It’s an exciting time to be in Mauldin. Maverick Station seems like it’s been a part of the city’s fabric for years. BridgeWay Station is about to open, along with the pedestrian bridge that will connect across I-385. Maverick Yards is slowly but surely coming together, but I’ll talk about those projects more in-depth at a later date.

There’s a lot going on in Mauldin. From a council standpoint, we want you to know about it. From a resident standpoint, you want to know about it (and we know that YOU want to know about it). My wife jokes that a trip to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk will take an hour because I’ll stop for a conversation in an aisle with someone wanting to know information about a specific project or the even broader question, “So, what’s going on in Mauldin?”

The truth is that I love answering those questions because 1) I’m elected to serve my friends and neighbors and passing on information is part of that service and 2) we have a lot going on to be excited about, and we want to make sure everyone knows it.

There are still a lot of debates about COVID, but one thing that came out of 2020 was that we were forced to adapt. The city couldn’t stop functioning. We still needed to provide police, fire, public works, and other essential city services. City Council couldn’t stop governing. We still needed to make sure our staff had the tools they needed to perform the services that you expect to receive, and we had economic development projects that weren’t going to be put on hold. Time was going to continue moving forward. 

When we couldn’t meet in person, we improvised and met remotely. When people didn’t feel comfortable coming to City Hall, we livestreamed the meetings. When things normalized, we adapted and kept some of the lessons we learned to make doing business easier.

If a council member can’t attend a meeting in person, he or she can still attend remotely and perform his or her duties. 

To make it as easy as possible for our residents to know what’s happening with the city, we invested in substantial council chamber audio and video upgrades so residents can attend from wherever they are using no-cost software applications. That includes the ability to speak remotely during the public comment periods. 

If someone wasn’t able to watch a meeting’s livestream, we publish meeting videos on a cloud-based video sharing service at no-cost to the taxpayers so people can watch it on-demand (https://bit.ly/mauldincouncilrecordings). 

Sometimes innovation happens because there’s a need that has to be met. Sometimes, innovation happens, and it creates a demand. 

Over the past few years, technology companies have created products we didn’t know we needed but certainly made productivity easier. 

I hope that the federal government doesn’t decide to take tools that have become so important to so many people personally and professionally and regulate them into obscurity. Allow innovation to continue. As we continue adopting new and creative ways to operate and eliminate red tape and layers of paper, we can keep making our city even more open with what’s going on so that when I walk into the grocery store, instead of asking what’s going on, someone gives me information I haven’t gotten yet.

-- Taft Matney serves in Seat 1 on Mauldin city Council. He can be reached at tmatney@mauldincitysc.com.■