[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello and welcome to First Friday with Georgetown County. I'm Jackie Broach and our first guest today is a first timer. This is Megan Colegrove. I want to say she's our new finance director. But you aren't really that new anymore. How long have you been here now, Megan?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: I've been here six months.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Okay. You're still pretty new.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Very new.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Okay, we'll still take it. So our new finance director, Megan Colegrove. Megan is here to talk with us a little bit today about her position and the current budgeting process and anything else that pops into her head that she'd like to share. Megan, talk to us a little bit first. Just give us kind of a quick introduction to who you are and what brought you here.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Okay. So as she said, I'm Megan Colgrove. I came to Georgetown County. I had worked over in Shoreline Behavioral Health and Horry county, which is a little bit of a part of Horry county government for almost 10 years.
Left there to go to International Paper. And as things were happening with International Paper, I got a little bit nervous and decided I wanted to get back into government non profits. And so this job came available and here I am. Now my whole background is finance and accounting.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: We are so happy to have you.
So. So we are currently in probably the busiest part of the year, especially for the finance department, which is preliminary budget stages.
So talk to us a little bit about what all goes into that, where we are, and what we can kind of expect from this year's budget. Okay.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: So most people probably don't realize that budget is almost a six month process. We start it in January. And the final reading, the third reading, is the end of June. So. So in January, we start looking at your current budgets. We have 30 funds and numerous departments roll up to those various funds that we do. We actually have a lot more funds than that, but Those are the 30 that we budget for. The others are more grant related.
So we go through their current budgets, we look at actuals year to date versus their budgets, projects that are being done, have they been started or completed and kind of prepare for what we think is going to happen.
Then we work on the budget calendar that we have to push out to everybody to give them the deadlines.
So that's mostly January. And February is the part where we open it up to you all to start inputting your budgets into the system.
And then we get back all of that data and see what y' all hope to accomplish for the next year before Angela and all of us meet together to go over and decide what can and can't be done.
Then we enter what we call March Madness. And we're finishing that up now. So March Madness is about three to four weeks of non stop budget meetings. They're usually about an hour to too long with each department going over every line of the budget, the justification for everything that is put in and deciding what can stay, what has to be cut and what kind of is on the bubble and that.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: And she looks nice. Like this lady looks like the nicest person. But sitting across from them at those budget meetings things you get the. They get a lot scarier. It's. It's very intimidating having to justify every single thing that you were asking for.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Everything including down to like a chair. I literally had a chair cut out of my budget for next year. So it's not just you guys. Every department goes through it and it can be the craziest things that get cut, you know, but it. We have to make it all work.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: It's terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Yes. And we purposely do that. No, just kidding. We don't do that. The hot seat ends up across from Angela. But that's not intentional all the time.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: I think it is. I think it is. That woman's got some strategy going on.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: She actually might. I did not do that intentionally, but she might have some strategy behind that.
And it is intimidating. There's what, six of us, I think, in the room. And then each department head comes in and justifies. And usually they're alone. Sometimes they bring in if they have like an admin assistant or something. But it can be intense.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: I've got to get an admin assistant for moral support.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Yes, that does help when you have somebody else in there with you for sure.
So once we get through the first round of meetings, sometimes you're lucky enough to get a second callback meeting and even possibly a third. I haven't seen anything past a third yet. But we are still working with various departments on their budgets. A lot of them are the bigger budgets like environmental services, law department, More of our major fund budgets that we.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Thankfully, I don't think my department is big enough for a third meeting.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: No, you might be second, but I haven't heard that yet.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: Yet.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: And that's kind of where we're at with it right now. We keep rolling up the reporting to see where our revenues are versus our expenses, see what we need to look at more to cut.
Hopefully put in some actual increases for personnel cost as well. That's something that we'll have to talk to county about once we get closer to being more balanced. Right now, we're. We're still looking for a good amount of money.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Godspeed.
