Town Council - Regular Meeting

we have a everyone had the opportunity to look over the agenda I'll make a motion we approve that us presented now second all in favor of that I good deal okay we'll move along the public comment we only have one Miss Suzanne Armstrong signed up to discuss crosswalk hi my name is strong good evening Council I just wanted to mention I've heard a lot of um accidents people crossing the crosswalks that really are not necessary and I had a suggestion that maybe um the town could paint the crosswalks paint some maybe with flowers like hibiscus or some kind of design any kind of design to make people aware that they are through a to which I think would avoid some accidents all right thank you Miss Armstrong everyone had an opportunity to look over the M minutes from our June 6th and June 11th meetings motion to adopt both those Mr second all in favor item number four public hearings um 204 West Boulevard zoning map Amendment um kind I have a motion to open the hearing now make that motion second right now no okay give a report yes that'll be fine then we'll have

public comment on that Mr Mayor this this property is 204 West Boulevard this is the old Burns Motel property in case anyone's not familiar uh Mr HK his family here he's made he's purchased that property recently and has uh filled out the uh proper uh paperwork to have a map a map amendment to reclassify that it's currently C1 he's looking to classify that as C3 if you think about that property our C1 district is really our downtown uh Budd uh our downtown area here the square and just off C2 is basically our bypass area bypass Corridor C3 seem to be a better fit because it's not really in this downtown around the square it's not really on the bypass C3 would be off of that um so he's looking to uh change the map designation to C3 this went before the planning board uh a couple months ago they reviewed this and they made a recommendation to approve this change from C War to see three anybody has any other questions or Mr Holt's here I'm sure you care to answer any questions as well did anybody sign up for public for the public she Clos would you like to say anything think okay question okay I have a question what is your plan with that you can't ask him oh sorry and a rezone you can't a map Amendment you can't ask I talk to sorry Randy these will both be commercial uh it's going from one commercial to another he has commercial interest for the property uh again after assuming this goes through if that's what the approval is his next step would be to

submit for a zoning application for his commercial development y any other comment from the board members have a motion to close the hearing I'll make that motion I'll second all in favor all right now now we do consideration to approve approve the propos M Amendment do I have a motion to approve the ordinance I'll make that a motion I was just going to say do we need to go out of of the or he just we did when we closed yeah that's two of us there's only three left oh I promise I'll mess up okay that just leaves Bill Bill that just leaves Bill and Denise we'll keep that we'll see let's go back we don't know all so Bill made a motion to to approve the ordinance and I will second it all in favor get out of Mo motion carries chair thank you all right moving on fairly quickly we don't have anything under presentations tonight um we move on to miss hwad with the manager's report okay um the North Main uh Police Department Public Works building uh renovation uh we've had three small engineering contracts The Architects working with these guys to get the um get the construction documents finalized um arit uh engineering out of Blowing Rock is the structural engineer um and then

Municipal uh is also out of Boon is the civil engineer and then Allied which is out of morisville or maybe Belmont somewhere close to Charlotte they're the Mechanical plumbing and electrical HVAC Engineers each of those are going to just give him those plans to go on top overlay of his of his construction documents and the um all of the uh the work was well under that $50,000 threshold where you have to actually procure through an RFQ um the total amount for all three was 31 $1,985 and I just wanted to make you guys aware of that and just have you ratify the the agreements to work with these three so the architect can get them done hopefully um he's hoping if they can get their stuff done that that we'll be ready to look at bidding it sometime in August I'm excited about that we need a motion to just to Ry those three engineering um agreement okay I I'll make that motion second all in favor I okay meta Road the project that never will finish this keeps getting this keeps getting better and better um all bids were above the available funding and so I need uh I'm not sure actually legally that I do need a motion uh and a vote but I but I wanted to bring it to your attention to reject the bids we have uh I think Russell can tell you we've got a contingency plan for a short-term fix that will get at least that small sink hole filled back in and everything stabilized so we can look for

other funding um to at some point replace the whole C which is what needs to happen um but we did not have enough funding available through the through FEMA to do any of the um the work uh under the under the bids that we got so I'll just give you a brief overview I I did meet with the apparent low bidder um a representative from that company and uh as Heather said they wear over budget um I met with them on site and my idea was to have shanes and his crew go down there and do a minimal amount of work to make it safe that will last for substantial amount of time and uh the apparent low bidder was was okay with that I mean he I didn't have to have his approval but he did volunteer to to come by when Shane got started because it's is something we can do in a day and he did volunteer to come by and and help with with any information that that Shane may may need so um that's that's what we've we've decided to do um and it's it's going to be a a very very very limited cost um probably I mean I don't I don't know but prob probably less than uh $110,000 so and instead of instead of having to put money with the FEMA money to to do it I I just and we couldn't go back to FEMA it's just it's been a fiasco I promise you um Chad and Chad and Leslie can tell you how much for Fiasco it's been because they've had to deal with Heather over it's it's it's been the worst well we're topping that one this week

