City Council - Regular Meeting

Just a little closer.

Good evening. I'd like to welcome everyone to tonight's September 15 City Council meeting. And I ask that you silence your devices. And at this time, I'll call on Councilmember Ian Baltudis for tonight's invocation.

that has been given to us for its opportunities and its challenges we ask for strength insight wisdom and guidance as we forge ahead keeping in mind always the enduring values of life exerting our efforts on in those areas and on those things upon which future generations can build with confidence thank you and at this time I'll recognize city clerk Beverly Smith for our code of ethics

Next on our agenda is approval of minutes from August 17th. We need a motion and a second to approve the minutes.

Motion to approve.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. And we need to we have two additions to our consent agenda. Item F resolution supporting Alamance County Rescue Unit and item G the budget amendment 2027-07 and contract award to HDR Engineering Incorporated of the Carolinas. We need a motion and a second to approve the additions to the agenda.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. and we need a motion and second to adopt the agenda with the additions as just named so moved second all in favor aye okay our consent agenda these are items that typically are non-controversial Item A, to approve the reclassification of one heavy duty mechanic position level 206 to an equipment services supervisor level 210 in the public works department effective at the beginning of the next pay cycle. Item B, to approve the creation of a full-time stormwater engineer position in Water Resources Stormwater Division effective the beginning of the next pay cycle. Item C, to approve an interlocal agreement between the City of Burlington, Alamance County and Guilford County for access to D4H emergency management. Item D. To approve budget amendment 2027-05 for emergency management to recognize grant funds awarded by the Duke Energy Foundation for additional audiovisual hardware and the Emergency Operations Center. Item E. to approve budget amendment 2027-06 for Recreation and Parks Kernodle Senior Center to accommodate funds awarded by the North Carolina Department of Insurance Seniors Health Insurance Information Program to be used to host specialized senior events, personnel salaries, telephone services and training. Item F, to adopt a resolution supporting the creation of a countywide service district for the Alamance County Rescue Unit. And item G, to approve budget amendment 2027-07 and award a contract to HDR Engineering Incorporated of the Carolinas for owner's advisor services associated with the design and construction of PFAS treatment upgrades at the Ed Thomas Water Treatment Plant and the JD McIntosh Jr. Water Treatment Plant. We need a motion and a second to approve or deny the foregoing consent agenda.

Move. Second. All in favor? Aye.

And at this time we will move into public hearing. I would like to recognize Executive Director of Planning and Development Services, Jamie Lawson.

good evening mayor and members of council the item that is in front of you the first public hearing that is a request that started back in 2023 it is a rezoning request for the picket mill hosiery property that is founded by east webb Johnson Street, East Davis Street, and Everett Street. We did receive a correspondence from the applicant who was in the audience requesting that this item be continued. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Moffitt to make that request.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Kennett, members of council. Good to see you all this evening. My name is Ryan Moffitt. I'm a lawyer at the Vernon Law Firm. I represent Pickett Mill LLC, which is the owner of the subject property that is... on the agenda night for public hearing. I've been working with this group since late 2022. This group has purchased the building there on Webb Avenue between Johnson and Everett Streets and with an eye towards adaptive reuse project for the former picket hosiery mill it's currently zoned for business and industrial uses and it has gone through the extensive plan development conditional zone plan development and went through the plan development process it's post post current ordinance and has received TRC approval, but has stopped short of its full zoning under the plan that has been reviewed and approved by staff. also has been through Planning and Zoning Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission unanimously. This is a situation where market conditions changed substantially during the time that this was being taken through the entitlements process. The owners have sought to preserve the available uses while They have done work to try to position the project to move forward. These adaptive reuse projects, particularly projects of this scale, this is looking at 90 multifamily residential units to be made of this project. They run on very tight margins and are significant undertakings. The Circumstances have not improved to where they're ready to move forward with this today and on that basis we're requesting that the current zoning request be put over another year. until September 2027 I'm happy to answer any questions you all have but we want to make sure that we preserve the progress that's been made the investment that's been made in positioning this property for a new life it's been a special property that's contributed a lot to this community and I think as long as we can keep the opportunity and the progress that's been made through the review process to date and the TRC approval to date, it's going to give this property the best opportunity moving forward again to have to have a new life and to really improve that East Davis Street neighborhood and downtown Burlington overall. So, again, thank you for your consideration. Happy to answer any questions you all have about the request for an extension.

