[0:00] May the 12th, 2024 city council meeting, all of those in favor, any of that oppose, aye, abstain, item 4, approve of the agenda for the February 26th, 2024 city council meeting.

[0:13] Some of those in favor, any of that oppose, aye, abstain.

[0:19] We have a few public comments, and the way this works, when you come up, young people,

[0:26] you have two minutes to say what you want to say.

[0:29] I actually had the privilege of meeting a few of these young people that are coming up here shortly,

[0:35] and they're going to tell you what they're all about.

[0:37] But when you come, please give us your name and your address, and you have two minutes

[0:42] after you finish that.

[0:44] So miss Lisa Lopez, please come on up.

[0:48] Good evening Mayor I think council members thank you all for having us my husband and I own

[0:56] seats at Allen agency and I really wanted everyone here today along with us he's a family member

[1:02] so let you know that there's a black owned and a Latino owned talent agency representing

[1:08] professional actors models and voice over artists in Spartanburg County right there on

[1:14] in the city limits.

[1:17] We take these kids and adults and very few of them have acting credits and we train them

[1:25] and by the time it's all said and done, they're working with the major studios in the entire nation.

[1:33] Because of that, they've been able to act opposite, Clint Eastwood, Alfred Woodard, Jeremy Renner,

[1:40] on Paramount Plus, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures, stars, all of these big things, and all the

[1:48] training begins in the city of Spartanburg. So we just wanted y'all to know that this is

[1:54] here, and it's being done right here in Spartanburg. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[2:03] Just,

[2:20] we have

[2:20] actual address?

[2:21] Oh.

[2:22] Before he said, I'll send Warden, Drive, Spartan, Break, South Carolina.

[2:26] And I'd say, as one of the members of CSa, seeing what CSa has done here in the impact

[2:33] that it's had for the past seven years, going on eight in June is absolutely incredible.

[2:38] When you think about that, when I started acting, because I am a sadgafferate, TV and film actor

[2:43] within American Black Film Festival Award with credits on Netflix, Amazon, Nickelodeon,

[2:48] you know, pop charts, all of this stuff, but when we started, when I started acting, you know,

[2:53] with my family, none of that was available here in Spartanburg.

[2:57] We had to go to Los Angeles or New York or Atlanta and to see that now, because of

[3:02] the satanicency, those opportunities are being presented to the talent that's right here

[3:07] in the Upstate.

[3:07] Since I've come back from Los Angeles, I've seen a lot of people speak about retaining the talent

[3:12] that's in, you know, the Upstate and that's in Spartanburg and that's in, you know,

[3:16] this town and so I think that having places like

[3:19] sees a talent agency where, yes, they are local,

[3:21] but they work with international corporations,

[3:23] they work with Sony, Marvel, you know,

[3:26] all those people have their phone number right on tap,

[3:28] and they call on this talent more than you would expect

[3:31] or believe.

[3:32] So the fact that Stisa is here,

[3:33] I think it's absolutely mind blowing and just to see,

[3:37] you know, really with Stisa has sparked,

[3:39] as far as entertainment goes for the Upstate.

[3:41] It's incredible.

[3:42] Awesome. Thank you.

[3:45] Tara?

[3:50] Hello, my name is Tara Olenja, I live at 99B Montague Road in Greenville.

[3:57] I'm speaking not only as a parent, but also as an educator, an educator who taught through

[4:04] COVID and who had a child through COVID. Seeing how the impact of having this opportunity here,

[4:14] so close to where we live and how it's benefited my child.

[4:18] so many of our youth lost so much during COVID and being connected with

[4:25] Stisa in the positive impact and just re-igniting her passions and her goals

[4:31] and being able to connect with other like-minded children and in the

[4:38] professionalism it has made such a positive impact and I'm so grateful that I

[4:44] can make this drive from Greenville to Spartanburg and not have to go to Atlanta

[4:48] or Charlotte, or some other major cities, so I'm so excited to be a part of the

[4:54] Steeza family.

[4:55] Thank you.

[4:56] Thank you.

[4:57] Bella?

[5:03] Hi, my name is Bella Ollingerbrand.

[5:05] I live at 99 B. Montichy Road, Green Blossom, Carolina.

[5:09] What grade are you in, Bella?

[5:10] Um, ninth grade.

[5:11] Good.

[5:13] Um, I just started at Steeza, and I think it's a great opportunity for you in the

[5:21] because it's a lot of like, you know, a lot worse places for us to be in

[5:27] it's a good place to help us build our careers in network and stuff. And they're

[5:34] very friendly and professional and they make sure you feel like a part of the

[5:47] like, you're good, you're okay?

[5:49] Yeah, by firsting you to go forward and, you know, start your career at a young age.

[5:55] Thank you.

[5:56] I was, thank you.

[6:05] Popeyes, 4707 Warden Dry, Spartanburg, South Carolina.

[6:09] I just want to let you all know.

[6:10] A little bit about season, what our vision is was to bring kids and adults

[6:14] that have a dream to just come up off the couch

[6:17] And they can get trained and we can show them how show business actually works.

[6:23] One of the things we say is we bring, you know, Hollywood to Spartan Burke.

[6:28] Because I mean, it really is, we really are in Oasis in the desert here.

[6:32] There aren't many agencies like ours that do what we do.

[6:37] A lot of these kids, they work and, you know, they create a body of work and they can take that to one of the schools of the arts.

[6:45] And they can get scholarships,

[6:50] they'll learn how to work with others, discipline, memorization skills,

[6:56] just everything.

[6:57] I mean, we do so much.

[6:59] And we really take pride in using the children in the Spartanburg County to do that,

[7:03] because not everybody's in the sports.

[7:06] So there is an outlet for these folks who have a dream,

[7:10] and we can put it all together with them.

[7:12] Thank you.

[7:13] Thank you.

[7:15] Alia?

[7:18] My name is Aliaway. I live at 4 so if you're alive.

[7:24] I want to tell you.

[7:26] I'm in 4th grade.

[7:27] Go ahead.

[7:30] I want to tell you my story. When I was at least 4, I always looked at the TV and said, Mom, I want to be on

[7:38] there one day. And soon as we found about, as found out about this, my mom got me straight into it. At first, I was a bit shy, and I didn't

[7:47] really want to talk to anybody. But when I got a little bit more into it, I was a lot more social and for my first show, it's called

[7:57] shop, it's not out yet, but I really thought it was like a great opportunity and I'm glad

[8:06] I have Miss Lisa and my mom and my family, which is the CISA family, thank you.

[8:11] Thank you.

[8:14] You're not shy anymore. Awesome, awesome. And I think Councilwoman Lodajon

[8:21] I love your shoes.

[8:24] I'll leave, no, we just add a link.

[8:27] Andrew,

[8:30] and I met you on yesterday.

[8:35] Oh, my name is Andrew Howell.

[8:36] I live at 8 o'clock in the Northgate

[8:38] and be records in Warsaw, Carolina.

[8:42] I am an eighth grader, a hyphenicademy,

[8:44] and I'm here to, and I am here with Cecilia Hc to express

[8:48] my excitement of what they've done for me.

[8:51] Cecilia has opened the door for me

[8:52] that would never be closed.

[8:54] Being with this wonderful Hc,

[8:55] I have been able to be in a TV series on Paramount Plus, commercials, and short films.

[9:01] I am so glad to see the growth in the arts, in Spartan-Bershuck Carolina, and I know we

[9:06] have greater things coming.

[9:07] Again, my name is Andrew Habwell, and thank you.

[9:09] Thank you.

[9:26] Burke, 2108 Cigraz Meal Road, Old Georgia,

[9:32] I've been active since 2010, I was roughly

[9:35] 18 years old at the time, I've worked with Tyler Perry, Donald Sullivan, Helen Mayor

[9:41] Jonah Hill, Vince Vaughan, a lot of other people I'm probably forgetting, but I got an agent

[9:47] roughly 10 years ago in that line of area and it's nothing like this agency. This is

[9:53] a hands-on, it's the mother and uncle I never had in this industry. Like normally an agent

[10:00] you can't call them, you can't text them, you email them and wait and hope to hear back,

[10:06] But it'll not be a stupid question, that's not like that with these people. They're like family that I've never knew that I was meant to be with

[10:14] And they will get on me when I mess up

[10:17] They are hurt me when I do good. I am extremely grateful to be part of the South Carolina film

[10:25] Tell the vision. Thank you. Was that two minutes?

[10:31] You know, you good, thank you, Bird Madison, we appreciate you making that dry.

[10:38] And before we move on, Lisa and Stephen, thank you guys.

[10:43] I was invited out one Saturday morning, that's what got them here, and they just showed

[10:48] me a little bit of what they did.

[10:50] We had a quick little bird blur to Tyler Perry.

[10:55] They were actually sitting tied up Tyler Perry some information and they actually put the mayor in the middle of it

[11:01] I hope I didn't mess anything up. I definitely didn't speak

[11:04] But just thank you. Thank you for what you guys have done for this community. We really do appreciate it. Thank you

[11:12] Yes, yes, yes, yes,

[11:20] yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, we've been all we have a chance to abroad.

[11:33] Good afternoon. Good evening

[11:35] Mayor council

[11:37] city staff, Mitch Kennedy, Chris Story, Jamie Sally, just for you.

[11:47] Back in January, I spoke about Robert Smalls and I haven't eaten, we still have the same

[11:51] issue.

[11:52] 160 units without heat.

[11:55] That's not data that I was presented to Jerome Rice on February 1st at 10.49 a.m.

[12:02] message. I know Chris Stortman said it's one unit, it's multiple units, it's

[12:09] followed the issue. I'll dress back on last council meeting. When will we have a set

[12:15] down with the owner and a developer as a whole? We need that. You promise me that in

[12:20] January, we still haven't got that

[12:25] done. Okay, thank you, sir. We usually don't give

[12:31] responses to these, but the meeting that's coming up March 7th with the 10th is that Robert

[12:38] Smaller saw throughout the day.

[12:42] Mitch, go ahead.

[12:43] If you don't mind.

[12:43] Miss Kennedy.

[12:47] Our community really self is working with the management and ownership of Robert Smaller's

[12:51] and there is a schedule from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

[12:55] Based upon your building number, you will have opportunity to meet directly with members

[13:00] of city team, the United Way team,

[13:03] police department, service providers,

[13:05] ownership, about Robert Smalls.

[13:08] And this is an opportunity for us to really provide

[13:12] a broader context to opportunities

[13:13] for those residents that are there.

[13:15] Thank you, sir.

[13:16] Mr. LeBronz, and we definitely don't try to take this lightly,

[13:20] this situation, but we're doing all we can.

[13:23] Thank you, thank you for your comments

[13:24] and keeping us abreast of what's happening.

[13:28] Now we have an item 6, Sponberg high school class of 1973 special presentation.

[13:41] Let's go white, moving a little slow back there.

[13:55] Good afternoon.

[13:56] I still had to put a jayman.

[13:58] Come on up, class of 73.

[13:59] Come on up.

[14:40] Yep, just A at the mic so everybody can hear it.

[14:42] Go go into the mic.

[14:47] Good afternoon, everyone.

[14:49] My name is Richard Schryppelin and we are here at Rutgers in the class of

[14:54] Sponere High School, class of 1973, in a...

[15:01] Just had our reunion, okay.

