Karl (00:05)
Welcome to Mighty Municipalities, the podcast about small municipalities and how they can punch above their weight. I'm your host, Karl McCollester and along with my co-host, Mark Partin and our guests, we take you through the highs and lows of working in a small municipality. Whether it's the hardship and frustration that is holding you back or the progress and wins that are propelling you forward, we're here to share the lessons learned and give you strategies to help improve your community. Hey Mark, how are you doing this toasty, toasty Tuesday?

Mark Partin (00:34)
Yes, it is very toasty and as South Carolinians know and people in the south east we're in a extremely hot stretch here. Probably the hottest we've had so far this summer. So just

Karl (00:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (00:45)
try and stay cool. Try and stay cool.

Karl (00:47)
Absolutely. Yeah. I'm hoping my AC unit gets replaced tomorrow. So it's even toastier

Mark Partin (00:52)
Yeah.

Karl (00:53)
currently at my house. So let let's all hope for that.

Mark Partin (00:55)
Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. If

Mark Partin (00:58)
not, there are plenty of hotels you can check into. Yeah.

Karl (01:00)
Yes, yes, yes. I have good

Karl (01:01)
neighbors. It's it's it's a good thing.

Mark Partin (01:03)
So today we were gonna just talk about some different things on our mind and I know one thing that I'm interested in is the Municipal Association of South Carolina Small Cities Conference and I know you attended that last week. So what did you hear there and what really stood out to you as interesting?

Karl (01:18)
Great. So yes, so I was there last Thursday. Now I'm attending as a you know strategic partner of the Municipal Association with Gov Possible. So I'm not attending a lot of the talks. I sat in for a little bit of the first talk where they were continuing to talk about the their desire to improve

Karl (01:37)
the quality of the financials that are coming out of municipalities from an audit and budget standpoint. and a you know that is I think been a known issue and then it's one that's the municipal association has been frankly thinking about for a while, but then most timely or unfortunately timely in the past few months, it's also been a subject of the post and courier looking at things and and how yeah

Karl (01:59)
how we're having the silver wave and everything else that's happening in municipal government that makes it difficult to to to keep a town especially a small town being very diligent with their financial best practices and things like that. So a lot of their talk during the introductory session was around that piece.

Karl (02:15)
As somebody who is a strategic partner though, the reason where they have us is in what they call the agency hall. So during the main municipal association conference, they have vendors there who are,

Karl (02:26)
having all the interesting things. I always enjoyed the recreation places with their

Mark Partin (02:30)
Yeah.

Karl (02:30)
their large blow up or light up things that that they bring in for people to look at. or

Mark Partin (02:34)
Yes.

Karl (02:35)
the or the fire truck depending on which which municipal association meeting you're going

Mark Partin (02:38)
Mm-hmm.

Karl (02:39)
to some you know sometimes even like caterpillars there with some of their loaders and things like that. So those are always fun to look at. But this was more again focused on small municipalities and especially getting them familiar with what the state and what the agencies

Karl (02:54)
within the state and even federally have to offer. So I think they had I want to say like twelve agencies within what they called the agency hall. and so and I really enjoyed speaking both to the Department of Agriculture and then Palmetto Pride.

Mark Partin (03:11)
Great. what were both of those really featuring Palmetto

Karl (03:14)
Right.

Mark Partin (03:15)
Pride and USDA for small communities, yeah.

Karl (03:17)
So yeah,

Karl (03:18)
absolutely. I had met the Department of Agriculture folks, I think

Karl (03:22)
AJ is one of them last year because we were next to each other. We we had a lot of time spending talking with each other. So this year he had stopped by and they regularly talk about their food safety programs as well as their farmers market initiatives, things like that. the reason I wanted to talk with them is a lot of the people that I work with in the licensing side have a lot of questions, especially around what somebody can do if they want to start selling food.

