The Charleston City Council held its regular meeting at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers on February 17, 2026. The meeting began with a call to order, invocation, and pledge. Public speakers addressed homelessness, term limits, and community needs. The council recognized proclamations, approved routine purchases for traffic paint, ambulances, and a security system, and debated but ultimately rejected two motions to discharge items from committee regarding council rule changes and term limits/staggered elections. A new bill for a parking zone was introduced and referred to committee.
No, I said something about it. I think it's gonna be a good night. Good evening, everyone. Let me make my apologies for starting eight minutes late. Uh, but we have a lot on the agenda tonight, a lot of exciting stuff, so thank you so much. I will now ask counsel to please come to order. Members, please rise. Well, Councilmember Pepper leads us in prayer this evening. Give us the strength, the wisdom, and the courage to always act in ways that this chamber to benefit the people of this great city. Councilmember Farrell, would you please lead us in the pledge, sir? One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice. Thank you so much. The clerk will now please prepare the machine for roll call. All members present will vote yes. We have twenty-six. Yes. One absent. Every member voted? Thank you so much. Clerk will now close the machine, and the clerk will now please read the journal. Councilwoman Hoover. I request unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the journal. Smashing on the floor that we dispensed with the reading of the journal hearing and seeing no objections, the reading of the journal is dispensed with. Right now in Charleston, you can go to Bream, get a bag of food, and then you gotta go over across town to get your ID, and then you have to go downtown to get a bus pass. I mean, you don't have a car. You know, you don't have a car. So you it's really difficult. Now, Navigation Center, just to give an idea here, they do substance recovery, they do mental health counseling, medical services, transportation, housing assistance, job training, legal support. They do everything. And of course, since it's in Orange County, California, it's a Disneyland of uh navigation centers, they have veterinary services. I'm thinking, I'm gonna have me a big bad dog if I'm in Charleston on the street. But uh anyway, the point is we could do something like this. We have drug settlement money. I appealed to our senator and our federal officials, our state officials, and of course, send out the same information to our locals. I just feel like this is the time to think about making a change to help people get off the street, get off this stereotype that everybody is a drug addicted loser. It's just not true. So the stories are so sad. If you ever get over to just, you know, I take scrambled eggs in sometimes some bacon, and just listen to people's stories. It's heartbreaking. You know, there's one gentleman with a um, he's a carpenter, licensed carpenter, and he got shot in the foot, case of mistaken identity. He and his wife and daughter are sleeping in a tent on a porch on the west side. I'm like, this just shouldn't be. But it can happen to all of us that are one paycheck away from being homeless. So I'm just saying, let's have some compassion for those of you or the Christians. Remember the what would Jesus do? He he would help the least among us. So let's do it. Thank you so much. I printed some of these. If anybody wants to see what the navigation center is involved, I'll just put it.