with DQ the Highway 19 widening project was not as as much of a a fiasco as this and the Fe 60 lineal foot of cul so yeah yeah so um you know FEMA would only pay to put it back to exactly like it was the day before the flooding occurred and it just wasn't enough money to do once there were so many unknowns cuz it's such an old piece of infrastructure the beds were everywhere from I think the little bed was like 125 something and then the highest one was somewhere in the $400,000 neighborhood it was just a ridiculous amount of money and the the apparent low bidder did um after my with my direct diretion go and place a a steel PP steel plate over it so it so it can't be driven into it at no cost us so that that is in place for right now until I just told Shane when his crew got got a spare moment which doesn't happen very often but when they when they kind of got caught up to to go down there and try to try to remedy it and he's agreed to that so so you want a motion to reject the bids I don't think we have to but I think it it's not going to hurt to no I need to let the engineering I'll second all in favor any questions okay the next one is consideration of town official bonding um the statute statutes require that the tax ta collector and the finance officer

are bonded um the tax collector in a minimum amount of 50,000 and then the uh finance officer 10% of the unit's annually budgeted funds up to a million dollar so we that's something we have to to present to y'all and get your approval on um no I'm sorry Finance was 50,000 right I think it went to the 10% yeah no it went to 10% I'm sorry anyway we have 50,000 for uh blanket employee coverage too and board coverage but um need y'all's approval um of that so that we can get the new bonds issued motion approved second all in favor okay and and next is um consideration of the minority business Enterprise participation Outreach plan so the state requires on any building projects um or repair building or building repair projects new construction that the local government have in place a minority business Outreach plan um and I've prepared one anytime we're going to spend $300,000 on a building project or we're going to spend $100,000 or more from State funding and what's kind of prompted this is obviously we've got 1.8 million we're going getting ready to spend on this building out here so we need to have this in place to be in compliance with the statute um they back in 2011 the town passed a verifiable a resolution

for a verifiable goal of 10 % participation um this is more of an onus put on the contractors the general contractors they have to go through a process and make efforts to find subcontractors that are minority owned businesses um and then they have to fill out a number of affidavits basically stating the efforts that they went to they don't have to award them if they're not the lowest bidder or if they can't find anyone or if they're going to do all the work by themselves but they have to make efforts um so we did not have the plan in place and so I prepared one for you guys to consider um and hopefully this gets us in compliance with the state law so we'll since the money did come from the state to rehab that building okay so I have a motion will make that motion all in favor okay we've got Chad did you put that in yeah it is um the consideration of High Country Council of government's GIS contract so they did our GIS mapping every year we contract with them uh to come back and do any updates of additions or adding they come TW out twice a year I think Tatiana has already been once this year Shane if I'm not correct incorrect about that um they charge $80 an hour and they update they update the anything that's changed in the system any new lines any new um storm water anything like that water sore or storm water so I would

just need a motion to approve that um contract and it's similar it's the same one we had last year Chang the dates I'll make that motion all in favor um the next thing e consideration of crft fair M USC Lanes here um she and I had worked through an update to the memorandum of understanding that the town and the uh chamber have with that's right here chamber Hab with um the crft fair each year uh our Public Works in our Police Department provide certain services and I think the last the last one was somewhere like 2011 I don't think it had been updated in a long time and there were some things that we had um that uh we no longer have um so that we we supplied or or used that we no longer have so um we've updated that uh and I just need you guys to approve it and then Elena is going to send it out to her board board for their approval as well and Shane's Been instrumental the three of us met early and he's he's reviewed it and is is good with what his guys are being asked to to do motion to approve second all right and then on the tax report you've got my annual tax settlement order of collections um which actually is pretty good for 2023 we had a collection rate of 99 well currently we have collected 99.17% all outstanding taxes outand so that's good um total real and personal there's about $6,900 outstanding on the 2023 Levy um we didn't have any this time you have to I think it's 10 years on personal property and then you can

