City Council - Special Meeting

All right, let's call to order the February 9th, 2026 special meeting of the Belmont City Council. Uh, I will turn it over to Miles to go through the consent agenda and then we will have a uh quick brief moment to uh amend the agenda. So, Miles, we'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mayor, Council members. Uh tonight on the consent agenda, you have 10 items. Item B1 is the approval of the January 5th, 2026 regular city council meeting minutes. Item B2 is a resolution to support the honorary designation of a portion of Wilkinson Boulevard as the senator Jack El Ryan Boulevard. Uh the family of Jack Elrron requests a resolution of support by city council as they complete their application to NCDOT for the honorary naming and designations of state transportation assets and employee memorial program. Um they submitted this application and after discussion with NCDOT um there is a request for the council to u pay an administration fee of $2,000 to offset cost associated with the program. Um copy of the resolution in the meeting minutes uh if you so choose to approve it tonight will be provided to INCOT as well. And uh when communicating with NCDOT um they stated that it's an honorary designation. It won't change the name of Wilkinson Boulevard uh and it won't have any effect on any of the addresses out there. So I just want to make that point. Item B3 is the Mloud Avenue traffic caling request. Um this is um stemming from the the the past city council meeting uh where council decided to move uh the traffic cal request and budget amendment to the February 2nd city council meeting. Uh at this time we're still uh continuing discussion with residents regarding the petition. So we're requesting that this item be placed on the March 2nd city council regular regular meeting. Item B4 is uh the city of Belmont's code

of ordinance text amendment for the towing and storage uh businesses chapter 117. As you can see, there's there's one change uh or a couple changes on the next page to chapter 117 that the uh police department has submitted. So that's chapter uh 117 amendments. Uh, agenda item B5 is the paving project award uh, low bid. Um, on on November 18th, the public works department solicited bids for road milling and paving services for our paving project. And so we received three bids and the bid tabulation uh, included on the second page is awarding this contract to Abernathy Contracting in the amount of 1,26,7 66. The next item is agenda item B6, a budget amendment for the paving project. Um, an appropriation of 326,766 uh in the general fund unrestricted fund balance is the fiscal impact summary. Uh the proposed budget amendment will provide $159,428 in funding from the general fund unrestricted fund balance, $200,000 in funding from the general fund capital purchases, and $500,000 in funding from contracted street repairs power bill to fund the 20 2026 paving uh project. The budget amendment also provides 17038 170,338 in funding from the general fund unrestricted fund balance to complete a portion of the Abbey Creek Greenway project as it relates to the 2026 paving project. Um revenue and expenditure

expenditure totals will not change in the Abbey Creek Greenway project fund. However, this additional transfer will cause a reduction in anticipated long-term debt issued from 1,525,316 to1,34,978. Item B7 is the approval of an ordinance authorizing the closing of streets and the sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages during the 2026 Friday Night Live concert series. Uh the dates listed are May 15th, May 29th, June 12th, and July 3rd from 5 to 10 p.m. Um this is a request to approve an ordinance authorizing the closure of streets in the sale possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages during the concerts. Um the first three concerts are to be held on South Main Street. The last concert is be held on upper field of Sto Park. Also, the ordinance is structured to permit a location change for the July 3rd concert in case of inclement weather and eliminating the need for a revised ordinance to council at that time. Uh, agenda item B8 is the approval of an ordinance authorizing the closing of streets and the sale possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages during the 2026 Gear Body Fest. Um, on see if I can find the date. The road closure will take place uh from uh South Main Street and Airline Street to Myrtle Street and Mloud Avenue as seen in the attached map. And the date is April 25th from 12:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Item B9 is the approval of an ordinance to close Main Street on April 18th, 2026 for the House Mercy Wall for AIDS. Um and that date is April 18th, 2026 as mentioned. And the last agenda item B10 is the approval and ordinance to close multiple streets for the annual Belmont Classic

5K which will take place on April the 18th, 2026. And the the map is also attached. So, mayor, I'll turn it back over to you. Thank you, Miles. Question. Any questions for Miles on the consent agenda?

All right, let's set the amended agenda, then we will entertain approving the consent agenda. So, some amendments to the agenda tonight. Uh, the first one is going to be an amendment to D1, which is our closed session. We'll be adding another reason uh for going into close session, and that will be uh North Carolina Genat 143-318.11A5 establishing or instructing staff or agents on the public bodies negotiating position for acquisition of real property or employment contracts. We'll then need to add E1 as a budget amendment and rename F or E that's currently adjournment that needs to be F. So we will have as amended it will be E1 which will be uh let's see consider budget amendment for the appropriation of unrestricted fund balance of general funds capital in the amount of $1 million then adjournment will be now labeled as F. So, uh, do I have a motion to set the agenda as amended?

Motion to set the agenda as amended. Second. All right, Alex, and second by Charlie. So, the agenda is set as amended. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. All right. Now, the agenda is set as amended. All right. So, at this point, I will move us to the consent agenda, and I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda if there's no further discussion. Motion to approve. Motion by Jason. Second. Second by Alex. All in favor? I. Any opposed?

All right. The consent agenda is approved. That will move us right along to agenda C1 presentation. I believe Jared is here for the city for that. And just a reminder, we're still working with the microphone. So if you're at the podium, yell right into the middle. Uh, good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, I'd like to introduce you to Ethan Bumgardner with Martin Sarns and Associates, and he'll handle the presentation tonight. Thank you, Jared.

Good evening. Like Jared said, my name is Ethan Bowen Garner and I'm here on behalf of Martin Stars to present the fiscal year 25 audit highlights. We have issued a an unmodified opinion which is the best opinion that we can give and this basically means that the financial statements are free of material misstatements. And I also want to thank Jared and his staff for being very cooperative and helpful during the process. This slide shows a summary uh to your comparison on the general fund for overall revenues and expenditures. Um revenues increased by about $3.1 million over last year and this is primarily due to an increase in advorum tax revenues as well as local option sales tax revenues. expenditures at the same time increased by about $4.3 million. And this is primarily due to an increase in public safety and capital outlay expenditures. This slide shows a three-year comparison in the fund balance for the general fund. It increased by about $7 million in fiscal year 25. And this was primarily due to the increase in revenues as noted in the last slide as well as some long-term debt issued. This slide shows the available fund balance in the general fund and you can see the calculation there. It takes total fund balance and then subtracts out nonspendable items. stabilization by state statute, restricted items, and the fund balance

policy from the city. And overall fund balance increased and so did available fund balance. It increased by about $4.1 million. So taking that available fund balance number that we just saw, available fund balance as a percentage of expenditures and transfers out to other funds in the general fund was 72.1% which was an increase of about 7% from fiscal year 24 and that's um primarily going to be due to the top three revenues and expenditures which I will elaborate on in the next couple slides. So, beginning with this slide, uh the next three slides will show a two-year comparison between the uh three largest sources of revenue in the general fund. The first being adorum tax revenue, and it increased by about $1 million or 6.5% over fiscal year 24. Here is the restricted intergovernmental revenues which increased by about $1.3 million or 19.5% which was primarily due to an increase in local option sales tax. And here is sales and service revenues. They increased by about $112,000 or 10.7%. And this was due primarily to an increase in solid waste fees and recreation department fees and memberships. Moving on to the top three expenditure groups. Uh the first being public safety

expenditures which increased by about 1.2 million dollars or about 13%. This is mostly due to an increase in salaries and benefits. There were also two firefighters and four police officers hired at fisc year 24. On the screen now is transportation expenditures which increased by about $560,000 over last year or 25.5%. And this is due primarily to an increase in power bill expenditures. Lastly, we've got general government expenditures which increased by about $557,000 or about 25%. And this is primarily due to an increase in expenditures for the city's comprehensive use plan, comprehensive land use plan, excuse me, and design expenditures for project Tundra. Here are some highlights from the water and sewer fund. uh overall net position increased by about $3.4 million. This slide shows the quick ratio for the water and sewer fund. So to give a little background, the quick ratio is a measure of how many times a unit can cover its current bills with its current assets. Uh the LGC is concerned with a corporation less than one which would mean that the unit doesn't have enough funds to pay its current liabilities. But as you can see uh the water and sewer funds quick ratio is almost four and it has gone up since fiscal year 24.

That was a 100% increase in assets from year over year. Sorry. Tell me again what that would be attributed to. The increase in assets.

That's pretty big. I believe most of that was due to the donated donated sewer lines. That was the the the biggest portion of the increase which was about almost it was about $2.6 million and then the rest were just uh other asset purchases. Thank you. Moving on here. Um this slide is about the general performance indicators. So once the audit gets submitted to the LGC, we are required to complete a data input sheet uh with various final financial information and then once we enter that information, the website will um shoot out any performance indicators negative or even positive. But we are pleased to uh present that There were no um general performance indicators, no negative performance indicators. There were also no significant deficiency findings or no material weakness findings. And the positives were high quick ratio for water and sewer fund and stable available fund balance percentage. And that concludes my presentation. I I'd like to thank the board for allowing us to serve as your auditors in fiscal year 25. And if anyone has any questions, I'll be happy to try to answer those or get back to you if I can.

Well, I know I speak for the city and my colleagues by saying thank you. We appreciate your work. Uh Jared, your team, everyone coming together to get the city to a clean audit. I know that was a it was an effort and it was it was a a great job. So, we appreciate that. Thank you. Maybe a quick one for staff. When can we anticipate to get off the stress list?

I wish I had a good answer for you. As soon as possible. Um I think it takes a little bit of time once all the audits get in and then they go down the list. Um so we've asked that question multiple times through the LGC and and our coaching staff there. Um so I would anticipate uh sometime fairly soon. Soon as we soon as we're off we'll let you know. That's the main goal. And we've had an awesome year of course you know did an excellent job having an a clean audit, no findings, which I think hadn't been done. I think J look back in the files and it's goes back to what 2017 2018 as far as we go back. Yeah. Come on up, Jar. Let's give Jared some kudos for this one.

