Town Council - Regular Meeting

It is 6.03 p.m. and I would like to call to order the town council meeting of Bowling Green, Virginia. First thing I would like to do before we do the pledge is ask for a motion to accept electronically our council member, Dr. Chenault.

So moved.

I have a motion from council. Second. And I have a second. Dr. Chenault, can you give us a reason, please, why you are not here so we can put it in the record?

Yes, I'm on a work assignment in Nebraska.

Thank you. Is there any discussion? All in favor, raise your hand. Dr. Chenault, thank you for joining us. Would everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?

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.

At this time, I would like to ask the Deputy Clerk to please take the roll call.

Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.

All members are present and we have a quorum. Items number one through six are on our consent agenda. Are there any of these items at this time that need to be pulled out from the council? Hearing none, I would like to ask for a motion of approval. So moved. We have a motion from Councilman Voigt. Do I have a second? Second. Second from Councilwoman Davis. Any discussion? All in favor, raise your hand. I'm raising. Thank you, Dr. Chenault. I was about to ask. Okay. All of those passed through. We will now move on to member comments. Ms. Davis.

Yes, I would like to congratulate Jeffrey Smith upon receiving his master's degree. And also, I would like to thank the chief for getting pizza donated for the National Night Out. It was wonderful. It was.

We had a good time. Thank you, Councilwoman Davis. Councilman Voigt, do you have anything at this time?

I'll just concur, the National Night Out was really good, even despite the rain. It was fun, and they went through a lot of pizza, and that was all donated, really? That's awesome. Awesome. Speaking of events, I will say that the next Clean Sweep is going to be September 19th, and I'll just keep it at that. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilman Webb.

Yeah, I just wanted to mention that our staff, Utility Public Works, town manager, they've had a lot of work to do with all of the utilities, sewer replacements, water. I know that's a lot going on, and I just want them to keep up the good work.

Yes, we are very grateful for all that they do. Vice Councilman Dr. Chenault, do you have any comments at this time? Nothing to add. All right. Thank you. Vice Mayor Coyle.

Just a couple of things in regards to parks and schools. Staff has been working with National Playground Developer Kaboom to assist with the upgrade of our town playground. Kaboom representatives are evaluating our current site, which includes soil sampling and safety conditions. A public meeting could be scheduled as soon as September to share new specs and receive public input before the final design is completed. I'd also like to—and I know she's not here, but she has been working on our Harvest Festival, Shamika Baker-Latney. I saw her at the high school wellness event on Monday, and she had done the Caroline Promise Community Day back-to-school supply on Saturday, July 5th. It was a wonderful event. Lots of coordinating with the children to get ready for the school year and they are still accepting donations if anybody would like to donate through that.

Thank you. Councilman Stork? I have nothing, thank you. Councilman Hageman? I have nothing. I would like to officially welcome Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Howard as the new garrison commander at Fort AP Hill. He assumed his duties on June 11th and we look forward to inviting him to future council meetings. I promised him a private tour of our courthouse. Mr. Smith came with me and I took the garrison commander, Command Sergeant Major and I'm sorry, I cannot remember what Ms. Diane Smith's title is, but she is... a lay person executive out at the fort. And we went to lunch three weeks ago and had a wonderful time. I took him on a tour of the town. He had not really been through and we had a wonderful time. So look forward to working with him in the future. Repairs are currently underway on the outside of Town Hall, which includes the front sidewalks, the side steps, and the kitchen area and side steps to the ballroom. Two and a half weeks ago, my husband and I had the pleasure of leaving and going to Bowling Green, Kentucky. I've been talking to you about this for almost a year now. We had a wonderful time. We were treated like royalty out there. When I went to speak to their commission,

stand up for this. In being welcomed I was presented as the mayor with a challenge coin for the America 250.

We were privileged the day after the commission meeting to tour their new waterfront project, their riverfront project, an enormous project. It was really nice. The public works director presented me with the challenge coin from their public works department. And the project manager, it was really nice to be 700 miles away from here. And he was familiar with our own Councilman Webb and Councilman Webb's firm. He used to live in Stafford. The city manager for the city of Bowling Green at family in King George. So he would come here in the summer and go to his family's horse farm in King George. So he was also very familiar with our area. And then Mayor Todd Alcott, retired Lieutenant Colonel Alcott from the United States Air Force. His last tour was at the Pentagon. He lived in Burke, Virginia in Fairfax County. So he was also very familiar with our area. All of these people were very welcoming. They were gracious. And on behalf of the mayor, I was presented with the key to the city.

The...

On behalf of the city of Bowling Green, Kentucky, in honor of us becoming sister cities, they have presented our town council with a print, their newest print of their downtown fountain park in the center of town. We'll send this around. We, I, my husband and I donated a signed and numbered Sydney King print that we had matted and framed on behalf of the town. And we had a wonderful visit. I will tell you, when I was there, I was very excited. You know, we're a little town, 1,200 about. They are a city of almost 90,000 and they work very closely with their county, very jointly with their county. So they don't just count their city, they count the larger metropolitan area. I felt a little intimidated that they may think us presumptive or foolish for being there. They not only accepted us as a sister city, I have laid out a vision, a vision for cooperative effort between us for tourism and economic development. I laid out a larger vision to include other Bowling Greens and to make this a national and international movement. The mayor and his wife took my husband and I out to dinner. We discussed this further. Last Monday, I received an email, this past Monday, from the city of Bowling Green, Kentucky. They have embraced every one of the ideas and concepts that I presented to them. They are thrilled with the whole concept. They want to take the lead in this, to spearhead it. They have the money. They have the staff to do this. This past year, I spent my time researching. I'm the queen of research. It is very advantageous from an economic development standpoint for a small jurisdiction like us to try to sister with a larger jurisdiction. It's unusual for a town our size to sister with someone so large. And again, it has economic benefits to our community because they do have staff, they have resources, they have a network that we as a small town don't have. They have a national network when it comes to advertising and they are in several TV markets and have networked with other TV markets. So I was contacted. I spoke with their downtown economic development coordinator. She called me at the urging of the assistant mayor and the mayor and said, She and I had a nice conversation. We had some preliminary discussions and I told her that I would be working with my town manager and that we would be in contact with her to proceed forward. Um, India and I, our town manager, and I have been discussing this all year and and the wonderful opportunities that if this could come to fruition, that it would present for our community. I will tell you, I am absolutely humbled. and I'm absolutely thrilled that we have been able to accomplish this and we have nowhere to go but up. I did contact Someone that I know that owns a public relations firm in Alexandria, they do international work. I asked him, what did the international market look like? He said, we are hot right now. FIFA has made America popular again with Europeans. They want to come. They want to visit. they're enthralled with the silliest things like getting refills on tea and not having to pay for it. So again, we have wonderful opportunity here and this is in line, everything that I have researched, this goes in line with our economic development authority here in the town and with our Bowling Green be a Main Street group and their purposes and goals. So I hope that we can take advantage of this to grow and have a beautiful relationship with this jurisdiction, our sister, our beautiful sister, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Thank you.