[15:09] So in honor that we here today to recognize the classmate of ours, you know, we're going to present this award to Ms. K. Lombrandon. She was first by Merit City firefighter. This is K. First female firefighter. First African American firefighter.

[15:34] We're a her career high-lice include five-fighter, five-captum, sergeant in Lieutenant.

[15:42] Okay, Ms. Brown and she service farmers said it in his, in his, in his, in his

[15:47] residence for 23 years, all we lead by examples in respect, in this is from his

[15:53] primary house to the class of 73.

[16:24] Thank you.

[16:25] Thank you.

[16:26] Thank you.

[16:29] Ms. Long, and before you go to your seat, thank you for your time.

[16:34] your service and what you've done for Spartanburg. I know you retired quite some time ago and

[16:39] you enjoy your retirement. I see you and your family back in the back there but we know that

[16:46] you also have an honor coming up as well with the Southside Cultural Memorial that will be going

[16:54] up as well. So I know your pitch will be there. So congratulations to you. Congratulations again to

[17:01] 1973 go Vikings also

[17:32] to anyone that you know you're more than welcome to stay

[17:37] and I'm not by any means letting you guys kicking you out but if our young

[17:41] people need to go home and get some homework done

[17:45] you just ruined it for me thank

[17:57] you thank you thank you thank

[18:08] you

[18:08] I mean, come on now.

[18:10] Come on.

[18:11] I'm gonna get this thing, because we're gonna go right into item seven.

[18:18] Item seven, we have the word relief.

[18:20] Upstate, South Carolina presentation Mr. Brandon.

[18:25] Bond, director.

[18:27] Just give him a couple more minutes, Brandon, please.

[18:30] Mr. Abuse after you're more than welcome the state.

[19:16] Mayor Rice and Council Member Scrapey here.

[19:19] And just really appreciate you inviting world-releaved presence.

[19:22] And my name is Brandon Bonne and I am director for World Relief Upstate South Carolina, and I just want to share today about a growing community in Spartanburg, one that is often

[19:34] that the broader communities not aware of, and just want to share a little bit about who they are, where they're coming from, and then the services that we provide at World Relief, but also this support that Spartanburg County has been providing to this community.

[19:46] So, at World Relief, we believe in welcoming the stranger, we believe in, you know, as those who are coming from overseas immigrants and refugees are coming here, we are here to really walk alongside them and to really mobilize the community to kind of come alongside them and help them integrate into life here.

[20:08] Our office opened actually in Spartanburg and around 2015, we moved more recently to Greenville,

[20:16] where we're based out of now, but we do continue to settle, we'll see some numbers on who's coming to Spartanburg specifically.

[20:24] But when we talk about refugees, I do like to just kind of make sure we're talking about, we're on the same page about who we're talking about.

[20:31] It's a very specific group of immigrants within the broader immigrant community.

[20:35] And it's a group that meets a definition that was set in 1951, and it is someone who is unable

[20:43] or unwilling to return to their country of origin, because of a well-founded fear of being

[20:48] persecuted.

[20:49] About something about who they are, so their identity, something they cannot easily change.

[20:53] That typically falls within these categories of their race, their religion, nationality, membership

[21:00] of a particular social group, or political opinion.

[21:02] So when we talk about refugees, again, we're talking about people who fit this definition, but also for those coming to the United States, we're talking about a group of people that have gone through a specific process.

[21:14] So we do often make the distinction between those who have come and are seeking asylum at the border. This would be a different category of immigrant.

[21:22] These are individuals who typically are in a border country. We'll see some of the quick facts around who refugees are.

[21:29] But those who have gone through that refugee journey, initially they flee their home country,

[21:34] typically by foot, they go to a border country, and then they'll apply it to the UN,

[21:38] or the group within the UN that works with refugees.

[21:41] And that begins this very long journey where in the beginning they don't actually know where they will end up.

[21:47] They have no idea if they will get to the United States or they'll get to a different country,

[21:51] or if they may never be resettled at all.

[21:53] And so that during that process, then they go through the UNHCR, they get referred if they're

[21:59] selected, they will be referred to the United States and then USCIS will kind of oversee

[22:04] that vetting process and that background check while they're still overseas.

[22:09] If they clear that and they're approved, then the United States will invite them to come

[22:13] into the United States as a refugee.

[22:15] So those are the individuals that we're talking about.

[22:17] Those are the primarily the individuals that world relief works with here in the United States.

[22:24] Just one, some of the facts that people are not necessarily aware of when talking about the broader globe.

[22:30] Global refugee crisis, but 85% of refugees are in countries that do border. So, I used to work in Pakistan.

[22:38] And a lot of the refugees that come out of Afghanistan end up in places like Pakistan.

[22:43] So, we do get some here in the United States, but the numbers are quite insignificant compared to those who are in those border countries.

[22:50] 78% of refugees are independent.

[22:53] We often have pictures of refugees who are in these kind of refugee camps run by UNHCR

[22:59] different agencies, but the reality is that those refugees who do flee their home country

[23:05] tend to have to kind of work their own way through those transition countries and make their

[23:10] own way in that journey.

[23:12] And then roughly half a percent are resettled to a final destination country.

[23:16] So right now there's over 30 million refugees in the world.

[23:19] those who have been displaced by war, conflict, and war persecuted, and of that number every year,

[23:25] less than half a percent get to a place like the United States where they can actually have a long-term

[23:30] kind of opportunity for citizenship, resettlement, and setting up a new life.

[23:38] Over 50% of refugees globally are children. We definitely see that in the families that come in.

[23:44] will often have larger families, will have families of eight or nine even where there are many

[23:50] children under the age of 18. And so a big part of what we do is helping them with education

[23:54] getting them connected to schools here in Spartanburg. A lot of times people are kind of curious

[24:00] like who are refugees but also what is that process that journey that I just showed you how long

[24:05] that typically take? And so one of the groups that we work with quite a bit are refugees from the

[24:14] and look at their case and their file

[24:16] and see how long they've been in this process.

[24:18] So from the point where they flee their country

[24:20] to the point where they get here,

[24:21] fly into the Greenville Spartan Brewer Airport

[24:23] and have the opportunity to establish home

[24:25] is on average over 10 years.

[24:27] So during that time, they're going through background checks

[24:29] and vetting before they arrive.

[24:32] And then once they arrive,

[24:33] that's when they're actually finally

[24:34] for the first time able to really look towards their future.

[24:37] And then the primary countries that come into the United States

[24:41] and we see some of these populations

[24:42] coming into Spartanburg as well would be the Democratic Republic Congo, this is, you know,

[24:48] since between 2017 and 2022. There's also many coming in from Burma. We've seen an increase

[24:54] in Burmese refugees coming in to Greenville in Spartanburg. You crane. There's a lot of

[25:00] Ukrainians as you are very well aware who have come in recently since the war that broke out.

[25:04] We do support and work with them as well. These Ukrainians that come through the refugee pipeline

[25:09] are in a slightly different category, they're typically persecuted for their faith as Christians.

[25:15] And then we also have, and this is to the United States, these are not numbers for the

[25:18] upstate, but to the United States would be also Syrians and Afghans.

[25:24] So what does that mean for the upstate and those that are coming in through our office specifically?

[25:29] So this fiscal year, so the year resettlement year follows an October to September calendar.

[25:36] This fiscal year, the administration has set a cap of 125,000 refugees to come in the United States.

[25:43] And that is going to be a much higher number than we have done as a country in recent years.

[25:49] And so we are looking at a record number for those coming into the UF State through our office.

[25:54] And that will be about 325 for this year.

[25:57] Already we've seen where we have traveled booked for 187 individuals coming here.

[26:02] We see that many of them in a growing number actually coming from Central and South America.

[26:08] This is because of the administration's policies and kind of a shift in focus from some

[26:12] other countries that have been the primary focus in years past.

[26:15] But we still have many coming from Asia, so that would be a lot of Burmese, Rohingya and Karin

[26:21] speaking refugees coming in.

[26:23] Many coming in from Africa, the majority from Africa would be from the Democratic Republic

[26:27] Congo and these are typically going again to be Christians that have been persecuted for

[26:32] elements of their faith or political persecution as well.

[26:37] Mina or the Middle East North Africa region and kind of having people come in from that

[26:42] part of the country and then eastern Europe as well. Again for eastern Europe is going to

[26:46] primarily be Ukrainians and people from those slotted countries. And where are they end up

[26:57] we've resettled for this year, you can see that we have a pretty even breakdown between Greenville

[27:03] and Spartanburg, with about 26% in Spartanburg proper, but then also in boiling springs.

[27:10] We have 14%.

[27:11] We do have some, not too many, we do have some that end up leaving the state to go to a different

[27:16] place where they have family or others that might be able to support them as well.

[27:20] So these are the individuals that we are serving and where we're placing them.

[27:26] The role of world relief in this process and actually a resettlement agency, we don't handle the vetting the background, that's handled by USCIS and different ones.

[27:35] But we are the organization we partner with the federal government in this program and they notify us when they're going to be coming in and we'll meet them at the airport and then we'll help them kind of become established and integrate into the community here in these nine different sectors.

[27:48] And so we really focus on affordable housing, we focus on access to health care, access to education in employment.

[27:56] These are kind of the big areas that we work in, although we are providing supports in different ways, as well.

[28:04] And then, let's see here.

[28:07] I think, so we do have one of our main programs is a 90-day program, but then we also have wrap around services for them as well.

[28:15] But at the center of this is the support of employment services.

[28:21] So in Spartanburg, specifically, we have a lot of great partners.

[28:24] We have groups like Tytex, a contact that are partnering with us, and they actually do tend

[28:30] to come to us.

[28:31] A lot of times people will ask if it's hard to find a refugee a job.

[28:34] The reality is that we rarely have to make cool calls, typically businesses come to us and

[28:38] ask if we have anyone that can fill these openings in their companies.

[28:42] We also work with a lot of the school districts.

[28:44] We have an education specialist who works with a lot of school districts.

[28:47] We have a lot of people in school districts, six and seven here, where they've been really supportive of the refugee children that we're bringing in,

[28:54] meeting with the parents, helping them navigate that really difficult process.

[28:58] And then we are a faith-based organization, so we are a Christian organization, so we have a lot of church partners here as well.

[29:04] Groups like First Baptist, First Pres, Westminster, where they are coming alongside and they'll help us by providing volunteers,

[29:11] by providing funding. And that's really when we get excited when we see that community

[29:15] created where those who are here who are established in the community are able to

[29:20] welcome them support them and then help them learn how to integrate here. So those are the

[29:25] services that we're providing in Spartanburg. Some of the challenges that we do face in that

[29:30] refugees face are not unique to just them, but they do have a difficulty in accessing affordable

[29:35] housing, which seems to be more and more distant for a lot of people in America, but that

[29:41] is definitely the case also for refugees who are coming in. Also transportation is difficult

[29:47] when they come in, they can actually take a driver's test for six months after they arrive and so

[29:51] to get them to work and to just get those basic things covered, can be a huge obstacle to that.

[29:57] and so we work with different partners to be able to meet.

[30:00] That need and support them. That's what we're doing. In one of the ways that we would love for more participation, we do have quarterly meetings, consultations.