Yeah, it's much longer. Is that the uh that's what we the naughty list. Yeah. Jared's done a great job. Yeah. First of all, Jared, since sitting up here, I remember we had this year over year, right? Since 2021 or so. And you went from doing what, four audits, three to four in one year.

Yeah, we did. We did. We submitted three in one calendar year. That was in uh 2023, I believe it was. Um, and uh, going back to the records, the latest or I guess the oldest audit report that I could find was 2009. That's when Martin Star started doing our audits. And it's been since we've had at least one finding in our audit report since 2009. So, this is the first time in 17 plus years uh, that we've submitted an audit with no findings. So, congratulations. Congratulations. You and your team have done an exceptional job. Yes. a huge milestone for not only the finance department but the city and commend our staff and the hard work and the support of council and management along the way.

Great job. Great job. Awesome job. I believe that'll take us to C2. You this time I'm here. Got a new clicker.

All right. So, we'll jump right in. Uh starting with revenue sources across all funds and the general fund tax collections. You'll notice there are up as a percentage of the year and that's just due to timing. November through January are our peak months for tax revenue collections. This time last year we were at 90% collections and this year we're at 89%. So very similar metrics as the prior year. Intergovernmental revenue uh that includes sales tax, utility franchise tax, alcohol tax, and power bill. Those are coming in as expected. Other general fund revenue includes sanitation fees, investment earnings, and other miscellaneous revenue. No issues noted there as well. In the water sewer fund, uh water and sewer charges for services are coming in slightly higher than expectation. I think part of that is due to the uh new rates that were implemented this year as a part of the fiscal year 2024 rate study and also the practices of our utility billing staff of uh really combing through every single month all of our billing reports and making sure that we're accurately billing monthtomonth. Um, other operating revenue includes interest on investments, penalties, system development fees, and grants. This is also over as a percentage of the year, and that's due to higher than anticipated system development fees. Uh, to date, we have collected 69,000 in sewer and 201,000 in water system development fees. And storm water um, also performing well. You'll also notice those fund balance appropriations. Um, some of those have not been tapped into that yet. Those are budgetary only amounts and we'll clean that up at the end of the year as needed. Any questions on revenue?

So, sales tax runs like two months behind the calendar month, right? Yep. And I've got a slide coming up on that. So, we'll talk about that in just a second. Any other questions on So, local option sales tax and as usual, uh, I'll have to update update my numbers because when I prepare these slides, the next month's numbers come out. So, November has been received and to date we've collected $2,795,560. We need an average of approximately $350,000 per month over the next seven months uh to meet budget projections and we are currently averaging $559,000 per month. So, trending trending well on sales tax. Any questions related to sales tax?

No, I I guess my point was we're already basically at half revenue budgeted for that this year. and only four or five months into budget. Correct. That's a good point. So, it's performing well and and we don't have the December numbers yet either. This was from through November.

So, typically December with holiday spending usually see a little bit of a spike and then it levels back off throughout the rest of the year. Jumping into expenditures. Um, as you can see, most departments are operating at or under budget. Um, few items of note. sanitation. Uh the that contract with waste pro is 100% encumbered against the budget. So that's why you're seeing it fully depleted, but it's just encumbered. So we still get build monthly, but we recognize the entire expenditure in that department. Uh the city attorney uh build in one month in a rears and uh budget penetration this time year uh excuse me, bud budget penetration this time last year is nearly identical to the prior year. general fund 54% remaining in both uh fiscal year 25 and 26. In the water sewer fund 56% remaining in 26 versus 54% in 2025 and in storm water fund 83% uh versus 77% in 2025. Any questions on expenditures?

Quick one. Um on the water and sewer fund, is there a reason why updated on collections but why the revenue is not facing similarly to how the expenses are coming in. So we're already at 6.7 million at revenue and what four million at expenses with six something to go or 4.5 million. Is there is it a timing thing in the expenses that we're waiting to hit or um No, I think expenses are tracking as expected. Uh especially when you compare it to last year. Yeah. Um we're only at a 2% difference compared to prior year. I think it's just better revenue collection practices in the current year.

Let me ask you this. I guess it's something maybe as we get towards the end of the year, but I know we adjusted the the rates and that study indicated what a multi-year increase. I mean, what's your indicator here? I mean, do you think we're a little high or So, we're actually underway with another rate study currently. Um, so we've submitted a lot of documentation including current year revenue, current year expenditures to date, as well as analyzing 2025's numbers. Uh so we'll be having some meetings with those consultants over the next few weeks. Um and they will be delivering a new updated rate study which those percentages that were that we had talked about back in 2024 those could change based on these results.

Okay. Okay. Cool. I mean it looks and we're in a good position. I'm just saying y it might indicate which we discussed. We'd have that conversation. Sure. Yep. So it also doesn't look like we've expended any capital this year. Yeah. And uh year to year over the last couple years, we've really limited water sewer fund capital. Part of that was um trying to grow uh the fund balance. A few years ago, it was I don't want to say it was in bad shape, but it we were trying to improve the out the financial outlook in the water sewer funds. So uh limiting cash uh capital expenditures versus debt service for a lot of those CIP projects. Cool.

That concludes my presentation. Any questions? We're in really good, right? I mean, just step back and just give like, you know, the dumb down version of that, right? I mean, all the numbers and then what the auditor said from our last audit. I mean, we're in a really good position financially as a city, I'd say. Right. I I agree. I think that's a testament of uh decision- making, hard work by uh staff, council, management. I think a blend of all three. Excellent. Great job, J. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, J. All right. Uh, takes us to C3, parks and wreck fee schedule discussion. I believe Jason is here for that.

Good evening all.

Good evening. Um the reason we wanted to do a discussion about this is number one we want to ensure that our fee structures are aligned with the services rendered the facilities provided as well as um to generate revenue required to sustain growth endure inflation and provide additional opportunities while remaining affordable and accessible for all. So there's a there's a balance there that we feel like we have to do between making it accessible and also being affordable enough uh but also providing opportunities for growth uh which we're anticipating in the next year. uh in doing this in studying this, we contacted as a staff uh various uh municipalities u I went to a conference in and heard in Charleston heard uh Greensboro just restructured their fees and they got to explain that we got to sit on some Zoom meetings with them and we also talked to some of these other town cities to see how they did it as well. Um the areas we want to focus on with this fee structure are particularly uh city rec center rentals group classes and sports programs. It's not going to be all across the board, but these three things uh we feel like we can improve on. So we'll start with uh city rec center center rentals. The current pricing uh that that's what we've had. I think it's my understanding that's what was established when uh the city rec center was built. And some things that we want to look at specifically in these rates are to classify between for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Um we feel like uh nonprofit organizations uh for example we're having a Habitat for Humanity is doing a volleyball tournament at the city rec center and uh you know the the more profit they make the more they can help people with houses. So, so we feel like there's a difference between that than than

somebody that's coming in for profit. And our stance on that is if you're for profit, so are we. So, um, they typically rent the for-profit organizations will typically rent the entire gym or or the entire facility out for an entire day. Uh, we would like to just do a pdeium for that. Um, typically staffwise that's a 12-h hour day and it takes between four and five staff members depending on how big the tournament is. Uh, so you're looking at anywhere from $780 to $900 of staffing costs per day in that. Um, most of these tournaments are two-day tournaments and so we would like to do a PDM on that uh at at a rate of uh $3,000 per day would be would be our recommendation. And then also um we have a lot of rentals uh that are after hours and those after hours rentals um when I first when I first got the job especially in the summer we had we had a lot of those and we we went over budget for that first quarter on our part-time staff hours as well as our overtime hours because we were doing a lot of rentals uh particularly in the multi-purpose room after hours. And so a lot of these cities we contacted, they have they have rates for that and it would just cover cover our staffing costs for those. So our recommendation would be to charge an additional $30 an hour for afterhour events just just to cover staff. On the group classes, um our current class rates vary. Uh we have some that are free. We can I can show you the u our entire rate sheet at the end of the presentation. Some of them are $5 per class. U the classes we currently offer now are senior stretch meditation, a hit class, Zumba, line dance, hiphop dance, core, and most of these classes are offered two days a week. Um, and so

we're recommending that we do a tier program where people can just pay $5 for an individual pass. We have uh certain residents that just go to one class and they go consistently. If they did that, they could do $10 a month for an individual class or $25 a month for all the classes. And we have people that participate in all these classes and then we have some that just go to one particular class. Um, but uh there's there's a lot of um variance in in what we're charging for those. Now, we want to be consistent with that in order to help staff uh communicate clearly with residents. We also looked at possibly doing uh different types of financial assistance programs. Uh some of these classes we have, there are seniors in there who are not used to paying, who are used to having free classes. Uh we've mentioned this to them and we've had some other people step up and say, "Well, I would contribute to this as a scholarship fund for people that were on a fixed income that couldn't pay." So, uh, if if we're going from charging people that have been previously free, we also want to provide an opportunity for those that can't afford it, uh, to be able to continue taking the classes. We don't want money to be an issue on that for sure. Athletic teams, currently our rates for soccer, basketball, baseball, uh, in city is $65 and for non city residents, it's $90. Uh the current rate for volleyball is $45 and for out of city is $70. Um our recommendation on that would be to increase for all sports including volleyball to $70 for in city residents and $95 for out of city residents. And that's just a $5 increase for everybody volleyball. Um this will help cover the inflation cost. If officials say if we

talk to a booking agent and they say we want $40 a game instead of 35 we've been paying well that's a 14.3% increase and that just helps cover that cost. I put an example here. These were actual numbers from last year u for basketball. We had 462 participants. The total cost of that when you include um staff hours, uniforms, and officials was $35,35. The total revenue we took in was 3,00 $31,95 with a shortfall of $2,310. If you took all 462, added $5 to their fee, that that's the only one that came out exactly dead even. uh they're not all that neat, but uh you know that that one worked out pretty well. Um and just just so you know, our total participants in all sports last year was $2,172. And so if you multiply that times five, you get $10,80, something like that. Um and that would help cover just for example, uh sometimes uniforms will go up $2 per person a year. uh our basketball uniforms came out to $30 per person. If they they say we're going to raise these to 32 for 462 people, that's pretty big impact. Um this is uh the proposed changes that we have. Uh I know it's hard to see that, but that is just increasing the adding $30 to the after hours rental fees. And then the next slide are the the fees to the sports teams as well as the classes. And you can see on the bottom the senior stretch and line dances. Some of those were free. Uh we're proposing that we charge $5 for those classes. And then um that doesn't

include the the packages that they may want to do to save some cost on that. Let me ask you, those were the only two, Jason, really that I had a question on for like the senior stretch and line dance. Not to get too much into the weeds of this, but I mean, how many participants are we talking about at this? It's it's actually growing. Uh, it will average anywhere from 30 to 50 per session. Wow. Wow. We've had recommendations that we build a platform because some of our seniors in the back can't see our instructors. Oh, wow.