Ms. Mayor. Yes, sir. I just want to ask you one thing, and you might have said it and I just missed it, but do you want to explain the actual size scale of that city in comparison to us, like their population?

They have a population of approximately 87,000 people. The greater area, and again, they have joint services. They work very closely with the county. Their joint services and their joint community is over 150,000. I will tell you, I neglected to mention this, Supervisor Seeley, before I went, I went to him because I asked what kind of partnership would we get from the county. They were very excited to hear of this prospect and Mr. Gary Wilson and Ms. Kathy Beard were wonderful at the EDA and the visitors center with me. They provided a challenge coin and a book from the county to be presented of secretariat, which I did present to them on behalf of the county. And they also, Bowling Green Kentucky also has sent a key to the city for me to present to Councilman, or excuse me, Supervisor Seeley. So are there any other questions? Okay. At this time, I would like to move to public comment. Anybody wishing to come and speak, please state your name and address. At such time, you have three minutes to speak. Please know that this council cannot respond to your comments or questions. And we would like to have you come up now. I open public comment.

Welcome, Ms. Cropper.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor Gamble, Town Council, Technical Manager. Is that better? Pat Cropper, 251 North Main Street. Congratulations on going to Kentucky and spearheading this event, getting us closer to having more help with our town. Kudos to you for that. I'm very proud to tell other people about that. You should be on Facebook right away because that's what people read anymore. As a taxpaying resident of Bowling Green, I'm concerned about the amount of money being spent on the treasurer slash contractor that does not live in our town nor in our county at the rate of $200 an hour plus mileage, unless otherwise agreed to with no cap other than 120 days, which equals an excessive amount of money. I don't see in the minutes in the past when the town council addressed the loss of yet another critical financial employee. It's not stated anywhere. This hopeless, where'd she go? Why did she leave? Some things I know we don't need to know as residents. However, when we have a turnover like that, and we keep being told that because we're in the situation we're in, it's because of all the turnover and because of all the lack of leadership, something like this happens, you begin to wonder what's going on. We can only make assumptions. And I see that we got a capital project and grants manager hired as well. Kudos. However, where's the money coming from? I mean, we are taxed to death here. And I can only imagine that next year you're gonna come to us and go, we need to raise the real estate taxes. We need to do this because of the sewer, because of the water, because of this and that. And we have not kept the staff I don't know if it's a management issue or if it's a staffing issue. I just know it's an issue for the residents of this town. As a taxpayer, I don't know when y'all get the packet that you have in front of you. If you get it on Monday and you meet on Thursday, do you have enough time to really decipher and go through each line item and ask questions and do the research? I get it on Monday and I start reading and trying to do the research so that I can be... a better communicator to the people around me, but also to people that ask me questions all the time. I knew I was gonna be out. Thank you for your time.

Can I say anything?

Please take seriously my comments. I don't say them lightly. I don't spend time reading and researching lightly. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Cropper. Is there anyone else at this time that would like to come up and speak? Going once, going twice. I now close public comment. We will now move on to staff reports and presentations. Taxing Authority Consulting Services, and we have a presentation. And I am sorry, sir, I do not know your name.

And I apologize, I didn't send it ahead of time. My name is John Reif. R-I-F-E. R-I-F-E, yes, just like it sounds. Just wanted to introduce myself. I'm a partner with Taxing Authority Consulting Services. We're a law firm, and we... Our entire firm only represents governmental entities in Virginia and in collection matters for taxes. So I'll start off by saying, first off, localities don't have to pay our fee. So our fee is covered by the delinquent taxpayers that we are hired to try to collect from. And it's on a contingency basis. So it's capped by statute at 20% for non-litigation matters, for real estate litigation. It's at 25% if we have to go on into litigation. But just want to take this moment to introduce myself to you and what our firm does. So the packet that I gave you doesn't have a whole lot of information. It's got a lot of pictures. So we'll try to keep this light. I know you probably have a number of things that you have to do, but I do think that this topic is important. So I'd like to tell you a little bit about how we go about what we do. We're different from most other law firms. We realize that these individuals that we're contacting are constituents. I think that's served us well in the Commonwealth, and that's one of the reasons that we represent over 135 Virginia City counties and towns from one side of the Commonwealth to the other. We understand that some folks are in difficult spots, so we do try to set up payment plans with individuals that they can live with. Obviously, the payment plans have to make sense because it's not going to make sense if they just pay more in interest and attorney's fees every single year when the accounts don't work. Thankfully, for real estate taxes, the General Assembly made a fix that actually made things better for folks that owe money. They can pay their current bills current if they're on a payment plan with us, and we encourage them to do that. So our firm's also a little bit different in that we're attorney-light and staff-heavy. We operate a full-blown call center to try to maintain communications with individuals, both inbound and outbound telephone calls. Every call that comes in or goes out is recorded. So if there is ever a question about an interaction with an individual, we're able to go pull that. And hopefully the call was handled the way everyone was trained. And if not, we use that as a training opportunity for our folks. We also are different in that we are very highly vested in technology. We don't just throw people at collections and try to call folks. We do try to handle our collections with data. IT operations, we probably get... I don't know how many flat files we get a day, but it's, it's plenty. So our, each of our clients get a secure data portal. We take data security and privacy very seriously. So we, we have a, we are SOC certified, which if any of you know what that is, it's not an easy thing to get. And we're just now started off our kickoff meeting today for the SOC certification for this year. So I'm not looking forward to the next four weeks, but yeah, We operate through workflows, and that helps us maintain the accounts in a consistent manner in our collections and how we approach the collections. We do send out letters, emails, encouraging folks to pay. Best of all, we remit to our localities every week. Now, we do hold those funds for 10 days to make sure the checks are good. It just saves on staff time on our side and on the locality side so that we know when we remit those funds that they're good and we don't have to ask for a refund back from the locality if a check comes back bad. and our payments are sent over through our secure portal. We don't send anything via email, and we ACH the funds so that the very next day that they're in the locality's account. Yeah, as I mentioned, We're starting out with real estate tax collection for the town, and we understand that that process is slow. And with some of the litigation costs that are involved with it, for those people who want to redeem their property, it can be expensive. So we do try a collections approach before we go to litigation and then those costs start adding up for individuals. We've been doing this a long time. My very first case out of law school was a real estate tax case down in Smith County, Virginia. So I've kept doing it since then. But we know how to do these cases and we try to save the taxpayers money any way we can and allow them to redeem the properties. We collect all different types of accounts. I think eventually we'll move into some other accounts for the town, but for now we're starting off with real estate taxes. But I hope that the little bit of information I've shared with you and the footprint that you see from our geographic footprint gives you some comfort with the type of work we do and the manner in which we handle accounts for taxpayers. But I'm happy to answer any questions that council might have.

