City Council - Regular Meeting

do this. Okay. Um I'd like to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting, February 17th, 2026. Um this is city council meeting and I would ask that you please silence all electronic devices. Okay. And um next I'll call on council member Dana Bigalow to offer our invocation. Pray with me. God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And God we trust. Amen. Amen.

At this time, I recognize City Clerk Beverly Smith um for our uh code of ethics, conflicts of interest. Members of council, it is my responsibility to remind you of your duty to avoid conflicts of interest. I ask if there are any potential conflicts concerning tonight's agenda items. No. And um we need to approve minutes from January 5th work session, January 6 council meeting, and January 20th city council meeting. I need a motion and a second to approve the minutes. Motion to approve. Second. All in favor? I

thank you. And we have additions to the consent agenda and consent agenda. Uh item L M N O P and Q. Those are listed on your agenda. Um and so we will add those to the consent agenda. We need a motion and a second to approve or deny the moved to a second. All in favor? I. Thank you. Kim, we need to adopt the agenda. I need a motion and a second to adopt or deny the agenda. Motion to adopt. With the addition. With the addition. With the additions. Thank you. Second. All in favor?

I. Thank you. Okay. The consent agenda is lengthy, so bear with me. You've got water in case you need it.

I do have water. Um, item A, to adopt a resolution and authorize the purchasing manager to process the sale of one 2014 Mac truck with an automated body and one 2016 Mac truck with an automated body via electronic auction through govdalss.com to the highest bidder pursuant to NCGS160A-270. Item B to authorize the city of Burlington to retain Stout Stewart McGovern and King LLP for their services in the fiscal year 202526 annual audit and authorize the mayor and chief finance officer to execute the contracts. Item C to approve the reclassification of the administration administrative assistant position paygrade 204 to an executive assistant paygrade 208 in city administration effective upon vacancy of that position. Item D to approve the reclassification of a part-time administrative assistant position to a full-time community risk reduction education administrative specialist paygrade 205 in the fire department. effective upon city council approval. Item E to approve the reclassification of the following positions in recreation and parks maintenance division effective as proposed. Park maintenance manager paygrade 210 to a park maintenance operations manager paygrade 212 effective February 28, 2026. Assistant park maintenance manager paygrade 207 to a park maintenance manager paygra 209 effective July 1, 2026. Turf Management Superintendent Paygrade 212 to a turf grass manager paygrade 211 effective February 28, 2026. Item F to approve the following temporary street closing request during the St.

Patrick's St. Patty's Day Bash special event hosted by the Burlington Recreation and Parks Department on Friday, March 13, 2026 from 2 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. That's Front Street from Spring Street to Worth Street and Main Street from Davis Street to Front Street. Item G, to approve a request for the use of Lake Kamak for the swimming portion of the second annual Trivium Triathlon on Saturday, June 20th, 2026 from 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. contingent upon meeting all requirements of the special event permit application process and NCDEQ notice of approval. Item H, to adopt an amendment of the 2026 fees and charges schedule establishing a smart meter opt out fee in the amount of $30 per month for utility customers opting out of the citywide automated meter reading system upgrade. Item I to approve budget amendment 2026-20 for recreation and parks to accommodate funds gifted by LabCore Charitable Foundation to winning agencies of the 2026 United Way of Alamance County Outstanding Volunteer Award. Item J to approve budget amendment 2026-21 for the Burlington Fire Department to accept and allocate various donations from Carolina Star Safety Conference Incorporated Theres Terresa Coin and Lucy Kernodal. Item K, to approve budget amendment 2026-22 for the police department to receive funds from Alamance County as reimbursement for the purchase of equipment for the Alamance Countywide opioid response team pursuant to a standing memorandum of understanding. Item L to adopt a resolution amending the link transit title 6 program for

FY2025 to FY2028. Item M to adopt an ordinance for the following traffic commission recommendations. One, to prohibit parking with towing enforced on the north side of Williamson Street for a distance approximately 250 ft east of Wood Avenue. And two, to convert Memorial Drive from a two-way traffic operation to a one-way traffic operation beginning at the southern connection to Hermitage Road to the northern connection to Hermitage Road. Item N to adopt a resolution to set a date of public hearing for March 3rd, 2026 to consider the annexation of Greon Lane dedicated public rightway. Item O to adopt a resolution to set a date of public hearing for March 3rd, 2026 to consider the annexation of Guilford Macintosh Park and Marina Ps. I'm not going to read all those numbers. If you want me to tell you what they are, I'll do that after the meeting. Item P, to adopt a resolution to set a date of public hearing for March 3rd, 2026 to consider the annexation of the Valley Golf Course. And item Q, to adopt a resolution to set a public hearing for March 3rd, 2026 to consider the annexation of University Commons City Lot. I'll entertain a motion and a second to approve or deny the foregoing consent agenda.