Karl (03:49)
that's always an interesting discussion. because there are certain foods that you can just sell. Yeah, like you can set up your thing on the side of the street and as long as that's allowed by municipal regulations, you know, go to it. And that would be things like, pre prepared foods, bags of chips,

Karl (04:03)
cans of soda, all those kind of things, right? 'cause the Department of Agriculture, the group that's, regulating food, foodborne illnesses and trying

Mark Partin (04:10)
Yeah.

Karl (04:11)
to keep us all safe from food, what they're mainly concerned about is is that, right? That we don't want you to get sick. If you do get sick, we want to be able to figure out how you got sick so that if its a problem for multiple people. If it's something like the Salmonola outbreaks we've been having or the cyclospora outbreaks.

Karl (04:26)
they're the state level of of the FDA that's trying to then trace that down and figure out where that thing came from so they can, make a correction of wherever that food source came. So if you're selling, cans of soda and and some bags of chips

Mark Partin (04:37)
Okay.

Karl (04:38)
on the side of the road, that's pretty sure it's gonna be safe because it it was packaged in a facility and and you haven't been unpacking those bags before handing them to people. So so things are gonna be pretty clean, right?

Karl (04:47)
In addition to that

Karl (04:48)
South Carolina has a homesteading act. so things like, your kids having a a cookie stand, you know, that where they're selling baked goods,

Mark Partin (04:54)
Yeah.

Karl (04:55)
things like that. So a lot of those things fall under homesteading that as long as you're registered and you properly label that this is not a regulated food source and give the address of where it comes from. So again, that way they can trace it in case somebody gets sick.

Karl (05:07)
what gets more interesting then

Karl (05:09)
is where I've seen with a lot of our towns is there's a guy, he's really good at barbecue. He's like, I can make some money on this on the side on a Saturday or Sunday. So he pulls, he's got his his trailer with his with his barbecue on it and he starts driving down the road finds a nice busy spot and starts selling

Karl (05:27)
ribs and chicken and stuff like that. And we all love those kind of things.

Mark Partin (05:29)
Yeah.

Karl (05:31)
those are places where people can get sick. Either the f because the food's undercooked or because it's sitting, after it was cooked, it's sitting over on the side and some unfortunate fly gets on it and then you've eaten it and then you get sick. So so there are a lot of rules around that. And

Karl (05:47)
the default rule is that you you can't barbecue outside.

Mark Partin (05:50)
Yeah.

Karl (05:50)
because of insects, right? insects

Mark Partin (05:52)
Right.

Karl (05:52)
cross contamination with other things, all that kind of stuff. so I was trying to f find out, where are the possibilities for somebody who wants to do this? Because, the business license group in Sumter, they don't want to say no, they wanna say, Okay, if you want to do this, this is what you need to do. So we have to have this knowledge and we have

Mark Partin (06:05)
Yeah, probably.

Karl (06:06)
to be able to share it with all

Karl (06:07)
of our business licensed folks around the state. And so what I found out was that it can be mobile if there is a food truck with it. So if there is a place and the idea of course the food truck will have

Karl (06:19)
The ability for somebody to go in and wash their hands and things like that, that's part of that mobile unit. I think that's part of the key of all of this, that you have a a place where the food can be handled safely, so it's got refrigeration, and that people can, keep a sanitary presence. So if you have that, then you can have an outdoor barbecue that's either part of the food truck. So if you've seen those school buses, that that

Mark Partin (06:39)
Yes.

Karl (06:40)
have been converted into big barbecue things. yeah, so that's allowed, or it can even be on a

Karl (06:45)
Trailer.

Karl (06:46)
the main thing is that it has to be fully screened. So if you see one that's not screened, that's technically not allowed. again, the idea is keeping those bugs away. So we're not talking about like, thick mesh, security screen. We're talking about like thin small screen that'll that'll keep

Karl (06:59)
the flies off and if it is on the trailer, if you're taking it from the barbecue, take it off the grill, put it into a container.

Karl (07:05)
so that it's sealed and then walk it into the food truck and then undo it and then put it on the plate So those are the constraints. So if you have somebody who walks up and says, hey, you know, I want to start grilling on US 15, my friend owns this old building that's there and they said I could do it. Great. These are the things you have to have.