And so it is growing. They've moved from uh the small dance studio to the large dance studio and now they're in the gym and they are taking up uh quite a bit of space in the gym. So uh I I believe or I anticipate that all of these programs are going to continue to grow or they have in the last few months at least. Now there I I guess where I I kind of want to go with it to continue to keep it free particularly because it is more targeted towards the seniors particularly as you mentioned with kind of the fixed incomes if they're retired on social security or so. Um I think about programs in Kings Mountain where they have like seen the senior citizen center up there the Patrick Center. Um that's the only one that kind of like stuck out at me. But I I don't know what y'all's thoughts are. I mean, I could see, you know, that's probably a source for for these folks that utilize this as a good exercise to promote kind of longevity where they may not get otherwise and have to pay a lot more. That's that's the only thing I'm thinking about.

Right. How much how much involvement do you anticipate in that scholarship program? Yeah, we've had so we've had a fair amount of interest in that. Uh because our instructors uh when we were we were talking about do doing this, they they said we want to run it by our because they have regulars. I mean they they know their their people by name and they were open to it and they understood that by doing this there's the potential to create further opportunities and so they were receptive to it that we did have a few people that you know that I'm on a fixed income understandably so but I think that we could probably cover those that that had a problem with that but that is a concern certainly because

we want it to be accessible uh to all those people. have a feel for what it costs us to offer like one of these classes. The the cost of these classes, they there's some they vary some just just because of the equipment. Um some of the classes have very little equipment, some of them don't. Um and the staff hours are are pretty much the same. Um they're they're different. U so it would be hard for me to tell you. I don't have I don't have a cost rundown of each class, how much it costs.

Yeah. Well, I was just thinking from like a cost recovery perspective because like if it's the sort of thing where maybe it only cost us $20 to put on class, then getting that $5 per person probably becomes less important, right? But if it cost us, you know, $200 or $300 to offer the class, maybe that's a different conversation,

right? I uh there are some classes that require a lot of equipment uh such as the HIT class. Uh our Zumba class, there's a $45 a month certification that we pay our instructor to get. So, there's an added cost in that. But, uh particularly the cost is based based on what equipment they use. Uh you know, some of these classes have very little equipment until they do uh some end of the year type things like recital or things like that. And the cost of recital is expensive. Maybe that's the way to go to segment it based on the classes that require more equipment.

Yeah, I know you were trying to make it less complicated, but maybe the instead like tiering it the way you have it like you could tear it by the actual class so that like you've got the classes that don't require a lot of the equipment. Those are free. But if you wanted to do one of the ones that requires more, maybe that's when you pay the $5 or something like that. What's your feel for how this will be received by the current classes that come in now? Um, I mean, obviously, if they're free, when you go from free to anything, it's a change, right?

Uh, and we want our facilities used. They look better when they're they're bustling and people are moving around. I understand the concept of that they're expenses. Um, but I also understand the concept of city service to the residents. So, I guess you know better than I do because I'm not there seeing it happen. Uh, what do you think h how do you think that'll be received? You think there'll be um people distraught over the $5 a class or is this something that most people are going to absorb and say we understand their expenses? What's your feel

from from the feedback we have? I think they're understanding of it. And so, by doing the tiers, that's what I was about to bring. If you have if you have somebody that that has trouble affording this, well, you can pay $10 for a month for a particular class and you take that class twice a week for a month and now you're not looking at paying the $5 per cost. So, so the tiers that we uh suggested kind of built in u some of that as well. Uh you can take one class as many times as you want for $10 a month and now you're not paying $5 a class. So, they were receptive to uh that and and our instructors felt like that that the people in these classes understood uh that that the need for it.

To your point, I think it'll incentivize people to go after those tiers. So, it'll actually be used more. I mean, tier two, you're saving if you go to two classes a week, you're saving 30 bucks a month by doing the tier two, right? Pricing.

And so, for us, we thought that was a way to still keep it affordable. uh and and currently uh the way it's operating now these classes have different cost and so we were getting some complaints about well I'm a senior and I have to pay in this class but I don't have to pay in this class and that's why we wanted to keep a standard for front desk uh we've got part-time workers coming in and out of there so they can answer questions over the phone and um that our front desk had trouble knowing who should pay what and people were questioning why do I have to pay and they don't pay and so that was where we were going with that but I do see your point that

what serve do we have and you may have touched on this I apologize um what do we have in place for people in our community that can't in the event they can't afford these things we have something in place like a needsbased thing

we don't currently have that some of these bigger municipalities that I talked to they do financial aid programs and they just base it on the federal financial aid guidelines. Um, a lot of the places that that do the financial aid, they're much bigger municipalities and they offer summer daycare and things like that and that's where that comes into play a lot more. Uh, we would be open to that. Um, but I honestly think just based just based on the feedback we got, this little donation financial assistance program would cover the the few I think that we would have that struggle uh with it.

I have a separate question. Okay. Um, for the athletics, do we do like sponsorships for the uniforms? I'm trying to remember. We we we just uh rolled out in conjunction with the advisory board a new scholarship or a sponsorship package rather. And so right now we have two sponsors. Uh Styles Roofing uh is a platinum sponsor. They u and we also have Land of Lakes as a sponsor too, which they actually upped their sponsorship from 8,000 a year to 12,000 a year. We just learned that last week. Uh we are working on getting more sponsors for these. Is that included in those numbers you had for the I think it was the basketball

this there's no sponsorship included in that. That's just the the total cost. Okay. And maybe the only other question not particularly pertaining it but as Mark mentioned with the sponsorship number of years ago we talked about potential sponsorships for rooms and stuff like that. Have we has there been any additional conversations to that?

There have. Um, we're we're working on trying to do a better job of branding and marketing. Uh, we've talked with the advisory board about that and there are there are some conversations. Uh, we're not there yet, but we would certainly uh put some logos on some some rooms and some backboards and some courts and we're not too proud for that. I Yeah. As we should, right? So, okay. As long as those conversations are happening, I appreciate that,

Jason. somewhat unrelated, but it's also related. Uh, for the rec center, because we've had it for a couple years now, and I know when we kind of first were building it, we didn't really have an idea of like what it would cost to run it. Do we have a good feel for that now as far as like what it costs us to run that facility and then kind of balancing that against whatever revenue we're collecting from all the programs and stuff we're doing in there?

As far as utilities, is that what you're talking about? Yeah, like utilities, staffing, probably even factoring in like the debt service just to kind like I don't think we ever expected to break even on that, but just kind of like knowing like are we subsidizing this at a rate of like 60% a year or 70% a year? When when you include utilities, um I would say that it's probably below 50 at this point. Now, when you're including operational cost, uh we're we're, you know, we're very close to breaking even on a lot of these things. Uh but that's not including the utilities, the the debt or any of that, right? But we could get it. Yeah. We I think we ran it like maybe two years ago during the retreat.

Yeah. I think I saw it once. It was almost like I don't want to call it a profit loss because that's kind of putting the wrong idea in people's heads, but like something like that. That's what it was a P&L essentially. Yeah, we can run it again. Yeah,

we we do have I will say we I feel like we have a good handle on what the the utility costs and all that are because budget-wise we're we're right on pace. That was, you know, established before I got here, but it's right on track with with where we're supposed to be there. So really the ask tonight was that um we do have the fee schedule included that showed the changes to see if there was any uh appetite to to have these numbers adopted. We could bring it back to um the March meeting or if you're comfortable with the numbers here it could be adopted tonight. I know Alex that you mentioned that the senior stretch and line dance you'd like to see like a zero cost. So that's kind of what we wanted to know was were y'all comfortable with this because we'd like to go in and implement something right now and then continue to study it and then of course through the budget process uh bring it back again to make sure that they're still in line. But um that was the intent was to was to have this approved sometime soon.

Quick question. Um what's what's the reasoning for the difference in the payment from volleyball? I I did not find an answer to that. I I know that the uniforms cost the same and the officials cost the same and that's why we suggested just making them all the same. Uh they they play the same amount of games. Uh so I I don't know u why why they were I don't know why it was like that. That's part of the uh cleanup process that Jason's been doing. We found that and we wanted to change it. That's a good job. So I guess we're at the point where we either a motion to approve the amended fee schedule as presented or if we want to make changes to it uh to move it to the

March March meeting. I'll make a motion to approve the fee schedule as presented. All right. Motion by Charlie. I'll second. Second by by Jason. Excuse me. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. As amended like updated on that. The one that kind of speaks out to me is the senior one,

right? And and if there is a problem, I feel like we could we could make some changes and or, you know, make it make it work. Just to kind of add to that comment, Alex, I think if you in your messaging about the fee increase, if you, you know, sort of couple that with a promotion of the tiered pricing, hopefully people get that message that, hey, I can keep paying five bucks a class or I can pay 10 10 bucks a month. And to have a quick calculation there. Well, if you come to all eight classes every month, you're actually saving 30 bucks, right? You know what I mean, right?

Yeah. But the messaging, I think, is critical. We have that conversation with people who buy day passes regularly that are out of city residents and uh some of them it would be much easier to just buy a membership. Uh but it's an it's a high upfront cost. Sure. And so we've even looked at doing a monthly for that. But again, uh that looks good on paper, but it's hard harder to track for for our especially our part-time workers that are that are up there checking them in. Yeah, I get that. All right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Jason. Good job.

