City Council - Regular Meeting

Can't start without.

That's true. That's true.

Alright, everyone. I'm gonna call to order the council work session for 05/04/2026. And I will turn it over to Miles Braswell to go through the consent agenda.

Thank you, mayor and members of council. Tonight for consent, you have nine items. The first item is the meeting minutes from 04/06/2026. Item B2 is the workshop meeting minutes from 04/20/2026. Let me go back for the April 6 meeting minutes. Councilman Heffern sent in some revised notes. So I think that's been passed out to you all. And also, Councilman Heffern sent in edits to the April 20. Meeting minutes as well. Item B three on the agenda is the approval of special meeting minutes from 04/06/2026.

Item B4 is the acceptance of the Gary Sinise Foundation grant for the fire department. They received the grant which will allow for the purchase of a drone that was they applied for this grant. And you all gave approval on March 2. This is a non matching grant. And the amount was $9,865.02 Item B5 is the acceptance of the Enbridge Gas North Carolina's fueling futures grant for two gas meters.

This is also a fire department grant for other multi gas meters. They're going to replace their two aging multi gas meters. There's no local match. The cost is $2,747.76 Item B6 is the approval of engagement letters and contract to audit accounts with Martin Starnes and Associates. This is from the finance department.

The audit contract for fiscal year twenty seven is a not to exceed $97,500 Finance department issued a request for proposals for audit services. We received one submission from Martin Starnes. Our current audit firm. And so staff did evaluate the submission to ensure that it met all the city's needs. And so they recommended approval of Martin Starnes for auditing purposes.

Item B7 is the wreaths across America for Greenwood Cemetery. This is when a citizen Bridget Somerville attended the March 2 city council meeting and asked the city to participate in Wreaths Across America at Greenwood Cemetery. Staff reached out to Miss Summerville to get more information. There'll be no expense to the city. We think it's a good idea.

And so the only thing that we would do is petition wreaths across America to be listed on their site as a participating cemetery. And then once the wreaths are delivered to the cemetery and placed on each grade by the volunteers, Our staff will go around and remove the wreath boxes after after that occurs. Item B eight is the consider to consider approval to maintain criminal enforcement of city ordinances. And I'll read the summary of action it says part eight of session law 2,021 dash one thirty eight which is Senate bill 300. It revises North Carolina general statute one sixty eight one seventy five to remove criminal penalties for certain ordinances.

Violations unless a municipality expressly states within each section that violations are enforceable as misdemeanors. So previously violations of the city ordinance were automatically treated as misdemeanors. So effective 12/01/2021 municipalities must adopt ordinances through two readings specifically identifying which sections will continue to carry criminal enforcement. The first reading will take place during tonight's meeting and the second reading will take place on May 18. This ordinance pertains to chapter 72 for stop standing and parking and included in inside the agenda packet was the actual ordinance and the ordinance to amend the ordinance.

Councilman Heffer made a few notes and sent those in corrections. Believe our our clerk made those corrections. We sent that out to you all. And so that's item B eight. Item B nine is a budget amendment number 19 to general fund capital reserve.

The amount that's going to be transferred is $220,329 And this is per the city's capital improvement policy that at the end of the fiscal year, if there's available fund balance we would transfer 5% over to our capital reserve. And so this year, we added $4,406,580 to available fund balance. Therefore, this budget amendment is 5% of that equaling that $200,329 to the capital reserve fund. Those are the items for consent. Mayor, turn it back over you.

Thank you Miles. Appreciate that. Are there any questions or concerns about any of the items on the consent agenda?

I did have some questions about the revisions to the chapter 72 of the ordinances and I thought about whether to see if we could pull this and put it on the regular agenda. But I think someone is available to answer some questions, we can avoid doing that.

I saw Chief Falls and I think Captain Black is here as well. Captain Black is here as Great. I'll come on up here if you don't mind. I know everyone gets tired of me saying it but don't be afraid to get too close to that microphone. It doesn't pick up great and everybody likes to hear you.

Hello, good evening. Just so I'm clear and I understand what's going on here based on the revisions to the state statute, but the majority of these provisions that you're recommending be revised, the ones that were already on the books, they were punishable as misdemeanors prior to the change in state law in 2021, is that correct? Correct. And some of these revisions are recriminalizations of existing ordinances, but some of them are new provisions entirely. Does that make any difference in terms of being able to criminalize them if we so designate?

It is not. Okay. And I'm assuming that the purpose of this exercise is to give the police another tool in their enforcement arsenal that officers would have discretion as to how to enforce these ordinances so that like say parking outside the lines is not automatically going to be a misdemeanor every time it's Correct. Okay. Yes, but I can certainly judging by some of them I can understand why you might want to do that when perhaps there might be repeated instances where it proves to not disincentivize the behavior, say perhaps near a butcher shop Yes, or the only other question I had, one of the new sections was seventy two thirty seven leaving vehicle unattended and that did not contain a subsection indicating that violation of the provision is punishable as a misdemeanor.

I just wanted to make sure that that was your intention. Correct. Okay, so that's just a new provision.

To decrease the chance of crimes of opportunity.

Yes, understood. Well that's all the questions I had, thank you.

Thank you all.

And I'm good, we can.

Great, okay. If there's no further questions or comments, that will conclude our work session. And I will call to order the Belmont City Council regular meeting of May 4. Just as we start off, may notice here that the we're a little thin but I did wanna verify that we do have quorum. Councilman Hill will be joining us in about an hour and Councilman Rumpelt is out of country, I believe. So, we if parts you agree that we're excellent. So, we're good to move forward. So, we will continue moving on with our meeting and that brings us to our invocation. So, our invocation will be given by Mark Forbes, pastor of Living Hope Church. Everyone please stand in the invocation.

You this evening in the matchless name. The name above all names, our lord and savior Jesus Christ. And I thank you and I praise you. If you've remained this moment from eternity past, bring this body together

to do the work

of governing this small part of your kingdom in such the lord. He turns it wherever he will. Every man is right in his own eyes but the lord weighs his heart to do justice and righteousness is more acceptable to the lord than sacrifice. Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, their sin. People of it.

Would you show us all the way in which to go so that we may walk in. Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to commit this evening unto you, and I pray at this time and that our time together would glorify and honor you in the name above all Amen.

Thank you, pastor. Alright, if you'll remain standing for us to say the pledge of allegiance, I think Alex is gonna lead

us tonight. Please repeat after me. I pledge

allegiance to the flag

of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

You may be seated. Thank you, Alex.

Yep. Thank you.

Alright. So we have some recognitions and acknowledgements tonight. I'll get over there. I'm gonna read a couple of em. So, the first one is a proclamation recognizing public service awareness week in the city of Belmont, North Carolina. Public service recognition week. In honor of many of the public employees at the county and city levels. Whereas public servants support the people of Belmont every day across the city. They do the work that keeps our city moving forward. Whereas public employees uphold an oath to serve serving others and providing critical services.

Whereas many public servants, including teachers, law enforcement officials, health care professionals, and others, put the well-being of our people before their own to create a better future for our city. Whereas career civil servants carry out the most fundamental purpose of government, to ensure public safety and represent the public interest in addressing social, economic, and political challenges. Whereas without these public employees at every level, continuity would be impossible. Therefore, I, Joe Jordan, mayor of the city of Belmont, do hereby announce and proclaim and set seal hereto that May 2026 is public service recognition week. A witness whereof, I have here unto set my hand and calls the seal of the city of Belmont, North Carolina to be affixed this May 2026.

So as you're thinking and going through your day and thinking all the ways that the city impacts your life, think about our public, service people that are out there helping us every day. So we appreciate you all for that. The next one is a proclamation recognizing May 2026 as National Bike Month in the city of Belmont. Whereas since 1956, the League of American Bicyclists have celebrated National Bike Month during the month of May. And whereas according to the National Household Travel Survey, 40% of all daily trips are two miles or shorter in length and biking is a viable transport alternative to driving, particularly over those short distances.

And whereas high quality bicycle facilities together with pedestrian infrastructure and other transportation network improvements can help Belmont achieve its goal for providing mobility choices by expanding the availability of accessible transportation alternatives for all people. And whereas the bicycle is an economical, healthy, convenient, and environmentally sound form of transportation and an excellent tool for recreation and enjoyment of Belmont's natural beauty and historic community. And whereas in the adopted plans for land use, mobility and traffic safety, the city of Belmont has committed to improving safety for bicyclists and pedestrians throughout the community and expanding the bicycle network. And whereas biking in our community is a valuable option for a healthy and family friendly activity and a safe environment for bicyclists can support economic development and local businesses. And whereas the city recognizes the efforts from the Belmont planning and zoning, police and parks and recreation department in promoting the benefits of biking as a form of health healthy recreation and as an active mode of transportation to commute to school and work.

Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the month of May 2026 is hereby designated as National Bike Month in the city of Belmont. In an effort to encourage all within our community to rededicate ourselves to enjoying the benefits of biking and ensuring the safety of bicyclists in our community. Adopted this May 2026. So if you have bicycles at home and you're taking a short trip this month, try to remember to get it out and take the family out for a short ride. The next proclamation is recognizing May 2026 as historic preservation month in the city of Belmont.

Whereas the city of Belmont is enriched by unique and diverse architecture, cultural, and historical heritage that reflects the character, traditions, and stories of its people from its earlier from its early settlement along with the Catawba River to its development as a thriving textile and railroad community. And whereas Belmont's historic resources including its downtown, neighborhoods, and cultural landmarks embodied the legacy of generations who contribute or contributions have helped shape the community's identity and sense of place. And whereas the Belmont Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places encompasses approximately 170 acres and includes more than 260 contributing buildings, structures, and sites representing architectural styles such as colonial revival, Tudor revival, and craftsman reflecting the city's growth from the late nineteenth through the mid twentieth centuries. And whereas the national registered designation recognizing recognizes the historical and architectural significance of Belmont's central business district and surrounding residential areas, highlighting the community's evolution as a prominent mill town and regional center of commerce, cultural culture and identity. Whereas historic preservation supports Belmont's economic viability by encouraging reinvestment, promoting heritage tourism, and providing opportunities such as state and federal tax incentives for rehabilitation of historic properties.

And whereas the city of Belmont through its partnership with Gaston County Historic Preservation Commission and in cooperation with local organizations is committed to promoting awareness, education, and stewardship of the community's historic and cultural resources. And whereas the National Historic Preservation Month provides an opportunity to celebrate Belmont's rich heritage, recognize the value of preserving historic places, and inspire residents to protect and enhance the city's historic assets for future generations. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the of May 2026 is hereby designated as National Historic Preservation Month in the city of Belmont. And I, mayor Joe Jordan, encourage all residents, businesses, and organizations to celebrate Belmont's heritage by participating in activities that promote historic historic preservation, education, and community pride. Adopted this May 2026.

So May is a busy month, but things to keep in mind and things worth definitely worth noting. And we have one more recognition or acknowledge ment actually that I want to make that came in late but it has come to our attention that Paula Wilkinson that has headed up the BSO for or BCO, I'm sorry, for over twenty years is retiring and so we wanted to take a moment. I don't think she's here but we wanted to take a moment to thank her from the community for all the time and investment that she put into the BCO for the betterment of our community and to help those that needed it from time to time. So, we wish her best and all of her future endeavors and we're eternally grateful for the time, the twenty years that she invested in Belmont. So, thank you for that.