Thank you. I don't have any problem with continuing. I'm hoping one day the project will come to fruition. And obviously, of course, I don't know personally, but if market conditions change, you know, we have to respond to those. If you want a motion to that effect, I'll certainly make it, or if there's any other council to get it into work, I'll make a motion to be continued September 27th.

Second.

I have a question. So if we are continuing it, then we don't we're not rezoning. Okay. Okay. Thank you for answering my question. So we have a motion and a second to continue. Time certain September 27.

Okay, to September 27.

any other questions or concerns then all in favor of our motion and second to continue all in favor say aye aye thank you And at this time, we have new business. And we recognize PTRC Regional Planning Director Jesse Day.

Okay, good evening members of the council. Mayor, thank you for your time tonight. I'm happy to present our draft consolidated annual performance and evaluation report. As you know from prior presentations on this home consortium program, we love our acronyms, better known as CAPER. So if you hear staff refer to it as CAPER, that's what we're talking about. We are not talking about those vegetable or fruit I'm not sure but in all humor this is a you know it's a serious report that's required at the end of a fiscal year for for HUD and so we wanted to present kind of the highlights of that as we prepare to put this document out for public review over the coming days as we kind of close out the last fiscal year so we're talking about July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 and the activities that went on for both the CDBG program as well as the Home Consortium program that is run by the City of Burlington. The Home Consortium program, as you recall, also includes additional counties, Alamance County, the balance of Alamance County, as well as Rockingham, Caswell, Randolph, and Davidson counties. And so it's really a lot of kind of how are you serving the community kind of thing, the homeless population, underserved, underhoused population, and it's kind of a standard report for all the HUD grantees across the country. It is required to be submitted 90 days after the end of the fiscal year which you'll if you do the math in your head that is that's the end of next week. We've asked for an extension or staff has asked for an extension to mid-October to allow for public comment and review and they've preliminarily approved that to October 15th via email I think either earlier today or yesterday. So some details on that so there's a lot of I mean in all honesty there's a lot of funding still yet to be spent so we have not mobilized all the resources there yet but we hope to to improve that going forward in this current year so the funding allocation for this program year including CDBG and the home consortium was around 2.1 million dollars And you'll notice that the CDBG amounts that were spent over that last year exceed the allocation for that fiscal year. And so that includes, I'm going to read down kind of the breakdown of that $604,000 that was spent in last fiscal year as we prepare to put this out for public hearing. or public review, there was 149,000 spent on public facilities, 46,000 approximately spent on public services, and I'll show you the programs for those various kind of buckets in a second in terms of the actual organizations that received that. 148,000 149,000 approximately spent on home rehabilitation, so single-family rehabilitation, 2,252 spent on relocation assistance, and then 238,000 spent on planning and administration, and then 18,000 spent on other activities. So the higher number for planning administration is catching up from prior two fiscal years for planning and administration on CDBG, so those not receipts, the outgoing payments hit in the last fiscal year. So that's why that is that amount. So there's 144,000 of that, that was from prior fiscal years that was booked last fiscal year, if that makes sense. Okay, so the public services sub-recipients that the city has contracted with are on your screen there. And so, you know, these are the nonprofits really putting a lot of this CDBG funding for prior fiscal year. you know really serving this this population in the city and so you know they're key partners to the activities and so in the caper report itself that will be posted tomorrow for review and then we'll come back for a public hearing at the October meeting we'll catalog some of the impacts and number of folks served that that are listed here there were about forty four thousand six hundred sixty three individuals who are in the service area of these different entities within the city that were served in some way, directly or indirectly, or had access to the resources of all these subrecipients. Infrastructure subrecipients, so the public services, you know, just as an example, just to highlight one, Allied Churches of Alamance County is really serving the homeless population and so they were providing, you know, emergency shelter for the homeless population. Now the other, the infrastructure subrecipients, these would be like construction projects of these nonprofits, so eligible activities there. And then under the other activities, which totaled about $18,000, was the land trust and relocation assistance. And then that administration amount is that $238,000 that was spent last fiscal year. Now the Home Consortium has not spent any dollars, as you recall on the prior slide. However, there has been one project that's been selected in Randolph County to move forward. It's currently in environmental review, and those will be four new units in the city of Asheboro. And with those resources available, if you think about it, we've got, you know, That project is in the 250,000 range. If you add up last fiscal year and this fiscal year, the amount of resources we have a lot for the home consortium. So there should be more projects selected both in the single family rehab and the new construction. So the home consortium has decided to Fund both of those activities, you know traditionally, you know single-family rehab has been sort of the the bread and butter of CDBG program and home consortium programs New construction is more complicated and that's why this project has not moved forward as quickly as I think some of us have would have liked and some of the other projects is To meet the environmental standards and also just a time frame of waiting for the environmental review I mean the cost of waiting for you know, the previous speaker, the cost of time can drive up the cost of materials. And so that can be a challenge, I think, in terms of being able to match up the home consortium funding with projects that fit. And so some of the discussion, we had an August board meeting of the home consortium, was to do some education with developers. Davidson County, one of our home consortium members, has requested a workshop with prospective developers to go over the rules and sort of the challenge of the game when you're using federal funds for project development. And that's something we can utilize across the five counties for the home consortium. What I also want to mention here, too, for the single-family rehab side for the upcoming year, I know we're looking back for tonight's agenda item, but looking forward, we have about a hundred what we call deferrals for weatherization. That is a program that PTRC operates in all the consortium counties. the home is too dilapidated to go in and put in a new heating system or cooling system and so that's been deferred from weatherization assistance but if we can get single-family rehabilitation into those homes then they can have access to weatherization so but one needs to happen before because you do not want to put expensive equipment in a home that leaks or you know it doesn't have good insulation that sort of thing so so that's a that's an opportunity across those five counties in terms of projects that would be will be ready to go once our application gets up and going this fall. So just next steps on the CAPER itself. I mean, there are a lot of next steps with getting new projects in, but we want to open the public comment period starting tomorrow and compile that final CAPER. October 2nd through October 5th in between the close of the public comment period and the next council meeting and then have the official public hearing to review and consider adoption of the CAPER next month. So I'd be happy to answer any questions as you consider this item.

