City Council - Regular Meeting

with good news

I'd like to welcome everyone to tonight's July 7th, 2026 City Council meeting and I ask that you please silence all electronic devices. Okay. And at this time, I will call the meeting to order and invite you to pause for a moment of centering and silence as we prepare for this city council meeting. You know, I also like to encourage you to breathe. Take a deep breath in and let it out. And you can do a couple of those on your own. And to our creator, we give thanks for a hot summer day and for the opportunity to gather and do good work together.

Amen.

At this time, I recognize our assistant city manager, Rachel Kelly, for a special presentation.

It's my pleasure tonight to welcome Ms. Kathy Lide. She's the president of the Alamance Peacemakers Quilt Guild, and she's here to tell us a little bit about the We the People quilt in celebration of America's 250th that we're lucky enough to have in City Hall this month.

So, Ms. Kathy.

Absolutely.

Good evening, everybody. I'm going to be turning my back.

It's really strange.

So I am Kathy Lide. I'm a retired English professor from Elon University. And now I'm doing what I really love, which is quilt and other things that you get to do when you're retired. I am currently the president of the Alamance Peacemakers Guild. And in 2025, during the entire year, basically, several of our members had the idea that we wanted to do a 250 quilt, which a lot of guilds in the United States have done in one form or another. So this group of the committee designed and executed the beautiful quilt. I hope you've had a chance to see it in the lobby. I would love for it to be pulled out from the wall a little bit so you could actually see the back of it because that's where we all signed it and put all the states that we've lived in and there are other patriotic messages and things like that. So the back of a quilt is often as important as the front in many ways. So this quilt obviously commemorates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We held workshops during the year and we worked on it piece by piece by piece. The center square is an applique, a machine applique, which means you basically layer the fabric on and you sew it around. And then around the central panel are little squares of paper piecing. I won't even try to explain what that is. It's complicated and not everybody's favorite, but it allows you to make these little tiny squares with very perfect points in them. So you'll see that those squares are a little bit different from the larger squares that are the next border. Those are more traditional. patchwork squares, they've done, we've used historical patterns, and around the entire quilt, in chronological order, we hand embroidered all the states as they came into the union. And so you have to get kind of close to see it. It's in gold and blue. And it's a beautiful quilt. It was done completely by the members of our guild. Some of it's handwork, some of it's machine work. And after we put it all together, we took it to a woman named Gina Boone and she did the beautiful quilting on it and then came back to us and we bound it. And it's been circulating. around the county. It's six and a half feet square, has piecing and applique. The red, white, and blue color scheme pays homage to the colors of the American flag. Our national bird, the bald eagle, takes pride of place in the quilt center. A unique feature of the quilt, again, is the border and the hand embroidery. You don't often get hand embroidery on a quilt like this. The quilt has been displayed in Mebane at the Art Center, at May Memorial Library, at Graham Public Library, at our quilt show in March. at the Textile Heritage Museum in Glencoe and Elon Town Hall. It's here for the month of July and then it moves to the Captain White House in Graham for two months, August and September. Then it will move to Alamance Community College in November. It's going to be at the Belk Library at Elon University and then it moves to its permanent home at the Alamance Historical Museum and it will be on display there for the month of December and then it will be take it into their permanent collection. And I guess that's it, unless anyone has any questions.

It is beautiful.

It is.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Enjoy your evening.

Thank you.