All right, well I will entertain a motion to set the agenda. So moved.

All

right, Mark, seconded by Alex. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, the agenda is set. So with that, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Motion to approve the consent agenda.

Motion by Alex. Second.

Seconded by Jim. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Alright. The consent agenda is approved. Alright. So, that will move us right along to our regular agenda item C one, public comment. And it looks like we have one person signed up for public comment. Brian Robinson. Mister Robinson, if you would come up and again, don't be afraid to get close to the microphone. We want to hear your voice and just to go over the rules real quick, all speakers have up to three minutes on any topic. Speakers must sign up with the name and address. Please be respectful of city council, staff and the public. It's a time for speakers to bring matters to the mayor and council's attention.

There's no discussion or debate about items. If warranted, the mayor city council may ask city staff to follow-up with the speaker on his or her concerns. And this is separate from the other. We have two other public hearings tonight. So this is just general comment.

So, please, miss Robinson. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, miss Robinson. I just I'll follow-up with that real quickly.

I'm not gonna belabor the point but what a neat thing that was to see that. I mean, it was kind of knocked my eyes out. I always heard stories of the train that ran in Stowe Park and I was always jealous of the the kids that got to ride it. Always envision myself cruising around on it but being able to actually see it restored, it is neat. It is a neat thing.

So, if you have the opportunity, definitely go by the historic society. There's so much there. So many just all the different things our community has done over the years is amazing to see in one place. And I know we did have a longer conversation, miss Robinson, about what can we do to get the train out more so that people can see it. I think that's something I'd be interested in seeing happen. However, that may evolve. Definitely something that's on my radar. But thank you for that. I appreciate that. All right, well, will move us right along to agenda item C2, public hearing for the fiscal year twenty six twenty seven budget.

So I will entertain a motion to go in public hearing. Motion to go in public hearing. Motion made by Alex. Seconded by Mark. All in favor? Any opposed? Alright, we are in public hearing. So Miles, who's? Yeah, I take it.

Thank you, Mayor. Just the summary of the action is that this is based on state general statutes regarding the budget and fiscal control act. North Carolina requires us to have a public hearing for the proposed budget. And so the public hearing was advertised in the Gaston Gazette on 04/24/2026. And on the city's website, and so request that we hold the public hearing.

Yep. And I see that no one has signed up for public hearing. So with that, I will entertain a motion to come out of public hearing. Motion to come out of public hearing. Motion made by Jim. Second. Second by Alex. All in favor? Any opposed? All right, we are back out of public hearing and that will take us to item C3 discussion of the fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven proposed budget.

Thank you, mayor and members of council. This is the point in the budget calendar when the manager presents the budget to you all even though you saw a preview of the draft budget during the workshop. I've kind of laid out this. It's not so much of a presentation, but speaking to you all regarding like the timeline, how the budget was formulated, broken down from the employees perspective, operational perspectives, and then the water and sewer front fund, stormwater fund, CIP plans, capital improvement plans, the approved staffing and then the next steps. And so I'll go step by step through these items.

Please feel free to stop me at any point. If you have questions regarding any give a

bit

Regarding the timeline, so on January '26, this budget process officially began, you all counsel adopted a budget calendar. On February 27, there was a council retreat, you all discussed various priorities, established those priorities, which allowed staff really to incorporate those things into the draft budget. On March 2, that was the deadline for the department heads to submit all the requests to staff. On April 6, the draft budget book was delivered to each of you for your review. And then between April 6 and April 20, we had the city council workshop at that time the budget was presented, we had various discussions on that.

Tonight was the public hearing for the budget. And then right now I'm presenting the budget to you all. We have to make it available for public inspection as well. And so a copy of it is in the clerk's office. So if anybody wishes to inspect it from the public, please feel free to reach out to our city clerk and she can arrange a time for that to occur.

So what remains after this is that we hope to adopt the budget on June 1 during the council meeting. There is sometime between now and June 1 if there's any recommended changes or things that we need to look at. We do have one workshop between those two so we can that. Do And that. Able we'll employees, to provide a high level of operational service and continue to improve the city's infrastructure.

So thank you all for that. Regarding the budget itself, the proposed fiscal year 2627 budget amounts are for the general fund $32,950,126 for the water and sewer fund is $13,844,060 And for the stormwater fund $966,968 You also have the budget in front of you. And there's a there's a table there and it shows the similar to workshop. It has the adopted fiscal year twenty five-twenty six budget currently in. This amended budget that we're currently in.

What the department's request were. The manager's proposed budget on April 6. And then tonight's budget, which I just read out. Regarding the general fund, the budget percentage breakdown by department is the mayor and councils is 0.5% administration at 6.4%. The attorney is 0.5%. Planning and zoning is 4.4%. The police department is 26.6%. The fire department is 14.9%. Streets department is 10.3%. Sanitation is 5.7%.

Community development is 1.8%. Recreation is 4.4%. Economic development is point 5%. And capital outlay is 16.5%. And debt is 7.5%.

Just a few items to point out how we structured the budget, we maintain the current tax rate. So we're not requesting that we have any tax increase. Once in on the tax rate is $348,026 property revenues or ad valorem revenues are budgeted at a 99% collection rate. And they're estimated to increase 7% from the previous year's adopted budget and 4.3% over the amended budget. The sales tax revenues are estimated to increase 20% over the previous year's adopted budget and 2.8% over the amended budget.

And sales tax collection percentage increases based on the North Carolina Department of Revenue's forecast. And they show that there's an increase of 3.1% from fiscal year twenty five-twenty six. And so the projected final fiscal year twenty five-twenty six, what we're currently in collection is $6,900,000 So you can see how that aligns with that revenue line item. So moving to the next step is the employee section. There is a 2% cost of living adjustment, as well as up to a 3% merit for employees.

During the March 16 City Council workshop, our insurance broker discussed the potential health insurance rate increase. And at that time, we talked about a self funded insurance option. Staff inserted a 25% health insurance coverage increase just as a placeholder on April 6. Then we had that discussion at the last meeting. Since that time, we have talked with our broker.

And we do plan to have another item at the workshop. We'll dig down on this one just a little bit deeper. But the budget that you have in front of you currently is budgeted at 43% increase. The fire department, they have their new professional development program.

Sorry, if I may ask So the at the upcoming workshop, we'll discuss the self funded option or how does

that work? We can discuss it, But we've had discussion internally where the quote for self insurance came back at like $3,200,000 And so I know that we had we had talked for the past couple months that that's probably going to be the best option. At that point, it was $2,300,000 for self funded. Now it's $3,200,000 So we feel like this is not the year even though we were thinking that this is probably the probably the year that we would that we move towards that. But just after further discussions, we feel like it's not the best thing to do.

So we've gone back and we've got an option that we like to present the council regarding a plan A and a plan B for employees. So we'll dig down into that just a little bit

That's just for the regular health insurance? Regular health insurance, yes sir. But

it is budgeted at the 43% and that includes the option that we're going to present in the workshop. The fire like I said, the fire departments professional development program has been established and funded. There were six position requests by departments and you all heard the comment that zero recommended by the manager. The partner requests are as follows an administration and communications manager. The fire department was a fire inspector.

And the Parks and Recreation Department was a recreation specialist. And the police department were two police officers and a code enforcement officer. There's various adjustments in the salary lines based on a few things that are taking place. And some of the differences include some employees were hired at different rates than previous employees. Position reclassifications were based on interdepartmental promotions.

Professional Development education certifications were received and certain positions being allocated between the general fund and the enterprise fund based on their duties. So there's a reason why that line item is as fluctuated from like last year's budget. The mayor salary is transferred out of the mayor and council compensation line item and move to the fire department's professional services line item and ask to assist with future grant opportunities. Our employee compensation study is scheduled every three years per our personnel policy. And that study is funded for this coming fiscal year.

The study will be performed there in this coming fiscal year with implementation proposed for next fiscal year, 07/01/2027. The fund balance appropriation during the fiscal year twenty five-twenty six budget process to fund the police department salary increases in their ALO program have now been incorporated to the police department's line item. So there's the difference there between the two years we have that one fully funded as well. Okay, let's move into the operations. Our waste and recycling contract, you all know is expiring and the service contract was issued through RFP process.

Currently the city subsidizes the cost by contributing 50% through the general fund revenues with the remaining 50% paid through user fees adopted in our fee schedule. This line item is fully funded to the maximum increase currently. But the contract negotiations are still underway. Question. Yes.

If contract negotiations are still underway, how

do we know what the maximum increase will be? We took the maximum in the bid and and put it into the budget. Okay. So we feel like that line items is funded at the max. And so as we negotiate, we can anticipate that that number is going to go down.

When do we expect those negotiations?

This week. Yeah, the goal is to wrap that up this week because it's on the workshop agenda. So in two weeks, you'll have that contract in front of you. The streets department, the parking lot lease line item reflects the revised parking lot lease rates that were negotiated. In similar fashion that will have to come before you all because that is lease agreements. And so we have not executed any agreements, we've just budgeted for the amounts that are inside of the leases.

So question, because that just jogged my memory on something. What about our relationship with Belmont Land Investment? Have they come back with any type of proposals or changes to our fee structures?

Yes, that's what I'm talking about.

That is what that

is. That is it. Yep, they have released three parking lots from them and then they went through their process to hire that third party. And it showed the new rate which attorney Wilson and I met with him several times to negotiate that rate down. What about Freddie

Field? Any change

to

that as well?

Yes, that's one of them.

Really. The field itself?

Really, really two parking lots, the Imperial Lot, which is on Mill Street behind Sammy's restaurant. Yeah. Ab Gantt Park, the gravel lot at Ab Gantt. And then Crescent Ballfield, Freddie Park, the entire park.

Where is the memo sent out in regards to what the new lease arrangement is or the proposal is?

I think the leases have not been sent out to you all, we're going to bring that to you. But the amount that I budgeted was based on the negotiated rate was in the April 20 packet and it was in the tune of $121,000 It went from, I think it was $33,000 for those three to one hundred and twenty one thousand. And that's the negotiated rate down.

Which was negotiated down from 300. From what they initially proposed. They

initially proposed 300?

No, I don't think they initially proposed 300. That's what the study reported, but then they gave us a 50% discount and then had a rate structure in there in which at that point I negotiated down past the rate structure that they had proposed. So we're going from 33 ks to 121 ks? Yes. That's what's budgeted.

As for, again sorry, this one's I think kind of important, that's for all the parking lots

and Freddie Field the park itself. Those three they own. And that is aligned for the June 1 City Council meeting, where you'll receive the lease agreements, which include the cost inside the leases. Thank you. You're welcome.

The planning department's office safety project is funded. From the council retreat, the following items are funded. We funded the stove property purchase, the City Hall design and renovation, North Belmont Fire Station design, North Belmont Fire Station property acquisition, the main fire station property acquisition, replaced two fire engines, project Tundra design and Ford Center renovation, the cost to renovate just to prevent the deterioration only. And the street resurfacing. And so at the April 20 meeting, we had mentioned there was a few items that were outstanding.

