August 2019 Open Meeting Summary
*Transcribed from a recording made by Dalton Hatcher*
Tribal Open Meeting Summary 8/2/2019 held at the Tribal Office in Aynor, SC
CM’s Robert, Susan, John, Marion, Alan, 2C Cheryl (Rick), and Dalton as ACoC present.
July Meeting Summary
Susan motioned to accept; Alan seconded
Robert-yes, Susan-yes, Alan-yes, John-yes, Marion-yes, 2C Cheryl (Rick)-yes, Dalton-yes
Old Business
Donnie’s Ductwork
John: expensive to do, AC is cooling
Marion: less efficient
John: when they put the new AC in, they left old ductwork, just mashed it together
Dalton: out of curiosity, by mashed together, do you mean damaged or forced to work?
John: forced to work
Chief Hatcher: can you unmash it?
Dalton: then it would stop working
Dalton: they mashed the two systems together
Alan: the ductwork got squeezed down
Tabled for now
New Business
Receipts
$158.40
Robert-yes, Susan-yes, Alan-yes, John-yes, Marion-yes, 2C Cheryl (Rick)-yes, Dalton-yes
Chief Hatcher: one month?
Susan, others: there was something on the mower
Cheryl: $91.44
Chief Hatcher: the parts should be taken care of by the card
Dalton: yeah, you’ve already taken care of that
Committee Reports
Buildings & Grounds: Glenn
Bleachers cut up last month
Working on donations for metal
Weedeating tomorrow
Have finished firewood
Arts & Crafts: Susan
Nothing new
PW: Dalton
Request funds to fix bleachers
Susan: already taken care of; he’s cut them in half
Marion: the money has been allocated; $350
Chief Hatcher: is that going to be from B&G?
Susan: general, PW
Square has arrived; need to be setup so we can accept credit cards this year
Susan: I’ve been putting them on School Day papers
Submit stories to us someway by 8/15 for this year’s book
Get ads to us by 8/15 for this year’s book
2C Cheryl: would it be inappropriate to sell an ad to Rad Dew’s when we have Hog Heaven out here?
Dalton: no
Chief Hatcher: do you have anyone calling the existing ads to see if they will renew?
Dalton: Who was handling that this year, do you remember? I will try
Dalton: Susan, do you remember the ad prices right off the top of your head?
$50: business card
$75: 1/4 page
$150: 1/2 page
$250 whole page
I think we were charging $25 for small In Memoriam type thing
Meetings are the second Thursday at 6pm at the tribal office
so 8/8 this month to make suggestions, tell us what we’re doing wrong, etc
John: FB marketplace, place in MB selling Port-a-johns used for $50
If we had our own, could we get them serviced, as opposed to them bringing out & servicing port-a-johns?
Alan: willing to bet you take in the service them and worry about leaving them in the sun and repairing them, you come out better if we aren’t going to be using them all year long and the first time someone uses one, you might as well plan on getting them pumped because you aren’t going to be able to walk into one as hot as it gets in the summer
Dalton: do you remember how much it costs to service one?
Susan: I think, well, for the whole time we use them, it was about $450 for 4 days; that’s 2 pumpings; he gets us actually 5
John: was just curious; sounded like a good deal
Dalton: it would be a good deal, depending on how much it cost us to pump & maintain them
Do you have a (inaudible) for vendors?
Susan: we have people come in last minute looking for a spot
Marion: Nov 1
Alan: unless they want to do school days
Susan: what size do you need- 10x10, 10x20?
Probably 2- 10x10’s
Susan: I’ll put you down for that
John: campground
Glenn & I did a little running around here looking for information about what we needed to do and first thing, we don’t need a business license. We just have to present our 501c3 paperwork and state exemption if we have it. Otherwise, we have to pay 3% on what we made
Alan: is that the county?
Glenn C: yes
Chief Hatcher: talking about (inaudible)?
Glenn C: yes
Susan: cool
John: currently our grounds are zoned forced agriculture
Glenn: we could have a campground out here for how many sites?