Karl (07:25)
So that's the general rule. Now, however, what gets interesting is I'm sure y Mark, you've seen, a church has a picnic, right? Or a little festival in their parking lot.

Mark Partin (07:35)
I have

Karl (07:35)
Or if you've ever seen or heard the radio ads where, the local Chevy dealership's having a big sale and they're gonna serve hot dogs and hamburgers there if you've been to them, you know not they're not sitting there with screens around all their food and stuff.

Karl (07:48)
so the Department of Agriculture I think accepts that that's just gonna happen in general.

Karl (07:54)
But as part of that, what they want those events to do, and this is apparently what the auto dealers do, is you register with the Department of Agriculture, say, hey, I or my church, I'm having this event, we're having a little festival, we're having a bazaar, we're doing a fundraiser, we're gonna be cooking some food out there. And from the Department of Agriculture standpoint, as long as you register with them so they approve it, and you give them a list of the vendors that will be there.

Karl (08:18)
Then the restrictions ease up a lot. Because the idea is this is a one-time temporary thing. This is not, you know, somebody's profession and business that's there all the time. and the main thing they want to do is at the very least be able to track back if 15 people get sick in the area, where do they get sick from? they all got sick from the church bazaar. Right.

Mark Partin (08:36)
Evening.

Karl (08:37)
So at least they can know, okay, there are 150 people there. Who else do we need to warn? Who else do we potentially need to get in touch with? so there's

Karl (08:45)
There are these exceptions for things church picnic, auto dealer sale, chili cook-offs, And that

Karl (08:51)
is allowed as long as they're registering with the DOA first. the only downside right now is that you have to call the DOA to see if they've registered that event or not. There's no website that has it, nothing where you can just query it yourself and and figure that out.

Karl (09:04)
So that was the interesting part with talking with the DOA about some of the things they can do.

Mark Partin (09:08)
Yeah, and since we're talking about food and people possibly getting sick, just to clarify, when Karl says DOA is Department of Agriculture, not dead on arrival. Yeah. but no, I think it's also

Karl (09:17)
Yes. Right. Very nice, nicely done. So Yes.

Mark Partin (09:23)
this is a good opportunity for anyone listening to understand that

Mark Partin (09:27)
You know, a lot of people think the regulation, particularly around, say food trucks or, you know, barbecue sales or baked goods sales or whatever, is the government being heavy handed. But there really is that public health component that you talked about. You know,

Karl (09:41)
Yes.

Mark Partin (09:41)
if a large number of people get sick, you need to be able to trace where it's coming from so that you can stop it and and not have it, you know, expand and exponentially start spreading around some diseases that make people sick. So

Mark Partin (09:55)
There is that public health component. It's not just being heavy handed and over regulating. That's know.

Karl (10:00)
Yeah, absolutely. And think

Karl (10:02)
if that event is not registered

Karl (10:05)
and something happens, well then there's almost there's also a chance then your local grocery store is getting shut down or having a recall because of something because that's the next most likely thing where, instead of twenty of twenty, maybe at least eighteen of twenty people went there and the other they'll they'll just think maybe the other two can't remember. so it having this helps the rest of your community, you stay safe and frankly stay open and not

Karl (10:27)
suffer repercussions if something happens. you

Mark Partin (10:29)
Yeah.

Karl (10:30)
know, there's nothing to my knowledge of where you get arrested for that happening as the organizer. So if you have an event, you register and something happens, you're not the one on the hook for that. and so it's more of a liability if you did something without be without checking in.

Mark Partin (10:43)
Yeah.

Karl (10:44)
so you definitely want to try to get that registered and I'm sure we as in the the city of Sumter does that as

Karl (10:49)
part of the iris festival and and those kind of things. And know, if you're thinking of a farmer's market even, you certainly want to coordinate with the Department of Agriculture and make sure they are aware of who's going to be there each week. And all the more reason then to make sure you're tracking of course who's in what booth and things like that.