Ms. Davis. Where are you located?

Well, we have three offices. One is in Henrico, one is in Martinsville, and one is in Lebanon out in Southwest Virginia.

Madam Mayor? I have a question.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, John.

Yeah. This is either for the gentleman, Mr. Ripe, or for whoever here on the council or India knows the answer. I'm just curious about what is the level of problem we have with collection of real estate taxes in Bowling Green?

Thanks, Councilman Chennault. I'll just say, based on the most recent poll that we've worked with the team, we probably have about $80,000 in past due payments just in last year alone as part of our, obviously, process to ensure that we are collecting what the town is owed and proper management. We want to ensure that we have the accurate information that we have in our new financial systems to ensure that we can collect exactly what the town is owed so we are not burdening other taxpayers for those who are delinquent and negligent in that way. I will also share, council did approve this several meetings back. And this will be the first time we're doing this since I think 2018 or 2019 during the Reese Peck era. And I will also share after these items go to collection and they go to tax, our staff here in town have nothing to do with the process. They will work directly with tax for resolving those delinquent matters once they reach their office. So they will not come to town hall. We won't answer questions related to it. They will all have to work through their team.

Dr. Chenault, do you have any follow-up question so I can move on to someone else because I can't see you?

No, I'm fine. Thank you.

Mr. Stork. So in the past, India, who did we use to do this? The same firm, Texas. Okay.

LiceMare.

LiceMare Coil.

SOC Service Organization Controls. Yes. And you're on SOC 2?

We have a, so our first one was last year. We have a SOC 2 Type 1. We're doing a SOC 2 Type 1 again this year. Next year, we'll go to the Type 2. Okay.

Thank you. With your service. If somebody gets far behind, are we entitled to take their property over if they don't pay?

So there's a few different ways to answer that. For the most part, there's two different ways. tracks that a property can go. If it's for the lower value properties, there's a non-judicial sale track. The taxes have to be delinquent more than three years, and the property has to be valued under $15,000. That does not go to circuit court. If it's valued over that, there's a small portion of properties that could still qualify for non-judicial sale, but we're typically going to the judicial sale route. And in those cases, it's it's required to go to a public auction. So, but there are some cases that there's a statute that allows a locality to actually take title to the property without taking it to a public sale. But those are very rare instances where the taxes exceed, the taxes exceed 50% of the overall value of the property, you might see a situation like that where a locality has had to go in and there was a structure that had taxes for the last 15 years and the locality had demolished the structure. And now all you have left is the land value, but you have a high level of taxes. So in those cases, a locality can ask to have the court appoint a special commissioner to convey the deed over to the locality. That doesn't happen a lot, but hopefully that answered the question.

Thank you. Are there any other questions from this council?

Thank you, Mr. Reif. I appreciate the opportunity to present before the council.

I appreciate you being here.

Happy to come back anytime we need.

Item number eight on the agenda is the Finance Director Treasurer's Report. You have the budget versus actual in front of you. Ms. Tamika, are you coming up? Do you need to? Are there any questions from this council? There's no reason to come up. We will move on to item number nine, the town manager's report. Ms. India Adams-Jacobs, you will have the floor at this time.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll be brief. In the interest of time, it has been a very busy summer, so I thank you, Councilman Webb, for acknowledging that all of the infrastructure projects that have been underway, and I thank Mr. Fortune and his staff, as well as Mr. Lankford and his staff, his firm for all of the work in preparing and repairing some of our emergency repairs on Innistreet, also the planned repairs on Main Street. Also would like to welcome Mr. Perry Hickman to our team to help manage our capital projects and grants portfolio. I'd also just like to remind with the tremendous amount of grant awards that we have been awarded for some of our infrastructure projects that did necessitate The need for a position to help manage those, as there is a tremendous administrative burden that comes with a lot of the federal funds and state funds. And we do know that that number is just over about $11 million. So, we are beginning to plan for most of those reimbursable grants. And Perry has hit the ground running. working with both the state and our federal partners. In fact, we met with Congressman Vindman's representative this morning to talk a little bit more about the CFP process, where we currently have a project that we've been awarded $750,000 for water line replacement, and then looking towards future projects, both at the CPS level and then on the Senate side, on the CDS level. Next, we received a preliminary draft FY27 audit. Our team is working to review that and get that tied up with our auditor for a presentation at next month's council meeting. I did receive news today from Kaboom that we are officially funded for our playground. So round of applause to everyone who's been involved in that. And I know that's a long time coming. So as a great town manager, I'm happy to announce that. And I know my mother, I think, and my kids are probably the most excited over any project that I've done so far, that we will be getting a new playground in town. Please mark on your calendar August 21st for Design Day. And then the building of that playground will be in the end of October, the Friday, Thursday, and Wednesday before Halloween. So we'll have a spooky build. You can wear your costumes as you come and help. And I'd like to also thank Vice Mayor Coyle for her work on this over the years, as well as Councilman Hageman, who has done a Kaboom project before and has volunteered to kind of help with some of that project management team there, and Councilman Webb as well, who has pledged to help us with some of the construction. And we will be looking for volunteers for that playground construction as well. And so we will do some more announcements, the mayor, myself, and hopefully some kids will be able to do some official announcements once we get the official paperwork completed and then have more details on what the final design will be in the coming weeks. So very excited on that. I'll end with that. The rest of the information is in my report.