We've received the following items and have been incorporated into this budget. Our workers compensation numbers came in, so they're all plugged into the appropriate lines. The planning department, you recall the land development code contract was budgeted this year, it won't be completing this year. So that amount will have to be budgeted for next fiscal year. So we put that amount in their professional services line item. The North Belmont Fire Department design, and the project Tundra design. Those two items are now funded.

Do we have an update on project Tundra from the last meeting? Not substantial.

And we also have our updated health insurance numbers like I just called out. The one item that's remaining that we need to receive the proposal for is our property and liability insurance. And that's what the league we reached out to the league, they said that the final cost will be due will be submitted to the city in mid May. So currently, we funded a 10% increase in this year's budget over last year just as a placeholder. So we're thinking that hopefully it would be a 10% or less increase for us for property liability. So really that's the only item that's remaining for the general fund.

So if obviously certain things increased from our discussions on April 20, not the least of which is the health insurance rate increases is higher than the higher number we had discussed at the workshop. And obviously since you've presented us with a balanced What's the offset? The

total offset is a good question. I think it's in the tune of 4,000,000. Yes, it's a fund balance appropriation. I can tell you the exact cost here. I've got them on a sheet paper.

The planning department's professional services was $245,000 The health health insurance was that increase that I recalled in between I don't know the exact figure, but the percentage increase their workers compensation, the amount was $177,000 The fire department design was $775,000 and project tundra design was 2,100,000. So those two are 2.875

Is that the basically the change between the 29,600,000 in the four six draft and the 32.9 you're showing now? Yes. Okay. So I'm assuming that like for example, the fire department and project Tundra, the fund balance appropriation would be for those. Correct.

Okay. The fund balance appropriation total is $4,132,580 So that's the amount that Well, that's the fund, the capital projects, 4,100,000. You know the difference, Kevin? 4.573.

Okay, yes. So you've got capital projects at $4,100,000.4500000 dollars fund balance appropriation. So then I guess some of that you're rolling over for the planning update and then I guess a few other smaller things, but okay.

Yeah, a few other smaller. I think we had a lease for a high-tech computer for lack of a better term at the police department For one of their supercomputer, a supercomputer that for one of their best investigation investigation computers is $12,000 Oh, Yeah, it is supercomputer and then for economic development $25,000 in that line item was to transfer to the DVDA what we typically do for Friday Night Live. So there's a few small things in there, but nothing substantial. You're ready to move forward with water and sewer?

Maybe just real quick. So we've got we're in May right now, June. Like what about Project Tundra? I'm gonna bring it up again, right? I mean, we said last time, let's put the deadline to this time because we need to allow staff to be able to adequately appropriately do the budget like what's the timeline, I guess. Do we have I

have not spoken with the person. So I don't really know the the timeline on it.

I have had one additional conversation. And it was an update that there were some people moving over here and some there's nothing ready.

So how can we budget? And how can we operate off of a plan of

And that's that's what Miles and I were told to parks in our pre meeting meeting is keeping the funds. What happens if we keep the funds in for the CIP, and then we ultimately end up not pursuing it?

Yeah, I mean, don't have to spend those funds, say the project fell apart. I mean, we'd have an extra $2,100,000 sitting there, which means we that we don't have to spend $2,100,000 you can go back to unassigned fund balance, can allocate it to another we need it, right?

What's that we don't actually pull it down until we need it, right? It was coming out of fund balance. Right.

We don't, but like where my headspace is, is a council collectively has said that we would be willing to use 2,100,000. I would anticipate we would also be willing to use that to do other projects that are needed within the city, right? So in my mind, if we've already come up to that level of comfort to pull from the fund balance of 2.1, we don't have a for sure thing here. All we're gonna do is carry forward this 2.1 and potentially not have anything when it could be benefiting other areas of the city.

No, yeah, that's a good point.

Because we've been waiting on this

since February

or March. Yeah, well it's been longer.

February 27 when you all approved the project.

Where's my little comfort? Hard to say. What I will say is I think there's been a lot of time invested in pursuing it by a lot of people. But I completely agree at some point. Well, there's also

cost time benefit to you pull that pair of shoes.

We're just waiting on the MOU, right? Yes. Like it seems like the hang up is having someone on there and draft it. Like is there anything on that, like, if we sent them a proposed demo?

We certainly could. I mean, I I don't think so the initial game plan was that it would be they would draft it. Last I discussed, it was being draft with the third party. There's now a member of the third party that is exiting and that's thrown MOU process into some disarray.

I mean, I'm certainly, what I don't want is, and oh Jim, why don't you draft it because really don't have the time but you know

Jim, are you suggesting you would like to draft?

No, I'm suggesting the opposite actually. But in my experience as an attorney, sometimes if you want something done and the other, even if it's the other side's responsibility and you want it done, you just say, well, we'll do it. I had a case where we wanted the other side to bring a third party into the case and we couldn't do it because of some clauses in the contract between us and this third party. The plaintiff could do it. They did, well, I know, I don't know.

We finally said, we'll do it for you. We'll draft the amended pleadings. We'll do this, we'll do that. All you have to do is file it and that got it done. So what I'm saying is maybe it's like if that's the hang up, let's just, we'll do it.

It very well could be. I think your line of reasoning is right on. And I have discussed the specific terms of it. So I think I know what is being expected. So if we want to have staff draft it, I can give them my what I know about it and we can send it over to see what happens.

Well, before we do that, we the expected terms are they wanting to change it? Is that the hiccup?

No, the terms that the mayor speaks of is the exact same terms that we had spoke about with with both parties. Yeah, so yeah, I

don't I don't think anything's changed. It's literally just a matter of Yeah. So to Jim's point, probably we can do that.

If we draft something, just sign it.

And that's all it takes. If we get lucky, let's just get it done. Okay, right.

So can we direct staff to draft one? Do we need a motion to do that? Parks?

No, okay. Thanks

for that, Alex. Clarification.

Right, because it's budget at that point. I mean, it's we already have the funds we're using fund balance.

No, I know we don't. It is it is a timing thing. But you know what my concern is, and I get what you're saying, parks, I know we're not going to lose it, because we're basically pulling out the fund balance, right. But if we've already come up with a level of comfort that we'd be willing to spend it in this fiscal year, on a project that's going to benefit the community. I don't see why we just continue to tie this up when this has been a conversation for

Yeah, it's basically the opportunity costs.

Three years. It's going on a year. I mean, we're at the point where we've all said yes, we've nodded our heads, it's time to move forward and if they don't wanna move forward, we move on and then benefit other areas, That's where my headspace is because I could see this going on and on and on. That's fine. I'm okay with waiting with this. I'm just one vote on this and if we think that this will do it, then let's do it because I'm for the project itself. But I just don't want us to kid ourselves that we come towards the next budget cycle next year and we have this exact same conversation. That's my concern.

Yeah. And I don't want to mislead you. I don't know that the hang up is that my that is my assumption, because the discussions I've had is, I'm just waiting on receiving the MOU. So if we can short circuit that by providing ourselves, I think Okay, it has to make

thank you for the water and sewer enterprise fund. This fund is solely supported by user fees. There's an 8% water fee increase and an 8% sewer fee increase incorporated into the budget. And this is based on the water and sewer rate study. And you can see in here just I put some background that in 2324, we were 1,200,000 that we had to take from our net position, which is the fund balance and enterprise fund to balance the budget.

And then during that year, there was that rate study that was adopted by council. And so we've increased water and sewer rates over the past two ir sewer rates by 7.5%. And we pay 2 Rivers discharge a portion of our city to them. So we have to absorb that 7.5%. In the waste treatment telephone line item, you saw that one increase was to cover a one time payment to the North Carolina Department of Information Technology.

So once we make that payment, our line item will go back to a more of a normal flow year to year. And the waste treatment, we've budgeted our sludge removal line. It's funded to maintain the plant within our permit parameters. And the storm water fund, that fund is solely supported by fees and really the contracted repairs line item has been increased to support our ongoing repairs to the system. For the capital improvement plans to fund capital projects, dollars 4,132,580 is budgeted as a fund balance appropriation.

The total for the five year general fund CIP is $84,400,000 The total ten year for the water and sewer CIP is 134,300,000 And so for fiscal year 2627, 45,100,000 is budgeted. Seems like a large amount, but we have two major projects that are taking place. We do have a $10,000,000 state budget allocation that we're utilizing to fund the engineering and construction of the moratorium project. And the project is estimated at $16,700,000 We anticipate the bidding to occur this fiscal year. And we do have a placeholder inside our water and sewer CIP for the wastewater treatment project for Charlotte Water and that's $26,000,000

Question? Yes. So I get that we've got this placeholder, we've got the 16,700,000, but if you look at the total budget for the water and sewer fund, it's million, 13,800,000. So that's where I'm getting confused between so if we say we've got 45,100,000 budgeted for capital projects in the water and sewer fund, I get what they are, but if you go back, if you look at the line items and the total budget, like even on the first page here, what's the total budget for the Water and Sewer Fund? $13,800,000 So I'm confused by that.

And maybe someone more intelligent than me can explain it to me. Well, probably have

to get someone more intelligent than me then. Maybe Jared, they can explain.

Okay.

If you look at the CIP plan for water and sewer, you look at the year 01/2027 And you look down that column, and you can see down at the bottom, it shows your annual capital outlay. And for the annual debt, the grants and then the annual capital outlay, Jim, if that makes any better sense as far as how that thing is structured all the down at the bottom of that spreadsheet. For the approved staffing, we have 196 total full time positions. And I'll just go down through and read those out to you all Administration, you have nine positions, planning and zoning seven, community development three, police 56, fire 41, streets 14, parks and recreation eight, water and sewer 27, wastewater treatment plant 15, water plant 14, storm water to totaling 196.

That's approved positions. They're not necessarily all filled. Correct.

That's correct. Those are the that's what we have budgeted for this year's 196 positions. So that's the same as we had last year. Also want to make note that there is a draft fee schedule that's included in your budget book. I don't plan to go through all the fees.

But we'll share those final recommendations with you all. Just one note that we have increased most of the lines by 3% just across the board. On the fees, there are a few lines that have changed due to increases or additions to the fee schedule through this fiscal year. So there's a few additions to the fee schedule. So given that the budget hearing has occurred, the budget has been presented, we're open to for any comments, recommendations, or any further meetings that we need to have before June 1. So mayor and council, I appreciate taking the time listen through the budget process. So I'll turn it back over to you, mayor.

Thank you, Miles. Appreciate it. And thank you to you and to staff for continuing to work on getting this to us in a timely manner and in a balanced format. Know that takes a lot of effort to do so we appreciate that. Everyone's efforts. Did anyone have any questions for Miles about this? What's been given to us this evening? I know we'll have further time to consider but if there's anything else from.

I have a very specific question. Okay. So, with our festivals, we like, I'm thinking specifically like Garibaldi. We used to have like that kids area up in the upper field where we had like the inflatables and the rides and stuff. I remember for a while we just had inflatables and at one point we had a big somewhat heated conversation about having mechanical rides.