So move. Second. All in favor? Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Take a breath. I'm gonna drink some more.

Okay. Next, we have a public hearing. Item one for public hearing. Um, a public hearing has been scheduled for city council to receive comments on federal transit administration section 5310 and state urban match grant funding opportunity and to consider adopting a resolution authorizing the submission of the grant application to North Carolina Department of Transportation. This time I recognize transit manager John Endo. Top of the evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here today to talk to you about uh restating of a public hearing that we held uh la uh late last year in regards to our application uh with the North Carolina Department of Transportation for Federal Transit Administration grants as well as state grants. North Carolina Department of Transportation does require that we hold this public hearing to gather comments from the public about grant applications that we submit to them annually for various funding programs. Uh today in front of you, we have two projects that we are pursuing. And the reason why we're restating this public hearing is because for the section 5310 uh enhanced senior and persons with disabilities grant, we applied for uh operating funds to enhance our paratransit program to carry seniors and persons with disabilities within the city limits of Burlington and within a 3/4 mile radius of link transit routes as an enhanced level of service. We originally stated a 20% local match. NC DOT reached back out to us and stated it's actually a 50% local match. So, as you see on the screen above, um our grant request is 594,182 of which the city would contribute 297,091.

uh we already have these funds budgeted in our current fiscal year's budget and would continue to be budgeted in future fiscal year uh budgets. So there's really no change from uh this additional of uh 30% additional match that needs to be added. So this is more of a notification to the council that this is happening. Should also be noted that this is our second year of requesting this funding. We were granted these funds this fiscal year that we're using already today for providing that enhanced level of services. And then uh on the second portion of the public hearing, there's no change on it, but for the purposes of the public hearing, we're doing it anyways. It's the state urban match for capital. We're asking for 857,000 from the state and then we would utilize 15,423,000 uh 15423,000 and this is for the intent of uh designing and constructing a transit operations and maintenance facility as well as a transit uh passenger hub at municipal lot 8 that we discussed last night. So the total of the grant um is 17,137 uh,000. Um if we are successful for these funds uh then NCDOT will enter into a grant agreement with the city of Burlington. And as I stated um they do require that we hold a public hearing for this. I do want to note as it relates to the 5310 program as we discussed yesterday, this is the link transit service area. Uh we serve the city limits of Burlington as well as Gibsonville, Elon, Green Level, Hall River, uh Mebban as well as Alamance Community College. Um the areas in pink is the city limits of Burlington and the 5310 program would cover uh providing seniors and persons with disabilities door-to-door transportation within the city limits as well as within

the gray areas that you see on this map which is our 3/4 mile radius of the link transit routes since link transit has been designated as the urban transit provider for the Burlington Graham urbanized area. That concludes my presentation. and happy to answer any questions if there are any. Thank you so much. So, at this time, I'll open the floor for public comments on this item and ask um as you approach the dis that you state your name and address for the record. Do we have Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and and city council. My name is Peter Murphy. My address is 1933 Meadow View Drive in Graham, North Carolina. Uh my position is with Alamance County Public Transportation Authority and um I do have some comments on this grant because of the way this has been presented. Um this was done four months ago and now it's being redone and there's reasons for it being redone. Um but the um the concerns are that this this uh board was never given a copy of the the grant the application. They were given a description of it four months ago that was significantly different than the what was actually applied for. The amounts were the same, the grand total amounts, but the description is quite different and this is obligating a lot of funds from other jurisdictions also that haven't been presented to those jurisdictions. So to sum it up, you know, the these funds are to be used for um enhancing senior and elderly transportation, not replacing what you're required to do under ADA. And that's why, you know, link transit was set up as a system for doing both uh the fixed route service and the complimentary par transit services. They receive funding from the federal government to pay for that which pays for that at 8020. The 80% paid for by federal government. So all of the people with disabilities that get transported only costs the city 20% for those rides. The grant is asking to enhance that. So somebody that's 60 years old that lives near a bus stop but doesn't necessarily