Thank you. I know at our very first retreat, That was one of my expressed wishes was that we have a new playground for this community. And everyone was so bogged down at the time with our infrastructure issues, but we didn't stop dreaming. We didn't stop reaching and we have achieved our goal. So kudos to all of us that have worked so hard together to push this through. Next, we will have Chief Cecil come up.

and give our Bowling Green Police Department report.

Welcome Chief Cecil. Thank you so much for the wonderful, wonderful night out Tuesday. Even with the rain, we had a blast. We ate almost 200 pieces of pizza and we danced in the rain and had a great time. So go ahead and give your report.

all my numbers are in the packet for the month of July and August I'm sorry June and July

But again, we did have National Night Out Tuesday night, and I wanted to thank everybody who either donated or participated or helped out with that event. Like you said, it was rainy, but we did give out 200 slices of pizza. Courthouse Lane Apartments donated drinks, chips, things to that nature. Fire Department came as well as REC, so a big shout out to them for helping out.

Yes, thank you. Are there any questions for Chief at this time?

I got a quick one. It looks like the calls went up a little bit on this report than last time.

Yes, sir. So that number is a number that I'm getting from the Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center. So it's a little bit of everything. It's not just calls for service, anything that we do. I believe it was 177.

Is it always a two-month one? I'm blanking at the moment. Is it what? Well, this is June and July. Was the last report you gave a... Well, we didn't have a meeting last month, so... This is for the 12th. I got you. Yeah, so it's not really an uptick. Right. Right.

Thanks.

Anything else? Thank you, Chief Cecil. Thank you. Mr. Sean Fortune, our Public Works Director, we have his report in front of us. I'm sure that you have all looked at it. Are there any questions for Mr. Fortune at this time? Mr. Fortune, do you have any comments to me?

No, ma'am. Okay. Madam Mayor, I'd also just like to give Sean some kudos. Obviously, his team has worked tremendously hard on all of the planned projects, but they've also been doing a lot of extra with the town hall upgrades that are required as part of our insurance follow-up. But also, they did finish the copper and lead compliance matters that we brought back several months ago. And so I'll be working with Daniel at True Panty to make sure that process is squared away from a compliance perspective. But they did a lot of the digging and the site visits at those 110 homes in several months in the heat. So I'd like to thank them for their extra work because that is a government mandate, extra work.

Thank you, Mr. Fortune. And also, Justin left, but I'd like to thank him. We had a couple of incidents at nighttime, and he came back out and a couple of fire hydrants ran into, and he responded. He stayed out there the whole time with me and assisted me, so I'd like to thank him for his time and effort.

Thank you. That's very kind of you.

Madam Mayor. Yes, sir. If I could have the town manager speak briefly about Mr. Jordan. Justin. Justin Jordan.

Oh, it's promotion.

Yeah, just wanted to bring that up. All right, Sean.

Yes, it's your staff.

Brag on them.

Yeah, Justin got promoted to maintenance worker, too. He's been stuck in one position for a while. Really, Justin has been doing the position, but he just wasn't getting paid for it. He had to get trained up a little better on some things, and he's very, very excited about it. I mean, he's just been grinning from ear to ear about it, especially when they put him on Facebook, and I ain't heard the end of that yet.

That was fun. I just want to give congrats to him. Good job.

Notoriety can go to your head. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Fortune. At this time, we'll move on to item number 12, and Mr. Mark Imboden is here with our utilities report. Welcome, Mr. Imboden.

Hello. Good to be with you all this evening. All right. Situated here. Any questions about the utility report? Some things to note, we had 147,000 gallon average day usage for the water and the wastewater paired nicely with what we typically see in our production trends at 116,000 gallons per day production for the wastewater plant. For the water side, some operational notes. There was a booster pump at the water tower that we had to have isolated and shut off for quite some time. And that was due to a check valve that was inoperable. Sean and I were able to isolate the isolation valve a little further to allow for a check valve replacement, and that occurred. And so that booster pump is now back online. So we have a true duplex situation there. A UV light sensor was repaired on the wastewater side. And then also the sludge bag, we had finished filling that and we cut that open and that is drying out nicely. It came from the plant prior to coming here and things are looking very well. Our laboratory ran some analytics on the sludge and we have around a 10.6% solids. Not too bad for a first go. I think we can get a little better, but the results are surprising and we'll get into the sludge dewatering project a little bit later on in our meeting agenda here. But for the UV or the utility report, that's kind of our utility report and happy to take any questions if you have any.

Dr. Chennault, do you have any questions at this time? No, no. Okay. Is anyone on this council? Mr. Stork?

So is that our first bag we filled? That's it. Yes, sir.

And what period of time was that? Three months? So that was about a three-month period. We were hoping for... I was expecting a lot longer. Oh, really? Yeah. To be frank, I was hoping for a year, but it filled up a lot faster than what was anticipated. A lot of the performance stats that we were throwing around came from the manufacturer, the representative. And so... maybe have oversold it slightly, but the true real world, the pilot study showed us that we can expect between three and four months of usage out of one round tube bag. But the solution that we're gonna be presenting later on this evening is gonna be slightly different, but I think it will be just as effective if not more. Yeah, great question.

Mr. Voigt.

Yeah, on that same note, what was the initial target for a solid percentage?

I mirror it to what a belt press or a centrifuge can achieve. And that could be anywhere between 18 and upwards to 30% solids. So more higher concentration of solids. But for a complete gravity-based dewatering separation system, 10% is... It's mediocre. It's a C plus right now. I was hoping for an A, but we didn't get there. Some of that is just a little bit of the flock management, some chemical injection management, and that will only improve with time. Yeah, there's things you can find too as you go. That's right.

Any other questions from council? If you would stay there, please. Mr. Hickman, could you come forward, please?

I joked with Mr. Hickman that he's going to have to take over here.

I would like the deputy clerk to read the background on this at this time. Item number 13.

Is your speaker on? I'll turn mine on. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

The purpose of this memorandum is to request approval of a capital improvement project at the wastewater treatment facility.

Redumptancy by having a second crying bed as to advance capital improvements to public systems. A second crying bed to secure a bid in both Environmental Services Incorporated

for upgrades at the wastewater treatment facility. This redundancy measure had been previously introduced and discussed during a Toronto Town Council meeting.