[30:10] These are required by PRM, our federal partner. But there are also ways where we find we're able to share the word about who's coming in, who are these new individuals coming in to Spartanburg and Greenville, how can different sectors and communities support them, how can we make needs known.

[30:27] And so we would love to add anyone to that email list for those invites.

[30:31] They happen every three months.

[30:33] They're virtual meetings, so they're easy to kind of plug into, so if anyone is ever interested

[30:37] in joining those and learning more about what's going on in the community here amongst refugees,

[30:42] we would love to have you.

[30:44] Thank you.

[30:46] Any questions?

[30:47] Mr. Mayor.

[30:48] Thank you, Brandon, for coming back in 2015 when Spartanburg first became a refugee site,

[30:56] of first refugee lived with my family for a summer.

[30:59] And we had a wonderful time getting to know him.

[31:02] He was from the DRC.

[31:04] So this is a topic very close to my heart.

[31:07] And I think Spark worked as a good job in talking

[31:10] about equity and racial equity.

[31:12] And I think sometimes we can expand that conversation

[31:17] beyond what it traditionally has been to include newcomers

[31:22] to our country and language barriers.

[31:24] and all of the type of things that this particular population faces, two questions for you.

[31:32] How many since 2015, would you say, are living here in the upstair?

[31:38] I know many have become naturalized and are citizens now.

[31:41] And then the second question is, how can we, as a council, or as a city, better advocate,

[31:47] or support you all in serving refugees here?

[31:51] Yeah, absolutely.

[31:53] So we've had about, we're seeing an increase every year currently under the current administration

[31:57] every year.

[31:59] Last year, it was about 225 this year through 125 individuals coming in to the upstate.

[32:04] There is, it should, I would like to know, there is another agency, Lutheran services.

[32:08] They're not, they've just rebranded it to global refuge, I believe.

[32:11] They also are a resettlement agency and they're apart, like we work in collaboration with

[32:15] them.

[32:16] They'll be seeing this year about 300 individuals coming in.

[32:19] and they work from Anderson across through Spartanburg as well.

[32:23] And so this year alone, we'll probably see around 600 to 650 individuals coming in.

[32:30] This is not include the 400 or so Ukrainians that will be supporting through our temporary services.

[32:38] These are individuals that are not here long-term as refugees, the plan is for them to go back,

[32:42] but we do provide services for them here as well. So over a thousand for this year,

[32:46] In terms of arrivals, since we first opened, I would say probably we're going to about

[32:52] 16,700 total, we'll probably cross 2,000 here in the near future for that.

[33:00] And these are, again, individuals that come with permanent legal status, there isn't any

[33:04] possibility of them being returned.

[33:06] And so integration into local communities is always that goal.

[33:09] And so the support of, you know, you all, and just, even that awareness a lot of times when

[33:15] We mentioned that we work with refugees.

[33:16] The first reaction is, oh, I didn't know there were refugees here in Spartanburg.

[33:20] So just that awareness and being able to share in certain circles and communities that

[33:24] this is a growing population, not huge by some standards, but it is a growing population.

[33:30] So just that awareness and being able to advocate for them in school systems and in businesses

[33:34] and in faith groups around here to support.

[33:38] Yeah.

[33:38] One more thing.

[33:40] Our entire police leadership is sitting right behind you, and they're going to present after it's not to put them on a spot.

[33:48] But if there's any opportunities to better collaborate with our police department,

[33:53] I know that they would welcome the opportunity as I'm sure many of refugees don't have a positive relationship,

[34:04] that may be with law enforcement in their country,

[34:07] their fleeing from.

[34:09] And I know there's a lot of cultural differences.

[34:12] And so if we can ever best support you

[34:14] in whether it's language access or helping them understand

[34:17] how do you call 911, what does that look like?

[34:21] I'm volunteering our police department.

[34:24] I'm going to go like this.

[34:25] What do you think?

[34:26] But we would love, in these quarterly meetings also,

[34:29] would love to just invite you as well.

[34:31] We have, I believe we have Greenville Police Department

[34:33] represented, we would love to have Spartan Burke as well. One of the groups that we are really

[34:39] wanting to be intentional with for many of the reasons that you just said is local law enforcement.

[34:44] And we've had local law enforcement come to certain events just to be able to meet and

[34:48] greet and to kind of show them that, hey, we're here to support and encourage where

[34:52] their experience, where they were coming from, that group may have been the one targeting them.

[34:56] And so it is, there is that obstacle, but we've found that they're quite receptive, just once they

[35:01] I've had that, you know, friendly face and have a chance to interact on that level.

[35:06] Yeah.

[35:06] Awesome.

[35:07] Any other questions of Brendan?

[35:10] Brendan, I just want to thank you for your presentation and thank you for what

[35:13] you do what we're really, as it is for definitely needed and as we move forward, we are.

[35:17] We are here to help in any way we can.

[35:19] I appreciate that.

[35:20] And thanks again for having us.

[35:21] We appreciate that.

[35:22] Thank you, sir.

[35:26] Item 8 Presentation from the Spumber Police Department, Crime Stats, Updates and Presentation,

[35:34] Chief Alomso Thompson, as well as Deputy Chief Jennifer Kendall.

[35:40] Thank you, good evening to all of you.

[35:43] Good evening.

[35:44] I'm not Chief Alomso Thompson.

[35:46] I saw you getting up, but he is going to be the closer this evening.

[35:52] And I'm going to open by going through the stats and my challenge to each of you as we go through the data is that you look at it with the intent of helping us identify ways that we can enhance safety and livability in our city.

[36:14] And the chief will echo again to you that safety is whose responsibility?

[36:21] everyone.

[36:22] Exactly.

[36:23] So, thank you.

[36:26] We are here to talk about our 2023 crime data.

[36:32] And so, we're going to start by looking at the 27 years of benchmark prize.

[36:40] And we show you this slide because we want you to get the overall picture,

[36:45] the broad picture of the decline of criminal incidents overall in our city.

[36:53] And this shows you what has been happening for the past 27 years.

[36:58] Although you will see that there was a slight uptick last year in some areas not all.

[37:08] When we talk about the 27 years of benchmark crimes,

[37:12] We want to talk about violent crimes and other crimes against persons, and then this slide

[37:21] shows you the comparison of the reported incidents, the number of incidents, how they

[37:29] I'm here.

[37:30] That each other, the crimes, the within persons crimes, compared to other persons crime.

[37:40] As we look at our 27 years, we also should look at shoplifting, deaf from vehicles and other property crimes, and you will see what the trends have been over the 27 years for that.

[37:58] When we talk about our 10 years of index crimes, and this really is the number that most people

[38:07] look to see, and they want to understand, and they want to talk about, as I mentioned our index crimes,

[38:14] we had a slight uptick in 2023, 3% over above the 10 year average and from 2021 to 2022 we had 59 fewer reported incidents and then from 2022 to 2023 the uptick was 254 reported incidents.

[38:41] One additional list too many, we want to work to reduce those numbers, as always, and we encourage everyone in our community to think of ways and to embrace ways that we can not only make ourselves safer, but our community as a whole.

[39:03] There is a density map.

[39:07] As you look at the density map, 88% of all index crimes are property crimes.

[39:14] And 21% of those index crimes were shoplifting.

[39:19] And I know it will not surprise you because we've told you year after year after year,

[39:25] that there are two areas in our city when we talk about property crimes,

[39:29] that creates the density, the areas near the Dorman Center, and the Walmart Shop and Center

[39:37] on East Main Street, and I can remember probably 10 years ago, a saying we have to recognize

[39:45] that Spartanburg is a destination, and I think we say this probably in every presentation,

[39:53] what community our size has as many wallmarks as we do.

[40:00] Some folks built it and guess what?

[40:02] They came.

[40:03] They came.

[40:04] And chief and then I'm glad not deputy chief to that point.

[40:10] And just since even 97,

[40:14] the shot lift in his pretty much

[40:16] stay consistent throughout is just an opportunity because of those.

[40:22] I don't, ESA didn't come in night before 97 did it.

[40:26] The long long.

[40:26] They came after.

[40:27] Dormon Center was there first, and then I built a one under ESA.

[40:31] And now we have the one, the C-dismorting.

[40:35] But those locations continue to be generators of our incident reports for shoplifting incidents.

[40:46] But later on, in the presentation, you're going to see we're going to talk about, and

[40:50] And I know you always look for it to this slide

[40:53] where we talk about where do our arrestees come from.

[40:56] And we'll talk about that, just shortly.

[40:59] When we look at the 10 years of crime against property,

[41:03] property crimes for 20, 23 were 4% above the 10-year average.

[41:17] Violet crimes.

[41:20] No one wants their community to be plagued by incidents

[41:24] of Violet crimes.

[41:25] But they happen everywhere and so last year our violent crimes were down 11.2% below the

[41:38] 10-year average for 2023 we were up 1% compared to the 10-year average and that equated

[41:50] to 34 additional incidents, then we're reported last year.

[41:57] Approximately 75% of our violent crimes reported violent crimes

[42:03] were aggravated assault, 61% percent involved in a

[42:09] large involvement of a firearm, and that's critically important

[42:15] because later on we're going to talk about those firearms.

[42:18] Councilwoman Smith and 18% of those incidents involve domestic violence or an incident

[42:29] of often child abuse or neglect and you ask, where are the hotspots? The areas near

[42:37] the intersections of waffered street and Baltimore street and crescent avenue and

[42:43] in Pine Needle Drive.

[42:45] That's the generators of the density.

[42:50] Firearms, stolen firearms.

[42:53] This slide shows you the number of reported incidents

[42:58] and the categories where firearms were reported stolen

[43:03] in reports.

[43:05] There were a total of 139 reported.

[43:09] And I stress reported because oftentimes,

[43:12] Irresponsible gun owners don't know that their firearms have been stolen and that's that.

[43:23] So 76 of the 139 were taken from vehicles and I always say they were giveaways and 86% of those incidents based on the information and the investigation

[43:40] once the officers arrived on the scene showed no signs of forced entry. So the question is,

[43:48] why are we giving guns away? So we have to be responsible gun owners. 78 were reported in 2022

[43:59] and 81% of those showed no signs of forced entry. So let's talk just briefly about workflow

[44:09] what work flow does, you get the monthly report every month, I believe that shows you the work flow.

[44:17] And this is to help you get an understanding of how are we spending our time.

[44:24] And when the chief comes, he's going to talk about some of the data that we're looking at now

[44:29] and offer some suggestions as to what are some things that we can do to free up some of this time

[44:36] so that officers have more time, more non-directed time to spend in our neighborhoods.

[44:46] We had 84,000 over 84,000 dispatches from the communication center,

[44:55] and some of those involved multiple officers.

[45:00] Sir's being dispatched to one particular incident. And then there were 77, almost 78,000 cadvents. The other

[45:11] thing I want you to look at that box that's highlighted in yellow in the top right-hand corner.

[45:17] Officers issued 2,391 warnings to individuals. There were 4,425 citations. That

[45:28] issued, they conducted field interviews, they signed a restaurant and they arrested individuals

[45:37] for outstanding arrest warrants and we do a ton of writing when you look at the supplemental

[45:44] reports.

[45:49] When we talk about when reports so when calls for service to take in place, look back,

[45:58] look back at our 2022 numbers and the time that they were reported compared to 2023, it's a

[46:09] little bit later in the day in 2023 than it was in 2022 and you see that the day of the

[46:20] that crimes are most reported is on a Friday.