want to ride the the fixed route can now call for a ride or a little bit of a further route. There are some benefits to this completely because there are people that live a half hour from bus stop that are told this is you got to walk to the bus stop. So now they will be able to get a ride but what's concerning is the cost of this ride. The cost of this ride is 64 $62.54 each way. So when we take somebody using this service to Walmart, that's $125 round trip for one individual as somebody that works in public transit. I I certainly support public transportation, but I have a difficult time seeing these numbers. Uh this is done by an out ofstate company. Um, the contract is being expanded 9,500 hours or 95 9500 trips. You currently do 9,500 trips on your ADA service. And I heard last night the transit manager saying, "We're able to use these funds to and we get to use these funds to pay for the services that we're already delivering." That's not what this grant's for. In fact, you are not allowed to use the grants to supplant existing required services and you're requiring the local taxpayer to pay 50% of that cost. That means the local taxpayer is paying $62 to take somebody to Walmart. That's an extreme price and that really needs to be looked at. Alamance County Transportation up till 2023 was providing fixed uh demand response services throughout the county.

I neglected to tell you how much time you had. I'm sorry. No, I didn't know it was limit. And and I will sum it up, but uh Alamance County work does this work and we'll be willing to work with y'all on getting a much better deal for the public and utilize these services. Plus, you have the opportunity, except it wasn't presented this way, of doing an 8020 by paying Alamance County Transportation to do it, but the coordination, and there's lots of talk of coordination in this uh grant, but there hasn't been any coordination, and I would ask for it. So, thank you very much for listen here as a resource. If you have any questions, reach out. I'm happy to answer them.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Are there other comments? um for this public hearing. With no other comments, um I need a motion to close the public hearing. Motion approved. Second. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you. Um, and we need um we need a motion to adopt the fiscal year 2027 resolution authorizing the submission of the grant application for section 5311 and applicable state funding or combination thereof to North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Madam Mayor, I'm not prepared to make that motion. I'd like to ask staff to verify some of the information. Okay, we've just heard her comment on that and include the due date for submission. What's our window to tinker with this if there is one? Just let us know what that looks like, please. Okay. Um, please restate the question. Just want me to respond to comment on the facts about the cost parameters and tell me when the grant is due and what is our window to redirect you to tinker with it if we decide that's appropriate based on the information you give us. I don't necessarily want to comment on the cost per hour because um the I believe that the cost per hour information I was presented by uh Mr. Murphy is not accurate. Okay.

Um however uh because we operate a combined transit system that takes into consideration fixed route and paratransit and while our demand response costs are a bit higher when you combine the fixed route costs collectively we're significantly lower. Um, so it's it's not appropriate to get into that type of discussion at this level. However, um, the grant application was already due in October and we're just having to redo this public hearing because we were notified that we had the we had to increase the local match requirements. I do want to preface though, however, um, that the funds that we're applying for is to enhance the link paratransit system. So seniors and those that are not ADA eligible can use the service on a door-to-d dooror basis. Mr. Murphy is correct. We do have paratransit funds through the urban funding program at an 8020 split that we're solely using for those clients that have applied for and are deemed ADA eligible and their first priority. But the seniors and nonADA persons with disabilities are second priority. And that's the purpose of this grant application, so we can provide th those services citywide as well as within the three/4er mile radius of link transit routes.

So if we approve the request tonight, then we wait to see if the grant has been approved and upon acceptance in that window, we could verify, fact check, and either accept or refute the grant based on spending levels that we verify. That is correct. Okay. This is merely an application at this point. Okay. And just as I just prefaceed, we're already doing the service today and this is our second year request of funds. Thank you. So, is there any clarification or amendment that you want to offer to this?

No, I don't I don't know that that's appropriate. I mean, I I think that I'm comfortable authorizing the submittal of the grant. Okay. And then into the near future, we can talk about what the numbers are, and I just need to get some level of comfort on what they are before we would approve acceptance of the grant and and uh put us in a position to have to expend money that might or might not be at the right level. Okay. I agree. We move forward with the application process, approving the application process. Is there a consent agenda for? So, do we um have a motion then to adopt? I got lost. Do you want me to read it through from the That'd be great,

sir. I'll make a motion that we adopt fiscal year 2027 resolution authorizing the submission of the grant application for section 5311 including ADTP 5310 5339 5307 and applicable state funding or combination thereof to North Carolina Department of Transportation and do we second? Okay. All in favor? I

thank you. That motion carries. Madame Mayor, if at this time I'd ask on a new item of business that's not on your agenda that arises out of last night's closed session, I would ask for a vote to of the city council and instruct legal council to pursue a lawsuit on behalf of the Verona neighborhood on behalf of the city of Burlington going after Burlington Road 140 LLC, Diamondback Investment Group LLC, Zachary TR individually in his corporate capacity as well as Lexon Insurance Company and any other name of any other appropriate defendants. Uh we're trying to get the top top so asphalt cover on the infrastructure out on that on that subdivision.

