15 Nov City Manager Report November 8
Posted at 11:29h
in City News
City Manager remarks to City Council November 8, 2021
- I want to thank again Hargray Communications and MASC for the grants we have been awarded ($150,000 and $25,000) to benefit the City’s economic development efforts with the establishment of the Beaufort Digital Corridor. These grants are a big step forward for us and shows the public that your desire to invest in the future is very much supported by the outside world. Also, a thank you to you the City Council for having the vision and willingness to back our economic developments programs. In addition to these grants our Police Department just got notice of an $80,750 for another year of traffic enforcement and a Body Camera Grant in the amount of $37,000 and thanks to the efforts of the Chair of our Economic Development sub-committee of the RDC, Councilman Murray and with Administrative support from Deborah Johnson, the County Government Committee voted last night to grant us $70,000 for the up-fit of the BDC. That is a total of over $362,750 of new grants and supports our economic development and public safety goals. I thank our staff for all the efforts they put into winning these grants.
- Hurricane update and debris clean-up – As we have now said many times, we in many ways were lucky with the limited damages that we had around the entire city. We ended up with approximately 220 properties affected, and only 6 had major damage, with 4 of them being vacant. We have waved our permit fees for storm damage repairs and have tried to reach out to the public and offer any assistance that we can. Regarding debris clean up, that is on-going and is a slow and methodical process, governed by FEMA rules, regulations, forms, and monitoring. This program is being run by the County and will take several months to complete. The County has a website and a phone number for people to call (1-877-786-7612) if they have question. And, no they can’t tell you when they will be picking up on your street, it is just not part of the system they work with. Remember 2 things, by following the process we (the entire county) will get a FEMA reimbursement of 75%+ of the cost, and second – please be patient and understand the magnitude of the problem.
- Economic Development activities – It is interesting to see the activities we have going on in the City now. We have a Nissan Car Dealership going up at 219 Robert Smalls Parkway, Walmart under construction on Sea Island Parkway, a Dollar General store being built at 2751 Boundary Street, and a KFC starting construction at 211 Robert Smalls Parkway. In addition, we have several major commercial renovations taking place; portable classroom at Holy Trinity Episcopal School, Sea Eagle Restaurant & Market, Clemson Extension, Beaufort Memorial Birthing Center, Up-fit for church at 3617 Trask Parkway, our own Digital Corridor and we have 4 additional major projects in the final stages of design review. Council your number one goal at our retreat in February was economic development and I think you can see that that goal is well on the way of be achieved and from the staff we thank you all for your efforts and support of our programs and we know there is more to come.
- Holiday Decorations: Our Public Works department has start the installation of our “Holiday Decorations” in our downtown. We hope they create the community spirit for the holiday season.
- We will begin our budget planning discussion in the next few months -We welcome suggestions and ideas about things the public would like to see considered in our upcoming budget. We have public safety needs, infrastructure needs, facility needs, and many other needs. We would welcome hearing from the public before our budget is finalized. Feel free to contact us at any time.
- Thanks you and do you have any questions?