[46:25] Wednesdays was the highest date last year when we did the report.

[46:33] Accident calls, collisions, something that's very prevalent on all of our minds,

[46:41] and I will say this to you.

[46:43] The state of South Carolina, the upstate, not just Spartanburg, many, many collisions, too many.

[46:53] And I will tell you, we all get excited when we get grants, right?

[46:57] We have a traffic grant.

[46:59] And we continue to get that traffic grant because we're a high-crash area.

[47:04] And there are some things that each of us individually we need to do to address this issue.

[47:10] But the good thing is, most of the equival accidents were down 3% below the 5-year average.

[47:24] Calls for service as it relates to psychological calls, there were 13% above the 5-year average.

[47:33] So that's very telling about what's going on in our community.

[47:37] We were at 722 of those calls that we could identify last year, I mean in 2022 and 775 for 2023.

[47:50] And we're going to talk about, or Chief Thompson is going to talk about some meaningful partnerships,

[47:55] some things that are being done, hopefully to better equip our officers to deal with these types of calls.

[48:03] And hopefully we get to a point where we're able to do some things, engage in some strategies that are impactful,

[48:11] where we're not constantly dealing with the same individuals over and over again.

[48:16] And that's what we see.

[48:21] Homelessness, something else that's very prevalent on everyone's mind.

[48:26] We're very concerned about what's going on in terms of the state of homelessness in our community.

[48:32] Our calls for homeless individuals were 41% above the five year average, as you can see from the slide that I haven't shown you yet, or did I pass it?

[48:49] There it is, my apologies.

[48:51] It increased from 405 to 6 calls in 2022 to 695 calls in 2023.

[49:03] And oftentimes I will tell you when officers respond to these calls.

[49:08] They are faced with the question of the dilemma of,

[49:12] what can I do to not put this person in jail?

[49:16] Because we recognize that jail is not the best solution when we're dealing with these individuals.

[49:24] But unfortunately, due to an apparent lack of resources oftentimes, it is when we charge them with public disorderly conduct or some low-level misdemeanor to deal with the issue at hand, but it does not solve the problem.

[49:51] Narcan. Why do we include this information? We continue to include information about our

[49:58] officers use of Narcan because we recognize this is something that's critically important.

[50:06] Narcan

[50:06] has been a blessing for many people in this community. By the same token, it can create

[50:15] a very impactful situation for officers and you think about an officer responding to a call

[50:25] where they have to deploy Narcan and they're successful in eating and helping that person

[50:33] to live through that incident and then a few days later they go back and it's the same person

[50:39] Again, a few days pass and they go back again and sometimes they're not able to aid in

[50:47] life-saving efforts for that individual.

[50:51] So we are very thankful that our officers have Narcan at their disposal, but we do want

[50:59] to see the need to use it, reduce significantly in our community and that's going to involve

[51:06] of a holistic approach to addressing the issues.

[51:13] Over the five years of data that we looked at

[51:17] where we have used our officers have used NARCAN,

[51:22] 50% on the side are the types of calls

[51:26] that the officers have responded to.

[51:30] Three point one, it may have come out

[51:32] is a report and information report.

[51:36] they couldn't, the caller perhaps could not identify a specific crime that had occurred

[51:41] and we respond and then we end up writing an information report and the accidental overdose

[51:48] 50.4 percent. That's a high number and as I indicated previously, sometimes these individuals

[51:58] die and you see the death numbers at 25.8 percent.

[52:08] Benchmark often says when we talk about juvenile custody, we've had some discussion about the impact of juvenile arrest on our resources, the chief will talk some about that, I believe, but in 2023, 61.3%.

[52:30] Of the juveniles that we took into custody were residents of our city, 38.7% were non-residents. And what that says, and we've said this before, they are typically, they typically have fewer resources to get around and to expand where the area, where they're going, the areas where they're going to.

[53:00] But, I would be remiss if I did not mention that recently we are seeing.

[53:08] They can travel, they are traveling, because they're installing vehicles.

[53:14] And so when we leave that car in the driveway to warm up, because it's cold and icy outside,

[53:22] that's a giveaway.

[53:23] When we leave the keys in the car, that's a giveaway.

[53:30] When you look at Major Little John often says,

[53:34] How does someone with today's modern day technology steal a new car?

[53:40] Well, I like to leave my key file in the car.

[53:45] You do?

[53:46] So, there are some things that we can do to address these juveniles in these stolen cars.

[53:54] When we look at these numbers in 2022, 53.2% of our juveniles who were taken into custody were residents and 64.8 were non-residents.

[54:09] When we talk about the adults and the adults that are arrested in our community, 40.65 are residents.

[54:21] 51.30% are non-residents of the city.

[54:27] Spartanburg is a destination.

[54:32] And 2022, 308.8% of those adult arrestis were residents, and 54.1% were non-residents.

[54:46] So those are our numbers for 2023.

[54:50] I will say to you, we are would be happy if any of you would like to sit down and drill down

[54:57] to the numbers a little deeper and look at some additional information.

[55:02] Please notify the story of that and we will be happy to accommodate you.

[55:07] Now it is my pleasure to turn it over to Chief Thompson and he will conclude this presentation

[55:13] by discussing some focus areas and some opportunities for 2024 and then will entertain any

[55:21] questions that you may have.

[55:23] Thank you.

[55:24] Thank you, Deputy Chief.

[55:30] Excuse me, I need to leave you, sir.

[55:33] On the way, I'm just saying which council it is always a privilege and a pleasure

[55:37] to come speak before you.

[55:39] On the first of this month, it brought my 10th year anniversary, and it's been on the

[55:43] dessert, the citizens of this beloved city, and to serve you all and all that has worked

[55:48] along with me at the PD, to have had our lowest crime in years.

[55:53] We've had our 10 lowest crime years, and we're proud of that fact, and this something I didn't

[55:57] do alone, obviously.

[55:58] So, I first have to give tremendous gratitude to those that have worked alongside with me

[56:04] both sworn and civilian and on PD.

[56:07] I also like to think the council's the president as well as the pass who supported us

[56:13] and I endeavors, but I'm more important I need to really think the citizens, because it takes

[56:19] their involvement, their caring, their concern to help make our cities safer.

[56:26] It's one of those things I've been saying since the day I was sworn in, the public safety

[56:29] is an entire community's responsibility, with a tip of the spear, but the spear is

[56:34] only as good as the shaft upon which it sets, and we have a strong foundation in our city

[56:38] for future growth.

[56:40] A lot has happened in the short period of time.

[56:43] As you can tell from the data that was just shown, they have been uptick, well we've had

[56:48] uptick in our population, both in that intention, it's moving into the high rises and the

[56:55] that we've had next, but also in our homeless population. So I do not anticipate that trend.

[57:02] This continuum I think it will increase. We will still be a draw. We will help people more

[57:06] coming. Which is what we want. We want our city to grow, but with it we'll come growing pains.

[57:11] You mentioned earlier in there about how to shop this to this kind of state static.

[57:16] It's kind of a good thing because some of our partners in the business world are taking greater action

[57:20] an effort in working with us to try to maintain or keep that shrinkage to a lower level

[57:25] where it's not spiking despite the growth of the people that are moving into the city

[57:29] and those who come and take part or shop in our areas of our wallmarks and our balls and

[57:35] we'll have even though unfortunately our malls like a lot in the country are shrinking and not

[57:39] having as much patriotish. But with all that being said again, I can just say that there's no

[57:46] success that we have had, or currently having a will have without the collaboration of all of

[57:51] us.

[57:51] We'll never have 100% of everything or everybody participating, but we have to have enough,

[57:56] and I'll tell you there's more than enough in our city, and things done in the positive way

[58:01] and the proof is already there with the growth that we've been experiencing.

[58:05] I would like to highlight a few things that when our crime analysts and the co-conz drill down

[58:10] numbers, just want to say 17% of the CAD events that we have, or we had last year, 17% of

[58:20] our time was on 9-1-1 hangups. Oftentimes this may be children playing on the phone, or even

[58:26] the door's calling, and then changing their mind, and then the hangup, and we're trying

[58:29] to figure out what's widening will find out from maybe the phone call where it isn't will

[58:34] hear that sense that way. But when it's done accidentally, and people on Barris, they won't

[58:39] But I really wish they were still online so they can let 911 know that everything is okay

[58:44] and it was accidental or everything is good.

[58:46] And if there's something going on, we're going to see a combo.

[58:48] We detect that the person may be forced to say that, we'll still respond.

[58:53] But if we have the accidental or the intentional playfulness on the 911,

[58:57] please let's try to do what we can to discourage that because we need to have those

[59:02] officers that we have available to be available for calls when we really need it.

[59:07] Another thing that really consumes a tremendous amount of time from the data show to collisions, over 28% of the incident reports that we wrote last year, pertaining to traffic crashes.

[59:19] Now it's one of those things that wish people were at 15 minutes to their schedules, to leave a little earlier, say they don't feel rushed to speed or to run red light from things along those slimes.

[59:30] And but it's our driving behavior and our need for speed I guess to get to where we're going

[59:37] and sometimes at the expense of others and put others at risk.

[59:41] But again we have to change that behavior, traffic enforcement could have an impact.

[59:46] We've talked about some futuristic things that haven't been developed.

[59:49] We had to look at using perhaps some technology but I will say that I would love to be able

[59:56] to get our staff from levels to the point where we can do.

[1:00:00] Increase our traffic uniform for to eight. And where we get the cars that we buy, we have an upfitted with radar units.

[1:00:07] Or light our radar on their speed measure devices. And each car that we buy. But I want to have officers trained to use those units.

[1:00:14] And hopefully come up with some other means of freeing up a valuable time, where we can run radar in those areas, engage in speed and force them to slow people down on some of those troubled fights.

[1:00:24] to reduce the crashes, to property, damage, to personal injury, and yes, to death.

[1:00:31] Fifth percent of the theft from vehicles is already reported, and this is all theft,

[1:00:36] not just the guns, but over fifth percent of the vehicles that are broken to show no signs of

[1:00:42] force entry. And believe it or not, 42 percent of those homes that are regularized. Show no signs of

[1:00:48] for people leaving doors unlocked when there's a lot of access points, and I just ask that

[1:00:55] all citizens to please secure that belongings, especially the firearms, the persons that

[1:01:00] wallets their keys, anything of that you like your doors and you want them on your homes,

[1:01:05] your garages, sprinkles coming to your storage building, we'll become targets of attack

[1:01:09] for the laundry equipment and things along those lines that you keep in it, so,

[1:01:18] and if

[1:01:18] really simply say for whatever that's home, security devices that have some nice

[1:01:23] cameras with high resolutions that I would ask that you consider buying. And it's

[1:01:29] one of those things without real-time crime center and we have if you're willing to

[1:01:34] share that video in the and the benefit of incident in your neighborhood of some

[1:01:38] suspicious we can tie in to that and maybe we're using some of the technology

[1:01:43] we have to determine who our perpetrators are. So that's an opportunity for us. But

[1:01:47] When I look at all those just those three categories, and I add the last one of you, that's really kind of taxing or straining the manpower right now, but we're still finding ways to get it done, but this past year we have been tasked with transporting juveniles back and forth to different DJJ facilities all over the state.