And now it seems like we don't have anything. So like is that a I don't know it's kind of for Christmas too. Like we used to have more we had like a little kids train and the hayride and a few other things. I know some of the programming decisions for those events have shifted in the last couple of years. But I'm wondering if the removal of like that more kid friendly activities is being driven by budgetary concerns or if there's something else kind of going on there.

I could ask Cassidy to come to the microphone if she can answer those kind of questions. They're the ones who really program the events. So I think it would be better coming from Cassidy standpoint on how they go through that process to align certain things for certain events.

Well, would be awesome. Okay. What about Christmas? Because like I know that's now shifted to like a Bavarian fest, which maybe Yeah. Okay.

No, that's fair. I'm just let me maybe just sort of explain where this is coming from and maybe you guys can kind of do what you want with it. It's like I brought my youngest to Garibaldi and we were kind of wandering around through all the booths and there wasn't a ton for us. Like, did the chalk thing and the historical society had the finger painting and stuff, which he did for a little bit. But he kept asking me, was like, where's the Where's bounty house? I'm like, I don't think they have it this year. I know that in the past we've done like, one year we had race cars. I think the tourism board coordinated that. And then we did like a touch a truck thing with some of the public works. Oh, is that a booth house?

Oh, okay. Okay. It would just personally make my life a little bit easier if there was something that, like, they could climb on or touch or Yes. Because, like, you know, you're wandering through the booths and they're like, you don't want the gravel for, like, really expensive hand art. And you're like, no.

So I know there are lots of other this is not a problem unique to me. So to the extent that it's possible to figure out a way to incorporate something like that into our events. And if we need to talk about money for that, this is obviously the time to have that conversation. But that would just be kind of my feedback on that. I mean, it's great event. Don't get me wrong. Like I'm not. Okay, yeah. Well, you.

Thank you, Cassidy. Yeah, I'll say just as one of the advisors that sits in on those meetings, I think it's always a budget thing. I know they spend a lot of time trying to figure out what can we spend on for this, what can we spend on for that. It's things that are just, I had no idea they were as expensive as they are. I had to get things out. The Ferris wheel. Yeah, it is

fun, but really expensive.

Yeah, but good point. Maybe that's something that we look into moving forward. What direction we want to see those city events go? And what kind of funding you'll need to be done for that. I know DBDA does a good job getting sponsorships for a lot of their events but it goes quick. Yes. Yeah, for sure. So, alright. Okay, any further questions for staff or Miles? On this item agenda or agenda item, sorry.

Alright. Well, if not, that'll move us right along to agenda item C four. So, I will or public hearing for ZA 2026 dot zero one zoning map map amendment for quality plus. So I will entertain a motion to go into back into public hearing

motion to go into public hearing

motion made by Alex. Second second by Jim all in favor. Aye. Any opposed? All right. I do not have anyone signed up for public hearing. Public comment, public comment. Sorry. So I will entertain a motion to come out.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, they give their presentation during. Apologies. And then the applicant generally has an opportunity to speak whether they sign up or not, that sort of baked in.

Thank you. Thanks for that clarification. All right, so floor is yours.

Are we having microphone troubles? As well, Joe, give your usual spiel.

Sure. Feel free to get nice and close. That microphone does not make up well.

Alright.

The property owner is Northlake Partners LLC. Current zoning is Highway Commercial, which is H C, and the proposed zoning is Highway Commercial Conditional District or HCCD. Bit of background about the project on 07/14/2025, Quality Oil Company LLC submitted the initial application for sketch plan review, which was approved on 12/18/2025. During the review, it was determined that the project would require a traffic study. Schematic plans were then submitted for review on 02/25/2026, and the traffic study was finalized on 03/16/2026.

For the project location, it's located on the corner of Wilkinson Boulevard and Brown Town Road. The address is currently 6915 Wilkinson Boulevard. It's about half a mile from the intersection of Wilkinson Boulevard and Park Street, and the site is located within Wilkinson Boulevard's highway corridor overlay. For site conditions, the site is a double frontage at both Wilkinson Boulevard and Brown Town Road as it is a corner lot. The northern portion of the property has a steep incline leading up to the adjacent residential properties.

The lot width is approximately 355 feet along Wilkinson Boulevard and a 170 feet along Brown Town Road. And there's an existing eight inch sewers sanitary sewer with 20 foot easement along Wilkinson Boulevard along along with overhead power lines that span along the southern boundary. And currently, the proposed site is just an empty vacant lot. Current zoning is Highway Commercial as I mentioned earlier, and it's also located within the Highway corridor overlay, which is the Wilkinson Boulevard overlay. And for nearby zoning, there is rural residential to the north and that's located within the ETJ.

And there's general residential located to the Northeast of the property and then Highway Commercial along both sides of the Wilkinson Boulevard along the property. For the current plan, it is a 1.3 acre lot as I mentioned before, and the applicant is seeking relief to allow automotive services within HCO for any lot under two acres. Additionally, there's a 685 square foot drive through convenience store with no public entry that is planned right to the left of the pumps there. Five fuel dispensers that serve up to 10 vehicles at a time as I mentioned. And the storm water basin shown in the corner of the lot along Wilkinson and Browntown is proposed as a storm water basin with a fence surrounding the whole area if it's determined to be needed.

There is a covered vending machine area to the north of the site with the walkways that are proposed along from the building itself and the pumps. For landscaping and the buffers, there's a single row of street trees proposed on the opposite side of the sidewalks along both frontages. As requested by the city engineer and due to existing utilities, the applicant is seeking relief to remove a row of street trees along Wilkinson Boulevard and shift the location of the Browntown Street trees to the other side of the sidewalk. I will say that they did agree to do the street trees as it was needed, but because of the utilities, the city engineer did request that they did not install those trees. There is a 15 foot type a buffer with a fence proposed along the northern boundary, and the applicant is seeking a reduction of the 30 foot requirement between HC and residential properties.

And there's type b semi opaque screening that's required for all parking visible from the street. As far as the architecture, there's a stone skirt along all sides of the building. Party board is proposed on the walls above the skirt, and the applicant is seeking relief to allow the use of this material. Staff did support this request as this material would typically be allowed if the building was already existing, but because it's a new build, it is not. And then a drive through window is featured on the elevations to the rear of Wilkinson Boulevard.

For parking, there are three parking spaces including one ADA space that was proposed on the site and this meets the Odyssey requirements for this use. Parking lot is to be screened by type B semi opaque screening and the applicant is seeking to allow parking to be located within the brown town frontage. This relief is requested due to it being a corner lot and creating that double frontage. And then for transportation, I will pass it along to our transportation planner Reagan and she will go over all that.

Good evening, mayor and council.

Hello.

Can you all hear me okay? Okay. Perfect. Just a couple points to make to you tonight about the transportation elements of this project. The project is required to make a couple of frontage improvements along the two frontages.

So along Wilkinson Boulevard, they're they're required to install a 10 foot multiuse path. Along Brown Town Road, they're required to install an eight foot sidewalk. The applicant is doing both of those things. They are also at the request of staff providing pedestrians striping through the parking lot to ensure there's safe, clear movement for pedestrians on the site as they're crossing the path of vehicles. As Michael mentioned earlier, there was, it was determined that this project would need a traffic study.

It triggered both the daily threshold for new trips as well as the AMMP and peak thresholds. So the applicant agreed to perform that study, and Kittleson and Associates was selected as the consultant. When we held our scoping meeting and we looked at the trip generation estimates and the land use code for the site, in keeping with some of the past projects and and the recent traffic studies we've done, we saw that there was gonna be a significant amount of pass by trips that would come out of the total trip generation. And so staff authorized a transportation technical memorandum rather than a full TIA for this project. And so with that, I'll hand things over to Justin Banson, the lead engineer and project manager with Kittleson, to walk you through the study.

Good evening. My name is Justin Manson with Kittleson and Associates. As Reagan mentioned, we ended up doing a TTM for the TIA. The key elements of the TTM are essentially the same as what we'd have in a TTM. It's just gonna be a little bit more of a streamlined documentation format.

The study area for this project was a half mile radius around the project site. Again, that's reflecting a little bit of that streamlined analysis with a half mile radius. Four key intersections were identified between the city and NZDOT staff for evaluation. A fifth study intersection at Catawba And Park was added which is just slightly outside of that half mile buffer. So the five key intersections ended up being Wilkinson At Browntown at the site frontage, the Park Wilkinson Intersection just to the excuse me, just to the west.

Intersection 3 is then the Park Intersection at the Arby's entrance and then number four is Park At Browntown. Within the TTM, we looked at a few different things, looking at the trip generation distribution, understanding the existing operational safety performance at each of those intersections, looking at what the impact of the project site was going to be and then looking mitigation at each of those study intersections. As Regan mentioned, the raw site trip generation was over the city's 1,000 daily vehicle threshold, seventeen twenty daily trips for this type of gas station use. Institute of Transportation Engineers standard manuals identify a roughly 60% pass by rate. That brings us down to a net new external trips of about six eighty eight on a daily basis.

For the AM and PM peaks during that rush commute hour, we're looking at 39 total trips, so 19 in, 20 out. And during the PMP 61 total trips, 31 in, 30 out. As part of the operational analysis, we looked at existing conditions, twenty twenty five counts and then we looked at a twenty twenty six condition without the project and then with adding the quality press project on top of it. For that year of growth, we looked at 2% general regional growth and then we also added in traffic from four specific projects in the vicinity Alliance Bank, residents in Stone multifamily and Hawn Hunter RTAP. The Stone multifamily and Hawn Hunter are just on the other side of I-eighty 5 in Mount Holly.

So making sure that we're capturing some of that unbuilt approved development in the vicinity. And the TTM was prepared in accordance with NCDOT and city traffic traffic study requirements. So the overall findings of the analysis was the identification of mitigation needed at the Wilkinson Boulevard Browntown Intersection there at the site frontage. The installation of a new traffic signal was identified as the mitigation at that location. It meets warrants with the project site, excuse me, with the project traffic at that intersection to both address some of the existing safety performance there with severe crashes and previous fatality as well as mitigating those operational impacts.

No mitigation was required at the other study intersections. They were all adding a second or two of delay. The impact was so small for any individual movement. The other area that was identified was maintaining clear lines of sight from each of the project driveways which the project developer has agreed to. One is a site line to the east along the eastern site frontage and one is to the north. To the east, we've got a existing fence that's covered in vegetation that just needs to get paired back. And then to the north, there's an adjacent property owner that has a split rail fence that's within the right of way that needs to get pushed back to make sure that there's sufficient sight lines.

Moving right along. So the to summarize, the applicant, as Justin noted, has agreed to all of the required mitigations that were included in the TTM. And I do wanna make note that in addition to that, the applicant has also agreed as part of the construction of the traffic signal at Wilkinson and Browntown. They've also agreed to construct the westbound right turn lane from Wilkinson Boulevard onto Browntown. That was originally required and bonded as part of the Morris project or Reverie Belmont is now what it's known as.