and at this time i would like to recognize director of recreation and parks tony laws to receive a proclamation uh thank you madam mayor and uh members of council i'd like to uh call up a couple of our staff members here if you don't mind so they can participate in this too This is Casey Guerrero on my right. He's our park superintendent and looks after all of our special facilities like aquatics, amusement park, as well as parks upkeep, maintenance, and so forth. So he's been with us 20-some years? Yeah, 25 years. On my left is Fred Ireland. He's our assistant golf course manager at the Valley, better known as Indian Valley, me and Fred. It's hard to lose that name. But anyway, Fred and his staff do a great job at the golf course, the best staff and best condition of the course we've ever had. And I've been here since we got the course back in the early 70s. So I know better than anybody. And I want to compliment them for what they're doing. Just as a little tidbit, we just completed the 2025-2026 physical year, and the golf course grossed, and this is... gross revenue, not profit, of course, but grossed over $1.3 million. So that's outstanding for a course like ours, and we're very happy with everything that's going on at the Valley with Fred and the others that work out there. So thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. The City of Burlington, North Carolina Proclamation in Recognition of National Recreation and Parks Month, July 1 through 31, 2026. Whereas parks and recreation is an integral part of communities throughout this country, including the city of Burlington, North Carolina, and whereas parks and recreation promotes health and wellness, improving the physical and mental health of people who live near parks, and whereas parks and recreation promotes time spent in nature, which positively impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being, and whereas parks and recreation encourages physical activities by providing space for popular sports, hiking trails, swimming pools, and many other activities designed to promote active lifestyles, and whereas parks and recreation programming and education activities such as youth programming, youth sports, and environmental education are critical to childhood development. and whereas our parks and natural recreation areas ensure the ecological beauty of our community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors, and whereas the U.S. House of Representatives has designated July as Parks and Recreation Month, and whereas the City of Burlington recognizes the benefits derived from parks and recreation resources, Now therefore, I, Mayor Beth Kennett, and the Burlington City Council do hereby proclaim the month of July 2026 as National Recreation and Parks Month in the City of Burlington, North Carolina, and encourage all residents to enjoy, appreciate, and support the wide variety of recreation opportunities available in our community. we also recognize and celebrate the vital contributions of the burlington recreation and parks professionals who contribute daily to the health well-being and vibrancy of our city by creating spaces and opportunities that enhance the quality of life for all residents this the seventh day of july 2026. thank you very much

Congratulations to y'all, but really congratulations to the city of Berlin. You have amazing, amazing hearts. I'll say one

I'll call her staff member because she is part of the city of Broadland. We have a wonderful supervisor in the city administration that looks after our department, and I'm very grateful, and so are all the other employees. And I want to recognize her, Assistant City Manager Rachel Kelly. She spends a lot of time with Recreation and Parks because of that. She has an inexperienced director and has to look after him pretty closely. Thank you very much, Rachel. We appreciate you and we consider her one of our own. I know she has four other departments to look after and some others, but hey. She's part of Recreation and Parks, big part. So, and as Madam Mayor said, Burlington, we're very proud. I'm going to brag a little bit here because we're very proud of Recreation and Parks in this city. I came here a long time ago when it was a very small department and it has increased like night and day from when I started and it's due to city councils, present city council and previous city councils because they've always supported recreation and parks in this community and that means a lot because you are the elected representatives of the city and we're so happy that recreation and parks is a big part of our city services. And we do serve a lot. We have over 700 acres of park property, lots of different facilities and programs, unique things like the 115-year-old carousel that's still going around in circles and carrying a lot of happy kids and adults on that ride. And we also have... some outside facilities like the golf course i mentioned and also we have three lake park and marinas and we're very proud of those two they're out on the outline areas of the community but they serve a lot of people too and so we're extremely proud of our department i have and we have a wonderful staff, a lot of hard-working, dedicated people, a lot of them have been there a while, and some new people coming in, so we're very fortunate to have these people that really give above and beyond what it takes to satisfy our community. And this community really supports recreation and parks. You know, we're not a huge city like Raleigh or Greensboro or Charlotte, but for what we, the size of our city, we have a lot to be proud of in our recreation and parks facilities and programs. And so the citizens use our parks very well. aggressively all the time and participating in our programs and that's what we're here for. We want to make sure that they enjoy life and that at the end of the day the quality of life is a good place here in Burlington and I know it's been my home for going on 60 years and I don't want to live anywhere else. I'm very happy here. Anyway, thank you very much for this recognition and thank you for all the support that we have now and in past years to develop what we have as recreation and parks in Burlington. Thank you very much.

Thank you. At this time, I recognize City Clerk Beverly Smith for our Code of Ethics.

Members of council, it is my responsibility to remind you of your duty to avoid conflict of interest. I ask if there are any potential conflicts concerning tonight's agenda items.

Here's some of the conflict, but I don't believe it's an actual conflict. So I'll ask to be recused from Nora. So that's a North Carolina governor's highway safety program resolution and grant agreement. And as an employee of the governor, I don't have a say in that at the state level, but on this end, it's probably best if I accuse myself. I'll vote on full consent agenda and just not on item N, nor please.

I'll motion to move that from the consent agenda.

Okay, second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. Thank you.