I'm glad I don't have your job. It sounds very stressful.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: It's a lot of fun, but it is a lot of stress. I like to see how they're the
[00:05:26] Speaker A: only ones who would call that sort of thing fun, I think.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. I love my spreadsheets.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: My best friend is an accountant. She'd be excited about this, too. I don't understand.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Right. The budget process is my favorite part out of my whole job. I love to see all of that come together, and then I like to see how the results come together from there.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So. But, I mean, you don't get six months off after the budget is completed.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: No. That would be so nice.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Wouldn't it, though? So what are you guys doing the rest of the year? I know you have grants, and we
[00:05:55] Speaker B: have about $97 million in grants. I want to say there's like, 60 or so grants. Don't hold me to that number. There's grants as low as, like, $2,000, up to several million dollars. So we have to make sure we're doing all the reporting, getting all of the support in for anything that's spent on those grants there. And there's a lot of different grant agencies, so it's not just like one that we have to report back to. So that's a large job. That's part of my department. We have the audit that comes starting in about September through December. So that's another four months of my life that's dedicated to wrapping up the previous fiscal year. So our fiscal year is July through June. So after June, we have about 60 days where we are still collecting receipts and money and things like that that can go to that fiscal year. And then once that's done, the auditors come in and we start going through everything, and then we have to put together our financial report for that.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: So basically, you have like, two months after budget, and then it's out of the fire into the frying pan pretty much.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: And I don't know that those two months are much less crazy.
I. I just don't know yet. I'm still learning that part of it. I came in in September, and so I jumped right into the audit part
[00:07:13] Speaker A: of it, which was clean. What do they call those? I want to say it's unmitigated, but that's not unmodified. Unmodified. I was so close. So close.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: I'm Not a finance person.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: That's okay. It was a clean, unmodified, which is a really weird way of basically saying that there is nothing wrong with our financials.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: The gold standard.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yes, the gold standard, exactly. I think that's how he said it in the meeting that we had. So they did not have any major findings or anything that we. We did or anything like that. So it was good. Good for my first year.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: That's what we always hope for.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Megan, what else can you tell us?
[00:07:47] Speaker B: I have done, I think, a good work with integrating my department into the county more.
We're trying to get out and talk to more people and just be part of the stuff that they're doing.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Great.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Well, we are so happy to have you on board. We hope that you will have a long career here. And thank you so much for coming on and talking with our residents about what the finance department does.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Our next guests are from the Stormwater Department. We have Rodney Butler and Kiana Shibler, who is an intern in our department. Welcome, Kiana.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: And Rodney is. How long have you been with us now?
[00:08:27] Speaker D: It'll be three years in June.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Congratulations.
[00:08:30] Speaker D: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: On your almost anniversary.
[00:08:33] Speaker D: Almost.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: It flies by.
[00:08:34] Speaker D: It does. It does.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: So you guys are here to talk to us today about Oyster Shell recycling.
[00:08:40] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: So talk.
[00:08:42] Speaker D: Okay. So the state of South Carolina has the SCORE program.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: SCORE And South Carolina Office of Resilience.
[00:08:50] Speaker D: So there. There are two SCORE offices. Oh, yeah, yeah. So this one is like South Carolina Oyster Recycling. And I've forgotten what the E stands for. I think the E is the E in recycling, but it's a South Carolina Oyster Recycling program. And Georgetown county is one of the major consumers of oysters in the state.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: This does not surprise me.
[00:09:11] Speaker D: And so. And with all the restaurants we have up in Murrell's Inlet, and one of the things the state is trying. Has been trying to get us to recognize, along with our landfill resource, is that oyster shells don't decompose in the landfill. So over time, they start to take up place that could be for trash.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Yeah. It's like throwing cement into the landfill, right?
[00:09:30] Speaker D: Correct.
And so what we're trying to do is also rehabilitate the oyster populations in Murrell's Inlet and in our waterways so
[00:09:38] Speaker A: that we can eat more oysters.
