City Council approves all agenda items Tuesday

Corryn Brock, News Editor

The Charleston City Council approved all agenda items during its meeting Tuesday evening.

The council approved the abatement of a tax levied for the year 2020 to pay a debt service.

The tax was to pay a $6,140,000 debt on a general obligation waterworks and sewerage refunding bond and the abatement is now effective.

The council also approved a resolution that waived the bidding procedure for the purchase of a new vehicle for the Charleston Police Department.

The reason for the resolution is “to facilitate the purchase of a new investigative car in order to continue to provide and maintain the existing level of law enforcement services to the community.”

The purchase should not exceed $19,773 and a 2007 Chevrolet Impala will be traded-in during the purchase. The bid for the new car came from Pilson Auto Center.

Mayor Brandon Combs said the vehicle that will be traded is in need of repairs and purchasing a new car would be a better use of funds.

The Mayor will also be re-appointed Jill Nilsen and Lexe Volk to 5-year terms of Board of Zoning Appeals and Planning.

Nilsen is a former Eastern Vice President for External Relations and Volk is a program technician for the United States Department of Agriculture.

Combs also declared the month of February Black History Month in Charleston.

According to the proclamation, “Black History Month is a time for all Americans to remember the stories and teachings of those African Americans who helped build our nation, took a stance against injustice to build lives of dignity and opportunity, advanced the cause of civil rights and strengthened families and communities…the City of Charleston wishes to recognize the outstanding contributions of African Americans, commemorate the achievements of the African-American community in the City of Charleston, and to remind everyone of African-American heritage, culture, and history.”

The theme for the month will be “The Black Family: Representation. Identity and Diversity.”

According to the Black History Bulletin, “The Black family knows no single location, since family reunions and genetic-ancestry searches testify to the spread of family members across states, nations, and continents. Not only are individual Black families diasporic, but Africa and the diaspora itself have been long portrayed as the Black family at large. While the role of the Black family has been described by some as a microcosm of the entire race, its complexity as the ‘foundation’ of African American life and history can be seen in numerous debates over how to represent its meaning and typicality from a historical perspective—as slave or free, as patriarchal or matriarchal/matrifocal, as single-headed or dual-headed household, as extended or nuclear, as fictive kin or blood lineage, as legal or common law, and as black or interracial, etc.”

A raffle license was approved during the meeting for the Charleston Elks Lodge #623 to conduct weekly drawings at 7:30 p.m. from Jan. 20 to Dec. 29 at the Elks Lodge in order to raise funds for Elks Charities including assisting disabled children and veterans.

The local state of emergency was continued.

The state of emergency in Charleston is due to “the nature of the emergency is the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic of sufficient severity and magnitude that it may result in or threaten the death or illness of persons to such an extent that extraordinary measures must be taken to protect the public health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the City of Charleston, and thereby it has warranted an emergency declaration for all states and local government entities and more specifically within the corporate limits of the City of Charleston.”

No public comment was made during the meeting. The next meeting will be Feb. 2.

 

Corryn Brock can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].