Also, on the part of the CD block grant program, I serve on the Salvation Army Advisory Board, and I'll ask to be recused when you get to the point of approving the CD block grant program. The Salvation Army has applied for, and if this budget is adopted, they will be awarded, you know, $7,500. So I would ask to be recused from that. We can either do it then or we can do it now. Probably go ahead and do it now, and I'll just put a record. I'll state it again when we get ready to adopt it. Okay.

and that is a public hearing right now okay that's a public hearing and as i understand it will be the adoption of the budget this evening as well so and i also serve on the community land trust so i would ask under the community block development direction would i also be refused because they are an applicant and if approved they will receive i think it's twelve thousand dollars okay so when those come up

of those at that point.

Okay, that sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll move right along to the approval of minutes. This evening we are approving June 1st, June 1st work session, June 2nd city council meeting, June 16th city council meeting minutes. I need a motion and a second to approve the minutes.

Motion approved. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. We have additions to the consent agenda this evening. Items J through M and then N we will look at separately. Those are printed on your agenda and we'll read those in a moment when we get to that part of the agenda. So I need a motion and a second to approve the additions J through M to the consent agenda. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay. Adoption of the agenda. We need a motion and a second to adopt the agenda with these additions.

So moved.

And a second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, the consent agenda. These items are typically non-controversial. If anyone has any questions about the following, if you can let us know, that would be helpful. So I will read through these. This will be item A through M in your agenda. Item A, to approve the reclassification of one vacant equipment operator two position pay grade 205 to a maintenance worker two position pay grade 203 and the public works cemetery and grounds division effective at the beginning of the next pay cycle. Item B, to approve the reclassification of the senior administrative assistant position pay grade 206 to an administrative services coordinator pay grade 207 in the recreation and parks department effective at the beginning of the next pay cycle. Item C, to approve the reclassification of one equipment operator one position pay grade 204 to an equipment operator two pay grade 205 in the public works solid waste division effective at the beginning of the next pay cycle. Item D, to approve the reclassification of collection specialist position pay grade 203 to a senior collection specialist pay grade 205 in the finance department effective at the beginning of the next pay cycle. Item E, to approve an interlocal agreement between the city of Burlington and the town of Elon authorizing Burlington Animal Services to provide animal controlled field services to the town of Elon contingent upon final approval from the legal department. Item F, to authorize the City Manager to execute a lease agreement between the City of Burlington and property owners R. Samuel Hunt III and Victoria Hunt, effective July 8, 2026, for the facility housing the Spey and Neuter Clinic of Alamance County. Item G, to adopt a resolution declaring stage one voluntary water conservation in the city of Burlington effective upon adoption until water system reservoir levels indicate that water supplies have returned to normal levels or until further formal action is taken. Item H, to award a capital lease finance agreement to First National Bank, approve associated budget amendment 2027-01, adopt the banking resolution and authorize the mayor, city manager, chief financial officer and the city clerk to sign and execute the bank's loan documents. Item I, to approve budget amendment 2027-02 for fiscal year 2025-26, capital projects and equipment carried forward. Item J, to set a date of public hearing for July 21, 2026 to consider the street renaming of Hooker Street right of way by extending Meridian Avenue from the intersection of Meridian Avenue and Short Street. Item K, to adopt a resolution for a city of Burlington 10 year capital improvement plan for fiscal year 2027 through fiscal year 2036. Item L, To defer the City Council's public hearing and consideration of the applicant's petition for annexation for 1031 North Carolina Highway 87 to a future time pursuant to NCGS 160D-202, Burlington City Code section 40.40 and the terms of the annexation agreement executed by the applicant in the city and filed in the Alamance County Register of Deeds. Item M, to approve the slate of appointment to city advisory boards and commissions as is spelled out in your agenda. At this time, I need a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. And the item in consent agenda with... A motion to recuse Council Member Smyth from this item. And second? All in favor? Aye. So item N is to adopt a resolution authorizing the submission of fiscal year 2027 North Carolina Governor's Highway Safety Program DWI Enforcement Project application and authorize the project director, city manager, mayor, chief financial officer, and city clerk to execute applicable grant agreement documents. We need a motion and a second to approve. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, we will welcome you back. And at this time, we will move to a public hearing. I would like to recognize the Executive Director of Planning and Development Services, Jamie Lawson.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I think my job is easy just to make sure that the screens turn on. And I will recognize Jesse Day from PTRC to present this final item.

Thank you, Jamie.