Mark Partin (11:05)
Yeah. And I think food trucks in general I think are exciting because it brings variety, different foods, different styles of cooking, you know, barbecue. It's not just one style. So I

Karl (11:13)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (11:16)
I think it's exciting that there is a growing interest in food trucks, at least in South Carolina, it's a relatively new trend. so we want to make sure everybody's handling things correctly.

Karl (11:26)
Right, yeah. It certainly expands access to those people who want to explore the food service industry as an entrepreneur as a way to to start a business and what can be better within our community than having, multiple of those businesses that are supporting people and people that are supporting themselves, it just makes your community that much more resilient if if those things are happening.

Mark Partin (11:46)
That's right, yeah. Okay.

Karl (11:48)
So yeah, the other the other place that I spoke with was Palmetto Pride. and Mark, do you have any background on Palmetto Pride and how they're situated within the state?

Mark Partin (11:58)
Yes, if you pay any attention to the litter pickup signs that you see on the side of the road like this next mile is adopted by so and so, that's Palmetto Pride that's one of many things they do. But that's probably where most of us are most familiar with Palmetto Pride. But yes, they do really support, promote cleaning up our state, preventing litter, but they also

Mark Partin (12:20)
delve into nature and and how things can be improved to keep our green spaces healthy, not just clean but healthy.

Karl (12:27)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark Partin (12:29)
and I know they work very closely with agencies like Clemson Extension and

Mark Partin (12:35)
other conservancy agencies around and they also if you do have a litter pickup program in your community not just one directly from Palmetto Pride they will assist you in that. we

Karl (12:46)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (12:46)
have here in Sumter a program called Nature at Work which we talked about a few podcasts ago and as well as litter prevention program officers in city and county government that regularly are promoting and educating kids and

Mark Partin (12:59)
others on the importance of not littering. So Palmetto Pride will provide grants for those efforts. I know they just did one for the Sumter area for distributing coloring books into the schools since schools just started.

Karl (13:12)
Okay. Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (13:14)
You know, so again starting to educate kids when they're young about keeping our communities clean and making it fun because you know kids do like to color and

Mark Partin (13:25)
and make a game out of it versus just don't do this or you get in trouble. So so they do provide assistance for programs like that, educational programs like that. They also will provide assistance in the supplies you need to conduct these litter pickups, such as garbage bags, which that sounds

Mark Partin (13:41)
basic but that's what you need if you're picking up litter off the side of the road. You gonna need to put it in something. So it'll do garbage bags and and other tools and supplies you need to conduct

Mark Partin (13:51)
those litter pickup days. And then something that I've recently learned about the last few months, they will also they also have grants for planting trees. And so that's a good effort if you want to see some more trees planted in your community and but for having the money available to do it you would do it. Explore opportunities with Palmetto Pride for receiving some grant funding to, do those

Mark Partin (14:13)
tree plantings. and again that goes into what we talked about with ways to prevent heat. The more trees we have, the better

Mark Partin (14:20)
we can reduce the high levels of heat through shade and carbon dioxide

Karl (14:24)
Yes.

Mark Partin (14:25)
being absorbed and all of those things. So

Karl (14:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (14:27)
a lot of opportunities there that beyond just the beautification efforts of Palameter Pride that really can go into making our state and our communities and our lives better and healthier as a result

Karl (14:38)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (14:38)
of it. Yeah.

Karl (14:39)
Yes,

Karl (14:40)
their mission is certainly around litter prevention. I think that's their primary mission statement. But they really take a holistic approach to that, even dumping. they even provide grants around that, like if you need you know if you need a camera to to monitor a dump site that's n regularly dumped at, they can help with that. they mentioned to me they even helped with getting equipment for

Karl (15:00)
a county that has a lot of backcountry space where there's illegal dumping So the grants can really be things from trees to to help with surveillance for litter prevention even things like trash cans on main street so if you have a nice rails to trails thing I think I have a couple communities I work with that have the old rail line that goes down the middle that's no longer in use they convert to a trail

Karl (15:19)
You can get you know high quality trash cans that you can put out on that or replace the ones that maybe were originally with the grant 20 years ago and spruce the whole thing up a little bit. So I thought that was interesting. they also you mentioned this the school things, they certainly do events with schools, education, cleanup events, they even have some scholarships and internships, I believe, with schools that are available. so there's a lot of things they do with the community there. and then you mentioned the trash pickup materials.