Any questions?

I have a question, but I do want to put on the record. So in the file, you stated that we had not used any of the home consortium funds. I just want to make that public and on record. Yep. Because previously, I think it was three projects that were in line to receive some of those funds. So we're actually carrying over all of our home funds from last year on into 26 and 27. Yep.

Yeah, so those costs in last year's allocation of funds for that one project, those actual expenditures, assuming the environmental review moves forward this fall, will hit in this current fiscal year. So you'd basically be using $25, $26, and we'll expend those in this current year, as well as potentially new projects as more projects come in after the applications open. Thank you. OK, thanks.

Other questions, comments? Then thank you and then that hearing will be scheduled for October 6th.

Okay thank you, appreciate it.

Next we will move into public comments. We have two people who have signed up for public comments. you are asked to approach the microphone and state your name and address and know that you will be limited to five minutes and there is a timer and so first on the list is Joy Watts.

Thank you for having me. I'm here to speak about the chickens in the city limits. I'm very, very concerned about that. Um, particularly since I live in a neighborhood that is already has the challenges and we have made some terrific progress. Thanks to the police department. Thanks to Jamie has helped us out. A couple of abandoned houses have gone away. Um, all the houses have been refurbished and we're on a good path here. But to bring in, and by the way, there are chickens somewhere in my neighborhood, because I hear the roosters. So I already hear this. Why would you open this up? We would like to stay on that path. We are in a good position because the proximity to downtown is very attractive. And we want to make our neighborhood attractive to people so they will come and live there. I don't think adding chickens is a necessity. I didn't see, and I'm trying very hard to see, does this bring value to our neighborhood? No, it could actually be very negative because I'm going to tell you now, people are not going to do what they're supposed to do. And you know this. And if you think otherwise, you're being very naive. I don't care how many permits you have or whatever. I was chased and locked in my shed by a pit bull, which you're not even supposed to have. So going forth, I have invested in my home. I'm happy there. We have a great neighborhood. And I don't want to see my property depreciate Because chickens are running all over the place. They'll join the stray cats, etc. So I am asking you to please, please, please, don't open the door wider. Because I don't know how you're going to oversee this. I don't know who's going to be hands-on to say, okay, you have born-in turkeys or ducks or whatever. Do you really think you can manage that? That is not even feasible. It really isn't. when you open it up so that it's basically carte blanche. And I am very concerned about that. And my quality of life, I was awakened at 1230 this morning from a car bang, bang, bang, bang. For the six years I've lived in that house, I have had not one night where there wasn't noise. It is better thanks to the police department. But we're still working on it. Please let us continue on this path we're on. Don't bring another new element that it can be very detrimental to our neighborhood. Please consider that. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. And next, I recognize Charles Gupton.

Good evening. I am Charles Gupton at 2224 Mathis Trail, Burlington Address. Thank you all for allowing public comments and thank you for the service that you do. appeared before this council a year ago with the previous council, so a couple of my comments may come back for Mr. Warden as Bigelow, as having been addressed before. My concerns are about the water runoff and the damage that has been occurring to our property and our roadway created by LGI Homes at the 1050 West Old Glencoe Road location. The original or the worst of the damage occurred as a result of Tropical Storm Chantelle in July of 25, but since then, even a one-half-inch rain, much less