And do you need a motion? I'd like a motion please in a second. Okay. Mayor, I'll motion for to allow proceeding with the lawsuit against Verona and the clients listed. Okay.

Thank you. All in favor? I Thank you. Thank you. That brings us to our public comments section. Um so at this time I will um it looks like we have two people who are here to make public comments. Um and if your comments are not in relation to the public hearing, they are appropriate for this time. Um each speaker when you come to the deis if you would say your name address and um know that you have five minutes to speak and we will set a timer. Uh so I have um Jack Brewer.

Thank you Mr. Brewer.

Thank you so much. I represent Fellowship Baptist Church on 2744 Maple Avenue. Several of months ago, we received a uh letters pertaining to the wastewater runoff. Uh presently, uh we are paying uh a flat rate of $7 where we were $7 per month. And we received we have two pieces of property. And the uh new uh information that we received from the city uh gives a diagram of five years projected uh cost. The first year per month would be $35 for one piece of property and $21 for the second piece of property. It escalates a fiveyear period. I'm sure you're quite aware of all of this and maybe I've heard too much of it. I don't know. But nevertheless, uh over a fiveyear period, it is escalating from uh $7 now to one piece of property would be $147 per month and the uh second piece of property would be $77 per month. The first year the total cost for us would be 100 I mean 500672 $672 as opposed to $7. After five years it would be $268 per month. It's such a prohibitive increase for

small church on a good Sunday. we have 50 people something like that and uh so I come before you pleading for mercy and uh I'm sure that other people have uh probably you've heard from them as well but the church wanted me to represent them and uh present this to you for uh any reduction that you can possibly do on our behalf will be greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Have any questions? Any questions? No,

I understand totally. My church also had those same concerns. So, I do understand exactly where you're going. I'm going with that. And thank you for sharing this publicly with us. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And um next on the list is Pastor Jean Kates. How y'all doing?

Good evening. Good to see you again. Good to see you again. I'm get to know you. Okay. Well, as you know, I'm Pastor Jean Cakes. We run the Westside Project over on Shander Street and u our church is there too. And we feed this is our 18th year. We feed the homeless every night uh from downtown to all over. Um, and a lot of people asked how we do it. Well, we make a deal with the local restaurants to get their leftover food and we put it all together. But their lawyers said, "Can't do that anymore." So, we went with a proposal to them. I said, "I'll give you a dollar for your leftovers." Then, it's my food. So, we now buy leftover food for $1 and then we give it to the homeless and we feed families. But the reason I'm here was I wanted to meet you and I hadn't seen you. I

haven't seen you. Yes. I just asked about you. your hair. I went longer than the last time we did.

Yeah, a little bit longer. And you ain't got to Duncan booofy yet. I got in it. You did. But anyway, let's get on that. What we're here tonight for is to like I wanted to meet you. And also to update everybody. Some people kind of Some people thought I fell off the face of the earth, but I didn't. When all the white flag stuff last year came about, I didn't step away because we kept them in our church. I just kind of stepped to the side because there were so many different from the state calling you can do this and the city calling no you can't do that and I'm sitting there going okay I'm just going to step to the side and then we'll let everybody get this nailed down and while we were doing that I mean we we help out Angie a whole lot over at Mercing Grace and we thank her for what she does but while we're doing that we do a lot more than just feed the homeless we they have a place to come get clothes anyone can outdo store we have a game room where all the children can come have a safe place to come. And now we're getting ready in what, two, three months, we got our new windows coming in. We got our all our coolers and everything are in and we're getting ready to open up a start. It's not a food bank. It's a grocery store for people in need. So, working at Battleground, I'm able to talk with different transportation companies. So, what I've been doing is he has to go pick it up. Um, when you get a a bottle of of dome or a bottle of uh game and it's busted in that box, they throw it away, the whole box. So, we made agreements now and we pick it up and it gets it gets messy sometimes, but it's great because we also give away we give away clothes, we give away food, but now we're giving away washing clothes. You know how many people can't afford to buy their own to wash their clothes?