[00:09:39] Speaker D: Eat more oysters. And improve our water quality, because the species of oysters does a good job of filtering a lot of bad things out of the water. But the problems we've been having is that there's not enough like lock on material for the baby oysters to latch to and they typically like to latch onto other oyster shells. And for the SCORE program, what they had recognized that we were actually a net purchaser of oyster shells from out of state, even though we have our own oyster production capability. So what the purpose of this program is is to find out where and how Georgetown county can start to collect its oyster shells so that we can build our own recycling program. To put it. We're going to build these recycling baskets that have the oyster shell in them that we put in the water so that other oys attached to them to start oyster colonies. And so, so what we're trying to do is get it so that in within Georgetown county with us being a a mass consumer of oysters, keeping our oyster shells here and then also processing those oyster shells so that we can create more of those recycling baskets. And one of the things that Kiana's been working on was just our public information surveys and also our kind of like our posters and our advertisings for that. So Kiana developed a survey because we're trying to gauge where the current interest is for oyster recycling and then where we could, I guess, make the most impact by placing oyster recycling stations. So Kiana developed a dynamic survey that will hopefully get people to answer so that we can find out where we should be placing our oyster collection recycling centers.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Okay, so we are in the information gathering process right now. These surveys are live and we're putting them out now. We're putting them out shortly. Yes, yes, shortly. Okay, great. So who should fill out these surveys?
[00:11:35] Speaker D: Ideally, every person who has, even if you don't eat oysters, just anybody who's interested in giving information about how oyster recycling in their area could benefit them. But ideally it'd be anybody, be it a tourist or a citizen or a resident of Georgetown County.
Business owners, that would be prime as well because the business owners, they especially specifically the restaurant tours and the, the like, the seafood sellers, having them be informed of this so they can inform their clients would be a great person to have or fill out the survey as well.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Okay, so they're not live yet, but we will have these surveys available on our website soon. Gtcounty.org do you guys have a go live date in mind?
[00:12:25] Speaker D: So hopefully by the time this podcast comes out, the the site will be live. We've gotten all the permissions and had it all checked out by our director and gotten our director's approval. So now we're just waiting to kind of get the information out for people to answer the survey.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Okay, so we'll say early April. By early April, come check our
[email protected] and look for information about these surveys so you can give us some, some opinions on oyster recycling. I think this is great. And how long are the surveys going to be?
[00:12:57] Speaker D: So we're going to keep the survey open pretty much until we there's no debt or we haven't sunsetted it, or we don't have a sunset plan for it. What our hope is is that we're going to also start incorporating volunteer opportunities. And so the survey is hopefully to gather information about where potentially we could host those volunteer opportunities to collect oyster shells.
Because oyster shell recycling is labor intensive in terms that not only after you get the oyster shell, you have to then quarantine the oyster shells in a off site. We're hopefully going to be utilizing a portion of our landfill where they'll spread the oysters out to let them kind of let more of the organic material decay and then also so that we can remove some of the trash from it. And then once they've gone through that quarantine period, we're going to have the SCORE program collect them up so that we can then have another volunteer opportunity to build these oyster baskets where the shells and other ma into in coconut husks, I believe. And that's where we're hoping to utilize to start these kind of like I would call them oyster nurseries almost. But it's just these baskets are there to prevent erosion and then also give a space for the baby oysters to clamp onto.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Sign me up. That sounds like a lot of fun. It sounds very interesting.
[00:14:15] Speaker D: It should be.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: So when do you think that we'll be seeing that part of the the project happen?
[00:14:20] Speaker D: So it's currently going on outside of Georgetown county and we have a couple of opportunities currently in Georgetown county.