John: we have 10+2
Glenn C: I’m talking about what they require; so many to be non-commercial; I think it’s like 20 or 30
John: to open a commercial campground, we’d have to be rezoned into something new going into their system, known as a destination park. That would take 3-4 months going through the steps getting rezoned; requires a site plan, requires sewage disposal for each site
We don’t have sewer and we’d have to get a septic tank for each site
If we could get it rezoned, the cost for that license would be $250
Next alternative is probably the most advantageous to us; it’s called rural tourism
He said it would be 2-3 months before it gets through all the steps it needs to
Glenn C: 3 weeks
John: then we wouldn’t need to get rezoned; we could just apply for rural tourism, it’s in process, which allows us, and he wasn’t sure when he was telling us, 3-4 months of the year that you can use that zoning
That would only cost us $100
The question was: we don’t know all the ins/ outs of that process and whether we would have to have sewer at that time is debatable
We didn’t talk to anybody over there about getting a waiver
I was thinking about that after-the-fact; we don’t know that we can make any money doing a campground; I was thinking we could apply for a waiver as far as the sewage part goes & grant us some leniency & let us use our current facilities, but there are so many groups involved & we don’t know that yet
Some of the requirements for a campground:
Hard-packed roads for fire trucks
20ft access so they can turn around
Electrical and water layout
One of the biggest things we’d have to fight is DHEC, who controls the sewage disposal
Right now, if you have city water, I mean city sewage, they wouldn’t let you allow you to have a septic tank installed
City sewer stops on the other side of the road over there & we went to a water & sewer man said he would write us a letter saying we don’t have sewer on this side of the road; however, if we want to get hooked up to that, they can do it
So we’re in a grey area as far as public sewage access
They’re supposed to contact us about coming out here to get us a grinding & pump station to go over there, so we don’t know about that & I don’t think he probably called you back yet
So, the biggest thing is the sewage disposal; we have a little more to do on that, but if we work towards this rural tourism goal (which will probably be a couple months out), and we don’t know how that works- if we can do 3 months this year, do 3 months next year, rollover to the next year and put them back-to-back or if it has to be the same 3 months each year
If we went to a commercial sewage system, hooked into the public sewage system, the guy said it would be $50-70,000.
The septic tank was $3500 or so
Dalton (laughing): what if we give them like a bedpan when they roll up?
Glenn C: then again, talking to the guy, he said “I can’t tell you to do this, but…”
John: Yes, he seemed to say you could do things and get away with it
Glenn C: he said it wasn’t like they would be out there investigating, but he’d give us a price of hooking these two buildings up on the same one and the septic tank would be freed up
Why can’t you use port-a-potties out there?
That’s only temporary
John: I mean, you can’t have a holding tank, but I don’t know if Native Americans on their own grounds can do separate from what DHEC says
Chief Hatcher: they’ve been doing it for 20-something years
John: I mean, yeah, we could probably skirt the edges a little bit possibly, but I think you know, if you want to go with this rural tourism thing if we could a waiver and go plea with somebody and say we don’t think we can make any money doing this and we can’t afford to spend $50-70,000 on a dream, so I don’t know if that’s a possibility to talk to him about that
If we didn’t offer sewage disposal as part of the campground, why do you have to meet their regulations? I don’t understand that, maybe they just assume that. How high is it at this end as opposed to that end?
Glenn C: what do you mean higher?
Alan: elevation-wise
Glenn C: bottom of the second step is about 3.5ft to middle of the field out there between the dance circle & fire circle
I presented it to Council when you first started talking about moving the circle to the back, saying it’s higher. And it is higher, by 0.5-0.75 in. than our dance circle now, so there wouldn’t have been a benefit there, but if you can bring up those maps, I still have mine. I can make copies for next month if that matters to you
Alan: the septic tank is servicing the trailer and this building here
Susan, Glenn: it’s two separate ones
Alan: would they be enough to handle those 14 sites?
Glenn: what we’re talking about is getting us our own grinder station and pumping it up to sewage of these buildings
Chief Hatcher: which he says he can’t tell you to do that and get away with it
Glenn C: we actually asked him this stuff and he said I can’t tell you that you can’t do that
Chief Hatcher: How much difference is bringing it across the road?
Glenn C: he hadn’t priced it yet
John: the question on that too would be how much is it and would they add it to the monthly bill in having it done
Alan: but most of them, if the same person furnishes both of them they usually charge you your sewer bill by whatever your water bill, water usage
Glenn: correct. See, we will be paying more sewer when we have campsites that don’t offer sewage. We’re realistically paying for it up here. But John, your question is, bringing it from here to there, they will probably finance all that, for us to do commercial-wise, they have nothing to do with it
Chief Hatcher: you’re still going to need $10,000 or so to bring it across the road, but we’ve done this before
Glenn C: right
John: we’ve talked about it, but we’ve never really gotten a price. I think what Chris said originally was somewhere in the $5-6,000 range.
