[0:01] Okay, it's now 5:30. I'd like to call the uh

[0:07] March 9th Calvin County Council meeting to order.

[0:11] Why don't you give us the invocation? >> Let us pray.

[0:15] Dear Lord, please grant us wisdom to move with the best path forward and may

[0:19] we make good decisions for the county. Bless all the people that live here and

[0:24] work here. Amen. >> Amen. Amen.

[0:28] They have approval. Motion for approval of the agenda.

[0:31] » So move second. >> Probably move in. Second. Any further

[0:34] discussion on that? All in favor? I >> I likewise the eyes have it.

[0:42] » Any public comment? Look public comments. Uh motion for approval of the

[0:46] minutes February 26, 2026 regular meeting.

[0:51] » Someone move. >> Second.

[0:52] » Publicly moved and second. Any corrections or additions? All in favor?

[0:56] I. I >> likewise the eyes have it. Under the

[1:00] appointments, we have the board of zoning appeals reappointments.

[1:04] Somebody need to talk about that a little bit. Y'all just y'all see the

[1:07] names they >> Yes, sir. So, this is this is just

[1:10] reappoints for the board of zoning appeals. We do have one vacancy for

[1:13] district one that needs to be filled. This is a board that doesn't meet quite

[1:18] as often as something like the planning commission. Um but it it does serve an

[1:24] important function. We actually potentially have a request for a

[1:27] variance coming up in the next month or two, but this is just reappoints for the

[1:32] existing members. >> Richard, I think that's your

[1:34] appointment. >> Can I ask a question?

[1:36] » Yes, sir. >> Who was my appointment before? Richard,

[1:39] do you want to Who was on it? Do we have any idea?

[1:41] » We'll have to get that back to you. >> Thank you.

[1:45] » Well, we'll wait on you for that appointment, which

[1:48] Okay. Under appearances, we have Miss Ashley Kelly, director of board of

[1:53] registration and elections update. Mr. >> Chairman, can we go ahead and reappoint

[1:56] the other ones in the meeting? >> Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.

[1:59] » Excuse me, >> Mr. Chairman. I move to reappoint the

[2:02] board that are on there. >> Second.

[2:04] » Properly move and second that we appoint the four board members

[2:08] and these these are reoccurring appointments, Richard. They've already

[2:11] Yeah. Do we reappoint these um individuals to the uh board of zoning

[2:15] and appeals? >> That's what I'm thinking about.

[2:17] » Motion to second. All in favor. Did I have a second?

[2:20] » Second. >> All.

[2:22] » Any further discussion? All in favor? I >> I likewise. Eyes have it.

[2:28] » Okay. So, Richard, we'll wait on you to get that one.

[2:30] » There you fine. >> Yeah. Under appearances, we have Miss

[2:33] Ashley Keller, director of voter registration and elections update and

[2:37] information.

[2:43] » Good evening, council. I'm Ashley Keller and I serve as your voter registration

[2:48] and election director. I'm here to provide information regarding the 2026

[2:53] election cycle.

[2:58] Candidate filing for our partisans office off offices will begin March 16th

[3:03] at noon and will close March the 30th at noon. These offices include county

[3:09] council districts three, four, and five. Our nonpartisan candidate filing will

[3:14] take place August 1st through the 15th for school boards districts two and

[3:19] five. Petition filing must be submitted on or before July 15th and this applies

[3:25] to the soil and water district and any other races without party affiliation.

[3:30] Our statewide primaries will be held June 9th. Early voting for the primary

[3:35] will take place May 26 through May 29th and June 1st through June 5th from 8:30

[3:44] a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. We will be closed on the weekends and

[3:49] holidays. Our runoff will be held June 23rd with early voting on June 17th and

[3:54] 18th. The statewide general election will be held November 3rd. Early voting

[3:59] for the general election will run October 19th through October 31st,

[4:04] Monday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Offices on the ballot will

[4:11] include governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state,

[4:16] state treasurer, controller general, state superintendent of education,

[4:21] commission of agriculture, US senate, US house district 6, and state house

[4:27] district 93. For each election, we will operate three early voting center. The

[4:33] calum county economic development center will serve as our central location.

[4:37] AMD will service the upper part of the county. St. John Recreational Center

[4:41] will serve the lower part of the county, but voters can utilize any of the voting

[4:46] precincts during early voting. We also have a precinct location change for fall

[4:52] branch. The new polling location will now be the Calhoun Reserve, formerly

[4:57] known as the Ponderosa. In an effort to increase voter

[5:00] participation, my office and the council on aging

[5:04] offers a program called request arrive where voters can call, text, or email,

[5:09] and will arrange transportation to and from the nearest early voting location.