declare the person insolvent if it's not been paid you can remove that we didn't have any of those this year Jackie said um that qualified we've got number of there's one that's been through foreclosure um and has sold and we're waiting for the the sale to be approved by the clerk um and we got a number of others that we're looking at possibly um discussing with uh discussing with Kenya the foreclosure attorneys but that's pretty much it and I think I need you guys to make a motion to authorize us to collect the 2024 taxes I make that motion second and I'm done are you sure yeah cuz right now it's when me or you want fixing the mess up okay it's probably going to be me you do that oh sorry no I didn't I did mess up the reason I didn't do it is because we know to table the lead service line oh we have so technically you didn't I well no I I probably need to table it till August um DQ is in a huge fight with the LGC now about whether or not we need to it has been one more week I can just say that but finally Leslie and I are out of the clear and they've decided they're just going to fight with each other so I don't know I didn't hear anything more today but the offer and acceptance that we've been waiting on since last August came last Friday and all the numbers were wrong did not did not in any way match up substantially wrong substantially wrong um and then we couldn't get them to understand that

that's what we were asking why have these numbers changed they just were obsessed with you've not been before the LGC and we' sent them multiple emails where the LGC said we don't have to review this after I filled out the packet after she filled out the packet and S well we don't have to re reveal or review it so it's just been so we're goingon to let them f it out and in the end tell us what to do I will say though Shane and I did meet with the engineers who um are going to be doing this project and they will have their contract ready by August as well um but they're going to go ahead and get started because the inventory has to be done by October 1 and they're like look it's one way or another we have to have it done the EPA is requiring the inventory so we hope that everybody in Raleigh will get their stuff together good luck good luck with us we have like a motion to table that or just I just let it go to the next okay I don't think we need a motion so I don't have anything to present at this time there you go thank you hether we move move on to Mr Fox with the clerk's update thank you Mr Mayor for compliance on our cdbg project West mainor sewer Interceptor I need to report the following there have for our semiannual self report there have been no Section 504 Americans with Disability Act complaints to the town during the last 6 months there have been no fair housing complaints to the town during the last six months and there have been no limited English proficiency translation request in the last six months my next item is a road closure request from home place they previously requested a closure of South Main on the 21st of September from 4 to 10 um they kind of made some assumptions because previously old timey days had

been ahead of them and they realized that is not the case this year and they also have more vendors involved and they have now asked that the street be closed from noon until the same closed the same end time 10:00 um um so it goes from noon instead of four they're adding four hours there the event starts at bu and they they asked if y'all would consider extending that closure on South M are they going to be coordinating with partnership with yeah with new it'll be throughout their grounds also I mean does that does that affect with the Town Center on that dat they rent with us as well okay I thought so I just wanted to make sure I didn't want to cause a problem with the Town Center so explain to me again why so early uh they I think had work kind of along with the old timey days and had more set up time instead of the 4:00 I think they maybe extended it from 4:00 previously time had until about that point if I'm correctly um and they when they turn in their packet they had considered that there's no old time days so that doesn't give them enough time because they they had had more time than that last year and now they've got more set up that time requested Brian do you have Chad has talking me about this and with it being so many hours I want him to bring back to the board so you all will aware you know that's it is a city street so we don't have to get toot approval to shut that down but it is an extended period

of time but he is right like you know in previous years the Rob was already shut down for old timey days so maybe they could go ahead and get started setting up early and maybe this did change those plans I got access way motion to approve second all in favor okay thank you uh my last item is the board of adjustment update you know recently made some text amendments about the board of adjustments and since then we've been making updates to the rules and procedures and generating some applications and summaries for for some solicitations and advertisements and we currently have four interested parties either we have commitments or applications in hand for four of those so we almost have enough folks to populate that board close all right that's all I got thank you Chad we'll move on to Mr Shane Dale with a public works update thank you Mr Mayor uh one thing that I have to update on is the baker Creek Pump Station and I'm pleased to announce that it's probably not the oldest pump station in the state now yeah it's the newest now yeah it's actually been operating on the new pump since I think the 24th of June they still a few more bugs to work out and a few things like that that was out there today finishing up the fence around it and all that but that project is just about complete that's one of these AR projects or projects off the list almost off the list we we like complete don't we we do that's a lovely one to have complete uh I guess the other thing I'll just go ahead and let you all know we're