Karl (15:45)
What I thought was interesting that they're just starting now is one of the other things that happen that cause litter, which is a transportation issue, is that lots of people with trucks don't know that they're supposed to cover their truck if they put a load in so if you have a small police department, say, and that's been an issue where things are falling off the backs of trucks, they'll actually help provide you free tarps and bungees that your officers can keep.

Karl (16:08)
In their trunk. So that way they pull somebody over, maybe they give them the ticket or maybe not, but they can also then say, Hey, here you go this way. Next time you don't get the ticket, you know, and give that to them as a way to to help mitigate that, which I think is a a clever way to really help get something that's at the source that if you make it easy for people to to follow the follow the rules, then usually they'll do that. So if they have that on hand,

Mark Partin (16:28)
They usually will

Karl (16:29)
it helps. So I I thought those there's some great things and and it was great to learn

Karl (16:32)
what different things they can provide as a community. you mentioned the the the pickup cleanup events. What a great community building exercise to have a quarterly cleanup in different parts of town

Mark Partin (16:42)
Yes.

Karl (16:44)
get people to know each other in different communities, get get people to know each other even within the same community because we know these days part of the problem and part of our challenge as a town is to get you even people who are on the same block talking to each

Mark Partin (16:55)
Yeah.

Karl (16:56)
other in meetings. So if you can work with your neighborhoods to to do cleanup events.

Karl (17:00)
events and and just be seen that that can go a long way towards helping, community pride as well as community interaction.

Mark Partin (17:07)
Yeah, and you know, to bring the nature at work back into it, not only is are you cleaning up, but you're outside, you're getting fresh air, you're getting sunlight, and then you're getting that community like you were saying, pair up with a buddy and, walk your area and pick up the trash and

Mark Partin (17:22)
make competition out of it if you're talking about different departments working together and things. So there's so many ways you can look at this beyond just the simple act of picking up litter. So much more to it than just that. So think creatively about how you can do things like that. And certainly Palmetto Pride is is there to support in any way they can the beautification of our state.

Karl (17:43)
Great. those are the two th main things I took away from the conference. Mark, what were your thoughts for this week?

Mark Partin (17:50)
well, I've really been thinking a lot about and you and I, Larry, one of our other colleagues were talking about the cybersecurity around utilities. And

Karl (17:59)
Yes.

Mark Partin (18:00)
you know it oftentimes in the past we think international events are out there.

Mark Partin (18:05)
they're in another country or or they're being dealt with in Washington, that doesn't affect us. But as we have seen recently, it does affect local communities. And unfortunately some communities have had issues with their their utility systems being hacked and different things being done to disrupt the the supply of water, sewer or power.

Karl (18:24)
Yeah.

Mark Partin (18:27)
We have not, just to be clear, we have not, and I'm not aware of anywhere in South Carolina,

Karl (18:29)
Yes.

Mark Partin (18:32)
but it is in the national news. And

Karl (18:34)
It is.

Mark Partin (18:34)
so that you know, that's just been on my mind how things are the world is becoming smaller.

Karl (18:40)
Right.

Mark Partin (18:40)
And international events do affect us

Mark Partin (18:43)
at the local level in ways we haven't imagined before. So that

Karl (18:46)
Right.

Mark Partin (18:47)
that's just been on my mind and what do we need to do, you know, from a cyber point of view, but then also from practical point of view, what does this mean? so that's that's really just been on my mind a lot later, you know.

Karl (18:58)
Yeah, we've spoke that the you know City of Sumters feels fairly well prepared because of the various things that the city has done and and the way that those systems are set up, right?

Karl (19:11)
I think a lot of our smaller municipalities probably think, well, you know, I haven't been able to afford to set up anything with my you

Mark Partin (19:16)
Yeah.