[5:15] Additionally, voters can now request absentee ballots during this election

[5:19] cycle. And I will also like to remind everyone that any voter who will be 18

[5:24] years old by November 3rd is eligible and can register to vote in this

[5:29] election cycle. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact

[5:33] my office. Thank you for your time and the work you do in servicing the

[5:37] citizens of Khung County. Thanks. >> Thank you.

[5:40] » Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody had any question for

[5:43] Ashley? Thank you, Ashley.

[5:48] Uh, now we have U Brad Little John, finance director, updates and

[5:53] information. Mr. Little John,

[5:57] » first off, >> council, thank you for your time. Uh, my

[6:00] name is Brad Little John. I've been serving as your director of finance

[6:03] since September. Uh, briefly run you through my background and then we can

[6:07] talk about a little highlight, some highlights that we have already since

[6:10] I've been on board. Um, I'm originally from Gaffne, South Carolina. uh

[6:14] graduated with the University of South Carolina in 2006. My first job out of

[6:18] school was actually working for the Lieutenant Governor's office. So I was a

[6:23] um a senior financial accountant there. Uh moved to Atlanta. Uh started working

[6:29] for the Georgia Institute of Technology as an accountant there. Uh switched over

[6:33] to the public industry. uh worked for healthcare IT for around seven eight

[6:39] years before moving over to uh private equity for about six or five years five

[6:44] or six years. Uh from there I moved to the uh state of Georgia working for the

[6:49] department of revenue as a consultant for them before coming on board to

[6:52] account. Um I did my like I said I did my undergrad at the University of South

[6:57] Carolina, my masters at Georgia State University and uh happy to be here

[7:01] working for you all and uh it's been a pleasure and uh just to give a couple

[7:05] highlights we've recently finished our 24 audit. We're in the process of

[7:09] finishing our budget 25 audit and also in the process of preparing our 27

[7:14] budget which I'm sure you all are aware of. So like you thank you for your time

[7:19] and I appreciate it. >> Thank you.

[7:21] » Thank you. >> Glad to have you board. Anybody have any

[7:24] questions? >> I'm just glad to have you aboard.

[7:27] » Okay. Thank you.

[7:30] » Moving along. Richie down to you. >> Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And

[7:36] kind of tag it on to for what Brad said and it is nice to have a finance

[7:39] director uh here uh working through the budget. Uh we're preparing everything

[7:44] started actually budget meetings uh this week with individual departments and uh

[7:48] we'll be compiling all that information with the finance office and getting that

[7:52] ready for for your budget retrieve. Um I I am hopeful we're hopeful with with

[7:58] finance staff this year that we will have the audit completed by the

[8:03] extension deadline of March 31st which be the first time in a number of years

[8:07] that we've been able to get there. Uh we've implemented a lot of financial

[8:11] policies and procedures and with with Brad and his staff's help we're going to

[8:17] get the rest of those wrapped up and hopefully we're going to be in much

[8:20] better shape going forward. uh also along audits. You may remember

[8:26] probably year and a half ago now when we started talking about the transitions in

[8:31] the fire service uh working through that uh I guess January of of last year we

[8:37] talked about having independent single audits of all of the fire department and

[8:42] so next council meeting on the 23rd of March Steve Blake will be here. He's the

[8:48] gentleman that's been helping us with our internal audits. He's the one that

[8:51] was providing the the review of all of the fire

[8:55] department's audits. Uh he's going to come on the 23rd and present that

[9:00] information to council. Um, one caveat to that, uh, you've got on your your

[9:07] desk there, uh, some attorney, um, correspondence, but then behind that,

[9:14] you've got the forms that were sent to all of the fire departments, uh,

[9:19] requesting the information that Mr. Blake needed to perform his audit

[9:22] procedures. We have received all of those and all of those are completed and

[9:27] those will be presented to you at the next council meeting minus the old San

[9:32] Run fire department. Uh we have not been able to get that information yet. We

[9:36] were advised by representatives there that communications with them needed to

[9:41] be through their attorney. So our attorney is doing so. Um I do not know

[9:45] the time frame on that as far as getting that information. It is required to be

[9:50] provided to us. They received government funds. So they are are required to

[9:54] provide that information as soon as our attorney can either get that or whatever

[10:00] the next steps need to be get that information and Steve will come back and

[10:04] wrap that up. What I did not want to do is with our upcoming audit findings and

[10:09] going into the budget season I didn't want to delay him coming to give you all

[10:13] of it whenever we were able to finish that up. So you're going to get the

[10:17] existing all the ones that are already done. They'll come do that. he'll make

[10:20] that presentation, uh, talk about, uh, things that need to be improved, things

[10:25] that, you know, were good, weren't good, etc., just like a normal audit would be.