All right. Moving right along. C4. Uh, discuss the findings of the fire station needs and location consultation. I think we have Chief Kennedy here. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. Good evening.

So, I'm gonna start off and just give you a little background how we got where we are tonight. Um, over the past two decades, Over the past two decades, the city of Elmont has periodically evaluated fire station locations, staffing, facilities, respond to growth, changing risk profile, and evolving operational standards. So 2004 2005, approximately little little over 20 years ago, early fire station location service evaluations identified the need for expanded protection in both the North Belmont and South Belmont areas. Fast forward a little bit, 2009, the city entered into agreements to support shared fire protection services in South Dmont area. You'll know that as the south station, partnered with South Point, not really partnered, but a joint use with South Point Volunteer Fire Department on South Point Road. Um, that expanded the coverage area, which we currently have engine 44 down there as our second engine cover. Fast forward 2023, not a lot happened between 2009 2023. An independent fire station location analysis was completed by a thirdparty fire service consulting firm. Study evaluated things like response times, service demand, community risk, GIS based coverage, and those findings identified significant growth pressures increasing call volume and coverage gaps in the north portion of the city. The study concluded that additional fire station capacity would be required to maintain service reliability and response standards over time. So in early 2025, several convergent factors related to the urgency for more detailed facility focused evaluation such things such as facility condition where council received updates on the age limitations of the existing fire station which is constructed in early 1970s. That's the station on Kener Boulevard. Um space constraints, accessibility challenges, and operational efficiencies were identified back uh about the fall of last well July

of last year. Council approved addition firefighter positions to support expanded staffing. So that's when the tower came in. The tower was placed in service. That was uh eight additional staff which added four to the main station. So a total of eight are riding out of the main station. Uh direction from council also advised the request that a professional consulting team be engaged to evaluate facility needs test feasible options for both new station as well as correction a new main station as well as the north Belmont station and provide planning level information to support future capital improvement program decisions. That's why we're here tonight. So in fall of 2025, the city of Belmont retained Morrisburg architects supported by construction civil engineering consultants to conduct a site generic fire station study. This study was intentionally structured to evaluate options not design a building. Validate needs identified in prior studies using current data test feasibility and test feasibility across a range of potential sites and layouts and remain sight agnostic to prever preserve flexibility and avoid premature commitments. That's how we got where we are. So that's where we are tonight. And for the rest of the presentation, I'd like to turn it over to Matthew Park, Kelsey Reer from Morrisburg Architects.

Uh good evening, mayor and council. Thank you for having us this evening. Uh thanks for the opportunity to work with the city of Belmont on this important uh fire station study. Um, as Chief Kennedy mentioned, uh, Morsburg Architects, we're an architecture firm located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Uh, we are not contractors, nor are we civil engineers. So, we hired that out as part of this study, uh, and included Lyles Construction. They are a contractor located in Concord, North Carolina that our firm has worked with for a number of years. Uh, they are experts in the construction of fire station facilities across our region. And we also hired Peninsula Peninsula Civil Design. Uh Nick Bessley, you should know, lives here in Belmont. Serves served on the Belmont planning and zoning uh committee. Uh we brought him on board to evaluate different sites associated with placing a new fire station either in the main area in in Belmont or in the North Belmont area, which you'll see uh later on. So uh key components of this study uh included the review of the existing fire station location analysis was completed a couple years ago. Uh a detailed facility condition assessment which is included in your packet. It still has the word draft on it for for discussion of the existing main station. Uh we also talked with uh Chief Kennedy and his staff uh to talk operationally about their growth potential both at the main station and also at the north station future north station. We also looked at comparative fire stations in our region not only those that ly construction has built but also others in our region that are of comparable size. Uh and we also looked at planning level space and cost assumptions that we'll talk about here in just a moment. If we look at the station tours and pure comparisons, we've listed the five here that we toured and visited uh not only with our team but also with uh Chief

Kennedy and his staff. I will make note here that the Maiden Fire Station 10 uh that we toured in August of last year is the fire station that LA Construction has built most recently and the others were those that we knew were of comparable size to look at different operational challenges that those facilities have. Look at the different sizes. uh how many bays do they have? What kind how are they organized uh in in plan for from public to private uh quarters within the facilities? We also wanted to look at our current main station located on Kenir Boulevard. We spent a couple of days at the facility uh analyzing it from accessibility and ADA compliance. We looked at genderneutral and and shift based living arrangements that the facility does not have. We looked at apparatus size bay clearances and support spaces which ironically does the facility does support the the most recent purchase the of the apparatus that um the tower u uh excuse me the the new ladder truck. But we also looked at site constraints uh that limit the expansion of that facility uh that we'll look at here in just a moment. Uh additional assessments that we received about mold testing uh did not identify any hazards. Uh but we do um suggest that we uh we address uh concerns related to aging building systems within the facility over time. Uh we do note that the building can remain operational in the short term, but it certainly does not support long-term growth or modernization based on the recent uh expansion of the fire uh staff uh not just this past year, but also maybe for future years. Uh we also spent some time out on the site at night uh and did a light study. That's the graphic that you see here up on the screen. Uh if I don't know if you know this, but there's a sign out front that it's a safe space uh for

individuals who may want to go there if they're uh in a domestic abuse situation, they can go to the fire station for help. Uh we wanted to look at the light levels around the facility to be sure that those are meeting the needs of the residents. Uh should something like that happen, is there enough light around the facility for someone to go and be safe uh walking up to the the facility? and and there are u um significant light levels around the building but as you get closer to the street uh it is a little bit darker uh that we noticed in our study. Uh another uh component of this study was to look at the program we call it the different spaces within the facility. These are all the existing spaces that we find in the current station. You can see there at the top that the total square footage of the current uh facility is uh just under 6,700 square feet. That's an important number to take note of as we get through this presentation. Uh and if we have any questions, please obviously feel free to ask or I can get through this as we look to compare this program versus other programs that we'll present later.

I have one actually real quick. um as we were talking about some of the deficiencies with the current facilities. It seems like when we were studying this a year or two ago that um there's a spee you can help with this there's a specific process and I can't remember if this is related to like turnout gear but it's like a cleaning process and there has to be like a reserve area with ideally it's their deon decon decon and we don't have that uh capacity to do that currently in main station it's not optimal. Yeah. Okay. Nor nor do you have it at the south.

Okay. Uh so as we look at the program, we'll we'll return back to a slide that looks similar to this on the other two stations that we're going to propose. Um so keep this in mind. Uh but before we dive into those other areas, we do want we wanted to look at the different sites. Um we did not pick a piece of property uh through this study. We wanted, as Chief Kennedy mentioned, to remain sight agnostic. We didn't want to have any preconceived notions about where this thing might go. We did look at different regions within the city. Uh on the map on the screen here, you can see that we focused our f our focus on the main station around downtown uh with its proximity to the downtown area and the service area to the current main station where it sits. Uh we did not show obviously the south station down on South Point Road, but you all know where that is. Uh we also looked at uh just north of uh I 85, not up near the existing community volunteer station, but rather somewhere closer to the Oaks Parkway District. Um we've heard through the study that was provided earlier that access to that area and then access to I85 is very important uh for future growth within the city. So we turn our attention to a new Belmont main fire station. Uh this is the program that we generated based on our experience of existing station sizes within our region as well as the discussions with uh the fire department staff about their current needs, their current staff and potential future staff that we may see in the near future. I call your attention to the upper left hand uh part of the page. 16,000 square feet. This is 10,000 square feet more than what the current facility uh currently has. Um we did look at adding on to the existing facility. Uh the site constraints on that piece of property

are pretty challenging. Um and to get 10,000 square feet on that facility would be would be near impossible without some exorbitant cost that we that could go vertical. um you could purchase more land next to it, but but ultimately uh that station there has served its useful life in terms of expansion. Do you uh have a way of estimating like the kind the amount of acreage you need for a facility of this size? I will get to that when we look at the different sites that we've generated. Thank you.

Right. This is just a graph to show the comparison of what the blue uh line there is the existing station. So those are the program areas of the existing station and then the white that exceed beyond that is where the deficit is of what the new north station would support. Okay. So just to show you the deficiencies of what the existing station uh currently has. Uh, as Chief Kennedy mentioned, this was not a design exercise where we're going to design a building and make it pretty and show you renderings. This is just a planning exercise to show different sizes of the PE of the potential uh, stations. So, I've asked Kelsey to come up and talk about the four different layouts that are included in your packet uh, for each of the four different layouts that look at different operational opportunities for each of the stations.

So, the first layout that we developed is approximately 16,000 500 square f feet and utilizes a horizontal orientation and a stepping of the exterior facade. It's organized into two main volumes, the fire apparatus bays and its base support spaces on the left side of the plan and the integrated office and staff facilities on the right side of the plan. As you enter the building, you would enter into those office spaces which are public and then as you proceed into the building, you would go into the private staff facility spaces. The fire office spaces serve as a buffer between the two with direct access with between each other. The separate the second layout that we developed is approximately 15,900 square ft and also utilizes a horizontal orientation. It also is organized by two main volumes. The fire apparatus bays and its bay support spaces on the left side and its office and staff facility spaces on the right side, but is less integrated than the first approach with public and private spaces separate with direct access to each other but also direct access to the apparatus base. The third layout that we developed is approximately 16,000 square feet and utilizes an L-shaped design. It has two main volumes. the fire apparatus bays and its base support spaces on the plan north of the layout and the office and staff facilities and elongated approach at the plan south of the layout. You would enter into the public spaces again with the offices of fire staff and watch room being the buffer between the private spaces and the back of the building. The fourth layout that we looked at is approximately 16,000 square feet utilizing a vertical orientation separated into three main volumes. The core of the building would be the fire apparatus bays with public office spaces anchored on one side of those bays and

private staff facility spaces anchored on the north side of those bays. While they are separate, they have direct access to the fire apparatus base and indirect access to each other through the fire apparatus base. This is also a preferred approach.

