July 2017 Council Highlights

COUNCIL BUSINESS:

 

  • City Council approved a contract to purchase emergency 9-1-1 console stations for the new Police Department Telecommunications Center. The center, which is housed in the City of Sumter Police Department answers all 9-1-1 calls for City, County, EMS and after-hours public service requests.

 

  • City Council approved the annexation of 4.83 acres of land into the City, located at 2600 Broad Street. It’s current use is commercial for an automobile dealership and will continue afterwards as a Nissan dealership. The annexation from does approve the owner’s access to public water and sewer services.

 

  • City Council approved the allocation for federal Community Development Block Grant funding. What the city is receiving is slightly higher than expected, approximately $12,000. Programs we support with this funding include: Housing repair and demolition, historic preservation, youth employment, YMCA Youth Services, Wateree Aids Task Force and United Ministries. The additional funds received will be added primarily to the Housing Repair and Youth Employment programs. Additionally, the City of Sumter was recently highlighted in a US Conference of Mayor’s report to the federal government to assist with the development of the federal budget.

 

NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS:

 

  • The City of Sumter’s application for the US Conference of Mayor’s 2017 National Education Pathways with a Purpose Grant Award application placed in the top five cities in the nation. While we did not win the top prize, we did receive honorable mention and brought national recognition to the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Training Center project, including our partnership with Central Carolina Technical College and Sumter School District and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 10 program.

 

  • City of Sumter has been chosen as one of the first 300 cities to receive an Idea Accelerator workshop from the Bloomberg Philanthropies 2017 Mayors Challenge. This one-day training workshop will provide in-person, expert guidance in accelerating the development of your Mayors Challenge idea and application. Applications are due in October and there is a three phase process to win up to $5 million dollars to implement an innovative idea/project that addresses a need in our community. The Idea Accelerator workshops are set to take place from late July through September. After completing the workshop, participants will complete an initial funding application (currently not available) describing an urgent challenge and how they will tackle that challenge in an innovative way. Applications for the $5 million grand prize, four $1 million implementation awards, and 35 Champion Cities awards of up to $100,000 will be due October 2016.

 

  • Sumter’s Total Eclipse Watch Party is generating quite the buzz! We’ve had calls from visitors coming in from New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. Some from schools with large businesses and others are families hoping to experience the path of totality. We are expecting large crowds and I-95 traffic is expected to have extremely high volumes of traffic. Eight of our largest, better known hotels in Sumter are completely sold out, with Air BNB reporting larger volumes of renters across the state.