That's great. Yeah, thank you for the introduction. So I threw together just a simple slide deck, has some good photos in it as well to kind of give some descriptions and some visual cues to what we are looking at implementing here at the wastewater treatment plant. And so if we go to, yeah, that's great, thank you. All right, so we'll start off with what was the challenge that we were trying to solve? What was the solution that we were going for? And really, it's around sludge dewatering. Sludge management is an integral part of the wastewater treatment plant process, and without it, we're not going to have an effective treatment process, and we will have violations to our permit from DEQ. And so the challenges that we were trying to meet was the existing drying beds, they were slow. They're slow to drain. They relied completely based off of weather patterns and in the colder months or the rainy season or humid seasons, they didn't dry very well. They had poor drainage in the sand drying beds. And they were also labor intensive to go in there with a backhoe or a skid loader and literally fork out all of the dried sludge into a bucket and load out and also takes a large footprint. And so all of these things were challenges that we needed to solve. And so what we provided was a pilot study. We'd initially looked at a belt press, but through collaboration and some meetings with Moonshot Missions, you guys have heard that name before, we came up with a proposed solution that we really wanted to try out here at the town and to see if it would be effective for our needs. And that is a geotextile dewatering solution. And so think of like a large sock that allows the water to filter out and it retains all the sludge and allows the sludge to be retained so that can then be scooped out and hauled off to the landfill. And so that's what we did. And that process really kind of involved three steps. The first step was repairing one, you have five drying beds, we repaired one of those drying beds. We picked the one right in the middle so we had ample space on both sides if necessary. But we picked the middle one. Sean, with the town's contractor, completely took out the sand, the pea gravel, replaced the under drain, and they put new PVC piping back. They added 57 gravels up to grade. And we then brought our equipment, and we purchased all the geotextile dewatering equipment. That equipment, including the bag, it's a third, or I think it's a 60 foot by five foot diameter bag that was rolled out on top of this renovated sand drying bed. We set up some flocculation equipment, which is just a fancy word of allowing all the solids to come together and allow the clear water to kind of fall out of solution and retain the solids. And so we set up the flocculation equipment, a sludge pump, We fed the system, and it worked fine. It worked okay. There are some improvements. After talking with the manufacturer, there are some improvements that we can make, particularly with the injection of the chemical, as we discussed earlier. We had about a 10% solids. We can do better on that, and I think that will get better with time. But that was the pilot study. That's what we did. That was the solution to the challenge that we had. And it did provide some strong results. Barry, if you need to hop in and talk about anything, you don't have to listen to me. All right.

So we- Excuse me one minute, Mr. Hageman.

Mark, when that bag is full and you cut it open, where is the sludge going then? Just in an old drying bed? Or what are we doing in the meantime to get a new bag there?

So the current situation right now is the bag is cut open and allowing the solids to air dry. And what we are doing in the meantime is what we've been doing, and that's hauling liquid sludge to a sludge receiving facility. But the solution that we're going to propose will hopefully guard against that. And the pilot study setup that we had, that we're going to retain that as a backup. And so we won't be put into this type of situation again. Yeah, great question. So the pilot study did reveal two issues. And it is exactly the issues that we just discussed. One is the prolonged in-bed drainage. We only modified one bed. And after that geotextile tube is full, it needs to sit. It needs to sit for about two months to finish draining, to finish dewatering. And we got away with like four months of three months of dewatering. disposing into this geotextile bag, but it's gonna take another significant time for it to continue drying. And so prolonged in bed drainage was an issue. And so that one isolated available drying bed is no longer available to us to press into essentially. And so that was one problem that we identified. And then two is just the disposal complications. So each time the bag is full, the bag is not reusable. It's a consumable part of the process. So that is cut open. It is laid out to the sides and the solids that are in the center are scooped up with just a mechanical, like a tractor with a loader or a skid loader or a backhoe. And that's loaded into either a dump truck or roll-off container and taken to the landfill. And so that is a very manual process, and the solution that we're going to present is going to do away with that very manual process. And doing away with that manual process will decrease the cost, the ongoing operational cost of the solution. And so I will also say that the disposal is going to, the ultimate end disposal is going to be at the King George County Waste Management Landfill. We have already had discussions with them. We have approval to dispose of solids, solid cake at the landfill in our sludge disposal management plan with DEQ. We've even collected solids samples and sent them off to our laboratory for analysis. They wanted to look at the paint filter, which is just testing the amount of free liquids that pass. They also looked at different metal constituents. There's a whole list of prerequisite tests that you have to do. So we did those pass. They acknowledge that they will receive our sludge. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

May I ask you, in the past, we've had an issue with the filamentous, is that still an issue? I haven't heard it mentioned in quite a while. It's not.

And filamentous can be brought on by a couple of different things, but it's poor treatment brought on by either improper solids management, or it could be caused by other issues such as fat soils and grease. But the filamentous issue is not persistent at the plant.

That's wonderful.

Thank you. And our utility report does include effluent quality monitoring that we do on a weekly or routine basis as the permit requires. And you can see that some of the analysis that we sample for below laboratory detection limit. And so the laboratory is verifying that the treatment plant is operating very well.

Very good.

Any more questions?

How many of those bags did we buy?

We have two bags. We've used one, so we have one spare.

Okay.

Yep. And our goal is to use that spare as our ongoing redundancy.

Thank you.

All right, so here is the solution that we're going to present to you. And this is the containerized dewatering box. And without having you guys have to read this slide, I'll just show you pictures. I like pictures better. So this is, it looks like a big old dumpster because that's really what it is. It's a big old dumpster that's been retrofitted to allow for a drainage of a dewatering bag that fits this size. This is a 30 yard dumpster that has been modified with netting on the sides, the front and the bottom. And it also has, they call it a mattress of drainage tile on the very bottom. And that's what, so there's laser pointer. Maybe it does. There it is. So this is the mattress that they're calling this the mattress. This is basically just drain tile. And that allows the water to drain out. There is also on the sides, you can't see them from these photos, but on the sides, there's over 60 different holes that are penetrated throughout this dumpster that allows water to drain. And so this dumpster allows for enhanced drainage of the bag. And that'll allow for a greater throughput of solids and a faster drying times. The manufacturer's rep, now we talked about over promising under delivering from a manufacturer, but they said, you can press into this thing on a Friday and take it to the landfill on a Monday. We'll see. But that is to be determined. But I do feel confident that this is a better setup. It is smaller in size. And so we're not going to be pumping into this thing for a series of months. Our anticipated usage rate of one dumpster bag is going to be one a month. I'm pretty sure that's what we're going to see. But time will tell. But this is the solution that we are presenting. Everything else is the same. The sludge pump, the rotary sludge pump that is in our proposal, we'll be using that to pump into these bags. It's the same sieve size of the bag. It's the same type of bag, has the same fill tube. We're using the same polymers. Everything's the same other than the mechanism that allows the dewatering bag to drain. And that was the holdup with the previous pilot. issue the pilot solution any questions on on this back you said that it's one per month at what cost i have that at the very bottom but we're estimating around ten thousand dollars a year a year a year oh okay um mr chanel did you have a question no no that sounds good to me okay vice mayor coil yeah just can you just explain again the drainage pipes that are underneath the weave That's right. These right here, these are the drainage tiles. And so those are like four-inch ABS drainage tiles. And so those pipes have perforations from top to bottom, and they allow water to infiltrate into those pipes and then drain out. And then there's also... right angle metal that's adhered to the roll-off container. So when we fill this bag after our operators fill this bag and it's full sludge, it needs to be taken off, we call in a sludge hauler or a dumpster hauler. They take this dumpster to the landfill and they dump it into the landfill and they bring our dumpster back. And so that eliminates the cost of cutting the bag open, letting it air dry, coming in, scooping it out, putting it into a dumpster or a dump truck, hauling that out. It's a very streamlined process.