working pretty hard right now trying to get the building down there cleaned out we come up with another place to house the people down there so we're trying to get the building cleaned out and hopefully be ready by August September somewhere in that neighborhood for that project to start that's pretty much what I've got thank you Shane Miss Lesley thank you sir well I'm very boring this month we like it when you're boring yeah we do yeah you got to overtime report um there was some vacation so there was some higher overtime but um you also had the new budget so I didn't print a budget for SE because I'm just now going to print checks so there's nothing that's it it really and Shane says one project down five more to go or 15 that's it for me thank you lazle we'll move on to Chief Hal would would like to say chief that you've been in our thoughts and appr I know you had a lot going on you been in our thoughts and prayers thank you Mr Mayor we've got uh we've got call report for the month we did have 29 calls this past month and I'm proud to report that the most of them were canceled and rout so that's all right a great it's better to have to get out and run in the middle of the night and go do things so we will take that the uh other thing to report on we did have done the annual ladder test on our uh aial on the Quint and that passed and the old sample passed also we started our annual hose testing so all of it's getting underway and we'll try to complete that while the weather's

warm and then getting some hydrant testing hopefully and get that over with before cold weather sets in and I'll conclude by saying my picture today on my report in honor of National Ice Cream Day 2024 yeah I was say Bri did you see thatst changed his whole look I would like to ask you Hal next time you do an aerial test inform all all of us cuz when I come up town heill and seen it on Town Hall I was like oh no well actually Town Hall's on fire actually we we're cleaning out that that was just cleaning out the roof the roof drains were stopped up over here we got up there and cleaned the roof trains out with it that was a project that I kind of give him I guess was it favor of Shame well thank you Chief H we'll move on to Chief banon with a police report thank you Mr Mayor uh you have our activity logs I didn't know about ice cream day so I left um the one thing I have to report we we did hire an officer in our open position officer David McCurry started with us he's currently undergoing some fto some field training with another officer but he we're hoping to have him at full capacity soon he seems to be a fine young man he has a fouryear degree from Le McCrae in criminal justice so we're excitedc yeah so we we're excited to have him with us um moving on to zoning code enforcement uh we cancelled last week's planning meeting because we didn't have anything but after tonight's meeting and that m amendment that was coming in also had another project come through today so we'll probably having a

special meeting soon for design review for at least two different projects coming up in the near future that's all I have I we have to say Brian that your summer does look like ice cream pretty looks like ice cream it does that's why I did that I forgot thank you Brian okay Mr Corbin to C so we have 25 events this month 22 next month um next month's a little bit lower on the events that we typically have but the ones we have were mostly larger events um not really any public events coming up except for Dylan Wilson is putting on another show next month but I've yet to receive much information about that yes they're still kind of pulling things together so you have a date on that one on Dylan's show that is a night as right now it's uh from the name he gave me was air Mountain podcast launch um we'll we'll find out more about that hopefully soon be that's all that I really I have to hurry because we meet on the eighth fit and N what was that now if we meet on the eighth then it's the ninth we won't get much information that's of next month yeah yeah oh understand I understand it'll be advertised for just check out the the website all right thank you Corbin um council members reports anyone have anything they'd like to report on probably not as much a report of it and we keep talking about this and the speed on West Main Street we're going to have to slow it down uh somebody's going to get killed walking across that crosswalk

at home place or the glass blow or somewhere I don't know if we can get a little bit more visits down through there and slow them down a little bit okay I got told today I was number one trying to get in the row and it was running probably 45 or 50 any anyone else all right we'll move on to our advisory boards so Chamber of Commerce welcome thank you good evening everybody good evening uh mostly reporting on crft Fair again we're just a few weeks from it we're going to have 187 vendors this year with 219 booths so it's going to be bigger than and better than ever um I want to thank both Heather and Shane for working with me on the you I think we have it all ironed out and I'm pleased you guys pass it I'll be passing that along to our board tomorrow I want to thank ran for and his staff for everything that they do for crft fair and get helping us get set up and organized before it even starts because that's a huge part of it so we had a couple of ribbon cuting this month which is exciting the farmers market did their official ribbon cutting even though they've been open for a few weeks and I'm happy to report that tulsy Rose ice cream is now open and they their R their ribbon cutting so that's a perfect place to celebrate National Ice Cream Day had one today and last but not least I'm excited that the um board our board just approved to have a completely new website built which we really desperately need so we'll be working on that over the next few months and that's pretty much what I have happy to answer any questions that you might

have thank think so thank you no close session all right our our next uh regular business meeting is August the 6th is that correct Tuesday that's I think was what we worked out with Randy is that correct I mean look I was saying it was on I know it's Tuesday we were shooting for the six the eth was on the Thursday yeah sorry shoot from up okay oh I'm sorry Bill I kind of skipped High Country do you have anything you need to rep more less just sorry about that there there's my mistake just to approve their agenda I mean approve the the budget okay was the big thing there time so again our next regular business meeting is August August the 6 which is on a Tuesday no one else has anything I have a motion to adjourn I'll make that motion hold second thank you to everyone for coming hope youall have a great day