Thank you, members of council. Good evening. Jesse Day with the Piedmont Tribe Regional Council. I also want to recognize Kim Kemp, who's with Piedmont Tribe Regional Council as well, and the Community Development Department. I'm in regional planning. And we're helping support the administration of the CDBG program for the City of Burlington and the home consortium for the City of Burlington alamance county caswell county rockingham davidson and randolph county and so excited to present to you tonight again some similar information that was presented at the opening hearing for this annual auction plan for both programs but just going to also kind of highlight some of the public comments that we received we had some really great great meetings over the course of June and so want to recognize the efforts of the city to promote that as well as United Way, members of the home consortium, members of council to get the word out on those public meetings. I think there's a robust discussion and really is kind of at the core of local government, right? going out talking to citizens and hearing hearing feedback so we're opening the kind of opening the closing public hearing for the annual action plan tonight so I want to highlight again some of the budget numbers and the activities that are involved in each of these programs because it's pretty large amount when you combine both programs are up over two million dollars annually that is administered through the city of Burlington on behalf of those member member communities and so To kind of start off, just to highlight the difference between these two programs. I think that's one of the challenges when you talk about this annual action plan, it's really combining two distinct programs, right? You've got the Community Development Block Grant that has some eligible activities, and then you've got the Home Consortium that has different eligible activities in a much larger area, right? So just to rehash here a little bit, CDBGL Act, Eligible activities are public services, public infrastructure, rehabilitation of homes, and then technical assistance like the community land trust that Councilmember Bigelow mentioned earlier in her comments, and then public services like Salvation Army that Councilmember Ward So that's the eligible activities in our Community Development Block Grant of which there's $489,903 that we're anticipating for next fiscal year that we're in right now starting in July. Now for the home activities for that five county area, That's a little bit more narrow, but the funding is 1.65 million, bigger population, bigger amount of dollars. It's all formula funding at the Housing and Urban Development. Those eligible activities are single family rehabilitation, new construction for single family, or multi-family construction rehabilitation, depending on kind of the projects that are called for. But they must include projects that support, 15% of those funds must go to what are called community housing development organizations, or as in government we use it as an acronym and then make it a word, CHODOs is sort of how we would kind of categorize those, so your Habitat for Humanity type of groups. 15% of the funds are supposed to go through to support projects that those types of organizations support. and the Home Consortium goes ahead and certifies those community housing development organizations. Then you've got a budget breakdown in your packet for these programs, but I'm going to highlight them in just a second here, just in terms of the breakdown that we've got identified in the draft annual action plan. Sorry, did I skip over, okay. So that's the overall budget. This is the breakdown that we're anticipating. And what's shown here, just I wanted to highlight a couple of example projects. So the city used to be part of the Greensboro Home Consortium a few years ago, split off from that and then formed this new five-county home consortium made up of smaller cities and towns and counties. But some of the projects that have been built in the past included converting some of the Burlington Housing Authority owned properties over to kind of private ownership and doing some rehabilitation of those projects. If you're familiar with Apple Ridge Multifamily and Single Family Homes Project, that was home consortium funds from previous home consortium, then the Forestdale Meadows Multifamily Project. What you're seeing on the screen from an image here is an example rendering from the one funded project from the home consortium back in March of this year. It'll be the first project of the new home consortium located in Asheboro and is Habitat for Humanity in Randolph County is running that project. So four single family units that would get rehabilitated. We're going through the environmental process right now for that. So projects like that or multifamily projects could be eligible. And so we got about 1.655 million this new fiscal year. There's, I believe, I'm trying to remember the exact amount of leftover funds from last fiscal year. I think there's about $800,000 of leftover funds, so combined. together, it could be a pretty rich homeowner or affordable rental housing RFP. That last bullet on the screen that could do some new projects. Now there's also single family rehabilitation in there. So looking at two homes per county, so 10 homes under that third bullet there for the 546,000. That's maybe one of your similar activities, CDBG and home consortium, where both of those programs could do single family rehabilitation. So we've got 546,000 lined up for that. 10% is for project delivery. So that would be work write-ups, lead-based pain assessments, some of those things that need to be done for either a new construction or rehabilitation project. And then 10% administration to cover PTRC's time to help go through all the many, many hoops and regulations that HUD provides. It's free money, but it's not free money. But it does go for a great cause and needs to be spent about 70%, a low to moderate income area is the total. The Community Development Block Grant breakdown, we've got, there's 20% for administration, 15% for public services, like the Salvation Army support, the homeowner rehabilitation program, so that single family rehabilitation. We've got relocation assistance, so say there's some work being done on someone's house, the city's got a unit there that require some maintenance and upkeep utilities to maintain that. Then we've got infrastructure projects. The picture on your screen is just an example of a previous project. This is fairly old. It's about 10 years old at the Fairchild Gym, but that was $20.15. That went ahead and redid that floor. I think there was some asbestos in the previous floor, so that was about a $140,000 project at the time. And so there's a lot of great projects that have been put together and built with CDBG funding in the past. And so lastly, we've got the technical assistance for the community land trust as a last item in terms of the breakdown or proposed breakdown of those funds if you go ahead and adopt the annual action plan this evening. Any questions on that budget breakdown before I get into some of the public comments? And one of the things I'll mention too is I think a