I'm sorry. When you dump this, you're bringing it back. Is there a cleaning process in this? It sounds kind of nasty to be moving something like this back and forth.

None that I know of. I mean, it might use a hose down every now and then, but no sanitization or decon.

So it's not going to pose any kind of E. coli problem for any of our staff? No.

No, no, it's no more than what is typical with the job.

Okay. Any other questions, Mr. Hageman?

Mark, all the rain that we've been getting the last two or three weeks, how was that? That's probably going to be affecting the drying process, isn't it?

It could. just with like humidity and such. But what is different with a setup like this and with the setup of just the regular drying beds is that when we pour a drying bed, we're pouring the liquid sludge right into the drying bed. No, we're not adding any chemicals. We're not doing anything to modify the consistency of that sludge matrix. With a dewatering solution like this, we're adding in a polymer, which is a flocculant. And the flocculant, Most things in nature are negatively charged and the solids are negatively charged as well. We're adding a positive charge chemical, a polymer, and opposites attract. The sludge binds together and the water that was in between the sludge particles comes out. The chemistry is pretty crazy. I should have added a photo of what you see in the flock. It's basically that they put it into a five gallon bucket to make sure they get the right chemical injection. And it's basically a bucket of water with some brown flakes floating around in it. Whereas before, it looked like chocolate milk before. So the polymer is a big X factor in this process.

Mr. Webb. Hold on, Dave. Mark, I heard you say that you would press that. I mean, do you do any pressing once it's in the dumpster?

No. No pressing. I thought about that. Can we squeeze it a little bit? But no. No.

I just thought you mentioned that if you did press it, you could haul it out the next day, and I wasn't sure if that was part of the process. Just curious.

That's part of this process. And I might have misused when I'm saying press into it as in we filter into it or we pump into the bag. Yes, that's right.

But, I mean, in the process now, we still have to haul off. Right now, our guys, somebody has to get in and manually pick it all up. It seems like a lot cleaner process. It's going to be a lot. Because you're still hauling the same thing out. That's correct.

That's correct. Mr. Stork. And so this roll-off dumpster, is it underneath the roof? It is. So the rain really doesn't get on it. That's right.

That's right. It is. All this will be under the roof. Do I talk about that in my next slide? This is a comparison of sludge hauling versus on-site dewatering. And essentially, we have a one-time capital cost of that $48,500. We'll have a reoccurring cost of chemicals and the consumables, the bags. But annually, just hauling liquid sludge, we've estimated that at $312,000 a year. And so we will, the return on this investment is inside of three months. Really, it's going to be like two months. And so the math, math, it really does. But one thing that we need to do, this is a comparison table, and I won't go into all this unless you guys have questions, but this is a comparison table of all three, the sand beds, the geotubes, and the dewatering box. And the dewatering box is what we're selecting here. But what we will need to do, we will have to do a bed modification. So this cost is going to be outside of purchasing the dewatering box and also purchasing some additional equipment. So we have a rotary sludge pump that we need to purchase. We have the dewatering box that we need to purchase. That's just sheer equipment. And then we also have to modify an additional bed. And so we need to do that for a couple different reasons. One, we need to retain the bed that we've already renovated for our ground bag backup. That is then our fail-safe. That's what we're going to use as our fail-safe. The other thing is we need to renovate an existing drying bed because the existing drying beds have concrete islands. And so imagine this big roll-off container. It needs to roll on something. Well, the one bed that we modified, that's just – 57 gravel. We can't roll a roll-off or a dumpster container on that. And so we're going to remove about 18 inches of the fine, I call it beach volleyball sand that's on there now, get down to the pea gravel, fill back up to match the grade of the concrete islands, and then that's where we're going to put in our dewatering box.

You said fill back up, fill back up with sand to grade.

Right, so we'll take out 18 inches of sand and then we'll put back in 18 inches of 57 gravel or P gravel, really whatever's economical.

So you won't have to go back to a filtering sand like we had to have before. Right, correct. Very good. Any other questions? Go ahead, Mr. Voigt. Okay.

The first one, so we did the pilot program. We were all on board with that. That was cool. We kind of liked the balloon idea. You learned a lot, we learned a lot. And it worked pretty well. This seems to be the big brother to that. Because one of the natural questions one would think when you're pumping it all into a bag like that is, okay, well, this is a consumable version. You got to keep redoing it. What about the permanent version of it? So yeah, metal container, do the same kind of thing. Still needs a bag, but it's not as big of a concealable as it was before. I liken it like, and I want you to correct me on all this stuff and this analogy coming up, but let's go with your chocolate milk you said a second ago. I like chocolate milk. I pour some milk. I put some chocolate in it. I use a spoon. I learn I really like it, so then I go and buy an immersion blender. This is the immersion blender to the spoon. Okay. It's a very loose analogy, but I wanted to use chocolate milk.

But that paints the picture a little bit.

But I did have a question going into it. I like your comparison things here. And the one thing I wasn't seeing just for the giggles of it is if – you redid and just did two bags. Because if you did alternative bags, that would be a different cost. I didn't see that cost just to compare it. I like what I'm seeing here, but that's one of the things I would have wanted to be able to be like, oh, this is what we cost if we continued that.