Yeah, speaking with uh fire department staff, that last one that cuss presented was preferred because of the separation of the public and private by the those that bay, the four bays that that were shown there. And and listen, it really wasn't about which one they like or don't like. It was about providing options for discussion to understand their operational challenges and opportunities that they may have with the different different layouts. It also allowed us to look at different site sizes and site orientations. As we look at here, the um the option that you see on the screen here utilizes one of the horizontal orientations. Um again, this is site agnostic. This doesn't this does live in Belmont, but it's not identified as a particular parcel. That would be the next step of this council is to decide where this might this station might want to be. Um that might incur additional land acquisition cost uh that we did not look at as part of this study. Um but nonetheless, we looked at the opportunities for how these these four different layouts could fit on a particular site. to mark your uh question about size. This uh piece of parcel here is just over 2.3 acres in size showing as our peninsula civil design shows the different setbacks as well associated with the property to try to be smart about placing the p the building on a site.

Matt, I have a quick question. The square footage on these buildings roughly 16,000 square feet. Does that have any correlation to the res the number of residents that is servicing? I'm thinking in my head future proofing, right? Because Belmont is growing. Yep. We know that more people are going to be moving in, more people are going to live here. These things last the fire existing fire station's been there for how long now, right? You know, and it's serving a lot of residents. I'm busting at the seams, I'm sure. So, is there any correlation there or is that just like the layout that works best? I'm going to ask Chief Kenny to answer that question about the amount of staff that we have projected here.

And three shifts. Okay. All right. Thank you. I want to be sure. But I guess to Joe's point in the layout options presented, they all accommodate that goal. They do. Yes, sir. Yep. Thank you. So again, Matt, and and you kind of explained it, but I think my mind is going the same way where mayor's going is the different layouts doesn't necessarily matter. It's more of a personal preference to the fire department. There's no no cost difference. These are options. Correct. Because we're all around that 16,000 square foot range. Gotcha. Gotcha. N makes sense.

Plus, it was a little bit of a design effort that we really like to design things. So that's one of the reasons we provided for options. It does sound like that last one we viewed as the more practical uh that they view for their use and having those spaces separated. Correct. Yes, sir. Which would come down to the land though. Sure. Y it comes down to land size, land orientation. Gotcha.

Uh so on the next slide here, you can see another piece of par another property that's here in Belmont. um that shows that same orientation of the preferred layout and how that might work on a on a corner lot uh within the city uh to provide the access not only to the bays but also access to parking and and that's really when we start looking at fire station design. How do you access the site not only from a public perspective but also how do the trucks come in and out? How the apparatus come in and out. So that was another reason why we looked at multiple sites, corner lots, not corner lots to be sure that we were able to accommodate these in the operations.

And it might be a question for the chief again kind of for the expertise on here, but when I was looking at it, is it preferred to have a corner lot or does it really even matter? But is there one preferred I guess is what I'm asking?

I'm just curious. I mean, as it that was one thing that popped up on my head, too, Matt, because you were just saying it. It's like because that one that you had just showed us really was just one access way off of one street and a partial to the right of it. And this is a two entry ways from two different codes, right? U at the end of the day, the idea is that this is a study to look at different options for discussion. Uh the next step would be to look at the specific sites that could be accommodated. Gotcha. And then let the building orientations um fit within that within that site. Yeah.

So then uh the last uh property is also a corner lot um utilizing a different floor plan. Uh this piece of property is just over 1 and 3/4 acre. Um so we're we're somewhere between one and a half to just over two thereabouts. Um in in terms of property size. Any questions on Belmont Mine before we go to North Belmont? Okay. uh similar screen to previous uh on the programs. The North Belmont station is a two bay layout. Uh what we just saw was a 4 bay. Um this uh program is 9600 square feet. So again, to put that in in reference to what you currently have, the existing main station headquarters for Belmont wouldn't even serve the future of a North Belmont station in terms of size. Um perhaps in the bays it can accommodate, but in terms of uh bunks and admin offices, it wouldn't even serve um the new Belmont if you if you will. So again, we'll let Kelsey explain these layouts.

So the first layout that we developed is approximately 9,200 square ft and is organized into two main volumes. While it's a reduced amount of square footage, we have integrated the office and staff facilities together with offices towards public entry and private spaces towards the back with the fire apparatus base and base supports off the side of those. The difference between these two main options is that one is approximately 400 square feet larger, but it is developed by the core. The first option has the lodging and accessory spaces as its core and the second one has the kitchen and day room space as its building core, but overall similar in design and concept.

We haven't heard if there's a preference on these, but in our discussions with the department staff and even in our tours, we've heard that those where the bunk room is interior to the to the building is ideal because they like it really really dark in those rooms.

That's right. So, so no windows in the bunk room. Um, so I guess if they had their choice here, the one on the left would be preferred. It certainly generated discussion as we talked through all the different options on what they prefer and what they don't prefer in terms of operations. So, similarly, we looked at on north of I 85 uh three different sites. Um, this site is about uh 2.5 acres um in size. I will note um some of these on the north Belmont are restricted by some constraints of utilities uh that we encountered which you may find on any piece of property that you uh look to uh acquire. U but what it shows is that they can still fit on these pieces of property. They just may be a little bit larger. So here uh one way in one way out on this piece of property uh remember the North Belmont Station is a satellite facility. still has bunks, still has offices, but it doesn't require the main headquarters spaces um that we saw in the previous uh design. Again, very similar to the previous slide. This is just a little bit smaller in terms of acreage and these are all uh near uh the Oaks Parkway um complex. I'm sorry. Can you restate the reasoning behind the larger footprint for the north north station versus main?

More bays. So, you were doubling the bays from two to four. Well, no. I'm saying like in the main station, we were looking at a four bay layout on, you know, 1.6 to 1.7 acres. Here at North Belmont, we're looking at two bays on two plus acres, right? we go. Uh so this one in particular u when we looked at it, it's just an open piece of property. Uh it does have an easement in the back. Uh that's the diagonal line. Okay.

Uh ultimately what we're showing is the maximum width of the property that that we need to fit that station on this piece of property. It looks to be about 280 square feet. Um if the property you purchase doesn't have that easement in the back, obviously that cuts out. But what we did here is we found a piece of property. We made the width what it needed to be and it ended up being 2.58 acres. Okay. I get it. It's not something there's a little bit of a land grab here in all honesty with this. Yep. And and then the next one here, uh, this build this station is set farther back from the road because of a um utility easement that's running along the road.

Again, it's sight agnostic. It's a situation that you might come across in terms of when you when you purchase property, but um we wanted to keep all of the location information off of these for the time being. Could you fit it on a less than two acre site? Absolutely. Yeah. Do you need that much parking or is this kind of conceptual? Conceptual. Yes, sir. Okay.

And then again, very similar. This one's getting a little bit tighter. You can see again that easement along the front half of the property, this one's down to two acres on the third option. Okay. So, not only did we look at uh the program, we did looked at layouts. We looked at how those layouts could fit on a piece of property or multiple properties within the city of Belmont. We also looked at a planning level cost analysis. Uh this is order of magnitude cost and this is where our contractor uh came into play at LAS construction. Uh these are conservative cost estimates. Um a question were these emailed to you? Uh these were Friday. You so you did get um does everybody have a copy?

These should look like this. Okay. I don't know if they I don't know if they printed them. No, they're not in the booklet, but they are. Would you like receive an email? I mean, sure. If you have them, that'd be great.

As you're looking at those, I want to just highlight before Don gets in the weeds on different um line items on the on the second and third page, the overall construction budget. Uh on the cover, um I wanted to highlight that not only are we looking at construction cost for this project, but we're also looking at soft costs. We're also looking at inflation, uh, engineering fees, uh, fixtures, furnishings, and equipment, it contingency, and so the cover sheet is what we've provided you to understand the overall project cost that might go into a facility. U, so you're not just looking at how much it's going to cost for construction, you're looking at all the other costs that are associated with the project. So, for instance, on the Belmont main station, we are suggesting a total project budget of $10 million, and that's then broken down into different line items. Um, on on the cover sheet, the next two pages, I'll let Don get into the weeds on. Uh but just to go over these soft costs, we have included escalation at uh 0.5% uh per month over the course of when you hit the midpoint of construction. So for and this can change just it's in a spreadsheet, but for conservative purposes, we suggested that you would be at the midpoint of construction June of 2027 for the Belmont main station. and that adds about $650,000 in escalation between now and then. Okay, that's a buffer. We've also included design fees, soft costs such as survey, geotechnical tests, building permits, uh IT design fees, special inspections, as well as like I said, finishers, fixtures, furnishings, and equipment uh as well as computers and things of that nature. Uh to then total down a

budget uh there at the bottom. Any questions about the cover sheet? I'll let Don explain the breakdowns on the next two pages. Um, yeah. So, um, you know, Matt came to me, um, we're looking at this just because of our history and, you know, the amount of, you know, fire stations and departments that we've constructed over the past 15 years. Um we've got a lot of historical data as well as we've got a lot of access to current real time data of stations across you know different counties um everywhere from Union to Meckllinmberg Cabaris Kitaba. Um now again so just to reiterate these aren't these weren't designed layouts. Um however, you know, looking at, you know, the typical structure of a fire station, um you know, the loadbearing masonry apparatus, you know, you want those strong fire firewall separations, um you know, the the the overhead doors, um the the the large kitchens where, you know, the staff have room to live and to cook and to conference rooms and things like that. So, um although uh we did go into um kind of a more granular detail of what all of these items kind of entailed, which is what, you know, we found to be, you know, very typical and very standard in um fire stations uh throughout our region. Um uh you know again I could go into a lot of specifics on each one of these line items. If there's one that you know kind of catches your eye um feel free to ask.