lot of, some of what we heard can be built into processes that administer these funds throughout the upcoming year. Other comments will probably be folded into upcoming fiscal years in terms of if the council chooses, if the home consortium board chooses to build those types of funds. activities into the work plan. The annual action plan is really that work plan for both CDBG and the home consortium. So wanted to hit on some of those comments since we had over about 100 people that came to the different meetings. And again, thank you to city staff and nonprofit partners like United Way on getting the word out. I think that really made a huge difference. And thanks to council members and the mayor for being at those meetings as well. Really robust discussion. I mean, kind of categories of comments roughly without talking about all of them. I've got a slide where we'll talk about those comments, but just to recap on sort of what we did. So our comment period, It was a minimum of 30 days. It was a little bit more this year. So we went from June 3rd to July 6th. We advertised those two public meetings on June 23rd and 25th. We did have some daytime meetings in May with lower attendance, as you might expect. So we had eight total at those meetings, but 80 plus at the two meetings in June. Busy time of year, I mean, school's out. People are trying to do their summer activities. But I thought that was great. There's an image there from the meeting at the, oh gosh, what's the name of the shelter? The Sertoma building. Some more shelter, is that right? Sertoma. Sertoma, excuse me. Yeah, so that's an image from that shelter there. Very hot afternoon, but we had about, that's the one I attended. Kim kind of facilitated the one at Fairchild earlier in the week. So anyway, so that kind of covers in terms of kind of the number of people there. But in terms of the comments and what we've received, a lot of the questions were around how do we find out about eligible projects? What's the criteria on accessing those funds? When are those deadlines? roughly just to answer some of those questions. We answered them during the public comment period in the past and we'll be talking about this as staff in terms of potential changes. In the fall, we'll have a call for projects from the home consortium, so a request for proposals for some of those multifamily projects or single family projects to go to those community development organization and other nonprofit partners. And then the CDBG projects are advertised in the springtime. There's also talk about different ways of getting the information out, both in terms of how you promote meetings, but also just the content of the programs. How do we get more awareness on that? So more virtual meetings, potentially videos, social media, Also, there's a talk about certain communities that will only probably be able to participate on weekends. So is there a way to do some public input or public engagement on the weekends? Obviously, that's a challenge with government as we're nine to five or 8.30 to five or eight to five, depending on your schedule, Monday through Friday. So that's something we'll look at in terms of how do we both you know, talk about the programs, but also educate folks on how to access those funds. So I think there's a lot of good ideas there. And then also just more advanced advertising and marketing and more transparency on how we rank projects was heard as well. And so how are those projects scored and decided on? There was some comment, well, the same organizations get the, you know, same access to the funds. How do we encourage that? So, you know, just like, you know, when you're running a business, are you ready for new customers? Are you ready for new funding? I mean, you gotta get sort of business ready and same with applicants in this program. There's probably some, you know, more advanced advertising as well as more engagement I think is going to, you know, make it a much richer and diverse program. So we're talking about how do we do that and one of the things, probably plan to do is do some more engagement way ahead of those application windows so that you can ask those questions that you can't really ask while the competition is going on. There are also some things on kind of the periphery around food access and inequity in the city that came through. And so we've got a whole list of those comments that will be published on the city's website. There's a website dedicated for the annual action plans and the CAPER report, which is kind of when you look back on what you did the previous year. And so we'll put some information on that. out there too that includes all of those comments. And then lastly, there's a lot of discussion around homelessness, cost of housing, how can we address that? So zoning issues as well as just actual support of homeless housing and transitional housing. but that's a big ticket item. One of the other comments I think during the meeting we talked about with the community is there's so many needs and this is, I mean, it is a lot of money, two plus million dollars is a lot, but when you spread that over an entire city, entire five county area, it goes pretty quickly, and so that's, That's definitely a need and we've heard that and that came up I believe in the opening public hearing when we had this a month ago and was in the public meetings and so that's an issue I think is just gonna be an ongoing challenge but great to be able to support some of the nonprofits providing some of those supplemental services but the actual providing bed and shelter, that's a big ticket item that I think is beyond the budget of CDBG and the home consortium unfortunately. Still doesn't, you know, still a need out there. So we did hear a lot about that. I'm trying to think, I've got a few other notes here that are not on the slide. So, I mean, just the bottom line to reinforce, you know, better communication on project submission timelines and application review will be important going forward. We need additional public engagement and training sessions on how best to access the funds and get grant ready so folks can be grant ready. Nonprofits, you know, new nonprofits that maybe haven't received federal funds it's a different animal and so I think having some engagement around how to access that and follow those regulations will be important. So that's kind of a quick summary of what's happened over the last months since presenting the draft plan in early June. And so the requested action, obviously we've got a public hearing and there may be some public comments here, but in order to unlock these funds, we do need to adopt the annual action plan this evening. If it looks good, we'll incorporate all those public comments that we've heard and submit this to the Greensboro HUD office on, well, what they call their IDIS portal. i'm sorry for all the acronyms i forget exactly what that means but that's that's the online system where we will submit this annual auction plan uh by july 15th so we can go ahead and get these funds put to work for the citizens of burlington and the greater home consortium area so i'm happy to entertain any questions here either before or after public comments thank you any questions