Karl (19:18)
know, with my my system yet that would automate anything anyway. So yeah, so what do I have to worry about? But

Karl (19:23)
there are still pieces, even if it's your billing system and your metering system. if you if you have AMR and people could take that over and start shutting off meters, that's that's a thing, right? That's that's especially if you couldn't recover from it and and rest control back. there are certainly information that we're all storing in our utility billing systems that we need to make sure that we're we're careful about. that is,

Karl (19:46)
personally identifiable information, that we all need to be careful and make sure we're doing what best efforts we can to safeguard that material. and we always think about it from cybersecurity, from a hacker working alone at night, getting through a network and and making something happen because we are so connected and automated. But I think it is important to think about, especially nowadays,

Karl (20:11)
how effective AI can be at social engineering and potentially making the right phone call or the right series of texts that get supported by the right phone call that then becomes an email that convinces a human in the system to do something. it is both impressive and because of that somewhat scary about how well

Mark Partin (20:30)
Good so

Karl (20:31)
the systems can communicate in a way that makes it seem realistic and like a human. I don't know about you Mark, but there are definitely emails every week I get where I'm like I have to pause. I don't think that's legit, but man, that's a lot closer to legit than it's ever been. Yes, right?

Mark Partin (20:43)
Yes. Yeah. That's right. Right. Boy, they're really getting really good at this, yeah.

Karl (20:52)
Right, yeah. So, when you're thinking about that as a small community, it's not just if we're thinking about a water system or a sewer system, my pumps, my lift stations aren't, directly accessible. Well, if you have a new employee who's started training on that and they get convinced by some text to go do something that, still compromises the system,

Karl (21:14)
it wasn't a computer but it's still bad. So

Mark Partin (21:16)
Yes.

Karl (21:17)
think carefully about that and make sure, especially maybe the employees that you don't think about from a computer safety standpoint, are getting trained on some of the things they could be getting through their phone, even their personal phone that may be affecting them. and I I think that, goes back to what you're saying as far as

Karl (21:32)
the vulnerability that is within our utility systems these days. Yeah.

Mark Partin (21:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (21:38)
Yes, and just, to throw another topic out there that just always on my mind, but particularly today I've had my hands in it, is leadership development and particularly f passing on to the next generation because you know, there is a big turnover occurring

Karl (21:54)
Uh-huh.

Mark Partin (21:54)
nationwide just as generations get older and

Mark Partin (21:59)
other people move into place, but, just making sure that we're doing everything we can, me personally as well as us organizationally,

Karl (22:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (22:05)
to prepare younger or newer leaders.

Karl (22:08)
Sure.

Mark Partin (22:08)
to

Mark Partin (22:08)
step in and take over. So that's that's just an ongoing thing that I work on and think about and a passion of mine, not just professionally, but with other groups that I interact with is, are we doing what we can to our very best to be ready for a future event.

Karl (22:22)
Absolutely. What right. And what

Karl (22:24)
do you think is the most important piece of that right now, for a community that's looking at their employees.

Mark Partin (22:31)
I think probably the toughest thing is when you get to be my age and a little bit older, sometimes we don't like to give up responsibility or or

Karl (22:37)
Mm-hmm. Sure. Yes.

Mark Partin (22:40)
we have fear of if I give this up they don't need me anymore.

Karl (22:44)
Mm.

Mark Partin (22:44)
so I think just having that willingness to know this needs to be done so that

Mark Partin (22:50)
their future is better than my future was. And not

Mark Partin (22:52)
that mine was bad, but you know, why make it hard? Make it easier.

Karl (22:55)
Yeah.

Mark Partin (22:56)
So they're starting at a higher level and then they can go even higher themselves.

Karl (22:58)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mark Partin (23:00)
so I think probably that's the the biggest thing that local leaders can accept or need to accept is that I'm not gonna live forever.

Mark Partin (23:08)
So what can I do to leave a good legacy to those people who are coming behind me? And you heard me speak at a conference last year about this does not have to be something that takes a lot of budget. You can do

Karl (23:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (23:20)
this basically free other than your time. You know, there are plenty

Karl (23:23)
Right. Yes.