[1:02:08] I'm talking to the coast and back. Matter of fact, we have a couple of units leaving tonight to go pick up juveniles that need to be back here in the morning.

[1:02:16] And we may end up having to take them back.

[1:02:19] So between people trying to do it on the clock and paying overtime, that's a test that

[1:02:24] we did not have to do until last year.

[1:02:26] The county headaches had a responsibility for that, but they no longer do.

[1:02:30] And we have the authority to do it, and if they, if it happened and I said it to Juvenile

[1:02:34] was involved in crime, if they're out Juvenile's were responsible for going to get them back

[1:02:39] and forth to court.

[1:02:40] And it is really creating some of it, the

[1:02:44] diminishes our availability because we have to go and bring those

[1:02:48] to take the kids to the facility where they have been

[1:02:50] assigned and they bring them back to court when called.

[1:02:54] So a reduction in all three of these areas of

[1:02:56] slavery, a tremendous amount of time.

[1:02:59] And as you all heard me say before, time saves lives.

[1:03:02] If freeze our personnel up to engage in proactive

[1:03:05] measure such a traffic enforcement,

[1:03:07] pertaining to speeding and red light violations.

[1:03:09] It also, it able us to increase our vehicle and foot patrols in areas throughout the city,

[1:03:14] but specifically downtown if we can just again change some of our behavior and be more responsible

[1:03:19] in those three areas just mentioned.

[1:03:21] And we can also engage in some positive community relations build and activities

[1:03:26] through increased involvement in our mentoring program.

[1:03:30] We're in the process of real establishing a police athletic lead.

[1:03:34] I'm working with our Parks and Recreation Department.

[1:03:36] I explained in our explore on program and I would like to also develop a cadet program where we have young men and women who 18 years of age that we can perhaps have them attend our community college and working partnership with the community college where they get their associates degree.

[1:03:55] where it's been 20 hours there, but also 20 hours with us at the PD.

[1:03:59] And then at the end, when they get 21, we can send them to the Academy.

[1:04:02] They've already been talking to our culture that we had there invested.

[1:04:06] And we can get them on a hook for about three to five years after the system.

[1:04:10] It's really a low cost, but it's a way of developing people who we can bring into the program.

[1:04:17] A pipeline, if you would.

[1:04:19] And even beyond that, I would also, which I'll talk about it now.

[1:04:24] I love to be established possibly a police foundation for our PD, where we can get funds coming in,

[1:04:32] where again, where we can possibly partner with a couple of universities, where this sub-state,

[1:04:37] South Carolina State, Home Ever, and offices on partial scholarships.

[1:04:42] Again, where we can help someone go to school, get their degree, and criminal justice, or what have you.

[1:04:46] And then, upon graduation, they're sure to have no job with us.

[1:04:50] You know, I'm going to send a whole scholarship, but I consider by my own, because I'm

[1:04:53] much money.

[1:04:54] People want to give us, hopefully, they will give us plenty when they see it.

[1:04:57] We're trying to bring in good people's and provide great service to them.

[1:05:01] But I think that's all we have for us to again, to deal with one of the other main issues

[1:05:05] that we have, which is that we're recruiting and retention piece.

[1:05:09] But to be able to cultivate good folks, local, to come to our community or the remaining

[1:05:15] and I can be, and I should say, in a survey that can pass, I think we'll be good things.

[1:05:18] There's some things in the pipeline that's being thought about and explored, and hopefully

[1:05:23] we can formulate an implement in the upcoming year.

[1:05:28] A few more of the, I guess, anticipated opportunities, as I foresee, again, is enhancing those partnerships

[1:05:34] that we already have and developing some others.

[1:05:37] I do want to point out to you that MHA, the Mental Health Association, has provided us recently

[1:05:43] with the one clinician, and one outreach specialist to work with us two days a week, about 30 hours, and this is going to be very important to us.

[1:05:52] In our response, and this is those suffering mental health issues in our community, especially our homeless population.

[1:05:59] And I really do think Mr. Brandon Gaffney and Mr. Green has direct vibrations for making that happen.

[1:06:07] That is a partnership that we find extremely important because more and more people that we come in contact with on the street

[1:06:13] as I said, especially at home, it's but not only on homeless or sufferings of minor issues

[1:06:17] and having that expertise available, we'll be a great benefit.

[1:06:22] Another thing that we hope to do to continue on in this year is to research on the

[1:06:27] Choir Technologies, to a service force multipliers and to expand our better our capacity

[1:06:32] to better serve the community.

[1:06:34] I think most of you have seen the real-time crime center.

[1:06:36] We're provided information on to the county, but throughout the state, for information

[1:06:41] So we've been able to obtain from an investigative standpoint, but it's all help.

[1:06:48] For example, we talked about the violence early with some of our children I was in

[1:06:52] youth.

[1:06:52] We've been able to target where the vehicles are being taken, where they're being dropped,

[1:06:56] which is happening to who is probably doing it because they're not going to be too far for

[1:06:59] where they live, and we've been able to identify some of those responsible have made

[1:07:03] take into account the custody, and we've recovered a number of cars because of the capacity

[1:07:09] that we have in the real-time crime center.

[1:07:10] Unfortunately, some of them have been damaged, but we have so far many intact before the steering column being damaged.

[1:07:17] There are unfortunately on TikTok that teaching people how to break into the key areas in a hundred days, which are the vehicles of choice right now.

[1:07:25] But we do see the real-time crimson in.

[1:07:30] Hopefully, being able to expand it to other businesses. In fact, we just had one large box store, give us access to their cameras nationwide.

[1:07:38] I got like 200 emails, I was saying, you got access to this now.

[1:07:42] That's okay, that's very good, but you'll have to keep delivery, right? But it's a good thing.

[1:07:47] And we hope other businesses and residences can again, through the fruces platform, which acts on just bought, which is good, because we're integrated with both, so that's a good thing.

[1:07:58] It will really help us, again, in our service, in our information gathering in real time where we're able to hopefully not only solve crime but even prevent some.

[1:08:08] And with that say at two, another thing we want to do to try to be more efficient and effective is really want to get up the ground, online reporting on certain crimes or incidents that don't need our actual presence.

[1:08:21] You know, I lost my wallet at the mall and I have a clue but I need to report it for insurance

[1:08:25] purposes, or some of the long-dose lines.

[1:08:28] We don't need it off to respond to that much while they have that off to available to respond

[1:08:31] to that crash that domestic violence that fights, something where our presence is actually

[1:08:35] needed.

[1:08:36] So, but getting online reporting and telephone reporting, or telecom unit for a certain or a very

[1:08:42] select specific type of caller, would not be including all calls, I absolutely emergency

[1:08:46] is a wish to go to respond, but there are category calls that we can take that pressure

[1:08:51] are awful of patrol that will hopefully free them up and give them a more proactive time

[1:08:56] to engage in some activities that can address some of those issues such as the speeding

[1:09:01] and other issues that we've mentioned earlier.

[1:09:05] I've already got a touch on the recruiting and retention, and as you already know, we, like

[1:09:10] I said, right now, I think we're like 124 out of 134 allocated.

[1:09:15] We hover around 10%, which is, and this time is pretty good, but it's not good enough.

[1:09:21] we want to be full, but I can tell you as the city continues to grow with the 750, 800 million

[1:09:28] dollars of an investment that's going to bring a lot more people into town and our presence

[1:09:32] is going to be needed. So I say all that to say that I will, I'm trying to drill down that

[1:09:40] in trying to hurt us too bad, but I'm going to be making a request for additional personnel,

[1:09:45] are both sworn personnel as well as civilian because I think we're again we're growing

[1:09:54] and that's a good thing but we were housing growing pains but they have the type of presence

[1:09:58] and they're being provided service that our citizens are deserving of and accustomed to.

[1:10:04] As I said, you can expect me to be coming back here but probably in the next month or so

[1:10:10] Request an X number of officers, X number of things that I explained to you what each one would be responsible for doing, which I think would enhance our capacity and just help reduce that crime for your crime and that quality of life that we're looking for, because people need to see us downtown and with that being said, some of you already know if you come downtown frequently, but for those that don't, I've recently placed two additional officers downtown and bringing the total number to four.

[1:10:38] But we've also sort of off duty planned to increase the presence down there on Thursday and Saturday nights

[1:10:45] between 5 and 10 o'clock when most of our families are downtown dining and taking advantage of what our downtown has to offer

[1:10:52] there's two additional officers

[1:10:54] and we have just completed phase one of a sergeant's promotional process

[1:11:00] and once that process is concluded in the selections have been made

[1:11:04] We'll put a little sergeant down there. We'll bring the total number of five that's permanently assigned.

[1:11:10] But we'll still keep those two additional ones going. 30 to the Saturday because

[1:11:14] as the spring comes, we'll have more people come down town. So we want to maintain that presence.

[1:11:22] Aside from that, what I'm going to do now is just, let me see this. Because I know that

[1:11:36] for officers assigned to work traffic.

[1:11:41] And there's one lieutenant who's over to traffic unit.

[1:11:43] Again, once we conclude with the promotional process,

[1:11:47] we will assign a sergeant, a sergeant,

[1:11:48] so they're working for them.

[1:11:49] So they will be out and assistant.

[1:11:51] They just won't be entitled on this supervisor,

[1:11:53] but also be able to help with the work that's needed.

[1:11:57] And as I mentioned before, having those patrol vehicles

[1:12:01] up fit, it will be measured devices

[1:12:02] and getting the training associated

[1:12:04] with it would be a benefit but the challenge right now is having the freed up time to be able

[1:12:11] to engage in that activity because right now we'll be pulled to do other things and the

[1:12:17] biggie right now is definitely the juvenile transport. But with that I will conclude my comments

[1:12:28] what I'm extremely proud of. I will say again and I have to just say it's a business trip in this

[1:12:34] I'm one of the greatest honors and privilege of my life

[1:12:36] to have served here in the capacity of chief.

[1:12:39] And because the people that we're finished is them.

[1:12:42] It's their beautiful efforts and attitude,

[1:12:44] as the attitudes and commitment to go out each and every day

[1:12:47] and try to serve this community.

[1:12:49] And I think they do a tremendous job.

[1:12:51] And I appreciate again all the support

[1:12:53] and encouragement in the years past with the budget

[1:12:56] adjustments, the market-based studies,

[1:12:58] the take-on-car approval, all those things matter.

[1:13:01] And I can tell you where our safe, we try to make them a safe, efficient and effective as we possibly can.

[1:13:07] With the bottom one, cameras, the less than the less than the loxion, the thing that we pull outside on what I tell you is that it cuts our cameras on.

[1:13:14] So it's not left up just trying to, there's very few people to have what we have.

[1:13:18] I think we've been doing this through a set of money and try to do things.

[1:13:21] We want to make officer safe by a turn, making you safe.

[1:13:24] And again, but there's more work to be done.

[1:13:26] I'm getting open, I'm still at it, I'm still loving it.

[1:13:29] And I've got a lot of great people working on it.

[1:13:31] I've got more good people coming in.

[1:13:33] Just how the gentleman with the look was already certified.

[1:13:37] And then time we can find some already certified.

[1:13:40] That's the school.

[1:13:40] We're going to make a tile culture out of space.

[1:13:42] And we put them on the road.

[1:13:44] So, the things are ahead.