And so the city has received funds through bond that is converting into a payment in lieu in a couple months. This applicant has agreed that if project is approved, we will pass the funds through to them and they will complete that construction as part of their construction on the traffic signal. So that's all we have for transportation. And with that, I'll hand it back over to Michael to present the rest of

the question. Unless

there are questions. In which case, I'll answer them. Before

we go too too fast there.

Yeah. I've

got two. So real quick, this designated area, have we double checked with the gas in Cleveland Lincoln MPO to see if there's any proposed projects in NCDOT?

Yep. Yes. That's right.

We're good?

Yep. Yes. We did. We checked with them and part of our standard process is to check against the MTP, the CTP with the county and then also to check with our neighboring jurisdictions.

Okay, can we go back a couple of slides to this proposed stoplight? Yep. Okay, so Wilkinson is absolutely terrible on the Charlotte side because of all of those stoplights after stoplight after stoplight. We have our existing issue on South Point Road right now right in front of the high school where there's no synchronization. Are we not just in I was just in this this afternoon coming here. This is absolutely terrible during rush hour. Let's talk a little bit more about this stoplight here. Mhmm. Because I think this is gonna be quite impactful. Right? Sure.

I'll defer to Justin to primarily speak to this, but I do wanna emphasize that this signal is something that's been recommended and been being discussed for I think some time within CDOT and division twelve from a safety perspective.

Well, I think that's tough. The flight off of South Point Road was discussed and recommended as well and we see what that's done with traffic. Sure.

I'll let Justin speak to the

I think we chat this one through a little bit.

Sure. I certainly appreciate your perspective and question there. For context, the placement of the signal is approximately the same distance as the Walmart signal to the west. So you have pretty even spacing through that point. Obviously, we prefer not to add signals where we can for the bottlenecks that you're describing.

However, at this particular location, it is a t intersection, excuse me, it's a T intersection with the fourth leg being a very low volume driveway to the Napa Auto Parts store. So it is a four legged intersection. But because the volumes on the side street aren't the same as like you would get at Wilkinson And Park, the majority of the green time is gonna be going along the mainline. So even with being able to have that additional signal there, it's not gonna be the bottleneck in terms of the overall operations along the court corridor. The Park Wilkins Intersection is still gonna be driving the performance along the corridor there. Quite similar to how you would see the Walmart signal. You'll get a short queue built up and then it'll flush through.

If we don't like adding traffic signals, why did we not just make mandatory to take a right off of Brown Town Road as opposed of crossing the entirety of Wilkinson and then if you wanna go down to Charlotte, just make a U-turn up there at the intersection?

I'm not sure.

Because the light there Is to allow folks coming down Brown Town Road to be able to take a left on Wilkinson to head towards Charlotte, correct?

I'm not making a So right

it's a combination of things. It's allowing existing traffic that's making a left off of Brown Town onto Wilkinson but it also allowing traffic to be able to make the left off of Wilkinson onto Browntown into Quality Plus there as well and and for the existing residents. So there's an existing pattern of drivers making a lot of turns at that location through higher speed traffic which is creating those issues with those more severe crashes.

We talked about that at the TAC meeting because the other end of Brown Town is a right in, right out. So what the DOT staff says was said was that if you make the other end a right in, right out, it makes it very difficult for the people who live back there.

Correct.

Basically do anything but go in a big circle anytime Yeah. They need to go

it more pressure on Park Wilkins Intersection Intersection for U turns as well. So if you're coming out and you wanna make a left turn today off of Browntown or coming out of that Quality Plus, now you're forcing everybody to the Park Wilkins Intersection to make U turns to come back to head eastbound. So there's no perfect solution but in this particular location, again, you have enough spacing there from that main Park Wilkinson Intersection and because you're operating as a as a simple signal configuration there, you're able to really maintain most of the green time staying on the main line. The the side street can run at the same time as the Park Street is running and so effectively you have the mainline movements along Wilkinson running contiguous there. So it doesn't have to be the bottleneck.

But signal coordination would be desirable. When we evaluated this Would

be desirable or would be

Would be desirable from an NCDOT side of things. So I think that's the coordination piece is continuing.

Well, I think that's in your TTM that says will be

synced and so whether that is

But Jim, you get where I'm coming from.

I get where you're coming from. But all I can say is So

is Raider is Red Raider Run. Well, well that one That's supposed to be Right.

The problem there is it's not synchronized. Yeah. Like What what

is response

Well, I mean, what can I what can more can you say and the the the TTM says that it needs to be synced and I mean

It it does? There's couple different ways to do that. So I guess that's where my comments coming from. You can have them hard connected where they're physically talking to each other and then there are ways to sync them up time bound where you're running them similar cycle lengths and so they're staying in sync with each other because of that. Where I think you see some of these issues is that the signals run completely independently and actuated and so they're not staying synced up with each other. So that's the comment here is to make sure that they're running on similar single timings and that was evaluated as part of the TTM.

Like how do we guarantee that? So I guess is what I'm trying to get at, right? Because in my frustration is not at you, it's not at this project particularly, but we have had how many conversations for the past how many years about synchronizing?

Arthur had talked started talking about

that in my first meeting. And it's still not done. Six years ago. So how do we ensure this gets done, right?

So NCDOT is running some time of day plans at these locations so they're not running fully independently at these locations along Wilkinson anymore. But there are other locations around town like on South Point Road that are running fully independent which is I think where you're getting some of the frustration.

Yeah. So who's responsible for syncing the lights? Is that an NCDOT thing?

NCDOT does periodic updates to the signal timing plans, yeah. And they've been looking at updates periodically every couple of years along here as they continue to get input about the the quality of trial

Reagan, have a question.

Yeah. And if I can just add to that really quick. We learned recently through our tech meetings that it's not just division twelve who's doing the signal synchronization, it's their Raleigh office. So they are relying on the divisions to give them feedback about which signals need updated synchronization. And so when we, I think, checked in with them about that most recently, I wanna say it was November or maybe the meeting prior that we learned that it was their Raleigh office doing those updates, we asked for them to prioritize resynchronizing South Point Road.

But we learned that they hadn't done that since any of those new signals went in. So that, I think, is a situation that now that we're aware of it, staff is better equipped to advocate to make sure that those timing issues don't occur in the first place when a signal's installed. Of course, at the end of the day, it's gonna be up to division twelve in the Raleigh office to approve those signal plans. But staff's a little better educated now about what that process looks like.

Let me ask you real quick. So going to the tech committee meetings and hearing the plans, I know that this had been discussed before.

That's right.

Or this applicant even. Yes. Do you think that the chances are that even if the applicant wasn't here today, that we would be at some point in the near future looking at light years? Is that seems

The like that would probably be warrants already exist in two of the three situations.

Yep. And Justin can speak a little more technically to that, but essentially the demand already exists today to justify from an engineering perspective putting a light in there now. This project would increase that demand, but the demand already exists. And our conversations with division twelve focused some on this intersection and and the intersection of Brown Town And Park because we wanted to understand from a traffic flow, but also safety perspective, how we could improve movements at those two intersections because Brown Town is one of our most dangerous corridors, and those are two of our most dangerous intersections in the city. They told us they would be willing to allow the right in, right out movement at Park in Browntown, but not at both sides because of the movements going towards Charlotte, and they didn't wanna completely remove the ability for those residents who've lived back there for decades to be able to get out onto Wilkinson.

I

have some questions for you. And they're really more, they're sort of based on the TTM but more of the effects and consequences of what's in the TTM. So I think you'd be the best person to speak to them. Sure.

I'll delegate if needed. Yes. Sure.

So we've talked about going all the way back, and this was even before I was on council with this westbound right turn from Wilkinson onto Browntown, and that was required for the Morris, now the Reverie, and they made a payment in lieu, so there's money bonded or you referred to it. And they're going to construct this turn lane as part of their mitigation. My question would be what happens if it turns out that the cost to construct the turn lane are more than the money that's in there for the payment and lube?

Sure. Our advice and guidance to the applicant has been that we would prefer to see them take on that additional burden. If it does run over, I would prefer to let the applicant speak to their willingness to to do that, but that's what staff has advised is that they take on any additional cost. My understanding based on the estimate is that, you know, so our policy with those payments in lieu is that you build in I believe it's a the estimate is at a 125% of what the cost is estimated to be. So it, you know, you build in some room for contingency with the initial payment in lieu to begin with. So staff is hopeful that

it covers

full cost.

Yes. Prices have somewhat increased since 2019, I think, is when that

Well, and I I can't speak to you. I think Tiffany, do you know exactly when the payment was bonded? I believe it was more recent than 2019.

Oh, yes.

Sure. So that was a requirement of wrapping up some of our permitting and and construction of our certificates of occupancy. So that bond is less than a year old to date. So it should not be severely outdated, but we understand the price of construction continues to fluctuate.

My wife reminds me.

Absolutely, and material costs as well as engineering costs, but it was enough to be based off of an initial engineering design and cost estimate and was vetted by our city engineer at the time of acceptance. So we are are hopeful, but again, have been in conversations and we will let the developer speak for themselves, but it is our understanding that they are agreeable to to meeting us there if this project is approved and being able to help us get that one successfully off of our to do list.

How much money is available for that?

I believe that bond was around 359,000. And

one last question for either Reagan or yourself. And I think to some extent, the applicant will have to answer with respect to some of this. But at the planning and zoning meeting, there is a lot of discussion amongst the board about the site distances and these two fence obstructions, one being on Wilkinson, one being on Brown Town Road, and those fences are not on the applicant's property. And so they were going to reach out to the property owners and I can let them speak to whether they did so and what fruit any of those discussions bore. But where I'm a little concerned though is they have said that the conditions for this project that it's a conditional zoning, so this would be what we approve.

It says, the applicant agrees to installing, constructing all mitigations identified through the TTM and these are mitigations that identified in the TTM, but they're also mitigations that they don't have full control over. So where does that leave everyone if the owners of these fences do not agree to remove the portions that are obstructing the site distances? What does that do for everything?

Sure. Absolutely. So to cut right to the chase, this was the fence that prompted a lot of the discussion at the Planning and Zoning Board meeting, and the applicant can speak more to this once once he comes up, but our understanding is he reached out to the owner of this property with the fence and showed the map of where they would be required to move the fence, and the owner was agreeable to that. In general, if that's the language that remains in the conditional zoning and the property owners say no, we don't want you to do that thing on our property, then typically they would have to come back to you all for an amendment of that condition.

Now there, that's in the right of way. Right.

It is in the right of way. So for this one in particular, there's no guarantee that NCDOT would not come in and ask them to move the fence themselves at a later date.

Alright. Well, I'm just because I know that was a subject of a lot of discussion and they were in there, I'll leave it to counsel. Sure. Because I don't think they really felt it was their place to decide that question and I'm just trying to figure out where that would leave us because it's hard to commit. When I teach my contracts drafting course, don't commit to a condition that you don't have full control over. But we shall see what the applicant says. But I just wanted to know more from a holistic perspective regardless of the facts on the ground what would happen if they couldn't. So basically, there might be need

to be They might have to come back to you all for an amendment. I will say that's standard language that we incorporate into our conditions when a traffic study is done that requires mitigations. But there have been cases in the past where a mitigation can't be completed and then the applicant

You need right away or something.