Okay, thank you very much. So at this time, I'll open the floor for public comments on this item only. And I'll ask as you approach the podium, if you will please state your name and address for the record. And each speaker is asked to limit comments to five minutes. Are there any comments?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Greg Hargrave, I pastor here in Burlington. I wanted to, tonight, take a moment, I haven't addressed this council, probably in this context, I have addressed some, but just wanted to say thank you for your support of the Apple Ridge development, and I certainly like to come periodically and give you updates, and I just spoke to staff in engineering, and we are very, very close. It's being reviewed, and after that, we should be able to get those things, actually, when you, finish getting that part done you then record them is what i'm trying to get to and once it's recorded we will be able to get building permits at that time so that's really good news and i just wanted to say thank you for your support and i'll keep you updated and hopefully the next time i come back we'll be building so thank you so very much thank you

Do you mind letting the new council members know exactly what you're building over on Apple Street?

Yes. We are, this first phase, we will be building 12 single family homes, three and four bedroom homes. The second phase, there will be 10 additional homes, and then there will be 10 apartments that will be built. In the pandemic, we built six single family homes along Apple Street and Baldwin. So six already up and so we're on our way to do another 22 and 10 homes and CDBG funds and of course, now some home funds, we'll be looking at that and it's really gonna be very impactful.

Thank you.

Beautiful.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Other comments? If there are no further comments, then I will ask for a motion to close the public hearing.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. And at this time, I entertain a motion to adopt the fiscal year 2026-27.

Before that, Mayor, I'll motion to recuse Council Member Ward and Council Member Bigelow.

Okay, and so I'll just turn this way then. We'll just turn our backs on them.

That'll be good. We'll stay here.

Okay, that sounds good. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. All in favor, aye. And then the annual action plan does pass. Thank you.

That was a motion to recuse.

Oh, that was a motion to recuse. Thank you so much for keeping me on track. Then I need a motion and a second to adopt the fiscal year 2026-27 annual action plan. So, second. All in favor, aye. The action plan passes. Thank you and welcome back. Thank you.

And thank you to the team for doing the additional public hearings. It was great to hear that we had nearly 100 folks participate in those.

I participated in one of the first ones and Ms. Kemp and I had a wonderful conversation. And then I participated in one of the second ones and was completely blown away by how many people were in the room. It was amazing. Lots of good work done by members of city staff and the community to get those folks out. So thank you and thank you all.

to stand in front of people and to take it, to hear those complaints and everything, but you did it with class and with grace, so we appreciate you guys doing a few additional meetings for us.