Glenn: but if they could put it in our monthly bill and finance it for us
John: so that’s a possibility; we’re still working on it. I mean, they do have regulations as far as how big each site has to be that you park at I think it said 35ft across; I don’t think we’re 35 ft on most of them. We’re probably 30-33 ft. And it’s supposed to be like 1600 sq ft per site, but we can go out as far as we want in front of the site to make 1600 sq ft, so I don’t think that would be a problem
There are a few things to work out, but I think the first thing is to see how this rural tourism goes
Everyone was helpful there in Conway
Glenn C: there was no negativity there at all until we got to DHEC
John: DHEC was a little harsh, I mean not harsh but not overly concerned with our needs
One interesting thing: we did meet a gentleman in zoning; I think his name was Gary McCarsky (SP?). He’s a scout leader in Georgetown & his scouts are very deep into Native American culture with dancing, with drumming, with all sorts of different things. And they was supposed to contact us
Glenn C: well, no, he was supposed to tell the lady who actually does that
John: Anyway, I thought it would be a very good connection for us to deal with these boy scouts because they do a lot of different things
Glenn C: get him to bring his troops in here to help us out
John: that’s what I mean
Glenn C: we actually talked more about that
John: that’s all I have for the time being on the camping
Glenn C: the rural tourism is really based on the big farms for the Christmas programs and stuff so they can make some money on the off-season; they base it on their crops, 3 months is the limit they put on it, so that’s where that’s coming from
John: it sounds like they’re trying to help farmers and things so they may be a little less rigid on their requirements, I’m hoping
Glenn: but it will be a permit based every year, $100/year
2C Cheryl: so are we in Aynor, city?
Glenn C: no
2C Cheryl: we’re not, so we don’t have to worry about anything Aynor says
John: the only thing they said was if we wanted to get rezoned, they would have to interview people within 500 feet of our property about it, whether they would have a problem with it, which is not many people
Dalton: yeah, it’s like 2 houses, maybe
2C Cheryl: that eliminates a lot of people
Glenn C: that’s not a lot of people, but then of course, sign’s going to go up
2C Cheryl: yeah, that’s why I was asking, because I know Aynor has regulations on signage & how far (inaudible). I did look at, last year when we were talking about motorcycles and parking, it had zoning & structure, as well as structuring for 501c3 to not lose that- doing it as two separate entities called brother/sister- it has to have a structure like an LLC with a board (doesn’t have to be but 3), funds (for-profit) passed through go to the non-profit through sustainability of projects (furthering developing grounds, going towards a program that fits within our mission statement).
Or it can be done as setup as a parent/subsidiary. So the nonprofit is the parent and the for-profit is the subsidiary. The only thing we have to worry about is we don’t want to be too successful because if you’re too successful in your for-profit, you risk losing your nonprofit
Glenn C: well, let’s say you pay your people who come out and tends to it, can you take away from the profit that way?
2C Cheryl: well, what I was thinking, the scouts again, they are always involved in Native American, the whole premise, it was Charles B Smith, who was actually Native American, help founded the scouts something like 110 years ago, so at the point where we’re at, we could be doing what camp coker (?) (Society Hill) routinely that stays within our mission especially if we’re supporting the scout program that teaches them Native American culture and it would be right in where we would only be doing nonprofit with the community with developing and teaching the scouts
John: Actually, I want the scouts to come teach us Native American culture
2C Cheryl: they learn a lot
Glenn C: especially the Eagle Scouts
John: they said when they got to the Order of the Arrow, they had to know 2 songs in Native American, they had to do these dances, they needed to tell two fables or stories from Native American culture. It sounds like they’re really into it. I mean, you could have them at the Pauwau; they have nationally-ranked drummers
Chief Hatcher: I have a question. We’re talking about a temporary thing here, but eventually a 24/7 thing, right?
Glenn C: that would be after we get the money up to do the commercial thing
John: it’s kind of hard to meet the regulations they have to be a full commercial operation, whereas if we could do the 3 months to see if it’s viable, which is my thought process, we could get our feet in the water and see how it works, and then if we can skirt some of the regulations by only doing 3 months/ year, we might be able to do that
Dalton: start banking the income
John: when we can say it works, then we can proceed. It will take a little while.
Chief Hatcher: this little thing on Hwy 90, Susan says they rent them out for $75/ night
Glenn C: and they’re about full too
Chief Hatcher: and stay pretty full but they do have sewage. Now we might could team up with somebody that would work with us for 10 years, get setup and leave it to us or find a grant
2C Cheryl: there are rural development loans, RDA’s you can apply for; I can look at that, I’m not sure how it works for nonprofit; It’s a lot of hoops to jump through for an individual
Glenn C: my thoughts were if we can pay this small fee to get it across the road, go commercial, then we don’t have to pay the fee to get it back across the road
Chief Hatcher: that’s the very thing I was thinking; if we get it across the road, we can do what we want with it when it gets here and I don’t know that we have to comply with the county ordinance- it’s possible that we do, but it’s also possible that we don’t.