Yeah. And the applicant might come back to you all seeking approval to provide a payment in lieu instead of actually doing that improvement. So there's precedent for it before where projects have been able to move forward regardless.

I have a non transportation question, but Tiffany's already up here. Sure. I'll save you a trip. And it's okay if you don't know the answer to this, but I was just wondering. So we've got the two acre minimum minimum for automotive services. Do we know, like, what the purpose is behind that minimum?

I was not here when that was added to the code, so I cannot speak explicitly. My best guess would be to just the highway corridor overlay was to try to provide some guidance around the aesthetics of the corridor as you're driving along it. So it was likely to make it a bit more selective for the location of automotive services. But just to make sure that we're clear, automotive services is a very wide category. It could include everything from a car dealership to a service shop to a gas station.

You know. So it could be anything. It could have automotive vehicles stored outside or like this gas station. They're not proposing to actually have a parking lot full of vehicles on there full time. That category also includes boat repair, boat storage, motor like, it it's a wide gamut. So my guess would be something related to trying to minimize a whole bunch of inventory on a smaller, more congested site and ensuring that there was enough space for adequate screening, but I wasn't here when that was added to the code. Okay.

I'm good. Any other questions or staff? Well,

I I you're gonna wrap up.

We'll have Michael come back up to close us out. Yes.

Alright. So some additional commitments to go over. In addition to agreeing upon the traffic mitigations and improvements, The applicant has also agreed to the following commitments. They committed to install a fence around the storm water basin if it's needed. Staff suggested a black aluminum which the applicant agreed to.

They agreed to install a license plate reader on the site to court in coordination with Belmont PD and to implement a storm scepter and the storm water design to safeguard the protect the protected watershed area. We had a couple neighbor neighborhood meetings both at the East Belmont Baptist Church which is located at 501 East Catawba Street. The first neighborhood meeting was on January 6 which six attendees featuring surrounding neighbors, council members, city staff, and the mayor Jordan. Questions and concerns that were raised were about traffic, the planned turning lane, relief items, and other site and or business specific questions. We then oh, we also held a second neighborhood meeting on 03/25/2026, which no attendees came to the meeting.

So to go over the applicant relief request, the lot size, which was the two acre minimum, is requested as a relief as it's located within reduction of from the 30 feet type a buffer between HC and residential down to 15 feet. For architectural design, they want to be allowed to use Hardie board rather than the allowable materials that are outlined within our LDC. And for parking location is to allow the parking in the Brown Town front front yard. Some additional relief that were per the city engineer and staff would be the street trees to remove the street trees between the curb and sidewalk along Wilkinson to avoid existing sanitary sewer line and also to shift the street trees along Brown Town Road from the curb and sidewalk to the opposite side of the sidewalk to avoid the existing storm drain. We held the planning and zoning board meeting on April 16, and the Belmont planning and zoning board reviewed the map amendment and voted unanimously with seven and o to find it to be a reasonable request and in the public's best interest and consistent with Belmont's comprehensive land use plan in the following goals, land use and economy.

And in addition, the planning board was of the opinion that the proposed project is consistent with the vision outlined within the Wilkinson Boulevard small area plan. So after the meeting is wrapped up, we are looking for you to receive the report and the plan board recommendation plus public comments if there are any, and then issue a motion to approve as presented, approve as modified, or disapprove. And then two findings would be required, which would be the map amendment is re reasonable request and in the public interest and the map amendment is consistent with the goals of the comprehensive plan in the areas of land use and economy. So that was all I had for my presentation.

I have a couple of questions. I don't want Tiffany and Reagan to get all the questions. You need a couple just for experience. Yeah, in other words, get it under your wing. You mentioned there are some power lines in the front of the property along the Wilkinson frontage. Are they going to need to be relocated?

They would be relocated. And

the applicant I would assume is going to bear that cost or the applicant? Okay, very good. The only other thing, think you mentioned that there's gonna be a fence along the in the back as part of the buffer, is that correct? Yes. How high will the fence be?

I believe it's eight

foot? Six foot? Six foot. Mhmm.

And then, of course, but there's a slope down from from the neighboring property. I the only thing I would say, I the the that fence is sort of it's it's sort of mentioned in report, but it's not really if they're going to commit to that, I think it should be in the conditions and it's not in the conditions. I would say that in addition to the assuming we're agreeable and we can discuss this at the appropriate time with reducing the buffer from 30 to 15 feet, I would put in the conditions as well the construction of the six foot fence to screen.

Everybody is agreeable to that. Yeah, we can definitely have that as a condition.

It doesn't sound like the property owner behind where we're looking at reducing that buffer from 30 to 15. Property owner behind it. And they come to the to any of the I know they didn't come to the second community meeting because no one came. But the first one, do we know if they showed up to that and had any issues with reducing the buffer?

I'm not sure. I was sick during the first meeting so I had a substitute come in. So I'm not sure if it was the direct neighbor that was right there.

I'm not sure about if they attended the community meeting or not. I can tell you that I've had some exploratory interest in that property. So from my conversations, don't see that there would have be any conflict from that property owner.

Just one more thing. I believe it was also the technical review committee, this was brought before the technical review committee which consists of various department heads, is that correct? And they found no public safety concerns with this proposed amendment.

No public safety concerns. The only thing that PD had requested was that license plate reader outside of that.

Any other questions for staff? Now we might have some questions for the applicant. Thank

you. Alright. Of course. And then the applicant representation today is Wes.

Good evening, council members, mayor. Hi. Can you hear me okay?

There you go.

Alright. Perfect. I'm going to read this quick little monologue real quick, and that'll answer some of the questions. And we'll just go through the slides. Quality oil company was established in 1929. So we're approaching our 100 year anniversary. Over that time, we've grown significantly. We operate reliable tank lines, which many people may recognize traveling along I 85. We run convenience stores under the brand Quality Mart and Quality Plus, provide propane and heating oil services and have expanded into hotels and other real estate ventures. And 95% of our assets are located in North Carolina.

Quality oil has not served the city of Belmont or Gaston County in the past. We're excited to enter this market to serve the residents of this community while aiding in the revitalization of the Wilkinson Boulevard corridor in Belmont. When we identified this site in Belmont, saw a meaningful opportunity to provide needed services to this part of town and believe this location is well positioned to support residents, employees and visitors who travel this corridor daily. About a year ago, Pat Fraser, the landowner, West Hunter of Hunter Properties, Pat's representation, and I began discussing this property as a potential home for our quality plus model. West and Pat mentioned that they had the property listed for years, and had difficulty finding the right user due to the characteristics of the site being too narrow for most users, which has left the site unfortunately vacant for many years.

Fortunately, this property suits this design very well. And since it typically fits on roughly an acre, I believe this type of small infill development offered by this design accomplishes more with less and promotes regeneration of this corridor while improving aesthetics. The design is modern, attractive and tailored to today's customers expectations. We've met the neighbors, the mayor and several council members at the neighborhood meetings. We have met discussed this project in-depth with staff and have listened closely to the feedback we've received.

The plan you'll see tonight reflects that input and it has evolved significantly. We're proud of the outcome and believe it'll be a strong positive addition to the community. There's the three brands that quality oil operates convenience stores under quality mart, which is the full size convenience store, go gas and quality plus go gas and quality plus are the very they're the exact same model. They're just different brandings for go gas as the coastal market. We brand that one as that and quality plus is everything West Of Raleigh.

There's all 153 locations. The blue is the Quality Mart, the yellow is the Quality Plus which is what we're proposing here in Belmont, And the green is the GoGas brand. So you can see it's pretty spread out. It's all across the state, South Carolina, couple in Tennessee, couple in Virginia. But the majority here in North Carolina.

The site overview, Michael did a good job of going over that. I'm sure you all are very familiar with this corridor and corner. There's some current pictures of what it looks like right now. And the current site plan. With that, I'll answer some of the questions that were brought up.

Yes, the bond. I have not seen the exact documentation for the bond, but have been told that it's roughly $360,000 And yes, we will cover any overtures for that we're not going to expect the city to pay for any more of that. Defense removal. Yes, topic of conversation for planning board last month, that I reached out to the property owner of TRC automotive, Mr. McGinty, and spoke with him actually on last Friday, verbally, he has agreed to move that section of fence that needs to be moved to create that sight line.

The other fence that's along Wilkinson there, that's actually on our property. So we will remove that. Make that real easy. But like you said, it's it's difficult to verbally yes, he could change his mind at any time and we'll have to see how that works out. Hope we don't have to come back but

Well, that's in the right way so that makes That it is true. Because at the planning board meeting, it presented more like that other fence was like shared between your property and the adjacent, but if it's all on your property, that's easy.

Yes. Yeah. Correct. Oh, yes, the the two acre minimum. Yes. Tiffany answered that. The utility relocation. Yes, that'll be our responsibility. In the six foot fence. That's going be a six foot wooden fence.

And there was mention of the property owner that is behind. Yes, Mr. Pearson did come to the first neighborhood meeting. I don't remember him specifically asking a question about the buffer size, but he did ask questions about the fence, and how tall it was going to be. And I'll come over there.

I mean, you'll see in the contour lines that's on there on the back of the property. It is like a 20 foot grade between where that vending canopy is this thing have a laser on it. Nope. It does. Well, anyways, where that structure in the back is the vending canopy that's there behind the underground storage tanks.

Yes, from that grade up to his property, I believe it's it's roughly eighteen twenty feet of elevation difference. The proposed elevations, this is the typical building. If we go back a couple slides, you'll see the GoGas and the Quality Plus, they all have the same type of building. It's roughly, this one will be a little bit bigger than those typically they're 600 square feet. This one will be six eighty five square feet. It's a it's a pretty attractive building.

So is that like a walk up or drive up window or

how Yes. Does it Both. So in this step, we'll we'll have we'll just pretend somebody's coming off of Wilkinson. They'll enter the driveway and they'll go to the pumps, or they can come straight to the pay window. Either or, people can actually still pump their gas first before paying. I know a lot of gas stations do not do that anymore. Yeah, it is bold. Yes, it is. There are people that run off.

Usually Nice police.

That's right, we got that.

So protect us a little bit. Yeah, so people will either they'll come to the pumps or they'll go to the pay window. Once they're done fueling, they'll just they'll drive up, there'll be a pay window attendant in there, they can buy drinks, snacks, cigarettes, or not coffee, ice cream, those kind of items sun dries. They can also you know, park their car and if they don't want to go to the pay window, they can go to the vending machine area in the back. So there's a vending machine canopy and there's just the typical drinks, sodas, sports drinks, what have you.

So there's an opportunity for those folks not to go up to the window. And then they simply exit the site.

Is this a twenty four seven operation?

No, sir. This will be 6AM to 10PM. Okay.

But you can get gas $24.07. Correct.

Yes. It's only staff from six to

ten. Correct.

Okay. Mhmm.

The building will only be open from that six to ten.

