September 8 City Council Meeting

CITY COUNCIL MEETS ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 - We return to our regularly scheduled meetings on Monday. Corporal Chris Carter from the Department of Public Safety will be recognized as the Law Enforcement Officer of the Year by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. This is the second consecutive year that Corporal Carter has been so recognized. Corporal Carter is involved in many ways in the enforcement and education of driving under the influence in our community. We will also present a Character Award to Zac Holford, an Aiken native and son of Dr. and Mrs. Douglas Holford, who demonstrated patience, diligence, determination, compassion, and generosity for his efforts to complete a bicycle ride across the country to raise money to help those with leukemia or lymphoma. Zac left Hunting Island on May 1 and reached the Pacific Ocean in Seaside Oregon on July 27. This far, he has raised $13,000 toward his goal of $15,000.

DOWNTOWN TRAFFIC SIGNALS – In August, City Staff met with officials from the South Carolina Department of Transportation concerning plans for the renovation of the downtown traffic signal system. The nine intersections from York to Pendleton on Richland and Park Avenue need major renovation. This summer Highway Department officials conducted traffic counts for each of these intersections to determine the proper timing and necessary equipment changes. This fall the contractor will begin installing new equipment at each of the locations including new pedestrian signals at all nine intersections. The wiring between the signals will be inspected and reinstalled if necessary. By spring the signals should be interconnected and timed to meet the optimum needs of the vehicular traffic traveling through these areas. By installing wire sensors at each of the legs of the intersection, the minor streets should stay red unless activated during off-peak hour periods. We should see a major improvement with these changes at each of these locations and look forward to the work being completed in the next few months.

BUSINESS LICENSES – July of each year begins the renewal process of our business licenses for all those inside or outside the city but doing business inside the city. Through the month of July, the city has received over $55,000 for contractors who have their business inside the city and nearly $225,000 from contractors located outside the city limits. In addition we received almost $10,000 in new business license fees for owners of rental units inside the city mostly owned by individuals living outside the city. A comparison of this year’s revenue versus last year indicates we have received over $200,000 more than the previous year through July.

This may be more of a timing issue than a reflection of increased business tax revenue. To be sure some of the $10,000 in fees from owners of business rental units inside the city is new. When City Council instituted the rental registration program earlier this year, we discovered that many owners of rental units had not been paying business tax as required. It was disappointing that the city had not identified this issue for several years. Our total expected revenue from Professional and Occupational Business Licenses for this budget year is $2.36 million so this represents a small amount of total business tax revenue.

MAINTENANCE GUARANTEES – We will have the second reading of an ordinance to amend the Land Development Regulations regarding maintenance guarantees. Land development regulations require the developer to post a Maintenance Guarantee prior to the final plat approval. Last year City Council increased the terms of the Maintenance Guarantee from one to two years which provides funding should the infrastructure not hold up. The proposed amendments recommend instead of having separate Performance and Maintenance Guarantees, that the developer would submit one guarantee prior to plat approval that would cover both. Currently the regulations allow bonds and tri-party agreements to be used and the amendment would require a letter of Credit or cash to guarantee the performance and maintenance of the infrastructure. The amount of guarantee would be 125% of the cost of the uncompleted improvement which is an increase from the current 110%. The development community would like this increase to be no higher than 120%. The time period for the guarantee could be four years. However, after two years if the infrastructure is complete, the amount of the guarantee could be reduced by 80%. The remaining 20% of the guarantee would be held for another two years as a Maintenance Guarantee. All improvements not completed shall be considered when estimating the cost of the performance portion of the guarantee. Responsibility for acceptance, reduction and release of the guarantee would shift from the Planning Director to the Department of Public Works and Engineering.

APPOINTMENT TO BOARDS AND COMMISIONS – At Monday’s meeting, I will re-appoint Don Barnes to the General Aviation Commission and Mary Ella Brown to the Community Development Board. I am very grateful to have such dedicated volunteers willing to serve.

NON-PARTISAN ELECTIONS – Remember to vote on Tuesday, September 9 to choose whether Aiken will change from partisan to non-partisan elections. There was an excellent opinion piece in the Aiken Standard from Dr. Bob Botsch from USAC explaining the pros and cons of this issue. For some reason, the Aiken Standard has chosen not to post it on its very inconsistent and poorly maintained web site. You can go to the Aiken Journal web site (http://www.aikenjournal.org/) to read a recent letter to the editor on the subject.