anything above that, still results in damage to our access road and the property, particularly the property of my neighbour, John Hurdle, and there's still an extensive amount of runoff that's going off of our road, down a ditch, that's parallel to 62 as well as directly off of the LGI site into the Haw. After every rain, the south side of the Haw runs orange. Not like the old mill days where it ran red and yellow and green, but still orange. And I've documented that significantly. And as I mentioned before, and it was a surprise to some on the council, that runoff still runs through an old landfill that Again, it still runs over and into that and still trash seems to be coming into the river from that. So it hasn't been dealt with yet. As I said, the runoff has continued to wash out our private road entrance off of 62 and it's destabilized the foundation of Mr Hurdle's home. It washed out his driveway to a point that this past year when the EMS came to his house for an emergency call, they were not willing to drive up his driveway. down at the road and walked up, and if they had to take him out, it would have been rather dangerous, according to them, to get him out of there. But they cannot get up to his house. Also, the water from Chantel contaminated their HVAC conduit, got into their system where it's got mold and debris in there, and it also soaked their insulation on the underside of their home. And he has not been able to afford to have any of that work done. So he is without heat except for plugging in heat inside and air conditioning, window air conditioning that they've put in since then. Before Chantel happened, before the site was shut down, I had a conversation with two of Sunrock's supervisors and talked about some of these issues before they ever happened. The first one acknowledged things needed to be dealt with and assured me that before they left the site that they would seed all of that area and protect that area. They did not do any of that work. I followed up later and found out that he had been let go or fired and the person who was under him was now the supervisor, talked with him about the same problems and he assured me he would address them with LGI. I called back a couple of days later and found out he had then been let go. I'm not sure it's because he brought up these issues or not, coincidentally. But again, none of the issues have been dealt with. Last year, I met with Bob Patterson, David Huffman, and also David Bowman to look for ways that could work with the city to require LGI to take some steps to remediate this. It was suggested by Mr. Huffman that I get an attorney, which I did. And I've been working with Brian Norris, also with Vernon Law. since then but have been primarily just getting crickets both the city in terms of getting things done and especially from LGI. To date, they've done nothing to remediate any of that. In fact, the work they've done since then has made it worse. I see my time's running out. We met with one of their representatives, Drew Kirshner. He came out and said they would do anything they could to help. And when I told him about the problem, he said, we can't do anything about any of that now because our construction's begun. And we can't go back, but you've continued to add to the problem, which is, again, increasing. The blasting and digging to remove the bedrock also have compromised six wells on the downhill side of the construction. We had to replace our well entirely, and the others have had sediment and a lot of damage done to them. And then also repeated blasting has done damage to one of our neighbours' interior walls, have cracked it and separated it from the ceiling. He doesn't have the resources to hire an attorney and he's called LGI and they've just ignored him. So in conclusion, my request to you is that when the zoning request comes up next month, for you to consider either delaying the approval or at least addressing this. that they have not been the good neighbors that they have said that they are and continue to ignore things. And I just implore the city to try to work with this in some way to force their hand to at least address this. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Any questions or anything about the situation?