And you can't get into the building. You can use the restrooms but I could walk up to the window even though it's a drive. I could walk up there but I couldn't walk in to the building other Yes, than using the sir.

But you could buy a

soda at the vending aisle. Mhmm. Yeah.

And typically people will with the restroom people will, they'll usually pull around to the parking spaces, there's not usually too many people parked because they're usually parked at the pumps. So they just conveniently drive over there, get out, use the restroom, and go on their way. It's a pretty straightforward flow through design.

With that being said, it's not one way of the cutouts, You can come in or go at either cut out.

Yes, sir. Okay.

But the one on Wilkinson's right in right out.

Correct. Yeah,

it just it'll be a full access. But yeah, unless you want to drive over the median, they'll just be turned right.

I've seen it. And

I remember there was mentioned before of at the neighborhood meeting people cutting through this site as it is now to get on Brown Town and people will speed through that. Obviously, with things in the way now and fuel dispensers and cars parked at the pumps that that will eliminate that concern.

Pretty good. Any questions for that?

I'm assuming you're fine then if we add the six foot wooden fence to the actual conditions since you're committing to

any That's fine.

Okay. That's a privacy fence, right? Correct.

Jim, should we, since you're here, should we also potentially add that any overage outside of the bond would be covered by the applicant just to put that in writing for the condition? Is that necessary, Parks?

So

verbal agreement would be? Okay. So we'd add that in the condition, which you would be okay to that?

Yes,

sir. As you've already stated. Thank you.

Other questions? Alright, thank you.

Thank you. Alright,

well, if we have no other questions or comments, I will entertain a motion to come out of public hearing.

Just one more. I'm sorry. Sure. For Reagan, maybe and Tiffany. This whole light synchronization is the only thing that I'm just kinda caught up on. How can we absolutely ensure that that's gonna happen? And the only reason why bring this, I mean, we all know, I mean, I drove this, I think you probably drove this on the way home this afternoon. This place is terrible, right? And what I don't wanna do is add to that. I wanna fix the safety issue, which has already been identified, but like, are we fixing one problem to cause another?

And causing a new

one. Right?

Absolutely. Yeah. So this I think is top of mind, not just for us, but also for NCDOT as they think potentially adding, like you said, a a light onto a major arterial like Wilkinson, very close to this major intersection of Wilkinson and Park. Mhmm. What staff is able to do is give feedback to the developer as they're, you know, working with their consultant on the traffic signal design and emphasize the importance of that signal timing, and then we'll be involved with NCDOT and division twelve as they give feedback on the signal plan.

So if NCDOT were to come back I think it's very unlikely that NCDOT were to come back and say, we want these to be completely independent signals. But if they were to give some sort of feedback like that, we'd have opportunities along the way to counter that

Okay.

And to give that feedback to the division directly.

So that's not something that we would have to put, like, potentially as a contingency within this?

I wouldn't recommend it because we don't necessarily have the ability to enforce it since it's not our our But I will note, you know, staff is as concerned about that as as you all, and we wanna make sure that if there is a light put in, whether through this project or in general by the division in the future, we we wanna make sure that it's not causing more problems than it's solving.

Okay. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Good, yeah, you look like you're itching to say something.

The only thing I was gonna add and I think it, from my perspective isn't necessarily something that would be added to the conditions, but certainly it's at your discretion as counsel. It's my understanding that the applicant has actually agreed to use Kadelson and Associates to actually design that signal if this project does move forward, which as a reminder, it's the city who enters the contract with the TIA consultant to do that. That's something there. So so in theory, they could actually use anyone or try to to do it outside of that purview, but it's my understanding plans to continue with the team there at Kittleson to be able to design it in the way that was intended by the traffic study itself.

Thank you. Does that trigger any other questions for anyone? Speak now.

Is this a four way stop at the stoplight that we're proposing?

I think it would be

Essentially. Essentially, Napa The fourth approach is the Napa Driveway. So minimal.

But not. Yeah. Crosswalk. Alright. Well, entertain a motion to come out of public hearing.

Motion to come out of public hearing.

Motion made by Alex. Second. Second by Mark. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Alright. So, are out of public hearing and that officially moves us to agenda item C five. Consider ordinance for approval of ZA twenty twenty six point zero one. It's only map amendment for quality plus. So, open for discussions. Well, it seems like Alex, I guess

I'll just ask you, are you fine with the issues with the traffic signalization? Because it sounds like that might be the only potential sticking point. That's the

only sticking point for me. I mean, to tip or Reagan's point, we can't make it contingent on that happening. Considering, but then again, I would have anticipated that on South Point Road and we didn't get that, So that's the only piece that kind of holds me up. I don't know about you guys, if that also crossed y'alls.

Well, get it. I get it because, you know, but I don't know what more, I mean, there's a What

they could do is Yeah, there's

just a max, you know, like generally you have to assume that the state's going to comply with the law. Like that's sort of like a maxim that like you're gonna assume compliance with the statute, you're gonna assume that they proceed as they're supposed to. So I don't know what else you can really I hear you because I know the same thing down on South Point Road has happened and it has been a source of continued frustration for those of us that have been here longer. Discussion. To the extent that people were going there and trying to change the signalization themselves, I think at certain points. It

sounds to me like regardless of the applicant that we might be looking at getting a signal there

at some point. That is a good point.

We're probably one accident away or one request away from it happening.

Well, it's already warranted by two of the three. Yeah.

And the additional turn lane should be an improvement which was already identified during the Morris, Which

predates even Mark and myself, yes.

I don't know, maybe I would just ask that, and I know you guys probably would, but for my level of comfortability that staff follow-up with NCDOT and that maybe at a later date at the workshop or whenever you guys can have that conversation come back to council to let them know how that conversation went.

Not in the

last call or

Or TAC, either one would be fine. Just as long as the update comes back to the collective body because that's the only piece that I just, that's a disaster on that road.

I agree.

Well, I'll entertain motions.

I would move to approve as amended with the additional conditions of the six foot wooden fence as part of the rear buffer and the applicant agreeing to assume the additional expense of constructing the westbound right turn lane off of Wilkinson, if any, should those costs exceed the amount of payment in lieu from Reverie slash Morris. Alright.

Motion made by Jim.

Second.

Second by Charlie. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Alright. That passes. And I think now we need to do a motion to for finding.

Yes. I would move that the amendment is a reasonable request and in the public interest and consistent with the goals of the comprehensive land use plan in the areas of land use and economy and also consistent with the Wilkinson Boulevard small area.

Motion made by Jim. Second. Second by Alex. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, funding is passes. So congratulations. Yes, thank you. Thank you.

We look forward to seeing your

welcome to Yes,

welcome. And thank you for your process. You hit every thing that was requested. So thank you for that. All right, well, moving right along. I think that will take us to other business. Any other business tonight? Know we have a closed session coming up, but we'll go ahead and do other business.

Alex, yeah, maybe just a few here. Miles, maybe just for the collective body here. And then maybe for our listeners and folks here, maybe just a quick update on the drought. So we just entered into the stage two piece, which I know that there's some restrictions in the $500 penalty, but where are we right now as it pertains to our water intake off the Catawba River? Are we in an okay position or are we getting into a concerning position where we may need to rely on our interlocal connections?

Well, the river is very low, we know we have an issue with the intake. And we really don't want to we have our two municipalities that we could that could serve us if we get in a dire situation to go to that route. But we're looking at another option before we go there. If if we got into the situation, we couldn't water into our own intake, possibly with a floating pump, I believe that that's what Jonathan Wilson, our public works director and the water treatment plant superintendent we're looking at today was to get a quote to see if if we got to that point, I don't know if we will or not. We've also had conversations with Duke Energy on the current level and how much further would go down if we

didn't get any significant rain. Has Duke given any insight? Because I think I saw something where the reservoirs what 75% are below the threshold, so they're probably not going to release more water down to us?

Or did they give any indicator? I don't have any update on that at all. We could check to see I know that I know that our public work staff is in communications with the Duke Energy and I can give you an update once we get the final reports on that. But yes, as a worst case scenario, emergency method, if we had to do something, possibly float up, float something out to the center of the channel to draw water.

But I guess right now, other than the stage two, there's no immediate concern right now other than just probably preparation?

Yeah, not right now.

Does the lower water effect like I know we have this continuing issue with like particulates in the water and humidity? Right? Does it affect like the amount of I think it's the album we used drop it? I couldn't speak to that. I don't know

if Jonathan is appropriate person or if our water plant superintendent is but maybe Jonathan could come to the mic and speak to that's more technical in nature than I'm willing to

be seeing brown water.

Well, no. Well, yeah, I guess. Yeah, pretty much.

Could you repeat that question?

Yeah. So my question is around like the amount of chemicals we need to treat the water. Like when it gets all churned up, there's a lot of mud in it. You need to throw more of the chemical in it to settle out the mud. With the lake being lowered, is that is there like

a similar sort of water is not getting churned up. Yes, I need water to come down.

It's kind of a blessing and a curse. Our staff is very familiar with treating water with high turbidity, being on the lake and or being on the river instead of the lake. So we haven't seen any issues so far, we typically see higher turbidity during flooding events, not during drought, but it is something And we're

this might be more towards miles, but so I get what we as residents and say businesses have to do under these stage two conditions. I'm a little curious what in terms of what the city does with its use of water, what is the city because that's been raised in a couple of instances. What is the city required to do? Is the city subject to all these requirements or are they exempted from certain of the requirements?

As far as like what particular topic are you talking about?

I mean just in general, is there anything like in terms of like say watering fields or watering lawns?

No, yeah, we would abide by our own restrictions. I don't think we should go above and beyond even if we are exempt. I mean, that shows that we're doing the right thing. It is important to see the river how low you know where our intake is. And so that we're we're doing the same things that we're asking citizens to do. If we're not, I think we should be and I'd like to know if we're not doing that. Yeah. So I'm sure that we that we are, you know, not water and our nice fields are nice, nice and green this spring. You know, we're cutting back on those things, those flowers that we planted downtown. Within the last two weeks, I believe two or three weeks, you know, I mean, all impacts of, you know, everything. So yeah, we're trying to do the best thing we possibly can do as well.

Well, it's supposed to rain Thursday.

It rains a lot. Well, we need more you need rain further up the

river. Yeah.

Did anyone else have any questions on that before I have two more things, Go for it. So the thank you, John. Yard waste program. So we rolled out the bins that that residents could potentially purchase to collect yard waste. Has there been any feedback or any type of communications?

Yes, we sent out the yard waste communications. And since then, we've had a pretty positive response. I think we've had plus 80 purchases of somewhere around there like since we did the push on social media and getting the word out. We've had a lot of folks that have signed up so much so that we need to buy more cans. Initially, we had the budget amendment to buy x number of cans, we didn't know, we didn't want to like buy them all at once, not knowing how this program may go. So we only bought I think 100 to begin with. And so we're approaching that limit now, where we're thinking, hey, we probably need to buy some more because it takes time to get them in everything. So

kind of good. It's good. Job, guys. And then last thing, maybe a direction to staff if I can get to other council members. But I'd be interested in the valuation of the properties that we're leasing from Belmont Land Investment Company. So essentially, Charlie before when we were talking about the budgets, essentially Belmont land investment has come back to us with an increase in lease rates for parking lots and Freddie Field. I'd be curious to what the valuation of these individual parcels and properties would be that we're leasing or at least a piece of it. If two other council members agree, okay.

