The Charleston City Council met on April 20, 2026, at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers. The meeting included public speakers, the reading of claims, four proclamations, and the unanimous adoption of six finance committee resolutions. A detailed discussion was held on the selective interior demolition of the Charleston Public Safety Center (Resolution 26-047). The mayor and council members also made remarks on community events, public safety, and ongoing projects.
Good evening, everyone. I give everybody a couple seconds to get it together. Councilwoman Burka, would you please lead us in prayer this evening? Dear Father, as we gather here tonight, we thank you for the privilege to serve the people of Charleston. I just pray that you will give us wisdom on how to make the right decisions on how to spend the money and how to help these people that desperately need our help, especially those, Lord, less fortunate than us that need guidance and help, and um just to get their lives turned around. We do want to lift up the family and the friends and the brothers of the patrolman who died, father, and just ask that you send comfort and peace uh to all those who knew him and loved him. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Thank you so much. Councilwoman Carns, would you get the collect? The clerk will please prepare the machine for roll call. Has every member voted? As here, every member voted. We have twenty-five council members. And we have twenty-six. Thank you so much. The clerk will now please read the journal. Madam President. Yes. Excuse me, Madam Mayor. I request unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the journal. There is a motion on the floor that we dispense with reading of the journal. Hearing seeing no objections, the reading of the journal is dispensed with. Thank you. Good evening. On March 31st, 2026, the United States Supreme Court decided Chile's versus Salazar. The ruling was 8 to 1, reverse the 10th Circuit's judgment holding Colorado's ban on conversion therapy, as applied to talk therapy, regulate speech based on viewpoint. The law permits counselors to affirm clients' gender transitions, prohibits but prohibits discussions aimed at reducing same-sex attraction or aligning with the biological sex, effectively endorsing one ideological perspective while suppressing another. Thank you so much. Our next public speaker, uh Hampton Rose. Thank you. I'm an attorney with Steptoe and Johnson, but I also have the privilege of serving on the board of directors of Rebuilding Together Charleston, which is why I'm here today. On behalf of our President Jim Lord and our executive director, Alison Brill, to my right, our other distinguished board members, our donors and volunteers, I appreciate the opportunity to address you this evening on what is rebuilding together Charleston's 30th year helping our neighbors. It is my hope to use this time to inform those who have never heard of rebuilding together and supplement the knowledge of those who may have heard of us to apprise you of our mission and our work. First and foremost, who are we? Rebuilding Together Charleston is a nonprofit organization that helps our neighbors in need to keep their homes safe, warm, and dry. We build ramps, we repair roofs, we fix floors, we make bathrooms safer and more accessible. We are funded through a litany of grants, local partners and individual donors. We hope in the future to add to that list maybe municipal appropriations. Rebuilding Together Charleston is heavily reliant on volunteer labor to assist us in bringing our mission into fruition. Our volunteers travel from inside and outside of the mountain state to help our neighbors and our communities. Who do we help? Rebuilding Together Charleston helps those who are generally and specifically in need. We help serve elderly and families of limited means. Almost half of our recipients of our help are over 65 and have annual incomes of right around 14,000. These are people that own their homes, they want to stay in their homes, but they don't have the resources to fix something when it breaks or when it deteriorates into a state of disrepair. And as we all know, deferred maintenance does not improve with time. Our work is not preventative. We fix problems. Our served homeowners generally come to rebuilding together Charleston after their home is no longer safe.