[10:30] And so, he'll be making that presentation on the 23rd. Um, as far as

[10:35] getting the other one done, I I don't have an answer on that until we can get

[10:39] some more communication from their attorney and uh, see what needs to be

[10:44] taken on the next steps there. Um,

[10:48] that's it for the the audit, fire department audits. That's it for that

[10:51] piece. Uh, what I do want, we've got, you know, we're getting into spring.

[10:55] We've got a lot going on. One of the things I wanted to talk about was some

[10:58] of the upcoming events. Uh, we've got quite a few um both for fun events and

[11:04] some not so much fun. We've got the city run spring cleaning coming up in March

[11:09] 14th. This is the second year um that we've done that. Hopefully there won't

[11:14] be rain this year on that event. Hopefully it'll be nice and sunny. Um,

[11:18] one of the not quite so fun things, March 17th, uh, date is coming up

[11:23] quickly. Um, that's when property taxes go to the delinquent tax office and a

[11:27] penalty is added. So March the 17th is is kind of a key date on that. Uh, next

[11:33] on April the 9th, we've got our countywide litter pickup schedule. uh we

[11:38] invite and and ask everybody that can participate in that to do so. You can

[11:43] reach out to us um to get supplies, uh litter grabbers, um bags, vest, uh if

[11:52] you community groups, church groups, anybody wants to get together and do

[11:55] that. They communicate that with us after they picked it up, we'll actually

[11:58] go collect the bags, uh get a total count and bring that together. We

[12:04] typically report that to Palmetto Pride. It helps us with applying for grants and

[12:08] stuff as well as uh cleaning up sides of our roads. April the 10th uh be the

[12:14] second year for the St. Matthews Town Gayla that the county also participates

[12:19] in be on April the 10th. Uh Purple Martin golf tournaments on April the

[12:24] 14th. And then the Purple Martin Festival, April 17th and 18th, a Friday

[12:30] night and a Saturday along with the town dance on the n on the 17th, the night of

[12:35] the 17th. Uh there'll be bingo, town dance, food trucks, and everything like

[12:39] that for the town. And then the uh parade and festival um parade starts at

[12:44] 10:00 a.m. on the 18th and then the festival is from 11:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. Uh

[12:50] our um master of our ceremonies will Grand Marshall. Thank you. Uh for this

[12:57] will be our Senator Zel will be the grand marshal for this year's parade and

[13:02] festival. So we're excited about that. Looking forward to that.

[13:06] » And that is all I have. And any questions?

[13:09] » Okay. Anybody got anything? >> Yeah. M Mr. Chairman, could I ask if you

[13:14] could get us an organizational chart of your administration with all the names?

[13:18] » Yes. And also um I mean I know we've had some personnel changes and position

[13:24] changes and all that kind of stuff and any additional duty assign you know so

[13:29] that we know who we >> Yes sir.

[13:31] » need to be dealing with. Uh I don't remember the last time we've had one.

[13:34] Has it been a while or >> it's been a couple years? Yes sir.

[13:38] » And I'm glad you mentioned that because um I do need to update that. I've I've

[13:42] communicated it with all of you. um haven't really communicated it

[13:47] throughout the rest of the organization yet, but we did make some some tweaks to

[13:51] the organizational chart and we have since I've been here, we have not had a

[13:56] deputy administrator since I've been in this position. Uh we are not going to

[14:00] necessarily fill the deputy administrator position, but what we are

[14:03] do is uh what we are doing is appointing two assistant administrators. Um and

[14:09] that will be uh Shayla Jenkins and Brandy Robertson. So, I'll get that

[14:14] organizational chart update and get to you before.

[14:16] » It just helps when you're out of the building and we know we need to and we

[14:20] need to know who to go to. >> Absolutely.

[14:22] » Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, sir.

[14:24] » Okay. >> Any other councilman?

[14:28] » No, sir. >> I I just would like to uh thank Mr.

[14:32] Lawson uh for the job you did down there and protecting us. Sometime we needed

[14:37] it. I I appreciate what all you've done. I understand this is going to be the

[14:41] last. >> Yes, sir. Thank Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[14:44] Thank all we are. >> Thank you.

[14:45] » Thank you. >> Are you still going to be working for

[14:47] the county or you just >> No, I'll be retired.

[14:49] » Okay. >> 25 years.

[14:51] » Yeah, we we would like I would like to make a presentation to you plaque or

[14:56] something. Thank you for your time. I wish you could come back at the next

[14:59] council meeting >> and uh we'd like to present that to you.

[15:03] » Appreciate the job that you did for >> Thank you, Deputy Lawson.

[15:07] » Nobody have anything else? uh entertain a motion for adjournment.

[15:11] » So move >> or a second move and second. Any further

[15:15] discussion? All in favor? I >> I was likewise the eyes have it.

[15:20] » Thank you everyone for coming. >> Thank you. Stay.

Calhoun County Council Meeting, Monday, March 9, 2026

Transcript