Glenn C: if we get sewage, DHEC has nothing to do with us
Chief Hatcher: that’s what I would do then and let them prove us wrong
Glenn that’s basically what he said, but he also said they wouldn’t be out here inspecting
Susan: did you find out about insurance?
John: later; we can get it if we need it
2C Cheryl: maybe we could apply for the Accommodations Tax grant again
Dalton: we probably wouldn’t have a sales tax; we’d probably have a hospitality tax
Glenn C: no, all of that would be exempt
Dalton: perhaps make a commercial committee
Susan
Received a call from Ms Joan about sending out a letter to all tribal members about membership dues (read in meeting); asked for comments
Audience: it’s very good
2C Cheryl: it’s very thoughtful & it’s what needs to happen; at least given the option, most people are going to want to be given a notice
Alan: could you send a letter this year and a card each year after?
2C Cheryl: well, it won’t be that way, NeonCRM has an invoice and it has been updated, so it can email an invoice to them or it can send a form letter; they can even login to the site and make a one-time payment with their debit card and update their information; that’s the purpose of getting this setup
We’re inputting data now and as we go through, making sure it’s correct; some people have already received an email to setup their password
The letter would be a good introduction
Susan: I think it’s great; she’s offered to pay for it and send it herself
Ms Joan: I didn’t mean to interfere with anything that was planned
2C Cheryl: no Ms Ammons, you’re timing is actually perfect
John: I think it’s good that it comes from a tribal member & not tribal government
Dalton: effectively you already have one, but should we form a membership committee to deal with all of the files, cards, federal recognition, etc…
2C Cheryl: where things are at, it’s one of the biggest components of federal recognition; you have to meet their criteria, but membership is just as important; a membership committee later would be a good idea, like John wanted to be the membership renewal coordinator, working with the filekeeper, working with Michelle who keeps track of membership dues
Dalton: seems like that would basically be the core of a committee right there and it overlapping with the federal recognition committee is fine, like Buildings & Grounds overlaps with Pauwau quite a bit. So overlap is not a problem. And the membership committee going forward could look at the people looking to come in, telling them they need all of this stuff and make sure they get it right before the file comes to the table
2C Cheryl: that overlaps with the genealogist that would be need to be part of the membership committee as well because you’ll be working on files partly for federal recognition
Susan: yep
Dalton: so I’d like to set those 2 committees up (membership & commercial) if we can find the people to staff them
2C Cheryl: but you know it’s going to be the same people, but then you have somebody whose in the audience and is motivated to take to take the time to write out the letter. I think that part of it, we’ve got to bring people outside of Council and the people that are just showing up because there are people who obviously want to do things. So why not have members who want to do things be members of the committees as well? Well, like Pauwau committee, ‘cause anyone who is voted in can be on that committee
Alan: do we need Council approval on that letter?
Susan: we haven’t got back to that yet; he was backtracking
Dalton: I’m saying that before we send that, we need to deal with a lot of other things, don’t we?
Marion: we are allowing an individual member to voice their opinion to the tribe and just make a motion to allow her to send that letter; I don’t think this needs to go out with the federal recognition; I think this just needs to be a letter that goes out voicing her opinion to other members of the tribe
Alan: Because of the first thing on it, that’s why I thought I needed to make a motion to approve for her to send it out because she said she had Council approval and I would make the motion to allow her to do it
Chief Hatcher: One thing I think Council has got to start doing is designating people in charge of different things
I know that Starla has been named as Filekeeper
I still don’t know who has been named to keep track of dues; as far as I know, it has never been made official by Council, but there should be someone that everyone knows to call when they have a question on that and it should be an order written by Tribal Council
As far as the letter is concerned, I think it’s an excellent letter, but when you authorize her to do that you are automatically authorizing her to address it to everyone in the tribe snf you have to think about that. I don’t think there’s an issue with it and I recommend that you do it, but I’m saying that things are not completely covered on the surface of the letter; you have to think deep.
Dalton: I know; I was about to get into that
Susan: well, why don’t we that and include that in the newsletter?
Dalton: do we have someone who wants to do a newsletter?
Susan: I retired a couple years ago; I did it for 13 years
Dalton: well, we have a motion, do we have a second?