Yes, most definitely. Okay, at this time, we have item two of new business, and City Council will actually let me just recognize Director of Recreation and Parks, Tony Laws.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of council, again. It's a pleasure to be here. This is a happy occasion because we have the opportunity to recognize a citizen of our community that served his neighbors and especially children very well where he was located on Rawhut Street, and he had a really great reputation as a superb member of the community that helped others when they couldn't help themselves. So I want to introduce two of his sons here, and the gentleman is Joe Faust Sr. We have the pleasure of having Johnny Faust and Harold Faust, they're two sons of Joe, and there's a number of other brothers and sisters. But anyway, Johnny and Joe were both here, I mean Johnny and Harold were both here when this was presented to you by a group of citizens from the community. From there, it went to our Recreation and Parks Commission for their evaluation and both Johnny and Harold came to that meeting. and made a presentation and so we appreciate that and uh the recreation commission voted unanimously to recommend to the city council that uh the playground at robinson park on raw street be named in honor of joe faust senior and uh so uh as far as recreation and parks we uh I didn't have the pleasure of knowing Mr. Faust personally, but I knew of him and all the good work he did. And so I think this is a great recognition. I think he's very well deserving. And I don't know if Johnny or Harold would have anything to say, but you can ask him any questions. But we certainly recommend on the part of the Recreation and Parks Commission and our department that you approve this recognition from Mr. Faust Sr.

Thank you. Thank you. So I will just read this statement here. So we've heard the recommendation from Recreation and Parks regarding the request for naming of a playground area at Robinson Park as the Joe Faust Sr. Playground honoring Mr. Joseph Melvin Joe Faust Sr. pursuant to the city's adopted public art memorial and honorary donation policy and authorized the Recreation and Parks Department to design, fabricate, and install the recognition signage. So at this time, I entertain a motion to approve the Joe Faust Senior Playground naming request.

Motion approved.

And a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you so much. At this time, we would normally enter into public comments, but we had no one to sign up for public comments this evening. So because of that, we will just move into city council comments. And so I'll invite any of our city council members to make any comments at this time.

Just a brief point of privilege to introduce to the group my mother, who's in the audience with us. She came from Arizona for a visit, and so she's here, and I'm grateful that you're still around.

Very good. Thank you for being here. Other comments?

Just like to extend a huge thank you to all the city staff, parks and rec staff, everyone who brought our July 3rd event together despite the heat. It was great to see a good turnout from the public there and see so many different food trucks and activities and wonderful things happening in the park. So I had to laugh on my way out. There was a little boy walking behind me and he saw all the traffic and all the people and he said, this is like New York City. It was great to have so many folks in the park. Thank you very much.

It was spectacular. The energy in the park was great, but then the fireworks display was awesome. So that was really neat. And not to put you on the spot, but how many people did you say were estimated to be there?

The placer company that we used to... Judge, the crowds in a certain place, it's all by cell phone recognition. 15,000 were in the park itself area, and that doesn't count all the people that surround the area, like front wall and where you tie school, but other places where they gather to get away from all the traffic and still be able to see the fireworks. So a lot more than 15,000 saw the show.

And that also doesn't count anybody who doesn't have a cell phone. So that's amazing. That is amazing. So thank you for that. Other comments?

I was able to see the drums in action and that was nice. Seeing them, I didn't realize, you know, it's the difference between hearing But to actually see them go from the ballpark into Williams and then head back to the fire department or the police department in real time was really good. So I'm just excited to see how that benefits both police and fire in our residents.

Other comments? I mentioned this last night, but I'll say it again tonight. We don't need to forget about emergency shelters. And so if anyone is interested in application to be an emergency shelter in not just cold seasons, but in hot seasons as well, we we need those designated shelters and and there is an application process you can easily find it well you can find it on the website i think it's easy to find but you can find it on the website and if you have challenges with that if you call city hall someone will help you so don't forget that we need emergency shelter designated year round the other comment I'd like to make is I've had an opportunity to have conversation with a couple of physicians in Burlington who have expressed some concern and I have been able to share this with the link transit director and our city manager that concerns the transportation not able to get patients to dialysis on holidays and weekends. And so just want to encourage getting the information about linked transit, especially the paratransit to those doctors offices and to the health department. So I mean the city may have a part in that but also our residents have a part in that. If you know about link transit and paratransit then you can help to make that connection with your doctor's office and that information then is more easily shared in the community. So it's just something to be mindful of. There are a couple of upcoming events. Concerts in the park at City Park will begin on Friday, July 10th from 7 to 9 and then the next Burlington City Council meeting will be held on July 21st at 7 p.m. Other announcements? If there are no other announcements, then I need a motion and a second to adjourn. Motion approved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you all.

Thank you.