know between Missy and Jeff and I and working with the ACMs and our finance team I mean the numbers just really are what they are when you back into the debt repayment and the revenue shortfall you know the only thing that we I guess played with a little bit was this idea of premium pay and it's the premium pay is taken from the terminology used in the act itself so those numbers are truly based off the formulas that we were given to work from from FY18-19 being the baseline and so I did not want to take any liberties other than knowing various categories of external uses that I knew you all were interested in really wanted feedback from you on you know how you would seek to prioritize some of those areas with the $6.5 million remaining to to use to assist in those areas and again you know we can't reiterate enough and this is coming from Ralph and all the natural sources there's just the treasury guidance is is really key here this is different than the when obviously you all were very forward thinking and we were able to put some programs together internally for external use obviously those are city funds these are federal dollars and we're going to have to follow and the the guidance as it comes out as to how it's utilized and how we comply with it going Teresa I know you probably have a good number of questions I'll go to Mika first and then Howard but before we do that in case one needs to go just pull some numbers up let me get back to around our entire parking fund budget and particularly I'm interested in if in fact we're able and unable to think perfect well we'll know the budget yes we are we at risk of not being able to meet our debt obligations on our revenue bonds on the I mean what's the impact on that because obviously if it's if that's the issue backing up our our long-term debt obligations then there's no hesitant to see her pushing that much into the parking fund if that's not at risk however I'd probably lean in the direction of some of the other issues towards the bottom of the list but but nonetheless I'm curious about what's the overall parking fund budget I'm trying to remember is it nine nine million there about so annually you want to jump to that because I do think that's illustrative for councils understand you want to just jump to the parking fund budget go ahead and address it and I'm sorry I'm gonna get up off track no I mean we're gonna have to get there anyway we talked about this mirror because it's this is a different kind of budget we're trying to fill in gaps and explain why and the actual fund but yes sir we can go to it right now well the primary question was I knew it was about nine million on budget was how does how does the the filling this gap or failure to fill this gap has the effect on bondholders uh or what have you if that's not at risk we need that more discussion about that but get go ahead missy this is Jeff so yes we are under risk we have issues covering meeting our bond com that's in parking I believe this will be showing you the parking budget I don't know if it shows kind of the actuals through this year we'll have to look and we can put information back out there but this past year and then the current year we're not anticipating meeting bond covenants because we are not generating the revenue that we need to cover our operational costs we're hopeful that we can utilize these revenues to and all we're looking to do is get it back to the 2019 levels that will still keep things kind of close but that will be where we'll go back to our bond council and others to talk about how that's going to affect the covenants and what the requirements on the system are if we don't do this we will end up having to have a parking study and that will potentially push us to have to have parking rates increased across the board but that would only be going forward it really doesn't help in the current year and potentially the next year I will point out so the numbers that Missy Kauffman is going to show you and has on that spreadsheet for parking for the ARP funds to be used those numbers are estimates so if we don't end up utilizing all those funds we do have to 2020 to utilize these so if parking comes in and if 2.3 million isn't neat I don't have it right in front of me but if the number for next year isn't mean it's a smaller number we'll have additional funds that we can roll back in that can be used for the other uses as designated once we get guidance from Treasury and approval from y'all does anybody have a question there and I was hopeful that the summary was going to be helpful it's it's it's it's helpful and then we got we got to wait for Treasury guidance and and the like but just with you know with the significant needs of our HSEC funded organizations our cultural institutions obviously whatever we can do in terms of broadband for housing and small businesses obviously there's there's a whole lot out there and and unless I mean I a little bit discomfort of a third of the of the committed funding going to to parking but we'll talk some more about that and as we as we learn as we go along Ms. Devine yeah it's still yeah I just um Missy can you go back um I just want to make sure so um basically we're working with a balance of 6.5 million for the external uses um seeing as the money will be split in half um have y'all thought through a process of um sorry have y'all thought through a process of um when you know how much would be available at what time so we're y'all are looking at the allocation but only half will be available now and another half won't be for another year yes ma'am we are taking that into consideration and also would would be also reminding city council of that same in terms of how we allocate especially as we need guidance from treasury in terms of how the funds you know they have a year to give us those funds but if we don't receive those funds between by June 30th or following year then that could have some longer term you know impacts with regards to our financial statement but we are taking that into consideration um some of the city uses you know maybe especially as we're talking about the the current budget versus those things that are based on prior years showing up on our prior years okay um and you know I've told everybody I've spoken to 25 million sounds like a lot of money but in the scheme of things it's not and I think of course looking at where we have internal needs and in this it really elevates the fact that it's really not a lot of money and goes very fast um I would you know definitely suggest that as we look at the external allocations consider um not just an official process but maybe a part of that process be some input from the community on on some of the priorities I know several people have already done that so if we could maybe look at that as well and then the last thing I would suggest is um so that our money goes as far as possible I certainly would suggest that we look at and I know that our well I know um I imagine that our process because we are used to this is is probably even though we're still waiting on on Treasury guidance is is probably going to be a little bit more defined and official because we typically do this um but I would suggest if we could um maybe seek um some kind of uh collaboration with the county in some areas for instance they are already doing the rental assistance um so certainly although we could do something similar there there really isn't we don't need to be duplicating efforts um but if we are looking at gaps um figuring out where the gaps within our community particularly the city are um so as we're allocating funds if the county is doing something we don't duplicate that effort but we also talk to our partners on the county uh to ensure that city residents get um fair um access to