And I would say it's going to be around what we're going to be spending right here. one-time capital cost and it's going to be more expensive ongoing operational cost bigger bags equipment coming in hauling it out physical labor performing that and then you still have the tipping fees and hauling costs to the landfill here you only have the tipping fees and hauling costs of the landfill and then the consumable part labor is less equipment wear and tear that's all less and that's one other thing i wanted to ask is the so they can just that's just they just haul it away like a dumpster so they can mechanically lift that that's it yeah that's good yeah you'll bring one of those trucks and looks like it has two big rails with some pulleys on it and it'll pull that dumpster up up onto the bed of that that truck with its pulley system and rail system and then that that whole container will ride on the back of that truck to the landfill they'll tip it out of the landfill and they'll bring that box right back then the process starts over again and how long does that take does trip there and back. I'm not sure, but less than a day. And we would pump into this bag once a week. And so there's ample amount of time for it to dry. So you can hold it and then you can use it. You don't have to pump into the reserve bag during that interlude.

You got it. Sounds good.

Councilman Webb. You know, the bag that goes inside the dumpster, I mean, is that replaced every time? It is. It is. And like, how long does that take?

The replacement of the dumpster or the replacement of the bag?

I'm saying after it's dumped, you know, it comes back. Now they have to replace that bag. Is that a... difficult or I just, I'm more curious than anything.

Sure. And if, if anyone wants to see the process, yeah, we'd be happy to show you, give you a plant tour as well. But it, they come up, they're, they're in big roles. And it's like rolling out a tent for camping. You find the door and you roll it out accordingly and then you fold it back. Well, they fold it so it's situated where you roll it one way and it's good to go. And it's prefabricated to that dumpster. It's a 30-yard dumpster. And so you roll it out. There's usually two holes where fill tubes, just PVC pipe that gets put in there, and then there's pipe clamps that get cinched around those fill tubes, and that's how you pump into these.

Any other questions at this time?

Very good.

Okay. reiterating everything that we've already said. And that's kind of where we are right now. The implementation plan right now is one is obviously council approval to do this. And then two, we need to confirm the disposal pricing with King George County. We'll need to make sure that that fits within our budget. We'll need to modify the bed. That's going to be on Sean and his contractor. Sean's already working with them. We'll procure and install it. I had a conversation yesterday with the vendor. They said once we get a green light, it's eight to 12 weeks lead time for the dumpster to show up here. And then when it shows up here, they're going to come with their people and they're going to set it up for the first time. They'll give some training and some startup on it. And we'll be off to the races within 24 hours of the box getting here. We'll operate it and verify, and then we'll retain our existing geobag ground bag as a backup. So, and that's a wrap.

Very good. Any other questions at this time? Mr. Hickman, could you read us your staff recommendation, please?

Do you want a copy?

No, I've got it. I think I've got it here.

Okay. The staff... respectfully recommend approval of this capital improvement project funding request, which will add a second drying bed to the wastewater treatment facility and create redundancy within the system.

At this time, I would like to ask for a motion from this council.

I can still move that one.

I'll second it.

I have a draft motion written here. Could I have an amount attached to that motion, please?

And what was that amount?

$48,500. $48,500. Is there any discussion?

We have a motion to support the sludge management process totaling $48,500.

Would the deputy clerk please take a roll call?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you both.

Thank you.

We will next move on to item number 14. the financial consulting agreement. And would the deputy clerk read the purpose of this, please? At this time, I would like to turn the microphone over to our town manager, Ms. India Adams Jacobs.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Included in the packet, you see the scope of services. Ms. Morgan of CYM has been providing the service to the town for several years, satisfactorily and extraordinarily, actually. And so we definitely like to continue that relationship so we can continue with our pre-audit services and are continuing producing our audits in a timely fashion. This has been drafted by our town attorney, Mr. Gore. has already approved that for council consideration. So respectfully request, as the deputy clerk mentioned, the approval of the agreement.

Are there any questions at this time from council?

At this time, I'd like to ask for a motion from council.

I'll make the motion for the approval of the financial consultant services agreement.

I have a motion from Councilman Stork. Is there a second? I have a second from Vice Mayor Coyle. Any discussion? At this time, I would like to ask the Deputy Clerk to please take a roll call. Yes.

Vice Mayor Coyle?

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

I apologize.

I have to abstain.

No problem. Can you excuse me? Can you give a reason, please?

I'll give a reason. I have full faith and respect in it. It's on me that I didn't ask some questions prior to the meeting. So it's my fault.

Very good, Ms. Davis. Yes. At this time, motion passes six and one abstention. We will move on to item number 15, the budget amendment request. Ms. Tamika.

Good evening.

You're up here, Ms. Morgan, to speak to us.

Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Members of the Council. Tonight, before you, you have a budget amendment request for a supplemental appropriation, and this is for rollover from fiscal year 2020. and this is rolling over available funds that were already budgeted in that fiscal year, but had not been used. And so that it may be used in fiscal year 26, 27, this current fiscal year. I'll give you the summary. The purpose of this memorandum is to request approval of budget amendment and the amount of $43,460.93 to provide the supplemental appropriation necessary to complete these roll forwards. As stated in the fiscal detail, this is for revenues that were received for zoning and permit fees. These permit fees are associated with expenditures that will come in the current fiscal year. Therefore, we're going to take that out of fund balance because at the end of that fiscal year, it rolled into fund balance. Also, there are some expenditures that we were budgeting for, but those items had not been completely expended. That includes the Town Manager's Contingency Fund of $31,555.38, as well as Town Manager's town mayor expenses of $345.73 and town manager expenses of $4,059.82. And that totals the $43,460.93. Staff respectfully recommends approval of the attached budget amendment as presented. Is there a motion from council at this time?

I'll move that we move forward with it as presented.

I have a motion on the tape.

I can read the draft motion. I move to approve the budget amendment in the amount of $43,460.93, providing supplemental appropriations to reappropriate unspent funds from the FY 2025-2026 budget into the FY 2026-2027 budget for a year and roll forwards as presented.

I have a motion from Councilman Voigt. Is there a second? I'll second it. I have a second from Councilman Hageman. Is there any further discussion from this Council? Would the Deputy Clerk please take a roll call? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Madam. Thank you. Item number 16. I would like to ask the deputy clerk at this time to read the resolution.

Thank you.

It's a great place to be. It's a great place to be. It's a great place to be.

I ask for a motion to approve this.

Resolution? I'll make the motion. I move to appointment Ms. Vianne Baylor as Deputy Town Treasurer effective August 6th, 2026.