Mean, be

in our best interest at least know that.

Are you talking about a property appraisal? Yeah. Yep. So just more information before we give the presentation in a couple weeks, but the company hired a third party appraiser to do that. So we already have three appraisals of those properties.

It was integrity Integra Realty Resources, our which is a pretty big firm. So even though the company hired them, they have their requirements where they do that professionally to lay out what property values are. So I don't want the city to go down the path of spending a lot of money on property appraisals when we already have three in hand from the company.

Okay. So those would those be see, I didn't know that. Yep. Those be accepted to us? Let's say, in an instance, if the city decided to purchase one of those properties, we would accept one of those property evaluations, not saying that that would happen, but? I don't know

if they go into the depth of I think they do that goes to like the land value based on what it was zoned as and that's how they break down how much the lease rates are based on the value of the property. And so you could deduce that that property is worth something. How were they performed? They were performed in January, believe. The company came. Yes, this year. Yes, so they're really

Is that something we could see before

we And discuss then could we also just might be a plug in, know it's readily available, but to see what the taxable value on those pieces of property are too. Thank you.

Right. Yeah, can get the I'm sorry.

No, you're good.

Go ahead. I can get the appraisals to you all.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Charlie. Nothing for me. Nothing.

Actually, a question on budget. Is this going

to be

available online at some point? If it's not already?

It's not. It's available in the city clerk's office. So if anybody wants to see that we didn't plan to put it online till we adopt it. Okay. Okay.

Well, I mean, I guess, my feeling is that I don't see any harm with putting it online. I mean, I don't know how everybody else

feels. But so how would someone go about getting it right now?

You'd have to email, make Yeah, make an appointment call Laura, email Laura, and then they can come and view it here. If we put it online, it would be that we would just scan it in and make it available like as a document, a PDF document. What we could

do that subject to the revisions.

What's that

subject to revision? Yeah, if any.

Yep, yep. Because it's the it's balanced right now. But like I said, we've got a couple items that we need to adjust inside of it.

I mean, I'd be fine with that just because I feel like it makes it a little bit easier. Not that like you're intimidating or anything. Yeah, just I mean, that's how I would prefer to consume it anyway. Mean, but just as Joe's citizen. One update, I had the opportunity to go visit with the Belmont Community Organization downtown.

Got the nickel tour of their facility down there, which if you haven't done that, they expressed an interest in kind of having a little bit more, I guess, partnership with the city, however that's defined, going forward. They do quite a lot down there with actually not a whole lot of resources. So they've got food bank, they've got clothing store, all kinds of other things down there to help the people of this community. And the nice thing is everything that goes in there actually stays local. So they've got a nice little operation going on down there.

So if anybody wants to get the nickel tour, let me know and I can hook you up with my contact over there. You can meet the new director. She happened to be in while I was, actually I already knew her, but I realized she was the new director. But you have great people down there. So yeah, and that's all I got. All right. Thank you, Mark. Jim.

Oh, I hope I'm not opening a can of worms, but there were some people upset by this. So perhaps we could, it does warrant a discussion even though perhaps it's faded into memory with the span of a couple of weeks, but the discharge of the firearm outside of the gun shop was upsetting and perhaps we can get an update because it does seem to me that it's not entirely unlikely that this might be something that could happen, I mean, happen again. And so I just, you know, what I'd just be interested in finding out some more information and discussing this because I'd rather discuss it at this point than discuss it after something more tragic happens. Are you

wanting to discuss it like a council meeting? Or do you want to discuss it now? I can call police chief up to discuss it now.

I mean, maybe we I just what is there anything that we can do?

Chief, you wanna come on up? Yeah.

Like Jim, are you talking about potentially hold like the owners of that responsible?

Well, It's my understanding

that it it on the way in, correct? Or discharging a firearm within city limits is already illegal. Right?

Oh, yeah. I'm sure you

got to take it in for that.

Put words in your mouth. But would it have happened if the gun store was not there? Right?

Well, it's also a lot of people can still carrying around.

Yeah. But let's let's let's see what what she has to say. And then I don't want to chief what you think.

Was enjoying the conversation.

I was not so that's

why I could go on all night.

So this happened on April 21 at approximately 05:44PM where a gentleman was entering the store with his gun to have a part changed. And as he entered the store, when he walked as he was entering the store, he racked the gun to try to clear the gun, but there's obviously a bullet in the chamber. And the gun went off. It was not something pleasant at all. When the officers got there, the gentleman had dropped the gun off and left. But during the investigation, they called him back and spoke to the owner of the gun store. And an investigation was done. They did find the damage on the concrete outside just outside of the door. Oh, they documented everything.

Let me just understand this. He fired a shot on the side of the road in the concrete. He was trying to drive this weapon as he was in

the as he was in the door

and then left. Did not stay on the scene for police to arrive.

That'd be correct. So this right here was really just a failure of farm safety and fundamentals of firearms by a person who's bringing the gun to the store. We investigated this and because and because of it was an accidental discharge, we call them a d's because it was accidental and there's no criminal intent. It would not be a criminal charge because there's no intent. And so I googled intent just so I could go into a little more detail of understanding North Carolina law.

What is intent in North Carolina criminal law intent refers to a person's state of mind when committing a crime. And it says that every criminal offense requires some level of intent, even if it's only a minimal. In simple terms, the answer to this question is, did you mean to do what happened? And he obviously did not. There was a thorough investigation done. It was something that I wish didn't happen. I can't stand before you and tell you it's not gonna happen again. But I hope it don't. It just really was a lack of basic gun fundamentals. It happens in our world sometimes, unfortunately. And we're experts. So question

is that gun store service weapons? I thought it was my understanding they just sold new weapons.

They sell new weapons. They also do consignment there. As far as anything else that has to do with that. I'm not really sure as far as the uses. I think I'd refer to Tiffany on that as far as what they're allowed to do and not allowed to do.

I don't know that they sold or did anything other than selling new weapons that would make them a pawnshop. You

would have to ask Tiffany about that. I don't know the actual in-depth stuff about what they can and can't do. They're doing consignment.

Consignment is, in fact, not permitted at that location. That's the first time planning staff's been made aware of that. They are permitted for retail. And just like any other retail, right, if you bring something back to a store and you need service on that thing, you can do general standard business. It is an item of retail. Right? So if you're if that's part of what is being sold, that's fine. But consignment is restricted to the Wilkinson Boulevard Corridor and we have issued a zoning verification letter that was clear that that was the case. So if that is being done, we can investigate that further.

Can we do that? Yeah. We will.

Sounds like we need to.

Yeah. So If

if I bring a firearm in there that I didn't purchase in that store, what's the how's that? Like, if I if I wanted it serviced in there, is that part of the retail?

So it's yeah, our code is really, really broad on retail. I will have to look and see if service it's it doesn't get into, like, even specifically, like, what types of things can be sold unless it's specifically listed somewhere else. Our code is really broad right now. So I will have to look at if there's service oriented businesses that are allowed downtown, but there are other service oriented businesses downtown. They just might not be of the gun servicing persuasion.

So we our code and the land development code doesn't really get that specific. If they are legal activities, legal things that can be sold, and it's not otherwise specifically excluded, it's allowed. Just like they have a training room that would be for, like, educational type purposes, that's allowed even though it's not retail. It's a complimentary type of activity on the same site. But in terms of the consignment, that was communicated to the owner that that was not allowed at that location.

It's my understanding that the business operates more than one location. So even if the business operated consignment at other locations, it's just not permitted in our downtown area. So we we can follow-up on that. You know, one of the things I will be really clear on is with enforcement of things. We primarily handle land use.

So anything beyond land use specifically gets deferred to our police department for that enforcement. And when we talk about specifically what's being bought and sold there, that's different than what is actually the land is actually being used for. Right? So what we can say, well, you know, we have heard that it's consignment. I'm gonna need to have some documentation before I can pursue that further, But I can coordinate with the police department to do that.

Can we not just walk in and see if they're selling consignment?

Sure. That's what I mean in terms of documentation. Right? So Okay. So we can do that. That's just the first I've heard of it. So I will need to go through our process for that, but absolutely.

Let me ask you this. Would selling used items, is that considered consignment or is it selling on behalf of someone else consignment? Well, there's a difference there because they are selling used. I know they sell used, but they're selling used. I don't know that they're selling it on behalf of someone else.

So we would look up the definition of our land development code, which is not handy with me right now on that. Pawn and consignment is specifically what's listed as only allowed on Wilkinson Boulevard Corridor. So if they're doing those two things, then that would be not what's allowable in that area. But retail alone and I'm not clear, but it could be that used is still contained just like a used clothing store might still be okay, but consignment where you're giving a portion of the profit to the original owner.

Was told that they

were only allowed to sell new firearms.

I'm not sure. I can there's a zoning verification letter where we gave clear instructions about what is and isn't allowed at that site

Okay.

Prior to them moving in, but

Sounds like something we need follow-up on.

Yeah. And normally, like within downtown, anybody's allowed to do anything that's allowable within downtown. They just need to process a change of use permit with us so they understand what the limitations of that use are.

And you've already sent that to them requesting clarification?

I have not. No. This is the first I've heard that there was anything other than the permitted retail use at that property. But on that side, based on what chief just said, the actual action likely occurred in our right of way, not on that premises. So any other claims about what they're doing in the property itself would be what planning and zoning would be looking into.

Understand

it was accident, but it seems as though this is the kind of thing, it's not, this was not entirely unpredictable that an accident like this could and can happen.

I would say that if it's continuous thing that happens over a period of time, we would probably start to look at nuisance abatement stuff versus any kind of criminal thing because you do have to have intent. There was something else I had, I'm lost it on where along the way up here.

How long

when did they first open? How long have they been open? Less than a year.

A year? Yes.

So they're less than a year and this is our first one in this instance. So when chief would you anticipate we start looking at the nuisance abatement because that's a pretty quick turnaround since they've opened that we're already seeing this. The only reason why I ask is Charlie brought this to light, there's obviously a dance studio churches next door. There's people who walk and are about. Accidents do happen. Luckily, this one shot into the ground. But what if it didn't happen that way?

I agree completely. I would say based on the other things I'm involved with with nuisance abatement, not just here, but in my career, that this is a one off versus things that would actually meet the criteria for nuisance abatement. It would have to be multiple things. It wouldn't just be a one off like this. So, I don't know if there's a timeline but I would say it's based on the incidents and I can tell you that there was many more incidents involving another property that we're involved with still currently, locally.

But there's no like set number of incidents. Or is it

just really is based off of the egregiousness and stuff like that or what it is. And there's some very egregious things that we've looked into. That's all I'll say about that. I do think I'm I'm not sure what was agreed to in the beginning but I'll kind of speak to gun sales and things like that with gun stores. Guns are no different than what I think someone brought up about clothing, whether they sell a new gun, people are going to sell their guns to a gun store, and they're going to sell used guns.