But those opportunities are done in conjunction with some of our partners and those being Murrell's Inlet 2020, the Watershed Committee and SCORE itself. They're going to have different opportunities to build these baskets. They'll have a day where they get a group of volunteers. We've had them come out with all their materials to build the baskets and then also they bring in oyster shells to kind of train people how to build the baskets. And then there's a team, once the baskets are built, they're going to go and then place the baskets where they're planning on putting the oyster nursery. So there's different opportunities that the public can get involved in to help this program.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Well, this sounds like a really important program. I'm very excited about it and I hope that we can have you on later on in the process to talk about it some more. But for now we've got these surveys that will be coming out in early April. Check our website, gtcounty.org, we'll also be putting them on our social media and anything else you can think of to tell us, Rodney or Kiana?
[00:15:29] Speaker D: Just that if we can get our oyster recycling program up and running, it would do a lot to save money. Instead of us importing oyster shells, we can utilize our natively occurring oyster shells.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Yeah. The environmental impact of this cannot be overstated. This is a great project.
So thank you so much for coming on and talking with us about this.
[00:15:51] Speaker D: Thanks for having us.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: All of our guests on this podcast are important to me, but I am really, really excited about our next guest, Susie Tuck, our 911 operations manager. Yeah, it is National Communications Month. Communicators Month. I said that wrong. National Communicators Month in April, and Susie is one of our longest employed communicators. She has been here longer than 911 has been here, if you can imagine it.
So, Susie, I want to hear all about your career.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: May 11th will be my 38th year of dispatching.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: So with 91 1, what did we have before 91 1?
[00:16:34] Speaker C: Pencil and paper.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Oh my goodness.
So tell me about, I want to hear about the early days because I, I know what it looks like in there now everybody's answering phones and y' all are always busy. But tell me about the early days. How many people did you have?
[00:16:49] Speaker C: When I pen and paper when I first started, there was one of us and we had Midway Fire only. And then we picked up Murrell's Inlet Fire and Rescue.
So. And we did that at the it was a the fire station was right beside what used to be gullies right there on Paulie's island, just north of Martin Luther King.
The fire station used to be right there. And the ones dispatch center with the old boom microphone that came out, you'd use the foot pedal and wow. One dispatcher at a time.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: So I'm going to sound stupid, but I don't remember 38 years ago, I barely do. I mean, did people, what did they dial?
[00:17:30] Speaker C: If it wasn't 911 way back then, you didn't even have to dial the three previous digits to like 237444. You only had to dial 74444. Which is what the emergency line was for Midway and still is because everybody knows that number, but it just reroutes and rings into the 911 center now on our seven digit lines, not everybody knows that number.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: This is the first time I've heard it.
[00:17:54] Speaker C: Oh, really?
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: Yeah, you can dial it.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: All the people who've been here for the last.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: Yeah. 40 years. All the older people know. Or 91 1, of course, if you have an emergency.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: So what about the rest of the county? What about County Fire? Did they have their own.
[00:18:07] Speaker C: Yep. 527. 3020 is their seven digit emergency line.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: So each one had their own little dispatch office.
[00:18:14] Speaker C: Yeah, well, yes, they did. And then when we moved to Georgetown, I can't remember the year we took over the sheriff's office.
And then slowly we brought in County Fire, Georgetown Police Department, and then Andrews and County. So once we got to 120 Broad street, upstairs is when we turned into Central, because we had everybody we were dispatching then.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: And I'm going to assume you were the only one from that period still left in 911.
[00:18:45] Speaker C: There were a few of us, but they all retired except for me.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Well, you're not allowed. I've been told.
[00:18:55] Speaker C: No. No.
I was going to try to hold out till I'm 65, which I'm 62 now, but if I can keep going, I'll keep going.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: So, Susie, what else can we talk about? Tell me, what would people not know about 911 from. From 38 years ago.
[00:19:15] Speaker C: God, it has come such a long, long way.
What would they not know about?
Oh, yeah, texting. We can do that now. Text to 91 1. We haven't advertised it heavy because everybody's going to want to practice and make sure it works and.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:33] Speaker C: But we have had multiple real calls, texting back and forth and gotten them help that they needed. And then, of course, we've had the fake ones where I've been kidnapped and you chase them down and they're like, oh, I. Making sure that it worked.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Yeah, okay.