Absolutely. I think a woman come me crying because I gave her a whole big bottle of gain. And I'm sitting there going to us that's just normal. I mean but but to her you don't know. She said you don't know what it's like to take a bottle of Dawn and put it in your washing machine and try to wash your clothes. She said it don't work. And so we get it every week and we stock up to where it's a little warehouse now but you walk in it. I mean it looks just like a grocery store. just uh we're finishing up uh getting electrical completely done with Marco Electric Aspire. But the reason I'm here is we're getting ready to go in our hot season. We do what's called ugly food. I've told y'all about that. And we already started. We get anywhere from 30 to thou 30,000 pounds of tomatoes, uh roach, grapes. Man, them grapes are good. Cotton candy grapes. But anyway, from companies that say, "Well, this warehouse won't receive them." So, we get it and we give it out. But we want to expand. We want to used to used to have a farmers market downtown. I'd like to start sending stuff down there because we get so many calls of food. They said, "Okay, if you can come get it, we just got some of the best." What was it? Cheese, crunchy.

Yeah. They got mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce.

Oh, because the Italian restaurant didn't want it. They said we didn't order. So we went and got it. Bunch of people made pizzas that night. I know I did. But anyway, the thing is we're expanding with that. And I've been working along with Allan Blue with over here. And we finally got our Coca-Cola truck as you was talking about the bus. I'm thankful for that bus that transit. Why? That bad boy comes around and picks up the people that live around our area and then it brings them to us as well. And it's a real big help for them because we're getting ready now to have to start helping with Al because over to senior center where they have all the seniors living at. They're not getting their groceries. They're not able to get their food. So we're turning a Coca-Cola truck into a rolling grocery store and so the doors open up. They can come in. I got this idea out of New Jersey and we're going to be going to doing all that. And Allan's going to give me a free trial. We've been We tried and tried and tried just didn't work out. Now finally everything's starting to fall right in place and so this will help them out. We get we work with the government and they send me food as well sometimes. Not often but um some and you ever had a woman start crying at you because you can have I'm sorry. My dog

we'll give you a moment to wrap up. So

anyway, I just want to introduce everything that we do and we're getting ready to start that. um where the food will be delivered to. It's my only seniors to start out with, but what we're looking for now is um I'm looking for a place to put a pup put also. Uh you remember the old bowling alley? No. Uh they have black light public blacklight. I do publicry. I'm sorry. I don't do puppetry. Um they do black light pup. There you go. Anyway, and uh when they closed down, all that stuff got stuck in buildings and in trailers. Well, there's an auction came up on it and they all got I got outdated. But then to my knowledge, the auctioneer called me up and says, "No, you won." I said, "No, I didn't. I didn't buy it. I lost it." He says, "No, come pick his trailer up. It's yours." So, I went to go pick it up. I said, "How much do I owe?" He says, "Uhuh." I knew the auctioneer. He says, "Take it to the kids. Let them play." So, they donated it all to us. And so, we we're looking for a place for that. But, that's some of the things that we do. And but what we're wanting to talk to you about today is we're looking for property. Over a year and a half, well there ago, we started working with the pilot homes trying to get them here and we ran into every obstacle from the city. Nothing wrong with what you said. I mean that was just abiding by the law. But we ran into so many obstacles we had to step back on it too. But now we're stepping back forward. We want to help the homeless and the people that cannot afford a home right now. But the main thing is, and a lot of them don't want to do this, is there got to be accountability. If you move into one of these little homes, the people who are buying them and helping me with it, have this right here. You got one year, you can live there. We'll make certain, we make certain you get fed. You You can go out to your store, and get all clothes you want, but you got to volunteer your time while you're not working. Get out. Go to United Way, go to my store, whatever. Volunteer your time. And at that time, if you ain't got a GED, we got a GED program. will send or send you ACC, get

your GED. The other thing they want to see is people trying to get jobs. We need not just we're here to pick them up, not just to throw things at them. And so we've got to find property in the city of Burlington that meets the city's requirements because the lady was real nice to me when I talked to. She said, "Don't go buy property if we if it's not already approved because you you'll waste your money." And so that's some of the things that we got going on. And um we just want to sit down with you one day, just all of us, and discuss it and show and see which way happen we can go. Cuz if I got the churches wanting to help me out, I don't want to, you know what I'm trying to say. You know, you don't want to let them go. And this will give the homeless a great opportunity to be able to get their into a home, stay for one year. That's and have get the help that they need and move on and get their own home. I mean, it's easy to feed the homeless. It's easy to give them something to eat and then they go on their way, but to help them get where they can feed themselves and help them get where they can get on their own feet, that's the main goal.