Mark Partin (23:25)
of resources out there that you don't have to pay for that are high quality that that you can use to grow yourself as well as grow the next generation, other than your time.

Mark Partin (23:35)
it's relatively inexpensive. So I would say that one, admit that this needs to be done, and two, don't use resources as an excuse to not do it.

Karl (23:45)
I would think especially for our smaller teams is looking and seeing if you have five people trying to figure out,

Karl (23:53)
who is that person, especially if you have five such very disparate roles in the system, right? If you're talking about like one clerk, one police officer

Mark Partin (24:03)
Yeah.

Karl (24:04)
one admin assistant and two public works folks, right? yeah, I think that gets difficult for them. and I can think of in that case, you almost have to start

Karl (24:15)
pooling your resources with other towns to help, you know,

Mark Partin (24:17)
Yes.

Karl (24:18)
have that ability both for people to interact and learn from each other because you don't have that expertise necessarily in in-house and that ability to share ideas back and forth necessarily as much. And I could also hear the arguments already from some of my towns, we can barely get everything done. How when are we gonna go over to some other town and you know

Mark Partin (24:33)
Yeah.

Karl (24:34)
with them and do that? So it's a thorny situation.

Mark Partin (24:37)
Yes.

Mark Partin (24:37)
But that's the beauty of technology and I

Karl (24:40)
That's true.

Mark Partin (24:40)
most of our towns, you know, have access to a a decent internet connection so they can do a Teams call or a Zoom call or you know,

Karl (24:45)
Yeah. Yes. True.

Mark Partin (24:49)
their choice of platform. even if it's only fifteen minutes, that's a start. That's a start, yeah. And

Karl (24:53)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's like some what?

Mark Partin (24:57)
if anybody listening needs help, contact me.

Mark Partin (25:01)
And I'll send you some free resources. I'd

Karl (25:03)
Great, yeah.

Mark Partin (25:04)
be glad to help you get started with you know basics. So more than happy to help with that. So

Karl (25:08)
Awesome. Awesome.

Karl (25:10)
Well and we'll include that in the show notes. with that Mark, anything else you want to talk about or shall we move on to grants?

Mark Partin (25:17)
I think we can move on to grants today, yeah.

Karl (25:19)
Okay,

Karl (25:19)
cool. so first I this may be a reminder from our last one. We've been a little slow on we're on our summer schedule, I guess. Is what we are right now. But yeah, right.

Mark Partin (25:27)
Yeah. We'll call it that, you know.

Mark Partin (25:31)
And one we have on our list, we I think we talked about this one before

Karl (25:34)
Yeah.

Mark Partin (25:34)
but due on September second and it's from the South Carolina Department of Archives Archives Historic Preservation Grants and these grants range from forty thousand to two hundred thousand and they are for preserving

Mark Partin (25:47)
South Carolina's historic building. So take a look at that if you have some buildings in your community that have historical significance but could use some repair. take a look at that. Great opportunities there.

Karl (25:59)
Great.

Karl (25:59)
And then again, I think this is the last one just as a refresher, you know, from last time, 9-4 coming up. The Foundation for Rural Service now they're a set up by the National Telecommunications Association, I believe, NTCA. the Foundation for Rural Service, so that's FRS.org, has a set of

Karl (26:17)
of grants from five K to 250 K and those are very general things for aid to various small communities. So there's been a lot of interesting things like computers for public libraries, procuring AEDs, expanding, various programs. It's a very wide open small dollar amount but wide open grant opportunity. So check out, see if you or your community is served by one of their members. And if you are it's a great great

Karl (26:44)
grant opportunity to apply for.

Mark Partin (26:45)
Okay, and the next one is from the Department of Transportation with a due date of September ninth. And this is the Bollards installation grant. And if you're not familiar with what a Bollard is, it is those

Karl (26:57)
Yeah, right.