[00:19:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: It never even occurred to me that I could text 911 now.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: I know that I've accidentally called it a couple of times when the buttons get pushed while my phone is in my purse. I bet you get a lot of that, too.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: Yes. And we reach out back to them.
Yeah. It was a missile pocket. Dial, but dial. Yeah.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: And I don't know about them. I'm always so embarrassed, so very embarrassed.
I hate to waste your time. I mean, what y' all are. You have Important things to do.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: Well, it does stay busy in there on day shift. I really would rather not work a day shift anymore. Really, I'd rather work the graveyard. It's not quite as busy. And it gives me opportunity to get all my other work done from my office that when I'm in dispatch, that I can get done.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: How many calls a day do y' all get? Now? I bet that's a big difference from, you know, back in the day when you were working at Midway.
[00:20:33] Speaker C: I would venture to say we probably answer two to 400 phone calls a day.
[00:20:39] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:20:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's not all calls. That's just general I need to know or does somebody have a warrant or my dog's loose or. I mean, people call 911 for that. Oh, yeah. You'd just be surprised what they call 91 4.
I got a frog on my porch.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Don't call 911 for that.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: No, 911 is for emergencies. They taught me this in first grade.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: Yes.
I think they need to get back
[00:21:08] Speaker A: out there and teach it again, apparently.
How many calls a day did you get? You know, back when you had to dial the four digit number and you were in that little building and.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: God, we'd probably be lucky if we got six. Oh, maybe.
Big, big change.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: I bet. So, I mean, what did you do with the rest of your day there?
[00:21:29] Speaker C: I was crochet. Not crocheting. I was cross stitching there for a while, but every time when the phone would ring and you got to put it down, it's just hard to pick back up. So clean up and wait for the phone to ring. Watch tv.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: I guess there weren't nearly as many tourists there. Who, you know, I mean, they probably wouldn't have known the 4 digit number or which fire department they.
[00:21:51] Speaker C: Right. They needed to call. Yeah.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: What did. What did people do then?
[00:21:55] Speaker C: I don't know.
Wow. Yeah. Scary.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: It is. I. I can't imagine it. I. I have always known. Nine, one one.
[00:22:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: So I just. I can't imagine a world without it. Yeah. So how did you get into this line of work? And how old were you when you started?
[00:22:13] Speaker C: Oh, God, when I first started. Let me take you back.
My mother was lieutenant with Midway Fire Department and my father was with the department and my brother.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: What were their names?
[00:22:24] Speaker C: Margaret Tuck. John Roy Tuck, Senior and Junior.
So they were all volunteers with the fire department. I was probably 11, maybe.
And the fire phone actually hung on my mother's bedroom wall. You couldn't dial out, but when they were dialing the 4444.
It would ring in there. She would take the information down. Her and Daddy would go to the fire. She'd wake me up with the address, and I'd call the other five volunteers they had and tell them where to go. So I guess I was originally the original.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: You were 11. Dispatching fireballs.
[00:23:04] Speaker C: Wow.
Then I think I was probably a sophomore in high school when I joined the youth brigade. They had a youth brigade then? Basically. Basically we would go to the fires, which we were so cool. We got to wear the pagers and all that stuff, but we would roll up all the hose and do all the grunt work for the firefighters because God knows they did enough.
But then I guess I was a senior in high school, and the original reason why I took the job was because of the insurance, believe it or not. But I've been going strong ever since. I love it.
The worst thing about it is not always finding out the outcome of stuff.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I imagine there are some things that you.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: You.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: You worry about and wonder about when you're going to sleep at night.
[00:23:53] Speaker C: Yeah, there are.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: And I bet you've heard some things that have probably stuck with you.