And so we will follow up with you and set up a time, okay, to have more conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate what y'all do. Yeah. And those were all the people who signed up for our um public comments this evening. Um, at this time I'll turn to city council. Do you have any comments that you'd like to make? Anybody? I do. Okay.

At at the risk of being just a little bit cheesy, I want to start by saying that I'm I'm proud and pleased to be part of this body that is uh committed to professionally and passionately debating and discussing issues. And I don't think we got passionate last night, but we certainly had some differences of opinions. And uh during that process, Councilman Beltudas talked about pulling levers to make sure that we're uh prospectively changing uh behaviors in our community. And I wanted to follow up on that and and I spoke with Chief Balog and some other staff members. And I feel like we're doing that at a at a pretty engaged level now. and thought I'd just take this moment to encourage our city staffers to continue to do that and perhaps track that uh city manager uh for 6 months or so and then report back about the effectiveness of whether we can or cannot ultimately reduce some future calls for service at properties that we've identified and then uh let us know how effective that is. Right? And in that way we can improve those communities in the short term and then better understand what our influence might be in the long term. So that's my request.

Certainly we can we can do that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Appreciate it. Other comments.

Mayor, I'll share one a huge thank you to our staff and the community who participated this weekend in Burlington's 133rd anniversary. It was fun to have a bow renewal and commitment to friendship and community plus wonderful weather and see so many folks downtown celebrating that and Valentine's Day which happened to be the day. Uh so I look forward to celebrating again next year on February 14th and bring some more fun activities to the community. Um also want to share a big thank you to everyone who brought the uh the food lion uh a whole bill Hayes uh project together. Uh it was we had a groundbreaking on Monday. Uh credit to Adam and the team uh and really everybody who's worked on that incredible economic development project. So it was delightful to be able to be there to celebrate and to see Burlington's logo so proudly displayed on on that development. And lastly to Attorney Huffman and the team, thank you for bringing that lawsuit forward. I know I talked to a lot of those neighbors when I was knocking doors this campaign. tragic to see these developments that have been neglected by the developer and what folks are having to live through. So, appreciate being able to help hopefully bring some resolution for them.

Mayor, did you mention that we would follow up with this gentleman from Fellowship Baptist? Um, some somebody definitely will follow up with you. Yes. Thank you so much. Yeah, I did not say that. Thank you.

Other comments from council. Um, I just want to say we did not, what is today? Today is the 17th. We did not have council meeting two weeks ago because of winter weather. Um, and so I just want to say a a big thank you to the city of Burlington staff for the cleanup of winter weather. Um, I I received uh a lot of emails and text messages thanking me and I thought that was hilarious. Um, but um I did to all of them. I said I will pass that on and to our city staff um you did an amazing job um with the city of Burlington. So, thank you for that. and and you know being around the building the week before that storm got here, seeing the extra work that was happening. Um we have we have an amazing dedicated city staff and so I just thank you for what you do. Um I'll echo uh also the efforts from Saturday the founders day Valentine's Day um celebration was a lot of fun birthday. Yes, city birthday. Um and again that took a lot of staff engagement to make that happen and so thank you for that. Um, we also have had um some feedback from one of our uh board of education members concerns about speeding and our police department has done a good job of following up on speeding in school zones and um so I just to everyone who is watching, please pay attention to the speed limit, especially in the school zone. If not, you may very well get a ticket. Um, so,

uh, thank you to our police department for for following up on that. Um, and yes, yesterday was a wonderful celebration at a whole Delh Hayes. Um, and that was it just a a beautiful celebration of community from Guilford County to Burlington and beyond. Um, so uh, and again, thank you to the staff for all that you do to make that happen. Um, we have an awesome city. We have opportunities to come together and really be community. And, um, to echo uh, what Councilman Smite said earlier about working together. Um, even when we don't always agree, we have the opportunity to work together and work on that. And I I believe our city council is willing to do that and we want to do that with you. So, um, thank you all. I do not have I I do have so sorry I do have a few other things. Um so our next um Burlington City Council work session will be held on Monday, March 2nd. So two weeks I believe that's two weeks from yesterday and that's at 5:00 p.m. And then the next city council meeting will be March 3rd, Tuesday, March 3rd at 7:00 p.m. And on um March 13th, which is Friday, Friday, March 13th, it will be the St. Patty's Day bash downtown from 5 to 9. and I'm certain you will not want to miss it. So, um I do not have anything else. Um and if there is nothing else, um I can have a motion.

Second. All in favor? Thank you. Thank you.