Um but how this was constructed um both on the main station um and we did the other exercise on the uh on north is you know taking those square footages of the apparatus bay the apparatus B support the staff and admin. Um, you know, the day rooms, you know, all those things considered. Um, and you know, even as far as, you know, what type of ceiling was going to be used, what type of flooring was going to be used, you know, durable and waterproof surfaces in certain certain areas, but aren't required in others. A lot of that was taken into consideration when developing and you know cross referencing um you know manipulated square foot costs associated with both of these locations and that's how we've kind of that's how we've develop developed the um kind of programmatic um construction budget um for the two stations. So maybe just a high level question. So if I look at the cost comparisons, just looking at Star Town Station, it looks like that's the most recent one at 2025 um budget cycle and then TBD for built. What's the what's the main driver here for the cost per square footage of $377 and then the 435 and 520 for Belmont Maine and then Belmont North? Seems like a pretty big jump there just in a maybe less than a year.

Yeah. Yeah. So, um you know, Star Town in particular, um you know, there was a lot of there was a lot of wood construction um you know, for certain aspects of you know, the day room, the roof structure, things like that. Um uh Belmont, Maine, um you know, Maiden Maiden Fire Station. Um again, very similar, but that was a much taller building. And um you know by realm of the apparatus bay um almost too tall in in my opinion. There's ways that you know you can kind of save on cost with all of these um with all these stations. Um, but you know, location, um, you know, Star Town, you know, being up there in Newton, um, you know, there's there's there's a there's a location aspect, you know, when these when these when these facilities are built, you know, the the regions that they're in. Um, there's some cost drivers, you know, with the types of vendors, the types of subcontractors and suppliers that you have in those areas. Obviously being here closer to Charlotte, closer to Concord, you've got a lot more um you know, you've got a lot more opportunity with subcontractors with different means and methods. Um but uh you know, Star Town was very basic. Um had the right square footage. Um wasn't you know uh with uh the materials used um the out the logistics more open um things like that all those play into the factor factor the square costs

so you mentioned the real estate values is the land acquisition included in the construction cost okay so that's you can carve that out right um but to your point Alex I mean if you look at the differential between on the same cost comparison slide between Belmont Maine and north you know as you go from the main estimated square footage to the north I It's 40% less square footage, but it's almost $100 more a foot. I'm sure there's certain fixed equipment costs factored into that, but can you expand a little bit on kind of that delta between the two for a station that's 40% smaller?

Yes. of mag expanding that by 7,000 ft. That 7,000 ft is able to absorb more of the cost than the small footprint of project. I will also say these are very conservative numbers. We don't want to give you something that you're going to go budget for. two times more than what we're going to we baked in some considerable conservative cost estimates here to be sure that you're going to get the value of the project should you fund this in the near future. We're just protecting our work to be sure that you're able to budget for a facility which is in part some of the reason for the I will say right now is a very good time to to bid projects that star town could have hit the right time for something that's you could have had a very um a market that was very heavy at the time with a lot of projects bidding. You could have had a time when there's not a whole lot of projects bidding. Perhaps it start people want to get that backlog. They want to give a good number just so they can get to work. Star Town was a design bid build was a bid project. So the difference between bidding a project design build and it's construction manager at risk or even design build as you see there for concourse station 12 can also play into cost and cost deltas between two different projects that might appear on paper to be very similar.

So these were bid prices. These don't include like for instance the soft cost, the design fees, all of that, right? We don't we don't know the cost of the four. Normally we don't know what these costs are on these sort of like direct center. How much is that outside of just Right. Sure.

This also doesn't include like the technical equipment the fire department uses to put out fires and that sort of thing. Um it does it does. So there were a lot of conversations that went around the type of equipment we talked about. We discussed the deon room earlier that came up um you know their specialy laundry equipment their cascade field machine fills up all their tanks um kitchen appliances like Matt does include um allowances for those you know what we refer to as the f equipment as well as you know a lot of those IT related items you know the radio antennas the access control systems for the facility to protect those outside

um this might be maybe more of a question for the chief but like if we had a the Belmont North station would we also need more trucks up there or are we going to reallocate our existing fleet. Not a question for us. So as of right now at the main station, the ultimate goal down the road we would would need another truck there, but in the short term station, one of the trucks from the main station. So

now Matt, did y'all look at like what's the cost comparison to renovating like the existing existing station or adding on or going vertical like is that significantly higher than a new construction you'd say for for that particular building on that particular site? Yes. Okay. And that that really comes down to what this report is telling us is it's just not a feasible building to renovate or to add on to. You're looking at adding 10,000 square feet. You're looking at adding a whole bay to accommodate. Yeah, actually you're looking at adding two bays potentially because while it's a three bay station, one of the bays is used for a day room and some equipment.

And then of course there's lot uh constraints because it's really just not absolutely okay. I just wanted to make sure we covered that. So we didn't do any further study after the report told us that it was not feasible to renovate. Gotcha. I appreciate that.

I'm not sure who the best person to answer this one is, so you need to call the chief back up. Feel free. Uh, so I I see we're looking at potentially moving the main station north. Um, and my understanding was that a lot of what was driving the need the north main station was getting a truck up into North Belmont. So if we move the main station north,

does that Okay. Based on that information, we proposed the new headquarters to be in Belmont and satellite Belmont, not the other way.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense because I mean North Belmont geographically isn't going to get any bigger for us, but the south is obviously different story. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Other questions? All right. Well, is that that ends your presentation? I I will just add that if there's any additional information that you need prior to the retreat about cost, just ask and we'll see what we can dig up. Um I've heard a couple questions for clarification on the Star Town Station and to understand what that cost per square foot is. We can absolutely provide that via email.

Let's just look at it to just see the difference, right? Because if if what was mentioned is different of materials, not to try to like value engineer our fire station, but options are always nice, right? So what's the maybe, you know, the lower one, what's the middle, what's the high as opposed to just one final one, I think would be helpful for me and trying to make those decisions. Obviously with the chief's input. I mean, at the end of the day, it needs to work for y'all. We're not professionals by any means of what you guys need, but I think options are helpful. And then obviously what is the proposed land or places that these need to be right. So thank you. Thank you gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you guys.

Thank you. So for uh the next time you see these numbers they'll be at the uh retreat where you'll see that $10 million plugged into our financial capital model. Plus you'll see the $7,250,000 for the North Main Station plugged in for that. We also have uh two sales for land acquisition on each one of these. Uh, and we've got a plug number in there right now because we, like I said, we don't know exactly where it'll be. So, I think we plug, excuse me, um, I think $500,000 for each one of those for land acquisition.

All right, moving right along. Uh, C5 Police Department annual report presentation, Chief Falls. I think I'm gonna mimic Jason a little bit. Good evening everyone. I don't want to leave anybody out. So, um it's great to stand before you today and go over some of the stats and some of the things that we've accomplished throughout last year. Um so, I'm going to present the annual report. Um first um and foremost I want to go over the mission statement is the mission of the Belmont Police Department to protect and serve with dignity, respect and fairness. The department vision. The Belmont Police Department strives to reduce fear, promote safety, and enhance quality of life through a commitment of enforcing laws, preventing crime, and building community partnerships. This is just a little overview of our administrative team. Of course, there's the handsome guy on the left there. Um

all know that guy. And then uh the assistant chief Arthur Pullan, Captain Black, Captain Matt Sherl, and some of the different things that they're certified in. Um if you want to review that later. Also, Lieutenant Alan Buchanan, Tony Cape, my administrative assistant, Victoria Runfeld, and of course, uh CLE accreditation manager, Tyler Graham. This is just a breakdown of our organizational chart and how everything operates and who reports to who. Um I'd be glad to go over that if you got any questions. If not, I'm going to move on. This is the uh this is our picture of uh the department. Just kind of give you this as a a brief overview to kind of let you know how big the the department is because, you know, you don't see everyone all the time. You see different ones. So, just kind of put that up there. Some of these people are still employed, some of them are not. Uh just, you know, for different reasons. Uh, police department demographics, there's 50 full-time sworn officers, 10 part-time or reserve officers, there's six full-time civilian employees, five part-time civilian employees, four part-time school crossing guards. Currently, we only have three. We're looking for one. So, if anyone in the public that's out there watching or anyone here knows of anyone, it took us about a year and a half to search for the last one. We got them. Uh, so we're looking for one still down by the uh by the high school. Um our minority um employment rate is 26.6. So it's right in line with what the national average is of 27. Uh then the structure the chief of police is broke down the assistant chief is one. We have two captains, two lieutenants, um six sergeants, four corporals, 34 police officers, five civilian or support employees, 1.5 code enforcement officers, and four crossing guards and of course four K9 dogs. the divisions that we have and opportunities for advancement at the police department um our patrol

community unit, traffic division, our K9 unit, our school resource officers. Then our support services division, which the captain over that is Matt Shur is our criminal investigations, our vice narcotics, and our code enforcement patrol. Our shifts currently operate on a 12-h hour permanent shift schedule. We did adjust that um probably about five or six months ago from a rotating shift every 28 days. It just seemed to be more in line with and more healthy for the officers from having to switch once a month and minimum. Go ahead. Sorry. What does that mean? Um so our officers every 28 days they would go from day shift to night shift. Okay.

So they had to switch and adjust their schedules and most of the agencies in the county I think Mount Holly is the only one that still does the rotating shifts. At one time a long time ago, we switched every two weeks and that just didn't work out really good, especially for sleeping habits and things and health reasons of the officers. And then it was switching every 28 days and then and so we actually um did some surveys and different things at the department and uh put into place 12-h hour permanent shift as a temporary thing and then it's worked out. I said we'll, you know, we'll look at it, we'll do it, we'll implement it and see if it worked out. And so far we haven't had a lot of issues with any of the permit shifts. And a lot of people some people want to work at night so they can be away from the bosses in the day. And then some people I mean seriously I mean I've been there. Um so and then there's people who wants to uh want to work during the daytime for you know people who have kids and you know some of your younger officers um want to be at want to work at night. Um and then our minimum staffing each shift consists of five officers a sergeant, a corporal and three officers. And each shift must have at least four officers to meet staffing requirements. And normally that's just for nighttime. We have a lot more staff here that overlap in different units and things that are here for evening hours. And during the daytime, there's a lot more officers with support staff and such. That's just giving you an idea of what our minimum staffing requirements are. In uh 2024 2025, our cost for service, we had uh 2024, we had 57,93 costs for service. And in 2025, we had 51 113 and the third highest agency with calls for service in the county and the second highest for officer initiated calls in the county with 39,891. And I think the difference between the years, the reason it went down is because we had a a little bit of a staffing level issue at one time.