[00:23:57] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Many years.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: It's not an easy job. I mean, you aren't responding yourself, but you are a first responder.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: Yes. You're. You're the first responder. It's stressful.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: It would have to be.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: So you now are located in the emergency management building. You, of course, are about to move into a new nine.
[00:24:19] Speaker D: I know.
[00:24:20] Speaker C: I'm so excited.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Very excited.
[00:24:22] Speaker C: I know.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: How many different locations have you worked at?
[00:24:26] Speaker C: See, I worked at the one. The one beside the. What used to be Gullies, and then they built the headquarter station in Litchfield and then 120broad, and now here.
So finishing out my career at the new building will be five different places.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: So basically all of Georgetown County's 911 history, pretty much. You've seen it, You've lived.
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Yes.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: That's incredible. I mean, what an accomplishment.
[00:24:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Well, you've mentioned, you know, you might retire. I. I don't think you'll be able to let it go. But if you did, I mean, would you miss it?
[00:25:04] Speaker C: Oh, God, yeah.
Yes.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: I think part of your life.
[00:25:08] Speaker C: Yeah. It's so long.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: Not only your entire adult life, basically your. Your teenage life.
[00:25:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Wow.
It's practically in your blood.
[00:25:18] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: So tell me, how many 911 operators would you say you've trained over the Years.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: I'm not a big fan of training, but the ones that I did train have turned out really well and trained really well. I think I've probably trained, I don't know, maybe five people, but they've all turned out to be very good trainers themselves and train the people on their shifts. So.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: So other than the location and obviously there's some technology components, what other changes have you seen to the. The job and I guess the industry
[00:25:58] Speaker C: itself, the text and of course, and the rapid SOS is amazing.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Everything.
[00:26:06] Speaker C: Yes, that's the. When you dial in 91 1, it automatically picks up what tower you're calling from, and within like three to five seconds, it'll zoom in on where you're actually at.
Perfect for those people, like lost in the woods out on the water, but it'll zoom you right into where. Where you're at.
Okay, so that's a, that's an awesome feature we've got in there and that actually hooks right into our 91 1. So it pops up on the screen when it populates over. So we know exactly where you're at and where you're calling from, which is awesome. But it's.
Everything has just come such a long way. And now the.
The dispatch, the officers doing everything from their car, they can run the tags. It's. It's just amazing.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: Computer's amazing.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: Well, what else can you tell me?
[00:27:04] Speaker C: I don't know.
I've just enjoyed the ride.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: So what, what do you really love about it? Like, what has made you stay for 38 years?
[00:27:14] Speaker C: To helping people?
Yeah.
Just to get to help people.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Could you even begin to estimate how many people you have. Have helped over the last 38 years? No, it would have to be thousands, I would think.
[00:27:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
Have to be.
Yeah.
Mind boggling.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Do you ever think that you'd be at it this long when you started so long ago?
[00:27:40] Speaker C: No, but I'm glad. I am. I really enjoyed it.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: All right, well, Susie, thank you so much for coming.
[00:27:47] Speaker C: Yes, thank you.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: Thank you for everything that you do for literally everybody in the county.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: Yes, you're welcome. Call anytime you need me, but only
[00:27:58] Speaker A: if it's a real emergency.
[00:27:59] Speaker C: Only if it's an emergency.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Our last guest for this podcast is Kevin o'. Dell. He is a public information coordinator for the SC Office of Resilience. Not to be confused with the other score that we talked about in our previous segment having to do with oyster recycling.
Anyway, Kevin is here to talk to us today about a public information meeting coming up later this month. In the Grave Station community.
This has to do with a stormwater project that we have recently, recently received some grant funding for. So, Kevin, would you please tell us about this, this meeting and the project and why it is so important for Grave Station community residents to attend this meeting?
[00:28:43] Speaker E: Absolutely.
So part of our mission at the South Carolina Office of Resilience is to implement hazard mitigation projects.
So this particular project is part of a federal grant allocated to the state of South Carolina from the U.S. department of Housing and Urban Development.