Not tonight, unless that comes up in council. I remember it well.

Thank you for bringing it back to our attention. And I'm sorry about Mr. Hurdle, that he's continuing to have that impact. I know the residents before, it was some damage, and the residents were kind of coming together to help him fix the problems. They were chipping in to fix some of those issues with the homes. I do remember. And just thank you for bringing that back to council's attention.

He's been suffering greatly through not having heat and some of the issues over the summer and the winter. Thank you. Thank you.

There are no others signed up for public comments. So at this time we'll close public comments. I do want to invite city council members if you have any comments that you'd like to make.

I would just like to say, Bob, can you get us an update with that issue that's going on with that property and Mr. Hurdle? I remember there was some talk about the financial strain and we were going to offer some things to him last year. Just an update to find out what happened since that last council meeting when they both spoke and just where we stand with that.

Yes, we'll bring some. The engineering department has been trying to work with the developers to get things done. Bring back an update.

Thank you. Thank you. Other comments from council?

Yeah, I'd just be interested if there are notes from last year and then kind of updates from now. My understanding is that stormwater retention and control should be the first phase of any construction site. So if that's not working, are there any things we can do? Thank you.

He lives downhill, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong. All of us live downhill. And the project had not been in completion. I think only one phase of it was done at that time.

None of the time was done. They closed the site down because they ran into financial issues. Millions of dollars over budget with rock blasting. So that shut it down. But they didn't do the work that I'm told was required by the law to properly shut down. Chantel hit.

I can only imagine now.

They dug a hole temporarily called water, and it filled up with, like the next way, it filled up with mud and it just flows over. And as Mr. Bowman came out to look at it, he said they've not cleaned up a single thing that they had been told to clean up.

And what's really important to me is the fact that EMS cannot even get to his home. That's impactful.

And I've got pictures of where they've arched.

comments thank you can you share that with us at some point and I think we're bringing it up now ahead of time and also I think us hearing a report from the city will be helpful too so thank you we'll figure it out after the meeting well we'll be in touch with you before we leave tonight right Oh, I asked for comments. Other comments?

You've got a couple event announcements, and I may tack on a few.

Okay, so I do have a few event announcements, but I also want to share with you, and I should have actually pulled up the email, but I'll just tell you about it. Received an email from a resident in Burlington this afternoon praising the planning department. with a photo of some folks who had come out to do something and they were just very pleased you know lots of times we get emails for people who are unhappy and so it was very nice to see an email from somebody who was very pleased and happy and I will I think I've shared that with our city manager and so we'll pass that along so just wanted to let you know that there are wonderful things happening in Burlington to be excited about So a few announcements. Elon Phoenix 4th Fridays will take place on September 25th in downtown Burlington from 5 30 to 9. If you know students at Elon, I encourage you to invite them to come out. Some of our downtown merchants have been reflecting they don't see Elon students like they used to. Of course it has been summer so maybe they'll be back. But I think that it's good for us to be invitational as well. There are two ribbon cuttings in downtown Burlington on Saturday, September 26th. The first will be for Waypoint Wellness at 412 South Spring Street and will take place from 11 to 12 and the second ribbon cutting is for the grand reopening of the Burlington Food Hall and this event will run from 2 to 3. And I believe there's a ribbon cutting this weekend as well. There is. At Rogue Walrus Coffee Brew, yeah, at Searcy. So I don't know what time that one is.