I have a motion from Councilman Hageman and a second from Vice Mayor Coyle. Is there any further discussion? At this time, I would like to ask the Deputy Clerk to please take a roll call.

Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Coyle?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Welcome to our team. Welcome to our staff. Welcome to our town. And we're thrilled to have you look forward to having a working relationship with you. Next, we will move on to item number 17. And I would like to ask the deputy clerk at this time to read the purpose of this memorandum.

Thank you.

At this time, is there any discussion on this? Would the town manager like to jump in on this?

Sure, Madam Mayor. So there's been a lot of discussion at both of the bodies. As Mr. Smith mentioned, we've had a sidebar meeting on some of the parking concerns, both at the EDA BGVA and then a smaller group, some business owners and property owners to discuss parking holistically. But we've started and decided that we would need to address our ordinance first before we could discuss any more conversations around signage, wayfinding, regulations, enforcement, because we identified some areas of conflict and just where there could be some more improvement as it relates to clarity. So, myself, as well as our town attorney, drafted and suggesting pulling out some of that information that was kind of buried in our town code and other areas and create standalone chapter so that's what you have before you we will have to have a public notice on this prior to adoption so this would be the first read and then at the next meeting you all could adopt if you so choose and then we'll move to the next items in our code revisions which will be the town charter and then the nuisance code so we're still moving along with that process I'd like to thank Danielle and Jeff for their work as well yes thank you

So your staff recommendation, do I have a motion at this time?

At this point, you all would just review it because you could give us a recommendation to proceed with the public notice. Myself, obviously we drafted it. We have reviewed it with chief as well. And so he's all good from an enforcement perspective. So if you want to have a motion for anything, it would be to go ahead with the public notice to publish the public notice. Mr. Webb.

So was there a parking ordinance or there really wasn't before? Here.

There was. Can you hear me okay? Oh, there we go. There was. But this one that's before you is much more comprehensive. So what you have in your packet, it will repeal what that town currently has. And you would... but replace that with what's in your packet. So like Ms. Jacobs said, it's really just a much more comprehensive parking ordinance that is, it's a typical parking ordinance. It's much more typical that you'd find this type of ordinance in other localities than the one that is currently on the town books.

Okay. I mean, I really haven't done a deep dive into it, but what are the big highlights? What are some of the things that we were deficient in?

I'm just curious. There were some challenges as it relates to interpretation of enforcement, parking zones, painting in certain zones where parking would not be allowed. Some lack of clarity on regulations and who had the ability to regulate. There was—the golf cart section was somewhere else. Certain streets weren't mentioned in certain areas. There wasn't specificity as it relates to the fines for certain enforcement. So, Chief's parking ticket has numbers and rates for each official offense, but that was not written in the ordinance, and those are just some off-the-cuff. But there were many others, so. Thank you.

So the big hot button issue that's always talked about, the amount of time you can park on Main Street, is that clearly addressed in here?

That was one of the things that basically was left to the town manager's discretion, and that's something that's still in here, kind of with that discretion, and we'll be continuing to work with the groups on refining that, but that is mostly unchanged. Okay.

You know, and what about all of the area that was painted downtown? You know, there are spaces, and then there were areas that you could park, and now you can't. We're not proposing to change any of that right now, or are we? And I know that the ordinance may not address that.

At this point, no. It's more to align with the updated code sections, and that's what we work with the attorney on.

I mean, I had heard about, you know, meeting, I don't know what the group was that met to talk about parking, but I mean, I think it sounded like a very positive meeting and made good progress. And it sounded exciting, you know, to kind of tie all that stuff together.

I guess at a high level first was addressing the concerns of the business community, which was kind of addressed at the EDA meeting. Obviously, we have challenges on Main Street, but we also have some challenges with, I would consider signage and wayfinding. Having done three different parking plans in municipalities now, I don't consider myself an expert in a lot of things, but parking is definitely one of them. I showed them the website pages that we created to show, A, the public where public parking is available, where private parking is available. the smaller group where we spoke with the property owners was really discussing if we were to have a thought about some shared signage in shared use parking lots, what that would look like, what the verbiage would need to look like. But we all kind of understood that we needed to clean up the ordinance first before we can even get to enforcement and then improving signage and wayfinding. So this was step one.

So what I'm asking from council is, do you recommend that we take a month and digest this before we make any motions? Or do you, is it your desire to go ahead and put this out for, what is it?

I just have to notice it.

Yeah, the notice.

Before you adopt it.

I think let's go ahead and put it out for notice. I mean, we've had a lot of committees about it. We've got this new ordinance now, so let's get it out and get it taken care of publicly, and then we can finally tweak it from there after that. So is that your motion? That's my motion, yes, ma'am.

So Mr. Hageman has a motion and a second from Vice Mayor Coyle. Is there any further discussion at this time? Dr. Chenault?

No discussion.

Okay. Then with a show of hands, all of those in favor, raise your right hand.

I'm raising.

Thank you, Dr. Chenault. Motion passes unanimously. We will move on to public comment. Ms. Cropper has already spoken and there is no one out here left to speak. So we will not have public comment. We'll move on to member comments. There is one thing I would like to mention to this council, but mostly to the citizens of the community because they question our expenses. quite frequently. The trip that I took to Kentucky was, I felt very strongly about this, and I did this completely at my own cost. This did not cost the town anything. So I wanted to make sure that that was cleared up before I heard differently from anyone. At this time, Ms. Davis, do you have any comments? I have none. Thank you. Mr. Voigt? Mr. Webb. Vice Mayor Coyle.

No.

Dr. Chenault. None.

Mr. Stork. I do have one, and I've gotten a lot of questions from residents, and I know I've been copying on some emails with some other councilmen, and I know that staff is aware of it and is working on it. But just for those watching, the overgrown properties on Milford Street, where are we on those issues? Yeah.

I can't speak about ongoing code enforcement matters specifically, but I can tell you for what we have received complaints on, we have followed up as well as the properties that may or may not be on delinquent list are being aggressively pursued by tax. And that is something we've consulted with our town attorney on as well. So we hope to see some movement in the next several months on some of those longstanding issues.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other business at this time from this council? Hearing none, I would like to ask for a motion to adjourn. I move so. Thank you. Second. All in favor? Yay! Motion to adjourn. Council members, we are adjourned.

Good night, Dr. John. Bye, everybody.

Bye, John. Bye, John. Good trip.