Hey Chief, is Gastonia number one and Mount Holly number two? Uh actually it's the city and the and uh the Gastonia city and uh Okay. And then you have the county police and then you have us. So it's Gaston the city and then us. The county and then us.

Our uh data tables our DWIS we had 85 in 2024 and then 93. So there's a uptick in us catching DWIs. And the total traffic stops were 3982. And then in 2025 4826 total citations issued um this time 31.95 which was an increase and then total violations were just slightly down with 3,000. And then this is the night checking stations is some of the things that we do with some of our programs we're involved with the DWI traffic enforcement grant and the all of that with highway safety. we're required to do required to do certain amounts of check-in stations and things like that throughout the year. And then the Batmobile and um and all the fatalities. One thing I'd like to note about the fatalities is um one of the fatalities, let me go back to my notes really. One of the fatalities was on the interstate at I 85 near exit 26. And the other unfortunate fatality was at Napa at Browntown Road where a vehicle pulled out and was struck from Napa by Browntown Road and ID5 South. Our personal injury collisions went down and and property damage collisions went down uh from 126 overall to 33 and that's southbound. And then northbound from 73 to 40 it went down. And then this is just an overview of our vice narcotics unit and what they've accomplished throughout the year. And if you want me to go over any of that or you have any questions, let me know. Go ahead.

Do you have a idea of why that decreased so much on the I85 South? I don't other than just uh a presence maybe, but there's no difference in traffic. Uh at one time the stats went down a couple of years ago because they they restriped the the 85. Um, but I imagine when they start widening the interstate, those stats will go up some. Yeah. Unfortunately, everybody's driving 10 miles an hour. Well, there's that. Yeah, there is that. On the uh the drugs, it looks like fentanyl is down pretty significantly, but there's almost a tradeoff for some of the other

It's just that's one of those things. It's just what's selling the best at the time. We don't really control that. You really don't know. And sometimes it's just a game of luck where you catch one thing more than the other this time or next time. Um, and some of that's contributed to uh other locations outside of our country, what they're pushing at the time. Is most of this seized through trafficking on the interstate or would you say this is stuff that's in our community like deep into our community and neighborhoods and stuff like that? How much of is transitory? Yeah.

Yeah. Um I would say this is from multi we have we're involved in the um different task force the DEA task force and um all kinds of different task force like that on a federal level. So we all as uh we all cohesively deal with the drugs whether they're coming from here, they're coming from Charlotte, they're being sold here, sold somewhere else, we all work together, everyone in the county, all the different agencies in the county as well as the federal agencies in Charlotte, just regionally we work together. So a lot of what you see are some of those, but it's not to say that drugs are not in Belmont. By all means, they're everywhere. Um but I'm not going to sit here and tell you that every one of these drugs were seized in Belmont. Okay? They were seized through um long extensive operations and investigations into drugs and you know one day you might have someone coming to buy drugs or selling drugs from a location and then they may travel to Charlotte and you know back and forth. So it's really it's like a game of cat and mouse honestly and what you get is just whoever's pushing their drugs at that time what they're actually selling and what's it's all marketable.

Gotcha. Chief I think I brought this to blast here. I think it's a good reminder. uh regarding the seizures. So currency, I think you had explained before that that's kind of allocated based on each agency's proportion of time devoted to a particular seizure, right? Yes. Uh in terms of how much comes back to the

And I'll give you an example of that because you can't look at the big picture. Uh we had a $500,000 seizure a few years ago. Y'all may remember we had uh not quite $15,000. It was our portion of that. Uh we just made a $500,000 within, you know, the different investigative groups. We made a $500,000 uh seizure a couple of weeks ago. I think this past week, we made 1.2 or $1.4 million seizure. I don't know. I have a picture on my phone. It's quite impressive. You like to see it. The amount of cash that's laying out on the table. I was flabbergasted at what that looks like in person. I've never seen that much money laying on the table. That's what I'll tell you.

But we got involved in that. So when those and then though that stuff takes time, it may be six months, it might be a year before the court cases have and then everything's divvied out to the different agencies. So we may we might not see but $20,000. You really don't know. Just like what you said, like I explained before, it really depends on how much time um and investigative purposes or time that our officers spent versus a different agency and basically like kind of what our cut is. So it's all divied out and percentages based on all different factors. Where do those seized assets go? Where do they go? Asset forfeite. Asset forfeite. So, it stays within the police department, right?

Yes, we get a portion of uh when we get those funds, it's it goes into an asset for account. We have a state account and a federal account and they have to be separate and you can only use those funds for like certain things.

They're restricted. Um I can't be restricted as to what I use them for. Um, but I am restricted in like certain things like with the federal funds, state funds, I can use those things for, you know, for law enforcement training and different things like that. On a federal level, there's more restrictive uses uh just to make sure that people are utilizing the asset forer funds for the proper thing. So, it's audited and you have to fill out an ESAC form, which um Jared's are very familiar with. Um, so we have to fill out the ESAC forms every year and make sure we're in compliance and and then you know if not you get audited and things like that. So there's a lot of different factors. I'm actually over it and have been since I came back here. Um, it's been quite a feat to get uh squared away, but now it's uh it say line and everything's good.

And then lastly, what happens to the vehicles and the firearms? Do they get sold or go to auction with the vehicles or

um like I said with the different entities like if you seize so many different like we seized um so many cars then it just really depends on if an agency wants a different car like if say you had a Tahoe and you wanted to get a different car because you're always changing the DEA and also our officers our narratics officers are always forever trying to change cars and switch them around. So, say we have a Jeep Cherokee right now that we seized and we really don't use it anymore that much, but it's still in use. It has a purpose because we can switch out those cars with different agencies and the drug dealers in Gastonia might not be familiar with the Jeep Cherokee that we use. So, you're repurposing those vehicles?

100%. I will tell you that a few years ago we seized a vehicle and the uh feds told us we could have it instead of some asset forfeure cash and then we ended up the thing they left out was we had to pay a percentage of what the value of the vehicle was. So uh we didn't know that up front and it cost us a little bit of money but I'm probably going to uh be selling that vehicle soon but we'll still get our money back and make some off of it because it was valuable. It's very complex. A lot of that stuff is very complex

to kind of like what Mark was kind of alluding to. If we look at like the fentanyl from 33.43 pounds to 10.59 pounds. I know you said it's just depending on like I guess the market, but overall from your professional opinion, are we seeing fentanyl decreasing on the streets like with the hyper more hyperfocus of uh enforcement against that? It's it's really hit and miss. It's in a sense it's seasonal because Methamphetamines right now are being pushed more than what you know fentanyl is, but fentanyl is still fentanyl is basically laced in just about every drug there is now. Whereas before it was more prevalent as just a fentanyl pill, but now it's mixed in with everything.

I see. So the pills in different things in the different forms are worth more money on the street. I see. So like your methyl line there could potentially have laced fentanyl in that line. I didn't realize that. Yes. But if you look at if you really look at how much drugs that is for one year for um us to seize it's really overwhelming honestly for us to seize like 176 pounds of cocaine like you used to see that with marijuana 5600 pounds of marijuana and you know that was what you know at the time the drug dealers were pushing but now you're seeing 148 pounds of methamphetamines that's being seized. Terrifying. Um, so it's and that's just

I wrote this as a 133 for cocaine last year 176 accurate. I don't know the answer to that but I'll get it for you. Okay. It and it may be correct. You know it just really depends because you know cocaine was a drug of the 90s. Yeah. You know that was the that was a drug of the 90s and you don't see it a lot anymore but you do see it occasionally. Well, there's probably some portion of those numbers that you're seeing in 24 and 25 versus like you said five years ago. That's probably due to better enforcement too, right? That's what I was going to ask. Yeah. So,

you know, when we first started when we didn't have a vars narcotics unit when I come back here and we implemented that and we've grown off of that and um and so you didn't see these seizures and you wouldn't have seen Belmont season this amount because the officers weren't trained to do that and they didn't have that function as an every day. We had a detective, but we didn't have this unit. So, our progression with our growth and then, you know, you guys invested in us and putting officers, you know, giving us officers and extra work, we've this has grown uh from not having anybody to this and we're not going to stop. We're going to keep going and we're going to get more stuff off the streets. That's the ultimate goal. I tell them to bust I said, "I don't want to know what y'all are doing. Just bust them. Get everybody." You know, that's my, you know, because I I don't I don't want to know what it is. Tell me about it if you want to, but just do your job and get all the drugs. You can catch everybody. That's what I tell them.

Try to get those elusive LSD guys. I will move on. Um, crimes against crimes against persons went down from 141 to 88. uh kidnapping um five to one. The thing I'd like to add about kidnapping uh so the public understands is there's not people getting kidnapped off the streets. Five people didn't get kidnap off the streets and one person didn't get kidnapped off the streets. A lot of time that has to do with domestic assaults where someone forcibly moves someone from one place to another against their will as involved with the domestic violence stuff. We're heavily involved with the district attorney's office when it comes to domestic violence and uh we do what's called a Dale form. It fills out and so we're actually getting a lot more a lot more bonds and heavier bonds on these people who are committing domestic violence and a part of that is some of the crimes that they commit is kidnapping. So I don't want the public to think that there's a lot of people out here just kidnapping people off the streets. That's not the case. And our sex offenses did go up and crime is against property. Um, if you want me to go into any of those, just let me know. All right, I'll move on. Here's a graph showing some of the comparisons between 2024 and 2025. Some of the things did go up like fraud, counterfeit property, and forgery went up. Um, you can see that fraud went up just a little bit and most of the others are decreased. And I'll get a little bit more into detail on the decreases and what those numbers look like in a minute. Overall crime decrease from 835 incidents to in 2024 to 687 in 2025. So that's a 17.7% decrease in in our overall crime rate.