All day, 2 o'clock is the time for official kind of ribbon cutting. Okay, very good. All day, time and time throughout.

Their coffee is good. That's right.

That's right. There is an e-waste collection day scheduled for Saturday, October 3rd at Summit Avenue. And this event is free and will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. And the next Burlington City Council meeting work session will take place on Monday, October 5th. city council meeting will take place on Tuesday October 6th at 7 p.m. and I'll just share this is really just personal but tomorrow the state track and field senior games will be happening in Durham personal because I will be there competing and representing the city of Burlington So those are all of the announcements that I have.

Mayor, if I could add, tack on to those, also on October 3rd, I believe it's Alamance Pride happening downtown, so wonderful event that happens annually. And then I wanted to shout out, there's been a wonderful community group through town of Elon focused on building a skate park in Elon. And this has been a conversation that I've been part of for over a decade. Chief, I think you've participated with them as well. But they were just awarded a Part F grant from the state for about $350,000. So, 362. The reporter in the room would know the exact dollar amount from his story. And that should be enough to push them across the finish line to get the park built at Beth Schmidt Park over in Elon. But the committee that's been steering that has been made up of residents across Alamance County, including skaters, parents, former skaters, and residents of Burlington. so i just want to thank them all for their work helping get that across the finish line i know we've talked about escape park for a long time but i'm delighted to see something getting built here in alamance county that can serve all of our residents very good other announcements or comments then at this time i'd like to recognize our city attorney um david huffman council this time i'd like to

to discuss matters related to the location or expansion of industries and other businesses in the area served by the City of Burlington, including the agreement on tentative list of economic development incentives that may be offered by the City of Burlington in negotiations pursuant to NCGS 158-7-1. I'd also ask the City Council to go into closed session pursuant to 143-31811A3 for the purpose of considering and instructing legal counsel on the handling of claims against the city, including the following existing legal actions of, number one, Tony Harris-Fay versus L. Womack and all, Albion County Superior Court, 25CV-6441, second one, Helen,

Eckler versus City of Burlington, Alamance County, Superior Court 26, CD 3463.

Third, Raven Malvin versus City of Burlington, Alamance County, Superior Court 25, CD 3718. Number five, Lisa Antone and Lily Antone versus Gracie Hunter. That's pending in the Western District of North Carolina. charlotte case number 25 cb 829 number six christopher barrett versus travis moore alamance county district court 24 cb 4685 uh additional cases uh whichever number this is andrews properties of the carolina as well as two other llcs involving the andrews family versus the city of burlington and the city of burlington border adjustment it's pending in the united states district court for the little district of north carolina case number one 25 dash cv 236 Andrews Properties, again, the three LLCs, Grant Andrews, William Andrews, and Steven Andrews, Albion's County Superior Court 22, CD 418. That's pending in Albion's County Superior Court, as well as the case Steven B. Wall and Todd Dean versus Unichem Specialty Chemicals and all which includes the City of Burlington, the City of Brennan, and Adelaide County. That's Adelaide County Superior Court 26 CD 4657.

Do we need to... Ask a motion to go in and close the session.

Second.

So we will move into closed session and then we'll come back and adjourn.

All in favor of reopening? Aye. And at this time I recognize attorney David Huffman.

Mayor and council if I could

a report to you in a public meeting here the andrews properties of the carolinas olc andrews properties and rentals comma olc and andrews properties of triad olc versus the city of burlington and city of burlington board of adjustment that was in the united states middle district court Carolina case 1 colon 25 CV CV 236 has been resolved and settled in the amount of $12,000 the case of Andrews properties of the triad LLC Andrews properties and rentals LLC Andrews properties of Grant Andrews William Andrews Stephen Andrews means county superior court 22 cv 418 has been resolved for the amount of 10 535 thank you motion to adjourn second all in favor aye aye have a good night everyone thank you

It's got my name on the back of it.