John: I guess the question is; I’ll second the motion and then we can have some discussion
John: If she’s working under the auspices of the Council and sending this out with our approval, she would be entitled to the records
Dalton: there’s an easier way we could do it, I think
Alan: couldn’t you just print out the addresses on labels
Glenn: what if we use her letter and we send it out from filekeeper
2C Cheryl: can we do one thing on that letter: add a bit of information of what the person should be doing to contact
Ms Joan: I have them contact Michelle with an envelope; if you have an envelope right there, makes you more apt than having to hunt for an envelope
2C Cheryl: I understand what you mean: if I have to hunt down an envelope and address it, stamp it, it may sit in my car for 3 days before it gets mailed or leave it in my visor and find it 2 months later
Dalton: If I remember correctly, it’s something like 300 people you’d be looking at sending letters to
Ms Joan: that’s $150
Dalton: yeah, for the first envelope, but if you include a second stamped envelope
Ms Joan: no, just a second envelope
2C Cheryl: but we also have households, so it could be a little less
Chief Hatcher: are you proposing to pay for it as well or just do it?
Ms Joan: I was proposing to pay for it
Chief Hatcher: I thought combining it with the newsletter was a good idea; you sign the letter, we print it off and we insert it in the newsletter and cover lots of things in the newsletter
Ms Joan: I don’t care; we just spend so much time discussing this
Chief Hatcher: you’re right
John: only thing with the newsletter is that it’s going to take time; we could get this out in a month. If you wait for a newsletter, who knows when that’s going to happen
Marion: I agree
Elder Becky: I think the letter seems more personal than the newsletter does
Chief Hatcher: I think you’re right about that, everyone got one in their own name; but then you still have a problem because you need some sort of a mail merge thing to print the letters; you need labels but the letter’s going to be “dear someone;” it’s still not going to have anything. It will be a blank letter; draft letter
2C Cheryl: there’s a way to do that through mail merge; it will populate the fields and add salutations
Dalton: you just need access to a database; the question becomes which database you want to use until you get them merged, but what I would suggest is we get the file you used to create the letter and send that file to Susan or whoever will be doing the database and have them do the mail merge so that it’s got the salutations; they can, at the same time, print off labels, and we get some people in here to knock out stuffing the envelopes
John: if you get me the labels, letters, and envelopes, I will stuff the envelopes
Dalton: Need to use the most current database until they are all merged
2C Cheryl: do we send the letter to expired cards?
Glenn: that’s more money for the tribe; more people
Dalton: we’ll discuss it
Chief Hatcher: the Executive Branch is meeting once a week to resolve some issues, so let us have our meeting next week
Dalton: include me please, so I can help Cheryl’s database sync with the others in Drive until we get NeonCRM
John: I added to the letter:
Please be aware dues have been occurring since August 2013
Please make checks payable to WIP
Anyone have a problem with that?
Dalton: I’m fine with that, but it’s her letter
Ms Joan: whatever Council thinks is appropriate
And use “effective”
Dalton, with those changes, there’s a motion and second to sending the letter
Robert-yes, Susan-yes, Alan-yes, John-yes, Marion-yes, 2C Cheryl (Rick)-yes, Dalton-yes
2C Cheryl
Monthly Work Day for Membership: working office so members can come pay membership fees, update information, etc…
Propose that the ID machine be kept here, the files be kept here
Puts boundaries on members- lets them know office is open on X day, during Y hours
John: you want a meeting in perpetuity for membership
2C Cheryl: yes, a work day, the same day as the work day for Buildings & Grounds
Patty B: get a landline out here with voicemail to make it easy for folks
Susan: our line is forwarded so someone answers it
Dalton: so we’d need to add a phone here or get a Google number
Patty B: I’ll create the details of the administrative committee
Dalton: I’ll create the details of the membership committee
2C Cheryl: I propose since Marie has been through files the last few months, that she chair the membership committee
John: present them next month
Application Process
Looking at setting up process for honorary to become to full member
Give them a certificate until they become full member
Council won’t interact with the file until the membership committee submits it to them
Chief Hatcher: 3 out of 4 executives would have to agree before sending file in
Thought we should put a copy of their certificate in their file and track their volunteer hours their
2C Cheryl: we can use NeonCRM to track it and donations
John: honorary: that would include spousal members?
Chief Hatcher: yes, and after today, any renewals or new spousal members will receive certificates
Indigenous Women’s Alliance Luncheon
9/7
Request Council permission to change our Autumn Equinox to 9/7 or do an additional f