And the reason that we're working in Georgetown county specifically is because the county saw severe impacts from recent disasters. Think along the lines of the 2015 floods, 2016 and 2018 hurricanes. So because of that, we're able to use this federal grant to implement stormwater infrastructure improvements. So the meeting that we have coming up for the gravestation project is because we're ready to begin our community engagement process of the stormwater infrastructure design.
So we have an engineering firm that is contracting with us to do this design. And what they're looking for is input from members of the community.
So they of course have access to information like current drainage infrastructure, what's there already some about the lay of the land. And when I say that, I mean literally. They do have data looking at elevation that they can how water flows, but that also needs to be paired with just the on the ground observations that members of the community have. It is extremely valuable to have someone come in and point out a map and say this section of road right here floods every single time it rains. That sort of anecdotal evidence helps us understand the big picture that we're working with so we can design a solution that makes the most sense for the community.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Yeah, our engineers are experts in that, but the people who live in these communities are experts in their communities. Right. So of course we want their opinions on what needs to be done.
So tell us about when and where this meeting will occur.
[00:30:38] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely. So we're looking at Thursday, April 23rd, and this is going to be a drop in meeting. So between 5:30 and 7:30 in the evening, anyone is welcome to come in and talk to our engineers about the flooding issues that they've observed and what they think is most important for us to prioritize. So that's again Thursday, April 23rd, and it's going to be at New Light Baptist Church, which is at 316Amelia Dr. In Georgetown.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Okay, perfect. So I hope that we'll have lots of residents come out to talk with the staff that's on hand. To answer questions and talk more about the project.
Kevin, do you know offhand what the general timeline for this project is?
[00:31:22] Speaker E: So we General is the right way to describe it. So what we're anticipating is by summer of this year we'll have about 90% of the design and cost estimate done, and then looking to move that to about 100% design sometime in the fall, which point we'll be ready to start bidding it out for contractors to do the construction phase.
And that will take us probably into late 2027 before we see substantial or final completion of the construction phase.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Okay, wonderful. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us and telling us about this project.
I hope that all the residents of the Grave Station community will attend this meeting and make sure that their voices are heard.
[00:32:08] Speaker E: Likewise. I look forward to this meeting.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: All right, great. Thanks, Kevin.
[00:32:13] Speaker E: Anytime.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: That's all for this month's First Friday with Georgetown County. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, I'd like to bring you a list of important events to note coming up this month. County offices, the landfill and most recycling centers are closed in observance of Good Friday on April 3rd.
The Johnson Road, Burls Inlet and Pawley's island and recycling centers are open today from 10am to 3pm on Sunday, those three centers will be closed in observance of the Easter holiday.
County Council meets twice this month on April 7 and Tuesday, April 21.
Both meetings are scheduled for 5:30pm in County Council chambers.
Additionally, workshops will be held prior to each of these meetings, beginning at 4pm The April 7 workshop will cover potential changes to the county's Wetlands protection ordinance, and the April 21st workshop will give Council an update on the aforementioned annual budgeting process.
The Board of Elections and Voter Registration will meet at 5:30pm on Wednesday, April 8th at the office of Elections and Voter Registration on Hazard Street.
The Planning Commission will meet on Thursday, April 16, also at 5:30pm in council chambers.
This is also scheduled to be the first Planning Commission meeting to be live streamed, so be sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com gtcountysc to be notified of that livestream as well as County Council live streams, the Library has many wonderful events going on throughout the month. Did you know that we've recently changed how library events are advertised on our website?
In addition to one main calendar which lists all of the library's events, each of our individual library branches now has its own calendar that lists just the events at that branch. So you can choose the calendar which best suits your interests, you can subscribe to email or text notifications on our website.
Lastly, while this is not a county event, we would like to give everyone a friendly reminder to get your taxes done by April 15th.
For more events, please visit our website gtcounty.org, join us next month for another First Friday with Georgetown County.