Our significant reductions in assaults, burglaries, and business robberies. Uh lararseny alone dropped by 105 cases accounted for most of the overall reduction. Fraud increased slightly from 97 to or increased slightly from 97 to 98 cases. Sex offense went from six to 10. Motor vehicle thefts remain nearly unchanged. A lot of times when we haven't we're having our motor vehicle thefts, it's involved in some of the breakins that we have from time to time of vehicles and people leaving their keys in their car um or their items in their car. And robbery of a person was down slightly. Property crimes, vandalism, stolen property showed a moderate decline overall. Um, before I go into any more of that, I'd like to really give a shout out to my people for having the ability to continuously every year, even with staffing levels in the past year, to be able to reduce the crime rate and do such a great job. I think that they need to be recognized for that. um I can give direction, but they're out here doing the job. And I'd really like to thank them for the job they've done to continually year after year, even though with growth, we're still able to, you know, make the crime rate go down every year. And I think that's uh that just speaks volumes for, you know, what kind of job they do every day.

Chief, just just to piggy back off of that because I was going to say, I think I recall each time it's been a decrease. It has. Is it since I've sat on council, is it possible to get as far back data as like just a line graph in regards to the trajectory and the trend of that? I mean, not like imperative, not important. I think it would just be interesting to see um particularly how you're saying overall crime decrease from 835. Not to break it down because I'm sure that's a lot of effort, but just to see what the trend is because you call it out pretty well. We're growing as a population quite a bit, but our crime is going down. So, I just see a trend like over a longer period, five, six, seven,

I like a challenge, so I'll look into that. All right, I appreciate it, Chief.

Um, I 85 north traffic collision summary, personal injury collisions declined 13 to 11 with a So, that was a 15.4% reduction. And then property damage only collisions showed a substantial improvement decrease from 60 to 29. And then that's a 51.7% reduction. Overall, the total number of collisions on I 95 decreased from 73 to 40. So that's a 45.2% decrease or reduction. And what that means for your personal injury collisions also to bring the fire department into it is that's less times the fire department's having to respond to the interstate as well. So that's a good thing overall for everyone. And then 85 south traffic uh represents a 66.7% reduction. And then property damage only collisions a 75.8% reduction and then overall tumb total number of collisions is a reduction of 73.8. These are some of the things that our training and this by all means does not take into effect everything that we train on. We train on much more than this. This is just basically the highlights of some of the mandatory training and different trainings that we do either throughout the year or we heavily involved in sending every one of our officers through these trainings. And crisis intervention CIT statemandated inservice training. Every officer who's sworn has to get 24 hours of inservicemandated training. There's so many different classes and then we pick the chief's choice classes for us to take and we do driving every year because we uh you know we don't want to be a liability because driving is one of the driving and firearms are probably our two biggest liability things. So we train on them as much as we can. So, we do driving every year and then verbal judo deescalation, um, disability awareness training, racial intelligence training, dangerous crossroads, and what dangerous crossroads is is like, uh, people who

show up at the different facilities and try to invoke you to do something wrong with the second amendment rights of people. So we we actually send every one of our officers through this training to make sure that when you know someone comes to the agency or anywhere and they um try to you know provoke us or something we know how to handle it where they can be and where they can't be as far as public places and all of that. And so far, if you'll look on YouTube, actually, uh, Captain Sher left, but, uh, he was he's actually in one of the videos where they come out and do all of that stuff and try to get you to say you can't be here, you can't have this gun, and all that. Some officers don't pass the test, but we're really good at passing it so far, not going to lie. Um, every supervisor has completed or currently is enrolled in our public safety leadership training institute, which some of you know, Major Brown from CPCC. She came and spoke about the program before. So we um want to send everyone through leadership training, force on force scenario based instructor training, um active shooter training, collision avoidance driving, stop sticks is the things, you know, when people are chasing cars, officers have to get in chases. We have stop sticks. We have so many different stop sticks to uh deploy. And so that maybe slows everyone down and minimize the risk for for everyone um in the community. Um, a lot of times, you know, different people are chasing people down the interstate if they if you know, the only two requirements is is training and then, uh, supervisor permission to be able to deploy to stop sticks. We've stopped a lot of vehicles that way and and then, you know, slow people down and it deflates their tires in about six seconds. Um, conduct training, conduct training, Kala uh, policy training. Everyone at the agency's included in the KLA process. So um it's inclusive for everyone. And then taser OC and toxilizer is the if you get you know DWI that's the test. So our officers are mandatory they have to do the Intox training and then incident

command FEMA training. There's different FEMA trainings for different levels of supervision. So we all were mandated uh by the feds to you know have to have those trainings for different levels that you're on in the agency. advanced and intermediate certifi certificates um customer service through emotional intelligence training and then national center for missing and exploited children certifications throughout the whole agency. We're one of only two agencies in North Carolina who have the entire agency as being um cause overachievers but we wanted to make sure that everyone was certified in this and so we ended up being number two uh agencies in the in the whole state. 2025 department accomplishments. Maintain our KLEA accreditation status. Um completed our annual CLEA review file by the compliance service members. Worked and held over 30 sponsored events including I won't go into them. I mean everyone's pretty much familiar with that. One thing I'll say is I am proud of the uh first um annual Gaston County Faith and Blue. You know, it's something we started here with Faith and Blue. It's a great initiative and we actually did a countywide initiative with Faith and Blue this past year. So, I'm uh super excited about that. It's a huge accomplishment to actually take that and build off of it and continue it. And then the one last thing is uh we had u one person complete the 2025 departmental awards achievements included multiple accommodations for a graduate of administrative officers management program. even though it was for NC State, it is a highly commendable leadership training that Matt Shur actually com completed and um I didn't know if I was going to make it through um all of the training, but it was it was very extensive and actually, you know, even though it is NC State uh no pun intended, it if uh anyone would like to see his awards is really his awards really do look cool. He's got the big wolf and standing up. It really is cool. Um,

just saw Miles taking some notes over there. I wasn't pointing him out. I was just saying, no pun intended. Expect a phone call in the morning.

No, it really was. It's a very it's a very extensive and long um online program and he completed it with honors and um it's a huge achievement for our leadership in the agency to it's literally for mid-level um administrators for leadership training that teaches them even more than what we've taught. And you know, we try to be involved in customer service and leadership training um all around the as much. You know, with leadership training, you can't get enough. You never should stop training on leadership. And so, we try to seek out different aspects and different things in leadership so we can advance some of these mid-level um administrators and, you know, put them build their success road for them. In other words, by continuing um that leadership training so one day, you know, um they can lead the agency eventually. So um I'll move on from that. Uh Kala just a little brief explanation of KLA the commission on accreditation for law enforcement agencies is defined as a voluntary process used to identify agency's level of professionalism as measured by standards established by experts and practitioners in the law enforcement field awarded to public safety agencies that have demonstrated compliance with complete kala standards and have been awarded kala accreditation by the commission. uh Belmont Police uh department was awarded and maintains the gold standard which includes 459 standards and that's not just 459 standards that goes into more complex standards there standards inside standards inside standards and so uh we were also um picked as a Kalia as a model agency um that's internationally not just here locally but internationally we're picked by Kala as a model agency for our efficient processes like I say um everyone involved in that process, but Tyler Graham, who is here now, he leads that charge and he stays on everyone. And so I'm proud to say that through the good job and leadership of Tyler Graham,

we um have maintained and still achieve our Kali accreditation status. And this is a voluntary process. You know, we pay them to come in and spot check us to make sure we're compliant and we're doing what we say we are. As being a professional agency, we have to do certain things. And not only are we doing those, we're a model agency for other people as the processes that we've used to complete the processes that they require. And we, you know, stand above that. So, it's a very good achievement. And this is just some of the calls initiated by officers or citizens. There's any of those you'd like me to go into, let me know. So, we've completely done away with careless and reckless vehicles, apparently. Probably not during the snow, but um

yes, I can't wait to Can't wait to see the 2026 one where you get one for sledding. Yeah, some of our officer will have to write their self ticket for that one. Here's some of the other ones. I'll give you Charlie is the offender. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah. So, I'll give you a minute to digest this before I move on. All right. So, here are some more numbers.

This is not the bell for 20 years.

And we we do you'll see that we uh do a lot of special checks. um some of our special checks, you know, you see the averages are down just a slightly, but we do a lot of special checks for the businesses and different things and we uh we have our um we have a strategy behind why we do that, but it also makes sure that we're we're checking people's businesses. We're checking people's residence while they're out of town and um making sure that everything's the way it should be. We have other strategies involving that like when people's things get broken into it narrows down the time frames for us to look at and view body or um different cameras and surveillance cameras to see you know it don't take as long for our officers to go and view if we check downtown and then five minutes after that it was broken into it helps us narrow down when it was broken into plus narrows down the time frame for the review of the the footage and helps us with naring down like a suspect vehicle and things having to go back through eight or nine hours of video. So, we do that. It's a multi-purpose reason. So, and at the bottom, the disclaimer, these uh numbers reflect calls for service and are not reflective of actual incident reports that we've taken. And that's all I have. You'all have any questions?

Any questions? Fantastic. Thank you, Chief. Great job. Really appreciate everything you guys do. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Chief. All right. So, uh we will be moving into close session uh pursuant to NC general statute 143-318.11A3 to consult with the city's attorney to protect attorney client privilege. uh as well as the amended addition of GenStat 143 318.11A5 establishing or instructing staff or agents on public bodies negotiating position for acquisition of real estate or employment contracts. Uh this also will include finance director Jared Piles for both and assistant city manager Kevin Krauss for both. So at this point I will entertain a motion to move into close session.

I'll make that motion. Motion made by Alex, seconded by Charlie. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, we are now in close session. We'll take a short recess to let the gallery clear.