[1:13:46] And I'll just be quiet and open up and deputy chief.

[1:13:49] Sure, got more.

[1:13:50] Chief, thank you for those comments.

[1:13:53] And man, congratulations on 10 years.

[1:13:55] And by far, time does fly, but congratulations on 10 years, really.

[1:14:02] I have a couple of questions I'm sure everybody up here would chime in as well.

[1:14:06] When you mentioned getting the traffic officers to eight, that's already within your

[1:14:13] allocation.

[1:14:13] We have six right now, but I'll tell you they need a whole squad with the, I'll tell you.

[1:14:18] Like many of you, traffic complaints probably are about as an African as anything we get

[1:14:23] to be told out of our team.

[1:14:24] Now, I would, I'd differ sometimes because of the data where that traffic need to be enforcement in a place.

[1:14:31] But I do know that there's a big deal.

[1:14:33] And that's unfortunately any homicide is unfortunate.

[1:14:36] But we have traditionally have more fatalities than we have homicides.

[1:14:40] And traffic enforcement in and of itself is not going to change it.

[1:14:45] It does change your behavior.

[1:14:47] But when people don't see us, you know what we do.

[1:14:51] I'm going to go a little faster than you do, maybe cut that light a little too quick.

[1:14:55] But I would love to get that.

[1:14:57] We have six allocated now.

[1:15:00] I really don't even need to be a force while I ain't where we can put. More bodies out there, more times

[1:15:05] at a day, prime time. Because right now, this is the issue we have, but a crash right now, a traffic crash.

[1:15:12] You know, we checked what I looked at this morning and it's been pretty consistent over the years on our enforcement.

[1:15:16] Simple little bump in the parking lot. It's still going to take you 20 minutes to take care.

[1:15:21] That didn't get the right report. So 10, this is 12, close to the 30. You have one where serious property damage and you have to tow a car.

[1:15:26] Now you're up to 45 minutes to an hour.

[1:15:29] You have someone on this injured or in definitely a fatality.

[1:15:32] Now you're talking about an incident that may take you to hours plus.

[1:15:37] So when you have that and when you look at the data and you go again,

[1:15:40] you see the number of traffic crashes.

[1:15:42] You'll see where we average about 11 a day of just wrecks.

[1:15:48] And you have four people.

[1:15:49] And if they're doing a wrecks, they don't have a lot of time for us to like

[1:15:52] different force.

[1:15:53] They're going to learn radar a lot or whatever.

[1:15:55] They're having the crashes.

[1:15:55] So that's why I said the numbers again, and I promise you since day one I said I would never come before counsel

[1:16:02] And that's what opinion that we don't need or person. We don't need

[1:16:06] But I realize I have to justify to realize sometimes we have our limitations

[1:16:10] But but having eight

[1:16:12] Really would not be too many, but I do think it would be enough for us to what I think about how and again it goes back to my people

[1:16:20] I'm telling you I cannot stress enough the amount of effort

[1:16:24] I've been doing this for the pre-40 years come July, and I've never worked with a group of people to work as hard as this group here does.

[1:16:31] Awesome, thank you.

[1:16:32] Also, you mentioned a real-time crime center.

[1:16:37] We had the opportunity to go over to the new nice Taj Mahal of a police station.

[1:16:42] Since we get emails from other areas that have visited our police station from Hardyville,

[1:16:54] right?

[1:16:54] tell me. But really, the ring doorbells, how do I get my ring doorbell hooked up to Spongeburt

[1:17:04] PD? There's a thing called Fusus Core. That has to be purchased. But also, because right now

[1:17:10] we have people who will come by in that shared their video with us after the fact, but if you

[1:17:15] sign it, but if you have one of the cores, we can tap in, kind of like in real time. And that's

[1:17:21] we ask for businesses, schools, and again, I do want to reiterate, we're not in private spaces,

[1:17:26] we're in public space. Parking lots, like I said, the garages, for example, the garages,

[1:17:32] we can see, I'm going to sit at my desk and look at every camera in any of our garages. That's

[1:17:38] that's a powerful tool. So, we'll get, matter of fact, we'll be doing an educational campaign here,

[1:17:45] a little bit more, we're out there now doing it, but we'll reach out and put the information out

[1:17:49] to tell people specifically how they can get grant us access and what access they want

[1:17:56] to have.

[1:17:58] Council want a little to join.

[1:17:59] I know you had your hand.

[1:18:00] Yes, ma'am.

[1:18:01] First of all, Chief, I just want to thank you all for the work that you do because I have the greatest

[1:18:09] respect for our police officers, but if I look around though and I see all of the

[1:18:15] That has taken place on the north side, the east side, the west side, the south side, and downtown.

[1:18:26] So much growth, yet, you know, that a police force has not increased.

[1:18:34] I wish that it was up to me and for me to say, because I have always believed,

[1:18:41] And I know that my city manager is probably going to say,

[1:18:46] shut up.

[1:18:47] But if it was up to me, I would start every police officer out at least $50,000 a year

[1:18:58] because I think they are worth it.

[1:19:01] They are worth it.

[1:19:02] I have always said and I have always believed that our teachers and our police officers deserve

[1:19:11] to be paid more than they do because you put your life on the line every day, but you teach

[1:19:19] our kids, got the teachers,

[1:19:23] and we are not in my opinion, Chris, in my opinion, in my opinion.

[1:19:30] I don't think that's what you should be getting, now this is just me speaking, go from

[1:19:37] little John's born of you. So I just want you all to know that I appreciate you

[1:19:45] a much so much and I keep you all in my prayers too. Thank you very much, ma'am. And I

[1:19:51] would just say again, as far as our personnel, like men turn this real big for us.

[1:19:56] You know, in trying to engage our young folks to help kind of curve some of the violence

[1:20:01] and some of the kids that kind of lose their way. We saw the citizens police academy.

[1:20:06] You're a youth citizen, we can't even over at Carver, one of my S.H.R.O.s, the Church, right?

[1:20:12] She coaches ball there, wrap a day in coaches at Spartanburg Prepp, we had over the Taj Mahal,

[1:20:19] they didn't quite did nice, but over to our PD, about three weeks ago, we had supplemental groups come

[1:20:27] over, and did a tour, and we broke ready together, and they had hot dogs, and whatever else, we had

[1:20:34] So the capital members at the capital league,

[1:20:37] the capital out besides the opportunity.

[1:20:39] And then we also had the delges with the group.

[1:20:43] They have a joint effort that they do with my mentor

[1:20:47] and I use, and again, because I made the South Iowa

[1:20:51] Bridge Builders, which were our pretenders involved with.

[1:20:55] And it was a great event.

[1:20:57] And internally, I will say this to further engage our youth.

[1:21:02] We, Mr. Kennedy, had approached about seven

[1:21:07] Chicago community liaison officer, and we have someone in mind in the spring.

[1:21:12] We were developing this position, and we hope that we implement it.

[1:21:15] Because what it is, we have a lot of well-intentioned people and organizations

[1:21:19] in our community trying to do some good things.

[1:21:22] But being able to align everyone, coordinator, one's effort.

[1:21:26] We get a little more synergy and we have my impact.

[1:21:28] But we hope to work with, you know.

[1:21:31] And we do already, but my brothers keep us for example, which is another tremendous mental group that we're working with in this past.

[1:21:38] But just trying to get out here and work with Parks and Reg and re-establish pal, that's just one aspect.

[1:21:43] But those things are so important that we do.

[1:21:46] And that's in addition to our regular policing.

[1:21:50] And like I said, that's what I'm saying.

[1:21:52] I'm really proud of the fact that I appreciate your comments, man.

[1:21:55] And I agree with your 50s, not bad.

[1:21:57] I was going to rain, I got some rain.

[1:22:01] Chief Thompson, thanks for being here.

[1:22:03] Thanks for the Cheetahs, too.

[1:22:06] When Debbie Chieff Kendall was going through the stats, the one that stuck out to me as a

[1:22:14] big change was the, I think it was homeless calls up, 44%, I think it's, and I maybe miss, but

[1:22:23] something like this.

[1:22:24] How do we, and that's the that was out of all the different categories that was a one

[1:22:30] That was up a lot more than the ten year average and a lot more than last year. How do we deal with that?

[1:22:37] I wish I had the total answer, but I can tell you what we're doing up to this point, but like I said, that's a work in progress.

[1:22:44] Our homeless population, at least what we've identified, like I said, I think the number is growing.

[1:22:52] But most of the people are local, whether they're coming back home or whatever else, but the gravitate, people gravitate to where the stuff is, where the health can be.

[1:23:00] and where the charitable giving it, whether it's formalized or not, you know, but, you know,

[1:23:06] the heart team I think does a tremendous effort, and that's our homeless engagement,

[1:23:11] that response team, and we here right now, we currently have one of our offices just a lot of,

[1:23:16] and that's, that's it's so responsible to help in that effort, to identify our homeless

[1:23:20] find those that we can get services to, and again, it's almost the one,

[1:23:29] you know, you've got

[1:23:29] where they can live off the street, one on on that's fantastic.

[1:23:34] But it's a lot of people out there all around today, and I don't have a good answer

[1:23:41] other than the fact that I know that the heart is a collective, and I think we're going

[1:23:46] down the right path by bringing non-profits and other city entities and other businesses

[1:23:50] together to address it.

[1:23:52] But I think unless we have a place this issue, when people in public spaces, and if there's

[1:23:59] involved in disruptive or criminal behavior, moving them. We have to move them somewhere.

[1:24:04] I understand that some places are not desirable for them to be, but the question is

[1:24:08] where do we move them for the help that they may receive and move them from homelessness

[1:24:12] to where they can again improve their station in life. And as I mentioned for this a lot of

[1:24:18] mental health out there and those clinicians and that outreach specialists will be a big help

[1:24:23] to us where we can maybe pour the right level and move some of the people out of that position.

[1:24:27] We have a young man now, Mr. Knuckles, that we have removed from the street, have an

[1:24:33] emphasis, and hopefully we're gonna have him placed. But again, it's almost like one

[1:24:38] person at a time. Because wholesale, unless we went out and built had a, like the opportunity

[1:24:45] center with the rapper-iron services. In place for daytime shelter, Mr. Well, there's

[1:24:49] night that people, unfortunately, are going to go to our parking garage decks. They're

[1:24:53] to the cubbies and whatnot that businesses and places where we have had business owners

[1:24:59] to we taught them how to post signage and how to trespass people through there and then

[1:25:07] some come to bus them for us that which we do. But again the numbers and I think the good

[1:25:15] nature or a lot of people want to help but they're kind of helping feed the problem to.

[1:25:24] It kind of goes what I want to say and what I go about alignment, coordination, the synergy

[1:25:29] for a great impact.

[1:25:31] But when we have people that will feed at different places, at different times, that's

[1:25:35] going to, because the people needs to be in that, the drive to move or do better is in

[1:25:41] there because it needs to be, and it's difficult to do them better there.