Mark Partin (26:58)
sturdy poles that you will see the block vehicles and other

Mark Partin (27:03)
motorized devices from crossing an area. and there is a grant for approximately five hundred thousand dollars for installing those bollards in high pedestrian areas. Again for safety sake for as more people are walking or even if it's temporary, they you know they're set up to be where you can put them in place and remove them relatively

Karl (27:23)
Yes.

Mark Partin (27:23)
easily. So if you have an area in your town that you regularly block the street off for a festival or a concert or something.

Mark Partin (27:30)
this may be a good opportunity for you to get some really high quality bollards installed that can use you can use for a long time.

Karl (27:39)
Yes.

Karl (27:39)
and yeah, obviously check out the

Karl (27:41)
the notes as if there are any like lower end things but I I I can think of several towns that have county squares where they do the the weekly farmers market, things like that could certainly be eligible depending on what they're if they have a minimum traffic count or something like that. next the day after and this is the the awards kind of roll around monthly. This is from the South Carolina Parks and Recreations and Tourism, the Parks and Recreation Development Grant, P-A-R-D.

Karl (28:06)
So what I found interesting about this is it's both for new or renovation of existing recreation facilities. So if you think about what whatever you have in your parks or if you have a community center, things like that, it is anywhere between 5k and 60k. It is an 80-20 match, so you've got to bring 20% of your own money. but what is interesting is, and they have this posted on the website, is they have a certain amount that they're they've allocated per county. So certainly if you are in a county that has not drawn

Karl (28:32)
down most of that, you probably stand a better chance than most places to do that. And especially a lot of our smaller towns and rural communities probably have that opportunity. So I certainly encourage you to take a look at that PARD grant.

Mark Partin (28:44)
And the next one is due on September fourteenth and it is the South Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority, also known as R. I. A. And these are grants up to one million dollar to

Mark Partin (28:55)
do require a 25% match, but this is for dealing with your water sewer systems and stormwater construction. I know the RAA does a lot of good work around the state in in helping different municipalities be able to do projects that otherwise would be out of reach. So take a look at that one as well.

Karl (29:14)
Absolutely.

Karl (29:15)
And just a note to everybody, the nine fourteen was last year's date. they haven't posted this year's date, and I'm assuming that's because the budget just was passed here in South Carolina and signed yesterday or signed with vetoes and there's still potentially some overrides going on that. So all that to say now that at least I guess the primary part of the budget with the line item vetoes have been have been passed, they'll be able to f set the final date for that. And so that may end up being pushed back a little bit, but nine fourteen was the date last year. So definitely does not hurt.

Karl (29:42)
To get moving because especially when you're talking about a larger grant like that for utility infrastructure, you're probably going to have a little more work to do than the the smaller grants that we talked about previously. and then finally we have the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund. So this is an initial 20,000 plus they have technical assistance and then they have some follow-on funding. What they are trying to do is they are, as you may tell from the name of financial empowerment,

Karl (30:07)
they want to improve financial literacy of our citizens throughout the United States. So their grant is specifically around setting up a financial empowerment centered training. So they have a curriculum and that's where they're providing the t the technical assistance. But if especially if you're in a smaller community, you know maybe community where

Karl (30:27)
your smaller rural school didn't have a very good home economics or financial planning class, and you've witnessed where a lot of people just don't have those skills. This is a great opportunity to to pull together that work with your library or work with your community center to set up some of this training and potentially again get some follow-on training to get do additional education sessions in subsequent years.

Mark Partin (30:48)
Okay. I think that completes our grant list for today and hope you enjoyed this this conversation we've had A little different format, but hopefully you learned something from it and of course we'd love any feedback you have.

Karl (31:01)
Yes, thank you all very much. as always, of course, we'd love for you to like and subscribe and do all those podcasty things. But regardless of that, Mark, it's been great talking with you and and catching up and covering some different topics that we've been baking up over the last couple weeks.

Mark Partin (31:18)
I've enjoyed it myself, so look forward to the next one. Alright, bye-bye.

Karl (31:21)
Thanks, Mark. Bye.