[1:25:44] The end that talks about for a reason, you know, what this alcoholism drug addiction,

[1:25:50] of PTSD. Again, that's another issue that we're seeing too. A lot of our men who are

[1:25:55] moved served or several like he said, I don't know the percentage, but I do

[1:25:59] know we have some vets out there that is out on the tough time, re-aclimating. But

[1:26:03] that's your answer. I don't have answer, but I know we're committed to provide

[1:26:06] whatever or do whatever we can do. And when there is, we're trying, again, as I

[1:26:12] mean before, we're trying to strike that balance between, but I want to

[1:26:20] pass it and just, you know, destruction of property and another nasty things, I should say,

[1:26:28] to defecate in your nation, you know what you have to come to work and deal with that. But by the

[1:26:33] same token, we don't want someone who has had that unwark, unfortunately, that job law also

[1:26:39] might have to change or mimic a break to be put in jail, and that's not what it needs to be,

[1:26:45] because I think a good number of them need, you know, health assistance.

[1:26:51] But that's the best I can get, and we're open to see what else we can do.

[1:26:56] And if we see some models that, you know,

[1:26:59] I know we built on a tiny house, small depth of,

[1:27:02] what's the green-backed structure over there that will help with some of our female population,

[1:27:07] which seems to be growing.

[1:27:12] And that's where we are.

[1:27:13] And I'll be told honestly with the two hotels that are behind the main, that's kind of been transitional housing for people.

[1:27:23] That doesn't make enough money or enemies are going to run an apartment or buy a house.

[1:27:28] And some of them will get off the street just a little, maybe stay two or three days and they're back out.

[1:27:33] So those properties there is challenging as they be, they're serving the purpose too.

[1:27:39] So when we look at this thing holistically, you know, I think it's a fantastic that we've

[1:27:45] committed, you know, 7500, 100 million, but we really, as a community, are sitting

[1:27:50] on the, possibly, and commit some resources where there are places for people to be, where

[1:27:57] they're not out in the middle of the street or different places where it may not be as

[1:28:02] as I will put them to be.

[1:28:04] Unfortunately.

[1:28:05] Question, Councilman,

[1:28:10] Chief, thanks for your presentation and thanks for all that you do in your team.

[1:28:17] We have a wonderful dedicated staff of men and women throughout our police department, and we should all be very grateful for that.

[1:28:26] The presentation, there's a lot done, Pat, really.

[1:28:30] I think that the numbers present an interesting overview of kind of the state of play

[1:28:37] as it currently is, and obviously staffing needs in part, or the blocking and tackling

[1:28:45] of day-to-day activity, and I noticed in one of the slides, it was sort of a heat map

[1:28:52] the day parts of when you have received the most calls. I think WCF you mentioned

[1:28:58] Wednesday or something. Wednesday afternoon is a time that we've seen a lot of

[1:29:02] calls but that heat map I would think does our staffing levels of officers on

[1:29:09] the street correspond to that heat map? Do we have our most the most officers on

[1:29:16] the street during the times when we're getting the most calls because I would

[1:29:19] think if we don't then that just places added stress on those officers that are on the street

[1:29:24] at that time.

[1:29:25] Well, well, schedule is built.

[1:29:26] We have overlap, which tend to coincide with the best of your time.

[1:29:32] So, but the problem is you can have that overlap, but we're going to just have offices coming

[1:29:36] early.

[1:29:36] Stay late to try to catch that when no time, but we still don't have so many people.

[1:29:43] And this is the thing, if we were to put, say, all our faults where the hotspots are,

[1:29:49] The folks who don't see our cop, I have the right to place us now and cut my lights on because we need to see the cop.

[1:29:55] We never see the police, but that's because we're all over here.

[1:29:58] I agree with the numbers kind of...

[1:30:01] So we do try to, we do tend to spend more time just like while in, how there's only place where we were able to get, quote unquote, grant to have two officers assigned because of their volume. They're there, but that's the only one. So the rest of the communities, we have to protect what comes to the work that's not assigned, it's not grant by the position. So the short answer is, yes sir, we do, the numbers suggest what we play our resources.

[1:30:25] But we have to provide presence citywide so it's either overtime that we employ other folks,

[1:30:36] but the overlapping of the squads or the shift and having people adjust their schedule

[1:30:40] is how we've been able to kind of focus in those areas.

[1:30:43] And then there's we think about the coming budget season.

[1:30:48] And if you have a little, you mentioned the request for additional officers, and I think that is needed, and I'm glad to hear that.

[1:30:59] I also think, I mean, you outline several different priorities and strategies, and some of those will be addressed by additional staffing.

[1:31:10] a lot of it will be addressed from what if I heard correctly, a lot of what you're looking

[1:31:18] to do over the next two, three years has some sort of technological component and there's

[1:31:26] certainly a capitalized cost involved in making those commitments and I personally think there's

[1:31:34] nothing more important that we do in the city than keeping our people safe and so as we look

[1:31:40] allocation of our federal funds that we have available to this. In addition to other grant

[1:31:46] opportunities, I think we ought to really take a hard look at the things that are critically

[1:31:52] essential to make those investments. That's my personal opinion, but we ought to really do

[1:32:00] what we can because so much of what we're doing is based on the world as we know it now, but

[1:32:09] We also all know that our world in Sportman is going to change dramatically over the next 2-3-5 years, and if we delay in making those investments in planning, then I think we'll find ourselves behind, and that's not where we want to fund ourselves.

[1:32:24] Yes, sir. I agree. Oh, Audit Lee. And I will say that we have added a few more people that's being

[1:32:32] coached up in the grant writing world because there's a lot of money to be

[1:32:38] getting out there if you know where to find it and you have people that expertise in a time to do it. So

[1:32:43] expanding our grant the past is huge. And as you said before,

[1:32:49] There's money that's come from the state.

[1:32:51] We were fortunate last year to get 495,000 dollars from the state, and then obviously the

[1:32:58] awful funding that you all provided us has expanded our capacity.

[1:33:02] That's why I can't think you're enough for that because it's already paying dividends

[1:33:06] calls.

[1:33:06] The cameras in order we talked about, it can be places where we can't.

[1:33:10] Even if I had 500 dollars, we could not be everywhere, physically we needed.

[1:33:13] But the cameras are there at all times and then but have a little bit of the house someone who can be accessing those on a more frequent basis or there's some technology looking at the where you're saying someone

[1:33:24] Coz and child parking deck out the certain time if there's something I want to see like they'll know I ended this stuff work, but I want it if I figure out how I could at least let our in-car

[1:33:34] Computers know hey someone's there in the deck

[1:33:36] Where we've been having issues then we can respond

[1:33:39] You know the house on what's it in the room monitor, but if you can

[1:33:43] and it could be a civilian, I have to be sworn, but someone who can alert us in certain places.

[1:33:48] Especially we have all our events.

[1:33:50] You know, like I said, to be able to look at all the cameras, different angles, and see kind of what's happening.

[1:33:54] And we can avoid head off things before even the curve, because eyes are there.

[1:33:58] And then we move asses that way.

[1:34:00] But again, thank you for your comments, and I agree wholeheartedly, because it's coming.

[1:34:04] I mean, everything's going up exponentially.

[1:34:06] Councilwoman Smith.

[1:34:07] Chief, thank you for being here.

[1:34:10] As we've mentioned youth and guns and mental health tonight, several times which tees up my question,

[1:34:18] you all know that I worked in the world of education, data.

[1:34:22] Last week, we had the newest set of the youth risk behavior survey, which comes out through the CDC

[1:34:29] that surveys our night through 12 students, including District 7.

[1:34:33] And in it, we saw that one in five of our females have made a plan to commit suicide.

[1:34:40] And so when we talk about safety, you know, deputy chief started with increasing safety

[1:34:45] in our city and harm, sometimes that means protecting people from self-harm.

[1:34:52] And we've worked together, y'all have been great in indulging me on testing to see if the gun

[1:34:59] bybacks would have any sort of impact and I read an article this week that talked about how

[1:35:05] the most lasting impact on bybacks is decreasing suicide because it removes a gun from

[1:35:14] the home.

[1:35:15] This article, however, talked about rather than doing once a year implementing a permanent

[1:35:22] gun byback policy where at any point, at any time, someone can come and bring their weapon

[1:35:28] to the city, to get it out of the home.

[1:35:33] I asked, I work with several mental health clinicians in my job as well, and I asked them.

[1:35:38] I said, would that be helpful to you as a therapist who might be working with someone or a

[1:35:43] family whose child is having suicidal thoughts that you could bring your weapon to the city,

[1:35:48] maybe you get a small stipend, and every single one of them said, yes, we would want to know

[1:35:58] that we would tell our clients that so as we talk about the upcoming budget season I would love

[1:36:05] for us to have those conversations of how can we better work with the mental health community

[1:36:10] in making it easier for folks who are having those thoughts to get weapons out of their home

[1:36:16] to protect either themselves or their children.

[1:36:18] Yes ma'am. I agree wholeheartedly because to me when I think of gun violence it's not just those

[1:36:24] involved in criminal activity. But except for the suicide or the two children playing in the

[1:36:29] game on and out of here responsible gun owners and leave the gun on attended and a little

[1:36:33] brother shoot a little sister or yeah that's and it happens to often and it's happened close by

[1:36:38] there been here yeah so yeah I'm I'm with you and we'll look at our budget you know whatever

[1:36:45] that's what I said when I think about and again we have some very generous people I think about

[1:36:51] the four non-profits that put together a public safety fund, we have, you know,

[1:36:56] I'm very black, we have some kind of foundation to people and go to, but I really

[1:37:00] would love to have, I really would love to possible that the 501-3C for the PD,

[1:37:06] where we get those funds or we can channel it to things just like that and I have the

[1:37:10] way to go.

[1:37:11] I mean, don't get wrong, I will, I will welcome any cash, we can get from any source, but I would

[1:37:15] love to have that prospect to fund some of those initiatives that you mentioned, and as

[1:37:20] to look at that program, the mental program, buy back, but there's some things we can do.

[1:37:27] Yeah, I'm, like I said, I'll, I get them.

[1:37:30] I'm grateful what I'm hearing and I'm not surprised because I know you're just like we are. We weren't what's best not seen.

[1:37:36] Council on the right. I'm sorry.

[1:37:38] Chief, I was just thinking you'd ask earlier.

[1:37:44] I guess what I want to ask is there anything we can do to help.

[1:37:49] We're talking about the home situation from a code perspective to give, because I think we've talked about on council before.

[1:37:58] There are certainly our residents that are experiencing homelessness that we want to help as a city.

[1:38:07] And then there's also folks that come in from out of town that we don't want to be here.

[1:38:14] But is there anything from a code perspective that we need to do in public places or from vagrancy or whatever that would help equip or give the

[1:38:25] Your officer is the opportunity to deal with the problem.

[1:38:29] I don't know, but if there is, let us know.

[1:38:33] And then the second piece of that, in the past when we've had,

[1:38:39] I think on a couple of occasions,

[1:38:42] where there's been a public safety, a consistent public safety issue,

[1:38:46] somewhere, whether it was a nightclub where we had multiple shootings

[1:38:50] comes to mind. We've worked together either to limit hours or to revoke business license.

[1:38:58] And we cannot certainly do. I don't know if there's a place that fits that right now,

[1:39:03] but I offer that as another thing that Council can work with you on.

[1:39:09] Well, I will look so in the code. I know the biggest thing is, and then again,

[1:39:12] I'll run it by legal goes. We'll fortune that with very brilliant legal mind on staff.

[1:39:17] Mr. Kohler, and I think we need to do the way we, again, know,

[1:39:21] trampling on Constitutional Rights, but that are both in our authority to limit certain behaviors.

[1:39:28] Obviously aggressive and handling things along those lines that we can do.

[1:39:32] There are some things that have been on the book.

[1:39:34] Someone have been challenged, that constitutionality have been challenged,

[1:39:37] but you're not having that conversation to get back to you.

[1:39:39] And if there's anything, we can do for your passage or for consideration.

[1:39:44] We can put that forward.

[1:39:46] Any other questions of the Chief again, congratulations on your 10 years of coming and thank you for what you do for us, our citizens here in Spideonburg City, as well as the county, but again, even the upstate.

[1:40:02] You're seeing that email.

[1:40:04] Well, blessed to be here, sir.

[1:40:06] And like I said, it really goes back to my people.

[1:40:09] I've got a great work for us and every along that I'm alone, but they've been fantastic.

[1:40:13] Thank you, sir.

[1:40:18] Okay. Staff update. Mr. Stewart. Mr. Maker.

[1:40:23] Excuse me. Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, I'll be very brief tonight. One item

[1:40:30] to note is that March 18th will be the first day of our new fire chief, Pierre Bruton, who's

[1:40:39] who's coming to Spartanburg from being the fire chief in Albumar North Carolina and many

[1:40:45] of you know, Chief Bruton is a prior member of our team on Spartanburg resident long

[1:40:52] time to use Spartanburg team member. And so we are excited to welcome him back in the fire

[1:40:57] chief role and he will be with us again on March 18. Second thing to note is I know that due to the

[1:41:04] National League of Cities Conference, we are looking at questions of

[1:41:10] Quorum for the first meeting in March, so I just wanted to publicly state that we'll,

[1:41:17] we may be looking at adjustments based on pending agenda items and that kind of thing.

[1:41:22] I'll be communicating with Council at weeks in about what that pipeline is looking like for items.

[1:41:30] And so, with the option of altering that, you know, scheduling special meeting, if we need to, or things of that nature, based on timelines of activities.

[1:41:41] And those are just the two things I wanted to make sure to publicly address if there are any questions, certainly welcome.

[1:41:49] Councilwoman Louder, John.

[1:41:50] Yes, Chris.

[1:41:53] I thought you were going to address this with that me having to actually do it.

[1:41:57] about the Pepsi plant, would you please give us the status on that because I've gotten a lot of

[1:42:05] calls on that, got from different residents. Also, I got a question about the zoning.

[1:42:13] You go, what is the zoning going to be? So if you could kind of update us on the status of the

[1:42:25] Here today with the developer on the project and he is moving along through the different phases

[1:42:32] of preparation and securing financing and things of that nature due to the way in which

[1:42:39] the project is to be financed, demolition of the existing structures won't occur until they

[1:42:47] are ready to move from demolition into directly in a new construction, so there'll be one mobilization

[1:42:54] time. So I think that's going to be the summer time before we see a demolition activity

[1:43:00] commence there. That is consistent with and common with a number of projects of that

[1:43:09] nature involving multiple different funding sources in a fluctuating interest rate environment.

[1:43:16] And as to the zoning question, I haven't looked at specifically at that if the specific

[1:43:23] uses require a rezoning consideration that will be part of the development application, the

[1:43:30] development review process. That's not controlled by the activity that has occurred to

[1:43:41] date in the form of the development agreement with the City Council. That would be a separate

[1:43:46] process if every zoning is required. And so that would come when the plans are submitted.

[1:43:54] which they have not yet been submit.

[1:43:57] Okay, now he said that the demolition go would take place

[1:44:01] of the summer sometimes.

[1:44:02] Yes, I think it'd probably be late summer

[1:44:04] when that would start and it would be

[1:44:07] one process of beginning with the

[1:44:10] statement, demolition, the new construction, one mobilization.

[1:44:16] Well, thank you for that.

[1:44:18] I'm glad that it's not going to be after he finished

[1:44:21] the project downtown because I didn't think

[1:44:24] the Peters would do us like that. Okay because it still looks like a prison going

[1:44:29] you go down through there. I should not have formed a Pepsi plant. Thank you, Chris.

[1:44:33] Yes, ma'am. Any other questions of city manager? No questions of the city manager?

[1:44:41] City council updates? Thank you for being here.

[1:44:48] Thank you for allowing us to all serve with you and appreciate everyone being here.

[1:44:57] Now some brown.

[1:44:59] Thank you.

[1:45:00] The opportunity to attend a couple events, this past weekend, the sneaker ball, widely attended by a lot of folks, you know, struck me when we were pre-gaming, how multiple times.

[1:45:19] So there were so many events over the past week of, you know, nonprofits and community organizations, and it's just so fascinating.

[1:45:32] Given the size of a community that we are, and everyone that's just so engaged and wanting to help in different areas of our community.

[1:45:40] and so it was just and all of the events sold out. I mean, you're talking hundreds of people, you know, attending, you know,

[1:45:48] Sam had their fundraiser on Thursday night. I hadn't had my event. It wasn't a fundraiser.

[1:45:56] We're supposed to have to go see Stevie Nixon Greenville. I was very excited, but it was just like, boom, boom, boom.

[1:46:01] All these events, they had the hopes and efforts children. I think they had an event Saturday night. So it's just really

[1:46:07] wonderful to see how giving this community is and how engaged this community is.

[1:46:15] And I think as we look ahead in the next few years, I mean just the growth itself,

[1:46:20] it's going to continue to grow. And I think that's why it's so important to support the needs

[1:46:25] of our police and fire. And I just look forward to seeing our city grow. Thank you for all for being here.

[1:46:36] Thanks for being here.

[1:46:42] Councilwoman Lujel.

[1:46:50] I changed.

[1:46:54] Ruth, this love and Rob went up to the mic and she thought he was going to say something.

[1:46:59] Thank you for being here.

[1:47:02] I attended the Appalachian Council of Governments meeting on Friday,

[1:47:09] and I was sitting

[1:47:10] manager was a speaker there, and I guess he thought I was going to say something to

[1:47:16] him after the best of, because he took off, he got in his car and left, he didn't

[1:47:21] But anyway, you know, go one of the topics that came up was the lack of work ethics now.

[1:47:31] You know, the people that are hiring people in the lack of work ethics.

[1:47:35] And this is really, really sad because I don't understand reason why parents could do not give their kids chores to do.

[1:47:49] and insist that they do it right.

[1:47:53] Go on, I was coming up in 1700.

[1:47:57] Go on, I was coming up.

[1:47:58] Go on, I was coming up.

[1:48:00] If you did something, question, if it wasn't right,

[1:48:03] could you have to go back and do it up until it was right?

[1:48:08] And so I just regret that there is such a lack of work ethics,

[1:48:15] especially among our young people.

[1:48:18] And you cannot go wait up until they are 19 or 20 years old

[1:48:24] and then tell them to start doing something right.

[1:48:28] So, Gaparinska, please take heed.

[1:48:30] I give you kids little chores while they are young

[1:48:33] and make them do it right.

[1:48:36] And I was invited over to the airport on Thursday

[1:48:42] by a Randy Alexander got to meet the movie crew

[1:48:46] of the people that God you met too. I was excited, and thank you, Randy, if you're listening

[1:48:52] for inviting me. Thank you. Good. Mayor Protein. Thank you, Mayor. My name is Yvonne Short.

[1:49:05] This coming week, well, this month is Black History Month, and we have all activities that

[1:49:11] going on and maybe you didn't attend any of them and if you haven't there's two that's coming up

[1:49:17] at the end of the week. One is at Meetings Street Academy, where they would be having artists,

[1:49:29] entrepreneurs, and vendors located around the arch circle on Friday, excuse me,

[1:49:36] Thursday from 4 to 6. And also, that's what we're

[1:49:41] counting foundation will be presenting their African-American

[1:49:44] Trailblazer with Midas Hampton as their speaker, and that

[1:49:49] will be on Thursday as well from 5 to 7. So if you didn't get to

[1:49:55] attend any activities during the month, please try to attend one of

[1:50:00] these events. Also, thank you for coming, and we look forward to seeing

[1:50:05] the next time. You invited me out to an event and you didn't mention that.

[1:50:09] Oh, that's right. I did have the mayor and because last weekend this past weekend was a very

[1:50:14] very busy and the mayor attended the Mobile Meals Land Cruise with me and I was very, very

[1:50:20] pleased. And you're talking about fundraising and just waiting and helping citizens,

[1:50:27] moment wheels help tremendously in this town. And if you get time, also our Chief of

[1:50:36] Police is part of the moment wheels group with me. And if you get time, please

[1:50:41] share yourself. Please donate. We would appreciate it. Thank you.

[1:50:47] To that, I want to thank congratulations, Pea Bruton. Again, I'm becoming the new fire chief

[1:50:53] here in Spineberg, Pierre and I were class mixed together.

[1:50:57] We would not in 1973, but we did graduate together from Spineberg High School of Graduation.

[1:51:03] I've had enough to talk to him this past weekend.

[1:51:06] April Kelly Drummond received a service award.

[1:51:09] April is one of another Spineberg High School of Graduation, which is, she's VP of Denny's

[1:51:15] and over the inclusion department for all of Denny's and April actually shared with former

[1:51:22] that he wrote her a reference letter in order to get that job, and it's just special that we were

[1:51:31] had the opportunity to present her with a service person of the year award for her, and what she does for Dennis.

[1:51:38] The chief mentioned Brandon Gaffney, New Spineberg Mental Health CEO, Executive Director.

[1:51:46] They are having a U-Banks peer living room, open house tomorrow, from one to four opportunity

[1:51:54] for young people with their having these issues as Megan and the chief we're talking about.

[1:52:02] Give them an opportunity, a safe space to go to.

[1:52:05] So Brandon, I'm sure, will be happy to see us there if and all possible.

[1:52:11] That group, Steesa, Talon agency, a love it, you can see that fourth grader.

[1:52:18] I mean, man, when I went back that Saturday morning, all of them were up, they're just

[1:52:22] blowing, blowing their way.

[1:52:24] So, Outstanding Job, that Lisa and her husband, Stephen, is doing, had the opportunity in.

[1:52:30] A council member arranged district to do the ribbon cutting that the back nine, golf simulator on this past Saturday.

[1:52:39] Just another business that's coming through just opportunity for all people.

[1:52:44] I also had the opportunity, Erica, to have a burger from, is it hippy burger? Habit burger? Habit burger?

[1:52:54] Yeah, my arms and nobody went by and had a burger. It was actually pretty good. So, you know, I know a new place to eat. I don't need many burgers, but I

[1:53:02] Didn't turn it down, but it's just so much going on here in Spideberg and just again to the to the staff all the way around. You guys here on council just enjoy the opportunity to serve with you and to work hand in hand with you guys as well as we continue to make Spideberg

[1:53:23] the great priest to live and play as as my good buddy Kevin says you know the future

[1:53:31] the future of South Carolina comes through Spideonburg. So thank you all for coming and joining

[1:53:36] us tonight. We opportunity to adjourn. Oh, exact session.

[1:53:42] What's your name?

[1:53:44] Good morning.

[1:53:45] Good morning.

[1:53:47] All in favor?

[1:53:50] Let's go.

[1:53:51] We got the time.

[1:53:52] Yes.

City Council Meeting

Agenda

Transcript